From: Rich Blinne (richblinne@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 13:27:52 EDT
----Original Message Follows----
From: Craig Rusbult <craig@chem.wisc.edu>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Critique of ID & No Free Lunch
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 08:34:48 -0500
Terry wrote:
>>Now if you're going to say, as Mike does, that if it
>>evolved then it apparently wasn't irreducibly complex,
>>then you're just being tautological. [...]
and Tim responded,
>I don't think that is a tautology; "confused" would be a better
>description. Systems are determined to be IC (v1.0) on the basis
>of extant, physically determinable properties, independent of
>any considerations about their origins. Behe's work was to show
>that IC-ness is a reliable indicator of design.
>Yes, and people within the ID community (including Behe) agree that --
>especially in the original definitions in his book -- Mike didn't do a very
>good job of clearly defining IC and distinguishing between the two
>different questions that Loren calls inter-locking complexity and
>non-evolvability.
>As pointed out by Terry, there is strong evidence that some currently-IC
>systems have evolved, so a claim that ALL IC-systems are non-evolvable is
>falsifiable and is (at least at a level that seems reasonable) falsified.
>But a claim that "SOME (one or more) currently-IC systems could not have
>evolved" is scientifically interesting and worthy of serious consideration
>and investigation.
Once there is a single counter-example against IC you are in trouble. The
counter-example proves that what you thought was IC is not after all. The
missing piece in my opinion is whether the interlocking steps are reversible
or not. As time goes on, more and more reversible biological processes are
found. For example, the reversible RNA aptamers for coagulation factor IXa
were found recently (Nature September 5, 2002, pp. 90-93). In order to
prove non-evolvability for an interlocking complexity system, you need to
prove non-reversability of the respective steps. This is proving a negative
and would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Where should the proponents of ID go in my opinion? First of all, they
should drop IC and the attempt to disprove evolution and go on to show that
the evolutionary system itself is designed! This appears to me to be an
altogether easier task. Now I am an engineer by trade and design is my
business. Engineers have a word for IC, it is called a "kludge". When I
look at biological systems I see adaptive control systems with error
correction. Ths last part comes from a recent discovery that the genomic
"code" is an even parity Hamming code (cf. Science Sep 13 2002: 1789-1791).
I think part of the allure of IC is because the lack of familiarity that
enigneers use random processes all the time to get around algorithmic
complexities. Multi-variate optimizations in large problem spaces are
O(NP-complete). This means that they never finish because they are not
bound to deterministic polynomial time. These problems show up all the
time. So, how do engineers get around this problem? We use random number
generators. If we always take the option which minimizes the cost function,
we will hit a local minimum. At the start of the process we apply a random
number generator and some of the time we take the "illogical" choice. With
time the random number generator is made smaller and smaller and we arrive
at a solution. This is based on the physical analog of annealing. Here
the "random" motions of the molecules are higher for higher temperatures and
then the temperature is slowly lowered until we crystalize the substance.
The point of this example is to show that random processes and design are
not mutually exclusive categories. When I look at biological systems I see
the same kind of thing going on when I design in so-called random processes.
Where does ID go from here? Our present understanding of biological systems
shows they preform quite well at optimizing for the environment. A
potential avenue is to not look at the optimization system itself but the
sole cost function available to the atheistic evolutionist. Does natural
selection explain all the conserved attributes of biological systems? For
example, what about ageing? That there is an issue is noted in the
following quote from 29 August 2002 Nature, p. 921,
"August Weismann suggested that ageing functions to rid the species of worn
out and decrepit individuals so as to reduce competition for resources with
younger ones. The most obvious problem with this idea is that it is circular
because it assumes the existence of the trait whose occurrence it is aiming
to explain. The circle could be broken by viewing the inevitable
accumulation of damage during a lifetime as an intrinsic trait that has
evolved to increase the death rate of the elderly."
Or put another way, ID should stop being a rear guard against evolution but
rather it should be a vanguard of showing that the heavens declare the glory
of God.
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