Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Plausibility of (ID) Life

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Here are some excerpts from The Plausibility of Life, by Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart. While reading the book, I find that along the way the types of statements which follow are to be found almost everywhere .

One of the objections (disingenuous, in my opinion) that the Darwinists have to ID is that “we don’t know who the designer is; therefore, how can we possibly identify his designs?” Well the following quotes make it quite clear that the designer’s designs are easily identified. All’s you have to be to detect the design is be a graduate of an engineering school. No wonder lots of ID proponents have engineering backgrounds (including myself.).

Here are just some quotes:

“In this turtle, males are produced at lower temperatures 78° F (26° C) and females at higher, 88° F (31° C), the opposite of the alligator. In a flip-flop circuit, not unlike a thermostat that would gratify any engineer, a small difference in the level of a regulator of estrogen synthesis can be amplified into one of two states, a high-estrogen state (female development) or a low-estrogen state (male development). . . .The result is a bistable switch driven one way or the other by the temperature dependence of the production of SF-1 protein.” (p. 94) . . . .

“In the end, several major refinements had to be added to the bacterial model to explain gene regulation in the much more complicated eukaryotic cells, including humans. . . . A second refinement was the linkage of several transcriptional regulators and genes into complex circuits, including circuits in which certain regulators control the expression of genes encoding other regulators. These circuits can have logical and operational features like those in computers. . . . The logical structure of these circuits is only now being worked out, but they bear strong resemblance to logic circuits in engineering.” (p. 119)

Comments
Mendeleef did not arrive at his Periodic Table of the Elements through experiment. He simply discovered it. It was always there just as was Godfrey Hardy's mathematics, prescribed, written by the Big front Loader in the Sky (BFL), just waiting to be disclosed. That is all that science has ever been, the disclosure of what has always been there. I thought everybody knew that, but apparently not, at least by the Darwinian mystics.John Davison
February 2, 2006
February
02
Feb
2
02
2006
03:57 AM
3
03
57
AM
PDT
Xavier, let me add that if we're talking about biological systems that have been 'engineered', then who better than engineers to detect this?PaV
February 1, 2006
February
02
Feb
1
01
2006
06:35 AM
6
06
35
AM
PDT
Xavier: "It puzzles me why engineers should think themselves better at biology than biologists. Also, the objection to ID I see most often from darwinists is “there is no theory of ID”, at least in the “testable Scientific hypothesis” category." Xavier, it might interest you to know that I also have a degree in biology. And I didn't say the 'most often' used objection; I said 'one of' the objections.... And BTW, engineers have a real fascination for how things work, what makes them tick. They like to take things apart and then put them back together again. Maybe we just intuitively know that there's no way you're going to put life together by 'chance.'PaV
January 31, 2006
January
01
Jan
31
31
2006
05:10 PM
5
05
10
PM
PDT
The sex can also be influenced by adding the appropriate hormones, estrogen or testosterone, to the medium durimg embryonic development in frogs and probably many other organisms as well. It seems that all the necessary information for the production of both sexes is comtained in the female genome. All monoecious (hermaphroditic) organisms show the same thing. NOW ATTENTION CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS EVERYWHERE! It is also supported by the production of males among parthenogentically produced frogs. This can offer a scientifically sound basis for the the virgin origin of Christ in which case it would not necessarily have been a miracle. Just don't assume that I subscribe to that interpretation.John Davison
January 31, 2006
January
01
Jan
31
31
2006
03:54 PM
3
03
54
PM
PDT
One of the objections (disingenuous, in my opinion) that the Darwinists have to ID is that “we don’t know who the designer is; therefore, how can we possibly identify his designs?” Well the following quotes make it quite clear that the designer’s designs are easily identified. All’s you have to be to detect the design is be a graduate of an engineering school. No wonder lots of ID proponents have engineering backgrounds (including myself.). It puzzles me why engineers should think themselves better at biology than biologists. Also, the objection to ID I see most often from darwinists is "there is no theory of ID", at least in the "testable Scientific hypothesis" category.Xavier
January 31, 2006
January
01
Jan
31
31
2006
03:13 PM
3
03
13
PM
PDT
The more complicated a system gets, the more probable is the design inference.Red Reader
January 31, 2006
January
01
Jan
31
31
2006
11:48 AM
11
11
48
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply