Biological Design Argument?

[Peter_Plato]

Is the world overrun with Oak trees? No it isn’t. How many acorns does a mature Oak tree produce in its lifetime? On average only one of all those acorns will make it to maturity. You are correct, for a great deal of life a quick death is expected.

As to life dying out entirely, that is quite possible. If life had originated towards the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment, then it would have probably been destroyed. We are the descendants of the first (re-)origin of life after the LHB finished.

Remember that every single one of our ancestors, for billions of generations, successfully reproduced. That allows some very long odds to be beaten. As soon as there is one failure to reproduce, then there are no more descendants: “If your parents didn’t have any children, then the chances are you won’t either.”

rossum

The issue in question is that a presupposition is necessary: that there had to be a randomly occuring mutational change capable of surviving for every species that did, in fact, survive. That assumes that the ongoing sequence of changes could have been successful without any design support at all. We can’t know that a priori, we have to assume it was so if we are to assume no design (name removed by moderator)ut was necessary to keep the succession of life forms viable. There is no way of proving that.

 

[nmgauss]

The weakness in using survival as the mechanism by which traits are filtered is that there is nothing in the overall schema that says living things ought to tend towards survival unless that has been written in “the plan,” so to speak. Why should living things survive? It is just as likely, in fact enormously more so, that this long chain of life could have run afoul of the filtering forces and died a quick death anywhere along the 3-4 billion year old process. It would seem a stroke of unimaginable fortuitous luck that life has even survived, let alone flourished and become as variegated as it has. To argue that things have survived because they were the most “fit” is begging the question. It also glosses over the great increases in complexity and sophistication at the morphological level that had to occur to arrive at the incredible array of extant species.
Speaking of reification, and rossum has, the manner in which evolution (of which we shall not speak) is treated in many arguments is a classic example of this fallacy.

If living things ought not to tend towards survival, they would be extinct now. Therefore, to be successful, a species has to survive. You don’t need a plan for this to happen. It is common sense. As long as species need to reproduce in order to continue the species, and as long as the reproduction process involves random events, no guiding hand is needed.

How do we know that the number of species during the Paleozoic was not greater than it is now?
"The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying,[2] was an extinction event that occurred 252.28 Ma (million years) ago,[3] forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. It is the Earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species[4] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.[5] It is the only known mass extinction of insects.[6][7] Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after any other extinction event,[4] possibly up to 10 million years.[8]

The cause of this cataclysm has been tied to a collision of a huge asteroid with Earth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If living things ought not to tend towards survival, they would be extinct now. Therefore, to be successful, a species has to survive. You don’t need a plan for this to happen. It is common sense. As long as species need to reproduce in order to continue the species, and as long as the reproduction process involves random events, no guiding hand is needed.

Granted, but why is there a tendency towards survival which has shown remarkable success when, all things being equal, the probability has been overwhelmingly on the side of extinction?

I think Berlinski pointed out that since genetic code is very much like the operating system of a computer, randomly making alterations or mutations to the code never results in an improved system, since the code relies on very specific calls to be answered for functionality to continue, random changes simply disrupt functionality at some level and virtually never lead to anything but degradation.

The survival filter is only effective sorting out the improved genetic code that leads to improved survivability, but random mutation rarely, if ever, improves functional code. What would prompt ongoing improvement if not design? Based on mere random genetic change, life would have simply continued to degrade and should have died out eons ago.

 

[nmgauss]

Granted, but why is there a tendency towards survival which has shown remarkable success when, all things being equal, the probability has been overwhelmingly on the side of extinction?

I think Berlinski pointed out that since genetic code is very much like the operating system of a computer, randomly making alterations or mutations to the code never results in an improved system, since the code relies on very specific calls to be answered for functionality to continue, random changes simply disrupt functionality at some level and virtually never lead to anything but degradation.

The survival filter is only effective sorting out the improved genetic code that leads to improved survivability, but random mutation rarely, if ever, improves functional code. What would prompt ongoing improvement if not design? Based on mere random genetic change, life would have simply continued to degrade and should have died out eons ago.

How does one explain the speciation of caribou vs. reindeer when they live in the same type of environment? Paleontology has revealed the existence of single species of large flightless birds in Pangaea, but after it split into Australia, South Africa, and South America, separate species developed in similar climates with similar food sources. This is known as genetic drift. Random mutations in separate gene pools, lead to divergence and establishment of new species.

The reason that California has the most diverse plant life of any state in the Union is that it has many different ecological niches separated from one another. Separate valleys and canyons with varying microclimates leads to separate gene pools and new species.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Correct. I didn’t make the models in your head and you didn’t make the models in my head. We each made our own models.

Consider sight. Light reflects off a horse and enters our eye. This light is converted into electrical impulses in our optic nerves and those impulses travel to our brain. The brain receives a pattern of electrical impulses. It matches this pattern with previously stored patterns – the brain is good at pattern matching – and assigns the designation “horse” to this set of electrical impulses in the optic nerve. That may be “touching” reality, but it is touching with a long pole which has a boxing glove attached to the end. It is an indirect form of “touch”.

No we don’t. We cannot smell reality as accurately as a dog does. We cannot see reality as sharply as an eagle does. We cannot even sense the polarization of light like a bee does. There is much of reality that we do not, and can not, know.

Are your internal models that same as the internal models of someone who is colour blind? What of someone who is fully blind? Our internal models are specific to ourselves. We make them and we use them.

It is a basic error to mistake our internal model of something for the thing itself.

False. The mind can only report on a series of electrical impulses arriving along sensory nerves. Those impulses are imperfect translations of the incoming sense data. I am no longer young, so I can no longer hear very high frequencies that I used to be able to hear. My senses are imperfect, and so can only provide an imperfect reflection of external reality for my brain to build a model from.

rossum

The point at issue is that you have claimed that we design the external world in our intellects. My point is that we do not do so. The real design of the real world is conveyed via the data it gives off in the form of waves, etc which impenge our sense perseptors. Our intellects are designed to interpet this data accurately ( to a reasonable degree ). So, we do not design, we receive a " reflection " of the external reality and form concepts of it from this reflection.

Of course our sense perceptors can deteriorate or be absent all together. That does not have anything to do with the argument. We live in a real world and we know it more or less perfectly, well enough to account for the success of the human race. If the external world were an illusion, we wouldn’t be here now. Linus2nd

 

[Peter_Plato]

How does one explain the speciation of caribou vs. reindeer when they live in the same type of environment? Paleontology has revealed the existence of single species of large flightless birds in Pangaea, but after it split into Australia, South Africa, and South America, separate species developed in similar climates with similar food sources. This is known as genetic drift. Random mutations in separate gene pools, lead to divergence and establishment of new species.

The reason that California has the most diverse plant life of any state in the Union is that it has many different ecological niches separated from one another. Separate valleys and canyons with varying microclimates leads to separate gene pools and new species.

So how does one explain wings, legs, eyes, neurological systems, brains, gills, similar reproductive structures, life stages and various other common features developing across very diverse and quite distinct evolutionary lines if not derived from a common morphological plan?

 

[prodigalson2011]

Not all cosmologists agree with you. See “The Myth of the Beginning of Time”.

There are big problems with the physics of the Big Bang, because the assumptions for General Relativity no longer hold. The results we get from the GR equations may, or may not, be correct. We are still waiting for a theory of Quantum Gravity which will extend GR to microscopic scales.

Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics are strange enough on their own. Combined, things get very weird indeed.

rossum

I don’t see a date anywhere on the article you’ve linked, but I suspect it’s not very recent. Numerous tests in the past decade have repeatedly confirmed general relativity, most recently (to my knowledge) in 2011.

Further, progress is being made in resolving the tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity,

 

[nmgauss]

We live in a real world and we know it more or less perfectly, well enough to account for the success of the human race. If the external world were an illusion, we wouldn’t be here now. Linus2nd

Does each successful animal owe its success to its more or less perfect knowledge of the real world? Does a sponge clinging to a rock in the ocean know the real world more or less perfectly?

 

[Bradski]

So how does one explain wings, legs, eyes, neurological systems, brains, gills, similar reproductive structures, life stages and various other common features developing across very diverse and quite distinct evolutionary lines if not derived from a common morphological plan?

They are all quite handy in enabling whatever possesses each of those characteristics to survive in a particular environment. No more. No less. There’s no master plan. No blueprint for each creature.

 

[Fairwinds]

Stephen Meyer’s book Signature in the cell: DNA and the evidence for intelligent design was submitted by Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University, as his contribution to the “2009 Books of the Year” supplement for The Times. Although he is an atheist he wrote:

“Signature in the Cell…is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something that had to happen before the process of biological evolution could begin … Meyer is a Christian, but atheists, and theists who believe God never intervenes in the natural world, will be instructed by his careful presentation of this fiendishly difficult problem.”

The author of the article in wikipedia makes the common mistake of confusing Intelligent Design with Creationism! There are extracts from the book online.

ID is re-bottled creationism.

but enough of the obvious. everyone writes books. there are books telling me space aliens dragged life from somewhere else and seeded earth. I’ve read sci fi with more coherent science than ID.

where’s the debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature?

 

[rossum]

So how does one explain wings, legs, eyes, neurological systems, brains, gills, similar reproductive structures, life stages and various other common features developing across very diverse and quite distinct evolutionary lines if not derived from a common morphological plan?

Evolution is a banned subject here.

Some common morphology is due to common descent – mammals have hair (or birds feathers) due to common descent. The earlier a feature formed, the more widespread it is. Mitochondria formed very early, before metazoans, so all metazoans have them.

Some common morphology is due to a common environment – sharks, dolphins and Ichthyosaurs are roughly the same shape because that is an efficient shape for moving through water quickly.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I don’t see a date anywhere on the article you’ve linked, but I suspect it’s not very recent. Numerous tests in the past decade have repeatedly confirmed general relativity, most recently (to my knowledge) in 2011.

When classical physics broke down at the end of the 19th century, Quantum Mechanics did away with the assumption that things stayed the same as they got smaller. General Relativity did away with the assumption that things stayed the same as they got heavier. However each retained the other assumption: QM ignores mass while GR ignores size. That is why both are having problems with the very early universe: tiny and massive. The large mass breaks QM while the tiny size breaks GR. Hence the need for Quantum Gravity which can cope with very small very heavy masses.

Both QM and GR work very well as long at the appropriate limits for size or mass are not exceeded.

Further, progress is being made in resolving the tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity,

Indeed. It is one of the major open problems in physics.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

ID is re-bottled creationism.

but enough of the obvious. everyone writes books. there are books telling me space aliens dragged life from somewhere else and seeded earth. I’ve read sci fi with more coherent science than ID.

where’s the debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature?

The first sentence is nonsense.

allaboutscience.org/intelligent-design-peer-reviewed-faq.htm

Peace,
Ed

 

[buffalo]

ID is re-bottled creationism.

but enough of the obvious. everyone writes books. there are books telling me space aliens dragged life from somewhere else and seeded earth. I’ve read sci fi with more coherent science than ID.

where’s the debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature?

Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design

 

[buffalo]

They are all quite handy in enabling whatever possesses each of those characteristics to survive in a particular environment. No more. No less. There’s no master plan. No blueprint for each creature.

We will let the DNA code speak for that. There is a new way to classify organisms brewing right now.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Evolution is a banned subject here.

Some common morphology is due to common descent – mammals have hair (or birds feathers) due to common descent. The earlier a feature formed, the more widespread it is. Mitochondria formed very early, before metazoans, so all metazoans have them.

Some common morphology is due to a common environment – sharks, dolphins and Ichthyosaurs are roughly the same shape because that is an efficient shape for moving through water quickly.

rossum

I am aware of both your points. Unless you are prepared to argue that flying fish, birds, bats and insects have a common ancestor, a common design plan (re: wings) would seem a more credible explanation. How could random changes bring about, coincidentally, the same mode of movement in four completely diverse lineages? It is not clear that wings formed very early.

 

[nmgauss]

I am aware of both your points. Unless you are prepared to argue that flying fish, birds, bats and insects have a common ancestor, a common design plan (re: wings) would seem a more credible explanation. How could random changes bring about, coincidentally, the same mode of movement in four completely diverse lineages? It is not clear that wings formed very early.

I know of no creature that can fly without wings. So if wings are necessary for flight, it is likely that different life forms can eventually develop them.

The development of wings in different types of vertebrates is explained in this website:
ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/evolve.html

“Lineages of organisms are not designed for some future purpose; they are changed by opportunities to which they can respond and by the selective processes that their environment imposes on them. The process of forming wings is limited by developmental and genetic constraints. If an adaptation is useful to a lineage, chances are that it will be preserved. If an adaptation is co-opted from a previous use to a new use, it is called an exaptation. The only scientific way to approach why flight evolved in a group is to first figure out how it evolved; what the temporal sequence of exaptations and adaptations was.”

 

[Bradski]

So how does one explain wings, legs, eyes, neurological systems, brains, gills, similar reproductive structures, life stages and various other common features developing across very diverse and quite distinct evolutionary lines if not derived from a common morphological plan?

Convergent evolution.

How odd that you are using something which is generally presented as a way of explaining how evolution works as a way of trying to discount it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Convergent evolution.

How odd that you are using something which is generally presented as a way of explaining how evolution works as a way of trying to discount it.

Except nothing is explained, just named and presumed to have occurred.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I know of no creature that can fly without wings. So if wings are necessary for flight, it is likely that different life forms can eventually develop them.

Circular cause and consequence (flight is root cause) tied into retrospective determinism (wings developed therefore were inevitable) with a hefty appeal to probability (likelihood of development). Must be a three for one sale down at Fallacious Flights of Fancy.