Neil deGrasse Tyson & the Beauty of Intelligent Design
Science
| March 8, 2010
| Tim
One of the things I truly appreciate about the Intelligent Design debate is the way it drives men who are allegedly scientific, rational, intelligent thinkers to make irrational and even deeply stupid statements.
For example, upon noting PBS seemed to be promoting Neil deGrasse Tyson as a new Carl Sagan, I noticed a group of "rational atheists" quoting this rather idiotic argument from him:
This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: "intelligent design." The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods. An interesting hypothesis. But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence? And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs-an entertainment complex built around a sewage system? Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature's default, but it's ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it's a good antidepressant to think so. But it's not science-not now, not in the past, not ever.
Now, mind you, I'm not saying it's an ineffective or even un-persusasive argument. (If you think the two are always connected, try reading the lyrics to pop music — where you'll find a lot of really stupid, yet apparently rather persuasive material.)
But boil it down and you're left with a true stinker:
1. Intelligent Design must imply a God
2. If God "designed" anything, most objects in the universe must appear designed
3. If something strikes us as comical, or it must be badly designed
4. By counting such objects, and comparing them to objects we think are well designed, we disprove this argument.
5. The belief our bodies were designed can never be considered science.
What's so touching about this argument is that almost every major point in it is fallacious in some manner: either a straw man, or an unwarranted assumption. And yet it's also being promoted as a primary example of 'rational' atheism!
I realize it's probably not clear to some readers why every point above is in some way flawed. (For some atheist readers, a few may be deeply ingrained dogmas.) And it will take a moment to explain each. This is, sadly, the problem with errors: they're simple to commit, and harder to correct; but to be as brief as possible:
1. ID implies a God.
This is a straw man; it goes beyond what the movement proposes. Tyson seems to want to avoid the actual definition of Intelligent Design — so he substitutes his own perception of the term. I suppose it would now be fair for me to refute Dawkin's "selfish gene" by saying that it "suggests" genes have emotions and plan to steal stuff from other genes? (Hey, because that what *I* thought the term suggested?) In Tyson's world, such straw men pass as reasoned debate. How sad.
As an aside, one might argue: Even if ID itself doesn't propose a God, many ID proponents are God-believers, and are arguing so because of that belief. Granted. And so? If metaphysical motives invalidate arguments, then much that Dawkins (and Tyson, above) say must be similarly invalid by the same rule.
To understand why this is a fallacious (ad hominem) argument: Analogously, let's say that we were debating the odds of a particular protein forming. I argue it's so improbable, it shouldn't have happened in the history of the universe. You say I'm arguing this because I think it must imply such a 'miracle' would mean God exists. Okay, let's grant that. But my alleged motive for doing so doesn't render the question necessarily unscientific. Nor, even if I'm right about the odds, that wouldn't necessarily validate my further deduction.
2. If God "designed" anything, most objects in the universe must appear designed
One of the things which puzzles me about atheists is that they often seem to tell us they know quite a lot about God: One often hears unsupported assertions that the only kind of God which can exist is X. (In Tyson's argument X = "makes all objects in the universe appear designed") Yet how do they know God must be just like that? It appears they're just inserting their own religious assumptions, with no supporting arguments, as statements of faith. I suppose that can be cathartic, but it's certainly not a form of reason.
3. If something strikes us as comical, or it must be badly designed.
Tyson's choice of argument couldn't be more amusing: he argues placing sexual organs lower in the body, near those involved in processing waste, is a really comical or stupid design. Yet if his own core assumptions are true, evolution must have come up with many, many other alternative configurations, and this particular configuration won out because it was the "most fit" of all the alternatives. (Indeed, try imaging what Tyson apparently thinks would be better: a world where most animals had their sex organs near their heads, on their backs, or on their feet! Can you imaging giving birth from your neck or ankles? Tyson thinks this would be much better than the current arrangement, apparently!)
Indeed, the current sexual arrangement (keeping the sex and digestion organs on the bottom of things, in less vulnerable areas, near the center of gravity, and minimizing the number of vulnerable orifices), which he argues here is comically bad, seems to succeeded rather brilliantly, given that it's found in almost all animals. But never mind the data, eh? Tyson ignores plain evidence of successful function because a theological point is on the line. Don't confuse him with facts!
4. By counting such [badly-designed] objects, and comparing them to objects we think are well designed, we disprove this argument.
First, as the previous point shows, not everything which appears "badly designed" at first (especially at the hands of someone wishing to show it as such) is actually badly designed. Many tools seem "hard to use" until you "get the hang of" them. Similarly, many features of our bodies — the appendix, for example — were declared useless junk until we later discovered their 'purpose'.
Second, the presence of badly- or non-designed objects doesn't do anything to refute any argument pertaining to design. Imagine you find a building on an otherwise rocky and barren world. You comment: "Well, I think the roof was badly designed." Does that mean the building wasn't put there by an intelligence? Or — most amusingly — would you be impressed by the argument that it couldn't have been put there by an intelligence because there are ten trillion rocks also on the planet, which don't appear to have been designed? Yet this is precisely what Tyson demands here: the presence of many seemingly non- or badly-designed object negates cases where design clearly seems apparent.
I would hate to be the prosecutor in a courtroom designed by Tyson: If I produced the murder weapon with the accused's fingerprints clearly on it, he would demand we start counting the number of objects on our planet which did NOT have the man's fingerprints on them! That's not just, it's not fair, and it's not rational — but it certainly would deliver the fore-ordained verdict.
5. The belief our bodies were designed can never be considered science.
Why? Is it because metaphysical beliefs aren't science? Then what are we to make of 'scientists' like Dawkins when he asserts that many things in nature appear designed, but they really are not? Isn't that equally unscientific, for the exact same reason?
X is designed => not science
X was not designed => science?
Why should this be so? Have these men simply redefined "science", for their own purposes, to mean "atheism"? If so, then aren't there a large group of people who are confusing their religious beliefs with 'science'? (I suspect so, actually.)
Or is "X is designed" not science because it's allegedly wrong? So how did they prove it was wrong? Because they believe God doesn't exist? And that was demonstrated by science? And are other wrong propositions also not science? How many Grand Unified Theories have we got now? Can all of them be right? So aren't the vast majority "not science" because the odds are low that they're correct?
I don't know how you can support a statement like this, from Tyson, except by redefining the word 'science' to either mean membership in a religious movement (Tyson's particular strain of atheism), excluding Tyson's argument itself as unscientific (it is also metaphysical), or to mean that no proposal can be considered scientific until it is proven correct. Which, frankly, means no research today is 'science' either. (Clarifications welcomed.)
Anyway, my point here isn't to argue in favor of Intelligent Design. My point here is only to mention another case in point where any whiff of God (as they see it) apparently induces seemingly sane, intelligent, rational men to produce blithering, idiotic arguments. But I guess "reason" isn't much of a check on religious (or anti-religious) dogma and fervor. Some are apparently willing to believe anything, apparently (including that our sex organs would work far better on our chest, back, legs, neck, arms or head!) rather than admit some minor point which seems (to him) to lead, eventually, to an unwanted outcome involving a creator.
ID implies a God.
I'm curious what non-theistic ID would look like? Could you suggest a proponent of ID who is not theistic?
Could you suggest a proponent of ID who is not theistic?
Michael Denton and David Berlinski are agnostics but both have been proponents of ID.
Thanks mynym.
From the wiki article on Berlinski; A critic of evolution, Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think-tank that is hub of the intelligent design movement. Berlinski shares the movement's disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design and describes his relationship with the idea as: "warm but distant. It's the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives."[5] Berlinski is a scathing critic of "Darwinism", yet, "Unlike his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, [he] refuses to theorize about the origin of life."[5]
It sounds like he's exactly as much of a proponent of ID as he is a proponent of theism. Though I will read more on him later if I have time.
Interesting guy. Here's what I found from an interview with him;
He disagrees as well with Michael Behe, the microbiologist and author of Darwin's Black Box . While he admires Mr. Behe's provocative challenge to evolutionary theory, he doesn't buy Mr. Behe's belief that "irreducibly complex" biological systems must reflect the work of "intelligent design," and implicitly an intelligent designer. He called that "in a certain sense, a narcissistic view" in that it looks to find someone like ourselves inventing and tinkering with complex biological systems.
"But if you're unwilling to accept intelligent design," I asked him, "and you don't trust the evidence for chance mutation creating complex systems, are we left utterly in the dark?"
"I think that's the reasonable explanation," he said. "Right now, the only explanation is intelligent uncertainty."
"It leaves me feeling uncomfortable, not having any explanation to rely on," I told him. "But you feel it's better to be uncomfortable rather than to reach after some false comforting reassurance?"
http://www.observer.com/node/40610
Interesting guy. Here's what I found from an interview with him;
He disagrees as well with Michael Behe, the microbiologist and author of Darwin's Black Box . While he admires Mr. Behe's provocative challenge to evolutionary theory, he doesn't buy Mr. Behe's belief that "irreducibly complex" biological systems must reflect the work of "intelligent design," and implicitly an intelligent designer. He called that "in a certain sense, a narcissistic view" in that it looks to find someone like ourselves inventing and tinkering with complex biological systems.
"But if you're unwilling to accept intelligent design," I asked him, "and you don't trust the evidence for chance mutation creating complex systems, are we left utterly in the dark?"
"I think that's the reasonable explanation," he said. "Right now, the only explanation is intelligent uncertainty."
"It leaves me feeling uncomfortable, not having any explanation to rely on," I told him. "But you feel it's better to be uncomfortable rather than to reach after some false comforting reassurance?"
http://www.observer.com/node/40610
I guess I should also mention Bradley Monton (in my backyard, up at Boulder) who isn't precisely an ID proponent, his position is more "sympathetic to", and does defend it in many ways. He seems like a nice guy (wrote to him once, briefly) who's just trying to be intellectually consistent.
Oh, and to directly address your question about non-theistic ID:
(a) Look for people who believe in Panspermia (Hoyle at one point, for example). Because nobody wants to be tarred with association with the ID movement, these people DO NOT claim to be IDers, but they're essentially there anyway, in regard to earth's evolution. (Good heavens, even Dawkins admitted he thought "design" would be a sensible criteria to consider, as long as aliens were the would-be designers.)
One might also include proponents of recent speculation that our universe is, in fact, a simulation. (Oxford's Nick Bostrom, for example.) Again, they'd hate to be called IDers, but that's precisely what they're advocating.
(b) There are a number of people who have arrived at an ID-like position when starting from a non-theistic point of view, often a scientific one. Not quite what you requested, but it's also impossible to argue they had some pre-existing religious motive for embracing such.
For example, Dean Kenyon was a professor of biophysics who wrote Biochemical Predestination, a textbook (IIRC) which vigorously argued (as you might guess from the title) for a purely natural origin of complex biological structures. Much to his peers' chagrin, he eventually decided he was all wrong. Pretty much killed his career.
One might also mention Hoyle, again, who did everything he could to oppose the Big Bang, because he didn't like the potential theistic implications. Hoyle was also eventually persuaded of what is essentially an ID position, and, I think, became some kind of weak theist before he died.
From what I can read, your summation of Dawkins' position misrepresents him. He doesn't believe in Aliens. His point seemed to be "Even if you accept that life on earth was designed by an intelligence, which is highly unlikely, something had to 'evolve' that intelligence from a non-intelligence. Therefore design cannot be a root explanation."
The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett).
Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won't get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. "What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN." "Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE."
From what I can read, your summation of Dawkins' position misrepresents him. He doesn't believe in Aliens.
Um, your summation of my position misrepresents it. Please read carefully: I didn't say Dawkins believed in (extraterrestrial) aliens:
Good heavens, even Dawkins admitted he thought "design" would be a sensible criteria to consider, as long as aliens were the would-be designers.
That doesn't mean I'm saying he believes in aliens. It means precisely what it says: that Richard Dawkins stated a consideration of 'intelligent design' might be reasonable to apply where aliens are the would-be designers.
(This is, frankly, hilariously irrational; a bit like saying you'd consider fingerprint evidence valid in court, per se, only as long as the fingerprints on the weapon turn out to be those of accused. Most people are tempted by similar intellectual dishonesties from time to time (wanting to bias evidence by suspected outcome) but few of us would openly and knowingly announce such as our conscious modus operandi.)
Feel free to check the veracity of what I'm saying; about 3:10 in this clip.
As an aside, I also noticed this clip, which strikes me as similarly revealing: Dawkins states he has never heard even one interesting or intelligent ("clever") argument for any position except his own.
Those in the room (and those who posted the video) apparently have such a tremendous psychological need to believe this — that there is nothing reasonable or interesting about anyone's beliefs or thoughts outside their group — that they erupt in a standing ovation and loud shouts of approval, for about thirty seconds. What an amazingly fanatical and bunkered mentality.
They can't see it, of course.
That doesn't mean I'm saying he believes in aliens. It means precisely what it says: that Richard Dawkins stated a consideration of 'intelligent design' might be reasonable to apply where aliens are the would-be designers.
Dawkins seems willing to 'consider design' but does not consider it as an answer to the question of the origins of intelligence. The point of his response, especially given his later clarification, seems to be that even if some other force 'designed' the universe that he does not believe that 'design' can be a root cause of anything, because the designer would have to have evolved from something non-designed. So if the world is, lets say, a simulation that still begs the question of where those creatures creating the simulation came from. Design is therefore not, in his view, an answer to the question of the origin of intelligence.
It seems that this more or less boils down to certain assumptions. JudeoChristian theists tend to believe that the world is in a diminished state relative to a perfect creator. Materialists like Dawkins tend to believe that intelligence had to have been 'built up' somehow from lesser components. Granted, he doesn't seem to realize that this is an assumption or else he might test it.
Nevermind, I see what you're saying. Dawkins was willing to consider, as a hypothetical, that humans, the known universe, etc. was designed by aliens (but seems to consider that very unlikely, based on his later comments.) And this does speak to your earlier point about whether he'd be willing to consider the world designed.
... grr. Not the known universe. Sorry.
this does speak to your earlier point about whether he'd be willing to consider the world designed.
Well, the origin of life on earth, at least. I don't think he's considering the simulation argument. But my point was more that he said the criteria would be valid (right, wrong, or unlikely) as long as nobody in the room was suspecting God was involved.
I think such ideas are interesting too, at least from an intellectual point of view. If one could hypothesize a form of life whose origins were simpler than the minimum we suspect necessary for cellular, biological life, that agent could then be employed to answer the question as to how the first cells got started.
But the burden, as usual, would be on those who are hypothesizing unknown entities and processes.
If one could hypothesize a form of life whose origins were simpler than the minimum we suspect necessary for cellular, biological life
Either I've mistook you, or you've mispoke.
Something similar to the Spiegelman Monster has been created with under 60 nucleotides. So the minimum requirement for self replication has been shown to be quite a bit less than the minimum requirement for a functioning cell.
(Of course, its unnatural environment in the lab avoids the question of its assembly from purely chiral components, something which would be tremendously difficult in a pre-biotic world.)
Spiegelman's monster is a self replicating strand of DNA In 1997, Eigen and Oehlenschlager showed that the Spiegelman monster eventually becomes even shorter, containing only 48 or 54 nucleotides, which are simply the binding sites for the reproducing enzyme RNA replicase[2].
Either I've mistook you, or you've mispoke.
Where? How? On what subject, specifically? (You know how I prefer specifics! Quote me, if necessary, and explain which part was wrong.)
Something similar to the Spiegelman Monster has been created with under 60 nucleotides.
Um, and this contradicts... what? Are you proposing that SM somehow answers the question of life's origins? What are you meaning? (Again, I prefer blunt statements to tacit implications. Consider me dense, if it helps. :-))
Not sure what you're getting at — thus not sure if we're agreeing or disagreeing here:
Today there still is no satisfactory solution for the origin of nucleic acids, and the fact that they are objectively difficult molecules remains a serious obstacle for the replication paradigm, but it may not be impossible to overcome it.
Let us come therefore to the basic concept of the paradigm, i.e. to the idea that the smallest replicative system is simpler that the smallest metabolic system... [SM overview blurb follows....]
Dyson, it will be remembered, proved that the smallest metabolic system capable of maintaining itsef must contain at least 10,000 monomers of at least 10 different types, and clearly such a system is far more complex than the smallest replicative system. We conclude therefore that the starting idea of the replication paradigm is fundamentally correct. Spiegelman and Eigen used a higly specific enzyme in their experiments, and this is not a realistic simulation of primitive conditions, but the theoretical conclusion that replication is simpler than metabolism is still valid. It remains to be seen, however, if the replication paradigm can really account for the processes that led to the origin of the first cells. [link]
SM is replicative (under ideal circumstances, which, as you mention, are still to be demonstrated as existing anywhere, even probably so), but not metabolic — whereas life, as a whole, is metabolic, not merely replicative. (Virii are an arguable/argued exception, but they're only possible as parasites, powered by energy created by hosts' metabolic capabilities.)
Further, SM has precisely the wrong properties needed for evolution, in the sense of moving from the simpler to the complex. As you just cited, it sheds extraneous nucleotides, rapidly "boiling itself down", metaphorically, to its simplest configuration. Apparently quite a lot of genetic material would have to be added to it before it reached the point (assuming such a point exists at all, which is, in fact, begging the larger question) where it could even retain eventually-helpful mutations long enough to eventually realize a new use for them — at that point finally increasing, rather than decreasing, useful information and complexity.
Tim, you wrote;If one could hypothesize a form of life whose origins were simpler than the minimum we suspect necessary for cellular, biological life
I did quote you. In italics. Right before my comment which addressed yours. But I'm happy to clarify if I was unclear.
Is the SM 'alive' in some fashion. I'd say 'yes.' You, I'm guessing, would say no.
A hypotheitical, demonstratively functional (in an ideal environment) replicative structure like the SM would have origins far simpler than the mimimum we require for cellular, biological life. In my mind, the SM is 'alive' in a very basic sense, though it lacks many of the processes usually associated with life such as homeostasis. My issue was with your use of the word 'cell', primarily, as there can quite probably be self replicating structures far simpler than a cell.
I agree that a waypoint between chiral and achiral replicative systems is still needed.
I guess the term 'life' might be ambiguous. You're looking for a waypoint in terms of metabolism between something SM-like and a minimally functioning cell?
Dyson, it will be remembered, proved that the smallest metabolic system capable of maintaining itsef must contain at least 10,000 monomers of at least 10 different types, and clearly such a system is far more complex than the smallest replicative system.
Not sure how anyone could 'prove' something like that. You could disprove it, certainly. But how would you definitively prove it? I don't have the time now to properly look into that assertion, but it seems to have a tenuous grasp of the notion of proof.
Is the SM 'alive' in some fashion. I'd say 'yes.' You, I'm guessing, would say no.
That's true, but only because of the definition I was taught in science class. I was told something was "alive" if it both (a) reproduced itself and (b) metabolized energy from its environment. I was also told (b) led to controversy as to whether virii, were, in fact, "alive".
A crystal certainly reproduces itself (as a bit of information or simple "code") when in an environment already rich in building blocks; if SM is alive "in some sense", then I can't quite see why a growing crystal, or computer virus, wouldn't also be "alive" in the same sense.
No?
But if so, I don't understand what is being achieved by defining the word "life" downward in this fashion. Other than, perhaps, to make the phrase 'we have created life' now true, by changing the meaning of life(tim) "the organisms we see around us" to life(ryan) "replicating structures or patterns."
But I'd be glad to accept your definition for this conversation. In which case I'd have to then redefine my previous conversation as having been about the origins life(tim) (replication + metabolism), and, further, put a challenge to you not as to how the origins of life(ryan) ("replication", now) arose (though that would seem rather important, too, still), but then how life(ryan) (mere replication) becomes replication + metabolism + homeostasis, etc.
And then we're back where we stared with (from my POV) different words labeling the terms, but no progress on the question of how we get (using your terms now) from life as mere replication to the more complicated forms of life we see around us. That challenge doesn't arise from the specific choices of words we wish to employ, so expanding the definition of "life" doesn't help alleviate it either.
My issue was with your use of the word 'cell', primarily, as there can quite probably be self replicating structures far simpler than a cell.
Then, given that you now know (and previously suspected) I meant "life" as more than replication, then consider my original use of the word "cell", again:
If one could hypothesize a form of life whose origins were simpler than the minimum we suspect necessary for cellular, biological life, that agent could then be employed to answer the question as to how the first cells got started.
What do you disagree with, in that? Indeed, you just attempted to do precisely what I suggested, by invoking SM, seemingly, as a step on the way to more complex life forms. What I wrote there doesn't deny there could be some simpler form of life than a cell, to the contrary, it suggests such a thing might be possible.
[Regarding quote about Dyson & metabolism:] But how would you definitively prove it? I don't have the time now to properly look into that assertion, but it seems to have a tenuous grasp of the notion of proof.
Tenuous? Not sure I'd agree. Very little is actually "proven", if you mean the strictest sense of the word. Was even Newtonian physics ever "proven"? The inability to "prove" much of anything is why Popper focused on disprovability as a litmus test. So I read it as meaning "proven, in the usual sense science can be said 'prove' anything."
But, that entirely aside: I could envision someone showing that a system requires some basic functions, and there's a minimal amount of information needed to specify said functions, based on the complexity required by the function itself. The concept isn't at all alien in computer science. But that's also beside the point...
The main point of the quote was to point out, whether you agree with the exact degree or not, that seemingly reputable biological authorities agree that "that replication is simpler than metabolism", and if metabolism is at all important to "life", then SM fails to meet that criteria.
And, indeed, if it mutates always towards simplicity, it isn't even a step in the right direction.
In school, I was told that virii were ambiguous because they required cells for replication. I agree, what's important is what's actually happening, not definitions.
What I wrote there doesn't deny there could be some simpler form of life than a cell, to the contrary, it suggests such a thing might be possible.
Sorry, I assumed you would have addressed an actual hypothesis there if you knew of one.
Was even Newtonian physics ever "proven"? The inability to "prove" much of anything is why Popper focused on disprovability as a litmus test. So I read it as meaning "proven, in the usual sense science can be said 'prove' anything."
Yes, exactly. You could prove that x, say a simpler model, was possible, but not that a particular model was simplest. I'm not sure how you'd prove that a minimal replicative setup was, in fact, minimal. Especially when it's not clear which functions might have been offloaded to the environment or which enzymes might serve multiple functions.
I could envision someone showing that a system requires some basic functions, and there's a minimal amount of information needed to specify said functions
I'm not sure how someone would do that using chemicals (or genes) in three dimensions though. And despite their linear, alphabetic appearance, genes are very much three dimensional structures. Also, the existence of overlapping genes is well documented. I've heard rumors of some uberhackers doing something very similar in CS in the very very early days when memory was at a premium to make a program a little more compact.
The main point of the quote was ... "that replication is simpler than metabolism", and if metabolism is at all important to "life", then SM fails to meet that criteria.
Okay, replication is simpler than metabolism. Agreed.
A crystal certainly reproduces itself (as a bit of information or simple "code") when in an environment already rich in building blocks; if SM is alive "in some sense", then I can't quite see why a growing crystal, or computer virus, wouldn't also be "alive" in the same sense.
The biggest difference I see between SM and a crystal or the current generation of computer viruses (all definitions aside) is the capacity of SM to incorporate comparatively large amounts of new information fairly easily and replicate that information, potentially becoming more adaptive at replicating. My guess is that if a computer virus started to do that very effectively, we'd start using life-related metaphors to describe its activity even if we "didn't believe it was actually alive." And doubly so if the computer virus could do that without requiring computers.
And, indeed, if it mutates always towards simplicity, it isn't even a step in the right direction.
The point of SM was to try and approximate a minimal setup by selecting based on speed of replication and in an ideal environment. SM is a sort of genetic dodo bird in that regard.
Tim,
Your quote - "But the burden, as usual, would be on those who are hypothesizing unknown entities and processes."
I thought this rather an astounding admission coming from an ID proponent, evolution denier, and all-round apologist for many religiously inspired positions. If you actually mean what you say, then you are admitting that religions themselves have this burden, "as usual".
Essentially all religions hypothesize unknown entities and processes. There has been no evidence produced for either in the case of any religion.
You give the appearance of supporting your views on many topics by means of evidence and logic, yet you include theological arguments in most topics that you address. Thus, a portion of your arguments are generally based on faith alone. Not always, but often, the inclusion of faith-based premises therefore invalidates your conclusions.
Do you appreciate this fact or do you take either the position that your faith is supported by reliable evidence or that your faith is derived from "reason"?
Kyle: "I thought this rather an astounding admission coming from an ID proponent, evolution denier"
I think you're mis-stating Tim's position here, Kyle.
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ID implies a God.
I'm curious what non-theistic ID would look like? Could you suggest a proponent of ID who is not theistic?
Posted by: Ryan W. on March 9, 2010 12:57 PM