The Babel Fish Contest
by BilboNick Matzke has often referred to the Babel Fish as an example of a biological organism that couldn't have evolved without intelligent design, and should we ever present him with one, he would accept ID.
In order to understand what a Babel Fish is, Wikipedia quotes from Douglas Adams' book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"The Babel fish is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish."
I think Nick gives up too easily. To a true non-Teleologist, the evolution of the Babel Fish would be child's play. And so I offer the following challenge: Present a plausible scenario of how the Babel Fish could have evolved, without intelligent design. Winner will be decided by…I suggest Nick Matzke be the judge, if he's up for it.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
That's a funny statement for Matzke to make considering (if I recall correctly) that in HGTTG, the Babel Fish was the nail in God's coffin, so to speak.
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 2, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:29 pm
I think we'd need to know more about the Babel Fish's natural environment and habitat. Where did Babel Fish originate? How do Babel-Fish reproduce? Are there predators which prey upon Babel Fish? Did Babel Fish and their original hosts (Vogons?) coevolve?
I'm not sure what Nick had in mind here… this is the first I've heard of it. As for me, I might be inclined to accept the claims of ID if I were presented with a far less exotic organism… a showtune-singing frog perhaps.
Comment by takuan — May 2, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:37 am
The proto-Babel fish was a leech-like creature with a dorsal thorn-like appendage that used to live in puddles. When touched, it would roll into a ball to protect itself and its dorsal thorn would protrude. As for the proto-carriers, they were predators in the process of becoming hunters. A prized catch was the Screeching Rabbit. The livers of Screeching Rabbits were enriched with vitamin Z40, something that, by chance, greatly enhanced synaptic activity in creatures such as the proto-carriers. The problem is that catching a Screeching Rabbit was very difficult, as anytime a predator got too close, the Rabbit would emit a high pitched screech so loud that the predators would be stunned and their ears would begin to bleed. You had to be pretty lucky to get a Screeching Rabbit.
Well one day, quite by chance, a proto-carrier was poking at a proto-Babel fish and it rolled up as usual. But the proto-carrier decided to pick up the ball-like fish by the thorn and begin to play with it. One thing led to another and the proto-carrier eventually stuck the fleshy ball in its ear. The proto-carrier immediately noticed the silence. A removable ear plug was born.
The proto-carrier shared his finding with other members of the pack and this eventually led to a greatly enhanced rate of successfully hunting the Screeching Rabbit. A symbiosis formed, as a population of proto-Babel fish spent more and more time safely protected in the ear canals of the proto-carriers. And a population of proto-carriers was much more successful at hunting the nutritious Screeching Rabbit.
Much later on, a proto-Babel fish underwent a mutation that allowed it to begin tapping into the unconscious mental frequencies of other beings. This caused it to excrete small telepathic signals to the proto-carrier, who, thanks to all that Rabbit meat, had brains enriched with vitamin Z40. This vitamin coincidently interacted with the telepathic blips in a synergistic fashion, leading to further enhancement of synaptic development and brain evolution. The rest is just gradual Darwinian evolution, as a selection pressure transformed the ear plug into a hearing aid, then into a universal translator. This evolution led to the evolution of intelligent beings, who then invented laser guns to kill Screeching Rabbits from a distance.
Off to go find out if I now dream about this.
Comment by MikeGene — May 3, 2007 @ 12:37 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:34 am
A dragon (either fire-breathing or flying) would be an excellent example of a creature that could not possibly have evolved.
Comment by salimfadhley — May 3, 2007 @ 10:34 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
salim:
Whoa, salim. One contest at a time. We'll get to the evolution of dragons contest next, if you please. Meanwhile, would you like to make an entry for this contest?
Comment by Bilbo — May 3, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Hi Bilbo,
For those who don't know, here is the follow-up to the Babel Fish story…
link
I was temped to think up an evolutionary argument to something like a Babel Fish. A simple answer would be Babel Fish independently evolved to be intelligent, then bio-engineered themselves for alteristic reasons thus sacrificing their entire species for a higher cause.
While these are cute fictional stories, let me try to address the issue I think you are trying to bring up.
What kind of evidence would it take to inductively show something exists that can't be directly and empirically tested?
I give the example of the Pythagoreans and irrational numbers. It looks like we will be dicussing this in other threads.
Provoking Thought
Disclaimer: My commenting on TT should not be construed as an agreement the About Us statement, "We think these concepts have real potential to generate insights about our reality that are being drowned out by political advocacy from both sides. We hope this blog will provide a small voice that helps rectify this situation." isn't misleading.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 3, 2007 @ 5:29 pm
May 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I find that extremely confusing. Conversely, can Nick Matzke show me an example of a biological organism that could have evolved without an intelligently designed evolutionary algorithm? Of course, this would involve proving that information processing systems and the resulting programs and design space will generate itself from any ol' accidentally existing set of law and matter. But, alas, according to science this has (or will — to keep with the materialistic faith) been done.
And, as Mike Gene has shown above, a cup of deep time, a pinch of "scientific" imagination, and ongoing accidents to keep the pot at a boil (don't forget to stir occasionally) can create anything — including information processors, consciousness, marvels of engineering, consious intelligent beings to (intelligenty or is it untintelligently) re-create the process, and of course Babel fish.
I wonder what's next on evolution's list — create God? Ah, why not. Evolution does everything else so well. P.S. "well" is subjective so is not to be taken as if it actually means anything.
I wonder why you can't keep those IDiots happy with just "doing science!?!?!?!?!"
Comment by CJYman — May 4, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
May 4th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
So far, Mike Gene is the only entry in our contest. Could we have less commentary on my supposed motives, or problems with Nick or ID critics, and more evolutionary scenarios of the Babel Fish? This is for fun, people. Fun, Fun, Fun. Let's have some FUN.
If you want, I'm willing to expand the contest to include evolutionary scenarios of dragons. That will make Salim happy. But then Nick might not want to judge those. So Salim will have to be the judge for dragon evolution.
Comment by Bilbo — May 4, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
May 4th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Hi Bilbo,
I Object. This is an explanation. Shorter is better, IMO.:mrgreen:
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 4, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
May 4th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I forgot about your suggestion, TP. It may qualify as a legitimate entry. I'll have to leave it up to Nick to decide. If I were Nick, I would say your entry offers intelligent design as the proximal cause of Babel Fish's qualities, which would support his position, and therefore would fail to be a true counter-example. If I were Richard Dawkins, I would say that since your entry offers non-intelligent design as the ultimate cause, it qualifies. But then Richard Dawkins isn't the judge here. Of course, I'm not sure Nick is the judge here, either.
Comment by Bilbo — May 4, 2007 @ 4:44 pm