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Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference
Access Research Network ^ | 1994 | Michael J. Behe

Posted on 10/06/2002 7:44:29 PM PDT by sourcery

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1 posted on 10/06/2002 7:44:29 PM PDT by sourcery
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To: sourcery
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2 posted on 10/06/2002 7:46:23 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: sourcery
A "theory" is still a theory. Darwin had no proofs, and there are none today to back him up.
3 posted on 10/06/2002 7:52:15 PM PDT by widowithfoursons
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To: sourcery
YEC bump for tomorrow
4 posted on 10/06/2002 7:54:29 PM PDT by LiteKeeper
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To: sourcery
Another nice piece by Michael Behe.

Marx has been discredited. Freud has been discredited. Darwin will be next. Frankly, if you think about it, it's impossible that an organ like an eye could evolve gradually even without the irreducible complexity at the molecular and cellular levels.

Or even something as simple as wings. Until wings were large enough to glide or fly with, they would not only be useless, they would be impediments.

Partial, intra-species evolution is clearly possible--stuff like beaks getting longer, or legs getting stronger--but the kind of general evolution Darwin hypothesized simply isn't possible. Nor, after more than a hundred years, has anybody been able to confirm any aspect of it.
5 posted on 10/06/2002 8:00:27 PM PDT by Cicero
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To: Cicero
Finally some REAL science! You know this just infuriates the evol-religionists to hell n back.
6 posted on 10/06/2002 8:03:14 PM PDT by ALS
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To: *crevo_list
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list
7 posted on 10/06/2002 8:03:32 PM PDT by Free the USA
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To: sourcery
In wondering how nerves in the retina happen to be sensitive to light between 400 and 700 nanometers, I happened to notice that headlight light can be detected by areas of the skin near the eyes, on the eyelids and the cheeks. This would be light in the near infra-red, wavelengths longer than 700 nanometers. Headlights with tungsten filaments emit a lot of infrared. So it seems that nerves are sensitive to photons naturally. It is probably an electrical reaction at the molecular level: The photon kicks electrons into higher energy states and the nerve transmits this change or the change as the electrons fall back within a microsecond or less.

A lens of some kind would allow imaging, and there you are. An eye could be made of any ordinary skin tissue. Nature is filled with eyes. Hearing sounds of various frequencies is more amazing.

8 posted on 10/06/2002 8:09:48 PM PDT by RightWhale
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To: sourcery
The author doesn't adress the fact that evolutionary processes jump ahead in fits and starts. The vast majority of new combinations of DNA result in death or failure to do anything significant at all. Until that one highly improbable combination occurs which survives long enough to be considered a success in the environment.

All of these irreducible molecules referred to by the author were in fact created by DNA sequencing. The average DNA is loaded with sequences that appear to do nothing at all. They are just there not causing trouble. But perhaps after some combination of random mutations and the force of the environment some wholly new capability may arise, in a seemingly "miraculous" occurance. We would of course be totally unaware of the billions of "close" mutations that never survived at all.

Rather like building a scaffold. Until we see the final success rise above the fence into our view. We would have no idea of the billions of failed attempts that litter the landscape.

Besides the force of random mutation and test, we are woefully uneducated about the ability of the environment to force adaptation. By what mechanisms can we sense the environment and transmit some important aspect of the environment into sperm production or egg production?

Evolution remains one of Gods greatest and most beautiful mysteries.
9 posted on 10/06/2002 8:12:02 PM PDT by Mark Felton
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To: Free the USA
bump
10 posted on 10/06/2002 8:14:04 PM PDT by Tribune7
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To: sourcery
Irreducible complexity in biological mechanisms is amazing enough; but taken to the next level, atomic 'structure', and the human intellect completely falters at understanding: there is no 'there' there--just energy.

Brain hurt.....thank you for my existence, God.

11 posted on 10/06/2002 8:21:34 PM PDT by dasboot
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: RightWhale
In wondering how nerves in the retina happen to be sensitive to light between 400 and 700 nanometers

I've always understood that it is because those are the frequencies where water is transparent.

13 posted on 10/06/2002 8:45:55 PM PDT by sigSEGV
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To: sigSEGV
those are the frequencies where water is transparent

Well, yes, that is part of it. Another part is that infra-red, the part farther from the visible spectrum, doesn't excite electrons but just increases molecular vibration and wouldn't give a signal to nerves [excepting pain nerves if it begins causing damage.] Near infra-red vision would be handy, but by some oversight we didn't get that capability. And the other end of the spectrum is ultraviolet where the radiation actually ionizes molecules, also not good for nerves. Seems natural for eyes to work in the part of the spectrum where they do, a band where an engineer would choose to place his design.

14 posted on 10/06/2002 8:57:56 PM PDT by RightWhale
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To: sourcery
bump

"In science there is even a whimsical term for a machine or structure or process that does something, but the actual mechanism by which it accomplishes its task is unknown: it is called a 'black box."

15 posted on 10/06/2002 8:58:45 PM PDT by GOPJ
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To: Cicero
Marx has been discredited. Freud has been discredited. Darwin will be next. Frankly, if you think about it, it's impossible that an organ like an eye could evolve gradually even without the irreducible complexity at the molecular and cellular levels.

Marx may have admired Darwin, but his ideas were made not on a scientific basis but rather a moral one. Lumping the three together is not a valid way to attack evolution.

After giving some thought to the idea of the possibility of an eye evolving from the simple to the complex, it occurs to me that this is what happens every time a human is formed. An egg and a sperm unite and begin the process of differentiating from a simple two-celled embryo to a multibillion-celled complex human. The embryo takes on forms replicating the entire cellular evolutionary process. Seeing evolution in real time is believing.

The problem with any of the Design arguments is that their advocates all seem to look for a personal Creator of the Judaic persuasion. All seem content to see Revealed Truth as the end all of knowledge. All suffer from the medieval desire to demonstrate by logical means that Revealed Truth is demonstrably provable by rational means. Good luck in the next World if you ever get there.

16 posted on 10/06/2002 9:01:23 PM PDT by LoneRangerMassachusetts
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To: sigSEGV
If the precise mass of a human body could be determined at the instant before death, and then again in the instant after death, would there be a difference? Does life have mass?
17 posted on 10/06/2002 9:12:50 PM PDT by stinkypew
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To: sourcery
 Funny how most folks here have figured out that Islam is evil ( Or at the very least something bad which must be opposed ) but ignore the log in their own eye. For those who have not become invincibly ignorant on the subject of evolution here is the counter argument.
18 posted on 10/06/2002 9:23:56 PM PDT by Nateman
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To: Mark Felton
... so too we now realize that the complex cilium can not be reached in a single step or a few steps. But since the complexity of the cilium is irreducible, then it can not have functional precursors. Since the irreducibly complex cilium can not have functional precursors it can not be produced by natural selection, which requires a continuum of function to work. Natural selection is powerless when there is no function to select. We can go further and say that, if the cilium can not be produced by natural selection, then the cilium was designed.

The functional precursors of the cilium were not necessarily simpler than the cilium. They could have been more complex, or they may had a different purpose altogether. A random mutation in the previous structure could still have produced the cilium function where it didn't exist before, and natural selection would then have an opportunity to act.

19 posted on 10/06/2002 9:25:41 PM PDT by AZLiberty
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To: Dan Rick
" As the evos would have it: totally trial and error "

I believe in the power of evolutionary principles, but I also strongly believe in mechanisms that can bias the evolutionary process near-term based on environmental feedback.

It has been shown to exist (near-term adaptation), but the mechanism of the feedback is completely mysterious.

BTW: What kind of God would create a life that was not capable of adapting or evolving?

20 posted on 10/06/2002 9:29:23 PM PDT by Mark Felton
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