A way above average article

""Change of function", using parts that were not originally designed for that function requires insight. And insight requires intelligence." I see no reason to accept this statement.

Nobody does.

— steve

"Do you believe that the medical community is being dishonest w/r/t cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart disease."

— steve

It's about time.

So the biologists are wrong about evolution, and the doctors are wrong about diet and the heart. Does it stop there? Or are you aware of other fields which are fundamentally mistaken?

are you aware of other fields which are fundamentally mistaken?

— steve

You're dead wrong, Charlie.

Its the doctors who are wrong and know it, while the biologists are wrong but don't know it. Furthermore, the chemists are wrong, but they are just slightly suspicious about it. And don't get me started on the geologists. Buncha cretins, those guys.

If I try to brew a batch of beer, and bacteria infect the wort it and spoil it,.....

— harold

bacteria - ugghhhh! But do the wild yeast spores that 'infect' lambics show that G*d is a zymurgist too?

Comment #30149 Posted by Malkuth on May 15, 2005 10:29 AM (e) (s) steve wrote: Nobody does. Why not? I think he's made a considerable insight. Living things must have insight to mutate

Flagella is a trivial case.

Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms.

Good luck.

That anthropomorphic view of the universe has gotten Bible literalists in trouble before. They used to think that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Then, people like Copernicus took a rigorous scientific look through their telescopes, and their carts of what they saw showed that the earth actually rotated around the sun. They also used to believe that the earth was flat, and only about 5,000 years old, as the Old Testament tells us.

— Sanjai Tripathi

Flagella is a trivial case.

Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms. Good luck.

The young-earth view is not essentially Christian either.

Trilobyte Extinct!

As a scientist I thought I'd try a little experiment. So, I created a userid, Trilobyte, on Dembski's blog, UncommonDescentIntoBanality and posted a very neutral and possibly humorous one-liner about a funny little video he has of a guy rescuing an antelope from a cheetah.

I closed the lid to the petrie dish and went away for a few days. When I returned, shock-horror!, both my commment and Trilobyte were gone.

R.I.P. Trilobyte, old buddy, you were a good friend.

According to Dembski's Rules for Comments, I'm boring. QED

---------

Ignore Bill Part 2

I was talking with a biologist friend of mine this weekend and I asked him what he thought about all the ruckus in Kansas. What about Dembski and Behe, I pressed, how do you deal with fundamentalist creationists?

He said, "What? Who? I don't know what you're talking about." My biologist friend said that he didn't see what the big deal was because a) he's never heard of Dembski or Behe and b) they were irrelevant to his work in wildlife management.

He continued, "They haven't done any research. They haven't published any papers, not splitting hairs with the papers they sneaked into obscure journals, there are millions of biologists and zero biological creationists."

So, you're saying just ignore them?

"Well," he mused, "not ignore, exactly, but observe. Study. You know, like Jane Goodall. Document their habitat, track their movements, keep an eye on them. Who knows, you might discover a new species."

Yeah, I thought, that would be cool. I could see the title appearing in Nature: Primitive Anti-Science Tribe Discovered in Seattle.

I'll be famous.

Tireless Blowhard,

I usually don't stoop to respond to your blather, but I'm feeling charitable.

I am a Christian, and a well-read one at that, but any fool (viz., you) can look up 'young-earth' or 'Archbishop Usher' on google and verify my comment.

The fact that the young-earth position didn't come about until the 17th-century, and therefore, that Christianity is 17 centuries older than the idea leads to the conclusion that it is not an essential doctrine of Christianity.

Aside from Usher's dubious method, there is no revealed reason to believe in a young-earth, Morris et al. notwithstanding.

Charlie Wagner -

I see you ignored my challenge. I'll repeat it, and in fact, although I show up here only randomly, I'll make an effort to issue it every time I see you. Repeat - can you correctly summarize the basic principles of the theory of evolution? It stands to reason that being able to understand a theory is a prerequisite to criticizing it. Your statements indicate profound misunderstanding of the theory of evolution. Can you prove me wrong?

Not Buyin' It -

You don't have to "buy" the theory of evolution. Unlike ID books, it isn't sold for profit.

"Flagella is a trivial case."

A trivial case of what? Your logic seems to be "if there is no current evolutionary explanation, then my God must have specifically created it". That's poor logic and poor theology (please note right now that my arguments below are in no way intended to 'deny the existence of God', and that I consider the ID way of 'proving' the existence of God to be a poor one).

1.How do you know an explanation won't emerge? 2.How do you know good hypotheses about bacterial flagella evolution aren't already available - do you know anything about the rather substantial field of research on bacterial flagella? 3.If you don't, why did you mention it? 4.If scientists never explain the evolution of bacterial flagella, does that mean that we should conclude that they were magically created? 5.How does ID explain - details, please - the bacterial flagellum? 6. If the bacterial flagellum was designed, can we tell, using ID theory, whether it was designed by your God, Vishnu, Allah, Gitchi Manitou, Zeus, hyper-intelligent aliens (but then who designed them?) etc? 7. If ID can't answer question "6", what good is it? 8. Why do scientists who actually know something about bacterial flagella almost uniformly accept the theory of evolution?

That's eight questions. However, if your answer to "3" is "I heard that some guy said that he heard from some other guy that evolution can't explain the flagella (whatever that is)", please feel free to skip the other seven.

"Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms."

Same questions, substitute "ribosome" for "flagellum"

Comment #30162 Posted by not buyin it on May 15, 2005 12:07 PM (e) (s) Flagella is a trivial case. Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms. Good luck.

"Change of function", using parts that were not originally designed for that function requires insight. And insight requires intelligence.

Nelson's Law states that "things do not organize themselves without intelligent guidance". Randomly generated systems do not adapt means to ends, they do not adapt structure and process to function and they do not self-organize.

So, I created a userid, Trilobyte, on Dembski's blog, UncommonDescentIntoBanality and posted a very neutral and possibly humorous one-liner about a funny little video he has of a guy rescuing an antelope from a cheetah. I closed the lid to the petrie dish and went away for a few days. When I returned, shock-horror!, both my commment and Trilobyte were gone. R.I.P. Trilobyte, old buddy, you were a good friend.

Flagella is a trivial case. Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms. Good luck.

— not buyin it

Michael Finley -

According to my general recollection (and not any recent detailed research), your facts about Archbishop Usher appear to be correct. I don't know off the top of my head if Usher was Catholic or Anglican (he was Irish, and an archbishop, so those are more or less the only two possibilities). Earlier figures made similar calculations, however; I'm fairly sure Venerable Bede, the inventor of the modern system of dates, tried to calculate the "age of the universe" from the Bible (presumably he would have been using the Vulgate of St Jerome). Neither the Catholic Church nor the Anglican Church accepts a literal intepretation of Genesis at present, at any rate.

But what's your point? Are you saying that something that's demonstrably wrong, and based on a selective interpretation of specific translations of Genesis, should be taught as science, if it "isn't specifically Christian"? If it isn't Christian, what's the point of it anyway?

not buyin it wrote
--------------------------begin quote
Flagella is a trivial case.

Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms.

Good luck.
--------------------------end quote

Hmmmm, does this mean that you accept the current scientific understanding (which of course is coherent with contemporary evolutionary theory) of flagellae?

To me it looks like your presentation of ribosomes as a "problem" is just another version of the old "half eye /half wing" argument. (Which of course also the psudoargument on flagella is)

Cassanders
Monism is the theory that enything less than everything is nothing!
(S.Gorn's Compendium of Rarely Used Clichés)

The fact that the young-earth position didn't come about until the 17th-century, and therefore, that Christianity is 17 centuries older than the idea leads to the conclusion that it is not an essential doctrine of Christianity.

All living things must also have insight, since they have intelligence. I propose that we throw out evolutionary theory and replace it with something more animistic. And fight for plants' rights, because they're insightful, intelligent beings too.

— malkuth snarkingly

I can't stand reading this any more:

Flagella ARE a trivial case.

You write about as well as you think, incorrectly and trivially.

Earlier figures made similar calculations, however; I’m fairly sure Venerable Bede, the inventor of the modern system of dates, tried to calculate the “age of the universe” from the Bible (presumably he would have been using the Vulgate of St Jerome). Neither the Catholic Church nor the Anglican Church accepts a literal intepretation of Genesis at present, at any rate.

— harold

Thank you bill. All together now:
one flagellum
two flagella
(though, if you really hate Latin and Latin forms, "two flagellums" is grudgingly accepted by Merriam-Webster)

So are you seriously telling me that it took intelligent intervention to change from the flying wings of a bird, to the flying/swimming wings of a seabird, to the swimming flippers of a penguin? Yes or no?

— Nick

Matzke's law says that Nelson's Law is bogus because it invokes pure randomness and doesn't take into account the anti-randomness of natural selection.

That's one of the biggest lies told by evolutionists. For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction.

Your unfamiliarity with evolutionary theory is self evident Charles.

For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction. But then someone decided that story was flawed. So they invented this new story that while mutation is random, natural selection is not.

"For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction".

prove it, idiot. show me where any evolutionary biologist EVER says what i just quoted you as saying.

"The question is settled. Evolutionists are just going to have to get used to the idea that there is no natural process available to them that can explain the organization and complexity of living systems"

It seems the only one getting used to the idea evolutionary theory doesn't work, is you, Idiot.

Nick,
Rest assured that despite what I said above, I am 100% in support of your goal to keep religion and religious creationism out of schools. This is a science issue, not a philosophical issue or an ideological issue.
The fact that I am not supportive of Darwinian evolution should in no way be interpreted as giving comfort to creationists.

Charlie Wagner
http://www.charliewagner.com

damnit, I thought we got rid of CW?

his comments do nothing but foment my continuing distaste for idiocy.

He's like JAD. constantly spouting the same made up drivel over and over again.

Of what value are his comments again? someone please tell me.

That's one of the biggest lies told by evolutionists. For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction

Charlie, that is a lie. You've been called on this before and you KEEP repeating it. At first, it may have been from ignorance, but after all this time, after being repeatedly corrected, it's just a lie.

From now on, I'll consider you a garden variety liar.

Hmmm... we gots just one attempt to actually answer the ribosome question amidst a flurry of attempts at deflection.

The RNA World. What a wonderful narrative! Not testable. Not falsifiable. Not science. A nice story though as long as we ignore the fact that RNA is extremely volatile and even before it can begin to undergo mutation/selection it needs a stable environment similar to that provided by the cell membrane. I really like the clay substrate speculation for that function as it's like channelling the ancients that said life emerges spontaneously from mud. :-)

Anyone got an honest answer that isn't a sci-fi story or an appeal to Darwin of the Gaps?

Trilobyte Extinct!... ...According to Dembski's Rules for Comments, I'm boring. QED

"his martyr complex does seem to be extremely overdeveloped"

"he craves attention and we're giving it to him."

Charlie: "Change of function", using parts that were not originally designed for that function requires insight. And insight requires intelligence.

"things do not organize themselves without intelligent guidance"

They were seeing the clear and unambiguous similarities among living things and interpreting this observation as evolution, the notion that the one descended from the other. There is no phylogenetic significance in any of these observations. [emphasis mine]

For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction.

CW:

I wish you would realize what Anthony Flew did after the Kansas Kangaroo.

"All I can say is, Anthony Flew, too! I'll let him say the rest:

I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction."

now just extend that a bit for yourself, Charlie, and you will grasp "truth".

prove it, idiot. show me where any evolutionary biologist EVER says what i just quoted you as saying.

It seems the only one getting used to the idea evolutionary theory doesn't work, is you, Idiot.

The RNA World. What a wonderful narrative! Not testable. Not falsifiable.

Do you understand that so far? No, I didn't think so. Unless you have some background in genetics, the concepts of evolution are pretty technical. The ID proponents are relying on the general public to not understand, because that is the only way people will believe them.

"Be careful STJ, charlie might just whip out his mensa card on you. Whatever will you do then?"

Knowing that things reproduce sexually: high school diploma

Knowing that sexual reproduction results in selectable variability: college diploma

Having rational thought to begin with: priceless

for everything else, there's Mensa.

;)

So long as I'm having a bad hair day, my Trilobyte died and I'm boring I'd like to make one comment strictly from a pompous ass point of view.

Charlie says "We know where these structures come from..."

What do you mean "we", Charlie? Huh? Like, you speak for humanity or the scientific community?

The more Charlie writes the more he demonstrates the vast depth of his ignorance. And the deeper he digs that hole, spurning attempts to offer help, the more he demonstrates his vast capacity for stupidity.

I, on the other hand, do know where the structures came from, why and how, because I've done research. I, on the other hand, have contributed to mankind's body of knowledge because I've done research. I am the "we" you of which you so cavalierly write. You, however, are not in the club.

You're banned for being boring.

If you write, for example, Charlie, that "we know the earth orbits the sun," no you don't, Charlie. You personally don't know that at all. You read it in a book written by somebody who did know. You don't even know how to figure it out. You don't know the earth is round because you don't know how to figure that out either. So, if you want to be accurate, from now on you should say "I read in a book that x is y" and leave it at that.

You are not in the Knowing Club, Charlie, so stop pretending.

"So long as I'm having a bad hair day"

sorry to hear that, bill. I know that can be just awwwful.

;)

^^big factual error: I just realized when I woke up that what I wrote about flagellum isnt exactly correct. The ID people refer to the Eubacterial flagellum, which is homologous to the type III system, BUT, the pilus/type IV system is homologous to the archaebacterial flagellum. the archael and eubac flagella are functionally equivalent, but supposedly not-homologous or evolutionarily related.

I see. So the fact that the canonized New Testament didn't exist until the 5th century and therefore that Christianity is 5 centuries older than the New Testament, leads to the conclusion that the New Testament is also not an essential doctrine of Christianity

@"albert"

"Firstly, Tripathi admits a crucial error"

oh, and you know this is a "crucial error" because...?

because Dembski says so?

do you really understand what you are saying when you say crucial?

prove it.

just because there is a difference between the two, does not invalidate the argument the author was making.

@Nick:

you're at UCSB? ahhh, my old alma-mater, where i got my BA in Aquatic Biology.

how is UCSB these days? shoot me an email so i can catch up a bit?

Finley

The young-earth view is not essentially Christian either. It is a 17th-century idea owing to James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland. In 1654 Usher used Old Testament geneologies to calculate the number of years from creation to the birth of Jesus.

Where do people come up with this crap? And how much kool-aid does one have to drink before one is capable of shameless reciting such drivel?

The young-earth view is not a 17th century idea. It's a freaking prehistoric idea, just like "intelligent design", like bogeymen, like the gods of fire and lightening, and like the idea that tangible societal benefits flow from human sacrifice.

None of these beliefs has anything to do with science or reason. If we could speak to the humans who first came up with this garbage we'd call them "primitives" for lack of a better term. If a modern day Western civilized human recited such garbage we'd say they were "retarded" or "insane" unless they belonged to a religious cult, in which case that fact would be noted and questions of mental retardation or insanity would be set aside until a crime against children is committed.

Let me summarize in case I'm not being perfecty clear. People who can solve an algebraic equation but who claim that the earth is 10,000 years old or who claim that "intelligent design theory" is science are deluded morons or liars. The louder such people proclaim their beliefs, the more deluded they are or the more despicably dishonest they are. Shall we run through the list of names?

Did Salvador ever let Tristan Abbey out of his crib?

There are hundreds of similar (anti-ID) articles written every day. If this error-filled article is "way above average", the anti-ID movement is in trouble.

— Al Jr.

Secondly, as you should know, the argument parroted by Tripathi concerning the bacterial flagellum has already been address by Dembski here.

If the bacterial flagellum did indeed evolve, then a bacterium, call it B, with a bacterial flagellum evolved from a bacterium, call it A, lacking not only a flagellum but also all the genes for the flagellum (including any genes homologous to the genes for the flagellum).

"If this error-filled article is "way above average", the anti-ID movement is in trouble."

Not Buyin' It

"Hmmm . . . we gots just one attempt to actually answer the ribosome question amidst a flurry of attempts at deflection."

No, actually I adressed your comments above. I see that you, on the other hand, made no attempt to answer the questions I asked you. So it seems that the situation is the opposite of what you suggest. I certainly hope you will answer my questions.

"Anyone got an honest answer that isn't a sci-fi story or an appeal to Darwin of the Gaps?"

You don't seem to understand the meaning of the term 'god of the gaps'. It means doing what you are doing - insisting that if something is currently not fully explained by science, it must have a magical explanation.

What is YOUR explanation of how ribosomes came to be? Please explain how your idea can be tested.

Charlie Wagner -

Please stop evading my challenge. Can you explain the basic principles of the theory of evolution?

Matzke, There are hundreds of similar (anti-ID) articles written every day. If this error-filled article is "way above average", the anti-ID movement is in trouble.

Firstly, Tripathi admits a crucial error: ^^big factual error: I just realized when I woke up that what I wrote about flagellum isnt exactly correct. The ID people refer to the Eubacterial flagellum, which is homologous to the type III system, BUT, the pilus/type IV system is homologous to the archaebacterial flagellum. the archael and eubac flagella are functionally equivalent, but supposedly not-homologous or evolutionarily related.

The question is whether fewer than the 30 subunits of the flagellum could have had any other function. By comparing gene sequences for similarity with computers, we can see that the answer is clearly "yes." The pore-forming base of the flagellar structure is very similar to the base of the type III secretion system, which allows many bad bacteria, like Salmonella, for example, to infect host cells.

Other parts of the flagellar structure are also similar to the sex-pilus (yes, bacteria can have "sex" too), that allows conjugation and gene transfer.

In Actinobacillus, an operon of just seven genes, and only three with homology to flagella and secretion system genes, forms its own rudimentary secretion system, dubbed the tad operon. This bacteria lives in your mouth and is mostly responsible for making the slime that forms on your teeth when you don't brush. Without the secretion system, it can't make slime.

In fact, an even more rudimentary homologous secretion system, with just four genes, is found in many other bacteria (including the Mycobacteria we study in my lab).

Secondly, as you should know, the argument parroted by Tripathi concerning the bacterial flagellum has already been address by Dembski here.

Flagella is [sic] a trivial case. Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms. Good luck.

Hmmm . . . we gots just one attempt to actually answer the ribosome question amidst a flurry of attempts at deflection.... Anyone got an honest answer that isn't a sci-fi story or an appeal to Darwin of the Gaps?

Sir_Toejam,

I graduated from UCSB in 2003. It was a nice place when I left, though!

Nick

The RNA World. What a wonderful narrative! Not testable. Not falsifiable. Not science.

Regarding the origin of the ribosome:

Why, oh why, does no one ever search PubMed or Google Scholar before bloviating about the non-evolution of a particular complex system?

E.g., searching Google Scholar on "origin of the ribosome" gets 9,970 hits, and the first one is:

HF Noller (1993). "On the origin of the ribosome: coevolution of subdomains of tRNA and rRNA." RNA World. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, 1993.

The Amazon.com page for the book is here, and the 2nd edition (2000) of the book is here, and the text is searchable.

I'm sorry we don't have a ribosome evolution expert on hand to educate the creationists in detail about the basic scientific literature they should have gone and looked up before opening their mouths on the topic. We can't cover everything...

About all I know about the topic is that the ribosome is a complex of RNA molecules, with a bunch of accessory proteins glommed on to it. Looks to me like good evidence for the RNA world as an early stage (probably not the first stage, mind you) in the evolution of replicators. Why is this weird, quirky structure evidence for intelligent design?

PS: By the way, "'intelligent design' ribosome" gets a whole 19 hits on Google Scholar. I vote we call comparisons of evolution and ID on Google Scholar a "GoogleScope" -- sort of like a GoogleWhack. The GoogleScope factor on this topic is about 9850/19, or 518.42.

Charlie Wagner,

"Nelson's Law," if there is such a thing, has been falsified. There are schools of economics which study self-organizing economic systems. Houston has no zoning. Crystals and polycarbons assemble themselves. Egg and sperm unite even when parents don't want them to.

Who was Nelson? Ozzie? Half?

Sir Toe_Jam

"Knowing that sexual reproduction results in selectable variability: college diploma"

True indeed (not the part about the college diploma, I guess - that typically takes a lot more or a lot less).

For the record, asexual reproduction also results in selectable variability.

And yes, back in another thread, I did mean "the best defense is a good offense".

Not Buyin' It -

Still not seeing any answers from you. I'm just going to add a couple of points. Please address my earlier post before addressing this one, though.

It's safe to say that no-one knows exactly how the first ribosomes were formed (by the way, I assume you meant the prokaryotic ribosome, but maybe you meant the eukaryotic ribosome - could you clarify? I take for granted that with your interest in ribosomes, you know the difference). Ideas about this are a subject of research for some scientists, who strive to keep their ideas testable. Pubmed or Google will guide you to a fair amount of work on the subject. Note that this is related to, but not exactly part of, the theory of evolution; it's essentially a part of "abiogenesis". Even if God magically designed ribosomes, cellular life has been evolving for billions of years.

But wait! I just admitted that science might not have a detailed answer for something! Does that mean I'm endorsing ID/creationism? No. See, there are always an infinite number of magical explanations for everything. This is exactly as true for things that CAN be explained by science as for things that can't. Maybe the sun shines because a magical designer is making it happen, and disguising it to look like fusion, etc. Also, of course, the number of PHYSICAL things that can't be explained by science will always keep shrinking (but never reach zero).

Now, if you think YOU know where the ribosome came from, why don't you say so, and explain how YOUR idea can be scientifically tested? And if you're trying to say it was God, why don't you be a man and say so, instead of playing games? I changed my mind, you can answer that last question before you finish answering my previous one.

Harold,

Nice straw man there. Where did I bring up God as an explanation for the evolution of ribosomes?

What I'm not buying is anyone's narrative that requires a leap of faith.

Unless you can show me how a ribosome could have evolved through mutation/selection it requires a leap of faith to believe that's how it happened.

Faith is for religion. Let's stick to science please. As far as science is concerned the evolution of the ribosome is an unexplained phenomenon. Everything in nature having an undirected, purposeless origin is also a matter of faith. Again, let's stick to science and leave the faith out of it.

Science requires that we keep an open mind. Intelligence and design are proven quantities in nature with the emergence of rational man. It has not been proven that rational man is the first intelligent designer to emerge. The hubris it requires to assign that unique quality to us puny humans is mind boggling. What an ego secular humanists have!

Did you know that science doesn't even know the nature of 95% of the matter and energy in the universe? The first step on the path to enlightenment is admitting how much you don't know. Take that first step Harold.

Who was Nelson? Ozzie? Half?

The young-earth view is not essentially Christian either. It is a 17th-century idea owing to James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland. In 1654 Usher used Old Testament geneologies to calculate the number of years from creation to the birth of Jesus. The number he arrived at was 4004 years.

not buyin it: As far as science is concerned the evolution of the ribosome is an unexplained phenomenon.

searching Google Scholar on "origin of the ribosome" gets 9,970 hits, and the first one is: HF Noller (1993). "On the origin of the ribosome: coevolution of subdomains of tRNA and rRNA." RNA World. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, 1993. The Amazon.com page for the book is here, and the 2nd edition (2000) of the book is here, and the text is searchable.

That's one of the biggest lies told by evolutionists. For decades, evolutionists were teaching that evolution is a random process, with no direction. But then someone decided that story was flawed. So they invented this new story that while mutation is random, natural selection is not.

Who was Nelson? Ozzie? Half? Paul

You boys need to get your stories straight.

Harold admits no one knows how the ribosome evolved.

Nick the geologist thinks he knows.

Russel admits it's a gap.

Good for Harold and Russel. Boo to Nick.

In no particular order:

Harold, the structure and function of prokaryote and eukaryote ribosomes is the same. The set of genes coding for them are not. However, I think it's safe to say that since both use nearly identical codon to amino acid translation tables there is a common origin. The creationists will of course point out that a common designer could account for the common codon definitions and they are of course correct. A common ancestor or a common designer will explain that. I tend to go with the universal common ancestor myself but since both explanations are narratives it's just a personal preference. The codon translation tables in extant organisms remain the same in either case.

Bouffant and Nick: Keep reading. The RNA World NARRATIVE is weak. RNA, don't you know, is extremely volatile. That's why everything today uses DNA for genetic storage. A cell wall to keep a semi-stable environment for ribozyme chemistry is needed. Since it requires a cell to build any known cell wall today something else is needed. A clay substrate has been postulated as a matrix but it hasn't been shown to be feasible.

Russel: you ask for something built via Dembskian (??) methods. If by that you mean intelligent design then sure, that's easy. The computer you used to ask the question is of intelligent design. Intelligent design is a known natural phenomenon unless you're going to tell me that rational man is a supernatural creation of some sort. I take it your position is that intelligence is a natural phenomenon, right?

The question is settled. Evolutionists are just going to have to get used to the idea that there is no natural process available to them that can explain the organization and complexity of living systems. Either there is a natural process that is yet to be discovered (an option that I favor) or it's supernatural.

— Charlie Wagner

Who was Nelson? Ozzie? Half?

— Ed Darrell

"Nelson's Law," if there is such a thing, has been falsified. There are schools of economics which study self-organizing economic systems. Houston has no zoning. Crystals and polycarbons assemble themselves. Egg and sperm unite even when parents don't want them to.

Thus spoke Cleanthes to Demea (David Hume): "Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of men; though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which he has executed..."

Faith is for religion. Let's stick to science please... Science requires that we keep an open mind.

It has not been proven that rational man is the first intelligent designer to emerge.

The hubris it requires to assign that unique quality [ability to make designed things] to us puny humans is mind boggling.

Noy Buyin' It -

"Nice straw man there. Where did I bring up God as an explanation for the evolution of ribosomes?"

That's not what I said, though. I asked what your explanation for the ribosome was. And I said "And if you're trying to say it was God, why don't you be a man and say so, instead of playing games?" (that's a paste and copy).

"What I'm not buying is anyone's narrative that requires a leap of faith."

Nor would I suggest that you do so (with regard to ribosomes, that is).

"Unless you can show me how a ribosome could have evolved through mutation/selection it requires a leap of faith to believe that's how it happened."

I wouldn't suggest any such thing, since this terminology implies cellular reproduction. You seem to be asking how ribosomes ORIGINATED. Now, changes in ribosomal structure from one lineage to another can be reasonably explained in terms mutation and natural selection, but the ORIGIN of ribosomes may or may not be, at least in the sense that those terms are usually used. As I said, I really don't know how ribosomes originated.

"Faith is for religion. Let's stick to science please. As far as science is concerned the evolution of the ribosome is an unexplained phenomenon. Everything in nature having an undirected, purposeless origin is also a matter of faith. Again, let's stick to science and leave the faith out of it."

Where the Sam Hill did you get the crazy idea that I believe that "everything in nature has an undirected, purposeless origin"? That is indeed, as you say, a matter of faith. There is nothing in the theory of evolution, or any other scientific theory, to support or challenge this subjective idea one way or the other. That's not what science is for. Even if I did believe this, it would be irrelevant as far as my views of ribosomes are concerned.

Also, I would say that the ORIGIN of ribosomes is unexplained, although this is a field of active work and testable hypotheses. The evolution of ribosomes within cellular life is also a matter of research, as you'll find if you actually look at some articles on ribosomes, but might be easier to explain.

"Science requires that we keep an open mind. Intelligence and design are proven quantities in nature with the emergence of rational man."

I agree. I would add that, in my experience, women can be rational too.

"It has not been proven that rational man is the first intelligent designer to emerge."

If by man you mean "Homo sapiens", then I would go further, and say that the paleontological record indicates that we are NOT the first intelligent designers to emerge. But it's hard to say what the connection between design and intelligence actually is, beyond saying that we humans apply our intelligence to our designs. Elephants and dolphins are "intelligent" by almost any reasonable standard, and design little; insect colonies can be great designers without exhibiting what we would call intelligence. Birds design a lot, some species are "intelligent", others aren't, and the connection to their design of nests etc to "intelligence" is tenuous.

"The hubris it requires to assign that unique quality to us puny humans is mind boggling. What an ego secular humanists have!"

As should be clear from above, I don't assign either "intelligence" or "design" uniquely to humans. A secular humanist is just someone who follows a strong moral code, without being formally religious. Nothing wrong with that, and I'd love to have one as a next door neighbor. Some of them have big egos and some of them don't. But where the sam hill did you get the idea that I am a secular humanist? Nothing I have said has anything to do with that subject. As for hubris, I would strongly suggest that you take your own advice.

"Did you know that science doesn't even know the nature of 95% of the matter and energy in the universe?"

I am aware that much of the universe is composed of "dark matter", a subject of intense research and conjecture, if that's what you mean. I'm not sure your description is technically correct, but I'll move on, and if it isn't addressed, I'll come back to that later. It's not entirely germane.

"The first step on the path to enlightenment is admitting how much you don't know. Take that first step Harold."

Nothing wrong with this advice. Now, can you answer some of my questions from above?

Charlie, Charlie...

1. Are mutation and recombination purely and solely random processes?!
2. Didn´t you just argue that, by your own standards, evolution is a semi-random process?!
3. What is the major difference between cellular division and viral propagation? Which of the two processes compares best to the assembly of a car on an assembly line? Does Nelson´s law apply on any of these processes?

Natural selection, while it affects the frequency of variation, adaptation and alleles, has no role in their emergence.

Re "No one cares what you think, Charlie."

Count the number of replies to his reply. ;)

Henry

So, being as all of the creative power lies in random processes such as mutation and recombination, it is not unreasonable to declare that evolution itself, according to the MTE is a wholly random process.

Russel: you ask for something built via Dembskian (??) methods. If by that you mean intelligent design then sure, that's easy.

— NBI

Intelligent design is a known natural phenomenon

Charlie Wagner -

First of all, can you explain the theory of evolution, yes or no?

Also, I am unable to follow your differentiation between "organization" and "order". All of your examples of "organization" are just trivial examples of human activity. Without resorting to human activity, and without blindly declaring "life" as an example, can explain HOW "organization" is differentiated from "order"? For example, let's say I want to know if the rings of Saturn are ordered or organized. How can I determine which is the case? Don't just tell me, explain how you made your determination.

Also, this is patently illogical -

"However, natural selection can only affect variations, adaptations and alleles that already exist. Therefore, it contributes nothing towards the creation of variation, adaptations and alleles, which are solely the product of random mutation. Natural selection, while it affects the frequency of variation, adaptation and alleles, has no role in their emergence.
So, being as all of the creative power lies in random processes such as mutation and recombination, it is not unreasonable to declare that evolution itself, according to the MTE is a wholly random process."

You contradict yourself. If natural selection is non-random, and it is part of evolution, evolution cannot be a "wholly" random process.

Hmmm . . . we gots just one attempt to actually answer the ribosome question amidst a flurry of attempts at deflection. The RNA World. What a wonderful narrative! Not testable. Not falsifiable. Not science. A nice story though as long as we ignore the fact that RNA is extremely volatile and even before it can begin to undergo mutation/selection it needs a stable environment similar to that provided by the cell membrane. I really like the clay substrate speculation for that function as it's like channelling the ancients that said life emerges spontaneously from mud. :-) Anyone got an honest answer that isn't a sci-fi story or an appeal to Darwin of the Gaps?

— not buying it

Hmmm . . . we gots just one attempt to actually answer the ribosome question amidst a flurry of attempts at deflection.

Nice straw man there. Where did I bring up God as an explanation for the evolution of ribosomes?

Did you know that science doesn't even know the nature of 95% of the matter and energy in the universe?

Here's a link y'all might trust for RNA World basics.

http://www.evowiki.org/index.php/RNA_world

It gives awfully short shrift to the instability of RNA in any known environment outside a cell wall.

It also doesn't even begin to address the evolutionary steps required to go from RNA chemistry to the ribosome. It only attempts to address one problem in cell evolution and that's the chicken egg problem of DNA and proteins. And the RNA world is quite hypothetical. It's nice to see someone using the terms theory and hypothesis accurately, by the way.

For just a small taste of the other problems with ribosome evolution consider which came first; mRNA or tRNA. Even in a world where ribozymes did all the work both types of RNA are required to build proteins.

I have no idea why Behe chose flagella for an example of irreducible complexity. The Mt. Everest of IC has been the ribosome at least since the 1960's when Crick recognized the problem. Most of you at least know who Crick is, right?

I have no idea why Behe chose flagella for an example of irreducible complexity.

So you are suggesting that science does not have all the answers thus we should use our ignorance to infer design? Is that it? I am not buying it...

If RNA world is hypothetical, what is an intelligently designed world I wonder :-)

Not byin it shows how stiffling ID can be on research as it assumes that since today mRNA and tRNA are needed to build proteins, this has always been the case.

Sorry, meant to ask about the scientific theory offered by ID, uh, "theory" for the appearence of the ribosome. We already *know* that they don't have any scientific explanation for the appearence of the flagellum.

The Mt. Everest of IC has been the ribosome at least since the 1960's when Crick recognized the problem.

You're really not in a position to be cocky, NBI. Now that we've clarified "Dembskian mechanisms*", I await your explanation of how anything at all was built with them. And, remember, I'm being generous: I'll accept a general scenario, even one less precise than the ones entertained by Noller, Cech, and Szostak. Hell, I'll even accept Behean or Wellsian mechanisms.

[cue the crickets]

*a Dembskian mechanism would be one that describes the coming into being of an known object that could be characterized by "specified complexity" prior to the existence of life on earth.

Charlie Wagner

You said everything is specified in the genome.

That's not correct.

omne vivum ex ovo - everything comes from an egg

There is information in the cell outside the genome. The fasionable term is epigenetic information. No one has traced a cell line back to anything but a cell pre-equipped with both DNA and all the surrounding infrastructure. This is yet another incarnation of the chicken/egg problem.

There is information in the cell outside the genome.

— NBI

NBI,

You said, "It has not been proven that rational man is the first intelligent designer to emerge. The hubris it requires to assign that unique quality to us puny humans is mind boggling."

As of this writing, we puny humans are the only known intelligent designer to have ever existed. Until such time as convincing evidence for another is presented we puny humans remain, by default at least, the only such entity. Have at it - have you evidence to present?

Pastor Bentonit wrote:

1. "Are mutation and recombination purely and solely random processes?!"

I don't think so. I believe the conventional wisdom is that they are.

2. "Didn´t you just argue that, by your own standards, evolution is a semi-random process?!

I didn't say semi-random. I said that natural selection was non-random and mutation was random. I don't believe that mutation or natural selection have anything to do with the process of evolution insofar as it concerns new systems and organisms.

3. "What is the major difference between cellular division and viral propagation?"

Cell division is a much more highly organized and complex process involving multiple structures and processes which must all integrate together smoothly. Viral replication has no where near the complexity.

"Which of the two processes compares best to the assembly of a car on an assembly line?"

Viral replication.

Does Nelson´s law apply on any of these processes?

Nelson's Law is like any other law of nature, it is a description of how things behave. So it applies equally to all known systems regardless of their complexity.

"Even generic anti-ID articles are a few a week at most, and most of those don't discuss the science."

Umm, just a little quibble, but: What "science"?

Cheers,

Russel

"So everything that has not been disproven is equally likely - equally worthy of consideration as science."

No. That's a straw man.

"Has the existence of Zeus ever been disproven?"

No. Thus it remains a possibility, however remote.

Intelligence in the universe is a proven quantity. Given the age and size of the universe I tend to assign a greater probability to it arising two or more times instead of just once. Zeus, with no evidence of a first instance, is on a whole different scale of probability.

Harold - you were the first one of us to bring up God.

"Where the Sam Hill did you get the crazy idea that I believe that "everything in nature has an undirected, purposeless origin"?

From the fact that you accused me of invoking God as an explanation when all I did was question mutation/selection as the origin of the ribosome. Do you believe there is purpose in nature? I wouldn't go that far myself. I really don't know if there is or not. The jury is still out. Look in the dictionary for the word agnostic and find a picture of me.

"But where the sam hill did you get the idea that I am a secular humanist?"

It's the way a betting man bets in this blog. Secular humanism is defined by Princeton's Wordnet as anyone that rejects religion and the supernatural. I may have bet wrong. Do you reject the supernatural?

"I am aware that much of the universe is composed of "dark matter", a subject of intense research and conjecture, if that's what you mean."

Only about 20% is dark matter. 75% is believed to be an unknown form of energy called dark energy. I may be a little off on those percentages but not much. Cosmology got knocked for a big loop recently when it was discovered that the rate of expansion of space is accelerating. The relevance is there's so much more we don't know than we do know and even our most most trusted theories might be wrong. In this case the theory of gravity is wrong or there's a form of energy comprising some 75% of the observable universe and we don't have a clue what it is as no hypothesis in theoretical physics predicts it.

Russell - intelligent design is as much a mechanism as random mutation. Perhaps you're asking for details of the process. Several details of RM have been observed. Transcription errors would be one. ID, so far as has been observed in genetics, uses gene splicing machines wielded by guys in lab coats. Viral vectors too I believe. Did I miss any of the known intelligent genomic design methods?

"and intelligent design prior to the existence of life on earth is not." [a known natural phenomenon]

Nobody observed mutation/selection turning inanimate chemicals into living things so that's not known either. The bottom line is that more than one narrative can be made that fits the empirical evidence.

Let me ask yo ua simple question. Is intelligent design a possibility in your opinion or have you concluded it is not? If you have not reached any firm conclusions then we are arguing probabilities and not possibilities.

hal - don't believe every paper that makes it into print. Davison's semi-meiotic hypothesis made it into print. Does that make it true too? HAR HAR HAR The RNA World is not theoretical. It's hypothetical. You know the difference, right? Few here do, evidently.

Toodles for now. Desperate Housewives is on. Time to take a break from Desperate Darwinists. ;-)

Not buyin it writes Flagella is a trivial case.

Damn, you bloody scientists expalined it

Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms.

Now I've moved the goal posts.

Good luck.

Haha.

"

Charlie--you've repeated your dumb hand-waving idea a thousand times on here. Nobody has ever bought it. No one's ever going to buy it. Just go away.

Russel writes "You're a Dylan fan, CW, no? "Don't criticize what you can't understand".

Perhaps a particular verse from "Idiot Wind" might be better.. ?

The usual runaround, I see, but at least from some new handles. The tactics remain depressingly similar:

1) Attack an at best misrepresented, if not outright dishonest uncongenial theory on the grounds that the evidence in its favor is incomplete and imperfect.

2) When asked for any evidence whatsoever supporting any other theory whatsoever, vanish.

I wonder just what satisfaction such people get from this exercise. I get bored.

Not Buyin it writes:

Here's a link y'all might trust for RNA World basics.

http://www.evowiki.org/index.php/RNA_world . . .

SAW: Well, the wiki trumps Science any day.

It gives awfully short shrift to the instability of RNA in any known environment outside a cell wall.

SAW: THats because in today's world, outside a cell wall is not a good place for RNA to be. In fact many chemicals wouldn't be stable in today's world, but would've been billions of years ago.

It also doesn't even begin to address the evolutionary steps required to go from RNA chemistry to the ribosome.

SAW: Ah yes, "Its the old, why you haven't explained everything yet!" complaint.

Its interesting how quickly Not Buyin it retreats to abiogenesis.

I gues he buys evolution, just not abiogeneis, but doesn't seem to know the difference.

Doudna JA, Lorsch JR. (2005). "Ribozyme catalysis: not different, just worse. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 12(5):395-402. Evolution has resoundingly favored protein enzymes over RNA-based catalysts, yet ribozymes occupy important niches in modern cell biology that include the starring role in catalysis of protein synthesis on the ribosome. Recent results from structural and biochemical studies show that natural ribozymes use an impressive range of catalytic mechanisms, beyond metalloenzyme chemistry and analogous to more chemically diverse protein enzymes. These findings make it increasingly possible to compare details of RNA- and protein-based catalysis.

In their model, the atmosphere is CO2-rich, not CH4-rich, but contains as much as 30% H2. The model uses the current hydrogen outgassing rate, increased by at most a small factor to account for the geologically more active early Earth. What is new is their transonic hydrodynamic escape model: For an atmosphere rich in H2, the escape of hydrogen to space is hydrodynamic and limited by the availability of extreme ultraviolet light from the Sun. The model yields an escape rate that is much lower than previously found. Because less H2 escapes, if Earth ever had an H2-rich atmosphere, it could be sustained.

Feng Tian, Owen B. Toon, Alexander A. Pavlov, H. De Sterck (2005). "A Hydrogen-Rich Early Earth Atmosphere." Science, 308(5724), pp. 1014-1017. DOI We show that the escape of hydrogen from early Earth's atmosphere likely occurred at rates slower by two orders of magnitude than previously thought. The balance between slow hydrogen escape and volcanic outgassing could have maintained a hydrogen mixing ratio of more than 30%. The production of prebiotic organic compounds in such an atmosphere would have been more efficient than either exogenous delivery or synthesis in hydrothermal systems. The organic soup in the oceans and ponds on early Earth would have been a more favorable place for the origin of life than previously thought.

Let me ask yo ua simple question. Is intelligent design a possibility in your opinion or have you concluded it is not?

— NBI

[supernatural] intelligent design is as much a mechanism as random mutation

Nobody observed mutation/selection turning inanimate chemicals into living things so that's not known either.

The bottom line is that more than one narrative can be made that fits the empirical evidence.

The mechanism by which life on earth originated is unknown. It might have been some chemical process, analogous to and continuous with subsequent evolution, that resulted in replicating macromolecules. Maybe it was some heretofore unknown process. In either case, the first cellular organisms appeared at least 3.8 billion years ago, and the processes by which those organisms became life on earth today are collectively known as evolution.

"Nelson's Law," if there is such a thing, has been falsified. There are schools of economics which study self-organizing economic systems. Houston has no zoning. Crystals and polycarbons assemble themselves. Egg and sperm unite even when parents don't want them to.

Nelson's Law In its simplest form, Nelson's Law states that "things do not organize themselves without intelligent guidance". One must be careful not to confuse organization with order. There's a lot of talk about ordered systems in the non-living world, snowflakes, tornadoes, etc. but this is not the issue. Order is simply a condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement among the separate elements of a group. Like putting files in alphabetical order or using a sieve to separate items by size. Organization is a much different structure in which something is made up of elements with varied functions that contribute to the whole and to collective functions of the system. Ordered systems can result from non-intelligent processes, as has been seen many times and cited by numerous examples.

From the fact that you accused me of invoking God as an explanation when all I did was question mutation/selection as the origin of the ribosome.

It's the way a betting man bets in this blog. Secular humanism is defined by Princeton's Wordnet as anyone that rejects religion and the supernatural. I may have bet wrong. Do you reject the supernatural?

Is intelligent design a possibility in your opinion

I think I sorta stopped discussing Charlie's ID crap with him around the time that he claimed that mysterious beings who designed all the earth's life forms might have been humans. That was probably 6 monts to a year ago.

After hearing that claim, I came to certain conlusions re Charlie Wagner. Among other things, I made sure that my friends in the FBI were keeping a close eye on Chaz.

Only about 20% is dark matter. 75% is believed to be an unknown form of energy called dark energy. I may be a little off on those percentages but not much. Cosmology got knocked for a big loop recently when it was discovered that the rate of expansion of space is accelerating. The relevance is there's so much more we don't know than we do know and even our most most trusted theories might be wrong. In this case the theory of gravity is wrong or there's a form of energy comprising some 75% of the observable universe and we don't have a clue what it is as no hypothesis in theoretical physics predicts it.

— not buyin it

Let me ask yo ua simple question. Is intelligent design a possibility in your opinion or have you concluded it is not? If you have not reached any firm conclusions then we are arguing probabilities and not possibilities.

— not buyin it

hal - don't believe every paper that makes it into print.

— not buyin it

@nick:

i finished my undergrad at UCSB in '87... so you could catch me up on about 15 years of events.

if you want to swap stories, just shoot me an email at the address attached to my comments.

cheers

1. "Are mutation and recombination purely and solely random processes?!" I don't think so. I believe the conventional wisdom is that they are. 2. "Didn´t you just argue that, by your own standards, evolution is a semi-random process?! I didn't say semi-random. I said that natural selection was non-random and mutation was random. I don't believe that mutation or natural selection have anything to do with the process of evolution insofar as it concerns new systems and organisms.

3. "What is the major difference between cellular division and viral propagation?" Cell division is a much more highly organized and complex process involving multiple structures and processes which must all integrate together smoothly. Viral replication has no where near the complexity. "Which of the two processes compares best to the assembly of a car on an assembly line?" Viral replication.

Not Buyin' It -

At this point, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I guess it boils down to this - "Intelligent Design" by an unspecified designer is a "possible" explanation for physical things that science can't yet explain.

You keep accusing other people of creating "straw man" versions of your arguments, which is not what anyone is doing. But it seems to me that you are being extremely vague and playing games, which makes it hard for others to understand what you are trying to say. I deal with that by asking specific questions, but you don't reply to questions, so I have to guess. I'm responding to the above, which I think is a fair statement of your position. My next post will deal with some serious misconceptions about science that you seem to hold.

Intelligent design is a "possible" explanation, but it's not a scientific explanation, nor a good philosophical or religious explanation. That's because it's just a restatement of ignorance. Anything, anywhere, any time can be said to be the action of a magical being with unspecified powers (in fact this is true whether or not there is a scientific explanation for the same phenomenon - I can't prove that my computer ISN'T run by the ongoing intervention of an "intelligent designer").

The basic common claim of both Behe and Dembski is that science can NEVER find an answer for certain physical problems, and therefore we have to resort to "design" (this is just a slight variation on the argument that we DON'T NOW HAVE a scientific answer).

That fails on two levels - first of all, the problems they claim aren't amenable to scientific analysis actually ARE, as you have presumably discovered, and second of all, even if they weren't, it doesn't mean that "intelligent design" is a reasonable answer. If you can't tell me who the "designer" is, or anything about how the "designer" does her work, or how to study those things, then "intelligent design" is a worthless explanation. It's literally identical to a statement of ignorance. It's the exact same thing as saying "all we know is that we don't have a scientific explanation".

Not Buyin' It -

You seem to have some very serious misconceptions about science, by the way. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You seem to feel that science has something to do with 'secular humanism'. It doesn't. I'm a strong proponent of humanism (whether of the Christian, Secular, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or any other variety). It's patently obvious that one can be a scientist without being a humanist, however. Or secular. By the way, what is your problem with secular humanists?

2) You seem to think that scientists want people to take hypotheses "on faith". Nothing could be further from the truth. Between uninformed jeering at something you know little about, and informed skeptical criticism, there is a difference, however.

3) You seem to think that scientists believe they can "explain everything". This was a popular view circa 1890 (mainly held by scientists who were Christian; it wasn't a "materialist" view per se). There is, of course, much in this universe that science can't explain. But that doesn't mean scientists should throw up their hands and declare it all to be inexplicable "design" by an unidentifiable "designer".

. . . though now I´m confused - do you state that mutation is random or not? You seem to contradict yourself in your two answers above.

— Pastor Bentonit

the "conventional wisdom" - if that´s to say the "scientific consensus" - does no such thing as claim that recombination is random!

How do you specify or measure the complexity involved in cellular or viral propagation? Where is the qualitative difference (complexity boundary, if you will) between these two types of organisms? Note that viral transcription/translation, replication and assembly involves "multiple structures and processes which must all integrate together smoothly". Excellent case in point, bacteriophage lambda (googleth and ye shall findeth).

At this point, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. ...You keep accusing other people of creating "straw man" versions of your arguments, which is not what anyone is doing. But it seems to me that you are being extremely vague and playing games, which makes it hard for others to understand what you are trying to say.

— Harold, to

Their main function is as "genetic messengers" that move DNA and RNA between cells.

— Charlie

Do IDers have any testible scientific explanation for the nature of 95% of the matter and energy in the universe? If they don't, they're not much better off than the evilutionists, are they.

— Lenny

Now that we've clarified "Dembskian mechanisms*", I await your explanation of how anything at all was built with them.

— Russell

As of this writing, we puny humans are the only known intelligent designer to have ever existed. Until such time as convincing evidence for another is presented we puny humans remain, by default at least, the only such entity. Have at it - have you evidence to present?

— Bob Mauris

Not buyin it writes Flagella is a trivial case. Damn, you bloody scientists expalined it Someone explain to me how to build a ribosome via Darwinian mechanisms. Now I've moved the goal posts. Good luck.

— Stuart

Its interesting how quickly Not Buyin it retreats to abiogenesis. I gues he buys evolution, just not abiogeneis, but doesn't seem to know the difference.

— Stuart

At this point, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I guess it boils down to this - "Intelligent Design" by an unspecified designer is a "possible" explanation for physical things that science can't yet explain.

— Harold

I've read far more on the subject than you have.

Not Buyin' It -

Alright. My problem with invoking "intelligent design" by an unknown mechanism, by an unknowable designer, is, as I expressed above, that it is a worthless way of addressing any problem, because it can trivially "explain" anything, but actually merely restates our ignorance. I have three questions, and I'd really like you to answer them. Your say...

"Science can explain intelligent design if it has enough data to work with. It already attempts explain the evolution of intelligence in the one known instance. There is nothing precluding a scientific explanation for any other instances awaiting discovery."

Now here are my questions -
1) How can we test the idea that something was "designed" by an intelligent designer? Please don't just say that "if we can't think of some other idea, it must have been designed". Tell me how we can gather evidence to test the hypothesis that it was designed. Use the prokaryote ribosome if you like. How can we test the hypothesis that it was "designed" against the hypothesis that it originated naturally? Note that ridiculing current hypotheses of how it may have originated is NOT an answer.
2) Why should looking for a conventional scientific explanation be threatening to those who would look for "design"?
3) Why do you use insulting, and if I must say, juvenile language, and make boastful but unbacked claims of superior expertise? These tactics don't strengthen your position. If anything, the opposite is true. Neither do they indicate a commitment to "Christianity", if that's part of your objective - again, if anything, the opposite is true.

Hi everyone- Thanks for reading my column, and I'm happy to see this fairly well-educated debate on this issue. I thought I might jump in.
Regarding CW's assertion about the randomness of evolution, I think that is very revealing of his position. He states that mutation is random, which is qualitatively true (although base pair substitutions and recombination have hot and cold spots). He concedes that natural selection is not random, which is also very true. Yet somehow he puts those together to conclude that evolution is random. How can evolution be random if it incorporates the non-randomness of NS?
Briefly, natural selection picks structures that aid fitness. The complex structures we see today evolved from more rudimentary, but still useful forms.
This leads to the general complaint from IDers that we haven't seen and can't explain the emergence of some structures, like bacterial flagella and ribosomes. To me, this appears to be a rehash of the old "missing link" argument. They used to say that man couldn't have evolved from apes or there would be half-men half-ape creatures. Then people started digging up numerous fossils of ape-like hominids. The links were no longer missing.
The target is moving, and the Trend Detector sees it going back in time. Bacterial flagella are a pretty ancient structure. Even though it certainly shares some components, like an ATPase, with other general ancient enzymes, the intermediary between the common shared parts and the current structure has been lost to time. It is not surprising that we don't have a fossil or slow evolving relative to demonstrate that neatly for us.
Similarly, as far as we know, the ribosomal parts are the first ever genes that life shares from the common ancestor. To say we can't explain how it emerged is accurate, but neither that nor the flagellum "mystery" is a real problem for evolutionary theory.
Mostly today we use comparitive genomics, analyzing sequences from different organisms THAT LIVE TODAY and comparing their similarity, and from this we can infer both the fact of evolution, and its history with shocking precision. The ribosome, specifically the rRNA tree in which every lifeform on earth shares homology, is the strongest evidence I know (from my biased molecular biology perspective) that evolution accounts for the world we observe.
Comparitive genomics has lower powers of resolution the further one travels back in time, and it has no power to decipher the origin of of ribosomes, because it relies on comparing present sequences, as nobody bothered to leave us fossilized DNA sequences. But what IDers don't really like to admit is that this doesn't damage evolution's credibility one lick.
We don't know what was before the big bang, we don't know exactly where George Washington was on May 16th, 1752, nobody was around to film the last eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Yet without actually seeing these take place, and without being able to explain every detail of these things, we have ample enough evidence that they they are all real and thus we teach them in schools without putting stickers on textbooks explaining that astrophysics, history and geology are "controversial and should be considered with an open mind."
Sorry about the long rambling post, but I had a lot on my mind and not much time to type it while I'm supposed to be working :)

nobody was around to film the last eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

" But, of course, that was before my time so, like evolution, it could all be made up by an evil cabal that wants us to think it erupted that recently!"

yeah! just like the Apollo moon landings were faked!

;)

Both ID and RM+NS are narrative attempts requiring faith in things unobserved to explain empirical evidence.

— not buyin it

You boys need to get your stories straight.

Secular humanism is defined by Princeton's Wordnet as anyone that rejects religion and the supernatural. I may have bet wrong. Do you reject the supernatural?

Re; all the statements made by IDers here about "god" and "the supernatural":

Ya know, the thing I really don't understand is how the
fundies can POSSIBLY be so stupid about this as they are here on this
list . . . They KNOW that their heroes are in court right now
trying to argue that creationism/ID is SCIENCE and has NO RELIGIOUS
PURPOSE OR AIM. They KNOW that if the courts rule that
creationism/ID is NOT science and IS nothing but religious doctrine,
then their crap will never see the inside of a science classroom. So
they must KNOW that every time they blither to us that creationism/ID
is all about God and faith and the Bible and all that, they are
UNDERMINING THEIR OWN HEROES by demonstrating, right here in public,
that their heroes are lying under oath when they claim that
creationism/ID has NO religious purpose or aims.

So why the heck do they do it ANYWAY? Why the heck are they in here
yammering about religion when their own leaders are trying so
desperately to argue that ID/creationism is NOT about religion? Are
the creationists in here really THAT stupid? Really and truly?

Any IDer or creationist in here, how about answering
that question for me. Why are you in here arguing that
ID/creationism is all about God and the Bible, while Discovery
Institute and other creationists are currently in Kansas and Dover
arguing that ID/creationism is NOT all about God and the Bible?

Why are you **undercutting your own side**????????

I really truly want to know.

Well almost. Science can explain intelligent design if it has enough data to work with. It already attempts explain the evolution of intelligence in the one known instance. There is nothing precluding a scientific explanation for any other instances awaiting discovery.

"So why the heck do they do it ANYWAY?"

uh, to quote a bit of pablum:

"Stupid is as stupid does"

Not Buyin´ it? What the...I´m calling Proud Waterfront Property Owner.

Good job pastor. Not Bein Smart is very definitely DaveScat.

DaveScat: "1) DNA stores specifications for 3-dimensional parts (folded proteins) in a well understood format of sequential base-pair triplets (codons) each specifying one of 20 amino acids plus stop/start codons."

Not Bein Smart: "The codon translation table equating AGCT triplets to one of 20 amino acids could have taken on a virtually infinite set of permutations yet all life shares a nearly identical translation table."

DaveScat: "Is anyone going to step up to the plate and fathom a guess at my question of how the organisms with deviations from the standard codon->acid translation table managed to survive the mutation?"

Intelligence deniers have come full circle back to a default pre-enlightenment position that the earth is special. Just lovely.

— IQ 156

Argh, pitch in a "/" there, somewhere...it´s getting too late for formatting properly, dammit.

DaveScat: "Is anyone going to step up to the plate and fathom a guess at my question of how the organisms with deviations from the standard codon->acid translation table managed to survive the mutation?"

Good job pastor. Not Bein Smart is very definitely DaveScat.

Comment #3841 Posted by charlie wagner on June 15, 2004 08:24 AM The First Cause problem stems from the knowledge that everything in the world has a cause. Because of this, you eventually must come to a primary cause, which religions call God. But this begs the question: "who made god?". If everything must have a cause, then God too must have a cause. Religion says: "not so, God has always existed." and leave it at that. But I contend that if there is anything in the universe without a cause, it might as well be the universe itself, rather than God. Since I don't believe in God, there's anly one option as far as I can see: the universe and the life in it have always existed. There's simply no reason for thinking that the universe had a beginning. Cosmologists seem to have an even different view. They claim that the universe came into existence without a cause. It's really only poverty of our limited human imagination that everything must have a beginning.

— charlie wagner

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My Ware Farms blog doesn't have this feature so I'll just mention my post http://warefarms.blogspot.com/2005/05/sanjai*tripathi*on*id.html Sanjai Tripathi on ID in this comment. (replace * with -)

One of my favorite blogs about evolution, The Panda's Thumb, had a post about an article by Sanjai Tripathi in the Oregon State Daily Barometer which he titled, "ID for faithful, evolution for scientists."

TrackBack

My blog doesn't have this feature so go to Ware Farms and look for: Sanjai Tripathi on ID which starts:

One of my favorite blogs about evolution, The Panda's Thumb, had a post about an article by Sanjai Tripathi in the Oregon State Daily Barometer which he titled, "ID for faithful, evolution for scientists."

"There's simply no reason for thinking that the universe had a beginning."

Classic Charlie Wagner--ignorant and assertive.

ARG Sorry about the mess. I kept getting errors due to the dashes in the URL thingie and my attempts to get passed it. I'll know better next time. BW

f'in spammers