The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
hardcover
Molecular Machines webpage (thanks Val)
Posted on 12/17/2013 9:37:27 AM PST by Heartlander
The debut at #7 on the New York Times best seller list last July of Stephen Meyer’s new book Darwin’s Doubt is evidence that the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID) continues to gain momentum. Since critics often misrepresent ID, and paint ID advocates as a fanatical fringe group, it is important to understand what intelligent design is, and what it is not.
Until Charles Darwin, almost everyone everywhere believed in some form of intelligent design (the majority still do): not just Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but almost every tribesman in every remote corner of the world drew the obvious conclusion from observing animals and plants that there must have been a mind behind the creation of living things. Darwin thought he could explain all of this apparent design through natural selection of random variations. In spite of the fact that there is no direct evidence that natural selection can explain anything other than very minor adaptations, his theory has gained widespread popularity in the scientific world, simply because no one can come up with a more plausible theory to explain evolution, other than intelligent design, which is dismissed by most scientists as “unscientific.”
But, in recent years, as scientific research has continually revealed the astonishing dimensions of the complexity of life, especially at the microscopic level, support for Darwin’s implausible theory has continued to weaken, and since the publication in 1996 of Darwin’s Black Box by Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, a growing minority of scientists have concluded, with Behe, that there is no possible explanation for the complexity of life other than intelligent design.
But what exactly, do these “ID scientists” believe? There is no general agreement among advocates of intelligent design as to exactly where, when, or how design was manifested in the history of life. Most, but not quite all, accept the standard timeline for the beginning of the universe, of life, and of the major animal groups. Many, including Behe, accept common descent. Probably all reject natural selection as an adequate explanation for the complexity of life, but so do many other scientists who are not ID proponents. So what exactly do ID proponents believe?
Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to state clearly what you have to believe in order not to believe in intelligent design. Peter Urone, in his 2001 physics text College Physics writes, “One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that only four distinct forces account for all known phenomena.” The prevailing view in science today is that physics explains all of chemistry, chemistry explains all of biology, and biology completely explains the human mind; thus physics alone explains the human mind and all it does. This is what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design, that the origin and evolution of life, and the evolution of human consciousness and intelligence, are due entirely to a few unintelligent forces of physics. Thus you must believe that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into computers and science texts and jet airplanes.
Contrary to popular belief, to be an ID proponent you do not have to believe that all species were created simultaneously a few thousand years ago, or that humans are unrelated to earlier primates, or that natural selection cannot cause bacteria to develop a resistance to antibiotics. If you believe that a few fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones, you are probably not an ID proponent, even if you believe in God. But if you believe there must have been more than unintelligent forces at work somewhere, somehow, in the whole process: congratulations, you are one of us after all!
This article also appeared in the El Paso Times. For more of Dr. Sewell’s writings on evolution and intelligent design, see his 2000 Mathematical Intelligencer article “A Mathematician’s View of Evolution.”
I downloaded the free sample of the Cell book for Kiindle.
Great story about Watson and Crick and the double helix upending the “We are about to make life in a test tube any day now!” crowd.
“Intellectual”
An idea so utterly stupid that only an intellectual could believe it
Believing in intelligent design is like believing you see and hear.
ID Theories??
Noah’s Ark theory of the great Flood ??
Thanks.
"For two millennia, the design argument provided an intellectual foundation for much of Western thought. From classical antiquity through the rise of modern science, leading philosophers, theologians, and scientists. From Plato to Aquinas to Newton, maintained that nature manifests the design of a preexistent mind or intelligence. Moreover, for many Western thinkers, the idea that the physical universe reflected the purpose or design of a preexistent mind, a Creator, served to guarantee humanity's own sense of purpose and meaning. Yet today in nearly every academic discipline from law to literary theory, from behavioral science to biology, a thoroughly materialistic understanding of humanity and its place in the universe has come to dominate. Free will, meaning, purpose, and God have become pejorative terms in the academy. Matter has subsumed mind; cosmos replaced Creator."
- Steven Meyer
Indeed...
Does it sounds like animism?
The intelligence or spirit is inherent in the form itself.
Darwin had the excuse of utter ignorance of the stupendous complexity of the most “simple” cells. He thought they were just simple blobs of protoplasm. Modern scientists can’t cling to such ignorance, not if they have a shred of honesty. And such stupendous complexity of the most “simple” of cells makes abiogenesis, that lifeless chemicals created life, moronically ridiculous. It’s sort of like believing that a tornado tearing through a junkyard could create a fully functional 747. But such is the faith of secular leftists, whose twin “gods” are time and chance.
Pasteur coined the law of biogenesis, that life begets life, and it has NEVER been proven wrong. It’s still a law of science. But evolutionist “true believers” still cling to spontaneous generation.
ID is the application of design theory to the natural and living world.
Unguided Chemical Processes Cannot Explain the Origin of the Genetic Code.
To appreciate this problem, consider the origin of the first DVD and DVD player. DVDs are rich in information, but without the machinery of a DVD player to read the disk, process its information, and convert it into a picture and sound, the disk would be useless. But what if the instructions for building the first DVD player were only found encoded on a DVD? You could never play the DVD to learn how to build a DVD player. So how did the first disk and DVD player system arise? The answer is obvious: a goal-directed process -- intelligent design -- is required to produce both the player and the disk.
In living cells, information-carrying molecules (such as DNA or RNA) are like the DVD, and the cellular machinery that reads that information and converts it into proteins is like the DVD player. As in the DVD analogy, genetic information can never be converted into proteins without the proper machinery. Yet in cells, the machines required for processing the genetic information in RNA or DNA are encoded by those same genetic molecules -- they perform and direct the very task that builds them.
This system cannot exist unless both the genetic information and transcription/translation machinery are present at the same time, and unless both speak the same language. Not long after the workings of the genetic code were first uncovered, biologist Frank Salisbury explained the problem in a paper in American Biology Teacher:
It's nice to talk about replicating DNA molecules arising in a soupy sea, but in modern cells this replication requires the presence of suitable enzymes. ... [T]he link between DNA and the enzyme is a highly complex one, involving RNA and an enzyme for its synthesis on a DNA template; ribosomes; enzymes to activate the amino acids; and transfer-RNA molecules. ... How, in the absence of the final enzyme, could selection act upon DNA and all the mechanisms for replicating it? It's as though everything must happen at once: the entire system must come into being as one unit, or it is worthless. There may well be ways out of this dilemma, but I don't see them at the moment.The same problem confronts modern RNA world researchers, and it remains unsolved. As two theorists observed in a 2004 article in Cell Biology International:
The nucleotide sequence is also meaningless without a conceptual translative scheme and physical "hardware" capabilities. Ribosomes, tRNAs, aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, and amino acids are all hardware components of the Shannon message "receiver." But the instructions for this machinery is itself coded in DNA and executed by protein "workers" produced by that machinery. Without the machinery and protein workers, the message cannot be received and understood. And without genetic instruction, the machinery cannot be assembled.From: Top Five Problems with Current Origin-of-Life Theories
What is design theory?
The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
hardcover
Molecular Machines webpage (thanks Val)
Bookmark. Very informative post. Thanks!
What you are saying then is that the bedrock of evolutionary theory is based upon unsupported suppositions. Therefore, TOE should NOT be taught as fact to impressionable school children. It’s nothing but foolhardy speculation and propaganda, IMO. Bob
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
