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ID theorist Michael Behe vs. Christian Darwinist Keith Fox

Denyse O'Leary
June 4, 2011
Christian Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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Vid. (opens on click), courtesy Wintery Knight Here’s a summary:

Behe’s first book – the bacterial flagellum

Keith Fox: Here are a couple of papers that show how parts of the flagellum evolved

They are possible pathways.

Michael Behe: No, those are studies that show that there are similarities between bacterial flagella in multiple organisms

Similarities of proteins between different organisms do not necessarily imply a developmental pathway

The problem of having the instructions to BUILD the flagellum still remains

Keith Fox: Maybe parts of the flagellum had other functions before they were used in the flagellum

Maybe you can use the parts of the flagellum for other purposes

Maybe, one can imagine, it’s possible that!

Michael Behe: No, parts have to be modified and re-purposed in order to be used for other functions

Keith Fox: But maybe the proteins can be used in other systems for other things. I re-purpose parts from of designed things to other purposes in my house when I do maintenance

Michael Behe: Uh, yeah – but aren’t you an intelligent designer? What does your home maintenance have to do with Darwinian evolution?

More.

Fox is chairman of Britain’s Christians in Science.

Knight admits that this is a snarky characterisation.

Comments
I haven't finished listening to the debate yet, but listening to what Behe said in context, it actually is pretty close to what I was talking about. And about 1/3rd through the debate, there is nothing surprising...Behe offering compelling arguments that either go unnoticed or ignored by his opponent. I will say that Fox seems to understand (or at least admit to understand) ID theory better than most, but he's still extremely unconvincing and displays a general ignorance of the other side of the coin, even if not as gross as other prominent Darwinists. uoflcard
Behe:
The problem of having the instructions to BUILD the flagellum still remains
Although it's not the same thing, this reminds me of what I think is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the ID advocate's side of the debate, the controls behind the biological structures we talk about. There is conjecture and there are assertions as to how, say, an eye could have naturally evolved (which generally ignore the practicality of the tales). But what would be even more complex and unlikely to naturally develop than an eye is a simultaneously functional control system that could harness the eye. What the heck is good about a "light spot" or a retinal nerve if the creature cannot interpret its new sense and judge what actions to take given that information? A functional eye or a flagellum are very complex, but we at least know basically how they work. What we don't know is exactly how a creature analyzes data - the "electrochemical" events that occur in a brain that produce functional output from input such as seeing, touching, hearing, etc. That is assuming, for argument's sake, that these controls can be boiled down to the laws of physics. uoflcard
semi OT: Dawkins [played by Hitler] gets angry about William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqr73wbIajc bornagain77
OT: Ms. O'Leary, ENV has a article up that may interest you. Inherit the Wind at Christianity Today http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/inherit_the_wind_at_christiani047051.html bornagain77
I am waiting for Jonathan Wells' next book, The Myth of the Flagellum. Also, coming soon from Mike Behe and Ollie North, Darwin's Black Box of Black Ops: How the American Military Secretly Took Down the Origin Of a New Species of Terrorism Mung

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