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.
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."
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.