Two random thoughts that popped into my fever-addled brain over the course of today:
1. The more I read about intelligent design, the more it strikes me as a philosophical than a scientific position. Would it be possible to achieve some kind of compromise that would involve it being taught within the context of a philosophy class? One of the things I've long regarded as a deficiency in the public high school (Wayne Simien Leavenworth High School) that I attended was that I had to pick up my knowledge of philosophy from self-study since there were no courses available on the topic. If we could get philosophy actively being taught again amongst high schoolers, I'd consider that a net gain regardless of what else came out of it.
2. Despite my own long-winded nature, I hope the Iraqis who are writing the constitution are remembering amidst all the debate to keep the document brief and understandable. I have a pet theory that the success of constitutions are determinant to how long and understandable they are, with a perfect example of the inverse being the infamously long EU constitution, which reads like a section of the tax code.
Thoughts, anyone?
I've been worried about that aspect of the constitution too. There are some things you want at constitution to be very, very clear on (e.g. property rights, freedom of speech, etc), but for a constitution to be robust there's a lot that should really be left out. The problem with the EU constitution is that it specifies everything from environmental policy to tax policy and so on without leaving any significant wiggle room for adjustments on the fly. In general the best way to plan for the future is to settle on a few core goals and operating principles and make the rest up as you go along, and that principle applies as much to nations as it does to people.
Norm Geras' site has a very good summation and analysis I've seen of the Iraqi constitutional wranglings as seen from close up. Have a look.
The longer the constitution, the shorter it will last.
As for intelligent design, I doubt that as presently constituted humans are capable of recognizing intelligence. Our limited capacities preclude that.
Yes yes yes to teaching philosophy at HS level. I would speculate that it is avoided because it raises fundimental questions about human existance that could cause much vexation to school disticts from a broad spectrum of interest groups. That said youngsters naturally ask basic questions about life and a survey of philosophical thinking has the potential to engage their natural curiousity. The only philosophic discussions most HS students I know engage in are those associated with bull sessions among friends. Therefore, I believe to be sucessful such a course would have to engage student's natural sense of wonder and curuiosity. It would be very easy to make it boring. I actually read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance out loud to my son when he was 12, constantly engaging in philosophical discussion as a way of introducing philosophic thought to him. We had a ball. It worked - he is 36 now and philosophic thought still has a place in his life.
Yes. Constitutions are about basic principles, not policy. Couldn't agree more. I think most constitutions have some grey areas like ours prohibiting the forced quartering of troops in private homes in reaction to British abuse. In retrospect a law passed by Congress might have been all that was needed.
Hmmm...
Philosophy is all about "the great metaquestions", the questions about logis and discourse, rhetoric and difference itself.
Of course, the greatest metaquestion of all is, "why are humans predisposed to invent deities to explain that which they do not know or accept?"
Devil's Postpiles (use google/images) - found at a hundred or more places on the earth, have universally been described in the language of deities' playthings. Some god or another is responsible for that entirely unnatural hexagonal structure. Some god must be. How else to explain it? Straight lines, geometric curves and patterns inanimate pique the imagination to wonder why?. Sagacity steps into the breech and riffs plausible mythos to entertain and placate the masses. Does not science (meta) seem to have trussed this career-path up entirely?
Therein is the philosophic order of the day.
Intelligent Design? I'm sure its up there with the devil being behind the postpiles. The Romans and Greeks had a better view, maybe: there are so many damn fool gods and goddesses that most anything can be described as godly inspired and predisposed. So toss another coin into the pond, believer!
Teach philosophy I say: at its worst, it cannot skirt around the demand for introspection, eye-opening discovery and the derivation that in the end, science IS philosophy - taken to its analytic natural endpoint. Mighty fine result. ID is relegated to the Land o' Sci Fi.
goatguy
Regarding constitutions. Yes, smaller is better. MY high school had some VERY good teachers, including the (sort of substitute--long story) teacher who observed that, looking at US State constitutions, the longer it was the more amendments it needed. The long one then (20-mumble years ago) was Louisiana's constitution which had required some 100+ (or was it even 200+) amendments.
In my view, constitutions have two purposes. 1. Define the roles and powers of various government entities and how offices in those entities are filled. 2. Set out the rights of the people (or ordinary individuals) which the above-mentioned powers might tread upon.
If you look closely at the US constitution, it does not even entirely define how all offices are filled and leaves some things up to the states or to Congress to write laws to fill things in. (Note, we need Congress to pass a law defining how it will re-constitute itself (esp. the Senate) in the event of a catastrophic loss of its members preventing a quorum.
I really think that we Americans undersell our Constitutional experience. We've basically had 50 states for 100 years. That's 5000 combined years of experience!! Then add in the fact that 13 colonies were around (with Constitutions) since before the Revolutionary war (230 years ago) and it probably adds up to a total of 8-9 millienia!! And although Jay Leno once joked that the Iraqi's could have ours since we aren't using it any more, it's worked pretty darn well.
As for "Intelligent Design," it's an interesting idea that wouldn't have as much currency if the stinkin' Darwinists had shown some humility in touting the explanatory power of their theory. Part of science is telling people the limitations of your knowledge. The Darwinists act like that doesn't apply to them. Now someone's come along with what appears to be a reasonable, objective test for separating "designed" artifacts from "not-designed". My (admittedly childish) reaction to the aggrieved Darwinists is, "Oh, boo hoo."
The main part of my rough definition of science (after a brief study of the Philosophy of Science FWIW :-) is: "The knowledge gained by and the process of following the scientific method, which is: 1) Observing the world around you, 2) forming hypotheses about those observations, and 3) testing those hypotheses with experiments. As experiments are repeated and hypotheses are built upon, the hypotheses become theories and eventually 'laws.'"
Of course, how do you test "Intelligent Design" theory with an experiment? Or, for that matter, anything more than the most trivial sorts of "evolution," or much of anything from cosmology?
In any case, I expect the challenge from the Intelligent Design folks will stir things up enough among evolutionary biologists that we should see some real good science come out. I look forward to "watching the feathers fly!"
I strongly agree, teach Philosophy in High School. I would go one step further: Allow Philosophy to be the ground upon which all other curricula are introduced.
Philosophy is greatly implicit in all disciplines currently being taught, in any case, just not articulated. And sadly, the philosophical ground is too frequently a dailectic materialism. There are base assumptions that are inherent in almost everything being taught, and these assumptions construct all kinds of moral and ethical relativity without being introduced or explained to the student.
Efforts to open up standard canons to multiculturalism and diversity have had as a drawback the loss of civics, ethics, and moral frameworks, all of which depend upon some root philosophy. This has been too great a cost, and we see the results all around us. Younger people today, especially the more affluent or educated they are, possess no sense of transcendance, no referant outside of their own existence, let alone any sense of the Divine.
That expresses a philosophy, but not one very intelliectually robust.
As to the Iraqi Constitution, portions of the draft being circulated certainly seems to pass the test for brevity, and I think it appears to mirror the purposeful lack of specificity in areas where legislation and cultural negotiation are critical in conducting civil affairs.
- Is robust enough to put down the insurgency in a reasonable timeframe (with U. S. help).
- Doesn't invite invasion from its neighbors.
- Is perceived as legitimate by a consensus of the Iraqi people.
- Has greater safeguards for the rights of the Iraqis than is the norm in the Middle East.
The process is at least as important as the product since that what helps to build the consensus.What I find interesting in the ID/Evo debate is that one point is little mentioned. If you believe in creationism, then you should believe that Man is in the final form; this is it; this is as good as we get. If you believe in evolution, then there are still likely many changes to come as we continue to adapt to ever changing environments. So in ID, are we done or not? If man is created in the God's image, is this it, or is there still some ID to go through before we get there? (I know I could use some design upgrades.)
I like the idea that this is a philosophical discussion. That gives more room to contemplate why. Let science cover the how.
Science and philosophy aren't different. What goes as "science" is actually just another philosophy pretending it's not. Why? Because its first principles and metaphysics cannot be confirmed nor denied by its method.
I think what ID people are questioning is the artificial barrier between "science" and "philosophy".
Personally I'm neither for nor against ID. I believe in God but I don't believe that God and evolution are incompatible.
Tying the two threads together, is the incredible complexity and perversity of the European Constitution actually one of those gaps that indicate that it was designed by the Devil, or at least by a being who loves to stir up trouble?
I'm all for teaching philosophy in high school. As long as Popper and Kuhn are on the syllabus.
"Science and philosophy aren't different. What goes as "science" is actually just another philosophy pretending it's not."
Funny, i dont recall Stoicism getting a rocket to fly, or Nieche curing Polio, or Buddhism splitting the atom. Maybe science and philosophy are different after all.
"Why? Because its first principles and metaphysics cannot be confirmed nor denied by its method."
Science is a tool. Philosophy is a debate. That is the difference. Science makes exactly one assumption, that the universe is coherant. Philosophy relies on assumption at all levels. The assumptions change, are debunked, tauted, denied, revised. Thats what makes it a debate.
"I think what ID people are questioning is the artificial barrier between "science" and "philosophy". "
The ID people are unhappy with the results of science and hence are trying to unhinge the underpinnings, which is dangerous and shortsighted. Ironically for supposed people of faith they cant stand to have their faith challenged.
As was said -
1) Observing the world around you, 2) forming hypotheses about those observations, and 3) testing those hypotheses with experiments. As experiments are repeated and hypotheses are built upon, the hypotheses become theories and eventually 'laws.'"
I think we can all agree that there is a ton of evidence that evolution from lower forms exists, there is simply a ton of evidence for it. "Intelligent Design" grants this, right?
Evolution theory rests on two principles -
a. Natural selection
b. Genetic drift
or the units of evolution (genes) with the mechanics of evolution (selection)
I've always wondered about the "law" of natural selection. "Natural selection is a process by which biological populations are altered over time, as a result of the propagation of heritable traits that affect the capacity of individual organisms to survive and reproduce."
Well, yes - but I have always wondered how you can tell whether this is a "law", rather than just "post hoc ergo propter hoc". Just because two objects or two events correlate does not mean that one has actually caused the other. Sometimes I feel that natural selection is just another way to say "that which survives, has survived".
Which has little predictive value.
Now the idea of mutation has value - mutations happen all the time, and happen in a regular and recurring frequency.
But that "natural selection" idea. How is that science, rather than an assertion?
I know that there are biologists who believe in ID, having read Michael Behe's pro-ID book Darwin's Black Box, and having seen various postings on the web. After >20 years in the profession, I have yet to meet one in person (that I know of). Seen from the perspectives of most biologists, ID and creationism are ideas that aren't useful and have no predictive power. This is in marked contrast to evolutionary theory.
As a corollary, a number of biotechnology companies have based their R&D and business strategies on implementing directed evolution in various ingenious ways (example: Diversa in San Diego). I'd be interested if any ID proponents can point to analogous marketplace tests of that idea; I don't know of any.
I don't offer this as proof of ID's falsity. (ID can't be proven wrong; for all I know, some variant of it is, indeed, true.) It's more along the lines of one more data point for skeptically-inclined readers to consider.
Like Dan Darling, I would be in favor of teaching ID in school, as long as it's not in a science class. The challenge is that ID advocates explicitly present it as a scientific theory. If ID is considered in the context of Philosophy of Science (e.g. Karl Popper's writings), most reasonable people will conclude that this particular ID claim is falsifiable, and false. Somehow, I doubt that this outcome will please the folks that are pushing to have ID emplaced as an acceptable scientific explanation of the Earth's natural history.
[JC, "natural selection" is quite consistent with Popper's ideas as described in Wikipedia. Even ID advocates concede that it has operated throughout history, and operates today. They dispute that it, or any non-miraculous mechanism, can account for structures that they deem to be "irreducibly complex."]
JC, i dont believe i've ever heard Natural Selection descibed as a law. I believe it is properly referred to as The Theory of Natural Selection.
Certain causality is quite a messy subject in science. Thats why prediction is the key to the scientific method, and we have seen over and over again the predictive power of natural selection. It overwhelms probability. You can perform the same tests on fruit flies over and over and over and at some point you have to agree something is happening via some mechanism, and narrow down the mechanism, etc.
Now certainly we may have the wrong method identified, and if so at any time some young buck can figure it out, provide inescapable data, win a nobel prize, and rewrite every biology book in the world. But until then natural selection is the theory that works and provides results.
The comments on this post pretty much sum up to me why we SHOULDN'T teach philosophy in highschool: Not because the subject is unworthy, but because the teachers would be.
What kind of person would we have teach philosophy? There is no way that someone with any kind of religious background would be allowed to teach it, no Catholic Thomists or Protestant Calvinists... so who does that leave? Some smug atheist? Some guy who will sit up there pontificating, and telling the kids, "Your parents are all fools!"
If he were at all a dynamic teacher, it would be very difficult for him to avoid stepping on any toes. But if he avoid stepping on everyone's toes, the philosophy class would be useless, or worse, would turn kids off of philosophical inquiry altogether.
Ideas have consequences, and bad philosophy can actually ruin someone's life. Were I a parent, I would hate to have my children taught philososphy by someone who didn't share the same world-view as me.
Re Constitution
From what I saw of the earlier draft of the Iraqi bill of rights, it is a civil law constitution. So, it will not compare favorably with the U.S. Constitution in terms of breadth. Lowell referenced the Louisiana Constitution as long and frequently amended. Louisiana is a mixed common law/ civil law jurisdiction.
Lowell makes an important point -- the "rights" are are only one part of the Constitution. The less sexy procedural stuff is likely to be more important.
You should not invoke God in a scientific discussion, not because God does not exist but because God cannot be in a controlled experiment for obvious reasons. But, you can test a hypothesis that something is random. I have a proof that the chance of the 30 or so parameters of the physical can satisfy the Hawking condition is vanishingly small. Many PhD's in Math have reviewed it. That is something that should be discussed. This is purely scientific and is a proof that randomness may be false.
bob foote
Seeing as how a constitution is a very basic agreed-upon defining of government's role, in general, the simpler and more direct, the better. Legislatures can then pass laws (or not) within that framework.
Sort of like, the more colorful the uniforms, the less effective the military.
Ben is on the right track. We should teach philosophy (before high school, actually), but we're already so desperately divided that I don't see any possibility of agreeing on a curriculum.
To just take one aspect of the debates swirling around evolution/ID: on one side you find people who reject the notion that there is a difference between "how" and "why;" who assume that if you have an explanation of evolutionary procedure for developing some capability you must not attempt to look for purpose or meaning. On the other you find people who want to know "why" as well as "how." I'm not sure how you teach about that without infuriating somebody's parents.
BTW, just saying that God created something doesn't tell you "why" either: it just means there was some reason, which may have nothing to do with you or even be understandable by you.
#13:
Yes, but what "data" is valid? Christians might say that God incarnated as Jesus Christ and he actually came and taught us that God exists and therefore it is not unacceptable to say "God did X" in pointing to truth and reality.
But of course, that's bullshit (or so most evolutionists say)! Of course that didn't happen, that's silly supersition! That can't happen! "Science" claims to be a 'perfect' philosophy, (re: Descartes) that is capable of completely and accurately describing ultimate reality, aka Truth.
In light of the fact that God doesn't exist and religion is stupid, what kind of data counts? Well, since we can't use revealed religion as data (because it's not true) we have to propose that human beings were not intelligently designed but produced through blind chance. Problem is, that's philosophy.
I'm sure people get what I'm on about, I don't mean to change any minds here I know that's not going to happen. I just want to state my case.
Amac, Mark,
What is "natural selection" predicting? Could you please flesh this out a bit more?
IBM was incorporated in 1911. Let's change the text describing natural selection from the Wikipedia (given above in 1st comment).
"Natural selection is a process by which corporations [biological populations] are altered over time, as a result of the propagation of business traits (execution, vision, speed to market) [heritable traits] that affect the capacity of the corporation [individual organisms] to survive [and reproduce].
Amac I have no problem with "natural selection" as a concept, but all such explanations of how natural selection has worked in the environment are after-the-fact, right - like my "natural selection" explanation for IBM's survival?
Forgive my stupidity, perhaps you can help me out here.
Science will continue to make incredible advances in unearthing fossil records, in mapping the genetic code, etc. But, to my stupidity, it seems to me that the principle of "natural selection" isn't saying much, apart from the obvious.
Here's a link to a relevant article in today's NYT, Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science (it will go bad after a few weeks). Part of an ongoing series on evolution.
Matthew Schrank #22:
Sorry, your point's not clear. Disputing accounts of Jesus' life has little to do with mainstream evolutionary theory. On "In light of the fact that God doesn't exist and religion is stupid": see the above NYT article. Many biologists do make such claims. Others see things quite differently; visit Ken Miller's website for an example.
As we keep re-learning, expert opinion is more valuable than lay opinion only when a person is offering judgements about things that are within his or her area of expertise. Pronouncements by celebrities, biologists, and celebrity biologists on the Falsity of Religious Belief (etc.) should be read with this caveat in mind.
JC #23:
The IBM analogy doesn't help me think about natural selection, so I can't use it. The concept of natural selection was very controversial in Darwin's time, because the conventional wisdom was that the essences of biological entities were fixed, not changeable. Darwin and Lamarck proposed different mechanisms for explaining how change might come about; Darwin's explanation (natural selection) is so powerful that it is now the conventional wisdom (though we now know that it's not the complete explanation).
It may be that natural selection is so obvious to many modern, educated people that we see it as trivial. A comprehensive, genetics-based explanation would take too much time and bandwidth, but the web excels at tasks like that. These two of Google's top picks are very good.
"Science will continue to make incredible advances in unearthing fossil records, in mapping the genetic code, etc. But, to my stupidity, it seems to me that the principle of "natural selection" isn't saying much, apart from the obvious."
Well, sometimes it takes true genius to point out the stunningly obvious. Newton's laws of gravitation being case in point (and the Onion's take on the 'Intelligent Falling' theory notwithstanding).
Yes, natural selection gives conclusions that are perfectly obvious to us, but its important to understand that the ramifications of these conclusions over vast amounts of times are stunning. Moreover, when first presented they completely flipped out people's worldview, more than even the heliocentric galaxy or round earth flipped people out at the time. To us its old hat (aside from the biological 'flat-earthers' still trying to insist God planted the dinosaur bones 10,000 years ago), but massive shifts in human beliefs ring for centuries. We still obsess about Galileo and Columbus.
Don't expect anything as brilliant as the American Constitution from Iraq. America was lucky that the Federal Government was established with its. In Iraq very probably politicians are sharing out their influence areas in the already built government. It is not catastrophic, it have worked in other countries, but it is far away from what it should be. Constitutions must not be written by politicians, especially if they don't really care for whole country.
Sigh.
These responses aren't helping me, with this whole ID thing.
"Natural Selection" doesn't invalidate Intelligent Design - on an interpretive philosophical level - would that be right?
For example, take a sci-fi future possibility. Let's say that in 300 years, humanity has mapped the genetic code. Then - knowing this genetic code - we start to consciously engineer various species. Say - we want to create humans who can fly - or birds that have a larger brain. After many failed experiments (perhaps thousands of deaths) we do so, to the point where these intelligent birds are now existing.
Then say a nuclear holocaust wipes out all civilization - technology is lost, history is lost, etc, etc - pick your dystopia. But this intelligent bird survives, and is thrown back to the stone age.
In another 4000 years, this intelligent bird has scientists, and these scientists postulate that "natural selection" created their own intelligence (or whatever trait that human scientist create 200 years from now).
How is this arguable, if all records are lost? How would the bird scientists "know" that we human scientists engineered "them", rather than random processes engineered them?
Conversely, how do we know that a benevolent (or malevolent) alien race didn't "seed" the DNA of this planet, back for these "wondrous" coming together of traits - like the eye, wings, or like hemoglobin, etc, etc? Could this benevolent/malevolent race be responsible for "punctuated" periods of evolution?
Is it as simple as:
a. in lab experiments we have only seen random mutation in alleles of genes
b. We have a fossil record that shows progression in species on a morphological, and DNA level.
Given a and b above, we make the leap that ALL evolution has happened this way - although we don't have a proof, or a real example (time scales too large) of how really complicated physiological functioning can be created randomly.
But we can't go further than the evidence."
"Given a and b above, we make the leap that ALL evolution has happened this way - although we don't have a proof, or a real example (time scales too large) of how really complicated physiological functioning can be created randomly. "
Well, no-one has proposed a coherant scientific theory to the contrary. Right now evolution works, and until something comes along that is equal or more successful it wont be surplanted. But if and when it does it will be, that the way of science.
You can look at Relativity and note that there is a huge problem because it doesnt work on the quantum level. Does that mean the Theory of Relativity is no more useful or 'true' than any superstision or philosophical idea? Of course not, its simply incomplete. It will be replaced, but almost certainly not rendered completely invalid. It will be part of a larger picture we dont yet understand.
The problem with Creationists is that they make the argument that because evolution isnt perfect than it isnt correct in its essentials and hence is no more valid than anything else you want to throw at the wall. You are right, evolution is not a perfect theory, but it works well with the evidence we have and the experiments we can produce. There may be more to it, but that doesnt render it invalid.
If I may chime in, this is one of the better discussions that I've seen on this issue. Most degenerate quickly into banal spitting matches.
I'm an evangelical Christian, and firmly believe in Creation, but I'm not sold that God didn't use evolution to bring about the current state.
Those who use the "man made in God's image" mantra should realize that the Bible is referring to the spiritual state of man, not the physical appearance.
That being said, I would be happy to compromise on school science curriculum. If you think that ID doesn't belong in the text books, then make sure that the discussion on evolution spends adequate time on the fact that it's a theory and all the problems that theory has considering all the hard science of the last 20 years, including re-evaluations of neandrathal man and DNA research applied to fossiles and how it supports AND contradicts the theory of evolution.
People aren't noticing, but evolution is becoming the swiss cheese of scientific theories.
Also, while it's correct that conducting experiments in order to prove ID proves elusive, there are some that could be run. Has anyone actually observed a species change from one to another, say with fruit flies? My impression from all I've read is that the characteristics of the flies changed, but that the essence of the species didn't. Could you conduct an experiment, isolating two strains of fly, and breed them with different characteristics add-nausium, until a period predicted by the evolutionary model. If the two isolated colonies are essentially the same and can still viably breed, then that would support Creationism, wouldn't it?
Anyone think of another one?
JC #27,
What Mark said (#28). Also consider that sciences with large historical components (evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology) have problems in addition to the ones faced by disciplines that can be fully addressed by experimental means (molecular biology, chemistry, particle physics). In the latter cases, we can run an experiment, then evaluate, re-interpret or refine, and re-run.
Evolution ran once; we have to make sense of the records we have, and (absent a time machine) can't run the experiment again.
Your intelligent bird analogy is fine; I could similarly come up with an Intelligent Rockdesign (IR) explanation that accounts for the sedimentary formations of western New England, including the Taconic Overthrust (older layers atop younger ones!). However, others have thought about processes that are observably at work today, such as plate tectonics and erosion. Calculations show that the results of these ordinary phenomena provide a satisfactory explanation of the rock record.
There is no IR movement because there's no powerful group in modern Western society that insists that supernatural events must provide (part of) the explanation of the stratigraphy we can observe today.
But Science doesn't rule out the Truth of ID, IR, and sci-fi explanations of human origins (e.g. Ursula Le Guin's Colonizers). We can, however, point out that these beliefs:
* are not falsifiable, and are thus not scientific;
* fail to make predictions, and are thus not useful;
* do not need to be invoked, as known natural processes appear to be sufficient to account for what we observe today.
Richard #29:
I'll politely disagree on your comparison of evolutionary theory and swiss cheese. As I asked earlier, if the Modern Synthesis is so crummy, then how come industrial processes explicitly engineered on evolutionary principals are succeeding? See the Diversa website for one set of examples.
And as you point out, most reasonable readings of most Scriptures neither demand nor rule-out natural selection and other evolutionary processes. (Though the orthodox Marxist-Leninism of the '30s and '40s produced Lysenkoism to negate Darwin's theory.)
Your fruit-fly question is intriguing; I have some correspondence with Drosophila geneticists addressing this point (great minds??). They see it as settled, but the arguments are subtle and technical; I've been repeatedly referred to a recent book on speciation as necessary background. I'll post my thoughts once I've read the book, if there's interest.
"People aren't noticing, but evolution is becoming the swiss cheese of scientific theories."
This is simply not true. There is no disagreement in the scientific community to speak of. Some guys in a lab in Japan just made light do some tricks to travel faster (and slower) than the speed of light. Relativity is not 'swiss cheese' either, but I that is just the type of thing ill informed creationists would point to if it was a biological science.
'If you think that ID doesn't belong in the text books, then make sure that the discussion on evolution spends adequate time on the fact that it's a theory and all the problems that theory has considering all the hard science of the last 20 years, including re-evaluations of neandrathal man and DNA research applied to fossiles and how it supports AND contradicts the theory of evolution.'
I agree, with this part, that there are places in the genetic/fossil record that are complicated, and possibly indecipherable. However, this is not the death blow. There is so much information in favor of evolution that it would be foolish to throw it away (like commiting suicide over a broken toe-nail.) Of course the discrpencies should be taught, and in the end I think this would only highten students understanding of the complexity in science and scientific research.
The biggest problem is that evolution is a theory, and will never be a law. No matter what else is uncovered, the birth of life will avoid any theory because it will never be witnessed (unless of course, if God comes down and gives us his lab notes). This would also be the most difficult part for science to explain: How do you go from free floating chemicals to basic proteins that replicate themselves to a cellular organism? People could create vague theories, but in the end that's all we'll have. As there is no proof that God made these changes either, I think this point go to a stalemate.
There was an intereasting story in a sci-fi book called 'Hyperion' where a priest is searching the stars for other species that beleive in the christian god. On a planet he finds a cross-shaped speices. Is this a sign from God, or mere chance? I don't remember it going into much philosphy, but it was an intereasting idea that this argument will continue as long as man is alive.
Finally, I think philosphy (and maybe ID theory) could be taught in schools (but not as a science) but it would have to be taught by a teacher of extroadinary ability to connect different ideas and viewpoints into a reasonable discussion. I would design something called 'modern life' that delves into all these fascinating, complicated discussions we waste our time on in blogs. Isn't critical thinking what school was supposed to be for in the first place?
AMac: Seen from the perspectives of most biologists, ID and creationism are ideas that aren't useful and have no predictive power. This is in marked contrast to evolutionary theory.
But if that's what is being compared, then the contrast is not marked at all. Evolutionary theory has no predictive power either - unlike the Theory of Relativity, for example, which can predict all kinds of observable phenomena. Evolutionary theory rules by means of its explanatory alone, and the rivals (creationism, panspermia, etc.) challenge it on that same grounds, by proposing alternative "explanations".
None of these theories can tell us what future organisms will look like, other than by pure speculation.
And nobody can answer these questions to my satisfaction:
1. Which came first, the virus or the cell?
2. Why are there no mammals with green fur? There should be some green mammals.
3. Why is chlorophyll green? It seems obvious to me that it ought to be black.
4. Chlorophyll used to be teal colored. At some point, they switched over to bright green. If the stuff has to be green, why not a nice hunter green that absorbs more solar energy? Once again, somebody made a marketing decision without consulting the engineers.
Actually, I would echo - with a modification - of Glen's statement:
"Evolutionary theory has no predictive power either - unlike the Theory of Relativity, for example, which can predict all kinds of observable phenomena"
What IS the predictive power of evolutionary theory? Amac, I took a look at the two links, and it described the mutation rate expected, regarding responding to various diseases - and how a certain gene has resistance, and yet recessive genes that show up are vulnerable.
But again I want to point out there is a gap between these small-bore tagging, and observations of what certain genes do on a random basis - and extrapolating from this to "evolution is random".
And again, there isn't "predictive power" to natural selection, as it assumes its own argument.
By the way, for myself, I'm not coming from a Christian Creationism view, personally. I fully embrace the evidence track of evolution. I fully embrace that mutations happen in the genes. But the extrapolation from the above to "all evolution is random and can explain all complex forms" is difficult to see, for me.
Sure, this is the best theory we have. But when I personally see the deep and exquisite interrelationships that depend on each other, and how easily they could be "messed with"/have other variables - so I have trouble believing that "a hurricane, in the course of time, will deposit a Mona Lisa on the shore".
Evolution does have predictive power. It predicts what fossils found in the future might look like, and the evolutionary tree can be revised to match the fossils that are actually found.
Evolution can also be used to predict how populattions will adpat over time to changing environments and stresses. These prediciotns can be verified or refuted by actual evidence.
ID is not useful at predicting anything.
lurker: Evolution can also be used to predict how populattions will adpat over time to changing environments and stresses.
Darwinian evolution deals with the origins of species, and the question is not whether "natural selection" works at some level. Nearly everybody agrees that it does, which is why soldiers wear camouflage instead of orange jumpsuits. The question is whether it results in new species.
I'll gladly agree with you that it does, or at least did. But no one has ever witnessed the birth of a species, so you can make all the predictions you want, but there's no way to test them.
So so-called xenobiologists, on the other hand, have made all kinds of speculations about what aliens might be like. (We ought to test those one of these days.) These speculations are not generally based on evolutionary theory, but on studies of the possibilities and limitations of anatomy and biochemistry.
If some aspect of evolutionary theory can be used to predict something - something that couldn't be predicted without it - then fine. But it predicts nothing about species, which is what it's all about. So it is just wrong to speak of evolution's "predictive power", because that is not its strength.
Also, it ought to be pointed out that "usefulness" is not the same thing as good science. Alchemists and astrologers learned all kinds of useful things.
"If some aspect of evolutionary theory can be used to predict something - something that couldn't be predicted without it - then fine."
That is another complete misrepresentation created by the Creationists out of whole cloth and repeated by them enough to make it sound true. Of course evolution can make predictions. This very site is good for a post a month about the impending doom of the bird flu. Or Ebola going airborn. Etc. You explain to me how any of this makes sense outside an evolutionary context. Or how we've been predicting the advent of anti-biotic resistant bacteria.
"1. Which came first, the virus or the cell?
2. Why are there no mammals with green fur? There should be some green mammals.
3. Why is chlorophyll green? It seems obvious to me that it ought to be black."
Nobody can answer these questions to my satisfaction:
1.How do you apply relativity at the quantum level?
2.Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than any other force?
3.Where are the gravitons?
4.Where is all the matter that makes up 90+% of the universe that we cant find?
Until these questions are answered to my satisfaction, I want it acknowledged that Relativity and Quatum Physics are riddled with mistakes and holes, and that any currently unanswered questions should give equal time in classrooms to the theory that the answer is always "God made it that way".
What is Dark Matter? Today we discuss neutralinos and higgs bosons, tomorrow we discuss 'God is Dark Matter'.
Sorry, didnt mean to lower the tone of the conversation. Im a little huffy today. Like usual.
JC #27:
There are three responses I can offer you:
1) 4000 years is simply not an evolutionary scale for macroscopic organisms. Part of the modern toolkit of evolutionary theory, combined with molecular genetics and computer science, is a field called bioinformatics. Among the power of bioinformatics is the ability-- once data has been assembled-- to look backward in time through the extremely powerful lens of statistical inference.
Your hypothetical winged critters, once reaching a level of technical sophistication comparable to our own, would probably apply these same techniques to their own past. They would also see, necessarily, the statistics of their bioinformatics simply go nuts at a 4000 year time frame. They would be unable to avoid the conclusion that something happened in that time period to throw their genetic statistics out of step with other species in the same time frame.
2) Let's take the example a bit farther. Let's even assume that around that time 4,000 years ago, EVERY species was subject to genetic tinkering along those lines. I personally think that's extremely far fetched, considering that the tinkerers would need to be doing this as far down the line as microbial species, but whatever. It's a thought experiment.
Even so, in this scenario, there is now a bright line distinction between the bioinformatics between their present and their 4000 year past; and their 4000 year past all the way prior. Again, they would KNOW something happened, even if they could not say for certain what.
Note, that none of this harps on non-biological parts of your premise. They're not looking at the background radiation of the nuclear war, they're not finding buried cities, or whatever. They can still detect this sort of tinkering through statistical analysis alone.
In short, paleontology IS the record, and you can't get rid of that as easily as you can get rid of written documents.
3) On a completely different tack... I admit I do not spend my days searching through Intelligent Design literature. But doesn't it strike you as a little bit of a dodge? A "turtles all the way down" sort of argument? Okay, it doesn't break the laws of physics to assume some alien critters designed us. (It's extremely unlikely on a statistical basis, but that's not breaking the laws of physics.) But who designed the designers? And who designed THEM?
How do organs and features of "irreducible complexity" (whatever that is) arise by the design of creatures without their own organs of "irreducible complexity"?
Which came first, the virus or the cell?
This goes back to my original post (32), there is no fossil record for early cells or early viruses. That question (or lack of answer)doesn't help ID or evolutionary theory
2. Why are there no mammals with green fur?
Yes, if animals see colors the same way we do, green would make sense. However, most large predators do not have good color vision, therefore it is unimportant to be exactly green.
Evolution is random, but in reality undergoes only small deviations that exploit survival. If something does not survive better, it will probably not exist as distinct alternative.
It is a bit easier for cold-blooded animals, which have more' "chromataphores" which come in several colors, including black, white, red, blue and yellow. Very few animals have green chromatophores, but can turn green by combining layers of, for example blue and yellow ones. Bird feathers can appear green as a result of microscopic features that refract (bend) the light so the green is all that is reflected.'
3. Why is chlorophyll green? It seems obvious to me that it ought to be black.
This is more of a chemistry question-my background. Chlorophyll itself is a carotenoid (which appear bright orange, like carotenoids in carrots), however the presence of a metal-Mg, infleunces the light absorbances of these bonds, changing the reflected light that we see. As the Mg decays out of the leaves, they turn more reddish. Different leaves are going to be different colors because they probably use slightly different versions of chlorophyll, or the skin/texture reflects differently.
This is also why horsecrabs are blue (they have copper, which tends to form blue or green colored compounds) and why our blood is red (an Fe compound).
If they were designed by a creator, they might be more effective. But then again, who knows why a creator does anything? It may be that he makes things flawed for fun, or just to screw with us. (or to teach us a valuable lesson on life...)
Mark: That is another complete misrepresentation created by the Creationists out of whole cloth and repeated by them enough to make it sound true.
How is it a Creationist misrepresentation to say that for a theory to be predictive, it has to predict things that would otherwise not be discovered?
Let me concede that E.T. predicts the things you describe. Though I'm not so sure of all of them. If Darwin had never been born and we had no notion of E.T., would we be unable to predict antibiotic resistant bacteria, based on our extensive experience with the effects of antibiotics?
My point, again, is that E.T. predicts nothing about new species. To me, new species is the entire point - it's the difference between evolution and dog breeding. That is why I say that E.T. rules by explanatory power, not predictive power.
And there's no law against that. It doesn't mean it isn't science, and I don't think it fails the Popper test either.
Finally, you seem to be proposing a showdown between Physics and Biology, to see who has the most erectile tissue. I'm not qualified to judge such a thing. I say we run them at each other a few times so we can work out the odds, and then we can bet some serious money.
Glen Wishard #36
OK, I'll bite! Please name them.
alchemist -
Those are some pretty good answers.
... there is no fossil record for early cells or early viruses.
There has also been almost no discussion of viruses by evolutionary biologists. Back in my school daze I found that very annoying.
Please name them.
I better amplify: And please show how the useful things they discovered were the result of the application of the principles of astrology and of the principles of the field of alchemy.
Take a bunch of smart and sharp-eyed people and have them do various sorts of things over a period of many hundreds of years and, yeah, some will come up with interesting and useful findings.
The questions would be, were these useful things due to application of alchemical and astrological principals, and what were they?
Glenn #33:
Good catch on explanation versus prediction, I wasn’t thinking carefully enough.
Consider the net results of the interactions of a large set of natural biological processes. These include competition and cooperation between species; competition and cooperation among individuals of the same species, for reproduction and other purposes; the processes of mitosis and (for eukaryotes) meiosis; reassortment and recombination of DNA; errors made during DNA synthesis; damage to DNA and DNA repair. I’ve missed a lot in this list, but it gives a sense of the range that’s important.
One assertion of the Modern Synthesis is that the historical evidence is consistent with the application of these natural processes over the time-span in question: 600 million years since the pre-Cambrian, 63 million years since the Cretaceous, 6,000 years since the end of the Stone Age, and so on. It makes no more sense to talk about predicting natural history than it would to claim to predict military history. In many cases, stochastic and non-linear processes (‘butterfly effect’), and unknown details influenced outcomes in ways that we will never be able to “retroactively predict.”
Like my silly Intelligent Rockdesign (#30 above), ID makes one of two assertions:
In advocating the Strong Case, Michael Behe and other ID proponents have proposed that a number of biological structures are “irreducibly complex,” i.e. that there is no way they could have come into existence save by the actions of an Intelligent Designer. The mammalian eye and the bird wing are probably the best-known examples. But I don’t know of a single instance that has not been plausibly explained as the likely result of natural processes like mutation, gene duplication, and the global effects of changes in activation of developmental-switch and body-plan-layout genes (e.g. the hox family).
The evolutionary explanation is weakend by the fact that we are talking about history; there were no National Geographic filmmakers to record the evolution of proto-eyes over millions of years. So there is necessarily a large element of speculation--the question would be how plausible the naturalist position is, and how does it accord with the evidence we see today? From what I can see, it’s very plausible.
That leaves the Weak Case. It seems to me that this is little better than proposing Witchcraft as the cause of medieval illnesses. Formally, we have to allow that this has not been disproven, but this brings us back to Popper’s approach to these questions, as referenced in #15 above.
So far, I’ve been writing about evolution and ID as rival historical explanations. The Modern Synthesis can be used to make predictions about ongoing processes. I will stick with the biotech example I mentioned before, phrasing the Diversa scientists’ hypotheses as:
So the Modern Synthesis hasn’t told us what future organisms will look like, but it was essential in the conceptualization, design, and successful outcome of the industrial-design experiments linked to above. And that’s just one example--entire fields (e.g. molecular cladistics) are based on it. What useful information has been derived from ID theory?
And nobody can answer these questions to my satisfaction…
I don’t have good answers to these questions. I suspect specialists in evolutionary biology and ecology could offer informed speculation on some of them. Does the absence of compelling responses on this blog show that ID is a proper scientific theory, or that it has superior explanatory power to the theory of evolution?
JC, I hope some of the forgoing discussion speaks to the questions you raised as well. I’m out of time for today…
#34-so I have trouble believing that "a hurricane, in the course of time, will deposit a Mona Lisa on the shore".
Ok, so evolution is random, but not THAT random.
Let's put this in terms of a wolf pack. In turns out (in this theoretical universe) that it's easier for wolves to chase prey in the snow with small feet but long claws. Over several generations, those with SFLC survived the winters better, and were more likely to earn a mate.
Over, say, 100 generations of SFLC dominating, the BFSC (big feet, small claw) portion of the tribe will have much smaller numbers. Hence, this wolf pack will be seen to have SFLC.
A great example of this is a peculiar clam in south america,which flaps a fin(?)in the water. Fish are tricked by it, thinking it's a small fish, bites it, and the clam releases eggs into the fish body, which grow and create new clams. A clam has no brain, it has no idea why it survives, but over thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of years, the clams which looked most like flapping fish survived better than the ones that didn't.
The result: these clams now look earily like small fish, down to small gills, fin, scaly-like skin, eyes, ect.
Or, since no one was there to watch the entire process, you could argue it's god.
Please name them.
Historically, astrology leads to navigation as surely as self-abuse leads to blindness. Even more surely, maybe.
Astrologers were also the first to discover the connection between tides and lunar phases.
Alchemists discovered a lot of chemical processes, such as extracting metal from oxides.
Mark,
The analogy isn't exact, as I am on a computer now, that depends on molecular science - of which quantum mechanics (I think) plays a part in. At least, wringing out the latest productivity from computers to keep up with Moore's Law requires something out of quantum mechanics, right? I don't see how the extra belief - over and above that evolution occurs - of "complete randomness" and the after-the-fact application of natural selection has the explanatory power and real-life effects that we see daily with quantum mechanics.
However, I think we are a bit at cross-purposes. You keep resorting to "evolution", of which I take to be true. I'm just talking about intelligence, consciousness, being in the equation (somehow), or not. Again, to go back to the data:
a. That evolution has occured is justified NOW by: the evidence of fossil records, which show a progression (with the caveat of missing areas) and the shared DNA of all species - again, we can see this now.
b. The evidence NOW of random mutation in the SMALL. (I think Glen may have a point that new "speciation" hasn't been proven, but I'm not up on the data).
For me, I think we can agree on point a and b.
Where the disagreement is about is assumptions about "higher complexity" we don't have evidence for either way.
a. The "dues ex machina" for you is to assume the processes above account for the radical, almost miraculous, jumps in evolutionary complexity.
b. I suppose the creationist would say the "dues ex machina" is actually "dei".
Marcus, you make very good points -
a. bioinformatics - okay, then at some point the gap may be bridged - let's see.
b. Also a good point on the evolutionary dodge - "turtles all the way down?"
Well, yes - but there are other metaphors for intelligence, right? And it is this INTERPRETATION of randomness and "dumb blind chance" that I take exception to:
a. Take The Holographic Universe, as an example - a bit akin to the Matrix movie - the "intelligence" of the system is present everywhere - it is "turtles all the way down". Look at the metaphoric example of Indra's Net.
b. Or, conversely, it could be that the rudiments of what we call "intelligence" - the ability to ADAPT, to changes in one's environment, was a miraculous evolutionary mutation of the highest order, that took place at or near the dawn of life. That also would get close to answering the mystery of intricate order from chaos - that I personally object to. But this drive to adapt, and this responding to the environment would almost be 'written' to the DNA, and would "come from"the DNA microbes and humans share.
Sorry if I sound like I've been at the pub too long - what can I say, a philosophy degree inspires strange things.
Good discussion, folks.
Darwinist fundamentalists are opposed to intelligence design because it threatens the remunerative stranglehold they have on a pretty broad part of modern intellectual discourse. Walk on to any college campuses and your eye will survey what is at stake for them.
Now, Banjo, they oppose ID because ID is simply not science.
All:
If we follow the biologists' definition of a species as, loosely speaking, a reproductive community, then any two populations which do not naturally mate and bear offspring when in appropriate proximity to each other are a different species.
In that case, then, yes, there have been numerous observed speciation events in modern history, and a number of very strongly inferred speciation events in recorded history.
The easiest to follow lab experiemtns are those testing the "founder-flush" hypothesis. Roughly, it is hypothesized that when a few individuals from a population remove themslves and colonize a new and isolated territory (founders) the resulting population expands rapidly (flushes) and then shrinks. During the population crash, there is a high degree of genetic drift. By inducing a steady stream of these founder-flush events with drosophila populations, speciation events have been induced. These include both premating speciation (the populations might be genetically comatible, but will not or cannot physically perform the relevant mating activities) and postmating speciation (where the mating produces either no issue or sterile issue from lines derived of fully compatible ancestors.)
Details and citations can be found in the talk.origins speciation FAQ.
Banjo #50 said:
Um, okay, I guess I'm one of the Darwinist fundamentalists, as my comments on this thread show how little scientific merit I see in ID. I'd need to have the renumerative stranglehold I'm taking part in specified--it's not obvious to me as I gloat over my checking account statement. And is taking part in debate the same as strangling it?
Thanks for writing.
"Let me concede that E.T. predicts the things you describe. Though I'm not so sure of all of them. If Darwin had never been born and we had no notion of E.T., would we be unable to predict antibiotic resistant bacteria, based on our extensive experience with the effects of antibiotics?"
Perhaps, perhaps not. Two points: first, Kepler was able to predict the paths of the planets before Newton and long before Einstein. Its one thing to predict a phenomenon, its entirely another to have a consistant, predictive theory that explains why things happen.
Secondly we get down to the true heart of this debate. Is evolution that important, and whats the big deal anyway? Well, here's la why. ID is a philosophical theory. When such a thing is treated as a scientific theory, proponents turn the scientific method upside down by beginning with a conclusion and then searching for evidence to prove it, and (here is the key) attacking or discrediting contrary evidence. Now this happens in 'real science' sometimes, and its always bad news (global warming) for science. ID is built on this technique. So now you have people running around attacking the underpinnings of valid science, provoking a sort of 'moral equivalency' in the sciences, ie, every theory is equal. Biology is on the front lines, but what happens when the chemistry and physics that underlie biology enter the shooting gallery? Western technological and scientific supremecy is not something to be taken for granted, and much of it rests on the scientific method. Messing with that puts us at terrible risk to devolving into a society content to look at mysteries the way the Arab cultures do, "Allahu A`alam", god knows best.
Marcus Vitruvius #52:
Nice explanation of one method of speciation, and a useful link.
Following up on Mark Buehner's comment (#54) led to a new WoC post, Intelligent Design: A Weak Meme.
I apologize in advance: other duties will make my responses in the comments somewhat spotty for the next two days. Thanks to all for the discussion to this point!