Important Clarification: Science of "TOE" vs. Metaphysics of the Eucharist?

[Swamidass (Peaceful Science)]

@gbrooks9

Hold on a second… are you trying to develop a “new and improved” definition of Evolution?

Instead of defining Evolution as a “Godless process effected by natural laws alone”… you want to define it as “the process where humans can be shown to share common descent with other animals on the Earth”?

Am I using your terms as you would use them? Could you confirm that this is your intended approach?

And…

@Jon_Garvey

The problem surely is that there’s no official body to insist that this definition is universally used, for example in school textbooks (see this piece on Larry Moran’s blog - I’m amused to see my example of “change in gene frequency” cited verbatim!). If kids are taught the wrong definition, and there are influential people shifting definitions for rhetorical purposes, there may as well not be a correct definition.

This comes up so frequently that I will be writing a blog post about it soon.

To be very clear, I am not at all monkeying with the definition of evolution. Rather, I am being precise about the most historically and scientifically correct and consistent definition. As I have explained previously…

@Swamidass

The historical, consistent, and scientific definition of evolution is just common descent (CD). There is has been a great deal of debate over the last 150 years about the exact mechanism, and there is currently a “strategic ambiguity” in effect about if God could be part of that mechanism. Science makes no claims one way or the other on God’s action here.

Neo-Darwinism, the boogieman of ID, with its focus on positive selection has been largely supplanted by neutral theory. This doesn’t mean that positive selection isn’t important (it is), but it does mean there are a large class of features in biological systems that are better understood as neutral drift than the classic evolutionary story of selection. This includes things like overall genome similarity, pathway redundancy, and the precise details of genome sequences. A great primer on this is here.

One of the great features of neutral theory is that it has a very solid mathematical basis. Using evolution (i.e. common descent) as a starting point, and then invoking neutral theory, we can explain rigorously why mice and rats are 10x more different (about 20%) than humans and chips (about 2%). CD (i.e. evolution) with neutral theory explains this perfectly, with mathematical rigor, and testable predictions too. I’ve asked ID advocates time and time again: what design principle (other than common descent) explains this pattern. No one knows.

One of the more stunning predictions of neutral theory, that has been recently validated. is that differences between different parts of the genome should correlate with differences in the rate of mutation across the genome. Phrased another way: genomic difference should match the rate of change. To be clear, this is a prediction that is experimentally verifiable. And it has been verified for humans and chimpanzees. What design principle (other than CD) explains this strange correlation? No one knows.

I’ll point out (as always) scientists continue to revise the mechanisms of evolution, particularly when considering specific cases. A great example of this is the Third Way, that are clearly arguing against both ID and Dawkins, trying to give a more complete telling of evolutionary mechanism. Positive selection is important, but it is not necessarily the most important mechanism. Alongside point mutation, moreover, there are several other important mechanisms too (like horizontal gene transfer, transposons, epigenetics, duplication, copy number variation, etc.).

Defining evolution correctly as just common descent is really helpful . There is nothing intrinsically atheistic about it. CD is also the most historically and scientifically consistent and correct definition.

To be clear, also, I am not adding to this definition abiogenesis (origin of life) or universal common descent. These things are up for debate in the scientific community, and not part of evolution proper. One group of scientists thinks that life arose multiple times (so they do not believe in universal common descent). Another group of scientists severly doubts any natural mechanism for abiogenesis could ever be found. Regardless, evolution is just common descent of all life to a few (or one) ancestor.

In fact, in the entirely unlikely event that ID could make its scientific case that God intervenes to inspire some mutations, this would only be a minor modification to the over all theory. This would be just introduced as another mechanism of change among many others. The evidence for evolution (CD) would be just as strong, because it is experimentally and mathematically rooted (with gobs of evidence) in neutral theory.

(Just to be clear, I do think God could have been directly involved by first cause, but I am very skeptical science could ever prove it.)

More importantly for ID, if neutral theory is true (and it certainly looks like it is), the likelihood ID can make their scientific case is severely damaged. This is one reason why most ID proponents dispute all the evidence for neutral theory. If it was true, all the ID math we have seen falls apart.

So I hope that is helpful. I think you have been working from a Dawkin’s-defined version of evolution. But, thankfully, it is not accurate.

And also…

@Swamidass

I am not innovating on this position. The point I am making is widely accepted in science by groups like the AAAS, the National Academy, and the NABT. The non-theist Engenie Scott writes:

Because creationists explain natural phenomena by saying "God performed a miracle," we tell them that they are not doing science. This is easy to understand. The flip side, though, is that if science is limited by methodological materialism because of our inability to control an omnipotent power's interference in nature, both "God did it" and "God didn't do it" fail as scientific statements.Properly understood, the principle of methodological materialism requires neutrality towards God; we cannot say, wearing our scientist hats, whether God does or does not act.http://ncse.com/religion/science-religion-methodology-humanism

I’ll point out that this is from the NCSE, the main political body that organized opposition to ID in the Dover Trial of 2005. NCSE is not a theistic evolutionist group, but an organization devoted to promoting the mainstream science understanding of evolution.

To be clear, this God-neutral view of evolution is the dominant view in science right now. Any scientist that tries to argue otherwise is extending science much farther than it can go, and disputing the current consensus. Of course, some scientists do conflate evolution and atheism in their scientific work, but it is not a proper use of science or scientific interpretation of evolution. Thankfully, this happens much more rarely than we might fear, and even when it does you can tell them they are wrong, quoting the NCSE to them if you like.

To this I would add, WITHIN science we only scientifically consider naturalistic explanations. OUTSIDE science we are free to extrapolate this to purely naturalistic evolution (atheism) or God-directed evolution (theism). This is one place where ID runs afoul of the rules. They insist on making the theism inference, within science.

Evolution itself is God neutral, and within the context of the origins debate (which is outside science) the correct and precise way to describe evolution is just common descent.

This is not acceptable, and this is one reason why careful use of the term “science” is warranted.