Re: [asa] observational vs. theoretical differences in scenarios; a direct question

David:

A. Given your definitions, your answer makes sense.

However, bear in mind that if it weren't for the 20th-century discovery of
"quantum indeterminacy", your position would be dead in the water. It is
quantum indeterminacy which allows you to employ a blurry distinction
between "guided" and "natural" events, and it is the blurring of that
distinction which makes your position possible. If the universe were wholly
Laplacean, you would have to concede my definitions, i.e., that "guided" is
completely distinct from "natural", and also would have to concede my
general point that God's only two options for guiding evolution are to
"intervene" or "front-load".

A few points about that:

1. In Darwin's day, quantum indeterminacy was never heard of. By natural
laws, Darwin had in mind Laplacean, mechanistic regularity. That is true
also of most of the early neo-Darwinian synthesizers, because (a) quantum
physics was relatively new when the modern synthesis in evolutionary biology
was achieved (1930s), and (b) the biologists were too busy, driven by their
physics envy, trying to bring biology in line with 19th-century mechanistic
conceptions of nature, to pay much attention to the fact that physics was
moving on, let alone apply the new physics to evolution or theology. So my
description of nature more accurately describes the mind-set of the
Darwinians themselves, than does the description you are offering. And even
today, in the popular mind, quantum indeterminacy is very difficult for the
non-initiate, and the vulgar conception of evolution is in many cases still
mechanistic-materialistic as I've described.

2. I am no physicist, but I am told that there is a "minority view"
regarding quantum theory, which rejects indeterminism at the ultimate level,
in favour of a deeper determinism. If that minority view is right, your
"quantum rescue" would also be in question.

3. Even granting that God could remain within "natural laws" while quietly
shifting things at the subatomic level, it is far from clear how this would
pan out in evolutionary terms. I grant entirely that God's mysterious
action could not be detected at that level by scientific means, but what
happens to the sequence of efficient causes after he makes his little
invisible tweaks? I haven't heard anyone here, or any TE anywhere, give any
details. Let's take an example:

Suppose God wants to alter the DNA in such-and such a way. Let's say he
does this by smacking it with, oh, I don't know, an alpha particle. So for
the quantum thing to work, God has to (a) make his scientifically
indetectable move in the heart of some radioactive nucleus which can give
off alpha particles -- I grant that God could do this without contest; but
then some other things must also happen, i.e., (b) God's secret action has
to determine not only *when* the nucleus will emit the alpha particle, but
the precise path it will follow in three-dimensional space (it may be
several hundred yards from the radioactive material to the piece of DNA he
wants to alter, and if the alpha particle emerges from the nucleus even a
trillionth of an micrometer to the left or right from where it is supposed
to emerge, it will miss its target by the time 300 yards have been
traversed); (c) the velocity of the alpha particle as it leaves the nucleus
also has to be precisely determined, if it is going to strike the DNA with
just enough energy to produce the mutation required. Too much energy and it
may shoot through without effect, or damage other parts of the DNA that God
doesn't want to mutate; too little and it may bounce off or be deflected
without effect. So God in effect has to, under the cover of quantum
indeterminacy, make the equivalent of a pool shot that would make Minnesota
Fats envious.

And that's not all. God has to intervene with the free will, or at least
the desires or bodily reactions, of the creature that the alpha particle
strikes. If the man rolls over in his sleep, or the lion suddenly stands up
to urinate, or any other action happens while the alpha particle is
travelling, it will miss its target. So now, since you want to use only
naturalistic causes, you have to dream up a whole new chain of
quantum-indeterminacy-concealed events which God employs to make the man or
lion sit still until the alpha particle strikes. You must commit yourself
to all of this if you really want to seriously maintain the quantum
indeterminacy explanation. And this sort of complex dance of God has to
take place *for every crucial mutation throughout the entire history of the
macroevolutionary process*. Are you willing to bite the bullet and commit
to all that?

And even supposing that you are willing to commit to all that, look at what
follows. What you are basically saying is, in plain language, that God
steers evolution. You're adding the caveat that it's scientifically
indetectable from the "chance" explanation, and thus you succeed in fending
off atheist Darwinists on one hand and ID people on the other, but basically
you are conceding that God steers evolution. You are therefore conceding
that, on the ultimate level, call it metaphysical rather than scientific if
you will, macroevolution is not driven by chance but is guided or steered.
Not even front-loaded, but guided or steered. God is making
ultra-Minnesota-Fats pool shots all the time, and that is ultimately what
drives macroevolution. That is what the quantum indeterminacy language
amounts to, when the details of the physics are stripped away and its
essence is characterized. God guides evolution with intelligent actions of
pinpoint accuracy.

Further, you still haven't dealt with the problem of design. As I've said
to both George Murphy and Ted Davis, be the quantum events ever so
indetectable, the overall design might still be detectable. Let's say, for
example, that a series of very tiny meteoroids to descend upon your roof,
where they make a pattern of holes. Let's say that the path of each of
these meteoroids, as calculated by normal celestial mechanics, could have
brought it down to exactly the point on the roof where the corresponding
hole is found, and let's also say that, because of an ever-so-slight
indeterminacy, the pattern of holes which would be made by "meteoroids
tweaked quantumly by God" and "meteoroids untweaked quantumly by God" could
not be distinguished. I'll give you all of that. So I will agree with you
that I cannot say whether the meteoroid that struck hole #23 was guided by
God or unguided. Now, let's say that these meteoroids spell out, as they
make little holes in your roof, this set of characters: "Darwin was wrong.
Long live ID! Donate to the Discovery Institute today and receive your free
copy of Stephen Meyer's new book!" Now, I would argue that, even granting
that there is no possible way of detecting the action by which God "altered"
the course of each or all of the meteoroids, we could still *know* that the
whole sequence of events was designed by an intelligent mind. Whether this
knowledge is classed as scientific or metaphysical, I don't at the moment
care. But we could *know* it. And what this shows is that *the quantum
indeterminacy argument is irrelevant to the question of design detection*.
The quantum indeterminacy argument is relevant to another point entirely,
i.e., to the point that one cannot say that event A is "miraculous" rather
than "natural". I grant this; William Dembski has even granted it. But the
*pattern* of a series of quantum-concealed events might *still*, for all
that, demonstrably reveal design. I have raised this point to George and
Ted before, and they have yet to answer.

Now if you drop the meteoroid example of think of biological examples -- a
series of mutations which just nicely turns a shrew into a bat, maybe -- you
should be able to make the parallel. How would the quantum explanation,
*even if true* (which for all I know, it may be), rule out the possibility
that design might be detectable, in the case of certain evolutionary
changes? The quantum explanation pertains to unique events, whereas design
theory relates to patterns of large numbers of events.

B. Yes, there were views of spontaneous generation and so on. At times
people have imagined that life was a fairly simple thing that could arise
spontaneously out of goo and so on. You are right. But whenever people
have imagined life to be a very complex set of mechanisms, the instinct of
mankind, i.e., the instinct of all intelligent thinkers who grasp the nature
of complex mechanisms, has been that such things don't arise by chance. The
Epicureans were very much the minority among the ancient philosophers, and
were mocked by sophisticated Stoics, Platonists, etc.

C. Some comments on your final paragraph:

DC > Yes, but saying it is bad metaphysics is a rejection of scenario #1,
> There is no definite scientific fault with scenario 1. Science is
> always in a process of trying to better describe reality, so claims
> that science has absolutely proved something without any possibility
> whatsoever of change are incorrect (though common from all sides).

(1) I agree that you have rejected scenario 1.

(2) "There is no definite scientific fault with scenario 1", except for the
"minor detail" that there is no evidence that stochastic processes can
produce anything more sophisticated than antibiotic resistance or finch
beaks. Remember, no one here as yet has pointed me to that 500-page tome
which takes me through the evolution of the foot from the fin in genetic
detail, the evolution of the cardiovascular system in genetic detail, etc.

And if you respond that the processes aren't *really* stochastic because
they are guided secretly by God, then you are in trouble, because according
to you, God can't be involved in a truly *scientific* explanation. So you
either are saying that Darwinian processes *can* produce macroevolution, but
only if the apparently random events aren't random but are secretly guided
by God -- in which case Darwinian explanation is completely bogus as a
*scientific* explanation; -- or, if you are willing to exclude God from
doing anything special, then you have to say that the stochastic processes
are *really* stochastic, and if they are, then there is no hard evidence (as
yet) that Darwinian processes can produce major structural changes.

(3) Most important of all: "Science", according to the definition of most
of the science Ph.D.s here, is *not* "always in a process of trying to
better describe reality". In fact, according to you, according to Randy,
and according to just about everyone else here, "science" cannot describe
"reality", but can only describe events in terms of "methodological
naturalism" which you *admit* is not an ultimate reality, because you
separate it from "metaphysical naturalism". The "answers" given in the
Kantian conception of science to which most of the people here hold are not
about "reality" at all; they are about the construct of "nature" that is
allowed in the practice of science, a construct which willfully and
deliberately excludes final causes. But what if to know the "reality" of
nature, we have to know final causes? Then science cannot describe a vital
aspect of reality, can it?

Science, in the conception held here, is like a game of Monopoly, in which
the players have to follow certain rules, and within those rules, Monopoly
money is every bit as valid as our money is in the "real" world. But
Monopoly players, *qua* Monopoly players, cannot make any statement about
whether banks and mortgages and prices and so on are the same in the outside
world as they are in the game. That would be a "metaphysical" statement
which the rules of the game can say nothing about. Any knowledge of the
"real" world of finance could not be derived from the game of Monopoly, but
would have to come from other sources, e.g., the private experience of the
players. Similarly, once you adopt the methodological/metaphysical
distinction, you have to abandon all claims that science can speak about the
"real world". Science can only speak about those aspects of the world which
are amenable to the self-restrictions that science imposes on itself. And
it is constitutionally blind to notions of design or final cause.
Therefore, if final causation *is* a real part of nature, science *could
never know it*.

Science, as defined here, is incapable of dealing with "reality". It can at
best provide a mathematically accurate and sometimes practically useful
description of a truncated version of reality. And the best that it can do
is to refine and improve upon this partial description. It can never tell
us what is really true, not even about "nature", let alone about "reality"
as a whole.

It does not need to be this way. "Science" did not understand itself in
this narrow way (generally speaking) prior to the 17th century. And it
might not understand itself in this way 100 years from now. One of the
factors that might change science's self-understanding is in fact what we
are talking about here: the possibility that nature cannot be intelligibly
interpreted without design. If that proves true, I predict that "science"
itself will change, because, in the long run, science must reflect "the
nature of nature". Truth is more important than method -- a proposition
which Bacon and Descartes, at the beginning of the modern era, unwisely
rejected.

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Campbell" <pleuronaia@gmail.com>
To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] observational vs. theoretical differences in scenarios; a
direct question

>> So again, let me put it to you as a question: Do you believe that the
>> "normal course of nature" would produce macroevolutionary change without
>> the
>> special direction of God? (In *my* sense of "special direction".) Or do
>> you believe that the "normal course of nature" could not do so? Or are
>> you
>> undecided on the question? (Nothing wrong with being undecided, but I'd
>> like to hear you say it if that's indeed the case.)
>
> Including detemining the outcome of indeterminate events under
> "ordinary direction" rather than "special direction",
> macroevolutionary events certainly can be produced by ordinary
> direction rather than special direction (NB-macroevolutionary needs to
> be defined). I do not see any need, either scientific or theological,
> to expect special direction in the physical course of evolution. God
> is, of course, capable of special direction, and it would not bother
> me if evidence of it were found; I just don't think it especially
> likely. Humans have some unique spiritual characteristics; exactly
> how they relate to the physical evolutionary process is entirely
> speculative, as far as I know.
>
>> But do major new animal body plans form without the special direction of
>> God? Are such dramatic changes simply the result of regular processes
>> analogous to evaporation and condensation? <
>
> As far as we can tell from the fossil record, molecular data, etc.,
> yes (with the caveat that this is "special direction" versus "ordinary
> direction", not "direction" versus "undirected". In particular, the
> changes are dramatic more in hindsight than in themselves.
>
>> The instinct of the human race has always been that this cannot be so.<
>
> No, plenty of pre-modern ideas such as abiogenesis (in the sense of,
> e.g., maggots spontaneously produced by old meat, not in the sense of
> organic chemistry precursors to the origin of life), the Renaissance
> (not documented from the "dark ages") idea of barnacle geese coming
> form goose barnacles, etc. envision new animal body plans coming from
> something quite different, not to mention assorted more or less
> evolutionary ideas through history. Ideas such as the "chain of
> being", while not specifically evolutionary, did see an
> interconnectedness between organisms that could somewhat resonate with
> evolution. Again, if everything is thought to be essentially
> different mixes of four elements, the differences between things
> doesn't seem as great. Ironically, it took scientific investigation
> of the distinctives and limits of the properties of organisms to make
> the differences seem remarkable.
>
>> Darwin said that the instinct of the human race was wrong, and that there
>> is no more need to postulate special direction in evolution than to
>> postulate special direction to explain where the wind is blowing. More
>> complex forms therefore evolve just as "naturally" as rainstorms.]<
>
> There are a few types of "direction" involved here:
> a) miraculous guidance versus guidance using natural laws
> b) inherent tendency in evolution
> c) inherent lack of tendency in evolution
>
> a is what we've been discussing. However, b and c are often invoked
> in relation to a and also are very involved in a lot of the general
> confusion relating to evolution.
> Regarding inherent tendencies in evolution, there are no overall
> "goals" amenable to biological study. The cummulative effect of
> selection over time will tend to produce more successful
> competitors/cooperators, although major disruptions can throw this off
> a bit. Thus, maximum complexity will generally increase over time,
> but simple things can survive, and simplification can be a good
> strategy. Complexity can also be a bit problematic. From an
> information viewpoint, one can think of human (and all other modern
> organisms') DNA as more or less garbled copies of the DNA of the last
> common ancestor. This ignores the role of selection, of course, but
> it highlights the fact that increasing entropy, i.e. mutations, in DNA
> sequence is exactly what produces novelty.
> Apparent "trends" can also happen because of basic physical
> limitations imposed on features. If an evolving lineage starts out
> somewhere other than the middle of the possible range (very likely),
> then random variation will produce a shift in the mean condition. For
> example, suppose that the first zebra-ish horse had a few stripes. If
> the number of stripes varied randomly, the average number of stripes
> would increase because you can't have less than zero stripes.
> The lack of biologically identifiable goals or directions within
> evolution is to be expected-evolution is merely a natural law, not
> something with its own will and goal. Nevertheless, all sorts of
> systems such as Marxism, social Darwinism, eugenics, etc. are built on
> the premise that evolution has inherent goals.
> On the other hand, the lack of inherent goals says nothing about
> whether God could be using evolution as a means of ordinary direction.
> Is God at work in human history? Certainly, but this is not evident
> from an analysis of patterns within history. Rather, the answer is
> based first of all on faith and secondarily on interpretation of
> history in hindsight within the context of faith.
>
>> 3. I can say nothing about how ID is marketed to the average person in
>> the
>> pew. My "mission field", so to speak, is not among the pews, but among
>> educated but secular stockbrokers, professors, bureaucrats, journalists,
>> accountants and business people that I know, who have been taught and
>> firmly
>> believe that "science" has established that wholly unguided natural
>> forces
>> and events can turn a mollusk into a man. (Not mollusk but common
>> ancestor,
>> I know, but I like the alliteration, so cut me some slack.)
>
> "Mere microbe" merits mention-more matching macroevolution. Besides,
> wouldn't it be "man into mollusk" to be progress?
>
>> And I would say that the main point of conflict between ID and TE, from
>> ID's point of view, is that it hasn't come across clearly to ID people
>> that TE people also find scenario #1 incredible and reject it. What they
>> hear is that TEs think that scenario #1 is really, really, good science,
>> and that its only fault is that it is bad metaphysics.<
>
> Yes, but saying it is bad metaphysics is a rejection of scenario #1,
> There is no definite scientific fault with scenario 1. Science is
> always in a process of trying to better describe reality, so claims
> that science has absolutely proved something without any possibility
> whatsoever of change are incorrect (though common from all sides).
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
>
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Received on Wed Jul 1 18:31:28 2009