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Author
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Topic: John A. Davison: A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 04. January 2006 07:59
John
All agree that change over time has occurred. What is debatable is the extent of this change. I am not qualified to participate in any discussion of phylogeny. I can read. There is debate over the extent of change and even the length of time over which it occurred. In my posts I try to restrict my contributions to the area of mathematics because this is my field. I assert the story of evolution, as told at university, is theological because it attributes physical power to an entity that has none. That entity is chance. Just as the Philistines carved up a rock, gave it a name [Dagon], and attributed to it physical power; so has modern science done with chance. If we are uncertain as to the cause of the change then let us say so. If we make predictions about future events based on recognized patterns in historical data, be that history very long or very short, let us not imply from that randomness simply because we don’t understand the event completely. In fact our intuition begs the opposite inference: There is a pattern because there exists intent. Of course intuition by itself has no place in science. That is why, at present, IDists are making hypotheses and attempting to support them by observation, experimentation, and mathematical modeling confirmed by accurate predictions. This does not happen overnight. Mistakes will be made. The established scientific community is wanting to disallow, prohibit, and otherwise foil this attempt. Why? I believe it is because if correct ID would bring crashing down to earth a great body of work representing the life’s effort of many a brilliant scientist. Each of whom proceeded from the same assumption: The universe exists as it does because of blind chance.
I say again this assumption is made due to religious conviction. The fact remains: we are uncertain about final causes. It is possible given discoveries like; the incompleteness theorem, the uncertainty principle, and Turing’s halting problem, we may never know for certain. Understandably, scientists have great distaste for this idea.
-Mel
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John A. Davison
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posted 04. January 2006 10:28
Melvin
I agree entirely with you that chance never had anything to do with either ontogeny of phylogeny, a position which has also been held by all of my distinguished sources, some of the finest evolutionary thinkers of two centuries. That is why Darwinism must be abandoned as the failed hypothesis it so obviously is. The alternative to chance is purpose and design. I do not accept the notion of uncertainty. I believe everything in the world past and present is there waiting only to be discovered. That was Godfrey Hardy's view of mathematics, that it was there independent of the human condition. I feel the mechanisms for organic evolution will be completely understood as well, just as the fundamentals of Chemistry and Physics have proven to be. It will only be a substantially more difficult solution.
I see no need to postulate a living God but I cannot imagine that there were not one or more Gods who served to determine the laws and the information that served to implement all of organic evolution. I also believe that evolution is finished and its goals have been realized with the production of its terminal product, ourselves.
"Ascertainable truth is partial, piece meal, uncertain and difficult."
Bertrand Russell
But ascertainable nevertheless, meaning known with certainty.
I also concur with the father of experimental science:
"Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty."
Galileo
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Alan Fox
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posted 04. January 2006 10:58
Phillip asks
quote:
It depends upon what you mean by "entirely natural".
Anything that can be observed would be natural.
I find it impossible to suggest anything that might be not entirely natural.
Perhaps "entirely" is a tautology.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 04. January 2006 15:02
Alan
Would the undisturbed motions of quantum particles be supernatural because they are unobservable?
-Mel
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Alan Fox
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posted 04. January 2006 15:35
Mel
There was a very informative site linked to (I'm fairly sure it was in an ISCID comment)with a really good explanation of aspects of quantum physics. That was one reason I said observable rather than measurable. Sub-atomic particles are observed, are they not?
My background is biochemistry, not physics.
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John A. Davison
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posted 04. January 2006 18:11
I would remind everyone that Micah was kind enough to introduce this paper of mine, presumably the subject of this thread, which is now published. Let me just say that as the author of that paper I have formally rejected any role for chance in either ontogeny or phylogeny and wash my hands of any discussion that might imply otherwise. Have fun but don't expect me to participate. Once published there is no need for further discussion on my part. The place to levy criticism is in the refereed literature, something yet to transpire and something I have grown to expect. Neither myself nor those sources which enabled me are allowed to exist in hard copy which speaks volumes as to the insecurity of both the Biblical Fundamentalist and the Darwinian Atheist camps. It is only in cyberspace that egos run rampant. Perhaps that is as it should be.
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Alan Fox
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posted 05. January 2006 06:27
Found it!
Hat-tip to Irving.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 05. January 2006 09:58
Alan, with my apologies to John if I am taking this thread of topic:
Thank you for posting this link, again. I believe Irving posted it before in response to a comment I made and I did not make the time to investigate it.
I will barrow the following analogy from the Reality Program webpage:
quote:
In searching for the wave-like phenomenon that must, it simply must be taking place in the unmodified electron double slit experiment, the theorists are left with the equivalent of a parent's worst nightmare: you hear the screaming and pounding and crashing of broken lamps from the child's room; but every time you open the door . . . there sits the innocent little darling like an angel, eyelashes batting, smiling beatifically (probably reading the Bible), "Yes, Mother/Father, can I help you with something?" You close the door in bewilderment, and immediately the racket starts up again. Well, the theorists know that there is something wave-like going on. They can see the indisputable evidence of waves in the interference pattern and in their extraordinarily precise predictions based on a wave model. But, every time they look for the wave itself -- there is no wave, only a particle. And, perversely, all evidence of waves simultaneously disappears!
This is very similar to the situation for Intelligent Design. We observe an irreducibly complex mechanism in our environment [wave pattern] and ask how was this produced? There are four alternatives:
1 – Chance. This is the generally accepted explanation for the wave pattern in the double slit experiment. So, if true there why not here for the complex mechanism.
2 – Law. Some as of yet undetermined natural law which to this point eludes our discovery, through observation and measure. How the law was established is yet another question.
3 – Design. There is some prescribed creative process at work established with intent.
4 – Combination. Any combination of the three mentioned above.
How can any scientist suggest that we should not look for evidence that chance can be ruled out? ID is not suggesting, as I am personally, that chance should be ruled out philosophically. However, it is clear that the Darwinian camp and its offshoots are suggesting design should be ruled out because there is no way to observe it. We should look harder for a way to observe it.
-Mel
[ 05. January 2006, 10:00: Message edited by: Melvin H. Fox ]
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Alan Fox
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Member # 1847
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posted 05. January 2006 10:16
Mel
Some would claim
5. The, as yet, unknown explanation.
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John A. Davison
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posted 05. January 2006 10:34
Intelligent Design is transparent to anyone who isn't congenitally forced to remain blind to it. I recommend all read William Wright's "Born That Way" where he summarizes the evidence that virtually everything from our political preferences to our taste in beer, toothpaste and wives has been demonstarted beyond any question to have a firm genetic component. We are all victims. Some of us have been luckier than others. I regard myself and my distinguished predecessors as among the lucky ones. Like Einstein I also see no role for philosophy in science.
As for the intractibility that continues to plague meaningful dialogue here as elsewhere:
"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting ARE NOT FREE but are just as CAUSALLY BOUND as the stars in their motion.
Albert Einstein (my emphasis)
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Alan Fox
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posted 05. January 2006 10:41
John states:
quote:
I recommend all read William Wright's "Born That Way" where he summarizes the evidence that virtually everything from our political preferences to our taste in beer, toothpaste and wives has been demonstarted beyond any question to have a firm genetic component.
I doubt many evolutionary biologists would disagree with this.
[ 05. January 2006, 10:43: Message edited by: Alan Fox ]
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Micah Sparacio
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Member # 6
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posted 05. January 2006 11:05
"Sub-atomic particles are observed, are they not?"
Alan, as far as I know (and I surely could be wrong here) sub-atomic particles are not observed. Rather, certain effects or phenomena are observed and reference is then made to theoretical entities to explain the effects/phenomena.
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Alan Fox
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posted 08. January 2006 11:08
Micah
We observe electromagnetic radiation, other than at the wavelength of visible light, indirectly. Radio antennae and bubble chambers are really only an extension of aids to detection such as the microscope. Electromagnetic radiation is natural and observable, because it's effects can be observed.
Mel wrote quote:
However, it is clear that the Darwinian camp and its offshoots are suggesting design should be ruled out because there is no way to observe it. We should look harder for a way to observe it.
Yes, I think it is fair to say that the principal objection to intelligent design from mainstream scientists is that there is no scientific method to detect design. Another objection is that ID proponents do not appear to be concentrating on developing such methods. Until this is addressed, ID cannot be considered science and must remain as philosophy.
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John A. Davison
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posted 08. January 2006 12:31
That which surrounds us cannot be detected? What cannot be detected is any evidence for natural or artificial selection playing any role whatsoever in evolution past or present, That is what cannot be detected and for a very good reason. Neither natural selection nor sexual reproduction ever played any DETECTABLE role in creative evolution. Got that? Write that down.
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 08. January 2006 15:27
Alan
I have three young children. If they were all in a room with the door closed and I on the outside heard a horrible ruckus, and I have, I would enter the room. If I found them all sitting still reading from the Bible with no visible evidence of the ruckus above mentioned, I would investigate this paradox.
When we come across an irreducibly complex structure in the universe around us that screams design yet no superficial evidence is noticed, we are bound to look harder. Hopefully you have read some of Dembski’s work in this search for evidence. It is good mathematics. I don’t adhere to the extent of his conclusions based on the device, complexity-specification criterion [CSC – Is ID Falsifiable thread], but I do believe the universal probability bound [UPB – Universal Probability Bound thread] can be used to make a statistically valid claim for design. Any thoughts on these as science?
-Mel
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