Evolution: Natural selection vs. Godly guidance

There's a very simple reason for that. Biology studies life. Biology doesn't study how life began or how the universe began. That's chemistry. Look at it this way. Ballistics studies bodies in motion, including bullets. Someone studying how a bullet travels through the air, or what gun it came from, doesn't need to know what factory made it, or where the metal in it was mined. It's the same with biology. Life began. How it began is irrelevant to how it changed once it began. They are two different disciplines. Again, there is a very simple reason for this. Science studies what we can observe. By definition, nonnaturalistic or nonmaterial causes are those we cannot observe. Science doesn't say those things do not exist. Science simply says it doesn't study those things. Yes, that is one of the things that ID claims. No, ID misuses probabilities to try to support a conclusion that cdesign proponentists came to before considering any evidence from the natural world.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

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We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

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...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

How would biological science entertain a cosmological hypothesis?This is one of many concepts that can have nothing to do with biology. Biological science does not either entertain the thought that Saturn has rings. I suppose all biologists know that it does, just as many biologists believe that the universe had a creator. But this doesn't enter into biological science --- how could it? Now there's a thoroughly inexact statement. And there's the God-of-the-Gaps fallacy.I might (with slightly more justification) say: "If you cannot prove that life originated supernaturally, then what is left is a natural cause".But fortunately, as I have pointed out, it is not necessary to resolve this question in order to study biology. Quite. But this is not prescriptive, it is descriptive.Suppose you lose your spectacles. You can try out all sorts of naturalistic hypotheses (maybe you left them here, maybe you left them there, maybe your wife moved them). But you cannot test the idea that God sent an invisible angel to bear them up to heaven.We may note that even if you found your spectacles where you thought you'd left them, this wouldn't falsify the angel hypothesis, because God might have sent another angel to put them back. And similarly a failure to find your spectacles anywhere you looked would not confirm the idea that they were sitting on a cloud near the heavenly throne.The fact that you are a theist and can entertain the idea of spectacle-carrying angels doesn't change the situation. You can entertain the idea but you can't research it.And scientists stand in a similar situation with regards to ... well, everything. It's not that they exclude the supernatural a priori --- many of them, after all, are believers. It's that they can't research it.This is why I asked you what creationist research into the origins of life would look like, a question that you avoided answering. No, he's just a theist.Creationism is not simply the belief that God created the Universe. Perhaps that's what it should mean, but creationists have hijacked the word, so that what it now denotes is a set of silly blunders and unsupported conjectures about biology that disgrace and dishonor the human intellect.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

1: This is not a question for science. And almost all scientists will agree on that. Science is concerned with evidence based questions, and this does not seem to be one of them.
2: It may well be a theological and philosophical question. That's a matter for theology and philosophy. But expect disagreement between different philosophies and theologies.We can ask a more explicit question: Is it true that a supernatural being created all.1: That is not a scientific truth, because it is not a scientific question.
2: Whether it is a theological or philosophical truth, presumably depends on the particular theology or philosophy. That's probably not even true (as an assertion about scientists).My own view would be that biological reproduction is the prime moving cause, and that natural selection and mutation shape the way that things evolve. Evolution does not say anything about the origin of life. It is a theory of biological diversity, not a theory of the origin of life. That's her way of saying that it is not a scientific question.Scientists are not afraid to say "we don't yet have an explanation for that." Many of the ID proponents deny evolution happened at all, and insist that each species was independently designed. They are arguing against strong evidence. More correctly, ID misuses probabilities.Edited by nwr, : typo

granny writes,

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However, I disagree with you here. We already have the ground rules for scientific inquiry. They are well known and easy to find.

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1: Observation/Question
2: Hypothesis/Prediction
3: Experiment
4: Conclusion (tentative)
5: Publication/Peer Review
6: Repetition
and if that repetition continually provides the same conclusion,
7: Consensus (still tentative, but less so as evidence accumulates).

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Now one could spend a lifetime finessing that definition of the scientific method (and indeed, philosophers of science do just that) but those are, more or less, the ground rules. ID fails to meet just about every one of them. Here is how ID functions;

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1: Conclusion; Jesus loves you (not tentative).
2: Observation; Gee, lots of stuff is really complex!
3: Conclusion; See 1.
4: Publication; Popular press only. Peer review is such a pest!
5; Conclusion; Still the same as 1.

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For ID to be taken seriously, it must adhere to the scientific method. It doesn't so it isn't. It really is that simple. Anyone who disagrees should provide details of those ID experiments and peer reviewed publications that directly address design

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I will try to give you all my best understanding of what Michael Behe's theory as set out in EDGE OF EVOLUTION. But please remember I am not a scientist.1. Observation/ Question
Natural slection acting on random mutation cannot account for the molecular underlying resistance to malaria by humans, or resistance to antibiotics by the malarial parasite2. Hypothesis/predictionThe only way to understand what random mutation and natural selection can actually do is to follow changes at the molecular
level, knowing as we do that varaition in organisms depends on hidden changes in their DNA.There is no evidence that the Darwinian processs can take the multiple, coherent steps needed to build new molecular machinery, the kind of machinery that fills the celDarwinian processes cannot explain cellular evolution by random mutation.3. Experiment
Research in re Malaria--Eukaryote, HIV--virus, E-Coli--prokaryote, results in findings that the development of 2 new intracellular portein-protein binding sites at the same time is beyond Darwinian reach.3 or more different proteins binding specifically to each other is beyond Darwinain processes, not just 3 or more copies of the same protein.4. Conclusioneukaryotic cells contain a raft of complex functional systems that the simpler prokaryotes lack. Systems that are enourmously beyond Darwinian processes.Complex coherent molecular machinery came , at least in part, from natural selection but just as certainly not from random mutation.If random mutation is inadequate then (since common descent w/modification strongly appears to be true)the answer must be NON RANDOM MUTATION. Design.5. Publication. Behe states in an interview that no journal will touch ID with a ten foot pole.I believe I read an article where an ID article was accepted by a peer reviewed journal and there was such an uproar, it was pulled and possibly the editor was fired.But anyway he believes the peer reviewed journal will not publish ID submissions regardless of their merit.This is my take on his Hypothesis from reading his book. I took notes from the book and this is where this information comes from. I may even have direct quotes in this presentation, but Idid not note them in my notes so forgive for not quoting exactly material or noting that this was a quote.That is the best I can do. I do not understand the science of the research into molecular biology.It appears to me that Behe is qualilfied as a Biologists from his CV.Let me know what your thoughts are, but be gentle.It would probably be best for you all to read his book to fully understand his position.

That's a pretty long explanation. I'll shorten it for you, while maintaining the same ideas: Error of fact.
Strawman burning follows. Further strawman burning.
"We don't know".
Further strawman burning. Misinterpretation of mainstream scientific research.
Further strawman burning. Non sequitur.
Internal contradiction of facts.
False dichotomy. Complete and utter lack thereof.
Standard ID/creationist excuses. His book is largely nonsense, supported by further nonsense and mixed with a bit of pseudomathematics, to reach a preconceived conclusion.
Here's some advice: don't bother reading ID/creationist literature, including websites. They don't know enough about their own hypotheses, let alone about evolution, to start claiming it as a scientific breakthrough. Just like you leave your lawyering, your accounting, your medicines, your house's construction, your car's work done by professionals, perhaps you should also leave biology to people who are actually involved in the research too. Indeed, Behe gained a PhD from UPenn (and before that, a BSc from Drexel) for research on sickle-cell disease followed by some work on DNA structure. He's one of the few -- if not the only -- ID/creationism supporters to have a proper degree from a recognised institution.
However, his work on ID is no more biological science than the average bloke's DIY fence is engineering expertise. He doesn't follow the method (as pointed out previously) and relies on arguments from incredulity combined with his religious beliefs. He's been countered by much more educated people than I before. And that was when the book got published. You've brought nothing new here.
We know what his position is. People like him have been trying to get it into schools since before my dad was born. Behe just tidies it up a little. I'll follow my own advice, and stick to reading what actually counts as science as determined by scientists. Perhaps you should do the same.Edited by Nij, : Missing sentence.
Correction of stages of method.

And WHAM! he falls flat on his face at the first hurdle.That's not an observation. It's a religious dogma. And it happens to be untrue.You do not say which form of resistance to malaria you're talking about, so let's take the most notorious of them all --- the allele which, when homozygous, causes sickle-cell anemia.It is caused by a single nucleotide substitution changing A to T in the gene coding for β-globin, resulting in the change of a single codon from GAG to GTG, and so the substitution of valine for glutamate as the sixth amino acid in the chain.Do you deny that single nucleotide substitutions can occur? No?Now, being immune to malaria has an obvious selective advantage. Do you deny that? No?Then mutation and selection very adequately explain the prevalence of the allele; and Behe's "observation" is simply something he's made up.You also do not state what mistakes he has made about drug-resistance in malaria; though one of his mistakes (or yours) appears to be the belief that malaria is treated with antibiotics. Do not try this, as it will not work.The evolution of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria (which are vulnerable to such drugs) can be observed in the laboratory: again the mutations are simple and the selective advantage obvious.The evolution of resistance of malaria to antimalarial drugs can also be observed directly. (See here for example.) Again, note that the mutation is simple and the selective advantage obvious.So, Behe's starting point --- his "observation" --- is something that no-one has observed, that is contrary to observation, and that he has made up in his head.(Edited to add: I discuss one particularly crass blunder of Behe --- relating to chloroquine resistance in malaria ---here.)Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I'll let others handle the science, although it seems that you fail to understand even the most basic points (Behe primarily is arguing against the adequacy of known mechanisms of mutation, rather than natural selection).

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5. Publication. Behe states in an interview that no journal will touch ID with a ten foot pole.

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I believe I read an article where an ID article was accepted by a peer reviewed journal and there was such an uproar, it was pulled and possibly the editor was fired.

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But anyway he believes the peer reviewed journal will not publish ID submissions regardless of their merit.

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Firstly if Behe says that, he's lying. His own theoretical paper with Snoke WAS published (although it must be said that the results did not in fact provide any significant support for ID).And you did not hear about any such case as you describe. You are referring to Richard Sternberg. His resignation as editor was planned and occurred BEFORE the paper was actually published (he had kept it secret from the other editors so they didn't know about it). Some significant facts to note:1) Sternberg is a member of the ID movement
2) Sternberg violated the procedures of the Journal (a very suspicious thing to do when there is a clear conflict of interest)
3) The paper was a rewrite of one that had already been published elsewhere (although not in a peer-reviewed journal) I understand this to be unusual practice.
4) The journal in question was not a natural home for the paper, if Meyer were simply looking for publication it should have been submitted elsewhere..While there is only limited evidence available it looks very much as if Sternberg abused his position as editor and conspired with Meyer to get the paper published regardless of its merit (or rather, lack of merit).As with the case of ID's own journals it is significant to note how little the ID movement has to offer here - one rehashed review paper is not a great showing.

Hi Shadow, Never mind, neither am I and given his modus operandi, it's hard to believe that Behe is a scientist either. I would suggest that Edge of Evolution is not really a scientific work, it is a work of religious apologetics, disguised as science.The Steps you outline completely fail the test of the scientific method. Specifics of malaria resistance aside, this does not read like an observation, it reads more like an assertion, or, as my little satire had it, a conclusion. Perhaps Michael Behe cannot account for malaria resistance, but that does not mean that a naturalistic explanation cannot exist. Behe however, is not interested in natural explanations. In fact, he is keen to ignore them, preferring to insert his deity as a pseudo-explanatory mechanism.Behe's whole style is to seek gaps in scientific knowledge and insert a God-of-the-gaps wherever he can. He is not answering scientific needs, but his own emotional need for God to have a place in biology. This is bad science and even worse theology. Worse, this gap does not even appear to be a gap; natural selection is perfectly able to explain malaria resistance. Behe is wrong in his claim, he is wrong in his method and he is wrong in his conclusions.The rest of your steps are just restatements of the same claim; that evolution cannot explain complex biology. Look back at what you wrote; You are just making the same assertion over and over. There is no experiment here, none at all. Behe has his conclusion right at the start, just as I said. This too is wrong. To suggest that if theory A is wrong, then theory B must be true is illogical (it creates a false dilemma). Some other mechanism might be sufficient to explain these observations through natural means, but Behe is simply not interested. He doesn't want to know the truth. He wants to remain ignorant, so that he can use this poor logic to insert his own preferred explanation - the Christian God. What he is in fact doing is deifying his own ignorance.Scientists find a puzzle in nature and they set about trying to solve it.Behe finds a puzzle and he has no interest in solving it (even where real explanations already exist). He prefers to write another popular press book about how this puzzle provides yet another temporary refuge for his puny Gap God. It's not science, it's apologetics. PaulK has already addressed this, but I have to say, I doubt this.Do you really think that major molecular biology journals would turn down Behe's work on the designer? I don't. I think that if Behe tried to publish a paper entitled Evidence for an Intelligent Designer in the Cell or some such, the academic journals would nearly bite his hand off. They would be only too eager to take a look at Behe's work, mostly because he has been so coy about submitting it and because they would take such relish in taking it apart.Instead, Behe does what all ID advocates with PhDs do; he publishes work that could be interpreted as supporting ID (or not) but without ever having the balls to come out and explicitly mention the designer or the direct evidence for a designer. He just dances around the topic, vaguely touching upon potential evidence in his papers, but then making wild and unsupported assertions in his popular works. That is what the ID lobby are depending upon. They hope to bamboozle you with lots of complicated talk about mathematics and cell biology and dazzle you with their PhDs. It's a cheap trick. They're just telling you what you (and they) want to hear and dressing it up with some sciencey-sounding jargon. Don't sweat it, I'm not out to hammer you over the head with this, I just disagree. You come across as a perfectly nice and intelligent person, just (in my humble opinion) a little misled by ID propaganda. Actually, even Michael Behe strikes me as a perfectly nice man. He's charming, affable and clearly intelligent. And he has a cool hat. He's just a little too eager to insert his religious convictions into science and that is something that ought not be tolerated.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

jar wrote,

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Long ago we believed:

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that if someone got sick, it was because that was the will of God.
that if lightning struck, it was because that was the will of God.
that if there were storms, it was because that was the will of God.
that if crops failed, it was because that was the will of God.
that if weeds grew in the fields, it was because that was the will of God.
that if there was a drought, it was because that was the will of God.
We now understand that the actual causes of such things are Natural.

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Natural Selection is as well.

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forgive me for taking so long to reply to your post.
We may understand the nature of the events that caused the above.
But we do not know why they occurred.
This is where God's Providence comes into play.
So it goes back to the question Biologists ignore, the origin of life.All abiogenesis theories are so speculative as to be ridiculous.The whole point of my post is that until Science can prove the origin of life, evolution is not proven to be a natural caused event.At least the ID people attempt to show that this could not happen w/o a Designer.For example is there a valid scientific theory for information in the cell?
How could that information have origininated?
How did gravity come to be?That is the problem I have with Scientist who state, if we can't explain it today we will tomorrow. talk about FAITH!!

To join the dogpile: you are greatly mistaken, Shadow71. Google "hemoglobin C" and "malaria" until I get the time to open up my file cabinet and dig all my notes out. It's another single-base substitution in the sixth codon for the beta-chain of human hemoglobin. Demographics trace it to, most likely, a single mutation event about a millenium ago in what is now Burkina Faso. Not just the mutation, but much of the biochemistry behind why the mutation gives resistance to Plasmodium is very well known.

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"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

My grandfather was born in south Russia in the 1880s. In his late teens, he served in the German Army. In 1907, he passed through the port of Hamburg on his way to Canada. He died here in Saskatchewan in 1939.The exact pathway that he took to get from there to here is highly speculative. I've given you all of the details that I know for sure. But there is no question that there was a pathway. The only ridiculous conclusion would be that "you can't get here from there".It's the same with abiogenesis. We don't know exactly how it happened but we do know that it happened because at one time there was no life and now there is life. Abiogeneis did happen, even if it happened by your invisible friend's magical poofing.We managed to figure out the natural means by which the planets move and by which the rocks were formed. It would be ridiculous to decide ahead of time that we can't figure out the natural means by which life originated and evolved.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

For most of the items listed yes we do know why they occurred, a few of them we are still learning about the reasons. Actually, none of the ones I've ever studied are that speculative. They are all based on things that we most certainly can observe. And, of course, you are factually wrong. Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life and even if it did, we are getting closer every day to creating life. Of course there is. It is called chemistry and physics. The information (and understand no one has ever described just what information they are talking about or how it would be measured) just seems to be chemical bonding.And so far the evidence shows that when there are things that we do not yet understand, the proper place to put those questions is in a "Not explained yet" folder, not in a "Goddidit" folder.And you still avoid the two really big questions.Even if there was some designer, what is the value or merit to knowing that beyond the two areas I mention, as a historical footnote or in the case of Product Liability suits?Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Yes particularly the one where an invisible sky daddy simply said let the sea.....Abiogenesis is simply life from non-life, so that it is known that at one time there was no life and then there was life, so abiogenesis, of some kind, happened so no natter if the ideas are speculative, never the less, some type did occur.Edited by bluescat48, : sp

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Some more than others, of course. Have you read the book of Genesis? You have had it explained to you at length why this is not the case; and repetition is a poor substitute for rebuttal. And how are they doing with that?Can they tell us yet what the first life was like and under what circumstances it arose?Only if they can't do that, then how can they begin to speculate on its possibility? Without that, they're reduced to saying: "Something or other happened, but we don't know what ... under certain circumstances, which we can't specify ... but it certainly did happen, and it's impossible for it to have happened, even though it did." Can you quote one of them?

Hi, Shadow.Welcome to EvC! I'm no physicist, but I don't think you've got the right impression of what Einstein did nor of how he did it. Einstein's "thought experiments and math" were a response to an observed deficiency in a well-established theory (Newton's law of universal gravitation).General relativity is a mathematical formula that works better than Newton's formula at explaining various observations about the movement of objects in space.He started with an observation, then developed a superior hypothesis (in the form of "thought experiments and math"), and, after several predictions were confirmed, it reached the theory stage.Evolution by natural selection went the same way: Darwin started with observations (geological record, diversity of life, etc.), then developed a hypothesis that explained the observations better than previous hypotheses did, and, after several predictions (e.g., transitional fossils, emergence of new traits) were confirmed, it reached the theory stage. Underlines mark the reasons why it is considered science.You seem to be suggesting that Intelligent Design is following the same pattern of observation, hypothesis, evidence, theory, but that it is just at the hypothesis stage. Though I dispute the claim that the progression flows in this manner (evidence and at least one court case suggests that the hypothesis predates the observations it is supposedly based on), for the sake of argument I will stipulate that ID is a hypothesis based on a given set of observations.However, the trouble is that mainstream science challenges literally every observation on which the ID hypothesis is based. For example, all claimed observations of irreducible complexity have not been substantiated, so a hypothesis to explain irreducible complexity is not needed. Also, claims about the impossibility of information without intelligence cannot be substantiated, so there is no need to hypothesize an intelligent being for that reason.And, there are others, but this post is long enough already. The take-home message is that the scientific merit of an idea is and should be determined by its expediency (as demonstrated by observation), its superiority to alternative ideas, and its conformity to physical evidence. All ideas that are considered part of science have met these standards, while ID has not. There is no double standard. Edited by Bluejay, : superfluous "to"

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.