Can ID be disproven?

[Meadmaker]

With the Pennsylvania case, ID has been on my mind recently.

I have a couple of issues to deal with. As a liberal, I think people should be free to teach things. I don't like the government stepping in and saying that only one sort of thing ought to be taught.

On the other hand, when it comes to things that are demonstrably false, those things shouldn't be taught in schools. We don't teach that the Earth is flat, because it isn't. We do teach that people went to the moon, because they did. Just because a few wackos might not believe those things doesn't mean we shouldn't teach them as true. They are true. Almost everyone agrees they are true. Teach them.

When it comes to evolution, it's true. Teach it. Well....is it true?

We can't demonstrate it. Maybe a tiny bit, like with modifications in flu viruses or yeast strains. But really, we haven't seen it. It seems like it ought to be true, based on what we know about DNA and biology, and confirmation in the fossil record. So, that's good enough for me. Teach it, I say.

But what about ID? I was reading Behe's testimony from the PA case. All he is saying is that certain things look like they have a purpose, and if they have a purpose, then they were made. It's the old watch and the watchmaker argument. If you find a watch, you assume there was a watchmaker.

At its core, all ID says is that life is too complex to have evolved without purpose. I would like to dismiss that, but I find that I can't.

In a thread over in the politics forum, I was directed to a discussion about bacterial flagella. Basically, the ID argument is that these things are extremely complex, and they couldn't have just happened without some sort of intelligent designer. There are two flavors of the argument. One is that the complexity itself is just too much that it could never happen at all. The other is that the complexity is such that it could not happen in one step, and the intermediate forms would not provide a survival advantage to the organism, and hence they would be weeded out before the finished product was ever assembled.

The evolutionary biologists put forward a chain of events which would ultimately lead to flagella, and had many steps, and provided benefits to the organism at each step. So, has ID been disproved by that argument? I am referring to even the simple case of bacterial flagella. Never mind the next argument, about blood clotting, or levers, or whatever. I am just asking if ID is still a candidate for construction of bacterial flagella.

I don't think, based on that argument, that ID has been refuted. Basically, the evolutionist would say that this sequence of steps would lead to bacterial flagella. There's no problem. The IDer, however, could reply that each of those steps is highly improbable. The entire sequence is therefore incredibly highly improbable. With such a high degree of improbability, would it not be reasonable to say that a designer was involved.

The only way to reject ID in that case would be to somehow compute the probability of such a sequence occurring by chance, so that at each stage of the evolution, an organism would exist that had an reproductive advantage over its unmutated cousins. I don't know how to do that. Can it be done? If not, it seems to me that ID is still in the game as an unconfirmed hypothesis.

Furthermore, I thought back to my days as a Christian. Back then, I believed that evolution occurred, but that it was driven by God. God chose just the right time to introduce the necessary mutation to drive the evolution to where He wanted it to go. It occurred to me that that was in fact a form of intelligent design. The tools of the watchmaker were just natural selection and "random" mutations.

I stopped being a Christian a couple of decades ago, but it was for theological reasons, not scientific ones. I don't see anything in Christianity outside of Biblical literalism that is incompatible with what is known by modern science. In other words, I don't see any inherent contradiction between ID and evolution. Both could be true. However, for ID to cross the threshold from a philosophical position to a scientific one, you would have to show that there is something that cannot be explained by purposeless evolution. It could only be explained by purposeful evolution, which would be another form of Intelligent Design.

And then we are back to probabilities. Could life as we know it come about by purposeless evolution, or would the guiding hand of a "designer" be necessary. Since we can't calculate the probabilities, I don't see how to completely reject intelligent design as a possibly valid hypothesis. I don't believe it, but I don't know if I can reject it in scientific terms.

So help me out here. Try to understand the dilemma, and see if it can be resolved. Basically, I am saying that our present state of knowledge cannot reject ID as a valid hypothesis. What are your thoughts?

 

[wollery]

ID of the goddidit variety can never be disproven because any disparity can always be covered with "Well that's the way God wanted it."

That's why it isn't science and has no place in the science classroom. I have no problem with it being taught in a religious studies class.

 

[Roboramma]

One thing that I think we should remember is that even if evolutionary processes as we know them couldn't produce some particular adaptation, it still wouldn't show ID.

For instance, there was a time when we couldn't explain how social insects evolved. I think there were problems understanding the sex ratio. Evolutionary theory didn't have any answers. Well, kin selection solved that riddle.
(I think the above is true)
Its possible that there are other mechanisms at work than natural selection, genetic drift, etc, that we don't yet know about.

If there were something that we could prove couldn't come about by evolution as we now know it, that wouldn't itself be proof of ID, any more than the blackbody problem was proof that God was keeping things from getting too hot (please correct any flawed understanding of the blackbody problem to 19th century physics).

If someone really did prove that certain things in nature could not have evolved as the theory of evolution suggests that they did, I'd be excited. It would lead to a better understanding of the world.
But right now, because the theory of evolution is so well supported, any such evidence would have to be extraordinary. Not the "Well, I can't see how this could have evolved." Sort.

And if such evidence did present itself, well, it would mean there was some other mechanism at play. ID is one option for that. At that point, maybe there would be reason to look more at ID. But even then it wouldn't be a good reason to teach it in school, until there was actual evidence for ID, rather than again our current understanding of evolution.

Oh, and to answer the thread title, no, I don't think ID can be falsified. But until we have any need for it to explain anything, I don't think there's any reason to try.

 

[Iacchus]

Nothing can be disproven, outside of the environment of what we "think." So, the key to answering the riddle of existence itself, is consciousness. If, in fact consciousness were a continuum, and the very foundation for all that exists -- indeed, how can consciousness be aware of anything else but, consciousness? -- I think we may have the answer as to whether the Universe was intelligently designed or not.

 

[Tricky]

ID can never be scientifically disproven because it is not scientific. It makes no testable hypotheses, offers no mechanisms, answers no questions. The only reason ID is popular is because it casts doubt on evolution, but without offering anything other than "Goddidit".

 

[Iacchus]

ID can never be scientifically disproven because it is not scientific. It makes no testable hypotheses, offers no mechanisms, answers no questions. The only reason ID is popular is because it casts doubt on evolution, but without offering anything other than "Goddidit".

In other words we only have what "appears" to be evolution.

 

[Beth]

ID can never be scientifically disproven because it is not scientific. It makes no testable hypotheses, offers no mechanisms, answers no questions. The only reason ID is popular is because it casts doubt on evolution, but without offering anything other than "Goddidit".

You know, I don't think that's necessarily true - the reason you proposed that ID is popular that is, not the unfalsifiablity part. I think ID is popular not because it casts doubt on evolution but because it brings the concept of a creator into science. There are an awful lot of people who don't accept biblical literalism and do accept evolution, but prefer to believe that God directed evolution. I think ID appeals to them too.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

We can't demonstrate it. Maybe a tiny bit, like with modifications in flu viruses or yeast strains. But really, we haven't seen it. It seems like it ought to be true, based on what we know about DNA and biology, and confirmation in the fossil record. So, that's good enough for me. Teach it, I say.

You're being too wishy-washy. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. If you think the fossil record is good, check out the genomic record.

~~ Paul

 

[Tricky]

You know, I don't think that's necessarily true - the reason you proposed that ID is popular that is, not the unfalsifiablity part. I think ID is popular not because it casts doubt on evolution but because it brings the concept of a creator into science. There are an awful lot of people who don't accept biblical literalism and do accept evolution, but prefer to believe that God directed evolution. I think ID appeals to them too.

You are correct that many people who belive that evolution is real also believe that it is directed. But at some level, they have to deny the evolutionary process in favor of Goddidit, whether it is in setting up the selective pressures that "guide" evolution or in directing specific mutations. It is a way of having their cake and eating it too.

But I don't believe that many of these people are among the crowds clamoring to have ID taught in school. Most "religious evolutionists" realize that just saying "God is behind it" is not enough to build a curriculum on. People like Behe and Dembrewski (sp?) are narrowly focussed on disproving evolution, not in providing testable alternate hypotheses.

 

[Tricky]

In other words we only have what "appears" to be evolution.

In other words, you are incapable of reading and understanding plain English. Please don't put words in my mouth, especially when they are nothing but your own idiotic musings.

 

[Meadmaker]

You are correct that many people who belive that evolution is real also believe that it is directed. But at some level, they have to deny the evolutionary process in favor of Goddidit, whether it is in setting up the selective pressures that "guide" evolution or in directing specific mutations. It is a way of having their cake and eating it too.

This is true, sort of. It depends on what constitutes "the evolutionary process" If the evolutionary process is strictly considered to be the mechanism of evolution, such as natural selection, DNA mutation, that sort of thing, then they don't have to deny anything about the evolutionary process.

If, on the other hand, purposelessness is an inherent part of the evolutionary process, then they deny it.

And that is where I am having trouble saying what is and is not scientific. It seems to me that the mechanism of evolution is pretty well established. Every respectable scientist buys into it. However, the next question is whether there is evidence of purpose or purposelessness in the process of evolution.

Some people would say that this is an entirely philosophical question, outside the realm of science. But is it?

If we found a real watch, we would indeed say that there was a watchmaker. Watches don't assemble themselves. So the question is whether bacteria are like watches. What is the probability that random bits of carbon and stuff, subjected to an environment that allows selection pressure to eliminate the unstable bits, will assemble themselves in a billion years into bacterial flagella?

To me, that seems like a valid scientific question. It strikes me as testable, although it is rather impractical to run the test exactly as expressed. And if that is the case, do the supporters of ID have a point? Is ID a valid scientific hypothesis, testable but currently untested? If not, why not?

 

[Iacchus]

You are correct that many people who belive that evolution is real also believe that it is directed. But at some level, they have to deny the evolutionary process in favor of Goddidit, whether it is in setting up the selective pressures that "guide" evolution or in directing specific mutations. It is a way of having their cake and eating it too.

The important thing here is that we don't accept things blindly, correct? While admittedly, I think if people understood that there was a hand in fashioning it, people may begin to loose interest towards science and clamor more towards religious studies. Then of course we would have many in the scientific community complaining, "There goes our beloved objectivity." So what? Or, maybe it's possible for Science and Religion to truly augment each other? ... Who knows?

 

[triadboy]

There are an awful lot of people who don't accept biblical literalism and do accept evolution, but prefer to believe that God directed evolution. I think ID appeals to them too.

God of the Gaps

 

[triadboy]

ID should be taught in Comparative Mythology classes

 

[Iacchus]

In other words, you are incapable of reading and understanding plain English. Please don't put words in my mouth, especially when they are nothing but your own idiotic musings.

Oh, excuse me, I thought that's what this forum was all about, putting words into other people's mouths. What, did I get off on the wrong turnpike somewhere? By the way, did you know that the earth "appears" to be flat? And really, what difference should it make anyway, when some of us are perfectly "content" with our little "pet theories?" This, by the way, is all that I hear coming from you.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

To me, that seems like a valid scientific question. It strikes me as testable, although it is rather impractical to run the test exactly as expressed. And if that is the case, do the supporters of ID have a point? Is ID a valid scientific hypothesis, testable but currently untested? If not, why not?

First, let's nail down the hypothesis. There is no empirical hypothesis "god did it" in Intelligent Design. The hypothesis is a logical one, instead: The flagellum is too improbable to have formed naturalistically. Then a conclusion is derived: So there must have been intelligence involved. This is a false dichotomy unless you can convince me that there really are only two possibilities.

Now, concerning the hypothesis: Has anyone given a logical proof that the flagellum could not have evolved? No. Dembski has shown that it is unlikely that it could have formed as a discrete combinatorial object, but no one in biology has ever suggested that's how it formed. He needs to show that it is unlikely to have formed by an evolutionary process. But he cannot do that without understanding the evolutionary process, which is the very thing he denies. He's caught between a rock and a hard place. Furthermore, Schneider has run evolutionary simulations that evolve a structure whose a priori probability is less than 10^150, Dembski's arbitrary universal probability bound:

http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/horserace.html

~~ Paul

 

[Roboramma]

double post!

 

[Roboramma]

This is true, sort of. It depends on what constitutes "the evolutionary process" If the evolutionary process is strictly considered to be the mechanism of evolution, such as natural selection, DNA mutation, that sort of thing, then they don't have to deny anything about the evolutionary process.

If, on the other hand, purposelessness is an inherent part of the evolutionary process, then they deny it.

The evolutionary process doesn't have any purpose. If you want to add in other processes that do have some "purpose" (and I'm not even sure what that would mean), then fine, but evolution as it is described by science does not.
Now you can go ahead and say, "yeah, but maybe it was all planned out from the beginning." And you are free to do so, and I won't argue against that. But that addition isn't scientific because there is no evidence to support it.
That doesn't mean evolution says there is no god, or that there is no purpose, just that the process of evolution as we understand it has none.

And that is where I am having trouble saying what is and is not scientific. It seems to me that the mechanism of evolution is pretty well established. Every respectable scientist buys into it. However, the next question is whether there is evidence of purpose or purposelessness in the process of evolution.

Except the 'evidence of purposelessness' part. To say that evolution as we understand it has no purpose is that same as saying that when you roll a die there is no particular reason that you can attribute to it's coming up as a certain number(no this does not suggest that natural selection is random). Now you could say that God made it come up that way, and I can't go against that, but I still don't posit any purpose in the die throw any more than in evolution.

And just to get away from the "natural selection is random" straw-man (this isn't directed at you, by the way, meadmaker), this analogy holds because evolution is contingent upon circumstances which have nothing to do with purpose, just like the die throw, not because they are both random.

Evolution itself does not posit any purpose. We see no mechanism in it that has purpose. So any suggestion of purpose must come from outside of the theory.

Some people would say that this is an entirely philosophical question, outside the realm of science. But is it?

Actually, i agree that it isn't necessarily outside the realm of science. It's possible for there to be evidence of purpose in evolution. There just hasn't been any yet (that I know of).

If we found a real watch, we would indeed say that there was a watchmaker. Watches don't assemble themselves. So the question is whether bacteria are like watches. What is the probability that random bits of carbon and stuff, subjected to an environment that allows selection pressure to eliminate the unstable bits, will assemble themselves in a billion years into bacterial flagella?

Remember that the theory of evolution is an explanation of how life evolved not how it came to exist in the first place.
So, we're not just talking about random bits of carbon, but reproducing organisms.

Also, the argument from design only applies to watches because we already know watches are designed! I've seen someone put one together. I know that people make the parts. Given that knowledge, when I see a watch, it's correct to assume that it was designed.
Organisms are put together by other organisms (their parents) we just need to understand how one organism could lead to another that is very different from itself, why those organisms are so well adapted to their environments, and similar questions. And evolution answers these.

Here's the gist to me. Evolution explains the facts that we know very well. There are some gaps in our knowledge, but that's all they are. This doesn't mean that evolution can't explain them, just that we haven't yet found out. Does that mean that evolution can? No. But it means that those gaps say nothing one way or the other.
ID needs some actual evidence.
And a real theory might help too. Like for instance suggesting something specific that it predicts which is different from the predictions of evolution.

 

[Iacchus]

Actually, i agree that it isn't necessarily outside the realm of science. It's possible for there to be evidence of purpose in evolution. There just hasn't been any yet (that I know of).

Notwithstanding that people "seem" to be endowed with a sense of purpose.

 

[Roboramma]

Notwithstanding that people "seem" to be endowed with a sense of purpose.

So because people think they have a purpose, they do?