Part 2 of Behe's response to his Lehigh colleagues

Yes, but does Bill know the meaning of the term “extant”?

… as a flagellum. It doesn’t need 35 proteins to function as a type III secretion system, or an adhesive system.

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Wrong.

Ever heard of a thing called “natural selection”?

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The odds of deleterious mutations are substantially larger than the odds of beneficial mutations, yet fitness improvements are common. Darwin, without knowing the mechanisms of inheritance or mutations, alighted upon the solution even before 1859: Many more offspring are born than can possibly survive.

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Behe is showing that even though natural selection works it is after breaking or blunting a gene. This does not stop the long term degradative effect of mutation. It is simply an interim adaptive mechanism.

If the new sequences with mutations provide a reproductive advantage and are selected for they become the new norm and thus the genome has not degraded. Changed does not equal degraded. You lose again Bill.

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I respectfully disagree. The genome may have degraded its ability to perform in different environments. It may have lost important long term function in order for short term survival.

Then the evolution of limbs from fish fins is an example of a degraded genome because the lineage loses adaptations for aquatic environments. That seems ridiculous to me.

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Feedback for short term survival is all there is Bill. Evolution doesn’t plan hundreds of generations ahead and keep what might be needed.

Complaining today’s genome won’t work as well in yesterday’s environment is a pointless exercise in rhetoric. Another reason Behe is getting laughed at then ignored.

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I understand. This is exactly why many are skeptical of the creative power of this mechanism.

Then please explain why beneficial changes can’t accumulate over time to produce new functions. Behe sure can’t.

Asking your opponent to prove a negative says that your argument is on life support.

You’re the one claiming beneficial mutations can’t accumulate and provide new function. We have plenty of empirical evidence that’s how evolution works, like the finger digits of bats elongating and eventually turning front limbs into wings.

Once again all you have is your ignorance based personal incredulity. It’s all you ever offer.

Basing your entire argument on negative evidence means you don’t have an argument. That is why the ID argument doesn’t work.

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No, I am not making this claim and either is Behe. Your argument is on life support as you are using logical fallacies to support it.

It works fine if you would take the time to understand it.

(Looks around at the millions of scientists and thousands of professional organizations using evolutionary theory productively every day) Sure Bill, evolutionary theory is on life support. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

You ID-Creationists are too funny sometimes! :slightly_smiling_face:

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We understand it just fine. We just know it’s anti-scientific dog bollocks. “Science can’t explain this to my satisfaction so GAWDDIDIT”.

So again, you don’t seem to understand what you are arguing against.

LOL! Yes Bill, we do understand. You don’t seem to understand no one is science buys ID-Creationism’s negative approach of only attacking existing evolutionary knowledge.