Part III:
Tedd:
> >It's all about evidence, not philosophy.
Me:
> That's similar to what I have been saying in trying to
> clarify we are talking about history, not philosophy.
> But I should also mention there is no clear cut distinction
> between evidence and philosophy. Evidence is not something
> we objectively perceive. That's data. Sensory data is then
> interpreted to become something we call evidence. Yet what
> helps us interpret that data as evidence if not philosophy?
Tedd:
>This description is not helpful because it assumes that
>people are incapable of enumerating the "evidential" possibilities
>that any given bit of data gives. If science allowed people
>to eliminate possibilities for no other reason than personal
>philosophy, surely it would have catastrophically failed
>hundreds of years ago. Forget bronze, we'd be to living
>in caves.
I don't discount that people are capable of enumerating the
evidential possibilities that any given bit of data bit gives.
Yet the fact remains that they still choose to interpret said data
in light of one belief rather than another. I'm sorry, but I
think it is hopelessly na•ve to really believe that human beings
pick large-scale beliefs solely on the basis of "evidence." We could focus
on science, which is supposed to represent the ideal of objectivity,
to highlight countless examples that support my point.
As for the notion that subjectivity and reliance of a priori belief
would have forced science to fail a long time ago, I don't agree.
Science has been a success largely because science has asked
little questions about regularities and observables. It has also
succeeded because physical reality is rational and can thus
be probed with mathematics. But most of science is not
concerned with the questions we debate here. For once we
move into the realm of the unobservable, highly contingent
ancient past, the things that helped science succeed have
been largely stripped away. Now we are in a realm where
the common human tendency to see what we want to see
is free to roam about. And what is of even greater concern
is that because science has come close to a decent level of
objectivity when dealing with regularities and observables,
people tend to think this objectivity automatically transfers
when the subject of inquiry escapes these constraints. Here,
what is worse than seeing what you want to see is thinking
you see what is there without even suspecting you might
be seeing what you want to see. And from where I sit,
my concerns don't exactly receive much comfort from the
dripping arrogance that often comes from those critical of
ID (yet I am not talking about you).
Me:
> This person cannot consider a teleological explanation
> for the origin of life because of his/her metaphysics. As a consequence,
> the mere existence of life becomes evidence of abiogenesis.
> But if one doesn't share the same metaphysical commitment,
> one is not obligated to interpret the mere existence of life as
> evidence of abiogenesis.
Tedd:
>I doubt such a person exists.
Yet below, for some reason, you think the mere existence of
life is evidence of all those imaginary microorganisms concocted
in order the bridge bacteria to geochemistry have left no
trace.
>What do you imagine forms the
>basis for "metaphysical commitment"? This sounds to me as like
>the religious idea that people would actually "choose" hell.
>Both descriptions seem to be most consistent with some mysterious
>process going on inside a human being that is influenced neither
>by perception or genetics but just does the wrong thing for no
>darn reason at all. How does that work?
The basis for the metaphysical commitment to exclude teleology
are many. They would involve, at the very least, history, philosophy
psychology. But this thread has gotten too long to go into all this.
Me:
> Perhaps. But I am not looking for a truly major evolutionary
> innovation in order to vindicate RM&NS. I am just trying
> to determine why so many believe RM&NS were the
> mechanisms behind major evolutionary innovations. You
> would think that people who reject ID because of a lack
> of evidence would have evidence to support what they
> accept.
>Again, refer back to my Grand Canyon example.
Yet I find it unconvincing. Do you have any reason to think
a uniformitarian geological extrapolation really applies to all
of biology? As I see it, your example is little more than simple
faith. Here are some more reasons (off the topic of my head)
why I find such an extrapolation unconvincing.
1. I am simply interested in a few evidential fingerprints that more
clearly indicate random mutations and natural selection as the
cause behind some ancient features rather than guided mutations
or intelligent selection (the latter being teleological alternatives).
Since I have no reason to suspect ID behind geologic formations,
Grand Canyons and the nucleus are apples and oranges. And
since the strength of the extrapolation is dependent on a metaphysics
that excludes teleology, one who doesn't adopt such metaphysics
will find the extrapolation quite weak.
2. There are too many reasons to distrust this extrapolation.
a. First, we are not extrapolating from a situation where most biological
features are known to be the products of natural selection and random
mutation to a belief where all are the products of such mechanisms.
The generalization instead is from a microscopic handful to all.
b. Secondly, we are not generalizing and extrapolating known core
changes to hypothetical peripheral changes. On the contrary, we
extrapolate peripheral changes to core changes.
c. Thirdly, extrapolations make sense when dealing with physical
laws, but natural history is not a physical law. Natural history
constitutes a set of contingent events. More importantly, is that
such events are completely vulnerable to intelligent intervention
(as agents with even our modest levels of intelligence have shown).
d. It's a weak form of extrapolation. A better case of extrapolation
would be as follows: since it is believed that all biological features are
the result of RM&NS, we would randomly choose twelve biological
features and determine if there was evidence such features owed
their origin to random mutation and natural selection. If such
evidence was found, the extrapolation to more than the twelve
would seem justified (as long as all twelve sample varying
forms of complexity and specificity). But the problem is that
we have no evidence to support such a rigorous extrapolation.
>I'm pretty sure we ID-rejecters all see it the same way:
>1) RM&NS can add a
>little information over a little amount of time, therefore it
>can add a lot of information over a lot of time in the absence
>of any known information "barriers". Life looks like the result
>of molecular tinkering with existing structures over eons with
>no innovation at any given moment. 2) there's no evidence for
>an ID, and no ID we can easily imagine would design life the way
>it looks.
Understood. Now here's how I see it. If it is true that life was
designed, there is no good reason for thinking we should be
able to find independent evidence for an ID, thus this lack
of evidence is meaningless. And I can indeed easily imagine
an ID would design life the way it looks, keeping in mind that
a history of evolution has probably been layered on top of
the design. That is, life looks like the result of molecular
tinkering with existing structures that owe their origin to
ID. As for RM&NS, there is no evidence that they were
indeed the mechanisms behind the origin of these existing
structures, but instead, alternative mechanisms remain a
plausible explanation, including direct intelligent intervention
or teleological evolution (i.e., something was designed such
that certain evolutionary pathways were favored as a consequence
of the setting up of initial states). As for "eons of time,"
there is no evidence that it took eons to time to evolve many
of the features that speak to design. For example, the eukaryotic
cytoskeleton is an essential and defining feature of the eukaryotic
cell plan yet the data does not indicate it gradually was strung
together over eons of time. It has been modified and tinkered with
over the years, but such modification is more akin to customizing
a car than in designing/building a car. Finally, eons of time plus
small scale time does not necessarily add up to large scale change.
Small scale change can be circular not linear, where it revolves
around a theme. After all, bacteria have been undergoing RM&NS
for the greatest period of time, yet have not shown large scale change
since their appearance. To counter, one could argue that bacteria
gave rise to eukaryotes through RM&NS, but that begs the question
in that there is no evidence that this mechanism was behind the origin
of eukaryotes. Finally, there may indeed be "barriers" to such
information acquisition in that 'choices' made in the past constrain
what is chosen in the future. The fact that life can viewed in a
hierarchical fashion suggests this. For example, once an organism
becomes a mollusc, it's ability to acquire new information is limited
to acquiring molluscan information. This is seen clearly from the
extinction events after the Cambrian, where opening up countless
niches did result in the evolution of new animal phyla. What's more,
the are countless imaginary adaptations that seem to be beyond the reach
of RM&NS. Why haven't dolphin-like creatures evolved gills?
Why haven't antelope-like creatures evolved eyes on the back of their
heads? Why have no spiders evolved wings?
I simply am not convinced that evolution is an open-ended, completely
plastic phenomena where time+RM+NS has the potential to form
anything. Instead, I view evolution as a set of contingent events
which are constrained by their history. A billion years of evolution
will simply not transform a mouse into an arthropod. And since
evolution is constrained by its historical initial states, some of
those initial states could very well be due to ID.
Tedd:
> >Entities acting within this universe necessarily
> >interact with matter and energy leaving precise and permanent
> >signatures behind that can be read at some present or future
> >point by human beings.
Me:
> Indeed. And these signatures are found in the design.
Tedd:
>And that's an ambiguous signature at best, a signature of
>complexity that looks nothing like human design.
From where I sit, this whole debate deals with an
ambiguous reality. Remember that even Jerry Coyne
writes, " In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology
lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology
than to physics." As for the signature, it is not merely
complexity, it is specified complexity, such that Bruce
Alberts suggests biologists should start consulting engineers
to advance our understanding of biology.
Me:
> Yet how does one get from this signature to knowledge
> of the designer's origins? What if the designers were a form
> of ETI that went extinct about 2 billion years ago many
> light years from earth? And are you suggesting that if SETI does
> not detect a message in the next 1000 years, there is no ETI
> in the universe?
Tedd:
>I'm actually less concerned with the designer's origin as I
>am the designer's existence.
That's fine, but you originally raised their origin.
>I interpret you to be saying
>that there's no reason to expect any evidence for an intelligent
>designer. On the contrary, I would argue, there many reasons
> to expect evidence for an intelligent designer. Humans leave
>evidence, therefore something acting like a human would leave
>evidence as well.
Yet humans are endogenous to this planet and I don't think any
IDer is proposing that the designers were a 4 billion-year-old
civilization endogenous to this planet.
Tedd:
> >The only entities that leave no trace
> >in this universe are those that are not part of it, i.e. they're
> >supernatural, or, simply, they're nonexistant.
Me:
> Be careful. All those imaginary microorganisms concocted
> in order the bridge bacteria to geochemistry have left no
> trace. Thus, they are either supernatural or never existed.
Tedd:
>No, the evidence is the existence of life itself.
Like I explained above, the existence of life is only
evidence for such imaginary creatures that have left
no trace IF we assume the non-teleological metaphysics
are truth.
>That conclusion
>is preferred over ID because there is no independent evidence
>of an ID, life does not look like the product of an ID like
>human beings, life does look like the product of RM&NS; RM&NS
>can add a little bit of information to a duplicating entity over
>a little bit of time and nothing is known to prevent RM&NS from
>acting in this fashion all the time, therefore RM&NS acting over
>eons can add probably add large amounts of information to
>duplicating entities.
That conclusion may be preferred by you and many others
for these reasons, but I don't find it convincing (as explained
above).
>[Thanks for a thought-provoking article, BTW.]
Ditto. But let me make it clear that I am not trying to
argue that "I am right, you are wrong, thus you must
agree with me." I am simply expressing my views and
explaining why I am not convinced by the positions
that represent the status quo. Of course, I could very
well be deluded, as this often comes with the territory
when acting as a maverick. But there is one thing I
can say. If I abandoned the teleological perspective
and joined the status quo, I would not have written
any thought-provoking article. ;)
So perhaps we can agree that at the very least, ID has the ability to make
things interesting. Yet unfortunately, many ID critics
(but not you it would seem) would rather have a world
full of conformity than an interesting world.
Mike
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