[This article is a continuation of "Intelligent Design: What practical use might it have?", Part 1."]
In Part 1 we looked at a list of proposals by Design Theorist William Dembski as put forth in his book "The Design Revolution" regarding areas of research that are open to study from an ID perspective. Below is the rest of the list of possible areas of design inquiry:
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8. Evolutionary computation. It is becoming increasingly evident that organisms employ evolutionary computation to solve many of the tasks of living. But does this show that organisms originated through some form of evolutionary computation (as through a Darwinian evolutionary process)? It seems that the immune system, for instance, is a general-purpose genetic algorithm that targets an interloper, sets up a gradient that tracks the interloper and then runs a genetic algorithm specifically adapted to that gradient whose output is a molecular assemblage that vanquishes the interloper. All of this sounds very high-tech and programmed. Are GPGAs (general-purpose genetic algorithms) like this actually designed, or themselves the result of evolutionary computation?
Evolutionary computation occurs in the behavioral repertoire of organisms but is also used to account for the origination of certain features of organisms. It would be helpful to explore the relationship between these two types of evolutionary computation as well as any design intrinsic to them. My work in chapter four of No Free Lunch lays out some of the theoretical groundwork for this. We need, in addition to theoretical work in this area, a large contingent of design-theorist computer programmers to write and run computational simulations that investigate the scope and limits of evolutionary computation. One such simulation is the MESA program (Monotonic Evolutionary Simulation Algorithm) due to Micah Sparacio, John Bracht and myself. It is available on the ISCID website (<www.iscid.org/mesa>).
9. Understanding discontinuity. Evolution is committed to continuity in a broad sense. Its main business is to connect dots. But for dots to be plausibly connected, they need to be reasonably close together. That’s why the absence of transitional forms, gaps and missing links or intermediates constitute a problem for evolution. To be sure, evolutionists do not regard the absence of intermediates as a problem in the bad sense. They regard such discontinuities not as challenges to their theory but as discontinuities that are only apparent and that will disappear once the missing intermediates are found. Consequently, whenever an intermediate is found, it is regarded as a triumph for evolutionary theory...Evolutionary biology attempts to explain the absence of intermediates from an evolutionary path on the assumption that the intermediates did once exist. But let’s turn the question around. Suppose that discontinuity is a fact not just about the history of life as we know it but about the history of life itself: in other words, suppose the intermediates never existed. In that case, how did biological forms in all their vast complexity and diversity come about? In asking this question, let’s hold off asking for the underlying cause or causes of biological complexity and diversity. Rather, let’s merely ask what a video camera would see if it were scouring the past and recording key events in life’s history. There are exactly four possibilities:
• Nonbiogenic emergence: Organisms emerge without the direct causal agency of other organisms. In place of life begetting life, here we have nonlife begetting life.
• Generative transmutation: Organisms, in reproducing, produce offspring that are vastly different from themselves.
• Biogenic reinvention: Organisms reinvent themselves in midstream. At one moment they have certain morphological and genetic features; at the next they have a vastly different set of such features.
• Symbiogenic reorganization: Organisms emerge when different organisms from different species get together and reorganize themselves into a new organism.
None of these possibilities is out to lunch. Nonbiogenic emergence had to happen at least once, namely, at the origin of life. Symbiogenic reorganization has been Lynn Margulis’s main focus of research, and there is increasing evidence for it. Biogenic reinvention (organisms changing in midstream) is also not that crazy when one considers the life cycles of certain organisms that from one stage to the next are completely unrecognizable (e.g., the metamorphosis of the butterfly or, even more extremely, the various stages of the liver fluke). Finally, generative transmutation suggests a programmed view of evolution where, like a computer program that kicks in at a certain time...organisms change in one generation. French paleontologist Anne Dambricourt has argued for this view in respect to the emergence of Homo sapiens. With regard to these four possibilities, the crucial question is how to make sense of them in light of intelligent design. Clearly, none of them makes sense without massive coordination of chemical and biological processes, a coordination that bespeaks intelligent direction.
10. Steganography. Finally, we come to the research theme that I find most intriguing. Steganography, according to the dictionary, is an archaic expression that was subsequently replaced by the term cryptography. Steganography literally means “covered writing.” With the rise of digital computing, however, the term has taken on new life. Steganography belongs to the field of digital data embedding technologies (DDET), which also include information hiding, steganalysis, watermarking, embedded data extraction and digital data forensics. Steganography seeks algorithms that are efficient (i.e., have a high data rate) and robust (i.e., are insensitive to common distortions) and that can embed a high volume of hidden message bits within a cover message (typically imagery, video or audio) without their presence being detected. Conversely, steganalysis seeks statistical tests that will detect the presence of steganography in a cover message.
Consider now the following possibility: What if organisms instantiate designs that have no functional significance but that nonetheless give biological investigators insight into functional aspects of organisms? Such second-order designs would serve essentially as an “operating manual”—of no use to the organism as such but of use to scientists investigating the organism. Granted, this is a speculative possibility, but there are some preliminary results from the bioinformatics literature that bear it out in relation to the protein-folding problem...
While it makes perfect sense for a designer to throw in an “operating manual” (much as automobile manufacturers include operating manuals with the cars they make), this possibility makes no sense for blind material mechanisms, which cannot anticipate scientific investigators. Research in this area would consist in constructing statistical tests to detect such second-order designs (in other words, steganalysis). Should such second-order designs be discovered, the next step would be to identify algorithms for embedding these second-order designs in the organisms. My suspicion is that biological systems do steganography much better than we do and that steganographers will learn a thing or two from biology—though not because natural selection is so clever, but because the designer of these systems is so adept at steganography...
Steganographic information that’s useful only to a scientific investigator but not to an organism would be different in kind from the functional information needed by an organism to build complex structures independent of such investigators. Second-order steganographic information...could not be included in the organism’s functional information because these forms of information are intended for two completely different audiences: scientific investigators and organisms (i.e., scientific investigators with their need to understand nature in the one case, organisms with their need to survive and reproduce in the other).
Even if second-order steganography doesn’t pan out, first-order steganography (i.e., the embedding of functional information useful to the organism rather than to a scientific investigator) could also provide strong evidence for intelligent design. For years now evolutionary biologists have told us that the bulk of genomes is junk and that this is due to the sloppiness of the evolutionary process. That is now changing. For instance, researchers at the University of California at San Diego are finding that long stretches of seemingly barren DNA sequences may form a new class of noncoding RNA genes scattered, perhaps densely, throughout animal genomes. Design theorists should be at the forefront in unpacking the information contained within biological systems. If these systems are designed, we can expect the information to be densely packed and multilayered (save where natural forces or intentional disruption have attenuated the information). Dense, multilayered embedding of information is a prediction of intelligent design.
William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 314ff
The main purpose in surveying Dembski's list of 10 possible areas of research for ID theory to engage in is to show that there is much more to ID theory than simply making philosophical or religious claims (as ID is commonly mislabled as consisting of). Whether or not ID will ultimately develop into a successful branch of scientific study remains to be seen. Its proponents must "publish or perish." However, due to the acrimonious nature of any debate involving ID as well as attempts by some ID proponents (and bandwagon supporters from the ranks of Creation Scientists hoping to use ID to secure a foothold for their own form of creationism) to prematurely get their views taught in public schools, actual research from an ID perspective faces challenges that other areas of research in their infant stages do not.
The debate shows no signs of becoming more charitable anytime soon (as will likely be demonstrated in the comments section below!). Yet in the end it is the core questions ID proponents are asking and and the answers they come up with that will determine whether or not it succeeds. It's interesting to compare the past 15 years or so of the ID controversy with the early years of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Some of Darwin's harshest critics came not from the ranks of theologians, but rather from his fellow naturalists. Over the decades Darwin gained a fair hearing and an honored place in the history of science. Will ID do the same? Only time and research will tell.
For an excellent summary (albeit from a sympathetic perspective) of the development of the modern ID controversy, especially with regard to the rhetoric employed on all sides, see:
"Doubts About Darwin" by Thomas Woodward
Recommended resources on the subject of Intelligent Design and Darwinian Evolution:
Books (con-ID):
"What Evolution Is" by Ernst Mayr
"The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins"
"Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller
"The Language of God" by Francis Collins
Books (pro-ID):
"The Edge of Evolution" by Michael Behe
"Intelligent Design" by William Dembski
"Darwin on Trial" by Philip Johnson
"Icons of Evolution" by Jonathan Wells
Websites (con-ID):
National Center for Science Education
TalkOrigins.org
Kenneth Miller's homepage
Websites (pro-ID):
The Discovery Institute
www.intelligentdesign.org
www.origins.org
International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
Intelligent Design Network
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Comments
I'll say it again here:
Evidence for higher purpose in nature is not, in of itself, evidence for an ID... not even the natural alien-intervention kind.
Which throws a whole nother monkey's wrench into the issue once the politics is removed.
"i" wrote:
"once the politics is removed."
LOL@SillyMe for thinking that this can ever happen... sheesh.
This is exceedingly articulate nonesense. A little name dropping, a little extract-of-wired magazine. No harm done.
These are interesting ideas, but where's the beef? Perhaps ID will begin to generate evidence, based on these or other suggested avenues of research. Only time will tell.
James-Michael, I appreciate your posts on this contentious subject.
As long as research is done honestly to obtain verifiable fact it can feed science. There is no reason why any of these inquiries would, in themselves, support id. It isn't unlikely that the evolutionary process would itself produce genetic methods for such things as immunity etc. Indeed, the immune system is known to use a mechanism called hyper-mutation in reaction to infection. This would be a product of selection.
I might note that in your references, both Philip Johnson (a lawyer not a scientist) and Jonathan Wells have been repeatedly debunked. Behe and Dembski are on a higher level.
I disagree that Behe or Dembski are on higher planes Remember Behe's owm university department has a strong disclaimer disavowing anything he says as not being supported by his collegues at Lehigh. Dembski was essentially kicked out of Baylor for his activities there.
Their arguments are just as vacuous as the rest. They are just cloaked their arguments in meaningless biochemical and mathematical jargon respectively.
One of the best refutations (there are several) of Dembski is in Tanner's book "Why Intelligent Design Fails..." For Behe one needs to look no further than the Dover trial coverage from many sources.
All are scam artists who actually want to keep ID a mystery for their own financial and political gain
Dembksi: "But for dots to be plausibly connected, they need to be reasonably close together. That’s why the absence of transitional forms, gaps and missing links or intermediates constitute a problem for evolution... Evolutionary biology attempts to explain the absence of intermediates from an evolutionary path on the assumption that the intermediates did once exist."
And you know what? It has consistently worked out very well. We are constantly finding more transitional forms and filling more gaps. It really does appear that continuity existed between the dots. Tiktaalik, Archaeopteryx, molecular phylogeny, etc. We keep finding more pieces. And all the pieces fit into the sort of continuous history of life biologists talk about. Several of the ID books of the last 2 decades chose whale ancestors and the reptile => bird transition as their arguments from ignorance. And what have been the hottest areas in paleontology since? That's right.
It is counter-productive for you to attempt to be the carrier for this message. If Intelligent Design is really science; and not religion in disguise, then why am I hearing about it from the "Methodist Examiner" and not from biologists?
Reginald,
ID, like Darwinian Evolutionary theory, has definite religious significance, regardless of one's view of it. The ID-Darwinian debate fascinates me even though I don't see ID as foundational or necessary. It's an interesting cultural debate with significance for one's worldview, thus I write about and share information from its proponents.
I wholeheartedly admit to being an interested layman, rather than an expert. Where my expertise lies is in the implications surrounding the debate and the rhetorical strategies employed by those on all sides--particularly in how it relates to a Biblical worldview and perceptions of the Christian faith.
The Religious makes themselves and religion look more and more ridiculous by arguing against evolution. Their blindness, willful or otherwise, and dishonesty, displays the destructive influence of religion on reason and truth.
And why bring up Steganography?
Steganos went extinct with all the other dinosours over 65 million years ago. What do they have to do with anything!
Bill, The "religious" aren't all arguing against evolution. In fact, ID proponents don't reject "evolution" (Behe accepts common descent). What ID questions is the Neo-Darwinian theory that all biodiversity can be attributed to the mutation/selection mechanism without any teleological guidance or frontloading of information.
Incidentally, two of ID's harshest critics are Christian theists. Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins both strongly support Darwinian evolutionary theory. Mainline religious groups in general support evolution to varying degrees, with it being the dominant view among Catholics, Orthodox, Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans and Episcopalians.
My own personal rejection of the Darwinian macroevolutionary account is not based on my religious views (I grew up as a theistic evolutionist). I don't reject evolution, or even speciation per se. I just believe it's a grossly incomplete theory that is presented with far too much confidence and dogma by its proponents
"(Behe accepts common descent)."
Except when he doesn't. He apparently believes that random mutation and natural selection occur, have been documented, and explain the bulk of the diversity of life which we observe. But he also believes that sometimes, when no one is looking, God sneaks in and creates a flagellum or some such. His specific examples of unfillable gaps have fared very poorly under the efforts of those who believe in doing actual scientific research instead of sitting back declaring that it can't be done.
I'm very impressed with your ability to cut and paste, Mr. Smith. Do you have any thoughts of your own?
James-Michael, as long as you are able to believe as the truth what is impossible and ridiculous, that is religion, you will not be able to know that evolution is a fact, and that the theory of natural selection is correct. Religion blinds. And despite sentences about the compatibility of religious claim and evolution (Miller and (yikes! Collins should know better), the reason creationists are fighting evolution so strenuously is that they suspect that religion and evolution are incompatible. Faith is the capacity to believe in what you know isn't true ..I think Twain said that. And to believe what is true is false. I said that! Bill
Well...at least you're not at all biased, Bill.
;)
BTW, should Collins "know better"...or should Bill know better? My money's on the latter!
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