Alternative Theory to Evolution Sparks Debate

"Please read Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God. He gives a detailed rebuttal of Behe's Darwin's Black Box. In fact, he pretty much rips Behe's lungs out.

Each side seems to rip up the other in their respective books. Being a geologist I got my fill of Darwinism in school. When I read Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" I now have serious reservations about Darwinism.

Darwinism is not a slam dunk by any means, not even close. To pretend otherwise is to just simply having faith in it.

IE is not derived from religious arguments. It is simply a proposition that the odds against certain necessary life-processes are simply too large to be explained by random events.

Some of the rebuttals against IE argue that the insurmountable odds can be overcome by natural selection in small steps. Say, for instance, we need a sequence of 100 amino acids. The odds against the required sequence are more then the total number of particles in the universe. Random won't work.

But the argument goes that, if a single 'correct' pair in the sequence occurs, that will give the string a functional advantage and be preserved or locked in via natural selection, waiting for the other sequences to occur and complete the string. In this way, the odds are manageable.

But the problem with this argument is that the assertion that any of the 'correct' sequences will result in a functional advantage and therefor be naturally selected is not a valid assumption. It is not valid because it cannot be shown that an incomplete sequence will have any functional advantage without the remaining 'correct' sequences already being in place.

The proposition that these step-wise sequences do in fact get locked-in is, essentially, to propose Intelligent Design or, at least, some as yet unknown mechanism that drives the process toward a particular end.

That's all IE is saying. It's not religion. It's not Creationism. It's just an acknowledgement that *something* is missing because the systems seem to be beating the odds in a directed manner.

Good summary pjd.

Natural Selection is a mechanism within a scientific theory, and as such, it is subject to falsification.

The existence of matter is a mechanism in gravitational theory. How would that be falsified?

When I read Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" I now have serious reservations about Darwinism.

So you've not read any of the critiques of Johnson's wholly unscientific work?

I have read summaries of the critiques.

When I read Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" I now have serious reservations about Darwinism.

I've read Johnson. Johnson suggests in that book that only a non-scientist, a lawyer such as himself, can give an objective look at the logic and reasoning of Darwinism. This is nonsense. I doubt Johnson has a real understanding of the subject, which is very mathematical (if you read the scientific literature, such as on population genetics, as opposed to popular books).

But worse, I have since learned that Johnson is just plain not honest in his book. Please see http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/johnson.html.

If you were able to see a complex universe evolve. For instance, if you saw plants evolve into being without animals, or vice versa, and one somehow evolved itself into the other, like if a blade of grass eventually changed into an atheist.

How would this falsify those theories? Explain why those theories state that the above will never happen.

I don't know any way to explain other than what I already said.

The existence of matter is a mechanism in gravitational theory. How would that be falsified?

I'm not a pysicist, but I was under the impression that the equivalence principle basically did just that.

That said, if your point is that unfalsifiable mechanisms have a place in scientific theories, then I would disagree with you.

Look, I know that you're a staunch supporter of evolutionary theory, but doesn't it strike your sensibilities as a little odd that you (nor anyone else I posit this question to, for that matter) can not answer a question, that you no doubt would require of a competing theory?

Look, I know that you're a staunch supporter of evolutionary theory, but doesn't it strike your sensibilities as a little odd that you (nor anyone else I posit this question to, for that matter) can not answer a question, that you no doubt would require of a competing theory?

No, because that is not what is happening here. I asked for an observation that would falsify a theory as a whole. You asked for an observation that would falsify a single mechanism of a theory. There is no requirement that all individual mechanisms within a theory be falsifiable, only that a theory as a whole be falsifiable. You are creating an artifical standard without justification.