Rosenhouse and the missing research
by KrauzeTo Jason Rosenhouse, intelligent design is nothing but a political and legal strategy to disguise creationism. Consequently, it's not surprising that in his latest reply in our discussion of Michael Ruse's book he has adopted the tone of a shrill politician, presenting simple answers to complex questions and demonizing those who disagree with him. Thus, the arguments for intelligent design are "completely false", "hopelessly flawed", "standard gobbledygook", the concept contains "nothing at all beyond falacious logic and distortions of modern science", and what I'm saying is "ridiculous" and "pure fantasy". At least no one can accuse him of being mealy-mouthed.
In my post, "Big ideas take time", I posted some excerpts from Michael Ruse's The Evolution-Creation Struggle that showed that even after Darwin had published Origin of the Species, it still took a considerable amount of time for evolution to take off as a serious research program. I then made the point that ID critics should keep this in mind when asking when intelligent design will result in a research program. I didn't say that it was just a question of time before intelligent design would result in research. I didn't say that because evolution overcame its "childhood troubles" so would intelligent design. And I didn't say that evolution has never resulted in any research. The reason I start by making this clear is that, when reading Rosenhouse's reply, he seems to be thoroughly confused as to what the point of all of it is.
In a previous post, Rosenhouse disputed my claim that no theory of evolution existed until the Modern Synthesis was proposed in the 1930's, offering Lamarckism and mutationism as counter-examples. I explained that according to NAS' own definition, these views didn't qualify as theories, but more as hypotheses. Rosenhouse shoots back:
The fact remains that there were many possible meachanisms of evolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and all could claim a considerable amount of support. And these hypotheses led to clear avenues of research.
In the comments, I asked Rosenhouse to clarify exactly which hypotheses and what research he was talking about, leading him to answer:
Darwin made it clear to everyone that the nature of inheritance was of crucial importance. Prior to Darwin, that question had been almost completely ignored. The mere fact that there were so many viable theories of inheritance, each of which could claim some evidential support, was what drove a lot of the research into genetics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
At this point, Rosenhouse seems to have forgotten what his own point was. Remember, we were talking about hypotheses about possible meachanisms of evolution, and now he's talking about "theories of inheritance". Knowing how traits are passed from generation to generation sure is helpful in finding out how those traits change over time, but the two things aren't the same. And if he wants to claim that it was Lamarckism and mutationism that drove the research into genetics, he really has some 'splainin to do.
Rosenhouse thinks that "there's no controversy that new branches of science take time to come to fruition" and that my claim, "big ideas take time", is "trivial". But wait a minute, didn't Rosenhouse just inform us:
[ID supporters'] entire theory, such as it is, rests entirely upon two pillars: irreducible complexity and complex specified information. Both of these ideas are utterly and irretrievably wrong-headed. Nothing the ID folks build upon such a foundation will ever produce anything but poisonous fruit.
In other words, it is impossible that intelligent design will produce new theoretical concepts or reformulate existing ones. The idea must emerge fully researchable from the get-go, or fail. Of course, it this very assumption that my "trivial" post calls into question.
Incidentally, Rosenhouse seems surprised that I didn't dispute his claims about irreducible complexity and specified complexity. But there's no need for surprise, as I usually attempt to focus on the issue at hand, ignoring distracting side-issues. And in a historical discussion about nineneteen-century ideas, the values of irreducible and specified complexity are side-issues. Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that Rosenhouse is correct that these concepts are "utterly and irretrievably wrong-headed." What conclusion should we draw from this? Which promising concepts did evolution have when Robert Chambers published Vestiges of Creation?
January 29th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
I like how he wants to debate IC or CSI after he vomits all over you.
Comment by MikeGene — January 29, 2006 @ 11:00 pm
January 30th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
There are scientists at Rosenhouse's school who take these concepts seriously, but they won't be open about their sympathies given the political climate in academia, even the tenured ones. How do I know? I know them personally…
I can also say, happily, several future scientists from his school take the concepts seriously. I was pleased to watch them graduate with honors in various scientific disciplines, including biology. Scientists should take these concepts seriously, and happily, a small minority do now, and many more will in the future…
(That said, Jason's a great guy in person, nothing like his internet persona….)
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — January 30, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
January 31st, 2006 at 8:23 am
That is not quite correct. Certain segments of ID theory originate from physics, namely quantum mechanics (Tipler, Barrow, etc.) and information theory. Information theory is becoming the most fruitful way of formulating quantum mechanics. But information implies an observer, a mind….
Tipler is in no wise a "Wedgie", in fact he considers himself still and atheist, but willing to change his mind because he feels the ID hypothesis has a chance of being true. I do not agree with all of Tipler's ideas, but the idea of some Ultimate MIND, is being seriously entertained by many physicists….
A necesary but not sufficient condition for ID, is casting serious doubt on various evolutionary theories like Darwinian evolution and abiogenesis (chemical evolution). ID has been very fruitful in raising awareness of devastating critiques in these areas as well as relevant current research. To quote Margulis (no friend of ID) regarding the latest incaration of evolutionary theory (neo-Darwinism), "in retrospect it will look ridiculous because it is ridiculous". I predict that will be true not only neo-Darwinism, but most of those ID-unfriendly theories on the table today. I predict designed evolution and/or special creation will grow in prominence…
The pillar of IC has been in the process of revision, and even Dembski had some critcisms of Behe's original formulation of IC. IC poses a challenge to Darwinian evolution, although I would not quite say the challenge is immutable, it is formidable enough to be taken seriously. And no, IC has not been seriously challenged by Miller or the folks working on Avida….
Dembski's work on CSI is a formalism of the "ordinary practice" of detecting design. It is certainly far enough along to merit the level of a hypothesis, and a small miniority of university science professors are sympathetic to those concepts.
It took me a while to be won over by Dembski's ideas, but I find them far more sound than anything (I mean anything) that Darwin ever wrote. Perakh, Shallit, and Elsberry have shown themselves capable of misrepresenting Dembski's work, not refuting it. Whether Dembski and the IDist are right remains to be seen, but as of now, the best "arguments" against Dembski's work are only misrepresentations, misdirections, distortions and uncharitable readings….very little of real substance.
The ID hypothesis is on the table, and it is reasonable enough that it should be persued, and it will be persued…..
Since the arrival of the Post Wedge World and Dover vs. Kitzmiller, there has been no slow down in interest in ID:
The OOL research is highly consistent with basic ID. I predict OOL will continue to fail. They are trying to build the information world's equivalent of perpetual motion machines. So far, at least in regard to OOL, the empirical evidence is on the side of ID, not anti-ID. Developments in population genetics will throw even more devastation on Darwinian theories.
But let us for the moment consider the "D" in "ID". The design perspective is already the way biology is being viewed, particularly systems biology where they compare human-designed systems (those are intelligently designed systems) to biology in an attempt to elucidate the system architecture of biology. It is a viewpoint in biology that is agnostic to orgins theory, but far more friendly to ID than Darwinism.
The Darwinian perspective is useless (except for token accolades) to understanding biology from a systems perspective. In fact it has hindered research because of the affixing of the concept of "junk DNA".
And what good is trying to build Darwin's tree of life. It has practically collapsed in cellular evolutionary theory, and thus demonstrates, the theory of common ancestry was only useful for keeping phyolgenists employed, hardly useful for any operational application and rife with Darwinian epicycles of convergent evolution…
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — January 31, 2006 @ 8:23 am