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Author
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Topic: Different kinds of 'complexity'
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Thomas Waschke
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posted 19. April 2003 03:57
IDists use complexity in different forms to show that there must be a designer. I find it useful to differentiate two kinds of 'complexity'.
a) 'One generation complexity'
Complexity of this kind is attained by certain systems between 'birth' and 'death'. Examples are watches, computer programs, SETI-signals and so on. Complexity of a certain degree is always a result of design.
b) 'Many generation complexity'
Systems displaying this kind of complexity are the product of a series of generations with a transfer of 'information' between them ('descent with modification). The only example I know are organisms.
IDists always calculate probabilities for a) and don't show that their arguments are of any relevance to b).
The open question, if 'descent with modification' is able to generate 'true' novelties is no argument for any validity of considerations based on a) for b).
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Evan
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posted 19. April 2003 10:08
This is an issue that I mentioned in the thread on definitions of specified complexity, and of course many others have mentioned it also.
Given that the Dembskian ID definition of complexity involves the probability of something happening (or coming into existence), any calculations of complexity must involve events happening both over large populations of organisms and over many generations. And yet the only calculations I've ever seen offered (such as in Dembski's "No Free Lunch") are of what you call type a: the probability of the event happening in one individual in one generation.
If the theoretical framework of ID as outlined by Dembski is ever going to become empirically based (so that non-designed events are accurately selected by the explanatory filter,) biologically accurate methods of calculating the probabilities of multi-individual and multi-generational changes need to be developed.
I continue to be a bit surprised that prominent advocates of ID don’t address this issue.
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The situation is somewhat analogous (and of course, only somewhat by the definition of analogy) to what Feynman did with his theory of quantum-electrodynamics. Even though we think an electron goes directly from point A to point B, quantum theory shows that it has various probabilities for taking various paths, and in fact the number of these paths is infinite. Feynman developed his path integral, sum over histories approach to these calculations in order to correctly calculate quantum events: ways to add up the net result of all these various paths with their various probabilities.
In order to do this, Feynman (and others) had to experimentally determine the probabilities of certain key aspects of the behavior of particles, develop mathematical methods for calculating the net result of many such events (the sum over histories approach), and then test their conclusions against actual events in the physical world.
For the theory of ID to be tested, a similar approach needs to be developed for biology. Biology, of course, will be much harder, but the same ideas hold. In any one genome, their are various probabilities of certain changes happening, and therefore of course over a large population there are probabilities of various sets of changes happening in the same individual. Some of these probabilities are roughly known at this time.
Then there is the fact that changes in the genome cause changes in the organism (and there is nothing in the physics analogy to match this, I think,) there is then the selective pressure of the environment on the organisms (which is itself both ever-changing and includes all the other members of the population in question,) and then there is the fact that this goes on generation after generation.
ID biology will need to look at all these aspects, using both empirically based data and mathematical methods analogous to the sum-over-histories approach, in order to accurately put the explanatory filter to work in order to find out if there truly are things that are so improbable that they must be designed.
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Ryan Huxley
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posted 22. April 2003 00:53
Hello Evan and Thomas. You do bring up some good points that in order for ID to be considered empirically based, then there should be some empirically based probabilistic calculations to substantiate the claims of design made. It is certainly no surprise that there are still tools and concepts being developed in the ID movement, and this is one area in particular that definitely warrants such research.
However, this issue is not only a problem for IDers - it's also one for evolutionists. In fact, Behe has pointed out this problem (at least conceptually) as it relates to IC from an evolutionary perspective (see Behe response to critics - I'll apologize in advance for the somewhat lengthy quote below):
quote:
Envisioning IC in terms of selected or unselected steps thus puts the focus on the process of trying to build the system. A big advantage, I think, is that it encourages people to pay attention to details; hopefully it would encourage really detailed scenarios by proponents of Darwinism (ones that might be checked experimentally) and discourage just-so stories that leap over many steps without comment. So with those thoughts in mind, I offer the following tentative “evolutionary” definition of irreducible complexity:
An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
That definition has the advantage of promoting research: to state clear, detailed evolutionary pathways; to measure probabilistic resources; to estimate mutation rates; to determine if a given step is selected or not. It allows for the proposal of any evolutionary scenario a Darwinist (or others) may wish to submit, asking only that it be detailed enough so that relevant parameters might be estimated. If the improbability of the pathway exceeds the available probabilistic resources (roughly the number of organisms over the relevant time in the relevant phylogenetic branch) then Darwinism is deemed an unlikely explanation and intelligent design a likely one.
Given the historical nature of the development of life, it is going to be a gargantuan task to determine many of these factors. To compound the problem, there are undoubtedly "hiccups" (i.e. mass extinctions) to the uniformitarian view, which, if it were uninterrupted, would at least minimize the complexity of determining "functionally smooth" (from a mathematical sense) historic factors. Yet, it is likely that in trying to get a good handle on these that much will be discovered. So, I think this is actually an area where both IDers and evolutionists are in the same boat - it would be in doing these types of substantiated calculations that each side would be "showing the evidence" in a concrete fashion. While in a sense the "gauntlet is being thrown down," I think it is being done by both sides - and for good reason: it's in these calculations that we can begin to discover what the huge amount of empirical data suggests.
While I don't have much to add from a calculation standpoint, I do agree that this should be an area of research by both sides - perhaps even collaborating? (Is that wishful thinking?) ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Ryan Huxley
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posted 22. April 2003 01:15
I forgot to mention that the integration process over time can still be accomplished even with the punctuated catastrophic periods - the integrals would just be valid over certain discrete ranges of t (time) and simply added together. Determining these time periods (i.e. range of valid integration for a particular function being used) may not be that difficult based on inferences made from the fossil record. But, determining the function that needs to be integrated - that's the incredibly difficult task.
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 22. April 2003 02:05
Ryan: So, I think this is actually an area where both IDers and evolutionists are in the same boat - it would be in doing these types of substantiated calculations that each side would be "showing the evidence" in a concrete fashion
I think there is a major difference, ID relies on rejection of the alternatives and thus requires accurate calculations of these pathways, while evolution deals with many forms of evidence to propose the best hypothesis. And I agree with you that the task at hand seems almost impossible given the complexity of the tasks required. I believe that there is an immense difference between an approach based on positive evidence and hypotheses and an approach which requires the rejection of all proposed pathways.
Having that said, ID's approach to falsify existing hypotheses and theories does not seem to be much different from the prevalent scientific method based on methodological naturalism.
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Thomas Waschke
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posted 22. April 2003 08:24
Ryan, Pim,
I'm not sure that IDists and evolutionary biologists sit in the same boat. As long as IDists refuse to formulate testable answers on questions like 'when did which designer where how design what?' they're in another boat or in no boat at all.
But that wasn't the topic of my question. Reading through lots of ID-literature, I found plenty of examples like watches in the sand, tornadoes in junkyards, apes typing, chains of amino acids forming in solution, flagella assembling on walls of bacteria, steganography and so on. All these examples have one in common: they regard systems, generated in one generation (type a).
Any calcuations concerning these systems are utterly irrelevant concerning systems evolving via descent with modification (type b) _before_ it can be shown that these calculations are relevant for the second type of systems. IMAO there is no possibility to calculate that at all.
(Probability) calculations are always second to formulated mechanisms. Calculate the probability for the formation of e.g. alanine in a watery solution of ammoniumnitrate and glucose plus some mineral salts
a. in the presence of a microorganism
b. without such systems.
Try any calculation not knowing what kind of microorganism is in the medium.
There are bacteria that thrive on such minimal media, others starve. You have to know that _before_ calculating. But one thing is certain: any calculation about forming alanine in the _absence_ of an organism is of little use for considerations with organisms.
Mutatis mutandis it's the same thing as calculating probabilities depending on systems of type a for systems of type b.
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Ryan Huxley
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posted 23. April 2003 01:32
Hi Pim. You say:
quote:
I think there is a major difference, ID relies on rejection of the alternatives and thus requires accurate calculations of these pathways, while evolution deals with many forms of evidence to propose the best hypothesis.
What are the specific pathways that evolution proposes? That's the question. At this point, there's speculation about much, but rarely are these musings concrete enough to be put to the test. A hypothesis isn't worth much if it can't be put to the test in some form, even if not through repeatable experimentation, through verification with the empirical historical evidence based upon its predictions (I'll suggest a few ID predictions later on). I'm not saying that none of evolutionary theory is true; it's just that there is a great deal unknown which therefore means those areas are highly speculative.
Regarding ID rejecting alternatives, in order to establish something as likely, you have to be able to exclude other possibilities - and one must consider a wide area of evidence to validate the proposal. I don't see why this is controversial.
Along these same lines, later you say:
quote:
I believe that there is an immense difference between an approach based on positive evidence and hypotheses and an approach which requires the rejection of all proposed pathways.
The ID inference relies on both negation of some alternatives, along with positive evidence in the area of specification and complexity. To simply say all pathways under investigation are found wanting does not therefore mean ID - the additional requirements of specification and complexity must also be met, the commonly noted hallmarks of design. Granted, in biology, more often than not, these criteria are likely met (I'm not a biologist, so I really can't speak with authority on this). Also, at least with respect to IC, I think it's mainly problematic for direct pathways, not indirect pathways. It's just that indirect pathways often are not able to take advantage of the power of natural selection, which means that other mechanisms must be relied upon, as Behe has suggested in his "tentative evolutionary" definition of IC.
But, I've often seen or heard that ID is just a "negative" theory with nothing positive to add. This seems to be a ridiculous sentiment as much of science in general is negative - you rule out as many possibilities as feasable to hone in on a specific area. Perhaps one can argue it is then at this point that "positive" contributions can be made - but, the "negative" ruling out of some possibilities is actually a positive contribution to our knowledge base. It means we don't need to waste our time investigating that area any more as it was found to not be applicable in this situation.
The positive predictions made by ID would suggest that we should find a great deal of specified complexity in biology. We should find that phylogenies do not resolve themselves into clean trees; instead, we should find a jumbled bush. These are just a few examples. Areas that often give credit to "convergent evolution" may be in fact caused by design instead.
Later on you comment:
quote:
Having that said, ID's approach to falsify existing hypotheses and theories does not seem to be much different from the prevalent scientific method based on methodological naturalism.
If you are saying that ID is based upon the empirical evidence and uses various tests on that evidence, I fully agree with you. ID is based upon observations of the natural world. Methodological naturalism (MN) says that we can only invoke natural causes as explanations for what we observe. This is where ID is not constrained by MN, but does use much of the tools available from the typical scientific methodologies of study.
Thomas noted:
quote:
I'm not sure that IDists and evolutionary biologists sit in the same boat. As long as IDists refuse to formulate testable answers on questions like 'when did which designer where how design what?' they're in another boat or in no boat at all.
It's unclear why you bring this up as it's likely been stated before regarding what premises ID includes:
1. intelligent or agent causes exist.
2. we can empirically detect those.
Nothing is said about the nature of the designer(s), their ability, nor their intent. I've heard this same objection phrased slightly differently:
"Who are/is the IA(s)? How do they operate?" It is often claimed that in order for ID to be considered scientific, one of the things it must do is state who is/are the intelligent agent(s) (IAs) as well as how they operate. Actually, it is not necessary for ID to specify the designer(s), nor how they operate. ID never claims to know the designer(s). While ID does not specifically address how IAs operate, ID does claim we can detect artifacts of IAs. In other words, all ID claims is that we can detect design. ID would likely say that IAs operate to take many disparate objects and construct them in such a fashion to achieve a particular goal that these components could not achieve without external input (i.e. chance and laws are insufficient to produce what is seen) - the specifics of how something was constructed may not be addressed. But this would in at least some oblique way address the issue of how design is implemented.
This same reasoning can be applied to the stone faces on Easter Island: who made them? how did they make them? We don't need to know the answers to these questions to infer that the faces were indeed designed.
But, Thomas noted that this wasn't the main topic of his question. I agree with you, Thomas, that there needs to be more research in the areas you mention (calculating probabilities while incorporating a historical perspective). Why evolution does NOT have to do this also is unclear. If evolution is not interested in such calculations, then evolution is based on speculations of the empirical evidence without much to substantiate it. As Behe has pointed out before, evidence that may be consistent with common descent does not provide evidence for the mechanism of natural selection. That's the reason I suggest that this is an area of interest to both sides of the fence. If I'm still misunderstanding what you're questioning, please state it again in another way (again). Thanks.
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Thomas Waschke
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posted 23. April 2003 11:53
Ryan,
I'm quite familiar with the usual argumentation of IDists.
To detect design they use calculations concerning type a systems (e.g. stone faces on Easter Islands), without any arguments that they hold for systems of type b.
If You ask microbiologists how E. coli gets its flagellum, a sufficient answer (that till yet nobody knows in detail) would sound like: there are genes an DNA coding for such and such proteins with fold in an evironment given in a bacterial cell in such and such a way and so on. No microbiologist would engage in calculations of probabilities concerning folding of proteins etc. Each flagellum shows that they can and do.
The way from a kind of bacteria without flagella to a strain containing these structures should consist in a series of DNAs in different generations of bacteria, starting with one not able to code the required proteins and end with one able to do so. That is, E. coli is regarded as a typ b system.
If someone, like Dembski, regards that as a kind of combinatorial problem, then E. coli is regarded as a type a system. Any conclusion hangs utmost on an argument concerning the validity of these arguments on type b systems. I never saw such an argument from an IDist. So the argument of detecting design from certain (im)possibilites is not valid.
Of course research is necessary. But mechanisms are much more important than calculations. There is no use in calculating with missing parameters.
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Evan
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posted 23. April 2003 21:31
I have several comments on the recent posts in his thread. I would also like to point out that all the points I will address are examples of the various types of criticisms of specified complexity listed in the thread recently started by Micah. This discussion can help illuminate some of those criticisms, perhaps.
1) I continue to agree with Thomas about the importance of looking at the history of something, because Dembski’s definition of complexity and the explanatory filter are both about the improbability of something arising through natural processes; and therefore I also agree with Thomas about the irrelevance of calculating mere combinatorial probabilities based on the chance arrangement of parts.
So I think Thomas is correct when he writes,
quote:
The way from a kind of bacteria without flagella to a strain containing these structures should consist in a series of DNAs in different generations of bacteria, starting with one not able to code the required proteins and end with one able to do so. That is, E. coli is regarded as a type b system [historical].
If someone, like Dembski, regards that as a kind of combinatorial problem, then E. coli is regarded as a type a system [combinatorial]. Any conclusion hangs utmost on an argument concerning the validity of these arguments on type b systems.
Here’s a related story. I read someplace about a statement Behe made at a conference, and I saved the statement (which claimed to be a verbatim transcript) because it interested me so much.
Behe had mentioned the evolution of elephants as an example in his talk, and offered a chart showing a 3 million year old ancestral elephant (primelephus) and the modern elephants. A person in the audience asked Behe if he thought the modern elephant was designed in respect to primelephus.
Behe said,
quote:
There’s not enough data. For the elephant, we have primelephus, the ancestral elephant of the Asian and African elephant, and mammoth. Well, could that happened by random mutation and natural selection. My instinctive answer is sure - it sure looks like it. It doesn’t look like any big deal.
The more careful answer, the actual answer, is I don’t know - cause I don’t know what’s involved in making one versus the other. I don’t know what molecular changes are necessary to make the small anatomical differences in those different species.
Notice that Behe would agree with Thomas here: we can’t tell whether the modern elephant is designed unless we know what molecular changes took place during the 3 million years it took for successive generations of elephants to change from primelephus to the modern elephant. Behe’s intuitive answer is that it intuitively seems that the sequence of changes (taking place over something like 150 billion generations of creatures) were certainly small enough and functional enough and therefore probable enough that this was not an example of design.
But in order to know, we would have to know something about this history - that is the key point.
So in regards to the flagellum (which of course is embedded vastly deeper in time), the question is what sequence of DNA changes would need to happen to get from a non-flagellum bacteria to one with a flagellum - taking into account the literally billions of billions of individual organisms and of generations that would have been involved.
Of course this is a hugely monumental task (for the elephant and vastly more for the flagellum.) The point in emphasizing it is, among other things, to show how irrelevant a mere combinatorial analysis of parts is, and to also point the way for the much more limited and realistic work that would be need to be done to build the empirical and mathematical tools needed to calculate the probabilities necessary to establish not only whether something is designed, but whether design exists at all.
2) This brings me to my second point.
Ryan writes,
quote:
So, I think this is actually an area where both IDers and evolutionists are in the same boat - it would be in doing these types of substantiated calculations that each side would be "showing the evidence" in a concrete fashion. While in a sense the "gauntlet is being thrown down," I think it is being done by both sides - and for good reason: it's in these calculations that we can begin to discover what the huge amount of empirical data suggests.
The problem here is that the “evolutionist” (for lack of a better term) who is not persuaded by the intuitive arguments that design exists is not particularly interested in these calculations, although he certainly is interested in the pathways of genetic change. But at this point, the “huge amount of empirical data” is all data from things that actually have happened, are assumed to be happening because of natural processes, and are thus not to be considered unlikely and thus not designed.
To be blunt, then, the ball is in the IDist’s court on this. The concern with the probabilities is because of the interest in establishing design. The evolutionist is concerning with learning how natural processes produce evolutionary changes, of course, but the evolutionist is not going to want to spend time with the probabilistic arguments in order to disprove design when in fact design is not yet a serious contender because of the lack of the tools in question.
So even though both the “evolutionist” and the IDist should be studying the empirical nature of genetic changes in populations over many generations, it’s really the scientist working to establish design that needs to be putting his time into the issue of calculating probabilities.
3) And last, a recurrent theme in the “criticisms of complexity thread” was the confusion about the definition of complexity: Dembski’s definition being based on these probabilities which have yet to be established but the more common meaning being based on some intuitive notion of the interaction of multi-functioning parts.
We once again see the effects of this confusion in the following statement by Ryan:
quote:
To simply say all pathways under investigation are found wanting does not therefore mean ID - the additional requirements of specification and complexity must also be met, the commonly noted hallmarks of design. Granted, in biology, more often than not, these criteria are likely met (I'm not a biologist, so I really can't speak with authority on this)
Notice the confusion: Ryan correctly notes that for ID to be established, “the additional requirements of specification and complexity must also be met,” and then he goes on to say that “granted, in biology, more often than not, these criteria are met.
But this is false: whether complexity in the probabilistic sense exists is exactly what we don’t know because the data and tools to determine it don’t exist. The question of whether complexity in the common sense is actually complexity in the design sense (which depends on its history, not just its current state) is exactly what we’re trying to find out - it’s not a given.
Until this confusion is cleared up and the necessary definitions are understood and adhered to, discussions will continue to flounder, and the work to truly establish design will be continually side-tracked by irrelevant arguments.
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Ryan Huxley
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posted 27. April 2003 18:17
Thomas claims:
quote:
I'm quite familiar with the usual argumentation of IDists.
It’s curious then why he mentioned previously that:
quote:
As long as IDists refuse to formulate testable answers on questions like 'when did which designer where how design what?' they're in another boat or in no boat at all.
Though, this is not the main point of the thread, so I won’t pursue it further.
The main focus of this thread has been the calculation of probabilities from which design can then be inferred. Thomas has noted that biologists aren’t interested in doing the probability calculations associated with their assumed evolutionary pathways explaining how something arose, such as the bacterial flagellum. Instead, it’s just left as an assertion regarding a proposed evolutionary development:
quote:
The way from a kind of bacteria without flagella to a strain containing these structures should consist in a series of DNAs in different generations of bacteria, starting with one not able to code the required proteins and end with one able to do so. That is, E. coli is regarded as a typ b system.
But, to even suggest that the flagellum in E. coli is a “type b” system is an assertion based on a prior commitment to common descent. As I mentioned previously, unless there are detailed pathways laid out to back this proposition, it’s nothing but speculation. Miller and others have suggested that the TTSS is an evolutionary predecessor to the flagellum. While there are problems with this hypothesis, it’s this type of hypothesis that should be proposed by evolutionary biologists – this is what will allow biologists to make a more valid case for common descent. But, if there is no evidence to support this, and indeed some counter evidence (e.g. the TTSS is used for injecting toxins into eukaryotic cells, which supposedly were not around during bacteria’s early life on Earth; but the flagellum is used for motility in water, which has been around since bacteria first appeared on the Earth), then it’s questionable if these views should continue to be espoused.
Dembski has pointed out the problem with suggesting the TTSS as the evolutionary precursor to the flagellum in a response to Miller’s suggestion of such: (source)
quote:
Accordingly, the TTSS may be thought of as a possible subsystem of the flagellum that performs a function distinct from the flagellum. Nevertheless, finding a subsystem of a functional system that performs some other function is hardly an argument for the original system evolving from that other system. One might just as well say that because the motor of a motorcycle can be used as a blender, therefore the motor evolved into the motorcycle. Perhaps, but not without intelligent design. Indeed, multipart, tightly integrated functional systems almost invariably contain multipart subsystems that serve some different function. At best the TTSS represents one possible step in the indirect Darwinian evolution of the bacterial flagellum. But that still wouldn't constitute a solution to the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. What's needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we've discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that.
Thomas further notes that:
quote:
Of course research is necessary. But mechanisms are much more important than calculations. There is no use in calculating with missing parameters.
Indeed, I would say that without evidence for evolutionary development for the flagellum, studying a proposed mechanism for this absent evidence is curious. While you claim that
quote:
So the argument of detecting design from certain (im)possibilites is not valid.
I would claim that unless evidence to support the idea of a “type b” is presented, it’s not valid to claim it is indeed a “type b” system.
I hope to have a chance later to reply to Evan’s last post, but time will tell.
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Evan
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posted 27. April 2003 20:02
Ryan writes,
quote:
But, to even suggest that the flagellum in E. coli is a “type b” system is an assertion based on a prior commitment to common descent.
I have a point that is perhaps a digression (but perhaps is really central to the discussion.)
Given what we see right now in the world, all we see is common descent (each child is born of a parent organism) and all we see are chains of events in time that seem to follow combinations of natural laws and various statistical patterns (or at least we continue to have more and more success in finding and understanding such chains.)
Therefore a "prior commitment" to common descent and to the idea that some set of steps led from a non-flagellum to the types of flagellum we see today is an entirely reasonable commitment.
The question is not whether there are steps or not (unless one is positing something akin to “special creation,”) but whether those steps are so improbable that some type of design must have been present, in addition to natural processes, as those steps occurred.
[ 27. April 2003, 20:25: Message edited by: Evan ]
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Thomas Waschke
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posted 28. April 2003 08:17
Ryan,
> The main focus of this thread has been the calculation of probabilities
> from which design can then be inferred.
my point was a little bit different. I stated, that calculations,
concerning systems of typ a are of no relevance for systems of typ b.
I was _not_ concerned in theories how theses systems evolved. I asked, if
design could be inferred from calculations concerning systems of type a
for systems of type b.
I don't have these questions because I'm not acquainted with works from
IDists, but because I never found an answer in these works.
[ ... ]
> But, to even suggest that the flagellum in E. coli is a 'type b' system is
> an assertion based on a prior commitment to common descent.
No! That's no assertion of _common_ descent, but of descent of these E.
coli displaying a flagellum. To calculate the probability of a flagellum
mixing together proteins is of no avail If you're interested in asking how
bacteria without flagella got them.
[ ... ]
> I would claim that unless evidence to support the idea of a 'type b' is
> presented, it's
> not valid to claim it is indeed a 'type b' system.
E. coli _is_ a typ b system (note: I never said, that they evolved without
design!). May point is just: _all_ calculations from IDists I know concern
systems of type a (or trys to regard systems of type b as systems of type
a by calculating possibilities of combinatorial problems).
Without proof that calculations for type a systems are valid für type b
systems _all_ these calculations are unconvincing.
Thomas
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Cre8ionist
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posted 28. April 2003 08:41
Actually Evan, common descent is all you see if you close one of your eyes, open both and you'll see the conservation of information as well, ("each child is born of a parent organism"). This conservation is agreed to by all. Conservation, at the very least keeps evolution moving at an extremely slow pace, while at best limits evolution to "microevolution." Amoeba to man isn't agreed to by all scientists. And even if it were, it wouldn't make it true. There'll need to be a much more detailed map before skeptics will get on board.
As for probability calculations and tornadoes in junkyards and apes typing Thomas, these ideas were'nt brought up by IDists, these were from F. Hoyle and T. Huxley respectively. Evolutionists have been doing probabilty calculations all along, Hoyle converted based upon his. To lay them now solely at the feet of IDists is historically misguided. Certainly Dembski with his background is qualified to improve upon what Morowitz, Wald and others have done, or is this type of research just limited to evolutionists?
...........................................Cre8
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Moderator
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posted 28. April 2003 09:10
Unfortunately, I'm finding this discussion less than productive. If the stereotypes and the "worn-out" discussions continue, it'll shut down.
Oh, and by the way, Thomas, the next time you do a quote by quote reply I'm going to go back and delete all the quotes out of your message.
Quote for quote replies are strictly prohibited.
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Thomas Waschke
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posted 28. April 2003 10:14
Cre8ionist,
I cited some examples for calculations for 'type a' systems (my
terminology) just to show how they look. I read through lots of works of
Dembski and others and found plenty of valid arguments concerning these
systems. But I found no argument for their validity for systems of 'type
b'.
If You want to calculate the probability of a bacterial flagellum by
regarding questions like folding of proteins or assembling of proteins at
the cell wall I'm not seeing the use of this math. Each bacterium growing
in his petri dish shows, that these probabilities are quite exactly 1.
Bacteria divide. You can construct 'generations' of them. Their DNA
mutates. It's an open question how far such modifications can go (nobody
knows). Maybe a designer is the best explanation. But I'm quite sure that
types of calculations concerning systems of 'type a' aren't useful
regarding the evolution of systems of 'type b'.
Interesting would be calculations for probabilities of organisms, having a
DNA of that and that sequence at generation 0, having no flagellum to get
a DNA of that and that sequence at generation 0 + n (conceded that usual
calculations stating an impossibility for n = 1, i.e. a saltation, are
valid and would imply a designer) coding a flagellum. I guess that for
such calculations a lot of important paramters are yet missing.
Evolutionists work at that. At the moment the question is open. My point
is that IDists till yet have no valid argument for stating an
impossibility for an evolution of 'type b'-sytsems, based on calculations
for systems of 'type a' or regarding just one (or very few) generations of
'type b' systems.
I'd be interested in
- examples from Dembski or somebody else which I missed
- arguments why calculations concerning systems of 'type a' are valid for
systems of 'type b'.
Thanks,
Thomas
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