4 ms·

You should probably read more of the article to get a better idea of what the authors are arguing. They are making a fine tuning argument like Barrow and Tiple

by yters 6y ago

You should probably read more of the article to get a better idea of what the authors are arguing. They are making a fine tuning argument like Barrow and Tipler. Barrow and Tipler wrote a whole book on the fine turning of cosmological constants, and it was well received. The whole article provides the theoretical background for fine tuning arguments, and the main evidence they rely on are the big name ID proponents: Dembski, Behe, Axe, Sanford. In fact, the article is absolutely chock full of references to peer reviewed ID articles. They call out ID by name multiple times, and explain its connection to their work, and state that the results imply intelligent agency. For example, "Axe also elaborates on the massive improbabilities of anything like functional proteins arising by natural selection (Axe, 2016). The search space turns out to be too impossibly vast for blind selection to have even a slight chance of success. The contrasting view is innovations based on ingenuity, cleverness and intelligence." I really don't see any sneakiness going on here. Also, is it normal to respond to blog post criticisms in a journal article? Otherwise, I'm not sure why you think it is a problem the journal authors didn't respond to blog posts. I've not seen such a requirement before, and I've spent a fair amount of time in academia. On the other hand, from what I see, the authors do respond to published criticisms of ID theory, e.g. papers by Wilkins, Elsberry and Olofsson. So, at least regarding your concern they do not mention the criticisms of ID and provide responses, hopefully this should set you at ease. Finally, the authors explain why they think ASC overcomes, or at least addresses the previous criticism of ID: "However, it is hard to apply to many interesting biological applications or contexts, because a huge number of potential but unknown scenarios may exist, which makes it difficult to phrase a null hypothesis for a statistical test." with the fact that ASC is measured in regards to a specific probability distribution: "ACS incorporates both Shannon and Kolmogorov complexity measures, and it quantifies the degree to which an event is improbable and follows a pattern." and this approach is further improved by a later result they mention by Montañez. At any rate, I recommend giving the article a careful read before coming to conclusions. So, I still do not understand why it is within normal scholarly protocols to post a warning about the article. It is very forthright about its ID connection, in fact forming almost the entirety of the paper around ID arguments and authors, addresses criticisms, cautions about its own conclusions, and seems to be pretty mathematically rigorous and written by well credentialed authors.

eesmith 6y ago
I did give it a careful read, and dislike how you assume I did not. As the rebuttal paper puts it, "neither fine-tuning nor intelligent design is required when sample spaces are viewed through the lens of evolutionary dynamics." I agree. Where in their paper do they consider this standard criticism to ED, and point out that the criticism is un-founded? Indeed, as they themselves point out (when talking about the creation of the universe, "A probabilistic argument presumes adequate knowledge of (the limits on) the space of possibility. It presupposes that current knowledge provides an accurate, unbiased statistical account of, or means of determining, what may or may not happen by chance." And we don't have that, so can't use this approach to determine if there was intelligent design. Where has ASC been shown to be an effective of model for evolutionary processes? The relevant paper by Montañez says: > Following Behe, let us say a system is irreducible if it contains at least three well-matched components that contribute necessarily to a core function, such that removal or mutilation of any of the components causes the system to cease functioning with respect to the core function. That is a definition, which is good enough for a mathematical model. But does it model biology? No! It's well-known that evolutionary systems may lead to such systems, therefore the existence of irreducible complexity in a given biological system does not mean evolution couldn't have happened, or that intelligent design must have occurred. So how does ASC connect to the goals of this paper? Shrug. You're the one who read it carefully enough, yes? As to "is it normal to respond to blog post criticisms in a journal article". Why are you even asking that question? My pointing to a blog post was because it was easy to find. I am not an expert in pseudo-scientific research fields like ID or YEC, nor am I an expert in the counter-refutations of that research. Are you saying that no such counter-arguments have been published in the scholarly literature? Or are you saying that you will ignore me unless I can point to specific literature? I never would have heard of these ID arguments and authors had I not been following the blog of an evolutionary biologist for 15+ years who has a special interest in pointing out flaws in creationist arguments. Do you really think most biologists are trained to recognize ID authors, or understand when "design" is meant to only mean "intelligent design"?
- yters 6y ago
  Sorry for offending you. It is just incorrect to say only two paragraphs of the paper deal with ID. From my read through, almost the entire paper is reliant upon various ID literature and arguments, which is called out explicitly. It is not subtle in the slightest. I get the paper's arguments are debated by biologists. But I still don't understand how this at all relates to the big disclaimer about the authors' connections and claiming because of these connections the paper is not suitable for publishing in the journal, which they have published after a peer review. Makes no sense to me, and I'm really not tracking your explanation. > Do you really think most biologists are trained to recognize ID authors, or understand when "design" is meant to only mean "intelligent design"? Why do biologists have to be trained to recognize ID authors? They don't have to be trained to recognize information theorists, or computer scientists, or any other hosts of independent disciplines that could be relevant to biology. And don't the authors clearly point out they are intending 'design' in the sense we attribute to humans, i.e. intelligent designers? Seems that way to me. Sorry, I am dense, I am really not understanding your point. It sounds to me like you want to imply some sort of deception on the part of the authors, but for all the reasons I've stated, this is entirely non obvious to me, and the journal's disclaimer still comes across as light censorship in the form of well poisoning, so I will have to disengage from this discussion. I wish you well.

by yters 6y ago

eesmith 6y ago

I did give it a careful read, and dislike how you assume I did not. As the rebuttal paper puts it, "neither fine-tuning nor intelligent design is required when sample spaces are viewed through the lens of evolutionary dynamics." I agree. Where in their paper do they consider this standard criticism to ED, and point out that the criticism is un-founded? Indeed, as they themselves point out (when talking about the creation of the universe, "A probabilistic argument presumes adequate knowledge of (the limits on) the space of possibility. It presupposes that current knowledge provides an accurate, unbiased statistical account of, or means of determining, what may or may not happen by chance." And we don't have that, so can't use this approach to determine if there was intelligent design. Where has ASC been shown to be an effective of model for evolutionary processes? The relevant paper by Montañez says: > Following Behe, let us say a system is irreducible if it contains at least three well-matched components that contribute necessarily to a core function, such that removal or mutilation of any of the components causes the system to cease functioning with respect to the core function. That is a definition, which is good enough for a mathematical model. But does it model biology? No! It's well-known that evolutionary systems may lead to such systems, therefore the existence of irreducible complexity in a given biological system does not mean evolution couldn't have happened, or that intelligent design must have occurred. So how does ASC connect to the goals of this paper? Shrug. You're the one who read it carefully enough, yes? As to "is it normal to respond to blog post criticisms in a journal article". Why are you even asking that question? My pointing to a blog post was because it was easy to find. I am not an expert in pseudo-scientific research fields like ID or YEC, nor am I an expert in the counter-refutations of that research. Are you saying that no such counter-arguments have been published in the scholarly literature? Or are you saying that you will ignore me unless I can point to specific literature? I never would have heard of these ID arguments and authors had I not been following the blog of an evolutionary biologist for 15+ years who has a special interest in pointing out flaws in creationist arguments. Do you really think most biologists are trained to recognize ID authors, or understand when "design" is meant to only mean "intelligent design"?

yters 6y ago
Sorry for offending you. It is just incorrect to say only two paragraphs of the paper deal with ID. From my read through, almost the entire paper is reliant upon various ID literature and arguments, which is called out explicitly. It is not subtle in the slightest. I get the paper's arguments are debated by biologists. But I still don't understand how this at all relates to the big disclaimer about the authors' connections and claiming because of these connections the paper is not suitable for publishing in the journal, which they have published after a peer review. Makes no sense to me, and I'm really not tracking your explanation. > Do you really think most biologists are trained to recognize ID authors, or understand when "design" is meant to only mean "intelligent design"? Why do biologists have to be trained to recognize ID authors? They don't have to be trained to recognize information theorists, or computer scientists, or any other hosts of independent disciplines that could be relevant to biology. And don't the authors clearly point out they are intending 'design' in the sense we attribute to humans, i.e. intelligent designers? Seems that way to me. Sorry, I am dense, I am really not understanding your point. It sounds to me like you want to imply some sort of deception on the part of the authors, but for all the reasons I've stated, this is entirely non obvious to me, and the journal's disclaimer still comes across as light censorship in the form of well poisoning, so I will have to disengage from this discussion. I wish you well.