Re: [asa] compatibility of front-loading and irreducible complexity

Don, regarding your two further comments:

A. I don't know whether Behe would say that Denton's account is "adequate",
if by "adequate", you mean "a correct statement of what actually happened".
Regarding "what actually happened", Behe's statements tend to be more
open-ended. He indicates that there are several possibilities regarding
*how* design found its way into living systems, and often mentions them
without endorsing any one in particular. I have read statements where he
mentions subtle divine intervention, rough nature-overriding miracles, and
entirely naturalistic "front-loading -- *as possibilities*.

I believe that part of the reason for Behe's reticence regarding the "how"
question is his concern about crossing the boundary between science and
theology. Like TEs, Behe thinks there is a boundary between science and
theology -- though he draws the boundary line at a different place. For TEs
(or at least for most TEs), design explanations lie outside the boundary of
science. For Behe, design explanations lie inside the boundary. However,
characterizations of the designer (beyond what is inescapably implied in the
design itself, e.g., that the designer is mighty clever at mathematics) lie
outside the boundary. Thus, if Behe were to say, e.g., "God would have
employed front-loaded naturalistic evolution rather than a partly
naturalistic evolutionary process sporadically interrupted by crude
miracles", he would be very conscious that he was speaking as an amateur
theologian rather than as a professional scientist. And he doesn't want to
leave the public with the impression that he thinks that his personal
theological speculations have the status of scientific findings.

However, being human, and having spent much time thinking about such
matters, he almost certainly has at least tentative private thoughts about
how the design got there. But I don't know him personally, and I don't know
what those private thoughts are, or whether they agree with Denton's view.

B. Regarding your second post below, I agree that Denton has the
potential to take a lot of the heat out of ID/TE arguments. I have often
thought of his position as the natural bridge between at least some sections
of the two camps.

There are two elements in Denton's thought that are near and dear to ID
people:

1. There is real, not just apparent, design in organic nature.
2. Darwinian and other stochastic mechanisms play a decidedly subordinate
part in the evolutionary process, very much second fiddle to the
intelligence built into the DNA.

And there are two other elements in Denton's thought that are near and dear
to TE people:

1. Macroevolution happened; no ifs, ands or buts.
2. It was accomplished by a wholly naturalistic mechanism requiring no
miracles or "God of the gaps".

Denton thus seems to offer a natural compromise between ID and TE, and one
might call Denton's position "Theistic Intelligently Designed Evolution".
(Someone privately suggested this phrase to me, and proposed the nice
acronym "TIDE".)

I would cavil with only with the last part of your remark, and I expect that
the disagreement is only over the definition of "irreducible complexity". I
am not sure that what you are calling "Behe's sense" of the term is in fact
Behe's sense. (See my discussion with Iain of June 16.) Just for
clarification, here is how I see the matter:

Remember that Behe's definition of "irreducible complexity" (as opposed to
the inference he draws from it regarding evolution) is an engineering
definition, concerning the indispensability of all the parts for the overall
function. Remember also that Behe's contention was that irreducibly complex
structures could not be produced *by Darwinian mechanisms* (or by other
primarily stochastic mechanisms). He didn't contend that they couldn't be
produced "by evolution". (If he ever said that they couldn't be produced
"by evolution", context will show that he meant that as shorthand for "by
Darwinian evolution".)

For Behe, it is the "chanciness" of Darwinian evolution which makes it
unsuitable to produce irreducibly complex structures. Denton solves this
problem by giving "chance" the boot. Denton thinks that evolution was
almost entirely orchestrated by an intelligent mind. Processes orchestrated
by intelligent minds can easily produce irreducibly complex structures. An
automated watch factory, the processes of which were designed by intelligent
human beings, could produce watches, which are irreducibly complex machines.
Denton can therefore logically maintain that an irreducibly complex
structure could be produced by front-loaded evolution. Since Behe accepts
at least the theoretical possibility of an entirely naturalistic
evolutionary process front-loaded by an intelligent mind, he can have no
disagreement in principle with the statement that irreducibly complex
systems might be "evolvable". The only difference is that Behe has stated
only that such a thing *might* happen, whereas Denton claims that it *has*
happened. The two think much alike, but where Behe is cautious, Denton is
bold.

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Nield" <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
Cc: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 7:47 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] compatibility of front-loading and irreducible complexity

I find that Cameron' explication of Denton is accurate and helpful. My
question now is whether Behe would accept that Dentonian front loading (as
formulated by Cameron) is adequate?

Don N.

Thank you, John. That is very interesting. It seems to me that if Dentonian
front loading (incorporating lower case i.d.) is indeed acceptable by ID
proponents then that would take a lot of heat out of the argument. For
example, one could then admire the complexity of the E. coli flagellum as
part of the handiwork of God without worrying about whether or not that
complexity was irreducible in Behe' s sense.

Don

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Received on Sat Jul 18 03:41:01 2009