Thank you Elizabeth for this opportunity-
Good day- Over the past many, many years, IDists have been telling people that intelligent design is not anti-evolution. Most people understand and accept that, while others just refuse to, no matter what.
With that said, in this post I will provide the evidence (again) that firmly demonstrates that ID is not anti-evolution. I will be presenting several authoritative definitions of “evolution” followed by what the ID leadership has to say about evolution. So without any further adieu, I give you-
Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution
”.
In order to have a discussion about whether or not Intelligent Design is anti-evolution or not we must first define “evolution”. Fortunately there are resources available that do just that.
Defining “evolution”:
Finally, during the evolutionary synthesis, a consensus emerged: “Evolution is the change in properties of populations of organisms over time”- Ernst Mayr page 8 of “What Evolution Is”
Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable’ via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans. Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4
Biological evolution refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. PBS series “Evolution” endorsed by the NCSE
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations) UC Berkley
In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974
Evolution- in biology, the word means genetically based change in a line of descent over time.- Biology: Concepts and Applications Starr 5th edition 2003 page 10
Those are all accepted definitions of biological “evolution”. (Perhaps someone will present some definitions that differ from those. Most likely I will only comment on any differences if the differences are relevant.)
With biology, where-ever there is heritable genetic change there is evolution and where-ever you have offspring that are (genetically) different from the parent(s) you have descent with modification.
Next I will show what Intelligent Design says about biological evolution and people can see for themselves that Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution:
Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism (MAY 2000)
Scott refers to me as an intelligent design “creationist,” even though I clearly write in my book Darwin’s Black Box (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think “evolution occurred, but was guided by God.”- Dr Michael Behe
Dr Behe has repeatedly confirmed he is OK with common ancestry. And he has repeatedly made it clear that ID is an argument against materialistic evolution (see below), ie necessity and chance.
Then we have:
What is Intelligent Design and What is it Challenging?– a short video featuring Stephen C. Meyer on Intelligent Design. He also makes it clear that ID is not anti-evolution.
Next Dembski and Wells weigh in:
The theory of intelligent design (ID) neither requires nor excludes speciation- even speciation by Darwinian mechanisms. ID is sometimes confused with a static view of species, as though species were designed to be immutable. This is a conceptual possibility within ID, but it is not the only possibility. ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms. Rather, it maintains that there are strict limits to the amount and quality of variations that material mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic change can alone produce. At the same time, it holds that intelligence is fully capable of supplementing such mechanisms, interacting and influencing the material world, and thereby guiding it into certain physical states to the exclusion of others. To effect such guidance, intelligence must bring novel information to expression inside living forms. Exactly how this happens remains for now an open question, to be answered on the basis of scientific evidence. The point to note, however, is that intelligence can itself be a source of biological novelties that lead to macroevolutionary changes. In this way intelligent design is compatible with speciation. page 109 of “The Design of Life”
and
And that brings us to a true either-or. If the choice between common design and common ancestry is a false either-or, the choice between intelligent design and materialistic evolution is a true either-or. Materialistic evolution does not only embrace common ancestry; it also rejects any real design in the evolutionary process. Intelligent design, by contrast, contends that biological design is real and empirically detectable regardless of whether it occurs within an evolutionary process or in discrete independent stages. The verdict is not yet in, and proponents of intelligent design themselves hold differing views on the extent of the evolutionary interconnectedness of organisms, with some even accepting universal common ancestry (ie Darwin’s great tree of life). Common ancestry in combination with common design can explain the similar features that arise in biology. The real question is whether common ancestry apart from common design- in other words, materialistic evolution- can do so. The evidence of biology increasingly demonstrates that it cannot.- Ibid page 142
And from one more pro-ID book:
Many assume that if common ancestry is true, then the only viable scientific position is Darwinian evolution- in which all organisms are descended from a common ancestor via random mutation and blind selection. Such an assumption is incorrect- Intelligent Design is not necessarily incompatible with common ancestry.– page 217 of “Intelligent Design 101”
That is just a sample of what the Intelligent Design leadership say about biological evolution- they are OK with it. And the following is from “Uncommon Descent”:
9] “Evolution” Proves that Intelligent Design is Wrong The word “evolution” can mean different things. The simplest meaning is one of natural history of the appearance of different living forms. A stronger meaning implies common descent, in its universal form (all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor) or in partial form (particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor). “Evolution” is often defined as descent with modifications, or simply as changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population.
None of those definitions can prove ID wrong, because none are in any way incompatible with it.
ID is a theory about the cause of genetic information, not about the modalities or the natural history of its appearance, and is in no way incompatible with many well known patterns of limited modification of that information usually defined as “microevolution.” ID affirms that design is the cause, or at least a main cause, of complex biological information. A theory which would indeed be alternative to ID, and therefore could prove it wrong, is any empirically well-supported “causal theory” which excludes design; in other words any theory that fits well with the evidence and could explain the presence or emergence of complex biological information through chance, necessity, any mix of the two, or any other scenario which does not include design. However, once we rule out “just-so stories” and the like, we will see that there is not today, nor has there ever been, such a theory. Furthermore, the only empirically well-supported source of functionally specific, complex information is: intelligence. To sum it up: no definition of evolution is really incompatible with an ID scenario. Any causal theory of evolution which does not include design is obviously alternative to, and incompatible with, ID.
However, while many such theories have indeed been proposed, they are consistently wanting in the necessary degree of empirical support. By contrast, design is an empirically known source of the class of information – complex, specified information (CSI) — exhibited by complex biological systems.
They go on to say:
10] The Evidence for Common Descent is Incompatible with Intelligent Design ID is a theory about the cause of complex biological information. Common descent (CD) is a theory about the modalities of implementation of that information. They are two separate theories about two different aspects of the problem, totally independent and totally compatible. In other words, one can affirm CD and ID, CD and Darwinian Evolution, or ID and not CD. However, if one believes in Darwinian Evolution, CD is a necessary implication.
CD theory exists in two forms, universal CD and partial CD. No one can deny that there are evidences for the theory of CD (such as ERVs, homologies and so on). That’s probably the reason why many IDists do accept CD. Others do not agree that those evidences are really convincing, or suggest that they may reflect in part common design. But ID theory, proper, has nothing to do with all that. ID affirms that design is the key cause of complex biological information. The implementation of design can well be realized through common descent, that is through implementation of new information in existing biological beings. That can be done gradually or less gradually. All these are modalities of the implementation of information, and not causes of the information itself. ID theory is about causes.
And finally there is front loaded evolution (Mike Gene) and a prescribed evolutionary hypothesis (John Davison)- both are ID hypotheses pertaining to evolution.
Mutations are OK, differential reproduction is OK, horizontal gene transfer is OK. With Intelligent Design organisms are designed to evolve, ie they evolve by design. That is by “built-in responses to environmental cues” ala Dr Spetner’s “non-random evolution hypothesis” being the main process of adaptations.
As Dembski/ Wells said Intelligent design only has an issue with materialistic evolution- the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms. (Also known as the blind watchmaker thesis)
Intelligent Design is OK with all individuals in a population generally having the same number and types of genes and that those genes give rise to an array of traits and characteristics that characterize that population. It is OK with mutations that may result in two or more slightly different molecular forms of a gene- alleles- that influence a trait in different ways and that individuals of a population vary in the details of a trait when they inherit different combinations of alleles. ID is OK with any allele that may become more or less common in the population relative to other kinds at a gene locus, or it may disappear. And ID is OK with allele frequencies changing as a result of mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection, that mutation alone produces new alleles and gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection shuffle existing alleles into, through, or out of populations. IOW ID is OK with biological evolution. As Dr Behe et al., make very clear, it just argues about the mechanisms- basically design/ telic vs spontaneous/ stochastic.
Now we are left with the only way Intelligent Design can be considered anti-evolution is if and only if the only definition of evolution matches the definition provided for materialistic evolution. However I cannot find any source that states that is the case.
So the bottom line is Intelligent Design says “evolved, sure”. The questions are “evolved from what?” and “how did it evolve?
I never really thought that Intelligent Design per se was anti-evolution but you can make a pretty good case that many of its leading proponents, going right back to Phillip Johnson, most definitely are. Reading Uncommon Descent only confirms that view.
Well how are you defining “evolution”? Please be specific
“Intelligent design only has an issue with […] the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes…”
so, that would mean that ID contends that organisms have largely originated through guided, intelligent, purposeful, IMMATERIAL processes?
Artificial, not immaterial.
As someone who has been intimately familiar with the ID/creationist movement from its beginning back in the early 1970s, I would like to know what this line of argument is attempting to promote.
If someone says he/she is for or against something, doesn’t that individual’s understanding of what he is for or against have something to do with it? If one is against guitar music because it is voodoo music, what does that tell us about guitar music and that person’s understanding of guitar music?
Granville Sewell thinks evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics; just as Henry Morris and Duane Gish taught from the beginning of all this. Neither Morris, nor Gish, nor Sewell knows what entropy is. So is Sewell against evolution, or is he against his own misconceptions of evolution? Help me out here.
John Sanford thinks there is such a thing as “genetic entropy” but doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word entropy either. Is he not against his notion that everything falls all apart or is he not against evolution? Or is he for his own misconceptions of evolution or is he against them?
Dembski and Marks talk about “endoginous information,” “exogenous information,” and “active information” as though these are deep insights when in fact they are simply comparisons of the sizes of the sets from which solutions are found. Are they for evolution or against their own mischaracterizations of information as a driving “force” of evolution?” What are they for or against?
David L. Abel talks about lots of stuff derived from “Shannon uncertainty” and uses terms like “spontaneous molecular chaos” which has nothing to do with molecules. Is he against evolution because of his notion of “spontaneous molecular chaos” and his “understanding” of “Shannon uncertainty?” Is he for his misconceptions of evolution with “something added?” If the latter, then what is he for or against?
The list goes on and on. All of these misconceptions and misrepresentations are a common theme that runs through all of ID/creationism, yet none of it has anything to do with how the universe actually works.
So just what are ID/creationists for or against anyway; real science or their own misconceptions about science? What has all the demonizing of science been about for nearly 50 years?
ID is not against evolution. It just wants you to think it’s miraculous.
Not at all, Granville has completely mischaracterized the Second Law of Thermodynamics in an attempt to make it appear that evolution is physically impossible. It’s not just biology he fails at, but basic physics.
“As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution is American evangelicalism’s ill-conceived accommodation to Darwinism.” – Dembski
“From our vantage, materialism is not a neutral, value-free, minimalist position from which to pursue inquiry. Rather, it is itself an ideology with an agenda. What’s more, it requires an evolutionary creation story to keep it afloat. On scientific grounds, we regard that creation story to be false. What’s more, we regard the ideological agenda that has flowed from it to be destructive to rational discourse. Our concerns are therefore entirely parallel to the evolutionists’. Indeed, all the evolutionists’ worst fears about what the world would be like if we succeed have, in our view, already been realized through the success of materialism and evolution. Hence, as a strategy for unseating materialism and evolution, the term “Wedge” has come to denote an intellectual and cultural movement that many find congenial. ” – Dembski
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.04.Backlash.htm
Evolving is what the universe has been doing since the Big Bang. Biological evolution is simply an instance of what has been going on all this time.
Evolution requires the second law of thermodynamics. This is basic physics that is taught as early as high school chemistry and physics. Matter interacts very strongly with matter and condenses; that requires the release of energy, and that is the essence of the second law.
Chemists and physicists have not been talking about a “blind, undirected process,” those are creationist words introduced back in the 1970s by Henry Morris. I know; I was there as a witness. For hundreds of years now chemists and physicists have been taking matter apart to learn why it sticks together and by what rules.
These are the rules that apply; not “information,” not “intelligence,” and not any other made-up idea that ID/creationists have been attempting to plug the holes in their own misconceptions with.
How does ID know that, and what are they? To the extent that no definition of evolution includes such a limitation, I see that ID and evolution are incompatible.
I never did like those Dawkins metaphors (“The Blind Watchmaker” and “The Selfish Gene”).
There’s no such thing as “blind watchmaker evolution” if you are defining that as “evolution via blind and undirected processes.” That seems to depict evolution as achieving a specific goal (as a watchmaker does), via blind and undirected processes. However, there is no specific goal, and the processes are not blind and undirected. Biological systems are rich in feedback loops, which do provide direction. They don’t provide direction toward an explicit final goal, but they do provide direction toward keeping the system in a suitable functional state whereby it can carry out normal biological functions.
Can there be such a thing as dynamic homeostasis?
Ok, wait: the opposite of “material” in ID vocabulary is “artificial”?
Could you please provide the definitions for these terms used by ID? Because they obviously don’t match any dictionary I use…
I might also point out that some of “our ilk” (such as myself) have been using these physics concepts routinely in our research; in my case for over 50 years.
These concepts are so vital to even the basic technologies that we use, in the instrumentation we design as well as in our experimental techniques, that we couldn’t make anything work if we had the kinds of fundamental misconceptions you, Sewell, et. al. have had for those entire years that ID/creationists have been insulting and taunting scientists.
The understandings of the fundamentals of physics and chemistry that Morris, Sewell, Abel, Sanford, Dembski, et. al. would bring into the lab would lead to disaster not only to equipment, but would result in serious injury as well.
The laws of thermodynamics play important roles in thermometry, equipment design, and in the technology that sits right in front of you as you hammer on your keyboard to complain about what you think are the misconceptions and misrepresentations of “our ilk.” You wouldn’t have any of this technology if it weren’t for our fundamental understandings of physics and chemistry.
ID/creationism does indeed conflict with evolution. It conflicts on such a fundamental level that what you think of as evolution has nothing to do with reality.
What physicists, chemists, and biologists know about evolution is derived from actually pulling matter apart to learn how it got that way.
What ID/creationists think of as evolution is a set of processes that are impossible according to their misconceptions about physical laws; and as a result, they demand the injection of “information” and “intelligence” to account for what their own misconceptions don’t provide.
That gap is far, far wider than you know.
YEC here.
Is ID just a small group of researchers and thinkers? So what they think is just what iD is.!
ID is just well degree ed people who have reached important/large audiences presenting criticism of subjects that deny the fingerprint of a God on nature and who question evolutionary biology in this or that or everything.
YEC complain about them as they think they are stealing our thiunder/best ponts and keeping people from Genesis creationism.
I see iD as stealing non creationists over to a more open position on any creationist opinion.
ID folks don’t believe in Noah mostly. I find a few do however who are in those circles.
Evolutionists see ID as creationist because of saying a creator is in nature as much as he wants and they have a trail and they speak against evolution.
ID folks at the top reject many conclusions of evolution or a distant/not there creator YET they are fine with evolutionary changes in nature including long times that are needed.
ID’s aims at evolution are what are defining them and not the creator fingerprints thing.
They need to look around their own big tent!
Who’s the boss!
Joe G, without throwing insults, could you please tell what is the meaning behind the concept that apparently Michael Behe coined (open to correction if wrong), which is called ‘unevolvability’?
Thanks,
Gregory
TWT: This is, at present, a one-woman-blog, and I don’t have time to referee it constantly.
The game rules are clear enough, but whether I move what I think are violating posts will always be a matter of a) my time and b) my judgement.
If a post offends you, then feel free to ignore it. I may institute an alert system at some point, but right now, with the upheavals over the last weekend, I want to leave the cpanel alone!
If there’s stuff in the aisles to mop up, I’ll be back later. In the mean time, step round it.
ETA: Rules:
Joe,
“However, if one believes in Darwinian Evolution, CD is a necessary implication.”
Given that you dispute common descent, you must therefore, logically, dispute the validity of Darwinian Evolution.
Therefore ID *is* anti-evolution, as Darwinian evolution (and it’s progeny) is the only game in town.
You also said:
“With Intelligent Design organisms are designed to evolve, ie they evolve by design. ”
So a few questions for you to ignore:
Are Craig Venter’s cells “designed to evolve”?
Would you agree that any population of replicators that undergo imperfect replication is “designed to evolve”? Is it possible to tell the difference between something that is “designed to evolve” and something that “evolves”? If not, how do you know that what you claim is “designed to evolve” is actually not just “evolving”.
And:
“telic vs spontaneous/ stochastic.”
Could you explain when you examine a mutation how you would determine if it’s telic or not? If you can’t on what basis are you making the claim that mutations are telic?
Show your working!
Nice strawman- with ID no miracles required.
So the designer is a physical being, just like us, that manipulates DNA with physical tools, just like us?
I’d say that a designer that lived for as long as your designer is required to have lived for and which leaves absolutely *no trace* of it’s existence or meddling in all that time is fairly miraculous.
Evolution requires reproduction Mike- has the universe been reproducing? Or are you just confused?
Someday you may have some evidence to support what you post. However today is not that day.
Joe,
So if the questions are: “evolved from what?” and “how did it evolve?”
How is ID going about answering those questions? Or are you simply waiting for everybody else to do the research and then claim that it supports ID for some vague reason (they’ve not proven that mutation X is in fact random wrt fitness for example, just assumed it is on the basis that there is no evidence to support the fact it’s telic instead, see previous comment) perhaps?
Whatever Neil- I will go with what the evolutionary experts say and they say there is a blind watchmaker evolution, ie that the processes are blind and undirected.
Joe,
“Evolution requires reproduction Mike- has the universe been reproducing? Or are you just confused?”
So systems in general don’t evolve? The internet does not evolve? Stars don’t evolve?
When you have to redefine words you make your point it’s obvious you are on the losing track.
Yes he was talking about Darwinian evolution, ie blind watchmaker evolution.
Can you name a specific process that fits into that category? Or is “vague and unspecific” the best you can do as anything else might actually cause you to take a position on a specific point?
For such evolutionary processes, as you see it, what does the “blind watchmaker” actually do?
Wow by that “logic” individuals do evolve throughout their lives! Yet evos say individuals do not evolve.
You are correct- immaterial could be a reference to mental- as in mind
Yeah physical tools like SOFTWARE- and traces of the designer’s existence have been found.
OTOH your position still has nothing.
While it might be true that you have not evolved significantly in your life since childhood it’s not the case for everybody else.
“Evolution” is a word that describes a process. People evolve, networks evolve, biological organisms evolve.
“Yet evos say individuals do not evolve.”
Here, let me help you by quoting Wikipedia:
“Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.”
That’s evolution for biological populations. Evolution of an individual (or indeed the internet) would have a different mechanism. For example, the evolution of the first generation of the TCP stack to the second. The evolution and emergence of UDP.
Leaves blowing in the wind.
Yet minds are physical, unless you’ve encountered a mind without a physical brain to house it in. Very long lived brain……
So according to you Joe, the designer is just like us. I guess like in Star Trek they probably have two arms and two legs too, right?
“Yes he was talking about Darwinian evolution, ie blind watchmaker evolution.”
Then he should have spoken about ‘(neo-)Darwinian unevolvability,’ in order to make himself clear. The term ‘unevolvability’ does not indicate “which evolution” is apparently impossible. These are muddy waters.
Your thread actually makes a mockery of the IDM, Joe G. Dembski is pro-technological evolution. This is of course humourous!
Yet, to speak of ID as indeed questioning ‘evolvability,’ as Behe does, is to put the lie to your simplistic OP Title’s claim. ID *IS* against certain kinds of evolution. But ID is too big of a tent to be able to specify which evolutions it is FOR. Would you like to try to speak for which evolutions ID is FOR, Joe G?
Please provide a copy of the SOFTWARE you mention, and describe it’s programming language to me.
What ” traces of the designer’s existence” have been found Joe? Turin shroud perhaps?
“Yes he was talking about Darwinian evolution, ie blind watchmaker evolution.”
Then he should have spoken about ‘(neo-)Darwinian unevolvability,’ in order to make himself clear. The term ‘unevolvability’ does not indicate “which evolution” is apparently impossible. These are muddy waters.
Your thread actually makes a mockery of the IDM, Joe G. Dembski is pro-technological evolution. This is of course humourous!
Yet, to speak of ID as if it is indeed questioning ‘evolvability,’ as Behe does, is to put the lie to your simplistic OP Title’s claim. ID *IS* against certain kinds of evolution. But ID is too big of a tent to be able to specify which evolutions it is FOR. Would you like to try to speak for which evolutions ID is FOR, Joe G?
Dude- you are lost as your quote says evolution GIVES RISE TO-
Do a search on “populations evolve not individuals.
A biological process Joe as it relates to the “Blind Watchmaker”.
Here, let me remind you of the context of my request:
Name a specific process.
Greg- he has made himself very clear- You just refuse to read what he has said.
And read my post again for the first time
Yes, Joe, but the point is that evolution applies to many different things. Universes included. That you don’t accept that is amusing.
While in biology what you say is true, it’s obvious that this is a tangent that you’d rather go off on then address any of my actual questions that relate to your OP.
No surprise there.
As I have alreday told you- copying errors such as point mutations
No some people try to apply evolution to everything. That doesn’t make it so.
As for the OP you don’t have any questions tat are relevant to it.
So bye-bye
Anything else? Or is that it?
Well, that’s not for you to decide now is it?
So according to you “copying errors such as point mutations” are in fact not random at all, but telic. Have I got you right?
Here, you can watch it in action: http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/hurricane-earl-evolution_2010-09-01
Better let them know that they are using “evolution” in a invalid way and that hurricanes don’t evolve! And then there’s the other trillion results in google you’ll have to update too!
Would you like to try to speak for which evolutions ID is FOR, Joe G?
Would you like to try to speak for which evolutions you think ID is FOR, Joe G?
Joe,
“Dr Spetner’s “non-random evolution hypothesis” being the main process of adaptations.”
If, as you believe mutations are not random then perhaps you can summarise Dr Spetner’s argument in your own words and explain why he should be trusted over tends of thousands of actual working biologists who have never found *any* evidence of this in literally tens of thousands of experiments?
As all you’ve ever done so far is to tell people to read about it in his book, a classic literature bluff as good as any I’ve seen.
What is so convincing to you in his argument? It’s at the crux of the matter regarding ID and evolution and their compatibility and therefore is very relevant to the OP.
It’s in my post Greg- what is your problem?
Way to equivocate development with evolution- Storms develop OM. That you can’t grasp taht says quite a bit about you.
That you are too much of a coward to actually support something says you are best ignored.
[Edit by Lizzie: for some weird reason this post won’t move, but consider it de facto in Guano]