Comment on LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department by Sean Pitman.

1] We have been over dog and human allelic variation in some detail here before. You agreed that more than 90% of allelic variation including the SNP present in the current human populations must have arisen as new mutation since there was a minimal gene pool of maximally 4 alleles at any locus in the dog kind and 10 in humans. any allelic variation beyond this has arisen by a miracle or by natural process. For some inexplicable reason You deny miracles to explain the biology of the post flood world so it must be chance.
Am I wrong in this?

Why are you repeating this stuff? Allelic variation at low levels of functional complexity can and does happen easily and quickly – without the need to invoke intelligent design. Everyone agrees here. The disagreement is over novel functionality beyond very low levels of functional complexity – as you already know.

2] Most who accept a process of evolution beyond the species level would accept that accumulation of such natural processes are responsible for the variety of life we see now. You insist that these process are insufficient based on a particular reading of a sacred text. Is that correct?

As you know, my argument is that the process of random mutations and natural selection is insufficient beyond very low levels because of the increasing size of non-beneficial gaps in sequence space with each step up the ladder of minimum structural threshold requirements (the definition of higher and higher level systems). It is a statistical problem – as you are fully aware. That is why you proposed your “life enzymes” as a possible solution to the statistical limitations of the Darwinian mechanism. The problem, of course, is that your “life enzymes” don’t exist as far as anyone knows. And, no Scriptural support is needed to reach this conclusion.

The popular conclusion that “natural processes are responsible for the variety of life we see now” simply isn’t a scientific conclusion. There are no examples of this beyond very low levels of functional complexity and there isn’t even a viable statistical model that is remotely tenable beyond low levels. What you have left, then, is an extrapolation of low-level examples that isn’t based on empirical evidence or science of any kind when it comes to your proposed mechanism of random mutations and natural selection. And, your “life enzymes” aren’t known to exist…

2] You can insist on assigning to me some concept of “life enzymes” as you wish but I would interpret that as an unwillingness to actually engage with the question which was phrased as an analogy with enzymatic process in particular the production of H2O2. On the bald probabilities H2O and O2 are extremely unlikely to produce H2O2. Is that not correct? That we do find H2O2 in biological system and can produce it in bulk by chemical processes suggests that the presence of H2O2 makes any statistical argument about its impossibility void. Is that not so?

The statistical argument can only be explained when real enzymes that are able to assist in crossing the gap distances (which would require sizable pre-existing functional/informational complexity by the way) are known exist. Any enzymatic process that is required to put parts together in a specific way at a given level of functional complexity would itself have to exist at the same or higher level of functional complexity. It’s like arguing that complex macines, like cars or airplanes, can be produced by mindless “enzymes” (in the form of mindless robots), thereby proving that intelligent design is not required to explain cars or airplanes. Of course, this argument is ludicrous, as I point out in my book you supposedly read, since the robots themselves are at just as high a level of functional complexity as the cars and/or airplanes they produce and had to pre-exist the things that they make. In other words, such “enzymes” if they are also at a high level of functional complexity, would require deliberate intelligence to explain. That is why even if your car were entirely produced by mindless robots, the credit would still go to intelligent design, not the mindless robots.

Beyond this, you have no such “enzymes” to explain biological systems beyond very low levels. Therefore, regardless of which way you wish to argue the point, the statistical argument remains valid. In the absence of such “life enzymes” the only type of “enzyme” that can explain how anything can cross the non-beneficial gaps in sequence space is intelligent design. This is the only viable mechanism that is known to exist that can do the job. Certainly natural selection cannot be involved since natural selection cannot select among equally non-beneficial sequences. Yet, you still propose that something other than intelligent design must be able to do the job. Again, such a proposal is not scientific since it is not testable or potentially falsifiable. It has no predictive value at all.

As another “analogy” consider that your argument could be used against SETI just as easily. Let’s say SETI scientists find a clearly artificial radio signal coming in from just the right area of outer space. They declare that they’ve found very good evidence for the existence of ETI. But, according to your argument, since they don’t know all there is to know about how such seemingly artificial signals could be made, the most likely conclusion is that they are wrong and that the artificial radio signal really isn’t artificial at all, but is in fact the result of some as yet unknown mindless naturalistic process.

You see the problem here? You can explain anything and everything, and therefore nothing, with your argument because your argument is an appeal to ignorance – to what might be discovered in the future. That’s an anti-scientific argument. Such an argument undermines all scientific rationality for any conclusion beyond the one you personally want to be true…

You argue from a simplistic model of probabilities in sequence space that new complex functional molecules cannot exist. They do.

Yes, they do exist, but they do not exist because of random mutations and function-based selection. Such a mechanism cannot explain higher-level systems that require a minimum of thousands of specifically arranged amino acid residues.

I am asking, do you have absolute knowledge of all the possibilities for the trajectory of sequence change in an individual molecule within a highly complex collection of organic material within a cell? You cannot conceive of it but assume that you can nonetheless deny all possibility. I guess it does fit with your assumption that you can know everything in science or religion.

Again, your request for some kind of absolute demonstration or absolute proof simply isn’t scientific. Science isn’t based on absolute knowledge. Science is based on taking what little you do know and using that to predict the future – in a testable potentially falsifiable manner that produces useful predictive value. You should know this since you are a practicing scientist. Yet, you choose not to remember this fact of science when it doesn’t suite your personal philosophical position?

What you seem to be suggesting is that because there is a gap in knowledge that some as yet unknown naturalistic pathway or mindless mechanism might be in play – and that such a process therefore is therefore likely to be responsible. This is like appealing to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Celestial Teapot or some garden fairies as an explanation. That’s not a scientific argument. How is this not clear to you? You need some empirical evidence here if you wish to be scientific in your thinking. You need to present some kind of pathway that actually exists in sequence space or you need to present some kind of mechanism that explains how the very clear non-beneficial gap distances are crossed, our could reasonably be crossed – beyond very very low levels of functional complexity within a reasonable amount of time. If you haven’t done this, which you haven’t, you don’t have a scientific theory or even a scientific hypothesis. What you have is wishful thinking and just-so story telling. That’s it.

So, where is your evidence, your empirical evidence, to support your conclusion that a mindless mechanism of any kind was likely responsible for the creation of higher level biological systems?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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