Posted on 11/05/2005 11:47:03 AM PST by Lurking Libertarian
The Case of Behe vs. Darwin An unassuming biochemist who became the lead witness for intelligent design is unfazed by criticism but glad he has tenure.
By Josh Getlin, Times Staff Writer
HARRISBURG, Pa. — As he took the witness stand in a packed courtroom, ready to dissect Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, biochemist Michael J. Behe looked confident and relaxed. Then he learned what it felt like to be under a microscope.
Isn't it true, an attorney asked, that Behe's critique of Darwin and support for intelligent design, a rival belief about the origins of life, have little scientific support?
Yes, Behe conceded.
Isn't it also true, the attorney pressed, that faculty members in Behe's department at Lehigh University have rejected his writings as unscientific?
Behe, a slight, balding man with a graying beard, grudgingly answered yes.
"Intelligent design is not the dominant view of the scientific community," he said. "But I'm pleased with the progress we are making."
After two grueling days on the stand, Behe looked drained. He was also unbowed. In a nationally watched trial that could determine whether intelligent design can be taught in a public school, the soft-spoken professor had bucked decades of established scientific thought.
Behe (pronounced BEE-hee), one of the nation's leading advocates of intelligent design, challenged Darwin's theory that life evolved through natural selection and a process of random variation. He argued that living organisms are so highly complex that an unseen, intelligent designer must have created them. That designer, he said, is God.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
You ever do science, señor? Sure doesn't sound like it.
"What a waste of two minutes. Next time don't bother."
"That's your best shot?"
Neither of these are arguments in any sense of the word, nothing to respond to. If you have a point to make, I missed it.
"We accept all kinds of unexplained things. Physics, the hardest of the sciences, accepts quantum entanglement and quantum uncertainty. Quantum events include suceh things as radioactive decay which has no local cause at all. Uncaused events are commonplace; the are the rule in particle physics."
We may not know the cause, but all effects have a cause, that is an a priori principle of reason. All of these are theories or hypotheses. "Evolution" is a whole collection of theories and hypotheses
For some there is 0 evidence, can't be replicated, can't be falsified. These are not scientific, they are idealogical.
"Then it would be call a FACT.
" No, that was the point of my primer on inductive reasoning, the scientific method, outside of a controlled situation in a labortory is incapable of stating something absolutely. Even in a labortory there is always the possibility of an unaccountable for variable that has contaminated your experiments. Happens all the time. If you are not aware that a variable exists, how can you control for it?
"Trust me, if there were COMPELLING EVIDENCE to dislodge Darwin, a whole generation of biologists would be on it like white on rice."
Your faith in academics is touching, but misplaced. There are a growing number that are publically recognizing the gaping holes in darwinism, but they face ostracism by peers who aren't interested in truth only in their idealogy on which their whole world view depends. That is precisely the problem.
"what does the Catholic Church say about the Theory of Evolution or about the Theory of Intelligent Design"
The Church teaches the same thing I've been saying .
In 1950 in the encyclical letter Humani Generis Pope Pius XII condemned the theory of polygenism (which no one holds anymore anways) and athiestic evolution, which is precisely what I've condemned here. The central dogma of darwinism is that life is a result of random chance, that is what must be refuted because it is solely idealogical, has nothing to do with science.
Other than those two condemned opinions, the Church, and I for that matter, remain open to authentic understanding through sound reasoning and methodology but not dogmatic pronouncements from men who think the scientific method has replaced theology and revelation.
"A theory is established if, based on its premises, its predictions can be observed. The problem with ID is that it makes no predictions that can later be observed."
A theory is the best explanation that fits the available evidence, but if your methods are flawed and you dogmatically ignore causes because they don't fit your world view, you commit a scientific error that prejudices your results. The error of most modern scientists is holding to principles of the flawed philosophies of naturalism and scientism.
What I find interesting about ID is it is unafraid to point out the philosophical flaws in darwinsim.
The main arguments go along the line of "... oh, things are so complicated, we can't IMAGINE how they came about from a few basic principles..."
I deny life resulted from random chance, if that's your "basic principle" then I would agree with your statement.
"As a Baptist, I prefer to think for myself."
33000+ denominations and counting, most are just variations on 1000 year old heresies, western society on a fast slide into complete apostasy and a dark, dark paganism - that seems to be working real well...
We all "think for ourselves". Dogma is the guideposts established so that thinking will proceed along productive lines of inquiry not repeat the same old errors over and over
" The fundamental idea behind Stan Tenen's work is that God hide the truth about his creation in the Bible,"
Then my first impression was accurate, this would be a form of gnosticism then. A very common heresy. I hope your find your way out of it.
" That's not true...just tell a scientist that evolution is not scientifically provable and they go supernova every time."
Now that's funny
" The Catholic church acknowledges evolution as a valid, supported theory. But you know that."
Actually John Paul II acknowledged it, in one speech, there has been no dogmatic pronouncement of the magesterium on the matter beyond what Humani Generis said in 1950. Various schools of thought exist, from special creationism (6 day, literal Genesis reading) to complete acceptance of Darwinism and everything in between.
All are permissible for Catholics to hold, as long as the limits of Humani Generis are respected (seems reasonable that athiestic evolution might be a out of bounds opinion for a Christian to hold heh? and no one believes in polygenism anymore that hypothesis is dead.)
I refute the ideas that
a) there is no other possible explanation.
b) life orginated in random chance
c) the universe is not governed by God's providence
The first is a basic principe of reason which I already demonstrated, inductive reasoning cannot draw distributed conclusions,because it has undistributed premises. That's Logic 101. The others are simply basic positions of Christian orthodoxy, held everywhere and always until the last 200 years or so when many Christians became so secularized and ignorant of the teachings of their faith. Most theologically educated protestants wouldn't even have a problem with these two for that matter.
" And does anyone see the irony in an ID advocate complaining about lack of experimental results?"
Strawman or false dichotomy argument, I never said I supported ID. Refuting one does not imply acceptance of the other.
I merely agreed with their criticism of darwinist idealogy
You win. You are not only smarter than us; you are smarter than all the scientists who ever lived. Collect your prize on your way out the door.
But some quantum effects have no local cause, and physics works just fine by assuming there is no cause.
If you assume every event has a cause, you wind up in an infinite regress. Be thankful that science has demonstrated ther is no need to assume that every event has a cause.
You wouldn't have a computer to post with without quantum mechanics.
I have always loved Noam Chomsky's name. It took me half a semester to realize the prof was really saying Noam and not Norm with an Eastern accent. LOL!
Actually, wasn't it Chomsky who said a baby's babbling contains every sound necessary to speak any language in the world. This can be interpreted as evolutionary, because of the way languages emerged in the different parts of the world. (It means that German babies aren't born with just the ability to speak German, they are born with the ability to speak any language.)
After a baby learns the language necessary to communicate with the people around him, the baby eventually loses the ability to speak other languages. That might be why it is often more difficult for an adult to learn a new language.
The way the different languages became separate and developed around the globe is very fascinating. Now the languages are becoming more similar because more communication is available and everyone needs to speak the same language (English)
Speech also evolves over time.
What is the significance of such a theory? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology. A theory is a metascientific elaboration, distinct from the results of observation but consistent with them. By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory's validity depends on whether or not it can be verified; it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought.
Furthermore, while the formulation of a theory like that of evolution complies with the need for consistency with the observed data, it borrows certain notions from natural philosophy.
And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based. Hence the existence of materialist, reductionist and spiritualist interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology.
. . . . .
. . . . .
In conclusion, I would like to call to mind a Gospel truth which can shed a higher light on the horizon of your research into the origins and unfolding of living matter. The Bible in fact bears an extraordinary message of life. It gives us a wise vision of life inasmuch as it describes the loftiest forms of existence. This vision guided me in the encyclical which I dedicated to respect for human life, and which I called precisely "Evangelium Vitae."
It is significant that in St. John's Gospel life refers to the divine light which Christ communicates to us. We are called to enter into eternal life, that is to say, into the eternity of divine beatitude. To warn us against the serious temptations threatening us, our Lord quotes the great saying of Deuteronomy: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Dt 8:3; cf. Mt 4:4). Even more, "life" is one of the most beautiful titles which the Bible attributes to God. He is the living God.
Well, meticulous notes and measurements were kept but they were burned up in the supernova...sorry.
It appears that folks here do not understand intelligent design. Yes, it has been seized upon by religious folks who see it as a defense of their faith, but the school of thought is rooted entirely in sound science. Specifically, it addresses such fatal flaws in macroevolution as parallel development of indetical features down separate "evolutionary lines;" irreducible complexity (in which a collection of separate novel features have no reason to have been "selected" individually, in that they only provide an advantage when taken as a whole; and the chromosomal barrier for species that reproduce sexually (what does something with a new number of chromosome pairs or different chromosomal configuration of critical genes mate with in order to propagate the "new" species or variant?).
I find the infighting of members of the Christian faith here distasteful. I am also shocked that a person would have his account suspended for questioning papal infallibility in the midst of a series of posts calling into question the theology of others either espousing or rebutting intelligent design. Should I assume that there is a theological bias here, or was there more going on than meets the eye?
And evolution. There you go.
Assuming otherwise would lead to results not in accord with experiment.
That is COMPLETELY wrong. Theories are well developed, elaborated and supported explanatory hypotheses. They explain observed phenomena by the means of some model or mechanism. It is typical in the history of science that these models or mechanisms are set forth without having first been directly observed in themselves. In fact it's not uncommon for them never to be directly observed, even with respect to highly fruitful scientific theories.
For example genetic theory was successful, extremely useful and universally accepted decades before anyone could point to an actual gene, or knew what they were made of, or knew where in the cell they were located.
Yep, and Darwin himself anticipated the idea of "irreducible complexity" (although he didn't call it that) and explained how systems where all parts are required could be assembled in stepwise fashion. The concept doesn't imply what Behe claimed for it, and none of the specific examples do what he claimed they do. The whole idea of "irreducible complexity," at least in terms of it being "irreducible," has fallen flat. Not a thing has come of it.
And yet, even though this failed idea was Behe's only particular (if historically unorginal) contribution to the movement, in the bizarre world of Intelligent Design he still remains a celebrity.
The word "accruing" is irreduciblly complex in English, at least by Behe's methods. One cannot drop any part (except the "g" in some Upper Tier English Society or a few American Dialects.) Thus the word cannot accrue from accrue which in itself is irreducibly complex. Behe hasn't allowed enough transformations.
Chromosomal mutations may create sudden reproductive isolation, and often reduce fertility to some extent, but not necessarily so. Many chromosomal mutants are still fertile with non-mutants, and many species of Equids (horses) can be hybridized despite having different chromosome numbers.
The whole enterprise is a sham based on the notion that whatever we do not now know we can never know.
The premise of ID is the opposite of science.
So you don't actually have any support for your assertion then, right?
That's simply hilarious. I've witnessed debates including the major proponents of Darwinism and Intelligent design, and the ID folks (and especially Behe) raised points that the Darwinists were so utterly incapable of rebutting that they instead took your strategy and simply ridiculed what they did not understand (or, as likely, understood but could not rebut).
If you want to debate specifics of irreducible complexity or the chromosomal barrier, I'll be more than happy to disabuse you of your errant philosophy. I suspect that you are utterly unqualified to debate any of these points, but your uninformed dismissal of ID is duly noted.
Odd that given the opportunity to debate under oath in an international news forum, the ID advocates chickened out. I suppose that when there is a penalty for lying, ID doesn't debaste so effectively.
Well, yeah, maybe of abstract reason. But even there it only amounts to a tautology, since an "effect" is defined as resulting from a "cause".
In the world of concrete reasoning, however, we aren't allowed to place our ideas before reality and compel reality to conform. Rather our ideas are required to conform to reality. And by observation combined with the most rigorous rational analysis, the radioactive decay of an atom really does have no immediate cause.
As Hegel said, "the Real is the Rational."
You clearly do not comprehend the problem. Let's take the great apes and humans as an example. There is an oft-cited "statistic" that humans and great apes have almost identical genetic make-up. If you are talking about gross genetic content, that may well be example. the problem is the relative placement of specific genes within specific chromosomes. Even if you were to artificially equalize the number of chromosome pairs (humans have one less pair), humans and simians cannot reproduce because the chromosomes don't properly pair. This should immediately raise a red flag for the claim that humans and simians share a common evolutionary path. Not only would one have to account for an all but impossible case of identical extrachrmosomal or subchromosomal variation occurring in both a male and female within the same breeding population at the same time and just happening to mate, you would then have to account for the juggling of genes from one chromosome set to another (for which there is no known mechanism). So you wouldn't simply need to have these near-identical variants to occur in males and females in the same breeding population at the same time once, but once for the extrachromosomal or subchromosomal variation and once for each of the many remappings of genes into alternate chromosomes.
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