From: Steve Petermann (steve@spetermann.org)
Date: Wed Sep 24 2003 - 10:04:33 EDT
>>>>>
> There have been lots of formulations, but they are without exception
nothing more than plausibility arguments.
>>>>>
Well if they were truly "plausible" that should be enough. However, from
following this debate I have not seen anything plausible in the sense of a
reasonably detailed sequence of events. The arguments I've seen instead
just appealed to the mechanism of evolution.
Steve Petermann
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com>
To: "asa" <asa@lists.calvin.edu>; "Steve Petermann" <steve@spetermann.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: Darwinian Inference, Intelligent Design Inference
Steve wrote in part:
"Does anyone
know of some complex systems where Darwinians have formulated a detailed
evolutionary path?"
There have been lots of formulations, but they are without exception nothing
more than plausibility arguments. Unless you can observe a complex system
as it evolves and measure it every step of the way, you can only make
guesses. The required detailed observations have never been made, and for
obvious practical reasons it seems unlikely they ever will be.
Don,
speaking as one who knows little about the fine points of evolution but who
would be pleased to hear cogent arguments as to why the above might not be
correct.
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Petermann
To: ASA
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 9:15 AM
Subject: Darwinian Inference, Intelligent Design Inference
Some forms of variation in evolution are observable like the evolution of
antibiotic bacteria or the insecticide resistance of fruit flies for
instance. From my reading, it appears that some if not most IDers accept
this type of selection on variation. The key issue seems to be the
evolution of complex forms.
When it comes to the evolution of complex forms it seems that both
Darwinians and ID'ers must resort to inference. For complex systems it is
not possible to follow every step of the evolutionary process to verify
causation. It then becomes a matter of Darwinian inference or design
inference. This means that neither group will be able to absolutely
"prove"
their mechanism in all cases. However, in order to provide a reasonable
resolution to the question, perhaps an example from the law can be of
help.
In the law "proof" can be secured by appealing to the preponderance of
evidence on an issue. But here's the tricky part. Since ID assumes an
external agent and causation not directly observable, it can only offer a
negative preponderance of evidence, i.e. demonstrate satisfactorily(to the
"jury") that many, if not most, complex systems are very inexplicable in
Darwinian terms. Darwinians, however, can provide a positive
preponderance
of evidence if they can accurately describe the unintelligent evolution of
some complex systems. However, these Darwinian explanations would need to
be very detailed(not "just so" explanations) to avoid the retort of
inference. This could be akin to reverse engineering the development of a
machine(anyone see the _Connections_ series on PBS?) If this would work,
it
seems that the battle will be fought in microbiology where the systems are
both simple enough and complex enough to address the question. Does
anyone
know of some complex systems where Darwinians have formulated a detailed
evolutionary path?
Steve Petermann
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Sep 24 2003 - 10:07:19 EDT