Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin is widely quoted as saying that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”. Again, this was a rhetorical preliminary to explaining how the powerful illusion of design actually comes about by natural selection. The isolated quotation strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear.
The deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda ranks among the many unchristian habits of fundamentalist authors. But such Telling Lies for God (the book title of the splendidly pugnacious Australian geologist Ian Plimer) is not the most serious problem. There is a more important point to be made, and it goes right to the philosophical heart of creationism.
The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right, then, the alternative theory; ‘intelligent design’ wins by default.”
Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say: “Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’ll have to go to the university library and take a look.” No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
I once introduced a chapter on the so-called Cambrian Explosion with the words: “It is as though the fossils were planted there without any evolutionary history.” Again, this was a rhetorical overture, intended to whet the reader’s appetite for the explanation. Inevitably, my remark was gleefully quoted out of context. Creationists adore “gaps” in the fossil record.
Many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by more or less continuous series of changing intermediate fossils. Some are not, and these are the famous “gaps”. Michael Shermer has wittily pointed out that if a new fossil discovery neatly bisects a “gap”, the creationist will declare that there are now two gaps! Note yet again the use of a default. If there are no fossils to document a postulated evolutionary transition, the assumption is that there was no evolutionary transition: God must have intervened.
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
Richard Dawkins, FRS, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. His latest book is The Ancestor’s Tale
I agree. So what? You said "modern" science ... may be no more accurate today than Euclidian thinkers were in the past but that is clearly wrong as I have shown.
I'm sure there are some creationists who make this their only goal.
Obviously "only goal" is ridiculously over stated as is "all creationists." Let me rephrase the claim: many creationists have a goal of weakening the teaching of MNS that contradicts their religious beliefs.
With "natural selection" as a given, one can describe any biological phenomenon as progressing naturally.
So is it your thinking that, should some devastating calamity befall the world, every species would have an equal chance of propagating their progeny? You don't think that some members of a specis would have a better chance than others? It is so unexceptional, so obvious, so apparent to reason and experience, that you do your cause much harm by advancing an argument to the contrary.
Natural selection is not a vacuous concept as you imply. It is the non-random, or better yet, less random part of evolution. It claims that, in a given situation, outcomes will occur later with certain *non-uniform* probabilities.
What you *could* say is that natural selection can't account for *all* the diversity we observe. That argument has already won. Evolution gives equal, if not greater, importance in the ordinary course of events to neutral drift over natural selection. This greatly weakens the explanatory power of evolution.
[those constraints] are helpful in some areas of knowledge, but not others.
Where are they not helpful? Better yet, where have they been shown to not be helpful?
The bigger question is whether schools should be allowed to operate with a wider meaning of "science,"
As I'm sure you can guess, my answer would be no. I think that elementary and high schools should teach MNS as it is practiced and understood. Should some ID theory down the road become mainstream MNS, then it should be taught also.
I understand typos!
At the same time I generally try to avoid long posts.
Panspermia can be an intelligent design hypothesis in explaining what occurred here on earth.
Ya, but you require a separate, corollary hypothesis of intelligent design. Panspermia alone is not intelligent design; the actual "intelligent design" hypothesis is the separate, corollary hypothesis.
By example, your mechanistic assembly hypothesis is an add on to panspermia, it is not panspermia itself.
Do you disagree?
Therefore, ID, as primarily focused on transfer of information, can be pointing to an already assembled information transfer unit (cell) brought about by a mechanistic process elsewhere.
Yeah, but that wouldn't be a panspermia hypothesis. That would be a "mechanistic assembly" hypothesis on top of a panspermia hypothesis.
It would simply be discussing one of the outermost boundaries of the ID hypothesis. I don't think it would be an add-on to the panspermia hypothesis, would it? It assumes panspermia.
Once it moves beyond the assumption of panspermia, it has added to the assumption.
Once again you have fleshed out the very point of this long discussion!
Namely, the intelligent design hypothesis – just like the theory of evolution – is not an origin of life hypothesis. Panspermia, at least to some extent, is.
The intelligent design hypothesis has no basis at all in theology. It simply doesn’t matter to the hypothesis if the agency of “volition” or “intelligence” emerged from purely naturalistic causes!
Likewise, it doesn’t matter to the hypothesis if the “volition” or “intelligence” is a fractal of a larger “volition” or “intelligence” – or whether it is rooted in both the infinite and the fine (as fractals are).
Likewise, it doesn’t matter to the hypothesis if the “volition” or “intelligence” is merely an epiphenomenon, an effecting illusion of the physical brain.
And most importantly to people of faith – of all kinds of faith – it doesn’t matter to the hypothesis if the “volition” or “intelligence” is a being, including the supreme, i.e. God.
Again, I aver that intelligent design hypotheses – just like the theory of evolution – concerns itself with certain features, or given features --- not ALL features of actuality.
If it did, then it would indeed be based on theology, philosophy or metaphysics.
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating, with subsequent genetic variation also attributable to additional seeding of extraterrestrial origin.
And, this is the competing, faulty definition that we're trying to mold into an accurate description (faulty because it's infested with Alamo-Girl's contrivances):
Panspermia: A hypothesis that given features of terrestrial life, including the presence of life itself, are explained by earth's continual seeding by whole biological cells of extraterrestrial origin that deliver "genetic programs" – rather than by purely terrestrial emergence.
My view is that the second definition is hopelessly unsalvagable. Whatever previous agreement I made to accept that is hereby rescinded, and resulted from nothing more than my exasperation at Alamo-Girl's inane recalcitrance.
We have had at least twenty different external descriptions of panspermia posted, between my post #2537 and Alamo-Girl's post #2497. They are all perfectly consistent with our first definition above, and not consistent with any other definition that we've attempted to work with.
As far as I'm concerned, we are rewinding to the following:
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds arriving on Earth and propagating, with subsequent genetic variation also attributable to additional seeding of extraterrestrial origin.
The term "landing" has been replaced by "arriving" because it's more precisely consistent with the full span of panspermia hypotheses noted above. I've decided it's time to begin wrapping this up. As far as I'm concerned, we are all but finished with this portion of the exercise. I will entertain modifications to the above definition only if a panspermia hypothesis gets presented that is inconsistent with that definition. So, feel free to post them if they exist.
Otherwise, if Alamo-Girl feels the need to withhold assent without rational explanation, then that is fine by me, because I don't care and am quite ready to throw this out to the jury of whoever's following the debate. Insofar as panspermia is concerned, we have presented more than enough information for one to reach an informed decision.
The task at hand is to find a formulation of panspermia - any formulation of panspermia - inconsistent with the following definition:
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds arriving on Earth and propagating, with subsequent genetic variation also attributable to additional seeding of extraterrestrial origin.
If there isn't one, then the definition is valid and we're done with this part.
I'm only lurking, but isn't this -- the last part of AntiGuv's panspermia formulation -- an additional hypothesis? I mean to say that life on earth may have been the result of such seeding (I suppose we'll never know) but from then on, any additional seeds that arrived may have simply been absorbed into the developing biosphere. Genetic variation seems rather well accounted for as it is -- unless some ID agent is involved -- so why this effort to have panspermia do all the heavy lifting?
That is why I used the term attributable, rather than the term attributed.
There is no panspermia hypothesis to my knowledge where further genetic variation cannot be attributable to additional seeding of extraterrestrial origin, but there are panspermia hypotheses where further genetic variation must be attributable to additional seeding of extraterrestrial origin. Brig Klyce's version of "cosmic ancestry" is one of those.
The definitions of the hypotheses must be parallel in sentence structure to facilitate communication:
To accomplish that end, I’ve worked your new definition into our previous sentence structure as follows:
Panspermia: A hypothesis that life on earth is explained by earth's receiving seeds of life which are prevalent throughout the universe – rather than by abiogenesis and natural selection alone.
Collective Consciousness: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by a collective of volitional cause – rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
And you are correct, PatrickHenry, this is an expansion of the original, origin-of-life, definition of panspermia where we started. But it is covered in the various discussions of panspermia hypothesis which we have researched. The panspermiasts seem to think that genetic variation is primarily caused by seeds from outer space and not random mutation + natural selection alone.
On behalf of the Lurkers, I thank you.
Q. Why is a new understanding of evolution necessary? Isn't the existing theory of evolution satisfactory?
A. The theory that more organized forms of life on Earth evolved from less organized forms over about four billion years is well-established. But new genes are necessary for this process. The theory that new genes arise by random mutation of old genes and natural selection is not established. The result of every known mutation is either neutral or deleterious, except when the disabling of a gene is advantageous. It is possible that "gene duplication" followed by other mutations could have occasionally produced a closely related new gene with a function very similar to the original one. But a convincing account of even one wholly new gene with an unrelated specific new function, arising from mutations of an existing gene, or assembled from random strands of nucleotides, has not been given.Q. What is the new understanding of evolution that comes with Cosmic Ancestry?
A. It is that new genes, already wholly composed, are installed into the genomes of species to enable evolution to advance.Q. Where do new genes come from, according to Cosmic Ancestry?
A. Ultimately from the same place that all of life comes from, elsewhere, space.Q. But there is absolutely no plausible mechanism by which genes could come from space.
A. Genes can come from space as silent DNA, within the genomes of bacteria, or in extragenomic units such as plasmids; or as viruses.Q. How do the new genes get installed?
A. Infectious diseases spread new genes around very effectively. It is very well-known that viruses often install their genes into their host's genome.Q. There is absolutely no convincing evidence that evolution is driven by genes from space.
A. True, the evidence is not yet convincing to many people. But there is no evidence that random mutation can compose new genes with important new coding sequences. The math makes it absurdly unlikely. Why are people convinced of that theory? The conservative theory is that such genes already exist. If so, it would be logical to conclude that they come from space. They have to come from somewhere, and that's the only "somewhere" there is.Q. But where do the new genes come from originally?
A. Cosmic Ancestry does not attempt to answer this question. It seems logical that the genetic instructions for life on Earth came from prior life elsewhere in space. That this life has a nonliving origin, a well-entrenched belief, may be simply mistaken speculation.Q. I think you're crazy.
A. I know.
So, there ya go! Please note that my posting of the above without critique is not meant to imply agreement with any part whatsoever, except the last item. I quite strongly disagree with Brig Klyce's characterization of key elements of the modern synthesis theory of genetic evolution, but that is not the issue at hand.
Obviously I was not clear enough at first. By "no more accurate" I meant in view of the future potential for even non-Euclianian thinking to be outstripped.
So is it your thinking that, should some devastating calamity befall the world, every species would have an equal chance of propagating their progeny? You don't think that some members of a specis would have a better chance than others?
Obviously it depends on the nature of the calamity. History has always demonstrated distinctions of weakness and strength. Science is able to detect the same on many levels. To attribute such distinctions to natural selection and leave it at that is to leave the question unanswered as to what caused the devlopment of life from one species to another.
. . . many creationists have a goal of weakening the teaching of MNS that contradicts their religious beliefs.
That reads better. MNS presents a challenge to the religious beliefs of creationists that should not go without answer. It seems difficult, as a young earth creationist myself, to "weaken a teaching" when a.) It is already a givne in the eyes of its adherents, and b.) It can hardly be any weaker than it already is, based upon its starting assumptions.
Where are [the contraints of formal, emprical science] not helpful? Better yet, where have they been shown to not be helpful?
They are not helpful in setting up testable hypotheses in determining such basic facts as 1.) whether you exist, 2.) whether time has always behaved consistently for all observers, 3.) phenomena that are apprehended only by reason and thus not available for observation in any physical sense. The limits of formal, empirical science have demonstrated themselves amply over time, as evidenced by its inability to address any of the above while at the same time claiming the above are, therefore, strictly outside the bounds of "science" in the narrow sense.
Panspermia: A hypothesis that life on earth is explained by earth's receiving seeds of life which are prevalent throughout the universe – rather than by abiogenesis and natural selection alone.
Hoyle's panspermia conjecture is accounted for by abiogenesis (in gas clouds and comets) and by natural selection (after landing on earth) alone.
Your latest desperate attempt to salvage your credibility is invalidated. Try again.
You insisted on the scope in your own definition. And with that scope, it doesn't matter to the panspermiast hypothesis whether the seeds, prevalent in space, arose by abiogenesis elsewhere or whether they always existed, as Kylce asserts.
For comparison:
mine: Panspermia: A hypothesis that life on earth is explained by earth's receiving seeds of life which are prevalent throughout the universe – rather than by abiogenesis and natural selection alone.
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