Justice Janice Brown says the darndest things
Justice Janice Brown is a justice in the old tradition of actually abiding by the Constitution, and is of a strongly libertarian bent. What follows are a few choice quotes from Janice Brown.
"[a]rbitrary government actions which infringe property interests cannot be saved from constitutional infirmity by the beneficial purposes of the regulators." -- Santa Monica Beach, Ltd. v. Superior Court (1999)"Theft is still theft even when the government approves of the thievery...The right to express one's individuality and essential human dignity through the free use of property is just as important as the right to do so through speech, the press, or the free exercise of religion." -- San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco (2002)
Attempting to smear her, the AFL-CIO has generously provided a splended listing of some of her best decisions. Here are some of the most atrocious things that Brown has done, according to the AFL-CIO:
- Banning Affirmative Action. Brown authored an opinion that effectively ended meaningful affirmative action in California. Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc. v. City of Jan Jose, 12 P.3d 1068 (2000). Brown’s opinion was severely criticized, both on and off the court, for its harsh rhetoric and its suggestion that affirmative action resembled racist and segregationist laws that predated landmark civil rights laws.
- Denying Effective Remedies to Victims of Unlawful Discrimination. Brown would have barred administrative agencies from awarding compensatory damages for emotional distress in race discrimination cases. Konig v. Fair Employment and Housing Comm’n, 50 P.3d 718 (2002). While couching her decision in separations of powers language, Brown disparaged administrative agencies and implicitly questioned their ability to fairly assess damages, saying that “administrative agencies [are] not immune to political influences, [and] they are subject to capture by a specialized constituency.� 50 P.3d at 732. Brown was the only justice to take this position. And in Aguilar v. Avis Rent-a-Car, 980 P.2d 846 (1999), Brown authored a dissenting opinion that would have struck down, on First Amendment grounds, an injunction that instructed a supervisor not to use racial epithets against Latino employees. The injunction was issued by a trial court judge after the employer was found liable by a jury for maintaining a discriminatory hostile work environment for Latino employees.
- Barring Civil Rights Claims. Brown dissented in a civil rights case and said the plaintiff’s race and age bias claims should have been thrown out as preempted by federal banking law. Peatros v. Bank of America, 990 P.2d 539 (2000).
- Allowing Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Even If Employees Must Pay for the Cost of Arbitration. Brown authored an opinion saying that she would allow employers to require employees to agree to compulsory arbitration of employment claims (such as discrimination claims or unpaid overtime claims) even if those agreements allowed arbitrators to impose some or all of the cost of the arbitration on the employee. Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Servs., 6 P.3d 669 (2000). The majority of the court ruled that a mandatory arbitration agreement containing such a provision would be invalid, because it would discourage employees from exercising their right to bring claims against their employers.
- Protecting Private Property Rights at the Expense of Affordable Housing Measures. Brown dissented from a decision that upheld the City of San Francisco’s determination that the owner of a residence hotel needed to retain affordable housing or contribute to an affordable housing fund as a condition of converting its property to a tourist hotel. Brown wrote a sarcastic and blistering dissent, calling the city’s decision “theft,� “extortion� and an unconstitutional “taking� of the hotel owner’s private property. San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, 41 P.3d 87 (2002). Brown’s opinion shows that she is skeptical of government action when it impacts private property rights—a view which, if adopted, would put at risk many consumer, environmental and worker protection measures.
- Protecting Private Property Owners from Expressive Activity on their Property. Brown authored an opinion that took a narrow view of the California Constitution’s free speech protections, imposing a “state action� requirement as a condition of those protections, even though such a requirement does not appear in the language of the California Constitution. As a result, tenants in a huge residential apartment complex were barred from distributing a tenant newsletter to their neighbors. Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Ass’n, 29 P.3d 797 (2001). Employers are now using the decision to try to keep union organizers away from their workplaces.
- Chilling E-mail Communication with Employees. Brown dissented from a ruling that a company could not sue an ex-employee under the tort of trespass after the ex-employee sent e-mails critical of the company to his former co-workers. The court majority said the company could not sue because there had been no actual damage or disruption to the company’s e-mail system. Brown would have allowed the lawsuit even in the absence of such damage. Intel Corp. v. Hamidi, 71 P.3d 296 (2003). Had Brown’s view been adopted, companies throughout California could have used trespass laws to shut down group e-mail contact from outside individuals or organizations.
- Denying Schoolteachers Timely Information About Their Employment Status. In Kavanaugh v. West Sonoma County Union High School, 62 P.3d 54 (2003), Brown authored a dissent that would have allowed school districts to notify teachers of their status well after they began work, meaning that new hires could be subjected to “bait-and-switch� tactics by school employers. The court majority ruled that applicable statutes require school districts to notify teachers of their status (e.g., temporary, probationary, etc.) on their first day of work. Knowledge of this status is important because different categories of teachers have different levels of job security.
- Undermining Health and Safety Protections. Prior to joining the California Supreme Court, Brown served on the California Court of Appeal. There, she authored an opinion that would have invalidated a state law that required paint companies to help pay for screening and treatment of children exposed to lead paint. Brown’s opinion was later overturned by the California Supreme Court. Sinclair Paint Co. v. Board of Equalization, 49 Cal. App. 4th 127 (1996), rev’d, 937 P.2d 1350 (1997).
It would be difficult to make a stronger case for Justice Brown than the AFL-CIO has done here by this bullet-point listing. In opposing "affirmative action", Brown is supporting property rights and the right of freedom of association. Likewise in opposing the gravy-train that comes from "discrimination lawsuits", expecially when "emotional distress" is claimed. Brown supports the right of companies to refuse to pay for the costs of employee-disputes; it is one thing to say that employees have a right to bring a claim against their employers, and entirely another to say they have a right to force their employers to pay for the cost of bringing those claims.
Judge Brown rightly argued that forcing the Remo Hotel to contribute to an "affordable housing fund", as a condition of allowing it to convert its property to a tourist hotel, was theft, extortion, and unconstitutional taking. She is also rightly argued that freedom of speech doesn't mean the right to freedom of speech on someone else's property: no-one has the right to step on my property and start "freely expressing themselves", whether my property is my yard or my business.
Even her argument in favor of allowing Intel to sue a former employee for sending e-mails critical of Intel to then-current Intel employees was justiable: the e-mail server which the then-current employees used was the property of Intel; after the former employee was asked to stop trespassing on Intel's property, they had every right to sue him (whether or not the damages could be significant is another matter). Furthermore, in focusing on damage to the e-mail system, those from whom Brown was dissenting were attempting to make an end-run around the fact that costs are subjective. Likewise, Brown supports property rights in opposing laws requiring paint companies to help pay for screening children exposed to lead paint. Should the companies that make knives, oven burners, mercury thermometers, gasoline, and other things that children shouldn't be around also be required to pay for the treatment of children who were exposed?
Comments (73)
While she may have a lot of reasonable opinions, particularly on property rights and affirmative action, -- her ruling in People v. Ray (1999) (viewable By Searching Here for case number S071999 is quite troublesome -- in that she sees that government has a positive obligation to protect property than to not infringe on people's fourth amendment right to privacy.
She has numerous other questionable opinions which I won't detail here in the interest of time -- though the rulings I would select to demonstrate this generally differ from those chosen by the AFL-CIO, obviously.
Even when viewing her generously through a freedom-centric lens, many of her opinions are downright frightening, and I don't see why she deserves a cheering section from the Austrian crowd. She uses statism to defend property rights -- what would Mises say about that?
Published: May 6, 2005 3:27 AM
Too bad she's as anti-secular as she is anti-socialist. It seems we always end up having to choose between the zealot that wants to control our property and the zealot that wants to control our thoughts. I vote for none of the above.
Keith
Published: May 6, 2005 6:16 AM
Brian,
Having briefly looked at the case you referred me to, I'm not so sure that's a troubling decision. If police are there for anything, it is the protection of private property. If they think that a house is in the process of being robbed, and this is a reasonable conclusion based on available evidence, do you think they shouldn't do anything, but should run off to a court to get some paperwork, by which time they're back the robbers are long gone? Brown argued that in that case, the evidence (cocaine) procured against the defendant was not inadmissable, because the police-officers didn't enter the house with any intent of prosecuting the defendant. It is the cocaine laws, of course, which are wrong and should be abolished.
Regarding Brown believing in using the State to protect private property: Yes, that is her opinion. She is a Constitutionist. I don't see something there that Mises would inherently disapprove of: he too thought the State was necessary to protect private property rights.
Of course, I disagree with both on that.
I'm sure that Justice Brown has made some poor decisions, which aren't in alignment with libertarian principles. It is interesting, however, that in attempting to smear her, the AFL-CIO has made a strong case for her.
Keith,
Yes, Brown is strongly religious. So what? Unless she's attempted to violate the freedom of thought of those who aren't Christian, how is that relevant?
Published: May 6, 2005 8:33 AM
David:
I don't have a problem with somebody having a religion, but when they make statements professing their opinion that secularism is a danger to our country, you have to be very naive to think that attitude won't influence their judicial opinions, no matter what their religion. Any judge that is anti-secular is in the same category as a judge that is anti-free speech, anti-due process, or anti-federalism. Secularism is a basic premise of our country. To be against it is to disqualify you from holding power, in my opinion.
And I made no reference in my comments to Brown being christian. I could care less what her religion is, as long as she keeps it out of her work. Secularism doesn't mean anti-christian. It means secular.
Keith
Published: May 6, 2005 9:54 AM
Secularism IS a danger to our country when it turns militant and becomes THE state religion.
If you couple the power of the state as it currently is, you get secularist inquisitors. Look at Kansas right now - (I know we ought not have government schools, but we do so follow) they are attempting to introduce SCIENCE into biology classes instead of the dogma of Darwinism. That (without asking anything about the nature of the designer), we can ask if what we see is the product of known natural forces and processes, or would have to have an active intelligence. But even bringing up that question sends the secularists into a fundamentalist-burning frenzy. And anyone who even suggests sex outside of marriage can damage our culture and society (Even Hoppe who is no Jerry Falwell) gets burned at the stake.
When government doesn't engage in the corporal or spirtual works of mercy, but only keeps the peace by enforcing persons and property against theft and damage, there is little difference between secularism and religion.
In a limited government, secularism basically means dealing with the merely temporal, and only as absolutely necessary. In an intrusive government, it is as hostile to our culture as were the Nazis or Communists.
Published: May 6, 2005 4:54 PM
The ruling in question notes that the house had its door open for hours, and the neighbors thought something was wrong, and the living room was ransacked (and the drugs were in plain view).
If the house was neat, they might have just closed and locked the door. I'm not sure if the 4th ammendment applies when there is an open door and enough other things going on to make the police come in. (Think attractive nusiance - why you are responsible if a child can get to your pool and drown in it because you don't even have a fence). Often people say "yes" when officers ask if they can search their car or property.
There is a balance to strike - that is what good judges do. Within the framework (consider if it had not been drugs but evidence of a violent or property crime in plain view), I think you can argue that she ruled correctly. Were circumstances different (officers having to break down doors, or if they actively searched the property), she probably would have ruled differently.
Published: May 6, 2005 5:01 PM
what SCIENCE is being introduced in kansas? all i see is a push for ID, i.e. creationism.
Published: May 6, 2005 7:31 PM
How about: "The scientific method of getting everyone to move away from Kansas?"
Published: May 6, 2005 9:34 PM
There is no militant secularism in this country. It would be nice if there was, though. A Militant secularism would be very usefull in preventing Pat Robertson and the rest of the Religious Reich loonies from turning America into a Theocracy.
Published: May 6, 2005 9:48 PM
tz wrote:
"In a limited government, secularism basically means dealing with the merely temporal, and only as absolutely necessary. In an intrusive government, it is as hostile to our culture as were the Nazis or Communists."
The problem is not secularism, it is statism. Franco's Spanish government was as intrusive as the worst of them, yet it was not by a long shot a secular government. Sure, there are meddlesome secularists - just as there are VERY meddlesome religious zealots.
Published: May 7, 2005 2:30 AM
I would much prefer to live in a country which views God as the highest authority instead of man. If God is the highest authority, only God can strip us of our human dignity and rights. If man is the highest authority, the state owns all our asses.
You'll note, of course, that the brilliant men who wrote the Declaration of Independence made an appeal to the "Creator" as the source of our rights and dignity -- now why do you think they did so?
Published: May 7, 2005 1:07 PM
The brilliant men who wrote the Declaration made an appeal to the creator because they were either Unitarians or Deists--just the type of people you wouldn't find aligned with Pat Robertson and his gangsters.
I'd personally prefer to live in a country which prefers, not god or man, but Reason as the highest authority.
Published: May 7, 2005 5:18 PM
I'd personally rather live in a country where people can regard whatever they wish as the highest authority, as long as they don't violate the right of others to do the same.
Published: May 7, 2005 8:42 PM
Michael, you said:
"I would much prefer to live in a country which views God as the highest authority instead of man. If God is the highest authority, only God can strip us of our human dignity and rights. If man is the highest authority, the state owns all our asses.
You'll note, of course, that the brilliant men who wrote the Declaration of Independence made an appeal to the "Creator" as the source of our rights and dignity -- now why do you think they did so?"
Which god is it that you're giving this highest authority? Did he speak to you (or anybody) directly? If he didn't talk to me, then how am I supposed to tell the difference between what some god said and what some charlatan is saying that god said, but actually is just making up for his own advantage? Until god (any god) speaks to me directly, I'm afraid it just sounds like somebody elses contrived story.
I agree that the men that wrote the Declaration of Independence were brilliant, but they were still men. I think their use of the term "creator" was quite brilliant, because it allows everybody to make their own choice as to a meaning. My own interpretation is that my parents were my creator. If your interpretation is different, then I think my point is made.
Keith
Published: May 9, 2005 8:32 AM
Keith:
So your view is that your parents endowed you with inalienable rights? If parents are the source of rights, then I guess you've just made the case for abortion, infanticide, and Susan Smith.
To each his own, but I'll stick with God as the source of my rights.
Published: May 10, 2005 6:05 AM
Michael:
If my rights are inalienable, then that means thay can't be taken away, not even by the entity that endowed them. Of course, that has never been perfectly true, or we wouldn't have executions, prisons, or taxes.
Feel free to stick with "God" (although you still haven't mentioned which one). Just don't try to force him on me or use him as an excuse to infringe on my inalienable rights.
Keith
Published: May 10, 2005 8:05 AM
How far up into the atmosphere do property rights extend, or do those rights just continue into outerspace, perhaps just to the stratasphere?
Published: May 10, 2005 12:05 PM
I refrase the question:
If a person owns a 10 acre plot of land, including all sub mineral rights,(down to a depth of 20,000,meters) how far above
the surface of the 10 acres is included in private
property rights? For example, the highest tree, or the highest building(built or to be built) 500 meters, 1000, or 1 mile?
Published: May 10, 2005 12:49 PM
Rofl, how high can you levitate? How deep into the ground can you dig? As a practical matter, rights only extend to whatever is significant. As a theoretical matter, rights only extend to what you can conceivably control. Introducing absurdities isn't a reasonable objection, and in this case, I don't see how it's relevant to the topic or thread.
Published: May 10, 2005 12:57 PM
Rolf,
Although not relevant to this thread, property rights extend at least to the extent that you've homesteaded property. This does not include up into the stratosphere (unless you've actually homesteaded property up into the stratosphere). Prof. Block talks about this in some of his papers on road privatization. See Walter Block Publications (search for "Transportation Systems").
Published: May 10, 2005 1:16 PM
Michael A. Clem
The distance above the surface is most relevant, just as relevant as the survey line seperating
properties.
Military bases for example have no fly zones over their properties as have other government instilations.
Though for so called regular citizens in society who own their 10 acres without the mineral rights (They can dig as deep as they want to but cannot extract anything of value), how high above the surface do their property rights extend? If it is not more than the highest blade of grass, then the surface above would not be their property and others would have the right to express themselves, they would have the right of freedom of speech while standing on anothers property. Though if they built a structure with its base on said property all within the structure would come under the law of the property owner.
I have never heard of private property owners having no fly zones, and if your private property happens to be at the end of an airport runway,
the invasion of sound can cause nervous disorders.
And it appears those who own such properties, have little say over its surface. And often, few rights below the surface.
Published: May 10, 2005 2:55 PM
Exactly how is the distance above the surface relevant to Justice Brown's decision, or for that matter, to the other posters' comments?
The rest of your comments seem to blatantly disregard what I said about significant and conceivably control. And the last time I checked, military bases were not usually considered private property.
Published: May 10, 2005 3:11 PM
Mr. Heinrich,
No, the stratosphere is to poluted to live in,
though I did have an 80 acre patch some years ago in Mississippi
and the first part I checked was the sub surface rights.
Published: May 10, 2005 3:15 PM
I'd personally rather live in a country where people can regard whatever they wish as the highest authority, as long as they don't violate the right of others to do the same.
This is self-contradictory. They would have to hold the non-violation of rights as the highest authority, with whatever else being lower. But event that doesn't help because ideas conflict - If I don't believe in "property" (think DMCA and software patents as a current example), and you do, am I stealing your property, or are you filing an unjust claim to control my behavior or get some of my money?
Natural Law is like arithmetic. When an accountant says he believes 2+2=5 you don't consider it merely a different opinion, you think him insane, a fool, or a knave.
Reason discovers it, but often Reason is enslaved to fad or political convienience - for example l4l.org has a far better and more consistent reasoning on abortion than Rothbard. You can rationalize anything.
Even here, how do I claim property from nature? I've noted before that under some common theories if I despoil ("improve") large tracts, though not really use it, I become the owner while someone who simply wants the natural view isn't able to claim that portion that gives the beauty. If I "use" the air, do I own it? This is a subtle question, and it has answers. But they need to be thought through. And how far do we allow heckler's vetoes? If one owner doesn't want his section of street to be paved, can he prevent 99 others who do?
The more subtle point about inalienable rights is that YOU cannot even alienate them - you cannot sell yourself into slavery, but it also makes suicide a variant of homicide. In general, things like life, liberty, the ability to claim and own property, and even sex (why rape is not merely a theft of service set by the current price of equivalent prostitutes) were rights and trancendental - above the economic sphere. They can only be exchanged for the like, such as when people volunteer for the army to protect life and liberty, or marriage where two people exchange their bodies and liberty.
Is it your body in the sense of being your house which you can sell, or in the sense of your life or liberty which you cannot? Are you the guardian (much like a lease car which you must insure and take care of since you will have to turn it in and face penalties for excessive wear), or the owner (like an owned care which you can mistreat)? What you own can be sold to meet debts. What you are entrusted with can't.
Hedonism and Liberty are thus incompatible. Many want liberty to do as they please, but they do not respect inalienable rights since they dispose of things which ought to be held in sacred trust and eventually liberty itself.
Published: May 10, 2005 4:02 PM
Michael, which god did you have in mind?
Published: May 10, 2005 4:05 PM
There is no militant secularism in this country. It would be nice if there was, though. A Militant secularism would be very usefull in preventing Pat Robertson and the rest of the Religious Reich loonies from turning America into a Theocracy.
So you wouldn't mind the denial of rights, perhaps even the deprivation of property and violence against "Religious Reich loonies"? For what else would a militant (same root as military) secularism do? It could only be useful to the extent as it violated rights.
I will concede the point of secularism v.s. statism, but it is described as "secularism" what is forcing the teaching of dogmatic darwinism (as opposed to anything like science which would be allowed to ask questions about design v.s. natural processes).
Intelligent Design is NOT creationism except that it merely asks if the complexity we see is most likely due to an intelligence - not to any other attribute of such an intelligence. If you weren't allowed to say automobiles or computer programs were designed, you could come up with an evolutionary model for them too.
Published: May 10, 2005 4:17 PM
TZ wrote:
"Intelligent Design is NOT creationism except that it merely asks if the complexity we see is most likely due to an intelligence - not to any other attribute of such an intelligence. If you weren't allowed to say automobiles or computer programs were designed, you could come up with an evolutionary model for them too."
Only a far as we already know cars or computer programs were designed; however, since nobody can know for sure a life form was designed ex nihilo, since there is not ONE drawing, schematic, or a Made in Heaven stamped on each of this World's lifeforms, there is nothing against to which compare a life with a desgined life. Due to this, ID begs the question as to how can an ID advocate KNOW a lifeform was designed. The ID advocate merely assumes something LOOKS designed, thus concludes it MUST have been designed; this assertion begs the question.
ID takes advantage of the (yet) unknown process of how a certain part of a bacteria could have evolved. By pointing out such a lack in a certain piece of knowledge (since a person cannot know everything), ID advocates are quick to shoehorne a God explanation, or a God-of-the-gaps. Interesting ID advocates do not mention that basically ANYONE intelligent enough can become the Intelligent Designer, even a totally natural-evolved extraterrestrial with a very cool life-building apparatus - meaning, not a god. The hypothesis cannot deny this, not does it call exclusively for an all-powerfull god.
I laugh at the term "dogmatic darwinism"; few creationists would be willing to call natural selection "Russellism" or "Wallacism", even though the Victorian era scientist, Alfred Russell Wallace, arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin, at the same time, doing different research, in a different part of the world. Such double confirmation is non-existant in ID.
Published: May 11, 2005 3:43 AM
Back to Judge Brown...
Another lefty site has provided us with a list of positives about Judge Brown's record. People for the American Way (whatever THAT means these days) published another "incriminating" list of how awful Judge Brown is.... This time, they provide examples "in her own words", which actually provides a fairly solid list of libertarian leaning opinions. Only to collectivist democracy types can these examples be negatives.
I particularly enjoyed these two snippets (for the actual hyper linked text and all sorts of other quotes, visit the link provided above to www.pfaw.org):
"I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country’s founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document...1937...marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution...Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers’ conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests... In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned" [Federalist speech at 8, 10, 11, 12]
"In the last 100 years – and particularly the last 30 – the Constitution, once the fixed chart of our aspirations, has been demoted to the status of a bad chain novel." [IFJ speech at2]
Published: May 11, 2005 10:07 AM
Here is a great example of what happens when rights are endowed by men and not God:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/afplifestylefrancelaw
Wed May 11, 1:27 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - Animals are for the first time to get an official status of their own under France's 200 year-old civil code, in a move that reflects the country's arrival from a rural to urban society.
Justice Minister Dominique Perben this week approved the recommendation of an expert's report that animals should be recognised to be "protected property, as living and sentient beings."
And there you have it. Isn't that wonderful?
Published: May 12, 2005 2:28 AM
Is it your body in the sense of being your
house which you can sell, or in the sense of
your life or liberty which you cannot?
Preventing people from selling themselves to slavery, giving themselves up as gifts, or exchanging themselves for some other form of consideration is, in fact, limiting their freedom.
Before anyone asks "who in his right mind would want to sell himself" I'd advise him to visit some community BDSM site and check how many people actually desire it.
Published: May 12, 2005 9:18 PM
This has come up before, and I still think Rothbard had the best explanation for it. Basically, he said that you cannot sell yourself into slavery because it is impossible to alienate your will. Sure, you could agree to it, sign the contract, whatever, but at some point you would have to say that you cannot abide by the terms forever. With this in mind, I have to wonder if "till death do us part" is a valid contract...
Published: May 13, 2005 12:01 PM
Qoute from Michael:
"Here is a great example of what happens when rights are endowed by men and not God.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/afplifestylefrancelaw"
I guess I don't follow how some french law on animals has anything to do with rights endowed by men or gods. Perhaps you could give us your opinion on the treatment of cows by Hindus reflects on endowed rights?
Keith
Published: May 13, 2005 12:26 PM
Regarding stratospheric property rights ...
There was a county in CA that wanted a satellite in geosynchronous orbit overhead to be taxed as personal property in that county. I believe they lost in court, but quite a stretch, eh?
Published: May 13, 2005 2:18 PM
You know cars and computers and various other things are designed. Yet are you claiming you either cannot determine with any accuracy or that you would know/assume something was the result of natural processes if I brought something to you which fit no known category but had apparent complexity? Were some meteor to land on earth, and it contained something complex, you are saying you could not even begin to guess if it was designed or arose naturally? Or if I brought you something terrestrial but you were unfamiliar with?
Or the example I sometimes use, if a body is found having fallen from a tall building, unless you personally pushed it, you would rule out homicide and suicide (designed) in favor of accident (natural) no matter whatever other evidenced was provided?
ID takes advantage of the (yet) unknown process of how a certain part of a bacteria could have evolved. By pointing out such a lack in a certain piece of knowledge (since a person cannot know everything), ID advocates are quick to shoehorne a God explanation, or a God-of-the-gaps.
This is where evolutionists beg the question.
You assume a priori there is a natural process or force that can produce something irreducably complex even though you cannot show such a force in an experiment. Bacteria have flagella, therefore there must be some yet unknown force that would construct them ex nihilo (information-wise).
A person cannot know everything but it is scientific to say you don't know, not that you know for sure it was not designed.
Published: May 13, 2005 9:10 PM
tz - it would do you some good to actually learn something about modern biology.
For anyone half familiar with how things works inside our cells it is quite obvious that it couldn't be "designed". It is incredibly messy, convoluted, and is nothing like any _intelligent_ design of any kind. The first impression from studying signalling pathway diagrams that whoever came up with the "design" in them is schizophrenic, in a bad way.
The experiments with simulated evolution have shown very explicitly that inheritance, random mutations and selection for fitness do produce this kind of "designs" - sometimes so astonishingly complicated even after relatively few generations that experimenters couldn't figure out excactly why the darned things worked:
http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/adrianth/TEC99/paper.html
The intelligent designers strive to achieve the exact opposite - to make their designs as simple as possible and easy to understand. Just ask any engineer.
(Oh, and, by the way, it is not "ex nihilo" - there is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics during evolution; the amount of information within the system does not increase. I guess you may also want to study physics and the theory of information before using words meaning of which you not understand).
Published: May 13, 2005 11:32 PM
Just because somebody believes that secularism is a danger to society doesn't mean that they believe it's government's business to mitigate that danger.
Why are so many libertarians so reactionary against religion? She has just as much freedom of religioun and just as much right to free speach as you do. You would have it so that only Aithiests would be allowed to run the government, and that's definitly not right.
Tracy
Published: May 14, 2005 7:09 PM
Tracy - I didn't say that government should be in business of telling what is right and what is not; I merely addressed the validity of tz's claims that biological things have been designed, which is very obviously untrue to anyone who actually bothered to learn how organisms and cells work.
In fact, I think the government should not do anything and should just go away :) I'm not an atheist, either, but the ID crowd's claims that ID is a reasonable alternative theory are simply based on ignorance and multiple logical fallacies. In fact, attributing the kind of "design" one finds in biology to God would be plainly insulting to His intelligence.
Libertarianism is founded on use of reason instead of superstition, and it is a good idea to apply the reason to other fields, as well. I think it is a good idea for a libertarian to be an advocate of truth and reason - and, so far, the scientific method seems to be the only consistently working way of discovering the truth. So I stick with it :)
Published: May 14, 2005 10:47 PM
I jumped into this discussion late. I wasn't talking to you but was refering to the 2nd post by Keith, " too bad she's as anti-secular. " and then later complaining she was proclaiming that Secularism was harmfull to society.
But since you're on the subject, actually their are many problems with Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of evolution. I'd encourage you to read "Darwin's black box." And also some of the research done by Charles Thaxton regarding Complexity theory. It's by no means clear that the scientific method has produced verifiable proof that things evolved vs some sort of intellegent design. Their are many prominent biologists who believe in some sort of intellegent design so your flippant, "very obviously untrue to anyone who actually bothered to learn how organisms and cells work." seems a bit unwarranted.
Yes the cell is a very complex entity that functions with-out need for outside interference most of the time. But how the cell became to be in the first place. In this evolutionists are on very shaky ground. Fred Hoyle, who was a physicist and recently died, got toghether was some biologists and figured out the odds, and decided that the odds of a single cell forming randomly was astronomically small. He's quoted as saying that his Aithiesm was severly shaken when he discovered this.
Hoyle, at least, was man enough to admit that his aithism was based on faith and not neccessarily fact. He realized it was by no means a scientifically proven fact whether life evolved, or the universe evolved the way it is.
I happen to be of the oppinion -- after studying the evidence -- that it actually takes more faith to conclusively state that we evolved through evolution or that their is no god, then it takes to believe in creation and the existence of some supernatual intellegence.
I assure you that -- based on the innitial assumptions -- which in many ways are unbrovable but there is evidence to support them, that Christianity is a very logical religion.
I also take exception to your statement that Libertarianism is based on reason. Nonsence.
Libertarianism is based on not harming others who haven't harmed you initially. This is paraphrased in the Non-Agression principle, but it's also paraphrased in the Golden Rule which Jesus preached in his Sermon on the mount which Paul later repeated in Romains. The Late spanish scholastics were very proto-Austrian and yet were highly devoted Catholics in the tradition of St. Thomas of Aquinous. J.R.R. Tolken was a Catholic individualist anarchist "(not to be confused with wiskered men with Bombs.)" Indeed their is a strong libertarian and even individualist anarchy tradition with-in Christianity and personally I believe it's the only way to interpret the Bible Properly.
Now objectivists, perhaps get to "libertarianism" through reason but many well reasoned individuals don't -- because their innitial assumptions are different. And many objectivists are warmongers. Meanwhile, many people get to Libertarian principles because of their religious belief system -- and not neccessarily through reason -- although many times religion and reason are highly compatible and even complimentary.
Regardless, freedom implies that people have a right to be stupid, mystical, or irrational even as long as they don't harm other people.
So excuse me when I take exception to this highly antagonistic attitude that many libertarians have with religion in general and Christianity in particular. These people can be our allies if we speak to them in our own language, instead of alienating them by continually calling them "irrational." I assure you that given their innitial assumptions about the world most of these people are actually being quite logical. And attacking them serves no purpose except to hurt our movement.
Many Christians take great exception to having over 30% or better of their wealth extorted from them, when all God asks is for you to volentarily give 10% if you can do it cheerfully (the more litteral translation is hillariously). Christians have been a vital part of the homeschooling movement and many Christian groups have been constant allies in the complete seperation of school and state -- and they'll only become more allied with us on this issue -- especially if we don't infer that they're stupid all the time. Many Christians on both sides of the isle are highly opposed to the welfare state because instead of treating the poor as individuals it treats them as a problem. Many Christians on both sides of the isle are also opposed to the warfare state. But by alienating them you screen out many potential allies in the fight for freedom.
TRacy
Published: May 15, 2005 12:09 AM
"in our own language"
Sorry, I meant, "speak to them, in their own language."
Published: May 15, 2005 12:10 AM
tz wrote:
"You know cars and computers and various other things are designed. Yet are you claiming you either cannot determine with any accuracy or that you would know/assume something was the result of natural processes if I brought something to you which fit no known category but had apparent complexity? Were some meteor to land on earth, and it contained something complex, you are saying you could not even begin to guess if it was designed or arose naturally? Or if I brought you something terrestrial but you were unfamiliar with?"
There is no reason to believe complexity is in itself a proof of design. If you had four rocks in front of you, three being volcanic: ragged, torn, full of crystals, colors and points, and another a perfect, beautiful sphere, which one would you conclude had to be built by an intelligence? Yet ragged, common rocks, with all their points and crystals show mind-boggling complexity down to its matrix whereas the sphere does not.
tz wrote:
"You assume a priori there is a natural process or force that can produce something irreducably complex even though you cannot show such a force in an experiment."
In the example I gave above above, the volcanic rocks, which can be irreducibly complex (since if you pulverize one, it becomes not a rock), yet were originated from a natural process which is not a laboratory experiment.
Tracy wrote:
"Hoyle, at least, was man enough to admit that his aithism was based on faith and not neccessarily fact. He realized it was by no means a scientifically proven fact whether life evolved, or the universe evolved the way it is."
Appeal to authority, a big logical no-no. Hoyle said it; why, it must be true! In the first place, you are assuming atheism means negating the existance of God, which is quite an achievement. Since there is no way of knowing all that is the universe, a person cannot negate the existance of ANYTHING. But that is just how absurd believers can become. Atheism is simply choosing NOT to believe in god or gods, just as a person chooses not to believe in fairies or gnomes, Santa Klaus or mermaids. It is a question of choice, not of negating. I cannot negate the existance of god, I simply choose not to believe in any gods until believers become so kind as to forward some tangible proof other than "the Bible said so"
Tracy:
"Now objectivists, perhaps get to "libertarianism" through reason but many well reasoned individuals don't -- because their innitial assumptions are different. And many objectivists are warmongers."
With such a non sequitur, are you trying to prove objectivists cannot be libertarians? Many Christians are warmongers as well, so should I conclude that Christianity cannot lead me towards libertarianism?
Published: May 15, 2005 2:12 AM
Tracy:
Yes the cell is a very complex entity that functions with-out need for outside interference most of the time. But how the cell became to be in the first place. In this evolutionists are on very shaky ground.
"We don't know how exactly it happened." is not an argument in favor of anyone doing it deliberately. It is just a statement of having a limited knowledge. We don't know exactly how thunderbolts start (there's a "small" problem of the strength of electrical fields in clouds being insufficient for starting spontaneous electric discharges) - would you attribute them to be the deliberate acts of God, too? Oh, pagans did attribute them to gods.
In fact, we do know for sure that the evolution can create complex designs out of "nothing" - even the stripped-down trivial versions of the evolutionary algorithm (I provided the reference to one of the actual experiments above - anyone with amateur-level skill in electronics can repeat it).
What people fail to understand is that complexity is not the same as intelligence - the repeated application of a simple equation z'=z*z+c generates an infinitely complex and never repeating pattern (on a complex plane of c), known as Mandelbrot's set - you probably have seen the colorful nested spirals of it, at one time they were printed on popular t-shirts). The pattern is complex, but the process generating it is by no means "intelligent".
The spontaneous creation of biological life cannot be replicated in a laboratory for a very simple reason - it takes a billion years or so. It does not mean it doesn't happen at all.
The scientific debates are not about if it did happen or not, the question is which exactly route did it take, and how to create a mathematical model showing why it happened the way it did.
Now, there's a more interesting question for anyone contemplating the Creation: the fundamental physical constants are very finely tuned to exactlty the values facilitating _possibility_ of life - even small deviations in relative strengths of different forces, etc, would make ordinary matter unstable, or would cause stars to burn out in millions instead of billions of years, or not to form in the first place - any of which would make life impossible. Right now it is a great puzzle for the cosmologists, although it is possible that this remarkable (and highly unprobable) "coincidence" will eventually be explained in terms of grander and more fundamental principles. (I will skip discussing the "anthropic principle").
What ID proponents lack is simple humility - because they do not understand how small and insignificant the Earth, the life on it, and the people, compared to the unimaginable vastness of the Creation, they presume to have a special role in it (God personally created us (well, "our" life)! we must be important!). They are just as naive and laughable as people who believe that God is literally that ol' chap sittin on a cloud, like they paint in the comic strips.
Published: May 15, 2005 6:22 AM
"ith such a non sequitur, are you trying to prove objectivists cannot be libertarians? Many Christians are warmongers as well, so should I conclude that Christianity cannot lead me towards libertarianism?"
I'm not trying to prove anything with my statement. I'm just stating that some objectivests have some attitudes which aren't very libertarian. And many have attitudes that are. In the same way many Christians and religious people has non-libertarian ideals, and many do. I'm just pointing out that just because somebody claims to use "reason" doesn't mean that they're going to arive at libertarian conclusions. It seems to me that "reason" can't be the only factor as to whether a person is going to have libertarian ideals or not and hence pigeonholing somebody, or a group of somebodys (Christians in this particular case) as not able to have libertarian ideas simply because one/they don't meet averros particular standards of "reason" is missguided.
averros: I'm not particularly interested in getting into a debate about evolution/creation right now. My point is that their are fundemental problems that adding mere 30 billion years of time, doesn't fix. Again, I'll just refer you to "Darwin's Black Box." And currently the estimated age of the universe (judging from current calculations of the Hubble Constant) only puts it at 10-14 billion years old. There are many systems with-in the cell that are irreducibly complex that simply adding more time doesn't fix. I don't really have time to get into it right now. But simply that the theory of evolution is just that, a theory. As is creation. And neither is really very provable, and neither can be scientifically validated or invalidated -- because one need of science is reproducability.
I'm very glad that you didn't discuss anthropic principles. They're nothing more then circular non sequenture. Fred Hereen discusses them in his book "Show Me God" in great detail. Theirs the "Well it must have happened or we wouldn't be here." argument. There's the "infinite universes" argument and we just "happen" to be in the right one. There's Hawking's "Our decendents created the universe" in an idea that time is circular too. There's the "The universe is continually expanding and contracting" but most physicists think that each time it would do it, should such a thing be true it would be more and more irregular each time so if the universe truly was eternal this would definitely not be the first expansion. There's also the yogic-like man created the universe with it's perception of it -- which (along with the infinite universes theory) is based on the Copanhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics which it self may or may not be correct but regardless beg's the question "where did man come from so he could observe the universe and create it" and you're resolved with a classic Chickin and Egg problem. None of these anthropic principles are very meaningfull. They're fantasies that people want to believe and people who DO believe them believe them based on faith -- just like people who believe in a God, or some form of intellegent design believe it based on faith.
The only truly faithless person is the agnostic who has no oppinion one way or the other and believes that neither option is completely provable through logical and scientific means.
I don't know what you mean about Intellegent Design people being arrogant. I agree that Earth is very insignificant in the universe. And I really don't have a problem with other species being on other worlds. If anything that would enhance the creation argument in my view because that would mean that there's a much less likely chance that it could have all evolved randomly.
Tracy
Published: May 15, 2005 9:06 PM
Regarding Hoyle I've got a source if you'd like to read it. Fred Hoyle and his colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds that all the functional protein necessary for life might form in one place by random events. They got one chance in 10 to then 40,000th power. There are only 10 to the 80th atoms in the universe, at least if we believe current theories of the mass of the universe based on Einstines theories of gravity etc. They concluded that this was “an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.� (Evolution from Space p24). And that's only 1 problem.
The random production of Carbon from the Stars is a problem too. Again, Hoyle is credited with the discovery of the resonance of carbon and oxygen atoms. Working with William Fowler, Hoyle discovered that, by all rights, the carbon atom, which seems to have been uniquely designed to make life possible, should either not exist or be exceedingly rare. In order to form, the carbon atom needed first to have a very precise level of a nuclear property caller “resonance,� or the amount of excitement in the nucleus of an atom. Steven Weinberg writes;
"Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values. The best known of these quantities is the energy of one of the excited states of the carbon 12 nucleus. There is an essential step in the chain of nuclear reactions that build up heavy elements in stars.(Steven Weinberg, “Life in the Universe,� Scientific American(October 1994), p.49)"
The essential step begins with the collision of one helium nucleuswith another in a star, producing a fleeting form of an element calledberyllium. Robert Kirshner, chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, explains what happens next:
"Amazingly enough, another helium nucleus collides with this short-livedtarget, leading to the formation of carbon. The process would seem about like crossing a stream by stepping fleetingly on a log. A delicate match between the energies of helium, the unstable beryllium and the resultant carbon allows the last to be created. Without this process, we would not be here.(“The Earth’s elements,� Scientific American (October 1994), p61).
If the resonance was just slightly above or below, carbon couldn’t form.
Again, the odds of carbon appearing all by itself through natural stellar processes is extreamly astronomical. There shouldn't be enough in the universe for the amount of life here on earth. I'd recomend "Engineering and Science" (November 1981) by Hoyle as well.
It really does -- IMNSHO -- take more faith to disbelieve in the existance of a God, then to believe in his existance.
Aithiesm is that stated believe that there is no such thing as God. Hence, it by definition is incompatible with a belief in God. Just because a person doesn't believe God exists doesn't mean he doesn't -- anymore then believing God exists means he does. So yes, Aithiesm DOES negate the existance of a god. Agnostisism is the belief system that states we can't know which way.
Tracy
Published: May 15, 2005 9:23 PM
This conversation has turned quite interesting (and a little bit non-topical, but that's ok). Let me state right off the bat that as someone with a BS in molecular biology, and several courses on evolution, I do believe in evolution. Perhaps not as strongly as I believe in gravity, or that I exist, or that man acts, but I think there is significant evidence for it. There is so much evidence for it in numerous studies done.
Responding to the question of how improbable is is that a cell may have occured spontaneously through chance, this is idle speculation. It is meaningless to talk about how improbable it is (a priori) that we exist. We do exist, so even if it was a 1 in a 10^10000000 chance, that doesn't really matter. We wouldn't be here to talk about it otherwise. And I might add that saying "there was a creator" doesn't really solve anything -- for how improbable is it that a creator would exist, as well? Ultimately, we are constrained by the fact that there are two alternatives, both equally inconceivable to the mind of man: that something can exist forever, or that something can come out of nothing. Whether you believe in Intelligent Design or Evolution, that inconceivable reality is not addressed satisfactorily.
I might add that it is not as improbable as one might think that life could come to exist. There are some interesting papers referred to on TalkOrigins.org that explain why life is in fact an entropy-increasing system. Of particular interest: Demetrius, Lloyd, 2000. Theromodynamics and evolution. Journal of Theoretical Biology 206(1): 1-16..
Published: May 15, 2005 9:31 PM
Certainly both are improbable. But your belief in evolution has an ellement of faith involved in that belief. No less, then a person who believes in Creation has an ellement of faith in their belief system. That's all I'm saying.
I heppen to believe that believing in a creator of some sort, is more likely then random chance.
But the main point of this initially wasn't about evolution. It was just that just because a person believes in God doesn't mean they're "irrational" and that they're fully capible of having libertarian beliefs. And even if they are irrational they still might have libertarian beliefs. And we shouldn't be alienating people by labling them irrational when they might be potential allies in the cause for liberty.
My problem is this antagonist attitude that many libertarians have towards Christianity in particular and religion in general. There's no sense in it.
Tracy
Published: May 15, 2005 11:13 PM
Qoute from Tracy:
"Just because somebody believes that secularism is a danger to society doesn't mean that they believe it's government's business to mitigate that danger.
Why are so many libertarians so reactionary against religion? She has just as much freedom of religioun and just as much right to free speach as you do. You would have it so that only Aithiests would be allowed to run the government, and that's definitly not right."
Is it normal for people to simple ignore something they consider a danger, or would you expect a person to try and mitigate that danger? When a person who is a candidate to become a Federal judge considers one of our fundemental governing priciples a danger, I don't think its unreasonable to think that once they have the power of a judge that they will make decisions to mitigate that which they condider a danger. Would a black person feel any different about a segregationist, or a woman about a chauvanist? I don't have a problem with a judge having a religion, but when they proclaim that secularism is a danger, then I think they've crossed a very important line that disqualifies them from holding the power of a Federal judge.
Do you have some data to support your claim that "most libertarians" are reactionary to religion, or is this just your opinion. I'll assume its opinion. My opinion (and only my opinion) is that libertarians are not reactionary to religion, they simply don't agree that every part of society owes some kind of debt or allegiance to some deity and tend to get a little annoyed at those whom insist it does and demand that all profess it or be shunned or vilified. If you choose to include your religious beliefs as part of the supporting arguments for your position, then my opinion of your religious beliefs are just as valid a part of the discussion.
But all of this arguing about religion is just opinion and nobody is going to be convinced to change their minds, so I think a better solution is to leave all of the religion out of the discussion (i.e., secularism). If secularism itself is the argument, then I belief we're back to an argument that will most likely only be decided through the use of force (of which a Federal judge can wield a significant amount).
Keith
Published: May 16, 2005 7:19 AM
" It was just that just because a person believes in God doesn't mean they're "irrational" and that they're fully capible of having libertarian beliefs."
That is a point I fully agree with, since many libertarians (including Lew Rockwell) are Christian.
Published: May 16, 2005 8:01 AM
Notice I didn't say "most" libertarians are reactionary against religion. I said "Many" are. There's a difference. Many objectivists especially see religioun as equally evil as the government. Many people with-in the LP are also just as anti-Christian.
I would say that as long as she isn't hurting anybody with her beliefs that she's just as qualified to be a Judge as Ron Paul is to be a legislator. I happen to think that secularism is a danger to society too. But secularism is caused by too much government -- and in many ways government schools which teach people to replace god with government and worship the state -- so my solution to this secularism threat is to abolish government schools and the nanny state, etc. How do you know that her solution to this secularism threat isn't to limit government?
She has just as much right to her religious beliefs as anyone else.
Somehow I doubt that you'd have this same attitude about an aithiest Judge who said that "Christianity is a danger to society."
Tracy
Published: May 16, 2005 8:33 AM
I really hate it when people say that evolution is just a "theory". A scientific theory is much stronger than the ordinary use of the word "theory", which is really more like a scientific hypothesis. Thus, while evolution may not be 100% certain (but really, how much of our knowledge is that certain?), there's still more reason to believe in evolution than there is to believe in a god.
Having said that, I think that people have the right to believe any damn fool thing they want to, as long as they're not initiating force or fraud, or using the power of the government to enforce their views.
Published: May 16, 2005 10:05 AM
Evolution is a theory, with a great many holes in it. Unline the theory of relativity, which can predict results accurately into the future as well as explain past phenomina. Or the theory of quantum mechanics which can also predict explain, and even be used to create better lazers, etc. (The tunneling effect of ellectrons is actually used in some lazers to increase efficiency. The theory have evolution on the other hand, is qualitatively different. It's a "scientific theory" perhaps, but it has many holes in it. And evolutionists typically simply have faith that billions of years solves all those problems. It can't predict future events. It can't be applied practically in any manner. It has no verifyably method to test it like the theories of relevitity or QM.
So yes, it's theory -- but it's on much shakier ground then almost every other mainstream theory out there.
Tracy
Published: May 16, 2005 11:11 AM
It is partially correct that there hasn't been much success predicting future evolution. No-one has been able to predict things with the certainty that we can do in physics. However, that is a completely unreasonable demand. The system that the theory of evolution would have to predict is much much more complex than what relativity or quantum physics has to predict. Furthermore, people have been able to predict certain general trends (in the evolution of HIV for example).
There are numerous lines of evidence supporting evolution as a theory (the explanation of the mechanism, e.g., natural selection) and as a fact (the observed empirical reality, from phylogeneitc evidence and the fossil record). Someone who would deny this is not well-acquainted with the literature (which is perfectly expected, given the numerous and complicated literature on the topic).
Published: May 16, 2005 11:43 AM
Tracy, thank you for that clarification. That's much better than implying that the theory of relativity is "just a theory". If evolution is a shaky theory, there still remains the question of alternative theories, and how much or little evidence exists for those.
Published: May 16, 2005 11:52 AM
David, their are actuall problems with the fossle record though. Their are many holes in it. And Natural sellection can account for micro-evolution, but it can't account for how the individual cell itself appeared in the first place. For instance the simple process of blood clotting involves over 900 different hormones, protiens and amino acids in order to work property. If they weren't all in place from the onset -- prior to completion the animal would die of either the complete clotting of it's enire body or dieing because of hemophiliac complications. These are systems that simply couldn't have evolved from darwinian or neo-darwinian piecemealling one new change at a time gradually. There are many such examples. of things like this. So unless each of these systems just randomly appeared all at once, (which contradicts at least Darwinian theories of evolution) any a given animal would have died long before any such mutation would be of benifit to him -- indeed, It would be harmfull untill the animal until it was completed. I find that believing such spontanious complex systems appearing. And needing to appear thousands of times (for their are at least that many irreducibly complex processes) even for a simple mammel is a bit absurd.
Michael. You're welcome. I happen to think that there can be a valid hypothisis of creation. Scientists should be skeptical of both evolution and creation and have an open mind to study the veracity of both creation and evolutionary claims of creation. I happen to believe their is evidence of some sort of intellegent design -- and that it could be presented as an alternative theory.
Tracy
Published: May 16, 2005 1:29 PM
I like a scientific theory supported by evidence. So did poor old Paleontologist and evolutionist Niles Eldredge. Here are a couple of his thoughts:
"We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not."
And…
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change -- over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."
Was he an Evolutionist turned Creationist then? Nope: He became a "Punctuated Equilibrium" proponent instead. This is the power of faith.
Published: May 16, 2005 5:55 PM
Tracy, you wrote: Evolution is a theory, with a great many holes in it. Unline the theory of relativity, which can predict results accurately into the future as well as explain past phenomina.
I'm afraid you are quite mistaken - evolutionary theory has predictive power, and it is verified empirically. Check, for example, experimenal verification of the Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS) in animal behaviour by ethologists. Simply put, you take some information about metabolism and gentic mechanics of some creatures, apply a mathematic technique known as "theory of games" and assume that the behaviour of these creatures was shaped by the evolution - and you get numerical predictions of how these creatures will behave, statistically! Then you can go, observe what they do, gather statistics and check that figures match. A scientific proof doesn't come stronger than that (and that is why evolution is a theory, not a hypothesis).
The fact that evolutionary theory does not give specific predictions about each particular creature, or the forms each particular species will take, does not make it invalid or unscientific; the evolutionary process is fundamentally randomized. Claiming that statistical nature of predictions makes a theory invalid would also require saying that all physics and chemistry are invalid (both are based on quantum mechanics, which holds that behavior of individual particles is fundamentally unpredictable and that only probabilities can be predicted). Oh, and this claim would also imply that computers and TV and phones can't work, and that planes can't fly, etc, etc.
The theory is evolution is just as well established as quantum mechanics (or theory of relativity, for that matter). If you try to claim invalidity of one, you end up denying the validity of all modern science; which is exceedingly stupid position, considering that we're surrounded by the working products of applying that science.
Paul:
Regarding "punctuated equilibrium" - the idea that evolution works in leaps is quite easy to understand as an improvement on the original Darwinist theory; Darwin assumed that traits are based on analog (continuous) foundations. Nowadays we know for sure that the seemingly continuous ranges of phenotypical traits are derived from digital (discrete) codes of DNA. Digital can approximate analog (i.e. lines composed of dots on the screen of your computer may look like straight continuous lines, but they are, in fact, collections of tiny discrete pixels). Push the digital system stronger, and the illusion of analog behavior disappears, and the system starts behaving like a digital system - in discrete leaps.
In this respect, progress of evolution theory is no different from the progress of physical theories from classical physics (which operates with continuouly changing values) to the quantum theory (which recognized the underlying discrete nature of the elementary particles).
Quantum theory didn't made classial physics "false", it has simply shown the deeper level of reality, and have shown the limits of applicability of the classical model - within those limits the model is quite satisfactory (that's why it is in wide use).
Similarly, the theory of punctuated equilibrium simply explained the result of applying evolutionary principles to discrete (digital) systems, and thus derived a better match to the empirical observations. The "bangs" paleontologists see are simply the relatively rare occations of mutiple mutations which are actually beneficial to the fitness (practically all single mutations and nearly all multiple mutations are dertimentail) - when a random chance conspires to bring together several changes in DNA which give a new quality, improving the fitness (or opening new areals), the change propagates through the population so fast on paleontological time scales that it looks like a "bang". The periods of continuing random experimentation which produce only "bad" mutations look like "equilibrium", under which those bad mutations are weeded out by the selection.
So Eldredge was not a believer - not in evolutionary theory, at least. He merely had knowledge to understand why it must be true. Faith? One can believe only in things unknowable. The rest is not faith, but knowlegde (or lack of it).
Only ignorant fools (mis)apply faith where knowledge is possible.
Published: May 16, 2005 11:05 PM
Tracy wrote:
"I'm not trying to prove anything with my statement[...] I'm just pointing out that just because somebody claims to use "reason" doesn't mean that they're going to arive at libertarian conclusions."
Why not? The problem is that you are trying to support this assertion by stating that some objectivists are warmongers or do not act within libertarian views, but that is the non-sequitur. A person CAN arrive at libertarianism by reason alone, and still choose not to follow such ideals.
Tracy wrote:
"It seems to me that "reason" can't be the only factor as to whether a person is going to have libertarian ideals[...]"
Why NOT? Is it because you think libertarianism is UNREASONABLE? If it were, then a person could not arrive at libertarianism by way of reason alone, at all.
Tracy wrote:
"or a group of somebodys (Christians in this particular case) as not able to have libertarian ideas simply because one/they don't meet [A]verros particular standards of "reason" is mi[s]guided."
I do not agree a Christian cannot arrive at libertarianism just because he or she is a believer of the supernatural. Unless a Christian is irrational, he or she can arrive at libertarianism by reason alone.
Tracy wrote:
"David, their are actuall problems with the fossle record though. Their are many holes in it."
Considering there is other evidence besides fossils: genetic, anatomical, morphological, hystological, functional, evidence, et cetera, this assertion of yours strikes me as irrelevant.
Tracy wrote:
"And Natural sellection can account for micro-evolution, but it can't account for how the individual cell itself appeared in the first place."
No, because natural selection is not a theory for the origin of life, only on the evolution of life. Evolution does not care if life appeared spontaneously or by divine intervention. There are evolutionists who believe God did it, via natural selection. This is because evolution does not negate god, it just negates the fundamentalist view of Genesis.
Published: May 17, 2005 12:16 AM
Regarding reason.
OK, I'm more familiar with formal logic I guess. But we know that based on the initial conditions that a person believes, the conclusions can be very logical -- even if they are in fact wrong.
When it comes to the way people view the world, Many of the initial assumptions with which we view it, haven't been proven or disproven -- and many times they can be proven to be unprovable. If a person starts with initial assumptions that are, perhaps wrong, or incorrect that will -- quite logically -- arive at incorrect conclusions. Starting out the correct innitial assumptions, a person will arive and the correct conclusions -- but with-out the initial framework being correct, it's by no means certain that logic will show somebody the correct conclusion.
If for instance my innitial assumption was that 1+1=3 then I could -- through real and complex analisis prove that 1 + 3 = 5 for instance, depending on how I defined my integer incriments. Now, obviously the numbers used in math are defined and it's quite possible to set up a workable system using different definitions then are standard usage (though it'd be more difficult) but you get my point.
Logic and reason alone won't show a person to libertarianism. Libertarianism is certainly very reasonable. But if a person has an inherently collectivist view of the world there use of reason and logic is going to lead them in the opposite direction. Now, certainly libertarians have ways of dealing with this, and showing why collectivist thinking isn't the proper way to look at things -- but I hope you understand my meaning now.
A person needs to have the correct initial assumptions AS WELL as logic and reason in order to make sure that he arives at the correct conclusions. That was the point I was trying to make. (For the record a person can have wrong initial conditions and bad logic and arive at the correct conclusion as well. Indeed, a person can even have proper initial conditions and use faulty logic and still arive and the correct conclusions. It depends on how many falsehoods are in the logic chain that negate each other. Hence it seems to me that it could even be possible -- though not very likely -- for an irrational person to arive at a rational conclusion, albiet that conclusion would be very unstable in his/her mind.)
Regarding your statement about the fossle record not being the only evidence. There are problems with all of the evidence you site. The fact is, it only takes 1 disproof of a particular theory to prove that it's wrong. But no ammount of empirical evidence can conclusively prove a theory right. Obviously the same could be said of any theory regarding creation as well.
"No ammount of experiments can prove me right, but it only takes one experiement to prove me wrong." Albert Einstien. Of course Einstien was refering to experiments that were reproducible and verifible but you understand the meaning.
I understand that some evolutionists believe God used evolution to Create life. But this argument innitially was about why many libertarians are typically so anti-religioun, and anti-christian. Indeed, many libertarians hold the belief that anybody who believes in a God at all is an irrational wack-job to be suspect. Just because a person believes in God or a god or gods, or is a Christian doesn't mean he's irrational. And such a person shouldn't be allienated by calling them such. As such alienation is detrimental to the cause of libertarianism.
I'm not a fundamentalist Genises creationist myself. I happen to believe in the Big Bang. I happen to believe God created life in stages. I do believe God would have needed to have a hand in creating individual stars and the creation of the heavier eliments. Whether he manipulated the stars he created to do such or whether he created the heavier elements out-right I don't know. I happen to believe the universe (at least from our space-time perspective) is between 10-14 billion years old, based on current Hubble Constant measurements. But I also happen to believe that God created animals and plants whole when he did it. For instance their could have been eons between the time that god created Fish and Mammals. But that doesn't mean Mammals evolved from Fish. And frankly, them being created seperately is much easier for me to swallow for me then "punctuated equalibrium" nonsense.
For the record. The fundamentalist view of Geneses isn't really Biblical. This idea that every single species that exists now, has always existed is not what the Bible says. It's actually an Aristotilian philosophy. The Bible simply says they reproduced after their own kind.
It's one thing to believe that existing structures gradually improved and differenciated. It's quite another to believe that whole complex systems and structures randomly apeared with-in one generation by chance (Since it would have needed to because w/o the complete system the evolution would be self destructive).
Averos: I'll need to read up on Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS). Thanks for the pointer. But predicting how Animals behave to me seems quite different from predicting what new species or what knew genus or family is going to evolve next.
But this is all tangential to my central point.
That people who believe in a God can be resonable. That Christians can be rational.
We shouldn't be alienating them by calling them irrational because many of them can be allies in the fight for freedom.
I pose this question again.
"Would you people have the same antagonistic attitude towards this Judge is she had been an aithiest Judge who said that 'Christianity is a danger to society.'"
Tracy
Published: May 17, 2005 2:39 AM
Tracy;
I am not focusing on your question with this post, merely refering you and perhaps others to a site of interest for those with little knowledge about Darwin, evolution and western philosophical foundations. The cosmic view
Published: May 17, 2005 4:31 AM
Qoute from Tracy:
"I happen to think that secularism is a danger to society too. But secularism is caused by too much government -- and in many ways government schools which teach people to replace god with government and worship the state -- so my solution to this secularism threat is to abolish government schools and the nanny state, etc. How do you know that her solution to this secularism threat isn't to limit government?"
I don't see how you get secularism being caused by too much government. Secularism was established as a fundemental principle of our government. We had secularism before there even was a national government. I'm all for limited government, but I don't see how that is related to secularism.
As for government schools, I agree with you. There is no Constitutional authority for Federal involvement in education (beyond the requirements of the fourteenth amendment).
Qoute from Tracy:
"Somehow I doubt that you'd have this same attitude about an aithiest Judge who said that "Christianity is a danger to society." "
Christianity is not a fundemental principle of, or requirement for our government. Christianity could disapear tomorrow and our government could go on. If you abolish secularism, then our government will no longer be the same.
Keith
Published: May 17, 2005 6:38 AM
Ideas, Christian, atheist, or otherwise, are not dangerous in themselves. It depends on how people act upon them. The fact that a judge is Christian or atheist is not in itself a sufficient reason to condemn a judge. The fact that a judge is a Christian or atheist and a part of the government court system may be reason to be wary of a judge, but still not sufficient in itself to condemn the judge.
But this thread started out with considering various decisions that Judge Brown made. Her decisions can and should provide a factual basis for determining if she is a good or bad judge, although even then differences of opinion could still exist.
Thus, if a judge were an atheist who said that Christianity was a danger to society, I would be wary, look for an explanation of the statement (or the context), and look at the kinds of decisions the judge had made.
Published: May 17, 2005 9:16 AM
This discussion has veered far off-topic, into the realm of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. I've taken a position on that here, and stand by it. Saying that something is "irreducibly complex" is simply an assertion. The reality is that most of these systems proposed to be "irreducibly complex" in fact aren't. It is possible for something to at first be only beneficial, then become necessary. Furthermore, this kind of thinking illustrates a misconception about the way evolution occurs: it is possible for useless things to evolve, then later be adapted for some use.
However, returning to the discussion at hand, the matter of Justice Janice Brown. Whether or not she's a good judge should be determined on the basis of her judgements, not of her religious beliefs. I've given several lines of evidence (ironically taken from her detractors) in her favor.
Published: May 17, 2005 10:58 AM
Tracy --
Regarding your statement about the fossle record not being the only evidence. There are problems with all of the evidence you site.
Please be so kind so as to point to any problem of a kind different from "we didn't yet find something which is assumed to be needed for things to evolve from A to B". I'm not aware of any, and I have a professional-level education in the field. Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.
The fact is, it only takes 1 disproof of a particular theory to prove that it's wrong. But no ammount of empirical evidence can conclusively prove a theory right. Obviously the same could be said of any theory regarding creation as well.
This statement is plainly wrong if applied to anything other than mathematical proofs. Any single experiment may have noise, random coincidences, subtly (but significantly) bad methodology, unanticipated biases, wrong interpretation, self-delusion or even fraud on part of experimenters, etc, etc.
In fact, all of our scientific knowledge is based on balance of evidence - some forms of evidence being stronger than others, but there are no absolute proofs or disproofs to any scientific theories. Anyone saying that a theory is "disproved" usually means that some strong evidence is found which is absolutely logically incompatible with the theory. There simply is no such evidence with regard to evolutionary theory of origin of life. (In fact even the logical incompatiblity does not invalidate theories... quantum mechanics is logically incompatible with general theory of relativity - and both are two of the most precisely validated theories in all history of science).
The fundamental problem with ID theory is that it is not a theory at all (the evolutionary theory can - for example, by finding something which has no plausible hypothetical way of evolving, - for example a complex organism using radically different mapping of DNA codons to proteins). ID hypothesis cannot be disproven. For all we know, God could've created world five minutes ago and simply put false memories in our heads. There is no way to prove or disprove this statement. Nor does it matter, for the science.
Science is not concerned with unprovable (and un-disprovable, or, in Popperian terminology, unfalsifiable) hypotheses. It does not matter if the evolution is something which happened to atoms or simply a reflection on how the mind of God worked - as long as it presents a useful model of how things are working or came to be. We can all live in a kind of Matrix-ey computer simulation. The universe can be nothing more than a huge computation (the view tacitly favored by a group of eminent physicisis working on loop quantum gravity theory, an alternative to string theory). Or, as a transactional QM interpretation holds - it does not happen, but just is: a static web of transactions between the past and the future. There's no way to tell, and, for all practical purposes it does not matter.
So, ID is not an alternative, or opposite, to evolution. It is simply totally outside of the realm of scientific inquery. It is not even incompatible with evolution - after all, quite intelligent designers of electronic circuits or airline schedules, and many other things, use evolutionary algorithms as aid in their [i]designs[/i]. Someone looking at the results of their work may say: oh, I can back-guess how did they arrive to this particular kind of design! If the guess is mostly right and matches the observations of the actual designed things, that is a good theory of the origin of these circuits.
There are no plausible alternative scientific theories to the evolutionary theory at this time. It is as simple as that - and scientific "truth" is always understood to be the most plausible theory currently available. It can change (in fact, it does change, as the story with the punctuated equilibrium shows) as new data and insights become available.
David -- the fact that some servant of State made some good decisions does not change the fundamental issue of her being a willing accomplice of the looter crowd. She didn't engage in free exchange of ideas, so all her good deeds are, in fact, morally corrupt. She may be right or she may be wrong but what it amounts to is that she sought to impose her ideas on others by means of coercive force.
Published: May 17, 2005 6:01 PM
"Science is not concerned with unprovable (and un-disprovable, or, in Popperian terminology, unfalsifiable) hypotheses."
Then evolution, can't be considered a science either, because it's not falsifiable either. Whenever somebody points out a problem with evolutionary theory, they simply invent some new theory to cover it. Anthropic priniciples or also unfalsifiable.
Frankly I don't put a whole lot of stock in demarcation arguments about what science is or isn't. But if you're going to go with that falsifiable definition, then evolution doesn't fit the definition of science anymore then creation does.
Who wrote those evolutionary algorithms. Somebody with intellegence. If their actually is a natural force of evolution with-in creation. (I really don't buy it.) then some intellegence must have written the program. In the same way that people wrote the programs you describe. It's possible to tell whether something was designed or just randomly formed through natural forces. Again, I'd refer you to Charles Thaxton -- specifically complexity theory. Here's a decent summery.
http://www.arn.org/docs/thaxton/ct_newdesign3198.htm
So basically you're one of those people who believe that if, at some point in the future, if it ever became possible to PROVE that we were created -- that it still wouldn't be a scientific proof.
I'd encourage you to read "The Creation Hypothisis." A good scientist should have an open mind about things. And if he sees evidence of design, he should be skeptical and test that hypothisis. Science historically used to be the method to figuring out exactly how God created the universe. Because (scientists who were Christian especially) believed that God was a God of order. Methodological naturalism -- is actually quite a relatively new concept with-in the scientific tradition.
Frankly as far as science is concerned. We have too options. Origins don't matter -- so we shouldn't be trying to study evolution or creation theories of creation. Because if it has to be falsifiable to be science, both evolution and creation fail to make the grade. Or, we study origins with an open mind and be skeptical of evidence in support of both views. Eitther both are theories with in the realm of science, or neither is.
That's the problem with most people. They're not skeptical enough. Typically they're highly skeptical of views they don't agree with -- but not skeptical of the views they do agree with.
Anyway, We're not going to convince each other here. And I've made my more basic points that this evolution/creation thing is actually quite peripherial to. (Like I said at the beginning, I really didn't want to even get into this creation/evolution discussion) So, I'm going to bow out. I've got other things on my plate I need to get too.
Thank you for the discussion. I feel like I communicated what I wanted too. And that's more important then the evolution/ID debate as far as this thread's concerned.
Tracy
Published: May 18, 2005 12:56 AM
The (rock) sphere would show design. The "complexity" in the sharp rocks isn't complex since the edges carry no information. However if you showed me three IDENTICAL rocks - that duplicated precisely every edge and surface, I would say it was from design. No natural process (I know of) can produce rock spheres (I assume spherical to so many decimal places). I can experimentally produce octahedrons and cubes though.
Tracy is correct that evolution is not a theory in the normal sense of the word. You cannot show biological evolution (an increase in complexity) in a controlled experiment.
(To digress further, but with an on point example)
Evolution is much like history - take Lincoln for a current example - books proffered here give a different view than what is commonly taught. I don't think any get to what he actually thought (When you are point man while the country is literally coming apart around you, you might act differently, and he stated his first duty was to preserve the union - apparently even if that meant destroying every other principle). Despite his debates with Douglass and the actual text of the articles of secession, I am told the civil war (and thus Southern secession) "wasn't about Slavery". Who is really right? Looking back it is complex, but it is different when you live through it than when you look back - in the same way that paper traders don't react the same as when they use actual money in the markets. Emotion would be a much greater factor than any reason in recruiting for fighting a war. But you can't easily look back emotionally.
Christianity was very specifically a danger to society - specifically communism. John Paul II was the greater threat than the consumerism, as the former could cause the slaves to consider their dignity instead of simply seeking gold-plated chains.
Secularism is also fatal to society - literally in the case of abortion and euthanasia, and even the contraception mentality that is causing demographic crises across the globe. JP2 used the term "The Culture of Death".
Liberty cannot in itself give or show human beings their dignity - it only allows them to discover it if they so desire, but it is a powerful and instinctive desire as Augustine noted. Yet it is a feedback loop - when humans discover their dignity they demand liberty.
Instead of casting pearls before swine who prefer their comfortable pens and regular feeding, the first step is to break Circe's spell and turn the swine back into men. Then they will flee the pen.
Published: May 18, 2005 8:51 AM
Tracy
Then evolution, can't be considered a science either, because it's not falsifiable either.
This is the classic fallacy used by people who try to use Popper’s falsifiability to show that something is not scientific. First you claim that evolution is false since it purports to explain such things as blood clotting factors that are “irreducibly complex�. On the other hand you assert that evolution is not scientific “because it is not falsifiable�!
(I will, however, concede that in Mathematics you can have, within a formal system such as the predicate calculus, statements that are false yet unfalsifiable (within the formal system). Look up Godel’s theorem.)
It's possible to tell whether something was designed or just randomly formed through natural forces.
This statement is not true. Example – consider a congruential random number generator.
a(n+1) = b*a(n)+c (mod m) . In other a, b, c and m are arbitrarily large integers take a, multiply by b and add c. Now divide by m discarding the decimal part to obtain q, then
the next a in the sequence is given by b*a(n)+c –m*q. By careful choice of b, c and m, I can generate a sequence of integers that do not repeat for an arbitrary long period. Cleary, this process is purely deterministic. However, there is no way to know, given a particular sequence of numbers whether or not you are looking a random process (generated by, for instance, radioactive decay) or a pseudo-random process generated by a deterministic algorithm.
In case this is example is too complicated, here is a simpler example. The digits of the number PI are not random. In fact, there is an algorithm that can calculate the value of any digit in the expansion, (the billionth, for example) without having to calculate any of the other digits. So if I pick a very large number and then calculate the next million digits one by one, you have no way of finding out whether or not you are looking at a random sequence or a million digits taken somewhere from the number PI.
For instance the simple process of blood clotting involves over 900 different hormones, proteins and amino acids in order to work property. If they weren't all in place from the onset -- prior to completion the animal would die of either the complete clotting of its entire body or dieing because of hemophiliac complications.
You have taken a very interesting example. In fact, if you asked an evolutionary biologist to give you an example to illustrate the principles of evolution, this would probably be one of the best examples. (If you go to Google and search for Doolittle fibrinogen and blood clotting, you will come up with definitive explanations.) The basic gist of the argument is that we should be able to find more primitive clotting systems in other organisms and also other organisms that use fibrinogen, for example, for some use other than blood clotting. This is in fact the case. This then allows for a blood clotting system to evolve without all the factors having to be simultaneously created. We can also find creatures such as the lobster that have much simpler clotting systems. So evolution makes specific predictions that in this case can be falsified. While we are on the subject of blood, the hemoglobin molecule existed in anaerobic organisms where its function was to remove nitric oxide. When the atmosphere changed to an atmosphere containing oxygen, the hemoglobin molecule was able to transport oxygen.
The Intelligent Design argument has been around, (and refuted) for a long time. Moreover, it is clearly not compatible with the Fundamentalist Christian literal interpretation of Genesis. If you want a good author, IMHO, who discusses Science and Religion in a thought provoking fashion, try reading some of the books of John Polkinhorne – he was a Professor of Quantum Mechanics at Cambridge University, who became ordained as a Church of England priest after he retired.
Published: May 19, 2005 2:15 AM
Walt D. - Any beginning cryptographer would find the equation to your pseudorandom generator. Even the better hash algorithms (used for digital signatures) are occasionally found to be weak. If the sequence is sufficiently long, it can be analyzed. (Too short sequences woudl be the same would apply if you presented me with a microscopic fleck and asked if it came from something designed or random - I'd just say "not enough data"). But we aren't talking about tests for randomness (again cryptographers have a lot to say on the subject). That you can apparently design something with a random result isn't the test. It is whether some object under consideration is designed or "natural". It is possible for the result to be "indeterminate", or to apply a confidence factor.
But what of SETI? It is specifically looking for intelligent design in what are apparently noisy signals. You claim they can't find anything because they can't tell?
I suspect you would be able to pick out the Mona Lisa from a random collection of paint splotches. Or a Bach fugue from windchimes. This is the kind of test we are talking about.
You also miss the point about Clotting - Fibrogen and Hemoglobin. Or the Bombadier Beetle which is the simpler example.
1. The N-1 state is generally useless. Random blobs of protien around a Heme molecule are useless. Only when it has a structure that can carry molecules (and is there a current example where it exists in anerobic organisms) does it convey a survival advantage. And the information threshold is very high. A collection of random proteins and RNA is useless, only when you have both a ribosome and the encoding for the ribosome and TRNA can you have a self-reproducing mechanism. Has anyone DEMONSTRATED a simpler self-replicating (information bearing) system?
2. A deviation from the Nth state is often fatal. If you don't have blood that clots, or that clots even without the presence of a leak, or that can't remove the clot, you tend to die. If a cell can't produce a single protein that forms a ribosome, it dies. Some distortions of the hemoglobin molecule are nasty (sickle cell), most are fatal.
3. These mechanisms are not simple, they involve dozens of components which all must work and a breakage (or failure to evolve) in any one prevents the system from working. The problem is not X+X+X+X, for a 4x increase in complexity, but X*X*X*X, or X to the 4th power if you have four independent parts.
4. You are also begging the question - you assume fibrogen "evolved", and other clotting methods "evolved", so it would be natural or proof that they could be conjugated by the same mechanism. Technically I (and I think Tracy would) believe that the more sophisticated design would arise from the same mechanism the earlier ones did, but we would say the antecedents were designed, so the final system was designed too. The information complexity thresholds are high at each stage - you can't simply minimize the entire staircase to the last step, which itself is large.
You can show a convergence, yet you have not proposed any mechanism where I can put a fibrogen generating system in a box, and a primitive clotting system in a box, turn a crank, and get the complex clotting system in mammals. That is the key question. The Evolution fairy waves it's wand and a bunch of very complex DNA instructions suddenly appear - something that chemists who know the structure of proteins and software engineers couldn't do today.
I would really love to find this mystical force that produces information ex nihilo. I wouldn't have to spend hours writing and debugging programs which are far less complex than most of the things you dismissively say arose without any intelligence.
You simply say it must exist - but there is no evidence for such a force. Your "evidence" is the complex biology which anyone with common sense would classify with the Mona Lisa, Bach Fugue, or automobile, but you say it abosolutely, positively could not be designed. I don't know why.
So you smuggle an "intelligent design" force into your science without admitting it or calling it by some specific name. It just happened, although in any experience or experiment it doesn't "just happen", and the only cases where you find nonbiological complexity you find a human designer.
Random (or even chaotic) processes don't create information - or would take trillions of times the age of the universe to produce the first cell or the cambrian explosion. You need information for organisms to start and to become more complex. Where does it come from since the processes we are all familiar with are too slow? You say it doesn't come from an intelligence or a designer. OK, show me an experiment or observation where you can produce something informationally complex starting without that information anywhere inside the system.
Published: May 19, 2005 9:32 AM
tz
Any beginning cryptographer would find the equation to your pseudorandom generator. Even the better hash algorithms (used for digital signatures) are occasionally found to be weak. If the sequence is sufficiently long, it can be analyzed.
True if I choose 32 or 64 bit integers for a, b and m. However, in practice, you do not get to choose the length of the sequence to be analyzed. By choosing huge integers, I can make the size of the sequence too long to be analysed with current technology. I normally use a Mersenne twister algorithm for simulation. This has a much larger period. 2^19937 – 1, in the standard implementation. However, even this implementation is not cryptographically secure. To do this we need to go to a quadratic generator such as Blum and Schub. Here we can take the modulus as the product of two 2048 –bit primes pq (chosen with certain restriction on p and q). At present this is cryptographically secure. (We still can not hack RSA640 to two 320 bit integers.)
As regards SETI, I seem to recall when we first discovered pulsars, we thought we were receiving a signal from “Little Green Men�. True that you or I can easily find JFK or Bill Cosby in a picture. However, we don’t know how this mechanism works, in that we have no good algorithms for recognizing objects.
For a better explanation of blood clotting that attempts to answer the point raised try this link.
http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darwin/DI/clot/Clotting.html
It has already been demonstrated in the laboratory how amino acids can be synthesized out of basic compounds and natural processes that were present early in the Earth’s history. MIT hopes to produce a primitive cell in the next few years. So the basic question is whether or not we need to invoke supernatural forces to explain biology. Here is a quote from Ken Miller.
In 1990, Xun Yu and Doolittle won their own bet, finding a fibrinogen-like sequence in the sea cucumber, an echinoderm. The vertebrate fibrinogen gene, just like genes for the other proteins of the clotting sequence, was formed by the duplication and modification of pre-existing genes.
Now, it would not be fair, just because we have presented a realistic evolutionary scheme, supported by gene sequences from modern organisms, to suggest that we now know exactly how the clotting system has evolved. That would be making far too much of our limited ability to reconstruct the details of the past. But nonetheless, there is little doubt that we do know enough to develop a plausible and scientifically valid scenario for how it might have evolved. And that scenario makes specific predictions that can be tested and verified against the evidence.
The ID explanation, on the other hand has zero explanatory power. It just replaces an unanswered question with another one. The intelligent designer appears on the scene as a “Deus ex-machina�. So where did the intelligent designer come from? The argument about the age of the universe also applies to the intelligent designer. If you take the second account of creation in Genesis, where it refers to “the men who came from the sky�, or as Fred Hoyle argued that DNA arrived here or a meteor, then we can circumvent the age of the Earth. (Incidentally, Fred Hoyle did not believe in the Big Bang, so in this case it is only the age of the Earth that is relevant). However, I would conjecture that the flaw in the argument is that the assumption that the mechanism of evolution is random. DNA replication is the antithesis of random. The actual 3D structure of Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine (and Uracil in transfer RNA) are very specific. The double helix is a very specific shape. Admittedly, we do not yet understand why, and as Tracy pointed out, the slightest change in the shape would cause the whole replication mechanism to fail. Perhaps we are looking at an intrinsic property of the carbon molecule. However, just because we don’t understand a mechanism does not mean that the only possible explanations are either random or supernatural. Also information is not created from nothing – some of the chemical reactions are endothermic – they require the input of energy.
For a simple mechanism that produces complex patterns, the fractal model referred to in a previous post provides a simple example. For a mathematical example, consider the classifications of finite groups. The group axioms are simple 1)Closure a in G and b in G imply a*b in G.
2)Associative a*(b*c) = (a*b)*c 3) Identity: There exists an e such that a*e = e* a =a
4) Inverse: For every a there exist an inverse a’ such that a*a’ = a’* a = e.
For an example consider the symmetries of a square under rotation. We wish to determine fundamental groups from which all finite groups can be formed. It is not at all clear that we would expect in advance that a group of order
808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000
is a fundamental group.
David:
Sorry we took your thread so far off the original topic!
Published: May 19, 2005 4:36 PM
tz:
Tracy is correct that evolution is not a theory in the normal sense of the word. You cannot show biological evolution (an increase in complexity) in a controlled experiment.
tz - you may be surprised to learn that this is, in fact, a routine demonstration. Take a culture of bacteria which is easily killed by some antibiotic. Then treat that culture with doses which kill most, but not all microbes. Then let it grow. Repeat. After a sufficient time you end up with a strain which exhibits a novel property - resistance to that particular antibiotic.
(Of course, the rate of adaptation depends heavily on details, but the model systems used by people investigating genetics of resistance typically show nontrivial evolution in a matter of weeks).