Michael Behe's Argument against Indirect Pathways to Irreducible
Switch89
arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
problems with the evolution of the cilia.
Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
Ron O
With this topic and a tag like Switch you could be trolling. The ID
perps are currently running a dishonest bait and switch scam on their
own creationist support base. Every school board and legislator that
has claimed to want to teach the science of intelligent design has had
the bait and switch scam played on them. They even tried to run in
the switch in Dover, but those guys are the only ones that would not
take the switch or drop the issue and the rest is history. Florida,
earlier this year, was the latest major public bait and switch. You
had multiple legislators and local school boards claiming that they
wanted to teach the science of intelligent design, but all they got
was the bogus switch scam.
Others can point you to the relevant material about IC, but no
rebuttal of IC is required at this time, and you can look into the
Dover fiasco. The fact is that IC was never defined well enough to
justify testing the notion. Any rebuttals of the IC junk has to face
the shifting goal posts of an unstable definition. Even Behe admitted
under oath that he hadn't gotten around to any verification testing.
He even claimed that it wasn't up to him to do any testing. With
crackpot claims like that, there is no reason to refute the junk in
his book until he comes up with something that he thinks is worth
testing and arguing about.
The ID perps, themselves, have decided to run a stupid and dishonest
bait and switch scam on their own creationist supporters rather than
support their lame junk like IC. All you have to do is look into the
switch scam and notice that it doesn't even mention that ID ever
existed and you know for a fact that they don't have anything worth
supporting at this time. Why would they hide some wonderful ID
science and run a bogus bait and switch? Only the most clueless will
deny that they claimed that they could teach the science of
intelligent design, but now the ID perps are running in a switch scam
on any rube stupid enough to have believed them. They even started to
run the bait and switch years before they lost in court in Dover. You
don't do that if you believe that you really have an argument.
Anyone that doesn't believe this, just get your local school board to
teach the science of intelligent design and watch the switch come in.
You can even make it a point to claim that IC is one of the IDiot
claims that you are going to teach. Look at who is running the switch
scam and you will find that it is the same dishonest bunch that fooled
you with the ID scam. No further arguments should be necessary.
Ron Okimoto
Frank J
Others will be better at providing links, but IIRC, Behe has dropped
cilia and a few other "icons" as examples of IC. I don't think he ever
conceded that they are not IC, but rather found arguments that are
more successful at impressing the intended audience. If/when they
become too difficult, he can always find other icons.
In the meantime, Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" (1999) has
some rebuttals to Behe's cilia arguments.
One thing I do know in general is that rebuttals to any IC=ID argument
get rather technical, and that means that Behe's intended audience is
unlikely to follow them. But they will likely remember Behe's sound
bites of incredulity. Implicit in all the IC=ID arguments is that
mainstream science must outline nearly every step of the process that
occurred over the billions of years, or the default "explanation" is
"then a miracle happened." But the "challenger" doesn't need to
provide any detail, let alone a "pathetic level" about his own
alternative pathway. Not even the basic "whens," or even whether the
process occurred in-vivo or required new origin-of life events.
Unfortunately most nonscientists have no problem with this double
standard. In fairness I should add that Behe has clearly favored the
"in-vivo" and agreed with mainstream science on the chronology, but
other IDers refuse to be pinned down.
As for direct vs. indirect, again, I hope others provide the links,
but I think that most of that was addressed *after* "Darwin's Black
Box." Not that Behe hadn't thought of it, but rather thought that it
would confuse his audience (not unlike leaving theistic evolutionists
out of "Expelled"). The general argument against "indirect" is that
the probability for "simultaneous" changes is too low for it to occur
"naturally." Of course the intended audience will usually not know
that the calculations are at best unreliable. But even if they were
reliable, the onus would be on the "challenger" to outline the
"direct" pathway - and test it. And there are no signs that that will
happen any time soon.
Frank J
> On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
> > arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
> > problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>
> > Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
> > know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
> > against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>
> With this topic and a tag like Switch you could be trolling.
We're all troll weary lately, especially due to "Muriel," but I'd give
Switch89 the benefit of the doubt to start.
Actually I can use some clarification as to what is "switched." AIUI
the IC and CSI arguments flood the non-peer-reviewed literature as
"evidence" of ID (but not necessarily "creationism"), but what is
planned for 9th grade science class is not that at all, but rather
long-refuted "weaknesses" such as Haeckel's embryos, Peppered moths,
Piltdown Man, etc. Is that right? But what about the flagellum? I
would guess that they wouldn't want to pass that up, at least as a
"weakness" of "Darwinism," if not "evidence" of ID.
Ron O
Without the bogus probability argument and something like IC or the
explanatory filter to back it up the ID perps can't really use the
flagellum in any teachable lesson. Yeah, I know that doesn't stop
them from using all kinds of other bogus junk. Who could believe that
the Ohio rubes would put the Wellsian lie about no moths on tree
trunks in their switch scam lesson plan?
What would the take home message be? The wonders of nature? How much
we have learned in the last 50 years? Science just doesn't know
everything, but that doesn't mean that science has learned nothing.
Are they going to tell the students that the flagellum has been around
for over 2 billion years? Would they use the protein sequences to
show the students evidence that a lot of the proteins in the flagellum
are related to each other and the evidence that gene duplication has
played a major part in the evolution and construction of the
flagellum? They could do a lot with the flagellum, but nothing that
would really help the IDiots unless they just put it up and said look
how complex it is and moved on. If anyone tried to teach what we
actually know about the flagellum the anti-science creationists would
not like it a bit.
There is also the fact that the IDiots are trying to hide under a rock
and at the same time trying to slither out and slime anyone that
passes within reach. The flagellum is obviously tied to the ID scam.
The dishonest creationist scam artists want as few links back to the
bogus ID scam as they can manage. It sounds stupid since they are the
guys that ran the bogus ID scam. They have to work hard to make the
switch scam look like it is different from the ID scam. Only a moron
would be deceived, but they have to try or nothing really matters what
they do. If the ID perps were really interested in advancing the
religious political movement that they claimed to support in the Wedge
Document, they would bow out and appologize for running the bogus ID
scam and let a pristine group of scam artists take over. This group
seem more interested in hiking onto a gravy train than doing anything
constructive, and it looks like the Wedge document was likely just a
fund raising document to bilk money out of any creationist rube
willing to give it to them. It was the Discovery Institute that made
just that claim to try to lie about their motives being scientific in
stead of religious. The claim that the Wedge document was just a fund
raising document may be about the only honest claim that has come out
of the Discovery Institute. Just think how little regard the ID perps
had for their supporters to think that their supporters would accept
the lie about the Wedge document in order to keep lying about their
political and religious motives for running the ID scam? The saddest
thing is enough of their supporters accept such bogus antics to keep
the organization running.
There are still scientific creationist organizations so ID will likely
be around for quite a while, but that obviously doesn't mean that ID
is legitimate, or that the movement's political muscle haven't given
up on it to move on to something else just like they dropped
scientific creationism for the ID scam.
All they can do is pretend. If they put blood clotting or flagellum
into the switch scam lesson plan it gets harder to pretend. There is
likely to be a breaking point even for the creationist rubes that want
to be lied to, and the ID perps probably don't want to push their luck
that far.
Ron Okimoto
T Pagano
wrote:
>On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
>> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
>> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>>
>> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
>> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
>> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>
snipped Ron O's paranoia.
>
>Others can point you to the relevant material about IC, but no
>rebuttal of IC is required at this time, and you can look into the
>Dover fiasco.
It is highly amusing that Ron O cites the decision of a non scientific
court as a determining authority over whether or not IC and ID were
relevent to any scientific issue. Unfortunately the Dover court
neither proved nor established much of anything.
The Dover Court's only mission was to determine if the teaching of ID
in a particular public school district violated the Supreme Cout's
"lemon test." The "lemon test" has nothing to do with truth or
falsity of a particular concept---scientific or otherwise.
The Dover court was not an independent authority of truth--because no
such entity exists. It depended upon the testimony of experts on both
sides and then wet it's finger and stuck it in the air to decide. Even
if we assume that the Dover court rightly applied the "lemon" test to
the Dover case this is hardly relevent to the truth or falsity of
Behe's IC theory or Dembski's ID theory.
snip, more to follow if time permits.
Regards,
T Pagano
T Pagano
wrote:
>On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
>> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
>> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>>
>> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
>> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
>> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>The fact is that IC was never defined well enough to
>justify testing the notion.
IC is no more or less defined than any other concept---all words (and
concepts) have fuzziness. The label "species" is a case in point.
"Species" held differing value, meaning, and importance to Darwin,
Mayr, Dawkins, and Gould (for examples) not only because of what they
attached to that label but how it fit into their framework of
evolutionary theories.
>Any rebuttals of the IC junk has to face
>the shifting goal posts of an unstable definition.
This is nonsense since in 1996 Behe reported two real world biological
systems that fit the definition and grounded the concept in reality.
And the truth is that atheists have yet to apply any extant real world
system which fits the definition of IC-----in all its
fuzziness-----AND also can be explained by real world purely
naturalistic processes.
And I think that sounds like a challenge to Ron O. None of the heavy
hitters have produced, but maybe Ron O can. Heaven knows Harshman is
too terrified to produce anything.
snip, more to follow if time permits
Regards,
T Pagano
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
(sniffle) (sob) Boo hoo hoo.
Don't like the Dover decision?
Tough shit.
(shrug)
By the way, Tony, dom you want your balls back yet . . . . . ?
================================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
http://www.RedandBlackPublishers.com
T Pagano
wrote:
>On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
>> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
>> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>>
>> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
>> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
>> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
snip
>Even Behe admitted
>under oath that he hadn't gotten around to any verification testing.
>He even claimed that it wasn't up to him to do any testing.
With regard to General Relativity Einstein never conducted a single
real experiment; he left it to others like Eddington. Neither have
any of the String Theorists conducted any empirical tests. And it is
readily admitted that there is no hope of any possible empirical test
in the near future yet it is accepted for review, investigation, and
no one goes to court to keep it out of the schools.
Darwin was principly a naturalist; that is, he made observations of
nature. He made not a single experiment to prove that random
mutations conjoined to natural selection ever resulted in the
emergence and development of novelty. And in 1859 he knew well that
the fossil record contradicted his purely naturalistic and by
necessity gradualistic process. He hoped others AFTER hime would
conduct tests as more was known.
I suspect I might find with a little digging that it is often the case
that revolutionary new theories about the world rarely have empirical
support and often require other fields to progress before such tests
can be completed.
In other words Ron O is grossly ignorant of the history of science and
applies rules to ID and creationism which his atheist pet theories
don't have to meet.
>With
>crackpot claims like that, there is no reason to refute the junk in
>his book until he comes up with something that he thinks is worth
>testing and arguing about.
Interestingly atheistic scientists took Behe's [1996] "Darwin's Black
Box" more seriously than they had taken any other creationist work
since the re emergence of creationism in the early 1960s.
And Behe's latest "The Edge of Evolution" has completely stymied the
atheist world because, like "Darwin's Black Box" doesn't present
philosophical hot air but presents real world biological systems.
I rather suspect that Ron O has neither read the Dover Transcript in
its whole any more than he's actually read Behe's books. In other
words he argues from near complete ignorance.
snip
Regards,
T Pagano
Ron O
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
> >> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
> >> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>
> >> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
> >> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
> >> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>
> snipped Ron O's paranoia.
I'd say the same about Pagano, but the evidence that he is competent
enough to be paranoid is in question.
>
>
>
> >Others can point you to the relevant material about IC, but no
> >rebuttal of IC is required at this time, and you can look into the
> >Dover fiasco.
>
> It is highly amusing that Ron O cites the decision of a non scientific
> court as a determining authority over whether or not IC and ID were
> relevent to any scientific issue. Unfortunately the Dover court
> neither proved nor established much of anything.
Unfotunately for Pagano the court did not have to demonstrate the
bogousity of ID the ID perps did that themselves.
It isn't the science side that is forcing these issues into the court
system. No one could possibly deny that bogus scams like ID go to
court because the creationist rubes that buy into the scams force the
issue. If ID were left to seek its level in the scientific arena,
where any such debate should occur, it never rises to any level where
serious scientists can address it. The only reason why the ignorant,
incompetent and/or dishonest anti-science creationists have to resort
to their current bogus activities is that they have no scientific
argument. Heck there has been a 100% failure rate for the god did it
notions in all the history of science. It doesn't take a genius to
understand that if the ID perps had a single example of their
intelligent design inference being verified for something that we can
study in nature that we would already be teaching it. Pagano can't go
to any of the ID scam outfits like the Discovery Institute and find a
list of scientific achievements for ID because there isn't a single ID
success in the entire history of science. One of the things that both
Minnich and Behe agreed on was that there had never been a scientific
paper published supporting intelligent design. Not by themselves nor
anyone that they knew of. You can't teach any ID science if you
haven't bothered to do any ID science.
>
> The Dover Court's only mission was to determine if the teaching of ID
> in a particular public school district violated the Supreme Cout's
> "lemon test." The "lemon test" has nothing to do with truth or
> falsity of a particular concept---scientific or otherwise.
Pagano refuses to acknowledge that it was the school boards defense
that requested that the scientific merits of ID be considered. If ID
were scientific and there was something worth teaching, then even if
the board had religious motivations for forcing it into the cirriculum
the court could not keep it from being taught in the science class.
>
> The Dover court was not an independent authority of truth--because no
> such entity exists. It depended upon the testimony of experts on both
> sides and then wet it's finger and stuck it in the air to decide. Even
> if we assume that the Dover court rightly applied the "lemon" test to
> the Dover case this is hardly relevent to the truth or falsity of
> Behe's IC theory or Dembski's ID theory.
One of the reasons Pagano is such a loser is because he still defends
the dishonest perps that lied to him about the nonexistant science of
intelligent design. Pagano knows for a fact that the ID perps began
running the bait and switch scam on rubes like himself years before ID
ever went to court in Dover. Honest people with something worth
teaching do not do things like that. ID was a loser even in the eyes
of the bogus creationists that were running the scam. If it were not
then in 2002-2003 Ohio would have gotten the ID science to teach and
instead of getting a worthless switch scam that didn't even mention
that ID ever existed they would have gotten something about IC or
anything about ID science to teach.
Dembski, Meyer et al., at the Discovery Institute used to claim that
ID was their business, but Meyer ran the bait and switch on Ohio
personally. Pagano can't deny that because it was Meyer that claimed
that he proposed the teach the controversy switch scam to the Ohio
board. The board had claimed that they wanted to teach the science of
intelligent design, but what did Meyer give them? Two years before
Dover the bait and switch was already in play. ID lost among the ID
perps long before it lost in the courts. When a second rate switch
scam gets put up instead of the mighty science of ID by the guys that
perpetrated the ID creationist scam, you don't have to guess at what
scientific value ID has.
Ron Okimoto
wf3h
>
> With regard to General Relativity Einstein never conducted a single
> real experiment; he left it to others like Eddington.
this is often the case in science. few scientists are both excellent
theoreticians and experimentalists. in fact, it was a common comment,
almost a cliche, about fermi that he was both an excellent
theoretician and experimentalist
not, of course, that pagano would have known this.
Neither have
> any of the String Theorists conducted any empirical tests. And it is
> readily admitted that there is no hope of any possible empirical test
> in the near future yet it is accepted for review, investigation, and
> no one goes to court to keep it out of the schools.
pagano's unaware that some tests of string theory...like short range
variations in gravitational strength, are being done as we speak
not, of course, that pagano, a creationist, would know this.
>
> I suspect I might find with a little digging that it is often the case
> that revolutionary new theories about the world rarely have empirical
> support and often require other fields to progress before such tests
> can be completed.
>
> In other words Ron O is grossly ignorant of the history of science and
> applies rules to ID and creationism which his atheist pet theories
> don't have to meet.
tony thinks that only fundamentalists can do science. he thinks he
knows the history of science
unfortunately for pagano, the history of science is replete with
atheists, including einstein, weinberg, feynman, etc. if pagano wants
to exclude atheists from science then he has to destroy science
in addition, pagano has a bizarre view of his own church. he's called
his church's entire bishop's conference a group of heretics. so pagano
has an 'eccentric' view of both science AND religoin
>
> >With
> >crackpot claims like that, there is no reason to refute the junk in
> >his book until he comes up with something that he thinks is worth
> >testing and arguing about.
>
> Interestingly atheistic scientists took Behe's [1996] "Darwin's Black
> Box" more seriously than they had taken any other creationist work
> since the re emergence of creationism in the early 1960s.
which is like being the tallest building in witchita kansas. we didn't
take it seriously at all. in addition, behe doesn't take it seriously.
he hasn't done anything since his book. those of us at lehigh
university were amused by his silence after he took the money and ran
after duping ignorant intellectual peasants like pagano.
>
> And Behe's latest "The Edge of Evolution" has completely stymied the
> atheist world because, like "Darwin's Black Box" doesn't present
> philosophical hot air but presents real world biological systems.
unfortunately, as behe testified at the 'dover' trial, he's not up on
biology. he doesn't read it. he doesn't know how evolution works.
>
> I rather suspect that Ron O has neither read the Dover Transcript in
> its whole any more than he's actually read Behe's books. In other
> words he argues from near complete ignorance.
i suspect that tony's hever had a chance to talk with behe. they might
enjoy each other's company, both being incompetent in their respective
fields
wf3h
>
> This is nonsense since in 1996 Behe reported two real world biological
> systems that fit the definition and grounded the concept in reality.
> And the truth is that atheists have yet to apply any extant real world
> system which fits the definition of IC-----in all its
> fuzziness-----AND also can be explained by real world purely
> naturalistic processes.
>
unfortunately for pagano, at the dover trial, behe admitted he'd not
read any of the works on the evolution of IC systems. he was, and is,
unfamiliar with how IC systems, first identified by the evolutionary
biologist dobzhansky, evolved.
TomS
<d22433c3-e7d8-428b...@g1g2000pra.googlegroups.com>, wf3h
stated..."
"first identified by the evolutionary biologist dobzhansky"?
Please elaborate.
The Wikipedia article "Irreducible complexity" under the heading
"Forerunners" has a long list of names, but neither there, nor
anywhere else in the article, is Dobzhansky mentioned. If you
have a citation for this, it should be added to the article.
--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings
wf3h
> "On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:50:42 -0800 (PST), in article
>
> - Show quoted text -
i recall reading it, i believe, in one of gould's books, but i can't
find a reference to IC in connection with dobzhansky...looks like my
mistake
Steven L.
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
>>> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
>>> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>>>
>>> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
>>> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
>>> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>
> snipped Ron O's paranoia.
>
>
>> Others can point you to the relevant material about IC, but no
>> rebuttal of IC is required at this time, and you can look into the
>> Dover fiasco.
>
> It is highly amusing that Ron O cites the decision of a non scientific
> court as a determining authority over whether or not IC and ID were
> relevent to any scientific issue.
I agree with you that no government official (and that includes judges)
should be considered the last word on scientific questions.
But local school boards are also government officials. And the
proponents of ID have been very aggressive in trying to get *them* to
rule that ID should be taught in public schools.
Local school boards shouldn't be rendering such scientific judgments
either. They should simply go with the best of what mainstream science
has to offer at any given time.
It's the attempts by ID proponents to get local school boards to rule
that ID should be taught in public schools, that led to a court
challenge and ultimately the Dover decision.
The mainstream scientific community has already considered--and
rejected--the arguments of the ID proponents. The problem is that the
ID proponents won't take "no" for an answer. Having been rejected by
mainstream science, they ran to local school boards to do an end run
around the normal scientific process.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
RAM
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
> >> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
> >> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
>
> >> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
> >> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
> >> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
>
> snip
>
> >Even Behe admitted
> >under oath that he hadn't gotten around to any verification testing.
> >He even claimed that it wasn't up to him to do any testing.
>
> With regard to General Relativity Einstein never conducted a single
> real experiment; he left it to others like Eddington. Neither have
> any of the String Theorists conducted any empirical tests. And it is
> readily admitted that there is no hope of any possible empirical test
> in the near future
This is not true. Document this claim.
> yet it is accepted for review, investigation, and
> no one goes to court to keep it out of the schools.
>
> Darwin was principly a naturalist; that is, he made observations of
> nature. He made not a single experiment to prove that random
> mutations conjoined to natural selection ever resulted in the
> emergence and development of novelty. And in 1859 he knew well that
> the fossil record contradicted his purely naturalistic and by
> necessity gradualistic process. He hoped others AFTER hime would
> conduct tests as more was known.
>
> I suspect I might find with a little digging that it is often the case
> that revolutionary new theories about the world rarely have empirical
> support
There was empirical support for Darwin's ideas. It only got stronger
and is now so strong as to be irrefutable. Only narrow minded, self
deceptive, religious fanatics like you attempt to contest it.
> and often require other fields to progress before such tests
> can be completed.
>
> In other words Ron O is grossly ignorant of the history of science
It is you who employs a selective view of the history of science. May
I recommend "The Norton History of The Human Sciences" by Roger Smith
for your elucidation.
> and
> applies rules to ID and creationism which his atheist pet theories
> don't have to meet.
>
> >With
> >crackpot claims like that, there is no reason to refute the junk in
> >his book until he comes up with something that he thinks is worth
> >testing and arguing about.
>
> Interestingly atheistic scientists took Behe's [1996] "Darwin's Black
> Box" more seriously than they had taken any other creationist work
> since the re emergence of creationism in the early 1960s.
That is because religious anti-science fanatics like you tried to
employ it as a wedge in the science classroom.
Have you forgotten Dover already!
>
> And Behe's latest "The Edge of Evolution" has completely stymied the
> atheist world because, like "Darwin's Black Box" doesn't present
> philosophical hot air but presents real world biological systems.
It is overwhelmingly being ignored by scientist and celebrated by
religious fanatics like you. This one is dead in the water because of
Behe's Dover farce.
Have you forgotten Dover already!
>
> I rather suspect that Ron O has neither read the Dover Transcript in
> its whole any more than he's actually read Behe's books. In other
> words he argues from near complete ignorance.
I've read both. You show profound ignorance of how silly, deceptive
and unscientific Behe acted in his Dover testimony which was supposed
to be the best and brightest the Creation/ID religious/political crowd
could produce.
You have forgotten Dover already!
You show even greater ignorance of science, especially how to develop
empirical protocols for concepts like IC. Prove me wrong wrong and do
it! I'll bet you can't
If you do; I'll insist Lenny must give you back your balls. How's
that for magnanimous munificence!
>
> snip
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
Regards,
RAM
VoiceOfReason
T Pagano wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 28, 5:49�am, Switch89 <Ryansarc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> On pages 65-67 of his book. Its hard to figure out just what he is
> >> arguing. He talks about parts not being able to fit together and about
> >> problems with the evolution of the cilia.
> >>
> >> Can anyone help me understand this and also link to some rebuttals? I
> >> know of the rebuttals to IC, I just want refutations of his argument
> >> against the indirect evolutionary pathways to IC.
> >
>
> snipped Ron O's paranoia.
>
>
> >
> >Others can point you to the relevant material about IC, but no
> >rebuttal of IC is required at this time, and you can look into the
> >Dover fiasco.
>
> It is highly amusing that Ron O cites the decision of a non scientific
> court as a determining authority over whether or not IC and ID were
> relevent to any scientific issue. Unfortunately the Dover court
> neither proved nor established much of anything.
The Dover Court proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ID is just a re-
packaging of Creationism. It's just a new way of selling books to the
gullible.
Amusing indeed...
Steven L.
> With regard to General Relativity Einstein never conducted a single
> real experiment; he left it to others like Eddington. Neither have
> any of the String Theorists conducted any empirical tests. And it is
> readily admitted that there is no hope of any possible empirical test
> in the near future yet it is accepted for review, investigation, and
> no one goes to court to keep it out of the schools.
Universities, not elementary or high schools, are the proper places to
investigate and debate new and even fringe theories. There they can be
researched, debated, papers peer reviewed and published, doctoral
dissertations written and defended, etc.
As far as public school through high school is concerned, I do *NOT*
think schools can just ignore ID, especially in heartland parts of
America where students may well be hearing about it from their churches
or their own families. I *DO* think teachers cannot and should not run
away from that. Refusing to discuss it altogether is the surest way to
get kids to be interested in it--we've seen that with alcohol,
marijuana, sex, etc.
But I also think teachers should *NOT* tell their students that ID is a
valid "alternative" to evolution at this time, but a fringe theory that
mainstream science has not (yet) accepted--for very good reasons. And
teachers should give those reasons. What needs to be explained is that
ID is not "just as good an alternative" as evolution, but a fringe
theory that has so far not proven itself.
ID proponents constantly claim that the "flaws" of evolution should be
taught. It's at least as important that the flaws of ID should be
taught. Because those are the reasons why mainstream science has
rejected it--not because mainstream science is afraid of it.
> I suspect I might find with a little digging that it is often the case
> that revolutionary new theories about the world rarely have empirical
> support and often require other fields to progress before such tests
> can be completed.
Continental drift is a good example for you.
When Alfred Wegener first proposed it in 1915, geology knew of no
mechanism by which continents could drift around the earth's surface.
All he knew was that on a map, the continents of North and South America
seemed to "fit" together with the continents of Europe and Africa, like
putting together a jigsaw puzzle. So he proposed that they had been
joined together at some point in the past.
Continental drift had to await the advent of plate tectonics for it to
finally become a highly credible theory.
*But* I'm willing to bet you that when Alfred Wegener first proposed it
in 1915, elementary and high schools didn't suddenly change their
curriculums to include it.
That's because new and mind-bending theories are constantly being
proposed all the time--as you say, many without adequate proof yet. How
should a school pick and choose which to expose their students to,
especially in what are supposed to be introductory science courses?
One way they should *NOT* go about choosing, is by having political
activists packing meetings of local school boards demanding that *THEIR*
favorite theory should be included. I don't care if that's ID, or UFOs,
or homeopathy. That's not the way to go about it.
The best way to go about it, is for the school board to solicit inputs
from the relevant departments of universities. Here is a suggested
research-based high school curriculum, developed by the Department of
Physics at the University of Dallas:
As you can see, it at least touches on General Relativity--but not on
String Theory. I guess that's where the line was drawn.
wf3h
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
what pagano neglects to mention is that the 'lemon' test addresses
whether a particular idea is religion. since ID was judged to be
religion and not science, it failed the lemon test which is why it
can't be taught in public schools.
if ID was a scientific idea it would not have had to confront the
lemon test at all. the relevance of the 'dover' decision is in the
conclusion of the court that ID is religion. pagano has yet to
confront the latest collapse in his dominionist view of science
TomS
<UL2dnSpVeN2eYsrU...@earthlink.com>, Steven L. stated..."
>
>T Pagano wrote:
>
>> With regard to General Relativity Einstein never conducted a single
>> real experiment; he left it to others like Eddington. Neither have
>> any of the String Theorists conducted any empirical tests. And it is
>> readily admitted that there is no hope of any possible empirical test
>> in the near future yet it is accepted for review, investigation, and
>> no one goes to court to keep it out of the schools.
>
>Universities, not elementary or high schools, are the proper places to
>investigate and debate new and even fringe theories. There they can be
>researched, debated, papers peer reviewed and published, doctoral
>dissertations written and defended, etc.
Quite so.
>
>As far as public school through high school is concerned, I do *NOT*
>think schools can just ignore ID, especially in heartland parts of
>America where students may well be hearing about it from their churches
>or their own families. I *DO* think teachers cannot and should not run
>away from that. Refusing to discuss it altogether is the surest way to
>get kids to be interested in it--we've seen that with alcohol,
>marijuana, sex, etc.
There is a danger in even discussing ID, which is that teachers
may not be prepared by their education to teach about it, and to do
a proper job of it they must be careful not to appear to be promoting
their own religious views. To avoid, for example, saying that the
Bible is compatible with evolution, or that the Bible is wrong about
the age of the earth.
>
>But I also think teachers should *NOT* tell their students that ID is a
>valid "alternative" to evolution at this time, but a fringe theory that
>mainstream science has not (yet) accepted--for very good reasons. And
>teachers should give those reasons. What needs to be explained is that
>ID is not "just as good an alternative" as evolution, but a fringe
>theory that has so far not proven itself.
But ID is not a theory. Not even a "fringe theory". Not an alternative
to evolution. ID does not claim to offer an account of what happened,
or when or where it happened. And the advocates of ID have shown no
interest in developing a theory.
>
>ID proponents constantly claim that the "flaws" of evolution should be
>taught. It's at least as important that the flaws of ID should be
>taught. Because those are the reasons why mainstream science has
>rejected it--not because mainstream science is afraid of it.
[...snip...]
Ray Martinez
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:38:19 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
All your points are self-evident. Too bad you had to say them. Ron
Okimoto's omission sins are premeditated and egregious. Evolutionists
cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Since Judge Jones is a Darwinist, that is, a believer in evolution
before the so called trial, his decision was predetermined.
Ray
Switch89
1. Not a troll. I don't post here often, but I have been on the list
for a while and I have no interest in trolling.
2. I am aware of the Dover decision, as well as refutations to IC.
3. I just wanted to understand:
a. What the heck Behe's actually saying in the passage mentioned
b. What the responses to it are.
Now, I've read the "Edge of Evolution", so does his argument that
parts couldn't fit together (at first) rest on the assumption that two
or more new protein-protein binding sites would need to evolve? If so,
I'm well aware of Nick Matzke's refutation of that book and so I won't
need any further explanation (if that is the case).
wf3h
which makes no sense at all. of COURSE he's a 'darwinist' (sic). if an
astrologer had asked for special treatment similar to what
creationists are asking for, would you have expected him to receive a
different ruling based on the idea the judge accepted science?
implicit in your argument is the idea that creationism has validity.
it doesn't. you yourself have admitted it's based on magic.
Ray Martinez
Darwinian Judge ruled as expected----makes perfect sense. A ruling in
favor of ID was not possible.
> if an
> astrologer had asked for special treatment similar to what
> creationists are asking for, would you have expected him to receive a
> different ruling based on the idea the judge accepted science?
>
> implicit in your argument is the idea that creationism has validity.
> it doesn't. you yourself have admitted it's based on magic.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Deliberate misrepresentation.
I have argued the objective *claim* of Creationism: based on Divine
power operating in reality. Your willful misrepresentation proves my
previous claim seen in my previous message (below): Darwinists cannot
be trusted to tell the truth.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/512877af89f51c5e
"All your points are self-evident. Too bad you had to say them. Ron
Okimoto's omission sins are premeditated and egregious. Evolutionists
cannot be trusted to tell the truth."
Ray
Steven L.
Well, that may well come up even if ID isn't mentioned at all. For
example, a teacher trying to teach geological time to a student from the
American heartland:
TEACHER: "The dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. After that,
the mammals began to dominate the earth."
STUDENT: "But Mr. Teacher, my parents and our minister told me that God
created the heaven and the earth 6,000 years ago, and that's what it
says in the Bible."
How should a teacher respond to that? Refuse to answer?
How would *YOU* answer the student, in a way that doesn't get you fired
by his irate parents?
I know how I would answer:
"I don't believe in a God who deliberately deceives us. And if all the
scientific evidence is that the dinosaurs disappeared millions of years
ago, then that's what must have happened. To believe otherwise is to
believe that God planted all that stuff just to fool us."
>> But I also think teachers should *NOT* tell their students that ID is a
>> valid "alternative" to evolution at this time, but a fringe theory that
>> mainstream science has not (yet) accepted--for very good reasons. And
>> teachers should give those reasons. What needs to be explained is that
>> ID is not "just as good an alternative" as evolution, but a fringe
>> theory that has so far not proven itself.
>
> But ID is not a theory. Not even a "fringe theory". Not an alternative
> to evolution. ID does not claim to offer an account of what happened,
> or when or where it happened.
You snipped my example of continental drift--and I'm going to put it
right back into this discussion because I think it proves a point.
Your same objection could have been made of continental drift when
Wegener first proposed it in 1915: He didn't offer an account of just
what happened (the mechanism), exactly when it happened, or how it
happened. He had noticed that the fossil record seemed to show
commonality between the ancient fossils of the Americas and those of
Europe and Africa. And he had noticed that the shapes of the continents
seemed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. But that's not much
evidence by which to draw such a sweeping conclusion as continental
drift. And mainstream geologists attacked his theory strongly, for lack
of adequate evidence and lack of a proposed mechanism by which
continents can drift.
I think it's a good example of how a fringe theory that is little more
than a half-baked idea in 1915 could ultimately be accepted.
The boundary between a fringe theory and a half-baked idea isn't a
clearly drawn line.
What *you're* trying to do is exclude ID as not even worthy of
debate--anywhere. That's unworthy of a proponent of science. Of course
ID is worthy of debate in appropriate forums. So is *any* other fringe
theory. Even UFOs. (Believe me, I've spent enough of my time in bull
sessions in college and cocktail hours after scientific symposia, in
which we debated propositions that were dumber than ID even.)
But public schools are not that forum.
I don't believe there is any issue that is too dangerous to debate. But
not every issue should be debated in front of a group of impressionable
youngsters who must learn the fundamentals of their subject first.
Steven L.
The best refutation, is one counterexample. All you need is one.
Here's a metabolic pathway that evolved as a joint adaptation of *two*
other metabolic pathways:
Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic:
the patchwork approach.
Copley SD.
Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Cooperative Institute for
Research in Environmental Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder,
Boulder, CO 80309, USA. cop...@cires.colorado.edu
ABSTRACT: The pathway for degradation of the xenobiotic pesticide
pentachlorophenol in Sphingomonas chlorophenolica probably evolved in
the past few decades by the recruitment of enzymes from two other
catabolic pathways. The first and third enzymes in the pathway,
pentachlorophenol hydroxylase and 2,6-dichlorohydroquinone dioxygenase,
may have originated from enzymes in a pathway for degradation of a
naturally occurring chlorinated phenol. The second enzyme, a reductive
dehalogenase, may have evolved from a maleylacetoacetate isomerase
normally involved in degradation of tyrosine. This apparently recently
assembled pathway does not function very well: pentachlorophenol
hydroxylase is quite slow, and tetrachlorohydroquinone dehalogenase is
subject to severe substrate inhibition.
Now how would Dr. Behe explain that?
Free Lunch
<pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in talk.origins:
Ray, everyone with a grasp on reality is a "Darwinian" in your deluded,
dishonest world. Your religious dogma is silly and known to be false.
Why do you keep worshipping ignorance and lies?
...
Dana Tweedy
"Ray Martinez" <pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4e929176-50c6-41b7...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...snip
>All your points are self-evident.
Unfortunately for Ray, "self evident" doesn't mean "supporting my own
paranoid fantasies".
>Too bad you had to say them. Ron
>Okimoto's omission sins are premeditated and egregious.
What "omission sins" Ray?
>Evolutionists
> cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Then why is it that creationists are the one who tend to lie?
>Since Judge Jones is a Darwinist, that is, a believer in evolution
>before the so called trial, his decision was predetermined.
What evidence do you have that Judge Jones was an "evolutionist"? The
decision was made based on black letter law, which happens to not support
your beliefs.
DJT
Dana Tweedy
>> > Since Judge Jones is a Darwinist, that is, a believer in evolution
>> > before the so called trial, his decision was predetermined.
>
>> which makes no sense at all. of COURSE he's a 'darwinist' (sic).
>Darwinian Judge ruled as expected----makes perfect sense. A ruling in
>favor of ID was not possible.
A ruling in favor of ID would have been possible if ID had any scientific
validity. It didn't, and it doesn't.
>> if an
>> astrologer had asked for special treatment similar to what
>> creationists are asking for, would you have expected him to receive a
>> different ruling based on the idea the judge accepted science?
>
>> implicit in your argument is the idea that creationism has validity.
>> it doesn't. you yourself have admitted it's based on magic.- Hide quoted
>> text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
> Deliberate misrepresentation.
How is it a "misrepresentation" Ray?
>I have argued the objective *claim* of Creationism: based on Divine
> power operating in reality.
That is, of course, magic.
>Your willful misrepresentation proves my
>previous claim seen in my previous message (below): Darwinists cannot
> be trusted to tell the truth.
Yet the "evolutionist" here did tell the truth. You lied.
snip repetation of lie
DJT
wf3h
> On Dec 28, 3:12 pm, wf3h <w...@vsswireless.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > which makes no sense at all. of COURSE he's a 'darwinist' (sic).
>
> Darwinian Judge ruled as expected----makes perfect sense. A ruling in
> favor of ID was not possible.
just as a ruling in favor of astrology or chicken entrail reading was
not possible.
>
> > if an
> > astrologer had asked for special treatment similar to what
> > creationists are asking for, would you have expected him to receive a
> > different ruling based on the idea the judge accepted science?
>
> > implicit in your argument is the idea that creationism has validity.
> > it doesn't. you yourself have admitted it's based on magic.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Deliberate misrepresentation.
>
> I have argued the objective *claim* of Creationism: based on Divine
> power operating in reality. Your willful misrepresentation proves my
> previous claim seen in my previous message (below): Darwinists cannot
> be trusted to tell the truth.
how can a subjective concept (divine power) be objective? no one knows
what 'divine power' is.
i can get out my volt meter, measure the voltage across a resistor and
calculate power. there is no comparable operation in science that
will let me calculate 'divine power'. the idea is not science.
so tell me: how can a personal, subjective concept be scientifically
objective?
this is more creationist handwaving.
TomS
<mbidnZ2P_LTHlsXU...@earthlink.com>, Steven L. stated..."
Fortunately, for all concerned (myself, the kids, and everybody else)
I am not going to face that situation. But I think that the only
thing that I could do would be to say something like, "I'm not going
to dispute what you, your parents, and your spiritual advisors tell
you. What I expect of the students in this class is that your learn
what the scientific consensus says. I cannot insist that you agree
with it, but I can expect that you understand it."
But there is an important point of difference between ID and
other fringe ideas. ID has been quite clearly deliberately crafted
so that it has as little substantive content as possible. The
advocates of ID have repeatedly told us that they don't want to
talk about *when* ID took place (they don't want to be tied to
either young-earth creationism or old-earth creationism); they
repeatedly say that they don't say *who* did it. Moreover, they do
not say *what* happens when a "design" takes place, what sort of
thing is the result of a design, what sorts of things are not
designed. (Individuals - adult or eggs; a mutation to DNA; a family
group; a whole bunch of various animals, plants and physical
environment interacting in an eco-system; just the first germ of
life?) No mention of *how* design happens, what sort of connection
there is between the designer(s) and the designed. Nothing about
*where*. And, of course, nothing about *why*. If there is no
prospect of even talking about the 6 W's, what is there to talk
about? And people have been asking "what is the theory of
creationism" even before Darwin, and the creationists seem to be
saying ever *less* about it.
Kent Paul Dolan
doesn't shine:
> Ron O <roki...@cox.net> wrote:
>> ... you can look into the Dover fiasco.
> It is highly amusing that Ron O cites the decision
> of a non scientific court as a determining
> authority over whether or not IC and ID were
> relevent(sic) to any scientific issue.
> Unfortunately the Dover court neither proved nor
> established much of anything.
It most certainly proved that no proponent of
creationism (now disguised as "intelligent design",
but the court quickly uncovered that chicanery) was
willing to testify under penalty of perjury that
there was the least bit of substance to creationism.
> The Dover Court's only mission was to determine if
> the teaching of ID in a particular public school
> district violated the Supreme Cout's(sic) "lemon
> test." The "lemon test" has nothing to do with
> truth or falsity of a particular concept ---
> scientific or otherwise.
Your ignorance is showing. Guess which word you used
is a person's name. You also have a great lack of
grasp of what courts do. The Dover court explicitly
found that ID/creationism was _not_ science, _was_
religion trying to