Stranger on a train, that post (#21) was fantastic. I just printed it.
Can similar arguments be made for the evolution of the universe, or for abiogenesis?
Dawkins is dryer, and definitely more pedantic than either. I like that he gets into the details, but if you’re looking for more of an overview (and don’t want the lyrical prose of Gould) perhaps you could try one of Matt Ridley’s books. Ridley is a journalist, not a researcher, and thus tends to be a little more holistic and not so donnish.
Yeah, that kind of bugged me, too, especially when he makes non-sequitor-ish comparisons between his e-creatures and organisms in the real world. (He points out that some of his e-creatures have features that look like wings, and then subltely claims convergent evolution. Er, no, Richard.) It would have been more interesting if he’d started with a single “species” and allowed it more parameters that replicated evolutionary games; as it was, his example basically demonstrated the process of directed genetic drift rather than selection per se. (I partially developed a more complex application for doing this in Mathematica but never finished it and have since lost the computer that the license was locked to. I have been looking for a project to bone up my Python skills on, though…hmmm.)
Ah, that’s just classic Greek theatre; take you protagonist and let him be yanked around by the gods. Poor Orestes.
Stranger
I’m guessing he’ll know from his family history not to cough up the extra dough for the in-flight meal.
Well, thanks for the kudos from you and everyone else who complemented it. I thought it was actually a little rambling, myself, and would have liked to edit it down to be a bit more concise, but such are the vagaries of posting.
The problem with making any substantive claims about abiogenesis or evolution of the natural world is that we have very little data and no external or objective frame of reference. We can calculate how varying different parameters would modify the physical world, and we can speculate on how likely it is that life could arise with different physical laws, but even knowing what we do (or what we believe we do) about the initial state of the universe doesn’t tell us why those particular parameters came to be at their current values and what might have affected them to adopt this configuration. It is certainly possible that a supernatural, external intelligence came along and set them to be what they are, just as you set the timing and spark plug gap on your car engine; but it is equally likely (which is to say, we have no good estimate of the likelyhood) that this universe is one of infinitely many and the parameters just happened to be such that life, as we know it, could arise, and we could evolve to sitting around and asking these kinds of questions. ID Creationists have latched onto M-Theory as “proof” that, in absense of any natural compulsion to select the parameters that underlie our existance, there must be a god; even if we accept the still highly speculative hypthesized models of M-Theory/superstring/brane theory/whathaveyou, the theories offer no evidence or explaination of the “extraverse”, except in the interactions that cause our universe to exist. Claims of external intelligence are extrapolations of intuition and speculation, not evidence and data, and are about as credible as “theory of mind” philosophies invoke dualistic parallelism.
Ditto for abiogenesis; that we are here only proves that we are here. It says nothing about what caused us to be here, or whether it was deliberate or incidental; arguing that our existance demands a purpose and creator is analogous to turning Descartes’ famous proclamation around and saying, “I am, therefore I think!” There is nothing, other than our ego-centric self-importance that demands us to exist at all; the world has gotten by for billions of years without us, and will continue apace for more billions when we are extinct, unless we manage not to bomb/poison/obivate ourselves out of existance. Certainly, the shark, the elephant, and the bacterium Clostridium botulinum have little use for us. A pigeon might as well assert that some Superavian Deity made mankind in order that they might have statues to crap on. Evidence of independant abiogenesis might bolster the argument that it could happen, but doesn’t establish what did happen.
And lacking, as we do, any significant dataset for either situation, we can’t even begin to make reputable inferences or estimate probabilities. For all we know, Bob’s uncle Lars Goodnumen created the entire universe and life on planet Earth out of a Heathkit as a hobby. But there is absolutely no evidence that indicates that this must be so. It’s nice to thing that the world exists for us, just as every child is morally convince that his parents were made to take care of him, but the objective reality indicates otherwise.
Stranger
Wow, I’m not usually one to fawn, but that has got to be the best posting I’ve ever read in my years on SDMB! Intelligent, insightful, knowledgable, succinct, well-written. And I learned things that I didn’t know which is, after all, the whole purpose of SD.
Is there a “best post of the year” award? I nominate that one!
(Stranger’s posts)= the real reason that we need to reject ID as an equivalent and alternative “theory” to evolution, and to keep it out of the science classes - it’s not based on any evidence. There’s no sense in arguing that it’s a subtle form of god theory (which it is) and has no business in public schools. That’s too open to debate on many levels. The fact is that the most basic of values of science is careful observation in the service of accumulating evidence, and the “We can’t think of any other explanation” justification just doesn’t make it in that realm. Nor does the natural beauty of the world stand as evidence. It’s simply not science, no matter how they cut it.
Interesting thread. And I agree that Stranger’s post is a tour de force.
For my money, the best (or at least most amusing) rebuttal of the weak anthropic principle is a piece written many years ago by Terry Brisson for the now-defunct Omni magazine. Happily, he has posted a copy online.
Well, if we’re going to say that a watch isn’t like a living organism, then we really can’t say that a puddle of water is either. Also, it isn’t true that every part of a watch must be necessary. Many parts of a watch may be ornamental. And with respect to necessary parts, there is a greater metaphysical question depending on which parts are removed. If all the hands are removed, the watch still works, but it’s hard to tell the time. If a critical gear is removed, the watch doesn’t work, but it’s still a watch. But animals do this too. Remove its limbs and it is not ambulatory, but it is still a bear, man, or what-have-you. Remove a critical organ, and it is a dead animal.
The main difference between a watch and a man, as far as this topic is concerned, is that a man is organic while a watch is not. And therein, I think, lies the crux of Stranger’s post. The organic nature of life allows it to do things like grow and replicate. However, it still does not nullify the watch analogy. Analogies are not intended to (and can never) have a perfect one-to-one correspondence with every detail of what they analogize. Even nice sounding metaphors can be torn apart by disregarding the portions of them that are pertinent. For example, to say that a woman is like a rose may be intended as a compliment. But a cynic can point out that you are saying the woman is thorny and has parasites crawling all over her. The cynic is ignoring the point of the analogy.
Thus, the watch analogy does not fail simply because a watch is not organic. Watches were not designed to be organic. The time might likely come (some might say that it already has) when humans can make life in a laboratory. And some might claim that that event will once and forever put to rest the notion that a god is necessary to make life. Unfortunately, it is an equally valid interpretation that the event shows that intelligent intervention can design life. If something is shown to be metaphysically possible, then all that is required for it to be necessary is to show that it cannot be impossible.
So, although Stranger has written a cogent and thoughtful essay, he has not succeeded in rebutting the argument. While it may satisfy those who are predisposed to natural selection over intelligent design, it is no more valid than arguments that pursuade people differently predisposed to the opposite conclusion. The fact is that the question of whether God made man or man made God is not decidable because systems that examine it are either complete and inconsistent or consistent and incomplete. Science should not be addressing the question at all. Stranger says that no god is required so long as there is natural selection, but the contrapositive holds as well — no natural selection is required so long as there is a god.
This is simply not a scientific question
Well this is one way to look at my theory, but not the way I meant it. The life that ‘infects’ our ‘multiverse’ is not based on earth, or a civilization with high tech in a universe, but more like ones that live mainly outside our universe, but has some interaction with it.
[Analogy] The multiverse is like the ocean and the universes are like shipwrecks. A ship can go down in a barren part of the multiverse, but slowly life in the ocean will find it and start making it their home, this life will adapt to the materials in that universe (ship) and be able to use it’s resources and thrive (till the universe is used up, which there will be a mass dieoff).[/Analogy]
The OP seemed to me to be specifically related to the improbability of the chance assembly of a complicated device. I still think the refutation of this argument is that it is not legitimate to use improbability to try to prove that a supernatural source was required for an event that has already happened. Highly improbable events happen all the time.
In addition, I don’t think that any supporter of the theory of evolution claims that humans, or bears or even fleas were created in one stroke. That is the claim of the supernaturalists who shouldn’t be allowed to ascribe it to the theory of evolution. And that theory doesn’t address origins of life but rather deals the reason for a really good match between the environment and the characteristics of the life forms in it.
As someone else pointed out the requirements for life as we know it are an original, reproducing molecule; imperfect reproduction; a filter in the form of natural selection to eliminate the really bad choices; varying environments; and lots of time.
Intelligent Design merely postulates an Intelligent Designer on the grounds that its proponents can’t imagine how things could have come about otherwise.
And that, folks, is why it has no place being included in the curriculum as one, which is what ID-ers seek.
Ah… semantics: “as a science.” Awareness of ID should be taught. Otherwise we have a condition where everyone is burning books – the athiests try to obliterate all mention of ID, and the funamentalists try to obliterate “Tom Sawyer”, and meanwhile I just get pissed off at both of you because now I don’t have anything left to read. 
Okay, before you quote me out of context let me fill in some of the context: I have no idea how ID is taught in schools. My public high school taught Religions of World but not in an indoctrinating manner. We were taught evolution in science class and told that we could maintain our personal beliefs but knowledge of evolution was still fundamental to the world. So, really, I just assume that ID is taught in a neutral manner to avoid Constitutional challenges. Isn’t this true? I’d really like to see a course syllabus or an actual, taught course (i.e., not some ID propoganda on the internet). Note that I’m not proposing equal time, and the teaching of it as a science is bull plop. So what am I missing in this “ID in the schools” debate?
Let me be clear: I’m not saying that ID should not be taught in a science class. What should not be taught in a science class is that no god is necessary to account for species, a claim made by Stranger. Evolution and natural selection imply nothing about God whatsoever, neither affirmative or negative.
That is factually incorrect. You are asserting that their claim is epistemic when it is really alethic. They aren’t saying that there is irreducible complexity for all we know; they are saying that there is irreducible complexity because it is logically necessary.
It should be noted that natural selection is not just a negative filter; it is the primary creative force of evolution. Just as “really bad choices” are filtered out, the “really good choices” prosper and become commmonplace. If NS were simply a killer, then everything not detrimental would be, at best, neutral, and the “really good ideas” would have as much chance to prosper as the “so-so ideas”.
I respectfully disagree. Science only should be taught in science classes. We should, and we do, teach what we believe to be true based upon centuries of observation and experimentation. And, we teach what you might call “sciencism,” the processes whereby truth and understanding are sought. We “do” science. We do not discuss all the possible alternative views, except in regards to testable hypotheses. That could be a never-ending series of events. “Why did the plants die over the weekend? Maybe aliens came and killed them. How can we find out?” Nah, ID and UFO’s and alien abduction and tarot belong in a class in which people examine beliefs. Maybe a decent social studies class could spend some time with that. Doesn’t belong in science. Certainly not before high school, for sure. Now, maybe a decent, progressive high school could institute a course in world beliefs through history that included an examination of religions and other belief systems. That could be of spectacular benefit. Still, ID doesn’t belong in a science class. After all, when we discuss gravity, we say that we don’t really understand all that well WHY things are drawn to each other. But we also don’t say, “It’s just god’s will.”
I respectfully disagree that we disagree. I said, “…and the teaching of it as a science is bull plop[.]” So I think we do agree, except about disagreeing.
I’m curious, still, as to how it is being taught in places where it is being taught.
The difference between the analogies is that the image of a puddle (figurately) wondering in amazement at how well the ground fits to it is intended to be illustrative, whereas the attempt at congruency of a watch to an organism is used in inductive fashion. With the former, the great mass of observation of the natural world and examination of both the fossile record and the genomes of existant and (when available) extinct species gives us sufficent and just reason to find for the adaptation of organisms to the system in which they live, rather than being placed in an environment built specially for them. This is not a trivial point; it was (among the European intellectuals, and similarly found among other cultures), prior to the emergence of the theory of natural selection, the general assumption that the world was formed in perfection and all creatures fit into their niches by design, as an expression of some master plan of a Higher Power or Great Designer or some descriptor otherwise expressed in capitalized form, and much effort was placed into trying to discern “God’s Plan” from the chaos of nature and often vicious reality of competitive life. The discovery that “forms”–organisms–change in response to unplanned, external parameters, and in ways that were expressed purely by the modification of existing phenotypes over evolutionary periods (rather than by acquired characteristics, as suggested by Lamarck) was an revolutionary overturning of the existing paradigm, even for those who accepted the principle of evolution.
The “blind watchmaker” claim, however, relies upon a comparison between an definitionaly manufactured thing and a free organism. It reasons–in present, but not permenant, absentia of compelling evidence to the contrary–that a complex organism has no means to exist other than by the hand of some creative intelligence, and thus, there must be some Creator. In this way it seeks to adorn itself in the habiliment of science, and by co-opting the nomenclature it attempts to grant itself an equal measure of validity. But the problem is that it offers no predictions or falsifiable claims; it cannot, ultimately, be disproven (as you astutely note below), and thus is not a science.
This is true as far as it goes; certainly, everything we could percieve as being a result of natural selection could, in fact, be the result of a Manipulative Hand which operates in a way that is indistinguishable from the natural effect of game theory, so much so that even among staunch proponents of evolutionary science and natural selection often find themselves speaking in the terminology of volition (selfish genes, positive mutations, “higher” organisms) in order to render the obscure language of the economics of selection into the vernacular of everyday speach.
But such an argument leaves me unfulfilled and disconcerted in the same way that the argument for dualistic parallelism as a theory of consciousness does. (In parallelism, the mind is asserted to be discoporeal and seperate from the neurophysiology of the brain; physical events of the brain that correspond to psychological phenomena are coincidental and entirely behaviorial and mechanistic. The fact that the events can be correlated one-to-one is held to be coincidental; the mind merely observes while the brain goes through automatic reactions that control the physique.) Certainly, the game could be rigged; every step of the way either actively controlled or in step with a preordained plan, yet giving the illusion of being under the aegis of a purely environmental selective process. But why? In what value to a god would there be such a system, and furthermore, how would one accepted the “God of the Gaps”, the controller behind the scenes, over a rationalist, if necessisarily incomplete explaination of physical events, including the complex interactions relating to the sustention of life?
Therein lies the distinction between science and faith; not that either are entirely incompatible with the other as part of a holistic philosophy of the natural world, but at some point one stops and the other must end. Science looks externally for answers, admitting a gulf of knowledge but always seeking, however improbably, to bridge the gap. Faith offers, in some way, a solution to the abyss; the solution is not one of completeness, though, but rather abandonment of the chase, an acknowledgement that there are some places one cannot (and often, should not) go. In return, it gives the claim of fulfillment, the offer, in willing blindness to the fundamental nature of the world, of being part of a master plan, the stratagem of a being who is, if not necessarily benevolent or compasionate, is at least all-knowning and wise beyond measure; and many modern systems of faith offer, in addition, a taste of the supernatural, an existance beyond the void of dissolusion and, perhaps, a glimpse at the blueprint of the universe. But these are promises held up by the foundation of abstract faith, demanding adherence without ultimately measurable or falsifiable claims.
Certainly, there are, and will probably always be, an incompleteness regarding our knowledge and understanding of the natural world. (We most certainly hope so; how boring it would be merely to read the catalog of information without any hope of adding one’s own observations and revelations to it.) But this lack does not follow through to the necessity of an Intelligent Designer, a region of expression forbidden to all but the supernatural. Countless times in our history, events have been ascribed to a god, or deity, or some form of unreachable potential, and yet, time and time again, we’ve been able, after observation, hypothosization, falsification, validation, and refinement, to come to an explaination that requires only the forces of nature and the logic of probability. To argue (as proponents of Intelligent Design must) that a present void of knowedge qualifies not only for the possibility but inevitiability of a Creative Intellect is a leap of logic, a waving of the hands. A lack of understanding explaination does not follow to the necessity of supernatural intervention.
This does not deny faith; as has been stated, one may choose to hold faith in whatever is felt necessary, even in phenomena that are otherwise adequately explained in purely mechanical terms. But such faith is a opting in lieu of a willingness to further investigate or speculate, not an incontravertible result of the unknown.
As for why (IMHO) ID should not be taught in a science class, or indeed, in any context other than as a religious (or at least “faith-based”) philosophy; I am (surprisingly, given my personal philosophy) somewhat less concerned than many regarding the teaching of religion in school. It can be, by looking at the ranks of alumni of Catholic schools (certainly, collectively the most dogmatic of institutions for the inculcation of religious faith), seen that such enforced doctrine is less than perfectly affective and often counterproductive. I am more concerned, however, with the continued dissolution in the education of science as a way of examining the world with an open mind. Already, science education is becoming increasingly dogmatic itself, more concerned with presenting facts and figures than philosophies and modes of approach. How many biology or biochemistry undergraduate programs offer more than even the briefest coverage of the history of their field? Few, I’ll wager, have ready The Origin of Species or The Descent of Man, or even the rollicking and pleasureable The Voyage of the Beagle, not to mention Darwin’s “lesser works”, as a requirement of curriculum. I know that in the physics education the coverage of legacy is limited to brief bios of only the most commonly-known names: Einstein (E=mc[sup]2[/sup]), Bohr (electrons), Curie (er, radium…and…stuff), Heisenberg (hey, uncertainty principle, right?), et cetera. Science is much more than data, or even theories, but a way of approaching the world with an inquisitive mind and a willingness to accept data without torturing it to fit preconceptions.
Adding Intelligent Design, a theistic and decidedly nonscientific approach to knoweldge, to the curriculum of evolutionary biology serves no purpose other than to draw away from the methods by which we have come to integrate, and thereby more fully understand and predict, knowedge of the natural world. As an argument in competition with natural selection, it is a blank wall, a veil behind which one cannot peer (despite the fact that many of the supposedly inviolate claims of ID have been adequately addressed by natural phenomena). It stiffles, rather than contributes to, debate on how things came to be the way they are; it offers the comfort of an ordered universe overseen by a wise-beyond-knoweldge intelligence but at the cost of relinquishing curiosity and examination. It is not, fundamentally, disprovable; but it is ultimately as unsatisfying as a wooden apple. I’ll admit to ignorance, and strive for the hope of further understanding, rather than to accept the notion that “there are things we cannot know,” any day. Even a Thursday.
Stranger
The watch is analogous to a supposedly designed lifeform; the puddle isn’t a counter-analogy, but rather, an analogy about something else - the possibly flawed perceptions of the observer. It doesn’t matter that the puddle is not a living organism; the necessary property of the puddle is that it conforms to the shape of its container.