Eviscerating an Anti-ID Argument
A member of Telic Thoughts named Mark Frank commented about detecting design in this thread. Frank also mentioned having authored an article at the Talk Reason website. An article by Frank entitled, An account of how we detect design, is the focus of this blog entry.
A remark referencing the World Trade Center Twin Towers is quoted from the article.
"Suppose the twin towers had been hit not by planes but by two meteors, large enough to seriously damage the towers, and for the purposes of this fantasy suppose the meteors had no physical connection that we could discern -- they were from different sources and were following unrelated trajectories. Such meteor strikes are less frequent than commercial airplanes flying into buildings -- remember Schipol. So the probability of two such meteors striking the same location in the same day is even smaller than two planes striking the same location. Yet we would hesitate to ascribe the two meteors to design."
This is reasonable. Read the intervening part up to this remark which follows:
"In the second case of the meteors we are much less inclined to accept the design explanation -- even though the likelihood of it being accidental are even smaller -- because the idea of a designer who can control meteor strikes is so wildly implausible. We cannot conceive how they could do it."
First, control of a meteor is not as implausible as Frank would have you believe. It should be a possibility for a species like our own with access to a future technology. But what Frank has presented is a classic argument from personal incredulity. He cannot conceive of a designer having such a capacity and is eager to dismiss a design option based on that. Suppose instead of two meteors it had been four or eight. At what point does personal incredulity give way to empirical observations? There was a time in history when the idea that rocks fell out of the sky was ridiculed. It seemed so counter intuitive. Quantum physics, predictions of relativity and multiple universes seem counter intuitive to many as well. Let's look at this next quote:
"ID concentrates on just one thing: the improbability of the outcome given that the cause is chance." It does not address the likelihood of the rival causes existing (chance or design)."
This is clearly erroneous. As evidenced by ideas promoted at Telic Thoughts and elsewhere, it is our knowledge of the nature of existing systems that leads us to impute design. The above also would lead one to believe that Darwinian theories can be assessed based on selected chance events or deterministic causal factors. While an evolutionary process would allow an assessment based on this, an abiogenesis scenario would not. Darwinists simply do not have a theory of origins characterized by causal specificity. Unlike an evolutionary scenario, containing fully functional organisms and a natural selection paradigm as a key theoretical component, the origin of life has no natural mechanism known to generate cells. This is a critical point for, unlike the Twin Towers example, we have no identifiable cause empirically demonstrating an option that could be labeled counter design.
In addition we do have an identifiable property of cells that quacks like a designed duck- the symbolic encoding sequences of nucleotides found in DNA. Codons represent amino acids as well as the command sequences (initiate transcription, stop etc.) as a consequence of a genetic code that allows assigment of symbolism. The coding system parallels symbolic encoding systems known to be intelligently generated. The next comment merits a response as well.
"It goes even further than that. It explicitly forbids any exploration of design as a cause because it refuses to be drawn into who or what the designer is or how they implement their design."
Also untrue. IDists will go as far as evidence suggests to identify a designer. You simply do not need an exact identity to infer a designed event. What is inferred in the case of DNA is an intelligent cause because that is consistent with the nature of the information storage nucleic acid.
There is one more point needing mention. Anti-IDists have gone to considerable efforts to impose legal consequences for designer IDing that infers a deity. In the United States the separation clause is the weapon of choice. However, while on the one hand critics seek government enforcement of a no God option, with the other they call attention to an alleged reluctance to identify a deity. It's a good strategy if you can get away with it.
Labels: Anti-ID Strategies
posted by William Bradford @ 5:04 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
So you are saying you are OK with the idea of a Darwinian process as the explanation of the origin of species, but you are not okay with this process as an explanation for abiogenesis, which is fine because nobody is seriously offering it as such.
I'm not sure if your attempt here is to criticize the standard explanation for speciation here, or the confusion between abiogenesis and evolution - which seems to be a confusion actively promoted by proponents of ID.
There are many competing theories about how life got started; Darwin did not offer one and nor do the vast majority of evolutionary biologists for the simple reason that it is the domain of a completely different sphere of study.
Why is it that you feel the use of sequences in DNA is sign that "quacks like a duck". Computer memories can be thought of as sequences of symbols, however this is only an abstraction that helps us understand the general concept of a computer.
For reference; A byte is not like a codon. A bit is not like a base. The way a computer processes and gives meaning to bits of memory is nothing at all like the method by which DNA is transcribed to RNA which is used to code for proteins. The analogy just does not hold.
If you were to actually look at how a computer works you would not find a physical structure that is analogous to a chromosome. It's really hard to see what specific similarity you see between the cellular hardware and the clearly artificial computer hardware made of silicon.
Computers cannot tell us much about cellular biology, apart from the obvious fact that with a sufficient understanding of cellular biology we can model aspects of cells mathematically.
With enough understanding you can model anything (that is what I do for a living), but just because a computer can model a cell or a financial market we do not assume that a computer is LIKE a cell. That would be silly.
So what you are saying is that because you can begin to understand a grossly simplified model of genetic information by analogy to a grossly simplified model of computer system then you assume that the origin of one can tell you something about the origin of another.
It's an old argument, and unfortunately it betrays a misunderstanding both of computing and genetics and that is why anybody who studies either of these subjects will ever be convinced by it.
Another recent post cited a thread and specific comment at Telic Thoughts that delved into the significance of molecular symbolism.
I read that argument; I do not feel it is relevant to the point I was trying to make, which is that your "smoking gun" or "quacking duck" of computer information resembling genetic information does not hold up to scrutiny.
I will grant that there seems to be a resemblance between genetic sequences and sequences of bits on a computer tape. And since computer hardware deals with the same laws of physics that nature has overcome, the men and women who design computers have designed things that are analogous to things that have evolved in nature.
A good example is error correction; We know that error correction exists in almost every computer storage system. We also know about error repair proteins that help a cell correct itself in the event of moderate damage. These sound like similar concepts, but if you understand how they both work, we soon discover that they are fundamentally different things.
That is why I said it is a bad analogy that only works if you grossly simplify both what happens in computers and what happens in cells. The more you know about both the more you see how the analogy breaks down.
By the way; I'm not saying that insights from computer engineering cannot help us understand life: Of course they can, but we just have to know the limits of these insights. I think that is a very common mistake that underpins much of ID.
It's also something that ID people will need to get over because everybody outside the ID movement can spot it for what it is - bad logic borne from a misunderstanding of the fundamental science.
We need to be clear about exactly what analogies are made. Materialists argue that functional nucleic acids were the product of an unidentified force of nature; no intelligent causal component involved. The evidence for this is exceedingly weak, as no chemical process that is naturally generated without intelligent interference, is known to generate the symbolic coding systems evident in DNA.
Dobson writes:
And since computer hardware deals with the same laws of physics that nature has overcome, the men and women who design computers have designed things that are analogous to things that have evolved in nature.
The point of Bradford's post was in pointing out that our observations of genetic changes are viewed within the biological context of an existing, fully functional genome equiped with mechanisms enabling both its transcription, translation and the subsequent synthesis of proteins that the entire system operating together as a unit makes possible. To use the word evolution as indicating that the genome itself would evolve from a lifeless, prebiotic earth environment is to extrapolate beyond anything observable in nature or in labs. That type of "evolution" is purely speculative and ought not be conflated with the way evolution has traditionally been thought of.
We need to be clear about exactly what analogies are made. Materialists argue that functional nucleic acids were the product of an unidentified force of nature; no intelligent causal component involved. The evidence for this is exceedingly weak, as no chemical process that is naturally generated without intelligent interference, is known to generate the symbolic coding systems evident in DNA.
Pretty much most of science is founded on what you call "materialsm", the simple idea that we should seek natural cuases for natural phenomena. The fact that you feel that "materialism" is at fault and this somehow pertains the the origins debate means that you are suggesting a super-natural solution to the origins problem.
If I were to sumarize what I think your argument is; you are saying that since there is no hard evidence for how life got started (the stuff that happened before the theory of evolution becomes relevant), then one must rule out the whole thing.
Your support for this argument is inductive reasoning: You claim that no non-intelligent process is capable of generating DNA, and therefore the origin of the first DNA must have been supernatural.
Of course, we might use the same inductive reasoning in reverse: Since no supernatural phenomena have ever been shown to exist then it makes sense that the events leading up to the abiogenesis of life on earth were entirely natural. Of course, thjis little argument of mine would crash, or as you say be "eviscerated", if somebody could conclusivly demonstrate but one supernatural phenomena.
While I know there are some IDists who try hard to get away from the old argument by ignorance, this is precisely the argument you have just made: You are saying that WE DO NOT KNOW of any other thing other than design that might have imbued the first life with all it's interesting properties - therefore it must have been design.
At best this line of reasoning might lead you to an inconclusive notion that some design may have been involved, however unless some evidence is presented that supports your notion of the existence of super-natural things or perhaps hard evidence of something that could not have evolved then we know the ammount of designed stuff could be anywhere between 0% and 100%.
In so far as the theory of abiogenesis is concerned mainstream science has come up with a number of plausible sounding general schemes. I'm not aware of an origins scientist who claims to truly understand how it all happens, but they do claim that they have an idea of some of the chemical things that may have existed leading up to proto-life.
You might offer a hypothesis that states it's all a load of bunk, and since the theory is incomplete you reject the entire thing - feel free!. But if you want mainstream science to take you seriously you need to be able to explain more and not less.
Let us propose that a super-natural entity made the first life... well how did he do it? Who is the designer? Most scientific minds would consider these the most obvious interesting questions - questions that IDists currently refrain from answering.
So in summary, Your argument against evolution is really an argument against abiogenesis; Spesifically you state that the evidence is "weak", however nobody in the ID community is offering any kind of evidence at all for their own theories, this would seem to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
If I were to sumarize what I think your argument is; you are saying that since there is no hard evidence for how life got started (the stuff that happened before the theory of evolution becomes relevant), then one must rule out the whole thing.
Rule out what whole thing? There is nothing to rule in or out as far as chemical causality is concerned. The same goes for a process determined by natural selection. There is no selection process evident.
Your support for this argument is inductive reasoning: You claim that no non-intelligent process is capable of generating DNA, and therefore the origin of the first DNA must have been supernatural.
My actual argument is that our knowledge of the chemical make-up of nucleic acids indicates that there is no generating reaction that would assign symbolic meaning to codons. The assignment of symbolic meaning to matter is a familiar phenomenon. It is done with ink and newspapers. It can appear in the form of alphanumeric symbols on computer screens and in the form of inscriptions on stone. The nature of the medium is unimportant. What is important is the encoding convention that assigns meaning to symbols. UGG is symbolic for tryptophan. One of the predictions of intelligent design is that this is not a chemical necessity. UGG could represent lysine or tyrosine in a different genetic code. It could even signify a regulatory command. Nature's evidence is consistent with intelligent causality and intelligence is naturally manifested in our universe; available to be studied and understood. No theological treatises are required. Only an objective appraisal of molecular biological systems.
Of course, we might use the same inductive reasoning in reverse: Since no supernatural phenomena have ever been shown to exist then it makes sense that the events leading up to the abiogenesis of life on earth were entirely natural. Of course, thjis little argument of mine would crash, or as you say be "eviscerated", if somebody could conclusivly demonstrate but one supernatural phenomena.
If a man were to arise from the dead and I were to point to this as evidence of a supernatural event you and many others would counter that there must be an unidentified natural cause or some subterfuge involved. Fine. You are entitled to believe that which you wish to believe. What you are not entitled to do is rule out data linked to intelligence because of your opinions about philosophy and religion. One can reasonably confer plausibility to ID concepts because of a logical linkage of data to theoretical constructs without being obligated to concede anything about personal metaphysics. David Berlinski, who has a brilliant mind, has opted to take this course. He is not a religious man but is objective about inferences made from molecular biological systems.
While I know there are some IDists who try hard to get away from the old argument by ignorance, this is precisely the argument you have just made: You are saying that WE DO NOT KNOW of any other thing other than design that might have imbued the first life with all it's interesting properties - therefore it must have been design.
Wrong. I'm by no means trying to isolate a design inference from a competitive alternative. A scientific proposal becomes stronger when it is subjected to testing and counter theories. As it stands now abiogenesis is a monopolistic entity. It cannot be falsified as long as it adheres to excluding competing hypotheses. As it stands now all variations maintain loyalty to the concept of unguided chemical outcomes without specifying causal parameters. In this sense it is very much analogous to alchemy which identifed results without a causal pathway of getting there. Selection is not a valid theoretical construct in the absence of indicators as to what outcomes are selected and why.
In so far as the theory of abiogenesis is concerned mainstream science has come up with a number of plausible sounding general schemes. I'm not aware of an origins scientist who claims to truly understand how it all happens, but they do claim that they have an idea of some of the chemical things that may have existed leading up to proto-life.
I'm very much familiar with OOL research. Following it has become a hobby. OOL is implausible with respect to identifying empirical evidence supporting concepts like precursor cells and pathways to them.
Let us propose that a super-natural entity made the first life... well how did he do it? Who is the designer? Most scientific minds would consider these the most obvious interesting questions - questions that IDists currently refrain from answering.
You can make some inferences about the nature of a designer based on the designed end product. However, one is not going to come up with a who. We are better equipped to answer the what and how questions and base inferences about the nature of a designer on those answers.
So in summary, Your argument against evolution is really an argument against abiogenesis; Spesifically you state that the evidence is "weak", however nobody in the ID community is offering any kind of evidence at all for their own theories, this would seem to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
I have not made arguments against evolution in this post. The allegation that ID and evolution necessarily conflict is another in a long list of canards flung at ID. If you spent much time at Telic Thoughts, where debates about such issues involve more participants and readers, you would have realized that inferences about ID related to abiogenesis and evolution are a great deal more subtle than you suggest.
My actual argument is that our knowledge of the chemical make-up of nucleic acids indicates that there is no generating reaction that would assign symbolic meaning to codons. The assignment of symbolic meaning to matter is a familiar phenomenon. It is done with ink and newspapers. It can appear in the form of alphanumeric symbols on computer screens and in the form of inscriptions on stone. The nature of the medium is unimportant. What is important is the encoding convention that assigns meaning to symbols.
Again I do not think your case is made: You've pointed to something that you find quite puzzling, the fact that codons in DNA code for spesific amino-acids and quite sensibly ask: Where did this "symbolic" relationship come from.
Since you know that computers and books can be thought of as collections of symbols you argue that there is some kind of unspecified similarity between a spesific codon coding for a spesific protein and a word symbolising a concept. I can see why you would want to draw an analogy between what we find in a cell and our everyday experiences.
Nice argument, but I'm afraid it will not wash unless you can demonstrate that systems that have some kind of coding can only come about via purposeful intelligence. This notion is often asserted but has never been proven.
ID advocatss have consistently failed to show that a purely natural explaination is impossible. On the other hand, science has consistently demonstrated that supernatural explainations for phenomena are redundant.
And even if you could show that it was impossible for the origin of life to be a super-natural thing, the question remains: Which intelligence, how was it done? I'm not asking for the designer's social-security number, but it is reasonable to inquire is to the manner of being this designer you propose was and what evidence there is that he, she or it ever existed.
Sorry to keep going on about it; but it's one of the main reasons that the majority of life-scientists find ID to be intellectually vacuous, precisely because of the way it avoids answering any of these obvious questions.
The great lie behind ID is that pretty much every one who backs the idea thinks that the designer is God. Michael Behe and William Dembski certainly do, however not ever ID proponent is a strict biblical literalist - one canot escape the observation that ID is more about theology than science.
If a man were to arise from the dead and I were to point to this as evidence of a supernatural event you and many others would counter that there must be an unidentified natural cause or some subterfuge involved. Fine.
I was hoping that we were going to remain in the world of science, however I detect that we have veered of into theology: As far as I am aware, barring ER type resussitations of the nearly dead, there are no reliable accounts of long-dead people becoming living people. It's one of those things that does not happen, however much we hope it would.
Fairy-tails and myths are full of such things: For example the egyptian God Isis was supposed to have been killed and risen from the dead. Nobody takes these claims any more seriously than the absurd nonsense from Uri Geller.
Of course if somebody could produce evidence of the super-natural then you can truly strike a death-blow into what you call "materialism". At which point theories which first require a rejection of "materialism" such as ID might have a chance in the mainstream.
As I am sure you are aware, claims of ressurection and other paranormal phenomena are anything but conclusive; We might even call them controvercial.
By the way, I note in Michael Behe's Dover testemony he strongly implies that ID does not make much sense unless one first rejects materialism. Do you agree? Can one believe in ID without first rejecting the notion that natural phenomena must have natural causes? Do you believe that this designer is a natural or super-natural thing?
You can make some inferences about the nature of a designer based on the designed end product. However, one is not going to come up with a who. We are better equipped to answer the what and how questions and base inferences about the nature of a designer on those answers.
We do not need a name and address; We just need to determine the nature of this designer, and the kind of design process it put into place. Of course, if he had a name that would be great to know as well - but it's not as if he wrote it down anywhere is it?
There is no designed object on earth for which we can say nothing at all about the designer: For example archeologists can analyse a flint spear-head and say with a good degree of certainty which region the flint was mined from and how the object was made.
IDists on the other hand, claim that there is overwhelming evidence for design, yet not one scrap of evidence which identifies the designer or gives us a clue about his motives and methods. It's almost as if they are trying to create a mystery.
I have not made arguments against evolution in this post. The allegation that ID and evolution necessarily conflict is another in a long list of canards flung at ID. If you spent much time at Telic Thoughts, where debates about such issues involve more participants and readers, you would have realized that inferences about ID related to abiogenesis and evolution are a great deal more subtle than you suggest.
To state that there is no conflict between ID and mainstream science is clearly false!
I've yet to read anything (even after searching through TT) which clearly states which parts of life must have been designed and which just evolved naturally.
:-)
Again I do not think your case is made: You've pointed to something that you find quite puzzling, the fact that codons in DNA code for spesific amino-acids and quite sensibly ask: Where did this "symbolic" relationship come from.
Since you know that computers and books can be thought of as collections of symbols you argue that there is some kind of unspecified similarity between a spesific codon coding for a spesific protein and a word symbolising a concept. I can see why you would want to draw an analogy between what we find in a cell and our everyday experiences.
Actually much of science involves explanations through the use of analogies. Models themselves are analogies expressed through various tools, including but not limited to, mechanistic models and mathematics. The relevant ID model for symbolic representations would be intelligent expression. That is also a concept not unfamiliar to science.
Nice argument, but I'm afraid it will not wash unless you can demonstrate that systems that have some kind of coding can only come about via purposeful intelligence. This notion is often asserted but has never been proven.
The correct standard is the best model. Few believe any model (ID or otherwise) can conclusively be shown to be the cause of life.
To state that there is no conflict between ID and mainstream science is clearly false!
Most commenters at Telic Thoughts (mentioned by me in the comment) believe in evolution. Those who are also IDists either impute design at a preevolutionary stage, impute a cosmic version of ID, or impute a teleology present in an evolutionary process (Mike Gene describes this more eloquently than me). Then there are some who impute design at more than one level. To be clearer I should have stated that differences do not necessarily exist on the level of a mechanism or process. They certainly clearly exist on a philosophical level but then such disagreements are not empirically based which is something you need to bear in mind.
Actually much of science involves explanations through the use of analogies. Models themselves are analogies expressed through various tools, including but not limited to, mechanistic models and mathematics. The relevant ID model for symbolic representations would be intelligent expression. That is also a concept not unfamiliar to science.
As you pointed out previously; one should be careful not to confuse modeling something with the thing we are trying to model.
The fact that you can partially explain some aspects of a thing by analogy does not necessarily mean that one has found a limitless fount of knowledge.
In the case of genetic information compared with human information, we can see some superficial similarities, but a whole load of difference. Those similarities are not conclusive enough to allow us to know that computer information and genetic information have the same kind of origin.
The correct standard is the best model. Few believe any model (ID or otherwise) can conclusively be shown to be the cause of life.
Yes, I agree, the current speculation about the origin of life is very inconclusive. It may not be utterly wrong, but there is very little we can say definitely happened even if we have ample grounds to speculate on what kind of chemistry might have occurred all those millions of years ago.
But once again; the fact that we do not know something or cannot explain something does not give us grounds to invoke the super-natural or invent a "designer". Supernatural explainations of natural phenomena have been shown to be utterly redundant - why should OOL be any different to any other legitimate field of scientific inquiry?
Those who are also IDists either impute design at a preevolutionary stage, impute a cosmic version of ID, or impute a teleology present in an evolutionary process (Mike Gene describes this more eloquently than me).
I find the idea of front-loading quite interesting, however not a shred of evidence has ever been presented for this very weakly defined concept.
For example, if you take front-loading to mean that the "designer" set up the original proto-life with some kind of foreknowledge that eventually Homo Sapiens would evolve from it, then just how do we know what this designer allegedly knew? This claim seems to be utterly unprovable conjecture because it requires us to know what somebody was thinking about millions of years ago.
Another take on front-loading is that the designer did not have foreknowledge or a particular intent to create any specific species; This designer merely designed proto-life with the potential to evolve into other things.
Yet another variant is that the designer merely set up the fundamental constants of the universe with a knowledge of the values that would most likely bring about some kind of life somewhere in the universe. Life might have been an accident that was pre-destined to occur. This might be the most extreme form of front-loading I can think of.
Regardless of how you define "front loading" (and I would be interested to hear your own definition), I do not see what value this brings; Given that ID proponents have not been able to point to any evidence that tells us anything at all about this designer, it's motives or it's methods, and the fact that this designer is conspicuously absent today how on earth can we tell the difference between purposeful design and purposeless things that merely appear to be designed?
My final thought: Suppose there are some features of life that just evolved but look as if they are designed and there are others which did not evolve and are designed - how would you tell the difference between the two?
Both types of structure might appear to be "Irreducibly Complex" and contain what Dembski calls "Specified Complexity", so what other tools can an ID proponent use to differentiate these two kinds of feature?
To be clearer I should have stated that differences do not necessarily exist on the level of a mechanism or process. They certainly clearly exist on a philosophical level but then such disagreements are not empirically based which is something you need to bear in mind.
When I commented the first time I totally missed the last important lines, quoted above:
There are some ID folks who certainly do dispute whether the natural process of evolution can generate new species or novel adoptions. Since you do not have that issue, I will save a critique of that irrelevant position for another day.
The overriding problem I have with ID (as I understand you formulate it) is that I cannot see what practical, scientific difference it makes: As you say, it's a matter of philosophy not something empirically testable.
We cannot empirically test whether life has a purpose or what the hypothetical designer may have intended. Even the core ID idea, that certain things are best explained by design is not a scientific concept, but a value judgement - it's about which explanation seems "best" to the judge.
An observer who is convinced that supernatural things exist will have no problems with an a supernatural OOL explanation. On the other hand,
a sceptic who doubts that supernatural phenomena exists is unlikely to get past stage-one.
These seem to be perfectly valid questions to ask in the field of philosophy which need not be so limited. However I personally find the idea of non-materialistic natural science to be something of a tautology.
Do you agree?
On a dimly related point, I note that certain ID proponents (most notably Michael Behe) think that there is substantial material evidence that evolution could not account for all the species we see today. Have you read the claims he makes in his newest book?
The overriding problem I have with ID (as I understand you formulate it) is that I cannot see what practical, scientific difference it makes: As you say, it's a matter of philosophy not something empirically testable.
All empirical searches are conducted within a philosophical framework. We incoporate teleological approaches within research strategies but are careful to use terms like biological function in place of purpose. Practically speaking the terms are equivalent.
However I personally find the idea of non-materialistic natural science to be something of a tautology.
Do you agree?
No more tautological than the assumption that selected results are that which predominate outcomes and that dominant outcomes are selected. This is particularly vacuous in OOL scenarios where natural selection proponents are unable to specify why selection would proceed in the direction of a cell. One answer to Munson's question at the end of his recent post would point to guided or non-materialistic solutions.
On a dimly related point, I note that certain ID proponents (most notably Michael Behe) think that there is substantial material evidence that evolution could not account for all the species we see today. Have you read the claims he makes in his newest book?
Have not read the new book. The first one correctly made the point that pathways to many biological structures entail theoretical rather than empirical demonstrations.
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