Pope's astronomer dismisses ID and says Church was "spectacularly wrong" in its treatment of Galileo

[rossum]

Your post is off topic for this thread and is getting perilously close to the banned area. However, your source’s misrepresentation of the science cannot be left unanswered.

Darwinian theory falsified, yet again. That paper is the conclusion to a 30 year study of fruit fly evolution. Researchers conclude that unconditionally advantageous alleles are not fixed in a population, and the ‘classic sweep’ of selection for a trait does not occur.
The researchers even enhanced the experiment by artificially selecting for optimum results. Lab conditions also provide a constant environment. The scientists observe that in the wild, results will show even fewer advantageous mutations evolving the population.

From the paper:

Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles. This is notable because in wild populations we expect the strength of natural selection to be less intense and the environment unlikely to remain constant for,600 generations. Consequently, the probability of fixation in wild populations should be even lower than its likelihood in these experiments. This suggests that selection does not readily expunge genetic variation in sexual populations, a finding which in turn should motivate efforts to discover why this is seemingly the case

We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles rarely arise, are associated with small net fitness gains or cannot fix because selection coefficients change over time.

Have you read the actual paper or have you just read the filleted version put out by a creationist source? You need to look at the original paper; creationist sources have a distressing tendency to omit or to misunderstand science.

Here is some more of what the paper says:

Here we present whole-genome resequencing data from Drosophila melanogaster populations that have experienced over 600 generations of laboratory selection for accelerated development. Flies in these selected populations develop from egg to adult ~20% faster than flies of ancestral control populations, and have evolved a number of other correlated phenotypes.

So, we have evolution. The flies are now developing 20% faster than they used to. Let us read further:

In our sexual populations, adaptation is not associated with ‘classic’ sweeps whereby newly arising, unconditionally advantageous mutations become fixed. More parsimonious explanations include ‘incomplete’ sweep models, in which mutations have not had enough time to fix, and ‘soft’ sweep models, in which selection acts on pre-existing, common genetic variants. We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles rarely arise, are associated with small net fitness gains or cannot fix because selection coefficients change over time.

Has Darwinian evolution been falsified? No. These scientists were looking at which specific mechanism of evolution was operating: ‘classic sweep’, ‘incomplete sweep’ or ‘soft sweep’. Your creationist source was either lying to you or has insufficient scientific knowledge to understand the paper. Either way you are relying on an unreliable source. Not a wise thing to do.

rossum

 

[Anselm33]

Agreed. The contrast between CAF and UD is both striking and instructive. “Preach always, use words if you have to,” is something that UD does not appear to understand.

rossum

quick question for those of us uninitiated and who don’t want to go through the whole thread–what does “UD” stand for? A web site for intelligent design advocates or ???
Thanks.

 

[Touchstone]

quick question for those of us uninitiated and who don’t want to go through the whole thread–what does “UD” stand for? A web site for intelligent design advocates or ???
Thanks.

It’s the flagship blog for the intelligent design movement:

uncommondescent.com

It’s not the only one, of course. Check out “Telic Thoughts” for an upgrade on the level of posting and discourse on ID (most of the time):

telicthoughts.com

It’s not just for advocates. The UD management allows small numbers of subservient critics to post ID-critical comments until one of the management becomes displeased or annoyed, whereupon the critic is disappeared, often with all his posting history along with him (“full bannination” in the lingo of the debating blogosphere).

-TS

 

[reggieM]

Have you read the actual paper or have you just read the filleted version put out by a creationist source?

I read the actual paper. Oh, it was linked by a creationist source so that must be a major problem.

You need to look at the original paper;

Thanks for the reminder!

creationist sources have a distressing tendency to omit or to misunderstand science.

They have a distressing tendency to expose truths that Darwinian sources obscure also.

So, we have evolution.

We have adaptation and a failed prediction. The scientists expected to find the classic sweep and didn’t find it. They conclude that they don’t know why that happened.

This suggests that selection does not readily expunge genetic variation in sexual populations, a finding which in turn should motivate efforts to discover why this is seemingly the case.

Has Darwinian evolution been falsified?

Yes.

Your creationist source was either lying to you or has insufficient scientific knowledge to understand the paper.

I think Darwinian defenders here on CAF are either lying or are deliberately covering up what this paper actually said.

Either way you are relying on an unreliable source. Not a wise thing to do.

You’re claiming that my reading the entire paper means I’m relying on an unreliable source.
I can see that your judgement is flawed for some reason – perhaps due to your own bias.
Ok, I’ll learn not to trust what you have to say in the future, a very good lesson learned.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I would ask for an early appointment with the visiting Zorg aliens so that I could interview them about their creative abilities and powers.

Sorry, Rossum, but my brain is being taxed by all these deep thinking posts and my sense of humor (such as it is) kicked in. Your question is valid.

The question is valid and I’ve asked it before, with no response. Maybe I should have put in the planet Zorg or that little alien on Mars (with his dog) who wants to blow up the earth and is consistently foiled by Bugs Bunny.

 

[grannymh]

The question is valid and I’ve asked it before, with no response. Maybe I should have put in the planet Zorg or that little alien on Mars (with his dog) who wants to blow up the earth and is consistently foiled by Bugs Bunny.

original question: How would you propose to go about showing that the design you claim to find in biological organisms on Earth is due to supernatural designers as opposed to visiting aliens from planet Zorg?

Actually, all living organisms have a designed nature. Non-human living organisms have a design which is natural material. But when it comes to human organisms, there is the natural material and something else which can’t be explained as natural material. I am referring to an unique unification of the rational/corporeal in the human person.
Since our rational capabilities are not found in nature, this would mean that they had to come from something super-natural.

As for visiting Zorg aliens, they would have had to arrive millions and millions of years ago when life first appeared. During that long period, the aliens would have to adapt to our food supply, survive the environment, and find a place to educate their young in the fine art of designing. Now if they could do all that, then they would have to be rational which means that they, like humans, had to come from something super-natural. The conclusion would be that the super-natural designer would really have to be intelligent to keep all the designs straight especially when dealing with both humans and visiting aliens who stayed for dinner.

Good grief did I really write the above. It must be past my bedtime because my brain is getting flakey. Getting?

 

[Touchstone]

Since our rational capabilities are not found in nature, this would mean that they had to come from something super-natural.

???

I think my rational capabilities are found in nature – right inside my skull. Same goes for my wife and kids, and neighbors, and…

What am I missing in this idea that rational capabilities aren’t found in nature? What about… humans?

-TS

 

[grannymh]

???

I think my rational capabilities are found in nature – right inside my skull. Same goes for my wife and kids, and neighbors, and…

What am I missing in this idea that rational capabilities aren’t found in nature? What about… humans?

-TS

My skull may be using the keyboard as a pillow… but I like to think that humans are different from kittens, bugs, butterflies, elephants, maple syrup, and my cousin Chilly Chimp. Think? That’s rational or maybe radical…

By the way, I liked what you said in some earlier posts.

 

[Touchstone]

My skull may be using the keyboard as a pillow… but I like to think that humans are different from kittens, bugs, butterflies, elephants, maple syrup, and my cousin Chilly Chimp. Think? That’s rational or maybe radical…

I also like to think (and believe we have good evidence as a basis to think) we are different than kittens, bug and butterflies. And even the chimp. But that doesn’t mean our rationality is not found in nature, does it? What am I missing here?

I’m thinking of an analog:

“And since our linguistic capabilities are not found in nature, this would mean that they had to come from something super-natural.”

We’d agree that our language faculties are not to be found in kittens, bugs or butterflies, right? But even so, we have them, and we’re found in nature.

Right?

By the way, I liked what you said in some earlier posts.

Same here!

-TS

 

[grannymh]

I’m thinking of an analog:

“And since our linguistic capabilities are not found in nature, this would mean that they had to come from something super-natural.”

We’d agree that our language faculties are not to be found in kittens, bugs or butterflies, right? But even so, we have them, and we’re found in nature.

-TS

In that sense, you are right. I’m over and out – til the sun shines.

 

[Touchstone]

In that sense, you are right. I’m over and out – til the sun shines.

OK, I got a private message from someone reading who suggests that what I’m missing is perhaps a clarification like this:

And since our rational capabilities appear to be supernatural, and are unique with respect to all other species, this would mean that they likely came from something super-natural.

Not to put words in your mouth, but with this formulation, I can make sense of what you were saying, whereas before, I really was confused as to what you were getting at. If it’s mistaken, apologies, but my guess is that if the “ontology of mind” is an open question (maybe natural, maybe supernatural), the uniqueness of human cognitive particulars (e.g. meta-representation) suggests to you that they are unique because they are supernaturally provided.

If that’s right, you can guess what I think of that conclusion, but no matter, I’m fine just thinking I understand the line of thinking. For now.

G’night!

-TS

 

[grannymh]

OK, I got a private message from someone reading who suggests that what I’m missing is perhaps a clarification like this:

Not to put words in your mouth, but with this formulation, I can make sense of what you were saying, whereas before, I really was confused as to what you were getting at. If it’s mistaken, apologies, but my guess is that if the “ontology of mind” is an open question (maybe natural, maybe supernatural), the uniqueness of human cognitive particulars (e.g. meta-representation) suggests to you that they are unique because they are supernaturally provided.

If that’s right, you can guess what I think of that conclusion, but no matter, I’m fine just thinking I understand the line of thinking. For now.

G’night!

-TS

G’morning!

:flowers: For you, because you understand.
However, I can stop short at the idea that there is something unique and non-material about human nature and let the philosophers deal with the source.

 

[Betterave]

---

(Rossum said such and such.)

__________¸

I dunno. Maybe that does come off as more sympathetic than my position, but I can’t see any daylight between the substance of our posts. I was actually in the process of noting the lack of progress by Dembski since his 1998 monograph when I discovered rossum had beaten me to it. That wasn’t the first time on this thread, either. I suspect my pique at rossum repeatedly scooping me may be flavoring my language in opposition to ID.

Yes indeed he did say those things, I think however that rossum has left the door open to a more thoughtful, less tendentious consideration of the issue in other posts… as you do below.

Let me stress instead that there are conceptions of ID I could support. It’s just that none of them are evident in the work of ID’s current proponents. In granny’s back porch thread, she leaves a link to a presentation of the Thomist opposition to the current movement. I read it carefully earlier today. The discussion was motivated by the exasperation of current ID proponents with the luke-warm reception they’ve received from Thomists, who one might suppose would be natural allies. Thomists, it seems, prefer their designer get it right the first time. More directly, they lend their support to a creator God who is the cause of the natural processes that brought about ontological existence, rather than a designer who acts as an agent of change. I can’t argue with that.

That seems to be an idle distinction, getting it right the first time vs. acting as an agent of change. Can you explain what the virtue of the former formulation is, as opposed to the latter?

More succinctly, I have no real argument with those who claim evolution is their god’s ID.

Evolution is itself a design, and to whatever extent it could be said to have a creator, I have no objection to those who prefer to name that creator their god. This isn’t what ID proponents are saying, though. You’ve read Behe, though you don’t say which one of his books you’re speaking of, **Darwin’s Black Box (this one) **or The Edge of Evolution. I’ve read them both. What are these other than extended arguments for the existence of organic objects that biological evolution cannot produce?

Again, methodologically, what is the difference? Don`t the same problems arise in either case?

Now I can contemplate a theory that would allow us to measure the design included in the creation of man-made objects. Perhaps it might be possible to measure the design of more pedestrian creatures in say, spiderwebs or beaver dams. I can’t imagine even beginning the attempt though without an understanding of the tools they bring to their creations. Beavers are fashioned to be highly efficient beaver dam creators. The design they bring to the project is minimal. A human might be able to create one, too, but it would be a much more design-intensive task. With that in mind, allow me to challenge you with a couple of questions in return. What if it was in your intelligent designer’s nature to create universes simply? What would be the measure of the design?

As ever, Jesse

I can imagine a beaver dams *being designed *as being evident, even if we knew nothing about beavers. Same goes for a spider web. You cant?

 

[Betterave]

I am English, so it may just be English understatement meeting an American expectation of overstatement. The Discovery Institute has no intention of taking its version of ID anywhere near to being science. At every turn where it has had to make a decision between doing the politically expedient thing and the scientifically correct thing it has chosen political expediency. One glaring example is its refusal to put any dates on anything so it can keep its ‘Big Tent’ open to the YECs who supply the money and footsoldiers it needs for its political ambitions. DI-ID was started by a lawyer and has as its main aim finding a way to get disguised creationism into American public school classrooms. I do not see that changing any time soon; the DI has always put politics before science.

Some individuals working in ID are trying to do science. Professor Behe has done useful work in this area and I sometimes cite his paper on the evolution of Irreducible Complexity, Behe and Snoke (2004). Both Robert Marks and ‘Mike Gene’ have also done some worthwhile work. However, much of the work touted by the DI is not good science at all. It is political propaganda but given enough of a veneer of ‘scienciness’ to appear to be science to non-scientists.

That doesnt suprise me in the least. Im certainly not interested in defending the notion that everyone in the ID tent is all about following the evidence wherever it may lead and that politics and ideology have been magically excluded from this particular realm of politically and ideologically charged scientific (or pseudo-scientific) discussion. That would be highly unreasonable!

A designer who cannot manipulate DNA cannot have designed any DNA. If you claim that a piece of DNA has been designed then it is up to you to show how, when and where that piece of DNA was assembled. An archaeologist can look at a potsherd and tell you where it was made, when it was made and who made it. Science expects ID to work towards a similar level of detail. That requires some knowledge of the proposed designers: where they lived, when they lived and what they could or couldn’t do.

An archeologist can maybe do that, but not necessarily. Further, he can only do that if he can first identify an object as a potsherd (as a designed object) in the first place.

A natural explanation of design requires a natural designer. A supernatural explanation of design can include a supernatural designer. If we find natural evidence of intelligent aliens then we can expect to find intelligent designs by those aliens. Despite looking, science has so far found no evidence of any supernatural entities nor of any supernatural design.

How would you propose to go about showing that the design you claim to find in biological organisms on Earth is due to supernatural designers as opposed to visiting aliens from planet Zorg?

That seems like an irrelevant question. Why should an inference to design be necessarily grounded in knowledge of the designer? That clearly is not and cannot be the intended methodological structure of ID as a natural science, it seems to me.

 

[rossum]

An archeologist can maybe do that, but not necessarily. Further, he can only do that if he can first identify an object as a potsherd (as a designed object) in the first place.

For an archaeologist the inference of design is often done by comparing a new object with existing objects known to have been designed. This is especially evidence with very early (pre Homo sapiens) stone tools. Is this pebble a shaped tool or is it just a piece of broken rock? The study of known tools can help to recognise similar tools that might not otherwise have been noticed.

That seems like an irrelevant question. Why should an inference to design be necessarily grounded in knowledge of the designer? That clearly is not and cannot be the intended methodological structure of ID as a natural science, it seems to me.

If I cannot manipulate DNA then you know that I have not designed a specific stretch of DNA that you think may be designed. Similarly, if I was on the other side of the galaxy at the time it was being done then I didn’t do it. Knowledge of the designer(s) is extremely useful when studying design.

The problem with the ID designer(s) is that we have no known limitations on what they can do. At present ID has no basis to say “X wasn’t designed” for any value of X. As Dembski has pointed out, a designer can mimic either Law or Chance if he/she/it wants to. Jackson Pollock’s paintings are designed yet they include an element of chance.

Not knowing what the designer(s) can or cannot do makes in impossible for ID to meet the falsifiability criterion of science. This is yet another hurdle in the way of the acceptance of ID as science.

rossum

 

[lao_tzu]

That seems to be an idle distinction, getting it right the first time vs. acting as an agent of change. Can you explain what the virtue of the former formulation is, as opposed to the latter?

Hello Dave,

As best I can follow the Thomist argument, the distinction here is between creation ex nihilo and mere physical rearrangements. While anything can accomplish the latter, including natural forces, the former is a characteristic exclusive to their god.

Again, methodologically, what is the difference? Don`t the same problems arise in either case?

Oh no, not at all. It proved extemely simple to answer the objections from DBB. It required nothing more than presenting the reduced precursors of Behe’s candidates for irreducible complexity. The methodology was purely physical. An argument against the design of evolution itself is primarily metaphysical.

I can imagine a beaver dams *being designed *as being evident, even if we knew nothing about beavers. Same goes for a spider web. You cant?

The point here is to measure that design, not merely to detect it. A spiderweb designed by a beaver incorporates more design than a spiderweb designed by a spider.

As ever, Jesse

 

[Anselm33]

Reading the posts in this thread, I get mildly upset because some posters (most? many?) don’t distinguish between evolution–which I call common descent, shown by the phylogenetic tree, gradual variation in DNA and functional proteins between species and phyla–and the mechanism for evolution. There are several proposed mechanisms for evolution: Darwin’s, survival of the fittest; Jay Gould’s, punctuated equilibrium; Stuart Kauffman’s, spontaneous organization; and the IDers (not all of whom propose the same thing or even, in some cases, believe in evolution). I don’t hold with ID as a scientific theory, because it doesn’t (can’t?) make predictions and because it doesn’t seem to be falsifiable, although it might make good metaphysical sense. It’s too much of a “God of the Gaps”. The most interesting (albeit unscientifically verified) mechanism I’ve seen proposed for evolution is that by Greg Bear, in Darwin’s Radio.
By the way, what happened to the original topic? And aren’t we getting onto a verboten thread topic here?

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

Reading the posts in this thread, I get mildly upset because some posters (most? many?) don’t distinguish between evolution–which I call common descent, shown by the phylogenetic tree, gradual variation in DNA and functional proteins between species and phyla–and the mechanism for evolution. There are several proposed mechanisms for evolution: Darwin’s, survival of the fittest; Jay Gould’s, punctuated equilibrium; Stuart Kauffman’s, spontaneous organization; and the IDers (not all of whom propose the same thing or even, in some cases, believe in evolution). I don’t hold with ID as a scientific theory, because it doesn’t (can’t?) make predictions and because it doesn’t seem to be falsifiable, although it might make good metaphysical sense. It’s too much of a “God of the Gaps”. The most interesting (albeit unscientifically verified) mechanism I’ve seen proposed for evolution is that by Greg Bear, in Darwin’s Radio.
By the way, what happened to the original topic? And aren’t we getting onto a verboten thread topic here?

Anselm:

You do have a point there.

Just in passing, I would like to say I lean towards the ID theory, IN THE SENSE that it has a possible answer to “What was there before the Big Bang?” or “Was Evolution random or directed?”
I and some other IDers are not saying that “Evolition Never Happened.” Just “what was Directing it, IF it was Directed at all?”
Unfortunately, some in the ID movement have taken it to places that are FAR from its original premise.

 

[Anselm33]

I’ll add something to my previous post. If you include fine-tuning (the Strong Anthropic Principle) then there was one prediction (albeit implicit as far as design goes) by Fred Hoyle, who predicted the excited level of the carbon-12 nucleus that was required for resonance with the excited level of beryllium-8, for a rapid rate of formation of carbon-12.
(And we all know what element life is based on, don’t we? )

 

[Touchstone]

Anselm:

You do have a point there.

Just in passing, I would like to say I lean towards the ID theory, IN THE SENSE that it has a possible answer to “What was there before the Big Bang?” or “Was Evolution random or directed?”
I and some other IDers are not saying that “Evolition Never Happened.” Just “what was Directing it, IF it was Directed at all?”
Unfortunately, some in the ID movement have taken it to places that are FAR from its original premise.

Heh. Well, go try out that kind of ID over at the popular Intelligent Design blogs and forums. Atheists are more beloved than theistic evolutionists (er, maybe the new term is no “biologos” – “biologosians”?) by a good measure – atheists are at least wearing different color jerseys. Theistic evolutionists – and Catholics are suspect in general iin the Protestant dominated ID movement for the reason that the RCC provides enough “doctrinal space” to permit theistic evolution as part of faithful practice and belief – are the “enemy within”, impostors and traitors. Lookup posts on theistic evolution at uncommondescent.com if you want a faceful of that, sometime.

It’s reached a point where TEs are just not part of the picture at all any more – they go congregate and talk at forums like biologos.org. ID as a cultural religious movement despises the stance you are advocating here.

-TS