Dogs and Wolves are Similar and Different . . . So?

Enough picking on little kennie ham and his less-than-stellar ark park (for now).  What has the Discovery Institute (DI) been up to lately.  The DI claims Dogs are not an example of evolution at all . . . but de-evolution, or as they put it:

"the “evolution” of dogs from wolves “represents no increase in [biological] information but rather a decrease or loss of function on the genetic and anatomical levels” "

This is briefly described in "No, Your Dog Is Not a Barking Exemplar of Macroevolution".  Well, aside from the obvious information argument, which they have failed to support with anything resembling evidence -- and the whole nonsense about 'macro-evolution', we've also addressed this foolish idea of decreasing or losing genetic or anatomical levels.

Here is what they are up to . . . if they can convince you that this unexplained concept of 'information' increases or decreases has any validity, then you are more likely to buy into their arguments about evolution.  But wouldn't it be prudent of them to define this concept of 'information', and frame it on how they apply it?  But they never do.  So let's briefly look at what they have said here.  In my opinion it's making an apple to orangutan comparison and trying to sell it to you.

When comparing wolves and dogs, the DI used two arguments, one they are claiming there is no increase in biological information.  The second they are claiming a decrease, or loss, of function on a genetic and anatomical level.  Here's the kicker, are they really making a point?  Let's look at this . . . are wolves and dogs different?  Yes!  I think we can all agree with that.  Now . . . if they are different, doesn't that mean there are differences in biological 'information'?  I'm not talking increases or decreases, just differences.  Next step, by what standard to we classify increases or decreases in biological 'information'?

Ah, there's the rub.  There is no 'level' of biological information.  There is no way to measure such a change without some sort of scale, and science hasn't developed one . . . the DI sure as hell hasn't either.  This idea of increases and decreases in biological 'information' is an imaginary one folks like the DI use to sound all scientific, but first they have to support it, which they never do.

As for the 'idea' that dogs have lost anything, have they?  Dogs are different from wolves, that's the best they seem to have.  They are raised in a different environment and we have been selecting certain traits for centuries.  Is it a loss or just a change?  The DI is always trying to quantify things are positive or negative, but that's nothing but unsupported opinion.

If you read the post, you know one of their 'key' pieces of evidence was this:

"One problem with this, among others, is that the virtue we value most in our dogs – the ability to form relationships with humans – appears to be no product of their evolution. At least it did not evolve from scratch. Dogs have it, but so, in their way, do wolves."

OK, DI, two things, you say 'in their way' -- which tells me while dogs and wolves share a similar ability, it is not identical.  Not identical means it's changed . . . how did this change occur?  Could it be from the selective breeding humans have been doing for generations?  Since the characteristics are not identical, there is a difference that is expressed functional and also genetically.  Again, the opinion of it being a gain or a loss is subjective to your point of view.  The evolutionary key is the change.

Second question for the DI, is didn't you simply just sidestep the real question.  After all -- where did wolves get their ability to form bonds?  You know, that ability that has been changed in modern dogs through selective breeding, or as Darwin called it 'Artificial Selection'?  So claiming there isn't any 'information' increase or decrease is immaterial because not only hasn't the DI explained their concept of 'information' and they have yet to apply it except in the most sweeping of generalizations.

So DI, there is the challenge, explain information and how you categorized the information content of wolves and applied it to dogs.  Measure it, I dare you!  Then let real scientists see not only your conclusions, but your methodology.  Yea, I know, you have never had anything that could be objectively referred to as a methodology, but if you want to be taken for anything but a religious ministry, you might get one.

You are going to have to do better than this vague 'information' argument and get down to some specifics.  What information, how was it quantified, by what process, under what conditions . . . there's a long list.  You might look up 'scientific methodology' and start studying up.

Intelligent Design vs intelligent design

Now I am really convinced those folks at the Discovery Institute (DI) really think their teleological argument for God, aka Intelligent Design, is the same thing as intelligent design from an architectural and engineering viewpoint.  "Methinks This Robot Has Been, Like, Weaseled into a Darwinian Tale".  The gist of this particular whine seems to be that since the robots were designed and they ended up at a pre-determined set of capabilities, that is cannot be evolution but it has to be Intelligent Design.  Of course the author uses the term 'Darwinism' to try and confuse the issue.

What the author, who is again unnamed for some strange reason, seems to forget is that no one said that the evolution exhibited by the robots in question was natural selection, but it certainly is evolution.  Humans have been evolving plants and animals for decades and centuries through breeding programs and other means designed [yes, designed] to enhance specific characteristics like heartier animals, drought and disease resistance in plant, even taste enhancements.  Many of the foods we enjoy on a daily basis are the results of years of tinkering by human beings and didn't exist just a few short decades ago -- at least not in the form they do today.  While I can hear some Creationist complaining that 'an apple is an apple', the reality is the an apple, like the Red Delicious apple which was first cultivated in the late 1800's, is not just an apple, but the product of human intervening with nature.  In fact there are over 40 different patented varieties of the Red Delicious apple, one as recent as 2004, being grown today and none of them are the product of Natural Selection.

Darwin himself used the term 'Artificial Selection' to differentiate from what was happening in nature, which he called 'Natural Selection'.  In each case the filtering was being done outside of the individual organism.  In Artificial Selection human beings making decisions and in the other it is environmental factors impacting the survival and reproductive opportunity.  In any case, it's all evolution, simply through different means.  Just to be clear, at no time is it Intelligent Design.

What the article is trying to do is support a case for something being intelligently designed must be using Intelligent Design, but nothing could be further from the truth.  As I, and many others, have stated over and over again, Intelligent Design is a movement, it's a re-telling of the old 'argument from design' used by William Paley in his famous 'Watchmaker Analogy'.  It's a political and marketing concept with some very specific goals in mind, and none of them involve actual science.  What folks like the author have to do is make their case rather than just trying to sell their ideas.  This article is an example of selling, and it's not doing a very good job.  Maybe the folks at the DI should start doing some actual science to support their idea of Intelligent Design before they start claiming all these victories, or is that too much to ask?

On the other hand intelligent design, lower-case 'i' and 'd', is something that we humans have been doing for a very long time.  It doesn't involve the invocation on a specific deity, but the application of thought, talent, and more than a little perspiration.  While some of the people who have invented many of the things we tend to take for granted today might cite 'divine inspiration', it was their intelligence, their design, their hard work that was the creative agency, not one god or another.

There is a huge difference between intelligent design and Intelligent Design and just because the same terms are used doesn't mean you can equate the two.  There is very little 'intelligent design' in 'Intelligent Design', and the DI proves it every time they post an article like this.