[connectthedots]

But common descent means to a biologist that all the complex, multicelled, sexually reproducing organisms share a common lineage, a single family tree. Agree or disagree? Behe takes these things for granted.

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. If so, why all the hate directed toward Behe?

[cliff630]

Didn''t some person use the argument of finding a ticking watch to question randomness?

And then,someone else tried to top that by asking what was the chance of a tornaado hitting a junkyard and turning the junk into a 747.

Isn't the brain and its ability to comprhend its own complexity a stretch to say "natural selection with random variations"?

[js1138]

If he does take such a position, it is hardly distinguishable from Darwinian evolution. If so, why all the hate directed toward Behe?

It's not hate. It's more like sadness that someone would piss away his intellect on an enterprise that's going nowhere.

And it's not going nowhere because it's wrong. It's going nowhere because it isn't productive. It doesn't suggest any research that won't be done anyway. the only response science will ever have to unexplained phenomena is to seek explanations, and the explanations will always be naturalistic.

[RightWingNilla]

"I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent".- Behe.

[js1138]

If so, why all the hate directed toward Behe?

Let me add to my previous post. Science has about 400 years invested in its methodologies. They aren't arbitrary and they aren't based on preconceptions. They have been invented, polished and honed to minimise the kind of errors that arise from trusting common sense excessively.

People see patterns in random data; they misinterpret sensory information because of the way our eyes, ears and brain are physically constructed. They see ghosts, interpret coincidence as ESP, and misintrepret all kinds of causal relationships.

What Behe has done is attempt to turn science back to an 1802 mode of thinking. An obsolete mode.

Stare at the + in the middle for a while.

[Ichneumon]

Assuming Behe actually takes such a position,

He does.

I would disagree with him.

You do.

If he does take such a position, it is hardly distinguishable from Darwinian evolution.

Correct.

If so, why all the hate directed toward Behe?

"Hate"? What "hate"? You're mistaking annoyance and laughter for hate. The annoyance is because Behe purposely and disingeuously tries to undermine understanding of and confidence in science, so that he can sell more books and get more lecture fees. He's a classic snake-oil salesman, and like those hucksters of the past, he damages confidence in things that actually work (science in Behe's case, modern medicine in the snake-oil case), and does harm while peddling his own brand of nonsense for his own enrichment.

[Oztrich Boy]

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.
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

Depending on your definition of common descent, I could very well be one.
189 posted on 10/18/2005 1:35:29 PM PDT by connectthedots

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