Analyzing Intelligent Design {a structural construction of ID theory}

I looked at your posts and at Prof. Maginn's paper. I don't see where Prof. Maginn's paper lends any support to your assertions.It looks like a perfectly mainstream paper with lots of good information on thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, and numerical modeling techniques, all applied to problems in modeling molecular systems. But nothing to support the ID case, or really even germane to it.Perhaps you'd elaborate on why you think it does support the ID case. At least, we'd have a reference to discuss, so there would be none of this business about being too far from a library.

OK Jerry, Here we go. Well I don't agree. It may not always be reducable to simple mathematical formulae like gravitation and e=mc^2, but there have been many elegant formalizations of evolutionary ideas by those such as Fisher, Haldane, Sewall Wright, Maynard Smith etc. etc.
The nature of biology has emergent properties that render it more complex than physics and not nearly as 'reducable'.
And seeing that ID proponents want to criticize evolutionary theory as inadequate, they bear the burden of proof to present something more adequate.
In your previous message you essentially conceded that ID cannot be used to solve applied problems in biology, so it
doesn't seem very adequate yet. I am far more concerned that they learn the critical thinking skills that enable them to recognize what is false. That way they can come up with their own concepts of truth and escape the deceptions of dogmas. I could name scads of very specific and testable theories that are all derived from the basic Darwinian model. Let's just start with one. Evolution of insecticide resistance in insects.ToE would predict that repeated use of an insecticide on the same population would result in that population eventually becoming resistant because the treatment constitutes strong directional selection for resistance evolution. Based on this reasoning derived from ToE, we can predict that this process will be substantially delayed by rotating among different insecticides, but ONLY if they act via different modes of action at the molecular level.
Guess what? It works.
If it didn't, we wouldn't be left with very many useful insecticides to protect our crops and we would all be paying a heck of a lot more for our food. Credible to some, obviously, but not to those of us who want a theory we can actually test and make predictions from. It does. We call it 'life on Earth'. If you want to argue origins, you need to take on the physicists and astronomers over in the "Big Bang and Cosmology" forum.
ToE does not deal with origins, only processes.
And this is the crux of your (ID theorists') dissatisfaction with it, I suspect.
You want a theory of origins with teleogical purpose in processes to substantiate your religious convictions and Darwinism denies you both of these things.
But it still 'works' - and it is more powerful than any ID theory simply because it is actually useful and predictive. Because it does not constitute a viable alternative explanation of how things work.
It has no predictive power in applied biology.
You yourself have already conceded this. Or did you not say the following?

Hi EZscience, I've never been entirely comfortable with the idea that Darwinism does not account for "origins". It is true that Darwinism doesn't have much to say about the origin of matter, the origin of the universe, etc., and that is quite right because Darwinism is a theory of heredity and not a theory of physics.But I don't understand why Darwinism should not account for the origin of life. Presumably most uf us Darwinists believe that life evolved into existence. That is certainly my belief, and the belief of all biologists I know. The origin of life is a biological as well as physical problem, and I see no reason why Darwinism should not be brought to bear on it.In their excellent book "The major transitions in evolution" (which I highly recommend to everybody), Maynard Smith and Szathmary present evolutionary hypotheses for a number of "origins". Some hypotheses are more complete than others, and some are more testable than others, but they are all evolutionary hypotheses:a) origin of life
b) origin of genetic code
c) origin of cells
d) origin of nuclei, mitosis and organelles
e) origin of sex
f) origin of symbiosis
g) origin of developmental processes
h) origin of heredity
i) origin of social behaviour
j) origin of languageWhat's more, these Darwinian origin theories appear to be more realistic (ie. in line with what we know about the biological and physical world) and more falsifiable than competing ID claims.Mickadded in edit - Jerry, i took your advice and went for a swim. I even followed it with a cold shower. I think it worked This message has been edited by mick, 05-12-2005 11:48 AM

So far as the origin of life goes, as you point out Darwinism is based on heredity and so we need heredity before it applies.So, if the boundary between life and non-life is drawn such that there are predecessors to life that are capable of reproduction Darwinian theory can at least potentially explain that part of the "origin of life". But it can't explain what came before, which is probably more important. So we can only explain a small part of the "origin of life" through Darwinian theory and even that depends on choosing a definition of "life" which allows it.

Hi PaulK, Darwinism doesn't require life. It just requires a variable heritable substance and a mechanism of selection. The heritable substance does not have to be living, so we have no need to stretch our definition of life.Mick

You know Mick I agree with you philosophically 100%.
And I have read Maynard's work in depth ever since I started studying evolution in the 70's (see my grey hair in the avatar )
and I have studied under the direct supervision of one of his students, Dr. Graham Bell, at McGill University.
Smith was one of the great evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and his ideas have influenced me considerably.I guess I am willing to retreat from arguments about ToE explaining life origins because these ideas are much harder to defend against ID and creationist attacks that demand teleology, even if I intuitively agree that the theories you list probably represent the 'most likely scenario' for most of those events.I was stimulated to come on this board to defend evolution in light of the ridiculous controversy in our state here.
I felt I could do a better job of it by avoiding questions of origin, particularly 'final' origins sensu Mayr.
However, of your list, only (a) really falls into that category - and the kind of question I am trying to avoid - simply because I do not think it necessary to address in order to defend evolution as a functional theory.
All the other events on your list are eminently well explained by ToE and I would defend those explanations as currently superior to all others.Sorry for sounding like a wuss with Jerry.
I was just trying to get him to show that his theory is actaully useful for something. Maybe he will show up later today....

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It just requires a variable heritable substance and a mechanism of selection. The heritable substance does not have to be living, so we have no need to stretch our definition of life.

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There are two problems here:Firstly if we define life as posession of a "variable heritable substance" - which is not unreasonable even if it is taken to include viruses or even prions then your assertion is trivially false.Secondly even if we adopt a more restrictive definition it still might not be the case that there was any pre-life with a variable heritable substance. Modern viruses, ofr instance, are not possible predecessors so a definition which excluded them would not necessarily help.But even then my ohter point stands. hemost difficult and most interesting part of the question of the origin of life is precisely those parts where Darwinian evolution is not applicable

yes, our problem will be settling on a definition of life!But there are plenty of self-replicating substances that we would probably agree are not living. For example Rebek and collaborators have created a self-replicating ester. So this guy self-replicates. There is also a strong selective pressure on the molecule, in that faulty formation of a new molecule (for example by missing of one of the subunits) presumably results in a loss of replicating ability.So in the ester we have a heritable substance (the ester itself) and a selective mechanism (strong selection for maintenance of replication functionality). This is a Darwinian system, pure and simple, and it ain't alive. That is fair enough. The chemical basis for the origin of non-living replicators must be fascinating (unfortunately I'm too dumb to understand it myself). But it seems reasonable to suppose that life did evolve from a non-living replicator. I mean, it had to come from somewhere, didn't it?Darwinism doesn't REQUIRE abiogenesis, but Darwinist principles were probably involved in abiogensis, which did indeed occur at some point.Mick

Hi Paul This statement reveals your intrinsic bias toward seeking ultimate causation for life, rather than being able to understand how and why it is subject to change.
Why should what happened first be more important that what happened afterward?
It would seem me to to be the other way round.It is what has happended since then that has generated all the diversity, and it is what will happen to that all that diversity now that should concern us.Evolutionary theory gives us all the important tools necessary for managing the biosphere and (hopefully) perpetuating our own existence as a species.
All that Creationism and ID can provide (to their adherents specifically) is a warm fuzzy feeeling that everything is going to happen according to design, and (for creationists) that it OK because the designer is benevolent and will secure for us a better afterlife.

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Perhaps you'd elaborate on why you think it does support the ID case. At least, we'd have a reference to discuss, so there would be none of this business about being too far from a library.

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Just cannot stay out of these addictive conversations? I made all the argument using that paper that I wish to make. Rebut it.

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Design Dynamics

One problem is that "explaining the origin of life" is an incredibly broad and vague question.Some components of the origin of life that interest me are (in no particular order) the origin of nucleotide strings, the origin of genes, the origin of translation and the origin of reproduction. These are all questions about the origin of life, because these features are diagnostic of life as we know it.Presumably there was life before there was DNA, before there were genes, and before there was translation. So these questions are rightly posed as biological questions.I'm not quite sure what ID would have to say about the origin of life. Presumably that nucleotides, genes, translation and reproduction were designed by a higher intelligence?Perhaps Jerry (or somebody else, sorry to keep picking on Jerry here ) can clarify what he means when he says that ID is useful for looking at "origins".Mick

You see, the thing is that generating complexity through evolution is relatively easy. So I see the main hurdle to abiogenesis as the the production of replicators capable of evolving.So - if I'm right - solving that issue is more important both from the point of view of figuring out how life got started and from the point of view of having implications both from a scientific perspective (how likelyy is it that there is life elsewhere in the universe) as well as the religious questions centering on the origin of life.

I already have.If one introduces a reference in support of a scientific assertion, one has an affirmative duty to demonstrate, through a coherent argument, how that reference supports the assertion.You have declined to do so, so you stand rebutted by default.This message has been edited by paisano, 05-12-2005 02:03 PM

I am not a molecular biologist, (I suspect you are) so I am not really qualified enough in the detailed aspects of molecular genetics to really give you a good discussion on most of these.But I am interested in the above topic, especially as it applies to sexual reproduction and internal fertilization in higher organisms.But I need to do some actual WORK here (I am at work, supposedly), but perhaps we can share some ideas on this topic soon...Cheers,
EZ

OK. We all have a right to focus on what interests us.
And I do find the topic interesting.
Just so difficult to get evidence for things that happened that far back.
You can start with experiments like the one Mick describes in MSG 68, bu teven if you are succesfull, people will claim that you stacked the deck, tweaked the starting condtions, failed to adequately replicate nature etc. etc. There just never seems to be resolution when it comes to theories of origins.I guess I prefer a research project that gives me hope for closure at some point