Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

[Joe]

Some years ago somebody asked me what would I do if the Cs were lying to me, if it was all a big fraud. I thought about it for a minute and then said that I guess it didn't matter because I would still act as if things mattered, as if the Universe made sense, as if love, truth, beauty, caring, STO, etc, were good values. I thought that even if they were delusions they OUGHT to be true and I was going to act as if they were to give them reality.

The problem with the materialists who posit that such things are delusions is that, by definition, that must also apply that logic to their belief about materialism and "the selfish gene". It too can be illusory and essentially a figment of mind, since ultimately everything is. So if we're essentially free to choose to believe what version of reality we want to 'inhabit' (which is, in fact, sort of what the Cs have said) then there's no reason NOT to choose a belief in love, truth, beauty etc. if one is so motivated. So in dismissing non-physical reality as a figment of mind, they are also dismissing their own assertions in the same way. But what if 'mind' is the ONLY true reality from whence everything else comes? In his book Undeniable: how biology confirms our intuition that life is designed, Douglas Axe touches on this point:

One of my handwritten notes on a bulletin board summarized my reasoning as follows:

Physical systems are governed by physical laws. With our minds we are able to control our physical bodies. Our minds can take precedence over physical laws and are therefore nonphysical. That which is constrained by physical laws cannot give rise to something that takes precedence over those laws. Therefore, man did not evolve from the physical.

"In other words, the problem as I saw it was not merely that the mind is currently beyond physical description, but rather that the mind is categorically above physics. The properties of matter make all mere things behave the way they do, but somehow we stand above that. We are not mere things. within the limits of our capabilities, we do whatever we want to do without answering to any equation.

But while we are masters over the physical in that sense, we are slaves to it in another. Our bodies are physical things, subject to physical needs and vulnerable to physical conditions. Without food water and rest, they cease functioning properly, and our minds are quick to follow. In fact, our minds are particularly sensitive to certain material influences. The most active thinker among us can't stand up to a dose of propofol, a common drug for inducing general anesthesia. So the same minds that spend their waking hours manipulating matter are rendered completely inactive a by a small amount of matter of a certain kind. The point is not that we stand wholly above the material world, as God is said to, but rather that we occupy a position that so categorically defies material explanation as to refute the materialist position, over and above the refutation that most of this book was devoted to.

To say that a statement is true is to say something significant precisely because true is another of these necessary realities. If true were anything less - a physical process in a brain lobe, or a substance that could be packed into 50 milligram tablets, or an object that could be photographed - then the lofty meaning we attach to truth would be a mirage, and this activity we're doing right now called reasoning would instantly collapse into a heap of pretentious nonsense. We vigorously insist that certain claims are true and others are false because we believe that the distinction goes much deeper than whim. But if truth were nothing more than, say, a particular pattern of neuronal firing in one's frontal lobe, then insisting we prefer truth over falsehood would be like insisting we install the toilet paper roll this way and not that way. Much ado about nothing.

[...] Once we reject the materialistic premise [...] the reality of truth makes reason possible, which in combination with physical observation makes science possible. No one should deny the importance of sicence, but neither should anyone deny the importance of the more fundamental realities that lend meaning to science. By doing just that, materialism and scientism invalidate the very discipline they seek to elevate."

 

[Anamarija]

I was afraid that Darwin's Black Box is written in a dryasdust style, but I was so wrong. Behe sound like someone's grandpa . He is very tender on reader. He use very nice comparisons in order to explain expert topics to ordinary man. Very inspirational book.

 

[Joe]

Those who were atheist were more likely to give up hope and to let go of the spirit to live. The darwinian mindset would in such cases probably just highlight the idea that life is a nihilistic, purposeless, short and a brutal struggle for existence. Those with a religious connection had the possibility - since they were equipped with a conceptual framework that allowed for it - to look for a higher meaning in life and try to make sense of what they were going through. So one could say that those with a religious connection were harder to dominate.

Indeed, and it's interesting that Darwinists/atheists claim that all religious/transcendent ideation is a delusional 'figment of mind', yet the evidence provided by Frankl, for example, shows that in certain circumstances those alleged "figments of mind" select for survival while the 'rational' atheists expire with little more than a mumur. In that case, the fittest certainly did not survive.

At a more crass level, it's like that wager where its better to believe in 'god' than not because:

if you don't believe and you're right, you lose nothing, but if you're wrong, there may be a price to pay.

if you believe and you're wrong, you lose nothing, but if you're right, you may be better placed than a disbeliever.

The only thing atheists have against this little hedging of bets is, apparently, all the horrible things that people do in the name of a belief in god. But that argument can be dismissed by citing Stalin, Mao etc. So their only supposedly valid argument against religious belief is that "its stupid". Well it wasn't stupid in the damn concentration camps!!

I'm reminded of a the debates between JB Peterson and Sam Harris where Peterson makes the case for religious belief or belief in the "transcendent" by telling Harris that such belief is necessary when suffering becomes so great that there is a serious risk of the person just giving up, literally. At such points in life, being able to psychologically and emotionally 'transfer' some of the suffering on to a 'higher power' can mean the difference between keeping going and not. When I listened to Peterson say that to Harris, I was struck by the possibility (likelihood even) that the message was falling on deaf ears. That Harris and his followers simply had no personal experience of what Peterson was talking about, and could have no real or visceral understanding of what he meant, because atheists are, almost by definition, as 'deep as a thimble'. That, precisely, is why they can indulge their atheistic fantasy, because it IS true, for them.

 

[Anthony]

Physical systems are governed by physical laws. With our minds we are able to control our physical bodies. Our minds can take precedence over physical laws and are therefore nonphysical. That which is constrained by physical laws cannot give rise to something that takes precedence over those laws. Therefore, man did not evolve from the physical.

Sounds like a description of free will. Our basic experience of the world, ourselves and others is not fully material, obviously. There is both a material and a mental aspect to it. Materialists are basically denying their own subjective experience as if it was a delusion caused by matter, but nobody knows how matter could give rise to something nonphysical. I guess the simplest explanation for that is that it can't, and there isn't anything dead (devoid of the mental aspect) in the universe to begin with, including the smallest particles. So they keep looking at the world through their ideological lenses, instead of questioning their assumptions.

 

[luc]

Sounds like a description of free will. Our basic experience of the world, ourselves and others is not fully material, obviously. There is both a material and a mental aspect to it. Materialists are basically denying their own subjective experience as if it was a delusion caused by matter, but nobody knows how matter could give rise to something nonphysical. I guess the simplest explanation for that is that it can't, and there isn't anything dead (devoid of the mental aspect) in the universe to begin with, including the smallest particles. So they keep looking at the world through their ideological lenses, instead of questioning their assumptions.

The question of Free Will is interesting, because this is maybe the most basic, direct, common sense experience all of us have: that we can take decisions to do this or that. And yet, the materialists have the guts to deny that!! This is a "put on the straight-jacket, off ya go to the asylum" level of insanity.

And yet, it's only consequent for materialists: the second you allow free-will in a strictly materialist universe, you proclaim that the mind is super-natural: it can suspend the laws of nature and causation. Can't have that. Hence all of these what Stove calls "puppet theories": no, in reality it's not your free will deciding stuff, but selfish genes, sexual repression, hormones, social oppression or whatever fashionable concept du jour.

Think about what strict materialism means: all of the universe, all of life, each and every action humans take - this was all contained in the Big Bang. All of it, the totality of information, which structures and causes everything. All there in the BOOM. And where did it come from? From NOTHING! "BS" doesn't even begin to describe this kind of nonsense. The very fact that anyone could seriously believe in this is even for one second is evidence that the "programming is complete". Every human being in history before the 19th century would probably go
at the very idea!

 

[Anthony]

The question of Free Will is interesting, because this is maybe the most basic, direct, common sense experience all of us have: that we can take decisions to do this or that. And yet, the materialists have the guts to deny that!! This is a "put on the straight-jacket, off ya go to the asylum" level of insanity.

Gaslighting is a fitting discription of the process.

Gaslighting is a term used in psychology and common speech that refers to manipulation whose purpose is to create doubt in a person or a group of people. It includes but is not limited to denial, lying, deflection, and contradiction to make the target question their perception of reality.

 

[aragorn]

I was just casually glancing through a magazine in the coffee room at work, and what caught my attention was an article talking about nanobiotechnology. I did a quick search on the internet, and there seems to be very fast advances going on in this field right now. They talk about stuff like 'medical nanorobotics', which is eerily similar to the stuff Behe and others have talked about. There's a lot to read and research regarding this field, so I've just scratched the surface, but if our technology right now is already at this point, the 'intelligent design' of cell structures and e.g. bacterial flagellum should be a piece of cake in, lets say 10 000 years. Just have a look at this 'medical nanorobot' in the image – remind you of something?

 

[mrtn]

The question of Free Will is interesting, because this is maybe the most basic, direct, common sense experience all of us have: that we can take decisions to do this or that. And yet, the materialists have the guts to deny that!! This is a "put on the straight-jacket, off ya go to the asylum" level of insanity.

And yet, it's only consequent for materialists: the second you allow free-will in a strictly materialist universe, you proclaim that the mind is super-natural: it can suspend the laws of nature and causation. Can't have that. Hence all of these what Stove calls "puppet theories": no, in reality it's not your free will deciding stuff, but selfish genes, sexual repression, hormones, social oppression or whatever fashionable concept du jour.

Think about what strict materialism means: all of the universe, all of life, each and every action humans take - this was all contained in the Big Bang. All of it, the totality of information, which structures and causes everything. All there in the BOOM. And where did it come from? From NOTHING! "BS" doesn't even begin to describe this kind of nonsense. The very fact that anyone could seriously believe in this is even for one second is evidence that the "programming is complete". Every human being in history before the 19th century would probably go
at the very idea!

Almost like they are confused from a collective subconscious level where there is some knowledge about that conception that time doesn't exist and everything that has been and will be is 'already' present. But they just extract that idea as is and project it onto their reality, which doesn't work because from that perspective it is a work in progress. This happens all the time, that ideas become greedy and want to put a full stop on evething.

 

[Windmill knight]

The question of Free Will is interesting, because this is maybe the most basic, direct, common sense experience all of us have: that we can take decisions to do this or that. And yet, the materialists have the guts to deny that!! This is a "put on the straight-jacket, off ya go to the asylum" level of insanity.

You could say the same thing about consciousness itself. Our first, most direct experience in life is with consciousness, only later with the material world. We know the world through our senses, but our thoughts and feelings are immediate and intrinsic to experiencing anything. Yet people have been indoctrinated to believe that only matter is real, and consciousness a sub-product of it, when consciousness is clearly of a radically different nature than matter. Or like you said, super-natural. It's amazing how the atheist types can do away with consciousness with such ease. Do they ever wonder how they would manage to tie-up their shoelaces if it wasn't for consciousness?

It's similar to Descartes' intuition about 'I think, therefore I am'. He realized he could doubt almost everything, even his senses, and therefore the very nature or existence of the material world (what if I'm dreaming? what if an evil spirit is deceiving me?). But he couldn't doubt that he was thinking about it - he couldn't doubt consciousness itself. Interestingly, although such an intuition would probably facilitate some form of idealism, eventually the division between matter and consciousness he came up with led to purely materialistic philosophies!

 

[whitecoast]

Just have a look at this 'medical nanorobot' in the image – remind you of something?

It looks sort of like the spaceship from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

[fabric]

It looks like they borrowed some design from the bacteria, flagella and all

 

[fabric]

Our first, most direct experience in life is with consciousness, only later with the material world. We know the world through our senses, but our thoughts and feelings are immediate and intrinsic to experiencing anything. Yet people have been indoctrinated to believe that only matter is real, and consciousness a sub-product of it, when consciousness is clearly of a radically different nature than matter.

It is said that is in fact the opposite, that matter is a by-product of consciousness. In the book Consciousness - Anatomy of the soul, there is a chapter called “Where is Consciousness”. The way they describe it is quite interesting and if I’m understanding correctly, our perception of the world begins with consciousness. A couple of the interesting bits:

[When observing your finger] The light did not enter your brain; coded impulses did. The data describing your finger is now twice removed from your pulsating digit. The optic nerve signals enter the amazing machinery of your brain and the next thing you know, a finger appears in your perceptual space. This visual perceptual space is private. You are the percipient and your finger is the percept.

Milliseconds before you recognized your own finger, all the information describing your finger consisted of nerve signals. In other words, your brain does not manufacture flesh and blood fingers. The percept is not a physical finger in physical space; it is a non-physical object in non-physical space. What you just consciously perceived, is non-physical.

We know a lot about the neural path ways which bring the finger to your attention, and each sense has its own pathways. As data is carried through these channels it may be manipulated; however, these tracts are conduits for information, not correlates of consciousness.

Everything we know about physiology tells us that the perceived finger is a product of brain activity, but it seems to be outside the body, attached to the hand, just as the real finger is in physical space.

Is the perception of your finger inside or outside of your brain?

Neither.

Assigning a location in physical space, either inside or outside the skull, to a non-physical object exiting in non-physical space, is a mistake. (A Zero Dimensional co-ordinate, or point may exist in physical space, but it exists only as a location, not a thing.) The percept is a derivative of brain activity; it does not reside in an anatomical part of the brain.

[snip]

Imagine that Mr. Spock, on the Starship Enterprise is about to enter the Transporter Room. He will be deconstructed into packets of energy, transported clear across, the galaxy, then reconstructed moments later at a distant point in space. He travels from one point in physical space to another point in the same physical space, albeit far removed from his start box. The brain takes its input form the senses which take packets of information from the psychical world. They are deconstructed, just like Mr. Spock, the difference is that the brain reconstructs the data in a different sort of space altogether. In real human consciousness, the object is recreated in a higher dimensional non-physical space which may be called hyperspace.

In summary, the argument is made that conscious perceptions exist in non-physical perceptual space. Consciousness is associated with neurodynamics which display attractor dimensions of about 3D and which exist in non-physical space. The conundrum presented by the perceived finger being created within the head, while still obviously attached to the hand, is solved when it is accepted that the percept is a multidimensional construct in hyperspace.

They say that our perception of the material is recreated in a higher dimensional non-physical space and guides our interface with hard physicality. What I think is interesting is that this may be an explanation of how we are part of a 4D reality (the same way that animals, which are 2D are part of our 3D reality).

Although we can’t affect 4D in any physical sense, there is I think some possibility the same way 2D does for us indirectly. What would be different is the nature of interactions between 3D and 4D. They would be less physical and more non-physical. It would be based on conscious thought. If perceptions are being constructed in a higher space and then it would seem that there can be some effect by being careful with our thoughts, how they are shaped, influenced and expressed through our actions.

The 3D material world recreated and perceived by our level of consciousness is limited by our physical bodies and expectations of what we see. But if our ideas of the physical world are actually born out of constructs in higher dimensional processes, then a 4D ‘space’ is a real thing – although non-physical for the most part. If we extend into that 'space' simply by virtue of the process, then it would pay to know as much as possible about it.

This is where I think adhering to strict materialism puts one at a disadvantage. Nothing even to do with God. Neither is it a great example of rationalism. Even if the whole thing with higher densities or ‘god’ or whatever turned out to not be true, the very act of thinking in ‘limitless terms’ is the evolution. If it is thought that gave rise to the physical, then it is not possible for evolution (in the Darwinian sense) to have given rise to thought. It stands to reason the only thing left to ‘evolve’ is consciousness. I'd even say that it is a stretch because it is really only personal thing, not a species wide thing - and those that want to do such a thing have to make super efforts in order to. Perhaps that's the Universe's way of 'selecting' - they don't just let anyone in into higher densities.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

The question of Free Will is interesting, because this is maybe the most basic, direct, common sense experience all of us have: that we can take decisions to do this or that. And yet, the materialists have the guts to deny that!! This is a "put on the straight-jacket, off ya go to the asylum" level of insanity.

And yet, it's only consequent for materialists: the second you allow free-will in a strictly materialist universe, you proclaim that the mind is super-natural: it can suspend the laws of nature and causation. Can't have that. Hence all of these what Stove calls "puppet theories": no, in reality it's not your free will deciding stuff, but selfish genes, sexual repression, hormones, social oppression or whatever fashionable concept du jour.

Think about what strict materialism means: all of the universe, all of life, each and every action humans take - this was all contained in the Big Bang. All of it, the totality of information, which structures and causes everything. All there in the BOOM. And where did it come from? From NOTHING! "BS" doesn't even begin to describe this kind of nonsense. The very fact that anyone could seriously believe in this is even for one second is evidence that the "programming is complete". Every human being in history before the 19th century would probably go
at the very idea!

It's interesting to consider that free will is not only the most basic, direct, common-sense experience, but that it is also a fundamental aspect of reality itself, i.e. of consciousness. In other words, the universe is structured so that free will is always and everywhere a reality. It can't be otherwise. No being can be truly coerced; they can only be influenced in ways to give up their own free will, some of which will be more 'coercive' in nature than others, but nothing reaching the level of complete and total overriding of the nature of consciousness. Even that can be intense (e.g., hyperdimensional influences and psychopathic manipulations and "Sophie's choices"), but at the most basic level, everything always chooses.

As for the materialists rejecting it because it implies supernaturalism, here they're only victims of their own semantics. They define nature as being materalistic and atheistic, and perception as being limited ONLY to sensory experience. So yes, free will MUST be supernatural by that definition, and so they have to reject it, because naturalism is true. But naturalism doesn't have to be materialistic, atheistic, or sensationist. In fact, the expression of free will (and the existence of consciousness, a higher/divine reality, and nonsensory perception) is part of the fabric of reality, part of the laws of nature and causation (i.e. final causation).

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Kermode bears are almost entirely black except for between 100 and 500 individuals that are white, or rather off white (with some tan color). The white individuals might be an adaptation given their improved fishing ability, but why are they still a minority? Too early in the evolutionary time frame? Can't find any info on how long they have been known to be around, but I doubt anyone knows that for sure.

Also, how would dark color bears be "wary" of snowy landscapes? And do you really think they "notice" something like their ability or lack thereof to sneak up on prey? That suggests that they observe their environment, engage in fairly high level thinking about it and take action based on that thinking. If any dark color bears wandered into the Arctic circle, they wouldn't think "oops, I'm a bit dark for here, better get out", they either die out from lack of food or, randomly wander off and, if lucky, end up in a more suitable environment.

So there's still no explanation as to how polar bears came to be so suited to their Arctic home.

Coincidentally, it looks like Behe discusses this in his upcoming book. Here's an article he wrote in response to a comment/review:

https://evolutionnews.org/2019/02/coyne-and-polar-bears-why-you-should-never-rely-on-incompetent-reviewers/

Over at his blog, Why Evolution Is True, the eminent evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne seems unwisely to be relying for his information about Darwin Devolves on one of the fellows who authored the mind-bogglingly shoddy review in Science. Coyne paraphrases some of his and another guy’s claims about my discussion of the polar bear thus:

Behe claims that this is true for the polar bear: that the genes that turned the ancestral coat white and changed the fat metabolism were broken genes. But when you examine the paper supposedly supporting Behe’s claim, you find, argue Lents and Hunt, that about half of them don’t seem to have any damaging mutations, and that perhaps “none of the 17 most positively selected genes in polar bears are ‘damaged’.”

In fact, we can even grant Behe a figure of 50% of genes involved in adaptation being broken, and it still doesn’t matter. For if just half of genes involved in new adaptations do new or different things and are not damaged, then his thesis doesn’t work: evolution doesn’t grind to a halt. And, as I’ve said, there are lots of genetic changes that don’t involve broken genes, including duplications, mutations that affect gene regulation, and so on.

Okay, hold that in your head.

The Relevant Paragraphs
Here are the relevant paragraphs from my book: (pp. 16-17)

But what precisely did the changes in polar bear APOB do to it compared to that of other mammals? When the same gene is mutated in humans or mice, studies show it frequently leads to high levels of cholesterol and heart disease. The scientists who studied the polar bear’s genome detected multiple mutations in APOB. Since few experiments can be done with grumpy polar bears, they analyzed the changes by computer. They determined that the mutations were very likely to be damaging — that is, likely to degrade or destroy the function of the protein that the gene codes for.

A second highly-selected gene, LYST, is associated with pigmentation, and changes in it are probably responsible for the blanching of the ancestor’s brown fur. Computer analysis of the multiple mutations of the gene showed that they, too, were almost certainly damaging to its function. In fact, of all the mutations in the 17 genes that were most highly selected, about half were predicted to damage the function of the respective coded proteins. Furthermore, since most altered genes bore several mutations, only 3 to 6 (depending on the method of estimation) out of 17 genes were free of degrading changes. Put differently, 65%-83% of helpful, positively-selected genes are estimated to have suffered at least one damaging mutation.
It seems, then, that the magnificent Ursus maritimus has adjusted to its harsh environment mainly by degrading genes that its ancestors already possessed. Despite its impressive abilities, rather than e-volving, it has adapted predominantly by de-volving. What that portends for our conception of evolution is the principal topic of this book.

 

[Joe]

They say that our perception of the material is recreated in a higher dimensional non-physical space and guides our interface with hard physicality. What I think is interesting is that this may be an explanation of how we are part of a 4D reality (the same way that animals, which are 2D are part of our 3D reality).

Although we can’t affect 4D in any physical sense

That made me think of why we can't perceive the physical aspect of 4D which is said to be equally physical and non-physical. After all, 2D critters can perceive and interact with our 3D material world, so why can't be interact with the 4D physical reality in the same way? One possibility is that we already do interact with the 4D material world, and it's actually the same as the 3D material world, but the missing component that would expand it to its full manifestation is the non-physical part. It could be similar to the way 2D animals are able to perceive and interact with SOME of our 3D reality, but not ALL.

What is missing for animals is their level of consciousness or awareness of the full manifestation of our 3D world. A doggie that was fully aware of 3D would be a doggie that could drive a car, shop for and cook his own dinner and do calculus, (not just run around the garden, bark at stuff and eat food - and give and get lovies of course!) He'd still be in the same world, but that world would be massively expanded in terms of his ability to interact with and manipulate it. Similarly, a human that was fully aware of 4D would still be in the 3D material world, but likewise, his/her ability to interact with and manipulate it would be expanded by a similar order of magnitude to a mathematician doggie who likes to cook and host fabulous dinner soirees that are the talk of the neighborhood.

I seem to remember intimations from sessions that the 'transition to 4D' will not be some kind of transportation to a radically new reality, but rather the expansion of this one in such a way that, from a practical point of view, it becomes very different indeed.