lpetrich

Duane Gish and the bullfrog
Jonathan Wells and the shrimp
William Dembski and the beaver

Animal species that these creationists / ID theories have stumbled over.

Here is the story of <a href="http://www.holysmoke.org/gishlies.htm" target="_blank">creationist Duane Gish and the bullfrog</a>; back in July 1983, he stated:
However, despite having been a professional biochemist, he has never tried to substantiate this claim with published sequences, and some have taunted him with "Bullfrog!"

And here is an article on Jonathan Wells, who had done work on developmental biology: <a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2002/ZZ/693_ncse_asks_discovery_institute_2_7_2002.asp" target="_blank">Where's the Shrimp?</a> JW jumped the gun on some reported research, calling it "exaggerated":
When the work was on transplanting a shrimp Ubx gene into a fruit fly and discovering the attempted production of abdominal legs; the researchers also worked out which parts of the shrimp and fly Ubx genes control leg growth.

And in this forum, there were two threads on this subject, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000205&p=" target="_blank">Where's the Shrimp?</a> and <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000215&p=" target="_blank">As the Shrimp Turns...</a>.

But why Dembski and the beaver? For the story on that, see <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0011/articles/exchange.html" target="_blank">Conservatives, Darwin & Design: An Exchange</a>, an article in the November 2000 issue of First Things magazine. In it, Dembski says:
However, despite Dembski's claimed expertise on detecting design, it seems well-established that beavers build dams by instinct and perhaps also with some simple learning. Beavers build dams wherever they hear rushing water, by piling sticks and mud at that spot; they stop when they no longer hear that sound. I recall a documentary where this hypothesis was tested by playing the sound of rushing water through an underwater loudspeaker. And this <a href="http://www.lrconline.com/Extension_Notes_English/wildlife/bvr.html" target="_blank">article on beaver control</a> warns that if one tries to drain a beaver dam, one must put the drain pipe's outlet far enough downstream so that the beavers will not try to build a dam at that outlet.

In summary, all three gentlemen have stumbled over their specialties -- biochemistry, developmental biology, and the detection of design.

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

scigirl

I don't have much to add except. . .you win the award for the most interesting thread title!



scigirl

RufusAtticus

Damn, here I though Dembski had been caught with his pants down. . . .

Dr.GH

Poking around this afternoon I found this online book chapter on <a href="http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/g-cziko/twd/pdf/twd07.pdf" target="_blank">animal behavior and evolution.</a>

There is, as usual, a massive amount of sceince that is being ignored by Dembski and his cohort.

RufusAtticus

I'm still confused how IDists explain universal common descent without evolution. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Camaban

Yes.

You'd have thought that Theistically guided (and assisted) evolution would have supported what they want perfectly.

A better question is why DO they oppose common descent? (Unless... shock horror... They don't want ID taught in their schools at all, but 6 day creationism and they're just using ID as a stepping stone... but that's just a crazy conspiracy theory )

lpetrich

"Evolution" possibly means "Darwinism" in their minds, so they may be proposing Intelligent Design as a non-Darwinian mechanism of evolution.

Or else they could be proposing something like pseudoevolutionary old-earth creationism -- special creations over geological time that look like some pattern of evolution.

Xeluan

Well. If you have been following the antics of our favourite IDists you realize that instead of trying to explain how common descent in the context of ID, they try and cast doubt over common descent in regards to ToE.

Dembski has claimed that the work of Carl Woese implies Woese rejects common descent. All this shows is Dembski's lack of comprehension regarding Woese's ideas.

Over at A Really Narky bulletin board that I won't name, it was alleged that Stuart Kauffman and a Malcolm Gordon deny common descent. Kauffman is on record as stating that while his work proposes that Natural Selection is not the sole agent re evolution (and other interesting stuff), he accepts common descent. Gordon is a bit harder to pin down though the only work I can find is a reference to a speculative essay.

Note that moderate IDists such as Behe accept common descent so it is hard to pin down what ID really thinks about common descent as a whole. However, Johnson and Wells seem to not like common descent. Dembski waffeles over the issue. As for the YECs inolved with ID that is a no brainer.

Xeluan

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: Xeluan ]</p>

Blinn

I'm under the impression that IDists do accept common descent, e.g. Behe. He freely admits that humans are descended from ape-like ancestors, but argues his ID point on what he considers "Irreducibly Complex" systems, e.g. flagella or the blood clotting cascade.

Godless Dave

Well the second study has a major flaw. According to Leviticus, shrimp are an abomination and flies have four legs. No wonder it didn't work.