A thought on Intelligence behind Design

Mark<< ID simply, logically, cannot proceed without first being able to tell the difference between designed & naturally occurring objects, & then seeing if those predictions are borne out.>>Why is the lack of reliable criteria for distinguishing betweeen teleological and non-teleological causes not considered a problem for the blind watchmaker hypothesis? Why aren't the advocates of blind watchmaking working on a filter or test to rule out teleological causes and thus establish non-teleology? Has the absence of a reliable detector for non-teleological causes stymied the blind watchmaker research program?Here are some insightful comments from Mike Gene:My goal is not to show the non-teleologists wrong. My goal is to determine how productive a teleological approach can be. This, after all, is how non-teleologists have worked for a century. They have not come up with tests to rule out teleological causes (they instead rely on philosophy). The inability to tell the difference between an organism that was designed to evolve, and an organism that evolved by "accidental changes captured by selection, cuts both ways (if you think about it). Instead, they have been focused on the utility of the non-teleological approach, where at some point, a successful track record becomes an argument for validity. I think teleologists would do well to learn from this model. Flesh out a teleological approach that doesn't center around trying to convince non-teleologists they are wrong, but instead seeks to understand biotic reality and its history. Maybe something juicy will eventually shake out....There are at least two ways teleologists can go about studying the natural world. One way is to look for features that clearly cannot be explained by non-teleological explanations. There is nothing wrong with this approach. In fact, it holds potential for developing new insights and methods, along with helping to better define the dispute. But there is another way that can complement this approach. This way simply begins by looking for things that one might expect to follow from design. This way follows the examples of mainstream science. Take origin of life research. Scientists do not look for things that could not be explained by teleologists. They are not looking for phenomena that rule out telic causes, therefore rule in non-telic causes. On the contrary, they begin with squishy, vague scenarios about how something might have happened and then see if something in the lab or nature can be fitted into such a scenario. What becomes important here is the development of a track record and a scenario that gets less and less squishy. I see no reason why teleologists cannot likewise adopt this approach.[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-18-2003]

Warren: "Your opinion that ID lacks evidence is worthless since you have yet to tell me what you would consider evidence for ID."John:1) Critters which are not cobbled together from spare parts.
2) Components which are well designed for their function.
I could probably think of more, but those would go a long way.Warren<< Hi John. You are the first person on this thread to to tell me what would count as evidence for ID that isn't either a demand for extraordinary evidence, or a demand to prove the impossible or a demand to observe the designer in action. Therefore you are the only person I'm going to respond to in this recent flurry of replies to me.. This really illustrates where I'm coming from. The other ID critics on this forum would no doubt disagee with you concerning what you say should count as evidence for ID. They want to see "Made by God" written in the cell. Or they want to see an example of something that couldn't possibly have evolved. Or they want to see an intelligent designer designing things.I would like to see some comments from the ID critics concerning what John says would count as evidence for design. Is he right or wrong? Explain. In response to those that think he's wrong I would be interested to see John's counter arguments. If he really means what he says he will probably end up sounding like Mike Gene.[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-20-2003]

Warren: "They want to see "Made by God" written in the cell. Or they want to see an example of something that couldn't possibly have evolved. Or they want to see an intelligent designer designing things."John<< All reasonable requests. The first would certainly clench the deal. Finding a manufacturer's tag would certainly prove ID. Not finding such a tag does not disprove ID. I don't know why you find this so objectionable.>>Warren<< These may be reasonable requests if one is seeking proof of ID but since when is proof required to produce a working hypothesis and begin an investigation? That's what I'm talking about. I never asked anyone what they would consider proof of ID. I asked what would count as evidence for ID. Another way I have put it is to ask what would cause one to merely suspect ID. I get the same answers either way. It's as if the ID critics don't understand the question or they can't conceive of a middle ground between evidence for ID and absolute proof of ID or something that would merely cause a suspicion rather than something that would convince the skeptic. Can you imagine the reaction if I were asked what would cause me to suspect a non-teleological origin of life and I said I would need to see life being created from non-life via non-intelligent processes, or I needed to see some biological thing that couldn't have been created by an intelligent agent?>>John<< The second... well, every ID theorist I have ever read has made the Irreducible Complexity argument and that argument is just this-- that X couldn't have possibly evolved. This one is the ID theorist's fault. >>Warren<< I know of no ID theorist that makes this claim. And that includes Dembski and Behe. I think you, Holmes and others are mis-interpreting what you read and this is because you fail to recognize that ID theorists make a distinction between evolution and Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution involves direct routes of evolution. Direct routes of evolution are the ones best supported by empirical and experimental evidence. The traditional examples of Darwin's finches (and their beaks), giraffe necks, elephant trunks, darkening wings in moths are all examples of direct evolution. And it is precisely this kind of evolution that can't produce an IC system. Yes, it's impossible for modifications along a linear axis to produce IC systems. But as Behe points out in his book it is theorectically possible that the evolution of an IC system could proceed via a circuitous route. Very unlikely but not impossible.Mike Gene notes:"Co-option is the most commonly cited circuitous means to generate an IC system. Bur this really isn't Darwinian evolution (i.e. step by step changes captured by selection.) This is essentially a return to raw coincidence to account for apparent design. The brilliance of Darwin was to minimize the role of chance in apparent design. But once we turn to the co-option explanation, we leave this explanatory appeal behind, as chance reasserts itself into a place of prominence. For it is chance that determines whether the various gene products just happen to come together to form a new functioning system, as selection was previously pruning these gene products in accord with various different functions. Thus, again the co-option explanation is really a return to using chance as an explanation for apparent design, and just as it was not convincing in pre-Darwinian days, it is not convincing today. If one is to invoke co-option, good supporting evidence is required.But the problems with co-option are deeper. Once we leave the random tweaking of a protein along a linear axis guided by selection and instead appeal to multiple coincidences entailed by different, independent proteins being shaped for various other functions that just happen to coalesce into a brand new system, the role of coincidence itself is brought into question."So to say that Darwinian evolution can't produce an IC system isn't the same as saying it's impossible for evolution to produce an IC system. But in such a case one is really only saying that one can't rule out an IC system originating via a series of lucky coincidences. It's not possible to prove this kind of evolution impossible but as Mike Gene says:It must be comfy when your hypotheses about the world only need to be possible. Then to have a brand of metaphysics that converts the possible into the actual, unless the possible is proven impossible.[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-21-2003]

Warren<< Direct routes of evolution are the ones best supported by empirical and experimental evidence.[...] And it is precisely this kind of evolution that can't produce an IC system. Yes, it's impossible for modifications along a linear axis to produce IC systems.>>MrHambre<< Care to provide any supporting evidence for this outrageous claim other than your evidently boundless personal incredulity?>>Warren<< If this is an outrageous claim then you should have no problem refuting it.>>MrHambre<< Please let us know on what basis you assume that a biological structure could not have served any other purpose than the one it currently serves.>>Warren: I don't assume that. I do however require evidence. I need evidence that a biological structure served another purpose than the one it currently serves.MrHambre<< You must take similar comfort in knowing that your hypotheses about the world don't need to be possible, plausible, consistent, verifiable, testable, falsifiable, or even explanatory.>>Warren<< You seem to know a lot about my hypotheses even though you've never seen one. Care to explain that? >>[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-21-2003]

Okay, I hope this quote from Dembski puts to rest the notion that he claims it's impossible for an IC system to evolve."Note that to attribute such an incapacity to the Darwinian mechanism isn't to say that it's logically impossible for the Darwinian mechanism to attain such structures. It's logically possible for just about anything to attain anything else via a vastly improbable or fortuitous event. For instance, it's logically possible that with my very limited chess ability I might defeat the reigning world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, in ten straight games. But if I do so, it will be despite my limited chess ability and not because of it. Likewise, if the Darwinian mechanism is the conduit by which a Darwinian pathway leads to an irreducibly complex biochemical system, then it is despite the intrinsic properties or capacities of that mechanism. Thus, in saying that irreducibly complex biochemical structures are inaccessible to Darwinian pathways, design proponents are saying that the Darwinian mechanism has no intrinsic capacity for generating such structures except as vastly improbable or fortuitous events. Accordingly, to attribute irreducible complexity to a direct Darwinian pathway is like attributing Mount Rushmore to wind and water erosion. There's a sheer possibility that wind and erosion could sculpt Mount Rushmore but not a realistic one.Intelligent design's demonstration of the failure of Darwin's program is a combination of empirical and theoretical arguments. In both cases, however, the issue is one of connectivitycan the mechanism in question supply a step-by-step path connecting two otherwise disparate elements."[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-23-2003]

MrHambre<< I'm saying you're presenting your personal philosophy and expecting science to validate it at all costs. You want to see intelligent design in nature, regardless of whether there is evidence of this intelligence. I guess there's no conceivable evidence that could convince you that your intelligent designing presence doesn't exist, so it's hardly a scientific hypothesis.>>Yeah, you said the samething about me and it doesn't hold water. You can't make the case that ID theorists have anymore of a philosophical need to see design in nature than the materialist has a desire to see no design in nature. In fact, it seems to me the materialist is more dogmatic on these matters than the ID'er. This is clear from one simple fact. ID'ers can accept instances of Darwinian evolution and like Behe can even accept common ancestry but the materialistic Darwinist can't accept that anything in nature was designed. In fact they can't even site one thing in nature that even causes them to merely suspect design.As for there being no conceivable evidence that could convince me ID was wrong, here is a little something to refresh your memory. I previously told you that if life was not built around encoded information and sophisticated machines, and if the Miller-Urey type experiments did lead to nice theories/demonstrations of abiogenesis, I would not suspect design at all. Now if you are not presenting your personal philosophy and expecting science to validate it at all costs then please submit what conceivable evidence would cause you to merely suspect some aspect of biotic reality was the product of intelligent design. Notice I said cause you to suspect ID not convince you of ID. Things that would convince a person of ID would be things like seeing the designer in action, finding a secret message written in the cell, finding something in nature that couldn't possibly evolve etc. On the other hand, it should only take subtle clues to merely raise a suspicion of ID. Subtle clues are what cause you to suspect abiogenesis, right? So why don't you tell us what subtle clues would cause you to suspect ID? If you can't do that I suggest you have a philosophical need to see no design in nature.[This message has been edited by Warren, 07-31-2003]

HrHambre: "At face value, intelligence doesn't seem to be present in natural design. The haphazard history of life on Earth, with all its circuitous routes and mass extinctions, doesn't point to a guiding intelligence. Complex organisms and organs demonstrate design cobbled together from remnants of previous systems, not crafted anew for a unique purpose or function. Natural design displays amidst its messiness an ingenuity that would have been unnecessary if we assume the presence of intelligent intervention."This kind of argument against ID only works if one assumes the ID position is that every aspect of biotic reality was a consequence of intelligent intervention. But that isn't the ID position.You are erecting a strawman argument against ID and then patting yourself on the back for knocking it down. Now here is what ID theorists are really saying if you're interested.1. Certain key evolutionary changes may have been due to intelligent intervention.2. Evolution may have been front-loaded such that its unfolding was channeled.3. Evolution may have been designed such that it could acquire new information over time.4. Permutations of 1, 2, and 3.Despite all my posts to the contrary you still insist on misrepresenting ID as anti-evolution. That is pure bunk and you should know better by now. ID is pro-evolution but disputes the process is entirely blind, random, accidental, coincidental etc. Suboptimality arguments have no power against this perspective. Taken to their logical conclusions such arguments would suggest that unless eyes were completely impervious to puncture, bones unbreakable and without mass, and all organisms had an optimum life-history that involved immortality and infinite fecundity, we have no logical choice but to conclude that nature is the sole result of blind watchmaking. I find such an argument ludicrous.[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003][This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

MrHambre: "Warren, intelligent intervention certainly may have caused evolutionary changes or directed the course of life on earth. However, we see no evidence of that, and so it may be beyond the scope of science to make the case one way or the other."Warren<< You see no evidence of ID because you don't know what evidence for ID would look like. Heck you can't even tell me what would cause you to merely suspect ID was behind some aspect of biotic reality. And sure, ID is beyond the scope of science if you define science as an enterprise that rejects any hint of teleology. You look at nature through the lens of non-teleology and see no evidence for design. Well, duh! >>MrHambre<< Isn't it conceivable that the weather only seems to be the result of air pressure, electrical polarity and other natural forces, and is in fact directed by Creative Intelligence?>>Warren<< Sure, but that isn't the kind of argument that ID theorists are making. Life is machine-dependent and code dependent. We associate machines and codes with intelligent design not geochemistry. You want to make the case that codes and machines can be produced via non-intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.As for your weather analogy. You show me evidence that the weather is machine-dependent and code dependent and I will suspect it's intelligently designed. >>[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

Chrashfrog<< After all, at the end of the day, it's not about suspicions - it's about evidence. >>Why don't you give me an example of what you would consider evidence for ID.[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-05-2003]

Mark<< ID is simply an unsupported assertion, an untestable hypothesis, & certainly an unfalsifiable one.>>Recent studies in the philosophy of science suggest that philosophically neutral criteria do not exist that can define science narrowly enough to disqualify hypotheses of design without also disqualifying materialistic evolutionary hypotheses on identical grounds. Either science will be defined so narrowly as to disqualify both types of hypotheses, or science must be defined more broadly and the initial reasons for excluding opposing hypotheses evaporate. Thus, ID and blind watchmaking hypotheses appear to be methodologically equivalent with respect to a wide range of demarcation criteria--that is, both appear equally scientific or equally unscientific provided the same criteria are used to adjudicate their scientific status and provided philosophically neutral criteria are used to make such assessments.I fail to see how ID hypotheses on the origin of life are any more unsupported, untestable, or unfalsifiable than non-teleological hypotheses on the origin of life.[This message has been edited by Warren, 08-06-2003]