scigirl

In defense of anti-dawkins:

Although I do like his writing style, at times he can be. . . pedantic perhaps? Also, as a molecular biologist, he over simplifies the genetics issues which of course gets my undies in a bunch.

Has anyone here read dawkins that didn't already have a science background? What did you think?

scigirl

Celsus

Eh? A layperson's opinion wanted on these boards? <jumps at the chance>

Ahem.

I've read The Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable and The Blind Watchmaker. My only exposure to biology was in my teens from, *cough*creationist*cough* sources (Hugh Ross, Michael Denton, Phil Johnson etc.) so I think that counts as no scientific background. However, I've read a lot of other science non-fiction (mostly physics) and I'm used to adjusting to jargon (mostly from uni reading UNIDO reports and other such crap).

Reading Dawkins, however, it seemed almost unnecessary, and it was really easy to get through without making a conscious effort to remember terms and definitions (I read all those books first time round in under three days each, which is about how long I take to read novels). I also liked his strong atheism in a way, since its always nice to see feathers ruffled in mainstream press.

Maybe he simplifies, but his description about wasps and figs still makes my head spin when I think about it. Anyway, I think his books were great for lay people like myself, and more specifically related to the subject matter than stuff like some of Stephen Gould's books (although I've only glanced at Rock of Ages, and read Bully for Brontosaurus). They also convey the core idea of how whatever system he's explaining actually works. I presume one could find out more by refering to his bibliographies.

Anyway, I liked his books - they require more than rudimentary intellect, but not overloaded with terms I couldn't understand (like Simon Conway Morris' book The Crucible of Creation, despite its damn near exhaustive glossary, which I found myself flipping to every third line).

One minor thing - even after reading his books, I'm not quite sure whats the difference between genes, DNA sequences and how they are read. Anyone care to clarify?

As for Mightily_Oats' assertion that Darwinism is in trouble, I would have to say that by comparison, the Creationist/ID stance is in far more trouble (can you spot the shrinking gaps?), and certainly no threat to evolution.

Now if a populariser of development economics would only show up... (Bono doesn't count)

scigirl

joejoejoe,

Thanks for your input about Dawkins.

Well, how long do you have?

I would suggest this on-line biology book:

<a href="http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/BioBookTOC.html" target="_blank">http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/BioBookTOC.html</a>

It's complicated, but basically, genes are pieces of the DNA sequence which are "read" by RNA polymerases and translated into messenger RNA. Then other enzymes come along and "read" the mRNA, translating it once again, but this time into protein.

The differential expression of the genes (turning some on at certain times, turning others off) is what causes one cell to become and act like a neuron, and another to become a muscle cell, despite the fact that muscle and nerve cells have the same DNA.

scigirl

Nic Tamzek

Dawkins is IMO an excellent zoologist, a very vivid writer, but not such a great philosopher (although then again, I always seem to find myself disagreeing with great philosophers). Depending on what you are reading Dawkins "for" then these distinctions can be very important.

Perhaps you have a specific criticism of one of Dawkins' biological arguments?

I don't think anyone has paid enough attention to Denton's 1985 book to actually bother to write a book refuting it. There were so many mistakes in Theory in Crisis that I think that few scientists bothered to take it seriously (except in some book reviews which of course only the scientists read). This was IMO a big mistake, as in some ways the creationists appear to have thought to themselves "Hmm, an antievolution book that hasn't been refuted in mind-numbing detail yet", borrowed many of the arguments, and voila, the ID movement was born.

A decent critique of Denton's most important argument, "molecular typology", is here:

<a href="http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/sequence.html" target="_blank">http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/sequence.html</a>

The best list of reviews I've seen is here:
<a href="http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/denton.html" target="_blank">http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/denton.html</a>


And, as others have noted, Denton now appears to have become an evolutionist (although an anthropic coincidence fan) as far as anyone can tell from his newer book "Nature's Destiny".

Funny that the ID textbook "Of Pandas and People" based their arguments on Denton (1985), eh?

nic

Mightily_Oats

&lt;i&gt; Behe's logic required that the components have no function at all other than as the component of a mousetrap. &lt;/i&gt;

You're going to have to expand on this Copernicus. At the moment I'm don't understand why Behe requires this.

&lt;i&gt; But a highly complex supernatural "intelligent designer" that always existed and just happened to figure out how to design all of this without anyone to help him/her/it and was able to make it all come into being out of nothing--that's not a "stretcher" for you? &lt;/i&gt;

Um. Actually no. If the existence of a "Designer" is supposed to be self-evidently improbable then I'm missing it. Could you expand on why you see this as improbable?


&lt;i&gt; As for Mightily_Oats' assertion that Darwinism is in trouble, I would have to say that by comparison, the Creationist/ID stance is in far more trouble (can you spot the shrinking gaps?), and certainly no threat to evolution. &lt;/i&gt;

Woah there! I make no such assertion! Like I said, I'm no biologist. What I _did_ say was that I haven't find Richard Dawkin's books terribly convincing.

I'll grab &lt;i&gt;Blind Watchmaker&lt;/i&gt; from the library and re-read it so I can give you guys more info on why I found it so dissatisfying. Watch for another thread in a little while.

&lt;i&gt; I don't think anyone has paid enough attention to Denton's 1985 book to actually bother to write a book refuting it. There were so many mistakes in Theory in Crisis that I think that few scientists bothered to take it seriously (except in some book reviews which of course only the scientists read). &lt;/i&gt;

I must sheepishly confess that this is news to me (although I have seen his latest &lt;i&gt;Nature's Destiny&lt;/i&gt; so I'm aware that he has reconsidered his position. On the other hand, it was the complexity arguments particularly presented in chapters 11, 13, an 14 that I found the strongest. I don't suppose any of you guys have read this?

&lt;i&gt;Dawkins is IMO an excellent zoologist, a very vivid writer, but not such a great philosopher (although then again, I always seem to find myself disagreeing with great philosophers). Depending on what you are reading Dawkins "for" then these distinctions can be very important.
&lt;/i&gt;

That's probably part of the problem. His capabilities as a Zoologist are mostly lost on me.

Incidentally, Automaton, why such a savage tone? I'm here to have my ideas challenged, not to antagonise people.

Daggah

You want my response to Behe?

Pointing and laughing is pretty much all he deserves. DBB has effectively been refuted dozens of times at this point.

Secular Pinoy

I suggest that you download Real Player so that you can see how Ken Miller demolishes Behe's argument. Your desire not to view the video seems to me an attempt at willful ignorance. Do us all a favor and watch it already.

Irreducible Complexity holds that an IC system cannot be the result of Evolution because it is so fine tuned that it cannot work if a part is missing. The thing is, a current use of an organ or mechanism does not mean that all parts are evolved for that purpose. Its parts may have been used for another purpose, one that was lost when it was “recruited” in the current system.

Also, try reading Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God. It has a chapter on Behe’s arguments and debunking it; and shows why it would be an insult to the christian god to take it seriously. It’s quite easy to read for nonbiologists. I don’t think you’d have any reason not to read if you plan on reading Dawkins’ book.

copernicus

Mightily, UBB code requires square brackets rather than angle brackets. I look forward to your other thread on Dawkins.

Miller actually quoted Behe's own words on this to make it clear that this was a central tenet of the theory. That is what the "irreducible" part of "irreducible complexity" is supposed to signify. None of the parts have a use other than as a component of the entire system. Evolution theory requires that evolution proceed in gradual steps, but the irreducibly complex system could not have come into being other than by external design, i.e. all at once.

What causes science to advance is not data that lacks explanation but the alternative explanation that encompasses both the new data and the data accounted for by the previous theory. You can't have an "intelligent designer" without some theory or definition of what an intelligent designer is like. Where would the "designer" come from? The irony in the the ID argument is that it depends so much on identifying complexity that evolution cannot explain, but it makes no attempt to explain the complex designer that is the alternative to evolution. Miller and others argue that Behe is just factually wrong in his claim that the complexity is too complex to "reduce" to mindless evolutionary design, but let's assume he's right.

So, what do we know about intelligent designers? We ourselves are the model for intelligent designers. Behe's mousetrap was designed by humans. But the whole point of the argument is that humans were themselves "designed". We are far more complex than the things we design, and we wouldn't exist were it not for some other designer. And we know that our ability to design things requires experience, education and training. The things we design fulfill some purpose--e.g. to keep down the population of vermin. In order for the theory to work, there has to be a new kind of designer--one that contains no irreducibly complex parts, as we do, and one which did not arise by the same process. Otherwise, we end up with a viciously circular argument. But there is no independent evidence for such a designer except for the ID argument itself. That is why I find the "intelligent designer" to be a rather improbable being. It is an extraordinary explanation that requires extraordinary evidence for it to be taken seriously. But IDers seem to have no interest in explaining where their "designer" comes from.

Evolution theory does not depend on lack of "design". Quite the opposite. Life is designed by the environment it attempts to survive in. The appeal of the theory is that it relies on no extraordinary beings to explain it. If one finds complexity that appears improbable or inexplicable in nature, appeal to a supernatural explanation does not solve the problem. If it ever did, then science would never have discovered natural answers for all of those inexplicable phenomena that humans used to attribute to supernatural gods but no longer do. ID is nothing more than an attempt to stop science from advancing more natural explanations for phenomena that appear inexplicable at this point in time.

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: copernicus ]</p>

scigirl

I too look forward to criticism of Dawkins -- MO, perhaps you are seeing hostility because many people criticize him for his staunch atheism, and because they are creationists. I as a scientist would actually love to debate some of Dawkins' ideas and theories in a scientific context (not, well I don't like him cuz he's mean!) .

scigirl

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Mightily_Oats

Okay, _square_ brackets this time. Hope it works.

Actually, it's that I doubt there will be any information in the video that I haven't read on any of the websites. I'm on a 56k modem here so downloading a video and a player is a bit of a time and bandwidth investment. I'll track down Finding Darwin's God.

By the way, if I was intentionally avoiding information would I really be posting here? I have already read Blind Watchmaker I'm planning to re-read it.

In that case my understanding of "irreducable complexity" is different to Behe's. With a bit of ingenuity, components of a mousetrap could be used for purposes other than being components of a mousetrap. Heck, you could even use the whole shebang as a makeshift clothes peg. But even if we had all the components of a mousetrap lying next to each other on the floor I can't see that any sort of random motion would result in them being assembled into a mousetrap.

I don't see that random mutation+natural selection is a powerful enough device to produce "Irreduceably Complex" systems that contain many components, even if several of those components were already present within an organism. You might fluke a few mutations that involve some of the right chemicals being in the right place at the right time, but all of them at once would be miraculous. Finding that this sensational fluke happened not once but in the creation of every codependent biological system in nature could form the basis of a design theory in it's own right.

The definative quality of an irreducably complex biological system, to my mind, is that the system fails totally if any of it's components are removed. Hence, rudimentary versions of that system won't be selected for, hence the system cannot be created through darwinian evolution.

A better tack for you guys, I think, would be to show how even rudimentary versions of "ireducably complex" systems are beneficial to an organism and would be selected for.

Respectfully, I think this is an argument mainly from sentiment rather than reason. Discussion of an "Intelligent Designer" would be from the outset a metaphysical discussion largely outside the realm of science. Behe's argument that the natural processes we can directly observe don't suffice as an explanation for the existence of life as we know it is not contingent on any particular ideas about what an "intelligent designer" would be like.

And given that the majority of the human race have had supernatural explanations for the existence of life, wouldn't the claim that we are the product of purely natural causes be the extraordinary one? After all, most people _do_ take, in whatever form, the idea of design seriously.

History isn't quite that clear cut. Science as we know it today grew up out of a culture that assumed the entire universe was under the control of a supernatural agent. And the great Atheistic regimes of the twentieth century were hardly hotbeds of scientific freethought. It is in some ways ironic that Darwinian evolution flourished in the primarily Christian United States, but was repressed in the explicitly Atheistic USSR.

Well, don't expect too much on the scientific front. If Dawkins claims that organism A does XYZ, I'll believe him even if any first year bio student would know better. My problems with him are more philosophically based, so we'll see how I go.

Ciao!

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: Mightily_Oats ]

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: Mightily_Oats ]</p>