Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

Speaking of Dawkins, I remember reading one of his books in the early days when I thought of Darwin in the same way that I thought of Einstein - one of my science heroes. I still have no problem with Darwin (apart from the fact that Wallace got sidelined and almost forgotten). At the time I read the book I was not aware that anyone - apart from Bible bashers - challenged Darwinism. Living in the UK, we were not exposed to much religious fundamentalism, especially in the circles in which I moved. 

It wasn't until fairly recent years that I gave much thought to Darwinism or ID or any other opposing theories. That interest was kick-started by the long running discussion on the Skeptiko forum with Paul and Lone Shaman, Michael, David B and a few others debating both sides. I learned a lot from that exchange. My mind was particularly blown by the videos of the intricate complexity of the DNA replication factory in the cell. Absolutely amazing - I challenge anyone to claim otherwise. Also the code in DNA had some remarkable similarities to the codes I was used to working with in my job in computers. Even down to what is called "stop bits" and (maybe) error correction*.

Considering that DNA is essential for any organic life (even a single cell life form) and must be present before natural selection kicks in, I found the arguments for random chance bringing forth DNA to be verging on the desperate. That was NOT a conclusion I reached because of a commitment to any religious dogma but it just seemed common sense to see that the whole thing could not have been random. As I said earlier, the fact that my mind is open to a reality which allows for mind to be omnipresent and fundamental, then the conclusion I came to seemed the most parsimonious.

* http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article...ne.0036644

In a recent work, we showed that DNA sequences can be identified as codewords in a class of cyclic error-correcting codes known as Hamming codes. In this paper, we show that a complete intron-exon gene, and even a plasmid genome, can be identified as a Hamming code codeword as well. Although this does not constitute a definitive proof that there is an error-correcting code underlying DNA sequences, it is the first evidence in this direction.

It has been stated many times by DI and other Darwinism-doubting scientists that ID does not try to specify the designer. But of course you know this and you know that you are erecting another straw man. 

From an article in Evolution News, which is associated with DI (https://evolutionnews.org/2015/06/why_doesnt_inte/):

"There is no “Made by Yahweh” engraved on the side of the bacterial rotary motor — the flagellum. In order to find out what or who its designer is, one must go outside the narrow discipline of biology. Cross-disciplinary dialogue must begin with the fields of philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, and theology. Design itself, however, is a direct scientific inference; it does not depend on a single religious premise for its conclusions.
(Thomas Woodward, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design, p. 15 (Baker Books, 2006).)
In other words, the empirical data — such as the information-rich, integrated complexity of the flagellar machine — may indicate that the flagellum arose by intelligent design. But that same empirical data does not inform us whether the intelligence that designed the flagellum was Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Yoda, or some other source of intelligent agency. There is no known way to use such empirical data to determine the nature or identity of the designer, and since ID is based solely upon empirical data, the scientific theory of ID must remain silent on such questions."

As to DI wanting to eliminate any TOE, that is ridiculous. As has been stated numerous times by numerous DI and other scientists, ID accepts that evolution in deep time has happened. They just have found overwhelming evidence that intelligent or teleological causes must be involved - the current Modern Synthesis neo-Darwinist evolution theory is incapable of explaining the most important characteristics of living organisms, and evolution as observed in the fossil record. They accept that the current TOE has a good model of microevolution, but not of macroevolution. 

This acceptance is expressed in another article in Evolution News (https://evolutionnews.org/2015/07/microevolution/):

"Microevolution (variation) takes place through genetic drift, natural selection, mutations, insertions/deletions, gene transfer, and chromosomal crossover, all of which produce countless observed variations in plant and animal populations throughout history. Examples include variations of the peppered moth, Galapagos finch beaks, new strains of flu viruses, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and variations in stickleback armour. Each year, thousands of papers are published dealing with examples of microevolution/variation."

But of course, in this case also, you probably already know that - you just want to erect another straw man.

I strongly encourage you to brush-up on the history and the religious political agenda of the Discovery Institute. While you're brushing-up, brush-up on what commonalities microevolution and microevolution have.

I strongly encourage you to brush-up on the history and the religious political agenda of the Discovery Institute.

I strongly suggest and encourage you to attempt to actually make a legitimate, scientific argument that addresses an actually contended issue with blind, random evolution rather than nonstop bashing the DI as if it is the only source of disagreement with your "TOE" or as if any of their individual or associated scientists have produced no legitimate or data based research at all. You've asserted next to nothing relating to actual arguments presented by other posters here having to actually do with the research behind evolution.

Over and over again it's the same exact thing. The DI this, the DI that. Your statements have so little substance. You are so utterly biased and convinced of your worldview and are so completely not open minded as to anything other than that worldview, it's astonishing that you toil along on a forum like this still.

I strongly suggest and encourage you to attempt to actually make a legitimate, scientific argument that addresses an actually contended issue with blind, random evolution rather than nonstop bashing the DI as if it is the only source of disagreement with your "TOE" or as if any of their individual or associated scientists have produced no legitimate or data based research at all. You've asserted next to nothing relating to actual arguments presented by other posters here having to actually do with the research behind evolution.

Over and over again it's the same exact thing. The DI this, the DI that. Your statements have so little substance. You are so utterly biased and convinced of your worldview and are so completely not open minded as to anything other than that worldview, it's astonishing that you toil along on a forum like this still.

Have you noticed I've not argued with anyone that has excluded ID or has not referenced DI?

Have you noticed I've not argued with anyone that has excluded ID or has not referenced DI?

Have you noticed that in those responses you haven't said a peep about actual research? You literally dismissed it out of hand because of their agenda. You can't just ignore the research or studies because of that, which you have and literally said on the last page you would do. That's absurd, because there's no shortage of atheistic or materialistic agendas out and about too. You can't just ignore it because of that. You have to actually engage the studies, which you won't do because you go ballistic when the DI is mentioned in any capacity.

You can't just ignore the research or studies because of that...

Has the DI actually done any research?

Has the DI actually done any research?

The scientists who are associated with the DI and are as a result dragged through the mud have, in many, many instances.

The scientists who are associated with the DI and are as a result dragged through the mud have, in many, many instances.

Any links to papers?

Any links to papers?

A list, with commentary and up-to-date as of July 2017 can be downloaded in PDF format from here:

http://discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/file...d&id=10141

I expect the next step will be to denigrate the journals publishing these papers, perhaps especially BIO-Complexity. However, there are many papers published in other journals -- can all of those be denigrated too? I suggest checking out the entries for the journals in Wikipedia, which, as we all know, has been hijacked by people wanting to stifle all anti-Darwinian discussion. Hence, if any of these journals isn't singled out for attack, it's a fair bet that it's seen as genuine even by anti-ID ideologues.

I provide the link for this list not for the benefit of ID skeptics, whom I already know won't engage in discussion of evidence, but rather prefer to rely on the continued use of the genetic fallacy -- against which there is no scientific defence, because the genetic fallacy isn't itself scientific. No, I provide the link for the benefit of anyone with a genuinely open mind, and they can evaluate the evidence dispassionately.

My providing this link is not to be interpreted as my blanket support for ID. As I've said before, whilst I'm sympathetic to the work of the DI, my stance is nuanced: I believe that natural selection coupled with non-random mutation is likely the best explanation for evolution.

This idea isn't wholly incompatible with ID, but by the same token isn't wholly an endorsement of it either. Somewhere in the mechanisms of evolution, I believe some kind of intelligence has a role to play, but whether that role is "design" in the usual sense of the word is open to question.

Both sides of the debate may tend to think of "the designer" in omniscient and omnipotent terms. The ID people tend to think the designer's creations are perfect, whereas the Darwinists, that because organisms may not be perfect, the designer can't exist: they often quote examples such as the apparent inversion of layers in the vertebrate eye, the appendix, the path of the vagus nerve (particularly evident in giraffe's long neck), "junk" DNA and so on. However, not all of these may actually be functionless or vestigial.

Personally, I'm content to accept that whatever intelligence there might be in evolution, it doesn't have a tightly prescribed aim, and isn't necessarily perfect in its outcomes. I think of it as being playfully exploratory, sometimes producing organisms that are less than ideally suited to their environments; in which case, natural selection will tend to weed them out and they may eventually go extinct.

For me, the "designer" isn't an entity that has planned evolution out in minute detail: it's something that produces a general tendency in evolution, towards greater order and complexity, but may not "know" exactly how to get there. It's also self-evident that occasionally, it makes great leaps in complexity and order in comparatively short timescales, witness the Cambrian and subsequent evolutionary "explosions".

This makes more sense to me than positing entirely blind processes devoid of any kind of intelligence. By this logic, artifacts (everything from pots to supersonic jets), plainly developed by human beings, must also, ultimately, have been produced by accident. Why should accident have generated organisms like us that can indisputably "design"? Why does no one (except the most cranky of materialists who think of consciousness as being illusory), ever question the ability of consciousness to inform human activity? How can they accept "design" activity in human beings and yet simultaneously reject it in nature in general?

A lot of the issue revolves around that word, "design", which implies having a definite purpose in mind -- be that of the human or some higher form of mind. As I've intimated, I don't think that any kind of "design" is perfect from the get-go. Mankind didn't get to the perfect anything straight away. It got there through endless experimentation, and still the experiments continue and will probably continue to do so. I suspect it might be the same way with higher consciousness, too.

I plan fairly soon to post something on biomimicry, which, correct me if I'm wrong, hasn't been discussed in this thread.

Have you noticed I've not argued with anyone that has excluded ID or has not referenced DI?

The point is not whether people have referenced the DI, but whether they agree with them that Yaweh designed the whole of life, and everything else.

Non Christians - such as myself - can admire the DI for the way it marshals evidence, not so much in favour of the idea that God did it, as against the conventional theory of evolution solely by natural selection.

Sometimes the right way forward in science, is to stop claiming that something is understood, and to return to the default position that the explanation is yet to be determined. In that way, people are freed off to look at the subject afresh.

In the same way as non-Christians such as yourself, can admire great cathedrals as works of art without feeling that they are supporting Christianity.

David