[extropy-chat] Re: intelligent design homework

[Robert Lindauer]

On Aug 7, 2005, at 2:19 PM, ben wrote:

> >Evolution is what
> >> makes all of biology hold together.
>
> Robert Lindauer:
> "Not really."
>
> Er, yes, really.
>
> Without Evolution, biology is an unstructured mass of facts.

Not really.  There's a lot of good biology completely understandable 
from the point of view of intelligent design, for instance.   But this 
argument is unconvincing. To some, history is a mass of unstructured 
facts, to others, Marxian material dialectics is a sufficient 
meta-proposition.  That is to say, having a global theory of why 
everything happens doesn't mean that it's the only and best especially 
when the two major problems - real speciation and real origins - are 
left unsolved by the theory.

>  Evolution gives all these facts a framework to hang on,

So does intelligent design and Hegelian biology, without hard evidence 
it's irrelevant, ne?

>  and has enormous explanatory power for all sorts of seemingly 
> mysterious things.

So does God.

>  I would go so far as to say that anyone who doesn't understand this, 
> doesn't understand biology at all,

Of course you would.

>  and if they want to talk about biology, i strongly suggest they go 
> away and actually study it.

Well, I didn't major in it, but I took biology 101, neurobiology, 
neurophysiology, organic chemistry and of course more than one 
philosophy of biology courses.  I'm not an -expert- but having 
experienced the same wolf/dog conversation with a biology professor at 
UCLA (who shall remain nameless), I remain thoroughly unimpressed with 
the non-existent evolutionary response to the speciation problem.  Let 
me say, btw, that I'm not a biblical literalist either, and so for me 
it is somewhat irrelevant - as I see it if there were really 
"evolutionary laws of nature" then they too would stand in need of 
intelligent design as a background explanatory theory.

> There is a REASON why biologists make such a big deal of evolution.

-most- biologists.  Much for the same reason that American Philosophers 
are primarily interested in the philosophy of science, mathematics and 
artificial intelligence but not very interested in social, political 
and economic philosophy - because the political conditions that give 
rise to their profession tend to favor those who agree with the status 
quo.  Call it an evolutionary argument and you'll get it.

> If you want to discuss biology sensibly, you need to understand this 
> reason.
> Seriously, it's no good standing apart from it and chucking stones at 
> it. You've got to get inside it, see how it really works.

I've got bigger fish to fry.  I'm just saying that as an outsider, I'm 
unconvinced.  I'm convinced that QM is very good science, that it is as 
accurate at predicting decay rates of radioactive material as any 
current theory, but I'm also convinced that it's not the FULL story.  
Does this mean that I must therefore become a nuclear physicist?

> Until you do this, you're in the position of someone trying to 
> understand the flight path of Voyager without knowing anything about 
> orbital mechanics.

Not really, there are very good -general educational- materials on the 
matter.  The ones for "laymen".  In other sciences, for instance 
mechanics which I -do- do for a living, the standard textbooks are 
extremely convincing because they're definitive.  The biological 
textbooks WHERE they bother to explain the foundations of evolutionary 
theory are at best controversial and at their worst actually 
off-putting in their smugness.

> Poodles and Wolves?
> Ha, i'd like to see a Chihuahua and a Great Dane get it on.

My best friend has a miniature terrier/rhodesian ridgeback mix.  And 
you've missed the point. Deliberately?


> Be careful when generalising from dogs to other creatures, though. 
> Apparently, dogs have an unusually large range of variability within 
> their existing genome.

Like people, ducks, birds, ants, fish, etc.

>  This can easily be confused with genetic mutation.

Of course I didn't make this confusion, this was precisely the one I 
was trying to clear up.  Someone gave the dog/wolf example as an 
example of "speciation" and I was trying to explain the difference 
between morphology and phylogeny to the kindergartners over there.

Theoretically, if you stuck the penis of a wolf into a chihuaua in heat 
and the right conditions prevailed, you'd get this awesomely strong 
tiny little bug-eyed furry dog.  Probably really mean.  On the other 
hand, by no theory of which I'm aware, will you get a living organism 
by trying to produce a tuna-shark by having a shark fertilize tuna eggs 
or a leopard-lion by similar means.

Indeed, this distinction, the difference between genetically compatible 
and genetically incompatible groups which was formerly known as 
"species" is one that has been apparently deliberately vaguarized by 
evolutionary biologists over time by presenting to some people as 
examples of speciation, the various kinds of dogs.  I didn't make this 
example up, this was the standard example given in Bio 101 at UCLA 10 
years ago (oy vey, more than 10 years ago, jeez I'm getting old.)

Robbie Lindauer