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Michael Behe Has Not Been Bombed Either

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Thanks to News for posting this interview with Michael Behe. Here’s the money quote for me because it corresponds to my own expectation when I first started debating origins that someone would surely come along and explain to me why my commitment to ID is is naive because the evidence for Darwinism is so overwhelming (See my No Bomb After 10 Years post). Instead, the problems for the Darwinian side have only expanded. Starting at 3:30:

Q. It’s been about 18 years since you first presented the concept of irreducible complexity. That was in your book Darwin’s Black Box, I believe, and I’m wondering if you feel that it stood up to criticism. Do you feel that IC is as relevant in 2014 as it had been in 1996?

Behe: Yes, I do. I think the concept has stood up very well. As a matter of fact when I first published the book Darwin’s Black Box, I was expecting maybe a scientist or group of scientists to say, you know, well haven’t you read these group of papers that explains the problems you’re pointing out. But that never happened, and it’s been 18 years now and it still hasn’t happened. There’s been a lot of people replying, a lot of people saying look at this or consider this argument, but none of those – and I’ve considered them very carefully – none of those addresses the point . . .

Comments
Collin:
I do not think that the Mullerian two step refutes Behe.
Sure it does. Behe's mistake was in not realizing that you can create an IC system by removing parts. Have you noticed that ID proponents rarely talk about irreducible complexity these days? That's why. It's been thoroughly discredited.keith s
November 4, 2014
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I do not think that the Mullerian two step refutes Behe. A process that is randomly removing bricks from a wall will target the bridge on an equal basis as the other bricks. As time goes on, the likelihood of the bridge being destroyed goes up. But Darwinism supposedly leads to more and more systems being created as time goes on. It's as if more walls are showing up fully formed ready to have their bricks removed. As more irreducible complexity is stacked upon the wall, the likelihood that the whole thing comes crashing down.Collin
November 4, 2014
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Mullerian 2 Step: 1) Add a part. 2) Make it necessary. Add a part to what? Add a part to something IC that's what.ppolish
November 4, 2014
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The people being banned have proven to be insipid.Joe
November 4, 2014
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BTW, in case people here don't realize it, UD is back to banning people, they're just doing so without announcing it. For a while it was almost as free and open as an actual science blog. Oh well.notstevestory
November 4, 2014
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Behe might not realize IC has been utterly shredded, but that's on him, not his critics.notstevestory
November 4, 2014
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ForJah:
Doesn’t the Mullerian two-step bridge falsify his position? The addition of one item and the subtraction of another makes a three part IC unit.
That's right. Here's Behe's definition, from p. 39 of Darwin's Black Box:
By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.
The Mullerian two-step can produce irreducibly complex systems. Contrary to the thread title, not only has Behe been bombed, but his idea was bombed years before Behe was even born! Another embarrassment for ID.keith s
November 4, 2014
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Doesn't the Mullerian two-step bridge falsify his position? The addition of one item and the subtraction of another makes a three part IC unit.ForJah
November 4, 2014
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Quest at 17 "Isn’t the cell itself irreducibly complex…?" Yes, Behe discusses the complexity of single-celled and multi-celled life. And he demonstrates that it is not possible to get from a single-celled organism to a multi-celled organism by any simple modification of the single-celled organism. Multi-celled life requires "overhead/admin" functions that have no counterpart in single-celled life. And the pieces only work as a unit, which is why the logical, objective observation by bio-chemists is that multi-celled life was designed to a pre-determined end configuration and then the initial unit (or units) were manufactured by the same agent that produced the design. So Intelligent Design is not only the SIMPLEST explanation for complexity in biological systems. It is the ONLY explanation that can account for the complexity and flawless integration of the components. But read Behe's books. They're wonderfully well written, and he wrote them specifically for readers who are NOT bio-chemists.mahuna
November 4, 2014
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@ Enkidu #10 'They weren’t convince by having a religious organization paying folks to write nonsense filled popular press books as propaganda. They weren’t convince by having a religious organization create its own sham science journal to publish their anti-science woo. They weren’t convince by websites filled with scientific illiterates screaming obscenities and declaring there’s no such thing as medical knowledge.' Not so much facile, as infantile, straw men. You really need to grow up to post, if you are going to post to grown-ups' forum. Lucky for you, with the computer, you don't have to do joined-up writing.Axel
November 4, 2014
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Wow. Enkidu at post #1 offers the answer from evolutionists to IC. If that is the best they have then I really do not even know why I engage in a debate at all about these matters. Not only have they failed to understand IC but their example is completely off the mark and by comparing it as solving the IC paradigm and refuting ID shows how naive they truly are. At least most religious people can admit some of their faith will influence their worldview on origins. Darwinists however choose to remain blind to their own faith in their materialism and pretend they are just "following the evidence where it leads." It's all so very ironic (and very Rom 1).Dr JDD
November 4, 2014
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Isn't the cell itself irreducibly complex...? I have asked Nick M, Larry Moran, Dan Growlers, PZ Meyers and Jerry Coyne to provide evidence that it isn't... So far, I have only heard their wishful thinking or nothing... Things like a flagellum are just additional nails into the coffin of dead Darwinism....Quest
November 4, 2014
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Silver Asiatic,
I suggest that 80% of all religious believers implicitly accept the ID proposal.
It depends on how you define "the ID proposal," doesn't it? Broadly defined, I think all religious believers accept it--it's implicit in religion. But more narrowly defined, say that someone has actually empirically detected signs of design that are inconsistent with natural evolution, I think the numbers are much lower among college-educated believers and extremely low among believers with specialized educations in relevant fields. I'm only guessing, though.Learned Hand
November 4, 2014
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Collin,
Your comment @10 tells me everything I need to know about the productivity of engaging in a dialogue with you.
The MO is to insult and provide irrelevant information. In other words typical anti-ID behavior.jerry
November 4, 2014
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Collin Your comment @10 tells me everything I need to know about the productivity of engaging in a dialogue with you. Doctors weren't convinced by having the hand-washing proponents act indignant and run away every time they were asked for their supporting positive evidence either.Enkidu
November 4, 2014
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Enkidu, Your comment @10 tells me everything I need to know about the productivity of engaging in a dialogue with you.Collin
November 4, 2014
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as to the citation of Thorton's work at post 1, Dr. Behe is a big Thorton fan: Severe Limits to Darwinian Evolution: - Michael Behe - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: The immediate, obvious implication is that the 2009 results render problematic even pretty small changes in structure/function for all proteins — not just the ones he worked on.,,,Thanks to Thornton’s impressive work, we can now see that the limits to Darwinian evolution are more severe than even I had supposed. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/10/severe_limits_to_darwinian_evo.html Wheel of Fortune: New Work by Thornton's Group Supports Time-Asymmetric Dollo's Law - Michael Behe - October 5, 2011 Excerpt: Darwinian selection will fit a protein to its current task as tightly as it can. In the process, it makes it extremely difficult to adapt to a new task or revert to an old task by random mutation plus selection. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/wheel_of_fortune_new_work_by_t051621.html From Thornton's Lab, More Strong Experimental Support for a Limit to Darwinian Evolution - Michael Behe - June 23, 2014 Excerpt: In prior comments on Thornton's work I proposed something I dubbed a "Time-Symmetric Dollo's Law" (TSDL).3, 8 Briefly that means, because natural selection hones a protein to its present job (not to some putative future or past function), it will be very difficult to change a protein's current function to another one by random mutation plus natural selection. But there was an unexamined factor that might have complicated Thornton's work and called the TSDL into question. What if there were a great many potential neutral mutations that could have led to the second protein? The modern protein that occurs in land vertebrates has very particular neutral changes that allowed it to acquire its present function, but perhaps that was an historical accident. Perhaps any of a large number of evolutionary alterations could have done the same job, and the particular changes that occurred historically weren't all that special. That's the question Thornton's group examined in their current paper. Using clever experimental techniques they tested thousands of possible alternative mutations. The bottom line is that none of them could take the place of the actual, historical, neutral mutations. The paper's conclusion is that, of the very large number of paths that random evolution could have taken, at best only extremely rare ones could lead to the functional modern protein. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/06/more_strong_exp087061.html podcast - Michael Behe: The Limit in the Evolution of Proteins (Thorton's 2014 paper) http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-09T16_35_28-07_00bornagain77
November 4, 2014
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Learned Hand I suggest that 80% of all religious believers implicitly accept the ID proposal. Most are unfamiliar with the science because ID is not widely publicized. Put it this way ... every religious believer who accepts that miracles have occurred and have been witnessed (i.e. just about all Christians, Jews, Hindus and Moslems) accept the ID inference (that some things in nature give evidence of having been caused by an intelligent agent). There are a lot of scientists who hold that kind of religious belief. Beyond that, ID arguments for the fine-tuning of the universe are taken very seriously, even by those cosmologists who oppose the arguments. Thus we have various multiverse hypotheses as an attempt to explain fine-tuning.Silver Asiatic
November 4, 2014
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Collin For example, at one time doctors did not understand the necessity of sanitizing their hands between doctor visits. There were scientific studies showing that doctors making visits spread diseases. But the doctors resisted it and it took a lot of effort to force the profession to change. What got them to change was the doctors began to observe the empirical results of better hygiene. They saw that the process worked and produced much fewer infections. They weren't convince by having a religious organization paying folks to write nonsense filled popular press books as propaganda. They weren't convince by having a religious organization create its own sham science journal to publish their anti-science woo. They weren't convince by websites filled with scientific illiterates screaming obscenities and declaring there's no such thing as medical knowledge.Enkidu
November 4, 2014
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Collin, that's a good clarification. No, I didn't think it was comprehensive. But neither do I think it could be all that much larger, in the scheme of things. Of all the universities and laboratories in the world, how many take ID seriously? Not even the religious ones, Bible colleges excluded. Of course the majority can be wrong, I agree with that. We just have different opinions on whether there is currently a good reason to think that it is.Learned Hand
November 4, 2014
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Learned Hand, Do you think that my list was exhaustive? If so, why? I can't blame you if you want to rely on the majority or the consensus. I personally cannot research every minority claim in science or culture so I typically rely on the majority as well. But there have been many times when a majority of scientists were resistant to change. There was no "consipiracy" (although I think that the NCSE has conspired to de-legitimize intelligent design). Just a resistance based on cultural factors. For example, at one time doctors did not understand the necessity of sanitizing their hands between doctor visits. There were scientific studies showing that doctors making visits spread diseases. But the doctors resisted it and it took a lot of effort to force the profession to change.Collin
November 4, 2014
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think about ic od a cell-phone. if we will mimic nature, lets say that we have a self replicat material with dna. is this kind of material can evolve into a cell-phone in small steps? the answer is clear no. because there is no functional step wise to a cell-phone from self replicat system.mk
November 4, 2014
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http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/Silver Asiatic
November 4, 2014
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I would certainly agree that you can find credentialed scientists who support ID; you can find credentialed scientists to support anything. Scientists are human beings, with the normal range of human beliefs--although they tend to cluster more tightly around demonstrably true propositions, in my experience. After all, not every dentist recommends flossing! But your list is very short. Why? And where are the young scientists being persuaded by the weight of evidence, rather than following their religious preconvictions? Are they all dissuaded by the global conspiracy, or is there some other reason that as people study the evidence they overwhelmingly decide that the principles of ID are false? I noticed you also included Dr. Sewell, a mathematician. It reminded me of a question I've never had answered. If ID qua Dembski is well grounded in principles of mathematics, why is it not taken seriously by mainstream mathematicians (or computer scientists, or philosophers, or statisticians, or any other related field)? Does the conspiracy extend so far?Learned Hand
November 4, 2014
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"Cornell geneticist Dr. John Sanford notes that “each part has no value except within the context of the whole functional unit, and so irreducible systems have to come together all at once, and cannot arise one piece at a time.” He adds that in the case of a mousetrap, even if all of the pieces are sitting neatly next to each other on the inventor’s workbench, they cannot properly assemble into a functional unit by chance—or by any feasible evolutionary mechanism. They must first come together simultaneously as a functioning system in the mind of the designer." http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEkQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftccsa.tc%2Farticles%2Firreducible_complexity_ed.pdf&ei=HhxZVKOsCuGrjAKNm4HwBA&usg=AFQjCNF_-kNbmsVhHfucbtYOfLvSoBgywg&sig2=Jrd5Mv0XwbtRChJzlXqqFw&bvm=bv.78972154,d.cGECollin
November 4, 2014
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Enkidu, It wasn't that hard: microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, geneticist Norman Nevin (emeritus) at Queen’s University of Belfast, medical geneticist Michael Denton, geneticist John Sanford, Cornell, molecular biologist Douglas Axe, formerly a research scientist at the University of Cambridge, not to mention quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia, mathematician Granville Sewell at the University of Texas, El Paso.Collin
November 4, 2014
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Umm that has nothing to do with IC. Behe has responded to and debunked Thornton. You would be hard pressed to find a biologist to address Behe's arguments. And ID is not anti-evolution. Grow upJoe
November 4, 2014
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Evolutionary biologist Joe Thornton's lab has been able to recreate the evolutionary pathways of certain proteins and show how IC structures can evolve purely through evolutionary processes. Prehistoric proteins: Raising the dead From the Nature article:
Thornton wanted to delve deeper into the puzzle of how complex systems with tightly interacting molecular parts evolve. It was a long-standing conundrum. As Charles Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” And what was an evolutionary puzzle to biologists was a target for evolution's critics. Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington, proposed in the 1990s that such systems — the blood-clotting cascade, for example, or the molecular motor called the flagellum — are so “irreducibly complex” that they could not have evolved step by step, and can only be the product of intelligent design. Thornton says that he didn't set out to refute intelligent design, but the prospect of a fight hardly put him off. “Been there, enjoyed that,” he says. He chose to explore a pair of steroid hormone receptors: the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), which binds the hormone aldosterone and regulates salt and water balance; and the closely related glucocorticoid receptor (GR), which binds cortisol and controls stress response. A gene duplication more than 450 million years ago produced the two receptors — but aldosterone didn't arise until many millions of years later. The timing seemed to make the MR a textbook example of irreducible complexity: how could selection drive the evolution of a lock (the MR) to fit a key (aldosterone) that didn't yet exist? Led by Bridgham, Thornton's team found the answer by resurrecting the ancestor of both receptors. To their surprise, it was sensitive to aldosterone, suggesting that it had been activated by an ancient ligand with a similar structure. Once aldosterone had evolved, the team proposed, evolution was able to take advantage of the existing receptor to control a new biological function — a process that Thornton termed molecular exploitation. They also showed how its sister receptor, the GR, was evolving functions of its own.
You'd be hard pressed to find a single biologist or geneticist in the world who accepts Behe's claim that IC structures disprove evolution.Enkidu
November 4, 2014
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