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Author
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Topic: Practical experiments for testing the concept of intelligent design
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Mann
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Member # 1226
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posted 29. March 2004 12:15
I have withdrawn this post after reading the moderator's guide to newbies.
[ 30. March 2004, 04:46: Message edited by: Mann ]
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Janitor@MIT
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Member # 125
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posted 29. March 2004 14:19
As usual, its evolutionary biologists who do all the work…
Proteins, and structures and processes composed of proteins are the principal functional interfaces between the world and the organism embedded in it. Natural selection operates indirectly by preserving/eliminating DNA sequences by acting directly upon their proxies, the proteins.
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/biochem/harbury/publications/ADSMR.pdf
Automated design of specificity in molecular recognition
“Computational protein design provides a rigorous test of our understanding of proteins. In effect a design algorithm translates our hypotheses about protein structure and function into amino acid sequences. Experimental analysis of these sequences reports on the validity of the hypotheses.”
It’s not unfair to say that “our understanding of proteins” is hardly informed by traditional evolutionary theory. Here our understanding is informed by physics and chemistry. Traditional theory is remarkable indifferent to such “details.” (Physics and chemistry.) And not merely “indifferent,” previously positively opposed to the recasting, amplification, or further exploration of the “details.” (Witness the Neo-Darwinists’ opposition to the molecular Biological Revolution.) Neo-Darwinism isn’t just a “theory” (and certainly not a “fact”), it’s a tradition. (And a tradition is, of course, a way of thinking that resists change, i.e., does not evolve. The idea that “evolution evolves,” i.e., that evolutionary theory-tradition actually changes over time is incorrect. For many this is exactly its appeal!)
The seemingly innocuous statements quoted (above) should be examined closely. (Of course, in the context of the report.) A “design algorithm translates our hypotheses about protein structure and function.” Our hypotheses about protein structure and function must certainly be an evolutionary hypotheses. The design algorithm would appear, on a common presumption, to be superfluous. But it is this “design algorithm” which “in effect” (as the authors write) tests the hypotheses. As is always the case in the adaptationist “school of thought” (as if their were any other “school of thought” in evolutionism), the evolutionary hypothesis and explanation is subsumed under a “design algorithm.” These “evolutionary hypotheses” are tested by our understanding of the design of life. At the very least, how, on the basis of our knowledge of design (and in evolutionary science generally, knowledge of “design” is what I call “naïve”) we rationalize or render intelligible what exists!
(Adaptation is just the optimal or optimizing reconfiguration of a functional state to match the conditions that determine its existence and optimality. (“Optimality” being the implicit criterion for biology that Darwin introduced explicitly.) The definition is circular, I admit, although that has ever been the criticism of “adaptationism.” What can I say? We exist and science accepts it… The theory of “natural selection” must be something more than the statement of the obvious: Nothing exists which is inconsistent with the conditions of its existence and only that exists which is so consistent. What is that "something more"?...)
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charlie d.
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Member # 159
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posted 29. March 2004 16:29
Scott is right that cryptography and SETI are potential areas for ID. Indeed, these, and things like anthropology and archeology, have been often mentioned in this context. I am not sure whether any ID's current methods can be easily translated to these areas, designed (pun intended) as they were to strictly address the main concern of ID advocates, i.e. biological evolution. Regardless, I think if ID advocates were seriously interested in gaining scientific credibility, they would indeed focus their efforts on these areas. The advantages would be several: first, they would deal with issues against which their approaches and conclusions could be definitively tested, i.e. we would learn, relatively rapidly, how they fare compared to more traditional methods. Second, assuming for the sake of argument that the ID advocates' charges of suppression by the "darwinian establishment" have merit, by avoiding a controversial topic in an atmosphere that, for whatever reason, has become quite polarized, they would allow themselves to be evaluated by a more "open" group of peers. Finally, there is a good availability of funding in several of these areas, through both governmental and private soruces. Certainly, if companies (eg, security or software firms, or companies involved in intellectual property issues) find merit in ID's approaches, they certainly would not discard a chance for a quick buck on the basis of "prior metaphysical assumptions", or whatever.
Now, don't ask me how this would translate in an actual ID research program - that's entirely not my field. However, I could imagine that ID "theoreticians", vetted and "proofed" extensively in these areas, could in the future come back to biological evolution with the necessary experience and clout, and a baggage of well-tested approaches, which now are all sorely missing.
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Janitor:
Witness the Neo-Darwinists’ opposition to the molecular Biological Revolution.
I truly have no idea what do you mean by this. Who were the molecular biological "revolutionaries" who were opposed by "neo-darwinism"? Watson and Crick? Monod? Brenner?
[ 29. March 2004, 16:36: Message edited by: charlie d. ]
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RBH
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Member # 380
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posted 29. March 2004 17:15
I have been arguing for longer than I care to remember that an indispensable first task for an ID research program is validating and calibrating the putative design detection methdology(ies) claimed to be so useful. A year and a half ago I posted this: quote:
When proposing a new and potentially revolutionary theoretical structure and associating that theory with a new and untested methodology for evaluating the theory, it is absolutely necessary to validate the methodology. That is logically and practically prior to anything else. Absent systematic and careful empirical validation of the methodology, 'tests' of the theory using the methodology are at best suspect. At worst they can be interpreted to be merely self-serving. Careful and systematic empirical validation of the methodology must be the foundation of, and precede, tests of a theory using that methodology.
...
A first step in empirically validating SDDID's [Single-Designer Theory] design discrimination methodology would consist in showing that it makes reliable discriminations in sets of structures and processes of known provenance. The only structures and processes for which we know the design provenance are products of human design, so they must form the test bed for empirically validating design discrimination methodologies. Thus one expects to see reports of the Explanatory Filter being applied to a wide array of objects of human design and objects of known lack of human design. Empirical validation would consist in systematic quantification of the variables identified by SDDID's methodology as necessary in its discrimination methodology, application of the methodology to a wide variety of objects of known provenance, and showing the numbers that support the claim of discrimination. As far as I am aware, that hasn't occurred. I have seen no systematic empirical validation studies of the Explanatory Filter. I am aware that Dembski has asserted that it has strong inductive support in that on every occasion it has been applied to an object of known human design, it has yielded a design inference, but that is purely anecdotal. An astrophysicist who developed a novel theory of star formation and attempted to validate a new method for detecting [the relevant] properties of stars by asserting that he had [eyeballed] a few stars and they were all successfully detected wouldn't get 10 seconds on the Hubble telescope. What SDT has not shown is systematic empirical validation of its design discrimination methodology.
In spite of Dembski's subsequent call for the compilation of a "Catalog of Confirmed Facts," there's still no visible evidence of a systematic effort to validate that methodology.
(Nice to see you again, J@MIT.)
RBH
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gregory the grey
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posted 08. April 2004 08:48
Please forgive that once again I have to ask for clarity and qualification before accepting the invitation(s) “to encourage thought on design within a scientific context.” Aside from the fact that I’m encouraging that too, right now I simply request guidelines or boundaries for what you (Micah) are asking. It seems no practical experiments have thus far surfaced in this thread, only some suggestions of experiments (occasionally in fields far from the poster’s own), so perhaps people will indulge the effort now to help find what you are seeking in your own request.
It may sound repetitive, but that makes it nonetheless important: Can someone please speak about whether or not the human sciences are included in ID’s request for practical experiments, i.e. anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, studies in gender and technology, cultural studies, etc.? It seems that if those disciplines are even remotely in the future-planning or forward-looking reach of the IDM (which I’m not necessarily stating they are) then current ID theorizing, bench-marking and systematizing ought to take that future development into account. You don’t want an ID theory and method that explodes upon impact to a foreign discipline or unravels when a question is raised about ‘residual self-imaging’ and you respond that ‘the Matrix is really about the Imago Dei.’
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Which artefacts other than human-made ones, if you please? – gtg to John B.
Where has John gone; to stir the soup? One of IDT’s problems is that someone could do several experiments with what they think could be a ‘design’ concept and then be disqualified or debunked by the IDM on philosophical posturing grounds. And then wouldn’t that be a waste of time and breath? Just as if someone presented ID on theological grounds their voice would likely be turned away by empirically demanding scientists; it just makes sense. The shifting cycle of belief and disbelief in ID often appears foolproof thanks to the various scholars and scientists methodically saying it is so under the IDM banner. On the other hand, those who resist the ID labeling (even Christians) may better understand what a huge leap ID would need make to actually enter the non-physical sciences.
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“‘intelligent design’—the idea that the complexity of the universe proves the existence of the divine” – The Economist (The attack on evolution, “On the sixth day, post-modernism,” 22-09-02)
Of course, this is a false caricature of ID, based upon whose terms the conversation topic is dependent. For that very reason, I’m asking Micah on whose terms his solicitation depends, i.e. to reveal this before he should realistically expect solutions or answers to conform with certain scientific expectations that he or (t)his community of thinkers has about intelligent design. If the same voices (i.e. those opposed to those who oppose Dr. Dembski with the ‘same tired charges’) express their continued support of a certain ‘concept basket,’ then I and others may infer these are the concepts that Dembski and certain others wish to ‘start a revolution with’. It may or may not be true that all ID theorists consider themselves (professional or amateur) revolutionaries, but that is a stripe that (certain) leaders of the IDM wish to make upon themselves in regard to their absolute allegiance to certain ID concepts and not to others. And so this is why I am asking Micah for the parameters to his request (via ISCID) for practical ID experimentation.
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“there is a strong difference between practical experiments, and philosophical principles. I'm merely defending a philosophical principle: that design inferences consist in more than the elimination of natural pathways…There is a epistemically valid mode of reasoning that underlies design inferences. The big question is whether that mode of reasoning is workable/useful in a scientific context.” – Micah Sparacio
Then first I’m curious how a philosopher or philosopher of science can hope to understand science without actually practicing it? Praxis, y’know, Johann Karl von Marcus Aristotelius…hey Micah, I‘m a playful youngster just like you! Do you think it is possible, in all seriousness though, for a philosopher or for anyone studied in the humanities to make a ‘practical experiment’ or are you asking for experiments only from actual scientists? In that case, would this include social scientists or only natural scientists? A social scientist would (for starters) seemingly help people on this board to better understand where the various voices in this discourse are ‘coming from’ and perhaps thereby to help sort out the scientific, philosophical and theological or worldview, i.e. tangled implications of the ID (versus Evolution) discourse…as it affects humans.
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“I would also add that, though not everyone would agree, it is not the case that "all complex human-made things were designed." Del Ratzsch makes a fine distinction on this point: a human can make a complex thing mindlessly without having designed the thing.” – Micah Sparacio
You will add; you did add. With all due respect, Del Ratzsch is no more qualified to speak about these ID (vs. EVO) topics from a sociologically-tuned perspective than you are, even if he has license and the willfulness to print his views on social (human) things along with his other researched theses. It may just be that you (or your colleagues) have not come into contact with many social theorists in your readings and recollections and don’t know how to react to such a ‘style’ of academic conversation. To let you in on a little secret though, the social sciences cannot afford to be over-looked in the ID discourse otherwise this tide of revolution will fade like a wave of communist-humanism upon the post-modern academic shores. Does the IDM know this? On the other example, I have yet to hear the IDM confess its limitations with humility, claiming itself as beyond just a reductive physical or empirical science; though not formally schooled in human things.
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“Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” - Karl Marx (and F. Engels) Marx read OoS in 1860
To soften my tone a bit, Micah, hey thanks for the reference. ![[Cool]](cool.gif) Your suggestion was well-received and I actually have finally looked into Ratzsch’s work, and read some reviews of Battle of the Beginnings, and messages on the boards and lists, etc. He is at Calvin College, which I just learned more about (from an American professor in the Netherlands) how important it is among the Christian colleges in the U.S.A.. I wonder is Ratzsch a Kuyperian who applies the idea(s) of sphere sovereignty to intelligent design (ID)? Making things ‘mindlessly,’ however, I don’t think this would fit Kuyperian terminology. But then again he doesn’t typically represent philosophy of mind from a Dutch reformational perspective either.
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“Science is done by humans, and it cannot escape what is inescapably human. Our science is limited to humanly available concepts, humanly available data, humanly available patterns of reasoning, humanly shaped notions of understanding and explanation, and humanly structured pictures of what the world must be like. How could it be otherwise? Science seems to have a serious and incurable case of the humans.” – Del Ratzsch (“The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side Is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate”)
There is no doubt in my mind after reading this that Dr. Ratzsch recognizes the significance (meddling) of the human sciences, even for the intelligent design movement and perhaps also for evolutionary science. I do appreciate his voice in this conversation, first, because he speaks philosophically where few fear to tread and because he does so with a fairly even hand, especially coming from a private, religious college in Michigan (cf. Madonna Ciccone just wanted to ‘get the hell out of Michigan’). But then again, I have only just looked into his character profile and publication record, and now also see his name among the origin(s) debates, which remain as intractable as ever.
Thus, as impressed as I am or may be by Dr. Ratzsch’s credentials and apparent intentions, unfortunately still it appears that he does not qualify to fulfill the purpose of this high-bar thread; to find practical experiments for testing concepts of intelligent design. Please don’t kick the commentary if that’s all there is. My initial reaction is that I do value his philosophical contributions to this topic as they appear to offer clarity to general readership from a mediating and not a pseudo-indoctrinating perspective, somewhere between science and theology.
So, as for this thread, who remains then if not the anti-IDists to come up with many experiments? I would have thought Dr. Dembski should have come up with enough to keep all of the troops (and potential troops) busy for years to come. Recruitment of talent to the IDM would seem to depend on actual research opportunities instead of ideological promotion and American neo-revolution-ism. Instead, the door to learned criticism appears shut and some allied forces are instead set on bartering over definitions while others stumble forward instead of taking a shot at the real prick and the prize. Why on earth would a social scientist ‘look for signs of intelligence’ when intelligence is one of their primary field assumptions on the basis of being a human who studies humans scientifically? Maybe that’s not an intelligible question to a natural scientist, but they can’t say it doesn’t matter.
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"all complex things were designed" is a different proposition (bearing different content) than "all complex human-made things were designed." They are as different as "It is raining" and "It is raining in East Africa" – Micah
Nobody said they weren’t different, but for some reason you wished to pull out your analogical (edit) measuring scale. I was just asking you to be scientifically reflexive for a moment about the content and the form of ID, or what you think could help take us beyond the ID politicizing. No need to play games with my names or to taunt. Wow, it sure must be cloudy in New Jersey these days; maybe you could use a little rain! Like ID, Elvis wanted a red and green Christmas and all he became was blue! What is coming doesn’t have to match your pre-conceptions or pre-cognitions to make it less than un-true. Practical experiments for testing concepts…see you on the practice field for the games (ahhh, Grecia!), but alas not for Design Game II.
~~
(Gear switch)
There are other views than those created primarily to oppose evolution and Darwin’s method, as honourable and dishonourable as they may be. If Evolution is a formal principle of uniformity; what is the alternative uniform or non-uniform principle that you (someone at ISCID or visiting) will use to oppose and overturn it? If you find it then that will be how an over-coming or un-doing social movement must be framed. The concepts of ID can take one so far, and then an appeal to _____ (capital letters) is a literal gap in the scientific-linguistic practice of the post-modern world.
Micah, do you agree with the mainstay of the ID cast and crew that the primary target (or comparison) for these hopeful ‘design’ experiments is the (‘more than just’ Michael) theory/biological and genetic fact or fable/ideology/philosophical framework/meta-narrative/worldview of Evolution? Though didn’t the late Dr. Gould suggest that the great problem of evolution is really about continuity? What then is your substitute principle of continuity in the suggested ID paradigm to dethrone it? IC – Shazaam!? If no one within ID territory can answer to certain relevant questions, especially about ID’s effects on humanity, if they must be dodged for ideological protection or unprepared-ness, then how does the success-revo-trumpet of ID sound to the general (pseudo)-scientific audience? We might agree that theological realism and sociological realism (would that be a crude formation?) then have something in common.
Thank you for helping to get this thread back on track, Mann. As you can see, I have a way of wandering, and have no doubt done it again here. I hope you’ll permit me. But did you also just save Micah from answering the simple question of which concepts count for bench research and systematics? Is he requiring bench research and systematics to come from outside or inside the IDM, and if so, what are the concepts (or even percepts) of a request for experiments limited to?
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“Exactly, what paradigm will ID fall under…I ask these questions as a sincere ID advocate, but I am extremely concerned about how ID will become an empirical science.” – Wilston
I agree with what is said from experience, this is where design theorists often simply stop, turn around and request for evidence in the void (or gap-theory), which makes ID sometimes sound more like a searching analytic echo than a triumphalistic revolution. These two efforts proceed nonetheless, parallel in time, which confuses and confounds the IDM’s search for clarity (from the outside), but allows a dual-tracked approach to the dialectic and rhetoric of evolution (from the inside). I’m asking, what’s the grammar? Attack, dodge, divert, re-attack…EXPERIMENT. Mathematics, Biology, Jurisprudence, Philosophy of Science, Biology…PRACTISE. Bash empty Darwinian foes. Evolution is still a riddle.
Good things, great things from intelligent design theories already…but all evidence and hypotheses must be welcome, even those that would totally upset the prioritized dominance of the two concepts, ‘intelligence’ and ‘design’ and their derivatives in a post-evolutionary discourse. You heard it echo again: Where are the social scientists? Otherwise (by purpose or chance) the linguists will eat the natural scientists alive before they get to test their precious new capital theories (I & D) of U.S. education.
Watching closely from the sidelines, one can shout hooray!
gregory the grey
Question: If someone does experiments and discusses them in the social sciences, would that count for you even as practical experimentation about human ‘design’?
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Rex Kerr
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posted 08. April 2004 14:10
Whether or not social scientists "eat the natural scientists alive"--metaphorically speaking only, I hope!--may be an interesting sociological question, but it isn't so interesting as a scientific question.
Are you claiming that unless attention is paid to social sciences that they will win the debate through invalid means? Or are you claiming that social scientists who study highly complex, difficult-to-control subjects where almost nothing can be positively nailed down, can use their findings to overturn rigorous, repeatable, carefully controlled results from natural scientists?
The former is perhaps a concern; the latter seems just shy of laughable.
Intelligent design has postured itself as an alternative non-(social science) theory, and therefore on its own terms it will live or die by the success of its methods in a naturalistic setting.
Perhaps you mean that ID is really a social science in disguise, and that it is social scientists who are best equipped to demonstrate this?
Otherwise, the rhetoric about social sciences seems rather, well, silly.
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Krauze
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posted 18. April 2004 15:37
Hi Argon. I'm replying to your post on page 3 of this discussion, which has only now come to my attention.
"When we find that a randomly acquired, single point mutation can produce resistance should that count as a "success" for the teleological approach?"
One can use bad reasoning to make almost any field of inquiry look silly. A classic example in evolutionary biology is the large fins of flying fish being selected for carrying the fish over the surface of water. But should we also conclude that the tendency of the fish to be affected by gravity has been selected to get the fish back in the water?
Since cells have mechanisms for catching single point mutations and a genetic code that minimizes their effects, from my ID POW any resistance produced by such mutations is un-intented. Now, if the resistance was encoded in an "encrypted" gene (see the end of my post here), perhaps even expressed through a recombination event (cells actually have quite an intricate machinery for doing that), we'd be on to something.
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Argon
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posted 18. April 2004 20:25
Hello Krauze.
I wonder how one differntiates bad reasoning from good reasoning in this case? It is within the realm of possibility that an designer created a gene with the potential to acquire another function or alter functionality through mutation. That is part of what 'front-loading' and 'informational displacement' is about.
All I have illustrated is that it is possible to 'correct' for the wrong reasons (It does not take long to find plenty of real examples in the history of science). But how do we know when we are right for the correct reasons? What is needed in that case is a link that connects a phenomenon back to a cause, not a theory of cause to a phenomenon.
Let's take the encryption idea, as illustrated by sequences having multiple reading frames. Couldn't one 'predict' such cases on the basis of design as well as natural causes under the pressures of regulation and efficiency? Basically, if a theory of causation has relatively few 'anchors' that hold it down to reality, almost anything can be 'predicted'.
Now, I honestly believe that examples of polypeptide trans-splicing will be discovered. I think it is only a matter of time. But when the first case is found, I am not going to claim to it legitimizes any theory of cause about their origin, because there simply does not exist any causal theory detailed enough to justify such a prediction.
[ 18. April 2004, 20:27: Message edited by: Argon ]
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Terence A-H Tan
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posted 19. April 2004 00:17
Hi Argon,
I agree with your reasoning.
Food for thought: Perhaps in the face of uncertainty, we have to go by which theory best explains the prediction. Perhaps in the realm of nature, some entities are better explained by ID concepts, other entities better explained by evolutionary concepts, yet other entities best explained by both concepts. The best explanations could be graded in a hierarchy of mathematical probabilities.
Terence Tan
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RBH
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posted 19. April 2004 00:56
(I am wary of posting whilst still on painkillers - I'm four days post-surgery and am not happy - but I'll give it a try.)
Terence Tan wrote quote:
Food for thought: Perhaps in the face of uncertainty, we have to go by which theory best explains the prediction. Perhaps in the realm of nature, some entities are better explained by ID concepts, other entities better explained by evolutionary concepts, yet other entities best explained by both concepts. The best explanations could be graded in a hierarchy of mathematical probabilities.
One might sympathize with this if one could see an ID "explanation." At a minimum, one expects an explanation to identify relevant (causal, antecedent) variables and provide some information about how they interact to produce the event/phenomenon/process being explained. At one level, an "explanation" of the image on my TV set appeals to knowledge and theories in physics, and invokes stuff like electromagnetic waves and antenna characteristics and electrons and solid state amplifiers and so on. At another level, an "explanation" of the images might invoke my (presumably intelligent) choice of which videotape to watch tonight. ("The Two Towers," in case anyone is interested.) That would likely take an "explanation" off into territory Gregory the Grey is more comfortable in.
If one wants to figure out how to build a TV set or repair one so that its image definition is better, the first kind of explanation is much more useful than the second. If one wants to improve the aesthetic quality of the images that are displayed, the second is more useful than the first. As I recall, Terence Tan is an oncologist in training. I sincerely hope that he (like my surgeon of this week) is much more attentive to the first kind of explanation than the second. But that's precisely the kind of explanation - the first kind - that ID does not offer.
RBH
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Terence A-H Tan
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posted 19. April 2004 08:37
Further back in terms of precedent casual explanations, non-ID alternatives equally draws a blank.
I hope you are recovering well. Rest assure, physicians like us base our practise more on the stochastic art of medicine than the exact science of physics and mathematics.
Terence
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Krauze
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posted 19. April 2004 14:36
Hi Argon.
"It is within the realm of possibility that an designer created a gene with the potential to acquire another function or alter functionality through mutation."
Yes, but I would contend that such a claim is unsatisfactory, unless one can describe what the designer did to generate this potential. Just saying, "It happens, so that's what the designer intended" would be a case of bad reasoning.
With regard to your point that expectations can be generated from both correct and incorrect assumptions (I really meant to answer this in my previous post, but forgot - sorry): I agree, but the whole question about being able to inspire research is raised by the ID-critical community, to which ID is trying to respond. The assumption seems to be that research-generating abilities are a sign of a good theory, and if ID doesn't have them, then to the rubbish bin with that. But if you are correct, and research-generating abilities have nothing to do with the soundness of a theory, then the argument from the ID-critical community would lose its bite, to say the least.
Personally, I don't propose these admittedly tentative suggestions to show the superiority of ID over naturalistic alternatives. I see other things as supporting that superiority. My interest lies more in trying to answer the question, "Well, if the scientific community accepted ID, what then?" Obviously, within a teleologic paradigm, scientists don't care if some previous abandoned paradigm enabled them to ask similar questions. Just as I don't think Darwinists take much notice of the fact that questions like "What is the function of this structure?" were also asked by their natural theology-practicing forbears.
If I should describe this discussion as bringing anything to the darwin-or-design-schisma, it should be as answering the claim that under design, science grinds to a halt. If your response to my ponderings is "So what?", I'll have to reply "Ask the ones who think it matters".
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Janitor@MIT
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posted 19. April 2004 16:54
Sorry, Charlie… “… I truly have no idea…”—charlie d.
“It has sometimes been suggested that the wild-type allele is not a single entity, but rather a population of different isoalleles that are indistinguishable by any ordinary procedure (Kimura, M. & J.F. Crow, ‘The Number of Alleles That Can Be Maintained In A Finite Population,’ Genetics 49: 725-738, April 1964.).”
Nowadays this would seem to be a statement of little portent or moment.
It sets the theoretical context (what has now become a historical context): Does the Neo-Darwinian formalism treat the possibility of the effective indistinguishability of any of its objects? One might wonder how this question even makes any sense to a Neo-Darwinian theorist? Alleles are abstract unitary mathematical objects and effectively indistinguishable alleles (isoalleles) are not admitted by definition. Why? If isoalleles exist and they are indistinguishable then what possible difference could it make on theory? A theory of selection, after all, must rest on the assumption that what is selected is effectively distinguishable from what is not selected.
But then Kimura & Crow immediately point to the fact, unknown (undecided by ongoing research) to the Neo-Darwinists, that genes do have an ultrastructure. They are not so abstract, and certainly not unitary objects. When Fisher, Wright, and Haldane were working out the math, some of whose particulars Kimura & Crow will re-examine, it is was the subject of active debate amongst biologists over whether a gene was conceptual or material. (!) Morgan (Dobzhansky’s teacher), the father of fruit-fly genetics said it didn’t really matter. The Neo-Darwinists concurred. For their theoretical purposes it was inconsequential whether a gene was material or not. [?!]
However, as the paper develops, the initial “question” changes. For Kimura & Crow, it becomes not a suggestion of indistinguishability, but a question of just how much variability theory admits and can handle adequately.
Its difficult from our perspective to understand how radical a move this is. What follows for several pages is the familiar fiddling, finagling, tinkering, and tweaking of theory (which evolutionary philosophers permit to evolutionary theorists, i.e., the designers of evolutionary theory, but do not permit to any other designers except to impute to them some unforgivable failure).
Plainly, Kimura & Crow cannot work it out to their satisfaction completely. Having discovered this (by questioning initially an assumption) Kimura & Crow then point to suggestive experimental results (Wallace, B. 1958. The average effect of radiation-induced mutations on viability in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 12: 532-552.) warranting the very first statement in the article. The experimenter suggested that his mildly paradoxical results were explicable on the possibility of an unexpectedly high percentage of heterosity. (Unusual in itself because the experiment was standard practice for ca. 20 years.) Having quoted Wallace, Kimura & Crow then issue a request for further experimentation, a number of theoretical caveats, and indicate that a doubt remains.
Pangenesis was one of the great scientific gaffes of the ages. The move from one level of abstraction (i.e., analysis) to the next or another, has never been a kind move for evolutionary theorists. (E.g., it is the source of the continuing “levels of selection” controversy.) The fatal assumption being the very one that most biologists at the time were willing to accept, at least provisionally: It didn’t really matter if the gene was conceptual or material. Either way, there must be a level of abstraction that permits adequate treatment for all scientific purposes. (One of those “representation-free” representations, that I can’t help but find humorous.)
As the material, conceptual, and theoretical consequences of the molecular Biological Revolution continued to develop the Neo-Darwinists resisted and they could do nothing else! But at a certain point continuing resistance becomes the pathetic refusal to accept defeat.
For a computer scientist the use of the term “indistinguishability” stands out as it is directly related to the question of the effectiveness of computational procedures as instantiated materially (by an experiment) to compute, or decide. That’s what “effective” means, to decide, i.e., select one of at least two possible states. Traditionally, in evolutionary thought, we insist that it is Mother Nature who decides, selects. The very idea that there are instances in which she cannot select (because she cannot resolve the differences) was not (even now) seriously considered. I have expressed plainly my own “mystification.” How is it that anything that exists is not “selected”?!
The IDers have not done enough to explore this facet of life. Even though what I just said was consistent with their theme, and a discovery of evolutionary biologists themselves. There is a limit to the “competency” of natural processes to “decide” outcomes. I have never failed to emphasize that fact, derived completely independently of any of the IDers ruminations. (Computer science seems obsessed with it!)
The amazing thing to me is the commonality, the agreement, between the IDers and their critics. Neither accepts as fact what has been determined as fact outside their own “theoretical” preconceptions.
In their initial resistance to the idea that anything in biology could escape the terribly impartial scrutiny of natural selection, it did not occur to the Neo-Darwinists that molecular biology afforded them the opportunity to prove their theory beyond reasonable doubt. They had the opportunity to show that selection was indeed such a powerful “force” (and just how powerful a “force” was a significant question for them) that it resolves not just whole organisms, but even their molecular details. Why don’t they pursue it, but instead, resist it?
Because even the initial results were all against the most basic premises of their theory! It obviously entailed risking theory by a definitive test. By “definitive” I don’t imply anything “metaphysical.” Only that a theory is tested by the results as they accrue and are accordingly related to existing theory.
As far as I know, none of the Neo-Darwinists ever accepted without serious qualifications either the methods or results of molecular biology. (Only one of the original Neo-Darwinists survives, Ernst Mayr, and in his last publication {} he repeats some of his earlier objections.)
The Neo-Darwinists became irrelevant at least a decade ago! Science forges on.
But we are still debating over “Darwinism”!
Why?
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Mesk
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posted 19. April 2004 20:29
quote:
Janitor:
But we are still debating over “Darwinism”!
Why?
An excellent question. Over on the ARN board, I suggested the the terms "evolutionism," "Darwinism," and "neo-Darwinism" were all hopelessly compromised by historical baggage, and could not be used to describe the current status of evolutionary biology. I have seen many, many threads derailed by useless semantic bickering over the definitions of these terms (or, even more frustratingly, threads in which people argue straight past each other because they are using different definitions of these terms but are not aware of this). My proposed solution was to describe the current consensus formulation of evolutionary biology with the moniker "mainstream evolutionary biology" (MEB). I also suggest that the term "evolutionism" be abandoned, that the term "evolution" be only used in the most general sense (change over time), and that "Darwinism" and "neo-Darwinism" be used only to refer to historical schools of scientific thought which have since been heavily modified.
One of the important things to note about MEB is that, as the consensus view of a scientific field, it is a dynamic rather than static concept; it changes as our understanding of the mechanisms of biological evolution deepens. As such, MEB cannot be falsified, but rather will be modified over time to accomodate new observations. It is an umbrella term encompassing many interconnected but independently falsifiable sub-theories (such as, for instance, the true randomness of mutations with respect to fitness, or the notion that adaptive biological changes are generally fixed in a population through natural selection), each of which can be discarded or modified without discarding or modifying the whole body of thought - just like any other field of science.
Several of the participants at ARN have adopted the term MEB fairly happily, which I think has resolved some confusion. I humbly suggest that it could also solve some of the semantic problems in this thread. For instance, the problems that Janitor is concerned with above disappear as soon as one realises that the need for all alleles to be selectively distinguishable may have been a problem for Darwinism (although I'm not entirely sure why), but it is not a problem for MEB, since MEB accepts that most molecular evolutionary changes are selectively neutral, and change in frequency as a result of stochastic genetic drift rather than selective pressures.
Mesk.
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