Posted on 02/12/2005 4:24:09 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
Nick Matzke has also commented on this, but the op-ed is so bad I can't resist piling on. From the very first sentence, Michael Behe's op-ed in today's NY Times is an exercise in unwarranted hubris.
In the wake of the recent lawsuits over the teaching of Darwinian evolution, there has been a rush to debate the merits of the rival theory of intelligent design.
And it's all downhill from there.
Intelligent Design creationism is not a "rival theory." It is an ad hoc pile of mush, and once again we catch a creationist using the term "theory" as if it means "wild-ass guess." I think a theory is an idea that integrates and explains a large body of observation, and is well supported by the evidence, not a random idea about untestable mechanisms which have not been seen. I suspect Behe knows this, too, and what he is doing is a conscious bait-and-switch. See here, where he asserts that there is evidence for ID:
Rather, the contemporary argument for intelligent design is based on physical evidence and a straightforward application of logic. The argument for it consists of four linked claims.
This is where he first pulls the rug over the reader's eyes. He claims the Intelligent Design guess is based on physical evidence, and that he has four lines of argument; you'd expect him to then succinctly list the evidence, as was done in the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ on the talkorigins site. He doesn't. Not once in the entire op-ed does he give a single piece of this "physical evidence." Instead, we get four bald assertions, every one false.
The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature.
He then tells us that Mt Rushmore is designed, and the Rocky Mountains aren't. How is this an argument for anything? Nobody is denying that human beings design things, and that Mt Rushmore was carved with intelligent planning. Saying that Rushmore was designed does not help us resolve whether the frond of a fern is designed.
Which leads to the second claim of the intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too.
No, this is controversial, in the sense that Behe is claiming it while most biologists are denying it. Again, he does not present any evidence to back up his contention, but instead invokes two words: "Paley" and "machine."
The Reverend Paley, of course, is long dead and his argument equally deceased, thoroughly scuttled. I will give Behe credit that he only wants to turn the clock of science back to about 1850, rather than 1350, as his fellow creationists at the Discovery Institute seem to desire, but resurrecting Paley won't help him.
The rest of his argument consists of citing a number of instances of biologists using the word "machine" to refer to the workings of a cell. This is ludicrous; he's playing a game with words, assuming that everyone will automatically link the word "machine" to "design." But of course, Crick and Alberts and the other scientists who compared the mechanism of the cell to an intricate machine were making no presumption of design.
There is another sneaky bit of dishonesty here; Behe is trying to use the good names of Crick and Alberts to endorse his crackpot theory, when the creationists know full well that Crick did not believe in ID, and that Alberts has been vocal in his opposition.
So far, Behe's argument has been that "it's obvious!", accompanied by a little sleight of hand. It doesn't get any better.
The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
Oh, so many creationists tropes in such a short paragraph.
Remember, this is supposed to be an outline of the evidence for Intelligent Design creationism. Declaring that evolutionary biology is "no good" is not evidence for his pet guess.
Similarly, declaring that some small minority of scientists, most of whom seem to be employed by creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute or the Creation Research Society or Answers in Genesis, does not make their ideas correct. Some small minority of historians also believe the Holocaust never happened; does that validate their denial? There are also people who call themselves physicists and engineers who promote perpetual motion machines. Credible historians, physicists, and engineers repudiate all of these people, just as credible biologists repudiate the fringe elements that babble about intelligent design.
The last bit of his claim is simply Behe's standard misrepresentation. For years, he's been going around telling people that he has analyzed the content of the Journal of Molecular Evolution and that they have never published anything on "detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures", and that the textbooks similarly lack any credible evidence for such processes. Both claims are false. A list of research studies that show exactly what he claims doesn't exist is easily found.
The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.
How does Behe get away with this?
How does this crap get published in the NY Times?
Look at what he is doing: he is simply declaring that there is no convincing explanation in biology that doesn't require intelligent design, therefore Intelligent Design creationism is true. But thousands of biologists think the large body of evidence in the scientific literature is convincing! Behe doesn't get to just wave his hands and have all the evidence for evolutionary biology magically disappear; he is trusting that his audience, lacking any knowledge of biology, will simply believe him.
After this resoundingly vacant series of non-explanations, Behe tops it all off with a cliche.
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
Behe began this op-ed by telling us that he was going to give us the contemporary argument for Intelligent Design creationism, consisting of four linked claims. Here's a shorter Behe for you:
The evidence for Intelligent Design.
That's it.
That's pathetic.
And it's in the New York Times? Journalism has fallen on very hard times.
This article was first published on Pharyngula and appears here by permission.
We'll be getting to that in due course. I'm working on it.
Indeed, the EM field might host the will to live - or it might be a vacuum field.
Physics accepts that there are probably massless particles which are currently beyond our ability to detect. But here we suggest that a vacuum field might be detectable because of either direct or indirect effects on biological life.
The reason we know neutrinos exist is because of such indirect measurements.
I would say that energy and matter transform - and are the effect of matrix (space/time) expansion (inflation).
When the Einstein dream of transmuting the base wood of matter to the pure marble of geometry is achieved then you will see the unification of the fields and "space/time = matter/energy".
IMHO, string theory (and particularly f-Theory) is getting us closer day by day - because the geometry is preeminent.
You mention a charlatan -- Uri G. -- and his ability to fool people. From an evolutionary standpoint, what is the function of charalatanism? Why, evolution-wise, are there lies and deceit?
Do you think that -- perhaps -- the universe has evolved some charlatan meta-genes? Using "meta-genes" to describe gene-like qualities to some combination of aspects of space time and physics. Or does only DNA evolve?
Following Heidegger's method and Husserl, I attempt to go back to etymological roots, back to Aristotle. Words have shifted meaning over the years, yet the original meaning is still there and we ought to stick to that chain of metonyms.
As for me, I shall try to stick with current, technical definitions where available - and try to remember that the same word may mean something different to you.
I find it amusing that we're discussing housing an entirely nebulous entity (the so called will to live) in an entirely hypothetical vacuum field. But I have no problem with it, any more than I mind you insisting that Helena is the capital of Ruritania.
Just don't call what you're doing science. And my advice would be to leave the EM field out of it, unless you are willing to discuss why the large EM fields that we enounter every day don't induce suicidal impulses
The calculation may have been "meticulous", but there obviously were some badly broken assumptions somewhere in this. DNA can address a phase space that is vastly larger than it actually addresses in biology. One could almost say that DNA is too information rich, but a lot of that extra space is used for error detection and correction in practice.
Just don't call what you're doing science.
For some, it is enough to observe the physical world from the visual, corporeal, four dimensional level. But for us, that does not satisfy.
We wonder why it is a certain way and not another, why it exists at all, what it is really made of, of what it is a part, where it came from, where it will lead.
To answer such questions concerning life (in particular here, biological life) - complexity [the issue on that thread, here it is the will to live] must be broached. Of course there are many mathematical tools to accomplish this - and different investigators are drawn to different toolboxes...
But such things are not of particular interest to everyone. So if you're not curious, then "no problemo"...
As evidence, here is an article comparing cosmologies. Please notice that all quantum cosmologies have a foot in the physically observable but otherwise are altogether speculative. The same could be said of string theory and a few decades ago, black hole theory.
Our investigation here has more than a single foothold, btw.
So if we stood next to a large external source of the EM field, like a radio transmitter; or if we accumulated a substantial electric charge, say by walking across a carpet in slippers, we would substantially corrupt 'biological self-organization and internal government'?
If I were convinced the EM field were essential to my self organization, I would particularly avoid MRIs. The combination of multi-Tesla static magnetic fields and kilowatt radiofrequency EM pulses are both far larger than any fields produced internal to the human body, and if such fields were vital, the MRI would be immediately fatal.
I suggest you stick to your 'vacuum field'. As long as no one can say what it is, no one can say why it's implausible.
I could be, but I don't think so.
Cosmology at least has some relation to the observable universe. 'Life fields' are the domain of spiritualists.
Cosmology at least has some relation to the observable universe. 'Life fields' are the domain of spiritualists.
There is as much if not more which suggests such a field as there is evidence for all of the various quantum cosmologies. betty boop and I are working on an article. We'll ping you to it. In the meantime, please stay tuned.
Monarch butterflies eat milkweed sap, which is poisonous to most other things. Most preditors avoid eating monarch butterflies.
There is another butterfly that looks almost like a monarch, but doesn't eat milkweed, and isn't poisonous or distasteful to preditors. Can you imagine any advantage to looking like a monarch?
You cannot, there are none. To try to do so is to slog through the muddy, rutted roads of Flanders towards the trenches and miss the turnoff to the fresh fields of the high plateau.
Come to think of it, that may be the entire point, tortoise: that DNA can "address" a phase space that is vastly larger than what gets expressed in or as "biology." (Sorry if I've modified your terms. From my point of view, the modification makes better sense.)
But does this tell us anything about how DNA acquires this capacity? Does it originate with DNA proper, or could it be the case that DNA (in addition to its basically "static" informational input to the living organism) mediates an "outside" information source as well; i.e., one of which it is not the cause?
How do we "model" a question like this so as to have hope of receiving a valid "answer?" Or do you expect the question is worthless?
LOLOL, Prof!!!! Ya nailed me: Voo-doo is what I do!!! (In my spare time.)
Seriously, Alamo-Girl and I are keenly interested in the matters presently under investigation, and so will not easily be chased away. We'll get our article up ASAP, and hope you will reply to our pings. I think it's safe to say we are both looking forward to the pleasure of your company.
On many terms, I would agree with you - but for instance, if a physicist enters the discussion and we are speaking of "matter" in other than the technical meaning, it will surely lead to recriminations.
Thank you for your reply!
I could be, but I don't think so.
Cosmology at least has some relation to the observable universe. 'Life fields' are the domain of spiritualists.
I wish I had time to get into here but I must leave and do some work this afternoon.
There is as much if not more which suggests such a field as there is evidence for all of the various quantum cosmologies. betty boop and I are working on an article. We'll ping you to it. In the meantime, please stay tuned.
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These days the police use infra red to track criminals at night. The images first showed up as science fiction in the Swartznegger movie called "The Preditor". But now, I've seen tv shows wherein the police will scan a wide area with the infra red gun and the you can see the glow of a man or a cat in the bush at night on the tv.
That's just heat.
Typically a living human will give off other kinds of stuff. For example there's an electrical charge a person has that shows up if you walk across a rug without lifting your feet. After a bit you can send a little lightning out your finger.
Patients in hospitals can have their hearts measured for heart beats--likely too there are high tech instruments around that can "hear" a heartbeat at a distance.
What about brain waves? There are tools in a hospital for scanning and measuring brain waves. These show the output of the brain plainly on a monitor. How far do these brain waves carry?
I have read books on hunting in which its been said that if you're hunting someone at night its best not to look directly at them as they can feel your stare. But everyone has had the experience of "feeling" someone was looking at them and turned to see someone looking at them. So what in the world was the other person's eyes or brain giving off that you sensed?
Oh yeah and then of course there is chemistry.
you: Come to think of it, that may be the entire point, tortoise: that DNA can "address" a phase space that is vastly larger than what gets expressed in or as "biology." (Sorry if I've modified your terms. From my point of view, the modification makes better sense.)
That is where your analysis is particularly fascinating to me, betty boop. Because it is not a phase plane but a phase space, the dimensional potential is huge. The Shannon theory is great, but dimensionally speaking it is grounded in spheres and not hypercubes.
So if the DNA is encoded for more than obvious 4D – then the appearance of randomness which is taken here to be deterministic chaos may be quite organized when seen as encoded for phase space hypercube communication.
Moreover, as you say, this would be very, very consistent with our suggestion that the will to live is field-like.
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