Arguing Against Intelligent Design

[InfiniteNow]

Your own appeal to ignorance on the subject is not a valid description of the actual process which took place.

[modest]

The generally accepted framework for discussion of the Cambrian explosion is that we grew from three phyla to approximately 70 phyla over a relatively short window, about 250 million-300 million years. We subsequent dropped to the (approximately) 30 phyla we have today.

 

You contend something of evolution and our environment will not allow this? Is that the idea?

 

-modest

[Biochemist]

Your own appeal to ignorance on the subject is not a valid description of the actual process which took place.

I don't think you are in a strong position on this to assert the ignorance of others. And your hostile reaction to anyone who deigns to disagree with your position is not generally appreciated by participants on this site.

[Biochemist]

You contend something of evolution and our environment will not allow this? Is that the idea?

The core driver of the Punctuated Equilibrium thesis (offered in 1972 by Gould and Eldredge) was that 1) the fossil record, although admittedly incomplete, was adequate to assert that gradualism was not the norm throughout phylogenetic history, and 2) major changes in body plans seem to arrive "suddenly" after long periods of stasis. At the time, this was a significant departure from accepted dogma. It is still a contested position today.

[Erasmus00]

I'm adding my own argument against intelligent design.

 

The problem is that arguing AGAINST a current theory is not proof positive for a new theory. I.e. raising scientific doubts with speciation by mutation (for instance) does not demonstrate that Intelligent Design must have happened.

 

Too much of both creationism/intelligent design seems to concentrate on attacking current theories instead of providing an alternative theory.

 

I would argue that this is because there really isn't much to intelligent design. Behe promotes irreducible complexity BUT gives no objective criteria on which to judge whether a system is irreducibly complex. Science has to be about objective definitions that can be applied. He gives an example of a mousetrap as something he feels is irreducibly complex, but others have pointed out that they can imagine ways that mousetraps could "evolve." I think this points more to the fact that his definition is subjective then any real scientific controversy.

 

Dembski, a mathematician wrote a whole book in which he argues for a concept he dubs "specified complexity" but nowhere in his whole book does he rigorously define his concept in a mathematical sense.

 

Until Dembski or Behe come up with objective definitions and practices that can be used to define their predictions, I don't feel they are doing science.

-Will

[modest]

2) major changes in body plans seem to arrive "suddenly" after long periods of stasis.

 

That certainly did seem to happen again with mammals after the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event - and much quicker.

 

I think the tendency is to get caught on the phyla aspect. But, all that means to me is it happened first. Categorizing the different forms as phyla is a modern distinction that didn't matter at the time. Animals of the Cambrian didn’t know they were to be the progenitors of such a large tree of life. From their perspective what happened was no different (that I can tell) from Tertiary mammals.

 

If 20 or 30 million years is long enough for a hippo like animal to turn into a whale like animal via gradualism then I honestly don't know what problem we're trying to solve with ID. Then, of course, there's the fact ID doesn't solve anything as it doesn't propose anything. :)

 

-modest

[Biochemist]

This is an outstanding post, Eras

The problem is that arguing AGAINST a current theory is not proof positive for a new theory. I.e. raising scientific doubts with speciation by mutation (for instance) does not demonstrate that Intelligent Design must have happened.

Agreed. Absolutely.

Too much of both creationism/intelligent design seems to concentrate on attacking current theories instead of providing an alternative theory.

Agreed again.

Behe promotes irreducible complexity BUT gives no objective criteria on which to judge whether a system is irreducibly complex.

Agreed again. I personally think that Behe did a poor job of structuring a falsifiable hypothesis.

I think this points more to the fact that his definition is subjective then any real scientific controversy.

It probably is. I still think the genre of discussion has merit. I personally think that most genetic coding for daughter species is resident in the code of the parent species. I find it extremely difficult to craft a falsifiable hypothesis on this assertion, even though I think the extant fact base support this position better than it support gradual speciation by mutation. I do think the weight of genomic sequencing over time will provide increasing support for my hypothesis. That is, I predict that we will continue to find a) complex new phenotypical expressions within daughter species that we cannot demonstrate were ever expressed to be "selected", and :) increased capability within the non-coding DNA segments to pre-sage specific, highly likely changes in the DNA coding segments. My assertion is that this propensity should not be called mutation, because is is far too circumscribed an activity to be thought of as mutative.

 

Now for my "science" argument. I think my assertion above could readily be attacked (as it should), and I think some might fairly consider my assertion as a sub-component of ID. I do NOT think it is productive to rule out evidence-based assertions because they are a) contrary to current dogma or :doh: have implications for theology. Ignore the theological implications and dig into the fact base.

 

I also think that open discussion of such ideas will generate other near-term, falsifiable hypotheses from other smart folks. That is what science is.

[Moontanman]

As InfiniteNow posted, 'god of the gaps'.

Within the methods by which human thought can understand, it has been proved that there are things we can not know, there is no default position.

 

Do you have anything you can back up that statement with? I have never read or heard that there is a limit to human knowlege unless we mange to know everything.

 

It's simple, at some time there was no life, at some later time there was life

.

 

Yes in a very simple way that could be ture but life didn't just appear over night and suddenly spread all over the world. The emergence of life took large amounts of time from our perspective. At least hundreds of thousands of years if not millions. It just looks a brief period of time when you look at from the stand point of geology.

[Biochemist]

If 20 or 30 million years is long enough for a hippo like animal to turn into a whale like animal via gradualism then I honestly don't know what problem we're trying to solve with ID.

Now THIS is a great topic. Could detail why you think this particular path is a good example of gradualism?

 

I would be tickled to take the other side of the argument as best I can. (I am not trying to set you up! This should be a great discussion!)

[modest]

Now THIS is a great topic. Could detail why you think this particular path is a good example of gradualism?

 

I would be tickled to take the other side of the argument as best I can. (I am not trying to set you up! This should be a great discussion!)

 

A better question is why haven't penguins turned into whales by now. Why did one species change at a rate far faster than the other. Perhaps gradualism is variable. Perhaps evolution isn't something you can set your watch by. Whales obviously didn't jump in the water and start eating plankton in one generation. Evolution is gradual - but that isn't a description of how long it takes for body plans to change. Saying such and such change or that divergence happened to quickly for gradualism places a restriction on gradualism that isn't there. Or, is it? Show me.

 

Do you believe the Cambrian and Tertiary changes were too quick for gradualism? I don't mean to hear the devil's advocate here. Do you have evidence that any changes in the record are too quick for know processes of evolution?

 

-modest

[modest]

I personally think that most genetic coding for daughter species is resident in the code of the parent species. I find it extremely difficult to craft a falsifiable hypothesis on this assertion, even though I think the extant fact base support this position better than it support gradual speciation by mutation. I do think the weight of genomic sequencing over time will provide increasing support for my hypothesis. That is, I predict that we will continue to find a) complex new phenotypical expressions within daughter species that we cannot demonstrate were ever expressed to be "selected", and :hihi: increased capability within the non-coding DNA segments to pre-sage specific, highly likely changes in the DNA coding segments. My assertion is that this propensity should not be called mutation, because is is far too circumscribed an activity to be thought of as mutative.

 

How can you reconcile this with your stated belief in common descent. Logically you must stipulate (to advocate both positions) something like the subject of common descent had genetic coding for future species.

 

Can you reconcile these?

 

-modest

[tmaromine]

I don't think it is reasonable to credit individuals who do not understand science as credible ID advocates. I suspect there are many folks that "believe in" Darwinian evolution, and who have laughably erroneous positions. Those are not the folks to defend the hypotheses.

 

Though, usually those that advocate ID are not credible in the sciences.

 

You got me on the rest...

[Biochemist]

Do you believe the Cambrian and Tertiary changes were too quick for gradualism?

Yes, I do. I have looked at the probabilities as best I can (I linked to a previous thread above someplace, where we crunched numbers aggressively on this topic) and I think it is very hard to postulate a mutative mechanism for this phase of evolution.

 

The relevant external thread was linked above in post #33, and there was some relevant discussion following.

[Biochemist]

How can you reconcile this with your stated belief in common descent.

Sorry, Mod. I am a little confused. My hypothesis requires common descent. I am just suggesting that daughter species do not typically arrive because mutations express and then are selected. I am suggesting that daughter species arrive because recessive alleles express, and the recessive alleles never had an opportunity to be selected on any sort of incremental basis. That is, we did not get a long series of incremental changes in codons and proteins. We suddenly got an entire, new functional gene. Not only was the gene functional, but it was recognized by internal cellular machinery as "native" and was not destroyed by the scavenger systems such as the lysosomes.

[REASON]

Since we are now disagreeing over the definition of ID, someone ought to post a defintion.

 

It seems to me that the name speaks for itself - Intelligent Design.

 

Part of the problem you appear to be having, Bio, is that you seem to be arguing a position which is not consistent with the name of this theory. You have stated that "some ID folks," including yourself, are not insinuating that a supernatural something is responsible, but that it can't be precluded. I don't know, this just sounds a bit slithery to me. It's like you're choosing to be noncommittal about any intelligent designer being associated with an Intelligent Design Theory.

 

ID is commonly understood to imply that a creator is responsible for the design and creation of all the complex and diverse life on this planet, and it must be so because there are inconsistent and undefined elements of Darwinian evolution. The argument is that the compositions of living structures are too complex to have developed naturally without design assitance. This is Creationism. There's really no need to mince words about it. It's understood.

 

Your argument (something other than serial mutation) should be clearly disassociated from Intelligent Design if you do not want to continue to be wrongly associated with those who intend on making the god connection. This might help others hone in on what you are actually trying to convey, and work toward a proper, natural explanation for the problems you see in gradualism. Of course, this would end up being a topic for another thread.

 

Would you agree?

[Moontanman]

It seems to me that the name speaks for itself - Intelligent Design.

 

Part of the problem you appear to be having, Bio, is that you seem to be arguing a position which is not consistent with the name of this theory. You have stated that "some ID folks," including yourself, are not insinuating that a supernatural something is responsible, but that it can't be precluded. I don't know, this just sounds a bit slithery to me. It's like you're choosing to be noncommittal about any intelligent designer being associated with an Intelligent Design Theory.

 

ID is commonly understood to imply that a creator is responsible for the design and creation of all the complex and diverse life on this planet, and it must be so because there are inconsistent and undefined elements of Darwinian evolution. The argument is that the compositions of living structures are too complex to have developed naturally without design assitance. This is Creationism. There's really no need to mince words about it. It's understood.

 

Your argument (something other than serial mutation) should be clearly disassociated from Intelligent Design if you do not want to continue to be wrongly associated with those who intend on making the god connection. This might help others hone in on what you are actually trying to convey, and work toward a proper, natural explanation for the problems you see in gradualism. Of course, this would end up being a topic for another thread.

 

Would you agree?

 

I wonder how fast the people who promote ID would back pedal if main stream science were to embrace ID and say we have irrefutable evidense that an alien society was responsible for the rise and course of life on Earth? No god, nothing supernatural just aliens with a lot of tecnology. I'm betting they would back pedal so fast they would leave burnt rubber on the floor:eek_big:

[modest]

Sorry, Mod. I am a little confused. My hypothesis requires common descent. I am just suggesting that daughter species do not typically arrive because mutations express and then are selected. I am suggesting that daughter species arrive because recessive alleles express, and the recessive alleles never had an opportunity to be selected on any sort of incremental basis. That is, we did not get a long series of incremental changes in codons and proteins. We suddenly got an entire, new functional gene. Not only was the gene functional, but it was recognized by internal cellular machinery as "native" and was not destroyed by the scavenger systems such as the lysosomes.

 

Regardless of when the gene expresses itself in a majority of the population - the gene itself came about via mutation. By definition and stipulation: if the first life form of common descent didn't have this gene (and it didn't come from little green men) then it was mutation. Mutation being the appearance of something new by change from what was before.

 

If you allow the gene to arrive by natural process then your theory is at odds with and not part of ID. It doesn't seem that different from what I've read of PE. Yes / no?

 

- modest