Make it IDist proof and along comes a better IDist

                                 

In a Panda's Thumb post dated 5th May Evolutionary Mathematician Joe Felsenstein criticises Intelligent Design aficionado Granville Sewell for making the claim that the following problem is unsolvable: According to Sewell that problem is, how do we...

#3 Explain how life could have originated and evolved into intelligent humans, through entirely natural (unintelligent) processes.

Felsenstein quotes Sewell where Sewell explains why he thinks the foregoing problem is unsolvable (Emphases are mine):

Well, I have a very simple proof  [*GASP!*] that the biological problem #3 posed above is also impossible to solve, that does fit in the margin of this document. All one needs to do is realize that if a solution were found, we would have proved something obviously false, that a few (four, apparently) fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into libraries full of science texts and encyclopedias, computers connected to monitors, keyboards, laser printers and the Internet, cars, trucks, airplanes, nuclear power plants and Apple iPhones.

Is this really a valid proof? It seems perfectly valid to me, as I cannot think of anything in all of science that can be stated with more confidence than that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could not have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones.

The irony is that the chief weakness of Sewell's argument is due to potential internal inconsistency in his world view; for presumably Sewell's a Christian theist who like myself believes in a created cosmos; all of it & not just some bits that God did! That means as far as we know those so-called "unintelligent natural forces" and their constants might have been intelligently selected to ensure that the evolution of life somewhere in the universe has a high probability given the size of the cosmos. If you are a Christian you are not supposed to be a dualist who sees the "natural world" as somehow, well.... natural and therefore inferior in some way; it is after all the creation of an omniscient omnipotence. 

Now, although many respected evangelical Christians are not at all adverse to evolution in terms of the proposed mechanisms of change (e.g. Tom Wright, Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, Simon Conway-Morris, John Polkinghorne)  I myself do entertain considerable doubts about those mechanisms (But I accept the story of natural history - an important distinction there). My issue with evolution revolves around whether a structure I call the spongeam exists in configuration space (See links at end). But having said that I probably have more in common with these evangelicals than I do the de facto Intelligent Designers like Sewell who see the world through polarising filters, in this case  a natural forces vs God did it intelligent agency dichotomy. The logical outcome of this subliminally dualist world view is the kind of crass argumentation we get from Sewell which he then presents as a perfectly valid "proof". 

Given my doubts about standard evolutionary mechanisms and my I belief that Divine intelligence has acted and continues to proactively act in creation, particularly the creation of life, one might think I would find common cause with people like Sewell in spite of their dualism. But no, there is no chance of that; Politics has seen off that possibility. The de facto ID culture along along with its ugly fundamentalist sisters (Like Answers in Genesis) has gravitated toward the extreme right-wing even in some cases voicing the conspiracy theories of a "stolen" 2020 US election. Rejected by the academic establishment the de facto ID movement have fallen into the arms of right-wing "drain-the-swamp" fantasists whose liar-in-chief is Donald Trump, a man who seeks to overthrow the necessarily  argumentative, factionalism  & fractiousness of democracy with the illusion of a bucolic volk-libertarianism.*. To this far-right community the middle ground politics of Joe Biden looks like the far left! 

 

On the Spongeam

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/evolution-naked-chance.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-mathematics-of-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/02/on-structuralism-and-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_13.html

Footnote

* The wealth making and innovating energy of the market is without doubt, but unfortunately that energy sometimes thrashes uncontrollably: The non-linear instabilities of the market and its power law wealth spectrum, often perceived as unjust, are liable to fuel alienation and far left socialism.  Community identification & the highly localised "serve yourself" operation of the market often find themselves at odds. Somehow the best of the free market and the best of community values have to be reconciled - the alternative is volk-libertarianism which will  generate a counter culture of alienation and extreme socialism. See here: https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2020/07/marx-vs-smith_30.html