Detecting Design?
by MikeGeneWe have seen that Christopher Wills, a professor of biology from UCSD, and an ID critic, acknowledges that the ID hypothesis "is in principle testable." One of Wills' suggested lines of evidence is as follows:
Or, in the case of evolution, one could search for sudden discontinuities in the history of life, in which a new structure or function has arisen without any previous history and no relationship to structures or functions in other related organisms. (Such new structures have not yet been found, by the way.)
I take a closer look here.
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
The history of life on Earth consists only of discontinuities, under the assumption that Mendelian genetics applies throughout the entire history of life on Earth. Mendelian inheritance is discrete and discontinuous. Which, of course, means that new structure and function (its not an "or" thing"”its always new structure and function) have indeed arisen w/o previous history"”which is why I suppose is why we call it "new."
"Such new structures have not yet been found, by the way." Whaaat?!
I shouldn't have believed in all those "evolutionary innovations" I've been hearing about?! I shouldn't have taken seriously the idea that evolution is a "creative" process?!
Comment by Rock — June 22, 2006 @ 4:55 pm
June 25th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Actually population genetics and evo-devo have gone a long way to elucidate and explain how "discontinuities in the history of life," are both not all that sudden (cambrian explosion occurring over 15million years, for example) and not so improbable.
Comment by Daniel — June 25, 2006 @ 6:34 pm
June 26th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Daniel,
I really do believe that you have completely missed Rock's point. If he has one, heheh!
Mendelian inheritance happens all the time. If it is indeed discrete and discontinuous, then there is nothing improbable at all about discrete and discontinuous events.
Comment by Mung — June 26, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
June 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Mung,
I was responding to Mike's reference to Wills' description of "sudden discontinuities," not Rock. I actually think that my response reflects Rock's (making mine superfluous, maybe) - in any case, I agree with what he said.
Isn't that essentially what Rock and I were saying?
Comment by Daniel — June 26, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
June 26th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Charles Babbage, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, 2nd edn London, 1838.
http://www.victorianweb.org/sc...
(Thanks to Seth Bullock for the reference.)
Comment by Rock — June 26, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
July 6th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
The problem with the notion of continuous evolution (as in "common descent") is that it depends upon a record, and records of events are imprecise, incomplete. But although the imprecision of the record is given, the incompleteness is not. (Not in physics.) Therefore every discontinuity in the record represents a gap in theory, and a gap that creationists will fill with God.
The "gaps" are a theoretical artifact. Given that not all (evolutionary) theories require continuity. Not required by physics, e.g., and not required by alternative theories of biological evolution either. And if biological evolution must be grounded in physics then it simply is not a theoretical requirement. So we have to wonder, as has been wondered, why Darwin, and the Neo-Darwinists required it. There are a number of reasons, good and bad, few actually explored, because its usually stated as either a necessary assumption or a requirement. Either accepted as such, and requiring little if any further explication"¦ or not.
The problem for creationists is that I can just as easily fill those gaps by qualifying the (theoretical, not empirical) requirement that evolution be continuous. It's not in any case. So it doesn't represent empirically a problem. It represents a problem only for Darwin's (and the Neo-Darwinists') particular theory.
Many interesting questions and problems here. At least to me. None of which are addressed, at least directly, in the usual, "Did whales once walk on land?" arguments we have.
There is a perfectly legitimate question asked here about detecting design in discontinuities.
(Its kinda hrd to find the threads in this format.)
Comment by Rock — July 6, 2006 @ 2:36 pm