Geocentric Universe?

[hecd2]

        The most significant scientific evidence that is challenging Copernican cosmology hails from that gathered by astronomers themselves. In short, they are increasingly confronted with evidence that places Earth in the center of the universe. In a paper written by three astrophysicists from Oxford in 2008 evidence for the centrality of the Earth was the simplest explanation for the practical and mathematical understanding of the universe, far superior to the forced invention of “Dark Energy” to support the Copernican model.

This is typical Sungenis - claiming, either through ignorance or deliberate lies, that something that supports geocentrism when it does not.

Here is the abstract of the paper -you will notice that there is no mention of the earth being at the centre of the universe (being near the centre of a low density void is nothing like being at the centre of the universe), or claim that one hypothesis is superior to the other:

“A fundamental presupposition of modern cosmology is the Copernican Principle; that we are not
in a central, or otherwise special region of the Universe. Studies of Type Ia supernovae, together
with the Copernican Principle, have led to the inference that the Universe is accelerating in its
expansion. The usual explanation for this is that there must exist a ‘Dark Energy’, to drive the
acceleration. Alternatively, it could be the case that the Copernican Principle is invalid, and that
the data has been interpreted within an inappropriate theoretical frame-work. If we were to live in
a special place in the Universe, near the centre of a void where the local matter density is low, then
the supernovae observations could be accounted for without the addition of dark energy. We show
that the local redshift dependence of the luminosity distance can be used as a clear discriminant
between these two paradigms. Future surveys of Type Ia supernovae that focus on a redshift range
of 0.1 − 0.4 will be ideally suited to test this hypothesis, and hence to observationally determine
the validity of the Copernican Principle on new scales, as well as probing the degree to which dark
energy must be considered a necessary ingredient in the Universe.”

And the conclusion:
“Two very different paradigms have been invoked to explain
the current observation of an apparently accelerating
Universe, depending on whether we invoke or reject
the Copernican Principle. We have shown that in the
coming years it will be possible to experimentally distinguish
between these two scenarios, allowing us to experimentally
test the Copernican Principle [28, 29, 30], as
well as determine the extent to which Dark Energy must
be considered a necessary ingredient in the Universe.”

Sungenis either misunderstands the paper or misrepresents it, and you are naive and misguided to be fooled by him.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Omyo12]

It won’t be.

it’s possible though

As soon as the Church declares that belief in a geocentric universe is “erroneous in faith” I will reject it! I hope you’re not holding your breath.

At least you’re willing to accept that the Church can change this.

Of course. But the question is what did God tell us? Don’t you (all) realize that God could’ve simply said, “For the Lord spent eons and eons of time preparing the earth for man.” But He didn’t. Will you argue that the “primitive” Israelites were too dull to understand that? Are we “enlightened” Christians too dull to understand what “six days” means? Because that is what God told us. Don’t you realize that God knew His people would be mocked if they had the faith of a little child in His Word? And yet, that is what He told us is a prerequisite for salvation!

God also spoke in parable. So could it be possible that the creation was revealed to Moses the same way prophesy was revealed to the prophets?

And what about this:

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” - Jesus Christ

Yes, the world thinks that Catholics are “batty” for believing that. All the world sees is bread and wine, and foolish people who believe it is the Divine. Why would God do that to us? Would He make us the laughingstock of the world for a lie? No - but for the truth, yes. He brings us through the fire. And you guys will go through the fire, sooner or later, one way or another. But its best to love the truth now, let proud mockers mock, and know that your reward is yet to come.

The Transubstantiation is a supernatural event, not a physical one…

Well, that was the worst possible analogy - the Catholic Church is divine.

Of course the Church is divine; incapable of producing bad fruits
So any corruption within the Church is due to its HUMAN people

As I stated before, evolution does not in itself produce bad fruit nor good.
It is HUMAN peple that use it to do evil…

Right, just like Adam and Eve.

I see nothing wrong with interpreting the Genesis story as literal.

I thought I defined it there. Take away the naturalistic assumptions, go where the evidence leads, and you have “true science”.

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” - Richard Lewontin

And there you have “mainstream science” - see the difference?

As we just saw.

Not necessarily. Not all scientists are corrupt atheists just looking to destroy religion,

Yes there obviously are some: Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins

But that doesn’t merit condemning science in general…

Also, in science, theories (particularly in physics) also need to make mathematical sense.

The universe, as you yourself stated:

No, this is a natural creation. I believe that God sustained it supernaturally until the Fall, but its been in “bondage to decay” ever since (CCC #400).

So since it’s natural, there needs to be a natural explanation…

Let’s just say that you have your “dark matter”, and we have our ether.

Luminiferous aether was a hypothesis in an attempt to example how light traveled from the sun to earth.

How light travels in the “void” of space is really not that complex of a concept (we learned it in high school physics) now we can mathematically figure it out (more or less), light is a beautiful thing to study…

Studying aether and light, James Bradley calculated the earth was mobile in 1727;
23 years after Sir Isaac Newton published Opticks where he introduced the hypthesis of an aether medium to explain how light traveled

I actually don’t know enough about theoretical physics to get into dark matter and dark energy, so I unfortunately cannot comment on that…

Of course that’s impossible. But do you know what’s missing from that picture? The rest of the universe! You do realize that everything outside the Solar System affects the Solar System, right? Don’t you see that all God had to do was give a slight excess of mass on the side of the earth opposite the sun, to counterbalance the sun’s gravity?

I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here; could you example?

Tycho! That was known and explained more than 400 years ago - by Tycho Brahe, a devout Catholic, and the greatest astronomer ever! (see Tychonic system)

I really like Tychonic, he observed the motion of the planet relative to the Earth and actually figured out that the planets appear to revolve around the sun. However, he kept the earth station to not interfere with his interpretation of Scripture.

The problem I see with Tychonic’s module is that it completely ignores gravity.

Assuming the earth was the gravitational center, the planets would need to revolve around the earth along with the sun.

http://www.geocities.com/josepherdon/geocentric.gif

Oh come on now, I wasn’t being “shady”, I was being pithy! I think everybody got the point, but thanks for providing the details.

You are correct, sir!

i suppose…​

PS-

There’s a person on CA that needs help with defending a literal interpretation of Genesis.
They started a thread and I referred them do you, maybe you could give them some advice?

God Bless

 

[Luke65]

At least you’re willing to accept that the Church can change this.

That’s not what I said.

God also spoke in parable. So could it be possible that the creation was revealed to Moses the same way prophesy was revealed to the prophets?

“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” :nope: (Rev. 1:3, Gen. 1:1)

“This calls for a mind with wisdom: For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” :nope: (Rev. 17:9, Ex. 20:11)

Genesis is a book of history. Revelation is a book of prophecy. Its actually very easy to discern, unless of course you have some preconceived notions that won’t allow you to believe what is plainly stated. And notice, Exodus confirms that what was written in Genesis was meant literally, as do the many other references to Genesis throughout the Bible.

The Transubstantiation is a supernatural event, not a physical one…

Yes, I understand that! That wasn’t my point, this is:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.” (John 15:18-19)

If you’re a creationist the world hates you. If you’re an evolutionist the world loves you as one of its own. Clue!

Of course the Church is divine; incapable of producing bad fruits
So any corruption within the Church is due to its HUMAN people

As I stated before, evolution does not in itself produce bad fruit nor good.
It is HUMAN peple that use it to do evil…

And a lot of evil they have done - unprecedented in history, as foretold. But what good fruit has come from the theory of evolution? Don’t tell me - viruses mutate! Right, and if you didn’t believe you have a monkey for an uncle you would have never figured that out!

I see nothing wrong with interpreting the Genesis story as literal.

Well that’s good. The last Catholic evolutionist I debated took the first verse of Genesis literally, but not much else. Actually, now that I think about it, only YEC’s believe that God created the earth “in the beginning”.

Not necessarily. Not all scientists are corrupt atheists just looking to destroy religion,

Yes there obviously are some: Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins

But that doesn’t merit condemning science in general…

Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of the word “corrupt”. They all absolutely adhere to Materialism. They scoff at the supernatural creation event and the supernatural flood event, which Moses wrote about, and say they have to “take the science back from Moses”; and, “The present is the key to the past” - uniformitarianism.

“First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” (2 Peter 3:3-7 NIV)

So since it’s natural, there needs to be a natural explanation…

Not for its origin, nor can you “deliberately forget” that the earth was “destroyed” by water, as our first Pope infallibly declared. The past was nothing like the present!

 

[Luke65]

Luminiferous aether was a hypothesis in an attempt to example how light traveled from the sun to earth.

How light travels in the “void” of space is really not that complex of a concept (we learned it in high school physics) now we can mathematically figure it out (more or less), light is a beautiful thing to study…

Well, I don’t know much about the ether, but if you like studying light here’s something that might interest you:

“Sonoluminescence is the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound.”

“and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-3)

I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here; could you example?

From Galileo Was Wrong (Robert Sungenis):

The grand summation of [Newton’s] three laws of motion (namely, in a closed system the acceleration of the center of mass equals zero), will allow an immobile Earth to be the center, that is, if the universe is included in Newton’s integral calculus. As the eminent cosmologist Fred Hoyle admitted about those who quickly run to Newton to defend heliocentrism:

Although in the nineteenth century this argument was believed to be a satisfactory justification of the heliocentric theory, one found causes for disquiet if one looked into it a little more carefully. When we seek to improve on the accuracy of calculation by including mutual gravitational interactions between planets, we find - again in order to calculate correctly - that the center of the solar system must be placed at an abstract point known as the “center of mass,” which is displaced quite appreciably from the center of the Sun. And if we imagine a star to pass moderately close to the solar system, in order to calculate the perturbing effect correctly, again using the inverse-square rule, it could be essential to use a “center of mass” which included the star. The “center” in this case would lie even farther away from the center of the Sun. It appears, then, that the “center” to be used for any set of bodies depends on the way in which the local system is considered to be isolated from the universe as a whole. If a new body is added to the set from outside, or if a body is taken away, the “center” changes.338

As we can see from Hoyle’s account, even if there is only one star to take into account, its mass and gravitational force must be added into the formula for determining the universe’s center of mass (or barycenter). In short, our sun, Earth and planets are not an isolated system. Advocates of heliocentrism can mount no opposition to this logic since they believe that our solar system is revolving around the Milky Way, which, of course, it cannot do unless it is experiencing a strong gravitational attraction from the center of the Milky Way. Using that same principle, when we add to our galaxy the billions of other galaxies present in the universe, we can certainly conclude that they will have a substantial effect on determining the universe’s barycenter. As all modem physicists agree (even if they don’t prefer the geocentric model): "Mass there governs inertia here."339 These distinguished authors are referring to the total mass of the galaxies and other objects in the universe that have a direct effect on the inertia we experience on Earth. Inertia is a force, and therefore, according to modem physics, the stars transmit an inertial force to the Earth. Moreover, modern physics also says that inertial force is ultimately related to and indistinguishable from gravitational force. If that is the case, then certainly the total mass of the universe is an integral factor in determining both the inertial and gravitational forces that affect the Earth, as well as the forces that create the barycenter of the universe. Certainly no one can object, then, if God had decided long ago to put the Earth in that very barycenter.

I really like Tychonic, he observed the motion of the planet relative to the Earth and actually figured out that the planets appear to revolve around the sun. However, he kept the earth station to not interfere with his interpretation of Scripture.

The problem I see with Tychonic’s module is that it completely ignores gravity.

Assuming the earth was the gravitational center, the planets would need to revolve around the earth along with the sun.

You like those pictures! Yes, of course Tycho couldn’t calculate gravitational effects. However…

Tychonic system: “It can be shown through a geometric argument that the motions of the planets and the Sun relative to the Earth in the Tychonic system are equivalent to the motions in the Copernican system.”

So motion is not an issue, and as we saw in the previous quote, gravity is not an issue if the earth is at the g-center of the universe as it rotates around us. Of course, only God could pull that off! And that is why mainstream science rejects it - even though the evidence is piling up that we are indeed in a unique place in the universe - right, Alec?

 

[Omyo12]

Wow, so many typos in my last post

Also, to Tychonic’s credit, he came up with is theory of the solar system way before the concept of gravity even emerged… So it’s not that he ignored gravity, he just didn’t know about it

 

[Omyo12]

Well, I don’t know much about the ether, but if you like studying light here’s something that might interest you:

“Sonoluminescence is the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound.”

“and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-3)



From Galileo Was Wrong (Robert Sungenis):

I’ll look more into it

You like those pictures! Yes, of course Tycho couldn’t calculate gravitational effects. However…

Tychonic system: “It can be shown through a geometric argument that the motions of the planets and the Sun relative to the Earth in the Tychonic system are equivalent to the motions in the Copernican system.”

So motion is not an issue, and as we saw in the previous quote, gravity is not an issue if the earth is at the g-center of the universe as it rotates around us. Of course, only God could pull that off! And that is why mainstream science rejects it - even though the evidence is piling up that we are indeed in a unique place in the universe - right, Alec?

Yes, its possible for the Earth to be the g-center, but how would Tychonic’s system naturally work?

If Earth was indeed the g-center of the universe, we’d have the Ptolemaic system

 

[Luke65]

Wow, so many typos in my last post

Also, to Tychonic’s credit, he came up with is theory of the solar system way before the concept of gravity even emerged… So it’s not that he ignored gravity, he just didn’t know about it

Right, but another typo - Tycho!

 

[Omyo12]

Right, but another typo - Tycho!

whoops, it was a cut and paste… its 3am in Texas

i need some sleep!

 

[grannymh]

Will you accept the scientific evidence or reject it because “THE 1616 DECREE WAS PAPAL and IRREVERSABLE ( i.e. immutable, i.e., infallible)”?

To whomever reads the above.

Papal can be reversible and immutable does not mean infallible.

No wonder there is so much misunderstanding about what a decree means.

When it comes to official Catholic teaching, one can always check to see what is in the Catechism. Or, regarding the word infallible, one can check the* American Heritage College Dictionary*. > infallible “3. Roman Catholic Church Incapable of error in expounding doctrine on faith or morals.”

Isn’t it strange that the secular world can get Catholic “infallible” right, but some others get it mixed up?

Blessings,
granny

All human life is meant for eternal life.

 

[cassini]

To whomever reads the above.

Papal can be reversible and immutable does not mean infallible.

No wonder there is so much misunderstanding about what a decree means.

When it comes to official Catholic teaching, one can always check to see what is in the Catechism. Or, regarding the word infallible, one can check the* American Heritage College Dictionary*. > infallible “3. Roman Catholic Church Incapable of error in expounding doctrine on faith or morals.”

Isn’t it strange that the secular world can get Catholic “infallible” right, but some others get it mixed up?

Blessings,
granny

All human life is meant for eternal life.

“Understanding,” the Congregation of 1633 declared to Galileo, “that, through the publication of a work at Florence entitled Dialogo di Galileo Galilei delle due massime Sisteme del Mundo Ptolemaico e Copernicano, the false opinion of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun was gaining ground, it had examined the book,…, in that you have tried in the said book, by various devices, to persuade yourself that you leave the matter undetermined, and the opinion expressed as probable; the which, however, is a most grave error, since an opinion can in no manner be probable which has been declared, and defined to be, contrary to the divine Scripture.”

It is beginning to amuse me now the lengths amateur theologians go to to try to establish that the 1616 decree was NOT infallible.

WHY GRANNY DO YOU NEED THE DECREE TO BE FALLIBLE? Isn’t immutable
enough to guarantee TRUTH in the Catholic Church?

Again I say, here is the Copernican heresy at work. Pretending to be a matter of science, it has Catholics denying the authority of papal decrees defined and declared to be unchanging. No wonder Pope Urban said it threatened the very CAtholic Faith itself.

 

[grannymh]

Well that’s good. The last Catholic evolutionist I debated took the first verse of Genesis literally, but not much else. Actually, now that I think about it, only YEC’s believe that God created the earth “in the beginning”.
!

You must be kidding about only YEC’s believing that God created the earth “in the beginning.” I’m an evolutionist and I even believe in a real Adam and Eve.

 

[grannymh]

WHY GRANNY DO YOU NEED THE DECREE TO BE FALLIBLE? Isn’t immutable enough to guarantee TRUTH in the Catholic Church?

quote]

 

[grannymh]

I realise that this is part of a discussion that you are having with someone else, but I’d like to comment on a couple of things. The problem here is that you base your argument on a strawman: the strawy scientist who “holds a world-view that directly implies that neo-darwinism must account entirely for the origin of all species on the planet”. No scientist of my acquaintance has a world view that implies that neo-darwinism must account entirely for the origin of all species on the planet. Scientists, whether they are theists or atheists or agnostics or spiritualists or animists or whatever, when they doing science, confine their hypotheses to natural causes - that’s what science is - it’s the source of its explanatory power. Scientists, when they are doing science, therefore look for natural explanations for the origin of species. Neo-darwinism then, gets its pre-eminent position as the foundational theory of biology not because it is a default atheistic view, but because it is a scientific theory overwhelmingly supported by evidence and therefore accepted by biologists on that basis.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

This is very well said.

Blessings,
granny

All human life is meant for eternal life.

 

[cassini]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cassini
WHY GRANNY DO YOU NEED THE DECREE TO BE FALLIBLE? Isn’t immutable enough to guarantee TRUTH in the Catholic Church?
quote]

 

[cassini]

I deeply regret the treatment regarding Galileo; however, I can understand the context in which the degree or degrees were given. I would like an end to the subsequent confusion about material heresy and a decree of judgment, by a local Church court, which supposedly not all the judges signed. I would like the simple declarative statements about what the Catholic Church teaches to be true to its Deposit of Faith.

Blessings,
granny

 

[cassini]

I deeply regret the treatment regarding Galileo; however, I can understand the context in which the degree or degrees were given. I would like an end to the subsequent confusion about material heresy and a decree of judgment, by a local Church court, which supposedly not all the judges signed. I would like the simple declarative statements about what the Catholic Church teaches to be true to its Deposit of Faith.

Blessings,
granny .

 

[PaulF2]

I realise that this is part of a discussion that you are having with someone else, but I’d like to comment on a couple of things. The problem here is that you base your argument on a strawman: the strawy scientist who “holds a world-view that directly implies that neo-darwinism must account entirely for the origin of all species on the planet”. No scientist of my acquaintance has a world view that implies that neo-darwinism must account entirely for the origin of all species on the planet. Scientists, whether they are theists or atheists or agnostics or spiritualists or animists or whatever, when they doing science, confine their hypotheses to natural causes - that’s what science is - it’s the source of its explanatory power. Scientists, when they are doing science, therefore look for natural explanations for the origin of species. Neo-darwinism then, gets its pre-eminent position as the foundational theory of biology not because it is a default atheistic view, but because it is a scientific theory overwhelmingly supported by evidence and therefore accepted by biologists on that basis.

I believe you exaggerate the case of neo-darwinism’s “overwhelming evidence” in its favor. By a wide margin.

As to the impartiality of scientists - that’s really the question, isn’t it? How can you possibly assert that “No scientist of my acquaintance has a world view that implies that neo-darwinism must account entirely for the origin of all species on the planet” when some variation of neo-Darwinism is the only complex, completely naturalistic explanation of life that has ever been put forth? Once again, for the scientist who is convinced either that (a) there is no God or (b) He does has never acted in the natural world in a “direct” fashion", there is no other alternative. Such scientists - and this is certainly the prevailing mindset among modern biologists - have no choice whatsoever but to accept on faith that evolution driven by random mutation explains everything. More than a few atheistic biologists have been honest enough to admit as much.

[Now, as someone with a love of science, which is a beautiful thing, I share the rightful repulsion of the “God of the gaps” mentality. To fall back to “God” because one cannot explain nature is nonsensical, just as it is nonsensical for atheistic scientists to don the philosopher’s cap and proclaim God superfluous because, by gosh, we’ve explained it all. Even if you’ve explained it all in natural terms you haven’t explained why the universe was front-loaded with laws that have produced life of utterly astounding complexity.]

So, in short, as I said, I simply think you’re exaggerating the evidence and ignoring the glaring issues that exist.

Well, the point is that it’s not just the bare majority of biologists who consider him wrong but the vast, overwhelming majority.
The example you give of Hubble and the expanding universe is not germane to the argument for several reasons:

1. Edwin Hubble was never considered by his peers to be a crank
2. He published his findings in mainstream scientific journals (something that Behe has not done with his ‘calculations’).
3. He was not alone - Georges LeMaitre’s Big Bang theory pre-dated Hubble’s redshift analysis by two years and James Keeler, Vesto Slipher and William Campbell had already independently discovered galactic redshift.

First of all, you obviously missed the whole point in the Hubble reference. It wasn’t so much that Hubble was opposed after his discovery, it was that before overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the prevailing scientific view was that the universe had no beginning, and that this was rooted in nothing other than atheistic faith.

Secondly, you do under the concept of analogy, right? No, Behe’s case is not nearly identical to Hubble’s.

This is an example where a prevailing view was revised in the light of new evidence and there are many examples of this in science. But examples where a single individual puts forward an idea that is openly and vigorously critiqued by his peers for a decade and more as Behe’s has been, and which subsequently turns out to be correct are few and far between in the 20th and 21st centuries. The fact that the overwhelming majority of professional biologists think he is wrong is not, in itself, proof that he is wrong, but it weighs very heavily against him. The fact is that there are thousands of individuals who think that they have single handedly revolutionised this or that aspect of science, and they generally make the same sort of argument in defence of their hobby-horse as you have made for Behe - the fact is that if the vast majority of scientists in a field think that an individual is wrong, then he usually is.

You must know better than to believe that Behe is that alone - right?

Tell me this - why, if it is so obvious he is wrong, has there been such a determined effort to censor what he has to say? If you were correct and it is so obvious he has no case, his opponents would have been very happy to let him air his hairbrained theory, but that has not been the case - at all. And that’s why he hasn’t been published in the dogmatic journals of the time.

Since you know so much about the topic, I’m sure you’ve seen “No Intelligence Allowed”. The fact is that the current biological culture is one of closed-minded intolerance. Your argument is a circular one - Behe must be wrong because he isn’t respected by his peers, and he’s not respected by his peers because he’s wrong!

Perhaps you would care to explain why you think it was “patently ridiculous”? It turns out that the Steady State theory was wrong, but what in the 20’s 30’s and 40’s made it “patently ridiculous”? You do know that Fred Hoyle was a first class astronomer who did some major work, particularly on nucleosynthesis, don’t you?

I’m going to go ahead and retract that comment - it was indeed a bit hyperbolic.

Reply to your other post coming.

 

[PaulF2]

No-one needs to tell them - they know already. But Prof Behe has tenure. In any case, his department at Lehigh has a public disclaimer that must be unique in the academic world. Go here to read it:
lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm
*“The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others. * *The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of “intelligent design.” While we respect Prof. Behe’s right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific” *

That’s consistent with the bias in the community against his work, yes.

(And I have to acknowledge there was no point in me mentioning his tenure if his university takes such an attitude.)

But I do. The fact is that Behe’s concept of “irreducible complexity” (from Darwin’s Black Box) has been shown by a number of critics to be fundamentally flawed. IC is a stronger claim than that the unlikeliness of a complex system to evolve - it is a claim that certain complex systems are irreducible and cannot have evolved. Not only has that claim been falsified on theoretical grounds, but every single example that Behe put forward of a hypothetically irreducibly complex system has been shown not to be so. Flagellum: Nature Rev. Microbiol. 4, 784–790; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 7116. Blood clotting: Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 100, 7527–7532; Immune system: Nat. Immunol. 7, 433; etc.

Irreducible complexity doesn’t have to be 100% airtight as a concept in order to have merit. The more interlocking, interwoven, dependent, complex parts a bio-mechanical system has, the greater the odds against it have self-assembled - exponentially so, I believe.

I have read at least one of the papers above in the past. I can’t find it now, and it pains me to pay $32 for it online, but my curiosity is piqued just enough to probably do so.

I have to note that above you seem to be equating the notion that Behe has been responded to to him being refuted - pretty daring. Of course he was responded to, and very enthusiastically at that. He challenged the dogma, and he did a damn good job at it! (The fact that you and just about all of his critics don’t even acknowledge that much - that he provided some excellent insight - is what makes me look at you as posturing.)

Defeated on that front Behe has moved on to the claim that neo-Darwinism (variation and natural selection) is incapable of explaining the diversity of species, based primarily on his assertion that there are insufficient fixed random mutations that occur to explain the diversity of extant and fossil phenotypes (the Edge of Evolution). But in making this claim, Behe is setting himself against 70 years of work in mathematical genetics based on work by pioneers like Fisher, Haldane, Wright and others. His “calculations” are at variance with accepted theoretical biology because they are blatantly wrong. Furthermore the fundamental flaws in Behe’s mathematical reasoning (that sequential adaptive mutations cannot occur, and his obfuscation between the probability of sequential adaptive mutations occurring and fixing in a population and multiple specific mutations occurring simultaneously in an individual) have been explained in, amongst other places, Nature (Miller, *Nature *447, 1055 - 1056) and Science (Carroll, *Science *316, 1427 - 1428).

It’s really disingenuous of you to imply that Behe has “moved on” as if he’s been defeated - that’s pretty silly.

Behe - and he is hardly alone in this endeavor - set himself against 70 years of largely fruitless work of certain scientists working from the a priori assumption that evolution controlled by random mutation must explain all life, and that such processes explain the origin of life as well.

If Behe really had a scientifically defensible argument then his proper course would be to submit a paper to a journal dedicated to theoretical biology, rather than to publish in a popular book aimed at a public who is not qualified to judge the merits of his arguments. He is, after all, a tenured professor of biochemistry, so why shun the only scientific arena that matters?

Already covered - the entrenched dogma doesn’t tolerate dissent. If Behe was so easy to refute, his enemies would love to see him published. I don’t mean to imply that any quack with a hair-brained hypothesis deserves to be published in Nature just so he can be debunked, but if you would assert that Behe falls into such a category you are, once again, posturing.

 

[PaulF2]

Just to give our viewers a little context here, the below is one example of the type of biological machine that Professor Behe asserts was designed. Crazy concept, eh?

http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v4/n10/images/nrmicro1493-i1.jpg

 

[tjm190]

Just to give our viewers a little context here, the below is one example of the type of biological machine that Professor Behe asserts was designed. Crazy concept, eh?

http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v4/n10/images/nrmicro1493-i1.jpg

But since each of those parts had or has a complete function independent of the overall function of the machine itself, then the supposedly irreducible complexity in fact is reduced- thus the argument crumbles