A reader asks about Atheists attacks on Paley's Watchmaker Analogy. The Watchmaker's Analogy is simple and goes something like this: A person is walking through an area thought never to have been visited by man. He finds a watch lying on the ground. Is it more parsimonious to believe that it just occurred naturally, or that an intelligent being created it? The analogy is intended to argue for an intelligent creator, since intelligence exists.
Detractors of the analogy cite (what else) evolutionary "theories" which eliminate the need for an intelligent creator. In fact the emergent "emergence" hypotheses are now rampant.
Analogies are not proofs. An analogy is a logical demonstration of a rational procedure, using fabricated situations that are easier to understand than the more complex subject under scrutiny. And parsimony is not a law of nature, it is a rough guideline and can be violated as necessary. Applying parsimony to an analogy is senseless.
The evolution "theories" are really not theories in the technical sense, they are hypotheses created not out of known fact but out of assumed possibility, as imagined in the mind of an evolutionary philosopher. Evolution and emergence hypotheses for the main part cannot be proven due to a lack of direct empirical contact with the living ancient processes they intend to explain.
Evolution is supported by the abductive reasoning which is merely a fanciful extrapolation based on existing information, but is projected well beyond the actual, forensic or empirical scientific data. Abductive evolutionary hypothesis is therefore the creation of assumed information (artificially created, not forensically found) which is not only not existant, the information cannot conclusively be shown empirically. In short the information does not exist, except as a story. So it is known as "Just So Story Telling", after the famous book by Kipling.
The Watchmaker's Analogy is not abductive, it is purely an analogy. It is not made up to serve as a possible scenario or as a set of prefabricated data proposed to answer an otherwise unanswerable question. Analogies are demonstrations, not solutions.
So I think that fighting the Watchmker's battle is futile and unnecessary. It is an inconsequential skirmish that can't have an impact on the main issue. Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism are in the same category, and are futile arguments in an empirical atmosphere.
Perhaps if we ask, "is there a God to be found in material existence", we can say "No, not from any data, only from inference". We can also say that about evolution. But that is not the real question.
The question is, "is there an existence beyond the material, and if so how does that relate to the material existence?" Because within that question are embedded the larger, Godellian issues of hierarchical comprehension, hierarchical existence, hierarchical truth, and the meanings of all these.
Thanks for the question.
6 comments:
Stan, haven't spoken with you in a while. Thanks for the note re: my grandmother's passing.
About this post: when you mention 'Just-So-Stories', you appear to be conflating evolution itself (which refers to both a fact and a theory) with what is often called the 'adaptationist program' within evolutionary biology. The seminal discussion of this in the philosophical literature is Gould and Lewontin's often-cited piece on the spandrels of San Marcos.
And, for the record, I would argue that Gould and Lewontin's critique is overdrawn. Daniel Dennett and others have taken Gould to task on this point, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Gould's call for 'pluralism' in biology preceded from a desire to make evolution less objectionable to Marxism...but that is a topic for another day. The important thing is that one can be throughly Darwinian without substituting 'Just-So-Stories' for the actual business of doing science.
Scott,
Thanks for the comment, and welcome back.
As you know, I have found no reason so far to believe that evolution is a fact; therefore I also don't believe that it is a theory. Rather it seems to be a hypothesis based on items of individual existence, such as bone sets, not on proof of a continuum.
The spandrel analogy is not a proof of evolution, it is just an attempt to simplify a very complex concept. My opinion is that analogies - although I sometimes resort to them myself - are never completely adequate, and fall apart under scrutiny. But most of all they are poor substitutes for empirical replicable fact.
I have to go now, I'll try a better reply later.
Stan
(puzzled)
Surely you recognize that populations change genetically over time, and that speciation events are known in the literature? If that isn't evolution, what is it? The question is not whether or not evolution occurs; as biologists define it, it manifestly does. Nor is the question whether natural selection can cause evolution; again, there's plenty of real-world data to support that. The question is the extent to which evolution by natural selection can explain the diversity and distribution of life over time and space. We biologists think it's the best model we have right now, one that has survived many attempts to kill it, and one that has sufficient predictive and explanatory power to knit together a host of past and future observations. Thus, a theory. Doesn't make it a final truth or a metaphysical principle, and definitely doesn't justify substituting self-indulgent speculation for experimental test.
I might add that your reply shows that you may not quite understand the point I was trying to make. I was not offering up Gould and Lewontin's work as 'proof of evolution', but rather that there has always been misgivings within my discipline against the 'pan-adaptationist' stance they criticize and which was once dominant within paleontology. The critique you mention of 'Just-So-Stories' was a critique first made not by a creationist, but by an evolutionary biologist of the first water nearly 30 years ago. The adaptationist program can be uncoupled entirely from the general notion of evolution by natural selection in particular cases: that is what the analogy of the spandrel was offered to suggest. I realize you would like to make arguments from first principles and all, but there really is a literature out there on evolutionary theory and I think you might find it helpful to learn a bit more about it.
Scott said,
"Surely you recognize that populations change genetically over time, and that speciation events are known in the literature? If that isn't evolution, what is it? "
This is the same ol' discussion we've had before, without any actual data being presented. Every "speciation" event has proven to be the equivalent of a chihuahua attempting to breed to a great dane. Not convincing. Shifts within the population genetic distribution, yes. Leaving the distribution, no. Speciation? Well, you can define that however you want, but it doesn't change the fact that chihuahuas and great danes are still dogs. (old hat analogy, I know, but the claims are also old hat).
Scott said,
"...but there really is a literature out there on evolutionary theory and I think you might find it helpful to learn a bit more about it."
Scott, I feel that I must point out that by now I probably have read as much on the subject as have you. In our previous discussions you rejected each and every piece of literature that I brought to the discussion, regardless of the source or currency. (Due to your objection to "mutation" as a requirement for leaving the extant genome, which I found in 100% of all sources). But your position was left unsubstantiated. There is more literature on the subject than any person can read, much less afford to purchase for resource material. So if you have some actual specific, empirical, replicated data to show, please do so, and I'll check it out.
I stand by my response (I guess to a different question on a different posting) to wit: if there is only one material story available, then it makes no difference how absurd or improbable the story is. It will be kept as "probable" since it is the "only". Parsimony does not apply to a one-element discussion. And again, while I agree that ID is not in any way a scientific, empirical pursuit, I also recognize that materialism is not the final answer, being self-refuting.
The material story is self-limiting the discussion to a single element in this case, and that element will be the official doctrine regardless of the realistic probability of its truth value being in the trivial range. Actually less than trivial, given the material need for abiogenesis to also be valid.
So, again Scott, if you have specific data, please present it. We have already debunked the Grant and Grant Finch study; what's next? I'm game. Just kindly don't tell me to vaguely "learn more".
And again, welcome back!
Here's an extension to the watchmaker's argument:
The idea to make a watch came from a mind. We can tell that it has been designed because it can be represented by language in a blueprint, or even just as an idea.
Like the watch, DNA can be symbolically represented by a language. So the syllogism looks like this:
1. DNA is a language, code, and information storage mechanism.
2. All languages, codes, and information comes from a mind.
3. Therefore, DNA was designed from a mind.
This is way off topic, but thought you'd find it interesting. I'm liking your blog so far!
Alrighty, you've already covered this topic on your blog, just didn't scroll down far enough. :)
I got that stuff from Perry Marshall's website too.
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