I recently happened upon this critique of intelligent design. I find it illogical for several reasons, stated below. You're welcomed to suggest where I might be in error, if you're offended by my conclusions.
Experiments with simulated evolution on computers have shown that Darwin's explanation is extremely probable. In an article published in the journal Nature, computer science researchers used a program called Avida, to simulate the evolution of "digital organisms." Digital organisms are pieces of computer code that replicate.... The population in the experiment started as 36,000 identical digital organisms, which could not perform logic functions but could replicate.
Stop right there. We have a massive problem on our hands, and I'm amazed it isn't obvious to more people. These things cannot, by their own admission, do anything useful -- yet, somehow they can replicate?
In real life, if an animal cannot do simple tasks (such as "gather energy") it is not going to replicate at all. Yet in this simulation, all kinds of "broken" forms of digital animals just keep replicating. In real life, if some mutation even breaks one enzyme, the animal won't function at all -- much less get to the final important stage of successful mating and reproduction. Animals can't exist in non-functioning intermediate stages, because replication won't occur at all.
This demonstrates that parts of an organism can trade off functions, even losing them for a time, while evolving more complex and useful ones.
No it doesn't. It demonstrates that bits of computer code -- which don't have to do ANYTHING useful before they will be automatically "bred" and "replicated" by the simulation software -- can lose useful functions and keep working. It's circular reasoning: They're just proving that their software keeps running whether it is producing functionaling algorithms or garbage. Real animals don't keep working under those same circumstances. Garbage in, garbage out: We programmed the simulation to keep reproducing "organisms" even if they broke and this -- ta-da! -- supposedly proves animals will keep working even if they 'break', genetically.
Hilarious!!! Yet in another way, pitiful.
[I]t has been shown how many of the processes that Behe claimed were irreducibly complex, have actually evolved. He claimed that both bacterial flagellum and the immune system were irreducibly complex, but it has been shown that this is not the case (Matzke; Inlay). Clearly, irreducible complexity does not defeat Darwinism.
Err, um, again, I don't know about the specifics here, but the logic is completely wrong. It's as though I claimed: "Hemlock will kill you!" and then pointed at a non-toxic plant and said: "That's Hemlock!" To prove me wrong, you prepare and drink it, and live, saying: "See, that wasn't Hemlock! That proves Hemlock doesn't kill you." No, all you did was prove that I was wrong about identifying Hemlock in one particular case.
Second, I doubt Behe gave only two examples. (In fact, given the language, I'm pretty sure he gave more.) This means there are examples he has given they have not disproven. So they're just reasoning by inference: "Since we disproved two, the others must be bogus too." Again, that's a logical fallacy.
And here we go again...
A third argument for Intelligent Design is the so-called "Fined-Tuned Universe" argument. If certain physical constants were different, life would not exist, it is argued...
It may seem on the surface that the likelihood of a universe in which all of the constants are right for life given an intelligent designer is much higher than the likelihood that the constants are right given random chance. When we add in the fact that we are here to observe the universe, however, we find that the likelihood of a fine-tuned universe is one either way. If we are here we must be in a universe which is tuned to our existence.
The author is wrong in saying the probability of a universe being fine-tuned is one. The truth is that we don't know what the probability is.
Imagine, for example, there are two constants to tune, and two values possible for each, and only one value for each which produces life. Imagine only one universe is produced (randomly, not by God), and it produces life. We can observe it, sure, but that doesn't prove the odds are "one" -- as the author states. The odds are 1/4.
If you tend to believe each constant "could have" taken on a range of values, and that only one universe was produced, then, of course, you can argue the universe was "improbable" to some degree or another. But you can just as easily argue there must be many universes, or perhaps that those values are really "tuneable" anyway.
So I don't disagree that we can't, for sure, say anything about how likely those constants were to produce this universe. I tend to believe there was only one universe (per occam's razor), and that many of those choices really were optional, but I admit those are just currently unprovable assumptions.
But my point is that the author's statement is, once again, wrong.
While proponents of Intelligent Design pretend to be scientists, this is not the case. Intelligent design does not meet the accepted standards of the scientific community for being a scientific theory. There is a concept in the philosophy of science of falsifiability.... Intelligent Design obviously does not fit this criterion. As should be clear by now, there is little if any evidence for Intelligent Design, but this does not prove it to be false. It is, in fact, impossible to prove it false.
There are many problems with this series of arguments...
The first is that the author hasn't presented many of the best arguments for ID, such as the difficulties posed by the Cambrian explosion. We saw a similar trick pulled above with "irreducible complexity" examples, were it appears only a few examples were claimed disproven.
Imagine you were trying to prove miracles happened. How many examples would you need? One. ID posits something similar: things which are apparently impossible or sufficiently improbable happened. How many examples would be needed to prove this point? One. Disproving two examples by Behe doesn't cut it.
And, of course, there's the funny bit: After claiming various ID arguments have been disproven, our author claims -- get this -- they're not disprovable! As if he didn't even read his own article. Surely, he is appealing to the less-than-skeptical who wish to agree.
And of course, ID is simply an answer to the statement: "All these things happened by chance." The negation of that statement is, of course: "Some things did not happen by chance", or "some things were designed." But if it's impossible to prove or disprove X, then it's equally impossible to disprove not-X! If a statement cannot be disproven, then it's negation can't be proven either.
So, of course, if we are to accept the author's statement that we cannot disprove anything was "designed", then neither can we ever prove something occurred by chance. Which, of course, is what Darwinism asserts.
(And this is the classic problem with many scientists: They know certain ares of science well, but that doesn't mean they do logic, or philosophy well. As this case so well demonstrates.)
So then, one might wonder, what do all of these Intelligent Design people really want? The answer is quite clear, after taking a look at a document titled "The Wedge Strategy" [which says, among other things] ....
"The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology."
Materialism, here, is a euphemism for modern science.
Hilarious! He's just so cute. He's therefore claiming, then, that "Modern science denies the existence of objective moral standards." Really? How? Has science disproven God? If so, he forgot to put the proof here or refer to it. I'm sure most scientists live as though a transcendant right and wrong actually existed.
As Nobel-prize-winning quantum physicist Richard Feynman once observed, science can only tell you, if you do something, what the expected outcome will be. It doesn't tell you what outcomes you should prefer -- e.g. it doesn't tell you what you should view as right or wrong, nor whether there can be an "objective" basis for such. Belief to the contrary is called "scientism", which is basicly treating science as a religion, saying: "If something can't be proven by the scientific method, it's not true." (It's also a self-refuting belief system, since it's own core axiom can't be proven by the scientific method.)
Then, after explaining that most ID'ers are Christian, and that the movement seeks legal support, the author closes with...
As long as people are educated about the lack of scientific evidence in support of Intelligent Design, about its lack of validity as a scientific theory, and about the true motives of those who promote it, this religious movement disguised as science cannot gain a hold on the science classrooms of this country.
You know, I only have this one, tiny question: How did the Cambrian explosion occur, then? As far as I can see, it seems sufficiently improbable to be reasonably deemed "impossible." But, I guess, since some people have some lawyers, and are Christians, we actually don't even need to answer that question.
Again, this is called the ad hominem fallacy, in which attack the person who asks the question rather than disproving the statement in question.
So what have we got? Logical error after logical error. Many of them seem incredibly obvious, such as claiming ID was not disprovable after claiming to have disproven many ID arguments. Perhaps this essay was somehow an unfair example, but it doesn't seem to speak well of the critics of ID -- some of whom apparently are ready to swallow any argument, no matter how clearly fallacious, as long as it seems to argue against intelligent design.
The lesson of Galileo should have been that science cannot thrive when religious orthodoxies cannot be questioned. Pity that we haven't learned that the same applies for materialism, which is today as much a religious orthodoxy as the Catholic church ever was.
Technically, the little computer organisms are using the energy of the electrons in the computer, and the program is presumably so simple, it didn't include a means of providing alternative "pseudo-energy" which would only have a mathematical reality - at least in immediate terms. This could have easily been done; but the point was to make as simple a system as possible to see what would happen.
Replication is the only "usefulness" that counts. If you have a bazillion $$ and no kids, you are biological dead meat. (Although if you are altruistic toward your close relatives' kids you may somewhat make up for it, since they are genetically somewhat similar to you).
You imply all mutations are lethal. This is not true. Some slightly alter the function of the enzyme or other gene product - for better or worse (but changing environmental conditions may cause their relative advantages to change).
In addition, most higher organisms have 2 copies of most genes in at least part of their life cycle - one from each parent. Often one good copy is sufficient to do the job. On top of that many genes have multiple copies of themselves scattered around the chromosome, and they all may be diverging slightly (or greatly) in function; this gives an organism some plasticity to deal with changing environments: if one allele isn't working well perhaps another will. It's a relatively rare event that a dominant lethal mutation spontaneously arises (and I have to ask, where's the intelligent design in that?).
In addition to the basic genes that make immediately useful products, there are parts of the genetic code that turn some of them on or off at the right time in development. Slight variation here can have huge effects: Thalidomide is a pharmaceutical that derails limb development in a most tragic manner. There you go - in one generation from human to seal (with my apologies to those afflicted; I'm trying to make a point). In this case it's not adaptive. The point is, it works by interfering with the body's natural signaling systems by being somewhat functionally similar to something in the natural system; if a mutation does likewise a similar range of effects might be expected.
"Non-functional stage" thus becomes a relative matter, in general; the accumulation of variation over millenia turns into a serendipitous adaptation, and that lucky population of critters has hit the jackpot: an unexploited piece of niche hyperspace in which to multiply like crazy. You can't talk about dinosaurs turning into hummingbirds in one generation, but you can talk about ancient reptiles becoming progressively better -over eons- at thermoregulation, aided by frilly scales which would be more important the smaller they were; they would be better (faster) predators because of that, and would tend to use their front legs less for running and more for grabbing and balance; jumping through trees after prey they might use their forelimbs more and more for coasting; then it's just a flap to be flying like a duck. Maybe walking like a duck and quacking like a duck, too.
Unfortunately, no matter how many dots one connects to make the picture, some will claim it's invalid because of the famous "missing link".
These same people will be claiming descent from Adam even though they can't find their own ancestors' graves beyond two or three generations. Yet they expect paleontologists to get a sample of every generation back to the dawm of geologic time, when, I have heard, burial ceremonies were not commonly practiced.
Logic is great when all assumptions are known to be true and systems are simple. This does not describe biology: the gaps in our basic knowledge are huge, and the simplest organism is complex. Aristotle used logic and perhaps sloppy observation to come to the wrong conclusion about something as simple as falling bodies. Galileo used logic and precise observation to refute that theory. So in biology - "logic" is just a tool to help guide experimental design; we can't throw out the facts (data) in favor of our precious logic. The whole package has to be reexamined (replicated).
Looking at the whole fabric of life, intelligent design makes no sense from the perspective of non-random distributions of characteristics. Insects, bats and birds have wings; why is it that only birds have feathers? and only insects have an exoskeleton. Why do birds have a lot of neck bones, and among mammals the basic number is still only -even for a giraffe- seven? Why don't we have more joints in the arm? (I need to scratch my back). I could use a built-in pouch for carrying things too, like a kangaroo. Why is it only marsupials have those? Only evolution explains this satisfactorily.
Technically, the little computer organisms are using the energy of the electrons in the computer, and the program is presumably so simple, it didn't include a means of providing alternative "pseudo-energy" which would only have a mathematical reality - at least in immediate terms. This could have easily been done; but the point was to make as simple a system as possible to see what would happen.
Replication is the only "usefulness" that counts. If you have a bazillion $$ and no kids, you are biological dead meat. (Although if you are altruistic toward your close relatives' kids you may somewhat make up for it, since they are genetically somewhat similar to you).
You imply all mutations are lethal. This is not true. Some slightly alter the function of the enzyme or other gene product - for better or worse (but changing environmental conditions may cause their relative advantages to change).
In addition, most higher organisms have 2 copies of most genes in at least part of their life cycle - one from each parent. Often one good copy is sufficient to do the job. On top of that many genes have multiple copies of themselves scattered around the chromosome, and they all may be diverging slightly (or greatly) in function; this gives an organism some plasticity to deal with changing environments: if one allele isn't working well perhaps another will. It's a relatively rare event that a dominant lethal mutation spontaneously arises (and I have to ask, where's the intelligent design in that?).
In addition to the basic genes that make immediately useful products, there are parts of the genetic code that turn some of them on or off at the right time in development. Slight variation here can have huge effects: Thalidomide is a pharmaceutical that derails limb development in a most tragic manner. There you go - in one generation from human to seal (with my apologies to those afflicted; I'm trying to make a point). In this case it's not adaptive. The point is, it works by interfering with the body's natural signaling systems by being somewhat functionally similar to something in the natural system; if a mutation does likewise a similar range of effects might be expected.
"Non-functional stage" thus becomes a relative matter, in general; the accumulation of variation over millenia turns into a serendipitous adaptation, and that lucky population of critters has hit the jackpot: an unexploited piece of niche hyperspace in which to multiply like crazy. You can't talk about dinosaurs turning into hummingbirds in one generation, but you can talk about ancient reptiles becoming progressively better -over eons- at thermoregulation, aided by frilly scales which would be more important the smaller they were; they would be better (faster) predators because of that, and would tend to use their front legs less for running and more for grabbing and balance; jumping through trees after prey they might use their forelimbs more and more for coasting; then it's just a flap to be flying like a duck. Maybe walking like a duck and quacking like a duck, too.
Unfortunately, no matter how many dots one connects to make the picture, some will claim it's invalid because of the famous "missing link".
These same people will be claiming descent from Adam even though they can't find their own ancestors' graves beyond two or three generations. Yet they expect paleontologists to get a sample of every generation back to the dawm of geologic time, when, I have heard, burial ceremonies were not commonly practiced.
Logic is great when all assumptions are known to be true and systems are simple. This does not describe biology: the gaps in our basic knowledge are huge, and the simplest organism is complex. Aristotle used logic and perhaps sloppy observation to come to the wrong conclusion about something as simple as falling bodies. Galileo used logic and precise observation to refute that theory. So in biology - "logic" is just a tool to help guide experimental design; we can't throw out the facts (data) in favor of our precious logic. The whole package has to be reexamined (replicated).
Looking at the whole fabric of life, intelligent design makes no sense from the perspective of non-random distributions of characteristics. Insects, bats and birds have wings; why is it that only birds have feathers? and only insects have an exoskeleton. Why do birds have a lot of neck bones, and among mammals the basic number is still only -even for a giraffe- seven? Why don't we have more joints in the arm? (I need to scratch my back). I could use a built-in pouch for carrying things too, like a kangaroo. Why is it only marsupials have those? Only evolution explains this satisfactorily.
Posted by: humble seeker on August 2, 2005 02:11 AM