Yes. That was after you searched the creationist websites for all that good science they offer:
Posted on 08/16/2004 9:40:47 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Samuel Chen was a high school sophomore who believed in freedom of speech and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge. He thought his public high school did, too, but when it came to the subject of evolution -- well, now he's not so sure.
In October 2002, Chen began working to get Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University, to give a lecture at Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.
Chen, who was co-chair of a student group that tries to stress the importance of objectivity on controversial issues, knew that Behe would be perfect, since the group was examining evolution as a topic. The author of Darwin's Black Box, a critique of the foundational underpinnings of evolution, Behe had presented his work and debated the subject in universities in the U.S. and England.
Behe agreed to come in February 2004 and give an after-school lecture entitled, "Evolution: Truth or Myth?" As the school year drew to a close in 2003, Chen had all the preliminaries nailed down: he had secured Behe's commitment, received approval from school officials, and reserved the school auditorium.
Then he found out just how entrenched Darwinist orthodoxy was in the science department at Emmaus. By the following August, Chen had entered into a six-month battle to preserve the Behe lecture.
As the struggle unfolded, it became obvious that those who opposed Behe coming to Emmaus didn't seem to care about his credentials. In addition to publishing over 35 articles in refereed biochemical journals, Darwin's Black Box was internationally reviewed in over 100 publications and named by National Review and World magazine as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
Instead, it was Behe's rejection of Darwinism -- in favor of what is called "intelligent design" -- that drove opposition. According to the Discovery Institute, of which Behe is a fellow, this theory holds "that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
The head of the science department, John Hnatow, sent a statement to every faculty member in the school stressing that Emmaus held to the official policy of the National Science Teachers Association. That policy states: "There is no longer a debate among scientists about whether evolution has taken place."
It appeared there would be no debate at Emmaus, either. Some of the science teachers would not even allow Chen to address their classes and explain to students what Behe's lecture would be about.
Chen said various tactics were apparently used to undercut the event, including an attempt to cancel the lecture and fold the student organization without the knowledge of Chen and other members; requiring that the necessary funds for the lecture be raised much faster than for other student events; and moving the lecture from the auditorium to the school cafeteria.
One science teacher in particular, Carl Smartschan, seemed particularly riled about the upcoming lecture. Smartschan took it upon himself to talk to every teacher in the science department, insisting that intelligent design was "unscientific" and "scary stuff." He asked the principal to cancel the lecture, and then, when the principal refused, asked the faculty advisor for the student group to halt the lecture. Smartschan even approached Chen and demanded that the student organization pay to have an evolutionist come to lecture later in the year.
Smartschan's campaign to get the Behe lecture canceled was surprising to Chen because the event was scheduled after school, and not during class time, and was sponsored by a student group, not the school itself. Nevertheless, Chen persevered. The lecture was a success, attracting more than 500 people.
In the process, however, Chen's struggle took its toll. His health deteriorated over the course of the controversy, to the point where he collapsed three times in one month, including once at school. "My health has been totally junked," he told AFA Journal.
Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney and senior policy advisor for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, is advising Chen on his options for the coming year. Fahling said, "Schools are not allowed to interfere with viewpoints with which they disagree, and schools cannot disrupt the right of the students to participate in the academic and intellectual life."
Despite the hardship, Chen said he would do it all over again because the issue is so important. "I feel that there's a dictatorship on academic freedom in our public schools now," he said, adding, "I refer to evolution education as a tyranny .... You can't challenge it in our schools. Kids have been thrown out of class for challenging it."
That tyranny can be intimidating to students. "Some of the students who support me are afraid to speak out, especially because they saw how the science department reacted," Chen said. "They have a fear of speaking out against it in their classes."
On the other hand, he added that some students "are now questioning evolution, some for the first time."
That may be the first step in the overthrow of Darwin's dictatorship.
I am, to put it mildly, less than impressed with Spetner's arguments. Here's something I wrote and posted the last time he came up on this forum:
He [Spetner] spent the academic year 1962-63 on a fellowship in the Department of Biophysics at the Johns Hopkins University. During that time he became interested in evolution and published several papers investigating information buildup in evolution. (more)"
I note that 1962-3 is *way* out of date for any rapidly advancing technical field, but again, the man's bio is irrelevant either way. His arguments will stand or fall on their own technical merit no matter what his background.
As to the British peppered moths (p. 67):
Although it may be an example of natural selection, it is not an example of random variation. It turns out that when the soot began to cover the lichens, the light-moth population didn't have to wait for a mutation to turn dark. The dark moth was already in the population....because of RANDOM VARIATION. Spetner apparently is unclear on the distinction between "variation" and "mutation".
It was living as a small minority among the light moths [Bishop and Cook 1975]. Where the tree trunks are light, most of the moths are light colored. Where the tree trunks are sooty, most of the moths are dark.Correct, but nothing new here.There was no random (emphasis here and in all subsequent instances in the original) variation. Both types of moths have been living side by side in both environments.Again, Spetner reveals amazing ignorance of the meaning of the words that he himself chooses to use. He admits that the moths varied in color, and then incredibly claims that "there was no" variation. Of course there was. They varied in color. Spetner is just rambling like an old fool.Here we have an example of microevolution that is not an example.
Now *you're* rambling. From where did you pull *that* silly conclusion? There was indeed variation among the moths, as even Spetner admits (although he boneheadedly doesn't want to call it that), and there was selection among the various colored moths in various colored environments. That's microevolution.
It gets more interesting.
I certainly hope so, becaue it's pretty tedious so far.
Page 138:
All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.Spetner is, in a word, wrong.Spetner can only make this silly claim by creating his *own*, idiosyncratic *personal* definition of "information", which sharply varies from the way that all other scientists and mathematicians measure information content. His defintion is stacked in a way as to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, some of his examples even violate his own definition.
But before we go on, let's examine his amazing claim above, that "All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it". The fallacy in this claim should be obvious even to the layman -- a "point mutation" is a single DNA base pair being replaced by some different base pair. In computer terms, it's equivalent to a "flipped bit" in a bit sequence like "101011010101110", or a single altered character in a character string like "KEIJBIESSE".
By any *accepted* definition of "information", a single bit/character/DNA-basepair substitution neither adds or removes information, it simply alters the constant amount of information that's already there. A 12-bit string contains, not surprisingly, 12 bits worth of information. Flipping one of the bits doesn't change that. Likewise for a character string of a given length, or a DNA strand.
So how does Spetner manage to "see" increasing or decreasing information in a single "flip"? By eccentrically "redefining" information as "specificity". Specificity of/to *what*, you may ask? Well, to/of whatever Spetner wants it to mean for any particular case he's looking at... It's like the subjective definition of "pornography", being "I know it when I see it".
Even worse, Spetner's personal definition of "losing information" often correlates to *increasing* complexity of function, which most people would intuitively consider to be an *increase* in genetic information. For example, a mutation which causes a cellular mechanism to perform *two* functions when originally it performed a single function would count as a "decrease of information" in Spetner's eyes, because the mechanism became "less specific". And yet, most people would see the ability of the mechanism to juggle two jobs instead of one to be an increase in complexity, and thus an *increase* in genetic information content.
Let's examine what's known about the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics . . .
Page 139:
Scientists have studied how streptomycin and other mycin drugs keep bacteria from growing, and how a point mutation makes bacteria resistant to the drug [Davies et al. 1971, Davies and Nomura 1972]. They found that a molecule of the drug attaches to a matching site on a ribosome of the bacterium and interferes with its making of protein, as shown in Fig. 5.3. With the drug molecule attached, the ribosome is unable to put the right amino acids together when it makes protein. It makes the wrong proteins. It makes proteins that don't work. The bacterium then can't grow, can't divide, and can't propagate.So far so good. But then he gets whacky:The ribosomes of mammals don't have the site at which the mycin drugs can attach, so the drugs can't harm them. Because the mycins can stop bacterial growth without harming the host, they make useful antibiotics.
A point mutation makes the bacterium resistant to streptomycin by losing information. . . We see then that the mutation reduces the specificity of the ribosome protein, and that means losing genetic information. This loss of information leads to a loss of sensitivity to the drug an hence to resistance. Since the information loss is in the gene, the effect is heritable, and a whole strain of resistant bacteria can arise from the mutation.Oh, man, where do I start?First, note that Spetner openly admits that when he says "information", what he really means is "specificity" (sentence #2 in the above passage). What he "forgets" to mention is that he's the *only* person using the word in that fashion. Quite bluntly, this makes him rather a crank.
Second, if he wants to argue that decreased "specificity" is somehow a significant observation, he should stick with that word and not try to muddle the issue by idiosyncratically calling it "information".
Third, he later tries to argue that since the few mutations he has examined appear to lose "information" (by *his* definition) that therefore it's not possible for evolution to accumulate significant amounts of "information" (by the *ordinary* definition). This is a classic "fallacy of equivocation", whereby a word is used with one meaning in one place of an argument and used with another meaning elsewhere to falsely link things together. The classic example is, "brussel sprouts are better than nothing, nothing is better than a juicy steak, therefore brussel sprouts are better than steak" -- the shifting use of the word "nothing" makes the conclusion unsupportable.
Fourth, even Spetner himself admits that there's more to the measure of "information" in an enzyme than just specificity. He writes (emphasis mine):
The information content of the genome is difficult to evaluate with any precision. Fortunately, for my purposes, I need only consider the change in the information in an enzyme caused by a mutation. The information content of an enzyme is the sum of many parts, among which are:Good lord... Spetner admits that it's "difficult to evaluate" the information content, admits that there are *multiple* components of an enzyme's information content (and then uses only *one*), admits that this is his "assumption", admits that his measure hasn't yet been "proved"... And then makes firm conclusions about whether a given mutation has gained or lost "information" based on his fuzzy "assumptions".Level of catalytic activityThese are all difficult to evaluate, but the easiest to get a handle on is the information in the substrate specificity.
Specificity with respect to the substrate
Strength of binding to cell structure
Specificity of binding to cell structure
Specificity of the amino-acid sequence devoted to specifying the enzyme for degradationTo estimate the information in an enzyme I shall assume that the information content of the enzyme itself is at least the maximum information gained in transforming the substrate distribution into the product distribution. (I think this assumption is reasonable, but to be rigorous it should really be proved.)
Need we even go on?
No, it most certainly does not have relevance to mechanism. One of the first things we teach freshman students about thermo. is that it tells you the end result and the direction of a process; it says nothing about the rate or the route.
The various statements of the Second Law all have an implicit understanding of the mechanism.
The second law is one statement (or two if you include the limiting case that the entropy change in a reversible process is zero). I have no idea where you get 'the various statements of the Second Law', other than your own imagination.
Thermodynamics does pose problems for evolution, though evolutionary advocates fight it tooth and nail.
Utter tripe.
What's worse? Someone going to a creationist website for information, or someone posting a science article and ignoring the content in favor of invoking a flame-war? Or even worse, arguing against conservative principles by preaching for a single theory or belief system to be taught to students. And let's not forget about some people's infatuation with trying to toss God out of every establishment in America (schools, courtrooms, the home, this forum).
He [Spetner] spent the academic year 1962-63 on a fellowship in the Department of Biophysics at the Johns Hopkins University. During that time he became interested in evolution and published several papers investigating information buildup in evolution. (more)"
Using SciFinder, I find one paper by LM Spetner in J. Theor. Biol. in 1964, and one paper in Nature in 1970. After that nothing until 2001.
I must be misunderstanding the phrases 'during that time' and 'several'. Apparently 'during that time' means 'eight years later' and 'several' means two.
Throwing out accusations doesn't make them true. You keep repeating the mantras in the misconception that I don't know them. You are too closed-minded to ever hear what I have to say, you just repeat the same argument by rote.
The difference here is that creationism is based on faith, and evolution is based on physical evidence.
LOL. That old canard. Both take a set of observations and draw conclusions. No observation conclusively prooves either, and can not. But one group admits the role of faith, while the other group screams a wild-eyed hissy whenever you note the role of faith in their system.
Creationists do not have theories, at least in the scientific sense of the word, so they can debate till the cows come home. Science is more constrained because of its reliance on evidence.
You are painting with a mighty broad brush there, confusing creationists with creation scientists. Many creationists understand that if creation is true it is a discontinuity that can not be measured by science, that it is by necessity invisible to science.
That is the reason why I find many "creation scientists" to be no better than "evolution scientists". They are both mixing science and religion in a way that gives spurious results and bad conclusions.
RWP: Utter tripe.
Perhaps you should have taken some more time to read through the current debate at ARN I linked you to.
In what sense is this against conservative principles? If we teach students that George Washington was the first President, and don't include the theory that Thomas Jefferson was the first President, is that un-conservative?
No, I shouldn't. The page was incredibly long, and through the first part of it they were arguing the answers to undergraduate problems that have simple and straightforward solutions. If you want me to critique the debate, then provide a synopsis or an extract. I don't have time to wade through oceans of dreck to find some nugget you claim is in there.
Okay, thanks.
Which science?
Oh but I have been reading these threads. The more esoteric the argument is against evolution, the more the poster is subject to ad hominem attacks. I have seen some excellent technical questions posed about evolution theory only to see the person posing the question attacked relentlessly with no attention paid to the basic point of the question.
Someone asking the same sort of question in any other field will be answered first and ridiculed later if they persist in ignoring the explanation. True believers in evolution simply believe themselves above being questioned.
What universe do you reside in? Creation science theories are posted all the time. Usually the poster gets a lot more attention than the theory, though.
No. Thermodynamic laws hold regardless of the mechanism; that's one of the points of thermodynamics. If a gas in a state (p1,v1) is brought reversibly to a state (p2,v2) in one experiment and brought irreversibly to the same state (p2,v2) in another experiment; the entropy of the gas is the same in both cases.
Yes. That was after you searched the creationist websites for all that good science they offer:
Did you intend to ping someone else?
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