Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Nic Tamzek · 07-08-2002, 10:29 PM

'Tis also worth pointing out that the title of the Cavalier-Smith review of Behe, "The blind biochemist", is actually a clever double-play on words. I.e., "the blind biochemist" can be Dawkins' blind watchmaker, except at the biochemical level -- or, it can be Behe, who just can't seem to get a grasp on the basic literature of the field studying the early evolution of life, much of which Cavalier-Smith has written himself.

I do highly recommend the C-S review (Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 1997), it is the most devastating dismantling of Behe in a single page that I have seen, and there has as yet been no serious response to it from Mike Gene or anyone else. The most they usually do is (a) take the one sentence they like from C-S about how detailed pathways do not exist for ancient biochemical systems (ignoring C-S's point that reasonable outlines do exist, and that these are a far sight better than IDist proposals, which never have any details whatsoever); or (b), object to C-S's suggestion at the end that Behe is a catholic who can't abide the blind gropings of macromolecules inherent in evolution (it was something like that).

I do think that the Catholic remark was wrongheaded given that people like Ken Miller and the pope are catholic and have no particular issue with natural evolution (it is also clear, however, that Behe, although not catholics in general, sees IC/ID as part of the conservative Christian apologetic & has not hesitated to make exactly that move). It is natural I suppose to use this to avoid addressing all of C-S's other criticisms of Behe's arguments.

I think I have the review typed up somewhere; let me quote it and people can judge for themselves:

Please forgive typos...

Quote:

From Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 1997.
Review of Behe (1996) by Thomas Cavalier-Smith

=====================================
The blind biochemist

Darwin's Black Box
by M.J. Behe

Simon & Schuster, 1996
[lb]16.99 hbk (lx +293 pages)
ISBN 0 684 82754 9

What is sad about this book is that the author thinks that he has something new to say and is contributing to science. He believes that life is so biochemically complex that it cannot have evolved by mutation and selection. Instead, biochemical complexity must be attributed to intelligent design. He claims that 'the theory of intelligent design is new to modern science' and rivals those of Newton, Einstein, Lavoisier, Schro[e]dinger, Pasteur, and Darwin, and he attributes the unwillingness of biology to 'greedily embrace it startling discovery' to scientific prejudice against 'supernatural explanations'. Like many books purporting to show that the scientific establishment is wrong, this one appeals to the general public rather than to scientists. Clearly and cleverly written with relatively few factual errors, but numerous logical ones, it has a pleasing air of pop scholarship that may blind the innocent reader with science and conceal its fundamentally antiscientific character.

The basic assertions are similar to the hackneyed claim that the eye is too complex to have evolved naturally, but they are recast using biochemical examples such as cilia, bacterial flagella, protein targeting and the immune system. The sole novelty is the tendentious new term 'irreducible complexity'. Behe calls a system irreducibly complex if it consists of several well-matched parts, and removal of 'any one' of them causes it 'to effectively cease functioning'. He asserts that all the forgoing examples are irreducibly complex, cannot have evolved directly by gradual steps, and are unlikely to have evolved by indirect circuitous routes. His arguments are vitiated by his ignorance of the importance of shifts of function in the origin of novelty and complexity and the numerous ways in which non-lethal mutations can radically change phenotypes.

The central part of the book is a curious amalgam of popular descriptions of the function of some complex biochemical machinery and muddled, ignorant and unfairly slanted attacks on scientific explanations of their evolutionary origin. He rightly points out that biochemistry textbooks either ignore or deal most inadequately with the origin of such things as cilia or vesicle transport. He fails to see that he himself is as ignorant of evolutionary biology as are the textbooks he criticizes, or that his education as a biochemistry professor reared on such narrow-minded textbooks may be deficient in the very qualities needed to understand biochemical evolution.

The blurb's assertion that Behe is not a creationist is at best a half truth. He pays lip service to evolution, accepts an ancient earth, and seems to accept degenerative evolution -- especially where it can be used to weaken classical attacks on the argument from design -- and some other ill-specified aspects of evolution, but has no grasp whatsoever of phylogeny. Though design without a maker is useless, he is silent about the making side of his 'theory', and whether designer(s) and maker(s) were the same entity/ies. He implies that a single creation at the beginning of life might have been sufficient, but to make any phylogentic sense he would have to invoke supernatural interventions also in the origin of eukaryotes (to make cilia and vesicular transport) and vertebrates (to make blood clotting and the immune system). His position resembles that of Wallace1 who invoked directive mind or infinite Deity in creating the complexities of the cell and animal development, in addition to mutation and selection; but compared with Wallace's depth, and breadth of knowledge, Behe's book is intellectually shallow and unoriginal. Given what we now know of cell evolution, I doubt that Wallace would still wish to invoke divine intervention.

For none of the cases mentioned by Behe is there yet a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the probable steps in the evolution of the observed complexity. The problems have indeed been sorely neglected -- though Behe repeatedly exaggerates this neglect with such hyperboles as 'an eerie and complete silence'. But when criticizing existing evolutionary explanations, Behe uses intellectually dishonest double standards. He dismisses my first treatment of the origin of cilia2 as non-quantitative and therefore 'utterly useless', and ignores my later work on the topic3,4. But it does not worry him that his empty, religious notion of 'intelligent design' is equally non-quantitative; worse still, lacking in even qualitative detail of what did the designing, and how the hypothetical design was executed, it explains nothing. He states that 'if a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon but does not even generate an attempt at an explanation is should be banished' and 'without details, discussion is doomed to be unscientific and fruitless'. If he had applied these strictures to his panacea of 'intelligent design' we would have been spared this worthless book.

Behe's attack on Russell Doolittle's discussion of gene duplication and divergence in the origin of blood clotting involves an almost wilful misunderstanding, and his numerical criticisms are as fallacious as others debunked by Ford Doolittle5.

Behe, ignorant of much of the literature, claims that no scientist has ever discussed the origin of vesicle targeting (actually discussed in Ref. 3, not cited by Behe, though the most detailed one on the origin of eukaryotic biochemical properties) or protein translocation (see Refs 6 and 7), the most detailed discussion of the origin of the most basic complex cellular biochemical properties, which he deceitfully ignored despite citing the volume containing it as 'evidence' that no paper has ever been published on the subject!). Maybe he did not want his readers to find the papers (Refs 3 and 7) that most clearly show how one can explain (in outline at least -- obviously they are not the final answer) the origins of complex biochemical and cellular structures in logical steps using mutation, selection and detailed phylogenetic arguments. His ignorant assumption that the origin of a protoSRP would have killed the cell is refuted by the absence of the translation arrest domain in the eubacterial signal recognition partical (SRP) RNA8, which provides a simpler ancestor to the more complex archaebacterial/eukaryotic particle. The problem he raises [p. 112] for the origin of secreted eukaryotic glycoproteins is spurious, because the sugar must have been added to the protein on the non-cytosolic side of the membrane in the common ancestor of eukaryotes and archaebacteria, even before the ER (endoplasmic reticulum) evolved, since it is added thus at the archaebacterial cell surface, as any good biochemist should have known, even without reading my discussion of the origin of the ER (Ref. 3).

Behe is unaware of the extensive comparative evidence, for example, the existence of fully motile diatom cilia lacking the central pair microtubules, that cilia (the most compelx cell organelles of all) are not, in fact, irreducibly complex by his definition. He does not mention the evidence that the protein tubulin, the major constituent of ciliary microtubules, evolved from the bacterial cell-division protein ftsZ (Ref. 9), or that other motility organelles much simpler than cilia, for example, for example, protozoan axostyles, evolved from bundles of microtubules by acquiring the capacity to bend, which he implies is impossible. Of course, ther is no mention of protozoa, in which cilia arose; probably (like many biochemists), the author knows next to nothing about them. Though he criticizes me in particular, and evolutionary biology in general, for 'fuzzy word pictures', I suspect that the last thing Behe wants is a scientific explanation for the origin of cilia. If he really has a genuine interest in molecular evolution, why has he never published on the subject himself in scientific journals?

Behe states 'the reason that "interrupted genes" exist at all is still a mystery', but cites none of the hundreds of papers on their evolution, blissfully unaware of the 'selfish' transposon theory10 of their origin, now widely accepted even by former sceptics5. He seems ignorant of the general concept of 'selfish' genetic parasites5,10, inherent in a Darwinian view of life but alien to the anthropocentric, design-oriented, enginerring view of life so widespread among biochemists, pervading even the cartoons in Trends in Biochemical Sciences.

Are these various omissions merely through ignorance or by deliberate intent because, as a Catholic, Behe prefers the illusion of an intelligent biochemist creator to mutations and the blind gropings of macromolecules?

Tom Cavalier-Smith

Evolutionary Biology Programme,
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research,
and Dept of Botany, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1ZT

References

1 Wallace, A.R. (1911) The World of Life (5th edn), Chapman & Hall

2 Cavalier-Smith, T. (1978) BioSystems 10, 93-114

3 Cavalier-Smith, T. (1987) Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 503, 17-54

4 Cavalier-Smith, T. (1992) in The Origin and Evolution of the Cell (Hartmann, H. and Matsuno, K., eds), pp. 79-106, World Scientific Publishers

5 Doolittle, W.F. (1994) in Creative Evolution?! (Campbell, J.H. and Schopf, J.W., eds), pp. 47-73, Jones and Bartlett

6 Blobel, G. (1980) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 77, 1496-1500

7 Cavalier-Smith, T. (1987) Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 52, 805-824

8 Poritz, M.A. (1989) Cell 55, 4-6

9 Erickson, H.P. and Stoffler, D. (1996) J. Cell Biol. 135, 5-8

10 Cavalier-Smith, T. (1991) Trends Genet. 7, 145-148.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Nic Tamzek ]

KC · 07-09-2002, 03:15 AM

Quote:

'Tis also worth pointing out that the title of the Cavalier-Smith review of Behe, "The blind biochemist", is actually a clever double-play on words. I.e., "the blind biochemist" can be Dawkins' blind watchmaker, except at the biochemical level -- or, it can be Behe, who just can't seem to get a grasp on the basic literature of the field studying the early evolution of life, much of which Cavalier-Smith has written himself

:::laughing:::

Ouch. C-S nails Behe right between the eyes.

KC

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: KCdgw ]

tgamble · 07-09-2002, 04:00 AM

[quote]Originally posted by KCdgw:
[QB]

Quote:

He rightly points out that biochemistry textbooks either ignore or deal most inadequately with the origin of such things as cilia or vesicle transport.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/textbooks.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/textbooks.html</a>

KC · 07-09-2002, 05:19 AM

[quote]Originally posted by tgamble:
quote:

Originally posted by KCdgw:
[QB]

Quote:

He rightly points out that biochemistry textbooks either ignore or deal most inadequately with the origin of such things as cilia or vesicle transport.

I posted that? Where?

Cheers,

KC

Stephen T-B · 07-09-2002, 05:51 AM

I wish the proponents of ID would be frank and tell us what the intelligent design they detect is for.
It's pointless stating that such-and-such is the product of ID if they won't provide any evidence for an intention: design implies intention. Without an intention, design doesn't happen.
The fact is, of course, that they do know the intention, and they have the evidence for it: we are the evidence; Humankind, made in god's image, and the intention of ID is identified by the Bible: that we should live, and in living that we sin or not to sin, and that we should die, and in dying that we be redeemed or not be redeemed. That's what it's all for: the black holes, the mosquitoes, the dark matter and the Venus fly traps.
Trouble is, this isn't science; it's belief. Belief is central to their thinking, and being unable to disconnect themselves from it, they assume that everyone else is also welded to a belief system. So they talk of Evolutionists and Darwinists and Atheists and Materialists as though they were followers of a religious sect and were, like them, driven by religious dogma.
They should be challenged, whenever they pop up, to come clean and to stop dissembling: to make it clear what ID is for. And they should be asked to state what will happen to all that intelligently-designed material when Mankind ceases to exist.

Hans · 07-09-2002, 10:12 AM

ID: No mater what you find, how you found it, or where you found it, goddidit.

How do we know this: My bible says so.

Great science.

Principia · 07-28-2002, 06:23 AM

From <a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000228" target="_blank">warren_bergerson</a>:

Quote:

One of the central issues in the �evolution versus ID� or the �evolution versus any alternative� debates is the integrity or fairness of academic/scientific evaluations. The argument on one side is that "The academic community represents science. Science is by definition rigorous and objective. Since the community represents science it follows that the actions of the community, while not perfect, are based on rigorous and objective scientific standards and are therefore honest and fair.".

The alternative argument is that "The academic community is a human social institution and subject to the weaknesses and foibles of all human social institutions. It is possible and even likely that at times the practices and standards of the scientific community will depart significantly from the intended scientific standards and principles. The fairness of academic evaluations at any point in time can only be determined by explicitly evaluating the principles and standards currently in use and by comparing these standards to the general principles and standards of scientific analysis."

As I have stated on a number of occasions, I believe that the academic/scientific standards are currently severely distorted in much the same way that accounting standards were distorted creating the Enron scandal, and investment advice standards on Wall Street
were distorted creating the current stock market bubble. If you want evidence that academic/scientific standards are distorted look no further than the code of conduct (or lack of code) of the IDC�s posting on this board and other boards dealing with the subject of evolutionary biology.

The stock market bubble, or dramatic overvaluation of stocks, was created by Wall Street by intentionally distorting the buy/sell advice being generated. These distortions were created by hiring only individuals who would generate optimistic buy recommendations, by firing anyone who produced realistic or non-optimistic recommendations, and by discrediting anyone who opposed the accepted line. Contrary to popular belief, analysts were well aware(or could have been aware if they looked at the evidence) that stocks were dramatically overvalued (and in fact are still over valued) and the advice being given to investors was both distorted and dangerous.

If you look at the posting�s by proponents of evolutionary theory you find lots of attempts to discredit opponents of evolutionary theory (Dene�s Demski is a liar thread is a classic) and lots of �everyone knows the theory is right� arguments. You almost never find a proponent of evolutionary theory arguing- "that attack is inappropriate", "that issue is not understood and can�t be explained by current theory", "we don�t know, and don�t know how to go about finding an answer", "that is an interesting question that should be discussed", or "it might be useful to look at that issue from a different perspective".

The fact that there are so few proponents of evolution willing and able to stand up to the �academic thugs� is, IMO, a very strong indication that academics standards and principles have been seriously compromised.

The IDi[s]ts want us to maintain academic honesty and integrity? ROFLMAO. How about they spend more time denouncing all of the pseudoscience that goes on in their oh-so-inclusive, leave-no-child-behind little camp?

[Note: I am going to continue to post these little gems from ARN, just because the level of discussion over there never seem to rise above the kind displayed above these days. If the Moderators have a problem with this, please let me know.]

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]

lpetrich · 07-28-2002, 08:25 AM

The ID guys' whines about being persecuted reminds me of

"To me truth is precious ... I should rather be right and stand alone than to run with the multitude and be wrong. ... The holding of the views herein set forth has already won for me the scorn and contempt and ridicule of some of my fellowmen. I am looked upon as being odd, strange, peculiar... But truth is truth and though all the world rejects it and turns against me, I will cling to truth still."

"These sentences are from the preface of a booklet, published in 1931, by Charles Silvester de Ford, of Fairfield, Washington, in which he proves the earth is flat."
(from :� Martin Gardner,� Fads and Fallacies,� pp. 12-13)

pz · 07-28-2002, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:
The ID guys' whines about being persecuted reminds me of

"To me truth is precious ... I should rather be right and stand alone than to run with the multitude and be wrong. ... The holding of the views herein set forth has already won for me the scorn and contempt and ridicule of some of my fellowmen. I am looked upon as being odd, strange, peculiar... But truth is truth and though all the world rejects it and turns against me, I will cling to truth still."

"These sentences are from the preface of a booklet, published in 1931, by Charles Silvester de Ford, of Fairfield, Washington, in which he proves the earth is flat."
(from : Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies, pp. 12-13)

Except that the ID guys all whine about how the world is against them, and use that as an excuse to cower and hide.

de Ford may have been a goofball, but at least he wasn't a cowardly goofball.

Autonemesis · 07-28-2002, 09:24 AM

I have an new Theory of Salvation, based on research into the physical processes employed by Jesus to accomplish His ascent into Heaven. There appears to be no reason why a machine could not be built that can initiate this process and allow anyone to ascend to Heaven at a time of their choosing. In fact, it seems that Peter and Paul both mentioned this path in the KJV of the Bible, but the Jesus dogmatists have managed to remove most of the explicit references from the Bible over the centuries, and have completely removed them from the newer translations. Unfortunately, they unreasonably fear this new theory's implications would unseat their "Lamb of God" dogma, so the Christian establishment has ignored evidence and scripture and resisted this new Theory of Salvation. Doubting the Jesus Orthodoxy is comparable to questioning the party line in a Stalinst regime. I mean, what would you do if you were in Stalin's Russia and wanted to argue that Lysenko was wrong? That's the sort of situation I'm in.

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07-09-2002, 05:51 AM	#35
Stephen T-B Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Leeds, UK Posts: 5,878	I wish the proponents of ID would be frank and tell us what the intelligent design they detect is for. It's pointless stating that such-and-such is the product of ID if they won't provide any evidence for an intention: design implies intention. Without an intention, design doesn't happen. The fact is, of course, that they do know the intention, and they have the evidence for it: we are the evidence; Humankind, made in god's image, and the intention of ID is identified by the Bible: that we should live, and in living that we sin or not to sin, and that we should die, and in dying that we be redeemed or not be redeemed. That's what it's all for: the black holes, the mosquitoes, the dark matter and the Venus fly traps. Trouble is, this isn't science; it's belief. Belief is central to their thinking, and being unable to disconnect themselves from it, they assume that everyone else is also welded to a belief system. So they talk of Evolutionists and Darwinists and Atheists and Materialists as though they were followers of a religious sect and were, like them, driven by religious dogma. They should be challenged, whenever they pop up, to come clean and to stop dissembling: to make it clear what ID is for. And they should be asked to state what will happen to all that intelligently-designed material when Mankind ceases to exist.

07-09-2002, 10:12 AM	#36
Hans Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Earth Posts: 247	ID: No mater what you find, how you found it, or where you found it, goddidit. How do we know this: My bible says so. Great science.

07-28-2002, 08:25 AM	#38
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	The ID guys' whines about being persecuted reminds me of "To me truth is precious ... I should rather be right and stand alone than to run with the multitude and be wrong. ... The holding of the views herein set forth has already won for me the scorn and contempt and ridicule of some of my fellowmen. I am looked upon as being odd, strange, peculiar... But truth is truth and though all the world rejects it and turns against me, I will cling to truth still." "These sentences are from the preface of a booklet, published in 1931, by Charles Silvester de Ford, of Fairfield, Washington, in which he proves the earth is flat." (from :� Martin Gardner,� Fads and Fallacies,� pp. 12-13)

07-28-2002, 09:24 AM	#40
Autonemesis Contributor Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: I've left FRDB for good, due to new WI&P policy Posts: 12,048	I have an new Theory of Salvation, based on research into the physical processes employed by Jesus to accomplish His ascent into Heaven. There appears to be no reason why a machine could not be built that can initiate this process and allow anyone to ascend to Heaven at a time of their choosing. In fact, it seems that Peter and Paul both mentioned this path in the KJV of the Bible, but the Jesus dogmatists have managed to remove most of the explicit references from the Bible over the centuries, and have completely removed them from the newer translations. Unfortunately, they unreasonably fear this new theory's implications would unseat their "Lamb of God" dogma, so the Christian establishment has ignored evidence and scripture and resisted this new Theory of Salvation. Doubting the Jesus Orthodoxy is comparable to questioning the party line in a Stalinst regime. I mean, what would you do if you were in Stalin's Russia and wanted to argue that Lysenko was wrong? That's the sort of situation I'm in.

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