Bait and Switch, Discovery Institute Style

A new post over at the Discovery Institute site is pretty typical of their tactics, what I like to call their 'Tactics of Mistake'.  Here it is: "Helpful Atheist Makes a Case for God".  In it they summarize something PZ Myers said and then do the something typical -- moving the goal posts:

"But we can ask an interesting question . . . How far back can contingency go? . . .
Myers would likely reply that “the primordial universe is the start. The universe is the fundamental existing thing.” That’s the stock atheist answer. But it’s wrong — the universe can’t explain contingency completely. Here’s why."

Look at what they did, they ask a question -- which is fine, but then they form an answer as they claim Myers would answer it.  I don't know how Myers would answer it, but even if he gave the answer they claim, within the context of what Myers said, it would still be a perfectly acceptable answer.  The context wasn't 'essential cause chains', what they did was change the context and then spend the rest of the post explaining why Myers, and Evolution, is wrong.

What's funny is the artificial distinction they use to explain 'accident contingency' and 'essential contingency'.  There is nothing in the definition of an contingency that requires the continued existence of the parent contingency.  Here is how they define it:

"Essential causal chains are causes and effects that depend on the continued existence of the entire causal chain to produce an effect."

Does this make any sense to you?  They are trying to create this new concept called 'essential causal chains' and claiming that everything in the chain must continue to exist or the end result cannot exist.  Then they end with:

"So evolution, as a contingent process in nature that contains some essentially ordered series of causes, requires a First Cause that is outside of nature. Of course, that First Cause is what men have called God.

Really?  Other than twisting around words, what have they provided that supports their contention that Evolution requires a first cause?  And even if one is required, why does it have to be outside of nature?  That's the part of their explanation they never seem to support.  The only reason seems to be that they have to have something outside of nature or they will never accept it.

There is no evidence that however life started, it required a first cause to be outside of nature.  Remember it's not a requirement for the Theory of Evolution to explain exactly how life began, only that once it did, it evolved and been evolving ever since.  Yes, word games can make all this sound important, but the reality, all the DI's efforts to insert God into the equation have amounted to nothing.  Now they go a further step and try an tie in the concept of Atheism:

If P.Z. Myers follows his own argument about contingency a bit further, he would see that atheism is inconsistent with the contingency on which evolution necessarily depends."

Is the Theory of Evolution and Atheist theory?  Seriously, what in science addresses the concept of God?  God has always been within the realm of philosophy and metaphysics -- not science.  So, in fact, all of science can be considered atheistic.  Just like all of mathematics, cooking, finance, language . . . it's a pretty long list of all the things that fails to pay homage to a deity.  But does that make them inherently atheistic?

Of course not, but that doesn't stop folks like the DI from making the claim.  It's their belief set that requires it, and that's why they play these sort of 'bait and switch' games.

First, customers are "baited" by merchants advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods either are not available or are not as good as expected, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher-priced, items ("switching")." (Wikipedia: Bait and Switch)

The DI baited their argument with PZ Myers words, changed the definition and then went on to make their point about evolution and then somehow turned it into a atheism hit piece.  Creative, maybe, but not very well done at all.  Pronouncements like these require more evidence than 'Because I said so!"

Trying to grasp 'Information'

The most recent argument against evolution involves 'information', but they [ID proponents] never seem to explain it in a way that makes any sense.  So I have been searching for an analogy that works, but I keep coming up blank.  Not sure if I am going to reach a conclusion, but a couple of things did strike me.  Let's start with Denyse O'Leary's recent definition of Evolution:

"The mere process of eliminating unfit examples of a type in a given environment builds up information over time, resulting in huge new layers of complexity."

So, according to Denyse - Evolution is a build up of complexity.  That really doesn't ring true for me.  I don't see anything that mandates increases in complexity.  What can be, and has been documented, is that as species evolve, genetic information (genome) changes.  Whether those changes increase, decrease, or don't change the amount of genetic information seems more a matter of measurement than a matter of importance.  There is my first problem, by what standard are they measuring changes in genetic information?  I can't seem to find anything specific on such a measurement.

They offer opinion, calling 'information' complex, but what does that really mean?  Just like 'information, how do you measure complexity?  That's my second problem.  Complexity, recently sort of defined by Wild Bill Dembski, and repeated ad nauseum by little casey luskin, is this:

"something is complex if it is unlikely to occur by chance" (Wikipedia: Specified Complexity)

Now when I went looking for a definition of 'Complexity', I couldn't find a real definition, all I really found was that complexity is a characterization and often an opinion.  For example something might be complex to me may not be complex for someone else.  The most common dictionary definition is:

"the quality or state of not being simple, the quality or state of being complex, a part of something that is complicated or hard to understand" (Merriam-Webster: Complexity)

Of course you can't stop there, you then have to define 'complex':

"a whole made up of complicated or interrelated parts" (Merriam-Webster: Complex)

The problem with 'characteristic' definitions like this is they tend to run you in circles, Complexity leads you to Complex which leads you to Complicated.  Complicated is defined in a way that leads back to Complexity:

"hard to understand, explain, or deal with : having many parts or steps" (Merriam-Webster: Complicated)

I am sure something that doesn't surprise anyone, is that Complexity is defined by the rest of the world considerably different than Dembski's definition.  Just because something is complex, as in a whole made up of interrelated parts and maybe hard to understand, does not mean it is unlikely to occur through a natural process!  The formation of an object that may be defined as complex is not determined by its eventual level of complexity.  That's the opinion part of a characteristic definition.  Dembski, luskin, and the rest of the DI claim that complexity is a measure of unlikelihood, but by what measure?  Is a mountain complex?  Maybe it is or maybe it isn't.  To someone looking at one at a distance and the answer might be 'no', but ask a mountain climber or a geologist and you will get a very different answer.  Even Biblical Literalists like kennie ham agree the Grand Canyon formed by a natural process, he just thinks it happened due to an imaginary flood very quickly rather than millions of years of much smaller changes.  See what I mean by a characterization and opinion?

You might have noticed that I am not using Dembski's term 'Chance'.  I don't like that term mainly because it bring to mind something much more random.  Evolution isn't random, it's more unpredictable, which is not the same thing as being random.  But I've posted about that many times.  Although Darwin used the term 'Random Mutation', when you look at mutations within the context of evolution, any randomness is a very small piece.  Mutations themselves aren't particularly random, often they can be traced back to the genes that changed and resulted in the mutation and unless those genes were present, that specific mutation would not have occurred.  If random mutation was completely random, then anything could happen, regardless of the involved genes.  That isn't the case, unpredictable more than random.

I understand why Dembski uses 'chance', because he wants people to think Evolution is completely random and based on the luck of the draw, so to speak.  It's how he sells his argument of the impossibility of evolution. 

But, back to the discussion at hand, the reality is there is nothing anyone has published says complexities in nature cannot occur through a natural process.  They [ID proponents] feel that complexity is unlikely to occur, but that's an unsupported opinion, not based on facts.  Yes, they can call up examples of complex things that occur rarely, but by the same token there are a great many things considered complex that happen often through natural means.  What I think happened here is Dembski made up his own definition of 'complexity' and then started using it as if the world would automatically buy into it.  Is a tree complex?  And yet they grow everywhere and plant evolution is well supported.

While I was in the middle of my mental meanderings, little casey luskin, you know the 'lawyer' tasked with handing out press releases during the Dover Trial.  Well it seems he took a stab at the information argument and he really just muddied up the waters more than provided any clarification.  Here is a link to his post: "A Taxonomy of Information".  The main reason I read it is he started something potentially intriguing . . . and to be honest I usually don't make it past a few lines of most of casey's posts.  I've commented on him many times, but much less often than he posts himself.  But this time he said:

"What are some common definitions of information, and which definition is most useful for making the design inference?"

As you can imagine, I was hoping that the DI would actually pin down the definition of information that might bring some sense to their whole information argument. But, they didn't.  All little casey really did was pile on a bunch of nonsense and then use such nonsense in an effort to justify their shared religious belief.  They jump from a poor series of 'information' explanations right into their favorite topic 'Complex Specified Information' without making any connection.  From there little case' repeats stuff from Dembski on 'complexity' and he's off and running down a winding path that doesn't lead to anything resembling a conclusion.  At one point he says:

"It's important to understand that the idea of complex and specified information is NOT an invention of ID proponents."

Which isn't totally true.  Yes, the term did not originate with the DI, but Dembski's use of the term is certainly did!  To quote Wikipedia again:

" . . .whereas Orgel used the term [specified complexity] for biological features which are considered in science to have arisen through a process of evolution, Dembski says that it describes features which cannot form through "undirected" evolution—and concludes that it allows one to infer intelligent design. While Orgel employed the concept in a qualitative way, Dembski's use is intended to be quantitative." (Wikipedia: Specified Complexity)

OK, you can read Casey's little diatribe on your own time.  I think I've given him more than enough attention here.  Let's go back to the 'information' argument and try and sum up where my thinking has been going.  First let's add in the basic definition of Intelligent Design:

"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

The phrase that sticks with me is "best explained".  What they seem to be saying is their explanation is best because the genome is complex and complexity can only come from intelligence and not natural processes.  The only point of agreement is that the genome is complex, that is it has a great many pieces and parts.  But the fact of complexity in no way requires an intelligence.  Inventing things like specified complexity to 'explain' things fails if they cannot back it up with reality instead of wishful thinking.  The whole 'information argument' is rapidly turning into a re-statement of the old 'odds argument'.

You might remember the odds argument.  It was personified when Fred Hoyle made an analogy comparing Evolution to a tornado through a junk yard building a 747.  It was further compounded with some folks claiming to have calculated the odds of the human genome being in existence.  Yet the odds argument doesn't work.  It's like the lottery.  Before you buy a ticket, you can calculate the odds of winning because you know the parameters you are operating within.  Do we know the parameters for the formation of life?  No, and any claims to the contrary are selling one version of snake oil or another.

Let me repeat my favorite analogy about the odds argument.  Take a plain deck of playing cards and shuffle them up.  Deal them out face-up so you can see them all.  Do you see the order they are in?  What are the odds of them being in that order? 52! (52 factorial).  Pretty damn astronomical.  Now the question is did you beat the odds?  Be honest!

The answer, of course, is no.  Unless you predicted that exact order before you started dealing them out, you haven't beaten the odds at all.  Now, what are the odds of those cards being in some order?  Right, 100%.  Without the prediction, the odds are meaningless. 

Let's try one more analogy, start with the number 1 and add 1, you get 2, then add another 1, and you get 3 . . . adding one to a number is a very simple process.  Is there a limit?  Of course not.  We have frequently stated that numbers simply keep going, toward a fairly esoteric idea called 'infinity'.  But that number will pretty quickly reach a level where it is literally incomprehensible to us human beings.  Oh, in the abstract, we can deal with such large numbers by changing the way we express them in various ways to bring them down to a comprehensible level, but something like 1.0 x 10¹⁰⁰ is given the name 'googol', another impossibly large number, a googolplex is equivalent to 1.0 x 10^googol.  The estimate of counting up to a googol would take an estimated 5 x 10⁹⁰ centuries (at 2 numbers per second).  Can you even imagine how long it would take to count up to a googolplex? Based on that, wouldn't such a number be 'hard to understand'?  So it meets one of the common definitions for 'complex'. 

So here we have something created through a simple process that eventually reaches a point where it is barely comprehensible without some esoteric methods of reference, like scientific notation or categorizing with a cute name. I know this isn't a complete analogy, but then what analogy completely represents anything anyway?  But look at how a simple process can eventually add up to levels of complexity that require us to take significant steps to be able to comprehend.  Even then, do most folks really understand numbers that large?

To use this analogy on Intelligent Design, it seems that we start with 1, and add 1, then add another 1 . . . and we reach a point of comprehensibility where we cannot add another number.  To make the jump to a larger number some external factor (intelligence . . . or to be honest, a Deity) must be added because of our inability to comprehend such complex things.  And yet for this to be true, there has to be some barrier that cannot be breached.  Have ID proponents offered up anything resembling a barrier?  Not yet and not for a lack of trying. 

Life evolved and continues to evolve without any evidence of the actions of a capricious deity.  The information argument doesn't really seem to mean much of anything.

Denyse O'Leary is certainly not allergic to Strawmen

Denyse O'Leary, the recently prolific mouthpiece for the Discovery Institute, tries her hand at 'explaining' a few things, but she certainly does Charles Darwin a disservice.  What she does is build several straw-men, proceeds to demolish them and then pats herself on the back with a conclusion based on her demolition.  Funny how it works.  Make an unrealistic claim, destroy it, the declare victory.  You know, how did she make it through school anyway?  Oh wait, she's some sort of journalist.  OK, that makes more sense.  Someone at the DI tells her to write up something, and I guess she gets creative writing credit from the powers-that-be.  Her post is "Natural Selection: Could It Be the Single Greatest Idea Ever Invented?" is an example, although she needs to work on her creative writing skills.  I was always taught that even creative writing requires a modicum of credibility to be successful.

Here is her opening paragraph:

"Information, according to Darwin's idea (natural selection), can exist without intelligence. Nature produces intelligent designs, just because some life forms survive and others don't. That's it. That's all it takes. How odd that no one noticed."

First of all, Darwin did not mention information, certainly not how she puts it.  The whole 'information argument' is nothing more than one of the many smokescreens put out by Intelligent Design proponents.  Check out the Talk Origins site for more on this particular inanity.  As for the rest of this, Nature does not 'produce' designs, and claiming that they are 'intelligent designs' is pretty foolish.  By using the word 'design', it assumes something not in evidence.  At best the phrase should be 'nature produces the appearance of design', but that would require a level of honesty also not in evidence.

Now, the second sentence shows mainly that little Denyse doesn't really understand evolution very well.  To paraphrase for brevity:  'some life forms survive and others do not'.  If she understood the actual theory she would know that survival is a result, but not of evolution -- the Theory of Evolution (TOE) doesn't determine survival, it discusses and explains populations and alleles within a population.  Some of those alleles aid in survival and reproductive opportunity, others do not, and still other are benign on the subject.  Survival isn't determined by the TOE and painting it as such gives Denyse a target to shoot at, no matter how unrealistic it might be.

And as for no one noticing, if she was talking about 'Natural Selection', someone apparently did.  His name was Charles Darwin.  If she was commenting that no one noticed 'intelligent designs', it's hard to notice what only exists in the wishful thinking of certain stripes of theists, like Denyse.  Throughout history the appearance of design was noticed, and noticed well before Darwin ever walked the Earth.

Next straw-man:

"That distinction can prove relevant if one thinks civil liberties matter. Many of us live in countries where the invocation of a supreme being is a basis for civil liberties (though those liberties may not extend to mosquitoes)."

Civil liberties are based in law, not the invocation of one deity or another.  Now I know various theists like to think their particular religion is the basis for so many things, but most legal systems draw from many sources.  If a Christian wants to point to the 10 Commandments, they really should look more at the historical source for those, as opposed to the stories.  But then, most theists rarely like the look past the stories, I think they are too afraid they might learn something.  So claiming that civil liberties are based on invocations of one deity of another is just another straw-man.

Here's my personal favorite:

"Darwin's theory of evolution (natural selection acting on random mutations) is a cultural icon, like the Big Bang, or e=mc². One needn't know anything specific about any of these ideas. Indeed, media professionals can be passionately devoted to Darwinism without knowing anything about it at all.
That makes sense. Professed loyalty to Darwin is an admission to good parties. And Darwinism's relationship to modern warfare and eugenics is drowned out by cultural support."

Did little Denyse forget that it is not Darwin's Theory of Evolution (TOE).  I know, I know, I have mentioned it before, but vilifying a man is so much easier than refuting a scientific theory, especially when you and your group never seems to produce anything scientific.  Vilifying a man makes it  so much more personal.  If Denyse was serious about damaging the TOE, she might do the science that could over . . . Oh wait, we are talking about the DI here, what was I saying, plus Denyse is a journalist.

Now, Since when is any scientific theory a cultural icon?  Darwin might be considered one, but the scientific Theory of Evolution is not.  Oh, we all know how much the DI wishes it was so.  Cultural icons come and go, but scientific theories are not so easily dismissed.  As for 'professing' such helps get you invited to good parties, how foolishly dismissive can Denyse get?  Really?  Good parties?  Is that the best she has?  So now we know the real reason the folks at the Discovery Institute refuse to accept the Theory of Evolution.  It's not their religious beliefs as we all thought and even as they explained in their own documentation.  They are blaming not 'believing' in Darwin is the reason they never got to go to the 'good' parties.  Denyse, and the rest of your ID'iots, might look for other reasons you never got invited . . . but then self-examination is harder than rationalization, isn't it.

Little Denyse also needs a history lesson.  Only the DI, and other Creationist groups, are claiming Evolution's relationship to modern warfare and eugenics.  People who actually study this stuff, unlike the DI, know better.  I think she's been reading Michael Flannery (DI fellow who purports to be a historian).  Apparently Flannery is a good a historian as Denyse is a journalist.

Here is her definition of the TOE:

"Here it is: Information can be created without intelligence. That is, natural selection acting on random mutation explains the order of life we see all around us. What can't survive won't, and that explains how very complex life forms and structures -- including the human mind -- get built up.
True: Things that can't survive don't. But why would that fact alone drive nature to produce anything as simple as a kitten, let alone a math genius?"

Once again, with feeling, the TOE does not address 'information' and claiming that it can be defined as 'Information being created without intelligence' is mostly a whole lot of drivel.  Part of evolutionary theory, I will emphasis 'part', is Natural Selection.  Another part is Random Mutation, but little journalist-wanna-be Denyse is leaving out one hell of a lot of what the theory actually says.  But then how can she whine about it, if she actually understood it, she couldn't keep her job at the DI.

As for her play for cuteness, using a picture of a cute and cuddly kitten.  Kittens are not simple.  Have you seen the genome for a cat?  Obviously Denyse hasn't, 20,285 genes, and we humans share something like 90% of them, oh, and Denyse, that includes math geniuses.

Little Denyse does say one sentence that I have to agree with:

"Ideas have consequences."

Yes, ideas have consequences.  Darwin's ideas, and those who have expanded on his ideas, have opened up the biological world in a way that has led to places undreamed of in Darwin's day.  Evolution impacts us all, in food production, medicine, ecology and the environment, just to name a few.  Pretty impressive set of results/consequences!  The Discovery Institute's ideas have consequences as well . . . and their results are listed where exactly?