Aggressive owls from Canada coming here to drive off our native owls? Send them to anger management classes and leave birds alone.

Aggressive owls from Canada coming here to drive off our native owls? Send them to anger management classes and leave our birds alone.

That aggressive Canuck owl has already been barred.

Canada: Where the Owls are Owls, and the men are nervous.

"Fortunately, it turns out they're the same species."

Heh, heh.

Depends on what the meaning of "species" is. That's become an art form under the Endangered Species Act.

When they are Canadian wolves, then the gov't will actively import and deliberately release them.

And if you believe in evolution, then aren't you supposed to accept extinction as a part of that process? (And the Green anti-Christian Leftists think that accusations of hypocrisy are their exclusive domain...)

Raoul:

"And if you believe in evolution, aren't you supposed to accept extinction as a part of that process..."

D'oh!

You. Can't. Get. An. Ought. From. An. Is.

Why is it so hard? I don't geddit.

If you don't geddit, try this one:

"But if you believe that steel can cut flesh, aren't you supposed to accept that it's ok to go around stabbing people to death?"

or:

"But if you believe that drink-driving is dangerous, aren't you supposed to accept that it's ok to drive around drunk and mow pedestrians down as part of that process?"

or:

"If you believe that you'll burn your fingers by putting them in the fire, shouldn't you do it?"

Those are though all parts of the process.

Except, Brit, that in all of your examples, you've gotten an oughtn't from an is.

Once again, the take home lesson is that, while our evolutionists at BrothersJudd are reasonable and logical exponents of a modest description of a natural process -- albeit overly emotionally invested in a trivial scientific backwater -- the popular Darwinists are true believers in a mystical teleological process of which humans are not a part, making extinction at our hands unnatural and immoral.

David:

Double d'oh!

Merely highlighting the imbelicility of the logic by using blindingly obvious reductio ad absurdums (absurda?).

Blindlingly obvious? Who am I kidding?

Try these then:

"I believe hats are made of cloth. Therefore I ought to wear a hat made of cloth."

and

"I believe hats are made of cloth. Therefore I ought not to wear a hat made of cloth."

That extinction occurs in evolution is the diagnosis, not the prescription.

You can, if you are a particularly laissez-faire type, argue that we ought not to interfere, let nature take its course, and let the owls, the white rhinos, the albatrosses go kaput.

Or you could argue that we ought to interfere and prevent their extinction.

The diagnosis allows both prescriptions, but commands neither.

Betcha 9 out 10 conservationists are darwinists. Betcha 10 out 10 'believe' in extinction. Hence the need to..er...conserve.

Incidentally, 'imbelicity' is like 'imbecility', but luckier.

Brit:

But you're argument to Raoul is that extoinction isn't part of the process.

Thus, though hats are made of cloth they aren't to be worn?

Brit;

The other problem is that in every case you mention, the bad side effect is exactly that: a side effect not essential to the process (such as making and using steel). In contrast, the extinction of species is fundamental to evolution. Extinction is precisely what you would expect if evolutionary theory is correct, whereas theories of steel making don't predict stabbings.

No, my argument is not that extinction isn't part of the process of evolution.

It is part of the process of evolution.

I'm showing that a conservationist who 'believes' in evolution is not, as Raoul suggests, a 'hypocrite'.

This is because the fact that extinction occurs in evolution no more requires that we ought to allow it to occur, than the fact that steel can cut flesh requires that we ought to stab people. Or conversely, that we ought not to stab people.

Rocket science this is not.

We ought not to allow evolution to occur? You Intelligent Designer you!

Ba boom tish!

Extinction isn't part of evolution.

David:

Jeff and Brit insist it is. Much easier to humor them than explain, since it's the only evidence they have of "evolution" occurring they cling to it like Jack Benny to a nickel.

David:

If extinction isn't part of evolution, then what is it part of?

"Extinction isn't part of evolution."

When an organism evolves from one form to another, and the previous form then no longer exists, it can be said to be extinct.

creeper:

Sure, if it happened. Doesn't.

"Sure, if it happened."

Extinction or evolution? Not that it matters, both are extensively documented.

"An organism" doesn't evolve, and the word for an extinct organism is "dead."

As for the rest. A mutation happens. Maybe it's expressed, maybe not. Maybe it survives, maybe not. Maybe it even helps its carrier survive, maybe not. Maybe it's inherited, maybe not. Maybe it spreads throughout the population, maybe not. What difference does extinction make?

David:

'Evolution' refers to the changing picture of life on earth. Extinction is part of that picture.

David:

For one, we don't have signs in New Hampshire warning of Theradonts crossing.

I presume you would agree that language has evolved over, say, the last 3,000 years. Some languages are no longer spoken.

Would it not be safe to say they are "extinct?"

And that extinction is part and parcel of how spoken languages have evolved over time?

'Evolution' refers to the changing picture of life on earth.

Wow, what you poor fellas have been reduced to...

And Jeff retreating once again to Intelligent Design to prove Evolution. It becomes pitiful...but thankfully amusing.

Brit: So "evolution" is just the name we use for a narrative description of the history of a series of random events, based upon the sketchy fossil record? I knew it was trivial, but I never dreamed it was that trivial.

Jeff: I'm not saying that extinction doesn't happen, I'm saying that it's not integral to evolution. This is just another way of saying that nature isn't red in tooth and claw, and thus "survival of the fittest" is a misunderstanding of a sieve with gaping holes in it.

As for language, no, I'm not aware of any language that has been evolved out of existence. I am aware of languages that have died, but only due to events exogenous to language development, such as a language's pool of speakers being wiped out, or conquered, or enslaved.

That leaves us with creeper's point, that, in the language context, when a language has evolved enough, it becomes a new language and the old language is now extinct. For example, Old English can be said to be extinct because we now speak modern English. And, certainly, this would appear to be in a different language than this, although it's surprising how quickely a modern English speaker can pick up at least a small ability to make some sense of Old English.

But this sort of evolution/extinction is problematic. First, it's completely arbitrary. Every day people wake up and speak their language. Usage may change, grammar moves, words are added or fall into disfavor, but they always see themselves as speaking the same language. After a while, we see that there has been movement, and after a long while two English speakers can no longer talk with each other, but when one language becomes another is wholly arbitrary. This is similar to one proposed type of speciation, in which a series of mutations spread throughout a breeding population. Necessarily, no one mutation makes interbreeding between carriers and noncarriers impossible, but the sum of the changes over time does make interbreeding impossible.

Second, flexibility, if you will, is a usuful language trait. English, in part because of its forgiving grammar and in part because of the nature of the English speaking peoples, is a very facile, flexible language. It's movement from one version to another is a feature of English, not a bug, and one that it has incorporated for millenia. It is, in this way, something of a break from the Germanic languages from which it evolved, but which -- in modern form -- still exist themselves.

Third, because of the first two points, this type of evolution/extinction pairing is necessarily teleological. The very concept of new language/speciation/extinction here is defined by the difference between the past form and the future form. Demarcation of the new language/species -- which is to say the very existence of the extinction event -- is driven by what the language and species necessarily will become because the becoming has already happened.

In other words, I am willing to accept that extinction is part of evolution in this very particular case in which, by definition, the evolution is the extinction. But it does strike me as trivial.

David:

Based on rather more than a sketchy fossil record, but yes, otherwise that's pretty much what the term "evolution" refers to.

The interesting question is about how it happens, which is where the entirely distinct terms and concepts like "darwinism", or "modern synthesis", or "intelligent design" come in.

The constant clarification of the different terms is tedious, but is necessary surprisingly often.

OJ's rather schoolboyish attempts at scoffing in this thread neatly demonstrate his confusion of the terms of debate: perhaps deliberate, perhaps through muddled thinking.

First there were dinosaurs. Then they're weren't.

Hey, I'm doing evolution.

Kinda.

Evolution: first there were widgets, then there weren't.

ID: First there were widgets, then there weren't, because God got rid of them.

Darwinism: First there were widgets, then there weren't, due to various undirected natural events and processes of varying degrees of importance, a lot of which we don't yet know very much about...(deep breath)

Oh, it's all soooo trivial.

Your's strikes me as the more idiosyncratic definition, as everybody else understands "evolution" as meaning the process by which one species becomes another.

I've never said that the process by which one widget becomes a different widget is trivial. I think it's fascinating. However, given our better understanding of the actual mechanism by which it happens, I can't imagine why people care about Darwin's handwaving about how it might have happened, which, though it was a good guess given the tools at his disposal, was pretty wide of the mark.

As I've said before, it's as if people cared tremendously about Hellenic astronomy after Newton and Goddard.

(By the way, you still seem to suspect that I'm acting from some religious motivation. Darwin could be entirely correct and touch my faith not at all. I have no problem, for example, with the age of the Earth.)

Even better is the "okay, we start with widgets (Creation)"

Dumbed down and dirty, to fit in with your dinosaurs quip, but not that idiosyncratic.

If all widgets turned into wodgets, then its still true to say that first there were widgets, then there weren't.

Of course, there might be widgets still around as well. So reverse the terms:

First there were widgets, then there weren't: Evolution.

First there were widgets, then widgets AND wodgets: also Evolution.

(I love this kind of thing.)

Orrin:

No, Creationism is: There were no widgets. God planted widget bones to test us.

First there were widgets, like magic!

Jeff retreating once again to Intelligent Design ..

You really have no idea what you are rattling on about, do you?

Your saintly Intelligent Designer exists outside the system--a prototypical deus ex machina.

So, unless you can name the ID existing outside the language system, identify its plan and goal, then your comment is utterly empty.

Because if you can't, then your use of Intelligent Design in this case is nothing more than admitting that recursive systems change naturalistically over time in response to often random variations, and, therefore, wouldn't produce the same results if re-run from the same point.

David:

Excellent discussion, thanks.

I do have one quibble, though. Your use of the word "teleological" seems problematic. It is scarcely a case of goal-directed change to observe that a speaker of contemporary English would be able to communicate with a speaker of Old English. And, equally, there is no particular goal in defining some arbitrary point to divide the two.

Extinction is part and parcel of evolution. Due to continental drift, every parcel of land on the planet has gradually drifted through every climatological zone on the planet.

How is it that there is any terrestrial life at all?

What Designer is outside the system? What system?

Congratulatinos, You have single-handedly holed your argument below the waterline.

"First there were widgets, like magic!"

Read up on abiogenesis, Orrin.

Amen to that, Jeff.

Jeff:

Your saintly Intelligent Designer exists outside the system

You still haven't explained what you mean by this?

creeper:

As Fred Hoyle said, the abiogenesis experiment is so easy to run and would so certainly win a Nobel prize that the only reason it isn't is because no one actually thinks it's true and the results would be too politically damaging too science.

Jeff: I really like "Congratulatinos." Clearly, the only proper toast for Cinco de Mayo and new citizens.

Read up on abiogenesis a bit more, Orrin. Not just "the abiogenesis experiment".

"the results would be too politically damaging too science"

How would the Miller-Urey experiment - if that's what you're referring to - be damaging to science?

Replace 'science' with 'religion' in that line and you might have a point.

As for Hoyle, please place his opinions in context - do you accept his views on Panspermia?

"There were no widgets. God planted widget bones to test us."

The hilarious consequence of choosing to believe in the Bible literally.

"I can't imagine why people care about Darwin's handwaving about how it might have happened,"

That actually tends to be reserved for religiously-minded opponents of the theory of evolution looking for a simple strawman to bat down.

creeper:

Yes.

OJ:

Here is the explanation.

All invocations of an Intelligent Designer posit a single entity possessing a goal driven design and existing outside the natural system--the prototypical deus ex machina.

Clear so far? If not, perhaps you should check with your friends at the Discovery Institute.

To suggest, as you did, that language change over time is an example of Intelligent Design requires your demonstrating that such intelligence as there is--the speakers themselves--completely distributed across the system and possessing neither design nor goal, is consistent with Intelligent Design as a concept.

In contrast, I maintain intelligence is the medium within which language exists, and that language is a recursive system subject nearly entirely to stochastic processes.

Your assertion above demonstrated nothing more than your a priori hostility to any naturalistic explanation of evolution.

Even if that naturalistic explanation refers merely to language, and requires you gutting your central concept of any meaning whatsoever.

David:

I was thinking about your comments more last night. At the risk of stretching an analogy past its breaking point, I think it is worth equating different levels of the Linnean classification to language. That is, words as species, dialects as genus, related languages as families, and written/spoken/sign languages as kingdoms.

Or something like that.

Doing so opens the discussion to how individual words come and go, or how their usage varies over time.

The creation, change in usage, and extinction of individual words is not the least bit trivial with respect to language, nor teleological.

BTW--you are not keeping up with your particle physics.

Congratulatinos, like, say, neutrinos, have specific properties, that depend on spin.

Used with straighforward spin, Congratulatinos are devoid of irony, and convey an appreciation field.

However, with backhand spin, Congratulatinos convey the irony field.

Jeff:

No they don't. Intelligent Design just means that things come about because of intelligence and decision-making rather than some impersonal natural force anf chance. The intelligence(s) are by definition part of the system, as its creator(s) if nothing else.

Creeper: That's true, but those religious people are, by definition, not overly concerned with science. What I don't get is why those who say that they are concerned with science care about Darwin.

Jeff: What is teleological is the theorizing, rather than the process. Obviously, all theories have to start at the observed start and end at the observed end, so in meta-theories, all theories are teleological. Usually we can ignore this. But when we are looking at a continuous series of small changes, that in the end amount to large changes, and try to draw arbitrary lines calving off one part of the continuum from another, then the meta-teleology becomes overwhelming. This problem is particularly acute when the record from which we are working is, itself, random and arbitrary.

As for your Linnean classification of language, I think that it more nearly proves my point that extinction in not an integral part of evolution (unless by evolution we mean merely a list of extinct species). Words are created in a bunch of ways; and, actually, many are designed. If you need a name for your device for talking with people far way, you create the word "telephone"; if you need to sell your new hard-drive based tv appliance, you create the word "Tivo"; if you need to denote the street aspects of a certain type of dumb insolence, you coin the neologism "dis".

OJ:

Wrong. The intelligence of which they speak is strictly outside the system, because (in their minds anyway) the system itself is incapable of producing the complexity (their term is specific, complex information). You need to read their arguments more closely.

Additionally, you have decimated your own argument.

Within the natural system, DNA is the distributed, endogenous intelligence recursively responding to stochastic process.

Congratulations, you are now a card carrying Evolutionist.

Jeff:

Perhaps the problem is semantic. Is the programmer of your recursive computer system outside of it? What if he has to tweak the code?

David:

I can't recall you ever misusing a concept, but it seems you are doing so here.

From :

Teleology is the study of ends, purposes, and goals (telos means "end" or "purpose"). In cultures which have an teleological world view, the ends of things are seen as providing the meaning for all that has happened or that occurs. If you think about history as a timeline with a beginning and end, in a teleological view of the world and of history, the meaning and value of all historical events derives from their ends or purposes, that is, all events in history are future-directed . Aristotle's thought is manifestly teleological; of the four "reasons" or "causes" (aitia ) for things, the most important reason is the "purpose" or "end" for which that thing was made or done. The Christian world view is fundamentally teleological; all of history is directed towards the completion of history at the end of time. When history ends, then the meaning and value of human historical experience will be fulfilled. Modern European culture is overwhelmingly teleological in its experience of history, that is, we see history and experience as entirely future-directed. This, in part, is responsible for the proliferation of alternatives, for in a teleological world view, history has potentially an infinite number of options and alternatives, and this proliferation of alternatives is primarily responsible for the crisis of modernity.

Evolutionary theory clearly tries to understand the entirety of change in the natural system over time--which clearly includes extinctions--within the context of the theory. But that does not mean new observations are shoehorned with whatever force is required to satisfy some notion that has become ossified as Original Revealed Truth; rather, theory either accomodates new observation, changes in response to incompleteness, or gets trashed due to fundamental contradiction.

I don't see anything "teleological" about that, at least within what seems to be the widely accepted use of the term.

Regarding words, you have covered half the territory. However, environmental change affects existing words and usage as much as it creates new ones.

IIRC, you are a fan of the Aubry/Maturin series, which, among other thing is noteworthy for its period-correct use of language.

I'll bet there are a host of words no longer used simply due to such change.

For just one example--ask anyone what "holystone" means.

Fitness is teleological. That's why you have to shoehorn everything that's ever happened into the theory.

Jeff: Everyone I talk to knows what holystoning is.

I don't have any argument with your definition of teleology. Our society is, for example, teleological in believing in "Progress."

My point about theory is merely that a good theory necessarily must start at the beginning and account for the end -- that is, after all, the test of a good theory. In this way, the act of theorizing is necessarily teleological, even if the theory itself eschews teleology. In other words, Darwin has to get us from single-celled organisms to man and his theorisiing is, in that way, teleological even if his theory is not.

How did he get us to single celled organisms?

David:

Well, in your crowd perhaps "holystoning" is a bad example, but I am sure you can think of others pertinent to my assertion

Sorry, regarding teleology you are still losing me.

First, it isn't my definition. Second, your use of the term seems to trivialize it, saying nothing more than the goal of any theory is to be a good theory.

Further, by your reasoning, there is utterly no point in particularly mentioning Evolution in this regard.

Any good theory coherently explains observation, includes deductive consequences, and contains no contradictions.

It is the second part that you neglect, and which has no place in teleology.

Jeff:

Evolution seeks to explain how things came to be as they are--thus is teleological.

OJ: Assume a single-celled organism.

Jeff: The process of theorizing is always goal-directed.

David:

An odd confusion of levels, here.

Darwinism, and indeed Darwin himself, says that evolution is non-teleological. ie. there was no particular goal or aim from the outset.

That's a bald fact about Darwinism. Darwinism states that there was no goal.

Whether Darwin had an aim or goal in developing his theory (eg. the 'goal' of explaining evolution), and his theorising (but not the resultant theory) could thus be described as 'teleological', is a different question, on a different level, and is irrelevant to whether or not Darwinism claims that there was a goal to evolution.

David:

True enough. So is going to the store to get milk. So why have you singled out Evolution in this regard?

And, in any event, as Brit clearly notes in his last sentence, the content of Evolutionary theory doesn't come close to satisfying the definition of teleological.

BTW--I messed up the link to that definition. It is http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/TELE.HTM

Unfortunately, though, I failed to note I provided a definition for teleology, when I should have provided one for teleological:

Premises of the [teleological] argument
Although there are variations, the basic argument goes something like this:


Premise 1: X was intelligently designed,
Premise 2: X was not designed by humans.
Premise 3: The only conceivable beings capable of intelligent design are humans (who exist) and God (who may or may not exist).
From (3): The only conceivable beings capable of designing X in particular are humans (who exist) and God (who may or may not exist).
Recall (2): that X was not designed by humans.
If God doesn't exist, then X was also not designed by God.
Thus if God doesn't exist, then none of the conceivable beings capable of designing X designed X, in which case X was not designed at all.
Since God not existing therefore results in a contradiction of (1), God must exist if (1) is true.

To my eye, that makes your use of the term with respect to Evolutionary theory even wider of the mark.

OJ:

Apologies, I missed Perhaps the problem is semantic. Is the programmer of your recursive system outside of it? What if he has to tweak the code?

The problem is not semantic--the whole concept of ID rests on the intelligence being outside the system in question, not the system itself.

As for the recursive system, it isn't "mine" in the sense you use that word in place of scare quotes. Unless, of course, you wish to argue the assertion that life is well and truly recursive.

I didn't think so.

But let's assume the recursive system we call life (or, for that matter, language) had a programmer that started it all.

Nothing in life, or language, requires any further intervention for that system to operate and produce complex outcomes.

Further, nothing about that free running recursive system--or the explanation of it--says anything about God's existence.

However, it might be rather discomforting to those who have mistaken religion for God.

So when you sling your arrows at Darwinism, you are merely shooting the messenger.

Jeff:

So it is just semantic. Nothing about intelligent design requires just one intelligence nor that it be outside the system. Creationism does begin with one intelligent designer, but within the system, and then other intelligent beings, His Creations, design as well. They're obviously within the system.

Jeff:

What does Evolution seek to explain?

Brit:

"Darwin says" isn't actually dispositive you know? He hypothesized how what he saw around him had come into being. It's entirely teleological.

He hypothesised that there was no original goal in evolution to end up 'here'. Everything around him was not a destination, not planned from the start, it just happened to go this way. There is no necessity to believe that this is the 'end' of evolution.

This is the 'non-teleological' element of Darwinism.

It's crucial for distinguishing darwinism from ID.

Again, not exactly brain surgery, this.

Brit:

So he started from "here" and then reasoned backwards, thus teleology. It's significant that the theory failed going forwards.

I refer you to the discussion of the distinction between the nature of the theorising and the content of the theory above.

OJ:

Nonsense.

I am no more inside a recursive program I write than the purported Intelligent Designer is within natural history, or language.

And the Intelligent Designer certainly isn't DNA, or every language speaker, either.

Yes, just semantics.

At the point where you think language or economics isn't a function of intelligent beings our definitions have diverged so completely that we aren't talking about the same thing.

Let's just assume the fault is mine and agree to disagree.

Brit & Jeff: I think you guys are being overly sensitive. I expressly said that Darwin's theory is that evolution is not teleological. I was arguing that extinction is not an integral part of evolution and that the special case posited by creeper -- when a species has so changed as to become a new species, the old species may be said to be extinct -- is more definitional than anything else, and thus that narrow example (which I don't think can ever be shown to have occurred) is teleological because it exists only in order to bring evolution to its necessary end-point.

We must keep in mind, though, that Darwin and the evolution of man is not Einstein and the 1919 eclipse, and that the difference is not wholly dissimilar from teleology.

OJ:

You have made a complete hash of what I said, distorting it beyond all recognition.

I'll leave it to others do decide whether the fault is yours.

"Intelligent Design just means that things come about because of intelligence and decision-making rather than some impersonal natural force anf chance."

Orrin does love to conflate the idea of Intelligent Design (the belief that the world and everything in it was created by a non-human Designer) and any old intelligent design that is the product of human intelligence, such as an iPod, or a hammer, or the stock market.

Perhaps, as a diehard literal creationist, Orrin can't even understand the arguments of the IDers. More to read up on.