Dr. Michael Behe author of Darwin's Black Box

[freethinker44]

That's not gonna work, kiddo.

The burden of proof is on those who say that mutation and natural selection is capable of producing multi-protein systems to demonstrate this so.

They've done no such thing.

Have they speculated? You bet your sweet *** they have. But, again, speculation is not actual science. You can try to talk yourself and others into believing that Darwinian evolution has the creative power to engineer these complex systems, but until you actually demonstrate this creative power, Behe's stinging challenge will remain unmatched.

Also, one more correction. The issue isn't that the evolution of multi-protein systems is physically impossible -- it's not. It would violate no known physical law.

The issue is that it's so implausible as to be logically impossible. Random mutation must first create the functional proteins which make up the system, and then assemble them into the actual system. This isn't happening, and Darwinists know it, too, which is why they're absolutely terrified to actually test it in the laboratory, and, instead, cling to their wild and loony speculations.

The burden of proof is on you. You are the one who claimed irreducible complexity has never been successfully refuted. I am simply asking you to provide an example of what you have claimed. Just one example of something that you think is irreducibly complex and scientists have not been able to refute.

 

[Jared Jammer]

Not supernatural? So this "intelligence" is subject to the physical Laws of our universe?

Amazing!

1. How was this sub-molecular designing accomplished?
2. From whence came the designer?

1. The manipulation of chemistry and physics. You know, exactly what our very own bio-engineers are doing at the very present.

Also, via programming language, the genetic code, which is now known to be a literal software, just like the software encoded in your hard drive.

Just like there exists a code which programs for every function on your P.C., from the operating system on down to the various installed software, so, too, does there exist a code which programs for every function of every living organism.

As the world's leading bio-engineer recently put it:

"All living cells that we know of on this planet are 'DNA software'-driven biological machines comprised of hundreds of thousands of protein robots, coded for by the DNA, that carry out precise functions," said Venter. "We are now using computer software to design new DNA software."
--Craig Venter

The idea of life being highly-advanced, designed technology becomes more and more plausible every single day.

2. There are three possibilities: (i) Another designed intelligence, (ii) a naturally-created intelligence, or (iii) a God (a non-created, eternal intelligence).

I lean towards (iii), as I believe design extends into the very fabric of the universe, hence me listing myself as a non-religious theist. However, I'm open to any of the three possibilities. There is no current evidence which conclusively points towards any of the three.

One other thing to keep in mind: The who designed the designer? argument can be used against the non-I.D. position.

Think about it.

You believe that nature, itself, created life. This begs the question of who designed your designer, i.e., who created nature?

This then begs the question of who or what caused that which caused nature (who designed the designer's designer's designer?), and so on, and so forth.

Saying that nature was our designer doesn't get you out of having to explain the designer's existence. Furthermore, there's not a single iota of evidence suggesting that nature has the capabilities of creating life, thus, I reject the notion.

 

[Jared Jammer]

The burden of proof is on you. You are the one who claimed irreducible complexity has never been successfully refuted. I am simply asking you to provide an example of what you have claimed. Just one example of something that you think is irreducibly complex and scientists have not been able to refute.

The bacterial flagellum -- the on-board motor, allowing bacteria to "swim," comprised of, I believe, 40-something individual proteins -- has never been shown not to be irreducibly complex.

Again, there have been speculations which have attempted to explain how it evolved via Darwinian means. I don't deny this.

What I deny is that these speculations are convincing to anyone but those who badly want to be convinced. In other words, we have a group of people that so badly want I.C. to be refuted that they'll accept any argument which allegedly refutes it, regardless of how well-supported that argument is.

That's what the arguments against I.C. come down to. Crappy arguments that are supported in spite of their crappiness, all because people want them to be true.

What I want is some observable evidence of Darwinian mechanisms producing a multi-part biological system. Take some flagella-less bacteria, place them in an environment that would allow great survival advantage to possessing a flagella, and let's see if anything evolves. Now that would be actual scientific evidence against I.C.

 

[Jared Jammer]

Methinks you're too charitable to ID. Astrology is at least
amenable to the scientific method, since it is testable.
Even palmistry & phrenology beat ID in this respect.

Every single test by every single scientist attempting to explain how life could come from non-life, absent intelligent design, is testing I.D.

 

[Krok]

Every single test by every single scientist attempting to explain how life could come from non-life, absent intelligent design, is testing I.D.

Not at all. Every single test by every single scientist attempting to explain how life originated, tests the different hypotheses on how life originated by abiogenesis.

Remember, we do have verifiable evidence that life was not "poofed" into existence at all, but came about by abiogenesis. It's all in the rocks.

So, you evade the questions: How do we test for Intelligent design? How do we falsify it?

 

[tumbleweed41]

1. The manipulation of chemistry and physics. You know, exactly what our very own bio-engineers are doing at the very present.

And you accuse evolutionary biologists of speculation.

2. There are three possibilities: (i) Another designed intelligence, (ii) a naturally-created intelligence, or (iii) a God (a non-created, eternal intelligence).

1. Going back infinitely to what?
2. Naturally created...like man?
3. God, the final fallback of ID.

Thank you for finally getting around to the ultimate motivation of ID and Creation Science.

 

[freethinker44]

The bacterial flagellum -- the on-board motor, allowing bacteria to "swim," comprised of, I believe, 40-something individual proteins -- has never been shown not to be irreducibly complex.

Again, there have been speculations which have attempted to explain how it evolved via Darwinian means. I don't deny this.

What I deny is that these speculations are convincing to anyone but those who badly want to be convinced. In other words, we have a group of people that so badly want I.C. to be refuted that they'll accept any argument which allegedly refutes it, regardless of how well-supported that argument is.

That's what the arguments against I.C. come down to. Crappy arguments that are supported in spite of their crappiness, all because people want them to be true.

What I want is some observable evidence of Darwinian mechanisms producing a multi-part biological system. Take some flagella-less bacteria, place them in an environment that would allow great survival advantage to possessing a flagella, and let's see if anything evolves. Now that would be actual scientific evidence against I.C.

We don't need that much evidence to prove irreducible complexity wrong. Irreducible complexity would imply that the flagellum could not have evolved through natural means because if any one part was removed, the system would fail. All that is needed to do to prove this hypothesis wrong is to show how the flagellum could be usefull without any one or more of its parts.

All we need to do is show that it is reducible and irreducible complexity is out of the question. That is the problem with absolute arguments, they are so easy to disprove with so little evidence. Most of the time, even the possibility that it could be wrong is enough disprove an absolute.

 

[secret2]

What I want is some observable evidence of Darwinian mechanisms producing a multi-part biological system. Take some flagella-less bacteria, place them in an environment that would allow great survival advantage to possessing a flagella, and let's see if anything evolves. Now that would be actual scientific evidence against I.C.

Except that evolution is a highly path-dependent process. It's not like you can dump the flagella-less bacteria into "an" environment that is cozy and static and can then wait for the ta-dah moment.

 

[camanintx]

None of Behe's arguments require the supernatural. What they require is the existence of a prior intelligence. Intelligence is not supernatural, and it's not illogical to propose arguments which include the possibility of an intelligence which preceded our own.

Is there ANY evidence that suggests intelligence can exist outside of and separate from a complex biological organism?

 

[painted wolf]

Michael Behe is not secular. He's clearly stated that he is a religious man. Good for him.

You can be religious and secular at the same time... they are not mutually exclusive.
Secular doesn't mean atheist.... it means that you respect the fact that others have different belief systems as yourself and you don't try to impose your faith on others.

Michael Behe's motivations may or may not be secular, but motivation is irrelevant in science. Behe being religious no more discredits his ideas than, say, Richard Dawkins being atheistic discredits his. Motivations do not matter in science; arguments rise and fall on their own merits, or lack thereof.

Actually, motivation does matter. Subtle bias can creep into research if you ignore your potential biases. That is why disclosure is one of the first things required in a science paper. Right after the papers title and the names of those who wrote it.

Michael Behe's arguments -- his reasoning -- are entirely secular.

I contest that.
Behe is a senior member of an organization that has openly stated that it is anti-secularism and seeks to impose Christian theology on government and education.

If his reasoning is secular.... why is he a founding member and a still active senior member of such an organization?

How can he be secular in his science and anti-secular in his practice?

Nothing in Michael Behe's extensive scientific literature depends on any religious belief or doctrine.

Except his writings on ID... which are not "scientific literature" as they are not formally published in any science journal.
His writings on ID are written as "pop-sci".

The one paper he has published that he claims supports ID never actually mentions ID or irreducible complexity and has been shown to be flawed. He really should have realized that point mutations are not the only kinds of mutations. It was a fatal flaw that was really disappointing.

I.C. is a concept that any honest person of any belief -- including atheism -- can accept. I, myself, am non-religious, and I accept I.C.

I'm a theist and I can see it as religious from the get go.

Who is the designer? How do you test for and identify it?

Let me just say that in many ways I respect Behe... he is a good biochemist and he is honest in most regards about the evidence for evolution. He doesn't dispute human evolution or common decent in any way. He is very disciplined in his overall approach to ID, limiting it mostly to the field that he actually qualified to speak on. Plus, he admits that he isn't really qualified to debate genetics, paleontology or any of the other fields that he isn't trained in.

I think he is personally invested in ID and as such, he is compelled to defend it and deflect any criticism of it. It's a disappointingly frequent trait in scientists who champion a controversial pet hypothesis.

wa:do

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

The bacterial flagellum -- the on-board motor, allowing bacteria to "swim," comprised of, I believe, 40-something individual proteins -- has never been shown not to be irreducibly complex.

Again, there have been speculations which have attempted to explain how it evolved via Darwinian means. I don't deny this.

What Behe has never attempted is to show that the flagellum could not evolve, as he claims. He just simply claims that he can't think of a way how it could evolve, therefore it can't. That is a logical fallacy known as an argument from ignorance.

Frankly, Behe has not offered anything that needs to be refuted. What he needs to do is support his claims, which he has not done.

What I deny is that these speculations are convincing to anyone but those who badly want to be convinced. In other words, we have a group of people that so badly want I.C. to be refuted that they'll accept any argument which allegedly refutes it, regardless of how well-supported that argument is.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

Behe has asserted without evidence that IC systems can not evolve.

What I want is some observable evidence of Darwinian mechanisms producing a multi-part biological system. Take some flagella-less bacteria, place them in an environment that would allow great survival advantage to possessing a flagella, and let's see if anything evolves. Now that would be actual scientific evidence against I.C.

Way to shift the burden of proof. Behe claims that IC systems were produced by an intelligent agent. Where is the observable evidence of this? When have we ever observed Behe's supposed designer doing anything? All we have is Behe's incredulity and ignorance as a basis for his arguments. That's a big FAIL in the science world.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

What I want is some observable evidence of Darwinian mechanisms producing a multi-part biological system. Take some flagella-less bacteria, place them in an environment that would allow great survival advantage to possessing a flagella, and let's see if anything evolves. Now that would be actual scientific evidence against I.C.

I see... so.... you want reproducible results duplicating (or at least replicating) a process which took billions of years (while planet wide resources were available) within a controlled environment (which would therefore mean that less resources will be available for the process to occur decreasing the chances of those particular chemical reactions occurring).

It is disingenuous to suggest that because we have not replicated the entire evolutionary process from non life to complex life in a single experiment that there is insufficient evidence... after all... to replicate such a process would require millions possibly billions of years - and that is ignoring the possibility that the limitation of access to resources might in some way alter the timeline, potentially even acting as a bottleneck preventing any required intermediate stages.

It is an argument developed for the sake of delaying (for millions of years) the acceptance of demonstrated fact (though I am sure that were such an experiment successful in demonstrating such a process entirely - there would still be those that suggested that the design of the experiment's initial conditions likewise provided support for a designer of the universe).

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Michael Behe? You mean the "irreducible complexity" guy?
What an idea. How can there be "irreducible complexity", scientifically?

Maybe you should watch this video. It starts from the beginning and takes you through it.

[youtube]gl89HIJ6HDo[/youtube]
Carl Sagan On Evolution - YouTube

This.....:yes:

 

[Dirty Penguin]

How disgustingly disingenuous. You expect us to respect Behe's position because of his credentials, but I could easily name thounsands of scientist with equal or greater credentials who insist that intelligent design is complete nonsense. That apparently holds no weight with you, why do you expect us to bow to Behe's degree?

And let me also remind you that Behe is an "evolutionist". Behe believes in common descent. He believes that humans and chimps share a common ancestor, that all life shares a common ancestor, and he even believes that mutation and natural selection explains most of this.


(I don't know why we bother with this)

And this......:yes:

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Others have claimed that irreducible complexity has already been falsified/discredited. This means at least one of three things must be true:

(i) It has been submitted to peer-review.

(ii) Peer-review isn't the be-all, end-all of scientific ideas.

(iii) These people are talking a load of nonsense.
​

[youtube]m2alpk8PUd4[/youtube]
Irreducible Complexity (bacterial flagellum) debunked.flv - YouTube


[youtube]a_5FToP_mMY[/youtube]
Irreducible Complexity? The Bacterial Flagellum - YouTube


IC is bunk.......

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

I see... so.... you want reproducible results duplicating (or at least replicating) a process which took billions of years (while planet wide resources were available) within a controlled environment (which would therefore mean that less resources will be available for the process to occur decreasing the chances of those particular chemical reactions occurring).

It is disingenuous to suggest that because we have not replicated the entire evolutionary process from non life to complex life in a single experiment that there is insufficient evidence... after all... to replicate such a process would require millions possibly billions of years - and that is ignoring the possibility that the limitation of access to resources might in some way alter the timeline, potentially even acting as a bottleneck preventing any required intermediate stages.

It is an argument developed for the sake of delaying (for millions of years) the acceptance of demonstrated fact (though I am sure that were such an experiment successful in demonstrating such a process entirely - there would still be those that suggested that the design of the experiment's initial conditions likewise provided support for a designer of the universe).

Quite frankly, you are taking the wrong approach. You are playing into the logical fallacy that they are constructing which is a false dichotomy. They want this discussion to be about evolution vs. ID. That is not what it is. Evolution could be wrong, but so too could ID. The real scientific discussion is about what really happened, and how do we figure it out.

Let's time travel back to 1900 and use gravity as our example. Let's say that I believe in gravity fairies which are supernatural designers that guide the movement and attraction of masses. My nemesis is the anti-fairy atheistic belief that a simple naturalistic force causes this attraction between masses. What do I do? Well, since Newtonian gravity is the dominant theory I attack it. If it falls then my gravity fairies are obviously the only explanation left and schools will be forced to teach students about the awesomeness of fairies so that they can develop a personal relationship with them. Right?

Luckily, I have just what I need. Mercury. That precocious little planet has just what I need. It has a precession in its orbit that violates the predictions made by Newton's laws. BINGO. Newton false . . . fairies true. I win. Right?

WRONG. This is a false dichotomy. It pretends that Newtonian gravity is the only possible naturalistic explanation. It isn't. As it turns out, this little crazy jewish guy with funny hair discovered a naturalistic explanation that was different from Newton's, and it turned out to be right. Gravity was not an instantaneous force that pulled one mass to another. Crazily enough, mass actually distorts spacetime (oh yeah, forgot to mention that they are one in the same) which causes things to be pushed, not pulled. Wierd, huh?

So no, fairies are not involved. It was quite silly to think that falsifying Newton would actually demonstrate that they were involved. So why should we play this game with biodiversity? So what if evolution is wrong? That doesn't prove ID. Never has. Whenever we participate in this type of argument we are playing right into their logically fallacious hand. For the sake of the argument, let's agree with them. IC systems didn't evolve. NOW, SHOW THAT AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER DID IT.

Sit back and watch their jaws hit the floor.

 

[outhouse]

Evolution could be wrong,

well that is straight up horse pucky

 

[InformedIgnorance]

I am aware that Evolution (in it's current incarnation) might be limited or flawed - I am examining the supposed reason why all of the experiments that have been conducted on the various sub components of past and current evolutionary theory are 'insufficient'... that is that those who oppose this general school of thought in explaining (biological in this case) alterations over time generally suggest that the failure (thus far at least) to replicate the entire process from non life to complex organisms within a single experiment shows that the general school of thought is incorrect.

My point simply was that such a requirement (for the replication of the entire process from non life to complex life without involvement, within a controlled setting that would replicate the conditions purported to exist in primordial earth) is one that is to all intents and purposes impossible - (unless perchance we are able to develop the capacity to increase the frequency of change within a field - i.e. speed up time within the experiment) and is therefore a request made knowing that it cannot be satisfied when there already exists sufficient evidence to show that at least the GENERAL school of thought about evolution is correct (even Behe acknowledges that); though potentially the precise understanding of how that process works (and worked) may be incorrect in some of the finer details.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

well that is straight up horse pucky

The theory of evolution is certainly not 100% accurate, nor is it complete. Why else would scientists be doing research on it?

 

[Krok]

The theory of evolution is certainly not 100% accurate, nor is it complete. Why else would scientists be doing research on it?

The fact of biological evolution is 100% accurate. The Theory of Evolution is not complete. That's why scientists do research on it; they are trying to figure out exactly how. Just like gravity, etc.