Epic Fail

To Celebrate….

…my recent [cough] “accomplishment”:

Shaky Foundations

Over at the blog Jesus Creed, RJS writes:

DNA is capable of passing information on from generation to generation – but it is not reactive and requires a complex series of reactions involving proteins for replication. Production of these proteins of require both RNA and additional proteins for transcription, and translation. The interrelated reactions are quite complex. DNA is a fairly stable (unreactive) molecule, making it good for information storage, but the chemistry of DNA is simply not rich enough for life to originate from DNA.

Proteins have a very rich chemistry and can perform many functions. But they are not capable of replication. There are no specific interactions that allow one amino acid chain to produce an identical chain.

Therefore – life did not originate with proteins, nor did it originate with DNA.

What RJS presents is the classic, foundational argument for the RNA world:

• DNA is inert, but it passes on information across time.
• Proteins don’t pass on information across time, but are reactive.
• RNA is both reactive and passes on information across time.
• Since life requires both reactivity and the ability to transmit information, life must have started with RNA.

But it’s not a simple as this.

We need to blow it off its feet

Biologist PZ Myers sets out to prove that there is no purpose associated with evolution.

He writes:

I decided that what I wanted to make clear is that the origin of many fundamental traits of the nervous system is by way of chance and historical constraints

And

The word “purpose” is entirely inappropriate. Richard Dawkins has tried to deal with it by inventing a new term for the kind of purpose you’re talking about, but I think we’re better served by trying to cut that misconception off at the knees. No, ankles. No…we need to blow it off its feet and scour the footprints from the floorboards.

So how does Myers take teleology and “blow it off its feet and scour the footprints from the floorboards?”

Prestin

As always, I am pressed for time, so let me introduce you to the protein which appears to have helped guide the independent appearance of echolocation – prestin – with a few cut-and-pastes.

Since prestin is a membrane protein found in mammalian cells that act as hearing receptors, here is a figure that shows the anatomical context of these cells:

Convergence Runs Deep

Scientists have long cited echolocation in bats and whales as a classic example of convergent evolution.  Yet conventional, non-teleological thinking expects convergence to involve different genes, different mutations, and different pathways.  As Stephen Rossiter of the University of London notes “it is generally assumed that most of these so-called convergent traits have arisen by different genes or different mutations.”

Yet Rossiter’s research helped to show that the convergent phenotype of echolocation was driven by convergent amino acid changes in the same gene:

“Our study shows that a complex trait—echolocation—has in fact evolved by identical genetic changes in bats and dolphins.”

A hearing gene known as prestin in both bats and dolphins (a toothed whale) has picked up many of the same mutations over time, the studies show.

What’s more….

SETI and ID: The Two Differences

After considering SETI from a higher resolution perspective, let’s again turn to the comparison of ID with SETI.  Seth Shostak argues the two differ in two crucial regards:

In short, the champions of Intelligent Design make two mistakes when they claim that the SETI enterprise is logically similar to their own: First, they assume that we are looking for messages, and judging our discovery on the basis of message content, whether understood or not. In fact, we’re on the lookout for very simple signals. That’s mostly a technical misunderstanding. But their second assumption, derived from the first, that complexity would imply intelligence, is also wrong. We seek artificiality, which is an organized and optimized signal coming from an astronomical environment from which neither it nor anything like it is either expected or observed. Very modest complexity, found out of context. This is clearly nothing like looking at DNA’s chemical makeup and deducing the work of a supernatural biochemist.

Shostak is correct in noting there are two ways in which SETI and ID differ, but these are not them. Yes, SETI is looking for very simple signals, but as we have seen, should they succeed, it is unlikely that many people, apart from the enthusiasts, will embrace such ambiguous evidence as evidence for ETI.  The SETI people would have to focus more closely on the region that emits the simple signal in search for something that is unequivocal – something the human mind would recognize as a message.

As for the second difference, the ID people don’t infer design from complexity; they too look for artificiality; they too look for something organized and optimized that is out of context. That’s why they propose various molecular machines and codes that cannot be explained by natural processes.

Since Shostak fails to clearly distinguish ID from SETI, what are the two ways in which they differ?

SETI Explained

Let’s consider the methodology that SETI employs to detect the existence of design.

First, SETI builds on two scientific facts: 1)The universe contains an immense number of stars and 2) Intelligent life, capable of producing technology, evolved on this planet.

This foundation is then used to ask a question: Since intelligent life exists on this planet, and the universe contains many stars, many of which could have their own planets, might not intelligent life exist on other planets?

The scientific answer at this point is, “Maybe, maybe not.”  In other words, “Who knows?” Of course, if one is going to go to all the trouble and search for alien intelligence, one probably has some reason to believe ETI does exist.  This reason is supposed to come from the Drake equation.  But as Michael Crichton pointed out, the variables of the Drake equation are subjectively determined.  Thus, the Drake equation does not tell us anything about the objective world around us.  In fact, this excerpt from SETI’s senior astronomer, Seth Shostak, should clue you that the Drake equation is just window dressing:

Why do we think that E.T. is out there in the first place? It’s simply a matter of numbers….it’s likely that the number of planets is an order of magnitude larger, or 10^23, which is the number of grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. That’s a lot of real estate, so if you think that Earth is the only grain of sand where anything interesting is happening, one has to admire your audacity.

In other words, there are so many planets out there that it would be audacious (!) to think we are the only intelligent beings that exist.   That’s the whole argument.  Appealing, yes, but also quite subjective.

While the question at the heart of SETI is rooted in scientific fact, the search itself is not science in action.   This explains why so very few actual scientists even bother with SETI.  However, unless one is a proponent of scientism, this fact alone does not invalidate the search.  After all, science is not required to make discoveries about the world.

So how does SETI actually set out to search for ETI?

SETI, ID, and Science

Let us continue to consider SETI and its relation to both ID and science.  There is a simple fact that is often overlooked in these discussions – SETI has failed to come up with a single positive result.  This is important.  It means that even if one thinks SETI is science, we can still argue that without independent evidence of the designers, science has a) never detected design and b) never seriously proposed design as an explanation for any given phenomenon.  So as it stands today, SETI fails as a counter-example to my position:

Without independent evidence of the designers, science has no method to evaluate and determine whether or not something was designed.

But let’s dig a little more deeply.  Since SETI has yet to come up with a single positive result, we must rely on our imagination to anticipate the reaction of the scientific community.  So let’s again consider Seth Shostak’s description of SETI’s method:

Michael Crichton: “SETI is not science”

Michael Crichton explains why SETI is not science:

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be “informed guesses.” If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.

One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? (Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called “Rare Earth” theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way.

Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a “study without a subject,” and it remains so to the present day.

But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what’s the big deal? It’s kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn’t worth the bother.