Re: ORIGINS: Question For Biologists

Darwin used artifical selection as an example as to how evolutionary processes can take place. I find the conflation of intelligent design and artificial selection highly suspicious. While ID proponents are known to conflate the concept of intelligence and the supernatural when claiming that science excludes intelligence or intelligent design, they also claim that science includes intelligent design in archaeology, criminology etc.
Through conflation, ID is trying to give some credibility to their thesis. But until they clearly formulate their thesis, one has to reject the argument that artificial selection somehow is relevant to ID.
History of ID clearly shows that ID is all about the supernatural.

----- Original Message ----
From: David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 8:45:30 AM
Subject: 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 13:55:01 2006