From: Jim Armstrong (jarmstro@qwest.net)
Date: Sat Nov 08 2003 - 02:22:31 EST
Hi Denyse -
Be careful here. Methinks you might be opening Pandora's box! :-) Not
really, but you have made use of an example that is particularly suited
for (maybe) clarifying some of the differences/issues that have been
tossed back and forth.
Denyse O'Leary wrote:
>Paul wrote:
>
>
>>Do you attribute the diversity in vertebrates to
>>evolution?
>>
>Well, it could be evolution of some sort without being Darwinism. What
>are the options?
>
>Might some changes be coded in, and take effect at certain points.
>
>Here is an example of what I am thinking of:
>
>A NASA spacecraft going into orbit suddenly begins to separate into two
>parts.
>
This spacecraft went through at least these stages: conceptualization,
requirements analysis, specification of components and their
functionalities, handoff of requirements to subassembly suppliers,
fabrication and testing of components by suppliers, integration and
testing of spacecraft by integrating manufacturer, testing, crew
training, flight.
We can skip some of these steps with respect to God and Creation if our
understandings of God are anywhere near valid. I tend to think of these
steps: conceptualization (what does He want to achieve?), requirements
analysis (what functionalities are needed to make it happen?),
specification of components and their functionalities (what are the
several different kinds of resources, forms and processes required to
achieve the desired functionalities?), creation and integration of the
system of materials and processes required to achieve the end
objective(s), and launch (Creation).
In the spacecraft (designed in) are many redundancies to cope with loss
of major component failures. Significantly, there is also designed in a
potentiality for reconfiguring the system (e.g., replacing parts, wiring
around a failed switch, modifying the software, or taking manual
control). And think about the implications of this - the attitude
adjustment thrusters which are designed for this function, can also
serve as weak thrust engines to adjust the velocity. They can't do this
very well, but perhaps enough to compensate for a malfunction which
would otherwise mean the death of the crew (designed for one purpose,
but a little (and significantly) effective at another function.
>From your seat inside, you have no idea why. You attribute the
>separation to laws of nature or chance—and doubt your own chances of
>survival.
>
But you do have the ability to greatly narrow the range of "ideas why".
One might initially (and briefly) hypothesize this possible
"laws-of-nature or chance" cause - an understandable first reaction if
you were not expecting such a significant event, or just panicked. But
shortly thereafter (if you are a reasonably well-trained and disciplined
crew) alternate hypotheses would be emerge and be evaluated
They do not attribute the event to God's action just because they have
no explanation at the outset. They have at hand a great deal of very
tangible and understandable alternatives to explore first simply because
there are known bounds that eliminate many candidates from a limitless
universe of possiblities. The analysis is framed by things like the
experience-validated likelihood that a good and sufficiently accurate
diagnosis is likely to be possible at level higher than foundational
laws of nature. They know a great deal about the system, its physical
attributes and its operations (and possible malfunctions). They have
basic knowledge of the laws of nature. They have knowledge of the
design, physics and dynamics and resources of the vessel at least at a
macro level. They know what equipment is aboard and what pieces might
contribute to this separation. They know in a general way the forces
required to create that separation. They know the sources and magnitude
and location of available energy sources, and so on. They know that one
possibility is that the event was the result of designed-in but
uncommunicated functionality of the spacecraft, or it might be a bug.
They also have a designed-in and practiced contingency process to sort
out the problem with NASA and the technologists of the
designer/manufacturer(s) of the equipment involved.
Perhaps most importantly, they can also make the critical and hugely
limiting observation that the event neither damaged nor destroyed them
or their needed capabilities. That alone is pretty convincing evidence
that the event was not likely to be a simple matter of chance (aside
from an errant meteorite, which is argued against because of the
non-destructive and straight-back nature of the separation).
Again, they do not attribute the event to God's action just because they
have no explanation at the outset.
>However, suppose you are familiar with the engineering requirements
>faced by the mission planning team. You know why the craft is
>separating. The craft must separate now to allow your special purpose
>space vehicle to proceed beyond Earth’s gravitational field.
>
>Law and chance, by themselves, won’t accomplish this reliably, so NASA
>doesn't leave it to law and chance. NASA programs the separation
>components into the craft’s design before the launch.
>
>The separation and the components can be studied in any level of detail
>you wish. In this way, design is not a problem for science.
>
>But if you tried to explain the successful launch as a result of random
>movements of molecules or the workings of the laws of nature alone, and
>ignored any input provided by the mission planning team, you would face
>many problems with the evidence.
>
>(the above is an excerpt from By Design or by Chance)
>
This spacecraft example is remarkably illustrative as well of the
concept that Howard Van Till (et al.) advances.
The conceptualization, purposes, resources, implementation (including
many accomodations to deal with contingencies) for the separation were
all designed into and built into the spacecraft. It was intelligently
designed from the outset, (and here's the Van Till part) even from the
conceptualization that occurs before design and implementation. The idea
of intelligent design is a concept that every Christian espouses (lower
case intentional to distinguish from the Intelligent Design premise). On
the other hand, neither NASA nor the crew created even one new device to
perform an intended function. However, there were some capabilities
designed-in to work around deviations from the designed functionalities
and performance without locking out operation and intervention by the
crew or their ground station counterparts.
>>Having made a good case against reliance
>>on chance to effect the enormous complexity observed
>>in the living world why would you hope that
>>belief in evolutionary theory is not crumbling?
>>
>>
>>
>
>Well, you see, I distinguish between Darwinism and evolutionary theory.
>I can imagine an evolutionary theory that is not Darwinism.
>
That's good. Most contemporary evolutionary theory in Christian or
science domains is also not Darwinism. As I (and others) have noted
before, neither the term nor the concept of Darwinism is in common use
at all in the science community. There are some determined extreme
naturalists in the science community. There are also some equally
determined theistic evolutionists, most of who would object to being
called Darwinists. I think it is safe to say that there are no
Christians in that community who fit your definition of Darwinists.
>>Also, design seems to mix with random mutations like
>>oil mixes with water. Do you view evolution as a
>>function of design or just think that this will become
>>the predominant view?
>>
Water and oil do fine with each other if detergent is added. Random
mutation can mix well with design if random mutation is part of the
unfolding of an underlying design.
>I don't know that factoring in design means that random mutations cannot
>occur. I see them myself from time to time, in the plants in my garden.
>Flowers, for example, sometimes come up with a slightly altered
>appearance that can be due to a genetic but not hereditary mutation. For
>example, the white morning glory called Pearly Gates is a sport of
>Annual Heavenly Blue (ipomoea caerulea). One day, many years ago, a
>plant just came up at a breeder's that had white flowers instead of blue
>ones, presumably because the genes for colour had dropped out. ...
>
I'm not sure about the presumption. The change might just as well be an
addition or reconfiguration that turned off the gene resonsible for blue
color.
>The
>enterprising grower isolated and saved the seeds, breeding a stock of
>white flowers for the market.
>
Ah, so the mutation is hereditary. Moreover, the grower's response was a
selective action that had nothing intrinsic to do with live-or-die
characteristics, or propagation success. It was a selective response
based on aesthetics.
>Any actual design that I know of must be able to cope with a certain
>amount of randomness in order to be functional.
>
As is the spacecraft with its redundancies and configuration to allow
alternative workarounds in the event of a component failure.
>We see this in human
>language. How often have you heard a person accidentally say the
>opposite of what they mean, but you know what they mean anyway. (No! I
>mean, yes! Yes, I agree with you that we shouldn't ...) Chances are, you
>knew what the person meant without needing to hear the correction.
>That's because human language is a redundant system. We use multiple
>ways of conveying meaning. And language is redundant in part so that it
>can overcome the effects of random distortion.
>
>So I don't see design overthrowing chance so much as placing chance in a
>context.
>
Yes, yes, yes.
>What factors in a system that is not all chance or law can we
>attribute to chance or law?
>
Everything if we think that is the way the system is intended to operate.
Some if our perspective is that there may be at least some chance and
law type explanation even if we do not have that explanation at hand at
present - a cautious approach.
Nothing if our perspective is that there has to be a non-chance and law
attribution each and every time we cannot find a way to explain in the
context of present knowledge - historically not very successful.
>In the same way, law and chance place design in a context.
>
Yes, yes, yes.
>I am not sure what will become the dominant view. As I see it, much more
>research is needed into issues around the complexity of life forms.
>
There are several concerns in my view here. Most non-anecdotal efforts
to define irreducible complexity in some quantitative way seem to be
based on some probability estimate. I am troubled by that is several ways.
1) Virtually any event observed can be attributed to a chain of events
that is extremely improbable. The problem is that extreme improbability
in no way equates to impossible!
2) Most probability calculations are based on an assumption that any
process from one configuration to another is a single event. However,
thinking in terms of a water environment, virtually any entity present
at all in the water is present in abundance. All those entities have the
same potentialities whether it is a puddle, stream, lake, geyser pool,
cave pool, ocean deeps or Antarctic glacier. If one event can occur in a
given puddle, the applicable probabilities - however small (e.g., cosmic
ray) - permit the possibility of more than one event. The probabilities
are multiplied as the size of the puddle grows, and multiplied again if
the same conditions exist in more than one puddle. [Perhaps you recall
that it only takes 23 people in a room for there to be a 50% probability
of two common birthdays, 30 for over 70%, and 40 for 90%]. In a
circumstance like a requisite threshold energy requirement for the event
to occur, the presence of an increasing-energy environment (such as a
slowly warming pond) multiplies the probabilities of multiple events yet
again, potentially in a huge way! If the same or essentially equivalent
circumstance(s) exist on at least one more planet somewhere, then there
is no prohibition of its happening on more than two, once again raising
the probability. It is my contention that this may be the underlying
reason for an otherwise fairly unexplainable immensity of the universe.
3) The probability, whatever it is, is not the probability of the event
occurring here, but anywhere.
4) There is a contended question regarding the possibility other
potential forms of life, replication means, creature morphology, and so
on. But whatever is the case, the existence of life in some particular
configurations on Earth is most likely to signal the potential for
something similar somewhere else. Again, what would be the purpose of
such an immense universe?
[snip]
>>>>One of my comments: "I only discovered how much
>>>>trouble Darwinism was in when I took a year out of my life -- late 2002 to late 2003 -- to study the situation. I was appalled. Darwinism has nothing like the support that we are accustomed to for theories in physics or chemistry."
>>>>
Of course not! Neither the term nor the concept of Darwinism is in
common use at all in the science community.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Denyse
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Denyse O'Leary
>>>>Writer
>>>>Tel: 416 485-2392
>>>>Fax: 416 485-9665
>>>>www.denyseoleary.com
>>>>--
>>>>My book, Faith@Science: Why Science Needs Faith in
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>the 21st Century
>>>(J.Gordon Shillingford Publishing, Winnipeg,
>>>2001,US$14.95, CDN
>>>$19.95) won the Canadian Christian Writing Award for
>>>2002. For more
>>>information, go to www.denyseoleary.com. To order,
>>>call Hull's
>>>Bookstores, 1 800 461-1365.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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