Re: Behe book review: Pa. scientist again attacks evolution

On Aug 20, 10:57 pm, Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 20, 6:52 pm, hersheyh <hershe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 20, 6:16 pm, Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 20, 2:28 pm, hersheyh <hershe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 20, 4:10 pm, Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 20, 2:18 am, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins) wrote:

Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 19, 8:28 pm, Free Lunch <lu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:56:33 -0700, in talk.origins
Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote in
<1187578593.329467.265...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On Aug 19, 7:44 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Glenn" <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1187573890.886361.313620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Aug 19, 5:44 pm, "Steven J." <steve...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 19, 7:01 pm, Glenn <GlennShel...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 19, 4:30 pm, noctiluca <robertlc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

-- [snip]

Show us how ID can explain the supra-scapular ligament,
benthic structures, or anything at all. Keep in mind that
"intelligence did it" is not an explanation any more than
"angels that look like Woody Harrelson did it" or "wood nymphs
did it" or even "Winnie-the-Pooh did it." Intelligence is not
a causal agency. Intelligence is an attribute of some causal
agency, just as generosity or spirituality or tone- deafness
might all be attributes of a causal agency. So in order to
demonstrate that ID can indeed explain anything you must be
able to show us the designer.

Tell it to Darwin, since in the absense of the knowledge of
random mutation and cellular function, natural selection isn't a
causal agency and can't even be imagined as one. Intelligence is
most definitely a mechanism, imbecile, just as generosity is as
well. It isn't necessarily the first cause, but then science
doesn't require knowledge of everything, or there wouldn't be
need for science.

Given that Darwin *did* imagine natural selection in the absence
of knowledge of mutations or how cells function, your statement
appears to coexist somewhat uneasily with historic facts. To
recognize natural selection as a causal agency, one needs to note
that [a] organisms vary among themselves, [b] organisms pass on
traits to their descendants, [c] some of the variation among
individuals is among the traits that are passed on to offspring,
[d] not all offspring survive to reproduce themselves, and [e]
some of these inheritable differences cause some of the difference
in which organisms survive to pass on their genes. How traits are
passed on, how new variations arise, and how the mechanisms of
inheritance interact with those of development are good things to
know, but one does not need to know them in order to recognize
natural selection.

Those are *observations*, not mechanisms.

They are observations of the mechanism that is natural selection at work.

Of the then unknown mechanisms, but not of "natural selection at
work".
"Because I say so" isn't an acceptable argument.

All you've said is "yuh huh", without explanation. Without
mechanism, natural selection is an inference based at best on an
inference, not on a mechanism, and not a mechanism itself.

How so? The mechanism of natural selection is clear- some organisms
do, in fact, survive to pass on offspring, and others don't. How can
you deny this?

I don't deny that. But that by itself is not a mechanism of *change*.

Recognize that.

But you are, of course, completely wrong. Natural selection *is* itself a
mechanism.

So is everything in your world. Natural selection by itself is not
itself a mechanism of evolution.

Evey by your standards that is a particularly ignorant comment.

Clue #1: The name of the book Darwin wrote: "On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection"

You are clueless. Don't presume. Natural selection alone does not and
can not produce species.

That is arguable. If you mean there is some level of difference that
natural selection cannot pass, that is just false. But natural selection
*does* cause new species by both major theories of speciation.
Speciation in "vicariance" (separate populations) occurs because drift
and selection inadvertently make the populations incompatible
reproductively. Speciation by niche or host tracking is entirely down to
selection - hybrids have lowered fitness because they are less adapted
to either niche or host species, and so they do worse than either morph.
They are neither fish nor fowl, to use a phrase.

Either way selection is involved in speciation. The other major form of
speciation, polyploidy, is due to chromosomal incompatibilities formed
by duplication or reduction of chromosomes. Here the selection is pretty
much all-or-nothing - hybrids have close to 100% failure of
reproduction, so it is hardly differential selection.

I expect this to go entirely over your head.
--

Thanks for the heads up. What I said is that in the absense of a
mechanism of change, natural selection is not a mechanism of change.
And you have not shown NS to be capable of change by itself. Your
argument ("either way") is laced with genetic mechanisms, which shows
that you probably misunderstood what I said (clearly, at least twice,
above). Regarding NS as a mechanism of evolution, without knowledge of
a mechanism that allows NS to operate as a mechansim, is premature.

Isn't mutation a "mechanism of change" that provides the variants that
nature selects among?

Actually "mutation" is just a word for "change", and a mechanism
unknown to Darwin.

Yes and SFW. Mutation, at the chemical level, is quite well
understood today. The fact is that even if Darwin was guessing that
variation occurred and recurred in nature, he was right.

Is change a "mechanism of change", Howard? The observation that change
occurs is not a mechanism.

And mutation, which is what we understand and call the chemical
changes in DNA sequences, is a mechanism that produces biological
change and variation. If you want me to list the various types of
mutations and their causes, starting with point mutation and going on
to insertions and deletions, and then discussing the frequency of
mutation and the frequency of repair, there are whole books and
thousands of journal articles discussing mutation of DNA in great
detail.

Near as I can figure, he thought "nature did it" somehow, because God
wouldn't have, but he was unaware of the mechanism enabling change,
diversity, variation.
He simply could not have known.

Again, SFW. This is 2007, not 1857. Darwin is not some demigod we
consider to be beyond error or that we do not recognize that he was
limited to the knowledge base of his time. Even if it was a pure
guess that variation occurred on a continual basis, it is clear that
it was a prescient guess. [Darwin, like Paley, would have recognized
that 'sports' and 'hereditary variants' like albinos were a recurrent
phenomenon, so it was more than a wild guess.] Science has gone
beyond what Darwin knew, brilliant though that work was. We now do
know that chemical changes in DNA sequences are the cause of the
biological changes we call genetic mutation. The fact is that one
does not need to invoke a god or a fairy or any supernatural agent to
explain mutation. One only needs invoke things like cosmic rays, UV
light, spontaneous deamination, strand scission, adduction of various
'mutagenic' chemicals, errors in replication, errors in meiosis, etc.,
to explain mutation of DNA.- Hide quoted text -

Getting a little pissy, aren't you? It isn't a fact that one does not
need to "invoke" a "god", Howard. And theories aren't "right". That's
your atheist faith talking.
Foam at the mouth on your own time.

Har! The rabid dog accusing others of foaming at the mouth...

gregwrld

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