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The Sophisticated Nanotechnology of the Cell Reeks of Design
- From Michael Behe
By Dr. Michael Behe - Author/Professor
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Handwaving
--Behe--
If “scientific merit” is judged by the correspondence between theory and physical reality, then the theory of intelligent design rates very strongly.
--
There is no theory of ID, what's so hard to understand here. The concept of "purposeful arrangement of parts" is at best a restatement of Paley's argument and fails to recognize scientific explanations. As to the flagellum simulations, let's make sure that it is actually based on the actual pictures rather than a stylized representation. After all, we do not want to pretend that the physical reality looks like a cartoon.
- PvM
September 9, 2008 9:50PM
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Yep, as I feared
the physical reality to which Behe so proudly points is a stylized cartoon of reality. Sure we can make designed things look designed but the actual flagellum hardly looks like the strawmen pictures by ID. Since ID seems to want to make its argument based on the similarity between a non-existent theory and physical reality, it seems to me that there are some 'minor' wrinkles to be worked out.
- PvM
September 9, 2008 9:53PM
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Design is apparent, not real
"Design is recognized in the purposeful arrangement of parts, "
Storms - tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.. - are machines. They are made up of many necessary, purposefully-arranged parts, they are described explicitly by scientists as engines, they are irreducibly complex, they have countless more molecules than a cell, they are in their own ways as complicated and intricate as a cell, they cannot be replicated in a lab, they have all the hallmarks that Behe claims precludes any natural origin. But they arise spontaneously all the time.
Behe's argument amounts to "it looks that way to me, thus design". This argument fails on so many levels. The matter of meteorological phenomena is but one example that reveals the weakness of the ID position.
- Arthur Hunt
September 10, 2008 7:54PM
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Design is apparent, not real?
I'm sorry but this argument of "design is apparent, not real" always make me scratch my head in bewilderment.Its like, we see the design with our own eyes but it can't be real because we refuse to believe in a designer.
You were right about one thing Arthur Hunt. Storms- tornadoes, hurricanes, etc are machines with engines.
It always has been and always will be impossible to have a design without a designer. Truth doesn't stop being truth just because you don't believe it. Just because something arises spontaneously doesn't disprove a designer.
- ICDESIGN September 11, 2008 2:01PM
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tautologically true
--
It always has been and always will be impossible to have a design without a designer. Truth doesn't stop being truth just because you don't believe it. Just because something arises spontaneously doesn't disprove a designer
--
true, but as science has shown, the designer need not always be an intelligent entity and in fact, this confusion about design which lies at the foundation of apparent versus actual design has not been resolved by the eliminative approach chosen by ID. It has nothing to do with a believe in a designer, a perhaps innate, evolved aspect of humans, but all to do with what is scientifically supportable. Needless to say, we do not use ID's approaches to infer design since such an approach would be inherently unreliable.
- PvM
September 11, 2008 2:23PM
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science shows what?
...all design is intelligent. It takes thought to construct any type of design. When you see things take place in science they happen because of all the laws that were put into place by an intelligent designer.
Going back to the idea of a storm and engines. When you get in a car and turn the key you have a spontaneous violent storm erupt inside the engine. It all takes place because of all the elements of the design working in concert to produce the effect. This and all design require
intelligent thought.
- ICDESIGN September 11, 2008 8:12PM
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Not all design is intelligent
--ICDEsig--
...all design is intelligent.
--
But since ID defines design to include non-intelligent designers, there appears to be a problem
Clever trick eh, making people believe they are talking about intelligent design when they cannot exclude natural selection for instance as a designer.
- PvM
September 12, 2008 9:49AM
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what is an intelligent design?
...we absolutely exclude natural selection as a designer!
the real trick is convincing the public that macro-evolution is a scientific fact when it has never been observed which is a requirement for science.
I don't know where you get your information but I don't know any ID people who include non-ID as part of their belief system.
Lets do this sir. Lets bring it home to where we live. If the human body is not an intelligent design then you tell me what is the definition for an intelligent design.
'WHAT' IS A INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND 'WHY' IS YOUR EXAMPLE AN INTELLIGENT DESIGN? simple straight forward question.
what is your simple straight forward answer?
bet you can't do it
- ICDESIGN September 12, 2008 10:34AM
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Straightforward answer
--ICDesign--
'WHAT' IS A INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND 'WHY' IS YOUR EXAMPLE AN INTELLIGENT DESIGN? simple straight forward question. what is your simple straight forward answer? bet you can't do it
--
You should not be a betting man when you are bluffing so obviously (hint: all caps).
You ask some good questions and since you 'see design', you may be horrified to find out how the Intelligent Design movement has defined design to be nothing more than the "set theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity-or-chance" or that which remains once one has eliminate regularity of chance hypotheses.
Shocked?... I bet but things get worse, in order to go from design to 'designer', the ID movement uses induction, which of course has its usual problems
---Ryan Nichols--
Before I proceed, however, I note that Dembski makes an important concession to his critics. He refuses to make the second assumption noted above. When the EF implies that certain systems are intelligently designed, Dembski does not think it follows that there is some intelligent designer or other. He says that, "even though in practice inferring design is the first step in identifying an intelligent agent, taken by itself design does not require that such an agent be posited. The notion of design that emerges from the design inference must not be confused with intelligent agency"
--
The notion of design should not be confuse with intelligent agency. Now how many ID proponents or enthusiasts are familiar with this hidden gem?
Let's give an example of (failed) intelligent design.
When Newton arrived at his laws of motion, he was shocked when he realized that the orbits of planets could not possibly be stable. To 'explain' the stable orbits, Newton invoked a "helping hand" of God. Only when Laplace, some half a century later, realized Newton's mistakes, was the necessity of said intelligent designer removed.
Newton's appeal to design is based on what ID proponents have come to define as the "design inference".
This should teach us once and for all that an appeal to design, when lacking anything more than ignorance, is not very reliable, historically speaking.
Does this help? Do you have a paypal account? Oh what the heck, this one is on me...
;-)
- PvM
September 12, 2008 11:39AM
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The problem is...
If something can arise spontaneously, then a designer certainly isn't proven--what is proven is that a designer is unnecessary.
I firmly believe that you should be able to believe whatever you want about god/religion, but on the other hand, once it's established that a designer is unnecessary, it does not serve anyone to say "because we don't know this, this, and this, therefore it must mean there was a supernatural force that set it in motion, and we should stop looking for the answer."
Irreducible complexity was shattered a couple of decades ago. Since then, we've answered previously unknown questions about eyes, missing links, plant buds, and all the other gaps. If we had stopped looking, we wouldn't know--and that, I think, is the true danger of Intelligent Design. It not only halts knowledge, it canonizes ignorance.
- sharky
September 24, 2008 5:57PM
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Would someone that can, please object to this argument...
I would if I could. My grounds for objection are very simple: This is not an argument.
The whole post from Mr Behe can be boiled down to, "since things are complex, they must be designed."
In another post I said that ID wasn't a theory, it was an untested hypothesis. It seems I was giving it too much credit. It's an unfinished hypothesis.
What features of the complexity of the cell points to intelligent design? How does the complexity of the cell point to intelligent design? These are the kinds of questions you should be answering with this argument.
Please, someone object to this argument, or give me the ability to do so.
- PStryder September 15, 2008 7:59PM
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lets use a bigger example
I'm not a cell expert but lets expand out to the human body. Do you consider the systems that make up your body to be intelligent in function PSTRYDER?
- ICDESIGN September 15, 2008 9:06PM
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Let's not, let's use the example in Behe's 'argument'
I'm not a cell expert either, and understanding what Behe wrote in his argument doesn't require it, because he didn't say anything except "Cellular machinery is complex, therefore it must be designed."
This isn't an argument, it's a statement. To make it an argument, he would have to say, "Cellular machinery is complex, and these examples of complexity make me think it is designed." Then he would speak to each of those examples in detail, explaining why their complexity indicates design, and is not better explained through some other mechanism. That would be an argument.
ICDESIGN, I have had these discussions, representing both sides, too many times to be derailed by your question. Discuss Behe's argument with me, but don't try to lead me astray with questions outside the purview of the topic at hand.
- PStryder September 16, 2008 9:57AM
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astray
-but don't try to lead me astay-
I wanted to try and lead to the truth from being astray
actually. I think Behe has made the case for obvious
design within the cell and I don't think you will find
anyone who could put it any more clear. The evidence is everywhere its just a matter of where you want to put your faith. Good luck on your journey.
- ICDESIGN September 16, 2008 10:30AM
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Behe and design
--ICDESIGN
I think Behe has made the case for obvious design within the cell and I don't think you will find
anyone who could put it any more clear.
--
I find Behe's 'arguments' while probably most relevant to design in nature, also to suffer from a significant flaw, an inability to deal with new scientific findings that undermine his claims.
Note for instance Nick Matzke's contributions on this forum, and note the absence of much of any response. ID has consistently avoided dealing with the socalled 'controversy' in a scientific fashion and instead seems to insist on invading our public schools under the guise of academic freedom.
- PvM
September 16, 2008 11:04AM
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scientific findings
Hi PvM, they finally got things straightened out.
As far as scientific findings go the numbers of evolution
believing scientist's is on a major decline. The more
technology is able to understand the more everyone will have to abandon the primitive thinking of evolutionary
theory (theory being the key word). When scientists become brave enough to follow the evidence wherever it leads they will land on God's doorstep. 30 years from now
it will be embarrassing for anyone to admit to being an
evolutionist.
- ICDESIGN September 16, 2008 12:33PM
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Silliness
--ICDESIGN
As far as scientific findings go the numbers of evolution believing scientist's is on a major decline.
--
Historically such predictions have failed to come true time after time. In fact, the theory of evolution is getting stronger and stronger. So I have to reject your unsupported and wishful thinking.
--ICDESIGN
The more technology is able to understand the more everyone will have to abandon the primitive thinking of evolutionary theory (theory being the key word). When scientists become brave enough to follow the evidence wherever it leads they will land on God's doorstep. 30 years from now
it will be embarrassing for anyone to admit to being an evolutionist.
--
Stop embarrassing yourself with these predictions, there is no reason to come to such a conclusion. Surely you would not want to portray such a foolish notion?
But I do understand that the facts, may be somewhat disturbing to some religious people who have not only come to misunderstand evolutionary theory as being anti-God but worse are willing to go on the record with foolish statements. That just makes us Christians look well, 'foolish'
- PvM
September 16, 2008 1:38PM
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What case has been made?
--I think Behe has made the case for obvious
design within the cell and I don't think you will find
anyone who could put it any more clear.
--
Actually, Behe did not offer a case for intelligent design in his argument, posted on this website. (Let me make PERFECTLY clear, this is all I am discussing.) He simply offered his conclusion; because cellular machinery is complex, it is designed. He offers no evidence, no data, and no sembelence of a coherent argument.
--The evidence is everywhere its just a matter of where you want to put your faith. --
Science != faith. Faith !=science
The evidence is NOT everywhere. The DATA is everywhere. Evidence is data that is used to support your hypothesis, which makes predictions of future experimental results, or data that will be discovered at a later date.
Behe offers no DATA to support his hypothesis; which make no predictions. ID does not meet the criteria to be a theory, it barely meets the criteria to be an unfinished hypothesis.
- PStryder September 16, 2008 6:59PM
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Making it perfectly clear
Ok whatever dude. Let me also be clear I really don't care what you can or cannot see or want to talk about.
ICDESIGN of a genius everywhere I look. If you don't that's your loss man.
As I said b4, good luck on your journey and goodbye.
- ICDESIGN September 16, 2008 8:54PM
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Seems perfectly clear
ICDESIGN is suddenly not interested in hearing about science anymore. Denial, a first step towards recovery. Just wait till the anger phase, that's the tricky one as many have come to reject faith during that phase.
All because of insisting that ID should be able to prove the existence of God. What happened to good old faith? Do we insist that God reveals us to us in person, just like 'doubting Thomas' before we accept His existence?
I am shocked.
- PvM
September 16, 2008 9:16PM
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What features of complexity
--
What features of the complexity of the cell points to intelligent design? How does the complexity of the cell point to intelligent design? These are the kinds of questions you should be answering with this argument.
--
The ID proponent would argue: the fact that it is complex (in other words, science cannot explain it) and 'specified' where it matches some independent pattern. In biology, function seems to be sufficient for something to be specified, so mostly anything that would arise via the processes of evolution and would not yet be fully understood would be called design.
Hope this clarifies.
- PvM
September 15, 2008 9:51PM
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I was never confused, I was just trying to help.
I asked the questions to give Mr Behe a hint about how to formulate a proper argument.
I am well familiar with the thought process of the ID proponents, having at one time been one myself. Of course, I grew out of it before I graduated high school. (and no, it was not because my teacher, pawn of the evil scientist cabal to keep creation science hidden, converted me. It was because I did my own research and thinking and most importantly, i followed the data.)
- PStryder September 16, 2008 10:00AM
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I know
I was using your rhetorical question to attempt to get a discussion going. Seems ID proponents have mostly abandoned this thread :-)
- PvM
September 16, 2008 10:24AM
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Except for the prolestizing and faith espousing.
It always devolves to this when talking to ID proponents. They say they are not pushing a religious agenda, but you see from the arguments and the posts, they always fall back on faith.
Just in case any ID proponents are reading, no matter what you believe, say, or have been told, faith != evidence. And belief != science. And vice versa.
- PStryder September 16, 2008 6:39PM
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Argument from Lack of Design
Hasn't anybody here read a molecular cell biology textbook? The machinery of the cell is a Rube Goldberg apparatus. If it was designed, the designer went to a lot of trouble to make it look undesigned.
One can compare what designed and undesigned systems look like. For example, some complex electronic circuits are designed by engineers and others are created through the use of adaptive programs that amount to artificial versions of natural selection. Both kinds of circuits work, but they have distinctly different characteristics. The designed circuits tend to be less tolerant of malfunctions than the evolved circuits and it's much harder to figure out how the undesigned circuits work. In other words, when nature is examined, it appears to be undesigned. This is a positive finding, not a inference.
None of this will convince the ID folks, of course, because they are irrational religionists.
- Jim Harrison
September 16, 2008 9:53PM
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Present your case
and minimize the ad hominems and IDers will listen. Your comments are valid, and describe a valid distinction between systems designed by evolution and by intelligent designers.
I'd hate to see your case weakened.
- PvM
September 16, 2008 10:08PM
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The question is not 'does it look designed?' but 'was it?'
I believe arguments from the opposing camps that say 'it looks like it was designed, so it must have been designed' and 'natural selection could have produced it, so we believe natural selection did produce it' are not going to lead to resolution of this issue.
The real question is - Is there any direct evidence that a particular feature actually was designed, or on the other hand, direct evidence that it arose through natural selection? This is clearly a very difficult question or to answer when the events took place long ago (pace YECs)
On the ID side, I'm not aware of any evidence that any feature of any organism actually was designed. This would require evidence that a) designers existed b) they visited earth and c) they intervened in the modification of life.
On the evolution by natural selection side, likewise I'm not aware if there is any evidence that a significant new feature, such as the human brain, actually did evolve this way.
I think at the moment it's impossible to demonstrate either of these with direct evidence.
So for me the next question is - in the absence of direct evidence either way, is it possible to say whether or not ID has merit?
I think it is. This is because, as I understand it, ID makes no proposals as to the nature of the designers, when and how they designed life, why they don't appear to be around today, and what their own origin was. This means it is not really a theory, more a kind of problem statement.
For evolution by natural selection, there is a proposed mechanism, which has been proven to work on small scale changes (point mutations). Other mechanisms are known that can modify the genome on a larger scale. Natural selection therefore doesn't have the blank spaces that ID does, and in my view has the right to be called a theory.
- Rich Townsend September 17, 2008 4:29PM
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Design is in the eye of the beholder?
Behe asserts:
"Design is recognized in the purposeful arrangement of parts"
Who decides if an "arrangement of parts" is "purposeful"? What does "purposeful" really mean in that statement? Do the parts have "purpose"? Does the "arrangement" have purpose? Did the designer have "purpose"? If I take an old wristwatch and remove all the springs and gears and arrange them in a circle, is the circle designed? If I throw them in a heap, are all of the parts of the watch no longer designed? If I pick up some metal shavings off of the floor from under the lathe in the machine shop and arrange them into a complicated mathematical pattern that I generated using a computer program, can you tell if this is a "purposeful design" or just a "random design"?
Is a virus designed? A prion? A fragment of RNA? A benzene molecule? How can you tell?
Waving your hands and saying "I know design when I see it" and "all life was obviously designed" just won't cut it. Your religious motives in assuming your religious designer are too obvious to allow your judgment to go unquestioned.
Behe further asserts:
"and the cell exhibits the most profound purposeful arrangement of parts in the universe".
There you go again, using that word "purposeful". Well, it's really good "public relations" to appeal to religious people with such an assertion. But scientists are unimpressed. Maybe cells and prions and lifeforms have a "purpose" - to grow and reproduce and evolve - but unless you can show that there is really a "need" for a designer, there is no reason to assume that there was one. So your task remains impossible - "prove" that evolution cannot have produced "this" over the last 3 billion years. Go back 3 billion years and prove that a "cell" did not evolve from something simpler? Or wave your hands and say "I don't believe it could have happened"?
- onein6billion
September 21, 2008 3:45AM
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Depends.
"Who decides if an "arrangement of parts" is "purposeful"? What does "purposeful" really mean in that statement? Do the parts have "purpose"?"
If there is some form of synergy in the arrangement then yes, that would be purposeful.
"Is a virus designed? A prion? A fragment of RNA? A benzene molecule?"
Any of them can be a possibility.
"How can you tell?"
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php /id/1203
"Waving your hands and saying "I know design when I see it" and "all life was obviously designed" just won't cut it."
Agreed, though that is nowhere near the approach ID takes with Biology (or anything else).
"Your religious motives in assuming your religious designer are too obvious to allow your judgment to go unquestioned."
PvM tried to make this same claim but it remains unfounded to this day. Maybe you can change that? See these discussions and join in: http://www.opposingviews.com/comments/sorry-about-my-prior-views
"There you go again, using that word "purposeful"."
I defined purposeful earlier in this comment. For detail on the cell, see the following:
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/6850.html
"Maybe cells and prions and lifeforms have a "purpose" - to grow and reproduce and evolve - but unless you can show that there is really a "need" for a designer, there is no reason to assume that there was one."
I think he already took care of that one.
"So your task remains impossible - "prove" that evolution cannot have produced "this" over the last 3 billion years. Go back 3 billion years and prove that a "cell" did not evolve from something simpler? Or wave your hands and say "I don't believe it could have happened"?"
Seems like the burden of proof goes both ways. If Behe cannot "prove" it didn't happen then there's no reason to believe one can prove that it did.
- F2XL
November 6, 2008 8:46PM
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Tell-tale signs - not
"We detect design by looking for the tell-tale signs that an intelligent agent acted. Intelligent agents tend to produce specified complexity when they act."
Riiiight. Well "specified complexity" is a nonsense phrase to confuse the rubes. And apparently "tell-tale signs" are also in the eye of the beholder.
"the animation illustrates unseen molecular mechanisms and the ones they trigger, specifically how white blood cells sense and respond to their surroundings and external stimuli."
So what? This is simply known science. There is no "tell-tale sign" of an "intelligent agent". Not in the eye of this beholder anyway.
"Seems like the burden of proof goes both ways."
Nope. Science is reality. Reality is science. If science can explain reality without resorting to a miracle or the supernatural, then science is satisfactory. If you think science is not satisfactory, then the burden of proof is on you to show that it is not satisfactory. But if the "supernatural" is "outside science", then your only chance is to show that there are some observed events (miracles) that cannot be explained by science. This is an argument from ignorance. If science cannot (yet?) explain this, then it must be a miracle caused by a supernatural entity.
If science can explain it and ID can also explain it, then science is preferred because ID introduces an unnecessary element. So the burden of proof is on ID to show that the extra element is necessary.
- onein6billion
November 7, 2008 6:47AM
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Tell-tale Signs, Yes
"Riiiight. Well "specified complexity" is a nonsense phrase to confuse the rubes."
How so?
"And apparently "tell-tale signs" are also in the eye of the beholder."
If you say so. Synergy sounds like a pretty universal sign to me.
"So what? This is simply known science. There is no "tell-tale sign" of an "intelligent agent". Not in the eye of this beholder anyway."
If evolution cannot produce such a mechanism, what are we to conclude?
"Nope. Science is reality. Reality is science. If science can explain reality without resorting to a miracle or the supernatural, then science is satisfactory."
So ID is science. Good to know.
"But if the "supernatural" is "outside science", then your only chance is to show that there are some observed events (miracles) that cannot be explained by science."
What does the "supernatural" have to do with this? And I agree that if you can find something evolution cannot produce, and it is characteristic of a designed system then ID gains merit.
"This is an argument from ignorance. If science cannot (yet?) explain this, then it must be a miracle caused by a supernatural entity."
No it isn't:
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php /id/1159
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php /id/1167
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/10/dover_trial_miller_argues_from_ignorance.html
"If science can explain it and ID can also explain it, then science is preferred because ID introduces an unnecessary element. So the burden of proof is on ID to show that the extra element is necessary."
And if science can't explain it?
- F2XL
November 9, 2008 11:51AM
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Bet against future science?
"Intelligent design works off positive predictions about where experience tells us that intelligent design is the cause at work."
Meaningless nonsense, of course. Name a "prediction".
"complex (i.e. irreducibly complex) biological structures are unexplained, but rather that they are in principle unexplainable"
And that statement has been refuted. You can't "prove" that evolution can't explain "this". Mainly because it can.
"If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions,"
Of course Behe ignored the original point and changed the subject to something irrelevant.
"And if science can't explain it?"
If science can't explain it yet, then science will continue to explore alternatives. ID is merely a useless "dead end" to try to allow creationists to claim that evolution might be wrong.
- onein6billion
November 9, 2008 1:58PM
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I guess so.
"Meaningless nonsense, of course. Name a "prediction"."
It's funny because I already named some, provided resources to find them, and yet you seemed to dodge the argument altogether:
http://www.opposingviews.com/comments/id-is-science (see the three links from the first comment and please respond there)
"And that statement has been refuted. You can't "prove" that evolution can't explain "this"."
If that were true then you wouldn't be able prove evolution can explain it either. And I'm interesting in what refutations to irreducibility your referring to, feel free to cite Ken Miller or Nick Matzke. I highly doubt you know of anything I haven't heard before.
"Mainly because it can."
Prove it.
"Of course Behe ignored the original point and changed the subject to something irrelevant."
So he brings up pseudogenes in one sentence in a paragraph ABOUT pseudogenes, and you say that's changing the subject??? What was the original point in that case?
"If science can't explain it yet, then science will continue to explore alternatives."
Nothing wrong with that.
ID is merely a useless "dead end"..."
While Evolution simply declares all problems solved without further notice.
"...to try to allow creationists to claim that evolution might be wrong."
Explain how "creationists" are relevant to this discussion.
- F2XL
November 10, 2008 9:00PM
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And now you are repeating yourself - dead end
"It's funny because I already named some, provided resources to find them, and yet you seemed to dodge the argument altogether:"
followed by the usual nonsense.
No real scientist would concede that those are actually "predictions". They are just dishonest attempts to claim that recent scientific discoveries are in agreement with the nonsense called " intelligent design ". And no real scientist claims that these discoveries are a problem for evolution. So, as usual, your dishonest "authorities" are not real authorities at all.
Now, tiktaalik, that was a prediction.
- onein6billion
November 11, 2008 10:15AM
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Broken link
Not all this link was identified in my last reply:
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php /id/1203
Hope it works this time.
- F2XL
November 6, 2008 8:48PM
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So why did a designer have to use a lot of spare parts?
Actually, the construction of the cell rather suggests chance. Mitochondria have their own DNA. It's not even specific to the organism it's in--my mitochondrial DNA matches my families', sure, but you couldn't tell the difference between my sister's and mine.
Why would a designer design one organism within another organism? And why would he do this common, foreign cellular power source for animals, fungi, and plants? That speaks much less of "design" and more of "chance"--other organisms at some point, before the construction of cell walls, formed symbiotic or perhaps just very good parasitic relationships with primitive mitochondria.
- sharky
September 24, 2008 5:01PM
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