Principia

Actually, that's the easy part about arguing ID. That is because we can always guess about the intents and capabilities of an unknown, mysterious designer. Here's the test -- simply replace "ID" with God. If God is true, then we can expect pretty much anything from an omniscient, omnipotent being. And this is exactly how IDiots abuse the notion of "predictive value." IDiots predict function (teleos) in everything, and as such, they actually argue that ID is more predictive than evolution. If you wish, take a look at the IDiot boards for discussion about "junk" DNA to see what I mean.

Peez

Please reread that post, you have made a number of errors here. First, I never mentioned any cell wall, animal cells do not have them. Second, I never said anything about sugar passing through anything, sugar opened a channel which allowed certain ions to pass through. Third, I did not state that the channel only opened for sugar, I stated:Now, ignoring for the moment the fact that you don't seem to have paid much attention to what I posted, the point here is that a small change in a protein can change what sort of things the protein will open for. This has already been explained in terms beyond your expertise, but I can explain it in even more detail if you wish.Neither, please reread the post.Much further in which direction down what line?No, I am explaining how light-sensitive cells could have evolved in the first place, which is (if I have understood you correctly) what you have requested. We have already explained how such cells could have evolved to more complex structures such as our eyes.You are arguing in circles. First, it was explained how simple light-sensitive cells could evolve into a complex eye. You called this insufficient because it did not explain how those light-sensitive cells evolved in the first place, so we explained how they evolved in the first place. Now you are calling this insufficient because it does not explain how they evolved to become more complex. Do you want me to cut and paste the two explanations together for you?So what?That is a semantic argument, but in any event entirely irrelevant.Do you think so? Based on what extensive knowledge do you make this claim? You could follow that with an explanation as to why this is relevant.You seem to be deliberately avoiding the fact that all your objections have been dealt with. For one thing (ignoring for the moment that you are completely wrong about my proposed path of evolution), the original sugar receptor was not "supposed" to do anything, it simply did what it did due to its chemical make-up and arrangement. Secondly, I have explained how a change can produce something useless, so your vague and unsupported assertion that it would be "more likely to cause it problems than anything else" is just silly.You have yet to point out a problem.It would allow the organism to respond to light. This is very useful to a number of organisms which do just that.I do not understand you, but perhaps you are asking "what are the advantages of having this coloured protein that initiates nerve impulses in response to light?" The answer to this question is simply that it allows the organism to respond to light. For example, it may be easier to avoid predators if one becomes less active in the light.Sensitive to light. From the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:definition 2b seems best for my purposes, anddefinition 1c is the best for me here. So, light sensitive means capable of being stimulated or excited by light. In this context, I mean a nerve cell that will initiate a nerve impulse in response to absorbing light.That has been explained: it would entail a protein in the cell membrane of the nerve cell that would open a channel for certain ions when it absorbed light.The basis is a change in the primary structure of the protein: the sequence of amino acids that make it up. This may (or may not) alter the secondary structure of the protein: certain regular, repeating coils or folds which depend to a great extent on the primary structure. Changes in the primary structure (sometimes through changes in the secondary structure) can influence the tertiary structure of the protein: the generally irregular folding which tends to be determined by the primary and secondary structure. A mutation could result in a change in a part of the protein that is not directly involved in providing a channel or responding to anything, and the protein could function just as it did before. A different mutation could result in a change in the part that actually forms the channel, and this could stop the channel from functioning, or make it leaky, or change what can go through it, or cause it to be open all the time, etc. Yet another mutation could influence the part of the protein that responds to sugar, making it more responsive, or stopping it from responding at all, or making it respond to a different sugar or similar molecule. On the other hand, a change in the channel part, or in the sugar receptor part, or even a change somewhere else in the protein could make it absorb light. Absorbing light means absorbing energy from electromagnetic energy. This increase in energy can certainly change the shape of a protein, in fact that is how proteins are typically denatured (by supplying heat energy). A change in shape might close the channel, or might open it, or it might not affect the channel. Does this answer your question?

Peez

Peez

Whoops. I do not know of any plant that can get "nitrogen right from the air." Atmospheric nitrogen (N2) is not chemically available to plants, they must generally obtain nitrogen from the soil, where it may be found in various chemically available forms (e.g. NH4+ or NO3-). There are bacteria that have enzymes which can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen into chemically useful forms, and some plants (e.g. legumes) have these bacteria living in swellings in their roots. Because some environments are very poor in these bacteria (and available nitrogen), plants that must obtain their nitrogen from the soil do very poorly in them. This has exerted strong selection favouring plants that have an alternate source: dead insects.

Of course, this does not make it any easier for the creationists. They still have to explain why plants would be created without the enzymes which would allow them to thrive on the approximately 80% of the atmosphere which is nitrogen. Instead, nitrogen is frequently the thing that limits the growth of plants, which is why many fertilizers contain chemically available nitrogen.

Peez

MrDarwin

MrDarwin:

luvluv:

Yes, and there are some very intelligent, capable people in the ID camp as well. luvluv, how do you know that they are not the ones making the "very fundamental errors"? What evidence are ID proponents presenting that you find so compelling that it convinces you that the far greater than 99% of biologists who believe evolutionary theory is true are wrong?

Albion

I think this thread is a pretty good example of how ID is also an attempt to solve a problem by defining it away. ID has carefully set up an edifice in which evolution is defined in terms of adding brand-new information but in which natural process of variation and selection, which builds on what's already there, doesn't count, because it it's already there it can't be brand new. There are also enough adjectives (complex, specified, functional) that it can be argued that natural processes fall short of at least one of them, especially if they're defined with that in mind in the first place.

Of course you're going to be able to show the existence of intelligent design if you've defined the original parameters to ensure that it's the only answer to the problem. The point is whether those parameters are remotely useful in the real world of science. I suspect that they're only useful in the real world of philosophy and politics, which is the focus of the ID movement in the first place.

CALDONIA

My readings on the ID/creationist v. evolution debate leads me to make these conclusions: the ID fallback position is that since Science cannot prove (or won't address) the exact identity of a First Cause then the implication is that the (Christian?) God exists as that very cause.

Then they crow that the theory(ies) of evolution are not perfect and airtight, and therefore their (scientific) "failures" of ex-planation or evidence become in turn 'evidence' of the truth of Genesis, etc. This is very curious logic that one should not expect from a person with a legal education, namely, Mr. Phillip Johnson.

I cannot understand the idea that blind faith must be substituted for uncertainty or lack of knowledge in this so-called enlightened age. And using scientific reasoning (albeit grossly misguided and false) to argue in favor of belief without evidence is about as circular and argument as you can conceive.

luvluv

I don't have time to get into all the technical issues and to read everything to which I have been linked, but I would just like to take a few seconds to clarify myself.

I would not consider myself a member of the official ID camp. I have not read very much on the issue. The only books I've read are the ones by Phillip Johnson. I don't have to tell you that those are short on biological information and long on philosophical argumentation. That's not a coincidence, since I find biology boring and would be unlikely to casually read a book on the subject.

I say all this to say that you are not dealing with a dyed in the wool, card-carrying member of the Intelligent Design Movement.

You're simply dealing with a guy who is skeptical about the sweeping claims of evolution.

I don't believe in the separate, special creation of every single species. I think I said before that I thought it was likely that both the Genesis account and the evolutionary account of speciation are incorrect. I meant that. As a Christian, I believe that God had something to do with the origin and speciation of life on this planet. Whether that work required any direct intervention on his part besides creating the relavent laws of the universe from the begining, I don't know.

At this point, however, I flatly do not believe that mutation plus natural selection explains the diversity of life on the planet earth. It's just too large a pill for me to swallow. I look around at the amazing diversity and the amazing adaptiblity of millions and millions of species and I simply can not believe that EVERY SINGLE ATTRIBUTE that they posses comes from a mutation. I don't buy it, and I've never bought it, even before I was a Christian. This is probably not a highly informed skepticism, it's kind of like the consumer skepticism when you're being sold one product that supposedly does too many things. That's the way I always felt about evolution. Certainly, it can do and probably has done somethings, but I do not believe it has done everything the people selling it are trying to make me believe it's done. Now, it's possible I'm wrong, but my skepticism is only slightly informed by my faith (which is why I get so insulted when people on this thread say I only question it because of my religious beliefs).

I've always felt this way and I know a handful of intelligent people, some of whom are not religious, or at least whose religion is fully compatible with evolutionary theory (Utilitarians) who feel the same way. We've all said maybe it's just because we don't understand it well enough, but I find myself involuntarily incredulous at the notion that we are the products of trillions upon trillions of beneficial mutations, with mutations only happening occasionally at all, and with each mutation that does occur has (IIRC) had a less than 1% chance of producing a beneficial effect.

To introduce a few more of my doubts, I've always doubted whether or not the SLIGHT benefit of incremental evolution produces enough of a benefit for a mutant individual to actually outreproduce it's brethren in the real world. It sounds good in a lab to say that an organism with with one photocell which is not yet "hooked into" it's central "nervous system" will be able to outreproduce it's "blind" brothers, but I've always doubted how well this would hold up in the real world.

That amoeba with one photocell which isn't in any way hooked into it's central nervous system yet is just as likely to have a rock fall on it as any of the rest of the amoebas (or whatever they are). I'm a big believer in Murphy's law, and the evolutionary idea has always seemed to neat to fit into real world applications to me. In my highly uninformed opinion, small advantages won't play out in the real world AT ALL, and certainly not to such an extent that the organism which possess it will effectively breed it's brothers and sisters out of existence.

At any rate, those are my opinions. They are probably not indicative of the ID position, so I'll be a tougher nut to crack than anybody who is dogmatically toeing a party line.

I'm simply a guy who doubts that evolution is entirely true. Telling me that some organisms are not designed perfectly, or even have designs that are flat out stupid, won't really help me to believe that all the diversity of life in the world is an unguided, accidental process. I just don't buy it. I never have. I'd be much more inclined to believe that the designers (or at least some of them) were not very good, and were buliding (poorly) upon the designs of someone far superior.

Doubting Didymus

If Rufus is watching, he can give you much better statistics on this than I can, but mutations are not rare at all. I think each human has an average of three novel point mutations. I don't know where you got the 1% figure, but if I accept it, that means three people in every hundred would have one. (thats three mutations each, with a 1% chance of being beneficial.)

If I take a population of six billion,

one percent of six billion people times three mutations each = one hundred and eighty MILLION beneficial mutations just in the people who have been born in the last few generations. Notice that those are all NEW mutations. As you can see, evolution doesn't need mutations to be beneficial anywhere near as often as 1% of the time (and the real rate is certainly much much smaller.)

RBH

luvluv wroteandandAnd one could go on, but the point is obvious. In his ignorance, luvluv doubts evolution. And (because it's boring) he doesn't bother to relieve his ignorance and hence his uninformed incredulity.

Ignorance is forgiveable and (especially in the intellectually alive) is curable. Willful ignorance is neither forgiveable nor curable. He's not worth the effort.

RBH

Doubting Didymus

But seeing as he IS here, and IS at least appearing to have a genuine desire to learn, why not give him the benifit of the doubt? He's clearly not here to challenge us to change our minds, so what do you think he is here for?