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Intelligent design's predictions

cyborg said:
There are numerous "correct" models that can be used. mijo doesn't seem to like this but it's an artefact of what it means "to model".
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So would you care to explain why there have 85 years if research on modeling evolution as a stochastic process if "it's an artefact [sic] of what it means 'to model'"?

Again, whether or not evolution by natural selection is random seems to depend on what one chooses as ones initial conditions. If one chooses just the genes in the phenotype (which can be known with absolute certainty), evolution by natural selection is random because, as has been stated before, individuals of the same phenotype do not all share the same "fate". If one chooses just the genes in the phenotype (which can be known with absolute certainty) and some properties of the environment (which cannot be known with absolute certainty), evolution by natural selection is non-random because, as has been stated before, individuals are unique because they have all experienced different environmental conditions.
 
If one chooses just the genes in the phenotype (which can be known with absolute certainty) and some properties of the environment (which cannot be known with absolute certainty), evolution by natural selection is non-random because, as has been stated before, individuals are unique because they have all experienced different environmental conditions.
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You said you consider something deterministic if the same initial conditions lead to the same result.

You've killed your own argument and you're too dense to see why there's always an inherently different initial condition for any entity you might consider "the same as X."

Your notion, therefore, that selection is non-deterministic if two "identical" things are not both "selected" rests on your inability to properly consider what "identity" entails.

NOTHING is strictly identical in the physical world.
 
mijopaalmc said:
So would you care to explain why there have 85 years if research on modeling evolution as a stochastic process if "it's an artefact [sic] of what it means 'to model'"?

Again, whether or not evolution by natural selection is random seems to depend on what one chooses as ones initial conditions. If one chooses just the genes in the phenotype (which can be known with absolute certainty), evolution by natural selection is random because, as has been stated before, individuals of the same phenotype do not all share the same "fate". If one chooses just the genes in the phenotype (which can be known with absolute certainty) and some properties of the environment (which cannot be known with absolute certainty), evolution by natural selection is non-random because, as has been stated before, individuals are unique because they have all experienced different environmental conditions.
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I'm not sure of some of the syntax above, but no one speaks of phenotype alone when discussing evolution by means of natural selection. That would make no sense. As a side issue to highlight just how non-sensical a notion this is: even when it comes to discussions of nature/nurture (an arbitrary distinction of no real worth), it becomes abundantly clear very quickly that the genotype alone is not the answer to phenotype. Phenotype cannot be explained on the basis of genotype by itself since there are always environmental factors that play into the full expression of phenotype (phenotype depends not simply on the existence of a set of genes, but on the expression of those genes at certain times and in certain places with the activation of those genes at the whim partially of environmental factors; not to mention the impact that the maternal immune system may play in some disease states and/or adult orientations).

Evolution by means of natural selection can only be understood by examination of phenotype within an environment.
 
cyborg said:
You said you consider something deterministic if the same initial conditions lead to the same result.

You've killed your own argument and you're too dense to see why there's always an inherently different initial condition for any entity you might consider "the same as X."

Your notion, therefore, that selection is non-deterministic if two "identical" things are not both "selected" rests on your inability to properly consider what "identity" entails.

NOTHING is strictly identical in the physical world.
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If you only consider the genes that contribute to the phenotype (and there are genes that are neither selected for or against) as your initial conditions, it is possible to have identical initial conditions.

What is hard for you to understand about that?
 
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If you only consider the genes that contribute to the phenotype (and there are genes that are neither selected for or against) as your initial conditions, it is possible to have identical initial conditions.

What is hard for you to understand about that?
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Nothing.

What is so hard for you to understand that making strong statements from your clearly incomplete model is fallacious?

It also makes me wonder about the problems you have understanding the notion of abstractions ignoring differences when you have just done so in that model in order to make something "the same".
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
To be fair, ID would have to predict that junk DNA has a purpose, since everything must have a purpose in ID (not that they actually predicted it, but that is beside the point).
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All right, I guess ID would imply that all DNA would be useful. But, ID would also predict that DNA could not change much within a species, since that would lead to a different design, all on its own. (See, if different designs could emerge on their own, why postulate that there must have been a designer designing all these various life forms?)

And reality seems to fail both those expectations. So, ID can make predictions, I guess. Just not very good ones.

From http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB130.html :

It has long been known that some noncoding DNA has important functions. (This was known even before the phrase "junk DNA" was coined.) However, there is good evidence that much DNA has no function:
  • Sections of DNA can be cut out or replaced with randomized sequences with no apparent effect on the organism (Nóbrega et al. 2004).
  • Some sections of DNA are corrupted copies of functional coding DNA, but mutations in them, such as stop codons early in the sequence, show that they cannot have retained the same function as the coding copy.
  • The fugu fish has a genome that is about one third as large as its close relatives.
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Wowbagger said:
All right, I guess ID would imply that all DNA would be useful. But, ID would also predict that DNA could not change much within a species, since that would lead to a different design, all on its own. (See, if different designs could emerge on their own, why postulate that there must have been a designer designing all these various life forms?)

And reality seems to fail both those expectations. So, ID can make predictions, I guess. Just not very good ones.

From http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB130.html :
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Yep. As far as I can see, ID's predictions (it can make some) have all failed (at least those of any worth). When we see them scurrying about making ad hoc changes, which they have already done, then they show their true colors.

Of course, the favorite theist explanation often rises -- "Oh we can't really know the mind of the creator/designer" -- "so we can only make very provisional predictions."
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
To be fair, ID would have to predict that junk DNA has a purpose, since everything must have a purpose in ID (not that they actually predicted it, but that is beside the point).
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Why would it have to predict that? The designer could be a slob who doesn't clean up after himself. Or he could have realized that a bunch of junk DNA is good fodder for ... evolution!

Given that intelligent design is nothing more than an inference from human design, I think junk is a perfectly fine result.

~~ Paul
 
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Why would it have to predict that? The designer could be a slob who doesn't clean up after himself. Or he could have realized that a bunch of junk DNA is good fodder for ... evolution!

Given that intelligent design is nothing more than an inference from human design, I think junk is a perfectly fine result.

~~ Paul
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Yeah, I guess I really shouldn't make assumptions.

But I bet Asherah really gets tired of picking up the divine socks and getting the lazy bastid off the couch what with the seventh day equalling millenia. Bet he has a great beer supplier.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Evolution by means of natural selection can only be understood by examination of phenotype within an environment.
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Indeed... higher organisms evolved to be shaped (and programmed) by their environment... just like brains are designed to process input from the senses...

Human are "programmed" to learn the language and customs of their culture and seek to fill a niche in their groups.

Organisms evolved to adapt to and survive the stresses of their environment... those that did-- passed on their adaptive genes.

To not understand this is just not to understand natural selection. You don't convey information by saying-- mutations happen randomly, and what survived is determined randomly (or even probabilistically). It's muddled. You say mutations happen irrespective of whether they benefit an organism or not. And the environment acts as the elimination round to see what DNA builds the best replicators in that environment.

I cannot understand the semantic acrobatics of those who must insist that scientists think this all came about "randomly".

Scientists don't. Creationist think scientists think that. And they will bend the language however they can to pretend to themselves and others that scientists are saying that. But none are. No expert on evolution considers natural selection a "random process"-- and it produces very "non-random" results-- it produces complexity and the appearance of design-- things that seem to fit together amazingly well. They fit together because they evolved together. The environment selects the best replicators for that environment.
 
Lots of junk DNA once had a purpose... lots of it just went along for the ride in otherwise successful genomes because they caused no harm. DNA looks exactly like one would expect the code to look if Darwin's theory was true. I would imagine an intelligent designer would have a better "signature". Why would he leave in mutated Vitamin C genes that no longer worked? I think it's funny how ID always have to play semantic games to imagine they predicted this much... when clearly things like the vitamin C bumble point to a very bumbling designer-- not intelligence. Ugh. It was delightful watching this dishonest crowd get slammed on the Nova Special. Lies, excuses, apologetics, obfuscation, pedantry, and righteous ignornace in the name of Jesus.
 
ChristineR said:
there is nothing to stop a designer from designing us to work exactly as if we evolved through random mutation and natural selection, there is no place to go with that.
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This suggests a deceiver god, and old-school theologians had a serious problem with that.

It cropped up in the question of whether Adam and Eve had bellybuttons. If they didn't, then modern humans aren't quite "in the image of God". If they did, then it suggests God created structures for processes that never actually happened.

Did the trees have tree rings? Was the light from Andromeda already 99.999% of the way here? Were the dinosaur bones in the ground, which was created to look like radioactive elements had been decaying for a hundred million to billions of years?


If you ask me, the idea of an infinitely powerful and good god has been stretched well past the breaking point, like the old luminiferous ether concept shortly before it was abandoned.
 
Yes, but evolution is the first to plant the seed of god's destruction... If humans evolved from apes... then that is some pretty important information that god left out-- moreover, it makes the whole original sin thing into a parable at best. But god killed his kid (who was really him) in some bizarre atonement scheme that is based on that parable. But who kills their kid for a parable? I can see why theists are nervous. But religious children are taught not to ponder the subject too deeply and are generally schooled in apologetics, so I don't think evolution leads necessarily to atheism... but I think there needs to be a lot of cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, lack of curiosity, and the like to prop up faith once one really understand evolution.
 
six7s said:
articulett said:
so I don't think evolution leads necessarily to atheism...
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Are there any genuine and noteworthy evolutionary scientists who are also religious fundamentalists?
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That doesn't matter. Evolution could also lead to agnosticism, deism, secular humanism, etc. All sorts of alternatives like that, which are not necessarily athiesm.
 
six7s said:
Are there any genuine and noteworthy evolutionary scientists who are also religious fundamentalists?
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Well there's Francis Collins-- an evolutionary biologist in the U.S.-- he's an evangelical Christian... but he understands and accepts evolution and doesn't endorse "intelligent design"-- His god "lies outside the laws of nature"-- but I don't knowhow he fits the Jesus story into all that. But there you have it. Only in America. But it's probably good that there are some religious scientists, because the court case was about Darwinism leading to atheism and evolutionary scientists who are religious can calm those fears.

But, as Dawkins says, it really can lead to atheism. And he was glad he wasn't called to testify, because who would want to dodge and weave about the fact that it does. And yet the scientific education of kids in America hinged on this case.
 
Science News:





Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-species Study

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007) — A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms.




http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm



Let the Mijo/T'ai spin begin.
 
articulett said:
Science News:
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How is this "news"? We already knew this. ;)


(or at least the general concept of convergent evolution, if not the specific example of roundworms.)

articulett said:
Let the Mijo/T'ai spin begin.
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Indeed.

I know T'ai will try to spin it. But, perhaps Mijo might already know better. Am I right, Mijo?
 
If anyone's interested in a more comprehensive look at this and has JSTOR access, may I suggest:
Discussion Note: Indeterminism, Probability, and Randomness in Evolutionary Theory
Alex Rosenberg
Philosophy of Science, Vol. 68, No. 4. (Dec., 2001), pp. 536-544.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28200112%2968%3A4%3C536%3ADNIPAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

eta: oops. That's good too, but I meant to post

Determinism, Realism, and Probability in Evolutionary Theory
Marcel Weber
Philosophy of Science, Vol. 68, No. 3, Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers. (Sep., 2001), pp. S213-S224.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200109)68:3<S213:DRAPIE>2.0.CO;2-X

eta:

Just finsihed this one. Also very good.

On the Dual Nature of Chance in Evolutionary Biology and Paleobiology
Gunther J. Eble
Paleobiology, Vol. 25, No. 1. (Winter, 1999), pp. 75-87.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-8373(199924)25:1<75:OTDNOC>2.0.CO;2-D
 
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