Finding out the consensus among scientists isn’t that useful. What’s important is finding out how that consensus was reached.
In science, no, and for good reason.
I assume you accept the scientific consensus that germs cause disease, but there is a fringe community of people including several scientists who insist this consensus is inaccurate. Of course, these germ theory deniers are a minority, but you side with mainstream science because the evidence supporting germ theory is extremely solid.
I didn’t open the link, but I don’t care about what an atheist or theist says about a consensus. What’s crucial is the level of scientific support for that consensus.
Unfortunately for Behe, the march of science hasn’t been kind to his claims.
I certainly don’t “groupthink”, but its cool if you feel that way about me. No worries, @swamidass is here for you.
Well, thanks for that contribution, Joshua.
And as helpful as that information is to consider, and it is helpful, it misses another entirely different level that needs to be considered. And that is, even assuming that he was an expert, what is his desire to hoodwink me.
This is something that Richard Feynman addressed and something I’d like to take up here in a new ‘thread’. I just need a few days to get to that.
It is pretty obvious to me that at least some here will be entirely satisfied to present bafflegab, both among each other and certainly to a layperson.
That I’d get such drivel as,
It certainly appears to me, that even if Behe isn’t right about some particular aspect or other under discussion, it can hardly be doubted that he knows his biochemistry. (contra Faizal Ale) And Behe would be celebrated as such by everyone here if he held the opposite view (on IC, and ID) from the one he holds.
I’d imagine that it is somewhat discouraging to see such doubletalk as is seen here given the goals of ‘Peaceful Science’.
I was using Dr. Rob Carters numbers for mutations and genome size as he states here: 1 mutation per 10 million bases, genome of 4-5 million base pairs. I used 4 million because it’s charitable to Dr. Carter. If you treat each base independently, that’s (1-(1/10,000,000))^4,000,000 probability of an error free replication, which is about 0.67. So take that number and raise to to the number of generations since creation and there’s your probability of a “created” genome existing now. Even saying 1 generation per year gets you zero.
That is an inaccurate perception. It’s quite common here to see errors pointed out by other commenters. There is always the primary evidence that will support or undermine claims where a claim is disputed. Science works by proposing models that make predictions about aspects of reality. If you want to challenge the consensus paradigm, look for a better model.
I think this is inaccurate too. Science is not about opposites, it is about modelling aspects of reality. As someone remarked, all models are wrong but some are useful. Isaac Asimov wrote an essay on The Relativity of Wrong which you might enjoy.
That’s insulting, and you should apologize. It’s also, if I recall, against the site rules.
True, presumably, though his knowledge of biochemistry is not relevant to anything he’s done in ID, and I’ve never looked up any of his presumed publications in his field. Why bring it up at all?
ID fails because it ‘fails to consider unknown unintelligent causes’?
Well, with due respect, isn’t that laughable? What is the open-minded layperson to conclude when you throw up requirements like that? The conclusion that I come to is that you will not consider the merits of the position a prior. Fabricate a definition that is impossible to meet and, voila, said position is false.
I’m just about through Behe’s latest work, ‘A Mousetrap for Darwin’, a collection of responses to his critics. So I doubt that he is dealing with strawman versions of unintelligent causes.
Of course, you can find ridiculous proponents of ID like you can find advocates of any position that are an embarrassment to those that propose the most rigorous version of the argument. I think that the best version of ID would say something like, intelligence can do what none of the unintelligent proposals offered to date have be demonstrated to be capable of. That is my layman’s attempt at a definition.
Also, it seems to me if you are relying upon “unknown unintelligent causes” to defeat ID you are close to admitting defeat. Have you lost all hope in the unintelligent causes that have so far been proposed?
We don’t know @Michael_Okoko ’s intent, but it was confusing. I @sam’s situation is feel cheated if I was giving undo credence to a nonexpert just because he talked confidently…and because he didn’t make it clear.
Michael,
It has been suggested that I may have insulted you. If you feel I have, I apologize. I did not intend to do so and it appears a stretch to construe that I did. I used poor grammar and could not make sense, myself, insulting or otherwise from the comment as posted.
I did not intend to say that you were trying to ‘hoodwink’ me.
Best regards,
Sam
Whoa! That certainly wasn’t my intent. In fact, I can’t really even make sense of what I said. My grammar in that sentence is terrible. I think I meant to say something like this, Assuming someone’s expertise, that doesn’t mean that I cannot be hoodwinked, by the expert, not being an expert myself.
Joshua brought up the fact that Michael Okoko might not have been an expert, and I was simply pointing to something I consider a more rudimentary problem. I was not meaning to demean Michael Okoka in particular or anyone else. I was pointing to what might be called an epistemological problem but don’t hold me to the precise terminology. But to give an example, I could be presented with expert testimony from opposing sides, and sitting as a judge (even if only for myself) I’d need to decide between them.
However, if I have insulted Michael Okoka, I do apologize.
I brought it up to counter this slag against Behe.
[quote=“Faizal_Ali, post:44, topic:13260”]
John Harshman are you going to call out Faizal Ali on his insult to Behe?
It’s no worse than any other attempt at defining whatever “intelligent design” is meant to be. There is no hypothesis of ID that could be considered testable or in any way scientific. All ID proponents can come up with are variations on the theme of evolutionary theory can’t explain X therefore ID. For ID to become scientific, there has to be an alternative testable model. So far, there isn’t one. Behe hasn’t proposed anything and neither has any other ID advocate.
Happily, Lenski was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (US) 15 years ago, and many including me would say this is a higher honor than the capricious and bizarre Nobels. Don’t get me wrong; many great scientists have won Nobels for amazing accomplishments, but Academy membership recognizes a distinguished career that need not have the big lucky smash hit that a Nobel implies.
You might want to edit that. But if I understand what you meant to say, it has nothing to do with @Sam 's accusation of deceit.
No, it fails because it advances no positive evidence, only claims that known causes are insufficient. All ID arguments so far are of the form “it isn’t A, so it must be B”. That’s not a valid argument.
If you don’t understand the subject, as you have said, how can you know he isn’t dealing with strawman versions?
Not at all. I think known processes are quite sufficient; not only that, genomes look like the results of known processes. If there’s a Designer, he’s simulating natural evolution very closely.
Actually, this is a serious point. Generally, ID claims that “this cannot happen by natural cause”, are answered by, most often “actually, the cause is known”, or on occasion, “the cause is not yet known”.
That there are unknowns in evolution is to be expected and is no embarrassment. But understanding keeps moving from the unknown to the known side of the ledger; for instance the development of aerobic citrate metabolism by the Lenski experiment. Why would we not expect that to continue?
None of this progress is any thanks to ID. Can you think of one area of investigation by Behe or any ID institution where an actual solution to an outstanding problem in biology was put forward. “ You know that intractable problem we identified previously that we suggested must have been designed? Well, we worked at it tirelessly, and you know what, great news, we figured out a completely natural pathway and advanced the field! Turns out that intelligent design is not needed for this one .” Please direct me if I missed such. What sort of science consists of nothing but attacking science, writing books and holding conferences to crow over gaps in understanding, without ever attempting to sweat out a solution? So ID fails to consider unknown unintelligent causes because in the final analysis “God of the gaps” is its mandate, and that is not laughable.