Thread: Teaching Intelligent Design

Originally Posted by Good1

I think you have faith that they must have had those eye-precursors. you also have faith that every currently sighted species somehow manifested the same progression of mutations that led from [nothing] to eyeball.

That's a great big bucket of faith you're carrying about a progression you've neither seen nor tested nor repeated...

We can tell what their eyes looked like the same way we can tell what a human eye looks like by looking at the orbit and eye socket as well as our environment and the structure of the rest of their body.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

I am not expert enough to judge that but I am not aware of a completely described path of evolution for the all sorts of flagellums that exist today ("the bacterial flagellum" is a simplification after all). The reason for this is easily found. We don't know enough of that system as of yet. But even though no complete path is known there is evidence for evolutionary processes and structure as well as sequence homologies are a key to that.

The ID prediction is that an adequately described evolutionary pathway will never be found.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

If you wanted to proof that there is still a lot of ignorance, yep. Point taken. There is enough understanding of it however already to know that the irreducible complexity as originally defined by Behe does certainly not apply to that system.

Provided, you accept the hypothetical evolutionary scenarios as evidence that it has been refuted. In my estimation, science would be better served if both hypotheses were allowed to stand until one is declared the clear winner. As it is, we will very likely have to settle for 'evolution of the gaps' in molecular evolution.

Unless something happens to the status quo.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Regarding scientific consensus. Unless you are an all knowing entity you have to rely on research of others. That does not mean you can not or should not think critically of something just because it is a consensus. But unless you are an expert yourself you are probably in a difficult position to conduct educated criticism. I am not an expert of molecular evolution. So the scientific consensus is a starting point for me. For school classes the focus definitely has to lie on the consensus as well. There is enough important stuff to learn there anyway and far too little time. I am open to the idea of showing pupils critical thinking with a concrete example of competing scientific hypothesis. But these have to be scientific hypothesis or theories. ID fails to meet that test.

I would settle for making it postively clear to students that evolution is a very broad theory and much of it is hypothetical.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Crime scene investigators are not conducting science. They are helping the enforcement of law, maybe using methods developed by scientists. But "de facto evidence" simply isn't a category I know from science. It is one known in justice.

To me, that is a distinction without a difference. In crime scene investigation justice is the goal and science it their method of attaining that objective. I think you are conflating the two. And evidence is evidence is evidence. We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Well, the simple probabilistic calculation he conducted was based on mechanisms which don't work that way in reality (or at least if they did that would be against everything we know of molecular biology so far), nor would it make much sense if they worked that way. So "impossible" might be the wrong term, also a clock that doesn't work is right twice a day after all.

We don't fully understand the mechanisms yet; hence, any claims involving probabilities are going to be provisional, to put it mildly. I don't know that Dembski is 'more wrong' in his calculations than anyone else at this point.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

So ID is a hypothesis of sociology? And I thought it was about supposedly being a competing hypothesis to evolution in the field of biology. So maybe it is all just a big misunderstanding?

Not sure which tree you are barking up with that one. I made a simple prediction: As time goes by and we discover more layers of complexity in living things, the science of evolution will rely more and more on hypothetical suppositions to explain it.

And one we'll wake up one day and realize that we traded 'God of the gaps' for 'evolution of the gaps'.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

I never liked the term "junk DNA" myself. I think it is a judging term when in fact we just don't know enough of it yet. I consider the arguments of both, Dembski and Dawkins to be flawed.

You may not have liked the term, but it was bandied-about by some pretty notable evolutionary biologists that did so according their assumptions about evolution.

...instead, they [junk DNA] seem to point toward the kind of idiosyncratic tinkering for which nonsentient evolutionary processes are notorious.” [Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology John C. Avise]

Granting his assumptions, the logic is nearly unassailable: If biological life was cobbled together over eons via a 'non-sentient evolutionary process' then you would expect spare or useless parts [junk DNA] to be laying around; indeed, if none were found, it would be quite surprising---given the assumptions.

ID'ers have different assumptions so they weren't surprised that the term junk DNA had to be junked.

Originally Posted by darth omar

The ID prediction is that an adequately described evolutionary pathway will never be found.

That is not a scientific prediction which I was referring to. A prediction would have to add knowledge of some sort and apply a supposed mechanism that this very hypothesis explains. What you say is not more than the prediction of continuing ignorance on this aspect. But ID does not explain any mechanism at all. All it does is to postulate a mysterious unexplainable design mechanism. If I replace all the "it had to be designed" from ID with "magic did it", wouldn't the case for "magic did it" be exactly as strong or weak as for "it had to be designed"? Should we teach in school that evolution can also alternatively be explained by magic?

Provided, you accept the hypothetical evolutionary scenarios as evidence that it has been refuted. In my estimation, science would be better served if both hypotheses were allowed to stand until one is declared the clear winner. As it is, we will very likely have to settle for 'evolution of the gaps' in molecular evolution.

Nope, it is pretty much a fact that parts of complex systems like the flagellum can serve a function without most of the other parts, even if its a different one. As Behe's definition rules that out for irreducible complexity, a corner of his definition is seriously shaking. The point is, and Behe to my knowledge even admitted it somewhere that maybe the problem is not that parts can't have a function on their own but that we simply don't know of them yet. And unless you haven't found one, it is almost impossible to rule out that there is none unless you have a complete understanding of the entire system, also historically. So here we are back at square one: argument from ignorance.

It is good scientific practice for anyone who claims irreducible complexity is a valid theory that in a specific case, a function of parts is proven to be impossible and that has to be tested and confirmed. It is hard to test the non existence of other functions than the original one, any other function, those you might guess but also those you have no idea of. I am looking forward to see ID supporters taking that tough challenge. I know ID supporters want to make it an easy game and push the obligation of providing proof to the other side but thats not how science works. If you want to work along the rule "innocent until proven guilty" law is a better field. In science it is rather "not more than a hypothesis until supported by positive proof". I am still waiting for the positive proof of either "irreducible complexity" or ID.

I would settle for making it postively clear to students that evolution is a very broad theory and much of it is hypothetical.

Which is basically true for every scientific theory. Dig deep enough and you end up with hypothesis or not even that. Welcome to science. Those parts that are taught in school are not hypothetical however but state of the art theories. If you say a theory must offer complete understandng + proof of everything, you failing the scientific definition of theory. By these standards we would not have any theories at all.

You also mentioned a lack of "complete understanding" of something. That is the same aspect. We will never have "complete" understanding of anything. Science is like watching the X-Files. You get one answer and three new questions each episode. The times when scientists thought they could reach complete knowledge are long gone, at least 100 years. If you want, science has passed that hubris. In other words. You can oppose any scientific theory based on your arguments of lack of "complete understanding". To use that as proof for a different concept is as easy as meaningless.

We don't fully understand the mechanisms yet; hence, any claims involving probabilities are going to be provisional, to put it mildly. I don't know that Dembski is 'more wrong' in his calculations than anyone else at this point.

But I do if I remember his calculations correctly and everyone with a basic understanding of molecular biology will do so as well. Dembski made a simple probability calculation how likely an entirely random mix of 20 AA could form a protein of a length usually found in modern life forms. For each position the right AA has to be found.

If I do a quick calculation the probability for a 300 AA protein would be:
(1/20)³⁰⁰= 5*10⁻³⁹¹

That's a damn low probability indeed. But why do I say that calculation totally fails the point?

x) In many parts of a protein, not only the precise position of an AA in the sequence is of little consequence but there are various AAs that all could get the job done at varying efficiencies. This pretty much pulverizes the basic premise of this whole calculation. As we are using a function to a very high power, errors get multiplied into obscene dimensions.
x) Building the entire sequence at once by complete randomness is a fun supposition but one that has little to do with reality. In reality a lot of parts of sequences are made up by repetition of short sequences. All alpha helices can be formed by repeating a short sequence multiple times and in various positions, just to name an example. The functionally active centre can be pretty short. Actually conserved regions of proteins show us pretty well which parts are really important to be precisely matched. Conserved regions can be less than a dozen AAs in an enzyme, of course it depends but certainly it is usually a smaller rather than a large number.
x) Why limiting it to one specific function? In other words how likely are you to find a specific elephant individual in India? How much more likely are you to find any elephant in India? All by chance of course. This analogy is somewhat bad, because with proteins it is even much more extreme. I can't remember any numbers but the likelihood that a random protein has not a specific, but any function whatsoever is not low at all. As a matter fact the 20 amino acids are pretty useful tools and enable an incredible number of functional combinations.
x) According to prevalent hypothesis on abiogenesis like the RNA world, proteins were not the first complex polymers to appear. They were predated by RNA. As RNA is the basic core of protein synthesis, you don't need proteins for their own synthesis. While that certainly cuts down efficiency a lot, it is feasible to envision a world where ancient mRNA, tRNA and rRNA etc did the job on their own. Of course that would totally question the assumption of "complete randomness" as RNA, can have ribozyme activity and manipulate other RNA. Moreover it increases the chance of AA polymerisation, random or not, dramatically. And dramatically might be an understatement.

That is from the top of my head. There might be already more reasons known that cut the simple probabilistic calculation in bits and pieces and then we haven't started to talk about mechanisms we are not sure about yet or which we simply don't know yet.

In short: That calculation of Dembski is as credible as me doing a random calculation of your risk of being hit by lightning, without much knowledge of meteorology or you.

Not sure which tree you are barking up with that one. I made a simple prediction: As time goes by and we discover more layers of complexity in living things, the science of evolution will rely more and more on hypothetical suppositions to explain it.

And one we'll wake up one day and realize that we traded 'God of the gaps' for 'evolution of the gaps'.

The point was that a theory of biology has to make a biological prediction. Yours was not of that kind. Your criticism could be applied to every single field of science as the more knowledge we have the more questions we can ask. That does not disqualify the knowledge we already have. And while there are more questions, the picture becomes clearer nonetheless.

You may not have liked the term, but it was bandied-about by some pretty notable evolutionary biologists that did so according their assumptions about evolution.

I know some very bad terms very respectable molecular biologists came already up with. That does not discredit their work, nor does it have real implications on the described concept, even if the term is a badly chosen one.

Granting his assumptions, the logic is nearly unassailable: If biological life was cobbled together over eons via a 'non-sentient evolutionary process' then you would expect spare or useless parts [junk DNA] to be laying around; indeed, if none were found, it would be quite surprising---given the assumptions.

The last part is made up by you and not part of your quote. Actually both findings could be explained with a non-sentient process. If useless parts would not be found, it could be easily explained by heavier selective pressure forcing higher efficiency on the organisms. You don't find any introns in bacterial genomes, do you? Prokaryotes have to keep their genomes much more compact, it is essential for their fitness. Eukaryotes can afford to have genomes less over-optimized because they follow a different strategy of survival than prokaryotes.

Originally Posted by darth omar

Because evolutionists---going all the way back Darwin himself, consistently underestimate the complexity of living things.

I would like to point out that Darwin went from Biblical Literalist to Agnostic from the time he boarded the Beagle until his death. He never argued against God's influence in the process and is even quoted as saying that it's absurd to think that someone can't be both a Theist and an Evolutionist.

Originally Posted by Porras

I would like to point out that Darwin went from Biblical Literalist to Agnostic from the time he boarded the Beagle until his death. He never argued against God's influence in the process and is even quoted as saying that it's absurd to think that someone can't be both a Theist and an Evolutionist.

I agree. I don't think there is anything in evolution that explicitly rules out God. Conversely, there is nothing in ID which explicitly points to Him. The first order of business is to establish design according to an objective criteria; not to prove religion or disprove atheism.

AFTER a design conclusion is apprehended, you procede to the inevitable questions of who, what, when and et cetera. And the 'who' isn't neccessarily the God of the Bible.

The young earth Creationists [the real cap-C Creationists, since theistic evolutionists are creationists, as well, by virtue of the fact they believe that God is ultimately behind evolution] understand this much better than the vast majority of ID critics who labor under the delusion that ID would neccessarily prove God.

YEC's reject common descent, the conventional geologic timescale and dogmatically hold to a particular interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. And they are critical of ID because the question of the designer is left open. As pointed out above.

The two groups shouldn't be confused or conflated with one another.

Originally Posted by Hoplite

We can tell what their eyes looked like the same way we can tell what a human eye looks like by looking at the orbit and eye socket as well as our environment and the structure of the rest of their body.

No, I don't think you can.

You're comparing looking at an eye, today, and the structure that surrounds it, to what you believe is a "pre-eye" from millenia ago and claiming they are the same (or similar enough to be the same).

I think you are leaping to your foregone conclusion, here.

NOT that it didn't happen that way, that's not what I'm saying: Your progression of "light-sensitive" to "sighted eye" is, nonetheless, unobserved in nature, untested, and unproven and certainly not substantive enough to draw conclusions from...

Originally Posted by Good1

No, I don't think you can.

Considering you quite clearly dont understand the science behind evolution, I'm not surprised.

You're comparing looking at an eye, today, and the structure that surrounds it, to what you know is a "pre-eye" from millenia ago and claiming they are the same (or similar enough to be the same).

Fixed that for you.

I never stated they were the same, I stated they were related.

NOT that it didn't happen that way, that's not what I'm saying: Your progression of "light-sensitive" to "sighted eye" is, nonetheless, unobserved in nature, untested, and unproven and certainly not substantive enough to draw conclusions from...

Because you're ignoring anything that's posted. You have an obvious confirmation bias and I'm starting to question why I'm even talking to you because you quite clearly aren't here to exchange. You're here to prove YOUR point and ignore anything anyone else says.

The gaps in your knowledge have been pointed out time and time again by multiple people and you just shrug and say we're taking it on faith when you've been given evidence for everything you've been told here.

If you cant be mature enough to engage in a proper exchange, then I submit that this is not the place for you.

Originally Posted by Hoplite

Because you're ignoring anything that's posted. You have an obvious confirmation bias and I'm starting to question why I'm even talking to you because you quite clearly aren't here to exchange. You're here to prove YOUR point and ignore anything anyone else says.

The gaps in your knowledge have been pointed out time and time again by multiple people and you just shrug and say we're taking it on faith when you've been given evidence for everything you've been told here.

If you cant be mature enough to engage in a proper exchange, then I submit that this is not the place for you.

Heh, heh, heh ... nice try, Hoppie, but yours is not the first time someone has demurrered on some point they dont' want to (or can't) respond to. I get that you don't like the whole concept of "faith" in a scientific context... but you claim to have given me "evidence" which is not evidence at all: Most of what you and "multiple people" have offered has NOT been observed in a natural setting, NOT been tested, and NOT been proven OTHER than you desperately WISH it to be true so you can cling to your worldview.

Your desperation is no more clearly evidenced than by your anger any time I question you on something you'd prefer to not think about.

Your choice, of course, but I'm guessing you're someone who cannot let anyone else have hte last word: Go ahead, prove me wrong.

EDIT: Your anger and faux outrage betray you, young padawan. I was right, you have to have the last word. It matters little whether or not you respond to me. You already have the information and there is no un-ringing that bell. Party on, Garth.

Originally Posted by Good1

Heh, heh, heh ... nice try, Hoppie, but yours is not the first time someone has demurrered on some point they dont' want to (or can't) respond to. I get that you don't like the whole concept of "faith" in a scientific context... but you claim to have given me "evidence" which is not evidence at all: Most of what you and "multiple people" have offered has NOT been observed in a natural setting, NOT been tested, and NOT been proven OTHER than you desperately WISH it to be true so you can cling to your worldview.

Your desperation is no more clearly evidenced than by your anger any time I question you on something you'd prefer to not think about.

Your choice, of course, but I'm guessing you're someone who cannot let anyone else have hte last word: Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Forget it, take the last word, I really do not care.

You are not here for an open exchange and I am not going to waste further time and energy posting things you're going to ignore in favor of your pseudoscience.

Everyone else, have fun.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

That is not a scientific prediction which I was referring to. A prediction would have to add knowledge of some sort and apply a supposed mechanism that this very hypothesis explains. What you say is not more than the prediction of continuing ignorance on this aspect. But ID does not explain any mechanism at all. All it does is to postulate a mysterious unexplainable design mechanism. If I replace all the "it had to be designed" from ID with "magic did it", wouldn't the case for "magic did it" be exactly as strong or weak as for "it had to be designed"? Should we teach in school that evolution can also alternatively be explained by magic?

As an hypothesis, ID is not illegitimate simply because it can't account for an explanatory mechanism that shows how something came to be designed. It is no different than the abiogenic hypothesis with its appeal to some mysterious deterministic force that created the first living thing. [it can't be natural selection since evolution and abiogenesis are two different things as some never tire of reminding us]

ID has something even better than a prediction: it has the potential for practical application.

Empirical ID research - ResearchID.org - Researching Intelligent Design

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Nope, it is pretty much a fact that parts of complex systems like the flagellum can serve a function without most of the other parts, even if its a different one. As Behe's definition rules that out for irreducible complexity, a corner of his definition is seriously shaking. The point is, and Behe to my knowledge even admitted it somewhere that maybe the problem is not that parts can't have a function on their own but that we simply don't know of them yet. And unless you haven't found one, it is almost impossible to rule out that there is none unless you have a complete understanding of the entire system, also historically. So here we are back at square one: argument from ignorance.

It is good scientific practice for anyone who claims irreducible complexity is a valid theory that in a specific case, a function of parts is proven to be impossible and that has to be tested and confirmed. It is hard to test the non existence of other functions than the original one, any other function, those you might guess but also those you have no idea of. I am looking forward to see ID supporters taking that tough challenge. I know ID supporters want to make it an easy game and push the obligation of providing proof to the other side but thats not how science works. If you want to work along the rule "innocent until proven guilty" law is a better field. In science it is rather "not more than a hypothesis until supported by positive proof". I am still waiting for the positive proof of either "irreducible complexity" or ID.

You don't have proof that IR has been refuted in the case of the flagellum. What you have are some evidences that are consistent with the hypothesis that it evolved in a gradualistic manner.

Proof, would be something like taking a population of bacteria and deleting that part of the genome that codes for the flagellum and then growing 10,000 or so generations of bacteria and then checking to see if they have made any progress towards evolving a flagellum.

And this they have not done. If they tried and it didn't show any evidence of evolution, they would say there wasn't sufficient time. And myself and other skeptics would be left feeling like 'the wicked generation that seeks a sign' that Jesus talked about in the Gospels.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Which is basically true for every scientific theory. Dig deep enough and you end up with hypothesis or not even that. Welcome to science. Those parts that are taught in school are not hypothetical however but state of the art theories. If you say a theory must offer complete understandng + proof of everything, you failing the scientific definition of theory. By these standards we would not have any theories at all.

Since evolution is often compared to gravity I will use it to illustrate my objection. Yes, there are some hypothetical aspects to the theory of gravity if only from a relativistic perspective. But they are slim as compared to what is going on in evolution. From human evolution right on down to the prokaryote-eukaryote leap, evolution is awash in hypotheses. At just about every turn.

There is no comparison.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

But I do if I remember his calculations correctly and everyone with a basic understanding of molecular biology will do so as well. Dembski made a simple probability calculation how likely an entirely random mix of 20 AA could form a protein of a length usually found in modern life forms. For each position the right AA has to be found.

If I do a quick calculation the probability for a 300 AA protein would be:
(1/20)³⁰⁰= 5*10⁻³⁹¹

That's a damn low probability indeed. But why do I say that calculation totally fails the point?

x) In many parts of a protein, not only the precise position of an AA in the sequence is of little consequence but there are various AAs that all could get the job done at varying efficiencies. This pretty much pulverizes the basic premise of this whole calculation. As we are using a function to a very high power, errors get multiplied into obscene dimensions.
x) Building the entire sequence at once by complete randomness is a fun supposition but one that has little to do with reality. In reality a lot of parts of sequences are made up by repetition of short sequences. All alpha helices can be formed by repeating a short sequence multiple times and in various positions, just to name an example. The functionally active centre can be pretty short. Actually conserved regions of proteins show us pretty well which parts are really important to be precisely matched. Conserved regions can be less than a dozen AAs in an enzyme, of course it depends but certainly it is usually a smaller rather than a large number.
x) Why limiting it to one specific function? In other words how likely are you to find a specific elephant individual in India? How much more likely are you to find any elephant in India? All by chance of course. This analogy is somewhat bad, because with proteins it is even much more extreme. I can't remember any numbers but the likelihood that a random protein has not a specific, but any function whatsoever is not low at all. As a matter fact the 20 amino acids are pretty useful tools and enable an incredible number of functional combinations.
x) According to prevalent hypothesis on abiogenesis like the RNA world, proteins were not the first complex polymers to appear. They were predated by RNA. As RNA is the basic core of protein synthesis, you don't need proteins for their own synthesis. While that certainly cuts down efficiency a lot, it is feasible to envision a world where ancient mRNA, tRNA and rRNA etc did the job on their own. Of course that would totally question the assumption of "complete randomness" as RNA, can have ribozyme activity and manipulate other RNA. Moreover it increases the chance of AA polymerisation, random or not, dramatically. And dramatically might be an understatement.

That is from the top of my head. There might be already more reasons known that cut the simple probabilistic calculation in bits and pieces and then we haven't started to talk about mechanisms we are not sure about yet or which we simply don't know yet.

In short: That calculation of Dembski is as credible as me doing a random calculation of your risk of being hit by lightning, without much knowledge of meteorology or you.

Strong work. What is the probability then?

Originally Posted by Slartibarfas

The point was that a theory of biology has to make a biological prediction. Yours was not of that kind. Your criticism could be applied to every single field of science as the more knowledge we have the more questions we can ask. That does not disqualify the knowledge we already have. And while there are more questions, the picture becomes clearer nonetheless.

I guess I refer back to my link. Practical application trumps predictions in terms of science. Though, for ID to have a practical application it must make some predictions since any application would be founded on the theory's ability to make predictions. I admit I need to read up on it though.

How is evolution proceding in that area?

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

I know some very bad terms very respectable molecular biologists came already up with. That does not discredit their work, nor does it have real implications on the described concept, even if the term is a badly chosen one.

The last part is made up by you and not part of your quote. Actually both findings could be explained with a non-sentient process. If useless parts would not be found, it could be easily explained by heavier selective pressure forcing higher efficiency on the organisms. You don't find any introns in bacterial genomes, do you? Prokaryotes have to keep their genomes much more compact, it is essential for their fitness. Eukaryotes can afford to have genomes less over-optimized because they follow a different strategy of survival than prokaryotes.

Didn't intend to misquote anyone. That said, we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I agreed with Dawkins and co., when they claimed that junk DNA was entirely consistent with non-sentient evolution.

Originally Posted by Prince of Space

They can teach ID in a philosophical classroom setting, not in a science classroom. ID is not a scientific theory.

ID is not philosophy but religion

Originally Posted by Good1

Well, given equivalent amounts of actual evidence ... neither is Evolution.

This is where the creationists lose all credibility. Evolution is a fact of reality, like shadows. The only area of dispute is the mechanisms of evolution. Darwin proposed one, natural selection, and now 6 have been identified.

While the Theory of Shadows may be in dispute there is no disputing the existence of shadows - or evolution.

Originally Posted by Good1

Many believe that is what happened.

But I don't see any evidence of that, either. IF God set evolution in motion, I would prefer to see something about that process mentioned in the Bible, for example. But no source text of any belief system mentions that.

Never studied Buddhism huh? Besides, this is about science not religion. Science is based on evidence. Religion is based on the absence of evidence.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Homology studies are a powerful tool for drawing possible evolution hypothesis (Not only homologies with other enzymes, but also of various bacterial flagellums with each other).

Originally Posted by darth omar

So, you concede there is no evidence of direct Darwinian pathways in the evolution of the flagellum and the like.

What a Strawman reply! Slar said nothing about direct Darwinian pathways.