Karl Giberson asks, “Does Intelligent Design Really Explain a Complex and Puzzling World?“
Science seeks to explain the world. While philosophers have developed elaborate criteria for what constitutes an explanation without coming to a consensus, it has always seemed to me that a good scientific explanation has two primary characteristics:
- Complicated things are explained in terms of simpler things that are easier to understand or, more commonly, are already understood.
- Psychological puzzlement is reduced when an explanation is provided. There may still be puzzlement, but it should be either reduced, or relocated to some other unrelated phenomena.
This is problematical in two ways. One, it assumes that any explanation for a complex and puzzling world must be a scientific explanation. That in turn leads to the question-begging assumption in (1), that everything needing explanation can be explained in terms of simpler things. That’s a re-wording of, “God’s action in history is not an explanation for anything.” This is not a finding of science or philosophy. Rather it is a statement of rules for the explanation game, rules that say at the outset — with no reference to evidence — that ID is false.
I’m also experiencing psychological puzzlement over (2), specifically, what limits there are on “relocated to some other unrelated phenomena.” It seems to me that an intelligent designer would fit that description.
Giberson goes on to say,
These general considerations may explain why so few scientists are attracted to the explanations provided by the intelligent design movement. When an intelligent cause is offered as the “explanation” for certain phenomena, the explanation is more complicated than the phenomena.
What, though, if the explanation is (a) more complicated than the phenomena, and (b) true? If I drive my car over a soda bottle and crush it, is not the automobile/human driver system more complicated than the crushed bottle? Perhaps the automobile/human driver system is not a scientific explanation. That’s not a very satisfactory way out of the problem; but even if one takes that route, so what? It’s an explanation, and it’s true.
Regarding (2), he writes,
The problem of puzzlement is similar. If we say that an intelligent agent has produced certain strings of DNA, are we more or less puzzled by the problem of DNA when we are all done? Frankly, I am more puzzled after hearing this claim. This “explanation” generates a set of questions even more troubling than our original query about how information-rich strings of DNA came to be.
Some of my favorite questions are “troubling” ones. The most fruitful questions in intellectual history have been the troubling ones. What’s the problem?
Giberson’s most revealing point may be,
Intelligent design does not “feel” scientific. It may not be the “science stopper” that some of its critics claim, but it seems to lack explanatory momentum.
If feeling scientific is what it takes for an explanation to be accepted, then ID, which is part science, part philosophy, and part open-door for questions about the Designer, won’t make it. I come back to Bradley Monton’s excellent question (Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, p. 75):
Do you want to know whether intelligent design is science, or do want to know whether it is true?
Hi Tom
You’re right, Giberson’s commentary has a number of problematic assumptions buried within its obscurantist prose. There is, of course, the implicit reductionism you noted but that is just the tip of the iceberg. His distinction between “science” and “philosophy”.
What we now call “science” (from the Latin scientia: knowledge) began as “natural philosophy” or “knowledge of the natural world”, a subset of ‘philosophy proper’ which aspired toward knowledge of the whole world in context, or “wisdom”. As the change in terminology indicates, “science” (natural philosophy) has unseated philosphy as the only legitmate source of knowledge. (of course, I am ignoring the role of theology as a source of knowledge)
The mistake is in the assumption that “natural philosophy” is a more comprehensive source of knowledge than “philosophy proper” – a mistake which has been compounded by the rapid atomization of “knowledge” through specialization. Everyone knows a lot about a little bit and thinks that makes them an expert on everything.
And there are the factual errors – Copernicus’ “solution” was not as accurate as Ptolemi’s because Copernicus hypothesized circular orbits for the planets; so did Galileo. It was Kepler who finally “solved” the puzzle with the eliptical orbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler#Astronomia_nova
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler#Reception_of_his_astronomy
Then there is Mr. Giberson’s inexplicable lapse into subjectivism; “Scientific progress has a certain “feel” to it…” and “Intelligent design does not “feel” scientific.” Does Mr. Giberson “explain a really complex and puzzling” subject? Or is his explanation simply the “cause” of my puzzlement?
ID scientists Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer do not doubt – in principle – common descent or “macro-evolution” (in Meyer’s case, he claims an Intelligent Designer was need to account for different “body plans” that appear during the Cambrian explosion, but afterward Evolution is a sufficient explanation)
Regarding the common sentiment that “Microevolution is true but not macroevolution” even the Christian apologetic website Answers in Genesis admits that; “Arguments [against it] should be avoided (because further research is still needed, new research has invalided aspects of it, or biblical implications may discount it)”
Your point being…?
I’m interested to hear where R Hampton was going with this, too.
Often the laymen supporters of ID (those who are primarily motivated by political and/or religious concerns) are not aware of what ID scientists actually claim. Consequently, they fail to understand that “macro-evolution” is still a fundamentally true natural phenomena within the ID framework. This is important because, out of ignorance, ID supporters often assume that it offers a complete replacement of, or alternative to, macro-evolution. Should they be disabused of this notion, I believe many would cease their advocacy.
So while examining the philosophical rational for the prescribed boundaries to Science and Truth is worth discussion, what makes ID so attractive to millions rests on their need for a Christian apologetic. Should ID no longer fulfill this need, then ID would soon face social – if not scientific – extinction.
What’s important is that ID “offers a complete replacement of, or alternative to,” unguided natural processes being the sole creative force for all of life.
That’s a social theory that isn’t likely to be tested. It might be true. ID’s philosophical/scientific status isn’t dependent on its social popularity.
ID isn’t considered a theory within the scientific community. Even to its laymen supporters, ID’s status as legitimate science is but a means to an end. So if ID could be used to validate “macro-evolution,” it would become a theological liability, thus advocating its instruction would become counterproductive. Without backers, what is the purpose of ID? Without influence, would it even matter?
You seem to be missing the point entirely. The reason to study the question of ID is to find out whether it’s true.
And a few scientists, no doubt, would continue to do so long after the ID movement faded into memory. Perhaps they would commiserate with those still researching the “truth” of Creationism, Alchemy, Astrology, etc. In the absence of a genuine ID theory, however, the scientific community would continue to research new frontiers in Evolutionary theory like lateral gene transfer, epigentics, etc. without consequence.
That is your prediction. Note, however, how you have implicitly yielded the important point that ID is not about what you have been saying it is. It is an investigation into the way reality is. If it is wrong then it is wrong with respect to reality, not politics or “influence.” That’s the issue on ID proponents’ minds.
What ID scientists like Behe and Meyer have done is promote an unscientific theory (even Behe admitted this in the Dover trial) of an Intelligent Designer (who we can infer is billions of years old!) into Evolutionary theory at particular moments in history (although they have largely refrained from providing any more detail then that, do you wonder why?)
So while it may be an investigation, it has failed to produce any kind of model or reproducible results. Thus far, the reporting by the National Enquirer has been more true to a scientific investigation then anything done by ID.
That charge about Behe has been refuted so often it has become crashingly boring. Please don’t expect me to play with you as you go skipping from topic to topic, throwing out your random and misinformed complaints like dandelions from your basket. We’ve dealt with your first topic; I don’t intend to follow you down every garden path you want to walk.
Hi R.Hampton
Why thank you for illumining my ignorance… I shall remain forever in your debt. Could you also explain to your humble correspondent why, if ID is so congruous with evolution, evolutionists exhibit such hostility to the concept? Could it be that evolutionists, “out of ignorance, often assume that it offers a complete replacement of, or alternative to, macro-evolution”?
No, that couldn’t be the reason; if it were you couldn’t have informed me of the contrary… Obviously you do know that ID is not “a complete replacement of, or alternative to, macro-evolution.” So what is it that troubles you so?
Could it be that “evolution” per se isn’t the real issue? Could it be that evolution is merely a particularly effective piece in a larger game? But what game could we really be playing? Let me see… what does evolution explain that would make it a particularly valuable tool? Evolution is the theory of how complex, sophisticated, and integrated living systems might arise through mindless natural processes. And Intelligent Design hypothesizes that even if evolution is true (a matter of some doubt even in evolutionist circles), mindless natural processes are causally insufficient to explain the complex, sophisticated, and integrated living systems we observe in the world. One is a-teleological the other is teleological.
The real battle is not for the truth or falsity of evolution, it is for the truth or falsity of teleology. Evolution is nothing more than a stalking horse dressed in a lab coat. The true battle rages over the autonomy of man. Are we created beings subject to a creator or are we accidents of nature and free to determine right and wrong, truth and falsity on our own terms?
“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Gen.3:5
Dave: “The real battle is not for the truth or falsity of evolution, it is for the truth or falsity of teleology.:
No. Evolution v ID is a battle, but the two sides have very different goals. The contention of ID followers is that design is true, and they wish others to believe in it; they hold that naturalistic evolution is not true. The position of evolutionists is that naturalistic evolution is useful, and scientists wish to investigate it; they hold that ID is not a useful concept.
ID followers seem not to care whether their design concept is useful or not. They conduct no research into possible models for design, they formulate no hypotheses as to how design occurred or what its scope may be. (William Dembski explicitly abjures such in1quiries.)
Evolutionary scientists—all scientists–do not search for absolute truth. They care whether a theory makes verifiable predictions, whether it leads to further knowledge and to useful applications. They aim no higher than \contingent truth.\
The reason ID is not science is that it is scientifically useless, not that it is false in some philosophical sense.
ID is vacuous for the purposes of science because it proposes an agent whose actions are by definition not constrained by natural law. That is, the actions of the designer are inherently arbitrary, unpredictable, and unrepeatable. One cannot conduct repeatable scientific experiments or make verifiable predictions from the concept of intelligent design. It’s that simple.
Hello Olorin
This paragraph is rife with ambiguity; Which concept are you indicating when you use the term “true”? Which concept is represented in the term “useful”? Do you think “true” is representative of “the way things really are”?; or do you endorse the “pragmatic theory of truth” – that which works (is useful) is that which is “true”?
I am reminded of Richard Dawkins and “The Root of All Evil”. His fundamental argument in the program is that “religious” people are dangerous because they believe they know “truth”. A charge which immediately raises the question (in my own mind at least), “What does Richard Dawkins think he has? Falsity?” Dr. Dawkins appeared aware of this inherant contradiction in his polemic since he introduced a similar semantic distinction between “truth” and “fact”; which, of course, raises the question “Are Dr. Dawkins “facts” not “true” facts?”
We might also consider the goal of science… Do we practice science learn “useful” things or do we practice science to learn “true” things? Is there a difference between utility and truth? Could a concept be useful but not true? And, if that is the case, what do we gain from a useful but untrue concept that would preclude us from investigating the truth?
When asked if Darwin’s theory is completely wrong, Michael Behe gave the following answer:
“Not at all. It is an excellent explanation for some features of life, but it has sharp limits. Darwin’s theory is an amalgam of several concepts: 1) random mutation, 2) natural selection, and 3) common descent. Common descent and natural selection are very well-supported. Random mutation isn’t. Random mutation is severely constrained. So the process which produced the elegant structures of life could not have been random.”
In another interview, Michael Behe provided a bit more detail:
“I would suggest that Richard Dawkins re-read my book. In it I clearly state that random evolution works well up to the species level, perhaps to the genus and family level too. But at the level of vertebrate classes (birds, fish, etc), the molecular developmental programs needed would be beyond the edge of evolution.”
From the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial – Day 11 (10/18/2005)
Q: But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?
A: (Michael Behe) Yes, that’s correct.
So why is ID wrong if it accepts macro-evolution up to “body plans”? Because it denies Scientific truth and substitutes God (a 3 billion year old designer). The Roman Catholic Church agrees, because it believes Darwian Evolution – not ID – proves that God created a logical universe.
R Hampton,
This astrology thing is one of those episodes from Dover I described earlier as crashingly boring to answer, because it has been explained so often already. Behe was right, in context of what he was saying. Not in the decapitated snippet you’ve provided here, obviously, but in the full context.
Here is one of the ironies of these discussions. The evolutionists who accuse the ID people of being too quick to rush to a conclusion, of not being able to think things through to a reasoned end, demonstrate with this sort of thing that they cannot themselves follow the nuances of a thoughtful discussion.
And really, now. Apart from what I just wrote, you have to recognize that a Lehigh biochemistry professor is not likely to make such a stupid blunder as to say astrology is a science. Don’t you find your own gullibility embarrassing, to think you’ve been taken in by so obvious a misrepresentation of a research scientist?
Now, how that astrology snippet fits into your overall argument here, I can’t tell. It doesn’t have much to do with the macro-evolution question. Perhaps you could clarify.
R Hampton, you quoted thusly:
From the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial – Day 11 (10/18/2005)
Perhaps you thought we would be convinced of the following sort of argument:
T = a scientific theory
1. ID has property T [ A also has property T].
2. A is false.
3. Therefore, ID is false.
But of course this is invalid. You’re relying on your audience to supply the following missing premise:
2.5. If ID and A share property T, then what is true for A is also true for ID.
But there’s no good reason to think that just because astrology is a theory, then what holds true for astrology also holds true for ID simply because ID is a theory as well. For example, astrology concerns the movements of celestial bodies, but ID does not.
Now if you didn’t intend for us to reason this way, what’s the point of the astrology quote?
Let’s also be clear on the way Behe is using the terms (which are hardly idiosyncratic). Here is Behe’s complete answer to the question:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html#day11pm2
These are hardly the words of a man who is so uncritical a thinker as to affirm that astrology is just as defensible as an inference to intelligent design.
TomG wrote:
Since when is appeal to authority considered a good argument? Color me unimpressed. Behe has made blunders before, like in that famous episode when he drew a line in the sand and evolution crossed it (One, Instead of Zero).
On substance, IDers main goal is to expand the definition of science to include ID. In cross examination, attorney Robert Muise forced Behe to acknowledge that the proposed definition was so broad that it would also make astrology a scientific discipline. Did Behe make a blunder? Yes, when he agreed to testify in Kitzmiller.
Color me unimpressed with you for considering that an appeal to authority, olegt (you might want to re-check the definition of that fallacy); and also for your apparent unwillingness or inability, along with R Hampton, actually to think through why Behe said what he did about astrology there in Dover. You’ve both found a sound bite that works for you. It’s easier than thinking, isn’t it?
The one instead of zero “blunder” says nothing about Behe’s view of astrology as science. I hope you can see why; it’s pretty obvious.
One Instead of Zero was an indication that a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh is fully capable of making a blunder, Tom. I’ve read the Dover transcripts and I’ve read Behe’s later comments on his characterization of astrology, so don’t lecture me about sound bytes. Make your point.
olegt,
Since this is, as I have said, so boring after all these many years, I’ll just quote from http://www.discovery.org/a/3156:
Tom, I am not sure what this badly formatted and long quote is supposed to address. Can you spell it out for me?
I’ve fixed the formatting—sorry about that.
The second-to-last paragraph is the key one. I’d rather not spell it out myself, for reasons I’ve already given you.
That is very loose, indeed. Not only astrology, theology will qualify as science under this. But it’s not just a blunder, even though it may look like one to an uninformed observer. It’s the essence of Phillip Johnson’s Wedge strategy. His long-term goal is to change the definition of science so that it would include supernatural phenomena. Behe is not stupid, but once he joined the ID crowd, he had no choice but to follow this line of absurd argument. So he looks stupid as a result.
olegt:
Time to expand your intellectual horizons: both theology and philosophy are sciences. Science is defined as “knowledge through principals or causes [not limited to physical causality]” (so Behe is spot on) or, more precisely, “mediate intellectual knowledge obtained through demonstration.”
By the same token, astrology is not a science because it doesn’t demonstrate anything: it rests on a quaint combination of the post hoc ergo propter hoc and “correlation does not imply causation” fallacies.
But you wouldn’t know that since philosophy–the basis for scientific reasoning–is a game for you. That you are ignorant of such basic knowledge, or that it doesn’t suit your narrow-minded scientism (based on your own fallacious equivocation that the modern empirical sciences are the only things that qualify as science), is irrelevant. So, to paraphrase your last statement: as a result, you win the Aristophanes prize… again.
olegt,
I can’ t even figure out this has to do with anything. I didn’t bring it up, and I don’t consider myself obligated to answer every new topic commenters decide to throw into a discussion. If I did, I’d be giving my life away to strangers on the Internet (I really don’t have any way of knowing who R Hampton is). This topic in particular is of no current interest to me. It was interesting in 2005 and 2006 when it was fresh, but it’s been done over often enough.
I’ll give it one more try, as much as I’m willing to invest time in it. Check this link.
Holopupenko wrote:
Wow, who told you that? I don’t think they teach it either at MIT or at Harvard.
Obviously. It’s time for you to expand your intellectual horizons.
olegt:
Well, clearly they don’t teach it at Московский физико-технический институт… I’ve never really been impressed with выпускники from there–witnessed to by the state of “science” in the failed-state known as the РФ… and by those who run away from there.
Holopupenko,
That was a content-free comment. It hardy matters what you think of my alma mater.
As to your very interesting definition of science, it won’t fly at MIT, Harvard, МФТИ, or any other respectable institution of higher learning. It didn’t work in a federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, either.
Tom wrote: It’s time for you to expand your intellectual horizons.
I follow Feynman’s dictum: Keep an open mind, but no so open that your brain falls out.
olegt:
Do you even have the tiniest clue about which you speak? I mean, be honest with us. You have no idea what these U.S. institutions discuss in terms of philosophy of science, and now increasingly more philosophy of nature. Before you spout such ignorant nonsense, do your homework.
I taught and worked in the FSU for over 15 years, including working with “scientists” from Novosibirsk to Moscow and St. Pete’s, to and Kyiv and Kharkiv and Tashkent, Tbilisi and Baku, Kishenev and Minsk. For five years I dealt with the alleged cream of the crop of former weapons of mass destruction scientists from the FSU. These folks aren’t the most impressive at the end of the day — primarily because their insular world views interfere with scientific reasoning (sounds like atheism, eh?). You fit the pattern to a “t”: it shows in your scientism and ignorance of what science owes to philosophy.
Dave, my comment used “truth” in a philosophical sense, as distinguished therein from the contingent truth of science—what Stephen Jay Gould calls “scientific fact” (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html) The comment described “useful” as that which leads to further knowledge or applications—that is, useful theories have explanatory power, which is the subject of Tom’s post.
Some scientists do claim that science is isomorphic with absolute truth. Richard Dawkins come to mind. That is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.
Dave asks, “Is there a difference between utility and truth? Could a concept be useful but not true? Sure. Modern celestial navigation with sextant and Bowditch still employs geocentric astronomy. NASA uses Newtonian dynamics to plot rocket trajectories, not Einstein’s relativity.
Dave further asks, “And, if that is the case, what do we gain from a useful but untrue concept that would preclude us from investigating the truth?” The continuing usefulness of geocentric astronomy and Newtonian dynamics has not precluded research into heliocentrism or Einsteinian metrics. Scientists flocked to Galileo at the time—that’s why the Church felt it had to do something about him. (Well, he did goad the Pope considerably with his Profundo & Simplicio bit.)
Intelligent design may be true or false in a philosophical sense. Science resits ID because ID has no explanatory power–no usefulness for scientific purposes.
olegt:
Do you even have the tiniest clue about which you speak? I mean, be honest with us. You have no idea what these U.S. institutions discuss in terms of philosophy of science, and now increasingly more philosophy of nature. Before you spout such ignorant nonsense, do your homework.
I taught and worked in the FSU for over 15 years, including working with “scientists” from Novosibirsk to Moscow and St. Pete’s, to and Kyiv and Kharkiv and Tashkent, Tbilisi and Baku, Kishenev and Minsk. For five years I dealt with the alleged cream of the crop of former weapons of mass destruction scientists from the FSU. These folks aren’t the most impressive at the end of the day — primarily because their insular world views interfere with scientific reasoning (sounds like atheism, eh?). You fit the pattern to a “t”: it shows in your scientism and not understand what science owes to philosophy. That’s why your biased, ignorant, unscientific and pseudo-philosophical comments here are so lacking.
Are you seriously suggesting courts of law determine the nature of science? Really? I have serious reservations–scientifically and philosophically–about IDT… but at least I’m thinking about it instead of sloganeering.
Finally, it wasn’t Feymann’s “dictum” (nor was it Dawkins’ or Russell’s, who tried to steal it) – it was Arthur Hays Sulzberger’s. Another sign of your ignorance. How about this one for you: “There’s a difference between being open-minded and having a hole in your head.”
What can I say, Holopupenko… I am truly sorry that you had to waste your time entertaining old fart knockers from the Russian WMD program. I’ve always thought that the career of a Sovietologist wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Good thing you’ve found a new, more exciting job.
And since you seem to follow philosophy of science at top places, maybe you can share with us some insider information. Is there anyone at MIT or Harvard who thinks, along with you, that philosophy and theology qualify as sciences? I’m genuinely curious.
olegt,
You said:
Maybe I missed it, but would you mind providing your definition of “science”? Even a simple reference would do. Again, sorry if I missed it before.
Thanks.
olegt:
You’re asking me to waste my time educating you… on this blog? Sorry, I’m not taking that bait. Second, the onus is on you, given the strong scientism [read: the modern empirical sciences (MESs) are considered the epistemological arbiters of all valid knowledge] you bring into these discussions.
Did it ever occur to you that the very claim you make, that theology and philosophy aren’t sciences, is itself not a scientific claim? Hence, you appeal to something disordered and manifestly non-MES to elevate the MESs to an illicit position. This is freshman-level (or worse) ignorance, olegt. You have many, many presupposational and highly-biased cobwebs to clear out of your mind (catharsis of the mind) before proceeding with something more challenging.
In any event, for starters try Bernard Trout at MIT on anti-reductionism (http://www.isnature.org/Bios/Trout.htm), Loren Graham at Harvard on Soviet “science,” and Murray Feshbach at Georgetown on what the Russians have done to the environment (“Ecocide of the USSR”). I leave it to Lawrence Gage to provide you more.
But, really, my sense it will be a waste of time: it’s your scientistic biases and unscientific a priori commitments that hinder your ability to challenge your own positions on these matters. Try leaving your ignorance at the door of critical thinking so that you can see (for example) the foundations of the MESs arose not during or as a result of the Enlightenment but in the High Middle Ages of western Europe. If you’re ignorant of such knowledge, then at least have the courtesy to educate yourself before pontificating erroneously here.
Thomas,
Wikipedia has a good discussion of what is normally understood as science: Scientific method.
It’s time to stop trading insults on this thread.
olegt, have you ever heard of the demarcation problem?
The scientific method in that Wikipedia article includes testing of hypotheses through experiments. If some discipline does not include experimentation to test hypotheses, is that discipline therefore not a part of science?
Tom, if you want to argue that a lack of a sharp boundary allows you to call philosophy science then I disagree with it. There is no sharp boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and the vacuum, either, but that doesn’t mean you can take a spacewalk without a spacesuit.
Tom wrote:
My point is slightly more subtle, Tom. You have to look at specific theories, rather than disciplines. For instance, many particle physicists work on string theory and related topics like extra dimensions. At the moment, string theory does not enjoy the status of a scientific theory because it makes no specific predictions that could be tested. That doesn’t mean that particle physics is not a scientific discipline. With time, string theory might become science, but at the moment it is a bit speculative.
Did you notice this in the Wikipedia article?
Is paleontology a science? What experiments test its conclusions? There are experiments that can test some of the methods and assumptions by which it draws its conclusions, but what experiments test the final conclusions?
Tom, this is an easy one. Paleontology is an experimental method. The relevant scientific theory is evolutionary biology.
What experiments confirm paleontology’s conclusions? Not its methods or assumptions, but its conclusions? Bear in mind the distinction between an observation and an experiment (an experiment has controls, for one thing).
I don’t think paleontology exists separately from evolutionary biology, but maybe I don’t understand your point, Tom. Could you give me a specific example of a paleontological conclusion?
Tom: “What experiments confirm paleontology’s conclusions? Not its methods or assumptions, but its conclusions? ”
An example: From fossils they had found, paleontologists predicted that a transition from fish to tetrapod occurred between 370 and 395 Mya, in temperate brackish waters. Neil Shubin found that a rock formation on Ellesmere Island met these criteria. After 3 years of experiment, he found Tiktaalik, which fulfilled the criteria. Same deal for intermediate whale fossils, and many others.
Another example: There is a pseudogene having numerous variants that are widely distributed among animal phyla. None of these variants presently has any function, but evolution predicts that they are mutations of a gene that once did have a function. Using the previously derived phylogenetic relationships of dozens of animals, molecular biologists reconstructed a putative ancestor of these broken pieces—like reconstructing an aircraft after a crash. They then synthesized the reconstructed gene and found that is was fully functional as predicted. Same deal for the acquisition of color vision by hominids, which is lacking in chimps. The theory predicted that a few female chimps would be found to have color vision. Surprisingly, this was borne out.
Dividing scientific disciplines into “experimental” and “historical” is not valid. Is astronomy not an experimental science because we can’t drag stars into the laboratory and perform controlled experiments on them?
Bad experiment.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7277/full/nature08623.html
Observation, not experiment.
No controls.
olegt,
You said:
OK, thanks for confirming that. So would your objection be that an inference to design is not one available within the constraints of the scientific method, or that Intelligent Design is not a viable scientific method, or something different?
Again, sorry if you’ve been this before with others. I typically avoid conversations about Intelligent Design and evolution because they can become so heated, so quickly.
Tom wrote:
That difference is tangential to the scientific method, Tom.
Olorin already mentioned astronomy, which is largely an observational discipline. Nonetheless, it is possible to test astrophysical theories such as general relativity by performing observations. Three well-known examples are the deflection of light rays by the Sun measured in solar eclipses, the precession of Mercury’s perihelion, and the slowing down of binary pulsars due to the emission of gravitational waves.
If you think of it, a measurement of the emission spectrum of hydrogen atoms is also an observation. You can’t really control the frequencies of the emission lines. Does it make the theory of quantum mechanics any less scientific? Of course not.
Olorin: “Dividing scientific disciplines into “experimental” and “historical” is not valid.”
“Validity” applies to the form of arguments–not to your assertion. You provided no argument, you merely provided an example: examples are not arguments, and your example misses the point.
Second, distinction is always good because it separates the objects (formal and material) of study and nicely delineates their bounds… including (quite importantly) their methodologies.
Third, your assertion and general point is not “scientific” in the sense of “modern empirical science”… which means you’re question-begging: how do we categorize your assertion, then?
Fourth, back to objects of study and methodologies, the facile view of olegt that the only things that count as “sciences” are those that study material objects and physical phenomena is also an amateurishly unscientific assertion. Upon which modern empirical science, pray tell, does such view rest… or are we merely to believe olegt’s personal desires?
Fifth, Tom’s point stands – observation, not experiment (no control).
Sixth, science is “mediate intellectual knowledge obtained through demonstration.” Physics observes bodies in motion in the world, and draws mediated (scientific method as narrowly applied to it) conclusions which must be demonstrated to be considered scientific knowledge. Philosophy observes things in the real world, but instead of poking them or measuring them in a lab it reflects on them much, much more broadly than physics can or is meant to, formulating arguments (a scientific methodology as well) that must be demonstrated… but not in the sense of physics. Same thing applies to logic, or paleontology or forensic science or whatever.
The shrill and silly cry to exclude fields of knowledge that don’t appeal to one’s presupposational baggage is intellectually dishonest, rank amateurish nonsense, and reflects a whole lot of ignorance of areas of study outside one’s own area of expertise… which ultimately damages one’s own area as well (ref: olget’s pseudo-philosophical impositions upon quantum-level entities or his out-of-hand and a priori discounting of IDT).
Holopupenko,
I’ll skip most of your nonsense and focus on this:
That is not an argument, it’s an assertion. Care to back it up? Discuss the examples I provided?
Nope, no interest in discussing interpretive nonsense.
Surprise, surprise.
The point, olegt, is that there is no such thing as “the scientific method.” This is what Feyerabend, Laudan, and even Michael Ruse have argued. I continue to advise you to take the time to learn some philosophy, especially philosophy of science. This is very basic and non-controversial. You challenged Holopupenko to “back it up.” For someone who is arguing the nature of science, this is so elementary there ought not be any reason to back it up. It would be like being in an argument over electromagnetism with a physicist, and requiring him to back up his assertion that light exhibits wave-particle duality. I would expect him to answer, “I can back that up. No problem. But if you don’t already know something as basic as that, you haven’t even shown up for the argument, have you?”
Here’s something else that isn’t very controversial. Maybe it never happens in a physicist’s world, but it does in many other sciences, perhaps most other sciences. There is such a thing as science without controls, but at least in the social sciences, a scientific study without controls is called a non-experimental study. No controls, no experiment. The other major category of quantitative social scientific research is correlational. The two are always very carefully distinguished from each other. There are also non-quantitative studies, which might also be called scientific. The point is not that all science must be experimental with controls; it’s that not all science is experimental, and generally one aspect of experimental is controls. Though like everything else in defining science, there are probably exceptions.
olorin, you wrote,
I would agree that dividing sciences into those two groups by discipline is not strictly accurate. Every branch of science uses more than one approach. But there is a distinction between historical science and experimental science. Cosmology is largely an historical science, as is paleontology. Both employ experimental methods, but the main subject of their research is inaccessible to experimentation.
For more, see Cleland’s argument (pdf) that distinctions between historical and experimental science do exist, but that it’s not necessarily correct to conclude that historical science is inferior to experimental science.
See also the analysis by Argamon and Dodick (pdf).
Tom, I’m going to call your bluff.
If my errors were so elementary and you and Holo were so knowledgeable about philosophy of science then you’d have no problem pointing out my blunders. As someone who teaches for a living, I know how it works. When a dilettante starts to spew nonsense about physics I am normally able to explain why he is wrong and to point him in the right direction.
So I challenge you to go ahead and actually argue your points. Tell me exactly what the problem is with the three astronomical measurements I mentioned above.
As to the nonexistence of the scientific method, that is news to me and my colleagues, people who actually do science. Thanks for a good laugh.
But I already have. Did you read my last post? You seem to think I’m arguing that historical science isn’t science. You wrote, “Does it make the theory of quantum mechanics any less scientific? Of course not.” You wrote also, “Tell me exactly what the problem is ….” Did I say there was a problem there?
I’m not arguing science vs. non-science. Not in this thread. I never said there’s anything wrong with the measurements you referred to. What makes you think I did?
I am arguing that the “scientific method” does not (as you asserted) define science. You can’t experiment on a pulsar. You can do lots of science on them, you can make lots of inferences based on observations, you can support those inferences with smaller-scale experiments here on earth, but you can’t do experiments on them. No reputable thinker on science would say you could. No reputable thinker would say that means pulsar science isn’t science, either. The point is not that non-experimental science isn’t science. The point is that not all science is experimental science. Which again I remind you, is what you tried to tell us.
If you want (another, repeated) argument for my position, just read the Wikipedia article you supplied me, supposedly in favor of your own position. Read what it says about Feyerabend.
So just exactly which “bluff” is it that you think you’re calling? What do you think I’m arguing? What do you think I’ve said that’s wrong?
I’m not bluffing, olegt. You don’t know your philosophy of science. You’ve admitted in the past you don’t care much for philosophy; but what you’re arguing about here is not science, it’s philosophy of science, and you don’t have a grasp on the basics.
Enjoy your laugh while it lasts. Then read the literature.
I said there is no such thing as “the scientific method.” What I meant, and what you might have caught if you had paid attention to the context and if you had read your own Wikipedia link, is that it is inaccurate to say there is such a thing as one method that is the scientific method, if by that, one means that it defines what is science. Sure, to follow the classic “scientific method” (the one defined in that article) is possible; the approach exists, and it’s used by scientists widely. I never said it didn’t. But it is not the scientific method in the sense I just stated.
By the way, that method is also used in Biblical and literary studies. Have you studied the demarcation problem yet?
Apologies–I’ve edited comment 61 a few times to clarify it. I’ll understand if you respond to one of the versions-in-process, but the version that’s there now is a better expression of my intent. It’s that one, not earlier ones, that’s waiting for a response.
Holopupenko” “You provided no argument, you merely provided an example: examples are not arguments, and your example misses the point.”
When one makes an assertion of a general proposition, a single counterexample suffices. No further argument is necessary. What point do I miss? (see below)
Tom: “Observation, not experiment. No controls.”
In what way was the synthesis of a protein from a predicted genetic sequence not a “controlled condition”? Why was the selection of a particular locality to find a transitional tetrapod not a “control”? How about building a 1,000 ton tank of chlorine, screening it from cosmic rays deep in the earth, introducing specified amounts of gallium, then checking the gallium for traces of argon. That’s an experiment to detect neutrinos—by controlling the conditions to favor those which enhance neutrinos and to minimize the production of other species. How is it different from, say, placing a hunk of radium next to a photographic plate and observing whether the plate is fogged?
We always control the conditions, whether that involves selecting chemicals to mix for a desired reaction, or selecting how and where to look for the desired reaction.
Charlie: “Bad experiment. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7277/full/nature08623.html”
In what way? It would be typical, if a supernatural design change had occurred, that the transition would occur in a single place at a single time. Poof! However, evolution works differently. Individuals do not evolve; populations evolve. They evolve over time, throughout their range, with many individuals in various stages.
And when they evolve almost 20 million years prior to your “transitional” and in a different environment your experiment failed.
olorin, the 1,000 ton tank of chlorine procedure exhibits true controls, as far as I’m concerned. Synthesizing a protein involved true controls. Finding the tetrapod involved some controls, but lacked some. I didn’t say this was a pure either-or.
I guess I’ll have to ask you the same question I asked olegt: what position do you think I hold on this question? What do you consider this debate to be about?
olegt, do you have a response to my comment #51?
Tom wrote:
Huh? I never said that science is defined by experiments. In fact, I pointed out that astronomers do observations, not experiments, and yet their field follows the scientific method as it is commonly understood and that makes science.
It was actually you who erected that straw man when you wrote
But Wikipedia doesn’t actually say that. Right in the first paragraphs it states: “A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.” You’ve been fighting your own straw man.
Sure, let’s do that. here is what Wikipedia says:
The article makes it clear that this is not a widely held position. In a nutshell, Feyerabend says that science is whatever scientists do. As an example, he gives Galileo who “relied on rhetoric, propaganda and epistemological tricks to support his doctrine of heliocentrism, and that aesthetic criteria, personal whims and social factors were far more prevalent than the dominant historiographies allowed.” That is a bad argument. Galileo’s ideas have been accepted not because of his PR skills but because they withstood empirical tests. I’m genuinely surprised that people would take such things seriously. That’s one reason why I have a generally low opinion of the field of philosophy.
That’s pretty convoluted, Tom. What is “the scientific method” and in what sense does it differ from “the classic scientific method”? Presumably, the latter is that which is described in the Wikipedia article. What is the former then? My definition is quite straightforward: science is whatever follows the method described in the article. Hence astronomy+astrophysics = science, paleontology+evolutionary biology = science, but string theory is not.
Charlie: “And when they evolve almost 20 million years prior to your “transitional” and in a different environment your experiment failed.”
It must have really failed. Today, 380 million years later, the coelacanth still has lobe fins, and shows no signs of wrists or footprints.
Your argument is variation #36A of “If humans are descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”
No it’s not. I always loved when you made these errors and false characterizations back on your previous visits; even after you changed your daemon name and skulked back in as Pantalaimon.
You said that the date and environment of the transition was predicted and then confirmed with Tiktaalik. But the date and the environment were wrong, so Tiktaalik didn’t confirm anything, except, perhaps, the bias of the observer.
Thanks for bringing up the index fossil, coelecanth. Yes, nice, lobey and 80 million years of not evolving into the amphibian it so clearly was on the way to becoming. And it swims just fine, has an advanced brain and doesn’t even once drag itself around the floor by its going-to-be arms. Lobed-fins, it turns out, are good fins and are not evolving into arms and legs.
I’m sure Tiktaalik, the wet archaeopteryx, is another example of an animal well-suited to its environment and which left no evolutionary trail to any modern derivative. Too bad there wasn’t a movie and tee shirt for this great transitional as there was for Ida. As your use of Tiktaalik shows, and as the other arguments so often bear out, the writer had it right so long ago in Proverbs 18:17
Tom, the purpose of the examples is to show that there is no clear dividing line between “experiment” and “mere observation.” That classifying scientific disciplines, or even individual tests, as experimental or historical is not a val—uh, useful—distinction.
Charlie: “You said that the date and environment of the transition was predicted and then confirmed with Tiktaalik. But the date and the environment were wrong,…”
I said “a” transition; “the” transition is your word, and it demonstrates your lack of understanding oe f evolutionary process.
In what way do you feel that the prediction was wrong?
Tom: “I guess I’ll have to ask you the same question I asked olegt: what position do you think I hold on this question? What do you consider this debate to be about?
My first comment was immediately directed at Dave’s (March 20, 2010 at 4:42 am) opinion that the goal of science is absolute or philosophical truth. The position I picked up from you is—
Tom (March 19, 2010 at 7:09 pm): “You seem to be missing the point entirely. The reason to study the question of ID is to find out whether it’s true.”
The overall debate is about explanatory power. Everyone here seems to think this is isomorphic with finding truth. My point is that explanatory power of a scientific theory goes to its usefulness in making repeatable predictions, suggesting further research, and uncovering more and more aspects of how a physical phenomenon works Not to its truth in any overall philosophical sense. Several examples were offered of theories that are useful yet “false.” (Kurt Vonnegut might call them “foma;” Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, 1965.)
The purveyors of intelligent design assert that it is science. If it is science, then it is required to possess scientific usefulness—i.e., explanatory power. Yet no one has ever employed it to investigate how designs come about— whether by infusion of new DNA from a supernatural syringe, by pulling new body plans from a Cambrian hat, or by provoking embryological birth defects. (Certainly ID has no interest in whether design still operates today, which would seem of significance.) ID shows zero interest in exploring the boundaries of design, the attributes of design, any repeatable characteristics of designs, or any of a hundred other research subjects that scientists hypothesize and investigate using theories of evolution. For example, ID claims that all “junk DNA” has a function. Has the Biologics Institute ever lifted a finger to find out what such functions might comprise? Do any precepts of design suggest how such functions might be investigated? No, no, and no.
ID has nothing edible to bring to the potluck of science.
Oh I see. I didn’t realize you were in the polypheletic camp. I’m glad to see you’re willing to throw common descent under the bus to protect your “experiment” theory. So how many transitions to tetrapod do you accept? The hundreds as indicated by genetic analysis?
How many environments were suitable and how many eras? What does this say about the theory and its ‘predictions’ when it can accommodate so many predictions – fulfilled or not?
A better question is in what way could it be right? Shubin predicted
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/8008
that at 365 MYA we’d find the first land animals, and the end of “the” transition from water to land. He was wrong by at least 30 million years. He predicted he’d find an earlier, more-like amphibian creature than existed before – he was wrong – tetrapods already existed. To support the apparent success of his predictions he says Tiktaalik had the first neck – wrong again. What he predicted when he looked in the rock was that he’d find another example of what already existed in that aged rock – fish with boney fins and a mosaic of features. It is a coincidence (or is it?) that he found an animal he could call a transitional after the transition was already made and in a different region.
By the way, listen to the teleology he has to invoke in his attempt to debunk it.
Charlie: “Oh I see. I didn’t realize you were in the polypheletic camp. I’m glad to see you’re willing to throw common descent under the bus to protect your “experiment” theory. So how many transitions to tetrapod do you accept? The hundreds as indicated by genetic analysis?”
Sorry, Charlie. You’re still thinking in terms of design, not evolution. Poof–a fully formed wrist transition here. Poof—a neck transition suddenly appears there, never to be repeated.
First, an interview with a science writer is not an authoritative source. Second, your entire understanding of the interview is wrong. But this is not the forum to attempt an education on evolutionary processes from the ground up. Have you read Your Inner Fish? I thought not.
Olorin, you hurt my feelings so much. It almost makes me afraid to keep disputing you.
Have you read Your Inner Fish? Or have you read all over the internet that Shubin made predictions and, therefore, he demonsrated the vacuity of ID. If you’ve read it, did you do a better job than you did with Babs’ book on Trojan Horses?
Actually, I’m not. But transition means something,and you chose the word. So do you believe, as genetic data indicates, that tetrapods do not share a common tetrapod ancestor but that there were hundreds of transitions and that many different lineages? If so, what’s so special about making the transition that it would foster any kind of predictions and why do we no longer see such a transition? If not, and if tetrapods already long pre-dated Tiktaalik to what was it a transitional, as opposed to being a fairly unusual creature that no longer exists? If it wasn’t a transitional from fish to what Shubin said was the later first appearance of tetrapods then no prediction was fulfilled.
But I really was hoping to get your patent attorney’s authoritative education on evolution.
Sorry, Charlie. The diversion is over. Read a couple books on evolution.
Intelligent design has no explanatory power—no usefulness–in science. This poor patent attorney also opines that ID has no usefulness in explaining any theological question. And, although Plantinga may support ID, neither he nor anyone else has used it to shed light on any philosophical question. No explanatory power. In any discipline.
See you later Pantalaimon.
I’ll give you the Doug Axe, Scott Minnich information next time (and again) to rebut your claims.
But truly, it’s been fun. And so educational. Why, it was almost like I had my own access to the internet there for a second.
You want a prediction from ID? Junk DNA is not junk. And don’t give the usual junk response. ID predicted that we would discover that so-called junk DNA is functional. They were called IDiots by the evolutionists because of this but subsequent discoveries have proved them correct in their prediction.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/03/junk-dna-real-story.html