The Massive Confusion On ID and Evolution

Would you agree that Behe said bacteria can’t produce a new flagellum all on their own, or if they did produce a flagellum all on their own that it would falsify Intelligent Design?

Physician, heal thyself.

I’ve actually, through much practice, become quite good at this. :smiley:

1 Like

I am very, very skeptical that your guess is correct.

1 Like

I’m puzzled by this. Are you claiming that research is easier or less time-consuming than teaching?

That was not your original claim, way back. Your original claim was broader; it was that Behe said that “natural causes” cannot produce IC systems. I asked you to find a passage anywhere from the time of Darwin’s Black Box to the present where he explicitly generalizes to “natural causes.” You could not do it. So you should have immediately conceded that you could not produce such a statement, and then gone to say that you thought that position was implied in his writing. That’s what a trained Classicist, Philosopher, Historian, etc. would have done in a similar situation.

1 Like

@eddie, why does he argue against Darwinism when it has already been falsified? What does it matter to anyone if Darwism is not sufficient when we already agree this is true, for far better reasons than he has offered?

That would be a good question for a brand-new column: Why do ID folks focus so much on Darwinian and neo-Darwinian thought? But the topic I was discussing with T. aquaticus was whether or not Behe ever explicitly claimed that “natural causes” cannot produce IC systems. I maintain that he never explicitly says this in his writings. A case can be made that he implies it, but he never says it, as far as I can see. And his “pool shot analogy” suggests the opposite, since it indicates that he thinks it is at least logically possible that the universe could be lined up in advance so as to produce evolutionary advances through all-natural steps.

@swamidass, why do people rail against Behe if he is right? And why do people rail against ID if ID is right?

I have a hypothesis. It’s because “Darwinism” still reigns as the dominant paradigm.

It’s because ID is a political movement aimed at swaying the opinion of layman, not a scientific argument aimed at the scientific community. Since Darwin is a well known figure in the public eye even if the technical details of his theory aren’t, IDers are very happy to level their scurrilous attacks against Darwin and “Darwinism”. That way the ID pushers can be as misleading and dishonest as they want knowing the lay public won’t understand they’re being lied to. Scientists of course recognize ID’s bullshit immediately which is why ID is still a non-starter in real scientific circles.

In principle, both activities are demanding enough to be all-consuming of a faculty member’s time. In practice, however, I notice that in internet debates about origins, the majority of the science Ph.D.s who seem to have 15, 20, 30 or more hours per week to debate on blog sites, are at “research” universities, not four-year colleges where faculty (especially in Arts, but sometimes even in Science) are crushed under the weight of 3 or 4 courses per semester. Having to prepare that number of courses (many hours per week), and deliver them (6 to 9 more hours of class time per week for three courses, 9 if one doesn’t have a teaching assistant to do the third hour), and spend many hours per week helping students in one’s office, and having to grade potentially hundreds of assignments, mid-terms, and final exams, would certainly put a cramp in one’s blogging style.

In my comment about Behe, I was assuming that Lehigh was a four-year college that mainly teaches undergrads. I think I was in error about that. So he might not have the teaching burden I was assuming. Still, I think he has plenty of other good reasons not to wrangle on blog sites, given how he has been treated on them even when he has been absent. When Ann Gauger visited BioLogos to discuss some matters, Joshua treated her well, but a number of yahoos there were quite rude and/or condescending to her. Why should Behe subject himself to that? He was regularly called a liar and a coward by an atheist biologist commenter there, as the BioLogos moderators “looked the other way,” despite BioLogos’s stressed policy of “gracious discourse” (where the graciousness was required of ID people and creationists, but not of TEs and atheists). I wouldn’t blame him for being leery of any invitation to come and discuss matters here; past history does not make blog sites look like a constructive venue for him. But maybe he would agree to come here under tightly controlled rules of engagement which permitted no yahooism.

@T_aquaticus

You would be correct IF Behe had not proposed the Pool Shot Model!!!

The Pool Shot Model SPECIFICALLY calls for “design” to be packaged into the Cosmos, not via miraculous supernatural activity, but via natural and lawful operations of the Universe.

God’s design is in the “setting” of Creation… and sustaining these operations.

This is not Deism; it is how God copes with more chaotic-appearing levels of nature luke Quantum Mechanics… and once humans arrive, he is constsntly re-setting the natural world against the effects of Free Will on his target future.

We are near the End of Days… here is where @Eddie and I agree:

God bless the scientists!

@Mung

For whatever reasons, you dont seem to recognize the political underpinnings of the ID movement. In America (and probably lots of other places) it is ID folks who are the ideological insurgents laying the groundwork for theocracy.

1 Like

Sorry George, but i simply cannot take this serious.

I will ask again.

Would you agree that Behe said bacteria can’t produce a new flagellum all on their own, or if they did produce a flagellum all on their own that it would falsify Intelligent Design?

I fully accept the idea that Behe has changed his mind over the years. However, statements he has made in the past clearly point to non-natural causes being a requirement for producing IC systems. In the Pool Shot model we would expect to see IC systems evolving in the lab, but we don’t. On top of that, Behe has said that observing IC systems appearing in living populations would falsify Intelligent Design.

Naw … it’s just Black Friday. We’ll get thru it. :wink:

1 Like

How did you calculate the time they seem to have?

Oddly, though, your status does not appear to cramp your ability to post pages of lengthy responses to simple questions.

@T_Aquaticus,

I’m going to press home on one specific point, that you must fully grasp, or you and the others are just going to go around in circles for days or weeks:

You write: “I fully accept the idea that Behe has changed his mind over the years. However, statements he has made in the past clearly point to non-natural causes being a requirement for producing IC systems.”

God designing all of Creation to be front-loaded is a non-natural cause. But it is fully realized by means of natural processes. Are you okay with this particular distinction? It seems rather critical to Behe’s entire approach.

You also wrote: “In the Pool Shot model we would expect to see IC systems evolving in the lab, but we don’t.” Behe clearly sees God being uninterested in intervening in a laboratory. But of course, if we pressed him on the matter, how could he ever know when God did or didn’t help?

Your final statement: “On top of that, Behe has said that observing IC systems appearing in living populations would falsify Intelligent Design.” As I mentioned above… the only way to have this conclusion work is if we all agree that God would not design laboratory events to repeat what he has done eons before… it’s quite the conundrum (for Behe!).

If life is front loaded to produce IC systems, then we should see them emerging through natural processes in living populations, correct?

I once again point to Behe stating that if we saw IC systems emerging in the wild or in the lab he claims that ID would be falsified. I don’t see how you can square this with the Pool Shot model. Behe also models living and lab populations as only producing random mutations.