Axe is a zealous creationist associated with the Discovery Institute (he is the director at their “Biologic Institute"). Axe is a molecular biologist, and thus actually knows some science. He uses this knowledge to write mundane papers, at least two of which have been published in low-tier, although genuine, journals - despite being uninteresting and mundane. Axe’s work is hailed by the Discovery Institute as evidence for their views. Of course, there is no actual support of intelligent design in these published papers, and Axe himself admits as much: http://pandasthumb.org/arc
Insofar as Axe is a creationist with real scientific publications to his name, Axe’s work is one of the main contributions to a sheen of legitimacy for the ID movement. But given that his publications do not at all support or even touch on their views (but are willfully interpreted as such by other ID-proponents without Axe complaining) he is an important contributor to erecting the framework of dishonesty that is the ID movement.
Diagnosis: Dishonest wingnut who might pose a genuine if minor threat to science and rationality as a creationist with actually published (though unrelated) material.
And he shows himself to be extremely fond of the standard Creationist false dichotomy: If just evolution were shown to be false then creationism would be correct. He seems nevertheless to be dimly aware of the problem with this assumption, and he makes some rather feeble attempts at goalpost-moving his way around them.
ReplyDeleteAnd no; despite being touted as the scientist of the DiscoTute, he doesn't have the most tenuous grasp of biology, as evidenced by this feeble and profound misunderstanding of basic notions.
ReplyDeleteGotta love how evolutionist loons can't admit that there are smart, educated people who believe that God created life. Apparently some guy who holds a PhD from Caltech and did postdoctoral work at Cambridge "knows some science." If he "knows some science" then you...? The immediate response to such nonsense would be to ask you to produce your resume and see whether you're one of the few people on the planet with a stronger one, but on second thought, comparing resumes doesn't mean as much as we would like - after all, Albert Einstein developed special relativity while basically unemployed (working in a patent office since he couldn't get a job as a physics professor).
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you are talking about. There are smart, educated people who believe that God created life, and that has nothing to do with evolution. There are even a few people, such as Axe, who have his credentials in order, yet who continues to reject the cumulative efforts of all the rest of science. It has nothing really to do with Axe's credentials, except that denialists appear to love showing off the few serious scientists who are also denialists there are (compare the ridiculous lists thrown off by the Discovery Institute, CMI, the Oregon Institute and so on (to which Project Steve is a brilliant response)).
DeleteAxe did not get his PhD from Cal Tech.
DeleteAre you seriously comparing Axe to Einstein? That is funny.
DeleteJai Dayal, Axe got his PhD in Chemical Engeneering from Cal Tech in 1990
DeleteDouglas Axe is an outstanding scientist. Maxwell, Max Plank, Boyle, Borh, Mendel, Faraday, Newton and many other great scientist of all times use to believe in God to.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it would be advantageous if you learned to use the terminology right. *Arguments* are not true or false, but strong or weak, valid or invalid. *Claims*, on the other hand, are true or false. Furthermore, phrases such as "probabilistically true premises" are literally meaningless.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, I recommend that you teach yourself something about scientific methods and avoid creationist stupidity such as "historical scientific account that is logically impossible to experimentally repeat".
Let me try to give you a brief idea (not that I harbor any beliefs that you'll get it). The basic, guiding notion behind scientific investigations is that of confirmation (or falsification) through observation. You dream up a hypothesis and figure out what observations that hypothesis entails (ideally deductively). Then you test whether those predictions are correct. If the predicted observations happen, your hypothesis is confirmed; if they don't, your hypothesis is falsified. With me thus far?
Good. And just from that description, you should easily see why the creationist distinction between "historical" and "observational" sciences is amazing bullshit. Take evolution. Evolution yields a range of predictions *observable today*. For instance, it predicts that certain fossils will be found in certain geological strata and not others. That's a prediction that can be confirmed or falsified by observations. If you find the fossils where you predict, the hypothesis is confirmed; if the fossils show up elsewhere, your hypothesis is falsified. And evolution has yielded an enormous range of successful predictions.
And of course those observations are repeatable! The point about repeatability is that your observations should be independently verified by other scientists. And the fossil record certainly is. Just send *someone else out there to check that the fossils are where they are supposed to be. That's all there is to repeatability.
And the range of observational tests that evolution has passed is amazing. The most significant is probably the discovery of the gene (remember that evolution was formulated long before the discovery of the gene). If common descent was correct it would obviously have all sorts of implications for what one should observe in the genome. And those predictions have all come out confirming common descent, and nothing yet falsifying it (think of it: unless common descent was correct we would have no reason to think that humans and cats would exhibit any particular similarities in genetic makeup).
By contrast, intelligent design is not a scientific theory. Intelligent design does not yield any predictions whatsoever. To derive testable predictions you would have to make conjectures about the nature and intentions of the designer, something ID proponents of course refuse to do. Would the gene be a test for Intelligent Design? Not at all. Intelligent Design gives us no reason to think that the human genome should have any similarities to the cat genome. It doesn't give us any reasons to think it should be particularly different either. It doesn't give us any reason to expect anything in particular whatsoever. So genes cannot be used as a test to confirm or falsify Intelligent Design. And they haven't come up with anything else either.
The overall point is this: You talk about "inference to the best explanation". But evolution is *not* justified by inference to the best explanation. Inference to the best explanation was used to formulate *the original hypothesis*. But when that one was formed it had to be tested through observation. And evolution is, as I have pointed out, justified *by those observations*. Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is not an explanation for anything, nor does it have any observational support. It's bunk.
“G.D., I suspect that you are confusing epistemological truth with ontological reality.”
ReplyDeleteThat accusation would have been more forceful if you had actually given any evidence suggesting that I did.
Of course, either a designer exists or it doesn’t. That’s hardly a very profound insight. But when you claim that I.D. arguments have conferred a high probability on the proposition that such an agent exists … well, you haven’t offered any reasons. Whether you can offer any depends on one of the points under debate. I have claimed that I.D. doesn’t offer any testable predictions that can be used to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis. If that is correct, then it follows that no observation will be evidence for (or against) the existence of a designer either (i.e. to have empirical evidence, you need a falsifiable hypothesis – but this should be a relatively familiar point). And without empirical evidence, you have no grounds for assigning any probability to the hypothesis either. (I doubt that apriori measures, e.g. a principle of maximum enthropy would give you anything)
“Of course it is illusory to believe in a single correct scientific method … modern science employs a host of methods each designed to suitably investigate, explain and propose new directions for further research”
Oh, please. You were the one who suggested that evolution was, in some sense, non-scientific by drawing a distinction in kind between the methods used to test evolution and the methods used in, say, chemistry. I pointed out that the fundamental method used is the same; evolution is supported through prediction and observation, just like chemistry and medicine, not by historical speculation (and from that perspective there is indeed one correct scientific method: prediction and observation of whether the prediction holds)
“… simply do not lend themselves to traditional experimental techniques frequently put to use in the laboratory because the latter is designed and dedicated to test ideas and hypotheses pertaining to operational science not those related to matters of historical science - these require a different, unique set of methodological implements and modes of inquiry, the very ones I have previously mentioned (e.g. vera causa principle, eliminative induction, in addition to more conventional methods).”
ReplyDeleteNo, that’s simply not correct. Both in evolution and in chemistry, you start by forming a hypothesis. From that hypothesis you derive certain observations. Then you see whether your predictions are correct. That’s the method that defines a scientific inquiry, that’s the way a hypothesis in chemistry is tested, and that’s how evolution is tested. Whether you do it in a room with a “laboratory” label on the door or with a shovel is utterly irrelevant when it comes to determining whether one is a scientific test of predictions or not – different tools are relevant for different types of data gathering; microscopes for medicine, telescopes for astronomers, shovels for evolutionary biologists, but how on earth does that make one less scientific than others? Of course hypotheses about Cambrian organisms don’t lend themselves to testing by instruments specifically designed to test hypotheses in chemistry. Neither do hypotheses in medicine or astronomy. But the methodology – the inference procedures, quantification of data and reasoning principles involved – is precisely the same. That’s what make all these disciplines scientific.
You seem still to be under the delusion that evolution applies a different set of principles for inquiry than chemistry. It doesn’t. You still seem to think that a) there is a relevant distinction between “operational science” and “historical science”, and b) that evolution belongs to the latter. And that’s a creationist myth. Evolutionary biology, astronomy, chemistry and medicine are all tested by observations of how things are now, observations that are eminently repeatable and quantifiable. You do mention some principles e.g. (“vera causa principle, eliminative induction”) that you seem to think make a difference between how observations are managed in evolutionary biology and, say, chemistry. You utterly fail to tell us how – instead, what you seem to be engaged in is a desperate attempt to argue that evolution is, somehow, more philosophical or a metaphysical thesis than theories in chemistry or astronomy. But that’s false. It may have different philosophical implications, but it is science in precisely the same way chemistry or medicine is science, and justified on precisely as scientific grounds – predictions and observations, and the same basic methods.
“Your conflation of various aspects of theories espoused by numerous philosophers of science (Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, etc.) of the 20th century is not without merit and generally reflects the consensus view.”
You throw the names out there. These are names I know well. Please tell me what you think I am conflating.
“.. the ENCODE project has validated the predictive value of I.D. theory”
No. False. 80% of our genome is junk. The ENCODE project did not even suggest otherwise, though a lot of people who don’t know anything about the issue seem to think otherwise, because of the exasperatingly silly hype by the ENCODE leaders (e.g. here: http://thefinchandpea.com/2012/09/06/encode-media-fail/).
Furthermore, I fail to see that whether our genome is mostly junk or not is a test for I.D. Tell me: Does I.D. predict that our genome is mostly functional? Why?
“you have demonstrated an unyielding commitment to materialism,”
ReplyDeleteNo, I have not. I am committed to the evidence. Materialism is not a presupposition or commitment of science, though currently we have been given no reason to accept any non-materialist explanations for anything. If you or anyone else could come up with a non-materialist hypothesis that yielded predictions that better fit with the data, then I would be on board. Thus far, no such hypothesis has been forwarded. One reason, of course, is that no one has even the remotest understanding of what a “non-material” process or substance would be, and before you have that it will be incredibly hard to construct any testable hypothesis.
“the countervailing evidence strongly supporting the existence of an intelligent and powerful agent”
You have offered no such evidence, perhaps with the exception of a brief reference to the ENCODE project, which definitely does not show what you apparently think it shows (heck, even the ENCODE themselves leaders agree: http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2014/05/what-did-encode-consortium-say-in-2012.html)
“Now you claim that evolution makes predictions about the fossil record? Question begging - you can't have it both ways, the fossil record must either be a proof for evolution OR be something about which evolution makes vindicating predictions.”
I have tried to read this several times, and the only way I can make sense of this claim is to attribute to you a serious misunderstanding of science. Astronomers use their hypotheses to predict the orbits or even existence of planets. When planets are observed where the hypotheses predict them to be, that confirms the hypotheses. Same thing with evolution and the fossil record. Evolution predicts that we should see certain things in the fossil record; when we do, that’s evidence for evolution. There is no circularity here. Of course, when astronomers predict the existence of planets, it isn’t evidence for the hypotheses before those planets have been independently observed. For evolution, conjectures about the fossil record isn’t evidence; but observed fossils are.
Of course, then you go on to deny the fossil record. At that point I won’t bother to engage you; the fossil record is pretty remarkable (and you should be careful about talking about “confirmation bias”, Simpson). But I will engage with one point:
“I am to believe that the alleged plenitude of transitional fossil forms supports evolution but their absence does not refute it. As Popper once remarked, "Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”"
The plenitude of transitional fossil forms support evolution. Of course, we fossilization is exceedingly rare, and we don’t expect to find all missing links. The absence of such fossils does not refute evolutionary theory. But that does not make the theory in any way unfalsifiable: what would falsify evolution would be to find the “wrong” fossils – to find mammals in Precambrian rock layers, for instance. A Precambrian rabbit fossil would instantly falsify evolution. You see, evolution predicts not that we will find certain fossils (fossils are too rare for that), but if we find them, evolution predicts where they will be, and if they are in the wrong places, then that falsifies the theory. Of course things are messy, and the predictions are rough (a mammal 10 million years out of place would not refute evolution but force adjustment of certain derived hypothesis; a mammal 100 million years out of place would refute evolution); but that is the case for all of science, and things are certainly no more messy in evolutionary biology than in astronomy.
“That dogs and cats share genes in common is a prediction of evolution. -----How about the genes that are not shared by both? Surely this disproves evolution.”
ReplyDeleteYou don’t even try, do you? Evolution predicts similarities in the genome. It also predicts that we will find certain differences according to how distantly related the species are. Right? The point is that there is, for instance, a multitude of ways to code for certain proteins, yet we find that it is done the same way among creatures that are evolutionarily close. Absent common descent we really would have no reason to think so, nor that we would find the same curious remnants of earlier features and weird solutions.
“I.D. and plain common sense do make the very same prediction because dogs and cats are very similar in many traits and dissimilar in others,”
I.D. simply doesn’t predict these genetic similarities. There are multiple ways ways of coding for the same phenotypes and features and absent common descent there really is no reason why the genome should reflect such commonalities at all (why not use some insect tricks when designing cats, for instance? Or some fish tricks when designing dolphins?). In fact, on I.D. there really is no reason why there should be animals that share a lot similarities at all. Why would a designer create a lot of mammals resembling each other a lot, and no photosynthetic animals or six-legged furry, flying beasts? I.D. cannot even explain this. Common descent can.
From your conclusion you conclude that ID is some sort of metaphysical commitment. That’s fine. Evolution is science, and backed up by observations and evidence. You have yet to give me a single testable prediction of ID (apart, again, from the ENCODE one, which is wrong).
Actually, the main challenge to I.D. can be summed up relatively easily:
ReplyDeleteFirst, even if evolution was shown to be false, that itself would be absolutely no evidence for I.D. To be a viable scientific contender, I.D. would have to establish its own predictions and explanations. And it hasn't.
People in ancient times may have tried to offer "Zeus did it" as an explanation for lightning. The main problem is, of course, that it doesn't explain anything; what we require of an explanation is an answer to "how is it done" and "what can we expect to see in the future", and just saying "Zeus did it" offers nothing of the sort.
Similarly for I.D. To offer any predictions whatsoever, one would have to make some claims about the nature of the designer; what resources the designer has access to, and why the designer is designing what he or she or they are designing. I.D. proponents tend to want to avoid doing that, and by the same token they are also unable to generate any predictions about what we are going to see, at least any predictions that evolution isn't already making. (For instance, you cannot even assume that the genome should be mostly functional without attributing some specific properties to the designer). And there is a good reason for why one wants to avoid attributing such precise goals or properties to the designer: that makes the theory falsifiable - if you attribute certain goals to the designer precise enough to predict that there should be no junk DNA, you will have an attribute that entails a lot of *other* predictions as well, predictions that may very well falsify your initial hypothesis.
And that is why I hold that I.D. proponents are fundamentally either horribly confused or blatantly dishonest. Either they see what is required to make their theory testable but deliberately avoid doing so in fear of what would happen, or they don't even realize what is required.
Young Earth creationists are more honest. Young Earth creationism makes plenty of testable predictions, e.g. that the Earth is 6000 years old. That makes the theory falsifiable; unfortunately for them, since the Earth is demonstrably not 6000 years old, it also demonstrates that their hypothesis is false.
But from your comments I suspect that you don't really care that much about I.D. You care about God. Evolution makes no predictions about the existence or not of God. And unless some precise attributes are made to God, this remains an empirically unfalsifiable, metaphysical thesis. Accept it or not, it has nothing to do with the science. Evolution does.
According to the Wikipedia entry on the Biologic Institute Douglas Axe has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Caltech. You'd think that evolutionary biology would be outside of his area of expertise.
ReplyDeleteHe appeared on Coast to Coast AM on 12/05/16 promoting his new book: "Undeniable."
Actually Doug Axe is a molecular biologist,which I would have thought was very relevant to evolution at least at the molecular level where it really counts. He is not a creationists as he does not specify or really talk about how life came about. If anything he just looks at the scientific evidence for design in life. The only thing that would come near to him supporting anything unscientific when it comes to life is that he believes that we all have a intuition about design in life that can be supported by the science. Even as children we see that design and it is not because of a childish make believe but based on common scientific reasoning. It actually takes a concerted effect to deny this as adults when we grow up. His new book Undeniable goes into this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=doug+axe+undeniable&&view=detail&mid=0D500EFA6A2B1E7E10CF0D500EFA6A2B1E7E10CF&FORM=VRDGAR
It was a good try G.D., but I suspect you were beating your head against a wall there.
ReplyDeleteArguing against the sort of person that buries the fact they have no evidence for their claim behind walls of big words is pointless.
Also pointless discussing scientific method with someone who thinks that means a particular type of experiment, and not the overarching method behind scientific inquiry. That one was particularly cute.
Patting yourself on the back for barfing a lot of gibberish and completely ignoring the point is even cuter ;)
ReplyDeleteNot
ReplyDeleteAmen brother!
ReplyDeleteI don't see why you are on here than considering your intelligence is far below the level needed to understand the difference between actual scientific work linked by this website and the nuts they talk about on here. Perhaps you should go read the Sunday Comics Strips. There about the level you should be able to understand.
ReplyDelete