Posted on 10/19/2005 5:10:52 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
One of intelligent design's leading experts could not identify the driving force behind the concept.
In his writings supporting intelligent design, Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author of "Darwin's Black Box," said that "intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on proposed mechanisms of how complex biological structures arose."
But during cross examination Tuesday, when plaintiffs' attorney Eric Rothschild asked Behe to identify those mechanisms, he couldn't.
When pressed, Behe said intelligent design does not propose a step-by-step mechanism, but one can still infer intelligent cause was involved by the "purposeful arrangement of parts."
Behe is the leading expert in the Dover Area School District's defense of its biology curriculum, which requires students to be made aware of intelligent design.
The First Amendment trial in U.S. Middle District Court is the first legal challenge to the inclusion of intelligent design in science class. At issue is whether it belongs in public school along with evolutionary theory.
In his work, "On the Origin of Species," Charles Darwin identified natural selection as the force driving evolutionary change in living organisms.
But Behe argued that natural selection alone cannot account for the complexity of life.
After Behe could not identify intelligent design's mechanism for change, Rothschild asked him if intelligent design then isn't just a negative argument against natural selection.
Behe disagreed, reiterating his statement that intelligent design is the purposeful arrangement of parts.
The bulk of Behe's testimony Monday and Tuesday had been on his concept of "irreducible complexity," the idea that in order for many organisms to evolve at the cellular level, multiple systems would have had to arise simultaneously. In many cases, he said, this is a mathematical impossibility.
He compared intelligent design to the Big Bang theory, in that when it was first proposed, some scientists dismissed it for its potential implications that God triggered the explosion.
He also said he is aware that the Big Bang theory was eventually accepted and has been peer-reviewed in scientific journals, and that intelligent design has been panned as revamped creationism by almost every mainstream scientific organization.
Rothschild asked Behe if he was aware that the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both oppose its teaching in public school science classes, and even that Behe's colleagues have taken a position against it.
Behe knew of the academies' positions and said they misunderstand and mischaracterize intelligent design.
Behe also said he was aware that Lehigh University's Department of Biology faculty has posted a statement on its Web site that says, "While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."
Earlier in the day, Behe had said under direct testimony that a creationist doesn't need any physical evidence to understand life's origins.
So creationism is "vastly 180 degrees different from intelligent design," he said.
Still, Behe said he believes that the intelligent designer is God.
In his article, "A Response to Critics of Darwin's Black Box," Behe wrote that intelligent design is "less plausible to those for whom God's existence is in question and is much less plausible for those who deny God's existence."
After referring to the article, Rothschild asked, "That's a God-friendly theory, Mr. Behe. Isn't it?"
Behe argued he was speaking from a philosophical view, much as Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins was when he said Darwin's theory made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist."
"Arguing from the scientific data only takes you so far," Behe said.
The school belongs to Caesar. You know what the man said.
To the creo mindset, not mentioning God == forcing an atheistic point of view.
Have you been to the Discovery Institute's website? That's exactly what they want. And that's exactly what the ID and creationist posters here have been saying for years.
You believe in agnostics, right? I'm real!
"To the creo mindset, not mentioning God == forcing an atheistic point of view."
So it seems, sometimes. I'm trying to figure out where in a Science class it would be appropriate to mention any deity. What can science say about deities?
It's a silly argument, in my opinion. Science teaches science. Deities can be discussed in discussions of philosophy or in history class where they are part of every culture's history.
Science doesn't deal with supernatural entities at all. I don't see where it fits.
Really, really nice photo of that frog!
Abstract: The bacterial flagellum is a complex molecular system with multiple components required for functional motility. Such systems are sometimes proposed as puzzles for evolutionary theory on the assumption that selection would have no function to act on until all components are in place. Previous work (Thornhill and Ussery, 2000, A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution. J Theor Biol. 203 (2), 111-116) has outlined the general pathways by which Darwinian mechanisms can produce multi-component systems. However, published attempts to explain flagellar origins suffer from vagueness and are inconsistent with recent discoveries and the constraints imposed by Brownian motion. A new model is proposed based on two major arguments. First, analysis of dispersal at low Reynolds numbers indicates that even very crude motility can be beneficial for large bacteria. Second, homologies between flagellar and nonflagellar proteins suggest ancestral systems with functions other than motility. The model consists of six major stages: export apparatus, secretion system, adhesion system, pilus, undirected motility, and taxis-enabled motility. The selectability of each stage is documented using analogies with present-day systems. Conclusions include: (1) There is a strong possibility, previously unrecognized, of further homologies between the type III export apparatus and F1F0-ATP synthetase. (2) Much of the flagellum’s complexity evolved after crude motility was in place, via internal gene duplications and subfunctionalization. (3) Only one major system-level change of function, and four minor shifts of function, need be invoked to explain the origin of the flagellum; this involves five subsystem-level cooption events. (4) The transition between each stage is bridgeable by the evolution of a single new binding site, coupling two pre-existing subsystems, followed by coevolutionary optimization of components. Therefore, like the eye contemplated by Darwin, careful analysis shows that there are no major obstacles to gradual evolution of the flagellum.
This ought to scare you evos to death - lol.
https://members.ala.org/nif/v54n1/anti-evolution.html
Don't worry. They have daily transcripts being made. Each and every golden moment of Behe's cross examination will be carefully noted and repeated to the judge during closing argument.
Agnostics are like moderates - can't make up their mind where they stand on issues.
"Intelligence can only be inferred from its effects. Design is not attributed by mind-melding with designers, it is inferred from effects in the physical world.
That's simply question begging.
How do we identify design? IDists claim we identify design by assuming that certain levels of complexity cannot occur naturally. This rather large assumption drives the entire construct of ID.
We assume complexity as an attribute of design because humans can and do create complex objects, however that complexity is not how we normally identify a designed object. When we examine an artifact we ask ourselves 'how does it resemble other objects we know are designed (by humans)', 'does it have any attributes that result from its manufacture method(tool marks)', 'what can it be used for, why was it made'. All questions we ask about the object centre around what we already know about human design, not about design that non-human intelligences could possibly make.
Even CSI relies on knowing something about the designer and assumes the designer designs identically to humans. Complexity occurs in nature as well as in human artifacts. The method of determining whether that complexity is specified or not relies on our ability to recognize intent.
ID, by its very nature, will produce false positives and false negatives as often as it will be correct.
Because Creationism doesn't need hard data, according to Behe, whereas ID proves its point by "...the purposeful arrangement of parts."
Okeydokey...
I'll probably never "make up my mind" on the existence of God. There's no pressure and no evidence.
"This ought to scare you evos to death - lol.
"
Oh, no...it's not particularly scary. Don't get too encouraged. This case is not going to end the way you want it to.
Further, you can expect this school board to be replaced the next time they're up for election. That, too, has happened in several places. Once the motivations are out in the open, you'll find that lots of folks don't like the idea.
No, not scared. The truth is not frightening. Only ignorance is frightening.
I think you are right about that.
I haven't been around to observe 99.999+% of the stuff I know to be true. And even for the stuff I think I observed, it could have been a hallucination.
Claiming that we must restrict things we know to things we directly observe does not pass the smell test. Ever been to Mongolia?
It's like the origin of the universe -- no one was there to witness it, so no one can say with absolute certainty what happened.
Who needs absolute certainty? 'Best guess' is often good enough, and 'beyond reasonable doubt' is better still.
I don't have kids in public school any longer so I don't care how it ends. And home schooling will continue to grow, mostly for religious reasons.
“There’s only one creator, and it has to be God,” said Rebecca Cashman, 16, a sophomore at Dover High. She frowned when asked to recollect what she learned about evolution at school last year. “Evolution—is that the Darwin theory?” Cashman shook her head. “I don’t know just what he was thinking!”
This level of ignorance is scary.
BTW, ID doesn't say humans did not have a common ancestor wih modern apes.
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