Re: Q


Alan Wostenberg wrote:
Zachriel wrote:

Behe's "theory" is just an argument from ignorance. Because he can't
understand or can't imagine how something arose from natural processes, he
concludes it couldn't have. It is no different than ancient peoples not
being able to explain the origin of storms, or the intricacies of plantary
orbits, ascribing their complex patterns to supernatural causes. These
assertions are not scientific because they are not based on the scientific
method, and make no valid predictions concerning empirical observations. It
is always possible to point to areas of ignorance in human knowledge,
especially historical occurences clouded by intervening events. That does
not negate what is known, e.g. vertebrates are related by common descent

Remember Dr. Behe finds common ancestry plausible... it's just natural
evolution he doubts.


Ok. As the vast majority of vertebrates are only minor modifications of
one another, same organs, same skeletal structures, it requires no
particular claim to intervention.



We saw when Dr. Behe's theory is applied to storms, or planetary
orbits, it does not detect design.


We did? Remove the sun, the atmosphere, the rotation of the Earth, the
revolution of the Earth, the Moon, the oceans, or the continents, the
formation of storms is disrupted or stopped. Storms are complex, not
simple, and require the interaction of many interrelated components.

If the function of planetary orbits is to mark time, which was the
consensus in ancient times, then a single planet out of place would
disrupt the arc of human history.


When applied to mousetraps and life,
it does. It is based on what we know, as designers, about design
patterns. So why do you believe irreducible complexity is "no
different than ancient peoples not being able to explain the origns of
storms..planets" ?


Natural arches are irreducible. Just because Behe can't imagine that a
given biological structure didn't have antecedents doesn't mean he is
correct. It may just indicate his lack of imagination.



If you believe otherwise, then please make a specific verifiable empirical
prediction from the "theory" of irreducible complexity.

I'm not sure what you mean by "prediction". If you give me an example
of archeology predicting something, and I'll give you a comparable
example of a design theory prediction.


If you believe you have found a stone tool, you might start looking for
indications of the designer. Perhaps, his physical remains, or residues
of his food, a fire pit. So when you have the purported tool, the chips
from the manufacturing process, the fire pit, the animal bones, the
painted cave walls, you can begin to understand the nature of the
designer in question.

This is how science works. Not by finding a sharp stone, jumping to
conclusions, then refusing to look further.




By the way, your web site mentioned "direct manipulation of the
genome". Help me out here, Zach. Are you saying man's ability to
genetically engineer organisms is evidence organisms were not
engineered in the beginning, 3.9 billion years ago?


genetics, a branch of biology that deals with the heredity

The Theory of Evolution is a theory of heredity. The ability to directly
manipulate genetics means the ability to perform direct experimentation on
the mechanism of heredity.

Zach, we've known traits are inherited since Mendel. How does our
present abililty to *artificially* manipulate the genome show it was a
*natural* product, eons ago?


Um, good example. Mendel used artificial crossing of peas to understand
how genetics works in nature. Is that really so hard to understand?

Zachriel
http://zachriel.blogspot.com/

.

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