Evolution Must Be Taught in Public Schools

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

What credible information, exactly?

There is quite a bit of credible information. Almost all off it can be "credibly" refuted, but it is only that.

Whether or not you weight the credibility of Michael Behe's original arguments as high, medium or low (I would put it at medium), or Dembski's mathematical assessments (I would put these slightly lower), they have credible positions.

Keep in mind that many of us have held the initial Punctuated Equilibrium hypotheses (as originally asserted by Gould and Eldredge in 1972) as a pretty interesting view of the same data that everyone else thought supported gradualism. I think that PE is held by most folks as a credible position, although it does not overturn the weight of the argument for mutation-mediated gradualism.

I happen to think (not believe, think) that the weight of the concrete arguments directly supporting mutation-driven speciation are weak. Ergo, they are more easily called into question (not necessarily overturned) by credible opposing views.

Behe started with simple observational points that some complex structures do not seem to have practical paths for serial mutation to result in a complex endpoint. Credible antagonists have countered that some elements of his complex structures do (in fact) pre-exist in other locales and for other purposes. But the key point is that neither position is proof.

As we gene-sequence more genomes, I suspect we are going to find some real surprises. Specifically, I think we are going to find daughter species that are phenotypically very different from parent species, and that some complex phenotypes arise suddenly without intervening selection. I think that is what the fossil record shows.

In this context (assuming we accept the sub-hypothesis of common descent, as I do) we do not have a mechanism for speciation. We just know it happens.

This would (essentially) put the macro-evolution discussion into a similar bucket where we now hold abiogenesis. Everyone sort of assumes it happened (heck, we are here, aren't we?) but no one has a particularly compelling argument for the mechanism. (I don't happen to think the evidence for aliens putting is here is particularly compelling, by the way).

Many folks (including me) have a difficult time accepting the notion that in the roughly 1 billion years between earth formation and the first prokaryote, that life showed up by accident out of the hostile chemical goo. That first little beggar 3.5 billion years ago was remarkably complex and already contained nearly all of the infrastructural machinery to replicate that we still use today in all phyla. Assuming it took 600 or 700 million years for the earth to cool, this leaves 300-400 million years for this little dude to begin to replicate. Pretty significant achievement, given that the replication method that showed up "spontaneously" 3.5 billion year ago is still with us in substantially the same form.

Hence we are arguing (with a straight face) that this biogenetic event occurred in a hostile environment 3.5 billion years ago, and yet, it has never occurred since (at least not well enough to create a different sort of life architecture).

If we can leave open some of the questions about abiogenesis, we can certainly leave open some of the questions about ID. ID folks are NOT saying "God did it". All they are saying is we cannot assert (based on the fact base) that this was exclusively serial mutation.

That, in my opinion, is science.

Bio

[InfiniteNow]

Thanks for the reply, but you basically just walked around my request.

Also, life has been created in the lab, so the whole abiogenesis angle isn't really working for me anyway. Further, most of Behe's assertions have been debunked. Ken Miller did this quite well, but so have others.

I sense that you are trying to fit the evidence into your worldview, sort of like hammering a square peg through a round hole. With me, I generally find it preferable just to use the round peg...


Did you happen to catch this program?

NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | Watch the Program | PBS

The whole thing is quite worth the watch, but Chapter 8 seems to speak specifically to the points you've raised above.


Cheers.

[REASON]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Assuming it took 600 or 700 billion years for the earth to cool, this leaves 300-400 billion years for this little dude to begin to replicate.

I just wanted to point out that you obviously meant million, not billion in these statements.

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Hence we are arguing (with a straight face) that this biogenetic event occurred in a hostile environment 3.5 billion years ago, and yet, it has never occurred since (at least not well enough to create a different sort of life architecture).

Actually, we're suppost to be arguing (with a straight face) why evolution needs to be taught in public schools, and why Intelligent Design doesn't qualify for inclusion in the science curriculum.

Reason being, the scientific community generally considers ID pseudoscience, and lacking legitimate evidence in support of it's theories. And it is clear the true motivations of ID proponents, considering their primary efforts appear to be in the persuasion of children in public schools rather than legitimate scientific peers.

I'm not aware of any other pseudosciences, such as Astrology or Numerology, that are regularly included in public school science education standards.

Originally Posted by Biochemist

ID folks are NOT saying "God did it". All they are saying is we cannot assert (based on the fact base) that this was exclusively serial mutation.

Uh, of course ID folks are saying "God did it." Who do you suspect the Intelligent Designer to be if not God?

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Thanks for the reply, but you basically just walked around my request.

Also, life has been created in the lab, so the whole abiogenesis angle isn't really working for me anyway. Further, most of Behe's assertions have been debunked. Ken Miller did this quite well, but so have others.

Again, articulating a credible opposing argument is not a refutation. It is an opposing argument. I am not sure why a credible opposing argument is so broadly accepted as a "refutation" on this forum. If someone were to prove that Behe's argument is either 1) not possible (as opposed to arguing that complex structures might have been generated by serial mutation), or 2) at odds with fact, it would be refuted. To my knowledge, no one has done that. A number of competent folks have offered credible defenses of the standard dogma.

I have not watched the program. I will look at it.

Bio

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by REASON

I just wanted to point out that you obviously meant million, not billion in these statements.

Thanks. Oops.I went back and repaired them.

Uh, of course ID folks are saying "God did it." Who do you suspect the Intelligent Designer to be if not God?

Hmmm. I am having difficulty with your circuitous argument. Let me a little more concrete: I am not saying God did it. I am saying that some phenomenon are poorly explained by serial mutation. It is illegitimate to critique my argument because of your imputation of motives into someone else's argument. If you have a problem with the nomenclature of "Intelligent Design", then call it something else. How about "Something Other Than Serial Mutation". Let's use SOTSM from now on.

I am suggesting that support for serial mutation is weak. Period. There are several long, ugly threads on this forum with hundreds of posts discussing the implications of the theoretical options if serial mutation is not the cause of speciation.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Also, life has been created in the lab, so the whole abiogenesis angle isn't really working for me anyway....

You are joking aren't you? Are you actually suggesting that because we can copy DNA and insert it into a complex preexisting machine that transcribes DNA into protein or replicates DNA, that we have "created" life????

Isn't this a little like saying that a 16 year old can design a BMW because he can steer it?

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

If someone were to prove that Behe's argument is either 1) not possible (as opposed to arguing that complex structures might have been generated by serial mutation), or 2) at odds with fact, it would be refuted. To my knowledge, no one has done that.

Two words for you, mate. Bacterial flagellum.

Please let me know when you have an academically honest and authentic claim for me to counter.

Do watch the NOVA program.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Thanks. Oops.I went back and repaired them.Hmmm.

Where is your support that mutations are not parallel?

[REASON]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Hmmm. I am having difficulty with your circuitous argument. Let me a little more concrete: I am not saying God did it. I am saying that some phenomenon are poorly explained by serial mutation. It is illegitimate to critique my argument because of your imputation of motives into someone else's argument. If you have a problem with the nomenclature of "Intelligent Design", then call it something else. How about "Something Other Than Serial Mutation". Let's use SOTSM from now on.

I am suggesting that support for serial mutation is weak. Period. There are several long, ugly threads on this forum with hundreds of posts discussing the implications of the theoretical options if serial mutation is not the cause of speciation.

SOTSM Got some SOTSM?

I apologize. I didn't realize you were simply referring to yourself when you said "ID folks." And it isn't fair of me to lump. In my experience, proponents of Intelligent Design are usually attempting in a round-about, scientifically oriented way, to site God as the source of the intelligence, and thus of the design. I mean who else could it be, right?

But as for SOTSM, I guess I'll just have to judge that once I have an idea what that Other Something is. What do you suggest is better?

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

You are joking aren't you? Are you actually suggesting that because we can copy DNA and insert it into a complex preexisting machine that transcribes DNA into protein or replicates DNA, that we have "created" life????

No, that is not what I am suggesting, and you appear to be misrepresenting my actual position and then attacking that misrepresentation... aka... strawman.

I encourage to look here, as you've surely already done if you're deciding to present me with the same old tired argument:

The Harbinger. My Scientific Discussions of Evolution for the Pope and His Scientists


Also here:
A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution.

It is also interesting to note:
"In more recent work, Fox and his colleagues have shown that basic proteinoids, rich in lysine residues, selectively associate with the homopolynucleotides poly C and poly U but not with poly A or poly G. On the other hand, arginine-rich proteinoids associate selectively with poly A and poly G. In this manner, the information in proteinoids can be used to select polynucleotides. Morever, it is striking that aminoacyl adenylates yield oligopeptides when incubated with proteinoid-polynucleotide complexes, which thus have some of the characteristics of ribosomes. Fox has suggested that proteinoids bearing this sort of primitive chemical information could have transferred it to a primitive nucleic acid; the specificity of interaction between certain proteinoids and polynucleotides suggests the beginning of the genetic code." A. Lehninger, Biochemistry, 1975, pp 1047-1048

So this is how the genetic code gets started... Really, it's just simple chemistry.