simian

As far as I can tell with Behe, he understands that common descent is a given (or darn near it). What he seems to be promoting is the idea that some (very small number) biological structures had to be made by God because he can't see how it may have happened naturally.

Why what he is doing is not science is that while he puts some possible items (blood clotting, flagellum, etc) out there, he immediately makes the statement that if structure X can be shown to come about naturalistically, then anything that complex or less complex does not need a designer. This is a classic god of the gaps argument - "I don't see how it happened, so God did it." And he already set up the system up to fall back to something else as each item is shown to be natural, not designed by a deity. Keep in mind that with the sciences, almost every time you answer one question, you open many, many more, so there will always be gaps to put his gods.

Simian

KnightWhoSaysNi

Too bad you couldn't see the clip. The gist of Miller's talk was that the components, before making an "irreducibly complex" system, had other functions. The components, that served different purposes, would come together to perform a new purpose (like a new enzyme that breaks down DDT), or to build a better mousetrap (the simple flagellum of eel sperm with fewer components vs. the more advanced and intricate bacterial flagellum).

Still, I highly recommend listening to Miller's talk. If you don't like RealPlayer, uninstall and erase it when you finish.

Here's a review of Behe's book by Kenneth Miller too:

<a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/behe-review/index.html" target="_blank">Review of "Darwin's Black Box" by Kenneth Miller</a>

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

The Talk.Origins Archive addresses Behe <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

copernicus

I have to agree with Nightshade. Miller's talk was an extremely clear, methodical demolition of Behe's entire thesis about irreducible complexity and Intelligent Design. Here is a <a href="http://biomed.brown.edu/Faculty/M/Miller/Behe.html" target="_blank">Review of Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box</a> by Miller. The review is nowhere near as detailed as the online lecture, which ended up with a very forceful rebuttal of Behe's claim that scientists have rejected Intelligent Design because they regard religious explanations as embarrassing. Miller pointed out that there is a simpler explanation. Behe's claim is demonstrably false.

Irreducible complexity rests on the assumption that none of the parts of an irreducibly complex system have function in and of themselves. Miller ended up by taking Behe's "mousetrap" apart and showing that its parts could be made to serve non-mousetrap functions--a tie clasp or a clipboard. And that is precisely what we find in biological evolution. The parts of the system have prior independent functions; they just don't necessarily have the same function that they do when they come together to form the new system. (In fact, Miller had already shown that many putative examples of irreducible complexity in molecular biology--e.g. flagella--even had functioning analogs with missing parts in some species--something that Behe predicted could not happen.)

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: copernicus ]</p>

Synaesthesia

It is interesting that in the case of Behe’s two banner cases, there have been some significant findings. Various processes in digestion are found to prodive the requisite structures with which a clotting system could evolve. Simpler flaggelum have been discovered than the one Behe trumpeted as irreducibly complex. In this case too, various composite elements are found in simpler systems which could be exadapted.

The fact that these have been found points to something that would be true even without this evidence: Behe’s thesis is an argument from igornance.

Automaton

Appauling. Behe's work is not popular science, that would entail there is some science in his writings. In fact it is a load of flim flam that sounds good, so that the gullible scientifically illiterate public will eat it up with a spoon because it's what they want to hear. It is actually popular bullshit. Have you even read the Blind Watchmaker? Dawkins' "methinks it is like a weasel" was used as an illustrative tool to show gradiated, cummulative change, a principle that helps one understand evolution, but it did not have anything to do with evolution at all. For crying out loud, at least attempt to understand what you are critiquing.

copernicus

Don't be too hard on Behe. He is a scientist, and he did all of us the service of trying to turn ID into a falsifiable claim. I don't think that he succeeded, but he did manage to come up with something that was falsifiable. The best thing about scientists like Behe and mathematicians like Dembski is that they actually get religious zealots interested in trying to support a falsifiable claim. They all pile on top of it, and it collapses. Lots of fun to watch.

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: copernicus ]</p>

Mightily_Oats

Someone who understands my pain! Preach it, brother!

Perhaps in a perfect world. But if "Intelligent Designists" are writing books for non-scientists and Darwinists are only publishing in scientific journals then the wider population is eventually going to adopt ID over Darwin. Do you think politicians will authorise the high-school science curriclum that is most popular with the academic community, or the one that is most popular with the electorate as a whole?


I can't get my head around why arguments like this refute Behe. The amount of modification you'd need to do to a clipboard to use it to catch a mouse would far excede the small changes allowed by darwinism.

Moreover, the sheer ingenuity demonstrated by the "highjacking" of one system in the creation of another system with a completely different purpose, particularly given the complexity of systems like blood clotting, would be astonishing. To argue that this "fluke" happened not once, but in the development of every single co-dependent biological system in nature is too big a "stretcher" for me.

Unless, of course, I'm overstating the complexity of biological systems (as I've said, I'm not a biologist.)

I have read "The Blind Watchmaker." And "Climbing Mount Improbable" (although that was over a year ago). I couldn't help thinking as I read that if Dawkins was the best defender of Darwin on offer then Darwinism was in serious trouble.

On the other hand, I think I had some false expectations. I was expecting something of an Apology for Darwin, particularly in response to Micheal Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" published one year earlier. Dawkins seems to be writing more of a description of Darwinian theory than a defense of it, so I was probably being a little too critical as I was reading.

But as they say "Sensation is Sensation."

copernicus

The mousetrap was an analogy used by Behe to explain irreducible complexity. Miller's use of the components of the mousetrap was to expose the flaw in Behe's argument, which ignored the fact that components might exist for other purposes than just as the component of a mousetrap. Behe's logic required that the components have no function at all other than as the component of a mousetrap. Indeed, organs need not have just one function. They can have secondary functions. For example, scientists used to believe that the human appendix was vestigial--because it played no discernible role in digestion. However, it has more recently been discovered that it plays a modest role in the immune system. Perhaps organisms are predisposed to evolve in ways that maximize the usefulness of all internal components. Wouldn't that be a surprise?

But a highly complex supernatural "intelligent designer" that always existed and just happened to figure out how to design all of this without anyone to help him/her/it and was able to make it all come into being out of nothing--that's not a "stretcher" for you? Are you sure that you've thought this through clearly?

You are not overstating the complexity of biological systems. You are understating the probability of complexity evolving via simple mechanisms over geological time. And you are overstating the credibility of alternative explanations.

It's also possible that you weren't very receptive to the message that Darwinism is the foundation of modern biology and the necessary precursor to the so-called "genetic revolution" that we are experiencing today. Most reviewers give both books very high marks, particularly The Blind Watchmaker. I believe it more likely that it was not the author, but the reader, who was in "serious trouble" at the time you came to that conclusion.

Automaton

If you read it, how could mistake what it actually says in clear, definite English, about "methinks it is like a weasel"? Does your brain simply not comprehend what it reads unless it fits your preconceived notions about the subject, or something?
It was meant to be an explanation, so perhaps the simpletons would actually grasp what they so vehemently despised, but it appears obvious that he failed. The best "apology" available for Darwin is the actual evidence, not some tabloid-quality trash that was written by either a moron that thinks a collection of false quotes is the strongest argument or a sophisticated snakeoil salesman that knows how to peddle it to those that don't have the mental capacity to even look at the evidence through an at least semi-objective light. By the way, Denton changed his mind and retracted all the statements made in his earlier book in "Nature's Destiny", where he fully accepts legitamite science, but you never see the pathetic creationists talking about that, do you?
And that's why the creationist propaganda engine is such a massive industry.