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."
Thank you. And, to be fair, Creationists go beyond their field when speaking on geology or zoology.
Dawkins is a major voice, perhaps the major voice of modern evolution, so his influence is huge. He currently occupies the Simonyi Professorship at Oxford University.
From the aims and goal of this position:
The aim of the Simonyi Professorship is to contribute to the understanding of science by the public… The task of communicating science to the layman is not a simple one. In particular it is imperative for the post holder to avoid oversimplifying ideas, and presenting exaggerated claims. The limits of current scientific knowledge should always be made clear to the public.And Dawkins is their choice for this?
as always, the cross examination will be far more interesting since it is much more confrontational.
I think Behe will do quite well.
I never went past first year calculus, so maybe you can help me out. How do '=' signs get interpreted when they are used multiple times within brackets?
phoroneus/ret_medic, I think.
The book [Pandas and People] has evolved, so to speak, since its inception to conform with sound scientific principles and theories to reflect the latest work in the burgeoning field of intelligent design.See if you can follow it.
In early editions, the book included this sentence: "Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator, with their distinctive features already intact — fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc."
Of course that was incorrect.
So later editions, edited after a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision that forbade the teaching of creationism in public schools, the sentence was changed to this: "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact — fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etc."
And now the newest edition, to be titled "The Design of Life," a draft of which was previewed Wednesday during Day 12 of the Dover Panda Trial, includes this sentence: "Sudden appearance means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact — fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, and mammals with fur and mammary glands, etc."
Now, you could conclude that the good folks who brought us "Of Pandas and People" made the adjustment to reflect exciting new developments in the area of mammary glands. Or maybe the intelligent-design movement has reached an age where it has just discovered mammary glands. It's hard to say.
And besides, who's going to object to mammary glands?
The other big change, evidence that the people who brought us "Of Pandas and People" have not forgotten how to work Microsoft Word, is the substitution of "intelligent design" with "sudden appearance."
As Eric Rothschild, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Panda Trial, asked in court, "Will we be back in a couple of years for the 'sudden appearance' trial?"
Judge John E. Jones III retorted, "Not on my docket."
So, what came of Behe's three days on the witness stand?
He said some of the stuff in cells and such is designed because it looks like it was designed. But there's other stuff that looks designed that wasn't designed. And yet there's other stuff, we don't know what it is and you probably don't want to know.
Oh, and the identity of the designer doesn't matter. Could be God, or a cosmic Versace, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
It is. Creationists are the ones who are confused on the subject, trying to infuse their supernaturalism into the scientific world.
Shall the ToE take a position on ghosts and pixies as well?
"Theory: When circumstances cause a population to split into two separate isolated groups, each individual group will evolve in different ways as they adapt to different environmental situations. This process will continue until the two groups are so different that they are no longer capable of interbreeding should they ever come back into contact with each other thus, the origin of species."
The sequence described in the first sentence has been observed in the lab. With regard to the second sentence, has this actually been observed to happen as a testable hypothesis, or is it just inferred based on the fossil record?
You are missing my point. When scientists use ToE in their position on religion and the existence of God, they may as well.
And as I've said before Creationists are outside their sphere as well when discussing biology or geology.
We should not condemn the one without seeing its corollary in the other.
Shall they then issue the same disclaimer for their research having no position on leprechauns? Where does the silliness end?
Science describes the natural world. Do you want them to say that the natural world requires the supernatural to function? That is absurd on its face.
No, not disclaimers. Look at it from the reverse. A creationist using a bible passage to tell the "science" of cosmology.
Should he issue a disclaimer? No. His effort is in error, he is using one method of inquiry totally improperly to deduce knowledge in another.
The same is true in the opposite direction. From my earlier post it is amazing to me that an evolutionary scientist is given a chair that he uses to pontificate his inferences about religion. A disclaimer is hardly enough when the whole enterprise is so flawed.
In a somewhat separate manner I wish that our education system taught the classics of philosophy and knowledge of the various methods used in inquiry of reality - and the limits of each.
It really isn't a one-sided argument that's going on. It truly is common in many places that science contradicts religion and vice-versa. This is a false choice, and a dangerous one too.
There are religionists who avoid this; there are scientists who avoid this. I see them in the minority. And on the topic of this thread, it is so discouraging to see the errors brought forth so passionately and, IMHO, ignorantly.
Do you want them to say that the natural world requires the supernatural to function? That is absurd on its face.
If you define super as "beyond" then the answer is "yes." Science models the physical world - usually in geometry or mathematics. This works pretty well, the models work, predict, we fly in the air, split atoms, etc.
This is a description of how matter/energy behave in our observable universe, which we could describe as "nature." We must be very careful not to reduce natural reality to what is known by science.
Does it require something beyond nature so defined to function? Well, it requires existence. It requires that this existence behaves in this manner; and for us to even attempt science it must be capable of being modeled and comprehended in models. As one put it, "the most incomprehensible aspect of the universe is that it is comprehensible."
It could be otherwise, there could be no-existence, there could also only be randomness. The logical paradox for the origin of the universe still is in effect.
That you can describe how something occurs, model how it occurs, does not mean you know why it occurs or if it has purpose (contrary to Dawkins' view), or even whether it will continue to do so or suddenly stop (other than by inference which is not considered logical "proof.")
So, yes, there is a whole level of reality beyond physical reality that is necessary for physical reality. There are also a great deal of important questions that science must address to do science - that lie outside of science.
We should not reduce any question beyond science as superstition or pixie dust. Science is the firmest area of knowledge, the most certain. It is not however the largest or the most important to human existence.
really?
On first reading, it looks like Rothschild made Behe contradict himself on several occasions, and otherwise look like a complete idiot. Devastating.
Thanks. Gonna look at it ...
Cross examination starts on page 22 ...
It's good. It's very good. I recommend reading it. And it's only the first day.
I'm sure she envisioned what was at first a symbiotic colonial relationship rather like lichens or stromatolites gradually becoming increasingly intertwined.
I can guess how Behe would lawyer his point. There's no halfway position in the difference between any particular given bacterial body being inside any particular given archaebacterial body and being outside of same. Well, there is, but it's the halfway point of a grape disappearing into your mouth.
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean suddenly one day all over the world all the bacteria that had been outside of an archaebacterium the day before were now inside of one. There could have been a very slow transition from all-external to all-internal symbiosis and I'm sure that's what most scientists mean now when they say they accept endosymbiosis theory.
I think someone (Margulis herself, perhaps?) could call Behe on that.
Google "ring species." There are multiple observed examples of this.
There could be no assurance that the same solution to selection would occur.
If I remember correctly there was a study that had bacteria developing a different solution to just that. It was on t.o. but I have been unable to find it again. Does it sound familiar to anyone else?
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