And... tada! That Anonymous troll made snarky disparaging remarks on my review, just like he did for all the other positive reviews of Behe's book. Sad really. This trolling might just produce the opposite effect of what he intended.
Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design
- Thread starter Laura
- Start date
And... tada! That Anonymous troll made snarky disparaging remarks on my review, just like he did for all the other positive reviews of Behe's book. Sad really. This trolling might just produce the opposite effect of what he intended.
Not a surprise. The Darwinian gang are really scared of the Truth.
Wasn't quite sure where to put this, but for those who have not looked into materialism, the following is an excellent recent talk by Rupert Sheldrake. It might help to understand why Darwinism is such a sacred cow. Sheldrake also gives a mini-introduction to Whitehead's philosophy and speculates about the Cosmic Mind and the universe as a living organism. Great talk!
A few of us were recently discussing why exactly random mutations can't lead to complex features of organisms, like the gears on that jumping insect, and what are the limits of Darwinian evolution, specifically of random mutations. We spent a bit of time on Behe's basic examples of of why natural selection does sort of work, but only at the lowest level of genus (say Galapagos finches), but doesn't work at higher levels. 2 million years in splendid evolutionary isolation for the ancestor finch and all you got was a lot of different kinds of finches. This was useful because there were different kinds of food sources that need different sorts of beaks to access them. But with all that time they still stayed the same kind of bird, of the Thraupidae family.
That led to discussion Behe's polar bear example of how most mutational changes are downgrades in terms of the integrity of the original genes. The change may help in the short run, but it's still accomplished by deleting portions of genetic code, damage to a section of code or the disregulation of the gene's function, either up or down. Examples were brought up of breeding tame foxes and all the different varieties of dogs, which generally have retreated from the form or temperament of their wild originals. Natural selection seem to only be able to get new varieties of plants and creatures by breaking stuff. And once it's broken, there's no fixing it. If it happens often enough, it becomes an "evolutionary dead end" where a creature has no more ability to adapt to environmental changes because more mutations will only go downhill in terms of fitness. There's no way a completely new critter is going to appear in that kind of system.
That moved on to Behe's postulation that to make any sort of real change (a different kind of bird), you would need specific, organized, detailed information infused into the genetics of the creature being modified. This would account for the resemblances through time between fossils in the same family, but also explain the radical jumps in structure and function. The raw genetic materials of the existing creature are available for use, but the rearrangement of that much genetic material all at once (more or less) could never be random. There's just too many factors that have to work flawlessly together. We all marveled at the picture of the plant hopper leg gears. They ensure that both legs are synchronized to create the maximum thrust. Here's a few more, slightly different from the book.
Seriously, just as with Behe's flagellum, how could anyone imagine such an elegant, efficient mechanism just popping up out of random mutations?? There's just too many parts that have to be assembled precisely, placed precisely, and work together precisely, not to mention the nervous system being wired to it so the thing hops when it needs too and not any old time. Cool video here.
That led to discussion Behe's polar bear example of how most mutational changes are downgrades in terms of the integrity of the original genes. The change may help in the short run, but it's still accomplished by deleting portions of genetic code, damage to a section of code or the disregulation of the gene's function, either up or down. Examples were brought up of breeding tame foxes and all the different varieties of dogs, which generally have retreated from the form or temperament of their wild originals. Natural selection seem to only be able to get new varieties of plants and creatures by breaking stuff. And once it's broken, there's no fixing it. If it happens often enough, it becomes an "evolutionary dead end" where a creature has no more ability to adapt to environmental changes because more mutations will only go downhill in terms of fitness. There's no way a completely new critter is going to appear in that kind of system.
That moved on to Behe's postulation that to make any sort of real change (a different kind of bird), you would need specific, organized, detailed information infused into the genetics of the creature being modified. This would account for the resemblances through time between fossils in the same family, but also explain the radical jumps in structure and function. The raw genetic materials of the existing creature are available for use, but the rearrangement of that much genetic material all at once (more or less) could never be random. There's just too many factors that have to work flawlessly together. We all marveled at the picture of the plant hopper leg gears. They ensure that both legs are synchronized to create the maximum thrust. Here's a few more, slightly different from the book.
Seriously, just as with Behe's flagellum, how could anyone imagine such an elegant, efficient mechanism just popping up out of random mutations?? There's just too many parts that have to be assembled precisely, placed precisely, and work together precisely, not to mention the nervous system being wired to it so the thing hops when it needs too and not any old time. Cool video here.
I am still not finished with DBB but what I have read so far makes all these posts make a heck of a lot of sense to me.
I just read one of the old sessions and now it has me thinking of the impacts that may be even more drastic than I can imagine. It is about the DNA changes that we have had according to what the Cs are saying. How can any creature have much functionality left after losing 112 chromosomes of DNA? Kind of a huge "downgrade" I think.
Session 11 March 1995:
Far fetched? I'm not so sure.
I just read one of the old sessions and now it has me thinking of the impacts that may be even more drastic than I can imagine. It is about the DNA changes that we have had according to what the Cs are saying. How can any creature have much functionality left after losing 112 chromosomes of DNA? Kind of a huge "downgrade" I think.
Session 11 March 1995:
Far fetched? I'm not so sure.
Incredible! Thanks for making us aware of this little marvel. At first I couldn't believe my eyes since I'm used to seeing metal gears regularly and this is simply exactly how those things work and look like when produced by human minds/hands. That's just amazing.
More than a few of us! ;) The discussion we had was at our monthly meet-up for FOTCM members in the North Carolina area. It was quite the discussion, too! Behe was really just the launching point for the wide variety of topics that came up (we'd recently watched the documentary Third Eye Spies on the history of the U.S.'s remote viewing programs, so psi came up too, as well as some of the cosmology stuff discussed on the afterlife thread).
One of the other questions that came up and which we discussed had to do with the nature of DNA as a language. Here's the gist: DNA is largely arbitrary, like any code. There's nothing intrinsic about the structure of DNA that codes for proteins. Perhaps theoretically it's possible to have a slightly differently composed DNA structure that could also code for proteins. But the thing about proteins themselves is that there doesn't seem to be anything arbitrary about them. Specific sequences of amino acids are required in order for the protein to fold into a particular shape. And only some of those folded shapes will perform any actual function in an organism.
This is very similar to the structure of human-created languages. First, there is the element of arbitrariness: you can use any sounds or letters as the basis for your language. But the meanings (functions) are necessarily linked to reality: the things of our experience, like objects, actions, thoughts, etc. And proteins are very much like words. For instance, take five-letter words. There are 26^5 possible combinations of letters to be made in English. But only a fraction of those are words, just like only a fraction of amino-acid sequences will form actual proteins.
And just like with proteins, the majority of 'mutations' to words will harm their function. But even then, they have a degree of redundancy. Take the five-letter word 'first'. Even if you change it to 'forst', you still might be able to grasp the meaning of 'first' if it's used in context. Maybe it's a foreign person trying to write it or say it. So if they say, "I want to do this forst, and that second", it's at least intelligible. Like a protein, it suffered a degradative mutation, but it still gets the job done, just not as well. Same goes for typos. You can usually recognize a typo as a typo and grasp the intended meaning. So the misspelled word still serves the correct function, just not as well as the word in its pure form.
Longer words have even more redundancy (keep in mind that proteins can be hundreds or even thousands of 'letters' long). Take the word "antiestablishmentarianism". Make a single point mutation, and just like first/forst, the word is still readable: "antiestablushmentarianism". But change just 4 letters and it becomes practically unreadable: "untixstablisymentariacism." Same goes for genes: most point mutations are neutral or damaging, and multiple point mutations make the protein completely worthless.
But what about beneficial mutations? Words have them too. Change the final letter from 'm' to 't' and you have a new word with a new function: antiestablishmentarianist. Such mutations follow certain grammatical rules, in this case having to do with word endings, or suffixes. Just as in proteins, they won't work just anywhere - only in specific places.
You can visualize this 'possibility space' (the collection of all possible sequences) as a big circle. Within this circle is a small circle of only those possibilities that can perform a function (even if they can't do it very well, like 'forst'). And within that circle you will have points representing the 'purest' forms of words (or proteins). In the case of 'antiestablishmentarianism', there may only be 2 fully functional words represented as 2 points. (You could also represent this as mountain peaks on a graph, like Doug Axe does in his book Undeniable - the mountains represent the family of related words/proteins, and the peaks represent the most functional individual words/proteins within the family.)
Random mutation can move a word from its pure form to various possible degraded forms easily. That's what Behe shows for proteins in his new book. But it's also possible (just not as likely) to move to a new word with a new function randomly - as long as the word is in the same 'family', as in the case of the '-ism' to '-ist' above. The problem is that it's impossible to wander from one family to another randomly. You can't degrade 'antiestablishmentarianism' letter by letter until you get 'psychophysicotherapeutics'.
One way to visualize this is to imagine these words and their variations as two small circles, like we did above, with each point representing a version of the word that is one letter different than the one next to it. Now imagine these circles with are randomly placed on a very large globe the size of the earth. What are the chances of randomly wandering from one circle to the other? It's impossible for all intents and purposes. (The sizes and distances are just a guess - I didn't do the calculations necessary, but it gets across the idea - Axe actually did the calculations for a related example in his book, so read that for a mathematically correct example!)
The problem with that Darwinists is that they assume that it MUST be possible to get from 'antiestablishmentarianism' to 'psychophysicotherapeutics', and to all other words. But that would only be possible if the majority of protein sequences (unlike words) were functional. They have to assume that there are way more functional proteins than there actually are, as if you could just change 3 letters in a large word and get a new word. Change a different 2 letters and you get a completely different word, etc. But that's not the way it works. Functional protein sequences are RARE, just like words are.
Anyways, that discussion led to the observation that the 'language' of proteins seems to be somehow intrinsic in nature. Because of the nature of the molecules that make up the proteins, there are certain possibilities for form and function which we observe as life-forms: body plans of various types, different kinds of tissues, organs, cells, etc. Whatever intelligence 'created' DNA, they did not create those possibilities - they merely utilized or discovered them. The possibilities were already inherent in the properties of the elements. But here's another kicker: they can only be expressed or actualized through the use of an arbitrary code like DNA! What does THAT imply about the nature of the universe?! We have to wrestle not only with the question of who created the DNA language, but also with the question of who created the protein language.
But it goes somewhat deeper. Intelligent Design people also talk about the fine tuning of the cosmos, and how it gives the appearance of design - various physical constants that must be their precise values, in combination with other precise values, otherwise the universe basically falls apart. Well, the periodic table of elements must also be 'fine tuned' to some degree, in order to make amino acids and their combination into proteins possible. It's not just a given that any variation on the periodic table will be able to produce specific macromolecules with higher functions. Basically, it appears as if from the very bottom up, the universe is designed for the possibility of life. But between the level of inorganic matter and organic matter, there must be an infusion of information and intelligence to bridge the gap. From the perspective of chemistry left to its own devices, life is possible. But intelligence is a necessary condition to actually bring it about.
For jollies. 
Life before CGI:
Life before CGI:
Phew! Finally caught up with the thread and finished reading DBB. It was a good read!
I particularly found two concepts interesting, that I hadn’t really taken into account before:
1) Irreducible complexity
A complex system with a number of parts. If you take any part out of the system, the system stops working completely (e.g. blood clotting cascade), thus a stepwise approach is impossible.
2) Minimal function
Function to be beneficial needs to be operating in a particular range. He uses the analogy of an outboard motor. The engine won’t be of any use, even if the engine is perfectly tuned, the tank full and the structure all sound, if the propeller only turns one revolution per minute. So the odds of randomly building a fully functionign engine AND having the right envelope is absurd.
Now I cannot say that this was a TOTALLY liberating read for me ... but in a sense it has given me a bit more hope (just as the Cs did when I found the forum).
I’ve had my ups and down with religion/ divinity. I grew up in a semi-religious family (went to church and felt absolutely bored, apart from the organ music. and the singing). Then my father died when I was 15, which to me didn’t make any sense at all, if you postulated a benevolent Father in Heaven. Or he was cruel, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with both. So I turned to atheism and darwinism was just the logical conclusion - however there was always a niggling at the back of my mind ... The whole universe, in all it’s sheer beauty and strangeness just didn’t make any sense if the creation came of randomness. Why would nature go to such lenght, to creat such diversity and vastness, if there was no purpose behind? So eventually I settled somewhere in the middle - agnosticism: Allowing the existence of a creating principle that stands behind and above all that complexity, beauty and vastness, without any real idea how or what that principle would be, and at the same time, being totally repulsed by organised religion. But I never really thought Darwinism through. And I never really subscribed to the idea that life had been created as “a happy chemical accident”. It just felt instinctively wrong. So ID seems to me to be the hypothesis that fits the evidence best.
Behe’s book definitely has spelled it out for me and has definitely moved me more towards the divinity side - again whatever shape that may take. Next on the list will be Edge of Evolution and Darwin Devolves (which hasn’t arrived yet).
But - so far for me the most impressive book was Genetic Entropy, which (unless the two following Behe books are different) really drives the credulousness of darwinian evolution home at the genetic level. Behe looks more at the phenotypic level, which is a different angle to refute darwinism, but GE really nailed it for me.
Looking forward to read the other two books, and interesting thread, by the way!
I particularly found two concepts interesting, that I hadn’t really taken into account before:
1) Irreducible complexity
A complex system with a number of parts. If you take any part out of the system, the system stops working completely (e.g. blood clotting cascade), thus a stepwise approach is impossible.
2) Minimal function
Function to be beneficial needs to be operating in a particular range. He uses the analogy of an outboard motor. The engine won’t be of any use, even if the engine is perfectly tuned, the tank full and the structure all sound, if the propeller only turns one revolution per minute. So the odds of randomly building a fully functionign engine AND having the right envelope is absurd.
Now I cannot say that this was a TOTALLY liberating read for me ... but in a sense it has given me a bit more hope (just as the Cs did when I found the forum).
I’ve had my ups and down with religion/ divinity. I grew up in a semi-religious family (went to church and felt absolutely bored, apart from the organ music. and the singing). Then my father died when I was 15, which to me didn’t make any sense at all, if you postulated a benevolent Father in Heaven. Or he was cruel, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with both. So I turned to atheism and darwinism was just the logical conclusion - however there was always a niggling at the back of my mind ... The whole universe, in all it’s sheer beauty and strangeness just didn’t make any sense if the creation came of randomness. Why would nature go to such lenght, to creat such diversity and vastness, if there was no purpose behind? So eventually I settled somewhere in the middle - agnosticism: Allowing the existence of a creating principle that stands behind and above all that complexity, beauty and vastness, without any real idea how or what that principle would be, and at the same time, being totally repulsed by organised religion. But I never really thought Darwinism through. And I never really subscribed to the idea that life had been created as “a happy chemical accident”. It just felt instinctively wrong. So ID seems to me to be the hypothesis that fits the evidence best.
Behe’s book definitely has spelled it out for me and has definitely moved me more towards the divinity side - again whatever shape that may take. Next on the list will be Edge of Evolution and Darwin Devolves (which hasn’t arrived yet).
But - so far for me the most impressive book was Genetic Entropy, which (unless the two following Behe books are different) really drives the credulousness of darwinian evolution home at the genetic level. Behe looks more at the phenotypic level, which is a different angle to refute darwinism, but GE really nailed it for me.
Looking forward to read the other two books, and interesting thread, by the way!
Just to note, there is also a documentation about Behe called Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines.
Here is the official website, which has also some other references:
The documentation is also available in German.
Here is the official website, which has also some other references:
The documentation is also available in German.
I finished DBB during the week, I found it fascinating and indeed complex during part two since his vocabulary is quite rich even in his analogies for a nonnative. I really enjoyed his way of writing though, he is definitely a teacher one would love to have. He gets you to the point even though you lack some of the required backgrounds. I appreciated the Biochemistry 101 Appendix and also the videos posted which helped me understand better some of the content shared. It's like traveling in a foreign country. How marvelous and rich life is! The philosophical discussion about how we instantly recognize design is an easy one to grasp and convey. It was really helpful to relate to that.
I'm eager to learn more in his following books.
What I found most satisfying is his way of thinking in regards to science and the contrasts he made by pointing out the flaws of some scientists views and the surprising way Darwinists are avoiding the fundamental problem. At times it seems obvious there's a pathological problem somewhere. Some quotes where evolution is explained really didn't look like science at all.
This is what stroke me the most, even more in the '10 years later' afterword, the attitude they are displaying makes one's eyes double. (If that expression stands) Where is the scientific reasoning in all that? It's all projections, distortions, and avoidance. Familiar and sick.
I'm eager to learn more in his following books.
What I found most satisfying is his way of thinking in regards to science and the contrasts he made by pointing out the flaws of some scientists views and the surprising way Darwinists are avoiding the fundamental problem. At times it seems obvious there's a pathological problem somewhere. Some quotes where evolution is explained really didn't look like science at all.
This is what stroke me the most, even more in the '10 years later' afterword, the attitude they are displaying makes one's eyes double. (If that expression stands) Where is the scientific reasoning in all that? It's all projections, distortions, and avoidance. Familiar and sick.
Ben Shapiro just interviewed Stephen Meyer about ID. That's pretty huge. Check it out on SOTT:
www.sott.net
Ben Shapiro interviews Stephen Meyer about intelligent design
Ben Shapiro's Sunday Special interview with Stephen Meyer is up and viewable now at YouTube. This might be the best interview with Meyer that I've ever seen. Check it out: Why might it be the best? Partly because of the long video format - a full...
www.sott.net
I was just thinking how nonsensical the notion of random mutation is.
So it is by definition something that happens within an already existing machinery. You need to have something that is already functional before mutations can happen in the first place. I don't understand how the Darwinists reversed the order and came to a conclusion that random mutations can build something. It's like observing rusting of your car engine and that drawing a conclusion that rust was somehow the cause that led to the engine itself being built. How is that logical exactly?
One thing that I became aware of recently is the astonishing fact that Charles Darwin himself saw evolution as goal-directed. In other words, he believed that at the moment of creation, God "built in" the necessary purposes into the evolutionary processes (we might say today: he supplied the necessary information for evolution to work in a certain direction, i.e. conscious intelligent life/humans).
Now, neo-Darwinism has done away with this concept altogether, and later Darwinists desperately tried to argue away Darwin's views (and the fluctuating and contradictory statements by Darwin on religion played into their hands).
This paper makes it clear that Darwin thought evolution has a goal - which also jives with his Deist views on religion.
In other words, were Darwin alive today, maybe he would join the Discovery Institute
Now, neo-Darwinism has done away with this concept altogether, and later Darwinists desperately tried to argue away Darwin's views (and the fluctuating and contradictory statements by Darwin on religion played into their hands).
This paper makes it clear that Darwin thought evolution has a goal - which also jives with his Deist views on religion.
In other words, were Darwin alive today, maybe he would join the Discovery Institute
