On Mon, 2 Dec 1996 22:49:43 -0600, Russell Maatman wrote:
[...]
RM>1. God does indeed control everything. In my mind, there is no
>doubt that God "designs" everything. For me, that is not what we
>should be discussing in when we talk about Behe's examples,
>intelligent design, and evolution. Paul Arveson, Keith Miller, Jan
>de Koning, Bill Hamilton, Pattle Pun, Terry Gray, and Glenn Morton
>have all expressed--albeit in different ways--that God is in
>control. One could take the various expressions they use and
>conclude they all accept that at bottom God does indeed design the
>world.
Russ' assurance that TEs do believe in fact that "at bottom God does
indeed design the world", should be unnecessary but the fact that
Russ has to say it shows it isn't. If TEs do indeed "all accept that
at bottom God does indeed design the world" (and I believe they must
to remain theists), then why is it so muted in their posts and why do
they attack what Terry has called "the intelligent design crowd"? At
least one of our TEs once complained of being mistaken for an
atheist, and I am sure that some atheist/agnostic lurkers would take
comfort in TEs apparent attack on intelligent design, because as TE
Asa Gray long ago pointed out:
"The proposition that the things and events in nature were not
designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount
to atheism. (Noll M.A. & Livingstone D.N. (eds), Hodge C. "What Is
Darwinism?", 1874, Baker Books: Grant Rapids MI, 1994 reprint, p156)
>RM>2. Whether God "interferes" in his creation has come up several
>times. It seems to me that everyone rejects this idea--and
>rightfully so. The matter of divine interference arises in the
>consideration of miracles. (D. Mackay, in a talk I heard, said
>that picturing God as reaching into his creation--as it were--and
>pricking it with a pin to disturb it--is a pagan teaching.) I've
>always strongly opposed the idea of interference. Miracles
>occurred--but not by interference. (I gave a paper at the national
>ASA meeting at Eastern Mennonite College in the summer of 1954--Don
>De Graaf, do you remember?--on these matters. It was published in
>the ASA Journal of March, 1955 under the title "Science and Biblical
>Miracles.") Here's what I've been saying: We discover what God has
>done and describe it; the body of humanly-formulated law is
>"descriptive law." But every part of God's will is consistent with
>every other part; the sum of God's will for all of creation is his
>"prescriptive law." Prescriptive law is absolute; descriptive law
>is fallible.
I agree that God does not "interfere" in His creation. But this is
not the same as God *intervening* in His creation. The word
"interfere" presupposes some autonomy that God's creation has to
operate independently of God and suggests that God has no right to
"interfere". The word "intervene" OTOH has none of that illegitimacy
connotation. God has a perfect right to intervene in His creation if
He wishes to, and in fact the Bible is a record of some of those
interventions. The greatest intervention was the Incarnation of
Christ and His second coming will be the next greatest.
On Tue, 3 Dec 1996 15:22:28 -0600, Russell Maatman wrote:
[...]
RM>Perhaps it is a matter of semantics. I'm quite pleased to say
>that in the Incarnation God entered history. But that is not to say
>this entrance is an interference. Surely the Incarnation was a part
>of God's eternal will, which (I think) can be termed "prescriptive
>law," a law that takes care of all events. Citing the miracle of
>the Incarnation and other miracles ought to emphasize the human-ness
>of descriptive laws.
It seems to be indeed "a matter of semantics"! :-) I agree that "the
Incarnation...is not...an interference" but if it is indeed where
"God entered history" then it is by definition an *intervention*, ie.
a `coming between' the normal cause-and-effect chain of natural law.
If at "the Incarnation God entered history", why could He not have
similarly "entered history" where the occasion warranted it, eg. at
the origin of life, and at the origin of life's biomolecular
machinery?
>RM>Paul Arveson had a point when he said: "'...and the Spirit (or
>wind) of God was moving over the face of the waters"' and "'The wind
>blows where it wills, and your hear the sound of it, but you do not
>know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one
>who is born of the Spirit.'" Paul continued: "We accept this
>mystery of the relationship of God to us in the case of our
>spiritual rebirth, but why not in the relationship of God to nature
>generally?"
I agree that the "relationship of God to nature generally" is
*ultimately* a "mystery" but Biblically a "mystery" is not something
we know *nothing* about - it is something we do not (and indeed
cannot) know *everything* about. If TEs claim that God is "involved"
in His creation but the details are "mystery", then why do they
attack ID? If that area really was a "mystery", it seems to me they
would not be able to tell that ID was right or wrong? Surely
"involved" does not exclude intervention? The opposite of "involved"
is non-involved, not non-intervention.
>RM>3. Of course, we cannot understand how it is possible that
>human beings can have free will even while God is in control of
>everything. It's my thought that we would have to be outside of
>the system to understand something like that. Surely, being inside
>of the system, we would be in error if we thought we _did_
>understand it.
Agreed. I think the best explanation is that we are in
four-dimensional space and time, while God is extradimensional. Just
as in the Flatland analogy, a 3-dimensional being can easily do
things that a 2-dimensional being cannot understand, so God can do
things that we cannot comprehend. That "man" has "free will even
while God is in control of everything" is the clear teaching of
Scripture, eg:
Lk 22:22 "The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to
that man who betrays him."
Actually, what with Relativity and Quantum Physics, the God of the
Bible is sounding more and more right!
>RM>4. The argument over design, methodological naturalism, and
>evolution ought to be seen as entirely within descriptive law.
>Furthermore, it is not justified to assume that every phenomenon
>will be explainable using our natural laws. Here, of course, is
>where the rubber of our current discussion hits the road.
Agreed, but this may contradict Russ' non-"interference" policy if by
"interference" he means "intervention"? Or does he simply mean that
individual events are not "explainable using our natural laws"?
>RM>5. Keith Miller said: What you appear to be demanding is
>complete evolutionary descriptions of all biological systems...
>Keith, I'm not trying to make as strong a statement as you claim.
>All I am saying is that as soon as there is a reasonably high
>probability that one biological system did not evolve from simpler
>systems, then our attention is called to the fact that it may well
>be true that at least one system did not evolve. The blanket, a
>priori claim that they did so evolve ought not to be made. So, once
>again: experimental work indicates that some systems did evolve
>from something simpler; other experimental work indicates that that
>might not be a universally valid claim. Within our descriptive law:
>some biological systems seem to have evolved, but perhaps others
>did not. _What_ is wrong with that?
Nothing. As Mike Behe points out, it was *Darwin* who proposed the
irreducible complexity test as a way to falsify his theory:
"Darwin knew that his theory of gradual evolution by natural
selection carried a heavy burden:
`If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which
could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight
modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' 24 (Darwin
C., 1872, "Origin of Species", 6th ed., 1988, New York University
Press: New York, p154).
...What type of biological system could not be formed by "numerous,
successive, slight modifications"? Well, for starters, a system that
is irreducibly complex." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution", Free Press: New York, 1996,
p38)
Keith's attempt at protection of Neo-Darwinist macroevolution from
falsification is par for the course, but it only reinforces the
perception that Neo-Darwinist macroevolution is unfalsifiable.
>RM>7. What about irreducible complexity and intelligent design? I
>said to Allan Harvey :
[...]
>RM>Here a problem arises: We have (1) an experimental result (an
>opened black box), leading to the conclusion, _using presently-known
>scientific laws_, that the contents of the black box did not evolve
>from something simpler; and (2) a definition that attempts to
>capture all cases like (1). Allan, I hope you see that even if (1)
>is valid, that (2), the attempted definition might not be quite
>right. And, showing that (2) is flawed is not equivalent to showing
>that (1) is wrong. I'm not claiming that Behe's definition is
>wrong. But I do want to make sure that any flaw in his definition
>is not claimed to invalidate the black-box examples.
Agreed. Darwinists will no doubt follow a strategy of undermining
Behe so they don't have to face up to his central argument and
examples.
>RM>When I said something like this earlier, Glenn Morton replied:
>"Somehow I get the feeling that what you ask here is a Herculean
>task like drinking the waters of the ocean." Really, I am
>suggesting only two things: (1) Show that Behe's examples are
>wrong--do this so that a refereed journal will accept it, or,
>failing this, (2) admit that evolution-from-something -simpler
>cannot be assumed in other cases unless a reasonable gradualistic
>path has been presented. Is that so radical?
It might be hard for Darwinists to "Show that Behe's examples are
wrong" but if they cannot, then they cannot claim that Neo-Darwinist
evolution is a fact at the microbiological level. It might be a fact
at some levels, eg. microvolution, without being a fact at *all*
biological levels. IOW Neo-Darwinism will revert to a more modest
Special Theory and will have to give up its pretentions to be a
General Theory of biology.
>RM>8. Concerning a challenge of mine, Allan Harvey quoted David
>Campbell who in turn quoted me:
[...]
AH>...Perhaps we're just not clever enough to figure out how God
>caused the system to evolve. If no explanation is forthcoming, the
>gap is merely filled by philosophical preconceptions, e.g., "It was
>designed", "It evolved somehow", or "I don't know how God did it".
>I think the third option is the safest assertion.
>
>Alan said: That last paragraph may be the wisest thing anybody has
>said on this so far. Proving the absence of a mechanism is nearly
>impossible. Behe and others may think the evidence strongly support
>absence of a mechanism, but other knowledgeable people like Terry
>Gray (I don't have the knowledge to judge the arguments, nor I
>suspect do most who have been contributing to this thread) disagree.
>RM>My (RM's) response: I wonder if I left the impression that
>failure to find a gradualistic path is like searching for the
>universal negative. All we can say is, "_Up to now_, no
>gradualistic path has been found." We might feel very strongly that
>we've looked hard enough to make a firm conclusion. (Such as,
>mass-energy cannot be destroyed, or momentum is not lost, or...)
>But it's still only a scientific conclusion.
Does there not come a point where failure to find (or even to
imagine) a plausible "gradualistic path" renders the Darwinist
continuist paradigm obsolete? The failure to find plausible
functional intermediates at life's biomolecular level has its
counterpart at other levels, eg. the origin of the universe, the
origin of life, the origin of the cell, the origin of life's major
groups. The only level where the Darwinian paradigm does seem to
offer plausible functional intermediates is at life's lower taxonomic
levels, ie. at the species level.
On Tue, 03 Dec 1996 13:30:08 -0700, Allan Harvey wrote:
[...]
RM>In other words, there are (at least) 2 possibilities for such a
>system: 1) It is just like the "others" in having an
>evolutionary explanation, but nobody has found it yet. 2) Unlike
>the "others", there is no evolutionary explanation. In the
>absence of any meaningful criteria (something better than "no
>explanation has been found and I can't imagine one") separating
>Behe's "irreducibly complex" examples from the "others", #1 becomes
>the logical choice, and supporting #2 starts to sound like the
>Argument from Personal Incredulity. Maybe one could start
>considering possibility #2 if the best scientific minds had spent
>years and millions of dollars searching for an explanation and come
>up empty, but as far as I know that isn't the case for any of Behe's
>examples.
Allan's criteria for "possibility #2", ie. "if the best scientific
minds had spent years and millions of dollars searching for an
explanation and come up empty" is in fact *exactly* the situation in
the origin of life area. But still those whose "Personal
Incredulity" excludes apriori a God who can really intervene
supernaturally in His creation, cannot imagine it.
Pomiankowski, who reviewed Darwin's Black Box for New Scientist, is
typical. His own "Personal Incredulity" cannot even imagine that
there might conceivably be a non-Darwinian explanation for Behe's
examples:
"I think that Darwin's Black Box is a missed opportunity. You can
read it to tell you what is wrong with biochemistry. Behe is also
very good at making biochemistry easy to understand. But don't be
fooled by his claim that molecular systems are irreducibly complex,
or that a supernatural designer is needed. Biochemistry is yet
another area of biology still awaiting its Darwinian revolution."
(Pomiankowski A., "The God of the tiny gaps" reviews of "Darwin's
Black Box" by Michael Behe, New Scientist, Vol 151, No. 2047, 14
September 1996, p45)
On 05 Dec 96 13:06:38 EST, Jim Bell wrote:
[...]
JB>That's the crux of the matter. Whether you use "random" or
>"chance" or some other form of expression, the idea behind evolution
>is that UN-guided processes can produce overwhelming complexity.
>Mutations ARE random--no one denies that. The selection by nature
>is based upon utility and advantage, true, but it is still a random
>search among the the "raw mistakes." It does not anticipate, plan
>or pursue...it merely wanders, and eventually strikes.
>
>Denton, echoing Darwn and pre-echoing Behe, states: "[I]t is one
>thing to show tha an evolutionary route is POSSIBLE in the time
>availabe, quite another to show that it is also PROBABLE. Take the
>case of the eye, for example. Even if Darwin had been able to
>demonstrate the existence of a continuous sequence of increasingly
>complex organs of sight, leading in tiny evolutionary steps from the
>simplest imagniable photosensitive spot to the perfection of the
>vertebrate camera eye in a single phylogenetic line (in fact, no
>such series exists in any known lineage) and even if he had been
>able to show by quantitative estimates that the immense number of
>mutational steps could have occurred and been substituted by natural
>selection in the time available, this would only have meant that
>evolution by natural selection was POSSIBLE. It would not have
>meant that it was PROBABLE....
>
>"While it is easy to accept that a random search might hit on
>mutational routes leading to relatively trivial sorts of adaptive
>ends, such as the best coloration for a stoat or ptarmigan or the
>most efficient beak forms for each of the different species of
>Galapagos finch. But as to whether the same blind undirected search
>mechanism could have discovered the mutational routes to very
>complex and ingenious adaptations such as the vertebrate camera eye,
>the feather, the organ of corti or the mammalian kidney is
>altogether another matter. To common sense it seems incredible to
>attribute such ends to random search mechanisms, known by experience
>to be incapable, at least in finite time, of achieving even the
>simplest of ends." (Denton @ 60 - 61)
>
>And what Behe has done is push the complexity envelope beyond
>anything known to Darwin, or even Denton. The PROBABILITY of
>evolution drops precipitously. At some point, we've just got to
>recognize the obvious and look elsewhere for answers. That is what
>the whole argument is about. Intuitively--to Darwin, to Denton, to
>Behe and to the great majority of the population of the
>world--unguided evolution is too improbable to believe. Sure, you
>can imagine the possibility of ANYTHING...but science must be made
>of sterner stuff.
Thanks to Jim for this. Evolution seems to plausible at the
superficial level of just-so stories (what Behe calls "Calvin and
Hobbes" stories). But its when the stories are fleshed out with any
real-world detail that problems start to show up:
"Calvin and Hobbes stories can sometimes be spun by ignoring critical
details, as Russell Doolittle did when imagining the evolution of
blood clotting, but even such superficial attempts are rare. In
fact, evolutionary explanations even of systems that do not appear to
be irreducibly complex, such as specific metabolic pathways, are
missing from the literature. The reason for this appears to be
similar to the reason for the failure to explain the origin of life:
a choking complexity strangles all such attempts." (Behe M.J.,
"Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution", Free
Press: New York, 1996, p177).
It is amazing to think that even for *microevolution*, which even
YECs generally concede, there is hardly any hard empirical evidence
for it at all. As Kelly points out:
"Despite a close watch, we have witnessed no new species emerge in
the wild in recorded history. Also, most remarkably, we have seen no
new animal species emerge in domestic breeding. That includes no new
species of fruitflies in hundreds of millions of generations in
fruitfly studies, where both soft and harsh pressures have been
deliberately applied to the fly populations to induce speciation.
And in computer life, where the term "species" does not yet have
meaning, we see no cascading emergence of entirely new kinds of
variety beyond an initial burst. In the wild, in breeding, and in
artificial life, we see the emergence of variation. But by the
absence of greater change, we also clearly see that the limits of
variation appear to be narrowly bounded, and often bounded within
species." (Kelly K., "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines";
Fourth Estate: London, 1994, p475)
Ambrose, Profressor of Cell Biologist at the University of London,
points out that in sexual species, a minimum of five genes would be
required, and the chnace of this ocurring in one individual's
sex-cells, by random mutation is so improbable as to be virtually
"impossible":
"The more extreme infrequency of multiple mutations that are
necessary to improve a structure or feature is described by Ambrose:
`The frequency with which a single non-harmful mutation is known to
occur is about 1 in 1000. The probability that two favourable
mutations would occur is 1 in 10^3 X 10^3, 1 in a million. Studies
of Drosophila have revealed that large numbers of genes are involved
in the formation of the separate structural elements. There may be
30-40 involved in a single wing structure. It is most unlikely that
fewer than five genes could ever be involved in the formation of even
the simplest new structure, previously unknown in the organism. The
probability now becomes one in one thousand million million. We
already know that mutations in living cells appear once in ten
million to once in one hundred thousand million. It is evident that
the probability of five favourable mutations occurring within a
single life cycle of an organism is effectively zero." (Ambrose
E..J, "The Nature and Origin of the Biological World", Wiley: New
York, 1982, p120)
He then discusses the alternative to simultaneous multiple mutations
in a single organism:
`Let us consider the alternative possibility that the five mutations
occur spontaneously within a large population of interbreeding
organisms. They will have to be brought together eventually in a
single organism, if they are to generate the structure at a new level
of complexity, favourable for natural selection. According to our
definition, each of the genes we are considering is due to a mutation
which will give rise to a hitherto unknown structure of additional
complexity once it meets the other four genes in a single fertilized
egg cell. It would indeed be surprising if any [one alone] of these
mutations could, at the same time, modulate an existing structure in
a manner which would be selected favourably by natural selection. It
is only when the five genes find themselves together that a selective
ad vantage will emerge. They are more likely to be present
independently within the population, as so-called neutral genes....
In the absence of a selective advantage, the probability of the five
genes coming together simultaneously within a single organism, will
be extremely small. " (Ambrose, 1982, pp120-121)
Thus, the probability is about 1 in l,000,000,000,000,000 that even
five non-harmful mutations will occur in a single organism, or will
occur in several organisms and then be recombined in a single
organism, in the ordinary case when the mutations separately are
neutral and thus not subject to natural selection. Even if that
happens, those are only "non-harmful" mutations, and not necessarily
favorable ones."
(Bird W.R., "The Origin of Species Revisited", Regency: Nashville
TN, 1991, Vol. I, pp88)
But because genes must be tighlty integrated into the existing gene
micro-hierarchy, the idea of a whole cluster of five mutated genes
coming together and then fitting into that complex structure (that
would make a Cray computer look like an abacus), the probability that
they arose by random mutation is efefctively zero. Bird continues:
"Further, many genes together govern most traits of an organism, so
multiple beneficial mutations are required to bring a change of
significant scope. Ambrose, a cellular biologist at University of
London, develops the point:
`The difficulties in explaining the origin of increased complexity as
a result of bringing a 'cluster' of genes together within the nuclei
of a single organism in terms of probabilities, fade into
insignificance when we recognise that there must be a close
integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster,
which must also be integrated into the development of the entire
organism The improbability increases at an enormous rate as the
number of genes increases from one to five.... The problem of
bringing together the five mutated genes we are considering, within a
single nucleus, and for them to 'fit' immediately into this vast
complex of interacting units, is indeed difficult. When it is
remembered that they must give some selective advantage, or else
become scattered once more within the population at large, due to
interbreeding, it seems possible to explain these events in terms of
random mutation alone." (Ambrose, 1982, pp123-124)
(Bird W.R., "The Origin of Species Revisited", Regency: Nashville
TN, 1991, Vol. I, pp86-87)
On Thu, 05 Dec 1996 16:41:30 -0500, Brian D. Harper wrote:
[...]
RL>"The intuitive feeling that pure chance could never have achieved
>the degree of complexity and ingenuity so ubiquitous in nature has
>been a continuing source of scepticism ever since the publication of
>the Origin of the Species; and throughout the past century there has
>always existed a significant minority of first-rate biologists who
>have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity of
>Darwinian claims..." (Dentonn, 1985, p327)
[...]
RL>Actually, Darwin himself expressed a similar sentiment to
Denton's: "Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the
eye could have been formed by natural selection, is enough to
stagger anyone...I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be
surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural
selection to so startling a length." [From Origin of Species,
quoted in Denton @ 61]
BH>First of all, Darwin says nothing about pure chance in this
>passage.
Agreed. But "natural selection" is obviously shorthand for his
standard mechanism of "variation" (= chance changes) plus
"natural selection".
BH>Secondly, this is probably the most outrageous out of context
>quotation I've ever seen. First, let's look at what immediately
>follows the first section of Denton's quote, just before the
>ellipses:
>Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have
>been formed by natural selection, is more than enough to stagger any
>one; yet in the case of any organ, if we know of a long series of
>gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor, then, under
>changing conditions of life, there is no logical impossibility in
>the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through
>natural selection. -- Darwin OoS. Penguin Classics p. 231
I don't see what is "outrageous" about this. The fact that Darwin
could envisage a "long series of gradations in complexity" did not
stop him being "staggered" by it:
"While Darwin was attempting to convince the world of the validity of
evolution by natural selection he was admitting privately to friends
to moments of doubt over its capacity to generate very complicated
adaptations or "organs of extreme perfection", as he described them.
In a letter to Asa Gray, the American biologist, written in 1861,
just two years after the publication of The Origin of Species, he
acknowledges these doubts and admits that "The eye to this day gives
me a cold shudder." (Darwin C., 1860, in letter to Asa Gray in
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1888) 3 vols, ed F. Darwin, John
Murray, London, vol. 2, p273).
(Denton M., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis", Burnett Books: London,
1985, p326)
BH>This occurs on page 231 of my copy of OoS (Penguin Classics). I
>encountered some difficulties finding what follows the ellipses in
>Denton's quote since, naturally enough, I was reading *forward* from
>p. 231 whereas what follows the ellipses actually occurs *before*
>page 231, on page 219!
If you had Denton's book you would see that he actually gives
page references to both quotes, namely Darwin's Origin, 1872,
p192 and p181. Both quotes are about the same thing, from the same
chapter "VI Difficulties of the Theory". The first is a summary of
the second. It is fully in context.
BH>He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing this treatise
>that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained
>by the theory of descent, ought not to hesitate to go further, and
>to admit that a structure even as perfect as the eye of an an eagle
>might be formed by natural selection, although in this case he does
>not know any of the transitional grades. His reason ought to
>conquer his imagination; though I have felt the difficulty far too
>keenly to be surprised at any degree of hesitation in extending the
>principle of natural selection to such startling lengths. -- Darwin
>OoS. Penguin Classics pp. 218-219.
>
>Reads a little differently in context, don't you think?
I fail to see any difference in adding the rest of the quote. Darwin
says that he himself has "felt the difficulty" of the formation of
the eye "far too keenly..." That's all that Denton was claiming.
BTW, the "Penguin Classics" edition is the *first edition*. In his
6th and final edition, Darwin chnaged the words slightly and added a
lot more in between the above quote.
BH>What really staggers the imagination is how anyone would, after
>seeing the above, consider Denton as a credible source of
>information.
There is no problem here with "Denton as a credible source of
information". If Brian's had actually read Denton's book, he would
have seen that Denton's quotes of Darwin were correctly referenced
and in context.
[...]
Happy New Year!
Steve
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