Evolution In The Classroom

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liquidpele said:
That is ridiculous.
Surely if you can’t post a complete design for a space shuttle here on this forum, space shuttles must be divinely made.
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Well I thought your claim was you are a better designer. I figured you weren’t.
 
buffalo said:
Well I thought your claim was you are a better designer. I figured you weren’t.
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The claim is that we would not expect blatant mistakes from a loving omnipotent creator, if he had a truly active roll in shaping our physical bodies.
 
tjm190 said:
The claim is that we would not expect blatant mistakes from a loving omnipotent creator, if he had a truly active roll in shaping our physical bodies.
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Could God be an impudent trickster with a wicked sense of humor? Or perhaps a sadist who hates insects? Consider how God wisely made the praying mantis, the male of which cannot ejaculate his genetic load until his mate has chewed his head clean off…
 
tjm190 said:
The video disproves the infallibility of the RCC. You’ll have to watch it if you want to find out how.
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I have seen this video several times:

Verdict on the Bacterial Flagellum Premature:
A Response to Begley’s “Evolution Critics Come Under Fire…” in the Wall Street Journal

…Case closed?

Not quite. Miller�s scenario faces at least key three difficulties.** First, the other thirty or so proteins in the flagellar motor are unique to it and are not found in any other living system. From where,then, were these protein parts co-opted? **Second, as flagellum expert Prof. Scott Minnich points out, even if all the protein parts were somehow available to make a flagellar motor during the evolution of life, the parts would need to be assembled in a specific temporal sequence similar to the way an automobile is assembled in factory. Yet, in order to choreograph the assembly of the flagellar motor, present-day bacteria need an elaborate system of genetic instructions as well as many other protein machines to regulate the timing of the expression of these assembly instructions. Arguably, this system is itself irreducibly complex. In any case, the co-option argument tacitly presupposes the need for the very thing it seeks to explain‹a functionally interdependent system of proteins. Third, analyses of the gene sequences of the two systems suggest that the flagellar motor arose first and the pump came later. In other words, if anything, the pump evolved from the motor, not the motor from the pump.
 
edwest2 said:
I utterly reject your first paragraph as a wild atheist fantasy. The desperate attempt made by some that life is nothing but chemicals that could assemble itself is totally absurd and without scientific foundation whatsoever.

People wish life assembled itself so they would have no God to answer to. The fact is, we will all be judged, not by a symbol, or a chemical robot, but the Living God.

God bless,
Ed
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I meant that it’s different because clearly something as heavy as bicycle parts will just settle to the bottom of the pool and never interact with each other. The same cannot be said about molecules in a solvent (water). The only real argument I can see against evolution (biogenesis actually, in this case) on this basis is probability.
 
Another question, more philosophical than scientific: if God created all living things, why are there parasitic bacteria? Did God just decide to test people by seeing how adversity (disease) affected their faith? It seems more likely that these bacteria come from an ancestor common to other similar, benign bacteria, which is evolution.

Come to think of it, why did God create the world in such a way that bacteria are necessary at all?
 
pzona said:
Another question, more philosophical than scientific: if God created all living things, why are there parasitic bacteria? Did God just decide to test people by seeing how adversity (disease) affected their faith? It seems more likely that these bacteria come from an ancestor common to other similar, benign bacteria, which is evolution.

Come to think of it, why did God create the world in such a way that bacteria are necessary at all?
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A short answer - there are millions of beneficial bacteria and relatively few are dangerous to us.
 
buffalo said:
I have seen this video several times:

Verdict on the Bacterial Flagellum Premature:
A Response to Begley’s “Evolution Critics Come Under Fire…” in the Wall Street Journal

…Case closed?

Not quite. Miller�s scenario faces at least key three difficulties.** First, the other thirty or so proteins in the flagellar motor are unique to it and are not found in any other living system. From where,then, were these protein parts co-opted? **Second, as flagellum expert Prof. Scott Minnich points out, even if all the protein parts were somehow available to make a flagellar motor during the evolution of life, the parts would need to be assembled in a specific temporal sequence similar to the way an automobile is assembled in factory. Yet, in order to choreograph the assembly of the flagellar motor, present-day bacteria need an elaborate system of genetic instructions as well as many other protein machines to regulate the timing of the expression of these assembly instructions. Arguably, this system is itself irreducibly complex. In any case, the co-option argument tacitly presupposes the need for the very thing it seeks to explain‹a functionally interdependent system of proteins. Third, analyses of the gene sequences of the two systems suggest that the flagellar motor arose first and the pump came later. In other words, if anything, the pump evolved from the motor, not the motor from the pump.
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The point was that it was not irreducibly complex as is shown by the fact that part of the flagellum has another function if you take away parts.
Now you’re just pointing out that we don’t know every aspect, and thus playing God of the Gaps.

If you really want specifics beyond what one could show in a youtube video, here:
talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html

If you want it in a video form without a lot of the specifics, here:
youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w#t=0m50s
 
liquidpele said:
The point was that it was not irreducibly complex as is shown by the fact that part of the flagellum has another function if you take away parts.
Now you’re just pointing out that we don’t know every aspect, and thus playing God of the Gaps.

If you really want specifics beyond what one could show in a youtube video, here:
talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html

If you want it in a video form without a lot of the specifics, here:
youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w#t=0m50s
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“Reducible complexity” in PNAS

…Well, at least it’s nice to know that my work gives some authors a hook on which to hang results that otherwise would be publishable only in journals with impact factors of -3 or less. But if these are the best “refutations” that leading journals such as PNAS and Science can produce in more than a decade, then the concept of irreducible complexity is in very fine shape indeed. ************* To the editor:

more…
 
buffalo said:
“Reducible complexity” in PNAS

…Well, at least it’s nice to know that my work gives some authors a hook on which to hang results that otherwise would be publishable only in journals with impact factors of -3 or less. But if these are the best “refutations” that leading journals such as PNAS and Science can produce in more than a decade, then the concept of irreducible complexity is in very fine shape indeed. ************* To the editor:

more…
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I don’t see where my links mentioned PNAS, perhaps you can point it a specific source in my link that was refuted?

Your article is simply Behe ranting that the current evidence against IC is “not good enough” which is essentially your own argument too. It will never be good enough for some people.
 
pzona said:
My point is that why are there ANY harmful bacteria, if God created every different type?
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And God saw that His creation was good.

Idvolution - God created the language of DNA and set it into the kinds. From there we see the diversity of life.

Are these bacteria always harmful of just under certain conditions and to certain species. We have to factor in the consequences of the fall.
 
buffalo said:
Erosion caused the arch. Is there such an erosional process in biology?
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Is erosion a natural process or a design process? In terms of Dr Dembski’s Explanatory Filter is erosion regularity, chance or design? The natural arch is not a product of design, yet an arch is an example of an Irreducibly Complex system. Therefore it is incorrect to say that the presence of Irreducible Complexity automatically implies the presence of design.

As for such ‘erosional’ processes in biology then some mutations can perform such a process. One of the early primates acquired a mutation that destroyed the function of one of the genes in its Vitamin C production cycle. In a sense the ability of that animal and its descendants to produce Vitamin C was ‘eroded’.

As I pointed out, this process is known as ‘scaffolding’, that is present initially and then removed, ‘eroded’ if you like. More formally it is “Elimination of Functional Redundancy” in tersm of the classification used by Thornhill and Ussery (2000).

As has been shown many times, it is perfectly possible to produce an Irreducibly Complex system through natural causes without requiring a designer.

rossum
 
rossum said:
Is erosion a natural process or a design process? In terms of Dr Dembski’s Explanatory Filter is erosion regularity, chance or design? The natural arch is not a product of design, yet an arch is an example of an Irreducibly Complex system. Therefore it is incorrect to say that the presence of Irreducible Complexity automatically implies the presence of design.

As for such ‘erosional’ processes in biology then some mutations can perform such a process. One of the early primates acquired a mutation that destroyed the function of one of the genes in its Vitamin C production cycle. In a sense the ability of that animal and its descendants to produce Vitamin C was ‘eroded’.

As I pointed out, this process is known as ‘scaffolding’, that is present initially and then removed, ‘eroded’ if you like. More formally it is “Elimination of Functional Redundancy” in tersm of the classification used by Thornhill and Ussery (2000).

As has been shown many times, it is perfectly possible to produce an Irreducibly Complex system through natural causes without requiring a designer.

rossum
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Does the natural arch have a function?
 
buffalo said:
STILL SPINNING JUST FINE: A RESPONSE TO KEN MILLER
By William A. Dembski, 2.17.03, v.1
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I didn’t find that very convincing, a lot of it seemed like quite mining for support, although I admit I’m at the limits of my understanding about the specific biology involved once you start talking about two biologists discussing each others work.

I also liked how he refuted the refutation of ID with evolution…
The whole point of bringing up the TTSS was to posit it as an evolutionary precursor to the bacterial flagellum. The best current molecular evidence, however, points to the TTSS as evolving from the flagellum and not vice versa (Nguyen et al. 2000).
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😛
 
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