“The current answer to the question “Is there any hypothetical complex structure in the biological world which can NOT, even in principle, be explained by natural selection?” would be: Not so far.”

Of course, the point is that when evolutionists say to the IDers, “Give us evidence” this is essentially an exercise in rhetoric. They know full well that there is nothing the IDers can show them that would be accepted as evidence under the current evolutionist thinking.

Evidence in all sciences are repeatable observations and testable theories. That is all what biologists are asking creationists for.

And you conflated an open question on hypothetical biological structures with the constrained question on which structures would falsify evolution. Precambrian rabbits, for one, or more generally nested hiearchies that aren’t predicted by common descent mechanisms.

So in the sphere of abiogenesis the relevant question the IDers might ask would be, “What kind of evidence that abiogenesis could NOT have occurred naturally would be acceptable to mainstream science?”

That is a meaningless question as it asks for a universal negative without resorting to theory. A meaningful question can only be based on a theory of ID.

>>>”Of course, the point is that when evolutionists say to the IDers, “Give us evidence” this is essentially an exercise in rhetoric. They know full well that there is nothing the IDers can show them that would be accepted as evidence under the current evolutionist thinking.”

Nice dismissal. I guess the IDer’s are being suppressed then. Or could it be that the IDer’s have nothing left to show, because their previous examples have been shown to be wrong?

>>>”So why don’t they just come out and say that openly instead of making these disingenuous requests for evidence?”

Why doesn’t the DI actually do some science and come up with some then? (shrug)

>>>”Now, if what the evolutionists are really asking for is some new type of evidence which will completely change their minds, then that’s a pretty tall order to fulfill. Short of Yahweh coming done in person and confronting Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers at some international conference, I don’t see this ever happening.”

No, me neither. I wonder why?

>>>”Presumably it would have to be some evidence that the known laws of physics or chemistry were violated during the formation of life.”

But since no-one knows for sure how abiogenesis came about, there is no way the IDer’s could ever come up with any evidence anyway. So they resort to God of the gaps, and anti-evolution arguments. Sorry, Tom, but the only rhetoric I see is from your end. There is no such thing as “evolutionist” thinking, since evolution is backed up by a host of other scientific fields. If their IS any evidence to present for ID, by all means present it. Otherwise, all the DI has is hot air. So until they offer anything other than repackaged creationist arguments which have been debunked over and over for decades, or they actually come up with a scientific model of ID, we will wait and wait and wait and wait…

Yes, but that by itself is zero evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer. So in the sphere of abiogenesis the relevant question the IDers might ask would be, “What kind of evidence that abiogenesis could NOT have occurred naturally would be acceptable to mainstream science?” Presumably it would have to be some evidence that the known laws of physics or chemistry were violated during the formation of life.

Of course, the point is that when evolutionists say to the IDers, “Give us evidence” this is essentially an exercise in rhetoric. They know full well that there is nothing the IDers can show them that would be accepted as evidence under the current evolutionist thinking. So why don’t they just come out and say that openly instead of making these disingenuous requests for evidence?

Now, if what the evolutionists are really asking for is some new type of evidence which will completely change their minds, then that’s a pretty tall order to fulfill. Short of Yahweh coming done in person and confronting Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers at some international conference, I don’t see this ever happening.

That seems to beg an important question which the ID camp might well ask the evolution camp which is this: Is there any hypothetical complex structure in the biological world which can NOT, even in principle, be explained by natural selection?

Well, presumably evolution all by itself (in the current version) can’t explain abiogenesis, or equivalently, early replication.

1) It is independent of if there were one or several serial or parallel events of abiogenesis. The occurrence of todays DNA world (and perhaps the earlier RNA world) erased any earlier hereditary mechanism by lateral gene transfer (LGT).

2) It is independent of the nature of abiogenesis by the same token. A RNA replicator can be naturally produced or poofed, yet evolution will proceed from there.

3) The current version of MET doesn’t cover all types of hereditary mechanisms.

Evolution can be minimally defined as:

Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.

Presumably in abiogenesis the hereditary elements are distributed over the system as such. This changes, perhaps invalidates, parts of evolution theory such as population genetics. Another problem is that early replicators are expected to be not faithful. Under the so called “darwinian threshold” there isn’t any lineages as we are used to, even in LGT where lateral elements retain individual lineages.

OTOH MET can handle some types of distributive and not faithful systems. The concept of quasispecies are thought to apply to early replicators, and ER viruses such as HIV are so rapidly evolving that this model have been used AFAIU – the HIV genome is not an identifiable point in “fitness space” but a rapidly moving cloud of points.

And MET will of course add on additional mechanisms and systems that abiogenesis research uncover.

But again, as evolution as fact and theory is independent of abiogenesis, why would creationists bother with attacking evolution? [Hint: They don't like the fact that humans evolve.]

But there is never a 100% answer in science. There is always the possibility of new evidence being discovered later that may require current scientific theories to be reworked, or maybe even thrown out the window. So you could never get a direct YES or NO answer. The current answer to the question “Is there any hypothetical complex structure in the biological world which can NOT, even in principle, be explained by natural selection?” would be: Not so far.

This is why it would be valid for “evolutionists” (whatever they are) to ask the IDer’s to look for such a structure. Problem is, they aren’t actively looking and the current examples the DI have given are false. Plus, evidence against evolution is not evidence for ID. So until then, we will wait, and wait, and wait, and wait…

That seems to beg an important question which the ID camp might well ask the evolution camp which is this: Is there any hypothetical complex structure in the biological world which can NOT, even in principle, be explained by natural selection?

If the answer is NO then ID is ruled out a priori and hence, evolutionists should stop asking IDers to provide evidence because there can be no such evidence that evolutionists would ever accept.

If the answer is YES then IDers need to get about searching for such evidence. If they can show such evidence then now we have a real ball game.

As of now it seems to me that ID answers the question with a big Yes. I get the impression that evolutionists are leaning towards No but I’m not entirely sure about that one.

I would conclude from his own words that the following statement would not automatically be true.

“They could find God’s fingerprint emblazoned with golden atoms on a bacterial flaggella with a signature below it in Times Roman font saying “(c) God. Eat it Darwin!”, and Dawkins & Co would say it evolved that way.”

It IS all about the evidence.

I have a good friend who’s politically very conservative. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s also been dead against organized religion of any kind. Though he believes that humans have a spiritual life, he’s never picked up the dogma of any particular sect. Politically, though, he’s as conservative as the right-wing talk show hosts he listens to on the radio.

So imagine my surprise last year when I find out he thinks evolution is a crock. Why? Because he’s a fan of Ann Coulter and he read “Godless.”

I can’t accuse my friend of being ignorant of science or the scientific method. He’s a professional engineer and had a lot more training in science than I. But he’s being suckered into ID because it’s been adopted by people whose politics agree with his own. That’s an insidious process, because it makes iD acceptable to a whole new audience who might otherwise reject it as the nonsense it is.

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: I’m a practicing Catholic who thinks that ID is a load of excrement too toxic to use as fertilizer.

Thank you.

They could find God’s fingerprint emblazoned with golden atoms on a bacterial flaggella with a signature below it in Times Roman font saying “(c) God. Eat it Darwin!”, and Dawkins & Co would say it evolved that way.

And this is supposed to invalidate evolution how?

If those atoms aren’t heritable, i.e. pertaining to the genome or duplicated cell machinery, it is quite probable that the bacteria evolved, while some gods monkeyed around with the organisms afterwards.

And more importantly, common descent is compatible with several independent occurrences of life in general, and especially for our historical record by way of lateral gene transfer for both the RNA and the DNA world. Evolution is independent of biogenesis.

What would invalidate evolution is if a prediction turns out to be wrong, such as invalid phylogeny (say, precambrian rabbits).

Btw, atoms aren’t golden, as metal spectra pertain to large enough solid or liquid clusters of metal atoms. (As you need energy band structures for metal behavior such as spectra.) Seems your physics is as shaky as your biology.

If I understand you correctly, you’re leaning towards intelligent design as an explanation to how life has evolved, partly because certain atheists are making strong, anti-religion comments about their doubt in a supernatural creator.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connors’ comments are refreshing, no doubt. However, to hold both him and Dawkins up as common examples of who represents what in these “debates” is over-simplifying things a bit.

Let’s not forget that one of the major themes of “Expelled” is that Darwin helped create the Third Reich. Not exactly a shining beacon of either critical thought or diplomacy.

I don’t presume to speak for all of the shaved monkeys out there. However, at the end of the day, evidence must be the final deciding factor. As science, intelligent design is decidedly lacking in that department.

Matt A

>>>”You hit several nails on the head there. Kudos!”

Always nail fundies down good and proper.

I learned that one from the Romans. (giggle)

:-p

“They could find God’s fingerprint emblazoned with golden atoms on a bacterial flaggella with a signature below it in Times Roman font saying “(c) God. Eat it Darwin!”, and Dawkins & Co would say it evolved that way.”

OK, I’ll play with you here. If something like this were ever found, an honest scientist (and nothing I know of about Dawkins suggests that he isn’t one) would probably do the following:

1. He would check to make sure his instruments were working properly and had not been tampered with. (Perhaps some colleague in his lab was playing a practical joke on him by messing with the computer analysis of his electron microscope of did something with the microscope lense)

2. He would consider the possibility that the observed structure arose naturally and that the pattern he is seeing was the result of pareidolia. If the message were as clear as you describe then he would very quickly dismiss this possibility

3. He would consider the possibility that the message is the result of human design. Would it be within the range of possibility for current human technology to have assembled the message, similar to when the people at IBM spelled out their company logo in atoms using an atomic force microscope? The message itself is highly suspicious of human design. It is written in a human language, in a human invented script/font, references a known human historical figure, and uses the copyright symbol, which was arbitrarily invented by humans.

4. He would consider the possibility that the message is the result of non-human design.

5. He may in the end conclude that the message was indeed to result of non-human and perhaps super-human design by some entity calling itself “God” and possessing knowledge of human languages, history, and legal concepts. He would not be able to determine from the available evidence whether or not this entity was supernatural or natural or in any way equivalent to any pre-existing human conception of god.

And none of this would change in any way the current evidence-supported view of how the rest of the bacterium and the flagellum itself for that matter evolved through natural mechanisms.

The fundamental fallacy of the entire ID movement is the plain and simple fact that the validity or non-validity of ID has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of evolution, which stands or falls on its own merits. An intelligently designed biological structure (and we humans have been creating them with steadily increasing skill for at least 10 000 years) once created, is still subject to the various laws of natural evolution, and intelligent designers themselves can evolve through natural processes.

OK I see your point about the division, or rift as you call it in both sides of the argument. And it is true the differences in creationist claims are varied and many, and I guess you could say to a degree they are more so than that of evolutionary theory’s differences.

It’s hard to say, and I certainly don’t compare the two, one is science, the other is religion. But I see your point anyway. I was merely pointing out that there are differences in what certain creationists believe, so that is makes it hard to debunk certain creationist claims if what you are debunking only applies to the portion of the creationists that believe it. The rest will ignore it as a moot point.

Get yourself some scientists and some intelligent designists. Get a fair bunch of each. Ask the scientists what evidence could persuade them of the existence of a god, and ask the IDers what evidence would disuade them from their belief in a god.

I’d bet that the former will have some interesting, thoughtful answers while the latter will yield a whole lot of “Nothing!”

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/08/trouble_ahead_for_science/

There HAS to be a designer!

A designer with a dark sense of humor.

A designer who put all the oil under the batbleep craziest motherbleepers on the planet.

Q.E.D.

It’s gotta be a cosmic joke, right?

You hit several nails on the head there. Kudos!

Actually, I am talking about both — the YECs who believe the Earth is 6000 years old, and the old earth ones who think it’s 4.5 billion. My point is that this is a rift in the creationist camp that’s even bigger than any rift they’re claiming is occurring among the evilutionists.

> They could find God’s fingerprint emblazoned with golden atoms
> on a bacterial flaggella with a signature below it in Times Roman
> font saying “(c) God. Eat it Darwin!”, and Dawkins & Co would say
> it evolved that way.

You couldn’t be farther from the truth.

First of all, what you don’t seem to understand is how much any scientist would *love* to disprove evolution (or any other major theory, for that matter). It would be quite an accomplishment.

Science revels in alternate proofs, disproof of existing theory, ability or inability to reproduce an experiment’s results, peer review, etc.

Second, I am quite sure if tomorrow night all the stars in the sky re-aligned themselves and spelled out “I am here,” pretty much every scientist witnessing that would say “hmph. Well there’s some compelling evidence ….” It would be more than worthy of serious investigation.

That’s the key word there, folks: “evidence.”

Genuflection. Lots of it.

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http://www.jeremiahfilms.com/iBuzz/Apologetics/1210390355