Posted on 08/18/2005 6:15:15 PM PDT by wagglebee
You know that TV crocodile hunting team Steve and Terri Irwin? Well those two can expect some competition in days to come. Scientists in northern Australia have been collecting blood from crocodiles in hopes of saving humans.
Studies in the late 90s showed that several antibodies in croc blood killed penicillin-resistant bacteria. More recently it has been discovered that crocodiles’ immune systems can kill the HIV virus. American scientist Mark Merchant says the reptiles “tear limbs off each other, [but] they heal up very rapidly and normally, almost always without infection.” Aussie scientist Adam Britton adds: “The crocodile has an immune system which attaches to bacteria and tears it apart and it explodes. It’s like putting a gun to the head of the bacteria and pulling the trigger.”
These two scientists draw blood from wild and captive crocs, saltwater and freshwater species. After capturing the donor, they strap its jaws and go for a vein. The vein, Britton says, is “called a sinus, right behind the head, and it’s very easy just to put a needle in the back of the neck and hit this sinus and then you can take a large volume of blood very simply.”
It’ll be years, of course, before croc blood is ready for human use. Their antibodies are so powerful they may have to be diluted. But this is pretty remarkable on two fronts. Once again, proof that embryonic stem cells aren’t the only “miracle” cure for all that ails us. And more importantly, understanding how crocodiles heal points to a pretty intelligent design in nature. Now when are the animal rights people going to start complaining to stop all of this?
I would consider a new put down if I were you.
Trying to compare Bible believing Christians to islamo-fascists will only make you look dumb.
Everyone but you obviously understands the difference.
"they think it will serve as a further safeguard for protecting abortion"
I never thought of that, but it makes sense and is probably true.
Nevertheless, research is being done with stem cells, and every other wacky possibility out there, and none of the wacky possibilities is getting billions of dollars (unless they are lucky enough to have a rich/famous person helping raise cash). Anyway, it seems to me that something may come about from stem cell research that will justify the cost. And if it doesn't, your argument will be absolutely true because absolutely no money will be spent on stem cell research. Like funding for perpetual motion machines, stem cell research will drop off the radar.
I am personally opposed to embryonic stem cell on ethical grounds. Moreover, I am on principle opposed to the federal government funding anything which is not a public necessity, especially if it could be done just as well and undoubtedly less expensively by the private sector.
Yes the usual ridicule "rational" evolutionists always start resorting to in place of logic. Humphries is an accomplished scientist. If there were any methodological flaws in the analysis evolutionists would be falling all over each other to point them out. What violation of basic scientific principles that you asserted you have always found in creationist arguments can you identify? What's your scientific background by the way?
You don't have to assume the speed of light decayed to conclude a young universe. God could have created the light rays from the stars at the time of creation. There's no basis for asserting that he either couldn't or wouldn't do that. Nor would it be a deception, which is one of the semi-clever arguments people come up with, since nothing requires us to interpret the universe under naturalistic assumptions.
Many things bother me about evolution, but mainly its if its survival of the fittest, then why are there female species? If natural selection makes a species evolve into something better, how come we are not just one sex and can reproduce on our own? How would an intransient being know to somehow "evolve" into another sex? Do evos believe that "two" separate entities (male and female) "evolved" on their own, and at what point?
Flight would have been cool. Or extreme strength or extreme jumping abilities. Animals got all the cool traits.
That's a straw man. All irreducible complexity says is that no one can DEMONSTRATE a way the structure had any function if any of the components are removed. It doesn't generalize it to say nothing could have possibly occurred that there is no evidence for whatsover and that no one has even thought of.
Saying there could have been something for which there is no evidence and that no one has even thought of is of course non-falsifiable. It's also incredibly lame. It's also contrary to how people normally reach logical conclusions about what has happened, such as in a court of law. Consider someone on trial for murder. Let's say we can know with precision when the crime occurred, and it turns out he was being booked for anther crime 500 miles away at the exact time the crime occurred. If the prosecutor told the jury to ignore that on the grounds that there might still be a way he committed the crime even though he can't think of what it is, what would the reaction be?
Plus with respect to some things that Behe claims are irreducibly complex, like the blood clotting cascade, postulating it could have had some other function doesn't solve the problem, since lacking clotting ability is in all likelihood fatal to a species.
Science is supposed to be about evidence and probabilities. If people are going to try to refute irreducible complexity they have to demonstrate some actual scenarios and calculation of the probabilities with respect to Behe's examples. They have tried and failed.
A True Acid Test Response to Ken Miller
As Behe says in the second article:
Envisioning IC in terms of selected or unselected steps thus puts the focus on the process of trying to build the system. A big advantage, I think, is that it encourages people to pay attention to details; hopefully it would encourage really detailed scenarios by proponents of Darwinism (ones that might be checked experimentally) and discourage just-so stories that leap over many steps without comment. So with those thoughts in mind, I offer the following tentative “evolutionary” definition of irreducible complexity:An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
That definition has the advantage of promoting research: to state clear, detailed evolutionary pathways; to measure probabilistic resources; to estimate mutation rates; to determine if a given step is selected or not. It allows for the proposal of any evolutionary scenario a Darwinist (or others) may wish to submit, asking only that it be detailed enough so that relevant parameters might be estimated. If the improbability of the pathway exceeds the available probabilistic resources (roughly the number of organisms over the relevant time in the relevant phylogenetic branch) then Darwinism is deemed an unlikely explanation and intelligent design a likely one.
"Saying there could have been something for which there is no evidence and that no one has even thought of is of course non-falsifiable. It's also incredibly lame."
What's lame is a guy making calculations with a model he acknowledges is incomplete and using it to show the model don't work. Then conjuring up supernatural handiwork to account for the phenominon. It's not science it's the shaman's art of the con.
ID says the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world.
Proof:
ID uses the laws of physics to make some calculation. The ID guy swears his logic is OK and his math likewise. The output of his calculation says, "the result of the calculation can't explain the observaitons."
There are then 2 remaining possibilities, because he swears his model is good:
1) The model is missing some -knowledge and understanding(of physics)
2) The model is right, the physics are 100% correct, that's all the physics there is, and there's an intelligent force
Take your choice:
The laws of physics are not sufficient and you abandon science to inject an IDer, a shaman, else they are and you stick with science, admit ignorance and work harder.
See bacterial conjugation. Bacteria carry the world's first primative noodly apendage and bearded clam.
You are kidding, right? Do you really believe that all the complexity, including emotions, came from bacteria? How did the bacteria know what it needed next? What are the odds that two separate bacteria will grow at the same time, at the same pace, and somehow "decide" that two separate entities are needed to reproduce and so split apart? How would they know what they are doing if they had no brains? How would they "know" to hook up to reproduce? If instinct, why/how would they "know" what they needed next? At what part did they start planning ahead, or "realize" that they needed to plan ahead? Were you really that smart of a bacteria?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Yes.
" How did the bacteria know what it needed next?"
Bacteria are not conscious sentient beings. They follow stimuli. They have receptors that trigger, or orient to the stimuli. The process(es) is a cascade of chemical reactions. Useful processes are propagated.
"What are the odds that two separate bacteria will grow at the same time, at the same pace, and somehow "decide" that two separate entities are needed to reproduce and so split apart? How would they "know" to hook up to reproduce?
I haven't looked into the process, so all I can give offhand is the simple decription. The cell walls of 2 adjacent bacteria merge, because of the properties of and chemical structure and bonding. The rest is similar, but here's a link that explains the mechanics.
"Were you really that smart of a bacteria?"
That was a very, very long time ago. I don't remember.
As an aside...
" How would they know what they are doing if they had no brains?"
Brains are highly overrated. I've seen people that don't have a clue to what they're doing. Been to Madison lately?
I assume you wrote the post I replied to and this:
"If people are going to try to refute irreducible complexity they have to demonstrate some actual scenarios and calculation of the probabilities with respect to Behe's examples. They have tried and failed."
My post reufted ID as science w/o the need to consider anything more than ID in general, regardless of any particulars.
Your statement given here says that folks have failed to come up with the particulars that Behe ignores in his own calculation. IOWs Behe's calculation is NG.
I must have missed where that occurred. I still can't find it.
"ID says the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world.",
whatever that means.
I'll post it again.
Proof:
ID uses the laws of physics to make some calculation. The ID guy swears his logic is OK and his math likewise. The output of his calculation says, "the result of the calculation can't explain the observaitons (the phenominon)."
There are then 2 remaining possibilities, because he swears his model is good:
1) The model is missing some -knowledge and understanding(of physics)
2) The model is right, the physics are 100% correct, that's all the physics there is, and there's an intelligent force
Take your choice:
The laws of physics are not sufficient and you abandon science to inject an IDer (invisible hand), else they are and you stick with science, admit ignorance and work on it some more.
Note that "invisible hands" are not science and require shaman's, not scientists to handle.
Science holds that they are sufficient. Biology is based on physics.
ID doesn't say "the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world". I don't know exactly what you mean by "govern the world" either. The rest of your post is equally incoherent.
Are you serious? My god, I think he's serious...
Please stay away from any science class my boy will attend. Thanks.
That's right they don't say it outright. I proved it's their fundamental claim though.
"I don't know exactly what you mean by "govern the world" either."
It means the laws of physics govern all phenomina of physical reality.
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