Best op-ed yet: "The E Word"

I have no problem with teaching evolution in school and am not an advocate of teaching ID (although I always had an optional lecture on cosmological ID when I was a prof.) However, I do not share your enthusiasm for Fulton's journalistic skills. If he were on the other side, he just as easily could have written:

Now imagine if you or your child questioned the prevailing view in science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, "We're not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory." Would anyone dare call that education?

...“We don’t know,” a director of the Intelligent Design-oriented Discovery Institute’s Center for Science recently told Newsweek. “It’s a mystery.” And some people call talk like that “education.”

To David:

Now imagine if you or your child questioned the prevailing view in science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, "We're not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory." Would anyone dare call that education?

Firstly I cannot see the relevans to the op-ed. As I see it it argues the opposite - that we should try to find answers - and explain those to the children.

If a teacher for no reason refused to discuss a childs questions - it would be a bad teacher.

If the child said for instance - "why are there no intermediate fossils" the teacher should explain that there are - for a fact - plenty of intermediate fossils. That is answer the question - never refuse (unless they are silly og irrelevant).

“We’re not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory.”

Soren,

actually I was the witness of a positive example for a similar situation when I was at high school several decades ago. When a fellow student, who had obviously on the receiving end of a lot of nationalist rhetoric, complained he did not believe some sources on the terror of the Nazi regime we were reading, our teacher did not silence him with 'Wise up, the facts say otherwise!', although he would have been technically correct in doing so. Instead he walked his student through a good part of the evidence contradicting historic revisionism. This took quite some time but has definitely been worth the effort.
I can not imagine a scientist who would not wish for a similar reaction in a biology teacher teaching evolution, as scientists in general do believe that the current theories are the best available and are the accepted ones for good reasons - a view they would surely like to impress on pupils taking science classes. This of course will not spare students fom having pointed out to them that their criticism of a well founded theory is probably ludicrous, and the sources it is founded upon outdated and/or untrustworthy, as doing so just to comfort the children or their parents would be patently dishonset.

The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe's definition of irreducible complexity.

Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Would anyone dare call that education?

— Ben Fulton

I have been involved with this debate for nearly 40 years and after millions of words read, spoken and written in a variety of books, articles, forums and conversations I have reached the conclusion that the horrible truth of the matter is that we just don't have a clue as to where the universe and the life that's in it came from. It seems to me that it's time to end this ridiculous bickering and be brave enough to admit this simple truth. All we have is speculation, your speculation and my speculation. That's what makes the argument interminable and absurd. It's gotten to the point where I know in advance, every argument that will be made by either side at almost any time. Nothing really new is ever offered because there is nothing new. The proof that we don't really know is proven by the fact that the argument continues on. If either side had convincing evidence, everyone would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago. We also have to face the dismal possibility that we will never really know. At least not in the forseeable future. Insofar as I can see, there's not a shred of credible evidence to support the idea that mutation and natural selection are the mechanisms by which life progresses from its beginning (if indeed it had a beginning) to its present state. There's also not a shred of credible evidence that there exists a supernatural being that created the universe and all the life in it. So, we must analyze why the debate goes on. If it's just to generate discussion and thought provoking ideas, then it probably has some value. So, newcomers on both sides come into the discussion fresh and full of piss and vinegar, hoping to convince others of the truthfulness of their thoughts on the matter. But they're surely travelling down roads that have already been traversed by countless others. All of the ideas have been thought of before, all the arguments have been made and almost no one has changed their minds. But those of us who have been over and over and over these matters countless time can clearly see that it will probably never be resolved. That is, until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable mechanism by which life has "evolved" or until God almighty himself comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship. I'm not holding my breath waiting :-) So let's be brave about this and admit (gasp!) the horrible truth. No one alive today has a shred of credible evidence to support either of these two paradigms. And I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer.

This touches on what has always been a sore point with me, the reluctance of science to admit that they don't know and the need to make up just-so stories or to offer unsupported explanations to fill in the missing information.

— Wagner

All we have is speculation, your speculation and my speculation. That's what makes the argument interminable and absurd.

— Wagner

Nothing really new is ever offered because there is nothing new.

— Wagner

If either side had convincing evidence, everyone would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago.

— Wagner

Insofar as I can see, there's not a shred of credible evidence to support the idea that mutation and natural selection are the mechanisms by which life progresses from its beginning (if indeed it had a beginning) to its present state.

— Wagner

That is, until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable mechanism by which life has "evolved" or until God almighty himself comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship.

— Wagner

No one alive today has a shred of credible evidence to support either of these two paradigms. And I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

— Wagner

David Heddle wrote

"But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.)"

The ID people would seem to say "It is a mystery and we have to accept that we can never know". (Perhaps I am wrong about that but I have never heard anything else. I would be happy to see examples that differ -- this is in regard to the nature of the designer, the motives of the designer, and the reason certain design choices were made. Indded, I would be happy to hear exactly what is designed and what not.) Contrast this with "we do not know because we have not figure out how to test hypotheses, but you can look here for speculation on the answer", which seems to me to be the more likely scientific answer.

DH: "And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course."

This is just silly. Assuming this happens, the teacher is not covering material in a course because it is outside the scope of the course. "That is abiogenesis rather than evolution and this is an evolution course where it is assumed life exists and the focus is on how life developed after it can into existence. There is a great deal written about abiogenesis: look here and here etc. But we do not have time to discuss it in this course."

DH: "It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton's tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say? What is the evidence? (I'm asking pedagogically/rhetorically -- not looking for a debate.)"

Yeah, but where are these exact predictions. You are "guessing" what ID predicts (and I gather there is not a paper by you on this subject 8-). But is there a paper with these predictions spelled out? ID material I am familiar with are either philosophical (how conceptually to recognize design) or how evolution fails, but nothing on "if ID were true, we would see this". It is a bit much to expect the teacher to assume the role of an IDer and come up with predictions just to shoot them down. (We are talking high school here remember.)

DH: "Or the irreducible complexity. What kind of answer is "the majority of respected scientists say it's not so?" Why not charge into the fray? I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe's arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:"

[And a quote with no real link -- the link is to evolution blog, not to a specific article, and I could not find the quote searching on the current display.]

I do think it is unfair to grab something someone once said about something -- in who knows what context -- and present it as the strongest statement available against a soundbite. One can say about IR: Behe asserts structures are IR, but presents no proof and ignores all research trying to answer the question he poses [one reference out of many Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller]. And say "In this high school course, let us start with what mainstream biologists believe. I will present a reading list for people interested in this question and if we have time after the material we need to cover has been done, we can discuss some of these issues..."

But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.)

This is just silly. Assuming this happens, the teacher is not covering material in a course because it is outside the scope of the course. "That is abiogenesis rather than evolution and this is an evolution course where it is assumed life exists and the focus is on how life developed after it can into existence. There is a great deal written about abiogenesis: look here and here etc. But we do not have time to discuss it in this course."

Yeah, but where are these exact predictions. You are "guessing" what ID predicts (and I gather there is not a paper by you on this subject 8-). But is there a paper with these predictions spelled out?

The biggest problem is that ID proponents take answered questions, and assert --- usually through laziness or raw ignorance --- that no answers exist, and then substitute their flaky, empty, non-explanation of "Poof, ID did it." The origin of 'information' is one prominent example --- this core ID argument, stretching back to Charles Thaxton in the 1980's, is that evolution can't create new information.

As an comm. systems engineer, I've always been shocked that these guys can repeat this canard.

I mean, I can create the model that refutes them in my sleep.

GWW,

Today I refuse to be dragged down to your level. I regret the level of sarcasm that I have sometimes used. If you continue to insult me, I will leave and never come back. No because it hurst ny feelings, but because it wastes my time. Do you think you can engage in a discussion without getting personal? Do you have in in you?

It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton's tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex.

— David Heddel

What does evolution say? What is the evidence?

Even if there are no predictions (I have referred to at least one paper) why not say, "The IDers say convergence is a problem for us. Let's look at some of the examples they give (the salamander and some fish with the same type of eyes) and discuss how this happened via evolution." You would still be teaching science but would be able to say that, like all good scientists, you are addressing criticisms of the theory. Where is the downside?

To David Heddle:

I do not know if you are being confrontational. I did not consider myself to be confrontational. I still think it is silly to suggest that material outside the scope of a course should be discusses in detail within a course.

I do not know how the filter works. Let us see if this one gets through. The "Origin-of-Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation" by a Dr. Fazale Rana link is on this web site:

www.reasons.org/

at this location:

resources/fff/2001issue06/index.shtml#origin_of_life_predictions_face_off

(i.e. concatenate those two locations.)

the explicitly creationist predictions are:

1. Life appeared early in Earth's history.
2. Life appeared under harsh conditions.
3. Life miraculously persisted under harsh conditions.
4. Life arose quickly.
5. Life in its minimal form is complex.

I am not impressed. 1 seems to be wrong according most dating schemes I am familiar with. 2 is ill posed (harsh = what?). 3 is untestable absent creation of life in a modern lag. 4 is ill-posed (quickly = what, and also Life is well defined? -- that is how if that different from naturalist explanation?). 5 is perhaps ok, though complex = what? and how could this be tested?

So no, considering these questions in a high school course is a waste of time (problems are a lot of knowledge is necessary for the answers to be meaningfully discussed even if the predictions were properly posed.)

Okay, now we know that you can add web addresses as text (requiring cutting and pasting to follow a link but that is easy enough) because I just did it (see my previous post).

I knew that would happen: (1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck. It's a cousin of (1) ID is not science because it doesn't publish and (2) ID doesn't publish because it is not science.

So okay, forget predictions, since you'll never agree that what they call predictions are in fact predictions. As per my previous post, what's wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution? Think of the political capital, and, as I said, you'd be teaching science. And equipping the students to answer the criticisms.

If you continue to insult me, I will leave and never come back. No because it hurst ny feelings, but because it wastes my time.

Do you think you can engage in a discussion without getting personal?

But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers.

GWW,

Ask me a question, I don't know what question I am refusing to answer. Go ahead, if you ask (without insulting) I will do my best to answer.

Mr. Heddle:

Once again you show that, by leaving words undefined, one can pretty much make them say whatever one wants.

(1) There are no predictions. (2) Here are some "predictions". (3) Those are NOT predictions. Try again.

Those are NOT predictions because they are chock full o' undefined terms. What does "early" mean? What does "harsh" mean? what does "quickly" mean? What does "complex" mean?

Those sound suspiciosly like Nostradamus "prophecies", which have many merits, including flexibility, but are definitely not science.

To clarify what "deal breaker" menas, and just so you know where I stand, IDist and creationists have had the following lines of argument: 1. hierarchies do NOT exist in molecular taxonamies therefore ID is true 2. hierarchies DO exist in molecular taxonamies therefore ID is true 3. hierarchies simultaneously DO and do NOT exist in molecular taxonomies therfore ID is true

Emanuele, go read the entire paper. Maybe the terms are defined. That was just one table from the article. I didn't read the paper, just saw that it contained predictions. I just did a quick search for "intelligent design predictions" and found it.

" I had to tell her something. I'm her teacher and she expected me to have an answer".

David Heddle wrote:

"I knew that would happen: (1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck. It's a cousin of (1) ID is not science because it doesn't publish and (2) ID doesn't publish because it is not science."

But those prediction DO suck. And they are not ID predictions: they say nothing at all about what we would see in living things today and essentially nothing at all about what the fossil record would show (modulo the meaning of "complex" but isn't any organism with cells "complex", because if so, no prediction about what the fossil record will look like).

Does evolution make predictions? Tons of them, many relating to life living today (how will frogs arrange themselves on the edge of a pond containing a predator, do certain members of a herd sacrifice themselves delibrately for the good of the herd, reproductive organs and behavior change more slowly than other organs and behavior, won't find humans in same strata with dinosaurs, etc. etc.)

I just cannot believe you think the referenced predictions do not SUCK.

And if you read the rest of the referenced paper, well it is just not good biology. Why do we not have predictions about life today and the fossil record from Behe, Dembski, etc.?

DH: "So okay, forget predictions, since you'll never agree that what they call predictions are in fact predictions. As per my previous post, what's wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution? Think of the political capital, and, as I said, you'd be teaching science. And equipping the students to answer the criticisms."

First of all, I wish people would say "The purpose of this high school course is to make students familiar with the current theories of modern biology." That is a worthwhile goal. Would that we did it.

The problem with two weeks on criticism is who would design it and what would it say. Where you have two real competing scientific theories (and just look at geology in the 20th century for a whole bunch of competing theories surviving simultaneously), you have deep, positive papers and deep counterarguments, and eventually one side or the other prevails (in the geology case, at least). In evolution you have deep positive papers, and deep counterarguments about details and aspects, but criticisms (if you mean ID theory) that amount to God of the gaps which do not acknowledge existing research and arguments about theories no longer widely subscribed to and misstated arguments based on misunderstanding (I am thinking of Wells's book -- embryo identity no longer subscribed to, moth coloration misunderstood).

I know this is confrontational and you do not want to get into another ID/evolution argument, but your proposal requires that someone design two weeks of criticism of evolution (more than Here is what we do not yet know variety, which would be a reasonable thing for a couple of days) and that requires the existence of serious criticism which has been fully argued.

Behe in his NYT article said there is no research on the origin of flagella. When confronted later, he admitted that there was but he felt it was inadequate. So why did he say there was none? He has been told about it repeatedly since DBB was published. And you want this guy's ideas taught in High School?

Mr. Heddle:

I DID read the article. Some numbers are given, but no formal definition is there, as far as I can tell. This holds especially true for the "logical" derivation of the "predictions" from the premises.

By the way, said premises are the book of Genesis, not a scientific theory of any kind. Maybe it was written before the IDers decided to pretend ID was not religious in nature.

Actually, even if I were a die-hard IDer, I would rather have good evolution teachers than lousy teachers sympathetic to ID (unlike you guys, I am not worried about indoctrination.) At the moment, my son's science class is horrible -- read this chapter, answer these questions, etc., etc. No wonder so many kids hate science.

David H:

"Behe's arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:
The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe's definition of irreducible complexity. Not exactly a rebuttal that reeks of being on firm scientific footing. "

Look, I'm trying to take you seriously here, but I'm going to have a hard time if you seriously think that Behe's arguments are as compelling as the responses. Behe makes strong claims like that IC systems by definition cannot have functional intermediaries. Scientists demonstrate over and over that all the structures he complains about do, in fact, have functional intermediaries. So how is that not on good footing? He made a strong claim, one that can be refuted even in pure argument. Scientists do him one better: they refute the argument AND point to all the studies that Behe claims "don't exist" discussing how biochemical systems evolve. How is that not a powerful rebuke of Behe's core claims?

But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.) And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course.

— David Heddle

(1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck.

Plunge,

Oh, like it or not, Behe's arguments are packaged much more cleverly. The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better--and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I "want" to see design, and I do in cosmology-- in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe's description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling.

Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. "Later a part gets added" by what mechanism? "A change renders the added part essential" By what means? What caused the change?

This is independent of who is right.

Look, I have biases, and so do you. I don't know if you can (I'm pretty sure I can't) but try to imagine that you have no opinion and then look at the way Behe presents IR and your explanation--I don't think there is even a contest.

As per my previous post, what's wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution?

That lots of people were thinking about the "what happens 'before' the Big Bang" issue is evidenced by the fact that now, there are some plausible ideas floating around. Testable comes later.

The paper presenting the predictions under discussion looks very traditionally creationist to me, and includes lots of references to Genesis.

GWW,

If the ID position was really such a minority position, as I think you are implying, if I can extract from your nonsense the germ of what you are trying to say, (if anything,) then there would be no political battle. The problem is not that a vocal but tiny minority is against evolution, but rather a sizable fraction of voters and taxpayers.

Don't yell at me about that, that's just the way it is.

But you know, the "it's a mystery" quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.) And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course. It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton's tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say? What is the evidence? (I'm asking pedagogically/rhetorically -- not looking for a debate.)

Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. "Later a part gets added" by what mechanism? "A change renders the added part essential" By what means? What caused the change?

— Heddle

No one in ID will make a claim that ID makes such a statement, though, David

Where is "later a part gets added" in any serious discussion of evolution?

I don't think there's any question that Behe has been a masterful salesman of his snake-oil. I concede that his arguments appear to be more persuasive to Joe Sixpack than do the tedious explanations required to debunk them.

But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers.

(a lot of depressing and nihilistic rhetorics against the subject he teaches) ....The proof that we don’t really know is proven by the fact that the argument continues on. If either side had convincing evidence, everyone would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago.

..there’s not a shred of credible evidence to ... until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable mechanism by which life has “evolved” or

until God almighty himself comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship.

Or the irreducible complexity. What kind of answer is "the majority of respected scientists say it's not so?" Why not charge into the fray? I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe's arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level).

— David Heddle

Jari,

You missed the boat too, and just regurgitated the same-old stuff. I have not been defending ID, and you'll never win hard-core IDers. What I have been saying is stop wasting time arguing that their premise of miraculous creation and design is faulty. Don't even argue that they are not science. Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let's take a couple weeks to examine them. You might put the political argument to rest, for the sides are fairly evenly drawn, as far as I can tell. Winning over, via accommodation, a few percentage points of popular opinion, while still teaching science, would seem to be a win-win.

Nice article, but what we need to do is get rid of is the "D-word," or "Darwinism." Although the late Dr. Mayr is quoted as saying that he found nothing wrong with "Darwinism," his definition is surely "Darwinian evolution." Anti-evolutionists, however, have something else in mind, and are especially fond of the "ism" part because it suggests a philosophy. They use the D-word as a catch-all weasel word to avoid confronting the specifics, be it common descent, speciation, natural selection, even abiogenesis. No other word, not even "theory," is so manipulated by anti-evolutionists. For 6 years now, I have been insisting that we'd be better off if we (all defenders of evolution) just stop using that word entirely. And from what I read, Charles Darwin would agree.

I know that it won't be that simple, especially when dealing with skilled wordsmiths like William Dembski, but every now and then we could simply stop anti-evolutionists in their tracks with: "Say what you want about 'Darwinism,' and come back when you are tired of playing with the strawman and want to discuss evolutionary biology."

Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let's take a couple weeks to examine them.

If the ID position was really such a minority position, as I think you are implying,

if I can extract from your nonsense the germ of what you are trying to say, (if anything,) then there would be no political battle.

If you think it is only Joe Sixpack, meaning uneducated bumpkins, you are mistaken.

I would say that Behe's IC is persuasive to many .. educated non-experts.

Heedle
"The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better---and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I "want" to see design, and I do in cosmology--- in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe's description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling."

But this is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity. Behe is making a STRONG case: one that he claims is true, BY DEFINITION. Strong cases are easily undone by simply pointing to single flaws in their reasoning, no matter how general. Even the simple, vague quote does that, and does it in such a way that Behe's point collapses. This is not a matter of opinion, but one of logic.

And the fact is, that vague case has been made specific countless times in every one of the structures Behe claims is IC. What becomes obviously unfair is when you compare a critique of his general idea to one of his specific examples (i.e., whatever "400 proteins" reffers to).

"Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. "Later a part gets added" by what mechanism? "A change renders the added part essential" By what means? What caused the change?"

But this is obvious. Each functional part then is subject to a range of variation. Natural selection weeds out all but those with similar or increased functionality, and so on. It DOESN'T pre-suppose any _particular_ overall goal (which is why Behe and Dembski's probability calculations are so utterly bogus), just various steps of increasing functionality. It's the exact same process everyone is familiar with. And we've watched it happen in the lab countless times. In fact, most papers that describe this happening can't even get published in evolutionary journals because this result is so pedestrian.

Again, the main thing scientists don't get is why anyone finds Behe compelling at all. In the case of blood clotting, for instance, Doolittle has not only worked out plausible ways that the system could have evolved step-by-step, but even done some amazing work in trying to show that it did, in fact, happen via those steps (which is not easy given that there are rarely any simple records of what the intermediate steps were). It's only by totally denying the existence of such work that Behe even has any room to blather on about IC.

I have not been defending ID

Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution.

Look, I have biases ...

Irreducible complexity is a normal expected result of evolution.

So you find Behe's rhetorical arguments convincing? This is a sound reason not to teach ID in school, except as something to debunk. Understanding that science is not rhetorical argument is a very important part of understanding what science is.

And which part of the requirements enumerated in state science standards shall they not teach in order to do that? With school districts being graded on how well students perform on standardized tests constructed against those standards (with real and sometimes draconian consequences attached to that performance), the ID BS is a bloody waste of class time.

Do you believe that most Americans agree that a group of mysterious alien beings have visited earth repeatedly over the last several billion years and dumped all of the earth's life forms, which they designed and created?

Just so we're clear David: is it your position that if a majority of religious people have a critical view about something, then scientists have to pretend that they might be right, or else?

But this [being a Christian] is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity

Again, the main thing scientists don't get is why anyone finds Behe compelling at all. In the case of blood clotting, for instance, Doolittle has not only worked out plausible ways that the system could have evolved step-by-step, but even done some amazing work in trying to show that it did, in fact, happen via those steps (which is not easy given that there are rarely any simple records of what the intermediate steps were).

David, who do you think created and designed all the life forms that ever lived on earth and approximately when did that occur? Can you answer that question honestly for us?

Feb. 9, 2005 -- Marian Kester Coombs is a woman who believes America has become a "den of iniquity" thanks to "its efforts to accommodate minorities." White men should "run, not walk" to wed "racially conscious" white women and avoid being out-bred by non-whites. Latinos are "rising to take this country away from those who made it," the "Euroamericans." Muslims are "human hyenas" who "smell blood" and are "closing in" on their "weakened prey," meaning "the white race." Blacks, Coombs sneers, are "saintly victims who can do no wrong." Black solidarity and non-white immigration are imposing "racial revolution and decomposition" in America.... Marian Kester Coombs is married to Francis Booth Coombs, managing editor of the hard-right newspaper The Washington Times. Fran Coombs has published at least 35 of his wife's news and opinion pieces for his paper, although his relationship to her is not acknowledged in her Times bylines.

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW? If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.

What I have been saying is stop wasting time arguing that their premise of miraculous creation and design is faulty. Don’t even argue that they are not science. Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let’s take a couple weeks to examine them.

You might put the political argument to rest, for the sides are fairly evenly drawn

Russel wrote: Where is "later a part gets added" in any serious discussion of evolution? I didn't pull that phrase out of the air, it was in the blurb used by plunge (comment #15743 above) as an example of a rebuttal of Behe's IC. It comes from your side of the aisle.

— David Heddle

If you think it is only Joe Sixpack, meaning uneducated bumpkins, you are mistaken.

Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Would anyone dare call that education?

Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, "We don't really know. It's a mystery." Would anyone dare call that education?

the material aspect being that because ID has so much popular (not scientific; sides are definitively not evenly drawn) support, we cannot ignore it. Sorry, but this is nothing but politics.

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW? If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.

— David

Stop using the word "dissembler" and its derivatives in virtually all your posts. I think it must even be boring even your compatriots by now.

you took my admission of biases as precluding me from being objective

This is not a thread about ID v. evolution, but rather, in effect, how terrible you guys are in dealing with the public.

Your response is a thinly veiled “we are very smart, and if you don’t agree with us, you’re an idiot.”

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW? If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.

So David, which of these do you consider scientific facts and which do you consider are statements of your religious faith? 1)I believe God is the primary creator. 2)I also believe that God uses secondary causes. 3) He doesn't move the planets around micron by micron. Gravity does that. 4)the universe has the correct number of expanding dimensions. God made that call. 4)I believe He created all things, including life 5) theistic evolution. 6)When? Whenever the fossil record says so

Of course we are. That's because the really trained part of ID doesn't deal with the origin of life, etc. but with the brainwashing of the public.

No. We are not that smart, which is just the reason why it's fairly safe for us and the kids we teach to trust to the majority of the smart people who devised the current paradigm in the last 140 years.

I think your answer points to part of the problem. Where is the gain by calling IDers "brainwashers."

— Heddle

Colin,

The point is, being argumentative is precisely what is damaging to your cause. At least in my opinion.

Or the irreducible complexity. [....] I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe's arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:

— David Heddle

The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe's definition of irreducible complexity.

— evolution blog

Not exactly a rebuttal that reeks of being on firm scientific footing.

Where is the gain by calling IDers "brainwashers."

Heddle-

Part of the beauty of internet discussion boards is that you can just ignore certain posts and/or posters. You don't have to get mad and respond, just ignore them with "cruel" indifference and selectively address those who are interesting and reasonable.

D

Mr. Heddle, I understand the value of persuasion. The most important point to make is that science should not be a political process, however; I can't bring myself to care that scientists don't put on a good show because they shouldn't. They should let the evidence do the talking, and if the audience can't or won't comprehend, then the failure is not in the message, but in the audience. Science is not a political process, and this shouldn't be a rhetorical battle.

I also concede what (I assume) will be your next point - that whether or not it should be a rhetorical contest, that is what it actually is today. But we shouldn't let it be fought out on that level. Scientists are constrained by the evidence, which is complex and boring and hard to present to laypersons. Creationists are deeply dishonest and willing to fudge the facts to fit into fun soundbytes ("Goo to you via the zoo!") in order to sway those same laypersons. Science can't win by refining its rhetoric - it has to keep insisting that this is not a battle of soundbytes or debating style, but of evidence and methodology. It's the only way honest science can prevail, and the only way that it should prevail.

No Douglas, the problem is that the explanation from evolution blog does not sound like science at all. It sounds like "let's throw a few sentences together to counter IC." It may be right, I don't know, but it sure isn't compelling as presented.

I honestly think that you would have to be predisposed to evolution to grant any sort of substance to this explanation.

"Intelligent designers," as they're called, can't explain how their "designer" creates new species. "We don't know," a director of the Intelligent Design-oriented Discovery Institute's Center for Science recently told Newsweek. "It's a mystery." And some people call talk like that "education."

Just in case FL will come into this thread, don't forget to ask him if he still insists that ID is not mysticism.

First, it has to be true that we really don't have a clue about how life on Earth (his emphasis) originated by natural means.

Consequently, it may be that the only rational position for the time being is simply a provisional and salutary "I don't know."

1. Specified complexity is well-defined and empirically detectable. 2. Undirected natural causes are incapable of explaining specified complexity. 3. Intelligent causation best explains specified complexity.

The point is, being argumentative is precisely what is damaging to your cause.

No Douglas, the problem is that the explanation from evolution blog does not sound like science at all. It sounds like "let's throw a few sentences together to counter IC." It may be right, I don't know, but it sure isn't compelling as presented.

— Heddle

Part of the beauty of internet discussion boards is that you can just ignore certain posts and/or posters. You don't have to get mad and respond, just ignore them with "cruel" indifference and selectively address those who are interesting and reasonable.

Typo error; it's Jari, not Jan. My sincere apologies.

Douglas,

I've just finished a novel. When writing it, and it was being reviewed, I would always get flamed with the "show, don't tell" mantra. I think that applies here. There are no mechanisms discussed, no "dynamics". All we have is that this new component shows up--it helps the organism but obviously it's not necessary because it wasn't there before. Then something changes and all of sudden it's now a vital part of a super component.

It's all tell and no show.

David,

So let me interpret, and tell me if I'm correct -- you don't necessarily have a problem with the admittedly bare bones outline of the argument, you just wish it had more detail?

David,

So let me interpret, and tell me if I'm correct -- you don't necessarily have a problem with the admittedly bare bones outline of the argument, you just wish it had more detail?

but I am not adverse to evolution as a secondary cause, like gravity. That would be so-called theistic evolution

They studiously ignore papers like this one that explain the various processes that give rise to new genes (this paper gives 20-odd examples where the origin of new genes has been reconstructed in detail --- it was cited in the PT critique of Meyer's ID paper, and the Discovery Institute promised they would reply back in October, but they stopped as soon as they got to this section)

Exon shuffling is an essential molecular mechanism for the formation of new genes. Many cases of exon shuffling have been reported in vertebrate genes. These discoveries revealed the importance of exon shuffling in the origin of new genes. However, only a few cases of exon shuffling were reported from plants and invertebrates, which gave rise to the assertion that the intron-mediated recombination mechanism originated very recently. We focused on the origin of new genes by exon shuffling and retroposition. We will first summarize our experimental work, which revealed four new genes in Drosophila, plants, and humans. These genes are 10(6) to 10(8) million years old. The recency of these genes allows us to directly examine the origin and evolution of genes in detail. These observations show firstly the importance of exon shuffling and retroposition in the rapid creation of new gene structures. They also show that the resultant chimerical structures appearing as mosaic proteins or as retroposed coding structures with novel regulatory systems, often confer novel functions. Furthermore, these newly created genes appear to have been governed by positive Darwinian selection throughout their history, with rapid changes of amino acid sequence and gene structure in very short periods of evolution. We further analyzed the distribution of intron phases in three non-vertebrate species, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Arabidosis thaliana, as inferred from their genome sequences. As in the case of vertebrate genes, we found that intron phases in these species are unevenly distributed with an excess of phase zero introns and a significant excess of symmetric exons. Both findings are consistent with the requirements for the molecular process of exon shuffling. Thus, these non-vertebrate genomes may have also been strongly impacted by exon shuffling in general.

Gene fission and fusion, the processes by which a single gene is split into two separate genes and two adjacent genes are fused into a single gene, respectively, are among the primary processes that generate new genes. Despite their seeming reversibility, nothing is known about the mechanism of gene fission. Because the nucleotide sequences of fission genes record little about their origination process, conventional analysis of duplicate genes may not be powerful enough to unravel the underlying mechanism. In a survey for young genes in species of the Drosophila melanogaster subgroup using fluorescence in situ hybridization, we identified a young gene family, monkey king, whose genesis sheds light on the evolutionary process of gene fission. Its members originated 1-2 million years ago as retroposed duplicates and evolved into fission genes that separately encode protein domains from a multidomain ancestor. The mechanism underlying this process is gene duplication with subsequent partial degeneration.

Is Behe's argument indeed so convincing as David Heddle says? To my mind the irreducible complexity argument is a pretty strong argument against ID (of course Behe and Co do not see it this way, but that is their problem). Indeed, if a designed system is IC its designer must be a moron. By definition, if a single part of an IC system is missing the system fails to function. This means a faulty design. A reasonably designed system should have spare parts which replace the missing part, or some other way to compensate for the missing part so the system continue function without a missing part. The reasonably designed system must have some redundancy. Behe insists that protein "machines" in a cell are irreducibly complex. If this is true they hardly can be products of a reasonable design but easily products of blind evolution. Furthermore, intelligently designed systems are expected to be as simple as possible. The staggering complexity of protein "machines" so eloquently described by Behe points to blind evolution as well, since an intelligent designer would find a much simpler way to perform the same function. I have been pointing to this since 1999 but Behe and Friends pretend my critique does not exist. Again, their problem. Cheers!

Behe's argument is elegant in its simplicity ... look at this thing, take away any part and it doesn't work.

— Heddle

Maybe a substantive argument that counters that, but is still accessible, is not possible. I don't know.

If so, what is the simple argument for why an IC structure can't evolve gradually?

I think it's my upbringing on the inner city of Pittsburgh-I'm always looking for a good fight.

I dislike the public debates and wish they would end because I think they make Christians look foolish. Much the same way GWW makes your side look foolish.

I think the easiest way for it to end is a compromise.

I took evolution, and I didn't end up with a poster of Michael Moore on my bedroom wall

In other words, physics has been highly successful at explaining itself to non-experts. Biology has not. You have to do better.

I am pretty sure I have even convinced laypeople that an electron, incident on a double slit, can go through both slits.

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW? If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.

If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.

— David Heddle

That is, even the most extreme case of God's "absence", that he is no longer creating, is not a theological problem at all. He is simply done with it, and is now doing other things.

— David Heddle

That [testablility] is not at all clear, in all the cases I know of one must first toss out General Relativity in order to come up with a possible (let alone practical) experiment.

— David Heddle

What moves the planets in their orbits? God doesn't reach down and move the earth around micron by micron. Gravity does the work. Newton's beautiful inverse square law. But where'd that come from? From the fact that the universe has just the right number of expanding dimensions. The one who made that call, he's the prime mover.

— David Heddle

That [testablility] is not at all clear, in all the cases I know of one must first toss out General Relativity in order to come up with a possible (let alone practical) experiment. It may be that very sophisticated theories that cannot be falsified are still preferred over "God did it," but they still represent a change in our view of what is science.

You called that the definition, but it sounds like the explanation to me. Anyway, I am not the person to ask.

— Heddle

Anyway, I am not the person to ask.

I am pretty sure I have even convinced laypeople that an electron, incident on a double slit, can go through both slits. In other words, physics has been highly successful at explaining itself to non-experts. Biology has not. You have to do better.

But then argue that "God" could not use natural selection, random mutation, genetic drift, etc as "secondary causes" for life.

— Wayne Francis

David Heddle: Surely I have heard all those arguments justifying suboptimality of design and find them utterly unconvincing. They usually are ad-hoc references to the designer who either has his own reasons, unknown to us, for making things imperfect (often with a quote from Isaiah about "my ways are not your ways,") or is not necessarily omnipotent etc. The point is not that suboptimal design is not proof that there is no designer. The point rather is that IC does not point to a designer, since both complexity of protein "machines" and their irreducibiity (if such indeed is there) are naturally explained by blind evolution but require assumption of a unintelligent (or malevolent) designer if ID is adopted. However "flexible" ID advocates pretend to be regarding who the designer may be, we all know that in fact they mean the God of the Bible who is supposed to be omnipotent and benevolent, so making systems lacking self-compensatory resources (which a beginning engineer would not do - designing a car without a spare tire) is contrary to such an image of a designer. As to why my critique has not been replied to, it by far was not limited to this point. Regarding Behe, I also pointed to his crude errors in handling probabilities, complexity, etc. I suspect that you are not familiar with my arguments, but it is OK - books like mine are never best sellers.

It isn't just the imperfections of design that point to the absence of a designer, but also the instances of perfection or near perfection. Natural selection acts like a mathematical approximation technique that uses numerical methods to find maxima and minima. In general, such techniques are more or less efficient depending on what sort of function they are operating on. It is a piece of cake to find the zeroes of a low-order polynomial, for example, but almost nothing works on some functions. Now in certain cases---I'm thinking of the development of the genetic code itself---even small advantages in will have a cumulatively significant effect and the enormous number of trials means that most of the options will be tried out. In other cases---I'm thinking of the the vertebrate eye and the panda's thumb---design constraints and smaller number of trials will make it harder to search the space of possible designs. Because the difficulty of the problems addressed by natural selection differ, we'd expect the quality of nature's solutions to them vary accordingly. And that's exactly what we find. Enzymes, genetic codes, and antibodies are often exceedingly good solutions while other features of living things are essentially kludges because of the intrinsic limitations of the solution method.

I am embarrassed that people like you can make a statement, be shown that it is faulty, then have you make the statement OVER and OVER again ignoring all the evidence that get presented that shows your statement to be false.

I'm also embarrassed about how much you post on here expecting everyone to do something you obviously don't do, which is read others comments fully. GWW is NOT a "him".

I'm also embarrassed that people like you still use age old sexism and consistently refer to "God" as a masculine figure like you do

David Heddle wrote: "That is, even the most extreme case of God's "absence", that he is no longer creating, is not a theological problem at all. He is simply done with it, and is now doing other things". I find it embarrassing that an educated physicist, like you, can say things like

in response to the origin of the universe. Your position that it is stupid to investigate such issues and that they will never be testable it plainly wrong. There are many predictions and test that can be done to test the models that are coming about. We don't know where all the matter in the universe is yet but we are still looking for it using predictions born out by your "untestable theories" and have in fact found some of this missing matter which in turn gives us more information on where some other missing matter may be found. I'm embarrassed by an educated physicist making misleading statements like "one must first toss out General Relativity in order to come up with a possible (let alone practical) experiment" when it is painfully obvious that General Relativity does not apply to the scale which we are looking at. Its like saying we had to throw out Newtonian Physics to get Cassini to Saturn. We don't have to throw them out . . . .they just do not apply to the extent you make it to.

But then argue that "God" could not use natural selection, random mutation, genetic drift, etc as "secondary causes" for life. I feel the pain GWW feels when someone like you, who is obviously well educated, announces that the majority of biologists in the world are just plain stupid in their own field of expertise.

That's not the point. This particular strand of physics is at the stage where the hypotheses are new and eminently debatable, and the implications for testing are thoroughly unformed. This doesn't mean that one particular hypothesis won't win out, nor that a way of testing it cannot be found. That's not an unusual position in the history of cosmology, and there's no particular reason to think this particular bit won't continue to develop. It is very hard to imagine Einstein during his annus mirabilis having even the first idea about some of the experiments done subsequently to test his ideas. Here's one that's going on right now: "Gravity Probe B is the relativity gyroscope experiment developed by NASA and Stanford University to test two extraordinary, unverified predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

According to David and others like him, it's BIOLOGISTS FAULT that "so many" Americans believe the "ID theory" peddlers. If only we biologists had done a better job at educating the public about evolution, then we wouldn't have this problem.

Creationists would look at this [the accommodations I proposed] as a more direct attack on them instead of just stating the facts you want use to create more fuel for the creationists to say they are being singled out.

From my point of view as an experimental physicist I do have some reservations about hypotheses like quantum cosmogony (or some aspects of string theory). As long as nobody can propose a way to gain evidence in how far these approaches can explain our universe better, and not just philosophically more satisfying to some, than more established formulations, they are just hypothetical musings - even if highly interesting ones.
Should some factor prevent us in principle to ever gain information on this point, theses hypotheses would drift over into the domain of metaphysics and should in my opinion not be proposed as science any more than some unknowable designer.

But there are two important differences between these concepts of theoretical physics and ID:
- all theoretical physicists I know would dearly love to have their hypotheses in a testable state as quickly as possible. The fact that there is often a decades long lag between proposing a mechanism and the first evidence is a source of some frustration and nothing a physicist would brag about. Most ID proponents on the other hands are keen to tap dance around their lack of description for the design process or the designer, not to mention and evidence that could pin these important factors down. Dembski now even has gone a step further, proclaiming that not offering a mechanism or, heavens forbid, testing it, is the real forte of ID.
- I have yet to hear of a group of physicists and mathematicians providing school boards with teaching aids and propaganda material on the presumed weaknesses of the Standard Model of Particles and the Single Big Bang theory, so they could start 'teaching the controversy' as long as their is not enough positive evidence for their own hypotheses for them to be considered on their own merits.

Theological possibilities that science doesn't contradict:

Here are several possibilities that science does not, has not, and cannot disprove:

God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago, with the fossil record and the mountains and the carbon dates and all the rest of it, just as it is.

God created the first replicating organism.

The flagellum didn't evolve, it was designed as is by God, and thus "Intelligent Design" is true.

These are all opinions that some theologians have. Science can't show they are false. But they are religious views, not science, and have no place in science classes, nor in the discipline of science. Anyone promoting any of these views, even if a scientist (as Michael Behe is) are not doing science by doing so, they are doing religion.

If science can't disprove Intelligent Design, then how can it assert that evolution is true? Because science aims to produce predictive theories, theories that make true claims as to what we will observe under various conditions, something that religion cannot do -- "God did it" provides us no way to predict what we will see if we look at the stars or in a microscope or in a fossil bed.

So science carries with it a condition -- the scientific question is, how might this have happened if God didn't do it, if it occurred entirely naturally. Answering that question can be very very hard, but answering it is what scientists are charged with. Thus the answer "God did it" is never the scientific answer -- "If God didn't do it, then it might have happened by ..." can never be filled in with "God doing it". Yet that's exactly what so-called Intelligent Design Theory offers, which is why it's not science. Scientists answer, yeah, sure, God might have done it, but suppose God didn't do it, how then might it have happened?

When you understand that that's what science is about, then you understand what's so terribly wrong with trying to inject ID into science. ID says let's give up on science, and just say God did it. That's fine for people who don't want to do the hard work of science, but it's not science, it's religion, and has no business in science classes, science textbooks, science institions, science forums, etc. -- and it has no business being presented as science in the NYT, even on the op-ed page.

If you continue to insult me, I will leave and never come back. No because it hurst ny feelings, but because it wastes my time.

I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex.

Behe's arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level).

Behe's argument is elegant in its simplicity (which doesn't make it right, but it does make it compelling) --- look at this thing, take away any part and it doesn't work.

The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared.

In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe's definition of irreducible complexity.

Not exactly a rebuttal that reeks of being on firm scientific footing.

"But this [being a Christian] is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity"

What the fuck? I wasn't say anything about you being a Christian: you obviously have a MAJOR persecution complex to read it that way, let along insert falsehoods into my words to make me say something I didn't. What I was responding to was you finding Behe's argument more compelling simply because he throws "400 proteins" at you.

"Well, okay, why not say, at just a few junctures, "Behe has used IC to argue that blood clotting could not have arisen through evolution, let's see how he is wrong" and then smile and say to the public that you are addressing ID criticisms? No harm no foul."

Because that's exactly what we DO do! We point to all the research that's been done, eviscertate his core argument... and then next week, Behe comes back and says "well, since no papers have ever been published dealing with the evolution of biological systems..."

Why is he allowed to lie, and be credited with being "more compelling" for it?

That's what I don't find credible in your responses. Behe is clearly lying to make his case. He makes a general case for IC, which is then refuted, logically, but you claim that this is "vague." I don't buy it.

David Heddle wrote:

"No Douglas, the problem is that the explanation from evolution blog does not sound like science at all. It sounds like "let's throw a few sentences together to counter IC." It may be right, I don't know, but it sure isn't compelling as presented."

The quote from Evolution blog is (again):

"The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe's definition of irreducible complexity."

Would it sound better if it came with an example?

"For example, fish have air sacs (used for depth regulation). Fish breath with gills. Some air sacs have evolved the ability to act like primitive lungs, allowing some absorbtion of oxygen, and this allows the fish to be out of the water for some time. If the air sac evolves into a function lung, the animal would then have both gills and lungs and could breath in water or out. Amimals with both who adopted a land habitat could then lose the gills, using only the lungs for breathing. The lung would certainly be IC (what good is half a lung?) but the evolutionary pathway is clear, and the necessary part for the development of a lung (i.e. gills) were present during development but are later gone."

I am not a biologist, so my desciption is likely incorrect in detail, but I believe the overall thrust is correct and I understand that there are fish today with the ability to absorb oxygen from their air sacs (certain catfish) and fossils that indicate the gill/lung duality actually happened in the transition from water to land habitat. The example is precisely what Orr is talking about (regardless of whether it is right).

Now, I actually think Behe would agree and would say that even though lungs are IC, they could develop in conjunction with an alternating breathing mechanism in the way described. (I am not much of a student of Behe but I believe he does not dispute, at least in DBB, evolution on the scale of lungs and gills -- indeed I believe he does not dispute common ancestors which evolved to today's species.) Behe arguments are at the molecular/cell level.

As to David's complaint about the succintness of Behe's argument compared to the gobbledygook of biologist's response, I have to say after thinking about it overnight, I am less and less impressed. Complicated things are complicated and require thinking and explication. Being disingenuous (I would say being a liar but David would complain that I was being tendentious) is easier than being correct. It is not David who is being disingenuous, it is Behe: time and again he and his disciples say there is no theory at all concerning the evolution of flagella and time and again he is told that this is wrong, but when next up, he ignores what he has been told and, of course, lies -- oops, is disingenuous again.

What I do accuse David of is a willful ignorance. I said above that I cannot find the quote on the evolution blog. David says that the PT rules prevent him from providing a link. But I showed above nothing prevents you from putting a URL in text -- we have to cut and paste rather than clicking but that is not too hard (I apologize if the link is provided; I haven't seen it).

The point is I do not know whether the text came with an example similar too mine (but bologically correct where mine is honestly a pastiche which represents the form of an example but the details are likely incorrect). I suggest David is being willfully ignorant because he seems to have made no attempt to understand the text as written. As many others have pointed out, a claim of IC is a strong statement of logic: it says there can be no evolutionary path because all parts are needed or useless. The quotation explains how something for which all parts are needed could have evolved (the lung being an example), and so many things that are apparently IC are not. This makes identifying IC components much, much more difficult because you must not only show that all parts are necessary, you must also show it could not have developed in the fashion of a lung.

How could what is said be clearer, except by the provision or the example, wheich I have provided and which I recall Orr provided (Orr is being quoted) and, for all I know, the author of the quote provided.

More of the same arguments. Behe points out correctly that some structures are IC. He deduces, incorrectly, that such structures couldn't have evolved. Biologists point out ad nauseum that not only could they have easily evolved, but that evolutionary theory predicts exactly what Behe observes. Behe's supporters dismiss or ignore this unpleasant reality for doctrinal reasons.

Mark Perakh's argument is ignored for one excellent reason: He is attempting to counter with evidence a position not based on evidence. If the design is good, the ID did it. If the design is lousy, the ID ALSO did it. If the design is IC, then the ID did it. If it's redundent, the ID ALSO did it. The claim that the ID did anything is not based on a single observation. It is doctrine. An ID is the answer, the question doesn't really matter.

ID appeals to the majority of the public for the same reason religion does in general: it provides definitive answers to every question, and the answers are so simple even a small child can understand them. Science can never compete in this game, because science's answers are complicated, tentative, and partial. Those demanding both simplistic and absolute will always find science's answers uncompelling and weak. Science survives at all only because correct answers are so damn useful.

There is a world of difference between a theory that cannot be tested because the experiments are, at this time, difficult or technologically impossible, and one whose experiments are not even feasible because they require us to look somewhere that we can't see, even in principle.

— David Heddle

Are you fixated on the trivialities of political correctness?

— David Heddle

Why? What you are really saying is that you find it embarrassing that an educated physicist believes in God. Well, sorry about that

— David Heddle

Where did I make these statements? Are you actually responding to anything that I wrote? Are you confusing me with someone else?

— David Heddle

Wayne, of all the comments made to me, even by GWW, I don't think any were as irrelevant and distorting and misrepresenting as yours. Congratulations.

— David Heddle

You need to go after those who side with the IDers but whose primary dislike for you is that they view you as elitists.

— David Heddle

But, too bad for you, it's the hand you were dealt. Do with it as you like. Screaming that everyone is stupid may ultimately work.

David Heddle said this:

"It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton's tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say?"

ID doesn't make any predictions. What is "fairly complex"? I haven't seen a convergence of opinion in the ID community on *exactly* what the first life was like. If such a definition was made available it is possible that it could be tested in the sense that if evidence of something even simpler was found ID would be falsified.

In answer to the question posed, evolution - or probably more appropriately paleontology - would predict that the first *fossil* evidence of early life found would also be "fairly complex" because sub-microscopic evidence in rocks billions of years old is extremely difficult to find.

I have a simple question.

If evolution is a scientific theory that explains what occured on Earth to create intelligent life, can someone please articulate a test that would show that evolution is false.

An example would be that for Newtonian gravity if you showed that a mass (large so as to avoid quantum energy jumps) failed to be attracted to another mass without any other force being the cause then the theory of gravity as we know it would be false. In general, any violation of the F=M1M2G/r^2 would show Newtonian gravity to be false.

It is my understanding that all scientific theories MUST be disprovable by a third party. It is also my understanding that Facts are theories with EXTENSIVE cross checks verifying the UNCHANGING theory.

Failing a satisfactary answer to the above I must insist that you stop calling Evolution either a scientific theory or scientific fact.
Creationism is a religious belief precisely because it DOES NOT meet the above criteria. Is suspect that evolution as practiced today is also a religious belief?

Hey, David Heddle, prove to us that you're not a troll and answer DonkeyKong's question for us.

You should know one of the many many possible answers by now.

Feel free to search the archives here for one of the many previous times I and others have answered (and destroyed) this facile creationist apologist argument.

I have a simple question.

I would guess that you're a moron who has just demonstrated what is so absurd about ID. You have to guess what ID predicts because ID provides no indication whatsoever of what it predicts.

"But this [being a Christian] is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity" What the fuck? I wasn't say anything about you being a Christian: you obviously have a MAJOR persecution complex to read it that way,

Heedle wrote "The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better---and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I "want" to see design, and I do in cosmology--- in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe's description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling." But this is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity.

I said above that I cannot find the quote on the evolution blog. David says that the PT rules prevent him from providing a link.

Anyway, it is from a post entitled Discovery Institute Responds to Derbyshire on Wednesday, 12 January, 2005.

All bow down to David for he is a prophet and says he knows the limits of our technology now and forever.

I get annoyed when people automatically assume gender in other people because it shows a bias that these people generally have. I also find it amusing that religious people feel that "God" would actually have a sex.

David, do you talk to people like this and point out the errors of their ways? Or do you allow them to lie for Jesus's name because you feel it is the politically correct thing for you to do?

Please defend Jonathan Wells, Heddle. Please defend Bill Dembksi, Heddle. Please defend Casey Luskin, Heddle. Please defend Phil Johnson, Heddle. Please defend Stephen Meyer

ID doesn't make any predictions

A simple answer: find a modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata.

I would guess that you're a moron who has just demonstrated what is so absurd about ID. You have to guess what ID predicts because ID provides no indication whatsoever of what it predicts.

"But this [being a Christian] is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity" What the fuck? I wasn't say anything about you being a Christian: you obviously have a MAJOR persecution complex to read it that way,

Heedle wrote "The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better---and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I "want" to see design, and I do in cosmology--- in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe's description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling." But this is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity.

I said above that I cannot find the quote on the evolution blog. David says that the PT rules prevent him from providing a link.

Anyway, it is from a post entitled Discovery Institute Responds to Derbyshire on Wednesday, 12 January, 2005.

All bow down to David for he is a prophet and says he knows the limits of our technology now and forever.

I get annoyed when people automatically assume gender in other people because it shows a bias that these people generally have. I also find it amusing that religious people feel that "God" would actually have a sex.

David, do you talk to people like this and point out the errors of their ways? Or do you allow them to lie for Jesus's name because you feel it is the politically correct thing for you to do?

Please defend Jonathan Wells, Heddle. Please defend Bill Dembksi, Heddle. Please defend Casey Luskin, Heddle. Please defend Phil Johnson, Heddle. Please defend Stephen Meyer

ID doesn't make any predictions

A simple answer: find a modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata.

They are essentially: if a miracle occurs, you can falsify evolution.

It's like saying: sure, you can falsify gravity, just show that the planets don't revolve around the sun.

Hi, my name's Bob. I make my living on selling cigarettes. I don't know how to do anything else. I have heard there is some evidence that smoking causes cancer. But not everyone that smokes get cancer and no one has actually observed a lung cell in a human turning into a cancerous cell just because it was exposed to some inhaled tobacco smoke. SO i'm skeptical about that smoking causes cancer theory. It has nothing to do with me being a cigarette salesman and that being the sole basis for my livelihood. I'm just skeptical, understand? Maybe lung cancer is caused by some mysterious alien being who wants some people to die of lung cancer. What, you think my argument about why I don't believe that smoking causes cancer stinks? Oh, well, that's just your opinion. Me and a million other people who enjoy smoking are going to make sure that the crappy data linking smoking to cancer stinks. Oh, and I have a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering so I know something about science. I'm not just some moron.

GWW, are you actually a scientist?

The point of my complaint about using "A simple answer: find a modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata" is that it is utterly unscientific. Of course that is not going to happen,so as a test it is useless--and if that were the best you could do it would indeed render evolution unfalsifiable.

Nobody proposes "demonstrate that the planets don't move around the sun" to falsify Newtonian gravitation, because everyone knows that is not going to happen, just like everyone knows you won't find a human fossil in the pre-cambrian strata. To falsify Newtonian gravitation, we looked at, for example, the precession of Mercury's orbit.

Do any of the rational evolutionists on here see my point? Snappy answers like "find a modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata" weaken evolution's claim of falsifiability, because if the test requires you to prove something manifestly false, then it's not a test at all.

if the test requires you to prove something manifestly false, then it's not a test at all.

Nobody proposes "demonstrate that the planets don't move around the sun" to falsify Newtonian gravitation, because everyone knows that is not going to happen

just like everyone knows you won't find a human fossil in the pre-cambrian strata.

David Heddle asks for non-miraculous tests of evolutionary theory. How about so-called "Directed Mutation"? This was a phenomenon that appeared to be teleological and anticipatory, thereby being inconsistent with our ideas of evolution. However, the examination of the phenomenon revealed it to be quite easily accommodated into the variation-selection-reproduction process of biological evolution.

More interestingly, the apparent contradiction to evolutionary theory, because it was based on data, led to new knowledge, e.g., the prevalence of error-prone polymerases. I could be sympathetic to your creationist claims (even if the only point they addressed were abiogenesis) if they had any chance of leading to new scientific knowledge. Sadly, they don't.

Consider the possibility David that evolution and gravitational theory are on equally solid footing and that is why falsifying the theory (in its essential aspects) requires equally astounding evidence.

Frank,

Thank you! I gather you at least agree that the test we have been discussing is not a test at all. I'll take you at your word that Directed Mutation (I don't know what it is) is an actual test that can (or has been) conducted.

...compare those "I don't know" evolutionist comments to the quoted "We don't know" comments from the DI.

The test we have been discussing asks the impossible: find a fossil of a man from an era before man existed.

Do you have any peer-reviewed publication record?

GWW, would you mind providing a link to a peer reviewed article that you wrote? Or a cv?

I'll take you at your word that Directed Mutation (I don't know what it is) is an actual test that can (or has been) conducted.

GWW, would you mind providing a link to a peer reviewed article that you wrote? Or a cv?

Nobody proposes "demonstrate that the planets don't move around the sun" to falsify Newtonian gravitation, because everyone knows that is not going to happen, just like everyone knows you won't find a human fossil in the pre-cambrian strata. To falsify Newtonian gravitation, we looked at, for example, the precession of Mercury's orbit.

— Heddle

Do any of the rational evolutionists on here see my point? Snappy answers like "find a modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata" weaken evolution's claim of falsifiability, because if the test requires you to prove something manifestly false, then it's not a test at all.

"It will be determined to what extent the phylogenetic tree, as derived from molecular data in complete independence from the results of organismal biology, coincides with the phylogenetic tree constructed on the basis of organismal biology. If the two phylogenetic trees are mostly in agreement with respect to the topology of branching, the best available single proof of the reality of macro-evolution would be furnished. Indeed, only the theory of evolution, combined with the realization that events at any supramolecular level are consistent with molecular events, could reasonably account for such a congruence between lines of evidence obtained independently, namely amino acid seequences of homologous polypeptide chains on the one hand, and the finds of organismal taxonomy and paleontology on the other hand. Besides offering an intellectual satisfaction to some, the advertising of such evidence would of course amount to beating a dead horse. Some beating of dead horses may be ethical, when here and there they display unexpected twitches that look like life."

— Zuckerkandl and Pauling 1965

One of the sweetest evolutionary quotes ever.

They are essentially: if a miracle occurs, you can falsify evolution.

— David Heddle

Here's something else which would probably obliterate evolution: Sequence the genome of a mammal which hasn't yet been tested, some unusual species of mole rat or groundhog, and find that its genome has nothing in common with any other mammal. Evolution would be seriously threatened.

Under IDiot 'theory', there's no reason to expect genetic similarity beween different species. For example, Mac and Windows 95 look very similar, they both have desktops, icons, mouse pointer, save files, in 100 ways they look and function similarly. But they were 'intelligently designed', and the underlying code is nearly 100% different. When you find underlying similarities, it's due to some constraint. Nothing in ID 'theory' places any such constraint on the Intelligent Designer. There's no reason the code for an untested reproductively isolated groundhog species should resemble the code for a different groundhog species. All the code can be rewritten from the ground up, no problem.

Finding an Apple mammal in a world of Microsoft mammals would seriously harm evolution. And the author would win a Nobel or two.

One of the sweetest evolutionary quotes ever.

— Douglas Theobald

Douglas wrote:

"Why do you think it is so absurd that we could find a mammal in Cambrian strata? It's only absurd in an evoutionary framework. If you think evolution is bunk, like YEC's do, then finding a mammal in Cambrian strata is quite possible; there's no good reason not to."

It's also absurd from a YEC perspective because the Cambrian period doesn't exist for them. For a young earther to say: "Yes, it's certainly possible for God to have created a human being 500 million years ago" effectively undermines the YEC position. They would certainly get points for preserving their notion of an omnipotent God but at too high a price.

It would appear that it places them in an sweet little dilemma - Hmmm, do I deny God's omnipotence or deny my belief in a young earth? - but it's really a false dilemma.

By the way, have you stopped beating your dog?

[qoute=Charlie Wagner]These mechanisms exist but they are trivial, lacking anywhere near the power Darwin and his successors have invested in them. They lack the power of organization, which is essential to organic evolution. They lack the ability to integrate structure, process and function into a working system in which each component relies on the others for its success.This seems to be the heart of the issue. There's no apparent disagreement about the nature of the proposed mechanisms, but rather about whether these mechanisms can produce our observations.

How can this disagreement be tested? There's no question that the timespan required vastly exceeds the duration of the human species itself, much less any individual lifespan. The most accurate computer simulations anyone has been able to write indicate very clearly that these mechanisms are NOT trivial, they easily have sufficient power, they produce the observed organization, they integrate structure, process and function, etc. Furthermore, the computer simulations were not written to produce a desired result, they were written to obey the constraints of evolutionary theory, and run to see what these constraints produced.

However, there is also no debate that computer simulations are far from reality. Evolutionary models are quite simple compared to econometric models, yet I don't see anyone saying biology is simpler than economics. And the econometric models (far more mature, far better calibrated) continue to be lousy predictors of future economic trends. Why would biological computer models be superior?

Conversely, the Intelligent Designer proposal cannot make an incorrect prediction because it makes no predictions at all. Its postdiction record is 100%, because *by definition* it postdicts everything no matter what. If anything, the major problem with ID is that, like any universal explanation, it discourages investigation into the actual mechanisms.

I personally don't care to descend to the level of "faith in whether evidence is meaningful". Scientific explanations are useful in the physical world, magical explanations are satisfying in the emotional world. Pick a world.

But I strongly object to attributing the emergence of highly organized, complex structures, processes and adaptations to random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations. These mechanisms exist but they are trivial, lacking anywhere near the power Darwin and his successors have invested in them.

— Charlie

"Why do you think it is so absurd that we could find a mammal in Cambrian strata? It's only absurd in an evoutionary framework. If you think evolution is bunk, like YEC's do, then finding a mammal in Cambrian strata is quite possible; there's no good reason not to." It's also absurd from a YEC perspective because the Cambrian period doesn't exist for them.

— charlie

Charlie,

Let's assume for argument's sake that the evolutionary process does not, as you suggest, involve "adaptations to random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations" as mechanisms, how would this "fact" entail the necessary presence of intelligent design, guidance, or whatever else to want to call it?

The short answer is that P (intelligent design) does not logically follow from the absence of Q (the lack of random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations), which places you in the position of demonstrating the existence of P (intelligent design) without the benefit of referring to the absence of Q (the lack of random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations). Can you do this?

PvM,

I think you were referring to me. Anyway, I understood the point of the "Cambrian challenge" to be precisely about proper dating. Dating the Cambrian period according to a YEC timetable is like defining bachelors as married males. If you change the dates, you change the whole meaning. It then becomes a whole other animal and makes little sense to discuss the possibility of something existing a time 't' when the other party is operating from a completely different metric. My point was simple one of logic.

Zuckerkandl and Pauling say nothing about the mechanism responsible, nothing about the role of mutation and natural selection and nothing about random, accidental or unguided processes or intelligently guided processes.

— Wagner

I looked through your paper on the t.o archive and a quick perusal leads me to the conclusion that I agree with much of what you have to say. You don't appear to go into any details about the mechanisms involved, barely mention the role of mutation, natural selection or Darwin.

But I strongly object to attributing the emergence of highly organized, complex structures, processes and adaptations to random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations.

They lack the power of organization, which is essential to organic evolution. They lack the ability to integrate structure, process and function into a working system in which each component relies on the others for its success.

Your position seems to easily accomodate any number of possible mechanisms, including intelligent input. I see no irreconcilable barriers to accepting both evolution (common origin, change over time) and the necessity of some kind of intelligent input.

[Faked message from "Evolving Apeman" removed. - WRE]

I would guess that you?re a moron who has just demonstrated what is so absurd about ID. You have to guess what ID predicts because ID provides no indication whatsoever of what it predicts. See my point above. I have not in the slightest been arguing for ID, so I am not obliged to do any better than guess what they predict. If I were a biological ID proponent, then you could hold my feet to the fire.

1591 not me.

Obviously. When I'm proved wrong, you won't remember that I apologized. You'll be too busy begging to board the mother ship.

There is a world of difference between a theory that cannot be tested because the experiments are, at this time, difficult or technologically impossible, and one whose experiments are not even feasible because they require us to look somewhere that we can't see, even in principle.

Just a couple of points to summarize and (I hope) clarify some of the foregoing.

First, the question was posed "can someone please articulate a test that would show that evolution is false." . To which the response was offered: " simple answer: find modern human fossil in genuine pre-cambrian strata." Which David Heddle characterized thus: "variants of which I have heard many times, are counterproductive. They are essentially: if a miracle occurs, you can falsify evolution. It doesn't at all make the case that evolution is falsifiable." (An objection I think many of us continue to fail to understand). Douglas Theobald offered this (elegant, IMHO)example of a test that was actually carried out 40 years ago, as a logical parallel to the preCambrian fossil.

But Charlie Wagner (while, I guess, conceding that it pretty well dispatches the Common Descent question) protests that it says nothing about mechanism. Which is true.

Herein lies one of the most annoying tricks in the ID repertoire of legerdemain. Behe contends that he has no problem with common descent, but seems to have no qualms about joining forces with his fellow IDers that do. His encouragement of the general distrust of "evolution" - lumping common descent in with "random mutation and natural selection" strikes me as cynical and dishonest. Questions of mechanism can be and have been addressed.

The moral of the story: "Evolution" is a big theory. Don't fall for the bait (and subsequent switch) of testing "evolution". Demand that the "skeptic" specify a particular aspect.

The moral of the story: "Evolution" is a big theory. Don't fall for the bait (and subsequent switch) of testing "evolution". Demand that the "skeptic" specify a particular aspect.

— Russell

Let's assume for argument's sake that the evolutionary process does not, as you suggest, involve "adaptations to random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations" as mechanisms, how would this "fact" entail the necessary presence of intelligent design, guidance, or whatever else to want to call it?

— Buridan

The short answer is that P (intelligent design) does not logically follow from the absence of Q (the lack of random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations), which places you in the position of demonstrating the existence of P (intelligent design) without the benefit of referring to the absence of Q (the lack of random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations). Can you do this?

evolutionists ... are the ones guilty of bait and switch. They declare that evolution is a fact, when only the process of evolution is a fact. Then they try to slip the darwinian mechanism, which is apocryphal at best into the mix when no one is looking ... They fail to recognize that it could easily be evolution AND intelligent design, since evolution is a process and intelligent design is a mechanism.

— Charlie Wagner

Perhaps now we can get evolutionists to define what they mean by evolution. They are the ones guilty of bait and switch. They declare that evolution is a fact, when only the process of evolution is a fact. Then they try to slip the darwinian mechanism, which is apocryphal at best into the mix when no one is looking. This is confirmed by the debate itself: evolution or intelligent design? They fail to recognize that it could easily be evolution AND intelligent design, since evolution is a process and intelligent design is a mechanism.

What is that mechanism? How did that work?

— Russell

Well, without going to town on some dubious semantics there, you have successfuly made a case for ID to be a religion. If you're prepared to believe that evolution could be the mechanism through which intelligent design takes place, then it is entirely plausible that a designer with sufficient powers could arrange matters to effect this without in any way changing the science. After all, what triggers a random mutation? If the designer can manipulate randomness, then ID can settle down to trying to spot resultant patterns by statistical means - and if the designer's really good, then even those will be useless. A cosmic ray a millimetre to the left here, a mutagenic plant grazed just a little too much there . . . and as for natural selection, the designer can certainly arrange things so that bad things happen to the unwanted and good things to the good. Some will see it as the normal operations of a godless universe, the believers will chortle at such boneheaded literalism and rejoice in their designer's prowess.

— Rupert Goodwins

The logical conclusion is that any designer sufficiently capable will be able to do what they like without any chance of detection. Thus, the IDers can say that evolution is intelligently directed, that the only intelligence powerful enough to do this so subtly must be God (presumably a Protestant God, but maybe statistical analysis can help here too), and so not only have they proved the existence of God but have the copious evidence of all natural science to back it up. Every new detail uncovered by the scientists will prove this all the stronger. This is of course a classic piece of Christian apologia, and so stands justified by tradition as well as logic, revelation and faith. Can't get better than that.

And everyone can go back to doing useful work, praying, or carving human footprints in Jurassic rock beds, as they see fit. (I suppose that the current IDers are in fact positing that whatever the designer was, it wasn't powerful enough to escape attention - or, I guess, it has some sort of Clarkean plan to bury the clues so they will only be found at a certain stage in scientific enquiry. Both are heretical concepts, as far as I'm aware, in mainstream Christianity. Is anyone talking about the theological implications of ID?)

Charlie,

"It is perfectly scientific to postulate that there are life forms in this universe that are more intelligent than humans and who are capable of designing living organisms without being supernatural, omnipotent or whatever else. It is also scientific to hypothesize that life could not have emerged without intelligent input."

Your statement begs the obvious question, Who/what designed the non-supernatural intelligent designers you postulate as the designers of living organisms? If they're not supernatural they too must have been designed - so who, since you insist on intelligent input, designed them? All you seem to be doing is pushing the final reckoning back. At some point you must deal with the original designer.

How did mutation, which is random with respect to fitness, and natural selection, which can only work on already existing variation create the highly organized structures, processes and systems we find in living things?

Looks like we're both in the same boat.

Not at all. Your position is that of eternal ignorance while science is learning more and more about how these variation, selection can create highly complex and organized systems. For instance, gene duplication and preferential attachment replicate the scale free network found in protein networks, regularory networks. Science has shown how genes can be promiscuous and maintain original function while adapting to a new function.

What has ID to offer? Hmmmm

The simple way to do away with ID is to expose it as the Gnostic heresy it truly is.

ID and evolution imply that the designer worked by trial-and-error. God doesn't make errors. Therefore, the world and its creatures must have been created by an inferior, evil, Gnostic Demiurge.

If you can get the ID and Creationist camps arguing, "You got your Gnosticism in my Christianity!", "You got YOUR Christianity in MY Gnosticism!", then I think ID will lose popular support and they'll have to fall back on blatant Christian creationism.

A lot of Christians currently sympathetic to ID will probably lose interest if it's pointed out that it's a pagan heresy dismissed in the early Christian era.

All you seem to be doing is pushing the final reckoning back. At some point you must deal with the original designer.

— Bob

Evolutionists say that all new variation came from pre-existing forms . . . Where did it all start? ... How is it that I have this problem and you don't?

Evolutionists say that all new variation came from pre-existing forms . . . Where did it all start? ... How is it that I have this problem and you don't?

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW?

Who/what designed the non-supernatural intelligent designers you postulate as the designers of living organisms? If they're not supernatural they too must have been designed - so who, since you insist on intelligent input, designed them? All you seem to be doing is pushing the final reckoning back. At some point you must deal with the original designer.

— Bob

It did have a number of problems with it. Basically it didn't fit the data. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) for one had a problem with this model because the rapid expansion of the universe in the early big bang did not allow for the uniformity of the CBM that we observe because of the Horizon. Now with more data from multiple sources we have a much different view of the universe. We have see the universe is going through phases. The universe is expanding but we see fluxuations in this expansion. Sometimes its in what you could consider a inflationary phase where the universe is expanding faster then the horizon, shown as the green line below, while other times the horizon may be expanding faster then the universe, shown as the blue line below. Please David Heddle, or any others that understand the current cosmological data better then I, correct me if I'm wrong. http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/waynefrancis/expansion.gif which leads me to why, currently CW's #3 is wrong Below is a bad diagram by my that, no where near to scale, shows the phases of the universe as the data suggests today. http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/waynefrancis/current.gif we have the early universe during the De Sitter Time period where the universe is expanding and cooling but it is all within the horizon needed so that it cools uniformly. This period in itself may extend back in time infinitely but the problem for CW is that it is not conducive to "natural" life because we are in a phase where matter really is not in existence that would be needed for CW's "advanced life" We then have phases of the universe expanding through phases where it is expanding faster and slower then the horizon is expanding. But yet it is still expanding overall this whole time period. From what we see within our horizon the universe has the same physical laws. We see that the matter that makes up galaxies 10 billion light years away is the same type of matter we see in our own solar system. Charlies view that the universe is infinitely old may be true strictly speaking but he'll lead you to believe that the universe was never in a De Sitter phase. Since CW's "advanced life" can not or does not need to be able to be outside of our space time it then they are regulated to having the same properties of our universe. Currently that is our universe, for the purpose of his "advanced life" has beginning. I'll now see if I can track down Comments Charlie has made stating his opinion on the "advanced life" that he has no idea about but is sure that they control our evolution.

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW?

I have some catching up to do, but to answer Charlie from post 15972:

Science has everything to do with formal logic as does any form of discourse that uses argumentation as a means of articulating postulates. The last time I looked, science was still using argumentation as a basis for articulating valid postulates and validity is decided through logic. For better or worse, logic cannot be disposed of.

In any event, the "necessity" proviso was yours and not mine -- look back at your original argument (15935: "I see no irreconcilable barriers to accepting both evolution (common origin, change over time) and the necessity of some kind of intelligent input."). I'll grant that you probably didn't mean to assert this strong of a claim. Nevertheless, the question remains unanswered:

Without appealing to the absence of random chance and accidental, fortuitous mutations (something that has yet to be established logically, empirically or otherwise) can you provide convincing evidence for the presence of an intelligent designer. And give us the probabilities for such an entity. In other words, it's not sufficient to simply poke holes in existing explanations, you need to provide a better set of explanations and show why those explanations have more explanatory power.

Note: Charlie is correct to insist that an intelligent designer need not be God, a god, or any other supernatural being, but it remains to be demonstrated what the probabilities of such a being are, and how those probabilities stack up against non-ID explanations.

Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW?

I am not familiar with David Heddle, but his comments are civil

How is it that I have this problem and you don?t?

How did mutation, which is random with respect to fitness, and natural selection, which can only work on already existing variation create the highly organized structures, processes and systems we find in living things?

It is perfectly scientific to postulate that there are life forms in this universe that are more intelligent than humans and who are capable of designing living organisms without being supernatural, omnipotent or whatever else.

It is also scientific to hypothesize that life could not have emerged without intelligent input.

Why do you not allow for an intelligent entity that is far above human capability but is not supernatural, omnipotent etc.?

I don?t see any other possibilities beyond ?random? or ?directed?. Do you?

Science is not about formal logic. Logic is the realm of mathematics. In math, you can prove things or disprove them using logic. In science, the goal is not to prove or disprove, only to say what is most likely.

If there are only two possibilities,

and one of them is falsified, then the assumption is that the other possibility is most likely correct.

My claim for intelligent input is not proven. I?m only claiming that it?s highly probable, based on inductive reasoning.

Science is not about formal logic. Logic is the realm of mathematics. In math, you can prove things or disprove them using logic. In science, the goal is not to prove or disprove, only to say what is most likely.

If there are only two possibilities,

and one of them is falsified, then the assumption is that the other possibility is most likely correct.

My claim for intelligent input is not proven. I?m only claiming that it?s highly probable, based on inductive reasoning.

159[5]1 not me.

— GWW

Science has everything to do with formal logic as does any form of discourse that uses argumentation as a means of articulating postulates. The last time I looked, science was still using argumentation as a basis for articulating valid postulates and validity is decided through logic. For better or worse, logic cannot be disposed of.

— Buridan

can you provide convincing evidence for the presence of an intelligent designer.

No such machine ever created itself using random processes and accidental occurrences. How persuasive is that? Only you can decide.

We believe that an object released in a gravitational field will fall towards the center of mass.

Oh my... I'm finally seeing the incorrigibility that many of you have described.

Alas, I'm left speechless with your last set of comments Charlie. I'm reminded of the Monty Python scene (http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-05.htm) in the Holy Grail where they "deduce" whether the woman with a carrot for a nose is a witch. "Who are you [Charlie] who are so wise in the ways of science?"

" Living organisms are biochemical machines that integrate structure, process and function. No such machine ever created itself using random processes and accidental occurrences."

What about a cancerous tumor?

Created by random mutation and accidental occurrences.

And it's logical that a heavy object should fall at a faster rate than a lighter one.

That's what Aristotle thought

and his reliance on argumentation and logic resulted in a scientific ignorance that lasted 2000 years.

Only when Galileo introduced the idea of experimentation was this misunderstanding corrected. Science today relies on empirical evidence, experimentation, observation and the application of inductive reasoning and analogy. Nothing in science is ?proven? as it is in mathematics.

"Who are you...who are so wise in the ways of science?"

— Bedevere

We believe that an object released in a gravitational field will fall towards the center of mass. Can I prove this? No. But it has happened every time it has been tried. How persuasive is that?

You have no clue just how illogical and ignorant you are.

— ts

HaHaHaHa!

— Charlie Wagner

HaHaHaHa!

— Charlie Wagner

Since this thread is devolving rapidly, here's some more Python. The structure of this exchange seems painfully familiar:

SOLDIER #1:
Where'd you get the coconuts?
ARTHUR:
We found them.
SOLDIER #1:
Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!
ARTHUR:
What do you mean?
SOLDIER #1:
Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR:
The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
SOLDIER #1:
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
ARTHUR:
Not at all. They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1:
What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR:
It could grip it by the husk!
SOLDIER #1:
It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
ARTHUR:
Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1:
Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR:
Please!

Since this thread is devolving rapidly,

That depends on what you mean by "convincing evidence". If you're asking me if I can prove it, the answer is no. Nothing in science is proven. On the other hand, arguments by inductive reasoning and analogy are as good as their ability to persuade. We believe that an object released in a gravitational field will fall towards the center of mass. Can I prove this? No. But it has happened every time it has been tried. How persuasive is that? Only you can decide. Can I prove that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow? No. But it has happened every day of my life. How persuasive is that? Only you can decide. Living organisms are biochemical machines that integrate structure, process and function. No such machine ever created itself using random processes and accidental occurrences. How persuasive is that? Only you can decide.

David, who do you think created and designed all the life forms that ever lived on earth and approximately when did that occur? Can you answer that question honestly for us?

Yes I can answer that. I believe God is the primary creator. I also believe that God uses secondary causes. For example, He doesn't move the planets around micron by micron. Gravity does that. By why do we have the right law (inverse-square) of gravity? Because the universe has the correct number of expanding dimensions. God made that call. So I believe He created all things, including life, but I am not adverse to evolution as a secondary cause, like gravity. That would be so-called theistic evolution. When? Whenever the fossil record says so---what is it now, a few hundred million years after the earth formed?

By the way, GWW, you took my admission of biases as precluding me from being objective. In the strictest sense, that's true. But I'd be amazed if even you were to claim that you bring no presuppositions to the table. One more thing, GWW, a piece of advice I know you'll ignore. Stop using the word "dissembler" and its derivatives in virtually all your posts. I think it must even be boring even your compatriots by now.

Flint: If the design is good, the ID did it. If the design is lousy, the ID ALSO did it. If the design is IC, then the ID did it. If it’s redundent, the ID ALSO did it. An ID is the answer, the question doesn’t really matter.

Randy Crum: evolution - or probably more appropriately paleontology - would predict that the first *fossil* evidence of early life found would also be “fairly complex” because sub-microscopic evidence in rocks billions of years old is extremely difficult to find.

Russel: The moral of the story: “Evolution” is a big theory. Don’t fall for the bait (and subsequent switch) of testing “evolution”. Demand that the “skeptic” specify a particular aspect.

Charlie Wagner: (Evolutionists) declare that evolution is a fact, when only the process of evolution is a fact. Then they try to slip the darwinian mechanism, which is apocryphal at best into the mix when no one is looking.

FL: Op-ed writer Fulton wrote, “Intelligent designers,” as they’re called, can’t explain how their “designer” creates new species. “We don’t know,” a director of the Intelligent Design-oriented Discovery Institute’s Center for Science recently told Newsweek. “It’s a mystery.” And some people call talk like that “education.” Well, ID is not inherently “mysticism”, period, just as it was established earlier that ID is not inherently “religion.”

Compare the above quoted paragraph with a couple statements by evolutionist Massimo Pigliucci in his article “Where Do We Come From”: Regarding the question of origin-of-life, Pigliucci in the article openly accepts chemical evolution and rejects “special creation” as the explanation by which life originated on Earth.

However, in the course of doing so, he also plainly wrote: First, it has to be true that we really don’t have a clue about how life on Earth originated by natural means.... Now, Jari, compare those “I don’t know” evolutionist comments to the quoted “We don’t know” comments from the DI.

Are you therefore prepared to conclude that evolution is also “mysticism” on this basis of “don’t know”?

One can always ask (regarding the issue of “mysticism”) the same question that I asked about “religion” concerning Wm. Dembski’s simple 3-point ID hypothesis: 1. Specified complexity is well-defined and empirically detectable. 2. Undirected natural causes are incapable of explaining specified complexity. 3. Intelligent causation best explains specified complexity. That question is, “please show me where any part of this 3-point hypothesis specifically requires or pre-assumes mysticism”.

(Please also provide a standard dictionary definition of mysticism so we have can have a common ground there).

I don't agree, because their IS evidence of intelligent input in living systems and it's not the least bit subtle. Why do you not allow for an intelligent entity that is far above human capability but is not supernatural, omnipotent etc.? Are you locked into the notion that humans are the highest form of intelligence in the universe and anything greater than human intelligence must be a supernatural God? Do you not know of the "Q" continuum or the Borg? ;-)

Charlie,

How about we temporarilly allow for the possibility of an "intelligent entity that is far above human capability but is not supernatural, omnipotent, etc,", while you compile some evidence to credibly suggest that this entity in fact exists?

Don't get me wrong here - I have no bias against such an entity. Frankly, I'd be absolutely delighted to learn that we're the result of extraterrestrial genetic experiments. Seems to me though, that you're the one in the batter's box.

Until you do that, we're the only intelligence we know about, and if we know anything about ourselves we know, contrary to Nelson's Law, we didn't create the Universe and all that's in it.

Charlie, how about you do the calculations which Dave Scot doesn't seem able to handle? You know, where you calculate approximately how much time the mysterious alien beings spent designing and creating each of the organisms that ever lived on earth, including all the present organisms. Don't forget to state your assumptions (# of beings, where they did most of their work, how they travelled from place to place on the earth, etc.).

Thanks! Even if you don't end up persuading us, you might have a decent science fiction story. Or you get start a religion, like L. Ron Hubbard did.

I recently looked under the hood of my Mustang and realized that no natural human intelligence could ever have designed so irreducibly complex a machine as a reciprocating engine. Coming up with the idea of powering a vehicle by controlled explosions of octane vapor? Who could have possibly come up with so loopy a notion? And for all I know Fords aren't the most complicated devices on the planet.

Maybe it's time to put the Christ back in Chrysler and recognize that God is necessary to explain human ingenuity as well as biological evolution. After all, if the ID folks are right that one needs non-natural intervention to contrive a mitochondrium, surely they must believe that it also takes the hand of God to fabricate a carburator.

Simple question part 2.

Two thoughts.

1) Finding a modern Human in pre cambria strata says nothing about the validity of Evolution except that the understood timeframe is incorrect. Were such a modern human or mammal found evolutionists would merely move their timeline. They would not accept the possibility of evolution being false, to me this is a form of religious belief. Evolution of another flavor would be substituted and the theory would not be disproven just altered.

2) Within the context of the argument as it was understood by the person who replied to me I have a few questions. Since my objection is not to wether evolution occured or wether evolution did not occur I have a relatively unique angle. My point is that as soon as you CLAIM that evolution is a SCIENTIFIC FACT there is a weight of evidence that falls squarely on your shoulders and has not been met.

Were evolution a fact you would know the following:

1) path(s) from atoms to DNA or RNA(pick one) to modern human that follows the calculus of evolution (which is poorly understood at the moment). Not just currently there is a modern human and in the past this appears not to be the case therefore evolution is a fact.

2) A timeline that includes each step on the path and also follows the calculus of evolution (I am picky only in that the timetables must satisfy #3).

3) An enviornment that satisfies the prerequisites of each step on that pathway for at least one of the possible pathways.

4) That there exists no other alternate explaination for modern human existing where it appears that he once did not. It is relatively easy to prove that a man can shoot a gun, it is much more difficult to show who committed a murder caused by gunshot.

As I can see many possible alternate explainations for #4 I think your long term prospects of showing evolution is a fact in any real sense of the word are slim.

fact in any real sense of the word

Maybe it's time to put the Christ back in Chrysler

Were evolution a fact you would know the following: ... 4) That there exists no other alternate explaination for modern human existing where it appears that he once did not.

Were evolution a fact you would know the following:

— DonkeyBrain

I am picky only in that ...

Finding a modern Human in pre cambria strata says nothing about the validity of Evolution except that the understood timeframe is incorrect. Were such a modern human or mammal found evolutionists would merely move their timeline.

Ah quality science....

when the "science" argument involves name calling or ridicule as per 16138, 16141, 16147 (donkeybrain oh so cleaver) I am reminded much more of a religion discussion. Which is pretty much what most of you are having.

16151-Were a human found in pre Cambrian it would not eliminate the possibility that humans evolved, or even that humans evolved within the timeframe of current evolution. It would just eliminiate the argument that evolution as currently supposed was the first time complex life evolved. All the data that has been found would not be un-found and would find itself patched into the new theory of evolution.

This new theory would almost certainly be very similiar to the existing evolution theory just moved in time. Were the human form a strange attractor in the sense that all paths lead to a bi-pedial intelligent mammal that is very similiar geneticaly to us then evolution could have happened then died out then happened again.

The current state of evolutionary science is not advanced enough to know the answers to these matters.

Comment #16147

Please refer to my comments about proving something possible being easier than proving something the only thing that is possible.

An analogy would be to claim that hitler was the only entity responsible for killing jews in the 40s. That no homocides unrelated to nazis killed jews and then being unfamiliar with how many jews were killed in the holocost.

You claim evolution is a scientific fact then you explain it. The problem is you haven't even decided in detail what it is that you would be explaining.

Did it start on Mars or Earth?
Reducing or Oxidizing enviornment?
RNA or DNA or DNA/RNA was the first organism?

Almost the sum total of "evolution" ramains a mystery to its believers yet they claim it is fact. Why? Because we are and it appears we once were not, therefor it MUST be a fact. This is no more sophisticated a faith than a God like being who always has been making us.

That is a RELIGION not science. At least the creationists know they are using faith. Most evolutionists are ignorant that they are in a religion.

You haven't even proven that evolution is POSSIBLE yet, let alone the only POSSIBLE pathway within the constraints of history.

So make your silly little arguments, its like not knowing how many grains of sand are on the beach blah blah blah. Anything that can keep you from facing your own religious beliefs.

At least the creationists know they are using faith.

I don't know DonkeyKong so for all I know he is a wonderful guy and may even be the next chairman of the National Academy of Sciences or even the next Pope. But the argument he is making is familiar stuff to me. Not the subject matter, it's the style of arguing to which I refer.

Thirty years of law practice has made me very familiar with this type of argument. I was prepared in law school to expect this sort of thing, and I soon found it be a mainstay of trial lawyers. My old professor called it the "running up another hill" argument. Here is why it is used and how it works. If your opponent has you where you are weak, move the argument to "another hill" where either you are stronger or your opponent is weaker. If your opponent is foolish enough to follow you there, you may beat him. You may win the argument, and the case, even though your case is weak and your opponent's case is strong.

DonkeyKong has skillfully detracted some of you to the other hill of what it would mean to find an intact human skelton in pre-cambrian rocks. Never mind that the scenario is preposterous, by getting you to consider it he has thrown you off your game. In a debate, or in a courtroom, you become vulnerable if you allow yourself to be so distracted. Better to refuse the offer.

NOT subtle? What about "completely undetectable" is not subtle? Charlie, there is nothing to which ID advocates can point and say "that is design in a living system that can only come from a superior intelligence."

— Ed Darrell

The answer is simple: no one pays attention to a word I say. This is beyond frustrating.

when the "science" argument involves name calling or ridicule ... I am reminded much more of a religion discussion

So make your silly little arguments, its like not knowing how many grains of sand are on the beach blah blah blah. Anything that can keep you from facing your own religious beliefs.

Re "Heck, unless one knows exactly what genes are plugged into e. coli to make it manufacture human insulin, you nor any other ID advocate cannot tell that the genes are spliced in. "

What if a somebody happen to notice that some of the e. coli's dna was almost identical to a piece of dna from another species? Yeah, that's unlikely if the dna involved is only one gene, but not completely impossible.

Maybe if the ID people would spend time searching genomes for coincidences of that sort... (hint hint)

Henry

NOT subtle? What about "completely undetectable" is not subtle? Charlie, there is nothing to which ID advocates can point and say "that is design in a living system that can only come from a superior intelligence."

People ask me why I repeat the same stuff over and over again ad nauseum. The answer is simple: no one pays attention to a word I say. This is beyond frustrating. Have I not explained in excruciating detail the concept of organization and how it is only found in intelligently designed entities? Have I not in explained in excruciating detail how one can detect organization? Have I not explained in excruciating detail why living organisms are analogous to intelligently designed machines? Have you read my paper? (http://www.charliewagner.net/casefor.htm . . . )

DonkeyKong: Were a human found in pre Cambrian it would not eliminate the possibility that humans evolved, or even that humans evolved within the timeframe of current evolution. It would just eliminiate the argument that evolution as currently supposed was the first time complex life evolved.

This new theory would almost certainly be very similiar to the existing evolution theory just moved in time. Were the human form a strange attractor in the sense that all paths lead to a bi-pedial intelligent mammal

You claim evolution is a scientific fact then you explain it.

The problem is you haven’t even decided in detail what it is that you would be explaining. Did it start on Mars or Earth? Reducing or Oxidizing enviornment? RNA or DNA or DNA/RNA was the first organism?

This is no more sophisticated a faith than a God like being who always has been making us.

When believers complain that Darwinism and related theories are an incomplete explanation of the origin and development of life, they apparently assume that a fuller theory would be more congenial to their theological prejudices. In fact, there's a good chance that new discoveries will be even worse for them than the old ones.

Be careful what you wish for. Who knows what's really lurking in those famous gaps?

no one pays attention to a word I say.

Comment 16247

I have no problem with evolution, it is not inconsistent with an all powerful God no matter how you twist it (such is the nature of an all powerful God). What I don't like is calling evolution scientific fact and teaching it in HS as what happened when many of those children believe in 7 day creation.

I would be perfectly happy with limiting the discussion to within the bounds of science evolution is the only supported theory of creation. There is clearly many facts that point in the evolution direction and i wouldn't subtract from that.

But there are also clearly many many issues that are not understood and several of them could elimintate the possibility of evolution as currently understood being true.

As such saying evolution is what happened is not supported by science. Evolutionsists secretly base their belief on the belief that complex intelligent entities now exist and in the past didn't exist and therefore there must have been a proces of going from non-existance to existance (the details of that process are ever changing). It is a religious belief that goes beyond the strength of the scientific basis of evolution.

Almost all the details from my science book from HS detailing how evolution happened have since been proven false so why the rush to 100% domination based on poor facts?

Answer: Evolution Religious Fanatics.

Simple thought for the day...

Lets suppose for a second that evolutionists are correct. Complex life formed from randomness.

But it happened 1 billion years ago on the other side of the universe. The entity mastered action at a distance via the universal quantom wave funciton, remember it is 1 BILLION years ahead of us.

The entity named itself God.

It created us in 7 days.

Even when you are right it requires religious belief to show that you are not wrong. You disbelieve my hypothesis soley because the concept of a higher power is distasteful. Given the size of the universe any proven evolution pathway will still favor my above explaination over unaided local evolution.

Sorry folks but evolution isn't even internally consistent...

Will you concede now that it isn't a FACT?

Hi folks,

to offer a respite from the apparently fruitless 'human fossil in Cambrian layer' discussion, let me offer some other, hopefully less emotionally loaded ways to potentially falsify evolution (or at least the applicability of current evolutionary theories to the topics in question):

- Find a fossil or recent higher animal exhibiting homologous characteristics from two distinct earlier or contemporary lineages, meaning characteristics that appear only apart from each other in older or contemporary animals. E.g. if the beak of the platypus was actually homologuos to the bird beak and it was covered in feathers this would pose a big problem, as it would combine traits apparently developed within the archosaur lineage with a body consistent with therapsid lineage. Was this to happen rather frequently or without a clearly apparent explanation (like recent gene manipulation by humans) evolution would be in deep trouble.

- Find a fossil or recent organism nearly completely homologous to other well-known organisms from the same or a slightly earlier time period, but exhibiting a completely new multi-part organ or trait with no earlier version or rudiment to be found anywhere. Was this to happen rather frequently or without a clearly apparent explanation (like recent gene manipulation by humans) evolution would be in deep trouble, too.

- (has already been brought up, but never addressed) Find an organism outwarly similar to other organisms exhibiting equivalent but completely different bio-chemistry or genetics.

- Find a characteristic common to most life forms and not yet exactly tested for most organisms and systematically map the likely cladistics of life based on this trait (a lot of bio-chemical systems or ultrastructure of cellular organells come to mind). Should any of the thus reconstructed 'trees of life' be radically differ from the ones already know without a readily apparent explanation (like endosymbiosis), this would pose a real problem.

Unfortunately for creationists and IDlers, if evolution was to fall down it would be replaced by another naturalist approach or, lacking this a period of confusion. Hypotheses which make no predictions, offer no mechanisms and are not testable (three by and large equivalent features), will never make there way to become accepted theories, not because of any prejudice, but because they do not work within empirical science.

DK,

Where do you suppose the Burbank russet potato came from, if not from another potato?

Red grapefruit? Grapefruit?

Without evolution, you'd not be able to raise your cholesterol to dangerous levels at McDonalds.

What part of "fact" is unclear? Things that are observed, and things that get made into "billions and billions served," exist, and your attempts to pretend they are not facts does not make them go away.

Did you get your flu shot this year? Why? If evolution were nto a fact, you'd never need more than one in your lifetime.

when the "science" argument involves name calling or ridicule as per 16138, 16141, 16147 (donkeybrain oh so cleaver) I am reminded much more of a religion discussion.

Did you get your flu shot this year? Why? If evolution were nto a fact, you?d never need more than one in your lifetime.

to offer a respite from the apparently fruitless ?human fossil in Cambrian layer? discussion, let me offer some other, hopefully less emotionally loaded ways to potentially falsify evolution

Quick points.

1) I asked for examples that would discredit evolution. The specific of pre-cambrian man was your sides argument. Attacking an argument from your own side as though I was the originator of it without stating that my point was how to disprove evolution is very weak debate indeed.

2) For those with the simplistic "scientific arguments" flu, something about McDonalds (wasn't very clear). Do you realize that science tells us that we live in a 12 dimensional space? 3D and time is 4 D, even if you had perfect observation within that 4D out of 12D you are still missing the MAJORITY of the activity. Read FLATLAND if you fail to understand how powerful this argument against you is. Its a childrens book so you can manage it in 30 min at the bookstore and it is a classic.

3) I do appriciate the arguments that are actually rational though. The strongest was the one about most of the proof being stuff you don't think about like the jade elephant becoming an elephant.

4) My point however here is that very very very few evolution fanatics have really looked at the alternatives or even understand the scientific process. Most of you really are clouded by religious belief, Darwinism as religion.

Evolution is a complex though poorly formed theory with a large about on anacdotal evidence. It owes its universal acceptance among science pilgrams to the fact that it is willing to change to meet the observed facts. If I came along and said life started on Venus and came to Earth by space ship and showed clear proof then evolution would simply change a few details and print new textbooks and ridicule anyone who asked WTF.

Evolutionists have religious beliefs

1) That life and indeed the whole universe once did not exist.

2) That life and the universe now exists.

3) Therefore the transition from 1->2 must have occured and because there are no (massive) acknoledged spontaneous violations of the 3rd law of thermo then it must have been slow (well they take the opposite tact on big bang yet miss the irony).

Where this theory is weak.

1) Cosmological observation of 50 years in detail and maybe another 1000 in very poor detail is nothing relative to Billions of years. Basically a single point in time is available to our Big Bang friends.

2) Colmological observations from a single solar system of a single Galaxy is a single point in space when compared to the whole universe.

3) There is some supporting evidence for evolution as it is currently preached. But there is not enough evidence FOR evolution to enter into claims like evolution occured and created complex life.

A) First you must prove that evolution can occur and create more complex life (haven't done this yet)
B) Second you must prove that the calculus of evolution (which you don't yet understand) fits with the enviornment of Earth. IE did you have time, did you have the right temp at the right time etc etc etc.
C) Third you must prove that evolution is the only theory that fits the enviornment of Earth. Obviously this is the hardest.

You have to do this and THEN test against NEW observed evidence (Its called science BTW).

Barring all that HARD work you can attack those who question why you gave up science to preach Darwinism.

Evolution is not cosmology. Once again, we see an example where if someone believes that some invisible eternal logically impossible magician created life, the universe and everything POOF all at once by magic, he simply can't grasp that real science has divided these things up into different categories. Even recognizing that the origins of the universe, life, and species are different things is disallowed.

For the record, however, cosmology itself assigns fairly low probabilities of correctness to most of their theories, calling most of them speculative. The evidence is admittedly spotty and indirect, and major surprises continue to happen. In this respect, the foundations of cosmology and evolution are as different as the spellings of the words themselves. All of which remains invisible to the Believer, of course.

Another clue: the Believer wants absolute answers. Science keeps changing its theories to fit new facts. Now, in a Believers eyes everything is a religion, and this inconstancy renders science a really lousy religion. If science could only get over this silly fixation with facts and evidence...

All scientific theories change when faced with new evidence. Why is this news?

ID theories are unfalsifiable because they don't make concrete predictions. Evolution makes lots of predictions and is therefore falsifiable in principle. Since it is true, however, it's unfalsifiable in practice. Maybe that's the confusion.

Do you realize that science tells us that we live in a 12 dimensional space?

— DonkeyKong

jonas: - Find a fossil or recent higher animal exhibiting homologous characteristics from two distinct earlier or contemporary lineages, meaning characteristics that appear only apart from each other in older or contemporary animals

ts: the problem is that people fail to realize that successful theories are successful precisely because none of the obvious falsifications have been observed. There’s really no need to invent subtle forms of falsification that might not have yet been observed

What I don’t like is calling evolution scientific fact and teaching it in HS as what happened when many of those children believe in 7 day creation. I would be perfectly happy with limiting the discussion to within the bounds of science evolution is the only supported theory of creation.

But there are also clearly many many issues that are not understood and several of them could elimintate the possibility of evolution as currently understood being true.

Almost all the details from my science book from HS detailing how evolution happened have since been proven false so why the rush to 100% domination based on poor facts?

The entity mastered action at a distance via the universal quantom wave funciton, remember it is 1 BILLION years ahead of us. The entity named itself God. It created us in 7 days. Even when you are right it requires religious belief to show that you are not wrong. You disbelieve my hypothesis soley because the concept of a higher power is distasteful.

I asked for examples that would discredit evolution. The specific of pre-cambrian man was your sides argument.

... (Hovind-style blathering) ... 1)Cosmological observation..is nothing relative to Billions of years. Basically a single point in time is available to our Big Bang friends. 2) Colmological observations from a single solar system of a single Galaxy is a single point in space when compared to the whole universe. ... (more Hovind-style blathering) ...

Flint

If you look closer you will find that cosomology and evolution share a common attribute they are both events that are in the past and have only component aspects that are verifyable in present day.

Science in general is about the future and the ability to predict the future. When science is used on events of the past without the ability to reproduce them in the future it is a completely different thing.

As such all types of science that speculate about what occured in the past without first showing mastery of the material by predicting events in the future are equally suspect.

I am only aware of evolution and cosmology that do this and claim to be science. Forensic science uses theories that have been EXTENSIVELY verified by predicting future events.

So no I don't see the difference between quasi-science as used in cosomology and quasi-science as used in evolution.

Correction

"All scientific theories change when faced with new evidence. Why is this news?"

Should read

"All false scientific theories change when faced with new evidence. Why is this news?"

Indeed, Jari, you can't beat something with nothing. To displace a theory as powerful as evolution, you'd need an even better theory. That would be one hell of a theory, by the way, at this late date. Which explains why ID is doomed*. They don't even have a wrong scientific theory. ID is not even as good as Lamarckianism, or the Steady State universe. Those were at least theories.

What was it that creati--I mean, Intelligent Design Theorist said? "What you call Intelligent Design, I call religion, or christianity."

Yep.

* I mean scientifically, of course. Politically, it's a tidal wave now, and it could possibly win in several ways. I wouldn't be surprised if ID became part of science ed in half the country, over the next 10 years. Creationist activists are like the insurgents in Iraq--they don't represent the majority of the population, but they're aggressive and crazy, therefore disproportionally influential.

I'm still laughing at Donkey Kong's claim that a belief that "life exists" is a "religious" belief! Where do these trolls come from? How can I exploit their dumbness to earn additional money for myself?

Read FLATLAND if you fail to understand how powerful this argument against you is. Its a childrens book so you can manage it in 30 min at the bookstore and it is a classic.

Classic religious belief

Indeed, Jari, you can't beat something with nothing"

That has nothing to do with SCIENCE.

In SCIENCE you do indeed replace falsified theories with nothing.

Sorry but you guys are cultists.

ts

The (smart) educated folk who disagree with me in this forum have stopped posting in general.

The weaknesses in evolution I am posting about are real. The serious evolution scientists know this.

When I attack the belief many people put into evolution being stronger than the scientific support, your serious guys don't respond because they know there is truth in what I am saying (they may disagree but they see my point).

I have respect for the big bang scientists who UNDERSTAND that there is a good chance that their theory will not hold up over time. I have respect for evolution scientists who understand that their is a good chance that evolution will not hold up over time.

When Einstein said that he believed that only the 3rd law of thermo would survive and all other theories would be shown false it was because he understands how science works.

For theories like gravity there is a large amount of recorded events that behave like our "belief" in gravity. Since these observations are unlikely to be invalid any replacements for gravity will at least look like the gravity we understand within the time and location that those measurements were made. Einsteins replacement of gravity was so similiar to Newton gravity within our Earth and speeds we travel that we haven't even stopped teaching the false Newtonian theory.

With evolution this is not as likely. The evidence for evolution will remain, but each piece of evidence is not taken under a controlled enviorment as the gravity observations are. As such a new theory of what all that evidence means may not be as similar to evolution as would be the case in a replacement to gravity. For example if the Cambrian explosion were caused by external intervention, introducing all the genes used in humans but not in the right combination, it would completely invalidate evolution as it is taught today even though all the observed data would have not changed.

As such there is a very REAL possibility that evolution as you would like to forcibly teach to all HS students is false.

I am not against teaching the aspects of evolution for the purpose of advancing science. I am against teaching it without also being open to the very real possibility that it is false (in the greater sense not just in the details). Einstein understood this because he understood how SCIENCE works.

The kool aid drinkers among you are against this exactly because you are a RELIGIOUS CULT.

I have respect for the big bang scientists who UNDERSTAND that there is a good chance that their theory will not hold up over time. I have respect for evolution scientists who understand that their is a good chance that evolution will not hold up over time.

The kool aid drinkers among you are against this exactly because you are a RELIGIOUS CULT.

— DonkeyKong

Science in general is about the future and the ability to predict the future.

As such all types of science that speculate about what occured in the past without first showing mastery of the material by predicting events in the future are equally suspect.

In SCIENCE you do indeed replace falsified theories with nothing.

For theories like gravity there is a large amount of recorded events that behave like our “belief” in gravity. Since these observations are unlikely to be invalid any replacements for gravity will at least look like the gravity we understand within the time and location that those measurements were made.

For example if the Cambrian explosion were caused by external intervention, introducing all the genes used in humans but not in the right combination, it would completely invalidate evolution as it is taught today even though all the observed data would have not changed.

I am against teaching it without also being open to the very real possibility that it is false (in the greater sense not just in the details).

Jari.

The reason Science usually restricts its verification to events in the future is because controlling the enviornment is crucial to providing that it is in fact your cause that is making the effect. When you do not controll the enviornment you lose this extream power of simplification and muddy the waters as to wether you are right or not.

Most of science is actually limited to effects that you can cause over and over at will. That is how others know that you have mastery of the cause effect relationship. When you have a theory that is edited to match the data and then some slightly different data matches your theory once or twice its not really all that impressive. Add to it a complete inability to chart the course from amino acid to cell or cell to modern cell or single cell organism to complex organism in DETAIL.

It is the lack of familiarity with evolution that science has that makes it a religion. We remember Newton as the father of gravity, but do you really think 100,000 years worth of modern man didn't realize that apples fall down? Why isn't it named after them? Because they didn't UNDERSTAND it, it was magic to them. You don't understand evolution it is MAGIC to you. Magic==RELIGON

Jari.

"We don't have a clue of it, let alone any records, and all we can do is imagine some wild dreams about aliens transplanting human genes into trilobites, or something. But let's be open to the possibility that things of which we know nothing
are something after all."

Lets name aliens randomness, and we can call it evolution.

Oh its not silly to you now?

LOL

Steve: ID is doomed. They don’t even have a wrong scientific theory. ID is not even as good as Lamarckianism, or the Steady State universe. Those were at least theories.

Einsteins replacement of gravity was so similiar to Newton gravity within our Earth and speeds we travel that we haven’t even stopped teaching the false Newtonian theory. ... The evidence for evolution will remain, but each piece of evidence is not taken under a controlled enviorment as the gravity observations are. As such a new theory of what all that evidence means may not be as similar to evolution as would be the case in a replacement to gravity.

For example if the Cambrian explosion were caused by external intervention, introducing all the genes used in humans but not in the right combination, it would completely invalidate evolution as it is taught today

When you have a theory that is edited to match the data and then some slightly different data matches your theory once or twice its not really all that impressive.

in DETAIL

We remember Newton as the father of gravity, but do you really think 100,000 years worth of modern man didn’t realize that apples fall down? Why isn’t it named after them? Because they didn’t UNDERSTAND it, it was magic to them.

Lets name aliens randomness, and we can call it evolution.

Lets name aliens randomness, and we can call it evolution.

Jari

Today they discovered a new species of ancient rabbit. Were evolution predictive there would have been a scientist that said I postulate that there will be an ancient rabbit found and that it will look like this and the bones will be like this etc etc etc.

But evolutionists look at the data AFTERWARDS and say oh ya that fits kinda let me just change my assumptions.

If that is science then my digital camera can do science. It changes its picture IN DETAIL to match reality. Evolutionists change their theory to match new discoveries. Woo hoo.

Science isn't about connecting the dots. Science is about predicting where the next dots will be.

Any theory that cannot predict isn't science. By its very nature science is a predictive thing. Any theory that cannot predict IS NOT science.

Jari

Controlled enviornment means that you can limit the variables that are candidates. so you say take A, B and C shake and you get D independant of E........Z......

For example to show evolution in a lab using amino acids + electrical shock and form a cell would be a scientific test of evolution. A test that has FAILED over and over and over. But evolutionists didn't give up.

For example to take bacteria in a petri dish and add radiation and show that a simple bacteria gene can go from a circle to a line to a similiar shape of some more evolved species. Again consistent failure.

Can you see what I am talking about?

DK,

just some comment on your last two posts. I assume, the rabbit you are talking about does not have features combining the apomorphic structures of two well established lineages, thus contradicting the nested hierarchy predicted by common descent? It does not show traces of a completly alien bio-chemistry, thus contradicting the unity of life predicted by common descent? It does not exhibit an distinct feature not homologeous to anything other rabbits close in place and time show, thus contardicting the gradual change predicted by an extrapolation from evolutionary mechanisms seen in the lab?

If the answer is no, then which basic assumption of evolution - as opposed to a specificapplication of evolution - has to be reassessed? It fits perfectly i.e. all predictions have been confirmed.
To put this in the easy to understand analogy, gravity on astronomic scales can not be tested in the lab and does not really predict the future, as all events beyond the solar system have already happened years before observation - it does not matter anyhow, as we can not influence these events to any meaningful degree. The only thing that matters in terms of prediction is whether data not considered so far fits the theory.
So if I measure the mass and motion of a stellar object, it does not matter for the theory of gravity whether I have predicted it being their or behaving exactly the physical parameters I am measuring now. Maybe it moves in a way already exactly computed in advance, maybe it has properties pointing towards an unknown force of gravity, but the only thing forcing me to change my assumptions concerning gravity would be a behaviour inconsistent with basic principles of gravity. Everything else actually is evidence for gravity or a process looking exactly like gravity.
Likewise with a new fossil or recent organism: maybe it has been predicted in detail (ichthyostega, ambulocetus or seven-gill sharks come to mind), maybe it has unexpected features pointing paleaontology and systematics in a new direction, but as long as it is not inconsistent with basic principles of evolution, there is no need for change, in it is evidence for evolution or a process indistinguible from evolution.
And concerning science not being about concerning old dots: you would probably be pretty shocked how often new scientific finds come from the re-evaluation of data already years or decades old (and I am talking about particle physics here, not exactly an 'origins science').
Your second post posed two challenges that are fallacious on two levels.
- they assume that pretty big steps in abiogenesis and evolution (amino acid to cell and bacterial genes to protozoon-like genes) should (and indeed have to) be demonstarted in experiments running on timescales hundreds of thousand times shorter than the time scales predicted. This smacks of people wanting to have a Big Bang in the lab before they are willing to consider any other astrophysical evidence. There are quite some papers showing small sucesses in creating basic cellular membranes and test the potential of progressive self assembly of amino acids in the lab, as there are on changes on the bacterial genome increasing it in length and complexity. As long as those are only countered with 'I don't believe these changes can add up in the long run' and no mechanism actually preventing them from doing so is at least proposed, they are excellent candidates to fill any gaps in abiogenesis and some specific applications of evolution.
- they assume that scientific theories have to explain everything. There are a lot of very useful and well-founded theories which have well-known limits. E.g. in spite of many efforts it is afaik still unclear how exactly to combine general relativity on large scales with gauge theories of interaction on small scales. Nevertheless, both approaches stand unchallenged in their area of applicability. So, even if you were to find some areas of application in which evolution had to remain inaccurate or contradictory, it still would remain the only game in town for all other problems, as long as no different theory had been proposed, rivalling evolution in detail, testability and usefulness in explaining and predicting phenomena both old and new.

Jonas

"but as long as it is not inconsistent with basic principles of evolution, there is no need for change, in it is evidence for evolution or a process indistinguible from evolution."

"they assume that scientific theories have to explain everything."

"So, even if you were to find some areas of application in which evolution had to remain inaccurate or contradictory, it still would remain the only game in town for all other problems, as long as no different theory had been proposed, rivalling evolution in detail, testability and usefulness in explaining and predicting phenomena both old and new."

Now change the word evolution to Creation and you can poke holes in your own arguments.

Jonas

As for the differences between evolution and gravity regarding testibility. NASA predicts the future location(of the light signatures) of the planets and every discovery of planets in far away solar systems obeys the laws as best we can tell. Thats literally 1000s and 10000s and 100000s of confirmations without any counter observations or change in theory (once you explain black holes, quasars etc which have their own predictions which have been confirmed after theory formation).

Evolution on the other hand rests on several things that have never been observed and has massive confirmation only in that the tree of life is genetically similiar and therefore appears similiar physically. In the last week alone the timeline of Human life changed and the timeline of rabbits changed .

Evolution as a theory is evolving to avoid its many flaws. My theory of gravity being attractmion to heat could evolve to explain observed inefficiency. We are attracted to the the Earth, we are attracted to the sun, they are both hot. The basic theory of heat attraction is sound its just the details that need to change. In any other setting you would reject such a weak theory.

Only with the religious belief of Darwinism can you accept such a weak theory.

First post:

If there was a theory of creation presenting a model for the 'process of creation' and providing any level of 'detail, testability and usefulness in explaining and predicting phenomena both old and new' maybe I could. In the absence of this, your point is moot.

Second post:

You apparently agree that all the new fossils did only change the exact timelines of evolution and none of it changed the basic predictions of common descent and evolutionary processes. So unless you can actually tell me, which single short term step necessary for biological evolution has so far not been observed, or in how far in a non-evolutionary theory similar morphology would require similar non-coding DNA or similar enyzmes within a group of enzymes of identical functionality, you are actually saying that evolution is an excellently verified theory.

BTW, heat attraction already breaks down when comparing the moon with the moons of Jupiter - one does not even have to go into cold dark matter. If there was any such showstopper in evolution, I am quite sure somebody had pointed it out. And low and behold - nobody started to bash Newton or Einstein for not knowing in advance about black holes or the galactic halo.
And, yes, if you want to continue this thread, please come up with a testable theory of creation or a case under which the basic prediction of common descent had to be reassessed. Assertions semantic tap dancing and shifting of the discussion will be ignored - at least by me.

Jonas

You seem to miss my main point.

Science demands that you back off your claims for creation. Science has a long history of saying "I don't know" when we in fact don't know.

"If there was a theory of creation presenting a model for the 'process of creation' and providing any level of 'detail, testability and usefulness in explaining and predicting phenomena both old and new' maybe I could. In the absence of this, your point is moot."

You are very clearly relying on the greater weakness of alternate arguments to gloss over the obvious weaknesses of current evolution theory.

Thats not science. When you teach something about the origins of the universe that isn't science we call it religion.

I am against the religion of evolution being taught in HS.

You and I both know there are large untested portions of evolution or unconfirmed at any rate as most of the holes have been tested such as trying to evolve a cell from amino acid etc. To teach evolution when the main piillars are untested is not science its a Darwinism religion.