Re: [asa] The Agent and the Mousetrap

Fair enough Michael. The particular book of Menuge's I was reading wasn't
specifically about this though. The question of "agency" he's dealing with
directly is a response to the materialist view that there is no such thing
as agency at all -- that human free will is an illusion that is reducible
entirely to biochemistry.

The first section of the book is strictly a philosophical effort to refute
"strong" (Wilson) and "weak" (Dennett) agency reduction. I don't think
those arguments are affected by long or short time scales -- they aren't
premised on acts of special creation.

The middle section of the book defends Behe's notion of irreducible
complexity. Frankly, it's seems a bit of a non-sequitor, but Menuge is
trying to argue that agency reductionism is untenable both philosophically
and based on a broader attack on Darwinism. That broader attack isn't
really necessary to the main argument. Anyway, it's from that portion of
the book that my questions about exaptation arise. I'm not trying to defend
Menuge's points about exaptation here -- genuinely I'm trying to understand
their strengths and weaknesses.

After defending the general concept of agency, Menuge argues that if human
agency is possible, there is no a priori reason to exclude the possibility
of divine / non-human agency. Again, I'm not so sure of the connection --
divine / non-human agency could be possible with or without genuine human
agency. Either way, this again doesn't seem to me to depend on geological
time scales.

I haven't finished the book, but I'm sure the clincher is that if divine
agency is possible, there is no a priori reason to exclude the possibility
of divine agency in nature. At this point, I think all the questions you
raise must come into play.

On 10/22/06, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I will be lazy and put in a section of my chapter in Debating Design for
> which Angus was sub-editor. The question is "How many times did Angus' agent
> actually act - once on 28 October 4004BC or a few thousand years before
> that, or a myriad times throughout geological time?" Ken Miller picks us
> this problem as well. I reckon that Divine Agency is reduced to absurdity
> when we have to say that this agent act millions of times in the geological
> record, for example to remove a hoof from a horse. I think the quote from
> Darwin in 1844 says it all.
>
> Michael
>
>
> Miller in *Finding Darwin's God[1]* mischievously considers
> design in relation to elephants with 22 species in the last 6 million years
> and many more going back to the Eocene. If all were "formed" at about the
> same time in c8000 BC, then the only reasonable explanation is some kind of
> intelligent intervention, which designed each to be different, rather like
> cars made by Chrysler or GM over several decades.
>
> If geological timescale be correct, then these different fossil elephants
> appeared consecutively and despite "gaps" form a graded sequence. They
> indicate only "annual model upgrade". Assuming that this is a fairly
> complete sequence, the Intelligent Designer seemed to have adopted the same
> sequence of modifications as would be expected by evolution. This is exactly
> the point Darwin made in his 1844 draft;
>
> *I must premise that, according to the view ordinarily
> received, the myriads of organisms, which have during past and present times
> peopled this world, have been created by so many distinct acts of creation.
> … That all the organisms of this world have been produced on a scheme is
> certain from their general affinities; and if this scheme can be shown to be
> the same with that which would result from allied organic beings descending
> from common stocks, it becomes highly improbable that they have been
> separately created by individual acts of the will of a Creator. For as well
> might it be said that, although the planets move in courses conformably to
> the law of gravity, yet we ought to attribute the course of each planet to
> the individual act of the will of the Creator*.[2]
>
>
> The Playing down of geological time in Intelligent Design
>
> * *
>
> The example from Miller highlights why the avoidance of
> geological time results in problems. Behe focuses entirely on biochemistry
> and Dembski on detecting design. Both accept a long timescale but do not
> consider the implications for their understanding of Design. Thus the
> formation of biological complexity is considered without any reference to
> the history of life and its timescale in a way which is reminiscent of
> Lessing's ditch in that "*accidental truths of history can never become
> the proof of necessary truths of reason."*[3] The accidental truths of
> geology are simply ignored for the demonstration of *Intelligent Design.*In the volume
> *The Creation Hypothesis* Stephen Meyer argued cogently for* The
> Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent*, but swung the argument
> in favour of design by omitting any reference to geological time. If
> geological time is accepted then the choice is between Phillips (design or
> multiple abrupt appeaance) and Darwin (descent), as discussed above. If
> geological time is not accepted then design is the only choice.* *Kurt
> Wise likewise avoided the issue of age in his essay *The origins of life's
> major groups* and failed to see that the awareness of the change in
> organisms over time came through detailed stratigraphy rather than
> interpreting them though the theories of 'macroevolution, progressive
> creation, global deluge'.[4] The early geologists tediously recorded the
> order of strata without asking questions of origins, though their vast age
> was common knowledge.[5] (Wise's idea that the fossil record is explained
> by rising floodwaters is simply absurd. This type of approach justifies
> critics like Pennock and Eldredge to dismiss ID as a variant of YEC.)
>
> Perhaps the demonstration of evolution from the fossil record
> falls short of "rational compulsion", as the *geological* argument for
> evolution is *abduction* or *inference of the best fit. *Considering the
> fossil record within a 4 billion-year timescale abductively, the best fit is
> gradual change over time (with or without interference). But within a short
> timescale of 10,000 years, the best and only fit is *abrupt appearance*.
> To avoid citing the evidence of the fossil record and vast time (or only to
> mention, or even parody, the Cambrian Explosion)[6] may be good practice
> for a defence lawyer, but not for a scientist.
>
> Unless one rejects geological time, the fossil record points
> either to Progressive Creation with regular interventions (the common
> pre-Darwinian view), or evolution, possibly with occasional "interventions".
> The starting point has to be an ancient earth and the 'absolute knowledge
> that species die & others replace them'. To regard geological time as a
> subsidiary issue would deny that.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> [1] K. Miller, *Finding Darwin's God*, 1999, New York: Harper Collins95–9
>
> [2] C Darwin *The Essay of 1844, * Works of Charles Darwin, vol. 10,
> p133/4
>
> [3] H Chadwick ed *Lessing's Theological Writings*, 1956, London: A. & C.
> Black, 53**
>
> [4] Stephen Meyer,* The Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent*,
> 67–112. K. Wise, *The Origin of Life's Major Groups,* 211–34, p 226 in
> J.P.Moreland (ed), *The Creation Hypothesis, *1994 Downers Grove: Inter
> Varsity Press.
>
> [5] This is clear if one reads through the *Transactions of the Geological
> Society of London *and similar journals from 1810. Many of the papers are
> tedious stratigraphic and palaeontological descriptions substantiating
> Bragg's charge that geology is stamp–collecting! But they show how
> undoctrinaire stratigraphy is, as it unravelled the chronology of the earth.
>
> [6] N. Eldredge, *The Triumph of Evolution,* 2000, New York: W. H.
> Freeman, p42–8* *
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> *To:* Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
> *Cc:* asa@calvin.edu
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 22, 2006 8:31 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] The Agent and the Mousetrap
>
>
> *The trouble is with Angus is that he refuses to be clear on the age of
> the earth and sits on the fence. With an attitude like that he is really
> doing his philosophy in a vacuum*
>
> I have to admit that this kind of thing disturbs me too, and that if he is
> YEC I probably wouldn't listen to anything he has to say. But this book
> doesn't have anything to do with the age of the Earth or uniformitarian
> assumptions or anything like that, so I guess my feelings in that regard
> wouldn't be fair. His critique of strong and weak agent reductionism seems
> to be one that any non-reductive theory of mind would relate to. (Recently
> I picked up Nancey Murphy's book on mind and look forward to seeing her
> position).
>
> But I'd really like to hear about his criteria for exaptation. Are they
> reasonable? Do the papers Miller likes to cite really meet them?
>
> On 10/20/06, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> > The trouble is with Angus is that he refuses to be clear on the age of
> the earth and sits on the fence. With an attitude like that he is really
> doing his philosophy in a vacuum
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: David Opderbeck
> > To: asa@calvin.edu
> > Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 9:40 PM
> > Subject: [asa] The Agent and the Mousetrap
> >
> >
> > I've been reading Angus Menuge's book "Agents Under Fire." His critique
> of "strong" and "weak" agent reductionism is interesting in its own right.
> He tries to bolster that critique with a broader critique of Darwinism based
> on irreducible complexity. He responds to a number of standard objections
> to IC, including the theory that apparently IC systems could have developed
> through co-optation. His response to the co-optation scenario seems fairly
> strong.
> >
> > Why is co-optation considered a slam dunk in light of responses like
> Menuge's? Also, aside from his critique of Darwinism, any thoughts on the
> philosophical critique of SAR and WAR?
>
>
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Oct 22 16:56:30 2006