The dishonesty of creationists.

[challupa]

Have you ever seen the evolution that you believe in? Have you seen humans evolved from something else? Let's face it, you haven't seen it, yet you believe it. I will consider your argument defeated.

No, but I have seen fossils and DNA charts that show us a lot more than what you are believing which is a poof by god. If god poofs things into existence then why don't we see a human with a spine that actually is well made to support us standing on two legs? You'd think god could have at least done that for us instead of us always having to suffer from lower back injuries. We are a work in progress MOF whether you like it or not. Either that or your god isn't too good at creating things. Maybe he is a secondary god that's still learning how to make solar systems and all that.

 

[challupa]

The reason that you, and the scientists you support, do that is because they believe that mankind is the "end all and beat all" of intellegent beings. Their arrogance makes them reject even the possibilty of a life form with a deeper understanding than them. They proport to be able to prove the existance of more than 11 dimensions of existance, but only consider the ones they are living in to determine the origin of life. In my estimation that is just proposterous on it's face.

The fact is, as I stated earlier, you will never serioously consider the possibility of Intellegent design becasue you are afraid of the implications if it is true. That one day you may have to stand before an almighty God and give account for how you spent this life trying to convince people of His non-existance.

Yes scientists who believe we came from the same ancestor as apes are the ones who think we are the most intelligent beings in the universe versus creationists who absolutely can't stand to think they might have evolved. They believe that they have always been intelligent because they were made that way. Who is it that's having trouble with not being intelligent....

Once again, evolution has nothing to do with believing in god. You can believe in evolution and still believe in god. We don't know how things got here, we just know what happened after they did. That is evolution. Also, do you really believe an athiest would be concerned about standing before something they don't even believe in? Stop with your religious threats.

 

[2nd mouse]

Problem is that this is NOTHING more than your opinion.
Your presenting it as fact merely further points out the truth of the thread title.

Thats silly, of coarse it's my opinion.

Are you even going to acknowledge your blatant error concerning Behe? I am not expecting it, but thought I would ask any way.

Any error in my assessment of Behe's view, which I allready addressed, was rectified by His letter to the January 2009 issue of Trends in Microbiology that I posted.

 

[McBell]

Thats silly, of coarse it's my opinion.

Yet YOU claimed it was a fact:

The fact is, as I stated earlier, you will never serioously consider the possibility of Intellegent design becasue you are afraid of the implications if it is true. That one day you may have to stand before an almighty God and give account for how you spent this life trying to convince people of His non-existance.

Care to try again?

Any error in my assessment of Behe's view, which I allready addressed, was rectified by His letter to the January 2009 issue of Trends in Microbiology that I posted.

Your letter was completely destroyed by actual facts:

That is a misrepresentation of his view. And i will admit that my previous rebuttal was somewhat errant along these same lines.

The following is Michael Behe's explanation of IC. Refuting the mischaracterization of his views.

Dear Readers,

The January 2009 issue of Trends in Microbiology contains an article entitled “Bacterial flagellar diversity and evolution: seek simplicity and distrust it?” Unfortunately, like many people, the authors have a mistaken view of irreducible complexity, as well as a very shallow idea of what a Darwinian “precursor” to an irreducibly complex system might be. I wrote a letter to the editor of the journal to point out these difficulties. Alas, they said they had no room to publish it. Below is the letter that I sent.

To the editor:
In their recent article “Bacterial flagellar diversity and evolution: seek simplicity and distrust it?” Snyder et al. (2009) [1] attribute to me a view of irreducible complexity concerning the flagellum that I do not hold. They write “One advocate of ID, Behe, has argued that the bacterial flagellum shows the property of ‘irreducible complexity’, that is, that it cannot function if even a single one of its components is missing”. That isn’t quite right. Rather, I argued that necessary structural and functional components cannot be missing. In Darwin’s Black Box I wrote, “The bacterial flagellum uses a paddling mechanism. Therefore it must meet the same requirements as other such swimming systems. Because the bacterial flagellum is necessarily composed of at least three parts—a paddle, a rotor, and a motor—it is irreducibly complex.” [2] A particular auxiliary component of the flagellar system, such as, say, a chaperone protein, may or may not be needed for the system to work under particular circumstances. However, if it is missing a necessary mechanical part, it simply cannot work.

That shouldn’t be controversial. In fact Snyder et al (2009) avail themselves of the same reasoning when they write about a hook-basal-body complex recently discovered in Buchnera aphidicola, which “lacks ... the gene for flagellin”. [1] They conclude it “must have some role other than motility.” Well, why must it have some role other than motility? Because, of course, it is missing the paddle, and therefore can’t work as a paddling propulsion system. In other words, in my sense of the term, it is irreducibly complex.

Snyder et al (2009) think Buchnera’s derived structure “illuminates flagellar evolution by providing an example of what a simpler precursor of today’s flagellum might have looked like – a precursor dedicated solely to protein export rather than motility”. [1] I think that simplicity should be distrusted. The activity of a protein export system has no obvious connection to the activity of a rotary motor propulsion system. Thus the difficulty of accounting for the propulsive function of the flagellum and its irreducible complexity remains unaddressed. In regard to the flagellum’s evolution, Snyder et al’s (2009) advice to distrust simplicity is sound and should be followed consistently. [1]

Michael J. Behe
Professor of Biological Sciences
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015
​

the dishonesty of creationists is exactly right.
and you, 2nd Mouse,are merely proving the thread title correct:

Since the publication of Darwin’s Black Box, Behe has refined the definition of irreducible complexity. In 1996 he wrote that “any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.”(Behe, M, 1996b. Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry, a speech given at the Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference, August 10, 1996 Seattle, WA. Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry-- From a speech delivered at Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference: Behe, Michael)

Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures

now let us go to the website sited in the above quote:

An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on.

So it is NOT a misrepresentation of his view.
Unless of course you are going to flat out call Mr. Behe a liar on his own words.
God luck with that.

Care to try again?



It is most interesting how with every post you merely reinforce the truth of the thread title.

 

[2nd mouse]

I'm new here so i haven't mastered the mechanics of the forum yet. I wonder if one you would be kind enough to tell me how you put those double quotes into your posts. Appreciate it.

Mesteimia, I just want to make sure I understand. Those last 2 quote boxes, they are from 1996?

 

[camanintx]

Any error in my assessment of Behe's view, which I allready addressed, was rectified by His letter to the January 2009 issue of Trends in Microbiology that I posted.

Did you ever read the paper I posted? It provides a much more descriptive explanation of how the bacterial flagellum could have evolved.

Evolution of the bacterial flagellum

 

[Humanistheart]

I'm new here so i haven't mastered the mechanics of the forum yet. I wonder if one you would be kind enough to tell me how you put those double quotes into your posts. Appreciate it.

Mesteimia, I just want to make sure I understand. Those last 2 quote boxes, they are from 1996?

I copy/past the bracketed quotes and move them to each paragraph I'm responding to. If you want to respond to more than one person or post use the multi-quite botton. Looks like a plus and is by the quote button.

 

[2nd mouse]

I think I see. You have open 2 browser windows?

 

[McBell]

I'm new here so i haven't mastered the mechanics of the forum yet. I wonder if one you would be kind enough to tell me how you put those double quotes into your posts. Appreciate it.

on the bottom right hand side of each post you will have three buttons. (four buttons if it is your post)
You should see a tooltip when you hover the mouse over these buttons.

If it is Your post, the extra button is first and it is to edit your post.

If it is someone else's post, the first button will be quote.
The second button will be to multi-quote several posts.
When you click this button it will gray up (at least it does on my pc)
You click this for each post you want to quote in your reply.

the last button is the quick reply to that post button.
It takes you to a basic reply window that does not have all the formating shortcut buttons over top.

I usually do not have to open more than one window to do the multi- and double posts.
Though sometimes, opening another tab or window makes it easier to keep track of what I am doing.

 

[McBell]

Mesteimia, I just want to make sure I understand. Those last 2 quote boxes, they are from 1996?

the second quote box in question is from a speech Behe did August 10, 1996 in Seattle, Washington.

The fist quote box is from this page:

Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures
​

and based upon the latest reference date:

(A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, PCID, Volume 1.1, January February March, 2002; iscid.org/)
​

I am guessing it was sometime after March 1, 2002 that it was written.

 

[2nd mouse]

Did you ever read the paper I posted? It provides a much more descriptive explanation of how the bacterial flagellum could have evolved.

Evolution of the bacterial flagellum

Yes I did. But the problem I have with that report and the others like it is that they seem to miss the primary point of the argument, in my opinion, of irreducable complexity. It seems to me that the oposition papers , and this is the problem, start from an allready formed functioning organism. The argument of IC is that you cannot evolve from a simple non-functioning organism in minute incremental steps and end up with a functioning organism like a bacteria flagellum.

Darwins theory is that each step of evolution is a progression in the developement of that organism. Behe's argument is that an organism like a bacteria flagellum, which is dependent on multiple individual parts performing at the same to be functional, could not have been functional at each stage of minute incremental change unless all the interdependent parts (3 in the flagellum I think) were present at the same moment.

And here is a quote from Darwin that I posted earlier.

Darwin from his 1859 book Origin of Species - "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down"

 

[2nd mouse]

the second quote box in question is from a speech Behe did August 10, 1996 in Seattle, Washington.

The fist quote box is from this page:

Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures
​

and based upon the latest reference date:

(A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, PCID, Volume 1.1, January February March, 2002; iscid.org/)
​

I am guessing it was sometime after March 1, 2002 that it was written.

Thank you for the tech advice.

I'm confused. Are you using the article linked above to dispute my argument?

From what I can tell. It supports my argument better than I do.

On the other hand, If you were using it to point out that Behe refined his earlier 1996 statements then I would have to reply, with all do respect, ...so what?
Surely you don't believe that just because a statment gets revised and clarified it is automatically invalid .... do you? What do you think science is built on if not revised research?

 

[fantome profane]

Darwins theory is that each step of evolution is a progression in the developement of that organism. Behe's argument is that an organism like a bacteria flagellum, which is dependent on multiple individual parts performing at the same to be functional, could not have been functional at each stage of minute incremental change unless all the interdependent parts (3 in the flagellum I think) were present at the same moment.

It depends on what you mean by “progression” in this context. Evolution simply predicts a gradual shift, but there is no goal or end point. You are correct to say that each step in the development of the flagellum must be functional, but the point you are missing is that each step need not be functional as a flagellum. Different parts and different stages may have had served completely different function, and as long as they are functional (any function) they can be acted upon by natural selection.

The other point that you have to keep in mind is that any suggestion of irreducible complexity can be debunked simply by showing that it could have evolved by gradual steps and natural selection. It is not necessary to show how it actually did evolve.

The concept of irreducible complexity is quite correct, if such a thing could be shown then it would falsify evolution. But that is a big “if”. No such examples have passed scrutiny so far. As you have pointed out this basic concept comes directly from Darwin, but Behe does deserve some credit for refining the idea and proposing specifically how “it could be demonstrated that any complex organ” “could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications”. But this has still not been demonstrated.

 

[Man of Faith]

Um...no. We see evolution, i.e. populations changing their allele frequencies, all the time, every single day. Every time we've documented the emergence of a new species, it's come about via evolution.

And again, contrast this with the fact that you've never seen your god create anything at all.

All you see is what the Bible says, animals and man reproducing after its own kind. You never see a new kind of creature born.

 

[fantome profane]

All you see is what the Bible says, animals and man reproducing after its own kind. You never see a new kind of creature born.

Unless you can provide a scientifically rigorous definition of the word “kind” I have no way of knowing if this statement is true or not. We see changes in nature all the time, how can I make the determination of whether it is a change in kind or not?

I know how you make that determination, if it contradicts what the Bible says it did not happen. But how can I know that there have been no changes in kind if I don’t know what “kind” means?

 

[Man of Faith]

Unless you can provide a scientifically rigorous definition of the word “kind” I have no way of knowing if this statement is true or not. We see changes in nature all the time, how can I make the determination of whether it is a change in kind or not?

I know how you make that determination, if it contradicts what the Bible says it did not happen. But how can I know that there have been no changes in kind if I don’t know what “kind” means?

Just go to any hospital maternity ward and watch what is being born. The same kind of human every time, time after time. It's not difficult to understand the concept. Turtles have turtles, humans have humans, birds have birds, fish have fish. Nothing other than that has ever been seen.

 

[Valjean]

No-ones ever proposed that a turtle would beget anything but another turtle, just that the offspring would be slightly different from its parents. You have to multiply these differences over hundreds or thousands of generations to clearly "see" significant differences.

 

[Man of Faith]

No-ones ever proposed that a turtle would beget anything but another turtle, just that the offspring would be slightly different from its parents. You have to multiply these differences over hundreds or thousands of generations to clearly "see" significant differences.

Thank you, finally somebody admits that you can't see evolution, just adaptation. We can imagine it which is why I think you put see in quotes.

 

[Gunfingers]

Ah yes, the adaptation game. Let's call the progressive change in genetics over many generations that eventually results in the emergence of new species "adaptation" and then it isn't evolution anymore!

Edit: Is this another good example of their "dishonesty", do ya think?

 

[fantome profane]

Just go to any hospital maternity ward and watch what is being born. The same kind of human every time, time after time. It's not difficult to understand the concept. Turtles have turtles, humans have humans, birds have birds, fish have fish. Nothing other than that has ever been seen.

What is obvious is that you don’t even know what the theory of evolution is. Prove me wrong, answer these questions.

What is “Saltation” in the context of biology?

Was Darwin a “Saltationist”, or an “Anit-Saltationist” ?

If saltation is proven true would that prove evolution true, or prove evolution false?

I suspect that you won’t even make the effort to try to answer. You need to preserve your ignorance. We will see.