Intelligent Design 101: Short on science, long on snake oil

The Minnesota Daily ^ | 10/11/2005 | James Curtsinger

[Right Wing Professor]

The irreducibly complex teeters on the verge of reduction. None of these difficulties were mentioned.

Good morning, class. As you know, the local school board has decided that we must include “Intelligent Design” in high school biology, so let’s start with the work of Dr. Michael Behe, ID’s leading scientist. Dr. Behe, a professor of biochemistry, visited the U last week as a guest of the MacLaurin Institute. I spoke with him at lunch, attended his public lecture and took notes for today’s class.

Dr. Behe opened his public lecture by showing two images: a mountain range and Mount Rushmore.

One had a designer; the other didn’t. In case anyone was uncertain which was which, Dr. Behe also showed a duck, and emphasized that if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.

Ergo if something in biology looks designed, it is designed.

He reviewed “irreducible complexity,” the important notion that certain structures with intricately interacting parts cannot function if any part is removed. According to Dr. Behe, such structures could not evolve gradually, as standard Darwinian Theory supposes; they must be the handiwork of a designer.

Well-known examples include mousetraps, the blood-clotting cascade, the vertebrate immune system and the bacterial flagellum. All of this was covered in his 1996 book, “Darwin’s Black Box.” Dr. Behe spent quite a bit of time talking about reviews of his book, and his responses to reviews.

Surprisingly, he had nothing to say about new developments in ID. Surely this revolutionary approach to biology has produced important scientific insights in the last nine years. Let’s use the Web to discover what they are.

Use Google to find “Entrez PubMed,” which will take you to a database of 15 million peer-reviewed publications in the primary scientific literature. The site, maintained by the National Library of Medicine, allows users to enter a search term and retrieve references to relevant publications.

For instance, enter “natural selection” in the search box and click “go”; about 14,000 references will be found. “Mutation” gets 40,000. “Speciation” gets 5,000. “Human origins” gets 22,000. “Behe intelligent design” gets … zero.

Not one publication in PubMed contains the terms “Behe,” “intelligent,” and “design.” The same holds for “Behe irreducible complexity.” A less restrictive search for “intelligent design” finds 400 papers, but many are not relevant because the words are common in other contexts.

To get more useful information, enter “intelligent design” in quotation marks, which searches for the two words together. When I searched last week, this produced 25 references, of which 13 were irrelevant to this discussion, five were news articles, six were critical of ID, and one was a historical review. “Irreducible complexity” in quotes gets five hits, one irrelevant and the others critical of ID.

Exact numbers change daily as new publications are added to the database, but the pattern is clear. Where are the scientific papers supporting ID?

Perhaps Dr. Behe publishes research papers that support intelligent design without using those terms. Searching PubMed for “Behe MJ” and sorting the results by date, you will find 11 publications since 1992, when the good professor converted to his new Ideology. Several are just letters to the editor.

The most recent (Behe and Snoke, 2004 and 2005) suggest that certain events in molecular evolution have low probability of occurrence.

This falls far short of the claim that a designer must have intervened, but what the heck, let’s put all 11 in the ID column.

Under these rather generous assumptions, ID’s leading light has produced fewer than a dozen peer-reviewed papers for the cause, none of which explicitly mentions ID. That number is substantially less than PubMed finds for “voodoo” (78), and pales in comparison with “diaper rash” (475).

Perhaps when the number of supporting publications rises to the level of “horse feces” (929) the professional community will grant ID some respect.

Cynics will suggest that ID is intentionally excluded from the peer-reviewed literature. It’s possible; the system strives for objectivity, but any human endeavor is potentially subject to bias.

This argument fails, however, when we consider that other revolutionary ideas have successfully crashed the party. Plate tectonics, major meteoritic impacts, and the bacterial origin of mitochondria are important ideas that were initially regarded with skepticism but are now accepted by the professional community.

Non-Darwinian molecular evolution, so-called “neutral theory,” was despised when it was first proposed in the late 1960s, but within a decade it became a standard part of the literature.

The historical evidence suggests that scientists can be persuaded to new views, given appropriate evidence. The primary literature is particular, but not rigid.

While you’re at PubMed, try searching for “bacterial flagella secretion.” One of the resulting papers, by SI Aizawa (2001), reports that some nasty bacteria possess a molecular pump, called a type III secretion system, or TTSS, that injects toxins across cell membranes.

Much to Dr. Behe’s distress, the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum. That’s right, a part of the supposedly irreducible bacterial “outboard motor” has a biological function!

When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct (I have witnesses). He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.

His response might seem like a minor concession, but is very significant. The old meaning of irreducible complexity was, “It doesn’t have any function when a part is removed.” Evidently, the new meaning of irreducible complexity is “It doesn’t have the same function when a part is removed.”

The new definition renders irreducible complexity irrelevant to evolution, because complex adaptations are widely thought to have evolved through natural selection co-opting existing structures for new functions, in opportunistic fashion.

The story is incomplete, but it is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that the bacterial flagellum evolved first as a secretory system, and later was adapted by natural selection for locomotion.

This scenario for gradual evolution of a complex molecular machine is bolstered by recent reports that some bacterial flagella do, in fact, have a secretory function (and now you know how to find those papers).

The irreducibly complex teeters on the verge of reduction. None of these difficulties were mentioned in the public lecture.

It seems that a new image should be added to Dr. Behe’s public presentation, one that represents the scientific status of intelligent design: a duck on its back, feet in the air, wings splayed.

If it looks like a dead duck, and it smells like a dead duck, it is a dead duck.

James Curtsinger is a University professor in the department of ecology, evolution and behavior. Please send comments to letters@mndaily.com.

[Elpasser]

It always amazes me that conservatives who are rightfully skeptical about "political correctness," "diversity," global warming, and other ideological crap so readily swallow evolution.

If they applied the same skepticism to evolution and discovered the evangelical atheism at its core, they would be appalled to see that the emperor has no clothes.

To believe that something comes from nothing, or that the first cell "organized" itself from chaos, is remarkably naive and uninformed.

I wonder what adherents to such nonsense will have to say for themselves when they stand, devastated, in the presence of an Eternal God who will ask, "I gave you a brain. Why didn't you think for yourself?."

As sure as the Fourth of July, that day is coming for all of us.

[untrained skeptic]

"so let’s start with the work of Dr. Michael Behe, ID’s leading scientist. Dr. Behe, a professor of biochemistry"

Since when do broad theories that have been considered over recorded history have "leading scientists"? Who nominates them to be leading scientists? Journalists who are trying to say they aren't scientists?

"Ergo if something in biology looks designed, it is designed."

Oversimplify, then attack, garbage journalism.

"He reviewed “irreducible complexity,” the important notion that certain structures with intricately interacting parts cannot function if any part is removed. According to Dr. Behe, such structures could not evolve gradually, as standard Darwinian Theory supposes; they must be the handiwork of a designer."

Must be denotes proof. Intelligent design and Darwin's theory of evolution are both unproven. His assertions are merely supporting evidence, not proof. The author is holding the Theory of Evolution and ID to different standards and then discounting ID because it's not proven.

" Surprisingly, he had nothing to say about new developments in ID. Surely this revolutionary approach to biology has produced important scientific insights in the last nine years. Let’s use the Web to discover what they are.

Use Google to find “Entrez PubMed,” which will take you to a database of 15 million peer-reviewed publications in the primary scientific literature. The site, maintained by the National Library of Medicine, allows users to enter a search term and retrieve references to relevant publications."

Considering that with a quick search of that site I found an article titled "Was Darwin a creationist?" from Indiana University-Purdue University, I don't think he bothered searching ver hard.

Why search for “Behe intelligent design”, he's not the only person who's researched the subject, nor is all the research going to specificly mention the term intelligent design.

To get more useful information, enter “intelligent design” in quotation marks, which searches for the two words together. When I searched last week, this produced 25 references.

If I put in "Darwin evloution" you get 481 hits, and I would expect that Darwin is much more famous than Dr. Behe.

"Exact numbers change daily as new publications are added to the database, but the pattern is clear. Where are the scientific papers supporting ID?"

The biggest clue is that rather than search more general sites, the author chooses to search the National Library of Medicine. You can always effect the results by choosing where you look. The medical community is looking for things they can directly apply, and ID doesn't help them much in that area.

" The most recent (Behe and Snoke, 2004 and 2005) suggest that certain events in molecular evolution have low probability of occurrence.

This falls far short of the claim that a designer must have intervened, but what the heck, let’s put all 11 in the ID column."

Back to the bogus argument of the evidence not PROVING ID. There's not evidence PROVING the theory of evolution either.

I quit reading at this point. The author is either incompetent, or just interested in making petty attacks.

[Junior]

The CrevoSci Archive Just one of the many services of Darwin Central "The Conspiracy that Cares"

• PatrickHenry's famous List-O-Links

CrevoSci threads for the past week:

1. 2005-10-12 Camden tool could be 5,000 years old
2. 2005-10-12 Can an Electron be in Two Places at the Same Time?
3. 2005-10-12 Challenge to Biological Evolution: Convergence
4. 2005-10-12 Dover science teacher testifies [Evolution trial, thread for 12 Oct]
5. 2005-10-12 Intelligent Design 101: Short on science, long on snake oil
6. 2005-10-12 Intelligent Design Debate Brews
7. 2005-10-11 Anthropologists Uncover Ancient Jawbone
8. 2005-10-11 Creationism Is Evolving... It Has No Choice
9. 2005-10-11 Dinosaur-Bird Flap Ruffles Feathers
10. 2005-10-11 Don’t settle for separate but equal (Dover trial Darwinists, are 'absurd' says YDR Editor)
11. 2005-10-11 More bones of hobbit-sized humans discovered
12. 2005-10-11 Warnings from the Ivory Towers
13. 2005-10-10 Backward, Christian Soldiers! (Intel-Design supporters equivalent to 'Holocaust Deniers')
14. 2005-10-10 Creationism concerns shadow Florida's new top educator
15. 2005-10-10 Did feathered dinosaurs exist?
16. 2005-10-10 EUGENICS - From Darwinism to Population Control
17. 2005-10-10 Intelligent design's big ambitions - Advocates want much more than textbooks.
18. 2005-10-10 Killer Findings: Scientists Piece Together 1918-Flu Virus
19. 2005-10-10 Latest Study: Scientists Say No Evidence Exists
20. 2005-10-09 Evolution of faith
21. 2005-10-09 Gov. Bush [Florida] oddly evasive on evolution
22. 2005-10-09 Putting Relativity To The Test, NASA's Gravity Probe B To Reveale If Einstein Was Right
23. 2005-10-08 Famed author takes on Kansas: Rushdie bemoans role of religion in public life
24. 2005-10-07 Descent of Man in Dover (Why acceptance of ID not inevitable.)
25. 2005-10-07 Discovery Institute's “Wedge Document” How Darwinist Paranoia Fueled an Urban Legend
26. 2005-10-07 Dover, PA Evolution Trial [daily thread for 07 Oct]
27. 2005-10-07 Evolution and intelligent design Life is a cup of tea
28. 2005-10-07 Let 'intelligent design' and science rumble
29. 2005-10-07 The Las Cruces Fossil Human Footprints
30. 2005-10-07 The Map that Changed the World [in 1815]
31. 2005-10-07 University of Idaho Bans All Alternatives to Evolution
32. 2005-10-07 Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
33. 2005-10-06 Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard Sternberg
34. 2005-10-06 Scientist defends Big Bang and God
35. 2005-10-06 Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon (quote below is the most significant item)
36. 2005-10-06 The Mouth of the South Side (Carl Everett on Gays, Evolution, Bush and Kanye West)
37. 2005-10-06 U of I president:teach only evolution in {University}science classes (Connection to PA court fight)
38. 2005-10-06 Witness: 'Design' Replaced 'Creation'
39. 2005-10-06 Witness: Movement's roots in creationism (Dover trial 10/6/05)

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CrevoSci Warrior Freepdays for the month of October:
 

2003-10-09 antiRepublicrat 2004-10-10 Antonello 1998-10-18 AZLiberty 1999-10-14 blam 2000-10-19 cogitator 2001-10-21 Coyoteman 2004-10-26 curiosity 1998-10-29 Dataman 2000-10-29 dila813 2005-10-07 Dinobot

2001-10-14 dread78645 1998-10-03 Elsie 1998-10-17 f.Christian 2002-10-08 FairOpinion 2001-10-26 Genesis defender 2000-10-09 Gil4 2000-10-08 guitarist 2004-10-10 joeclarke 1998-10-03 js1138 2001-10-24 k2blader

2000-10-08 LibWhacker 2002-10-25 m1-lightning 2001-10-10 Michael_Michaelangelo 2001-10-09 Mother Abigail 2004-10-25 MRMEAN 2004-10-03 Nicholas Conradin 1999-10-28 PatrickHenry 1998-10-01 Physicist 1998-10-25 plain talk

1998-10-12 Restorer 2005-10-04 ret_medic 2001-10-23 RightWingNilla 2004-10-09 snarks_when_bored 1998-10-04 Southack 2002-10-22 sumocide 2004-10-21 WildHorseCrash 2001-10-23 yankeedame 2002-10-20 Z in Oregon

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In Memoriam
Fallen CrevoSci Warriors:

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ALS Area Freeper Aric2000 Askel5 bluepistolero churchillbuff ConservababeJen DittoJed2 dob Ed Current

f.Christian followerofchrist general_re goodseedhomeschool gopwinsin04 gore3000 Jedigirl JesseShurun Kevin Curry kharaku

Le-Roy Marathon medved metacognative Modernman NoKinToMonkeys Ogmios peg the prophet Phaedrus Phoroneus

pickemuphere ret_medic RickyJ SeaLion Selkie Shubi Tomax tpaine WaveThatFlag xm177e2

Bring back Modernman and SeaLion!

[conservativebabe]

Just read it, thanks.

[squarebarb]

LOL!!

[Elpasser]

Englishmen and Americans are semantical, not biological, distinctions. Next example please...

[notfornothing]

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

I tend to see this whole debate as one pretty big misunderstanding. From my layman's perspective I think that once people realize that biology and cosmology are two separate things, there's really not a whole lot to argue about.

[highball]

But, that completely obliterates the belief that God created man in his image, Adam.

I know that sounds probably silly to most, but that is how I was raised.

Is there any way to account for or explain that? Or is that just strict religious belief?

Well, I'm reluctant to get into such a personal realm. You will have to find a way to reconcile the fact of evolution with whatever beliefs you hold.

[conservativebabe]

If you read any of this thread at all, you would see that I have been made out to be stupid for asking questions.

I am trying to reconcile my faith with these theories and am not inclined to take either one as fact.

As usual, anyone who goes on faith alone must be dumb. And I always thought that was a liberal mind set, guess not.

[conservativebabe]

True, but I will need to do a lot more study to accept evolution as fact.

[js1138]

No soup for you, james!

[Physicist]

Englishmen and Americans are semantical, not biological, distinctions.

Ah, so there are Englishmen today because enough Americans "hopped the pond" in the interim to replace that extinguished population. Got it.

[highball]

True, but I will need to do a lot more study to accept evolution as fact.

That's fine - it's pretty complicated stuff.

There's enough evidence to support evolution that I'm confident anyone approaching it with an open mind will eventually have to accept it as scientific fact.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Have you ever had a scientist put forth any scenario of what was before matter???

Yes. Big bang theory talks about the events that led from the big bang up to the precipitation of matter.

Scenarios prior to the big bang are called speculation.

However, cosmology is not a branch of evolutionary biology.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

As usual, anyone who goes on faith alone must be dumb.

My wife says I'm dumb, but it has nothing to do with our faith. ;)

[Zhangliqun]

"...you have to accept either that matter always existed or that God always existed."

No, you don't.

What's the 3rd option?

[AntiGuv]

Obviously that at some past time neither existed.

[jennyp]

If-I-am-descended-from-Alabamans-then-why-is-there-still-an-Alabama PLACEMARKER.

[RightWhale]

To believe that something comes from nothing, or that the first cell "organized" itself from chaos

Has nothing to do with evolution, even though it has been claimed as having something to do with evolution thousands of time on FR.

[cynicom]

Big bang was explosion of matter.