27 February 2010

Signature in the Cell: Chapter 7

The chapter is called "Of Clues to Causes" and it's about scientific explanation. That's an interesting and important topic, one that opponents of evolutionary theory rarely understand. Meyer's summary is predictably fluffy but not inaccurate. Those seeking an introduction to philosophical questions pertaining to scientific explanation should look elsewhere, since Meyer says little in the 22-page chapter. His main points:
  1. There are indeed legitimately scientific means of understanding and seeking explanation for past events.
  2. These approaches validate ID as a "possible scientific explanation for the origin of biological information."
I don't disagree with either assertion. But neither is particularly helpful to ID in its quest for explanatory relevance. (Well, the main quest of the ID movement is to undermine naturalism by any means necessary, but its scientific challenge is to demonstrate that it can provide useful explanation.)

The first point should look strange to most readers of this blog. "Well, duh." Ah, but it's there for a good reason: many of Meyer's readers, like Meyer himself as a younger thinker, will be under the influence of the kind of approach advocated by creationists like Charles Thaxton, who crudely separated "historical science" from "operations science" and thereby created an automatic niche for ID in OOL explanation. Meyer defends "historical sciences" as distinct from "experimental sciences," but just as important scientifically, and notes that their modes of reasoning are intellectually ubiquitous. It's basic stuff, really basic, but Meyer does a good job. (As does Gordon Glover in Beyond The Firmament, but with a lot more flair; Meyer uses a boring old wet driveway to illustrate the vetting of competing explanations, while Glover memorably considers "levitating snow machines" as a possible explanation for the appearance of snow in a nearly-identical example.)

The second point strikes me as similarly obvious, but as long as Meyer and his friends face simplistic dismissals of ID as "not science," then we'll have to read pages and pages and pages of simplistic rebuttal. ID is, I think, clearly a possible scientific explanation for just about anything. Human intelligent design explains all sorts of stuff, and alien intelligent design remains a possibility in at least a few arenas. Since appeals to human design (in the case of, say, crop circles) and to alien design (in the case of, say, messages from other galaxies) are not reasonably ruled to be "non-science," I just don't see how superhuman or superalien design can be excluded from the realm of scientific explanation. Could the intervention of a highly intelligent alien explain the conception of Stephen Meyer, but not of Stephen Matheson? Sure. Could the intervention of a highly intelligent alien explain the origin of genetic information? Sure.

The question, it seems to me, is not whether superintelligent beings could have done this or that. It's whether we expect that they could have done this or that. And specifically, whether and when we are warranted in seriously considering their action as we formulate explanations. That's more tricky than most people seem to understand. On the one hand, superalien (aka supernatural) activity has a poor reputation as a scientific explanation, for very good reasons. On the other hand, there are situations we can imagine wherein superalien activity really is the only reasonable explanation at hand.

Anyway, Meyer lays out his strategy for establishing ID as a good scientific explanation. First, he must establish ID is a possible cause of the origin of biological information. Whatever "specified information" is, we know that intelligent agents can and do create it. He thinks that's just plain obvious, and so do I.

Now, this book is awfully bloated, easily three times longer than it needs to be (so far). But do you really think Meyer wrote 500+ pages to argue that ID could explain the OOL? No, of course he wants to do more (or, more accurately, he wants his audience to think he has done more). And so his conclusion, on page 172:
But is intelligent design the "only known cause" of the origin of specified information? [...] If intelligent design turned out to be the only known or adequate cause of the origin of specified information, then the past action of a designing intelligence could be established on the basis of the strongest and most logically compelling form of historical inference – an inference from the effect in question (specified information) to a single necessary cause of that effect (intelligent activity).
This means that Meyer has to rule out "other possible causes," and he knows it.

Miscellaneous observations on the chapter, then our traditional Meyer vs. Darwin vignette.

1. Counting an epilogue and two appendices, the book is roughly 510 pages long. We've finished 172 pages, almost exactly a third of the book. And we have nothing. Long, yes, but "one long argument?" Hard to see.

2. From the "Just how carefully was the blueprint for 21st-century biological science proofread?" file, enjoy these bloopers:
Not only was it was possible to conceive of the purposeful act (or repeated action)... [page 171]
Or read the fourth chapter of Cambridge paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris's book on the Burgess Shale and you will be taken on a vivid guided tour of an ancient marine environment teaming with exotic life-forms. [page 151]
3. Here is Stephen Meyer, on page 172, at the end of the chapter.
These studies convinced me that intelligent design was a possible – a causally adequate – explanation for the origin of biological information. But to determine whether intelligent design was the best – the only causally adequate explanation – I would need to know more about other scientific possibilities. I would need to follow Scriven's directive to "make a thorough search" for and evaluation of other possible causes. Over the next several years, as I assumed my duties as an assistant professor, I set out to do exactly that.
And here is Charles Darwin on page 172 of the Origin of Species, 6th Edition:
With respect to plants, to which on account of Nägeli's essay I shall confine myself in the following remarks, it will be admitted that the flowers of orchids present a multitude of curious structures, which a few years ago would have been considered as mere morphological differences without any special function; but they are now known to be of the highest importance for the fertilisation of the species through the aid of insects, and have probably been gained through natural selection. No one until lately would have imagined that in dimorphic and trimorphic plants the different lengths of the stamens and pistils, and their arrangement, could have been of any service, but now we know this to be the case.
(Meyer's reference is to Michael Scriven, philosopher of science, and Darwin is responding to a critique of natural selection by botanist Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli.)

17 comments:

Gordon J. Glover said...

Hi Steve, thanks for the plug! I'm really enjoying your review of SitC.

I can't remember if I've shared these with you yet, but I'm currently working on my own "review" of Signature in the Cell -- the Southpark cartoon version. It's a satire, not for the thin-skinned.

Episodes 1 and 2 are up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE5JIzJ0yUs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqVJsmYJvDQ

Episode 3 deals specifically with Chapter 7 (is ID a causally adequate explanation of DNA?). Episode 4 deals with the chicken-and-the-egg problem.

Enjoy!
GJG

Bill said...

When asked in an interview which came first, religious conviction or the data, Demski answered directly and without hesitation, "Religious conviction."

Meyer is the same. The answer is signature in the cell. The question is how to prove it.

The only way Meyer can "prove" that "intelligence" is the only cause of life is to ignore or misrepresent or deny all the scientific evidence to the contrary. This is what he is doing.

When I looked through the index of Signature I was struck by how pitifully few scientific references there were and in terms of origin of life research a veritable desert.

Meyer is going to take you on a stroll down Behe Lane in which no amount of data, experimentation or theory will be good enough or detailed enough or comprehensive enough.

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks again. It's too bad that Signature is considered so important by some good people.

Doppelganger said...

Arguments via analogy are not all that convincing to me, and what I see being laid out(by Meyer) appears to be little more than a big old argument via analogy.

Am I off base on this?

toddcwood said...

Doppelganger:

It's funny you should distrust arguments from analogy, since Origin is full of them. Here's a famous example (from p. 484 of the first edition), where Darwin is speculating on how far back ancestry might be traced:

"I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide."

Doppelganger said...

Hi Todd,

I seem to recall that Darwin wrote his book some 150+ years ago...

Ultimately, nearly all ID arguments seem to boil down to analogies in the form of: Humans make codes, humans are intelligent, therefore only intelligence can produce codes. And since we have a genetic code, therefore... humans made the genetic code...

From the passage you present, it appear to me that Darwin was making an analogy of what I am calling 'the same order,' for lack of a better term - some context will help. Prior to what you quote, Darwin wrote (at least in the online version):

"It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole classes can be connected together by chains of affinities, and all can be classified on the same principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the organ in a fully developed state; and this in some instances necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same class. I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me ...."

He is making an analogy between what he sees providing evidenciary support for descent within classes to larger-scale observations that may indicate larger scale descent.


This is substantively different, from my perspective, than making an analogy between human activity and what we see in nature, and further when one applies anthropocentric metaphorical language (e.g., 'code', 'motor', 'machine')to what we see in nature (e.g., genetic code, flagella, ATPase)that we must therefore extrapolate what we know humans do to what we see in nautre by virtue of that metaphorical language.

A further difference, of course, is that Darwin had evidence in addition to his analogies. The only evidence I see presented by ID advocates is a series of analogies and idiosyncratic concepts which themselves often rely on analogies. And on top of all that, since Darwin's time, we have accumulated much much more evidence, so analogies ala Darwin are even less of a "necessity".

Or am I still missing something?

Tim Lambert said...

It's really too bad that so many of you can't thoughtfully critique a book.
Especially you, Steve.


A guy puts alot of work into a book that clearly means something to him and you guys have to fight back mocking him and his views.
Well, maybe that's just not the Christian in ya, Steve.... maybe that little guy is a little guy for a reason. I mean, hell, why concern yourself with Christian notions of charity when you have someone to mock.

Bravo on the blog, Steve.

Doppelganger said...

Hi Tim,

I admit I have not read Meyer's book - and I do not intend to - but I am not criticizing it specifically. I am, however, pretty well aware fo his basic arguments, since he makes them repeatedly in serveral different essays and books.

But more to the point, it seems to me that Steve is doing a pretty admirable job, and it also seems to me that you are just upset that he is not endorsing Meyer's book because he 'spent so much time on it' and it 'means so much to him.'

Or maybe you are just being sarcastic.

In that case, Bravo!

Tim Lambert said...

No,
I really don't think he's being that thoughtful at all in handling it.
And for what it's worth, I don't consider myself much of an ID supporter anymore (I would have been for awhile).
So, take it as you like, I don't really care if he agrees with the content or not.

Dennis Venema said...

Science is a meritocracy: one's ideas get put through the wringer every time one submits a paper for peer review.

Meyer's SitC was obviously not peer reviewed by anyone with a working knowledge of biology.

So, if Meyer is willing to put out a non-peer reviewed book riddled with flaws that claims to overthrow decades of real research, he should be willing to take the criticism that will ensue. Either you get peer reviewed privately or in public.

Bill said...

Nobody is mocking Meyer. Mocking is reserved for creationists who believe in Noah's ark, Adam and Eve and Bigfoot.

Meyer has a BS, worked as a technician in an oil company, earned a PhD in the history and philosophy of science. Meyer has colleagues like Behe, Wells and Dembski who have advanced science and math degrees. Meyer can use Google, Wikipedia and perform literature research just like the rest of us. In short, Meyer has many resources at his disposal, the intellectual training and the ability to understand perfectly well the science and math about which he writes. Signature is not full of "mistakes."

What distinguishes Meyer's work and especially Signature is his intellectual dishonesty. Meyer misrepresents science intentionally, ignores research relevant (but damaging) to his thesis and presents opinion as fact. Meyer starts with the conclusion that God created life and works backwards to prove it. It's not shocking; he's been doing it for 20 years.

First, Meyer disguises God as an "intelligent agent." Then he creates what Jeffrey Shallit calls "creationist information," an unquantifiable, unmeasurable term which he asserts is the product of an "intelligent agent." Then he asserts that DNA overflows with "creationist information."

QED, DNA was designed by an "intelligent agent," aka God.

Signature is a sloppy and transparent work of fiction disguised as science and it deserves the excellent, impartial fisking that Steve is giving it.

Anonymous said...

Well... that's amazing but to be honest i have a hard time seeing it... wonder how others think about this..

Bilbo said...

Prof. Matheson,

This is completely off-topic, but Mike Gene has finished posting on Introns:

http://designmatrix.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/different-tunes-in-different-tissues/

Bill said...

Meyer has made a post on junk DNA at Biologos - http://biologos.org/blog/on-not-reading-the-signature-2/

Jimpithecus said...

Steve, good stuff. I have cross posted on my blog your progress and have enjoyed what I have read so far, even if I have not had a chance to comment. You make a comment about "simplistic dismissals" of ID as science, which result in simplistic defenses of the same. Evolutionary theory presents a serious roadblock for the purveyors of ID simply because it is testable and, for the most part, it works like a charm. ID has to change the basic nature of science in order to succeed as an explanation. Michael Behe basically said so in the Dover trial and Philip Johnson has said so in print numerous times.

Thus, while Meyer and other ID researchers can posit a supernatural design-by-fiat explanation for things like the flagellum or the blood clotting cascade, as long as there are reasonable evolutionary explanations, there is no compelling reason to consider Meyer's. Sure, you can't exclude ID from the realm of possibility but it provides no usefulness as an explanation. Such a dismissal is not necessarily simplistic. Given the current state of ID, we simply aren't warranted in considering the actions of a designer in formulating our explanations. Not yet.

Anonymous said...

No new chapter reviews because you are too busy writing hateful letters to Ken Ham? Maybe its time for a particular reformed Christian to do some self-reflection.

Anonymous said...

Or maybe he is busy?