What is the intelligent design hypothesis?

OK, so what is the intelligent design hypothesis?

This question can best be addressed by studying the books at the heart of the movement. These would be (in my view and I would suggest by common consent)  'Darwin's Black Box' and 'The Edge of Evolution' by Michael Behe and 'Signature in the Cell' by Stephen Meyer. 

Cue snorts and retorts from the 'Behe has been refuted many, many times.' brigade. Behe has indeed been cursed, derided and misrepresented many, many times but his arguments have not been refuted, even if they have had to be modified to a limited extent. I'll come to that later. We are discussing what kind of thing ID is: the question of whether its principal protagonists are right or wrong in their arguments is obviously very important but peripheral to the question 'Is intelligent design religion?'

In 'Darwin's Black Box' Behe considers several biological processes in detail and asks whether Darwinian mechanisms (natural selection acting on random mutations) are capable of having built such systems. By meticulous study of the details of the systems, which include the clotting of blood, sight (photosensitivity) and the immune system. Behe develops the concept of 'irreducible complexity' in which we find that sophisticated machines in which  many parts work together to achieve a particular outcome tend to fail completely when one part is removed or wrongly assembled. Behe uses the analogy of a regular mouse trap to lead into the much more sophisticated nanomachinery of a bacillary flagellum. If any one part of the mouse trap, let alone the flagellum is taken away, or is even slightly wrong (for example, if the spring of the mouse trap is too strong or too weak, the trap does not catch FEWER mice, it catches NO mice.

As an example of the poor reasoning which opponents of Behe and intelligent design are willing to use rather than admit he might have a point, one opponent (Ken Miller) has made a video in which he uses a broken mouse trap as a tie clip. He claims that this refutes Behe's irreducible complexity argument, although in fact he is only using typical Darwinian 'could have' assertions. On another web site I saw a series of drawings which claimed to show functional mouse traps in varying degrees of functionality. But none of the traps would in fact have worked. Presumably their proposers know this because these 'might have been' traps remain drawings. Nobody to my knowledge (I'm happy to be corrected on this, comments are not moderated or censored) has made working models and used them to catch real mice. I don't think any of them would work. What's more, any spring based trap has to actually be SET and BAITED, which can't be explained without an intelligent external agent. More importantly, the mouse trap analogy is many orders of magnitude less sophisticated than the simplest biological system.

But even if we can debate the validity of the mousetrap analogy, we note that Behe hasn't got anywhere near talking about religion or creation. He is just testing a scientific hypothesis-that biological structures like the eye can develop gradually by steady slow improvement, or whether this (like the fake mousetraps referenced above) is merely a philosophical abstraction which would not deliver working structures that progresses from good to better to best by unguided processes in real life.

meaningful versus meaningless complexity

Stephen Meyer mainly uses mathematical arguments in his book 'Signature in the Cell' . The book could in my view do with being about 40% shorter, but the long preamble is all about the mathematics. Meyer studied the discovery of DNA at Cambridge and his central argument is about meaningful versus meaningless information. This is very important when we are talking abotu probabillity. If we could assign a number to the precise spatial arrangement of all the grains in a cubic metre of sand, it would be a stupefyingly massive number with effectively zero probability of it being repeated randomly. Nevertheless, the number evidently did occur once. This argument or one like it is used against those who (like me) assert that the probability of life assembling itself is so small that it can be discounted, because 'Given enough time, anything could have happened'. However, this sand number is utterly meaningless. Plot the spatial arrangement of grains in a billion, billion, billion etc cubic metres of sand, they will all have highly complex and rare numbers but all be the exact same kind of dead inanimate thing. Meyer successfully explains the difference between random complexity and purposeful complexity.

In the nucleotide sequences found in DNA, we also have stupefyingly unlikely numbers, BUT they carry coded information which DOES something. When transcribed and used to build amino acids in correct sequences into proteins by intracellular nanomachinery (which has all the appearance of being purposefully designed and does in fact behave purposefully) we see that the information carried on DNA is PURPOSEFUL.

Meaningful information is never seen to emanate from a non intelligent source.

Having explained what we mean by a meaningful piece of information (which could be as simple as a rhyming couplet) Meyer argues that there is no example in any field of human study where a meaningful piece of information has ever arisen from a non intelligent source. He argues from this that if we use the same principles that Darwin and Lyell used in their reasoning (the key to explaining effective causes in the distant unobserved past is the study of effective causes/repeatable events today) then we should logically deduce that since meaningfully complex things ARE routinely seen to arise from designing intelligences but NEVER observed (where we know the cause by direct observation) to arise from non rational causes, we should reasonably conclude that the high order magnitude meaningfully complex things that we see in nature had a designer.

Random DNA changes are observed to degrade information

As Behe, Meyer and other ID advocates observe, even relatively small changes in the DNA nucletotide sequences lead to wrongly assembled proteins which will not function normally. In another book which uses ID arguments 'Genetic Entropy: the Mystery of the Human Genome' by geneticist john Sanford, the author speaks of 'near neutral' mutations. these are analogous to small, infrequent spelling mistakes which we initially compensate for but which will inexorably and inevitably convert a meaningful piece of written information into illegible junk. The same thing is happening with the human genome, and it would happen very much faster if it were not for the incredible DNA check and repair mechanisms we have which detect and correct most mutations.

The above is a very short overview of some of the arguments used by prominent intelligent design advocates. Although to my knowledge Behe, Meyer and Sanford are all Christians, the key arguments advanced in the books mentioned above do not rely on God, faith or the Bible but only meticulously reasoned science. In particular, the complex and purposeful nature of the information carried on DNA which instructs cellular nanomachinery to build correct proteins. 

DNA mutations are seen to be harmful, sometimes lethal.

If the information is corrupted by random alterations (mutations) the tendency is for the protein to become less functional or to fail completely, leading to less fit or dead plants, animals and people. The genetic disease Xeroderma Pigmentosum (caution, disturbing images)  illustrates this very effectively by showing us what happens when our DNA check and repair mechanisms do not work properly. 60% XP of sufferers are dead by age 20.

If ID is religious, is Darwinism anti-religious?

So far, we have seen no evidence that intelligent design hypothesis is religious. Admittedly, I have not proved it isn't religious, but all I have cited above (and you can read the books and judge for yourself) is a fair reflection of typical ID arguments. But if we accept that ID is not religious, does ID have a religious agenda? That's an interesting question, which must be considered with the opposite question 'Does evolutionism have an anti-religious agenda?'.

Is Intelligent Design religion? part 1

Is Intelligent Design religion? part 1

It is difficult to have a conversation around God, religion, creation, evolution or intelligent design (whatever we mean by any of those terms) without stale clichés and slogans being deployed. The 'machine gun' tactic is often used, throwing up to 10 quick fire bold assertions and complex questions in a couple of sentences. The questions can usually be addressed, but one at a time, whereas a well designed and witty slogan can raise 3 or 4 key issues in a dozen syllables.

One of the stalest and cheapest slogans in popular use is 'Intelligent Design is creationism in a cheap tuxedo.' Another is 'Evolution is science, creationism is religion.' There are many others, including the crassly ignorant and irrelevant 'Michael Behe got his ass whipped at Dover.' Incidentally, the real truth about the Dover trial is a lot more interesting than the myth that is usually copied, including the fact that activist Judge John Jones violated the US Constitution by ruling on a matter of religion, but that's another story.

Slogans and clichés may carry some truth, (*) or they may even helpfully simplify a complicatede issue and help us understand something difficult, even if imperfectly. But they can mislead, distract, obfuscate or tramline our thinking and stall exploration. They may also be deliberately used by propagandists in order to mould the opinions and actions of others for their own purposes. Of course both sides in any disagreement can do this, and deny they have done it, even deny it to themselves. Since none of us is neutral, we may both use these tactics and be deceived by them.

Having changed political and religious allegiances more than once, I can look back on stuff I used to accept as self evident and see how I was believing half truths and untruths what 'The System' had primed me to believe, and in some cases I can see how it was done. And I wonder what I currently believe, knowingly or unknowingly, that I will discover in future isn't so-and i must think this because I am certain that I can see others who are in error but don't believe they are, so I must look to my own errors. Anyway, back to the question at the top of the page- Is Intelligent Design religion?

If we are going to address the issue as sceptical, free thinking truth seekers willing to follow the evidence where it leads, even out of our comfort zones, we must begin by assuming that we might be misled, not least by our own preference about what OUGHT to be true. Could we be wrong? Scientists are supposed to ask that all the time. The next step is to define the terms. then we can consider the case on its merits AND consider the opposite case. So before even addressing the question I believe it is fair and necessary to raise the equal and opposite question, is evolutionism religion?

Is evolutionism religion?

Well, is it? The question may at least be put, although as I said above, before we can consider the question we must define our terms or else we are just trying to use a piano to mend a puncture in a bicycle tyre, a futile exercise. Note my use of the term 'evolutionism', which I am aware causes offence to some. I use this term to denote the acceptance of molecules to man evolution over billions of years from Big-Bang derived space dust by impersonal forces, particularly natural selection acting on random mutations (I avoid the term 'belief' here to avoid distraction). I believe this is a fair definition, but when I use it, immediately the objections come flying.

'Evolution is nothing to do with how the cosmos originated or how life began!'

'Evolution is about change over time!'

'Evolution is about changes in gene frequency in a population.'

'Evolution can be clearly seen in plant breeding.'

and, above all

'You don't understand evolution.'

And these objections, all of which I hear often, are only about DEFINITIONS! We are still nowhere near analysing truth claims about any part of the thing itself. See what I mean about how difficult it can be to have a reasoned discussion? To even start one?

Anyhow, I mean to post several short discussions over the next month or so considering the linked questions-Is Intelligent Design religion/ and 'Is evolutionism religion?' 

Feel free to comment, comments here are not moderated or censored, unlike the atheist page I was deleted and blocked from recently without warning for making a critical comment.

(*) As C S Lewis wrote in 'The Last Battle' 

" The enemy made his lie stronger by mixing a good deal of truth with it."

Michael Behe refuted-no, not at all

Whenever I quote Michael Behe  to atheists/evolutionists on irreducible complexity or intelligent design, I get a derisive snort and one of two responses (often both) 'Behe has been refuted- many, many times.' or 'Behe got his ass whipped at Dover.' Neither of these standard assertions are remotely true, they are just knee jerk responses, memes if you like, inculcated by the restless and determined 'There is no evidence against evolution' activists. Anyhow, recent publications (see link) have further justified Behe's thesis that natural selection acting on random mutations simply does not have the creative or explanatory powers required for unguided molecules to man evolution to have occured. A short essay setting this out is reproduced below, courtesy of Professor Behe and the Centre  for Intelligent Design. Behe is right. He has quite simply falsified evolution's fundamental mechanism at the most profound biochemical level. No wonder those whose world view depends on evolution being true hate him. Evolution's Lottery "Evolution is like the National Lottery - a lot of people buy tickets, and almost everyone loses. Imagine a weekly lottery game where a card has eight windows, each with a flap covering a single digit from zero to nine. If, when revealed, all the digits match each other (ten ways to win!) the player receives £1,000,000. It would be very unlikely that anyone in a village of a thousand would win even if all the people played, because the chances of eight random digits matching each other are one in ten million. In fact, all the people in the village would have to play the game over and over again for centuries before anyone there would be expected to win. Yet if everyone in the whole of Britain played, we'd expect about a half-dozen winners each week, because there would be many more chances for someone to have a winning ticket. Now think of a super lottery, where the prize is £1,000,000,000,000 - more than the national budget. In order to win this game, a player has to buy two eight-window tickets, and, as before, the numbers on both tickets have to match each other. How long would it take for a player in Britain to win? If you do the arithmetic, it would take about 30,000 years for anyone at all to win. Most people would likely give up and play a different game. The game of evolution depends on the same two factors as the National Lottery: the odds of winning and the number of players. But instead of matching numbers on a card, evolution has to match the right mutations to an organism's DNA. As an example, consider one of the gravest threats to human health - malaria. The malaria parasite is a tiny single-cell organism that is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. Once it enters a human, a malaria cell multiplies by eating her blood, which often kills the victim. For thousands of years humans have had little defense against the disease. In the past century, however, antibiotic drugs have been developed that kill malaria. To understand the malaria evolution lottery, let's look at two drugs. The first is called atovaquone. Atovaquone readily kills normal malaria cells - in a laboratory, adding the drug to a flask that contains millions of such cells will usually wipe them out. Yet if the drug is given to a person suffering from malaria, it often fails. Why? It turns out that, although malaria needs just one particular mutation in its DNA to gain resistance to atovaquone, the likelihood of the mutation occurring is about one in a hundred million cells. Since there are only a few million cells in the lab flask, the odds are poor that any of them will have the right mutation, so the drug kills them all. A person sick with malaria, however, can harbor up to a million million cells. Like the example above of the UK vs a single village, the greater numbers make the odds very good that one or more of those cells will have the winning ticket. So malaria seems to develop resistance easily in patients treated with atovaquone, even though the mutation itself is quite unlikely. The second drug is called chloroquine. Instead of resistance appearing in every few patients as with atovaquone, new malarial resistance to chloroquine only appears once in about every hundred million patients. What could account for this astounding difference in frequency? In my 2007 book The Edge of Evolution I argued that the logic of the lottery example could easily explain it. If instead of one particular mutation, malarial resistance to chloroquine needed two particular mutations to occur in the same cell, the likelihood of getting them both would be drastically less than getting an individual mutation. Instead of one in a hundred million, resistance would appear in only one of every ten thousand million million. Since that astronomical number is much greater than the number of malaria cells in a single patient, almost all patients would be cured by chloroquine. (Regrettably, in the very large number of patients on earth who become sick, there are enough malaria cells to yield a few that do have resistance to chloroquine. The growth of those few and their dissemination by mosquitoes have caused chloroquine resistance to become common.) Recent scientific results have confirmed that at least two mutations are indeed needed for chloroquine resistance, as I predicted. This teaches us several important lessons about evolution, one practical and one theoretical. The practical lesson is that disease microbes like malaria can be stopped if we find a drug or combination of drugs that would require multiple mutations to overcome them. Evolution isn't the relentless force that Darwinists have often portrayed - there exists an edge beyond which it becomes helpless, as intelligent design proponents expected. The theoretical lesson is that, just as with battling microbes, we should expect there to be an edge to random evolution in the history of life, too. Yes, chance mutations plus natural selection do explain some features of biology. But if even several mutations were needed together to produce some complex organ or feature of life, it becomes much less likely that unguided natural processes explain it. Do many features of life require multiple mutations? Almost all functional ones do. The basic machines of life are constructed of molecules called proteins, and proteins themselves are typically made of hundreds of units of amino acids joined together. Those machines, under the guidance of complex instructions encoded in an organism's DNA, build the plants and animals we know. At some point in the history of life each of those amino acids in each of the protein machines had to have been new - a mutation. So virtually all proteins, as well as the complex instruction sets controlling them, are beyond the edge of random evolution. What's more, although tiny organisms such as malaria have the huge population numbers to allow them to overcome small evolutionary roadblocks such as presented by chloroquine, larger organisms don't. Larger organisms are unlikely to win an evolutionary lottery at all if it needs just two or more mutations. The conclusion is that very little of what we see in life can be the result of the random processes invoked by Darwinian evolution. Rather, almost all features of life required purposeful intelligent design."

If you have any questions on the above, you can contact Mike Behe directly atmjb1@Lehigh.EDU. http://www.c4id.org.uk/