Questions on IC and ID.

Matt Inlay posted these as a comment but I thought they were excellent questions so I will answer them here:

1. Do you feel that science has made progress understanding the origins of these systems since the publication of DBB?
Yes

2. Do you think science will continue to make progress understanding the origins of these systems? (Regardless of whether the final result of the research will ultimately satisfy Behe's requirement.)
Yes

3. Do you think that it is impossible (or implausible) for any IC system to have evolved?

Can I try and ask the question in a few different ways to explain my answers to different ways of understanding the question.

Do you think that there are complex systems in biology which unintelligent causes cannot produce?

Yes.

Do you still believe that there are such unevolvableIC systems within the immune system?

Yes. I would not use the complement example nor would I be confident in using any of the examples in DBB but I still have a hunch that ultimately there is need for intelligence to cause this system and that this will become clearer as more work is done.

Do you consider that it is more helpful in terms of the discussion for and against ID for IC to be used for systems which a person believes cannot be produced by unintelligent causes?

Yes. I think it confuses the debate to speak of IC systems evolving. If they can evolve by the usual processes then they are not IC. I think for the purposes of argument IC should be reserved for systems which a person believes cannot evolve.

4. Do you still consider it reasonable for Behe and company to conclude intelligent design based on the existence of IC systems in biology?

I consider that IC to ID is a fascinating argument. It is an interesting hypothesis well worthy of further investigation. I do not consider that it has been demonstrated that unintellegent causes can explain everything in biology. It is reasonable to infer design but it has not been clearly demonstrated in a rigorous way that I am aware of as yet. The terms of the calculations necessary need to be clarified in my view.

5. What do you see as to the future of the IC-to-ID argument? Do you think IDists will be able to further develop the concept, or will evidence against it continue to accumulate? In other words, will the IC-to-ID argument improve over time, remain the same, or decrease?

I am convinced that ultimately the IC to ID argument will prevail. I think ID will be developed and evidence for it will accumulate. I expect it to become a demonstrated fact at some point.

6. Do you think it is important for IDists to develop their own theory of origins, with "detailed, testable" models, or do you feel that the evidence against evolution is sufficient to take a pro-ID stance?

I do not consider that I am qualified to take a view on cosmological ID from fine tuning arguments because I have not got a clue about the physics and maths of them.
I think that in biology the argument has considerable appeal. A person's enthusiasm for it or antagonism against it is going to depend on their world view I think. I do not think that the argument is sufficiently well developed that all scientists should be convinced of it but I do not think that it should be dismissed from scientific discourse on the basis of the methodological naturalism argument.

I think a large number of ID supporters are pro-ID because of religious convictions. I think that there are however some people who are frustrated with "evolution only" explanations on the basis of the science alone but it is hard to distinguish between the two.

Unquestionably there is much work needing to be done if ID is to become convincing generally.

7. Do you think IDists will ever develop a "detailed, testable" model of ID?

Yes.

8. Do you think ID is science? If so, why?

Yes. ID is a mixture of lots of things but I am convinced that to exclude the possibility of a design inference is an unecessary restriction on possible explanations for what we see in the universe. I like the sort of work that Douglas Axe and Scot Minnich have done and think that this is the correct way forward.

Conclusion - IC in Immunology?

My foray into immunology (here, here and here) was prompted by trying to work out who was bluffing when the large pile of books, essays and papers was used in the Dover trial. Behe maintained that there were no detailed explanations about the origin of the complex parts of the immune system. The anti-ID side maintained that there was plenty of evidence based research work sufficient to illustrate how the immune system originated.

Since the trial the argument degenerated into an argument over what constituted sufficient detail.

I looked at Matt Inlay's web essay responding to the immunology chapter of Behe Book and Matt Inlay and Ian Musgrove were kind enough to help me along through the maze of immunological complexity. (Thank you to you both.) My conclusion as a non-expert is that Matt's argument for the nonIC nature of these three systems is strongest for the complement system. (That is not to say that I think that his explanation is plausible but simply that the argument for its IC nature is not convincing.) I am less convinced by the arguments against the IC nature of the other two systems. I agree however that the arguments do need refining and that this needs to involve someone who is a professional immunologist.

I think that Behe’s points regarding the lack of detail in some of the explanations for the pathways to these complex systems are indeed valid.

Truth in Science.

This organisation states that its area of initial focus is to be the origin of life and the origin of the diversity of life.
Their concerns seem to include the following:

1. Teaching on this subject has been “dogmatic and imbalanced.” Darwinian evolution is presented as uncontroversial and the only credible or scientific theory.

It is clear that evolution is controversial amongst the general population and amongst a substantial minority of parents. In this situation it is important for science teaching to go no further than the clear evidence warrants. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of scientists in the relevant fields believe that the evidence for common descent is convincing. However the history of the development of evolutionary thinking is on a backdrop of special creation thinking. Students cannot really grasp the complex nature of how science develops without appreciating the difficulties that Darwin faced. So from a historical perspective it is important to understand the alternative ways of thinking from a purely naturalistic view.

Where science becomes a simple platform for atheism as Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Myers and Daniel Dennett and others advocate this is clearly going to cause signficant difficulties for far more people than evangelical creationists.

We actually know very little about the origin of life and it is important to stress this in science lessons. We actually know very little about the origin of the data required to build different types of living organisms and this should be stressed. It is crucial that parents should be confident that science lessons are focusing on what we know rather than what we hope will turn out to be true.

2. Other explanations of origins are sometimes misrepresented. Children should be given fair and accurate representations of alternative views.

It is hard to understand anyone objecting to this concern. Any fair minded person should want the truth to be told even about people they strongly disagree with. If creationist views are misrepresented those misrepresentations should be corrected as soon as possible. Attacking straw men is a waste of everyones time.

3. The way origins are taught in science lessons fails to address the concerns of a large minority of parents about a purely naturalistic view.

I have commented on this in my remarks above. There is plainly a large minority of UK parents who are unconvinced by the entirely naturalistic explanations of life and the universe and who believe that alternative explanations should be presented to their children. Science education is always going to be a collaboration between scientists and parents. It behoves scientists to tread very carefully in this area unless they want to risk the situation of a confrontation with strongly held religious views of a large number of parents. Compulsory education demands great sensitivity to parental concerns.

4. Some evidences presented for evolution in some texts are flawed and inaccurate.

I understand that this is a very sensitive area but it is clear from my own experience that bad examples of teaching and textbook materials persist in this area far longer that they should have done and improvement of accuracy here should be welcomed by all.

Conclusion.
If I have understood the aims and objectives of "Truth in Science" then I am strongly in support of what they are seeking to do.

Launch of "Truth in Science."

A new organisation has been launched to shine a spotlight on the origins issue in British Schools. The organisation is called "Truth in Science" and their website is here.

I hope to do a more detailed post on this new venture when I have read more on their site.

System 3

The complement system.

For a biochemical switch to be useful you need

1. A mechanism to detect a change in the environment of a cell

2. An alternative action/pathway to switch to when the change is detected.

The switch on its own is no good if is doesn’t activate some kind of response to the change it detects.
The alternative "something to do" however is no use unless when it is needed you can switch it on. Usually the action to be switched on is a function which is needed only in certain conditions. Thus for it to work you need the switch and the function together. It is a logical "IF-THEN-ELSE" function. This is the central idea of Irreducible Complexity (IC) which Behe raised as a possible candidate for falsification of RMNS as the sole generator of biological complexity and as an indicator of intelligent design.



Switches (according to Behe) with their two alternative responses and some kind of detector system are therefore a good sign of intelligent design.

The complement system (as I understand it) is a system for blowing up cells. Blowing things to pieces is a dangerous job and needs to be handled by careful operators.

For an animal to obtain a system for blowing cells to pieces (bear in mind that an animal is made up of cells) is extraordinary.

To blow up a cell you only need to make a suitably sized hole in it. The rest happens as a matter of course.

Let us start from the position of having a fully functional cell blasting system which is triggered by molecules usually associated with bacteria detected by innate unchanging proteins sticking to carbohydrate molecules only found on the surface of bacteria. These are what I am calling the “dumb immigration officers.” The “dumb immigration officers” don’t do anything very clever they just look for sugar molecules with a foreign appearance and stick to them.

The switch in these systems is a switch between a “snipper” protein with a protective cover and a “snipper” protein that is going around snipping things.

The conversion to an active “snipper” is caused in the “dumb immigration officer” system by a protein complex sticking to certain sugar type molecules only found on bacteria surfaces.



See the molecules involved here.
The solution to the evolution of the “intelligence led immigration officer” system is that the same “snipper” switch (presumably by gene duplication and mutation) becomes activated by antibody which has stuck to a foreigner rather than by sticking to bits of the foreigner itself.

Behe asks whether it is reasonable to believe that this development of the cell blasting system together with the “intelligence led immigration officer” system can be explained by a gradual step by step process of incrementally increased function.

The problem with fiddling around with the binding site of one of these snippers is that you are fiddling around with explosives! The only binding sites that will be useful are those which are unique to foreigners….and if you get things wrong you have pressed the suicide button.

Is it reasonable to think of an organism experimenting with a duplicated "snipper" gene until it hits on a binding site that binds antibody stuck to a foreigner? My gut response is that this is not going to work but I suppose it depends on the frequency of useful binding sites as opposed to the lethal ones.