University of Toronto intelligent design course wrap-up

A while back, there was a minor flap about the course I was teaching in why there is an intelligent design controversy, which wrapped up Tuesday evening (November 27, 2007) with a most interesting presentation by journalist and columnist David Warren, who writes twice a week for the Ottawa Citizen.

The things that I found most significant about the course:

- the calibre of the students. Beforehand, I really worried that students would grouse about hard topics. But they were wonderful! Their facial expressions implied that they were prepared to tackle serious propositions about origin of the universe, of life, of information, etc. What a joy!

My unrealized fears: Six week sentence in Hell - arguing with someone who expects guest lecturers at the peak of their professional careers to explain stuff he should have learned in Grade Six science or demonstrate why it is not true that green alien worms control our lives.

- the calibre of the guest lecturers. I came away with a renewed respect for people like Robb Mann, Don Wallar, Kirk Durston, and David Warren, who helped students understand the depth and magnitude of the things we understand, the things we only partially understand, and the things we do not yet understand about our universe. A clear warning against grasping at too easy solutions to our puzzling universe.

Anyone can shout: Darwin explains it! Fundamentalism explains it! I’m glad that I did not have to deal with fanatics while acting as the course’s lead instructor. Fanatics have their salons where, one would hope, they can splinter their tea tables in peace, and far, far from 100 Carr Hall.

Also, one interesting item recurred now and again - and I was glad because I learned a lot from it:

Some students doubted that we can conceive of design without a designer. They said, “Design means a designer and we all know that the designer is really the God of the Bible!”

Well, do we all know that? And if so, how do we all know that?

One student, who was aware of Eastern (vs. Western) views on these subjects smiled as the objection was raised, and I thought I knew why. But I am not sure I gave a good account of the matter at the time, so here I offer a more carefully considered account, admitting that it is difficult for some Westerners:

Westerners are raised in a culture where, generally speaking, if they have any religious convictions, the Bible is a primary source. The Bible introduces us to God as an actor in the stories in the Bible.

For what I am about to say now, I ask readers to set aside the question of whether the revelation of the Bible is true or false. Focus simply on seeing it as an interpretation of design in the universe.

If you had never heard of the Bible, how might you account for design in the universe? Here are two options:

- there is a “way” - the way things must be in order to work. Not a personal deity, but underlying laws Many such laws may remain to be discovered. Some may be incomprehensible to us.

- we are all - usually unconsciously - part of a cosmic mind that conceived this world and its design. The world itself is an illusion, but its design is real, and we must be in the right relation to it in order to be reunited with the cosmic mind.

I do not raise these ideas here to argue for or against them but to establish that design in the universe can easily be identified without a Designer. Hundreds of millions of people have lived and died assuming that that is so.

It will be interesting to see whether the course runs again in the spring.

Session Two: Why is origin of life such a difficult problem?

Update 1: Don Wallar's presentation was excellent, once we got the equipment going. I sensed students came away with a clear understanding, as per below, of why origin of life is an inherently difficult problem, made all the more so by the discovery in the last decade of the error correction system in the genetic code.

Update 2 - news: Leslie Orgel, father of the RNA World origin of life theory, hasdied at 80 years of age.

If you are interested in, or taking, the Design or Chance? course at Carr Hall at U of T (Tuesday nights, 7:00 p.m.), here is some introductory material on why the origin of life is such a difficult problem.

On October 25, 2007, there was a most interesting little story in The New York Times, "55 'Origin of Life' Paper Is Retracted" by Cornelia Dean. It concerns an elderly scientist, Homer Jacobson, who decided to retract a paper he had published in 1955 on origin of life in American Scientist, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life".

He retracted it, he says, because creationists were citing it as evidence that the origin of life might require divine intervention and because he found errors in it:

"Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, “It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."

Given the amount of speculation one can find in the origin of life field, I don't think we should be surprised if no one caught him on it. But anyway,

... Dr. Jacobson’s retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science," Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson’s letter.

His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, “the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction,” and people who “cling to dogma.”

Now, that's laying it on a bit thick because there is no evidence that Jacobson was subject to any embarrassment - or apprehended that he would be. Indeed, the public relations value of the exercise has been to distract attention from the real significance of the story: In all that time, a great deal has been learned about life, but life's origin is still shrouded in mystery, AND much that Jacobson and his colleagues assumed fifty-two years ago is doubted today.

A lawyer friend kindly sent round a note to the effect that the "dumb mistake" may not even have been a mistake, or not exactly anyway:

... the very concept of "retraction" is inapplicable here. A retraction is something the original author can do because he or she has discovered, by re-examining his/her original data or reasoning or mathematics, that it was flawed. That's not what happened here. Instead, we have a situation in which -- if we take the professor at face value -- later work by other people implies that the earlier work was wrong for some other reason. The proper action in such a case is not to "retract" a paper -- which is an effort to erase it from the record -- but to acknowledge it to have been in error, as revealed by later work. Such an acknowledgement is not a power unique to the author -- anyone can declare an older theory superceded by a later one.

Indeed, if Jacobson's explanations are taken at face value, hundreds of older origin of life papers will need retraction. We will need a Journal of Retracted Origin of Life Papers.

However, my friend doubts that Jacobson's "retraction" should be taken at face value, rather,

Even if it is wrong, it ought to remain on the public record. But by having its author not merely dsavow its superceded conclusions, but formally "retract" the paper, the effect is to wipe it out of history.

And that, of course, reveals that the true purpose of his action is to prevent people from even being able to say that he once stated these things.

Obviously, if the paper had revealed anything important, he'd get little thanks for retracting it.


Essentially, what makes origin of life a difficult problem is that the average cell is of supercomputer-like complexity. Even simple cells are complex.

That was a surprise. Nineteenth century scientists had expected cells to be simple. The electron microscope disabused their successors of any such idea.

But that in turn created a problem: There is no clear route from goo to you that could all just happen by random motions of particles in solution. And that clear route is what the origin of life researchers had been looking for. Many today feel it their duty to look only for such a route and no other. If that was not the route, they will be looking forever.

Both Fred Hoyle and Francis Crick seriously considered the idea that life originated elsewhere in the universe, and some argue for this view today. Crick even thought that intelligent aliens might have brught life here.

Don't misjudge Crick just because that sounds bizarre. To get some idea how speculative the whole field is, read this. Here's a quick look at some of the issues over the years.

The take home point is that the problem of How did life begin? differs in character from problems like Is there life on Mars? When we get to Mars, we'll find out the answer to the second question. It is fairly straightforward, after all. Either there is (or was) something we can reasonably call life on Mars or else there isn't/wasn't. The only problem is getting to Mars to find out. (Of course life on Mars would generate a host of other questions, but it is a fairly simple one in itself.)

Despite suggestns like Crick's, the quest for how life began is - for the most part - a quest to identify a plausible origin of life in the random movements or natural tendencies of pre-life chemicals. Can such an origin be found? If not, why not? Ad what are our other options?

I am certainly looking forward to the presentation by our guest Don Waller, from the Biosimilars program at Apotex.

Note: Origin of life researchers are not, strictly speaking, trying to find out exactly what happened. That may not be possible. They are looking for demonstrably plausible routes to the origin of life. It is somewhat like trying to determine how a prisoner escaped jail. Absent a video, we can't know for sure. But using clues, we can construct a scenario by which he could escape that accords with the evidence (and doesn't obviously contradict any clear evidence).

Go here for the update on Session One.

U of T course generates huge rage? Why?

Apparently, a vast fracas started on the Small Dead Animals blog, sparked by some alarmblog comments about my course in the intelligent design controversy starting this coming Tuesday evening at the University of Toronto. I posted the following response:

A friend kindly wrote to say that you have been discussing my adult night school course, Design or Chance? which starts at Carr Hall at the University of Toronto (St. Mikes) Tusday night at 7:30 p.m.:

Our first speaker is Dr. Robert Mann, chair of physics at the University of Waterloo, on multiverse theory vs. a single universe.

More here.

To judge from the heat generated, some people hadn't realized that I am not the first person to teach a course in the intelligent design controversy under St. Mike's auspices; that distinction belongs to retired high school teacher Bob Giza. I am aware of several other such courses as well, though not in Toronto.

I am a Toronto-based journalist, author, and blogger. My most recent book, co-authored with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, is The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper One, 2007).

Funnily enough, the SDA blog caters to self-identified Canadian conservatives. Yes, yes, such people still do exist, but they are endangered species - rarely seen or heard.

And why are THEY, of all people, fronting political correctness?

(Attention Darwinbots!! Erase all entities that doubt whatever schluck you are programmed to spout!)

Well, honestly, I do not know or care, and definitely do not have time to find out why the Small Dead Animals think they should morph into Darwinbots.

The course is about real issues that modern science reveals. Definitely not recommended for entities whose thinking is done by a rock bottom alarmbot who spouts, apparently from somewhere in France, in desperately fractured English.

COURSE: By Design or by Chance? An introduction to the intelligent design controversy

This is the course I will start teaching Tuesday at St. Mikes at the University of Toronto.

Enrollment is here. Campus map is here.

SESSIONS

Why is there an intelligent design controversy? and Why doesn’t it go away. Join Toronto-based author and journalist Denyse O’Leary, author of By Design or by Chance? and her guests for a series of entertaining evenings.

Session 1. The Big Bang: Blowing up a safe, tidy cosmology Tuesday October 23, 2007

Guest: Robb Mann, chair of physics, University of Waterloo. He asks - could there be other universes? Can we know? What difference would it make?

[Note: I heard Mann's prsentation on time (as in time and space) last night at the Agincourt Mall, and it was great!]

Session 2. From molecules to man: How did it happen? Tuesday October 30, 2007

Guest: Don Wallar, director of the Biosimilars Program with a large Canadian-based pharmaceutical company, explains why life’s origin is such a difficult problem.

Session 3. Creationists: Are they crazy or what? Tuesday November 6, 2007

Guest tba Creationism (young earth or six-day) originated in the United States post-World War II. It has now spread to the European Union, which regards it as a serious threat. Why? How?

Session 4. The universe: Bottom up or top down? Tuesday November 13, 2007

Either mind comes from matter or matter from mind. What difference does either view make to our understanding of consciousness and free will?

Session 5. Intelligent design: What the ID proponents actually say (and don’t say) Tuesday November 20, 2007

Michael Behe, author of Edge of Evolution (2007), sees actual design where, for example, Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker, sees the illusion of design. Who’s right? Are they both wrong?

Guest: Kirk Durston, biophysics PhD candidate at the University of Guelph.

Session 6. Why media routinely flub key events in the controversy Tuesday November 27, 2007

Join Denyse O’Leary and the Ottawa Citizen’s David Warren for free donuts and an insiders’ look at mistaken analysis and wrong predictions.


Where, when, and how much? Six evening sessions at Carr Hall, 100 St Joseph’s Street, at the University of Toronto, over six Tuesdays, Oct. 23 – Nov. 27 2007, at 7 – 9pm.

More info: 416) 926-7254 or continuinged.stmikes@utoronto.ca Register by phone here: Phone: (416) 926–7254. Payment by VISA or MasterCard only.