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Behe Jumps the Shark [response to Michael Behe's NYTimes op-ed, "Design for Living"]
Butterflies and Wheels (reprinted from pharyngula.org) ^ | February 7, 2005 | P. Z. Myers

Posted on 02/12/2005 4:24:09 PM PST by snarks_when_bored

Behe Jumps the Shark

By P Z Myers

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; biology; creationism; crevolist; crevomsm; egotrip; enoughalready; evolution; intelligentdesign; jerklist; michaelbehe; notconservtopic; pavlovian; science; yawn
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To: betty boop

According to M-string theory there are seven extra dimensions that we have and don't know what to do with. Perhaps we use them after all. In dimension X we would all be a millimeter away all the time. Speculate away, but we will require laboratory data at some point.


541 posted on 02/15/2005 2:10:20 PM PST by RightWhale (Please correct if cosmic balance requires.)
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To: betty boop
As usual, you and I are on the same "wave length". LOLOL!

Thank you so much for your excellent insight!

542 posted on 02/15/2005 2:11:06 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl

Very Hegelian. When somebody says it is not this and not that and not the other, we will just wait. As far as the physicist is concerned, there is no such thing as mind anyway.


543 posted on 02/15/2005 2:18:07 PM PST by RightWhale (Please correct if cosmic balance requires.)
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To: bvw
The intelligence may be so subtle that its processes avoid discrete detection -- are not possible to distinquish from chaos, yet in aggregate it is design.

This sounds like the last few pages of C.S. Lewis' Perelandra.

Cheers!

544 posted on 02/15/2005 2:22:24 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: js1138

How do you distinquish a man-made crystal from a non-man made one?


545 posted on 02/15/2005 2:31:46 PM PST by bvw
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To: bvw

You have to know something about the history of crystals that have been found naturally. I can't think of any absolute criterion. Natural gemstones have defects and inclusions that aren't (usually) found in synthetic stones. But some makers of synthetic emeralds have been getting prices higher than natural stones.

But crystals do not require a program to form, except the one I posted the image of. The question is, did it ever form naturally?


546 posted on 02/15/2005 3:40:18 PM PST by js1138
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To: js1138

Since it's hard to tell that's evidence of design.


547 posted on 02/15/2005 3:41:34 PM PST by bvw
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To: bvw

Can you give me an example of something not currently known but which is under study, that might produce evidence against design?


548 posted on 02/15/2005 3:57:52 PM PST by js1138
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To: bvw
How do you distinquish a man-made crystal from a non-man made one?

Ask the salesman.
At the nice jewelry stores, they'll tell you.
At the really nice jewelry stores, they're all natural.

(grin)

549 posted on 02/15/2005 4:20:01 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: RightWhale; Alamo-Girl; marron; js1138; Phaedrus; bvw; logos; cornelis; ckilmer; StJacques; ...
According to M-string theory there are seven extra dimensions that we have and don't know what to do with.

Well, M-string theory is one of many other string-theory conceptions, RightWhale. So i wonder why the respective theorists are running around describing their work as a "theory" in the first place. Wouldn't "hypothesis" be a more apt, more descriptive word?

Don't get me wrong. I don't "rule out string theory in principle." And it seems very clear to me that the theorists are right to propose additional dimensions beyond the 3+1D block in order to account for empirically observable phenomena. But there are also other string theory hypotheses that do not require the compactification of the newly imagined dimensions. Plus I've seen different proposals that stipulate different numbers of dimensions. Eleven seems to be the currently fashionable concept; but maybe you only need some X more than four of 'em.

To me (a non-expert), it looks like the jury's still out on string theory. Though I definitely wish the researchers well, and hope they will come up with the telling insights we need to advance the physical sciences.

Which of course means that I entirely agree with your statement, "Speculate away, but we will require laboratory data at some point."

Thanks for writing, RW!

550 posted on 02/15/2005 4:21:44 PM PST by betty boop
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To: js1138
Since it's hard to tell a man-made crystal from a non-man-made crystal that inability to differentiate constitutes evidence for design.

Let's re-employ Maxwell's little demon. We relocate him on the face of growing crystal and ask him, on the basis of the ongoing assembly of molecules from solution into the crystal form if the process is designed or random. "Random" he replies, being the demon that he is. In fact he insists that neither we nor our crystal growing apparatus exists, since at the crystal face he has no direct sense of us or apparatus -- just of solvent and solvate and the organized solid that grows beneath him. He calls us "just my imagination running overtime!"

Nothing at his level produces evidence against crystal evolution from randomness.

Still ... despairing and impatient we point out the orderliness of the crystal, and the "magical" occurance of solvent and solvate at just the right temparature and pressure and mix. "One of many possible circumstances, all equally possible, and this is no more than the one that happened to happen." he replies.

We study his intransigence, yet its origin is unknown to us. To Maxwell's career-changing demon it is that very stubborness which produces at his level an irrefutable evidence against design.

551 posted on 02/15/2005 4:41:27 PM PST by bvw
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To: js1138; Alamo-Girl; marron; RightWhale; Phaedrus; logos; cornelis; ckilmer; StJacques; ...
There is in psychology a concept of "state dependent learning" which predicts, among other things, that things learned while under the influence of drugs will most readily be recalled under the same influence.

No no no no no no no!!!!!!!!!!!! js1138!!! State-dependent learning is not at all the sort of thing I intended here. We aren't even up the the problem of learning here yet; we are at the point of trying to elucidate what consciousness, mental activity is, and what responsibility the brain has in this activity. You give it 100% responsibility -- which leaves YOU (and me) neatly out of the process.

What I was referring to is a process that is so intimate, and yet so pervasive, that we tend not to notice it at all.

What I mean is: What is required in order to execute a "mental operation," a thought? What is needed? how do we get it? and from whence do we get it?

These statements probably sound completely intelligible on first hearing. So let me propose a thought experiment (literally!) that might help clarify what I'm driving at.

There is only one requirement: You [editorial "you" here, js1138 -- I'm not trying "to turn up the heat" on you] are to think about your own thinking. That is, you must try to "analyze" your own thought process, to break it down into steps. You might, for instance, ask yourself a question whose answer you do not know, and then see what you do next. Then you might find yourself qualifying, collecting, and assembling potential sources or "evidence" that seem relevant to the solution of the problem. Then you might probably notice that you begin to compare things, one with another. Along the way, you may find you have been executing the entire process, not in a "linear" way, but in a wholistic way -- because you're drawing so many different threads together, qualifying them, relating them, and so forth, so to draw a conclusion.

Alternatively, you could just ask yourself, "What do I want for lunch today?" Just study what happens next, pay really close attention to it.

i think if you were to do this experiment, you might find that you have a valid, actual basis for suspecting that the brain is, in all probability, not the party "responsible" for this process; though it is clear it has a facilitating role to play.

552 posted on 02/15/2005 4:47:53 PM PST by betty boop
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To: bvw
Still ... despairing and impatient we point out the orderliness of the crystal, and the "magical" occurance of solvent and solvate at just the right temparature and pressure and mix.

You're overly impressed with the growing of really really big crystals. Most solids are in fact crystalline; it's just the crystals are not as big as your thumb.

Think about ice crystallizing from water. The water cools until it reaches 32 F, and then it stays at 32 F until all the water solidifies. The system itself locks the temperature into the right temperature and pressure. There's no magic involved. Ditto with crystallization from solution. The solution becomes more and more concentrated until it reaches the saturation point; then it stays at that concentration while the crystals grow from solution.

553 posted on 02/15/2005 4:56:50 PM PST by Right Wing Professor (Evolve or die!)
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To: betty boop
We aren't even up the the problem of learning here yet; we are at the point of trying to elucidate what consciousness, mental activity is, and what responsibility the brain has in this activity. You give it 100% responsibility -- which leaves YOU (and me) neatly out of the process.

Darn right. Gotta give that Ghost in the Machine its due.

There is only one requirement: You [editorial "you" here, js1138 -- I'm not trying "to turn up the heat" on you] are to think about your own thinking. That is, you must try to "analyze" your own thought process, to break it down into steps.

BB, the simple command 'top' tells a computer running Unix to show a periodically updated list of current processes. When you run top, one of the processes it shows you is 'top'. It reckons for you the time and memory it's using to run itself. If you cared, you could put 'top' in a script that would look at top looking at top looking at top. And I take it you're not going to claim my servers have souls.

Recursive operations aren't that problematic, and they don't prove much. Thinking about yourself thinking just gives you several trips through your own navel; it doesn't reveal anything.

554 posted on 02/15/2005 5:06:20 PM PST by Right Wing Professor (Evolve or die!)
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To: betty boop
i think if you were to do this experiment, you might find that you have a valid, actual basis for suspecting that the brain is, in all probability, not the party "responsible" for this process; though it is clear it has a facilitating role to play.

You may not believe this, but I do this very frequently. You may believe it even less when I tell you that I came to a conclusion that may well be the opposite of yours. Often I ask myself, "how did I come to do that in this specific way", or, "how did my train of thought reach this particular point?" More often than not, I come to the conclusion that I could hardly have done otherwise!

Here's a case in point. Last year I was reading Erasmus's discourse on Free Will, and I challenged myself to demonstrate that I truly had Free Will. My demonstration (unwitnessed) was to take off my shoe and put it on my head. I then deconstructed the action: why did I do that?

Well, the action had to be unusual. I could have raised my hand, or whistled a tune, or removed my glasses, but these are things I might have some other, less volitional motivation for doing. The action had to be something dramatic, so that I would remember it. It preferentially would involve some item close at hand (my will is ostensibly free, but it is above all lazy). What items are closer at hand than my clothing? I could have removed my shirt, but that would have been more difficult and less comfortable. (Never mind the pants.) So a shoe was certainly the most obvious candidate. But removing a shoe, while a volitional act, is something I might have done anyway; some odd gesture is required. What unusual, arresting thing can I do with a shoe? Several things, sure, but placing it on my head was easy and immediate.

So, all things considered, my demonstration fell flat. My path to a proof of Free Will was strictly a path of least resistance, obvious in retrospect at every step. Do I have Free Will? I sincerely believe that I do...but in all honesty, at that particular moment, I as sincerely believe that I did not obviously employ it.

555 posted on 02/15/2005 6:03:52 PM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
My path to a proof of Free Will was strictly a path of least resistance, obvious in retrospect at every step.

One can imagine a more dramatic locus for the shoe, but would that be any more persuasive?

556 posted on 02/15/2005 6:22:54 PM PST by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: PatrickHenry
One can imagine a more dramatic locus for the shoe, but would that be any more persuasive?

Forsooth! The more resistance to the shoe, the freer the will.


557 posted on 02/15/2005 6:36:23 PM PST by Physicist
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To: Right Wing Professor
The system itself locks the temperature into the right temperature and pressure. There's no magic involved.

It's magical in the same sense that your legs being exactly long enough for your feet to touch the ground is....

;-)

558 posted on 02/15/2005 6:37:24 PM PST by longshadow
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To: longshadow
It's magical in the same sense that your legs being exactly long enough for your feet to touch the ground is....

That proves it! No way that could have happened by accident! There is a designer!

559 posted on 02/15/2005 6:43:32 PM PST by Right Wing Professor (Evolve or die!)
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To: Physicist
Forsooth!

'Sore tooth', spoken with a shoe in your mouth?

560 posted on 02/15/2005 6:45:12 PM PST by Right Wing Professor (Evolve or die!)
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