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.
There are a few, um, "questionable" aspects of that story about Pam Reynolds. Her story is presented as "evidence" of consciousness during "flatlined" brain activity, but the story itself doesn't even support that conclusion.
Your link says:
As Dr. Spetzler powered up the surgical saw to open the patient’s skull, something occurred that never registered on any of the sophisticated monitoring devices. Reynolds felt herself “pop” out of her body. [...] A female voice complained that the patient’s blood vessels were too small. It appeared to Reynolds that they were about to operate on her groin.Later it claims:
“She met all clinical criteria for death,” according to Sabom. “She had no blood in her body. She had no vital signs at all. And if it was death, what was this experience.”The problem with this is that the "out of body" view Pam Reynolds describes did *not* occur while "she had no vital signs at all", it occurred DURING SURGICAL PREP long before her body temperature was lowered at all, before her heart stopped beating, and before her brain activity dropped to (next to) nothing.
She describes hearing a technician preparing to insert a catheter into her femoral artery, which occurs at the VERY beginning of the procedure. The blood cooling and subsequent "near death" state can't even *begin* until the catheters are placed, because the blood cooling is done in the CPB machine that is attached to the body VIA the catheters.
Likewise, the story says this occurred as the surgeon "powered up the surgical saw to open the patient’s skull", which ALSO happens well before the body temperature is actually lowered and heart/brain activity is brought to a (near) stop.
See for example SUSPENDED ANIMATION -- SURGERY'S FRONTIER: Man cooled to near-death for 'impossible' brain operation , which describes in more detail a very similar surgical procedure which took place within a year of Pam Reynold's surgery (so the techniques and technology employed would be at a similar stage). From that link:
A heart monitor emitted rhythmic bleeps, a respirator whooshed, the bone drill droned a high pitched squeal as it carved a three-inch hole in the right side of the patient's skull.*First* the surgeon uses the bone saw to open the skull, and excavates a several-inch-deep hole in order to approach the site of the aneurism. Only *THEN* is the cooling of the blood initiated, and after 20-30 minutes the patient is finally cooled enough for the heart to stop and brain activity ebb, then *finally* the blood is drained out and the patient is in a "near-death" state."Let's start cooling," Dr. Robert A. Solomon, the neurosurgeon in charge, said as he finished clearing out a two-inch deep crater over the bulging vessel. The patient, Donald Rogers Jr. of Kansas City, Kansas, was then attached to a cardiac bypass machine which cooled his blood.
As his body temperature fell, the colors on monitors slowly ebbed and the room grew silent. At 86 degrees the rippling brain waves on the EEG monitor calmed and his heart rate slowed to a mere 50 beats a minute. With each degree the temperature dropped, his heart dragged more: at 80 degrees, 40 beats; at 75, 30. At 72 degrees it seemed to shiver, then abruptly stopped, a normal physiologic response to cold. The image on the television screen went limp.
This only makes sense -- the DHCA state is very precarious and needs to be maintained for as little time as possible. The surgeon only initiates it at the last possible moment, after *all* other preparatory work which does not require DHCA has already been done (including hooking the patient's femoral artery up to the catheters of the blood cooler, opening the skull, and removing enough brain tissue to be poised fractions of an inch away from the aneurism).
By Pam Reynold's own account, her "awareness" of the operation took place during PREP TIME, before even blood cooling had been initiated, and not during the "near death" state itself which would have commenced no sooner than about ONE HOUR later.
For technical details on DHCA procedures in surgery, see for example:
Cerebral protection during surgery of the thoracic aorta: a reviewNeurologic outcome after surgery of the aortic arch: Comparison of deep hypothermic arrest, antegrade and retrograde cerebral perfusion
With respect to Plato, what is most of interest to me is the meditative process he used in order to access "ultimate" ideas as, say, the Agathon; and the "field" in which the meditative mind "ascends" and "descends" in the "in-between reality" of the metaxy, the psyche stretched in-between, as it were, the "poles" of the Apeiron (the ground of being) and the Epikeina (the "beyond" of the Cosmos). It is this "area" (I hate to use the word, for it implies spatial extension which the metaxy does not have: it is a "psychic space," which may be a contradiction in terms, but it's hard to match words to this experience of reality) that the mind is free to be drawn to the truth of the Cosmos "from within," as it were.
/////////////
I think men and women are made for both time and eternity. But the places between-- the riptides, vortices, what have you -- can be wicked. I've heard it said that bad mixes of time and eternity were symbolized for the ancients by the offspring of gods and men as in the centaur below the house of the Minos in greek mythology and the elephant men in indian mythology. Remember the great scientist Daedulus and his son Icarus?
The only one who pulled off successfully the mingling of time and eternity is Jesus as he combines both time and eternity in his person.
For this reason Jesus to this day is embedded in the clock of any computer or the calendar on any cubicle wall-- whether CE or AD. Jesus marks the dates on anyone's tombstone.
Speaking of the terrors in the maze below house of Minos, people today have lost appreciation for that other great accomplishment of Jesus. Jesus ended the practice of human sacrifice.
Jesus gives all men and women who believe in him the confidence to enter without fear into the presence of the living God. I think that has made all the difference.
(For myself, I would like to hear someone give a good account of the differences between the written language, mathmatical language, and computer language.)
I continue to be "all for" an open discussion of all the issues involved - generally touched on at post 709.
Currently betty boop is writing an article as both a response and a starting point for a thorough investigation on the forum.
Hopefully there will be good participation on the subject of complexity in biological systems. Of course, there are different methods of measuring complexity and prejudices going into the subject - but with some patience we ought to be able to give each measure its "day in court".
I do not however believe the difference between prepping and actual flatlining is the significant point here. In her case, while her eyes were physically closed she was "out of body" and observed the doctor using something that looked like an electric toothbrush as well as the groin procedure. But then afterwards, she goes through the oft-repeated experience of a tunnel, Light and visiting with relatives and then returning to her body. Those experiences are routine for NDEs as is a light sensitivity afterwards, altruistic attitude, loss of fear of death, etc.
Nevertheless, to me the most fascinating "near death experiences" are those of children who have no lengthy history in life upon which to rationalize or dream. Their drawings afterwards are especially interesting to me: Morse: Children's NDE Drawings
The problem with your rebuttal is that Dr Spetzler to this day can not explain what happened in that OR that day and he was there. He would certainly know the sequnce of events.
No you haven't, since you have misunderstood the arguments made in that FAQ.
In English, the article assumes that design cannot copy the proteins or DNA in a cell..
No, it does not assume that, nor does its argument rest upon that presumtion.
but evolutionists also argue their own design can copy the proteins or DNA.. if we fund them again.
Attempt to remain coherent.
You assume iIrc that because you can map a lexical tree, evolution is likely.. but you could also map a lexical tree if design is true..
This *completely* misses the point of the arguments and evidence put forth in those two sections.
The point is that an origin via evolutionary common descent would produce very specific *kinds* of features in the phylogenetic tree (not "lexical tree", as you say, which has nothing to do with this topic), *and* result in the *absence* of many other kinds of features (those which could *not* result from evolutionary origins).
And the striking thing is, when we examine the vast phylogenetic tree of life, it "just so happens" to *have* all the very specific kinds of features that an evolutionary origin would produce, *AND* (perhaps even more importantly) it does *NOT* have any of the features which an evolutionary origin predicts it wouldn't have.
What an incredible "coincidence" if evolution *didn't* actually produce earthly life, eh? How or why would any other process "just happen" to match the *exact* pattern of features and lack of features of the phylogenetic tree which one would expect to find (and not find) via an evolutionary origin, if in fact the tree of life is *not* actually a result of evolution?
Three additional points:
1. This is classic "scientific predictive power and falsifiability". Evolution *predicts* specific things we should find (and keep finding) as we delve into (in this example) DNA analysis of all living things. And (ta daa) we *do* find those things as we sequence the DNA of more and more creatures. Confirmed predictions: This is the way in which scientific theories are supported by new evidence. FURTHERMORE, the predictions give specific ways in which the theory could be *falsified* if it were not actually true: in this case, by the failure to find in DNA the things that evolution predicts should be there, and/or by finding in DNA things that evolution predicts *shouldn't* be there. And I know this will come as a big disappointment to you, but after literally millions of such tests, evolution continues to be confirmed (and fails to be falsified) with flying colors. Sorry about that.
2. Your cries of "design could do that too!" fall utterly and completely flat. Sure, in theory a "designer" of sufficient power could "put" any damned thing he wanted to into the DNA of any/all creatures. But that "proves" (nor "disproves") anything whatsoever. Because the question you'd then have to answer first would be, "why the heck would he want to?"
[Sidebar: You "design" folks can't have it both ways (no matter how much you obviously try to). You can't use the "appearance of design" as "evidence" for your position, based on the claim that a given feature of life "makes sense" from a design standpoint (and therefore "might" or "must" have been designed), and then turn around and shrug off the stuff that *doesn't* make any sense from a "design" standpoint -- but *does* make sense from an evolutionary origin. It's a cop-out to say, "well, a designer *could* have done that, even if it would make no sense for him to."]
First, why would a designer choose to "design" DNA in *ONLY* the very many *SPECIFIC* ways that would "just happen" to match the results of an evolutionary origin, when he would have VASTLY more options available to him? If I sat down to write a computer program for example, I would be *nuts* to limit myself to crafting the program in *only* the ways that would make the resulting program code "look" as if it had evolved from a genetic algorithm -- employing only those features which could have evolved, and avoiding those features which could not have. And if I just sat down and wrote the program the way I saw fit, I can *guarantee* you no one would have any trouble looking at the code afterwards and noticing that it was the kind of program which was *written* (designed) and not the kind which *evolved* (was generated by genetic algorithms), precisely *because* a "designer" has many more options open to him, and his resulting program code will contain many features which were clearly not evolved. And the same would be true of DNA, if it had not actually evolved and had instead been "written".
What's even funnier is that this raises an even bigger question for you: Since the only way that a "designed" DNA would "just happen" to match the characteristics one would find (and not find) as a result of an evolutionary origin is if the designer WENT OUT OF HIS WAY to specifically *TRY* to make it look that way (even though it hadn't), the question for you is, why is the designer trying to fool us in that dishonest way? I await your answer.
3. What you're *really* missing here is that those sections of the FAQ you fail to understand aren't talking about "perfect copies", they're talking about IMPERFECT copies (which "just happen" to differ in *exactly* the way predicted by an evolutionary origin) -- so why is your "designer" copying his work and screwing it up in that way? Is he sloppy?
Furthermore, in those two sections of the FAQ, it's not talking about "similar DNA for same/similar functionality", since obviously a designer might use same/similar "blueprints" for same/similar functions, and that of course proves little. No, what those two sections concentrate on are the pattern of DNA differences in portions of the DNA which PROVABLY MAKE NO DIFFERENCE to function. So the question gets a lot harder for the "design" folks: Why do even the differences in DNA which MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, which no sane designer would bother crafting any one way or another, EXACTLY MATCH THE PREDICTIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONARY ORIGIN?
so your whales don`t help you.
Wow, what an... inadequate "rebuttal"...
Mebbe someone else will kindly explain these logic errors..
Instead, someone needs to explain your misunderstanding(s) of the FAQs to you... You can't spot any "logic errors" in them when you clearly don't understand them in the first place.
I was trying to cover for you by giving you a graceful retreat..
Uh huh. Sure.
Why exactly would that be a "problem" for the points I made in my post? Be specific.
Most surgeons don't have much of a familiarity with OBEs, nor is there much agreement on what exactly causes them, so I'm hardly surprised that Dr. Spetzler doesn't have "an explanation" for her subjective experience. But this in no way poses any "problem" for the points I made in my post, and I'm curious as to why you seem so firmly convinced that it does.
He would certainly know the sequnce of events.
Yes, I'm sure he would. Which is probably why nothing in the article indicates him saying anything which contradicts the points in my post, nor does the article quote him in any way confirming that the events she reported took place during the "brain flatline" period of the surgery, instead of during the surgical prep stage.
Now did you have anything that *actually* poses any "problem" for my points, or would you like to post some more vague but irrelevant innuendo?
The remainder of your objections concerning my posts on these threads is ideological.
No, they are not, other than the "ideology" that if you're going to make assertions, you should be prepared to answer questions about them, to clarify them when asked, to explain your reasoning or how you arrived at your conclusions, and to deal with possible problems or contradictions in them.
I was under the impression you wanted comments on and questions for your paradigms so that you could test and refine them -- have I been mistaken?
The sum of all of your posts indicate that you are a [big snip]
And your attempted pigeonholing of my alleged philosophical positions accomplishes what, exactly? I asked you a number of specific questions about the assertions made in your posts, and raised some issues which I thought you ought to address with respect to your paradigm.
What earthly relevance does your lengthy general discourse on materialism have to do with any of the specific questions I asked or specific issues I raised for you to address?
IOW, your worldview of “all that there is” appears to be limited to that which occurs in nature, i.e. in space/time.
This is a very inaccurate attempt at guessing my "worldview" -- nor should "my worldview" be relevant to your willingness to clarify your posts, or address issues raised about them.
Because you believe reality to be “thus-and-so” does make it truth, except to you.
Um, what? Presuming that the "does" was supposed to be "doesn't", you're not telling me anything I don't know. But obviously that cuts both ways, so I'm not sure what your point might be here.
Here are some other views of reality from a survey conducted by betty and me a long time ago: [SNIP]
Filler?
Before we answer the remainder of your objections (which we will do on another thread)
Why "another thread"? Are you declaring that you're done talking to me on this one?
– you must agree to take my challenge as well, to prove that your position is science and not religion:
Why on Earth would that even be *relevant*? Why "must" I take some kind of "philosophical purity test" before you "answer the remainder of my objections"? Why "must" I "prove" that I'm not coming from any sort of "religious" perspective? What if I were? Would that disqualify me from discussing your posts?
And isn't that pretty... strange coming from a person like yourself who seems committed to forging a synthesis of religion *and* science? Why then the insistence that I "prove" that I'm coming *only* from a 100% science-based perspective?
I have to admit I'm absolutely baffled by your reply, Alamo-Girl.
Provide plausible scientific or mathematical evidences for all of the following: [snippage]
If you refuse to take these challenges, then I shall consider your objection to be the same as religious objections.
Feel free.
Now -- do you want to discuss your paradigms and the questions/issues I posted?
That dead horse was pretty well beaten, I thought, and I was under the impression that it was still your "turn" since you ended your post with "more later", but per your current request I just now posted a reply to that post.
and on complexity in biological systems.
I don't see where I "owed you a response" on that one, especially since your invitation for further discussion was issued to the community at large -- did you have any questions for me which I've missed?
I’ll take your simplest objections first:
AG: If you were to take a chunk of the numbers out of the extension, it might appear to be random. But it would not actually be random at all, because it originated with a simple calculation of circumference divided by diameter.Thus what might seem as happenstance is actually "designed". ["Structured" does not equal "designed".]
I put the word “designed” in parenthesis because there are different answers to the question What is Mathematics?. As a Platonist wrt to mathematics, I’d say the geometry exists and the mathematician only comes along and discovers it. Thus I would say it was designed, and the design exists as form beyond space/time – a universal to us in the 4D block.
That would still qualify as "structured" (or some similar word), not necessarily "designed".
But all of this is beside the point I was originally making. If you extend the calculation of pi exhaustively and extract a string of numbers out of that extension – it might appear to be “random” when it actually resulted from a “designed” computation of circumference divided by diameter.
I understood the point you were making, which was valid, but it remains valid when the less loaded word "structured" is used instead of the word "designed" (which I'm sure you'll agree is a "loaded" word on these threads). I wasn't faulting your comment in any way, other than that on these threads there's a lot of "loose" thinking and writing which blurs the distinction between structure/pattern/complexity/organization/etc. and actual *design* (in the "consciously planned" sense). I was just exercising a pet peeve of mine and taking the opportunity to (yet again) point out that one is not (necessarily) identical to the other.
AG: It is also the basis of my standing hypothesis around here, i.e. that algorithm at inception is proof of intelligent design. ["Inception" relative to what? And "algorithm" is not properly defined here either. And how complex an "algorithm"? Simple algorithms can easily occur by accident.]
This was obviously discussed at length long ago on several threads with falsifications and the whole nine yards. It was my first attempt at constructing an hypothesis.
Excellent, but my point here was that in order to be useful, predictive, testable, etc., a hypothesis has to be quite rigorously defined -- there's little room for loose or vague terms. "Inception" is one of those things that sounds clear enough until you begin to try to nail it down tightly. And "algorithm" is strictly defined mostly in terms of computer programs and procedures in mathematics, and I'm not sure how an algorithm as such would be identified in physical systems -- e.g. is an enzyme cleaving a substrate an "algorithm" or not (and if so, how about simpler chemical reactions)?
But to your questions. The inception depends on the subject – biological life, the universe, the multi-verse, etc.
Well, sure, but that doesn't nail down anything about it. When is the "inception" of new puppy, and does the "algorithm(s?)" in its DNA which are there at its "inception" somehow constitute "proof of intelligent design"?
The definition of algorithm was lifted from chapter 2 of Roger Penrose’s book The Emperor’s New Mind where he discussed the history of the matter from Persia and Greece (c 300 BC) and narrowed down to Euclid’s algorithm for finding the highest common factor of two numbers. The highest common factor is the largest single whole number that divides into each of the two numbers exactly. It is a systematic procedure which requires process, decision and recursion: divide one of the numbers by the other and take the remainder and the number just divided by and repeat until there is no remainder.
I know what an algorithm is -- the question is, how do you recognize what is or is not an "algorithm" in a physical process? Is the combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms to form water molecules an "algorithm"? How about their dissolution?
Here is the link to the experiment: [SNIP]
That only raises more questions than it answers. Other than this one author's claims, I can find *no* other reference to such "experimental results". Nor is it even described as any sort of controlled test. It sounds as if someone (the author?) did a one-time test (or is he just describing a "thought experiment"?) wherein:
a) an amoeba ingested a grain of ink and spit it out,From just the sparse description given, amoeba "memory" and "decision-making" is hardly a confirmed finding -- equally possible is the following less revolutionary explanation: The first time the amoeba was "hungry" (and thus experimentally "ate" something near it), the second time it wasn't. Or the second time it failed "catch the scent" of possible "prey". Or the second time it was "sick" from contact the first ink particle. Etc. etc.
b) and then later it didn't do the same when it "could" have.
Unless there's any sort of more controlled experiments which reliably reproduced the "results" while systematically eliminating alternative explanations, this one anecdote quite literally proves nothing whatsoever about why the amoeba may have failed to ingest a particle on a second opportunity after having done so the first time.
This is an extremely shaky foundation on which to erect an "all life has 'will'/memory/etc." conclusion. As I mentioned earlier, it's easy to anthropomorphize tropisms and other "mechanical" responses into "will", but that doesn't make it so.
MInkowski jist added the "i".
...and over, and over, and over...
Go ahead and surprise me; attempt an explanantion of the tree-like structure of molecular cladograms. I've proven the claim that 'it's all an assumption' is wrong. That's a fact.
From what I read, I gather that you are saying that if ID were true, it would be impossible that there would be a lifeless universe. It would be impossible that if life existed that it would die off quickly. It would be impossible that if life existed that there would be only a few species, and it's impossible that there would be no self-aware species. I don't believe that this previous statement is truthful, however, since we know absolutely nothing about the designer. What if the designer wanted to design a lifeless universe? Then the observation of a lifeless universe would not be contradictory to ID. I am looking for something that we could possibly observe (not necessarily something that has been observed) that would make us say "Aha, ID isn't the right idea!" Your home page, while containing some very interesting ideas, doesn't give a potential falsification for ID, but rather evidence in favor of it. While that's important, it's not sufficient to make ID scientific. An example of a scientific ID hypothesis (already falsified, so sorry, you can't use it to make ID scientific) would be that if ID is true, you could never observe an organism that had eyes with a blind spot. That statement is scientific since it is possible to falsify it. To do so, you must simply find an organism which has eyes with a blind spot. Since this has been done, this statement is actually false. So far, ID'ers haven't come up with anything like this.
Far be it from me to apologize or feel sorry because you and your cheerleaders get choked up over a philosophy that represents less-than-keen intellect. Far be it from me as well to deny that God created and sustains the universe while mercifully allowing fools to ignore His providence for a short time.
Chapter 147: See his "new" post #796, which is just more of the same spew of accusations without a shred of support.
"Here is the link to the experiment: [SNIP]
That only raises more questions than it answers. Other than this one author's claims, I can find *no* other reference to such "experimental results". Nor is it even described as any sort of controlled test. It sounds as if someone (the author?) did a one-time test (or is he just describing a "thought experiment"?) wherein:
a) an amoeba ingested a grain of ink and spit it out,
b) and then later it didn't do the same when it "could" have.
From just the sparse description given, amoeba "memory" and "decision-making" is hardly a confirmed finding -- equally possible is the following less revolutionary explanation: The first time the amoeba was "hungry" (and thus experimentally "ate" something near it), the second time it wasn't. Or the second time it failed "catch the scent" of possible "prey". Or the second time it was "sick" from contact the first ink particle. Etc. etc. "
I would like the link to this experiment. I've been nosing around and haven't found it yet, so I thought you'd oblige. As a microbiologist, especially one with more than a passing interest in protozoa, I's like to see it.
There is no experiment (at least not one that has been published). Apparently this anecdotal evidence was taken from an internet forum: Link.
For whatever its worth, the observation that the amoeba moved toward and phagocytosed the bead is mundane. The molecular pathways for this have been worked out in pretty good detail and does not in any way invoke the need for "consciousness" or any magic.
The other observation where the author claims is an example of "memory" is something that would be necessary to see the primary data (if there is any). Was this repeatable? Was it observed in several different protozoa? Using different substrates? etc.
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