Francis Collins on ID.

Evolution is a lazy mans way to nonsensical conversation with like minded numb skulls!

Bravo Dr. Collins!

I just wish we had more vocal Theistic Evolutionists out there battling the BS and FUD that the Creationists love to spread about religion and science.

I think "smackdown" is probably not the right term here. Tucker Carlson doesn't debate Dr. Collins - he just asks him a couple questions and lets him make his case. He even identifies creationism as religion, and ID as a form of creationism in his introduction (or at least, gives that impression). I don't often agree with Tucker Carlson, but he hits the right note here.

I didn't mean a smack-down on Carlson, I meant a smack-down on ID. Although that's pretty much an exaggeration as well, but hey, it makes for colorful language. :)

That was beautiful. We need more spokesmen like him.

There's no direct conflict between science and belief in god, as Collins argues. But there's certainly a tension between positing god as the initiator of creation - a posit that has no evidential basis - and the scientific attitude of ontological and explanatory parsimony. And of course looking to god as the solution to problems of meaning and morality, as Collins does, raises many more problems than it solves, e.g., theodicy: why would a benevolent god allow the tsunami? Naturalists, as opposed to supernaturalists such as Collins, don't have any such conundrums to solve. About which have a listen to religious naturalist Ursula Goodenough's recent NPR interview on "The morality of nature" (about 33 minutes in).

Collins thinks that evolution can't explain our intuitions of right and wrong, or altruism, so that we have to invoke god: "...this instinct, which I would argue evolution cannot explain because it sometimes causes you to do things that are self-destructive and evolution wouldn't generally ask you to do." But in fact lots of work is going on right now to explain altruism and other aspects of our moral intuitions in terms of inclusive fitness. So here Collins appeals to the very god of the gaps he earlier inveighed against in countering ID's specified complexity nonsense.

And Collins can't be right that god is completely outside the natural world, since if he created it, it should show signs of his handiwork. If there are no such signs, why should we take the creation hypothesis seriously? Answer: "the step of faith" that he admits is necessary. Collins and others are perfectly free to believe in god, but in justifying such belief, there really aren't any rationally defensible grounds, only faith. And faith is pretty much the antithesis of the empirical stance of science.

Of course there is no conflict between belief in God and evolution. But that's hardly the point that IDers and creationists are ultimately interested in. They essentially want to push their own religion which is usually Christian and based on the Bible. There are conflicts between evolution and religion and it is this which is the problem.

Similarly, there is a conflict between plate tectonics and YECs. Yet YECs would rather believe that a benevolent God who created the Earth 6000 years ago is so out of touch that he lets tsunamis and other natural disasters happen, killing hundreds of thousands. Ironically, the Lisbon earthquake of the 18th century struck while people were in Church!

It's not about God it's about blind and fanatical adherence to human philosophies known as religions.

And faith is pretty much the antithesis of the empirical stance of science.

We have scientists arguing on the basis of their study of the natural world that there is no god. And they're committing a falsifment

It's my opinion that we are discussing the very crux of the issue here. The apparent dichotomy of faith vs. science is certainly at the root of the whole thing, and has been since before darwin.

I have several questions:

Can the moderators PLEASE not let this degenerate into a petty sqabble amongst the trolls??? Please move any posts not on topic to the BW.

thanks

There was an article referenced by PvM last month about evidence indicating possible genetic components to religious beliefs.

Is it possible there is actually a genetic component at the base of all the arguments? Is that why there never seems to be a decrease in the percentage of folks who believe that "god basically created man"? for support, check out the Nat. Geo. article "Was Darwin Wrong" on this in the Nov. 2004 issue.

Aside from the above mechanical consideration, I ask how we get around folks who so firmly believe they can somehow find "god in the works". Is there even a way to argue against this?

If the percentages of folks who believe thus don't really change over time, regardless of evidence or argument, once they gain power (er, maybe they already have?), who is to stop them from changning how science is actually done?

Most directions in science depend, to a great extent, on the availability of funding. Any scientist knows this to be basic reality. He who controls the pursestrings, to a large extent, controls the direction of research. If (when... now?), the folks who disbelieve in science control the pursestrings... what should be the response?
There is lots of evidence to indicate that this may already be the case.
http://www.ems.org/science/ucs_update.html

This battle can't be won in the minds of these folks, can it? There has to be a better, more efficient approach.

cheers

Can the moderators PLEASE not let this degenerate into a petty sqabble amongst the trolls???  Please move any posts not on topic to the BW. thanks

— sir_toejam

But I do think there are rational arguments for the existence of god. They don't come out of my science of geenomics. They come out of why is it you and I know what is right and wrong. We know, as do all people who have lived on this planet, as far as we can tell, this moral law. If you're looking for evidence of god, a holy person who cared about good and evil, where better than inside yourself? With this instinct, which I would argue evolution cannot explain because it sometimes causes you to do things that are self-destructive and evolution wouldn't generally ask you to do that. I think you can reason yourself all the way up to the edge of the conclusion that god is more plausible than no god. It still requires that step of faith.

at the risk of violating my own request to stay on topic..

just to clarify, it's not the inflammatory comments that bother me, it's the comments that are simply meant to change the subject entirely.

Evolving Apeman and JAD often do this, i have noticed. and only in one thread were they berated for it.

I have no objections to either of these folks posting here, just hoping the topic remains the focus, that's all.

cheers

My question for Mr. Collins would be on what basis do you conclude evolution can't explain self-destructive behaviors? Ever hear of Lemmings? 

— Evolving Apeman

To complete Steve Reuland's answer:
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

here's a nice, simple explanation for those who hadn't heard of animal mirgration theory before, and actually thought lemmings commit mass suicide:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1081903.htm

What I found fascinating about his comments is how utterly misguided his comments on ethics are. He's close to implying the "creationism"* of normative ethics in divine command theory while quite rightly rejecting ID, which is closely related to his area of expertise.

I hope my comparison doesn't seem like a cheap strain there, but appealing to theism is about as meaningful for resolving the issue he proposes as it is for undestanding blood clotting cascades. With his specific argument, he's just resigned to another God of the gaps.

Shoot. I meant to say "metaethics" not normative ethics. This is why I should use the preview function.

It's not to important, since he doesn't come out and say anything that directly supports DCT. It's just potentially hovering over the affair like a spectre. Instead he relies on a teleological explanation for why humans have moral intution.

aside from the lemming issue... EA raises an interesting point. There has been a long and controversial history of applying evolutionary theory to human behavior (for those unfamiliar, the scientific branch is the human subset of sociobiology). My own major prof, George Barlow, actually wrote a nice summary of the issue:

Sociobiology: Beyond Nature/Nurture? A.A.A.S. Selected Symposium 35, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. 1980.

I guess the question becomes, do we wish to discuss issues that have already been argued to infinity over 20 years ago?

cheers

I'm pretty reluctant to read too much into what Collins said in a short, presumably off-the-cuff interview. I'll agree though that what he said about morality wasn't terribly well considered. In fact, it seems somewhat inconsistent with his strong reliance on faith. (If you've got faith, you need not bother citing evidence, as he points out.) But I doubt he came to the interview prepared for an in-depth theological discussion, so I'm willing to cut him some slack.

But in fact lots of work is going on right now to explain altruism and other aspects of our moral intuitions in terms of inclusive fitness. So here Collins appeals to the very god of the gaps he earlier inveighed against in countering ID's specified complexity nonsense.

— Tom Clark

theodicy: why would a benevolent god allow the tsunami?

And Collins can't be right that god is completely outside the natural world, since if he created it, it should show signs of his handiwork. If there are no such signs, why should we take the creation hypothesis seriously? Answer: "the step of faith" that he admits is necessary.

At the risk of not merely feeding trolls but actually becoming one, I am an atheist. Until about 7 years ago, I was an evangelical Christian and a full-on creationist. It was not science that led me to question and ultimately reject my faith--it was the internal incoherence of Christianity, theodicy, biblical criticism, and the like. Now, I've always loved science, especially biology, so I was thrilled to find that evolutionary theory could make me, in Dawkins' words, "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." But no amount of science could ever by itself make a person an atheist, because no amount of physical observation could ever prove the non-existence of all possible gods. What science can and does do is help describe what sort of a universe is likely once we've admitted that faith in a god is more tenuous than we'd previously realized.

Greg,

I was an atheist, and was thrilled to find that I could be an intellectually fulfilled Christian. Evolutionary theory, any scientific theory, can explain a lot about the physical world, if that is all you care to know. And there is a lot to live for in the physical world alone, but many, many people feel there is something beyond that.

I see no reason to agree with you that "faith in god is more tenuous than we'd previously realized."

Thanks for feeding me.

he's just resigned to another God of the gap

There is no conflict between science and religion

— katarina

Katarina:

I would like to hear the story of what triggered your conversion to Christianity; however, I don't think this is on topic for this thread, so consider this an invitation to write me directly, if you'd like.

"Many point to the book of Job, but we don't pretend to always understand God's motives"

indeed, motives nor mechanism. If you believe there was actually a "conversation" between god and Job, or whether it is meant as an allegory from some clever folk who realized the illogic of trying to outthink their own god, I believe that was supposed to be the lesson of Job:

faith does not necessitate knowledge of motive or mechanism.

I keep wondering why folks constantly try to re-invent a theory (ID) that simply was never meant to be necessary in the first place.

it makes no difference whether one has faith or not, from the tenants of the religion itself, the book of Job warns essentially against doing this very thing.

Is it a case of blind ears and eyes, that perpetuates a belief that something like ID is even necessary?

anyone care to venture an answer?

cheers

I'm willing to cut Collins a lot a slack. He's a rather recent, adult convert to Presbyterianism. It's not as if he arrived at his religious views with no thinking.

At the same time he represents a view I've personally found quite widespread in science, particularly in biology. That view is that the pursuit of knowledge is a Godly quest, and God smiles on those who pursue the truth hard and long, honestly.

Frankly, the creationist position is a minority position in almost all Christian sects, and certainly a minority position among Christians worldwide. We need more people like Collins standing up to make that point. Scientists are people, too -- some of them cranky, some of them not much tolerant to creationist folderol, but most of them very good, very virtuous people. Creationism pretends something else to be the case. It's nice to see Collins stand up and say the facts.

Collins also had an interview published in Christianity Today a few months back, to which I cannot link at the moment. One may wish to pursue that interview, too.

Nay, Bayesian Bouffant, my religion does not make testable claims about the natural world. Misguided people who wear the label of my religion, however, do.

By definition, (dictionary.com) "Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe." Notice the word supernatural. Beyond nature. Beyond what we can study scientifically. It is not a case of religion being in conflict with science, but of people's understanding of religion being in conflict with an accurate view of the natural world.

Most churches today accept the theory of evolution as it is.

"Toejam, I would love to here a coherent explaination of human behavior based on evolution."

gees, does anyone else here want me to go through the entire history of sociobiolgy? from wilson's ants=humans hypothesis, or later?

I doubt it. I will if anyone else wants me to, but it could take a while.

perhaps better saved for a different topic?

@EA: I thought the reference I provided was a good one to review the theory and history behind sociobiology and it's usage in explaining human behavior. did you need more references?

try doing a search on:

E. O. Wilson
Sociobiology
Nature vs. Nurture
or even:

human behavior evolutionary theory

you would probably better served than what i could post in a forum like this.

cheers

"Frankly, the creationist position is a minority position in almost all Christian sects, and certainly a minority position among Christians worldwide"

a minority position to be sure, but by how much? The article i made reference to in Nat. Geo. cites studies that have been done over the last 50 years or so that indicate a relative stable percentage of 45% of folks surveyed in the US that believe "God created basically what is considered to be "humans" less than 10,000 years ago."

we often get unrealistic viewpoints of what is really out there based on the viewpoint we gain from our own households.

Score one more for science actually being of value in pointing out what the reality is. A minority of 45% is a pretty big minority, wouldn't you say?

not only that, but the fact that the figure has not changed in over 50 years is even more troubling.

cheers

Tucker Carlson recognized the Dover ID debate is about religion.
Yet an article in today's York Dispatch quotes several parents who find the "science" of Of Pandas and People convincing, or want their kids to hear about "other scientific theories."

We still have a lot of educating to do.

Considering that about 14% of Americans have no god-belief, one must assume that, according to the survey quoted by sir_toejam, the majority or at least a near-majority of religious persons in the US are young-Earth creationists. Sadly, I do not find that hard to believe. Among US evangelicals, which are a significant group, it is surely a very strong majority.

btw, i have the nat geo article right here in front of me. If anyone has any questions about the content, please ask away and i will attempt to quote directly from the article.

much of it seems relevant to this discussion, in particular.

cheers

Sir Toejam only gave half the story. About 45% are creationists, 45% are creation evolutionists & 9% are Darwinists. The 45% creation evolutionists (like Collins) have a logically incoherent postion and are most apt to conversion (in either direction). Some would argue that ID represents "god" directed evolution. While Dembski's explanatory filter supports this, both Darwinism and ID are in the realm of metaphysics and not science.

It's quite sad that the Darwinist minority postion (9% of pop.) is incorporated into high school textbooks under the phoney guise of science so that there can be "intellectually fulfilled atheists." Darwinists need to be more honest and put together their own "houses of worship" where they can sit around and pontificate on their evolved existence and morality within their naturalistic framework. I'm all for your first amendment rights, just respect mine!

Evolving Apeman,

What do you mean by "Darwinists"?

Darwinist - Believe that humans evolved from a primative single celled organisms and mechanism for this is the same as in micro-evolution, chance mutations and natural selections. This is not what most creation evolutionist hold too and reflects a lack of understanding for evolution. They believe in God directed evolution and that by some divine miracle certain mutations were not truly random. Not a very coherent position to conclude the all-powerful Christian God works via chance and then points to creation in Scripture (Romans 1) to verify his existence.

Hope that clarifies things for you Katarina.

Apeman suggests that a goodly chunk of Americans could go either way on creationism vs. evolution.

No, not quite. Most of us are Christian, but very, very, very few Americans are willing to sacrifice insulin treatment for diabetes when the creationists tell us it's evil. We have too many relatives and friends whose lives depend on the stuff.

Some wag said, inaccurately, that there are no atheists in foxholes. It may be said, accurately, that there are few, if any, creationists in the infectious disease wards. I've known a few Christian Scientists willing to stand up and say they'll put their lives on the line for their beliefs that infections are intelligently designed things that can be beaten with prayer. I know of no others.

In 1999, Apeman, Gallup went a bit deeper, and put the question in a form like this: Do you want your kids NOT to know about evolution, or do you want the public schools to teach evolution? 83% of Americans said "teach evolution," with about half of those saying they hoped creationism could be explained as well.

The 45% of believers who understand evolution, when combined with the 9% you call hardcore "Darwinists," makes a majority of 54%. If an avian flu pandemic hits, I predict that 80% of Americans will seek vaccine. They will vote with their feet (and arms) for evolution in public schools, for evolution theory to fight disease, and for evolution-based serum to be injected into their bodies to save their lives.

Salvation is fine, but it can wait, according to most people. Waiting to see if the Cubbies can pull a BoSox this year is worthwhile. Staying alive is a key value most Americans hold dear. Evolution helps them stay alive; creationism doesn't. The choice is not difficult for most people.

The way that poll is worded, it's very unlikely that anyone but an atheist would answer that it was "evolution without God's help". Indeed, the percentage of people who answered that way is roughly the same as the percentage of atheists in the country.

However, it's really absurd for people like Apeman to assume he knows that each of the 45% who give some credit to God are necessarily "anti-Darwinists". Francis Collins is within that 45%, and he stated quite clearly that thinks Darwinian evolution is basically correct. The same is true of some of our contributors here on PT.

That poll, by the way, has been shamelessly abused by the ID crowd, who have dishonestly claimed that everyone other than the 9% who said "without God" are ID advocates.

45% of folks surveyed in the US that believe "God created basically what is considered to be "humans" less than 10,000 years ago."

Evolving Apeman,

No, things are not clarified at all. When you refer to Romans I, I don't see the relevance to your apparent claim that an all-powerful god would not lower himself to work through chance events.

By the way, I like Romans I:17: "...as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

And your definition of a Darwinist is incoherent at worst, and poorly written at best. What do you mean, "This is not what most creation evolutionist hold too,"? Why does it reflect "a lack of understanding of evolution"?

What is your position, anyway? If I am straying off topic, please feel free to take it to the BW.

Ed "evolution" is an umbrella term. Darwinists love to play "bait and switch" with it.

Most Americans, including myself and essentially all of the ID movement want the science (microevolution) taught (i.e. antibiotic resistence to microbes)

Macroevolution is different. It is not scientifically verifiable since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale. It has no technological implications. It is based on philosophical assumptions and only has philosophical implications.

So lets cut the straw man analogies. Give American's the following question:

Evolution is a process of natural progression driven by chance events. Do you believe your existence is the result of this evolution occuring over millions of years from a bacteria?

Good luck on getting 20% support.

By their vary nature, unreproducible/unobservable events such as macro-evolution are philosophical.

Naturalists, as opposed to supernaturalists such as Collins, don't have any such conundrums to solve.

— Tom Clark

ack! before you allow EA to quote statistics to you, I will post the actual survey results from the article, so no-one is working on false assumptions backed up by fake statistics:

These figures are from the gallup poll quoted in Nat geo, nov, 2004:

poll number: 1000; done by: random telephone interview (americans only).

the 45% number is based on agreement to this question:

"Did god create human beings pretty much in their present form at one time withing the last 10,000 years or so?"

other results from this poll:

"only 37% were satisfied with allowing room for both God And Darwin - that is, divine intitiative... [with] evolution as the creative means"

Collins would be in that minority.

"only 12% believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvment of a god."

"The most startling thing about these poll numbers is ... that they haven't changed much in over two decades"

"In other words, nearly half the American populace prefers to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most"

while some of this is certainly due to literalism, most of this, the article attributes to either plain ignorance, or brainwashing by "proselytizers and political activists, working hard to interfere with the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools."

"The main sources of information from which most americans have drawn their awareness of this subject, it seems, are haphazard ones at best: cultural osmosis, newspaper and magazine references [nat. geo excluded, of course :) ], half-baked nature documentaries on the tube, and hearsay."

hence the conclusion that rejection of evolutionary theory is mostly based on ignorance of the real evidence that supports it.

cheers

BTW, anyone who argues that the majority must be right, on any issue, is a moron.

evolutionary theory doesn't depend on "majority" support to maintain its usefulness as a predicitive and explanatory theory. It's support from the thousands of LEGITIMATE studies that have attempted to refute it over the decades is more than enough.

"the earth was created 11,017 (!) years ago"

not "around 10,000" years ago? a decidedly odd exact figure. i wonder where that came from?

Are there any bona fide philosophers reading this who can weigh in on whether there's such a thing as a "philosophical event"?

— Russell

I not sure what a "philosophical event" would be.

The term "Darwinist" seems to usually mean somebody that accepts that part of evolution theory that the speaker rejects. And since different people reject different parts of the theory, the meaning can vary quite a bit. Which makes it more or less useless if one is actually trying to say something.

Henry

Macroevolution is different.

no, it isn't

It is not scientifically verifiable

yes, it is.

since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale.

yes, we can

It has no technological implications.

yes it does

It is based on philosophical assumptions

no it isn't

and only has philosophical implications.

and, nope, it actually only has philosophical implications for philosophers, not scientists.

really, can we get beyond this?

I think EA should preface all posts with the statement:

"I have personally rejected all logical argument and the mountains of evidence in suppport of evolutionary theory, in favor of preseving my own philisophical viewpoint"

the only topic of relevance EA can adress in this thread is,

Why does evolutionary theory threaten my personal belief structure so?

tell, me EA, do all theories that don't rely on philosophy threaten you as well? Do you find economic theory offensive?

any direct attacks on evolutionary theory by yourself, amount in my mind to a two year old attempting to refute General Relativity, and are just about as useful to any meaningful debate.

cheers

From the limited context the author (who is the author by the way?) seems to mean that "macroevolution" must be arrived at by argument as opposed to being established by direct observation.

— Michael Finely

off topic:

i too, would like to be able to take advantage of the "e" and "s" links.

how exactly does one register to utilize these features? I can't seem to find any link to do so.

cheers

From the limited context the author (who is the author by the way?) seems to mean that "macroevolution" must be arrived at by argument as opposed to being established by direct observation.

— Michael Finely

I agree with Henry, the use of the word "Darwinist" doesn't help the debate because it is a subjective description. If people were only more honest in their arguments, it would be quickly resolved.

A person should be able to state their own case, their own reasons, and whatever research backs it (if your position has to do with science), or whatever philosophy supports it (if your position is not based on science), without resorting to criticism of the positon of others, whatever it may be based on. If you cannot state a positive case, then you have an incomplete case.

If you have an incomplete case, then resolve it before arguing for it.

"please do not derail this thread with random, ill-informed claims about evolution"

thanks, steve.

i too, would like to be able to take advantage of the "e" and "s" links. how exactly does one register to utilize these features?  I can't seem to find any link to do so.

— sir_toejam

how can i become a jack-booted fascist then? Jack boots aren't easy to find these days.

:)

on the issue of belief and observation, i recently ran across this study at stanford, which deals with:

"whether and how beliefs about physical objects and about the physical world generally can be justified or warranted on the basis of sensory or perceptual experience -- where it is internalist justification, roughly having a reason to think that the belief in question is true, that is mainly in question."

kind of a purely philosophical address to the question: do we see with our eyes or our hearts? which, at least in my mind, goes back to the issue at hand. How can someone like EA totally ignore all of the evidence supporting evolutionary theory?

here's a link to the study:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/

cheers

Francis Collins is one of the relatively few professional biologists who rides a motorcycle. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

I'd like to get back to something Tom mentioned:

"Collins thinks that evolution can't explain our intuitions of right and wrong, or altruism, so that we have to invoke god: " . . . this instinct, which I would argue evolution cannot explain because it sometimes causes you to do things that are self-destructive and evolution wouldn't generally ask you to do." But in fact lots of work is going on right now to explain altruism and other aspects of our moral intuitions in terms of inclusive fitness. So here Collins appeals to the very god of the gaps he earlier inveighed against in countering ID's specified complexity nonsense."

so, who agrees with Tom's accusation of Collins simply referring to yet another god-of-the-gaps theory when he attempts to exclude morality and "insitincts" as addressable by evolutionary theory?

who does not?

I for one, both agree and disagree at the same time, which i will explain after a few others have posted their thoughts.

cheers

Macroevolution is different. It is not scientifically verifiable since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale. It has no technological implications. It is based on philosophical assumptions and only has philosophical implications.

— Evolving Apeman

So lets cut the straw man analogies.

sir toejam, your comments are thought provoking. I did not read through the whole article you offered. But one of the ideas I glimpsed from it is that everything we perceive has to be internalized, and in that process, how do we know we are perceiving what we think we have perceived? How can anyone be certain of reality, and how can we measure reality?

My answer to that is, simply put, peer review. If what one person perceives is perceived by many others, it most likely represents reality, and not merely perception of reality. If everyone adheres to the principles of the scientific method, this should be pretty consistent.

However, questions about what is beyond consistent observation are indeed subjective. So why doesn't every person have their own religion? I believe it is because God speaks to each individual at the chosen time, and his message is consistent. But his message cannot be reproduced, because belief in him has to always remain a matter of faith.

However, when you hit the science of psychology, which studies internal perceptions, feelings, decisions, behaviors, etc., then who knows. And what does instinct really mean? How can you separate instinct from learned behavior, nature and nurture are so closely intertwined that it's nearly impossible.

So attempts to understand human behavior such as altruism produce results that may be based on perceptions of the researchers, based on many assumptions about the nature of behavior. It seems logical that we evolved altruism, but it may not be provable. Those are my thoughts, not written in stone, I don't mind if anyone challanges.

I said "But his message cannot be reproduced,"
Obviously it can, in the Bible, and through word of mouth, but I meant to say, scientifically.

No, it is not a God of the gaps argument, because it is not dealing with a subject that is entirely physical. The brain has heaps of evolutionary pressure from its ancestry and environmental pressure in its own life span. However, consciousness itself is nonphysical. It is not under the same kind of threat of scientific explanation as is a physical process like the origin of life.
Whether consciousness actually effects our decisions and moral sense or whether we are just experiencing a joy ride through time and space is uncertain and untestable. It is also uncertain whether any of our altruism is not just a result of our heritage and environment. I would venture to guess that it is not. Altruistic behavior is one thing, but being able to empathize with someone else's point of view and vicariously benefit from helping him requires that you have an awareness (point of view) to begin with.

That second to last sentence of mine was a bit garbled. I meant to say that I would venture to guess that not all of our altruism is just a result of our heritage and environment. I don't know how to quote people yet. If it is unclear, I am responding to Sir_Toejam's last (as of this writing) post.

@kat:

"If what one person perceives is perceived by many others, it most likely represents reality, and not merely perception of reality"

ah, but what of illusion then? What we perceive might be consistent with what others perceive, but what if the general perception is unfounded? I'm sure you have seen demonstrations of optical illusions before; these are quite consistently viewed similarly from person to person. How do we test for "optical" illusions?

surely a general consesus is insufficient?

"questions about what is beyond consistent observation are indeed subjective"

are they? I doubt Einstein would agree. asking questions about what is beyond consistent observation might be interpreted as aking questions about "the gaps" yes? Is it correct to presume that postulation of what fills those "gaps" is based on pure subjective reasoning?

The issues this paper raises are kinda why i posted the link. To me, the explanation of why the logic "works" for those who believe in ID, in the face of considerable general consesus in favor of evolutionary theory, is what the core of the "debate" is really all about.

Is it really just due to some psychological internal misconception, or is there something else behind it?

again i refer to the article posted by PvM last month, suggesting a genetic role in these different thought patterns.

what would happen if sufficiently convincing evidence of a large genetic component to ID philosophy was presented?

of course, the sufficiently convincing part would only relate to the scientific community :)

as far as defining instinct vs. learned behavior, this is one of the first things i had to learn as a behavioral ecologist. they might be defined different in social contexts, but from a purely scientific viewpoint, they both have very distinct definitions, and are eminently testable (at least with animals :) )

typically, innate, or instinctive, behaviors are those thought to rely primarily on a genetically coded instruction set. they will typically exhibit themselves regardless of external stimuli, but they may be modified a bit by external stimuli.

learned behaviors, while always having at least some genetic component (directly or indirectly), are primarily those that are able to be influenced by environmental factors primarily, rather than exhibited on their own with no external influences.

"So attempts to understand human behavior such as altruism produce results that may be based on perceptions of the researchers, based on many assumptions about the nature of behavior"

true; the assumptions were initially based on observations of animals, and, correctly or incorrectly, extended to attempt theorization about human behavior.

that is not to say that the entire field of sociobiology has not produced some interesting and useful findings. It's that most of the techniques we use to study animal behaviors don't need to take into account the tremendous influence a complex vocabulary and knowledge transmission system can have on their behavior. As such, it is much easier to test evolutionary hypotheses as relate to less complex animals than ourselves.

As evolutionary theory melds with anthropology and psychology, more interesting tests are being suggested to test human behavior patterns.

the spectre of extreme controversy always hangs over the social conclusions drawn from work in sociobiology, however. The science may be sound, but the conclusions can be so abused as to be dangerous. Kind of like the atom bomb.

again, we are dangerously close to beginning a discussion of sociobiology, which i am all for, if everyone else here is, but i think it might be best saved for another topic.

on the subject of alruism, I suggest reading the king of inclusive fitness:

WD Hamilton

in fact i seem to recall reading that he may be working on something completely new again, so expect to see his name in the news soon :)

his theories on inclusive fitness and kin selection are the standard by which evolutionary biologists measure whether altruism actually exists or not.

I'm a bit out of the loop on recent literature in this field, but IIRC, when i was a grad student, the only demonstrable case of "true" altruism that wasn't eventually proved to be a case of kin selection was blood sharing in vampire bats.

cheers

Macroevolution is different. It is not scientifically verifiable since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale. It has no technological implications. It is based on philosophical assumptions and only has philosophical implications.

@harq:

"However, consciousness itself is nonphysical"

is that to say it is therefore, non-testable? I had a friend who was a cognitive phychologist who might disagree.

I would argue that consciousness is not necessarily a purely metaphysical concept; I think Freud was probably the first to attempt a concrete analysis of how consciousness and subconsciousness works, but then again, I'm not sure he managed to get too far with it. Carl Jung built on that in a more realistic theory, imo, but still had some problems with delving a bit too much into the metaphysical from time to time. I haven't followed the development of this much since then...

as to whether the idea that consciousness lies in the realm of the metaphysical is not currently "under attack", i guess it would depend on who you talk to.

any cognitive psych folks here?

I could theoretically propose that there are no untestable gaps, just a lack of current technology and theory to test them.

as to altruism and empathy. couldn't i just as easily argue that empathic behavior would be selected for under certain circumstances? isn't your perception of "a point of view" exactly the subject that the psych study i posted addresses?

the whole point of my post here being, why is it even necessary to search for god in the "unexplainable" or even in what is thought to be the "metaphysical"?

doesn't faith go beyond that? if that is what faith amounts to, a constant search for the creator in the unexplainable and metaphysical, I personally wouldn't find too much interest in that. rather like banging my head against a wall for all eternity.

cheers

It is not scientifically verifiable since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale. It has no technological implications.

"ID is non-stop Amateur Hour."

unfortunately, the way things are going politically, we may all be sitting in on amateur hour for far longer than an hour.

Is there a two drink minimum?

If Hamilton is working on something new, and we get to see it, all bets are off....

glad you caught that :)

Ed "evolution" is an umbrella term. Darwinists love to play "bait and switch" with it. Most Americans, including myself and essentially all of the ID movement want the science (microevolution) taught (i.e. antibiotic resistence to microbes) Macroevolution is different. It is not scientifically verifiable since we can't observe processes on a geological time scale. It has no technological implications. It is based on philosophical assumptions and only has philosophical implications.

So lets cut the straw man analogies. Give American's the following question: Evolution is a process of natural progression driven by chance events. Do you believe your existence is the result of this evolution occuring over millions of years from a bacteria? Good luck on getting 20% support.

actually tho, you could call the reappearence of Trivers a kind of "resurection of hamilton" :

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/03/27/the_evolutionary_revolutionary/

in fact, i would go so far as to recommend trivers over hamilton for a better view of current theory regarding altruism and kin selection.

cheers

sorry if my humor was a bit dry.

:)

Click on the Kwickcode Formatting link directly uner "Post a Comment" and you'll get a tutorial on how to quote, as well as do other formatting.

We have scientists arguing on the basis of their study of the natural world that there is no god. And they're committing a falsifment on the other side of the gap we have fundamentalist views saying science is dangerous.

"If one defines macroevolution as generation of a new species, as most biologists who use the term do define it, it has been observed happening in real time at least since 1865 with the observed rise of Spartina townsendii. It's rather a fool's mission to deny what has been observed dozens, if not hundreds of times"

while it has not been thus defined by any here, i wonder if by "macroevolution" they have moved the requirements up to the level of phyla, rather than species?

i.e., how does one go about making a bird from a dinosaur, or a fish from a trilobyte, for example.

I could be wrong. maybe EA can define the level of "macroevolution" he is speaking of?

not that it would make any difference. draw the "gaps" wherever you wish, and i will show you why evolutionary theory still works, provided you don't ignore evidence and logic.

er wait, strike that. I'm not really interested in banging my head against a wall.

cheers

"Click on the Kwickcode Formatting link directly uner "Post a Comment" and you'll get a tutorial on how to quote, as well as do other formatting."

i'll do that, the moment PT starts letting me edit my posts.

Evolving Apeman, in another thread: Most of us biologists don't have the guts to come out of the "closet". But we can admire the martyrs that do. We're to busy publishing and writing grants for real science. We recognize our professional reputation could be ruined, not by the content of what we publish, but for daring to cross the high priesthood of Darwinian Fundamentalists. Anyone's research and statements can be shredded to bits by a critical observer. (emphasis added)

Same guy, this thread: Darwinist - Believe that humans evolved from a primative single celled organisms and mechanism for this is the same as in micro-evolution, chance mutations and natural selections.

"Another dishonest claim. How do creationists think they can get by claiming "selection" really means "random?" These words are not under shells. Anyone with half a working brain knows that natural selection is not a chance process. "

i think he is confusing the mechanism for speciation, selection, which is not random, with the mechanism for mutation, which often is.

cheers

@andrea:

your post is supportive of my contention that EA is just a pseudonym for JAD.

Re "If you have an incomplete case, then resolve it before arguing for it."

Great, but the people who understand that don't need to be told, and the people who don't understand it aren't going to listen anyway.

Henry

Hello again.
Sorry ToeJam, but I can't find the article you cited. I am not accusing you of not posting one, I just haven't found it.
Like I said before, I think that behavior and thought has strong evolutionary and environmental pressure. I agree that consciousness has physical corrolates, and that the physical world effects it. When I sleep, my consciousness disappears until I wake up or have a dream. My brain processes information that I am not even aware of; neuroscientists have isolated parts of the brain associated with consciousness.
These phenomena, though, are not consciousness itself. My brain could theoretically display the physical corrolates of consciousness, such as a being functional and alert, but I still might not be aware of any of that activity.
I do not have an answer to how or why consciousness would interact with brains the way it does--I am not going to evoke any particular mysticism. But as I understand the god of the gaps concept, it only applies to inferring design in unknown purely physical events, such as the construction of particular complex systems for which we do not have a complete evolutionary history. I think that because of the non-physical component of consciousness, god of the gaps does not apply to it.
Let me stress again, though, that I understand that genes and environment influence thought, behavior, and even consciousness. The first two can be measured. But the exact effects of stimuli on someone's actual experience have no chance of being measured without the researcher himself having that experience, and even then, he could not analyze it objectively.

SSA,
Harq al-Ada

@harq;

sorry, not sure which article you are referring to?

perhaps i am misinterpreting what you said.

in your first post i read:

"However, consciousness itself is nonphysical. It is not under the same kind of threat of scientific explanation as is a physical process like the origin of life."

In your second post i read:

"I think that behavior and thought has strong evolutionary and environmental pressure. I agree that consciousness has physical corrolates, and that the physical world effects it. When I sleep, my consciousness disappears until I wake up or have a dream. My brain processes information that I am not even aware of; neuroscientists have isolated parts of the brain associated with consciousness"

sorry, i seem to have interpreted that as a functional definition of consciousness.

I see you have clarified a bit in the second post.

" But as I understand the god of the gaps concept, it only applies to inferring design in unknown purely physical events, such as the construction of particular complex systems for which we do not have a complete evolutionary history"

nope, while some creationists may limit it to purely physical events (e.g., the fossil record), in theory the application of teleological thought is not limited to purely physical distinctions. Nor does evolutionary theory limit itself to the purely physical. of course, i would define physical in this sense as morphological, and behavioral as non-physical.

If evolutionary theory could only address the physical, the entire field of study that i based my graduate career on, behavioral ecology, simply wouldn't exist.

all of this is just to clarify my own definitions, of course.

From that, i would argue that consciousness, while more difficult to analyze, could also be "measured", and thus subject to scientific scrutiny as well. it is indeed, just one more gap.

again, i am no cognitive psychologist, but i am sure if you do a bit of searching, you will be able to find research in this area.

even back in the days of carl jung (60's), he wrote a book called:

Aeon: researches into the phenomelogy of self.

wherin he explores the study of consciousness and subconsciousness.

I'm sure much more has been done in the field in the last 40 years?

the problem with assuming there is a phenomenology, to borrow Carl's term, that can't be studied, is that once we CAN study it, then there is always the next thing that "can't" be studied, and the next...

assuming god exists in these "gaps" somehow becomes a search where the target is ever elusive, always "just around the next corner", and just out of reach.

am i being at all clear?

cheers

Forensic science, for example, puts people in prison based on inferring facts about past events that no one witnessed directly. The creationists, to be consistent, would have to claim that forensics is nothing more than philosophy (as if that's some sort of horrible insult) and refuse to accept its methodology.

I'm sure you have seen demonstrations of optical illusions before; these are quite consistently viewed similarly from person to person.

— sir-toejam

Nay, Bayesian Bouffant, my religion does not make testable claims about the natural world. Misguided people who wear the label of my religion, however, do.

— katarina

Nay, Bayesian Bouffant, my religion does not make testable claims about the natural world. Misguided people who wear the label of my religion, however, do.

— katarina

along with a Straw Man fallacy for switching from "religion" to "my religion".

Beyesian Bouffant,

I see your point, but you have not shown that Christianity, or really anything properly defined as religion, seeks testable evidence in the material/natural world. I said "my" religion, but I didn't mean to personalize it. It must be personal, but its applications should be global, otherwise it is of less value to society.

I would say look at the official positions of most Christian denominations, such as the United Methodist Church, on acceptance of the theory of evolution. These positions are decided at conferences, gatherings of the leaders of the church, who are well educated in theology and usually experienced in leadership of congregations. Only a tiny minority of denominations reject or question the validity of the theory, based on these annual meetings. The congregation is a different question. They are more representative of the American public as a whole, or in a certain region. Their opinions could depend on many factors, including the current propaganda being pushed by the DI, and have very little to do with the position of their church per se.

I don't know what defines a Scotsman, but it is pretty clear what defines religion, and if you looked at the definition, the emphasis is on the supernatural. If you work from that definition, then it becomes reasonable to differentiate a person with true religious motivation from one who only pretends (or pretends not to publicly, but pretends to privately) to have religious motivations.

Re "or a fish from a trilobyte,"

That seems unlikely, as trilobites are arthropods .

Henry

Let's take DNA testing. We can calculate the probability a DNA sample is associated with a suspect. How you may ask? Because we indepedently compare DNA sequences drawn from identified people to develop the probability rules. No such data exist to indepedently confirm common descent by CHANCE driven mutations and natural selection on a geological time scale.

Re "If what one person perceives is perceived by many others, it most likely represents reality, and not merely perception of reality"

At least, until somebody invents holodeck technology. ;)

Re "the only demonstrable case of "true" altruism that wasn't eventually proved to be a case of kin selection was blood sharing in vampire bats."

Off the top of my head, that may be about as altruistic as maintaining payments on an insurance policy. Or put another way, help others when you can, you're more likely to get helped when you need it.

Henry

But Ed you need to verify the methodology. Comparing DNA between two species is commonly used as a measure of relatedness. But it is indirect and not verified. It really is only slightly more sophisticated than focusing on phenotypes. Monkeys and humans look alike so they must be of diverged off the evolutionary tree much later than did snakes. Its the kind of data that's good for developing hypothesis but pretty worthless for testing a hypothesis (unless you want to use circular reasoning?) Of course we can always turn to evolution as the "anti-theory of the gaps"

Comparing DNA between two species is commonly used as a measure of relatedness. But it is indirect and not verified.

"But Ed you need to verify the methodology"

minor correction, but important.

methodology = the study of method

i think you mean he needs to verify the method.

" Comparing DNA between two species is commonly used as a measure of relatedness. But it is indirect and not verified"

what do you mean by this: indirect and not verified? please clarify.

"It really is only slightly more sophisticated than focusing on phenotypes"

actually, cladistics (er, taxonomy) via standard morphology vs. genetics is an ongoing debate, but it is already becoming clear that they are not mutually exclusive, and both have usefulness in different contexts.

" pretty worthless for testing a hypothesis "

how can you say that without even knowing what hypotheses are being tested using genetic relatadness data obtained via PCR?

why do you even bother attempting discussions in subjects you know so little about?

drowning in your own ignorance doesn't bother you a bit, does it?

ugh.

"How do trolls type in this position? Do they put the keyboard down by their feet?"

no, i think they use special keyboards with big fat buttons. or else they have friends type for them.

are we finished with any substantive discussion?

I'm all for throwing rocks at the trolls for entertainment, but there was at least an interesting discussion going on before.

I'd like to reiterate a point i made earlier:

"ah, but what of illusion then? What we perceive might be consistent with what others perceive, but what if the general perception is unfounded? I'm sure you have seen demonstrations of optical illusions before; these are quite consistently viewed similarly from person to person. How do we test for "optical" illusions?

surely a general consesus is insufficient?"

to which Kat replied with the idea of peer-review.

I think she kind of missed my point.

If ten people look thru a glass window, 9 see a blue tree and one sees a green tree, do we necessarily conclude the tree is blue because the majority perceives it to be so?

nope. that is what science is for, to answer the question:

is the tree really blue, like most of us think it is, or is it really a different color?

to which we then proceed to ask, what might be causing the tree to appear blue when it is not?

the glass maybe?

so that is my point; theory by consesus is not science. science requires the application of a testable hypothesis to a question of perception.

the idea of peer-review in science literature is not primarily to provide consesus as to whether an article should be published, it is more directly related to examining methods and conclusions to see if any obvious mistakes were made.

Is that any clearer?

cheers

@henry:

"Re "the only demonstrable case of "true" altruism that wasn't eventually proved to be a case of kin selection was blood sharing in vampire bats."
Off the top of my head, that may be about as altruistic as maintaining payments on an insurance policy. Or put another way, help others when you can, you're more likely to get helped when you need it."

actually, i wouldn't trivialize it too much (or should i say Triverize it :) ).

True altruism is extremely rare.

suggest you read through the following for a brief introduction:

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/~strone01/altruism.html

cheers

note tho, that the examples used in the first paragraph aren't ones i would use. I think the author is just trying to illustrate a point.

in fact, I think i could find a better primer.

let me check around.

cheers