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."
What the heck is a necessary pattern? Give me an example from biology.
It's hard to tell whether Behe does this through ignorance or willful dishonesty
It's sometimes a psychologically internal temporarily blissful symbiotic relationship.
It's generally accepted that spacetime can be multiply connected and that GR does not rule out time-like loops. One can conceive (vaguely I admit) of a future civilization that discovers a "time machine" and goes back to seed the early earth with life.
"Reminds me of sex."
You need to get out more often.
Behe didn't throw it away; he sold it.
I'm neither a mathemetician nor a biologist, but it is the occurence of an event that is both ordered and hugely unlikely to occur. Thus, for instance, if I were to place 27 ping pong balls in a vessel, 26 of them with a different letter of the alphabet and the 27th blank, withdrew one at a time, wrote down the letter on a piece of paper and, after 39 draws the told you that that the letters drawn spelled out: "to be or not to be that is the question", you could reasonably infer that my draw was not random.
Works for me. I wonder how it will go over with Judge Badfrog.
How much of these squiggly things depends on the pixels of your monitor?
I guess they should spend more time thinking than wishing.
Take a piece of foil (or other opaque stuff and punch a hole in it. Now check out A and B. Yup, they're the same. Surprising
I've been playing on these threads for several years, and I know from observation that there are only two issues that concern most freepers -- common descent and the age of the earth.Depending on your definition of common descent, I could very well be one.
I have been asking for a couple months now and have not been able to get a single freeper ID advocate to agree with Behe on these two points. - js1138
Assuming Behe actually takes such a position, I would disagree with him. If he does take such a position, it is hardly distinguishable from Darwinian evolution....
203 posted on 10/18/2005 2:29:13 PM PDT by connectthedots
Well that didn't last long
Every possible sequence in your random drawing is equally likely.
But evolution doesn't have a specified direction or goal, so you example is irrelevant.
In case you haven't noticed, your "necessary pattern" is indistinguishable from irreducible complexity, which is what we've been discussing. Go back a hundred posts or so and see why this is a useless concept.
You need to get out more often.
I think you meant to say: "You need to get more more often."
I could get rich betting against any freeper ID advocate being willing to accept Behe's position on common descent and age of the earth. Haven't seen one yet.
So we will have designed ourselves?
LOL
This 'useless concept" is exactly the concept applied by NASA in its SETI project. Whether it will find what NASA is looking for is open to serious disagreement, but its effectiveness as a filter is not.
I refuse to believe in sex (which is only a theory), until I know the origin of everything.
</creationism mode>
Behe believes the earth is ancient and common descent probable.
We all sell it in one way or another to make a living. It's the dishonesty that makes his case so egregious. As I said "shame" of the worst Asian type.
I thought they often were wrapped in a vesicle and "tagged" for transport to specific destinations.
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