Veritas Forum: Behe & Swamidass, "God and/or Evolution"

[Timothy_Horton]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

Interesting. I am always a bit surprised that nobody ever takes issue with Behe’s liberal use of the word “purposeful” as in a “purposeful arrangement of parts.” Whenever he uses that expression, it’s clear that he’s just smuggling the conclusion into the description, with no warrant for doing it at all. One cannot observe whether something in biology is “purposeful” without figuring out whether there was someone involved in making it who had a purpose. What he seems to be doing is substituting “purposeful” for “functional.” But the task of showing that functional arrangements are always “purposeful” is exactly what ID has to demonstrate

Who are you calling a nobody? I pointed out Behe’s error twice while annotating the live discussion.

@Timothy_Horton

(Behe) Claims biological life parts are purposely arranged. Keeps harping on “purposeful” but keeps mistaking function for purpose.

@Timothy_Horton

Behe once again harps on the purposeful arrangement of parts, again confused function with purpose.

I’m sure Behe realizes he was doing a rather dishonest bait-n-switch but that doesn’t even slow him down.