Holt on Behe in New York Times Magazine

I'm curious, Thumbers and Lurkers - do you think this is a correct statement of Behe's views?

It has to be, to stay consistent with Behe's comments that he believes in natural selection and in common descent.

The only thing left to be consistent with ID and also natural selection and common descent is some now and then tinkering as the Intelligent Designer glues some flagella to the butts of some bacteria once in awhile but letting evolution take its course for the most part.

Of course there is no comment from Phillp Johnson, or anybody else at Discovery Institute if *that* is all that ID has to offer.

Well, I read Behe's book, and he (surprise, surprise!) never gets specific about how and when information was "injected" into the system, but - by process of elimination - I came to the same conclusion that Holt does.

What if he/she/it merely fashioned the primal cell and then let evolution produce the rest, kinks and all? That is what the biologist and intelligent-design proponent Michael J. Behe has suggested. Behe says that the little protein machines in the cell are too sophisticated to have arisen by mutation . . .

From what I've read, Behe thinks that the "information" for IC systems was "front loaded" into the "first organism" only to be expresed when it was "needed."

From what I've read, Behe thinks that the "information" for IC systems was "front loaded" into the "first organism" only to be expresed when it was "needed."

One beauty of Darwinism is the intellectual freedom it allows.

— Jim Holt

Right, that was my take. Which leads to the conclusion that the first organism contained all the genetic information for E.Coli, HIV, Homo sapiens, fungus, palm trees . . .

For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. Darwin's Black Box, p. 7)

The most prominent design theorist, Michael Behe, is on record to holding to common descent (the evolutionary interrelatedness of all organisms back to a common ancestor).

I don't think Behe is really a front-loading proponent. Half the examples of IC in Darwin's Black Box have to deal with features that existed only in vertebrates (or at least, at the time Behe thought they did): the rearranging genes of the immune system, membrane/secreted antibodies, the complement and clotting cascades.

To postulate that precursor elements for these features were "front-loaded" billions of years ago in bacteria, with the idea that they would come together on their own by random mutation and selection at the appropriate time, would mean simply to negate the whole point of IC, i.e. that these system cannot evolve by conventional evolutionary mechanisms.

I think Behe thinks that God is a "pimp my ride" kind of guy, who shows up once in a while to spiff up the Creation with spanky new features that otherwise wouldn't be there, according to some Mysterious Master Plan.

Because ID attempts to fit under the umbrella of evolutionary biology, and most biologists push ID out into the rain (yeah, it's a forced metaphor), should we interpret "darwinism" to mean "those who believe in the modern synthesis?"

If Behe, indeed, argues that the DNA of life was "front-loaded", then how can he tenably argue that common descent with modification occurred? That sounds strangely as if in Behe's eyes life on Earth is not much more than a computer program whose course was pre-determined with external factors playing no role. Does that mean that the great extinctions were events in the history of life analogous to god playing war games with his toys, since the cretaceous meteorite was surely not part of the genetic plan?

And, if life was "front-loaded", there should be abundant evidence of that "front-loading" in the DNA of the most primitive organisms living today. They should contain all those genes that were turned on millennia later in another branch of the evolutionary shrub to produce the more complex and more recently evolved organisms.

If Behe, indeed, argues that the DNA of life was "front-loaded", then how can he tenably argue that common descent with modification occurred? That sounds strangely as if in Behe's eyes life on Earth is not much more than a computer program whose course was pre-determined with external factors playing no role. Does that mean that the great extinctions were events in the history of life analogous to god playing war games with his toys, since the cretaceous meteorite was surely not part of the genetic plan?

And, if life was "front-loaded", there should be abundant evidence of that "front-loading" in the DNA of the most primitive organisms living today. They should contain all those genes that were turned on millennia later in another branch of the evolutionary shrub to produce the more complex and more recently evolved organisms.

Well, lurkers were asked for and so here I am. (I have no problem with passive voice, if you don't like it go whine to an English teacher.)

I am fond of taking ideas to their logical conclusion, and when Behe's ideas are taken to their logical conclusion it seems that the only times the designer can design is sometime around the time of the common ancestor of prokaryotes and eukaryotes and before.

Having said this, Behe also uses blood clotting as one of his example of IC, and this certainly originated at some time considerably after the first appearance of life. At the latest this would be around the time that the phylum chordata originated (I don't really know much about the circulatory systems of non-chordates and so can't comment on their clotting mechanisms). Even though this example of a supposed "IC" system must have originated after abiogenesis, I would like to give Behe the benefit of the doubt and say that since blood clotting has been shown to be reducible that it is no longer a valid example for evaluating Behe's positions.

Without blood clotting we are left with examples of systems that have their origin at the earliest period in the history of life and so ID becomes a rather desperate, if sophisticated, version of the God of the Gaps.

Considering some of Darwin's seemingly quite personal remarks in his notebooks, I suggest that "Darwinism", in its broadest sense, should be taken to mean "uncompromising materialism". This may be his most fundamental contribution.

— John Wendt

Because ID attempts to fit under the umbrella of evolutionary biology, and most biologists push ID out into the rain (yeah, it's a forced metaphor), should we interpret "darwinism" to mean "those who believe in the modern synthesis?"

I'm curious, Thumbers and Lurkers - do you think this is a correct statement of Behe's views?

It is difficult to say exactly what Behe's views really are. Behe recognizes, I think, that he is not in a position to posit the existence, now or at some earlier time, of a real intelligent designer. Thus, he resorts to attacks on the perceived weaknesses in evidence for evolution. As a consequence, his "intelligent designer" lacks any specific qualities other than that he/she/it was the intelligent designer. This causes Behe's argument to ultimately collapse.

It sounds to me that Behe is *really* a theistic evolutionist that expects to find fingerprints. (Unlike, say, Miller.)

Unfortuneately, every fingerprint turns out to be a smudge.

According to Andrea, "I think Behe thinks that God is a 'pimp my ride' kind of guy, who shows up once in a while to spiff up the Creation with spanky new features that otherwise wouldn't be there, according to some Mysterious Master Plan."

Good image, Andrea.

One important thing to keep in mind: If one wants to say that the designer turned inert matter (or "nothingness") directly into a part of an organism, one runs the risk of saying something that is inconsistent with common descent. Did the designer turn inert matter (or "nothingness") directly into a new cell? Cells are organisms. So, for instance, say that Behe thinks the designer turned dust directly into the first eye. That would be at odds with the hypothesis of common descent in that eyes are comprised of cells, and cells are organisms -- at least in terms of how most scientists talk. Now bacterial flagella are not cells. So if Behe's hypothesis is that the first bacterial flagellum is the only thing that a designer turned inert matter directly into, his hypothesis would be consistent with common descent.

Another point. I still can't really figure out what Behe means by "irreducibly complex." But I think he would say that some parts of me are "irreducibly complex." And I was born by my mother. So that Behe says that something is "irreducibly complex" does not enable me to justifiably believe that a being turned inert matter (or "nothingness") directly into that thing.

Behe might respond by saying that, while I am -- or parts of me are -- "irreducibly complex," we know what proximately caused the existence of me. Bacterial flagella are "irreducibly complex," and we don't know what proximately caused the existence of the first bacterial flagella. But I thought he is saying that he knows that a designer caused the existence of the first bacterial flagellum. So what is it? Is it known what caused the first bacterial flagellum or is it not known? Maybe he would say that it is not known what proximately caused the first bacterial flagellum, but it is justifiably believed that an intelligent designer proximately caused it by using some sort of power.

But it is at least justifiably believed that the existence of the thing that Behe would identify as the first fully developed bacterial flagellum was proximately caused by cell-division; for the existence of billions and billions of organisms has been proximately caused by cell-division or sexual reproduction, and it's very doubtful that a deity or extraterrestrial turned inert matter (or "nothingness") directly into an organism in the last 4,000 years. Analogously, say I walk into my bedroom and find a crisp, new $100 dollar bill on my pillow. Let's say I don't know how it got there. I'm justified in believing that no deity or extraterrestrial put it there.

I posted: "...it's very doubtful that a deity or extraterrestrial turned inert matter (or 'nothingness') directly into an organism in the last 4,000 years."

Very doubtful?! It is better just to say that it didn't happen.

I'm curious, Thumbers and Lurkers - do you think this is a correct statement of Behe's views?

— Dave Thomas

What is Darwinism? It would be nice if the author defined this term as he understands it. It is meaningless in the biological community and most often used by people unfamiliar with the modern state of biological research (i.e., lay-advocates of ID and creationism).

— RBH

I posted: " . . . it's very doubtful that a deity or extraterrestrial turned inert matter (or 'nothingness') directly into an organism in the last 4,000 years." ... which s/he corrected to: Very doubtful?! It is better just to say that it didn't happen.

— Longhorn

No one knows what the ID view really is on evolution and what portion of it they accept or don't accept because they won't state it. So whenever you characterize a position, they can say "that's not what we say".

It's also risky for them to come out with a position on how much common descent they do/don't accept. It means making statements about the age of the world and making predictions about the relatedness of species x and y, and how to show where natural selection does and does not work. That makes the theory vulnerable.

Good theories are vulnerable and do take risks. ID refuses to.

There are other considerations as well. They don't agree. There is no unified ID theory. It's a mishmash that tries to group everything from Creationism to Orthogenesis under one umbrella.

If you really want to take a trip down the rabbit hole read some of what Wells states about common descent. He argues you can have descendant species that are born from an ancestor that cares for them, but are not really the same species and not really genetically related. They are just similar enough for the ancestor to care for the descendant. So therefore, you don't really have common descent.

I don't know quite where to post this note, but two excellent essays appeared on-line today, one from the Boston Globe and the other from the Albuquerque Journal.

Larry Calloway writing for the Albuquerque Journal, has written a serious piece on evolution and ID with an emphasis on Ernst Mayr.

David Holahan, on the other hand, has written a very funny piece in the Boston Globe that is very, very funny, bringing in our gall bladder, the appendix, automobile recalls, and nudist beaches. Given their lack of a sense of humor, it will drive the ID promoters nuts.

Dave Thomas, shame on you! If you'd read and appreciated Ken Miller's wonderful "Find Darwin's God," you'd know that Miller quotes Behe suggesting preciselythis idea. Here's Behe:

"Suppose that nearly 4 bya the designer made the first cell, already containing all of the IR biochemical systems dicussed here and many others. (One can postulate that the designs for systems that were to be used later, such as blood clotting, were present but not "turned on." In present day organisms, plenty of genes are tured off for a while, sometimes for generations, to be turned on at a later time.)

Miller then rips this idea to pieces, pointing out first of all that such a clairavoyant cell (containing all the IR systems from creatures not to walk the earth for a billion years) would be giagantic, and that none of the bacterial ancestors of this cell show any such thing. Worse, anything that was "turned off" for this length of time would degrade into nonsense because natural selection could not discard mutational errors in unexpressed genes that made it through the usual DNA correction mechanisms.

Note, for some reason the post script told me that "sms, pl" (without the interceding comma) was "questionable content" and refused to accept my post. The "sms, pl" in question was found IN BETWEEN the phrase "organisms, plenty" (again, the comma does not appear in the text I was quoting: I had to add it in order to make my post!) This certainly seems like bizarre behavior, so I'm reporting it.

I forgot to add. The Behe quote was from page 228 of "Darwin's Black Box." Do I get a cookie for being the only poster to actually address the concerns of the OP with a diect quote from Behe showing that he had advanced that as a possibility? :) I WANT A COOKIE! :)

Final post, I swear. It's "Finding Darwin's God," not "Find Darwin's God" (sounds like a scavenger hunt!)

Behe's "views" are intellectually incoherent, serving only a political/social agenda of undermining belief in evolution and "the materialist worldview". Taking them seriously enough to try to untangle them just plays into the hands of the anti-evolutionists.

Plunge, you are the Man! (Or Person, if gender specification is a problem.)

The quote you mentioned is exactly what I was looking for. (It actually starts up on page 227 of Behe's book.)

Yes, you get a Cookie!

How about a Torte instead?

Make that two tortes- a Torte, and a re-Torte.

Thanks!! Dave

PS And thanks to all for their interesting comments on this thread!

Interesting... unlike most posts here at PT, not a single ID supporter jumped in. And here's where we could really use their help to clear up what Behe REALLY posits. Why do you suppose...?

Actually, no idea.

— Grey Wolf

Miller then rips this idea to pieces, pointing out first of all that such a clairavoyant cell (containing all the IR systems from creatures not to walk the earth for a billion years) would be giagantic

— Plunge

Honesty at last.

[qoute=Miller goes on and]none of the bacterial ancestors of this cell show any such thing. Worse, anything that was "turned off" for this length of time would degrade into nonsense because natural selection could not discard mutational errors in unexpressed genes that made it through the usual DNA correction mechanisms.

Any particular reason that bacteria didn't evolve from an anaerobic eukaryote instead of the other way around? Any reason other than an ideological constraint that presumes that evolution always proceeds from simpler to more complex?

This is too easy. Who is this Miller guy? Obviously a low IQ individual.

And his natural selection argument is bogus. Any number of simple error-checking algorithms could kill off any imperfect copies. If a designer wanted preservation of an entire genome without alteration it's not that hard to do. Computer engineers like me do it with similar amounts of critical information so if I can do it surely whoever designed the first cell could do it too. Miller needs to learn how to think outside that dogmatic box he lives in.

Grey Wolf

All the information needed to turn a chicken egg into a chick is inside the egg at the outset. Duh. Are you stupid or what?

Grey Wolf

I've been around the block a few times and have seen your type many times before. I don't have the time or the patience to argue forever with people who won't concede a valid point to save their life.

If you think there isn't enough information in a chicken egg to construct a chicken I'm not going to argue the point with you. I'm just going to pat you on the head like I would a small child and move on to another topic where there's perhaps an adult around that wants to talk about it.

Grey Wolf

Falsifiability is a red herring.

A hypothesis may be, in decreasing order of preference:

1) verifiable and falsifiable
2) verifiable but not falsifiable
3) not verifiable but falsifiable
4) not verifiable and not falsifiable

Design is verifiable in a number of ways. An irrefutable proof of irreducible complexity may be presented. SETI might discover the creator. An extant organism's genome might be found containing genes that code for functional proteins that were never used or expressed in any of its line of descent but are found in other lines.

It's possible that design may not be falsifiable due to the nature of negative evidence but that doesn't matter if it is, in principle, verifiable.

I question whether it can ever be verified that mutation/selection operating in the distant past accumulated enough random mutations acted upon by natural selection to 1) turn inanimate chemicals into a living DNA-based cell and 2) turn a bacteria into a dinosaur.

Hypotheses that cannot be verified aren't useless in all cases of course, as negative evidence (failure to falsify) can become compelling, but they're certainly not preferable to those that can be verified. A verified hypothesis is the best case. A falsifiable hypothesis that has yet to be falsified is inferior.

Behe's "views" are intellectually incoherent

— ts

Unless he posits that the great designer dips in and out, as the whim strikes him/her, creating an IC object here and then one there, but leaves the rest to evolution. That strikes me as an indefensible position, not only scientifically but also theologically.

— keanus

This strikes me as a whole lot less credible than Santa Claus.

— Russel

That sounds strangely as if in Behe's eyes life on Earth is not much more than a computer program whose course was pre-determined with external factors playing no role. Does that mean that the great extinctions were events in the history of life analogous to god playing war games with his toys, since the cretaceous meteorite was surely not part of the genetic plan?

— Keanus

"Any particular reason that bacteria didn't evolve from an anaerobic eukaryote instead of the other way around? Any reason other than an ideological constraint that presumes that evolution always proceeds from simpler to more complex?"

Well, first of all, there is no such constraint. Plenty of structures get simpler in evolution: it's all about reproductive success after all, not complexity or simplicity. Complexity just happens to often mean some pretty good solutions to problems that simplicity can't do for you.

Second of all, I think you missed part of his objection. A cell containing all those "turned off" IC strutures with foresight for all the sorts of things modern animals would need would be a HUGE cell. And there is no evidence of any of that information having been there in any of the descendants of early life. Certainly no evidence of these monster frankenstein cells.

"This is too easy. Who is this Miller guy? Obviously a low IQ individual."

Award winning biochemist. Devout Catholic.

"And his natural selection argument is bogus. Any number of simple error-checking algorithms could kill off any imperfect copies."

So... where are they? What are they? What Miller says happens, happens in all organisms (and it's worse in RNA, because that mutates faster). If genes go unexpressed for too long, they accumulate mutations that render the information garbage.

"If a designer wanted preservation of an entire genome without alteration it's not that hard to do."

Well, sure: he could just make his magic supercell that we have no evidence of work like no cell we've ever observed in nature with a mechanism that no longer exists in any modern cell. Boy, he sure tricked us!

"Computer engineers like me do it with similar amounts of critical information so if I can do it surely whoever designed the first cell could do it too. Miller needs to learn how to think outside that dogmatic box he lives in."

You mean the box of having to stick to the actual evidence we have on how cells and mutation works instead of inventing ad hoc possibilities for which there is no evidence and are inconsistent with all known data?

The reason scientist stick to that box is that if they didn't they could explain anything simply by making up some random story then going down to the pub for a beer for the rest of the day.

A tweak here, a tweak there, come back in a hundred million years to see how it worked out.

— davescot

It's at least worth testing by looking for genes in extant single-celled organisms that have no business being there as they've never been used in that organism or any of its ancestors. Say a gene coding for a neurotransmitter is found in a single-celled organism . . .

— davescot

If you think there isn't enough information in a chicken egg to construct a chicken I'm not going to argue the point with you.

— davescot

Does DaveScot just sneak into old threads to try and have the last word so no one notices?

Longhorn

Explain the chicken/egg paradox of DNA/ribosome. I've said I don't care for the examples that Behe used when such a beauty is right there out in the open, unexplained, paradoxical, irreducible, and possibly the most widely studied and well understood subset of cellular machinery we know of. DNA/ribosome is a computer controlled 3-D protein milling machine capable of making all the parts required to replicate itself. The problem is that proteins are needed to replicate DNA and DNA is required to replicate proteins.

The best clutching at straws attempt to modern synthesize the paradox away I've seen is through the fantasy of an "RNA world" that existed long enough to make a DNA World then conveniently vanished without a trace.

The big problem with it is that DNA is like disk storage in a computer (slow and non-volatile) while RNA is like RAM storage (fast and volatile). Those attributes are exploited in a cell just like they are in a computer. RNA never could have persisted long enough in any credible environment to evolve. It's just too volatile.

If someone can come up with a remotely believable process whereby DNA/ribosome combination evolved without direction, including the 300 or so minimum number of interdependent complex proteins that are required for self-replication then I'll never again question any part of the mutation/selection fairy tale. Good luck.

A cell containing all those "turned off" IC strutures with foresight for all the sorts of things modern animals would need would be a HUGE cell.

And there is no evidence of any of that information having been there in any of the descendants of early life.

Certainly no evidence of these monster frankenstein cells.

So . . . where are they? What are they?

"What part of amoeba dubia, an extant single celled organism, having 670 billion base pairs did you not understand?"

What part of "extant" do you not understand? Plenty of modern creatures have huge genomes, but I challenge you to find a human blood clotting system hidden away in dubia, or, for that matter, any uniquely mammalian systems.

"We've barely started to look."

This is like saying that we've barely started to look for the elephant someone hid in the broom closet. It's just not there. If human blood clotting genes are smuggled around in genomes waiting for humans, why aren't they in, say, sea cucumbers anymore? You're telling me they waited around in perfect condition for a billion years, and then just magically simultaneously vanished in all other species as soon as one particular species started using them for the first time?

"You're prepared to tell me with a straight face that you believe in abiogenesis without a real clue about how it could have happened and at the same time question the possibility of a simple error-checking algorithm in a cell?"

The whole point of mutations is that they are a FAILURE of the normal error-checking, or are outside what it can correct. There simply is no error-checking system that we know which could prevent unexpressed genes from mutating at all for a billion years (and then, of course, vanish into thin air right about when we are first able to start looking). Nothing in biochemistry has that level of fidelity without some sort of mechanism for killing off mutations that break fitness (and for there to be fitness, those genes HAVE to be expressed!)

The idea that you can compare man-made solid state DRAM with checksums to the workings of a cell is a joke you are apparently playing on yourself.

Well, this should advance the cause of Atheism more than anything. What a concept of a negligent, could't-care-less God. Why should anybody believe in such an . . . ?

— bcpmoon

That's at least a way to start research. Anyone of the DI working on that?

I do not think that that was the question. Of course, the information is enough to construct a chicken, but what about a specific chicken? If the chicken is is only caused by its genome, then clones would really be identical. But they aren't. So somewhere there is an increase in information. (Not necessarily introduced into the hereditary line, but nonetheless). That was the point.

If human blood clotting genes are smuggled around in genomes waiting for humans, why aren't they in, say, sea cucumbers anymore?

Some other related research that I really like (I LOVE astronomy, cosmology, and space sciences in general) that I'd like to take this opportunity to plug can be found here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22galactic+habitable+zone%22

This is pulling together a truly broad range of sciences.

As some of you may know, one of the largest problems with abiogenesis is the limited amount of time between the earth's formation and the appearance of the first cell - believed to be no more than 500 million years.

And the problem just keeps getting worse and worse. The more we dig into the machinery of even the simplest cells the more complex we find out they are. Thus the amount of specified complexity that had to be generated by chemical evolution grows and grows while the amount of time for it to happen on the earth does not grow.

What the "galactic habitable zone" work attempts to do is find out how much time there was for abiogenesis to occur on another earthlike planet that formed before our planet did, how many of them there were, and the range. It's fascinating stuff. Read it. The best estimate now is that the oldest earth-like planets are no more than 4 billion years older than the earth and are in a restricted band well away from the galatic center. But there should be plenty of them. So that gives abiogenesis of carbon forms (I'm not necessarily a carbon chauvinist though) an extra 4 billion years. That's a lot more wiggle room and it's probably going to be needed because that first cell was a huge step, bigger than any other leap in the path from non-life to observed diversity today.

A problem (which I think is really humorous) with abiogenesis occuring on a different planet and seeding the earth is that some group (I forget who) worked through the numbers to figure out the odds of an earth-like planet blowing up and a microbe hitching a ride on a piece of shrapnel. The odds of that are reasonable. What they figured is essentially zero odds is any of those bits of shrapnel happening to land on our planet. So even if abiogenesis occured on another planet, odds are it would have needed to have an intelligently designed transportation to get here.

Now if any of this is new information to any of you mutation/selection faithful then I say you are not well enough informed to even be talking about the problems with origins. And that's the real problem IDers have. It's not about the Panda's Thumb. It's all about where that first cell came from 4 billion years ago. The rest of evolution is easy to believe in comparison to abiogenesis.

If human blood clotting genes are smuggled around in genomes waiting for humans, why aren't they in, say, sea cucumbers anymore? You're telling me they waited around in perfect condition for a billion years, and then just magically simultaneously vanished in all other species as soon as one particular species started using them for the first time?

— plunge

Because sea cucumbers were never intended to diversify beyond sea cucumbers. Maybe you hadn't noticed but most lines go extinct.

— davescot

Fer instance, if life had a purpose beyond anaerobic single-celled critters mucking slowly around in the water it had to create an oxidizing atmosphere to support faster metabolisms.

Dave Scot wrote:

"Falsifiability is a red herring.

A hypothesis may be, in decreasing order of preference:

1) verifiable and falsifiable
2) verifiable but not falsifiable
3) not verifiable but falsifiable
4) not verifiable and not falsifiable"

This is pretty misleading. Falsifiability is more of a pink herring. You really can't falsify most interesting theoretical statements, at least not in historical sciences like biology or in the social sciences. There's a lot of reasons for this. I think most people recognize falsifiability is dead.

But most people also recognize that its genetically cloned twin (with a few tweaks) is quite viable: testability and discreditability. Useful and interesting theoretical statements can be subject to testability and they can therefore be discredited and compared with alternative statements.

The rest is pure hokum because "verifiability" simply means arranging facts in any order to suit your purpose and declaring your hypothesis "proved". You don't take any risks or even really worry about causal mechanisms.

Of course, it doesn't surprise me that ID proponents like verifiability and dislike testability.

With 95% of the human genome a big QUESTION MARK of unknown function, you're sitting there telling me what is and is not in an unsequenced genome 200 times larger. You're obviously pretty desperate to defend your faith. I sense you're beginning to get a glimmer of how tenuous its basis is.

— DaveScot

"Because sea cucumbers were never intended to diversify beyond sea cucumbers."

Can you even follow a simple argument? If Behe's claim is that the ancestral cell, ancestral to all life, not just human life, had all this information ready to be switched on in particular situations, then he has to explain where it all went.

"We've only just scratched the surface on our own genome, which is 200 times smaller than dubias, and you're already ruling out possibilities based on no evidence whatsoever."

Yes: there is no evidence of Frankencell genes anywhere in the animal kingdom, and they are obviously missing in places where there is no room in genomes for them.

Because sea cucumbers were never intended to diversify beyond sea cucumbers.

And the problem just keeps getting worse and worse. The more we dig into the machinery of even the simplest cells the more complex we find out they are. Thus the amount of specified complexity that had to be generated by chemical evolution grows and grows while the amount of time for it to happen on the earth does not grow.

This is pretty misleading. Falsifiability is more of a pink herring. You really can't falsify most interesting theoretical statements, at least not in historical sciences like biology or in the social sciences. There's a lot of reasons for this. I think most people recognize falsifiability is dead.

But most people also recognize that its genetically cloned twin (with a few tweaks) is quite viable: testability and discreditability. Useful and interesting theoretical statements can be subject to testability and they can therefore be discredited and compared with alternative statements.

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory --- if we look for confirmations. 2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory --- an event which would have refuted the theory. 3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. 4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. 5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. 6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.") 7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers --- for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.") One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.

I see that DaveScot is doing a good job promoting my Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis soon to appear in Rivista di Biologia. Thank you Dave. I do take exception though with one thing. Einstein's premature endorsement of the PEH should not be dismissed lightly.

"Everything is determined....by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
Albert Einstein in The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929.

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."
Albert Einstein, Statement to the Spinoza Society of America, September 22, 1932.

If there were such a thing as Free Will, there would be no Darwinists and there would be no Bible-Banging fundamentalists either. Both of these conditions are obviously genetically based and I see no prospect of a genetic engineering solution anytime soon. Darwinism, like political liberalism, with which it is obviously linked, is congenital, something Gilbert and Sullivan realized before the turn of the 20th century.

"Every boy and every girl,
That is born into the world alive,
Is either a little liberal,
Or else a little conservative."
Iolanthe

John A. Davison

With respect to the "Unintelligent Design" with which this thread was introduced, the reason that the laryngial nerve does what it does is because nerves like blood vessels always follow the target organ during their evolution. My Dachshund Otto, named incidentally for the greatest paleontologist that ever lived, Otto Schindewolf, and a staunch antiDarwinian as well, has very short legs due to his having the same gene that produces the human achondroplastic dwarf. His nerves and blood vessels follow wherever his legs have taken them. In all mammls and in primitive amphibians the sciatic nerve passes between the fibula and the tibia of the lower leg. In the frog these bones are fused to form a tibio-fibula and the sciatic nerve, having been so trapped, now passes through that fused bone through a hole. It is a beautiful demonstration of evolution and one that I used to delight telling my students about. So the so-called "Unintelligent Design" is not that at all but simply another demonstration that the ancestor of the giraffe had a short neck. It also would indicate that God has not had to intervene during the evolutionary sequence just as both Grasse and myself agree.

"Let us not invoke God in realities in which He no longer has to intervene. The single act of creation was enough for Him."
Pierre Grasse, page 166

Incidentally, I do not agree with Grasse on a single creation: I think a couple of dozen at a minimum.

John A. Davison

TS,

The problem with Popper is that few propositions really can in principle be shown to be false. Most interesting theoretical propositions require a ceterus paribus clause (all things held equal) and rest on probabilistic events. But the matter gets worse because few theories are just "one theory", they tend to be interlocking theories. Darwin's theory of evolution is, as Mayr points out, five separate theories. The modern synthesis combines postulates from genetics and hypothesized causal mechanisms. None of these can be confronted with a decisive test. The best that they can be is confronted with evidence and measured against the evidence. In addition, it is sometimes the case that competing theories are both not discredited and so one must pick the better of the two theories rather than reject the proposition that was clearly and convincingly shown to be false.

Research strategies seldom get rejected. They tend to advance or degenerate.

The problem of falsification is far more difficult than Popper led us to believe. That does not however imply we are led down the primrose path to Feyerabend.

Testability is not falsifiability.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem that we have any other serious disagreements.

LOL do you guys read your material?

If the design isn't intelligent because it is inefficient...

Then how would nature select for it?

Are you now changing your theory to survival of the sometimes less fit?

The theory of natural selection relies on one species having enough of a compeditive advantage over other species to survive. If this nerve could be shortened incrementally it would or would not have an advantage?

To a neutral observer this is a silly argument because you are blind to your own theory's required implications.

Its like bad mouthing your boyfriend and saying what kind of woman would sleep with you...

very silly.

Nature never selected for anything. That is pure Darwinian fantasy. All evolution was emergent and driven by internal forces that had little or nothing to do with the environment. That is what the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis is all about. Get used to it.

John A. Davison

Nature never selected for anything. That is pure Darwinian fantasy. All evolution was emergent and driven by internal forces that had little or nothing to do with the environment. That is what the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis is all about. Get used to it. It is here to stay.

John A. Davison

If the design isn't intelligent because it is inefficient . . . Then how would nature select for it?

Nature was created somehow. I hope that is acceptable to everyone. What I want to know is exactly when, after the initial creation, did the Creator of that Nature hand over the reins to that which had already been created?

Let me answer that question with a simple one word answer - NEVER.
Nature in the guise of Natural Selection is a Darwinian fantasy. Natural Selection is now and never was a creative force. Quite the contrary, it was a conservative force only serving to stabilize the species, an inescapable conclusion reached by Reginald C. Punnett, William Bateson, Leo Berg, Robert Broom, Pierre Grasse and most recently by myself.

That is why an amateur bird watcher like myself never has any difficulty identifying every bird he has ever seen armed only with Peterson's Guide to the Birds. There is absolutely nothing in the Darwinian model that had any bearing whatsoever on the emergence of life on this planet. It is a scandal and a hoax. Get used to it folks.

As for the giraffe, the fact that it is here and thriving is sufficient explanation for the adequacy of its design and it most certainly was designed just as was every other living thing past and present.

John A. Davison

DaveScott typed:
[blockquote]DNA/ribosome is a computer controlled 3-D protein milling machine[/blockquote]
No, it isn't.
[blockquote]capable of making all the parts required to replicate itself.[/blockquote]
No, it's not.

That is why an amateur bird watcher like myself never has any difficulty identifying every bird he has ever seen armed only with Peterson's Guide to the Birds. There is absolutely nothing in the Darwinian model that had any bearing whatsoever on the emergence of life on this planet. It is a scandal and a hoax. Get used to it folks.

As for the giraffe, the fact that it is here and thriving is sufficient explanation for the adequacy of its design and it most certainly was designed just as was every other living thing past and present.

Who are you or anyone else to say what is optimal? That is arrogant and infantile. Show me any example of Natural Selection producing anything beyond a variety or subspecies. You can't and you know it. You Darwinians are living in a fantasy world and always have been. You know all about a process that has never been observed. Your primary spokespersons are or were nothing but a bunch of sedentary intellectual zeros whose sole purpose in life was to convert the entire world to the same sort of mindless, aimless, purposeless view of a universe which they proclaim with what Pierre Grasse described as "Olympian assurance." Intelligent Design is plain as day to any rational observer. You are only to be pitied for the congenital malaise from which you so obviously suffer.

I am through screwing around with you guys. It is a waste of my time. Go right on fantasizing.

Evolution is finished. Get used to it. Until you do you are wasting your time.

"Evolution, after its last enormous effort to form the mammalian orders and man, seems to be out of breath and drowsing off. I find this metaphor a good description of the present state of evolutionary phenomena."
Pierre Grasse, page 71

John A. Davison

It's [abiogensis?] the only point where design is evident IMO and all the problems that skeptics of mutation/selection point to go away with a designed LUCA [L? Universal Common Ancestor].

I am through screwing around with you guys. It is a waste of my time. Go right on fantasizing.

— John A. Davision

I'd read that paper.

Dave Scott writes: "Explain the chicken/egg paradox of DNA/ribosome."

Dave, I'm not sure I see what you mean. But maybe you want to say that the first DNA on planet earth was "irreducibly complex." But I think you would also want to say that the DNA in me is "irreducibly complex," and my DNA came into being through sexual reproduction and meiosis. So that you think something is "irreducibly complex" does not enable us to justifiably believe that a deity or extraterrestrial turned inert matter (or "nothingness") -- poof! -- directly into that thing.

I don't know the exact series of events that proximately caused the first DNA. I don't think anybody does. But do you want to say that a deity turned inert matter (or "nothingness") -- poof! -- directly into the first DNA? If so, offer that as a hypothesis and present the data that you think supports that hypothesis. That will help us determine whether yours is a claim that we should accept.

This is my big problem with those who refer to themselves as proponents of "intelligent design." I have yet to see one person who refers to him of herself as a proponent of "intelligent design" publicly offer one clear hypothesis. Which event(s) did the designer cause? I don't care who the designer is. I want to know what event(s) you think the designer caused. For instance, did the designer turn inert matter directly into the first self-replicating molecules on earth? Did the designer cause that meteorite to hit off the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs? Did the designer turn inert matter -- poof! -- directly into the first two elephants (one male and one female)? And what evidence, if any, suggests that the designer did what you think it did? This kind of information is important for the community of inquirers. Otherwise I don't know what to do with your claims.

Wayne Francis
I read your idiotic prediction and I am here only to tell you once more that I am through screwing around with a bunch of atheist ideologues who still believe in the most failed hypothesis in the history of science. You may now, with my permission, return to your fantasies. If you ever publish anything send me a reprint.

John A. Davison

Spot on prediction, Wayne. I'm impressed.

Actually John, I think its best that you spend time away from PT. After all, you are attempting to revolutionise modern science, that must surely require a considerable amount of effort. Maybe every time you think about posting here, you should remind yourself 'no, I must put the finishing touches to that paper I plan to submit to Nature.'

In fact, if you do this, then I guess we will never see you around here again. All the media interviews and preparations for becoming the most famous scientist of your generation won't leave much room for messing around on a blog.

You still here JAD? Ah I see you've posted 4 times in less then 24 hours after you promised you where leaving us. Seems my idiotic prediction is 100% true. You keep saying to yourself that evolution is "the most failed hypothesis in the history of science" they say if you say something enough you begin to believe it. Problem is few others believe it in light of the evidence.

The fact that you think shark placentas are the same as mammals and that the duck billed platypus's "bill" is structurally like a duck goes a long way to seeing what type of biologist you really are.

Return to my fantasies? I'm still waiting for you to have me arrested by the FBI. Haven't you written to the Minister of Health here in Australia yet to get me fired and deported?

The more you talk like you do the more obvious it becomes that I'm probably right about your paranoid schizophrenia/ You think there is a huge conspiracy to silence you. I feel it is that your peers silently tolerate your constant unstable outbursts at anyone that doesn't kiss your ass. Be thankful to them is all the advice I can give you.

Maybe if you spent more time, or actually any time, in the lab trying to prove your hypothesis then your peers might take you a bit more seriously. Some how I think you'll stay at places like PT where you constantly pronounce how superior you are to everyone else.

Nature was created somehow. I hope that is acceptable to everyone.

— John A Davison

As usual Wayne Francis plays fast and loose with the truth. I never said evolution was the most failed hypthesis in the history of science. Evolution is undeniable. What I did say was that Darwinism is the most failed hypothesis in the history of science. This is just one more demonstration of the mindless conviction that Darwinism and evolution are synonyms. How stupid can anyone be to still believe in the Darwinian myth?

Please, now that you have forced me to expose you for what you are, namely a liar, document where I ever proclaimed my superiority to anyone, or is that just another one of your knee jerk fantasies?

There is no conspiracy to silence me, only one to ignore me, just at the Darwimps have ignored all their critics, from Mivart in Darwin's own day right up to the present. We simply don't exist.

As for spending time in the laboratory, I have no laboratory and haven't had one for several years. Furthermore I don't need one as the molecular biologists and the chromosome mechanics are proving me correct every day as anyone with half a brain would realize if he would just read the literature.

John A. Davison

Please, now that you have forced me to expose you for what you are, namely a liar, document where I ever proclaimed my superiority to anyone,

— John A. Davison

You jerks don't phase me with these infantile attacks on my competence and character. You are just a huge collection of unfulfilled sociopathic nobodies with nothing else in your empty lives but the autogratification you get from denigrating your intellectual superiors. You better keep your traps shut about my sources or I'll turn you all in to the FBI as security risks. Of course you have made that quite impossible haven't you with your cowardly anonymity. What a collection of losers/

— John A. Davison

I am sorry for the trouble I have may have caused. My computer has been acting up lately in several ways. In the meantime, let me make a brief statement about evolution.

— John A. Davison

I was at the conference in Elizabethtown. For an irreducibly complex system, Niall Shanks presented two postulates and Michael Behe presented one. Shanks said that there could be a scaffolding - a simple system which builds up to a complex one, but then the simple parts disappear and only the complex is left. Shanks said that each part of a complex system could have formed as serving a simple purpose first, and then all the parts together cooperated to function for a new purpose after they were all individually in place. Behe said that all the parts could have formed together precisely to perform the function for which we observe them working together today.

That is all his "intelligent design" theory really says. There is nothing about whether God exists or put things together in a perfect way or if there is any supernatural at all. Complex parts coming together exclusively for a function that they could not do individually leads on to all sorts of speculation about "designers", but it is really the most obvious explanation we have. Both of Shanks' postulates were way to limited to explain most of the biochemical systems we see today, let alone the complex systems such as vision. Can you imagine the lens being formed for a purpose other than vision, and the optic nerve also forming for some purpose other than vision, then also the retina, the iris, the pupil, the fluid inside the eyeball, etc.? And then once all the parts were in place they somehow discovered that they could also together work towards a new purpose which was for the organism to be able to see? It doesn't convince me.

The scaffolding idea sounds a little more plausible, but it is hard to describe in any specific terms. What would the causal path look like for vision using a scaffold theory?

Glenn, I'm sorry, but you need to read more and write less.

Zimmer's recent articles on the evolution of the eye, posted on Pandas Thumb found by searching for "eye". Simple description. How could an elaborate set of components coming together somehow make more sense?

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/02/15/eyes_part_one_opening_up_the_russian_doll.php
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/02/16/eyes_part_two_fleas_fish_and_the_careful_art_of_deconstruction.php

Glen wrote:

"That is all his "intelligent design" theory really says. There is nothing about whether God exists or put things together in a perfect way or if there is any supernatural at all. "

I guess thats why Behe spends more time on discussing his theories on Christian TV then he does at scientific conferences. THis is why the Christian right is pushing ID. After all, they are well known for pushing things that have nothing to do with Christianity and God. THey are well known defenders of modern science, and they want just whats good for the scientific community.

I hope you're not thinking that such Naivete is to be rewarded here.

" Complex parts coming together exclusively for a function that they could not do individually leads on to all sorts of speculation about "designers", but it is really the most obvious explanation we have. Both of Shanks' postulates were way to limited to explain most of the biochemical systems we see today, let alone the complex systems such as vision. Can you imagine the lens being formed for a purpose other than vision, and the optic nerve also forming for some purpose other than vision, then also the retina, the iris, the pupil, the fluid inside the eyeball, etc.? "

Hmmm... so you claim all useable eyes in nature have all of these parts?

Interesting claim. I suggest you examine the great variety of eyes that are found in nature, and report back as to whether or not your ideas are borne out by the evidence.

"And then once all the parts were in place they somehow discovered that they could also together work towards a new purpose which was for the organism to be able to see? It doesn't convince me."

Me Either. Fortunately thats not what evolution suggests happened. On the other hand its a typical view hold by IDErs and creationists, the vast majority of which are wholly ignorant of how evolution works.

I also attended the Elizabethtown day on ID, from morning to night, including all three debates and the capstone lecture in the evening by Paul Gross who dismembered ID, although, to be accurate, not in the eyes of many of the creationist/ID subscribers present who will hew to their beliefs until hell freezes over. The three debates included Behe vs.Niall Shanks on the science; John Haught (a Catholic theologian from Georgetown University) vs. David Martin (a local evangelical preacher); and Richard Thompson (president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center and attorney for the Dover Area School Board) vs. VIc Walczak (Legal Director for Pennsylvania ACLU). I haven't had the time to write up my observations of the day but will do so tomorrow. There were some interesting exchanges, more in politics, legality and theology than in science, that I hope I can accurately describe tomorrow.

Glen, my experience is that ID advocates will specifically say that ID does not involve scaffolding. Scaffolding removes the need for an outside intelligence to intervene (since it explains, by natural, observable processes) the creation of things that only appear to be irreducible.

Ask Behe, for example. I don't think he'd agree at all.

As for the intellectual superiors to whom I referred, I was not, as Wayne Francis isisted, referring to myself but to such real honest-to-God bench and field scientists as Robert Broom, Leo Berg, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Otto Schindewolf, Reginald C. Punnett. Pierre Grasse, William Bateson, etc etc, not to such couch potatoes as Richard Dawkins, Stephen J. Gould, Ernst Mayr and William Provine. You clowns have your heroes and I have mine.

"No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men."
Thomas Carlyle

As for myself, if anyone ever bothered to read my Mnaifesto he would also discover the following on the first page:

"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself."

John A. Davison

So, JAD, if you haven't claimed your superiority to anyone and you've also called us a bunch of losers, then you must be a loser too, right? Welcome to the club.

Of course I am a loser. We are all losers in the game of life. Did I ever claim otherwise? Not that I can recall.

John A. Davison

Of course I am a loser. We are all losers in the game of life. Did I ever claim otherwise? Not that I can recall.

John A. Davison