Julie Thomas on biological design
david ford
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7pfs4b%24df0%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
More on Design and the OriC: An Update
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7fahi4%24cro%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Design and the OriC: The Origin of OriC: A Design Event
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7brvtj%24hdg%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
The Evolution of the OriC: A Reply
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=633l0l%24sm7%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
The Bacterial Flagellum and IC
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=5o2793%24r49%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Re: The Bacterial Flagellum and IC
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=5s3caq%24djh%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Flagella, minimal complexity, and evolutionary noise
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7faih8%24eio%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
SIBO and Upcoming IC articles
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=6v64oi%2463g%241%40pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu
SIBO is Doing Well
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7kh4na%2454b%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
SIBO (was Re: Panspermia Hypothesis)
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7kh3tv%243bp%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
The Krebs Cycle Fails to Show Design
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=6v64vq%246ss%241%40pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu
The Utility of Design
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7pfs4b%24df0%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Miller tries to discredit Behe
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=692vjq%245e9%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
An IC System That Suggests the Design of the Cell
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=6v65i9%248gm%241%40pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu
Design and the F-ATPases
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7brvbn%24gar%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
IC: Designed to Terraform
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7kh5h9%246jv%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
More on Science and Design
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7nskav%24jc4%241%40pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu
The Irreducibly Complex ATP Synthase
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=650n98%242ga%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Fair is fair
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7ck2ad%24q2f%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
An irrelevant "abiogenesis" paper
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7kh4g1%244jn%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Evolution needed to make sense of biology?
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=7nibqu%24o0l%241%40pale-rider.INS.CWRU.Edu
Thomas H. Faller
<several references to Julie Thomas posts deleted>
David, I think you're mistaking a nice prose style and grasp of
terminology with sound arguments. I wasn't here for the first
go-around, but I don't see anything in the couple of posts I
looked at that pose a problem for biology or evolution.
Do any of the long-term members of the group recall where Ms.
Thomas is now, or more about the debates she engaged in?
Tom Faller
Andy Groves
Well, someone writing under the name of "Mike Gene" in ISCID/ARN
writes in a *very* similar style and on very similar topics. Who
knows?
Andy
Ron Okimoto
They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments. If they
had any value they would have been able to present something to teach
in Ohio. They haven't progressed since Paley. They have some new
buzz words, but that is it.
If anyone wants to contest that assertion, they can try as hard as
they can, but even the proponents are pretty sure that they don't have
anything worth putting forward as something that they can support
teaching. It is all smoke. If they had something of substance they
would put it forward. They have to explain why they are hiding their
good stuff so well.
Ron Okimoto
Alan Wright
"Andy Groves" <gro...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:991ea4ae.03072...@posting.google.com...
Is there any correlation between the disappearance of Thomas
from Usenet (sometime in early? 2000), and the appearance of
Mike Gene on these other boards?
It could also be that Behe's ideas were pretty well trashed by
2000, so maybe Thomas just gave up trying to sell them
pseudoscientifically.
Alan
zosdad
Upon reviewing some of those Julie Thomas posts linked in the OP, I'm
pretty well convinced that Julie Thomas is Mike Gene (also a
pseudonym) of ARN fame. The style, including some minor details, and
arguments are just too similar.
Mike Gene has a webpage:
http://www.idthink.net
...and commonly posts on ARN:
http://www.arn.org
Plus, it appears that Julie Thomas dropped off the t.o. map just about
the time that MG started on the ARN boards (~ early 2000).
As for who the real person is, I recommend against trying to find out,
as Mike Gene pretty clearly wants his/her privacy, and has that right.
Wade Hines
> "Thomas H. Faller" <fal...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com> wrote in message
> news:<3F1EB3C3...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com>...
>> david ford posted:
>>
>> <several references to Julie Thomas posts deleted>
>>
>> David, I think you're mistaking a nice prose style and grasp of
>> terminology with sound arguments. I wasn't here for the first
>> go-around, but I don't see anything in the couple of posts I
>> looked at that pose a problem for biology or evolution.
>>
>> Do any of the long-term members of the group recall where Ms.
>> Thomas is now, or more about the debates she engaged in?
>>
>> Tom Faller
> They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments.
I disagree. Julie gave better arguments than any other ID
proponent I've read. The record of my disagreements with
her arguments is there in the archives in all it's megabytes
but her arguments were of a higher caliber.
> If they
> had any value they would have been able to present something to teach
> in Ohio. They haven't progressed since Paley. They have some new
> buzz words, but that is it.
After some time arguing ID on talk.origins, Julie admitted a sort
of defeat and tried to reinvent the IC concept as "thematic IC".
While this effectively neutered most of the strongest claims of
ID it did approach the only viable route to that argument.
This is essentially that if there are required functions of
a sort of complexity that is highly improbable to arise, and
where there are no plausible intermediate roles for the subcomponents,
then evolution is a poor explanation for these complex systems.
That's a good argument.
It has problems when one looks for systems without any anticedents
and it has problems when one looks at the natural history of
complex molecular systems which tend to find new ways to use
old proteins (new functions for old parts). This doesn't
change the fact that this is the essense of what ID'ers must
focus on if they are to mount an effective argument. Julie
showed enough honesty to reach this. She was also very
effective at demolishing many of the half-assed attacks
on ID that understood it about as well as most creationists
seem to understand evolution.
> If anyone wants to contest that assertion, they can try as hard as
> they can, but even the proponents are pretty sure that they don't have
> anything worth putting forward as something that they can support
> teaching. It is all smoke. If they had something of substance they
> would put it forward. They have to explain why they are hiding their
> good stuff so well.
Mind you, I'm not suggesting that ID has offered anything
remotely compelling. I am saying that I found Julie to be
more lucid than any of the major players on the pro ID side
and that there is an archtype of an ID argument that would
play --- if only there were some real examples that fit
the case of a very complex system without anticedents or
a plausible chance of such. The systems that have been proposed
to fit that case are typically only supported by bluster
by those who are unfamiliar with biochemistry. On that front
too, Julie was different in that she at least understood
or learned more about the biochemical systems she discussed
though I feel she was rather heavily biased in how she
interpreted many sets of molecular interactions. One of
the saddest bits of special pleading she did was when she
argued that Krebs was not IC.
Lenny Flank
> The Utility of Design
>
<snip>
That's nice. When someone comes up with a scientific theory of design
that can be tested using the scientific method, do let us know, OK?
By the way, would you mind pointing to one scientific discovery, of
any note, in any area of science, made at any time in the past 100
years as a result of "intelligent
designer theory" or creation 'science'? Just one will do.
Surely you can come up with ONE, right? Just ONE? O-N-E???????
<sound of crickets chirping>
===============================================
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked Website:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
"DebunkCreation" email list at Yahoogroups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DebunkCreation/join
J Yossarian
Mike Gene explicitly cites Julie Thomas in:
http://www.idthink.net/biot/flag1/index.html
This isn't a particularly honest tactic, if they are one and the same person.
Cheers,
J
TomS
<238b53a4.03072...@posting.google.com>, lfl...@ij.net stated..."
>
>david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
>news:<Pine.SGI.4.44L.01.0307...@irix2.gl.umbc.edu>...
>
>
>> The Utility of Design
>>
><snip>
>
>
>
>That's nice. When someone comes up with a scientific theory of design
>that can be tested using the scientific method, do let us know, OK?
>By the way, would you mind pointing to one scientific discovery, of
>any note, in any area of science, made at any time in the past 100
>years as a result of "intelligent
>designer theory" or creation 'science'? Just one will do.
>
>Surely you can come up with ONE, right? Just ONE? O-N-E???????
>
><sound of crickets chirping>
The creationists and their allies tell us, often enough, how
there are many scientists who are working in their field.
If this is true, one should surely expect by now that they
would have produced something worth mentioning.
If not a discovery, at least a proposal for some experiments.
If not a proposal for experiments, some progress in their methodology.
Or does their methodology reach a dead end, once they have
found out that something, somewhere, somehow is wrong with evolutionary
biology.
What are all of those scientists doing?
Ron Okimoto
Wade Hines wrote:
> roki...@mail.uark.edu (Ron Okimoto) allegedly scribed
>
> > "Thomas H. Faller" <fal...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com> wrote in message
> > news:<3F1EB3C3...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com>...
> > They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments.
>
> I disagree. Julie gave better arguments than any other ID
> proponent I've read. The record of my disagreements with
> her arguments is there in the archives in all it's megabytes
> but her arguments were of a higher caliber.
In the end they were just as worthless as everyone elses ID
arguments or they would have succeeded and the ID
proponents would have put them up for evaluation in
Ohio or Georgia. We are talking about relative judgement
here and "higher caliber" doesn't mean much for ID quality
arguments.
>
>
> > If they
> > had any value they would have been able to present something to teach
> > in Ohio. They haven't progressed since Paley. They have some new
> > buzz words, but that is it.
>
> After some time arguing ID on talk.origins, Julie admitted a sort
> of defeat and tried to reinvent the IC concept as "thematic IC".
> While this effectively neutered most of the strongest claims of
> ID it did approach the only viable route to that argument.
> This is essentially that if there are required functions of
> a sort of complexity that is highly improbable to arise, and
> where there are no plausible intermediate roles for the subcomponents,
> then evolution is a poor explanation for these complex systems.
> That's a good argument.
>
> It has problems when one looks for systems without any anticedents
> and it has problems when one looks at the natural history of
> complex molecular systems which tend to find new ways to use
> old proteins (new functions for old parts). This doesn't
> change the fact that this is the essense of what ID'ers must
> focus on if they are to mount an effective argument. Julie
> showed enough honesty to reach this. She was also very
> effective at demolishing many of the half-assed attacks
> on ID that understood it about as well as most creationists
> seem to understand evolution.
In reality even Behe admits that IC doesn't mean much in the
argument. He had a quote here were he admitted that IC
systems could evolve by chance. The example was a stick
falling between two rocks. All you need are trees and rocks.
All we need are genes, mutations, drift and selection. It turns
out that the IC argument is the same old same old creationist
probability argument with a fancy buzz word thrown in. IC
obviously doesn't mean that a system can't evolve, it is just
that some IC systems are so complex that they can't figure
out how they could have evolved. Any complex system fits
this bill.
>
>
> > If anyone wants to contest that assertion, they can try as hard as
> > they can, but even the proponents are pretty sure that they don't have
> > anything worth putting forward as something that they can support
> > teaching. It is all smoke. If they had something of substance they
> > would put it forward. They have to explain why they are hiding their
> > good stuff so well.
>
> Mind you, I'm not suggesting that ID has offered anything
> remotely compelling. I am saying that I found Julie to be
> more lucid than any of the major players on the pro ID side
> and that there is an archtype of an ID argument that would
> play --- if only there were some real examples that fit
> the case of a very complex system without anticedents or
> a plausible chance of such. The systems that have been proposed
> to fit that case are typically only supported by bluster
> by those who are unfamiliar with biochemistry. On that front
> too, Julie was different in that she at least understood
> or learned more about the biochemical systems she discussed
> though I feel she was rather heavily biased in how she
> interpreted many sets of molecular interactions. One of
> the saddest bits of special pleading she did was when she
> argued that Krebs was not IC.
If ID had something of value to contribute we would have seen
it in Ohio or Georgia or Kansas. The fact that the ID
proponents know that they can't support their ideas with enough
certainty that they weren't even willing to put up any for
evaluation as being teachable tells you that all they have is a crock.
Even they know it. That should tell you all that you need to know
about the relative caliber of ID arguments.
Ron Okimoto
TomS
<3F200B50...@mail.uark.edu>, Ron stated..."
[...snip...]
>
>If ID had something of value to contribute we would have seen
>it in Ohio or Georgia or Kansas. The fact that the ID
>proponents know that they can't support their ideas with enough
>certainty that they weren't even willing to put up any for
>evaluation as being teachable tells you that all they have is a crock.
>
>Even they know it. That should tell you all that you need to know
>about the relative caliber of ID arguments.
I'm responding mostly just to help this important observation
not to get lost in the hundreds of posts to t.o.
And, while I'm here, I'll add a few comments.
One is that it isn't only a matter of not being able to *support*
ID ... it is a matter of not being able to say something positive about
ID, rather than just repeating that somehow, somewhere, something
is wrong with evolutionary biology.
The claim is that there are scientists and others who are
supporters of ID, but when it comes to "how do you support ID?"
there is silence. For a methodology which is supposed to be
paradigm-busting, putting Darwin to shame, it sure is quiet when
it comes to offering something to work with.
There is no support, because there is nothing to support.
Larry Moran
> Wade Hines wrote:
>> roki...@mail.uark.edu (Ron Okimoto) allegedly scribed
>> > "Thomas H. Faller" <fal...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com> wrote in message
>> > news:<3F1EB3C3...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com>...
>> >> david ford posted:
>> >> Do any of the long-term members of the group recall where Ms.
>> >> Thomas is now, or more about the debates she engaged in?
>>
>> > They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments.
>>
>> I disagree. Julie gave better arguments than any other ID
>> proponent I've read. The record of my disagreements with
>> her arguments is there in the archives in all it's megabytes
>> but her arguments were of a higher caliber.
>
> In the end they were just as worthless as everyone elses ID
> arguments or they would have succeeded and the ID
> proponents would have put them up for evaluation in
> Ohio or Georgia. We are talking about relative judgement
> here and "higher caliber" doesn't mean much for ID quality
> arguments.
I agree with Wade. Julie Thomas (not "her" real name) was the best ID
proponent that we've ever seen on talk.origins. She actually knew what
she was talking about and you could see that her attempts to defend
design were based on good science. "She" came up with several good
ideas about how to define irreducible complexity. The fact that her
main argument was unconvincing wasn't due to ignorance. She attracted
the attention of many of the regulars here and she pretty much held her
own and got in a few good shots against those of us who were sloppy
in our thinking. I really miss her.
Larry Moran
Alan Wright
"Larry Moran" <lam...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca> wrote in message
news:bfp3le$nve$1...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca...
I don't know about this. I just reviewed a number of her posts as well
as a bunch of Mike Gene's stuff. The claims are all based on the same
stubborn insistence on the inadequacy of known evolutionary mechanisms
to produce complexity. These are just arguments from personal incredulity.
While there is some demonstrated ability to convolute and obscure the
arguments (as Dembski does so well), a reduction of the claims to what
is simple and clear leaves nothing more than we get from most of the
other creationists.
One particular theme that comes up frequently in these posts is rather
extreme doubt over the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to produce
the so-called IC systems. However, I've recently read quite a bit of
evolutionary biology from the late 80s and 90s, and by then a quite
substantial portion (perhaps even the majority) of explanations (whether
hypothetical or theoretical) of the origin of various complex features
(including e.g. the genetic code) involves scaffolding, simplification,
co-optation, or related processes. (Who knows, in the future, such
mechanisms may even be recognized as the dominant means of major
evolutionary change.) I presume this trend continues, and thus the
going can only get tougher for Thomas and "her" ilk who depend on
strawman views of evolution as a crutch for their incredulity.
Alan
Walter Bushell
The same thing the researchers at Dell Computer are doing, apparently.
--
The last temptation is the highest treason:
To do the right thing for the wrong reason. --T..S. Eliot
Walter
Ron Okimoto
In the end they turned out to be just as worthless as everyone elses
ID arguments. That is the only thing that matters. She had to
backtrack on IC just like Behe. From your description it sounds like
she came to the same conclusion that it was just too much complexity
to account for that mattered and not anything IC about the system.
Any complex system that you didn't understand would work just as well
as the flagellum or blood clotting system. They were back to square
one and were just left with the same old creationist probability
argument. Once you concede that IC systems can evolve the argument
fails.
Beats me what they think IC means. Behe was quoted here as saying
that a stick falling between two rocks would produce an IC machine by
chance, but that isn't the kind of IC system that he is talking about.
But if IC systems can form by chance all you are left with is the
probability argument except applied to what you want to call IC
systems. It turns out that they are only interested in what they
consider to be the most unlikely to have occurred by chance IC
systems, and they have to admit that we don't know enough to make
their arguments work. Thomas was one of the better creationist
posters that we've had here, but her stuff didn't amount to anything.
If it had we would have seen it in Ohio or Kansas or Georgia. ID had
their chance to put their best junk forward, but they refused the
opportunity. That tells everyone with half a brain that even the ID
proponents know that they don't have anything worth defending.
Ron Okimoto
Lenny Flank
Indeed. It appears, suspiciously, as if inelligent design "theory"
has only one "utility"; attempting to prove that God -- er, I mean,
"The Unknown Intelligent Designer" -- exists.
Gee, it's almost as if ID were a religious apologetic, and not science
at all . . . . . . . . . . . . .
syvanen
> Wade Hines wrote:
>
> > roki...@mail.uark.edu (Ron Okimoto) allegedly scribed
> >
> > > "Thomas H. Faller" <fal...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com> wrote in message
> > > news:<3F1EB3C3...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com>...
> > >> david ford posted:
> > >>
> > >> <several references to Julie Thomas posts deleted>
> > >>
> > >> David, I think you're mistaking a nice prose style and grasp of
> > >> terminology with sound arguments. I wasn't here for the first
> > >> go-around, but I don't see anything in the couple of posts I
> > >> looked at that pose a problem for biology or evolution.
> > >>
> > >> Do any of the long-term members of the group recall where Ms.
> > >> Thomas is now, or more about the debates she engaged in?
> > >>
> > >> Tom Faller
>
> > > They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments.
> >
> > I disagree. Julie gave better arguments than any other ID
> > proponent I've read. The record of my disagreements with
> > her arguments is there in the archives in all it's megabytes
> > but her arguments were of a higher caliber.
>
> In the end they were just as worthless as everyone elses ID
> arguments or they would have succeeded and the ID
> proponents would have put them up for evaluation in
> Ohio or Georgia. We are talking about relative judgement
> here and "higher caliber" doesn't mean much for ID quality
> arguments.
Her discussion of IC systems was quite good. I recall the oriC thread
where she was pointing out the difficulty in evolving a complex
structure in a linear fashion. It struck me as a completely valid
argument and I have since abandoned the notion that complex molecular
systems evolved over linear pathways (the alternative explanation is
parallel pathways not ID). This directly lead me to write a paper on
the evolution of the genetic code which is paper 8 at my web site
(http://www.vme.net/hgt/) -- a solid, if speculative article in a peer
reviewed journal.
Mike Syvanen
Frank J
> "Thomas H. Faller" <fal...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com> wrote in message news:<3F1EB3C3...@chestnut.peachtree.sgi.com>...
> > david ford posted:
> >
> > <several references to Julie Thomas posts deleted>
> >
> > David, I think you're mistaking a nice prose style and grasp of
> > terminology with sound arguments. I wasn't here for the first
> > go-around, but I don't see anything in the couple of posts I
> > looked at that pose a problem for biology or evolution.
> >
> > Do any of the long-term members of the group recall where Ms.
> > Thomas is now, or more about the debates she engaged in?
> >
> > Tom Faller
>
> They were just as worthless as everyone elses ID arguments. If they
> had any value they would have been able to present something to teach
> in Ohio. They haven't progressed since Paley. They have some new
> buzz words, but that is it.
They certainly have "progressed" into something that Paley probably
never dreamed of: a systematic strategy to misrepresent 150 years of
scientific achievement, and "postmodern" approach that resonates with
wishful thinking, but totally confused, nonscientists. With ID, every
listener's origins myth comes "true" - even if the ID promoter never
gives any hint to his own origins myth, much less theory.
I don't know much about Paley, but from the respectful tone Dawkins
used on him in "The Blind Watchmaker," my guess is that Paley would be
appalled at how today's ID avocates are abusing his argument.
>
> If anyone wants to contest that assertion, they can try as hard as
> they can, but even the proponents are pretty sure that they don't have
> anything worth putting forward as something that they can support
> teaching. It is all smoke. If they had something of substance they
> would put it forward. They have to explain why they are hiding their
> good stuff so well.
>
> Ron Okimoto
It's not just smoke - it's mirrors too!
Wade Hines
> Wade Hines <wade....@rcn.com> wrote in message
<snip>
>> I disagree. Julie gave better arguments than any other ID
>> proponent I've read. The record of my disagreements with
>> her arguments is there in the archives in all it's megabytes
>> but her arguments were of a higher caliber.
> <...>
>> After some time arguing ID on talk.origins, Julie admitted a sort
>> of defeat and tried to reinvent the IC concept as "thematic IC".
>> While this effectively neutered most of the strongest claims of
>> ID it did approach the only viable route to that argument.
>> This is essentially that if there are required functions of
>> a sort of complexity that is highly improbable to arise, and
>> where there are no plausible intermediate roles for the subcomponents,
>> then evolution is a poor explanation for these complex systems. That's
>> a good argument.
> In the end they turned out to be just as worthless as everyone elses
> ID arguments. That is the only thing that matters.
I understand your perspective but it is too battle centric for
my taste. I am concerned with the form and nature of the objection
as much as I am with it's final merit. The majority of attacks
on evolution fail in form. The majority of ID arguments fail
on form. The trite IC arguments fail on form as they claim IC
can't evolve. Behe's argument does not have to go there even
if he has done so, at times, within his rhetoric.
But in a more generous vein, IC can be taken as an attempt
to produce an objective standard for that which is too complex
to have evolved without antecedent. That attempt is the correct
one to examine. The specified complexity gig is another attempt
to make an objective standard. Specified complexity turns out to
be poorly specified and thus fails. IC as employed so far fails
to develop adequate rigour in defining parts, functions and
systems. Further, an examination of how to define those illuminates
certain circularities in most usages. There may, however, be
ways to fix those problems. The problem with doing so seems
to be that this then leaves no actual examples within the
known sphere of biochemistry. Actual biochemical systems
scream "evolved", not designed.
So, again, while the end result of all the arguments fails
to produce a compelling case for ID, the form of the
argument worked by Julie was far closer to being sound.
If you only score winners and losers, OK, point taken. No
ID argument has won. But if you appreciate the development
of a more sophisticated attempt to challenge evolutionary
theory, there was significant difference to Julie's
challenges than what other ID'ers ever mounted.
Ron Okimoto
Wade Hines wrote:
Did she ever give up on the concept of IC? She seemed to turn it into
something that wasn't related to the original concept and concentrated on
trying to be more systematic about the same old creationist probability
argument. They all run into the same problem with these arguments, they
can't test them. They have to use systems that we don't know enough about
to accurately calculate probabilities so they are screwed. I sort of
remember her hanging on to IC even though she wasn't really talking about
IC. The current definition of IC seems to be any system that they can say
is too improbable to have occurred by natural mechanisms. We have come
pretty far from mouse traps and circled back to the same old same old.
Dembski's last calculation was just the tornado through a junkyard
calculation associated with the flagellum. That should tell just about
anyone that IC and EF are pretty worthless.
Ron Okimoto
Matt Silberstein
<wade....@rcn.com>:
[snip]
>After some time arguing ID on talk.origins, Julie admitted a sort
>of defeat and tried to reinvent the IC concept as "thematic IC".
>While this effectively neutered most of the strongest claims of
>ID it did approach the only viable route to that argument.
>This is essentially that if there are required functions of
>a sort of complexity that is highly improbable to arise, and
>where there are no plausible intermediate roles for the subcomponents,
>then evolution is a poor explanation for these complex systems.
>That's a good argument.
No, that is not a good argument. That is a bit of a vague hand
wave that says that some unstated biochemical systems might fit
*Darwin's* argument for something that would refute evolution.
[snip]
syvanen
I think they (or her/him) made a case. And I have an answer to their case.
Mike Syvanen