[extropy-chat] intelligent design homework

[Robert Lindauer]

On Aug 6, 2005, at 10:57 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Robert Lindauer <robgobblin at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure what you have in mind here.  What parts
>> of ID don't hold
>> up and aren't useful?  Don't forget to define
>> "useful for what" being a
>> purpose-relative context.  It sure answers the
>> chicken and the egg
>> problem adequately meanwhile giving us an
>> understanding of the big bang
>> and a variety of other problem.
>
> Actually it doesn't solve the chicken and the egg
> problem, it just pushes it back. Where did the
> "intelligent designer" come from? I find it just as
> easy to believe that life itself is eternal and
> unbounded by space-time as I do some a priori
> designer.
>

I'll explain briefly, but for more detailed thought see Aquinas' 
Shorter Summa and/or Aristotle's Metaphysics.


Why are there necessary beings?

Consider the possibility that it's true that "nothing exists".
Then there exists the truth of that statement, consequently, 
necessarily, something exists.

Necessarily there exists some being (see above).
If there are contingent beings, then some being or beings caused the 
contingent beings.
Therefore, some necessary being caused the contingent beings, 
otherwise, there would be an infinite regress of causes, per 
impossible.
Hence, some necessary being caused the contingent beings.
We call this being God whether it be one or many.

> For the sake of
>> science and
>> histo-biology it is an historical theory, like the
>> Permian Extinction
>> and the giant meteor.  MAYBE there was a meteor, it
>> certainly would
>> explain why the dinosaurs disappeared in such great
>> numbers.  MAYBE
>> Zeus struck them down, that would explain it too.
>> Which is the correct
>> explanation?  Well, which one fits in the best with
>> the rest of -our
>> world view-?  Well, it depends on which -world view-
>> you have, doesn't
>> it?
>
> Yes, but the world-view I believe is the one that the
> rocks that were there at the time tell me. You just
> got to learn to speak "rock" is all.

As you wish.

>
>> Well that's just the question isn't it, whether or
>> not Theology is a
>> science.  It certainly is in my book, maybe not in
>> yours.  Who gets to
>> decide which book we use?
>
> Apparently the neanderthal in the White House.

Apparently.

>
>> Microbiology and chemical biology except for the
>> various failed
>> attempts to show that life can spontaneously arise
>> from inert matter
>> are completely evolution-neutral (well, except for
>> those cases where
>> there appears to be a clear conflict - such as the
>> speciation problem
>> or the spontaneous life problem) - in any case, it's
>> not relevant to
>> talk about evolution when showing how, for instance,
>> chemical receptors
>> inside of a given bacteria are received and what
>> process ensues.
>
> Actually microbiologists use evolution all the time.
> We control it artificially to get mutations in
> microbes that do useful things for us.

My uncle is among the developers of this technique and the theory of 
evolution is completely unnecessary for either understanding or 
applying it.

>>  Nor
>> is it relevant, for the most part, to cancer
>> research.
>
> Actually it is very relevant to cancer research. The
> best physiological theory we have about cancer
> development is called "clonal selection theory". It
> essentially says that there is an evolutionary
> selection taking place in the body on mutated body
> cells. The cells accumulate mutantions and most of the
> mutants get killed by the bodies defenses. Once in
> awhile, however, a mutation is such that it helps the
> cell overcome one of the many layers of the bodies
> defenses. First, the blocks to cellular replication,
> then mutations that fool the immune system, then
> mutations to move around freely in the body, and then
> mutations that allow the cancer cells to have the body
> grow them blood vessels to supply them with nutrients.
> Essentially clonal selection theory is just that these
> mutations happen one at a time and each time a cell
> aquires one, it passes it down to all its daughter
> cells. Thus these mutations stack up over many
> generations of cells that evolve from being a "little
> unusual" to "extremely dangerous".

Again, the theory of evolution is completely otiose in this exposition.

>> come up with a theory of how evolution is affecting
>> cancer rates and
>> what-not but nothing would prevent an ID theorist
>> for accepting that -
>> just the two major points - speciation and
>> spontaneous generation.   ID
>> theorists aren't restricted from recognizing that
>> competition and
>> adaptation are important factors for expression of
>> genetic features,
>> they just reject that changes in gene-pools happen
>> "accidentally" -
>> like changing the number of chromosomes in Humans,
>> for instance, is
>> generally deadly and always mule-making - and that
>> ooze becomes life if
>> you stare at it long enough.
>
> Interestingly, it is being found out that life does
> not change "accidently". In fact it has been
> determined that many organisms increase their mutation
> rate and increase the amount of foreign DNA they
> uptake during times of stress. So in a way, many
> organisms seem to mutate and thus evolve on purpose.
> When the going gets tough, the tough mutate.

Let's go back to the two main points.  How does this address them?

In particular, say you've got potatoes and you've got some 
evolutionarily-related but not reproductively compatible species, say 
sweet potatoes  (I think they can't reproduce, not sure).  Explain in 
detail how potatoes magically became sweet potatoes.

Let's rehearse it just to make sure we've got it right.

At some time in the past, there was a mutation event in some particular 
sweet potatoe such that it:

1) didn't kill the plant.
2) left it capable of reproducing.
3)  gave it some beneficial attribute that helped it survive better 
than the others.
4)  happened within the proximity of another potatoe plant with the 
same mutation, enabling it to survive and successfully reproduce.

Now let's look at what actually happens to mules.

in Humans, for instance, if you're born with half-a-chromosome missing, 
you're a mule.  If you're born with an extra chromosome, you're a mule. 
  If you're missing more than one chromosome, the likelihood of your 
survival to the point of reproduction is nil.  Not near nil, nil.  But 
let's say it was only near-nil.  Then we'd have to calculate the 
likelihood that your mutation was beneficial - since most mules have 
non-beneficial mutations.  What percentage of mules have beneficial 
mutations in the wild?  Nil.  But let's say it was only near-nil.  Then 
we'd have to calculate the likelihood of finding a compatible mating 
pair of mules where the mutation would survive.

Thankfully, someone has done the math on this likelihood and I don't 
have to rehearse it here.

>> The only branch of biology for which evolution is
>> really relevant is
>> Histo-Biology and here it's one of several competing
>> theories.  It's
>> not even necessarily the likeliest one given the
>> relative dearth of
>> missing links and missing micro-biological
>> evidence/theory.
>
>      Actually the dearth of so-called missing links is
> mostly explained by the mistaken belief that evolution
> always happens really slowly. It does happen really
> slowly most of the time. Then for one reason or
> another, it speeds up drastically, allowing you to go
> from a wolf to a poodle in a couple of hundred
> generations.

Wolves and poodles can reproduce naturally.  How do you get from corn 
to wheat?

>> Essentially, with speciation and spontaneous
>> generation in evolutionary
>> theory, you get "something magical happens -here-"
>> at the point where
>> two mules have a compatible genetic mutation and are
>> able to reproduce
>
>       No there is nothing magical, sex is one of the
> things that drive speciation. For example if half of
> all human women prefered and mated exclusively with
> big hairy men because they thought that "big and
> hairy" were sexy. And the other half of women only
> mated with little naked bald guys, because they
> thought that that was sexy. Then in few hundreds of
> generations you would probably have to subspecies of
> homo sapiens that barely resembled one another.

Let's be very careful about our term here.

I'm talking about non-compatible mating groups, like bonobos and 
Humans.  A human has sex with a bonobo and they won't have babies 
because their genetic structure is sufficiently different to make them 
incompatible (as opposed to, say, a poodle and a wolf).  I'll call 
these different mating groups "Species" and I recognize that the term 
is not commonly used that way anymore, but it was used that way before.

Note that it's important that the big-hairy species and the little 
wimpy species in your example probably could still reproduce with one 
another.  How do you get diverse populations of animals that can't 
reproduce with one another?  LIke lions and leapards, cheetahs and 
jackals, fish and frogs, e.g. the real world we live in.

>     One tiny and hairless and the other huge and
> hairy. After a few thousand generations, the two might
> not be able to interbreed without making a "mule" as
> you call it.

"might" - please explain the mechanism of "might" here.  Because in 
actual observation - wolves and poodles as you say - we KNOW that they 
can reproduce without producing a mule.  Humans too.  Aleuts can mate 
with Tongans.  North American wolves can mate with Siberian wolves.  
Why?  Because they share a genetic structure and the external features 
to make it possible.

In fact, in observed examples of places where there -should be- 
speciation at that level (domesticated dogs have been separated from 
wolves for many, many generations) we don't in fact see it.  Instead, 
we see that mutated dogs die or are unable to reproduce, like humans, 
like apes, like fish, like cats, like platypi, and that dogs that adapt 
to their environment are still able to reproduce with wolves (well, if 
the wolf can be convinced not to kill it, anyway).


>> I think this is how evolution came along too -
>> Darwin decided that
>> there may be another way.   Subsequent generations
>> decided that it
>> would be worth studying the -evidence- for it but as
>> far as we can
>> tell, there isn't any convincing evidence.
>
> Actually there is a huge body of evidence for
> evolution. Just look at the dog breeds from chihuahuas
> to great danes that all come from the wolf. Where is
> the missing link between the wolf and the poodle?

Wolves and poodles are capable of reproducing together and share their 
basic genetic code.

> Spontaneous generation is a trickier problem but there
> are testable theories. My favorite of course is
> panspermia since that leaves open the possibility that
> life arose spontaneously long ago in a lower entropy
> universe where the laws of physics were somewhat
> different and spread throughout the universe from
> there.

But of course leaves the open problem that it still had to come from 
somewhere.

> My biggest problem with ID is that, regardless of
> whether an intelligent designer exists, to invoke
> him/her/it as the root cause of all things is no more
> than a cop out to intellectual laziness.

Not really, understanding God is a lifetime goal and requires both hard 
work and diligence and perseverance and love.  It is worthy and 
admirable and should be commended.   The study of Theology - the Queen 
of the Sciences - is both ancient and continues to this day in formal 
theology, systematic theology and modern theology which all have rich 
traditions all worthy of study.

> God would not
> hide from us, if he didn't want us to try to find him.

God doesn't hide from you, it's the other way around.

> And saying that everything exists because it is his
> will is like calling "oly oly oxen free" only he
> doesn't come out of hiding.

God is not hiding.  But you will have to open your spiritual eyes.  You 
must have eyes to see, ears to hear.  If you refuse to open your eyes 
and plug your ears, even though your brother is yelling and screaming 
right in front of your face, you can say "my brother  is hiding".

Robbie Lindauer