The Massive Confusion On ID and Evolution

Nothing. That would be differential extinction.

So… you want to include extinctions in the category called macro-evolution…that’s probably not going to pass muster…

Two reactions:

  1. Whose muster? Yours?

  2. You only now realize that differential extinction counts as macroevolution? This suggests that you aren’t reading what I say very closely. Not encouraging for any mutual understanding.

I would like to see a text book that goes to the trouble of using the term macro-evolution as a term that can mean extinctions.

As for the two of us not understanding each other well… thats been clear for weeks.

My suggestion would be Macroevolution by Steven M. Stanley.

3 Likes

Re: 1] if that were all there were to it, yes (not complaints there). But some maintain that ID is a sciencific theory that does not invoke God. That’s a problem.

Re: 2] the double-negative cconfusee* me. Can you rephrase that?

* some typos are too funny to correct!

Sorry, I thought I had expanded on that point (in a different thread, I think)). Bats and bugs are !ess closely related than bats and birds. There are different degrees of CA.

Noted for another topic I am working on. BUT, it’s a straw man to say any scientist is claiming this sort of massively simultaneous change. The answer lies in cumulative selection and scaffolding.

Wildly improbable stuff does it fact happen all around us, all the time, and we rarely even think to notice it. Consider for a moment how many essential random events you encounter every day, or even every minute. The vast majority of those events are entirely mundane, there are millions of such events, each with tiny variation, and millions-to-one odds for each. We never notice most of these events, but sometimes a single event catches our attention and we think, “Wow, what are the odds against that?”

The thing about eyes, is they are thought to have evovled independent many times (40, maybe 70?). Repeated incidence of this types of event (eyes) is evidence for this being MORE likely, not more improbable.

I thought that was Easter? :wink:

Oh, I agree. They generally go for gradualist scenarios. But if you can’t come up with a plausible gradualist scenario, then you are left with only the “hopeful monster” as your explanation for major evolutionary changes.

More usually, they try to have it both ways: denying that the flagellum (or whatever) appeared as a hopeful monster, but failing to provide anything even close to a stepwise gradualist account, and asking the world to take it on faith that one day scientists will have the stepwise gradualist account all worked out. Scientific explanation via IOU.

1 Like

[Earlier statements by @GB rooks9 ]
1] Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge that ID
folks are not able to make God’s work an Independent Variable ; and
2] Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge that
there is no practical way to exhaust all the possible ways to prove
that natural processes cannot achieve the evolutionary step in
question.

@Dan_Eastwood writes:
“… some maintain that ID is a scientific theory that does not invoke
God. That’s a problem.”

I will gladly debate any Christian on this list that thinks the
Prometheus Scenario is the most logical explanation for the origin of
life on Earth.

As for your request about removing the double-negative, let’s try this
on for size:
1] Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge that ID
folks are not able to make God’s work an Independent Variable ; and

2] "Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge
there is no practical way to completely test the question: natural
processes cannot produce an evolutionary step in question."

That sounds suspiciously like the tired old Creationist PRATT “Science doesn’t know everything therefore science doesn’t know anything!”.

2 Likes

Both propositions require evidence. If someone says that the bacterial flagellum evolved, then they need to present evidence. Lack of such evidence is not evidence for any other proposition. At the same time, if someone says that the bacterial flagellum can not evolve then they also need to present evidence. This is Logic 101.

Exactly. So why isn’t the onus on ID supporters to support their ID claims, such as IC systems being impossible to evolve?

He hasn’t even done that.

3 Likes

Agreed. But what Behe says is not exactly that. He says that the bacterial flagellum cannot have evolved solely by neo-Darwinian sorts of mechanism – and for that claim, he provides evidence, and a lengthy rationale. One can disagree with his reasoning, but one can’t say that he doesn’t present an argument for his conclusion.

Which isn’t Behe’s claim.

He has, to my satisfaction, but you grant much more plausibility to hand-waving speculations about possible (never specified in detail) co-options, exaptations, etc. than I do.

1 Like

Sorry but Behe never provided one iota of evidence for his silly assertion.

1 Like

What evidence and what rationale?

Where did Behe demonstrate that these pathways do not exist?

2 Likes

This @eddie is actually the point. He did not actually do what you think he did.

2 Likes

Have you read (not skimmed) both of Behe’s books, all the way through? If not, please do so. The answer to your question is in those books.

What “I think Behe did” is offer an argument for the massive unlikelihood that Darwinian mechanisms can account for structures such as the bacterial flagellum. Whether or not Behe’s arguments are sound is another matter. But I believe that I have correctly characterized what he argues.

1 Like

He didn’t demonstrate that they don’t exist. He made an argument that it is unlikely – if evolution works the way neo-Darwinism says it does – that they could exist. And he has stated that nowhere in the scientific literature are detailed biochemical accounts of major evolutionary transitions documented. That is, he has stated that Darwinians have not proved their case that major evolutionary transitions are possible by the means they propose.

In short, his argument amounts to: “(1) On theoretical and empirical grounds, it seems very unlikely that RM + NS could account for what we see; (2) But I would admit that my reasoning must be wrong, if anyone can provide a detailed, stepwise biochemical account of a major evolutionary transition that requires nothing more than RM + NS. So show me the money.”

I don’t find this either unclear or illogical. He might be wrong regarding number 1, but that is something to be hashed out in detail with him. I think he is still correct regarding number 2. It is now 22 years since Darwin’s Black Box came out, and I still haven’t seen the list of detailed biochemical changes needed to create a flagellum from scratch, in a stepwise Darwinian manner, published in any peer-reviewed science journal or biochemistry textbook or book of evolutionary theory. I haven’t seen the money.

1 Like

On what page(s) are Behe’s evidence it is impossible for bacterial flagella to evolve solely by natural non-intelligent means? Can you please summarize the evidence for us here?

That isn’t scientific evidence evolution is impossible, it’s an argument from ignorance.

1 Like

No one has seen even one tiny detail about how the Intelligent Designer produced the flagellum. Pretty hypocritical of Behe to demand such level of detail while providing none himself, don’t you agree?

2 Likes

I think it is telling that you can’t come up with this evidence or rationale. I would assume that you have read Behe’s books? And yet you can’t come up with this evidence and rationale?

2 Likes