DNAunion

DNAunion: I am?!?!?!?! That's news to me.

Look, I'm getting burned out on this...anyone else? If it will make everyone happy, I will agree to the following.

Exactly as stated, pz's statement of interest was wrong. However, pz meant something other than what he literally stated, and so I misunderstood what he meant and intended.

Is everyone happy now?

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

Nic Tamzek

DNA,

I do thank you for reminding me, old habits die hard, you understand.

You've come so far, DNA, it seems that whatever our semantic disputes are regarding the arcane art of interpreting the Words of Behe, gaining your assent on some/all of the following propositions might be possible:

(Affirm/deny/discuss as you see fit)

1) Whatever the exact quantity and quality of Behe's treatment of change-of-function evolutionary pathways, he did not give them nearly enough attention, and certainly his assertion on p. 40 that:

[/quote]

...does not constitute an argument and does not dispense with indirect pathways as an objection to his ID inference. Especially in comparison to the extended argument on p. 39 (and the rest of the book) that Behe gives against "direct" pathways, his discussion of indirect pathways is meager at best (particularly considering the emphasis that Darwin placed on them in the "Modes of Transition" section of Origin).


2) Whatever hairs one wishes to split on whether or not the pathway from passive adhesive trap to active nonadhesive Venus-Flytrap is "direct" or "indirect" on Behe's or anyone else's terminology, there is nothing wildly unlikely about it. As such it constitutes reasonable evidence that RM&NS can and has produced traps that have a "purposeful arrangement of parts" (Behe's def'n of design, p. 193), have multiple required interacting well-matched parts, and which are at least as impressive as Behe's mousetrap. And this undermine's Behe's argument for ID (other arguments for ID being a different issue entirely).

3) It has become increasingly clear that even for some of Behe's chosen-and-declared-IC-molecular-systems, there in fact exists a large and continually growing literature on their natural evolutionary origin. A case in point is the immune system, as documented in

This article:

<a href="http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html" target="_blank">Evolving Immunity: A Response to Chapter 6 of Darwin's Black Box</a>

<a href="http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000152" target="_blank">And this extensive ISCID thread</a>

4) Given #1-3, the ID movement has gotten way ahead of itself in having any notion of getting their ideas into science standards, political resolutions, cultural renewal, textbook writing, and the rest. As their absolutely central IC argument and related claims about the literature have been showed to be flawed, most of what is coming out of the ID movement is hot air without rational warrant.

From what you've been saying lately, it seems to me that you might well agree with all of these.

nic

pz

No. I meant precisely what I said.

So tell me: what is "direct evolution"?

DNAunion

DNAunion: pz, even Nic - who has clearly been on your side all the while - basically said that, taken completely literally, your statement is wrong. He put the blame on me taking it too literally, and not taking other contexts into consideration.

Are you SURE you meant PRECISELY what you said when stating:

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

pz

Yes. What is your problem? I've stated that plainly several times now.

Nic Tamzek

A very good question. The term has no particular meaning in standard biology. However, in (my interpretation of) Behe-land, it means essentially "the evolutionary pathway exhibits improvement of the starting function, with the basic function remaining the same." E.g., the basic function remains approximately the same from light-sensitive spot to camera eye: sensing light.

Clearly this kind of thing happens a lot in biology, but just as clearly a lot of times other things happen because function changes. Behe pretty much (not quite completely but almost) ignored this change-of-function ("indirect" pathway) fact and this is a huge hole in his argument.

DNAunion was trying to say that you said that "direct" evolution -- in the specific sense I mentioned above -- never happens, and thereby have a contradiction between us. I think he is confused about evolution as a whole -- which is not "direct", because functions can indeed change -- vs. evolution in specific cases, which very well can be simply (more-or-less) gradual improvements in the basic starting function.

We're all sick of this one, so let's drop it. DNA can address my broader ID-related points from my previous post, or not, as he desires.

nic

[significant edit to clarify]

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Nic Tamzek ]

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Nic Tamzek ]</p>

DNAunion

DNAunion: But Behe devotes more than one sentence to indirect routes. And in at least one of his mentions, he takes about a paragraph to explain his reasons for believing that a cilium would not arise by co-opting preexisting parts like microtubules and dynein. We may not all accept his conclusion, but he does make an argument against that indirect route.

In addition, the quote from page 40 goes on to mention that the more IC biochemical systems there are that must be explained by indirect routes, the smaller the overall probability is that it can all be accounted for by such routes. We may not all accept his conclusion, but that too is logical.

(I also bring up another point in response to your next statements).

Does he devote enough time to indirect routes? I’m not sure he really has to, except to mention them several times and explain why he finds them wanting. As he says, it is up to those who propose indirect/circuitous routes to give detailed, step-by-step biochemical explanations. It’s a judgment call, in my opinion.

DNAunion: But, Behe continually says things like “this IC biochemical system poses a challenge to evolution”. If Behe says something is IC, he has already implicitly said that it CANNOT arise by a direct route. So why then doesn’t he just say “this IC biochemical system refutes evolution”? Because his original statements are implicitly saying something like, “yes, this IC biochemical system could have arisen by some unknown circuitous route, but is that all that likely?”. There are many such IMPLICIT mentions of indirect routes in addition to his several EXPLICIT mentions. Again, we may not accept his conclusion, but that doesn’t mean he completely ignores the possibility (as many have claimed over the years).

DNAunion: But the VFT “eating system” is not IC. That was another point I was going to make against it as a counter, but just let drop.

So if you are asking me if that instance of a plausible evolutionary pathway shows that an IC system could have arisen by an indirect path, I would have to say no – it’s not IC. If you want to know if I find it plausible that the system – without the notion of its being IC – could have arisen by the indirect pathway you mentioned, then I would say…maybe. :-)

Here’s the thing. Looking at just that one instance, no, I don’t find it extremely convincing. However, when I read about something complex – oh, like mitosis – and try to think about how it could have evolved and am stumped, and then someone – oh, this guy named Nic – shows me that there are many intermediates in various organisms that I didn’t know about, and that this same kind of thing happens for all sorts of complex biological structures, like eyes, and nervous systems, and hearts, etc., then, when it is all taken into account, I am led to believe that there is more to it than what I would believe by looking at just one instance. One instance isn’t enough to convince me, but when every instance I can come up with seems to have this same kind of intermediate-systems/structures-in-various-organisms possibility, then it does.

DNAunion: Not the VFT “eating system”, because it’s not IC (nor does your scenario have it come about as a result of a direct route).

DNAunion: Don’t know, don’t care. I am not in the business of defending Behe’s IC-&gt;ID inference against all comers. As I said here, I just defend it against counters that I can easily spot a flaw in. And, I don’t have the time to look into every counter that people come up with, nor do I claim to be able to understand all the intricate details of every biochemical system.

And again, so what if they evolved? Behe doesn’t claim in his book that they COULDN’T have evolve. But if they did, guess what…I bet it was by an indirect route! :-)

I accept, without knowing, that it is quite likely that details of how certain systems that Behe mentioned may have evolved have been found. As I said, it’s not what I really care about. I accept undirected evolution.

I think Behe has been badly misrepresented over the years, and called a lot of unflattering names that he does not deserve. He is an honest-to-goodness human being, and as we saw when I tried to learn a bit about ethics, we all share certain universal characteristics, including that no one likes to be humiliated or treated unfairly. I feel that someone should stick up for Behe against the illegitimate counters, and I happen to have past experience as an “IDist” so know a lot of the ins and outs. So here I am (look at my first post in this thread, if you don’t get what I mean).

DNAunion: I never advocated the teaching of ID in schools.

DNAunion: I don’t care about politics. Seriously, I can’t even tell you whether President Bush is a Democrat or Republican. And I don’t feel it is right to make judgments on things one knows virtually nothing about, but, ignoring my own feelings, I would say no.

DNAunion: What’s wrong with cultural renewal? I’d love to see a return to SOME older values (not slavery, or disallowing women from voting, or working, or what have you). In my opinion, the USA has gone downhill, and I think a combination of a growing disbelief in God and a growing belief in evolution (two separate things!) MAY have played a part.

Should ID have a role? Well, I guess that’s what you asked and I…being so tired…have ignored (I guess I get even MORE talkative when I’m tired - is that possible?). Sorry.

Oh, let me make it short (NOW!) and simply say no.

DNAunion: I think I’m staring to ramble and am not making as accurate of statements as I would like. Time for me to call it a night.

Nic Tamzek

Fair enough, DNA, thanks for the answers.

nic

(Although...can't resist...The "more and more systems make it less-and-less likely that indirect pathways could explain them all"-style argument that Behe attempts on p. 40 is clearly invalid because it could be applied to any hypothesized explanation, including ID. Our "likelihood" estimates are not known ahead of time, rather they are continually updated. If indirect pathways prove to be successful explanations for cases A-G, and no new evidence has showed up on (say) the ID front or the EAM front, then the likelihood of indirect pathways being a general explanation for the whole class of phenomenon gets raised.

You appear to mention something like this recounting the repeated experience of learning about similarity patterns (homologies, I guess) etc. in hearts, biochemical systems, etc.

nic

scigirl

That may be true. Actually it's too bad the creationists have in a way forced scientists to automatically get defensive when there is criticism of evolution. There should be criticism of any scientific theory - and one way to do this is to play "devil's advocate" (or I guess in this case, "angel's advocate" since evolution is eeeevil! ). However, I have yet to see many people who are critical of evolution because of the actual science behind it, and not because of their religion or their personal incredulity. Too bad really.

Compare the evolution/creation debate with many other scientific debates. For instance, the current one regarding whether hormone replacement therapy is good or bad for women, partly discussed <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=124352 56&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">here</a>.

The 'debators' on both sides are scientists or doctors that actually do primary research. This is true for nearly every debate, except E/C. Very few creationists do their own research - they simply mis-interpret data done by real scientists.

scigirl

DNAunion

DNAunion: Okay, two final points, and if no one replies, I’m done in this thread. I’ll keep the two separate: first one in this post, second one in the next post.

1) Behe’s argument/conclusion is not meant to be concrete, decisive, and unavoidable: it is meant to be an inference to the best explanation.

That is where personal judgment comes in. To grossly over-simply matters…

Behe and other IDists feel that the overall probability of all the many things needed to go from a simple bacterium to a highly complex animal like a bird or human, even given billions of years, happening by chance* is just too great to fully accept. If intelligence – of any kind – is added to the mix, then the probabilistic hurdles vanish. Without intelligence = hard to swallow; with intelligence = no problem. Thus, the inference to the best explanation for common descent involves intelligent intervention.

I believe that, basically, this is how Behe feels (though I must admit that I have no right to speak for him). Behe has said that his religion allows him to accept evolution, so it is not because of his religion that that he rejects the “all-powerful” concept of evolution (note that Behe DOES accept Darwinian evolution – he just thinks it is incapable of explaining all changes/novelties that have occurred/arisen throughout biological history). If it’s not religion, then what? I believe it is what I stated just above.

Of course, if someone else feels that the overall probability of everything that needed to happen is NOT too small to fully accept, then that person’s inference for the best explanation will differ from that of the IDist.


*Here’s the argument. Evolution is completely reliant upon chance. That does not mean that there is nothing except chance in evolution; there is, the directional component, natural selection. But natural selection is utterly helpless to do anything unless chance has already offered up some variation that proves beneficial under the prevailing conditions. Chance underlies evolution, even though evolution is not all about chance.