Re: [asa] Comments on Nature's Destiny by Denton

Greetings Schwarzwald,

You are right about Timaeus' perspective and its consequences. And I think you are right to be concerned that my specific criticism of his use of Denton could lead to confusion on the part of people who haven't read the whole exchange. I'm happy, then, to let your comments stand, and I'll amend mine (again) as follows:

Timeaus has an affinity for design-based conceptions of biological evolution, and believes that ateleology is necessarily a part of a "Darwinian" theoretical framework. Thus he enthusiastically embraces the work of Michael Denton, whose law-based, typological conception of biological evolution is fundamentally distinct from this picture of "Darwinism." While I don't share the preferences of Timeaus or Denton, I find much of interest and value in their arguments and do not mean to disparage the views they hold. Unfortunately, in the course of arguing his case, Timeaus repeatedly attacked the value of evolutionary science, and created a portrait of Darwinian explanations that implies idiocy and foolishness on the part of those who hold such ideas to have explanatory power. In statements that could be quoted in textbooks as exemplars of hyperbole, he mocked evolutionary biology and clearly cited Denton as a source of scientific demolition of "Darwinist" explanation. The st!
 atements I have quoted here are not statements of agreement with Denton's vision of the cosmos -- I don't have a problem with that at all. The statements under consideration are claims that Denton has wrecked Darwinian explanation by showing that it doesn't work. And the statements are false.

So I hope my readers will keep this in mind: Denton's book is a fairly effective articulation of a law-based design perspective. It is therefore incompatible with any view that denies purpose or direction in the cosmos, and in that sense it is a challenge to some views that are called "Darwinian." It is most certainly not a demolition of ANY competing view (whether or not that view can or should be called "Darwinism"), and that is the major point my review sought to make. In my opinion, Timaeus repeatedly claimed that Denton smashed his competition scientifically. And I'm saying that's nonsense. Nature's Destiny doesn't even attempt this, and the major points of ETC are spectacularly wrong, including at least one chapter that is worthy of official retraction.

I hope this helps you understand why I consider your comments on "forms of Darwinism" below to be misconstruing everything I've said. It's probably my fault. I'm saying that Denton has not damaged evolutionary explanations. And I'm saying that merely embracing a teleological viewpoint (like that of Conway Morris) does not imply the abandonment of "Darwinism," because as long as the scare quotes remain we'll have room to claim the Darwinian mechanism without swallowing the Dawkins-Huxley religion. That's what Conway Morris does, and what Asa Gray did, and what Daniel Harrell does, and it just doesn't matter that Timaeus wants it another way. Conway Morris is unequivocal about the explanatory power of the Darwinian mechanism, while unabashedly pointing to something bigger that "guides" the evolutionary process. In other words, Conway Morris does not jettison Darwinian evolution -- he strongly affirms it. (In fact, he's something of a pan-adaptationist, and clearly takes!
  Dawkins' side against Gould in the "rewind the tape" scrum. Strange bedfellows indeed.) This tells me that Conway Morris, like me, is either too stupid to see the wisdom of Timeaus, or that he has simply rejected the assertion that Darwinian explanations entail the horrors of atheism. Whatever Denton demolished when he wrecked "the Darwinian mechanism," it wasn't consequential enough to stop one of the world's foremost evolutionary biologists from continuing to embrace that very mechanism WHILE AFFIRMING MUCH OF DENTON'S REAL PROJECT. Or maybe Conway Morris didn't get the memo...

You asked "Are we talking about the same ID advocates..."? First of all: interesting tone. Second, we weren't talking about ID advocates, we were talking about attacks on evolutionary science, in the context of repeated claims that a book author had completely undermined the "Darwinian mechanism." I'm quite well aware of the acknowledgement of common descent by some ID advocates. It's not relevant at all to my specific comments.

Finally, I find your comments at the end to bafflingly unrelated to my positions and to my actual words. I'll assume they're aimed at someone else.

Steve Matheson

>>> Schwarzwald <schwarzwald@gmail.com> 11/17/08 2:21 AM >>>
Heya Steve,

On whether Timaeus' claim that Denton "rips the Darwinian mechanism to shreds," I find him to quite clear on his stance that Darwinism is a joke scientifically, and found the quote in question to be about that specifically. It is to these claims of Timaeus', in the quote and elsewhere, that I was responding. On whether Denton rejects the purposelessness of what Timaeus calls "Darwinism," I felt no need to address -- that's the whole point of Nature's Destiny.

The problem I'm having here is that, given what Timaeus has said, the line between the metaphysical/philosophical and scientific is blurry - in fact, it seems to be downright central to this whole 'TE v ID' divide, as more than once Timaeus has said that you can't divorce the metaphysical/philosophical presumptions of Darwin, Gould, and others from the scientific theory itself. I disagree with him on that entirely. But particularly for people who haven't been following this long, long exchange on ASA, the natural conclusion to draw is something vastly different than what Timaeus, it seems to me, has argued.

Let me reiterate: If Timaeus' position is truly that darwinism is necessarily entwined with not just neutrality on the question of design or teleology but out and out rejection, then Denton, Conway-Morris, and others have powerful objections to the science *given the framework he's operating under* and *given that they can powerfully argue their metaphysics are as good as or is superior to* the other metaphysical frameworks supposed based on what the science illuminates. I don't want to speak too much for T here - clearly he's more than capable of explaining himself. But as someone who's been silently following this exchange, something just seems wrong with this depiction.
 

On the reference to "forms of Darwinism" not abiding talk of the fitness of the environment or the meaning of convergence (which were the topics in that part of my review), I had in mind pan-adaptationism and any school of "Darwinism" that relies (or insists) on total naturalism. (Conway Morris calls such apologists "ultra-Darwinists" in a section called "Darwin's Priesthood.") The scare quotes were meant to communicate the fact that "Darwinism" is a term used for various purposes, and some uses will surely capture ideas or viewpoints that will recoil from the kind of questions and ideas that Denton and Conway Morris point to. I guess that's all I can say about that; there's no contradiction at all, as long as you see why I've put scare quotes around "Darwinism." And to David Opderbeck, yes I do think that Conway Morris is unquestionably a "Darwinist," as in someone who believes that adaptation is typically explained by selection acting on variation.

But this just bolsters the problem. Already T has insisted that Darwinism as a scientific theory cannot be divorced from the philosophical and metaphysical baggage so many have foisted upon it, including Darwin himself. Now you're talking about 'ultra-Darwinists' and naturalists who have a similar view of "Darwinism" in play. Yet no point or argument Denton or others can make challenges "Darwinism", because - somehow - the only way to challenge a synthesis of science and philosophy/metaphysics is by challenging the science. In which case, ID is a wildly successful concept because not a single scientific discovery has challenged the ID metaphysical position, and any objections to the metaphysical position are not scientific and therefore can be ignored. Funny how that works.
 

On the lack of references to Conway Morris: I'm wondering if he's less popular among ID proponents because he knows that the attacks on evolutionary science, levelled with gusto and abandon by Timaeus and like-minded advocates, are embarrassingly shallow and necessarily underinformed. Why didn't Conway Morris make any of Timaeus' pantheons? Maybe you should ask Timaeus that question.

Are we talking about the same ID advocates, some of whom (and a growing number) accept evolutionary science in its entirety, but question the philosophical baggage so often added on - or frankly, shoehorned into - the paradigm? The ID advocates where some, even among the more prominent ones, argue that naturally unfolding processes may sufficiently describe biological (and other) history via front-loaded planning or otherwise? There's some shallow and underinformed claims on display here, that much I'll grant.
 

On my rhetoric: I like Timaeus and we agree on some really basic and important things. My responses here deal with florid rhetoric and over-the-top statements that imply that only blinkered buffoons believe there is anything remotely plausible about Darwinian explanations. I thought I was nice enough, and I think that "chest-beating" is an apt description of Timaeus' extended comments on Denton. Your mileage may differ.

I stand by my response, particularly when you at first refused to engage Timaeus based on rhetoric, if I recall correctly. And I criticize ID proponents the times I do think they cross the line on these and other issues. If you think the rhetoric is conducive to really examining these things, so be it.
 

On what Denton's argument needs to accomplish: you're right that he doesn't need to refute one framework to establish the plausibility of his own. My remarks, however, come in a particular context. First, the repeated assertion by Timeaus that Denton has unmasked Darwinian explanation as "ludicrously improbable," with "almost no evidence in its favour," "mostly imagination and bluff." I tried to make it clear that this is a fantastic distortion of Nature's Destiny, and I will show that ETC is a complete failure in this regard as well. I tried to leave intact the metaphysical ideas and preferences of Denton and Timaeus. Second, I was writing in that paragraph about a tactic that I find potentially disingenuous: going on about the coolness and the details of a particular adaptation, as though those facts have anything to do with the validity of competing accounts of the development of the adaptation. It is those accounts that matter, and too much gushing about the glorie!
 s of an avian lung can give the wrong impression. My opinion, anyway.

At this point I'll just hope that Timaeus chimes in with a response to what you've said here - I'd love to see that. I've already talked about what's going on when critiques of Darwinism are offered, and how attention should be paid to what 'Darwinism' means to a particular person, since you're well-aware of the various 'forms' Darwinism takes, depending on context and who's discussing it.

I will add this: I've noticed a pattern when discussing evolution/darwinism, principally among Dawkins-style New Atheist defenders, but also something that pops up with TEs and even ID proponents at times.

Darwinism is defined as a purely scientific theory of evolutionary biological development and adaptation via various mechanisms and processes. Many of the processes and mechanisms are discussed and argued about, with competing viewpoints. But Darwinism is referred to as true, because there is some core agreement among all parties - usually it amounts to 'there is change, development, and selection over time, which leads to diversification'. Important, but minimal.

Then the philosophical and metaphysical baggage is piled on top of all these things, complete with talk of how evolution is unguided, without purpose, fundamentally based on chance of differing strengths (such as Gould's 'if you would replay it, everything would turn out different'), indicates a lack of a designer, etc. Utterly extraneous to the science, and certainly not justified by it. What's the resulting combination called? Unsurprisingly, still 'Darwinism'.

But then something interesting happens. Challenge the metaphysical and philosophical end and you're either accused of in-effect challenging the science (because clearly you're encouraging the science to be denied if you challenge the metaphysical/philosophical and entirely extraneous baggage) or, if you put up too much of a fight, you're told that the metaphysics don't matter anyway - only the science does, so please talk about that. But if you so much as express skepticism of the scientific aspect, then you're either a fool or a liar, and clearly motivated by your metaphysics.

The result is that one particular set of metaphysics ('unguided, purposeless, atelic') is treated as the default viewpoint. But somehow, you can't challenge the metaphysics on metaphysical grounds because if both explanations fit the science, the default is assumed to win (no matter how increasingly awkward it looks) and the discussion is written off as valueless. Press the issue too hard, and clearly you're hijacking science for metaphysical goals, and are under suspicion of questioning the science. Actually question the science and you're well on your way to getting labeled.

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Received on Mon Nov 17 10:57:54 2008