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Author
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Topic: Nature Refutes ID?: The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features
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YZ2
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Member # 91
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posted 29. May 2003 13:46
I am quite behind on my other work. This is a good question, I think other people can join in to explore this.
Just briefly, my detection of design includes natural and supernatural and differentiates them later. That is why it can include an evolutionary mechanism. I have touched on many of these issues in my pervious posts and you can refer to them. I apologise for not able to explain more.
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Roger R
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posted 01. June 2003 18:14
GP writes:
quote:
This all brings me back to the time when I asked Nelson Alonso[-] [towards the end of a thread on Brainstorms entitled "Evolving Inventions"] for an experimental setup to test the IC argument (not necessarily the IC definition, as I understand it). . . How then does one go about scientifically testing whether an IC structure can in fact be evolved? If every experimental condition has on some level a designed component, I am interested in hearing how one can design an experiment that controls for the "front-loading" aspect of design.
To reiterate, I honsetly would like to hear some alternatives to the Avida experiments. And I'd love it more if IDists actually conducted them, instead of proposing them with caveats to the effect that they are unqualified or not funded, etc. to conduct the experiments.
Let me get this correct: you want IDists to conduct an experiment to prove IC structures can evolve? Or can't evolve?
I'm a little confused by your phrase the IC argument. What is that?
Do I think there is a test for ICness? Or that can we prove or disprove IC or its evolution? No, I don't. Some folks here seem upset that there is not any clearly objective definition for IC that one can apply like litmus paper to a problem, and failing that, it can't be scientific. Sorry, but I disagree with that.
Let us take another term that gets used a lot in these discussions: fitness. Now, if we define that in terms of survival, it becomes objectively testable (at least historically), but it is both redundant and tautological. It tells us that those who survived, survived. But, a more charitable view of the usage usually also includes a more practical view of fitness: that there are characteristics or functions of an organism that we can understand how they would assist the organism in surviving and reproducing. On simple examples of characteristics, well enough. But in complex systems in complex organisms in complex environments, we may not be able to predict whether one specific series of functions may prevail over another. We may be able to do that in hindsight, but only in terms of the tautological definition of fitness. And that definition provides little in the way of explanation or insight.
I already stated I don't think there is a simple litmus test or experiment that provides an objective true/false on the issue, but I think you also raise a different question as well: Is there an experiment that can be designed that won't be subject to charges of sneaking in design, because the experiment itself is designed? I think the answer is provisionally yes.
Depends on what you are trying to show. Depends on how accurate you want to be in modeling nature or the bare Darwinian process. It's not really that difficult to understand some of the steps to be taken to make the model more accurate. For example, in the Avida program at issue, even the authors were clever enough to realize that the outcome might be different if intermediate functions were not rewarded. One thing that alternative strongly implies is that, contrary to charlie d.'s claim, the intermediate simpler functions rewarded were indeed related to EQU (which should be obvious to anybody looking at the program's documentation). So unless we know that there are intermediate rewards "nearby" for the bacterial flagellum, we shouldn't take a program based on that assumption as evidence for solving the IC dilemma.
Now, as Berlinksi says, it is pretty easy to develop a program without front loading it with the goal. The problem is that you end up with gibberish, and as Berlinski notes, gibberish is its own reward.
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GP
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posted 01. June 2003 19:32
Hi Roger,
I appreciate your response. You asked me pointedly: quote:
Let me get this correct: you want IDists to conduct an experiment to prove IC structures can evolve? Or can't evolve?
Not quite. My demands are much simpler to meet than that: I want IDists (whoever they are) to do research, especially when it comes to supporting their claims (whatever they are). You of course are coming into the middle of a brief conversation I had with Nelson Alonso on implementing Behe's IC experiment. To give you an idea of the kind of claims that we were discussing, I refer you simjply to that thread (I believe it is listed at the bottom of my post). There you'd find the answer to your next question as well: quote:
I'm a little confused by your phrase the IC argument. What is that?
I think here Alonso and I had the mutual understanding here that the IC argument is a specific application of the IC definition with respect to the evolvability of IC structures -- namely that they do not evolve. It might be easier if I cited some of the sections by Nelson (which should not prevent you from reading the entire thread for context): quote:
A system doesn't become non-IC just because you can imagine a co-option story about it. A system is IC because you can't reduce the function to a single component. This is not to say that IC is irrelevant to evolutionary pathways, the consequence of IC is that it is a barrier to Darwinian pathways in that now pure chance events have to be added rather than a direct path up mount improbable, where each step confers a selective advantage by making the original function more efficient. Instead natural selection is blind to the function we are interested in, and is left to tumble around looking for different functions that have nothing to do with motility (protein secretion). This opens up the door to a design inference, in that a better explanation for complex systems that are also irreducible points to intelligent design... If we get something an IC structure as sophisticated as the bacterial flagellum I would certainly drop ID right after I read the peer reviewed paper about it.
From this, I got the distinct sense that Nelson was establishing a dichotomy, the realities of ICness, versus their implications with regards to evolvability (or what he calls the "design inference."). I am not going to speak for Nelson any further than that, but I do hope this clears up any confusion.
Do I think there is a test for ICness? Or that can we prove or disprove IC or its evolution? No, I don't. Some folks here seem upset that there is not any clearly objective definition for IC that one can apply like litmus paper to a problem, and failing that, it can't be scientific. Sorry, but I disagree with that.
Roger, how do you know that these people are upset? Nelson, for instance, demonstrated clear interest in demonstrating a link between IC and evolution -- a litmus test if you will. But rather than being upset, I think he makes a passionate case. However, I cannot tell from my conversation with him if he seems to think that ICness is itself a scientific concept. From my own point of view, I can accept any definition, including "IC," as an initial basis for scientific investigation. What I have a harder time accepting is accepting an argument without evidentiary support. And it seems to me that as the specificity of the IC definition diminishes, the applicability of the IC evidence also diminishes. So, no, I do not have a particular problem with your objection that rejecting IC on its definitional merits renders it unscientific. Rather, the argument seems to be that the lack of evidentiary support for the IC argument renders the definition scientifically unimportant.
Let us take another term that gets used a lot in these discussions: fitness. Now, if we define that in terms of survival, it becomes objectively testable (at least historically), but it is both redundant and tautological. It tells us that those who survived, survived.
Roger, the tautological nature of "survival of the fittest" has been addressed sufficiently in the literature for me that I do not see its relevance here with regards to IC. Perhaps you are suggesting that "IC does not evolve" is somehow tautological, but your argument ended rather prematurely. If you want to continue this line of argument with more substance on your objections to "survival of the fittest," I would suggest that you start another thread.
I already stated I don't think there is a simple litmus test or experiment that provides an objective true/false on the issue, but I think you also raise a different question as well: Is there an experiment that can be designed that won't be subject to charges of sneaking in design, because the experiment itself is designed? I think the answer is provisionally yes.
Regardless of what you think, Roger, I as an outside observer see a lack of coherence in the methodology of the design inference. So, IC is not a litmus test for you. Fine. And on the other hand, Nelson thinks that IC is a "barrier to Darwinian pathways." Fine. I am supremely optimistic that IDists will eventually settle on a specific definition and a specific argument. But that still does not obviate the need for evidentiary support. Of course, I am very interested in your opinion that an experiment can be conducted without teleological implications. Let's explore what you wrote: quote:
Depends on what you are trying to show. Depends on how accurate you want to be in modeling nature or the bare Darwinian process. It's not really that difficult to understand some of the steps to be taken to make the model more accurate. For example, in the Avida program at issue, even the authors were clever enough to realize that the outcome might be different if intermediate functions were not rewarded. One thing that alternative strongly implies is that, contrary to charlie d.'s claim, the intermediate simpler functions rewarded were indeed related to EQU (which should be obvious to anybody looking at the program's documentation). So unless we know that there are intermediate rewards "nearby" for the bacterial flagellum, we shouldn't take a program based on that assumption as evidence for solving the IC dilemma.
Stripping away, for the moment, the criticisms that you have against the Avida experiment, I am afraid that I cannot quite tease out where you gave a plan for experimentations that controls for front-loading. A criticism is not constructive without an alternative. As you can see from my post, I was quite willing to concede to Micah that Avida did not adequately control for front-loading variables. But here, you suggest to me that steps should be taken to make the model more accurate. How so? And accurate with respect to which conditions? And once again, how does accuracy mitigate a need to control for front-loading? Tell me, Roger, do you think putting bacteria in a jar is the way to go as an experimental setup?
Interestingly, you end this section with pretty much the same comments that Alonso had in our conversation: we shouldn't take a program based on that assumption as evidence for solving the IC dilemma. Here, you apparently understand what the "IC dilemma" is, and that somehow there is some need to "solve" it. Once again, the litmus test analogy surfaces on the ID side of the fence all by itself, despite your incredulity at why people were upset about this usage of IC concepts. As I mentioned in my post, the authors were absolutely right not to discuss their program with respect to IC/CSI/ID implications, because they held themselves to a pretty tough standard, in my opinion. One that almost all publishing scientist knows: does the data justify a conclusion? With respect to IC, the authors said nothing, because in my opinion, it is hard to know just what to say about IC. However, I think they were quite clear with respect to the possible implications on Darwinian evolution.
Now, as Berlinksi says, it is pretty easy to develop a program without front loading it with the goal. The problem is that you end up with gibberish, and as Berlinski notes, gibberish is its own reward.
I am afraid that I am not quite up to date with Berlinksi's work on evolutionary algorithms. So he says it is easy to design a controlled experiment for front loading. He also says that one ends up with "gibberish." Then logically speaking, all that is not gibberish was front-loaded. This jives quite well with the conclusion that I got from Micah's comments: Everything is designed. If this is in fact the extent of what being designed entails, I think I have no real scientific concerns.
[ 01. June 2003, 19:47: Message edited by: GP ]
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RBH
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posted 01. June 2003 20:46
Roger, do you have the reference for the Berlinski remarks about front loading? I'd like to read that. Thanks!
RBH
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Roger R
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posted 01. June 2003 20:55
GP writes:
quote:
You of course are coming into the middle of a brief conversation I had with Nelson Alonso on implementing Behe's IC experiment. To give you an idea of the kind of claims that we were discussing, I refer you simjply to that thread (I believe it is listed at the bottom of my post). There you'd find the answer to your next question as well:
Of course, I'm not coming into the middle of any discussion. You posted here, for the first time in this thread:
quote:
Maybe another ID proponent has a different opinion.
To reiterate, I honsetly would like to hear some alternatives to the Avida experiments. And I'd love it more if IDists actually conducted them, instead of proposing them with caveats to the effect that they are unqualified or not funded, etc. to conduct the experiments.
If you want to discuss it with others here in this thread, do so. If not, that's fine too. I'm not Nelson, don't speak for him and I'm not gonna chase around another thread trying to divine what you think are answers to issues raised in this thread.
Then you have the nerve to tell me my response to issues raised on this thread should be taken to another thread, well, don't see any kind of productive dialogue proceeding from such a start.
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Roger R
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posted 01. June 2003 21:13
RBH,
There was a series of responses to Berlinski's article in Commentary called The Deniable Darwin, and Berlinski's counter responses. That response/ counter-response used to be available for free on the web, but now you have to be a Commentary subscriber to access it.
That, as memory best serves me, is where he made the comment about gibberish being its own reward.
From The Deniable Darwin: http://www.arn.org/docs/berlinski/db_deniabledarwin0696.htm
quote:
It is Richard Dawkins's grand intention in The Blind Watchmaker to demonstrate, as one reviewer enthusiastically remarked, "how natural selection allows biologists to dispense with such notions as purpose and design." This he does by exhibiting a process in which the random exploration of certain possibilities, a blind stab here, another there, is followed by the filtering effects of natural selection, some of those stabs saved, others discarded. But could a process so conceived -- a Darwinian process -- discover a simple English sentence: a target, say, chosen from Shakespeare? The question is by no means academic. If natural selection cannot discern a simple English sentence, what chance is there that it might have discovered the mammalian eye or the system by which glucose is regulated by the liver? A thought experiment in The Blind Watchmaker now follows. Randomness in the experiment is conveyed by the metaphor of the monkeys, perennial favorites in the theory of probability. There they sit, simian hands curved over the keyboards of a thousand typewriters, their long agile fingers striking keys at random. It is an image of some poignancy, those otherwise intelligent apes banging away at a machine they cannot fathom; and what makes the poignancy pointed is the fact that the system of rewards by which the apes have been induced to strike the typewriter's keys is from the first rigged against them.
The probability that a monkey will strike a given letter is one in 26. The typewriter has 26 keys: the monkey, one working finger. But a letter is not a word. Should Dawkins demand that the monkey get two English letters right, the odds against success rise with terrible inexorability from one in 26 to one in 676. The Shakespearean target chosen by Dawkins -- "Methinks it is like a weasel"-is a six-word sentence containing 28 English letters (including the spaces). It occupies an isolated point in a space of 10,000 million, million, million, million, million, million possibilities. This is a very large number; combinatorial inflation is at work. And these are very long odds. And a six-word sentence consisting of 28 English letters is a very short, very simple English sentence.
Such are the fatal facts. The problem confronting the monkeys is, of course, a double one: they must, to be sure, find the right letters, but they cannot lose the right letters once they have found them. A random search in a space of this size is an exercise in irrelevance. This is something the monkeys appear to know. What more, then, is expected; what more required? Cumulative selection, Dawkins argues- the answer offered as well by Stephen Jay Gould, Manfred Eigen, and Daniel Dennett. The experiment now proceeds in stages. The monkeys type randomly. After a time, they are allowed to survey what they have typed in order to choose the result "which however slightly most resembles the target phrase." It is a computer that in Dawkins's experiment performs the crucial assessments, but I prefer to imagine its role assigned to a scrutinizing monkey-the Head Monkey of the experiment. The process under way is one in which stray successes are spotted and then saved. This process is iterated and iterated again. Variations close to the target are conserved because they are close to the target, the Head Monkey equably surveying the scene until, with the appearance of a miracle in progress, randomly derived sentences do begin to converge on the target sentence itself.
The contrast between schemes and scenarios is striking. Acting on their own, the monkeys are adrift in fathomless possibilities, any accidental success-a pair of English-like letters-lost at once, those successes seeming like faint untraceable lights flickering over a wine-dark sea. The advent of the Head Monkey changes things entirely. Successes are conserved and then conserved again. The light that formerly flickered uncertainly now stays lit, a beacon burning steadily, a point of illumination. By the light of that light, other lights are lit, until the isolated successes converge, bringing order out of nothingness.
The entire exercise is, however, an achievement in self-deception. A target phrase? Iterations that most resemble the target? A Head Monkey that measures the distance between failure and success? If things are sightless, how is the target represented, and how is the distance between randomly generated phrases and the targets assessed? And by whom? And the Head Monkey? What of him? The mechanism of deliberate design, purged by Darwinian theory on the level of the organism, has reappeared in the description of natural selection itself, a vivid example of what Freud meant by the return of the repressed.
This is a point that Dawkins accepts without quite acknowledging, rather like a man adroitly separating his doctor's diagnosis from his own disease.6
Nature presents life with no targets. Life shambles forward, surging here, shuffling there, the small advantages accumulating on their own until something novel appears on the broad evolutionary screen-an arch or an eye, an intricate pattern of behavior, the complexity characteristic of life. May we, then, see this process at work, by seeing it simulated?
"Unfortunately," Dawkins writes, "I think it may be beyond my powers as a programmer to set up such a counterfeit world."7
This is the authentic voice of contemporary Darwinian theory. What may be illustrated by the theory does not involve a Darwinian mechanism; what involves a Darwinian mechanism cannot be illustrated by the theory.
7. It is absurdly easy to set up a sentence-searching algorithm obeying purely Darwinian constraints. The result, however, is always the same -- gibberish.
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RBH
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posted 02. June 2003 01:38
Thanks, Roger. I'll read it with interest. Too bad the responses aren't available. Already, though, I'm disappointed in Berlinski. One line in particular in the essay struck me on first reading: quote:
Wandering the surface of a planet, evolution wanders blindly, having forgotten where it has been, unsure of where it is going.
In fact, "evolution" does not forget where it has been; we - all living things - carry deeply encoded memories of where we came from. And evolution is constrained by that history. Where evolution can go is constrained by where it came from. That's a hallmark of complex adaptive systems: they are historically contingent. Gould was right in that, I think. Far from being forgotten, evolution's history is always with us.
As and if I have time I'll see if this is relatable to the present thread.
RBH
[ 02. June 2003, 01:40: Message edited by: RBH ]
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GP
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posted 02. June 2003 01:48
Roger,
You wrote, in citing me:
quote:
Of course, I'm not coming into the middle of any discussion. You posted here, for the first time in this thread...
Well, let's take a look at what I wrote.
Maybe another ID proponent has a different opinion.
If there is any doubt, one should look on the previous page on this thread at how my request was juxtaposed. I wrote this after a lengthy discussion on the bacteria-in-a-jar experiment that Nelson/Behe proposed. If it was not clear (and context is important!) that I was asking about that particular experiment, then I hope it is now. It should also be pointed out that your reply to me started with a series of questions about terminology and discussion points that I have been using since my conversation with Nelson. I offered you the opportunity to reread the thread (for context), since you were the one that asked about it. However, if the paragraph you cited above is truly what you were replying to, you need not have looked that far back. In my reply to you I specifically asked you:
quote:
But here, you suggest to me that steps should be taken to make the model more accurate. How so? And accurate with respect to which conditions? And once again, how does accuracy mitigate a need to control for front-loading? Tell me, Roger, do you think putting bacteria in a jar is the way to go as an experimental setup?
To reiterate, I honsetly would like to hear some alternatives to the Avida experiments. And I'd love it more if IDists actually conducted them, instead of proposing them with caveats to the effect that they are unqualified or not funded, etc. to conduct the experiments.
And indeed, I continued on this exact theme in my reply to you. In fact, I pointed out to you that though you launched an attack against the Avida experiment, you propose no experimental alternatives. Again, I am quite willing for the sake of discussion to grant you the possibility that the Avida experiment did not control for front-loading. So, how does one? Neither you nor Berlinsk seem to address this in substance. For instance, just how does this assertion -- "It is absurdly easy to set up a sentence-searching algorithm obeying purely Darwinian constraint" -- show me how to set up a front-loading controlled experiment?
If you want to discuss it with others here in this thread, do so. If not, that's fine too. I'm not Nelson, don't speak for him and I'm not gonna chase around another thread trying to divine what you think are answers to issues raised in this thread.
I asked no such thing of you. I merely provided the desired quote which I needed from Nelson, and I only asked that you read the thread for context, since you asked for clarification. I cannot fault you for not wanting to read Nelson's thread. But then again, I made no pretense of thinking that I had answered any of your concerns. As I said to you before, I cited Nelson because they served my purpose of illustrating an incoherence (i.e. a disagreement) in methodology, even amongst the ID proponents.
Then you have the nerve to tell me my response to issues raised on this thread should be taken to another thread, well, don't see any kind of productive dialogue proceeding from such a start. Here's what I wrote: quote:
Roger, the tautological nature of "survival of the fittest" has been addressed sufficiently in the literature for me that I do not see its relevance here with regards to IC. Perhaps you are suggesting that "IC does not evolve" is somehow tautological, but your argument ended rather prematurely. If you want to continue this line of argument with more substance on your objections to "survival of the fittest," I would suggest that you start another thread.
I stand by my suggestion (which does not require too much presumption on my part, I hope) because I honestly do not see the relevance of this line of argument, in a thread predominantly about IC and Avida. Of course, I am not the ultimate arbiter of what topics are relevant (I'll leave the moderating to the appropriate people), but for a 13 page thread, it just seemed to me to be a prudent course of action. If you want to introduce a strawman version of fitness to save IC as a concept, then so be it.
On the other hand, if you do not believe that we are engaged in productive dialogue, then there is not much I can do about that too. Either way, I am still interested in hearing from an IDist on how one designs a controlled experiment that is devoid of teleological implications, but yet explores evolutionary mechanisms.
[ 02. June 2003, 01:51: Message edited by: GP ]
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Roger R
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posted 02. June 2003 07:04
GP writes:
quote:
As I said to you before, I cited Nelson because they served my purpose of illustrating an incoherence (i.e. a disagreement) in methodology, even amongst the ID proponents.
And that's the problem. You are apparently not interested in a dialogue with others, but only in what serves your purposes. And I don't wake up in the morning saying to myself, "Gee, how can I best serve GP's purposes today?".
People who are interested in a dialogue will generally attempt to read another's posts for meaning, and will ask questions to clarify, and not dismiss that which doesn't serve their purposes, and tell the other poster to take an on topic discussion to another thread.
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GP
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posted 02. June 2003 07:30
quote:
People who are interested in a dialogue will generally attempt to read another's posts for meaning, and will ask questions to clarify, and not dismiss that which doesn't serve their purposes, and tell the other poster to take an on topic discussion to another thread.
Roger,
I can no more make you have a discussion with me than make you take any discussion anywhere. I made a suggestion, and I have never called it anything but that.
But, in any case, the questions I asked with respect to ID experimental design still stand, whether or not you take up the challenge. I have stated my desire to hear substantial responses (not one-liners or substituted with attacks on evolutionary theory). And I have asked for more than one clarification in this thread, some from you, in fact. What I cannot do is have a dialogue with a person who is not currently participating, namely Nelson. There is no way for me but to interpret his words, and I do so with great care. If there is any other way to interpret Nelson's words, let me know.
I would however appreciate it if you do not misinterpret/misrepresent my motives. It does sound to me that our dialogue is indeed coming to a rapid end. I have enjoyed the brief exchange.
GP
[ 02. June 2003, 08:00: Message edited by: GP ]
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YZ2
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posted 02. June 2003 15:13
Thank you Roger and GP for a very thought-provoking exchange. I’ll try to insert a thought or two if it appears to be useful. Concluding from your remarks, am I correct to say that the issue now is really not about the possibility of IC/ID or evolution? Since both of them are possible models, they are indeed different perspectives that might not be even conflicting with each other. IC focuses from a static-deterministic-invariant (or equilibrium) perspective, whereas evolvability focuses from a view of change. That is, either of them has not gathered convincing evidential support for its sole sufficiency. Modeling then becomes a question of adequacy-inadequacy, or their effectiveness in modeling a given biological phenomenon, rather than a universal model for all biological phenomena. There is, also a third possibility of a dynamic stochastic model that can incorporate features of both as indicated in this EQU experiment. The question of intelligent design then becomes more a philosophical presupposition, rather than a scientific question. What are the thoughts here?
[ 02. June 2003, 15:57: Message edited by: YZ2 ]
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RBH
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posted 02. June 2003 18:12
YZ2 wrote quote:
There is, also a third possibility of a dynamic stochastic model that can incorporate features of both as indicated in this EQU experiment.
I don't follow this. Could you elaborate a bit, please? I can't quite make out what "features of both" are indicated by the EQU study. Thanks!
RBH
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YZ2
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posted 03. June 2003 09:33
RBH,
It is just some "uncooked" ideas that I have been playing with using some existing system modeling concepts. It can be ignored for the current discussion.
[ 03. June 2003, 09:33: Message edited by: YZ2 ]
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GP
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posted 03. June 2003 11:26
quote:
Concluding from your remarks, am I correct to say that the issue now is really not about the possibility of IC/ID or evolution? Since both of them are possible models, they are indeed different perspectives that might not be even conflicting with each other.
Hi YZ2,
I think I agree that the issue now is really not about the possibility of IC/ID or evolution. But "the" issue really varies from one advocate to the other. Not speaking for the other Darwinians, I am interested in the empirical content of these two models. Does evolution subsume ID or vice-versa? Having two models which explain the same biological data is fine and all. Does one have to choose? And if so how?
IC focuses from a static-deterministic-invariant (or equilibrium) perspective, whereas evolvability focuses from a view of change. That is, either of them has not gathered convincing evidential support for its sole sufficiency. Modeling then becomes a question of adequacy-inadequacy, or their effectiveness in modeling a given biological phenomenon, rather than a universal model for all biological phenomena.
I am a bit wary of sufficiency claims in science, particularly of the nature: model X is sufficient to explain observation Y. Well, how does one actually go about establishing that? The question seems to imply, without further elaborations on the set of possible models, an elimination of a universe of possible explanations, especially of the form -- i.e. model X + heretofore unknown element Z + etc -- as well as any possible contradictory observations. Typically the scientific claims are one of necessity: observation Y is necessary for model X, or model X1 is necessary for model X2. Perhaps I am oversimplifying here. To me, sufficiency seems empirically rather difficult to demonstrate.
However, this seems not to be the case, if one establishes a priori a model that is self-sufficient. Here, I am talking about models that require no empirical verification to establish its explanatory powers (given certain assumptions, possibly). For instance, mathematics is largely self-sufficient. One can in fact make sufficiency claims in mathematics. I am tempted at the moment to include ID claims in this realm, since many of its proponents posit a self-sufficient Designer. In particular, there is no reason to think that this Designer is constrained in what it can effect (or affect) in the natural world.
So, I would partly dispute your claim that between evolution and ID explanations, neither has evidential support for its sole sufficiency. For evolutionary mechanisms, I will grant this statement for the sake of discussion -- I am rather agnostic on the issue, nor do I see how to determine empirically its veracity. Intelligent design however seems to be sufficient by fiat. And there seems nothing wrong with that either. Perhaps that is what you meant when you stated "The question of intelligent design then becomes more a philosophical presupposition, rather than a scientific question" ?
[ 03. June 2003, 11:48: Message edited by: GP ]
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posted 03. June 2003 20:51
This is a warning to Roger R. Comments like this don't make the grade:
quote:
And that's the problem. You are apparently not interested in a dialogue with others, but only in what serves your purposes. And I don't wake up in the morning saying to myself, "Gee, how can I best serve GP's purposes today?".
As GP points out, the motives of other posters (or even groups of people) are not fair game at ISCID.
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