ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (Full Version)

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unclemonkey -> ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 4:26:28 AM)

Atheists see ID as a covert attempt at replacing evolution with theism. When I first heard of ID I perceived it to be just a new label on theistic evolution.
Now that I have had time to investigate ID I realize it is neither. I now see ID as a scientific endeavor to provide empirical evidence that intelligence is required for life to exist. It is entirely compatible with evolution so it cannot be an "alternative" to evolution".
Any comments?



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 7:32:42 AM)

This is quoted from the Discovery Institute’s Wedge Document:

quote:

The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

So according to the Discovery Institute, the main organization responsible for the “Intelligent Design” movement, the goal of Intelligent Design is to create a Christian paradigm of science in order to counteract the social effects of materialism. Since its goal is to replace a large portion of the current understanding of science, I think it’s accurate to call it an “alternative” to evolution.

I don’t see how you can claim that it’s just atheists who see ID as an attempt to replace evolution with a new kind of science that’s based on theism. This is what the creators of the ID movement are saying themselves.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 10:23:28 AM)

quote:

Atheists see ID as a covert attempt at replacing evolution with theism. When I first heard of ID I perceived it to be just a new label on theistic evolution.
Now that I have had time to investigate ID I realize it is neither. I now see ID as a scientific endeavor to provide empirical evidence that intelligence is required for life to exist. It is entirely compatible with evolution so it cannot be an "alternative" to evolution".
Any comments?


As a hypothesis, the Discovery Institute notwithstanding as it really has nothing whatsoever to do with this discussion, but in terms of the actual tenets of ID itself, I think you are mostly right. ID is really a very limited idea which focuses specifically on identifying the causes that bring into existence certain structures and systems.

To understand what effect that has on evolutionary thinking, one has to consider that evolution really offers a number of different ideas which while interconnected, are really separate aspects which form a cumulative whole. The first of course is variation, which in the neoDarwinian schema is a product of mutation.

The second is selection, which acts on variation eliminating detrimental variants and allowing beneficial (that is, the most well adapted) variants to propagate and dominate a population.

The result of these processes is said to be speciation, or the production of separate species from an original species. Evolution holds that the historical culmination of this process is of course the tree of life, or universal common descent, where every species that ever existed can be traced back to a common ancestor.

Now personally I think every one of these aspects can and has been cast into doubt by recent findings, and a criticism of evolution can be mounted and maintained quite apart from ID; but as far as ID itself is concerned, it is really only concerned with the actual mechanisms that are said to produce the original structures and systems upon which natural selection is said to act, and common descent is said to be the result of, that being mutation.

ID holds that there is a threshold to which an unguided modification can produce the complex information. Once that threshold is reached, further modification requires intelligence to produce the complexities we see in life.

So as a cause, mutation is seen as an insufficient engine for the production of the necessary information and organization we see in even the ‘simplest’ forms of life; intelligence is necessary at this point.

And that is the extent to which ID actually contradicts evolution.



essentialsaltes -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 11:57:09 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

[ID] is entirely compatible with evolution so it cannot be an "alternative" to evolution".
Any comments?


If ID were somehow established, it would be quite a revolution, but it does seem that 'most' of evolutionary theory would remain intact. As Jhud points out, ID would (merely) replace mutation with "mutation plus intelligent intervention". It would not eliminate an old earth, macroevolution, etc. So ID is 'compatible' with evolution, but evolution would not be unchanged by the addition of ID.



cow451 -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 12:36:36 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

Atheists see ID as a covert attempt at replacing evolution with theism. When I first heard of ID I perceived it to be just a new label on theistic evolution.
Now that I have had time to investigate ID I realize it is neither. I now see ID as a scientific endeavor to provide empirical evidence that intelligence is required for life to exist. It is entirely compatible with evolution so it cannot be an "alternative" to evolution".
Any comments?


This is really scary. I think I actually agree with you, unc. [sm=eek.gif]



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 12:48:33 PM)

Interestingly, I think the two primary differences between ID and theistic evolution is that TE is actually a theological position, not a scientific one - and theistic evolution says that while God exists, there is no evidence of His activity in the development of biology, that is, biological development can be explained completely by unguided activites.

ID on the other hand doesn't comment on the exitence of God, but claims that intelligence was neccesary, and is detectable, in the development of biology.



essentialsaltes -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 1:29:34 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

Interestingly, I think the two primary differences between ID and theistic evolution is that TE is actually a theological position, not a scientific one - and theistic evolution says that while God exists, there is no evidence of His activity in the development of biology, that is, biological development can be explained completely by unguided activites.


I think there are a broad range of view within theistic evolution. In that framework, God is thought to have 'directed' evolution, probably with mankind as the teleological endpoint. But how active is God's direction? On the deist end of the spectrum, God could have wound up his clockwork universe 'knowing' that evolution would follow the path he wanted without any further interference. On the active end, God could have acted innumerable times to make sure that this gene mutated here, or that gene's frequency increased or decreased, or maybe even to actively insert a gene or set of genes that somehow couldn't have evolved, as ID asserts. So theistic evolution is not necessarily completely unguided.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 1:41:25 PM)

quote:

I think there are a broad range of view within theistic evolution. In that framework, God is thought to have 'directed' evolution, probably with mankind as the teleological endpoint. But how active is God's direction? On the deist end of the spectrum, God could have wound up his clockwork universe 'knowing' that evolution would follow the path he wanted without any further interference. On the active end, God could have acted innumerable times to make sure that this gene mutated here, or that gene's frequency increased or decreased, or maybe even to actively insert a gene or set of genes that somehow couldn't have evolved, as ID asserts. So theistic evolution is not necessarily completely unguided.


Sure, there is a broad range within evolutionary thinking, or ID, or creationism for that matter; I was just defining what separated ID and TE, and i think it's a fairly accurate definition.

And I didn't say TE think evolution is, "completely unguided", I said TE holds that, "biological development can be explained completely by unguided activites".



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 2:18:44 PM)

quote:

As a hypothesis, the Discovery Institute notwithstanding as it really has nothing whatsoever to do with this discussion, but in terms of the actual tenets of ID itself, I think you are mostly right. ID is really a very limited idea which focuses specifically on identifying the causes that bring into existence certain structures and systems.

I think the Discovery Institute is relevant to this discussion, because they are both the creators and primary supporters of the ID movement. All of the founders and main proponents of this idea—Behe, Johnson, Dembski, and so on—are part of the Discovery Institute. How can Intelligent Design be defined other than the definition used by its creators and supporters?



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 2:33:32 PM)

quote:

I think the Discovery Institute is relevant to this discussion, because they are both the creators and primary supporters of the ID movement. All of the founders and main proponents of this idea—Behe, Johnson, Dembski, and so on—are part of the Discovery Institute. How can Intelligent Design be defined other than the definition used by its creators and supporters?


It's no more relevant to this discussion than the fact that Dawkins uses evolution to advocate for atheism; obviously evolution can be understood with no reference to atheism, so the two are not inexoriably connected. One can understand the tenets of ID and accept them, and not have any interest in creating a 'Christian paradigm'; indeed, there are Jews, Muslims, Deists, and agnostics who argue for ID, so obviously it isn't intrinsically a Christian paradigm.



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 2:50:02 PM)

quote:

It's no more relevant to this discussion than the fact that Dawkins uses evolution to advocate for atheism; obviously evolution can be understood with no reference to atheism, so the two are not inexoriably connected. One can understand the tenets of ID and accept them, and not have any interest in creating a 'Christian paradigm'; indeed, there are Jews, Muslims, Deists, and agnostics who argue for ID, so obviously it isn't intrinsically a Christian paradigm.

You aren’t addressing my point. What Dawkins says doesn’t represent evolution as a whole, because Dawkins isn’t anything close to the only person responsible for that theory. The Discovery Institute, on the other hand, is completely responsible for Intelligent Design’s existence as a hypothesis, as well as its continued support. The only thing equivalent to this in the case of evolution is Darwin’s explanation of it, as far as what represented evolution in the 1860s—the theory of evolution has been altered considerably since then, so it can no longer be considered to be defined by Darwin’s explanation of it, but in the 1860s the theory of evolution was Darwin’s idea, so there was no other authority in existence about what his theory stated.

This is the way it currently is for Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute. As the only people responsible for this theory (unlike the way it is for Dawkins and evolution), they are the only people who can define it.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 3:08:38 PM)

quote:

You aren’t addressing my point. What Dawkins says doesn’t represent evolution as a whole, because Dawkins isn’t anything close to the only person responsible for that theory. The Discovery Institute, on the other hand, is completely responsible for Intelligent Design’s existence as a hypothesis, as well as its continued support. The only thing equivalent to this in the case of evolution is Darwin’s explanation of it, as far as what represented evolution in the 1860s—the theory of evolution has been altered considerably since then, so it can no longer be considered to be defined by Darwin’s explanation of it, but in the 1860s the theory of evolution was Darwin’s idea, so there was no other authority in existence about what his theory stated.


Actually, there are others not associated with the Discovery Institute who have written about ID; Mike Gene's The Design Matrix being one example. In fact others long before Behe or Dembski wrote suggested the ideas that form ID and influence them - Michale Denton being one, the book the The Mystery of Life's Origin written in 1984 by Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen being another.

So one can consider the tenets of ID and have no association with the Discovery Institute, and that is how it should be discussed here.



unclemonkey -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/28/2008 5:19:39 PM)

ORIGINAL:cow451
quote:

This is really scary. I think I actually agree with you, unc.

That IS scary. However, it just goes to show that wonders never cease.



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 2:10:03 AM)

quote:

Actually, there are others not associated with the Discovery Institute who have written about ID; Mike Gene's The Design Matrix being one example. In fact others long before Behe or Dembski wrote suggested the ideas that form ID and influence them - Michale Denton being one, the book the The Mystery of Life's Origin written in 1984 by Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen being another.

So one can consider the tenets of ID and have no association with the Discovery Institute, and that is how it should be discussed here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Denton

Michael Denton is affiliated with the Discovery Institute; he just tries to distance himself from it (which they aren’t cooperating with.) The fact that his most famous book was published before the Discovery Institute existed isn’t relevant, since my point is only that the Discovery Institute currently encapsulates all of the supporters of this hypothesis, past and present.

Mike Gene’s book The Design Matrix does not support ID the way you define it, since Gene makes it very clear in that book that he thinks ID is not science and therefore should not be taught in public schools. Or is this what you think also? You’ve said that in this thread you only wish to consider ID inasmuch as it isn’t affiliated with the Discovery Institute, and Mike Gene is the only example you’ve given of of an ID supporter who isn’t. Does that mean his opinion about this is the one you agree with; that Intelligent Design is not science?



McGuinessMagee -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 2:25:21 AM)

quote:

This is the way it currently is for Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute. As the only people responsible for this theory (unlike the way it is for Dawkins and evolution), they are the only people who can define it.


By that argument all arguments about Evolution should only have their basis in what Darwin says and not what people since have said about and expanded on what Darwin said.

ID may be Discovery Institute's baby, but a lot of other people since have rocked its cradle.

Kylie[sm=silly.gif]



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 2:35:39 AM)

quote:

By that argument all arguments about Evolution should only have their basis in what Darwin says and not what people since have said about and expanded on what Darwin said.

If there were as many people outside the Discovery Institute contributing to ID as there are people who have contributed to evolution after Darwin, I’d agree with you about this. But even now, the only people outside the Discovery Institute contributing to it are people like Mike Gene whom I’m pretty sure Jhud doesn’t agree with.

The difference between ID and evolution in this respect is that evolution isn’t any single group’s idea anymore; it’s very much a community effort. But ID is the exact opposite of this.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 3:59:41 AM)

quote:

If there were as many people outside the Discovery Institute contributing to ID as there are people who have contributed to evolution after Darwin, I’d agree with you about this. But even now, the only people outside the Discovery Institute contributing to it are people like Mike Gene whom I’m pretty sure Jhud doesn’t agree with.

The difference between ID and evolution in this respect is that evolution isn’t any single group’s idea anymore; it’s very much a community effort. But ID is the exact opposite of this.


First off, it doesn't matter how much I agree with Mike Gene; what matters is that his existence proves your thesis wrong; and as evolution is 150 years old we would expect a few more people to be involved. But it wasn’t always that way, and there was plenty of advocacy and propagandizing at evolution's inception as there has been for any other idea that has taken hold. It wasn't all about science.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 4:16:23 AM)

quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Denton

Michael Denton is affiliated with the Discovery Institute; he just tries to distance himself from it (which they aren’t cooperating with.) The fact that his most famous book was published before the Discovery Institute existed isn’t relevant, since my point is only that the Discovery Institute currently encapsulates all of the supporters of this hypothesis, past and present.

Mike Gene’s book The Design Matrix does not support ID the way you define it, since Gene makes it very clear in that book that he thinks ID is not science and therefore should not be taught in public schools. Or is this what you think also? You’ve said that in this thread you only wish to consider ID inasmuch as it isn’t affiliated with the Discovery Institute, and Mike Gene is the only example you’ve given of of an ID supporter who isn’t. Does that mean his opinion about this is the one you agree with; that Intelligent Design is not science?


Well, no, I gave a few examples. But I only need one for you to be wrong.



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 4:27:21 AM)

quote:

First off, it doesn't matter how much I agree with Mike Gene; what matters is that his existence proves your thesis wrong; and as evolution is 150 years old we would expect a few more people to be involved. But it wasn’t always that way, and there was plenty of advocacy and propagandizing at evolution's inception as there has been for any other idea that has taken hold. It wasn't all about science.

Since you were posting in this thread before I was, it’s clear that the point you were making in this thread was more than just to prove me wrong; it was to provide an explanation of what Intelligent Design states. You don’t want to use the definition offered by the Discovery Institute, and you’ve offered Mike Gene’s definition as an alternative. So, fine—let’s go with his definition of it for this discussion.

UncleMonkey stated the way he understands ID: “I now see ID as a scientific endeavor to provide empirical evidence that intelligence is required for life to exist.” According to Mike Gene’s definition of ID, that’s wrong, because ID isn’t science.

Or would you rather backpedal and go with the Discovery Institute’s definition of ID instead? Pick someone’s definition of it, but don’t just make up your own. I don’t think you’re going to be able to find any major proponent of ID who uses a definition of it that you’re satisfied with.



unclemonkey -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 4:34:16 AM)

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
quote:

You aren’t addressing my point.

Nor are you addressing the point of the OP. This thread is about the compatibility of ID with evolution.
If you want to bash the Discovery Institute start a thread for that purpose.



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 4:54:55 AM)

quote:

Nor are you addressing the point of the OP. This thread is about the compatibility of ID with evolution.
If you want to bash the Discovery Institute start a thread for that purpose.

More specifically, you asked whether ID could be considered an “alternative” to evolution. I figured you were asking about the version of ID promoted by the Discovery Institute, since (with from a few exceptions such as Mike Gene) they’re the people behind this hypothesis. The best way to answer any question about what ID is or isn’t is based on the explanations given by the hypothesis’s creators. So by the definition used by the Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design is an alternative to evolution, and its purpose is to promote a political and religious ideology.

By another person’s definition of ID (Mike Gene’s), ID is not an alternative to evolution, because it isn’t science. So far, we haven’t discussed any contributors to ID who define it in a way other than Mike Gene or the Discovery Institute, although I guess if Jhud wants he can try to come up with a contributor who defines it in a way he likes better.



Jhud -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 4:59:21 AM)

quote:

Or would you rather backpedal and go with the Discovery Institute’s definition of ID instead? Pick someone’s definition of it, but don’t just make up your own. I don’t think you’re going to be able to find any major proponent of ID who uses a definition of it that you’re satisfied with.


Well, as you didn't provide a definition, you provided a document purported to be the mission statement of DI; quite different things. But as luck would have it, Dembski has provided a basic definition of ID:

Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence.



unclemonkey -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 8:13:29 AM)

ORIGINAL:Agahnim
quote:

I figured you were asking about the version of ID promoted by the Discovery Institute,

Do you automatically assume “evolution” to be “neo-darwinism” or “Dawkin’s baby”?
I provided the definition of ID for the purposes of this thread. ID is “a scientific endeavor to provide empirical evidence that intelligence is required for life to exist.” If you don’t think that definition is accurate then please provide an explanation of why ID is not scientific. Your ranting about DI is off-topic and disruptive.

You have been provided with more than enough evidence to conclude that ID and DI are NOT synonymous. As I said earlier: “If you want to bash DI then start a thread for that purpose”.



unclemonkey -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 8:18:32 AM)

ORIGINAL:Jhud
quote:

Dembski has provided a basic definition of ID:

Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence.

Thank you Jack. That sounds a lot like the definition I provided in the OP.



Agahnim -> RE: ID as an “alternative” to evolution? (3/29/2008 12:32:37 PM)

quote:

Well, as you didn't provide a definition, you provided a document purported to be the mission statement of DI; quite different things. But as luck would have it, Dembski has provided a basic definition of ID:

Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence.

All right, so you want to use Dembski’s version of ID. That’s fine, but it’s important to remember that for Dembski (and everyone else in the Discovery Institute), the goal of studying these things is not to uncover more of the truth about the world; it’s to provide support for a political and religious cause. Even if you think the theory itself and the reason for the theory’s existence are two different things, the two are very closely intertwined. Here’s how:

As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be an ID supporter, so I’m familiar with what sort of evidence is used for it. What it boils down to is that there are certain structures and functions in biology that the theory of evolution has trouble explaining, and ID has specific names for various types of these things, such as “irreducible complexity” and “specified complexity”. While I’ll agree that the theories of evolution and abiogenesis are not able to explain everything there is to explain about biology, this is no different from every other scientific theory that’s ever existed. For example, Quantum Mechanics is not able to explain what the solution is to the Schrodinger’s Cat paradox, or how the conclusions of QM can be combined with those of General Relativity, since there are areas where the two theories disagree. But as far as I know, nobody is claiming that as a result of these shortcomings in Quantum Mechanics we should believe that a deity has become directly involved in the workings of physics, even though that could deal with these problems in a way that Quantum Mechanics can’t. In this case, most people seem to agree that the reason for these problems is just because we don’t have a complete understanding of the laws of physics, at least not yet.

The shortcomings of the theory of evolution aren’t significantly different from this. In fact, there’s considerably more reason to assume that the reason for them in the case of evolution is just because of our incomplete understanding, because biologists have already discovered ways that irreducible complexity and specified complexity can have evolved without the direct intervention of a designer, such as scaffolding. Several of the specific structures originally touted by ID proponents as un-evolvable, such as the bacterial flagellum, have now been explained by evolution using mechanisms like this—Kenneth Miller explains this in the case of the bacterial flagellum in this video. With this in mind, why have ID proponents singled out the shortcomings of evolution as requiring the direct intervention of a deity, when evolution has these problems less than other theories do? The Discovery Institute has already explained their answer to this question: the reason they’ve chosen to attack evolution, rather than any other theory, is because they think the evolution is part of a worldview that leads to negative social consequences.

So basically, ID is founded on holding the theory of evolution to a standard that is not used for any other scientific theory in existence, and the Discovery Institute (and possibly other ID supporters also) are doing this for political reasons. This is quite a bit different from how it goes in the case of evolution. Even though people such as Dawkins use evolution as an argument in favor of atheism, they’re using the same theory of evolution that’s accepted by theistic evolutionists also. Intelligent Design is unique in that the methodology of the theory itself is the result of political goals, as I explained in the previous two paragraphs. For this reason, I think it’s questionable whether Intelligent Design should be considered science—this should answer UncleMonkey’s question also.



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