Complexity, inevitability, and life — Evolution 2.0 on Unbelievable?

Listening to the latest Unbelievable? show from Premier Radio I was struck by what appeared to be a failure of imagination on the part of Perry Marshall, who was debating evolutionary biologist PZ Myers about the former's recent book, Evolution 2.0. Not being a biologist of any kind I'm unable to comment authoritatively on the actual mechanisms of evolution, but having followed PZ Myers' blog Pharyngula in the past (less so these days) I'm fairly confident he knows what he's talking about when it comes to his own subject. Perry Marshall's background, however, is in engineering and marketing, which on the face of it should make me wary of pronouncements that are outside his field of expertise.

Myers rubbished pretty much everything Marshall proposed, and given the above I'm prepared to accept that Myers is right and Marshall is wrong. The debate was fairly technical, but seemed to me to boil down to Marshall's claim that the “random” part of random mutation is insufficient to explain how evolution works (notwithstanding other aspects of evolution such as horizontal gene transfer).

At one point Marshall stated that the code in DNA could fit on a Compact Disc, and that if you eliminated “junk DNA” the code would be merely ten percent of what could fit on a CD. The core of his argument appeared to be disbelief that such a relatively small amount of information could produce the complexity we see in living organisms today. By comparison he cited the amount of code required to install modern computer operating systems such as Windows 10 and Mac OS X.

Marshall's engineering background has hampered his thinking here. Engineers who design systems, be they engines, bridges, or computer operating systems, need to specify mechanisms in minute detail (or make use of minutely detailed specifications already available) in order to make their systems work. This notion of "engineering ex nihilo" is what in my opinion leads to the essential failure-of-imagination exhibited by intelligent design proponents and creationists (of whom a disproportionately large number are engineers) — “it's all so complicated it must have been minutely designed by an intelligence of some kind.”

But imagine a software programmer who has never encountered fractals is shown a picture of the Mandelbrot set, and is given the task of writing code to generate the same picture from scratch. Without knowledge of the simple equation that produces fractals the picture could indeed be generated, but I suspect the code would be somewhat large. Or imagine a manufacturer of breakfast cereal wants its packaging department to come up with a special gadget to ensure that each carton of cornflakes contains a gradation of flakes, such that the larger flakes are mostly towards the top of the carton and the smaller ones mostly towards the bottom. I'm sure such a gadget could be made, but it's not actually necessary as the cornflakes tend to sort themselves out this way on their own.

Such self-organisation is, in my view, an aspect of the discussion about complexity that is often overlooked. If things inevitably organise themselves in a particular way, trying to make them happen in other ways, against the natural order, will indeed require complex intervention. “Going with the flow” on the other hand, will often require no intervention at all. It seems to me that much of the complexity we see in nature is there because in a given environment, things tend to work out that way rather than any other, just like in a packet of cornflakes.

A small part of the Mandelbrot set

This is applicable in other systems too, such as how you organise your life. For instance, it makes sense to keep things you need regularly in designated places, so that you don't have to embark on a time-consuming search every time you need them. If you need to take something with you when you go out, you could set an alarm on your smartphone to remind you to pick it up at the appropriate time — or you could simply place the item where you will see it when you do go out.

To put this another way: don't expend energy trying to achieve things in spite of your environment. Rather, create, encourage and adjust your environment such that it allows those things to be achieved automatically. (There you go — who'd have thought a debate on evolution would lead to productivity advice and life-coaching?)

UPDATE 2016-01-04: Perry Marshall has published online his transcript of the debate, along with some restrospective comments:
http://cosmicfingerprints.com/pz-myers/
...And here's PZ Myers' response to the comments:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/03/perry-marshall-2-0/

UPDATE 2016-01-10: Looks like this will run and run. Perry Marshall has responded to PZ Myers' response to his comments on his transcript:
http://cosmicfingerprints.com/pz-mcclintock/

UPDATE 2016-01-12: ...and PZ Myers further responds here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/11/everything-existing-in-the-universe-is-the-fruit-of-chance-and-necessity/ 

UPDATE 2016-01-22: Will this never end? Perry Marshalls's next shot:
http://cosmicfingerprints.com/telorexia/

...And possibly the last from PZ Myers?:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/12/my-last-post-on-perry-marshall/

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PZ Myers' blogpost about his encounter with Perry Marshall is here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/01/01/another-day-another-creationist/

ID proponents still pretending to do "science"

On the 17th of November last year Stephen C. Meyer delivered a lecture at the Royal Horseguards Hotel in London, at an event sponsored by the Centre for Intelligent Design. The lecture, hosted by Lord Mackay of Clashfern, was titled "Is there a Signature in the Cell?" — presumably based on Meyer's similarly titled book, Signature in the Cell. The three Pauls talked about the lecture on our Skepticule Extra podcast, but I thought it might be useful to put my own thoughts on it in writing (though much of this will be a repeat of what I said on on the podcast).

The event was shrouded in a certain amount of spurious secrecy, as can be seen from this extract from the C4ID website:

The audience of some 90 invited guests included leading scientists, philosophers, Parliamentarians, educationalists, theologians, lawyers, and representatives of the media and business sectors.  Given the controversial nature of the subject and the desire not to inhibit discussion, C4ID requested that the identity of the participants remain protected.  The attendance of so many significant figures signals real interest in the topic, but, as Lord Mackay stressed in his introduction, their presence was not taken as an indication of support for the position of Intelligent Design (ID)

Also in the audience was Justin Brierley, host of Premier's Unbelievable? radio programme, who posted this on Facebook:

I have a confession... I'm coming off the fence over ID, well certainly at least with the origin of DNA. This lecture which I attended recently and the shows I have done convince me that when it comes to biogenesis, ID makes sense.

I've been criticised by theistic evolutionists for featuring ID on the show. But when it comes down to it, I don't see the difference. If TE says that the process that kick started evolution was in some sense goal oriented by divine guidance - then isn't that the same as saying that the assembly of the first self replication molecule was not down to blind forces and chance? Which is essentially what Stephen Meyer argues.

Some Christian don't like the theological implications of God "tinkering" but if we believe God intervenes in all kinds of other ways in miracles, the resurrecion etc. why shoudn't the moment of life's creation fall under this? And if the problem is that it doesn't look good theologically, then aren't the TEs doing what they critices YECs for - allowing their theological presuppositions to dictate what is allowed in the scientific realm.

I dont have a theological axe to grind when it comes to ID, I just think that given what we know now, and because I can't see good reason why deisgn isn't a viable explanation, it is the best explanation.

Just my musings, feel free to tear them apart!

Some months after the lecture a video of it was made available on YouTube, so I decided to watch it. What follows are some thoughts triggered as I watched.

http://youtu.be/NbluTDb1Nfs


Meyer begins with some sensible localisation, stating that in the United States Intelligent Design is perceived as connected to Young Earth Creationism. This is not so in the United Kingdom — because in the UK we never had the equivalent of the Scopes trial. This is presumably because in the UK we don't have separation of Church and State (even though we might be viewed as a more secular society than the US).

Meyer goes on to make a number of general points, beginning with the main point of ID, the Question of Design — is there a mind behind biological complexity? He mentions Richard Dawkins, oddly suggesting that he's not regarded as seriously as he used to be, due to his media involvement. This might be wishful thinking on Meyer's part, but nevertheless Meyer says he likes Dawkins' directness.

Meyer then claims that "today there is a very spirited discussion going on about the adequacy of natural selection and random mutation to produce not the minor variations … but the fundamental innovations in the history of life." He doesn't cite any sources for these spirited discussions, which makes me think this is merely sowing the seeds of doubt, as he's clearly doing when he claims that many evolutionary biologists are now saying that neo-Darwinian mechanics of mutation and selection are insufficient to produce large scale innovations. Again no direct sources — how many is 'many'? And the introduction of "large scale innovations" hints that he's favouring "micro-evolution" over "macro-evolution".

The origin of life — of the first cell — is not explained by Darwinian evolution, Meyer says, which appears to be an effort on his part to bias the story. He's asking how can Darwin be said to have refuted the design argument if he was unable to explain the "design" of the first cell. As far as I'm aware that's not what happened; Darwin showed that a designer was not necessary for evolution, but admitted ignorance of the origin of life. ID proponents such as Meyer are spinning this as a disingenuous claim by evolutionists, when it's nothing of the kind.

Meyer says the acceptance of ignorance about the origin of the first cell is due to a prevailing view that life was simple — a globule of plasm — and the intellectual leap to evolving life wasn't that great. Then we're on to some particular buzzwords beloved by the ID crowd, beginning with "sequence specificity". Something is "sequence specific" if the sequence determines the form (and therefore the function). Meyer shows an animation to illustrate how proteins are synthesized — starting with the sequence of genes along the spine of a DNA molecule. It all looks very complicated, but presumably illustrates how present-day cells work. It's likely, it seems to me, that the very first self-replicating cells were far simpler.

The "DNA Enigma", Meyer claims, concerns the origin of information, and he explains that there are two* types of information: Shannon information — the reduction of uncertainty, by which the more improbable an event, the more information is conveyed by the outcome of that event (in a strictly mathematical sense), but this cannot account for 'specified' complexity. He seems to be saying that specified complexity is present if you recognize what a given sequence represents. That, it seems to me, is post hoc rationalisation, as if "specified complexity" refers to complexity that contains information that has no apparent correlation to the function it produces — suspiciously like an argument from ignorance — and yet can only be recognised after the fact. As usual with ID proponents, this claim to be able to identify design isn't elaborated before we're on to something else — in this case a quotation from Jacques Monod: "A striking appearance of design." Monod apparently attributes this striking appearance to chance or necessity, or a combination of the two, in explaining natural processes.

Meyer says chance can produce the "appearance of design", but it's only good for short sequences. But what about selection? Meyer claims that applying natural selection to the origin of life is begging the question — invoking replication and 'life' in order to explain life's origin. I think, however, that he may be too restrictive in his ordering — natural selection doesn't have to kick in only after DNA, it can presumably operate on the simplest self-replicating molecules — the very first precursors to DNA/RNA etc.

Meyer goes on to mention the RNA world (which approximates to what I suggested above). He says the RNA world is problematic and he's happy to speak about it in the Q&A and that he covers it in his book. This, to me, seems like a cop-out.

Monod's third option is self-organisation. But chemistry alone, Meyer says, cannot determine the sequence of bases in DNA. So we don't know what determines the base sequence — once again we're back to an argument from ignorance. He says it's not the physics and chemistry that determines the sequence — when what he probably means is that he can't think of any mechanism by which physics and chemistry could determine the sequence.

Meyer then invokes an "inference to the best explanation", but unfortunately what he proposes isn't actually an explanation. It offers nothing extra, over and above what "I don't know" offers. The reason why we can make inferences to the best explanation in other areas — why we can speculate about possible causes for events or phenomena, is we understand how those causes work. It's no good proposing a cause when we don't know how that cause works, because that doesn't have any explanatory power. "It was designed" doesn't explain anything unless we can say how it was designed. This is my fundamental objection to ID.

By way of example of such an inference Meyer uses the presence of geological layers of volcanic ash. That's a valid example, because we know how volcanoes produce layers of volcanic ash. It's not valid for inferring a design to first life.

Meyer concludes with a lame graphic to illustrate the argument he uses in his book, Signature in the Cell. He has four options to explain the appearance of design: 1) Chance; 2) Necessity; 3) Chance plus Necessity; 4) ID — and then he eliminates all but ID. But he's not established that these are the only options, and they could all be wrong.

The video then jumps to the Q&A session, but apparently only the final question. The screen indicates Meyer might have been discussing the accusation that ID is an argument from ignorance, but from what's actually on the screen I don't think he could have done it very well, as the graphics seemed to reinforce the idea that ID is indeed an argument from ignorance.

The final question was "What is Science?" Meyer says it's a method, and mentions that this is relevant to whether ID is or is not science. But he says he's not interested in whether ID is science, only in whether it's true (or more likely to be true). He claims that the accusation that ID is not science is a ploy to avoid discussing it scientifically. I could just as easily say that his lack of concern about whether ID is science is a ploy to avoid applying the scientific method to it. He claims throughout his lecture, however, that he's using the kind of science employed by Charles Darwin.

A URL at the end of the video invites people to download a free digital companion to the book. I did this, even though I had to register with the Discovery Institute in order to get the PDF, though I've not yet read it. It appears to be a response to various criticisms of Signature in the Cell.

Most apparent from this lecture is that despite a resurgence of interest in the UK (manifested by the formation of C4ID in Scotland), ID has nothing new to offer on the question of life's origins, and remains hidebound in a tacit endorsement of scriptural infallibility. ID is an explanation of sorts, if you have fairly low expectations of what an "explanation" is supposed to tell you, but isn't in any sense a scientific explanation.

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As far as I recall, Meyer didn't elucidate the second type.

Paul Davies and John Lennox discuss SETI on the Unbelievable? radio show

Here's the opening post of a thread I started in the Premier Community regarding the April 17 edition of Unbelievable? The mp3 of the programme is available here:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/f4ca1408-1cd8-4aea-ab73-231910f8a76c.mp3

A remarkably civil discussion about SETI and its implications. Paul Davies isn't one of those nasty New Atheists^™ — rather, he could be classed as an accommodationist, and was indeed a recipient, in 1995, of the Templeton Prize.

Wearing his "philosopher's hat" Paul Davies thinks that the human ability to unravel and understand the workings of the universe is of fundamental cosmic significance. This to me seems like a version of the anthropic principle: we can understand the universe — therefore it was made to be understood (tacit subtext: "…by us"). He said you have to ask, "What is this big universe for?" No, you don't have to ask this. It's begging the question to assume the universe has a purpose before asking what that purpose is. The correct, prior, question is "Does the universe have a purpose?" Davies is imputing teleology without establishing that such teleology exists. We can understand the universe (to a degree) because we are intelligent products of the universe. It is an obvious fact that the universe is susceptible to rational analysis.

John Lennox asked why we might consider a stream of recognisable DNA sequences originating from space to have an intelligent source, yet the same sequences present in DNA itself are not thought to be from an intelligent source (except by intelligent design proponents). But the probability of random chance replicating a specific sequence is extremely low, and if we recognised such a sequence from a source other than DNA we would have to conclude that the source was likely to be intelligent. If you produce a genuinely random number of many digits' length, the chance of replicating that number by chance is practically zero. DNA sequences, however, are not produced by chance. I find it astonishing that a professor of mathematics seems not to appreciate this.

John Lennox presupposes mind/body dualism in order to argue that supernatural power can affect the natural world. (This isn't surprising — I'd hardly expect him to accept that he doesn't have a transcendent soul, but it's a bit cheeky of him to use such a presumption in his argument. Davies didn't pick him up on this — I wonder where Davies stands on the existence of souls.)

Davies asked Lennox, "What's God doing now?" Lennox replied, "God is upholding the universe." This is the height of meaningless obfuscation. Earlier Lennox objected to Davies' distaste for a god that "manipulates molecules", and yet "upholding the universe" isn't a comprehensible description of any kind of activity. (I'm assuming here that Lennox doesn't have in his mind's eye an image of Atlas supporting the celestial spheres on his shoulders.)

Interesting discussion, but hardly satisfying. 

Go to the Unbelievable? website to follow the online discussion.

Creationist twaddle in the Guardian

This article by Alastair Noble in the Guardian's Comment is free section was flagged at RD.net. No doubt it will be kicked to death — deservedly so — but I did find some particular dumbosities that made me wonder whether the Guardian is being deliberately provocative having it appear on their site:

As a former science teacher and schools inspector, I am disturbed that proposals for science education are based on near-complete ignorance of intelligent design. I also think the views of most British people in this matter should not be so readily set aside.

I am disturbed that a former science teacher and schools inspector should propose the teaching of non-science in a science class. "Near-complete ignorance" is pretty much the most anyone can know about intelligent design, because there's nothing there. And scientific truth is not a matter of public popularity — even if every last British citizen thought creationism was true, that would not make it so.

It is an all too common error to confuse intelligent design with religious belief. While creationism draws its conclusions primarily from religious sources, intelligent design argues from observations of the natural world. And it has a good pedigree. A universe intelligible by design principles was the conclusion of many of the great pioneers of modern science.

Intelligent design is a religious belief (and was declared so by Judge Jones in the famous Dover trial in America). If you look at the natural world and conclude that it was intelligently designed, you must take the next step and ask who designed it. Aliens? God? You choose, but you must base your choice on scientific evidence. If you have no evidence, then why are you proposing this as science? Intelligent design does not have "a good pedigree". It's true that great pioneers of modern science were creationists, but they were pre-Darwin. They were also religious, along with the majority of the population at the time.

It is easily overlooked that the origin of life, the integrated complexity of biological systems and the vast information content of DNA have not been adequately explained by purely materialistic or neo-Darwinian processes. Indeed it is hard to see how they ever will.

Actually the integrated complexity of biological systems has been largely explained by evolution and natural selection. The information content of DNA will probably be explained too. It may be hard for you to see how, Mr. Noble, but just because you can't imagine it, that's no excuse for throwing your hands in the air and proclaiming it must have been done by aliens or God. There's progress on the abiogenesis front too — I understand it's been suggested in some quarters that the production of life in the laboratory may be achieved within a few years.

In an area such as this, where we cannot observe what happened directly, a legitimate scientific approach is to make an inference to the best explanation. In the case of the huge bank of functional information embedded in biological systems, the best explanation – based on the observation everywhere else that such information only arises from intelligence – is that it too has an intelligent source.

The "observation everywhere else" is that information is created by human intelligence. That's a sample of one, from which you cannot extrapolate anything because it's statistically unsound. Much of biology that was once thought to be irreducibly complex has now been shown to have evolved, or to have plausible evolutionary pathways to its present form. There's no reason to suppose that the presence of information in DNA will not be similarly explained.

There is a tendency in school science to present the evidence for evolution as uniformly convincing and all-encompassing, failing to distinguish between what is directly observable – such as change and adaptation over time through natural selection – and the more hypothetical elements, like the descent of all living things from a common ancestor. The evidence for these various strands is not of equal strength.

The research accruing from the complete sequencing of both the human genome and the genomes of other animals makes it far more likely that all living things have a single common ancestor, now that we understand so much more about how DNA works. Evolution by random mutation and natural selection is a scientific theory that's been consistently hammered for 150 years. Every scrap of new evidence uncovered has had the potential to falsify the theory, but instead has reinforced it, to the extent that evolution can be considered as much a scientific fact as the "theory" of gravity.

If you insist that intelligent causation is to be excluded in the study of origins then you are teaching materialist philosophy, not science.

I'm at a loss to know how intelligent causation could actually be taught in a science class. What do you tell the students? What demonstrations do you devise? Let's say, for instance, you're looking at the structure of primitive, single-celled organisms and you want the students to understand how they might have come into existence. You might talk about amino acids and self-replicating molecules — or you might simply close the textbook and say, "An intelligent causative agent caused the first cells to come into existence." That's not science, that's an intellectual cop-out.

I believe current government guidance is wrong in denying intelligent design the status of science. However, it does encourage teachers to handle it "positively and educationally". That's a small step in the right direction.

"Intelligent design" is not science.

What would it take to convince you that you're mistaken?

A critical test of anyone who appears to hold fundamental - or indeed fundamentalist - beliefs, is to ask the question, "What would it take to convince you that you're mistaken?" Someone who is convinced beyond reason that their beliefs are true will always reply to the effect that nothing would convince them. This is a sure sign of unreasonable fixed belief, and it's not worth anyone's time trying to argue them out of their position.

It's a question often asked of atheists, but Michael Shermer's flippant response, "A deposit of ten million dollars in a Swiss bank account under my name," doesn't count*.

For myself, the idea of a personal God who listens to your thoughts, answers your prayers, obsesses over what you do with your sexual organs and demands worship on pain of eternal banishment to some undefined unpleasantness, is absurd in the extreme and not worthy of consideration. I therefore find it hard to imagine anything that could convince me that such a God exists. Nevertheless, just because I can't imagine it, doesn't mean it's not a possibility, however remote. There's a chance I could be convinced of God's existence, but only if He convinced me Himself, in person, in a manner congruent with my reasonable standards for evidence. I will not, however, accept his petition from any third party.

The probability of such a petition is highly unlikely, I believe, but (as I've already indicated) not completely out of the question.

There is, however, an area where I would be more likely to accept the existence of some kind of intelligent creator - though this intelligence would bear little resemblance to the God of scripture.

If scientific analysis were to reveal that the Big Bang could not have been instigated by anything other than the creative will of some kind of intelligence, science might have to concede that the universe came about by other than natural processes. But speculation about what happened at, during, just before or just after the Big Bang appears to be mired in philosophy rather than science, with doubts about whether you can meaningfully say anything temporal or spacial about an event that brought both space and time into existence. (You might also question your definition of 'natural processes'.)

Similarly, if science were to show that the presence of information in DNA could not have originated naturally, the existence of some agency that inserted the information would have to be postulated. But we would have no reason to call that agent 'God'. Just because such an agent would likely be beyond our comprehension, we are not barred from speculating on its origins.

What applies to DNA also applies to the Big Bang. Calling the originator of the Big Bang 'God', or the originator of the information present in DNA 'God', simply stops all further speculation. It's an abdication of intellectual responsibility, not worthy of science, and should be deplored.

Science has yet to explain these things, but that doesn't mean the answer is "Goddidit."

There are many arguments for the existence of God, and the Argument from Design (also known as the teleological argument) is the least weak.

(*During a recent debate in Australia between John Lennox and Michael Shermer, the moderator asked Shermer, "What piece of evidence, formula, piece of reasoning, whatever ... what would cause you to believe in God?")

Is DNA proof of intelligent design?

"Everything we know about coded information leads us to believe that it requires a designer. DNA is coded information, therefore DNA requires a designer."

I've heard statements similar to the above put forward as scientific evidence for an intelligent designer. Rephrased as a formal syllogism it becomes:

Coded information requires a designer; DNA is coded information; therefore DNA requires a designer.

But the first premise only tells part of the story. Coded information has been produced in vast quantities, by humans. Every instance of coded information, other than DNA, has been produced by humans. Are we to infer that the information in DNA was produced by humans?

The problem with the argument as initially phrased is that everything we know about coded information is probably not everything there is to know about it. Until Darwin, the same logic was used to show that the complexity of life requires a designer. It doesn't. There may well be something fundamentally simple and elegant - the equivalent of Darwinian natural selection - that will explain how coded information can arise naturally. Just because we don't yet know what it is, doesn't make positing a designer (intelligent or otherwise) at all valid.