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To: hopespringseternal
In other words, he rigged the test. Deciding what letter to keep and which one to throw away is bringing intelligence into the matter

Yes, I'm aware of that. I acknowledged as much, and so did Dawkins. The point is that your monkeys example doesn't reflect the way evolution works in nature either. Anti-evolutionists like to talk about the probability of getting from AKDIBMENT IBJSLES JEPL VCNBW to METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL in one jump--as in the monkeys example--but no one claims evolution works like that. It doesn't work exactly like Dawkins's example, either, but it does conserve some "right" answers rather than starting from scratch each time. (Of course, it doesn't "know" it's "right.")

181 posted on 05/29/2012 9:28:59 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
Anti-evolutionists like to talk about the probability of getting from AKDIBMENT IBJSLES JEPL VCNBW to METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL in one jump--as in the monkeys example--but no one claims evolution works like that.

That is where Behe comes in because he proposes cases where it pretty much has to work like that such as blood clotting. And his question is why haven't these things been broken down into a possible sequence of mutations. You don't have to explain exactly how it happened, but rather how it could have happened gradually.

Functionally you can't assume that you get to conserve "right" answers without explaining the mechanism that keeps them. You are proposing something other than natural selection. It is pretty easy to point out that right answers in the end are very often wrong answers all along the way to that end. So you are left in a situation where natural selection has to throw away right answers to make evolution work, yet it has to keep them to make evolution work.

The situation is especially critical at the level of the cell. A line of feathers down my back, while suboptimal, might not keep me from reproducing. But badly functioning cells certainly will.

184 posted on 05/29/2012 3:46:46 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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