Hello FMAJ,
You wrote:
"You are building a strawman argument here."
I don't think so. I have yet to meet an ID critic who doesn't think
all ID proponents are either stupid, ignorant, irrational,
dishonest, and/or motivated by emotion or religious belief.
Let's face it. ID critics think ID is pure garbage, right?
So how else do you explain people who take garbage seriously?
FMA: I would like to hear more how ID has been useful. Could
you refer me to some papers?
No, but I don't think this is relevant.
FMA: I have been searching on some of the terms you used:
With the exception of Rubisco, these examples have been discussed
on the ARN forum that is currently in suspension. When the board
is up again, I can post the urls if you want. Rubisco, BTW, is something
I plan to discuss in more detail once the stage is set.
FMA then quotes a section about enolase from someone's
web page. Ironically, my response to this argument (on the
ARN forum) entailed my specific hypothesis concerning this
enzyme.
As for crystallins, I don't recall mentioning anything above about
these proteins as products of design. As you cite, "The
lens crystallins of eyes are some of the best examples of exaptations."
Indeed, and the best examples are quite unimpressive as an
example of an exaptation when is comes to an alternative
mechanism to ID. I discussed this also on ARN.
FMA: This is also were a Mike Gene seems to make the somewhat silly
assertion that "It's official. Behe's concept of irreducible complexity
(IC) has found itself in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. "
Of course he was correct but the paper all but demolished Behe's
arguments.
Actually, I found the paper very useful for strengthening a design
inference (as I explained in the lengthy text of my response).
"First of all, this article shows that Behe's work has indeed
contributed to science … what should be clear is that Behe's
skepticism has served as an impetus for these scientists to
develop a classification that did not exist before. Therefore,
Behe has indeed contributed in an indirect way by serving as the
stimulus for the creation of such a classification."
Let's consider the complete context:
" First of all, this article shows that Behe's work has indeed
contributed to science. Thornhill and Ussery (T&U) write:
"However, the more theoretical question about the accessibility
by Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of
functionally indivisible components, if such exist, has not been
thoroughly examined. ….One factor hampering examination
of the accessibility of biological structures by Darwinian
evolution is the absence of a classification of possible routes.
A suggested classification is presented here."
Although one can argue about it, this can be viewed as a
fundamental confirmation of Behe's thesis that the origin
of these IC structures has not been explained by science.
However, what should be clear is that Behe's skepticism
has served as an impetus for these scientists to develop
a classification that did not exist before. Therefore, Behe
has indeed contributed in an indirect way by serving as
the stimulus for the creation of such a classification. "
FMA: " It is rather ironic that you consider a critique of
Behe's thesis to be a validation of his thesis."
Why is it ironic? What I claim is that the thesis whereby
these IC structures has not been explained by science was
validated, not the IC = impossible to evolve
or IC=ID thesis. It's actually a very minor point that has
little to do with the rest of the text.
FMA: "Behe proposed IC as a case which rules out all gradual
evolutionary pathways, not just two out of four
possible gradual pathways. This oversight by Behe is
certainly not to his credit. "
I'm not interested in whether or not Behe himself is correct. I'm
interested in the utility of the IC concept. That it rules out
50% of the pathways illustrates it is quite useful.
FMA: It seems like a leap in logic to infer from the ICness
of the system that therefore this was designed.
Not if the inference is quite tentative. I think it all turns
on how much weight you place on the shoulders of the
conclusion. Nevertheless, I don't leap from IC to
design. The core of my inference is Paleyian (the origin of
true machines are best explained by ID) and IC is simply
a concept that helps to bring focus on this inference to
find supporting or damaging evidence.
FMA: "If it helps then fine but one should be careful to realize
that many of the claims made by ID are quite erroneous,
or unsupported."
What is "unsupported" tends to be in the eyes of the beholder.
As for erroneous claims, various critics have explained that
my claims could be wrong, but no one has shown them to
be truly erroneous (as far as I can tell).
FMA: I understand that one might not want to get involved
in addressing scientific criticism of ID but if ID wants to gain
scientific acceptance then it must not hide.
You attribute lofty goals or agendas to me that I do not have.
I simply enjoy arguing and thinking about ID along with using
it to probe the world. For me, it really does open many doors
and it's really starting to make the world even more interesting.
And BTW, I'm not the bogey-man coming to force-feed anyone's
kids ID in the schools. I'm just someone, like you, who enjoys
discussing this stuff in cyber-space.
Mike
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