Intelligence: A Useful Concept
by BradfordDespite assertions to the contrary scientists, social scientists, educators and professionals in many fields have found the term intelligence to be both a useful concept and one that can be used in conjuction with explanations related to research. The evolution of intelligence is discussed in some papers. Sometimes the evolution of intelligence is explained by theories of complex animal behavior. On other occasions in terms of nutrition.
Intelligence is at times alluded to indirectly as in: One signal from light-years away could prove we're not alone in the vastness of space"”and alter humanity's view of our place in the universe. Extensive scholarly use of the word intelligence is testimony that the concept confers explanatory utility.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Bradford,
Your first cite seems primarily related to human intelligence saying "Most intelligence researchers define intelligence as what is measured by intelligence tests."
Your second cite defined intelligence as "'learning ability,' which is how easily a brain learns new strategies; and 'cerebral capacity,' which measures the number of different ideas that a brain can learn and use."
Your third cite proposes a single formalism "representing competing explanations of sophisticated behaviour".
Your fourth cite considers the evolution of increasing resources to the brain.
And, of course, SETI defines intelligence as the ability to transmit radio signals across interstellar space.
It certainly seems that each of your cites supports the necessity of providing a clear operational definition of intelligence for scientific research.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Unless you can actually show these assertions to the contrary, I would suggest that the first sentence of this post is simply setting up a big ole straw man.
Comment by hrun — May 25, 2008 @ 1:30 am
May 25th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Intelligence can be manifested in many different ways. It is a broad umbrella covering the many different aspects of it. Those using the term focus on a specific aspect. That may be the transmission of radio signals in one context or the display of complex behavior in another or solving a mathematical equation in yet another. So you are right to cite the need to make the operational definition clear for a particular hypothesis.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 4:19 am
May 25th, 2008 at 4:35 am
Contrary to intelligence being a useful concept. Hmm… Try this example:
The best explanation for the existence of a stone axe is primates dunnit. I'll stipulate that primates are the source but what is it about primates that enable them to fashion tools? It is questions beyond the obvious ones that reveal distinguishing causal factors. Why a primate and not a goldfish? Hands? That's part of it too but would an organism with hands and the mind of a goldfish construct an axe, a computer, a rocket? Pointing out the obvious is intended to focus attention on efforts to obfuscate when the matter of intelligent causality is discussed. When result x does not take place without intelligent input identifying intelligence as a factor in a causal chain is every bit as relevant as identifying other causal factors be they hands…
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 4:35 am
May 25th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Which aspect do IDists focus on?
Comment by The Pixie — May 25, 2008 @ 5:40 am
May 25th, 2008 at 7:42 am
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. "” CFSC
Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence. "” William Dembski
Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence. "” ISCID
What the heck are they talking about when they say "intelligence"
Comment by Zachriel — May 25, 2008 @ 7:42 am
May 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
So who is that person who made the assertion that scientists in many fields have NOT found intelligence to be a useful concept. Hmmmm? Straw man, as I thought.
I find it really appalling that you are apparently trying to allude to your exchange with aiguy in this post and then so blatantly misrepresent his stance.
Why don't you just go back and try to read aiguy's posts without bias and specifically look if aiguy thinks if intelligence is a useful concept or not. For crying out loud, aiguy worked in 'Artificial Intelligence' for thirty years and you want to claim that aiguy thinks intelligence is not a useful concept?
If you actually were to take the time and ask aiguy specifically about this, I would guess that you might get an answer like this one: Of course intelligence is a useful concept for scientists. Scientists study intelligence in many different ways. However, for intelligence to be a useful concept, it has to be defined in a meaningful way.
Comment by hrun — May 25, 2008 @ 9:37 am
May 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Zach:
That depends. Which one of these is a hypothesis?
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 25, 2008 @ 9:37 am
May 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
All of them?
Comment by hrun — May 25, 2008 @ 9:42 am
May 25th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I wonder if Zach would agree
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 25, 2008 @ 9:54 am
May 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Center for Science and Culture: The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
They claim there is a theory that involves "an intelligent cause". This supposed theory clearly concerns biology and they contrast it with natural selection. However, I've never seen a *valid* hypothesis. Everything I've seen put forth is either scientifically vacuous, or simply false.
Comment by Zachriel — May 25, 2008 @ 10:04 am
May 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am
detecting design=self recognition; intelligence=complexified emotion.
Comment by Stephen — May 25, 2008 @ 10:29 am
May 25th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Todd Berkebile: This isn't my thread so I won't send your post into oblivion, but I will note that it very much deserves oblivion.
If you cannot ignore posts that you find uninformative without resorting to ad hominem attacks, you will find yourself without posting privileges. Consider this a warning.
Clean up your act.
Comment by Joy — May 25, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Todd, where does your anger come from? There is an apparent inability to disclose to the buying public that natural selection is context dependent, and it is such an easy disclosure to make. Perhaps the anger sources this failure. I get the impression that Dawkins and Dennett refuse to disclose the truth because that will expose their canard about the watchmaker being blind. The only way these folks can conclude that the watchmaker is blind is to leap to the conclusion that natural selection is context independent, when it is not. This particular anger repressent a hidden agenda, and the hidden agenda is a contrivance or an intelligent design. But this self recognition is in the negative, and hence the emotionality expressed is an anger. And so I am able to detect design through self recognition, which completely explains my equation that you taunt.
Comment by Stephen — May 25, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has a short article today in the New York Times entitled How Are Humans Unique? attempting to quantify the difference between animal and human intelligence.
Earlier this month the Times published an article by Carl Zimmer examining animal intelligence in Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn't Better. The question "why are humans so smart" supposedly fascinates scientists, but so does its opposing question, "if it's so great to be smart, why have most animals remained dumb?" It describes an experiment demonstrating that smart flies were less successful reproducers, while dumb flies out-generated them by 30% and lived 15% shorter lives.
The article takes a look at the physical costs of intelligence and suggests that humans pay a high price for extreme learning. The speculation is that some diseases are a byproduct of intelligence. But Bradford's link on the evolution of intelligence does note that sexual selection apparently militates against greater intelligence, since the highly intelligent (or merely fabulously wealthy) among humans are not notably prolific breeders.
Still, it does appear that science has some idea - as do we all - of what intelligence *is* and is trying to quantify it (or its subsidiary attributes) for study. Perhaps the deliberately thrown confusions in places like this where "Intelligent Design" argues for some quantifiable attribute of design that would qualify is just an attempt to avoid the possibility that designs in life might be less than blindly accidental in origin and more than blindly selective in predominance.
Comment by Joy — May 25, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I would hope we could all agree to this statement but I would add that the context of a study dictates what would be deemed intelligent. As long as that too is understood there should be no problem.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
The topic of the OP here is being discussed in the "Bunny-and-a-book" thread. I don't want to be accused of hijacking this thread, so I'll stick to that one (it's a great discussion).
But the bottom line here is that ID presents no reason to assume that there is any common characteristic of all intelligent agents. This means that when ID concludes that "intelligent agency" is responsible for something, that conclusion is without meaning beyond the tautological claim that it was capable of doing whatever it is being hypothesized to have done. This is very different from the situation when we study humans and other animals.
If you don't specify what sort of intelligent agent you are talking about (a life form? an animal? a primate? a non-physical spiritual being? a fifteen-dimensional vortex of dark energy plasma?) we can't say a single thing about what might be true of this intelligent agent. Maybe it uses mental images to think about the future, or maybe it has no mental images at all. Maybe it has a will with which it can choose what to do; maybe it has no will and is completely determined as to what it must do. Maybe it can learn from experience; maybe it is incapable of learning anything. And so on.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
This amounts to the old complaint that you have to find a designer and define that designer in detail before allowing for an intelligent design inference which, contrary to hrun's claim, does exclude intelligence as a useful concept in all cases for which the designer is not observed prior to examing evidence. SETI is a problem for this viewpoint and requires some deft obfuscation about either the nature of the evidence or the designer.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Bradford,
No, not details! Any information at all! My point is that there is not one single solitary characteristic that can be attributed to something based solely on the label of "intelligent agent".
If you disagree, please tell me what characteristic applies to every intelligent agent, no matter what sort of thing it is - from an intelligent disembodied spiritual being to an intelligent fifteen dimensional dark energy vortex to an intelligent chess-playing computer to an intelligent human being.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
This is a different complaint from the one which alleges that there is a definitional obstacle. As you are aware I impute ID at a prebiotic stage. Life can be viewed as a problem of discerning a series of chemical reactions leading to it or it can be viewed as an information paradox. The latter is a more useful lense in my view. It is accurate of course to point out that we have incomplete knowledge. That incompleteness extends to the study of how information is generated, maintained, encoded and more. New data and theoretical breakthroughs will come and they will not be vacuous. Whether or not they favor an intelligent design perspective remains to be seen. The anti-ID camp has held sway with all but a plausible theory for a long time now with respect to prebiotic developments.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Mike has offered human like intelligence. Humans are attempting to construct life from scratch now. We can manipulate cellular constructs and understand their functions. What is interesting about human attempts to construct life is the evidence it would provide for downward causation as the missing link for the generation of life. That is if humans are successful.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Joy,
I'm sorry that I responded to an off-topic post with an off-topic post. At this point though Stephen is continuing to blatantly misconstrue my response as he often does. I fell I must respond to the falsehood but I will ignore the rest of his posts as I find nothing within them relevant to the topic. I will also limit myself to this single response (although every time I respond I get more of Stephen's humor, so this promise might be hard to keep
).
Stephen,
I assure you I have no anger towards your posts, I believe the word I used was amusement and I was being honest. You genuinely make me laugh and I enjoy your posts for their rich humor. All I ask from you is the common courtesy to believe that I mean what I say. If I understood what you are trying to say I would believe that it represents your sincere beliefs, so please believe me when I say you make me laugh and I feel no anger towards you.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — May 25, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I think you're on to something here, to define human like intelligence you list behaviors humans can perform. Lets assume that we all agree that life is an "information paradox" which violates some otherwise consistent universal law. Rather that speculating that "intelligence dunnit" wouldn't you instead need to speculate about the manner in which it was done? For example, perhaps your proposed agent reached out with noodly appendages and moved around some atoms in order to form the first replicator. In your example above you mention the sort of modifications humans are capable of, for example things such as gene splicing and selective breeding. In effect, you need to describe the behavior you claim your agent was able to engage in. Once you list the behaviors your agent is capable of then you can start to guess what form of "intelligence" if any would be required to generate those behaviors. Simply saying "intelligent agent" doesn't provide any clue as to what sort of behaviors are possible. It could be taken to mean "an agent capable of doing anything conceivable" in which case it hardly helps guide research.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — May 25, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Todd, I take issue with your view that my posts are off-topic. Moreover, the self that engages itself in the act of self recognition is not the naive notion of self assigned to me and you as isolated agents. Rather this self sources the non-dual watchmaker, and we find our emotions (thought to be merely our private experience) not to be our's either. Our emotions are found sourcing the watchmaker too, we only borrow our emotions, and hence we have direct self evidence that contradicts the theory that the watchmaker is blind. The watchmaker is Husserl's transcendental subject, and is experienced directly, and hence we utter ralevations. The precondition for life and evolution is the innate sentience that is discovered to follow the universal grammar. Again, no one must believe me, but then you will be unable to ignore the great thinkers in Husserl and Schelling that say almost the same thing.
Comment by Stephen — May 25, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Bradford,
OK. The task of ID then is not to detect "design", nor "intelligent agency", but to support the hypothesis that human-like mental abilities are responsible for life.
Here are some general human-like mental abilities:
1) concsious awareness
2) mental imagery
3) sensory perception mechanisms for vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste
4) learning
5) reasoning about novel problems (rather than just fixed instinctive abilities)
etc.
Plus of course there is a huge literature of specific facts about human mentality, and how specific neural structures (our brains) are involved in various mental tasks.
I have never read anything about how ID was looking at any of this. Where is this research being done?
I think this is deeply fallacious. Once again: When humans managed to figure out how to generate high-voltage arcs of electricity, they used their brains to do so. That doesn't mean that thunderclouds need brainpower to create high-voltage arcs. So no, the fact that humans learn to recreate something we see in nature does not mean that something human-like was responsible for the same phenomenon in nature. This was the mistake of animism.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
You don't have to do that but you can make that an operational assumption if you wish.
That's helpful.
I don't have a problem with this.
Constraints as to what is possible or plausible are guiding clues.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Right, although this begs the question as to how the result was generated by nature.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
aguy:
I myself hope that ID will focus first on 5 and 4 and after that is established maybe 2 and finally 1 and 3
But isn't this completely up to the individual scientist reporting on his findings? I still after all this band width fail to see why we must completely define our terms in advance?
Did Darwin completely define evolution before he proposed his theory?
It seems to me that his definition of evolution was defined by words like random and natural and ID's definition of Intelligent will be defined by terms like IC and CSI. But it is much much too soon to say for sure what individual scientists will do
Haven't you heard folks are not allowed to even discuss this stuff in public let alone research it.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 25, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Bradford,
The question is not really begged by this; the question was already present.
FMM,
I have never even heard of any sort of outline for a proposal as to how one might begin to think about studying these things in the context of ID. Can anybody say how we might study the learning abilities of the Designer of Life, or the range of problem solving the Designer is capable of when presented with novel circumstances? Much less a proposal for how we might study if the Designer was conscious or not!
If you don't define what "intelligence" is supposed to mean, then you are trading on the unscientific, intuitive notions that we have about mind. That is the only thing I object to in ID. If you say you are looking for evidence of the learning ability of the Designer, then fine - that is your hypothesis, and you have to say how you are going to go about supporting that hypothesis. Same with consciousness of the Designer, and so on. But as we've seen, when you use the word "intelligence" without qualification, everybody is thinking something different about what is being discussed. This sort of ambiguity and equivocation is anathema in science and all rigorous inquiry. The confusion is only good for people who are trying to co-opt science to support viewpoints that can't actually be supported by empirical evidence.
He attributed biological adaptations to random, heritable variation and differential reproduction. I think those concepts are clear.
I don't think "IC" and "CSI" have anything to do with "intelligence", but we can't really argue that until you tell me what you mean by "intelligence".
Then we should resume this discussion when there is something to say about it
That's funny! I suggest that ID begin to do actual research by joining the thousands of professional scientists and philosophers who study intelligence. Cognitive psychology, neurobiology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy of mind… People have been making careers studying these issues for a very long time, and it has always amazed me that so many ID enthusiasts don't seem to be aware of much of it.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
So when I see a term like artificial intelligence or Neanderthal intelligence with out a clear definition I can assume I am witnessing an attempt to co-opt science?
It was meant to be. somtimes it's good to relax
So when a philosopher studies intelligence he is doing Actual Research?
Maybe we are just not interested in actual research done by philosophers or folks who want to co-opt science with terms like artificial intelligence
Cool! and in the mean time we will continue to discuss our common sense hunches about design with out you.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 25, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Right, although this begs the question as to how the result was generated by nature.
Nature could have accomplished the effect through human like input.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
If Michael Behe took $100,000 from the DI, used it to do ID research in his lab, then published the results in the ID journal PCID, who would stop him?
Comment by steve — May 25, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
It was a joke man. Relax
Besides everyone knows the DI uses all it's billions to plot the overthrow of the constitution and the institution of a theocracy.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 25, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
FMM,
Wrong again, I'm afraid. As I've tried to explain many times, in science, the term "intelligence" is never used as an explanation of anything, but of course people use the term in descriptive ways all the time.
It would be really stupid of me to argue that the term "artificial intelligence" attempts to equivocate on the concept of "intelligence", since artificial intelligence is what I study. It would be even more stupid, however, if I attempted to explain how my systems worked by referring to "intelligence".
Q: How does Deep Blue manage to play chess so well?
A: Because it is intelligent!
Q: What enables humans to design computer programs?
A: Intelligence!
Q: What caused the complex form and function of biological systems?
A: Intelligence!
All of these are comedic examples of why scientists don't use the concept of "intelligence" per se as explanations: The reason is because the term adds nothing to our understanding. It is a descriptive term we loosely apply to some of the things that animals do. Whenever we attempt to use the concept in a formal theory (in academic work in scientific or philosophy) we must always provide some explicit definition of what we are talking about.
Analogously, we can't explain anything by the term "athleticism". The words "athleticism" and "intelligence" are very much alike, as both are informal descriptive terms for various abilities that animals display.
Q: How do cheetahs manage to run so fast?
A: Athleticism!
Q: How can fleas jump so high?
A: They are athletic!
Q: How does light move so quickly through space?
A: Because it is athletic!
You see? It's OK to use these word as loosely descriptive terms - we all do. But hopefully you can see now that they do not constitute informative explanations of anything.
Cheers.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Absolutely. Unfortunately Mr Ahmanson's money hasn't produced much success on the plotting front, either!
Comment by Alan Fox — May 25, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Bradford,
I don't know what you mean here. Explanations can be question-begging, but I wasn't offering an explanation of anything.
My point was that inferences from similar effects to similar causes require independent substantiation, and when the inference is to some unspecified entity that is hypothesized to be able to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the phenomenon in question, such independent substantiation is impossible. This is why we do not consider animistic explanations of natural phenomena to be scientific - because we can never tell if they are true.
And this remains the case whether or not we have any other theory!. If no other theory can be supported, then the answer is not "intelligence did it". The answer is "We do not know".
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
All,
Imagine the Hubble Telescope took some photographs of a mysterious phenomenon: A comet that was travelling through deep space on a trajectory that nobody could explain. The comet would move very quickly in one direction, then suddenly move off in another direction. It would stop, spin around, and rapidly accelerate.
Physicists came up with some explanations - gravitational effects from dark matter, effects from black holes, etc - but none of these theories was able to explain everything being observed.
Finally, someone wrote a book that explained what was going on: Athletic causation was the best explanation for the comet's movement! As we all know, athletic agents can start and stop and turn and accelerate, and this is just what the comet was observed doing. The "athleticism inference" can support the idea that athleticism is involved in the comet's movements.
The physicists complained that "athleticism" doesn't really explain anything about human beings or other animals, and it certainly doesn't explain anything about astrophysical phenomena either.
But the Athletic Causation proponents just scoffed, because the physicists couldn't come up with any non-athleticism-based theory at all!
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 7:45 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
As I pointed out before this is the old complaint about the identity of the designer being established first. But since independent substantiation is claimed to be necessary by you you are left without any theory explaining life's origins. No substantiation of biochemical pathways to life let alone independent substantiation. Nada. Zip.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Brilliant.:roll:
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Sorry to come in late on this discussion; I was taking my kids fishing on this gorgeous day.
Anyway, I would like to go back and consider an earlier list:
Personally, I find all three of these definitions of ID almost entirely vacuous. To see why, let's change the word "intelligent" (an adjective) to another word: "red" (a different adjective). I suggest this as a partial solution to the problem of defining "intelligence/intelligent" (i.e. we can use "red" and "redness" as a place-holder).
Here's what comes out:
I think that, right off the bat, we can probably agree that the second and third definitions are so similar as to be semantically interchangeable. That leaves us with:
These two definitions are almost semantically equivalent as well. Indeed, without the qualifier "…not an undirected process such as natural selection" they would be exactly equivalent, and just as useless as explanations. The qualifier "…not an undirected process such as natural selection", however, gives us a clue as to what "redness" is: it has to do with being undirected.
This is important because, without the qualifier, "redness" (i.e. "intelligence") is what is known in philosophy as a "dormitive principle". Named for a line in Moliere's "The Imaginary Invalid", a dormitive principle is a pseudoexplanation in which the explanation is simply a semantically identical restatement of the original proposition:
In the definitions of Intelligent Design listed above, the word "intelligent" is essentially a dormitive principle: it doesn't explain anything, it just restates the original proposition.
But, my two oldest sons (the ones I took fishing this afternoon "“ we didn't catch anything, by the way) are red-green colorblind (thanks to my wife, who is a carrier), and so to them the terms "red" and "redness" mean something entirely different than they do to me. Indeed, they mean almost nothing, as they cannot perceive what I perceive when I use the terms "red" and "redness".
Which leaves us with the qualifier ""…not an undirected process such as natural selection" as the sole explanatory component of "intelligent design". But this immediately raises problems, because the assumption that natural selection is "undirected" is just that: an assumption. And, as it turns out, it is a completely false assumption. Natural selection is clearly not "undirected", because if it were, it couldn't possibly produce what Darwin and most other evolutionary biologists say it produces: adaptations, which are consistent patterns of functionality, not random (i.e. patternless) objects and processes.
Natural selection, in other words, is directed. And what directs it? The environment, of course, via the interactions between individuals and their environment.
And so, the three "definitions" of Intelligent Design offered near the beginning of this thread reduce to one:
Useless junk. Can someone please define "intelligent design" in such a way as to include in such a definition a genuine explanation, rather than simply a restatement of a dormitive principle?
Then, perhaps, we might begin to get somewhere…
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 25, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
aiguy:
Hmmm… interesting conjecture. Not so sure "athletic comets" are really scientific, though given the evidence, this comet would certainly qualify as athletic. While I might suspect it displayed the qualities of a spacecraft (thus might be under intelligent control), if they were absolutely determined to explain it as something naturally non-intelligent, I suppose athleticism fits the bill. I can recall a year when the Cowboys were in the Superbowl and i was too embarrassed by their team criminality to root for them. Athletes are often non-intelligent, even though they can move in amazing ways.
It explains being able to move in amazing ways, what with serious and intense training and a dose of 'natural ability' and such. Still, I can see that physicists might be a little bent. But it's sure gotta be better than intelligent design (and a maneuverable comet with hyperdrive). They could learn to live with it.
Yeah, you'll have this. In which case, the Athletic Causation proponents would have a theory with better explanatory power than anything the physicists propose. Unless they break down and suggest a hyperdrive comet with a mad pilot doing his own thing (relatively intelligent or not). Life will go on anyway - sans the hyperdrive comet worshippers who all wear expensive sneakers and offed themselves so they could meet up with it as it drove by, joining notable suicide cults [Hale-Bopp anyone?] of human experience and disappearing from the radar of most humans in record time anyway. Having nothing to do with the price of tea in China and all.
So. Who do you think they'd name it after?
And in the end, why would it matter what anyone here on earth believes about it, unless it was scheduled to land on the White House lawn on Tuesday? Should people be prevented from believing anything unauthorized for them to believe? Should they buy a bad theory just because it's got "scientific support" despite its bad-ness? Should they believe nothing and ignore its existence altogether? Should they be smitten mightily for suspecting intelligent design?
…what's your point (do you have one or is this the Memorial Day Backyard Beer-Fest speaking?)?
Comment by Joy — May 25, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
It's the exact same complaint.
A scientific prediction is *entailed* in the hypothesis. Hypothetico-deduction. If the hypothesis includes poorly defined terms, then the deduction will be fallacious. In other words, we could measure one thing and it have no particular relationship to what we are trying to demonstrate. Equivocation is scientifically vacuous. A large number of ID Claims are of this variety.
Comment by Zachriel — May 25, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Bradford,
I don't think anybody has a good theory explaining life's origins.
Thanks - I think the analogy to "athleticism" makes the problem with ID crystal clear. Hopefully this enables people to see that trying to explain life with "intelligence" is as vacuous as trying to explain some mysterious movement with "athleticism".
Allen,
I have actually used the very same pedagogical devices, suggesting people substitute "magic" for "intelligence" in these definitions, and showing that "intelligence" in the context of ID was virtus dormitiva.
Joy,
My point is that "intelligence" doesn't explain anything, for the same reason "athleticism" doesn't explain anything.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Okay…for the sake of moving the ball forward, I'll take a shot at it.
According to Wikipedia, "intelligence" incorporates the following qualities: the ability to plan, to solve problems, to use language, and to learn.
How (if at all) does the "front loading hypothesis" comport with this definition? (Or fail to do so?)
Anyone?
Comment by Lutepisc — May 25, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Allen MacNeill:
A recent blog entry Defining Intelligent Design contained these comments:
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I find this whole attempt to deny the usefulness of the word intelligence, from a bunch of supposedly intelligent people, to be quite amusing.
Comment by nobody — May 25, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
aiguy:
And I detected this concern in your original scenario, since it wasn't really hidden by the layers of narrative. You view "intelligence" as qualitative rather than quantitative. It's an attribute, not a nature.
I agree that scientifically, qualitative descriptions don't hold much weight. But science has embraced qualitative descriptions without hesitation or warrant in the subject of evolution. I don't think anyone interested in design will begrudge biology redefining itself and its theoretics to incorporate design.
"Intelligent" is as superfluous a scientific designation as "random" and "determined" are when talking about things so complex (and edge-of-chaos tightrope walking) as biology. Labeling all qualitative attributes as philosophically irrelevant to physical cause-effect should cure your ongoing dilemma.
Individual people can believe whatever they choose to believe, however. You can't insist they not view design as "intelligent." All you can do is police the journals to make sure they don't PRINT such a blasphemy. Since that's not something I care to do (or qualify to do), it's not my problem. I can handle qualitative attributes without much trouble.
Comment by Joy — May 25, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I came across this definition of evolution:
Using Allen MacNeill's redness it could be observed that:
Redness refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population of skin cells over time. The UV mechanism induces redness. Successive doses leads to cumulative changes in red hues. Redness intensifies and after exposure to the mechanism ends, reaches a peak and then slowly fades to an original pale hue. Reminds me of the evolution of unicellular organisms responding to antibiotics. Changes in allele frequency eventually resuming initial condition upon removal of antibiotics.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Joy,
No, that's not it. The most common definition of intelligence used in science is in human psychology, where it is defined operationally in terms of scores on standardized tests. This is obviously quantitative rather than qualitative, but equally obviously of no applicability in the context of ID.
Depending on what you mean by "a nature", then yes. It's a descriptive label like "athleticism".
Again, the issue is not quantitative vs. qualitative, but rather what the meaning of the word is supposed to be in the context of ID theory.
The issue is neither qualitative attributes nor censorship of blasphemy. Rather, the issue is that before we can discuss the evidence for "intelligence" as an explanation for life, somebody needs to say what the word is supposed to mean in this context.
Comment by aiguy — May 25, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
May 25th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Comments denying the utility of intelligence are not intelligent designed as we lack credible descriptions of their designers.:wink:
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Bradford,
Any ideas about the athleticsm analogy? Can you say why these explanations in terms of athleticsm are useless, but similar explanations in terms of intelligence are somehow supposed to be useful?
Comment by aiguy — May 26, 2008 @ 12:33 am
May 26th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Allen Macneill:
Exactly. great minds think alike:wink:
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 3:36 am
May 26th, 2008 at 4:05 am
Which is why there is no scientific issue between atheists and theists. The set of matters scientific is bounded by the limit of the observable universe, whilst the theologian and the philosopher are not restricted in this way.
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 4:05 am
May 26th, 2008 at 10:10 am
This is getting interesting!
So then the question would be whether "intelligence" is a property of the environment which is somehow detectable, right?
(Whether it's qualitative or quantitative is irrelevant, since qualitative properties are detectable even if judgement is involved.)
Comment by Lutepisc — May 26, 2008 @ 10:10 am
May 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I came to ID exactly because science entails constraints of natural laws. An atheist must believe that underlying laws of physics are adaquate to explain how life arose. Since the atheist has made a metaphysical commitment rationality to him or her entails a faith in brute forces of nature as sufficient to explain the origin of life and the universe itself.
A theist on the other hand can believe in the adaquacy of natural forces too since their origin is unaccounted for and therfore not in logical conflict with theism. But the metaphysics of theism allows for a rational option not available to the atheist. The order and anthropic nature of the universe can be viewed as consistent with theism. The constraints of mathematical possibilities indicates that the anthropic view is an observed rather than contrived paradigm.
Theists are also free to objectively evaluate the evidence for and against abiogenesis since God could have created through a chemically based process in which emergence brought about life. However, unlike the atheist the theist can conclude that the data does not support the theory and that another rational option exists in which life was intentionally designed. If the theist is also an IDist he or she would also believe the creative process left evidentiary fingerprints.
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Bradford,
If by "underlying laws of physics" you mean "laws of physics we understand today", then your statements are wrong. Atheists have no "faith" in "brute forces of nature", and make no metaphysical commitment to them. You badly misunderstand this, I think, perhaps because you aren't familiar with the position of saying "We do not know".
If currently understood laws can't explain something, an atheist does not simply have faith that these "brute forces" (funny term!) we know of will someday explain them. We don't even have faith that anything will ever explain them. We just try to figure things out. Maybe we'll discover new ways our currently understood "brute forces" can explain it; maybe we'll discover new sorts of "brute forces" that we didn't know about before; or maybe we'll discover "non-brute forces" (whatever that might mean).
Anyway, if you want to try and explain the origin of life by "God" rather than "intelligence", then we have a whole different discussion here… it seems off-topic, given the title of the thread.
If you want to stick with "intelligence" as an explanation, you'll need to say what you mean. In particular, you'll need to address this issue: Why is "athleticism" a useless explanation, while "intelligence" is a useful explanation?
Comment by aiguy — May 26, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Of course atheists have made a metaphysical commitment. Whether God does or does not exist is quintessentially metaphysical. If one opts for the no God position he or she is forced to accept the sufficiency of unguided natural forces even when empirical evidence is weak or non-existent. The we don't know is really we don't know the specifics or even much of anything at all but we have faith that unguided natural forces dunnit.
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Bradford,
No, you're mistaken. What you fail to see is that neither "unguided natural forces" nor "guided intelligent forces" constitute any sort of explanation at all!
Really - think about that. You believe that "unguided natural forces" is something that atheists believe in, and that we believe these must explain everything in the universe. You could not be more mistaken. All we know is that we have identified some regularities in nature that can explain and predict some, but not all, of what we observe. That's it. We hope to find more ways of explaining and predicting things in the future.
But we never, ever offer "unguided natural forces" as an explanation of anything. It is always some particular force, like "gravity" or "strong nuclear force". And we think these forces are real to the extent that we can characterize them in a way that enables people see if what is described is actually causing what we observe.
So, neither "unguided natural forces" nor "guided unnatural forces" are useful explanations of anything. Neither of these terms are characterized in a way that we can ever tell if they are actually causing anything. We must come up with descriptions of specific things that can explain and predict what we observe.
And of course "intelligence" is not characterized this way, any more than "athleticism" is.
Comment by aiguy — May 26, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I do not know what you believe, and you must have little idea of what atheists do or do not believe. And why should it matter? How does your perception of other peoples' beliefs or lack of them have anything to do with the meaning of intelligence?
I can't do better than to repeat aiguy's:
If you have a religious faith that satisfies you then I am happy for you.
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Allan MacNeill said:
"Natural selection, in other words, is directed. And what directs it? The environment, of course, via the interactions between individuals and their environment."
Directed and undirected, in what sense do you mean?
In ID terms, directed means goal-directed in the sense that it adds specification in the process. So, when you say that `natural selection is directed` you have to further extend that by including 'natural selection specifies.
Darwinian Evolution is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of natural selection. "” Allan MacNeill
1)What we observe in nature is specification (CSI)
2)Specification as far as we know is a result of goal-directed processes.
3)Specification is (given 1 and 2) a function of goal-directed processes.
What we have in essence is:
Natural selection is a goal-directed process that specifies for x biological feature such as the bacterial flagellum, ATP Synthase… Natural selection explains away `intelligence` in absolute terms, relative to ID's definition.
I just want to clarify the logic here since "intelligence" seems to have no meaning.
Comment by computerist — May 26, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
When you observe CSI, what instrument do you use to measure it , and what units is the display calibrated in? Could you give me an example of a few objects that you have observed and what figures (and in what units) you obtained as results. I hope this is not too much trouble, but your evidence will be truly ground breaking.
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Alan Fox, it is common knowledge that the unit of CSI is 1 dembski. It is less well known that 1 dembski = 1 morris:
Comment by olegt — May 26, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I'll let computerist answer for himself. But germane to the question, evaluating CSI for a given biological structure within a cell might take the form of something like the instructions it takes to produce it in a 3D space. The more instructions, the more CSI. How meaningful this would be to issues of telic causation and a-telic probability is another matter.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 26, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
kornbelt8888 wrote:
This sounds very similar to Shannon's information measure. I don't think you want to follow that path. Here's an example that illustrates why.
Let's take a long sequence of N (pseudo) random numbers generated on a computer and store them on the hard drive. The size of the file can serve as a measure of the amount of information in the sequence. It will grow in proportion to N. However, if you happen to know the algorithm used for generating the numbers, you will only need to store that algorithm, the seed and the length of the sequence. That will only grow as lnN. So it looks like this measure is not objective since it depends on the state of your own knowledge.
The same goes for the measure you propose for biological systems.
Comment by olegt — May 26, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Let me know when you can explain abiogenesis by reference to gravity or the strong force.
Guided forces are understood to be those manipulated with intent as scientists and non-scientists alike are prone to do to effect desired outcomes. I suspect you are trolling. If that's what you're doing find another hobby.
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 6:27 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I have a very good idea as to what atheists believe. I was raised by one and have been around them for the better part of my lfe.
It has nothing to do with the definition of intelligence. You only need a dictionary to find that. You are diverting attention away from my comment which was that atheists have no choice but to believe in abiogenesis regardless of the strength of the empirical evidence. They don't allow for a non-materialist explanation. In so doing they behave irrationally by accepting and rejecting evidence based on their metaphysics rather than the evidence itself.
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
olegt,
Good point. When dealing with a truly random sequence (from a quantum source, such as the sampled noise of a transistor), or from an extremely complex pseudo-random generators, such an approach would be impractical if not impossible. The sheer complexity of the "object" may be too large to analyze with a worthwhile result.
However, with "regular" 3D structures, such as houses, cars, and the protein organelles found in cells, I think analysis of the object so as to obtain the "least number of instructions" to produce it in a 3D space is in much friendlier territory.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 26, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Bradford wrote:
Gravity and strong force can't explain magnetism, either. Does that mean we have no theory of magnetism? It doesn't.
Comment by olegt — May 26, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Bradford,
Before someone else does it, I'll be the very technical one and mention that atheism doesn't necessarily entail materialism. On the other hand, non-materialist atheists tend not to be represented in these discussions to say the least.
Still, there was that one who appealed to MWI to explain abiogenesis. I suppose that can be technically 'materialist atheism', but by then materialism (what a surprise) ceases to mean much of anything.
Comment by nullasalus — May 26, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
kornbelt888,
Random number generators are not complex. Mersenne Twister, a high-quality RNG, can be written in fewer than 40 lines in pseudocode.
Comment by olegt — May 26, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
nullasalus:
That seems to be the general theme. Words don't mean anything.:lol:
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Bradford,
I'm afraid you missed this point here completely: I was not suggesting these forces were responsible for biogenesis.
Rather, the point was that nobody could ever publish a paper which concluded "Therefore, we have shown that unguided natural forces are responsible for photon scattering" or something. The reason is because "unguided natural forces" has no scientific meaning, and in science one's explanations actually must mean something.
If that is what "guided forces" means, then one would have to provide an operational definition for "intent" in terms of how "intent" was to be detected in the particular circumstance.
But no, science recognizes no distinction between "guided unatural forces" and "unguided natural forces". So neither one can be offered as an explanation for anything. If you disagree, you might try finding some paper which concludes that "unguided natural forces" explains some sort of phenomenon.
No, I'm trying to explain why you are confused about this division between "guided natural forces" and "unguided unnatural forces". I think we'd have much better communication if you thought about the athleticism analogy I provided. You seem resistant to talk about that - I think it might be because it requires you to acknowledge something you might not have thought of before.
Comment by aiguy — May 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
nullasalus,
I am a non-materialist atheist.
BTW, I didn't want to correct Bradford's loose/incorrect usage of the word "atheist" because he is already angry with me (he thinks I'm "trolling") and I'm trying to get him to understand that his usage of other terms ("intelligence" and "unguided natural forces" for example) are confused as well.
Comment by aiguy — May 26, 2008 @ 7:55 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Ah, so its all about the attention, is it?:roll: Seriously, Bradford, I just think you are wrong. Abiogenesis occurred, as life developed on this planet some time after it cooled from its molten beginnings. There is no good scientific explanation for how it happened. We just do not know and maybe never will. Why atheists are bound to accept abiogenesis, I just don't follow. I heard quite a few atheists are panspermians.
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Of course it does. I don't have any more patience for this crap. Forensic science constantly distinguishes between guided and unguided forces. Whether the branch fell on the victim in a storm or was swung like a club he is dead either way. The idea being to distinguish a natural force from one brought to bear by an intelligent agent.
Don't bother responding. Keiths?
Comment by Bradford — May 26, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Resisting the urge to ask who you were around during the less good part of your life, may I respectfully suggest that atheism does not have a creed and atheists I have met seem to have outgrown the religions they were brought up to believe in. Abiogenesis did not figure much in that process.
Comment by Alan Fox — May 26, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
May 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Alan Fox:
Send the problem to another part of the universe then. If life was not the consequence of a purposeful action then what alternative is there other than unknown, unidentified chemical pathways? Do you have another option?