Irreducible Complexity Demystified

Legacy route: /faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html Content source: /cs/ic_demystified/ Irreducible Complexity Demystified Pete Dunkelberg's essay will prove helpful to educators, boards of education, legislators and members of the press who may be wondering about "Irreducible Complexity". by Pete Dunkelberg [Posted: 26 April 2003] "Evolution is cleverer than you are." -biologists' proverb Introduction The Argument That Irreducible Complexity Cannot Evolve How Might Irreducible Complexity Evolve? Irreducible Complexity in Nature Venus' Flytrap How to Eat Pentachlorophenol Hemoglobin for the Active Life The Blood Clotting System: is it IC? Swimming Systems The Eukaryote Cilium The Archaeal Flagellum The Bacterial Flagellum IC Cores How Does Irreducible Complexity Get Its Charm? IC, ID, and Creationism Conclusions References Introduction new term, irreducibly complex , (IC) has been introduced into public discussions of evolution. The term was defined by Michael Behe in 1996 in his book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution ( 1 ). Irreducible complexity (also denoted IC) has gained prominence as the evidence for the intelligent design (ID) movement, which argues that life is so complicated that it must be the work of an intelligent designer (aka God) rather than the result of evolution. As you may have heard, the ID movement wants this taught in public schools as a new scientific theory. This essay will, I hope, prove helpful to any school teachers, boards of education, legislators and members of the press who may be wondering about it. The argument from IC to ID is simply: IC things cannot evolve If it can't have evolved it must have been designed This article just looks at the first part, the argument that irreducibly complex systems cannot be produced by evolution, either because they just can't evolve, or because their evolution is so improbable that the possibility can be ignored. Let's take a look at the definition of IC, and then see if we can figure out its relation to evolution, and why scientists are so unimpressed. Here is the definition, from page 39 (page numbers refer to Darwin's Black Box unless otherwise noted): "By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." [emphasis in original] IC is now a single defined term. The new definition, not the ordinary meaning of the words, is now our guide. IC refers to an organism doing something (the function) in such a way that the system (that portion of the organism that directly performs the function) has no more parts than are strictly necessary. How do we decide when the term IC applies? Organisms don't come with parts, functions and systems labeled, nor are 'part', 'system' and 'function' technical terms in biology. They are terms of convenience. We might say, for instance, that the function of a leg is to walk, and call legs walking systems. But what are the parts? If we divide a leg into three major parts, removal of any part results in loss of the function. Thus legs are IC. On the other hand, if we count each bone as a part then several parts, even a whole toe, may be removed and we still have a walking system. We will see later that Behe's treatment of cilia and flagella follows this pattern. What about the boundary of the system? This too is up to us. Take the digestive system for example. We may be interested only in the action of acids and enzymes in the stomach, or we may include saliva and chewing, or the lower intestine where some extraction of water and nutrients continues. As a mental exercise, try before reading on to formulate an argument to prove that IC systems cannot evolve. IC is supposed to be the biochemical challenge to evolution, and thus the case when the parts are molecules, usually proteins, is the important case. So of course there may be multiple copies of a part. Losing a part means losing all copies of it, or at least so many that the function is effectively lost. The Argument That Irreducible Complexity Cannot Evolve Behe's argument that IC cannot evolve is central to ID, so it deserves our attention. His method is to divide evolution into what he calls 'direct', which he defines in a special way, and 'indirect' (everything else). He finds that direct evolution of IC is logically impossible, and indirect evolution of IC is too improbable. The argument against 'direct' evolution of IC is contained in this long sentence right after the definition: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional." The last part of the sentence, "...because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional." is why we should agree to the rest of the sentence. There are some problems: The first part of the sentence refers to slight changes. Removing a whole part is a major change; this is a major 'disconnect' between the parts of Behe's argument. It is not true that a precursor missing a part must be nonfunctional. It need only lack the function we specified. Even a single protein does something. The actual precursor may have had more parts, not fewer. If the individual parts evolve, the precursor may have had the same number of parts, not yet codependent. We will learn more about this possibility shortly. How can one construct a valid argument that IC cannot be produced directly? ID proponents have not found a way. Yet it's easy (and left as an exercise for the reader) once you realize that a valid argument from definitions requires carefully defining the terms so that the argument becomes a tautology. This may be accomplished by redefining 'direct' or 'IC', or (best, I think) by defining Behe's expression 'be produced' which he uses in place of 'evolve'. A precursor to IC lacking a part can have any functions except the specified one, which brings us to 'indirect' evolution. Consider a cow's tail. So far as I know, the main thing a cow uses its tail for is to swat flies. Did tails originally evolve for this function? Hardly. There were tails before there were flies. Long ago, tails helped early chordates to swim. Going back still farther, some very early animals started to have two distinct ends; one end for food intake (with sense organs for locating food) and the other end for excretions. As a consequence, this back end, and muscular extensions of it, could also be used to help the animal move. This illustrates yet another important facet of evolution: not only single mutations, but even large organs may begin more or less accidentally. It also illustrates that biological functions evolve. Indeed organisms and ecosystems evolve. It may not even make sense to expect a precursor to have had the same function. The long term evolution of most features of life has not been what Behe, or indeed most people, would call direct. And even short term evolution can be indirect in Behe's terms. So it is surprising to read, on page 40, Behe's argument against indirect evolution of IC systems. Here is the crux of it: "Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitely rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously." (page 40) He simply asserts that evolution of irreducible complexity by an indirect route is so improbable as to be virtually out of the question, except in simple cases. He makes no special connection between indirect evolution and IC. He offers no evidence. He just asserts that it is too improbable. Actually, a more complex system probably has a long evolutionary history. Since evolution does not aim at anything in advance, the longer the history, the more circuitous it may be. And his very limited meaning of 'direct' renders much indirect that is not circuitous at all. Yet he insists: "An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution." (page 39) Here's another exercise: before reading on, try to think of ways that IC systems, including biochemical ones, might evolve after all. How Might Irreducible Complexity Evolve? How might an IC system evolve? One possibility is that in the past, the function may have been done with more parts than are strictly necessary. Then an 'extra' part may be lost, leaving an IC system. Or the parts may become co-adapted to perform even better, but become unable to perform the specified function at all without each other. This brings up another point: the parts themselves evolve. Behe's parts are usually whole proteins or even larger. A protein is made up of hundreds of smaller parts called amino acids, of which twenty different kinds may be used. Evolution usually changes these one by one. Another important fact is that DNA evolves. What difference does this make, compared to saying that proteins evolve? If you think about it, each protein that your body makes is made at just the right time, in just the right place and in just the right amount. These details are also coded in your DNA (with timing and quantity susceptible to outside influences) and so are subject to mutation and evolution. For our purposes we can refer to this as deployment of parts. When a protein is deployed out of its usual context, it may be co-opted for a different function. A fourth noteworthy possibility is that brand new parts are created. This typically comes from gene duplication, which is well known in biology. At first the duplicate genes make the same protein, but these genes may evolve to make slightly different proteins that depend on each other. We can summarize these four possibilities this way: Previously using more parts than necessary for the function. The parts themselves evolve. Deployment of parts (gene regulation) evolves. New parts are created (gene duplication) and may then evolve. The first of these only comes up if we are looking for IC. The others are the major forms of molecular evolution observed by biologists, phrased in terms of parts. They can lead to new protein functions, sometimes slowly and sometimes, especially when parts are redeployed, abruptly. Gene duplication and changes in protein deployment may introduce a new protein 'part' into a system. Then the parts may coevolve to do something better, but in a codependent manner so that all are required, without further change in the number of parts. But what happens in nature? Irreducible Complexity in Nature Can evolution lead to IC or not? It is time to look at living examples and let nature decide. Behe's most famous example is a mousetrap. But since a mousetrap is not alive, it doesn't tell us much about whether or how living IC systems might evolve. How about a flytrap instead? Venus' Flytrap The Venus' flytrap, Dionaea muscipula , is a small flowering plant which grows naturally in acidic wetlands in North and South Carolina. It has a ferocious looking tooth-edged trap for unwary creatures . It traps and digests insects to make up for the lack of nitrogen in the soils of its habitat. Here's how the trap works. When an insect brushes against the trigger hairs in the center, the lobes snap most of the way shut with surprising speed. If a small insect is caught, it may escape between the teeth, and then the trap reopens without fully closing. If a good sized bug is caught it is digested over the next few days as the trap closes the rest of the way. Then the trap reopens. A trap can only be fully closed about 4 times, so it must be used sparingly. Do we have an IC system here? We must specify a function and all the parts needed to carry it out (and no extra parts). The function of interest is trapping insects for food in a manner that brings the plant more benefit than the cost of the trap. The parts are the two lobes, the hinge between the lobes (the midrib of the leaf, which anchors the lobes), the trigger hairs, and spines projecting from the edges of the lobes that make a set of bars as the trap closes. The system is just all these parts, and the trap needs all its parts in order to work. Hence it is an IC system. How might this trap have evolved? I say 'might' have because Venus' flytraps haven't left any fossils that I know of, except a few grains of pollen. Are there any related plants that might provide a clue? Let's look at the well known sundews ( Drosera ). Sundews trap insects using flypaper traps, slowly closing around insects that get stuck. Darwin, whose book Insectivorous Plants ( 2 ) is now available online , made careful observations of these remarkable plants, especially the round leaf sundew D. rotundifolia . As Darwin notes, If a small organic or inorganic object be placed on the glands in the centre of a leaf, these transmit a motor impulse to the marginal tentacles. The nearer ones are first affected and slowly bend towards the centre, and then those farther off, until at last all become closely inflected over the object. This takes place in from one hour to four or five or more hours. [...] Not only the tentacles, but the blade of the leaf often, but by no means always, becomes much incurved, when any strongly exciting substance or fluid is placed on the disc. Drops of milk and of a solution of nitrate of ammonia or soda are particularly apt to produce this effect. The blade is thus converted into a little cup. The manner in which it bends varies greatly. ( 2 , pp 9, 12) Here is D. rotundifolia with a fly; Makoto Honda ( 3 ) shows the action with a faster species, D. intermedia . Recent genetic research confirms that Venus's flytrap and the waterwheel plant Aldrovanda are related and are in the sundew family Droseraceae, and that snap-traps very likely evolved from flypaper traps ( 4 ) as Darwin thought: CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE DROSERACEAE. The six known genera composing this family have now been described in relation to our present subject, as far as my means have permitted. They all capture insects. This is effected by Drosophyllum, Roridula, and Byblis, solely by the viscid fluid secreted from their glands; by Drosera, through the same means, together with the movements of the tentacles; by Dionaea and Aldrovanda, through the closing of the blades of the leaf. In these two last genera rapid movement makes up for the loss of viscid secretion. [...] The parent form of Dionaea and Aldrovanda seems to have been closely allied to Drosera, and to have had rounded leaves, supported on distinct footstalks, and furnished with tentacles all round the circumference, with other tentacles and sessile glands on the upper surface. ( 2 , pp 355-6, 360). How did the Venus' flytrap avoid the argument that IC can't evolve? In two ways. First, rather than gaining a part, it lost a part - the glue that the sundews use. Even more interestingly, the trap was able to evolve because the parts evolved. The trap started out as a Drosera -like leaf, and the parts of the leaf were progressively changed. This makes a striking contrast with the mousetrap which Behe has repeatedly presented to illustrate why IC cannot evolve. As a manufactured item the mousetrap neatly illustrates his definition, but with its static parts it cannot model evolution. With evolving parts, nature can create a snap-trap after all. The mechanical and manufacturing analogies so influential in Behe's thinking miss the flexibility of living things. How to Eat Pentachlorophenol Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a highly toxic chemical, not known to occur naturally, that has been used as a wood preservative since the 1930's. It is now recognized as a dangerous pollutant that we need to dispose of. But how? Evolution to the rescue! A few soil bacteria have already worked out a way to break it down and even eat it. And conveniently for us, they do it in an irreducibly complex way. The best known of these bacteria is called Sphingomonas chlorophenolica (also called Sphingobium chlorophenolicum ). The PCP molecule is a six carbon ring with five chlorine atoms and one hydroxyl (OH) group attached. The chlorines and the ring structure are both problems for bacteria. S. chlorophenolica uses three enzymes in succession to break it down, as follows: the first one replaces one chlorine with OH. The resulting compound is toxic, but not quite as bad as PCP itself. The second enzyme is able to act on this compound to replace two chlorines, one after the other, with hydrogen atoms. The resulting compound, while still bad, is much easier to deal with, and the third enzyme is able to break the ring open. At this point, what is left of PCP is well on its way to being food for the bacterium. All three enzymes are required, so we have IC. How could this IC system have evolved? First of all, bacteria of this type could already metabolize some milder chlorophenols which occur naturally in small amounts. In fact the first and third enzymes were used for this. As a result the cell is triggered to produce them in the presence of chlorophenols. The second enzyme (called PcpC) is the most interesting one; the cell produces it in sufficient quantity to be effective all the time instead of just when it is needed in its normal metabolic role. Thanks to this unusual situation PcpC is available when it is needed to help eat PCP. The inefficient regulation of PcpC is evidently the key to the whole process. So far as biologists can tell, a recent mutation that changed the deployment of this enzyme is what made PCP degradation possible for this bacterium. It also happens that both PcpC and the first enzyme in the process are now slightly optimized for dealing with PCP; they handle it better than the corresponding enzymes in strains of S. chlorophenolica that use PcpC only in its normal role, but not nearly as well as would be expected for an old, well adapted system. These factors, combined with the fact that PCP is not known to occur naturally, make a strong circumstantial case that this system has evolved very recently. The chemistry and probable evolution of this system are explained in much greater detail in Shelly Copley's article "Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach" in Trends in Biochemical Sciences ( 5 ). Hemoglobin for the Active Life Hemoglobin is a wonderful protein that picks up oxygen in our lungs and delivers it to the rest of our cells. Oxygen binds to hemoglobin very quickly in our lungs and stays bound. Then in our tissues oxygen is released very quickly. How does this happen? What we call a hemoglobin molecule is a complex of four hemoglobin chains, or subunits. There are two each of two different chains called alpha and beta hemoglobin. The complex binds reversibly to oxygen, one O 2 molecule per each subunit. It tends not to bind to the first oxygen until the oxygen concentration is fairly high, which is the usual situation in our lungs. Then the complex changes shape so that the next O 2 binds more readily, the third still faster, and the fourth faster yet. Then it holds the oxygen until the surrounding oxygen concentration is quite low, which happens in our tissues. When finally one oxygen is released, the next is released faster and so on. This mechanism for oxygen transport is much more efficient than can be achieved with alpha or beta hemoglobin alone, and allows for our active life style. It takes all four parts to do this; take away part of the complex and it doesn't work ( 6 ). So we have another IC system. Behe discusses hemoglobin briefly (pp 206-207), mai


Legacy route: /faqs/theftovertoil/theftovertoil.html Content source: /cs/theft_over_toil/ The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry examine the claims made by "intelligent design" advocate William A. Dembski for his "explanatory filter". This is an online version of the 2001 Biology and Philosophy peer-reviewed paper, one of the few papers in the peer-reviewed literature that is explicitly about "intelligent design". John S. Wilkins 1 , Wesley R. Elsberry 2 Unedited version. Published as: Wilkins, John S, and Wesley R Elsberry. 2001. The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance. Biology and Philosophy 16 (November):711-724. Abstract Intelligent design theorist William Dembski has proposed an "explanatory filter" for distinguishing between events due to chance, lawful regularity or design. We show that if Dembski's filter were adopted as a scientific heuristic, some classical developments in science would not be rational, and that Dembski's assertion that the filter reliably identifies rarefied design requires ignoring the state of background knowledge. If background information changes even slightly, the filter's conclusion will vary wildly. Dembski fails to overcome Hume's objections to arguments from design. Keywords Intelligent design, Bayesian inference, natural selection, Darwin, Dembski Sam Spade enters his office to find "Fingers" Finagle, a reformed safecracker, standing in front of his open safe holding the priceless artifact the Cretan Sparrow that Spade was looking after for a client. "Fingers" insists he did not crack the safe, but merely spun the combination dial a few times idly, and it opened by itself. Spade knows from the promotional literature that came with the safe when he bought it at the Chump end-of-season sale that is has over 10 billion (1010) possible combinations, and that only one of these will open it. Moreover, he knows that the dial must be turned in alternating directions, not - as "Fingers" claims he did - in the same direction repeatedly. What does Spade know about this situation? Is the safe open by design, or by accident? William Dembski (1998) thinks he can answer this question definitively. Dembski has proposed an "explanatory filter" (EF) which, he claims, enables us to reliably distinguish events that are due to regularities, those that are due to chance, and those that are due to design. Such a filter is needed, he believes, to determine the reason for cases like Spade's safe, the discrimination of signals by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence project (SETI) that are due to intelligent senders from those that are caused by ordinary phenomena like quasars, and most critically, whether all or some aspects of the biological world are due to accident or design. In other words, Dembski's filter is a reworking of Paley's design inference (DI) in the forensic manner of identifying the "guilty parties". We will argue that Dembski's filter fails to achieve what it is claimed to do, and that were it to be adopted as a scientific heuristic, it would inhibit the course of science from even addressing phenomena that are not currently explicable. Further, the filter is a counsel of epistemic despair, grounded not on the inherent intractability of some classes of phenomena, but on the transient lacunae in current knowledge. Finally, we will argue that design is not the "default" explanation when all other explanations have been exhausted, but is another form of causal regularity that may be adduced to explain the probability of an effect being high, and which depends on a set of background theories and knowledge claims about designers. Spade's immediate intuition is that "Fingers" has indeed burgled the safe, but Spade is no philosopher and he knows it. He has, however, read The Design Inference by the detective theoretician, Dembski, and so he applies the filter to the case in hand (literally, since he has "Fingers" by the collar as he works through the filter on the whiteboard). The EF is represented as a decision chart (p37): HP events are explained as causal regularities. If it is very likely that an event would turn out as it did, then it is explained as a regularity. IP events are events which occur frequently enough to fall within some deviation of a normal distribution, and which are sufficiently explained by being between those extremes. The rolling of a "snake eyes" in a dice game is an IP event, as is the once-in-a-million lottery win. SP events come in two flavours: specified and unspecified. Unspecified events of small probability do not call for explication. An array of stones thrown will have some pattern, but there is no need to explain exactly that pattern, unless the specifiable likelihood of a pattern is so small that its attainment calls for some account. If an array of stones spells out a pattern that welcomes travellers to Wales by British Rail, then that requires explanation; to wit, that the stones were placed there by an employee of British Rail, by design. The minuscule probability that a contextually significant message in English would occur by chance is ruled out by the specified complexity of that sentence. This Dembski calls the Law of Small Probabilities - specified events of small probability do not occur by chance. 3 Spade, though not given to deep reflection, nevertheless studied statistics at the Institute of Forensic Studies, and so he wishes to be thorough. He traverses the filter step-by-step. E: the safe door is open. HP? No, the door regularly remains locked without intervention, and "Fingers" did not know the combination. IP? No, there is no significant chance that random spinning of the dial would happen on the combination. Even had "Fingers" chanced to spin the dial the right directions - an IP event - the chance is one in ten billion (10-10) that he would have happened on the combination. The chance is effectively zero, using the Law of Small Probabilities. SP? Yes, the event has a very small probability. sp/SP? Yes, the prior probabilities are exactly specified in addition to being very small. Conclusion: "Fingers" opened the safe by design, not by accident. "Fingers" is duly charged and arraigned for burglary. He engages the renowned deep thinking lawyer, Abby Macleal, and she defends him with skill. Before we get to the courtroom scene, however, let us go back in time, over a century, to the musings of a young naturalist. This naturalist - call him Charles - is on a voyage of discovery. He has read his Paley; indeed, he might almost have written out Paley's Evidences with perfect correctness by memory. Although he has not heard of Dembski's filter, he knows the logic: whatever cannot be accounted for by natural law or chance must be the result of design. Young Charles encounters some pattern of the distribution and form of a class of organisms - let us suppose they are tortoises - on an isolated archipelago and the nearest large continent. Each island has a unique tortoise most similar to the autochthon of the neighboring island and the island closest to the continent is most similar to that species. On the basis of the biological theories then current, he knows that there is no known process that can account for this pattern. It is so marked that one can draw a tree diagram from the continental form to the islands, and it will match a diagram showing the similarity of each form to the others. What should Charles rationally infer from this? Let us assume for comparative purposes that Charles is in possession of the filter; he will therefore reason like this: E: Species are distributed such that morphological distance closely matches geographic distance. HP? No, there is no regularity that makes this distribution highly probable. IP? No, the likelihood of such a distribution is extremely low. SP? Yes, it is a very small probability (made even smaller as more variables are taken into account). sp/SP? Yes, the problem is (more or less) specified. Conclusion: The tortoises have the biogeographic distribution and formal distribution they do by design. By Dembski's framework, Rational Charles should have ascribed the tortoises' situation to intelligent agency, and his subsequent research should have been directed to identifying that agency, perhaps by building balsa rafts to test the likelihood that continental sailors might have taken varieties now extinct on the continent and placed them each to an island according to some plan. An even more parsimonious explanation, and one more agreeable to the Rev. Paley's natural theology, might be that a single agent had created them in situ, along a plan of locating similar species adjacent to each other, which has the added virtue of explaining a large number of similar distributions known throughout the world, as Alfred, a later young voyager, was to note. Unfortunately for the progress of rational science, Actual Charles is not rational in this manner. He infers that some unknown process accounts for this distribution as a regularity, instead of inferring design. He irrationally conjectures that all the variants are modified descendants of the continental species, and that the morphological and geographical trees are evidence of a family tree of species evolution; and thus the theory of common descent is born. Charles is, rightly, castigated by his friends for irrationality and lack of scientific rigor. His leap to an unknown process is unwarranted, as is his subsequent search for a mechanism to account for it. Were his ideas to be accepted, perhaps out of fashion or irreligion, science would be put back for more than a century until Dembski came along to put it right. Lest this seem to be a parody of Dembski's views, consider his treatment of the evolution versus creation debate and the origins of life. Dembski (wrongly) conflates the two, treating the origins of life as a test case for the validity of evolutionary theory (it isn't - even if the major groups of living organisms had separate origins, or were created by an agent, their subsequent history could and would have an explanation in terms of "undesigned" evolution). Creationists - the actual ones that do reject evolutionary theories in the way that Rational Charles should have in the 1830s - challenge what Dembski putatively does not, that species share common ancestors with their closest relatives and that natural selection accounts for adaptation. As an adjunct to their arguments, they also, along with Dembski, give credence to the "calculations" of the probability that prebiotic processes would spontaneously form the building blocks of life (the LIFE event), especially of genetic molecules, that various authors have given. Dembski discusses Stuart Kauffman's (and others') blocking of the design inference (Kauffman 1993, 1995) with the following argument: Premise 1: LIFE has occurred. Premise 2: LIFE is specified. Premise 3: If LIFE is due to chance then LIFE has small probability. Premise 4: Specified events of small probability do not occur by chance (the Law of Small Probabilities). Premise 5: LIFE is not due to a regularity. Premise 6: LIFE is due to regularity, chance, or design (the filter). Conclusion: LIFE is due to design. Of Dawkins' arguments (Dawkins 1986: 139, 145-146) that there is a lot of "planetary years" available because there are a very large number of planets in the universe in which LIFE might have occurred and a lot of time available on each, Dembski says "... because Dawkins never assigns an exact probability to LIFE, he never settles whether LIFE is a high probability event and thus could legitimately be attributed to a regularity" (p58, italics added). Therefore, he says, we may infer that Dawkins accepts Premise 5! But what Dawkins actually says is that the improbability of life occurring had better not exceed the probability that it arose by chance on any one of the available number of planets on which it might have done. This sets a minimum bound to the probability of life, and Dawkins says that on (then) current knowledge, he doesn't know how probable life is. For all he knows, life is indeed due to a regularity. Kauffman's work on the dynamics of autocatalytic polymer sets supports the notion that the upper bound to the probability of life occurring is very high indeed, and life is to be "expected" in appropriate conditions. Dembski's comment? This is a "commitment". The implication is that it is a mere belief or act of faith on Kauffman's part. In fact, it is considerably more than that, and the real problem for origins of life researchers is not to find a possible scenario, but to decide which of a growing number of them holds the most promise, or which combination. But Dembski's filter makes it unnecessary to even try. 4 So, let us return now to the courtroom drama in time to hear Abby Macleal rebut prosecutor Pearl E. Mason's case. Abby calls retired Chump engineer Lachlan (Locky) Smith to the stand, and elicits from him the information that the Chump safe Spade owns has an inherent design flaw. If the tumbler is spun five times or more, centrifugal force will cause the lock to spontaneously open. Spade suddenly realizes why he got it so cheap. "Fingers" is acquitted, and initiates civil action for mental anguish and loss of reputation. Clearly, the background information has changed the probability assignments. At the time Spade found "Fingers" at the open safe, he was in possession of one set of background information, Bi. The probability of the event E requiring explanation led to a design inference. After Smith's testimony, a different set of background information, Bj, comes into play, and so the filter now delivers a "regularity" assignment to E. Suppose, though, that Smith had delivered yet another background set, Bk, by testifying that the model in question only actually used two of the five cylinders in the lock. Given that there are 100 possible numbers that might match the successful open state for each cylinder, the probability of a random opening is now 10-4, which is a much higher probability, given the number of Chumps of that model in use in the Naked City (particularly after Chump's massive sell-off of that model to clear the faulty stock). Now the same filter delivers us a chance explanation given Bk. The point is that Dembski's filter is supposed to regulate rational explanation, especially in science, and yet it is highly sensitive to the current state of knowledge. One single difference of information can change the inference from design to regularity to chance. This goes to the claim that Dembski's explanatory filter reliably finds design. Reliability, Dembski tells us, is the property that once an event is found to have the property of "design", no further knowledge will cause the event to be considered to have the property of "regularity" or "chance". What the filter lacks that real-world design inferences already have is a "Don't know" decision. If we can say of a problem that it is currently intractable or there is insufficient information to give a regularity or chance explanation now, then the Filter tells us we must ascribe it to design if it is specifiable. But it can be specifiable without the knowledge required to rule out regularity or chance explanations. This is clearly a god of the gaps stance, and it can have only one purpose: to block further investigation into these problems. Supposing we do insert a "don't-know" branch: where should it go? There is an ambiguity in Dembski's treatment of his argumentative framework. The Explanatory Filter is written about as if it describes a process of analysis, but Dembski's further argumentation is cast in terms of a first-order logical calculus. In a process, we would come to a "don't-know" conclusion after some evaluation of alternatives, but in a logical framework, there is no temporal dependency. We will here ignore the demands of process and concentrate on the logic. As Dembski's filter eliminates hypotheses from high probability to low probability, clearly an inability to assign a probability in the first place makes the decision the first branch point. So if, on Bi, the probability of E is undecidable, that needs to be worked out first: Undecidable probabilities lead us to a blocking of the inference at all. No further inferences can be drawn, and no design is required to explain any event for which there is no assignment. However, even if E is decidable on Bi, that in no way licences the expectation that on Bj or Bk those probabilities will remain fixed. For example, when Dawkins wrote in 1986, the state of knowledge about prebiotic chemical reactions was sparse; the range of possible RNA codes and molecular alternatives was not properly understood. As knowledge has grown, our estimate of the probability that some ribonucleotides, or perhaps ribonucleoproteins, or even polyaminoacids, might enter into protobiotic autocatalytic cycles has become much higher. Some even think that in a geologically short time after the cooling of the earth's surface, with the right conditions (themselves now expected to be of reasonably high probabilities on earth) life is almost certain to arise. Perhaps, then, we need another branching at each decision, leading to "Don't-know-yet". As Dembski's probabilities are Bayesian assignments made on the basis of a set of prior knowledge and default hypotheses, this seems to be a perfectly reasonable move. However, it has one glaring problem - it blocks any inferences of design, and that is too much. There are well attested cases of design in the world: we humans do things by design all the time. So an explanatory filter had better not exclude design altogether. How can it be included here? When is a design inference legitimate? The problem with a simple conclusion that something is designed, is its lack of informativeness. If you tell me that skirnobs are designed but nothing else about them, then how much do I actually know about skirnobs? Of a single skirnob, what can I say? Unless I already know a fair bit about the aims and intentions of skirnob designers, nothing is added to my knowledge of skirnobs by saying that it is designed. I do not know if a skirnob is a good skirnob, fulfilling the design criteria for skirnobs, or not. I do not know how typical that skirnob is of skirnobs in general, or what any of the properties of skirnobs are. I may as well say that skirnobs are "gzorply muffnordled" 5 , for all it tells me. But if I know the nature of the designer, or of the class of things the designer is a member of, then I know something about skirnobs, and I can make some inductive generalizations to the properties of other skirnobs. The way we find out such things about designers is to observe and interact, and if we can, converse, with them. In this way we can build up a model of the capacities and dispositions of designers. Experience tells me that a modernist architect will use certain materials to certain effect. Lacking any information about modernist architects leaves me none the wiser knowing that an architect is modernist (in contrast to other architects). Once we have such knowledge of designers, though, what we can say about them is that they generate regularities of outcomes. We know, for example, what the function of the Antikythera Device, a clockwork bronze assembly found in an ancient Greek shipwreck, was because we know the kinds of organisms that made it, we know the scientific, religious and navigational interests they had, we know about gears, and we know what they knew about the apparent motions of the heavens. Hence we can infer that the Antikythera Device is an astrolabe, used for open sea navigation by the stars, or a calendrical calculator, or both (de Solla Price 1974). But suppose it was found by interstellar visitors long after humans went extinc


Welcome to TalkDesign.org!

Legacy route: /cs/welcome/ Welcome to TalkDesign.org! This web site, a sub-site of TalkOrigins.org, is a response to the "Intelligent Design" movement of creationism. It is dedicated to: Assessing the claims of the Intelligent Design movement from the perspective of mainstream science Addressing the wider political, cultural, philosophical, moral, religious, and educational issues that have inspired the ID movement Providing an archive of materials that critically examine the scientific claims of the ID movement. We feel that the "Intelligent Design" arguments require this kind of focused attention due to their widespread use in antievolutionary activity.


Introduction to the TalkDesign.org Site

Legacy route: /cs/td_faq/ Introduction to the TalkDesign.org Site Q. What is the purpose of Talkdesign.org? A. Talkdesign.org was created to provide a one-stop location for responses to the arguments of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. Many articles critical of ID are scattered around the Web. Talkdesign.org provides links to the best and most up-to-date of these articles, as well as a collection of articles written specifically for this site. It also provides other material relevant to ID, including links to the web sites of ID advocates. Q. Who runs Talkdesign.org? A. Talkdesign.org is run by several volunteers , of a variety of religious and philosophical persuasions, who are all critics of ID and supporters of mainstream evolutionary biology. Talkdesign.org is hosted by the TalkOrigins Archive , a longstanding web site devoted to the the wider creation/evolution controversy. The TalkOrigins Archive Foundation, a Texas 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization, provides the support for the TalkOrigins Archive, TalkDesign, the Panda's Thumb, and Antievolution.org. Q. What is Intelligent Design? A. The beliefs of ID advocates vary greatly. But the core beliefs which they all appear to share are the following: (a) The action of an intelligent (presumably conscious) being was involved in the evolution of living organisms. (b) There already exists empirical evidence of this action, sufficient to justify a scientific inference that such action occurred. The term "Intelligent Design" usually refers to these beliefs together with the arguments which are made in support of them. It is important to note that people who hold belief (a) but not belief (b) do not generally consider themselves to be advocates of ID, and this web site has no quarrel with such people. It is the claim that there is empirical evidence of design in biology which has provoked a controversy, and which we consider to be false. We argue that this claim is based on pseudoscience, and enjoys the support it does only because it appeals to the religious and/or ideological beliefs of its adherents. Q. What is the Intelligent Design movement? A. The ID movement has grown out of a creationist tradition which argues against evolutionary theory from a religious (usually Christian) standpoint. Although ID advocates often claim that they are only arguing for the existence of a "designer", who may or may not be God, all the leading advocates do believe that the designer is God, and frequently accompany their allegedly scientific arguments with discussion of religious issues, especially when addressing religious audiences. In front of other audiences, they downplay the religious aspects of their agenda. Lawyer and creationist Phillip Johnson is usually credited with having founded the Intelligent Design movement, with the avowed intention of overthrowing "materialist science", and replacing it with "theistic science". This agenda is now being actively pursued by a well-funded body, the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), part of the Discovery Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by conservative Christians . (Until recently, the CSC was known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture; the name change is most likely an attempt to render their ideological adgenda less overt.) The CSC now plays the leading role in the promotion of ID, and its fellows include most of the leading ID advocates: William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer, etc. The goal of their Wedge Strategy is for ID to become "the dominant perspective in science" and to "permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life". Realizing that their "scientific" arguments have little chance of acceptance within the mainstream scientific community, ID advocates address their arguments primarily to the general public, politicians, philosophers, and other non-scientists. The allegedly scientific material which they produce is full of misleading rhetoric, equivocal terminology, and misrepresentations of the facts. They also produce much material which does not even aspire to be scientific, and which can frankly be best described as propaganda. Q. Do scientists support Intelligent Design? A. ID advocates are very keen to give the impression that they have the support of scientists. It is true that a number of scientists support ID, as indeed there are scientists who support Young Earth Creationism and many other pseudosciences. But they are a tiny number in relation to the total number of scientists, the vast majority of whom support evolutionary theory. In 2001, the Discovery Institute took out advertisements in national newspapers to announce that 100 scientists had signed a statement saying that they were "skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." The signatories did not say that they supported ID, though some of them certainly do. Compare this with a letter sent to Congress in support of the current teaching of evolution in schools, signed by the presidents of 80 scientific organizations . To put things into perspective, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a group which supports the teaching of evolution in public schools, released Project Steve , a spoof on anti-evolutionist lists such as the one by the Discovery Institute mentioned above. Signatories to the list agreed to a statement supporting evolution and rejecting ID, but there’s one catch: all of the signatories are named "Steve" or a version thereof. Given that Steves make up approximately 1% of the population, the 300+ signatories (at the time of this writing) indicate that for every scientist agreeing with the Discovery Institute, perhaps as many as a few hundred disagree. Q. Is opposition to Intelligent Design based on naturalism? A. Intelligent Design is rejected by the vast majority of scientists, particularly those in the relevant fields. The proportion of scientists who accept ID is insignificant. To explain away this overwhelming rejection of their arguments by those who are experts in the subject, ID advocates employ an ad hominem argument. They accuse the vast mass of scientists of being too biased by a commitment to "materialism" or "naturalism" to be able to judge the arguments fairly. This is despite the fact that many of these scientists are themselves theists. It is true that many (though not all) mainstream scientists and philosophers of science argue that science must be committed to a principle of "methodological naturalism", which states that only "natural" explanations can be allowed in science. Unfortunately, the meaning of the term "natural" is unclear. It is often assumed that this would rule out any explanations involving divine action, but it may be that a hypothesis involving divine action could be considered "natural" if it was empirically testable. These are murky philosophical waters, and it seems that most scientists simply adopt the principle of methodological naturalism as rule of thumb, based on the more general principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. More importantly, good scientific theories contain virtues like testability, parsimony, and explanatory power. ID tends to be lacking these virtues and many others; the "naturalism" claim is often a cover for the fact that ID has a difficult time meeting basic scientific criteria. In any case, ID advocates assure us that their arguments do not imply a divine designer. The designer could have been an extraterrestrial alien. Methodological naturalism certainly does not rule out such a designer. Confusion over this issue has been caused by the ambiguity of the word "natural", which can mean either "not artificial" or "not supernatural" (in addition to other possible meanings). ID advocates frequently conflate these definitions for rhetorical purposes. This issue is explored in greater detail in Mark Issak’s essay, A Philosophical Premise of ‘Naturalism’? Q. Is Intelligent Design a form of creationism? A. The answer to this question depends partly on what one means by "creationism". At one end of the spectrum, creationism can be simply the belief that the Universe was created by God, a belief which is probably shared by all monotheists. At the other end, it can be Young Earth Creationism, the belief that the Genesis account of creation is literally true and that the scientific evidence supports this belief. A reasonable intermediate definition is the belief that individual species or "kinds" of animals were divinely created. The core ID belief does not strictly entail divine involvement in the origin of species, but all the leading ID advocates believe in such involvement. Many (perhaps most) also deny common descent, the continuity of descent from parent to offspring from the earliest organisms down to the present day. Much of the CSC's material attacks common descent. Deniers of common descent include Phillip Johnson and Jonathan Wells. Dembski is ambivalent on the subject, attempting to cast doubt on common descent without actually denying it. At least one fellow of the CSC, Paul Nelson, is a Young Earth Creationist. Part of the strategy of ID is to create a "big tent", in which all opponents of evolutionary theory can join forces, from the most extreme Young Earth Creationists to those, such as Michael Behe, who accept virtually all of evolutionary theory except the proposition that evolution was fully natural. In order to maintain the unity of this big tent, those towards the latter end of the spectrum are careful to avoid criticizing even the most egregious arguments of the Young Earth Creationists. Furthermore, many of the ID arguments and tactics are very similar to those of Young Earth or Old Earth Creationists. Irrelevant appeals to information theory and thermodynamics; bogus probability calculations based on purely random combinations of proteins; gaps in the fossil record; use of out-of-context quotations; all of these and others are staples of the creationist menu. A major distinguishing feature of ID is the attempt to shift the focus of the debate away from the details of Earth history and towards more abstract concepts such as "design" or "teleology", terms which are rarely used in a non-question-begging manner. Unlike Young Earth Creationism, which is very easy to falsify, ID is difficult or impossible to test according to standard scientific practice. This gives the ID movement a tactical advantage by allowing its adherents to argue from a position that holds no testable affirmative beliefs, yet allows them to attack almost any aspect of evolutionary theory they think might be vulnerable. Note that this does not make ID a better theory than creationism; many argue that this renders ID even less scientific. It is also clear that much of the motivation for creating an ID movement distinct (to some degree) from the existing creationist movement was to evade the legal restriction (in the U.S.A.) on teaching creationism in public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that "scientific" creationism is a religious position, and therefore violates the First Amendment's constitutional separation of Church and State. One of the more telling commonalities between the creationist and ID movements is the primary focus on getting their views taught in public schools despite the lack of endorsement from the scientific community. Whether these many connections between ID and creationism justify considering ID to be a form of creationism is ultimately a matter of individual judgment. Many have concluded that they do, and one will sometimes see ID referred to as IDC, or Intelligent Design Creationism. While sometimes frank about the religious and political aspirations of ID, advocates at other times will try to create the impression that ID is a purely scientific issue. Use of the term Intelligent Design Creationism helps to draw attention to the true nature of the movement. Q. Is Intelligent Design a pseudoscience? A. We argue that Intelligent Design is a pseudoscience, like Young Earth Creationism, astrology, Atlantis, and the many other belief systems parading as science which fill the mass media. By pseudoscience, we mean a belief system which is claimed to be based on science, but which is actually based on arguments that are not only flawed, but are so egregiously bad that they do not stand up to any serious open-minded examination. Advocates of pseudoscience are motivated by a dogmatic commitment to their position which renders their minds closed to contrary arguments. Common (though not universal) additional symptoms of pseudoscience include the following: arguments are directed towards an audience of non-scientists; grandiose claims are made, often in fields where the claimant has little expertise ( viz Dembski's claims to new laws of information and thermodynamics); the overwhelming mass of scientists are claimed to be too biased to judge the arguments fairly; arguments are couched in superfluous technical jargon; arguments use poorly defined new technical terms (or old terms given new meanings); technical arguments are outnumbered by rhetoric; excessive use is made of quotations, often from popular books and often out of context. Q. What are the "scientific" arguments used to support Intelligent Design? A. The arguments for Intelligent Design are primarily arguments from ignorance, also known as god-of-the-gaps arguments. ID advocates also claim to have positive evidence of ID, in the form of "specified complexity" and "irreducible complexity", but these arguments turn out to be disguised arguments from ignorance. In addition, ID advocates sometimes make an argument from analogy. A lot of their effort is also devoted to attacking specific aspects of evolutionary theory, rather than giving support to their own ID hypothesis. Q. What is the argument from ignorance, or god-of-the-gaps argument? A. ID advocates point out that the evolution of certain biological structures has not been fully explained by biologists. This is true, and will continue to be true for the foreseeable future, since our knowledge of such structures is highly limited at present. From this, they conclude that those biological structures cannot have an evolutionary explanation, and so must have been designed by an intelligent agent. Although this line of argument can sometimes be seen clearly in their work, more often they disguise the argument with a lot of superfluous and misleading terminology, such as "irreducible complexity", "specified complexity" and "information". Q. What is the argument from analogy? A. The argument from analogy typically runs as follows. Biological systems have some quality in common with man-made machines, e.g. they consist of multiple coordinated parts. Whenever we have directly observed the origin of such a machine, an intelligent being was responsible for designing it. Therefore an intelligent being must have designed biological systems. Here is an example of such an argument: "In order to reach a conclusion based on an analogy, it is only necessary that the induction flow out of the shared properties: The irreducibly complex Rube Goldberg machine required an intelligent designer to produce it; therefore the irreducibly complex blood-clotting system required a designer also." (Michael Behe, "Darwin's Black Box", p. 218) Arguments from analogy, a type of inductive argument, are notoriously unreliable. The onus is on the advocate of the argument to make a compelling case for the significance of the shared properties and the insignificance of the divergent properties (or disanalogies). In fact, biological systems are very different from man-made machines in all sorts of ways. The most fundamental difference is that biological organisms, unlike man-made machines, have reproduced themselves over millions of generations with random variation and natural selection. This process is known to result in adaptation, and some degree of adaptation by natural evolution is accepted even by ID advocates. To make an argument from analogy in the face of such a fundamental disanalogy is unreasonable. If we ignore significant disanalogies, as ID advocates do, then it is easy to arrive at absurd conclusions. For example, since it was humans who were responsible for designing the machines of which we have directly observed the origin, should we not infer that biological "machines" were designed by humans? Before the first balloon flight of the Montgolfier brothers, we might have inferred that, because all wingless creatures were then unable to fly, human beings would not be able to fly. (At some time in the past scientists might have had good reasons to think that human flight would be impossible, but those reasons would have been based on their current knowledge of physics, not on an absurd argument from analogy.) Q. What is "irreducible complexity"? A. The term "irreducibility complexity" was introduced by biochemist Michael Behe. ID advocates claim that an irreducibly complex biochemical system cannot (with any reasonable degree of probability) have evolved by natural evolution. Irreducible complexity was originally defined in such a way that it could be detected simply by observing the current state of a system, without any consideration of how it might have evolved (rather like the second sense of specified complexity above): if the removal of any part of a biochemical system would render that system non-functional, then it was considered to be irreducibly complex. Acknowledged problems with this definition have forced Behe and Dembski to propose new definitions, which increasingly require the observer to consider the possibility of evolutionary predecessors in determining whether a system is irreducibly complex. This makes it increasingly difficult to judge whether a system is irreducibly complex or not. However, even if a system is judged irreducibly complex by any of the available definitions, this does not rule out the possibility of an evolutionary origin. The arguments of Behe and Dembski are based on the assumption that a system retains the same function as it evolves. But biological systems often become adapted to new functions as they evolve. Behe divided possible evolutionary pathways into two categories: "direct" pathways, which do not involve a change of function, and "indirect" pathways" which do. He then gave an argument against the viability of "direct" evolutionary pathways to an irreducibly complex system. He also claimed that the probability of evolution by an indirect pathway was too low for this to be an acceptable explanation. However, this claim was based on nothing more than his own intuition and an argument from ignorance: biologists have not yet provided a detailed account of any such pathway. In fact, biologists have now proposed evolutionary explanations for several of the systems introduced as examples by Behe, such as the immune system , but these will probably not be detailed enough to satisfy Behe or Dembski, who demand a precise account of every step of the pathway. Nevertheless, as these explanations gradually become more detailed, ID advocates increasingly choose to concentrate on just one of Behe's examples, the bacterial flagellum, which is perhaps the least well explained at present. Detailed critiques of Behe's arguments can be found here . See also Irreducible Complexity Demystified . Q. What is "specified complexity"? A. ID advocates claim that "specified complexity" is a reliable marker of intelligent design. However, they use the term in two quite different senses, which they tend to conflate. The term "specified complexity" was coined by biologist Leslie Orgel, as a way of characterizing what it is that distinguishes living organisms from non-living objects. The term was later adopted and used in a similar way by physicist Paul Davies. For these writers, an object is comp


Change at TalkDesign

Legacy route: /cs/change_at_td/ Change at TalkDesign TalkDesign is moving away from static, hand-written HTML pages to a spiffy content management system, Civicspace. The theme, for the moment, is the "interlaced" theme. We hope that with the change in system, more of the TalkDesign crew will participate in expanding the content here on the system. While much of this will be articles from the Panda's Thumb weblog, the advantage here will be the ability to organize that content topically. You can see that already in the "Articles" navigation on the sidebar, with our various articles now conveniently tagged for various categories for content and personalities in the "intelligent design" movement. Civicspace also provides for grassroots organization. If you want to help promote good science education, please take the time to enter your contact information. Consider registering as a user here as well.


Bottaro's Letter to WNYE

Legacy route: /cs/bottaro_wnye_uml_letter/ Bottaro's Letter to WNYE Andrea Bottaro wrote a letter to TV station WNYE about their scheduling of the "intelligent design" propaganda film, Unlocking the Mystery of Life . by Andrea Bottaro The following letter was originally sent to the WNYE PBS station in anticipation of their programmed broadcast of the Intelligent Design "documentary" "Unlocking the Mystery of Life". Eventually, WNYE aired the program with a disclaimer regarding its contents (see the NCSE site for the text of WNYE's disclaimer and other comments about "Unlocking"). Mr. Laing Kandel General Manager WNYE New York Dr. Joe Klein Chancellor Dept. of Education New York Dear Mr. Kandel and Dr. Klein: It was recently announced by the Discovery Institute in Seattle, WA, that the New York Department of Education's WNYE television station is planning to broadcast the documentary video "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" (hereafter, UML) on July 6, 2003. While I realize that the purpose of WNYE is to provide its viewers with the broadest and most diverse information from different sources and points of view, there are a few background issues about this video that I believe you and WNYE viewers should be made aware of. UML presents itself as a well-crafted, purely scientific documentary, while it is factually misleading in many respects, and its main purpose is propaganda for a pseudo-scientific movement known as Intelligent Design Creationism. UML has its (strategically concealed) origins close to religious fundamentalist and Creationist circles, and displays a pattern of poor scholarship, including misrepresentation/omission of key scientific evidence. Ultimately, these result in a misleading picture of the facts and of current scientific knowledge, as well as of the ultimate goals of the documentary itself. (More details about these problems are found in the attachment to this letter.) While as a scientist I fully subscribe to the free dissemination of opinions from any source, I think you owe WNYE viewers that such background information is made available to them, so that they may properly judge the documentary's message. Addition of a disclaimer to the broadcast, explaining that the documentary presents a one-sided view of a fringe, pseudo-scientific idea rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists, and that its main purpose is religious/philosophical in nature, would probably be sufficient to alert your viewers of the true significance of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life". Thank you very much for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions or require additional information. Sincerely Andrea Bottaro University of Rochester Medical Center Rochester, NY, 6/30/03 UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE - MORE OMISSIONS THAN FACTS The source: "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is the first and only production of an entity called "IllustraMedia". In fact, "IllustraMedia" is one and the same with "Discovery Media Productions" 1 . Discovery Media is a production company whose previous videos are devoted to evangelical topics, such as "Heaven and Hell" and "The End Times" 2 . While there is nothing wrong with an evangelical video company producing a science documentary, the fact that to do so it was felt necessary to create a "shell" production outfit highlights the aura of ambiguity that pervades the entire enterprise (more examples to follow). Furthermore, the purpose of the video as a propagandistic and religious, rather than scientific/educational tool is underscored by how UML is being publicized within fundamentalist circles. For instance, Mission Frontiers, the Bulletin of the evangelical U.S. Center for World Missions, hails it as "the most impressive evangelistic tool ever made" 3 . The contents: As a documentary, UML is a skillful and sophisticated production, showing some well-made computer animations of cellular processes at the molecular level. In discussing such mechanisms, the video claims that the scientific evidence points to insurmountable difficulties for standard evolutionary theory, and supports instead the hypothesis that a superior intelligence directly intervened to create and/or diversify life (hence the name "Intelligent Design", or ID, Creationism 4 ). The video discusses such purported evidence and devotes much of its time to the historical origins and philosophical underpinnings of the ID movement. The fundamental question is whether ULM conforms to basic scientific standards of adherence to evidence and facts. In this, it fails at several levels. First of all, throughout the documentary mainstream scientific views, supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists, are not even independently presented. Instead, oversimplified, sometime downright scornful presentations of mainstream scientific theories and hypotheses are provided by supporters of ID (as a counterexample, the recent PBS "Evolution" series, though clearly favoring a scientific view, featured the opinions of several prominent representatives of Creationism). In UML, therefore, the viewers are treated to descriptions of scientific evidence and theories that have little connection with what is in fact going on in the science world. For reasons of space, I'll just mention a few examples. The most glaring omission deals with UML's discussion of Origins of Life (OoL) science. The only non ID-based views on OoL discussed in the video are those proposed, in the late '60s, by one of the current ID proponents, Dr. Dean Kenyon. According to UML, those models have been later shown by Kenyon and colleagues to be insufficient to explain key aspects of early molecular and cellular evolution. In fact, most of Kenyon's original views have long been superseded by more thorough, and better empirically supported, scientific hypotheses - indeed, it was those hypotheses and evidence that led to the demise of Kenyon's ideas in scientific circles long before ID Creationism appeared on the scene. Alas, what is arguably the current (and has been for more than a decade now) favored hypothesis about OoL, the so-called "RNA World" model, 5 finds no mention whatsoever in UML. This is not surprising, perhaps, since the objections raised in UML by ID proponents to Kenyon's original theory would not stand against this new model. Thus, the viewer is given the false impression that the current scientific choice is between ID Creationism and its outright miraculous Origin of Life, or Dr. Kenyon's outdated 1960's theory. Of course, our understanding of OoL is still very limited, and highly speculative. Nevertheless, it is far more advanced and scientifically solid than the UML parody would want its audience to believe. Other mistakes in UML include an equally superficial, almost mockingly simplified discussion of cooption, a crucial evolutionary mechanism for which in fact significance evidence exists in the biological world. UML's "experts" even commit a basic error regarding the role of nucleic acids in the cell, which are presented as uniquely involved in genetic information storage and transfer, while it is now well known that they are directly active in crucial molecular processes functionally comparable to those carried out by protein enzymes - a key piece of evidence in favor of the "RNA World" hypothesis mentioned above (and the possible reason why it also went unmentioned). The crucial argument underlying the whole ID philosophy, widely discussed in the video, is the concept of "irreducibly complex" systems, and the purported impossibility of conventional evolutionary mechanisms to generate them. Although it was quickly rejected by biologists on theoretical and empirical grounds, 6 "irreducible complexity" has remained the main staple of ID Creationism. Ironically, this argument was just recently delivered a fatal blow in the prestigious science journal Nature, where a computer simulation based entirely on evolutionary principles (undirected random mutation and selection) was shown to be able to generate "irreducibly complex" outputs 7 . While of course the video cannot be faulted for not predicting the results of future scientific research, this episode serves as a good example of the shaky grounds on which ID reasoning is built. Indeed, not only does scientific evidence continue to accumulate contradicting the ID arguments, but even more damningly, in over 10 years from the onset of the "movement", no single scientific result supporting ID has been published in the scientific literature , despite its supporters continuing claims of the existence of such results. Indeed, even the ID advocates' own journal, the electronically published Progress in Complexity, Information and Design, has failed to publish any experimental result supporting ID 8 . In short, despite the appeals by ID advocates to "let the evidence speak for itself", there is in fact no positive scientific evidence in support of ID, and on the contrary the theoretical arguments of its advocates are constantly being proven erroneous in the professional literature. To avoid facing this lack of evidence, UML resorts instead to systematic distortions of mainstream science theories and omissions of key ideas and pieces of evidence. The people: The experts interviewed for UML, and ID advocates in general, are fond to present themselves as "scientists", often accompanied by the qualifier "a small but growing number of". In fact, most ID advocates are not scientists by any meaningful definition of the term, and their numbers (for which "small" is an overstatement) are anything but growing. Of the experts who appear in UML, 4 can in fact qualify as bona fide scientists: Michael Behe, Scott Minnich, Dean Kenyon, and Jed Macosko. The first two hold tenured positions in Biochemistry and Microbiology, respectively, at mainstream universities, but despite their own research experience and active labs, as discussed above they have failed to produce any evidence in support of the ideas they so eloquently argue for. Dean Kenyon was scientifically active until the mid-'70s, after which he has not published further in the scientific literature (however, he has since co-authored the notorious Creationist school textbook "Of Pandas and People" 9 ). 16 Jed Macosko, whose image is accompanied in UML by the qualifier "Molecular Biologist, UC Berkeley", although a Berkeley graduate and former postdoctoral trainee, in fact is not, or has ever been, on the Berkeley faculty, as that title could suggest. Indeed, Dr. Macosko is apparently not even affiliated with UC Berkeley anymore; if he was at the time of interview, he certainly was there as a junior postdoc trainee, hardly an "expert" in the field by any standards. Currently, Dr. Macosko is listed on some ID web sites as teaching chemistry at the religious La Sierra University in Riverside, CA 10 , although he does not appear on the faculty list there either 11 . Such "generous" use of credentials is not unique in the documentary. One of the leading proponents of ID, William Dembski, is labeled as a "mathematician - Baylor University" in UML, although he is affiliated with Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning, which focuses on theology and philosophy 12 . Indeed, almost the entirety of Dr. Dembski's vast published opus, with the exception of a mathematics paper in 1990, is about various aspects of theology, apologetics and philosophy 13 (Dr. Dembski holds PhDs in Mathematics and Philosophy, and a M.Div. in Theology). Finally, Jonathan Wells, presented as "biologist" in UML, does hold a PhD in Developmental Biology from UC Berkeley. By his own words, however, he entered the program not based on any genuine interest in science and biology, but following the direction of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, with the expressed goal to "devote his life to destroying Darwinism" 14 . Not surprisingly, there is no record of Dr. Wells performing any meaningful research work after his training at Berkeley, and he has since entirely dedicated himself to anti-evolutionist propaganda (including the book "Icons of Evolution", some editions of which even contained stickers for students to deface biology textbooks 15 ). Thus, the definitions of professional background and academic affiliation used throughout UML are at the very least ambiguous, and clearly result in an inflation of the apparent academic clout and relevant expertise of the participants. In summary, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is a depiction of a fringe, at best semi-scientific philosophical movement very close, ideologically and organizationally, to religious Creationism. The documentary misrepresents itself, its goals, the existing scientific evidence and its own experts in several significant ways. While it is your prerogative to air the programs that you believe best suit your audience's needs and interests, it is equally important that your viewers be provided with information that may help them put this product's contents and purpose in the appropriate context. This is necessary not only in the spirit of openness and full disclosure, but also to avoid that your broadcast of the documentary appear as an implicit endorsement of this new form of "stealth" Creationism by one of the largest Departments of Education in the country. Notes 1. Verifiable by a "WHOIS" search for the domain name "illustramedia.com": http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=illustramedia.com&SearchType=do Accessed 6/30/03 2. http://www.discoverymedia.org/dm_products_page.htm Accessed 6/29/03 3. http://www.missionfrontiers.org/2002/06/PDFs/Unlocking_Mystery.pdf Accessed 6/28/03 4. For an in-depth discussion of ID Creationism, see "Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics", Robert T. Pennock, ed, MIT Press, 2001, ISBN 0-262-16204-0; review in http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cheathwo/Phil100/nytimes.html Accessed 6/30/03 5. http://www.lawrenceroberge.com/RNAWORLD.htm Accessed 6/30/03 http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/21438?fulltext=true Accessed 6/30/03 6. see for instance several articles by Dr. Ken Miller, Brown University: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ Accessed 6/30/03 7. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, Adami C. "The evolutionary origin of complex features." Nature. May 8 2003; 423 (6936):139-44 8. http://www.iscid.org/pcid.php Accessed 6/29/03 9. http://63.74.14.138/page/001/PROD/BOFPA1 , reviewed at the National Association of Biology Teachers web site http://www.nabt.org/sub/evolution/panda1.asp Both accessed 6/30/03. 10. http://www.iscid.org/jed-macosko.php ; http://www.lasierra.edu/ Both accessed 6/30/03 11. http://www.lasierra.edu/resources/phonelists/phonename_m-s.html Accessed 6/30/03 12. http://www3.baylor.edu/IFL/ Accessed 6/28/03 13. http://www.designinference.com/documents/05.02.CV.htm Accessed 6/30/03 14. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm Accessed 6/30/03 15. Links to reviews of Icons of Evolution can be found at the National Center of Science Education's web site http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/9855_reviews_of_icons_of_evolution_10_31_2002.asp Accessed 6/30/03 16. Note added July 8, 2003: After this letter first appeared on the NCSE web site, Dr. Kenyon kindly and quickly informed me that he has in fact one scientific publication later than the mid-'70s: "A Comparison of Proteinoid and Aldocyanoin Microsystems as Models of the Primordial Protocell", in Molecular Evolution and Protobiology [K. Matsuno, K. Dose, K. Harada, and D. L. Rohlfing, eds.], pp. 163-188, Plenum Press, 1984. My original statement was based on a search of the main scientific literature databases available: Pubmed, BasicBIOSIS, CSA Biological Sciences, and the Institute for Scientific Information's "Web of Science" Science Citation Index. The book article in question does not seem to appear in any of these databases, nor has it apparently ever been referenced by any other later publication also in the database. Nevertheless, for the record, the existence of Dr. Kenyon's 1984 paper should be noted. Addendum, 8/5/03: Dr. Dembski has recently charged that my critique of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" misleads readers. He's wrong: Dembski's Compass .


Legacy route: /cs/dembskis_compass/ - DR. DEMBSKI'S COMPASS - or, How to lose one's way while looking for misdirection. Andrea Bottaro responds to a criticism made by "intelligent design" advocate William A. Dembski about Bottaro's review of Unlocking the Mystery of Life . Andrea Bottaro University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry [Posted: 10 August 2003] Leading Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) proponent Dr. William Dembski has quoted my recent critique of the video "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" 1 in "The Myths of Darwinism", the Introduction to his latest edited book "Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing" 2 . Unflatteringly, alas, the quote is meant to illustrate a purportedly common misinformation strategy (the "Myth of Victory Past") used by "Darwinists" to surreptitiously dispatch significant objections. According to Dembski, when a valid criticism to evolutionary theory is leveled, first it is "dismissed without an adequate response", and later defined as a "discredited criticism that was refuted a long time ago", without an adequate refutation in fact ever being offered. I am fingered by Dembski as an example of how this supposed "Darwinist" conspiracy works Here, I wish to specifically address Dembski's charge that I "misdirected" readers of my "Unlocking" critique, and argue that, in fact, it is Dembski's own compass that must be malfunctioning 3 . 1. Setting off... in the wrong direction After describing the "Myth of Victory Past" for his readers, Dembski writes: "It will help to see how this Darwinist technique of "passing the buck" actually plays out in practice. ... Here is what Bottaro says about irreducible complexity: "The crucial argument ... widely discussed in the video, is the concept of "irreducibly complex" systems, and the purported impossibility of conventional evolutionary mechanisms to generate them. Although it was quickly rejected by biologists on theoretical and empirical grounds [ref.#6], "irreducible complexity" has remained the main staple of [Intelligent Design] Creationism. Ironically, this argument was just recently delivered a fatal blow in the prestigious science journal Nature, where a computer simulation based entirely on evolutionary principles (undirected random mutation and selection) was shown to be able to generate "irreducibly complex" outputs [ref.#7]." "This sounds quite impressive and damning until one follows the paper trail. Indeed, what are references #6 and #7 to which Bottaro refers? Reference #6 is to Kenneth Miller's book "Finding Darwin's God". Unfortunately, you won't find the promised refutation of irreducible complexity's challenge to Darwinism there. " 2 Dembski continues with a brief account of some of Miller's counter-arguments in "Finding Darwin's God", and references his own book "No Free Lunch" as the site of refutation of those arguments. Solemnly, Dembski concludes: "Reference #6 is therefore an exercise in misdirection." 2 Well, actually, it isn't. In fact, quite ironically, Dembski has barely set foot on the "paper trail" and he's already lost. His confident statement notwithstanding, my original reference #6 is not to Miller's "Finding Darwin's God". It's unclear how Dembski even reached that conclusion, since my reference, in its entirety, reads: "6. see for instance several articles by Dr. Ken Miller, Brown University: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ Accessed 6/30/03" 1 [emphasis added] As anyone can verify at the click of a mouse, that link leads to Dr. Miller's web site, where more links to a number of articles are found. Here, "Finding Darwin's God" is represented by a single excerpt from its concluding chapter, very general in tone and void of any mention of either Behe or irreducible complexity. Oddly enough, Dembski even goes as far as directly quoting Miller from what he says is my own reference, but for the life of me I cannot find that quote on Miller's web page, or any of its side-links. On the other hand, Miller's site does contain several pertinent works, including his original review of "Darwin's Black Box" and a few more articles on irreducible complexity and IDC, written both before and after Dembski's "No Free Lunch". Dembski ignores the articles I referenced, discusses an arbitrarily chosen quote from "Finding Darwin's God" (that I didn't reference), and tells his readers to trust that he already neatly disposed of all these objections in his own book 4 . Without excessively dwelling on this rather straightforward issue, if Dembski wishes to publicly accuse me of "misdirection" in my use of references, at the very least he should discuss, and direct his own readers to the references I actually give, rather than others of his own choosing. 2. A detour OK, fine, wrong reference. Perhaps Dembski might still contend that even my real reference does not contain "the promised refutation of irreducible complexity's challenge to Darwinism" 2 . Except, that'd be wrong as well. As Dembski's own quote of my writing plainly shows, I never "promised" that readers would find some sort of definitive "refutation of irreducible complexity's challenge to Darwinism" in my reference #6, as he implies. What I did in fact was to simply refer readers to a source where they could find examples of the theoretical and empirical arguments based on which biologists rejected Behe's irreducible complexity 5 . Of course, it shouldn't surprise anybody that Dembski finds those arguments insufficient - or he wouldn't be today at the top of yet another list of "Darwinism doubters". Similarly, however, Dembski himself should perhaps consider the real possibility that biologists, such as myself, still find these same objections quite convincing, and his supposed refutations of them inadequate 6 . For someone like Dembski, who has been engaged in essentially the same argument for almost a decade in the absence of any significant rate of "conversion" of his opponents, this shouldn't represent a major revelation. Truthfully, I can't actually tell what point Dembski is ultimately trying to make here. He certainly can't be arguing that biologists did not quickly reject irreducible complexity on several theoretical and empirical grounds, or that some of those grounds are not described in reference #6 (either mine, or his imaginary one). And if this is the case, and my reference accurately reflects what was "promised" in the text, then Dembski's claim to the contrary is manifestly unsupported. 3. Walking in circles Next, Dembski goes on to deal with my reference #7. The Lenski paper 7 , he informs us, "... describes a computer simulation and thus contains no actual biology. ... The validity of this study therefore depends on whether the simulation maps faithfully onto biological reality. Unfortunately, it does not, and the study therefore doesn't prove a thing about real-life biological evolution." 2 There are two separate issues here. The first relates again to my alleged "myth-making". Clearly, I was not referring here to some old paper which failed to really address the issue in question and/or had since been refuted (the forms of "Myth of Victory Past" previously described by Dembski). On the contrary, I was referring to a very recently published paper, which (to my knowledge) had not been formally addressed, let alone refuted, by Dembski or any other prominent ID advocate. Unless in Dembski's eyes I am guilty of misdirection because I did not anticipate a forthcoming refutation, and didn't proactively alert my readers to it, it's hard to understand his objection to this part of my critique and supporting references. Secondly, and more importantly, Dembski's purported refutation of Lenski still has to come. Dembski's entire justification for the dismissal of the Nature paper boils down to his claim that its computer simulation does not "map faithfully onto biological reality". Why it doesn't, however, Dembski forgets to tell us, either in Myths or (as far as I know) anywhere else 8 . Until Dembski does so, of course, he can hardly accuse me of misdirection. At most, he can charge me with incompetence, for not seeing the obvious faults he finds in the paper, but then I'd still be in such company as the paper's own authors (as well as Nature's reviewers and editors). If the alternative is to take Dembski's rain check for a future substantial and convincing refutation 9 , I'll gladly stick with the other "incompetents" for the time being. 4. Conclusion - Dr. Dembski's compass In "Myths of Darwinism", Dr. Dembski levels against me the rather serious accusation that I misled my readers, making me a participant in the pervasive misinformation ploy he alleges "Darwinists" routinely engage in. But, Dembski assures, if his readers follow his steps on the "paper trail", they can find their way back and safely arrive to their truthful destination. Alas, at the end of the road, it is Dembski himself who appears quite off course, having lost his way, along with a chance for restraint and careful scholarship, while looking for signs of deceit in those 2 fateful references. When the facts are examined, one finds that: quite embarrassingly, in his efforts to prove my "misdirection" Dembski seems to have taken the wrong turn himself (intentionally or as a result of plain shoddiness, I can't say), all the way to a reference which is not the one I clearly pointed to; contrary to Dembski's claim, the first of my references leads my readers exactly to the information I said it would; the second reference, Lenski's paper, still seems to represent the fatal blow to "irreducible complexity" I said it is, and will remain so as long as Dembski and fellow IDC advocates fail to provide any meaningful rebuttal of its conclusions. In my critique of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life", I commented on the tendency of that unfortunate "documentary" to create straw-man versions of scientific knowledge to oppose to ID philosophy. Regrettably, in his Introduction to "Uncommon Dissent", Dembski appears to have chosen the very same approach to reach his rhetorical goal: he needed a good example of his purported "Darwinian Myth", and he simply made one up. Notes 1. "Unlocking the Mystery of Life - More Omissions Than Facts", in "Bottaro's Letter to WNYE", at the National Center for Science Education web site: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/2018_bottaro39s_letter_to_wnye_7_8_2003.asp . Accessed 7/29/03. Reproduced here on Talkdesign.org: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/bottaroslettertoWNYE.html 2. http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.07.UncDiss_Intro_Contrib.pdf , pages 12-16. Accessed 7/29/03 3. My primary concern here is to uphold my professional standards, as well as the contents of my "Unlocking" critique, against Dembski's misguided accusation. However, substantial criticisms can in fact be raised to Dembski's other claims regarding Miller's and Lenski's work. At the risk of being accused of another round of myth-making, I would refer the reader to the comments by Nic Tamzek and others (see http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3f25217b7174ffff;act=ST;f=2;t=72 , and links therein. Accessed 7/29/03). 4. Paradoxically, Dembski seems here to engage in diversion tactics himself: first, my reference of Miller's site turns into a reference to "Finding Darwin's God", then Miller's numerous and complex arguments in that book get distilled into just his 4 counterexamples of "evolved" irreducible complexity. Finally, Dembski simply declares he has definitively shown those to be faulty in "No Free Lunch" - case closed. In fact, whether he successfully did it or not (arguable, but that's beside the point here), that can hardly be considered a wholesale refutation of "Finding Darwin's God", let alone of the many arguments against irreducible complexity raised by biologists I was referring to in my text. 5. For irreducible fans of the controversy, there are luckily many other freely available critiques of irreducible complexity on the web, in addition to Miller's. Among the best are several at www.talkorigins.org and www.talkreason.org (links found here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html and http://www.talkreason.org/index.cfm?category=0 . I particularly recommend Pete Dunkelberg's recent overview "IC Demystified": http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html , and, closer to my own field of expertise, Matt Inlay's discussion of immune system evolution: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html ). An often entertaining series of exchanges between several ID advocates, including Dembski, and my U of R colleague H. Allen Orr can be found at the Boston Review web site ( http://bostonreview.net/BR21.6/orr.nclk ; http://bostonreview.net/BR22.1/BR22.1.nclk ; http://bostonreview.net/BR27.3/orr.nclk ; http://bostonreview.net/BR27.5/exchange.nclk ). Al sites accessed 7/29/03 6. I suspect this very inability to accept even the possibility of honest disagreement, out of absolute self-assuredness and/or lack of internal critical feed-back, is in fact the origin of some of IDC's recurrent and often bizarre conspiracy theories about "darwinian censorship" and the likes, such as Dembski's "myth" discussed here. 7. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, Adami C. "The evolutionary origin of complex features." Nature. May 8 2003; 423 (6936):139-44 8. To be fair, Dembski goes on to offer a cursory explanation. The authors, he says, begged the issue of irreducible complexity "by requiring of their simulation that complex features exhibiting complex functions can always be decomposed into simpler features exhibiting simpler functions... There is no evidence that real-life irreducibly complex biochemical machines can be decomposed this way." 2 As pointed out by Tamzek, however, this can't really be Dembski's reason for rejecting Lenski's conclusions, since Dembski himself has previously conceded this very same point: "That an irreducibly complex system may have subsystems that have functions of their own (functions distinct from that of the original system) is therefore allowed in the definition." (from "Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken Miller", http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm . This is actually just one of several Dembski's statements on the same subject, quoted in the previously linked Antievolution.org thread by Tamzek). 9. Cynics could say they almost see a strategy emerging: "When a valid criticism ... is first proposed, it is dismissed without an adequate response, either on some technicality or with some irrelevancy or by simply being ignored. ... Thereafter, the criticism becomes known as "that discredited criticism that was refuted a long time ago"." 2 But of course, according to Dembski only "Darwinists" do that, so I am looking forward to his forthcoming refutation of Lenski's paper.