Can ID be disproven?

[Meadmaker]

.... which makes it totally and completely distinguishable from ID, because ID relies upon the existence of hopeful monsters.

This is a straw-man. Evolutionary theory does not predict that "highly complex structure whose component parts do not (currently) serve an indendent function, can evolve." ... We've seen this in the development of the lung (from a swim bladder), which is obviously more useful to a land animal.

....
In either case, "proving a negative" is notoriously difficult in science.

ID does not depend on hopeful monsters. Where on Earth does that idea come from?

As for the next part, I meant exactly what I said. Evolution does predict that highly complex structures (i.e blood clotting mechanisms) whose component systems (all of the proteins) do not currently serve an independent function (the only thing they do is blood clotting. Without the rest of the blood clotting stuff, they are currently useless.)

ID says that since they don't serve any purpose unless they are all put together, and they couldn't come together randomly, they must have been designed. Evolution says that they don't serve any purpose now except blood clotting, but they developed to serve a different function, and then were pressed into service as blood clotters.

Do you think it is demonstrated that lungs evolved from swim bladders?

It seems perfectly reasonable to me, but "demonstrated"? How would you perform that demonstration without resort to circular reasoning. (i.e. Evolution explains all structures. Therefore lungs evolved from something similar. Swim bladders are the only similar structure. Therefore lungs evolved from swim bladders.)

ID, in order to be proven, is the one that has to prove a negative (and it has nothing to do with hopeful monsters). They have to prove that no apparently irreducibly complex structure has ever evolved. While it is very difficult to prove a negative, it is trivial to disprove a negative. Show that one has.

Do you think you have done that? Without circular reasoning?

 

[PatKelley]

[snop]
ID, in order to be proven, is the one that has to prove a negative (and it has nothing to do with hopeful monsters). They have to prove that no apparently irreducibly complex structure has ever evolved. While it is very difficult to prove a negative, it is trivial to disprove a negative. Show that one has.

Wow. So, by that logic, Phlogiston is a viable theory because it has to prove that the Physics of the universe does not operate the same everywhere.

Nope, don't buy it. To be a hypothesis verging on theory, it has to provide a property that is falsifiable.

For evolution, one had to show that only the germ line was heritable and any changes in the somatic cells would not carry over to the next generation. Then a mechanism was proposed and rules established (Gregor Mendel) indicating there were pairs of alleles in germ lines. Then we discover chromosomes in the middle of the cells, and suspect that these pairings look like the structures we were attempting to identify.

DNA is only about forty-five years old, remember - Darwin had no mechanism or rules when he proposed On the Origin of Species.

Now, ID has to propose a falsifiable mechanism. Say, involving extinction and the rate now versus the past, and wherefrom, therefore, new species may arise. It proposes that species appear full flower; it remains to be shown how this is the case. An absence of other life would satisfy this requirement, leaving a giant sterile spot for new life to arise.

 

[drkitten]

ID does not depend on hopeful monsters. Where on Earth does that idea come from?

Michael Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and the Discovery Institute.

What is an irreducibly complex structure if not a hopeful monster?

For further references, I refer you to their published works.

As for the next part, I meant exactly what I said. Evolution does predict that highly complex structures (i.e blood clotting mechanisms) whose component systems (all of the proteins) do not currently serve an independent function (the only thing they do is blood clotting. Without the rest of the blood clotting stuff, they are currently useless.)

Then you've thought about it even more superficially than Behe has, because he's admitted in writing (Response to My Critics, inter alii) that a past function can be co-opted and converted to a present function without qualifying as "irreducibly complex."

ID, in order to be proven, is the one that has to prove a negative (and it has nothing to do with hopeful monsters). They have to prove that no apparently irreducibly complex structure has ever evolved.

It's much worse than that. They have to prove that no irreducibly complex structure could ever have evolved. And that one exists in the first place, which is the real bugger, because they don't.

While it is very difficult to prove a negative, it is trivial to disprove a negative. Show that one has.

You realize that you're asking me to prove that no fairy has green wings. If there are no fairies, then there are no green-winged fairies. But before I can take your request seriously, show me a fairy, with wings of any color.

Neither Behe nor anyone else has been able to demonstrate the existence of these chimerae. Speculating about the origins of mythical beasts is a waste of time.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Before you teach evolution, do you have to demonstrate that at least one biological object has evolved? Good luck.

Yes, and if you think that hasn't been done, you're not paying attention or you're being thick on purpose. We have a definition of evolution and we have gobs of evidence that it happens.

Anyway, evolution is not the parallel to irreducible complexity, which is what I was talking about. This is the parallel to irreducible complexity:

The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.

Now deduce me some irreducible complexity from premises that we can agree on.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As for the next part, I meant exactly what I said. Evolution does predict that highly complex structures (i.e blood clotting mechanisms) whose component systems (all of the proteins) do not currently serve an independent function (the only thing they do is blood clotting. Without the rest of the blood clotting stuff, they are currently useless.)

Now would that be useless without one component, or two, or how many exactly?

It's not one, because dolphins have one fewer level in the clotting cascade than humans (factor XII).

So is it two?

I'll stipulate that if you remove enough of the blood clotting cascade, blood won't clot.

~~ Paul

 

[drkitten]

It seems perfectly reasonable to me, but "demonstrated"? How would you perform that demonstration without resort to circular reasoning. (i.e. Evolution explains all structures. Therefore lungs evolved from something similar. Swim bladders are the only similar structure. Therefore lungs evolved from swim bladders.)

Well, if you can show a chain of intermediate in the fossil record (which in the case of the swim bladder to lung transition, paleontologists can), then that's good evidence supporting the suggested chain. It's also possible to demonstrate current intermediate forms and project them back, but that's obviously less conclusive.

However, if you want really convincing evidence from modern species, look at the genes and look at the embryology. The early process of embryological development is pretty much the same for all chordates, so you can look and see which organs develop out of the same proto-structures. In the case of lungs/swim bladders, embryologists can also point to the same set of cells that start to develop identically in fishes and in land animals, but then diverge. In fishes, these cells turn into swim bladders. In land animals, the same cells develop and then turn into lungs. If you have an explanation for the common development that doesn't also involve common ancestry -- and given the fact that Devonian fishes already had swim bladders, but lungs hadn't been invented yet, doesn't also involve an evolutionary transformation of swim bladders to lungs, I'd be interested to hear it.

So would Richard Dawkins and the editors of Nature. Because a convincing alternative hypothesis would be a major scientific development.

(Oh, and then you're going to need to explain the similarly in gene expression. But you already knew that, didn't you?)

 

[Meadmaker]

Michael Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and the Discovery Institute.

What is an irreducibly complex structure if not a hopeful monster?

There are two different sorts of beliefs in ID. One says that species were created in the same form that they take today, fish with fins, birds with feathers, mammals with blood clotting systems, etc. In that form of belief, the sudden radical changes that appear would be superficially similar to the sudden radical changes predicted by the hopeful moster theory. However, they are not hopeful monsters because they are not "hopeful" or "monstrous" in any sense of the word. They were created by an omniscient god to be exactly like the way they were.

There's a different form of ID, which allows a gradual transition under the guiding hand of God. I have talked about it as ID by means of theistic evolution, or simply as guided evolution. There, there is no sudden transition, as there would be in the "hopeful monster" theory. And, as before, the small mutations again would be hand picked by an omniscient god.

You realize that you're asking me to prove that no fairy has green wings.

Absolutely not. It has been asserted that blood clotting is an irreducibly complex system. Why does the ID crowd assert its irreducible complexity? Because it is a system with two properties. First, the individual pieces do not do anything useful. Second, there are enough pieces that it couldn't have come about by chance.

All you have to do is prove that at least one system just as complicated and just as useful as blood clotting has come about by means of natural selection, and you have disproven the only marginally scientific aspect of ID.

But you can't do it. You can't do it becase evolution takes a very long time, and you don't have the money to do it.

If, on the other hand, you start from the premise that there are no such things as miracles, even at the level of DNA molecules, then unguided evolution is the only answer, and you can declare it proven.

I don't have a problem with that premise, but it isn't science. It's philosophy.

 

[Meadmaker]

Nope, don't buy it. To be a hypothesis verging on theory, it has to provide a property that is falsifiable.

And it does so. It asserts that complex structures whose individual components serve no useful purpose cannot come about through the means of random mutation and natural selection. Discover a new structure that can be shown to have come about that way, and ID is falsified.

 

[Meadmaker]

Now would that be useless without one component, or two, or how many exactly?

Actually, all you have to do is show that there are some components that are necessary, but which serve no useful purpose by themselves. The fact that there are other components present isn't very significant. They might be analogous to the jewels in the watch on found on the beach.

 

[Tricky]

And it does so. It asserts that complex structures whose individual components serve no useful purpose cannot come about through the means of random mutation and natural selection. Discover a new structure that can be shown to have come about that way, and ID is falsified.

There are countless millions. They're happening even as you speak. A specific immunity to medicines (useful to viruses and other pathogens) is a structure that comes about as the result of mutation and natural selection. ID is falsified.

 

[Meadmaker]

People may have opinions on things, but evolution BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION is not an opinion.

If you follow threads that I participate in, you'll find that I'm an atheist (sometimes I say a pantheist), but one who has respect for religion, and who objects to assertions that religious belief is foolish, stupid, naive, or any of the other disdainful adjectives sometimes heaped upon that belief.

It is difficult for some people here to grasp it, but there are extremely intelligent, thoughtful, scientists who, despite both their knowledge and education, still believe in God. Or even in Christianity.

Now, as to your post, I almost agree. However, I would dispute it depending on what you mean by "natural selection". If you assert that natural selection is and must be a purely random process with no intervention by God or other non-material forces, then that is an opinion. It is not provable.

Then, if you allow the possibility of divine intervention in the process, you have to decide whether it is a necessary part of the process. In that case, it is possible to prove that it could come about without divine intervention, but how would you conduct the experiment to demonstrate that it actually does happen?

 

[Meadmaker]

There are countless millions. They're happening even as you speak. A specific immunity to medicines (useful to viruses and other pathogens) is a structure that comes about as the result of mutation and natural selection. ID is falsified.

Sorry, but no dice. It's similar to that nylon eating bacteria. It's an adaptation of what is already present to the specific stimulus in the environment.

ETA: Perhaps I was hasty in that explanation. I'll have to give it some thought. Anyone know what real ID people would say to this?

 

[Tricky]

Sorry, but no dice. It's similar to that nylon eating bacteria. It's an adaptation of what is already present to the specific stimulus in the environment.

We can show that mutations have occurred. We can show (easily) that selective pressure has been applied. We can show that the pathogens have adapted to heretofore unknown and in fact non-existant drugs.

Exactly what kind of evidence are you looking for?

Now, as to your post, I almost agree. However, I would dispute it depending on what you mean by "natural selection". If you assert that natural selection is and must be a purely random process with no intervention by God or other non-material forces, then that is an opinion. It is not provable.

Well gee whillikers! God is not provable. In fact, He is unevidenced. Yes, it is possible to postulate hidden and undiscoverable causes, but so what? What does it add? You can postulate any unfalsifiable cause, but it doesn't make it believable. Natural selection and mutation have been shown to be adequate to explain evolution. Why does anyone want to add extra, unprovable layers?

 

[davefoc]

Tricky, I think you are singing to the choir here.

Tricky wrote:

What does it add? You can postulate any unfalsifiable cause, but it doesn't make it believable. Natural selection and mutation have been shown to be adequate to explain evolution. Why does anyone want to add extra, unprovable layers?

I suspect everybody that has posted to this thread has had a similar thought. I wonder if there isn't some sort of major divide in the personalities of humans. For me and I think most of the people that have posted, the idea that God did it is a completely unsatisfying answer. Where did God come from? What was there before God? If God wanted to be worshipped why doesn't God just come out and make some clear cut sign like maybe getting hurricanes to bypass the churches or something? etc. etc.

As a lifelong non-believer I have never understood the part of the human psyche that believes in God based on essentially non-existant evidence.

But I still am uncomfortable with disabusing people of their religious ideas especially when the public schools are involved. I think what Meadmaker has been pushing is the idea that some sort of a compromise that gives believers some sort of recognition while still limiting the bulk of a biology course to mainstream science might be beneficial.

I guess the main argument against what he has been suggesting is that the slippery slope argument and putting a little pseudoscience into the text books this year will lead to more the next. I realize that isn't all he has said and that he has made some other substantive assertions that there has been some disagreement over on the specifics.

I frankly don't know what I think about all this. It would be nice to get across the idea that it appears that perfect knowledge about any of this is impossible but there is a distinction between mainstream science which is based on experiment, analysis and falsifiable ideas whereas ideas like ID do not appear to make predictions which are specific enough to lend themselves to being falsified nor does it make predicitions which have practical non-religious purposes.

 

[drkitten]

However, they are not hopeful monsters because they are not "hopeful" or "monstrous" in any sense of the word. They were created by an omniscient god to be exactly like the way they were.

Which means that they are the "hopeful monsters" under the definition of the word; I'm sorry if you don't like the metaphor that was picked -- but there's no more implication that a "hopeful monster" must be "monstrous" than there is that a lightning bug must contain high voltage electricity.

There's a different form of ID, which allows a gradual transition under the guiding hand of God. I have talked about it as ID by means of theistic evolution, or simply as guided evolution. There, there is no sudden transition, as there would be in the "hopeful monster" theory. And, as before, the small mutations again would be hand picked by an omniscient god.

The whole point of the ID theory is that "small mutations" won't get you there. This version of gradualism is incompatible with ID!

Absolutely not. It has been asserted that blood clotting is an irreducibly complex system.

It has been wrongly asserted, yes.

Why does the ID crowd assert its irreducible complexity?

Because they are unfamiliar with the literature that has been around for twenty years.

All you have to do is prove that at least one system just as complicated and just as useful as blood clotting has come about by means of natural selection,

Which has been done, for the blood clotting system itself.

We have the evolutionary precursers (such as the dolphins system, which is "reducibly complex" from humans, and the puffer fish, which is less complex even than the dolphins). We have the structural analogies in other proteins in other systems which have been co-opted, and we have the gene sequences themselves to show where and how the mutations occurred to create the modern blood clotting sequence.

This isn't mathematical "proof," but it's certainly better evidence than the competition. The basic premise of the "irreducible complexity" argument is empirically wrong, both since subsystems of the blood clotting complex can be shown to have the same function (see puffer fish), and because the individual proteins themselves are useful in other contexts. So given a choice between a theory with empirical support and a theory that relies on factual misstatements to make its basic case, I go with evolution.

you have disproven the only marginally scientific aspect of ID.

Which is exactly why ID is not even marginally scientific.

 

[sphenisc]

The whole point of the ID theory is that "small mutations" won't get you there. This version of gradualism is incompatible with ID!

Discovery Institute:
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Nothing in that about ""small mutations" won't get you there. "

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Absolutely not. It has been asserted that blood clotting is an irreducibly complex system. Why does the ID crowd assert its irreducible complexity? Because it is a system with two properties. First, the individual pieces do not do anything useful. Second, there are enough pieces that it couldn't have come about by chance.

That is not the definition of irreducible complexity! Can't we at least try to agree on the current definition, even though it will change in a few months? IC says nothing about what the individual pieces do. It talks about the existing mechanism with one or more pieces removed.

Actually, all you have to do is show that there are some components that are necessary, but which serve no useful purpose by themselves. The fact that there are other components present isn't very significant. They might be analogous to the jewels in the watch on found on the beach.

No, that's not what you have to show.

Here is Dembski's recent paper:

http://www.iscid.org/papers/Dembski_IrreducibleComplexityRevisited_011404.pdf

In it Dembski says:

For an irreducibly complex system, each of the parts of the
irreducible core plays an indispensable role in achieving the system’s basic
function. Thus, removing parts, even a single part, from the irreducible
core results in complete loss of the system’s basic function. Nevertheless,
to determine whether a system is irreducibly complex, it is not enough
simply to identify those parts whose removal renders the basic function
unrecoverable from the remaining parts. To be sure, identifying such
indispensable parts is an important step for determining irreducible
complexity in practice. But it is not sufficient. Additionally, we need to
establish that no simpler system achieves the same basic function.

So first we have an irreducible core. That implies that there are some parts that can be removed without a problem. If we remove a part of the core, we lose the "system's basic function." No longer does it say that we lose all function. Finally, the coupe de grace: We have to investigate all possible naturalistically formed mechanisms to see if any of them can serve the same function. If so, the mechanism is not IC.

Blam! IC is done, gone, dead, and buried.

~~ Paul

 

[Meadmaker]

Which means that they are the "hopeful monsters" under the definition of the word; I'm sorry if you don't like the metaphor that was picked -- but there's no more implication that a "hopeful monster" must be "monstrous" ...

But it must be "hopeful". For the creationist version of ID, there isn't anything "hopeful". God didn't "hope" that fish could swim.

Which has been done, for the blood clotting system itself.

If you assert that all systems have a naturalist cause, then the blood clotting mechanism has a naturalist cause. Q.E.D. But it's circular reasoning. Your explanation is a very good explanation of why evolution is a very good naturalistic explanation for observed phenomena in the fossil record, genomic evidence, embryology, and comparative anatomy of living creatures. It ties them all together quite nicely.

However, there are two things that it doesn't do. It doesn't prove that it actually happened, because we weren't there to see it happen, and it doesn't prove that it could have happened without divine intervention.

If you want to prove that it happens, you have to make it happen. Good luck. I sincerely wish you well. But until then, when someone asserts that it can't happen, you haven't won your case until you have proved, by demonstration, that it can happen.

 

[Meadmaker]

No, that's not what you have to show.

Here is Dembski's recent paper:

http://www.iscid.org/papers/Dembski_IrreducibleComplexityRevisited_011404.pdf

Behe doesn't agree with everything Dembski says, any more than Gould agrees with everything Dawkins says, but your point is well taken. Fine, we can use your, and Dembski's definition. So all we have to do is show that there is a system which doesn't function if you remove one of its components, regardless of whether or not those components have some other function by themselves.

Dembski
Additionally, we need to
establish that no simpler system achieves the same basic function.

Paul
So first we have an irreducible core. That implies that there are some parts that can be removed without a problem. If we remove a part of the core, we lose the "system's basic function." No longer does it say that we lose all function. Finally, the coupe de grace: We have to investigate all possible naturalistically formed mechanisms to see if any of them can serve the same function.

I think you are misrepresenting Dembski in the "coup de grace". I don't think he is saying that every naturalistic mechanism in every organism has to be investigated. I think he is saying that the function that is performed by that system is necessary for that organism. In other words, redundant systems are not irreducibly complex, because you can "reduce" them somewhat without them losing their function.

But I will read the paper sometime this weekend.

Blam! IC is done, gone, dead, and buried.

I don't follow. How does your argument do any harm at all to ID?

Are you saying that a human blood clotting system is not irreducibly complex because puffer fish also have a simpler blood clotting system?


DaveFoc,
Quite correct, again.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think you are misrepresenting Dembski in the "coup de grace". I don't think he is saying that every naturalistic mechanism in every organism has to be investigated. I think he is saying that the function that is performed by that system is necessary for that organism. In other words, redundant systems are not irreducibly complex, because you can "reduce" them somewhat without them losing their function.

That's now how I'd interpret what he said:

To be sure, identifying such
indispensable parts is an important step for determining irreducible
complexity in practice. But it is not sufficient. Additionally, we need to
establish that no simpler system achieves the same basic function.

You need to check every possible biological mechanism, because it is possible that such a mechanism is exactly what evolved into the one under consideration.

I don't follow. How does your argument do any harm at all to ID?

It's not my argument that does the harm, but Dembski's. Since it is impossible to enumerate all possible biological mechanisms, it is not possible to perform the last step in his paragraph. Thus, nothing can be shown to be IC.

Are you saying that a human blood clotting system is not irreducibly complex because puffer fish also have a simpler blood clotting system?

Correct. Perhaps the human blood clotting system evolved from the puffer fish's. It makes no difference whether it really did, as long as it could have.

Come on, it's clear that the human blood clotting system evolved by successive replications of the same few genes.

~~ Paul