In connection with his forthcoming book, Darwin Devolves, he asks a challenging question: What kinds of answers can Darwinian evolution really provide?
What can the theory account for? If it can’t explain even color patterns, how much has it been exaggerated? Quite a bit, it turns out. To see the problem more clearly, let’s first think about studies of human nutrition. For decades the public was told to avoid foods with a lot of cholesterol. Recently, however, a government panel changed its mind, saying there’s no evidence that’s harmful. Here’s the problem for grand claims about evolution. Science can’t tell if cholesterol is bad for modern humans, who can be studied in great detail. Yet if that’s too hard, then how can science claim to know what affected plants and animals in the distant past? Ones that can’t be studied in real time like people? Ones that encountered myriad environmental influences over millions of years? That’s easy to answer: Science can’t and doesn’t know.Michael J. Behe, “Here’s how to tell if scientists are exaggerating” at The Stream
He introduces the “Principle of Comparative Difficulty” (PCD) to help us assess what to believe: “If nutritionists can’t easily determine how one dietary factor affects human health, evolutionary biologists can’t tell what affected the survival of long dead animals.”
Watch them bluster otherwise. A lot depends on what counts as an “explanation.” If what counts is “sounding like science,” they can explain anything. If what counts is adding to a correct understanding, no.
Note: A similar claim is “Being an addict might be an evolutionary advantage” Pop psychology at its purest is somehow transformed into science by the magical word “evolution.”
See also: Mike Behe’s New Book, Darwin Devolves: “Absolutely Convincing” Or “Omits Contrary Examples”
and
A Peek At Mike Behe’s New Book Darwin Devolves
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On a closely-related note, I’ve always wondered (under the evolutionary paradigm) how our bodies ever got to the point where iodine, or other nutrients could make such a drastic difference in our health–if our ancestors _never_ had consistent access to those nutrients. Just occasional access to them wouldn’t seem to be sufficient to get our species trained to expect them. The vast majority of them weren’t even recognized as essential until the 20th century.
But under an ID paradigm, it’s easy to see that we could have been designed with a need for them, so once they became reliably available again, they quickly took us in the direction of our intended (i.e., healthier) state.
EDTA – what evidence do you have that humans didn’t used to have sufficient access to nutrients such as iodine?
Well, Bob, where would they have gotten those nutrients from? Do tell.
ET – their food.
Nice evasion, Bob. How did you conclude their food had all of the nutrients required?
Because a lot of people have and still do survive without suffering from a lack of nutrients by eating their food.
Hopefully EDTA will chime in to give us their evidence that humans didn’t used to have sufficient access to nutrients such as iodine.
Bob the clueless, strikes again.
Excerpt from the Science Integrity website ( http://scienceintegrity.org/index.html )
For Bob O’H: ‘Hobbit’ was an iodine-deficient human, not another species, new study suggests.
EDTA
By definition, our ancestors had to have sufficient access to important nutrients. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But since you brought this subject up, why would the designer design us without the ability to produce vitamin C, an absolutely necessary nutrient?
Brother Brian- Your straw man is duly noted.
How do you know that we were designed without the ability to produce vitamin C?
And yes, because of Intelligent Design our ancestors had all they required.
What strawman? Are you suggesting that our ancestors didn’t have sufficient nutrients to survive?
Brother Brian has reading comprehension issues. Your strawman:
How do you know that we were designed without the ability to produce vitamin C?
>Because a lot of people have and still do survive without suffering from a lack of nutrients by eating their food.
Yes, we survived, but not as well as in the 20th century. It was in the early part that iodine was discovered to be an essential element for brain development. People might have gotten sufficient doses in prehistoric times by chance, but I don’t think it likely that they got it consistently, nor throughout the entire human population. (Apparently iodine deficiency is still a problem today…)
Mere survival does mean that we grew to our full potential in times past, nor does it explain how we could have gained the ability to use a nutrient that we might have had little exposure to. In prehistoric times, access to green vegetables and fruits would have been limited to certain seasons. Mineral access would depend on the soil in a particular region, and the availability of plants that take in that mineral. Only now that we have access to them uniformly all year long, do we see the benefits of continual access to human development.
>But since you brought this subject up, why would the designer design us without the ability to produce vitamin C,…
As others have answered, we don’t know that we couldn’t produce it in the past.
EDTA –
That’s certainly true, and of course mal-nutrition was one cause of this. But I don’t know that lack of micro-nutrients was a major cause of this (of course diseases like goiter occurred, but if they were wide-spread, I think they would have had a larger focus in the history of medicine). If you have any actual evidence that lack of micro-nutrients was a major problem historically, please present it.
Bob- There wouldn’t be any such evidence because this is an intelligently designed world and that evidence would have only existed if materialism/ evolutionism were true. However, if materialism/ evolutionism were true then we wouldn’t be here
ET
Because, according to many here, we were designed. And because we can’t produce vitamin C.
Brother Brian:
No Brian. No one says that every human was designed. No one says that all extant life was designed. No one says that any extant life was designed.
All extant life has descended with modification from the originally designed life forms, Brian. And with that comes genetic entropy.
I was careful to state my question as just that, a question. I don’t have proof from pre-history; it’s only my suspicion, based on today versus pre-20th century.
But assuming my suspicion for sake of argument–I’ve never heard an evolutionist explain how an organism could evolve a latent ability to express greater health/growth/potential than it ever experienced in its past, but then suddenly express it in less than 6 generations. (I.e., not by yet more evolution, because this was too sudden.)