In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash

NY Times ^ | August 22, 2005 | KENNETH CHANG

[Pharmboy]

At the heart of the debate over intelligent design is this question: Can a scientific explanation of the history of life include the actions of an unseen higher being?

The proponents of intelligent design, a school of thought that some have argued should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools, say that the complexity and diversity of life go beyond what evolution can explain.

Biological marvels like the optical precision of an eye, the little spinning motors that propel bacteria and the cascade of proteins that cause blood to clot, they say, point to the hand of a higher being at work in the world.

In one often-cited argument, Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and a leading design theorist, compares complex biological phenomena like blood clotting to a mousetrap: Take away any one piece - the spring, the baseboard, the metal piece that snags the mouse - and the mousetrap stops being able to catch mice.

Similarly, Dr. Behe argues, if any one of the more than 20 proteins involved in blood clotting is missing or deficient, as happens in hemophilia, for instance, clots will not form properly.

Such all-or-none systems, Dr. Behe and other design proponents say, could not have arisen through the incremental changes that evolution says allowed life to progress to the big brains and the sophisticated abilities of humans from primitive bacteria.

[Doctor Stochastic]

But they are easier to beard than a lion.

[philetus]

What do you believe is an animal in transition?"

I don't.

[Vive ut Vivas]

Well, that settles it.

You know, I don't believe in transitional fossils either... because every animal is always in transition all the time. We're the ones that set the boundaries. Every animal might as well be one big species.

[b_sharp]

OK.

Let me rephrase that. What do you think an animal in transition should look like? Half formed wings? Some aquatic adaptation, some terrestrial adaptations? Describe one for me.

[b_sharp]

Ewe doe-n't expect me to believe ewe've tried that?

[Doctor Stochastic]

We're still on the Topic of Capricorn?

[philetus]

How about a unicorn with monkey paws and a blowhole?

[ml1954]

I can just picture an (evo) "teacher" nodding his/her head and saying "Absolutely" when a student asks, "Does that mean (one race is superior to another?" or "Does that mean Social Darwinism is true?")

Disingenuous. Darwin made no such claim.

[Stark_GOP]

I can just picture an (evo) "teacher" nodding his/her head and saying "Absolutely" when a student asks, "Does that mean (one race is superior to another?" or "Does that mean Social Darwinism is true?")

Disingenuous. Darwin made no such claim.
---
Maybe so concerning Darwin, but my professor (the department head) had no problem teaching Social Darwinism.

[js1138]

Close as I could come.

[ml1954]

Maybe so concerning Darwin, but my professor (the department head) had no problem teaching Social Darwinism.

If he's teaching this in a biology class he should be fired.

[Stark_GOP]

It was a geography class. He was just using Social Darwinism as a springboard for evolutionism. Which he did.

And he attempted to embarrass in class anyone that posed a question about it. Even if you were in agreement with him, you kept your mouth shut for fear of your grade.

[BedRock]

FYI:

You claimed:

The book is not titled “The Origin of Life.”

I never claimed that it was; please reread my post, and try to comprehend the message I was trying to convey by taking all of it into context.

As you point out, Darwin credits the origin of life to a Creator, which ought to make you feel better about the whole thing.

I feel fine about my posistion on the matter. All I am doing is stating 'factual evidence' about what Darwin himself wrote concerning the theory that is frequently discussed on FR. Yet, even though this part of his theory is recorded in Darwin's own book, "The Origin of Species", it is never acknowleged by those of you who claim to be the "experts" in the field of evolutionary insight and defense.

But creation is outside the theory, no matter how devoutly you wish it were part of it.

How can you arrive at that conclusion after the quote I posted taken directly from the scientist who gave the TOE it's status in the scientific community? Darwin clearly entertained the acceptance of a Creator, as well as life being placed here by the Creator, whether in one form or two.

And anytime anyone questions posts by pro TOE advocates, we are immediatly labeled as crevos or religious facatics trying to push our agenda.

Do you not realize how weak this makes all of you look in trying to argue your point of view regarding the TOE?

Instead of directly addressing the points raised and giving detailed reasoning of why science has disregarded said certain part/parts of Darwin's original entertained thoughts on the TOE concerning how the things that inhabit this earth came to be, in which he credits it's beginning to a "Creator", it is readily dismissed in the scientific field. All I am asking, as well as a lot of others, is:

WHY???

[atlaw]

This ignores, indeed craps on, the memory of Martin Luther King and the Abolitionists before him.

Are you suggesting that the only way to honor the memory of Martin Luther King and the abolitionists is to ignore, or perhaps conveniently revise, history? My precise words were "in a great many cases," and you cannot ignore the fact that "aggressive, scripturally based arguments to the contrary" were indeed mounted in connection with, for example, the institution of slavery and the extension of voting rights to women. These arguments were not instantly dismissed or easily rebutted.

You can pretend that such arguments were not made, just as you can pretend that the institution of slavery was swiftly and painlessly abolished as patently anti-Christian, but that would be, of course, nothing more than convenient fiction.

The Biblical arguments of the abolitionists were mounted in large part as a direct response to easily articulated (if patently superficial) Biblical pro-slavery arguments. The abolitionists arguments are to this day a case study in hairsplitting apologetics and hermeneutics.

Indeed, I think it is a fair argument that social norms derived from non-Biblical concepts of justice and equality informed and shaped the carefully constructed Biblical interpretations employed by the abolitionists much more than did explicit Biblical language.

[js1138]

Darwin most certainly DID comment on the "Origins of Life".

Yes, he did comment on the origin of life.

And 150 years later, the origin of life is still unexplained.

What Darwin did not do is invoke the Creator to explain the process of evolution. He did not invoke the Creator to make fine tuning adjustments after the fact of creation.

[b_sharp]

"Instead of directly addressing the points raised and giving detailed reasoning of why science has disregarded said certain part/parts of Darwin's original entertained thoughts on the TOE concerning how the things that inhabit this earth came to be, in which he credits it's beginning to a "Creator", it is readily dismissed in the scientific field. All I am asking, as well as a lot of others, is: "

Actually the reason the study of evolution does not include abiogenesis, or any other explanation for the start of life, has been addressed by us many times. The reason science does not include the supernatural has been addressed by us many times. If you missed those explanations, that is unfortunate, but not every thread will contain every explanation.

There is no rule of science that says all hypotheses that make up a theory need to be retained, nor is there a rule that states one science cannot be divided into many to facilitate specific pursuits.

[b_sharp]

"How about a unicorn with monkey paws and a blowhole?

its obvious from that request that you misunderstand what the ToE says. There will never be such a fossil or animal, nor is there a need for one.

What the ToE says we should find are gradual morphological changes from one species to the next. This is what we find. We find a gradual change from a land dwelling mammal to an ocean dwelling animal, including a gradual change in ear configuration and function, nostril location, ability to drink salt water, shape of head, length of limb, rigidity of spine, length of vertebrae, and form and function of teeth. All of the fossils containing these gradual changes have been found in the expected order. The extant aquatic mammals have been found with residual hind legs.

If you are wondering, the lineage I am talking about is the line of arteriodactyl to cetacean fossils that document whale evolution over the past 50,000,000 years.

If you want animals that show obvious transitional features, consider penguins, flying fish, mud-skippers, lungfish, hippos, or any of the sirenians or pinipeds.

[Kevin OMalley]

If ID only has vague mumblings, then how did it get this far?

How did astrology?
***Astrology did NOT get this far. The president is not pushing to have astrology taught side by side in a science class. Reagan's wife was a dippy astro-believer, but that's as far as it got.




So astrology is finally gone now? Good. It just needed Kevin OMalley to dispense with it. No more of those silly horoscopes in newspapers from now on.
***Astrology is not being proposed by the president to be taught to our kids in classrooms. As far as I can tell, we'll never get rid of those silly horoscopes but that is not the issue. I guess you really did need Kevin OMalley to show you that ;-)



My frustration is, where is the simple, straightforward refutation?

Have you ever looked? Did you read the lead article to this thread? Where is the science in ID?
***I'm looking now. There are some great threads at Patrick Henry's home page. There is a ton of material, suggesting that there has been a rather large, ongoing scientific dispute for some time now. If that were not true, the president wouldn't have waded into these waters. I myself have stayed away for the most part on the crevo threads because the flame wars are too contentious and mean-spirited.


And what part of ID do you need dissected, anyway?
***My interest is in those probabilities, the protein thingie, which seems well covered in the abiogenesis link provided.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html



As just shown, it's been done and done and done and done and done.
***Not on this thread. The game has changed now that GWB has stated a position. You'll attract mainstream intellectuals into this debate. All your hard work in compiling information will now come to fruition. But if the abiogenesists continue in an arrogant attitude, it will work against them because arrogance is a sign of someone defending their own religion.

The thing is, when you're dealing with Holy Warriors, they're going to keep coming back dumb as a stump because that's what they do.
***I can see that you folks are frustrated, but it also appears that there is still some work to be done. First of all, calling them dumb doesn't work -- the strategy got turned on its head when the libs used it against GWB and they misunderestimated him. Secondly, it is simply not true -- looking at that article by Ian Musgrave shows that the creationists have been using finer points of science to generate their positions. That is not dumb. If it IS disingenuine or a lie, then the advantage goes to the abiogenesists. Thirdly, the game is now on for what will be taught to our children in schools, and criticizing sincere believers as Holy Warriors just makes you look like a Holy Warrior for your own side, defending your own philosophy/religion. As long as the debate can be framed in that manner, the advantage goes to creationists. 4th, this is a suggestion: The SETI folks have their own Drake Equation calculator at http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=179074
There should be one that includes the Drake Equation stuff alongside the Musgrave information and a person could see what their own assumptions would generate in terms of probabilities of life both here and on other planets.

[Kevin OMalley]

Good stuff, guys... thanks.

[Kevin OMalley]

The problem for the interested non-scientist is that much of the work doesn't translate well into popularese.
***Yes, you got that right, that describes well how I viewed this stuff. Now that it's becoming a public policy issue, that particular problem will be magnified.