Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Michael Behe On Falsification

Gil Dodgen
December 26, 2006
Intelligent Design
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In the DVD Case For A Creator, in the Q&A section, Michael Behe was asked, How would you respond to the claim that intelligent design theory is not falsifiable?

Behe responded:

The National Academy of Sciences has objected that intelligent design is not falsifiable, and I think that’s just the opposite of the truth. Intelligent design is very open to falsification. I claim, for example, that the bacterial flagellum could not be produced by natural selection; it needed to be deliberately intelligently designed. Well, all a scientist has to do to prove me wrong is to take a bacterium without a flagellum, or knock out the genes for the flagellum in a bacterium, go into his lab and grow that bug for a long time and see if it produces anything resembling a flagellum. If that happened, intelligent design, as I understand it, would be knocked out of the water. I certainly don’t expect it to happen, but it’s easily falsified by a series of such experiments.

Now let’s turn that around and ask, How do we falsify the contention that natural selection produced the bacterial flagellum? If that same scientist went into the lab and knocked out the bacterial flagellum genes, grew the bacterium for a long time, and nothing much happened, well, he’d say maybe we didn’t start with the right bacterium, maybe we didn’t wait long enough, maybe we need a bigger population, and it would be very much more difficult to falsify the Darwinian hypothesis.

I think the very opposite is true. I think intelligent design is easily testable, easily falsifiable, although it has not been falsified, and Darwinism is very resistant to being falsified. They can always claim something was not right.

Comments
I agree with Jack Krebs. Orthodox Christian theology would say that "God is present in every moment." Therefore, "the entire physical world, throughout all of space and time, is a holistic manifestation of his intelligent design," and "there is nothing that is more designed than anything else." This rightly leads us to see how the ID argument--trying to detect "intelligent design" as distinct from "nature" and "chance"--is contrary to Christian theology. This should also lead us to see how the orthodox Christian view of the entire physical universe as intelligently designed could be compatible with evolutionary theory.Arnhart
December 29, 2006
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Jack Krebs: As my friend Keith Miller has pointed out (and I paraphrase) , it is odd to think that the bacterial flagellum contains more evidence of design than does the properties of light and water that produce a rainbow. It is odd. However it is easier to point out the design in a bac flag because of its obvious relationship to man-made motors. Max Planck inferred design through-n-through:
"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together . . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind."
Joseph
December 29, 2006
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Jack, As one who tends to subscribe to the view that you are describing, I find Miller's question to contain the fulcrum of the matter. Perhaps it is hubris to imagine that we "pretty thoroughly understand" the properties of light and water that produce a rainbow. This statement seems as foolhardy as saying that we pretty thoroughly understand how gravity works. Being able to predict with limited uncertainty how something might behave really just opens up a world of new questions. This is true with gravity, light, and biochemistry, etc. Every question answered generates a myriad of new questions. It is like a universe expanding faster than the speed of light. Science only appears to uncover greater understanding. I submit that science only reveals greater amounts of an incomprehensible infinity. If you add this humbling thought to the worldview you describe, we are left with the understanding that, yes, nothing is more designed than anything else. But nothing is really more understood than anything else. Applying this worldview to your question about design detection, I must disagree with your opinion that "there is nothing special to detect". Indeed under this worldview, everything has something special to detect. But it is an illusion to think that we will find some "eureka moment" whereby we understand the object in question. Rather, design (to me) is revealed by the trend of science to reveal greater and more profound complexity, while naturalistic explanations become more and more impotent. I believe this is epitomized in the study of human consciousness. The thought that we can somehow break sentient thought down to it's component parts , and describe it as a program of firing neurons seems ludicrous. But in the attempt we will continue to open up an infinity of unanswerable questions, and stochastic explanations fall like sand through the filter.chunkdz
December 29, 2006
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Jack Krebs:
In fact, I think the case can be made that a sophisticated (as opposed to simplistic and magical) view of God is compatible with both Christian theology and mainstream evolutionary theory.
The only problem is that mainstream evolutionary theory proposes a directionless, unguided, goalless process, without intent or purpose, that produced humankind, and Christian theology proposes that humankind was intentionally created as a goal and for a purpose. These two views are utterly and hopelessly irreconcilable.GilDodgen
December 29, 2006
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Thanks for the comment Patrick. I would like to make a clarification/disclaimer first, and then respond to Patrick's key point. The disclaimer is this: what I have been describing is not *my* philosophy/theology. I have been trying to describe relatively orthodox Christian theology. I'm not the person whose invented these ideas, although I am trying to apply them to this issue of ID and evolution. I am not trying to argue for or convince anyone to adopt these views - what I am trying to do is get people to understand that they are legitimate and widespread views that can and do reconcile some of ID-related concerns with mainstream evolutionary science. With that said, let me respond to this comment. Patrick wrote,
Sounds like Jack’s philosophy/theology might fit well with Bill’s idea of how an unembodied designer can influence the natural world by co-opting random processes (indeterministic quantum states) and inducing them to produce specified complexity. Would make design detection nigh impossible since pretty much everything is being interacted with all the time.
I am aware of what Dembski has written that Patrick refers to. However, what I am describing is different than that in some very significant ways. The way Patrick describes it, one is still thinking about God as a being who usually is *not* part of natural processes, and who just occasionally "co-opts random processes." The view I am describing holds that God is present in *every* moment - his being pervades the natural world. The entire physical world, throughout all of space and time, is a holistic manifestation of his intelligent design. To one who has this view of God, there is nothing that is more designed than anything else - there is nothing special to detect because every aspect of the world is equally special, and equally a product of the natural processes in which God creatively resides. As my friend Keith Miller has pointed out (and I paraphrase) , it is odd to think that the bacterial flagellum contains more evidence of design than does the properties of light and water that produce a rainbow. The fact that we have come to pretty thoroughly understand the latter and not the former does not mean that they are qualitatively different manifestations of God's being.Jack Krebs
December 29, 2006
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Sounds like Jack's philosophy/theology might fit well with Bill's idea of how an unembodied designer can influence the natural world by co-opting random processes (indeterministic quantum states) and inducing them to produce specified complexity. Would make design detection nigh impossible since pretty much everything is being interacted with all the time. Still, Jack's position sounds closer to an ID position than the Theistic Evolution position. I believer Behe considered that position at one time or another but rejected it for some reason?Patrick
December 29, 2006
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“Archaeologists do that quite often- ascertain a purpose for the artifacts they find and study.” jb: I just got done listening to an mp3 of a debate between Dr. Dembski and Robert Shapiro at the 2005 Columbia University Veritas forum. In it, Dr. Dembski mentioned having just seen some archaeological artifacts on display in the Smithsonian for which no one seems to know the purpose. It was clear that the artifacts were designed and produced by humans, but the purpose of them is unknown. And the only way we could possibly determine a purpose is by continuing to syudy them. jb: So there are many instances where we can detect design without knowing the purpose. That misses the point. The point being is that "purpose" is not out-of-bounds and may be determined via investigation.Joseph
December 29, 2006
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Jack Krebs: I’m not sure what you mean by “Darwinist”, but I am a supporter of mainstream evolutionary theory, Why? Is there any data that demonstrates that a population of bacteria can "evolve" into something other than bacteria? No. Is there any data that demonstrates a population of single-celled organisms can "evolve" into something other than single-celled organisms? No. Do we know whether or not any mutation/selection process can lead to the physiological and anatomical differences observed between chimps and humans? Again No! So just how & why does Jack support evolutionary biology? Jack Krebs: In fact, I think the case can be made that a sophisticated (as opposed to simplistic and magical) view of God is compatible with both Christian theology and mainstream evolutionary theory. A contorted view maybe but not a sophisticated view. Jack Krebs: This remark may seem off-topic, but I think it goes to the heart of the questions I’ve been asking about ID in the lab. The question has been answered.Joseph
December 29, 2006
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Hmmm. Avocationist writes,
Might I add that I find Darwinists to have very simplistic and magical notions of God. In other words, they have given the matter very little thought.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Darwinist", but I am a supporter of mainstream evolutionary theory, and I can tell you that have given the matter of God quite a bit of thought, and that I don't think that I have "simplistic and magical notions" of Him. In fact, I think the case can be made that a sophisticated (as opposed to simplistic and magical) view of God is compatible with both Christian theology and mainstream evolutionary theory. This remark may seem off-topic, but I think it goes to the heart of the questions I've been asking about ID in the lab. A very short form of the argument is that God's being manifests itself to us, as we look outward with out senses, as the physical world. God's being underlies each moment of both the laws that supply order to the world and the chance events which provide the variety upon which those laws act - and from this interplay of law and chance comes the complex universe that we experience. The physical universe as a whole, and each of its parts, is a manifestation of God's intelligence. So intelligent design happens every day, every moment, all over the universe, at all levels: from the quantum interaction of elementary particles to the daily lives of each living thing, including us. There isn't, in this view, a category of things that are specially designed because their emergence somehow superceded natural processes. God is as involved in the everyday regularities of the world just as much, and in the same way, as he is in the exceptionable, unusual and improbable events that happen. So, to the theist who holds this view, every moment of doing science, and every finding of science, is part of the human activity of trying to understand one aspect of the intelligence of God by studying the nature that he creates. Now of course there are those who do not have this view of God, and so they interpret the underlying significance and meaning of the world differently. Some, of course, do not believe in God at all. Others believe in a God that periodically intervenes to override the course of natural processes, specially designing and creating some things but otherwise letting everything else run it's course. In my opinion, and I know that I am being blunt here, this latter view is more "simplistic and magical" than the view that I have described.Jack Krebs
December 28, 2006
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It’s time for everyone to face the fact that Darwinism is an ideology. Darwinism isn’t science. It’s time to get tough as nails with these poseurs. This is war and it needs to be fought like one. Someone studying the rhetoric of anti-Darwinists uses metaphors of war to describe the language of those on the leading edge. It seems to me that most who fight well against those with the urge to merge aren't even Christians. In fact, Christians tend to be defenders of Darwin to this day and throughout history. See: Darwin's Forgotten Defenders by David Livingstone...hmmm, and for a possible explanation for Christians taking the urge to merge too far see: The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity by Leon Podles. It's far from hard science but psychology is fun and it does sometimes seem that the little fellows who want to have all things be immanent (All the Yin of Mommy Nature's womb with no Yang, for it frightens them so!) tend to have many an effete Christian ally, some half-witted theologian to support them. Maybe Freud was right about something and people of this sort have a sort of cosmic Oedipus complex in which they must eliminate Father God in favor of Mother Nature and so on. At any rate, on the metaphors of war:
To Darwin’s skeptics, the coming of Michael Denton in 1985 produced the rhetorical analogue to the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. Darwinism had held the continent of scientific consensus for over a century. At last the time had come to wade ashore and establish the first beachheads of empirically based antievolutionism. The odds against the would-be “liberators” seemed so terrible as to border on the absurd. Everything hinged on the weapon held by the invaders—a 344 page book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, published in England (1985) and the United States (1986). The author was relatively unknown—a British-educated biochemist and medical doctor laboring in the obscurity of the clinical chemistry department of Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Australia. As the invaders clambered up the cliffs towering over the beaches, they hurled Denton’s explosive charges toward the pillboxes: “Neither of the two fundamental axioms of Darwin’s macroevolutionary theory—the concept of the continuity of nature. . . and the belief that all the adaptive design of life has resulted from a blind random process—have been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859” (italics mine). MIT’s Murray Eden with his Wistar colleague Schutzenberger joined the invading troops, announcing that Denton “should be required reading for anyone who believes what he was taught in college about Darwinian evolution.” Paul MacLean, a former professor at the Yale Medical School and founder of the Brain Evolution Lab at the National Institute of Mental Health, exulted, “Kant gave credit to Hume for arousing him from his ‘dogmatic slumber. This book promises to arouse an entire audience” (italics mine). Even the celebrated anthropologist Ashley Montagu praised Denton’s breadth of knowledge, noted his “just and telling” criticisms, and welcomed his “valuable contribution.” The Darwinian defenders were not asleep. Rhetorical bullets flew in savage counterattack:
“Denton’s book displays a vast ignorance about Darwin, evolution, and science in general.” “A specimen of creationism at its most subtle and up-to-date.” “No area escapes misrepresentation and distortion.” “a sham” “fraught with distortions”
A trio of prestigious evolutionists—Michael Ruse, Mark Ridley, and Niles Eldredge—wrote strongly negative reviews in prominent journals in an effort to crush Denton’s credibility and repel his attack. When the smoke cleared from the beach landings of 1985—86, the continent was still firmly in the hands of neo-Darwinism. Yet in the cliffs, here and there, certain pillboxes had fallen to the invaders, who were now spraying the countryside with sniper fire. I trust the reader will bear with my Normandy metaphors, which of course are my own attempt to capture the wave of projection themes that powerfully chained out in the budding consciousness of early proponents of design when Denton’s attack was published. The imagery fits well with Denton’s comment in a letter in early 1987 that exemplified the Normandy fantasy scene: “I am totally committed to waging unceasing intellectual war on neo-Darwinian orthodoxy.” Denton was blunt, thorough, confident, and cognitively upsetting for anyone who began his reading with the assumption that Darwinian theory rested on ample confirming evidence. In a word (Denton’s own word in the preface), the critique was radical—a notion I shall analyze later in the chapter. It is impossible to trace the development of Design in the 1990s and beyond without reviewing the origin of that movement in the rhetorical invasion and bloody skirmishes that were triggered by Michael Denton in 1985. His Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (hereafter referred to as Evolution) is, to an astonishing degree, the initial impetus, inspiration, and even rationale of the movement. Together with The Mystery of Life’s Origin, a more technical critique focused on chemical evolution that preceded Evolution by a few months, Denton practically established the rhetorical matrix of values, communication styles, purposes, perspectives, assumptions, and beliefs that became the substance of the new Design genre. These books also supplied a fund of rhetorical resources—lines of argument, phraseology, and especially patterns of evidence and anomalies gathered from many different biological fields. All of these outfitted the invading marines of the incipient Design Movement as they strategized their next sorties.(Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design By Thomas Woodward :47-49) Interesting that PZ Myers uses metaphors of war, a more dishonorable gang type war...rather appropriate for the Herd that is united by its urge to merge. His metaphors of war seem to be drawn from things typical to some old Darwinian brownshirts. E.g. "I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots. If you don’t care enough for the truth to fight for it, then get out of the way."-–Paul Myers Translation: “Why, Mommy Nature just naturally selected my smarty pants for me by a happy happenstance! So I’m feeling a bit scientific now so let me at them!”mynym
December 28, 2006
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Anyone looking at the "current mechanisms" of the flagellum by 1) actual static b&w captured pictures, 2) animation, or 3) engineer drawings of large scale, cannot deny the machinery in place. Nano engineers are drooling and NASA should be. Watching micro beauty in action that unfolds complex structures as a power source for mobility. Unless one is intentionally obstinate, then describe it and component parts as machine and machine parts. Otherwise, make up new words and definitions. Pragmatist realize it is time wasting to create new words for well defined references in known machine design. The Flagellum can be designated as a nano inboard motor. Beautifully constructed like no other inboard motor mankind has ever developed. But that is exactly what it is. Each part of this motor was conceived by intelligence for purposes of mobility in and out of water by engineers and inventors during our history. As a matter of practical learning tool. I'd tell a child or student or adult that the "flagellum" is a motor, and describe it as an "inboard motor" for those familiar with the concept to enhance their understanding. The remarkable aspect is I would tell them it builds itself thru a series of cascading extensions not fully understood yet. Parts as described by impartial scientist not looking to advance ID: http://www.fbs.osaka-u.ac.jp/eng/labo/images/09_img4.jpg 1) Propeller 2) Joint 3) Universal Joint 4) Driving shaft 5) Bushing (l-ring, p-ring) 6 Membrane ( I'd call this exterior motor housing) 7) Stator 8) Inner Membrane (inner motor housing) 9) Rotor (s-ring, m-ring) 10) Switch regulator 11) Cytoplasmic Chaperone(assembly carriage transport) 12) Type III - more groovy machinery not detailed. It is not just a matter of the "appearance of design," but of pragmatics. Engineers do not lack imagination, but are pragmatic in terms. Functionality is learned, reproduced, portable, predictable, and can be manufactured. Functionality is not random. FSC(see Trevor and Abel). NASA would do well to learn from these little nano-bots for future exploration needs on remote places in how to unfold machinery from tight packages to save on weight, versatility, mobility and power. Reverse engineering: "A method of obtaining technical information by starting with a publicly available product and determining what it is made of, what makes it work, and how it was produced. This method goes in the reverse direction of usual engineering efforts, which start with technical data and use them to produce a product. If the product or other material that is the subject of reverse engineering was properly obtained, the process is legitimate and legal." Discovering current mechanisms is practical. Trying to discover historical mechanisms thru common descent is an imaginary exercise that has some value, but is overly embellished in science classes. And it is sorely lacking in Origins and proof as the only valid worldview. It is a philosophy. Likewise, it is completely meaningless to the Protonic NanoMachine Group that described the parts in the picture of the link above: "Protonic NanoMachine Group aims at the ultimate understanding of the mechanisms of self-assembly and its regulation, conformational switching, force generation, and energy transduction by biological macromolecular complexes. By convergence of complementary techniques, such as X-ray diffraction and electron cryomicroscopy for high-resolution analysis of three-dimensional structures, and optical and electronic measurements on individual molecular complexes for analyzing their dynamic behaviors, we try to reveal the basic principles behind their functional mechanisms, in the hope that they will become a basis for artificial nanomachine design and nanotechnology." They're "reverse engineering" and there is absolutely no way to escape this fact. It takes intelligence to reverse-engineer machines whether it's history is Front Loading or whatever the latest ToE may be today. Teaching children about the flagellum(inboard motor) parts and how it works is science. Teaching them imaginary ideas of how it formed a billion years ago - is not science, that is speculation at best and a waste of valuable time. And it should be called what it is - Speculation. Is the speculation informed guessing? Yes, but its still Guessing until proven otherwise. The onus is upon those who press their Dogma onto an entire society to come up with the goods. If they cannot do so, then teachers should be allowed to call it exactly what it is - Guessing Science or Informed Speculation. But if they're going to allow Guessing into the Science Room, then all bets are off and you must allow all forms of Guessing into the Room. If that is what Dawkins and his minions are determined to live by, by jove, they're welcome. But stop enforcing only one form of Guessing Science down other peoples throats. I'd be very upset as a leader of the Protonics NanoMachine Group if they were sitting around on my Dollar, speculating about the history of the machine before them. I'm paying them to pull it apart, discover all the elements of interaction and learn precisely how it works now, not in the past, nor if it Evolved. The historical perspective can be left to ivory tower blowhards or be done after the real work is accomplished. One area is philosophy and the other area is engineering science. One produces a worldview. The other actually produces functional byproducts, I'm tired of the materialist philosophers having the ony legitimate right in our classrooms because the only thing they truly offer is a worldview. They are just as religious in their underpinnings as any other worldview. Speculating on 20 or so "co-opted" events is just that, speculation. Engineers can speculate too why a specific design is done one way as opposed to another. NDE's must do the test step by step, show the co-opted events actually work or shut up as being the "only authority" in science. ID only need to tear it apart piece by piece, understand how it works, extrapolate the functionality as a whole and in parts and then transfer that learning to other intelligent mechanisms. ID puts other parts together and does not depend upon some random confluence of co-opted events. ID only needs to show in the future that the flagellum can be produced in repeatable fashion like any other manufacturing process. Another words, ID only need to be an engineer, pragmatic and precise. NDE can wait as the hours, days, months, years tick away. ID is already being performed in a 1000 labs. Turning a switch on/off is not evolutionary, it is scientific engineering rediscovering original functionality as it existed before mutations destroyed it. Call it Mutational Correction Science. The truth is we will be able to live a thousand years in the future, because we were originally designed that way. The problem is we need to differentiate between deleterious mutations and original design. Thinking in a design mode will uncover the flawed thinking of the past. Reverse Engineering Science groups are doing just that - they're thinking Design Mode. If university research projects do not go into Reverse Engineering Design Modes, they'll be left in the Dust bin of Evolutionary History. And if we do not start teaching our children to think in a Design mode, then other countries that are not so jaded will start to pass us. The reason Dawkins and those like him are screaming so much is they see the truth before them and their entire worldview is breaking down. Their knee-jerk reaction is to kick and scream because their god is dead and has been dead. They're only just now waking up to that reality.Michaels7
December 28, 2006
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"Archaeologists do that quite often- ascertain a purpose for the artifacts they find and study." I just got done listening to an mp3 of a debate between Dr. Dembski and Robert Shapiro at the 2005 Columbia University Veritas forum. In it, Dr. Dembski mentioned having just seen some archaeological artifacts on display in the Smithsonian for which no one seems to know the purpose. It was clear that the artifacts were designed and produced by humans, but the purpose of them is unknown. This also reminds me of the Antikythera Mechanism which I keep seeing articles about in all the IT trade rags (maybe this is the same thing Dr. Dembski was referring to--he didn't elaborate on what he saw). For many years, no one quite knew what the purpose of the thing was, but it was sure-as-shootin' designed by humans. It has only been recently that they've figured out what it's purpose MIGHT have been. So there are many instances where we can detect design without knowing the purpose.jb
December 28, 2006
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Might I add that I find Darwinists to have very simplistic and magical notions of God. In other words, they have given the matter very little thought.avocationist
December 28, 2006
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Daniel,
It seems to me that you are imputing motivations to your designer when you characterize a hypothetical course of action by the designer as “silly.” And I wonder how you ascertain the designer’s motivations.
I didn't say the course of action by the designer was silly, but that the hypothetical scenario was silly. I can't know what the designer would do, but if the designer did find some little bacteria in a lab somewhere and re-evolve them it would hard not to impute humor or deception. I could add the desire to be known, but from what I can see neither God nor the alien or whatever designer there is engages in any desperate attempts to be known or seen. Quite the contrary. Certainly, it goes against the patterns that we see, to suppose that the designer would jump in and fix a handful of bacteria out of all the bacteria doing quite fine all over the world. We do not see the designer fixing cystic fibrosis or sickle cell. It appears that the major work of the designing process is done, and has been done for a long time. Things are allowed to deteriorate. That is what we see.avocationist
December 28, 2006
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DS, I believe Daniel's point is what you stated shows we can ascertain a purpose/ intention. Archaeologists do that quite often- ascertain a purpose for the artifacts they find and study.Joseph
December 28, 2006
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Daniel King What is the point of equipping bacteria with flagella in the first place? I could be wrong of course but it seems reasonable to presume the point of the flagella is to give bacteria mobility.DaveScot
December 28, 2006
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<sarcasm>Come on IDist, scientists may disagree over the mechanism of Newtonian Mechanics but there is no disagreement that over the FACT that Newtonian Mechanics applies in every situation. Your religiously motivated attacks against NM are rather silly...no real scientist questions NM. Your disagreement is based on a fundamental falsehood, that NM is somehow incompatable with a belief in G-d. </sarcasm>Atom
December 28, 2006
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Darwinists like to posit themselves as scientists on the same plane as the great physicists, and point out that “science” has led to all the great advancement over the last several centuries. And that to question NDE is like questioning gravity.
Even Newtonian mechanics, that was extremely successful, when evidence went against it, they acknowledged that and that got us two great theories (General relativity and Quantam mechanics). Imagine if physicists insisted that "everything was ok" with newtonian mechanics! Physicists have no problem in telling everybody that general relativity and quantam mechanics are inconsistent (they cannot both be true), they have no problem in saying "we don't know". But when it comes to darwinists, everything is alright, Darwin predicted everything that happened (and could happen) in biology, there are absolutely NO problem, and there can not be any problem.IDist
December 28, 2006
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stupid and stultifactous
I like that...chunkdz
December 28, 2006
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mynym,
It seems to me that the correct place to start is to reject Darwinian “reasoning” totally, otherwise you’re just inviting Darwinists to begin to cite their own imaginations as evidence again.
That's what I have done myself pretty much. Their starting philosophy is stupid and stultifactous. And I don't really give a tinkers damn about anyone's imagination. I want facts. I want evidence. I want repeatability. I am an empiricist. Darwinists like to posit themselves as scientists on the same plane as the great physicists, and point out that "science" has led to all the great advancement over the last several centuries. And that to question NDE is like questioning gravity. The problem is, the physicists were by and large (and still are) empiricists. And ya gotta love the astrophsycists. They make their theories and their models and they continually get knocked up side the head by new hard evidence. The thing is, they roll with the punches and don't try to save a theory that is contraverted by the hard evidence, unlike some other brands of "scientists" I hear squeeling. It's time for everyone to face the fact that Darwinism is an ideology. Darwinism isn't science. It's time to get tough as nails with these poseurs. This is war and it needs to be fought like one.mike1962
December 28, 2006
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Let me suppose for the sake of argument that someone were to do this, and in fact sometime along the line the bacteria would develop a flagellum. How would we know that intelligent design was not the cause of that flagellum arising? Why could we not argue that we had witnessed a case of intelligent design in action? It is rather odd that people who rely on a chain of natural processes, neurons firing, etc., in order to think that they are intelligent would then turn around and say that finding a chain of events disproves intelligence. For that matter, we sit at the end of a long chain of events and unfolded/"evolved" from an embryonic state ourselves. It is actually Darwinists who argue that a chain of events or "evolution" disproves intelligent design though, so their own so-called "gill-slits" and the like should be counted against them and their supposed mind of the synaptic gaps. To answer the question, in all probability you probably wouldn't totally know that "intelligent design was not the cause of that flagellum arising" until you came to the end of scientia/knowledge itself because that's a negative question instead of a positive inference. The question is, how do Darwinists already know "scientifically" that all organisms are not designed? That's their claim. It seems that ID types are just setting out but unfortunately they have the hypothetical goo of Darwinism to deal with, which leaves people like Behe arguing against Darwin's argument instead of avoiding this sort of hypothetical goo altogether: "If I can imagine a chain of events by which this happened, then that can serve as evidence for my theories. If I can't imagine something about the past, then my theories are falsified." Darwinian "reasoning" leaves those who accept Darwinism as their foil with this sort of position: "I'll bet I can find something you can't imagine." And the Darwinian reply is usually: "Oh, I can imagine something about that because would you just look at this little thing which seems similar to me! Your personal incredulity can't falsify my imagination about what happened in the past. Come, imagine things about the past with me!" It seems to me that the correct place to start is to reject Darwinian "reasoning" totally, otherwise you're just inviting Darwinists to begin to cite their own imaginations as evidence again.mynym
December 28, 2006
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The same way you discern the intention of an artist. You can never know the mind of an artist by looking at tiny fragments of his painting. Sometimes you can't know the mind of an artist after looking at their work of art either. But one should still recognize the obvious, so here is a satire...all scientific like. Once upon a time there was an artist who painted a picture for a scientist but she noticed that he was looking at it too closely and would not be able to see her big picture. So she said, "Stand back here with me." But the scientist said, "It looks like it is a compound of pigments...closer study is necessary." "I know what it is, now come back here with me to be able to see the big picture." "I only look at things scientifically. You know, people talking about big pictures have done terrible things in the name of the big picture!" Then he got out a little magnifying glass and studied a corner of the picture intently. Finally she said, "Look, you know me and you know that I would not do anything terrible in the name of the big picture. Now would you just come back here and see it?" He said, "It's not scientific to look at the big picture. No....and the science of me!" Then he got out a knife to take a scraping of the picture but the artist came forward, grabbed his hand and said, "Stop! What do you think you're doing?" "I have to test the materials of it to be able to make some observations." "You're going to ruin it! You should have stood back to observe it with me if you wanted to make observations. But I can see that you do not want to see the big picture. That's ashame because it is beautiful." Then she took it and walked out. The scientist caught a glimpse of her picture as she walked out, it did seem beautiful. But then he thought, "But I once heard that people who see the big picture are a threat to science....science!" So he turned away and went back to his test-tubes.mynym
December 28, 2006
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Hi, avocationist. You wrote:
I don’t see what you are getting at. Because I say the scenario is silly, that means I have ascertained the intentions of the designer?
It seems to me that you are imputing motivations to your designer when you characterize a hypothetical course of action by the designer as "silly." And I wonder how you ascertain the designer's motivations. What is the point of equipping bacteria with flagella in the first place? Hope this helps.Daniel King
December 28, 2006
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Daniel, Thanks, avocationist. This gets at the intentions of the designer. How can you know them? I don't see what you are getting at. Because I say the scenario is silly, that means I have ascertained the intentions of the designer?avocationist
December 28, 2006
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DaveScot's observation in #90
Natural selection doesn’t work to conserve things with no survival value. This prediction based on natural selection that didn’t pan out cuts right to the core of NDE theory... If there’s another mechanism that preserves information for future use that’s evidence of planning in advance. RM+NS is incapable of planning for the future - it only reacts to the present.
represents yet another nail in the NDE coffin. Actually, this one is more like a tent spike. It will be interesting to see how much longer NDE theory can withstand the counter-evidential onslaught.GilDodgen
December 28, 2006
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Jack Krebs, May I take a stab at it? You asked that if a nonflagellate developed a flagellum in the lab, how would we know if it were designed? The explanatory filter can be fooled by something that is designed, yet is indistinguishable from something not designed. Were this the case in the flagellum, then I'd say move on to the next example. Look for something else that the filter can catch. That being said, I'd say that the WAY the flagellum developed would provide clues to design detection as well. Was the experiment repeatable, or a frozen accident? Did the flagellum all develop identically? Did various versions of flagellum form? Did some organisms develop other modes of motility? Was the mechanistic process of evolution directed or random? Were mutation rates increased in loci dedicated to motility? Was active exaptation observed? I think it is the details which will reveal design in this case, not simply the fact that a flagellum grew where there was none.chunkdz
December 28, 2006
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Re: Daniel King and Mike1962 #91 In agreement with Mike1962, read The Privileged Planet. I'll give you a hint: it has to do with the correlation between habitability and measurability...Atom
December 28, 2006
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Daniel King,
"Thanks, avocationist. This gets at the intentions of the designer. How can you know them?"
The same way you discern the intention of an artist. You can never know the mind of an artist by looking at tiny fragments of his painting. You have to back up and take in the total picture. To know the intent of the designer of the universe, you look at the universe. And so far to me, it seems exquisitedly tuned for the existence of us. When I dial down to earth, I see the same thing. A perfect environment bed for supernatural entities such as us to be tested.mike1962
December 28, 2006
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Jack Krebs I'm looking for comparative genomics and molecular biology to reveal evidence that some of the patterns of life were front-loaded. This is essentially Crick & Orgel's view that life didn't originate on this planet and was originally placed here by an intelligent agency. If that's true then we might find evidence of intelligent design as we sequence and understand more of the life that descended from what was placed here. Presumably if some advanced intelligence placed life here it was designed in such a way that it unfolded according to a plan. This would require that genomic information needed in the future would be in place and conserved through some mechanism other than natural selection. Natural selection is at present the only mechanism NDE holds out as capable of conserving information. Already there is strong evidence that some other mechanism of conserving genomic information exists - a thousand non-coding sequences that were highly conserved for 90 million years between mice and men were deleted from the mouse and it resulted in, as far as anyone has been able to determine so far, perfectly healthy mice. NDE has no explanation for how so much genomic information that has no evident function in regard to survival could have been conserved for that long. Natural selection doesn't work to conserve things with no survival value. This prediction based on natural selection that didn't pan out cuts right to the core of NDE theory. The front-loading hypothesis on the other hand requires some mechanism of preserving unexpressed genomic information. NDE pundits largely remain entirely convinced that some important function for the knocked out code must exist because they take it as a truism that natural selection and nothing but natural selection can conserve genomic information. If there's another mechanism that preserves information for future use that's evidence of planning in advance. RM+NS is incapable of planning for the future - it only reacts to the present.DaveScot
December 28, 2006
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Therefore, I think history tells us that assuming design is the best causal explanation for things that look designed is not a very reliable assumption.
well I thought history tells us something different. We thought that life is very simple that it is not designed, no need to comment on this. We thought that Urey-Miller experiment proves that life can emerge naturally, but we know now that it is irrelevant. We thought that Archaeopteryx is the ancestor of birds (was considered the best example of intermidiate forms). and many other examples. the problem is that we underestimated the design in life, and we were afraid to say that feature X is designed so that it is not proved wrong after that. But this is not the case now, thanks to information theory and design detection sciences, and the works of Doctors Behe, Dembski, Meyer, Wells and others provided us with reliable ways of design detection.IDist
December 28, 2006
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