>
>Here is an example of what I call the `construction project' design argument,
>in this case the reptilian egg.
>
>Koestler (a non-theist writes):
>
> "To conclude this section, here is a less dramatic example of an
> evolutionary advance - the seemingly modest step which led to the
> transformation of the amphibian egg into the reptilian egg. I have
> described this process in The Ghost in the Machine, and am quoting
> it again, because its explanation by the Darwinian schema is not
> only vastly improbable, but logically impossible.
>
> The vertebrates' conquest of dry land started with the evolution of
> reptiles from some primitive amphibian form. The amphibians
> reproduced in the water, and their young were aquatic. The decisive
> novelty of the reptiles was that, unlike amphibians, they laid their
> eggs on dry land; they no longer depended on the water and were
> free to roam over the continents. But the unborn reptile inside the
> egg still needed an aquatic environment: it had to have water or
> else
> it would dry up at an early stage. It also needed a lot of food:
> amphibians hatch as larvae who fend for themselves, whereas
> reptiles hatch fully developed. So the reptilian egg had to be
> provided with a Large mass of yolk for food, and also with albumen
> the white of egg - to provide the water. Neither the yolk by itself,
> nor the egg-white itself, would have had any selective value.
> Moreover, the eggwhite needed a vessel to contain it, otherwise its
> moisture would have evaporated. So there had to be a shell made of
> a leathery or limey material, as part of the evolutionary package-
> deal. But that is not the end of the story. The reptilian embryo,
> because of this shell, could not get rid of its waste products. The
> soft-shelled amphibian embryo had the whole pond as a lavatory;
> the reptilian embryo had to be provided with a kind of bladder.
> It is
> called the allantois, and is in some respects the forerunner of the
> mammalian placenta. But this problem having been solved, the
> embryo would still remain trapped inside its tough shell; it
> needed a
> tool to get out. The embryos of some fishes and amphibians, whose
> eggs are surrounded by a gelatinous membrane, have glands on
> their snouts: when the time is ripe, they secrete a chemical which
> dissolves the membrane. but embryos surrounded by a hard shell
> need a mechanical tool: thus snakes and lizards have a tooth
> transformed into a kind of tin-opener, while birds have a caruncle -
> a hard outgrowth near the tip of their beaks which serves the same
> purpose and is later shed by the adult animal. (Koestler A., "The
> Ghost in the Machine," London, 1967, pp.128-129).
>
> Now according to the Darwinian schema, all these changes must
> have been gradual, each small step caused by a chance mutation.
> But it is obvious that each step, however small, required
> simultaneous, interdependent changes affecting all the factors
> involved in the story.
Chris
False. It is not obvious. In fact it is simply *false*. This is the same
old crap, recycled for the billionth time, by Koestler and now by Jones in
quoting Koestler. Doesn't Jones *ever* check his facts?
> Thus the liquid store in the albumen could not
> be kept in the egg without the hard shell. But the shell would be
> useless, in fact murderous, without the allantois and without the
> tin-
> opener.
Chris
None of these are true. They rest on a series of false assumptions. *NONE*
of these additions needs to just pop into existence full-blown. For
example, a very thin, but still somewhat protective, membrane might have
formed around the developing organism (which may have been little different
from a *slightly* incomplete tadpole). This thin membrane could easily dry
up and crack open on its own as the organism completed its development, so
no "tin opener" would be needed at this stage. Further, the albumen itself
may have initially been little more than a bit of water and a small amount
of dissolved nutrients (if there was any albumen at all!). The allontois
would not need to be developed until the period inside the shell became so
long that something had to be done with waste. And *this* would not need to
be done until the albumen became a substantial portion of the contents of
the membrane. And *this* would not need to be done until the whole was
released a significant period of time before it was developed enough to
survive on its own. The "tin opener" would not be needed until the membrane
became strong enough to pose a problem for the emerging organism. And it
would not need a very strong and sturdy and long lasting shell until the
entire process of development within the shell took sufficiently long as to
make a thicker or harder shell needed.
While at the borderline of being too hard to get out of, the "tin opener"
could begin to develop. Once it was present in some small way, the shell
could continue to be made thicker and more durable.
Each, and all, of these items could develop a bit at a time, as needed and
as genetic modifications occurred to support some slight increase in the
development of one or the other of them.
Etc., etc., etc.
You are *wasting* our time with this witless, empty crap. It has been
*massively* refuted dozens of times before, both on this list and in the
empirical literature. Do you *ever* check your facts?
> Each of these changes, if they had occurred alone, would
> have been harmful, and the organisms thus affected would have
> been weeded out by natural selection (or rather, as suggested
> above, by 'natural elimination').
Chris
They would *only* have been harmful if they had formed *completely* or at
least *substantially* without some development in the others. But there is
no evidence that they *did* form this way, and there is no basis in NET for
thinking that they did. Indeed, NET would suggest that they each formed a
little at a time, to whatever degree each was useful *at* the time, just
as, apparently, the giraffe's long neck formed *partially* and then
evolutionarily "drove" the development of a stronger heart and sturdier
blood vessels, etc., thus allowing yet further development of the neck
(which would then drive still more development of the heart and blood vessels).
The evolution of any major feature *never* needs to be all or nothing (or,
rather, if it does, that feature simply does *not* occur at all).
> You cannot have an isolated
> mutation A, preserve it over an incalculable number of generations
> until mutation B occurs in the same lineage and so on to C and D.
Chris
Yes you can, if each mutation is small and either beneficial or harmless.
Koestler is obviously assuming that each of the features he lists must have
occurred all at once in its "final" form, via a *single* mutation, if
Darwinism view is to be true. But, this is not Darwinism. It is
*Koestler's* ludicrous *assumption* about Darwinism and about the
requirements of naturalistic evolution. Don't you *ever* check your facts?
>
> Each single mutation would be wiped off the slate before it could
> be combined with all the others.
Chris
Again, *only* on the assumption that the final form of each trait had to
occur all at once.
> They are all interdependent within
> the organist which is a functional whole, and not a mosaic.
Chris
This is only partly true. Genetically, the organism is not only a mosaic,
but a mosaic of *much* smaller "pieces" than Koestler assumes above in
building his straw man version of Darwinism.
> The
> doctrine that the coming together of all requisite changes was due
> to a series of coincidences is an affront not only to common sense
> but to the basic principles of scientific explanation."
Chris
This is true, if he means it in the way that he seems to mean it.
Fortunately for NET, it is also *irrelevant*, since NET does not make any
claim of this sort.
> (Koestler A., "Janus: A Summing Up," [1978], Picador: London, 1983,
> reprint, pp.175-176)
Stephen
>It is my firm contention that these examples (and there are a number of
>them) of what I call "construction projects," where a number of unrelated
>components appear to be assembled well in advance towards a long-term
>goal, cannot *even in principle* be explained by unintelligent natural
>processes of *any* sort.
>
>Some (or even all?) individual components may be able to be explained by
>unintelligent natural processes, but the *whole project*, I claim, cannot be
>adequately explained without invoking a far-sighted Intelligent Designer.
Chris
This assumes that there *is* a project, thus begging the question. If you
*assume* that there is a project, you've already set up a circular
argument, because "projects" are only carried out by *design*. Did you
think no one would notice this?
>I claim that these `construction projects' defeat *all* naturalistic
>(including
>deistic and `front-loaded' theistic) evolutionary explanations.
Chris
Once you get past the *presumption* that they *are* projects, they
generally become *trivial* to explain in naturalistic terms.
>They are therefore IMHO the *ultimate* design argument! I confidently
>make a falsifiable scientific prediction that *no amount* of scientific
>advance will *ever* be able to explain this class of phenomena by
>unintelligent natural processes.
Chris
Too late. It's already been done. Why do you *insist* on making claims like
this without checking your facts?
Stephen
>I predict that all that can be done by anti-designists is to either deny that
>these "construction projects" exist on materialistic/naturalistic
>philosophical grounds and try to ignore them altogether; or else baptise
>them by force as `evolution' while using the language of design (see
>tagline).
Chris
Nope, all we have to do is ask you to show that they *do* exist. It's
*your* claim, and therefore your burden of proof (and you are not doing
well so far, I might point out). We don't have to *deny* anything except
that you have shown that such projects exist. And, of course, we can always
point out that the argument so far is perfectly circular. You want us to
accept that these "projects" exist on pure faith, apparently.
Stephen, *PLEASE* go back to the drawing board and try again. What you have
given us here not only does not even begin to reach the level that would be
needed to justify your bold claims, but it is pathetic. PLEASE examine the
claims you make and the basis upon which you make them, at least *once* in
a while. I say this because the errors in Koestler's claims are not exactly
subtle; you *could* have seen them, had you bothered to critically examine
Koestler's argument for yourself.
I would hazard a guess that *all* of the other examples that you had in
mind in presenting this would fall from the same errors. Before you give us
the *next* one, take a look at the reasoning involved, and ask yourself
these questions:
1. Of all of these features, *could* there be evolutionary value in
developing it to a *slight* degree? (The answer is almost always "yes." by
the way.)
2. If one feature developed slightly, would it give benefit if some *other*
of the related features developed slightly? (The answer is "yes" again.)
3. Could any of these features have developed in such a way as to serve
some *other* function initially (and possibly in a *different* form)? (The
answer is often "yes.")
4. Could a different but related set of features have developed and then
evolved *sideways* into the set we see today? ("Sometimes")
5. Could a different set of features have evolved so as to serve some other
function and then *lost* or *changed* a component to serve a different
function?
6. In general, what is there about this example that might be questionable,
that should be examined more closely? (Answer: "Everything.")
7. Has the claimed Darwinian alternative ever been seriously offered by a
Darwinian? (In this case, the answer, at least for a few decades, is "No.")
If you ask and seriously try to answer such questions with respect to every
such thing you are tempted to quote, you will save yourself from making a
lot of utterly unsupportable claims (such as: "I claim that these
`construction projects' defeat *all* naturalistic (including deistic and
`front-loaded' theistic) evolutionary explanations"). If you want to make
such claims, at *least* put a little time up front examining the basis for
them, to see if they will hold up to the above questions.
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