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Author
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Topic: Front Loading
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Moderator
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posted 13. January 2003 08:18
Frances,
Your wanting to defend methodological naturalism is unfortunately tangential to the discussion at hand and is increasingly looking suspicious from my end. It seems clear that Mike Gene is more concerned with the UTILITY of various hypotheses. He is merely arguing that his hypothesis of Front Loading gave him more expedient and direct insight into a certain aspect of the biological world. For this simple reason, there is a distinction to be made between his investigative starting point and that of others. Your insistance that there is nothing to distinguish his framework from that of methodological naturalism is therefore completely wrong-headed. If nothing else, it reveals to me that you've got a set of pre-canned arguments and are hovering around Brainstorms just waiting to whip out the can-opener.
[ 13. January 2003, 08:27: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 13. January 2003 09:51
I started this thread noting that front loading is important because of what it tells us about theory construction. I believe the discussion between(among) Frances, Nelson, and Mike (and now the moderator) illustrates why theories and theory construction are critical to scientific analysis.
Science, it is easy to forget, is about reaching a consensus on the best available, most reliable predictable, testable, explanation of causal relationships or natural laws. Science developed or evolved as a human behavior, it can be argued, because highly reliable predictions were useful in predicting the best time to plant crops and the best way to build complex structures(Stonehenge and pyramids).
Science progresses, it can again be argued, by an iterative process involving 1)someone proposes a predictive model of a causal relationship called a theory, 2)all other analysts have the opportunity to test and clarify the theory, and 3)the theory is replaced by a new theory which makes better, more reliable, more useful predictions. When no one can formulate a theory which can be made openly available to all analysts for testing and validation, or when there is no objective criteria for determining if one theory should replace another, then the scientific process or paradigm breaks down. When the scientific process breaks down, you have an unstructured collection of knowledge with multiple inconsistent interpretations and no hope of ever reaching a scientific consensus. You have in fact the types of unresolveable disagreements illustrated by the Nelson, Frances, and Mike discussion (it is possible for someone to win or loose such an argument, but that will not resolve the issue nor result in consensus in the scientific community).
In order to produce a predictive theory of evolutionary change or any other biological change process, one must either 1)define/explain both front loading and change processes or 2)explain only the change process and assume the front loading is unchanging or permanent and universal. Current scientific methodology and conventions, because of the permanent and universal law assumption or interpretation, only allow the second type of theory. Since we know that front loading both occurs and changes dramatically (changing the expected time for specific evolutionary changes from hundreds of billions of years to a few years) we know that predictive evolutionary change/biological design theories can not be constructed using the permanent and universal interpretation of the scientific determinism principle.
Given the logical impossibility/impracticality of constructing a theory using the permanent and universal interpretation, we can conclude that claims or assertions regarding the existence of predictive evolutionary theories are misinterpretations of the facts. In the absence of theories, there is no scientific process.
As I have also stated several times, my objective in starting this thread was not to show that predictive theories of evolution are impossible. My objective is to show that predictive theories of evolution and biological design processes are both possible and practical using the ‘dynamic and universal’ interpretation of the scientific determinism principle. I will address this interpretation in my next post.
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warren_bergerson
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posted 13. January 2003 09:54
Scientific analysis involves 1)past observations of a natural law or causal relationship translated into a predictive model and predictive theory, 2)current and future testing and validation of the model/theory by multiple independent observers, and 3)future applications of the predictions generated by the model/theory. As philosophers have pointed out, the scientific paradigm is of little practical value unless 1)observations of a causal relationship can be transformed into a testable, predictive model/theory and 2)there exists some type of logical consistency between past observations, current testing and future predictions. Although often interpreted as having a deeper significance, scientific determinism is simply the assumption that the causal relationships or natural laws expressed as formal models and theories and subjected to scientific analysis, operate in a logically consistent manner when observed in the past, tested in the present and applied in the future.
The permanent and universal interpretation of the scientific determinism principle can be expressed as ‘the causal relationships or natural laws subjected to scientific analysis have the same logical mathematical form at all times and all locations. It is important to note that the assumption does not make a particular relationship permanent and universal. The assumption means that IF the relationship or law being expressed or modeled is permanent and universal, then it is reasonable to expect future predictions will be valid.
It is fairly clear that most of the key laws or causal relationships governing life forms have a dynamic or ‘local and temporary’ logical form rather than a permanent and universal logical form. [The same stimulus, input, or cause will produce different responses, outputs, or results at different times and/or locations.] The question addressed here is not whether the laws governing life forms are dynamic, but whether it is possible to apply the scientific paradigm to the analysis of the dynamic causal relationships associated with life forms. Does, in effect, the permanent and universal interpretation impose inappropriate and unnecessary restrictions on the use of the scientific paradigm.
It will be recognized determinism or strong determinism is not logically incompatible with dynamic or causal relationships. It is easy to identify situations where ‘A causes B1’ sometimes and "A causes B2" sometimes and "A causes B3" sometimes, etc.. We can readily formulate deterministic laws if we know which form of the dynamic relationships will be present at a particular time and place. We even know that if the occurrences of the B1, B2, etc. forms are random, then we can construct stochastic deterministic laws using the permanent and universal interpretation. Unfortunately, for most causal relationships or laws associated with life forms, the form of a law applicable at a point in time is not known and the changes in form are not random.
The solution proposed here to this problem, is to recognize that the causal relationships associated with life forms are both dynamic and teleological. The causal relationships or natural laws associated with life forms not only change, but they tend to change in the direction of achieving the goal or purpose of survival (or survival of the individual and/or offspring). If a law governing a life form is viewed as dynamic and teleological, then a predictive model of the law has the form "A causes the form of B most likely to produce goal or purpose G’. If it is further recognized that scientific theories do not produce ‘exact predictions’, but ‘exact predictions under ideal conditions’, then will be recognized that a scientific theory of a dynamic and teleological law will have the form "Under ideal conditions, A causes the form of B most likely to achieve goal G". [Actual practice is a bit more complex, but this is the basic concept.]
It is probably not immediately obvious, but the ‘dynamic and teleological’ interpretation of scientific determinism (the assumption that the natural laws governing life forms are dynamic and teleological) makes it possible to construct predictive models and theories of the complex causation associated with biological design processes including evolution. [This can be demonstrated.] The ability to construct predictive, hard science, theories makes it possible to rigorously apply the scientific paradigm to the analysis of life forms.
It should be fairly obvious from the discussion here that 1)it is not possible to achieve scientific consensus without explicitly formulated predictive theories, 2)using the permanent and universal interpretation it is not possible or practical to develop a theory of evolution/biological design which accounts for changes in front loading and 3)it is not possible to construct a predictive theory of biological design/evolution without accounting for the changes in front loading. Front loading presents an unsovleable problem for any science relying exclusively on the permanent and universal interpretation of scientific determinism. The dynamic and teleological interpretation of scientific determinism provides a solution. To see this it will undoubtedly be necessary to work through specific examples.
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Frances
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posted 13. January 2003 12:36
Moderator,
You seem to be confusing me pointing out that Mike's approach is nothing different from what science would do namely methodological naturalism to show that for instance cytosine deamination leads to preferentially hydrophobic coding codons. I am not 'defending. methodological naturalism, since it quite obviously needs no defending.
If Mike wants to argue that his argument of 'front loading' gives some utility then I agree but in the end both the presumption of a utility preloading or a natural preloading leads to the same finding about cytosine deamination.
But Mike went beyond the claim of utility to state that he set out to show why an engineer would use cytosine. His argument however seems to amount to painting the bullseye around the arrow.
I am more than happy to accept that there was a different starting point between Mike and scientific researchers into cytosine deamination but I am merely pointing out that the starting point does not seem to make much difference to the final conclusion.
His framework is indeed completely naturalistic for t>t_0 with one minor variation. At a certain instance t=t_0 there is an initial condition which Mike considers to be designed and science considers to be due to regularity/chance. But the impact of this assumption on the scientific method to determine the impact of the initial conditions uses purely methodological naturalistic approaches. In fact Mike himself has stated that at t>t_0 all the processes are natural.
I am sorry to hear that you believe that these are pre-canned arguments since I have not really dealt with front loading in this detail before other than pointing out Murray's compelling arguments. One may not like the direction the conclusions of this thread seem to have taken but is that not the intention of this forum?
Btw I find your statements to be hovering on argument ad hominem, moderator or not. And since you raised them in public rather than in private I feel compelled to defend myself. Unless you want to open up a discussion which seems to be contrary to the spirit of this forum I suggest that you contact me in the future via private messaging.
[Moderator Note: Archiving what one says is fine, but a line needs to be drawn between links that are useful and links that serve mainly to promote another site. The most important rule one learns in any Moderating 101 class is that you need to cut site-promoting at the knees.]
[ 13. January 2003, 22:02: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 13. January 2003 16:05
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
To illustrate how the dynamic and teleological interpretation is used to construct predictive hard science theories, consider the following general non-Darwinian theory of evolution.
A NON-DARWINIAN DESIGN SCIENCE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Under ideal conditions, biological design processes will produce or cause the type of front loading most likely to be compatible with the goal or purpose of survival.
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Nel
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posted 13. January 2003 20:30
Francis,
I'm going to cut through the grass in his post and reply to his qualitative points:
1. You say that I ignored possible pathways towards the eye of the pectin.
Actually I didn't ignore it, as my previous post pointed out, none of the details of natural selection and random mutation was discussed, in fact, there were no details. They were images from undetailed lecture notes. I discussed what I think are problems for the BWM (blind watchmaker mechanism) hypothesis of pectin and lobster eye evolution.
As I stated wrt the lobster eye, the light reflects off these perfect squares which enable it to take all the incoming reflected light and perfectly target them all on a single point on the retina. As far as the scallop eye, in each of its eyes it has two photoreceptor layers, a proximal and distal, essentially layered on top of each other. They are reflectors, not refractors, and the same principle is used today to make X-Ray telescopes.
By the way, in the images you posted, they absolutely look like perfect squares. In fact, in an article written by the author of a peer reviewed paper on the lobster eye states that it looks like perfect graph paper.
Land, M.F., Animal eyes with mirror optics, Scientific American 239(6):88–99 1978.
Dakin questioned the ability of natural selection to generate these structures, as well as what selective advantage was there to urk the organism to take the road to more complexity when their camera-type eyes, as seen from more primitive animals, was doing quite well. This was not addressed and frankly I (me personally) do not find the "we may not know now but someday we will" argument very convincing as it has been used countless times every time I talk to a BWM advocate about various systems from molecular machines to the eye of the lobster.
2. You say I am not talking about front-loading, but intervention.
Actually, I'm talking about front-loading. You'll notice, even in all those quotes you posted, I used words like poised, and I also used words like "pre-positioned". This does not give power to a blind process, since this evolution is informed by intelligence. It is the failure of natural selection and RM alone to account for these eyes that opens the door to front-loading.
3. You say: " Spondylus Until Nelson can show us from the original research papers what the eye of the Spondylus looks like as compared to Pecten we have no real way to discuss this."
You did this yourself:
quote:
In the Spondylus and Pectinidae, the eyes are quite well developed consisting of a cornea, lens and retina.
My point about Spondylus is found in my previous post and was not addressed.
Anyway, my discussion of front-loading and eye development center around pax-6. Pax-6 has remained more or less the same in most branches of life. In every animal examined that has eyes this gene proves to be involed in eye development. Moreover, it is necessary for function. In both Mice and flies pax6 mutations severely affect development of eyes. Drosophila has two closely related pax6 genes, eyeless (ey) and twin of eyeless (toy). Expresssion of either of these genes in antennal, leg and wing imaginal discs in drosophila causes well formed ectopic eyes. In xenopus embryos ectopic injection of pax6 into blastomeres causes ectopic eye-like structures. So not only is Pax6 required for eye formation, it is also the author of eye development. Pax-6 genes control both upstream and terminal functions in the gene network for eye development. Since pax-6 genes also exist in primitive organisms like sponges, a prediction of FL (Mike or Warren can correct me if I'm wrong) would be that it plays a non-essential role in these organisms.
[ 13. January 2003, 20:47: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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Frances
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posted 13. January 2003 22:09
Dear Nelson,
May I suggest that when you quote from Answers in Genesis that you at least provide for the correct reference? And it would be helpful that you would indicate that you are quoting from a secondary source.
quote:
The eye of a lobster (and some other 10-legged crustaceans1 including shrimps and prawns) shows a remarkable geometry not found elsewhere in nature—it has tiny facets that are perfectly square, so it ‘looks like perfect graph paper.’2
2. Hartline, B.K., Lobster-eye x-ray telescope envisioned, Science 207(4426):47, 4 January 1980.
And while at smaller resolution indeed this may seem to be perfect, reality shows that at high magnification they are hardly that perfect.
Another example of these 'perfect squares' in prawn shrimps
[ 13. January 2003, 22:15: Message edited by: Frances ]
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Nel
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posted 13. January 2003 22:47
Actually Francis, both citations (the correct one and the incorrect one) were taken from Denton's book, as I said many times that I am working from. I even specifically stated why I'm working from Denton's book, because Conway Morris cited it in his article in Cell.
Here is the full quote:
quote:
The lobster is the most unrectangular animal I've ever seen. But under the microscope a lobster's eye looks like perfect graph paper.
I did not take it from from "Answers in Genesis".
That micrograph of the prawn is not very detailed. Here is a better, microscopic image of the lobster eye:
Note that the author of the article stated that they are perfect squares.
[ 14. January 2003, 18:29: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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Mike Gene
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posted 14. January 2003 01:13
For some reason, Frances thinks I am not addressing the "real issues." So let's again go through this one last time.
First of all Mike objects to me stating that his approach and Poole's approach led to the same conclusion.
I'm not "objecting," simply pointing out that no "same conclusion" was reached.
Mike correctly points out that I confused Poole's paper with the papers in which the link between cytosine deamination and increase hydrophobicity was made. While I thank Mike for correcting my minor error he seems to have ignored the real issue namely that he used methodological naturalism to explain the tendency of cytosine deamination to incrase hydrophobicity.
The "real issue" is my use of MN? I am having a very hard time understanding why this is the "real issue." You claim that you are not asking me to invoke supernaturalism, yet your real issue is that I don't (by using MN).
Now, it's not just that cytosine deamination increases hydrophobicity. The relationship is mediated by the conventional genetic code. What's more, the effect is most pronounced on the coding strand (it doesn't exist on the transcribed strand). Thus, the relationship presupposes the existence of DNA and its transcription as we know it. Whether this is something "naturalism cannot possibly explain" is not important.
In fact from the moment he defined the instance of 'front loading' his approach is indistinguishable from methodological naturalism.
Is there a problem with the possibility that evolution was designed? If it was, or at least some aspect of it was, the fact that the mechanisms of evolution are natural is totally irrelevant. I've explained several times now that front-loading is not about finding a violation in the laws of natural. Front-loaded evolution is an alternative view of evolution, allowing us to focus on different points of emphasis and explore relationships not explored by a non-teleological view. Your "indistinguishable" complaint keeps missing the target.
Neiter Mike nor others may have explained or shown how cytosine became incorporated but both work from the assumption that it was. Mike suggests that his approach allowed him to address the claim that 'an engineer would have replaced cytosine' but nothing in his approach supports this argument.
Like I said, Poole et al. made the claim that no engineer would have used cytosine. I have provided one reason why an engineer might have used cytosine. This is sufficient to refute the original claim. The very fact that cytosine is more prone to change is exactly the type of thing an engineer might exploit if he/she were trying to design the future through the present.
All he has shown is that natural processes seem to have led to cytosome deamination and a corresponding increase in hydrophobicity.
That's one way of looking at it. Did natural processes generate this conventional code such that it happened to make use of cytosine deamination to cause some rather specific changes in protein sequence and perhaps structure/function?
No effort was made to show that an engineer would or would not have used cytosine or would or would not have replaced cytosine.
The original argument was that an engineer would have replaced cytosine. Why? Because it is prone to mutation. That was the "effort" made to justify the original claim. What I have shown is one possible utility behind such predisposition that an engineer might would want. Sometimes, people don't see the forest through the trees.
In fact Mike has made no effort to show any link between his findings and the idea of front loading.
At this point, the link is hypothetical and generates testable predictions. What I have highlighted could be one possible mechanism of active front-loading, as I outline in Figure 7 of my original essay.
Looking back in time and then saying that it must have been front loaded because it seems to have been selected for is begging the question.
I never said anything "must have been front-loaded." All you are raising, again, are caveats that are insufficient reason to abandon the investigation.
Mike complains the evolutionary approach claims that it must have been chance/evolution but that is not very different from 'it must have been design'.
No, I didn't not complain nor did I claim something "must have been." In trying to reply to your assertions about the "indistinguishable," I simply noted that different perspectives are likely to give rise to different approaches (after all, we 'approach' things from a 'perspective'.) In this case, the non-teleological perspective takes an approach that often terminates in the realm of "just happened" (so-called frozen accidents, in this case). The teleological perspective, in contrast, looks for patterns, connections, and relationships.
Both are assumptions which would require some supporting evidence. The fact that cytosine deamination leads to increased hydrophobicity is no evidence of the premise that 'chance did it' nor 'an intelligent designer did it'.
I am exploring potential mechanisms of extracting a front-loaded state as part of an investigation. I'm not trying to show "the intelligent designer did it."
Mike wants to argue that different perspectives give different approaches but I'd argue that these approaches are not distinguishable from methodological naturalism. No teleology is required to explain what happened t>t_0 and no evidence of the need of teleology at t=t_0 has been provided.
And we always end up back at this same point of miscommunication. Again, we can see that you work under the impression that we employ teleological thinking only when it is "required" and only when there is evidence that it is "needed." But that's only one way to approach this. Your problem with me is that I don't invoke the supernatural (the basis of your complaints about me employing "methodological naturalism") and that I haven't first proven the need for teleology.
Mike does suggest that he provided a description with 'purpose' but that seems to be like painting the bulls eye around the arrow, to use a common metaphore.
That's a possibility. Nevertheless, the investigation plays out by using this purpose as a working hypothesis. Remember, I'm not trying to prove design; I'm simply investigating.
Mike suggests that his approach allowed him to pre-specify that deamination of cytosine increased hydrophobicity but that seems hard to imagine.
No, I did not make such a claim. What I noted is that my well-known previous interest in front-loading allowed me a different perspective with which to interpret cytosine's predisposition to deamination.
The concept of evolution would also predict that if cytosine deamination were an important contributor to the increase of hydrophobicity and that if such increase would be increasing fitness that cytosine deamination events would be common.
That's only one way of looking at it.
It has been argued that Mike's approach canm not been distinguished from methodological naturalism approach and that the findings do not help us answer the question of the presence of cytosine at instance t_0, the moment of front loading. Thus either chance/necessity or intelligent design may have been responsible for what happened at time t_0 but after time t_0 it was all methodological naturalism and not intelligent design.
Y'see, it's arguments like these that don't make sense. Methodological naturalism is form of epistemology that is human-dependent. It is not something that happens after time t_0. But yes, one possibility is that after the initial seeding with bioengineered cells, the buried designs were later extracted by natural mechanisms which themselves, may have been designed.
Mike suggests that since cytosine inclusion was not a frozen accident his premise may be preferable.
No, I explained that I don't expect you to prefer my speculations. I explained my reasons for exploring the alternative I laid out.
But lets point out that Mike does not explain anything about the 'frozen design incident' thus leaving it for all practical purposes indistinguishable from a 'frozen accident'.
This makes no sense to me.
Additionally Mike may have created a strawman of 'frozen accident' when the actual mechanisms may have been a combination of availability and selective advantages.
Poole et al. went with the frozen accident thesis, which is what I replied to. If you want to credit the blind watchmaker with this too, knock yourself out.
That an engineer may exploit the same pathways that evolution may exploit also does not help us address the issue of front loading.
Sure it does. It helps us address the plausibility of the front-loading thesis I have laid out.
Front loading/origins are separate from the evolution t>t_0. Mike however has not provided any evidence that the event at t=t_0 involved front loading.
First things first - I am focused on plausible mechanisms for front-loading.
Mike did initially suggest that there was some problem with cytosine formation in prebiotic world which would have been a way to eliminate chance/regularity as a possibility and thus strengthening a design inference but as I have pointed out our knowledge has increased and potential and realistic pathways may have been identified.
No, what I did was to note two things. First, there isn't any good evidence that cytosine was a major player in the prebiotic soup. Secondly, cytosine is not needed for RNA-based enzymatic activity. I then asked you why it is that RNA contains cytosine. If it was essential for enzymatic activity, then selection would be a possible example. If it was one of the main ingredients in the soup, then simple availability might work. But neither one seems to hold. Of course, we could go the ad hoc route and imagine that cytosine may have been incorporated later on, but here you should find prebiotic-relevant, cytosine-dependent functions. Of course, such things might very well exist, as many known RNA functions are probably cytosine-dependent and its possible some could be viewed as "pre-biotic relevant." Whether any of that would be a reflection of history is anyone's guess. But remember, the context of my suggestion was to help you better flesh out, in a positive way, your claim that front-loading occurred at the Big Bang.
Okay, it's getting late, I'm getting tired, and it really seems we're talking past each other. Let me skip to a couple main points and hopefully I can address the rest later.
A. Mike still seems to be confused when insisting that I claim that design has to be supernatural. I am pointing out that t>t_0 does not help resolving the intelligent design claim and that t=t_0 has not been addressed. You suggest that at t=t_0 some event took place without really defining the moment t=t_0, the circumstances of the event, the goals of the event. Mike merely claims that at t=t_0 there was an initial state namely cytosine was present as one of the four bases in DNA. Unless Mike wants to argue that at t=t_0 a supernatural design event took place, he has no reason to suggest that I am requiring a supernatural design.
I'm confused because your major issue is that the expression of teleology I speak of used natural law as a conduit. If someone were to design self-replicating widgets in a way that their process of self-replication and repair would channel the evolution of gidgets, how might we recover this design event? I suggest a very close look at the mechanisms might uncover a conceptual realm, where the past might make sense in light of the future. Your approach is to look for something that could not be generated by these designed mechanisms.
Furthermore, you have completely forgotten what I wrote to you 10 days ago:
quote:
You want ways to distinguish between front loading design and natural processes. Yet it's way too early in the investigation to provide such a definitive answer. At this stage in the game, FLE represents an alternative perspective. That is, if the two perspectives cannot be distinguished, there is no reason for me to ignore the FLE perspective and focus entirely on natural processes to the exclusion of their possible teleological use. Now, after the FLE perspective has been thoroughly fleshed out, to answer several of the questions I have posed, we can then return to your question. That is, let's first see what falls out from a more focused FLE perspective, okay?
B. Mike wants to know what data would cause me to suspect that evolution was front loaded. This would require the following 1. Mike needs to define what the purpose or goal(s) are of the intelligent agent 2. Mike has to show that given the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the world around us, this goal can be reliably reached 3. it can be shown that natural processes without intelligent design could not have achieved the state at t=t_0 4. it can be shown that there was indeed an intelligent agent present at t=t_0.
1. As already mentioned, the working hypothesis is that the purpose/goal at this point was to rig things such that the designed unicellular state would find multicellular states. The investigation begins modestly.
2. That's one of the objectives being carried out by my essay on cytosine deamination and other postings.
Now, when it comes to points 3 and 4, what Frances needs to merely suspect evolution was front-loaded are investigation-killers.
3. He needs to demonstration that intelligent design is "required," that natural processes could not achieve the state. He needs someone to prove a negative for him.
4. He needs independent evidence of a designer. Is the investigator supposed to invent time travel and take along a video camera? Search the world, in Indiana Jones fashion, in a quest to find a crashed alien spacecraft?
I thank Frances for his answers, but it is now clear that the type of investigation I am fleshing out would never be good enough to trigger a suspicion in him. And that's okay, as we all have different levels of trigger sensitivity (we just should put them on the table). Now, I will make it clear that I am not going to attempt to prove a negative, nor am I going on a search for the intelligent agent. Thus, we can happily agree to part company and go our separate ways.
[ 14. January 2003, 02:49: Message edited by: Mike Gene ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 14. January 2003 09:54
In reading the comments of Mike, Nelson, and Frances, it appears to me that all three are in agreement that 1)front loading exists and 2)some types of front loading can and do produce ‘positive/beneficial’ impacts on some evolutionary changes. The debate, if I am reading the arguments correctly, is not over the real world phenomena called front loading, but over how front loading is, can be, or should be expressed or interpreted in constructing scientific theories.
Mike, Nelson, and Frances also appear to be in agreement that in incorporating front loading into a scientific theory we must accept the permanent and universal interpretation of scientific determinism. Frances, arguing for conventional evolutionary biology, is limited to the assumption that front loading is a random feature of a permanent and universal universe. Based on this assumption, some features of front loading may have a positive or beneficial or teleological impact on evolutionary change, but there must, based on the permanent and universal assumption, be just as many features of front loading which have a negative, harmful, or counter impact on evolutionary change.
In support of his position, Frances is using the rather dubious argument that 1)if we know about a specific instance of teleological front loading, and 2)since this could be one of the random positive fluctuations, then 3)the evidence for positive or teleological front loading is compatible with and supports the existing permanent and universal theory.
Mike and Nelson, while far more careful to focus on the data rather than theoretical interpretation of the data, appear to attempting to support the argument that 1)front loading is a permanent and universal feature of the environment, 2)front loading is far more likely to have a positive or beneficial or teleological impact on evolutionary change, then given 1) and 2) it is reasonable to suggest the positive or teleological bias in evolutionary processes was front loaded at the beginning of time (or introduced by external intervention at some later date).
Mike, Nelson, and Frances are all using and relying on the permanent and universal assumption/interpretation. If 1)the assumption is wrong(if it is not useful or appropriate to assume that the laws governing evolutionary change are permanent and universal) , and if 2)it is both possible and practical to formulate testable, predictive theories using an alternative assumption/interpretation, then the arguments offered by Mike, Nelson, and Frances are all wrong.
On a purely common sense basis, the assumption that front loading is a permanent and universal feature of the environment does not seem reasonable. The front loading applicable to evolutionary adaptive change appears to be dynamic not permanent and the changes appear to be purposeful or beneficial not random.
If you recognize that the permanent and universal assumption is dubious at best, then the question becomes "Is there a practical and effective method of constructing theories and applying the scientific paradigm using something other than the permanent and universal interpretation?"
It is well known that the source of many flawed arguments is one or more flawed assumptions. It is also well known the humans have a surprisingly hard time recognizing flaws in assumptions, particularly assumptions that have been widely accepted and widely used for a long time.
Mike, Nelson, and Frances are reaching very different conclusions using apparently the same facts and the same assumptions. It is not unreasonable to suggest that this result occurs because they are both using the same faulty assumption.
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warren_bergerson
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posted 14. January 2003 11:26
In an effort to keep the discussion here on a positive note, I introduced yesterday an alternative to Darwinian evolutionary theory which utilizes the concept of ‘dynamic and teleological’ laws of nature. To repeat, the theory proposed was:
A NON-DARWINIAN DESIGN SCIENCE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Under ideal conditions, biological design processes will produce or cause the type of front loading most likely to be compatible with the goal or purpose of survival.
It can be argued there are three broad criteria for evaluating a scientific theory- 1)compatibility with observed facts, 2)formal testing and validation, and 3)usefulness of practical applications. For today, I will limit my remarks to the question "Which provides a better apparent fit to the facts- Darwin or the proposed alternative theory?"
It hardly need repeating, but the theory proposed above is an attempt to explain the process of change, not whether evolutionary change or biological design has occurred.
POWER AND SPEED
The change process proposed by Darwin has the appearance of being very slow and very gradual. It appears that Darwinian processes have only a limited ability to produce very complex adaptive solutions. (designs with an improbability of less than 1 in 10^150 for example).
The observed data, by contrast, suggests that evolutionary process can at time act very rapidly. The evidence also suggests that the designs produced by evolutionary processes are very complex. While many people believe that Darwinian process could produce many observed types of evolutionary change, no one has produced explicit demonstration that this is in fact possible.
It is easily demonstrated that front loading can produce evolutionary processes based on non-random variation and secondary selection (non-Natural Selection). Avoiding the limitations of random variation and natural selection vastly increases the potential speed and power of evolutionary processes. Given dynamic front loading, there is no theoretical limit either to the complexity of design which can be produced or the speed at which such evolutionary changes can occur.
Darwinian theory relies on hand waving to explain the observed speed and power of real world evolutionary changes. Dynamic front loading makes it possible to explicitly model and simulate the observed power and speed.
CONTINUITY
It is known that organisms exhibit the ability to produce both ‘within life time’ adaptive changes and ‘between life time’ or long term adaptive changes. Darwinian theory provides no explanation for within lifetime adaptive changes nor does it provide an explanation for the apparent continuity among the different types of adaptive change.
Dynamic front loading means it is possible to develop a continuous set of adaptive change processes with essentially any change duration from very short to very long.
SCOPE
ID is based on the observation that the complex designs created by humans and the complex designs created by non-human biological processes are very similar. Darwinian theory treats the two design generating process as entirely separate despite the fact that they both involve biological systems and it is assumed that the human creative process represents the evolution of a pre-human creative process.
The theory being proposed here recognizes that both human and non-human biological design processes are forms of the same general process.
SUMMARY
Darwinian theory has been around so long, and is so widely accepted by the scientific/academic community, it is often easy to overlook how poorly Darwinian theory fits known data. The claim that Darwinian theory fits observed data is based to a very large extent on ‘we’ll explain that later’ and ‘everybody knows that must be true’. The alternative to Darwin being proposed here actually appears to provide a much improved fit to observed data.
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RBH
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posted 14. January 2003 12:19
I'll succumb to temptation and make just one remark on warren's post. He wrote quote:
Darwinian theory provides no explanation for within lifetime adaptive changes nor does it provide an explanation for the apparent continuity among the different types of adaptive change.
Nor does Newtonian celestial mechanics provide an explanation for "within lifetime adaptive changes."
Contemporary evolutionary theory in biology makes no attempt to explain "within lifetime adaptive changes" for the obvious reason that those kinds of changes are not the primary subject matter of evolutionary theory. Cognitive psychology and its successor cognitive science along with neuroscience, however, do provide various explanations of "within lifetime adaptive changes" related to behavioral adaptations within the lifetime of an organism (it's called "learning" and is a pretty substantial field of inquiry), while developmental biology has as its focus "within lifetime changes" that constitute the dynamical process of change from fertilized egg to adult. Evo-devo is the field of inquiry that looks at the relationship between evolutionary processes and developmental processes, and is making some progress in understanding the interactions there. Evolutionary psychology is making motions toward studying how various behavioral modes or patterns or traits may have evolved, but in my view that's pretty speculative and undeveloped so far. Finally, there is work on how the expression of some genes is enabled or inhibited in the presence of environmental variables, and that may constitute "within lifetime adaptive change."
But in the main "Darwinian theory" is not a theory about "within lifetime adaptive changes" and thus warren's criticism is misplaced. It's one thing to criticize evolutionary theory for perceived flaws in what it purports to do; it's quite another (and illegitimate) thing to criticize it for not doing what it doesn't purport to do. Evolutionary theory does not pretend to be a "Theory of Everything About Living Things."
RBH
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Nel
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posted 14. January 2003 19:06
Warren,
I don't think that I am disagreeing with Mike, at least not in my Pax-6 discussion. In fact, I am employing a criteria of front-loading that Conway Morris calls "molecular inherency"
quote:
"a gene known to be of major importance in organogenesis in a higher animal also occurs in a more primitive group."
An extension of this wrt front-loading is to posit that if it does occur in that more primitive group, then it most likely has a non-essential function, that being a fingerprint/evidence that metazoan life was evolved through primitive life.
[ 14. January 2003, 19:46: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 15. January 2003 10:06
RBH,
Quote: Contemporary evolutionary theory in biology makes no attempt to explain "within lifetime adaptive changes" for the obvious reason that those kinds of changes are not the primary subject matter of evolutionary theory.
The ‘we have too many other important things to do’ argument is not very credible. Darwinian theory characterizes evolution as a one cycle per lifetime teleological process. The theory predicts that 1)the more complex the adaptive problem (the larger the search area and the fewer the adaptive solutions) and 2)the less time available to find an adaptive solution(the shorter the length of time until the environmental change necessitating the adaptive change kills the organisms) the less likely the organism or species is to survive. Since evolution is limited to one cycle per lifetime, an organism should have no opportunity to evolve an adaptive solution if the time required for adaptation is less than one lifetime.
The actual data available, however, clearly contradicts this Darwinian prediction. Organisms are fully as capable of generating complex solutions to adaptive problems requiring rapid adaptation as they are of generating complex solutions to long term adaptive problems. Darwinian theory offers no explanation (or a hand wave, we’ll figure it out some day explanation).
My proposed theory of evolution offers an explanation for the observed high speed evolution in terms of front loading. In order to understand the front loading explanation, it will be first necessary to explain the mathematics used to model teleological causation and front loading.
STRONG AND WEAK TELEOLOGICAL CAUSATION
Long before Darwin’s time it was recognized that teleological or purposeful behavior or causation results from a complex causal interaction among selection, variation, and preservation. Modern Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories attempt to explain evolutionary change as purposeful or teleological change where 1)selection takes the form of Natural Selection, 2)preservation takes the form of heritability via genetics, and 3)variation takes the form of random or non-directed variation.
The power, strength, or ‘intelligence’ of teleological causation can be quantified in terms of the expected time required to find an adaptive or teleological solution to a problem of fixed complexity. This expected time will be a function of 1)the number of trials or cycles, 2)the strength of the selective process, and 3)the type of variation (random variation would typically be treated as the base case) .
The Darwinian model of evolutionary change would be characterized as a very weak teleological process or force, because 1)the process proposed by the theory involves one cycle per life time, 2)the form of selection is generally very weak, and 3)the type of variation is random. You can create a more powerful and/or more intelligent teleological process either by 1)introducing more cycles per lifetime(or per unit of time), 2)by introducing stronger selection processes or 3)by introducing a more efficient non-random variation processes. The number of cycles per life time, the strength of selection, and the mechanisms for generating variation can all be modified by front loading.
It will be worth noting at this time that mathematical/computer techniques for converting a weak search routine or problem solving routine into a much stronger, faster, more effective search or problem solving routine are well known. [In a computer simulation, you can change front loading by changing program used.] Even search routines based on evolutionary algorithms routinely use some of the techniques for speeding teleological search processes. The mathematics involved in billion fold increases in the power of an evolutionary process (or even a 10^1000 fold increase) are easily demonstrated.
CONCLUSION
We know that Darwinian theory defines a weak teleological force or process. The existence of rapid, complex, within lifetime adaptive changes by life forms suggests the existence in biological systems of strong teleological processes. We know from mathematical simulations that weak teleological processes can be transformed into strong teleological forces using front loading. There is strong evidence that front loading in biological systems is dynamic (changes) and that changes are purposeful or teleological ( tend to be in the direction of increasing the likelihood of survival). The initial evidence would therefore seem to support my theory of evolutionary change and to be inconsistent with the Darwinian weak teleological process theory.
As I stated yesterday, the existence of within lifetime adaptive change provides observable data supporting my proposed theory of evolution and observable data casting doubt on Darwinian theories of evolution.
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warren_bergerson
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posted 15. January 2003 10:56
Nelson,
Quote Nelson: I don't think that I am disagreeing with Mike, at least not in my Pax-6 discussion. In fact, I am employing a criteria of front-loading that Conway Morris calls "molecular inherency"
quote: "a gene known to be of major importance in organogenesis in a higher animal also occurs in a more primitive group."
I think I understand what you and Mike mean by front loading. In a broad sense, any environmental or internal feature of an organisms that has any impact on evolutionary change is a form of front loading.
I probably did not make it clear that I am referring to the more limited type of front loading that produces substantial purposeful or teleological impact. Specifically, I am discussing the type of beneficial front loading that dramatically increases the power and effectiveness of teleological evolutionary processes. If my theory proposes, front loading is dynamic and teleological (if it can evolve to benefit the organisms or if it can evolve to increase the likelihood of survival), then evolution can and has evolved into a far more powerful and effective teleological process than suggested by Darwinian theory.
As I stated in my response to RBH, the ability to improve the power and effectiveness of evolutionary processes by front loading is easily demonstrated mathematically( although this potential is apparently not widely recognized by biologists). As Dembski and others have demonstrated, the complexity of the designs produced by biological systems are far greater than what can be explained by Darwinian processes( although in general biologists dramatically under estimate the complexity of ‘simple’ biological designs and vastly over estimate the ability of Darwinian processes to produce such designs). However, it seems that almost no one has been able or willing to put the two pieces of information together and propose that evolutionary change is the result of a speeded up evolutionary process.
Part of the problem in combining these two pieces is the permanent and universal assumption which makes it difficult to construct a theory of dynamic and purposeful processes. A second reason for the reluctance to consider ‘enhanced or front loaded or dynamic and teleological evolution’ is that the first thing you sacrifice in order to produce enhanced evolution is Natural Selection. In order to significantly increase the power and effectiveness of evolutionary processes it is necessary to replace Natural Selection with secondary or indirect selection which allows very large number of selection cycles or trials per life time.
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