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

[aragorn]

I just finished 'Undeniable' by Douglas Axe yesterday. It was a semi-enjoyable read, but I didn't find it as excellent as Behe's or Leisola's books. It's difficult to put a finger on what exactly was 'wrong' with the book, but my overall impression was that Axe doesn't have the same brilliant ability that e.g. Behe to come up with illustrating analogies. The analogies he presented in the first half of the book felt a bit forced and somehow disconnected (or, perhaps I didn't just 'get it').

Also, one thing that I find annoying with many of todays writers is the constant 'promising' and 'telling ahead' of "...what this book is going to cover", "...when we're finished with our journey we're going to see..." and "...in this chapter we're first going to...and then...". It's nice to have some idea were a book is heading, but I personally find it irritating when several pages of each chapter is used to this 'preparing the reader'. Please, skip the noise and continue with the important stuff!

The most interesting and valuable thoughts by Axe came IMO in the last chapters, from chapter 13 forward. Some good philosophizing about what the mind actually is and how molecules in the brain never can explain the human capacity to form concepts, and consciousness for that matter. The human mind and consciousness is on a higher hierarchical level than matter; how can then something higher come out of random mutation of matter?

Also, the idea that these super-tiny molecular machines are there for someone to discover was really interesting! The thinking goes, that the designer has to know that at some point humans will have the capability and technology to discover all these amazing things...and what they'll see is truly undeniable – these things are designed and invented. Thinking about this, I started to wonder if 'the designer', foreseeing this, is going to take some sort of action once the 'secret is exposed' and accepted on a wider scale?

Lastly, Axe makes no secret of him believing in a 'Him', i.e. a Biblical God. That wasn't surprising, but a bit disappointing.

 

[Chu]

My impression of Axe was very close to yours, Aragorn. I found him quite annoying at times, and vague at others. Overall, I didn't think I was learning much after Behe. Every time he was about to make a good point, he became all but scientific about it. It made me feel a bit sorry for him, because it was like "ah, he's so close to something good!"... and then there wasn't much. His analogy about language seemed a bit promising at first, and then fell flat. But I gave him credit for mildy debunking Darwin and some of his analogies. At least he tried, and exposed some details about nasty academics and such.

 

[Gaby]

I just finished Axe's book yesterday as well, and I concur with you both. I found the mathematical analogies almost unreadable, but my brain is too dense for this subject anyhow. I can't put my finger on it, but I didn't felt a connection with him. Nevertheless, there were some great concepts and even though Axe only gave a glimpse of photosynthesis, it was still breathtaking to consider just how wonderful those little machines should be in order to make raw food out of light.

 

[Laura]

I just finished Axe's book yesterday as well, and I concur with you both. I found the mathematical analogies almost unreadable, but my brain is too dense for this subject anyhow. I can't put my finger on it, but I didn't felt a connection with him. Nevertheless, there were some great concepts and even though Axe only gave a glimpse of photosynthesis, it was still breathtaking to consider just how wonderful those little machines should be in order to make raw food out of light.

I agree. The only thing I really got out of Axe's book was that wild inspiration about photosynthesis. It really is freaking amazing to be able to convert light into matter/energy.

 

[herondancer]

Also, one thing that I find annoying with many of todays writers is the constant 'promising' and 'telling ahead' of "...what this book is going to cover", "...when we're finished with our journey we're going to see..." and "...in this chapter we're first going to...and then...". It's nice to have some idea were a book is heading, but I personally find it irritating when several pages of each chapter is used to this 'preparing the reader'. Please, skip the noise and continue with the important stuff!

It is annoying, but seems to be part of the current academic "style". Nearly every book we've been reading lately has had it. I'm reading First Sight and Scientific Naturalism concurrently, and they both have this structure. So did Darwin's Fairy Tales. Griffin's SN even names the coming chapters where he discusses on matter or another in the introduction. The only reason I can think of for it, is to make it easier for researchers who are only interested on one aspect of a book's material to find the relevant information without slogging through other concepts they may already be familiar with. It's almost like the way a textbook is structured.

 

[Ennio]

Also, the idea that these super-tiny molecular machines are there for someone to discover was really interesting! The thinking goes, that the designer has to know that at some point humans will have the capability and technology to discover all these amazing things...and what they'll see is truly undeniable – these things are designed and invented. Thinking about this, I started to wonder if 'the designer', foreseeing this, is going to take some sort of action once the 'secret is exposed' and accepted on a wider scale?

I think that's largely correct. Its as though the scientific and spiritual implications are, simultaneously, both right there - but there needs to be a certain amount of receptivity in both areas for one to grasp its significance. But rather than 'the designer' taking action at such a point - or perhaps in addition to the designer taking some action - its our comprehension that brings us closer to the designer; a kind of natural feedback loop/process that, in the grand scheme of the 'short wave cycle', helps us to move towards the "the reality of the future". Reminds me a bit of what the Cs told Laura some time ago regarding her channelling of them - that both ends of the transmission were of equal importance.

 

[beetlemaniac]

I think that's largely correct. Its as though the scientific and spiritual implications are, simultaneously, both right there - but there needs to be a certain amount of receptivity in both areas for one to grasp its significance. But rather than 'the designer' taking action at such a point - or perhaps in addition to the designer taking some action - its our comprehension that brings us closer to the designer; a kind of natural feedback loop/process that, in the grand scheme of the 'short wave cycle', helps us to move towards the "the reality of the future". Reminds me a bit of what the Cs told Laura some time ago reagarding her channelling of them - that both ends of the transmission were of equal importance.

At the risk of repeating the ideas that the C's have repeatedly transmitted, as well as what Jordan Peterson and Stephen Meyer has spoken about in passing, that meaning in all its forms - via knowledge accumulation and transmission is intimately related to bringing what is present in front of us (and everywhere, really) into consciousness? So we see better with our eyes, and hear better with our ears, so that we may cleanse our hearts in love of cosmic mind. Bringing more of what is present, physically and in the sense of time, into awareness, is, funnily enough, bringing us closer to a future reality via seeing that we are part of a larger, complex, multifaceted, fractal whole!

p.s. @Approaching Infinity your podcasts are always inspiring me to think about these things- mind expanding indeed!

 

[Windmill knight]

It is annoying, but seems to be part of the current academic "style". Nearly every book we've been reading lately has had it. I'm reading First Sight and Scientific Naturalism concurrently, and they both have this structure. So did Darwin's Fairy Tales. Griffin's SN even names the coming chapters where he discusses on matter or another in the introduction. The only reason I can think of for it, is to make it easier for researchers who are only interested on one aspect of a book's material to find the relevant information without slogging through other concepts they may already be familiar with. It's almost like the way a textbook is structured.

Yes, when I was in academia I was told that when writing (an article, a thesis), you should 'say what you're going to say, say it, and say what you just said'. In the general structure that would be the introduction, the argument/evidence, and the conclusion. But the same applies to each of the chapters or subsections, so there is a lot of repeating with different words. Yes, it's a bit annoying, but if you think of how bad we are at retaining information and how often we misunderstand difficult concepts, I'm personally grateful it's like that.

 

[fabric]

It's almost like the way a textbook is structured.

When it comes to these more complex topics, I like it that way and don't find it that annoying at all. With many things repetition is key and I don't mind spoilers when it's non-fiction. Even with all the 'prep-work' by the author I find myself having to go back and re-read things. So for me it's a good thing as well. The way I see it, learning and understanding these things is akin to learning a new language. And one of the best ways to learn it to repeatedly expose oneself to essentially the same 'concept' over and over again (though in various ways) until it sticks. In fact this works across many disciplines and while it can get tedious and boring sometimes, it is almost always worth it.

 

[goyacobol]

When it comes to these more complex topics, I like it that way and don't find it that annoying at all. With many things repetition is key and I don't mind spoilers when it's non-fiction. Even with all the 'prep-work' by the author I find myself having to go back and re-read things. So for me it's a good thing as well. The way I see it, learning and understanding these things is akin to learning a new language. And one of the best ways to learn it to repeatedly expose oneself to essentially the same 'concept' over and over again (though in various ways) until it sticks. In fact this works across many disciplines and while it can get tedious and boring sometimes, it is almost always worth it.

The idea of "repetition" is a valuable one I think. It is kind of a 2 edged sword. The programs we absorb are largely due to repetition which can be bad. As a matter of fact there was an illustration of how psilocybin mushrooms (if used sparingly) can help some to break out of the intrenched ruts grooved into our brains.[This is not a recommendation]

Session 9 December 2017:

(L) If psilocybin mushrooms are not producing spiritual experiences, what do they do?

A: They bind to neuroreceptors and block certain intense ego oriented thinking. This has the effect of allowing a mass of impressions coming to and through the sensorium to be apprehended. The effect is to make the individual less controlling in their thinking. These effects can be lasting.

Q: (Artemis) So it like dissolves boundaries in a way?

A: Yes

Q: (L) So, obviously if the effects are lasting, one doesn't need to repeat it?

A: No. And in fact repetition can be damaging by altering brain structures via chemical pathways.

On the other hand repetition can be very beneficial when it come to learning new valuable information and there is one time where Laura talked about how the ancient schools use repetition to memorize information without writing it down is some cases. The truths were apparently passed on by memorization.

Session 09 2009:

"It will seem strange to many people when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity.

Special schools existed in this prehistoric Egypt which were called 'schools of repetition.' In these schools a public repetition was given on definite days, and in some schools perhaps even every day, of the entire course in a condensed form of the sciences that could be learned at these schools. Sometimes this repetition lasted a week or a month. Thanks to these repetitions people who had passed through this course did not lose their connection with the school and retained in their memory all they had learned.

This is what Caesar reported about the Druids – that all their learning was memorized, that they did not commit the important things to writing. I wrote about this in Secret History as follows:

One of the principal historians of the Roman era, Julius Caesar, tells us that the Celts were ruled by the Druids. The druids “held all knowledge.” The Druids were charged with ALL intellectual activities, and were not restricted to religion, per se, which suggests to us that “religion” and “knowledge” in a more or less scientific approach, were considered essential to one another - symbiotic.

It is later writers who began to vilify the Celts by accusing them of the usual things that people get accused of when someone wants to demonize them: human sacrifice, homosexuality, and so on. Most of that nonsense goes back to Posidonius, who has been quoted as an “authority” by every other “authority” on the Celts since. Unfortunately, when one checks Posidonius, one finds that he really didn’t have a clue and was probably making stuff up to fulfill an agenda.

The lack of written texts by the Celts has been the greatest problem for historians and students of the Celts. A lot of ideas are “supposed” or ancient sources with agendas have been relied on, and some of them even propose that there was a “taboo” by the Celts on putting things into writing.

Well, I suppose that, if our civilization came to an end and all our records on magnetic media were destroyed, people might say that we didn’t put anything in writing either.

There has been a lot of nonsense written about WHY the Celts didn’t write things down, and the most nonsensical, considering what we do know about their culture, is that this was how the Druids “kept their power” or that they believed something silly like: “if the sacred myths were revealed, they would become profaned and thus lose their mystic virtues.”

What Caesar said was that the reason for the ban on writing was that the Druids were concerned that their pupils should not neglect the training of their memories, i.e. the Frontal Cortex, by relying on written texts. We have discussed the production of ligands and their potential for unlocking DNA . It seems to be very interesting that the very things that we have learned from the Cassiopaeans, from alchemical texts, from our own experiences, and from research - that “thinking with a hammer” is the key to transformation - was noted as an integral part of the Druidic initiation.

It is worth noting that, in the nineteenth century, it was observed that the illiterate Yugoslav bards, who were able to recite interminable poems, actually lost their ability to memorize once they had learned to rely on reading and writing.

Although the Druids prohibited certain things from being written down, it’s clear that they DID write. Celtic writings in Ogamic script have been found on many ancient stones. Caesar tells us that the Celts were using the Greek alphabet when the Romans arrived in Gaul in the first century BC.

However, the knowledge of the initiates was transmitted entirely orally, and with the information about ligands and receptors, we are beginning to understand WHY.

The destruction of Celtic culture was so complete that we know very little about their religion. We do know that they celebrated their “rites” in forests and by lakes without erecting any covered temples or statues of divinities. Tacitus tells us:

They do not think it in keeping with the divine majesty to confine gods within walls, or to portray them in the likeness of any human countenance. Their holy places are woods and groves and they apply the names of deities to that hidden presence which is seen only by the eyes of reverence.

Plato had doubts about the Greek origins of Homer’s work because not only do the physical descriptions in his poems not correspond to the Greek world, but also the Homeric philosophy is very different from the mainstream Greek philosophy we know about today. The latter is based on the dualism of two opposing elements, thesis/ antithesis, good/ evil, life/death, body/soul, etc. omitting the idea of the Third Force.

Since Plato’s times, many have sought to derive “synthesis” from these opposing elements, with little success. The “third force” of Gurdjieff has been brought up many times with little satisfaction in the attempts to understand it, and perhaps it is in what we can derive from the Celtic teachings will help us here.

According to Homer, the philosophy of the ancient world was that there was a third element that linked the opposing elements. Between the body and the soul, there is the spirit. Between life and death there is the transformation that is possible to the individual, between father and mother there is the child who takes the characteristics of both father and mother, and between good and evil there is the SPECIFIC SITUATION that determines which is which and what ought to be done.

In other words, there are three simultaneous determinants in any situation that make it impossible to say that any list of things is “good” or “evil” intrinsically, and that the true determinant is the situation.

In any event, the symbol of this philosophy is the triskele, representing three waves joined together.

The simultaneous existence of the third element does not mean that the notion of “good” and “evil” did not exist or was not reflected in the Celtic law. What was clear was that it was understood that nothing could be “cut and dried” in terms of law, that each situation was unique and the circumstances had to be carefully weighed.

Aristotle considered Gaul to be the “teacher” of Greece and the Druids to be the “inventors of philosophy.” The Greeks also considered the Druids to be the world’s greatest scholars, and whose mathematical knowledge was the source of Pythagoras‘ information.

And so, we see that there is another way to consider the “three forces.” This brings us back again to “perspicacity” which is a function of knowledge. The ability to “assimilate B influences” as Mouravieff describes it, depends upon the evaluation of the Impression in the specific context in which it is experienced.

Sometimes they came from very far away simply in order to listen to the repetition and went away feeling their connection with the school.

[....]

There were special days of the year when the repetitions were particularly complete, when they were carried out with particular solemnity—and these days themselves possessed a symbolical meaning.

These 'schools of repetition' were taken as a model for Christian churches—the form of worship in Christian churches almost entirely represents the course of repetition of the science dealing with the universe and man. Individual prayers, hymns, responses, all had their own meaning in this repetition as well as holidays and all religious symbols, though their meaning has been forgotten long ago."

Continuing, G. quoted some very interesting examples of the explanations of various parts of orthodox liturgy. Unfortunately no notes were made at the time and I will not undertake to reconstruct them from memory.

The idea was that, beginning with the first words, the liturgy so to speak goes through the process of creation, recording all its stages and transitions. What particularly astonished me in G.'s explanations was the extent to which so much has been preserved in its pure form and how little we understand of all this. His explanations differed very greatly from the usual theological and even from mystical interpretations. And the principal difference was that he did away with a great many allegories. I mean to say that it became obvious from his explanations that we take many things for allegories in which there is no allegory whatever and which ought to be understood much more simply and psychologically. What he said before about the Last Supper serves as a good example of this.

There is a wealth of ideas in the examples that Laura assembled in her session comments. Of course it takes going back and "repeating" the thought process to realize how this relates to PaleoChrisianity.

Session 09 June 2009:

From the above survey and comments, we can see that Gurdjieff was most likely mistaken about certain things though he had the general principles right. I think that we can also see that the Christian stories and rites are, more than anything else, corruptions of Grail stories which are remembrances of PaleoChristianity.

 

[flashgordonv]

Yes, when I was in academia I was told that when writing (an article, a thesis), you should 'say what you're going to say, say it, and say what you just said'. In the general structure that would be the introduction, the argument/evidence, and the conclusion. But the same applies to each of the chapters or subsections, so there is a lot of repeating with different words. Yes, it's a bit annoying, but if you think of how bad we are at retaining information and how often we misunderstand difficult concepts, I'm personally grateful it's like that.

In fact, that process is considered good form when writing a speech or a presentation. I spent 30 years giving business presentations and speeches and this was certainly drilled into people as the best way to get your message across.

 

[aragorn]

I agree, that prepping the reader is a part of good scientific writing and presentations. Especially with longer pieces, like dissertations, it's nice if the author lays out what's going to happen in each chapter.

I guess my problem with Axe's writing is, that he sometimes used several pages for this prepping and, perhaps most importantly, he promised to deliver things and 'amazing discoveries' that for me never came to be as I continued reading. My guess is that, inspired by the great and very coherent authors like Behe, he decided to do an even better job at explaining things as clearly as possible for the layman – and by trying to do that, he overdid it. It appeared to me as if he tried to be smarter and a better writer than he really is.

I think a scientific author should be very careful with making promises of how s/he is going to convince the reader of something. To me, that smells like self importance and grandiosity.

 

[Mandatory Intellectomy]

I guess my problem with Axe's writing is, that he sometimes used several pages for this prepping and, perhaps most importantly, he promised to deliver things and 'amazing discoveries' that for me never came to be as I continued reading.

Sounds like the kind of thing that after several pages of this luring ends with "If you want to find out about all this amazing stuff, order it for only $49.90."
I hate repetition and all this marketing bullshit, but I guess it works for some people.

After reading about ten books on this topic so far, I must say the ones from Behe really were the most valuable. No messing around, mostly strict science and flawless logic, and only a little bit of reasonable speculation about the implications at the end of the books. This especially stands in glaring contrast with the manipulative, misleading garbage Dawkins writes.

 

[Mandatory Intellectomy]

I'm reading all these books and some biology/chemistry on Wikipedia and random other things this all links me to, and I'm making a lot of connections. The fun part is that then I read some things that luc wrote months ago and I can see how he was making the same connections before me.

For example he said earlier in this thread:

"There seems to be a strange kind of pattern that connects these various issues - the common theme being, perhaps, to lock people into absurd materialist thinking that denies the power of consciousness, of intelligence, of making decisions, of values etc."

And I've noticed some connections that lead to the same conclusion in places that might seem totally unrelated. For example some time ago some aspects of Darwinism led me to thinking about 911.

According to the official story, all those totally improbable things that happened that day happened randomly, by accident. Everything from NORAD to airport security failed accidentally. WTC7 accidentally burned down even though there was fire only in like 3 windows. No planning. Literally everything was a coincidence. Silverstein's WTC insurance, people not being in places they were supposed to be, and so on. And this is, apparently, the official explanation for just about everything. Everything is random, an accident, a coincidence, from false flags to evolution.

This denial of design, intelligence and intent can be seen everywhere the PTB give us an "official" explanation. And if you put it all together, the purpose seems to be clear: you have no control over anything, so don't even try thinking about it.

 

[hlat]

In chapter 2 of Darwin Devolves, Behe addressed the darwinian criticism that design "flaws" mean that there were no designers, and Behe's reply was used the example of the vertebrate eye to show that the design "flaw" was actually a design feature. But both camps seem to miss the possibility that the designers were not perfect and so the creations were not perfect and have design flaws. Maybe this is addressed later in the book.