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Crossroads

by Bradford

What is the scientific status of Intelligent Design? Where does it currently stand and more importantly in what direction is it headed? What are its possibilities and potentials?

Here.

Hat Tip to Clare.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 8:22 am and is filed under Intelligent Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/crossroads/trackback/

92 Responses to “Crossroads”

  1. Todd Berkebile Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 9:34 am

    Fowler: The intelligent design movement has been growing in strength over the past decade, and is now very influential in the evolution debate.

    Hehe, even the first sentence had me laughing out loud. When I have more time I must read the rest, it promises to be very humorous.

    2. Comment by Todd Berkebile — March 10, 2009 @ 9:34 am

  2. Allen_MacNeill Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 11:01 am

    I found the article to be quite accurate. Here is the conclusion:

    "Intelligent Design has been proposed as a new scientific hypothesis about the possibility of certain types of transitions occurring naturally. The thrust of its proposal is that biological (and other) entities may be partitioned into groups or classes within which transitions are possible, but between which they are not. This is an empirically testable hypothesis, one which contradicts a key assumption of Neo-Darwinism.

    As yet, only preliminary steps have been taken to formulate and test this hypothesis: Behe's irreducible complexity and Dembski's Design Filter. So no definitive statement about its truth can be made as yet. Of course, there is no guarantee that the Intelligent Design school will be able to reach its goals; nature may not be the way the theory postulates that it is.

    The notion of an "Intelligent Designer," for which the school is perhaps best known, is not part of its scientific basis, but rather an inference from it, or rather, an inference about reality based on the physical limitations in nature that the theory proposes. The school is, in some ways, its own worst enemy by not clearly distinguishing its scientific hypotheses from the extra-scientific inferences it draws.

    Intelligent Design does not deny naturalism — that is, it does not require science to begin utilizing non-natural forces and entities. It does dispute metaphysical naturalism, which asserts that all phenomena can be explained by science and that there is no other reality. But the latter assertion is a metaphysical inference from the former, which is itself an extra-scientific assumption. The common attacks on Intelligent Design, accusing it of being Creationism in disguise, a Trojan Horse, and of injecting theology into science, are completely baseless.

    Its critics should therefore concentrate on the scientific issues raised, ignore the metaphysics and eschew the propaganda arguments, however satisfying these may be. But Intelligent Design must also deliver on the science."

    3. Comment by Allen_MacNeill — March 10, 2009 @ 11:01 am

  3. Bilbo Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am

    I skimmed the article. The author ignored the work of Mike Gene, who offers another way to do ID reserch. Instead of maintaining that Darwinian evolution can't evolve certain features, or evolve across biological groups or classes, Mike begins with a suspicion that the first cells were designed, and designed to evolve. By using the categories of Analogy, Discontinuity, Rationality, and Foresight, he is able to explore the biological world, looking for clues that will strengthen his hypothesis.

    If we reject Mike's approach, all that we are left with is trying to prove that something is too improbable to have happened. And that seems to be a rather narrow, barren area for research.

    4. Comment by Bilbo — March 10, 2009 @ 11:53 am

  4. Allen_MacNeill Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    Dang! I had written a long analysis of the conclusion, but the editing facility for this website killed it. Here is my attempt at a recreation:

    First, to re-quote the conclusion, with some important bits highlighted:

    "Intelligent Design has been proposed as a new scientific hypothesis about the possibility of certain types of transitions occurring naturally. The thrust of its proposal is that biological (and other) entities may be partitioned into groups or classes within which transitions are possible, but between which they are not. This is an empirically testable hypothesis, one which contradicts a key assumption of Neo-Darwinism.

    As yet, only preliminary steps have been taken to formulate and test this hypothesis: Behe's irreducible complexity and Dembski's Design Filter. So no definitive statement about its truth can be made as yet. Of course, there is no guarantee that the Intelligent Design school will be able to reach its goals; nature may not be the way the theory postulates that it is.

    The notion of an "Intelligent Designer," for which the school is perhaps best known, is not part of its scientific basis, but rather an inference from it, or rather, an inference about reality based on the physical limitations in nature that the theory proposes. The school is, in some ways, its own worst enemy by not clearly distinguishing its scientific hypotheses from the extra-scientific inferences it draws.

    Intelligent Design does not deny naturalism — that is, it does not require science to begin utilizing non-natural forces and entities. It does dispute metaphysical naturalism, which asserts that all phenomena can be explained by science and that there is no other reality. But the latter assertion is a metaphysical inference from the former, which is itself an extra-scientific assumption. The common attacks on Intelligent Design, accusing it of being Creationism in disguise, a Trojan Horse, and of injecting theology into science, are completely baseless.

    Its critics should therefore concentrate on the scientific issues raised, ignore the metaphysics and eschew the propaganda arguments, however satisfying these may be. But Intelligent Design must also deliver on the science."

    "

    Here are some of my thoughts on the highlighted comments in the conclusion:

    Neo-Darwinism: This term refers to what is also known as the “modern evolutionary synthesis”, which was developed during the first half of the last century, and which reached its fullest expression around 1959 (the centennial anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. As I have repeatedly pointed out here (and elsewhere), current evolutionary theory has moved so far beyond the “modern synthesis” that it should be considered to have been almost completely replaced by what I prefer to call the “evolving synthesis”. As yet, no textbook in evolutionary biology has been published that covers the “evolving synthesis”, but I’m writing one that is due to be published by John Wiley and Sons (hopefully in 2010).

    [N]o definitive statement about [ID’s] truth can be made as yet. Agreed; at present there is virtually no empirical evidence either way, and so ID should be considered to be an hypothesis, rather than an empirically tested (i.e. “scientific”) theory.

    The school is, in some ways, its own worst enemy by not clearly distinguishing its scientific hypotheses from the extra-scientific inferences it draws: Indeed; I couldn’t have said it better myself. The same, of course, could be said for drawing metaphysical inferences from the empirical findings of evolutionary biology.

    It does dispute metaphysical naturalism, which asserts that all phenomena can be explained by science and that there is no other reality: Again, agreed. However, the implication is that evolutionary biologists all accept metaphysical naturalism, and assert that it is part of the science of evolutionary biology. If this is an accurate reading of this implication, then it does not conform to either basic principles of inferential logic, nor does it fairly represent the position of evolutionary biologists as a group.

    For example, two of the founders of “Neo-Darwinism” – R. A. Fisher and Theodosious Dobzhansky – were devout Christians, and found no contradiction between their understanding of evolutionary biology and their religious beliefs. Today, perhaps the most effective and implacable opponent of ID is Kenneth Miller, who (like Fisher and Dobzhansky) is also a devout Christian. While it is true that some prominent supporters of evolutionary biology – Richard Dawkins and Will Provine – assert that the science of evolutionary biology leads most evolutionary biologists (indeed, most scientists) to assert that metaphysical naturalism is also valid, their inference is not based on anything in the science of evolutionary biology.

    The common attacks on Intelligent Design, accusing it of being Creationism in disguise, a Trojan Horse, and of injecting theology into science, are completely baseless: Except in cases in which ID supporters, such as those formerly serving on the Dover Area school board, attempt to insert ID into public school curricula by representing it as a fully developed scientific alternative to evolutionary biology. If there is empirical evidence that can validate ID, it will eventually be published in scientific journals and become accepted by the scientific community. If this happens, then it will be time for it to be included in the public school curriculum. Indeed, at that point (and only at that point), it would be difficult to justify not including it in any scientific curriculum.

    Its critics should therefore concentrate on the scientific issues raised, ignore the metaphysics and eschew the propaganda arguments, however satisfying these may be: Indeed, I think that this is good advice for people on both sides of this issue. The scientific validity of ID (like the scientific validity of evolutionary biology) will not and should not be decided via propaganda, public debates, or attempts to force public school boards to accept arguments by assertion (unsupported by evidence), rather than scientific principles validated by empirical investigation. To paraphrase “Thought Provoker”, it’s time to do the science. Once this has been done to everyone’s satisfaction, then it will be time to consider ID to be an empirical science, on a par with biology, chemistry, physics, and any other of the natural sciences.

    But Intelligent Design must also deliver on the science": Exactly. Quod erat disputandem?

    5. Comment by Allen_MacNeill — March 10, 2009 @ 11:57 am

  5. Bilbo Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Prof. MacNeill: To paraphrase “Thought Provoker”, it’s time to do the science. Once this has been done to everyone’s satisfaction, then it will be time to consider ID to be an empirical science, on a par with biology, chemistry, physics, and any other of the natural sciences.

    Chemistry and physics are definitely the "natural" or "hard" sciences. Biology has attempted to become a completely natural or hard science by providing a history of the origin and development of life that depends solely upon natural, non-intelligent processes. If ID is correct, then such a history will be at least partially incorrect. Which means that whatever type of science we wish to call it, "natural" or "hard" probably won't do. Since ID involves trying to figure out what one or more minds did in the past, when they supposedly were involved in the origin and/or development of life, it will be a science that involves the mind as part of the explanation. That seems to me to mean that it will be what we commonly call a "soft" science, such as psychology or sociology.

    6. Comment by Bilbo — March 10, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

  6. Thought Provoker Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

    Short version…

    Let's do Science! :mrgreen:

    7. Comment by Thought Provoker — March 10, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

  7. Bilbo Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    TP: Short version…

    Let's do Science! :mrgreen:

    Short version…

    Mike's already doing it!

    8. Comment by Bilbo — March 10, 2009 @ 1:02 pm

  8. ID guy Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Intelligent Design is an inference from the available scientifc data.

    It is an inference made from several independent lines of evidence including physics, cosmology, astronomy, chemistry and biology.

    So the point in contention would be "Let's do science" and if the data points to ID then so be it.

    Ken Miller is only effective at erecting and then destroying strawman after strawman.

    However Darwin started the strawman building by insisting that Creationism means that species are fixed. Then when one equates ID with Creationism the rest is easy.

    It has been my experience that most people don't understand ID has nothing against evolution nor is it an argument against universal common descent.

    Yet you will never, ever hear that during a debate.

    But anyway let's do science and let the cards fall as they may.

    9. Comment by ID guy — March 10, 2009 @ 1:18 pm

  9. don provan Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    Well, I only made it through the first couple of sections, but it looks like the normal stuff:

    1. Nonsense about scientists refusing to question established theory.
    2. Presentation of the anti-scientists as the noble pursuers of truth, doing nothing but questioning.
    3. Completely ignoring the epically huge leap from questioning whether science has all the answers to the entirely unsupported idea of an intelligent designer.
    4. The first quarter of the paper — as far as I got — presents ID as if it has equal footing with evolution, yet they can't come up with a single positive argument presented for an intelligent designer, only arguments about how evolution isn't sufficient.

    I got as far as the presentation of Irreducible Complexity in its purest and most easily invalidated form. Then I realized these guys didn't really know what they were talking about.

    10. Comment by don provan — March 10, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

  10. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    don, maybe you should restrain yourself from commenting until you've read the whole article. :roll:

    This is a very good summary article that attempts to look at the controversy from a neutral position and for the most part succeeds.

    11. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 10, 2009 @ 2:38 pm

  11. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    From the essay:

    If Intelligent Design is correct, it should become possible to map these gaps and to understand them from the theoretical standpoint of physical chemistry. Such an investigation would likely involve a great deal of higher mathematics; it would have to examine biological structures in some very high dimensional spaces and investigate the effect of physical laws on their possible transformation in those spaces. The quantitative methodology to analyze complex structures and discern those that cannot have arisen by random processes is only the first step in building the new theory of possible biological transformations. In effect, Intelligent Design would reveal a deeper level of structural characteristics of biological systems and entities than is now recognized. If brought to fruition, this would have an impact not only on the study of evolution, but on much modern-day research, because it would show that certain types of change cannot occur, while other types may be quite likely. The impact in areas such development of antibiotics and antiviral drugs would be significant. For example, if a drug could so change the environment of a pathogen that no feasible random change to its genome could allow it to survive in that environment, then a potent new treatment method would become available.

    This hits the nail on the head. If correct, detailed evolutionary pathways using the hard sciences and engineering could be drawn up and demonstrated. This is what has to be done in the ID school.

    On a side note, this "higher mathematics" would have to include probability design.

    12. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 10, 2009 @ 2:42 pm

  12. don provan Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    This is a very good summary article that attempts to look at the controversy from a neutral position and for the most part succeeds.

    So you're saying only the first part is bogus?

    13. Comment by don provan — March 10, 2009 @ 3:53 pm

  13. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    don, no I'm saying your review is bogus.

    14. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 10, 2009 @ 3:56 pm

  14. don provan Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    If correct, detailed evolutionary pathways using the hard sciences and engineering could be drawn up and demonstrated. This is what has to be done in the ID school.

    Well, yes, but how? All you have are a series of arguments suggesting that proposed pathways are insufficient. How do you move from that to drawing up and demonstrating detailed pathways?

    I've actually imagined a couple of ways, but when I suggest them here, I get shouted down because front loading adherents refuse to even consider the starting point, abilities, constraints, goals, techniques, or results that would be necessary to consider when describing an ID pathway.

    15. Comment by don provan — March 10, 2009 @ 4:01 pm

  15. John Wendt Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    The notion of an "Intelligent Designer," for which the school is perhaps best known, is not part of its scientific basis, but rather an inference from it, or rather, an inference about reality based on the physical limitations in nature that the theory proposes.

    But if no such Designer is possible, then ID fails.

    Every multi-celled organism begins as a single cell, a fertilized egg. The cell multiplies by dividing, with various processes controlling which compounds get produced when.

    Life processes, including growth, demonstrably consist of chemical reactions. Conservation of energy tells us that a chemical reaction will take place if and only if potential energy can decrease; the principle of least action tells us that the decrease will proceed as fast as possible.

    Design is possible only if energy is introduced to divert an atom from its least-action trajectory. If ID can't find such an energy source, it fails.

    16. Comment by John Wendt — March 10, 2009 @ 4:10 pm

  16. don provan Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    don, no I'm saying your review is bogus.

    Then why didn't you actually address it instead of just suggesting I keep reading. If you don't mean I should keep reading because it gets better, what did you mean?

    I found that the first part wasn't balanced at all: it starts quite clearly with the presumption of legitimacy and goes from there. That's why I mentioned the IC example: the supposed problems with evolution producing such structures have been completely defused, which is why IC is a much more subtle and complicated concept today. The paper thought that trivial original IC was still a valid issue.

    I'm still planning to get back to it when I have more time, but there's no reason for me to think it will do anything but go down hill from there.

    17. Comment by don provan — March 10, 2009 @ 4:24 pm

  17. Bradford Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    John Wendt:

    Life processes, including growth, demonstrably consist of chemical reactions. Conservation of energy tells us that a chemical reaction will take place if and only if potential energy can decrease; the principle of least action tells us that the decrease will proceed as fast as possible.

    Design is possible only if energy is introduced to divert an atom from its least-action trajectory. If ID can't find such an energy source, it fails.

    You need only devise a program by which natural chemical processes are ordered. No need to insist that natural phenomenon be short circuited.

    18. Comment by Bradford — March 10, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

  18. Thought Provoker Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Hi John,

    You wrote…

    But if no such Designer is possible, then ID fails.

    You also wrote…

    Design is possible only if energy is introduced to divert an atom from its least-action trajectory. If ID can't find such an energy source, it fails.

    My knee-jerk reaction was to disagree with the first statement but agree with the second.

    It may have to do with the connotations attached to the term "designer". It usually implies an entity (God, space aliens, etc). A more generic term would be designing agency or process.

    Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis (EAM) has been considered an ID hypothesis that doesn't include a "designer" per se.

    Personally, I am offering that there is no such thing as true randomness. Quantum effects are the only possible natural sources for randomness. However, quantum experiments show that these effects are interconnected.

    This is where the famous "God doesn't play dice" quote comes from. I like Joy's characteristic that "God plays a mean game of billiards".

    This is making the universe (4D space-time) itself the energy source driving the design

    19. Comment by Thought Provoker — March 10, 2009 @ 4:49 pm

  19. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    don, your review was bogus because it was based on an incomplete reading of the essay. Also, it is quite apparent you brought your pre-conceived biases to the table. A better review was provided by Allen MacNeill.

    …the supposed problems with evolution producing such structures have been completely defused,

    Completely? Really don. Completely?

    don: I've actually imagined a couple of [path]ways, but when I suggest them here, I get shouted down because front loading adherents refuse to even consider the starting point, abilities, constraints, goals, techniques, or results that would be necessary to consider when describing an ID pathway.

    From the essay:

    Ridley continues:

    It is fair to conclude that there are no known adaptations that definitively could not have evolved by natural selection. In other words, we can conclude that all known adaptations are, in principle, explicable by natural selection.

    Paraphrasing slightly, we have, in effect, the following argument:

    We can imagine a series of steps to make any transformation, therefore we conclude that anything could have evolved.

    Or even more succinctly,

    We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    I feel a John Lennon song coming.

    20. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 10, 2009 @ 4:59 pm

  20. Bradford Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    JW: Design is possible only if energy is introduced to divert an atom from its least-action trajectory. If ID can't find such an energy source, it fails.

    JW, tell us what energy source diverted what atoms to generate an inital genome. Don't object that this is a gap issue. That's obvious but so too is the presumption of what the nature of a gap filler must be.

    21. Comment by Bradford — March 10, 2009 @ 5:12 pm

  21. chunkdz Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    JJS P.Eng.,
    I too was taken aback by the quote from Ridley.

    It is fair to conclude that there are no known adaptations that definitively could not have evolved by natural selection. In other words, we can conclude that all known adaptations are, in principle, explicable by natural selection.

    This is graduate level biology? Lol!

    22. Comment by chunkdz — March 10, 2009 @ 6:16 pm

  22. Joy Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Allen MacNeill:

    Indeed; I couldn’t have said it better myself. The same, of course, could be said for drawing metaphysical inferences from the empirical findings of evolutionary biology.

    Neither science nor science teachers can control the metaphysical inferences people draw from the facts and data of biology about the nature and evolution of life. Nor should they attempt this kind of control. We humans will always tend to fit facts and data into our worldviews, it's always a mistake to try and enforce any particular worldview.

    So long as science and science teachers attempt to dictate metaphysical inferences from the facts and data, the range of possible metaphysical inferences should be listed. Since you guys are adamant that ID not even be mentioned as a possible inference, the standard scientistic (metaphysical naturalism/ materialism) inferences should be left out as well. If we are to pretend that science isn't about metaphysics, no metaphysics should find its way into scientific expositions or teachings. Stick with "it just happens in nature" since that's all you really know. You don't know why.

    [* I wrote this earlier today, but have been battling forest fires all day. The feds finally showed up for the big Nat. Forest (across the tracks), so the state guys in yellow bladder-copters are hitting my property both sides of the ridge and the troops are in the bottomland managing a backfire that got away from 'em (and is heading for the spring house). Coffee's on, it's gonna be a long night.]

    23. Comment by Joy — March 10, 2009 @ 7:27 pm

  23. Allen_MacNeill Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Joy wrote:

    "So long as science and science teachers attempt to dictate metaphysical inferences from the facts and data, the range of possible metaphysical inferences should be listed."

    Agreed.

    "Since you guys are adamant that ID not even be mentioned as a possible inference, the standard scientistic (metaphysical naturalism/ materialism) inferences should be left out as well."

    Who are you referring to, here? Not me, nor my friend Will Provine. We invite creationists and ID supporters to our evolution courses to make presentations on precisely these issues. Furthermore, I disagree with Will, who jumps to the "Richard Dawkins conclusion" that no empirical evidence of design means no design, no "gods worth having", no ultimate meaning in life, no ultimate basis for ethics, etc. Like Newton, "I make no hypotheses!"

    "If we are to pretend that science isn't about metaphysics, no metaphysics should find its way into scientific expositions or teachings."

    But I very strongly believe exactly that: science isn't about metaphysics. Science is about using the empirical hypothetico-deductive method to develop some "rules of thumb" in our interactions with physical reality. Metaphysics is another whole kettle of fish, and IMHO belongs in philosophy courses, not science courses.

    "Stick with "it just happens in nature" since that's all you really know. You don't know why."

    Agreed, and that is precisely what I do. However, I also invite Will to my class to make his case for the "Dawkins/Provine" metaphysical position, and Jon Sanford to make the case for the "creationist/ID" metaphysical position (and I I knew who "Mike Gene" actual is and how I could contact him, I would invite him to Cornell to do the same for the "front-loaded design" position. Will and I have already had Michael Behe give a presentation on his version of it, but I think Mike could do a much more thorough job of it.

    24. Comment by Allen_MacNeill — March 10, 2009 @ 7:43 pm

  24. Todd Berkebile Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    TP: Short version… Let's do Science!

    Bilbo: Short version… Mike's already doing it!

    Not according to Mike. Mike has specifically mentioned on multiple occasions that what he's done isn't science yet. But keep lifting those idols onto higher and higher pedestals.

    25. Comment by Todd Berkebile — March 10, 2009 @ 7:52 pm

  25. Allen_MacNeill Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    And as to not asking or answering the question "why", I take pains to point out to my students that scientists answer the question "why" and the question "how" with exactly the same explanation. For example:

    QUESTION: How do dropped rocks fall to the ground?
    ANSWER: The force of gravity causes them to fall to the ground.

    QUESTION: Why do dropped rocks fall to the ground?
    ANSWER: The force of gravity causes them to fall to the ground.

    Contrast this with a teleological explanation for the same phenomenon:

    QUESTION: Why do dropped rocks fall to the ground?
    ANSWER: Dropped rocks fall in order to reach the ground.

    Personally, I strongly prefer the first answer to the "why" question to the teleological answer.

    Now let's apply that to a biological question, such as the reason for why mammals have fur. Here's what a scientist would answer to both the "how" and "why questions:

    QUESTION: How do mammals have fur (i.e. by what mechanism do they come to have fur)?
    ANSWER: They have a genetic/developmental program for making fur, which they inherit from their parents, who inherited from their parents, and so on. At some time in the past, this genetic/developmental program was modified from a previously existing genetic/developmental program that resulted in the animals having scales, rather than fur (which developmentally are highly modified scales).

    QUESTION: Why do mammals have fur?
    ANSWER: They have a genetic/developmental program for making fur, which they inherit from their parents, who inherited from their parents, and so on. At some time in the past, this genetic/developmental program was modified from a previously existing genetic/developmental program that resulted in the animals having scales, rather than fur (which developmentally are highly modified scales).

    But, to complete the parallelism, many people (including, I assume, both scientists who are not evolutionary biologists and thinkers of "telic thoughts") would be more likely to answer the question this way:

    QUESTION: Why do mammals have fur?
    ANSWER: They have fur in order to keep warm.

    I hope this makes it clear that there is a metaphysical assumption built into the teleological version of the answer to the "why" question in the second case, which is not built into the answer in the first case.

    This is why I am very, very leery of using teleological language to describe any biological explanation of the origins of the characteristics of living organisms. Indeed, even the term "adaptation" is suspect, in my opinion. Literally translated, it means "toward the appropriate function". But this contains within it a metaphysical assumption: that there is some objectively definable "appropriate" function toward which natural selection tends.

    I much prefer Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba's term "exaptation" for the various characteristics of living organisms. This term, literally translated, means "taken from the previously existing condition". No metaphysical assumptions involved here, just a straightforward description of how the characteristic under consideration came to exist.

    26. Comment by Allen_MacNeill — March 10, 2009 @ 8:07 pm

  26. Bilbo Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Todd B.:Mike has specifically mentioned on multiple occasions that what he's done isn't science yet. But keep lifting those idols onto higher and higher pedestals.

    [From OP of "The Advantage of Mike Gene's approach to ID": Contrasted with this is Mike Gene's own approach, which he labels Evidentiary Gradualism [I'll have to check my memory on this one] Here, one may begin by only suspecting that a certain thing is designed, and then look for further evidence that may strengthen the suspicion, eventually making that suspicion plausible, then probable, and perhaps finally near certain.

    Raevmo:How is that different from normal scientific practice? Sounds almost Bayesian to me: update the prior with new evidence to adjust the plausibility of the hypothesis (or "suspicion").

    You be the judge, Todd.

    27. Comment by Bilbo — March 10, 2009 @ 8:53 pm

  27. Joy Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    Allen MacNeill:

    Agreed, and that is precisely what I do. However, I also invite Will to my class to make his case for the "Dawkins/Provine" metaphysical position, and Jon Sanford to make the case for the "creationist/ID" metaphysical position

    I honestly see no need to make either case. Surely it's not necessary to get the data across to these kids, is it?

    QUESTION: Why do mammals have fur?
ANSWER: They have fur in order to keep warm.

    What's wrong with that answer? Sure, you tell 'em about scales and how those little rodents who lived at the same time as dinosaurs once had dino-scales just like birds did, and all skin coverings are just glorified scales (or whatever), but the fact of the matter is that mammals have fur because whoever got fur was able to survive better and reproduce more young'uns than his scaly buddies. IOW, mammals have fur in order to efficiently regulate their temperature in varying conditions. This also helps to explain why beavers have a whole heck of a lot more fur than spider monkeys. Environmental adaptation. Because they can (and did/do).

    Evolutionary scientists are constantly coming up with handy-dandy just-so stories for why the tiger has stripes (and monkeys can see red). They've never seemed shy of such things before, so I don't know why you'd be shy of them now. Whether there is telic agency involved in adaptive evolution or just ruthless selection (not in evidence in many cases, all the way down to the genes themselves), there are reasons why birds have wings and mammals have hair and whales have subcutaneous fat… these things have function for the organism – they work.

    There's nothing wrong with thinking so or saying so. If that means students get to understand it within their own worldviews, so be it. It's not your (or any other teacher's) job to worry about how they fit it into their worldviews so long as they demonstrate the necessary knowledge of facts and data to pass the course. Or not, in which case they don't, yet another big "so what?"

    28. Comment by Joy — March 10, 2009 @ 9:41 pm

  28. Todd Berkebile Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    Fowler: Most criticism of the Intelligent Design school characterizes it as unscientific because it relies on notions such as that of a "Designer," thus violating the requirement to restrict science to naturalistic explanations.

    No, science is restricted to things for which there is evidence. If there was any evidence of a designer science could study it.

    This new theory, or New Synthesis — more commonly known as Neo-Darwinism — is the school that now dominates the scientific landscape. Despite a number of serious theoretical and experimental shortcomings, this theory has the allegiance of the majority of scientists, educators, and educated people.

    So what are these serious shortcomings? Apparently they aren't serious enough to bother scientists, educators, and educated people. They can't be very serious if they only bother yokels. Sounds like some bias creeping into Fowler's language.

    Over the last forty years, the Neo-Darwinian school has increasingly found itself under attack from both scientists and non-scientists alike, especially over the idea that its proposed engine can account for all life.

    Ah, the false claim that NDS is a theory in trouble even from scientists. :roll: His claim to non-bias is weakening.

    With increasing numbers of converts, especially among scientists, some modern Creationist research and analysis is fairly sophisticated, if limited in quantity.

    Someone must have changed the definition of sophisticated while I wasn't looking. :roll:

    Of course, for the Neo-Darwinians and most other scientists, the whole idea is still laughable, and no amount of sophistication can change that.

    Yes, the 'sophisticated' strategy of 'ignore all the evidence' is very humorous to the informed.

    Serious trouble for Neo-Darwinian theory was brewing on other fronts as well.

    Boy, apparently every time biologists have a conference it's because serious trouble is brewing and not because science always marches onward and new ideas are constantly being proposed, tested, and either accepted or rejected. I love how religion sees 'serious trouble' in the normal workings of science.

    As most regarded the latter as the worse of the two alternatives, they tended to close ranks around the Neo-Darwinian theory, despite its admitted problems.

    Typical paranoia, they only agree so they can persecute us! He can't even image them agreeing because its the best answer available given the evidence. "Why, there are known problems!" Well duh, if there weren't known problems we'd be done with research. Again more hysteria drummed up about the normal operation of science. He tries to turn the willingness of science to consider a wide range of options into a conflict, but in fact the willingness of science to consider a wide range of options is just another blow to ID which still falls outside the wide range of reasonable options.

    So the defining event of the decade for this school was undoubtedly the publication of biochemist Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box (1996), which challenged Neo-Darwinian theories about the emergence of what everyone acknowledged as extremely complex structures and systems.

    Hehe, DBB is still the best he has to offer for ID? I'd say a thoroughly rejected 13 year old book that has lead to zero scientific advancement hardly matches his original claim of ID being very influential.

    Summary of Principal Ideas of the Intelligent Design School

    This part seems fair and balanced, almost suprising considering the rest of the tone. I guess he wins back a few of the bias points he lost earlier.

    We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    He was doing so well, but now he's slipped back into absurdity. Rather than sticking with the reasonable statement, "But [the Neo-Darwinian school] does maintain that any structure or system can, in a finite number of steps of finite probability, be reached from any other, or from some predecessor common to them both," he had to throw in some absurd straw man. The fact that he ended up at a reasonable statement shows that he knows his paraphrasing is incorrect and his succinct version borders on dishonest.

    There cannot be two truths or Averroistic dual truth — there can only be two competing theories. One will eventually win out, or both will be overthrown. The competing theories can advocate different research programs, and be looking for different phenomena. Sooner or later, the predictions of one will be vindicated, and those of the other will not.

    In this case one already won out, that's what got the loser so riled up in the first place. The losers have launched a political campaign against the winning idea, they have countered with marketing. They don't even try to counter with research (perhaps they know they would fail further if they tried). No one on the science side is concerned about any research results that might be obtained, but some are concerned by the political campaign being launched.

    Much further work needs to be carried out in order to establish the central scientific tenets of Intelligent Design.

    Work that no one in the ID camp seems willing to do. Others have abandoned the idea of hard research completely imploring a Hardy Boys style hunt for cheery picked 'clues' about ducks and rabbits instead.

    Creationists do dispute the old age of the earth, though they seek to do so by means of scientific arguments.

    You mean scientific arguments like, "Cause the bible says so"? There's nothing scientific about YEC or Last-Tuesdayism and to imply otherwise gives them way too much credit.

    So if the Intelligent Design school is proposing that some transitions are impossible, we can expect to hear arguments that accuse it of trying to destroy science.

    Right after a long section on avoiding metaphysics in science he fails to understand that most people opposed to ID are opposed to it because its being used as a method of injecting metaphysics into science. If ID supporters were really doing research using methodological naturalism as he suggests they should then no one would care, but instead they are waging a culture war on the pro-superstition side. He even goes on to say it's unfortunate that ID supporters often wear their metaphysical bias on their sleeves. He knows it's a problem but fails to realize it is the key problem; ID as a political movement is unwilling to let go of it's metaphysical bias to do naturalistic research.

    The school is, in some ways, its own worst enemy by not clearly distinguishing its scientific hypotheses from the extra-scientific inferences it draws.

    Bingo.

    The common attacks on Intelligent Design, accusing it of being Creationism in disguise, a Trojan Horse, and of injecting theology into science, are completely baseless.

    Wrong. They would be baseless if ID supporters truly did the research rather than pushing a political movement.

    Its critics should therefore concentrate on the scientific issues raised, ignore the metaphysics and eschew the propaganda arguments, however satisfying these may be. But Intelligent Design must also deliver on the science.

    All the scientific issues raised have already been addressed. For example, the more proposed examples of irreducibly complex systems that are put forth the more they are knocked down. Unfortunately the culture warriors march on despite ID failing to 'deliver on the science.' So the ID critics simply respond in kind, fighting fire with fire.

    29. Comment by Todd Berkebile — March 10, 2009 @ 9:43 pm

  29. Todd Berkebile Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 9:51 pm

    Bilbo: You be the judge, Todd.

    I can answer Raevmo's question. One makes predictions and tests them. The other cherry picks data points to reach a desired conclusion. But in this case I don't really need to make any judgements, I have it straight from the horses mouth.

    30. Comment by Todd Berkebile — March 10, 2009 @ 9:51 pm

  30. Bilbo Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    Todd B: One makes predictions and tests them.

    Mike didn't pick 3 stop codons. Art challenged the rationality of the genetic with it. Mike looked and found why having 3 stop codons is rational and exhibits foresight. Where's the cherry picking?

    31. Comment by Bilbo — March 10, 2009 @ 10:06 pm

  31. Allen_MacNeill Says:
    March 10th, 2009 at 11:38 pm

    Hi, Joy:

    The reason I go into the whole song and dance about exaptation with my students is that it makes them think about reality in a way that almost none of them have thought about it before. I don't demand that they believe what I say, but I do want them to get a taste of the strangeness of the evolutionary world view, compared with theirs.

    We all think about in the world in terms of teleology. What makes scientific explanations for things like gravity and chemistry so different (and so fascinating, at least to me) is that they don't include teleological language, and so they go against our "natural" way of thinking about reality. Virtually everything we do has some "purposefullness" in it; we put on our clothes in the morning "in order to" keep warm (and cover up our nakedness), we eat breakfast "in order to" satisfy our appetites, we go to work "in order to" earn a living, we go to bed "in order to" not fall asleep on the couch, etc.

    But it sounds odd, and somehow wrong to say that rocks fall "in order to" reach the ground, that hydrogen bonds with oxygen "in order to" make water, or that flames flicker upwards "in order to" get closer to the sky. These are all "natural" processes, and ever since Newton we've been learning that natural processes don't happen "in order to" make something else happen.

    But we still find nothing nonsensical about saying that mammals have fur "in order to" keep warm. Why not say mammals have fur because their parents have fur? That provides an explanation grounded in genetics, which doesn't include any concept of purpose at all. Whenever I use these kinds of examples with my students, I see those light bulbs go off over their heads; they get that expression that says "Holy crap, I never thought it about it that way before!" And those moments are what make teaching fun and exciting for me, and I hope for them, too.

    32. Comment by Allen_MacNeill — March 10, 2009 @ 11:38 pm

  32. John Wendt Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 7:47 am

    From Bradford: You need only devise a program by which natural chemical processes are ordered.

    How do you devise such a program? Anyway, every program needs energy to carry it out.

    From TP: Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis (EAM) has been considered an ID hypothesis that doesn't include a "designer" per se.

    Just when you thought ID couldn't get any more vague… How does EAM move atoms into trajectories they wouldn't naturally take? How does it decide what atoms to move, and where and when?

    Personally, I am offering that there is no such thing as true randomness.

    A meiotic microtubule doesn't grab a chromosome at random? Chromosomes don't cross over at random? A mobile genetic element doesn't get situated at a random point? (Granted that there are "hot spots" at which insertions are more probable than at others.) A tautomerase doesn't come along at random places and times? The "Adaptive" in "EAM" suggests that there aren't any bad mutations. Or does the organism make a lot of mistakes?

    I like Joy's characteristic that "God plays a mean game of billiards".

    Takes energy to move the cue…

    This is making the universe (4D space-time) itself the energy source driving the design.

    Does that have any operational meaning? In most organisms energy comes from photosynthesis, which comes from sunlight, which comes from fusion in the sun, which is the result of potential energy generated by the Big Bang. But how does the organism direct the energy toward a specific design?

    From Bradford: tell us what energy source diverted what atoms to generate an inital genome.

    Lightning is one possible source. Also heat and pressure around undersea thermal vents.

    Atoms and molecules in solution bang around at random. Start with short carbon chains forming sugars, which form RNA. The RNA World gradually comes into being. Formation of DNA is catalyzed from RNA.

    Don't object that this is a gap issu

    What do you mean by "gap issue"? That if biology can't immediately explain everything, then it's necessary to "infer" unexplainable "explanations"?

    That's obvious but so too is the presumption of what the nature of a gap filler must be.

    Current biological knowledge is what creates "gaps" in the first place. The nature of the gaps has changed several times since Darwin. If Darwin had known about Mendel's results he probably would've considered them to be a special case, and he would've been right. The Modern Synthesis replaced "one gene – one trait" with "one gene – one enzyme", then added polygenesis and pleiotropy. These concepts have been filled in by increasingly detailed knowledge of how protein and RNA regulate the chemistry that produces structure in cells and tissues.

    So the obvious way to fill gaps in chemistry is with more chemistry. Materialism doesn't have all the answers yet, but it has an enormous head start on ID, which shows no sign of knowing where the starting blocks are. Evolutionary biology has forgotten more than ID knows how to learn.

    33. Comment by John Wendt — March 11, 2009 @ 7:47 am

  33. Bradford Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 7:56 am

    From Bradford: You need only devise a program by which natural chemical processes are ordered.

    JW: How do you devise such a program? Anyway, every program needs energy to carry it out.

    It took energy to type this out. I did not violate any laws of nature in the process. Letters symbolizing sounds. Words conveying the function of messaging. Design evident in symbols.

    34. Comment by Bradford — March 11, 2009 @ 7:56 am

  34. John Wendt Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    I see those light bulbs go off over their heads; they get that expression that says "Holy crap, I never thought it about it that way before!" And those moments are what make teaching fun and exciting for me, and I hope for them, too.

    I like this a lot. When has ID every come up with anything exciting?

    35. Comment by John Wendt — March 11, 2009 @ 8:02 am

  35. Bradford Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Bradford: tell us what energy source diverted what atoms to generate an inital genome.

    John Wendt: Lightning is one possible source. Also heat and pressure around undersea thermal vents.

    From JW's link:

    In 2008, however, lightning began to look promising once again. Cleaves and his colleagues suspected that the failed experiments were flawed because the sparks might have produced nitrogen compounds that destroyed any newly formed amino acids. When they added buffering chemicals that could take up these nitrogen compounds, the experiments generated hundreds of times more amino acids than scientists had previously found.

    Cleaves suspects that lightning was only one of several ways in which organic compounds built up on Earth. Meteorites that fall to Earth contain amino acids and organic carbon molecules such as formaldehyde. Hydrothermal vents spew out other compounds that could have been incorporated into the first life forms. Raw materials were not an issue, he says: "The real hurdle is how you put together organic compounds into a living system."

    Does not explain much aside from the fact that one needs a lot of raw faith to believe the source of energy cited yields nucleic acids that code for the sequence specificity of functional proteins and the mechanisms by which they are synthesized. These are materialist answers? I do not agree that materialists know where the starting blocks are.

    36. Comment by Bradford — March 11, 2009 @ 8:07 am

  36. John Wendt Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 8:17 am

    From the essay: The thrust of [ID's] proposal is that biological (and other) entities may be partitioned into groups or classes within which transitions are possible, but between which they are not.

    The fallacy here is the assumption that transitions are between adult forms. One of Darwin's underappreciated insights is that similar embryos can give rise to very different adults. Indeed, every complex organism starts as a single cell, a fertilized egg. Chemical processes direct the atoms and molecules that form cells and tissues as the organism develops. Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is the very fruitful study of the ways in which genetic differences direct the energy of cells to give rise to variations in developmental patterns.

    We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    Not quite. A better paraphrase is "We can imagine it, therefore it's not necesary to infer an unimaginable agency."

    37. Comment by John Wendt — March 11, 2009 @ 8:17 am

  37. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 10:59 am

    Good day John W.

    From essay: We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    John Wendt: Not quite. A better paraphrase is "We can imagine it, therefore it's not necesary to infer an unimaginable agency."

    Unimaginable to whom? You?

    Mike Gene dealt with this quite nicely in The Design Matrix. In the Traditional Template, all the non-teleologist has to do is imagine come up with a possible pathway to counter the teleological position. What is lost in this position are two things:

    1. Just because something may be possible does not mean it is plausible nor probable. It is the amassing of evidence that bears it out.

    2.* That quote was a paraphrase from a graduate level textbook on evolutionary biology! Not high school. Graduate level! I wish my graduate level courses in structural engineering were that simple. :wink:

    *My view and not necessarily Mike's

    38. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 10:59 am

  38. Todd Berkebile Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 11:34 am

    JJS: That quote was a paraphrase from a graduate level textbook on evolutionary biology! Not high school. Graduate level! I wish my graduate level courses in structural engineering were that simple

    That paraphrase was so inadequate that I consider it dishonest. Even his non-succinct paraphrase made an obvious error rendering it inaccurate.

    39. Comment by Todd Berkebile — March 11, 2009 @ 11:34 am

  39. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    Good day Todd,

    That paraphrase was so inadequate that I consider it dishonest. Even his non-succinct paraphrase made an obvious error rendering it inaccurate.

    From essay: Consider the following remarks from a respected graduate textbook on evolution by Mark Ridley:

    Evolutionary biologists are sometimes challenged with arguments about functionless rudimentary stages or the impossibility of complex adaptive evolution. It is impossible to imagine, someone will insist, how a certain character could have evolved in small, advantageous steps. In reply, the evolutionary biologist may offer a possible series of stages by which the character might have evolved. It is important to bear in mind the status of the evolutionary biologist's argument here. In some cases, the series of stages may not be particularly plausible or well supported by evidence. The argument, however, was put forward solely to refute the suggestion that we cannot imagine how the character could have evolved [italics added].

    And further:

    Such speculations are not intended as prize specimens of evolutionary analysis. The series is not claimed to be particularly profound or realistic, or even very probable. The long evolutionary history that precedes any complex modern adaptation will appear, with hindsight, to be an improbable series of accidents; the same point is as true for human history as evolution. Given the state of our knowledge at any one time, we can reconstruct the evolutionary stages for some characters with some rigor . . ., but not for others. For these cases, we can only guess at the possibilities because we cannot conduct a rigorous scientific investigation [italics added].

    This gets a bit off the track, since the whole point of the discussion is that the transformations in question needs some pathway that has a "reasonable" probability of occurring, such that when many are strung together, the entire sequence has a probability whose exponent is not measured in negative thousands (e.g., 10-5000). Recall that the thrust of the critics' objection is that no such pathways exist. That objection will not be met by guesses and speculation.

    Ridley continues:

    It is fair to conclude that there are no known adaptations that definitively could not have evolved by natural selection. In other words, we can conclude that all known adaptations are, in principle, explicable by natural selection.

    Paraphrasing slightly, we have, in effect, the following argument:

    We can imagine a series of steps to make any transformation, therefore we conclude that anything could have evolved.

    Or even more succinctly,

    We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    In that context, the paraphrase seems accurate to me. Even the direct quotes provided demonstrate the elementary aspect of this supposed graduate text book. :roll:

    40. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 12:05 pm

  40. Zachriel Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    JJS P.Eng:

    It is fair to conclude that there are no known adaptations that definitively could not have evolved by natural selection. In other words, we can conclude that all known adaptations are, in principle, explicable by natural selection.

    Paraphrasing slightly, we have, in effect, the following argument:

    We can imagine a series of steps to make any transformation, therefore we conclude that anything could have evolved.

    That is not a correct reading. The original statement refers to known adaptations, not to anything imaginable. We can imagine a Pegasus, a horse with the wings of a bird, but it is not evolvable (as that term applies).

    JJS P.Eng: We can imagine it, therefore it happened.

    Compounding the error.

    41. Comment by Zachriel — March 11, 2009 @ 12:39 pm

  41. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Good day Zachriel.

    1. The comments you attributed to me are properly credited to the essay linked in the OP.

    2.

    The original statement refers to known adaptations, not to anything imaginable.

    That is not the item that the essay is focusing on. Go back even further:

    Linked Essay: Consider the following remarks from a respected graduate textbook on evolution by Mark Ridley:

    Evolutionary biologists are sometimes challenged with arguments about functionless rudimentary stages or the impossibility of complex adaptive evolution. It is impossible to imagine, someone will insist, how a certain character could have evolved in small, advantageous steps. In reply, the evolutionary biologist may offer a possible series of stages by which the character might have evolved. It is important to bear in mind the status of the evolutionary biologist's argument here. In some cases, the series of stages may not be particularly plausible or well supported by evidence. The argument, however, was put forward solely to refute the suggestion that we cannot imagine how the character could have evolved [italics added].

    It is clear Ridley himself is focusing on objections that "[i]t is impossible to imagine … how a certain character could have evolved in small, advantageous steps." His response is, in effect, the paraphrash "We can imagine it, therefore it happened."

    3.

    We can imagine a Pegasus, a horse with the wings of a bird,

    I seem to recall this argument from you before. I'm thinking you have a ceramic pegasus collection hanging around somewhere. :wink:

    42. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 12:51 pm

  42. Alan Fox Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    What is the scientific status of Intelligent Design?

    Doesn't seem to be quite there yet, does it? Still at the philosophy stage, in my view.

    OT @ Joy.

    Hope you got the fires sorted out.

    ETA correct formatting. Anyone looking at revamping preview function?

    43. Comment by Alan Fox — March 11, 2009 @ 1:31 pm

  43. Joy Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Allan MacNeill:

    …we go to bed "in order to" not fall asleep on the couch…

    Speak for yourself, Allan! My hubby would much rather fall asleep in his chair or on the couch than go to bed before midnight! And often wakes up there the next morning…

    Why not say mammals have fur because their parents have fur? That provides an explanation grounded in genetics, which doesn't include any concept of purpose at all.

    [Trying to concentrate despite helicopters buzzing the house at below-treeline, fires are still smoldering...] "Because" their parents had fur is how the kids got fur, and yes that is a genetically-based explanation. But if your paradigm is Natural Selection, mammals have fur because fur works well to regulate their internal temperature. That's a given, isn't it? What survives is "fittest" to survive, and any parent-child genetic relationship is just genes from one generation to the next. I know a woman who has a seriously deformed child. He's not a new species, he's got a problem with some genes and developmental programs.

    IOW, snakes don't give birth to mammals, even if an occasional hatchling has seriously deformed scales. It generally won't last long (though 2-headed snakes are semi-common). Scales work for snakes, that's 'why' they have 'em. Fur works for beavers, that's 'why' beavers have fur. It seems awfully confusing to conflate deep-time assumptions about evolution with basic genetic inheritance – which is quite reliable unless there's a serious problem.

    Seems more designed to confuse students than give them a clear picture of presumed incremental genetic change in a reliable inheritance system, sifted by selection of the 'fittest'. Maybe that's because my student days were more about genetics and the reliability of inheritance than about the free-for-all of merciless selection designing whole kingdoms.

    44. Comment by Joy — March 11, 2009 @ 1:38 pm

  44. Zachriel Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    JJS P.Eng: It is clear Ridley himself is focusing on objections that "[i]t is impossible to imagine … how a certain character could have evolved in small, advantageous steps." His response is, in effect, the paraphrash "We can imagine it, therefore it happened."

    A valid argument against "it is impossible to imagine" is to show it is possible to imagine.

    45. Comment by Zachriel — March 11, 2009 @ 1:54 pm

  45. chunkdz Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Joy, pack up the Family Truckster and get out of there!

    46. Comment by chunkdz — March 11, 2009 @ 2:07 pm

  46. Joy Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Haha! Oh, they're noisy, but welcome. We know better than to stay underneath when they drop water and/or chemicals (learned that the hard way during a fire 6 years ago). They're letting our bottomland burn, a back-fire, and we did make it through the night. Now bombing the trailhead at the evacuated SUWs camp, the church is still standing, as are all the log McMansions on the back road – despite having been completely surrounded yesterday afternoon. Our local, state and federal firefighters are spectacular!

    We had two trucks from our relatively local VFDs parked in the driveway all day and well into the night, with enough water and foam to have saved the house if the fire had climbed our ridge. That's their ONLY job – protecting property. Grandson and I tried to beat it out with blankets yesterday when it was still small and confined to leaves/kudzu, quickly got overwhelmed. Have Benedryl, electricity still works!

    Now the P-3 is circling low, that's feds fighting the National Forest hot spots… Hope they drop some paratroopers!

    47. Comment by Joy — March 11, 2009 @ 2:52 pm

  47. JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:06 pm

    Allen wrote:

    But we still find nothing nonsensical about saying that mammals have fur "in order to" keep warm. Why not say mammals have fur because their parents have fur? That provides an explanation grounded in genetics, which doesn't include any concept of purpose at all. Whenever I use these kinds of examples with my students, I see those light bulbs go off over their heads; they get that expression that says "Holy crap, I never thought it about it that way before!" And those moments are what make teaching fun and exciting for me, and I hope for them, too.

    So fur doesn’t keep animals warm? Of course it does. It therefore it has that purpose, whether that purpose is primary, secondary or tertiary, fur serves the purpose of insulating mammals from the cold.

    The human hand is another example of exaptation. Anyone who watched the Olympics last summer could not fail to notice the amazing feat of swimmer Michael Phelps. As a world class swimmer Phelps uses his arms and hands to propel himself through the water. Is the primary purpose of our arms and hands to propel ourselves through the water? I don’t think so. So as I understand the term, at least as Gould defined it, the use of our hand for swimming is an example of exaptation. So what is the primary purpose of the human hand? To perform surgery? Play musical instruments? Create works of art? Make tools? Throw baseballs? I think to some degree each of these can also be listed as examples of exaptation.

    In his book, Natures Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, Michael Denton writes: “the crucial question is not whether the human hand represents the absolute pinnacle of manipulative capability, but whether any other species possesses an organ approaching its capabilities. The answer simply must be that no other species posses a manipulative organ remotely approaching the universal utility of the human hand. Even in the field of robotics, nothing has been built which even remotely equals the all around manipulative capacity of the hand.

    The hand not only provided man with the ability to manipulate and explore his environment but also with the ability to construct all manner of diverse tools and instruments, the use of which has been crucial to the acquisition of technological and scientific knowledge. It is impossible to envisage man progressing beyond the most primitive technology without the hand.”

    To me explaining the manipulative capabilities of the human hand by saying “we have hands because our parents had hands,” doesn’t explain very much. Why not ask, how did the human hand ever evolve in the first place? And then trace its development one step at a time.

    48. Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 11, 2009 @ 4:06 pm

  48. chunkdz Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    Joy: Our local, state and federal firefighters are spectacular!

    We love 'em in SoCal too, as you might imagine! Stay safe.

    49. Comment by chunkdz — March 11, 2009 @ 4:15 pm

  49. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Good day Zach,

    A valid argument against "it is impossible to imagine" is to show it is possible to imagine.

    Valid? Yes. Strong? Not really. And you wonder why creationism just won't go away, eh?

    50. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 4:24 pm

  50. Raevmo Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    JJS:

    Valid? Yes. Strong? Not really. And you wonder why creationism just won't go away, eh?

    Are you a creationist? Do you believe in Teh Flood?

    51. Comment by Raevmo — March 11, 2009 @ 4:29 pm

  51. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Another favourite snippet from the essay:

    Of course, there is nothing wrong with analyzing science and looking for metaphysical or theological implications. Indeed, this is a very important task, because it helps us to understand the position of science in the context of human knowledge, to evaluate some philosophical and theological claims, and to determine the limits of scientific knowledge. People have in fact been doing this for centuries. What is wrong is any attempt to go in the opposite direction and force science into some arbitrary mold by saying that the scientist has to discover certain things — be it that the universe is infinitely old, or that space is absolute, or that Darwinian mechanisms can account for all life forms — and that anyone who disputes these things cannot be doing bona fide science.42

    …

    42. In case the reader has any doubt about whether this is done, we may draw attention to remarks of German biologist Dieter Walossek, commenting on the fact that key fossils crucial to the Neo-Darwinian explanation of life were not found in Pre-Cambrian rock formations in a major Chinese discovery: "It doesn't matter if you find it [the missing fossil record] or not! . . . It's there! It's by law! All of the major taxa should have been there in the pre-Cambrian, whether proved or not!" Quoted in Fred Heeren, "Paleontologic Agitprop?," Insight (24 July 2000), 25.

    52. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

  52. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Good day, Raevmo.

    Are you a creationist? Do you believe in Teh Flood?

    I thought I dealt with this "accusation" before. In order not to derail this thread, I think I'll update my profile (soon).

    53. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 4:34 pm

  53. Raevmo Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    A simple yes or no will do.

    54. Comment by Raevmo — March 11, 2009 @ 4:37 pm

  54. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    A simple yes or no will do.

    Actually, Raevmo, it won't.

    55. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 5:04 pm

  55. Zachriel Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    Zachriel: A valid argument against "it is impossible to imagine" is to show it is possible to imagine.

    JJS P.Eng: Valid? Yes. Strong? Not really.

    The argument against "impossible" is possible. That is the argument. If the original claim is poorly defined or is modified, then perhaps other facets of the subject could be explored.

    56. Comment by Zachriel — March 11, 2009 @ 5:20 pm

  56. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 11th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    Good day Zachriel.

    The argument against "impossible" is possible. That is the argument.

    I agree, but my point is it's a rather overly simplistic counterargument that makes me yawn and is not worthy of a graduate course textbook.

    If the original claim is poorly defined or is modified, then perhaps other facets of the subject could be explored.

    I think it was the response that was poor. For the sake of the graduate course, I hope there are more detailed counterpoints.

    Let's back up for a moment. The claim addressed by Ridley was:

    It is impossible to imagine, someone will insist, how a certain character could have evolved in small, advantageous steps.

    So how would once counter this claim? The easiest way is to say what Ridley said:

    In reply, the evolutionary biologist may offer a possible series of stages by which the character might have evolved. It is important to bear in mind the status of the evolutionary biologist's argument here. In some cases, the series of stages may not be particularly plausible or well supported by evidence. The argument, however, was put forward solely to refute the suggestion that we cannot imagine how the character could have evolved

    If the Ridley's case was so rock-solid, as insinuated by yourself, Dawkins, P.Z., etc., I would expect a detailed step-by-step account that was empirically verified. The fact that Ridely didn't do this is a big reason why there are still doubters.

    57. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 11, 2009 @ 5:33 pm

  57. John Wendt Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 8:17 am

    We can imagine a Pegasus, a horse with the wings of a bird, but it is not evolvable (as that term applies).

    When we say "We can imagine", what we need to say to be precise is "We can imagine a series of variations on known developmental processes that will cause an embryo to develop into the new form rather than the old." We can't imagine such a sequence to get Pegasus, because such an animal would have six limbs rather than the canonical four in vertebrates. The development of two pairs of limbs rather than three comes about because front limb buds develop at the border between the expression of Hox5 and Hox6. Tbx5 is expressed here to set in motion the processes that make this a front limb rather than rear. Rear limb buds develop between Hox10 and Hox11. Tbx4 makes this a rear limb.

    To get an additional pair of limbs attached to the thorax would require some additional Hox action, which would probably mess up a lot of other things. This pattern started with a fish that had identical fins front and back. Details of subsequent evolution might be available from comparative genomics.

    The evolution of birds from dinosaurs involved changes in gene expression downstream of the expression of the T-box genes. Other changes, e.g. light bones, presumably took place independently. (Flow-through lungs were present in some dinosaurs.)

    58. Comment by John Wendt — March 12, 2009 @ 8:17 am

  58. John Wendt Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 8:33 am

    If the Ridley's case was so rock-solid, … I would expect a detailed step-by-step account that was empirically verified. The fact that Ridely didn't do this is a big reason why there are still doubters.

    How about some account of how the Designer did it? I notice that no one has yet told me how the Designer (if there is one) influences least-action trajectories. That's why there are still lots of doubters as to whether ID can ever have any actual content.

    59. Comment by John Wendt — March 12, 2009 @ 8:33 am

  59. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 10:42 am

    Good day John Wendt.

    JJS: If the Ridley's case was so rock-solid, … I would expect a detailed step-by-step account that was empirically verified. The fact that Ridely didn't do this is a big reason why there are still doubters.

    J-Dub: How about some account of how the Designer did it?

    Mike Gene has laid out his FLE hypothesis in DM, and I've previously suggested that the front-loading engineer utilised probabilistic design. Is it still speculation? Yes. Can the hypotheses be tested? Sure it can. It's all part of the speculative nature of the debate.

    60. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 12, 2009 @ 10:42 am

  60. Raevmo Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 10:46 am

    JJS:

    I've previously suggested that the front-loading engineer utilised probabilistic design. Is it still speculation? Yes. Can the hypotheses be tested? Sure it can.

    Please tell us how.

    61. Comment by Raevmo — March 12, 2009 @ 10:46 am

  61. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 10:51 am

    Good day Raevmo.

    JJS: I've previously suggested that the front-loading engineer utilised probabilistic design. Is it still speculation? Yes. Can the hypotheses be tested? Sure it can.

    Raevmo: Please tell us how.

    Simple. Posit a design evolutionary pathway (possibly using probabilistic design methods), and test to see if it happens. Right or wrong, the results would be fascinating and informative.

    62. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 12, 2009 @ 10:51 am

  62. John Wendt Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Posit a design evolutionary pathway (possibly using probabilistic design methods)

    How can you "posit a design evolutionary pathway" if you don't know anything about how the Designer (if there is one) works?

    63. Comment by John Wendt — March 12, 2009 @ 11:11 am

  63. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am

    Good day John Wendt.

    How can you "posit a design evolutionary pathway" if you don't know anything about how the Designer (if there is one) works?

    I think TT need a FAQ section where we can direct familar queries to. I would suggest you go to Mike's blog and read "A Review of a Review", especially the Chapter 1 section. Mike demolishes the reviewer with words from DM, the very book the reviewer was supposed to have read!

    Off topic: Mike gave Dave a verbal b!tchsl@p in that post! I never knew Mike had that in him. I almost feel guilty that I enjoyed watching it (almost, not quite). :mrgreen:

    64. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 12, 2009 @ 11:17 am

  64. don provan Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    I think it was the response that was poor. For the sake of the graduate course, I hope there are more detailed counterpoints.

    Could you give an example? How much detail can a counterpoint to "I can't imagine X" have? It's the "It can't be because I can't imagine it being" claim that's not fit for a graduate course.

    65. Comment by don provan — March 12, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

  65. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    Good day don.

    JJS: think it was the response that was poor. For the sake of the graduate course, I hope there are more detailed counterpoints.

    don: Could you give an example? How much detail can a counterpoint to "I can't imagine X" have? It's the "It can't be because I can't imagine it being" claim that's not fit for a graduate course.

    Then don't you find it humourous/sad that a graduate text feels the need to address a claim "not fit for a graduate course"?

    "I can't imagine it" is a basic critcism, and the proper way to address to is to show in detail where the imagination falls short. IOW, stomp the criticism into the ground so it can't get up instead of responding "Oh yes I can imagine", or some other line from John Lennon.

    66. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 12, 2009 @ 5:11 pm

  66. Bilbo Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 10:19 pm

    Prof. MacNeill,

    If you're around, I e-mailed Mike Gene about the idea of coming to speak to your class. He said he thinks it's a "cool" idea, and he would love to do it. You can find his e-mail address at his blog.

    67. Comment by Bilbo — March 12, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

  67. John Wendt Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 9:43 am

    From JJS: Posit a design evolutionary pathway (possibly using probabilistic design methods), and test to see if it happens. Right or wrong, the results would be fascinating and informative.

    The people who actually discovered something real about the genetic code, back in tha 1950s and '60s, tried various rational-seeming schemes for a code. They didn't work.

    The only thing the failures taught them was that they didn't know what they were doing. They discovered the actual code only by doing actual experiments with real molecules. At this stage there was very little to form hypotheses with; they had to collect the data just by trying things.

    68. Comment by John Wendt — March 13, 2009 @ 9:43 am

  68. John Wendt Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Mike looked and found why having 3 stop codons is rational and exhibits foresight.

    Mike says in his blog

    Ciliates have reassigned two of their three stop codons such that they code for glutamine. Thus, the blind watchmaker has the ability to strip away two of the three stop codons, yet has not done this with most organisms. This tells us that there is a long-term beneficial aspect of the code’s design. So what might it be?

    So is the watchmaker blind or foresighted? Remember what a "stop codon" actually is. The codon isn't what stops transcription of RNA. Transcription stops at a sequence of ATATATAT… in the DNA. A and T are complementary, so this sequence doubles back on itself; the resulting hairpin wedges the RNA away from the polymerase. The "stop" function comes about because the corresponding transfer RNA carries a water molecule rather than an amino acid. Thus the protein is terminated. Changing the meaning of a codon can happen by a mutation in the matching tRNA.

    How do we distinguish deliberate design from random mutation? Remember that natural selection is like they say about hang gliding: You're talking to the survivors.

    More from Mike:

    Why think it is merely a coincidence that the alpha helix diameter and the width of the major groove are the same?

    Design implies choices. Albert Einstein once asked his assistant, "Did God have a choice when He designed the universe?" Physics hasn't been able to answer that yet. But chemistry has been able to address Mike's "coincidence": there is no choice. The dimensions of the alpha helix and the major groove are fixed by the geometry of the chemical bonds. Everything in chemistry gets down to energy.

    And Mike doesn't seem to have a source for the energy that he needs to make his front-loading work.

    69. Comment by John Wendt — March 13, 2009 @ 10:12 am

  69. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 12:36 pm

    Good day John Wendt.

    The only thing the failures taught them was that they didn't know what they were doing.

    That's a rather dismal look at failure. IMO, more can be learned from failure than success. And I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

    It has long been practically a truism among practicing engineers and designers that we learn much more from failures than from successes. Indeed, the history of engineering is full of examples of dramatic failures that were once considered confident extrapolations of successful designs; it was the failures that ultimately revealed the latent flaws in the design logic that were initially masked by large factors of safety and a design conservatism that became relaxed with time.
    -Henry Petroski, Design Paradigms, Chapter 1

    70. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 13, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

  70. Bradford Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    JW: But chemistry has been able to address Mike's "coincidence": there is no choice. The dimensions of the alpha helix and the major groove are fixed by the geometry of the chemical bonds. Everything in chemistry gets down to energy.

    Textbook like answers don't supply us with a causal source either. There is no dispute about the helical nature of DNA or the role of energy in reactions. But you take that as a guarantor that a natural proces (i.e. one devoid of intelligent direction) is implicated. Why would DNA, sequenced so as to enable functional biological properties when accurately transcribed and translated, be a chemically preferred outcome to DNA with random codons with respect to biological function?

    71. Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2009 @ 2:01 pm

  71. John Wendt Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 11:23 am

    Why would DNA, sequenced so as to enable functional biological properties when accurately transcribed and translated, be a chemically preferred outcome to DNA with random codons with respect to biological function?

    The chemistry is the same. Random mutation followed by natural selection would seem to suffice. Remember that lots of time means lots of trials, and with lots of trials even very improbable things can happen. Also remember that NS concentrates successful variations in the population.

    72. Comment by John Wendt — March 14, 2009 @ 11:23 am

  72. Bradford Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    JW: Random mutation followed by natural selection would seem to suffice. Remember that lots of time means lots of trials, and with lots of trials even very improbable things can happen. Also remember that NS concentrates successful variations in the population.

    Random mutations followed by natural selection presupposes quite a bit of already in place mechanisms. How does chemistry explain a selection process that begins with a prebiotic environment. This is more than a gap problem. It calls attention to a fundamental weakness in theory.

    73. Comment by Bradford — March 14, 2009 @ 11:57 am

  73. John Wendt Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    It calls attention to a fundamental weakness in theory.

    Beats the pants off something that has no theory at all.

    74. Comment by John Wendt — March 14, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

  74. Raevmo Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Bradford:

    Random mutations followed by natural selection presupposes quite a bit of already in place mechanisms. How does chemistry explain a selection process that begins with a prebiotic environment. This is more than a gap problem. It calls attention to a fundamental weakness in theory.

    We've been over this many times here. As soon as a self-replicating molecule emerges (and this could happen by trial and error), making imperfect copies, all is in place for evolution by natural selection to proceed.

    75. Comment by Raevmo — March 14, 2009 @ 1:45 pm

  75. John Wendt Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    From JJS:

    IMO, more can be learned from failure than success. And I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

    I like Petroski's writing a lot. But he's talking about design, rather than discovery.

    Brian Hayes talks about the discovery of the actual code:

    The code resembled none of the theoretical notions. … All the clever mathematical contrivances for getting 20 amino acids out of 64 codons turned out to be figments of the human urge to find pattern, not reflections of any natural order.

    76. Comment by John Wendt — March 14, 2009 @ 2:19 pm

  76. Bradford Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    It calls attention to a fundamental weakness in theory.

    JW: Beats the pants off something that has no theory at all.

    What it actually does John is place your beliefs on an equally valid subjective basis as mine.

    77. Comment by Bradford — March 14, 2009 @ 4:37 pm

  77. Bradford Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    Raevmo:

    We've been over this many times here. As soon as a self-replicating molecule emerges (and this could happen by trial and error), making imperfect copies, all is in place for evolution by natural selection to proceed.

    Thanks for the creed Raevmo. The Dutch team is doing well in the World Baseball Classic. What a country!

    78. Comment by Bradford — March 14, 2009 @ 4:40 pm

  78. don provan Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    JJS P.Eng.: Then don't you find it humourous/sad that a graduate text feels the need to address a claim "not fit for a graduate course"?

    Yes.

    "I can't imagine it" is a basic critcism…

    No, it's really not. It's just an admission of the speaker's own limits.

    79. Comment by don provan — March 16, 2009 @ 4:43 pm

  79. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    Good day John W.

    Bradford: It calls attention to a fundamental weakness in theory.

    JW: Beats the pants off something that has no theory at all.

    There's an interesting saying in the engineering world: "I'd rather have no information rather than bad information" :wink:

    [from the Brian Hayes link]: The code resembled none of the theoretical notions. … All the clever mathematical contrivances for getting 20 amino acids out of 64 codons turned out to be figments of the human urge to find pattern, not reflections of any natural order.

    Funny how things turn out differently than what we would expect. If you've ever had the pleasure of watching the BBC's documentary miniseries, "The Planets", the episode "Giants" is all about scientists' preconceptions being proved wrong.

    My point is that no matter what side of the fence you are on, theories about something can be quite erroneous.

    80. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 16, 2009 @ 5:18 pm

  80. JJS P.Eng. Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    Good day don.

    JJS: "I can't imagine it" is a basic critcism, and the proper way to address to is to show in detail where the imagination falls short.

    don: No, it's really not. It's just an admission of the speaker's own limits.

    I thought some context to my quote would be a good thing.

    And the limits of the "I can too imagine it" are quite clear too. :razz:

    81. Comment by JJS P.Eng. — March 16, 2009 @ 5:22 pm

  81. steve Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    I haven't been around much because we're in kind of a boring transition period. Just as there was a transition period of a few years between the court cases in '86 and '87 and the regrouping of creationist forces under the new "Intelligent Design" label, we're now in a transition period between the court case of 2005 and the regrouping under whatever label comes next. (Which so far appears to be Academic Freedom or Strengths and Weaknesses of- / Critical Look at- Evolution, but nothing's certain yet).

    So on to the questions.

    What is the scientific status of Intelligent Design? Where does it currently stand

    Well, scientific revolution is a process of convincing the scientific community to adopt the new paradigm for research, because it works better, leads to more detail, answers outstanding questions in the field, etc. Not only is this not happening with ID, the main ID people don't even seem to be trying to make it happen. When new ideas are rejected, which happens regularly in the beginning of scientific revolutions, the scientist or small group of scientists go back to the lab and do more work, better work, until they can't be denied. That work is essential for a scientific revolution to succeed, and whining on blogs about discrimination, and lobbying school boards, is no substitute. People who fail at things have a million excuses, but excuses don't get the research done. And if you don't get the research done, you've got jack.

    Now, there is no ID Theory. Everybody knows ID is a subset of creationist arguments which have their origins decades before Behe or Dembski came along. But just for the hell of it, let's pretend for a moment that it actually is a distinct thing, and not a new label adopted in the wake of those court cases in the late 80's. And lets compare it to what the evolutionists and YECs are doing.

    Evolution research: thousands of experiments per year, thousands of papers in the science journals per year.

    YEC: no experiments, about a hundred 'papers' in their Journal of Creation per year.

    'ID Theorists': No experiments, no papers even in their own journal PCID.

    It's not fair to compare Journal of Creation papers with real science papers, because JoC papers are garbage. But at least they manage to put out about 75-100 papers a year which look sciency to non-experts. IDers, even with their Discovery Institute millions, never managed to put out a single issue of PCID which looked as sciency or as full as JoC, and they haven't been able to put out an issue at all since 2005. (They gave it up the same month as Judge Jones's ruling. Coincidence? Or the abandonment of a Potemkin village the moment the fraud was revealed?)

    So if you want to know how much progress ID is making, think of how much effect YEC is having on science, which is to say none, and then realize that ID is accomplishing distinctly less 'science' than they are.

    and more importantly in what direction is it headed? What are its possibilities and potentials?

    Look at what the Discovery Institute is up to. Their new book doesn't even mention the term ID once. Dembski never wrote the book Templeton paid him for, Paul Nelson never wrote the monograph the DI paid him for. The Discovery Institute hasn't updated its list of "ID Research" since summer 2007 IIRC. Dembski has all but abandoned his blog, whose traffic has gone down for several years now. Last year on his blog he mentioned several former supporters of ID who have thrown in the towel. Philip Johnson wondered a few years ago why they haven't been able to develop a model 'like the evolutionists have'. The number of people who go to paid ID blogger Denyse O'Leary's website on any given day would fit into a single-wide trailer. The last comment made on Overwhelming Evidence was in early January. Brainstorms, like YoungCosmos, doesn't even accept new registrations for its message board. Allen MacNeill discovered that something like 28 of the 30 IDEA clubs are now defunct. I've called the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design several times. Nobody ever picks up. I've emailed several PCID editors to ask when a new issue's coming out. No reply. So my answer to your question is, in what direction is an abandoned car headed?

    ID is winding down, and the new creationist approach hasn't solidified yet, and the whole thing's been kinda boring lately.

    82. Comment by steve — March 16, 2009 @ 9:59 pm

  82. steve Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    Is it a coincidence that this thread is titled Crossroads, which was the fake title the producers of Expelled used in order to secure, under false pretenses, interviews with scientists?

    83. Comment by steve — March 16, 2009 @ 10:09 pm

  83. Bradford Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    steve: Is it a coincidence that this thread is titled Crossroads, which was the fake title the producers of Expelled used in order to secure, under false pretenses, interviews with scientists?

    It's part of the vast right wing conspirarcy Hillary once railed against. You're a perceptive guy steve.

    84. Comment by Bradford — March 16, 2009 @ 10:21 pm

  84. steve Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 10:27 pm

    A more succinct answer to the question "where is ID headed?" is "the internet". It didn't produce any science, so it's not headed for the textbooks, it didn't produce the legal victory of sneaking creationism past the courts, so it's not headed for the law books, but it has found a small following of chatty supporters, so, like 9'11 Truthers, or the Anti-vaxxers, or the Unfologists, it'll be one of those little corners of the Web for the indefinite future.

    85. Comment by steve — March 16, 2009 @ 10:27 pm

  85. steve Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    I used to come here to just read the Zachriel posts, but looks like I'm going to have to add Don Provan to the list. Don and Zach both seem to be familiar with science, and so they stand out like sore thumbs here. Or watches lying among the grass, if you will.

    86. Comment by steve — March 16, 2009 @ 10:40 pm

  86. Bradford Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 10:58 pm

    steve: I used to come here to just read the Zachriel posts…

    I don't believe it. Not for a second. You stop by on occasion and after leaving your droppings you leave. Bon Voyage.

    87. Comment by Bradford — March 16, 2009 @ 10:58 pm

  87. GringoRoyale Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

    I used to come here to just read the Zachriel posts, but looks like I'm going to have to add Don Provan to the list. Don and Zach both seem to be familiar with science, and so they stand out like sore thumbs here. Or watches lying among the grass, if you will.

    Ahhh,
    On-line cheerleaders.
    What can be more pathetic?

    88. Comment by GringoRoyale — March 16, 2009 @ 11:32 pm

  88. Thought Provoker Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 12:39 am

    Steve,

    I am crushed. You may not agree with my quantum quackery, but I thought you would at least find it entertaining.

    :wink:

    89. Comment by Thought Provoker — March 17, 2009 @ 12:39 am

  89. AnaxagorasRules Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 2:03 am

    "Intelligent Design has been proposed as a new scientific hypothesis about the possibility of certain types of transitions occurring naturally. The thrust of its proposal is that biological (and other) entities may be partitioned into groups or classes within which transitions are possible, but between which they are not.

    If this is really the crux of the Intelligent Design movement, then it's been a pretty well-kept secret, or was poorly worded by its loudest advocates as to allow all the other inferences to glom onto it. The excerpt above can be interpreted as simply being an attack on the notion of universal common descent.

    I'm not sure how Behe advanced ID's cause, as "Darwin's Black Box" seems to argue against the viability of any complex structure coming together naturally, and is often interpreted as invoking the intervention of a supernatural source.

    "Inteligent Design" is a poorly-worded construct, in that it does not convey what the exerpt does. Something like "Rapidly Ordered Differentiated Assembly" might be more apt (and it even leaves out the word "design"…so that people with anti-God complexes don't get all in a huff).

    90. Comment by AnaxagorasRules — March 17, 2009 @ 2:03 am

  90. steve Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 4:09 am

    # Thought Provoker Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 12:39 am

    Steve,

    I am crushed. You may not agree with my quantum quackery, but I thought you would at least find it entertaining.
    :wink:

    Comment by Thought Provoker — March 17, 2009 @ 12:39 am

    TP, as you know, we allow you to say whatever you want at AtBC. Though, yeah, quackery often involves quantum mechanics, and I really don't care what people think about the subject who don't even know the basics, who, for instance, can't even calculate Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.

    BTW somebody needs to update Bradford on the Dimwit Talking Points. The new hotness is Obama's a Muslim, his birth certificate is fake, he wants to have a gay marriage to Karl Marx, etc. Hillary, Vince Foster, Whitewater, etc. is so passe.

    91. Comment by steve — March 17, 2009 @ 4:09 am

  91. Thought Provoker Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am

    Hi Steve,

    No, I didn't know how to calculate Clebsch-Gordan coefficients but I found this link useful.

    Now, can you create six-degree of freedom models (including both linear and angular momentums) using numerical analysis techniques (e.g. Runga-Kutta methods) in five different computer languages?

    I do not have a PhD in physics. I participate in blogging to expand my worldview as a side interest. Unfortunately, my real-world obligations have backed up because of an extended hospital stay.

    However, I hope and expect to get back to the interesting subject of bioquantum physics. There has been progress in hypotheses forwarded by real-world people with real-world PhDs like Penrose, Hameroff and others.

    If and when I get the time, I will gladly post my summary of the progress both at Telic Thoughts and on AtBC as I did in the past.

    I would expect the exercise will be as entertaining as my previous effort was.

    92. Comment by Thought Provoker — March 17, 2009 @ 10:20 am

  92. Bradford Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am

    steve: BTW somebody needs to update Bradford on the Dimwit Talking Points. The new hotness is Obama's a Muslim, his birth certificate is fake, he wants to have a gay marriage to Karl Marx, etc. Hillary, Vince Foster, Whitewater, etc. is so passe.

    Steve, come back when you are able to string together intelligible political commentary but if you do so make sure it is on an open thread.

    93. Comment by Bradford — March 17, 2009 @ 11:03 am

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