The IDEA Dodo Tries to Fly...

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Original essay

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

URGENT: Really big news from the national IDEA Center: They aren't dead...yet!

Well, that's nice. But if you follow the link, you will find that according to their own report, the IDEA network currently includes

"...about [sic-1] a dozen IDEA Club chapters that are active or in-formation.[sic-2]"

Interesting; back in December 2005, Dr. William Dembski wrote that

"...there are thirty such centers [sic-3] at American colleges and universities..."

From 30 "centers" (i.e. "clubs") in December 2005 to "about a dozen that are active or in-formation" in January 2009. To me (and admittedly I'm not a mathematician...more's the pity), that indicates a decline of at least 60% since 2005. And that assumes that all of the clubs included in the "dozen that are active or in-formation" now actually exist. That is, they meet now and then, and a few people show up for their meetings.

Of course, we have no way of empirically verifying whether any of the "about a dozen" clubs actually exist or not. However, what anyone with a web connection can empirically verify is that the links to "active" IDEA clubs posted at the national IDEA Center have not changed. They are all either dead (i.e. they return a 404: File Not Found message) or they lead back to old press releases from the national IDEA Center.

A spokesperson for the national IDEA Center (could it be Casey himself?) claims that they are diligently updating these links and will soon post a new map and list with new hot links to new active IDEA clubs. Well, could be; they will be able to do this if such clubs actually exist and are meeting now and then.

So, I propose a new empirical investigation (that's what science is all about, right?). Let's all return periodically to the page at the national IDEA Club that lists the links to "active" IDEA clubs and see if they have been updated. If they have, and they include information on recent activities at those clubs, then we can conclude that the IDEA club movement really isn't dead, it's just restin' on account of bein' tired and shagged out after a long squawk (like the Norwegian blue; beau'iful plumage...).

But, if the links don't get updated, or they are but there are no new activities listed, then we can conclude that their self-reports of their non-demise will have been greatly exaggerated.

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Oh, and here's the explanation of the sics:

[sic-1] "...about a dozen..." Odd, most people don't have trouble counting up to twelve. Is it "a dozen" or eleven, or six, or one, or what? If anybody should know, it should be the people in charge, right?

[sic-2] "in-formation" Would that have anything to do with Dr. Dembski's soi dissant "Law of Conservation of Information"? Or does it mean that a couple of people have been thinking about getting together to talk about ID sometime? Just curious...

[sic-3] Dr. Dembski's "ID centers", would those be the little group of two or three ID supporters huddled in a corner of the student union cafeteria, talking about the "evilutionists" and ending their "center's" activities with a prayer? Sounds like a major "ID research center" to me...

Scientists Say Darwin's 'Tree of Life' Not The Theory Of Everything

ARTICLE: physorg.com

AUTHOR: Lisa Zyga

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

First the news item, followed by some commentary:

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There is only one figure in On the Origin of Species, and that is a tree diagram. As Darwin’s model for the theory of evolution, he used the Tree of Life (TOL) to clearly and visually explain the interrelatedness of all living things, implying that from one common ancestor (the root) sprung branches, which produced smaller offshoots as genetic progeny, etc.

In this model, similarities between species reveal a common ancestor, and differences result from (and explain) Darwin’s main catalysts: competition and natural selection, which generate improvement in future generations. As a simile, the TOL served a vital purpose for introducing the theory of evolution to the community in an understandable way. Although there is no external evidence to support the idea that evolution is inclusively hierarchical, many evolutionists believe the TOL provides an accurate general representation of the history of life, which could potentially be completely reconstructed by knowing the relevant data.

In recent times, however, a minority of biologists and evolutionists have questioned the accuracy of the TOL hypothesis, including W. Ford Doolittle and Eric Bapteste. In a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Pattern Pluralism and the Tree of Life Hypothesis,” the scientists investigate the shortcomings of the TOL, as well as propose alternative models that would better explain how to classify the history of evolving life forms.

Much of the initial concern over TOL was provoked by biologists studying the complex relationships among prokaryotes, the most primitive life forms that include bacteria and archaea. Prokaryotes have a much simpler DNA structure than eukaryotes (all other life forms). Because of this, prokaryotes often transfer their DNA via processes such as lateral gene transfer as opposed to vertical gene transfer (direct transmission form parent to progeny) which is the basis for the “phylogenetic” (evolutionary relatedness) TOL scheme.

“Surely a tree is the right model for most multi-cellular animals and plants,” Doolittle explained to PhysOrg.com. “Thus the TOL is great for fossils and museums and dinosaurs and most of visible life, over the last billion years. But unicellular eukaryotes and prokaryotes represent the bulk of the biomass and diversity of life on earth, as well as the first two-thirds of its history.”

In their paper, Doolittle and Bapteste highlight research that shows other causes of genetic modification, suggesting that evolutionary history is more complex than described by the TOL. For example, recombination, gene loss, duplication, and gene creation are a few of the processes whereby genes can be transferred within and between species, causing variation that’s not due to vertical transfer. These transfer methods give results that don’t fit on the TOL, including species that cannot be traced to a common ancestor.

While such diverse methods might appear to obviously point to a more complex nonhierarchical evolutionary scheme, Doolittle and Bapteste explain that the TOL thinking persists due to confusion between the roles of “process” and “pattern.” The above methods are processes and are widely accepted by modern evolutionists, whereas the TOL is a pattern that, as Doolittle and Bapteste explain, has been ingrained in biologists’ minds from early education as a single, unifying model. As the researchers explain of the current biology scene, “We may be process pluralists, but we remain pattern monists.”

If this combination of thinking seems to clash, Doolittle and Bapteste suggest that the Western philosophical tradition of thinking in universal patterns has caused biologists to cling to classification without realizing it. The authors point out that many algorithms used to study evolutionary hierarchies impose or extract the TOL structure due to their intrinsic design. TOL is a paradigm that has stuck. But Doolittle sees ways to alter this mentality.

“Sure we can [re-train Western thinking]. That's what ‘postmodernism’ is about,” he said. “I would agree that the need to classify might be built in, but the coupling of this practice to a specific theory about what classifications are ‘natural’ is surely not.

As an alternative to the TOL, the scientists suggest that relationships among life forms may be represented by whatever model fits for a certain purpose, a certain taxonomic group, or a certain scale. In contrast to pattern monism, they call this belief “pattern pluralism.” While parts of evolution certainly are tree-like, other parts may be nets or webs or other complex models. Most importantly, however, there seems to be no “theory of everything” in evolution, no metanarrative to unify all life forms.

“In 2006, our understanding of evolution at the molecular, population genetic, and ecological levels is rich and pluralistic in character,” the scientists conclude, “and does not require (or justify) a monistic view of the phylogenetic pattern.”

As for any blow to Darwin’s ego, the scientists point out that he never wrote about reconstructing the tree in an attempt to relate every living thing, but rather used the model as a general guide.

“I'd like to think he would adjust,” Doolittle said about Darwin. “After all, his theory was developed before there was any understanding of genetics and when bacteria were still believed to be spontaneously generated.”

REFERENCES CITED:
Doolittle, W. Ford, and Bapteste, Eric. “Pattern pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis.” PNAS, February 13, 2007, vol. 104, no. 7, 2043-2049.

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COMMENTARY:

Ford Doolittle has been saying this for many years, and has been joined by Lynn Margulis, who has argued that the concept of "species" does not apply to prokaryotes.

But, that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is how "intelligent design theorists" quote-mine and otherwise distort reality to the point of outright lying. Why do I say this? Because former lawyer and professional propagandist, Casey Luskin, has a postat Evolution News, propaganda outlet for the Discovery Institute in which he says

"By invoking insufficient data, horizontal gene swapping, rapid evolution, and other ad hoc explanations, Darwinists reveal that neo-Darwinism is trying explaining away the data; it is not explaining the data. Perhaps the inability to construct robust phylogenetic trees using molecular data stems from the fact that common descent is simply wrong."

And the alternative? Why, magic of course. All of the living forms on Earth today were created, all at once, on Tuesday 25 October 4004 BC at 9 AM...or some other time in the past, exact date unspecified. Because, of course, that is the only alternative to common descent. Either you and your siblings are the offspring of your parents (i.e. common descent) or you aren't, and if the latter is true, then you must all have been created separately, not by your parents, but rather by God...excuse me, the Grand Omnipotent Designer. And with your memories of your childhood already inserted into your minds, so that the jarring discontinuity of your separate creations would not disturb you too much...would lead you, in fact, into the damning conclusion that you were, in fact, the offspring of your parents, and thus consign yourself to everlasting torment in the lake of fire.

Or not. You see, this is what the kind of egregious propagandizing of the folks of the Disco Institute leads to. Not discussion of the science of biology on its merits, on the basis of reason and evidence, but pure assertions without any alternatives at all (not that they want you to read in public, anyway).

I'm tired (our new baby is keeping Leah and me awake at night), and so I'll sign off now. But damn, people like Luskin just make me want to scream sometimes...

"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
- Friedrisch Schiller

--Allen