Dave Scott's challenge
Dave Scott on Uncommon Descent has issued the Flagellum Challenge for Darwinian Evolutionists. The challenge is to explain how a Darwinian account of the evolution of the flagellum could be falsified. I quite like this kind of challenge and wrote a response in the form of an analogy - but Dave did not see fit to publish it. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy but I will paraphrase it here.
In a sense it is the wrong question. The real point is can you falsify neo-Darwinism as a theory?
Suppose you had a theory that the shape of rocks off the coast of Scotland was due to wave action. This is unquestionably a scientific theory that could poentially be falsified. You might find that the rocks were too hard to yield to wave erosion; that volcanic forces were actually responsible; whatever. Conversely you might observe that the waves do tend to shape the rocks slightly in the small timescales we can observe.
However, suppose someone were to ask for an account of how waves had formed a particular extraordinary rock formation e.g. one with a hollow interior. Now "wave theorists" could probably think of many different ways the waves might have produced that shape. In fact for any given shape there are probably several stories the wave theorists might tell about how waves formed that shape. And we will never know which is the right story because it all happened too long ago. But that doesn't mean that wave theory is not falsifiable or that the statement: "This formation was formed by waves" is not falsifible.
Similarly the Darwinian evolution of the flagellum is falsifiable by showing that Darwininism is not possible. There are lots of ways that might have happened. The earthe might have proved to be too young. There might not have been a particulate mechanism for inheritance. Life might not have been arranged in heirarchy. etc.
I am sorry Dave sought fit to exclude this. I would have liked to have seen an ID response.
In a sense it is the wrong question. The real point is can you falsify neo-Darwinism as a theory?
Suppose you had a theory that the shape of rocks off the coast of Scotland was due to wave action. This is unquestionably a scientific theory that could poentially be falsified. You might find that the rocks were too hard to yield to wave erosion; that volcanic forces were actually responsible; whatever. Conversely you might observe that the waves do tend to shape the rocks slightly in the small timescales we can observe.
However, suppose someone were to ask for an account of how waves had formed a particular extraordinary rock formation e.g. one with a hollow interior. Now "wave theorists" could probably think of many different ways the waves might have produced that shape. In fact for any given shape there are probably several stories the wave theorists might tell about how waves formed that shape. And we will never know which is the right story because it all happened too long ago. But that doesn't mean that wave theory is not falsifiable or that the statement: "This formation was formed by waves" is not falsifible.
Similarly the Darwinian evolution of the flagellum is falsifiable by showing that Darwininism is not possible. There are lots of ways that might have happened. The earthe might have proved to be too young. There might not have been a particulate mechanism for inheritance. Life might not have been arranged in heirarchy. etc.
I am sorry Dave sought fit to exclude this. I would have liked to have seen an ID response.
posted by Mark Frank at 8:29 pm
1 Comments:
It's an interesting argument. I think I came up with an OK way to formulate it at one point: the conjecture that "X is responsible for Y" may not be falsifiable, but the conjecture that "X is the best explanation for Y" certainly is. By "best", I mean firstly that it's predictive and secondly (and less importantly) that it's parsimonious.
The hypothesis in the case of the wave example would be "wave formation is the best explanation for the rock formation". To achieve this, you'd look at what predictions could be made - for example, you could show a wave theorist half the rock and see if [s]he could deduce what the other half would look like.
To falsify the hypothesis, you could present an alternative hypothesis that made better predictions. For example, you could test the hypothesis that the formation had been made by a chisel-wielding human by drawing and testing the prediction that it would have chisel marks on it.
In the case of evolution of the flagellum, the relevant hypothesis (or meta-hypothesis or ur-hypothesis or whatever) would be "Darwinian evolution is the most predictive and parsimonious explanation for the flagellum". You could then point out that:
a) Evolution is quite a good premise - for example, one predictive explanation for the flagellum (co-option) has been very strongly validated by the discovery of various homologies.
b) Other approaches, such as Intelligent Design, haven't even attempted to produce predictive hypotheses.
c) These other approaches are also, in general, less parsimonious.
I need to work on the wording - technically Darwinian evolution isn't the explanation; it's a premise for the explanation. That's a bit harder to work into a formally falsifiable hypothesis. Something like "the best hypothesis for Y that includes X will always be better than the best explanation that doesn't include X" maybe? Any thoughts?
Post a Comment
<< Home