Re: Nature article on ID

Iain Strachan wrote:
>The following link probably demonstrates something of what I'm thinking:...
>
>http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1319
>

[snip]

>In essence in this response article, entitled "Evolution by Intelligent
>Design", the author points out that Lenski et al designed a digital world
>where the evolution of an apparently irreducibly complex organism took
>place. The design that went in to the algorithm allowed a stepwise
>progression from simple "organisms" to complex ones by giving increased
>merit to digital "programmes" that contained more elementary logical
>functions than ones that contained less ones. Since, therefore there was a
>smooth gradualist pathway to the intended target by design then it was
>inevitable that an evolutionary process would succeed. The article also
>points out that Lenski's paper illustrates the unevolvability of irreducibly
>complex systems by not giving incremental credit to intermediate forms and
>re-running the simulation. In this case no instances of the desired target
>were able to evolve.
>
>Thus, as they say, Lenski "stacked the deck" at the outset in order to
>illustrate the evolution of biological complexity. I (not the article) would
>say that Lenski et. al were playing at God - they created this little
>digital universe so that inevitably a desired result would be obtained.
>
>In the same way, it appears that the universe is ingeniously constructed so
>that there are smooth pathways whereby complex features can evolve. Thus it
>appears (to me) that the deck of the universe was also similarly stacked (by
>God) so that Man appears and is able to worship Him. In essence, this is
>evolution by Intelligent Design, and I'd have thought really it was pretty
>close to Theistic Evolution.
>

Dave Siemens did make one important cautionary note on
the theology side, that we get ourselves stuck in deism
if we take this too far. I guess this is why we are
constantly warned about knowing some theology.

Nevertheless, we do need to test all things, and the
"standard model" (if you will) is working from the
viewpoint that evolution has generated all life forms
from some long forgotten RNA world (with all sorts of
variants that might include coevolution of RNA with
proteins, etc.). In a sense, all came from some "seed".
It is important to test such a model.

I am doubtful of the strong position that "life is inevitable".
Certainly it does not look like intelligent life is so inevitable
because, as Enrico Fermi said, "where are they?".
But life is possible because we are here.

So I would just point out some cautionary notes here:

First is that things like the flagella are very far in
the distant past. Some time ago, Tim Ikeda emphasized
the point that we need to examine recent events because
events that are far in the past are difficult to piece
together. For example, in historical analysis,
we have a much better ability to verify events
that happened 100 years ago than those of 2000 years ago,
and we have better information of 2000 years ago than 5000.
Still further back, we have great difficulties.

In dealing with phylogeny, this is a problem as well.
The flagella appeared a long time ago, so it is hard
to know what conditions brought about its appearance.
This is even more of a problem with something like
ribosomal RNA that goes very far back toward the
beginning. Recent semi-evolutionary events such as
resistance to penicillin can be traced quite easily,
by comparison and even further adaptations can even
be predicted to some extent. So on a narrow time
scale, we could probably challenge Moorad's complaint
about predictability, but like the weather, we cannot
do very well if you ask for information far into the
future nor far in the distant past (without extra
information).

The second point is, whereas the design at the very
beginning was "very good" and little more need be
said, we don't know enough about the initial conditions
to do much with determining how improbable life actually
is or what combination of events from the beginning led
to the result of being here. Being a Christian myself,
I do feel that this universe is a product of God's
handiwork, but to keep this scientific rather than just
faith, one does need to find what natural processes would
allow for the development and replication of some RNA-like
world. From there, how to get to the first cell. I do
agree with Behe that from the cell, it is much easier to
see what happened than before the cell. But the historical
information is very limited to debate what happened before
the cell.

Third, and a little more tied into the article itself, the
issue about too much selective advantage raises some flags.
Such features as eyes and flagella have considerable
selective advantage. The organism that cannot see it will
soon be a meal has a disadvantage. If it can see, but
cannot escape, it is still has a disadvantage. So there
would be strong selective pressures for certain types of
features. This doesn't mean that God could not have forseen
that the eye and the flagella would have high selective
pressures and accounted for them, but I'm not sure the
article is correct in raising this objection.

The main thing is that stacking the deck and then claiming
"look see, we don't need god" is nonsense. The deck has
probably been stacked from the beginning, but that seems
to say that there are strong selective pressures.

I didn't so much agree with the end of the article where
Luskin complains that Pennock is coauthor. No one has a
monopoly on the truth, and I'm sure Pennock could contribute
something to the article. To imply that he didn't without
a confession or witnesses is something I don't take seriously.
It does not help that there are triumphalists in all these
camps: creationist, ID and dogmatic materialist. The reader
who wants to decide the truth for himself/herself is the real
loser in these games.

by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
Received on Sun May 1 23:04:16 2005