Posted on 10/20/2005 6:39:01 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Intelligent design and evolution proponents agree that a test on bacterial flagellum could show if it was or wasn't able to evolve, which could provide evidence to support intelligent design.
But neither side wants to test it.
The test calls for a scientist to place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under selective pressure and let it grow for 10,000 generations — roughly two years — to see if a flagellum or an equally complex system would be produced, according to testimony on Wednesday. A flagellum is a whip-like structure that can propel the bacteria.
Michael Behe, biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, testified in U.S. Middle District Court that he didn't know of anyone who had tested bacterial flagellum that way, including himself.
During cross examination by plaintiffs' attorney Eric Rothschild, Behe said he hadn't completed the test because he has better ways to spend his time. He also said he already knows intelligent design is science.
"It's well-tested from the inductive arguments," Behe said. "When we have found a purposeful arrangement of parts, we have always found this as designed."
Outside court, Dover school board members Alan Bonsell and Sheila Harkins said if anyone should perform the test, it should be the evolutionists.
"Somebody could do that if they wanted to," Harkins said. "If somebody believes intelligent design is not science, certainly they have a means to prove it's not."
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said scientists — who widely accept evolution as the cornerstone of modern biology — aren't going to take two years on an expensive test to disprove something they don't consider science.
They wouldn't bother, she said.
"This is not the first time creationists have tried to get scientists to do their work for them," Scott said.
This time around, even if the flagellum grew, Scott speculated that intelligent design proponents would say the test refuted the design of bacterial flagellum, not intelligent design.
They could still point toward design of the immune system and blood-clotting cascade as evidence, Scott said.
Behe has testified that if evolutionists ran the test and it didn't work, they would provide a reason such as they didn't have the right bacteria, selective pressure or length of time.
Evolution is harder to falsify than intelligent design, Behe said. He describes intelligent design as a fully testable, falsifiable scientific theory.
The design, he testified, is inferred from the purposeful arrangement of parts. During his time on the stand, he also testified about the concept of irreducible complexity, which means organisms are too complex to have evolved by natural selection or genetic mutation, so multiple systems had to arise simultaneously.
Scott said scientists couldn't disprove the purposeful arrangement of parts because too much could qualify. Anything outside of purposely arranged partswould be in state of chaos, she said.
The purposeful arrangements of parts is quickly taking over as the essence of intelligent design from the idea of irreducible complexity, Scott said.
Bonsell and Harkins believe intelligent design qualifies as a testable and falsifiable scientific theory, and Bonsell said he was ready for it to be put to the test.
"I'm all for scientific discovery and doing scientific experiments," Bonsell said. "They're the ones that are not."
And statistics is a prediction about the stability of randomly generated events.
Versace is Dead
More or less accurately where. General Relativity allows a more accurate where. (Both the Newton and Einstein version are equally precise; Einstein's is more accurate.)
I attended a presentation given by Behe. He accomplished the same thing without a lawyer guiding him.
I read the entire cross examination. the thing that stood out is how many times rothschild tried to twist Behe's words and miscontrued his writings. Behe was right on top of those attempts and did not let Rothschold get away with it.
I thought Behe did remarkably well.
An example of what Behe said may be true of the Intelligent Designer.
“Is there a distinction to be made between science and science fiction?” Eric Rothschild asked Michael Behe. “Yes,” responded Behe. “I have no further questions,” said Rothschild. And with those words (or ones quite similar — we’ll get precision with the transcript release), Eric Rothschild laid to rest the remains of Behe’s scientific credibility. Preceding that, there was a day full of cross examination, in which one would learn that Behe wasn’t as familiar with the scientific literature on the immune system as one might hope for someone billed as an “expert”, that rigorous peer review in “intelligent design” can be obtained in a ten-minute telephone interview — without the reviewer even having to see the manuscript, that the blood-clotting system can be reduced to a “core” of four parts — except that when one does so the result is claimed to be lethal, and much more. Why did the cross-examination of Behe sound so much like the lawyers were reading from the TalkDesign web site? Well, at least part of that would be due to the advice that the plaintiffs’ lawyers received from NCSE Public Information Director Nicholas Matzke, aka “Nic Tamzek” from the early TalkDesign days and regular PT contributor. By almost all accounts*, the TalkDesign material on various issues concerning Behe’s “irreducible complexity” was put to good use. Expect a more complete eulogy for Behe’s scientific career — and a post-mortem, as it were, of the terminal handling it received on Tuesday and Wednesday — to be posted here later, after we have the transcripts in hand.
What has to be considered for the future is whether the on-the-stand demolition of Behe will influence the remainder of the slate of TMLC experts. They had a pretty high withdrawal rate pre-trial, and now that the preparation of the plaintiffs’ legal team has been shown, vividly, will all the rest of TMLC’s scheduled experts actually show up for a big helping of what Behe had?
* As one might expect, the DI thinks Behe weathered cross-examination without any trouble whatsoever, but when one’s reports are apparently filed from Cloud Cuckoo Land, I think that we are permitted to “consider the source”.
Well, if the creationists do it themselves, scientists will say it proves nothing because it wasn't done by scientists under strict guidelines and monitoring. And if it were, they'd say it only proves how that bacteria reacts, but not all of the animal kingdom.
Either way, it seems both sides have doubts about their own positions.
"Google "ring species." There are multiple observed examples of this."
Lots of info on this. Very interesting.
But this is another example of verification by observation of existing species. I was looking for some verification of this while under observation, i.e., a test which could be repeated and verified multiple times.
Panda's thumb is and unbiased source?
Behe did well in the fist day cross examination. Look forward to reading the remainder of it.
"What that tells us is that, in all too many cases, it's not ignorance at all. At best, it's willful ignorance, and at worst it's knowingly spreading falsehoods."
Ala Piltdown man, Java man, Nebraska man you mean?
Don't forget Plaster of Paris man.
And Haeckel's drawings!
Bad day? Considering that 90% of all species are now extinct, it's fair to conclude that the designer had a bad billion years.
LOL!
Such at test would simply be selective breeding, which has been practiced by humans for thousands of years.
All 10 of those points are totally and utterly incorrect. Many of the explainations contain infactual data.
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