Limiting the Designer
by MikeGeneTo what degree is the design of a designer constrained by his/her building material? For example, imagine that we enlisted the service of the worlds most creative and brilliant engineers and tasked them to design a space craft that will carry men to Mars and back. Now, let's add one constraint "“ the only material available to the designers is concrete. Would these brilliant designers be able to meet the design objective?
Or consider the computer. Today's computers are more sophisticated than computers from the 1950s, allowing people to design programs that allow you and me to communicate with great ease and little cost. Why is it that programmers seem to be able to do more with computers today than they could in the 1950s? Is it because today's designers are smarter than yesterday? Have new laws of nature been discovered? Or does it have something to do with an observation from Hartwell et al.?
An early stored-program computer (left), built around 1950, used vacuum tubes in logic circuits, whereas modern computers use transistors and silicon wafers (right), but both are based on the same principles.
So again, to what degree is the design of a designer constrained by his/her building material? Furthermore, since natural selection can act as a designer-mimic, wouldn't it too be subject to similar limitations?
May 13th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Good question. The constraint is defined by properties of the building material and its sufficiency to bring about an outcome.
Yes. This brings up an interesting point. Catalytic properties of RNA are cited as a basis for the supposition that inital enzymes were ribonucleic acids rather than proteins. The idea being that RNA could fulfill the dual role of information storage and catalyst and at the same time be more likely to have arisen in an extracellular environment. But that necessitates a switch in buidling materials midway through a project. Proteins would take over most catalytic functions and DNA become the storage nucleic acid. This transformation would have to occur without compromising an organism's viability. So what are the limitations? The final word is not in.
Comment by Bradford — May 13, 2008 @ 12:41 am
May 13th, 2008 at 1:14 am
I think the problem of evil is such a limit; our world is perfect in many respects, but without the possibility of evil (that may challenge us) then our world would be impossible. Likewise, the mistakes of the blind watchmaker are needed too, otherwise the watchmaker would not know of that which gives sight. The limits are brought to us by a necessary blind spot that sources a self-referral condition. But the felt tension tells us that the blind spot is not really blind, as our sight sources the innate feeling that has no reason for its being. The tension subsides, in sublimates itself and is replaced by a love of life. And this remains until we fall into the blind stupor again, and then learn from our mistakes again. This has been the basis of spiritual healing, in my view. The "mistake" is often telling us something important about ourselves.
Comment by Stephen — May 13, 2008 @ 1:14 am
May 13th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I do not believe this is correct except for simple changes. I am of the opinion James Shapiro has a better description of the evolution of systems which implies possibly intelligence even down to the cellular level….
To the degree that populations act like the combinatorial immune system, sure, we have examples of selection being used as an adaptive strategy by design, but that is only one part of the repertoire and a small part of evolutionary adaptive strategies….
There is an ongoing thread at PandasThumb about Gambler's Ruin and Kimura's work. I still owe Olegt some revisions to my original simulation, and I hope to get to them this week. I will also be going to Minnesota to talk to Walter ReMine some time in June about population genetics. Walter was very pleased with my discussion on the topic of Gambler's Ruin and had some suggestions to polish my arguments….the bottom line is that we might be able to put some numbers on the role of natural selection's participation in evolution. I have suggested 1% would be extraodinarily generous to attribute to natural selection. I have to also agree with Bill Dembski's interpretation of No Free Lunch postulates that natural selection would be very hard pressed to be a designer mimic.
To make matters worse for the advocates of selection, the problem of Gambler's ruin makes it extremely difficult to defend the assertion of natural selection being a designer-mimic because it becomes almost empirically imperceptible whether a random walk or natural selection was at work for large scale changes at the nucleotide level. I think the question will be interesting because we may want to ask how can we quantify James Shapiro and Barry Hall's work on adaptive mutations?
If it can be shown that mutations have some pre-programmed foresight, that would be suggestive of some front loading, but I think the mechanisms for the major organic changes in the past are no longer in operation (Davison)….that's not to say that we might not be able to reverse engineer some of the front loading of the past. That suggestion was by Behe…that would be an interesting research project, even though the experimental details appear to be staggaring at this time…
Finally, regarding the constraints on the designer. The designer has to put TONS of error correction since we are dealing with nano-molecular systems. At the macroscopic scale, there is a lot of natural cancellation of undesirable quantum effects, but the smaller the systems become, and the faster they operate the more deliberate the error correction has to be.
For example, building a logic gate with macroscopic objects like vacuum tubes and discrete transistors, one is not as concerned with error correction as one would be when one is worried about serious amounts of barrier tunneling and the equivalent of delayed-double slit intereference issues at the quantum level. When I worked briefly in a nano systems department, there was serious investigation into Schrodinger's equation and the problem of ensuring computers would not be plagued by the problems of the delayed choice double-slit problem — since some of the nano-logic gates were small enough that their past computation could be influenced by future observations in an undesirable way….
PS
I'm on travel and I left my bunny book at home. I'll get back to reading it soon. Mike, you were soooooo kind to list me in the acknowledgements section of the book….I'm going to have to finish reading your book someday soon!
By the way, it was nice to see Nobody listed in your book too. Hey, Nobe, you're famous now.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 13, 2008 @ 8:54 am
May 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Yes. You can build one hell of a catapult out of concrete.
No. Titanium, concrete, or rocks would work equally well for the blind watchmakers spacecraft. He's in no hurry.
I'll even wager that the blind watchmaker has already sent many many tons more material to Mars than NASA has.
Rocks! Pioneers of space travel!
Is there anything they can't do?
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 11:59 am
May 13th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Sal says:
::::gulp::::
Thanks Mike! Guess I should have had the foresight to select a more intelligent username several years ago.
Comment by nobody — May 13, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Hi nobody,
I know the feeling. Kidding aside, my gratitude is quite sincere.
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Hi Bradford,
Indeed. So this gets back to proteins as a biological universal and to what extent the blind watchmaker would be a success without the help from proteins.
Is there even a first word?
Also, here is another thought. If we assume a switch-over, it occurred long before the last common universal ancestor. Yet if life, working hand-in-hand with the blind watchmaker, is capable of making such switch-overs, why did such an ability disappear with the last universal common ancestor? If there is a better polymer than proteins, then why haven't the DNA/RNA/protein-based life forms discovered it and facilitated another switch-over during the billions of years since the last universal common ancestor?
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Mike:
Maybe because once a genetic code is in place, it's hard to change it. It would presumably take many intermediary mutational steps with lower fitness to accomplish such a transition. The fitness valley would be too wide and too deep. Hey, one might even call it evolutionary irreducible complexity.
Consider a "mutant codon" (mutant tRNA) that would code for something else than an amino acid, let's call it monomer X. How do you incorporate X into a chain of amino acids if X cannot form a proper peptide bond with amino acids?
Comment by Raevmo — May 13, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Mike,
What does the blind watchmaker consider a success?
For that matter, what does the blind watchmaker consider?
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hi Raevmo,
But I am not talking about changing the genetic code. I'm thinking in terms of the hypothetical take-overs, where minerals were supposedly supplanted by nucleic acids and then later the RNA world was supposedly supplanted by the RNA-protein world.
All livings things use four basic biological molecules "“ lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and proteins. That was something that was established billions of years ago. But what's wrong with superimposing a fifth type of biological molecules during these vast spans of deep time? The blind watchmaker could use the RNA/DNA/protein-based cells to spawn this new molecule (like the hypothetical ribo-organisms supposedly spawned proteins) to play a helping role at first and then, like the RNA-to-protein transition, a better molecule takes over. In other words, since proponents of the RNA world see the cell as a protein world superimposed on an RNA world, why hasn't another layer been added by the blind watchmaker?
Maybe it's "proteins: as good as it gets."
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi chunkdz,
As Dawkins would say, the blind watchmaker has no mind and no foresight.
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Comment by Bilbo — May 13, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Mike:
But you wrote this before:
That sounds to me a lot like you were asking why the genetic code wasn't replaced, since as you pointed out yourself the LUCA already had the current genetic code. But OK, I see what you mean. Maybe the word "addition" would have captured your meaning better than "switch".
Nothing wrong with that. Are you sure there are just four? Lots of other good stuff is synthesized. I'm thinking ethanol, THC, opiates.
Comment by Raevmo — May 13, 2008 @ 4:37 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Very interesting that Dawkins would admit that. Or is he forced to say that, based on his beliefs?
Comment by nobody — May 13, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Mike:
Finally, the proteins-are-optimal-conjecture that we were all waiting for. In the next episode: how this increases the plausibility of front-loading.
Comment by Raevmo — May 13, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Then he's already a success – proteins or no proteins.
Mike, the limits you are asking about are not imposed by the design material. They are imposed by expectations. Expectations come from will. Will comes from mind.
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
That's IF you believe the blind watchmaker hypothesis.
Comment by nobody — May 13, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Hi nobody,
I don't reject the hypothesis as much as I reject the metaphor. It implies that watchmaking is something that blind, mindless idiots do.
It would have been more honest if Dawkins had named the book "The Blind Mindless Idiot Who Made A Watch", but I guess that would not have been as catchy.
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
It would be more honest if Dawkins admitted that life is high technology.
Comment by nobody — May 13, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
A "blind watchmaker" sounds plausible. Sure it would be difficult for a blind person, and time consuming, but it could be done. Nice title for a book. Feels good to know the handicapped can accomplish great things.
But open the book and you see that Dawkins' watchmaker is no watchmaker at all. And he's not just blind. He's a blind, mindless, purposeless idiot with no higher brain function beyond wiggling his fingers. He is little different from the proverbial box of watch parts being shaken for a billion years.
It's a terrible metaphor, and intellectually dishonest, in my opinion. A lame attempt to anthropomorphize the "pitiless indifference" that Dawkins' universe is built upon. I do wish that Mike would cease to perpetuate it through his writings in support of the blind watchmaker hypothesis.
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
chunkdz:
Come on, it's a play on Paley's watch, nothing more. He's blind as in not having foresight. It's not that bad. In fact, it's a highly effective meme, seeing as even you are using it.
Comment by Raevmo — May 13, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
That Dawkins fellow and those other evolutionists. Why don't they just admit it. I mean, seriously, they know they are wrong. They know they have been lying and hiding the truth. Why don't they just admit it.
Comment by hrun — May 13, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Old habits die slowly.
Comment by nobody — May 13, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
But you'd think by now. I mean it's been generations of scientists and they just keep on lying, hiding, obfuscating and denying.
Ah well. Maybe the next generation…
Comment by hrun — May 13, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
We could start a movement.
Comment by Zachriel — May 13, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Next Official Generation Of Dedicated Scientists?
Comment by Raevmo — May 13, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Hi Raevmo,
I am talking about the four universal macromolecules. Here's a fairly standard presentation of them.
You may be correct, as this is a new idea that I am currently fleshing out. But it would be an addition that is analogous to the addition of proteins to the hypothetical ribo-organism. As Bradford noted, the RNA world hypothesis entails the notion that proteins took over most of the catalytic roles and DNA took over the information storage roles. So why hasn't 3.5 billion years of the blind watchmaker's meandering stumbled upon something that would similarly take over some/many of the roles that proteins play?
LOL. Still trying to play chess with me, eh? No, I'm not ready to make that conjecture, as I'm still feeling things out. As for front-loading, as far as I see it, its plausibility is now on solid enough ground that this type of analysis is not needed for such purposes. But then again…..
Anyway, I'm currently looking at things from a different angle.
Instead of trying to anticipate where I am going so you can properly posture yourself in opposition (surprise, surprise), why not simply focus on the questions that I have laid on the table?
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 8:47 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Hi chunkdz,
I like the metaphor because it helps to distinguish a designer from a designer-mimic. Let me [gag] quote from WikiLand:
I'm afraid I don't agree with you or Salvador about the relative impotence of the blind watchmaker. However, I realize for a lot of people, that is the very fulcrum of the debate. But for me, I focus on intelligent design not as a substitute for RM &NS, but as something that can recruit and exploit RM & NS to help carry out design objectives. My current line of inquiry with proteins and the limitations on designers suggests that RM & NS have been propped up.
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Raevmo,
Blind people can make watches. Blind people with no mind cannot. It's classic question begging, and it's lame.
Comment by chunkdz — May 13, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Mike:
Raevmo:
Mike:
Hrun: As far as I can tell Raevmo was not anticipating but 'post'icipating. Seems like you made pretty clear in your assay that you suspect proteins were designed to help evolution along. If proteins were specifically designed to help evolution along, how could that not be taken as an 'increase the plausibility of front-loading'. I guess the only place where Raevmo went wrong was calling it the 'next' chapter when it was already in the last chapter.
Comment by hrun — May 13, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Mikegene,
I actually think the perception of evolution as a creative force rivaling to a designer, rather than as one more tool available to a designer, is one of the biggest difficulties in the entire ID debate. I can understand questioning or explaining all manner of aspects of evolution (I've seen some good articles about that recently, outside the ID camp – funny how anyone who questions the mainstream first had to insist they hate ID more than anyone else), but the certainty that evolution must be roundly false for design to be true is ridiculous.
Just wanted to throw that in there.
Comment by nullasalus — May 13, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Hi Hrun,
No, Raevmo mentioned that "we" were "waiting for" something. This clearly tipped off the role of anticipation on the part of the group that Raevmo was speaking for.
Indeed. And you think that is the same thing as "proteins-are-optimal?"
What enhances the plausibility of front-loading are the extent and continual discoveries of deep homology (that keep surprising the non-teleologists) and mechanisms that could be used to carry designs into the future (as discussed in the book). The use of proteins as a fundamental building material probably enhances front-loading in a general fashion (overall evolvability), but as I mentioned, given the other evidence, doesn't strike me as something that adds much to that case (of course, it doesn't hurt). What proteins-as-building-material add is the suspicion that the blind watchmaker has been propped up. It's either that or life cannot exist without proteins (a viable hypothesis). Of course, these are subtle differences that are still being sorted out in the tiny bits of gray matter I possess.
Proteins-as-optimal material is an intriguing possibility to explore, but Raevmo jumped the gun, as that argument is not on the table. Proteins as a class of molecules as something that increases the plausibility of front-loading? I wasn't looking at it from that angle, but maybe there is something there.
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Hi nullasalus,
Exactly. And it seems to me that mainstream ID focuses on eliminating the rival (the "˜Duck hunt'). But I came to this debate as a theistic evolutionist. Instead of seeing evolution as a rival creative force that must be eliminated, I suspect the creative force could be recruited and employed by a designer. And that's my focus. To what extent can we design through evolution? To what extent is evolution designed?
And thanks for throwing that in. Yes, this is a central theme of my book. Design and evolution are not contradictory concepts. And evolution by natural selection does not equate with non-teleology. There are too many unexplored options out there.
Comment by MikeGene — May 13, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
May 13th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Mike, it is hard to believe that you would say that you were not looking at proteins from the angle that they might increase the plausibility of front-loading if in your assay you write that "[y]ou can almost think of proteins are a form of tech material designed to exploit and prop up the blind watchmaker." You suggest that proteins were designed for the goal of helping evolution along.
But just because something is hard to believe, it certainly does not prove it wrong. Maybe it just makes it less plausible.
Comment by hrun — May 13, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 12:03 am
I still absolutely don't get the protein argument. Sorry.
We know that RNA can be used for longterm information storage (e.g. RNA viruses, telomere templates). We know that RNA can have catalytic function (e.g. splicing). We know that RNA can be used as short term information transmission (e.g. mRNA). We know that RNA can even be used to regulate gene expression (RNAi).
Some of these functions are now predominantly performed by other molecules (protein and DNA).
So the argument now appears to be that the because proteins have not been replaced by another biomolecule (with potentially even better stability and functional variety) that this is an indication of design.
Yet, what if there had been such a replacement (like from RNA to protein)? You would still be able to make the same argument. What if there had been no such replacements? Well, I guess in the RNA world without proteins you wouldn't be making any arguments, but theoretically your argument would be just as valid.
So we find ourselves in a situation where whatever happens, your argument remains equally valid. Or, it boils down to: Because we know of exactly ONE case where catalytic biomolecules were replaced with other catalytic biomolecules the plausibility of front-loading is increased? Strange.
And I'm still wondering about this one: Do non-teleologists actually think that there should be no such deep homologies or do they merely profess surprise at the specific ones they find. Or, in other words, do the teleologists actually make predictions about which 'deep homologies' will be found where? And which structures are actually novel developments?
Because I have honestly not seen a single specific prediction along these lines. All I have seen are comments like: "Hahaha, silly non-teleologists. They are surprised at their results they just found out as the first people on the planet, while teleologists would not have been surprised." I think if there actually were such predictions, they would be so easily testable.
And I can tell you one thing: If, for example, a couple of years ago, a teleological researcher would have predicted that comb jelly fish and not sponges were the older group of metazoans, then about two months ago all of a sudden the world of biological researchers would have perked their ears up and everybody would have wanted one of those teleologists on their groups to help them guide their research.
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 12:03 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:06 am
hrun:
Patience, patience hrun. Did you ever watch a good boxer set up his opponent with jabs and feints and movement so that he can land the desired blow at the opportune time? You're telling the other guy to throw his reknown left hook and he is biding his time waiting until the right moment.
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 12:06 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Hi hrun,
LOL. If I was looking at proteins from the angle that they might increase the plausibility of front-loading, I would just say so. But front-loading is about designing the future through the present. That is, one attempts to reach a future objective by somehow channeling the process of evolution. It's about rigging evolution to increase the odds that certain trajectories might be explored. "Helping evolution along" does not entail such an objective, as "helping evolution along" is just "helping evolution along." Are you under the impression that front-loading is simply about making sure that evolution happens? Do you even know what I mean when I speak of the increasing plausibility of front-loading? Or do you tune out at that point?
What's your problem, hrun? Are you just trying to score some silly debate point?
Comment by MikeGene — May 14, 2008 @ 12:14 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:16 am
What does this have to do with patience?
Mike says that he was not looking at proteins from that angle, yet his assay indicates otherwise. Mike writes in his assay that it proteins could have been DESIGNED to ACHIEVE a goal effectively. And shortly after he says that he did not look at the optimality of proteins as increasing the plausibility of front-loading. I must have poor reading comprehension.
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 12:16 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:17 am
hrun:
That Nature developed a functional tool (RNA) right at the outset. That's the supposition but we know (no suppositions needed) that proteins enable a diversity unattainable with RNA alone. There is a gradation and FL cites progressions.
Why? Front loading explains a rich diversity not possible without proteins. My questions relate to the theorized transition from RNA catalysts to protein catalysts. Details would be very revealing and could be supportive of or in opposition to FL or a non-FL view.
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 12:17 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:20 am
I think Mike wants to lay out his case step by step and not have to rush to conclusions without laying down the complete foundation.
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 12:20 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:24 am
My problems are too plentiful to enumerate.
I know. That's exactly why I quoted your assay:
When you write "designed to exploit" one (or at least I) assumes that this being who did the designing tried to exploited the blind watchmaker to achieve a certain goal. And that goal can't just be "to prop up evolution" since you explicitly connect the "exploit" and the "prop up" with "and", indicating that these are two very separate points.
So, as I said before, in your assay you are already pointing at the phenomenal properties of proteins as increasing the plausibility of front loading. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just don't understand why you would chide Raevmo for suggesting that you will do something in the future if you actually already have done it.
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 12:24 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:40 am
But exploiting and propping up are generic functions that, by themselves, don't entail a future goal. It simply means an enhanced evolvability which, in turn, may be necessary for front-loading, but not sufficient (unless the objective of front-loading is just to make sure evolution happens). I mentioned these are subtle differences.
Comment by MikeGene — May 14, 2008 @ 12:40 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Mike asks:
Individual programmer productivity hasn't budged much since the advent of the first high level languages like Fortran, Lisp, BASIC, and COBOL. However, there are many more programmers today than in the 1950's and programming frameworks or libraries allow programmers to work at an ever higher level of abstraction. Consequently, when a programmer writes a program today, he is in effect stitching together other programs rather than writing a program from scratch. This is commonly referred to as modular programming, and if there has ever been a silver bullet in software engineering, it was the invention (discovery?) of the function call.
Faster hardware is another factor. Programmers don't have to wait nearly as long for feedback regarding their programs. So, instead of waiting say 60 minutes for their 1000 line program to compile, they are able to compile a 10,000 line program in seconds.
What programming language did God use? DNA is the tip of the iceberg.
Comment by David — May 14, 2008 @ 12:41 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:45 am
One problem – there is no case. I'm simply thinking out loud and raising questions as they come to me. I'm exploring, feeling things out, moving in general directions, etc. A case may or may not materialize as a consequence.
I often liken my thinking to an intellectual crockpot. I throw in facts, questions, various proposed explanations, etc. Then sometimes, I wake up one morning, maybe weeks or months later, and presto, a delicious case is waiting for me. Of course, sometimes it's just a stinky mess that I toss into the garbage.
Comment by MikeGene — May 14, 2008 @ 12:45 am
May 14th, 2008 at 1:19 am
hrun says:
In previous generations, some design denial can be excused because of ignorance. However, there's no excuse now. It's clear that life is very high technology. People like Dawkins need to wake up. We've had massive increases in our knowledge within the past few years. Here's a multi-billion dollar example: The Human Genome Project was "completed" in 2003. Did that end the investigation into DNA? No. The HGP only scratched the surface.
Comment by nobody — May 14, 2008 @ 1:19 am
May 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am
No way, nobody. Paley wrote his book on how design is self-evident decades before Darwin. Nobody (not even nobody) can claim ignorance on this matter.
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 7:28 am
May 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am
MG
I think that if a convincing case is to be made for frontloading serious attention needs to be given to the question of what the goal is. And the answer needs to be more specific. Simply pointing to a feature and pointing out that it makes "what we see today" more likely seems backwards. It's sort of like when Mr. Bean stumbles through an unlikely adventure and then looks smug as if to say "that was my plan all along".
The goal of the frontloading would constrain the evidence that is seen as supporting. Right now it just seems unnecessarily sloppy
Here are some off the cup ideas for possible Goals
Consciousness entity Frontloading
Evolution enhancing Frontloading
Diversity enchaining Frontloading
Discovery enhancing Frontloading
Rational thinker ensuring Frontloading
Maybe you should pick one or two and run with it if it turns out to be a dead end you can just move back grab another goal and start over.
Just my two cents
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 14, 2008 @ 7:28 am
May 14th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Ah, come on Mike. You were talking about a designer doing the exploiting. I don't know any meaning of 'exploit' that does entail an actual goal. Things are exploited for a reason.
In any case. I will leave it at that. I just have to say that I find this rather silly. But I honestly can not think of any reading of a sentence like "proteins were designed to exploit evolution" that does not imply a goal by the being that did the designing. But, as I said, I have numerous problems, and reading comprehension could be one of them.
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 7:34 am
May 14th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Recalling that the "Blind Watchmaker" is not Darwin's metaphor. Quite the opposite: Darwin has natural selection assiduously scrutinizing ever detail of life and making rational decisions on the basis of foresight, invariably acting to benefit its creations.
One might suspect that Dawkins was motivated to radically recast Darwin's metaphor to avoid its "quasi-divine" aspect. Turning Darwin's god-like natural selection into an absurd parody"”a physically and mentally disabled piece-worker.
Avoiding Darwin's theomorphic and Dawkins' anthropomorphic conception, natural selection is simply an identifiable set of conditions effecting some measure of the performance of life forms, traditionally the relative growth rate.
And, of course, natural selection doesn't do anything an intelligent designer wouldn't do, assuming the same objective.
But Dawkins' metaphor does highlight that the principal limitations upon design are not material but mental: knowledge and imagination, and I suspect more than latter than the former.
Comment by Rock — May 14, 2008 @ 9:08 am
May 14th, 2008 at 9:25 am
*** self edited ***
Comment by hrun — May 14, 2008 @ 9:25 am
May 14th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Sorry to come in on this discussion so late (final exams, grades, and Mothers' Day intervened).
The underlying concept being obliquely addressed in this thread is a combination of what Ernst Mayr called "emergence" and Stephen J. Gould called "contingency", which together seem to me to be what Mike refers to as "front loading".
"Emergence" is the appearance of new properties from combinations of entities that lack such properties in and of themselves. Mayr points out repeatedly that emergence is a fundamental property of biological systems, not only because of evolution but because of the hierarchy of structures and functions that characterize all biological systems. For starters we could identify six major emergent levels of biological organization: biomolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids), cells, metacellular organisms (i.e. organisms composed of aggregates of specialized cells in which not all cells retain the ability to reproduce independently), populations, communities, and ecosystems. At each level of organization there are phenomena that do not occur at the "lower" (i.e. constituent) levels of organization. Cells do things that biomolecules do not, multicellular organisms do things that cells do not, etc.
Emergent properties are essentially combinatorial; they depend upon the relationships between the constituent parts. Clearly, such relationships have adaptive consequences; some combinations persist and proliferate more effectively than others. These become the emergent properties that we observe in the various levels of biological organization.
Once again, the question before both EBers and IDers is, where do the various emergent properties come from? They clearly do not come from natural selection, as it can only preserve properties, it cannot originate them. So the real question is, does the emergence of new properties exhibit qualities that support the observed properties of their predecessors, or do they seem to come out of "left field"
IMO, this is still an open question. One approach to the answer would be a mathematical model that would exhibit the same kinds of saltational changes that we observe in the fossil and genomic records of macroevolution. This is difficult, because most of the mathematical tools available to us now are gradualistic and continuous, rather than punctuational.
Related to the foregoing is the phenomenon of "contingency", as most fully worked out by Stephen J. Gould. Macroevolution exhibits massive contingency: that is, what is possible in the future is almost entirely constrained by what has happened in the past. The emergence of various properties at different levels of biological organization is apparently almost completely dependent on the events that have preceded them. This means that true "optimality" is an illusion in biological systems.
This idea was captured well by Sewall Wright's "shifting balance" theory of evolution, in which he pointed out mathematically that optimality is an "accidental" outcome of changes in adaptive regimes (what he metaphorically referred to as adaptive "landscapes"). It is easy to find adaptations that exhibit "sub-optimality", and virtually all of these are the result of some kind of historical contingency. That is, the existing "design" is the result of various historical compromises, in the same way that the physical location of codes on hard drives are the result of historical processes. Unlike our hard drives, our genomes and phenomes cannot be "defragged" or "optimized", as such processes require passing through "valleys" of suboptimality which natural selection prohibits (i.e. you can't use "magic" to get from here to there).
I hope it is clear how these two phenomena "“ emergence and contingency "“ are intertwined in evolutionary biology. From my perspective as a biologist, they are inescapable features of the natural world and any theory of origins and evolution, be it "classical" EB or some form of ID, must somehow incorporate them. IMO those of us who use EB as our dominant research paradigm are closer to having a comprehensive theory that incorporates them both, and that is compatible with the other natural sciences, such as physics and chemistry, which do not depend on "magic" (i.e. the production of complex emergent properties out of nothing, rather than out of simpler properties present at lower levels of organization).
IMO it is time to reconsider the work of D'Arcy Thompson and Gregory Bateson (and perhaps his illustrious ancestor), whose work on the science of form and the power of cybernetics provide a new way to approach these problems.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 14, 2008 @ 9:36 am
May 14th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I would also add the ongoing work of Lynn Margulis, who is both a dedicated EBer and an iconoclast who works from a completely different overall paradigm than most EBers. Her theories of serial endosymbiosis and symbiotic genome acquisition provide compelling models for major evolutionary transitions that have the "saltational" characteristics upon which Eldredge and Gould based their theory of punctuated equilibrium.
However, we are still waiting for a theoretician who will formulate the mathematical models that can capture these processes in ways that can then be tested and refined by comparison with empirical studies. I was very intrigued at first by William Dembski's mathematical analyses of complexity, but upon further examination it is clear that they do not even begin to capture the properties I have outlined above, and have recently become so contaminated with ad hoc requirements as to be virtually useless for any formal application to the empirical record.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 14, 2008 @ 9:44 am
May 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Hi Mike,
Seems to me that mainstream ID is an oxymoron. ID is a fringe movement. And if you are positioning yourself to be on the margin of the fringe, it's a dangerous place to be: as John Wheeler famously quipped, the boundary of a boundary is zero.
Comment by olegt — May 14, 2008 @ 9:53 am
May 14th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Allen_MacNeill, that was a good description of emergence and emergent properties. Is there any way though that emergence is not tied to underlying genetic changes? Can emergent properties be causally decoupled from alterations of genomic sequencing or are they really more complex expressions of genetic change? In the more recent post a view is put forth which discounts selection as a factor. Could you link events together so as to explain emergence, at least on a theoretical level, through a concrete albeit hypothetical example?
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 10:00 am
May 14th, 2008 at 10:05 am
That seems quite contrary to the original definition of Natural Selection put forth by Darwin in Origin of Species:
Darwin clearly says it must be of benefit to the individual and its reproductive potential. Do you have a cite which indicates otherwise?
Comment by Zachriel — May 14, 2008 @ 10:05 am
May 14th, 2008 at 10:05 am
moderation help please.
Comment by Zachriel — May 14, 2008 @ 10:05 am
May 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Bradford: Good questions all, and especially the first one. As we learn more about how gene expression is regulated, it is becoming clear that phenotypes are only indirectly tied to genotypes. Indeed, there appears to be a continuum of interaction between genotypes and phenotypes, from tight correlation in prokaryotes through looser correlation in unicellular eukaryotes to very loose correlation in metacellular eukaryotes (especially animals). That is, variations in nucleotide sequence can be closely tied to variations in phenotype in prokaryotes, but not in metacellular animals.
Instead, what seems to play the most important role in phenotypic variation in metacellular eukaryotes is developmental plasticity, which is in turn a function of homeotic gene regulation and cybernetic feedback processes during development that connect changes in structure and function with feedback from the environment. If this sounds suspiciously like "lamarckian" evolution, this is not an accident. The year 2009 marks not only the bicentennial of Darwin's birth, it also marks the bicentennial of the publication of Lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique, and the reemergence of lamarckian ideas in evolutionary biology.
I hope it is clear that lamarckian processes (such as epigenetic imprinting, etc. – see Jablonka and Lamb for a full description) can be exactly the kinds of processes that produce emergent properties, as the result of feedback between developing organisms and their environments. As M. West-Eberhard has strongly argued, genetic changes often follow, rather than cause phenotypic variations in eukaryotes (especially animals), and so the "engines of variation" in animals do indeed "decouple" genetic variation from phenotypic variation.
As to how important selection is in evolution, it is becoming clear that "selection" (which I would prefer to call "preservation", following Darwin's expressed desire in his letter to Charles Lyell), is only one of several important factors in evolution. Selection limits variation; ergo, it cannot possibly fully explain the origin of new phenotypic variations, nor is it necessary to produce such variations. On the contrary, it now appears that much of the variation (especially at the biomolecular level) is almost entirely neutral with respect to selection. Comparative genomic analysis, such as is just getting started now, will eventually show what fractions of the genomes of different organisms can be explained by selection. At this early stage in such analysis it appears that the answer is "not much." I would be surprised if this conclusion were eventually changed to "most of it."
This should be very cold comfort to IDers, as it indicates that even less of the biological diversity we observe in the world around us "makes sense" from a teleological viewpoint. To paraphrase J.B.S. Haldane, evolution is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 14, 2008 @ 10:19 am
May 14th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Allen MacNeill:
How strange, Allen. You've just described the thrust of EAM quite well (down to the decidedly Lamarckian proposition that adaptation occurs first in the organism responding in real-time to its environment and only later encoded if it proves useful). This is precisely what I predicted years ago biological science would do if it really wanted to be science and not metaphysics. Follow the evidence where it leads and all that.
This prediction wasn't hard to make, as the evidence has been coming in fast and furious. Straightforward "this is where the evidence looks to be leading," from the standpoint of EAM – the notion that there are multiple designers at work in the biosphere. Billions of them. All doing what their ancestors designed them to do – adapt, survive, thrive. To which each successful organism adds its own tweaks to the system or merely contributes to the deep-time process by producing lots of offspring.
Truth is that science can't speak to ultimate origin. That's just dueling metaphysics – creationists and religiously-motivated IDers versus metaphysical materialists. It's not science and shouldn't govern the science or anybody working in science. Remove the metaphysical fight and what do we have? Modern Evolutionary biology moving steadily towards an understanding of evolutionary process that includes processes originated in the ID camp.
I can imagine some strange things, but among them is not EAM or Front-Loading. These seem quite evident to me even though they seem to be very revolutionary to you. I am not surprised, nor am I shocked or suffering any cognitive dissonance. If your science is now becoming aware of these concepts let me be among the first to welcome you to the fold.
Comment by Joy — May 14, 2008 @ 11:46 am
May 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
This seems to be correct. It's one of the things that piques our interest in front-loading.
In light of Gould's observations on contingency this couldn't be more wrong.
Comment by chunkdz — May 14, 2008 @ 11:57 am
May 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Sorry, what's "EAM"
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 14, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You're not the first to ask.
ISCID blurbs "Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis refers to an approach to evolutionary theory which finds its mechanism, (that is, the causal explanation for biological evolution), within the organism itself, not in any external agent."
Comment by Zachriel — May 14, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hi hrun,
Yes, it's just a communication glitch. As I have clarified, "exploiting and propping up" speak to evolvability. Simply consider the context of these recent points by surveying what I have laid on the table.
1. The entire Tree of a Life is a protein-dependent output. Evidence for evolutionary processes is evidence for a protein-dependent phenomenon.
2. Proteins are amazingly diverse building material, capable of performing an immense array of functions. We know of no other building material that is as versatile.
3. The immense versatility of proteins is coupled to a single manufacturing process. Elegant.
4. There is very little-to-no evidence to support the notion that protein-less evolution would be as successful as protein-dependent evolution.
5. Since designers are limited by their building material; evolution (as designer-mimic) is likewise limited by its building material.
Does this all enhance the plausibility of front-loading? Yes, as laying down a particular substratum, it would seem so in a more general fashion. But my focus is more along the lines of the original questions that remain unanswered:
Comment by MikeGene — May 14, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Hi olegt,
I hear ya loud and clear. The danger is indeed quite dangerous "“ I'm about two inches away from talking to myself. I am quite aware of this.
Human beings are naturally social and this shapes our approach to reality (although I don't think many realize the extent). Thus, the social pressure gives me a choice: "get with the program or shut up." The ID movement is upset with me because I don't think ID is science and also (I suspect) because I think evolution/natural selection is a good designer-mimic. Their opponents are upset with me because I don't judge ID to be pure nonsense and seriously entertain a fairly aggressive teleological perspective.
As for getting with the program, what are my choices? I can't get with the ID program for the reasons we both know: ID is not science and attempts to disprove evolution or the efficacy of RM & NS are doomed. But I can't get with the critics' program because of something else I know: the non-teleological perspective on evolution is just that "“ a perspective. It's just the Duck; more culture/metaphysics than scientific fact. The are too many haunting clues and unanswered questions for me to buy into that perspective.
So this leaves me with the following option: to shut up or not to shut up? And this is indeed a question that has occupied my mind for the last month or so. I'd like to tie up some loose ends, but this is probably my last summer posting here.
Comment by MikeGene — May 14, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hi Mike,
Whatever else you do – DON'T SHUT UP! Never let your curiosity and exploration die.
If you need to take a break, to recharge your batteries, that's completely understandable. Take care. Hope to see you again soon.
Comment by nobody — May 14, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Episodic or punctuated dynamics has been observed in simple but exact models of RNA and protein evolution and is attributed to the "degeneracy," "redundancy," or "neutrality" of the genetic code (the genotype -> phenotype map). This discovery has inspired research in evodevo (where it is also observed in far more complex maps), bioengineering, search & optimization theory, evolutionary computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and theories of technological evolution.
Over the years, try as I might, I have been unable to garner little interest in these developments. I think I know why that is: The participants have little interest in current, vibrant, theoretical and empirical developments and are basically stuck in a mid-19th to early-20th century rut. Arguing over defunct theories of evolution.
Comment by Rock — May 14, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Can you provide an example of episodic or punctuated dynamics?
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Mike's original questions:
You seem to think that the "blind watchmaker" didn't make the proteins. Why is that? I realize that if she did make them it would sort of ruin your nice story, but surely you must have better reasons than that.
Comment by Raevmo — May 14, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
What evidence do you have that the "blind watchmaker" made proteins?
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Allen MacNeill:
Sure, much variation at the molecular level might well be neutral. But how much of that variation maps to phenotypic variation anyway? I guess not too much. The most striking phenotypic variation, the variation in adaptations to the environment, are you saying they are not the result of natural selection?
Comment by Raevmo — May 14, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
MikeGene,
I'd encourage you to continue with your efforts. The effects of what you say and propose are real, but not immediately seen – after your book came out, I heard a lot more conversation about 'front-loading' in the context of ID, and continue to hear it. Over at UD, I see more and more people who either accept evolution with the same conditions as you do (naturally, there will be other differences of opinion) or people who easily could if they got past what really is an artificial cultural hump.
Hell, if there were a way for you to retain your anonymity (I completely understand your desire to let your ideas be the central topic), I'd suggest you approach a group like Templeton's. While I think there's a lot of interesting developments among ID proponents, I also think there's a natural relation to be had with TEs – the terms are not necessarily exclusive. And Templeton in particular seems very friendly to your manner of.. call it intellectual synthesis.
Comment by nullasalus — May 14, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Bradford:
Hey, I asked first. Mike simply assumes that proteins didn't evolve without magic intervention, and then declares the "blind watchmaker" impotent. That seems a bit unfair. He should explain his reasons for such a strong assumption.
But there is evidence that the genetic code evolved from a simpler version with fewer amino acids and two-nucleotide codons to the more complicated version we have now. If that is correct, one wonders why the designer didn't front-load the final version from the start.
Comment by Raevmo — May 14, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It was an informal idea promoted by mturner of ARN. It drew a lot of inspiration from:
1. the work of James Shapiro on cellular intelligence and self-evolution
2. adaptive mutations (such as evidence by the work of Barry Hall)
3. occasional forays into life-force vitalism
"Adaptive Mutations" presume that mutations are not random but have some degree of foresight ranther than being blind like "random mutations".
I do not know if EAM devled into the work of geneticist John-Jo McFadden and quantum evolution. I read McFadden book Quantum Evolution.
McFadden's work was referenced by Behe on the topic of adaptive mutations.here: A True Acid Test. I am skeptical that McFadden's ideas of retrocausality can work in biological evolution. We have hints of retrocausality in delayed-choice experiments and quantum computers, but the time frames involved in some of these experiments are probably on the order of femto seconds as far as being able to create a retrocausal event….quantum retrocausality would not be favorable to biological evolution (as we know it) since biological evolution happens in time frames much larger than femto seconds.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 14, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
An alarming thought. We — both critics and proponents — would be much the poorer without you.
Comment by Bilbo — May 14, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:
Neither delayed-choice experiments, nor quantum computers violate causality—not even on the femtosecond scale—as long as the results are consistent with the orthodox quantum mechanics (within which these ideas were conceived). Standard QM respects causality and so far there is no indication that any quantum experiments go beyond the standard QM.
Comment by olegt — May 14, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
He read my design matrix evaluation of proteins, which gave them a score of +4.5 if I remember, and was immediately convinced.
If there is such evidence, this would count against ID. Let's assume there is such evidence, and put it through the design matrix:
Analogy Still counts high as resembling our codes: +5
Discontinuity We now have evidence of a precursor to our present code, and might even be able to extrapolate to a simpler code, and eventually to no code. -2
Rationality It seems irrational to start with one code and then change to another. -3
Foresight Apparently the designer didn't see the need for a different code until after designing the first one. -4
New score for genetic code: -1
The genetic code moves from strong evidence for design to weak evidence for non-design.
Comment by Bilbo — May 14, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Nah, it's a matter of which magic is stronger.:grin:
Comment by Bradford — May 14, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Sal:
I doubt if mturner was up on JJ McFadden's speculations. I am more familiar with his EM field theory of consciousness, and I found it lacking in several pertinent areas. But he's at least interesting and an independent thinker.
EAM does have adaptation primarily occurring in phenotypes – in the organism, in real-time response to selective stress – and later encoded (by whatever mechanism) into epigenetic inheritance or genomic rearrangements.
Random mutations in genes are known to occur as inherited variations, as accidents during processing, and as individually acquired damage. These, according to the EAM model, are primarily harmful to the organism if they're not neutral. These cause disease or susceptibility to disease.
Selection never could work on anything that's neutral – random or otherwise. That's just a plain fact. That the very earliest (evolutionarily speaking) organisms seem to have the genetic 'tool-kit' necessary to become all that we see around us is a serious indictment of Darwinism (Selection Is All), Mendelism (Genes Are All) and Neodarwinism (We Don't Know but Believe What We Say Anyway).
If life designs itself, it answers a lot of open questions, while at the same time opening avenues of approach that could prove immensely useful to us, FAPP.
The metaphysical position it came from (panentheism) is entirely irrelevant. And it's short on minute detail from a biological standpoint. I don't think mturner or bertvan are biiologists, and I'm not. Metaphysically you can believe whatever you like about ultimate causation, but you could have done that all along. Science can't 'prove' anybody's metaphysics in the real world. Not Richard Dawkins', not yours, not mine. That's not its job, never was.
The critics we get aren't generally on the front lines of biological research. Heck, most of us IDers aren't on the front lines of biological research either. We all think we know what's real. The front lines of biological research have long since moved on. Following the evidence, as *IS* its job.
Comment by Joy — May 14, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
May 14th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
raevmo asked:
Exactly. The persistence and proliferation of those characteristics we refer to by the term "adaptations" are the result of natural selection, but the origin of those characteristics is not. This is not to say that natural selection doesn't canalize the variations that arise via the mechanisms listed at my blog:
http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2007/10/rm-ns-creationist-and-id-strawman.html
Clearly, new variations are not entirely random; they depend upon the previous existence of similar variations, from which they are produced as the result of phenotypic and genetic modification (hence my emphasis on contingency). Ergo, if a characteristic is adaptive (i.e. is preserved and proliferates within a population at a rate that exceeds random appearance), then new variations arising from such characteristics would generally have a higher probability of being adaptive as well.
So, the "random" part of RM & NS isn't random.
As I have pointed out in the blog entry listed above, variations are the result of much, much more than simple genetic mutation. Indeed, genetic mutations are probably among the least important sources of phenotypic and genetic variation.
So, the "mutation" part of RM & NS isn't the most important source of variation.
And, as I have pointed out in this and related threads, natural selection is far from the most important source of preservation and proliferation of phenotypes and genotypes in populations. Sexual selection also does this, as does genetic drift (as it tends to produce fixation, but not as the result of selection), as well as other mechanisms such as meiotic drive, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and many, many other processes.
So the "natural selection" part of RM & NS isn't the only significant cause of preservation and proliferation of phenotypes and genotypes in populations.
Indeed, it is now becoming clear that lamarckian mechanisms (such as epigenetic imprinting, chomatin marking, etc.) are significant sources of phenotypic variation, which then lead to genetic changes as a result of genetic assimilation and genetic accommodation.
And all of this is part of the current theory of evolution. So, where, exactly, do we disagree?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 14, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
One thing I found missing from the entire conversation seems entirely obvious – a chaotic system. The reason why life is not built out of concrete is that concrete is not chaotic. Although no system is a true Turing machine, a system must at least be Turing-like in order to have advanced system behavior, especially if it is assembled from a code.
Comment by johnnyb — May 15, 2008 @ 11:37 am
May 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Raevmo – a die-hard DarwinDefender anti-ID critic on this blog – asked Allen MacNeill:
"The most striking phenotypic variation, the variation in adaptations to the environment, are you saying they are not the result of natural selection?"
Allen MacNeill responded:
Dr. MacNeill, I read your blog post of October 2007 and your list of mechanisms that are NOT random mutation or natural selection. I also read these words in that post:
"Creationists and supporters of Intelligent Design Theory ("IDers") are fond of erecting a strawman in place of evolutionary theory…"
"Perhaps the most egregious such strawman is encapsulated in the phrase "RM & NS"…"
"RM & NS is held up by creationists and IDers as the core of evolutionary biology…"
"According to the creationists and IDers, the only source of such variation is "random mutations…"
"So, next time you hear or read a creationist or IDer cite "RM & NS" as the sole explanation for evolutionary change…"
"Creationists and IDers" didn't invent RM/NS and don't limit the process of evolution to those inadequate mechanisms. These are still the mechanisms of evolution taught to all high school students, it's still the exclusionary outline of evolution for our live-in culture warriors, and it's asserted regularly by critics like Raevmo to automatically rule out any and all other mechanisms or processes IDers offer.
I have asserted and defended the EAM view of evolution for 8 years. Mike Gene has been touting Front-Loading for years as well. Dozens and dozens of DDs in that time have repeatedly asserted RM/NS as the sole mechanisms of evolution during those years. I have never seen an IDer assert (as if true) that these are the sole mechanisms of evolution. Their arguments are uniformly against RM/NS as the sole mechanisms of evolution, and their arguments are uniformly dismissed by True BelieversTM in RM/NS.
Thus it looks to me like YOU are the one who has set up a strawman to knock down, and it's YOUR ideology that once again muddied the waters with assertions that are simply untrue. While it would be nice if you could lead some overgrown juvenile delinquents through a remedial course in biological evolution (just so they don't come across as terminally dumb so often), most of us IDers already know what they do not – that there is way more going on than RM/NS.
You might wish to correct misrepresentations in your 8-month old post if you're going to refer your students and people here at TT to it. At least, if you wish to come across as not just another ideologically motivated culture warrior.
Comment by Joy — May 15, 2008 @ 11:45 am
May 15th, 2008 at 11:47 am
johnnyb,
It might be worth providing your definition of chaos.
Comment by olegt — May 15, 2008 @ 11:47 am
May 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
"And all of this is part of the current theory of evolution. So, where, exactly, do we disagree?"
You still are basing everything on adaptive variation, for which there is little support for the idea that the higher groups of organisms originated in that fashion. Disparity precedes diversity in most cases.
As such, this is still a microevolutionary framework, and says little about the origin of larger systems.
Also, you said, "if a characteristic is adaptive then new variations arising from such characteristics would generally have a higher probability of being adaptive as well."
First of all, this is not necessarily true. But even so, what the data I've seen shows is that the reason that adaptive changes occur is because a control mechanism (occurring somewhere independent in the genome) is geared towards producing adaptive changes at the right spots. Think of the immune system. In somatic hypermutation, the cell mutates not only the correct gene, but the _part_ of the gene most likely to have the best benefit (the V-region)! These are two relatively independent systems which interplay in a way that are based on the specific construction of the gene where the system loads the dice towards areas where adaptive variation are likely _within_ that gene. The whole thing is built towards a system perspective.
Comment by johnnyb — May 15, 2008 @ 11:49 am
May 15th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Joy, to Allen:
I do loves me some Joy!:smile:
I'm glad you said it so eloquently, because I was simply going to point out that reading Allen's blog evoked an image of some clumsy dwarf culture warrior in full battlefield regalia, tossing smug insults while backpedaling furiously on his tricycle.
Really, Allen? There's more to evolution than RM+NS?!? No shit!!
Comment by chunkdz — May 15, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
chunkdz:
I know it's a perceptual issue, but dang! [as Joe Dirt would say] You'd think they could at least READ their own words and see where the misrepresentations are!
I do note that these two threads have evoked some backpeddling on the standard IDC assertions (RM-NS! RM-NS!) today. aiguy has fallen all the way back to "but ID requires free will!" as if that weren't a total scarecrow with zero application. I'm suspecting that when the DD die-hards are made aware by someone on their 'side' of the debate that there's way more going on than RM-NS, they suddenly find that their standard arguments are meaningless as well as erroneous. Whatever will they do to maintain the pretense of scientific authority they believe they borrowed by memorizing the terminally dumb anti-ID arguments at The Swamp, TO, PT and II?
Comment by Joy — May 15, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Let me try this again. In his book, Mike scored the genetic code this way:
Analogy: +4
Discontinuity: +2
Rationality: +4
Foresight: +2
For an overall score of +3.
But now let's assume that we have strong evidence that there was a prior, simpler code, and score it:
Analogy: Either code would still be a +4
Discontinuity: The newly discovered is simpler, therefore having less discontinuity with nature — +1. The old code now has a step between it and nature, moving its score down to +1 also.
Rationality: Yes, why didn't the designer start with the more complex code? But it still has rationality. Score both codes +2.
Foresight: The designer apparently lacked foresight with the simpler code, and had to fix it, but got it right the second time. Score the simpler code -2. The more complex code, still having the same foresight, but this time with hindsight, makes us wonder. Lower the score to +1.
Simpler code: +1.5 Very weak for design.
Complex code: +2 Also weak for design.
Comment by Bilbo — May 15, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I asked Allen MacNeill:
Allen answered:
Sure, but no adaptations without natural selection. Your claim that they are not the result of natural selection is therefore too strong IMO. It would be more accurate to say they are not solely the result of natural selection.
I think you are exaggerating. You might be right about phenotypic variation, but ultimately genetic variation is created by genetic mutation (and by that I don't mean just point mutations, but also insertions, deletions, duplications, etc.).
Now really. This is careless use of terminology. Sexual selection is a form of natural selection in my book. Meiotic drive creates incredibly strong selection but is quite rare (the parliament of the genes), kin selection is a form of natural selection (easily derived from Price' equation), reciprocal altruism hardly exists.
They can sometimes lead to genetic assimilation/accomodation. Not automatically as you seem to imply. How important those processes really are is an open question.
We probably agree to a large extent. But I think you have been influenced a lot by West-Eberhard's book, perhaps too much. I like the book too, but I feel she overshoots by putting too much emphasis on phenotype first and genes following.
Comment by Raevmo — May 15, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Joy:
Where did I say RM/NS are the exclusive mechanisms underlying evolution? I'm looking forward to your apology for this false accusation.
By the way, what did "Creationists and IDers" invent? Nothing relevant to the real world as far as I can tell.
Comment by Raevmo — May 15, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
"It might be worth providing your definition of chaos."
Oleg -
A simple way to define it is a system to which problems such as the halting problem exists. It wouldn't be the exact same problem since we're hoping not to terminate
Basically, a system is chaotic if it contains areas where small changes to initial values has effects which, despite being deterministic, are undecidable by algorithms with finite running time. This is required for universal computation, which is also required for solving difficult problems (such as have to be solved for sustaining life – otherwise we would expect abiogenesis to be an easy problem, not a hard one).
Comment by johnnyb — May 15, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
johnnyb,
There is no need to involve universal computability in the definition of chaos. Chaos exists in physical phenomena whether or not there is someone to build a Turing machine (or a PC) to do calculations. So I would change your definition to the standard one: a system is chaotic if its phase space contains areas where small changes to initial values lead to exponentially growing differences between the original and modified trajectories. I find it hard to see in what way this definition (or yours) can be applied to either life or concrete.
Comment by olegt — May 15, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
My characterization of creationists and most IDers as focusing exclusively on RM & NS as a "strawman" version of evolutionary theory was the result of many years of debating such folks, both F2F and online. In particular, I have found that virtually all of the commentators at Uncommon Descent recognize only RM & NS as the whole of "neo-Darwinism".
My experience here at TT has, of course, been quite different. However, I think even you folks will admit that the level of courtesy and intelligence exhibited here is a far cry from what passes for "debate" at UD and most other creationist/ID blogs.
So, to be precise, the first sentence of my blog on RM & NS should read:
However, as most of you folks are definitely not the run-of-the-mill ID supporters, I intend to leave the post at my blog as is for now. If the rest of the ID community eventually becomes as open to courteous and intelligent debate and philosophical investigation as most of you are, I will modify my blog.
But please be aware that I'm not holding my breath…
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 15, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
BTW, I notice that Jablonka and Lamb's book, Evolution in Four Dimensions, is included in the featured references in the right sidebar at TT. I would be very interested in discussing some of the ideas and issues raised in their book, as they exemplify what I think of when I think of the "cutting edge" of current evolutionary theory.
I am also currently corresponding with Hannah Maxson (founder of the Cornell IDEA Club, now currently caring for orphans in Ulaan Baatar) on Angus Menuge's book, Agents Under Fire. I have found our correspondence to be both illuminating and very stimulating, and would enjoy discussing it with folks here.
Another book that would make for interesting discussion is Margulis and Sagan's Acquiring Genomes. I have corresponded with Lynn for two decades, and in particular as she was preparing this book. I think it sums up an entirely different paradigm for both micro and macroevolutionary theory, and would reward critical analysis as well.
Any takers?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 15, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Allen MacNeill, is the point of quoting Hitler to indicate your confidence in him as a credible source? Did not the adage: if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it- not come out of the Third Reich? Hitler was the same guy who promised no further territorial demands at Munich. How does anyone take his words seriously?
Comment by Bradford — May 15, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Bradford asked:
Not at all. The point to my post at
http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2008/03/godwins-darwin.html
was primarily to show that Ben Stein's assertion that "no Darwin, no Hitler" is essentially a scurrilous and intentionally provocative lie, almost as ugly as his more recent assertion that "Science leads to killing people". Hitler was motivated by many things, including a strain of anti-semitism deeply ingrained for centuries in Germany, a desire to find a scapegoat for Germany's losses in World War I, and a ready source of funds (to be obtained by massive, systematic theft and murder). Hitler and the Nazis used whatever justifications they could, including both Christian and Darwinian ideas, to give their programs an aura of sanctity and scientific rigor.
However, had Hitler not existed (or had history taken a different turn in Weimar Germany), it is unlikely that something like Naziism would have arisen in either Germany or any other country in which either Christianity or Darwinian evolutionary theory were practiced and understood. I think the fact that both Christianity and Darwinian theory were extremely influential in the 1920s and 30s in Britain and the United States, yet neither of these countries ever attempted anything similar to Naziism, supports this conclusion.
Yes, eugenics was popular in Britain and the United States during the inter-war period, when "positive eugenics" was promoted by people like R. A. Fisher and J. B. S. Haldane. However, to equate even the most stringent forms of "negative eugenics" in Britain and the United States with the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust is perpetuate what John Derbyshire has quite rightly called "a blood libel on our civilization". Knowing what we do now about both the scientific fallacies of eugenics and the political and social misuses to which it was put during the 1930s and 40s, does anyone seriously suggest that any evolutionary biologist today would support it? I don't any who do, and I know quite a few.
Was your question rhetorical? Or, did you hope that you could draw me out into a pointless rehashing of the "no Darwin, no Hitler" flamefest of a couple of weeks back?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 15, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
And can we get back to discussing current evolutionary theory now?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 15, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
May 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Allen MacNeill:
LOL!!! Oh, don't be fooled, Allan. We can certainly get as frustrated as anybody else. So while we're generally more tolerant than some forums, continual below-the-belt does tend to make critics disappear on occasion.
That said, it's still true that dozens upon dozens of DDs have insisted to me through the years that RM-NS is all there is (though they'll usually admit to drift, neutral mutations, evo-devo and such, even if they don't know much about any of that). I always presume that these aren't the 'scientists' they pretend to be, probably didn't get farther than junior college, and not in biology. One thing that we take a little pride in is the quality of our critics. Even if a few of them are here mostly for comic relief… §;o)
I sure would be if I'd actually read any of those books. But I haven't and probably won't any time soon. If you'd like to discuss particular passages, concepts or chapters, you could probably get away with some fair-use citations and flesh it out on your own. If you'd like to open a thread on one or more topics from these books, I'd be willing to host a guest post. My email is at the bottom my my profile when you click on my name under "Pages" (right side of the main page).
Comment by Joy — May 15, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 3:21 am
olegt:
The one you refer to is not all that different from mine, though mine concerns the algorithmic aspect more than the one you refer to. The reason why chaos is important, is that design leverages the chaos inherent in systems in order to do something novel. In concrete there is no chaotic element to harness. In order to have a solution to a all but the simplest problems, you have to be able to leverage chaos in order to make repetitive and differential judgments. Non-chaotic systems cannot be ordered by initial conditions to produce arbitrarily interesting systems.
For more on this, check out Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, specifically when he talks about Class 4 Cellular Autonoma.
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 3:21 am
May 16th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Allen -
Another interesting biologist is Scott Gilbert with his Ecological Developmental Biology. Though I don't think he's done much with this lately, he had a great review of the field. I summarize it here:
http://baraminology.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-science-of-eco-devo.html
So here's what I find interesting, but I don't know if anyone is looking into it — Gilbert's paper focused on adaptive traits. Wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of the organisms, rather than adapting for their own survival, are using environmental cues to decide what _they need to produce_ for the benefit of others? As I said, I don't think anyone's even looked at this yet (or at least not that I've heard of), but it sure would be an interesting inquiry.
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 3:25 am
May 16th, 2008 at 4:26 am
And no doubt you also give Stein a chance to amend some of his statements, no? Oh wait, you called Ben Stein a liar already!
Don't be such a hypocrite, Allen.
PS You are quote-mining Stein, shame on you.
Comment by Jean — May 16, 2008 @ 4:26 am
May 16th, 2008 at 8:35 am
johnnyb wrote:
Fine. This road will take you to evolution through random variations helped by selection, whether natural or artificial.
And don't forget that most physical systems are chaotic, the harmonic oscillator and other integrable problems are more an exception than a rule. Billiard balls colliding with each other in a box (or molecules of gas in a container) are chaotic.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 8:35 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:02 am
olegt, he used the phrase ordered by initial conditions. What is randomly varied prior to selection? The genome of an organism. Pointing out that selected variations occur simply begs the question of how the genome originated in the first place.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2008 @ 10:02 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Bradford,
You can't use initial conditions to direct a chaotic system. An infinitesimal change in initial conditions leads to a totally different outcome—that's the hallmark of chaos. So chaos and front loading are incompatible.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 10:05 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
A primordial soup is a hypothesized chaotic system is it not? It would contain an assortment of molecules found in cells.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2008 @ 10:11 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Bradford wrote:
Only in the colloquial sense of the word. johnnyb is using the precise technical meaning.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 10:18 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
olegt, you wrote:
and this:
Your position then is what- conditions that gave rise to life were not chaotic?
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2008 @ 10:28 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Bradford, pretty much any physical system is chaotic. That makes such statements meaningless. Why not take a canister with air (whose molecules do perform chaotic motion) and use it to start life?
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 10:47 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
How would you describe a cell?
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2008 @ 10:52 am
May 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
You raise an interesting issue. "Causality" according to Wikipedia argues that :
But there is a subtly to this in that we bias our perceptions on what is currently known. There is uncertainty about the future, and it is certainly correct to say the future outcome of a measurement conducted in the future is not available to us in the present…..
BUT, this does not mean the future event does not define the behavior of the present (at least in the mathmatical sense). For example, let's say we find an arrow embedded in a tree. One could argue that the presence of the arrow in the tree and all conditions of every thing else at that moment define the evolution of past events. Thus a current condition is "causal" to past events, and by way of extension, future conditions are "causal" to past events….
If my velocity is constant, and I'm at position X at this moment, it is mathematically correct to view this as "causal" to my previous poisition 5 seconds ago. This may seem a bit wierd to define the causal properties of trajectories in terms of final outcomes, but it certainly seemed consistent with the teleological mindset of physicists in the past. I pointed out here: Teleology and ID in physics, ID-inspired least action principles:
and
and
and
We could define physical systems in terms of final outcomes. However, because the information of the future is not available to us in the present, we cannot conduct experiments using information from yet unmeasured outcomes. However, our lack of knowledge, our uncertainty about the future does not seem to me to imply that the future cannot be a legitimate boundary condition for the trajectory and evolution of a system.
If I presume a photon will be measured in the future for it's wave like properties, I will solve the system evolution one way. If I presume the photon will be measured for it's particle properties, I will solve the evolution of the sytem another way. What is uncertain to me is how the properties of photon in the future will be measured, but I still account for future events in finding the solutions for current trajectories. Thus, even though I have no access to the outcome of the future measurement, the evolution of the systems still appears to be highly dependent on a future event. The evolution of the system can depend on the final conditions as much as on the initial conditions.
So regarding the question of the limits the Designer has, there is one thing that He has ( presuming the Designer is God) that we don't have: knowledge of the future since presumably He exists in the future. He knows that final measurement He will make on the Universal Wave Function, thus he knows the trajectory and evolution of the universe better than us….
Unfortunately, these speculations are not amenable to direct experimental evidence as far as I can tell.
I still have many incomplete thoughts on the question Mike raised in this thread and it has given me much to think about….I do not know if the considerations of ultimately teleology (in physics) have bearing on the liminations of design in biological systems, but it seems that its an area we don't necessarily want to compartmentalize away…
PS
I further commented that Least Action Principles were viewed as evidence of ID in 1744
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 16, 2008 @ 10:58 am
May 16th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Salvador:
It's a logical connection rather than a causal one. If it rains at 10:30 there were probably clouds at 10 o' clock, but nobody would say that the rain causes the clouds.
Comment by Raevmo — May 16, 2008 @ 11:15 am
May 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Excellent example! The least action principle has the intuitive feel of teleology, but it turns out there is an underlying symmetry. Rather than a least action path, quantum mechanics stipulates that bodies take *all* paths. With large bodies composed of large numbers of particles, this results in the appearance of a least action path as a result of the Law of Large Numbers rather than teleology.
Comment by Zachriel — May 16, 2008 @ 11:40 am
May 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Oleg –
I think you are confused on several points:
"Fine. This road will take you to evolution through random variations helped by selection, whether natural or artificial."
No it will not. The problem is that in a chaotic system, there is _no_ smooth road through. You _have_ to make leaps at many points, which requires design, not just selection.
"And don't forget that most physical systems are chaotic, the harmonic oscillator and other integrable problems are more an exception than a rule. Billiard balls colliding with each other in a box (or molecules of gas in a container) are chaotic."
Right. No problem there. That was the point of this post – to determine what are the requirements of a system in order to be able to design life. My answer – it has to be chaotic. That's not the only requirement. I didn't say that if you have a chaotic environment then you will automatically get life. What I said was that if you don't have a chaotic substrate you can't build life.
"You can't use initial conditions to direct a chaotic system. An infinitesimal change in initial conditions leads to a totally different outcome"”that's the hallmark of chaos. So chaos and front loading are incompatible."
This is simply false. The existence of computer programs violates your premise. Computer languages are built on chaotic systems. ALL general-purpose programming languages are chaotic, and are front-loaded by initial conditions. My point, in fact, has been that the ONLY way we know how to direct a chaotic system is through design. It requires someone who has creativity beyond that of an algorithmic mechanism in order to know how the effects of a change to initial conditions will effect a chaotic system. If that were not possible, then computer programming would be impossible. If that were possible via an algorithmic mechanism, the halting problem would not exist. Therefore, it must be possible by a non-algorithmic mechanism. Usually when people refer to non-algorithmic mechanisms for creating programs, it is called "design" or "engineering".
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 11:44 am
May 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
johnnyb wrote:
Maybe you should take a computer language (say, C), and show that it has positive Lyapunov exponents. Good luck.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 11:51 am
May 16th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Allen,
Although UD is demonstrably lame, this statement is demonstrably false with probable intent to slander. As many of your blog readers pointed out, RM + NS is simply well established shorthand for variation and selection. Perhaps the time is nigh to change the acronym, but one could nevertheless point to myriad examples from Dawkins to Gould where similar assertions are made about RM + NS, yet they like most UD posters I know of) are certainly aware of the fact that sexual reproduction and horizontal gene transfer, (et.al.) produce variation. It's rather dumb to maintain that unless someone mentions every form of variation (RM+HGT+SS+ES+PDQ….etc…+NS) they are involved in some strawman conspiracy.
I call culture warrior BS.
I also love and admire you.
Comment by chunkdz — May 16, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
"Maybe you should take a computer language (say, C), and show that it has positive Lyapunov exponents. Good luck."
This has already been done. If you read Wolfram's work (even just NKS), you will find he covers it generally. Here are his two references in NKS:
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-921c-text?firstview=1
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-950a-text
He mentions class 4 systems as having positive propogation here:
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/articles/ca/84-universality/10/text.html
I only mention these because I had already pointed out Wolfram's NKS. If you want actual calculations for Wolfram's elementary automata, see here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9811159
Rule 110, which has been proven to be universal, has a lambda of about 0.65.
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 2:52 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
johnnyb,
All of your references discuss cellular automata. I have nothing against chaos in the dynamics of cellular automata. These are discrete systems with prescribed dynamics (see Eqs. 1 and 2 in arXiv:cond-mat/9811159) and quite often the behavior of discrete systems on long length and time scales is identical to that of continuous ones. Condensed matter physics relies on such equivalence: liquids and solids are made of discrete atoms, yet elasticity theory and fluid dynamics, based on the continuum description, work fantastically well. It is thus not surprising that the dynamics of cellular automata on long time scales exhibits chaos.
But I still cannot see how you can view a computer language in the same light. How do you define the dynamics of a computer language? What are the coordinates?
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I've tried, Salvador T. Cordova, to get anyone interested in this
принципы топологичеÑ?кого кодированиÑ?
The genetic code (a Gray-code) is naturally represented as Hamiltonian cycle, Salvador.
The genetic code is a record of its own evolution (and there is no other such record), its phylogeny. Supposedly there is a phyletic tree embedded in this cube. Pick the origin.
Could be any number of complications involved in picking the origin. E.g., maybe the genetic code is not monophyletic (?!). (Yeh, that's not the first problem that occurred to me either. But Margulis would love it!)
As always a FOS!
Comment by Rock — May 16, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Sorry, Salvador. Try this
http://genetic-code.narod.ru/index-e.htm
Comment by Rock — May 16, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Btw, I wanted to wish my brother luck on his latest excursion to the Red Planet. I hope you hit your target (not like the time before last) and make a soft landing (not like the last time).
(Even as a brother I'm an asshole!)
Luv ya!
(With all due apologies to the TTers, but I'm proud of my brother and like to brag about him. He's been to Mars more times than you! LOL)
Comment by Rock — May 16, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Sal wrote:
Indeed, if one uses inductive reasoning (i.e. the "new" kind of reasoning that Francis Bacon first described in his New Organon, and which has been the basis of the empirical sciences ever since), this is quite literally impossible. Consider, for example, the logical paradox Nelson Goodman presented his "new problem of induction" in 1966, in which he proposed that "emeralds are grue". By this he meant that up until now all empirically observable emeralds have been green. However, at some indefinite distant future date, they will all turn blue. Therefore, the best (indeed, the only) empirically verifiable descriptive term for the color of emeralds is "grue".
This idea sounds trivial, but illustrates a fundamental problem of inductive reason: it cannot possibly include empirically observable events that have not yet happened. This idea is also called the "black swan" problem. Prior to the discovery of black swans in Australia, a European would have been fully justified in stating (on the basis of all empirical evidence) that "all swans are white". However, once black swans were discovered in Australia, that generalization had to be modified to "all non-Australian swans are white".
But it gets worse: there is also the "raven problem". According to the basic rules of logic, the following two statements are equivalent:
"all ravens are black"
"all non-ravens are non-black"
Empirical observations can support both. Indeed, according to the rules of logic, every observation that supports one of the statements equally supports the other:
"this is a raven, and it is black; ergo, all ravens are black"
"this is an apple and it is green; ergo, all non-ravens are non-black"
However, simple intuition shows that the second statement is clearly false, yet its falseness cannot be demonstrated via induction, and in fact it counts as equally valid evidence for the first statement.
There have been numerous attempts to find a way out of these paradoxes, with IMHO little success. It seems clear to me that these would not present paradoxes to an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient supernatural entity. It also seems just as clear to me that this is a logical argument against the existence of such an entity. Indeed, postulating the existence of such an entity under these circumstances would constitute a form of question-begging, not explanation.
And, since the Intelligent Designer of most versions of ID has the same qualities "“ omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience (let's leave omnibenevolence out of this for now)"“ this strongly implies that such an entity cannot exist, except in the (limited) human imagination. In particular, the intervention of such an entity into natural processes would be quite literally impossible to detect using empirical induction, and so is completely outside the domain of the natural sciences.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 16, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Allen MacNeill wrote:
Then in his very next post wrote:
So the Cornell professor of biology declares that Intelligent Design is mostly about the biblically described God, God cannot logically exist, God is exclusively a product of imagination, God cannot be measured therefore God doesn't exist, and simply postulating God's existence is a logical fallacy.
What other aspects of evolutionary theory would you like to discuss professor?
(BTW, do you teach this to the students in your ID class?)
Comment by chunkdz — May 16, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
chunkdz asked:
Not exactly. First of all, I do not have an "ID class". I did facilitate a seminar on evolution and design two summers ago, but normally I teach introductory biology and evolutionary biology. In those classes, I try to help students learn how to "think like a scientist", which means to use empirical induction as much as possible. This means learning about the various types of logical reasoning and how to apply them to the study of nature and natural phenomena.
I generally do not mention deities or other "supernatural topics" during these discussions. However, if during the course of such discussions the students bring up the subject of deities (which sometimes happens), I discuss these issues with them, but always with the intention of encouraging them to come to their own conclusions. Those of them who have taken the time to tell me how my courses have affected them have generally agreed that this has been the case, including both ID supporters and creationists.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 16, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Allen MacNeill:
Are those really equivalent? I read the first statement as the implication if A (raven) then B (black). It means that the conjunction of A and !B (! denoting negation) is false. Since negation of a conjunction is not distributive (indeed, !(X and Y)=!X OR !Y), the statements are not equivalent. Or am I missing something?
The optimal way to reason consistently about how new evidence should alter the plausibilities of various hypotheses is Bayesian analysis. A beautiful exposition is given by the late E.T. Jaynes in his "Probability theory. The logic of science". (Cambridge Univ Press 2003, also for free on the web).
Comment by Raevmo — May 16, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
"But I still cannot see how you can view a computer language in the same light"
As I pointed out, Rule 110 _is_ a programming language. If you don't understand the equivalency of automata and programming languages, I don't know what I can do to help you. A turing machine is just an automata.
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
johnny B:
Maybe you are a bit unclear with your definitions. A programming language is not a dynamical system–it's a set of rules. Hence a programming language cannot be chaotic. The sequence of states of a computer induced by a program might be chaotic. Is that what you mean? And how is that relevant to evolution vs. design?
Even a chaotic system can be quite predictable. An attractor can occupy a very small volume of state space.
Comment by Raevmo — May 16, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Raevmo:
Thanks so much for the HT about the online version of Jaynes! Now my students will have a lot more reading to do this summer.
And now a question: isn't Baysian reasoning essentially the same thing as induction from an initial state of pure ignorance?
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 16, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
johnnyb wrote:
It seems to me that you are conflating two different categories, computer programs and programming languages (a point also made by Raevmo). Let me explain.
Much of what you write appears to be based on Wolfram's New Kind of Science. Well, Wolfram himself draws parallels between Turing machines, cellular automata and computer programs. Here's an excerpt from the announcement of the Wolfram 2,3 Turing Machine Research Prize:
I agree with the similarity noted in the highlighted sentence: all three things are examples of dynamical systems that
* are characterized by a state at any given moment (coordinates),
* have rules uniquely determining the next state (time evolution),
* are given input (the initial state).
The dynamics of some cellular automata admits a continuum description at long times and they may have chaotic behavior.
A programming language shares none of those characteristics. Perhaps I misunderstand something (like Raevmo). If that's the case please be patient and explain the analogy.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Allen:
My pleasure. It's a very deep and insightful text IMO. It gets fairly technical, mathematically, from time to time, and may not be very suitable for freshman biologists for the most part. But the first few easy chapters are already quite an eye-opener. At least to me they were.
On the contrary. Bayesian reasoning is a way to update the plausibility (or probability) of a hypothesis in the face of new evidence, taking into account prior information (the so-called "prior") about the plausibility of that hypothesis. If your initial information about the plausibility of the hypothesis (or relative plausibilities of competing hypotheses) is pure ignorance, then Bayesian analysis is the same as standard analysis (hypothesis testing, the "Fisherian" or "frequentist" way). But if you have some relevant information, then Bayesian analysis takes this into account, so you get more accurate estimates of the relative plausibilities of hypotheses. That can make Bayesian analysis orders of magnitude more powerful than standard analysis. In a nutshell:
posterior probability (hypothesis | data) = prior probability (hypothesis) * likelihood (data | hypothesis)
I'm working on some models (together with someone who got his PhD at Cornell actually) to see if this is the way animals might reason when they are signaling in contests. The song of a bird might provide some information about its state (e.g. fighting ability), and one would expect animals to use Bayesian updating to (re)asses the state of a potential opponent. Assuming of course that natural selection optimizes information processing of animals.
Comment by Raevmo — May 16, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Raevmo:
Another great post! In googling around, I've found a brief treatment of these topics that also addresses the question of ID:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
The section on ID is most of the way down; just keep scrolling.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — May 16, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Allen,
You don't also tell your students that their naive religious views will be challenged in your introductory biology classes?
Comment by Pez — May 16, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Rock:
Awww!!! I'll bet you were the brother who stuffed socks in his mouth while holding him down and pinging his sternum, weren't you? Still, better than sisters who dressed him up in high heels and petticoats…
I know from brothers to be proud of, so you can be as proud as you want! Brothers (and sisters) don't always last your lifetime, so it's good to let them know on occasion how you really feel. §;o)
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Allen,
OT, but was the seminar a one time thing? It was very interesting following Hannah's blog – I'd hoped it was something you'd keep going periodically.
Comment by chunkdz — May 16, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Allen MacNeill:
Um… "their own conclusions" about what? Your views? I'm afraid I'm not getting the gist of this. You earlier listed a host of mechanisms for non-random variation and non-selective adaptations (which aren't selected OUT because they weren't selected IN) that pretty much encapsulated EAM and can even handle front-loading. As if… as if you were following developments in biology closely enough to know that the antiquated RM-NS canard is a load of hooey. Which, of course, it is.
Where in this open-minded "Modern Evolutionary Theory" approach is the philosophy that would allow you to say anything at all about whether or not a designing intelligence uses these mechanisms to achieve goals in life?
I ask because I am one of those nasty IDers you denigrated so thoroughly in 5 absolute assertions in the post on your blog dealing with all these mechanisms I've been touting for years. Not a one of them – or all of them together – has informed me that there's no such thing as intelligent design, or that any of these mechanisms wouldn't be useful to an intelligent designer. If I were sitting in on your class, would you speak of ID in the ugly terms you refuse to edit (because we TT'ers are so darned "special")? If I asked, would you tell me I must be an IDiot?
Guess I'm not seeing your qualifications or authority in ruling one way or the other, and wondering why you go ahead and rule anyway with your hateful – and very public – language. Is that because you're scared of your colleagues calling you an IDer? Or is it that you're scared that the place biology finds itself in recently CANNOT authoritatively rule on such questions anymore with the bad old RM-NS canard?
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Oleg –
Automata _are_ programming languages. I don't know how else to put it. Wolfram's Rule 110 _is_ a universal computer. A Turing machine is _the_ model of programming languages that ALL OTHERS are built off of – by definition.
Comment by johnnyb — May 16, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:
No, Sal, the presence of the arrow reflects the past but does not define it. Yes, you can restore the chain of events leading to the arrow in the tree but no, you can't change them.
It's true that the motion of a simple physical object can be analyzed both forward and backward in time equally well. Because the dynamical equations of motion are usually symmetric with respect to time reversal, one is tempted to conclude that the current state of a physical system can be determined equally well by the past or the future states. This will work for a simple isolated object such as a particle freely moving in empty space but it will fail in the real world. It's a deep question and I won't be able to do justice to it in a blog comment, but here is the answer in a nutshell.
The asymmetry between the past and future—the arrow of time—arises not from the inherent asymmetry of the physical laws (they are symmetric under time reversal) but rather from the ordered nature of the initial state of the system. When you throw a ball into the air (forget gravity for a moment), it will initially travel at a high speed but gradually it will lose momentum and eventually stop coming into thermal equilibrium with the air. Here the asymmetry of the two descriptions is very clear. Knowing the past state of the ball (speed of 1 m/s) we can predict its future motion (the terminal speed of 0). However, knowing the future state (velocity 0) you cannot predict what the past motion was! The ball may have been moving or it may have been at rest since the Big Bang. That's the reason why we use the past to predict the future and not the other way around.
Now that this is clear, we come to the question of causality. It states, roughly speaking, that in order to predict the state of the system at t=0 it suffices to know the state of the system at t<0 and that the state of the system at t>0 does not influence what happens at t=0. Your examples in no way refute that.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 11:00 pm
May 16th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
johnnyb, that's not very convincing.
Comment by olegt — May 16, 2008 @ 11:01 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Olegt,
Thank you for your informative response. I agree the topics are getting deep. And I acknowledge that it will be some time before I study Quantum Formalisms in detail in school….
It is true that simple knowledge of a future state may not be sufficient to describe the trajectory of a system. However, there seems to be a nagging issue that initial conditions seem insufficient to define the boundary conditions of certain quantum systems as well. Solutions for a system evolution seem dependent on a future event. Is this not the case with delayed-choice? Are there not physical systems that have an indeterminate solution to the Schrodinger equation unless a future boundary condition is provided?
In any case, I know the topic is deep, and I am committed to learning more about these things and spending many hours studying them. Thank you again for your informative response.
At this time, I am very friendly to the work of John Cramer. He seems to be a mainstream physicist as far as I can tell. He articulates pretty much the views I hold as of today:
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2008 @ 1:34 am
May 17th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Joy to Allen:
So let's see what this brilliant theory of EAM has to offer. I Googled the term "endogenous adaptive mutagenesis", and I found this link on top:
http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Endogenous_Adaptive_Mutagenesis
Ah, it's the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design. That hotbed of research. Last issue of their journal: Novermber 2005. Oops.
How do they define EAM?
Therefore EAM is refuted since the causal effects of external agents on evolution have been observed plenty of times. Knock out in round 1.
Hey, suddenly environmental pressures do force evolution. What happened to the "no external agent"
No hooey here, folks. Just good old crackpottery.
Comment by Raevmo — May 17, 2008 @ 5:40 am
May 17th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:
Sal, boundary conditions normally refer to spatial boundaries, don't conflate these things. If an equation is second-order in time as is typical in classical mechanics, you need to provide two pieces of information. They can be the initial coordinate and velocity (as is done in Newtonian mechanics) or the initial coordinate and the final coordinate (Lagrange's variational mechanics). Either way, fixing the initial coordinate and velocity fully determines the solution and no further information (e.g. future final coordinate) is required.
Delayed-choice experiments illustrate the same quantum uncertainty as does the quantum double-slit experiment: physical variables corresponding to noncommuting quantum operators cannot be measured simultaneously. It does not violate causality. The effect was derived on the basis of standard quantum mechanics, which respects causality. See Wikipedia's entry for starters.
Schroedinger's equation is first-order in the time derivative. As such it requires a single initial condition, the wavefunction at t=0. I am not sure I understand what you are talking about. Maybe you can give a concrete example.
Lastly, Cramer's transactional interpretation is fully equivalent to the standard Copenhagen one:
For this reason alone, there can be no causality violation in it and Cramer acknowledges as much in the passage you quote. His work is a direct descendant of Wheeler and Feynman's treatment of the classical problem of radiation and absorption, so it's worth reading the original work:
J. A. Wheeler and R. F. Feynman, Interaction with the Absorber as the Mechanism of Radiation, Rev. Mod. Phys. 17, 157 (1945); doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.17.157
Comment by olegt — May 17, 2008 @ 8:52 am
May 17th, 2008 at 9:07 am
"johnnyb, that's not very convincing."
I don't know what the issue is then. You are agreeing that programming languages (i.e. Turing Machines and Cellular automata) can be chaotic, and measurably so, and then say that you don't know how one might measure how chaos in a programming language. Then, you define a list of things that characterize autonoma: initial state, rules for state change, and the current state, which correspond exactly to how the semantics of programming languages are defined (the initial state being the program, the state transition rules being the language).
But let's just work on basic logic:
a) a Turing machine is a programming language, with the initial state as the program.
b) Turing machines can be measured for chaos
c) therefore, in at least one set of cases, a programming language can be measured for chaos
Did I miss something here?
Comment by johnnyb — May 17, 2008 @ 9:07 am
May 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am
A programming language is not a Turing Machine. A computer is a Turing Machine. The programming language (Action Table) is only one component of a Turing Machine, which also includes the data/memory (Tape), read/write (Head) and the register (State). Sometimes we talk about programming languages being Turing Complete, but this presupposes memory and other facets of the Turing Machine.
Did I miss something here?
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2008 @ 9:28 am
May 17th, 2008 at 10:04 am
My previous comment was perhaps pedantic, but maybe your response will help me understand your position.
Cement microstructure exhibits a signature fractal pattern.
Orbital trajectories can be chaotic. When spaceships were first proposed, it was thought that launches would have to be virtually perfect or the spaceships would miss their target. The solution was that the spaceship simply steers (implements midcourse corrections) along the way.
I'm still not sure your point here, and I've read it several times. I assume you mean computers can act chaotically. Indeed, the modern concept of chaos was discovered in computer weather simulations (Lorenz, Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow, 1963.) Computers can also be very regular and consistent.
As computers can steer through turbulent flow, I'm still don't know exactly what you're trying to say. I'm probably missing something, but I can't seem to restate your view adequately.
Humans are not intrinsically any better than computers at understanding chaos. Indeed, human minds tend to formulate patterns even when they don't exist. Modern neural networks can emulate many aspects of how humans interact with complex environments.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2008 @ 10:04 am
May 17th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Zachriel wrote:
I don't think this objection is that relevant: it can be raised against a computer program as well. Of course we understand that a computing device is implied.
I think the deeper problem is that johnnyb is using the concept of Turing equivalence well beyond its range of applicability. A programming language can be Turing-equivalent and a cellular automaton can be Turing-equivalent. He then reasons that because one Turing-equivalent system (the automaton) exhibits chaotic dynamics so does the other (the programming language). But that just doesn't follow.
Chaotic dynamics means an exponential (in time) divergence of two infinitesimally close trajectories. Turing equivalence establishes that one system can simulate another but it says nothing about how distances and times in one system translate into those of the other. I asked johnnyb previously how he would define the time and distance in a programming language but I have seen no response. Without those definitions, how can one even speak of chaotic dynamics?
To stress the importance of the time issue, let me give the following example. It is known that a quantum computer can be simulated by a classical one. However, their time performances can be drastically different. A quantum computer can solve certain problems (like prime factoring) in polynomial time. Despite Turing equivalence, a classical computer cannot do the same: as far as we know, prime factoring takes exponentially long time on a classical computer.
Comment by olegt — May 17, 2008 @ 10:23 am
May 17th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I didn't think so, but I admit I was hopelessly lost as to the point johnnyb was making, so I thought I would start at the beginning.
That helped. I think you may be right. We'll see.
"”
Here a difficulty presents itself which appears to me insoluble. "” Simplicio
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2008 @ 10:45 am
May 17th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Raevmo doesn't get it:
Very weird, Raevmo. Since when is an encyclopedia a research journal? If you can't tell the difference you might want to avoid pointing that out in public.
You've been informed many times by me and in this thread by Allan MacNeill that natural selection is not the primary mechanism of biological evolution, and that even when operative does NOT originate anything at all. While I am quite used to your obstinate refusal to grock this reality, it's another misconception you really should consider not asserting so often in public. If you have five apples and you eat two of them, you have not created a three. If you ate the two golden delicious and left the three McIntosh, you haven't created McIntosh apples. This isn't difficult for most people.
…and did you just assert with this silly pronouncement that God is 'necessary' as an agent of evolution? Weirder and weirder…
No one here – and certainly no one who understands organisms both communicate with and respond to their environment – claimed that environmental pressures don't lead to evolutionary change. Your scarecrow is leaking straw.
Your opinion won't make or break evolutionary biology, Raevmo. Your constant insistence that a post-hoc filter causes biological variation to appear doesn't convince anyone who understands the difference between causes and effects. But please keep on asserting that silliness, it's good comic relief.
Comment by Joy — May 17, 2008 @ 11:02 am
May 17th, 2008 at 11:16 am
olegt:
From my perspective what was front loaded was a capacity for cellular replication and of course all minimally required functions to sustain a cell. Your statement points to conditions existing on earth before there was life and points out that an infinitesimal change in initial conditions leads to a totally different outcome. That in turn reinforces my view that life is not the outcome of a causal process initiated in a primordial organic pool.
Weather is a natural system modeled by chaos is it not? Predicting weather patterns is obviously fraught with great difficulties but at least we have physical causal factors to study and plausible models. We don't with respect to life. We study life in an already advanced cellular condition and the question of how it got that way is left begging. So, far from refuting the idea that a capacity for cellular replication was front loaded, what you have actually succeeeded in doing is providing a convincing argument that currently reigning paradigms are sterile. A system can evolve with time when a system exists. But the system we have available to study had to come into existence itself.
Who would claim that programming languages would arise in the absence of intelligence? Who would claim that their operation cannot be front loaded? I agree that chaos and front loading are incompatible. But front loading can occur without dependence on initial conditions. That's the stuff of minds. Heresy huh? Then the alternative is acknowledging that issues like the origin of life lie outside scientific boundaries.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2008 @ 11:16 am
May 17th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Joy:
I linked to the website of ISCID, home to both an encyclopedia and a "research" journal. According to you this implies the encyclopedia is actually the journal? Very weird indeed.
You are hardly in a position to lecture on behalf of people who understand such differences, seeing as you cling to childish fantasies such as:
Laughable tripe.
Sorry, but that post-hoc filter that troubles you so much can actually cause variation, whether or not your fantasy world forbids it. For example, disruptive selection can prevent two subpopulations from interbreeding, thereby causing speciation (higher biodiversity).
Comment by Raevmo — May 17, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
The main ID journal Progress in Complexity, Intelligence, and Design has shown no progress since November 2005.
Another ID publication, the Journal of Evolutionary Informatics, has not even got off the ground.
Comment by olegt — May 17, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
olegt:
And this means… what? That ID researchers aren't publishing in this journal or the other you mention? What exactly does that have to do with definitions and encyclopedia entries? I'm not seeing the connection, apart from sponsorship. Can you flesh that out for me?
Comment by Joy — May 17, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
olegt,
That's not true, or at least not the way you're setting it up. Yes, if you set initial conditions and have incomplete knowledge of the coming changes, those changes will have a ballooning effect on the system. But you can front load as far as you have knowledge of those changes – and the specificity of your goal and its boundaries factors in as well.
Comment by nullasalus — May 17, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Bradford wrote:
My understanding of the concept of front loading is the designer set things in motion at some point and let it go. Life has evolved on its own since then. That's precisely what a physicist means by "setting the initial conditions."
And to address also nullasalus's point, if the system set in motion had chaotic dynamics, then there are the following possibilities.
(i) If the designer had a specific plan in mind (such the eventual development of man) then he's no ordinary designer because he would have no room for error. Not even one part in a billion billion: any tiny error would grow in time in a chaotic system frustrating the designer's plans. Calling such a designer supernatural would not be a stretch.
(ii) The designer had a plan, the implementation was not perfect and he intervened from time to time to correct the accumulating errors. Someone needs to look for signs of intervention, I suppose.
(iii) The designer had no exact plan: whatever the system grows into would suit him fine.
Any thoughts?
Comment by olegt — May 17, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
olegt,
A few responses.
1) Sure, but calling Richard Feynman supernatural from the point of view of an American native circa 200AD wouldn't be much of a stretch either. The point is often made that the entirely natural looks supernatural from the perspective of the sufficiently non-advanced; I'd actually agree with as much, and argue that calling anything supernatural doesn't really place it in a true category unless the term is defined.
2) It depends on what you mean by 'the eventual development of man'. Human beings specifically down to the genetics, exactly at the time they arose? On the other end of the extreme, something with intelligence analogous to human at any point in time? This is a good time to point out that while I really like a lot of what I see in ID, I have my own views on these things.
I'd take issue with this one too in a subtler way: An intervention does not indicate an imperfect plan. It was an old claim that if a designer were perfect, they could handle everything via front-loading. While I think the idea has merit, I reject two things. First, the idea that a designer necessarily has a singular 'perfect' plan as opposed to an idea that involves a range of plans. Second, that a later intervention could not be part of a so-called perfect plan.
I think at this point, the question hits a wall. The designer could have had a plan that was open-ended; certain specific points were desired via either front-loading or intervention, but other developments were either not a concern, or were so only contingently. Again, I have my own thoughts on this – for all I know the designer achieved the desired result by setting up the odds so that 1 desired result would come out of an extraordinary multitude of seeds, and the unrealized seeds would serve another purpose. Maybe there was just one shot, front-loaded with an intelligence and understanding that we can barely grasp. Maybe there are barriers worked into development, such that once life reaches a certain point of development it can't help but go in a particular direction (Even chaotic systems, as far as I know, can have certain system descriptions imposed over particular parts of development that allow a great if comparatively imprecise prediction of future incidents).
I just jumped in to mention that chaos is not itself necessarily a barrier to front-loading. It's something that needs to be taken into account, absolutely, given particular goals. We can explore the ways in which such could be taken into account, given particular goals, particular plans, etc.
Comment by nullasalus — May 17, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Are you still with us, Mike Gene? The point that natural selection is a "designer-mimic" ("virtual designer""”Dawkins?) implies an intransitive. Natural selection may mimic a designer but designers don't mimic natural selection. (That was even recognized by Darwin [see Zachriel's link] in his really awful digression on "unconscious" design.) Designers do things (speaking of limits) that natural selection hasn't done or can't do.
That's a basic theme with IDers, isn't it?
But designers don't have to violate the laws of nature (God forbid! LOL) to do things that nature can't. All that is required of designers is knowledge of the laws of nature and some imagination. Obviously, the "laws of nature" (natural selection) permit design. But as you have recognized (?), they don't just "permit" but "enable" design.
STC, the notion of function is part of the causal vocabulary (the most basic part) of all scientists. Biophilosophers have argued that the notion of biological function is different. Arguing both that it is incompatible with "true" scientific descriptions and that it is unique to biology.
The unanimity of philsophical opinion is a reliable indicator that philosophers are wrong.
I think it could be explored in greater detail. I don't think that you are far wrong in your intuitions.
You certainly couldn't be more wrong than philosophers of biology.
A possible avenue for productive ID research.
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Not far wrong, Salvador. Sorry for the typo. (A Freudian slip?! LOL)
I don't recall stuffing socks down my brothers throat, Joy. But you should hear the atrocity stories my siblings tell about me at family reunions! I deny everything. I'm innocent.
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
May 18th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
From Differential Equations
My understanding is that boundary conditions may refer to constraining conditions in space and time, or even a specific value of the function or its derivatives.
For the one dimensional spatial case, if the probaility amplitude is represented by Psi(x,t) in Schrodinger's equation, and given specific values of x and t, these describe boundary conditions:
Psi (x,t) = some value
d/dt Psi(x,t) = some value
d/dx Psi(x,t) = some value
d^2/dx^2 Psi(x,t) = some value
That is my understanding of what boundary conditions are for a given form of Schrodinger's equation (in this case 1 dimensional in spatial coordinates).
How this relates to teleology in physics is that the temporal-spatial boundary condition might be dependent on some future condition. Psi(x,t) might depend on a constraining parameter in the future — such as what happens with Scrhodinger's cat….
In any case, in deference to the main topic, perhaps if Mike opens another bunny thread (open thread), I'll pursue the discussion in more detail there….and I also still owe you a revised simulation of gambler's ruin according to your specifications which I hope to post on the net.
You have corrected my misunderstandings in the past, and for that I'm grateful. So, if I am misunderstanding something again, I'm deeply grateful for the time you've taken to correct me…..
regards,
Sal
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 18, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
May 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:
Sal, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Schroedinger's cat is an extreme example of a quantum measurement. In the traditional Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (as well as in your current favorite, Cramer's transactional interpretation) the Schroedinger equation describes the continuous evolution of a quantum system, while the quantum measurement is interpreted as an abrupt process described by the projection operator and not the Schroedinger equation. Quantum measurements have nothing to do with initial (or boundary) conditions. They're a separate, and totally different part of the theory.
Comment by olegt — May 18, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
May 18th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
As Raevmo pointed out, no they're not.
Allen, I think you've presented several strong arguments against belief in God in the past. However, I'm not sure I understand this one, and since it seems to rely upon a logical fallacy (All a is b, therefore all non-a is non-b), I don't think this would be one of your better ones.
I read Margulis's Acquiring Genomes several years ago. I enjoyed it. Since I'm not a biologist, I don't know if I would have anything particularly insightful to say about it, though.
Comment by Bilbo — May 18, 2008 @ 4:18 pm