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."
I'm beginning to think it's not a question of "more". PH spends too much time wallowing in ID and CS.
Well, I guess since we are designed and created, he doesn't need any, so maybe it's OK.
SETI is looking for a specific thing, a narrow band carrier. There is a theory behind the search -- a theory of how an alien race might communicate.
If ID is willing to make a similar hypothesis about the methods and motives of the designer -- a conjecture about something the designer would do that is not expected by natural selection -- then ID would at least have something to test.
It's pretty useless to look at something that has already happened and calculate the odds of it happening. I'm sure if you calculated the odds of your parents being conceived -- the exact time of conception, the exact paring of gametes -- then factor in the odds of their growing up and meeting and conceiving you, the odds would be astronomical.
It makes no sense to try to calculate the odds of things happening after they've happened.
If you want to do science, predict something.
More than probable. He takes it for granted. If you want to participate in this thread, go back and catch up. You are repeating things.
"I thought they often were wrapped in a vesicle and "tagged" for transport to specific destinations."
Could you restate this using biological terminology, because I'm scratching and I don't have much hair left.
So that's why my wife kept repeating the other night, "Come, you're Stalin, you're Stalin"
I predict that if you draw ping pong ball out of the vessel as described in #246, your result will be gibberish unless you intentionally design the answer.
Check out genetic programming. Don't give examples of things that don't model evolution.
Now, either give me and example from biloogy or shut up.
Last chance before permanant ignore.
Is this principle part of natural laws? If not, is it supernatural? Otherwise, does it modify Earth bound DNA? Is it part of our DNA? Is it a result of the evolutionary process? What is this self organizing intelligence?
If this intelligence or the principle itself is a naturally occurring phenomena, then there is no need to replace methodological naturalism. If the supernatural is not part of ID (as it is being described in the attempt to insert it into education) then why the desire of Behe, Dembski and especially Johnson to replace methodological naturalism (materialism)? If it is part of nature then methodological naturalism would be quite enough to discover and analyze this intelligent design. This push by DI sounds like they expect the designer to be suernatureal.
Isn't biloogy a kind of whale?
Look, I haven't taken the time yet to take on you folks in a big argument about evolution. But here's my takeaway about Behe from reading his book:
- The living cell is amazing. It's more complicated than anyone had every imagined. The book offered me an intro to biochemistry, and it was fascinating.
- If he's a charlatan and fake, he's done a great job. The material comes across as credible and clearly written.
- I really don't understand why the choice to explain the origin of the living cell have to be:
- evolution
- intelligent design by who or what we don't know
- direct miracles from God that cannot be explained
Why can't an option just be....
- we don't know yet?
I really don't get why we have to accept evolution has to be the answer for biochemical origins IF it doesn't offer enough evidence, explanatory power, or useful predictive power for advances in science.
Now, I really haven't read enough from both sides to know if indeed Darwinism and evolution fully explains the living cell with lots of evidence and experimentation. But Behe's book offers a lot of intriguing challenges.
-- Joe
B) Be nice, we're all just treading water on this thread until the special prosecutor in New York does something anyway.
Agreed and False.
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, ...
I just dealt out 52 playing cards:
J-Clubs, K-Diamonds, 7-Spades, Q-Hearts A-Clubs, 2-Hearts, 9-Clubs, 3-Hearts A-Hearts, 3-Spades, 10-Hearts, K-Spades 3-Diamonds, 2-Diamonds, Q-Spades, 7-Clubs 4-Clubs, J-Hearts, 5-Hearts, 10-Diamonds 8-Spades, 6-Hearts, 9-Diamonds, Q-Clubs Q-Diamonds, 6-Clubs, 8-Hearts, 2-Spades 9-Spades, 8-Clubs, 4-Hearts, J-Spades 3-Clubs, 5-Spades, J-Diamonds, A-Diamonds 10-Clubs, 7-Hearts, 2-Clubs, 4-Diamonds 6-Diamonds, 6-Spades, K-Clubs, 8-Diamonds 5-Clubs, 9-Hearts, A-Spades, 4-Spades 10-Spades, 5-Diamonds, 7-Diamonds, K-HeartsWow! What are the odds of that happening ...
Have you told Kathy and Connie?
( They'll be so disappointed ...)
In what sense? If you have your monitor set to display a maximum of 256 colors, it might mangle the image enough that it wouldn't have the usual effect. But the optical illusions aren't dependent upon being shown on a computer monitor. You could print them out and the paper version should produce the same results, if the printer produced the intensities reasonably well.
I'd be willing to bet your designed traits are borrowed from ones designed by evolution and transferred to another species.
It does not matter whether the removal of any portion of a complex system in biology results in a non-functioning system. Irreducible complexity is nothing but a red herring, designed to fool the uneducated, unwary and illogical.
What is important is whether the system could be arrived at through cumulative changes in feature and in function. It is also up to those that say it is impossible to show why it is impossible. To say that it must be impossible because it looks impossible just does not cut it. Many things once thought impossible were later shown to be more than possible after sufficient knowledge and technology was acquired.
mi speling wnt blooey.
Have someone else attach a significance to each card and then repeat the process. If the new result remains gibberish, the draw was most likely random; if there is an objective message in the draw, the result was likely not random.
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