Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
Jun 14, 2011 at 8:28am
This conference is not just about biology. But there are quite a few biologists here. Geneticist Mike Denton--among others--has kindly offered to take questions from Ricochet.
Questions for Mike? I'll ask them all. Just leave them in the comments.
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Sep '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Mike,
I don't know if you've read Etienne Gilson's recently reprinted From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again, but I was wondering if the post Mechanistic era heralded in the lede is the faint stirring of teleology rising from the nearly deserted cathedrals of Europe.
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Very interesting. I was wondering if Mike could explain a bit more about the implications that this new paradigm would have on heredity.
Also, Claire, tell your father I read his book The Devil's Delusion while on vacation and immensely enjoyed it.
Jun '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Dr. Denton,
Intelligence Design presumes an intelligent designer. Apart from finding inconsistencies in evolutionary theory what scientific work has been conducted to discern what this intelligent designer is? Where does this intelligent designer exist? What makes this intelligent designer intelligent? Has this intelligent designer ever made mistakes during the entire evolutionary process? If so, what would those be?
If life did not originate from molecular processes over billions of years then what is the alternate scientific theory of how life did emerge? If there is a theory, is it being circulated for peer review? Apart from ID in general, does this scientific theory have a name so I can research it on the Internet?
Edited on Jun 14, 2011 at 9:24amAug '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
How is a person raised in the mechanistic worldview able to identify non-mechanistic explanations as truly different from mechanistic explanations? (For, to a mechanistic worldview, non-mechanistic explanations often seem amenable to mechanistic explanations themselves.)
From about 6:20-6:50, Mike says something like this: western civilization used to believe that... life was imminent in nature, its order was part of the natural order itself.... we are imminent natural parts of the natural world, like a salt crystal, like a galaxy.... (not an exact quote) And he suggests that it was the mechanistic view of life that has changed this. But if you adopt a wholehearted mechanistic worldview, where nature itself is mechanistic, then isn't mechanistic biology precisely what makes us part of the natural order (like a salt crystal, like a galaxy)? From a mechanistic perspective, wouldn't it be a non-mechanistic view of life that would separate life from the rest of nature?
Also, I don't feel I understand the blueprint analogy very well. For one thing, having several engineers in my family, I know machines are quite commonly not built exactly to blueprint specifications -- yet they remain machines. Is there another analogy?
Oct '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Dr. Denton,
Do you believe that the "epigenetic vitalism" paradigm shift will result in a Judeo-Christian renaissance in western civilization or will the direction be shifted toward neo-paganism, a la "New Age" theology?
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
It seems that the features of an organism inexplicable by nature's mechanism are one and all teleological. But if this is the case, we don't need to make "discovery after discovery" of features beyond the domain of nature's mechanism. Organisms already manifest these features in every day experience. I can't even conceive of an acorn apart from its being purposed to an oak tree, nor to ask the question: "What are leaves and roots of the oak tree 'for'?" if I do not first of all incorporate teleological features into my concept.
At least that's how it looks to me. But if that were all you meant when you say that we cannot "explain" the origin of life mechanistically, then your point wouldn't really be about empirical science (Aristotle's physics) but metaphysics.
So you must mean something more than that even the very questions posed by biology are beyond the domain of nature's mechanism. You must really mean that some discovery can be made, which forms the answer to such questions. But what, beyond nature's mechanism, do we humans even have the capacity to know? What would such discoveries look like?
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
What's the deal with epigenetic “information.” I've heard the theory that there isn't enough information encoded in DNA to account for the massive permutations evident in complex life. Stipulating that for the sake of argument, where would the additional epigenetic information be? How might it be generated, communicated, and received? Is it ever present or encoded in a physical medium? Or is “information” here a computer-age metaphor for something else? If so, what?
May '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Does this model suggest (among other possibilities) that human anatomy might be more like an instrument (which requires a user) than a self-perpetuating machine? Is the focus of Denton's theory on the origin of a body's operation?
If so, it seems to fit the Christian understanding of human existence, which can be divided into three parts: the soul, the body, and the breath of life. It is roughly analogous to a user, a machine and fuel.
Like a vehicle left running, a body can survive while separated from the soul but cannot perform its higher functions without the user. A soul can exist without the body, but it is incomplete without the corporeal form (the "machine") through which most of its actions must be realized.
Animals do not have souls, but are likewise dependent upon the breath of life (fuel). Though ultimately indefinable, we call it "breath" because it is God's continued power of Creation... like a singer sustaining a song. Christians understand themselves to be willful instruments of God. In that sense, a human body is like a machine with two users (ideally working in concert).
May '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
I always bear in mind during discussions like this that humanity was completely unaware of most of the electromagnetic spectrum until fairly recently in human history. We had no means of directly detecting, measuring and studying energy which surrounded us and penetrated us every day of our lives.
Scientists should maintain a healthy respect for what Donald Rumsfeld calls "unknown unknowns".
Mar '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Ah, Intelligent Design - that explains why the young scientists were hiding from the camera...
This is a good example of how Liberals and Political Correctness have pre-defined and restricted the debate. So, Intelligent Design is a quack, fundamentalist religion, according to Richard Dawkins (I wonder if he was at the conference?). Sarah Palin is stupid, bla bla bla.
Many years ago I gave a talk on the Optics of the human eye, and finished with a question - when would we humans design such a wonderful camera? (we still haven't). It is very hard to believe that the human eye/brain (and the eyes of many animals, e.g.eagles, flys) came about by random chance in the length of time that this Universe has been in existence.
So that continues to be a question from me, and I have kinda given up on religion to answer it - so the Conference sounds great - I'm glad some politically incorrect scientists are still free to think about this :-)
Edited on Jun 14, 2011 at 11:32amFeb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Why are you rejecting the gene as the blueprint? That isn't at all clear.
It isn't strictly random mutations that "guide" evolution, but chemical thermodynamics as well. Random mutations do occur very, very frequently in nature and in new organisms, but are almost always nonviable for life. But occasionally they are. Am I wrong in thinking in these terms?
Vitalism sounds much like something Lysenko and his guys were pushing to devastating effect. Again, am I wrong in thinking this?
Oct '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Hang On, genes are a type of computing network that generates proteins in response to cellular conditions. They aren't a blueprint in the sense that they do not describe an organism directly.
I agree there are signs of a revolutionary turn in biology (especially some of the research in neural science and the way electricity works in neural networks). Genes are definitely not the whole story (for one things, organisms have this odd ability to switch traits on and off and rework genes to adapt to new environments, far quicker then a purely random process would suggest).
Genes are control networks; so are economies. Just like economies do not evolve purely randomly, genes are not random phenomena.
Oct '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
If the form of the organism (I'm not sure what form of the organism means) comes from epigenetic creative activity of the organism, then what is the source of the creativity? If creativity is generated from the physical organism, aren't you back to the old blue-print model because you could create an exact replica of an organism which would exhibit the same creativity which would lead to the same form. Wouldn't the source have to be a creative entity? If an organism receives its form from outside itself, then what in the organism is the receiver for this creativity? I.e., how would an organism translate this information? What is the medium and method of transmission? Also, you mentioned that the organism acts as an agent. If the organism is an agent, who/what is the principal? Could other aspects of a human activity behave in an agent/principal manner? For example, could the brain be an agent of a mind that is the principal, where the mind is not generated from the brain?
Edited on Jun 14, 2011 at 12:58pmJun '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
David Williamson: This is a good example of how Liberals and Political Correctness have pre-defined and restricted the debate. ...
Many years ago I gave a talk on the Optics of the human eye, and finished with a question - when would we humans design such a wonderful camera? (we still haven't).
David, I don't think all disagreements in science can be attributed to a vast Left wing conspiracy.
Let's say for the sake of argument that an Intelligent Designer is the explanation that certain aspects of reality are so complex - like the human eye. What processes do you suppose the Intelligent Designer used to create a human eye? Is that an unknowable process?
On the geological time scale human beings are a quite recent development. True, we haven't matched the intricate architecture of the human eye but we have made up for some of its defects and deficiencies, if one considers the Hubble Space Observatory or electron microscopes...so who knows, in a hundred or so years we may in fact be able to surpass the capabilities of the human eye through genetic engineering and make it even better. Maybe you need to be more patient.
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Dr. Denton: Setting aside for a moment the origin of species, do you agree with the mainstream scientific view that all living things on Earth share a common ancestor? That is, the belief that if you follow my family tree far enough back and do the same for the grass in my back yard, you will reach an organism from which both I and the lawn are descendents?
Ms. Berlinsky: I would urge caution here. To the extent that our code of conduct prohibits the discussion of conspiracy theories because they make us sound to the rest of the world like kooks, and because these theories are inevitably false, I would think that discussions of intelligent design here would have the identical drawbacks.
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
In traditional Aristotelian language, the organism (substance) is a composite of matter and form. The matter (not the substance) receives the form, and the informed matter is the substance. But every matter that exists is informed by some form. Every existent is a composite. Hence, the matter that receives the form of an organism is already informed by some other form (which for Aristotle was either the form of semen (active and masculine) or of blood (passive and feminine)). I guess in modern terms, it would be sperm and egg, although the active/passive bit can’t survive modern science. Plenty of modern Aristotelians want to preserve or recover something of this theory of matter and form. I just don’t see how it can be taken as empirical science rather than metaphysics.
Jun '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Albert Fuchs: Dr. Denton: Setting aside for a moment the origin of species, do you agree with the mainstream scientific view that all living things on Earth share a common ancestor? That is, the belief that if you follow my family tree far enough back and do the same for the grass in my back yard, you will reach an organism from which both I and the lawn are descendents?
Ms. Berlinsky: I would urge caution here. To the extent that our code of conduct prohibits the discussion of conspiracy theories because they make us sound to the rest of the world like kooks, and because these theories are inevitably false, I would think that discussions of intelligent design here would have the identical drawbacks. · Jun 14 at 12:28pm
A voice of reason. Thanks, Albert. I think this isn't so much a case of ID being a conspiracy theory but that there is a vast nasty, cliquish, Darwinian conspiracy of establishment scientists who have determined to beat down and ridicule any anti-Darwinian heresy...it's why these put-upon and oppressed fellows must meet in dark secret places like the hills of Tuscany.
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Brian: I was pretty sure that you and I would be on the same side of this one. I don't mean that ID is a conspiracy theory. I mean that discussing it here will have the same drawbacks as discussing conspiracy theories: (1) We look like kooks and (2) We are discussing something almost certainly false.
Feb '11
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Yes, understand that the role of the genes are for proteins, but they are a blueprint for proteins. There are certainly many more systems, e.g. the role of the cell itself as a battery with potential across the membrane and role of ATP, but then I'm back to thermodynamics again.
Aug '10
Re: Mike Denton and the Coming Post-Mechanistic Era in Biology
Joseph Eagar: Hang On, genes are a type of computing network that generates proteins in response to cellular conditions. They aren't a blueprint in the sense that they do not describe an organism directly.
...Genes are definitely not the whole story (for one things, organisms have this odd ability to switch traits on and off and rework genes to adapt to new environments, far quicker then a purely random process would suggest).
Genes are control networks; so are economies. Just like economies do not evolve purely randomly, genes are not random phenomena.
Thanks for the explanation. From what I know, I agree: genes respond to feedback in a way that we don't typically conceive of blueprints as doing (though blueprint-makers do, in real life, often modify their blueprints in response to feedback).
However, what prevents a control network from being purely mechanistic?
And why can't control networks "run on randomness" -- that is, have their evolution driven solely by the laws of probability interacting with other natural laws? What else is needed?
I admit, though, that it's hard for me to envision an economy as being driven by anything other than human being with individual wills.