In a message dated 10/2/2000 1:48:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
Nucacids@aol.com writes:
> Hi FMAJ,
>
> You wrote: "I think that the jump from "people think that ID is
> pure garbage" to "people who believe in ID are stupid,
> irrational, dishonest etc" is a bit of a leap.
>
> Nuacids How so? If ID is indeed pure garbage, what type of person
> would accept it?
>
Whatever the person would be, it certainly would not make the person stupid,
irrational or dishonest.
> FMA: Nor would I state that all ID critics see ID as
> pure garbage.
>
> Nucacids: Obviously, I can't claim something true for "all,"
> nevertheless, I have yet to encounter an ID critic
> who doesn't think ID is essentially garbage at its
> core.
>
> FMA: Wesley Elsberry comes to mind as someone who
> has acknowledged the usefulness of ID in certain areas of our
> daily life.
>
> Nucacids:This dispute is not about areas of our daily life. It is about
> ancient biological origins.
>
At its core ID is not necessarily garbage, just extended to areas where it
cannot be applied.
> FMA: True. I was just hoping to find a condensed form of your
> arguments. I am quite interested in finding out about how
> ID is used to further our scientific understanding.
>
> Nucacids: For me, it follows from the initial states associated with
> the first appearance of life on this planet. Suffice it to
> say that life, as a product of advanced bioengineering,
> carries very different implications about what we should
> see when compared to the traditional formulations of
> life-from-non-life (expressed through the non-teleological
> template). I probably have about a dozen ideas about this
> currently on slow-simmer in my brain.
>
> FMA: Yet. Or that perhaps such explanations did exists (Robison's
> pathway on the talk.origins website for instance comes to mind)
> but were never clearly classified. Classifying the pathways revealed
> several pathways that Behe might have missed. Even if IC systems
> had not been explained, this paper provides for an outline of potential
> pathways.
>
> Nucacids: Yes, but coming up with a possible explanation is not sufficient.
> After
> all, ID is already a possible explanation. The point, however, behind my
> introductory observations was in response to the common claim that
> Behe ignored all the explanations that were out there. The quote I
> provided from the T&U paper undermines those claims (or so I think).
>
ID is a possible explanation based on elimination of Darwinian pathways. If a
potential Darwinian pathway exists to IC then showing that something is IC
does not support ID. That you now consider a "common claim" merely allows you
to build a strawman. I did not claim that Behe had missed or ignored all
explanations just some of them. Now it is up to ID proponents to show the
relative probalities of natural versus "intelligent" pathways to determine
which one applied.
> FMA: Behe also makes a good case that now in order for ICness to be a
> reliable indicator of design that one need to estimate pathways
> and probabilities to eliminate Darwinian pathways. Of course
> the same applies to ID pathways.
>
> Nucacids: It sounds to me like you are confusing reliability with
> infallibility.
> A criterion can still be reliable even if it is not infallible. For it to
> be unreliable, we would need reason to think the criteria is more
> likely to mislead than shed light.
>
Reliability is essential in an argument of elimination.
> FMA: In my opinion this complicates matters significantly since
> ICness used to be a clean way to infer design, no real pathways
> or explanations needed to support ID, just the assertion that
> ICness meant that Darwinian pathways could not lead to
> ICness.
>
> Nucacids: Yes, but I've never been convinced that there are clean ways to
> infer a teleological cause as opposed to a non-teleological cause.
> In my opinion, we're dealing with an inherently ambiguous
> topic complicated by deep time and all the extrinsic rhetorical
> baggage that comes with these questions.
>
> FMA: Sure, that's like saying that YEC'ism has contributed
> to research and papers that showed their arguments to be
> fallacious.
>
> Nucadids: The fact remains that this paper would never have been
> written if Behe had not written his book. In contrast, I
>
True, why would a paper be written to rebut something that had not been
asserted in the first place.
> don't think any papers have been published as a response
> to YEC (although I could be wrong). But again, this
> introductory observation was always a minor point, in
> response to common claims that Behe's arguments have
> been completely irrelevant to science.
>
Again you are creating a strawman here.
> FMA: I disagree. That IC structures had not been explained
> by science was not validated.
>
> Nucacids: Well then, we disagree. I think the quotes I cited from the paper
> do indeed amount to just this.
>
> FMA: But Behe went further, he claimed that IC structures
> could never be explained by Darwinian pathways and that
> therefore ICness was a reliable indicator of design.
>
> Nucacids: I don't recall Behe claiming they would never be explained
> by Darwinian pathways. Of course, this all turns on what we
> mean by "explain." Do you mean "explain" in the sense of
> coming up with any story or "explain" in the sense of reflecting
> what happened?
>
[begin quote]
"In The Origin of Species Darwin stated 6:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could
not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,
my theory would absolutely break down.
A system which meets Darwin's criterion is one which exhibits irreducible
complexity. By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is
composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function,
and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to
effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be
produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system,
since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition
nonfunctional. Since natural selection requires a function to select, an
irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would have
to arise as an integrated unit for natural selection to have anything to act
on. It is almost universally conceded that such a sudden event would be
irreconcilable with the gradualism Darwin envisioned.
[end quote]
[begin quote]
"By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of
several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and
where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to
effectively cease functioning.
An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight,
successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to
an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional." [Behe]
[end quote]
> FMA: It's that thesis that I believe has been invalidated by
> this paper. That Behe raised an interesting issue of ICness
> and has furthered our understanding of how such systems
> could arise naturally.
>
> Nucacids: I think you are right. However, the issue of what "could arise"
> is not very significant in a historical analysis.
>
It is significant in rebutting Behe's thesis about ICness being a reliable
detector of ID.
> FMA: My argument is merely reflecting the claims that
> empircal evidence exists for ID.
>
> Nucacids: I think such empirical evidence exists. If I didn't, I wouldn't
> take ID seriously.
>
I am sure that you think such but I disagree that you have shown such.
Certainly ICness or Dembski's ID have failed to be reliable empirical
evidence of ID.
> FMA: Some have taken the IC ID argument further
> than perhaps warranted by evidence.
>
> Nucacids: I would personally agree with that. But the same observation
> also holds true (IMO) with regards to many non-teleological
> claims (i.e., abiogenesis did happen; the flagellum evolved
> by random mutation and natural selection, etc.)
>
>
But if ID is not a reliable empirical detector of (intelligent) design then
what use does it have? Certainly we don't know if far better an explanation
than "we don't know".
That abiogenesis happened seems quite inescapable, how it happened is what is
being discussed. That the flagellum is likely hard to explain by science
hardly means that it therefor was designed. In fact some quite plausible
pathways for evolution of the flagellum have been given. What pathways have
been identified by ID?
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