That’s true.
In the end, Axe is saying that French and Italian could not have descended from Latin because he can’t find a way of changing French into Italian. The error should be pretty obvious.
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And here is another example from the domain of board games rather than the domain of human languages:
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Outstanding analogy.
Language illustrations are so often helpful with these topics.
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5 posts were split to a new topic: Private than Public
You seem to be astounded that Douglas Axe made the comment. I assume you disagree with the comment. Did you discuss it with Axe when you met him on Dr. Sean McDowell’s podcast?
I listened to it a couple of years ago, so I certainly don’t recall. I just came across this comment now. I ended up here after just completing watching your debate with Behe at Texas A&M. Howdy?
That’s because it’s a fatuous claim. So false it borders on lunacy to make it. In 15 years of being deeply fascinated with evolutionary biology and having read countless papers and several books on the subject, I have never even once come across the idea that biologists think “modern forms no longer evolve” because evolution has “perfected life”.
The statement is false.
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IIRC (never a sure thing), the statement was in response to some biologists pointing out that some enzymes, in a particular environment, might reach a point on the fitness landscape that is so sharp a peak that any mutations would be immediately removed by natural selection. In his typical manner, Axe promulgated the idea that this would entail that this would be the case for every protein in every organism.
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… and therefore, given the source, not astounding at all.
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That was actually me trying to come up with an exceedingly charitable scenario where a similar idea could be applied to a very narrow subject in molecular evolution.
Enzyme activity can be optimized to the limit of diffusion rate, and once there no further optimization in the rate is possible by natural selection. But that’s not what Axe wrote. He wrote about “modern forms” and about “life”. Not enzymes.
I find it exceptionally implausible he’s that bad a communicator he writes “modern forms” and “life” in place of “enzyme activity.” And it particularly doesn’t make sense because in the context he’s writing he’s trying to say historical evolution(how we got to the biosphere we see today) is removed from the area of observable phenomena and that biologists have sort of come up with this weird excuse that life is no longer evolving because “the current stance” by biologists is natural selection has made it perfect. He can’t be talking about enzyme activity. He’s just lying.
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Josh, can’t you chime in here?
Clearly, these two interlocutors don’t wish to see the question,
Joshua has a rather busy schedule and does not post here on a daily basis. He likely will eventually reply to your question, but you should be patient. In the meantime, you can just watch the video yourself.
I’m not sure why it’s an important question. Obviously the statement is egregiously false, so the only thing which remarks by Axe could possibly shed light on is why Axe would say such an outrageous thing. And, frankly, even there it’s not much of a mystery: dishonesty and idiocy are so intermixed in the advocates of ID that it’s hardly ever a pure either/or question.
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Thanks for that. That’s helpful.
Maybe we can start over with a clean slate here.
Yes, I realize that. I watched it a couple of years ago. And when I say this critique here, I went to the video again and searched the transcript for a couple of key words, but found nothing.
I may eventually get around to listening to it again, but in the meantime, I’m interested in this ‘debate’ with Behe.
Have you watched either of them - the Behe or the Axe ones?
I’m interested in why with all of the vitriol tossed in the direction of DI, when I see a DI guy debate a staunch opponent, the DI guy seems to emerge unscathed. Isn’t that odd?
Anyhow, I’m going to post a few more comments/ questions on the Swamidass/Behe engagement when I get a bit of time.
You don’t have to be sure, nor does it need to be an important question.
I’m not sure why you think you should opine.
You might wonder why such a straightforward question was talked around.
The good news is you can just contact Douglas Axe and ask him why he would write something so ridiculous. I think that’s a lot more interesting than why Swamidass didn’t bring it up when they spoke.
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Not really. You seem perpetually and irredeemably confused about many things. I don’t see why this should be an exception.
I’m not really sure what Sam’s position here is, TBH. Is he claiming that Axe never said this? Or that Axe said it, and what he said is correct?
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Well, you know, I take an interest in this topic. I raised the quote from Axe in the first place, and the quote is so silly that @swamidass responded with some incredulity that Axe would have actually said anything that ridiculous.
I don’t think there is anyone who thinks that any substantive defense of Axe’s claim could actually be presented. So nothing Axe could possibly say would be of any relevance to the claim itself. What he said is patently false, and I would assume that if you take an interest in these topics, you already know that it’s patently false. Bear in mind that the claim is not a claim about biology itself, but a claim about what mainstream evolutionary biologists believe; and there are no biologists who actually believe what Axe claims they do, nor anything close.
Was it? I think that it’s likely that others here, like myself, may have listened to the podcast at some point but haven’t actually memorized what Axe said in it. His remarks are – as in the case of this quote – sometimes knee-slappin’ hilarious, but they’re not exactly worthy of a lot of intellectual energy and attention. Yes, it’s possible that followup by Axe would help one to work out whether Axe is 70% dishonest and 30% foolish or 70% foolish and 30% dishonest, but that’s about it.
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Well, what do you think? Can you just go back and look at the question posed? It sure seems to me like the answer (likely best answered by Josh, but not absolutely necessary) requires a yes or no answer.
Here, for convenience I’ll reask it,
[quote=“Sam, post:224, topic:9704”]
Did you discuss it with Axe when you met him on Dr. Sean McDowell’s podcast?
and,
That nice. Explore your interests. I won’t respond with “I’m not sure why that is an important interest.”
As I said before,
So if what you say here about Axe has merit,
I remain surprised if that would not have been a challenge put to Axe when he and Josh had a face-to-face.
To borrow from Chesterton,
ID has not been tested and found wanting. It has been found unpopular and therefore avoided.
Leaving Axe aside which I’ll do unless Josh responds, as to this video with Behe, Josh declares, for example at 22:21 that he and Mike have major disagreements. I never heard Josh clearly state a position that he holds that Behe disagrees with. At least not about science. Less than a minute later he says that he is interested in seeing where they hold common ground, but also, “also where are the places that were disagreement” I think Josh certainly got to the first part (he spent considerable time defending common descent to which he admits Behe holds to) but never seemed to get to the differences.
Even in this thread,
I don’t think that Josh is quoting Behe in the first part (or I couldn’t find it searching the transcript) but he may be referring to Behe saying that science is no place to get sentimental regarding in this case "I don’t think the bacteriophage was poorly designed. I think it’s wonderfully designed.)
Is it because of this that @swamidass says, “Behe responded that theology is not intuitive”?
But the latter part I find disingenuous from Josh. “this also seems to undermine his point regarding science. Biology is nonintuitive too!”
Behe did not deny that biology can be non-intuitive. In fact, he challenged Josh on it.
Josh introduce the topic of our intuitions in biology in response to his friend James Tour who was in the audience. Josh said to Tour,
"So what I would say is that biology is pretty complex and it’s not intuitive. Can you grant me that there are things in science that are not intuitive?
Tour grants this.
A bit later, Josh responding to Behe or the moderator or both says, (~1:08:42)
“We already know that science is non-intuitive so why would we make an intuitive argument.”
and Josh again (~1:17:31) Science is about challenging our intuitions.
Behe responds, (1:20:10) “Science might as Josh says, discover some counterintuitive things. But some things aren’t counterintuitive and so you can’t just say, oh that’s intuitive, so it’s wrong.”
I’m quite sure Josh @swamidass that Behe has not denied that some “Biology is nonintuitive” as I think that you implied. He is saying that it is not necessarily all intuitive. Don’t you think?
If you’re listening Josh, how do you think that Behe would respond, or that he did already respond to what you posted,
Now there is an interesting question. Is there a reason you can thnk of that he didn’t design it the same as he did you or David? I’m referring of course to Psalm 139:13-16. That is not to imply that God designs everything with the same end nor that all of His designs will have the same love showered upon them. Have you any theological thoughts or inclinations that would lead you to believe that anything is outside his design?
But to kind of bring this back to the beginning, I’m still at a loss as to have any inkling why anything but rank partisanship allows anyone to think it consistent to see the folk at DI as morons and buffoons or as was stated,
while at the same time faring so well in discussions or debates with their opponents. I see lots of the foolish and dishonest and I think, worse leveled at them, but when they are allowed a voice they perform well on the stage with an opponent. I haven’t seen Behe, Meyer, Axe, Bechly, or Berlinski look the fool. Have you Josh @swamidass That seems odd. As Hitchens said to Doug Wilson, Don’t you have an abnormally unsuspicious mind?
