Finally lost faith in I.D.
ReidRover
a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or three
things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now convinced me they
had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists used.Didn't
the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something? Well has
this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but gobbldygook
and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do some
serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face, instead of
sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am mistaken
and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?
J Forbes
Good to see you are seeing the light....
Don't count on any serious research into ID, it's
not science, it's religion. If you want to keep
your religion, you probably ought to avoid looking
too deeply into these issues :)
Jim
Adam Marczyk
news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
> Although as recently as last month i held out some sort of hope for I.D.
> a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or three
> things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now convinced me
they
> had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists
used.Didn't
> the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something? Well
has
> this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but
gobbldygook
> and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
No, that *is* the plan. Keep spewing forth their gobbledygook and misquotes
until someone falls for them.
> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do
some
> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
instead of
> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
mistaken
> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?
"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
--
And I want to conquer the world,
give all the idiots a brand new religion,
put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil,
promote equality in all of my decisions...
--Bad Religion, "I Want to Conquer the World"
http://www.ebonmusings.org ICQ: 8777843
Rubystars
ID can certainly be philosophically valid, in that design can be inferred
from nature. However, it is not a scientific concept because the things that
appear to be designed have a probability of coming about by natural process
(even a low probability could have happened).
I enjoy reading up on ID because I find it fascinating, and I agree with
some of the points raised. However, it should remain a philosophy.. not
science.
There's no reason to give up on ID if you find it a good philosophy, but if
you try to make it fit into science you're going to be banging that puzzle
piece with a hammer for a long time.
-Rubystars
ReidRover
>From: J Forbes jfor...@yahoo.com
>Date: 1/15/02 5:08 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: <3C44D278...@yahoo.com>
Oh i have always though The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation science
can give..i just had hoped that at least I.D. could back up the "Thiestic" side
of thiestic evolution.
But for some reason they argue the Intelligent designer could not design a
system with built in evolution of organisms!!
Never understood the insistence of some in the Discovery Institute that
evolution MUST be ruled out..seems a triffle ideological.
Also very curious given that Behe suggests in his "Black Box" that he thinks
some sort of common descent is probable.
Frank J
his writings are rehashes of his IC=ID assertion; his onlione debates with
Kenneth Miller show his skill at avoiding the main points. I had hope for
him when I first read DBB in 1998, and finally discovered an
anti-evolutionist who accepted common descent, but he appears to have
succumbed to the political correctness of the other IDCs. As for the "wedge
strategy," it seems to have fast-forwarded to phase 3, to no one's surprise.
ReidRover
>From: "Adam Marczyk" ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com
>Date: 1/15/02 5:11 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: <u49kpl7...@corp.supernews.com>
>
>ReidRover <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
>> Although as recently as last month i held out some sort of hope for I.D.
> i am
>> a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or three
>> things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now convinced me
>they
>> had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists
>used.Didn't
>> the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something? Well
>has
>> this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but
>gobbldygook
>> and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
>
>No, that *is* the plan. Keep spewing forth their gobbledygook and misquotes
>until someone falls for them.
>
>> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do
>some
>> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
>instead of
>> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
>mistaken
>> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?
>
>"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
>
Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his famous
book?
Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
ReidRover
>From: reid...@aol.com (ReidRover)
>Date: 1/15/02 5:18 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: <20020115201641...@mb-md.aol.com>
>
>>lost faith in I.D.
>>From: J Forbes jfor...@yahoo.com
>>Date: 1/15/02 5:08 PM Pacific Standard Time
>>Message-id: <3C44D278...@yahoo.com>
>>
>>ReidRover wrote:
>>>
SNIP
>
>Oh i have always though The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation
>science
>can give..i just had hoped that at least I.D. could back up the "Thiestic"
>side
>of thiestic evolution
apologies for the spelling should of course have been "Theistic"
J Forbes
The mission of the DI is to use science to prove the
bible is literally true, isn't it?
And ID seems to be merely the latest cloaking for
literal creationism. There is still no explanation
of how it all came to be the way it is...only wild
criticism of the ToE.
I guess anyone who isn't blind probably thinks that
some sort of common descent is probable :) but
there do seem to be some quite blind people here on
t.o....
Jim
Adam Marczyk
[snip]
> >> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do
some
> >> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
instead of
> >> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
mistaken
> >> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?>
> >
> >"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
> >
>
> Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his
famous
> book?
> Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
Not that I'm aware of. I believe he went straight to the book without even
attempting to make a scientific case for this in the journals.
David Jensen
"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in
<u49ul9s...@corp.supernews.com>:
>ReidRover <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20020115202504...@mb-md.aol.com...
>
>[snip]
>
>> >> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do
>some
>> >> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
>instead of
>> >> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
>mistaken
>> >> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?>
>> >
>> >"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
>> >
>>
>> Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his famous
>> book?
I was under the impression that he knows how the system works. This may
explain why he chose not to follow the system.
>> Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
>
>Not that I'm aware of. I believe he went straight to the book without even
>attempting to make a scientific case for this in the journals.
If maximum embarrassment is your goal, it works. I wonder if we can
start including Behe in with Pons and Fleishman....
Tracy P. Hamilton
[snip]
> Oh i have always though The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation
science
> can give..i just had hoped that at least I.D. could back up the "Thiestic"
side
> of thiestic evolution.
> But for some reason they argue the Intelligent designer could not design
a
> system with built in evolution of organisms!!
In spite of examples of intelligent designers (humans) doing just that.
> Never understood the insistence of some in the Discovery Institute that
> evolution MUST be ruled out..seems a triffle ideological.
They are just trying to sneak God into everything. They are afraid
that since evolution used no religion to get to its knowledge, and
hence it does not show up in the theory, that some people may get
the idea that maybe God was not involved after all. They falsely
claim that the latter is actually taught as part of the theory of evolution,
and hence it should not be taught. *They* are doing it for our good.
> Also very curious given that Behe suggests in his "Black Box" that he
thinks
> some sort of common descent is probable.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracy P. Hamilton |"All right brain, I don't like you
Building Manager, Alco Hall |and you don't like me, so let's get
University of Ediacara |this done and I will go back to
|killing you with beer" - Homer Simpson
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracy P. Hamilton
"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
news:r80a4ucj5113g9j8k...@4ax.com...
> On 15 Jan 2002 22:59:37 -0500, in talk.origins
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in
> <u49ul9s...@corp.supernews.com>:
>
>
> >ReidRover <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >news:20020115202504...@mb-md.aol.com...
[snip]
> >> >"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his
famous
> >> book?
The thought of the spectacle gives me a sadistic smile. I would just
love to see the ACS meeting where Behe would peddle such nonsense.
> I was under the impression that he knows how the system works. This may
> explain why he chose not to follow the system.
He would have been forced (how was that phrased - oh, yeah hounded)
to recant. :)
> >> Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
> >
> >Not that I'm aware of. I believe he went straight to the book without
even
> >attempting to make a scientific case for this in the journals.
>
> If maximum embarrassment is your goal, it works. I wonder if we can
> start including Behe in with Pons and Fleishman....
No. Behe was obviously wrong because biochemists knew all
about the systems he discussed. At least Pons and Fleischmann
reported new experiments.
David Jensen
"Tracy P. Hamilton" <che...@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu> wrote in
<a244v2$57a$1...@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu>:
Ah, he should be too embarrassed to be in their company. I see.
George Acton
>
> "David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
> news:r80a4ucj5113g9j8k...@4ax.com...
> > On 15 Jan 2002 22:59:37 -0500, in talk.origins
> > "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in
> > <u49ul9s...@corp.supernews.com>:
> >
> >
> > >ReidRover <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > >news:20020115202504...@mb-md.aol.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> > >> >"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his
> famous
> > >> book?
>
> The thought of the spectacle gives me a sadistic smile. I would just
> love to see the ACS meeting where Behe would peddle such nonsense.
>
> > I was under the impression that he knows how the system works. This may
> > explain why he chose not to follow the system.
>
> He would have been forced (how was that phrased - oh, yeah hounded)
> to recant. :)
I don't think so. Nobody would try to tak away his tenure. No
journal would refuse to publish a good paper on real biochemistry.
In fact, based on the example of Duesberg, they'd probably lean over
backwards to treat him fairly about that.
What would happen is that few people would show up for a
presentation and he'd get embarrassing questions, and AFIK no
speaking fee. The people who heard him might be more inclined
to denounce ID in letters to editors, statements to the press, etc.
And that he doesn't want.
> > >> Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
> > >
> > >Not that I'm aware of. I believe he went straight to the book without
> even
> > >attempting to make a scientific case for this in the journals.
> >
> > If maximum embarrassment is your goal, it works. I wonder if we can
> > start including Behe in with Pons and Fleishman....
>
> No. Behe was obviously wrong because biochemists knew all
> about the systems he discussed. At least Pons and Fleischmann
> reported new experiments.
P&F did incorrect science, but it was science, because it was open
to experimental testing. "Intelligent Design" doesn't even do that.
It's religious faith masquerading as science, to the detriment
of real science, not to mention religious faith.
--George Acton
howard hershey
----------
In article <EE418.379132$5A3.14...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>, "Frank J"
<FN...@home.com> wrote:
>
> "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
>> Although as recently as last month i held out some sort of hope for I.D.
> ( i am
>> a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or three
>> things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now convinced me
> they
>> had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists
> used.Didn't
>> the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something? Well
> has
>> this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but
> gobbldygook
>> and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
>> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to do
> some
>> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
> instead of
>> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
> mistaken
>> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?
>>
> Behe does research, but not in the field of evolutionary biology.
He did do one set of experiments (reported in Journal of Molecular Biology a
year or so before DBB) that tried to indicate that the histone gene (which
is highly conserved in eucaryotes) was highly conserved even at positions
which were not *selectively* useful. This would have some relevance to
ideas about hidden information for future uses in the DNA sequence of an
ur-eucaryote (one of the ideas he tossed out as a possible explanation in
DBB). Alas, the way the experiment was done could only demonstrate that,
under laboratory conditions with rich media and with the presence of
multiple copies, one could perform a switch of a lysine for an arginine (or
vice versa, I don't remember) in the histone sequence, a difference which
was never seen in nature, without that difference having any statistically
significant effect on growth rates. Also, alas, a couple of articles in the
Journal of Molecular Evolution (in the same year, but published later, so
there is no implication here that Behe should have known about it) showed
that several major groups of ciliates had this particular arg -> lys switch
in their histones, belieing the premise that all organisms retained this
particular "selectively neutral" (apparently Behe thinks that growth in rich
media represents all possible environmental conditions as well) amino acid
despite its "selective neutrality".
I know of no experiments he has done to demonstrate that his ideas on ICness
are anything but a reflection of his personal level of ignorance.
Mike Goodrich
You are premature my friend. The cat is already out the bag, the
horses
out of the barns, and the dirty little secret of evolutionary biology
there for all
to see. *Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
The language of description of the detailed workings of the
microbiological
basis of life even among evolutionary biologists is *already* the
language of
design. How silly to refuse to consider that the *already admitted*
design
is anything other than only apparent!
The discoveries of biological information storage, retrieval, media
transcription, compression/descompression, cybernetic feedback
inhibition, positive/negative feedback loops, 'cryptic' genes,
regulation, repression, genetic 'battle-short' mode, 'back' mutations,
non-random mutations, etc. The list goes on. All at a scale of
process
and material integration exceeding anything ever concieved or
discovered.
In the face of these extraordinary discoveries the evolutionary
biological
Establishment continues to retreat to 'explanations' which are
apologetic
tautalogies, driven by metaphysical precommitments, which only seek to
artificially insulate their 'theory' from competition All of these
considerations and more show the monopolistic recalcitrance of this
prejudiced view.
We are seeing the death throws of a dying paradigm resting on it's
collective laurels, lacking the imagination and courage to deal with
the
emerging facts of the cybernetic/design basis of life.
I advise you not to give in to it. It is very early in the emerging
paradigm
shift. Despite the Establishments consistent efforts to sabotage the
efforts of the ID movement to establish and grow a healthy research
environment, the truth cannot be denied but for so long.
And they are using the classic techniques of propoganda to do it!
But *science* my friend is openly refuting them.
I hope you will reconsider, and get in on the paradigm shift early.
cheers,
-mg
David Jensen
"Mike Goodrich" <tachy...@home.com> wrote in
<IBj18.57614$K36.18...@news1.rdc1.va.home.com>:
>You are premature my friend. The cat is already out the bag, the
>horses
>out of the barns, and the dirty little secret of evolutionary biology
>there for all
>to see. *Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
Now, someone who understood science would have included the reference
from an appropriate journal to show why rather than just making a
totally unsupported (and, as we know from other sources, wrong)
assertion.
>The language of description of the detailed workings of the
>microbiological
>basis of life even among evolutionary biologists is *already* the
>language of
>design. How silly to refuse to consider that the *already admitted*
>design
>is anything other than only apparent!
Reference, please.
Mike, the next step is full fledged paranoia. Ed can help you.
Michael Altarriba
Mike Goodrich wrote:
Do you have any actual evidence to support this rather spectacular
collection of assertions? Support them to my satisfaction, and I'll be
the first to adopt this "emerging paradigm." I want the explanation that
best fits the facts, regardless of its effect on my current worldview.
I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie every...single...time.
Aron-Ra
( i am
> a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or three
> things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now convinced me
they
> had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists
used.Didn't
> the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something? Well
has
> this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but
gobbldygook
> and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
Welcome to the club.
That was my lament about two years ago. What a disappointment!
And I'm nearly forty years old.
> I still think there may be hope for Behe,
I doubt it.
Aron-Ra
Bobby D. Bryant
> Despite the Establishments consistent efforts to sabotage the
> efforts of the ID movement to establish and grow a healthy research
> environment, the truth cannot be denied but for so long.
So, it's The Establishment's fault that IDers are generating hot air
instead of sound results?
Well, they *do* need an excuse.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Richard Alexander
[snip]
> Behe does research, but not in the field of evolutionary biology. Most of
> his writings are rehashes of his IC=ID assertion; his onlione debates with
> Kenneth Miller show his skill at avoiding the main points. I had hope for
> him when I first read DBB in 1998, and finally discovered an
> anti-evolutionist who accepted common descent,
Why do you call Behe an anti-evolutionist? He states right in the
front of "Darwin's Black Box" (among other places) that he is an
evolutionist; various Creationist Web sites also identify him as an
evolutionist. Behe's point was not that evolution or common descent
did not occur; his argument is that Darwinian descent with
modification cannot explain certain biological objects, but biology is
so wrapped up in Darwinianism that biologists cannot bring themselves
to addressing this issue.
[snip]
David Jensen
po...@aol.com (Richard Alexander) wrote in
<d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com>:
>Why do you call Behe an anti-evolutionist? He states right in the
>front of "Darwin's Black Box" (among other places) that he is an
>evolutionist; various Creationist Web sites also identify him as an
>evolutionist. Behe's point was not that evolution or common descent
>did not occur; his argument is that Darwinian descent with
>modification cannot explain certain biological objects, but biology is
>so wrapped up in Darwinianism that biologists cannot bring themselves
>to addressing this issue.
Well, if his criticisms held water, maybe I wouldn't think that he is a
fraud who is only interested in playing politics, but until he manages
to provide evidence that satisfies more than the DI and YECultists, I
will consider him (along Johnson et al.) to be a stalking-horse for
creationism. His argument is unsupported.
Adam Marczyk
news:IBj18.57614$K36.18...@news1.rdc1.va.home.com...
You have to admire that awesome burst there at the end. However, he forgot
to work in the terms "materialism", "reductionism", and "preconceived bias".
Also, judging by the second-to-last paragraph, this post came perilously
close to containing actual content - always a no-no for IDers. I give it a
2.5.
[snip]
Adam Marczyk
news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
In other words, his point is that evolution did not occur, at least not when
it comes to certain structures. Rather, it seems, evolution happened almost
everywhere, but some mysterious unspecified intelligent agency intervened at
some point to somehow do something that caused some structure to form that
evolution probably could not have produced. This sounds like creationism to
me.
--
a.a. #2001
"Blasphemy is a victimless crime."
Director, EAC Black Monolith Division - "My God, it's full of stars"
Operative: EAC Electronic Warfare Division
EAC Subversive Fiction Division
http://www.ebonmusings.org ICQ: 8777843
Elmer Bataitis
(snip)
> The language of description of the detailed workings of the microbiological
> basis of life even among evolutionary biologists is *already* the language of
> design. How silly to refuse to consider that the *already admitted* design
> is anything other than only apparent!
And the detailed workings of the atomic basis of existence is also in
the language of design. Hydrogen combines with 2 oxygen atoms in a
precisely designed way. How is this different?
**********************************************************
Elmer Bataitis "Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!"
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884
Proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor,
the straight jacket of conventional thought.
**********************************************************
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by "Mike Goodrich"
<tachy...@home.com>:
<snip>
>*Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
Cite to the relevant literature, please. Or retract.
<snip>
--
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
Mike Goodrich
"Michael Altarriba" <mik...@jps.net> wrote in message
news:3C45D941...@jps.net...
Don't know what "your satisfaction" means. In any case if you are
really that open minded then start reading around the ID literature
and
others who take issue with the basic NDT dogma.
> and I'll be
> the first to adopt this "emerging paradigm." I want the explanation
that
> best fits the facts, regardless of its effect on my current
worldview.
> I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie every...single...time.
'Best' is likely to be subjective and predicated on your a priori
metaphysical commitments. Thus you have good reason to re-examine
them just in case you are prefiltering information, concepts, and
arguments and rejecting them. It's up to you.
regards,
-mg
Bobby D. Bryant
> "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
>> I still think there may be hope for Behe,
>
> I doubt it.
Hope that he'll switch to selling used cars, maybe.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
stew dean
>
> You are premature my friend. The cat is already out the bag, the
> horses
> out of the barns, and the dirty little secret of evolutionary biology
> there for all
> to see. *Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
>
This is news. Got some references?
> The language of description of the detailed workings of the
> microbiological
> basis of life even among evolutionary biologists is *already* the
> language of
> design.
Very much not so.
> How silly to refuse to consider that the *already admitted*
> design is anything other than only apparent!
Which means?
> The discoveries of biological information storage, retrieval, media
> transcription, compression/descompression, cybernetic feedback
> inhibition, positive/negative feedback loops, 'cryptic' genes,
> regulation, repression, genetic 'battle-short' mode, 'back' mutations,
> non-random mutations, etc. The list goes on. All at a scale of
> process
> and material integration exceeding anything ever concieved or
> discovered.
>
Sounds like a mixture of topics that may well becovered by neural
network and artificial life. Life is a self organising sytem -
evolution is the main process it uses that is wonderfully universal.
You can't disprove something that people are already using to design
aircraft?
Look evolution is a very simple system. It's an iterative system (aka
a feedback loop) that is fueled by a low level of random alteration
filtered by the environment. The only way evolution can't happen for a
population is if there is not environment or it is 100% benign.
> In the face of these extraordinary discoveries the evolutionary
> biological
> Establishment continues to retreat to 'explanations' which are
> apologetic
> tautalogies, driven by metaphysical precommitments, which only seek to
> artificially insulate their 'theory' from competition All of these
> considerations and more show the monopolistic recalcitrance of this
> prejudiced view.
Read up on artificial life. You'll find more has been covered than you
appear to be aware of. Evolution is now very useful.
> We are seeing the death throws of a dying paradigm resting on it's
> collective laurels, lacking the imagination and courage to deal with
> the
> emerging facts of the cybernetic/design basis of life.
>
We are seeing increasing use of evolution and a new paradigms of
developing software and other solutions. Design is top down, it's
about building. Evolution is bottom up, its about growing. By evolving
a system you can allow for decentralisation and increased resiliance.
Take the internet for example. Try and build what we have today and
you'd fail. Let it grow, evolve and adapt and it works amazingly. When
was the last time the Internet was rebooted?!?
Chaos theory, complexity, information theory, neural networks,
evolution and emergence are all concepts driving deeper and deeper
understanding of the world around us. After all can you answer 'what
is life?'.
Stew Dean
George Acton
I've run into the following quotes from Behe:
"Once I read Denton's book I was amazed that people believed
in evolution when there was this clear argument against it."
"In reality, [common descent] draws most of its strength not from
the spotty fossil record, but from the scientific community's
predisposition to view nature as an uninterrupted whole. For
intellectually honest people ... the evidence for common descent
may be unpersuasive."
"If it was designed by an intelligent agent through natural
selection, that's not Darwinism. Darwinism says that it was
essentially, philosophically, random. That there was no purpose."
http://www.arn.org/arn/techno/techno1297.htm
The last quote indicates not that he's against some theory
specifically identified with Darwin, but against any naturalistic
explanation at all. This is reinforced by the closing passages
of his book, in which he warns scientists to get ready for the
re-introduction of the supernatural. A theological version of
the warning, "Buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a rough night."
--George Acton
Michael Altarriba
Mike Goodrich wrote:
I have... and so far, I'm not impressed. The reading I've done hasn't
managed to pursuade me that there is anything of value to the concept of
Intelligent Design as it applies to the origin of life on this planet,
or on how life changes over time.
>
>
>
>>and I'll be
>>the first to adopt this "emerging paradigm." I want the explanation
>>
> that
>
>>best fits the facts, regardless of its effect on my current
>>
> worldview.
>
>>I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie every...single...time.
>>
>
>
> 'Best' is likely to be subjective and predicated on your a priori
> metaphysical commitments. Thus you have good reason to re-examine
> them just in case you are prefiltering information, concepts, and
> arguments and rejecting them. It's up to you.
I tend to prefer those theories that explain the phenomena I observe,
and predict new phenomena that I (or others) can go out and look for.
The physics and engineering that went into my computer's design would
seem to be independent of the metaphysical stance of it's designers, or
mine as a user.
Perhaps you can tell me: what exactly is Intelligent Design Theory, and
what testable predictions does it make?
>
> regards,
>
> -mg
>
>
Adam Marczyk
[snip]
> > Do you have any actual evidence to support this rather spectacular
> > collection of assertions? Support them to my satisfaction,
>
> Don't know what "your satisfaction" means. In any case if you are
> really that open minded then start reading around the ID literature and
> others who take issue with the basic NDT dogma.
What "literature"?? Michael Behe's demonstrably false claim that evolution
cannot create irreducibly complex structures? Dembski's "design inference"
which assumes that the combination of selection and randomness cannot create
information when that is exactly the thing he's trying to prove? Are there
journals devoted to this? Where is this non-existent literature?
> > and I'll be
> > the first to adopt this "emerging paradigm." I want the explanation
> that
> > best fits the facts, regardless of its effect on my current
> worldview.
> > I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie every...single...time.
>
> 'Best' is likely to be subjective and predicated on your a priori
> metaphysical commitments. Thus you have good reason to re-examine
> them just in case you are prefiltering information, concepts, and
> arguments and rejecting them. It's up to you.
The poster would be well advised to consider the 2x4 sticking out of his own
eye before he starts lecturing others about specks of sawdust. At least we
have actual, physical evidence we can point to, whereas your entire argument
seems to consist of vague whining about naturalism and handwaving arguments
from incredulity. You haven't even attempted to deal realistically with the
many intractable problems that would result from allowing arbitrary
supernatural action into science and thus robbing it of all explanatory and
predictive power.
Adam Marczyk
news:3C4620...@softdisk.com...
If you read each of those quotes carefully, there's an escape hatch in each
of them. Behe's doing his best to straddle the fence here and kowtow to both
sides, though he seems more concerned with assuaging the creationists.
George Acton
Perhaps "assuage" is inaccurate. If he wanted to do that, he'd
explain to the Creationists that scientists arrive at evolution by
a process of trying to interpret the data in good faith, and that
they are open to contradictory evidence. Instead, he tells his
readers that scientists are ignoring obvious evidence that
evolution is wrong. In one of the quotes above he says that
the scientific community is intellectually dishonest. His
Parable of the Elephant says that scientists are trying to advance
atheism by ignoring the evidence for design.
It may be more accurate to say that he's trying to incite
laymen to distrust and hate the scientific community, while
phrasing the incitement in a way that slips under the radar.
--George Acton
Derek Stevenson
news:iVn18.57959$K36.18...@news1.rdc1.va.home.com...
> Don't know what "your satisfaction" means. In any case if you are
> really that open minded then start reading around the ID literature
> and
> others who take issue with the basic NDT dogma.
The IDers are taking on non-destructive testing now?
Can they afford to lose the support of all of those creationist engineers?
(I suppose it's possible that creationist engineers don't believe in NDT --
if God chooses not to preserve the item being tested, that indicates that
it's Satanic and *should* be destroyed.)
[snip]
Derek Stevenson
news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
> Why do you call Behe an anti-evolutionist? He states right in the
> front of "Darwin's Black Box" (among other places) that he is an
> evolutionist; various Creationist Web sites also identify him as an
> evolutionist. Behe's point was not that evolution or common descent
> did not occur; his argument is that Darwinian descent with
> modification cannot explain certain biological objects, but biology is
> so wrapped up in Darwinianism that biologists cannot bring themselves
> to addressing this issue.
And of course Behe takes great pains to emphasize his acceptance of common
descent and the adequacy of evolution for explaining *most* biological
structures any time he addresses a creationist audience, just so they're
under no illusions as to what he believes.
Oh, wait...
Bobby D. Bryant
> I've run into the following quotes from Behe:
>
> "In reality, [common descent] draws most of its strength not from
> the spotty fossil record, but from the scientific community's
> predisposition to view nature as an uninterrupted whole. For
> intellectually honest people ... the evidence for common descent
> may be unpersuasive."
IOW, if you *assume* supernatural intervention, then supernatural
intervention is the best explanation.
> "If it was designed by an intelligent agent through natural
> selection, that's not Darwinism. Darwinism says that it was
> essentially, philosophically, random. That there was no
> purpose."
Again, *assume* a purpose, and you have assumed the existence of an
purposeful agent.
What's that saying about theft and honest toil?
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
TomS
"Bobby stated..."
>
>On Wed, 16 Jan 2002 18:54:21 -0600, George Acton wrote:
>
>> I've run into the following quotes from Behe:
>>
>> "In reality, [common descent] draws most of its strength not from
>> the spotty fossil record, but from the scientific community's
>> predisposition to view nature as an uninterrupted whole. For
>> intellectually honest people ... the evidence for common descent
>> may be unpersuasive."
>
>IOW, if you *assume* supernatural intervention, then supernatural
>intervention is the best explanation.
Even if you assume supernatural intervention, how is it an
*explanation*? (Much less *a* best explanation. And far less
*the* best explanation.)
I understand that the myth of Persephone is an explanation for
the coming of spring. There is some connection made, in that myth,
between Persephone coming back to the world of the living, and
spring.
But for the evolution-denier-type of supernatural intervention,
I am not aware of any connection made between some feature of natural
world and a supernatural *explanation* for it, or some character of
one of these Intelligent Designers.
If I ask, "Why is there a smile on the Mona Lisa?", I would
think it is simply avoiding the question to give the response,
"Because the painting was done by Leonardo Da Vinci."
It seems to me the same holds true for, "Why is there an
immune system in mammals?" ... "It is simply avoiding the question
to give the response, "Because of Intelligent Designer(s)". It is a
non-explanation. Even if one assumes (or even if one can demonstrate)
the existence of Intelligent Designer(s), it certainly does not mean
that it is *the*best*explanation*.
Tom S.
Richard Alexander
> Richard Alexander <po...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
> > "Frank J" <FN...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:<EE418.379132$5A3.14...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>...
> > > "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > Behe does research, but not in the field of evolutionary biology. Most
> of
> > > his writings are rehashes of his IC=ID assertion; his onlione debates
> with
> > > Kenneth Miller show his skill at avoiding the main points. I had hope
> for
> > > him when I first read DBB in 1998, and finally discovered an
> > > anti-evolutionist who accepted common descent,
> >
> > Why do you call Behe an anti-evolutionist? He states right in the
> > front of "Darwin's Black Box" (among other places) that he is an
> > evolutionist; various Creationist Web sites also identify him as an
> > evolutionist. Behe's point was not that evolution or common descent
> > did not occur; his argument is that Darwinian descent with
> > modification cannot explain certain biological objects, but biology is
> > so wrapped up in Darwinianism that biologists cannot bring themselves
> > to addressing this issue.
>
> In other words, his point is that evolution did not occur,
NO! No, no, no! His point is that *Darwinian* evolution is not the
full explanation of evolution. He believes that evolution occurred,
but that Darwinian evolution cannot explain irreducibly complex
structures. You are falling into exactly the trap of which Behe warns,
that of thinking that evolution and Darwinism or iterative change are
the same thing. Behe's point is that something had to have happened
(whether divine intervention or some unknown principle, it doesn't
matter) that produced structures that conventional descent with
modification cannot produce.
> at least not when it comes to certain structures. Rather, it seems,
> evolution happened almost everywhere, but some mysterious unspecified
> intelligent agency
An intelligent agency is one possibility, but not the only option in
Behe's argument.
> intervened at some point to somehow do something that caused some
> structure to form that evolution probably could not have produced.
The correct statement would be, "that Darwinian evolution (or,
conventional descent with modification) could not have produced."
> This sounds like creationism to me.
It is not. Behe's position does not have anything to do with divine
intervention, or Creationism. His only value to the Creationist
argument (as ICR has noted on its public Web page) is that he shows
that mainstream evolutionary theory cannot explain a critical piece of
the biological world.
Alan Morgan
I don't think that there is disagreement on this point. Darwinian
evolution can't explain them. Whether or not they exist is the question.
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
George Acton
But clearly, "Darwinism" is just another way of saying naturalism.
Any "design" has to be physically realized, because the only way
Behe can infer design is through something um physical. If this
does not violate the basic physical laws of chemistry and physics,
it's naturalistic, therefore not "intelligent".
So what Behe is claiming is that supernatural events are
necessary to explain biological organisms. He explicitly says this
in the last pages of his book. He has said in interviews that of
course he has God in mind for the designer.
IOW, you are incorrect in stating that his position has nothing
to do with divine intervention.
--George Acton
David Jensen
>"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message news:<u4bqeff...@corp.supernews.com>...
>> Richard Alexander <po...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
...
>> > Why do you call Behe an anti-evolutionist? He states right in the
>> > front of "Darwin's Black Box" (among other places) that he is an
>> > evolutionist; various Creationist Web sites also identify him as an
>> > evolutionist. Behe's point was not that evolution or common descent
>> > did not occur; his argument is that Darwinian descent with
>> > modification cannot explain certain biological objects, but biology is
>> > so wrapped up in Darwinianism that biologists cannot bring themselves
>> > to addressing this issue.
>>
>> In other words, his point is that evolution did not occur,
>
>NO! No, no, no! His point is that *Darwinian* evolution is not the
>full explanation of evolution. He believes that evolution occurred,
>but that Darwinian evolution cannot explain irreducibly complex
>structures. You are falling into exactly the trap of which Behe warns,
>that of thinking that evolution and Darwinism or iterative change are
>the same thing. Behe's point is that something had to have happened
>(whether divine intervention or some unknown principle, it doesn't
>matter) that produced structures that conventional descent with
>modification cannot produce.
Ah, so he's challenging 140 year old science and ignoring the bits we've
learned since then, eg genetics. That doesn't strike me as a
particularly honest or scientific approach, but if you say that's what
he's doing, who am I to argue. I wonder when he will provide an example
of an irreducibly complex structure that withstands more than ten
seconds' scrutiny.
>> at least not when it comes to certain structures. Rather, it seems,
>> evolution happened almost everywhere, but some mysterious unspecified
>> intelligent agency
>
>An intelligent agency is one possibility, but not the only option in
>Behe's argument.
Unfortunately for his argument it is never required.
>> intervened at some point to somehow do something that caused some
>> structure to form that evolution probably could not have produced.
>
>The correct statement would be, "that Darwinian evolution (or,
>conventional descent with modification) could not have produced."
It would also be an erroneous statement for each of the examples he has
provided to date.
>> This sounds like creationism to me.
>
>It is not. Behe's position does not have anything to do with divine
>intervention, or Creationism. His only value to the Creationist
>argument (as ICR has noted on its public Web page) is that he shows
>that mainstream evolutionary theory cannot explain a critical piece of
>the biological world.
They might think so, but I'm not aware of any biologists who take Behe
seriously. Could you name some?
Adam Marczyk
news:a27856$p8t$1...@usenet.Stanford.EDU...
You've got it the other way around. Standard Darwinian evolution can easily
produce irreducibly complex structures, and has even been shown to do so in
the lab.
Adam Marczyk
Let's not be coy. Does *anyone* think Behe really isn't saying that God
miraculously produced these structures?
> > at least not when it comes to certain structures. Rather, it seems,
> > evolution happened almost everywhere, but some mysterious unspecified
> > intelligent agency
>
> An intelligent agency is one possibility, but not the only option in
> Behe's argument.
What other options are there?
> > intervened at some point to somehow do something that caused some
> > structure to form that evolution probably could not have produced.
>
> The correct statement would be, "that Darwinian evolution (or,
> conventional descent with modification) could not have produced."
>
> > This sounds like creationism to me.
>
> It is not. Behe's position does not have anything to do with divine
> intervention, or Creationism. His only value to the Creationist
> argument (as ICR has noted on its public Web page) is that he shows
> that mainstream evolutionary theory cannot explain a critical piece of
> the biological world.
Well, he happens to be wrong about that, because standard evolution can
easily produce IC structures. I think he even admitted this himself in his
book, he just thinks it's "unlikely."
Alan Morgan
You are correct. I had twisted the definition in my mind.
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by "Adam Marczyk"
<ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com>:
>Alan Morgan <amo...@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> wrote in message
>news:a27856$p8t$1...@usenet.Stanford.EDU...
>> In article <d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com>,
>> Richard Alexander <po...@aol.com> wrote:
<snip>
>> >NO! No, no, no! His point is that *Darwinian* evolution is not the
>> >full explanation of evolution. He believes that evolution occurred,
>> >but that Darwinian evolution cannot explain irreducibly complex
>> >structures.
>>
>> I don't think that there is disagreement on this point. Darwinian
>> evolution can't explain them. Whether or not they exist is the question.
>
>You've got it the other way around. Standard Darwinian evolution can easily
>produce irreducibly complex structures, and has even been shown to do so in
>the lab.
I think you've missed the implied point. IIRC what has been
shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
of descent with modification would be "a structure which
*could not* have been produced by descent with
modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
am I incorrect?
IOW, Behe's definition is irrelevant to the question; what's
worse, he *knows* (IMHO) it's a strawman and doesn't really
care so long as he can attract the naive.
Robin Levett
> Richard Alexander <po...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
> > "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message
> news:<u4bqeff...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > > Richard Alexander <po...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > news:d8fbbe2d.02011...@posting.google.com...
> > > > "Frank J" <FN...@home.com> wrote in message
> > > news:<EE418.379132$5A3.14...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>...
> > > > > "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > > > news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
<further snip>
Well, since he says in the book that it was God - or, rather, that the
elephant that did the designing (or was it killed the scientist?) had
God written on the other side - I think the point is very clear.
>
> > > at least not when it comes to certain structures. Rather, it
seems,
> > > evolution happened almost everywhere, but some mysterious
unspecified
> > > intelligent agency
> >
> > An intelligent agency is one possibility, but not the only option
in
> > Behe's argument.
>
> What other options are there?
According to the book (DBB) - none. His whole point is that it was an
Intelligent Designer, that he explicitly identifies as God.
>
> > > intervened at some point to somehow do something that caused
some
> > > structure to form that evolution probably could not have
produced.
> >
> > The correct statement would be, "that Darwinian evolution (or,
> > conventional descent with modification) could not have produced."
> >
> > > This sounds like creationism to me.
> >
> > It is not. Behe's position does not have anything to do with
divine
> > intervention, or Creationism.
Have you actually read DBB? Or are you saying that Behe's position
has changed fundamentally since that book was published?
>> His only value to the Creationist
> > argument (as ICR has noted on its public Web page) is that he
shows
> > that mainstream evolutionary theory cannot explain a critical
piece of
> > the biological world.
.... and that therefore one must invoke an Intelligent Designer - and
the elephant that he fingers has got "God" written on the other side.
>
> Well, he happens to be wrong about that, because standard evolution
can
> easily produce IC structures. I think he even admitted this himself
in his
> book, he just thinks it's "unlikely."
>
--
________________________________________________________________
Robin Levett
rle...@ibmrlevett.uklinux.net
(address munged by addition of Big Blue)
Atheist = knows of and uses Occam's Razor
Agnostic = knows of but isn't sure whether to use Occam's Razor
Fundy = what's Ockam's erasure?
___________________________________________________
Frank J
(snip)
> NO! No, no, no! His point is that *Darwinian* evolution is not the
> full explanation of evolution. He believes that evolution occurred,
> but that Darwinian evolution cannot explain irreducibly complex
> structures. You are falling into exactly the trap of which Behe warns,
> that of thinking that evolution and Darwinism or iterative change are
> the same thing. Behe's point is that something had to have happened
> (whether divine intervention or some unknown principle, it doesn't
> matter) that produced structures that conventional descent with
> modification cannot produce.
>
If Behe only wanted to propose a non-Darwinian evolutionary mechanism he
would have done what normal scientists do, i.e. do research in the field,
and not take an argument from ignorance directly to a public that largely
misunderstands the nature of science. Darwinian evolution does not claim to
explain every detail of the origins of complex biochemical systems, just the
general mechanisms. The detailed reviews of Behe (e.g. by Ussery et. al.)
show that we are learning more each day and that neither evolution nor the
Darwinian explanation are anywhere near "a theory in crisis." What sets Behe
apart from normal evolutionists is summed up by Jerry Coyne:
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/br22.1/coyne.html
(snip)
Frank J
"Derek Stevenson" <dstev...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:u4do9ph...@news.supernews.com...
criticizes Kauffman (I find it hard to believe that Behe actually read
"Origins of Order"). But in arguing that the PBS series failed to discuss
alternatives Behe found it convenient to defend Kauffman. Kauffman's reply:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/2253_pr91_10142001__kauffman_rej_1
0_14_2001.asp
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On 17 Jan 2002 14:00:01 -0500, po...@aol.com (Richard Alexander)
wrote:
And this is controversial in what way? Genetic drift, allometry and
polypolidy are well known non-darwinian evolutionary mechanisms that
have been incorporated evolutionary theories for decades.
>He believes that evolution occurred,
>but that Darwinian evolution cannot explain irreducibly complex
>structures. You are falling into exactly the trap of which Behe warns,
>that of thinking that evolution and Darwinism or iterative change are
>the same thing. Behe's point is that something had to have happened
>(whether divine intervention or some unknown principle, it doesn't
>matter) that produced structures that conventional descent with
>modification cannot produce.
And in this case he is wrong. In _all_ his examples, descent with
modification can be shown to produce the structures he says they
can't.
See http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/Behe1.html
and
http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darwin/DI/Clotting.html
and references and weblinks therein.
However, Behe clearly states with his "elephant" analogy he thinks the
missing factor is divine intervention.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis and Michael James Musgrave
reyn...@werple.mira.net.au http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
Bobby D. Bryant
> and
> the elephant that he fingers has got "God" written on the other side.
How embarassing!
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Richard Alexander
> >
> > "Frank J" <FN...@home.com> wrote in message news:<EE418.379132$5A3.14...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>...
> > > "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
[snip]
> http://www.arn.org/arn/techno/techno1297.htm
My ISP must be messing up again; I cannot access the URL you provided.
However, I was able to access www.arn.org, and did a search on "Behe."
I appreciate your pointing me to this site, as it provides me with
some of Behe's rebuttals to his critics.
Incidentally, the front flap of "Darwin's Black Box" states,
"Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these
questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must
have been *designed*--either by God, or by some otehr higher
intelligence. For decades science has been frustrated, trying to
reconcile the astonishing discoveries of modern biochemistry to a
nineteenth-century theory that cannot accommodate them. With the
publication of 'Darwin's Black Box,' it is time for scientists to
allow themselves to consider exciting new possibilities, and for the
rest of us to watch closely."
Richard Alexander
[snip]
> Standard Darwinian evolution can easily produce irreducibly complex
> structures, and has even been shown to do so in the lab.
What you say sounds peculiar, for several reasons, and has aroused my
curiosity. What irreducibly complex structures are supposed to have
been created by evolution in a lab? Which lab? Who did the
experiments? When were they performed? When were the results
published? Can you cite any research reports to support your
suggestion? How did you hear of them?
Thank you.
Bigdakine
>From: "Frank J" FN...@home.com
>Date: 1/17/02 3:58 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <1lL18.788$Qc6.1...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>
read Kauffman's works before blabbering about them..
Oh well, good to see that Kauffman corrected him publicly.
Stuart
>
>
>
>
>
Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
"To err is human, but to really foul things up
requires a creationist"
Richard Alexander
> IIRC what has been
> shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
> complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
> definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
> a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
> of descent with modification would be "a structure which
> *could not* have been produced by descent with
> modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
> am I incorrect?
AFAIK, the only way to produce an irreducibly complex structure is
through the use of a scaffolding or support mechanism. The trouble the
support mechanism would have to take into account the needs of the
structure being built, in addition to its own structural needs; thus,
it would seem the scaffolding would need to be more complex than the
structure being built. Another problem is in wondering why the support
mechanism would exist, then disappear?
There have been several challenges to Behe's suggested examples of
irreducible complexity. Here is a snippet from one of his replies:
"In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I
devoted a chapter to the mechanism of blood clotting, arguing that it
is irreducibly complex and therefore a big problem for Darwinian
evolution. Since my book came out, as far as I am aware there have
been no papers published in the scientific literature giving a
detailed scenario or experiments to show how natural selection could
have built the system. However three scientists publishing outside
science journals have attempted to respond. The first is Russell
Doolittle, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California
at San Diego, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and expert
on blood clotting. Second is Kenneth Miller, a professor of cell
biology at Brown University and author of Finding Darwin's God (Miller
1999). The third scientist is Keith Robison, who at the time of his
writing was a graduate student at Harvard University.
"I will give their arguments below and my response. Here is a brief
summary.
"1) Professor Doolittle argued that new laboratory work showed two
components of the blood clotting cascade could be eliminated
("knocked-out") from mice and the mice got along fine without them.
However, Doolittle misread the laboratory work: the double knock-out
mice have severe problems and have no functioning blood clotting
system. They are not models of evolutionary intermediates.
"Although anyone can misread a paper, in my opinion the fact that an
expert cited a recent and contradictory journal article, instead of a
publication directly addressing the evolution of blood clotting, shows
that there are indeed no detailed explanations for the evolution of
blood clotting in the literature and that, despite Darwinian
protestations, the irreducible complexity of the system is a
significant problem for Darwinism.
"2) Although embedded in a lengthy description of how blood clotting
and other systems work, Professor Miller's actual explanation for how
the vertebrate clotting cascade evolved consists of one paragraph. It
is a just-so story that doesn't deal with any of the difficulties the
evolution of such an intricate system would face. Even so, in the one
paragraph Miller proposes what looks like a detrimental or fatal
situation, akin to the knock-out mice (above) that lack critical
components.
"3) Keith Robison proposed that a cascade might begin with a single
enzyme with three different properties. Upon duplication of the gene
for the enzyme, the duplicate loses several of the properties,
resulting in a two-component cascade. Repetition of the scenario
builds cascades with more components. Although intriguing, the
scenario starts with a complex, unjustified situation (the enzyme with
multiple abilities) that already has all necessary activities. What's
more, the proposed gene duplication and several steps needed to lose
function are "neutral," unselected mutations. Stringing together
several very specific neutral mutations to build a complex system is
vastly improbable and amounts to intelligent design."
"In Defense of the Irreducibility of the Blood Clotting Cascade:
Response to Russell Doolittle, Ken Miller and Keith Robison"
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_indefenseofbloodclottingcascade.htm
[snip]
Bobby D. Bryant
> Incidentally, the front flap of "Darwin's Black Box" states,
>
> "Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
> method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these
> questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must
> have been *designed*--either by God, or by some otehr higher
> intelligence. [...]"
"either by 'God', or by some other higher intelligence with the same
name."
AKA, crypto-creationism.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Wade Hines
Richard Alexander wrote:
>
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:<7rje4usq1o67ofc9r...@4ax.com>...
>
> > IIRC what has been
> > shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
> > complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
> > definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
> > a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
> > of descent with modification would be "a structure which
> > *could not* have been produced by descent with
> > modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
> > am I incorrect?
>
> AFAIK, the only way to produce an irreducibly complex structure is
> through the use of a scaffolding or support mechanism. The trouble the
> support mechanism would have to take into account the needs of the
> structure being built, in addition to its own structural needs; thus,
> it would seem the scaffolding would need to be more complex than the
> structure being built. Another problem is in wondering why the support
> mechanism would exist, then disappear?
Hemoglobin is IC. The Krebs cycle is IC. The evolution of these
systems do not require scaffolding. To the extent that blood
clotting is IC, it does not require scaffolding.
So what are you talking about?
Consider mammalian hemoglobin with alpha and beta chains. Just
mamalian beta won't make a functional hemoglobin and neither
will just mammalian alpha. It is likewise currently required
that a fetus express variant forms of hemoglobin to extract O2
from the placenta. How does the evolution of these systems
require scaffolding?
> There have been several challenges to Behe's suggested examples of
> irreducible complexity. Here is a snippet from one of his replies:
>
> "In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I
> devoted a chapter to the mechanism of blood clotting, arguing that it
> is irreducibly complex and therefore a big problem for Darwinian
> evolution. Since my book came out, as far as I am aware there have
> been no papers published in the scientific literature giving a
> detailed scenario or experiments to show how natural selection could
> have built the system. However three scientists publishing outside
> science journals have attempted to respond. The first is Russell
> Doolittle, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California
> at San Diego, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and expert
> on blood clotting. Second is Kenneth Miller, a professor of cell
> biology at Brown University and author of Finding Darwin's God (Miller
> 1999). The third scientist is Keith Robison, who at the time of his
> writing was a graduate student at Harvard University.
>
> "I will give their arguments below and my response. Here is a brief
> summary.
...
> "3) Keith Robison proposed that a cascade might begin with a single
> enzyme with three different properties. Upon duplication of the gene
> for the enzyme, the duplicate loses several of the properties,
> resulting in a two-component cascade. Repetition of the scenario
> builds cascades with more components. Although intriguing, the
> scenario starts with a complex, unjustified situation (the enzyme with
> multiple abilities) that already has all necessary activities.
That's very untrue. Keith made the situation clear enough. There isn't
a need for clotting capable of stoping high pressure blood flow at the
start. Behe's comments here are quite absurd.
His further distortions are just as bad or worse.
> What's
> more, the proposed gene duplication and several steps needed to lose
> function are "neutral," unselected mutations. Stringing together
> several very specific neutral mutations to build a complex system is
> vastly improbable and amounts to intelligent design."
I do wonder at times if Behe is that dense or that dishonest. I don't
know the answer. The mutations needed are not so specific and Behe
does know enough about proteins to know better.
Michael G.
wrote:
>Adam Marczyk wrote:
[...]
>> If you read each of those quotes carefully, there's an escape hatch in each
>> of them. Behe's doing his best to straddle the fence here and kowtow to both
>> sides, though he seems more concerned with assuaging the creationists.
>
>Perhaps "assuage" is inaccurate. If he wanted to do that, he'd
>explain to the Creationists that scientists arrive at evolution by
>a process of trying to interpret the data in good faith, and that
>they are open to contradictory evidence. Instead, he tells his
>readers that scientists are ignoring obvious evidence that
>evolution is wrong. In one of the quotes above he says that
>the scientific community is intellectually dishonest. His
>Parable of the Elephant says that scientists are trying to advance
>atheism by ignoring the evidence for design.
> It may be more accurate to say that he's trying to incite
>laymen to distrust and hate the scientific community, while
>phrasing the incitement in a way that slips under the radar.
Come on--I don't think Behe is that astute politically. At worst he's
echoing his own fears in such a way that he could try to weasel out of
it later. Don't confuse him with Johnson or Wells.
--Michael
Drearash
>Date: 1/17/02 12:36 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <a2721...@drn.newsguy.com>
The easiest and most familiar example of ID's lack of content is the answer to
the child's question: "Why is the sky blue?"
The answer: "Because God made it blue" is expedient precisely because it
explains nothing, requires no understanding of the actual phenomena, and
forestalls any follow-up questions. It's also a great way to say "I don't
know" while managing to sound wise and pious.
Its very sterility and lack of content make this answer a great way to shut
pesky kids up. Pesky scientists, however, are not so easily satisfied, nor
should they be.
Von Smith
"You are not thinking...you are merely being logical" -Niels Bohr
Michael G.
wrote:
>
>"ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
>> Although as recently as last month i held out some sort of hope for
>I.D. ( i am
>> a theist), i have now lost it with the bunch of em, the last two or
>three
>> things i have heard from Dembski,Wells and Johnson ,have now
>convinced me they
>> had nothing all along, just the same methods the YEC creationists
>used.Didn't
>> the Discovery Institute have some sort of 5 -year plan or something?
>Well has
>> this plan failed and this is the reason we are hearing nothing but
>gobbldygook
>> and the old creationist standby ,misquotes?
>> I still think there may be hope for Behe,IF he actually decides to
>do some
>> serious research into the problems his Irreducable Complexity face,
>instead of
>> sitting back on his laurels and doing the lecture circuit.Maybe i am
>mistaken
>> and he has done some papers on I.C. since Darwins Black Box?
>>
>
>
>You are premature my friend. The cat is already out the bag, the
>horses
>out of the barns, and the dirty little secret of evolutionary biology
>there for all
>to see. *Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
>
>The language of description of the detailed workings of the
>microbiological
>basis of life even among evolutionary biologists is *already* the
>language of
>design. How silly to refuse to consider that the *already admitted*
>design
>is anything other than only apparent!
>
>The discoveries of biological information storage, retrieval, media
>transcription, compression/descompression, cybernetic feedback
>inhibition, positive/negative feedback loops, 'cryptic' genes,
>regulation, repression, genetic 'battle-short' mode, 'back' mutations,
>non-random mutations, etc. The list goes on. All at a scale of
>process
>and material integration exceeding anything ever concieved or
>discovered.
>
>In the face of these extraordinary discoveries the evolutionary
>biological
>Establishment continues to retreat to 'explanations' which are
>apologetic
>tautalogies, driven by metaphysical precommitments, which only seek to
>artificially insulate their 'theory' from competition All of these
>considerations and more show the monopolistic recalcitrance of this
>prejudiced view.
>
>We are seeing the death throws of a dying paradigm resting on it's
>collective laurels, lacking the imagination and courage to deal with
>the
>emerging facts of the cybernetic/design basis of life.
>
>I advise you not to give in to it. It is very early in the emerging
>paradigm
>shift. Despite the Establishments consistent efforts to sabotage the
>efforts of the ID movement to establish and grow a healthy research
>environment, the truth cannot be denied but for so long.
>
>And they are using the classic techniques of propoganda to do it!
>
>But *science* my friend is openly refuting them.
>
>I hope you will reconsider, and get in on the paradigm shift early.
I would still like to see the results that this paradigm shift is
based on. What does ID have to do with the "biological information
storage," etc., that you mention above? Was any of this based on
predictions by the ID movement? So far I haven't seen much in the way
of predictions.
In fact, I haven't seen much of anything out of the ID movement but a
few books critical of evolution and a few new philosophical arguments.
If ID is going to be a scientific movement instead of a political
movement you're going to need to show us some results.
--Michael
Michael G.
wrote:
[...]
>Don't know what "your satisfaction" means. In any case if you are
>really that open minded then start reading around the ID literature
>and
>others who take issue with the basic NDT dogma.
>
>
>> and I'll be
>> the first to adopt this "emerging paradigm." I want the explanation
>that
>> best fits the facts, regardless of its effect on my current
>worldview.
>> I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie every...single...time.
>
>
>'Best' is likely to be subjective and predicated on your a priori
>metaphysical commitments. Thus you have good reason to re-examine
>them just in case you are prefiltering information, concepts, and
>arguments and rejecting them. It's up to you.
I'm perfectly willing to read ID literature. I've read Darwin's Black
Box, Darwin on Trial and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. I've
read some of Dembski's papers on the web. While all of them have
argued against evolution and/or naturalism, none of them provide any
evidence for ID. None of them describe any testable hypotheses. None
of them describe any results supporting ID. Please point us to some
piece of ID literature that contains any of those things. How can you
filter that which you do not see?
--Michael
George Acton
>
> George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> wrote in message news:<3C4620...@softdisk.com>...
> > Richard Alexander wrote:
> > >
> > > "Frank J" <FN...@home.com> wrote in message news:<EE418.379132$5A3.14...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>...
> > > > "ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:20020115195744...@mb-ba.aol.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> > http://www.arn.org/arn/techno/techno1297.htm
>
> My ISP must be messing up again; I cannot access the URL you provided.
> However, I was able to access www.arn.org, and did a search on "Behe."
> I appreciate your pointing me to this site, as it provides me with
> some of Behe's rebuttals to his critics.
>
> Incidentally, the front flap of "Darwin's Black Box" states,
>
> "Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
> method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these
> questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must
> have been *designed*--either by God, or by some otehr higher
> intelligence.
To turn "design" into a physical system we can examine requires
supernatural events. He closes the book by a warning that
scientists should prepare for the re-introduction of the supernatural
into science. So he's arguing for a great deal more than simply
"design".
> For decades science has been frustrated, trying to
> reconcile the astonishing discoveries of modern biochemistry to a
> nineteenth-century theory that cannot accommodate them.
This is a lie. Everything in Behe's clotting chapter looks like it
was lifted from a 30-year old handout. None of the scientists who
work on clotting have been "frurstrated", or had any problem
seeing that clotting represents an example of evolution. Indeed,
a leading biochemistry text, Stryer, has a short digression in the
chapter on clotting to point out that it is a classic example of
the evolutionary mechanism of recruitment.
> With the
> publication of 'Darwin's Black Box,' it is time for scientists to
> allow themselves to consider exciting new possibilities, and for the
> rest of us to watch closely."
This is marketing talk. "Design theory" is the happening thing, baby.
New. Fresh. Sparkly. Emerging.
If Behe wanted scientists to consider his ideas, he would have
taken the normal approach, instead of writing a book to assure
laymen that scientists are trying to advance atheism.
--George Acton
George Acton
Isn't he associated with the Discovery Institute? Is he there to
do experiments in their laboratory section?
--George Acton
George Acton
>
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:<7rje4usq1o67ofc9r...@4ax.com>...
>
> > IIRC what has been
> > shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
> > complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
> > definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
> > a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
> > of descent with modification would be "a structure which
> > *could not* have been produced by descent with
> > modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
> > am I incorrect?
>
> AFAIK, the only way to produce an irreducibly complex structure is
> through the use of a scaffolding or support mechanism. The trouble the
> support mechanism would have to take into account the needs of the
> structure being built, in addition to its own structural needs; thus,
> it would seem the scaffolding would need to be more complex than the
> structure being built. Another problem is in wondering why the support
> mechanism would exist, then disappear?
This is a strawman argument. If you had bothered to read Robison's
page on this, you would have noted that the most recently evolved
parts of the clotting system involve nothing analogoud to
scaffolding. Gene duplication produces two functioning genes
which then acquire specialization by mutation. At the beginning of
the process, either is dispensible; at its end, both are required.
There are two or three instances of this in the clotting system,
supported by the appropriate mutations in the DNA sequences for
the genes. Behe says he refuses to accept DNA sequencing, without
giving a reason. One reason is that it vaporizes his argument.
And ironically, much of Behe's real science involves sequencing DNA.
Moreover all the proteins or parts of proteins are members
of widespread and ancient families of proteins. Many of the
factors are proteolytic enzymes or inhibitory proteins of which
dozens are known. The protein that makes the clot, fibrinogen,
contains motifs in common with many other proteins, suggesting
recombination.
> There have been several challenges to Behe's suggested examples of
> irreducible complexity. Here is a snippet from one of his replies:
>
> "In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I
> devoted a chapter to the mechanism of blood clotting, arguing that it
> is irreducibly complex and therefore a big problem for Darwinian
> evolution. Since my book came out, as far as I am aware there have
> been no papers published in the scientific literature giving a
> detailed scenario or experiments to show how natural selection could
> have built the system.
Is he claiming that someone should have conducted an experiment
to refute something in the book? People were happy with the
general evolutionary explanation before, and had done a lot of
work to look at the approachable parts. Why should they have
done anything they hadn't done already?
> However three scientists publishing outside
> science journals have attempted to respond. The first is Russell
> Doolittle, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California
> at San Diego, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and expert
> on blood clotting. Second is Kenneth Miller, a professor of cell
> biology at Brown University and author of Finding Darwin's God (Miller
> 1999). The third scientist is Keith Robison, who at the time of his
> writing was a graduate student at Harvard University.
>
> "I will give their arguments below and my response. Here is a brief
> summary.
>
> "1) Professor Doolittle argued that new laboratory work showed two
> components of the blood clotting cascade could be eliminated
> ("knocked-out") from mice and the mice got along fine without them.
> However, Doolittle misread the laboratory work: the double knock-out
> mice have severe problems and have no functioning blood clotting
> system. They are not models of evolutionary intermediates.
>
> "Although anyone can misread a paper, in my opinion the fact that an
> expert cited a recent and contradictory journal article, instead of a
> publication directly addressing the evolution of blood clotting, shows
> that there are indeed no detailed explanations for the evolution of
> blood clotting in the literature and that, despite Darwinian
> protestations, the irreducible complexity of the system is a
> significant problem for Darwinism.
Looking at the sequences and deducing the order of the last steps
in the process has been done. Nobody sees any problem with the
data. The system as a whole isn't "irreducibly complex", because
the basic terms can't be defined. But the late clotting factors
are necessary physiologically.
> "2) Although embedded in a lengthy description of how blood clotting
> and other systems work, Professor Miller's actual explanation for how
> the vertebrate clotting cascade evolved consists of one paragraph. It
> is a just-so story that doesn't deal with any of the difficulties the
> evolution of such an intricate system would face. Even so, in the one
> paragraph Miller proposes what looks like a detrimental or fatal
> situation, akin to the knock-out mice (above) that lack critical
> components.
This is gibberish. I haven't read the paper, but I'm certainly not
going to in order to guess what Behe is evading.
> "3) Keith Robison proposed that a cascade might begin with a single
> enzyme with three different properties. Upon duplication of the gene
> for the enzyme, the duplicate loses several of the properties,
> resulting in a two-component cascade. Repetition of the scenario
> builds cascades with more components. Although intriguing, the
> scenario starts with a complex, unjustified situation (the enzyme with
> multiple abilities) that already has all necessary activities. What's
> more, the proposed gene duplication and several steps needed to lose
> function are "neutral," unselected mutations. Stringing together
> several very specific neutral mutations to build a complex system is
> vastly improbable and amounts to intelligent design."
What "three properties" is he talking about? He's misstating the
situation. The enzyme has two structural features: as a
protease it has an active site with some selectivity for cleaving
some peptides more than others, and it has a fold of the protein
blocking the active site until that fold is cleaved away to
activate it. No properties are lost. There are two genes and
twice as much protein with all the same properties as before.
More protein may have a selective advantage. The subsequent
mutations that create the specialization may also have selective
advantages, as evolutionaty theory requires. They aren't
"neutral". No properties are "lost". The specificity of the
enzyme activity changes gradually with several point mutations.
I don't know what he means by "Although intriguing...". It appears
to be wordy gibbersh to distract the reader from an already vaporous
passage. The scenario doesn't start with an "unjustified" situation,
if in his dishwater prose style he's trying to say a situation
without precedents or homologies. Several digestive enzymes work
exactly like clotting factors, and are structuraly similar.
They're secreted from the cell in an inactive state because a
piece of the protein blocks the active site. They are activated by
having this cleaved away by another molecule of protease, or the
same or different type. It's a standard teaching example in
biochem texts. Isn't this guy supposed to be a teacher
of biochemistry? And the last sentence is just a wordy repetition
of the preceding falsehood.
> "In Defense of the Irreducibility of the Blood Clotting Cascade:
> Response to Russell Doolittle, Ken Miller and Keith Robison"
> http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_indefenseofbloodclottingcascade.htm
>
> [snip]
--George Acton
howard hershey
----------
In article <a2848b$e85$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant"
<bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 17:49:22 -0600, Robin Levett wrote:
>
>> and
>> the elephant that he fingers has got "God" written on the other side.
Actually, isn't that the elephant that only he (among a whole roomful of
forensic scientists) can see? I know what I think about people who talk to
invisible pink elephants when I see them walking down the street.
Adam Marczyk
All you had to do was ask. Permit me to quote a post from Zeus Thibault:
Actually, we have witnessed the evolution of a novel metabolic
pathway in a bacteria, Sphingomonas. This bacteria has, in the
past 40 years at most, become able to use pentachlorophenol(PCP)
as its sole carbon source. PCP is a manmade, very unnatural
product. The metabolic degradation pathway it uses consists of
three new enzymes. Removing any one of the three causes the
organism to lose the ability to live on PCP. Thus, it qualifies
as IC by the Behe criteria. Even "Mike Gene," the active IC and
ID proponent at the Access Research Network Intelligent Design
Forum has conceded that this is "a very neat example" of an IC
system which has evolved gradually. (Although to be fair Gene
does not find this to be evidence that more complex IC systems
have evolved gradually - a piece of logic I cannot follow).
Copley, S. D. (2000). "Evolution of a metabolic pathway for
degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach."
Trends Biochem Sci 25(6): 261-5.
Mike Goodrich
"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message
> On 16 Jan 2002 13:27:08 -0500, the following appeared in
> talk.origins, posted by "Mike Goodrich"
> <tachy...@home.com>:
>
> <snip>
>
> >*Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
>
>
See Spetner's "Not by Chance!" as but one example.
For further commentary by Spetner, see also:
http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36a.htm
cheers,
-mg
Dunk
<snip>
>I think you've missed the implied point. IIRC what has been
>shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
>complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
>definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
>a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
>of descent with modification would be "a structure which
>*could not* have been produced by descent with
>modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
>am I incorrect?
Yes. I'm just talking semantics here, but in this case I see it as a
key issue.
IC is now a technical term. The definition in the book is right, by
fiat. Of course this is misleading, because he put two ordinary
words together, and defined the combination to mean something other
than what one might expect it to mean. (Else no 'definition' would
have been needed.) SO IC means what Behe said, and IC evolves.
http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~e21092/flagella.htm for example
* IC evolves* is the point.
>IOW, Behe's definition is irrelevant to the question; what's
>worse, he *knows* (IMHO) it's a strawman and doesn't really
>care so long as he can attract the naive.
Dunk
Jacob Rizor
>Date: 17-Jan-02 11:57 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <3c47b3e2...@news.charter.net>
All "he" is doing is repeating again that the design is fabulous, on an
exponentially greater scale than he had realized. The arguement is no better
for all that. Simply and absolutely, "design" is not proof and not even very
convincing evidence. The GUT and the TOE can lead to all that we see, and
those simply "are" or they were created.
Jacob
--
The Creation of God is Perfect. This means that every event in it is created
and explained by the objects and laws in it, it explains itself. Therefore the
perfection of God means that His existence cannot be proven. My Lord God is
Creator and Master.
Dunk
wrote:
<snip>
>Looking at the sequences and deducing the order of the last steps
>in the process has been done. Nobody sees any problem with the
>data. The system as a whole isn't "irreducibly complex", because
>the basic terms can't be defined. But the late clotting factors
>are necessary physiologically.
By basic terms I think you mean 'parts', 'system', and 'function' ?
In particular cases, the terms are to be _specified_. In saying
that they can't be (specified) you are allowing your knowledge of
reality blind you to the artificiality of IC. Of course you can
specify those things. A hundred different ways. The specification is
arbitrary. You are doubtless thinking that they can't be specified in
some _one_ way that makes unique biological sense. But I'll bet you
can think of several ways to carefully demarcate 'system', and then
specify the other terms, so that it is IC.
Try it. This could become a new parlor game for biochemists.
>> "2) Although embedded in a lengthy description of how blood clotting
>> and other systems work, Professor Miller's actual explanation for how
>> the vertebrate clotting cascade evolved consists of one paragraph. It
>> is a just-so story that doesn't deal with any of the difficulties the
>> evolution of such an intricate system would face. Even so, in the one
>> paragraph Miller proposes what looks like a detrimental or fatal
>> situation, akin to the knock-out mice (above) that lack critical
>> components.
>
>This is gibberish. I haven't read the paper, but I'm certainly not
>going to in order to guess what Behe is evading.
But then again, it wouldn't hurt, when you have time.
Again, this appears to be a case where he has specific knowledge that
he does not share with the faithful.
Dunk
Adam Marczyk
news:1UX18.58663$K36.19...@news1.rdc1.va.home.com...
I especially like this part:
"...evolutionists should be more humble and not insist that there is no
Creator and that life formed by purely natural means."
You've got to admire dishonesty like this - not only does he refuse to
acknowledge contrary evidence (in this case the mere existence of theistic
evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller), he outright denies it despite the
fact that anyone can demonstrate that he is lying here with a minimum of
effort. Such audacity and blind intellectual arrogance are all too typical
of creationists.
David Jensen
I'll bet it's lonely there.
Morgoth's Cat
<da...@dajensen-family.com> scribed:
>On 16 Jan 2002 10:07:33 -0500, in talk.origins
>"Tracy P. Hamilton" <che...@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu> wrote in
><a244v2$57a$1...@SonOfMaze.dpo.uab.edu>:
>
>
>>
>>"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
>>news:r80a4ucj5113g9j8k...@4ax.com...
>>> On 15 Jan 2002 22:59:37 -0500, in talk.origins
>>> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in
>>> <u49ul9s...@corp.supernews.com>:
>>>
>>>
>>> >ReidRover <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>> >news:20020115202504...@mb-md.aol.com...
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>> >> >"Since"? Has he *ever* done any papers on IC?
>>> >> >
>>> >>
>>> >> Call me niave but i thought he would have done at least ONE before his
>>famous
>>> >> book?
>>
>>The thought of the spectacle gives me a sadistic smile. I would just
>>love to see the ACS meeting where Behe would peddle such nonsense.
>>
>>> I was under the impression that he knows how the system works. This may
>>> explain why he chose not to follow the system.
>>
>>He would have been forced (how was that phrased - oh, yeah hounded)
>>to recant. :)
>>
>>> >> Well maybe i am rather a hayseed : )
>>> >
>>> >Not that I'm aware of. I believe he went straight to the book without
>>even
>>> >attempting to make a scientific case for this in the journals.
>>>
>>> If maximum embarrassment is your goal, it works. I wonder if we can
>>> start including Behe in with Pons and Fleishman....
>>
>>No. Behe was obviously wrong because biochemists knew all
>>about the systems he discussed. At least Pons and Fleischmann
>>reported new experiments.
>
>Ah, he should be too embarrassed to be in their company. I see.
>
Actually P & F would be the embarrassed ones...
Best Regards,
Dave
morgoth AT valinor DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk * www.veilofnight.net
Supernovae & Creationists: http://www.valinor.freeserve.co.uk/supernova.html
Kharne - graphical AD&D-based RPG for Windows http://www.kharne.net
Conception 2002 - the South Coast Gaming Convention
http://www.valinor.freeserve.co.uk/conception/
Morgoth's Cat
scribed:
>
>"ReidRover" <reid...@aol.com> wrote in message
>to see. *Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
Liar.
Morgoth's Cat
scribed:
>
<irony meter just exploded>
David Jensen
mor...@REMOVETHISwytchcraft.REMOVETHISASWELLnet (Morgoth's Cat) wrote
in <3c487193...@news.freeserve.net>:
>>>No. Behe was obviously wrong because biochemists knew all
>>>about the systems he discussed. At least Pons and Fleischmann
>>>reported new experiments.
>>
>>Ah, he should be too embarrassed to be in their company. I see.
>>
>
>Actually P & F would be the embarrassed ones...
Ah, certainly, Behe's already proven that he won't feel any
embarrassment.
Laurence A. Moran
George Acton <gac...@softdisk.com> wrote:
>Richard Alexander wrote:
[snip]
>> AFAIK, the only way to produce an irreducibly complex structure is
>> through the use of a scaffolding or support mechanism. The trouble the
>> support mechanism would have to take into account the needs of the
>> structure being built, in addition to its own structural needs; thus,
>> it would seem the scaffolding would need to be more complex than the
>> structure being built. Another problem is in wondering why the support
>> mechanism would exist, then disappear?
>
>This is a strawman argument. If you had bothered to read Robison's
>page on this, you would have noted that the most recently evolved
>parts of the clotting system involve nothing analogoud to
>scaffolding. Gene duplication produces two functioning genes
>which then acquire specialization by mutation. At the beginning of
>the process, either is dispensible; at its end, both are required.
>There are two or three instances of this in the clotting system,
>supported by the appropriate mutations in the DNA sequences for
>the genes. Behe says he refuses to accept DNA sequencing, without
>giving a reason. One reason is that it vaporizes his argument.
>And ironically, much of Behe's real science involves sequencing DNA.
> Moreover all the proteins or parts of proteins are members
>of widespread and ancient families of proteins. Many of the
>factors are proteolytic enzymes or inhibitory proteins of which
>dozens are known. The protein that makes the clot, fibrinogen,
>contains motifs in common with many other proteins, suggesting
>recombination.
You might be interested in a recent paper ....
Kairies, N., Beisel, H.G., Fuentes-Prior, P., Tsuda, R.,
Muta, T., Iwanaga, S., Bode, W., Huber, R. and Kawabata, S.
(2001) The 2.0-A crystal structure of tachylectin 5A provides
evidence for the common origin of the innate immunity and the
blood coagulation systems. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98,
13519-13524.
These workers solved the structure of tachylectin - a protein that's
required for innate immunity in horsehoe crabs. Invertebrates, such as
the horseshoe crab have a different mechanism of immunity than vertebrates.
In crabs there are proteins that bind directly to bacteria (and other
antigens) and clear them from the hemolymph via a coagulation mechanism.
The binding proteins are called lectins, these are proteins that
recognize carbohydrates. The horseshoe crab system is a well-studied
example of this invertebrate innate immunity.
The similarity between innate immunity coagulation and blood clotting
has been known for some time. When the structure of fibrinogen was first
worked out it was suggested that this protein evolved from a primitive
lectin. Kairies et al. have now shown that tachylectin and fibrinogen
have almost identical structures. That, coupled with significant
sequence similarity between the two proteins, indicates that they share
a common ancestor. This suggests that the invertebrate innate immunity
system and the vertebrate blood clotting system share a common
evolutionary ancestor. It looks like the blood clotting proteins
arose from proteins whose original function was to coagulate and clear
pathogens from the primitive hemolymph.
Larry Moran
George Acton
That fits with my favored theory, which surely isn't original, that
clotting started out as a defense to pathogens. Organisms without
a high-pressure circulatory system don't have much need for
hemostasis. But being able to trap invaders in a mesh of
protein would have high selective advantage. A clue is that
the human clotting system is activated by activated complement.
A blood transfusion reaction is just a massive experiment in
activation of complement, and it's associated with generalized
intravascular clotting.
--George Acton
Wade Hines
As one might recall:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=39CCF299.30D8%40softdisk.com
MEC
The authors even suggested a possible intermediate between TL5A and
fibrinogen; L-ficolin. From the paper;
"Finally, we mention that the innate immune system in vertebrates
includes a group of proteins termed ficolins, which are involved in
host defense through nonself recognition. Similar to the role played
by TL5A/B in the horseshoe crab, ficolins recognize carbohydrates on
microoorganisms via a C-terminal fibrinogen-like domain. For
L-ficolin/P35,, an amido group containing sugar specificity has been
demonstrated. In addition human L-ficolin/P35 recognizes acetyl groups
as TL5A does. **It is remarkable that human ficolins are more closely
related to tachylectins 5A/5B than to the fibrinogen [gamma] fragment
emphasizing the similarity of mammalian and invertebrate innate
immunity and suggesting the ficolins as intermeiates in the evolution
from invertebrate innate immunity to the blood coagulation system**."
(emphasis added)
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by po...@aol.com (Richard Alexander):
>Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:<7rje4usq1o67ofc9r...@4ax.com>...
>
>> IIRC what has been
>> shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
>> complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
>> definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
>> a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
>> of descent with modification would be "a structure which
>> *could not* have been produced by descent with
>> modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
>> am I incorrect?
>
>AFAIK, the only way to produce an irreducibly complex structure is
>through the use of a scaffolding or support mechanism. The trouble the
>support mechanism would have to take into account the needs of the
>structure being built, in addition to its own structural needs; thus,
>it would seem the scaffolding would need to be more complex than the
>structure being built. Another problem is in wondering why the support
>mechanism would exist, then disappear?
This is incorrect. Descent with modification has no goal,
and therefore no "scaffolding" is required. New structures
arise through new uses of existing structures, which uses
are then subject to the normal selection pressure. The idea
of a completely new structure or function arising "fully
functional", to use one of the favorite strawmen of those
who deny that evolution takes place as a natural phenomenon
with no deus ex machina required, is a chimera, since no
such process takes place. AFAIK,*all* "new"
functions/structures are descended from existing
functions/structures. The eye, for example (a favorite
target of the ignorant) is useful at every stage from "patch
of light-sensitive cells" to the advanced eyes of raptors
and cephalopods. *None* are perfect; *all* are useful. And
the path through the development chain is exemplified by the
existing species which actually *use* every describable step
of the chain.
>
>There have been several challenges to Behe's suggested examples of
>irreducible complexity. Here is a snippet from one of his replies:
>
>"In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I
>devoted a chapter to the mechanism of blood clotting, arguing that it
>is irreducibly complex and therefore a big problem for Darwinian
>evolution. Since my book came out, as far as I am aware there have
>been no papers published in the scientific literature giving a
>detailed scenario or experiments to show how natural selection could
>have built the system. However three scientists publishing outside
>science journals have attempted to respond. The first is Russell
>Doolittle, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California
>at San Diego, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and expert
>on blood clotting. Second is Kenneth Miller, a professor of cell
>biology at Brown University and author of Finding Darwin's God (Miller
>1999). The third scientist is Keith Robison, who at the time of his
>writing was a graduate student at Harvard University.
>
>"I will give their arguments below and my response. Here is a brief
>summary.
>
>"1) Professor Doolittle argued that new laboratory work showed two
>components of the blood clotting cascade could be eliminated
>("knocked-out") from mice and the mice got along fine without them.
>However, Doolittle misread the laboratory work: the double knock-out
>mice have severe problems and have no functioning blood clotting
>system. They are not models of evolutionary intermediates.
This is an example of the "remove a part and it's
non-functional" strawman I described in the post to which
you responded. The fact that Prof. Doolittle was incorrect
is irrelevant; it's the *logic* of Behe's position which is
in error. (See below.)
>
>"Although anyone can misread a paper, in my opinion the fact that an
>expert cited a recent and contradictory journal article, instead of a
>publication directly addressing the evolution of blood clotting, shows
>that there are indeed no detailed explanations for the evolution of
>blood clotting in the literature and that, despite Darwinian
>protestations, the irreducible complexity of the system is a
>significant problem for Darwinism.
Yes, he makes assertions, which amount to, "We don't know
yet exactly how it arose, so it's irreducibly complex and a
big problem for Darwinism.". I trust you can see the
fallacy.
>
>"2) Although embedded in a lengthy description of how blood clotting
>and other systems work, Professor Miller's actual explanation for how
>the vertebrate clotting cascade evolved consists of one paragraph. It
>is a just-so story that doesn't deal with any of the difficulties the
>evolution of such an intricate system would face. Even so, in the one
>paragraph Miller proposes what looks like a detrimental or fatal
>situation, akin to the knock-out mice (above) that lack critical
>components.
Calling an explanation a "just-so story" isn't refutation
unless the reason *why* it's a "just-so story" is explained;
it's merely a meaningless noise.
>
>"3) Keith Robison proposed that a cascade might begin with a single
>enzyme with three different properties. Upon duplication of the gene
>for the enzyme, the duplicate loses several of the properties,
>resulting in a two-component cascade. Repetition of the scenario
>builds cascades with more components. Although intriguing, the
>scenario starts with a complex, unjustified situation (the enzyme with
>multiple abilities) that already has all necessary activities. What's
>more, the proposed gene duplication and several steps needed to lose
>function are "neutral," unselected mutations. Stringing together
>several very specific neutral mutations to build a complex system is
>vastly improbable and amounts to intelligent design."
And here: "I claim that the mechanism you've proposed is
unrealistic and explain why. However, by making the implied
assertion that your model is the only possible one which
science can advance, showing its flaw leaves the only answer
to be intelligent design.". Again, I trust you can see the
fallacy.
>
>"In Defense of the Irreducibility of the Blood Clotting Cascade:
>Response to Russell Doolittle, Ken Miller and Keith Robison"
>http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_indefenseofbloodclottingcascade.htm
>
>[snip]
--
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by "Bobby D. Bryant"
<bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu>:
>On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 22:36:44 -0600, Richard Alexander wrote:
>
>> Incidentally, the front flap of "Darwin's Black Box" states,
>>
>> "Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
>> method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these
>> questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must
>> have been *designed*--either by God, or by some otehr higher
>> intelligence. [...]"
>
>"either by 'God', or by some other higher intelligence with the same
>name."
>
>AKA, crypto-creationism.
Of course. He'd like everyone to miss the fact that this
assertion, carried to its logical conclusion, leaves *only*
God (or some equivalent omnipotent deity) as the designer.
Jon Fleming
wrote:
>"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message news:<u4eeusl...@corp.supernews.com>...
>
>[snip]
>
>> Standard Darwinian evolution can easily produce irreducibly complex
>> structures, and has even been shown to do so in the lab.
>
>What you say sounds peculiar, for several reasons, and has aroused my
>curiosity. What irreducibly complex structures are supposed to have
>been created by evolution in a lab? Which lab? Who did the
>experiments? When were they performed? When were the results
>published? Can you cite any research reports to support your
>suggestion? How did you hear of them?
<http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darwin/DI/AcidTest.html>
>
>Thank you.
Bob Casanova
>
>"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message
>news:o62c4u44k63euspj8...@4ax.com...
>> On 16 Jan 2002 13:27:08 -0500, the following appeared in
>> talk.origins, posted by "Mike Goodrich"
>> <tachy...@home.com>:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >*Science* has refuted the claims of evolutionary naturalists.
>>
>> Cite to the relevant literature, please. Or retract.
>>
>
>
>See Spetner's "Not by Chance!" as but one example.
>
>For further commentary by Spetner, see also:
>
>http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36a.htm
"Relevant literature" means a peer-reviewed journal, not a
book or an email exchange. (And an exchange of messages in
which your "authority" speaks of "Neo-Darwinism's" failure
to demonstrate the "natural origin of life on Earth" as if
it were a problem of some sort doesn't lead me to place much
faith in his knowledge.)
So...Cite to the relevant literature, please. Or retract.
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by pdu...@magicnet.net (Dunk):
>On 17 Jan 2002 17:39:37 -0500, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> <snip>
>
>>I think you've missed the implied point. IIRC what has been
>>shown is that there is no such thing as an irreducibly
>>complex biological structure anywhere in nature. Behe's
>>definition of IC as "remove any part and it doesn't work" is
>>a strawman; the correct definition of IC from the standpoint
>>of descent with modification would be "a structure which
>>*could not* have been produced by descent with
>>modification"; such structures have never been observed. Or
>>am I incorrect?
>
>Yes. I'm just talking semantics here, but in this case I see it as a
>key issue.
>IC is now a technical term. The definition in the book is right, by
>fiat. Of course this is misleading, because he put two ordinary
>words together, and defined the combination to mean something other
>than what one might expect it to mean. (Else no 'definition' would
>have been needed.) SO IC means what Behe said, and IC evolves.
>http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~e21092/flagella.htm for example
>
> * IC evolves* is the point.
OK; thanks for the correction (and for the demonstration
that Behe's "work" is even more meaningless than I'd
suspected).
>>IOW, Behe's definition is irrelevant to the question; what's
>>worse, he *knows* (IMHO) it's a strawman and doesn't really
>>care so long as he can attract the naive.
>
>Dunk
--
Jacob Rizor
>Date: 18-Jan-02 5:32 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <nvbh4uohgg5lepo54...@4ax.com>
>
>On 18 Jan 2002 00:00:23 -0500, the following appeared in
>talk.origins, posted by "Bobby D. Bryant"
><bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu>:
>
>>On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 22:36:44 -0600, Richard Alexander wrote:
>>
>>> Incidentally, the front flap of "Darwin's Black Box" states,
>>>
>>> "Michael Behe is not a creationist. He believes in the scientific
>>> method, and he does not look to religious dogma for answers to these
>>> questions. But he argues persuasively that biochemical machines must
>>> have been *designed*--either by God, or by some otehr higher
>>> intelligence. [...]"
>>
>>"either by 'God', or by some other higher intelligence with the same
>>name."
>>
>>AKA, crypto-creationism.
>
>Of course. He'd like everyone to miss the fact that this
>assertion, carried to its logical conclusion, leaves *only*
>God (or some equivalent omnipotent deity) as the designer.
>
>--
>
>(Note followups, if any)
>
>Bob C.
>
then work out the future position and momentum of each mass, by the laws of
physics, I do not initially assign those future values, but the future values
don't exist by themselves. I have to do the calculations.
If this were a description of God, I would say God created the initial set,
at the Big Bang, and worked out the consequences. With the Uncertaionity
Principle and the statistical nature of quantum mechanics, the end is not
determined entirely by the beginning. This is the source of free will.
Therefore no event in the universe differs from what it would be if there
were no God but rather that the universe is guided by natural law.
Never the less, the idea that the existence of God is meaningless is false.
Your idea of meaningfulness is false.
Creation Science is clearly false- you have to ignore your eyes in order to
believe it. Of course, most people do ignore their eyes, they don't pursue an
understanding physics. Physics is merely "using your eyes".
Jacob
--
==
Bob Longman
the idea behind intelligent design. All they talk about is the means
of execution (the 'how it was done'). Through proteins, time,
weather, earthy stuff.
Christianity has said all along that the stuff of existence, including
its processes, formulas, etc., were created good; it didn't stay that
way, but it still has its original potentialities. Christianity also
believes that God made it blessed by living among us as Jesus. God
can use the muck of life to make holiness and blessing. And does so
regularly. **That's God's way of doing things.** God's not like the
Taliban, giving rules and orders. god works through what happens,
guiding, leading, but only rarely telling. God wants the created
world to be itself!
That's the most intelligent design of all. And it needs no seven-day
creation nonsense to make it happen.
Bob Longman
http://www.spirithome.com/
Frank J
"George Acton" <gac...@softdisk.com> wrote in message
news:3C47DF...@softdisk.com...
Orr's suggestion.
Robin Levett
wrote in message news:3c4871ff...@news.freeserve.net...
Don't pussyfoot around, Dave - tell him what you really think.
Oh, and I heard that irony meter go - and I'm 150 miles away!
--
________________________________________________________________
Robin Levett
rle...@ibmrlevett.uklinux.net
(address munged by addition of Big Blue)
Atheist = knows of and uses Occam's Razor
Agnostic = knows of but isn't sure whether to use Occam's Razor
Fundy = what's Ockam's erasure?
___________________________________________________
Robin Levett
news:a29gn6$r82$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
>
>
> ----------
> In article <a2848b$e85$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant"
> <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>
> > On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 17:49:22 -0600, Robin Levett wrote:
> >
> >> and
> >> the elephant that he fingers has got "God" written on the other
side.
>
> Actually, isn't that the elephant that only he (among a whole
roomful of
> forensic scientists) can see?
That's the one - and IIRC it's sitting on a scientist as well - or has
just stopped doing so.
> I know what I think about people who talk to
> invisible pink elephants when I see them walking down the street.
Is that a common problem where you live?
Michael G.
[...]
I wouldn't say that scaffolding isn't required. It just isn't a
problem for scaffolding to arise naturally.
Take a duplicated gene which later develops a new function. Because
the gene has a duplicate, the organism won't suffer if the gene
mutates and begins to perform another function (or performs no
function, for that matter). This gives the duplicate an opportunity to
develop a new function.
In this case there is scaffolding, but there's nothing unusual about
it--gene duplication is well documented, as I recall (although Behe
just glossed over it in DBB).
--Michael
Michael G.
<da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote:
Hey, that's why he's got to get out and go talk to those church
groups.
Michael G.
wrote:
You can attribute it to malice if you like, but I happen to think he's
more than a bit naive and out of his depth. The word "muddled" comes
to mind whenever I read his writings.
--Michael
Michael G.
mor...@REMOVETHISwytchcraft.REMOVETHISASWELLnet (Morgoth's Cat)
wrote:
He's not lying if he believes it. You can tell me he believe it all
you want, but do not underestimate the ability of the human mind to
compartmentalize.
David Jensen
mag...@mailbag.com (Michael G.) wrote in
<3c48a305...@news.charter.net>:
With defenders like you Behe doesn't need enemies.
Howard Hershey
Robin Levett wrote:
>
> "howard hershey" <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
> news:a29gn6$r82$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
> >
> >
> > ----------
> > In article <a2848b$e85$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant"
> > <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > On Thu, 17 Jan 2002 17:49:22 -0600, Robin Levett wrote:
> > >
> > >> and
> > >> the elephant that he fingers has got "God" written on the other
> side.
> >
> > Actually, isn't that the elephant that only he (among a whole
> roomful of
> > forensic scientists) can see?
>
> That's the one - and IIRC it's sitting on a scientist as well - or has
> just stopped doing so.
>
> > I know what I think about people who talk to
> > invisible pink elephants when I see them walking down the street.
>
> Is that a common problem where you live?
It is a common problem anywhere where the mentally ill have been
deinstitutionalized without the funding for local group homes. It is a
particular problem in larger cities, but seeing and listening to people
talking to the voices in their heads is not exactly unusual even in
midsized cities. Go to the library on a cold day and look for someone
who looks like they haven't bathed for weeks.
Robin Levett
news:3C4923BF...@indiana.edu...
I live on the outskirts of London, and work in London - we have a
marvellous scheme called "care in the community", used by the (Tory)
Government years ago to justify emptying out the mental hospitals
(save the secure ones), and saving money by failing to pay the extra
cost of treating the patients outside a controlled environment. I
know about the problem; in fact, as a housing lawyer, I have some
professional contact with it.
I had hoped it wasn't the same everywhere else - I'm a born optimist.
George Acton
There are several layers of meaninglessness. In most of DBB
Behe uses the term "irreducible complexity" to mean "can't have
evolved" or "must have been designed", as if this has already
been proved. In other words, it's a conclusion about the origin
of the system. This is what an uncritical reader of the book is
going to come away with. In this sense, "irreducible" means
sometning like "inexplicable" -- except by divine intervention, of
course. But in his definition, it means "non-reduntantly complex",
in the sense that if any part of a system is removed, the system
ceases to function. In other words, it's a statement about the
composition and behavior or the system. No conclusion about the
origin of the system follows from it's present behavior, as people
have pointed out. But people who have pointed this out on t.o
have been accused of dishonestly misreading Behe. Indeed, he does
leave an escape hatch in a passage buried in the book to the
effect that an IC system might have evolved, but as the number of
parts in the system increases, there's a "higher hurdle" for
evolution to overcome. This is semantic fuzz. The only coherent
way to make a scientific argument out of his position is to
rephrase it in terms of a probability argument. This would make it
clear that no one knows how to assign probabilities to many
critical terms in the probability calculation. Behe avoids even
using the term "probability".
Behe's "definition" of irreducible complexity is also meaningless,
since it depends on the undefined terms "system", "part" and
"function". These seem clear in the abstract. But attempts to
apply them to a specific system, such as blood clotting, show that
they're arbitrary and subjective. Most readers of Behe's book
aren't going to try to use the ideas. They just want the conclusion.
But any attempt to take it seriously shows that it's let's-pretend
science.
--George Acton
George Acton
Leaving aside Behe's motivation, the effect is malicious, since the
message of the Parable of the Elephant is that scientists are
promoting atheism, and dishonestly so, because they know that the
evidence of design proves His existence. Elsewhere he says that
the recognition of design is in the same league as Einstein and
Lavoisier, with the same implication.
--George Acton