As a thought experiment, let's reject evolution, accept the theory of intelligent design as commonly formulated and really consider the implications. Here are a few of my thoughts below.
Strictly Decreasing Bio-Diversity:
If you throw out macro-evolution, there is no mechanism by which new species can arise. Barring repeat and future visits by our intelligent designer, this means that biodiversity on the Earth will always be decreasing and has been decreasing for all of history. This would have pretty serious implications for environmental politics. It would also turn paleontology on its head, as it would necessitate considering all modern animals as participants in prehistoric ecosystems.
Similarity of Organisms
Many organisms are similar in structure to one another, and there seem to be familial relationships in certain groups. This is naturally explained in the theory of evolution, but what what explanation for this exists in the theory of intelligent design? Could the creator have been working using templates of some kind? It seems to imply that the creator faced some kind of constraints on design time.
Motivations / Extra-Terrestrial Life
If you accept the notion of an intelligent creator, its natural to speculate about their motivations. I know that some people in the ID community already have a storyline in mind, but there is no reason the rest of us can't speculate more adventurously. If the creator saw fit to create life here, could the same motivations have led them to create life on other worlds? As discussed above, the creator my have had limited design resources, so could this life be similar to ours?
Creative Inspiration
Where did the creator draw inspiration for their designs? If our creator's design resources were limited, might they have been working from existing archetypes? If the creator was biological, could these archetypes been creatures on the creators own world?
Relative Intellect
Was our creator more intelligent than us? If so, why did they choose to limit our intellect? Were they incapable of producing beings intelligent as themselves? This seems unlikely to me, but to do so deliberately seems oddly nefarious to me. If we are as intelligent as they are, might we someday develop the ability to design life?
Regression of Causes
If the evidence demands we have an intelligent creator, then it probably demands our creator has an intelligent creator as well. And that that creator has an intelligent creator, ad infinitum. An infinite regression of prior causes is unpalatable to many people , so what is to be done?
Monday, June 30, 2008
The ID Movement
At this point this is a very rough and unfinished draft, but I appreciate anyone's thoughts...
What bothers me about intelligent design is not the theory itself but my perception of the culture that surrounds it. Specifically, intelligent design seems to be more a visceral and non-scientific rejection of evolutionary biology that a free-standing scientific theory. I think no one will deny that the ID movement began in response to the theory of evolution, and I would argue that without evolution to react against, the dishonesty of intelligent design as a "scientific" movement becomes apparent.
To makes this point, I would ask that you first consider the simplest possible intelligent design theory, which is the statement "An intelligent force had a hand in the development of life on earth." I claim that this position is not inherently in conflict with the theory of evolution as a theory intelligent design need not constraints on the methods or timeline employed by the creative force. ID proponents rarely speculate on these issues (the aspect of their culture which is most suspicious) but it is not difficult to imagine our creator using coincidence and evolution as his creative tools.
For example, perhaps millions of years ago the creator came to the young earth, dumped out some organic goo and zapped it with some lasers and electricity. Any intelligent designer would likely have an intellect and an understanding of biochemistry vastly in excess of ours, and could set initial conditions to guarantee development of complex life; from a carefully chosen starting point, the chance mutations that produce evolution might be statistical certainties to a more sophisticated intelligence. Taking a step even further back, the creator of the universe might have chosen its laws knowing they would allow the formation of life on Earth. Such a creator would only have to make the universe sufficiently large to make our occurrence a near certainty.
I would like you to consider the question: If ID and evolution are reconciled, what is left of ID as a scientific theory? It is with this question in mind that I ask you forgive my simplification of ID given above, which ignores the many arguments ID proponents give against the theory of evolution. I did so because I believe the answer to my question above is "Very Little" and that the proponents of ID themselves are not interested in what remains.
An important aspect of scientific culture is curiousity; if you solve a problem, you ask new questions and try to solve them. If we accept intelligent design as a scientific theory, there are a number of new questions that any curious person would ask. For example: Who is the intelligent designer? What methods did they use? What can we infer about them based on their creations? For what purpose did they create us? Who created them? How do we avoid an infinite regression of creators? My opinion is that in mainstream scientific culture, people would have begun to broach these questions 10-15 years ago, and it is telling that the ID community has not touched them.
What bothers me about intelligent design is not the theory itself but my perception of the culture that surrounds it. Specifically, intelligent design seems to be more a visceral and non-scientific rejection of evolutionary biology that a free-standing scientific theory. I think no one will deny that the ID movement began in response to the theory of evolution, and I would argue that without evolution to react against, the dishonesty of intelligent design as a "scientific" movement becomes apparent.
To makes this point, I would ask that you first consider the simplest possible intelligent design theory, which is the statement "An intelligent force had a hand in the development of life on earth." I claim that this position is not inherently in conflict with the theory of evolution as a theory intelligent design need not constraints on the methods or timeline employed by the creative force. ID proponents rarely speculate on these issues (the aspect of their culture which is most suspicious) but it is not difficult to imagine our creator using coincidence and evolution as his creative tools.
For example, perhaps millions of years ago the creator came to the young earth, dumped out some organic goo and zapped it with some lasers and electricity. Any intelligent designer would likely have an intellect and an understanding of biochemistry vastly in excess of ours, and could set initial conditions to guarantee development of complex life; from a carefully chosen starting point, the chance mutations that produce evolution might be statistical certainties to a more sophisticated intelligence. Taking a step even further back, the creator of the universe might have chosen its laws knowing they would allow the formation of life on Earth. Such a creator would only have to make the universe sufficiently large to make our occurrence a near certainty.
I would like you to consider the question: If ID and evolution are reconciled, what is left of ID as a scientific theory? It is with this question in mind that I ask you forgive my simplification of ID given above, which ignores the many arguments ID proponents give against the theory of evolution. I did so because I believe the answer to my question above is "Very Little" and that the proponents of ID themselves are not interested in what remains.
An important aspect of scientific culture is curiousity; if you solve a problem, you ask new questions and try to solve them. If we accept intelligent design as a scientific theory, there are a number of new questions that any curious person would ask. For example: Who is the intelligent designer? What methods did they use? What can we infer about them based on their creations? For what purpose did they create us? Who created them? How do we avoid an infinite regression of creators? My opinion is that in mainstream scientific culture, people would have begun to broach these questions 10-15 years ago, and it is telling that the ID community has not touched them.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Italics Added
Two weeks ago, one of Mr. Tsvangirai’s most senior aides, Tendai Biti, was arrested on treason charges carrying a potential death penalty but was freed Thursday on bail of a trillion Zimbabwe dollars, or about $90.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Intelligent Design
Lately, I have been reading a lot about intelligent design. There are a number of (flimsy) arguments in its favor I have seen repeated again and again, and that I feel compelled to respond to. I am always in favor of an intelligent debate, but the positions that follow range from subtly flawed to criminally ignorant, and the need to be retired from the sphere of publicly circulating ideas.
These first three begin on the criminally ignorant end, and I found them on the following website:
http://darwinconspiracy.com/
This webpage is a sponsored link on Google, and it is somewhat depressing that someone thought these arguments were worth paying to share. I will refute their 3 "Fatal Flaw"s one by one.
"Evolution is Missing a Mathematical Formula"
Last time I checked, there were a number of mathematical formulas associated with genetics, as well as a number of reputable scientific theories that are not mathematically formulated. This criticism could also be applied (even more) effectively to intelligent design, which not only lacks a mathematical formulation but is intrinsically incapable of acquiring one.
"Darwinian Evolution is missing a way to add genes"
First note that the above is a direct quote, and it annoys me that whoever wrote this garbage can't decide what proportion of the words in their titles they'd like to capitalize. This is also flat not true. Occasionally, people are even born with a partial or complete extra 21st chromosome (Down syndrome) and there are numerous less spectacular instances of mutation producing new genes.
"Helpless Babies Contradict 'Survival Of The Fittest'"
This argument works if you consider the phrase "Survival Of The Fittest" a complete and exhaustive summary of evolutionary biology, but that is not the case. If you expand that phrase just a bit to "Survival Of The Offspring Of Fit And Responsible Parents" this argument evaporates, and I think its definitely still within the sphere of what Darwin envisioned.
The next argument originates with William Paley, who was an English theologian in the 1800s. It is summarized here:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
Its a bit better, but it still has some serious flaws. Since I'm too lazy to make my links clickable, I'll summarize it here. The gist is that if you were out walking and you found a pocket watch, you wouldn' t think that the plants in the field had somehow generated it; because of its unusual and complex structure, you would have to attribute its construction to some external, intelligent power.
I think this is a pretty reasonable response to a watch in a field, but the analogy is flawed. Observing a sophisticated organism is not like finding a watch in a field, because the organism is not so alien from the other objects around it. A more appropriate analogy would be this: you enter a room full of a dizzying array of self repairing and self reproducing timepieces. Some are very complicated, some are not so complicated, and there seems to be a continuum of sophistication in between. Considering one watch in this room, it becomes a lot more reasonable to think its related to some of the less sophisticated watches. This is essentially the statement of the theory of evolution; it does not demand something from nothing, but that more sophisticated things develop from less sophisticated ones.
More to come...
These first three begin on the criminally ignorant end, and I found them on the following website:
http://darwinconspiracy.com/
This webpage is a sponsored link on Google, and it is somewhat depressing that someone thought these arguments were worth paying to share. I will refute their 3 "Fatal Flaw"s one by one.
"Evolution is Missing a Mathematical Formula"
Last time I checked, there were a number of mathematical formulas associated with genetics, as well as a number of reputable scientific theories that are not mathematically formulated. This criticism could also be applied (even more) effectively to intelligent design, which not only lacks a mathematical formulation but is intrinsically incapable of acquiring one.
"Darwinian Evolution is missing a way to add genes"
First note that the above is a direct quote, and it annoys me that whoever wrote this garbage can't decide what proportion of the words in their titles they'd like to capitalize. This is also flat not true. Occasionally, people are even born with a partial or complete extra 21st chromosome (Down syndrome) and there are numerous less spectacular instances of mutation producing new genes.
"Helpless Babies Contradict 'Survival Of The Fittest'"
This argument works if you consider the phrase "Survival Of The Fittest" a complete and exhaustive summary of evolutionary biology, but that is not the case. If you expand that phrase just a bit to "Survival Of The Offspring Of Fit And Responsible Parents" this argument evaporates, and I think its definitely still within the sphere of what Darwin envisioned.
The next argument originates with William Paley, who was an English theologian in the 1800s. It is summarized here:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
Its a bit better, but it still has some serious flaws. Since I'm too lazy to make my links clickable, I'll summarize it here. The gist is that if you were out walking and you found a pocket watch, you wouldn' t think that the plants in the field had somehow generated it; because of its unusual and complex structure, you would have to attribute its construction to some external, intelligent power.
I think this is a pretty reasonable response to a watch in a field, but the analogy is flawed. Observing a sophisticated organism is not like finding a watch in a field, because the organism is not so alien from the other objects around it. A more appropriate analogy would be this: you enter a room full of a dizzying array of self repairing and self reproducing timepieces. Some are very complicated, some are not so complicated, and there seems to be a continuum of sophistication in between. Considering one watch in this room, it becomes a lot more reasonable to think its related to some of the less sophisticated watches. This is essentially the statement of the theory of evolution; it does not demand something from nothing, but that more sophisticated things develop from less sophisticated ones.
More to come...
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A Canticle for Liebowitz
This kind of reminds me of 'A Canticle for Liebowitz', for those of you who have read it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/world/middleeast/01babylon.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/world/middleeast/01babylon.html?hp
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