Breaking: Crazy Intelligent Design Advocate Says Something Crazy
Being the blog of chief intelligent design proponent William Dembski, Uncommon Descent is a centerpiece of the eternal and joyfully vicious online battle between ID advocates and evolution boosters, making it considerably more entertaining than most blogs dealing with science or, in this case, magical science. Though always a good read, Uncommon Descent is at its very best when one of Dembski’s strange array of co-bloggers takes the wheel and promptly drives the dummy bus off a cliff, laughing all the way down about how those crazy materialists are always driving buses off cliffs.
Uncommon Descent co-blogger Clive Hayden, for instance, believes that he has caught the theory of evolution in a rhetorical snare by way of a Wired article that he’s deemed incorrect. He quotes part of the piece in question, which is the first and last reasonable thing he manages to do. As the article states, quoting a scientist interviewed therein:
“You look at cellular machines and say, why on earth would biology do anything like this? It’s too bizarre,’ he said. ‘But when you think about it in a neutral evolutionary fashion, in which these machineries emerge before there’s a need for them, then it makes sense.”
Hayden now has evolution right where he wants it:
“In which these machineries emerge before there’s a need” for the machineries. I don’t see how that makes any sense. Evolution is supposed to be a stepwise mechanism of solving problems, now they get solved before there is a problem.
I’ve been researching intelligent design and its various advocates since I made the mistake of writing a book on the subject a few years back, and have meanwhile gotten into public exchanges of hostilities with William Dembski and a few other movement figures, including Hayden here, with whom I recently had some week-long debate about a rather unfriendly article I wrote about Uncommon Descent last month. But even after having saturated myself in this nonsense for all this time, I don’t think I’ve seen a stupider argument against evolution from one of the movement’s recognized hangers-on.
Hayden asserts, as you may recall from a few seconds ago, that “evolution is supposed to be a stepwise mechanism of solving problems, now they get solved before there is a problem.” And again, I am compelled to note that this is among the most disingenuous and easily-refuted bits of nonsense to have ever emerged from a blog that is proverbial for such things.
Hayden would have you believe that Wired’s characterization of solutions arising before the problem is some sort of crazy new assertion that contradicts what scientists had previously been claiming about the process of evolution, and that it is anyway absurd in and of itself. This is, of course, nonsense. There is nothing new or absurd in the notion that the near-neutral biological features which are always arising in organisms are sometimes later co-opted for new purposes, either in service to the solution to an existing problem or in service to the solution to a new one.
For instance, if a species develops the ability to eat intelligent design advocates and convert them into rocket fuel, this characteristic will probably spread around among some segment of the population by way of genetic drift even if there are no intelligent design advocates around yet. Once ID advocates appear, those members of the population which can eat them and make rocket fuel as a byproduct will have an advantage and thus this characteristic will spread even further as these ID advocate munchers find themselves at an advantage over those who cannot eat ID advocates and are thereby forced to listen to them talk nonsense until they themselves starve to death. Then the new, superior members of the species can use their ID advocate-derived rocket fuel to blast off to the moon, where, cut off from the population as whole, they will eventually undergo speciazation.
This is an extreme example; other, more mundane examples may be found in peer-reviewed journals – the ones that actually appear regularly, as opposed to the phony ones maintained by intelligent design advocates which have not been updated for years due to an utter lack of research on their part.
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Barret, instead of the charactor nonsense you’ve been running for the past couple of weeks. Why not delve into the actual empirical evidence for design? What is it that you have to lose…a punchline?
Here are a couple of peer-reviewed papers from respected scientific journals. Why don’t you do an article on them and tell us what the authors have wrong?
From the Journal of Theoretical Biological and Medical Modeling: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958
From the International Journal of Molecular Sciences: http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247
Give it a shot, Skippy
uprightbiped asked,
“Why not delve into the actual empirical evidence for design?”
And referenced two theoretical publications that contain ZERO empirical evidence.
Care to try again?
In response to another comment. See in context »Hey, thanks for coming out.
I’m aware that ID advocates have published papers, and I’ve already delved more than I’d care into remember into the what’s been purported to be the empirical evidence behind intelligent design. These two papers don’t put forth a mechanism for ID.
In response to another comment. See in context »Wow. That was a strong rebuttal to my comment. (!)
Take two peer reviewed papers, simply assert they say nothing, and call it a day.
Very powerful.
There are no Materials and Methods sections in either paper cited. No experimental data.
Pure speculation. As pure as speculation gets.
Care to try again, uptight?
In response to another comment. See in context »Huitz,
Your trivial one-liner responses are hardly up to the task at hand. You’d simply like ID to be summarily dismissed on an arbitrary rules violation. Are you aware that the world’s leading Philosophers of Science themselves can’t even agree what these rules should be?
You must be aware this is a *historical* and *forensic* question, aren’t you? Are you aware of the work of Whewell (Cambridge) on such matters? How about Lipton (also Cambridge)? How about Lyell, or Sober?
When Einstein deduced the Theory of Relativity he did it in a clerical office without even access to a laboratory. No one scorned him for doing so. Where you aware of that? When James Watson and Francis Crick developed their structure for the DNA molecule they did so without a single laboratory experiment. Instead, they re-interpreted the research of their peers. No one scorned them for having done so. Where you aware of that?
And now, with two posts in the bag, you still have yet to say anything substantive about the peer-reviewed papers I posted. I wonder why?
In response to another comment. See in context »Upright Biped,
You made the claim. You support it. Where in either of Abel’s papers is there any reference to “Intelligent Design” as “defined” at the Uncommon Descent website? Where in either paper is there any evidence regarding a supernatural entity interfering with real processes?
Wishful thinking does not equal scientific endeavour.
BTW, congratulations for venturing out of the echo chamber into the big wide world!
Hello Alan, I am not certain what your “Intelligent Design as defined by…” disclaimer is for. It’s hardly important whose terms are placed upon it. I am interested in the evidence. The crowd can do whatever they want.
You asked “Where in either paper is there any evidence regarding a supernatural entity interfering with real processes?”
This is a canard. You know very well that ID does not posit a supernatural event.
There is nothing whatsoever in the evidence for ID that anything happened outside natural law. ID follows other forensic sciences and makes a rational inference to the best explanation based upon the observable evidence of a historical event. It does not say who or what instantiated the design, but that does not mean however that it then makes logical sense to assign to chance and necessity something we already know (by ALL observations) they are incapable of producing.
As for the paper itself, I am certain you’ve already read it, but allow me to paste a passage from the text:
“We repeat that a single incident of nontrivial algorithmic programming success achieved without selection for fitness at the decision-node programming level would falsify any of these null hypotheses. This renders each of these hypotheses scientifically testable. We offer the prediction that none of these four hypotheses will be falsified.”
“The fundamental contention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in this paper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to each configurable-switch-position symbol, algorithmic function and language will not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to each combinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source and destination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meanings in a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such a cybernetic coding/decoding scheme.”
- – - – - – -
Since Barret has already punted, let me know what the authors have wrong.
In response to another comment. See in context »I think defining terms is an essential prerequisite for any productive discussion.
I know no such thing. If you are telling me ID is an entirely natural explanation for biological complexity that does not infer input from an undetectable something, force, dimension, designer, entity… then that is news!
There is nothing whatsoever in the evidence for ID that anything happened outside natural law. ID follows other forensic sciences and makes a rational inference to the best explanation based upon the observable evidence of a historical event. It does not say who or what instantiated the design, but that does not mean however that it then makes logical sense to assign to chance and necessity something we already know (by ALL observations) they are incapable of producing.
As to your quotes, what do they have to do with the question whether “Intelligent Design” says anything scientifically coherent or useful regarding the observed past and present diversity of life on Earth?
In response to another comment. See in context »1. Is there something in the water over there at UD which prevents you guys from spelling my name correctly?
2. You say, “You know very well that ID does not posit a supernatural event.” I suggest you read William Dembski’s book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, in which he states, “Naturalism is the disease. Intelligent design is the cure,” and then spends several chapters railing against modernity in favor of pre-modernity. Yes, intelligent design does posit a supernatural event.
In response to another comment. See in context »Oops! Excuse messed up formatting in previous comment.
UB:
This is exactly why I need to define terms. You are extrapolating from design in the everyday understanding of the word to something else which has no scientific meaning or basis. “Because there is forensic science, therefore ID” makes no sense, nor does it make any useful contribution to our understanding of the real world.
Barrett, your last post is a perfect example of the standard shuck and jive routine. You take a piece of what I said and ignore all the rest, just so you can argue a point that is trivial and a misrepresentation. It’s a cowardly and cheap way to claim any victory.
Please allow me to address the two points you make:
1) I am sorry for misspelling your name. The next time I visit Uncommon Descent, I’ll let the gang know you are sensitive to it.
2) If you look at my post you would clearly see a couple of points that were made clear. In the very first paragraph I say: “It’s hardly important whose terms are placed upon it. I am interested in the evidence. The crowd can do whatever they want.”
These three short sentences might lead one to believe that ID is not about people, it’s about the observable evidence instead. That would be a correct assumption to make.
Bill Dembski is a mathematician, an ID proponent, and a theologian, but he is not ID himself (and he would not claim to be). ID is about the empirically observable evidence for an act of volitional agency in the emergence of Life on this planet. Dembski believes that act was the act of a God. Oddly enough, Sir Francis Crick (the discoverer of the structure of DNA) suggests that act is one made by extraterrestrial beings. In any case, neither one of those conclusions is a part of the actual evidence for ID. The evidence of the act stands on its own merit.
So, instead of addressing the observable evidence, you’ve repeatedly tried to tie it to a person so that you could attack the person instead. In fact, this entire blogging episode (going back to the original article) is an attempt to ignore the evidence and attack people instead. Many people call that a strawman argument (and I agree with them) but as a strategist, I also know the entire world of strategists see it as a “flank”. A flank is a maneuver that one takes when they don’t have the resources to attack the issue head on.
This is the bottom line in the debate over ID. The weight of the evidence stands on the side of the ID proponent. So their opponents must always erect strawmen, or they must misrepresent the argument being made, or change the subject to religion, or school-board politics, or something else. Anything else. Anything but the evidence.
Barrett, crack open a Biology book at look at the chemical and physical bonds that cause DNA to exists. I know you understand that all living things on earth are determined by the linear sequence of nucleotides (the code of information) within DNA. Notice that there are no chemical or physical bonds that cause that sequence to exist as it does. Nothing causes any one nucleotide to be followed by another. There are no bonds between them along the linear axis of the molecule (where the information is). In fact, as far as the physical laws of the Universe are concerned, DNA doesn’t even have to exist at all. But it does exist, with no physical laws to explain it. These are empirical facts, and they are not even in dispute. Materialism has been falsified by its own evidence (and this is just one of many evidences for ID).
I posted two peer-reviewed papers (one from the Journal of Theoretical Biological and Medical Modeling, and one from the International Journal of Molecular Science). If you are going to claim the enlightened position against your opponents, why not grow some testículos and try addressing the evidence for a change.
1. You posted links to a couple of papers. It was pointed out to you that these do not address the supernatural mechanism behind intelligent design. You claimed in response that there is no supernatural mechanism behind intelligent design. I pointed out that according to the guy who’s done the most academic work in intelligent design, there is indeed such a supernatural mechanism. You replied that the issue is “trivial.” We’ll probably have to agree to disagree on that one.
2. Can you point to where these papers provide evidence for intelligent design?
In response to another comment. See in context »Barrett, you’ve done it once again.
1) I did not say the issue is trivial. I said that your proclivity to parse comments and twist text in order to suit your need is a trivial means to engage the arguments of your opponents. It certainly is not the substantive way to address an argument, is it? You’ve now done it again, and again it’s trivial. The fact is that ID cannot discern from the observable evidence who or what instantiated the design in nature. Therefore, there is NO inference to any supernatural event taking place – only that an act of volitional agency is the only cause known to man (either scientifically or as a matter of actual experience) that can account for the effects seen at the molecular level. To that, I gave you one of those examples in my last post (which you ignored in your response).
2) What do you think the authors were talking about when they said:
“The fundamental contention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in this paper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to each configurable-switch-position symbol, algorithmic function and language will not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to each combinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source and destination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meanings in a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such a cybernetic coding/decoding scheme.”
It’s like this Barrett. There is an observable code of information instantiated into matter within DNA. A “code” is a representative symbol system that is communicated through a channel. One thing represents another, yet has no physical connection to it. For example, the proteins that do the work inside living cells are NOT made up of nucleotides, but it is the ORDER of those nucleotides within DNA that provides the information necessary to build the proteins that do the work of the cell.
You can view this in simple terms: If I hold up an apple and you say the word “apple” It is not an actual apple that is coming out of your mouth – it’s a symbol of an apple (a word we recognize as “apple”). The only way we in which we can communicate is if we both agree that the symbolic word “apple” stands for that red fruit with the white center and the little black seeds that grows on trees. In another language the word would be something else, but there is no physical necessity that it be anything in particular at all. We could refer to apples as oranges as long as we all agree to it. So the symbol is NOT bound by physical law, but by an AGREEMENT between discreet objects (or entities) as to what the meaning will be.
The same phenomenon happens inside DNA. There is no physical need for any of the symbols within DNA to be as they are. And there are no physical causes for them to exist in the order in which they do. They exist in an order that creates cellular function, yet there is no chemical or physical reason for them to exist in that way. The only cause that is observationally sufficient to explain the functional ordering of nucleic sequencing is an act of volitional agency. Appeals to chance and physical necessity (and wild speculation) are meaningless. Just as it is meaningless to suggest that an apple must be referred to as an “apple” as a matter of physical law, or that we all call it an “apple” as a simply matter of chance.
So again:
“The fundamental contention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in this paper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to each configurable-switch-position symbol, algorithmic function and language will not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to each combinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source and destination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meanings in a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such a cybernetic coding/decoding scheme.”
Your job, having willfully taken up the defense of the materialist paradigm, is to say where the authors have it all wrong.
In response to another comment. See in context »Again, the argument that chance and necessity could not have produced the underlying coding behind biological features is not a new one, and though the modern variations on that argument do employ a more rigorous brand of rhetoric than does the old “ZOMG only people can make a clock so only gods can make a universe” trope, they are still just that – variations on an argument from ignorance. Yes, Dembski and the rest have claimed that they have hit upon methods of detecting design. But we have seen how well those hold up to the extent that they can be proven wrong. You may remember the flagellum, for instance.
In response to another comment. See in context »What wrong Barret?
Once again, you fail to address the evidence given.
So be it.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hello Alan,
I said that ID uses the same forensic tools that any other historical or forensic science uses. You took that and returned it to mean “Because there is forensic science, therefore ID”. Your response is nonsensical (and silly).
And yes, I am quite aware of the direction the argument typically takes from here. You’ll want to argue over the definitions of definitions of definitions, and thereby wrap yourself in an insulating blanket – saying how all this is such a necessity to true understanding. And even now with me bringing it up, you will redouble your efforts and tell me exactly how important it is to science to define the terms. It, of course, all makes perfect sense. Sir Karl Popper was familiar with this strategy of argument as well. He covered it in his list of the “conventionalist’s stratagems” (later adopted the term “immunizing stratagems”).
The concepts being discussed are what is important, not the words used by men to describe them. The descriptive words can be argued over until the cows come home, but the concepts remain the same – and they are accessible to any rational person who wishes to access them. Arguing over the words is a means to ignore the context already given (and its boring as well).
I posted two papers, both with gave very clear defining terms. Where in your response did your address the evidence presented by either of the papers?
There is no EVIDENCE in the papers, uptight.
In response to another comment. See in context »Huitz,
No one can force you to believe anything you are not emotionally prepared to believe. Against human will, no amount of evidence can do that.
Yet, at the same time, you cannot not unknow something you already know. You can only choose to ignore it. You may do so by personally ignoring it after you learn it, or you can ignore learning it once it has been exposed to you.
In either case, you forfeit the right to say you hold an enlightened opinion.
In response to another comment. See in context »@ UB:
My response was flippant because you equate the perfectly legitimate pursuit of forensics with “Intelligent Design” which is a ludicrous suggestion. Go to ARN forum and check out the picture on the “Explanatory Filter” thread I posted recently. Tell me if the pile of stones were designed or not. Then explain what that has to do with whatever it is you postulate undetectably tweaking genetic sequences.
Gifted with the power to read minds are you, Upright? If you don’t think it is important to agree on what words mean to have a useful discussion, you should not be surprised when you find they don’t get very far.
How, pray, are you to explain to me where that evidence for “Intelligent Design Agents” exists without using words when typing a comment presumably consisting of words?
I didn’t. And that for the simple reason that the two papers you link to contain no evidence for “Intelligent Design” as has already been pointed out. There is nothing to address.
In response to another comment. See in context »Upright’s ‘arguments’ are little more than arguments from awe and ignorance.
To claim that “The weight of the evidence stands on the side of the ID proponent” is to do little more than engage in a fantasy. There is NO evidence for ID, there are denials of other evidence, and attempts to engage in argument via definition and silly probability-type arguments.
Such are not evidence.
Nor is this ethereial naivete:
“Notice that there are no chemical or physical bonds that cause that sequence to exist as it does. Nothing causes any one nucleotide to be followed by another. There are no bonds between them along the linear axis of the molecule (where the information is). In fact, as far as the physical laws of the Universe are concerned, DNA doesn’t even have to exist at all. But it does exist, with no physical laws to explain it.”
Look at noncoding DNA – LOTS of nucleotides in no particular order. What is the ID explanation for that? Oh, right – IDCs claim that ALL DNA has a purpose, even if they don’t know it yet.
Brilliant stuff.