>Chris:
> >Neither am *I* trying to impose my belief in naturalism on anyone, so this
> >alleged "difference" is nonexistent. And, as far as I can tell, he
> (Stephen)
>does
> >*not* acknowledge that his beliefs are unproven, except perhaps his belief
> >in ID theory. Why do you claim I am, when I have specifically and
> >explicitly condemned such practices *several* times on this list?
>
>Bertvan:
>Hi Chris. I am delighted. If naturalism hasn't been proved, then you must
>agree that any other concept, including ID, is legitimate for consideration.
Chris
I did not say that naturalism (in the weak sense) had not been proved. I
said that I'm not trying to impose it on anyone.
>Chris
> >As I said, I'm not trying to impose my views on anyone. Second,
> >creationists (a subcategory of intelligent design advocates) *are* trying
> >to impose their views on others. Finally, materialists may be taking to the
> >courts to enforce the view that only evolution be taught as *science*, but
> >that's partly because ID theory is *not* science (despite the mislabeled
> >claims of Behe and others. (snip about abolishing state sponsored
> education.)
>
>Bertvan:
>If naturalism hasn't been proved there is no reason science can not consider
>other concepts such as design.
Chris
Yes there is, and yes there isn't. Scientists, of course, are free to
consider whatever they damn well please. But there *is* reason to think
that design, if it is found, will be of *naturalistic* origins, and that,
in any case, it will not be possible to prove that it is of
*non-*naturalistic origin (bizarrely, because of inherent limitations in
the nature of logic (which does not let us prove what is not logically
implied by the premises and facts)), this is true even if it happens to be
the case that something non-naturalistic *does* exist). I challenge you
(and everyone interested) to find a rationally justifiable rule of
inference or other rationally justifiable epistemological methodology that
would allow non-naturalist conclusions from empirical data).
Bertvan
>Design was a part of science for thousands of
>years.
Chris
If you mean *non-naturalistic* design, then no, it wasn't. It was a part of
discussion among scientists, but not part of *scientific* discussion --
though scientists may have thought that what they were doing was science.
However much design pure and simple may have been part of science, the
non-naturalistic aspects of such discussions were *outside* of science
(where they will remain until someone can give us an empirical test that
can distinguish between naturalistic design and *non-*naturalistic design
claims).
>Only during the last couple of centuries have some scientists
>declared that science can no longer entertain the possibility of teleology.
There is a good reason for this: Science grew up and cast off the childish
superstitions woozy ideas of earlier times about scientific topics.
Bertvan
>Maybe materialists are entitled to define 19th century "materialist
>science". In which case, the public is entitled to know that not all
>scientists confine their speculations to materialism.
Chris
That's true, they don't. It's also irrelevant to the *facts* of reality. If
*you* want to live on the basis of what *other* people think, with
virtually no mind of your own, I can't stop you. But, as far as reality is
concerned, it simply does not matter whether some scientists speculate that
a personal God exists or that what sign you were born under determines
important aspects of your life or that swarms of gnomes cause the planets
to move in their orbits. You *really* need to learn to distinguish between
reality and what people *think* about reality, if you think that the fact
that some scientists have non-materialist, non-naturalist *speculations*
means anything at all about whether such speculations are *true*.
Bertvan
>Stephen, Mike Gene and most of the IDs I've read repeatedly acknowledge
>belief in common descent. Personally, I'm a little less convinced of common
>descent from one ancestor. There appear to be from 30 to 40 organisms
>appearing in the Cambrian for which no apparent ancestor has been found.
Chris
All of them based or not based on DNA genetics? We don't know. But, if they
were, then the common descent idea would have to be retained. It is
presumptively to be favored anyway, since there is no evidence that such
life forms were any different in their heritage from any other organisms in
this respect. Common descent is thus not *proved*, but the evidence we have
supports it while the evidence we *don't* have does not argue against it.
Besides, arguments from ignorance are a little weak. This would only be
important if there were objective reason to believe that all such ancestors
*would* be found if they had been present. Do you know of any such reason?
Bertvan
>What is being disputed by ID, is that the change which occurred in such
>organisms over the centuries occurred without plan, purpose or design. I
>have no idea of any mechanism which might be involved, but Darwinism (RM&NS
>plus drift) appears as unlikely to me as theism does to you. I recognize
>design in nature without any opinions about the origin of that design.
>Similarly, I can refrain from speculating about what caused the "big bang",
>or devising theories about what existed before the "big bang".
Chris
No: What is being disputed by ID is *naturalism*, in almost all cases.
Perhaps one ID person in a hundred or a thousand (certainly not Jones)
would be satisfied with a naturalistic design theory if the evidence
supported design at all. The main thrust of nearly all ID theorizing is to
make HUGE leaps from the evidence (some of which is obviously
misrepresented, as in the case of Behe's "irreducible complexity") to
non-naturalistic conclusions.
>Chris:
> >if you think that naturalistic evolutionary theory only includes "random
> >mutation," "natural selection," and genetic drift, you are at least twenty
> >or thirty years behind the times.
>
>Bertvan:
>Please, Chris, bring me up to date.
Chris
Bring *yourself* up to date: Read a book, learn to think, study the *evidence*.
Two influenza A virus strains "trade" parts when they both infect the same
cell. The result is a *new* influenza virus. Bacteria either do or may well
do something similar with genetic material. Neither of these methods of
producing variations is properly called a "random mutation," but it sure as
hell is a way of producing *new* genetic material and new organisms.
Retroviruses leave genetic material in the DNA of their hosts. That genetic
material, if it is in either the ova or the sperm, will normally be found
in the *offspring* of the hosts. This is also not a method that was or even
*could* have been proposed by Darwin, because he died before genetics was
rediscovered in 1900. *Several* other methods have been proposed whereby
both bacteria and "higher" animals might produce new variations. They do
not involve intelligence, but neither are they random.
Bertvan
>What mechanisms are postulated by
>Darwinism to account for the change in organisms, if not RM&NS plus drift? I
>don't want to anticipate your answer, but I confess claiming "the Hox genes
>did it" is no different to me than saying "god did it". Also, saying a
>duplicated gene decided to perform a "new function" leaves unanswered the
>question of who or what did the "deciding". Whatever it was, did it "decide"
>to perform some random function, of which the number must be infinite,
Chris
No, it's not; what function it would perform would depend on what functions
it *could* perform in the context. Don't expect a screwdriver to make a
good pile-driver. There would be a degree of "randomness," but randomness
severely limited by what functions could be reached by small changes each
of which would either help the organism or at least not hinder it
noticeably until a new and useful configuration arose (out of many, perhaps).
But, it doesn't matter anyway. If there were an infinite number of such
functions, the first significantly *useful* one to arise would be the one
to be saved (and that would likely end up being built upon by other changes
later). Ones that were not chemically possible, or that were so rare that
even in a population of trillions followed over millions of generations
they would not be likely would be ones that we would not expect to find.
Don't let the term "random" get translated in your mind into something like
"*metaphysically* random." They are only random because we have no way of
determining the subatomic variables to a sufficient degree to specify in
particular cases which exact result will be produced.
If a mechanism once arises that promotes its *own* perpetuation by subtly
manipulating other parts of the genome to produce certain kinds of
variation, those variations are not random, but they are not intelligent,
either. For example, if, under certain physical conditions that normally
correspond to food-deprivation, this mechanism kicks in and causes
variations to occur that might improve food-gathering (based on a genetic
"library" of genetic material that is not normally used), we could hardly
claim that this was truly random, but we could not claim that it was
intelligent, either.
Further, DNA recombination via sexual reproduction also produces variations
that are *not* random, because they consist of variations produced by
combining *existing* components (rather than randomly generating new ones
completely from scratch, base-pair by base-pair). This produces variations
that are demonstrably *more likely* to work than pure random generation
would. This is also a mechanism that Darwin did not understand, and yet it
is demonstrable *fact*.
Thus, the genes that yield sexual reproduction, once they develop in even a
*primitive* way (bacteria trading a few bits of genetic material, for
example), have a means of promoting their *own* survival at the occasional
expense of other genes (although no-longer-useful genes do not have to be
excluded except *functionally* -- they can be merely disabled and thus
effectively placed in the "library" along with other genes that do not
*currently* have use but which one day may).
Bertvan
> or did
>it "decide" to perform some function necessary to the design? If the new
>function was necessary to the design, there would be no need for Natural
>Selection to do any designing, would there?
Chris
No *decisions* are made. Available variations are produced, perhaps by the
billions, and a few provide a benefit and are kept. And, the idea that
natural selection does any designing is metaphorical, and, in my opinion, a
*poor* metaphor. Natural selection is not a *thing*. It is simply that the
environment (and the internal workings of organisms) results in different
rates of survival based on the traits that organisms have. Organisms *must*
evolve to fit their environments or they go out of existence altogether.
That's why we don't see many *random* variations in existence; nearly all
variations that don't help a genome or that aren't at least neutral to it
*are* extinct. If they could *all* be saved for statistical purposes, life
would look a *lot* more random than it does, because the world would be
chock-full of all the trillions of trillions of trillions of variations
that, in the *real* world, cannot survive.
Reality imposes *standards*. Genomes that don't *meet* those standards have
an exceedingly short span of existence (relative to the ones that *do* meet
those standards, at least). Thus, no matter *how* random the variation
process is, the results *can't* look random, because only *some* of all the
random variations can survive. The in-between, and beyond-the-fringe
variations that we *would* see if all variations were saved are *not*
saved. The "tree" of life is *severely* "pruned" to whatever we see at any
given time, leaving out virtually *all* of the variations that would exist
if they had been all saved since the beginning.
This is simple math and simple genetics. The known universe is not large
enough to hold all the various organisms that would have been produced
since 3.8 billion years ago if every individual organism/genome were saved.
Natural selection has *restricted* life to forms that are suited to the
conditions on Earth. No others being viable, they are no longer with us. In
fact, many forms that *were* once viable are no longer with us. The result
is that whatever organisms are alive *must* look like organisms would look
if they were *design* for the world of today (or of the fairly recent
past). No others can exist.
Thus, insofar as natural selection can be said to "design" at all, it does
so purely by *exclusion* of "designs" that don't work, thus leaving results
that "fit" (i.e., appear to the naive to be designed) their environments.
What alternative could even be *possible*, given such conditions except
that the genomes that were able to survive under current conditions would
be the ones that *did* survive? And how else *could* they look, if not
fitted to their environments (at least crudely)?
Put another way, given the laws of physics, and the physical conditions of
the world, and the chemistry of genetic reproduction, how could the results
*possibly* have a "random" look when most of the "randomness" is excluded
by the environment from making more than an evolutionary instantaneous
appearance and disappearance?
Put yet another way, please specify real world conditions that could
possibly obtain and that could make the overall result of evolution
actually *look* random to a casual observer in the way you seem to mean
"random." The randomness, insofar as it is appropriately called randomness
at all, is in the process of variation, *NOT* in the process of culling.
Culling is fairly stringent, rigid. It *only* allows the persistence of
variations that are sufficiently functional and which therefore do not have
the completely haphazard appearance of randomness.
>Bertvan
>http://members.aol.com/bertvan
>
>P.S.
>The Chinese appear skeptical of Darwinism, and leaning toward something
>called "harmonies". Do you consider them "creationists"?
Chris
I have no idea what this is about, or how it is relevant.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 09 2000 - 17:48:50 EDT