Placing Consciousness in a Biological Context

In biology, I think that form is ontologically prior to function. By this I mean that a change in form implies a change in function, but that a change in function does not imply a change in form. By form I mean phenotype. So, a proper biological ontology would be:

Genotype -- Phenotype -- Function

Phenotypic expression is causally determined by environmental constrains on the ability to reproduce genotypes to the next generation. Natural selection, in this case, is the hard-stop of genotype reproduction -- those who do not pass their information on will stop passing their information on. As such, environment is actually wider than natural selection, and natural selection only plays a role at the level of genotype. Natural drift would also fall in at the level of genotype. Sexual selection, however, would be ontologically separate from natural selection because it is a selection for phenotypes which then causes a selection for some genotypes.

In most biological species function can only be changed by phenotype, and phenotype by the three preceding mechanisms.

"Consciousness" is a separate evolutionary mechanism which operates on function in the limits of phenotypic expression -- or in some extreme cases, such as cloning, acts on genotypic expression. As a mechanism of evolution, it operates in the realm of function – the brain runs on functions and this mechanism of evolution is a function of genotypic reproduction and selection. This isn’t to say that consciousness isn’t more than this – this would just be the way one could explain consciousness in a biological context. More detailed explanations of consciousness would supervene on this general sketch.

I think this ontology accounts for the biological nature of consciousness, as well as its special place in nature while staying in the bounds of an ontological naturalism. These would be the reasons for adopting it.

Experts

Some time ago I had posited that a good problem to solve in the philosophy of science would be to answer, "How should we treat experts?" The problem arises because one doesn't want to just take a person's word on the truth of some claim, yet there are disciplines in modern society which require a a restrictive amount of time to become "expert" in -- and therefore one must rely upon the truth claims of others in certain domains. This may not seem to be a problem, but suppose the recent bank scandal: The experts were the bankers, and they used their expertise to gain. As such, the trust which "expert" status was broached. Even more than this "expert" status is always potentially abusive, not only socially but also personally. The solution to the problem should treat this: How does one minimize potential abuse while still having experts in a given domain, a thing which surely is useful?

A few possible solutions:
1. Remove expertise status. No expertise status, no problem of experts. This has some potentially undesirable consequences, however, as we surely enjoy our brain surgeons to be trained as brain surgeons before doing brain surgery. This solution is still viable in some sense, however, because we could restrict expert status to a few occupations which we deem as acceptable (Doctor, Lawyer, Scientist for example) This would minimize the potential for abuse. However, this is already largely done on a social level, so there isn't much of a problem being solved here.

2. Ethics: If we were all ethical, then there wouldn't be abuse of expertise status. This would require a certain level of trust between members in a society which would be earned by our acting in proper ways. This is an ideal solution. By ideal I mean, totally impractical in every way because we don't take ethics terribly seriously on a social-wide level. It's a "personal" thing. So to implement this solution we would first have to start revising what our social ethics amounts to, which would likely push aside some of our other social values.

3. Trust Experts: This is a common solution to the problem. The value of experts is held above the potential for abuse to the point that we all agree to trust experts despite this potential for abuse.

4. I have a possible rule that might be adopted, and I would think of this as a sort of middle path between 2 and 3. It would be "Require experts to be able to teach". This indicates that when an expert makes a claim, a non-expert is allowed to question that claim. Naturally there are good and bad ways of going about this. If a non-expert states "Well, fuck you buddy!" this will likely not facilitate proper or positive communication between either party. Instead, he could state something along the lines of, "I do not believe you. Could you explain yourself further?" This would require something of a social change, as well -- that we be socially allowed to civilly disagree, even on potentially hostile topics. This would require a form of training which would help persons to express their disagreements in a succinct and communicable manner. The best discipline for this, I feel, is philosophy. So, solution 4 really boils down to not just a rule, but a change in our education by requiring philosophy be learned by everyone in High School. However, it does have the advantage of engendering trust between persons as they come to understand one anothers' position more, and thereby allowing experts to exist, while placing them subject to the possibility of a willing "student" asking questions.


It's likely apparent which solution I prefer.

Incommensurability

Incommensurability is the thesis that world-views which scientific practice has posed throughout the ages are fundamentally different, or not comparable. An example often used a comparison between Einsteinian, Newtonian, and Quantum physics. Newton stated that mass is an entity separate from energy. Einstein's physics posits that mass is a manifestation of energy -- a possible property for energy to take on. Quantum physics, contra both Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, posits (in its first form, at least) that causality is a probabilistic construct, instead of an infinitely deterministic construct.

Usually the incommensurabile thesis is defended by pointing out dramatic changes between scientific systems. Naturally there is wiggle room for what constitutes "dramatic". Generally I take this to mean that the ontological construct of science has changed. So, we have an atomic theory, for instance, and it would not change the ontological structure of chemistry to posit another atom, or another molecule, or even a new way of bonding. There exists atoms and bonds. However, were we to posit that the universe is not composed of atoms, but waves of energy and waves of energy only, and that the atoms we reference are tools in the same sense that a meter is a tool (whereas "length" would be the ontic unit of a meter), then we'd have an instance of incommensurability. " "The universe is atoms and only atoms" and "The universe is energy waves and only energy waves" "can not be true. You have to choose one or the other, or make an adjustment that allows for both.

In playing with the incommensurability thesis, I broke open my Aristotle and wrote the following thought experiment where I interpreted spectroscopic data using Aristotle's theories.

Spectroscopic analysis would be conceived of in an entirely different way within the Aristotelian framework. Nature abhors a void so there aren't any atoms, and... (From Book II of De Anima)

"...to explain what light is.

Now there clearly is something which is transparent, and by 'transparent' I mean what is visible, and yet not visible in itself, but rather owing its visibility to the colour of something else; of this character are air, water, and many solid bodies. Neither air nor water is transparent because it is air or water; they are transparent because each of them has contained in it a certain substance which is the same in both and is also found in the eternal body which constitutes the uppermost shell of the physical Cosmos. Of this substance light is the activity-the activity of what is transparent so far forth as it has in it the determinate power of becoming transparent; where this power is present, there is also the potentiality of the contrary, viz. darkness. Light is as it were the proper colour of what is transparent, and exists whenever the potentially transparent is excited to actuality by the influence of fire or something resembling 'the uppermost body'; for fire too contains something which is one and the same with the substance in question. "

So, the differences one can obtain from a spectroscope could be explained by this transparent substance in activity with different proportionate mixtures of the elements, which is something Aristotle references often in explaining why different things are what they are (I'm just taking a guess here. But I don't think it's fair to infer, using Aristotle's work in a scientific manner, that reference to quantum energy states modeled by operator algebra explains lines on a given spectroscopic measurement). But, even more importantly, this would be the mere material cause, reflecting a samples potentiality. The actuality could only be garnered from what that material would be used for. Suppose it is a medicine. The ratio of elements would be the potential within the substance, and the shape of the sample at the time of the spectroscope would be during its coming-to-be. For the end of medicine is getting well, and when it is used would be its actuality. (I'm pulling from ideas in Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics as well, here)


In using Aristotle, while I can find a common referent, and I even think that modern theories are better with respect to truth-value, one can come to understand the incommensurability thesis best, I think. This is because science works by inferring to the best explanation within a certain explanatory framework, and inferences, contra arguments, are actions. It's in the use of science that one understands incommensurability best, and not the "logic" of science.

The Central Dogma

In Biochemistry, the above is known as "The Central Dogma". It used to be the case that we thought RNA, once transcribed as RNA stayed as RNA and that it could never be the case that RNA became DNA. Whether this was the case for reasons of convenience or it was genuinely thought to be impossible, I have no clue, but such a statement does have a "dogmatic" feel to it and so I always took that to be a reason why it was called a Dogma.

The other reason, which is related to it being a central dogma, is that it forms the conceptual basis for a basic biochemical analysis of DNA expression. First one learns what DNA, RNA, and Protein are, and then one learns that this is the general outline by which DNA is expressed into RNA, and the general outline of protein tranlsation from RNA. As has oft been repeated, DNA can be thought of as a code which expresses a sequence of RNA bases, which in turn generates proteins through a well modulated and specific chemical reaction. There are four RNA bases, each of which has a complement on DNA. These four bases form "codons", which are the basis of the genetic code for all life known to date.

A Codon is a sequence with three bases in it. AUG, for example, forms an RNA codon. As there are four bases and three "slots" for each codon, there are 4^3 possible codons, or 64. These 64 possible codons only code for 20 amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

Proteins perform many, many functions within the body, and so understanding how proteins are made and transferred through reproduction forms a strong basis for understanding life at the chemical level. There are many, many details to get lost in, and some of the nitty-gritty details are really only known by people in that specific research field. This is why the central dogma is of so much importance: It gives a foundational biochemical reference point to which we can connect all of our other knowledge to.

I said earlier that it used to be thought that DNA makes RNA, end of story. That, now, has changed -- it turns out that we've found enzymes which help to reintegrate RNA back into DNA sequences. This enzyme is called "reverse transcriptase", and it is through mechanisms such as these that viruses infect us. Although, to them, it's not an infection: It's their method of reproducing themselves. A greater understanding of this purely theoretical mechanism can yield practical results in the field of AIDS treatment, which goes to show how a general theoretical question like ,"How does a cell operate at the chemical level?" can possibly lead to practical benefits. Surely this isn't the motivation behind such research, as such research is intrinsically interesting, but it does go to show how intrinsically interesting questions which have no perceived benefit are often connected to practical benefits.

The other thing that the central dogma shows is that even scientific "dogma" can undergo revision. As far as I can tell, whether it was for heuristical reasons or judged to be this way, the central dogma was taken very seriously. Yet, over time, we've had to revise our models given a long series of inquisitive arguments. It can't be emphasized enough that even our most basic scientific descriptions are taken as fallible constructions -- not to dissuade persons from the credibility of scientific work, but to make persons aware of how far a scientific argument can go. The word "science" has often been used to legitimize, and pointing out how actual science is full of qualifiers -- like "may", "could be", "might", "I suspect", coupled with complex arguments from difficult to obtain and possibly faulty data to likely rejectable conclusions, at least in so far as it's only a published paper -- can only help the public to critically evaluate scientific claims.

Or, in short, even the most stalwart of scientific constructs have hesitancy involved: If a company or politician may gain by your acceptance of their scientific claims, and they lack this hesitancy, you might want to turn your bologna alarm on and check some alternate sources.

Points of Conflict in Evolution

Last night at the Socrates Cafe (hosted by our university's Philosophy Club!) the topic was "Can religion be reconciled with evolution?" Overall it was an interesting discussion, but what I was most interested in were points of conflict between evolutionary theory and religious views. I thought I'd gather up these ideas here. From memory, it seemed there were four clear points of conflict:

A Sense of Purpose
Literal interpretations vs. Alegorical interpretations of The Bible
The relation between Man and Animal set out in The Bible.
Knowledge of man vs. Knowledge of God


Naturally this all depends on what one means by religion, what one means by God, and what a specific religion denotes. The focus was upon mainstream Christianity, though, because this is the predominant religion in our region, and therefore it is here that we were most familiar with conflict arising. I'll first explain the conflicts, then move onto possible resolutions. To explain the conflicts --

A sense of purpose: The Bible, especially in the New Testament (I'm a little sketchy on the theological backing for this statement, however) states that man is on this earth for a special purpose. This gives meaning to an individual's life as they fit into a plan of some kind that a benevolent being has orchestrated for them. The conflict arises because evolution carries a purely materialistic connotation with it -- not as a necessity, but human existence and some of its traits are explicable in material terms. More than this, we thought that the word "random chance" tends to carry the connotation that man has no purpose, and therefore no meaning within an evolutionary context.

Literal vs. Allegorical: If one takes the Biblical account of the origin of man and the universe as a literally descriptive event, then clearly evolution and The Bible conflict. According to The Bible, man was created in God's image exactly as he is now. According to evolution, he was one of many species who made it to this point.

The relation between Man and Animal: According to The Bible, Animals were set upon the earth for men to use and take care of. This places man above animal. There comes a conflict with evolution when man is taken to be an Animal, because this relation is, at least in part, dissolved.

Knowledge: Some religious traditions claim to have knowledge of a superior or different kind. Because evolution is a man-made construct that admits itself of being tentative always, and because Godly knowledge is necessarily perfect, a conflict between scientific claims and religious claims arises in that a religious individual who believes to have a superior kind of knowledge will simply dismiss evolution tout court. In addition to this, the teaching of evolution might be frowned upon as it introduces a different way of looking at the world that may influence their children away from the perfect knowledge that the believer has.


Resolutions


Purpose: This one is complex to resolve because it is highly dependent upon how one interprets evolution and how one interprets their religion at a metaphysical level. However, one clear resolution seemed to be pointing out the meaning of the word "Random". Random can be easily confused because it has several meanings, and in the context of biology it has a specific meaning that probably doesn't reflect what one would consider "Truly Random". In the context of biological evolution, randomness isn't necessarily stochastic so much as it is unpredictable. An example may help here:

Mutations to genes can be introduced by a number of inputs. An example of a random input would be the molecular machinery making a mistake in transcribing DNA into RNA. Instead of the base that the machinery is supposed to pass along, another is put into place. This piece of RNA will then express another amino acid, which can change the function of the protein which is being made. This change of function almost always leads to a decrease in an organisms function -- it is unable to reproduce, whether it be because of death or some other reason. However, it is possible for this mutation to make a positive contribution to an organisms function, in that it is better able to reproduce than its fellow creatures. In either direction, this is a "Random" mutation. It may not be "Truly Random", but this is what the term is meant to imply -- that some changes are able to be accounted for, but are not predictable at the level of predictability that one tends to expect in a scientific theory. As such, evolution isn't "Random" in the sense that we don't have a purpose. I used the term function on purpose. There is an interesting analogue here.

When Adam and Eve leave the Garden their purpose becomes to have a family. In a sense, this is their function. They must plow the earth and work in order to procreate and be happy. Similarly in biology an organisms fitness can be simplified to their ability to procreate. The function of life is to create more life. If one doesn't take the Bible too literally, the parallels between these supposedly disparate disciplines are interesting, which leads me into the next resolution.


Literal vs. Allegorical: A literal interpretation is clearly irreconcilable with evolution. I won't get into whether a literal or an allegorical interpretation is better, but I will note that allegorical interpretations are in almost all cases reconcilable with evolution.

Some interesting parallels exist between the creation story of the Bible and currently accepted scientific cosmology. While God separated the light from the darkness, the current model on the universe's beginning is the Big Bang. The Big Bang doesn't explain the question of being in the least, but it does start with a large conflagration where all being was mixed. With time the light was parsed from space. In the second creation story within Genesis there is a parallel between what is created on Earth and what currently cosmological models describe. First came the waters, then came the plants, then came the animals, and then came man. The Knowledge of Good and Evil corresponds to man's birth of consciousness. The innocence of species-hood without higher cognitive functions was a sort of bliss. A new perceptive ability brought about the realization of pain in this world, work for our bread, and a longing for a heavenly existence. I didn't come up with that story, but I think it's neat.


Between Man and Animal: This is something of a specific problem, since not everyone will think that their religious background gives them right over animals. However, supposing that man is greater than animals -- If one accepts the doctrine that man is fallen, then there shouldn't be a problem in accepting that Man is an animal. Man can still be greater than other animals, in that he prefers those rationally inclined, but it seems to run parallel with theological teachings to assume that we actually have an animality. In Christianity this animality is to be overcome, something which I can't say I agree with, but the existence of animality seems to go with, not against, religion.


Knowledge of Man vs Knowledge of God: Here I don't think there is a resolution. I only think it important to point out that in "Knowledge of Man" (i.e. Science) class that we should stick to the subject matter of "Knowledge of Man". I have some theological problems with revealed knowledge, but that is outside the scope of this post. Still, it seems unreasonable to be worried about knowledge of man infecting a child's knowledge of God if the knowledge of God is perfect. There shouldn't be much worry at all here.

Some Possible phil-o-sci Problems I want to solve

How do you properly disseminate scientific information?

Problem 1: The expert, and consensus. Consensus can be achieved amongst the respected scientific community on controversial (whether that controverys be manufactured or no) issues. The obvious topics here are evolution and global warming. However, the problem isn't with the scientific community achieving consensus. The problem is disseminating that consensus, and determining when one can claim scientific consensus such that it is acceptable to use this term in popular discourse. I take it at face value in this blog post that both evolution and global warming are issues upon which consensus is reached. The problem here isn't with the science; it's with our vision of the expert. A society unequipped with the rational equipment to distinguish between good and bad scientific claims -- and not in an immediate way. The research can take time -- is exactly the sort of society one would expect to see if it that society relied upon the image of the expert. The problem of the expert isn't that experts shouldn't speak; quite the contrary. The problem is that theatrical devices can achieve the image of the expert without the substantial mental effort necessary to become an expert. Additionally, the problem of the expert lies in the fact that experts will disagree, yet we lowly types not in the public sphere still need to be able to distinguish which expert is the better expert. This is particularly relevant in issues of basic scientific theory which happen to apply to political issues; because one can find a person with credentials who is willing to adopt a viewpoint, and use their expert status to back it up, we have a culture wherein we can easily select for the expert that happens to make us feel comfortable with our viewpoint. This is confirmation bias at work.

I state the problem of the expert because it is my opinion that this is a more basic question in the philosophy of science than the problem of demarcation. All solutions for demarcation have, at present, only excluded things which most individuals who have chosen rationality already excluded for basic, philosophic reasons. The problem of demarcation is, itself, a problem. If, instead, the philosophy of science concentrated on generating thought-technology for the lay man to integrate scientific knowledge, and to do so without excluding the majority of viewpoints already held dear, then the problem of demarcation would be swept away as an interesting question, in the same way that the problem of being is an interesting question in metaphysics. The problem of consensus is something of an ejaculatory beginning to a question I have that may or may not produce anything -- it may just be an intellectual curiosity. But it seems that one should at least have an idea when consensus is obtained if one wishes to integrate scientific knowledge into a population that, itself, does not practice science, and may not be interested in science enough to be educated in science.

Problem 2: What to integrate? As I'm heavily influenced by Dewey in my educational philosophy, I am interested in teaching methods to knowledge. In the context of science the problem with this is that science doesn't have a method, or rather that the method itself is also constantly evolving and changing with what is judged good by those practicing science, and is better learned by doing science than by formalization, but simultaneously one needs to "catch-up" with the facts before this process can begin. This is a necessity for the progress of science, but it does leave one contemplating the educational question in a quandary: What do you teach the public? Just the facts? But the facts change. The method? Again, so does this. That which is relevant to policy decisions? But here we run into the problem of the expert, and setting ourselves up as experts, which appears, in a theatrical sense, exactly like any expert. (Relevant side note: this highlights just how important Aesthetics are, or can be)

Problem 3: Alienation. While the wonders of science are wonderful to those in the in, the wonders of science appear mechanistic and destructive to a large fraction of the population. And this isn't totally unfounded -- the scientific community should never play apologist to the atom bomb, for example. I think it is in the problem of alienation that one is best able to explain the reaction against evolution, for example. Our cultural understanding of spatio-temporal explanations fall on the logical side of the divide, while our values fall on the extra-scientific side. And, what's more, the scientific community doesn't actually question itself on questions of the ethical impact of disseminating scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge needs be known -- the end. While I'm sympathetic to the need to disseminate knowledge, we also need to question How it is disseminated, and in what way it ought to be disseminated. Several viewpoints which seem to be working great for a large section of the population on their quest towards happiness (the real point of life) run counter to scientific knowledge. As Bertrand Russell said in What I Believe, you need knowledge in addition to love. The problem of alienation arises through our pursuit of the first and our negligence of the second. An answer to this question of alienation is the active integration of scientific viewpoints with existing, followed, and practiced philosophies that seem to work and don't run counter to being able to participate within this rational process. The ethic of this type of work should be -- if a worldview can be justified, then it should be justified. As I've become accustomed to a virtue-theory ethic, this can be justified by our cultural value of pluralism.

Because they are useful...

I ran into an interesting paragraph today. It stated the equation F = ma is used because... it's the fundamental equation in classical mechanics, and it helps to describe a lot of physical phenomena. Essentially, because it is useful. This was described in conjunction with a correlative equation in quantum mechanics that I can't begin to explain, so I'm not typing it out. There was a similar statement made in my Heat and Thermodynamics class that I'm taking: It claimed that Energy was THE fundamental concept of all of physics, and as such, evaded definition. This all brought home to me how much the philosophy of science is seriously influenced by Descartes and all the early modern philosophers: I've personally read that fundamental things escape definition being propagated by Descartes, Locke, and Hume. This shouldn't come up as much of a surprise, seeing as Descartes laid down fundamental work for calculus, and Hume is credited with seriously developing the philosophy behind the scientific method (Taking empiricism to its logical conclusions and inadvertently making a reductio ad absurdum argument for the existence of induction as a separate logical system, in my humble opinion). But this still surprises me.

The process of first principles in logical systems is arational, granted. But the idea that we use concepts in science simply because they are useful for describing the physical world seems, to me, to be a bit off from the idea that we are, indeed, understanding the physical world. I'm fine with stating that science only describes things in useful ways, and that is why we use them, but this description really gives little reason why we would choose one scientific explanation over another, or why even differing disciplines would, indeed, come to the same conclusions. I mean, by this, I could essentially adopt Aristotelian teleology in my description, claim that it's useful for understanding, and stand back satisfied with that use. However, just try and publish a scientific paper today where you ascribe purpose to your explanation, and I sincerely doubt it'll fly. To me, it seems that the "use" approach for validating the logical beginnings of scientific descriptions falls flat. I think the reason for this statement is to cut down the number of assumptions one has to make in making scientific pronouncements (which I would claim is a good thing) -- but unless there is some other validation method, I'm thinking that we are indeed still assuming that our minds are interpreting truth about the physical universe, but we're post hoc attempting to erase the fact that we're making this assumption.

So, sure, they're useful, and that's great. Maybe I'll change my mind when I realize there are other criteria that can be applied to first principles. However, I think it's a far more elegant solution to just admit that we're making something up that sounds like it might be right, then validating it empirically, and assuming all the while that our minds have some connection to the truth of the universe.

Arational Process

I am currently fascinated by the process by which one selects a hypothesis to test over other hypotheses, and that one can't test a hypothesis all unto itself. Funnily enough, even that is a hypothesis.

We have some concept of the universe we want to test -- a hypothesis -- and we select to test it out of several others. It all seems to match up after observations are made, but that matching may only be us looking for positive reinforcement of our own idea. So you also test a second hypothesis at the same time, the Null Hypothesis. The Null Hypothesis states what evidence would prove our initial hypothesis conclusively false.

But still, in the midst of this, there isn't a step by step process by which we choose a hypothesis -- there is no mechanism, no real way of knowing how to choose the best hypothesis. There are guidelines, but ultimately, science doesn't care how one chooses an idea to test. All science really is is a method for testing the "soundness" of an idea.

And even when the idea is validated, we often later will recount, reform, and rephrase our understanding of the universe. And... well, that fascinates me. It drives the point home that science is, while a rational process, is also an arational process at its heart. And it makes me wonder: Are all bodies of knowledge similarly arational? Euclid didn't have a method for choosing his postulates. Aristotle didn't have a method for distinguishing between his "Causes" -- it was essentially just really smart people pulling stuff out of their ass. If not math, science, or philosophy, what is fully rational? Logic?

Assumptions in Science

It is a hobby of mine to collect assumptions in the scientific method as I have a personal interest in philosophy in general, and the philosophy of science in specific. I try to keep them to a bare minimum and disprove assumptions, usually analytically. So, in this blog post, I am going to list some assumptions general to the scientific method that I do not think the method would work without, and give some commentary. I would appreciate input on the assumptions listed, as well as suggestions for further assumptions.

If there are Laws in nature, then those laws do not change with respect to time or space.

I don't think its necessary to assume that Laws do, in fact, exist, because science is a inductive process based in empiricism. So, if Laws exist, we will observe them -- they are not assumed to exist. However, because of the nature of science to build on the work of others, and because it sometimes takes time to fully understand the limits of a theory (Look at Newton)
, we assume that the Laws do not change from one time to another. They are, in this sense, eternal. I think it is better to state the assumption like this than to say that "Time Exists" or
"Space Exists" or "Laws Exist", because these are things that are either difficult to define outside of empirical definitions, or they are things that we do not know exist. If Time does not exist, then of course the laws won't change with respect to time, because a non-existent entity can't effect an existing one. It also doesn't presuppose that we will actually find order in the universe. We hope to find order, sure, but we can't say that we will find order without performing an experiment.


Our Physical World is Deterministic

This is an assumption that I've come to question as of late. I state "Physical World" because science only deals with the physical world. Further, the scientific method does not deal with any other possible physical world, but the one in which we live, because that is the only one which we can empirically verify, which is the highest form of verification in scientific inquiry. However, the term "Deterministic" is one that requires a bit of elucidation.

If by "Deterministic" all we mean is "Physical Laws can not be violated" then I am fine with the assumption of Determinism as an assumption (or, really, that's more of a definition). However, philosophically speaking, Determinism has a much wider meaning. Generally it means that every event from the beginning of time was determined before all events occurred. This can be demonstrated with a Thought Experiment: Supposing we know the physical laws of a photon, and we are present to observe the beginnings of the universe, then we can determine, through a long series of calculations, exactly where the photon is going to go.

However, I do not think we assume Determinism. I think by saying that Determinism is a major assumption in the scientific method, we're putting the cart before the horse. Rather, the evidence amassed through the scientific method suggests that our physical universe is a deterministic one. However, even within the confines of Monism (that the universe does not have any parrelel realities that act in different ways. Generally compared to Dualism, which is generally attributed to Descartes), and that Monism is our Physical Universe, things aren't necessarily deterministic in the grand sense that everything is predetermined before it happens. Rather, it is deterministic in the sense that physical laws can not be violated, and so action is limited, but only within the confines of physical laws, not completely Deterministic as it is usually defined.



There is a Truthful connection between our mind and the Universe

This is a recent one I came upon, so I haven't thought about it as much. It basically assumes that science, in general, is coming closer to the truth about things, rather than the truth about the way we think about things. There is no logical reason for assuming this, but it seems to be working so far. It's the sort of assumption one makes if they either believe in Dualism, or are not purely empirical, such as that demonstrated by David Hume. Science, dealing with Induction to understand data, and Deduction as means for formulating Hypothesis's and understanding of several Induction's, does not only deal with pure empiricism. Rather, it hops between "Types". These types are somewhat separate unto themselves and can be regarded as "Methods to Knowledge".

EDIT: Going through these posts again, I've realized that I've changed the most on this post. I fully disagree assumption 1 and 2, and I think "assumption" 3 can be well argued for, and therefore doesn't count as an assumption -- though it may have to be argued for in a "philosophic" sense, so it may still be an assumption within the domain of science if one accepts that these things are distinctly different at this point.

The Simplest Solution

Due to end-of-semester busyness, I was not able to update over the weekend. But, I want to try and stay on my self-assigned blog schedule, and now I'm just studying for finals, so a day late is better than a week, right?

I already had the idea that science tried to break things apart. But, generally, I always thought this was to find the most basic understanding of the universe -- to be able to explain causation from understanding the way that everything works. I think this is still a part of it, but there's another part to it too.

The human mind can only compute so much.

To demonstrate, see the following physics problem (and if you've had Physics I before, I'm sure you've solved this problem before):

A 1 kg rock is suspended by a massless string from one end of a 1 meter measuring stick. What is the mass of the measuring stick if it is balanced by a support force at the .25 meter mark?

I always find pictures to be useful when solving physics problems, so the first things first:




Really, that's about as complex as I normally draw, just to help me visualize a given scenario. In this problem, there is the word "Massless", which is just a fancy way of saying that the string that connects the rock to the meter stick doesn't have to be accounted for, so we're really just dealing with the rock, the meter stick, and the fact that the meter stick isn't moving even with the rock attached to it and the fact that the balancing point is located .25 meters away from where the rock is connected.

The main concept that needs to be applied here is the concept of Torque. Torque can be written in a number of ways, mathematically, but conceptually it's fairly simple, and related to my previous post talking about Force. When talking about Force, the examples and problems usually use cannon balls, footballs, or cars. That's because they easily relate to something called Translational Motion -- which is just the movement of an object from Point A to Point B. You throw a ball, it goes from your hand, Point A, to some spot on the ground, Point B, and there are a host of equations one can use to predict where that point will be based upon how hard you throw the ball, what angle you throw the ball at, and what the ball interacts with on the way there. These equations all have analogous equations that relate to another type of motion: Rotational Motion. Rotational motion is still motion, but it behaves differently than Translational Motion -- not so different that the Laws of the Universe are different, but we have to model them differently because their Translational motion would be a lot harder to model mathematically than it would if we were to just measure the motion of spinning things by the angles they travel through. So, really, it's still Point A to Point B motion, but instead of measuring things in meters, where the direction would constantly be changing, you measure things in Θ (Theta), a generic symbol meaning "Angle".

Torque is the rotational analogue to Force. But instead of F = ma, you have τ = Iα. τ is the Greek letter Tau, and it stands for Torque, which is rotational Force. α is the Greek letter alpha, and it stands for rotational acceleration (with units of radians/second^2, instead of meters/second^2).

This leaves "I". "I" stands for "Moment of Inertia", which does not explain itself as well as "Mass" does, so it requires a bit of explanation itself. Similarly to mass, if the Moment of Inertia is greater, it takes more Torque to gain a greater angular acceleration. But with rotational motion, you have to take more into account than the mass of an object. You also have to take into account how far away a mass is from the center of rotation. And, as you're actually dealing with a large number of particles all revolving around a single point (we'll call this point the "axle"), all of which may have different masses than each other, and most likely are at different lengths from the axle, this can easily get pretty complex. To be technically correct, you would have to find the distance a single particle is from the axle, find its mass, and compute its individual Moment of Inertia -- which is easy enough when you have only one particle. The equation for the Moment of Inertia of a single particle is "I=mr^2", where m is the mass and r is the distance from the axle. So, you square the distance of the particle from the axle, and multiply it by its mass. But when you're dealing with, say, a wheel, there are a lot of particles.

The way to then tackle a problem like the one above is the realize "Hey, this thing basically has an axle at .25 meters, and it has Torque being applied to that axle due to the Force of gravity. Even better than that, the thing isn't moving, so we know that the Torques are equal on both sides. So, the Torque of Left side is equal to the Torque of Right side, so I'll set their equations equal to one another. I know the mass of the rock, if I can figure out the Moment of Inertia for the Left side and the Moment of Inertia for the Right side, then I can find the mass of the meter stick".

Or, mathematically speaking, Iα(left) = Iα(right) from τ = Iα

This is where I made a mistake in tackling the above problem. There is a way to get around having to add up each individual particle, and in fact this simplification at least makes the moment of inertia calculable by hand. For example, when looking at pulleys (another favorite of physics problems) First, you assume that the particles are, more or less, the same mass, as the object is made of the same material -- a good assumption. Then, because the shape of a wheel is a regular shape where the outside of the wheel is equidistant from the axle, you can actually say "Hey! That pulley's a hellalot like a cylinder!", and make another assumption that is more or less correct: that the pulley will behave as if we had a perfect cylinder. The equation for the Moment of Inertia of a perfect solid cylinder is well known, so you can just plug it into the above equation and work away. It's 1/2mr^2, in case you're curious.

The problem is, the above problem is NOT a perfect cylinder, nor is it anywhere close to one. So, my first instinct was to go back to the basic definition for "I", where you can find "I" for any solid object (as that's what I'm dealing with). This involves integrating the volume of an object with respect to its mass which, quite honestly, is a pain in the ass -- at least for me. And actually, this is what I learned: It's not that there is anything wrong with taking the above approach, but you want to simplify the problem to make it easy, digestible, and understandable. And there is such a solution to the above problem, I just didn't see it initially.

It deals with a concept known as "Center of Mass". Center of Mass lets you treat a whole object as if it were a point particle. You mathematically find some fictional point near the object that the object will follow in motion, so you can use the equations you normally use for a point -- which are easier to deal with than whole objects. It also deals with how you define your system. Before I was looking at the system as "Left Side" and "Right Side", but that combines the mass of the meter stick on the left side, which itself is unknown, and I would have to use more algebra to find the unknown. Instead, if I look at the above problem as "Rock" and "Meter stick", then I at least have less algebra to do.

So, applying the idea of "Center of Mass" to the above problem, I have the rock. The objects weight is concentrated at the left end of the meter stick, due to the massless string, so I can treat the rock like a point at the left end of the meter stick. Then I have the meter stick. By itself, the meter stick, assuming that the mass of the meter stick is more or less spread out evenly (a good assumption), has a Center of Mass at its center. In relation to the axle we're dealing with, that puts the point particle .25 meters away on the right side of the axle, which is the exact distance of the rocks center of mass. So, the above picture can now be drawn as:


I put the circle and arrows in to emphasize the fact that we're really dealing with Torque here, even though this isn't a wheel. What can be seen in the picture is the two torques we're dealing with are in opposite angular direction, and are equidistant from the axle. The beauty to this solution lies in the fact that I is easy to find (mr^2, because now they're points). Also note, because the sum of the Torques are equal to one another, we have no angular acceleration to deal with (which means, technically, we wouldn't have any torque, but the above Torque equation is ACTUALLY written as "The sum of the Torques" with a Σ before τ to denote "Add Torques up" and differs slightly from the mathematical definition of Torque. I just wanted to tie the idea of Torque into Force from before)

So, we substitute "τ" for "Iα", then drop α because there isn't any, and are left with I = I. Substitute mr^2, and you're left with mr^2 = mr^2, and looking at the picture, you see that the Center of Mass is equally distant, so it follows that the masses of the two particles must be the same.

Had I started with Center Mass, I would've realized that the points were equally distant from one another, and that the meter stick wasn't going anywhere, so they'd have to be equal in mass too, and I could have solved this in less than 1 minute.

And that's when it dawned on me -- we can really make things as complex as we want. It's not the complexity in science that we even want. It's the simplicity. We're dealing with a highly complex universe that takes time to understand, and there's no way we'd understand it if all we do is take the clunkiest path to understanding. We want to break things apart and find the root cause of phenomena, sure, but in addition to that we just want to be able to understand the phenomena themselves without going through a huge and sometimes difficult to follow line of thinking (as I did above).

So, that's why you look for the simplest solution -- because we can only compute so much in our head at once, and there's a certain satisfaction that comes with a simple explanation if that little bit explains a whole lot.

Dembski's Argument for Intelligent Design

This is a little off-topical from what I want to blog about, as it relates to biology, but I recently read Dembski's paper "Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information". It's an older paper (1998), but it attempts to justify Intelligent Design as a proper scientific theory of biology. Now, I am no biologist -- I have a general working knowledge of biology, but far from in depth -- but I am a scientist (in training), and have a more firm, if not complete, grasp of science, the scientific method, and the philosophy behind science, and my critique of Dembski's paper relies on these concepts.

I don't expect everyone to read the entire paper, but the critique makes more sense if you're at least passingly familiar with it. As such, I present the abstract here:

For the scientific community intelligent design represents creationism's latest grasp at scientific legitimacy. Accordingly, intelligent design is viewed as yet another ill-conceived attempt by creationists to straightjacket science within a religious ideology. But in fact intelligent design can be formulated as a scientific theory having empirical consequences and devoid of religious commitments. Intelligent design can be unpacked as a theory of information. Within such a theory, information becomes a reliable indicator of design as well as a proper object for scientific investigation. In my paper I shall (1) show how information can be reliably detected and measured, and (2) formulate a conservation law that governs the origin and flow of information. My broad conclusion is that information is not reducible to natural causes, and that the origin of information is best sought in intelligent causes. Intelligent design thereby becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin, and tracing its flow.

Dembski is essentially setting out to scientifically prove two points, all the while using those two points to "Science-ify" ID.

Next Dembski defines information as "...the actualization of an event to the exclusion of other events". He compares this to the common sense definition, namely, that information is "the transmission of signals across a communication channel". He references two philosophers whose work, related to this paper, is in the philosophy of the mind. And, yes: The mind, when presented with information, has to tune out of the majority of the massive amount of information being presented to it by the senses in order to properly function and focus. At the end of this section, Dembski states:

"Information needs to [be] referenced not just to the actual world, but also cross-referenced with all possible worlds."

He builds to this subtly, all the while making, more or less, low-key insightful definitions of what information is, and what we may need to consider when considering how information behaves. But this is the first statement that bespeaks the nature of Dembski's argument; it is philosophical, not scientific. Namely, the reference to all possible worlds, as concieved in Anslem's ontological argument for the existence of God, is in no way scientific, or even related to science. No matter what may have happened in our world, one core assumption in science is that the natural universe is deterministic: the entire natural world follows laws, and those laws are immutable. We may not know, exactly, what those laws are, but that doesn't change the laws' status with regards to existence. In addition, just because we have a model of probability, that does not change the determinist assumption core to scientific inquiry. For example: The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we can never know both the location and momentum of an electron, and the quantum model of the atom relies upon the idea that an electron exists in more than one location at one time, and uses probability to describe how likely an electron will be at one location at a certain time. That does not change the idea of the universe being deterministic. These are models of the physical world -- a statement of "is", a model attempting to understand an absolute certainty of how probable the electron will be present at a certain location, and the ability to predict how the atom will behave based upon that probability. It's still determinist -- it's just unfamiliar to how we usually think of determinism. Secondly, in the grand metaphysical sense there are other possible worlds: But there is no way of understanding those worlds, no matter how close they relate to ours, in a scientific way. Science delves into the natural world, and the natural world only. The natural world is the one we live in, the one where the things that happen in the realm of our senses is the only one we study. Even in a possible world where, everything else being the same as ours, a quarter flipped a year ago lands heads up instead of tails up is a world that science does not and can not understand, as we have no way to sense that world.


The next two sections of the paper delve into more definitions that are attempting to link information theory to the study of biology. First, Dembski derives a method of measuring information, as measurements are necessary to science. He uses the analogy of a deck of cards and poker hands. His example states two possibilities: a royal flush, and all other possible hands. He then goes through some probability mathematics and applies information theory concepts to show that there is more information in knowing that we obtained a royal flush than there is in knowing we obtained one of the other possibilities. The argument follows. Intuitively, if you have a hand of "one of every other possibility", there are any number of hands you could possibly have, while the specifications of "Royal Flush" require exact cards, so you actually have more information by knowing you have a royal flush as opposed to a set consisting of several possibilites. There is also a definition integral to his argument, namely, "Complex Information". Complex information is information similar to the Royal Flush -- it has a larger magnitude of information than "Simple Information", and that complexity indicates some sort of correlation between possible events. Dembski states at the end of the first section:

This notion of complexity is important to biology since not just the origin of information stands in question, but the origin of complex information.

He has yet to establish the connection between complex information and the study of biology. Earlier in the paper, he quotes the honorable Biophysical Chemist Manfred Eigen (Who is a Grade A scientific bad ass):

In Steps Towards Life Manfred Eigen (1992, p. 12) identifies what he regards as the central problem facing origins-of-life research: "Our task is to find an algorithm, a natural law that leads to the origin of information." Eigen is only half right. To determine how life began, it is indeed necessary to understand the origin of information. Even so, neither algorithms nor natural laws are capable of producing information.

But that still doesn't establish the link between information theory and biology. Also note that Steps Towards Life is a popular science book which, while probably insightful, can easily be taken out of context. In addition, it is the opinion of a man that, while blazingly brilliant, can still be wrong, and also has not established the link between information and biology, scientifically speaking. I don't mean to demean Manfred Eigen in any way with this -- but, that's the process. Opinions are wonderful to debate in a philosophical sense, and can often inspire people in many ways, both scientifically and otherwise, but opinion does not equate to science.


The next portion distinguishes between "Specified Complex Information" and "Unspecified Complex Information". He uses the example of an archer shooting at a wall so large that he can not miss, but gives two pertinant scenarios: One in which the archer paints the target before he shoots and hits a bulls eye, and one in which the archer paints a target after the arrow hits the wall and makes it look like a bulls eye. He covers some other possibilities, but essentially, the scenario where the archer shoots the arrow and then hits a bulls eye is equatable to "Specified Complex Information", and it is the type of information that can lead us to scientifically understand that the archer is a good archer.

Dembski then continues by generalizing the above scenario: Basically, that patterns established before they are tested, but then verified by tests, are the type of patterns one knows to be linked to causality. The patterns established after having witnessing an event may be causally related, but they may also be fabrications, similar to the scenario with the archer painting a target around his arrow. He then compares this generalization to the study of life, as life obviously can't formulate a hypothesis about itself before it exists. In this paragraph, he states:

But what about the origin of life? Is life specified? If so, to what patterns does life correspond, and how are these patterns given independently of life's origin?

Which needs more clarification as to what exactly he's asking for. How is it conceivable to separate the patterns of life from their origin, and why is that necessary? Dembski seems to be critiquing all of scientific inquiry here because it is formulated a posteriori -- but that's what all scientific inquiry is based upon. It is only through experience that we gain ideas of how the world works, then through experimenting with those ideas that we confirm that they are, indeed, good scientific ideas. Newton was inspired by the movement of planets. Dalton was inspired by the formation of storms. While a fair amount of theoretical reasoning has to go into science, theory is nothing without experimentation -- which Dembski acknowledges, but he's rejecting the thought of basing theory upon experience on the sole basis that then the theory is more likely to be favored. It's a great question to pose, for the philosopher of science, but it is this subjectivity that the scientific method attempts to overcome. Bringing up a difficulty in performing scientific inquiry to critique a theory derived from performing that scientific inquiry is, still, not scientific, but philosophical. Dembski is free to reject the confines of the scientific method, but if he does so, he can not then claim to have a scientific theory, as he did not reach that theory through the process of science.

The next paragraph, which I will quote in full, is where Dembski argues for the link between information theory and biology, as well as science in general:

Information can be specified. Information can be complex. Information can be both complex and specified. Information that is both complex and specified I call "complex specified information," or CSI for short. CSI is what all the fuss over information has been about in recent years, not just in biology, but in science generally. It is CSI that for Manfred Eigen constitutes the great mystery of biology, and one he hopes eventually to unravel in terms of algorithms and natural laws. It is CSI that for cosmologists underlies the fine-tuning of the universe, and which the various anthropic principles attempt to understand (cf. Barrow and Tipler, 1986). It is CSI that David Bohm's quantum potentials are extracting when they scour the microworld for what Bohm calls "active information" (cf. Bohm, 1993, pp. 35-38). It is CSI that enables Maxwell's demon to outsmart a thermodynamic system tending towards thermal equilibrium (cf. Landauer, 1991, p. 26). It is CSI on which David Chalmers hopes to base a comprehensive theory of human consciousness (cf. Chalmers, 1996, ch. 8). It is CSI that within the Kolmogorov-Chaitin theory of algorithmic information takes the form of highly compressible, non-random strings of digits (cf. Kolmogorov, 1965; Chaitin, 1966).

So, essentially, Dembski is claiming that all science can be modeled by information theory. But he has no scientific basis for this -- only a philosophical argument, which, again, is not science. It's true that science deals with information, mathematical models, and computer programs to better understand the world. But that still does not establish a direct scientific connection between information theory and all other areas of science. Furthermore, if a scientific connection were established between information theory and, suppose, just biology, then unless there was a reason to reject the theory of evolution and replace it with information theory, then information theory's model of biology would conform to the model of evolution. By analogy, we don't have a sub-atomic particle model of how an animal behaves at the moment, but unless evolution were somehow disproven, then the sub-atomic model of population shifts would conform to the evolutionary model.

What Dembski claims is that information theory is superior to all other sciences, and thereby claiming that any law formulated in information theory will trump all other scientific laws. This, also, goes against a basic philosophy of science concept: Theories are not proven, only disproven. Unless we have a reason to reject a scientific theory, we continue working with it. There is no superior science -- the natural world is deterministic, we study the natural world, so all conclusions, no matter what facet of that natural world we study, will, in the end, match each other. In science, one does not see all the theories before them, and then start a new theory that needs to be worked out. The scientific world would forever be reformulating ideas and starting the work of Newton over again if that were the case. One builds upon the ideas that have so far shown to be good scientific ideas. One is right to question assumptions or ideas that have come before them, but if there is not scientific evidence, or, essentially, a reason to reject those ideas, then those ideas are assumed to be correct for the purposes of building a body of knowledge related to the natural world.


The next section is titled "Intelligent Design". Here, Dembski states:

In this section I shall argue that intelligent causation, or equivalently design, accounts for the origin of complex specified information.

He continues to describe how a psychologist determines whether or not a rat has learned how to navigate a maze. The maze must be complex, in order to eliminate the chance of the rat solving the maze by shear luck, and the rat then must demonstrate that it has memorized the series of turns it takes to get to the other end of the maze. This is a method for determining if the rat has learned, and thereby, demonstrate that it has made an intelligent choice. There is also an analogy drawn to the difference between writing a sentence, and spilling a bottle of ink on paper. In one case, someone directs the pen, in the other, the ink randomly spills out. For further clarification, Dembski also references a story about an American listening to someone speak Chinese: There is design, but it is incomprehensible to the American, simply because he lacks the knowledge of the Chinese language. But this does not stop it from being an Intelligent choice. Then Dembski states:

The actualization of one among several competing possibilities, the exclusion of the rest, and the specification of the possibility that was actualized encapsulates how we recognize intelligent causes, or equivalently, how we detect design. Actualization-Exclusion-Specification, this triad constitutes a general criterion for detecting intelligence, be it animal, human, or extra-terrestrial. Actualization establishes that the possibility in question is the one that actually occurred. Exclusion establishes that there was genuine contingency (i.e., that there were other live possibilities, and that these were ruled out). Specification establishes that the actualized possibility conforms to a pattern given independently of its actualization.

Dembski then states that this pattern for recognizing intelligent causation exactly matches up to the criteria for recognizing CSI. Implicitly, because of Dembski's claim to linking CSI to to all of science, and because the confirmation of CSI follows exactly how psychologists confirm that an acting being intelligently makes a choice, it follows that then what science studies, CSI, is generated from an intelligent cause.

The problem with this argument is that he has not properly established a link between CSI and all other science. Further, he has not established even a philosophical argument for the link between a psychologist determining whether a mouse has learned, and the determination of CSI. Technically, if the confirmation of CSI were grounded in scientific inquiry, then it's painstakingly obvious that it would follow the same pattern that a psychologist uses to determine if a mouse has learned a maze: They'd both be scientific. In addition, just because a process can be formulated in such a way that they are seemingly the same, does not mean they pertain to the same things -- in one example, a psychologist determines how a mouse learns, and attempts to generalize those findings to other mice and, ultimately, other animals. This has nothing to do with an intelligent causation to explain the existence of life, and everything to do with how animals learn. Dembski fails to establish a philosophical bridge, as well as a scientific one, from mouse to, essentially, God. So, his conclusion does not follow from his premises, a textbook non sequitur error.

Further, the first statement demonstrates how this argument is not a scientific one: That intelligent causation accounts for CSI. Even if his argument had followed, it would not matter. One can rationalize a good many things with complete validity, and still be wrong. An argument can have validity, but no experimental support. Here Dembski presents an a priori rationalization for an intelligent causation to the origins of life. Even had it validity, it would not have experimental support, which is essential to the process of science.


The final paragraph outlines Dembski's postulated Conservation Law. In it, he critique's Eigen for attributing the origin of CSI to natural causes, because, in his opinion it can not be explained by natural causes. He then claims, because he has proposed a law of conservation, that information theory as applied to biology is a scientific theory. He continues to argue that pure chance -- the type of randomness proposed by Epicurus, where the universe follows no law other than randomness -- can not account for CSI. He continues to argue that neither can a Darwinian approach account for the existence of CSI (and, hence, life) because Darwin's theory only deals with how life changes over time, not how it was initially generated. Finally, because of this, Dembski concludes that natural causes can not account for the existence of CSI, and goes on to expound upon the implications this holds for scientific inquiry. Namely, in analyzing the origins of CSI, Dembski uses a systems-surroundings model, defines his system as the natural universe, which contains CSI that can neither be generated or destroyed. Because CSI can neither be generated or destroyed, it must have come from somewhere which, in Dembski's view, is the surroundings: The intelligent causation.

This parellels both Paley's watchmaker argument, as well as Aquinas' first cause argument for the existence of God. I, personally, disagree with both arguments, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Dembski continues to make a priori rationalizations for the existence of an intelligent cause, all the while claiming that his argument is a scientific one. This is patently false. There is no method, there is no experiment, there is only suppositions. As beautiful as philosophy is to study, masking it as science because you disagree with the conclusions of science is not science. The fact that Dembski spends roughly half the paper talking about probability mathematics and another third of the paper referencing basic psychology and some concepts related to information theory does not change the fact that Dembski is, essentially, making an ontological argument for the existence of an intelligent designer. Dembski demonstrates this when he claims that the origin of life can not be explained through natural causes, as science only deals with natural causes.


Also, I want to briefly address a philosophical point: Namely, the social implication that science and religion are somehow at odds. I claim that they are in no way related. As I critique Dembski for attempting to apply the scientific method to the existence of God, I similarly critique Dawkins. Not that this necessarily bolsters my argument, I'm only claiming consistency. God is a metaphysical question. Science is an epistemic method to understanding the natural world, and only the natural world. God, by most definitions, is somehow outside the natural world. Therefore, science can say nothing about God, or, as Dembski puts it, an intelligent designer. If God is, by definition, the natural world, then and only then can science interpret God, and those conclusions will be unaltered by this Spinozan derived definition of God.

Because science has nothing to do with God, you can go on believing whatever it is you will with regards to God no matter the conclusions of science. Just realize that making claims about the natural world because of supernatural reasons, such as dating the world 6000 years old because of biblical record, will not be taken seriously by anyone who accepts the scientific method. After all, as the scientific method has nothing to say about God, God has nothing to say about the natural world, aside, possibly, as an a priori rationalization for the existence of it.

Basically, I'm just stating that questions of science and questions of God mix like oil and water. It is your personal conviction that determines their relative densities.