Is Human Design Truly Intelligent?

[Conehead]

Ok, we need to stop here because #1 There is no evidence of a "designer". That is merely something that has been thrown out to be considered, without anything to substantiate it, I might add.

I also disagree with those that say that ID should be allowed to be considered as an alternative "theory" to evolution.

Well, that's what were doing here. We aren't talking about it's scientific merits, whether it should be taught over evolution, or what academy doesn't approve.

You're kind of a downer, Evo. By your antiseptic definition of "theory" there could never be much fun conversation at all.

Where you tell me to "stop" is where this conversation began. You're absolutely right, there is no evidence of a designer. What ID has done is fill the gaps where science has failed to produce evidence to the contrary.

If you're the hardcore scientist (which you aren't) and I'm the lonely philosopher (which I'm not), I'm not going to stop thinking about the nature of a possible designer until you prove to me that I can't anymore.

 

[Conehead]

A remark: "intelligent design" depends of what is "intelligent". Certain algorithms have "intelligent behaviour" in the sense that they can solve problems for which the explicit solution has not been coded (the programmer didn't know the solution to the problem). As such, one can say that "intelligence" is an emerging property of the algorithm.
These are the kinds of algorithms that are studied by Artificial Intelligence. Rule-based expert systems are such examples, neural networks are such examples, and random search optimising algorithms are such examples. Particular cases of this last version are *genetic algorithms*.
If one can call genetic algorithms "intelligent" (because indeed, they succeed in solving problems of which the author didn't know how to do so), then in a certain way, Natural Selection IS an intelligent algorithm. As such, you can classify Natural Selection as a version of "intelligent design"
An example of an "intelligent" algorithm is the Integrate function of Mathematica. Contrary to the D operator, which applies simply differentiation rules which have been explicitly coded into Mathematica, Integrate works differently. It does a "random search" in function structures, applies the D operator and finds out if it comes close to the integrand ; then goes tweaking again to the trial function, until it finds a function such that when you apply D to it, it is identical to the integrand (or until something indicates it that it is drifting away from a possible solution in which case it gives up).
The people who programmed this DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO PERFORM CERTAIN INTEGRALS, but Integrate succeeded in doing so. The best proof is that they found errors in certain standard integration tables. Look at the Wolfram site for an explanation.

Are you implying that perhaps the governing or creating force could be along the lines of an intelligent algorithm? If so, I think this is a fascinating concept for a designer. The Fibonacci sequence comes to mind in how it’s very precise in predicting bud formations on plants. I know that’s not what you are talking about, just interesting.

Anyway, I wonder if there are algorithmic tables that can define their own rules. Are you aware of algorithms that can morph (as in change their own operating parameters)? I know that some chaos principles and fractals have this characteristic.

 

[vanesch]

Are you implying that perhaps the governing or creating force could be along the lines of an intelligent algorithm?

No, what I was trying to say is that, depending on your definition of intelligence (mine is: problem solving ability), you could claim that "life is intelligently designed" (because our design DOES solve problems), but that this doesn't imply any "governing or creating force". It is just that the mechanism of NS can be seen as an "intelligent algorithm" (there's a steered random search (steered, because no total-from-scratch DNA is generated, but DNA which worked with small modifications), which is mutation, and there is an optimising cost function, which is survival probability of descendents). These kinds of algorithms are known to result in "problem solving skills" (= intelligence).

Of course, that's something totally different as what ID proponents imply: that the intelligence must come from a "creator". It can simply be an emergent property of a natural mechanism which implements an algorithm. That's what I wanted to say, a bit tongue-in-cheek.

 

[Les Sleeth]

No, what I was trying to say is that, depending on your definition of intelligence (mine is: problem solving ability), you could claim that "life is intelligently designed" (because our design DOES solve problems), but that this doesn't imply any "governing or creating force". It is just that the mechanism of NS can be seen as an "intelligent algorithm" (there's a steered random search (steered, because no total-from-scratch DNA is generated, but DNA which worked with small modifications), which is mutation, and there is an optimising cost function, which is survival probability of descendents). These kinds of algorithms are known to result in "problem solving skills" (= intelligence).
Of course, that's something totally different as what ID proponents imply: that the intelligence must come from a "creator". It can simply be an emergent property of a natural mechanism which implements an algorithm. That's what I wanted to say, a bit tongue-in-cheek.

I think there might actually be something to what you say. In terms of looking at any living finished product, and judging it by how effectively it is organized to take advantage of natural resources, as well as to produce consciousness, there is nothing mundane about the organization behind living functions.

But for some, that is exactly what raises the red flag. Let's narrow the "some" to people who neither are committed to a theistic explanation or a physicalistic one. This type of neutral thinker might look at the fact that in the Darwinist model, when all is said and done, it is mechanics and physical potentials alone have produced such "intelligent design."

Yet looking at mechanics and physical potentials that aren't part of life, we never ever see them organizing themselves the way they do in life. To me, until Darwinist evolutionists can demonstrate the "intelligent" self-organizing potential of mechanics and physicalness, the theory will never hold water. Where/what is that INTELLIGENT organizing potential?

 

[Conehead]

Of course, that's something totally different as what ID proponents imply: that the intelligence must come from a "creator". It can simply be an emergent property of a natural mechanism which implements an algorithm. That's what I wanted to say, a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Actually, I've found little in the way of a unifying trait common among IDists (through straw-polling other professionals) beyond traditional creationists, that is. Some sort of adaptable algorithm or functionary of probabilities would compliment the other theories as well as anything else, in my estimation. Hawkins discusses "rolling the dice" frequently in his bits on alternate histories. But all of those rolls take place inside a self-contained universe.

If the universe is not self-contained, as ID proposes at it's root, why couldn't dice rolling take place before hand? If alternate histories seems too convenient inside the physical universe, why not consider them outside. Perhaps the universe is a product of a designer's probability. Or the designer is nothing more than a probability.

I'm floundering here (as you can see), though I like the concept.

 

[wave]

Then why would you blame physicalists and scientists for not accepting your evidence? You accuse them of not considering the nonphysical, yet you take no responsibility to persuade them. Are they suppose to take your word for it?

What if the shoe were on the other foot, and the standard for knowing in this world was union? Every once in awhile throughout the centuries, somebody practices empiricism and makes a great observation. The union experts say if we can experience it in union, then we'll accept it, if not then your claim is full of crap. So they study it through union and find nothing.

That is not the issue. I am questioning the basis of your complaint assuming everyone accepts union. You accuse scientists of not accepting the possibility that there is something nonphysical involved in evolution. However, mainstream science does not rule out that possibility although it is rarely explicit. Secondly, you have not offered anything beyond speculations, as to what that "something" may be - let alone persuade us of it. We don't have a single claim regarding Evolution to which we can investigate with union. You even admitted that you can't and won't convince us. Therefore I do not see any justification for your complaint.

Are they justified in studying empirical claims with union?

I honestly don't know. Is union restricted to the nonphysical? For instance, can you gain knowledge related to physics with union?

This idea of "convincing" is an externalizing standard, it is not the standard of internal development. The physicalist "word" on this matter is stated from experiential ingorance of the subject. Amongst the inexperienced who make ignorant claims, it is correct to say one opinion is as good as another.

Then aren't you guilty of your own charge? Who made you the keeper of "humanity's epistemological keys"? Why are your claims any better than those of "inexperienced" practitioners? Similarly, can you dismiss other nonphysicalists such as psychics and mediums without being a hypocrite?

So the experiences you gain from union have no implications on the physical world, besides inner contentment and happiness and wisdom? It's not my intension to diminish those wonderful things.

If you think this physical world isn't being affected by unhappy, discontent people, then you must live a pretty sheltered life.

That's a gross misrepresentation. Nowhere did I imply inner contentment, happiness and wisdom doesn't affect the physical world. I was merely looking for implications on scientific theories - and you have yet to offer any.

I am not changing evolution, I am trying to prevent physicalists from promoting their physicalist agenda which manifests as claims they've all but accounted for evolution when they really haven't.

That is clearly false. The literature demonstrates continual research and intensive debate over unproven mechanisms such as group selection.

And when I say they haven't looked at the evidence, to a great extent I mean they haven't taken the time to develop their inner self to know if there is something more than just the mechanics they are so obsessed with.

It wouldn't affect Evolution either way. No one can dismiss the possibility that there is something more. However, there is no sensible way to utilize that kind of knowledge in our theories. You can't rationally reject an unfalsifiable claim, so all it takes are two such contradicting claims to wreak havoc. Conversely, you can't rationally accept a claim because they can only rely on words to convince others (including fellow nonphysicalists) that their experiences are valid. The same problems exist under both physicalist and nonphysicalist paradigms. Your complaints will not be taken seriously by scientists, until you have a reasonable solution for those issues.

 

[Les Sleeth]

You accuse scientists of not accepting the possibility that there is something nonphysical involved in evolution. However, mainstream science does not rule out that possibility although it is rarely explicit.

Not "ruling out" maybe how scientism devotees posture themselves for the public but, for instance, Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick better represent what most scientists really think.

Mainstream science rules out any and all that isn't physical because they only investigate using a method which only yields physical info. That is the fact of the matter, but you refuse to acknowledge it.

Secondly, you have not offered anything beyond speculations, as to what that "something" may be - let alone persuade us of it.

You say I offer speculation, but what do you think much of evolution theory is? All you can prove is that life forms evolved in stages over time, and that natural selection-genetic variation can produce superficial changes. What you cannot prove is what caused the sorts of genetic variation to occur, and then be chosen, which led to complex organs and organ systems. In these areas you stick your physicalist natural selection-genetic variation theory in every gap you have. And all gaps where it can't be stuck, you have another physicalistic speculation waiting, some of which make little sense.

For example, Dr. Howard Glicksman has been writing about often-stated problem that many life processes require the prior development of supportive functions that have no reason to develop unless the end process is being aimed at. He poses his objections in about 20 areas of evolution (and he’s still writing), from neurons and the eye to fluid balance and gender development:
http://www.arn.org/eyw.htm

Towards the end of his article on how Vitamin D could have evolved http://www.arn.org/docs/glicksman/eyw_031104.htm he asks:

“Which function did the liver cell develop first: the ability to start the activation of Vitamin D or to produce the Vitamin D transport protein? What good would it be for the liver to be able to start the activation process of Vitamin D if it hadn’t first produced the Vitamin D transport protein so that the Vitamin D could come to the liver in the first place? And what good would it be if the Vitamin D transport protein was able to transport Vitamin D, but the liver couldn’t start the activation process? And when did the kidney develop its ability to apply the final activating step without which Vitamin D activity in the body would be so reduced that intestinal absorption of calcium would be seriously hampered to the point of certain death? When did the intestinal cells develop a receptor that was specific for activated Vitamin D? Before or after Vitamin D could be activated? If before, what usefulness would they have for the body without activated Vitamin D? And if after, then how did activated Vitamin D exert its effect on the intestinal cell?

These are some of the questions that require answers to validate the theory of macroevolution when we contemplate bones of any age. I’m sure that many of you can come up with even more. Some of my critics have commented that macroevolution does not preclude an organism having had produced biologically useless molecules . . . remember, medical science has proven that without Vitamin D activity in the body, the body as we know it would not exist. But macroevolution claims a step by step development over time. Here is a perfect opportunity to apply known data about a biological system and what is known to make it fail with a theory that purports to explain how this same said biological system came into being.”

The answer a physicalist might offer, “macroevolution does not preclude an organism having had produced biologically useless molecules” is glossing over the seriousness of the problem. It’s the same way physicalists gloss over explaining how sufficient genetic variation could have occurred at the rate necessary to account for the degree of organ development AND the high level of their functionality during the Cambrian explosion. It’s the same way physicalists gloss over the fact that chemistry doesn’t exhibit the self-organizing quality needed for abiogenesis to occur.

We don't have a single claim regarding Evolution to which we can investigate with union. You even admitted that you can't and won't convince us. Therefore I do not see any justification for your complaint.

What makes you think you can investigate every damn thing with science? Your “therefore” doesn’t follow from anything I have said, so you can't see any justification because you aren't listening. What I have been saying is:

PHYSICALISTS ARE PROMOTING PHYSICALIST ONTOLOGY TO THE PUBLIC IN THE GUISE OF OBJECTIVE FACTS ABOUT EVOLUTION.

What they are doing is ONTOLOGIZING. How? They have a physicalist filter in place, they exaggerate the importance of the evidence they have, they gloss over areas of physiclistic theory that don't make sense, and they refuse to look at other epistemologies which might indicate there is more to know than just physicalness. Having sealed their minds tight against all avenues of knowing and thought except physicalness they, for example, convince the supreme court to let them teach physicalist ontology to our children.

Why not keep one’s mouth shut about what one doesn't know instead of saying some physical cause is "most likely" for unproven areas? The typical answer is, to restart the circle of physicalist filter, exaggerate, gloss over, refuse to look at other epistemologies . . . and then proclaim, "we've found nothing more likely than physical answers,” and/or “I do not see any justification for your complaint.”

This idea of "convincing" is an externalizing standard, it is not the standard of internal development. The physicalist "word" on this matter is stated from experiential ignorance of the subject. Amongst the inexperienced who make ignorant claims, it is correct to say one opinion is as good as another.

Then aren't you guilty of your own charge? Who made you the keeper of "humanity's epistemological keys"? Why are your claims any better than those of "inexperienced" practitioners? Similarly, can you dismiss other nonphysicalists such as psychics and mediums without being a hypocrite?

Scientism devotees like to pretend they've got the epistemological keys because it is they who want to subject everything to scientific scrutiny and dismiss all that fails their tests. Where do you see me demanding physical factors be studied spiritually? Two realms, two different epistemologies. It’s only when one tries to take over the other that problems arise. It used to be the spiritual side who arrogated, now it’s the science side.

My point was that there have been others who’ve developed their consciousness in ways that has led to knowing something that can't be known through empiricism. In ignorance of that method, scientists "dismiss" the inner practitioner's claims of "something more." When told that to study the claims they have to master the inner methods themselves, they decline to do that and again demand the inner practitioner submit to scientific investigations.

This inner realization is not only a lot older than science, it has inspired the majority of people on this planet. Isn't it arrogant for scientism devotees to think what the Buddha or Jesus achieved consciously should reveal itself in the lab? The inner practitioner would tell you that to know if there is "something more" you have to look inside yourself.

Maybe you aren’t following the polls, but about 90% of the world’s population doesn’t think science has all the answers. What you do see is a great respect for what science actually has accomplished, but also growing resistance by people of faith in the theoretical areas where science is making exaggerated claims. In respect to this latter issue, I think scientists better shape up because they are going to lose credibility. Not everybody who is objecting is some blind-faith, uninformed, undereducated dunce; some pretty smart people are starting to challenge scientism’s exaggerated claims.

It wouldn't affect Evolution either way. No one can dismiss the possibility that there is something more. However, there is no sensible way to utilize that kind of knowledge in our theories.

Yes, but you don't get to automatically stick something physical where all the missing pieces are either. You can for yourself, but it's textbooks and public specials that are the issue. I don't know why you can't see the complaint. No one is saying you have to suggest God may be in the gaps. Just leave the gaps (i.e., at least those most under contention) vacant from speculations when you are telling the public what is "most likely."

Conversely, you can't rationally accept a claim because they can only rely on words to convince others (including fellow nonphysicalists) that their experiences are valid. The same problems exist under both physicalist and nonphysicalist paradigms. Your complaints will not be taken seriously by scientists, until you have a reasonable solution for those issues.

For someone so smart you sure do miss the point. Who is asking you accept a claim? My reason for pointing to union was to indicate there is other expertise on this planet. The scientist doesn't have to accept any metaphysical claims to be more broadly educated about another method of knowing, or to learn to respect what can’t be achieved through science but which may have bearing on how creation came about nonetheless.

 

[Tisthammerw]

I don't know why you can't see the complaint. No one is saying you have to suggest God may be in the gaps. Just leave the gaps (i.e., at least those most under contention) vacant from speculations when you are telling the public what is "most likely."

Evolution is something of a sacred cow, to the extent that nearly any attack will be declared “religious”--at least in the public schools.

Biblical creationism? Banned from biology classes and rightly so, because it is religious.

Intelligent design (artificial intervention was necessary for the creation of life on Earth) - not religious, but has been declared as such by its opponents.

Scientific evidence against evolution - also not religious, but I've seen opponents declare it so even in this case (when one proposed it be introduced in the classroom).

Some things evolution does not (yet?) adequately explain - I bet would probably be declared religious too.

Has the "religious" decree gone too far? Of course. But I doubt one would have much luck overcoming this error (at least at this point in time).

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

No, what I was trying to say is that, depending on your definition of intelligence (mine is: problem solving ability), you could claim that "life is intelligently designed" (because our design DOES solve problems), but that this doesn't imply any "governing or creating force".

When I first heard about ID I thought that it was simply about a driving factor behind evolution. Simply "something" that made things happen the way they did that was consistant and seemingly intelligent. The only scientific essay that I have read by a scientist who supports ID, or at least it's investigation, referred to "law like processes" which shaped evolution. Something like the "law like processes" that shape general physics. He mentioned no god or creator or even "intelligence" (how ever one wishes to define it) in his entire paper.
I've tried discussing this before, the idea of intelligent design without god or there simply being some sort of physical laws which made evolution occur the way it did aside from "natural selection". The debate always winds up with either the knee jerk "ID isn't science, it's creationism in desguise!" or people wind up asking "Well then why is it called Intelligent Design if there isn't an intelligent creator behind it?". No one ever seems to want to discuss the idea itself, just what they think it is or what they think is wrong with the name.
That one paper is the only really scientific one I have been able to find regarding ID, and maybe there's a reason for that, but it makes me wonder if the real scientists behind this idea are just catching flack because of the people who use it to further their theological agenda.




By the way, haven't seen you in PWA much. Congrats on the Super Mentor promotion.

 

[loseyourname]

It seems like this principle of a 'driving force' behind evolution is simply the reification of a mathematical algorithm capable of describing the behavior of the evolving system. We can write differential equations that model the relationship between the size of predator and prey populations in a mountain habitat, but that doesn't mean that there actually is anything akin to a differential equation that exists 'in the world' and operates as an organizing principle dictating the behavior of these animals. We're simply combining multiple simpler functions that can give us the size of a population given the availability of food and land and what have you. Even these simpler functions do not have any real existence in the world; they are simply a means by which we quantify the fact that if there is less food available on a given plot of land, that plot of land will support less individuals. The only thing about this that is 'real' are the individuals themselves and the food and land.

 

[Evo]

Well, that's what were doing here. We aren't talking about it's scientific merits, whether it should be taught over evolution, or what academy doesn't approve.

You're kind of a downer, Evo. By your antiseptic definition of "theory" there could never be much fun conversation at all.

Where you tell me to "stop" is where this conversation began. You're absolutely right, there is no evidence of a designer. What ID has done is fill the gaps where science has failed to produce evidence to the contrary.

If you're the hardcore scientist (which you aren't) and I'm the lonely philosopher (which I'm not), I'm not going to stop thinking about the nature of a possible designer until you prove to me that I can't anymore.

Sorry if I'm a downer, at first I thought this was a serious discussion, but I guess you guys are having fun discussing it on a different level, so have at it. Sorry to intrude.

Besides, we already killed ID in GD.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

It seems like this principle of a 'driving force' behind evolution is simply the reification of a mathematical algorithm capable of describing the behavior of the evolving system. We can write differential equations that model the relationship between the size of predator and prey populations in a mountain habitat, but that doesn't mean that there actually is anything akin to a differential equation that exists 'in the world' and operates as an organizing principle dictating the behavior of these animals. We're simply combining multiple simpler functions that can give us the size of a population given the availability of food and land and what have you. Even these simpler functions do not have any real existence in the world; they are simply a means by which we quantify the fact that if there is less food available on a given plot of land, that plot of land will support less individuals. The only thing about this that is 'real' are the individuals themselves and the food and land.

I'm certainly aware of the problem in confusing the map with the territory. I wouldn't suggest chucking natural selection as a model out the window but if it seems there are instances where it fails to predict reality it would seem it perhaps still needs something more. Perhaps there are variables that we are unaware of currently.
Abiogenesis isn't really covered by natural selection. People usually complain that it isn't supposed to cover it and they don't have anything to do with one another. It would seem to me though that what ever processes occur in abiogenesis would have effect still on evolution even after life has began. If this is true and the processes described by natural selection truly can not explain abiogenesis then it would seem there are still variables going unnoticed.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I emailed Dr. Glicksman asking him to join the debate. He declined saying philosophy isn't his thing, but did offer a couple of interesting comments:

". . . there are hundreds of irreducibly complex systems in the human body that each require at least 3 components. A sensor to detect a vital parameter, like Ca++, O2, CO2, osmolarity, BP etc, a cell that can respond to the changes in this parameter by sending out a message (nervous message, hormone etc), and a target cell that often has a specific receptor (insulin, parathormone etc.) to respond to the message that effects a change required for life. These parameters must stay within very narrow ranges for life or we die.

This is the basis for the pathophysiology of disease, dysfunction and death and the practice of medicine. Not only is the body able to do all 3 of these things but it also must inherently know what the levels of these parameters must be! By the way, each of these 3 components are genetically based, so one must immediately wonder how they could come about one step at a time . . ."

 

[Les Sleeth]

Abiogenesis isn't really covered by natural selection. People usually complain that it isn't supposed to cover it and they don't have anything to do with one another. It would seem to me though that what ever processes occur in abiogenesis would have effect still on evolution even after life has began. If this is true and the processes described by natural selection truly can not explain abiogenesis then it would seem there are still variables going unnoticed.

I see it similarly. Whatever caused abiogenesis is the driving force of evolution too. Some sort of organizing force which keeps "seeking" higher orders of functionality.

 

[Evo]

Not only is the body able to do all 3 of these things but it also must inherently know what the levels of these parameters must be! By the way, each of these 3 components are genetically based, so one must immediately wonder how they could come about one step at a time . . ."

Ok, I lied, I'm back.

This is the basic problem when you try to "reverse engineer" something that isn't understood. It can be as simple as "that's the combination, that by accident, worked", which is why the other versions, if there were any, aren't still in existence. It doesn't imply anything.

We don't know the answers, may never know the answers. I would have a problem with anyone saying that we know all the answers, but at the same time, we can't think that because we don't have all the answers we should just stop searching and proclaim that it was all pre-fabricated by some "being". If it was, there would no longer be a point to searching.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Ok, I lied, I'm back.
This is the basic problem when you try to "reverse engineer" something that isn't understood. It can be as simple as "that's the combination, that by accident, worked", which is why the other versions, if there were any, aren't still in existence. It doesn't imply anything.

It does imply something when so many "accidents" are required to result in functionality, yet accidents normally result in mahem.

Try reverse engineering one of my pizzas and see how many "accidents" there were on the way to that airy, light, crunchy crust. It is guided every step of the way by consciousness, and if it weren't you'd have a pasty blob at best.

I say, it is only because people so want to believe accidents plus physicalness can achieve high levels of organization that they ignore what they actually know about accidents and physicalness from having observed their chaotic, usually-destructive ways every day of their lives.

 

[loseyourname]

I would also be wary of these claims of Dr. Glicksman. Not to say he is necessarily incorrect (I don't personally know), but given the debunking of Behe's irreducible complexity examples, there may very well be examples in the biological sciences of reduced forms of these systems he is citing that do function.

The positive thing about irreducible complexity, however, is that it is a scientific claim in that it is falsifiable. If the hypothesis is simply "X is composed of A, B, and C and cannot function without all three parts" and we find out that, in fact, there exists some system Y that is composed of A and B, but not C, that nonetheless still serves some function, then the hypothesis would be falsified. I would actually think that these proposed "irreducible" systems might make for a fruitful area of investigation for molecular biologists (they usually seem to be molecular systems).

 

[Tisthammerw]

Besides, we already killed ID in GD.

Please see post #146 of this thread.

 

[Tisthammerw]

I would also be wary of these claims of Dr. Glicksman. Not to say he is necessarily incorrect (I don't personally know), but given the debunking of Behe's irreducible complexity examples, there may very well be examples in the biological sciences of reduced forms of these systems he is citing that do function.

I'd be cautious about declaring that Behe’s claims (when it comes to whether a biochemical system is irreducibly complex) have been debunked. At least some of these “debunkings” are a result of misunderstanding. See an excerpt from this web article for instance:

Professor Doolittle argued that new laboratory work showed two components of the blood clotting cascade could be eliminated ("knocked-out") from mice and the mice got along fine without them. However, Doolittle misread the laboratory work: the double knock-out mice have severe problems and have no functioning blood clotting system.

It's seems implausible to me that Behe, a competent Ph.D. biochemist, could get something so basically wrong regarding which parts are necessary for a biochemical system to function. (Read the rest of the web article, it contains some good comments regarding other criticisms.)

The positive thing about irreducible complexity, however, is that it is a scientific claim in that it is falsifiable. If the hypothesis is simply "X is composed of A, B, and C and cannot function without all three parts" and we find out that, in fact, there exists some system Y that is composed of A and B, but not C, that nonetheless still serves some function, then the hypothesis would be falsified. I would actually think that these proposed "irreducible" systems might make for a fruitful area of investigation for molecular biologists (they usually seem to be molecular systems).

I agree, with some modification. System Y would only be a counterexample if it serves the same function as system X (if you keep in mind what Behe means by irreducibly complex). Irreducible complexity doesn’t make evolution of that system logically impossible, but it does present a significant obstacle. If all the parts are needed of a complex system to function, one would have to show some evolutionary advantage for each part added, and that advantage can’t be “making the biochemical system [e.g. blood clotting] better” because by definition all the parts are needed to serve the given function. One could get around irreducible complexity by saying that each part added served a different evolutionary advantage for the creature. Behe claims that with horrendously intricate irreducibly complex biochemical systems, that sort of thing is not plausible (especially since that sort of rigorous explanation has never been done). Time will tell whether Behe is correct regarding if we’ll eventually find a way to overcome the problem via the mutation-selection mechanism.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm going to have to get back to you on the specific debunking of Behe's claims that I'm thinking of, as I am pretty certain that they cannot be found on the web. If I can track them down, I'll post them here.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I would also be wary of these claims of Dr. Glicksman. Not to say he is necessarily incorrect (I don't personally know), but given the debunking of Behe's irreducible complexity examples, there may very well be examples in the biological sciences of reduced forms of these systems he is citing that do function.

I agree that IC can be logically discredited. From my own perspective, it has to be questionable if for no other reason than I believe all life did develop step-by-step. But I think IC is relevant in another way when we toss in that pesky Cambrian explosion. I’ll be quoting from the following article which I offer as an objective assessment:

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/tifni/misc/cambrianexplosion.html

“Half a billion years ago, during this "evolutionary big bang," life evolved at rates of over twenty times the Precambrian rate. From approximately 535 million years ago to 520 million years ago, nearly all the animal phyla in existence today (and many that are no longer with us), save the Bryozoa, first appeared in the fossil record. While this does not necessarily entail that all animal phyla came into existence during the Cambrian explosion – some scientists believe that the "explosion" was a change in climate that produced conditions favorable for the fossilization of preexisting phyla – the evidence for a period of astounding diversification of life is overwhelming. The animals that made their abrupt appearance during the Cambrian explosion are ancestors of virtually all the creatures that swim, fly, and crawl today.

Until recently, scientists believed that phyla evolved over a ridiculously short period of 75 million years. In 1993, a group of researchers from M.I.T. and Harvard did some zircon dating in Siberia, then took the Cambrian period, chopped it in half, and stomped down the evolutionary boom to the first 5 to 10 million years. ‘We now know how fast fast is,’ grinned Samuel Bowring of M.I.T. in an interview with Time magazine. ‘And what I like to ask my biologist friends is, How fast can evolution get before they start feeling uncomfortable?’

In order for all but one of Earth’s phyla to have evolved in that period of time, the rate of genetic variation had to have been off the scale compared to what we see now. Since much of the biochemical “pre-adaptive” evolution Dr. Glicksman points to had have occurred then too (to produce gender, eyes, metabolism, neurons and brains, bones . . . ) what we have is something far more than the occasional providential pre-adaptive accident. The success rate of supposedly “accidental” genetic variation would have to be astonishingly efficacious (compared to what’s observed today) in both producing pre-adaptive chemistry and new organs. What might account for that sort of success rate? The article continues:

“The possible causes of the Cambrian explosion are as numerous and whimsical as the animals it created. Predation is a popular explanation. The appearance of multicellular grazers prompted the appearance of multicellular predators. Initial signs of predation appear just before the Cambrian period. The appearance of hard, protective shells in the late Precambrian may indicate the incipience of a biological arms race. Another popular explanation is the ‘empty barrel’ hypothesis, which compares Cambrian creatures to settlers and the biosphere of the time to the American West.

Paleobotanist Douglas Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution points to homeotic homeobox genes as the Precambrian triggers of the Cambrian explosion. These genes, also called Hox genes, control embryonic development. Primitive multicellular organisms such as jellyfish have 3 Hox genes. Now scientists believe that around 550 million years ago, some worm-like creature expanded its Hox cluster to six genes. ‘Boom!’ shouted Jablonski in his interview with Time. ‘Life crossed some sort of critical threshold.’

Researchers at Caltech and the University of Puerto Rico revealed a literally earth-shattering possibility in 1997. The Cambrian explosion might have been detonated by a rollover performed by the crust and mantle of the Earth. Such acrobatics, prompted by a phenomenon known as true polar wander, involved continental drift ten times the normal rate (i.e. 30 centimeters per year, a blatant violation of the "plate tectonic speed limit"5). The dramatic shift, which took place over a mere 15 million years, coincided with the Cambrian explosion.

Continental flip-flop began with the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia at the North Pole at a time when Gondwanaland stretched from the South Pole to the equator. Because a spinning sphere is most stable when most of its mass lies at the equator, the Earth was thrown off balance by its extensive polar mass. The entire crust and mantle slid over the core, 90 degrees, to return the continents to the equator.

Such a tumultuous change in climate and ocean circulation swiftly fragmented large-scale ecosystems to create smaller, more isolated populations. These populations branched in an eruption of riotous divergent evolution. Groups of species, isolated from each other, evolved rapidly into different species in a process known as speciation and adaptive radiation. Radiation allowed organisms to inhabit new niches and increase diversity, a process that mysteriously left little evidence of transitional forms in its wake. No new phyla, besides the Bryozoans, have emerged since the Cambrian explosion. Scientists speculate that extensive adaptive radiation filled all available niches, leaving no room for additional phyla. Neither has such gargantuan genetic variation occurred since that period. Possibly, once life became as complex as it did in the Cambrian explosion, organisms could no longer risk major changes in physiology. Even miniscule variations in the genetic code could prove fatal, just as one erroneous gene coding for an enzyme might render a creature unable to survive."

Yes, but how can any of those suggestions explain the Cambrian’s genetic variation? They might help explain speciation, but none of it accounts for the enormous level of genetic variation needed to produce such numbers of new organs and the associated biochemistry (which must include pre-adaptive development), or sufficiently different “selecting” conditions than the world as a whole offers today, or the time to achieve the selection by way of “incremental changes” so often sited as the way to explain the complex functionality that impresses so many human observers of life. But most importantly, what’s stopping genetic variation from being what it once was, whether any of the variation is selected or not? There is no doubt that the robustness and effectiveness of genetic variation today is nothing like it was during the Cambrian period.

And right here is where those of us open to some sort of organizing force or universal consciousness may see possibilities. If, for instance, the genetics of Cambrian life forms were being manipulated purposely to produce great variety, then we’d need neither so large an amount of genetic variation as dumb evolution requires, nor as much time for change to occur.

While Biblical creationism may not make much sense, the idea that intelligence has been involved in evolution can answer some of the mysteries just as well or better than any physicalist theory currently offers. And it certainly proposes no more speculation than those trying to justify the Darwinian belief system.

The article concludes by at least acknowledging (refreshing to hear from an apparent physicalist) the problem all theories have explaining evolution:

“The Cambrian Explosion leaves us humans, 500 million years later, with the most puzzling of questions. The Cambrian rocks of the geologic column contain a proliferation of complex life; however, no trace of predecessors to such complex and sometimes offbeat organisms is to be found in Precambrian rocks. For example, the evolution of vertebrate fish from invertebrate animals, which wore exoskeletons and left no traces of turning their exoskeletons inside out to produce vertebrae, remains a gaping hole in the evolutionary timeline. Thus the Cambrian explosion raises questions about Darwin’s grand theory of evolution.

Creationists exploit the Cambrian explosion as evidence that the Biblical record of creation is true. Then God said, ‘Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures.’ So appeared the abundant fish and marine life that appeared during the Cambrian explosion. These ‘stationary or slow-moving’ creatures were the first to be overwhelmed by the mud and silt of the Deluge, and they were fossilized to be discovered half a billion years later.

The existence of such a plethora of conflicting hypotheses, all of which are viable, some of which seem fantastic, may instill a sense of doubt in the reader as to whether any of them correctly explain the mystery of the Cambrian explosion. In my opinion, a propitious combination of true polar wander, predation, and an increase in the number of Hox genes provides the most satisfactory and comprehensive explanation. I tend to doubt the creationism hypothesis not because of a prodigious lack of faith, but rather because the creationists seem to embrace it too heartily and ignore the conspicuous incongruities between Genesis and current ‘scientific’ beliefs. However, the true polar wander hypothesis is relatively new and has been challenged in Science, where it was first published. The unstoppable advance of science may eventually reach a firm conclusion as to what triggered the Cambrian explosion. For now we must continue to wonder about and wonder at this remarkable and baffling proliferation of life.”

 

[Les Sleeth]

I'm going to have to get back to you on the specific debunking of Behe's claims that I'm thinking of, as I am pretty certain that they cannot be found on the web. If I can track them down, I'll post them here.

Well, I've read exceptions to IC, such as the development of hemoglobin, and that is why I said Behe's concept can be logically discredited. But it doesn't mean that all of life could actually have evolved relying on so many pre-adaptive developments advance life forms would have required. So I think "debunk" is too strong of a word to use. I might have said that there are logical answers for allowing at least some types of pre-adaptive evolution to occur, which renders IC less than an ironclad principle.

 

[Conehead]

Sorry if I'm a downer, at first I thought this was a serious discussion, but I guess you guys are having fun discussing it on a different level, so have at it. Sorry to intrude.
Besides, we already killed ID in GD.

Shoot. No worries. It's tough having all these geniuses crammed into one small chat room.

I hope you properly sedated ID first.

 

[loseyourname]

Paleobotanist Douglas Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution points to homeotic homeobox genes as the Precambrian triggers of the Cambrian explosion. These genes, also called Hox genes, control embryonic development. Primitive multicellular organisms such as jellyfish have 3 Hox genes. Now scientists believe that around 550 million years ago, some worm-like creature expanded its Hox cluster to six genes. ‘Boom!’ shouted Jablonski in his interview with Time. ‘Life crossed some sort of critical threshold.’

Not that my personal opinion carries much weight, but this is the explanation that I personally hitch my wagon to (of course, I'm not an evolutionary researcher, so that frankly makes no difference).

The key to remember here is that the development of phyla did not necessarily require any more genetic variation than exists today. It simply required variation in certain genetic loci that had noticeable morphological consequences. For instance, one variation on the hox genes could result in six limbs and another in four. One results in a spinal cord and another doesn't. The vast differences from phylum to phylum seen today most likely evolved to fit these new body types, rather than the other way around.

Another fact about the Cambrian explosion that I would point out is that the rocky outcroppings in Cambria created a perfect environment for the preservation of fossils. It isn't necessarily the case that all of these animal phyla actually came into existence that suddenly. It is also possible that the conditions in Cambria were what came about suddenly and that is the reason we see a huge explosion in the number of fossils found then.

All of this being said, I am really only adding to the possibilities you have already cited and not trying to say I actually have any answers. The explosion is certainly a phenomenon that cries out for explanation, but it isn't really something that makes me think that there was any kind of intelligence dictating the way in which mutations were taking place at that time. Heck, maybe there was some kind of astonomic phenomena or a disruption in the Earth's magnetic field that greatly increased the level of mutagenic cosmic rays reaching the surface and that caused variation to explode. Whatever happened was likely to have been a happy and unlikely coincidence, but let's face it, happy and unlikely coincidences have to happen at some point somewhere.

 

[Tisthammerw]

Well, I've read exceptions to IC, such as the development of hemoglobin, and that is why I said Behe's concept can be logically discredited.

It should be pointed out that Behe doesn’t claim that all biochemical systems are irreducibly complex, just that some (e.g. the blood clotting cascade) are.

Lest anyone misunderstand (and I’m not saying you’re claiming otherwise Les Sleeth), hemoglobin is related to blood clotting obviously (in that hemoglobin is found in blood) but even finding a rigorously developed way to evolve hemoglobin doesn’t solve the cascade problem, since more is needed for it to work.

 

[Tisthammerw]

I'm going to have to get back to you on the specific debunking of Behe's claims that I'm thinking of, as I am pretty certain that they cannot be found on the web.

Incidentally, Doolittle's criticism was first published in the Feb/March 1997 Boston Review, not on the Internet (though to be fair Doolittle's “refutation” of the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade can now be found on the web).

 

[loseyourname]

Incidentally, Doolittle's criticism was first published in the Feb/March 1997 Boston Review, not on the Internet (though to be fair Doolittle's “refutation” of the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade can now be found on the web).

The criticisms I am thinking of were published by Kenneth Miller as part of his book Finding Darwin's God, in which he infers the existence of God to justify his Christian faith using cosmological and ethical arguments, but only after first dismissing the most popular attacks on naturalistic evolution, insisting that divine intervention in the process actually runs contrary to Christian doctrine. It's quite refreshing to see a devout Christian who is not only not threatened by Darwinism, but indeed sees it as an affirmation of his faith.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Paleobotanist Douglas Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution points to homeotic homeobox genes as the Precambrian triggers of the Cambrian explosion. These genes, also called Hox genes, control embryonic development. Primitive multicellular organisms such as jellyfish have 3 Hox genes. Now scientists believe that around 550 million years ago, some worm-like creature expanded its Hox cluster to six genes. ‘Boom!’ shouted Jablonski in his interview with Time. ‘Life crossed some sort of critical threshold.’

The key to remember here is that the development of phyla did not necessarily require any more genetic variation than exists today. It simply required variation in certain genetic loci that had noticeable morphological consequences. For instance, one variation on the hox genes could result in six limbs and another in four. One results in a spinal cord and another doesn't. The vast differences from phylum to phylum seen today most likely evolved to fit these new body types, rather than the other way around.

I appreciate any arguments you can make against my point that what happened during the Cambria period speaks against purely mechanistic genetic variation plus natural selection as the cause. Your suggestion for the “key to remember,” however, only shifts what’s uncharacteristic from the amount of variation to the quality of variation. It seems to me it has to be one or the other, and I see quality as an even bigger problem than quantity if high-functioning organization is to come about mechanically.

No matter what, if it’s chemistry and physics that are deciding the variation, you still end up dependent on a dumb decision-making process to produce genetic variation.

The explosion is certainly a phenomenon that cries out for explanation, but it isn't really something that makes me think that there was any kind of intelligence dictating the way in which mutations were taking place at that time. . . . Whatever happened was likely to have been a happy and unlikely coincidence, but let's face it, happy and unlikely coincidences have to happen at some point somewhere.

Although your preference expressed here is the view of a great many scientific thinkers, I totally do not understand the logic of it. Why do you believe that “happy and unlikely coincidences” are more likely to cause a high level of functionality than intelligence?

To me, there has to be a basis for faith in a process. Set up any non-living naturally-occurring situation you please and observe the degree of high-functioning organization that develops. There are few “happy and unlikely coincidences,” and certainly nothing reveals itself as capable of organizing itself into a living system. Most accidents are entropic, not constructive, so where is the basis for faith in accidents?

Similarly, the genetics within a living system have no mechanical reason to vary to the benefit of the organism. Why would any set of environmental conditions, whether polar wander or mutagenic cosmic rays, increase the percentage of genetic variations useful to the development of organs? Why would Hox genes do anything more than increase numbers (i.e., rather, again, than quality)? Why should we believe natural selection will do anything except “select” superficial changes that will either assist in mating or avoid being eaten? For organ development, where is the evidence genes can vary sufficiently or that natural selection would repeatedly chose a variation potentially valuable for something still many evolutionary developments steps away from being able to be utilized?

So in one theory we have no observational basis for faith in mechanics to achieve high-functioning organization on their own, and no observational basis for faith in genetic variation and natural selection to create organs/organisms in 5 to 10 million years.

What does the intelligence theory have to offer? Well, on this planet, the only organizing force we have ever observed creating high-functioning organization is . . . yep, consciousness (I am one of those who believe that all animal life exhibits a degree of consciousness). If consciousness is the only known force like that, then why isn’t it a contender amongst the speculations of what is behind great organizational mysteries like abiogenesis or the Cambrian explosion?

There is only one reason I can see and it is because physicalistic theorizers don’t like the idea of consciousness-guided evolution, and are committed a priori to a mechanistic accounting whether it makes the most sense or not.

 

[Fliption]

Intelligent design is nothing but a veiled attempt to argue that we were created by an omnipotent being. So let's see how intelligent our design really is.

I haven't read through this thread so forgive me if this has been pointed out but your arguments are against an omnipotent being, which may or may not having anything to do with intelligent design. Surely you aren't arguing that I am not intelligent simply because the house I built has flaws?

 

[Tisthammerw]

The criticisms I am thinking of were published by Kenneth Miller as part of his book Finding Darwin's God, in which he infers the existence of God to justify his Christian faith using cosmological and ethical arguments, but only after first dismissing the most popular attacks on naturalistic evolution, insisting that divine intervention in the process actually runs contrary to Christian doctrine. It's quite refreshing to see a devout Christian who is not only not threatened by Darwinism, but indeed sees it as an affirmation of his faith.

Indeed it is refreshing. It should be noted however that I and many other Christians have no religious problem with Darwinism (of course, there are many more conservative Christians who do have religious problems with it). Behe for instance is himself a Roman Catholic who was taught that evolution was part of God's way to create life. It wasn't until he became convinced for scientific reasons that orthodox evolution was not entirely correct (he doesn't completely reject common descent, but does believe there were instances of artificial intervention).

But more to the point, you can find Behe's response to Miller (in addition to a few other people) here. Incidentally, Miller (I believe) doesn't dispute the fact that the blood-clotting cascade is irreducibly complex in the book you were talking about, though he does claim that evolution of the cascade can still occur. Miller talks about things not related to blood clotting cascade of vertebrates (which Behe was talking about) and despite his somewhat lengthy description of how blood clotting works, his proposed model of evolution only takes up one paragraph. Behe claims that Miller's proposal here ignores critical details (e.g. the issue of regulation in blood clotting) and thus doesn't do an adequate job of overcoming the problem of irreducible complexity. On this point I think he's right. Miller's proposal really doesn't go into sufficient detail at all. (Incidentally, for those who have attempted to debunk Behe’s claims regarding global disciplinary failure to explain how Darwinian means could have evolved certain complex biochemical systems, ignoring critical details seems to be a common problem.)

 

[loseyourname]

Although your preference expressed here is the view of a great many scientific thinkers, I totally do not understand the logic of it. Why do you believe that “happy and unlikely coincidences” are more likely to cause a high level of functionality than intelligence?

I'll respond to the rest later, but I have somewhere to go. Just on this point, it's not that I think a 'happy coincidence' is more likely to produce the needed conditions than intelligent guidance. It's that, given what we know of intelligence; that is, its existence seems to be contingent upon the existence of organisms with complex brains, I think it is more likely that there was no intelligent force around in the pre-Cambrian Era capable of creating the needed conditions. It's simply a world-view. When my crops are dying and suddenly a great rain hits despite the weatherman giving a 0% chance of precipitation, in the middle of a terrible drought, I do not see providence; I simply see luck. These things are bound to happen at some point and so I am not particularly surprised nor impressed by them. By the same token, despite the huge chain of 'happy coincidences' that needed to occur for something like the Cambrian explosion to take place, I don't stand in awe and fall back on an appeal to some intelligent guidance because I have no difficulty believing that improbable things can and will happen with or without intelligent intervention.

It almost seems to me as if proposing an explanation like that is just giving up. Nature, if it operates mechanically and predictably, can be understood. The Law of Universal Causation and the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature underpin the inductive reasoning that governs the way we live our lives. It is a key human intuition that nature is uniform; that is, the same laws of behavior apply under similar conditions, no matter the time and place. If we propose an explanation contrary to this intuition and say "the Cambrian explosion took place when it did and how it did not because of any laws of nature that can be understood, but simply because an intelligent force decided that it would," then we've lost the underpinning of our inductive reasoning. Suddenly things happen in nature simply because some force beyond our grasp decides that that is what is to happen. This is the kind of animistic reasoning we see employed in the old Greek Epic Poetry, wherein events occur for no reason other than the whims of powerful personal forces that cause events to occur. If nature is truly like this, then we must call into question whether or not science is even truly possible. Seeing how successful science has been makes me think it almost certainly is possible, and well-justified, and that nature does behave in a predictable manner that can be understood (allowing, of course, for the possibility of a certain arbitrariness to behaviors at the quantum-level that I would personally like to deny, but really can't at this point given the preponderance of evidence).

 

[Evo]

Try reverse engineering one of my pizzas and see how many "accidents" there were on the way to that airy, light, crunchy crust. It is guided every step of the way by consciousness, and if it weren't you'd have a pasty blob at best.

I've read of your pizzas and that, I have to admit is, without doubt, the creation of a divine being.

 

[Tisthammerw]

It's simply a world-view. When my crops are dying and suddenly a great rain hits despite the weatherman giving a 0% chance of precipitation, in the middle of a terrible drought, I do not see providence; I simply see luck.

Did you ever see the movie Signs?

 

[loseyourname]

Did you ever see the movie Signs?

Nope. I would like to point out another problem I have with 'intelligent-design' hypotheses. That is, they assume the existence of the very thing they are trying to explain, which becomes question-begging. Let us say that there was some intelligence behind the process that resulted in the evolution of intelligent organisms on the planet earth. Well, evolution is itself a theory that attempts to explain how complex things like intelligent organisms can exist in the first place. If we simply postulate that it was the result of choices made by a separate intelligence, all we've done is postulate the existence of another entity that begs for explanation. It might be convenient to think of intelligence as fundamental, but it isn't particularly satisfying.

 

[Psi 5]

Nope. I would like to point out another problem I have with 'intelligent-design' hypotheses. That is, they assume the existence of the very thing they are trying to explain, which becomes question-begging...

Excellent point, if you assume we are the result of intelligent design then you have to assume the designer is also a result of intelligent design, and the designer's designer, ad infinitum.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I would like to point out another problem I have with 'intelligent-design' hypotheses. That is, they assume the existence of the very thing they are trying to explain, which becomes question-begging. Let us say that there was some intelligence behind the process that resulted in the evolution of intelligent organisms on the planet earth. Well, evolution is itself a theory that attempts to explain how complex things like intelligent organisms can exist in the first place.

So many unwarranted assumptions, so little time.

Evolutionists are trying to explain something that existed long, long before anyone was able imagine evolution theory. Why should our attempts to explain evolution mean anything to the causes of evolution itself? The forces behind evolution are whatever they are, and just because some group wants to look at it a particular way doesn’t mean that is all evolution is.

If we simply postulate that it was the result of choices made by a separate intelligence, all we've done is postulate the existence of another entity that begs for explanation.

Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether it’s true or not. Just because it’s possible that you can’t study it empirically, or explain it mechanistically, or even account for it ever at all, doesn’t mean you get to redefine reality in such a way so you can explain it. What sort of truth-seeking is that? If there are things beyond the human intellect then there are.

It might be convenient to think of intelligence as fundamental, but it isn't particularly satisfying.

Satisfying to whom? Do you mean satisfying to mechanistically-oriented thinkers? I think the convenient thing is on the other foot, on those who want to define creation purely in terms of what they are most competent at doing. The truths of reality don’t necessarily belong to any class of thinkers no matter how much they want to pump up the importance of, or are attached to, a particular epistemology.

Just on this point, it's not that I think a 'happy coincidence' is more likely to produce the needed conditions than intelligent guidance. It's that, given what we know of intelligence; that is, its existence seems to be contingent upon the existence of organisms with complex brains, I think it is more likely that there was no intelligent force around in the pre-Cambrian Era capable of creating the needed conditions.

Anthropomorphism everywhere! A non-anthropomorphic statement might say that given what we know about human intelligence . . . Why would you assume human intelligence is the end-all in intelligence? Creation has been around maybe 130,000 times longer than modern humans, and then before that is a complete mystery.

If the only bike riding you’ve ever done has been using training wheels, are you justified in believing the only bike riding possible is with training wheels attached to a bike? As you have likely heard me propose before, it is a perfectly reasonable that the brain is housing, focusing, and organizing a more general realm of consciousness from which we originate. While in the brain, we are subject to it fully and that accounts for why brain manipulation affects human consciousness.

One way this proposal is supported is the reports of successful meditators who disassociate from the brain in the deepest meditation, not to mention the reports of those meditators encountering a greater realm of consciousness during the separation. But of course, we’re just going to ignore and dismiss those reports aren’t we since they can’t be investigated through mechanistic epistemology.

It's simply a world-view. When my crops are dying and suddenly a great rain hits despite the weatherman giving a 0% chance of precipitation, in the middle of a terrible drought, I do not see providence; I simply see luck. These things are bound to happen at some point and so I am not particularly surprised nor impressed by them. By the same token, despite the huge chain of 'happy coincidences' that needed to occur for something like the Cambrian explosion to take place, I don't stand in awe and fall back on an appeal to some intelligent guidance because I have no difficulty believing that improbable things can and will happen with or without intelligent intervention.

We aren’t talking about the religious concept of divine intelligence being involved in the details of everyday life. We are talking about why we should believe billions of happy accidents occurred in a ridiculously short time to form organs and organisms by genetic variation and natural selection alone. My proposal for including some sort of universal intelligence in evolution is practical, not out of religious commitment.

It almost seems to me as if proposing an explanation like that is just giving up. Nature, if it operates mechanically and predictably, can be understood. The Law of Universal Causation and the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature underpin the inductive reasoning that governs the way we live our lives.

Well, there you have it. Because it is how you want your mind to operate, you think you are justified in defining all of reality a certain way. This is externalizing and projecting one’s mental penchant for a type of study onto reality.

See, if you said that all YOU want to look at is what’s mechanical or predictable, that would perfectly fine. The problem with too many of the mechanistic guys these days is they are also preaching general ontology to the world. Their personal predilections are being broadcast into society, not as the mechanists’ personal preference (and limitations?), but as though they see the whole truth of reality with their favored epistemology.

It is a key human intuition that nature is uniform; that is, the same laws of behavior apply under similar conditions, no matter the time and place. If we propose an explanation contrary to this intuition and say "the Cambrian explosion took place when it did and how it did not because of any laws of nature that can be understood, but simply because an intelligent force decided that it would," then we've lost the underpinning of our inductive reasoning.

First of all, who says a universal intelligence isn’t bound by more basic laws of reality? We don’t have to adopt tired old religious concepts for our creationary consciousness. It doesn’t have to be all powerful or all knowing, eternal or infinite, supernatural or angry. It could be, for instance merely an organizing force.

And why do you keep making it an “either-or” situation? Why can’t there be both natural laws and intelligence? Our own lives are like that aren’t they? There is nothing counterintuitve about intelligence “deciding” is there? Don’t you, intelligence, decide?

My decision to let my pizza dough retard in the refrigerator for two days and using an enzymatically active ingredient was a conscious decision based on observing what the extended wait and enzymes achieved. But, it was also a decision based on the laws entailed in the breakdown of complex starches. I could “choose” to ignore how flour behaves under certain conditions, but then I can’t take advantage of the potentials I want. So being creator means not just creating an end product, and it doesn’t mean one is all powerful; it means understanding, working with, and submitting to the limitations and potentials of a natural situation.

Suddenly things happen in nature simply because some force beyond our grasp decides that that is what is to happen. This is the kind of animistic reasoning we see employed in the old Greek Epic Poetry, wherein events occur for no reason other than the whims of powerful personal forces that cause events to occur.

Why all the assumptions? Who says it has to be “whimsical”? And there already are great forces beyond our control. What is so unusual about that?

If nature is truly like this, then we must call into question whether or not science is even truly possible.

You’re doing the “either-or”thing again (and being a bit overdramatic). Of course science is possible! How could you even propose such a thing? The issue isn’t if science is possible, but if science can answer all the questions. Isn’t this what you want, to be safe and secure in your belief that you have the only epistemological skills you need to know reality? Would it be so terribly, awfully, dreadfully horrible if you just might have to learn another epistemological skill to be fully wise?

Seeing how successful science has been makes me think it almost certainly is possible, and well-justified, and that nature does behave in a predictable manner that can be understood (allowing, of course, for the possibility of a certain arbitrariness to behaviors at the quantum-level that I would personally like to deny, but really can't at this point given the preponderance of evidence).

Either-orism again. Nature does behave in a predictable manner and it can be understood. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something else which has to be understood in a different way, with a different epistemology. This “something more” can make sense and obey fundamental universal laws too, even if they are a different set of laws than those applied in physical settings. Why assume the only natural laws that exist are those which manifest in physicalness and mechanics? What’s wrong with the assumption that once it is all understood, there won’t be any contradictions, and it all will fit together perfectly?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Excellent point, if you assume we are the result of intelligent design then you have to assume the designer is also a result of intelligent design, and the designer's designer, ad infinitum.

Not so. Why couldn't consciousness have accidentally developed out of some set of unconscious conditions before the universe did, kept evolving for eons, and then participated in creation? You already assume the universe came about accidentally, and you assume consciousness came out of that. Since we know consciousness is possible (because we exist) why must we assume consciousness has to develop via physicalness? Why? Why? Why? () What's the big freakin' deal?

 

[loseyourname]

So many unwarranted assumptions, so little time.

Les, you say the same thing to everybody and it gets tiresome, especially for someone who complains about others painting with a broad stroke. Nonetheless, I will address every point you brought up, even though we're going to end up in the same discussion that has been played out between you and countless others for the last three years in seemingly every thread you participate in, rather than a discussion of what I was actually bringing up.

Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether it’s true or not. Just because it’s possible that you can’t study it empirically, or explain it mechanistically, or even account for it ever at all, doesn’t mean you get to redefine reality in such a way so you can explain it. What sort of truth-seeking is that? If there are things beyond the human intellect then there are.

Notice my wording. If nature behaves in a manner that we cannot grasp, fine, I will have to accept that. What I said was the positing this as an explanation does not explain anything. It is simply giving up. It is permanently pasting a big huge question mark in place of an answer.

Satisfying to whom? Do you mean satisfying to mechanistically-oriented thinkers?

No, I do not think it should be satisfying to anybody. Intelligence is an incredibly complex thing. The ability to weigh options and make a rational choice is something that needs to be explained, especially in the context of the incredible amount of information that would be needed to control evolution at the molecular level. If there is some force out there making the decision to go G->A instead of G->C, then the existence of that force is just as mysterious as the existence of biodiversity in the first place. Are you beginning to see the point I'm making instead of just grouping me in with everything you hate about scientism? It isn't that it's completely impossible that there might be a choice-making entity controlling the lowest levels of nature, but that if there is, then we've only pushed back what we need to explain one step further.

The truths of reality don’t necessarily belong to any class of thinkers no matter how much they want to pump up the importance of, or are attached to, a particular epistemology.

I have never cited any particular epistemology, but I do hold to empiricism, as do you. And empiricism is based upon the twin foundations of universal causation (all events are caused) and the principle of the uniformity of nature (the laws dictating natural behavior do not change across time or space). If these are not true, and sometimes a G->A will take place, and other times a G->C will take place, under the exact same circumstances, then we run into a genuine problem. On the one hand, just like quantum mechanics, this might not have any pragmatic consequences to anyone other than a quantum physicist. On the other hand, there is the very real prospect that such a reality would call into question all inductive reasoning.

Anthropomorphism everywhere! A non-anthropomorphic statement might say that given what we know about human intelligence . . . Why would you assume human intelligence is the end-all in intelligence?

I'm not talking about human intelligence. We have never encountered any form of intelligence that was not connected to an organism (or possibly a computer) of some sort.

As you have likely heard me propose before, it is a perfectly reasonable that the brain is housing, focusing, and organizing a more general realm of consciousness from which we originate. While in the brain, we are subject to it fully and that accounts for why brain manipulation affects human consciousness.

Consciousness is not the same thing as intelligence. Do you have to turn every discussion into a discussion of union and consciousness? If you think intelligence can also be dissociated from the brain, you're going to have a much more difficult time making your case. Why do our brains carry out computations at all then? Why does it take more brain activity to solve a difficult problem than a simple one? If the brain is simply a relay station for an intelligent entity that resides in something other than space, why do we not see nothing other than relaying taking place in the brain? All we should see are signals being received and sent. There would be no reason for all of the processing that takes place.

One way this proposal is supported is the reports of successful meditators who disassociate from the brain in the deepest meditation, not to mention the reports of those meditators encountering a greater realm of consciousness during the separation. But of course, we’re just going to ignore and dismiss those reports aren’t we since they can’t be investigated through mechanistic epistemology.

No, I'm not. For the last time, stop grouping me in with everything you hate about scientism. I'm serious. This has been pissing me off for almost a year now. I am giving your reports serious consideration. As far as I can tell, you report feeling a sense of unity. You have never said that you sensed a greater force that carries out computations and makes decisions. If you honestly have, then fine, I guess I will have to take your word for it. And if you've honestly sensed this force intervening at the molecular level of nature, I'll have to take your word for that, too.

First of all, who says a universal intelligence isn’t bound by more basic laws of reality? We don’t have to adopt tired old religious concepts for our creationary consciousness. It doesn’t have to be all powerful or all knowing, eternal or infinite, supernatural or angry. It could be, for instance merely an organizing force.

I'm not arguing against an organizing force. However, intelligence (what I am arguing against) is not merely an organizing force. Intelligence is the ability to know ahead of time what phenotype will be expressed by a given mutation and making the decision to go in that direction over another. If you want to argue for an organizing force, fine. You might enact a revolution in thermodynamics and it's quite possible that there really is a special property of living matter that causes it to behave against the laws of thermodynamics as we now know them. I'm not going to bet on that one, but it's certainly possible. That, however, is not intelligent design.

And why do you keep making it an “either-or” situation? Why can’t there be both natural laws and intelligence? Our own lives are like that aren’t they? There is nothing counterintuitve about intelligence “deciding” is there? Don’t you, intelligence, decide?

Sure, but I wasn't around during the pre-Cambrian era. If there was something capable of making the computations I am capable of making around back then, then it needs to be explained.

Why all the assumptions? Who says it has to be “whimsical”? And there already are great forces beyond our control. What is so unusual about that?

It's not that it has to be whimsical. The Greek gods often did things for what could be argued to be a good reason. The point is that the nature we know seems to behave uniformly (again, we have the principles of induction). If, for several hundred million years in the west of Wales back in Cambrian times, mutations took place according to different principles than they do today, then we have a problem. The entire study of chemistry becomes problematic because that would mean things are occurring in the beakers that aren't necessarily going to occur tomorrow, even if you duplicate the conditions exactly. Granted, Hume already left with that problem to some extent, but at least he wasn't able to find any real examples of causative laws being broken.

Then again, statistical dynamics does allow for aberrations, so it's entirely possible that I am just being melodramatic, but that doesn't mean these are not legitimate concerns. I'm not making this up. These issues have been discussed by epistemologists for hundreds of years at least and you aren't just going to sweep them under the rug.

Either-orism again. Nature does behave in a predictable manner and it can be understood.

Not if nucleotides behaved differently in pre-Cambrian times than they do today.

This “something more” can make sense and obey fundamental universal laws too, even if they are a different set of laws than those applied in physical settings. Why assume the only natural laws that exist are those which manifest in physicalness and mechanics?

These two statements are not compatible with the rest of your post. We are discussing the laws that govern the behavior of nucleotides, basically. These are the things that need to change to create genetic variation. They are physical entities, and so when they do change (G->A, a basic point mutation), they do so according to physical laws, correct? On the one hand, here, you are granting that, and saying that there might exist a different set of entities that are not physical and do not obey physical laws. Fine. On the other hand, you are saying that this non-physical entity can also intervene in physical affairs, causing one mutation to occur rather than another (or, if you believe in irreducible complexity, then postulating that this non-physical entity actually constructs sub-cellular structures from scratch). This means that matter at some point must behave in a manner contrary to physical laws.

 

[Psi 5]

Excellent point, if you assume we are the result of intelligent design then you have to assume the designer is also a result of intelligent design, and the designer's designer, ad infinitum.

Not so. Why couldn't consciousness have accidentally developed out of some set of unconscious conditions before the universe did, kept evolving for eons, and then participated in creation? You already assume the universe came about accidentally, and you assume consciousness came out of that. Since we know consciousness is possible (because we exist) why must we assume consciousness has to develop via physicalness? Why? Why? Why? () What's the big freakin' deal?

Sure it's possible, but which designer? The one that designed us or the one that designed him? Or was it the one before that?

 

[loseyourname]

Before you go off again about my close-mindedness, allow me to explain what it is that I am at least trepidatious about, if not necessarily closed to the possibility. I have no problem postulating the existence of non-physical entities. I have no problem postulating that subjective consciousness is a non-physical entity.

These, however, are not what you are postulating. You are positing the causal non-closure of the physical world. You are saying that sometimes physical events are caused by non-physical entities that do not obey physical laws. Hence, sometimes physical entities behave contrary to physical laws. This is what I have a problem with, and your union experiences are not going to get you around this. This is where you are wrong and I actually am considering the reported qualities of your experiences. According to you, you dissociate from the physical world to a higher, more fundamental (or, more properly, different - everything else is speculation) realm. You have never once reported that you experienced a non-physical force manifesting a physical effect. You've never experienced a physical entity behaving contrary to physical laws.

Rather, you are extrapolating from your experience of the existence of a non-physical entity. What happens is that you see holes in evolutionary theory. You see that known physical laws might have some difficulty accounting for these holes. So you postulate "hey, maybe that thing I experience in union has something to do with it." You are extrapolating, which is fine, but stop pretending like everyone is ignoring this other realm of evidence that some non-physical entity is involved in evolution. You have no evidence other than your own speculation that this entity you experience had anything whatsoever to do with the Cambrian explosion.

 

[Tisthammerw]

Nope. I would like to point out another problem I have with 'intelligent-design' hypotheses. That is, they assume the existence of the very thing they are trying to explain, which becomes question-begging.

How so? The very thing they are trying to explain is life on Earth. Obviously this theory assumes life on Earth exists, but how is this question begging?

Let us say that there was some intelligence behind the process that resulted in the evolution of intelligent organisms on the planet earth. Well, evolution is itself a theory that attempts to explain how complex things like intelligent organisms can exist in the first place. If we simply postulate that it was the result of choices made by a separate intelligence, all we've done is postulate the existence of another entity that begs for explanation.

Perhaps so, but that isn’t the same as circular reasoning (question-begging). And ID doesn’t propose to explain the ultimate origin of complexity or anything else; just life on Earth. Suppose for instance we find a nuclear power plant on Pluto. It would not be question-begging, incoherent, or anything of the sort to infer design even if we don’t know who the designer is or where the designer came from. We might well ponder such questions as where the designer came from, but that hardly implies design is an illegitimate explanation.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Sure it's possible, but which designer? The one that designed us or the one that designed him? Or was it the one before that?

You missed my point. I postulated the first "designer" to be a set of conditions which accidentally established consciousness. Aren't accidental conditions what you believe first manifested the physical universe, and then within that where consciousness developed? Why couldn't accidental conditions have produced an evolving consciousness first?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Before you go off again about my close-mindedness, allow me to explain what it is that I am at least trepidatious about, if not necessarily closed to the possibility. I have no problem postulating the existence of non-physical entities. I have no problem postulating that subjective consciousness is a non-physical entity.

I wasn't saying you are closed-minded, I was saying that you seem to have embraced some epistemological and ontological assumptions prematurely, and those a priori assumptions are affecting what you accept and reject as plausible. To me you still seem pretty open-minded, but I admit I believe you also have externalizing-type filters in place which leave you less than neutral.

In fact, you admitted exactly what your filters are when you said “It almost seems to me as if proposing an explanation like that is just giving up. Nature, if it operates mechanically and predictably, can be understood. The Law of Universal Causation and the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature underpin the inductive reasoning that governs the way we live our lives.” On the one hand you claim you are open, yet that is (or leads to) pure physicalist epistemology and ontology if I’ve ever heard it.

What does “giving up” mean other than you are committed to a purely mechanistic explanation? But more to the point, not everyone agrees that reason alone should govern our lives. Some people have learned to trust our feeling nature; and among those, some others of us have taken feeling quite deeply to where it has become like another of the senses. That brings me to something you said in your previous post I want to address before I answer your specific point of this post.

You claim I can't drop the union thing. Well, that's only because virtually everybody around here talks like sense experience is the only way to know. It isn't me who is obsessed with a single epistemological method! I accept all that can produce results.

I am trying to crack the prematurely “decided” mind who seems to think what it's doing epistemologically is all that’s worth doing. You may be sick of hearing my complaint about it, but I am probably about as sick of hearing that same narrowly-educated perspective over and over and over. I could drop it and let people speculate blind to how another epistemology has been successful. Is that what you want? Who else is sticking up for all varieties of experienced-based knowledge-seeking around here rather than only what’s my personal preference? Are you?

Union in particular comes up because of threads about God, intelligent design, etc. Those utterly ignorant (and I do mean utterly) of what some people have achieved inwardly insist on applying outward evaluation techniques to everything. I don't see any other way to challenge their assumption that an externalizing epistemology is the only way to know, and their general belief that all inward-acquired knowledge is either nonsense or untrustworthy.

At least my opinions on innerness are derived from decades of study; they are scholarly, not baseless speculations. Plus I’ve gone to the trouble to practice what I’ve studied, and that helps me to understand why so many of the inner practitioners have reported an experience of “something more.” I mean really, what kind of opinion do you want offered here at PF on the source of God reports? Would you prefer me to justify my opinions by quoting the Bible or Koran or Bhagavad Gita or . . .

If Jesus and the Buddha, and Nanak, and Kabir, and Moses, and Mohammad, and . . . (I have a long list but most people don't know who they are) really did realize something through an inner epistemology, haven't they had a tremendous impact on human consciousness, and far more than science? So how are my repeated, well-researched references to what I claim was their epistemology (union) less justified than the scientism devotee's incessant reference to empirical epistemology?

These, however, are not what you are postulating. You are positing the causal non-closure of the physical world. You are saying that sometimes physical events are caused by non-physical entities that do not obey physical laws. Hence, sometimes physical entities behave contrary to physical laws.

This is a complete misunderstanding of my position. I have never (show me the quote if you disagree) suggested anything contrary to physical laws. In fact, if you read what I said in my last post to you it was, "What’s wrong with the assumption that once it is all understood, there won’t be any contradictions, and it all will fit together perfectly?" I have consistently proposed one set of bottom-line laws for existence of which all that we see is the result of different conditions of that one thing, and that that one thing is neither physical nor conscious. It is "neutral."

So physicalness is what that one thing looks like under a certain set of conditions, and consciousness is what that one thing looks like under another sets of conditions. In a way it doesn’t matter whether the one thing exists (though I’ve cited evidence it does); what matters most is that it opens the door for a way of exchanging ideas that is neither religious nor physicalistic. For the most part, it is the “fundamentalists” in both camps who are least willing to open their minds to the neutral approach.

In terms of neutrality, if both physicalness and consciousness share the same ground state, it doesn't mean one can be explained with the "conditional principles" of the other. Physical conditions require a physical explanation, and consciousness conditions require another explanation. Of course, if one is determined to explain everything only physically or spiritually, then anything that doesn't fit one's ideas will be rejected.

continued in the next post

 

[Les Sleeth]

(continued from the previous post)

According to you, you dissociate from the physical world to a higher, more fundamental (or, more properly, different - everything else is speculation) realm.

NO! I disassociate from physical CONDITIONS. And it isn't "higher," it is "broader" because physical conditions are far more structured and concentrated.

You have never once reported that you experienced a non-physical force manifesting a physical effect.

That is incorrect. I have claimed that I, as consciousness, am a non-physical being that can manifest physical effects; I am here doing that every day. But I am saying I can separate from the "conditions" that determine physicalness and experience myself apart from that. Of course, if I want to participate in biology, I have to return. Nonetheless, in that experience it is clear that I am not limited to physical conditions in order to exist.

To those lacking the ability to separate from physical conditions, they have no basis for judging my claim. I understand this, and don’t expect to be “believed” by them. However, anyone can study the long history of reports, so even if you are determined to remain sense/brain-bound, you can still investigate and see that the consistency of the reports over time and across a verity of cultures gives reason to respect the reports.

You've never experienced a physical entity behaving contrary to physical laws.

That is correct.

Rather, you are extrapolating from your experience of the existence of a non-physical entity. What happens is that you see holes in evolutionary theory. You see that known physical laws might have some difficulty accounting for these holes.

Some difficulty? I wouldn't have a problem with "some difficulty," but I do have a problem with proposed physical properties that have NEVER been known to exist. Why should the weight of (dis)proof be on me for such assertions?

For example, please demonstrate the potential of physicalness to perpetually self-organize, which is what life seems capable of. It isn't me that is suggesting physicalness possesses this never-before-observed potential. It is only me, free of commitment to a belief system, who looks at that and thinks it's a crock. And by a "crock" I don't mean perpetual self-organization isn't possible; the crock to which I refer is that nothing yet warrants faith in perpetual physical self-organization happening. Yet all the physicalists express their undying faith that it really did happen. To my mind that's religion, not science.

I don’t think you quite get me. I am resisting blind faith, and to me it makes no difference whether the spiritual side or the scientific side is doing it, either way it’s the same sort of ignorance.

So you postulate "hey, maybe that thing I experience in union has something to do with it." You are extrapolating, which is fine, but stop pretending like everyone is ignoring this other realm of evidence that some non-physical entity is involved in evolution. You have no evidence other than your own speculation that this entity you experience had anything whatsoever to do with the Cambrian explosion.

Oh yeah. Put 'em up (just kidding). But you seem to employ a double standard when it comes what’s acceptable to extrapolate with. You don't have one bit of evidence that physicalness can perpetually self-organize, or that genetic variation and natural selection created virtually all the phyla in 5 to 10 million years. It doesn’t stop the physicalist crowd (and like it or not, your opinions consistently align with physicalism) from extrapolating the whole of existence is physical does it?

At least I have the logic of experience with accidents and physicalness that have virtually without exception shown it is incapable of anything creative. My preference for the "gap" is based on observing something (consciousness) that is known to behave in an organizing, creative manner. What you have for the gap is something which in real life has shown itself to be nothing more than a dumb, dead, mundane potential. So why do you think physicalist extrapolations are superior?

My experience from debating people here is that some individuals feel more comfortable with what they can touch, see, smell . . . i.e., sense experience. This potential I speak of where one can develop a non-physical sense takes work. So if you are someone disinclined to do the work, you are left at the mercy of other’s reports, which isn’t within the comfort zone of sense experiencers.

Here’s what I consistently offer as the solution. I don’t say others have to learn union, only that one should realize how much work has been done in this realm and that it is from union adepts that the most powerful and consistent reports of “something more” have come. I also say it isn’t fair to evaluate the question of “something more” based on religion, which has strayed too far from the original experience.

And then I suggest that physicalists stop ontologizing to the public IF they are representing their view as an objective “most likely.” I am not saying people can’t have their personal belief in physicalism, or they can’t express it as long as they don’t represent their personal belief as objective reporting. Right now physicalists theories are very often presented in such a way that they gloss over the huge gaps in the theory, as though we all have every reason to have faith that physicalist theories can (or soon will) explain all of existence. At best that is the delusion of blind faith, and at worst an out and out deception.

What would be fair is to openly acknowledge where the gaps are, and to stick strictly to presenting what physical factors are known. Leave out all direct or implied physicalistic “most likelies.” So no textbooks get to say, all life evolved through natural selection and genetic variation. Instead they have to say only what natural selection and genetic variation are known to have done, which as of now is merely superficial changes to an organism. They can’t say life “most likely” self-organized itself in Earth’s early oceans. They have to say evidence indicates life appeared first in the ocean; how, no one knows. What made chemistry organize into life, and what evolved organisms are to be left utterly untouched by either side.

This issue is only going to get more contentious you know. As I pointed out to Wave, a lot of smart people are starting to challenge physicalists’ exaggerations, so the dubious strategy of claiming “if you only knew more science you’d see the basis of our faith” isn’t going to work. Anyone who understands logic and human psychology can study the evidence and see what’s going on.

 

[wave]

You say I offer speculation, but what do you think much of evolution theory is?

That doesn't justify your complaint. Why should Evolutionists put a disclaimer in their theory to suggest there might be something nonphysical involved, when proponents of the nonphysical can't even define what that "something" is? I've asked you several times to define something, yet you have refused to do so. What would you do if scientists tell you "union is missing something, but we won't tell you what it is"? Does that give them justification to say union is inadequate in exploring the "inner dimension" and demand that you say so each time you address the public?

All you can prove is that life forms evolved in stages over time, and that natural selection-genetic variation can produce superficial changes.

That's a strawman, since you have refused to define "superficial". Do you seriously expect me to show you a counter example when you won't define what constitutes a non-superficial genetic change? So please tell me, what types of deletion, duplication, inversion, translocation, transposition, etc. are "superficial"? Do you have a concrete definition, or is it an ethereal concept that depend on your discretion?

For example, Dr. Howard Glicksman... http://www.arn.org

ARN? Oh... you mean http://www.creation-science.com" .

Towards the end of his article on how Vitamin D could have evolved http://www.arn.org/docs/glicksman/eyw_031104.htm he asks:

Which function did the liver cell develop first: the ability to start the activation of Vitamin D or to produce the Vitamin D transport protein? What good would it be for the liver to be able to start the activation process of Vitamin D if it hadn’t first produced the Vitamin D transport protein so that the Vitamin D could come to the liver in the first place? And what good would it be if the Vitamin D transport protein was able to transport Vitamin D, but the liver couldn’t start the activation process? And when did the kidney develop its ability to apply the final activating step without which Vitamin D activity in the body would be so reduced that intestinal absorption of calcium would be seriously hampered to the point of certain death? When did the intestinal cells develop a receptor that was specific for activated Vitamin D? Before or after Vitamin D could be activated? If before, what usefulness would they have for the body without activated Vitamin D? And if after, then how did activated Vitamin D exert its effect on the intestinal cell?

There is a subtle assumption in his argument that make the system seem paradoxical. For instance he assumes that the liver metabolize Vitamin D to 25-hydroxyvitamin D, so that the kidney can further metabolize it into 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. Then he asks why would the liver evolve the ability to produce 25-hydroxyvitamin D, unless the kidney can utilize it (and similarly for the converse). However, the liver could have produced 25-hydroxyvitamin D for a different purpose prior to its coupling with the kidney. Likewise, the kidney could have received 25-hydroxyvitamin D from a different source prior to its coupling with the liver. That is one of many possible evolutionary pathways that could have produced such a deceptively inseparable mutual dependence. His argument is only an interesting question worthy of investigation rather than evidence against Evolution, until we find some evidence to suggest there is no possible evolutionary pathway. Many systems have evolved to become mutually dependent and seemingly "irreducibly complex", so Vitamin D is not a special case. There are many well-studied and refuted examples such as blood clotting cascade and tricarboxylic acid cycle that IDists and Creantionsts like to use.

We don't have a single claim regarding Evolution to which we can investigate with union.

What makes you think you can investigate every damn thing with science?

What makes you think that?

What I have been saying is:

PHYSICALISTS ARE PROMOTING PHYSICALIST ONTOLOGY TO THE PUBLIC IN THE GUISE OF OBJECTIVE FACTS ABOUT EVOLUTION.

Having sealed their minds tight against all avenues of knowing and thought except physicalness they, for example, convince the supreme court to let them teach physicalist ontology to our children.

I've replied to that objection several times - I will only defend why scientists don't promote nonphysical theories . If you propose one in a sensible way then you would have reason to complain. Otherwise we have no nonphysical theories to promote and there is no use complaining. We can't teach what we don't have. Do you understand? So can you give us a theory without running into those issues I mentioned in my previous post?

Then aren't you guilty of your own charge? Who made you the keeper of "humanity's epistemological keys"? Why are your claims any better than those of "inexperienced" practitioners? Similarly, can you dismiss other nonphysicalists such as psychics and mediums without being a hypocrite?

Scientism devotees like to pretend they've got the epistemological keys because it is they who want to subject everything to scientific scrutiny and dismiss all that fails their tests. Where do you see me demanding physical factors be studied spiritually?

That is not my point. I am saying you can't use union to dismiss contradicting nonphysical claims without being a hypocrite.

For someone so smart you sure do miss the point. Who is asking you accept a claim?

I was only explaining why we can't accept nonphysical claims if someone were to make one.

 

[moving finger]

Perhaps so, but that isn’t the same as circular reasoning (question-begging). And ID doesn’t propose to explain the ultimate origin of complexity or anything else; just life on Earth. Suppose for instance we find a nuclear power plant on Pluto. It would not be question-begging, incoherent, or anything of the sort to infer design even if we don’t know who the designer is or where the designer came from. We might well ponder such questions as where the designer came from, but that hardly implies design is an illegitimate explanation.

I guess what loseyourname is really getting at is that ID does not so much “explain everything”, as just move the explanation out to another level. Of course, this is enough for some people (eg “now that I know God created me, I do not need to know where God came from”), but in science saying simply “we were designed that way” is not enough, it is simply replacing one question with another.

MF

 

[Huckleberry]

I think another bit of evidence against intelligent design is the fact that the universe works by the laws of logic. That's right, logic implies a natural universe, not a created one. Why would an omnipotent being create a logical universe, just because he could? It would be better for his purposes to create a universe of magic and chaos where there were no logical physical laws. There would be no need for an infinite universe. The stars only need to be lights in the heaven. Another words, the universe only needs to be what people thought it was when religions were created. The logic of the universe has only become apparent in recent history, long after religion was invented.

I think this evidence argues against your conclusion. I do not believe that the universe works by the laws of logic. I believe that logic is designed by humans to explain the laws of the universe. Perhaps humans are the intelligent designer of both logic and God, and we use them to categorize explained and unexplained (magic) phenomena.

To assume that the universe has logic that it uses to create laws implies that the universe is capable of thought and hence capable of intelligent design.

I am not very clear on where the argument between creationism and evolution is in your argument. I see more reason for an intelligent designer to create a frail, imperfect creature than a perfect one. It is our imperfections that make life a struggle. Through the choices we make against these struggles we shape the people we become and the people around us. Will we choose to be wise or will we be foolish. Probably a little of both since we are imperfect. Evolution assumes that a species will not survive in an environment that it cannot adapt to. I don't mean short term survival of an individual here, but overall survivability of the entire species. So if we choose wisely we will be much more likely to survive. Where is the conflict between these two theories? Am I misinterpreting something?

What's wrong with an omnipotent being creating life just because it can? What other reason could an omnipotent being possibly have? If it already knows the beginning and end of all things then there is no reasaon for experiment. So if there is an omnipotent being that created us then I must assume that it created us just because it could.

 

[Tisthammerw]

I guess what loseyourname is really getting at is that ID does not so much “explain everything”, as just move the explanation out to another level. Of course, this is enough for some people (eg “now that I know God created me, I do not need to know where God came from”), but in science saying simply “we were designed that way” is not enough, it is simply replacing one question with another.
MF

Even if true, it is difficult to see why that would be a legitimate criticism in this case. Take for instance my thought experiment of finding a nuclear power plant on Pluto. We can rationally infer design even if we don't have a clue about where the designer came from, who the designer is etc.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I guess what loseyourname is really getting at is that ID does not so much “explain everything”, as just move the explanation out to another level. Of course, this is enough for some people (eg “now that I know God created me, I do not need to know where God came from”), but in science saying simply “we were designed that way” is not enough, it is simply replacing one question with another.
MF

What is the difference between moving the explanation to a creationary consciousness level, or sticking in never-before observed physical principles in the gaps?

Well, as I argued earlier, at least what the ID person fills the gap with, intelligence, has been observed acting creatively and with the ability to organize toward high functionality; while what the physicalists fill the gap with is strikingly dumb, plus when physical accidents occur (which is a large part of physcialist creation theory) usually changes are dis-organizing, not progressively self-organizing.

So tell me, whose faith is most supported by observation, is most logical, and therefore is most justified?

 

[Rade]

Well, as I argued earlier, at least what the ID person fills the gap with, intelligence, has been observed acting creatively and with the ability to organize toward high functionality; ...

This is not correct, the ID person fills the gaps with god, which is outside natural causes, (e.g., the supernatural). Human or material based intelligent design is NOT part of ID philosophy, it is part of organic theory of evolution and thus explained, no ID argument is required to explain human or machine intelligence. Anyone that accepts ID argument of origins of universe and/or life on Earth must by definition operate outside logic of science which is constrained by using laws of nature to study nature--what is hard to understand that this is how science is constrained--science does not attempt to answer all questions. ID folks operate outside scientific method because they do NOT use laws of nature to define "intelligence", they use a supernatural first cause. Take for example the common mistake that ID folks accept that life on Earth first came from another place in universe, this is an organic based argument and within theory of explanation by organic evolution, it does not form part of ID philosophy for the simple reason that it is based on materialism, and if ID philosophy is anything, it is anti-materialism in terms of first cause. Now, I have no problem with folks having a belief in the ability of a supernatural agent using ID to create something as a first cause-effect, it is basic thinking to many religions based on belief (e.g., an anti-materialism philosophy), but let us not call this thought process "science"--it is not. And, of course, this is the reason why ID folks have been so busy trying to get local school boards in the USA to "redefine science" to allow the supernatural first cause to be something that science can study -- surely you are aware of this anti-scientific religious based political movement that is going on at this time in history to redefine science to allow anti-materialism to be a subject of valid science ? -- take a look at the Dover PA trial now in progress:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/30/MNGVNA3PE11.DTL