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

Hi Moorad,

You write: “Let us face it; we are never going to understand truly how the
Creator interacts with His creation.”

I could not agree more. It’s like asking a population of fruit flies to
understand what we are doing here.

Thus, my interest in front-loading is not an attempt to impose my
theological views on Nature. On the contrary, I have already outlined the
relationship between my theological views and origins:

http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/because-of-us/

My interest in front-loading is an intellectual curiosity. I focus on
evolution because front-loading is a relatively unexplored alternative that
disagrees with the conventional wisdom that is shared by the mainstream,
including people ranging from Ken Miller to Richard Dawkins - it is commonly
believed that natural selection is too blind and contingency is too great
for evolution to even approach as a teleological process. I say, not so
fast. Just because this is conventional wisdom does not mean we have fully
explored the plausibility of using neo-Darwinian evolution to carry out
design objectives.

I have stuck with and more fully developed the hypothesis of front-loading
over all these years because I have found it to be quite useful and it has
begun to develop a modest track record of success. For example, just a few
days ago, the hypothesis enabled me to come up with a successful and unique
expectation – that ribosomal RNA, the highly conserved untranslated RNA that
functions as the core component of the ribosome, could be translated into
functioning protein. You can read about it here:

http://designmatrix.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/buried-code/

-Mike

The notion of front-loading has a very strong smell of deism. Why applied
only to evolution why not everything or almost everything that there is?
Christians have to reconcile the notion of a Creator who upholds His
creation with the results of science. If one is dealing with experimental
science, then that is quite easy since the regularity of our experimental
results implies a metaphysics that is quite compatible with what Christians
believe. Of course, if by science one means that all must be explainable by
science, then one has an extreme form of reductionism, which is
unacceptable. It is the latter reason that I have tried to define science by
delimiting its subject matter to only the physical aspect of Nature.

It is in the area of history of the universe and, in particular, that of man
that things get very sticky. I indicated in a previous post that if God is
not in spacetime, He “sees” all that there is in spacetime at an instant or,
as C.S. Lewis said, an Eternal Now. If such is the case, then does it mean
that if He sets up the initial conditions, then all is known to Him and for
us chance is just our embedded-in-spacetime point of view? The latter would
a strong version of front-loading since it would encompass everything and
not only evolution.

Is our entire existence--past, present, and future--like a book whose
content is already known to God and, for all I know, He may be the author?
This is quite possible according to what I read long ago in the “Clockwork
Image” by Donald M. Mackay and what C.S. Lewis ascribed to Dorothy Sayers

Let us face it; we are never going to understand truly how the Creator
interacts with His creation. What we learn from the different kinds of
knowledge that we use to study and know the whole of reality must be
integrated into a whole and this is the only way that would lead us to the
elusive truth that we are all seeking.

Moorad
________________________________

Since I have been writing about the front-loading of evolution for almost 10
years now, I could hardly ignore this thread. Let me simply distinguish my
views of front-loading from the views outlined by Michael Denton (as
helpfully summarized by Cameron). That will help people appreciate there
are different versions of front-loading out there.

Denton: “1. Macroevolution happened.”

Agreed.

Denton: “2. The process was entirely naturalistic, i.e., did not at any
point, not even in the origin of life or in the evolution of man from
anthropoid stock, involve spot interventions or local actions of God (or any
other intelligent being).”

I envision front-loading at the origin of life, which would entail
intelligent intervention at that point. However, I am also very open to the
front-loading at the origin of the universe, as there are clues that point
in that direction.

Denton: “3. The process was largely necessitarian, following from the
fundamental properties of the chemical elements and the fundamental laws of
nature.”

I do not view front-loading as necessitarian. I view it more along the
lines of stacking the deck, such that the blind watchmaker receives guidance
from the intelligently designed initial conditions.

Denton: “4. Chance had an almost negligible role, limited to (1) the
determining of where and when (not whether) an intelligent being would
evolve, and (2) some local variation in plants and animals not relevant to
the main thrust of evolution.”

I think chance plays a significant role, such that front-loading is the
intelligent use of chance. Or, to play off of Pasteur, Chance Favors the
Prepared Cell.

Denton: “5. The anthropogenic "tilt" of the universe bears the unmistakable
marks of design; cosmic and organic evolution are the unfolding of an
unimaginably complex computer program; macroevolution is a designed process,
and some Mind is the designer. (Denton frequently calls this mind "God",
though it is unclear whether or not that implies any personal religious
faith in his case.)”

I agree with the gist of this, but not the emphasis. The marks of design
are not unmistakable, but instead are subtle, and depend on the ability to
perceive such subtleties.

BTW, when I first started to use the term “front-loading evolution” I did
not consciously borrow it from anyone else (at least that I can recall).
Does anyone know who first used this phrase?

-Mike

Jim:

I agree that it depends on the definition of "front-loading", and the term
is not yet clearly established regarding its theoretical contents. It's
more or less a working colloquialism, and therefore may cause confusion.

So let me be more specific. While there may be many versions of
"front-loading", the one I have in mind is the one set forth in *Nature's
Destiny* by Michael Denton. The key elements of it are:

1. Macroevolution happened.
2. The process was entirely naturalistic, i.e., did not at any point, not
even in the origin of life or in the evolution of man from anthropoid stock,
involve spot interventions or local actions of God (or any other intelligent
being).
3. The process was largely necessitarian, following from the fundamental
properties of the chemical elements and the fundamental laws of nature.
4. Chance had an almost negligible role, limited to (1) the determining of
where and when (not whether) an intelligent being would evolve, and (2) some
local variation in plants and animals not relevant to the main thrust of
evolution.
5. The anthropogenic "tilt" of the universe bears the unmistakable marks of
design; cosmic and organic evolution are the unfolding of an unimaginably
complex computer program; macroevolution is a designed process, and some
Mind is the designer. (Denton frequently calls this mind "God", though it
is unclear whether or not that implies any personal religious faith in his
case.)

In contrast with his own view, Denton explicitly and frequently criticizes
Darwinian mechanisms, which for him grossly overestimate the power of chance
and contingency. He regularly contrasts "chance" with chemical,
biochemical, and biological necessity, a necessity which for him reflects a
higher mathematical form lying at the heart of nature. He understands
himself to be anti-Darwinian, and thinks that the detailed design in nature
revealed by modern science has basically rendered Darwinism obsolete. This
does not mean that "selection" plays no role, but the forms which have come
up for "selection" are for Denton no accident. Whereas Darwin consciously
formulated his theory so as to exclude design from nature, Denton makes the
design in nature the motor of his theory.

Thus, if we subdivide the genus "naturalistic macroevolution", we can come
up with at least two variations, "Darwinian macroevolution" (more emphasis
on chance, stochastic processes, etc.) and "Dentonian macroevolution"
(almost entirely necessitarian). Some people here will of course argue (as
they frequently do when they wish to avoid stating directly what they
believe) that there is no empirical way of distinguishing between these two
forms of evolution, but they are certainly conceptually distinct, and
strikingly different in their implications. The most obvious one is that
Dentonian macroevolution is logically incompatible with atheism, whereas
Darwinian macroevolution is logically compatible with it. Further, there
are immense difficulties in making pure Darwinian macroevolution -- where
"Darwinian evolution" is understood as Denton, Behe and I understand the
term -- compatible with genuine theism, as opposed to a colourless Deism,
whereas Dentonian evolution implies *at least* a colourless Deism, and is
compatible in general terms with historical theism.

Cameron.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Armstrong<mailto:jarmstro@qwest.net>
To: asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] compatibility of front-loading and irreducible complexity

Re: " front-loading is an inherently anti-Darwinian concept"
Depends on the definition of both. I do not find this to be the case.
JimA [Friend of ASA]

Cameron Wybrow wrote:
Schwarzwald is quite correct, and so is John Walley. The belief that
irreducibly complex structures cannot be formed by Darwinian means is not in
contradiction with the belief that they might be formed by means of
front-loading, since front-loading is an inherently anti-Darwinian concept.
Bernie does not understand what Behe means by "irreducibly complex", and he
doesn't understand what ID proponents mean when they speak of
"front-loading". The only thing I can suggest to Bernie is that he take the
time to read and digest the works of Behe and Denton before commenting any
further on the concepts they advocate. One can't add to the discussion if
one hasn't done the homework.

Cameron.

I'm not an expert on molecular biology (Behe can defend himself, in other
words), but that strikes me as incorrect. I imagine the response would (or
at least could) be that a "natural process" (meaning, no on-the-spot
intervention/intercession) could produce a given IC artifact - but said
artifact would indicate that intelligence were at work somewhere in the
chain. At the beginning (front-loaded) is an option, as is on the spot
(intervention), etc.

Before you fire back another question though, Bernie, I'm going to say flat
out that I'm not interested in defending specific ID proposals here. I've
pointed to Dembski arguing teleology is present by necessity in Darwinian
evolution. I've pointed to ID proponents (or at least ID thinkers) who are
quite at home with evolution, though they reject or have doubts about
"Darwinism" or "Darwinian evolution' in the sense Cameron would discuss it.
That's more than enough to establish my point. Trying to fend off attempts
at a "gotcha!" is of no interest to me in this thread.

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 2:02 PM, Dehler, Bernie
<bernie.dehler@intel.com<mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com>> wrote:

“Behe accepts evolution, common descent, etc - he has questions about
particular mechanisms, but also is on record as thinking all of life could
have unfolded "naturalistically" in a front-loaded way.”

If Behe accepts the possibility of front-loading, then that says he doesn’t
have a firm conviction of his “irreducibly complex” theory. You can’t hold
both- they are mutually exclusive. Correct?

…Bernie

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Received on Mon Jul 20 11:03:09 2009