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."
"Some things have changed sometimes - and some more things may change".
The response of science to things out of reach is to move towards them, not to concede the territory to space aliens.
Of course all proper persuit of knowledge strives to include evermore within its grasp. However, I think you're making the same error of a previous age, the "god of the gaps' become the "science of the gaps.'
Some things that can be known are beyond the sphere of science to know. That's a GOOD thing. Science is designed to address the area of knowledge which can be most firmly known - by the senses and their extenstions, that which can be named, quantified, located, etc.
This is a great and wonderful tool, but it is an error to proclaim that all that can be known, can be known by science and that if a certain knowledge is not known by science it is not true, or does not exist - or that science will eventually know it.
The predictive power of the ToE:
"Some things have changed sometimes - and some more things may change".
How about the predictive power of religion?
The Rapture Index is "The prophetic speedometer of end-time activity."
Very scientific...
Is it my browser, or do the columns not line up?
That's terrific. I love sites like that. They're trying to create a pseudo-scientific approach to the end times. Funny stuff.
The columns don't line up on my browser (Firefox), either.
I find it objectionable as well when some scientists overreach as well, ascribing to ToE as complete in itself in explaining all knowledge possible about the development of life when an important aspect is beyond science's capability to describe.
I too would find that objectionable. Moreover, it's bad science to make such a claim.
Few serious scientists would ever pretend to have "all knowledge possible" about any subject whatsoever, much less a subject as complicated as the development of life on Earth. If you have in fact heard that, you must understand that what you describe represents an extreme minority in the scientific community.
I'd be very interested as to who exactly said that evolution is "complete in itself in explaining all knowledge possible about the development of life." No offense, but that sounds much more like ID propaganda than the actual position of any scientists.
There is bogus religion AND bogus science. To hold up either as representative of an intelligent, serious and honest search for truth in their respective fields is not useful to increasing our knowledge in either.
Wow. THAT IS IMPRESSIVE! Thanks a lot, forsnax5...seatbelt fastened...
To be honest I'm not aware of any scientist, especially one who works in this field, who made such a pronouncement. If that were true there wouldn't be any reason for him to continue with his research.
Birthdate 10/9/2005. How many times does that same guy have to be banned, anyways? He could at least try to change his writing style.
It resembles the Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes, but it only goes to category 4:
Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts
Since the current index is 159, they need a category 5...
Reminds me of the bizarre equations cooked up by R. B. Thieme, a very popular minister among some folks. They made no sense whatever, but they were very pretty. I don't know if Thieme is still around, but he was always interesting.
wow its a long string of additions with absolutely no reason for brackets at all.
It always comes down to the math, doesn't it? Einstein, Pascal, Babbage, and now Thieme!
They always lose me when they get into the math, and I have to take it on faith...
Sigh...
Oh, scientism is alive and well. To find a scientist that proclaim science can completely explain the development of life one need look no further than Richard Dawkins.
He teaches that all life is the product of purposeless material forces-random genetic variation and natural selection.
I think we could both agree that when science begins ascribing purpose, or purposelessness, to its field of scientific study, it has crossed the boundary of what science can know, or claim to know through the use of science alone.
I propose that the next pro-evolution petition consist of Republicans and conservatives concerned not just about what the creationist movement is doing to education, but its effects on the party, the conservative movement, and our culture and society as a whole.
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