warren_bergerson
Member
Member # 262
|
posted 19. October 2002 10:01
INTRODUCTION
The key to resolving the ID/evolution debate is, I suggest, understanding-
THE BASIC DESIGN RELATIONSHIP- ‘Genetic design processes’ are to ‘biological designs’ what ‘human design processes’ are to ‘human produced designs’.
The ID/evolution debate arises, I suggest, because both evolutionary biology and ID proponents have misinterpreted this basic design relationship. Both have erroneously assumed that "evolutionary processes ’ are the same as ‘genetic design processes’ or ‘materialistic genetic design process’. In evolutionary biology, this flawed assumption leads to the faulty conclusion that ‘evolutionary processes produce biological designs’. In ID this faulty assumption leads to the faulty conclusion that ‘non-materialistic design processes plus materialistic evolutionary processes produce biological design’.
As an alternative to ‘evolutionary processes as materialistic genetic design processes’, I suggest there exist both ‘materialistic genetic design processes’ and ‘materialistic human design processes’ which are far more powerful, effective, and efficient than evolutionary processes. For the sake of discussion, the hypothesized ‘powerful materialistic genetic design process’ and the ‘powerful materialistic human design process’ will be labeled
PGDP(powerful genetic design process) and PHDP(powerful human design process) respectively. Hypothesizing the existence of PGDP and PHDP allows me to propose the following hypotheses:
1. PGDP produces/causes/is responsible for genetic or biological design.
2. PHDP produces/causes/is responsible for designs produced by humans.
3. PGDP and PHDP have the same logical structure. And finally,
4. There exists a ‘general powerful design process’ (GPDP) which produces/causes/is responsible for all design and design processes associated with life forms.
IMPLICATIONS
Hypothesizing the existence of PGDP, PHDP, and GPDP raises three basic types of questions. First, what evidence supports/suggests the existence of these processes? Second, can PGDP,GPDP, and GPDP be identified and analyzed scientifically? And finally, what are the implications of these processes for existing forms of analysis?
The second of the above three questions is by far the most interesting, the most technical, and the most important. While I am more than happy to address the second question, it is useful to start by addressing the first and the third questions.
WHAT EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THE EXISTENCE OF PGDP, PHDP AND GPDP?
For discussion here, this question can be reduced to "What evidence suggests that the process producing biological designs is more powerful, more effective and more efficient than evolutionary processes?’ The answer to the question is ‘design performance’ and ‘adequacy of existing explanations’.
At the human design/problem solving processes, you find very powerful processes that find solutions to large numbers of very complex problems, very quickly and with relative ease (efficiency). There are obviously limits to how fast and how easily humans solve problems, but the evidence clearly shows a very powerful process operating in very short time frames.
If we look at evolutionary process as defined by RM&NS we find a very weak, very slow, very costly(in terms of lost lives) process. Given both the complexity and diversity of biological designs relative to the designs produced, and given the obvious ‘power and efficiency’ required to produce human problem solving, it seems intuitively unlikely that biological designs could have been produced by such a slow, inefficient genetic design process. [Humans can solve in a few seconds problems that would require 1,000’s or millions of generations to solve using GA’s. ]
Second, if you look closely, you find that while the evidence currently available supports the assertion ‘evolutionary processes produce design changes’, you find the evidence as supports the assertion ‘evolutionary processes are an artifact associated with design changes’. In other words, 1)there is evidence that random mutation and natural selection occur, 2)there is evidence that evolutionary change occurs, and 3)there is evidence RM&NS could cause some types of design changes. The evidence does not support the claim that ‘design change can not occur in the absence of RN&NS’ or ‘design changes are entirely explained by RM&NS’. There is in fact evidence contradicting both of these claims.
Obviously, none of the evidence currently available will convince everyone that explaining genetic design changes requires more than evolutionary processes. Not everyone will be convinced that there exists a genetic design process far more powerful, effective, and efficient than evolutionary processes. There is, however, reasonable evidence to suggest the possibility of such a process.
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF PGDP, PHDP, AND GPDP FOR EXISTING APPROACHES?
If the existence of PGDP and GPDP can be scientifically demonstrated, then clearly TOE is inadequate/incomplete as an explanation for changes in biological design.
Probably less obvious, PGDP eliminates, or at least changes, the evidence supporting the existence of an external designer. It can, I believe, be shown mathematically that there exist a mathematical functions that can explain both the creation of specific designs and the creation design processes. Within this set or range of functions, there will always be possible materialistic explanations for the creation of design and design processes. It will be noted that this is a ‘positive’ implication for ID/design science because it eliminates one of the barriers to the acceptance of ID as a science.
Probably even less obvious, GHDP suggest the possibility of modeling and simulating human intelligence/design processes.
SUMMARY
The above is offered for comment and discussion.
IP: Logged
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic