Pat Sullivan Blog

Evolution: Final Thoughts and Resignation

I have lots of comments on my posts regarding evolution.  Some are good comments, many are pretty lame and silly.  Some ugly.  But let me try to put my finger on a few things that seem to be key in the debate and apparent deep misunderstanding of my post  Evolution:What should life look like.  And then let me end the debate for this writer.

1.) When I say, "we should see some weird stuff"  I mean evolution should produce some half way done  "features" in species.  Hooves on a fin for example, or non working rudiments of bat-like sonar in a human.  I think I realized last nite as I went to bed, why evolutionists see this thinking as "dumb", "not scientific",  "obviously being dishonest" etc.  The reason is their belief and understanding of evolution says none of those examples EVER could/would happen.  Natural selection would never select for them because the features don't work, don't provide some advantage.  So to them, all my questions and observations that include these kind of statements are simply stupid in their view.  I think I get that.

2.) I also think I see if they were to allow the potential for dead end, incomplete features, there would be lots of these examples in the fossil record and currently in real life.  Those examples are not clearly found.   According to evolutionists, these types of non working things cannot exist. At least not long enough to be passed along through replication.  There are many possible reasons offered as to why transitional, non-working features are not found.  Or claims that they are everywhere.  Just look into the mirror.  Also, lots of "coulda, woulda, shouldas"  This also seems to mean evolutionists buy into the idea of irreducibly complex machinery.  If a new feature evolves, in order for it to be selected, it HAS to do something of value.  So every single change towards a new species must somehow work and thus is irreducibly complex.  I may be wrong but that is what they seem to be consistently saying.

3. ) I also see that historically, evolutionists have argued that seemingly incomplete, dead end features like the appendix, tonsils and junk DNA etc. show conclusively that unguided evolution produced these unneeded features and thus we obviously evolved and were not designed. Which obviously contradicts their arguments in 1.) and 2.)  Evolutionists want it both ways.  They say evolution, by definition can only produce and select for things that have some advantageous function in order to be passed along to offspring.  But when a seemingly non-functional feature does get selected, evolutionists scream "see, an intelligent designer would never do this!"  And then to boot, many of these alleged dead end features have now been proven to actually have critical function previously unknown.  Evolutionists conveniently forget their past arguments.  The appendix and tonsils were puzzles to my belief we probably were designed.  But when science later discovered the purpose for these organs my confidence in design was strengthened.  Same for the many recent discoveries about so called junk DNA.  Long held to be proof of random, unguided evolution, the discovery of purpose for most of our DNA takes away a major argument and is strong confirmation of design. I am very certain the evolutionists would scream foul on this but to this observer they are wrong.

4.) The appendix etc. is one basis of my observation and statements regarding "weird stuff."  Random mutation, it seems, would regularly take features down a dead end and those dead ends would be readily apparent ala the appendix (before function was later discovered) etc.  But given the assumption that evolution is true, this simply cannot be.  Evolution HAS to continually produce features that work in some way.  That seems to require an evolutionary mechanism yet undiscovered.  That unknown mechanism has to be able to rapidly (as opposed to Darwin's slow) produce major jumps.  For instance, evolution has to produce a working liver and do so pretty fast ( sort of immediately) in order for mammals to survive.  At some point in time, a random change altered one type of cell into a brand new, previously non-existent liver cell.  In order to evolve into an actual working liver, a HOST of other random changes would have to simultaneously take place in order for that new liver cell to be of use.  The hormonal system (if it existed at the time) would have to blindly create hundreds of protein machines to turn on and off functions in the liver.  Other machinery would have to happen in order for these liver cells to reproduce (and stop reproducing to avoid cancer) and somehow  gather together to form the liver organ.  They would have to attach (if a system to attach existed) themselves correctly to the rest of the body.  Circulation systems (if they existed at the time) would have to develop rapidly to get fluids/blood in and out of the liver.  The liver would have to somehow acquire filtering and detoxification systems.  And all of the machines, systems and attachments would have to know how to self replicate, a function/feature that magically has to be in existence from the very beginning otherwise evolution could NEVER work. There has to be some unknown evolutionary mechanism to put all of this wonderfully intricate system together, VERY FAST otherwise you would be left with a partial system that does not work, thus not be selected and passed on to the next generation.  Thousands of these intricate systems exist in all species. Just in the cell alone, as many as 37,000 functional RNA proteins all intricately work together for the purpose of creating and sustaining life.  The probability of 37,000 functional proteins alone ever existing in a "just so" manner seems to be on a magnitude as to be incalculable.  A number so large as to produce incredulity.  For the hard core evolutionist, no matter how incredulous or improbable, it is no problem at all.  It had to happen via known evolutionary processes because no other explanation is allowed.  Only materialistic, natural explanations please.  "You stupid, dishonest scumbag, let me explain to you how it COULD HAVE happened.  And since it could have happened, it DID happen.  So there you ignorant slut!"  Convincing indeed!

Orac blasts my ID view as well

In a rather long post, the famed ORAC weighs in on my observations about what life should look like if macro evolution were true. 

I carefully read his post and all the comments.  I must be really thick in the head because I don't get what they are saying to refute my thoughts and observations.  I understand the words and concepts but I usually still find myself saying "so what."  I follow their arguments but these often seem trivial or simply name calling.  "Gee, isn't he stupid??"    Their refutations are interesting but I don't see why they are necessarily true.  I seem to always be able to say "maybe, but what about this?"  Or "that makes no sense at all."  Much of what they say readily fits into my post entitled "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.

I know evolutionists absolutely believe what they believe.  That is fine.  But so much of it seems to be just that.  Belief.  And not very convincing except to themselves.  Not unlike the belief of Christians or Muslims or whatever.  The beliefs are all accepted as obviously true among everyone in their circle.  What plays in Decatur though?  Not that something that plays in Decatur is necessarily true.  But it sure does predict what the common man is going to do or believe.

But to the evolutionists, the common man is stupid.  Unable to understand the nuances of established science.  That is where they fail it seems to me.  They dance around major issues like origins. Like how/when/why did self replicating organisms appear.  They hand wave around major questions and focus on everything that comes after those problems.  As if the problems did not exist.  They leave those problems to the time god.  They don't even consider that the probability of the things they believe is virtually zero.   They ignore the fact that natural selection needs something living and replicating already existing to even begin to operate.  Spontaneous Generation is a fact!  Life simply happened and then evolution took it from there.  Ignore the man behind the curtain!!

They look at incredibly complex, amazingly intricate, living, self replicating, protein machinery and say "well it exists thus it had to evolve because I believe everything evolved."  It is the definition of so called science. 

ORAC and Meyers either miss or ignore my main point.  We should see some weird things if macro evolution were true.  I believe there should be obvious things we can point to that are obviously in transition and despite the hand waving, we really don't.

I was involved with developing software.  We had a version that was shipping.  We had a version that was under development, sometimes more than one version.  There were always features that we could see in part but they were not done and did not work.  At any one time you could look at an upcoming release and see things that were new and finished, and other features that were new and not finished.  That is what I am talking about.  We should be able to readily see "features", lots of them, in life that are not working but are on their way to becoming something useful.  Evolutionists insist that there is never a time when a feature is not working at least in part.  Otherwise, natural selection will not select for it by replicating it in the next generation. Logically, in terms of development (software or real estate or whatever) there are always times where things appear very unfinished.   Ok, the 3 legged cow may be a bad example but a 4 legged cow with no hooves yet, or no fully developed muscles to allow it to walk yet seems logical to me.  OK, the muscles to move the previous fins worked but the muscles for walking are quite different.  Transitioning from one to the other would take eons of time.  But across many species there should be many examples of features that don't work yet. 

Orac and Meyers and their followers are obviously very smart people.  It just seems to me they refuse to see the big picture and are too willing to wave their hands and arms over many things that even they really don't have answers for.  But they think they do.  And when they don't, they have the time god to bail them out.  Even when the mathematics indicate something highly improbable.  That is no problem for them because the believe!!

At the end of the day I don't much care.  Until one of them comes up with insights and examples that the common man understands and accepts, they will keep talking to their little groups of believers castigating anyone who see things differently than they.  I love America where we get to do that!!

Pharyngula rips me regarding Intelligent Design

If you are interested, my post on "Evolution: what should life look like" was featured on the Pharyngula site. It isn't pretty but you may enjoy it.  I put a comment towards the bottom of his site asking a question of interest. 

Evolution: What should life look like?

I was in Ireland the past 10 days playing golf.  Lots of airplane and bus time.  I got to think a lot, which is always scary I guess.

I found myself thinking about a particular comment I often get from evolutionists on my posts regarding evolution and intelligent design.  "Predictability." One of the claimed elements of a good scientific theory are the predictions one can make based on the theory.  I don't claim to be an expert on all that.  But it made me think about evolution and what I think life should look like if in fact "macro evolution" were true.

As a review, I have advocated that while micro evolution is unquestionably true, it does not automatically follow that macro evolution is also true.  It has not been observed, it has not been demonstrated experimentally as far as I can tell from what I read.  IMO,  Darwinists merely "infer" that macro occurred because they can observe micro.  Much like IDist's infer design because they don't believe Darwinian processes can explain the intricate appearance of design.  Both make inferences which seems a perfectly reasonable thing for scientists to do.

My thoughts took me down what I thought was an interesting path:

If macro evolution occurred, is it still occurring?  Why does it appear to have stopped?  I realize some believe there are evidences of change within our DNA.  That could be standard micro evolutionary processes at work but not necessarily macro.   

I find it interesting that it is NOT OBVIOUS that evolution is still occurring.  Think about it. Look at the world around you.  Things appear basically complete.  It seems to me the theory of macro evolution would predict that we would see MASSIVE evidence of macro evolution still taking place.  It seems we would see many species of plants, animals and humans in transition from one thing to another, creating entirely new species.  Instead we see nothing at all.  That seems rather odd to me.  It does not seem to be what Macro Evolution would predict.  In fact, we almost daily are reminded the number of species is actually declining.  Why is it totally OBVIOUS that species are disappearing during our lifetime and yet no new species are appearing at the same time?

Why would macro evolution somehow take primordial soup and create thru random means this amazingly diverse world we observe and then STOP?  I suppose it can be argued it is because of the massive amount of time and the last 5,000 years is just a nit in time.  But that seems irrelevant to me.  Regardless of where we are on the spectrum of time, there ought to be massive numbers of obvious, incomplete transitional forms for us to observe.   e,g, cows with 3 legs and a partial 4th still in the process of evolving. Multiply that across tens of millions of species.  The amount of macro evolution we should be observing ought to be massive.  And yet there essentially is nothing.

Imagine an area of town where a major real estate development is taking place.  Over the course of the development, on any given day one would observe "incompleteness."  But there would come a time when it basically would be complete.  Some stores will go out of business and a different store takes it's place, but no big changes as a whole. If random macro evolution is responsible for what we see, why would it not be like a massive development where things NEVER appear finished or complete?  What brought macro evolution to a halt?  Could it be that it simply never happened?

To me this makes the "Cambrian Explosion" all that more troublesome for evolutionists.  This refers to the fact that in the fossil record entire species suddenly appear totally complete.  No transitional forms at all.  This in total contradiction to what the theory of macro evolution seems would have predicted. 

Now take what Intelligent Design would predict.  In my own words, say an intelligent being created what we see, including the ability for species to "micro evolve" to allow adaptation to changing environmental conditions.  And say that being, at some point,  reached a place where the creation was basically "finished."  (I am NOT saying that happened in 6 days, blah, blah, blah.)  I think Intelligent Design predicts the world would appear essentially finished. 

I am sure my evolutionary friends will have many points to make I have not thought of, and I welcome their input.  But to this observer it seems odd that things appear complete considering they supposedly were created by totally random events.  Seems those events would still be happening in a very obvious way apparent to us all.

Just to test my thinking, I googled "Evolution Finished".  Turned up some interesting hits.  I liked this one called "Is Evolution Finished?".   And here is an article arguing the opposite of my thinking.  I note it seems it argues that micro evolution is still rapidly occurring.  I don't argue that point.  I think the ability for species to adapt through micro evolution is one of the characteristics of the design.  The danger is to make the mistake in logic to infer macro evolution based on the reality of micro evolution.  If true, we should be regularly observing both.

The Baylor ID vs Evolution Controversy

Here is a very good article from the Waco Tribune regarding Dr. Robert Marks.  Baylor took down his website because he dared to espouse some of the scientific merits of Intelligent Design based on his own research.  Baylor University clearly violated the academic freedom of Dr. Marks, persecuting him for questioning Darwinian evolutionary dogma.  The fact that this Texas Inquisition has gone on so long is rather amazing to me.  It would seem that Baylor would realize how silly it's actions are.  It calls widespread attention to the McCarthy-like approach of the Darwinists.  It shows Darwinists to be religionists of the worst type.

Great Defense of Intelligent Design

I thought this response to a French student's question was really well done.  Essentially, the student asked one of the bloggers at Uncommon Descent, "why do you believe in Intelligent Design?"  A very concise answer is given.   Enjoy.

DNA unraveled - Boston Globe article

This is a fantastic article. (may require registration to read).  I have contended in my posts on Intelligent Design that science will continue to uncover more and more complexity making it continually more difficult to explain how Darwinian evolution can possibly account for the intricate complexity.  This article details how over the past few years, scientist's understanding of how DNA and RNA work reveal mind boggling levels of complex order and wonder.

"Science is just starting to probe the wilderness between genes," said John M. Greally, molecular biologist at New York's Albert Einstein School of Medicine. "Already we're surprised and confounded by a lot of what we're seeing."

...lots of basic biological beliefs are going out the window these days as new discoveries come so rapid-fire that the effect is almost more disorienting than illuminating.

Scientist who KNOW how things happened are disoriented?  Come on, they know!!  Don't they?  No they don't.  But they know this, nothing supernatural, certainly not a GOD could have possibly had anything to do with it.  It just could not be and we KNOW it!!  Our definition of "science" says so.

Intelligent Design Researcher Censored

Coverage of Baylor University versus Professor Robert Marks has been pretty widespread, especially on ID blogs.  A website he had on the Baylor server was shut down.  His website reported on his mathematics research regarding the potential limits of Darwinian theory.  From here:

"As many of you have heard, Marks, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been conducting research that ultimately may challenge the foundation of Darwinian theory. In layman's terms, Marks is using highly sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques to determine if there are limits to what natural selection can do."

When Baylor officials realized his research potentially questioned evolutionary dogma they simply shut down his website without even informing him.  His academic freedom (usually considered sacred) was clearly violated.  Even PZ Myers at his Pharyngula blog, a very outspoken, vitriolic critic of ID came out in support of Mark's academic freedom to study and report anything he wished.  Good for PZ.  (I would point to his blog but it is down right now.)

It has been argued by evolutionists that there is NO effort to stifle scientists who question Darwinity.  But there are many examples, this one the most recent.  The controversy has attracted the attention of Ben Stein who is working on a documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.  The censorship at Baylor will make it in the film for sure.  Dr. Mark's attorney is working on this as well.

The efforts of evolutionists to censor anything ID is backfiring.   For ID scientists to draw inferences of design from their scientific observation is science.  The rabid efforts of Darwinists to claim they are idiots who don't understand science simply are illogical.  They use an unnatural definition of science to protect their materialistic faith.  As long as they control the definition of science they can hide behind their often silly statements.  Personally, I think we will continue to see the evolution monopoly unravel.

Various articles I enjoyed

I don't have time to comment on each:

• Lose weight and be healthier.
• Does Richard Dawkins exist?
• The Peppered Moth
• PZ Meyers
• The Iraq War

Positive Review of "Edge of Evolution"

Here is a review in the Philadelphia Inquirer that is favorable to Behe's new book "Edge of Evolution."  I especially liked this comment:

The response to Behe has been predictable. The editors of the major print media have assigned known enemies of ID to trash the book - Richard Dawkins for the New York Times; Coyne for the New Republic; Miller for Nature; Ruse for Toronto's Globe & Mail. A large part of each review is ad hominem, concerned with Behe's alleged religious agenda, his minority status among biologists, and other irrelevant matters. In Dawkins' review, the science is barely touched, and it's not clear from Ruse's review that he has even opened the cover of the book. Behe deserves better. The Edge of Evolution makes a serious, quantitative argument about the limits of Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot honestly ignore it.

Million$$ to describe how DNA arose

This is a quick post. 

I thought this was really interesting coming from a supposed non ID Foundation.

A quick review shows it is not really a $Million but $50,000 for 20 years.

I don't have time to evaluate it further as I am heading to the airport.  Suffice it to say, how DNA spontaneously arose is one of the great mysteries of science.  Definitely in the area of Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.  Let's see if anyone takes a crack at this prize by showing by scientific method how DNA arose or may have arose.

A Review of "DARWIN'S BLACK BOX- the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution"

I recently was challenged in a comment here to read this review of Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". The review was written in June of 1998, almost 9 years ago by David W. Ussery, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Microbial Genomics Group Leader, University of Denmark. I have now read the entire review.  I found it to be one of the best and fairest reviews I have read.  There was a real sense of civility and honesty.  He also has posted updates and input from ID proponents including Behe himself. He also readily admitted where he had made mistakes in things he previously had stated.  I thought this was very cool and unusual compared to other things I have read.

I am not capable of fully reviewing his review as it is fairly technical.  But I felt he did a great job bringing most of it to a level where I could readily follow it.  I appreciated his starting comments of what he liked about Behe's book.

  1. Behe does a good job describing Biochemical systems and making them interesting to the reader.
  2. He is trying to deal with a very real and important question: the origins of biochemical complexity.
  3. He takes somewhat of an "anti-reductionist" stance.  That is, you can't fully explain     EVERYTHING in terms of simpler parts
  4.He seems to be saying that science might not be able to explain everything.

He then lists what he did not like about the review which you can read on his site.

For me the most powerful argument  was the fact that where Behe claims there were not any articles in scientific research publications, there in fact are.  Dr. Ussery grants that Behe was using a different database for his searches than Ussery used.  But Behe clearly should have searched more databases. 

I am not going to take the time to dissect more as you can read this well written article on your own.  Here are a few comments and a couple of quotes I found interesting:

In support of my previous post that evolutionists, in their refutations of design, use a lot of "coulds" and other words like it. I counted:

could=32 times
imagine=5 times
possible=13 times
might=15 times
likely=7 times
probably =7 times

Granted you have to read the context and I am not saying this is bad.  It shows that there is much scientists still don't know. Seems the more they know, the more they don't.  ID scientist's use the same words.  I have stated often that neither side can prove or disprove certain elements of their arguments.  Thus, in the strictest sense of the definition of science, neither side is often very "scientific."  "It could have"; "it couldn't have" is the basic argument.  The advantage is to the evolutionists since micro evolution is obvious fact.  However, this advantage is negated since ID readily grants the truth of micro evolution.

Dr. Ussery states (with my own highlights):

I have a feeling that something similar is going on with the blood clotting proteins.  Basically nature uses whatever is available that will form long polymeric bridges across an open wound.  Yes, the regulation of this is complex, and has been highly optimized.

Often nature will simply take what's handy and use it.

they provide an example of a simple system that could well be the precursor to vesicular transport. 

The reader will be surprised to hear that at this point I do think that perhaps in a limited sense Behe's sense of "irreducible complexity" might apply to this system.

However, in terms of evolution, the synthesis of proteins (and much of metabolism, for that matter) probably came LONG AFTER the first type of cells.  I think basically what you need is a system capable of self reproduction, that's not TOO perfect, and then some sort of selection.  If you add to this a membrane coat, and some sort of very simple chemical gradient, you're on the way to formation of a very simple, primitive "living organism".

This is an exciting part of my research - I personally am amazed at the wonders of Creation.

I am assuming you will go read the context of the above.  I encourage you to do so.  It is not my intention to take anything out of context.  I am trying to show the tenor of the article.  I felt it fit very nicely into some of the points in my "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" post. 

Again, I very much enjoyed the article.

 

Dawkin's Review of Behe Reveiwed

I found this review of Richard Dawkins' review of Behe's "Edge of Evolution" very well put.  Of course evolutionists will reject it because it is in the religious magazine "First Things".  They likely won't consider the points Neuhaus makes.  He especially questions why NYTs would choose Dawkins to do a supposed unbiased review.

I liked this.

It is hard to know what purpose is served by the Book Review in having Dawkins review Behe, except, possibly, to ostracize anyone who presumes to raise questions about prevailing Darwinist orthodoxies and, perhaps, to pander to the smug prejudices of the presumed readership of the Times.

 

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda of Evolution

I have written numerous times about ID and have gotten used to being blasted by evolutionists.  I am still on an honest quest to understand the arguments of both sides better.  I have been reading a number of blogs that are pro evolution and staunchly anti-ID.  I also finished Francis Collins "The Language of God" in an effort to understand things from a scientist who believes in God but is staunchly pro-evolution. and anti-ID.  I realize that his book might not be the top recommendation of some my evolutionists friends but it was on a fire sale table at Borders and became my book choice.  :-)

Here are a few observations I have formed from my recent reading and thinking.

1.  I seem to detect a growing furor and downright hatred of all things ID among evolutionists.  I might be reading the wrong blogs but man, the hatred and vitriol is intense.  Attacks on ID scientist's integrity, faith, intelligence, motives seems to be rampant.  There is some response to this as well on the ID side.  They are getting pretty testy as well it seems.  For something that apparently is so obviously "stupid" it seems to me the evolutionists are scared, threatened, incensed or whatever.  I may be wrong but it sure feels that way.  Evolutionist's blog posts are mostly screeds.

Are ID Scientists Persecuted?

Sometimes evolutionists claim ID scientists are not persecuted in the scientific community. I think there are numerous examples where they are.   While only partially about the reasons Dr. Gonzales of Iowa State was denied tenure, I find this letter to the editor of the Sun Times interesting.

Behe responds to Kenneth Miller

A few weeks ago, Michael Behe, author of "Edge of Evolution" responded to Kenneth Miller's review of his book.  Here is the first installment   and here is the 2nd.

Behe responds to Dawkins

On his blog, Michael Behe responds to Richard Dawkin's review of Behe's new book "Edge of Evolution".

His response speaks for itself so I don't need to comment.

Yet another review of Behe's "Edge of Evolution"

This is an interesting one since it appears in "Christianity Today".  That alone will be enough "science" for evolutionist to dismiss everything in this excellent review.  But this review is interesting because the author, Ric Machuga points out that Behe's book actually offends virtually everyone in the evolutionary debate including Christians. 

It is hard to think of a group in the current controversy over evolution that will not be angered by something Behe writes. This is good; no one can legitimately dismiss The Edge of Evolution as propaganda.

The review is long and gets a little tedious but overall is very good as it pits the arguments of Behe against Dawkins.  I like the following section of the review:

Yet, given these shared assumptions, Behe and Dawkins come to radically different conclusions. Dawkins' argument in The Blind Watchmaker goes like this: "There are probably more than a billion billion available planets in the universe. If each of them lasts as long as Earth, that gives us about a billion billion billion planet-years to play with." He then adds with obvious satisfaction, "That will do nicely!" However, he also warns that "we haven't the faintest hope of duplicating such a fantastically lucky, miraculous event as the origin of life in our laboratory experiments." Thus, he argues that purely theoretical arguments become scientifically justifiable.  (emphasis mine)

Over and over, evolutionists demand ID scientists to prove "in the lab" their theoretical arguments and yet I always point out that the evolutionis cannot prove and have not proven their "fantastically lucky, miraculous event as the origin of life".  I appreciate Dawkins confirming my point.

Another Review of Behe's "Edge of Evolution"

Why am I so interested in ID to write about it so often? 

First, I find the arguments against consensus scientific evolutionary beliefs very powerful, coherent, and interesting.   

Second, long before the current ID movement I have been intellectually dissatisfied with Darwinian evolution as an explanation for the intricate workings of biological systems needed to make life work.  Dating back to an anatomy class I took in college, I felt that the human body appeared incredibly well designed to such a degree that it caused me to lose faith that evolution could account for it.  I knew that evolutionary processes could be demonstrated in a micro sense, (small changes within species) but the jump to macro evolution (entirely new species developing on a grand scale from these tiny, gradual random mutational events) seemed a stretch beyond credulity. 

Third, the implications are enormous.  Darwinism is a powerful influence on the worldviews of most people whether they are aware of it or not.  Darwinism is not benign.  It has had an enormous impact in our world, some good and some bad, just like most religions. The fact that the majority of scientists believe Darwinism AND the majority of scientists are also atheists or at best agnostics seems to me to be no accident.  In spite of the contentions of some evolutionists like Ken Miller, that there is no conflict between faith and science, I think it is obvious that the elimination of a purposeful, engaged designer leaves one with little reason to be responsible to some form of religious thought.  It is simply irrelevant.  Ken Miller argues that evolution clearly happened and that god essentially had nothing to do with natural events and exists as an entity totally uninvolved in the Universe but does perform miracles like the Red Sea.  Why bother?  Strange.

With that introduction I submit to you Denyse O'Leary's 3 part review of Michael Behe's PhD "Edge of Evolution".  I read her writings in a variety of blogs that I peruse.  She is a much more informed and insightful ID reporter than I.   You will find much interesting information with her comments about both sides of the debate.  Enjoy!

Review of Dawkin's Review of Behe's "Edge of Evolution"

Here is Dr. Dawkin's review of Dr. Behe's new book "The Edge of Evolution". A quote from his review. 

Poster boy of creationists everywhere, he has cut himself adrift from the world of real science.

Exactly my point in my post here in number 2 and 3...  Always say ID scientists are creationists and always say they are not real scientists.  In other words, demean them which is my point number 1.

Here is a review of Dawkin's review written by Logan Gage.  A quote from this review.

Dawkins is a master of rhetoric. Only he could take a clear example of intelligently designed evolution (dog breeding) and offer it as a convincing “proof” of Darwinian evolution.

Here is another review of his review appearing on the blog "Uncommon Descent"  A snippet from this review,

But where Dawkins lacks in substance, he more than makes up for it in form. Dawkins cunningly avoided dealing squarely with the facts, and rather chose to resort to veiled ad hominems and arguments from authority. For Dawkins, this only makes sense because, as one of Dawkins loyal cohorts in Canada, Larry Moran, aptly said, “it’s going to be a challenge to refute Behe’s main claims”.

Finally here are Behe's own comments regarding a few other reviews of his new book.  A quote from it.

Yet he is unwilling or unable to engage my arguments. He spends the first third of his review, and parts thereafter, writing of young earth creationism, while stating somewhere in the middle that, oh yes, Behe is not a young earth creationist. He says that all those arguments of Darwin’s Black Box have certainly been refuted, without bothering with wearying details. And he regrets that there is more of the same pesky trivia in The Edge of Evolution: “we are still where we were with Darwin's Black Box. The microworld is too complex to be a product of nature.” In fact, he never tells readers of the review what the book’s argument is. No sickle cell, no malaria, no nothing. Unfortunately, the review boils down to mere Darwinian posturing.

Have a safe 4th of July!

24 Observations on the Intelligent Design versus Macro Evolution debate

I kicked off quite a firestorm with my recent post on Marketing Darwin. The blogger Orac picked it up, shredded it to pieces, which led to dozens of comments at my blog and his.  Smelling fresh blood, Professor PZ Meyers takes me to task, and more comments ensue.  Basically, I get trashed really badly. Thank goodness I am secure in my old age!  :)

I find it all interesting.  Many of the commenters raise some really good points, and I agree with some of them.  Many though seem to deliberately misunderstand me, and then trash the misunderstanding.  I only spent about 15 minutes writing Marketing Darwin but would have taken more time to clarify myself if I'd known how it was going to be used. 

So I thought I would write another post, this post, partially in answer to some of those comments. I don’t expect to change the minds of my critics.  But I do hope that some of you reading this will gain insight into what has been going on for at least the past 10 years or so with the advent of the Intelligent Design versus Macro Evolution debate among scientists.

Update: This Should Scare Everyone But Won't

Here is an update to European Scientists trying criminalize Intelligent Design speech.

Here is a shocking article detailing Orwellian type censorship and punishment in Europe.  This kind of thing ought to scare the crap out of everyone including Democrats and Republicans, Evolutionists and IDists, pro-lifers and pro-choicers. 

We Are Not Junk DNA

Remember the cartoon, "God don't make no junk"? I tried to find the cartoon but could not. It turns out the long held belief that the human genome is only 1% functional and the rest is "junk DNA" is amazingly not true!

The ENCODE project, orchestrated by the National Human Genome Research Institute discovered that virtually 100% of the human genome actually is highly functional in ways they previously did not imagine. I find it interesting because Darwinist's have used the "junk" idea to say that this disproves Intelligent Design. They actually made a good argument if it were true. If the human genome was "designed", why would the designer build in 99% junk? Good design is functional with most or all useless features designed out. The iPod is a beautiful design for it's simplicity yet high functionality.

13 years ago, famed evolutionist, Dr. Kenneth Miller said, "the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, in contrast, can easily explain them as nothing more than failed experiments in a random processes”. How wrong he was.

A June 14th, 2007 article in the Washington Post discusses the death of the junk-DNA paradigm of Neo-Darwinism:

"The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution. ... The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of "junk DNA" flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion "letters" of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of previously invisible tasks."

Intelligent Design Scientists/Theorists long ago predicted that junk DNA would eventually be proven to have a function and purpose.

"As far back as 1994, pro-ID scientist and Discovery Institute fellow Forrest Mims had warned in a letter to Science[1] against assuming that 'junk' DNA was 'useless.'" Science wouldn't print Mims' letter, but soon thereafter, in 1998, leading ID theorist William Dembski repeated this sentiment in First Things: "[Intelligent] design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it."

I have had numerous comments to my previous posts on ID that ID is simply NOT science, it is religion! Isn't amazing that this "non-science" predicted that the human genome would actually be proven to be functional and not junk at all. That is science!  It is also great to know that scientists now know that our DNA is not a bunch of junk.

Marketing Darwin

I am a marketing guy for the most part.  I look at most things from a marketing perspective.  Can it be sold?  Will people understand it?  Is the message right?  Is the product right? Is it positioned correctly against it's competitors?

Viewing Darwinism versus Intelligent Design I often think that ID has a definite marketing advantage over Darwin.  It is just much simpler to understand, true or not.  Don't underestimate the power of that.  When people are faced with a choice, one they understand versus one they don't, they readily pick the former.  I think this is one major reason that in spite of many decades of Darwinism's total control over the education process, some 66% of people polled (US Today/Gallup) believe "Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." (BTW, don't you find it interesting that there is NO recorded history prior to less than 10,000 years ago?  If man has been around millions of years why the heck did it take so long to learn to write?  Most kids are doing it by 2nd grade!  Man evolved enough to suddenly figure out how to record his thoughts just a few thousand years ago?  Hmmm.)   

What interests me as a marketing observer is this; after tens of thousands of exposures to the Darwin marketing "message" only some 34% of people buy the message.  And with almost NO exposures to the contrary message except in Sunday school and mom and dad, 66% of people believe we were created by a designer.  Personally, I believe the main reason this is the case is the ease with which people look at the world and readily conclude it looks designed.  The arguments to the contrary just are really hard to follow.

An example.  The concept of "irreducible complexity" put forth by Dr. Michael Behe in his book "Darwin's Black Box".  I read the book and it was very easy to follow.  He uses the concept of a mousetrap to get his point across.  I came across a rebuttal to Behe's concept written by longtime Darwinist  Dr. Ken Miller, author of "Finding Darwin's God".  Now I am not a scientist but I probably would not be considered stupid by most people.  (For sure some though!)  I read his entire rebuttal of Behe's work.  I don't follow the logic of it at all.  It is too complex.  I find that generally this is true of most stuff I read by Darwinist's rebutting ID stuff.  I really try to follow their arguments and find myself bewildered.  As a marketer this explains why most people simply say, "it looks designed, it is designed, next question".

If Darwinism is ever going to succeed it is going to have to find ways to explain itself in easy to follow, yet credible ways to get people to believe it. You should not have to be a trained biochemist to understand Darwinism.  I expect this won't happen and ID, as a scientific idea will gain a lot of ground in the mind of the marketplace.

Darwinist's Free Speech Threatened?

Good for some students at SMU.  A professor there, Professor Wise apparently claimed that allowing Intelligent Design proponents to actually speak at SMU violated his and other scientists free speech.  Huh??  Let's see.  Preventing the Intelligent Design proponents like Dr. Michael Behe from speaking protects the free speech rights of Professor Wise.  Right!  But that is exactly the logic he used.   A 3rd year law student replies to his illogic here. 

This is what bothers me.  The Darwinists are so intent in silencing critics of their beliefs that they resort to illogical straw man arguments.  They never seem to address the very logical observations and theories the ID PhD's present.  They malign them.  They go to court to try to stop them but they NEVER seem to address their points.  People like Dr. Behe are NOT stupid people.  So a different strategy is required.  Attack, slander and malign.  Call them names.  Say they are stupid and religious fanatics.  Anything but try to deal with their scientific observations.  And then violate their right to free speech.  Censor them.  Read the comments to the response.  Mostly pretty ugly attacks on the person's writing.  Not much in terms of scientific data.  Christian fundamentalists, centuries ago burned heretics at the stake.  Given the chance one feels the Darwinists would do the same to the ID'ers. 

Another thing that bothers me is the claim by Darwinists that the ID'ers are Christian Fundamentalists in other clothing.  I used to be pretty fundamental.  No longer.  I guarantee that fundamentalists TOTALLY reject what the ID'ers are espousing.  Fundamentalist reject ANY argument, any data that does not support the idea of a literal 6 day creation model. Period!  You don't see the guys at ICR, Institute of Creation Research supporting anything related to ID.  In fact, they think ID is WRONG.  So this is simply a false accusation that keeps being repeated Ad Nauseum.

Another thing that bothers me is the claim that ID'ers never do experiments to prove their theories?  I always want to ask, "And where are the experiments that reproduce Darwin's theories?"  It seems to me when I read stuff by Darwinist's it is very similar to what I read by ID'ers.  They are observations of available data.  Both are looking at what exists and are trying to postulate how it came to exist.  If experiments are science, it does not appear to me that either are doing "science".

Even if the ID PhD's are wrong, in America, they have a right to speak openly and freely.  If they are right, it matters a whole lot.  If they are wrong, it does not matter at all.  Their ideas will go the way of other stupid ideas.

Why do Darwinist's Care

This is a bit long but I really enjoyed reading it.  It makes a great point and asks a great question.  As stated succinctly by leading Darwinist George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."  If this is true, then why do Darwinists purposefully care what other evolved minds/neurons believe??  WHY do they care??  This op/ed is a great expose of this question.  Enjoy!

Evolutionists Are Losing Bigtime

I find it amazing and telling that after decades of the total control of the teaching of evolutionary theory at all levels of the educational system, by far the majority of Americans still believe that God had something very significant to do with the wonder of what we observe daily. 

A Gallup poll states that in spite of Darwin's control over what is taught in every public school, a whopping 84% of Americans still believe that God created or guided creation.  This is what really pisses off the Darwinista's.  How in the world could they totally control education and yet 84% of Americans reject the very premise of evolution. "God had NOTHING to do with evolution and our origins are due to totally random events."  A Harris poll is a little less than that with with 74%.  An NBC poll is even less with 57%.  So it likely depends on how the questions are phrased, typical of most polls.  But the point is that the majority still believe that God was responsible somehow.

Personally I believe this is basically due to people being intellectually honest with what they simply observe.  They observe many highly complex systems that seem obvious to have been designed in a very intelligent way.  Everything else that appears to be designed was in fact designed.  A car, a light bulb, a chair, a mousetrap, a liver, a brain, an eyeball, an ear.  It is no leap of faith to believe that what appears to be designed is, well... designed.  Pretty obvious.

This was exactly my experience.  I started off my life being in awe of what I saw in creation.  That lasted till high school when I embraced evolution mainly because I needed an excuse for the lifestyle I wanted to live.  I had discovered alcohol, marijuana and girls.  Evolution was convenient to excuse my conscience.

In college I took a course in anatomy that blew my socks off.  It was an awesome class taught by one of the few wonderful teachers I ever had.   That course was instrumental in leading me back to my original faith in God. 

The next semester I took a biology class where the evidence for evolution was presented over many days.  After that was over I remember saying to myself, "is that all there is to the theory of evolution?"  It was weak.  I was surprised it was so weak.  I am not surprised by the poll numbers.  And Darwinists are pissed.  Hence the number of recent books like "Letter to a Christian Nation" and  "The God Delusion" where emotional (not necessarily intellectual) attacks are made on religion., especially the Christian religion. 

Now I am NOT a strict creationist.  I don't believe that God necessarily created the earth in 6 literal days.  It COULD have happened that way, but I don't have to believe it did in order to clearly see design.  None of us were present when it happened whenever that was.  No one observed it.  We can only look at what is and decide for ourselves as best we can what we believe from our observations.  There are really smart people on both sides of the argument.  I respect both and believe the arguers are better off taking a position that respects the others views and does not attack the person who holds the view.  Then both sides would stop being dogmatic fundamentalists who only hatefully throw stones at each other.

Intelligent Design and the Scientific Method

Darwinist's continually claim that ID simply is not science, but faith.  I contend that both end up with an element of faith, since neither can say that our origins were actually observed.  So we are left with the scientific method to deduce what the evidence suggests.

Here is an article defending the idea that ID does in fact, follow the same scientific method the Darwinists alledgedly use.  Pretty interesting I think.

Denyse O'Leary: Intelligent Design's intelligent defender

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

It is a long read but Denyse's series on Darwinist blatant frontal attack on religion and particularly christianity is very enlightening.  I hope you find it useful.  She is one bright lady and a very good writer.

Intelligent Design: William F. Buckley weighs in

While I usually have trouble following Buckley because of his style of writing and  talking, I thought this was interesting. 

I have pointed out here that the basis for evolution is that the definition of "science" CANNOT include any explanation that is supernatural.  Anything that is best explained by supernatural means is AUTOMATICALLY excluded simply because it is NOT a natural explanation. 

But if the world we see was actually created by supernatural means, so called "Science" would NEVER discover this fact simply due to it's very definition of what science is.  Buckley talks about this absurdity in this article.

Intelligent Design not so Intelligent

Here is a great article stating what I have tried to say here in various posts.  Intelligent Design is rejected as "not science" simply because of the very definition of science, NOT because of any evidence or terrible flaws in the arguments for or against ID.  This article is much more articulate about it than I.  Enjoy!

The evolution of Sex

I have mentioned this blog site  before. "The ID Update".  I continue to recommend it to you as the best blog I have found summarizing all the news and articles being written about ID.  Obviously, it is on the ID side but they do publish things that are NOT terribly supportive of ID.  This article of an interview with Dr.Ronald Numbers is an example.  Good article about the history of Creationists.  Numbers is not an ID'er but he acknowledges that ID and Creationists have very little in common.  Having read stuff from both groups I would agree.

However, the article that I want to call your attention to is this one. "It Takes Two to Tango and Three to Make a Race".  It deals very well with the issue of the evolution of not just a human species, but the obvious need that humans had to evolve with fully working parts to be MALE and FEMALE humans.  Mind boggling the chances that random events, natural selection, mutations would happen to develop either a male or a female human.  But imagine the probability that both male and female would happen to develop at exactly the same time, exactly the needed time in order to propagate and continue the race.  Wikipedia states,  "The evolution of sex is a major puzzle in modern evolutionary biology."

This is a great read.

I also want to state something that my son Patrick pointed out in a comment.  It seems discussions break down around the meaning of the word "evolution."  I don't think anyone, certainly not us, would even begin to argue that micro-evolution is not scientifically valid and has been validated, observed and proved.  It is the jump from Micro to Macro where the issues arise.  It is where massive unprovable assumptions get made by the Darwinist's it seems.  If a animal developed the ability to change colors so it could camouflage itself, then clearly the world we see evolved from nothing, to this amazing, highly intricate, complex Universe.  If a=b and b probably =c, then a=c.

Macro-evolution by it's very nature, is not something that has been or can be observed.  Thus it is resistant to observed, experiential science; something that can be reproduced.  That opens Macro evolution to something that can only be speculated upon based on what we can observe and theorize.  It should come as no surprise that multiple views of this would develop.  For one group of observers to call the other group crazy and stupid non scientists is not fair to the fact that everyone is speculating on something that they were not around to observe happen.  It leaves room for wide differences of interpretation of the data we see.  It is simply my and others opinion that the data/structures we see appear to be highly designed and not the product of some random set of events.

Good ID discussion

I thought I would pull this question and reply out of the comments buried down in the blog.  I just thought it was pretty good on both sides of the question.  For some reason, ID and Autism always generates the most interest and banter.  I think both topics are interesting and important.

(I did edit my reply since I saw that I made a few typos and could have made a few things clearer.)

First from Alex:

I had a man walk up to me one time in a grocery store and he pointed out the sign that says "Please wash hands before using the scoop". We were at the Sun Harvest in the nut/seed/candy section where they have the little bins with scoops to get your nuts.

He asked, "back when Jesus lived, did they wash their hands before they touched their food? No. They didn't have anti-microbial soap back then!" he exclaimed. "They didn't know about germs or microscopic life and bacteria."

He said, "I have disproved every religion...mathematically. I do not have time to teach you, but here is a law which disproves every religion and the existence of God."

He grabbed some labels from the top of the bins and wrote this on them: 'Because no body or form of life can one hundred percent know the total of the universes, this arbitrary form of life at any infinite time and infinite location must always be in error.'

Make of those words what you will but here's what I think he meant. Since no man is immortal and has been alive since the beginning, how can any man explain to you life or the universe. Many people believe the Bible is the exact word of God HIMself. In my eyees that is rediculous. First off the Bible has been around for 2000+ years. Plus it was translated into several different languages. That leaves a lot of room for human error and input, as well as exclusions. Lets face reality here. The Bible along with all religous texts (at least all the copies we can get our hands on) were written by men. Men have NO way of knowing how we really got here, who we really are, or where we are really going when we die. That is the truth people seem so unwilling to admit.

I myself have no idea if God exists. But if you do believe in a universal creator than let me ask you a question.

If God created and designed everything, then where did God come from? Does God have a God? Does that God have a God as well? Also, if God is a loving, caring, forgiving God than why does evil exist? Why then do bad things happen? And if God created everything including good and evil than how could God himself be totally good if he created evil? All in all there are a lot of contradictions in all religious teachings and people should think for themselves and generate new ideas.

Posted by: Alex | Jan 10, 2007 12:42:09 PM

Then from me:

To Alex,

Note that I don't recall ever referring to the Bible or the god of the Bible. In my posts on ID, I mostly say that to me, things that appear, seem to reflect design. From the cell a