An Irrefutable Argument: Intelligent Design is Scientific

[Zewpals]

Edit:
Everyone, I believe that the extraordinary amount of irrelevant and "read Meleagar's mind to argue against his or her beliefs of the nature of the Intelligent Designer"-type statements and questions are unintentionally changing the argument made by the original post. Please read Meleagar's conclusions carefully and do not make further assumptions and propositions that you would expect to follow after these conclusions from him or her. To clear this up a bit, I believe that there are two arguments being made:

1) Intelligent Design exists as an entity which changes populations over time, therefore it must be included in the definition of Evolution so that Evolution can accurately model all known causes of change in populations over time.

2) Evolution does not allow for Intelligent Design, therefore it is flawed.

The arguments made should be based off of the support for or the rebuttal of these two conclusions. Because I am a hypocrite, I will respond to all irrelevant passages =D.
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Meleagar,

Very good post! I find your logic very easy to follow and your inferences, for the most part, very agreeable. I just want to quickly address some points that other people make that I disagree with before I address yours.

(-sigh-) After finishing those responses I added this sentence to recognize my silly prediction of "quickly addressing" the other points.
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Alun,

The bigger issue, though, is the ambiguity of the term "Intelligent Design." The issue is not whether you want to call the results of human genetic engineering a result of natural selection. The issue is whether you want to call evolution on earth according to the fossil record a result of natural selection.

Well, I think the ambiguity of this term is actually rendering your defined "big issue" relative to what you are inferring intelligent design means in a particular circumstance, such as in Creationism.

I don't think that Meleagar is trying to explore any specific case in his first post. It seems as if the "big issue" that Meleagar's post is addressing is that the scientific study of evolution does not allow for intelligent design to be a viable evolutionary process, even though it is clear that intelligent design is used by humans to change organisms and populations over time. Therefore, because intelligent design exists as a method of change in populations over time and evolution does not encompass this method within its definition, evolution, as defined currently, is flawed as a method of modeling change in populations over time.

Just for the record, I disagree with Meleagar because I believe evolution does allow for intelligent design to be a viable evolutionary process. I agree with your perspective on Inference 8.
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Wowbagger,

The problem with religiously motivated ID (and trust me, they all are) is the reasoning

'I personally can't explain how x [insert a complex feature of organisms] came into existence gradually through random mutations, thus it has to be designed.'

Well you're right in that this argument is logically flawed, but I believe that the choice to use this illogical method is too broad of a generalization to be making about religiously motivated ID.

Craig Venter writes whole poems and passages in English in some ATGC code in his artificially genomed bacteria, so if they escape into the wild and we catch them again later, we will know that they were designed, or at least tinkered with by humans or some other intelligence.

Oh wow, really? That's pretty cool, actually. However, I do not think it is proper to induct that an organism was intelligently designed because a poem is in its DNA. Exactly how does one write a poem with four letters, anyway? (genuine curiosity)

And one more thing, dogs or crops aren't really intelligently designed. Artificial selection is still part of evolution, some kinds of fungi actually only grow in ant heaps of a specific type, they've been cultivated by these ants for millennia. So artificial selection is not just a human phenomenon. Genetic engineering is though.

Hmm. Well what exactly is artificial selection in this context? I believe that artificial selection is indeed dependent on human intelligence in its original definition. The word "artificial" implies man-made, does it not?

Also, remember...

Definition: Intelligent design is the scientific theory that some phenomena are best explained as the result of an intelligent, directed manipulation of materials and forces to achieve a goal

So, I would debate that artificial selection is a branch of intelligent design. Since crops and dogs are intelligently, directly manipulated to achieve a goal, this falls under "intelligent design." However, this is not sufficient enough for this thread because of the incredible ambiguity of Intelligent Design's definition. We must further state that because this goal is to change a population over time, this case in study is an example of evolutionary intelligent design, assuming that evolution allows for intelligent design under its definition. I believe that it does allow intelligent design in its definition while Meleagar believes that it does not.

In the case of the ants and fungus, I believe that it is proper to say that this relation was one that involved a being with intelligent capabilities (the ant) that directly and intelligently manipulated a population of fungus to achieve a goal, therefore this is an example of intelligent design. However, the actual goal of the ants is unknowable and I believe that it would be more likely, (since they really are not closely related to any species that we would consider "highly intelligent organisms") that the goal of the ants was not to change the population of fungus over time, but rather to reap the benefits of what the fungus offers in its present existence. Therefore, the fungus population changing over time was not an intended goal of the ants, therefore this is not Evolutionary Intelligent Design, which is what we are exploring here. Although this is a process of intelligent design in respect to simple survival, evolutionarily, this process of the population changing over time is more accurately modeled by natural selection and genetic drift.

And I suppose one other way for scientific enquiry on ID is to ask the 'what for' question. If future researchers find tomatoes that glow in the dark for no apparent reason at all, especially if this is hurtful because it i.e. attracts vermins, then they would have evidence that someone (rather unintelligently) messed with the tomatoes.

Well, I think it is fair to assume for this thread that all biological processes exist because of a cause for their existence. I do not think that it is fair to assume that any biological process or phenomena that does not seem to be caused by other evolutionary means can be identified with the only rational cause left from what is observed. The reason is because we can never know if we have observed everything in a particular entity.

For example, if a species of tomatoes glows in the dark and this biological phenomenon is inhibiting and is in absolutely no way beneficial (even though the benefits probably just have not been identified) to the species, it is not fair to assume that Intelligent Design is the only rational cause. The reason we cannot fall back on this cause as the right answer, even if there really are no known current benefits, is because this effect may have been beneficial at one point in time and is now only inhibiting because of environmental changes that have not been considered or are not able to be observed, or because this effect could actually be a "side-effect" (such as we discussed in the love thread which I still not have read your response) that has not actually been identified of a single evolutionary cause that actually causes the existence of a completely separate, positive effect.

p.s. I am very sorry for the brutality of that last sentence haha.
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Muddler,

Ugh! Why wasn't your post before Wowbagger's?! Haha. I pretty much just took the following passage...

Not only do parts of complex systems sometimes get exappropriated for another function by evolution, but not all surviving mutations can be classified as either adaptive or deleterious. There is stuff in genes that is indifferent and that can be appropriated as well.

...and made an essay out of it. I wish I had read this first haha.

As for your second post, I find it completely irrelevant to the subject. Meleagar is not arguing anything but that evolution is not a sufficient-enough cause for change in populations over time unless it is inclusive of Intelligent Design. So, the position you take should be either for or against this proposition; I don't think that bringing up discussion of an intelligent designer that "cares" about us or the existence of extinct animals is relative in any way whatsoever.
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Unrealist,

Meleagar,
Wat you say about humans deliberately manipulating other organisms is not in dispute but humans have only been around for a very short time and have exhibited very little progress in these activities, certainly not enough to conclude that such deliberate manipulation as humans have carried out is a reasonable explanation for current genetic diversity.

Personally I do not see how Meleagar intended to conclude what you stated in your last sentence. All he intended to conclude was that Intelligent Design is a currently existent method of population change over time, and therefore must be included in evolution's definition so that one word can be used to encompass all known methods in which populations change over time. He or she argues that the current definition is not sufficient enough, so that is the argument that should be addressed.
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Belinda, as usual, I sincerely do not understand what you are trying to conclude in your arguments and I don't want to answer based on assumptions I make, so I'll just apologize.
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Meleagar,

At the beginning of my post I reinstated the two conclusion that I believe you were trying to assert. The first one I agree with and the second I do not.

The reason I disagree is because I see error in inference 8.

8. Inference: current evolutionary theory cannot account for the existence of genetically modified or selectively bred biological organisms because it has no way of accounting for an intelligent, teleological selection process or infusions of designed genetic materials; in fact, current evolutionary theory definitionally precludes such processes and activities from being considered at all.

As Alun stated, the NAS wrote...

Evolution:
Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.
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Natural selection:
Differential survival and reproduction of organisms as a consequence of the characteristics of the environment.

and I do not see how inference 8 could be derived from this definition. Could you explain why Intelligent Design cannot be an evolutionary process according to this definition of evolution?

Sorry I don't have much to respond to. I find the rest of your argument very convincing.

[Muddler]

Maleager, I misread your OP and I apologize. I assumed you were referring to ID in the same context as the creationists, but I have to agree with Belinda. The ID you're talking about is part of natural selection. Artificial selection is a natural activity.

[Alun]

Well, I think the ambiguity of this term is actually rendering your defined "big issue" relative to what you are inferring intelligent design means in a particular circumstance, such as in Creationism.

No, I don't think so. If the only instance of ID is in human experiments, then it is not a part of our evolutionary history, it is just a description of human activity.

I don't think that Meleagar is trying to explore any specific case in his first post. It seems as if the "big issue" that Meleagar's post is addressing is that the scientific study of evolution does not allow for intelligent design to be a viable evolutionary process, even though it is clear that intelligent design is used by humans to change organisms and populations over time.

Just to clarify, I am saying that science DOES account for the possibility of ID, it just has found no evidence of its presence in the history of evolution. I also meant to say that when scientists advocate natural selection exclusively, they do not mean to describe experiments in genetic engineering as natural selection.

The problem really is an ambiguity in the term "Intelligent Design". Both I and other scientists frequently call Intelligent Design 'unscientific.' But we are not talking about ID as Meleagar and other advocates claim to define it here; we are talking about the statistical arguments which infer an intelligent cause behind historical evolution. The bottom line is that while Meleagar's ID as it is defined here could be scientific, it is also tautologically obvious and implicitly included in virtually every scientific discussion of evolution. It is not ruled out by the theory of natural selection. But the further arguments that are made in support of historical ID are not scientific, nor are they bolstered by the validity of this general definition.

[Meleagar]

Could you explain why Intelligent Design cannot be an evolutionary process according to this definition of evolution?

I never said it couldn't be an evolutionary process. In fact, I directly implied that it is a known evolutionary process. However, mainstream science forbids this form of ID from being considered part of the theory of evolution:

From an open letter, signed by 38 Nobel Laureates, to the court during the Dover trial:

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

"… no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines," like a stream "along definite and useful lines of irrigation." - Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication"

And yet, that is exactly what humans do, when they manipulate biological organisms. Obviously, this leaves human design and intention, when manipulating organisms, out of evolutionary theory.

Evolution is random and undirected. - 9.Miller, Kenneth R. and Joseph S. Levine. Biology. 1998. Fourth Edition

Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless... 10.Levine, Joseph S. and Kenneth R. Miller 1994. Biology: Discovering Life. Second Edition

By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. -Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates)

I can give you more quotes if you wish, but the theory of Evolution is, at its core, a theory offered by Darwin and supported and proclaimed throughout its history as being in direct contradiction to any perspective of design, purpose, direction, or teleological goals; it is defined as blind, purposeless, undirected, and without goals.

Current evolutionary theory cannot subsume selective breeding and GMOs without changing the fundamental principle of the theory that claims evolution operates without any intelligent foresight, design, or purpose, because that is exactly what humans, a known evolutionary force, bring to the table.

It (artificial selection) is not ruled out by the theory of natural selection.

That's like saying that because something is white doesn't mean it isn't black. Artificial and natural selection are contrasting, contradictory propositions by definition.

[Wowbagger]

@Meleagar, the verdict in the Dover trial was based on the textbook 'Of Pandas and People' where 'irreducible complexity' and arguments of statistical improbability are used as evidence for ID, just as Behe presented them at the trial (-> Darwin's Black Box). This kind of reasoning is unscientific, and that's what judge Jones eventually banned from the science classroom. Your examples would be verified by different sorts of reasons and I don't think this kind of ID (we need a better term) is excluded from the modern synthesis.


Zewpals, referring to my quote about "I personally can't..."

Well you're right in that this argument is logically flawed, but I believe that the choice to use this illogical method is too broad of a generalization to be making about religiously motivated ID.

Actually, it's not a too broad generalization. I've read Behe's book 'Darwin's Black Box' which is regarded as the 'central' book to ID, and this book, and also all arguments ever proposed by ID advocates fall into this category, as far as I'm aware (I did extensive research for a paper).

On Craig Venter's designed bacteria:

Oh wow, really? That's pretty cool, actually. However, I do not think it is proper to induct that an organism was intelligently designed because a poem is in its DNA. Exactly how does one write a poem with four letters, anyway? (genuine curiosity)

Similar as the actual genetic code I suppose. Triplets of base pair could stand for a letter of the English (or some other) language. There are 64 possible triplets, so a triplet code would have enough characters that one can write, even with punctuation and stuff. In order to mark the sequence so that one actualy finds it, one can start it by i.e. the Fibonacci sequence like GCGGCCCGGGGGCCCCCCCCGGGGGGGGGGGGGCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Hmm. Well what exactly is artificial selection in this context? I believe that artificial selection is indeed dependent on human intelligence in its original definition. The word "artificial" implies man-made, does it not?

The problem I have with calling artificial selection ID is simply that it is neither especially intelligent nor actual design. Humans didn't really know what they were doing when they selected the tamest wolves or the pre-crops with the most nutrition value for further breeding/planting. They just chose what best fit their purpose, yet there was no teleogy towards a particular goal.

Modern dog breeding towards desired characteristics would be closer to ID, yet even here, the creative component is lacking because it's still random mutations that provide the underlying variation.

And the ants growing fungi is really 'just' the product of mindless and uncaring evolution. There's no ID at all, no intelligence, it simply appears to be because natural selection is so good and convincing at imitating design. It's an example of an 'extended phenotype' as Dawkins puts it in his brilliant book. Culture can be considered as this too, yet here we do for once have intelligence behind it.

And finally regarding the 'what for' question and glowing tomatoes:

You're right, it isn't really conclusive evidence. I've hinted at the problems myself and you elaborated them.

[Meleagar]

and I don't think this kind of ID (we need a better term) is excluded from the modern synthesis.

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Refuted in #19.

[Wowbagger]

I correct myself:

"and I dont don't think this kind of ID was addressed in the Dover trial and is thus not per definitionem excluded from being science. However, it indeed isn't a part of the modern synthesis, and whether this needs to change, or whether we should just look at it as a result of human culture, more precisely the scientific method, and thus highly indirectly a product of evolution, is a different and rather trivial question."

[Meleagar]

...is a different and rather trivial question."

How can it be a trivial matter when a theory taught and promoted as scientific fact refuses to account for explicit, empirical facts due to an ideological position that cannot accomodate such facts?

If the Theory of Evolution cannot entertain the fact of deliberate, human involvement in evolutionary history (and I have shown that does not, and cannot), then it is fundamentally flawed.

That is not a trivial matter.

[Muddler]

If we regard instances of artificial selection as a subset of the larger set of instances of natural selection, I think there is no problem or contradiction to fret over. It's all natural even if artificial is consciously contrived while natural relies on random mutations and random recombinations. In the end the extant environment makes the selections and human minds are just another addition to that long list of changes in the evolving environment.

[Alun]

It (artificial selection) is not ruled out by the theory of natural selection.

That's like saying that because something is white doesn't mean it isn't black. Artificial and natural selection are contrasting, contradictory propositions by definition.

Thank you very much for quoting me out of context and putting your own words in my mouth. The "It" definitely refers to ID observed during genetic engineering, not any and all possible artificial selection, as you imply.

Once again, no scientist is worried about whether natural selection can explain human genetic engineering. Hence, no scientist even considers whether you might technically consider genetic engineering a part of evolution, and thus have a part of evolution that cannot be explained by natural selection. Thus, no scientist says, "natural selection explains all evolution prior to human genetic engineering," because nobody cares. We do not need a new evolutionary theory under which to classify genetic engineering.

And natural selection does account for breeding practices, so you're expecting a ridiculous amount of recursion. It's like expecting a history teacher to explain his own life and current teachings as a part of history.

[Meleagar]

Once again, no scientist is worried about whether natural selection can explain human genetic engineering.

Please support this assertion, since the rest of your commentary depends on it.

And natural selection does account for breeding practices, ..

No, it doesn't. The two are definitional opposites, and considered definitional opposites, as I've already explained with several references, including Darwin's own words.

BTW, Alun, you're still conflating "natural selection" with "evolutionary theory". Natural selection is just one part of evolutoinary theory.

If we regard instances of artificial selection as a subset of the larger set of instances of natural selection, I think there is no problem or contradiction to fret over.

And if we consider black a subset of white, we can just kick the word "black" out of the dictionary.

Artificial and natural selection are mutually exclusive, oppositional terms by definition. One cannot be a subset of the other.

This is the kind of "logic" you get from those who would sacrifice reason itself in order to salvage an aspect of their ideology: "Atificial selection can be a subset of natural selection. I don't see a contradiction there."

[Wowbagger]

How can it be a trivial matter when a theory taught and promoted as scientific fact refuses to account for explicit, empirical facts due to an ideological position that cannot accomodate such facts?

If the Theory of Evolution cannot entertain the fact of deliberate, human involvement in evolutionary history (and I have shown that does not, and cannot), then it is fundamentally flawed.

That is not a trivial matter.

What does this have to do with an ideological position? If anything, this shows your ideological position.

And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that calling an artificial organism an extended phenotype of the human species is the most reasonable thing to do.

And how can evolution be 'fundamentally flawed' if it accounted for every organism that had existed at the time before genetic engineering was invented?

The problem with ID is not that it's impossible. The problem is it offers no testable predictions the way it has been advocated by ID proponents and is therefore not science.

[Zewpals]

Alun,

No, I don't think so. If the only instance of ID is in human experiments, then it is not a part of our evolutionary history, it is just a description of human activity.

Sorry, I may have misinterpreted you. Besides that, this statement may be true, but I feel that it should be reworded to: "If the only perceived instance of ID is in human experiments, then it cannot be shown that Intelligent Design was a part of our evolutionary history."

Just to clarify, I am saying that science DOES account for the possibility of ID, it just has found no evidence of its presence in the history of evolution. I also meant to say that when scientists advocate natural selection exclusively, they do not mean to describe experiments in genetic engineering as natural selection.

And yes, this is the position that I am trying to assert.

Meleagar,

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

Well, I must admit Meleagar that this quote and the others are flawed interpretations of evolution, since humans have clearly intelligently designed evolution of some organisms.

However, I feel that there can be absolutely no assertion made from this that Intelligent Design outside of human intelligence is an evolutionary cause. Only evidence to verify the possibility of this is existent, but no evidence is existent to prove that Intelligent Design has caused evolution before humans. Because many other evolutionary methods have been provided viable evidence for in prehistorical context, Intelligent Design is only a possibility of prehistorical evolution while other evolutionary methods are actual theories. Because of this, the theory of evolution relies on actual theories while remaining open to possibilities. This is why the definition that Alun provided is sound.

Any assertion that intelligent design is an impossibility as an evolutionary process is void of evidence and any assertion that Intelligent Design was an existent entity before humans is also void of evidence.

Alun's provided definition of evolution violates neither statement so I feel that this is a fair definition for evolution.

Scientists, similar to religious leaders, can make logical fallacies. So, if you want to argue that some scientists have a misguided perception of evolution, then I will agree. If you want to state that evolution does not allow for the existence of intelligent design, then I will disagree.

[Muddler]

Maleagar, I think your kind of logic is the kind that turns people who think for themselves into religious fundamentalists. Stop thumping the dictionary as if it were a bible and recognize that there is not only black and white but shades of gray and all the colors of the rainbow. Definitions are sometimes amenable to interpretation and sometimes there are many definitions for the same word.

[Meleagar]

What does this have to do with an ideological position?

It's entirely about ideology, as expressed by evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

... where no theoretical construct, such as the innately incorrect and incomplete current theory of evolution, is too absurd or blatantly contradictive of empirical evidence and logic if it prevents a Divine (intelligence, purpose, design) foot from getting in the door.

IMO, evolutionary theorists are so afraid of letting that Divine foot in the door that they, starting with Darwin, have endorsed a theoretical product that is necessarily and blatantly wrong and incomplete from the beginning, in Origin of the Species and thereafter, for no reason other than to prevent design, intelligence and purpose from being quantified as actual, necessary, scientific explanations for some biological features.

And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that calling an artificial organism an extended phenotype of the human species is the most reasonable thing to do.

Of course you do, because even the mashing together of mutually exclusive terms like "natural" and "artificial" is okay, as long as everything is subsumed by materialism.

And how can evolution be 'fundamentally flawed' if it accounted for every organism that had existed at the time before genetic engineering was invented?

If by "accounted for" you mean "claims to account for", well, I guess it could claim to account for anything, and that would be enough for you to say here that it has in fact been accounted for.

Also, since current evolutionary theory precludes artificial selection (as resourced in a prior post, unless you wish to argue that artificial selection is an unguided, blind, undirected process), then current evolutionary theory cannot even "account for" the existence of the Pekingese.

Only evidence to verify the possibility of this is existent, but no evidence is existent to prove that Intelligent Design has caused evolution before humans.

Please support these assertions.

So, if you want to argue that some scientists have a misguided perception of evolution, then I will agree. If you want to state that evolution does not allow for the existence of intelligent design, then I will disagree.

You keep conflating "evolution" with "the theory of evolution". The current theory of evolution, as expounded first by Darwin and by virtually every major proponent and textbook since, is defined as being non-teleological, blind, undirected, unguided, as I have shown.
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Please rebut my resourced evidence that this is the definitional nature of current evolutionary theory with resourced evidence - quotes, references, etc. - where evolutionary textbooks or major publications state otherwise - that evolutionary theory embraces the teleological direction of intelligent agents as a proper explanatory contributor.