Is universal common descent up a tree?

Another Look at the Latest Blow to the Darwinian Tree of Life, and the Man Who Dealt It

Evolution News & Views July 3, 2012 2:41 PM

How many times can evolutionists say everything they know is wrong before people start to really believe it?

As Casey Luskin noted here earlier, a news article in Nature tells the tree-shaking story of Kevin Peterson. This whole subject is so delightful it deserves another look.

A molecular paleobiologist at Dartmouth, Peterson never set out to disturb fellow believers in Darwinian theory. He just thought he would try a new method for constructing phylogenetic trees: tracking relationships via micro-RNAs. Peterson thought micro-RNAs would be a good marker of evolutionary relationships:

MicroRNAs, Peterson and [colleague Lorenzo] Sempere discovered, are unlike any of the other molecular metrics that biologists typically use to tease apart evolutionary relationships. DNA binding sites, for example, continuously mutate; microRNAs, by contrast, are either there or they aren't, so their interpretation doesn't require such complex sequence and alignment analyses. And once gained, microRNAs usually remain functional, which means that their signal stays intact for hundreds of millions of years.

But when Peterson tested the conventional Darwinian tree of life for rotifers, his tree didn't match the conventional one. That was only the beginning. He found tree rot all over:

But a chance investigation of microRNAs in microscopic creatures called rotifers led him to examine these regulatory molecules in everything from insects to sea urchins. And as he continues to look, he keeps uncovering problems, from the base of the animal tree all the way up to its crown.

Peterson's observations, first published in a minor journal but now getting notice in Nature andScience, are winning him some vocal critics, but mostly reluctant supporters. His work on the family tree of placental mammals will be his latest unsettling contribution. Peterson had decided to lay it all on the line by testing the family tree of mammals. "We're mammals, so this matters," he said. Sure enough, problems are surfacing there, too.

The data's refusal to cooperate with other Darwinian phylogenies has left Peterson "up a tree," asNature writer Elie Dolgin quips: "At first, Peterson was shocked by his results, which still haven't been published. But he has spent the past year validating his tree with gene-expression libraries and genomic sequences, all of which he says support his findings." He's being extra careful, because "If we get this wrong, all faith that anyone has in microRNAs [for phylogenetics] will be lost," his colleague Philip Donoghue, a palaeobiologist at the University of Bristol, said. "It could well be the end of all our careers."

The reactions of other scientists have been entertaining:

• "One of the reviewers said it was impossible, what we were describing," Peterson said.
• "He's talking about the entire genome that has to be wrong."
• "I don't give it any serious consideration. There have to be other explanations."
• "What we know at this stage is that we do have a very serious incongruence. It looks like either the mammal microRNAs evolved in a totally different way or the traditional topology is wrong. We don't know yet."

Stirring controversy was not Peterson's intention. Dolgin describes him as a "mild-mannered but straight-talking Montanan" who "didn't set out to rewrite textbooks."

For now, he's trying to amass the best evidence he can before publishing the mammal study. Then he wants to return to the quiet life of an ancient-invertebrate biologist. But if Peterson's voyage upends the mammalian phylogeny, he'll have left a furry mess in his wake.

Why is this so surprising to anyone? In fact, it's old news. Since the first molecular studies with proteins like cytochrome C and other molecules, neo-Darwinists have repeatedly generated trees that conflict with each other depending on the marker used. Over and over, they have had to explain away these observations. There is so much wiggle room in the methods that some have invoked epicycle-style fudge factors like "rate heterogeneity" (molecular clocks ticking at different rates) to keep the data in sync with the theory.

This is a classic example of theory directing data, instead of the other way around -- a form of theplaustrum ante equum (cart before the horse) fallacy. The fallacy becomes evident when different practitioners with the same theory generate contradictory data sets and have to invoke fudge factors to avoid changing their assumptions. You notice that Nature titled its article "Phylogeny: Rewriting evolution," not "Phylogeny: Falsifying evolution."

Trying to play the unbiased scientist, Peterson said, "Ultimately, I don't really care how mammals are related to one another -- it doesn't matter to me. But what does matter is the validity of the data set." That's a commendable attitude, but would he be equally comfortable questioning neo-Darwinian theory itself?

Intelligent-design advocates are unsurprised by any of this, because their focus is on the origins of functional information, not unobservable prehistories imagined by assuming that a universal common ancestor gave birth to a family tree via random mutation and natural selection. Design theorists also believe in following the evidence where it leads.

Just a name? II

On irreducible complexity and oversimplification.

Has Ken Miller Refuted Irreducible Complexity with a Tie Clip?

Michael Flannery October 6, 2014 4:53 AM |

At a recent meeting of the student apologetics group Ratio Christi an acquaintance suggested to me that biologist Ken Miller's use of a mousetrap as a tie clip -- with the catch and the hold-down bar removed -- was somewhat cheesy but had "made its point." Really?

What exactly was Ken Miller's point? Well, the idea is that Miller's tie clip purportedly demonstrates that Michael Behe's example of the mouse trap as an irreducibly complex (IR) apparatus (comparable in this respect to the bacterial flagellum with its own IR design) fails by a simple analogy. In other words, what we see now as a complete bacterial flagellum might well have served a different function in an earlier form. The degree to which this kind of theatrics has lodged itself in the public mind as a "refutation" of IR caught me by surprise, especially because it came from someone from whom I would have least expected it.

My first inclination was to respond, "The tie clip demonstration doesn't address the essential point, namely, that ALL parts of the mouse trap are necessary to make it function as intended. Now if by removing a part of the mouse trap the mechanism could still function in the same capacity, then I think a valid point would be made. But Behe's whole point is that ALL parts of the mouse trap are needed to function as a mouse trap."

My off-the-cuff answer is valid, I think, but it seemed to me a simpler explanation was likely available. So I e-mailed some friends for their thoughts, and to my satisfaction a great many responses poured in. I will paraphrase the two best, which can be posed as plain rhetorical questions, as follows. First, did the tie clip spontaneously assemble or did it require some intentional, purposeful design? Second, could the selective pressures that led the tie clip to morph into an apparatus for catching mice be explained?

Those simple questions show Miller's complete misunderstanding of IR and ID. Behe has addressed this directly himself (for the complete chapter go here):

Finally, rather than showing how their theory could handle the obstacle, some Darwinists are hoping to get around irreducible complexity by verbal tap dancing. At a debate between proponents and opponents of intelligent design sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in April 2002, Kenneth Miller actually claimed (the transcript is available at the website of the National Center for Science Education) that a mousetrap isn't irreducibly complex because subsets of a mousetrap, and even each individual part, could still "function" on their own. The holding bar of a mousetrap, Miller observed, could be used as a toothpick, so it still had a "function" outside the mousetrap. Any of the parts of the trap could be used as a paperweight, he continued, so they all had "functions." And since any object that has mass can be a paperweight, then any part of anything has a function of its own. Presto, there is no such thing as irreducible complexity! Thus the acute problem for gradualism that any child can see in systems like the mousetrap is smoothly explained away.

Of course the facile explanation rests on a transparent fallacy, a brazen equivocation. Miller uses the word "function" in two different senses. Recall that the definition of irreducible complexity notes that removal of a part "causes the system to effectively cease functioning." Without saying so, in his exposition Miller shifts the focus from the separate function of the intact system itself to the question of whether we can find a different use (or "function") for some of the parts. However, if one removes a part from the mousetrap I pictured, it can no longer catch mice. The system has indeed effectively ceased functioning, so the system is irreducibly complex, just as I had written. What's more, the functions that Miller glibly assigns to the parts -- paperweight, toothpick, key chain, [tie clip,] etc. -- have little or nothing to do with the function of the system of catching mice (unlike the mousetrap series proposed by John McDonald, discussed below), so they give us no clue as to how the system's function could arise gradually. Miller explained precisely nothing.

With the problem of the mousetrap behind him, Miller moved on to the bacterial flagellum -- and again resorted to the same fallacy. If nothing else, one has to admire the breathtaking audacity of verbally trying to turn another severe problem for Darwinism into an advantage. In recent years it has been shown that the bacterial flagellum is an even more sophisticated system than had been thought. Not only does it act as a rotary propulsion device, it also contains within itself an elegant mechanism to transport the proteins that make up the outer portion of the machine, from the inside of the cell to the outside. (Aizawa 1996) Without blinking, Miller asserted that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex because some proteins of the flagellum could be missing and the remainder could still transport proteins, perhaps independently. (Proteins similar -- but not identical -- to some found in the flagellum occur in the type III secretory system of some bacteria. See Hueck 1998.) Again he was equivocating, switching the focus from the function of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine to the ability of a subset of the system to transport proteins across a membrane. However, taking away the parts of the flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine, as I have argued. Thus, contra Miller, the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex. What's more, the function of transporting proteins has as little directly to do with the function of rotary propulsion as a toothpick has to do with a mousetrap. So discovering the supportive function of transporting proteins tells us precisely nothing about how Darwinian processes might have put together a rotary propulsion machine.

I suppose what disturbs me most is how Miller gets away with such shenanigans. When antics replace analysis and stunts substitute for serious discussion, the only purpose served is the expansion of Miller's calendar of speaking engagements and his honoraria.

Seeking straight answers from 'KJV onlyists'

KJV and the Only Personal Name of God 

This was written primarily for those who believe the King James Version is the infallible, perfect word of God (and for those who wish to discuss it with them).

There are numerous problems with the accuracy of the KJVtranslation. For examples see the 1 John 5:7 study, and 1 Tim. 3:16 in the MINOR study. 

This study however will concentrate on Ps. 83:18 in the KJVand the actual personal name of God.

1. The Hebrew text used by the King James translators is known as the Bomberg (or the Ben Chayyim) text. It may be found here online:

http://pastorpauley.com/ancient/masoretic.pdf (The Hebrew text used for Ps. 83:18 as found in most Bibles is found on p. 833 of this text and is numbered as 83:19.)

2. This text used by the KJV translators contains the name YHWH (יהוה Strong's H3068) in Hebrew characters thousand of times.

3. The Most High God declares that his name is YHWH manytimes in this text.

4. The KJV translators translated this name as ‘LORD’ (all-capitals) in nearly all of its thousands of occurrences in the Bomberg text.

5. In several places, however, these translators rendered it as ‘Jehovah.’

6. Probably the most important of these is found at Psalm 83:18 in the KJV (which is actually Ps. 83:19 in the Bomberg text).

7. Here is how Ps. 83:16-18 reads in the KJV:

“16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD.

“17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:

“18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.” (Boldfacing added)

8. Notice how the name YHWH in the Hebrew texts (including the Bomberg text used by the KJV translators) as found in verse :16 (:17 in the Bomberg text) is translated in the KJV: “LORD.”

9. The actual word in Hebrew used for “Lord” and applied to God is “adonai” (ADNI in Hebrew characters). YHWH is an entirely different word, a personal name which means something like “He Will Be.” It is the only personal name that God tells us to use for him. And this is exactly what the ‘infallible’ KJV tells us in verse :18 (:19) - “…thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.” 

10. Those who believe the KJV is entirely accurate mustbelieve that ‘Jehovah’ is the only name for the Most High God. There should be no argument by them that it is mistranslated, mispronounced or should be ‘Yahweh’ or similar transliterations. 

11. More important, it becomes obvious that the usual translation of YHWH in the KJV as ‘LORD’ (ADNI in Hebrew) is a serious mistranslation! OR, the translation of YHWH as JEHOVAH in several verses is a serious mistranslation! Either way, the KJV has seriously mistranslated and is certainly not infallible.

12. Although still not infallible, the American Standard Version(ASV) uses the KJV’s Elizabethan English but has corrected the thousands of uses of YHWH in the Hebrew text from the ‘LORD’ of most of the KJV verses to ‘Jehovah.’ The Divine Name KJB has done the same - http://www.dnkjb.net/ 

13. How can we possibly consider the KJV to be infallible (or even the best Bible available)?

Are some more human than others?

But Tantalus, are you saying there are individuals who have more humanity than others?!"

Michael Egnor January 29, 2011 8:02 AM |

Tantalus Prime and I have had a discussion about the moral status of abortion and the scientific status of the human embryo (shorthand for human zygote/embryo/fetus).

Tantalus has expended quite a bit of effort to deny that human embryos are human beings. My recent post pointed out the absurdity of asserting that human embryos are anything but human beings. And I asked Tantalus this question:

What is a human embryo?

My question is a scientific question, not a moral question (yet). The assertion that human embryos aren't human beings leads to all sorts of scientific nonsense. For example, if human embryos aren't human beings but rather, say, a part of the mother's body, then in each gestation a genuine human being arises spontaneously at some point from the mother's body, like budding. This is of course biological nonsense. The only biologically coherent understanding is that a human embryo is a human being (a homo sapien).

Why would a scientifically literate person (Tantalus appears to be a neuroscientist of some sort) deny the obvious biological fact that human embryos are human beings? For ideological reasons, of course. Recognition of the humanity of unborn children is anathema to supporters of abortion. Dehumanization of children in the womb makes abortion easier to accept morally.

Tantalus, in an effort to circumvent the biological fact that a human embryo is a human being, engages in a bit of deconstruction:

Mr. Egnor has asked me a single question: What is a human embryo? Now, I must stop there because this is really two questions. The first is "What is an embryo?" I hope we can safely set aside the question of what an embryo is. Let's say a group of two or more dividing cells that, in placental mammals, is between the zygotic and fetal stages. I don't believe it is the question Mr. Egnor wants answered though. That means there is something about that dangling modifier "human". That would make the second question "What is a human?" Now, perhaps I am wrong, but I believe this is the key question Mr. Egnor wants answered. If that is the question to be answered, why not simply ask that question outright? Only Mr. Egnor knows why. So let me try rephrasing the question to better capture what I believe is being asked. "Is an embryo human?" That, is better, but I'm fairly certain that embryos associated with other animals aren't to be included, only those embryos undergoing gestation in an adult female of the species Homo sapien, commonly referred to as human. So lets use the word human in its common form to distinguish what class of embryos we are discussing. "Is a human embryo human?"

Well, this can't be right. Instead of trying to prove the unborn is fully human, such a question simply assumes the proof is true. This logical fallacy is called, of course, "begging the question". I'm sure such an outcome was unintentional.

I didn't ask a linguistic question, or a rhetorical question, or a logical question. I merely asked a biological question. If I were to show Tantalus a human embryo, and ask him "what is this", meaning in a biological taxonomy sense, the only correct answer is that it is a human being- a homo sapien. There is no debate about this. It is analogous to showing Tantalus my dog, and asking him what this is, in a biological-taxonomy sense. There is only one answer: Canis lupus familiaris. A domestic dog. That's it. It's not a cat or a tree. There's no debate. There are no opinions, only correct answers and incorrect answers. Failure to answer correctly is evidence of ignorance or dishonesty.

Tantalus:

Now, some will say that I have significantly altered the question. I disagree based on the potential answers offered (especially answer 5 [i.e. a human embryo is a human being])."

Tantalus admits basing his scientific opinion on the philosophical and ethical implications of the science. He admits misrepresenting the science in order to protect his ideological presuppositions. Why can't he just acknowledge the science-- a human embryo is a human being-- which is uncontroversial, and then contemplate the philosophical implications of accurate science?

Tantalus next raises a series of casuistic objections to defining a human embryo as a human being:

1) Monozygotic twins - Identical twins (or triplets, etc.) arise from a single fertilization event but result in two individuals. Since life begins at fertilization and the separation resulting in twins occurs after this, this must mean that one of the twins did not arise from fertilization and is therefore not human. No doubt such a conclusion makes people uneasy. To resolve this dilemma there are a few solutions. One could concede that fertilization is not the starting point of life. Alternatively, one could maintain that fertilization does give rise to multiple lives in the sense that each cell division creates another potential life. This creates the greater problem of reconciling the fact that each adult human is made up of billions of potential lives. In fact, one could scrape one's cheek with a swab and remove several cells with the potential for life with the express intent of preventing them from reaching such potential. In fact, I just did so and, by the rationale above, performed an abortion. Of course this is ridiculous but it is the logical conclusion using the stated definitions. One potential work around is to claim that fertilization gives rise to multiple lives but that these potential lives lose their potential after a set period of time, let's say after the first six cycles of division. This of course raises even greater problems. Where did the lives go to? Were they the unfortunate victim of spontaneous abortion (aka miscarriage)? If a drug were available that would suppress the the development of monozygotic twins (not a drug that leads to the induced abortion of one but that only suppresses the splitting of one zygote into two) then wouldn't such a drug be morally equivalent to abortion? Alternatively, if possible, wouldn't forcing split eggs back together also be morally equivalent to abortion?

Twinning raises no problems for the taxonomical classification of an embryo as a member of its species. The fact that a human embryo is a human being isn't refuted by the observation that each human embryo is at least one human being. Sometimes the human embryo is more than one human being. The argument relevant to the abortion controversy is that a human embryo is never less than one human being. Twinning, despite raising interesting biological and philosophical questions, does nothing to advance the argument that a human embryo isn't a human being. The argument advanced by twinning is that sometimes a human embryo is more than one human being, but never less than one.

Tantalus proposes several other philosophical dilemmas (genetic alterations, taking cells from frozen embryos, cloning, etc), none of which have any particular relevance to status of a human embryo as a human being.

Hypothetical stories about chimeras and clones are irrelevant to the biological fact that human embryos are human beings. The taxonomy of human clones or human-mouse chimeras will be an interesting question if such science ever becomes reality (I pray that it won't ), but I point out that the mere concept of 'human clone' or 'human-mouse chimera' presupposes that the cloned human embryo or the human embryo to be fused to the mouse embryo is .. human.

Tantalus finally exhausts his rationalizations, and says something honest:

It seems that to avoid this dilemma, we must rethink what we mean by Homo sapien.

...So let's try redefining these terms in a way that removes such a dichotomy.

Homo sapien - an individual, from the zygotic stage on, with genomic content generally common to the hairless, social great ape originating on the planet Earth

Human - An individual Homo sapien with certain cerebral abilities believed to be unique to Homo sapiens including, but not limited to, abstract thought, language, and reasoning.

Person - A human who is entitled to certain rights, usually by virtue of maturation or reaching a certain age

Again, incomplete I know, but good enough for the present purposes and much closer to my personal beliefs... I have also removed rights from 'Homo sapien' and placed it under 'person' to permit denial of rights to human cells with the potential to be cloned but which are not undergoing the cloning process. I also redefined human to make it a continuous variable rather than dichotomous.

"But Tantalus, are you saying there are individuals who have more humanity than others?!" Yes. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but it is not me who is saying this.

So Tantalus isn't the one saying that not all human beings are fully human! Other people tell him:

It is assumed in society's everyday vernacular. People anthropomorphize their pets, calling them their children and ascribing them human characteristics. Many have no problem calling mass murderers and suicide bombers "less than human". When children misbehave, we say they are acting like animals. We dehumanize our enemies in war to make it easier to kill them. Brain dead individuals are called "vegetables". In the few recorded instances of feral children, such individuals have been said to behave more like animals then humans. Phineas Gage suffered a horrible accident that caused damage to his frontal lobes and while he lived a decade beyond his accident friends recognized that Gage was "no longer Gage".[my emphasis]

Bottom line: Tantalus Prime denies the mundane scientific observation that human embryos are human beings (Homo sapiens) and he asserts that not all people are fully human because... he's heard people using slang and figures of speech. My head is spinning. In the pantheon of idiot atheist/materialist arguments, this is the most witless I've read.

So what is a human being? Aristotle defined human beings as rational animals. But he recognized that rationality was human potency, and not always human actuality. Aristotle understood that rationality is characteristic of our species ('species' in the classical sense), but not necessarily characteristic of all individuals. Not all humans are rational, no human is rational all the time, and no human is completely rational. Yet we remain human throughout. We are not rational when we sleep, or when we act out of intense anger, or when we are in the womb, or when we are young children. But we are human, always.

If irrationality-- the absence of Tantalus' criteria of abstract thought, language, and reasoning-- diminishes our humanity, then is our humanity diminished in sleep? Is homicide less culpable if the victim is killed in sleep, when he is not rational and by Tantalus' criteria not human? In Tantalus' taxonomy, how does the humanity of a child in the womb differ from that of an adult taking a nap?

But the napping adult is only temporarily non-rational, Tantalus might assert. The gestating embryo is only temporarily non-rational, I would reply. But a napping adult was rational before the nap, unlike the gestating embryo, Tantalus might assert. I would reply that by Tantalus' criteria a corpse is fully human, because past rationality, not present or future rationality, is decisive. But Tantalus might assert that past and future rationality, not present rationality, is what makes us fully human. I would reply that rationality is an odd criterion for humanity if it is always irrelevant to humanity now.

Is actual rationality really the pinnacle of what it is to be human? Is a logician more human than an athlete? A neuroscientist more human than a taxi driver? A taxi driver establishing criteria for humanity might choose skillful driving and quick reflexes, rather than abstract thought and reasoning.

Others might propose different criteria for full humanity-- being God's chosen people, or having poverty of spirit, mournfulness, and meekness. Another might choose recitation of five daily prayers, or fasting for a month, or a once-in -a-lifetime-pilgrimage.

And of course throughout history many have chosen other criteria for being fully human, such as being a member of the victorious army and not a member of the vanquished civilian populace, or being a vanguard of the proletariat, or being Aryan and non-semitic, or being Hutus and not Tutsi, or being caucasian and not African. If we deny full humanity to all, then the only consistent historical criterion for 'full humanity' is 'us, not them'. Notice that all of the criteria that Tantalus proposes to measure humanity are criteria presumably possessed in abundance by... Tantalus.

Tantalus fashions his scheme for human sifting as 21st century avant garde cutting edge science that eclipses medieval theolgy. But dehumanizing other men who don't share the traits of the select is the oldest system of taxonomy, older and less honorable than the oldest profession, and older than any monotheism. It is the source of rivers of human blood. There is only one remedy for it: the unwavering insistence that all human beings are fully human, and all have the right to life.

If we insist on defining humanity as an achievement test, rather than an affirmation of what we are, why would Tantaulus presume that he gets to set the criteria? I might suggest measuring humanity as the refusal to measure humanity in others. But that would make Tantalus less than human, and that is not true.

Time to part ways with methodological naturalism?

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism

Paul Nelson September 24, 2014 4:25 PM

After reading my article about methodological naturalism (MN), a correspondent wrote and asked a good question:

Doesn't ID satisfy the requirements of MN, if we define MN as simply excluding inferences to supernatural causes? Obviously MN cannot rule out all cases of agent (versus strictly physical) causation. Because, if MN does exclude agent causation, then archaeology, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and in fact many other areas of ongoing scientific research, would be placed outside the sphere of empirical knowledge -- and that can't be right.

ID seems committed only to detecting intelligence, not supernatural causes. If so, doesn't ID fit easily within a modest formulation of MN? If we regard MN as a reasonable epistemological boundary, not a sweeping ontological claim about the non-existence of the supernatural, then it's hard to see why ID theorists should worry about MN.

Here's my reply to this reader. It turns out that SETI provides an illuminating test case for the validity of MN. Even a modest formulation of MN excludes too much, hindering us from learning what we really might want to find out.

Assessing the Damage MN Does to Freedom of Inquiry

Epistemology -- how we know -- and ontology -- what exists -- are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won't include minds.

MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn't write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact.

"That's crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then -- to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer?

Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural? Who knows? Don't get hung up on the "natural versus supernatural" distinction, which brings a world of mischief.

You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse -- i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss -- we haven't the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world -- such as your email, a real pattern -- we must refer to you as a unique agent.

If ID satisfied MN as that philosophical doctrine is usually stated, the decades-long dispute over both wouldn't have happened. The whole point of invoking MN (by the National Center for Science Education, for instance, or other anti-ID organizations) is to try to exclude ID, before a debate about the evidence can occur, by indicting ID for inferring non-physical causes.

That's why pushing the MN emergency button is so useful to opponents of ID. Violate MN, if MN defines science, and the game is over.

If You Like SETI, You Should Dump MN

Or is it? Here's where SETI provides an illuminating test case.

Most people -- atheists, agnostics, theists, whatever -- see the question "Does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe?" as an open puzzle to be investigated on the basis of the evidence. We can imagine all kinds of data that, if observed, would lead us to infer that an intelligence (at least one, anyway) had acted somewhere beyond the Earth; hence, the SETI research program.

At the heart of SETI -- providing its very raison d'etre -- is the following decision (logic) tree:

Figure 1

We can use "physics" as a shorthand for all undirected bottom-up causation (physics → chemistry → biology) where the most fundamental level of entities is mindless: "atoms and the void," to use the ancient expression. The undirected outcomes of physics represent what radio telescopes normally deliver to observers. As SETI Institute astronomer Jill Tarter explains in this interview,

 

that is "what Mother Nature does" -- but that's not what she or the SETI program want to find out. (The official SETI Institute rationale is here.)

Tarter is looking for what she calls "artifacts" -- physical effects in the radio spectrum (such as a narrow-band pattern, where all the energy in the signal is concentrated within a few Hertz), warranting her to move down the other branch of the decision tree, to "intelligence."

Why? Because the effect in question cannot be produced by physics alone. At least one intelligence must be causally involved.

Now here's the twist. Tarter herself is an atheist. In her view, the extraterrestrial intelligence she seeks to discover was, like her own, produced by a long evolutionary process, in which the fundamental causes were all natural (material and physical). So surely, as a philosophical naturalist, Tarter could endorse MN?

Nope -- not without surrendering her SETI research goals at the same time. SETI requires the basic decision (logic) tree of "intelligence OR physics," which means isolating and seeking to detect some aspect of intelligence that is irreducible to physics. And that defies the "physics only, in the end" claim of MN.

To see why, consider this expanded decision tree:

Figure 2

While this schema reflects Tarter's overall understanding of reality -- intelligence anywhere in the universe was caused by undirected evolution -- it does not allow her to eliminate the box labeled "intelligence." That is, her ontology must include "intelligence" (no matter how it arrived on the scene) as a cause that produces diagnostically unique effects.

Otherwise, she and the whole SETI program have nothing to detect. You can't sift radio telescope data looking for something (i.e., a diagnostic effect, such as a narrow band pattern, uniquely implicating intelligence) that could not possibly be there.

Physics or physics (see Figure 3) is just not interesting if you want to discover intelligence.

Here is what happens to SETI research if we follow MN with complete consistency, and eliminate "intelligence," because we think that category is ultimately a temporary placeholder for a fully comprehensive physical account:

Figure 3

Tarter thinks the arrow from physics to intelligence in Figure 2 describes what actually happened in the evolution of the universe. Nonetheless, some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we're back to physics versus physics, and there's nothing for SETI to look for.

Simple Ontology, Boring Universe

Having a nice, clean, simple ontology -- atoms and the void -- is easy to remember and even easier to distribute like handbills to passersby. No need to bother yourself with non-physical entities and messy concepts like "mind" or (atoms forbid) a transcendent intelligence, aka God.

But making the universe simple and easy to remember is hardly the same as letting your scientific curiosity go free, naked and unhindered into the complex forests of reality. That's the path into the possibly scary unknown and the totally delightful regions of finding out something new.

Image: Allen Telescope Array/Wikipedia.

Psalms83 ASV

A song. A Psalm of Asaph.

83 O God, keep not thou silence: Hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult; And they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

3 Thy take crafty counsel against thy people, And consult together against thy hidden ones.

4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

5 For they have consulted together with one consent; Against thee do they make a covenant:

6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagarenes;

7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre:

8 Assyria also is joined with them; They have helped the children of Lot. Selah

9 Do thou unto them as unto Midian, As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon;

10 Who perished at Endor, Who became as dung for the earth.

11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb; Yea, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna;

12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves in possession The habitations of God.

13 O my God, make them like the whirling dust; As stubble before the wind.

14 As the fire that burneth the forest, And as the flame that setteth the mountains on fire,

15 So pursue them with thy tempest, And terrify them with thy storm.

16 Fill their faces with confusion, That they may seek thy name, O Jehovah.

17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever; Yea, let them be confounded and perish;

18 That they may know that thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth.

As if it were needed:Yet more reason to doubt.

Metaspriggina: Vertebrate Fish Found in Cambrian Explosion

Evolution News & Views August 29, 2014 4:44 AM |

Now that some months have passed since the discovery of another rich trove of Cambrian fossils 26 miles from the Burgess Shale, scientists are starting to publish findings from the new Marble Canyon site. One amazing find just published by Simon Conway Morris and Jean-Bernard Caron is putting more bang in the Cambrian explosion.

Not so long ago, evolutionists emphasized that no vertebrates existed in the Cambrian. They knew that vertebrates were too advanced for that first appearance of multicellular body plans. Primitive chordates, maybe -- but nothing like fish till many millions of years later.

Metaspriggina (originally named after an Ediacaran species Spriggina but later determined to be unrelated) was earlier thought to be a primitive chordate -- an ancestor of vertebrates. Now, Conway Morris and Caron have examined a hundred more fossils of Metaspriggina and compared them with similar fossils from China and the Burgess Shale. The greater detail seen in the Marble Canyon specimens (thought to be earlier than the Burgess Shale) confirms that this animal was far more than a chordate: it was a vertebrate fish, right there in the Lower Cambrian! Imagine a vertebrate fish, with a skeleton, binocular vision, muscles, nerves, gut and blood vessels: it is so complex compared to what came before, it makes the suddenness and explosive increase in complexity undeniable.

Just as remarkable is the range of this species. Since it correlates with specimens in China's Chengjiang deposits, it's clear this fish was already "cosmopolitan" (Conway Morris's term) when it was buried in Canada -- it spanned the globe! The abstract in Nature catalogs the surprises as the authors "redescribe" Metaspriggina:

Knowledge of the early evolution of fish largely depends on soft-bodied material from the Lower (Series 2) Cambrian period of South China. Owing to the rarity of some of these forms and a general lack of comparative material from other deposits,interpretations of various features remain controversial, as do their wider relationships amongst post-Cambrian early un-skeletonized jawless vertebrates. Here we redescribe Metaspriggina on the basis of new material from the Burgess Shale and exceptionally preserved material collected near Marble Canyon, British Columbia, and three other Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits from Laurentia. This primitive fish displays unambiguous vertebrate features: a notochord, a pair of prominent camera-type eyes, paired nasal sacs, possible cranium and arcualia, W-shaped myomeres, and a post-anal tail. A striking feature is the branchial area[gills] with an array of bipartite bars. Apart from the anterior-most bar, which appears to be slightly thicker, each is associated with externally located gills, possibly housed in pouches. Phylogenetic analysis places Metaspriggina as a basal vertebrate, apparently close to the Chengjiang taxa Haikouichthys andMyllokunmingia, demonstrating also that this primitive group of fish was cosmopolitan during Lower-Middle Cambrian times (Series 2-3). However, the arrangement of the branchial region in Metaspriggina has wider implications for reconstructing the morphology of the primitive vertebrate. Each bipartite bar is identified as being respectively equivalent to an epibranchial and ceratobranchial.This configuration suggests that a bipartite arrangement is primitive and reinforces the view that the branchial basket of lampreys is probably derived. Other features ofMetaspriggina, including the external position of the gills and possible absence of a gill opposite the more robust anterior-most bar, are characteristic of gnathostomesand so may be primitive within vertebrates. (Emphasis added.)

The cladogram shows Metaspriggina right on the same branch as the Chinese specimens, suggesting that they were "close to" each other in time and traits, even though found on opposite sides of the globe. Conway Morris says the Chinese specimens are "slightly older," but from his descriptions, they are similar to Metaspriggina in most important respects. Whether these creatures had bony or cartilaginous skeletons is not clear.

This relationship strengthens the identification of the Chinese species as vertebrate fish. Wikipedia had reservations about that description, saying of Myllokunmingia (announced in 1999) that it is "thought to be a vertebrate, although this is not conclusively proven," and of Haikouichthys(found in 2004), that it has been "popularly characterized as one of the earliest fishes...but does not possess sufficient features to be included uncontroversially even in either stem group" of craniates or chordates. Well, now it's essentially proven.

Another surprise is that Metaspriggina has a bipartite gill structure "characteristic of gnathostomes" -- the jawed vertebrates. Gnathostomes were thought to be further down the evolutionary timeline, but here are gnathostome-like traits found at the time of the Cambrian explosion. This means (in evolutionary terms) that the gill arrangements of lampreys (jawless fish) are "derived" rather than intermediate to the gnathostomes.

Needless to say, a creature that has "a pair of prominent camera-type eyes" and paired nasal sacs show this to be a sophisticated animal. Conway Morris does not hesitate to call it a fish and a vertebrate. The drawing in the paper shows "possible blood vessels" and a mouth. Fins were not preserved, making it look a bit like a tapering tonguefish, but the lack of fins could be an artifact of preservation.

Fins notwithstanding, Metaspriggina was a good swimmer, based on its muscle structures called myomeres. These are the W-shaped sheets of muscle you see on store-bought salmon filets; they allow fish to bend their bodies in wave-like motions to swim. Metaspriggina was apparently more advanced than Pikaia, an eel-like animal found in 1911 by Charles Walcott at the Burgess Shale: "The myomeres, totalling at least 40, are considerably more acute than in Pikaia and, in contrast to this chordate, Metaspriggina was evidently an effective swimmer."

All these traits show that Metaspriggina was not a primitive chordate intermediate to lampreys or other extinct Cambrian swimmers, but was in fact more "derived" (advanced) in some respects than some of the alleged descendants. The Editor's Summary agrees, stating clearly that vertebrate fish are now unquestionably part of the early Cambrian:

The Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada has produced some of the most intriguing and spectacular fossils of early animal life, although fossil vertebrates have been rare to non-existent. New exposures close to the classic locality have remedied that deficiency with many spectacular fossils of the hitherto enigmatic fossilMetaspriggina, revealed in this study -- by Simon Conway Morris and Jean-Bernard Caron -- as one of the earliest known and most primitive fishes, basal to extant vertebrates whether jawed or jawless. The structure of the gills of Metasprigginaare revelatory, showing a simple structure that presages that of the jawed vertebrates in many ways, suggesting that the branchial basket seen in modernjawless vertebrates such as lampreys is a highly derived structure.

A vertebrate swimming fish with camera eyes, blood vessels, digestive system, muscular swimming, and gills in the Lower Cambrian: for Darwinists, it should hardly be more surprising to find than aPrecambrian rabbit.