Posted on 05/03/2005 2:12:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
No, it's the recognition that variation within species automatically extrapolating to changes into new species is mathematically contraindicated, and evidentially weak.
If the evidence and mathematics suggests two levels of evolution, then the proper conclusion is to work from that assumption.
The fossil record ovewhelmingly shows forms arriving fully formed and varying within boundaries. Common descent is inferred based on a loose and shifting standard of morphology and imprecise dating techniques, yet the inference is declared to be the yard stick by which the direct observation is calibrated. Very, very bad science.
An interesting question. Sounds like a good topic for someone who wants to disprove ID to take up. There should be many people here who could come up with a scenario.
I think you are operating from the assumption that ID simply declares "God did it." as an answer to everything. That's not the case. ID is an hypothesis to address certain observed aspects of life that cannot be explained by evolution. It's a fallback position. If you can demonstrate, preferably mathematically, an evolutionary mechanism for these systems, then ID can be ruled out.
So basically, ID can be falsified by providing sound evolutionary responses to the biological paradoxes evolution creates.
Intelligent Design has always been the theory used to explain the incredible complexity of life. Dawkins understands this, since he goes right to the heart of it in his books The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable.
These were effective refutations until we started learning microbiology and discovered that irreducible complexity (already present in physics, chemistry, and mathematics) was also present in microbiological systems.
Irreducible complexity is a serious hurdle to evolution, which, when reduced to its basics, is really nothing more than weighted probabilities at play. Irreducible complexity takes away the weighting mechanism, and even Dawkins admits that when you start dealing with random probabilities, the odds get so low as to be impossible for all practical purposes.
Most ideologues in the evolutionary camp just dismiss IC with a wave of their hands and a heavy helping of scorn. However, serious scientists realize it is an issue and are looking for ways to address it. Once camp seeks to prove the biological systems are not really IC. This is a problem because the systems themselves are extremely well understood, and the arguments against IC for these systems has been very weak. The second camp tries to show that IC systems could come about by subtraction (the arch formation model). This camp runs into some serious mathematical problems. Unless they can demonstrate, mathematically that the pathway leading to the arch is NOT a random process, then the argument fails, because the foundational pillar of evolution, WEIGHTED probabilities, goes away.
I think two things have contributed to this fresh and effective criticism of evolution (it's effective because it is causing the hysteria that all paradigm shifts in science have cause throughout history). The first is our increasing knowledge and understanding of the basic chemistry and microbiology of life. The second is the application of high-level statistical mathematics to evolutionary theory. Evolution has historically been very weak in math, which is unfortunate, considering that, at it's foundation, it is purely mathematical.
Normally, the proponents of a scientifically interesting theory are babbling on excitedly about all the potential research it suggests. A theory suggests research by saying things ought to be found in condition A rather than anything else. In other words, it suggests ways of checking whether or not it is true.
ID doesn't do that. You don't have a theory. All you know is you don't like the last 200 years.
Sources for your data please?
A chemical carrier of biological inheritence was predicted by evolutionary theory before the discovery of the DNA molecule. Molecular biology bore this prediction out with the description of DNA by Watson, Crick, and others. Furthermore, using modern sequencing technology, genomes may be compared not statistically, but exactly down to the base pair. For short-lived organisms such as bacteria, this means we may observe the rate of change in patterns in genes in near real time. Both molecular biology and bioinformatics bolster evolutionary theory.
All ID has concerned itself with so far is to frantically assert with overreaching and spurious arguments that "aspects of life that cannot be explained by evolution" exist. That and a recycling of all the creationist mantras that don't argue for a young Earth. Actually, sometimes people like Wells slip up and include some of those, such as when he goes after radiometric dating. This attempted undoing of what we already know is about as far from a theoretical advance as you can get. It's pure sabotage of science.
You have so much wrong, I'm only going to hit the highlights. This sentence for instance:
Irreducible complexity is a serious hurdle to evolution, which, when reduced to its basics, is really nothing more than weighted probabilities at play.
A twofer! Two lies in one. Second one first. Evolution isn't just "Probabilities at play." If you don't know what evolution is, how do you know it's wrong? Why are there no good arguments from you people? Only the same dumb strawman parodies of evolution, no matter how often we correct you? Why can't anyone help you know what you're talking about?
As for irreducible complexity, it exists, yes. There are no barriers to it evolving. Behe didn't discover it. No ID-er did. A Nobel biologist named Muller discovered both that IC exists and that it evolves back in the 1940s. Behe's big contribution to science was to rediscover Muller's phenomenon without Muller's analysis of how it happens. Since Behe didn't understand how it happens, it was proof that "Goddidit!" But wait! Didn't you just say that that's not how ID works?
I don't have the patience to point out all the problems with your post. You'll just be back again dumb as a stump with the same load of bull anyway. And that's why the one true sentence you may have written is this:
Most ideologues in the evolutionary camp just dismiss IC with a wave of their hands and a heavy helping of scorn.
What you don't understand is that this scorn is deserved. ID-ers are doing nothing but harm, deliberately, while accounting themselves as morally superior.
I have to take issue with the first sentence above. ID does not attempt to explain anything. It merely observes that some things aren't known, therefore evolution is false. Behe, Dembski, Miller, etc., have never provided any better explanation of their theory than this.
Since they were unable to define complexity, identify the Designer(s) or even provide any explanation of how ID could operate over billions of years, your point about "evolutionary biologists" coming up with a mathematical model for evolution is a gigantic reach.
Chemists have no mathematical model for new reactions of compounds. Physicists have no mathematical model of the universe that explains even the basic well-known forces.
And what prediction does ID make that could be falsified, since it predicts nothing. What is ID's answer for how life originated? How does ID attempt to define species? How does ID explain the fossil record? How does ID explain the lack of bilion year old mammal fossils? Or the lack of billion year old human fossils?
Behe has already conceded that evolution happens most of the time. The times where ID happens is a moving target. ID still has a long way to go to be anything more than a rhetorical argument.
I saw that some folks in Texas decided to end the smoke screen and simply allow Bible class in school. I hope it works out because it will end a large part of the posturing that the crevo controversy generates. Although I know some people can't give it up because it generates a lot of income for them.
Xenudidit place mark
Ah, the short-term memory problems of the creationist. Does your care-home have internet links then?
Classic retrovirus post by Ichneumon (post 2242)
Ichneumon makes a good job dumbing it down to a level that those of us who don't have PhD's in biology can understand. It is of course only one line of evidence among many, but whether it is its persuasiveness or the presentation, it's one that has stuck in this Freepers ol' brain.
If you don't realize that evolution is nothing but probabilities at play, you are the one who doesn't understand what it is.
I suggest you read the books the Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable (hint: the titles were chosen for a reason).
I thought evos argued that dinosaurs turned into birds, which have hollow bones, although the T-rex didn't have hollow bones. What animal do you think it describes?
I think this explains it rather well.
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/behemoth.html
The molecular machinery that interprets DNA is virtually the same in all living things, even in the lowliest bacterium.
the past is not a readily observable phenomenon. Biology and geology have large branches devoted to history. These cannot ever produce an absolute, complete and final truth.
What they attempt is the kind and quality of investigation seen in a first rate criminal investigation, a reconstruction of the important features of the past that can survive any new evidence. Each new piece of evidence that is consistent with the reconstruction adds to its credibility.
If you don't realize that evolution is nothing but probabilities at play, you are the one who doesn't understand what it is.I assume that natural selection isn't part of your understanding of evolution then? (hint: the term selection was chosen for a reason)
Maybe the problem is a misunderstanding of what science is about. Science is not a search for truth. It is a search for ideas that are USEFUL, even if the truth of them will never be known. For example, how would you go about proving the truth of electron existence? It's easy to think of experiments whose outcomes would be different if electrons didn't exist, so proving the falsity of this idea would be easy if it were false. However, what would you do to prove that electrons actually exist? We can make predictions about experimental outcomes that would occur if electrons did exist, but the success of these predictions doesn't prove that electrons really do exist. However, to a working scientist, this distinction is irrelevant. Electrons are an accepted part of physics and chemistry precisely because they are useful. They help scientists describe the world in a coherent way and understand and predict other observations, so they are accepted. Even ideas that have been shown to be false are still and accepted part of science. Consider Newton's law of universal gravitation. This was proven false by experiments suggested by Einstein's theory of general relativity. However, NASA still managed to get the Apollo ships to the moon using Newton's law.
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