Examples of how anti-ID advocates assume what needs to be demonstrated. You claim “science” and then sneak in philosophical presuppositions. Those coordinated parts arose in parallel and I don’t share your faith that the processes we know about can offer up (to Natural Selection) that much useful parallel, interlocking complex systems so quickly.
You’re welcome to your faith, and you can label it “science” in your own minds. But you cannot demonstrate it, reproduce it, or prove it.
On a zoom call this past week, a PhD neuroscientist doing research at MIT stated, “The God Hypothesis opened my eyes.” Those books helped Bechly, too.
I think this is all about power and money. Scientists are the ones on the pedestal in today’s society as “Those Who Will Give Us Answers About Everything” (big reverb/echo spoken by a booming voice). They are also motived by competing for grants and prestige. If they open the door even a crack to ID, they are afraid it will all go down the toilet. So you guys are like, “Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!” ID is like Toto pulling it back. Can’t have that!
You’re the armchair critic of people who actually do things. You assume that cryptic hypotheses are true (ID) and then fabricate vast amounts of data to fit (your claim that protein-protein quaternary structures regulate activity by turning it ON, but you can’t name a single case).
Let’s keep that framing straight, Marty.
Pure projection.
It’s amazing that those most vehemently opposed to evolution so relentlessly misrepresent it. Was your omission of neutral evolution an oversight or deliberate?
No faith involved. All evidence, which you ignore.
Science doesn’t deal in proof. Don’t you know that?
ID definitely is. That’s why they only produce rhetoric for the gullible.
The salaries aren’t as high as those of the High Priests of ID, though. And unlike them, we do actual work.
There is no bottom for you people, is there? Imagine, actually asserting that the phrase “new parts evolve from old ones” means the same thing as “new parts DON’T evolve from new parts.”
In the case of T-URF13 you’re right. The parts arose together because, in fact, it’s really just 1 part expressed 4 times that self-assembles into an “interlocking” complex membrane channel. And it happened during the domestication of maize plants.
Is concrete empirical reality sufficient evidence for you or does that require too much “faith”?
What is this “it” that you think needs to be “demonstrated, reproduced, or proved”? Science doesn’t do proof of course, and demonstration and reproduction(depending on exactly what you mean by that) often times aren’t possible for past historical events, which we can nevertheless have rational grounds for accepting still occurred on the basis of inference.
One can have an explanatory hypothesis for a set of observed facts, that also makes testable predictions, such as predicting additional hitherto undiscovered facts that can later be discovered (and if the facts differ from prediction, the hypothesis either needs revision or can be rejected).
That is just one way in which one can have rational grounds for accepting historical evolutionary occurrences and be right to call that a scientifically supported conclusion. Despite it not having been “proved” or “reproduced”.
I think even you must agree that there can be rational grounds for accepting propositions about historical events, without having been personally present to witness those events or having demonstrated or reproduced them. I think, for example, a reasonable person can agree that if we have data that implies a person was present in one location A, and then later present in another location B, then we can infer without having observed it and without having to reproduce it, that the person at some period traveled by some means of mechanical locomotion(walking, biking, horseriding, or whatever) from A to B instead of directly disappearing at A and then coming into existence at B.
I generally find that when you post on this forum your writings contain many similarly ill-conceived or fallacious statements that completely disintegrate under the tiniest scrutiny.
I will note that 7 days ago on this thread, @Rumraket made a post clearly demonstrating Michael Behe’s lack of integrity here. I will further note that none of the DI’s defenders on this thread, @lee_merrill, @Marty or @colewd, made any effort to defend this behavior.
This is particularly surprising in Bill Cole’s case, as on this thread, he has been singing Behe’s praises to a ludicrous degree.
Just to remind people, Rumraket’s post centered around this diagram demonstrating Behe’s strategic omissions in Darwin Devolves:
Are the DI’s defenders willing to explicitly admit what their continued silence has implicitly admitted – that Behe’s omissions are indefensible?
Hope you all had a merry Christmas, enjoying family and friends!
The difference between me and most of you guys is a couple of things.
I don’t care if evolution needed help or not. There is plenty that supports my faith regardless of the status of evolution. It’s obvious life didn’t start on its own; if there is no god then consciousness is just an illusion and it all doesn’t matter; in the Big Bang science has finally caught up to Gen 1:1; I have the prophets and the life/death/resurrection of Jesus. I don’t need natural processes to explain all life, but I also do not need evolution to be inadequate.
When I started to look into it initially I was mad because I realized the data is fit to a materialist evolutionary narrative, whereas the data itself simply does not compel that narrative. That’s still true, and Behe provides some reasons why. I since decided to let go of my anger.
As long as people need to attack a viewpoint with such vituperation, it’s often because either they don’t really “get it” or they have an agenda. Given the snarling tone of many responses here, it’s hard not to see them in that context (@Dan_Eastwood excepted).
As for the table of Polar Bear genes, first you should provide a link for some context and explanation of the point. It’s just data. Second, if Behe’s responses don’t cut it for you, then no one else’s will.
Such creative writing! Honored to be considered worthy of such effort.
Quite a few people on this thread seem to have trouble with English. @lee_merrill points out that nothing in Luskin’s argument relies on the mangled quote. Why make a mountain out of it? Recommended to those who see this to read both quotes (the original and Luskin’s “oops”), then read the first sentence of the second paragraph, and decide for yourself if it matters.
Now, I’m a software developer and entrepreneur, not a trained scientist.
I’m not sure why we should trust a review on Amazon from someone who isn’t even trained in a relevant field to tell us that Behe is trustworthy. Especially when @Tim has shown that Behe cherry-picked the data (whether intentionally or unintentionally) to fit his conclusions, which you haven’t tried to refute.
It took me less than a minute to track down that table’s original context:
The “point” should be blatantly obvious even without this context – Behe was methodically and dishonestly going through the table and eliminating sufficient rows and columns to get rid of all “benign” entries.
“It’s just” manipulated data – clear evidence of dishonesty.
“Behe’s responses” seem to never “cut it” with the scientific community – why do you think I should view them more positively?
This review is simply evidence for the old adage:
You can fool some people all of the time.
Given, as @misterme987 points out, the reviewer has no substantive scientific background, it is certainly not evidence of the merits of Behe’s position.
It is however some of the gushiest ignorant fanboy gushing I’ve seen for quite a while.
