Posted on 10/21/2005 9:08:57 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
A test nobody wants to take
Neither side is interested in trying to prove intelligent design.
By MICHELLE STARR
Daily Record/Sunday News
HARRISBURG — 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 parts would 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."
"Microcosmic God" (by Ted Sturgeon) was a wonderful story, but it wouldn't work in real life. Organisms don't just get the mutations they "need" in order to survive. They either get the mutations they "need" or they go extinct. In the real world, there are many paths to survival, so survival would only rarely hinge upon a specific mutation (although it will usually look that way in retrospect), but if you did set up a contrived "evolve THIS way or DIE" experiment, the overwhelmingly likely outcome is that the organisms would just die.
The changes provided by evolution are historically contingent and fortuitous. They can't be ordered in advance. The best an experimenter can do is to kill the ones who don't get a desired change, and propagate any who may get it, but this doesn't create the change.
The Intelligence behind life is so vast no one could dream of comprehending it yet you attribute life to a series of mutations with no direction or purpose - initially begun by a non-biological mass of elements.
Your macro-evolution takes a lot of faith! No wonder it has replaced religion for so many.
Darwinists amuse me.
Thanks for the ping, but we've already got a thread on this article.
Trillions of trillions (times a few more trillions or so) of series of "oops, I'm dead . . . whew! I made it afterall."
Accidental life. Gotta love it. Thank God for evolution . . . uh . . . whatever.
You forgot the back, knees, digestive system and dentiture.
No, it only looks fortuitous in hindsight. We all have our gifts and our handicaps. We all make the best living we can, using our gifts. If some subset of gifts enables an organism to do well, we look in hindsight and say, "oh, look: if that creature didn't luck into those particular gifts, it would surely have died. How fortunate for it!" (Conversely, if it had happened to have died young, we'd point to this or that handicap as the reason.) But its success wasn't really as fortuitous as it looks: if its tongue had been slightly shorter instead of slightly longer, it wouldn't have settled on a diet of ants, and it wouldn't actually have starved.
Theories (and hypotheses) can't be proved. They can either be supported or rejected.
The theory of evolution has been tested for 150 years, first by paleontology, geology, zoology, and biology, then by archaeology, genetics and a host of other fields, many of which did not even exist when Darwin first wrote.
The theory has passed each test. Each fossil that is found is a test; each new DNA sequence is a test. The theory has passed each test. This does not make it "proved" but it is a well-supported theory. On the other hand, ID is clearly a "belief" not a "theory" as its proponents are claiming.
See the list of definitions below:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices"
Belief: any cognitive content (perception) held as true
Impression: a vague idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying"
Hope this helps to clarify things.
Doesn't the word "purposeful" imply intentionality - the sole purview of mind - i.e., intelligence?
Forgive my imprecise language. I meant they have been looking for proof of the mechanism of evolution. They have not found it, although some like to post claims that the molecular and genetic level mechanisms have been found. But again, I don't doubt that evolution occurs. I just don't accept that the universe is unraveling as a result of total randomness.
I am reading Behe book Darwins Black Box right now. Get it and read it. He does believe in evolution even in the concept of decent from a common ancestor. His argument is one that there is more that Darwinism can not answer. That more comes from the relatively new advances in molecular biology and biochemistry. Darwin had no idea of the biochemical basis of life. And Behe postulates there is intellligent design in the biochemical machines that run the cell. Just as the Big Bang leaves one to wonder about what caused it. He does not know what the designer is and that is not answered by science. But if science points to a intelligent design not just randomness then it points to that.
I have read Behe's book and need to re-read it really to understand HOW he really understood irreducible complexity.
However going back to the title to this thread, regarding TESTABILITY...
The question is this --- Would this proposed experiment really prove anything?
If complex flagella does arise as a result of this test then we could make either of the following assumptions :
A) “naturalism” produces complex systems by itself or
B) “naturalism” INHERENTLY contains the “information” and capability to develop such systems.
A successful test would then imply that evolution is even more irreducibly complex then we can imagine in that it has the "intelligence" ( for want of a better word ) to determine solutions by itself at the molecular level.
If so, I can't see why this isn't magic by any other name. Ockham's razor would better tell us that "someone" was the source of information.
Now, let us say the test fails after we've given it enough genetarations to "evolve" via NS+RM. If this complex flagella fails to arise other than through some external means of information that "coaxed" it to, we are back to the same question.
We then have to to guess how that external information somehow existed in nature to magically cause the process to occur.
Or we can assume that the information was arranged and transfered by "someone". It again would point to a more complex system that needs explanation.
Somehow, the "someone" seems taboo in any scientific discussion.
Why this has to be so is still unclear to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.