Re: ORIGINS: Question For Biologists

On 1/17/06, Rohan du Heaume <Rohan@duheaume.com> wrote:
>
> My question for the biologists is as follows:
>
> Now that mankind is affecting the genetic makeup of certain crops,
> livestock and pets, would an evolutionist consider that to be intelligent
> design, or natural selection? In other words, are we intelligently
> designing
> organisms to match a desired goal using evolution as a pathway, or are the
>
> organisms evolving under natural selection because they better match a
> biological niche within environmental pressures?
>
> What is the exact definition of intelligent design? Sometimes its
advocates claim it is the premise that intelligent action can be
scientifically detected; sometimes it is billed as an alternative to
evolution (in which case it is a gap argument)...

The genetic modification of an organism by humans is certainly a case of
intervention outside the normal mechanisms of evolution, although genes do
occasionally tranfer between organisms (frequently in bacteria, rarely in
eukaryotes). The future success of the modified organisms is based on
selection, mostly artificial selection by humans rather than natural
selection. However, in basic effect this is not too different from the old
method of selective breeding, which uses the ordinary mechanisms of
evolution in conjunction with strong artificial selection to create a
desired end.

Suppose that alien biologists examined some of these organisms without input
from people who knew that they were genetically modified. They could
determine that particular genes appeared to have undergone lateral
transfer. However, the only way that they could know that humans were
responsible for the transfer would be either by talking to someone who knew
or else by determining that these transfers occurred in domestic taxa and
made the organisms more useful to humans-in other words, by knowing enough
about the designers to know what they are likely to do. Neither of these is
the approach attempted by the ID movement.

The intelligence of some of the modifications might be questioned. Human
designs run into problems not foreseen by the designers and have to get
further adjustments.
Received on Tue Jan 17 11:46:29 2006