Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

Steve M said: Onions and grasshoppers have genomes many times the size of
ours. I can't begin to imagine how someone would assemble a design-based
explanation for observations like these.

I respond: I agree with Rich B.'s subsequent posts -- this is because the
language of "design" has been hijacked by evangelical apologists into a
highly rationalist modern version of Paley. I agree with you, Steve, that
Paley's watchmaker design arguments can't handle observations like this
unless there is some precise, mechanistic correlation between the size of
the genome and the structure / functions of the organism, and as you've
noted, this appears strongly not to be the case.

But, as Mike Gene noted, there are "design" arguments that aren't just
dusted-off versions of Paley. Getting back to the
biologicinstitute.orgsite Randy linked at the start of this thread,
here is a quote from that
site: *"A few key ideas run through all of our work. One is the idea that
information is as real and fundamental as physical quantities, like mass or
energy. As a measurable substance with real-world effects subject to
law-like constraints, information is undeniably the stuff of science. It is
also the stuff of technology… which is the stuff of design."*
**
This, it seems to me, is the fundamental argument of more subtle versions of
contemporary design arguments: "information" is a physical property that is
not intuitively or empirically explainable without intelligence. Obviously,
this claim is debtable for a variety of reasons, but I don't think the
C-value paradox hurts it at all. In itself, it isn't a Paley watchmaker
kind of claim. For the purpose of this claim, the watch could be the most
ludicrously designed watch ever made from an engineering efficiency
perspective -- maybe it includes lots of non-functional leftover gears or
circuits from prior versions of a watch -- but so long as it contains
"information," it reflects intelligence.

(Before anyone starts bashing me on the merits, let me be clear that I'm
only trying to restate and clarify the arguments as I understand them and
not to endorse or not endorse the "information as physical property"
argument).

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 11:22 PM, Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu>
wrote:

> I'm not sure it's a foundational problem, but it's a pretty big one for
> at least two reasons.
>
> 1. The DI ID people have made the "junk DNA" thing a big deal. It is
> easy to find claims by the DI crowd that function for "junk DNA" is a
> central prediction of ID. Jonathan Wells, quoted by Casey Luskin: "From an
> ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would
> expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much 'junk'." Hugh
> Ross has foolishly adopted non-coding DNA as a keystone argument as well.
> This means that ID proponents have publicly asserted that non-coding DNA
> should have a function and that this is a major prediction of ID. My
> conclusion is very similar to Rich's: ID apologists have staked quite a lot
> on function in non-coding DNA. Scientifically, I think it's one of their
> bigger mistakes.
>
> 2. The C-value paradox is devastating to any design-oriented account of
> genomic function, and would be devastating to an ID view of genomes even if
> no one at the Biologic Institute ever mentioned it. The marbled lungfish
> has a genome 40 TIMES THE SIZE of the human genome. The genome of the
> mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus) is at least 25 times the size of the human
> genome. Onions and grasshoppers have genomes many times the size of ours.
> I can't begin to imagine how someone would assemble a design-based
> explanation for observations like these. At the very least, the design
> theorist would have to confess that, at this point, the C-value paradox is
> an enormous barrier to the articulation of a minimally rational ID theory of
> genome structure and function. That vast stretches of the human genome (and
> scores of genomes like it) consist of repeated elements known to be related
> to (or identical to) mobile genetic elements is merely an exclamation point
> on an already hopeless situation for the current ID movement. If you don't
> see this as a huge problem for ID, then you probably aren't fully grasping
> the magnitude of the diversity of genome sizes and the stunning lack of
> correlation with any measure of anything even related to "complexity."
>
> David, I don't know what you mean by the question below (simple/complex
> codes...huh?) but I assure you that assembling a meaningful design argument
> based on "complexity" with regard to genome size is practically impossible.
> That's the whole point of the C-value paradox.
>
> Steve Matheson
>
>
>
> >>> "David Opderbeck" <*dopderbeck@gmail.com*> 05/12/08 4:28 PM >>>
>
> Why is this a foundational problem? If even "simple" organisms have
>
> "complex" genetic codes, couldn't that also support a design argument
> based
>
> on complexity?
>
> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Rich Blinne <*rich.blinne@gmail.com*>
> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Rich Blinne <*rich.blinne@gmail.com*>
>
> > wrote:
>
> >
>
> > I need to correct a typo.
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > > 1. ID nowhere admits that there is a lack of correlation between DNA
> and
>
> > > organizational complexity. Why are not the lay people told there is
> such a
>
> > > foundational problem with Intelligent Design?
>
> > >
>
> > >
>
> > It should be organismal and not organizational.
>
> >
>
> >
>
>
> --
>
> David W. Opderbeck
>
> Associate Professor of Law
>
> Seton Hall University Law School
>
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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