“What Luskin does not seem comprehend is that irreducible complexity is not an argument for design — it is an argument against evolution. ”

and

“By pointing out, in court, that individual parts of each of these systems do indeed have perfectly functional roles, we showed that Behe’s claim of unevolvability was false.”

The problem here is that Behe didn’t claim that IC means unevolvability, but he presented IC as an argument against natural selection as the main explanation for the structure. Behe pointed out it in both Darwin’s Black Box and in Court that IC is compatible with evolutionary scenario. It is fully compatible with teleological evolution and common descent, but perhaps not with blind evolution thesis. That’s why the notion of common structures and descent are not argument against IC, if it is understood as Behe has defined the term. IC may yet be indicator of design. Why Miller continues arguing against straw man (claiming that Behe had claimed unevolvability)?

I don’t know. Perhaps it is good business.

accept your theory on the “fusion” of #2 chromo, you drop in the fact
you are Catholic. I sensed that it was the innapropiate moment, a dishonest
moment of inflicting faith into your opinion.

Now can you do “fusion” as you say by technology to effect the cloning
of a chimpanzee into anything resembling humans ? You said “I think
it’s true” Did you mean to refer to your faith in that declaration
or to the data of your science ? “I think it’s true.” ???

They thought the theory of gravity to be true and Einstein said otherwise,
and now they say again, more theory. So what is wrong with pure skepticism
until you can actually demonstrate the fact by technology . Of course that
would constitute “Artificial Selection” not “Natural Selection” but it
would show that is might have been so. Do you understand the meaning
of the future perfect tense ? Show me, don’t tell me what to believe.

And If you say the data had two outcomes and you own the data and the
other guy is ignorant, what does that prove ? It only proves the other
guy is ignorant of your research . Is that something to be proud of ?

If you came out and said ” I know it’s true” instead of “I think it’s
true” the declaration would surpass the idea of “Faith” into Fact.

Best wishes, anyway.

In Dr. Miller’s critique of Casey Luskin’s views involving Intelligent Design, Dr Miller makes the following comment:

“In other words, to Luskin, the only way to show that a system is irreducibly complex would be to take a couple of parts out and see if it keeps working.”

It is my interpretation that Luskin was referring to the functioning of the system. Dr. Miller then continues:

“That stunning error of logic is why he actually believes that pulling a wheel off my Trek road bike would demonstrate the irreducible complexity of the bicycle’s design.”

It is my interpretation that Dr. Miller has switched the focus of the argument from “function” to “design.” The bike without a wheel certainly does not “function” as it did when it had the wheel. This seems to support Luskin’s general theme. The bike without a wheel might be used for stationary exercise but its function is different than the fully operational bike. Dr. Miller is a highly credentialed scientist but my interpretation is that it is he that has committed a “stunning error of logic.” What am I unable to grasp in Dr. Miller’s statement?

Dr. Miller also takes Luskin to task with the following:

“What Mr. Luskin clearly does not understand is that irreducible complexity is really an argument about how a system came to be, not whether it contains dispensable parts. And the argument, so clearly stated by Michael Behe—is that the whole system has to be assembled at once, in “one fell swoop.” because partial assemblies, containing just a few parts, are “by definition nonfunctional.”

Dr. MIller then answers this question with the following:

“How do you test that assertion? By looking around in nature and seeing if partial assemblies of the more complex systems do exist and are indeed functional.”

My interpretation: Dr. Miller’s explanation does not connect to his claim that the argument is about “how a system came to be.” Viewing other “partial assemblies of more complex systems” does not reflect or explain how such less complex systems “came to be.” Likewise, other less complex systems probably have a different function than the more complex system which would seem to make the analogy invalid. Again, what am I missing in Dr. Miller’s logic?

A confused EvoClast.

to Luskin, the only way to show that a system is irreducibly complex would be to take a couple of parts out and see if it keeps working. That stunning error of logic is why he actually believes that pulling a wheel off my Trek road bike would demonstrate the irreducible complexity of the bicycle’s design.

Yo, dingaling–

YOUR BIKE WAS DESIGNED! IT DIDN’T EVOLVE! DUHHH!

The man will not even read that with which he supposedly agrees with let alone that with which he does not agree.

“If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is a mistake to assume that every hypothesis must be subject to being proved false. That was an invention of the mind of Karl Popper. Hypotheses need only be proven true at which time they become instantly elevated to the status of theory.

The Darwinian model assumes that it cannot be proven to be either true or false because it makes no predictions. An hypothesis that makes no predictions is not an hypothesis. It is pure fantasy. Even if one grants Darwinism the status of hypothesis, which I am not prepared to do, its central core of natural selection still fails the acid test of true speciation or of any other taxonomic hurdle evidenced in the real world.

Darwinism remains what it was at its inception, the product of the imagination of a couple of Victorian naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, the latter who abandoned it completely later in life. Consider the complete title of Wallace’s last book (1911)-

“The World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose.”

“An hypothesis does not cease being an hypothesis when a lot of people believe it.”
Boris Ephrussi

jadavison.wordpress.com

The problem with the theory of an Intelligent Designer is that it is not a theory at all. It is a philosophical idea like philosophy, ethics, religion, government, etc. Why, because no one can ever prove that an intelligent designer exists. Science demands critical, verifiable, repeatable evidence. Just because someone thinks that some laboritory experiment is irreducibly complex does not make it so. It only indicates that they are incapable of finding a solution. It is impossible for the IDer crowd to provide that an Intelligent designer exists. Call him what you may: he, she or it is only a figment of the imagination, an excuse as it were, and that is not what science is about. Darwin’s theory, on the other hand does provide the evidence and it is what modern medicine, biology (to name a few sciences) is based upon. Does it have all the answers? Not at the moment because we are just beginning to find answers through good scientific research going on around the world using Darwin’s ideas. ID is a handicapped idea, not a theory, and those who promote are even more so.

Nice detailed explanation. On your note about appealing to those open-minded to see validity of ID. I would like to say that in the current US the open minded people(citizens) are from different (backgrounds/religions) regions of the world, including from the east.

Your suggestion in your book “finding darwin’s god” that god some how helped the abhrahamic people(muslims/christins and jews) with scientific discovery and that other might not be that smart, is not only incorrect but also will alienate the people from non-abrahamic background.

Also your argument that none of the scientific theories necessarily rule out christianity, in the second half of the book may be used against the arguments in the first half. None of the evidence provided necessarily implies evolution is necessarily a fact. To avoid the conflict you say that you do not believe in a deceiving god. That means you are using faith to refute arguments that may provide alternative to evolution(like god put those fossils in that place).

I know this might not be the ideal place to discuss this, but I though I might get your attention here.

Nobody cares whether egomaniacs are convinced of anything. Especially ones who “moderate” comments at their own blogs.

http://all-too-common-dissent.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-arrogant-egomaniac-island.html

I guess I prefer dealing with theory, and the second link (http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/ic_demystified) does that very well. Thanks again.

“addressing people who are wondering if there is anything to this evolution stuff?”

Answer in this post and the previous one!

Bertrand Russell must be trying to feed poor Luskin the wrong examples to pick up next time, right? Surely even ID-ists would see the eye is a trap.

I’m green with envy, Italian creationists are far less entertaining. Sigh

We should ask ID advocates like Luskin exactly how Intelligent Design offers testable hypotheses – which if validated by field observations and experimentation – might do a better job in explaining the origins, history and complexity of Planet Earth’s biodiversity.

As a former marine invertebrate paleobiologist, I would love to see Luskin, Dembski, Behe, Nelson, Wells and the rest of their pathetic, intellectually-challenged, ilk explain how:

1) Intelligent Design explains the so-called “Cambrian Explosion” (which doesn’t really exist, but is a mere artifact due to the fact that this seventy to eighty million year interval represents the time span in which the first skeletonized metazoans appear in the marine invertebrate fossil record).

2) Intelligent Design explains the persistence of taxa and entire ecosystems through time (the twin phenomena of morphological stasis and some kind of ecological niche stasis – of the kinds stated recently by eminent evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma in a talk I had heard this fall sponsored by the Linnean Society of New York.).

3) Intelligent Design explains the appearance of “escalation” – as dubbed by noted marine ecologist and paleobiologist Geerat Vermeij – in the fossil record, which underscores a succession of coevolutionary arms races between predators and their prey.

4) Intelligent Design explains extinction, especially that most curious phenomenon, mass extinction.

5) Intelligent Design explain the recovery of ecosystems in the aftermath of an extinction as devastating as the terminal Cretaceous one.

I could go on, but these remain some of the most interesting problems being pursued now by paleobiologists. I have yet to see any Intelligent Design “scientist” attempt to grapple with these issues.

Regards,

John

Hmm, but would your approach differ if, instead, you were addressing people who are wondering if there is anything to this evolution stuff?

And I would also point out that the reverse is true, we could find irrefutable proof of ID tomorrow, and evolution theory would hardly blink.
Examples:
Some scientist constructs a lifeform in his lab, patents the idea, and becomes a multimillionaire selling custom made organisms on the world market.
We find evidence for an ETI coming to earth x million years ago and doing some biogenetic tinkering with some obscure lineage of bacteria. (Or alternately, we find evidence of an intelligent terrestrial species predating humans that did the same thing, may be a species of diapsid circa 65 mya that had a biotech industry but no space program)
We discover machine ETI out in space somewhere.

Evolution allows for the appearance of intelligent designers (we’re here, right?) so evidence for ID would only add one extra mechanism of evolutionary change to all the others we already have.