Hello FMAJ,
Although you missed the point of my essay explaining why
I think ID is in the cards, I thought I would address your
"arguments" before I left the list.
FMA: Of course we do not have nor will ever have the evidence
that it was all of evolution that was Darwinian or even
neo-darwinian
Then we have no reason to think all of evolution was Darwinian
or neo-darwinian. Thus, the dependence on the non-teleological
template.
FMA: but at the moment the neo-Darwinian explanation is the
one that best matches our observations. Its mechanisms are
actually observed and the data seem to support these
mechanisms.
And at one moment, the Newtonian explanation was the
best match until we began to look too closely. The problem
is that some molecular biologists and paleontologists think
that just such a close look indicates the neo-Darwinian
explanation is not the best match.
Also, I think the "best match" view of neo-Darwinism
largely entails a certain seduction based on its
simplicity (in reality, over-simplicity) and its
plasticity. Concerning the latter point, consider
how Darwinism is seducing a new generation of
"evolutionary psychologists." Natural selection
can explain why a mother would sacrifice her
life for her infant. But it equally explains why
a mother would kill her infant. It can explain why
a man would rape a woman and why another
man would rush in to help and protect the woman
from the rapist. In nature, it
explains why certain males birds invest in their
offspring, but it also explains why certain male
birds neglect their offspring. Wesson cites one
evolutionary text as claiming, " We can always
invent a plausible adaptive advantage for an observed
or supposed trait." If one need only imagine a
plausible advantage for a supposed trait, then
of course the illusion of a "best match" will
appear.
FMA: Does this mean that this is all there is?
I doubt it.
So you DO doubt the sufficiency of the neo-Darwinian
mechanism? That we both share in this doubt is the
very reason not to grant it a privileged explanatory
role. Since its sufficiency is in doubt, we'll need
independent evidence that it applied behind any
origin event in question as extrapolation is now
too risky.
FMA: Gradualism is but one aspect of evolution. Its
existance cannot be denied but there is indication that
there might be other processes which play a role.
Would this be a problem ?
Yes, that is, if you are a hardcore non-teleologist.
Gradualism, working hand-in-hand with reductionism,
is crucial to a non-teleological viewpoint. This is why
hard core people like Dawkins and Dennett defend it
with the zeal of a religious apologist. It is gradualism
which confers the important role to chance. Take away
gradualism, and you're back to 747s and tornadoes.
Biologically meaningful saltations, like spontaneous
generation, are essentially beyond the reach of chance.
Hard-core non-teleologists must insist on simple beginnings
and small incremental changes. To do otherwise exposes
your story from being co-opted by a teleological approach.
Since you like to battle, and I suspect you want to be a
good non-teleological soldier, a word of advice - rethink
your doubt and attempts to downplay the importance of
neo-darwinian mechanisms and gradualism.
FMA: Darwinism is hardly eroding I'd say.
Here I was speaking about my vision of the future.
Darwinism will erode because its template will erode
and that will change the dynamics. Consider the following:
if the socio-political aspects of the creationist and ID
movement effectively disappear, a legion of scientists
will begin to publicly express their doubts about
Darwinism and pound it into a bloody pulp. Currently,
their skepticism is kept fairly private or expressed in a
very restrained fashion as no one wants to become the
new poster boy for the ICR.
FMA: We have to be careful to not equivocate the
meanings of design as used by the biologist and as
used by ID.
Yes, but people tend to pay attention to what you do
and not what you say. If scientists treat life as something
that has been designed, that can only create an inertia
for the emergence of the teleological template. You can
only get away for so long arguing as follows:
"So you see how nicely the thermostat and furnace help
us to understand life processes. But remember, there is
a difference. The thermostat and furnace exist because of
ID, but we don't know how these life processes came into
existence."
The most natural and logical follow-up is prevented largely
by one thing - it would embrace a template that is at odds
with the gestalt that dominates academia. For if someone
wanted to argue that the reason scientists find so much light
in these design concepts is because they are studying things
that were ultimately designed, not one argument could be
made to show they were wrong. All that you could say
is that such a person has broken a game rule or that they
could be wrong.
FMA: Unlikely. The main problem of ID is that design is
infered from the absence of evidence not the presence of
evidence.
Not for me. I infer ID behind the origin of the first
appearance of life on this planet because several lines
of data converge as evidence for this inference. Some
of this is explained in my postings to the ARN board.
FMA: Behe has searched for a reliable indicator of design that
could eliminate natural selection (incorrectly concluding therefore
design) but it seems that the indicator is not that
reliable after all so we are back to the start.
I don't agree. IC does help us to effectively rule out two
possible darwinian pathways and these only happen to
be the pathways that are the most coherent and with the best
evidential support. The remaining pathways are plagued with
problems (as I explain in my response to the Ussery and
Thornhill paper). Now, if one doubts the sufficiency of
darwinian mechanisms for all of evolution, one needs
independent evidence that they applied. One doesn't have
to "exclude" natural selection by determining that it
could not possibly apply (that would be trying to prove
something was impossible). One can exclude NS in a
tentative sense simply because there is no evidence to
include it.
After all, for all your talk about eliminating NS, how have
you eliminated ID in order to infer NS? In fact, do you
ever infer NS or do you simply assume it?
FMA: In order to show which explanation matches better we
need pathways and data. Absent data we cannot
infer one or the other, but with data we can search for natural pathways and
we can propose intelligent design pathways. So far however Id seems to be
satisfied to not deal with the designer, the pathways but only with the
detection of design. But if the detection of design fails to exclude natural
selection as the intelligent designer then ID has a problem.
You seem to think ID must prove a negative (exclude NS). I
don't agree. ID only has a problem if it cannot generate testable
hypotheses and an understanding of the biotic world. And it
doesn't have this problem as I now know from experience.
FMA: Certainly the fact that we can use our technology to manipulate
biological systems is hardly evidence of ID in nature. That would be begging
the question.
That's not the point. The point is that as our technology improves
such that we blur the distinction between natural life and
artificial life, a template is being laid. Couple this to the
utility of ID and the evaporating basis for the Darwinian
template, all taking place in an ambiguous world, and ID
is in the cards.
FMA: It will still be an important distinction for the explanation of
evolution.
That in the future we might be able to manipulate evolution does not mean
that this happened in the past.
Agreed. It only means that a mental template is being laid. Today,
cells are likened to computers because we make computers. Cells
were not likened to computers back in 1890. Now, when we
begin to manipulate life and evolution….
FMA: How much sense would it make to insist that life
has to arise intelligently all the time?
Such an insistence is not needed nor is it in the cards. It is the
non-teleological viewpoint that demands absolute allegiance,
not the teleological viewpoint.
FMA: Which is why ID is unlikely to become a paradigm in
science that will work. Unless it can free itself from the
elimination of alternatives and provide positive evidence of ID,
it will continue to struggle with the failure of not
being able to exclude natural selection as the intelligent designer.
Thanks for the advice, but my experience indicates it is
misguided. I do not "struggle" in coming up with
testable hypotheses that speak to ID. The source of
such struggling is found in the very thing you demand,
that is, some magic bullet detector that absolutely
excludes non-teleological causes. But that's philosophy
and not an investigation.
FMA: As such nothing has changed. Design is infered but it
could still include natural mechanisms.
Which is relevant only to those who need certainty.
FMA: The argument seems to be based on the assumption that the use of the
terms
design as used in biology combined with increased use of ID in future
biological developments will lead to acceptance of ID. But that seems to be
hopelessly optimistic. Our ability to design systems so far outside the arena
of life has not lead to acceptance of intelligent design as an explanation of
non life structures around us, so why would this be different for biological
systems?
Because biological systems are better matched with artifacts than any
other non life structure. Keep in mind also that many in the "ID movement"
have accepted ID largely because of the "use of the terms
design as used in biology combined with increased use of ID."
True, most probably rely on a religious template because we are still
just coming to grips with what we are discovering and our
own manipulations are still crude. But as things play out as
I explained in my essay, another template will emerge to
facilitate a larger "acceptance-migration." Just watch.
FMA: I find it hard to imagine that the paradigm of ID, especially as it
stands
right now, has any chance of contributing value to science, especially
biological science.
I don't. For example, it has already enabled me to infer the
existence of proofreading during transcription.
FMA: After all its argument is based on elimination, we have
no evidence of design in natural systems as they exist right now.
The evidence of design emerges from the initial states and
how they relate.
FMA: Design inferences inherently depend on the elimination
rather than on positive evidence.
I don't agree. It's not either/or, it's both/and. Yes, it is true
that the non-teleological approach fails to bother eliminating
teleological causes (being largely a metaphysical approach),
but ID (IMO) is actually more rigorous in that it employs both
a positive and eliminative approach.
FMA: Perhaps if ID can provide us with evidence of the designers or the
pathways then ID would stand a chance to survive but in biological sciences
such seems unlikely and without such evidence, ID cannot exclude natural
designers.
In my opinion, this is the wrong way to go about it. Knowledge of
the designers and their protocols does not follow from the truth of
ID.
FMA: Worse, natural pathways, even unlikely ones would still be far
more credible than appeal to an unknown designer, unknown pathway, unknown
purpose.
That depends on who you ask and how they have been conditioned.
FMA: Intelligent design failed to impress and affect science in the past, why
should this time be different? It still has the same inherent flaws.
It has flaws only if you expect certainty and confuse philosophy with
history. But actually, crude theistic forms of ID did impress and
affect science in the past. What happened, however, is that the
birth of modern biology correlated with an attempt to mimic
Newtonian reductionism and teleology went down the wrong road of
vitalism (taking your advice about pathways). Why might it be
different in the future? Biology is slowly coming to grips with
the inadequacy of reductionism (that ship is running out of fuel)
and teleology need not resurrect vitalism. And most importantly,
an old tired template will soon face a young, fresh template.
ID is in the cards.
Good bye all,
Mike
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