I was a bit surprised that in the prior thread about evolution no one stepped up to address the question posed no less than three times by “Tall Man, Short Hair” (TMSH) challenging the supporters of evolution. I think it was legitimate for him to react with dismay, particularly since so many had expressed strong opinions, some rather dogmatic and condescending, on the subject, and at least two participants were “scientists,” one of whom is a well-established RfM biologist. Here is the question in TMSH’s own words:

“Do you personally believe that the creation, storage, transmission, and duplication of information can be achieved with complete spontaneity and randomness? Isn't this concept at the heart of evolution? If not, how does it work?”

Regarding the first question, the reliance on “information” as a starting point to refute evolution is misplaced. Virtually every organized system in the universe carries “information,” which is generated by energy acting on a system to decrease entropy; for example when the sun shines down upon the earth to allow evolutionary processes. “Information” is simply the mathematical assessment of a system’s organized complexity. Thus, atoms carry information; molecules carry information; as do planets, solar systems, human beings and animals. The question is NOT whether such things carry or store information, the question is the degree of complexity, i.e. the amount of information they carry, and whether such amount is consistent with natural processes. Specifically, the information contained in a DNA molecule or a living cell is enormous. Whether such complexity can be explained by evolutionary principles alone, is an appropriate question. But this is not a matter of the creation, storage, transmission, or duplication of information per se.

Regarding question 2, for reasons stated above, the creation, storage, transmission, and duplication of information is NOT at the heart of evolution, biological complexity is, which entails not just information, but a high level of information as is evident from a system’s organized complexity.

Regarding question 3, i.e. how does it [evolution] work? The jury is still out on much of the details; i.e. the precise molecular mechanisms and how they interact. Certainly, the general account of Darwin, involving variation and natural selection, is my modern standards much too simplistic, and inadequate as a complete explanation of evolution. Note, however, that if one considers all of modern biology, the evidence for evolution (broadly speaking) is overwhelming, even if the specific biological mechanisms involved are debated. In fact, the very complexity of biology in its details, e.g. the plasticity and the dynamic complexity of the genetic “code,” strongly supports evolution. It is doubtful that such mechanisms can be encompassed by a theory beyond just the cause and effect complexity of biological processes interacting with environmental influences.

A word about public schools and creationism. I think the question of the ability of evolution, particularly as limited to Darwin and natural selection, to explain biological complexity should be addressed as part of science, including the contribution and sufficiency of proposed evolutionary mechanisms that might play a role in generating such complexity. After all, this is already being done in scientific circles. Why not tell children what we often do regarding other scientific mysteries, i.e. that we do not have all the answers, stay tuned? The problem is when “intelligent design” is introduced as an *alternative scientific theory.* ID is not subject to scientific consideration because there is no scientific or mathematical way to distinguish in principle whether a biologically complex system arose through natural processes, or was designed by an intelligent designer. The power of nature is just too well known and understood to place limits on its creative results.

ID theorists tried to make the ID debate conclusive first through Michael Behe’s idea of “irreducible complexity,” as argued from principles of molecular biology (Darwin’s Black Box). Thereafter, William Dembski attempted to mathematize irreducible complexity using information theory. (The Design Inference) (Which may be the source of your confusion about information theory) Both attempts failed. Although they both raised intuitive questions, and effectively highlighted the difficulties of evolution by natural selection, they failed to show that biological complexity in principle could not be produced through natural evolutionary processes. At that point, the ID discussion shifted to a claim that ID theory offered “the best explanation,” (See Stephen Meyer, Signature of the Cell), based upon the extent of such biological complexity and the limitations of Darwinism in identifying a complete theory or mechanism. By the way, Meyer’s book should be read; it is quite compelling and by far the best ID argument to date. But, again, however evolution might be questioned in its details, ID is not within the parameters of science because there is no way to differentiate the design of nature, which is unquestionably broad in scope, and the need for an intelligent designer. No matter how complex biology may appear to be, it is not outside the range of a natural explanation; and there is nothing an ID theorist can contribute that would make ID a necessary or better explanation.

The bottom line, at least for me, is that given the abundance of evidence for the proposition that natural processes are capable of generating astounding complexity, both in biological and non-biological systems, it is a bit silly to insist at this point that a designer is necessary to explain biology. However, it *is* an interesting metaphysical question to ask why the universe and its laws are such as to make intelligent life possible. Why evolution in the first place? Scientists themselves often rhetorically point to the laws of the universe as being remarkably “fine-tuned” to allow for the evolution of intelligent life. That terminology of itself suggests a “tuner,” which perhaps should generate some pause in deference to theology. But, even that question is not science.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A word about public schools and creationism. I
> think the question of the ability of evolution,
> particularly as limited to Darwin and natural
> selection, to explain biological complexity should
> be addressed as part of science, including the
> contribution and sufficiency of proposed
> evolutionary mechanisms that might play a role in
> generating such complexity. After all, this is
> already being done in scientific circles. Why not
> tell children what we often do regarding other
> scientific mysteries, i.e. that we do not have all
> the answers, stay tuned?

Henry,
Mostly very well said (I'll forego a few minor quibbles!).

I just wanted to point out that what you mentioned above is *exactly* how the science of biology (including evolution) is handled in my local schools. There's no "why not" necessary -- that's what's being done.

Finally, it was always a bit silly to insist (without evidence) that a "designer" is necessary to explain biology. Even before we knew a single thing about evolution or genetics. Because it was always an argument from ignorance.
Just like your suggestion that a "tuner" is implied is. :)

Thanks, Kolob. It is nice to find ourselves generally on the same page for a change!

I will make a few additional comments at the risk of blowing our consensus up. You said:

"Finally, it was always a bit silly to insist (without evidence) that a "designer" is necessary to explain biology. Even before we knew a single thing about evolution or genetics. Because it was always an argument from ignorance.
Just like your suggestion that a "tuner" is implied is. :)"

If you consider that both Behe and Dembski were attacking specifically Darwinian evolution, without the more intricate details of modern biology, it was legitimate, and even helpful, to call into question the scope of natural selection as an explanation for biological complexity, which I think they effectively did. After all, they stimulated a great deal of substantive debate as to the scope and efficacy of natural selection as a complete theory of evolution.

I agree that jumping to a designer conclusion, particularly as necessary condition of biological complexity, was a bit hasty. But frankly I find no objection in principle to simply asking the question, "Does biological complexity require an intelligent designer?" and concluding with argument from scientific data, or the mathematics of information theory, that it does. The main problem was they simply failed to make their case. That's not a sin in science.

Regarding your argument from ignorance suggestion, I am going to disagree. ID theory, as framed, was not an argument from ignorance. It was a substantive argument from science and mathematics. When you call ID theory an argument from ignorance, you are assuming already a natural explanation is the preferred conclusion, and that any other suggestions represent only ignorance about the natural processes involved. But, that very assumption, i.e. that "it must have a natural explanation," *is* the argument itself. By invoking an objection based upon a claim of scientific ignorance or gaps you are quite clearly begging the question.

I think people need to be careful not to let the ID theorist's theological motives detract from what might be interesting and useful to a legitimate evolutionary debate, however much their conclusion is unsupportable, or even objectionable on other grounds.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you consider that both Behe and Dembski were
> attacking specifically Darwinian evolution,
> without the more intricate details of modern
> biology, it was legitimate, and even helpful, to
> call into question the scope of natural selection
> as an explanation for biological complexity, which
> I think they effectively did.

We'll have to disagree, since I don't think they "effectively" did anything.
However, it's always reasonable to "call into question."
What's never reasonable -- and it's exactly what they did -- was to claim that a "designer" had to be responsible if evolution couldn't prove otherwise, and when the actual answer (even though it usually wasn't) is "we don't know."

If we don't know, then we don't know. Not knowing doesn't require a designer. It doesn't imply a designer. It doesn't suggest a designer. It means we don't know.

> After all, they
> stimulated a great deal of substantive debate as
> to the scope and efficacy of natural selection as
> a complete theory of evolution.

I also don't agree with *that.* There has always been a great deal of substantive debate as to the scope and efficacy of natural selection. Tossing fallacious religious-based arguments form ignorance into the mix adds nothing to a rational debate.


> I think people need to be careful not to let the
> ID theorist's theological motives detract from
> what might be interesting and useful to a
> legitimate evolutionary debate, however much their
> conclusion is unsupportable, or even objectionable
> on other grounds.

There's no need to consider their "theological motives," though they are quite dishonest about them, which is rather sad.
The reason is simple: there are no "ID theorists." There is no "ID theory." Fallacious arguments from ignorance and incredulity, clearly flawed (and rather pathetic) attempts to justify them mathematically, and trumped-up "journals" do not make for theory or theorists. That would be the case whether they had theological motives or not. It ain't science, period. It wouldn't be science if it was put forth by Richard Dawkins, either.

Henry and H2K thank you for weighing in. I'm in the middle of a major plumbing project and don't have the time I need to engage this fully at the moment. I'll try to get to it tonight, but my wife and I are still at a place in the evolutionary curve where we need a functioning toilet quite regularly. Consequently, I may be delayed for longer to address this burden. If the topic slips off the first page horizon, I'll hunt it down.

TMSH -- best of luck with the plumbing!
Anything I can do to help???

Things are a little more complicated than the questions he asked. Even if there was a completely random mutation, that may or may not present an advantage. Consider contingency and the environmental niches that may or may not exist. If most of the "random" spontaneous changes result in death, I wonder if he be asking the same questions.

Also, consider that most of the changes are very incremental. For example a beak size change may take thousands of years. Say a giraffe with a neck just slightly longer has an advantage reaching leaves because there happens to be a large giraffe population that year eating all the leaves. A lot of evolution is about small changes over time, not necessarily a mutation. The ID folks, IMO, don't seem to factor in just how long a million years is to mold offspring in multiple directions.

As Henry says, there are multiple other factors and mechanisms involved in protein synthesis. I don't see any value when people want to throw in ID. There are so many excellent books on evolution now, with so few large gaps left unexplained.

I've never had a problem with the idea of evolution, minus ID or a supernatural influence, getting us to where we are.

For one thing, it ain't like everything's perfect. Plenty of nature's design changes have been--from an ID standpoint--stupid. In fact I'd vote for Stupid Design over Intelligent Design. And a supreme being? Seriously? Not very supreme. It's like listening to an old trumpet player who's lost his chops and can't hit the high notes any more. This is the best "God" can do? God better tighten things up before his next annual review or he can forget about getting a raise.

Also, the amount of information we glean from NATURAL processes just keeps increasing, and it continues to refine and enhance the theory of evolution. It works, even if it's incomplete. Folks just gotta give it time--or better still, get out into the field, do some research, publish, and add a little more to what is known.

As others have noted, ID is unnecessary for the process. However, it can make pretty good science fiction, in the right author's hands.

"Here is the question in TMSH’s own words:

“Do you personally believe that the creation, storage, transmission, and duplication of information can be achieved with complete spontaneity and randomness? Isn't this concept at the heart of evolution? If not, how does it work?”

The question is faulty. It implies that evolution is a random process. Evolution is NOT a random process. It is driven by natural selection FOR mutations that are favourable and AGAINST mutations that are unfavourable in their effects.

The raw material for natural selection is largely the result of random mutations, but natural selection is anything but random.

The raw material for natural selection is largely the result of random mutations, but natural selection is anything but random.

COMMENT: I took TMSH's statement to include abiogenesis, which does suggest randomness and spontaneity as the ultimate starting point of evolution. But, your point is well-taken.

However, no biologist currently believes that variation, which drives evolution, is solely the result of random mutations. As Dagny pointed out above, the vast majority of mutations would be non-adaptive. I think it would be a difficult sell to insist that all of the biological complexity we see today was triggered by random mutations, notwithstanding the mechanism of natural selection, and notwithstanding the time periods involved. Moreover, modern biology can explain variation in many other ways.

It seems to me ID as a "theory" is trying to compete with evolution, which explains the how of it. The why is a different question.

I like the information angle but not the direction they take it. As life evolves complexity, there's a pressure to minimize H, Shannon's information entropy. It's rather the opposite of physical entropy, which naturally wants to increase. But, just because life seems to have a teleological attractor doesn't mean it does. It could, but there's no foundation to work from scientifically. Not that it matters. The natural world is plenty miraculous on its face.

On a personal level, where whimsy gets to run wild, believing in a teleological attractor that makes life want to evolve is a matter of taste. Life finds a way. The natural result of endless H minimization could be divine perfection.

I like the information angle but not the direction they take it. As life evolves complexity, there's a pressure to minimize H, Shannon's information entropy.

COMMENT: Yes, but when evolution took root, the basic reproducing cell was already at a low Shannon H. So, evolution had nothing really to do with the "creation" of information. If you want to talk about that you need to start much earlier, in fact all the way back to the big bang. As such, the idea of Shannon information has little to do with evolution per se, except perhaps as a measure of H in living systems as they evolve.
_____________________________________

It's rather the opposite of physical entropy, which naturally wants to increase. But, just because life seems to have a teleological attractor doesn't mean it does. It could, but there's no foundation to work from scientifically. Not that it matters. The natural world is plenty miraculous on its face.

COMMENT: Of course, that's true. But, the cosmological anthropic principle, although in my mind it does not imply teleology (The idea that the universe was made for us), it does suggest a very highly improbable coincidence, with arguably theological implications, that demands an explanation. The scientific foundation to work from is speculative cosmology, with its various multiverse theories. But then, we seem to have left experimental science in favor of pure theory.
__________________________________

On a personal level, where whimsy gets to run wild, believing in a teleological attractor that makes life want to evolve is a matter of taste. Life finds a way. The natural result of endless H minimization could be divine perfection.

COMMENT: Well, except "endless minimization of H" requires endless energy input, which pretty clearly is not going to happen unless we can tap into the energy of the vacuum. Moreover, it requires some law-governed stable mechanism that continues to drive continual increases in complexity. Natural selection alone seems inadequate and unstable. But, your point that "life finds a way" of itself suggests some sort of organizational principle (complexity theory?) that transcends science as currently understood. That, perhaps, is a little foot in the divine door; at least for some.

That's interesting. If single cells ruled the Earth, why would they bother evolving into complex creatures. But still, it doesn't have to be that an outside force worked on them to cause the evolution. It could be that all beings are sentient beings, even single cells. They wanted to evolve and "it came to pass". Like the monkey who wanted to know how to use tools. Next thing you know, he's typing on his phone. It's like humans creating towns and nations, but more because there's an unseen attraction that pushes life in an upward direction.

Humans characterize it as a Sky monarch because that's what they know. They paste their philosophies of life onto this God and come up with theories like ID. More likely to me is that we created ourselves. The drive to be is a learned behavior that links us to the earliest creatures through morphic resonance.

Are we being pushed or pulled? Or both? History is pushing us and the future is pulling us. We just don't see the strings. There's an assumption that God pulls the strings. But we create the future, so we are the string pullers. We project our hopes and dreams, and they "come to pass". Love is the energy that makes it all work.

Perhaps we're neither pushed nor pulled.
Single cells could have (and are now) living in a spectacularly successful way. They're everywhere, they have little trouble reproducing, they do marvelously at passing on their genes to new generations -- and they do it very quickly.

What they don't do is take up all the "niches" available on our planet where it's possible to "make a living." There was (and is) space in the oceans for a lot more than single cells. There was (and is) space on land for a lot more than single cells.

Nothing had to "push" or "pull" for those niches to be filled. Circumstances (We're not sure what they were yet) occurred that put single cells into a position to be multi-cellular. Once that happened, those multi-cellular things could fill niches. They could make a living in places single-celled things weren't using up resources. Even though they, as it turns out, had to fight off some of the single-celled things that wanted to use THEM as a resource. And so it goes.

The history of life on our planet appears to be simple: life changes constantly. If the changes result in an organism that can fill an available niche, or take over one already populated, then it does. And so on for billions of years.

I'll accept "push" or "pull" when there's evidence of it.
Same for "morphic resonance" (don't hold your breath).
Until then, there's no need for them to explain anything.
There's certainly no need for a "designer" to explain anything...one having "designed" life isn't completely outside the realm of possibility, but there's no need for one, and no evidence of one.

Scientific American -- "Fifteen Answers To Creationist Nonsense"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/

When I truly studied evolution, especially the power of the plant world over the Animal Kingdom, I round the spectacular and miraculous intricacies, and the intelligence embedded in each cell to be far more of a marvelous work and a wonder than whatever the religious are claiming their dinosaur bone hiding,first born killing, bigoted, vengeful, jealous, narcissistic, world drowning, car key finding god could ever pull off. Let's be realistic here. The track record of the supposed God doesn't really go with ID.

For intelligent design you first need to start off with intelligence.

I'm no expert, but when a conversation on the subject starts mud and ribs and snakes, I gotta go with the miracle of what nature can do over billions of years.

I think one point that is often missed by both sides, is the fact that evolution does not in fact explain what caused life to start existing in the first place. It is an explanation of how some ancient simple single cell organism could evolve into much more sophisticated organisms a gazillion generations later but Darwin did not even attempt to describe how that first organism came into existence. Nor does any 'evolutionist' that actually knows what s/he is talking about.

What this usually means is that creationists and (sadly) many less informed evolutionists talk about "randomness" or "chance" in a completely different sense than people who actually understand natural selection. Specifically the randomness of particles to just happen to form a functioning cell vs the randomness of things like genetic mutations. Evolution doesn't actually adress "the boeing assembling itself from a million pieces in a storm" that's the topic of a whole other field of biology called abiogenesis. The randomness involved in evolution is of the kind that we see everyday around us and isn't difficult to believe in at all. What we can say though is that obviously the emergence of life happened according to the laws of physics and chemistry not by some impossible fluke of randomness.

Okay, my wife and I have returned to the delights of modern indoor plumbing. And thanks to my diligence, there is a plumber out there somewhere still looking for a way to make his boat payment this month.

Let me start with a couple of disclaimers. I am not in any way suggesting with my response here that we should incorporate a theistic creationist model in our public schools. I would not oppose hints at ID in our schools, but I’m also not planting that flag on this hill. Let’s keep out of the weeds as much as possible.

I also want to assure you all that I am sincere in this conversation, and I am actually hoping to have a conversation. I know when it comes to snarkiness I am among the worst offenders here, but I'm pledging to limit that on my part. H2K, I'm open to a pinky swear with you on this if you’re willing. I truly grapple with this issue, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so with our diverse community. And Henry, forgive me that I am going to hijack this to head in a direction a bit different than you perhaps intended.

I also don't know that I'm so much concerned by the concept of evolution as I am by the way it is presented by some of its adherents. There are frequent presentations of such grandiose assurance, that it feels a bit more like a testimony than a presentation of data.

I'm troubled that origin of life questions are often removed from evolution discussions. Our friend "brefots" notes (and I understand) that there has pretty much always been this dividing line between the origin of life and evolution. My cynical self says this must be so, because we can all gather at a table and marvel at Darwin’s finches, but the formation, preservation, and duplication of the first living organisms remain an astoundingly complex and elusive event.

So, recognizing this division, I’m going to ignore it for my initial post but take a look at the way the topic is handled among evolutionists. It may not be part of the study of evolution, but it is frequently addressed by evolutionists.

Take the post above by our friend “anybody:” “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/
For this first discussion, I’m going to limit my remarks to item 8 on this list regarding the complexity of life and how creationists object to its random creation. Here’s a quote from this link:

“As an analogy, consider the 13-letter sequence "TOBEORNOTTOBE." Those hypothetical million monkeys, each pecking out one phrase a second, could take as long as 78,800 years to find it among the 2613 sequences of that length. But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program re-created the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.”

This seems to me it could also easily be used as an argument for ID. The programmer instructed the program to preserve the order of letters that were correct, removing the essential element of randomness. The initial elements of life had no goal, no guidance, no understanding of what would or would not work. And significantly, the “letters” must also first be assembled in order to become part of the larger whole. And once assembled, the elements of the first living cell had to somehow randomly undertake the process of duplication.

Would most of you agree that this is a terrible, horrible, misleading attempt to dismiss the argument from complexity? Their example required an intelligence to create the program, to decide what the eventual sequence would need to be, and an intelligence to read the results. And most significantly, it left out the other needed elements for a living organism: It didn’t have a randomly-developed way to record the phrase, store the phrase, and it had no printing press to duplicate the phrase. It seems almost intentionally dishonest.

And last summer, several of us got into a bit of a kerfuffle when this video was posted offering a brief explanation for the emergence of life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IwSgbBymY

I believe several of our evolutionists agreed that this was not a great presentation. But this goes to my point. I’ve been out of school for quite a while, but I still see Miller and Urey come up in these conversations as though they represent some significant leap in this study. That dismays me, and appears to be more subterfuge to forward an agenda rather than advancing the truth.

Add to this what appears to be the attempt to marginalize writings and researchers that do not fall in line. When is a Harvard-educated scientist published in peer-reviewed mainstream science journals no longer a scientist? When they provide a research paper to a journal that promotes ID. Examinations of ID are most frequently dismissed not on merit, but merely due to their ID taint. This means that substantial areas of research that are currently not understood have in a certain sense become unfalsifiable. Researchers with virtually identical qualifications can work on the same problems, but if a researcher notes an astonishing depth of design in the design of a cell, her work will likely be discounted if the findings are published in the wrong journal. By the way, it takes about a half a gig of data to track a single life cycle of the world’s simplest cell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/science/in-a-first-an-entire-organism-is-simulated-by-software.html?_r=1

As a species, we’ve spent billions of dollars and devoted untold millions of hours of scientific research time to fathom the emergence of something that science still contends happened absolutely at random. If they ever even get close to an answer, they will be essentially demonstrating what some of us believe: It’s just not possible in the absence of intelligent interaction for life to emerge.

I understand our personal biases. I have repeatedly heard many respond to these questions with a confidence that science will provide the answers. In regards to the specific question about the origin of life, my impression is that the answer keeps getting less and less likely to find a natural source. It troubles me that many embrace this with a religious zeal. They’re quick to arrogantly dismiss the ignorance of creationists while happily stewing the juices of their equal ignorance. “I don’t know, but science will answer this” is a statement of faith on par with “I don’t know, but believe God created.” In regards to the origin of life, there is no real evidence that science is even close to an answer.

The simplest life form we know of has 256 genes, with each having a minimum 1000 base pairs, and no promise that it could ever happen again. This article is several years old, but it demonstrates some of the frustration scientists feel over seeking this answer. And perhaps a bit of an insight why Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA eventually came to embrace “directed panspermia” as the source of life:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/pssst-dont-tell-the-creationists-but-scientists-dont-have-a-clue-how-life-began/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2017 02:32PM by Tall Man, Short Hair.