Intelligent design redux

[axocanth]

I guess we'll see if the name "axocanth" is as widely recognised and lauded as the name Darwin 200 years from now.

Sigh! This again. Well, I can sympathize with your motivations, James, even if I'm not overly enamored with the unnecessary ridicule (but it's alright lol). No doubt you do, in your capacity as a moderator here, have to deal with your fair share of nuts who have convinced themselves that they've identified a fatal flaw in Einstein's general theory of relativity.

I have no such pretensions to genius, everlasting glory, or even ephemeral neon lights. The "tautology problem" vis-à-vis natural selection theory is none of my creation. It was noticed almost as soon as Darwin proposed his theory and has continued to haunt Darwinism ever since. It quickly became apparent, after I mentioned it here a few pages back, that no one present had even heard of it. It appears we can add your name to the list now.

It's not a crank position, it's a staple of almost any introductory textbook to the philosophy of biology (a flourishing field!), and whether or not it can be solved, it cannot simply be dismissed and swept aside. It's a serious problem that many serious thinkers, including scientists themselves on occasion, have devoted their attention to.

Yes, the typical reaction of blissfully unaware biologists, or scientists in general, when first made aware of it, is that displayed by yourself - "You gotta be kidding me!? You think Darwin wrote a book about nothing? Have you always had delusions of grandeur? Have you considered seeking professional help?"

I've heard it all before, lol.

Others are a bit too savvy for that, S. J. Gould, for example, who attempted his own solution, recognizing that there is indeed a potentially serious problem threatening the very core of evolutionary theory. I find his solution unconvincing. Even Steven Pinker (of all people!) attempts a solution somewhere.



Check out the top few posts on page 71, especially the link I provided. You'll learn, for example, that the so-called "propensity interpretation of fitness" was introduced by philosophers of science precisely because scientists -- including some of the finest -- were describing their theory in a blatantly circular manner. Many continue to do so!

The propensity interpretation does not fix the problem, in my view at least. You've been invoking it yourself in your recent posts, presumably without even being aware of it. We can discuss why it fails in more depth if you wish.

You know what? I do get the distinct impression, towards the end of our exchange, that you are beginning -- ever so vaguely and nebulously -- to get a sense that there may actually be something to all this (no one else here has). Or is it just my imagination?

And, as they say, as soon as you acknowledge the problem, you're already halfway to a cure!



By the way, the person who has probably written the most on this, to my knowledge anyway, is a guy named Robert N. Brandon. Psst! He's one of the good guys, at least as you see things. He wants to help.

I suggest, to the contrary, that the best way to help evolutionary biology is by first recognizing that we have a lame duck of a theory, and then moving onto something better. And you might be surprised to hear that the "evo-devo" folks have been known to say very similar things. Their voices are getting louder too! -- or is it just my paranoid schizophrenia again lol?

For the most sophisticated treatment of all, try Jerry Fodor's "What Darwin Got Wrong". Now, that dude is something of a genius.

 

[Pinball1970]

Fortunately, this isn't the crux of the theory of evolution. Rather, it is a misunderstanding

And it did not stand still like any good scientific theory. Darwin was wrong about genes, Mendel helped out there then the mathematics guys got hold of it like Fisher, Hardy and Weinberg then we had the DNA revolution, Biotechnology, epigenetics and now AI.
All contributing, editing, refining. Papers published everyday with just another little bit of the puzzle.
I posted here on the fossil record this week.

But hey, some people would rather get get hung up on terms, pointless irrelevance and pretentious, vacuous, philosophical clap trap.
In doing so missing the simplistic beauty and genius of something like natural selection and the actual science and applications.

We must still keep trying to educate and if that fails we have the ignore button.

 

[axocanth]

It sounds a bit like you're suggesting that there's no evolution at all, really - just the fact of some organisms being lucky enough to survive while others are not, or something along those lines. That is, evolution isn't really a theory at all - it's just a way of pretending that what is actually entirely random is something other than that.

Is that what you think?

At the risk of flogging a dead horse . . . that is absolutely not what I think.

It is not a matter of luck that the allies prevailed in WW2 or that the Spartans prevailed in the Peloponnesian war, and any budding scholar of military history is unlikely to be awarded a PhD for suggesting as much. Like most everything else, we assume there are causal factors involved, and perhaps we can even identify these causes.

Exactly the same applies to dark moths prevailing over light moths and polar bears with white fur faring relatively well against their green furred brethren (or not!). Empirical studies may even be able to identify these causal factors. If they do, the substantive explanation for any particular episode will be found "on the ground", as it were.

What I do think, is that in neither of these scenarios, are the causes given to you by a vacuous overarching theory such as those we examined, nor are these scenarios explained in retrospect by a vacuous truism.


In short: the causes and explanations of the Peloponnesian war, WW2, and every other battle or war have nothing in common except for the utterly trivial.

Ditto for natural selection.

If you disagree, tell me what all such episodes (moths, bears, bacteria, etc.) have in common. I submit nothing but vacuity.



Cf. Newtonian theory (or any other typical scientific theory) where the causes are given to you by the theory (e.g. a gravitational force in all cases) and the explanation for all events in its domain is non-trivial and identical (ditto).

Does anyone suppose there really is a force of natural selection, analogous to a Newtonian force, active in all cases of putative natural selection?

 

[axocanth]

We must still keep trying to educate and if that fails we have the ignore button.

Spoken like a good seeker of truth (cough): If you can't even understand it, let alone refute it, bury it -- and return to one's favorite pursuit of kindergarten-level Creationist bashing.

 

[axocanth]

But hey, some people would rather get get hung up on terms, pointless irrelevance and pretentious, vacuous, philosophical clap trap.
In doing so missing the simplistic beauty and genius of something like natural selection and the actual science and applications.

And hey, some people who have never bothered to educate themselves on philosophical claptrap will cheerfully demonstrate to a stunned audience that 2 + 2 does not equal 4 . . . by slipping into another language.

Who needs philosophy when you have a magic wand!


For his next trick, ladies and gentlemen, Pinball will prove that Ben Affleck is stupid because ben (笨) in Chinese means stupid. And it does!

 

[axocanth]

Turning to your question, the matter of "well adapted" is always something that is specific to a particular set of environmental conditions. One cannot generalise about it. Thus, your demand that I give you an example of "well adapted organisms" that aren't successful is either a mistake - because it assumes that there is only one set of conditions that make all things "well adapted" - or it setting a deliberate trap by asking for a demonstration that you already know is impossible.

Call it a trap if you like, it's not the expression I'd use myself. What I am trying to do is lead you a realization of the (possible!) circularity in what you're saying. If that counts as a trap, so be it. There's no need for us to specify a particular species, environment, or traits.

Consider:

NS1: "Such-and-such survives and reproduces well [in a given ecology] because it is well adapted."


Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that this statement is non-circular; a perfectly respectable natural selection-type explanation. Is this right? I'll proceed on the assumption that this is your position.

For it to be non-circular, the definition, or the conceptual content, of "well adapted" must not itself contain the notion of survival and reproductive success, otherwise it would be analogous to "Mr Smith is unmarried because he is a bachelor" (the concept "bachelor" already contains "unmarried").

With me so far?

Now, if you can show that the two concepts -- "well adapted" vs. "successful in survival and reproduction" -- are independent of one another, then you're in the clear. If they're not independent of one another, you'd be explaining something by appeal to itself, thus open to charges of circularity.

Still with me?

Now, if they're independent, as you need them to be, something could be -- as a matter of routine -- well adapted and lousy at surviving and reproducing. I'm suggesting it makes no sense to speak this way, just as it makes no sense to speak of a married bachelor -- the two notions are inextricably entwined.

So now consider a population (not an individual - for reasons I'll explain if not already clear to you) of organisms, any species you like. Does it make any sense to say, "These organisms are really really super-duper well adapted . . . and even under normal conditions they all die young and produce no offspring."?

I'm saying this makes no sense. If you disagree, tell us what this would look like in real terms. I'm suggesting it is literally inconceivable.

For example, I suppose when you think well adapted, you think of camels in the Sahara or something. Right? They can tolerate the heat, they can get by without fresh water for a long period, and so on. They do well -- they thrive -- at least relatively speaking, in the desert environment. To say they are well adapted, then, is just to say they can survive well in that environment. Is it not so? Otherwise how is "well adapted" to be understood? - really well engineered but die from the heat in an hour? Surely that makes no sense?

Presumably, to be well adapted also logically implies reproductive success. Can there be such a population that is really well adapted -- exceeds at survival -- and fails miserably at reproduction? Again, it doesn't seem to make sense. If they're not reproducing successfully they're not surviving successfully. They're not thriving.



If my above analysis holds water, then NS1 reduces to . . .

"Such-and-such survives and reproduces well [in a given ecology] because it is well adapted (i.e., inter alia, it survives and reproduces successfully in this ecology)" . . .

. . . and natural selection is in deep camel dung.


Tell me what you think. Thanks!

 

[axocanth]

Just in case anyone is interested, and I don't mind talking to myself anyway lol -- it helps arrange one's thoughts. I'm going to point to the critical juncture in yesterday's exchange with James, indeed the juncture immediately after which James went silent. Perhaps a coincidence. Then again, perhaps he suddenly realized something - a eureka moment! -- upon which he became aware (to his horror no doubt) that natural selection is unlike any other scientific theory (that I can think of anyway) and wanted time to think.

I'm arguing that it is indeed unique among scientific theories, and the reason for this is that it is utterly vacuous. Now consider (and see my reply in post 1485) . . .

Turning to your question, the matter of "well adapted" is always something that is specific to a particular set of environmental conditions. One cannot generalise about it.

Correct!! Right!!! Damn straight!! Say it a hundred times, everyone -- YOU CAN'T GENERALISE !!!! This is the absolute crux of the issue, and can't be emphasized enough.

But Darwin did generalize -- and so did everyone else who has followed suit since. And if or when you do generalize from particular cases (moths, polar bears, and a gazillion others) to all cases, you invariably and inescapably end up with a vacuous truism of the form: "Those better able to survive, reproduce, and increase proportionally do (tend to) survive, reproduce, and increase proportionally."


James, at this point, has already identified the problem, though its catastrophic consequences haven't quite hit him yet. But they are just about to! James goes on to argue in effect, "So what? All scientific theories are like that!!". Observe . . .

Do you feel that the revolution of the Earth around the sun is adequately explained by Newton's Law of Gravity or - if you prefer - Einstein's theory of General Relativity?

General theories do not attempt to explain specific cases. If they did, they wouldn't be general theories.

To say such a thing is simply mind-blowing, absolutely incredible! -- but James does say it, and I suspect he very quickly became aware -- to his horror! -- of the absurdity of what he had just said, with a little prompting from myself.

Of course general theories explain their instances! What good is a general theory that doesn't explain any observations !!???? (cf. Dogs are dogs)

Pick any theory you like. How about Newtonian gravity? Every single instance of planetary motion, tidal motion, projectile motion is explained by the theory -- in exactly the same way -- by appeal to an attractive gravitational force which acts according to an inverse-square law. The theory's prediction and explanation for the punctual return of Halley's Comet -- a specific case if ever there was one -- was announced as a major triumph for the theory.

Now, Newton's theory may be true, or it may be false, thus the explanations thereby proffered may be true or false. Don't get sidetracked; that's not the issue at stake here. Whether true or false, the theory nonetheless offers a uniform, non-circular, substantive (= non-trivial) account for all phenomena within its domain. The cause of the observable phenomena is exactly the same in every case.

Now pick another scientific theory. Pick ten! I submit they will all follow the pattern described above: Each offers a uniform, non-circular, substantive explanation for the phenomena within its purview.



I further submit there is only one scientific theory which does not follow this pattern. No prizes for guessing which one!

In each individual case of natural selection supposedly at work (moths, polar bears, bacteria, etc.) there is a perfectly good individual explanation to be given. In the specific case of peppered moths, for example, the explanation is that dark moths are better able to survive, reproduce, and increase proportionally against a backdrop of sooty trees than lighter colored moths. The explanation for giraffes, say, will appeal to different traits, different environmental factors, and thus different causes.

This is exactly analogous to one explanation being given for the Spartan victory, and another for the victory at Waterloo, say, and yet another for every other battle you can think of. The explanations and the causes responsible for victory are quite different in every instance. Each individual case is explained individually -- unlike Newton and gravity -- and the search for a common cause uniting all of them is almost certainly futile, even if certain local generalizations may be possible (e.g. good swords played a decisive role in several battles).



Is it really not possible to provide a common, unifying account of all cases of putative natural selection? Well, before continuing, a salutary reminder of James's critical insight - You can't generalise !!!!


Note first that with any other scientific theory, you can generalize without any problem arising. Note second that you can -- and Darwin et al did -- generalize with natural selection theory, but the result is vacuous triviality, something that looks disturbingly like my general theory of military victories. Compare:

Natural selection: In all cases -- whether it be polar bears, moths, or whatever -- you will find two groups of organisms in competition with one another. One group has traits that are relatively advantageous to survival and reproductive expansion. This group proceeds to survive and expand.

Military victories: In all cases -- whether it be Spartans, Genghis Khan or whatever -- you will find two groups of soldiers in competition with one another. One group has traits that are relatively advantageous to survival, military success, and expansion. This group proceeds to survive and expand.



Ever wondered why natural selection is unique among scientific theories in predicting absolutely nothing? Wonder no more! We should no more expect a vacuous truism such as the general theory of natural selection to yield substantive (non-trivial) predictions than we should expect "Comets are comets" to predict the return of Halley's Comet.

 

[axocanth]

Just one more thing: When we have been conditioned to see the world a certain way, it is extremely difficult to see the world any other way.

All your life you've been viewing the natural world through a pair of natural selection spectacles. By contrast, you have not been viewing the world through a pair of "General Theory of Military Victory" spectacles. If at all possible, try removing these natural selection spectacles -- even if only briefly -- and see how the natural world looks.

You might be surprised. It looks an awful lot like the history of human warfare!

 

[axocanth]

First, to set the stage, review the following if you will be so kind . . .

Have you read On the origin of species?

In it, Darwin spends a lot of time talking about artificial selection before moving on to the idea of natural selection.

We humans are familiar with the idea that we can artificially select for desired traits in animals and plants by selectively breeding. Darwin noticed that nature does the same kind of thing, selecting for adaptive traits via the process Darwin called "natural selection".

and also . . .

Just one more thing: When we have been conditioned to see the world a certain way, it is extremely difficult to see the world any other way.

All your life you've been viewing the natural world through a pair of natural selection spectacles. By contrast, you have not been viewing the world through a pair of "General Theory of Military Victory" spectacles. If at all possible, try removing these natural selection spectacles -- even if only briefly -- and see how the natural world looks.

You might be surprised. It looks an awful lot like the history of human warfare!

I'm going to address the following to only James and Write4U on the grounds that you are the only two contributors to this thread that I have been impressed by, among those that I've interacted with anyway (the rest are beyond hope lol).

I'm wondering if you can do what I suggest above, namely take off your natural selection theory-laden goggles and view matters in an . . . innocent way, shall we say. I repeat, it's not at all easy to do, so inculcated are we with talk of selection, adaptation, fitness, and all the other associated jargon. You don't have to be persuaded, you can put your goggles back on any time you feel nauseous (lol), but can you do it at all?

Here's what I have in mind. First, forget all about Darwin and -- in order to get in the right frame of mind -- consider you have a "God's eye view" (indulge me) of the Battle of Iwo Jima, or the Battle of Bannockburn, or choose your own fave battles or wars. Describe the events as you see them. The actual numbers or proportions aren't important, I'll just make them up. Your description of Iwo Jima, for example, might look something like this:

"First there were 5000 Japanese and 5000 American soldiers, an equal proportion. A struggle ensued. Due to factors (cf. causes) such as superior weaponry, starvation of the Japanese, etc. the proportion gradually swung in favor of the Americans, until at the very end it was 95% Americans and only 5% Japanese."


Now do the same for Thermopylae or Bannockburn or Agincourt or you name it. Try it with a war that lasted years, e.g. WW2.

Note that it would never cross your mind to suppose that there was some kind of selection process going on here. Good thing too, because no selection is happening! Only a madman would suppose that there was. I submit further that it's unlikely you'll identify any common cause linking all the battles. Moreover, the explanation for success will look quite different in each case.



Now let's turn to the natural world and I emphasize: get these NS goggles off first! Choose your own episodes, textbook cases of supposed natural selection at work, and you are once again granted a God's-eye-view of events, even if these events might span decades or longer. Allow me to demonstrate with these peppered moths again:

"First there were 10000 light moths and only 2000 dark moths. A struggle ensued. Due to factors (cf. causes) such as a gradual darkening of tree bark making the dark moths harder for predators to see, the proportion gradually swung in favor of the dark moths, until at the very end it was 90% dark moths and only 10% light moths."


Now do the same for polar bears or bacteria or giraffes or you name it.

Note that it would never cross your mind to suppose that there was some kind of selection process going on here because your natural selection goggles have been removed. Good thing too, because no selection is happening! I submit further that it's unlikely you'll identify any common cause linking all these struggles. Moreover, the explanation for success will look quite different in each case.



Are the results in yet? Did you find any common cause? Do the various explanations for "victory" look the same or quite different? Or are they as similar/different as your battle explanations?


Now, back to James at the top again . . .

In it, Darwin spends a lot of time talking about artificial selection before moving on to the idea of natural selection. We humans are familiar with the idea that we can artificially select for desired traits in animals and plants by selectively breeding. Darwin noticed that nature does the same kind of thing, selecting for adaptive traits via the process Darwin called "natural selection".

Perhaps Darwin's biggest mistake was to liken artificial selection to his own postulated mechanism for evolution. "Nature does the same kind of thing", James suggests.

I suggest nature does nothing remotely like what happens in cases of artificial selection. I suggest Mother Nature does nothing at all. There is no "Mother" nature!


Now, finally turn your attention to artificial selection. First thing to note -- selection is happening! Duh! Certain organisms actually are being selected.

"But, c'mon now, no one ever really thought any actual selection was happening in nature!", you protest. "It's a . . . um . . . metaphor or something."

Damn right it's a metaphor -- perhaps the worst metaphor ever chosen in the history of the world!


Second thing to note, in every case of artificial selection -- unlike so-called natural selection -- there is a common cause! And I'll leave you to figure out what it is and report back to me.

You may put your goggles back on now . . . if you want. But consider this:

“Tell me," Wittgenstein's asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?”​

― Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

[axocanth]

"But, c'mon now, no one ever really thought any actual selection was happening in nature!", you protest. "It's a . . . um . . . metaphor or something."

Damn right it's a metaphor -- perhaps the worst metaphor ever chosen in the history of the world!

P.S.

"Yeah, it's just a metaphor or an analogy", my critics groan, "You obviously don't understand the theory. Nature doesn't really do any selecting. Duh!"


Well, if it's a just a metaphor or analogy (as it surely is), then it's a metaphor or analogy that is routinely ascribed causal powers. One can barely turn a page in a book about evolution without being told natural selection causes this, causes that, and causes the other.

Metaphors and analogies don't have causal powers!

(cf. "The expansion of the Roman empire was caused by battle selection.")

 

[Write4U]

Metaphors and analogies don't have causal powers!

Nor does Intelligent Design. The Universe does not need a metaphorical God . It is functional all by itself.

In a Multiverse, this Universe can be said to have evolved via natural selection...

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Whoa! There must be a first cause because how else would there be ... me!" My hillbilly cousins consider the universe to have been created so that they could come into being a few billion years later.

Most of them, anyway. Some of the fringe think all this is in their heads. Reminds me of the stoned dude in Stand on Zanzibar, the one watching news on the telly and thinking "WOW, what an amazing imagination I have!" (Approx. recall. Been 50+ years since I read that one.)

 

[Write4U]

(How could "functional utility" be something that is "apart from humans". Utility for whom?)

Itself. Evolution is not an exclusive human experience.

Evolutionary Values

Evolution as source of values. This mechanism has an implicit value, as selection entails a preference for certain states of affairs over others. Natural selection can be seen to strive to maximize survival or fitness. Thus we take survival, in the most general sense, as the primary value.

Evolutionary Values

I assume you didn't even bother reading any of those cut-and-pastes you just threw into your post above.

Oh, I read the quotes. That is why I used them.
Question is if you read them.

Do you value "friendship" in quantity (numbers) or in quality (importance)?

What value really means?

The value of something such as a quality, attitude, or method is its importance or usefulness.

If you place a particular value on something, that is the importance or usefulness you think it has. "The value of this work experience should not be underestimated".

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/value#

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Which ID-friendly "university" was wholly contained in a double wide trailer?

 

[Pinball1970]

Which ID-friendly "university" was wholly contained in a double wide trailer?

If you are talking about published papers in reputable journals regarding ID then you would not need a trailer, a cooler perhaps.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think it was something like "Liberty University". I didn't see any signs of students actually attend the campus.

 

[Pinball1970]

I think it was something like "Liberty University". I didn't see any signs of students actually attend the campus.

90,000 students according to wiki

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

90,000 students according to wiki

Different Liberty University, this one is a Mom and Pop operation out of a double-wide trailer building. I saw this one on Penn & Teller's BULLSHIT show. Been ~20 years so it would be (something) Liberty (something) University

 

[James R]

Moderator note: Write4U managed to side-track this discussion onto a different and mostly-unrelated topic. I have moved the resulting conversation to a separate thread here:

The necessary truth of mathematics (?)

"Vixens are female foxes" might be invoked to explain the meaning of the word vixen, to a child or a foreigner perhaps. A gap in their knowledge of the English language has thus been filled. Meanwhile, they have learned precisely nothing new about how the world is. Tautologies -- by definition...

www.sciforums.com

To be clear: I think it is best if we keep the current thread for discussion of Intelligent Design, in opposition to the Theory of Evolution.

I see that axocanth also got diverted into yet another philosophical discussion about how science works, or is supposed to work, or doesn't work. There is already at least one lengthy thread on that topic. I suggest that we keep that discussion over there, too, rather than here. Otherwise this thread will lose track of its ostensible topic.

 

[James R]

Darwin evidently thought he could capture biological change -- in all its dizzying diversity and complexity -- in a simple one-liner.

Did he, though? He wrote an entire book about evolution by natural selection. It's rather famous. Would that really be necessary, if your hypothesis is correct?

I suggest, to the contrary, that the best way to help evolutionary biology is by first recognizing that we have a lame duck of a theory, and then moving onto something better.

Like what?

And you might be surprised to hear that the "evo-devo" folks have been known to say very similar things.

I don't think they are in the business of throwing On the Origin of Species out the window, quite yet.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse . . . that is absolutely not what I think.

It is not a matter of luck that the allies prevailed in WW2 or that the Spartans prevailed in the Peloponnesian war, and any budding scholar of military history is unlikely to be awarded a PhD for suggesting as much. Like most everything else, we assume there are causal factors involved, and perhaps we can even identify these causes.

Exactly the same applies to dark moths prevailing over light moths and polar bears with white fur faring relatively well against their green furred brethren (or not!). Empirical studies may even be able to identify these causal factors. If they do, the substantive explanation for any particular episode will be found "on the ground", as it were.

What I do think, is that in neither of these scenarios, are the causes given to you by a vacuous overarching theory such as those we examined, nor are these scenarios explained in retrospect by a vacuous truism.

It strikes me that your line of argument here is essentially the same one you're running to argue that "there is no scientific method".

What you seem to be demanding, in both cases, is that somebody give you a detailed recipe that specifies all of the specific steps in whatever the process you're considering is. If nobody will provide you with that recipe that covers all cases in detail, then you will claim that it is impossible to identify any large-scale commonalities among individual cases.

Thus, when it comes to the "scientific method", you say that no common factors can be identified such as would make both Darwin's theory of evolution and Einstein's theory of gravity examples of the application of "the scientific method". Similarly, when it comes to evolution by natural selection, you say that no common factors can be identified such as would make both the evolution of coloured moths and the evolution of whales examples of "evolution by natural selection".

I suggest that maybe you can't see the woods for the trees.

I wonder whether you think that any kind of general scientific theory can exist, in reality.

Is it really acceptable to you that we have a theory (or two) that describes both the fall of an apple off a tree and the orbit of the Moon around the Earth? Surely those two things are very different. What's the "recipe" that explains the fall of the apple, step by step? What's the "recipe" that explains the Moon's orbit, in all its detail? Is it reasonable to allude to a general "theory of gravity" in the absence of such specific "recipes"?

You seem to be arguing that no general theories are possible. Every specific case requires a different, specific theory. Hence, no theory of evolution. No theory of gravity. No scientific method.

It follows that there can be no general method for baking a cake, writing a symphony, doing philosophy or walking down a street.

Is this an accurate summary of your position?

In short: the causes and explanations of the Peloponnesian war, WW2, and every other battle or war have nothing in common except for the utterly trivial.

Ditto for natural selection.

By the same argument, no two philosophical arguments have anything in common, apart from the utterly trivial. Do you agree?

If you disagree, tell me what all such episodes (moths, bears, bacteria, etc.) have in common. I submit nothing but vacuity.

If you disagree, tell me what Plato's Republic has in common with Singer's notion of the expanding moral circle. I submit nothing but vacuity! There is no "method" in philosophy, as I'm sure you'll be the first to agree.

Cf. Newtonian theory (or any other typical scientific theory) where the causes are given to you by the theory (e.g. a gravitational force in all cases) and the explanation for all events in its domain is non-trivial and identical (ditto).

One doesn't have to dig down very far to find "non-trivial" differences between the fall of an apple off a tree and the orbit of the Moon around the Earth.

Your argument doesn't strike me as very consistent.

Does anyone suppose there really is a force of natural selection, analogous to a Newtonian force, active in all cases of putative natural selection?

I don't know. Has anybody proposed such a thing?