RE: [asa] Romans 1:20 (disregard my last post)

>BTW, no one including Richard Dawkins believes that evolution is fully
random.

Ok, now it is getting interesting. Another Eureka moment for me.

If Dawkins doesn't believe that evolution is fully random then does that
mean he concedes some kind of guiding process or law embedded in life?
Remember we discussed on this list Gould's analogy of a staggering drunk in
a hallway making forward progress but by the hardest? Would Dawkins accept
this thought as well?

If so, then the question turns on the existence of the analog of the hallway
in nature that constrains life to make forward progress. What would that be?
Maybe if that is ever understood then it would not be as easy for Dawkins to
consider it as being self-existent.

To me this "hallway" is some divinely embedded algorithm in the primordial
epigenome that guided it ultimately to where we are today. I guess that is
subjective and the same philosophical impasse we have with Dawkins on the
source of evolution today. But if you tell me he at least acknowledges its
possible existence that is news to me but I am glad to hear that.

I have long thought that the best way to defend the faith was by falling
back to line of defense of an embedded algorithm because it seems most
consistent with what we see in cosmological ID and less likely to be
disproven like the bacterial flagellum and junk DNA arguments.

But now we are back full circle to the thorny question that started this. If
evolution was guided by a divine embedded algorithm then you can almost
understand ID's assertion that it was not random. Maybe we could bridge this
gap between ID and TE if they instead argued it was not self-existent
instead of not random? They like me have a hard time distinguishing the
difference in these terms. And this embedded algorithm is what I mean by ID
in biology.

If ID, TE and Dawkins all agree on Gould's hallway analogy then I don't see
what all the fuss is about other than language and miscommunication. Dawkins
will look at it and conclude self-existence and we will look at it and
conclude God but if the impasse is purely philosophical then all the science
gets factored out and this becomes real simple.

Thanks again,

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Blinne [mailto:rich.blinne@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 9:55 AM
To: John Walley
Cc: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] Romans 1:20 (disregard my last post)

On Nov 21, 2007, at 6:06 AM, John Walley wrote:

Rich,

Thanks for this clarification. This was a Eureka! moment for me.

I see now that as far as the mechanism of evolution goes you don't take any
issues with Dawkins and "random" is the wrong term to try to describe any
difference. This wasn't entirely clear to me before.

But it raises two more interesting questions for me:

1) If TE is in general agreement with Dawkins on the fully "random"
component of evolution as a mechanism, then where is the departure with him?

For one, his "meme" hypothesis. Evolution also does a poor job of describing
altruism for non-relatives and music (in the latter case how is something
that is nowhere conserved in any other species is completely conserved in
ours?). Check out Sack's latest book, Musicophilia, on how pervasive music
is in the human brain. The obvious point of departure is his atheism. Just
because the Universe is regular and follows "laws" does not imply that it is
self-existent.

Would it be accurate to say that this difference is purely philosophical and
can not be quantified by science at all?

Yes, I would believe it would and by stating that we separate his strongest
case from his "evangelical atheism".

        As I mentioned above and also evidenced by the author of the review
article below, it is not altogether intuitive to IDers and novice TE's like
myself to equate fully "random" processes with God although I will concede
your scriptural reference does a great job of highlighting this.
"Randomness" seems like a convenient and logical demarcation between God and
naturalism and in fact that is the distinction Behe uses as a way to
challenge the creative powers of evolution in "Edge". How certain are we
from the science that this fully "random" process of Darwinian evolution is
sufficient to explain all the complexity of life?

We are quite certain. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. BTW, no one
including Richard Dawkins believes that evolution is fully random. It is
inaccurate to use the singular term process because evolution incorporates a
number of processes: natural selection, genetic drift, sexual selection,
horizontal gene transfer, etc. It is also inaccurate to use the term
Darwinian. Darwin didn't have a clue about modern genetics. It is the modern
evolutionary synthesis that pretty much closed the case on evolution. The
case for common descent is so strong Michael Behe concedes it by page 5 of
Darwin's Black Box. Behe concedes even more in Edge, specifically natural
selection. Where he draws the line now is whether genetic variation is
sufficient. At this rate, in another ten years there will be no difference
between Michael Behe and standard evolutionary theory.

In other words, is the objection to Behe's premise of an edge to the
explanatory powers of evolution rejected on scientific grounds, or merely
philosophical grounds because TE's don't like ID?

It's both. Behe's science is pretty poor. We have had over a decade for him
and other IDM proponents to demonstrate their hypothesis and so far they
have come up empty. I have yet to see a positive theory. All I have seen is
evolution doesn't work therefore design. You might cite Dembski's work as a
positive theory but here Randy Isaac and myself are involved with the
computer industry and we both agree that Dembski has made a hash of
information theory. When Randy ran IBM's Watson Laboratory he interacted
with some of the pre-eminent experts in this field. Even if you say that
this qualifies as a positive theory, I don't see any tests. In the Dover
trial, Behe came up with hypothetical tests of his hypothesis but was forced
to admit on the stand that no one -- including IDM proponents -- has done
them.

 Is it conceivable that Behe may be right and one day the "random" component
of evolution may no longer explain it?

Yes. In fact, I hope he is right. Being a working engineer I don't believe
that the approach currently chosen by the IDM is the most fruitful approach
on proving design, however. In order to infer design, many times you need
the designer to tell you. So, you need to argue from the Bible to design and
not the other way around.

Is it possible that one day some finely tuned epigenetic laws are discovered
that govern the genomes of life that will disprove randomness?

That's already being argued by standard evolutionary theory -- except for
the fine tuning. As I said above, no one except the IDM argues for
completely random evolution. Random single nucleotide polymorphisms is only
one of many mechanisms -- not all of which are random -- for variation that
is non-randomly chosen from. One test for positive selection is gene
frequencies that cannot be explained by random genetic drift. Speaking of
fine tuning I believe that so-called cosmological ID is their strongest
argument. If the IDM focused on that rather than trying to disprove
evolution they would be more successful in my opinion.

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Received on Wed Nov 21 11:01:49 2007