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Author
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Topic: ID and Peer Review
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Nel
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Member # 614
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posted 07. July 2003 23:45
Pim writes:
quote:
So far nothing extraodrinary here unless we focus
But Mike has been arguing that nothing extraordinary will ever come out from either side of the debate. So many things might have happened, so many interpretations of the data.
Pim writes:
quote:
As Del Ratzsch argues in his book, false positives are unavoidable and thus make the design inference problematic
Can you quote the relevant passage?
[ 07. July 2003, 23:53: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 08. July 2003 00:02
Nelson: But Mike has been arguing that nothing extraordinary will ever come out from either side of the debate. So many things might have happened, so many interpretations of the data.
That is not exactly what Mike seems to be arguing. Mike's argument seems to take to approaches. 1. A teleological approach to science can be helpful in uncovering knowledge and patterns 2. the teleological assumption in the form of front loading may never be empirically resolvable. It's the first argument which I can easily accept, taking history as an example, but it's the latter statement which is troublesome in that it suggests a "we don't know" status, which seems to me the best we can hope for unless we find some extraordinary evidence. Surely if Mike is right then ID can never be a viable replacement for methodological naturalism.
As far as Del Ratzsch is concerned, Del in the appendix of Nature design and science, is very critical about the approaches used by Dembski. I am looking forward to hear his latests views on these issues. I assume that you will be joining us in this month long adventure into Del's book?
Del states:
"I do not wish to play down or denigrate what Dembski has done. There is much of value in the Design Inference. But I think that some aspects of even the limited task Dembski set for himself still remains to be tamed."
"That Dembski is not employing the robust, standard, agency-derived conception of design that most of his supporters and many of his critics have assumed seems clear."
As I understand Del's comments, he points out that all that Dembski's Design Inference does is to state that if all chance and regularity pathways have been eliminated that which remains should be intelligently designed. That is design is defined as nothing more than the set theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity-or-chance.
But Del argues that even this limited concept of design has some problems and continues to provide an example of a false positive and discusses its relevance.
[ 08. July 2003, 00:19: Message edited by: Pim van Meurs ]
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 00:12
Pim writes:
quote:
That is not exactly what Mike seems to be arguing. Mike's argument seems to take to approaches.
Mike is arguing that no extraordinary evidence can come from either side of the debate. You cannot empirically resolve non-teleology from evolution either. This all speaks to the tentativeness of science. It always has been tentative. That is why he quoted and bolded this portion:
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In many subjects such clear evidence is very hard to come by. In the complex subjects, especially I always think of the earth sciences in this respect, there are always different ways of interpreting any one fact; so many complicated things have taken place that any one fact can have three or four interpretations and the crass confrontation is very rare.
Thanks for the invitation to the reading group but can you quote where Del Ratzch says that false positives are unavoidable which is problematic for the design inference? I am actually curious about what he had to say.
EDIT:
Pim, in your edit, none of the quotes mention anything about how false positives are unavoidable and therefore are a problem for the design inference. Can you quote that portion in a new reply to me rather then continue to change your previous post? Thanks.
[ 08. July 2003, 00:21: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 08. July 2003 00:23
Nelson, you are correct but in case of ID extraordinary evidence seems to be a requirement while for evolution, that is what happened after the front loading, no extraordinary evidence is required. It is exactly the formulation of the ID hypothesis in either a format of front loading or of the set theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity-or-chance which requires such extraordinary evidence.
As far as Del Ratzsch is concerned, do you have access to his book? It's far better to read his appendix than for me to do it injustice by not presenting the full argument. As I explained in the previous posting the argument mainly is that the design inference approach is very limited and its relevance to design is minimal and that due to its nature it is susceptible to false positives (p. 166-167).
I wonder what the moderator may say about Nelson's suggestion that I made things up.
quote:
If in your next reply to me you don't provide these quotes I'll assume you just made it up
This is a good place to end my exchange with Nelson since it seems to lack in civility.
As far as Nelson's comments that he does not see "any justification for the claim that ID requires extraordinary evidence." I suggest, for the sake of the discussion, that Nelson reads my arguments and addresses them.
For those interested in a civil discussion:
Mark Perak comments
"Another book, in which we find a more detailed and systematic criticism of Dembski's work was published [7] by the professor of philosophy Del Ratzsch. The entirety of Ratzsch's writing makes it clear that he himself belongs to the camp of "design theorists." However, unlike most of his co-travelers, Ratzsch is usually logical and meticulous in his discourse. In an appendix to the mentioned book, Ratzsch subjects some parts of Dembski's work to a strong critique. Ratzsch's critical remarks relate almost exclusively to Dembski's "explanatory filter." In particular, Ratzsch convincingly illustrates the fallacy of Dembski's assertion that his "filter" does not produce "false positives," which is in itself sufficient to render the entire concept of that "filter" largely useless."
[ 08. July 2003, 00:45: Message edited by: Pim van Meurs ]
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 00:27
Pim writes,
quote:
Nelson, you are correct but in case of ID extraordinary evidence seems to be a requirement while for evolution
I don't see any justification for the claim that ID requires extraordinary evidence.
I don't have Del Ratzch book, so giving me just page numbers is useless. Just quoting the part where he says that false positives are unavoidable and therefore problematic for the inference would be nice. If in your next reply to me you don't provide these quotes I'll assume you just made it up. This is my final post for tonight, so i'll check back tomorrow.
[ 08. July 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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charlie d.
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Member # 159
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posted 08. July 2003 07:51
quote:
There are many assertions in this thread that ID does not produce scientific research. However, the kind of research that you want is benchwork. But this is difficult because of the cited obstacles inherent in the flawed peer review process and in the difficulty for alternative views that go against the "herd" to retrieve funding. Despite that, there is a lot of armchair work that does spawn many research questions that I have seen and have documented. Why are these ignored?
I wonder if any of the ID critics that want to see this armchair work expanded into benchwork would be willing to lobby for funding for ID research? If Dembski or someone else tried to create a lab would they see the same type of persecution or would you stop talking from both sides of your mouth and actually allow an ID research lab to be established with a University (I'm speaking generally here not to anyone in particular)?
There are no obtacles: nobody can stop Behe or Minnich from doing whatever research they want in their labs, provided they have the money to support it. Indeed, especially in Behe's case, Lehigh would probably be happy to see him bring back some funding, of any kind, and getting his lab started again (there may be some serious dusting to do beforehand, though ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ).
All they have to do, is ask the DI to stop spending its C(R)SC money on lawyers and PR people, and start spending it on research.
The money spent in Ohio could have probably supported at the very least a 2-year pilot project (for instance, NIH exploratory RO3 grants are just $50K/year, for 2 years, and most of them turn into publications and/or larger projects). The money used for Unlocking, easily several $100K's, could have gone much further than that.
Priorities, priorities...
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 19:38
Charlie,
You havn't been reading any of the arguments in this thread. It's actually a dissenting view getting money thats the obstacle to doing that benchwork. All the money in the world couldn't stop a concentrated effort to derail getting a lab, as Dembksi's attempt showed us.
As far as the DI is concerned, how many people will donate to finding out the functional specification of the rod proteins in bacterial flagella? Not many, especially those who donate primarily because they are interested in ethical,social, and political issues. So how do you get people like that to donate towards benchwork? You do what most companies do when they need money to continue their work/research, you advertise. You produce media in order to tell those type of people what you are doing and why it should continue to grow. If you ever watch CNN you will see some commercials that seem like nothing but a company that is boasting about itself. However, the commercial is actually geared towards investors (and those commercials do cost in the 100k area). That is exactly how I see Unlocking the Mystery of Life, it's getting the word out to people, getting a buzz going about ID, getting people to understand what it is, and perhaps to help out either by becoming ID theorists themselves, having that as a career goal, or to perhaps help out with the financial side so that they can do that benchwork. What ID needs most of all right now is more scientists to network with and more money. Thats the bottom line.
Darwinists will call this propoganda (although they never specifically say how it is propoganda). But it's just another way they are trying to block ID from growing into a theory.
As an aside, I had no idea it was going to be played in my area, and when I turned on the TV last night I caught a bit of the ending.
By the way, Charlie, how much money did the DI spend in Ohio?
[ 08. July 2003, 19:53: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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andyg
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posted 08. July 2003 20:06
Nelson wrote:
quote:
As far as the DI is concerned, how many people will donate to finding out the functional specification of the rod proteins in bacterial flagella?
What do you mean by "finding out the functional specification" of the rod proteins in a bacterial flagellum? How would one do this?
AndyG
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 20:18
Andy,
I'm talking about flgB, flgC, and flgG. There seems to be no reason why it should be built with three proteins instead of just one. However, not only do they seem atypical as far as proteins go, but they are found in all flagella.
One can go about figuring out what the functional specification through these type of investigations:
quote:
The stoichiometries of these three proteins tell an interesting story [9]. Both flgB and flgC are present at about 6 copies per flagellum. FlgG is present at about 12 copies per flagellum. If the known helical symmetry of the filament, at 5.5 subunits per turn, extends into the rod (and this seems quite plausible), then the three components of the rod are ordered such that the most proximal one, flgB, forms one turn, followed by flgC and another turn, followed by flgG and two turns. Since a helical structure has no inherent constraint on assembly ("in principle, subunits could be added indefinitely like the steps of a helical staircase"), this suggests some factor extrinsic to these proteins is regulating this assembly in such an ordered fashion. And this raises the issue of IC.
http://www.idthink.net/biot/flag5/index.html
Or knock-out type experiments.
[ 08. July 2003, 20:19: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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andyg
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posted 08. July 2003 20:44
Nelson, I realize that I must seem terribly dense, but I honestly don't understand what you mean by "functional specification".
Do you just mean "trying to work out why there are three proteins instead of one"?
AndyG
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 20:54
Yes, in other words, there must be a functional reason why there are three proteins instead of one.
[ 08. July 2003, 20:54: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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andyg
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posted 08. July 2003 21:30
Nelson:
quote:
Yes, in other words, there must be a functional reason why there are three proteins instead of one.
Thanks for the clarification. What isn't clear to me (to return to a message or two ago) is how one can investigate this "why" question.
Of course, one could do a brute force experiment to first find out whether the question itself is correct - for example, one could, in principle at least, determine whether *every* bacterial flagellar rod has three proteins, or whether some bacterial flagella can make do with fewer.
Knockout experiments can tell you whether the present-day flagellum can function without one of the three rod components. However, if the answer is that it can't, it is still possible that a primitive flagellum existed with a primitive ur-rod protein, and that the rod gene underwent duplication and three-way divergence into the genes we see today. But that still doesn't tell you "why" the duplication and divergence events happened.
AndyG
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 21:39
Andy you are speaking as if it was a fact that duplication and divergence events occured in the past (and explain the rod proteins). It is not. And such a hypothesis does not fit the data, if we find through a Julie Thomas-like investigation that there is a functional reason why there three proteins and not just one.
If we uncover the functional specification, and find that there simply cannot be a flagellum without three rod proteins, then we have found a picture of the originally designed flagella.
[ 08. July 2003, 22:27: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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andyg
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posted 08. July 2003 22:40
Two points, Nelson:
quote:
Andy you are speaking as if it was a fact that duplication and divergence events occured in the past (and explain the rod proteins). It is not.
1. I fail to see how writing "it is still possible that a primitive flagellum existed with a primitive ur-rod protein, and that the rod gene underwent duplication and three-way divergence into the genes we see today" could be construed as "speaking as a fact".
2. How could one ever demonstrate that "there simply cannot be a flagellum without three rod proteins"? You are trying to prove a negative statement, which is almost impossibly difficult.
AndyG
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Nel
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posted 08. July 2003 22:45
Andy:
quote:
1. I fail to see how writing "it is still possible that a primitive flagellum existed with a primitive ur-rod protein, and that the rod gene underwent duplication and three-way divergence into the genes we see today" could be construed as "speaking as a fact".
Good. Then I hope you see that the mere possibility that a flagellum existed that only needs one rod protein is completely irrelevant to a positive design investigation of the bacterial flagellum.
quote:
2. How could one ever demonstrate that "there simply cannot be a flagellum without three rod proteins"? You are trying to prove a negative statement, which is almost impossibly difficult.
No, just trying to best explain the data. If we can't find a flagellum that uses only one rod protein, then a good conclusion to make is that the function requires the three proteins and one protein isn't enough.
[ 08. July 2003, 22:53: Message edited by: Nelson-Alonso ]
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