Reflectorites
To: <evolution@calvin.edu>
Cc: (none)
From: "Paul Nelson" <pnelson2@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 19:51:45 -0500
Subject: Examples of natural selection generating CSI
[...]
Paul Nelson, a leader of the ID movement, who is apparently lurking on the
Reflector and therefore must be shaking in his boots with fear (or is it shaking
in his sides with laughter? :-) at all this brilliant falsifying of unfalsifiable ID,
wrote:
PN>Hi Wesley:
>
>Do you have any examples of natural selection
>actually generating CSI?
[...]
To which Wesley, after a bit of huffing and puffing, replied, in effect (see
below), "well actually no Paul...but we have some *great* excuses why we
haven't"!
Steve
=====================================================
On Mon, 18 Sep 2000 23:17:43 -0500 (CDT), Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
>
>Paul and I have discussed this topic before in email, so I'll
>post some of my comments.
>
>Paul's objection 1.D.: No known instances of CSI produced by natural
>selection are known.
>
>Let's explore CSI a little closer. We have two criteria that
>combine to yield Dembski's CSI: complexity at or above 500
>bits and match to a specification. I will call this CSI_500
>in order to introduce a slightly different perspective on CSI.
>Complexity is obviously distributed along the ordinal line of
>bits. Solutions to particular problems may represent CSI at a
>lower threshold than Dembski's step function of 500 bits
>proposes, but this should be clearly noted via use of a
>modifier to relate the level of complexity involved, like
>"CSI_250" or "CSI_50".
>
>No one questions the ability of natural selection to produce
>solutions at lower complexity levels. Whether one admits
>"CSI_50" or "CSI_250" as supported by the available evidence
>does not matter. What matters is that this level of
>performance is properly credited to the action of natural
>selection.
>
>Natural selection, though, is notoriously difficult to
>empirically isolate as a mechanism of action. The level of
>evidence needed to both implicate natural selection and to
>exclude genetic drift is high. Indirect evidence, such as the
>presence of linkage disequilibrium in a population, serves as
>an indicator of the action of natural selection, but
>biologists tend to want to see a clear relation between a
>cause of selection and an effect in distribution of traits in
>a population.
>
>Taking it as possible that adaptive features of organisms are
>designed and installed by an intelligent agent via a mechanism
>other than natural selection means that we cannot use as
>examples of the efficacy of NS those phenomena in question,
>unless and until we have in hand the same kind of evidence
>that suffices for Galapagos finch beak changes. This may
>simply never be available. But if all that is available for
>the alternative hypothesis of ID is the simple fact of
>CSI_500, then I doubt that many biologists will feel compelled
>to exclude natural selection as a live possibility on those
>grounds alone.
>
>What we are then left with is an argument that we should
>exclude from consideration a mechanism of generating solutions
>that we can observe to happen in modern populations and which
>produces CSI at lower complexity levels during our brief and
>spotty periods of observation in favor of a mechanism which
>has no independent evidence of operation and which is not
>currently observable. (That is, the intelligent agent
>putatively responsible for the biological system under
>question is not known from current observation or from
>independent evidence of the period in question.) I think that
>such an argument will find it rough going to convince
>knowledgeable people of its merits.
>
>We should do the calculations to determine the CSI level of
>various examples of NS in action, or general "descent with
>modification" in action. Things like bacteria digesting nylon
>with novel enzymes or the emergence of the impedance-matching
>apparatus of the mammalian middle ear need to be explored
>quantitatively. A spread of CSI levels may indicate an
>approach to the CSI_500 level that Dembski sets, and indicate
>that no essential qualitative difference exists between the
>capability of natural evolutionary algorithms and intelligent
>agency.
>
>
>Note: Dembski does discuss justifying CSI at lower bit levels
>than the universal small probability bound of 500 bits in TDI.
>If the universal small probability bound is met, though,
>justification is simpler.
>
>Also, it would focus the discussion wonderfully if either Paul
>or Bill would provide a worked example of running some scenario
>involving natural selection through the Design Inference. We
>are urged to "do the calculation" at the end of TDI, but there
>seems to be a dearth of serious examples with a complete set
>of calculations per each.
>
>Wesley
>
>
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"Darwin's theory of evolution was based on the primarily uniformitarian
concept that the processes of genetic variation and natural selection,
studied in modern populations, are sufficient to explain the large-scale
patterns of diversification that have occurred throughout the billions of
years of life on earth. .... Large-scale phenomena continue to be treated in a
primarily historical manner, with little consideration for the forces that are
responsible for the origin and long-term perpetuation of basic body plans,
major changes in structures and ways of life, or the influence of abiological
factors on critical events in the history of life. The focus of these textbooks,
and the majority of papers published in the journal Evolution, on modern
species belies the great advances in other areas of science that contribute to
the understanding of large-scale, long-term evolutionary phenomena."
(Carroll R.L., "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis," Trends in Ecology
and Evolution, 2000, Vol. 15, pp.27-32)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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