"The Edge of Evolution" by Michael Behe

Without guestimates, we would still be staring blankly out of our caves wondering what to do next. Not having an exact answer for something is a part of life. At least for those of us who don't know everything.And "All the evidence" as you put it is another story.

There are different ways to go about it than your equation. Ways which produce more concrete answers. If you want to criticise the numbers used by biologists start a thread about them. In this thread you have to support your position. And "I thought this sounded reasonably generous." is not good enough. I suggest it is perfectly reasonable that this number changes depending on the environment the population finds itself in. The more adapted to its environment the less mutations would be beneficial. This makes even an educated guess at the average number of beneficial mutations open to a population at any given time impossible. The main problem is that there is no reason to assume Behe's CCC probability to be typical. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example, occurs much much quicker in much smaller population sizes (ie,. within days, if memory serves, from a starting population of 1). And if it is typical - we still don't know how many such mutations exist from any given population as per above. What you find hard to believe is not relevant. Why don't you go study the evidence?If you can find any genetic changes that must have occurred in our lineage that are too difficult for present mechanisms of evolution to account for: let us know then.Until then we just have your unfounded guestimates, Behe's unevidenced claim of typicality, dodgy comparisons between bacterial genetics and mammalian genetics and your own personal incredulity.In the meantime I'll rely on the strong positive evidence which does not rely on wild non-empirically derived guestimates and personal incredulity which suggests very strongly that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor.

Ah yes, I was forgetting. When creationists make something up to prove their dogma, that is a sign of their deep humility in the face of a universe that they find all but incomprehensible. It is indeed. Even a creationist can see that evolution has happened. So he will make stuff up (or "guestimate", as you put it) to prove that it can't have happened. And that'll make him feel better.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If there was a crime committed, and a fiber that matched a piece of my clothing was found at the scene, it is evidence that I committed the crime, even though I may not have. So many pieces of circumstantial evidence may be taken into account in building a case. Now let me ask you, is there any evidence that you consider unfavorable to evolution?

And evolution producing peacocks or elephants is just as likely as any other result. So you seem to be disagreeing with Behe on probabilities. The analogies being made are with Behe's target based probabilities. What's the probability of a cloud of dust forming into this solar system, exactly as it is? History is never improbable.Evolution doesn't have to do anything, including preserve the human species. A characteristic doesn't have to be "needed" in order to be selected for. It just has to be advantageous.

Behe's calculation is funny. It's a kind of tautology. If the rarity of a specific mutation or sequence of mutations is calculated by the number of individuals it takes to produce, then all mutations that have happened are likely. If a million members of a species have existed before mutation "x" occurs, then "x" is a 1 in 10^5 mutation on the Behe scale.And don't you understand Thornton's comment about history?

This is a legitimate method to calculate probability, and its accuracy becomes more precise as the number of trials increases. Just as recording the outcome of coin tosses shows an increasing accuracy towards a probability of 0.5 for either side.I do understand Thornton's comment, Kennith Miller has made the same point. You are correct in saying that insanely improbable events are occurring all the time, but what implication do these events have? If my parents did not have me as one of their children, chances are they would have someone else. Behe was not measuring the chances of a specific mutation taking place, he was measuring the chances of any mutation taking place that would result in a necessary adaptation to malarias environment. The problem is very specific and unique, as are all the others, but the solutions are open to all possible means. The smoke screen is that this is one specific example and does not speak on behalf of evolution in general, but the book goes further. It shows that there is a direct correlation between the speed at which malaria develops resistance to a drug, and the complexity of the solutions found. The process of calculating the probability in light of population numbers is used as a matter of course in planning maria treatment programs. This is a REAL LIFE observation of evolution in action. We present malaria with a problem, we observe its ability to find solutions by Darwinian evolution, then the solutions are studied.Also, as it turns out, the probability was not actually calculated by Behe, but by Professor Nicholas White of Mahidol University, who is receiving the 2009 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) sanofi-aventis ICAAC Award for his "outstanding accomplishment in antimicrobial chemotherapy, development of new agents, investigation of antimicrobial action or resistance to antimicrobial agents, and/or the pharmacology, toxicology or clinical use of those agents since 1982." See the complete article here Error Page.This evidence cannot honestly be ignored.

I can't think of any offhand. But then I lack the boundless creationist capacity for making stuff up.In particular, returning to the topic of this thread, the observation that malaria parasites evolve resistance to antimalarial drugs is not evidence against evolution, and Behe's trivial blunder will not make it so.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No no no. Someone had to win the world series. Colin's ancestors had to have a descendant. But as you point out yourself: And given that the chance creation of a single enzyme runs into trillions to one, the overwhelming likelihood is that it hasn't.(Beyond speciation to an equal or lesser level of complexity, that is).

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Hardly surprising when natural history tends to take the form of "what evolution did next". While I disagree that there are "other mechanisms out there", this is certainly the most honest -and reasonable- statement I've read from an evolutionist on this forum.

I'm fairly sure you do accept that there are other mechanisms out there. Unless I am mistaken and you don't think that life has been influenced by the hand of a designer or creator?

What is the significance of this? How does it make the calculations anymore relevant?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Thornton named a specific team having a specific record and scores. He pointed to something that couldn't be predicted. You agree that whatever happened isn't unlikely, and that Colin's existence isn't unlikely.So, you're disagreeing with Michael Behe. For Behe, something as specific as Colin requires a designer.If you're going to use improbability arguments for history, you need to be consistent. What is the probability of Australia's coastline being exactly the shape it is? What is the probability of the solar system forming from a cloud of dust? Really? Can you show your calculations for this? Are you arguing that the universe can produce nothing? If you were being consistent, in the same way that you argue that Colin is not unlikely, and someone must win the world series by some score, then the universe must produce something. The probability of history being what it has been is always, in a sense, one.

Now, concentrate on that. Do you remember the post when I pointed out that your existence, from a point 200 years ago, would seem to be less than 1 in 10^500 chance. But that's with Behe's way of thinking. Now think of a particular group of an ancient species with a particular genome, for example, the proto cat, ancestor of all species in the modern cat family.If you give it a specific target, becoming a modern tiger, for example, then the probability of it achieving that particular combination of mutations and selection over time would be remote. The group we're looking at could become any one of the modern species of extant cats instead of a tiger, but it could also become any one of a huge field of cats that have never existed.It's got to become something (including extinct) so in fact, whatever the end result, it's never improbable. Exactly like your own existence, instead of the existence of the (probably millions of) siblings that could have arrived. Are you getting this? Again, you've missed a point I made early in the thread. European Elms were exposed to a specific problem (Dutch Elm disease) in the 20th century, and they've been wiped out. If you poisoned us with arsenic, we'd probably go the same way. Lineages very rarely have to deal with problems that they have to solve urgently. Evolution proceeds by picking up advantages, which need only be slight.The overwhelming majority, if not all, of the mutations that have made us what we are going right back through the history of life, would not have been essential at the time.

I'm pointing out that this not some wild assertion by Behe. This number came from a man highly qualified in his field. There has been a lot of debate surrounding the legitimacy of the value Behe used.