Reflectorites
On Fri, 8 Sep 2000 13:47:56 -0400, Nelson Alonso wrote:
A welcome to the Reflector from me to Nelson. Maybe Nelson can tell us a
bit about himself?
>FJ>True but it's obvious where the ID movement wants to take it.
>SJ>It is not "obvious" at all. The ID movement includes Christians
>(Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) as well as Jews and at least one
>agnostic. Where *could* "the ID movement ... take it" after
>design has been empirically detected in nature?
NA>Jones:
>Most of these ID'ers fall in the category of a Christian God.
I didn't say this. It was "FMAJ1019"! I am "SJ" (Steve Jones).
>NA>I am an IDer who does not believe in the Christian God.
That now makes two IDers (Berthajane is the other) on this List who don't
believe in the Christian God. Maybe those critics of ID who claim it is just
Christian creationism in disguise might start getting the message?
>SJ>Besides, if design is reliably detected in nature, it will rapidly
>become *much* bigger than the ID movement. In fact the ID
>movement might even cease to exist, because it would have
>accomplished its task.
NA>Jones:
>The problem is that even if design could be reliably detected, and the
>evidence suggests that it cannot, it cannot exclude natural forces as the
>designer. What task would ID have accomplished?
I didn't say this either!
NA>Nelson:
>What evidence suggests it cannot? I think the data presented thus far by
>Behe et. al. can reliably exclude natural forces.
Agreed. I keep saying "if the ID movement demonstrates that design is
empirically detectable". But they already have done that in that Behe's
irreducibly complex cases like the blood clotting cascade and the bacterial
flagellum.
It is just that the scientific materialists deny it on the basis of their
*philosophy* which excludes intelligent causation in natural history apriori.
NA>For example, in Dawkins' book _Clinmbing Mount Improbable_ , we find another
>falsification criteria that nicely explains the relevancy of an IC system.
>Dawkins is arguing about the evolution of photoreceptor cells:
>
>"The point is that ninety-one membranes are more effective in
>stopping photons than ninety, ninety are more effective than eighty-
>nine, and so on back to one membrane, which is more effective than
>zero. This is the kind of thing I mean when I say there is a smooth
>gradient up Mount Improbable. We would be dealing with an abrupt
>precipice if, say, any number of membranes above forty five was very
>effective while any number below forty-five was totally ineffective.
>Neither common sense nor the evidence leads us to suspect any such
>sudden discontinuities. "
>
>So 91 membranes
>are more effective then 90
>which in turn are more effective then 89
>which in turn are more efffective then any lower number especially 0
I have four things to say to this:
1. Dawkins does commit Darwinism to gradualism and so IC is a potential
falsification of Darwinism. Those Darwinists who rule out IC must know in
their hearts that Darwinist is false, otherwise they would welcome IC
arguments knowing they *must* win if Darwinism is true;
2. The physicist Prof. Brian Josephson (of the quantum physics Josephson
junction fame) pointed out that a smooth path up Mt Improbable would
itself require an explanation (and IMHO would itself be an argument from
design). Why *should* there be a smooth path up Mt Improbable,
especially when we are really talking about *all* they eye's components:
"Dawkins's bold claims to tell us how Mount Improbable may be
scaled offers no fundamental principles of promise regarding how
biological information of the scale needed to explain
macroevolution might be generated and absolutely no empirical
support for his thesis that there is a footpath to the top of Mount
Improbable with sufficiently small steps. In a recent letter to the
editor of The Independent Brian Josephson, professor of physics at
Cambridge University, summarizes Dawkins's approach:
In such books as the Blind Watchmaker, a crucial part of the
argument concerns whether there exists a continuous path, leading
from the origins of life to man, each step of which is both favored
by natural selection, and small enough to have happened by chance.
It appears to be presented as a matter of logical necessity that such
a path exists, but actually there is no such logical necessity; rather,
commonly made assumptions in evolution require the existence of
such a path. (Josephson, 1997) (Josephson B., Letter to the editor,
The Independent, January 12, 1997).
(Bradley W.L., "Designed or Designoid", in Dembski W.A., ed.,
"Mere Creation," 1998, pp.47-48.
http://www.leaderu.com/science/designed-designoid.html)
3. There are plenty of eyes which have stalled on the lower slopes of Mt
Improbable, like the light-sensitive spot of Euglena. Why haven't they
improved? It is no good saying they didn't need to because *no* animal
needed to. *All* animals are by definition adapted to their environment, at
any point on Mt Improbable otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first
place. If each increment in the series was advantageous, then why didn't all
animals' vision advance incrementally over time? Darwin in the Origin and
Darwinists after him pointed to a continuum of eyes as evidence for their
theory but, while it is an argument for common ancestry, it is actually a
argument against *Darwinism*. If Darwinism was true, then all eyes (and
everything else) would have advanced up Mt Improbable. Dawkins
recognises (sort of) the problem with Nautilus but papers it over with
rhetoric:
"The swimming mollusc Nautilus, a rather strange squid-like
creature that lives in a shell like the extinct ammonites ... has a pair
of pinhole cameras for eyes. The eye is basically the same shape as
ours but there is no lens and the pupil is just a hole that lets the
seawater into the hollow interior of the eye. Actually, Nautilus is a
bit of a puzzle in its own right. Why, in all the hundreds of millions
of years since its ancestors first evolved a pinhole eye, did it never
discover the principle of the lens? The advantage of a lens is that it
allows the image to be both sharp and bright. What is worrying
about Nautilus is that the quality of its retina suggests that it would
really benefit, greatly and immediately, from a lens. It is like a hi-fi
system with an excellent amplifier fed by a gramophone with a blunt
needle. The system is crying out for a particular simple change. In
genetic hyperspace, Nautilus appears to be sitting right next door to
an obvious and immediate improvement, yet it doesn't take the
small step necessary. Why not? Michael Land of Sussex University,
our foremost authority on invertebrate eyes, is worried, and so am
I. Is it that the necessary mutations cannot arise, given the way
Nautilus embryos develop? I don't want to believe it, but I don't
have a better explanation." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker,"
1991, reprint, pp.85-86)
4. This is a good example of how Darwinism is philosophy (really
naturalistic creation-mythology) because the evidence is that
photoreceptors came *before* light sensitive spots:
"But which came first - rhodopsin expression in pigment sells or in
eye photoreceptor cells? A compelling argument would seem to
support the second possibility. Light response of pigment cells
serves for colour adaptations and what are colour changes good for
if not for eyes to see them? Ancestral vertebrates equipped with
eyes expressing vertebrate-type opsins, may have kept invertebrate-
type opsins for light sensitive cells outside the eye. Pigment cells
may then have recruited an invertebrate-type opsin gene for their
own light-sensing needs. Recruitment of genes to function in new
contexts is well documented, for instance, for lens crystallins."
(Arnheiter H., "Eyes viewed from the skin," Nature, Vol. 391, 12
February 1998, pp.632-633, p.633)
NA>We can't do that with an IC system like F-ATPase.
>
>So 8 parts
>are more effective then....nothing. I would fall off the mountain.
Agreed. In fact this is how geneticists can tell which genes control which
parts of the body. They knock out one gene and observe the effects. If the
gene complexes were not to some extent IC, then progress in genetics
would be difficult, if not almost impossible.
>FJ>If they only
>>realized that since it does not identify the designer
>SJ>The ID movement *does* realise it. I have previously mentioned Fred
>Hoyle's "Intelligent Universe" hypothesis as possibly within the ID
>paradigm. The common bond of all members of the ID movement is
>the belief in the existence (or at least the possibility) of empirically
>detectable *design* in nature. It is *not* agreement on who is the
>designer.
NA>Jones:
>Including nature as the designer? Lacking independent evidence of the
>designer what does ID have to offer that presently science does not offer?
Not me again!
NA>Nelson:
>Nature does not "design", it makes designoids. Mike Gene could make the same
>argument about "evolvoids".
Agreed. But my point was that ID is agnostic about the designer.
>FJ>natural forces could
>>be the designer making ID nothing more than "nature did it".
>SJ>If design is detected and someone wants to claim that "natural forces
>could be the designer" they are welcome to make their case.
NA>Jones:
>Simple, ID does not identify the designer therefor the designer can be
>natural forces.
>It's a simple and powerful case that ID has limited offerings.
Not me again!
NA>Nelson:
>Non-sequitor. Intelligence can do things natural forces cannot do. You
are
>comparing apples and oranges.
Agreed!
>>SJ>There are *two* separate questions: 1) is there empirically
detectable
>>evidence for design in nature? and if so; 2) who (or what) is the
>>designer or designers?
>FJ>There can be evidence of design, is there evidence of design in nature.
>>So far no evidence has been given that shows this.
>SJ>There *has* been "evidence" given for empirically detectable design in
>nature-Mike Behe's irreducible complexity proposal for example.
NA>Jones:
>And since natural pathways leading to IC systems have been shown, IC seems
>to be dead in the water. Even worse, IC is infered from the absence of
>evolutionary evidence, not from independent data. Why not admit when
>evolutionary mechanisms are unsupported by the data that we don't know
yet?
Again not me. I am *for* ID not against it.
NA>Nelson:
>Can you give me some examples of "pathways to IC systems have been shown" ?
Nelson beat me to it. I was going to ask FJ the same question.
>SJ>I assume FJ is getting mixed up with "evidence" and proof? If FJ is
>actually claiming that this is not even "evidence" then maybe he could state what
>he would accept as evidence that the ID movement could present.
NA>Jones:
>Then anything could be considered evidence of design. Why just irreducible
>complexity? Why not include regular complexity? Design is a placeholder for
>"we don't know yet". At least in the case of biological design where no
>independent evidence of design or designers exist to allow us to make a
>case.
Again, this is "FMAJ1019", not me.
NA>Nelson:
>Only if you a priori assume it evolved. "I understand it" does not mean "it
>evolved".
"FMAJ1019" is also confusing "design" in general with "ID". ID is a
*special case* of design, namely those things which cannot be anything
else *but* be the result of intelligent causation.
The rest of the universe can be designed without it all being ID. Dembski
uses the analogy of a painting and its canvas:
"In its treatment of design, this book focuses not so much on
whether the universe as a whole is designed but on whether we are
able to detect design within an already given universe. The universe
provides a well-defined causal backdrop (physicists these days think
of it as a field characterized by field equations). Although one can
ask whether that causal backdrop is itself designed, one can as well
ask whether events and objects occurring within that backdrop are
designed. At issue here are two types of design: (1) the design of
the universe as a whole and (2) instances of design within the
universe. An analogy illustrates the difference. Consider an oil
painting. An oil painting is typically painted on a canvas. One can
therefore ask whether the canvas is designed. Alternatively one can
ask whether some configuration of paint on the canvas is designed.
The design of the canvas corresponds to the design of the universe
as a whole. The design of some configuration of paint corresponds
to an instance of design within the universe. Though not perfect,
this analogy is useful. The universe is a canvas on which is depicted
natural history. One can ask whether that canvas itself is designed.
On the other hand, one can ask whether features of natural history
depicted on that canvas are designed. In biology, for instance, one
can ask whether Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical
machines are designed. Although design remains an important issue
in cosmology, the focus of the intelligent design movement is on
biology That's where the action is. It was Darwin's expulsion of
design from biology that made possible the triumph of naturalism in
Western culture. So, too, it will be intelligent design's reinstatement
of design within biology that will be the undoing of naturalism in
Western culture. (Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design," 1999,
pp.13-14)
[...]
Steve
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"Perhaps we should not be surprised that vertebrate paleontologists did not
support the prevailing view of slow, progressive evolution but tended to
elaborate theories involving saltation, orthogenesis, or other vitalistic
hypotheses. Most of the evidence provided by the fossil record does *not*
support a strictly gradualistic interpretation, as pointed out by Eldredge
and Gould (1972), Gould and Eldredge (1977), Gould (1985), and Stanley
(1979, 1982)." (Carroll R.L., "Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution,"
W.H. Freeman & Co: New York NY, 1988, p.4. Emphasis in original)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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