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 thought things were slow when I did a duplicate 1:50 minutes apart.
Are we overloading the system here, or what? (I bet its Ichny that's doing it!).
LOL
So funny! LOL, ROFL
I would have to check but I don't think that ID requires it to be supernatural. I don't know why the creos back a group that believes in the possibility of evolution via a non-supernatural power.
What significance does the ability to understand complexity have?
Hey, I was out near Area 51 trying to understand the significance of "42" and this sounds so hilarious. Isn't the brain just the tip of an iceberg? How does natural selection with random variations fit in? What does natural selection with random variation mean?
I would think that an 'unknown designer' would pretty much have to be supernatural. If evolutionists concede that the origin of life might have supernatural roots, there is no reason to doubt that ID or creation can have supernatural roots.
>I just dealt out 52 playing cards: [snip] Wow! What are the odds of that happening ...No, that's only 1 in 1068, or something in that neighborhood. It's well below the Universal Probability Bound. Deal out 3 decks of cards and then you'll have a miracle. ;-)The odds are 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 to 1. It's a miracle!!
Que mier.. es:
"to be or not to be that is the question"
Entiendo nada.
If you insist:
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Thank yew, Thank yew.
Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Anything!
Try the veal.
Newton's theory is a big piece of bull****.
You can't explain why the sun is shining.
There's a question needing to be attended to in that exchange and it may be multipart. 1. is Hageman replaced in the two instances cited by some other modality? 2. Clotting may ocurr; but, to the extent it does absent Hageman, what is the loss that isn't accounted for? Hageman obviously provides some mechanism involved in clotting or it wouldn't be part of the discussion. So the fact that hageman plays no role in clotting elsewhere doesn't seem to discount whether it would make the same mechanism fail where it is included if it is absent.
I don't understand this because I'm not a biologist. I have no problem admitting this. But, this seems to be a gotcha in that Behe doesn't have before him all the relevant data needed to properly answer the posed questioning IMO. To the extent that Miller made a viable point, it doesn't undo irreduceable complexity. It merely takes clotting off the table as an example of it. I wouldn't grant that.
Given the mechanism "clotting", the question arises, how does the body know that clotting exists as an option. How does the body understand it, call upon it and direct it. Orville and Wilbur Wright, who I love to invoke, may have proved flight. But absent understanding of the machine - heck even understanding it, some of the best pilots on the planet have a hard time controlling the Wright flyer and getting it off the ground, much less flying it. The existance of the system doesn't explain how it becomes useful when, no matter how hard one thinks about causing a clot to occur in the body, one cannot make a clot by thinking about it.
This would seem to put clotting into an immense list of things done by the body which are never needed to be thought about - similar to breathing. You don't have to think about breathing. From moment 1, you don't have to think about doing it. It's automatic. How does that happen. If all of these things are undirected, how do these things seem to know what is required of them? It defies logic.
That, is without a doubt, beautiful. I won't comment on how it plays into the debate. It's just beautiful. I've never seen one blown up to that size before. Thanks for posting.
I meant He must think we are all so self-assured that our position is right but He knows how He created everything and we don't. At some point everyone will know if God exists or not. It won't always be a mystery.
I think the fact that you do no understand this is strong indication that you do not understand evolution at all, and have little understanding of what biologists do or how science thinks.
No one can say life couldn't have begun via intelligent design. What science would say is that you cannot settle this by looking at structures. You actually have to look at the process of change, study it, take it apart and rebuild it before you can say what can happen naturally and what can't. There is no precedent in science for assuming anything other than natural causes, and there is no reason to make any other assumption in biology.
Science is about ideas that lead to further investigation. That is the only real test of an idea in science -- its productivity.
I think you miss the point. I was interested in the answers, not in the politics of it. I understand it's Behe's argument and he "should have been" prepared for any number of things.
It seems, though, that he was put on the spot using data he wasn't aware of. Absent a context to review it for accuracy, I'm not sure a proper or fair answer can be given. If you aren't concerned with accuracy; but, merely for a seeming upper hand, then who won? That is my point. Who is right or wrong is irrelevant next to the truth of it all. If the truth doesn't get a fair hearing, then it's a worthless enterprise.
As as to my second question, you didn't really answer it. You say the function is still there; but what does that mean. Is it clotting in the usual sense - in that everything normally involved in clotting is present, or does it work differently somehow in absence of Hageman. I'm asking that question specifically for a reason. I think you know what that reason is.
Lastly, my opinion of how a moustrap should work is irrelevant to the way it does work. A mouse trap, btw, is called a mouse "trap" because it isn't necessarily meant to advertise itself as a mouse "death chamber". It is meant to "trap" the mouse. It may also kill it; but, trapping it so it can be dealt with is the intent. With that in mind, I'd leave the dimensions up to what has proven to work..
You can play semantics if that is your intent; but, the trap defined by Behe in argument is a trap anyone can purchase at a local store and examine/experiment with themselves. When you remove any of the requisite parts, the whole thing fails to serve it's function.
Behe has merely stated the obvious, IMO. It's like looking at a car - remove the wheels and it may not cease being a car. It may indeed run; but, it isn't going anywhere. And as it's reason for existing at all is to be a mode of conveyance - not conveying renders it inoperative for practical purposes. No amount of semantics can skirt this happenstance.
1. The majority of the Bible has to do with sin, disrepair, exposure and forced repair. The creation part is a tiny part of it. It is fact that sin would cause mnakind to be extinct by now because no one wants to admit weaknesses and all cheat. This is something sorely missing on all evolution and ID discussions.
2. ID is explainable in through chaos theory and strange attractors. Evolution does not even go there and acknowledge strange attractors in nature. Every evolving creature follows a strange attractor pattern. for illustration, a fir tree will grow in symmetrical like macroscopic order within microscopic disorder like growth, but also change branch direction for maximum sunlight exposure. Small chaotic evolutionary steps cannot get anywhere without some strange attractor making the macroscopic evolution itself orderly and survivable. The example of the flagele working on the cell in this article is typical exposition of the need and existence of strange attractors in nature.
Scientists supposedly follow science and not guilt, but this is a lie. If evolution worked on them "scientificaly" and someone somehow did not cheat for them when being raised, they would have never become scientists.
The only reason for evolutionists' bashing religious, ethical and morality looks into science is to expound on themselves and make themselves worshiped beyond what they are. Scientific untidiness is nothing compared to moral untidiness.
Scientific untidiness is nothing compared to moral untidiness. The latter cannot be fixed easily.
Ironicaly "scientists" (Darwinist cultists, really, and not Darwin/evolution science exposers) make a moral argument in favor of science and evolution, while ID people make a near scientific argument in favor of morality: babelian deaf and dumb dialogue, but at least ID people try to steer away from trying to make a religious conclusion as a goal. So what is the inquisition about? Seem to me the so called scientific camp is more guilty of making a moral argument in favor of a scientific finding than ID people doing the opposite!
Let truth be exposed, however, and people will use accordingly?
But when we have to justify tax payers money for government school....this really becomes an issue of bogus government funding of which ID and Evolution/Darwinist cult illicit funding are a drop in the bucket compared to "gays are cool, kill Jesus" classes.
Card encryption? Cool. I learn something from you every day, it seems.
It's like looking at a car - remove the wheels and it may not cease being a car. It may indeed run; but, it isn't going anywhere. And as it's reason for existing at all is to be a mode of conveyance - not conveying renders it inoperative for practical purposes. No amount of semantics can skirt this happenstance.
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