The buds or leaves of many plants are arranged not randomly but in sophisticated spiral structures that exhibit many mathematical properties involving Fibonacci sequences and golden angles.
A theist might see evidence of intelligent design in these structures. An evolutionary biologist (or economist) might see evidence of unintelligent design i.e. they will assume that since the patterns are far from random there must be some functional advantage to spiral patterns and that natural selection operating over many generations results in a convergence to or near the optimum.
There is, however, a third – often overlooked – possibility. Sophisticated structures may be the result of unintelligent, non-design. Here’s an interesting article, for example, arguing that the spiral patterns in flowers are the result of physical processes of attraction and repulsion. In particular, check out this cool movie which shows magnetized drops of ferrofluid being dropped into a dish that is magnetized at its
edge and filled with silicone oil. The droplets are attracted to the edge of the dish and repelled from one another. What’s interesting is that when the droplets are dropped slowly they float directly away from one another in a simple pattern but when they are dropped quickly they form intricate spirals with different properties depending on how quickly they are dropped. (Note that the movie is a bit long – just grab the slider and you will see what is going on). The physical model is only suggestive of what is going on in flowers, of course, but the idea is generating new testable predictions about the kinds of patterns we should see in real flowers.
My suspicion is that quite a few of the sophisticated patterns that we see in nature and elsewhere is neither intelligent nor unintelligent design, i.e. not functional in any direct sense, but rather the result of unintelligent, non-design.
As a theist, my response is: God created a universe in which physical processes naturally lead to sophisticated patterns.
In other words, physical laws are God’s tools, just as evolution is. The intelligence is still there, just using a slightly different mechanism.
Alex, what makes you think these phenomena are not evidence of intelligent design? What greater evidence is demanded?
“My suspicion is that quite a few of the sophisticated patterns that we see in nature and elsewhere is neither intelligent nor unintelligent design, i.e. not functional in any direct sense, but rather the result of unintelligent, non-design.”
No offense, Alex, but, duh.
I’ve seen the term “spandrel” used for non-intelligent non-design.
The idea that many things are probably not due to natural selection has been around since at least Kimura’s neutral theory in the 70s. And then there’s lots of statistical mechanics to explain critical and self-organizing phenomena…
One of the more entertaining aspects of the evolution vs. intelligent design discussion is that neither is falsifiable. And to date, at least, there is no evidence on one side that can’t be explained away or appropriated by the other. The notion of theistic evolution seems like an appropriate, but emotionally unsatisfying, compromise.
Jon wrote: “One of the more entertaining aspects of the evolution vs. intelligent design discussion is that neither is falsifiable.”
This is completely wrong. BOTH evolution and intelligent design theories are falsifiable, that is, capable of being tested.
What might falsify evolution?
1) The discovery of hippogrifs, mermaids, chimeras, or any other sort of creature made of parts taken from widely disparate species. There is no way such a discovery could be reconciled with the Darwinian picture of speciation.
2) Finding human fossils in the same strata as dinosaurs. This would strongly refute the Darwinian view that humans evolved from apes much more recently, after dinosaurs went extinct.
What might falsify ID? The theory posits that all creatures were created by a powerful but human-like intelligent being. What if…
1) Some creatures had features that were completely useless? or
2) Some useful features were found to exhibit imperfections that not even the dumbest human engineer would have designed?
Consider:
1) Whales have tiny hipbones. Humans have erector pili but have so little body hair that standing up on end does nothing to make us warmer. Vestigial organs!!
2) The nerves from the light-sensitive cells at the back of the human eye go out, run over the surface, and then dive back through a hole (the “blind spot”) to get to the brain. Any intelligent engineer can suggest the obvious improvement: simply run the wires out the _back_ of the light-sensitive cells, and don’t bother with the whole blind spot mess.
The physiologies of real organisms are frequently not designs that would have been made by any intelligent designer. And claiming the “God works in mysterious ways” is a cheap evasion.
This is being discussed at Overcoming Bias. I questioned the significance of “spandrels” and Eliezer Yudkowsky attacked Stephen Jay Gould, who came up with the concept.
As it applies to processes/structures other than life, I think this is a fine way to describe/explain such phenomenons. A more accurate description than ‘non-intelligent non-design’ might be ‘self-organizing but not self replicating’ which amounts to much the same since non-self replicating means not subject to the ‘design’ on natural selection
Could you not say math, as a pure abstraction, is the ultimate non-intelligent, non-designed sophisticated pattern? Especially in that it can usually describe, to a degree, all the physical things we find so nifty?
Actually Euler’s equation seems like the strongest evidence for intelligent design of universe. But then again, it would probably be just as scandalous if we lived in a universe without a simple equation relating the fundamental constants/operators.
“Functional” is about the difference between value and cost – so structures that reduce costs are just as functional as structures that increase values. Many patterned physical structures can be understood better as reducing costs than as increasing value.
Nobody has mentioned this possibility: that the patterns we see are **exactly** that — patterns *we* see. That certain arrangements are pleasing to us, and when they occur, we notice them and think they are special simply because they please us. Other patterns or arrangements of things don’t please us, and so we do not consider them anything special.
In the video, it appears that the magnetic field is creating the pattern. When the drops become more numerous, the magnetic effects between the drops increases. However, we know this from chemistry and physics. The trends in physics may have developed based on natural selction – I don’t know why or how they would though. In any case, we need evidence of some chemical or physical law in order to discount natural selection.
Jon wrote: “Not a hippogriff in sight. Evolution must be working like a charm.
Seriously, though, what sort of empirically-testable hypotheses might disprove evolution?”
Here are a couple more examples of facts that would disprove evolution if they were true:
1) If the Earth determined to be 6000 years old, there wouldn’t have been enough time for evolutionary processes to produce the diversity of life we find on the planet.
2) If the traits of offspring resulted from simply “blending” the traits of the parents, then advantageous traits which arose through mutation would just be diluted across the entire population. Prior to the acceptance of Mendel’s theory of discrete units of inheritance (now known as genes), this was a very serious objection to Darwin’s theory.
I suspect, however, that there may be some confusion about what it means for a theory to be “testable” or “falsifiable”. For a theory to be testable, we need to be able to think of at least one question about the world which has the following properties:
1) The question can be answered empirically.
2) Some of the conceivable answers to the question contradict the theory’s predictions.
As for evolution, scientists have already spent a long time dreaming up such questions, and investigating the world to determine whether the facts of the world are compatible with the theory. And evolution passes all the tests that people have thought of.
Lastly, allow me to explain why the “hippogrif test” is perfectly legitimate. In choosing between rival theories we should accept theories that pass empirical tests and reject theories that fail tests. If two rival (incompatible) theories have both passed all the tests to which they have been subjected, then we should prefer the one that passes the most tests and the most rigorous tests. Intelligent design does not make any predictions about the existence of chimerical creatures. (An intelligent designer might make such creatures. Nowadays, some intelligent designers are doing just that, albeit in a limited manner.) Evolution does make a prediction regarding hippogrifs, and it makes the right prediction. So even if ID didn’t fail the tests which I described in my previous comment, the hippogrif test would be a good reason to prefer evolution over ID.
Jon: “Seriously, though, what sort of empirically-testable hypotheses might disprove evolution?”
Very funny! I think the tests I listed above should do it. Evolutionists should show that for the evolution of the universe (big bang)
1. Something can come from nothing (the Big Bang).
2. Energy can turn into matter.
3. The 2nd law of thermodynamics has been repealed. (just a reminder, the 2nd law states that in a closed system, i.e., without an outside source of energy, everything degenerates into random heat energy; it cannot progress from a low state of organization to a higher one.)
For biological evolution, evolutionists must
1. Prove that life can come from non-living matter.
2. Explain the lack of fossil evidence. (Don’t fall for TGGP’s claim that tons of transitional fossils exist. Just pick up an junior high biology text and you’ll find dozens of excuses for the lack of fossils. Also, the lack of fossils was the reason for the puntuated equilibrium theory.)
3. Explain the lack of living transitional creatures.
It’s all really very simple.
Also, having a degree in physics myself, I can tell you that physicists tend to be extremists on both sides of the theist-athiest poles. Los Alamos has the highest number of churches per capita in the nation (or so is claimed). They tend to think along Graeme’s lines, and are simply trying to understand God’s rules. When you start encountering highly ordered stuctures again and again, or realize that the model that you’ve been working at for weeks simplifies to a terse equation, you can’t help but question the “Why?” beyond “because the equations say so.”
Fundamentalist:
So do you know anyone who has been able to turn energy into matter? I have turned matter into energy many times. It is part of the theory of evolution, the evolution of the universe.
Energy is converted into matter when photons are absorbed by objects they collide with. I don’t know what you mean when you say that you “turned matter into energy many times”. Have you caused nuclear fission or fusion? If you are thinking of chemical reactions which rely on electromagnetic forces, that is not considered by physics to be “converting matter into energy”, it is rearranging matter to convert potential chemical energy into kinetic energy. I also don’t mean what you are talking about with your “theory of evolution, the evolution of the universe”. I am talking about Darwinian evolution, which is an entirely different subject from the Big Band and all that.
Scientists have been trying for over 50 years with no luck. Your faith in the ability of scientists is irrational.
If I 50 years ago I had predicted that scientists would have synthesized life by now, my prediction would have been inaccurate. However, I didn’t make such a prediction (I wasn’t alive back then), so I don’t see what basis you have for considering me irrational. In addition, I don’t think scientists have actually been making much effort to synthesize life for 50 years. Right now they are trying to understand our own genes, how they are expressed, proteins and amino acids and so on. Synthesizing life could be quite a ways off, though if Kurzweil is right it would be quicker than I expect (in Bayesian terms this should tell you that I assign a probability of less than 1 to Kurzweil being right).
Wrong! We do NOT have tons of fossil evidence. Read Roger Lewin’s (an evolutionist) book “Bones of Contention.” The fossil evidence for human evolution fits on a couple of tables. And why shouldn’t we see transitional forms today? What caused evolution to stop? Yes species have become extinct, but new transitional forms should appear daily unless someone stopped the process of evolution.
I’ve never heard of Roger Lewin. However, a single dig can uncover several tables of fossils so your statement doesn’t seem credible to me. Furthermore, we DO see transitional forms today! As I mentioned, billions of years from now many species that we see around us will be considered “transitional”. Even today among humans there are still genes detectably approaching fixation. Also, the idea that evolution has STOPPED is idiotic, and anybody who claims this just doesn’t understand Darwinian natural selection. As Greg Cochran put it the bow begat the bushmen and such changes are still happening today.
Keep in mind that science should be based on evidence, but with evolution all we get is excuses for the lack of evidence or confessions of faith that the evidence will eventually appear. Does that sound like science?
There is lots of evidence for evolution, and more and more evidence keeps getting discovered, just as evolutionists predicted would happen.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has a good essay on Bayesianism, evidence and evaluating theories here which includes a good section on evolution.
Evolutionists should show that for the evolution of the universe (big bang)
That is an ENTIRELY separate subject from evolution. Stop using that word. Not only is theism perfectly compatible with the Big Bang, theists predicted that we would discover evidence for it when the standard view was the “steady state” model of the universe.
2. Energy can turn into matter.
I already explained to you that this happens, as Einstein explained.
3. The 2nd law of thermodynamics has been repealed. (just a reminder, the 2nd law states that in a closed system, i.e., without an outside source of energy, everything degenerates into random heat energy; it cannot progress from a low state of organization to a higher one.)
It is clear you do not really understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The fact that human beings create complex, ordered structures all the time does not disprove it, because the TOTAL amount of entropy still increases. Evolution and thermodynamics are not in conflict.
Just pick up an junior high biology text and you’ll find dozens of excuses for the lack of fossils.
I’ve read such textbooks when I was in school, and none of them even acknowledged that there was a lack of fossils, let alone tried to excuse them.
Also, the lack of fossils was the reason for the puntuated equilibrium theory.
Read the essay I linked to from Elizer Yudkowsky. Also, note that the man most associated with “punctuated equilibrium” is not thought very highly of by scientists, but by laymen. You can read a bit more about P.E and the degree to which it is revolutionary here.
3. Explain the lack of living transitional creatures.
I already explained this to you earlier. Why did you not respond?
Btw, I am beginning to think it’s a waste of time arguing with IDers.
There are plenty of books that explain evolution and that refute creationism & ID.
Anyone genuinely interested in having his creationist/ID beliefs challenged, would know where to go.
I also haven’t read any books on how a race of invisible pink gorillas created the laws of physics.
As for turning energy into matter – photosynthesis?
There’s nothing more compelling about this ID fairy tale than there would be from a book such as I described. Nothing.
And the day that the majority of our school systems accept and teach ID bullshit (creationism) in favor of real, hard science (e.g. evolutionism) will mark the official beginning of the decline of America.
You people are poison.
TGGP, the reference to the article on changing EMF into matter is interesting. I’ll have to look into it further. The main reason I brought up the inability to transfrom energy into matters is that the big bang theory postulates that the universe expanded from nothing and in the first fragments of seconds was pure energy that became matter. But no one could find a mechanism by which energy could become matter, so a physicist named Higgs proposed that a boson must exist to make the transformation possible. Researchers spent 30 years searching for the Higgs boson with no luck. Newer, bigger, accelerators in Europe will try again. But until the Higgs boson is found, physicists have no evidence that such a transformation is possible; it’s only theory. Agains, science should be based on evidence and the lack of evidence should cause scientists to rethink their theories.
On the conservation of matter, I think the Wikipedia article is easier for most people to follow:
“The principle that the mass of a system of particles is equal to the sum of their masses, even though true in classical physics, is false in special relativity. The mass-energy equivalence formula implies that bound systems have a mass less than the sum of their parts. The difference, called a mass defect, is a measure of the binding energy — the strength of the bond holding together the parts (in other words, the energy needed to break them apart). The greater the mass defect, the larger the binding energy. The binding energy is released when the parts combine to form the bound system. [1]”
“Other violations of the conservation of mass can occur in special relativity. For example, when matter is converted to massless energy according to E = mc². As another example, when an atom emits a photon (which is massless), the atom’s mass is decreased by E/c² where E is the photon’s energy. The mass of closed (isolated) systems can decrease by emission of photons, even if the photons remain inside the system.[2]”
“In special relativity, the conservation of mass can also not be cast as a statement of conservation of energy. A system of two photons can be massless or have an inertial mass up to 2E/c², where E is each photon’s energy (assumed equal), as a function of relative momentum orientation for the photons. So, independently of the energy content being constant at 2E, the total mass may vary from zero to 2E/c².[3] The conservation of mass also does not apply to particles created by pair production.”
TGGP: “When you die, your bones (if they are preserved) will become “transitional” fossils. Verstehen Sie?”
No. My fossil would be a fully human fossil, not a transitional creature. Transitional fossils are fossils that claim to show a creature between kinds of animals. For example, only a handful of fossils exist that scientists feel are examples of creatures that were half man, half monkey, and a lot of controversy surrounds even those.
TGGP: “…the proportion of people who believe in creationism/ID has been declining…”
An ABC poll last week showed that 60% of Americans believe the earth was created in six days. That’s an increase over what I had seen a decade earlier. I can’t provide references because I didn’t save any of the info, but you might find some if you google for it. The main reason we are gaining ground is that evolutionists fail to read creationist/ID material, so they tend to debate straw dogs. If evolutionists began to take creationism/ID seriously and actually debate the scientific issues, our job would be much more difficult, but that’s not likely to happen.
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