On Fri, 12 Nov 1999 23:35:24 -0800, Chris Cogan wrote:
[continued]
CC>Is it parsimonious?
>[E] Yes; evolution is minimalist. It is the simplest empirical theory that
>works.
First, at the cosmological level, materialism-naturalism must invent an
infinite number of unobservable universes to explain the design of this
one:
"This fine-tuning has two possible explanations. Either the Universe
was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of
universes- -a "multiverse". Only in those universes in which the
properties of beryllium-8, carbon-12 and oxygen-16 are right for life
would any life arise to notice any fine-tuning." (Chown M., "Anything
Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. 158, No. 2137, pp26-30.
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/980606/features.html)
Even non-theists like Paul Davies point out that is a violation of
Ockham's Razor:
"In spite of the apparent ease with which the many-universes theory
can account for what would otherwise be considered remarkable
feature of the universe, the theory faces a number of serious objections.
Not least of these is Ockham's razor: one must introduce a vast (indeed
infinite) complexity to explain the regularities of just one universe. This
"blunderbuss" approach to explaining the specialness of our universe is
scientifically questionable." (Davies P., "The Unreasonable
Effectiveness of Science", in Templeton J.M, ed., "Evidence of
Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator", Continuum: New York,
1994, pp52-53)
And even Darwinists like Maynard Smith admit that creation is a
simpler hypothesis, while rejecting it on philosophical grounds:
"The idea that the world is peculiarly adapted to the appearance of life
is not a new one. In 1913, the biochemist L. J. Henderson' pointed out
that many substances such as water have precisely those properties
required if life is to exist. Most biologists rejected his views, arguing
that organisms are adapted to their environments by natural selection,
not the other way around. But the questions he raised have surfaced
again recently in a new form. It turns out that the physical constants
have just the values required to ensure that the Universe contains stars
with planets capable of supporting intelligent life. The 'cosmological
anthropic principle' has been suggested as an explanation for this
puzzling fact. The principle takes several forms. The weak anthropic
principle merely states that certain universes, with unfortunate lists of
physical constants, would not be observable by us, simply because we
would not be there. The weak principle is not a theory: it merely
acknowledges a peculiar situation. The strong principle, proposed by
Brandon Carter 3, is more radical. It states that the Universe must have
those properties that allow life to develop in it at some stage of its life
history. How can this curious claim be understood? The simplest
interpretation is that the Universe was designed by a creator who
intended that intelligent life should evolve. This interpretation lies
outside science." (Smith J.M. & Szathmary E., "On the likelihood of
habitable worlds," Nature, Vol. 384, 14 November 1996, p107).
Second, Evolution is not minimalist but employs a multitude of ever-
growing explanatory mechanisms, reminiscent of the Ptolemaic
epicycles:
"...there seems to be a sort of envelope of limited variability
surrounding a species and its near relatives. Artificial selection can
produce several different kinds of fruit flies and several different kinds
of dogs, but, starting with fruit flies, what it produces is only more fruit
flies. As plants or animals are bred in certain direction, a sort of barrier
is encountered; further selective breeding brings about sterility or a
reversion to earlier forms. Partisans of evolution suggest that, in
nature, genetic mutation of one sort or another can appropriately
augment the reservoir of genetic variation. That it can do so
sufficiently, however, is not known; and the assertion that it does is a
sort of Ptolemaic epicycle attaching to the theory. Next, there is the
argument from the fossil record; but as Gould himself points out, the
fossil record shows very few transitional forms. "The extreme rarity of
transitional forms in the fossil record," he says, "persists as the trade
secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our
textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the
rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."
Nearly all species appear for the first time in the fossil record fully
formed, without the vast chains of intermediary forms evolution would
suggest. Gradualistic evolutionists claim that the fossil record is
woefully incomplete. Gould, Eldredge and others have a different
response to this difficulty: punctuated equilibriumism, according to
which long periods of evolutionary stasis are interrupted by relatively
brief periods of very rapid evolution. This response helps the theory
accommodate some of the fossil data, but at the cost of another
Ptolemaic epicycle. And still more epicycles are required to account for
puzzling discoveries in molecular biology during the last twenty years.
And as for the argument from homologies, this too is suggestive, but
far from decisive. First, there are of course many examples of
architectural similarity that are not attributed to common ancestry, as in
the case of the Tasmanian wolf and the European wolf; the anatomical
givens are by no means conclusive proof of common ancestry. And
secondly, God created several different kinds of animals; what would
prevent him from using similar structures?" (Plantinga A., "When Faith
and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible", Christian Scholars
Review, Special Issue: Creation/Evolution and Faith, Vol. XXI, No. 1,
1991, p24)
Third, Chris assumes without evidence that "evolution" does in fact
work. Recently we have seen Dawkins and Gould publicly disagreeing
violently with each other over their respective theory of evolution.
Dawkins says evolution must have been slow and gradual for the `blind
watchmaker' to get the design work done. Gould says that the fossil
record reveals that the design work was not slow and gradual, but
happened in geologically instantaneous bursts:
"If rival models of evolution cannot even in principle explain
complexity, Dawkins's blind watchmaker model deserves to be called
the theory of evolution. That is exactly what his protege Helena Cronin
did call it in her book The Ant and the Peacock, where she referred to
the Dawkins model simply as "modern Darwinism." By using that term
Cronin implicitly relegated all other understandings of Darwinism to
the trash can of history, and for that she drew a furious reaction from
the most famous American advocate of evolution, Harvard professor
Stephen Jay Gould. In his angry review of Cronin's book, Gould denied
that most evolutionary biologists accept the gene-selection model and
declared, for reasons similar to those I have already discussed, that
genes cannot possibly be the exclusive unit of selection. Gould asserted
forcefully that most important bodily characteristics are "emergent
properties" of organisms which are not produced in any direct way by
individual genes or even combinations of genes. Instead, these
properties are products of such complex interactions among genes that
they cannot even in principle be adequately known or predicted at the
genetic level.
If Gould is correct on that point, then to select for individual genes or
even gene combinations is not to select for predictable properties in the
adult organism. But in that case, how can the complex adaptations that
Dawkins and Cronin seek to explain be built up by a process of
mutation and selection? Gould did not ask himself that question, nor
did he draw his readers' attention to the problem. Instead he went on to
reject what he called the "uniformitarian vision of extrapolation," which
is the fundamental Darwinian principle illustrated by the finch-beak
example with which this chapter began...According to Gould, however,
"the main excitement in evolutionary theory during the last twenty
years has not been...the shoring up of Darwinism in its limited realm
(by gene selectionism or any other patching device), but rather the
documentation of the reasons why Darwin's crucial requirement for
extrapolation has failed." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance",
1995, pp84-85).
Therefore, both are right about the other's position and therefore both
are wrong about their own. It is not "evolution" they are looking at in
but *creation*, ie. mediate progressive creation.
CC>[D] No; design theory is, especially in his religious forms, massive
>overkill in relation to the facts.
It is begging the question saying that ID is "overkill", unless
evolutionary theory had satisfactorily explained the origin and
development of life with a totally consistent, comprehensive, and
coherent fully naturalistic theory. But this evolutionists they have not
done.
The basic ID theory makes no "religious" claims. There are members of
the ID movement who are agnostics (e.g. Michael Denton). ID theory
at its most basic simply claims that the appearance of intelligent design,
which even atheists like Dawkins and Crick can't help noticing and try
to explain away:
"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
having been designed for a purpose. (Dawkins R., "The Blind
Watchmaker", 1991, p1).
"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not
designed, but rather evolved. " (Crick F.H.C., "What Mad Pursuit,
1990, p138)
is *real*, ie. there *is* a Designer.
CC>It postulates not only the natural world but also a
>mysterious an essentially hidden designer as well - a designer who is
>usually assumed to exist in or as a mysterious transcendental realm.
There is nothing strange about this. To escape from self-referencing
circularity, every system must derives its basic assumptions from
outside its own system. Even materialism relies on a "transcendental
realm" to make its metaphysical claim that "matter is all there is". But
the claim "matter is all there is" cannot itself be matter without self-
refutation, as even the atheist biologist J.B.S. Haldane realised:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of
matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the
motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my
beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make
them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my
brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity
of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am
compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter."
(Haldane J.B.S., "Possible Worlds", 1932, p209).
Indeed, for materialism and naturalism particularly, the need to go
outside its system is a fatal problem, because they particularly deny that
their *is* anything outside their system!
CC>Special evidence needed?
>[E] Since no designer is claimed in evolutionary theory there is no need
>for independent evidence of one.
Evolutionary theory might claim that its does not need a designer but
even Dawkins admits that Darwinism's `blind watchmaker' requires that
the laws of physics be "deployed in a very special way":
"All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the
blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way."
(Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, p5).
CC>[D] Design theory has a need for independent evidence for a designer,
>but no such evidence is known to exist (or, if it is known, it is being kept
>a secret).
This is false. Design theory claims that the same "evidence" that
evolutionists are looking at points to the existence of a Designer.
The difference is that IDers accept the evidence of design as *real*
design, but the evolutionists try to explain it away as only *apparent*
design.
CC>Is it strongly predictive?
>[E] Yes; evolutionary theory is inherently predictive of the general nature
>of new observations, and can be, under certain conditions, very
>precisely predictive.
See above.
CC>[D] No; to make the designer theory usefully predictive of new
>observations, evolutionary theory has to be incorporated into it.
There is nothing unusual about this. Facts are public property, not the
exclusive preserve of evolutionary theory. All scientific grow by
incorporating the facts of its more limited predecessors into their new
framework.
CC>Is it empirically testable?
>Yes; evolutionary theory is always "at risk," because it makes
>sufficiently specific claims that, if it is not true, empirical facts could
>require that it be changed or abandoned.
That's interesting because two leading biologists claimed in NATURE
that evolution was not testable:
"Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which
cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable
observation can be fitted into it. It is thus "outside of empirical science"
but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it.
Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments
carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far
beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma
accepted by most of us as part of our training." (Birch L.C. & Ehrlich
P.R., "Evolutionary History and Population Biology", Nature, Vol.
214, 22 April 1967, p352)
And Colin Patterson pointed out that the multitude of mechanisms
available to Darwinism rendered it unfalsifiable:
"A final difficulty is the one explained in section 7.2, in the discussion
of genetic drift. Modern evolutionary theory does not say that all
evolutionary change is caused by natural selection: random effects, like
genetic drift, have played a part. Natural selection is therefore
protected from falsification by the alternative explanation, random
effects... Using Popper's criterion, we must conclude that evolutionary
theory is not testable in the same way as a theory in physics, or
chemistry or genetics, by experiments designed to falsify it. (Patterson
C., "Evolution", British Museum (Natural History): London, 1978,
p147)
If Chris disputes this, I would ask him to make a non-trivial, risky,
future prediction of evolutionary theory which can be tested and which,
if it failed, would falsify evolution.
CC>[D] No; design theory is consistent with nearly any imaginable empirical
>fact. There are few if any imaginable observable facts that would not be
>compatible with design theory.
No. ID theory would be falsified if evolutionary theory could make its
case. Dembski's three-step Explanatory Filter recognises if 1. Law; and
2. Chance; can fully explain *all* the evidence, then 3. Design is
unnecessary.
CC>Does it have significant empirical implications?
>[E] Yes; evolution implies a wide range of determinate empirical facts.
Part of the problem is that Chris uses the word "evolution" flexibly
without defining exactly what it means, yet as Keith Stewart Thompson
has pointed out, "evolution" has at least three meanings: 1. change over
time; 2. common descent; and 3. mechanisms:
"It should be apparent that terms, such as the word "evolution" need to
be clearly defined in high school biology textbooks. Such is not the
case, however, as the books use the term in several senses without
indication that the meaning is changed. Keith Thomson (1982),
professor of biology at Yale University, indicates three commonly
employed meanings of evolution: 1. Change over time 2. Relationships
of organisms by descent through common ancestry 3. A particular
explanatory mechanism for the pat tern and process of (1.) and (2.),
such as natural selection. Thomson notes that factual patterns of
change over time, particularly as seen in the fossil record, can be
studied in the absence of theories of how these patterns came to be.
Thomson also emphasizes that the second meaning, descent through
common ancestry, is a hypothesis, not a fact, and that it is derived from
the twin premises that life arose only once on Earth and that all life
proceeds from preexisting life. Cladistic analysis, championed currently
by a number of biologists, has sought to evaluate relationships among
organisms without regard to the twin premises cited above. In regard
to the third meaning, a particular explanatory mechanism, there are
currently many alternative hypotheses. Darwin insisted that changes
had to be small and gradual. However, Gould and his associates (1980)
have proposed static intervals (stasis), followed by periods of rapid
change (punctuated equilibrium). The biology texts, in general, do a
poor job of distinguishing between these three different meanings of
evolution. They generally fail to note that it is possible to accept the
factual evidence for change over time, while having a more restricted
view of descent through common ancestry. For example, to speak of
ancestral descent in regard to the relationship of an ancestral horse to a
modern horse would be a very restricted use when compared to the
relationship of an ancestral one-celled organism to a modern mammal.
Likewise, accepting the factual evidence for change over time does not
require the acceptance of a particular explanatory mechanism for these
changes. (Mills G.C., Lancaster M., Bradley W.L., "Origin of Life &
Evolution in Biology Textbooks-A Critique", The American Biology
Teacher, Vol. 55, No. 2, February 1993 , p81)
I note that Susan (Wed, 17 Nov 1999 19:55:29 -0600), defines
"evolution" as "a change in gene frequency in a population over time",
and of course, given that definition, there *are* "a wide range of
determinate empirical facts"!
But Ernst Mayr, perhaps the greatest living evolutionist, says that this
definition is inadequate:
"The definition widely adopted in recent decades-"Evolution is the
change of gene frequencies in populations"-refers only to the
transformational component. It tells us nothing about the multiplication
of species nor, more broadly, about the origin of organic diversity. A
broader definition is needed which would include both transformation
and diversification." (Mayr E., "The Growth of Biological Thought:
Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA,
1982, p400)
The problem is that given that defintion, the same "empirical facts"
would be implied by a wide range of origin theories, including creation!
Even the most ardent YEC would believe there has been "a change in
gene frequency in a population over time".
What Chris needs to do is: 1) first define "evolution" uniquely; 2)
specify *in advance* what facts exactly "evolution" as defined in 1)
would *uniquely* imply; and 3) test "evolution" as uniquely defined in
1) against the uniquely specific facts in 2).
CC>During
>the last century this has been documented to occur hundreds, if not
>thousands of times.
Of course. There has been billions upon billions of "changes in gene
frequency in a population over time"! Every time something is born and
every time something dies, there is "a change in gene frequencies in a
population".
CC>[D] No; design theory is basically lacking in meaningful organizing
>principles that we can use in science. It is essentially free of determinate
>empirical implications. It can "predict" anything and nothing,
>indiscriminately.
ID is only about 10 years old, it's advocates number in the hundreds, and its
financial resources are limited to private donations.
Evolution is 140 years old, its advocates number hundreds of thousands (if
not millions), and its financial resources are largely public-funded and are in
the billions of dollars.
So maybe Chris can tell us first what *uniquely* "evolution" can predict
that ID theory cannot?
CC>Does it imply that animal breeding will work?
>[E] Yes.
Since animal breeding was going for centuries, if not millennia before
Darwin, it is not surprising that evolution would "imply that animal
breeding will work"!
But the fact is that Darwin thought that breeding variation should be
unlimited and he was proven wrong by breeding experiments:
"Darwin was a timid man in many ways, but fortified by his faith in
variation he acted boldly in this situation. He took the micro changes
observed by the breeders (which in themselves did not begin to fill the
gaps) and he extrapolated them. He said, in brief, that twenty years of
breeding often achieved substantial changes; therefore, if nature continued
the work for a hundred million years, it could close all the gaps. His actual
phrasing was more poetic: "Slow though the process of selection may be, if
feeble man can do so much by his powers of artificial selection, I can see
no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of
the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with
their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of
time by nature's power of selection." (Darwin C., "The Origin of Species",
[1859], 1966, reprint, p109). Extrapolation is a dangerous procedure. If
you have a broad base of sound observations, you can extend it a little at
the ends without too much risk; but if the base is short or insecure,
extension can lead to grotesque errors. Thus if you observe the growth of a
baby during its first months, extrapolation into the future will show that the
child will be eight feet tall when six years old. Therefore all statisticians
recommend caution in extrapolating. Darwin, however, plunged in with no
caution at all. Despite Darwin's easy confidence, it seems likely that his
extrapolation was not justified...The heart of the problem is whether living
things do indeed vary to an unlimited extent or, to state it differently,
whether micro changes cumulate into macro effects. The instinctive feeling
of untutored men is against this. The species look stable. We have all heard
of disappointed breeders who carried their work to a certain point only to
see the animals or plants revert to where they had started. Despite
strenuous efforts for two or three centuries, it has never been possible to
produce a blue rose or a black tulip. 8 Darwin himself knew in 1844 that
most authors assumed there were limits to variation, and he also knew that
among eons the crossing of highly bred varieties was apt to provoke a
reversion to "the ancient rock-pigeon." Was he discouraged when, in the
sixth and last edition of The Origin of Species, he quietly excised the above
passage about converting bears into whales?" (Macbeth N., "Darwin
Retried: An Appeal to Reason", Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, pp31-33)
CC>[D] No.
Maybe Chris could explain *why* ID theory would imply that animal
breeding will not work?
[continued]
Steve
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"Since we hardly know anything about the major types of organization,
suggestions, and suggestions only, can be made. How can one confidently
assert that one mechanism rather than another was at the origin of the
creation of the plans of organization, if one relies entirely upon imagination
to find a solution? Our ignorance is so great that we dare not even assign
with any accuracy an ancestral stock to the phyla Protozoa, Arthropoda,
Mollusca, and Vertebrata. The lack of concrete evidence relative to the
"heyday" of evolution seriously impairs any transformist theory. In any
case, a shadow is cast over the genesis of the fundamental structural plans
and we are unable to eliminate it." (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution of Living
Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation", Academic
Press: New York NY, 1977, p17)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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