'Intelligent Design' Advocate Testifies

where's that flying spaghetti thing at??

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -

A biochemistry professor who is a leading advocate of "intelligent design" testified Monday that evolution alone can't explain complex biological processes and he believes God is behind them.

Lehigh University Professor Michael Behe was the first witness called by a school board that is requiring students to hear a statement about the intelligent design concept in biology class. Lawyers for the Dover Area School Board began presenting their case Monday in the landmark federal trial, which could decide whether it can be mentioned in public school science classes as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

Behe, whose work includes a 1996 best-seller called "Darwin's Black Box," said students should be taught evolution because it's widely used in science and that "any well-educated student should understand it."

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2005/oct/17/101708796.html

The human race was created by space aliens as an alterate food source. :sarcasm:

'Intelligent Design' doesn't explain anything. It finds something we don't fully understand and says, "guess some kinda god or sumthin' musta done it."

But hey, telling lies suits the religionists just fine if it advances their agenda. Such moral, upstanding people.

Phase 1: collect underpants. Phase 2: ...? Phase 3: PROFIT!!!

I can't believe that people are even considering that as science. :eyes:

There's a couple of simple questions which all proponents of ID should be able to answer.


What physical processes prevents genetic change from accumulating to the point where so-called micro-evolution becomes so-called macro-evolution?

What are the physical characteristics of these processes?

Describe experiments which could be undertaken to study such phenomena that would reveal their existence, or by absense of evidence, infer their non-existence.

IDers, like all creationists, never answer these questions.

See, for example, the following article:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2004.08.008

I could hypothesize complex biological processes take place because of giant space worms with lasers. :eyes:

So you're already ahead of the IDers by several steps.

If you take the Intelligent Design argument that there's too much complexity for it to happen without an intelligent being, then why not more than one intelligent being? This is too much work for one.

let's be fair if we are going to fake intelligence!

the god Chac makes it rain by urinating on the earth.

I could develop an alternative explanation to global warming causing this unusually active hurricane season by saying that ol' Chac's just been drinking a lot of beer this summer.

Viola, a complex problem is simply explained.

if I remember correctly. Hey, Chac, time to re-aim or cut back on the beer, dude.

"It's not easy being green."
-Kermit

Intelligent beings from another galaxy, or elsewhere in our own galaxy, may have traveled to our solar system to plant the seeds of humanity. Maybe Chariots of the Gods should be a part of the biology curriculum as well.

"But," the IDer protests, "Who created the aliens? Hmmm? Huh?"

To which I'd respond with another question: "Who designed the designer?"

*IDer changes conversation to who'll win the World Series*

:)

In the famous words of Bertolt Brecht:

God has sufficiently revealed His true character by combining the genital organ with the urinary tract.

LOL!!!

> In the famous words of Bertolt Brecht:
> God has sufficiently revealed His true character by
> combining the genital organ with the urinary tract.

As the Metatron (Alan Rickman) says in Dogma:

"I told you she was funny!"

Tesha

to some extent ?

Still, in men at least, it would have been a lot less complicated and prone to failure if there was a permanently rigid organ that was folded into a pocket or something (for protection) when not in use.

But I guess this only proves that either God is a pretty mediocre designer or that he didn't do the job at all if he's really omnicient, omnipotent and all that.

Will the fundies acknowledge that "God" has to operate within design constraints? And therefore many existing creature designs are far from perfect and exhibit evidence of earlier "tinkering"?

As an aside, iirc, there's an African tribe that sports continuous semi-erect penises.

... to god's ear. ;-)

IIRC that's just how some whales function sexually... the penis is in fact an actual bone is is retracted inside the body of the make whale, but then slides into a fleshy "pouch" (the male's external genitalia) in preparation for copulation.

Now what colour hinges would you like? ;-)

Something about the impossibility of the evolution of the hemoglobin molecule, and another scientist offering a workable hypothesis for how it could have evolved?

On edit, found a link to this refutation: http://www.asa3.org/evolution/irred_compl.html

how this happens, so we're going to make some shit up, and that'll have to do until we figure out the rest."

From the article: Behe contributed to "Of Pandas and People," writing a section about blood-clotting. He told a federal judge Monday that in the book, he made a scientific argument that blood-clotting "is poorly explained by Darwinian processes but well explained by design."

Where is the explanation of design? As someone said above, when things get difficult, just postulate magic. A much clearer explanation than all that sceinece stuff.

Kenneth R. Miller put this argument to rest:

"Behe's contention that each and every piece of a machine, mechanical or biochemical, must be assembled in its final form before anything useful can emerge is just plain wrong. Evolution produces complex biochemical machines by copying, modifying, and combining proteins previously used for other functions. Looking for examples? The systems in Behe's essay will do just fine.

Natural selection favors an organism's parts for different functions.
He writes that in the absence of "almost any" of its parts, the bacterial flagellum "does not work." But guess what? A small group of proteins from the flagellum does work without the rest of the machine -- it's used by many bacteria as a device for injecting poisons into other cells. Although the function performed by this small part when working alone is different, it nonetheless can be favored by natural selection.

The blood clotting system is an example of evolution. The key proteins that clot blood fit this pattern, too. They're actually modified versions of proteins used in the digestive system. The elegant work of Russell Doolittle has shown how evolution duplicated, retargeted, and modified these proteins to produce the vertebrate blood-clotting system. Working researchers see evolution in subcellular systems.

And Behe may throw up his hands and say that he cannot imagine how the components that move proteins between subcellular compartments could have evolved, but scientists actually working on such systems completely disagree. In a 1998 article in the journal Cell, a group led by James Rothman, of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, described the remarkable simplicity and uniformity of these mechanisms. They also noted that these mechanisms "suggest in a natural way how the many and diverse compartments in eukaryotic cells could have evolved in the first place." Working researchers, it seems, see something very different from what Behe sees in these systems -- they see evolution.

It's impossible to believe that Behe is unaware of this, since it is a direct response to his claim. Yet, he brought this up in his recent testimony: ...He told a federal judge Monday that in the book, he made a scientific argument that blood-clotting "is poorly explained by Darwinian processes but well explained by design." ...

Note the way he stated the issue; he made the point in the book. That's true. He just omitted the fact that this point has been refuted by science. It's this type of dishonesty that puts the lie to their entire argument.

Prove he has been very wrong in the past and how actual science does not support ID in any way.

this guy calls himself a scientist?

If Jonas Salk had chalked up Polio as the work of some kind of intelligent designer, millions of people might have suffered or died needlessly.

Just asking.

Therefore, their posession of nipples must be by design, to stop us thinking all men look weird (a convenience like that must come from a designer - evolution couldn't anticipate what humans would think weird).

You see, Intelligent Design is simple, isn't it?

The sad thing is that this really is the basic argument of ID.

behind ...

But not so much if one insists we are the product of intelligent design.

Nature most certainly has the capacity for developing ever more complex manifestations of Intelligence.

But there's no need to conceptualize that capacity as "God" or a Being with a personality much like a humans.

What Behe believes regarding God is largely irrelevant to the rest of Intelligent Design and it's unfortunate he even brings his belief up in the conversation.

develop "ever more complex manifestations of Intelligence." If so,
how does that intelligence that arose out of nature in turn create nature? Any intelligence that is manifested by nature, then by definition, it cannot be the creator of nature.

or, as the conversation goes, Intelligence.

Still waiting for you to present ANY evidence that would back up your assertions. You've never shown any to date.

supports my position rather well.

Your 'theory' (I use quotes as it is NOT a theory in the scientific sense) is not exactly testabe. Beyond that it isn't necisary to expain any data that I know of.

No, see, the burden of proof is on YOU for making the claim in the first place. Not me to disprove your allegation. That's how these things work.

"The Fact That Reality Is Non-Local supports my position rather well."

Well, you claim that it supports your position, but do not detail how. So, again: prove it.

of its biological container. You argued that this nature/intelligence
can develop "ever more complex manifestations of Intelligence." True,
that applies to at least homo sapiens and perhaps a few alien species. That does NOT account for creation. Nature is not creating nature unless you ascribe to nature the powers of a god. All that you have done is give yet another name for god, "intelligence". Do you nmot understand that the argument arises because the other side is not using any god as a source for the creation of the universe.

There is no problem in saying that we were "intelligently designed" by a bunch of aliens? Or say a flying spaghetti monster?

Here is a question for you. Don't you think any theory that is not disprovable is unscientific? How can you disprove a theory that says everything was designed this way by some higher intellgence? Even if you put together every link in the chain for evolution the ID types can STILL say "well, it was designed to act that way". Not disprovable in any way.

It's you, it's me, it's us, all of humanity.

What's not necessary to the equation is a "designer," nor some sort of universal intelligence for which there is no evidence.

That's where the whole ID thing leaves the realm of science and becomes conjecture or philosophy.

Gravity is just a theory, too, and there are inconsistencies with the theory which tell us that while the theory is accurate enough to put a man on the moon, it's not perfect.

On the other side of the gravity issue, using the same critical thinking skills derived from the very same book, governments fought the idea of gravity for a long time, even going so far as to place Gallileo under house arrest.

Centuries later, faced by an overwhelming body of evidence and practical application of the theory, the churches and the governments they controlled relented.

Centuries later, the position of the Protestant and Catholic churches on gravity is duly noted in high school textbooks across the land.

So, should civilization survive the Bush Administration, people in the future will point at this dark and ignorant time and say, "we can do better, and we would be wise not to forget."

Sad but I think history backs me up pritty well on that. They will say 'we have learned our lesson' and 'what ignrant people' but they will do the same stupid crap on another issue.

I hope I am wrong but I doubt it.

But nevertheless, the shamans are constantly being pushed to the fringes of knowledge.

The IDers have a particularly amusing hubris, because they are trying to supply "God" as the detailed explanation for certain questions which have yet to be answered. Should they actually come up with an interesting example of the as-yet unexplained, they will inadvertantly provide a service to science by encouraging the scientists to explain those examples. With every accusation, they weaken their own cause and strengthen the empirical method.

For example, in my own lifetime I've seen bumblebees downgraded from flying by the will of God (or, with equal probability, the FSM) to cleverly using vortex currents to supply lift. The issue has been dropped; the Bible thumpers have moved on, and the bumblebee now flies in a less demon-haunted world.

"...he believes God is behind them..."

I think it's the Inuit raven who is behind them. Or maybe it was Egypt's Atum. In Commanche lore, the Great Spirit collected dust from the four directions. Whereas in China, it was Ziene who did the deed. In Tahiti, Taaroa. The Greeks had Nyx and her golden eggs. I'll bet these eggs had all kinds of eyes and cerebral cells and other complicated systems... Our poor kids are going to need some really big biology books in the future.

http://www.webamused.com/blogosophy/archives/002064.html

Enough said!

The first thing you need to understand about Behe's argument is that it's just plain wrong. It's not that he botched some stray fact about evolution, or that he doesn't know his biochemistry, but that his argument—as an argument—is fatally flawed. To see this we need to first get clear about what kinds of solutions to irreducible complexity are not open to Darwinism.

First it will do no good to suggest that all the required parts of some biochemical pathway popped up simultaneously by mutation. Although this "solution" yields a functioning system in one fell swoop, it's so hopelessly unlikely that no Darwinian takes it seriously. As Behe rightly says, we gain nothing by replacing a problem with a miracle. Second, we might think that some of the parts of an irreducibly complex system evolved step by step for some other purpose and were then recruited wholesale to a new function. But this is also unlikely. You may as well hope that half your car's transmission will suddenly help out in the airbag department. Such things might happen very, very rarely, but they surely do not offer a general solution to irreducible complexity.

Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become—because of later changes—essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required.

The point is there's no guarantee that improvements will remain mere improvements. Indeed because later changes build on previous ones, there's every reason to think that earlier refinements might become necessary. The transformation of air bladders into lungs that allowed animals to breathe atmospheric oxygen was initially just advantageous: such beasts could explore open niches—like dry land—that were unavailable to their lung-less peers. But as evolution built on this adaptation (modifying limbs for walking, for instance), we grew thoroughly terrestrial and lungs, consequently, are no longer luxuries—they are essential. The punch line is, I think, obvious: although this process is thoroughly Darwinian, we are often left with a system that is irreducibly complex. I'm afraid there's no room for compromise here: Behe's key claim that all the components of an irreducibly complex system "have to be there from the beginning" is dead wrong.

It's worth noting that our scenario is neither hypothetical nor confined to the often irretrievable world of biological history. Indeed it's a common experience among computer programmers. Anyone who programs knows how easy it is to write yourself into a corner: a change one makes because it improves efficiency may become, after further changes, indispensable. Improvements might be made one line of code at a time and, at all stages, the program does its job. But, by the end, all the lines may be required. This programming analogy captures another important point: If I were to hand you the final program, it's entirely possible that you would not be able to reconstruct its history—that this line was added last and that, in a previous version, some other line sat between these two. Indeed, because the very act of revising a program has a way of wiping out clues to its history, it may be impossible to reconstruct the path taken. Similarly, we have no guarantee that we can reconstruct the history of a biochemical pathway. But even if we can't, its irreducible complexity cannot count against its gradual evolution any more than the irreducible complexity of a program does—which is to say, not at all.

I wish I could claim credit for this Darwinian model of irreducible complexity, but I'm afraid I've been scooped by eighty years. This scenario was first hinted at by the geneticist H. J. Muller in 1918 and worked out in some detail in 1939.6 Indeed, Muller gives reasons for thinking that genes which at first improved function will routinely become essential parts of a pathway. So the gradual evolution of irreducibly complex systems is not only possible, it's expected. For those who aren't biologists, let me assure you that I haven't dug up the half-baked lucubrations of some obscure amateur. Muller, awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946, was a giant in evolution and genetics.

Although Muller's essay isn't as well known as it should be, the gist of his idea is common wisdom in evolutionary biology. Here's an important application: Molecular evolutionists have shown that some genes are duplications of others. In other words, at some point in time an extra copy of a gene got made. The copy wasn't essential—the organism obviously got along fine without it. But through time this copy changed, picking up a new, and often related, function. After further evolution, this duplicate gene will have become essential. (We're loaded with duplicate genes that are required: myoglobin, for instance, which carries oxygen in muscles, is related to hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in blood. Both are now necessary.) The story of gene duplication—which can be found in every evolution text—is just a special case of Muller's theory. But it's an immensely important case: it explains how new genes arise and, thus, ultimately, how biochemical pathways get built.

So how does Behe explain duplicate genes? He doesn't. He reluctantly admits that different genes often have similar sequences. He even admits that some genes in his favorite pathway—blood clotting—are similar.7 But he refuses to draw the obvious conclusion: some genes are copies of others. Does Behe think their similarity is a coincidence—they just happen to look alike? It is, I think, clear why Behe fails to face up to duplicate genes: were he to admit that one gene is a copy of another, he'd have to admit that a copy was made at some point in time and thus that the organism once got along without it. But this implies that such systems can arise step by step. Behe avoids this conclusion only by sheer evasion: he brands gene duplication a "hypothesis," leaves the similarity of his favorite genes unexplained, and quickly moves on to safer turf.

http://bostonreview.net/BR21.6/orr.html

:applause:

Is that these charlatans are piggybacking on cutting edge systems science- picking and choosing concepts (like self-organized criticality) and putting them together into mythologies that can NEVER be falsified- or proven empirically.

All respectable systems theories (or what Mario Bunge would call- generic semi-interpreted theories) can be testable conceptually- and while not testable empirically by themselves, ARE testable vicariously through specification, e.g.- via a relation to "lower level" theories or models- that can be empirically proven or disproven.

They even have their own "society" called The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID).

Their website is chock full of (what I see as) thinly veiled references to fundamentalist Chistian theology. The Santa Fe Institute it ain't. LOL!

http://www.iscid.org/

For more on Behe (and his Texas pal Dembski) including articles and rebuttals- see:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html

That's what he said. Each of those subjects stands alone. And does NOT add up to any kind of deity. I know well educated people with degrees in one or another of these topics alone. What. The. Fuck. Why is this an argument? People are welcome to believe in whatever deity they want. They are NOT welcome to teach what amounts to religion in public schools.
There are other explanations for the seeming "complications" of life. By applying scientific method, we're able to say-- what about this, or that, to the mysteries of life. Come up with a theory and then try to prove ourselves wrong. Not "this is unexplainable so therefore God did it." Bullshit.--No chicken shit. Where is the beauty of science, the what ifs? The searching for clues? The "Eureka" moments? "Unexplainable so god did it" is cowardly. Pushing that way of thinking off on children is heinous.

I'll tell you right now, If my kids were still in school I be pissed as hell if they decided to teach ID. It negates what I, as a parent tried to bring them up with--a mind wide open to the possibilities of the universe. Including the idea of some sort of God. Including the idea of no God. But that is an inward journey, not a scientific one.

I hate saying this but since the ignorant jump on the word "theory" so much, maybe we better stick to "scientific method". Why do we have keep explaining what scientific theory means? I've only taken a few biology courses and I got it, no problem.

The funny thing about Behe's work is that it doesn't even work as a philosphical argument, let alone a scientific argument.

And by this I mean a BAD conspiricy theory.

It is a classic bad conspiricy theory, because it creates doubt in a theory where no doubt is warrented and posits an outlandish, but simplistic and appealing conspiricy theory in its place.

(yes I know, if there is only one designer it isnt a conspiricy, but you get the point.)

What it would tell you, in a nutshell, is that Intelligent Designer could care less about individual life forms or the amount of pain and suffering any of them undergoes, right up to their inevitable death. Although perhaps ID likes the idea of life and order in some abstract way.

Not an entity that fits well with Judeo-Christian or Islamic doctrine. There doesn't seem to be much point in praying to an ID that could care less about your individual existence. You might be able to abstract some Platonic notions from it, I suppose.

I am just pointing out one of the problems of trying to "prove" religion with observations from nature.

I, in all my carbohydrate-bestowed omniscience, am aware of my supporter, Professor Michael Behe. I await the time in which my teachings can be promulgated to the masses and all will bow to the mighty appendages that support the world.

Ramen.

B

GREAT handle.

Ramen.

We need to restore paganism as it is obviously the only explanation for the complexities of creation.

:sarcasm:

I met him and spoke to him when he came to my school last year for a conference on Evolution vs. ID - he is so into his theory he cant see anything past it, has no valid arguments, and is only able to do this because people give him the attention he seeks. His book is the biggest pile of bullshit i have ever read and he is literally a wack job in all senses of the word.

he "believes" in something. big fucking deal. prove it, or join the philosphy department.

In fact, to cite a miracle is simply to state one's ignorance regarding the efficient cause of an effect. Since "we don't know" is regarded as a legitimate answer to a scientific question, any reference to a miracle is not only superfluous, but injects an unnecessary aspect of teleology into the inquiry, thus further complicating its prospective resolution.