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Author
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Topic: Organisms using GAs vs. Organisms being built by GAs
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charlie d.
Member
Member # 159
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posted 06. April 2003 17:45
Chris:
good to see ya. quote:
...energy is the capacity to do work, or action over time.
Precisely. Exactly what I meant: therefore, zero energy can do exactly zero physical work. Now, if you try to put yourself in the shoes of an omnipotent intelligence (I am sure that won't be so hard ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ), and you have to impart some information change to some physical being, there is simply no way to do that without doing some physical work (may that be mutating a single nucleotide to allow an adaptation to ensue, or assembling all-grown humans from mud and spit, or telling a bearded man on a mountain what your laws are). Unless of course, you use some supernatural method that is not subject to the restictions of the laws of physics.
This ultimate "free lunch", ironically, seems to be the only proposal for a design mechanism mainstream ID theorists like Dembski could come up with. I guess one can also envision some sort of "cosmic" front loading in which it is the laws of physics themselves that determine everything else, but that's apparently a no-no to Dembski and most other IDists (it would be indistinguishable from naturalism, after all).
As for your theory, I can't say I understand it, but if you say it's ID, then I believe you. It's however unclear to me if you ever proposed any physical mechanism for your cosmic model; as far as I could tell, it was a purely logical construct. I should note also that membership in ISCID does not necessarily make one an Intelligent Design proponent. Ask Micah.
Now, going back to the real substance of the issue being discussed. LGT, mutation and all the other ways that a designer could act are of course natural mechanisms, but that's not the point. The real problem is to explain how the designer implements them. For instance, I can intelligently mutate a gene in bacteria or even mice, but that's not supernatural, because I can give you a detailed protocol to do it that does not defy the laws of nature. If the designer does the same, ID proponents should spell out how.
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Christopher M. Langan
Member
Member # 264
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posted 06. April 2003 18:55
quote:
Precisely. Exactly what I meant: therefore, zero energy can do exactly zero physical work. Now, if you try to put yourself in the shoes of an omnipotent intelligence (I am sure that won't be so hard ), and you have to impart some information change to some physical being, there is simply no way to do that without doing some physical work (may that be mutating a single nucleotide to allow an adaptation to ensue, or assembling all-grown humans from mud and spit, or telling a bearded man on a mountain what your laws are). Unless of course, you use some supernatural method that is not subject to the restictions of the laws of physics.
I'm afraid you're missing the point again, charlie. The "work" you're talking about requires something analogous to energy that acts on probabilities in coherent wavefunctions. It is not "physical energy" in the classical sense, and therefore is not necessarily apportioned by distributed laws of physics. Therefore, its effects may be localized and nonreplicable.
quote:
This ultimate "free lunch", ironically, seems to be the only proposal for a design mechanism mainstream ID theorists like Dembski could come up with.
This is not a "free lunch", charlie. The word you may be looking for is "teleology". (As for Bill, didn't he name his book "No Free Lunch"?)
quote:
I guess one can also envision some sort of "cosmic" front loading in which it is the laws of physics themselves that determine everything else, but that's apparently a no-no to Dembski and most other IDists (it would be indistinguishable from naturalism, after all).
Speaking just for myself, I usually base my assertions on logic, so I usually forego what you might consider the obligatory opinion polls among ID theorists. But I will say that in its logical structure, front-loading is quite distinguishable from philosophical naturalism, which offers no explanation whatsoever for the laws that are being teleologically front-loaded. If philosophical (or methodological) naturalists themselves can't see this due to their restricted definitions of "nature", that makes little difference to those with broader perspectives embracing logic and nature to their full extent.
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As for your theory, I can't say I understand it, but if you say it's ID, then I believe you. It's however unclear to me if you ever proposed any physical mechanism for your cosmic model; as far as I could tell, it was a purely logical construct. I should note also that membership in ISCID does not necessarily make one an Intelligent Design proponent. Ask Micah.
Of course, I realize that you do not understand my theory. But as a matter of record, it was explicitly presented as a theory of intelligent causation before the latest public round of this controversy even began in earnest. And regarding physical as opposed to natural mechanisms, the scientific verifiability of such distinctions and restrictions on "mechanism" is precisely the issue at hand.
quote:
Now, going back to the real substance of the issue being discussed. LGT, mutation and all the other ways that a designer could act are of course natural mechanisms, but that's not the point. The real problem is to explain how the designer implements them. For instance, I can intelligently mutate a gene in bacteria or even mice, but that's not supernatural, because I can give you a detailed protocol to do it that does not defy the laws of nature. If the designer does the same, ID proponents should spell out how.
Maybe, but you certainly cannot give me a detailed protocol that verifiably does not defy the laws of probability in any finite model of nature. As for me, I've already spelled out a new class of mechanism. I've explained that a certain model of reality contains a kind of "mechanism" called "telic recursion" that involves pregeometric feedback between, and mutual adjustment of, (more or less localized) physical laws and states in the maximization of intrinsic utility. I've explained that it involves certain properties and processes of a new kind of causal manifold. And I've explained that telic-recursive mechanisms are natural mechanisms to exactly the extent that logic and mathematics are "natural".
As information about this model is published at ISCID and elsewhere, you'll have the same access to it as anyone else (should you wish to avail yourself of it). Meanwhile, I reserve the right to interject when uninformed parties assert its nonexistence.
Chris
[ 06. April 2003, 19:00: Message edited by: Christopher M. Langan ]
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charlie d.
Member
Member # 159
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posted 06. April 2003 20:00
quote:
The "work" you're talking about requires something analogous to energy that acts on probabilities in coherent wavefunctions. It is not "physical energy" in the classical sense, and therefore is not necessarily apportioned by distributed laws of physics.
I am talking about the work necessary to input information in a living organism, that is, change the genotype and/or phenotype of that organism in a non-stochastic way. This ultimately requires kinetically disfavored chemical reactions, and thus an input of energy. If you have any idea about how one can modify the genotype or phenotype of an organism without using up energy, go for it. It's all rather simple chemistry, it shouldn't be too hard to put forward a model.
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Frances
Member
Member # 169
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posted 06. April 2003 20:28
Chris:
quote:
But I will say that in its logical structure, front-loading is quite distinguishable from philosophical naturalism, which offers no explanation whatsoever for the laws that are being teleologically front-loaded.
Please describe how one would distinguish teleologically front loading from methodological naturalism? In fact I would argue that from the moment of the initial condition onwards there is no distinction. The question now remains if there is any evidence that methodological naturalism cannot explain the appearance of front loading or that ID can explain front loading in a non ad hoc manner. Perhaps you can provide us with some practical applications of your 'theory' that would help us understand how it compares to present science and if it has any real impact on it.
I have my doubts as does Murray in his essay "NATURAL PROVIDENCE (OR DESIGN TROUBLE)".
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 06. April 2003 20:41
Hey Frances,
I've seen you bring this criticism up many times and thought I might address it.
Your concern is that a front-loaded teleology is indiscernable from a methodological naturalism. My intuition is that your concern is rooted in un unfounded hope for certainty in science. Why? Because your demand is this: in order for a distinction to be made, something that happens under front-loaded teleology must be impossible under methodological naturalism. But why should this be? I think that a "best explanation" inference can be made to distinguish between the two hypothesis. Conway-Morris and others provide descent reason for suspecting a form of teleology: if the tape were rolled backwards, as Gould considered, some think that a noticeably similar evolutionary history would have unwound.
That is just a very naive example of how one might distinguish between teleology and methodological naturalism. Constraint, or the reduction of contingency in favor of specification, might be a good starting point.
But, I know, this is not good enough for you. It all falls perfectly well under methodological naturalism. Well, I say in response, that is fine, and we have hit the place in our discourse at which we depart.
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Moderator
Administrator
Member # 1
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posted 06. April 2003 20:51
This thread is closed with this post (200).
Anyone is encouraged to start a new thread whose title better reflects the topic of the current discussion.
All subsequent posts in this thread will be moved to a new thread and a link will be provided in this space when the new thread takes shape. We will leave this thread open for the time being so that posters don't lose their current work.
[ 06. April 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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Frances
Member
Member # 169
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posted 06. April 2003 21:03
Micah,
Thank you for your response. My concern is not that front loaded teleology is indistinguishable from methodological naturalism but rather the claim that intelligent design can provide an alternative to methodological naturalism or that science should reject methodological naturalism (see Murray's excellent essay for instance).
You point to Conway Morris and his claims and "best explanation" but I fail to see how this is helpful in the discussion of intelligent design? Can nature itself now be teleological in that given similar initial conditions the outcome will be similar? I doubt that given the non-linear nature of the world around us Conway Morris's suggestions are reasonable. In fact I would argue that for example unless the dinosaurs were forced to go extinct through a 'random' extinction event, life on earth may have looked very different for us mammals.
I am also not arguing that something that happens under teleological front loading has to be impossible under methodological naturalism, on the contrary I am saying that for all practical purposes such teleological front loading seems undistinguishable from methodological naturalism.
Murray extends this argument by claiming that since ID cannot differentiate front loading ID from intervention ID, and since front loading ID cannot be distinguished from methodological naturalism that '... we are compelled to admit that events which display the earmarks of design leave us in the dark about whether or not the chain of events leading up to designed event came about by intervention or purely nomically regular processes.'
At the moment given the arguments proposed by Mike Gene as well as suggestions by Dembski and others about front loading ID, I am focusing on what front loading would have to add to our scientific understanding? Is front loading merely an initial condition from which life evolved or is it something more? Surely replaying the tape is not going to help us understand this. So how do we identify natural teleology from teleology which involves intelligent design? From my understanding of Dembski we infer intelligent design once we have eliminated regularity and chance but since regularity cannot be eliminated in case of front loading, I would say that once again methodological naturalism seems to prevail.
As far as Conway Morris is concerned, we may want to see what he had to say about these concepts
quote:
This conclusion that there is a kind of ‘direction' in evolution is part of the reason why Prof. Conway Morris's ideas are so controversial, as he acknowledges: "One needs to be careful – words like ‘plan' or ‘design' evoke the idea of teleology, where there might be a purpose behind everything. But that's not a scientifically answerable question. Some people outside the field protest that evolution can't be true because of all the arguments, but the realities are there in the fossil records, molecular biology and other avenues. And it's important to stress that although there's a lot of controversy going on, there's also a great deal of agreement."
Source
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Nel
Member
Member # 614
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posted 06. April 2003 21:37
Francis,
I am actually not talking about chance/regularity being used by an intelligent designer. I'm talking about complex machines appearing abrupttly (aquired immunity, photosynthesis, bacterial flagellum). Due to their dizzying complexity and their irreducibility, this is essential. LGT may be the vehicle the designer used to do this. This is not chance/regularity. I explained this in my previous posts, these are not assertions.
I am not confused about Ged's argument, he's been making the same exact claims in three threads. His only response to IC is that it is an argument from ignorance because he believes that Darwinism is true no matter what the evidence shows. ID does not rely on sweeping unknown alternatives to ID. Thats why Dembski calls his method of elimination a "local induction", it only applies to existing testable ones. Not invisible imaginary ones.
I find it interesting that you characterize my response to Ged as misrepresenting his argument, but then you agree with me that his argument is about lack of knowledge.
ID isn't so plastic that anything is consitent with it. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I like ID. Unlike Darwinian evolution, where anything and everything is consistent with it, from sub-optimal design to optimal design, from inefficiency to efficiency, from IC to non-IC, from early ontogeny is the same, to they are different. It doesn't matter. It's sort of like your local weatherman saying it will rain and it will not rain tomorrow.
But I digress. If you can show a pathway that was due to chance/regularity then it is not consistent with intelligent design.
What Darwinism cannot explain intelligent design can. As I already stated, this is due to the fact that the Darwinian process is incapable of building the system, but an intelligent agent can. If the Darwinian process is capable of building the system then there is no reason to invoke an alternative explanation unless you are building a unified ID theory of Biology. Then you can interpret anything in light of ID, even if the infernece is unwarranted, just as anything and everything is interpeted in light of Darwinian evolution.
When Darwin argued against intelligent design he indeed was arguing FOR evolution. In fact, the argument from evil and suffering is the cornerstone of Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Cornelius G. Hunter wrote an entire tome on this topic. Here are some quotes from Darwin et. al.:
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It revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of lower animals throughout almost endless time? This very old argument from the existence of suffering against he existence of an intelligent First Cause seems to me a strong one; and the abundant presence of suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.
Here's more:
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Suffering is quite compatible with the belief in Natural Selection, which is not perfect in its action, but tends only to render each species as successful as possible in the battle for life with other species, in wonderfully complex and changing circumstances.
More from Stephen Jay Gould:
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Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution, paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the least sense.
Cornelius interprets this passage and I couldn't say it any better:
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In other words, evolution is true because divine creation is false. Likewise, "why", asks Ridley, "if whales originated independly of other tetrapods, should whales use bones that are adapted for limb articulation in order to support the reproductive organs? If they were truly independent, some other support would be used."
If arguing against intelligent design is proving Darwinian evolution then arguing against Darwinian evolution is proving intelligent design. It works nicely for both of us. I can offer the reference for these quotes upon request.
With respect to my quote from Doolitle, you wrote:
quote:
I still find it fascinating how you made an assertion about Doolittle which seems to be unsupportable by the evidence.
But you offer absolutely no response to my quotations, nor do you offer any evidence to the contrary. Instead, you completely ignored the quotes that show quite clearly what I said they showed and asked for evidence again as if that somehow is a rebuttal to my description of the quotes. All you really said was you don't like my use of the word begging. Fine , call it what you like, he was saying that evolutionary biologists should stop resisting LGT.
Lateral gene transfer does not equal bacterial sex as you imply in your parenthesis. It may occur during sex.
I never said that mutation was the only source of variation. Just that it is irrelevant.
You said that I was the product of Horizontal Gene Transfer because of my parents. But thats Vertical Gene Transfer. The product of Horizontal Gene Transfer is the swapping of genes between organisms.
I realize that despite the fact that LGT is not gradual, step by step, incremental selectable changes, Darwininan evolution can include it. But thats because Darwinian evolution is so plastic a a theory that anything is consistent with it.
Aquired immunity and photosynthesis in plants did not evolve steadily step by step into an IC system but arose from recombination of genetic material. We are seeing horizontal gene transfer happen today in the context of genetic engineering.
I have no problem repeating my "red queen" argument since I just have to cut and paste. think Behe's point here is that there is a dangerous gap between the jump from innate immunity to acquired immunity, acquired immunity is largely successful because it can generate specificity for any kind of foreign substance. Innate immunity cannot. And then there's the fact that if innate immunity consisted of receptors with single specificities, then the likelihood of a foreign substance being recognized diminishes. Even if there are some innate receptors or something like them, with single specificities, a handful of them wouldn't be enough. Which is why Behe says that a system with only a few antibodies are "not sufficient to make a difference". Bacteria would likely be able to evade, or develop resistance to those few antibodies. It has to make a lot and it has to make them fast.
A receptor with a single specificity can be bypassed or adapted to by a bacteria. There is also the problem of the loss of those receptors with single specificities through stochastic evolution. Which means if a pathogen whom that specific receptor was acting as an antibody for disappears from the population for a while, a mutation occurs where loss of that specied innate receptor or group of specified innate receptors are now gone, this is inherited in a population, the pathogen comes back, they all die.
Now you are forced to respond to it.
You continue to make the assertion that IC systems are not reliable indicators of ID. But you forego any argument to that effect for obvious reasons.
You are now retreating to "show me the designer" arguments toward the end of your post. This is the fate of those that cannot argue with the data that is consistent with ID. Unfortunately, it's just as weak as most of the replies I have gotten, show me independant evidence for the universal common ancestor of bacteria, archae, and eukaryotes and I will show you my designer.
I can show you a program that runs without the need for an intelligent agent holding it's hand. That is because the intelligent agent built it beforehand, and then "ran" it. This is equivalent to what I am referring to with respect to photosynthesis and acquired immunity.
With respect to a quote by Shapiro you write:
quote:
Even Shapiro seems to contradict Nelson
"The very biochemical tools that we now use in laboratories are __evolved__ to modulate local nucleotide variation, to rearrange genomic DNA sequences, and to acquire functional DNA sequences from the environment through horizontal
gene transfer. Shapiro pointed out that we are not the first genetic engineers." "
But this wasn't a quote by Shapiro, it was a comment by the article talking about what Shapiro stated. Furthermore, the use of the word "evolved" here is irrelevant, it's assumed, in most cases, that these complex systems evolved. Moreover, even though it is assumed it evolved, it may not have evolved through Darwinian means. The mechanism for evolution may very well be intelligent design.
[ 06. April 2003, 21:43: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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Nel
Member
Member # 614
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posted 06. April 2003 21:47
Oops sorry the thread is closed. I'll think of an OP for a new thread and then we can go from there.
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