Posted on 10/18/2005 9:31:08 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The Harrisburg courtroom was packed yesterday with reporters and members of the public who came to see the second half of Dover's intelligent design trial.
The defense began presenting its case by calling its star witness -- Lehigh University professor, biochemist and top intelligent design scientist Michael Behe.
Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise started the questioning in a simple format, asking, for example, if Behe had an opinion about whether intelligent design is creationism. Then he asked Behe to explain why.
Behe said intelligent design is not creationism, but
a scientific theory that makes scientific claims that can be tested for accuracy.
Behe testified that intelligent designdoesn't require a supernatural creator, but an intelligent designer: it does not name the designer.
He said evolution is not a fact and there are gaps in the theory that can be explained by intelligent design.
There is evidence that some living things were purposefully arranged by a designer, Behe claimed in his testimony.
Gave examples: One example is the bacterial flagellum, the tail of a bacteria that quickly rotates like an outboard motor, he said.
The bacterial flagellum could not have slowly evolved piece by piece as Charles Darwin posited because if even one part of the bacteria is removed, it no longer serves its original function, Behe said.
Biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth Miller testified for the parents about two weeks ago. He showed the courtroom diagrams on a large screen, detailing how the bacterial flagellum could be reduced and still work.
Also showing diagrams, Behe said Miller was mistaken and used much of his testimony in an attempt to debunk Miller's testimony.
Miller was wrong when he said that intelligent design proponents don't have evidence to support intelligent design so they degrade the theory of evolution, Behe said.
But Behe also said evolution fails to answer questions about the transcription on DNA, the "structure and function of ribosomes," new protein interactions and the human immune system, among others.
By late in the afternoon, Behe was supporting his arguments with complex, detailed charts, at one point citing a scientific article titled "The Evolved Galactosidase System as a Model for Studying Acquisitive Evolution in the Laboratory."
Most of the pens in the jury box -- where the media is stationed in the absence of a jury -- stopped moving. Some members of the public had quizzical expressions on their faces.
One of the parents' attorneys made mention of the in-depth subject matter, causing Muise to draw reference to Miller's earlier testimony.
He said the courtroom went from "Biology 101" to "Advanced Biology."
"This is what you get," Muise said.
Board responds: Randy Tomasacci, a schoolboard member with a Luzerne County school district, said he was impressed with Behe's testimony.
Tomasacci represents Northwest Area School District in Shickshinny, a board that is watching the Dover trial and is contemplating adopting an intelligent design policy.
"We're going to see what happens in this case," he said.
Some of his fellow board members are afraid of getting sued, Tomasacci said.
Tomasacci's friend, Lynn Appleman, said he supports Dover's school board.
He said he thought Behe was "doing a good job" during testimony, but "it can get over my head pretty quick."
Former professor Gene Chavez, a Harrisburg resident, said he came to watch part of the proceedings because the case is "monumental."
He said he had doubts about the effectiveness of Behe's testimony.
"I think he's going to have a hard time supporting what he has concluded," Chavez said. "I think he is using his science background to make a religious leap because it's what he believes."
...until you realize that simple repetition is pointless, and that you're making a claim which is not supported by the facts.
If not random chance, some other force must be behind the design of life as it exists.
Even evolution is not "random chance". Try to keep up.
But in any case, even if you could rule out evolution, that wouldn't suddenly make ID the "other force", as opposed to any other possible "other" explanation.
Exactly. He'll think to himself, "Hey, I'm a smart guy. I can go toe-to-toe and match wits with this guy." The only problem is that Behe'll think they're boxing, but the lawyer will know it's really jiu-jitsu...
It seems to me there are a lot more creationists lining up to deny their creator than there are evolutionists lining up to deny faith.
“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation of your Nietzsche for the non philosophical:
" If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS"
Correct. ID people argue that this particular data set shows evidence of intelligent design.
They keep arguing that, but then they keep failing to actually show how it does.
There could, theoretically, exist data showing otherwise at some other location.
There's plenty of "data showing otherwise". Tons of things in biology don't make such sense from a design standpoint.
Doubtful. No one, except maybe a 1L, would ask that question. The attorney, if he's smart, will hammer away, with a set of yes-or-no questions pointing out every asinine statement and retraction that Behe's ever had. (It should be for a long cross...)
Behe has the distinct disadvantage of being under oath and having a paper trail that would reach to the moon. The problem is to pick the best stuff.
A creationist doesn’t need any physical evidence to understand life’s origins, according to testimony in the Dover trial in Harrisburg this morning.Dover defense testifies
So creationism, Lehigh University biology professor Michael Behe testified in U.S. Middle District Court, is “vastly 180 degrees different from intelligent design.”
Intelligent design makes reasonable inferences based on physical, observable empirical data, he said.
And it remains the best scientific answer to the appearance of design at the molecular level, he said.
Behe’s testimony, in which he is defending the Dover Area School District’s biology curriculum change to include intelligent design, entered the second day this morning.
Dover’s attorney, Robert Muise, asked Behe about methodological naturalism, the element of the scientific method that limits study to natural causes.
Behe said it “hobbles” scientific inquiry.
Science should be an “open, no-holds-barred” struggle to obtain the truth, he said.
His testimony will continue this afternoon.
In other words, science should become philosophy.
You know, RWP, we all talk about pathways because we draw biochemical reactions in a chain from beginning precursors to end products. But there are no "pathways", per se inside a cell, just a pile of catalysts and reactants floating around reacting. The "pathways" thingy just helps us visualize what's happening.
Chemical or biochemical products of cell metabolism don't walk down a path. There may be "helpers" along the way to make sure things are assembled correctly but that hardly constitutes a path.
Creationists invariably fade to black when confronted with an infinite regress.
HARRISBURG — Among scientists, it's an unresolved debate: Which came first, the bacterial flagellum or the type III protein secretion system?Scientist: Design is science
One is an argument for evolutionary theory.
The other supports intelligent design, a science expert said Monday.
For the first time since the trial began in a U.S. Middle District courtroom three weeks ago, a scientist testified that intelligent design is science, one based on a fully testable, falsifiable theory.
Attorneys for Dover Area School District started presenting their case with Michael Behe, the Lehigh University biochemistry professor who came up with the term "irreducible complexity."
In the first nine days of testimony, science experts for the plaintiffs argued that intelligent design was just revamped creationism based on an old premise that life is so complex, it couldn't have evolved without a guiding hand.
But Behe, one of the intelligent design movement's most prominent voices, said they're wrong.
Just as a mouse trap's working parts reveal a designer, design can also be determined in nature by the "purposeful arrangement of parts," Behe said.
"Not being able to explain something is not design," he said.
Behe pointed to the writings of numerous scientists supporting the appearance of design in the universe.
As an example, he referred to Oxford University's Richard Dawkins, who wrote in his book, "The Blind Watchmaker," that "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." But Dawkins was writing about what he considers to be a fallacy in the intelligent design argument. While living creatures may appear designed, most scientists agree they are actually the products of evolution through natural selection and genetic mutation.
Behe spent much of the day trying to refute previous testimony of Brown University biology professor Ken Miller, leadoff hitter for plaintiffs' attorneys on the first day of the trial Sept. 26.
Miller and Behe have debated each other numerous times in public forums. And in his book, "Finding Darwin's God," Miller takes Behe to task for his idea of irreducible complexity.
Behe coined the term for the idea that in order for many organisms to evolve at the cellular level, multiple systems would have had to arise simultaneously. In many cases, he argues, this is a mathematical impossibility.
He uses the bacterial flagellum as an example, arguing that for the propeller-like appendage to move, between 30 and 40 protein parts are needed. Removal of any one of those parts causes the system to stop working — just as a mousetrap depends on all its pieces to operate.
Darwinism's theory of intermediate and incremental evolutionary steps can't explain this, Behe said.
Miller had testified that if 10 of the protein parts were removed, the flagellum would take on a different function, one allowing bacteria to inject poisons into other cells.
Behe disputed Miller's assertion Monday, saying it mischaracterizes his idea.
Essentially, Dover's attorney Richard Muise asked, Miller takes irreducible complexity, applies a different definition, "then claims your concept is incorrect?"
Behe agreed and said that the protein group's different function — in this case a "type III secretion system" — does not discount irreducible complexity.
Miller says the separate purpose is an explanation for how a complex system might have evolved through genetic mutation and natural selection. To illustrate his side of the argument, Miller showed up the first day of the trial wearing a partially disassembled mousetrap as a tie clip. He took it off before taking the stand.
Behe also testified that some scientists question which came first — the bacterial flagellum or the type III secretion system. Behe pointed to references in which some scientists wrote that they believe the flagellum evolved first — which would still leave open the argument that the flagellum needed all its working parts in order before it could function.
"Darwinian theory can live with any results," Behe said. "Then it goes back and tries to rationalize the results post hoc."
IDCists will reify anything they can get their minds wrapped in... I mean around.
All the lawyer has to do is get the evidence contradicting Behe into evidence. It really doesn't matter much what Behe has to say about it. The lawyer can then argue to the judge (who makes the decision) that Behe admits he's virtually alone in his views, he doesn't publish ID research, he's contradicted himself, he's stated more than once that the ID movement has religious motives, etc. This ain't rocket science.
Science should be an “open, no-holds-barred” struggle to obtain the truth, he said.
Let's cut out all that empiricism and get back to the middle ages.
Hmmm. Say you have a muscle actively exercising. You start with glycogen, and turn it into pyruvate. There are around a dozen chemical steps between glycogen and pyruvate, almost all with specific enzymes to catalyse them, and 99% of the glucose units in the glycogen follow those steps in sequence. It may not be a physical pathway, but I think 'pathway' is a valid analogy.
No, but in the heat of an argument it's easy to get distracted from the main point. You just nailed it.
You are assuming that the lawyer possesses such a list.
Of course there is! Now please quit playing (?) stupid. Discussions of this nature would yield much more fruit for everyone involved if people would quit being intentionally dense.
If I ever start doing that, feel free to take me to task for it. Until then...
You'll notice that the purpose of that post was not to declare that evolution was without evidence but rather to illustrate how HIS (not your) argument could be reasoned around.
And *you'll* notice that I was agreeing with you.
Please read within context from now on.
Okey dokey.
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