Leisola: Cited to Attack Darwin Devolves, Study Devolves on Close Inspection

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Wayne_Rossiter

Ann didn’t feel that her work demonstrate any refutation of the Nasvall paper. That wasn’t its intent. I didn’t quote that from the book (the ENV author did).

Very helpful clarification. Thank you @Wayne_Rossiter. That is our point, my point it seems. @Agauger did not think her paper refutes Nasvall, but Leisola did. Perhaps you agree with Leisola, and disagree with @Agauger, because you did point the ENV author to this excerpt.

@Wayne_Rossiter

The refutation is in the actual methods Nasvall et al. used, and what the paper claims. I’ve explained the problem above.

By which I think you mean:

@Wayne_Rossiter

There was no demonstration of “Real-Time Evolution of New Genes by Innovation, Amplification,” only divergence. They artificially made copies of a gene they engineered, and gave it a second (limited) function, so as to cause divergence by selection for function. It’s a terrible example. One I would’ve never used in your Science review.

So, do you disagree or agree with Behe’s response to this?

@swamidass

Regarding this reference, Behe writes:

Let me emphasize: in reviewing a book expressly advocating intelligent design, Lenski et al. can’t seem to distinguish between experiments where investigators keep their hands off and those where investigators actively manipulate a system. Perhaps they can’t see the difference.

This was a system engineered to test a specific evolutionary mechanism. Behe may misunderstand how these experiments work.

His objection is that it is an engineered system, therefore it is an example of intelligent design. That is also what @Agauger thinks too. Are you agreeing with them in that reasoning or disagreeing? I’m asking to tease out what you really mean here.

From what we meant to explain from that article, it is an excellent citation. I’m not sure you why you think is not a valid citation yet. It is a system engineered to test a specific mechanism of evolution, and finds that this mechanism is very effective. The fact it is engineered, does not some how make its findings about the evolutionary mechanism irrelevant.