Happy Atheist Forum

Merry belated Christmas everyone!

I'll get right to the point,
Michael Behe, a known biochemist once said irreducible complexity is "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" So you take a mousetrap, you remove one part and the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
You take a look at anything living around you, even ourselves. What if we were designed without a heart? or bones? what if we had no muscle? Do you think we'd be what we are now? certainly not. We have everything we need to survive. Sure we die at some point, but while we live, we've all we really need. In order for all of this to be, there surely must be a creator. Intelligent and intentional design. The big man upstairs says, 'let there be light' there was light and then created everything else. He designed all of us to survive. Yes you could argue that there are people out there who die before they are even born, or there are those who are mentally/physically disabled, including myself. I am hard-of-hearing, mild hypotonia, meaning I'm not quite as strong as most people my age, I have what they call Aspergers syndrome which falls under the 'umbrella' of autism, I was born with Ruebella. So you are talking with someone who could quite easily say "No fair and just God could have created me to be like this." But I don't. So perhaps then you say, "he's just naive" but am I? Maybe I'm not naive, but have the ability to come to terms with what I was born with. Perhaps a lot of others like myself realize that there surely must be a reason as to why I'm like this, a purpose. And maybe we need to be humble enough to accept that. We aren't all created equally in our own perception because there are some who have things that others don't, or rather, some who don't have things that others do. That's becuase we have a tendecy, as humans, to compare and judge things according to what we see physically. In the eyes of God we are equal however because we all have a purpose.
So how can all this be, without an intelligent designer?

Behe is a known mathematician and theologian.  He knows nothing about real biology, he's just trying to make it fit Intelligent Design.  Wishing does not make it so.

regardless of who the man is, it does follow a reasonable amount of logic. If you had your heart removed, you would no longer function, and that's just one part of the human body. Same goes for your brain and your lungs.

Quote from: "Thiest"regardless of who the man is, it does follow a reasonable amount of logic. If you had your heart removed, you would no longer function, and that's just one part of the human body. Same goes for your brain and your lungs.

Thiest the issue is that although it seems to make a lot of sense, the analogy itself is faulty. Unfortunately, the way most of us are taught complex things is via analogy. Actually, it wouldn't be unfortunate, except in science people utilize horrible analogies all the time in an effort to simplify complex topics.

Saying that we can't live with a heart, ergo, all life is irreducibly complex is a faulty analogy. It's comparing a mamalian organ system to all of the DNA, carbon structure, atomic structure, and four fundamental forces of nature. You can't do that.

Aside from that, Behe's irreducible complexity has been shown to be (let's be charitable here) less than accurate, and not correct.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurri ... nsense.pdf (http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/wackononsense.pdf)

Irreducible complexity is in there, just scroll down.

Who designed the designer? If we are complex and we have an "inteligunt desaigner", he or she or it or them must be really really really complex, and who designed them and so forth and so on.

In addition, we must accept then that the designer also intelligently designed rubella, asperger's, and hypotonia, Thiest, as well as things like harlequin icthyosis, neurofibromatosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, cancer, scleroderma, and all those other diseases in which the body's immune system does exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to be doing.  If it's intelligently designed, why is an immune system CAUSING disease?

Behe's "IC" arguments don't hold up.  While he is an intelligent man and a biochemist at Lehigh, unfortunately he's let ideology lead him instead of evidence.

I'll explain more when I get home from work about IC and why it's bunk.

McQ, you have a point, I'll admit. It's difficult, if not impossible to justifiably compare the human body or a mousetrap to the huge universe of complex bits and pieces. But bear in mind, it is merely an analogy, it's not meant to be entirely and wholesomely accurate. As for who designed the designer, well, the trouble with that argument is that it assumes that time has always existed. God is not subject to time constraints, I'm sure you've all heard "God has his own time, his own schedule" in sunday school and such, and while it is cliche, it has a point. So logically, God isn't subject to that particular scientific argument, as he is not subject to time either. Ergo, from that one could easily believe that God has always existed and that God brought time into the picture along with the universe, and not before then. So an athiest who claims to live by knowledge and logic cannot assign eternity to a universe that belongs to a temporal existence.  
To Faylen,
Yes, you have a point that the immune system causes these diseases. But with all of these diseases, there is a factor that causes the immune system to act this way. There has to be, if you follow your own logic. You argue that God must have had a creator in order to exist, therefore by your own logic, the immune system must've had a factor to trigger such a reaction.
and to squid, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about irreducible complexity. I may not neccesarily agree with any of your arguments, but I will listen and then respectively state my point of view.

Quote from: "Thiest"As for who designed the designer, well, the trouble with that argument is that it assumes that time has always existed. God is not subject to time constraints, I'm sure you've all heard "God has his own time, his own schedule" in sunday school and such, and while it is cliche, it has a point. So logically, God isn't subject to that particular scientific argument, as he is not subject to time either. Ergo, from that one could easily believe that God has always existed and that God brought time into the picture along with the universe, and not before then. So an athiest who claims to live by knowledge and logic cannot assign eternity to a universe that belongs to a temporal existence.

Actually we can until we see conclusive proof of your deity. So far he's really good at hiding. Also, that makes no sense in your argument. If we are so complex, than how did an even more complex being who supposedly design us (and did a very poor job at it, you know that bipedal movement is quite poor compared to a quadrupedal?). It's easy to believe indeed when you have it constantly hammered into you like a mantra. Curious that something so profoundly true has to constantly be forced into kids' heads. I wonder why....

Quote from: "Thiest"To Faylen,
Yes, you have a point that the immune system causes these diseases. But with all of these diseases, there is a factor that causes the immune system to act this way. There has to be, if you follow your own logic. You argue that God must have had a creator in order to exist, therefore by your own logic, the immune system must've had a factor to trigger such a reaction.
and to squid, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about irreducible complexity. I may not neccesarily agree with any of your arguments, but I will listen and then respectively state my point of view.

Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.

Quote from: "Big Mac"Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.

I wasn't the one who originally said the immune system caused the aforementioned diseases, it was Faylen, just as a note of interest.

Hey all (and Greetings Thiest!),

Hope your holidays are going well...

Here's a link for a bit more information on the "IC" issue:
  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html)

(oh, and for the record, the human immune system kills people on a regular basis.  sever allergic reactions are an easy example - the immune system overreacts with dire consequenses... and let's not forget auto-immune diseases, ie. AIDS)

Off to catch up on the other 293 posts I've missed,
  JoeActor

thanks for the feedback joeactor

Quote from: "Thiest"

Quote from: "Big Mac"Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.

I wasn't the one who originally said the immune system caused the aforementioned diseases, it was Faylen, just as a note of interest.

Actually, I didn't say that at all.  What I said was that if you insist that all the wonderful things were intelligently designed that you also have to accept the horrible things as intelligently designed.  Somehow it doesn't seem intelligent to design something that works wrong.

I apologize for misquoting you then.
But against your last argument, the good must with the bad, good can't very well exist without evil can it? at least from a human's perspective. Because without evil/bad to define and shape what we think of good how would we truly know what is good? it balances out. Yin and Yang as some might say. Perhaps it is very intelligent to design something that works out to perhaps, not function as we feel it should. Perhaps it reminds us to be humble? I'm not normally going to quote bible verses at you but one comes to mind here. Recall the tower of Babel, everyone all of a sudden wanted to see God, be on more of an equal level with him. So instead of that happening, God has them speak in different languages so the job can't very well be done. Or what about 'Lucifer', or 'The Shining One' as he was called. Apparently he was an angel before he turned to what we know him as now. But suddenly he had the urge to become more powerful than God, he wanted to seize his power and be the one to take the reins. That didn't happen because God cast him down to earth. I think we all need reminders that we need to be humble, even if you don't believe in God, humility is a good thing, I'm sure we can all agree on at least that.

Okay, I thought I'd have more time tonight, but I guess not.  I'll get back to ya - that work thing seems to take up most of my time.  Too bad I can't get paid to visit messageboards.

Saying that humans are irreducibly complex because we can't function without a heart is operating on the assumption that evolution is false and therefore there couln't have been stages in which a more primative heart evolved into what we now see in the human body.

Going with the idea that evolution is true, and I'd say it is since there is so much evidence out there which supports that speciation has occured, modern IDists try to rely more on our ignorance of how much smaller systems can be broken down.  For instance, they'll claim that the basic building blocks of life are irreducibly complex.  This takes us out of the observable universe and into theories of how the universe came to exist in its current state....since much of that would have to be known before boldly considering something at an atomic level irriducibly complex.

Basically, ID is saying that since we don't know how a system could be more simple that it is so perfectly organized that it had to be created by an intelligent outside source.  The key problem with ID is that it rests on our ignorance of the world around us, rather than our knowledge....this is also why it's not science.

Quote from: "laetusatheos"Saying that humans are irreducibly complex because we can't function without a heart is operating on the assumption that evolution is false and therefore there couln't have been stages in which a more primative heart evolved into what we now see in the human body.

Going with the idea that evolution is true, and I'd say it is since there is so much evidence out there which supports that speciation has occured, modern IDists try to rely more on our ignorance of how much smaller systems can be broken down.  For instance, they'll claim that the basic building blocks of life are irreducibly complex.  This takes us out of the observable universe and into theories of how the universe came to exist in its current state....since much of that would have to be known before boldly considering something at an atomic level irriducibly complex.

Basically, ID is saying that since we don't know how a system could be more simple that it is so perfectly organized that it had to be created by an intelligent outside source.  The key problem with ID is that it rests on our ignorance of the world around us, rather than our knowledge....this is also why it's not science.

Excellent points here. Well spake!

Quote from: "Theist"I apologize for misquoting you then.
But against your last argument, the good must with the bad, good can't very well exist without evil can it? at least from a human's perspective. Because without evil/bad to define and shape what we think of good how would we truly know what is good? it balances out. Yin and Yang as some might say.

I sincerely wish people would stop saying this like it's well-known, verifiable fact. We can understand thousands of concepts that have no opposites just fine. If we can define brown and tile and hat without having any opposites with which to compare them, then we don't need an opposite to define "good." Besides that things are not really that black and white in real life. "Good" and "evil" don't exist in reality; they're constructs to define two extremes that we don't ever actually see.
"Good" is the opposite of "bad," but it's perfectly possible to understand what "good" is without defining "bad."

Quote from: "Thiest"Perhaps it is very intelligent to design something that works out to perhaps, not function as we feel it should. Perhaps it reminds us to be humble? I'm not normally going to quote bible verses at you but one comes to mind here. Recall the tower of Babel, everyone all of a sudden wanted to see God, be on more of an equal level with him. So instead of that happening, God has them speak in different languages so the job can't very well be done. Or what about 'Lucifer', or 'The Shining One' as he was called. Apparently he was an angel before he turned to what we know him as now. But suddenly he had the urge to become more powerful than God, he wanted to seize his power and be the one to take the reins. That didn't happen because God cast him down to earth. I think we all need reminders that we need to be humble, even if you don't believe in God, humility is a good thing, I'm sure we can all agree on at least that.

No, I don't agree. Humility is fine to some degree, but so is confidence and pride, when deserved. Christianity espouses humility because you can't be as good as God. I don't generally think it's a good idea for people to be humble all the time.

QuoteI sincerely wish people would stop saying this like it's well-known, verifiable fact. We can understand thousands of concepts that have no opposites just fine. If we can define brown and tile and hat without having any opposites with which to compare them, then we don't need an opposite to define "good." Besides that things are not really that black and white in real life. "Good" and "evil" don't exist in reality; they're constructs to define two extremes that we don't ever actually see.
"Good" is the opposite of "bad," but it's perfectly possible to understand what "good" is without defining "bad."

Is it though? I mean, good could still be good without bad being there, but how would we properly define it being good? We'd merely do good without knowing exactly what 'good' implies if we cannot compare it to something bad. It's what you would call common sense. We know that helping people who need it is good, and we know that crashing planes into buildings full of thousands of people is bad. But if we were completely ignorant of anything being bad, then how would we be aware that what we do has some sort of consequence, whether for better or for worse? It's true that some things don't have opposites and yet we can define them, but hats and tiles really don't have much to say on the matter do they? They can't, they're inanimate objects, thereby rendered practically obsolete when we discuss morality. The fact of the matter is, good does have an opposite, bad does have an opposite, that is verifiable fact. Whether or not they can or cannot exist with or without each other is the point. But that's just my opinion.  

QuoteNo, I don't agree. Humility is fine to some degree, but so is confidence and pride, when deserved. Christianity espouses humility because you can't be as good as God. I don't generally think it's a good idea for people to be humble all the time.

I never said confidence and pride are bad things. But there are times where we need to be humble, and believing you can be more powerful than God is one of those times (if you believe in him) where you need to take it upon yourself to be humble.

I think it is possible for what we view as good now to exist without there being bad...we just wouldn't have a term to describe it.  If there was no "bad" then everything would be "good."   If you think about how we feel when good things happen then that would be the constant state of things

Anyway, it's really not a question of why an intelligent designer would create anything bad...but if the degree of bad things in the world is really necessary when viewing it as a created system.  For instance, if God created the world then he also created ebola...a very nasty thing to get.  Now, if I was trying to argue that bad is necessary within a created system; I'd argue that it's not necessary state of existence but necessary if you want those in the system to appreciate good....after all, if everything was good then it wouldn't be any more appreciated than what is mundane in our existence.  

Back to the point I was making with an example of very bad things such as ebola....are these extremes necessary in order for us to appreciate good (in this instance, good health)?  I'd say it's not necessary to have very nasty viruses in existence in order to allow those who don't have them to fully appreciate good health; the common cold accomplishes that task very well by itself.  So, in my view, ebola is an unnecessary evil and not something an intelligent designer would create unless it just wanted to cause unnecessary hardship.

The argument from evil (paraphrased):

If god is willing to prevent evil and not able then he is impotent.  If he unwilling yet able then he is malevolent.  Why is there evil?

Quote from: "Theist"Is it though? I mean, good could still be good without bad being there, but how would we properly define it being good? We'd merely do good without knowing exactly what 'good' implies if we cannot compare it to something bad.

Bullshit. If you pull over to help a woman who's car broke down, do you think, "This is good because I'm helping someone" or "This is good because it's bad to pass her"? I think the fact that you can fully appreciate the moral permissiveness (or obligation) of this act WITHOUT using the second definition at all is a sign that we don't NEED bad to have good. That is assuming, of course, that we didn't already have "bad" in our nature. My point is simply that God COULD HAVE created humans who didn't desire to do bad, or could have created working bodies that were perfect for us, but he didn't. (My answer to this, of course, is that that is because he doesn't exist and we evolved imperfectly via evolution)

Quote from: "Thiest"It's what you would call common sense. We know that helping people who need it is good, and we know that crashing planes into buildings full of thousands of people is bad. But if we were completely ignorant of anything being bad, then how would we be aware that what we do has some sort of consequence, whether for better or for worse? It's true that some things don't have opposites and yet we can define them, but hats and tiles really don't have much to say on the matter do they? They can't, they're inanimate objects, thereby rendered practically obsolete when we discuss morality. The fact of the matter is, good does have an opposite, bad does have an opposite, that is verifiable fact. Whether or not they can or cannot exist with or without each other is the point. But that's just my opinion.

There's no need to qualify, btw. Anything you don't cite, I'm going to take as your opinion.
I want to address this point:
But if we were completely ignorant of anything being bad, then how would we be aware that what we do has some sort of consequence, whether for better or for worse?
If we are completely ignorant of evil, then yes, I think we can still understand good. In fact, I hardly see how we could know anything else but "good" if evil is not even a concept in the mind.
And if we base all of our actions on the consequences they bring about, we're not really talking about "good" and "evil" anymore. That's a reward/punishment stage of morality and hardly qualifies for the types of behavior we would label "good"/"evil" (the extremes).
Yes, good and evil are opposites. But that does not make it impossible to understand one without the other.

Quote from: "Thiest"I never said confidence and pride are bad things. But there are times where we need to be humble, and believing you can be more powerful than God is one of those times (if you believe in him) where you need to take it upon yourself to be humble.

And you think what? That God made us imperfect and let "evil" run rampant because he wants us to be humble?

I think it shows testimony that we humans must label everything we see and hear and think of.

Anyone ever watch the show Gargoyles? Remember the old one, Hudson, tells their human friend something early on "You humans, nothing exists until it has a name. Does the river have a name?" which she replies, "The river is called the Hudson." so he names himself Hudson out of amusement.

We humans learned early on that certain actions created bad results. Taking a club and beating someone over the head with it killed them. They never returned. It was scary to the people who could slowly grasp that it meant an end. So they devised things like an afterlife, ghosts, goblins, and other things. Man's early world was teeming with monsters waiting to eat, maul, strangle, rape, and gobble up him and his kids. Weird noises at night led to the idea that their was a bogeyman out there. And early, primitive man was afraid.

Then a few of the men got the idea: If I can promise to keep the bogeyman from spoiling crops, preventing good hunts, and winning against the enemy in battle, I would never have to work again. So he began painting himself up in weird colors and symbols, began doing bizarre rituals, and got some tail from the women in the name of transcending a plane of existence. And life was good for the shaman. He quickly learned that in reality, he wielded the power far more than the chief or the warlord.  Hence the need to maintain the power through fear. Fear of an absolute "good" and the absolute "evil".

The concept was born. Instead of merely constructive and destructive actions, it became absolutes. Sure you'll find very few people who think fucking children is ok (one of them is a former black man who resides in a white woman's body if you catch my drift). It's a destructive act towards the child, and for society it then becomes destructive, hence we have a dedicated police force that investigates it. Children who are molested in turn with become molesters if not treated. People who perform these actions need to be detained.

On the other hand we also have another thing that is "evil": drugs. For thousands of years mankind has done drugs. It was used for spiritual and recreational uses. Now it's this "evil" thing that creates "evil" people. Yes the people in the drug war between the government and even themselves do horrific things, but in all honesty, it is not entirely evil. Sure they wield weapons and blow each other up, but that's because they can not settle things in courts like civilized human beings. On the other hand they give peasants jobs that, while not paying great, pay.

So personally I do not believe in absolute evil and good. Everyone does constructive and destructive things to varying degrees. Some are not "evil", such as inflicting harm on yourself (through smoking, binge drinking, shooting up) as some constructive things are not good entirely (building a bomb for the military, etc.). Everything has shades, not just black and white.

Quote from: "Big Mac"Who designed the designer? If we are complex and we have an "inteligunt desaigner", he or she or it or them must be really really really complex, and who designed them and so forth and so on.

Oh... silly you.  Have you not heard yet?  The designer has always been there.

IT is beyond our logic and theories, as well time and space.  

IT sits within a demension not yet known to humanity.  Some black hole between the milky way and a mars bar.  

 

So I had a nice post typed up and now I can't find it - probably forgot to save it - baaaahhhh...

Quote from: "Squid"So I had a nice post typed up and now I can't find it - probably forgot to save it - baaaahhhh...

That sucks...and you posts are always very informative (I often learn a few things I didn't know from them and the sources you list).

Found it.  It was saved in my neuroscience folder in my documents for some reason.  Anyway.

QuoteMichael Behe, a known biochemist once said irreducible complexity is "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" So you take a mousetrap, you remove one part and the whole thing doesn't work anymore.

First off, Mr. Behe is a biochemist at Lehigh University.  However, even in his own biology department, his views are the extreme minority.

QuoteThe faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

Source – http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm

As is ID, it is a pseudoscientific minority view.  It considered pseudoscientific in that it is simply creationism dressed up in a lab coat.  ID does not make predictions, has virtually no explanatory power, suffers from the inability to be tested and/or measured as well as not having any sort of operationalized terminology but relies upon vague words like "design" and "information".

Behe seems to be part of a number of people who let ideology rather than evidence lead them.  One of the continuing rants from the ID camp is that their "theory" isn't religious in any way.  Behe, however (a devout Catholic) believes this designer to be god (Source (http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/intelligentdesigncase/dovertrialtranscripts.htm)).

However, personal views aside, let's address the IC claim itself.  The mousetrap analogy is fallacious (informal fallacy) itself.  A mousetrap is not even remotely a good analogy for a biological organism.  This fallacy is known as a false analogy or questionable analogy or faulty comparison:

Quote...consists in "comparing apples with oranges", that is, in reasoning by analogy when there is not a sufficient or relevant similarity between the items compared. (316)

Source – Kahane, H. and Tidman, P. (1995). Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction. (7th ed). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.

Complex biological systems, formations et cetera arise in nature without the aid of any deity.  For instance, snowflakes would fit the requirement to be considered "designed" yet they occur naturally.

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.its.caltech.edu%2F%7Eatomic%2Fsnowcrystals%2Fphotos%2Fx041219d008.jpg&hash=a25cec328d1353c25b2fb1ccd709cf6f6d6c7745)

Complexity has been shown in computer models to evolve almost inevitably:

QuoteWe show that, because natural selection forces genomes to behave as a natural ''Maxwell Demon,'' within a fixed environment, genomic complexity is forced to increase.

Source – Adami, C., Ofria, C. and Collier, T. (2000). Evolution of biological complexity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 4463-4468.

Maxwell's Demon refers to a thought experiment put forth by James Maxwell in relation to the second law of thermodynamics. (Trefil, 2002).

Source - Trefil, J. (2002). Cassell's Laws of Nature. London: Cassell.

Also in (cellular) signaling pathways:

QuoteOur simulations show that such mutational events, coupled with a selective pressure, leads to growth of pathways. These results indicate that pathways could be driven toward complexity via simple evolutionary mechanisms and that complexity can arise without any specific selective pressure for it.

Source – Soyer, O. and Bonhoeffer, S. (2006). Evolution of complexity in signaling pathways. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 16337-16342,

Interestingly, recently a team working on nanotubes and freezing water found that nano-ice self-assembled into helical structures one of which resembled the helical structure of DNA:

QuoteHigh-density nano-ice self-assembled within smaller-diameter CNT (17,0) exhibits a double-walled helical structure where the outer wall consists of four double-stranded helixes, which resemble a DNA double helix, and the inner wall is a quadruple-stranded helix.

Source – Bai, J., Wang, J. and Zeng, X. (2006). Multiwalled ice helixes in and ice nanotubes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 19664-19667.

Past the establishing that complexity can be shown to arise naturally and in biological organisms through the process of evolution, we can also focus on the claim of needing all it's parts or it doesn't work.  This claim is said to show that certain items cannot have arisen through evolution.  This is wrong for one simple reason – change of function and multifunction.  Acquisition of novel function in biological systems is not unheard of nor is a system showing more than one function.  For instance, in relation to flagellum and cilia (one of Behe's main examples is the flagellum), a team of researchers found that a certain type of algae's flagellum also aided it in nutrient uptake:

QuoteBy using Volvox carteri, we examine the role that advection of fluid by the coordinated beating of surface-mounted flagella plays in enhancing nutrient uptake and show that it generates a boundary layer of concentration of the diffusing solute. That concentration gradient produces an exchange rate that is quadratic in the radius, as required, thus circumventing the bottleneck and facilitating evolutionary transitions to multicellularity and germ–soma differentiation in the volvocalean green algae.

Source - Short, M., Solari, C., Ganguly, S., Powers, T., Kessler, J. and Goldstein, R. (2006). Flows driven by flagella of multicellular organisms enhance long-range molecular transport. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 8315-8319

QuoteYou take a look at anything living around you, even ourselves. What if we were designed without a heart? or bones? what if we had no muscle? Do you think we'd be what we are now? certainly not. We have everything we need to survive. Sure we die at some point, but while we live, we've all we really need. In order for all of this to be, there surely must be a creator. Intelligent and intentional design. The big man upstairs says, 'let there be light' there was light and then created everything else. He designed all of us to survive.

This is not the result of any intentional "plan" or "design" by some deity.  This is the result of billions of years of mutation and selection.

QuoteYes you could argue that there are people out there who die before they are even born, or there are those who are mentally/physically disabled, including myself. I am hard-of-hearing, mild hypotonia, meaning I'm not quite as strong as most people my age, I have what they call Aspergers syndrome which falls under the 'umbrella' of autism, I was born with Ruebella. So you are talking with someone who could quite easily say "No fair and just God could have created me to be like this." But I don't. So perhaps then you say, "he's just naive" but am I? Maybe I'm not naive, but have the ability to come to terms with what I was born with. Perhaps a lot of others like myself realize that there surely must be a reason as to why I'm like this, a purpose. And maybe we need to be humble enough to accept that. We aren't all created equally in our own perception because there are some who have things that others don't, or rather, some who don't have things that others do. That's becuase we have a tendecy, as humans, to compare and judge things according to what we see physically. In the eyes of God we are equal however because we all have a purpose.
So how can all this be, without an intelligent designer?

Purpose is a concept that we've created as it applies to the topic at hand.  For instance a child born with Down's Syndrome – is it to make the parents humble or to give them some challenge? No, it's an unfortunate genetic mistake.  The poor child was simply born with an extra chromosome.  What is the cause? Nondisjunction during meosis.  What's the purpose? No purpose.  It just happened.  Many cases of mental retardation are idiopathic (Stoudemire, 1998).

Source – Stoudemire, A. (1998). Clinical Psychiatry. (3rd ed). Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven.

Also, the argumentative form of "I can't see how it can be otherwise, so this is true" is fallacious.  Specifically an argument from incredulity – a subtype of argumentum ad ignorantiam.  Therefore, the argument itself has no footing logically.

Yay Squid!  (Now I'm kicking myself - I know there's one of those Discovery Institute guys who's a mathematician masquerading as a biologist, and I thought it was Behe.  Crud.  Now I'll be googling stuff all friggin' day!)

Quote from: "Faylen"Yay Squid!  (Now I'm kicking myself - I know there's one of those Discovery Institute guys who's a mathematician masquerading as a biologist, and I thought it was Behe.  Crud.  Now I'll be googling stuff all friggin' day!)

William Dembski?

Didn't Dembski claim to be a lawyer?  I just can't keep these people straight.  He makes simply hysterical videos, though.

Dembski actually is a mathematician.  Technically he holds two Ph.D.s - one in mathematics and one in philosophy as well as a BA in psychology and and MS in statistics.

As far a lawyers go, I'm not sure who you might be thinking about.

William Dembski is a smart guy. But for one major blind spot. He is irrationally married to ID. He's like the Stanton Friedman of physics. IQ of about a million( exaggerating, of course)  and the comon sense of a slug.

Quote from: "Faylen"Didn't Dembski claim to be a lawyer?  I just can't keep these people straight.  He makes simply hysterical videos, though.

Was it Phillip Johnson?  The guy who wrote Darwin on Trial?  He's a lawyer.  Here's his page from ARN:

http://www.arn.org/authors/johnson.html

Quote from: "Theist"Merry belated Christmas everyone!

I'll get right to the point,
Michael Behe, a known biochemist once said irreducible complexity is "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" So you take a mousetrap, you remove one part and the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
You take a look at anything living around you, even ourselves. What if we were designed without a heart? or bones? what if we had no muscle? Do you think we'd be what we are now? certainly not. We have everything we need to survive. Sure we die at some point, but while we live, we've all we really need. In order for all of this to be, there surely must be a creator. Intelligent and intentional design. The big man upstairs says, 'let there be light' there was light and then created everything else. He designed all of us to survive. Yes you could argue that there are people out there who die before they are even born, or there are those who are mentally/physically disabled, including myself. I am hard-of-hearing, mild hypotonia, meaning I'm not quite as strong as most people my age, I have what they call Aspergers syndrome which falls under the 'umbrella' of autism, I was born with Ruebella. So you are talking with someone who could quite easily say "No fair and just God could have created me to be like this." But I don't. So perhaps then you say, "he's just naive" but am I? Maybe I'm not naive, but have the ability to come to terms with what I was born with. Perhaps a lot of others like myself realize that there surely must be a reason as to why I'm like this, a purpose. And maybe we need to be humble enough to accept that. We aren't all created equally in our own perception because there are some who have things that others don't, or rather, some who don't have things that others do. That's becuase we have a tendecy, as humans, to compare and judge things according to what we see physically. In the eyes of God we are equal however because we all have a purpose.
So how can all this be, without an intelligent designer?

Did you by chance actually read the Dover trial transcripts?

1. <b>Behe redefines science, and by his definition has to admit that astrology is a science.  On the stand, infront of the court. </b>

2. Admits that there has never been any research into actually proving ID.

3. Admits that ideas such as irreducible complexity are only counter evidences to evolution, and do not equate proof of ID.

4. Admits that the only credible way for science to continue is to submit to peer reviewed sources.

5. Admits that he has not submitted any of his claims to peer reviewed sources.

6. Admits their are exactly ZERO peer reviewed studies submitted to science publications. ( Of ID or creationism )

7. Was confronted with over 50 articles, several books, and textbook examples of how his arguements have been refuted, or simply incorrect.

8. He simply dismissed them.

9. The people supporting ID admitted that their motivation was to redefine what science is, so that it will include the supernatural.  The supernatural by definition, is beyond our natural sences, it is completely unprovable.. and beyond empirical evidence.  Any ones statement of the supernatural would be equivically true, such as,"Leprechauns exist." And I would be telling the truth, according to this redefinition of science.

10. Their is only one scientific group that supports ID ( the discovery institute, self proclaimed scientific group at best )

11. Many of the witnesses for ID ( and the Dover school board ) were caught backtracking or having previously lied under oath. <b>( they swore on the bible each time ).</b>

12. The textbook that was being suggested to the Dover school board about creationism ( and the counter arguement to evolution ) <b>contained verified outdated scientific examples of evolution, or information that was verifiably false.</b>

13. The Pandas book was found to be the exact same book used in earlier cases with the exception that "creationism" was removed ( since it was ruled religious ) and replaced with ID.  Often some text included the exact same mispellings/grammatical errors, ( meaning they appeared both in the creationist edition, and the ID edition )

If anything the Dover trial shows us the depth of lies and misinformation that creationist, and some theist are willing to go in order to justify their belief.. to themselves.  If you require proof, you can search wiki for dover trial transcripts.. or I can post excerpts and pages later ( I dont have access to the info at work ).  No matter how many times some theist call the judge in the trial an "activist judge" it will not escape the fact he is a christian himself.  Its also revealing to read his final conclusions, and utter disgust at the amount of lying & backtracking involved in the trial.

If anyone is interested NCSE has all the documents surrounding the case including the transcripts of each day.

http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/?page_id=5

There cannot be such a thing as irreducable complexity as Behe described it. All his attempts and examples (the main thrust of his 'hypothesis') were shown to be indeed reducable.

This was succesfully demonstrated by Ken Miller, the Biology Prof (and no mean slouch at Catholicism either)

Anyone read 'Darwin's Black Box' by Behe?  I had the misfortune to purchase it a couple of years ago before I knew what it actually was. It was a poor and crude attempt at character assasination of Darwin with a lot of WTF's? on every page. I never got to finish it; I could not see any point in ad hominem attacks because they brought nothing to the table. Behe however, is an asshole.

Quote from: "Huxley"There cannot be such a thing as irreducable complexity as Behe described it. All his attempts and examples (the main thrust of his 'hypothesis') were shown to be indeed reducable.

This was succesfully demonstrated by Ken Miller, the Biology Prof (and no mean slouch at Catholicism either)

Anyone read 'Darwin's Black Box' by Behe?  I had the misfortune to purchase it a couple of years ago before I knew what it actually was. It was a poor and crude attempt at character assasination of Darwin with a lot of WTF's? on every page. I never got to finish it; I could not see any point in ad hominem attacks because they brought nothing to the table. Behe however, is an asshole.

I learned more about cartoon characters reading that book with its idiotic analogys.

It reminds me of something Michael Shermer once said in an interview (and I'm paraphrasing) - 'Smart people are good at rationalizing things they came to believe for irrational reasons.'

Funny, I just watched that discussion myself.  Shermer's exact quote about why smart people believe weird things - "They're better at rationalizing beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

Quote from: "MrE2Me"Funny, I just watched that discussion myself.  Shermer's exact quote about why smart people believe weird things - "They're better at rationalizing beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

Cool, thanks.

That's off of Bullshit! regarding the episode on the Bible, if I'm not mistaken.

Quote from: "MrE2Me"Funny, I just watched that discussion myself.  Shermer's exact quote about why smart people believe weird things - "They're better at rationalizing beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

If you get Playboy...he has an article in this month's issue about why Americans believe strange things.

Right, like people actually read Playboy...

Quote from: "Big Mac"Right, like people actually read Playboy...

Playboy has articles?!

Shhh, it's mostly just Details articles rehashed to be not as gay as the magazine.

Laetusatheos,

I assume that you are, in addition to being a poster here on theses forums, the admin/owner of the site.

First of all, the site looks great.  Someone, perhaps yourself, did a great job “designing” the site

Since my wife is in web design, I can appreciate it when someone puts a lot of work into something and when they do I can usually tell.

This is my first post here on happyatheists.  As some introductory disclosure.  I am not an atheist, though I used to be.  I am actually a theist, of the evangelical Christian persuasion.

As a former atheist, I may be able to understand a bit more where atheists are coming form than non-atheists.  

As a former atheist I realize that atheists run the gamut from being individuals who are searching for the truth and who’s search has not led them in the direction of theism to those who are just as dogmatic and fundamentalistic as those they criticize in the theist camp.  As such, I’ll try not to make sweeping generalizations.

Laetusatheos, you had responded to a theist who appears not to have continued the discussion regarding Intelligent Design by saying…

QuoteSaying that humans are irreducibly complex because we can't function without a heart is operating on the assumption that evolution is false and therefore there couldn’t have been stages in which a more primitive heart evolved into what we now see in the human body.

Going with the idea that evolution is true, and I'd say it is since there is so much evidence…

Ah, but does not saying that evolution is proven to be true, therefore ID must necessarily be false end up begging the scientific question?  Is it not using evolution, theory (X), as a the basis upon which you deny ID, theory (Y) which is, itself, a critique on theory (X)?  If you deny Y on the basis of X to substantiate X then you are using a theory to justify itself?

This then makes evolutionary theory untouchable.  Out of the realm of critique and therefore just as religiously fanatic as anything you and the other atheists on this board criticize.

This is not new, the whole Dover trial was an ironic remake of the Scopes trial only this time the fundamentalists carried science textbooks into court, not leather bound copies of the 1611 King James Bible.

QuoteGoing with the idea that evolution is true, and I'd say it is since there is so much evidence out there which supports that speciation has occurred, modern IDists try to rely more on our ignorance of how much smaller systems can be broken down.  (Bold emphasis added by me)

Have we scientifically observed natural speciation on the level that would provide us with evidence for macroevolution?

You have on your home page an example of finch microevolution, can we similarly cronolog the change from one species to another?

Is there an example of a population of lizards becoming finches that we have observed since Darwin published the “Origin of the Species?”

If not, and the answer is no, of course, then how is it that ID is a theory based on what we don’t know while evolution is based on what we do know?

If we cannot observe that something has occurred then we cannot objectively claim it is true.

QuoteFor instance, they'll claim that the basic building blocks of life are irreducibly complex.

Yes, we do.  Do you disagree?

QuoteThis takes us out of the observable universe and into theories of how the universe came to exist in its current state....since much of that would have to be known before boldly considering something at an atomic level irriducibly complex.

Well, it doesn’t have to go that far back.  Without question the uncertainty of how the universe was caused or uncaused in the case of atheism is a problem for atheists, but we don’t have to traverse the timeline that far.

We can look at the problem of the irreducible complexity of the blood clotting mechanism and Michael Behe points this out in, “of men and Pandas.”  Remove the gene that controls the production of  Plasminogen and you get thrombosis and embolism.  Remove Fibrinogen and you get hemorrhaging.  Thus the ability to produce both (and in the right order mind you) must have arrived via spontaneous mutation simultaneously, if one is to embrace an evolutionary answer to this question.  Otherwise, you have little shrew like mammals dying of pulmonary embolisms if they scrape their toe or hemorrhaging to death before they can pass on the mutation and continue on the evolutionary yellow brick road to becoming humans that clot blood.


This is not an argument from what we don’t know, its an argument from what we know quite well.  We know that the ability to produce both need to be present for blood to clot.  If they aren’t, little critters die.  We know this.

Conversely, the argument in defense of evolution on this point must appeal to what we don’t know and fill in the gaps with faith.  We don’t have the foggiest idea how the inherent disorder of the evolutionary process fostered both mutations simultaneously.

Blood clots when the body (A) senses a wound, (B) begins Plasminogen production to begin clotting the blood, and (C) begins Fibrominogen production to stop clotting the blood before Plasminogen clots all the blood in the little critter,  creating an embolism and killing it.

What we know is that it is a complex cascading process, we know and can observe this.  What we don’t know is how it could be the result of accidental mutation.

Thus, in this instance.  Evolution must fill in the gap with faith.  Faith in the theory, for the facts do not support the theory here.


Furthermore, the evolutionist doesn’t know that speciation occurs (can’t observe it or cronolog it), doesn’t know how life could have generated abiogenetically (hasn’t reproduced it) and doesn’t know how any organism that would need blood to clot could have simultaneously developed a mutation that allowed for such a thing, and furthermore that it was just accidental?

QuoteThe key problem with ID is that it rests on our ignorance of the world around us, rather than our knowledge....this is also why it's not science.

Again, I think the opposite is true here.  Evolution must appeal to natural causes that it cannot reproduce, observe or test.  


For example, if a chemist said you can get Co2 from Hyrogen and Methane, and after numerous and repeated failed attempts they determine that it must have happened at one point in time, but they just haven’t reproduced the factors for it to occur now, you would have to conclude that the chemist is acting on faith in a theory rather than fact.

The fact is, the chemist has not, created Co2 from Hydrogen and methane in any environment.  One would then lean toward the conclusion that the experiment shows that one cannot create Co2 from Hydrogen and Methane in any environment.  If after many different chemists duplicate the experiment adding different factors and variables and come to the same conclusion, the theory becomes a scientific law.  

Similarly, if you cannot reproduce abiogenesis in a lab, you should begin to form a theory that abiogenesis doesn’t happen.  If multiple experiments yield the same results, then one should conclude that abiogenesis doesn’t happen.

We don’t observe living organisms popping into existence without biological parents.  We can’t produce a living organism popping into existence without biological parents.  We can’t even make the basic building blocks of life organize themselves into a living organism with the aid of intelligent scientists, yet 6th through 12th grade students are supposed to buy into the untested and unproven theory that this happened millions of years ago on earth, without question, and without any qualification.

We aren’t sure how mammals fortuitously got clotting blood that didn’t kill them all but we are sure we don’t want our lack of certainty exposed to school children, for to do so might keep them from being faithful evolutionists.

Blessings,


revsimpleton

rev, thanks for you complements on the site.  Just letting you know I have seen your post and will get around to making a better reply when I'm not so tired...it's been a very busy week for me.   I'll also have to research more about blood and blood clotting because it has been a while since I have studied those things.

For now I'll just say that I do not think that evolution being true automatically means ID is false; if a god happens to exist obviously it would be possible for the universe to be intelligently designed and evolution was utilized as part of the design process.  The reason why ID is not a science and should not be taught in science class is because the idea isn't falsifiable to falsify evolution you just have to find a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian layer.  I consider ID a philosophical argument that belongs alongside the argument from design, or more appropriately is just a recreation of it.

Anyway, please be patient for a better reply; I graduate this semester and may not have the time to write anything much more thorough than the above till after graduation.

[/quote]

Anyway, please be patient for a better reply; I graduate this semester and may not have the time to write anything much more thorough than the above till after graduation.[/quote]

I look forward to your response.  Congratulations on graduation!

Blessings

Rev

I had a short discussion with my fiance about your blood clotting question and he mentioned Behe's view had already been refuted so I searched for talk origins and what they had to say about it and found:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep06.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep06.html)
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_2.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_2.html)

As for macroevolution...it's really just the long term effect of microevolution.  If you can accept fossils as evidence of the existence of dinosaurs then fossil remains indicating a transitional link between organisms should also be acceptable evidence of macroevolution.  

You brought up quite a few other points but it seems the basis of your questions is how can we know this stuff happened if we can't directly observe it occurring.  I would assume you are trying to indicate that evolution theory is just as faith based as religion; if not then the following is for those who do try to make that point.  

The thing is, we can directly observe micorevolution...we're actually learning it does in fact occur the hard way through the overuse of antibiotics leading to antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.  We can indirectly observe macroevolution by studying fossil remains.  With religion there is nothing more than old books and subjective experiences.  Essentially, one is based on evidence which is objectively available and can be directly submitted for critical review while the other is entirely subjective.  I think another key difference is that scientific theories are easily falsifiable if the right evidence is found while religion has built in mechanisms to avoid falsification (ie, god works in mysterious ways..don't test god).

Hi, I had a few things to add to this.

The first link you include, laetusatheos, has a really excellent online article by Ken Miller linked inside.  I liked it's discussion of the blood clotting so much that I'd like to explicitly pull the link out here:

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html

Quote from: "revsimpleton"Have we scientifically observed natural speciation on the level that would provide us with evidence for macroevolution?

Yes.  Here is a link discussing macro/micro evolution distinction, and another one addressing the claim that macroevolution has not occurred:

Macro/Micro: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB902.html
Macro Occurred: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html

Quote from: "revsimpleton"You have on your home page an example of finch microevolution, can we similarly cronolog the change from one species to another?

Again, yes.  Please see the following link, particularly section 5.0 "Observed Instances of Speciation".  

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

The fact that we have observed these things is part of the reason we believe this theory so much.  Any "faith" claims are unfounded.

Quote from: "revsimpleton"Is there an example of a population of lizards becoming finches that we have observed since Darwin published the “Origin of the Species?”

YAK!!!  Seriously, WTF was this?  If you think evolution theorizes that lizards can turn into finches, then you have a really poor understanding of the theory, and it's no small wonder you don't believe it.  Just please understand that whatever it is you don't believe in, it's not evolution.

Evolution does theorize the common descent of all life, and does theorize morphological change.  So --- go back in time, and you'll find that lizards and finches both shared a common ancestor.  This ancestor was neither a lizard nor a finch.  Neither were the intervening ancestors, as there are many layers of morphological change and speciation between finches and lizards.  As my "Macro Occurred" link above states in response number 1, if we observed a very large morphological change in a species in only a small number of generations (keeping in mind evolution is less than 200 years old) then this event would be strong evidence against the theory.

Quote from: "revsimpleton"If not, and the answer is no, of course, then how is it that ID is a theory based on what we don’t know while evolution is based on what we do know?

Please see my above.  You've setup an argument that is impossible to lose by holding an event (lizards not changing into finches) against the theory of evolution when the theory itself makes no claim that such an event should occur.  This is a classic strawman.

Quote from: "revsimpleton"Evolution must fill in the gap with faith. Faith in the theory, for the facts do not support the theory here.

I acknowledge that the facts do not fit your understanding of the theory  :wink:  

Quote from: "revsimpleton"Furthermore, the evolutionist doesn’t know that speciation occurs (can’t observe it or cronolog it), doesn’t know how life could have generated abiogenetically (hasn’t reproduced it) and doesn’t know how any organism that would need blood to clot could have simultaneously developed a mutation that allowed for such a thing,

Addressing these in sequence:  False because speciation has been observed, false/true we're getting there and making progress on understanding but we have not yet reproduced it, and false because simultaneity is not required in the blood clotting example you give.

Quote from: "revsimpleton"and furthermore that it was just accidental?

Sure, if you consider matter obeying the laws of nature "accidental".

Quote from: "revsimpleton"We can’t even make the basic building blocks of life organize themselves into a living organism with the aid of intelligent scientists

(puts tongue in cheek) Well, scientists have been trying to do this for what, less than 60 years?  Trying to work out what happened 3.5 billion years ago under conditions very different from today's earth?  Since they haven't been successful yet, maybe we should pull the plug.  Screw it, right?  They've had their chance.  Let's just give up and go to church.  (removes tongue from cheek).

I've been reading this thread with interest, and I have to say that SteveS, you're doing a fine job.  

I know you had said anyone else could chime in, but you are handling the situation just fine. Not to say that others haven't contributed (like laetusatheos et al).

The reason for the comment now is that I've been waiting to see all of the revsimp's plays. Looks like he's played everything out of the current "Answers in Genesis" playbook. I know, rev, that you say you were an atheist and now are a christian, but that doesn't mean you have a clue about evolutionary biology, or even atheism, for that matter. In fact, your comments regarding atheism lead me to conclude that you don't realize that atheists have nothing in common other than a lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheism is not a belief system, religion, or group. This forum illustrates that.

That's it. Period. Not all atheists are knowledgeable on evolutionary theory. Not all evolutionary theorists are atheists. But the problem for ID/Creationists is several:

Evolution is observed, even though evidence of evolution is all that is necessary for it to be viable

Micro/Macro debate is so weak it's laughable

Evolutionary Theory is as solid as Gravitational theory (I'd like just once to see a non-believer in the theory of gravitation test it from the top of a tall building)

ID/Creationism is not science, even though it tries so hard to be

Various fields of "actual" science, from physics, chemistry, biology, geology astronomy, cosmology, and genetics all support what evolutionary biologists know.

Now, I may have opened up a new can of worms here with this, one which I don't have a lot of time to deal with. I barely have time to keep up with the threads as they are. But please keep in mind rev that there are people in this forum who have been where you are already, and who actually understand christianity, ID/Creationism, theology, AND real science.

SteveS, laetus, again, kudos. Keep it real!

(as usual, in a hurry, and someone else can point out all my typos!)

Even though I don't really have the time to waste on writing a long rebuttal, I felt that I should at least put in my two cents to this thread.

Quote from: "revsimpleton"Have we scientifically observed natural speciation on the level that would provide us with evidence for macroevolution?

Yes.  By definition, we have.  You see, most people have no clue as to really what constitutes macroevolutionary change.  They seem to most often conjure up images of a complete genus or order popping out of “nowhere”.  This is incorrect.  Macroevolution by definition is simple change above the species level â€" the speciation event is somewhat of a boundary between micro and macro (simplistically speaking), of course this is referring to cladogenesis.  One famous example of speciation, was in the Dobzhansky lab in his work with Drosophila.  Between 1958 and 1963, while working with D. paulistorum, Dobzhansky found that the species would mate with another semi-species and only produce sterile male offspring.  To further investigate this, his lab later performed some artificial selection experiments.  They found that it was most likely due to non-random mating (Dobzhansky, 1972).  Reproductive isolation is not some simple cut and dry process either and involves some temporal gaps between male-hybrid sterility and that of the females along with mating behavior change et cetera.  In realation to Drosophila species, Coyne and Orr (1989) performed a metastudy and statistically analyzed factors involved in speciation such as prezygotic isolating factors (sterility vs. inviability) â€" which they found the two to be congruent and a part of the same process, amongst other results which supported the speciation models previous put forth.

Drosophila are often utilized because of their small generation times.  To study such a process in many other organisms would take lifetimes to complete, even in organisms whose generation times are only a year or two.  This is where the wonderful world of genetic analysis has come into play.  One example would be a speciation event inferred by the study of mitochondrial DNA in Midas cichlids.  Barluenga et al. (2006) outlined a study in which they examined these fish from a small volcanic crater lake in Nicaragua.  Through their analysis they found that two of the species found in the lake are closely related and diverged from each other with the past ~10,000 years.  This also lends support to the sympatric model of speciation in that there is no sign of any geographic isolation at any point â€" the crater lake itself is only about <23,000 years old.  Among the observed contributing factors was (like Dobzhansky’s flies) prezygotic factors of non-random mating.

QuoteYou have on your home page an example of finch microevolution, can we similarly cronolog the change from one species to another?

First, let me say that the paper referenced on the home page is an assessment of the contribution of competition factors to speciation models.  It is important because the competition driven change in beak size can lead to further partitioning, possible reproductive and geographic isolation and ultimately to a speciation event.  As Grant and Grant (2006) note:

QuoteThese findings support the role of competition in models of community assembly, speciation, and adaptive radiations.

Secondly, the change from one species to another has been shown to occur through many sources of assessment, some of which I pointed out above.

QuoteIs there an example of a population of lizards becoming finches that we have observed since Darwin published the “Origin of the Species?”

Um, no.  If you actually believe this statement is in no way absurd, then you really must do much more learning about how evolution works.

QuoteIf not, and the answer is no, of course, then how is it that ID is a theory based on what we don’t know while evolution is based on what we do know?

Intelligent design is first and foremost not science.  This is evidenced by the fact that it presupposes the conclusion and then retroactively picks out supposedly anomalous items and then builds a framework of explanation without empirical testing.  It would be analogous to a doctor making a diagnosis on a patient without examining him first and then looking for anything that fits that diagnosis and eschewing any differential.  This is only qualitative (specious at best) evidence for ID’s assertions.  There is nothing past the “Well, look at this.  How can you explain this in an evolutionary framework? You can’t therefore it must be designed”.  That is the basic modus operandi.  ID, at best, fits into philosophy but cannot qualify as science.  As Hempel (1994) notes:

QuoteYet, scientific objectivity is safeguarded by the principle that while hypotheses and theories may be freely invented and proposed in science, they can be accepted into the body of scientific knowledge only if they pass critical scrutiny, which includes in particular the checking of suitable test implications by careful observation or experiment.

QuoteIf we cannot observe that something has occurred then we cannot objectively claim it is true.

I believe your problem may lie in your idea of “observation”.  Observation within science does not necessarily always mean something seen by a scientist as it is happening like you would think of Jane Goodall observing her chimps at play.  Observation can take more forms than just that example, a common mistake in criticisms of evolution.  You need not see an entire process in its entirety to investigate its validity.  You have more than one type of observation.  Direct observation is not the only means of data acquisition which science utilizes, to declare such alludes to a poverty in understanding of how science works (Pennock, 1999).

The idea of observation you are holding to is more of the philosophical idea of sensory assimilation and then reasoning from that.  Scientific observation is more complex than that as are the methodologies for tackling questions.  This is intimated by Solomon (1998) when he states:

QuoteIt would be a mistake, however, to think of science as nothing but the gathering and testing of facts through experience.

ID has been invented by those who seek another route to legitimize creationistic viewpoints â€" by making their arguments more vague, using “designer” instead of “god” and “design” instead of “creation” and making up scientific sounding catch words and phrases like “irreducible complexity” or Dembski’s “specified complexity”.  Sorry to say but the ID disguise for creationism isn’t that great.  Much was elucidated in the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover trial where Behe admitted that he believes the “designer” to be the Christian God, it was shown that the text Of Pandas and People was originally a creationist text which was edited to conform to the framework of ID, the infamous, internal “wedge document” outlining the Discovery Institute’s political agenda to force religion back into schools and dominate legislative operations.  A complete list of the trial documents is available on several websites including the National Center for Science Education (NSCE, 2005).

Quote

QuoteFor instance, they'll claim that the basic building blocks of life are irreducibly complex.

Yes, we do.  Do you disagree?

I would disagree, however, this has no bearing on the veracity of evolution which is my focus in this rebuttal.

QuoteWe can look at the problem of the irreducible complexity of the blood clotting mechanism and Michael Behe points this out in, “of men and Pandas.”  Remove the gene that controls the production of Plasminogen and you get thrombosis and embolism.  Remove Fibrinogen and you get hemorrhaging.  Thus the ability to produce both (and in the right order mind you) must have arrived via spontaneous mutation simultaneously, if one is to embrace an evolutionary answer to this question.  Otherwise, you have little shrew like mammals dying of pulmonary embolisms if they scrape their toe or hemorrhaging to death before they can pass on the mutation and continue on the evolutionary yellow brick road to becoming humans that clot blood.

Behe leaves out a crucial item in his analysis, and probably does so intentionally.  You see, genes and their proteins do not appear de novo from nothing.  They appear and may acquire novel functions from precursor materials.  Often in the case of genetics, this is due to gene duplication which is very common.  The function of one specialized item is not necessarily the function of preceding structures it evolved from.  The underlying assumption of irreducible complexity is one of complete stasis, this is an unfounded premise.  It is noted that Behe attacks Doolittle’s more laymanistic version of the processes origin but never directly addresses the technical work from which this more popular explanation came.  He calls it a “just so” story however, never attempts to critically analyze the science involved in Doolittle and Feng’s work (Doolittle and Feng, 1987).  He attacks the language used in the article and doesn’t really address directly the work itself instead of harping on how silly it is.  What he’s done is a selective picking of the literature by criticizing Doolittle’s attempt at a more easily understandable explanation of his technical work. (Weber, 1999).

Gene duplication has been shown to be a key factor in the attainment of novel function in duplicate genes.  A couple of examples are the origins of the eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EDN) and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) genes (Zhang, Rosenburg and Nei, 1998; Zhang, 2003).

Gene duplication is implicated in the evolution of the blood coagulation cascade as well as exon shuffling â€" which has been important in the rise of evolutionary novelties (Patthy, 2003).  Examination of other organisms, the sequencing of the proteases involved, genetic sequence comparison et cetera have all pointed that the blood coagulation cascade evolving from precursors to the point where we are now (Doolittle and Jiang, 2003; Davidson, Tuddenham and McVey, 2003; Kolkman and Stemmer, 2001; Krem and Di Cera, 2002; Aird, 2003).

Not all of the factors involved in the human cascade are seen in other organisms. And also humans lacking particular pieces of the cascade (such a hemophiliacs) still are able to live and reproduce which by evolutionary definition doesn’t necessitate them as evolutionary “losers”.  The “losers” in evolution are the ones who fail to pass on their genetics through viable offspring.

QuoteThis is not an argument from what we don’t know, its an argument from what we know quite well.  We know that the ability to produce both need to be present for blood to clot.  If they aren’t, little critters die.  We know this.

Again, a focus of stasis precludes any inquiry or entertainment of any idea into some change.  This also neglects, again, as I stated before, the change of function or rise of novel function which has been documented over and over again.  The evolution is of complex biological systems is dynamic and non-linear.

QuoteConversely, the argument in defense of evolution on this point must appeal to what we don’t know and fill in the gaps with faith.  We don’t have the foggiest idea how the inherent disorder of the evolutionary process fostered both mutations simultaneously.

Blood clots when the body (A) senses a wound, (B) begins Plasminogen production to begin clotting the blood, and (C) begins Fibrominogen production to stop clotting the blood before Plasminogen clots all the blood in the little critter,  creating an embolism and killing it.

What we know is that it is a complex cascading process, we know and can observe this.  What we don’t know is how it could be the result of accidental mutation.

Behe himself states that he doesn’t reject mutations happening at all.  What you have failed to understand is the selection involved.  Any benefit that can be expressed phenotypically that will allow for one allele type to reproduce more than another is evolutionarily successful and its preservation is assured due to the unequal reproduction of allele types.

But is the blood clotting system really irreducibly complex?  Does it fit Behe’s own definition?  By his definition (Behe, 1996):

QuoteBy irreducibly complex, I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning

Here’s where it gets problematic for Behe’s IC argument, in that he ignores the very mechanisms by which these types of cascades have possibly arisen.  Through experimental research, this has been found.  He’s offered only criticism and vacuous explanations.

QuoteThus, in this instance.  Evolution must fill in the gap with faith.  Faith in the theory, for the facts do not support the theory here.

No, the gap is filled in eventually through testing of hypotheses.  This has been and is being done â€" it is a never ending process for science, in that once one question is answered, that one may produce several more.  What ID offers in explanation is simply “a designer did it” and makes no effort to investigate into how such a being who have performed this, what this being is, what the nature of this being is, et cetera.  It wants so badly to be called science but it isn’t.  It’s conclusions are no different than “God did it”.  ID’s time is spent doing nothing but attacking evolution.

QuoteFurthermore, the evolutionist doesn’t know that speciation occurs (can’t observe it or cronolog it), doesn’t know how life could have generated abiogenetically (hasn’t reproduced it) and doesn’t know how any organism that would need blood to clot could have simultaneously developed a mutation that allowed for such a thing, and furthermore that it was just accidental?

From this piece here, I can surmise without a doubt that you do not actually understand much if anything at all about evolutionary biology.  You have most likely accepted ID because it fits with your religious views better than evolutionary theory â€" you’re not searching for the truth, you’re searching for things that agree with what you want to be true.  If you step into the realm of science, be prepared to work within that realm.

First, evolutionary theory does not explain the origin of life.  It never has and never will because that does not fall within it’s explanatory framework.  The theory was never meant to explain that.  The inquiry into the origin of life is a completely separate area of investigation.

Second, evolution is not some completely “accidental” process.  Chance is involved in such things as mutations, however, selection processes, mating, habitat selection and so forth are decidedly not random processes.

Thirdly, the claim about the blood coagulation pathway has been shown to have empirical evidence that it has arisen and evolved from precursors via well known process such as exon shuffling (I can explain what this is if need be) and gene duplication â€" which have been shown to contribute heavily to the evolutionary process especially in humans (Britten, 2005).

Quote

QuoteThe key problem with ID is that it rests on our ignorance of the world around us, rather than our knowledge....this is also why it's not science.

Again, I think the opposite is true here.  Evolution must appeal to natural causes that it cannot reproduce, observe or test.

*BUZZ* Negative Ghostrider â€" it seems you’re engaging in some sort of odd psychological projection.  Evolutionary theory and its processes are heavily tested and much is being discovered all the time.  You need only to pick up a biology journal to see this.  It is ID which must appeal to supernatural causes that it cannot reproduce, observe or test.

It’s main method of argument is to point at something as say, “oh yeah, well how do you explain that?  Oh yeah, well, how about explain this then?”.  The strategy plays upon the fact that science’s knowledge will never be complete â€" ever.  Inquiry will continue ad infinitum for the simple reason (as I pointed out earlier) that every answer produces more questions.

QuoteFor example, if a chemist said you can get Co2 from Hyrogen and Methane, and after numerous and repeated failed attempts they determine that it must have happened at one point in time, but they just haven’t reproduced the factors for it to occur now, you would have to conclude that the chemist is acting on faith in a theory rather than fact.

The fact is, the chemist has not, created Co2 from Hydrogen and methane in any environment.  One would then lean toward the conclusion that the experiment shows that one cannot create Co2 from Hydrogen and Methane in any environment.  If after many different chemists duplicate the experiment adding different factors and variables and come to the same conclusion, the theory becomes a scientific law.

Nice story Rev, but it has nothing to do with evolutionary theory.  You’ve gone off into the realm of the origin of life which is a small and relatively new field of scientific inquiry.

QuoteSimilarly, if you cannot reproduce abiogenesis in a lab, you should begin to form a theory that abiogenesis doesn’t happen.  If multiple experiments yield the same results, then one should conclude that abiogenesis doesn’t happen.

We don’t observe living organisms popping into existence without biological parents.  We can’t produce a living organism popping into existence without biological parents.  We can’t even make the basic building blocks of life organize themselves into a living organism with the aid of intelligent scientists, yet 6th through 12th grade students are supposed to buy into the untested and unproven theory that this happened millions of years ago on earth, without question, and without any qualification.

Again this has nothing to do with evolutionary theory â€" you’ve been suckered by the distorted straw-man idea of what evolution.  As to the origin of life itself we know one thing for certain life appeared and is here.  We also have an idea of around what time it first appeared from the fossil record matching up with the geological record â€" amongst other inferences such as genomic and biochemical estimates for the LUCA (last universal common ancestor).  The difficulty in figuring out how life appeared is that life now is very different from what it would have been at that time â€" 3.8 billion years of evolution is a long damn time.  However, we can look life and attempt to break it down to simplistic components such as the basic blocks upon which things are built â€" DNA for instance.  A key component of DNA are the amino acid bases.  Even in the Miller-Urey contraption they were able to produce some amino acids.  Since then others configurations have been tried, different environments proposed (such as hydrothermal vents) or limnic clay formations and many catalysts proposed such as particular crystalline formations and iron and sulphur.  Much headway has been made since the real inception of the origin of life studies effectively started in the 60’s.  Research is getting closer to finding particular autocatalytic agents, finding routes to producing cycles such as the citric acid cycle (more commonly known as the Kreb’s cycle), how lipid bilayers originated and because the ‘housing’ for cellular life.  Much has been elucidated but there is still much to learn (Hazen, 2005).  Without any qualification is a statement that is not only tempered by lack of understanding but is a proverbial slap in the face to all the great minds working hard to figure out how life (as we define it) possibly come into being.  To replace it with the simple assertion “a designer did it” â€" offers us nothing and is completely useless.

I would say one more thing before I end this post.  If you intend to offer some rebuttal to this, please make sure and know what you’re talking about first.  Please don’t waste our time with ignorant statements that have previously been utilized and subsequently only serve to annoy us and make the user of them look silly.

References:

Aird, W. (2003). Hemostasis and irreducible complexity. Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 1, 227-230.

Barluenga, M., Stolting, K., Salzburger, W., Muschick, M. and Meyer, A. (2006). Sympatric speciation in Nicaraguan crater lake cichlid fish. Nature, 439, 719-723.

Britten, R. (2005). The majority of human genes have regions repeated in other human genes.  PNAS, 102, 5466-5470.

Coyne, J. and Orr, H. (1989). Patterns of speciation in Drosophila.  Evolution, 43, 362-381.

Davidson, C., Tuddenham, E. and McVey, J. (2003). 450 million years of hemostasis. Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 1, 1487-1494.

Dobzhansky, T. (1972). Species of Drosophilia. Science, 177, 664-669.

Doolittle, R. and Feng, D. (1987). Reconstructing the History of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation from a Consideration of the Amino Acid Sequences of Clotting proteins. Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 52, 869â€"874.

Doolittle, R. and Jiang, Y. (2003). The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 7527-7532.

Grant, P. and Grant, R. (2006). Evolution of character displacement in Darwin’s finches. Science, 313, 224-226.

Hazen, R. (2005). Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origin. Washington, D. C.: Joseph Henry Press.

Hempel, C. (1994). Justification in science. In Klemke, E., Kline, A. and Hollinger, R.  Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives on Perennial Issues. (4th ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Heuther, S. and McCance, K. (2000). Understanding Pathophysiology. (2nd ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.

Kitzmiller v. Dover Documents.  Compiled by the National Center for Science Education (2005). Retrieved April 16, 2007 from http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/?page_id=5 (http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/?page_id=5).

Kolkman, J. and Stemmer, P. (2001). Directed evolution of proteins by exon shuffling. Nature Biotechnology, 19, 423-428.

Krem, M. and Di Cera, E. (2002). Evolution of enzyme cascades from embryonic development to blood coagulation. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 27, 67-74.

Pennock, R. (1999). Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Solomon, R. (1998). The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy. (5th ed.). Orlando: Harcourt Brace.

Weber, B. (1999). Irreducible complexity and the problem of biochemical emergence. Biology and Philosophy, 14, 593-605.

Zhang, J., Rosenburg, H. and Nei, M. (1998). Positive Darwinian selection after gene duplication in primate ribonuclease genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95, 3708-3713.

Zhang, J. (2003). Evolution by gene duplication: An update. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 18, 292-298.

Thanks, Squid. For someone who didn't have much time, you expressed what needed to be said very well!

I just wish I had more time to spend here, but I'm still working at my real job (at 10:15 pm, after a full day), and only have a few minutes at a time to get to this forum and the other three I participate in.

Yikes!

Now if you would only be so kind as to explain evolutionary theorysome folks in the other thread!  

What other thread?

So what the ID'ers do is tweak and twist scientific "facts" to justify their cause. With other words, they are cheating and lying. Apparently the 9th commandment becomes irrelevant when you are combatting atheism.

Quote from: "Squid"What other thread?

What? You couldn't read my mind? LOL!

Sorry, I meant to add the "Occam"/ignotist thread.

Ah, cool.  Heh, if I could read minds I'd be making more cash!

I guess serine proteases are now passe for discussion...

Well Squid, you could talk about serine proteases but most of us would have to research some real science books and websites, and God certainly doesn't want us doing that.

Are you sayin' that great men like Ken Ham don't write real science books?

Quote from: "McQ"I've been reading this thread with interest, and I have to say that SteveS, you're doing a fine job.

Thanks man.  I appreciate it.  

Quote from: "McQ"Micro/Macro debate is so weak it's laughable

Yeah - pretty much how I see it too.  So, let's go ahead and laugh  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  
Ah, felt good!

Squid - you rock.  That entire rebuttal was most excellent.  Have a cold one, you deserve it!  :cheers:

Quote from: "SteveS"Have a cold one, you deserve it!  :cheers:

Excellent idea - I shall put that plan in action right now.

Quote from: "Theist"Merry belated Christmas everyone!

I'll get right to the point,
Michael Behe, a known biochemist once said irreducible complexity is "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" So you take a mousetrap, you remove one part and the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
You take a look at anything living around you, even ourselves. What if we were designed without a heart? or bones? what if we had no muscle? Do you think we'd be what we are now? certainly not. We have everything we need to survive. Sure we die at some point, but while we live, we've all we really need. In order for all of this to be, there surely must be a creator. Intelligent and intentional design. The big man upstairs says, 'let there be light' there was light and then created everything else. He designed all of us to survive. Yes you could argue that there are people out there who die before they are even born, or there are those who are mentally/physically disabled, including myself. I am hard-of-hearing, mild hypotonia, meaning I'm not quite as strong as most people my age, I have what they call Aspergers syndrome which falls under the 'umbrella' of autism, I was born with Ruebella. So you are talking with someone who could quite easily say "No fair and just God could have created me to be like this." But I don't. So perhaps then you say, "he's just naive" but am I? Maybe I'm not naive, but have the ability to come to terms with what I was born with. Perhaps a lot of others like myself realize that there surely must be a reason as to why I'm like this, a purpose. And maybe we need to be humble enough to accept that. We aren't all created equally in our own perception because there are some who have things that others don't, or rather, some who don't have things that others do. That's becuase we have a tendecy, as humans, to compare and judge things according to what we see physically. In the eyes of God we are equal however because we all have a purpose.
So how can all this be, without an intelligent designer?

I'm going to embrace intelligent design for a moment.  We going to bask in all of it's glory together you and I.  The difference will be I'll say that aliens made us and other aliens made them and so on, until infinity.
Should we call aliens god since they made us?  They're not holy they're just real smart.  I know your going to have to say, well you can't say for sure it really was aliens but to that I respond well you don't know for sure that it was really a god.  

Neither of us can define a god since we both lack knowledge of god.  By knowledge I do not mean faith which is the opposite of knowlege.  If you have knowledge you don't need faith.  So we're both in the same boat whether we agree to an intelligent designer or not.