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Author | Topic: The Death Knell for ID? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trixie Member (Idle past 2495 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
They may put that forward, but the fact that the 4th mutation required for the utilisation of OmpF didn't occur without the previous 3 raises an interesting question. What would happen if one of those initial 3 was knocked out, so you had steps 1, 2 and 4 or 2, 3 and 4? Their data suggest that steps 1,2 and 3 are absolutely required for step 4 to take place, but once step 4 is in place, how necessary are the previous steps or can one or other then be discarded? The early mutation that increases the phage's affinity for the rare LamB binding site can possibly be knocked out now that the phage has an alternative, abundant binding site (although I'd like to see this shown experimentally). That also means that further mutations at that site may now be more "survivable" I think this demonstrates the fault that Behe makes when he starts with a "completed" IR system and then tries to work back. Not every step that resulted in an IR system may still be hanging around. Rather than working backwards, it's more productive to try to work forwards. It's a bit like building something that requires scaffolding to be put up. Once the build is complete, the scaffolding is removed. An IDist would look at the building and suggest that the builders flew up to the higher levels to do the work, a scientist would suggest ladders, hoists and scaffolding to reach the higher levels. While not an ideal analogy, I can't come up with a better one. Feel free to suggest some as analogies are so useful in explaining things.
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Tangle Member Posts: 8070 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
Dan Dennett uses the Skyhook versus Crane analogy
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 2884 days) Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
Hi Trixie,
I don't think the sort of strict sequentiality you seem to be describing here really exists. What the author's conclude is that all 4 mutations are required, the order in which they arise seems irrelevant. In their replicate experiments all of the mutation types arose in the non OmpF infecting strains and at least 2 distinct combinations of 3 mutations arose, in EvoA lacking the A3034G mutation and in F2 and H4 lacking the G3319A mutation. Both of these were just one mutation away from an OmpF infective strain through slightly different evolutionary trajectories. No doubt it is significant that in both cases it is one of the highly specific mutations that is missing but there is no reason to assume that with a broader sampling strains might not have been found with both the highly specific mutations but lacking one of the broader mutations, such strains are just more unlikely. Your final point comes back to the lamentable lability of the term 'Irreducible Complexity' which seems to be one of those terms that means whatever a person wants it to mean. Behe himself has given more than 1 distinctly different definition and the main point of difference is precisely whether systems which have prior functional intermediates with a distinct function, as in this case, are IC. It would certainly be very informative to have some proper analysis of the extent and nature of the fitness benefits of each mutation in isolation. Perhaps all any of the mutations do is increase affinity for LamB up until such a point with all 4 mutations that it can now bind to OmpF which is apparently the most structurally similar E. coli protein to LamB (at least going by crystal structure). TTFN, WK
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jar Member Posts: 33182 From: Texas!! Joined: Member Rating: 4.3 |
Remember Natural Selection only removes those changes that are seriously negative. Neutral, beneficial and moderately negative changes pass through.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Percy Member Posts: 19960 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.4
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Creationists like Behe and Dembski put ideas out there that they then defend with great energy in the public arena but upon which they conduct no actual research. Dembski is now at a seminary while Behe, because he has tenure, remains ensconced at Lehigh where he has produced 0.2 papers per year over the past decade. Both are just as convinced of their ideas as ever, but ideas in science are measured by how convincing they are to other scientists, and by this measure both creationism generally and ID specifically have been spectacular failures for a long time.
And so it seems incongruous and almost comical to me to see evolutionists giving ID disproportionately far more critical attention than it is receiving from those who should be actively researching ID but aren't. --Percy
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Trixie Member (Idle past 2495 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
Point taken. I was trying to keep things simple.
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JonF Member Posts: 6171 Joined: |
Dembski is leaving the seminary for a full-time position at the Discovery Institute. William Dembski Interview:
quote:
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Perdition Member (Idle past 2027 days) Posts: 1593 From: Wisconsin Joined:
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Funny. Twice nothing is still nothing.
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Coyote Member (Idle past 895 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
Last I saw the Dishonesty Institute didn't have any research program. They have a lot of PR flacks and lawyers working there, but I don't think they have any laboratories or any of the things normally associated with research. More like a PR or lobbying firm pushing the goals of the wedge strategy: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html ...the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature. Yup, lots of scientific research there! Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Capt Stormfield Member Posts: 419 From: Vancouver Island Joined: |
The scary thing is that in their own minds they have probably redefined "research" in the same way that they have redefined science. And I'm not entirely kidding here, for the mind that can redefine science to include the supernatural, it is no great leap to redefine research to include personal revelation. Capt.
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 2884 days) Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
Most of the research side of things, such as it is, has been hived off into the Biologic Institute instead.
TTFN, WK
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Panda Member (Idle past 2502 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
Is that some kind of uber-procrastination, where you get someone else to not do what you should be doing? quote: If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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Theodoric Member Posts: 7051 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: |
They are a a fraud. The wiki article really shows what a fraud they are.
Bilogic Institute I posted about it a while back. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Yes. In fact the above quoted statement says that Dembski is going to increase his efforts to develop a research program, and not that he is simply going to do contribute to current research efforts. I see the statement as an honest assessment that DI does indeed consist of flacks, hacks, and apologists, at least currently. After the big dust up over Dembski's statements about a world wide flood, or lack thereof, nobody should be the least bit surprised that Dembski is involved in new pursuits. The YEC establishment's treatment of Dembski puts the lie to all those fundamentalist efforts at pushing ID in the name of academic freedom. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
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Percy Member Posts: 19960 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.4 |
Here's the webpage where the Biologic Institute lists "Selected Publications" beginning about half way down:
Biologic Institute Research Page Can anyone find a citation that challenges naturalistic approaches to science? Anything that seems like it introduces a "broadly theistic understanding of nature" or that challenges the "materialistic worldview"? --Percy
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