Thinking about Allen MacNeill's Argument
by BilboProfessor Allen MacNeill of Cornell University, a friendly critic of ID, offerred an interesting argument on the post about Behe's book, The Edge of Evolution, that I thought was worth a second look:
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An interesting challenge. I have discussed this very point with my students, in the context of the origin of life and the origin of reproduction. Most of my students assume that reproduction is simply a "given" property of life, but clearly it is a complex adaptation requiring multiple anatomical and physiological adaptations.
Therefore, it must have evolved after the origin of living cells"¦probably long after. In other words, it is quite possible to imagine (and even to "design") organisms that are alive, but totally incapable of reproduction.
Along the same lines, it is also possible to imagine (and again to "design") living organisms that do not have a built-in genetic program that kills them after a pre-set period of time. Indeed, only animals and some annual plants seem to have such endogenous "kill-by dates." All other organisms "“ bacteria, fungi, protists, and most plants "“ are effectively immortal in the sense that if something does not kill them, they do not die.
Finally, all living organisms are capable of dying/being killed, of course. However, only animals (and some annual plants) do this to themselves upon reaching a particular developmental stage.
Consider, therefore, a population of effectively immortal organisms that do not have the ability to reproduce. Such organisms would, of course, occasionally die as the result of accident, predation, disease, etc. As time passes in such a population, the number of organisms necessarily decreases until it reaches either zero or the rate of spontaneous creation of such organisms (clearly, this argument makes the most sense if one imagines that we are discussing unicellular protobionts, such as those proposed by Haldane or Oparin).
Furthermore, if we assume that the origin of life from non-living "stuff" is a highly unlikely event, this means that the most likely outcome of the trend described above would be the ultimate disappearance of any living organisms, without their replacement by new ones.
Now consider that a single individual in such a population acquires the ability to reproduce itself. This need not be sexual, nor need it be anything like the processes that cells now use, involving DNA replication, cytokinesis, etc. Indeed, it need not involve genetic coding at all; the protobionts could simply fission upon reaching some physically limiting size, rather like soap bubbles do. If the membranes of such protobionts were selective, they might allow the incorporation of materials in such a way as to "grow" to such sizes, thereby making reproduction via simple fission inevitable.
Such organisms would, in the fullness of time, completely replace organisms that could not grow or reproduce (by whatever mechanism). This is natural selection in a nutshell: reproduction is, in other words, an evolutionary adaptation.
Therefore, one can imagine at least four possible arrangements for life:
1) immortal (i.e. no "kill-by" age) organisms that do not reproduce
2) immortal (i.e. no "kill-by" age) organisms that do reproduce
3) mortal (i.e.; built-in "kill-by" age) organisms that do not reproduce
4) mortal (i.e.; built-in "kill-by" age) organisms that do reproduceLet us assume for the sake of argument that all four types exist at time t=0. At time t=1, there is a finite probability that any one of the four types will be killed, even if they have not reached their "kill-by" age. given sufficient time, two things will have eventually happened:
"¢ Type 1 organisms will have completely disappeared, having died by accident or misadventure.
"¢ Type 3 organisms will also have completely disappeared, having either died from outside causes or from reaching their "kill-by" age.Furthermore, Type 2 organisms would almost certainly have evetually outstripped their available resources, and therefore suffered an extremely high death rate, one that essentially balances their reproductive rate. This is essentially what bacteria, fungi, protists, and most plants do. If nothing kills them, they do not die, but they can reproduce. Given a planet with finite resources, therefore, their death rate due to outside forces must equal their reproductive rate, or they will soon cover the entire surface of the planet many meters deep.
Finally, Type 4 organisms are what we and other animals are; if nothing kills us "from outside," we still eventually die. It seems likely to me that having a built-in "kill-by" age is therefore an evolutionary adaptation, a hypothesis that has a great deal of evidence in its favor.
Now, an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Intelligent Designer could easily have populated the Earth entirely with Type I living organisms. However, if His intent was to maintain them in perpetuity, He would perforce be required to either prevent them from dying by accident or misadventure, or create new ones to replace those that have died in such ways.
However, an Intelligent Designer who was limited by the physical laws of our particular universe (i.e. finite planet size, finite resources, spontaneous mutations, etc.) would almost certainly have come up with a planet in which only Type 2 and Type 4 living organisms exist. [my emphasis] That's the planet we live on, and it's indistinguishable in any observable way from a planet on which no such Designer has done any such thing. That is, if reality is constrained in the way it appears from all indications that it is, then the actions of an Intelligent Designer would have produced a biosphere utterly indistinguishable in every respect from a biosphere that had evolved by natural selection alone.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill "” June 8, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
Dr. MacNeill has just presented an argument explaining why, given an Intelligent Designer, life would look just the way it does. So why not see that as evidence for ID? Because MacNeill also thinks that he has shown that non-teleologically designed life would have resulted in the same thing, making the two explanations indistinguishable, and therefore using Occam's razor, we should choose the explanation that doesn't need an Intelligent Designer.
However, before we do that, I think we need to know a few things:
1) How probable is the origin of life on Earth without an Intelligent Designer?
2) How probable is it that one of the original immortal organisms (and how many were there?) would evolve the ability to reproduce?
3) How probable is it that mortal organisms would evolve a "kill-by" age?
The answers may seem obvious to Dr. MacNeill. But they are not to me. In fact, all three seem rather improbable. And therefore, ID seems a more likely explanation to me. But it is still a rather original argument, no matter which explanation one prefers, and worthy of more thought.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
"Kill-by" is only a reproductive advantage where the organsim has limited number of times it can reproduce. The real advantage goes to immortal organisms that can reproduce indefinitely.
Comment by Jehu — June 12, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Why? It is perfectly possible to imagine a world populated by e.g. immortal, non-reproducing beings. With no predators, natural disasters, etc., this could work perfectly well.
Comment by Nick Matzke — June 12, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
This really is a fantasy world. Multiple organisms that exist without the benefit of ancestors. How did it all happen? Bilbo is right to conclude that life arising without an intelligent designer is improbable, to understate the case. But a world populated by multiple, immortal non-reproducing beings would require each life form to have arisen and then in perfect form- immortal the first shot. A major cause of aging is an accumulation of genetic defects. Those immortal beings better be equipped with foolproof genomic repair systems.
Of course we're really talking about a miracle. It's good to see Nick gravitate toward a creationist position. A presidential election is approaching. Perhaps this is the signal that Nick and his organization are moving toward the center so as to maximize their influence. That's good, sound political strategy.
Comment by Bradford — June 12, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
The way Allen frames his statement it is trivially true but irrelevant to ID. Of course if the designer is constrained according to the materialist model then a designer is superfluous. But forms of ID would not concede the constraints he imposes.
Well that's the question that ID is addressing, isn't it? Do "all indications" suggest that reality is constrained as he claims?
Comment by Steve Petermann — June 12, 2007 @ 9:40 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
I realize you were likely intending to be brief, but I would like to add four considerations that did not appear in your analysis.
A. With regard to category 1 immortality without reproduction, in all likelihood a Creator that could create such organisms in the first place could create more as needed or desired. So extinction is not at all inevitable.
B. WRT category 2 immortality with reproduction, exceeding resources would, of course, depend entirely on the rate of reproduction compared to the rate of accidental death (and the rate at which resources might increase). Exceeding resources would not be inevitable, especially if reproduction was sufficiently constrained compared to losses and to resource availability.
C. The categories are not complete. Both categories 1 and 2 are not immortal in the sense of still being susceptible to deaths other than by old age. A full analysis would need to add at least a category 5 for robust immortals that do not reproduce and do not die from accidents, etc.. It would be reasonably expected that such beings would not have fragile bodies of the kind that we have. What is of particular interest is that history includes repeated reports that such beings do exist, including reports of encounters with such beings. By one terminology, they have been referred to as angels.
D. Existence in one category does not preclude transition to another category. The apostle Paul expected a resurrection event in which his fragile mortal body would be replaced by a body that could not die, as he states happened to Jesus (see 1 Corinthians, chapter 15). Jesus himself said that those in the resurrection would be like the angels in regard to the fact that they would not marry or be given in marriage. These observations suggest a transition from category 4 to category 5.
I realize that those who are not accustomed to thinking seriously in these terms may be inclined merely to scoff. However, there are at least two reasons to reconsider.
1. Any analysis that excluded one of the most frequently affirmed categories would be inadequate and incomplete. It would clearly bias the analysis to artificially exclude such positions.
2. Given that most of this universe appears to be composed of a kind of matter and/or energy that we do not perceive and do not understand, we are not in a position to make proud and confident claims about reality consisting only of what we usually see and understand.
Comment by eric — June 12, 2007 @ 9:49 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Hi Mike,
What purpose is there in perpetuating life?
The trivial answer is that there is no purpose, it just happened because it could.
The traditional "unidentified" God answer is to say God works in mysterious ways.
A retrocausual God answer is so God can exist in the future to create the universe in the first place.
A retrocausual quantum mechanics answer is because it was the only way the universe could have the ability to force consistency with itself.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — June 12, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
That's my point — from a creationist/ID point of view, immortal critters are perfectly possible. Unless you know something about The Anonymous Designer that I don't.
From an evolutionary point of view this whole discussion is a load of dingo's kidneys (even Alan's stuff about a "kill-age" being an adaptation — he has fallen into extremely naive adaptationism there — plus, how many critters actually die of old age in the wild anyway? Zilch I bet.). But I wasn't talking about the evolutionary point of view…
Comment by Nick Matzke — June 12, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Nor the origin of life view.:mrgreen:
Comment by Bradford — June 12, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
June 12th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
MacNeill's post was in response to this one of mine.
My next reply was this.
There ensued a discussion about the interpretated significance of nested hierarchy and the nature of set theory.
The idea that the instantiation of a nested hierachy entails that it was undesigned qualifies as one of the biggest piles of horseshit ever presented as a supposedly serious argument in the history of logic, philosophy, or science. It is truly a joy to see allegedly 'rational' critics of ID reduced to such a public display of humungous imbecility.
Comment by stunney — June 12, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Bilbo wrote:
The explanation that doesn't need an Intelligent Designer is the same explanation as the one that does need (Enduring and Impersonally Determined) Laws of Nature.
But we can explain the same phenomena by the activity of an Intelligent Designer, and dispense, as Ockham himself did, with these supposed (Enduring and Impersonally Determined) 'Laws of Nature'.
In other words, invocation of 'Laws of Nature' and invocation of 'Intelligent Design' are empirically equivalent hypotheses.
Comment by stunney — June 13, 2007 @ 12:31 am
June 13th, 2007 at 12:34 am
stunney wrote:
Stunney, m'lad, it's important to take your psychiatric medication every day.
As for the nested hierarchy, please try to get your mind around the concept:
We ("the other side", as you're fond of calling us) do not claim that every instance of a nested hierarchy is undesigned.
What we actually claim:
1. Practically any set of objects can be placed in a nested hierarchy, if some attributes are privileged over others.
2. A process of descent with gradual modification, guided or not, will tend to produce an objective nested hierarchy, meaning that you get the same (or very similar) hierarchies based on different choices of distinguishing attributes.
3. Design can produce millions of other patterns. Even a guided evolutionary process will produce a different pattern unless the rate of change is limited to what you would get with an unguided process.
4. Descent with gradual modification cannot produce these millions of other patterns.
5. The fact that the tree of life is such a striking example of a nested hierarchy indicates that either a) there is no designer, or b) there is, but he chose precisely the pattern that would make him appear to be absent.
6. Contrary to your assertion on another thread, a nested hierarchy is not maximally parsimonious and would not be a rational designer's choice if parsimony were the objective. I explained it there.
Comment by keiths — June 13, 2007 @ 12:34 am
June 13th, 2007 at 12:34 am
TP:
It doesn't have to be a retrocausual God. The Judeo-Christian tradition holds that God is not in time, but in eternity. Therefore, he is in the past, present and future.
Comment by Randy — June 13, 2007 @ 12:34 am
June 13th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Ockham's Razor doesn't even apply unless we have empirically equivalent hypotheses. If two hypotheses are not empirically equivalent, we choose the one that best matches our observations.
If our hypotheses are empirically equivalent, Ockham advises us to pick the least complicated one.
Comment by keiths — June 13, 2007 @ 12:44 am
June 13th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Randy:
Ah, at least there is one other ID proponent beside myself who has the courage and honesty to name the designer, however I must disagree with Randy about who that designer is.
It represents a major step forwards for the ID proposition that It's supporters are willing to speculate about the designer and it's methods. Once we start building hypotheses about the nature of this intelligence that has designed all life then ID will be a serious contender in the marketplace of ideas.
See the previous thread; I now proclaim myself to be an ardent supporter of intelligent design. Mike Gene shall recieve credit for my conversion. My understanding of ID, while consistent with William Dembski's definition of intelligence is probably inconsistent with the way that Mike Gene understands ID - I still suspect that Mike overcomplicates the proposition.
Stunney:
Alas, I find myself in agreement with Stunney - one cannot assume lack of intelligent design from a nested heirarchy, however this hierarchy is a clear and unambiguous artefact that tells us a great deal about the nature of the intelligence that has produced the species. The fact that human-made designs do not fall into such a neat hierarchy tells us that the design-processes that we employ are very different to that of "the designer".
I might not go so far as Stunney to describe this as "humungous imbecility" as much as i enjoy his turn of phrase, but I do feel that illustrates a systematic mistake that I and my fellow materialists have made which is to fail to recognise the intelligence that surrounds us… it is as if we have become blinded by our own "bright-ness" we have failed to understand that other forms of intelligence are possible.
Note that while I openly admit to being a convert to ID, I am by no means a convert to supernaturalism. ID is perfectly compatible with a strictly materialistic position, and I cannot understand why my fellow ID supporters make such a fuss about it.
And again, I agree with Stunney - William of Occham would surely not have approved of the myriad of abuses of his little rule.
By the way, did anybody listen to the splendid program about him on BBC Radio 4 last week? I never knew he was such a troublemaker!
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 4:12 am
June 13th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Two quotes for you to consider:
1. Speculation about the nature of the designer:
2. Speculation about the nature of the designer's intelligence:
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 5:44 am
June 13th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Comment 1
Surely this has to be wrong. Current methods of reproduction are complex but it need not have always been like that. Evolution requires reproduction - therefore you can't evolve the ability to reproduce, you can only evolve the ability to reproduce better. Any theory of life based on evolution must assume that reproduction came first (some kind of molecule that can reproduce with occasional variation) and this led via evolution to the other attributes we recognise as life.
Comment 2
The existence of a type 1 or 3 species would be a real problem for any kind of evolutionary theory based on natural selection.
However, as Eric points out, a designer should be able to repeat the process it used to create species in the first place to create more type 1 or 3 species as needed (indeed anything is possible if you assume a designer and make no assumptions about its motives or powers). So any configuration of type 1,2,3 or 4 would be possible with a designer while evolutionary explanations are restricted to type 2 and 4 - which is what we see.
Comment 3
Bilbo - you said
The answer to (1) had better be - very improbable - something that happens about once every billion years or less. Any theory that comes up with the answer that the origin of life is a frequent event is clearly suspect.
The answer to (2) is covered above.
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 5:59 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Here is a hypothetical form of simple reproduction that is entirely compatible with the proposition of Intelligent Design:
Suppose the early proto-life was like a self-catalyzing polymer that could keep on growing in the right environment. If the proto-life-form was hit by a sufficiently strong force (e.g. a wave) it might be torn into two. The end result is we now have two smaller units of polymer, both of which continue to grow. Reproduction has occurred.
Of course, I've got no proof that this actually happened - I'm merely trying to demonstrate that no matter how unlikely we claim these scenarios are they are conceivable, simple and the product of the basic physical properties of the natural world. Genetic evolution and supernaturalism are not required.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 6:22 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:40 am
That is an interesting example. We normally associate increased reproductive potential with longevity and robustness of the individual. In this case the more fragile the individual the more it reproduces.
Of course it is compatible with intelligent design - everything is!
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 6:40 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:42 am
The answer to this question is the same regardless of whether you think that the origin of life requires an intelligent input. For all we know, life appears to have only started once in the entire 4.5bn year history of our planet, and it appears not to have existed for the first 2bn years of the planet's history.
It's an excessively improbable event.
See my "Quote 1" above - perhaps the designer had to wait a very long time before nature provided the designer with a suitable molecule into which the designer could impart information.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 6:42 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:43 am
Not when the former is not up to the task of explaining outcome x.
Making this a declaration of belief you are entitled to but having no empirical advantages to alternatives.
Comment by Bradford — June 13, 2007 @ 6:43 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Thus do MacNeill, Matzke and most professional anti-ID types, eventually get around to their true objection to ID — theodicy.
Comment by mcromer — June 13, 2007 @ 6:48 am
June 13th, 2007 at 6:50 am
I'm not a fan of gratuitous profanity, but this extract strikes just the right message and tone.
Comment by mcromer — June 13, 2007 @ 6:50 am
June 13th, 2007 at 7:10 am
From a creationist point of view, immortal critters are not just possible, they are actual, e.g., angels, immortal souls, etc.
So now evolution says there are no angels and no immortal souls. Better check if those theistic evolutionists believe in either, and inform them of their theological errors.
Comment by Vladimir Krondan — June 13, 2007 @ 7:10 am
June 13th, 2007 at 8:11 am
As you know, I'm a professional research scientist - a computer scientist. Let me draw an analogy here from my own field to explain why William Bradford is correct:
Computers are quite complex things and as a result we find that reductionist explainations in terms of atoms and electrons are often insufficient to describe everything a computer can do.
Please try explaining why Windows XP takes so long to boot in terms of the motion of electrons. While we know the computer undoubtably an electronic device made of atoms, and we know that Windows XP is a pattern of magnetic domains on a spinning metal disc. This knowledge does not help us understand the emergent properties of a computer.
If we study the computer through a higher level abstraction, all becomes clear. We know the computer has software called an operating system and an understanding of that operating system tells us exactly why Windows XP takes so long to boot. A valid explanation does not require a discussion of atoms to be meaningful, in fact the only sensible explanation of this phenomena requires us to consider a much higher level abstraction.
When ID proponents explain that the laws of nature are insufficient for explaining the complexity of life it's like saying that a knowledge of electronics and magnetism is insufficient for explaining the complexities of Windows XP. You need to view the problem at a higher conceptual level to make sense of it.
In the case of life, there does seem to be some merit in considering the action of intelligence, for the simple reason that it is well known that nature is intelligent. That is perhaps a more holistic view of nature than my fellow materialists will be prepared to take, however on this occasion it's explanatory power seems to justify the odd-sounding proposition.
Of course, as I keep reminding my fellow TT members - the fact that we suspect life has an intelligent origin is no grounds at all for assuming that this intelligence is supernatural in nature. Mike Gene, is correct in saying that the ID proposition is not essentially contradictory to materialism. If only my fellow ID proponents would recognise this they might have won their argument years ago!
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 8:11 am
June 13th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Lets keep this debate on topic; The preposterous propositions of Old-Earth creationism and Young-Earth Creationism are not being debated here. You are clearly trying to associate the sensible and modest claims of ID with the absurd and blatantly wrong theological nonsense of creationism.
Intelligent design does not suggest the existence of angels or immortal souls. As I keep trying to explain, there is nothing in the formal statement of ID that requires a supernaturalist world-view. Like the Discovery Institute, you are clearly trying to construct a straw-man of ID to support your own political or argumentative goal.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 8:17 am
June 13th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Hi Randy,
Thank you for your brave comment…
Which gets us back to explaining why life needs to be perpetuated. An omniscient, omnipotent God doesn't imply a known reason. At best, we just assume a reason similar to what we would do in his/her place.
A retrocausual God has no choice, otherwise he/she wouldn't exist.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — June 13, 2007 @ 8:19 am
June 13th, 2007 at 8:34 am
A biological nested hierarchy produced by descent plus modification requires that two crucial conditions be satisfied:
1) that there is life ordered by a hereditary code
2) that the physical world exhibits stable, lawlike regularity
The reason proponents of the idea that nested hierarchy indicates non-design think that it does, is that they take these two baseline assumptions for granted, and think they can be readily accounted for naturalistically. But, in fact, both 1 and 2 are colossally improbable given naturalism, as I explained here and here and here. If unintentional processes are the whole story, there should not be objects that start out by being already finely tuned for producing enduring complex life in a complex environment, given the infinite number of ways an unintentional world could fail to be conducive to complex life. I note in passing that if a designer wants not just life-forms but the environment to be complex, interesting, beautiful, and awesome enough to be experienced as such by higher forms of life, then that will also factor into the design equations.
The evolutionary naturalist who points to nested hierarchy as an indication of an undesigned process also makes another, absolutely critical assumption, and that is that a designer of life would have had a large number of other possible ways to do it. But why assume any such thing?
Sure, there are lots of ways to design a building, a curriculum, an album cover, a toothbrush, a mousetrap, and so on. But how many ways are there to design living physical things? Anybody know?
It is thus incumbent on the proponent of the argument from nested hierchy to demonstrate that there is even one logically and physically possible alternative way to have created and ordered complex life that would have been a) available to even an omniscient and omnipotent designer, and b) preferable, all things considered. I'm not aware of this ever having been done. Not even remotely.
The 'all things considered' clause is important, because it may be the case that the actual universe is teeming with untold trillions of deliriously happy organisms on faraway planets which we don't know about, and that any change to the actual laws of physics would have the effect of making life much rarer, less complex, etc, resulting in a colossal loss of value in net terms compared to the results of the actual physics.
Also, animals with infinite natural lifespans and who experience pain only infrequently would still have pain sensations an infinite number of times. And animals incapable of pain would probably die out much sooner, given pain's obvious biological functions, thus reducing the time available to them for experiencing satisfying sensations (such as they plausibly get from eating, having sex, etc).
So one needs to ask the question: Why is nature the way it is, and not some other way?' Why are we made of atoms? Why is DNA the key to all complex life as we know it? Why don't strips of scotch-tape fall in love and have children? Why don't brains spontaneously form in pots of paint? Presumably there are intelligible scientific answers to these and similar questions. But if anyone can specify a complete science for a different and better natural order, be my guest.
I don't think it's the concept of omnipotence that's the main issue, either. It's that we don't have perfect knowledge of what is, and what isn't, logically (or metaphysically) possible when it comes to sentient life and hence, when it comes to mental states in relation to physical entities generally.
Can a piece of glass be in love? My intuition says no, and says, hence even an omnipotent designer cannot make a lovesick piece of glass, because it's as logically impossible as a square triangle. My intuition also says that it might well be impossible for any physical beings to be highly conscious unless they're endowed with brains like those of humans and the higher animals, and that it might well be impossible for such brains to exist unless the physics of those beings' universe is the physics that obtains in the actual universe.
Single electrons can't understand quantum mechanics, and pieces of glass can't be in love because they don't have brains. I think that's plausibly a metaphysically necessary truth. And if so, it's possibly because it's also a necessary truth that all brainless matter cannot, and only living brain-type matter can, possess high-level mental states (within the domain of material beings). And it's possible that living brain-type matter cannot exist unless the physics of our universe obtains.
Certainly, if non-brainlike matter can be highly conscious, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious. Similarly, if living brain-type matter can exist with a different physics in place, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious. The actual evidence from theoretical physics and cosmology is that the mathematical structure underlying the physical world must be very finely tuned for stable complex physical structures, and hence life, to be instantiated. And an intelligent designer of physical life would presumably possess this knowledge too.
Hence given that we really don't know what is the case about the modal landscape—the logical and metaphysical space of possibilities faced by a designer, appeals to omnipotence are beside the point. Omnipotent beings cannot, on nearly all accounts, can only do what is logically and metaphysically possible (much of which is determined by mathematical rationality). If the intelligent designer is God, then it should be remembered that the concept of God is standardly taken to be a concept of a maximally rational mind.
What about an intelligent designer who is capable of performing miracles? Well, what counts as miraculous is a function of what is non-miraculous, i.e., natural, normal. And so what counts as miraculous logically must be rare, relative to the natural and normal. If miracles were constant, we wouldn't regard them as miracles. Which is the main reason we (or at least the naturalists among us) don't regard the 'miracle of life' as a real miracle.
And finally, as I have said before:
Comment by stunney — June 13, 2007 @ 8:34 am
June 13th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Surely we need to know some of the probabilities involved n the ID scenario before we can decide it is "more likely", such as how probable is the existence of a Designer?
Comment by The Pixie — June 13, 2007 @ 8:41 am
June 13th, 2007 at 9:01 am
This talk of probabilities is meaningless. The Design vs Evolution debate is a false dichotomy because as William Dembski has shown, both scenarios are two valid conceptual ways of looking at an identical scenario.
Strictly speaking, since all of the events have definitely occurred in the past we can give very precise answers to all three of Mike Gene's questions: The probability of each (and all three in both scenarios) events is precisely 1.
That is because the probability of any event occurring in the past, given that it has already occurred is always 1.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 9:01 am
June 13th, 2007 at 10:13 am
You sure about that? I would say the probability of (2) is zero - as it is impossible to evolve anything without having reproduction first.
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 10:13 am
June 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Mark:
You sure about that? I would say the probability of (2) is zero - as it is impossible to evolve anything without having reproduction first.
As I tried to explain before, no specific genetic design is required for reproduction. For example, if you have a proto-biontwhich can continuously grow but is torn in two by a natural physical force you are left with two continuously growing proto-bionts.
This blurs the line between Allen's hypothetical type 1 and type 2 organisms.
This original proto-biont might be a very simple thing indeed; I've suggested a self-catalyzing polymer because this phenomena is understood by organic chemists. Your home is full of self-catalyzing polymers.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 10:58 am
June 13th, 2007 at 11:17 am
salimfadhley
Sure - but is still doesn't change the fact that you cannot have evolution (in the biological sense) without reproduction (change without reproduction is adaptation, development or growth - but it is not evolution). And it logically follows that nothing, mortal or otherwise, can evolve the ability to reproduce.
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 11:17 am
June 13th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Hi Mark Frank,
Out of curiousity. Would you consider what Nanobes do "reproduction"
nanobes link
They grow and form identifiable "colonies".
Rust can be said to "reproduce" (rust causes more rust) but it isn't living sincie it does not evolve.
I realise that I am just a biased by my atheist leanings, but I don't consider living matter that much different than any other matter. If it replicates and evovles, it is "life" by my definition.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — June 13, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Is that a fact or an opinion? I think you underestimate the power of the materials that the intelligent designer works with.
In this hypothetical model of proto-biological evolution, all we need is a self-catalysing polymer that has through a freak occurrence become slightly modified, and as a result it now catalyses in a different way. It might build a slightly different polymer as a result.
If that new polymer is still self-catalysing but slightly more effective than the old version then it might have something analogous to a biological reproductive advantage. Thus, very simple structures can show adaptation with inheritance - this is a perfect medium for an intelligent designer to gradually add information and complexity.
Almost certainly the new polymer would be a more complex structure than the old one; An ID theorist might reasonably argue that relative to the old type, the new one has gained information and that some kind of intelligent process was responsible for the new more successful species of polymer.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Salim
Why?
Everything I've seen shows that evolution favors streamlining, and that smaller, simpler replicators actually are more succesful and efficient.
Comment by chunkdz — June 13, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
You need a 5th category:
Can reproduce, immortal and can't be killed by anything.
Three of this category's most famous members - Jack Lalanne and Keith Richards and Wilford Brimley.
Comment by Doug — June 13, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
That is a common misunderstanding of both ID and mainstream origins theories. If the cost of greater complexity was outweighed by some other trait (e.g. faster growth, or faster reproduction) then a more complex biont might still have an overall reproductive advantage.
If you were born without legs, would you consider yourself at an evolutionary advantage compared to your fellow human beings? You might need to eat less food as your fellows who have the additional biological burden of keeping additional bones and muscle healthy. That's an advantage right?
On the other hand, members of the opposite sex might find you less physically attractive making it harder for you to reproduce. You might have trouble getting work or finding food. Life without legs would really suck. It's strongly in your genome's interests to conserve the genes responsible for healthy functioning legs.
It's true that a loss of complexity can sometimes result in an advantage, however most of the complexity that life has acquired are the result of many small adaptations, each of which were conserved because they provided a reproductive advantage. If you lost that information you would loose all the advantages.
I strongly suggest you re-familiarize yourself with the literature for both ID and more mainstream theories of life, you will see that this is not a contentious issue at all. It is a straw-man argument raised by people who understand neither ID nor Evolution.
Sal
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Hi, salimfadhley,
Nice, but the necessary repeatability of large scale forces like waves (assuming you meant water) becomes a problem. However, in a different sense, your proposal is actually occuring all the time. The forces that tear apart proteins and recombines them into different shapes and functions are your "waves", always present.
Comment by AnaxagorasRules — June 13, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
The thing about waves is that they tend to oscillate, that means they are not constant but they do repeat.
They only really have the power to tear under certain circumstances, for example if the wave smashes you against an unforgiving strata of newly laid rock. Small prebionts might have plenty of time to grow until they meet up with Mr rock.
If a pre-biont grew long enough it might be pulled apart as a result of currents of water. The longer the polymer is, the more likely this is to happen. At some stage, the forces that pull on it will exceed it's elastic limit and it will snap apart.
A very simple pre-biont might not ever need to evolve a specific reproductive method. All it would need would be the ability to grow. Reproduction would occur as a result of natural interactions with it's environment which would tend to limit how long each proto-biont could grow before it was torn into two.
You suggested that this pre-biont might be made of protein. I do not think it could be, because I do not think chemistry this simple would be able to make a variety of amino acids. Whatever this thing was (if it ever existed), it would be much simpler than an amino-acid chain.
That is why I described it as a self-catalysing polymer. We know that such things can spontaneously exist given the right circumstances, and they fulfil the most basic properties required for a molecule upon which an intelligent design process can act.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Hi, salimfadhley,
Actually, I should have said molecules, to encompass all matter that aid in life. I reduce all life down to movement, brought about by the forces of attraction/repulsion that exist between like and unlike atomic/subatomic charges. All life is a continuing series of chemical reactions that result from the interaction of these forces. By "reduce", I do not mean a "trivial" connotation. The connotation is "fundamental".
Comment by AnaxagorasRules — June 13, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
salim:
Two questions. First, are you claiming that individual polymer molecules qualify as living organisms? And second, are you claiming that individual living organisms (of the 'standard' definition) evolve (in the NDS definition) during their lifetime via growth, development and adaptation?
The question is: How do non-reproducing life forms (of the 'standard' definition) "evolve" the ability to reproduce? Your responses are confusing. Thanks.
Comment by Joy — June 13, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
That's stunningly wrong. By any conceivable measure, replicators are easier to design than living things. Consider quines; consider the Spiegelman Monster; these replicate, but are by no means alive–they're far simpler than any form of life. There's a very good case to be made that heredity is older than life itself, and not much of a case at all for the converse.
Comment by grendelkhan — June 13, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Neither fact or opinion. It is a straight forward piece of logic. If reproduction is necessary for evolution then an organism without reproduction cannot evolve reproduction (or anything else for that matter). If X is necessary for process Y then process Y cannot work without X - that is what "necessary for" means.
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Salim,
You respond to me as if you are talking to a nine year old. I would prefer that you didn't.
Also, I was addressing the evolution of self replicators, not mammals.
Would you care to respond to my comment with these concerns in mind?
Comment by chunkdz — June 13, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I think your logic is flawed; You've made a category mistake.
Reproduction is not a body part. Reproduction is something that the pre-biont does, or rather may me something the pre-biont has done to it.
Reproduction may happen entirely as a consequence of growth. For example, if the pre-biont were a self-catalyzing polymer then if it grew above a certain length it would be more likely to be torn into two smaller fragments. Both would be valid replicators. No special apparatus would be needed for this kind of ultra-simple reproduction.
By the way, we see something similar happening to ribbons of kelp. Ribons that get long enough are carried away by the action of waves, and that is how some kelp colonies reproduce.
Please do not imagine I am suggesting that the pre-biont was as sophisticated as kelp, just that the same mechanical principle that might have caused a pre-biont to reproduce allows a massively multicellular kelp-colony to reproduce today.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Chunkdz:
I was also addressing the evolution of pre-biont replicators:
Your claim was that simpler reproductive systems would necessarily be the product of evolution; that it would tend to simplify rather than complicate the replicators.
Evolution will tend to weed out redundant complexity, however complexity that provides an advantage (e.g. being able to polymerise faster, or break up more quickly) would provide a clear replicating advantage, and thus be strongly conserved.
A change which simplified the replicator but lost some of the benefits of previous changes might not result in a reproductive advantage, and therefore would not necessarily be conserved.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
stunney, please take a lesson from Nick: "…a load of dingo's kidneys…" is much more creative and in better taste than "… a pile of horsesh-t…." I would hate to have to threaten to ban you, again.
And Salim, Mike Gene may sometimes sound as intelligent as I do, but he has longer ears.
Comment by Bilbo — June 13, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Salim
I absolutely agree that it may happen as a consequence of growth. All I am saying is that logically reproduction cannot be initiated by evolution because evolution requires reproduction but reproduction does not require evolution. I can't understand what it is that I am asserting that you disagree with!
Mark
Comment by Mark Frank — June 13, 2007 @ 5:02 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Joy, that's way more than two questions.
1. Individual polymer molecules are not living organisms, however there are simple, natural things that exhibit many of the properties of life. An intelligent design process might act upon a very simple replicating molecule in order to create what William Dembski calls "Specified Complexity".
2. Living organisms can certainly grow, and have the potential to adapt within their own lifetimes but this is not evolutionary adaptation. Evolutionary adaptation is a multi-generation phenomena.
3. I do not know what you mean by "standard definition", however I guess that since by definition the first pre-biont had to have a method of reproduction, even if it was accidental, later generations of these things might have accumulated adaptations that allow them to reproduce leaving less to chance. Reproductive adaptations would evolve as any feature would evolve… slowly!
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 5:05 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I absolutely agree that it may happen as a consequence of growth. All I am saying is that logically reproduction cannot be initiated by evolution because evolution requires reproduction but reproduction does not require evolution. I can't understand what it is that I am asserting that you disagree with!
I think evolution is an emergent consequence of any replicating system.
Comment by salimfadhley — June 13, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
You (and Mike) are correct that the inference to intelligence for life on earth need not be to a supernatural intelligence. As soon as we are able to design life and plant it on some test planet, those who consider human intelligence to be natural will even have an example.
However, inferring intelligence for life on earth would still be quite unacceptable, as long as the current paradigm dominates.
It is not enough that it could be natural. In actual practice, to be acceptable under the current paradigm one must have reasons to exclude the possibility that an intelligent agent is supernatural.
This is why we would acknowledge a message sent from some planet (presumably by an E.T.) even though the possibility that intelligent agency is responsible for the Cambrian explosion is considered to be entirely unacceptable as a serious scientific hypothesis. It's not a question of evidence or reason; it's just "Not Science".
Comment by eric — June 13, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
salim:
Just one more than two, and I didn't ask the third one…
I do not consider individual molecules to be life, nor fire. Nor rain, nor rocks, nor clay. None of these conglomerations of matter are alive, though each 'reproduces' by the various means that have been cited here. A water cycle, consumption of fuel, cosmic (or just local) collisions, erosion plus water, etc., etc. Heck, by this measure potholes in city streets would be tenacious reproducing life forms!
Individual assigned 'properties' of life aren't life either. Let's not admit complete absurdities into a discussion difficult enough already to follow. Molecules in the process of being assembled or disassembled are not alive, and they're not reproducing. They may be organic - and there may be biochemistry going on, such as in digestion or in-cell synthesis - but these individual pieces-parts are just raw material. To be used, recycled and/or eliminated. Whole or broken down.
So. Since you have no 'consensus' scientific theory of abiogenesis that counts individual molecules as life forms, please don't offer this scenario as a model that can in any reasonable way serve as analogy to 'explain' biogenic reproduction (sexual or asexual) to us ign'ernt homies. Okay? I'm sure as heck not buying it.
The evolution of living organisms requires the existence of living organisms, and those living organisms must already be fond of reproducing themselves (thereby allowing the introduction of genetic modifications) in toto. And it requires way more time than any individual living organism's got to enjoy a life in time.
Raw materials are cheap - everywhere, all around us, all the time. We constantly replenish our supplies by consumption and replace pieces-parts completely many times during our lives, while we're still living. The matter you leave behind when you die isn't the same matter you were born with. Isn't that just amazing? It's also a clear indication that there's a difference between a living organism and raw pieces-parts of matter.
Comment by Joy — June 13, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
eric:
Evolution and speciation have been observed in real time without any intelligent agency being responsible in any obvious way. Unless there is positive evidence for intelligent agency being responsible for speciation in the distant past, why do we need this superfluous hypothesis? I suspect you need it to be more secure about your rather unfounded beliefs in some Creator, but I could be wrong.
Comment by Raevmo — June 13, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
First of all, I am somewhat surprised to find a thread focussing on my little thought experiment. Should I be flattered? Anyway, onwards:
Mark Frank wrote:
"Any theory of life based on evolution must assume that reproduction came first (some kind of molecule that can reproduce with occasional variation) and this led via evolution to the other attributes we recognise as life."
Actually, there is no logical reason that molecular reproduction must necessarily be tied to cellular reproduction. For example, if it is possible for a cell-like protobiont (e.g. something like Oparin's coacervate droplets ) with a selectively permeable membrane to "grow" by selectively allowing particular molecules through the membrane, then upon reaching a critical size (defined by the "surface tension" of the droplet), the protobiont would either pop (and cease to be a protobiont) or fission into two connected protobionts in the same way that soap bubbles sometimes do (and bacteria do during binary fission).
In other words, cell growth and fission need not necessarily be tied to the replication and separation of genetic molecules such as DNA or RNA. By the same logic, replication and separation of genetic molecules such as DNA or RNA need not be tied to cell growth and fission. We know this because these processes can be performed in vitro, without cells at all.
This therefore suggests a possible scenario in which these two separate processes (i.e. protobiont cell growth & reproduction and molecular replication and separation), having evolved separately, eventually became associated with each other. This would be particularly plausible if the replicating molecules started out as "parasites" of the cell-like protobionts, surviving, replicating, and separating more efficiently within the relatively benigh environment of the protobionts rather than "outdoors."
And, if the replicating/separating molecules were associated chemically with the production of the molecules of which the protobiont were assembled, then the symbiotic association of the two would constitute the ancestors of what we now call the archaea.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — June 13, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Joy:
Suppose I knew the location of every atom in your body and I somehow knew how to recreate this exact pattern. How would it differ from the real you?
Comment by Raevmo — June 13, 2007 @ 7:07 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Raevmo:
Beam me up, Scotty! §;o)
Honestly, Raevmo. That's like asking me how "I" and a clone of one of my cells would qualify as two different beings. When an exact (enough) genetic copy of myself would merely be an identical twin, separated in time by however old "I" was when the clone was hatched. Are you of the opinion that identical twins are the same person? Are they half a person?
If you copied me exactly, would the copy be conscious? And if the copy is conscious of itself, how could it be me? Now, if you just made the copy 'blank' I could maybe project my consciousness into it, but I'd have to be much more of a Yogi than I currently am.
Sorry, I think this is a dumb question.
Comment by Joy — June 13, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Before you blame the Discovery Institute regarding the resistance to ID, please tell me this. Does anything in Stephen Meyer's peer reviewed paper "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" require the supernatural? Is it in any way essentially contradictory to materialism?
I think you will agree the answer is No. But then consider the implications of your own statements. If you think the argument could have been won years ago, that strongly suggests that the problem is not with the evidence. What then is the obstacle? As soon as someone says anything like this
that lets the cat out of the bag. It shows that the core of the resistance isn't really about the evidence. It is a resistance coming from the concern about what effect it might have on public perceptions regarding materialism.
In short, as long as it could be used to let a Divine Foot in the door, inferences to intelligent agency will continue to face strong and determined resistance. This would be so even if the Discovery Institute had never existed.
Comment by eric — June 13, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Thought Provoker wrote:
"Which gets us back to explaining why life needs to be perpetuated."
Simple: it doesn't. That is, reproduction isn't necessary for life at all. Indeed, "life," strictly defined as the biochemical and physiological processes that assemble and maintain organisms doesn't include the process of reproduction. As I ask my students every semester, if reproduction is an absolute requirement for life, then all of them (assuming they do not yet have children) are technically not alive.
In other words, life is a process that can, but need not necessarily include reproduction.
Once again, in an imperfect world (i.e. one in which random accidents happen), immortal living organisms that cannot or do not reproduce gradually decrease in number. If there is no process by which they can arise out of non-living stuff, they necessarily eventually disappear (time to disappearance unspecified, but it is clearly a time-limited, finite rate function).
Therefore, in that same imperfect world, immortal living organisms that can reproduce do not eventually disappear, as long as the rate of reproduction equals or exceeds the rate of disappearance by misadventure.
This is what our planet has overwhelmingly been populated by for the past 3.8 billion years: immortal organisms that reproduce at almost exactly the same rate at which they die by misadventure. We call them bacteria (technically, prokaryotes, which include both the eubacteria and the archaea).
So, is the ability to reproduce necessary for life? No, but as the result of pure, undirected natural selection (as described above), it is virtually both inevitable and universal among living organisms on planets anything like ours.
Now, as to the origin of Type 4 organisms, I did not necessarily advocate the hypothesis that having a "kill-by age" is adaptive. There are several competing hypotheses on this subject, with differing degrees of empirical evidence in their favor. To me, the observable fact that almost all living organisms are Type 2 and only animals (i.e. members of the kingdom Animalia) are Type 4 (and not even all of them; consider the Porifera) suggests that something about being an animal is strongly correlated with having a built-in "kill-by age."
One suggestion is that this would prevent ancestors from competing with their descendents, an important consideration in limited environments (i.e. the kinds of environments found everywhere on this planet). Under what conditions would this be a liability? If the environment did not change, this would not be a liability at all. Indeed, if there were any tendency at all for deleterious mutations to occur in the production of offspring, then selection would favor ancestors that outlived their somewhat-more-genetically defective descendants.
However, if environments change at all (and all of them do, eventually), then those reproducing lines in which offspring reliably outlived their ancestors would, on the average, be more likely to include at least a few that were better adapted to the changed environments than to the original ones. And, if the ancestors had a built-in "kill-by age," then such descendants would have less competition, and therefore be more likely to survive and reproduce than those who had to compete with their effectively immortal parents.
So, how can these various hypotheses be tested? By looking for actual examples of the types of organisms and processes predicted by the foregoing analysis. That's what evolutionary biologists spend almost all of our time doing; looking at the real world to see if the patterns we observe match the patterns predicted by theory. Personally, I think the empiral evidence favors the "kill-by age"-as-adaptation hypothesis rather better than the "kill-by age"-as-accident/epiphenomenon, but I strongly believe that the jury is still out on this one.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — June 13, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Joy:
You're pretending you didn't understand me. Identical twins are not identical atom for atom. My question is, how would they differ if they were identical atom for atom, and why?
Comment by Raevmo — June 13, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
salimfhadley wrote:
"For all we know, life appears to have only started once in the entire 4.5bn year history of our planet, and it appears not to have existed for the first 2bn years of the planet's history."
Actually, we know nothing of the kind. As Darwin first pointed out, life could be spontaneously arising all the time, in every little warm puddle. However, by "life" in this case, we would be limited to the spontaneous origin of the kinds of chemicals we know from empirical observation can form spontaneously in such environments. And what would happen to them? Would they last long enough to aggregate into larger protobionts, which would persist long enough to become associated with symbiotic populations of replicating molecules?
No, they'd be consumed at once by the much more sophisticated and rapacious organisms that already live in such environments. In other words, even if the spontaneous origin of the materials of which living organisms are composed is still common, the only time during the evolution of life on Earth in which they would reach significant concentrations would have been prior to the origin of efficient cells - that is, cells that could locate, ingest, and rearrange such spontaneously formed molecules.
Now, as to the second time period, the best evidence today indicates that the Earth's surface became sufficiently stable to allow for the spontaneous formation of the materials of which living organisms are composed about 4.2 billion years ago. There is clear evidence of the existence of living cells in rocks dated to 3.8 billion years ago. This means that cellular life (and also apparently cellular reproduction, based on the fossil evidence) had to have evolved in something like 400 million years.
Which leaves us with only three possible explanations:
1) Life is so likely in our universe that even in such a relatively short time, it could get started here and hang on until now
2) Life is less likely than in hypothesis (1), but some supernatural force intervened to make it more likely
3) Life originated somewhere else over a much longer period of time, and then was "planted" here, either by accident (the "roadside picnic/litterbug" hypothesis) or on purpose (i.e. "directed panspermia")
Personally, I favor hypothesis #1, but hasten to point out that it is essentially the same hypothesis as that supported by the founder(s) of this website "“ that the Earth has just the right starting conditions to make life both easy to originate and robust in the face of external shocks.
So, if as I suspect we will never be able to obtain direct evidence for either hypothesis (1) or (3), and ignore hypothesis (2) as outside the purview of empirical verification/falsification, then where does that leave us?
In exactly the position we have been in since November 24, 1859; with a robust, testable/falsifiable theory that explains the evolution of life on Earth (assuming it already exists) via natural selection, sexual selection, and various other genetic mechanisms (especially genetic drift), none of which require the intervention in nature by any supernatural "intelligent designer."
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — June 13, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
AMcN:
It seems senescence is related to sexual reproduction, the latter being an adaptation to changing environments. You're saying that kin-competition plays an important role. That's a testable idea. Are asexual lineages more frequent among more dispersive (thereby less liable to kin-competition) organisms?
Comment by Raevmo — June 13, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Mark Frank wrote:
"In this case the more fragile the individual the more it reproduces."
This is almost right: the more likely an individual is to die by misadventure, the more likely it will be that those individuals like this that persist over time are the ones that have the ability reproduce.
As I tell my students, when the going gets tough, the tough have sex.
Comment by Allen_MacNeill — June 13, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
A sudden appearance of new phyla (e.g. in our Cambrian explosion) with significant new requirements for genetic information would be distinguishable from a world in which organisms evolved according to unguided natural processes.
One could dispute whether the Cambrian explosion is real or an illusion*, but if the fossil record tells us the true story of sudden appearance of so many new fundamentally distinct body plans, that is strongly distinguished from what could be produced by random mutation plus selection.
Another potential distinction would be whether we find molecular machines that are irreducibly complex in the sense that Behe has presented. (Vast complexity (e.g. a city) is not irreducibly complex in this sense.)
*Regarding the debate over the reality of the Cambrian explosion, see also Stephen Meyer's peer reviewed paper "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories".
p.s. to Allen, please see also the request in this post. Thanks.
Comment by eric — June 13, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hi Allen,
In some ways you are preaching to the choir as far as I am concerned. I am generally comfortable with the idea that, in this universe, if it can happen, it does. However you opened the door when you wrote…
Which was all it took for Bilbo and others to quickly latch on that thought. After the door was open, it would have been useless of me to even attempt to suggest we have no reason to assume God's intent. It was too late for that.
That is why I offered reasons for why God and/or the Universe would want to maintain life "in perpetuity". In case you missed it, here are the four choices I offered…
1. The trivial answer is that there is no purpose, it just happened because it could.
2. The traditional "unidentified" God answer is to say God works in mysterious ways. (i.e. has whatever intent he/she needs to have to explain reality)
3. A retrocausual God answer is so God can exist in the future to create the universe in the first place.
4. A retrocausual quantum mechanics answer is because it was the only way the universe could have the ability to force consistency with itself.
While number 1 is the answer you obviously wish to suggest. Which answer comes in second?
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — June 13, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Raevmo:
Oh, no ya don't! I already asked if your copy was conscious of itself. That could be carbon-for-carbon, hydrogen-for-hydrogen, etc., etc. all the way down. Matter is cheap.
If the copy is conscious of itself, it is not me. If it is not conscious, it's even more obviously not me. Either way, the copy is not me. Different people are different people - we're all made of the same stuff. A person and an inanimate copy of a person are not identical either - are you your Senior picture? Is George Washington a marble bust?
My point stands. Dumb question.
Comment by Joy — June 13, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
June 13th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Thought Provoker asks:
"While number 1 is the answer you obviously wish to suggest. Which answer comes in second?"
Number 4: A retrocausual quantum mechanics answer is because it was the only way the universe could have the ability to force consistency with itself.
I just received my copy of "Cosmic Jackpot" by Paul Davies from Amazon yesterday. I'll have more to say about this alternative after I've read it.
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