In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash

NY Times ^ | August 22, 2005 | KENNETH CHANG

[Pharmboy]

At the heart of the debate over intelligent design is this question: Can a scientific explanation of the history of life include the actions of an unseen higher being?

The proponents of intelligent design, a school of thought that some have argued should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools, say that the complexity and diversity of life go beyond what evolution can explain.

Biological marvels like the optical precision of an eye, the little spinning motors that propel bacteria and the cascade of proteins that cause blood to clot, they say, point to the hand of a higher being at work in the world.

In one often-cited argument, Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and a leading design theorist, compares complex biological phenomena like blood clotting to a mousetrap: Take away any one piece - the spring, the baseboard, the metal piece that snags the mouse - and the mousetrap stops being able to catch mice.

Similarly, Dr. Behe argues, if any one of the more than 20 proteins involved in blood clotting is missing or deficient, as happens in hemophilia, for instance, clots will not form properly.

Such all-or-none systems, Dr. Behe and other design proponents say, could not have arisen through the incremental changes that evolution says allowed life to progress to the big brains and the sophisticated abilities of humans from primitive bacteria.

[From many - one.]

"...Scientists don't remotely share your assessment, and their assessment is what counts (or rather, what should count) in public policy."

Ah-h but wait until the Official High Council on Irreducibility" is put in place.

It will be so easy then. If three of the Council say: "I dunno, can't figure how such-and-so happened" it'll go into the IC box and be done with. :-)

[atlaw]

Your post is exactly the reason the founders of this country made a point of saying that "we are enowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights" for if we are not then our rights, the right to life among them, depends on which of your laundry list is in power.

Who was the "we" in that sentence at the time it was written? And what is the "Creator's" antecedent for the subsequent expansion of the covered "we"?

[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

Except for Ted Kennedy - he descended from the Bandersnatch.

[js1138]

I think you have a misapprehension about what "unalienable" means. It does not mean that rights cannot be abridged, and behavior limited by laws and government.

[js1138]

Southerners supported states rights because the southern states would vote to allow slave owners to keep their 'property'.

They did, of course, have the Bible on their side, as anyone who grew up in the South knows.

[Junior]

A 30-tonne, white, single-celled critter... I can see it.

[b_sharp]

"But, you know, they're the same goat. Mr. Earless can marry Ms. Earful and they'll have kids."

They are still different species.

"Are these bacteria a new species? It's kind of hard to define such a thing when you only have one cell going on."

That depends on whether you use the definition of species that science uses, or the definition creationists use.

[Mamzelle]

re: "But, you know, they're the same goat. Mr. Earless can marry Ms. Earful and they'll have kids." They are still different species.)))

Really? A goat bred for the alpine is a different species than a goat bred for the delta of India? Dairyists think differently. Are you an evo-promoter, then?

I guess I'll tell my spaniel to stop crying over that hussy of a poodle. They're different species.

[BedRock]

O.K., you stated:

2. The theory of evolution does not address origins of life (our Creator). So it specifically has nothing to do with human rights under the Constitution or how or why they are "endowed."

And I say to that, "That is pure hogwash."

Darwin most certainly DID comment on the "Origins of Life". In fact, in the first edition of "The Origin of Species" he stated quite clearly the following:

Chapter XIV,

...Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the

CHAP. XIV. CONCLUSION.489

first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.

...It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external con-

490 CONCLUSION. CHAP. XIV.

ditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms.

...There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

How dare Darwin, the author of the theory of evolution itself, suggest the involvement of one greater than science itself as the causation of the existence of life on this planet!

[Junior]

Behold our Designer!

[Vive ut Vivas]

If we are not designed, then we, by definition, have no purpose. A thing that has no purpose has no intrinsic value.

Not seeing the logic there.

[Mamzelle]

re: That depends on whether you use the definition of species that science uses, or the definition creationists use.)))

Now this is a revelation to me, and I hope you'll expound.

It was heretofore my assumption that one defining, and really inarguable, feature of what constitutes a species (at least a species that requires sexual reproduction, not a one-cell creature)is that cross-breeding of two identifiably seperate species would not result in fertile offspring, if offspring at all. I would call the goats in my example breeds, as a farmer would, not species. Holstein vs. Jersey...etc.

You say, it is not so?

Back to getting my goat expample...are you saying that the Arctic goat and the Nubian (it's the Nubian with the long ears and the rich cream) have their own latinized names of genus and species? Goatus Earless, and Goatus Earful?

[Junior]

Amen. Raw diamonds are not designed, but they have great intrinsic value.

[Vive ut Vivas]

Most of what is taught in astronomy can be called science. Most of what is taught on evolution is not.

I see no difference. I want to know why you accept the evidence in astronomy but not biology. I'm baffled.

[Gumlegs]

The book is not titled “The Origin of Life.” As you point out, Darwin credits the origin of life to a Creator, which ought to make you feel better about the whole thing. But creation is outside the theory, no matter how devoutly you wish it were part of it.

The phrase about “their Creator” is in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration does not have the force of law; our government is based on the Constitution, so unless you’re worried that the theory of evolution will repeal the Declaration of Independence and make us part of England again, what’s your problem?

[gridlock]

Are you really citing as proof of God the fact that you really, really want Him to exist so you can feel better about your rights?

No, I am more suggesting that the people who are so all fired up about proving that God does not exist have motivations of their own, not necessarily benign.

[Mamzelle]

re: not exist have motivations of their own, not necessarily benign.

Looks a little like a turf war, doesn't it? Like the pro-evos should not be required to answer questions?

[gridlock]

Looks a little like a turf war, doesn't it? Like the pro-evos should not be required to answer questions?

Well, of course not. They have the (lack of) God on their side...

[b_sharp]

"Really? A goat bred for the alpine is a different species than a goat bred for the delta of India? Dairyists think differently. Are you an evo-promoter, then? "

Give me the full genus, species and subspecies names of both and I'll be able to answer that.

"I guess I'll tell my spaniel to stop crying over that hussy of a poodle. They're different species.

So far different breeds of dogs are still considered different sub species.

[longshadow]

"Touched by His Noodly Appendage" placemarker.

"You are truly blessed." placemarker