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Topic: Practical experiments for testing the concept of intelligent design
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Micah Sparacio
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Member # 6
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posted 15. February 2004 13:42
Practical experiments for testing the concept of intelligent design
I'd like to see a brainstorm develop in which posts reflect the following:
1. Realism: let's move from philosophical thought experiments to the practical labratory
2. Identification of the problem to be addressed
3. Ideas for constructing the experiment
The thread is not for those who:
1. Want to "make a point" or advocate
The thread is for those who:
2. Are seriously interested in whether design concepts can be tested and/or turned into labratory experiments (or computer simulations)
On the first page of the thread, let's try to stay constructive: make your own offering.
Beyond the first page, maybe we can critique or make suggestions on how to improve other people's ideas.
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Evan
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posted 15. February 2004 16:44
Good for you, Micah.
I have a few thoughts.
First of all, it seems to me that experiments should not be limited to the laboratory, but should include field studies.
Second of all, one of the advantages of trying to identify problems to be addressed and ideas for investigating those problems is that this would encourage some specificity about the ID hypothesis being offered.
For instance, to take one of many possible dichotomies, if one hypothesizes that design is currently happening in the world, at least potentially, then the experiments one would offer would be different if one hypothesized that design only has happened quite infrequently (maybe just once) in the very distant past. Or, as mentioned in another thread, if one hypothesizes that design is implemented by an omnipotent designer that can override the laws of nature, then the experiments one would offer would be different than if one hypothesized that design was implemented by a designer limited in scope - perhaps limited to making only small genetic changes. And last, if one hypothesizes that design is implemented by embodied as opposed to disembodied designers, one would possibly look for evidence of the independent existence of those designers.
Here is a related point: given that, at least according to Dembski, that design is detected by showing that natural processes couldn’t have caused something (the Explanatory Filter), several of us have mentioned a number of times that beginning experiments should try to establish procedures for verifying that something is not designed - using replicable procedures, measurable data, and calculations based on sequences of probability to establish the likelihood of what did happen happening.
So I would suggest that anyone offering a problem to be solved start by identifying the characteristics of design and/or design activity that they are hypothesizing as the context for the problem.
Here’s is an example (I am not a biologist, so real biologists would have to supply the actual details.)
Start with a known bacteria population with a known genome. Put different populations into different cultures with different amounts of some harmful substances, or with different substances. Watch for the evolution of some resistance or other means of coping with the various substances.
Repeat the experiment to see if there is any consistency - does the population reach the same type of “solution” to the problem in approximately the same time and to the same degree? - or does this vary, and by how much.
Then analyze the genome of the new population to see what genetic changes were responsible for the adaptation. Make estimates of the probability of this happening, taking into account the number of bacteria, the number of generations, and the types of possible changes known to be possible or common with this bacteria.
The result would be an estimate of the probability that the adaptation under consideration would happen as a consequences of natural processes, moving us closer to having a reliable method for detecting design at the genetic level.
However, here is an important question: how would we in fact know that this result wasn’t the result of design? If we hypothesize an omnipotent disembodied designer, it could very well be that the designer was active and involved in this experiment?
This takes us back the question of hypotheses about the nature of the designer. If accepts Dembski’s definition of design, then only those events with extremely low probability would constitute design. However, this hypothesis that the designer only designs what would otherwise be highly unlikely events is just that - an hypothesis, and other hypotheses are possible.
So, once again, I think that thinking about actual experiments is a good idea because, among other things, it necessitates making some more detailed descriptions of the hypothesized concept of ID held by the experimenter.
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The Deuce
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posted 16. February 2004 22:51
Since design is mostly a historical claim, it's rather difficult to come up with laboratory experiments for it, because you can't easily test history. I think there are some experiments that could be run where the design inference could be useful though. Not being a biologist, I'm talking as an ignoramus here, but here goes:
One area of biology in which it seems the design inference may already play a part, to some extent, is adaptive mutations, where a nondividing cell responds to some environmental pressure by undergoing what appears to be directed mutations. The designer(s) have not been identified (that is to say, it isn't known how cells know what the needed mutations are and how they do it), but the mutations seem to be the result of some sort of intelligence at work within the cell.
Anyhow, my question is, is it possible that adaptive mutations also occur in eukaryotes, or in dividing cells, across generations? It seems to me that even simple variational mutations that don't exhibit specified complexity when they occur in a single organism might still exhibit specified complexity across a group of organisms if the same mutation occurred repeatedly and independently, and more often than probability would predict, in different organisms of the same species when subjected to the same selective pressures. Or perhaps different species could be used, to see if the adaptive mutation rate was different among different species. Anyhow, it seems that perhaps Dembski's EF could be used to get a handle on whether such mutations occur, and if so, how often, and that depending on the answer to those questions, a lot of new questions and ideas could be posed.
Bah, I just realized that my idea was more or less the same as Evan's. Oh well, posting it anyway.
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John Bracht
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posted 17. February 2004 01:35
Micah,
I think intelligent design impacts research both in the way it approaches biology theoretically (compared with how the Darwinist approaches biology) and also in a very practical way at the lab bench. These more practical applications seem to occur at the interface where intelligent design and Darwinian ideas rub against each other.
For example, consider the evolution of a system like the flagellum. The Darwinist argues that there are a series of functional intermediates that define an indirect route of evolution to producing this structure. The intelligent design thinker suspects that there is no such set of functional intermediates. The existence of such intermediates cannot be observed in nature (some would argue that the type III secretory system is such an intermediate--it makes no difference to my argument). Let's use this difference to design an experiment. The challenge to the Darwinian model is to show how a system of incredible specificity and functionality can be evolvable--how can it build up complexity if all the complexity is required to get the function? The Darwinist would argue that the functional constraints have not always been so high, and that over time the system has co-evolved to its present state of tighly-interacting, essential components. In the past, the interactions were loose, and components were just helpful, not essential. Over time they became so tightly optimized that no parts can be removed without loosing functionality.
Here's my thought: the Darwinist doesn't have any evidence that a loose conglomeration of proteins can have flagellar function (or any function for that matter). But we should be able to test the model by "devolving" the system away from the highly optimized state to a more primitive state. The problem is that most experiments with the flagellum involve knock-out experiments that remove components. Of course, that will destry function. What needs to happen is to mutate individual proteins (in some smart ways--identify key binding sites and mutagenize them, etc) such that their interactions are altered and weakened. Perhaps if the whole set of proteins is tweaked together, we can begin to map out how evolution might have climbed this "mount improbable". We can even characterize functionality (mobility) as we reduce binding constants of proteins and watch their interactions weaken, etc. If the Darwinian model is true, we ought to be able to begin to move this system down the fitness "peak" to a more sub-optimal, flexible, evolvable system. The design theorist predicts that no such "devolution" will produce a functional machine. The engineering constraints are just too tight, and the forces have to be transferred with such precision that a looser set of proteins will not function.
Here's another idea. I remember getting into a discussion with some ID critics on ARN about the assembly of the bacterial flagellum. The critics argued vehemently that the flagellar proteins need not be synthesized in a particular order, that they tend to "slot together" once made, and that they would self-assemble in the cytosol. However, the bacterial cell doesn't make a flagellum this way; it goes through a rigorous and precisely regulated assembly process that even includes quality control? Why? Probably because the flagellar proteins won't build the right structure unless they're carefully regulated, chaperoned, and properly secreted. The building blocks must not only be localized to the site of assembly, but they must be put there in the right order and actively inserted into the right places (and insertion into the wrong places prevented, ie, premature aggregation) for the structure to form. The Darwinist would argue that all this regulation and assembly process is a later adaptation, a nonessential feature that improves efficiency maybe, but certainly isn't required. So let's test it: if we shuffle the genes in the bacterial flagellum operons around, will the flagellum be produced? It's relatively straightforward to clone genes or gene clusters into plasmids and transform bacteria; measuring motility of a previously non-motile strain is a good assay for flagellum formation. It's well-known which gene products regulate gene expression from each operon, and it would be relatively straightforward to just swap a few genes around and see whether the specificity of assembly is required to get a functioning flagellum. No mutagenesis required, just moving a few components around--you could leave the regulatory proteins in each operon (there are 3 of them) and shuffle the other genes around so they're expressed in different orders during the assembly process. You could put all the genes together, say under a heat-shock promoter to turn them all on together, in no order at all.
My intelligent design prediction: the order matters. Shuffle the genes around and no flagellum will be produced. I'm guessing you'll find the system is incredibly sensitive to the order and assembly of the protein complexes. The Darwinist would predict otherwise, since the order and complexity of the assembly process is too improbable to have arisen at the beginning. So here's another relatively straightforward test that could be carried out at the lab bench.
A lot of interesting experiments could be done to really map out the limits of Darwinian change. I know one researcher who is taking a functional enzyme in bacteria, inactivating it by multiple mutations, and then putting it back into the bacteria to see how many generations it takes to mutate back into functional form. An intelligent design theorist is willing to ask what the limits of natural (unintelligent) change are; the Darwinist is simply comitted to the idea that there are no limits on natural (or unintelligent) change.
John
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 17. February 2004 02:18
Retracted
[ 17. February 2004, 02:54: Message edited by: Pim van Meurs ]
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 17. February 2004 02:54
Hi John,
As I understood Micah's question it involved testing the concept of intelligent design. John seemed to argue that we should be testing Darwinian pathways. I found this somewhat confusing. I apologize if my comments have upset you. I will wait until the second page to constructively contribute to John's ideas. I apologize for not having waited appropriately. I will retract my comments until the second page is reached.
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Evan
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posted 17. February 2004 08:22
I read John’s post with interest, and then Pim’s when he wrote, “As I understood Micah's question it involved testing the concept of intelligent design. John seemed to argue that we should be testing Darwinian pathways.”
I believe there is some merit in Pim’s point. Micah wrote that the thread is about whether “design concepts can be tested and/or turned into laboratory experiments (or computer simulations),” but John wrote,
quote:
The challenge to the Darwinian model is to show how a system of incredible specificity and functionality can be evolvable--how can it build up complexity if all the complexity is required to get the function?
One of the criticisms of ID is that it is based on the negative argument that if natural processes didn’t do it, design did. I got the feeling from Micah’s opening post that he was asking for an attempt to directly test design concepts themselves rather than indirectly address design concepts through negative argumentation about our inability to provide natural explanations for some things.
I particularly think that “knockout” experiments on entities such as the flagellum (which came into existence billions of years ago) are flawed even as “thought” experiments in being relevant to design - even though actual experiments might certainly teach us something about how things operate together, trying to “devolve” something does not tell us how that thing came into being.
The simplest “thought experiment” explanation of this involves the idea of “scaffolding.” I once took apart a partially caved-in old stone cellar that had an arched roof made of rock without any mortar. I was baffled as to how that roof could have been made, because any rock that I took out would cause the whole thing to collapse.
Then one day at bowling I met an old guy who had lived on my farm during the depression and had helped build that cellar, and he explained how they did it. First they built a big mound of dirt where the cellar was going to be. Then they laid the rock roof over the dirt, and then they dug away the dirt! Viola - an “irreducibly complex” roof in which the removal of any part caused its demise and no sign of the parts that had been present during its construction (i.e., the dirt.)
Now I realize this is only an analogy, but I think its central point is relevant - if an object has come into existence through “Darwinian pathways” (a phrase I am not fond of,) there is no reason to believe that taking things out will necessarily “devolve” the thing, because if part of those pathways involved something being taken out (the dirt,) then our reverse engineering effort would have to involve putting that something back in - and we don’t know what that something is.
Let’s look at this from a more positive point of view. Return to the scenario I mentioned - one of studying change that actually takes place in the present rather than studying something that is billions of years old.
Assume that we find a reproducible situation where bacteria A evolves an adaptation to substance B with some regularity - lets say in 1000 generations. Once this is understood - that is both the starting part and the ending point, then start looking at the intermediaries: generations 250, 500, and 750 for instance. How did the thing evolve? Were there small intermediary changes along the way? How were they carried from generation to generation? Did they produce “functional intermediaries?” Did they accumulate “behind the scenes” so to speak, and then make a sudden change?
As always, once these are understood, calculate probabilities - how likely was this evolution - how strongly “undesigned” was it in respect to its probability (i.e., its complexity.”)
I am late for work now, but I would like to add one more comment.
John wrote,
quote:
An intelligent design theorist is willing to ask what the limits of natural (unintelligent) change are; the Darwinist is simply committed to the idea that there are no limits on natural (or unintelligent) change.
I do not believe this is at all true. I believe both ID advocates and mainstream evolutionary biologists understand that natural processes provide lots of restraints - I can’t imagine any scientists saying “there are no limits on natural (or unintelligent) change.”
In fact, the case is the opposite, in a way. By Dembski’s definition of design, those things that are produced by natural processes have a higher probability of happening than designed things, and that higher probability is a consequence of the fact that natural process follow laws (as well as are influenced by chance.) So what happens in the world by natural processes is limited by law - it is certainly not the case that there are no limits.
Design, however, as revealed through low probability and thus some freedom from the constraints of natural law, is more likely to posit that there are no limits on what can be designed.
Once again, this takes us back to the nature of the ID hypothesis under consideration, which is seldom made explicit. An ID theory that admits of creation ex nihilo - that the first living cell was designed and created all at once as a seed event on earth, is obviously taking that position that design has drastically fewer limits that those available to natural processes.
[P.S. added in edit - I see that this last point was not one addressed by John - he was discussing the limits of natural processes, not of design. However, I think the point is relevant enough to leave here, but only my original point (that mainstream scientists would not claim there are no limits to natuiral processes) is correct and relevant.]
[ 17. February 2004, 10:07: Message edited by: Evan ]
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Krauze
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posted 17. February 2004 11:27
I think the question of ability to inspire future research is an important one, and also one that I think concerns many who are `sitting on the fence' with regard to ID (I remember it being one of my greatest concerns when I first started to come around to the concept, but that's a story for another time). I think a good example of research that could have been carried out under an ID paradigm is that done by Freeland and Hurst, showing that the present genetic code is among the best at avoiding mutations:
Freeland S.J. & Hurst L.D., 1998, "The Genetic Code Is One in a Million", Journal of Molecular Evolution, 47:238-48.
Freeland S.J., 2002, "The Darwinian Genetic Code: An Adaptation for Adapting?" Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 3:113-27.
I say "could have been", because, as far as I know, neither Freeland nor Hurst are ID proponents. However, their result looks much more at home within an ID perspective, than within a naturalistic one. After all, the genetic code was long thought to be arbitrary, a `frozen accident'.
If this optimality is the case for the genetic code, perhaps it is also the case for the many other universals of life? The 20 amino acids used in proteins are not the only kinds of amino acids. Why have the other not been used? Could it be because they aren't as good? And what about RNA? Could there be some good reason why it employs uracil instead of thymine?
My suggestion to researchers interested in ID would be to look at some of those features currently thought to be `funny quirks', and try figuring out how things would work if they were contructed some other way.
Added in edit: When you couple a general ID view with a specific hypothesis such as front-loading, you are able to formulate even more research questions, as front-loading raises a number of enginering problems. If you equip the original cells with a gene that isn't going to be used until later, how do you prevent mutations from swamping out the message? One way to do this would be to employ the power of frameshift mutations. In Evolution: A Theory in Crisis Dentons mentions a virus in which the same genetic string is translated into different proteins, depending on where you start reading. So, you could make a gene that is expressed in the organism, enabling natural selection to weed out genetic errors. And then, when the rigth frameshift mutation happens, the alternate gene is revealed, like the hidden message in a letter in a spy movie.
An obvious way to look for such hidden messages would be to look for genes that can tolerate little or no change (since, even though a mutation can be neutral with respect to the ordinary gene, it could seriously wreck the function of the hidden one), and then see what happens when the reading frame is changed.
[ 17. February 2004, 20:20: Message edited by: Krauze ]
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RBH
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posted 17. February 2004 22:58
Evan wrote quote:
Assume that we find a reproducible situation where bacteria A evolves an adaptation to substance B with some regularity - lets say in 1000 generations. Once this is understood - that is both the starting part and the ending point, then start looking at the intermediaries: generations 250, 500, and 750 for instance. How did the thing evolve? Were there small intermediary changes along the way? How were they carried from generation to generation? Did they produce "functional intermediaries?" Did they accumulate "behind the scenes" so to speak, and then make a sudden change?
I'm giving a colloquium in two weeks with the nefarious goal of inveigling one or more students into working with me on a project exactly like that in the avida platform. The purpose of the project would be to explore exactly those questions in a situation where one has complete records of the evolutionary history of an array of lineages. Given those kinds of data, one can do the analyses that would then allow one to make informed hypotheses about what to look for in the general kind of experiment with actual bacteria that Evan suggests.
RBH
[ 17. February 2004, 22:59: Message edited by: RBH ]
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Micah Sparacio
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posted 09. March 2004 10:23
Since the thread has died, I thought I'd thrown in the question...
What concepts are worth testing?
An off the top of my (less-than-optimal)head brainstorm.
Category One: Testing the Constraints and Limits on Random Mutation + Natural Selection
Currently receives the most attention, I suppose. AFAIK, several computer simulations in the works in addition to some interesting lab work.
Category Two: Testing the Interface between Purposeful Causation and non-Purposeful Events
How they compliment/compete. How one serves as a conduit and/or constraint for the other.
Category Three: Models for the Efficient Long Term Transferal of Functional Information
Category Four: Employing the Constraints discovered in Category One for Category Three
Category Five: Employing the Constraints discovered in Category One for Developing Novel Engineering Techniques
[ 09. March 2004, 10:25: Message edited by: Micah Sparacio ]
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The Deuce
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posted 09. March 2004 12:04
Micah, do you think experiments involving conciousness could also be tied into this in some way? If it can be shown that consciousness represents some sort of fundamental teleological principle, which has a real effect on the world, acting within some biological creatures (I'm becoming increasingly of the opinion that this is actually the case), then it seems to me that the idea of teleology being behind those creatures' existence in the first place is greatly strengthened.
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Micah Sparacio
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posted 09. March 2004 12:41
Deuce,
Definitely (I certainly agree), though the principle that you use for inferring a teleological source from a teleological phenomenon, is of course beyond the experimental. At the very least, an analysis of consciousness as a teleological principle should serve to open our scientific eyes to the possibility of teleological causation in general.
What really excites me is this view that consciousness is a natural teleological principle (with a real place in the physical ontology, and therefore having real causal powers), dependent on, though not determined by, its physical base. I highly recommend Polanyi's little essay as a brainstorm/intution pump "The Structure of Consciousness". In it, Polanyi lays out a view of consciousness that is intimately wound up in the body, but which sees consciousness as having properties (and thus causal powers) that are distinct from the physical base.
So, in any case, in answer to your question, I think that there needs to be a lot of work done at this interface: between teleological principles and non-teleological principles. Additionally, I'd like to see a re-evaluation of the place of functional telos in the natural world.
I should have more to say about consciousness and science somewhere around April 12th, 13th or 14th.
[ 09. March 2004, 12:56: Message edited by: Micah Sparacio ]
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Mesk
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posted 10. March 2004 01:07
This is a particularly interesting topic, and one that I have been thinking about for some time.
One thing that is (IMO) blazingly obvious is that it is utterly impossible to "test ID" - the concept "ID" is so poorly defined that there could not possibly be any single experiment, or even a feasible group of experiments, which could test it in all of its different formulations. Those who attempt to set out a way of "testing ID" without specifying exactly which version of ID they are referring to end up in serious logical trouble. John Bracht provided an excellent example of this earlier in the thread: by failing to rigorously define the version of ID he was interested in testing, he was forced to resort to creating a false dichotomy between Darwinism and then "ID," and then proposing experiments to test Darwinism - as if damaging Darwinism would somehow directly boost the validity of "ID." This sort of argument is unfortunately common (most or all of the mainstream ID "Big Guns," such as IC, rely on this fallacious dichotomy) and I suspect stems from an unwillingness to define ID hypotheses rigorously enough to render them amenable to direct analysis.
The only way to test ID concepts is to tightly define specific ID hypotheses, generate predictions based on these hypotheses, and then test these predictions experimentally. As far as I can tell, there are only a very tiny minority of IDists who are prepared to head in this general direction, of whom Mike Gene is probably the best example. Although I think that Mike's ideas are still nowhere near rigorously defined enough to constitute a genuine, testable scientific theory (and I don't think he would argue otherwise), they are certainly a step in the right direction.
Once ID-based hypotheses have been defined clearly, experimental plans should be easy to generate. For instance, let's make a specific design intervention hypothesis: that metazoans are the result of deliberate and simultaneous addition of novel developmental genes to a non-metazoan ancestor, by some unspecified intelligent designer(s). The predictions we make based on this hypothesis will be informed by our knowledge of biology, and of the human methods used for genetic manipulation. We can assume that the genetic intervention required for the transformation was not trivial, and probably involved hundreds or even thousands of novel genes. If the insertion event was a single event, then we can use phylogenetic analysis to narrow down the number of possible candidates (i.e. by looking for genes which appear close to the origins of the metazoans.) Candidate genes should clearly have important metazoan-specific roles in development, cell fate specification, and so forth. So the data set required to test this hypothesis is manageable: a set of all genes which are found only in metazoans, and which date (by phylogenetic analysis) close to the origins of metazoans.
So how might we test the hypothesis that some of these genes were deliberately inserted by some intelligent designer(s)? Here, we need to rely on an analogy with human genetic engineers, although of course it is clear that the putative designers would have possessed vastly more advanced technology. It still seems likely that the novel genes would be carried in some form of vector, and that the same or similar vectors and engineering processes would be used for all of the inserted genes. One avenue of exploration, therefore, is to look for evidence of modular construction in subsets of the candidate genes. If there was a substantial subset of the genes which showed no evidence of coding region sequence homology, but had detectable homology in their untranslated regions and/or in flanking genomic sequence, this might be an indication of different genes inserted using similar vector sequences. Since the insertion event in question is ancient, it might be necessary to look for features which are likely to have lasted longer (due to purifying selection) than neutral sequence similarity, such as similarities in gene length, relative intron positions, or the inclusion of specific novel (metazoan-specific) protein domains. I could go on, but basically, the approach would be to look for features which broadly resemble the outcomes of human genetic engineering, and of course are different from what might be produced by known biological mechanisms (the latter alone is, as I said above, not sufficient to conclude anything). Like support for evolutionary theory or for common descent, support for any specific ID-based hypothesis would not come in a single blinding flash, but rather through a slow and gradual accumulation of suggestive evidence.
I’m not entirely clear why most IDists seem reluctant to make specific hypotheses. If I were an IDist, I’d be throwing hypotheses out left, right and centre, using each to generate predictions, and then testing those predictions as best I could. What have you guys got to lose? If some of your hypotheses are proved wrong (as they inevitably will be, if they are any good), so what? There will always be more hypotheses to consider. Remember, ID as a whole can never be falsified – it can only be refined.
Mesk.
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John Bracht
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posted 11. March 2004 03:11
As is often the case, the IDC's (intelligent design critics) are missing the nuances of my argument. Let me try to clarify.
My argument was not to "damage Darwinism to boost the validity of ID" as Mesk was claiming. No, my argument is very different from that, because I'm already assuming ID is true and trying to make predictions based on that. I'm not trying to "prove" ID (who can do such a thing?) but instead to use it as a predictive source of hypotheses. One way that ID makes predictions is about the limits of natural mechanisms. After all, ID explicitly predicts that some types of artifacts can only be explained by reference to intelligent causation. Implied in this inference, then, is the possibility that certain artifacts may in fact not be explainable by law, chance, or any combination of the two.
Notice I haven't claimed that all artifacts are intelligently designed or that all law/chance caused artifacts are not designed. Rather, intelligent design DETECTS design precisely in those artifacts that are inaccessible to law and/or chance. (Notice the issue is detection (epistemology) not actual causation (ontology)).
The bottom line is that intelligent design proponents are perfectly willing to let the evidence speak for itself: some artifacts are products of law, some of chance (or a combination of the two), and some are uniquely products of intelligence. Thus, intelligent design theorists are willing to ask the question of where the limits to natural change might be. This question is of obvious scientific importance, yet cannot be asked within the current scientific paradigm. It simply makes no sense if Darwinism is the whole story--yet from an intelligent design standpoint it is quite relevant and indeed essential to the whole project of correctly understanding our world. Furthermore, the question is not just theoretical--there are laboratory methods of addressing these questions. So it's perfectly legitimate to state that delineating the limits of natural (ie, unintelligent) causes is a research program for intelligent design theory, because it's a question one can only investigate scientifically within that theory. Furthermore, intelligent design explicitly makes certain predictions about the capabilities of unintelligent causes that can be tested in the laboratory. (ie, about levels of information change etc). Notice how I'm not trying to "prove intelligent design" by "denigrating Darwinism"; rather I'm trying to correctly assign the spheres of each. This is a fundamentally scientific problem that can be calmly and rationally approached in the laboratory if one is willing to step away from stereotypes and worn-out ruts of thinking.
I'm sure this post won't really be understood by the IDC's, because I've made these points many times in the past. I know the same worn-out arguments will be trotted out, and the discussion won't really make progress. Somehow, the points I raised above are simply incomprehensible to some people. I'll let this be my last word on this subject, and let the (hopefully) unbiased reader decide whether the responses to this post are fair or not. (note to critics: please try--try to understand what I'm saying and don't just repeat the same mantras when you respond to this post.)
John
[ 11. March 2004, 03:13: Message edited by: John Bracht ]
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Jurie
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posted 11. March 2004 06:32
How about the following study:
Take a number of proteins that occur in all forms of life. Determine the sequence of those proteins and construct phylogenies from them.
If evolution has occurred, the phylogenies are predicted to be substantially the same. If intervention has occurred, we predict them to be different from each other, and that they may show a pattern of intervention. Develop a history of intervention from the patterns.
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