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Stu,
Interesting tactic, avoid answering questions that you know will lead to disproving the theories you believe in. Are you afraid that if your theories are disproven that you might have to turn to God? Or could it be that your theories have been disproven and you have nothing left to believe in?Quote (TechJoe @ June 26 2009,08:33) Stu,
Interesting tactic, avoid answering questions that you know will lead to disproving the theories you believe in. Are you afraid that if your theories are disproven that you might have to turn to God? Or could it be that your theories have been disproven and you have nothing left to believe in?
I was pointing out that you are using the christian dictionary, the one that works like a book out of Harry Potter and has definitions that change to suit the apologetics of the christian needing help to defend his fantasy world.You have not disproved any theories of science as far as I can tell. Did I miss seeing you on the stage at the Swedish Academy of sciences collecting your Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for proposing a better alternative to Darwin's theory?
Stuart
Stu,June wrote:[/quote]
Quote
I have never read the “Creation Theory”. How does that go? What evidence supports it, what falsifies it and what predictions does it make?So you argue adamantly against something you admittedly know nothing about. Interesting!
Quote Many idiot creationists have ‘challenged’ science. They have always been disproved. If that was not true then you should be able to give me an actual disproof of science. You have not. Ah yes. No argument slam the opposition. Your duplicity is showing again. I thought you knew nothing of the Creatonist theories and their challenges.
Quote Creationism has not stated a theory, so it is the standard model versus NOTHING, unless you can outline the “Theory of Creation” in as much detail as science gives for its model. Then there might be something to challenge. Again, you would like to sound as if you knew whereof you speak but have confessed to no knowledge of the Creationist Theory.
Quote How about you get back to us when you know something about it. Excellent advice, FOLLOW IT.
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Quote (Stu @ June 25 2009,12:26) [/quote]Ah yes. No argument slam the opposition. Your duplicity is showing again. I thought you knew nothing of the Creatonist theories and their challenges.
Still no disproof of any science. Just the warm breeze from all that hot air…Quote Again, you would like to sound as if you knew whereof you speak but have confessed to no knowledge of the Creationist Theory.
You have not knowledge of it either. That is because it does not exist, just like your Imaginary Friend. No smoke without fire, no creation theory without gods. Makes sense.Stuart
Stu,June wrote:[/quote]
Quote That is because it does not exist, just like your Imaginary Friend. I have no “imaginary friend.” History, historianas and witnesses
all attest to His existence. Nothing like your Flying Spaghetti Man.You reference Wikipedia quite often. Ask someone to help you type in “Creation Theory” “Creationism” and “Creationist.” These unfounded, biased, dishonest statements (That is because it does not exist) should cease then, if you have a honest bone.
Quote No smoke without fire, no creation theory without gods. Makes sense. Stuart
Makes sense to whom? The Creation Theory does not require “gods.” It is founded on God.
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Group of Ohio Scientists Endorses Lesson Plan to Critically Analyze Evolution
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
March 8, 2004MARCH 8 — Thirty Ohio scientists, including seven professors from The Ohio State University and eight biologists, have endorsed the state's proposed model lesson plan on the “Critical Analysis of Evolution” being considered for final adoption by the State Board of Education on March 9. At the same time, a national statement by 300 scientists disputing a key claim of Darwin's theory of evolution has also been released.
The 30 Ohio scientists come from both public and private universities as well as the business community and represent such fields as biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, entomology, chemistry, statistics, medicine, and physics.
Their statement reads in part: “As scientists in the state of Ohio, we support the Ohio science standards benchmark that requires students to know 'how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.' We further endorse the model lesson plan on the 'Critical Analysis of Evolution' that has been developed to help school districts fulfill this benchmark, and we urge that the model lesson plan be adopted.”
The Ohio scientists add that “Allowing students to study… disagreements over parts of evolutionary theory is a healthy part of a first-rate science education. Censoring such disagreements from the classroom would be a disservice to genuine science and a setback to good science education.”
Many of the Ohio scientists are signers of the national “Scientific Dissent from Darwin” statement also being released this week. That national declaration is an updated version of a statement first issued by 100 scientists in 2001 and originally published in the New York Review of Books. Now endorsed by more than 300 scientists, including faculty members at Yale, Princeton, MIT, and the University of Georgia, the national statement reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
Signers of the national statement include sixty biologists. One of them is biology professor Scott Minnich of the University of Idaho, who says that Darwinian evolution has become “the exceptional area that you can’t criticize” in science education, something he considers “a bad precedent.” In his view, we need to “teach it more, and teach it critically.”
Yvonne Boldt, who holds a doctorate in microbiology from the University of Minnesota, adds that “the time has come for Darwinists to stop hiding behind the claim that all their opponents are creationists, and face the fact that there is a growing contingent of scientists who have found the evidence for Darwinian evolution wanting, and who are ready and willing to debate Darwinists on scientific grounds.”
To speak with a spokesperson for Discovery Institute contact Rob Crowther at (206) 292-0401 x107 or by e-mail at [email protected].
The “Scientific Dissent from Darwin” list is available upon request from Discovery Institute.
Stu: You certainly have the right to believe anything you choose to believe.But it is a choice of what to believe and if it is not firsthand news that you experienced yourself then it is believed by faith!! The only problem that I have is when you say or infer that your sources of information are better or more diserving of belief than anybody elses. Also when you refuse to admit that the faith to believe in God is fickle yet it takes the same faith to believe any or all of the information you look up, read, see, or hear. Peace,TK
Quote (Tim Kraft @ June 28 2009,02:42) Stu: You certainly have the right to believe anything you choose to believe.But it is a choice of what to believe and if it is not firsthand news that you experienced yourself then it is believed by faith!! The only problem that I have is when you say or infer that your sources of information are better or more diserving of belief than anybody elses. Also when you refuse to admit that the faith to believe in God is fickle yet it takes the same faith to believe any or all of the information you look up, read, see, or hear. Peace,TK
The quality of information given by those who claim to have it 'revealed ' to them is pathetic. It is of exactly the same quality as the information gained from tarot cards and psychics. Intercessory prayer has no measurable benefit beyond that of the placebo (ie it only affects those who knew they were being prayed for); there is no case of which I am aware of a person being cured of an illness that can ONLY be attributed to divine intervention; the events revealed in the bible of a global flood and generation of the entire human population from just two people are absurd: it is perverse to claim that they happened; people do not live again after they have died, genetics tells us that humans cannot be born of just a mother (there is no theory to explain Jesus's Y chromosome, if he existed); people have never lived more than around 120 years: there is no evidence at all in ancient remains of extreme ages.This is all nonsense knowledge, fairy tales for the gullible. What is more we have a fair idea of how and why people believe such nonsense, which also has not been rebutted by christians (who presumably fear those analyses might be true of them).
By contrast, the quality of information provided by empirical science with its evidence-supported falsifiable theories is the state of the art in epistemology. Time and again, science works. The knowledge is robust because it is open to disproof if it is wrong. Revelation has no quality control mechanism whatever, it is just down to facile arguments between those who claim to have witnessed revelations as to what is considered the knowledge. Just read any of the pointless threads here, like the trinity one for an example.
Stuart
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Did you read the links I posted or do you exclusively consume Discovery Institute propaganda?
I did not read a single evidence-based refutation of any point of science, just a dull appeal to authority, which is another logical fallacy. You are quoting really old news. As you might not know, Scott Minnich testified in the Dover intelligent design trial which took place in 2005, after this piece was written. In that trial his ideas, and subsequently, the fundamental 'principle' of his and others' ideas about irreducible complexity in the flagellum were shot down in flames by work that showed a simpler precurser to the flagellum motor that had an excretory function, demonstrating that the flagellum was not irreducibly complex at all.
The Discovery Institute's propaganda can be distinguished from real science by the lack of key references cited of the peer-reviewed work of other scientists, and the lack of experimental results of their own.
Name one of the scientists listed in this who is not also a religious fundamentalist that has a prior commitment to his religious views.
Stuart
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Quote I have no “imaginary friend.” History, historianas and witnesses
all attest to His existence. Nothing like your Flying Spaghetti Man.
I attest to the FSM’s existence (bhna). He is my imaginary friend. How dare you question my sincerely held beliefs?Quote You reference Wikipedia quite often. Ask someone to help you type in “Creation Theory” “Creationism” and “Creationist.” These unfounded, biased, dishonest statements (That is because it does not exist) should cease then, if you have a honest bone.
In Wikipedia “Creation Theory” leads to “Creationism”, the first line of which reads “Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a deity”.Where is the scientific theory of creationism? Where is the evidence for that model, what are the proposed mechanisms , where are are the predictions and where is the falsifiability? Without those four points it is not a scientific theory.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ June 27 2009,16:01) I attest to the FSM’s existence (bhna). He is my imaginary friend. How dare you question my sincerely held beliefs?
Get real! You question the sincere beliefs of others and theN post this dribble as if offended when yourS are questioned.We know you have imaginary friends already. I do not. Again, history, historians, and witnesses all attest to His existence.
I deny that your science has proved anything because, as you stated, science can prove nothing. And again, it has NOT disproven creationism. It only offers alternative theories.
As I said before, we have made our choice as to what to believe. So I close quoting you, “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY SINCERELY HELD BELIEFS?
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Quote Get real! You question the sincere beliefs of others and theN post this dribble as if offended when yourS are questioned.
…is it OK for you to do it because I do?!Quote We know you have imaginary friends already. I do not. Again, history, historians, and witnesses all attest to His existence.
I attest to your god’s lack of existence. Who is to say all your historians and witnesses know any better than me?Quote I deny that your science has proved anything because, as you stated, science can prove nothing. And again, it has NOT disproven creationism. It only offers alternative theories.
So you have now retracted your claim that evolution has been disproved? That is wise.As I explained earlier, with creationism there is nothing to disprove. Occasionally creationists will try on things like disease being caused by sin or mutations being a result of some thing they call the ‘fall’ (although the mechanism is never given) but those things can be easily shown to be a poor model of reality.
Quote As I said before, we have made our choice as to what to believe. So I close quoting you, “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY SINCERELY HELD BELIEFS?
Because you do it! And because I view my beliefs as worthless if they cannot stand up to questioning. They have proven entirely worthy in the face of your questioning so far.Stuart
Stu,June wrote:Quote …is it OK for you to do it because I do?! Apparently so, you state below – “Because you do it! “
Quote Who is to say all your historians and witnesses know any better than me? And who is to say that your “scientists” know better than me or any other Creationist, you?
Quote So you have now retracted your claim that evolution has been disproved? Huh? No, it has not been proven by science because science can prove nothing. You do concede that science has not disproven creationism however.
Quote They have proven entirely worthy in the face of your questioning so far. As has Creationism stood up to yours.
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Quote And who is to say that your “scientists” know better than me or any other Creationist, you?
Well exactly. Thank you for retracting your logical fallacy that we can just appeal to the authority of others. Scientists do not appeal to authority. They put up their evidence and ask for others to correct any mistakes. Science does not work by appeal to authority, in fact the Royal Society in the UK has a motto that says exactly that (this from their website):The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba', roughly translated as 'Take nobody's word for it', dates back to 1663, and is an expression of the determination of the Fellows to withstand the domination of authority (such as in Scholasticism) and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
So you see the preeminent society of scientists rejects the appeal to authority! What preeminent society of creationists declares such honesty? Oh, I was forgetting, there is no eminent society of creationists, in fact one prominent creationist is in jail for tax fraud. So at least one of them can be legally called a liar without fear of a lawsuit. I think mounting a defense against a libel claim from any of them would be fairly straightforward. The Dover trial showed how shallow creationist arguments are.
Quote Huh? No, it has not been proven by science because science can prove nothing. You do concede that science has not disproven creationism however.
No, I specifically have said that creationist claims are disproved by science, which is true for all falsifiable claims of creationists so far. On the evidence creationists are either liars or completely deluded. Can you give me a single example of a falsifiable creationist claim that has not been falsified?Stuart
Quote (Stu @ June 28 2009,12:39) Can you give me a single example of a falsifiable creationist claim that has not been falsified? Stuart
What kind of double talk question is this? Naturally any claim is falsifiable. It is like your falsifiable claim regarding FSM existence – it is falsified. FSM has been proven to be a figment of your imagination by your admission. Not so with the assertions regarding God or Jesus. Show the “proof” you have that they do not exist and are falsified fictitious characters. Show the proof that Bible characters falsified their claims regarding Jesus. Who was there that denies Jesus existed or rose from the dead other than His detractors that admittedly schemed against Him. Come with YOUR proof.If you are asking if I can give you a claim of Creationism that has not been proved false by science try this one, “In the beginning God…” How about “the earth is curved.” Wasn't it science that speculated that it was flat?
In the eighth century B.C.E., when the prevailing view was that the earth was flat, centuries before Greek philosophers theorized that the earth likely was spherical, and thousands of years before humans saw the earth as a globe from space, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah stated with remarkable simplicity: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.” (Isaiah 40:22) The Hebrew word chugh, here translated “circle,” may also be rendered “sphere.”3 Other Bible translations read, “the globe of the earth” (Douay Version) and “the round earth.”—Moffatt.
The Bible writer Isaiah avoided the common myths about the earth. Instead, he penned a statement that was not threatened by the advances of scientific discovery.
Nearly 3,500 years ago, the Bible stated with extraordinary clarity that the earth is hanging “upon nothing.” (Job 26:7) In the original Hebrew, the word for “nothing” (beli-mah') used here literally means “without anything.”7 The Contemporary English Version uses the expression, “on empty space.”
A planet hanging “on empty space” was not at all how most people in those days pictured the earth. Yet, far ahead of his time, the Bible writer recorded a statement that is scientifically sound.
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Stuu: Can you give me a single example of a falsifiable creationist claim that has not been falsified?
Quote What kind of double talk question is this? Naturally any claim is falsifiable. It is like your falsifiable claim regarding FSM existence – it is falsified. FSM has been proven to be a figment of your imagination by your admission.
That is not true. Unless you can say what would be observed if your god did not exist, then your claim of a god is not falsifiable. I could be wrong: despite my denials, the FSM might be real. The point is that science cannot prove a negative, and just because you say there is a god does not mean there is one.Quote Not so with the assertions regarding God or Jesus. Show the “proof” you have that they do not exist and are falsified fictitious characters. Show the proof that Bible characters falsified their claims regarding Jesus. Who was there that denies Jesus existed or rose from the dead other than His detractors that admittedly schemed against Him. Come with YOUR proof.
I am not making the claim, you are. You provide the evidence that there was such a thing. You have heard of the burden of proof? When you tell me I am wrong because your god or messiah says so, then it is up to you to demonstrate that you are not just making it all up. You have not shown any evidence for your god, or Jesus. I am prepared to accept that there was a man called Jesus of which you write, and even that he was a decent bloke. But It is not important to me whether he existed or not, and I’m not sure if you are aware just how close a thing it is as to whether the evidence is for the existence of Jesus or not.Quote If you are asking if I can give you a claim of Creationism that has not been proved false by science try this one, “In the beginning God…”
That NOT a falsifiable statement! It also begs the question of what the word ‘god’ means, something which you have not defined.Quote How about “the earth is curved.” Wasn't it science that speculated that it was flat?
Scripture states that the earth is flat. In any case, we know it is not: “the earth is flat” is a falsifiable statement that has been falsified by evidence.Quote In the eighth century B.C.E., when the prevailing view was that the earth was flat, centuries before Greek philosophers theorized that the earth likely was spherical, and thousands of years before humans saw the earth as a globe from space, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah stated with remarkable simplicity: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.” (Isaiah 40:22) The Hebrew word chugh, here translated “circle,” may also be rendered “sphere.”3 Other Bible translations read, “the globe of the earth” (Douay Version) and “the round earth.”—Moffatt. The Bible writer Isaiah avoided the common myths about the earth. Instead, he penned a statement that was not threatened by the advances of scientific discovery.
It is not threatening because it could mean anything!Quote Nearly 3,500 years ago, the Bible stated with extraordinary clarity that the earth is hanging “upon nothing.” (Job 26:7) In the original Hebrew, the word for “nothing” (beli-mah') used here literally means “without anything.”7 The Contemporary English Version uses the expression, “on empty space.”
And of course that is wrong, because the earth is “hanging” on the mutual gravitational attraction with the sun.Quote A planet hanging “on empty space” was not at all how most people in those days pictured the earth. Yet, far ahead of his time, the Bible writer recorded a statement that is scientifically sound.
But since they knew nothing about it anyway, so what? Democritus’s atomic model was far more advanced and just as much lacking in evidence, yet he claimed no divine inspiration.Cutting and pasting from Yahoo Answers would have more credibility if you acknowledged the source… a tiny bit more credibility anyway.
Stuart
Stu,June wrote:[/quote]
Quote That is not true. Unless you can say what would be observed if your god did not exist, then your claim of a god is not falsifiable. I could be wrong: despite my denials, the FSM might be real. And vice versa. I could be wrong and there is no God.
Quote
I am not making the claim, you are. You provide the evidence that there was such a thing.Wrong! You made the claim Paul was duped, delusional, etc.You claim the Bible is fairy tales. You deny its historical accounts. PROVE IT! You too have heard of the burden of proof.
Quote Scripture states that the earth is flat. Read the verses cited. Again, your wrong.
Quote But since they knew nothing about it anyway, so what? They knew plenty about it and recorded the facts long before any science did. Scientist could have saved much time in discovery if thay were not adverse to accepting the Bible.
Quote Cutting and pasting from Yahoo Answers would have more credibility if you acknowledged the source… a tiny bit more credibility anyway. Really. I doubt it. You seem to have concluded somehow that Yahoo Answers was the source. Perhaps you would want to practice your advice regarding Democritus' model if you truly deem source documentation important. By the way, those not divinely inspired rarely claim divine inspiration. How do you claim Democritus' model as far more advanced? It did not prove inaccurate the scientifically sound Bible statements made long before.
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Quote And vice versa. I could be wrong and there is no God.
Which is why claims about gods are not falsifiable. There is no test you can do to determine whether gods exist or not.Quote You made the claim Paul was duped, delusional, etc.You claim the Bible is fairy tales. You deny its historical accounts. PROVE IT! You too have heard of the burden of proof.
OK. In relation to Paul, you are right. I posted the verses somewhere and will repost them for you when I get a chance to look for the post. They show that Paul was bigoted and miserable (although those are opinions) and it is pretty clear to any reasonable person that to know a messiah from a DREAM then make up large tracts of his philosophy after his death is delusional. Do you need me to show you the scripture regarding Paul’s dreaming about Jesus?Stuu: Scripture states that the earth is flat.
Quote Read the verses cited. Again, your wrong.
Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 7:1 use the term “four corners of the earth” which I grant you is a common expression, however you want Isaiah’s “round” to mean a sphere when if could equally mean a flat circle. You are interpreting scripture in terms of modern science, not showing that scripture had any magic prescience.Job 38:13, Jeremiah 16:19, Daniel 4:11 discuss the “Ends of the earth”, again a common expression today, but Job suggests that from the ends of the earth the wicked could be “shaken out of it”, which would at least require the earth to have a different shape at its “ends”. In Daniel it was possible to see a tree from the “Ends of the earth”, which literally interpreted would require a flat earth.
Matthew 4:8 tells us that the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world from a high mountain. It is not possible to see the Kingdom of Tonga, which existed at the alleged time of Jesus, from any Middle Eastern mountain.
Psalm 104:5 has the earth ‘set on its foundations’ which directly contradicts your “unsupported earth’ verse from before. Job also tells us that the earth has pillars and foundations, again contrary to your interpretation of Isaiah. This earth “cannot be moved” in Psalm 93:1 which is also literally wrong. In Ecclesiastes 1:5 the sun rises, sets and hurries back to where it rises, which is a poor description of what is going on.
By the way, the rest of Isaiah 40:22 claims that the heavens (in Genesis that is the firmament, a solid dome that does not exist) are as a curtain, a tent under which to live. You would have to interpret those curtains and that tent as spherical to make it match observations.
These verses are literally wrong models of the earth. You can claim they are allegorical if you want, but then you cannot claim they are scientific descriptions.
Quote They knew plenty about it and recorded the facts long before any science did. Scientist could have saved much time in discovery if thay were not adverse to accepting the Bible.
Weasel Words again. No examples. Yes the OT tells you to avoid pork and blood. No it does not tell you that the reasons are to do with tiny pathogens, too small to see but deadly. If the bible was really divine inspired by a loving god, why did it not tell us to wash our hands before meals? That single statement would have made a world of difference in the past few thousand years. Of course it does not say that because the men writing scripture did not know about the germ theory.Quote You seem to have concluded somehow that Yahoo Answers was the source.
Yes. Was I wrong?Quote Perhaps you would want to practice your advice regarding Democritus' model if you truly deem source documentation important.
I knew it already and typed it. I did not cut and paste. Anyway, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DemocritusQuote By the way, those not divinely inspired rarely claim divine inspiration. How do you claim Democritus' model as far more advanced?
Because it turned out to be right, with no equivocation like we see all through the bible.Stuart
Stu,June wrote:[/quote]
Quote They show that Paul was bigoted and miserable (although those are opinions) So now, where you are concerned, “opinions” are proof. I think not. Your “opinions” regarding the Bible being a fairy tale,”opinions” that there is no God, that Paul had a dream ARE NOT PROOF.
Quote Weasel Words again. No examples. Yes the OT tells you to avoid pork and blood. No it does not tell you that the reasons are to do with tiny pathogens, too small to see but deadly. Like human fathers, God gives directions without providing lengthy reasons as to why. Why did the Bible make statements to avoid such if the consequences were unknown? Actually, the creator scientist knew all along what todays scientists are finally discovering. I haven't seen your PROOF yet.
Quote
If the bible was really divine inspired by a loving god, why did it not tell us to wash our hands before meals?Actually, hand washing before eating was a Bible tradition. It was not observed then by all just as, with scientific reasonsfor washing being explained, people do not practice handwashing today. Thus much staff infection in hospitals.
Mat 15:2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
Mar 7:3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders,
Quote I knew it already and typed it. I did not cut and paste. Is it not plagarism to act as if the thoughts were yours? you knew that I was not claiming originalty of thought.
Quote Because it turned out to be right, with no equivocation like we see all through the bible. The Bible is right WITHOUT EQUIVOCATION unless the reader wants to find and contend equivocation.
Sorry, no PROOF yet.
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Stu,June wrote:[/quote]
Quote Scott Minnich testified in the Dover intelligent design trial which took place in 2005, after this piece was written. In that trial his ideas, and subsequently, the fundamental 'principle' of his and others' ideas about irreducible complexity in the flagellum were shot down in flames by work that showed a simpler precurser to the flagellum motor that had an excretory function, demonstrating that the flagellum was not irreducibly complex at all. If someone says that Dr. Minnich’s arguments were “shot down in flames” at Dover, then I’m highly skeptical, and that is a mere assertion until someone shows exactly how and where it was “shot down”.
The attached law review article gives a simple discussion of how Minnich/Behe’s ideas about irreducible complexity were NOT at all refuted by the evolutionists in the Dover trial. This article explains that that the “secretion” apparatus, the “Type III Secretory System” does NOT make a good precursor to the flagellum, and its existence does NOT refute irreducible complexity. Here’s what the article states, showing how Ken Miller and others at Dover did NOT refute irreducible complexity:
“As a concrete example of how ID has been refuted, Judge Jones claimed that Kenneth Miller’s testimony about the Type-III Secretory System (T3SS) explained how the bacterial flagellum could evolve: “[W]ith regard to the bacterial flagellum, Dr. Miller pointed to peer-reviewed studies that identified a possible precursor to the bacterial flagellum, a subsystem that was fully functional, namely the Type-III Secretory System.”166 However, a number of biologists have concluded that that the T3SS was not a precursor to the flagellum.167 Moreover, the Kitzmiller ruling ignored testimony by microbiologist Scott Minnich, who explained that even if Miller’s speculative scenario turned out to be true, it would not be sufficient to prove a Darwinian explanation for the origin of the flagellum because there is still a huge leap in complexity from a T3SS to a flagellum.168 The unresolved challenge that the irreducible complexity of the flagellum continues to pose for Darwinian evolution is starkly summarized by William Dembski:
At best the T[3]SS represents one possible step in the indirect Darwinian evolution of the bacterial flagellum. But that still wouldn’t constitute a solution to the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. What’s needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we’ve discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that.169
Dembski’s critique is apt because it recognizes that Miller wrongly characterizes irreducible complexity as focusing on the non-functionality of sub-parts. Conversely, Behe properly tests irreducible complexity by assessing the plausibility of the entire functional system to assemble in a step-wise fashion, even if sub-parts can have functions outside of the final system.170 The “leap” required by going from one functional sub-part to the entire functional system is indicative of the degree of irreducible complexity in a system. 171 Contrary to Miller’s assertions, Behe never argued that irreducible complexity mandates that sub-parts can have no function outside of the final system.172 In the end, Judge Jones’s conclusion that Miller refuted the irreducible complexity of the flagellum “based upon peer-reviewed studies” was plainly erroneous. Indeed, a recent review article in Nature Reviews Microbiology admits that “the flagellar research community has scarcely begun to consider how these systems have evolved.”173 (David DeWolf, John West, and Casey Luskin, “Intelligent Design Will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover,” Montana Law Review, Vol. 68:7 (Winter, 2007), citations below; article attached)
In addition, my article, “Do Car Engines Run on Lugnuts? A Response to Ken Miller & Judge Jones's Straw Tests of Irreducible Complexity for the Bacterial Flagellum,” at http://www.discovery.org/scripts….&id=747 addresses this issue in more detail, stating the following:
Miller’s Type III Secretory System argument contains three primary problems:
(A) Experts say the evidence suggests that the TTSS evolved from the flagellum, and not the other way around.
(B) Behe and other ID-proponents have long-acknowledged “exaptation” or “co-option” as an attempt to evolve biological complexity, and have observed many problems with “cooption” explanations.
© Miller has inaccurately characterized how one tests for irreducible complexity, thus refuting only a straw-version of Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity.
Each point is discussed in much detail in the article at the above link, which you may wish to ead. But regarding Point ©, the correct way to test for irreducible complexity is through genetic knockout experiments. Had Miller done this correctly, he would have said the following (which he didn’t say):
“Dr. Behe's prediction is that an irreducibly complex system will go through some nonfunctional stage along any evolutionary pathway. Therefore, we ought to be able to take the bacterial flagellum, for example, remove a part, and discover that the system stops working.”
In fact, Dr. Scott Minnich, a pro-ID microbiologist and expert on the flagellum, testified extensively at the trial about how his own tests demonstrate the irreducibly complex nature of the flagellum Consider Minnich’s testimony which Jones completely ignored in the Kitzmiller decision. Minnich properly tested irreducible complexity and stated the following at trial:
“A. I work on the bacterial flagellum, understanding the function of the bacterial flagellum for example by exposing cells to mutagenic compounds or agents, and then scoring for cells that have attenuated or lost motility. This is our phenotype. The cells can swim or they can't. We mutagenize the cells, if we hit a gene that's involved in function of the flagellum, they can't swim, which is a scorable phenotype that we use. Reverse engineering is then employed to identify all these genes. We couple this with biochemistry to essentially rebuild the structure and understand what the function of each individual part is. Summary, it is the process more akin to design that propelled biology from a mere descriptive science to an experimental science in terms of employing these techniques.”
Minnich explained how he mutated all of the flagellar genes and found that the flagellum loses function if even one gene is missing. Thus, the flagellum is irreducibly complex with respect to its gene compliment:
“One mutation, one part knock out, it can't swim. Put that single gene back in we restore motility. Same thing over here. We put, knock out one part, put a good copy of the gene back in, and they can swim. By definition the system is irreducibly complex. We've done that with all 35 components of the flagellum, and we get the same effect.”
This properly tests irreducible complexity and shows that it exists in the flagellum. Did Ken Miller’s discussion of the TTSS refute this evidence. No, not at all. Miller simply demonstrated that some flagellar proteins can be used for another task, but he did not show that the complexity of the total flagellar system is reducible, or that some evolutionary pathway exists wherein
the flagellum could evolve. In contrast, Minnich’s data shows that the complexity of the flagellum is NOT reducible.Ken Miller’s arguments and other arguments to date have NOT refuted this testimony! In other words, Minnich has demonstrated irreducible complexity and nobody has refuted it to date. Thanks and I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Casey Luskin
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