On the problems with Darwin’s theory
[Hat tip: commenter “Molly Brown.”]
In this article from about a year ago, David Gelernter expresses doubts about Darwin’s theory of how species originate. He’s hardly the only one. It’s been a puzzlement for a long time, the sticking point in what Gelernter calls a “beautiful” theory. He’s not too keen on intelligent design, either.
I’ve followed the Darwin question somewhat over the years, and discussions get very technical very quickly. Therefore I don’t have much of an opinion, except this one:
There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
[NOTE: If the name “Gelernter” seems familiar to you, one reason may be that he was one of the Unibomber’s victims. Gelernter survived, minus a right hand and with a damaged right eye. Gelernter is also a political conservative. Interesting guy.]
The linked article is well worth reading.
What, in the context of evolution, do we think about the apparently now newly accepted idea of “epigenetics”?
That a person’s environment–the things that happen to an individual–do not change that individual’s gene sequence, but can have an effect on the activity of that individual’s genes, how they are expressed or not, and that this change is inheritable by that individual’s offspring.
Glad I read Gelertner’s article; quite informative.
There’s one thing it makes only a glancing touch on, though, which I’m beginning to believe is key: genetics is above all an information process. Genes carry meaning.
To me, that means that evolution is, so to speak, the way the biosphere thinks. The intelligence is not in some external agent operating outside physics, perhaps outside the universe.
Instead, perhaps life as whole is intelligent. It operate on scales of space and time pretty much outside human perception, Whether the word “consciousness” applies to it may be meaningless. “We are a way,” says Sagan at his most oracular, “for the universe to know itself.” My claim is, I hope, less grandiose. Evolution is a way for life to think about itself.
I’m not sure what to make of this idea. I don’t know how it would work. I only throw it out there for others to chew on.
“..discussions get very technical very quickly” – Neo
Understatement of the century!!
On Darwin, I come down on the “pro” side of “micro-evolution” — breeding animals and plants is an ancient illustration — but can’t wrap my mind around the “macro-evolution” of (1) amino acids in the primordial soup; (2) ??; (3) people like David Gelernter.
Maybe the Martians-R-Us people will solve that problem.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/08/07/are-we-martians/#comment-2510090
Wikipedia:
“Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population.[1] This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection (natural and artificial), gene flow and genetic drift. This change happens over a relatively short (in evolutionary terms) amount of time compared to the changes termed macroevolution.”
* * *
I have read quite a few of Mr. Gelernter’s articles, but I didn’t know his history with the Unibomber. Very interesting.
While looking up the translation of his name, which is a German word meaning “skilled” — how appropriate! — this article from Quillette came up in the search results.
I will only excerpt the conclusion; readers (obviously) can read both posts and draw their own conclusions.
But I don’t think I would characterize Mr. Gelernter as a “garden-variety” anything (p.s. Coyne throws that jab in homage to Gelernter’s own opening statement).
https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/
Maybe some of the more enlightened commenters can explain to me the Darwinian explanation for how species with exoskeletons, which did not exist before, came about during the Cambrian eruption.
Very interesting article. The microbiology portion, and the incredibly long odds on the possibility of even one random DNA mutation being viable and beneficial, seems to put an end to Darwin’s elegant theory.
I have not yet received my paper copy of Claremont Review.
But I find Gelernter’s article overly verbose, which is in my experience often a thin disguise for limited knowledge. And, as a non-biologist, he completely overlooks the 3D aspect of protein structures, the amazing specificity of antibodies, the wonder of immunologic memory. I could go on and on, but, unlike Gelernter, will not. Like any computer guy, he is hung up on raw numbers like 10 to the 195th power. The marvel of Creation eludes him, apparently. There is a marvelous order to the universe and its constituent parts, which I have trouble attributing to accidental Darwinian mutations, since most mutations have deleterious consequences. How does one explain DNA within mitochondria, which are intracellular, extra-nuclear structures? The harder we look, the more we drill down, the more amazing, rational, and purposeful life is in every ramification.
I suggest reading Douglas Axe’s “Undeniable”, and “Who Designed the Designer” by Michael Augros. Axe is a biologist, Augros a philosopher. Neither holds Darwin in high esteem, and one must be reminded that all theories are constructs, proposed explanations which all require verifiable, reproducible proof in order to be deemed valid science. Darwin’s Theory remains only a theory, and Gelernter seems to support that notion, at least to my quick reading.
I have never and would never try to master the technical aspects of evolutionary theory. But I have sort of an intellectual bottom line: the evidence of some kind of intelligence at work is so obvious that to deny it is a form of willful blindness.
Well, ok, make it two bottom lines. Or since that doesn’t make much sense, two facts that seem both clear and independent of the biological and physical science involved. The second one is that human consciousness–the self-conscious self and all that goes with that–is not a physical phenomenon. Or, if you prefer, not *only* a physical phenomenon.
Gelernter addresses the question adroitly, IMO.
What struck me is how much the process of blind mindless evolution, as thus described, resembles the process of the invisible hand of the market place, which religious and non-religious conservatives & classical liberals have no problem with, but leftists (aka socialists) do .
You would think that, to be ideologically consistent, the positions of the left & right would be switched, and the left would favor a centrally-designed and implemented universal scheme of life!
I think the key-word is “mindless” — because the real opposition of the left to the operation of free markets is that the participants are acting of their own free will and choice — which is NOT “mindless,” even if it may be “blind” — and so are not under the control of their Overlords of the Elite Left.
On the other hand, if evolution is being directed by a Creator (or if evolution doesn’t operate at all, as some sub-varieties of Creationists favor), then they are just sorely dissed that the Director is not them.
Note to Cicero: Gelernter is writing a book review (Stephen Meyer: Darwin’s Doubt), not an original research paper, and he quotes Douglas Axe, presumably via the reviewed book, as the source of the raw numbers he is “hung up on,” and for most of the biology section of his essay, which also includes important remarks about the 3-D shape of proteins, rather than overlooking them as you suggested.
Gelernter makes no reference to Augros, but that doesn’t mean the book’s author also omits him; I have no idea on that, not having read Meyer’s book myself yet.
AesopFan: on Jerry Coyne and the Quillette article, great minds think alike … 🙂
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/08/07/are-we-martians/#comment-2510162
On the free market and hidden hand: I think Adam Smith used a flawed metaphor, as the pricing signals that impact and influence the market are clearly open and visible, or they would not be operative. What is hidden are all of the other knowledge, expertise, and prior price signals that preceded your decision to buy or not buy a given item/service at that price. I don’t care, nor need to know, if it was the price of flour, eggs, milk, or oil that went up when my desire for bread is curtailed by a price increase.
Gelernter:
IMO, one of the things that drove Darwin to generate his theory was observing some of the brutal things that nature allows which were very distressful to him.
(I have a reason for ascribing that view to him, but can’t find the source just now. It’s in a paper book in my shelves — not searchable by Google! — and I may dig it out later.)
He refused to accept that a Good Creator God would allow such nasty things, so he threw God out of the mix altogether*, being able to accept that mindless
evolution sometimes results in situations that he doesn’t like, because nobody is responsible for them.
It’s a variant on the classical question, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” — or good wasps, or good bears, or whatever.
For an antidote to that POV, see: Chesterton, Lewis, and other Christian writers.
*As with Laplace, who, when asked about why his theory of the solar system did not mention God, is reputed to have said, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#Religious_opinions
A nice discussion of the aphorism in action:
https://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/09/16/there-is-no-need-for-god-as-a-hypothesis/
“Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the world.”
Stu: “species with exoskeletons, which did not exist before, came about during the Cambrian eruption.”
As Coyne points out, the “eruption” was 20 million years long ( 3 times the 7 million years between our ape-man link/ancestor and what we have evolved into today), so there was plenty of time for the prior soft bodied animals subject to being eaten to evolve increasingly hard skins/ shells to aid their survival and that of their off spring.
I like the 17th/18th Century Enlightenment for both its scientific and political reasons/ contributions, but I make no claim to special enlightenment.
See Neo’s quotation above.
To add to the extensive reading list on this very broad topic: in terms of evolution not being so completely random, and that it tends towards parallel solutions, there’s. Life’s Solution, by biologist Simon Morris, and The Phenomenon Man, by Pierre de Chardin. And for the gap in darwinism concerning consciousness, there’s Mind and Cosmos, by Thomas Nagel.
To me, Darwin is not the Newton 3 laws of biology that biologists claim.
“On the free market and hidden hand:” – R2L
Point taken; the metaphors seemed to me to have enough similarity on the surface to throw out the idea.
Coyne’s rebuttal is well worth reading. He gives sources that he asserts as refutations of Meyer’s theories (Gelernter is just explaining and summarizing Meyer’s work, and Coyne is attacking the messenger as surrogate for the message sender).
Whether Coyne’s sources actually DO refute Meyer would take credentials I don’t have. However, I do take issue when he claims that he won’t indulge in ad hominem attacks on Gelernter and then proceeds to do exactly that.
The comments at Coyne’s post are also interesting.
The Evolution Wars are never-ending.
Snow on Pine: ” … now newly accepted idea of “epigenetics”?
[…] can have an effect on the activity of that individual’s genes, how they are expressed or not, and that this change is inheritable by that individual’s offspring.”
I know less about epigenetics than I would like, but I don’t see how existing genes being expressed or not expressed can impact the genome, or that of offspring, unless it alters the base pair sequence in the DNA in the sex cells of that individual. Do you have a link that might short circuit my future homework?
One possibility for significant “evolution” not discussed is panspermia. Astronomers see all kinds of organic molecules in interstellar space. Maybe life evolved elsewhere In the Universe and just happened to drift into our path where it settled and found a hospitable environment. Given that we look far out into the universe and see atoms and molecules identical to what we have on Earth, it may be likely that DNA is the only viable way of making a self-replicating molecule consistent with physics and chemistry. Just a thought.
AesopFan:
I did say I read Gelernter quickly. Appreciate your admonitions!
An Intelligent Designer would have no problem “explaining” what He did, when, or why. Not to us mere mortals, anyway. He need not justify himself. If not us, explain to whom? I personally think the earth is unique, as are we on it.
Addendum: when I say “some kind of intelligence at work” I don’t have any particular point in the development of things in mind. I’m not, for instance, inserting an intelligent hand at the point of the development of a new species, or of the eye, or of anything in particular. It could be at work only in the design of the “machinery” as a whole, a la deism: designing a system that could start with the most primitive elements and a set of specifications (physical/chemical laws) and build itself. But that requires information, which implies intelligence.
Since physicsguy is suggesting some books we might wish to peruse, the three that may best encapsulate what I think I know about life’s origins and some related biology are:
Nick Lane: Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Robert Hazen: Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origin
Franklin M. Harold: The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life
There are of course other books, but the last one also provided the perspective that even a simple single celled bacteria has around 300 million protein molecules, not counting the water and other molecules.
I think sometimes the richness of the English language can trip us up. When we use “blind”, or especially “mindless”, to describe the evolutionary process, that language can convey flawed perceptions that the process is chaotic, stumbling, violent, or even having some destructive purpose (such as our recent or on-going “protests”). But what we should want to convey is a neutral, “not directed by a conscience mind”, process that just “is”. The sources that create a randomly changed version of a DNA molecule (or the specifically impacted gene sequence on that molecule) during its replication occur passively, without direction or guidance. If the changed gene is later “expressed” or active in creating a new protein, if that protein survives in the cell and then in the organism, and that organism survives by happenstance or because of its new protein, the change is propagated to the next generation. Pure survival is the final test. There is no teleology, direction, target, or specifically crafted “design” being promoted, say for improved eyesight or faster running or tougher skin or heightened memory.
But the beauty behind this process is basically the same as when people say they want “diversity”. Not diversity based on sex, gender, race, etc., but diversity of ideas derived from a range of experiences from the participants to the brain storming session or on the problem solving team. The more ideas offered, or generated, the more likely a good or better statement of both the problem and the solution may arise. The best idea(s) will be recognized, survive evaluation, and “win out”. And that of course is also why the commentary here at TheNewNeo is often so vibrant, focused, and useful.
Good discussion featuring Gelerntner and two other knowledgeable types About an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noj4phMT9OE
One issue I’ve not seen discussed is the following:
Every anatomical “thing” has a cost. Could be massive like our brain’s need for oxygen. Could be minimal like for fingernails. But never zero.
People have argued why the vermiform appendix exists. It kills people from time to time and those who are born without it are more likely to live. Since it still exists, it must have a use. What that use may be is not the poitnt. The point is, according to evolution, it must have a use, a benefit whose positive effect outweighs the negative. Otherwise….we shouldn’t have it and shouldn’t have had it. Natural selection would have selected against it. That’s evolution.
A cilium on a one-celled animal has a use. It also has a cost. The use outweighs the cost, or it wouldn’t exist.
But what good is half a cilium? It has a cost but not a benefit Therefore it should have been selected against and not had the chance to evolve into something useful over incomprehensible numbers of generations where it cost the survival of the organism.
This is sort of like Behe, irreducible complexity.
I’m impressed with Gerlernter, less impressed with his views on this topic. This discussion was also covered at Powerline blog 6 or 10 months ago, and there were some great comments.
If you want the more current science view, Nick Lane’s books are worth reading. Oxygen, Mitochondria and more recently a summing up in Vital Question. They’re on the edge of what my knowledge of science can handle LOL.
Humans are loath to admit there are many things we can not know with any certainty. However, we are not gods, we are mere mortals. Accept mortality and relax.or chase your behind in an “intellectual” pursuit to convince yourself of your superiority. If you’re honest it only ends with a scent of sulfur.
Personally I embrace Popeye.
There is a difference between what people call ‘theory’ and what scientists call ‘scientific theory’. Some get confused and want to ascribe evolutionary theory to be “a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation or a conjecture or an assumption’.
But when the scientific community talks about theory they don’t mean a hypothesis. They mean this:
Scientific Theory – An explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled conditions in an experiment. In circumstances not amenable to experimental testing, theories are evaluated through principles of abductive reasoning. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge.
Evolution is not simply a conjecture. The specifics all the way down the line are not always agreed upon by all biologists. But that is true in a lot of science. Absolutes are not really part of science. They are however part of human beings thinking. But it’s not scientific to use a ‘god in the gaps’ concept whereby if evolution cannot be explained with certainty then it must be dismissed or only acceptable for non-controversial life on earth.
Another guy, in my mind not as good a Nick Lane, for the science side of things is Andreas Wagner.
One of his books “Arrival of the Fittest” is memorable to me. He describes a project that took genes that had evolved and that were understood well enough so that you knew the sequence of the “early” gene and then the “improved, mutated, later” version of the gene. The next step was to see: could you change from the 1st sequence to the last sequence via single steps in which each of the transitional gene sequences was viable.
Everybody has a view, right? If you believe in a Creator you have a consistent theory. If you believe in soulless science, there are lots of hard questions to answer but the scientists have come up with some good progress. And they enjoy the challenge of finding ways to explain existence via random changes without using God.
One argument I’ve heard that gives respect to all sides is to say that Darwinian Evolution is (more or less) correct but not of key importance. On a local level, it explains how a species changes, and how it generates new species. But on a more meta level it loses relevance. That dinosaur might be exquisitely evolved, perfect for, and dominating, its environment. But suddenly a completely random event occurs (comet) and they’re wiped away. Like with a cloth. And out of the Burgess Shale, a whole new complement of living things comes to the fore: not through evolution but through chance.
So you can virtuously attain a high level through evolution but then be unfairly relegated to the dustbin of history through no fault of your chromosomes.
This is, more or less, the conclusion reached by Punctuated Equilibrium.
Darwin says that there is not supposed to be inheritance of acquired characteristics. Eg a body builder does not pass outstanding musculature down to his boy. The child has to work at this himself. A fish that has gone blind in a cave is not supposed to pass blindness down to its offspring. It rather had a genetic variation—a mutation—causing blindness in the cave and the lack of eyesight in pitch blackness added to survivability of the fish because energy formerly used by eyesight could now be devoted to other biological tasks.
But something new has been discovered; and Darwinists have to explain this—which they haven’t yet: Epigenetics. Epigenetics means that methyl or ethyl groups can be attached environmentally to DNA or histone proteins that enwrap the DNA. These are added by environmental influences and they cause enhancement or reduction in gene transcription and expression. They thus could affect reproduction and survivability and numbers of offspring and they are passed down through a few generations in some animals, like mice. So, by definition, they are causing acquired characteristics that are inherited…although only for a generation or two. Most of the time epigenetic markers are cleaned up after fertilization; and the zygote has lost these ethyl and methyl groups, but not always. Thus there could be theoretically inheritance of acquired characteristics in some species. The evolutionary biologists are not talking about this very much. I’m not sure whether it actually is affecting evolution very much, but it is a defect in the theory and it is not controversial. But it is inconvenient.
Richard: In re the appendix: sometime we just have learn enough to discover the reason something exists — It’s the “reboot disk” for the body.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008102334.htm
See “Chesterton’s Fence” for a general example of why NOT to take it out unless necessary – “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.”
Yes, the epigenetic stuff is fascinating. I don’t totally understand it so far.
“Darwin says that there is not supposed to be inheritance of acquired characteristics.”
Yes, Darwin in the original has a few glaring issues.
1) All he understood was “blending”. If you breed a large dog and a small dog you might get a medium sized dog. In the 1860s they didn’t know about genes and it left a hole in the theory
2) Darwin believed in some inconvenient stuff that would “cancel” him today. For example, I’ve read that he believed that among humans, Africans were inferior, Asians were better and Whites superior. (I haven’t read the original sources, maybe it’s not that black and white. Still, I bet he’d be cancelled in a New York minute in our times … and perhaps could still be when EduProgs get around to dealing with him).
3) Darwin said that the gradual evolution of species was the basis of his theory. The fact that transitional fossils were missing was due to gaps in the fossil record. If the gaps were not filled over time, well, his theory should be discarded. The gaps have NOT been filled. The theory has worked around that unfulfilled assertion, LOL.
Dnaxy – just coincidentally happened upon this post a few minutes ago.
Haven’t read it yet; just tossing it into the cement mixer.
Note the date – it may be obsolete by now!
https://quillette.com/2017/04/07/epigenetics-become-dangerously-fashionable/
Prof. Gelertner is indeed a fascinating guy. I’ll add that he writes extremely well, especially given that he’s a professor of computer science, writing a book review for a volume about evolutionary biology.
Let me add my own (minor) beef to his analysis: it is circumstantial, or (if you prefer) theoretical. He argues, on mathematical grounds, that random factors cannot possibly produce a new, viable protein often enough to justify the vast numbers of new species all around us.
I would find it far more convincing if it was argued based on experiment, not theory. That is, let us experiment with creating new proteins, and SEE how rare it is. If we then found it was not all that rare, we would then construct a mathematical argument to explain that.
To be fair, Prof. Gelertner does address this a bit, in his discussion of fruit flies, and the experiments to mutate every possible formative gene, with zero successes. But perhaps this simply demonstrates that fruit flies are an evolutionary dead end, with no further species possible. Prof. Gelertner does not address this.
In short, I’m not ready to give up on Darwin just yet.
A fascinating read, Neo! Many thanks for sharing.
Richard Aubrey @ 9:46:
Yes, your YouTube reference is to the same Peter Robinson interview I mentioned on a previous thread. Very compelling but in my view, wrong.
“One issue I’ve not seen discussed is the following:
Every anatomical “thing” has a cost. […] But never zero.
People have argued why the vermiform appendix exists. […]. Since it still exists, it must have a use. What that use may be is not the point. The point is, according to evolution, it must have a use, a benefit whose positive effect outweighs the negative. Otherwise….we shouldn’t have it and shouldn’t have had it. Natural selection would have selected against it. That’s evolution.”
No, sorry, but not really. Evolutionary Theory does not say if a physical (or mental) characteristic exists it must have a use. That view inserts a directionality or design intent into the conversation that is not applicable or appropriate. The Theory only asserts that if a particular adaptive feature exists and it is more suitable for survival in the current environment in which the organism lives, that survival aid will more likely be passed along to following generations. This survival aid and its future genetic inheritance will be selected for naturally, but not via some purposeful path or entity or program.
The argument from Complexity made by Mr. Behe has been substantively refuted by many who accept the Theory of Evolution and understand it (and its limitations) properly. At this point the debate with those who do not accept that theory (at least in general) has reached an “agree to disagree” status if civility is to be maintained.
R2L; Richard Aubrey:
It’s been a long time since I took Population Genetics (college), and although it was one of my favorite courses I remember very little of the technical aspects of it. But I have a vague recollection of, even then, learning that although traits that furthered the survival of more offspring were ordinarily selected for, that did not mean that traits that had no use were eliminated.
A different situation, but of particular interest to me have been traits such as thalassemia (see this) and sickle cell, the heterozygous form of which confers benefit in malarial areas of the world but the homozygous form of which used to be invariably fatal (and still is if untreated). The traits were common in malarial areas because of the benefit and despite the drawback.
Jim NorCal @ 10:11 and 11/42 and 12:43:
Glad to hear that someone else also endorses Nick Lane’s books. He presents complicated science pretty well for the layman reader. And thanks for the mention of Andreas Wagner. I will have to explore that resource, too.
I believe you have misstated the situation when you say: “On a local level, [evolution] explains how a species changes, and how it generates new species. But on a more meta level it loses relevance. That dinosaur might be exquisitely evolved, perfect for, and dominating, its environment. But suddenly a completely random event occurs (comet) and they’re wiped away. […], a whole new complement of living things comes to the fore: not through evolution but through chance.”
Evolution by natural selection is still occurring throughout this transition resulting (in this case) from a cataclysmic event. The environment faced by many (but not all) living things is suddenly changed. Thus the characteristics/features suitable for survival during the previous condition now are replaced by characteristics/ random adaptations that by pure happenstance tend to support survival in the changed conditions. Evolution includes the chances of both minor or major changes in the local environment occurring. Punctuated Equilibrium is simply a variation in the number and rate of new species coming into being over time (few and slow vs. many and faster). There is no “relegation” involved, fair or unfair, as there is no purposeful agent beyond the ecosystem responding to local or wider changes in the environment. It appears the words “passive” and “neutral” cannot be used too often for this phenomenon.
If the gaps in the fossil record you mention refers to the lack of fossil evidence for species prior to the Cambrian “Explosion”, fossil evidence for suitable soft bodied animals has now been found. It probably would take finding only 5 or 6 properly credited examples to refute that gap argument. I am not sure but I suspect that number has been amply exceeded by now. Jerry Coyne provides this link on this topic in his review article on Gelernter: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0821-6 .
R2L:
Found in some non-Burgess Shale? All settled, science finds a new consensus, nothing further to see or ask. Charlie D. was right all the time. Steven Jay Gould’s Punctated Equilibrium, from lowly snails to the grand theory that explains it all? Even better than finches. Oh bring back the the 1970’s and more socialist science.
R2L, what fun to find another Nick Lane reader 🙂
As definitely a layman-level person, I found the books challenging but rewarding. And, especially, Vital Question is a mind-expanding look at what might have been.
“If the gaps in the fossil record you mention refers to the lack of fossil evidence for species prior to the Cambrian “Explosion”, fossil evidence for suitable soft bodied animals has now been found.”
No, I wasn’t referring to soft-bodied life.
I subscribed to Natural History for a decade or so and read a gazillion Stephen Jay Gould articles. I recall Gould dealing with the problem that Darwin’s theory was explicitly “gradualistic” (my word). New species split off in tiny steps, no sudden leaps. That’s not the dogma any more, I believe.
Here is a Peter Robinson (Hoover Institution) interview with Gelertner, Berlinski and Stepnen Meyer on “Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=noj4phMT9OE&feature=emb_logo
Before there was science, there was philosophy. One branch of philosophy was called natural philosophy which addresses the innate properties of the physical universe. By definition, natural philosophy excludes God and miracles as explanations within the field. That is not because students of natural philosophy necessarily reject the concept of God or miracles but because using miracles as an explanation for natural phenomena misses the entire purpose of natural philosophy. God and miracles are legitimate areas of study but they just don’t belong in natural philosophy.
Apparently the switch nomenclature from natural philosophy to science occurred in Cambridge, England around 1834 because natural philosophy was becoming such a broad specialized field (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-relationship-between-natural-philosophy-and-science). Because of the success of science, many modern people think that science is the only method to reach objective truth and have relegated the remainder of philosophy and theology to the shadows of irrelevancy. While theories like intelligent design may have virtue in themselves, the fact that they rely on an external conscious designer to explain life puts them outside of the field of natural philosophy or science. Intelligent design may be true but by definition it is not a scientific theory.
Someone mentioned God of the Gaps. God of the gaps is a perfectly legitimate philosophical argument. When natural philosophy can not discover a property in the physical universe to explain a phenomena then and then only is it proper to consider alternative explanations for that phenomena. Filling in the gaps with a conscious being including God is not irrational, it is perfectly legitimate, but it is not usually considered a legitimate part of natural philosophy (science).
The distinction between natural philosophy (science), miracles and philosophy in general begins to break down in quantum mechanics with the Copenhagen explanation. In quantum mechanics the boundary between the observer and the observed disappears so that a conscious observer can become part of the experiment and influences the outcome of scientific experiments. In a sense, the entire experiment becomes a gap filled in by the conscious observer.
On the macro level according to Newtonian physics, Darwin’s theory works very well. It has been wildly successful in explaining many aspects of life. Natural selection explains how random events can be shaped into functional organisms which appear to be designed. But at a deeper level the answer is not so clear cut. As far as I know, it is impossible to prove that there is really something called a random event. The statistical explanation of quantum mechanics may be random, but can we exclude Einstein’s hidden variables? Philosophically, perhaps but not with objective experiments. How do we know that God’s consciousness isn’t skewing the statistics just enough at the molecular level to influence evolution. But even if there are genuine random events, what is the “struggle for life” if not consciousness at work on the physical universe? The animals which are struggling for existence may be test pilots testing out different biological designs, but their conscious struggle ultimately determines which designs are selected.
There is probably quite a bit more to be said to make this post a coherent statement, but it is the middle of night, so I’ll send this like it is. Sorry.
I got a lot out of it, Dennis.
Thank you.
That was, if you pause to reflect back for a moment to your HS or college intro lit classes, an idea much in the air in the early and mid 19th century among the members of the Romantic and Transcendentalist movements. Some form of ” the consciousness of man is the universe coming to know itself” was variously expressed by at least several figures of that era.
Even Marx in his early manuscripts characterized man as the consciousness of the inorganic body.
Thus it is easy to see how monism in its various forms leads to the idea that if there is such a thing as self-awareness, and if all that is, is ultimately of one substance, and if evolution conceived of as emergent advancement is a valid concept, then man’s ( or any other being’s) self awareness, is by implication the self awareness of (inorganic or other) reality.
Of course, evolution conceived of as emergent advancement is not a valid scientific concept, but a pseudo philosophical or even crypto religious one dating back to before Darwin wrote on the emergence of species. Evolution being just the term describing a population “adaptation”, as defined in tautological terms of the happenstance of the surviving surviving: i.e. a purposeless environmental ( which includes the presence of nominally like kinds) sifting.
That closeted conceptualizing move of imputing purposes where ex hypothesi there cannot be any, constitutes more of that comical back smuggling of teleology into the conceptual framework of those who have grandly denounced it previously.
Etienne Gilson produced a still useful work covering these particular issues for those interested in them, in, “From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution”
Naturalism of course, might be true. And if so we must if we wish to be honest with ourselves accept it. But what no honest man need accept, is talk or rhetoric insinuating intrinsic purposes, ends, and value to the very beings whose own philosophy entails that they have none; and who therefore cannot themselves validy lay a claim against you to recognize them as posessing any such attributes or qualities … nor to accord them the interpersonal respect and forbearance which might be otherwise deduced as due, from the fact of their having such attributes.
Naturalism is not the moist contemptible thing. The most contemptible thing is a naturalist trying to protect itself by brandishing the illusion of intrinsic purposes and values so you will not bash its face in when it annoys you.
I should begin by conceding that I know less about the Theory of Evolution, and about Intelligent Design, than many who have already posted.
That said, there are two things that seem obvious (at least to me) :
First, that The Theory of Evolution is a scientific theory which attempts to explain how the universe works;
Second, that Intelligent Design is a philosophical or religious theory which attempts to explain why the universe exists.
Those are two completely different questions with no necessary connection between them. Neither one is a “complete theory of Life”. To argue that we have to choose between the two is equivalent to arguing that we have to choose between A and B, where A.is being a mechanic, and B.is being a Buddhist.
That’s not Apples versus Oranges, it’s Apples versus Furniture, and it’s nonsense.
Let me add my own (minor) beef to his analysis: it is circumstantial, or (if you prefer) theoretical. He argues, on mathematical grounds, that random factors cannot possibly produce a new, viable protein often enough to justify the vast numbers of new species all around us.
I would find it far more convincing if it was argued based on experiment, not theory.
Daniel Schwartz: Of course, it would be better to have such experimentation, but there is so little analysis of this sort, we are grateful for any we get. Much science starts with fumbling oversimplifications jotted down, cocktail-napkin-style.
I’m a programmer. I have no idea if the math for stable protein synthesis is as near-impossible as Douglas Axe makes it out. But it does accord with my gut sense, translated into the programming world, of how hard it would be to create a working, sophisticated program based on randomly mutating machine code.
Second, that Intelligent Design is a philosophical or religious theory which attempts to explain why the universe exists.
richf: For many advocates, Intelligent Design is a philosophical or religious theory. For most evolution advocates, this rules out ID as legitimate scientific inquiry.
This strikes me as a flavor of “deplatforming.” How do we know the universe wasn’t designed? The more we study the matter, the more absolutely freakish the odds are against a universe which hosts intelligent life. How can we rule out the ID possibility?
Like Gelernter, I am enchanted with the beauty of Darwinian evolution to explain life based on the elegant mechanism of mutation plus the filter of natural selection. I love evolution as the Blind Watchmaker, but if the math doesn’t work, the math doesn’t work, and what do we do?
How scientific is it to say, we can’t consider ID because it doesn’t fit in with the blind materialism we prefer?
Bottom line: IMO it is as much an act of faith on the part of evolutionists to say that somehow, eventually, we can close all the Gaps, as it is on the part of Intelligent Design advocates, to say we can’t close all the Gaps and must resort to ID.
I knew a very bright philosophy Ph.D, a friend of a friend, who became determined to nail some LA evangelist who preached against evolution on his radio show. The Ph.D went over each show and sent his objections to the evangelist. The Ph.D figured it was shooting fish in a barrel. A lively interaction ensued.
However, at the end the Ph.D found himself shocked to discover he couldn’t demolish the evangelist. The case for evolution was weaker than the Ph.D realized. He didn’t become a Christian or an ID advocate, but since he was honest, he retreated to uncertainty.
Coyne has been referred to several times as rebutting Meyer (the subject of Gelernter’s review):
https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/?v=322b26af01d5
The links (bolded text) go to articles in Nature.
Like richf, I’m not a paleontologist and don’t play one on the internet, but the references are not as clear-cut a criticism of Meyer/Gelernter as Coyne implies. Both were published in 2019, after Darwin’s Doubt (2013), and after or at nearly the same time as Gelernter’s review in Spring 2019.
The first waffles a bit on the significance of the “gap” fossils, and the second may reference information not accessible to Meyer when he wrote, although it’s certainly fair to claim that his work should be updated to take any new facts into account.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02556-x?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=6ddef67795-briefing-dy-20190905&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-6ddef67795-43671693
04 SEPTEMBER 2019
Ancient worm fossil rolls back origins of animal life
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0821-6
Published: 11 March 2019
Integrated records of environmental change and evolution challenge the Cambrian Explosion
Here’s a contemporary criticism of Meyer’s book (which BTW supplies the bulk of the segment about it in the Wikipedia article about Meyer himself, imported pretty much whole-sale).
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/doubting-darwins-doubt
By Gareth Cook July 2, 2013
Observing the evolution wars is very similar to observing the climate change battles, which both depend a lot on one side claiming “the science is settled and you just don’t understand it;” and the other side asserting “there are issues that aren’t settled at all and you don’t even want to talk about them.”
The reviewer in New Yorker is heavy on the same kind of ad homism practiced by the climatistas, BTW.
FWIW, here is some of the contemporary evidence for the Doubts that Darwin had.
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml
Concentrating on statistics and protein folds obscures the reality that even Darwin could see how his theory would operate under Intelligent Design — he just didn’t like the icky factor of Why Bad Things Happen to Good Animals.
IMO, the jury is still out.
AesopFan:
That’s a fascinating letter.
The reviewer in New Yorker is heavy on the same kind of ad homism practiced by the climatistas, BTW.
AesopFan: After I read Gelernter and Meyer, I made a similar web tour of Meyer discussions and noticed the consistent sneering tone towards Meyer and colleagues, which struck me as out of place in a scientific discussion and suggested if they had the goods they wouldn’t have to sneer — like many climate change debates.
This quote jumped out at me too:
____________________________________
The problem for Meyer is that what has come to be called the Cambrian explosion was not, in fact, an explosion. It took place over tens of millions of years—far more time than, for example, it took humans and chimpanzees to go their separate ways.
–Gareth Cook, “New Yorker”
____________________________________
Meyer didn’t name the “Cambrian Explosion.” Mainstream biologists did for understandable reasons. And tens of millions of years is a blip when billions are at stake. Humans and chimpanzees are still kissing cousins. On the other hand:
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record. –wiki
The Cambrian Explosion was big stuff. Stephen Jay Gould wrote about it in “Wonderful Life,” then went on to develop the theory of “Punctuated Equilibrium” which basically says that evolution is very gradual except when it’s really fast. Which is an accurate observation but doesn’t explain anything.
Maybe these problems with evolution come out in the wash and the gaps all get explained. But until I see better than nitpicking about how long an “explosion” is or should be, I’m keeping my counsel.
I think the main difficulty with knocking down Darwin is this: Darwin’s hypothesis has long-since crossed the threshold from hypothesis to theory.
Now it just so happens that an awful lot of details about DNA and genomes seem to be predicted by genetic processes which presuppose Darwinian natural selection. The result is modern genetic science and all the gene therapies and genome-mapping of the last fifty years. These and other secondary predictions give the original hypothesis the status of “theory.”
Now, there are problems with the theory: It doesn’t seem consistent with all the phaenomena. But: We still have all those diagnoses of genetic disease, the discoveries about chromosomes, the synteny and even the inactive DNA showing familial relationships between the species. The darned thing is just too successful to be tossed aside after being falsified in one way, because further predictions secondary to it are already the basis for whole categories of medicine and technology! And the medicines and technologies work!
Frustrating, if you think about it. If it’s a hypothesis, you toss it aside when it’s falsified. And a theory is just a hypothesis that got along far in the world…but once you’ve erected a ninety-story edifice on it, it’s psychologically difficult to rip up the foundation. People don’t just toss aside a theory. Human cultures don’t work that way.
Given that, I think only a better theory can supplant it. To psychologically vault the hurdle of undoing Darwin, we need someone new whose hypothesis can suffice as a substitute foundation for that ninety-storey edifice, and also fix the problems in Darwinism. The new hypothesis must slide seamlessly into place without any of the upper floors of the building crumbling.
So we need a new theory to be articulated, and nobody has one. (Yet.)
When one arrives, a new name will “displace” Darwin in much the same way that Einstein “displaced” Isaac Newton. One can still use Newtonian solutions to explain a lot of motion; but to handle the cases which Newton can’t, you must go to Einstein. We will retain the need to explain the apparent familial genetic relationships, the apparent common ancestries, of the various species. Any new theory will necessarily need to preserve those successful predictions.
I suggest, therefore, that anyone looking at the failure of Darwin’s early-Earth narrative to explain the Cambrian Explosion (for example), and hoping on that basis that a new and better theory will declare him no longer descended from a primate ancestor, will be disappointed. The new theory must retain the predictive power Darwinism currently has, not reduce it. You’ll still be a monkey’s uncle (or rather, the converse).
All that is utterly unrelated (I believe) to the topic of God’s existence.
Darwinism, properly understood, still requires all contingent beings to find their causative and compositional source in a necessary and (metaphysically) simple being lacking any Aristotelian “potentials” (actus purus). Since no such being can be composed of matter, this being is immaterial; since no such being can be subject to change, this being is eternal and unchanging; since no such being can have any unrealized goods, this being is perfect; since no such being can have the character of an instrumental or intermediary cause, this being has the character of a primary uncaused cause; since nothing other than a mind-with-intent has ever been proposed to cause without instrumentality, this being causes all effects by merely intending them; since no two such beings could have any distinguishing principle to differentiate them, there can only be one such being; since all contingent effects have their source in this being, there is nothing it cannot in principle do. In short, it’s immaterial, eternal, personal insofar as it intends to achieve anything it achieves, all-good, all-knowing, and is present at every moment of time and in every location in space not by being contained by them, but by causing them. This thing, whatever else we may say of it, clearly qualifies for the label “God”; the only relevant further question is to what degree this First Cause is associated with any putative revelation occurring in history. (A person who believes and practices rabbinical Judaism will hold the revelation at Sinai to have come from that God; a person who believes and practices Christianity will affirm that revelation, but also those associated with Jesus of Nazareth in the first century CE…and will prefer “AD” over “CE” at least for personal use.)
As for Intelligent Design theorists: Some of them are very smart, but I think they miss two things when they propose their Designer as a substitute hypothesis to replace Darwin. First, their hypothesis doesn’t yet qualify as a theory; rather than providing a new predictive framework, from which derivative hypotheses naturally emerge (producing predictions not made by Darwinism and with which experimental results agree contra Darwinism), the ID addendum feels like a “just-so” story.
The second thing they miss, I feel, is that their Designer doesn’t need to be outside of creation. It needn’t be God. A very smart and powerful space-alien will do the trick. ID, so far as I can tell, doesn’t get you God; it gets you Xenu.
Anyway, all that’s by-the-way.
Regarding Darwin, he’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. But I don’t see anyone out there that provides an equally-or-more-powerful explanatory framework. Until that guy shows up, the next Copernican or Einsteinian revolution is on hold.
Genes cross species via horizontal gene transfer.
“we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection”
https://www.amazon.com/Tangled-Tree-Radical-History-Life/dp/1476776628
I think this significantly challenges Gelernter’s claim that the mathematical probability of mutation is insufficient to explain evolution. It also means Darwin didn’t get everything right.
Good book, BTW.