Why are We Disagreeing with ID?

So a purposeful arrange of parts does not exist anywhere in our observable universe?

Why is design obvious in this case?

Well, not really. Anyone could have spent a few minutes on the internet to learn that Behe’s claim was false when it was made. At the time, Dr. Smith (for you, @Eddie) was an undergrad who worked on HIV.

And when @lee_merrill claims:

Should anyone believe it?

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Bill’s flailing about becomes increasingly self-parodic.

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Whether something has a purposeful arrangement of parts depends on who is looking at it and who is describing it.

From experience, we know that such obelisks are designed. However, I do not claim to have a theory of design which demonstrates this.

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Not necessarily. If there is a function you can assign a reason for it is very difficult to deny purpose unless you are generally in denial :slight_smile:

So Behe never demonstrated that every new protein-protein binding site requires 4 to 6 deleterious mutations.

V(D)J recombination produces random peptides. How is it that a few billion random peptides can have hundreds of thousands of protein-protein binding sites?

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A purposeful arrangement of parts is a subjective opinion.

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I’m not sure what point you are making there. Your statement seems garbled.

I have not been denying purpose. I happen to think it is important. But to use purpose, you first need a consistent way of assessing what is a purpose. But I do not see that consistency coming from the ID proponents.

I started another thread on this topic.

The comment has yet to be posted, but I have provided links there to some of the news stories covering the discovery of the obelisk. In every single one it is just taken as given that it was designed. There is not even the slightest consideration that it might be a natural structure.

Are you saying this is wrong, and we should consider it likely that it was not designed?

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But an arrangement of parts that exists by virtue of its ability to perform a function, and which cannot be accounted for purely by the physical and chemical properties of the parts themselves, is something that can be objectively determined. Creationists tend to mistake this as indicating purpose, which is where the disagreements arise.

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No, because that is patently untrue. Not everyone worries about that, though, it would seem.

It can be but the way Behe uses the term purpose it is not. What is subjective is the claim of purposeless.

Indeed. All evidence points to evolution as The Designer.

Do you ever read your own words out loud to yourself as a check that what you wrote makes any sense?

It works - try it.

LOL! That is exactly what ID does NOT do. ID answers no Why/What/When/Where/How questions. It has not led to new discoveries, inventions, patient, medical treatments, nor has it opened up new areas of research. ID has no new ideas. OTOH, evolution has brought a great many new ideas to us, and all that other stuff too.

It is beyond me why people are fighting the use of this new tool and method for detecting design in nature.

Because ID is not about science and never has been. This tool is a fake.

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Behe’s usage is subjective. Behe just asserts that it is a purposeful arrangement of parts.

So let’s redefine it. The flagellum is an evolved arrangement of parts because it has multiple parts and performs a function.

Then the claim of purpose is equally subjective.

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One indication this is correct is no new protein-protein binding sites in malaria, one in humans, and one in HIV. If there were selectable, intermediate steps to new binding sites, you would expect they would be plentiful.

Yes, I think so, since no one has come forward with another example.

Are you saying resistance doesn’t decrease significantly? And there is another indication, in chloroquine resistance needing about 10^20 organisms, versus atovaquone resistance needing about 10^12 organisms, and one mutation.

There are hundreds of thousands of new protein-protein binding domains produced every time someone is conceived and develops an adaptive immune system.

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Looking at the spliceosome, the nuclear pore complex, the ubiquitin system, flight, sight, rational thought processing how would you support this claim with empirical evidence?

What is the most advanced biological structure that experiments like the Lenski experiment produced.

Do you begin to see why people are skeptical of evolution as a designer claim?

Is it possible that he does more then this but you have not sturdied his work enough to know? Behe relates purpose to function. His claim is not about ultimate purpose.

Then just call it function. Redefining it as purpose is subjective.

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Behe grants 2 of the 5 or 6 mutations as being neutral, and occurring on the way to a new protein-protein binding site. That leaves 3 or 4 mutations as deleterious.

Because natural selection isn’t at work, as in the cell, where many (most?) of these changes would be deleterious?