So, what's the forensic evidence in favor of ID? The example below is
where the "gut feel" is overturned by detailed forensic evidence. This
kind of evidence actually goes against the "uncommon descent" variety
of ID. If you look at human chromosome number 2 you see detailed
forensic evidence that it is fused chromosomes 2a and 2b of
chimpanzees and other great apes. If you want to do your own CSI work
go here:
Shows the matched chromosome:
Shows the matched telomere:
User Guide to the Genome Browser:
http://genome.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/help/hgTracksHelp.html
This is not some vague analogy to forensics but applies the very DNA
techniques used to reverse convictions. Namely, the forensic DNA
evidence is extraordinarily strong for common descent of humans from a
common ancestral great ape. I hope your friend has a chapter on human
chromosome 2.
On Nov 22, 2007, at 3:44 AM, John Walley wrote:
>
> > The absence of being "fully" random is not the sign of divine
> guidance.
>
> I have this one last niggling ID doubt. I have trouble accepting the
> above. This is where the ID forensic argument comes in and I have to
> admit it is somewhat convincing.
>
> For instance, in our RTB Chapter in Atlanta, one of our scientists
> is a Forensic Toxicologist that works for the Georgia Bureau of
> Investigation. He analyzes tissue samples for the presence of
> certain drugs and testifies as an expert witness for the state in
> court cases. His work involves mostly DUI, cocaine and
> methamphetamine, but occasionally he gets the bizarre and recently
> got some local black widow type woman that had a penchant for
> poisoning her husbands and he had to find the trace evidence of
> whatever it was that she used in order for the state to prosecute
> her. Since a couple of her previous husbands had died as well now
> they suspect she poisoned them too.
>
> This is the real CSI stuff. He took me down to the GBI lab one time
> and gave me a tour of all the departments and I met all the people
> and it was really fascinating. In addition to his toxicology lab
> they have a ballistics dept where they analyze all the different
> types of guns and bullets and a document and forgery dept that
> analyzes all the different kinds of document fraud several other
> depts and a DNA lab. In fact I met the two girls that run the DNA
> lab and their work was recently in the news that you may have seen
> since the GBI just did a paternity test on Atlanta megachurch pastor
> Earl Paulk and determined that his 34 year old nephew who had
> replaced him as pastor was really his son through an illicit affair
> with his brother’s wife. Talk about bizarre.
>
> They also have a synthetic fiber analysis dept and I met the guy
> that was one of the ones that actually analyzed the carpet fibers in
> the famed Wayne Williams serial murder case in Atlanta back in the
> 70’s. The guy I met was retiring that week and he had come on as an
> intern almost 30 years ago when the GBI was conducting that
> investigation.
>
> Anyway my friend is a strong ID advocate and he uses his knowledge
> and experience of forensics in his presentation on ID and last I
> heard he was even writing a book about it. One example he uses is
> the Wayne Williams case mentioned above. In fact Wayne Williams was
> the first capital murder case conviction ever won on the basis of
> forensic evidence. They basically identified carpet fibers found on
> several of the bodies to the carpet in Wayne Williams’ house and car
> and it turns out the particular carpet found in his home was a
> certain type from a certain small manufacturer of a certain odd
> color that was made in a certain small lot size and only sold in the
> Atlanta area be a few retailers for a certain small period of time.
> The prosecution’s case was basically massive circumstantial evidence
> and came down to what are the chances that all these victims would
> have that carpet fiber on them if they hadn’t all been in Wayne
> Williams house before they were murdered?
>
> This is far from being an airtight case but they won the conviction.
> It has been contested though from the beginning because Atlanta was
> sharply polarized along racial lines at the time (Wayne Williams is
> African American) and his defense attorney at the time (who happened
> to be my scout master) released a famous quote that “Wayne Williams
> was convicted on the law of averages instead of the law of the
> land”. And still today there are efforts underway to get his
> conviction overturned and prominent local politicians continually
> call for that.
>
> My friends point in his presentation is that here is an example of
> how the govt uses science and probability arguments to convict a man
> of a capital murder charge for which he could have been executed, so
> it is therefore disingenuous for Dawkins and others in academia to
> deny design in the universe in the face of the same massive amounts
> of circumstantial evidence. Granted neither case is totally airtight
> and they both come down to whether or not we can rationally infer a
> cause beyond a reasonable doubt but we seem to have different
> criteria in play here. It seems like Dawkins gets away with what
> Wayne Williams couldn’t.
>
> To me this has always seemed like a very reasonable argument. So
> Dawkins want to make the metaphysical claim that evolution has no
> distant targets so therefore he gets to throw out all the complexity
> and probability evidence against him. How is this different than
> Wayne Williams attempting to come up with some claim to get all the
> carpet evidence against him thrown out that we would never buy? Why
> do we seem to allow this theoretical scientific ideal in academia
> but in the real world of the courts where people’s lives are on the
> line, we don’t?
>
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Received on Fri Nov 23 09:15:21 2007
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