Another Violation of Occam’s Razor
Evolution is, as evolutionists like to say, a fact. But that conclusion comes from philosophical and theological reasoning. From a strictly scientific perspective evolution is problematic. Virtually every area of scientific evidence challenges evolution. Consider for example the introns—segments of DNA within genes in the higher organisms. When introns were discovered evolutionists, in typical fashion, figured that introns were non functional, biological junk. They reasoned that introns had been randomly inserted into genomes for no particular reason, and now they appear throughout the higher organisms in the usual common descent pattern. Even if all that was true (which it isn’t) it wouldn’t help, for introns fundamentally contradict evolutionary theory.
When a gene is first transcribed, the entire gene is copied, including the introns. The introns are then removed by complicated and sophisticated splicing machinery that, among other things read splicing signals in the gene copy.
The problem is that if the first introns just happened to be randomly inserted into genes for no reason, then there would be no splicing machinery to remove them. This is not to say evolutionists cannot contrive explanations for introns, such as introns initially splicing themselves and the splicing machinery somehow evolving later. But such explanations are circuitous, just-so stories adding tremendous complexity and serendipity to the theory.
Beyond this basic problem, research has also been revealing that introns are not functionless, do not insert randomly in the genome, and do not fall into the common descent pattern. These last two findings were recently reinforced in a new study of a gene known as the eukaryotic translation elongation factor-1a gene. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the jargon. The gene codes for a protein that helps to deliver amino acids to the protein synthesis process.
But what’s important is that species usually have two copies of the gene, both copies have several introns, and even though some of the introns are in the same location in both genes, they must have been inserted independently.
In other words, this gene provides a test of some of the basic assumptions of evolution, and those assumptions fail. Specifically this example confirms, even assuming evolution on the whole is true, that introns are not likely inserted randomly but rather are inserted at a few specific locations. Therefore if introns are found at the same genome location in different species, it does not imply those introns come from a common ancestor. Instead they may be at the same location due to a common mechanism.
So introns are not junk, they are not inserted at random, and they do not reveal common descent any more than common mechanism. All this is on top of the fact that their very presence is problematic for evolution.
Introns are another example of how evolution violates Occam’s Razor. Entities are multiplied unnecessarily resulting in an extremely complicated, unparsimonious theory.
Religion drives science, and it matters.
from the paper's abstract:
ReplyDeleteOrthology assessment has relied heavily on the position of introns, but the basic assumption of low rates of intron loss and absence of convergent intron gains has not been tested thoroughly..... The hymenopteran F1 copy, which may or may not be unique to this order, apparently originated through retroposition and was originally intron free. During the evolution of the Hymenoptera, it has successively accumulated introns, at least three of which have appeared at the same position as introns in the F2 copy or in eEF1A copies in other insects. The sites of convergent intron gain are characterized by highly conserved nucleotides that strongly resemble specific intron-associated sequence motifs, so-called proto-splice sites. The significant rate of convergent intron gain renders intron–exon structure unreliable as an indicator of orthology in eEF1A, and probably also in other protein-coding genes.
If intron-exon structure is unreliable as an indicator for common descent in eEF1A, why should it be assumed for other genes? Indeed, the authors readily admit that it shouldn't be.
If Evolution were a real scientific theory, a discovery like this would cause a commotion. But as more similar findings emerge, the evolutionists are simply shrugging their shoulders and saying "Well I guess a lot of the genotype is convergent also."
No need to bring up the fact that such findings render one of their entire theoretical foundations (phylogenetics) to be non-falsifiable..
And they are just starting to look for this stuff... Get ready to hear much more about "convergent genetics" in the future, as Neo-Darwinism continues to burn to the ground.
Oh yea.. and yet another thing Common Design proponents have been successfully predicting for decades: that shared genetic factors across higher level taxa are based on shared function, and not shared relation.
Evolution is, as evolutionists like to say, a fact.
ReplyDeleteThe process, yes, not the theory. They are not the same thing.
But that conclusion comes from philosophical and theological reasoning.
No, it comes from observations. Observations made so frequently that "it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent" from them, which makes the process of evolution a fact by Gould's definition.
From a strictly scientific perspective evolution is problematic. Virtually every area of scientific evidence challenges evolution.
Even if that were true, which it isn't, "challenges" is not the same as "disproves".
Consider for example the introns—segments of DNA within genes in the higher organisms. When introns were discovered evolutionists, in typical fashion, figured that introns were non functional, biological junk.
Since they had no observable function at that time, that was a not unreasonable assumption.
Even if all that was true (which it isn’t) it wouldn’t help, for introns fundamentally contradict evolutionary theory.
Really? How might that be?
The problem is that if the first introns just happened to be randomly inserted into genes for no reason, then there would be no splicing machinery to remove them. And the failure to remove the introns would render the genes useless. This is not to say evolutionists cannot contrive explanations for introns, such as introns initially splicing themselves and the splicing machinery somehow evolving later. But such explanations are circuitous, just-so stories adding tremendous complexity and serendipity to the theory.
Yes, explaining them is a problem for evolutionary biology but "problem" is not the same as 'disproof''.
It's just as much a problem for any alternative explanation like Intelligent Design. Why would any half-way decent designer stick introns, functionless or not, in the middle of perfectly good genes when it's only going to cause a lot of bother removing them when transcription time comes around? If they're needed for some reason, why not tuck them away somewhere else in the genome where they won't get in everyone's way?
Introns are another example of how evolution violates Occam’s Razor. Entities are multiplied unnecessarily resulting in an extremely complicated, unparsimonious theory.
You're conflating process and theory again.
The process of evolution couldn't care less, assuming it were able to care at all, about human research priorities.
As for the theory, William's famous metaphorical shaving-gear is like the Pirates Code "more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.".
Ian, most of your comment is just typical evo equivocation, but you do actually address the argument at one point.
Delete"Explaining them is a problem for evolutionary biology but "problem" is not the same as 'disproof'."
No offense, but that's a really cheeseball cop-out answer.
If one assumes that evolutionary processes produced whatever one discovers within molecular biology, than you are automatically removing any notion of falsifiability. The claim isn't even being tested at all.
So for you to say "Well it doesn't disprove Evolution", doesn't even logically make sense.
But at least you do admit the data is problematic.
I'd say it's a little more than problematic... stuff like this makes no freakin' sense whatsoever from a Neo-Darwinian perspective and I think everyone knows it.
lifepsy,
DeleteYou can find similar "problems" in physics. For example, the standard model of particle physics posits the existence of a Higgs field and a number of other phenomenological parameters (e.g., masses of the electron, muon, etc.).
lifepsy December 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM
Delete[...]
If one assumes that evolutionary processes produced whatever one discovers within molecular biology, than you are automatically removing any notion of falsifiability. The claim isn't even being tested at all.
No, simply assuming that evolution was responsible for what we observe in molecular biology does not, of itself necessarily eliminate the possibility of falsification. There is nothing to prevent you or any other anti-evolutionists from finding and publishing data which tends to falsify it. Knock yourselves out. Take as long as you want, the theory will still be around.
Ian, if something is not being tested, then by definition it can not be falsified. Evolutionists will not even attempt to test whether or not evolution or Common descent is true. They just assume it must be and interpret all data through that assumption.
DeleteI agree with you that evolution could be around a long time if its proponents are not going to bother investigating whether or not it is true.
Ian: Even if that were true, which it isn't, "challenges" is not the same as "disproves".
ReplyDeleteJ: But Ian, the argument is not about whether one can disprove either UCA or SA. Clearly we can not (at yet, at least), with our current warranted inductive inferences. It's about why is academic freedom so irrationally constrained to natural causes for biological history when the only "theories" about that history amount to so many a-plausible assumptions as to be worthless for predictions? Indeed, I would contend that the only value of ID hypotheses in academia is that it alone, best I can tell, can account (for those who wish to explain them) for the possibility that non-relativistic moral normativity and the warrantedness of certain beliefs aren't illusory after all.
Positing various less-explanatory intelligences to account for this or that biological event/observation has no predictive value that can justify burdening the taxpayers over. But so far the taxpayers have gotten nothing for all the money spent on wildly speculative cladistic inferences either. Because there never was any real induction going on in that pursuit. It never based tree-generations on the known phenotypic/morphological effect of mutations that could be inductively-inferred to have occurred. It was always pure, unadulterated speculation that was dressed up in language that the tax-paying public couldn't understand.
Oleg: You can find similar "problems" in physics.
J: Indeed. That's why consensus physics, even, is of no epistemological value to humanity QUA humanity apart from its ability to imply future observations in a way that can be used to plan/strategize to the benefit of those who subsidize that research. A theory that can be formulated mathematically can conceivably be false in the sense that it doesn't correspond to posited attributes of real entities and STILL coincidentally correspond to expectations over some range of time and/or space. Theories are better or worse in terms of their breadth of expected observations or parsimony and etc. Metaphysical dogmatism, on the other hand, has no such value and is the antithesis of academic freedom as well.
You got a problem with "consensus physics," Jeff? Be specific.
DeleteJeff December 21, 2013 at 12:46 PM
DeleteIan: Even if that were true, which it isn't, "challenges" is not the same as "disproves".
J: But Ian, the argument is not about whether one can disprove either UCA or SA.
And Dr Hunter's OP wasn't about your pet hobbyhorses either in this case.
Positing various less-explanatory intelligences to account for this or that biological event/observation has no predictive value that can justify burdening the taxpayers over. But so far the taxpayers have gotten nothing for all the money spent on wildly speculative cladistic inferences either.
Since when was scientific truth measured by annual percentage return on investment?
Perhaps the discovery of the Higgs boson will lead to the development of a Higgs Field FTL propulsion system which will enable travel between the stars that will take months rather than millenia. But if it happens 500 years down the road from now that won't be of any use to the people who poured billions into the recent discovery of the particle. Does that mean that the discovery is worthless, that all that research was really just a waste of taxpayers money?
Ian: And Dr Hunter's OP wasn't about your pet hobbyhorses either in this case.
DeleteJ: Of course his posts are about what science has been defined to be for quite a long time. To say that a hypothesis is scientific (and therefore relevant to his posts) merely because it hasn't been falsified by naive falsificationism implies solipsism is a scientific hypothesis.
Ian: Since when was scientific truth measured by annual percentage return on investment?
J: The real question is, why is it measured by the majority personal credulity?
Ian: Perhaps the discovery of the Higgs boson will lead ...
J: What WILL or WON'T be in the future is not the logical equivalent of PRESENT over-whelming evidence. Dude, this ain't hard.
In fact, Ian, can you find me a post where CH is arguing that any current and on-going research should be stopped? All I've ever read him to oppose is the making of patently false or conventionally meaningless statements designed to high-five the suppression of expressed dissent from a-plausible hypotheses in class room settings, etc. If you can find such a statement by CH, I'd love to see it.
DeleteI thought I had responded to this, Ian, but I must have gotten distracted before getting past the 2nd step of the post or something.
DeleteIan: And Dr Hunter's OP wasn't about your pet hobbyhorses either in this case.
Jeff: Sure it is. It's always about what can HONESTLY be claimed to be fact or evidentially-supported.
Ian: Since when was scientific truth measured by annual percentage return on investment?
J: That's not the point I was making. I was making the point that it is stupid or depraved to suppress expressions of dissent in classroom settings from the claims of researchers who have not even yet (in 150 years) produced any testable predictions that actually WERE confirmed.
Please name just ONE testable prediction having anything to do with the question of SSA (several separate ancestries) vs. UCA or the possibility of profound, adaptive transformations in the posited time-frames that passed the test.
Oleg, I don't have a problem with consensus anything as long as it doesn't attempt to silence dissent from A-PLAUSIBLE hypotheses. By that, I mean inductively a-plausible. Where hypotheses are thus-far speculative, academic freedom should include the toleration of the expression of different opinions.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing about ID inferences that is more speculative than the speculative belief that cladistics models biological history. Therefore, expressed dissent of cladistics should be tolerated in class room settings. Nor is there anything irrational about wanting to EXPLAIN the reality of warranted belief. Indeed, how do you conceive of a demarcation criteria for science if there is no such knowable thing as warranted belief?
But if the consensus has the privilege of guiding research, so be it. Just be honest about the distinction between what is done for research direction and what constitutes inductive EVIDENCE. For meaningful academic freedom has to do with the latter, not the former.
Jeff,
DeleteNot sure then that I get your comment about physics.
As to ID inferences, they are too broad to be falsifiable. The Designer with a capital D could design everything any way He wants. Even what looks like a natural process might be designed. Perhaps radioactive decay of every atom has been set to occur at a specific time and there is a schedule out there somewhere. Perhaps the outcomes of quantum measurements are preordained. (And if you wish, it all could have been created six thousand years ago and make to look as if the Universe were billions of years old.) It's absurd, of course, and completely unscientific.
The only kind of capital D designer that has any relevance to any explanation is one that accounts for the validity of inductive criteria. Apart from the validity of inductive criteria, there is no plausibility to any inference whatsoever. There is only logical conceivability in that case. But no one seems to live that way. People seem to think inductively at least for those inferences that are required to avoid physical pain in their day-to-day experience.
DeleteE.g., I find absurd the following statement that Dawkins attributes to Kurt Wise:
"... if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate."
In short, nothing indicates anything if induction isn't valid. And I've read of no explanation of the validity of induction other than benevolent/competent theism. E.g., Dawkins is exactly right to say that natural selection, to the extent that it explains anything, doesn't require that conscious selves experience any pleasure whatsoever. For natural selection selects for behavior only. And natural selection of mere behavior doesn't rule out epiphenomenalism. And epiphenomenalism is perfectly consistent with a completely miserable existence of all conscious selves, even if "their" bodies function quite successfully in the sense we normally mean by that description.
Thus, the satisfaction one experiences from intellectual theory formation, even when inductive in nature, has no knowable correlation with reality if any and all extra-self reality is as "indifferent" to our satisfaction as atheistic and deistic UCA'ists insist.
Once you divorce satisfaction from the nature of the extra-self reality (assuming there is any), you've abandoned induction. So all those merely logical conceivable capital D designers are not relevant to any debate. Only a capital D designer that accounts for the validity of inductively-inferred warranted belief counts as relevant to rational debate. And such a designer can't be posited to do just anything. It must attain it's ends consistently with the existence of warranted/inductively-derived belief.
... another thing. Currently, there is no falsifiable theory of naturalistic or teleological UCA, either. And this is exactly why academic freedom should include free expression of dissent from such hypotheses.
DeleteSorry, Jeff, but Kurt Wise isn't a serious example. The guy thinks the Universe is six thousand years old.
DeleteFrom a strictly scientific perspective evolution is problematic.
ReplyDeleteWhat, if anything, is the difference between a "scientific perspective" and a "strictly scientific perspective?
If you would be so kind as to answer that, Dr Hunter, I might have a number of follow-up questions for you. Maybe I'm being presumptuous in assuming that you would have some interest in a conversation.
But if you'd rather pontificate, it's your blog, after all.
Pedant:
DeleteWhat, if anything, is the difference between a "scientific perspective" and a "strictly scientific perspective?
Sure, I could have left out "strictly." Wanted to emphasize that the religious assumptions are not allowed.
And that's because he, if Dawkins quoted him correctly, doesn't see God as having any relation to induction. But UCA has no inductive evidence for it, either. That's why it's just like Wise's version theistic history in that sense. On the other hand, neither are falsifiable, because neither the belief in a 6,000 year-old earth nor UCA are inductively derived beliefs. And naive falsificationism isn't even logically possible. That's why currently-accepted paradigms allow for all kinds of inexplicable anomalies. The only meaningful kind of "falificationism" is the application of INDUCTIVE criteria to posited explanations.
ReplyDeleteJeff,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure you understand entirely how science works. Maybe I don't quite get what you at saying, so let's look at some well understood and uncontroversial topic like Newtonian theory of gravity. It wasn't derived inductively. Yet it is a highly successful scientific theory. What do you say to that?
Zachriel is right to say that Newton didn't explain anything in terms of confirmable properties of whatever material ingredients exist "out there." He came up with math that seemed to model motion when mass of material composites (presumably, i.e.) was derived in a certain way. But the inductive criteria of breadth of explanation most certainly applies to even those kinds of "explanations."
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, I'm using what modern day logic texts say induction is, not what Scott pulls from Hume, etc. Those views are too narrow to explain as exhaustively how humans actually think and conclude. Modern texts are very explanatory. They basically describe induction as the application of criteria like parsimony, breadth of explanation, etc TO actual predictive models or hypothetical explanations. I.e., until you have a successfully predicting model or explanation (predictive of NOVEL observations, i.e.), you're still speculating with hunches and personal credulity rather than dealing with bona-fide inductive plausibility.
... and just for clarification, if you're contending, like Scott, that there can be overwhelming evidence for utterly a-plausible hypotheses, then you folks need to define once and for all what you MEAN by evidence. Because it certainly isn't what logic books call evidence.
ReplyDelete