Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 82

L&FP, 55: Defining/Clarifying Intelligent Design as Inference, as Theory, as a Movement

It seems, despite UD’s resources tab, some still struggle to understand ID in the three distinct senses: inference, theory/research programme, movement. Accordingly, let us headline a clarifying note from the current thread on people who doubt, for the record:

[KF, 269:] >>. . . first we must mark out a matter of inductive reasoning and epistemology. Observed tested, reliable signs such as FSCO/I [= functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, “fun-skee”] beyond 500 – 1,000 bits point to design as cause for cases we have not observed. This is the design INFERENCE.

A classic example of FSCO/I, the organisation of a fishing reel A von Neumann, kinematic Self Replicator, illustrating how an entity with
self-replication reflects considerable additional FSCO/I, where
the living cell embeds such a vNSR The metabolic network of a cell exhibits FSCO/I in a process-flow, molecular nanotech self replicating system Petroleum refinery block diagram illustrating FSCO/I in a process-flow system The design inference reduced to a flowchart, the per aspect explanatory filter

Note, inference, not movement, not theory.

Following the UD Weak Argument Correctives under the Resources tab, we can identify ID Theory as a [small] research programme that explores whether there are such observable, testable, reliable signs, whether they appear in the world of life and in the cosmos, whether we may responsibly — notice, how duties of reason pop up naturally — use them to infer that cell based life, body plans, the cosmos etc are credibly the result of intelligently directed configuration . . . and that’s a definition of design. This, in a context where the proposed “scientific” alternative, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity has not been observed to actually produce things exhibiting FSCO/I etc.

Logically, this is an application of inductive reasoning, modern sense, abduction.

Which is common in science and is commonly held to ground scientific, weak philosophical sense, knowledge. Weak, it is open ended and can be defeated by further analysis and evidence, warranted, credibly true [and so reliable] belief.

Going beyond, where we have further information, evidence and argument we may explore whodunit, howtweredun, etc.

Such is after all commonplace in technical forensics, medical research, archaeology, engineering [esp. reverse engineering], code cracking etc. I guess, these can be taken as design-oriented sciences. Going back to 4th form I remember doing natural science explorations of springs. Manufactured entities. So are lenses, mirrors, glass blocks, radio systems, lasers etc.

Beyond the theory, there is a movement, comprising supporters and friendly critics as well as practitioners consciously researching design theory or extending thinking on it and applying same to society or civilisation, including history of ideas.

The first major design inference on record in our civilisation is by Plato, in The Laws, Bk X:

Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical “material” elements of the cosmos — the natural order], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ –> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity, contrasted to “the action of mind” i.e. intelligently directed configuration] . . . .

[[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them . . . .

Then, by Heaven, we have discovered the source of this vain opinion of all those physical investigators . . . . they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods.

Cle. Still I do not understand you.

Ath. Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the nature and power of the soul [[ = psuche], especially in what relates to her origin: they do not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies, and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions. And if this is true, and if the soul is older than the body, must not the things which are of the soul’s kindred be of necessity prior to those which appertain to the body?

Cle. Certainly.

Ath. Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will be prior to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great and primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be the first, and after them will come nature and works of nature, which however is a wrong term for men to apply to them; these will follow, and will be under the government of art and mind.

Cle. But why is the word “nature” wrong?

Ath. Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is the first creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the soul may be said to exist by nature; and this would be true if you proved that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise.

[[ . . . .]

Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second. [–> notice, the self-moved, initiating, reflexively acting causal agent, which defines freedom as essential to our nature, and this is root of discussion on agents as first causes.]

[[ . . . .]

Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it?

Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life?

Ath. I do.

Cle. Certainly we should.

Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life?

[[ . . . . ]

Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul?

Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things?

Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things.

Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer?

Cle. Exactly.

Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler?

[[ . . . . ]

Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path. [[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.

Earlier in the same Bk X, he had noted just how old and how philosophically loaded evolutionary materialism and its appeal to chance and/or necessity are, drawing out consequences for law, government and community:

Ath[enian Stranger, in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical “material” elements of the cosmos — the natural order], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ –> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity; observe, too, the trichotomy: “nature” (here, mechanical, blind necessity), “chance” (similar to a tossed fair die), ART (the action of a mind, i.e. intelligently directed configuration)] . . . .

[Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made . . .

We see the wider setting and the more specific themes.>>

Food for thought and for clarification. END

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New Zealand science society is even more Woke than we thought

They’re doubling down on scientists who want to separate science from myth:

In other words, the Royal Society of New Zealand feels no responsibility to respond to its members’ motions, or to investigate its own behavior. It can if it wants, but if it doesn’t want to—and I suspect this will be the case—it doesn’t have to. They’re likely hoping the kerfuffle will blow over. As for “meeting”, it was simply window-dressing: giving its members a chance to blow off steam.

The RSNZ has come out of this with not just egg on its face, but a massive omelet draped over its body. They were wrong to demonize and publicly disagree with their members, they were wrong in their characterization of MM as “science” (do they even know what science is?), and they were wrong to stonewall and not respond to the members’ call for apologies and structural form.

The two members who were investigated, Drs. Robert Nola and Garth Cooper, have resigned from the RSNZ. A large number of the other members are disaffected. The RSNZ won’t do the right thing because it would be considered “racist”.

The institution is ridiculous and and should be mocked.

Jerry Coyne, “The Royal Society of New Zealand blows off those complaining about its treatment of the Satanic Seven; refuses to apologize for mistreating them” at Why Evolution Is True (April 15, 2022)

What Coyne doesn’t get is that atheism does that to people. There is no avenue of appeal and nothing to appeal about. Belief in God creates reason.

You may also wish to read:

Scientists tarred in Maori “ways of knowing” uproar resign from New Zealand’s Royal Society Garth Cooper: An NCEA (NZ’s public examination system) working group referred to science as a “Western European invention”. We strongly objected to that particular characterization since science is universal. One recent extreme of some astonishing views being introduced, for example, claims that “to insist Māori children learn to read is an act of colonisation”

New Zealand’s Royal Society grudgingly lets off two scientists who critiqued “Indigenous ways of knowing” taught as science Jerry Coyne: As I said, the controversy over the hegemony of MM [Indigenous ways of knowing taught as science] in science continues, and if I know anything about New Zealand educational politics, MM will worm its way into science class. All the new RSNZ statement does is exculpate two scientists unfairly accused of misbehavior and harm for saying that MM, while worthy of being taught, is not coequal with modern science.

Jerry Coyne on the war on math, science, in New Zealand – and falling scores

and

Maori creationism is okay In New Zealand schools; Objectors could be booted from NZ’s Royal Society.

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Researchers: Animals age at the same rate despite big variations in lifespan and size

Somewhat like a law of nature?:

The first study to compare the accumulation of mutations across many animal species has shed new light on decades-old questions about the role of these genetic changes in ageing and cancer. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute found that despite huge variation in lifespan and size, different animal species end their natural life with similar numbers of genetic changes.

The study, published today (13 April 2022) in Nature, analysed genomes from 16 species of mammal, from mice to giraffes. The authors confirmed that the longer the lifespan of a species, the slower the rate at which mutations occur, lending support to the long-standing theory that somatic mutations play a role in ageing…

Dr Alex Cagan, a first author of the study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “To find a similar pattern of genetic changes in animals as different from one another as a mouse and a tiger was surprising. But the most exciting aspect of the study has to be finding that lifespan is inversely proportional to the somatic mutation rate. This suggests that somatic mutations may play a role in ageing, although alternative explanations may be possible. Over the next few years, it will be fascinating to extend these studies into even more diverse species, such as insects or plants.”

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, “Mutations across animal kingdom shed new light on aging” at ScienceDaily (April 13, 2022)

Thoughts?

The paper is open access.

You may also wish to read: Surprise, Surprise, The aging process is irreversible

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Another big rewrite in the works about the history of life on Earth?

If this happened a lot in human history schools would just have to give up teaching history. Good story anyway:

Scientists believe they have identified the oldest fossils on Earth, dating back at least 3.75 billion years and possibly even 4.2 billion years, in rocks found at a remote location in northern Québec, Canada, according to a new study.

If the structures in these rocks are biological in origin, it would push the timeline of life on our planet back by 300 million years at a minimum, and could potentially show that the earliest known organisms are barely younger than Earth itself. Such a finding would have major implications for understanding the emergence of life on Earth, and could also inform the search for aliens on other worlds.

Becky Ferreira, “Discovery Dramatically Rewrites History of Life on Earth, Scientists Say” at Vice (April 13, 2022)

It’s a great find. But the ease with which a history can be rewritten tells us something about its reliability.

The paper is open access.

You may also wish to read: Neil Thomas comments on the difficulty of accommodating Darwinism to sudden origin of life. Here’s a thought: If your origin of life theory works, can we reverse engineer the conditions to produce life from non-life today? If we can’t, that doesn’t prove your theory false. After all, it is very difficult to demonstrate that something “couldn’t have” happened under any circumstances whatever. But you must now rejoin the queue in your previous place…

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Fun from the Babylon Bee in Twitter jail while Elon Musk tries to buy them and others out

Does even Elon Musk, world’s richest man, have enough money to make funny funny again?:

Just last month, Issues & Insights reported a poll it conducted with TIPP, the most accurate predictor of the last five presidential elections, regarding people’s feelings about COVID. The survey found 65% of Americans think COVID policy in the United States is “driven by politics,” with only 21% believing it’s “driven by science.”

The poll was scientific, conducted by a respected source and accurately reported.

Google AdSense responded by labeling it “dangerous and derogatory content” and thus stripped its ads from the article. When Issues & Insights appealed, Google stood by its action.

This isn’t the first time Google has attacked Issues & Insights over polls it didn’t like. In March, I&I released a poll showing that 67% of Republicans wanted President Donald Trump on the 2024 ballot while only 37% of Democrats wanted President Joe Biden on the ticket. Google called this “unreliable and harmful.”

Glenn H. Reynolds, “‘Censorship is free speech’ is the establishment’s Orwellian line on Elon Musk’s Twitter crusade” at New York Post (April 4, 2022)

Read the rest if you vote in the States. Meantime, here is some real international funny:

Mask-a-holic

Prodigal son breaks news to dad that he spent most of his inheritance on a gender studies degree.

Doctors are now prescribing Crispy Cremes to kids for fat affirming care.

In general, it tells us how far things have gone that a Christian site is the only one that dares to be funny.

Also, some of us recall, earlier this year, that most people associated the flag of Canada not with the dreadful government but with its dissidents. Look, you really had to be here, standing in a blistering wind on a highway overpass, to understand.

It is nature vs. bureaucracy. Finally, the big news is: The flag of Canada came to be that of the people of Canada, not of its horrible government. And, after an old lady was trampled by police horses, everyone really knows this.

You may also wish to read: As the Babylon Bee still awaits rescue from Twitter jail… Not To Be Outdone, Bill Gates Buys 9.2% Of MySpace “Gates confirmed he will be making some much-needed changes to the site—adding helpful information on the latest vaccines and boosters, a “Clippy” virtual assistant, and handy information on the benefits of subdermal microchip technology.”

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At Mind Matters News: No, civilization has NOT won the war on math. Not yet anyway…

The war on math is now coming down to the race — not the ideas — of mathematicians:

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley muses on the latest assault on math teaching in schools:

“[T]he question of whether we have allowed Western mathematicians to dominate in our discipline is no less relevant than whether we have allowed western authors to dominate the field of literature. It may even be more important, if only because mathematics is rather more central to the advancement of science than is literature.”

Some professors have objected to being asked to consider the race or gender of mathematicians rather than their underlying theories or formulas.

In the Telegraph article, Exeter University Social Science Professor Doug Stokes is quoted as saying that “[t]he idea behind decolonising maths is that because everyone should be regarded as equal, the status of their beliefs must also be equal.” He denounces that view as “judgmental relativism is an inversion of science that is based on what is real rather than making everybody feel included.”

Jonathan Turley, ““Decolonising Math”: Durham University Asks Professors to Consider the Race of Mathematicians Before Relying on their Work” at JonathanTurley.org (April 11, 2022)

Takehome: Maybe it comes down to how much accurate ideas actually matter, as opposed to politics some people can force other people to pay for.

You may also wish to read:

Yes, there really is a war on math in our schools. Pundits differ as to the causes but here are some facts parents should know.

and

Further dispatches from the war on math. Discussions of social policy where math is relevant can be useful. But a student who does not understand how an equation works will fail at both math AND social policy. Increasingly, the United States depends on foreign talent in math and science. It seems an odd time for a nation to be sponsoring a war on math.

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At Mind Matters News: Not just plants — even fungi like mushrooms — talk to each other?

They are NOT judging us but they do have complex communications systems interacting with their environment:

The patterns that fungi like mushrooms use to communicate are said to be “strikingly similar” to those of human speech. But how?:

“Fungi send electrical signals to one another through hyphae—long, filamentous tendrils that the organisms use to grow and explore. The Guardian reports that previous research shows that the number of electrical impulses traveling through hyphae, sometimes likened to neurons, increases when fungi encounter new sources of food, and that this suggests it’s possible that fungi use this “language” to let each other know about new food sources or injury. – Natalia Mesa, “Can Mushrooms “Talk” to Each Other?” at The Scientist (April 6, 2022) The paper is open access.

That would make fungi, one of the kingdoms of life, similar to plants in that they can send chemical messages.

When researchers studied that, they discovered that the messages were somewhat complex

Denyse O’Leary, “Not just plants — even fungi like mushrooms — talk to each other?\” at Mind Matters News (April 14, 2022)

Takehome: We needn’t expect ‘Fungus’ on Google Translate any time soon. Fungi only talk about how and where to decompose other life forms’ detritus.

But life is much fuller of information than we had expected.

You may also wish to read: How plants talk when we’re not around. Some aspects of plant behavior can be studied in the same terms as animal or human behavior. Consciousness? Plant communications are extensive and perhaps much more complex than, say, computers, even though, as with computers, no one is likely “home.”

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Richard Buggs’s talk on the abominable mystery of flowers now available

But, we are told, one must register:

Charles Darwin was convinced that the evolution of complexity must proceed by tiny steps. Only tiny steps could be accumulated by natural selection. The process had to go slowly for it to work. Billions of years were needed. But Darwin was aware that this theory had a problem: flowers.

Flowering plants appear so suddenly in the fossil record, in such diversity, that their origin seems to be at odds with Darwin’s theory. When writing a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker in 1879, Darwin famously described this problem as an “abominable mystery”. To this date, evolutionary biologists still have not been able to solve this mystery.

Richard Buggs, Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at Queen Mary University of London, will join us at The Garden to reveal how the problem changed over time and why we still haven’t managed to solve it.

We are advised to watch to the very end. Too bad it isn’t on YouTube so we could embed it for you. But “Buggs on flowers” is always interesting.

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So life on Earth is even older than we thought?

Combined with new information all the time about the great complexity of life, this is decidedly not good news for Darwinism:

Researchers analyzed a fist-sized rock from Quebec, Canada, estimated to be between 3.75 and 4.28 billion years old. In an earlier article, the team found tiny filaments, knobs and tubes in the rock which appeared to have been made by bacteria. However, not all scientists agreed that these structures — dating about 300 million years earlier than what is more commonly accepted as the first sign of ancient life — were of biological origin. Now, after extensive further analysis of the rock, the team have discovered a much larger and more complex structure — a stem with parallel branches on one side that is nearly a centimeter long — as well as hundreds of distorted spheres, or ellipsoids, alongside the tubes and filaments. The researchers say that, while some of the structures could conceivably have been created through chance chemical reactions, the ‘tree-like’ stem with parallel branches was most likely biological in origin, as no structure created via chemistry alone has been found like it.

University College London, “Diverse life forms may have evolved earlier than previously thought” at ScienceDaily (April 13, 2022)

One of the two papers is open access.

You may also wish to read: Neil Thomas comments on the difficulty of accommodating Darwinism to sudden origin of life. Here’s a thought: If your origin of life theory works, can we reverse engineer the conditions to produce life from non-life today? If we can’t, that doesn’t prove your theory false. After all, it is very difficult to demonstrate that something “couldn’t have” happened under any circumstances whatever. But you must now rejoin the queue in your previous place…

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Wokeness: Darwin wails but it hardly matters now

The world his followers have helped create is a critical part of the problem. Here’s Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne keening at Why Evolution Is True:

Those of us who want our science free of ideology can only stand by helplessly as we watch physics, chemistry, and biology crumble from within as the termites of Wokeism nibble away. I once thought that scientists, whom I presumed would be less concerned than humanities professors with ideological pollution (after all, we do have some objective facts to argue about), would be largely immune to Wokeism.

I was wrong, of course. It turns out that scientists are human beings after all, and with that goes the desire for the approbation of one’s peers and of society. And you don’t get that if you’re deemed a racist. You can even be criticized from holding yourself away from the fray, preferring to do science than engage in social engineering. (Remember, Kendi-an doctrine says that if you’re not an actively working anti-racist, you’re a racist.)

Jerry Coyne, “Science “studies” helping bring down science” at Why Evolution Is True

Jerry … Can we talk? So you never suspected that anything was wrong when you yourself were persecuting people who had legitimate doubts about Darwinism? It’s really hard for the rest of us not to notice that stuff.

Larry Krauss is upset too and he outlines his grounds for concern.

I (O’Leary for News) had an accidental run-in with Krauss about a dozen years ago when I commented on something he had said at a conference I happened to be attending in northern Ontario (no, really).

I am reprinting it here from May 30, 2009:

In a recent post, “Science at the end of the world: Lawrence Krauss addresses the 2009 Sudbury, Ontario, meeting of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association”, I doubted his “particle physicist” prescriptions for science journalism.

Essentially, he thought a lot of problems would be cleared up if we started with the assumption that there is only one side to many science stories. Well yes, it would simplify matters, but …

He also thought it his duty to tell us his opinions on many issues in religion and politics.

I pointed out here that it is the duty of a journalist to seek a variety of perspectives on an issue. I followed that up by talking about the scientists who spoke at the conference who truly impressed me: He who knows something gains respect. He who knows everything …

Anyway, Dr. Krauss felt it worth his while to respond here at Salvo (where I had put up a stub leading to the post). He suggested that I should have been at a meeting of religious writers.

In fact, my complaint was precisely that there was too much about religion and politics in his address – to say nothing of altogether too much certainty about a universe where we only know about 5% of the total mass.

Here is what I said in reply:

As I pointed out in a recent post, it was Krauss who brought up a lot of dreck about religion in his talk Sunday night – after I had listened to real science all morning at Dynamic Earth!

When we went down to the mine, to SNOLAB and SNOLAB Plus the following Tuesday, no one talked about religion at all.

In fact, those scientists, unlike Krauss were humble in the face of the facts, and never claimed that they knew all that he claims to knows about the cosmos, as well as government, school systems, et cetera.

They certainly restored my faith in science.

Krauss isn’t fooling anyone. That’s why he grouses that Canada is beginning to fear science (= fear listening to people like him instead of people like the SNO Plus physicists).

He then went on to reply again, saying the same sorts of things:

I spent a fair amount of time trying to specifically discuss inherent tensions in science reporting, and then explain what he have been learning about the universe.. and even pointed out the key things we don’t understand.. I had not met ms o’leary before but she does a disservice to journalism by her reporting.

L. Krauss

He did spend a fair amount of time on science reporting (to no good effect, in my view) and on key things we don’t understand – but with a level of certainty and an admixture of religion and politics that seemed quite out of place to me. Especially because – as noted above – the whole thing had been done much better, earlier in the day, by a local physicist.

Well, I was not going to bother with this any more because if my In Tray were a work of nature, it would be formally classified as a natural disaster. However, Dr. Krauss also went to Uncommon Descent, where I am a community blogger, and posted similar comments. He complains of “inaccuracies and distortions”.

Again, I replied:

Dr. Krauss does not – in my view – clearly understand that journalism is the first draft of history.

No one who practises the craft should start out knowing exactly who is right and who is wrong. It is never as simple as that, and approaching it that way is a good way to be wrong.

And the more things one is absolutely certain of, the more likely one is to be wrong.

My sense is, Dr. Krauss probably isn’t used to people who analyze what he is saying seriously, especially when he is prescribing for fields other than his own.

In reality, a great many of the people at that conference were science communication bureaucrats on government salary. They do not need to think about the problems of news reporting in the way that I do.

Anyway, I am now going back to the ol’ In Tray, all the heavier for new stories from the Sudbury meet.

See also: Humanity killing the Universe? (More of Dr. Krauss’s views)

Some day, the Darwinians will discover freedom of religion. In the meantime, let them find out what no freedom feels like. It will sharpen their instincts.

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