Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Will the real testable theory please stand up?

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

A test nobody wants to take
Neither side is interested in trying to prove intelligent design.
By MICHELLE STARR
Daily Record/Sunday News
Thursday, October 20, 2005

HARRISBURG — Intelligent design and evolution proponents agree that a test on bacterial flagellum could show if it was or wasn’t able to evolve, which could provide evidence to support intelligent design. MORE

Comments
Literature was here: http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html You may have seen this link before. Just Find or Find In Page SETI. It brings you first to Dembski's short piece and then Robert Pennock's rebuttal directly below Dembski's piece. Regardless of what you think of Pennock, his rebuttal is sound. Contact and SETI have nothing to do with inferring design in organisms.higgity
October 25, 2005
October
10
Oct
25
25
2005
01:25 PM
1
01
25
PM
PDT
Higgity, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record...but read the literature. Dembski discusses the logic of SETI and Contact in his writings.Gumpngreen
October 25, 2005
October
10
Oct
25
25
2005
12:40 PM
12
12
40
PM
PDT
Correct, TTSS virulence is not a motility device, but a syringe. It is functional as a pump, but non-functional for motility. So, to gain one effective attribute, the BF would have to lose another, namely, motility.Mario A. Lopez
October 25, 2005
October
10
Oct
25
25
2005
11:07 AM
11
11
07
AM
PDT
Mario, The TTSS as I understand it has nothing to do with motility. The channel is already functional as a pump.avocationist
October 25, 2005
October
10
Oct
25
25
2005
07:56 AM
7
07
56
AM
PDT
avocationist, Indeed, but a reduced flagellum would require the loss of essential parts for motility, and construction of others for the pump simultaneously. The reason for this is that the loss of essential components would require a replacement leading to a different mode of motility, otherwise, what you would get is crippled bacteria. Thank you for the kind comment. It has been a pleasure as well. :)Mario A. Lopez
October 25, 2005
October
10
Oct
25
25
2005
05:41 AM
5
05
41
AM
PDT
Mario, It has been a pleasure, albeit a confusing one. You make a fair point that devolution is not that easy because it would have to be done accurately, not clumsily. However, keep in mind that there is a major difference, i.e., one can lose things very easily, and acquire them with difficulty. Surely you have read in the ID literature how unlikely it is for monkeys typing to come up with even one good sentence randomly, yet even humans consciously trying to copy an already given text without errors cannot do so. As to the TTSS - don't you know it looks like a functional subset of the full flagellum. The flagellum has multiple parts, and one part of it penetrates the cell membrane and if I correctly remember is also used like a channel during the actual construction of itself. The TTSS is a little channel that penetrates through the cell membrane and is used as a pump, apparently to inject toxins into a different species of organism. So the thinking is that this TTSS may be a functional part that is a remnant of the flagellum. It was first proposed as a stepping stone toward the flagellum, but that theory is mostly debunked. So it either arose independently and has nothing to do with the flagellum, or it is a remnant of the flagellum. And if it is a remnant of the flagellum, it might not be that hard to accurately devolve if it is a functional subset.avocationist
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
10:08 PM
10
10
08
PM
PDT
avocationist, You have said: "I state that I never suggested the BF was the product of either evolution or devolution, and now you come up with this. You keep changing the topic. Regardless in what sense you consider that all complex things once had their parts in a more simple state, the point is that the BF is a complex arrangement of parts. And I do not think it got that way by devolving from any prior even more complex state." I apologize, but it sounded like you were defending the notion of devolution here: Post 45. The Type III secretory system is no longer considered a possible precursor to the flagellum. It may be the other way around - a reduced flagellum, with a loss of complexity.Mario A. Lopez
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
08:37 PM
8
08
37
PM
PDT
avocationist, You said: "Antibiotic resistance is a known example of information loss." Not exactly. Most resistance derives via horizontal evolution, and furthermore, whenever the resistance is aquired vertically, bacteria suffer a fitness cost. This hardly says anything about a careful reductive evolution. Quite the contrary, it only supports what I have said, that is, if something essential is lost in the process of reduction, it is lost for good! Resistant bacteria never survive when returned to their parent species due to fitness cost. You said: "What evolutionary apex? It appears you do not believe in evolution! What are we talking about here? Of course there is devolution! Without natural selection, it would progress rapidly. As it is, we have 4,000 genetic diseases. According to the law of entropy, there is nothing to prevent devolution and everything to cause it. Why do you suppose the cell has such complex proofreading and even repair mechanisms? It is to prevent devolution of the genome." Evolution is a fact, but get this straight: We have never observed minor variation produce a major innovation of organisms. What you are suggesting is not impossible, but extremely unlikely to occur. Devolution, like evolution, is a blind process. So, to assume that the BF is a bi-product of chance mutations+natural selection (which stands as a conserving mechanism) is absurd. As you have aptly said: "Why do you suppose the cell has such complex proofreading and even repair mechanisms? It is to prevent devolution of the genome." As you can see, devolution goes against the odds.Mario A. Lopez
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
08:26 PM
8
08
26
PM
PDT
"I did not say it was impossible, but I find it very unlikely." Antibiotic resistance is a known example of information loss. "In other words, it must evolve before it can devolve." You know, I have yet to figure out what it is that you think. "It must reach its evolutionary apex, then gradually, and perfectly, calculate its devolution. If any essential component is lost in the process, it is lost for good." What evolutionary apex? It appears you do not believe in evolution! What are we talking about here? Of course there is devolution! Without natural selection, it would progress rapidly. As it is, we have 4,000 genetic diseases. According to the law of entropy, there is nothing to prevent devolution and everything to cause it. Why do you suppose the cell has such complex proofreading and even repair mechanisms? It is to prevent devolution of the genome. "Actually, one must have existed in a more simple state, before any complex state." I state that I never suggested the BF was the product of either evolution or devolution, and now you come up with this. You keep changing the topic. Regardless in what sense you consider that all complex things once had their parts in a more simple state, the point is that the BF is a complex arrangement of parts. And I do not think it got that way by devolving from any prior even more complex state.avocationist
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
03:49 PM
3
03
49
PM
PDT
on the issue of constitutionality- wed be better suited to use a different phrase. in the 40's when all this so-called "separation of church and state" nonsense started, it wasnt constitutional to begin with (the scotus rulings werent, i mean). we know damned well that the founders never meant for a separation in this sense. they just wanted to assure certain denominations that they wouldnt get the shaft over other denominations. after the 1st amendment was written, the founders offered up public prayer, proclaimed days of thanksgiving to almighty God, etc. only those with an axe to grind with religion claim any of this was ever intended by the founders. creationism, i assure you, would be embraced in public schools by the founders. i mean, heck- these are the same men who put forth federal money to send missionaries to covert the native americans into christians...they spent massive amts of federal money for purchasing bibles for public schools. all of this right after they wrote the clause...FREE EXERCISE means free exercise period. they didnt say free exercise as long as it wasnt in a public school or public bldg! they never said free exercise as long as it didnt offend someone, nor did they say free exercise but only in closed doors of a church or your own home! creationism, in many ways, is backed up by the science. you can easily look at the evidence and come to the conclusion of common designer as opposed to common descent. when body forms appear out of nowhere in the fossil record, that lends support to the idea that creation occurred. old earth creationism maybe. YEC even might fit- who knows? no one can say for sure that were solid with ages of the earth. no one knows that there was no massive worldwide disaster that knocked the cosmic clocks out of whack, nor do we truly know if rates of change we see today have always been constant. in the end, the universe could be ten times older than we think or ten times younger. maybe a hundred times older or younger. weve no idea if the things we see today, the changes, the mechanisms, the rates of change have always been the same in the past. scientists sometimes have a hard time telling us what happened a thousand yrs ago, lets not try to proclaim that we have all too solid info. on what supposedly happened a million or billion yrs ago. i think science, overall, too easily proclaims things that we might never truly know. not saying that there arent things we can be sure of...but when it comes to historical science- its truly the weakest of any field of study. too many things could have happened long ago to change things around, knock cosmic clocks out of whack, screw with rates of change, etc. science can do a lot of things, but it cant do everything. and it surely cannot do much of what it claims it can. in general, a little more humility is called for if you ask me.jboze3131
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
07:04 AM
7
07
04
AM
PDT
DaveScot, Yes, even in the case of a designed artifact. A designer takes raw materials and builds from them his artifacts. He may reuse any part in the construction of either less complex or more complex systems, but it just depends on the limits the designer puts on his creativity---or how much he wants to diverge from a common design (e.g. see comparative anatomy). This is not to say that evolution is the designer's modus operandi; afterall, the fossil record does not suggest that, since body plans appear in clusters. However, it does suggest that the designer kept certain designs for modification (i.e. number of digits on limbs, etc.)Mario A. Lopez
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
05:11 AM
5
05
11
AM
PDT
jboze3131, Exactly!Mario A. Lopez
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
04:51 AM
4
04
51
AM
PDT
DaveScot: Astrology would never even come to a constitutional challenge in the first place, but it's beside the point. If something is wrong, we don't teach it on equal footing with what is right. The most mention that astrology would get in a public school today is "We used to think that we could predict the future by viewing the stars. Some people still believe in this, and for them there is the horoscope in their daily newspapers." Scalia is entitled to his opinion (and I HAVE read his opinion in Edwards v. Aguillard), but it was plainly obvious that the Louisiana statute did not pass the Lemon test. Scalia seemed to ignore the fact that there was no scientific evidence for creationism and that the creation that was being taught was advancing a particular relgion (Christianity) with no secular purpose (no scientific validity) in a government-sanctioned environment (public schools).higgity
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
02:13 AM
2
02
13
AM
PDT
Mario "Actually, one must have existed in a more simple state, before any complex state." Not in the case of a designed artifact.DaveScot
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
12:35 AM
12
12
35
AM
PDT
Higgity Good. You realize that just because something might be wrong doesn't make it unconstitutional to teach it in a public school. It would behoove you to read Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Edwards vs. Aguilar, 1987. http://www.belcherfoundation.org/edwards_v_aguillard_dissent.htmDaveScot
October 24, 2005
October
10
Oct
24
24
2005
12:27 AM
12
12
27
AM
PDT
just in a general sense... are we not positing that life evolves to more complex forms then for some reason goes back to a simpler form? why would even NS do this? why would any mechanism do this? what purpose would devolution serve? it sounds like a bunch of just-so explanations to deal with massive problems in the theory to me. which is yet another reason why itd be impossible to falsify the overall paradigm...one can merely come up with a brand new unknown mechanism or claim evolution then sudden devolution. and then there are dozens of other just-so stories that are used to explain away the gaping holes.jboze3131
October 23, 2005
October
10
Oct
23
23
2005
08:02 PM
8
08
02
PM
PDT
avocationist, I did not say it was impossible, but I find it very unlikely. Again, before any organism goes through reductive evolution, it must first climb the upward ladder. In other words, it must evolve before it can devolve. It must reach its evolutionary apex, then gradually, and perfectly, calculate its devolution. If any essential component is lost in the process, it is lost for good. You said: "How does this tranaslate into my ever suggesting that the BF arrived via devolution? To devolve, one must have first existed in a more complex state. It is a possibility that the TTSS is a remnant or devolution from the BF." Actually, one must have existed in a more simple state, before any complex state.Mario A. Lopez
October 23, 2005
October
10
Oct
23
23
2005
07:42 PM
7
07
42
PM
PDT
Mario, The author presented a plausible case that some organisms are remnants of earlier, more complex ones that shed a lot of genes in order to become parasites. I am not sure why this seems impossible to you. How does this tranaslate into my ever suggesting that the BF arrived via devolution? To devolve, one must have first existed in a more complex state. It is a possibility that the TTSS is a remnant or devolution from the BF.avocationist
October 23, 2005
October
10
Oct
23
23
2005
07:21 PM
7
07
21
PM
PDT
rb: It's a movie. I wouldn't expect to learn anything from Contact other than maybe where SETI is. I don't know how SETI operates, but I suppose that the best they can do is look for incredible, unexpected aberrations in the data. A teacher would not show Contact to teach students. A teacher might decide to show part of the movie as a break from the monotony of lesson plans. "Specification ensures that this object exhibits the type of pattern that is the trademark of intelligence." "Specification" as Dr. Dembski uses it can only detect copying. It cannot detect design.higgity
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
07:40 PM
7
07
40
PM
PDT
avocationist, No, no, no. I did not say that the TTSS is a precursor to the BF. I said: "The IC of the flagellum can be tested by programming genetic or evolutionary algorithms using the “proposed” precursor, Type III secretory system (T3)." Big difference. That is what evolutionists use with their so-called "co-option" argument. Actually, the author does start with the assumption I pointed out. Pleae read the article yourself. Here is what the author says: "Rather than being primitive bacteria, mycoplasmas are derived, having undergone extensive reductive evolution from a much larger and more complex ancestral state. For example, the genomes of Clostridium.acetobutylicum, Lactobacillus plantarum , Bacillus subtilis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae have genomes with 4080, 3254, 5193, and 2219 genes, respectively. Thus, if we assume a last common ancestor connecting mycoplasmas and these other species of bacteria had a genome with about 3700 genes (the rough average of these four species), mycoplasma have lost over 80% of their genes." You said: "I certainly never indicated that I thought the flagellum arrived via a loss of information." How else can devolution occur without the loss of information?Mario A. Lopez
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
06:41 PM
6
06
41
PM
PDT
Mario, I am unsure how to answer. Your posts seem incoherent. I don't think you read the article. The author did not start with assumptions, and the author is an evolutionist with an extremely strong interest in ID. You started out saying the TTSS is a precursor to the flagellum, but now it appears you don't understand the differance between the two. I certainly never indicated that I thought the flagellum arrived via a loss of information. The question is how did the flagellum come to exist. But there is no reason to think that genomes cannot devolve.avocationist
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
06:00 PM
6
06
00
PM
PDT
Higgity: Regarding teaching SETI concepts in public schools. You asked "What concepts are those?". Maybe the impressionable students can watch the movie Contact to get an idea on how SETI scientist "scientifically" distingish noise from an intelligent agent sending signals from outer space. As Dr. Dembski has stated "Specification ensures that this object exhibits the type of pattern that is the trademark of intelligence." Some children in the classroom may possibly infer the "intelligent" agent could be God (Gasp!). Some others may infer it was the result of some form of intelligent agent. Because God! can be inferred (similarly ID) it is *unconstitutional*. Sounds ridiculous, I agree.rb
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
04:20 PM
4
04
20
PM
PDT
Since Darwinism is much more plausible to those who dont believe in God, how can this be doubted, should Darwinism be considered a religious creation myth and banned from public schools?MGD
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
09:33 AM
9
09
33
AM
PDT
rb: What concepts are those?higgity
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
08:52 AM
8
08
52
AM
PDT
Teaching astrology in a science class would probably lose a bunch of teachers their teaching licenses. I'm not sure if it would be unconstitutional because astrology isn't really religious. It's just quackery. It would probably just be grounds for a lawsuit from parents for messing up their children. So... I doubt it would be a constitutional issue. Here's the thing, though: The plaintiffs' attorney produced one of Behe's writings in which he said that ID was much less plausible for those who did not believe in the Christian God. It is likely that the judge will write his opinion that ID is an inherently religious concept and that it WILL be unconstitutional to teach in high school science classes.higgity
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
08:51 AM
8
08
51
AM
PDT
Here is another question for you Higgity. Would teaching the concepts of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) in public school be unconstitutional?rb
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
08:39 AM
8
08
39
AM
PDT
avocationist, The article you posted simply demonstrates how far an evolutionist's imagination can go. Again, there is no reason to conclude that any species has gone through "extensive reductive evolution." The author starts off with the assumption that the mycoplasma is a descendant of the other bacteria, and points out that there must be a "last common ancestor" connecting them all together. This, of course, ignores a host of problems that can arise from deleterious mutations. The chances of getting the BF by loss of information is extremely problematic. Not only must its devolution be carefully calculated, but also error proof. As I have clearly pointed out, if a necessary component is lost, the BF would lose its motility forever!Mario A. Lopez
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
08:36 AM
8
08
36
AM
PDT
Higgity I read most of the first day's cross. Astrology is a science. At one time it was a widely respected science. Now it's a discredited science followed by various fruitloops for fun and profit. In fact NeoDarwinism is headed down the same path as astrology so it's particulary apt that plaintiff's censor-happy counsel brings it up. :-) Here's a question for you, Higgity. Would teaching astrology in public school be unconstitutional?DaveScot
October 22, 2005
October
10
Oct
22
22
2005
04:21 AM
4
04
21
AM
PDT
DaveScot: Have you read any of the available transcripts of the cross-exam? The big things going on are how he admitted that to define ID as science, one would also need to include astrology as science; and the BS peer review on Darwin's Black Box.higgity
October 21, 2005
October
10
Oct
21
21
2005
08:11 PM
8
08
11
PM
PDT
Why, thank you! I do believe I will...but just to say that now I see what's eating you, and why you've taken to badgering me with unsolicited rude comments. It's an attention thing, isn't it? You fancy yourself "king of the list", and you're as jealous as can be because you think that somebody new might come along and take it all away from you! But don't worry, Dave. While I certainly could "take it all away from you" if that were my goal, I'm more interested in substantive content than in stealing your limelight. All you need to do to is restrict your comments to matters of substance, and refrain from making further unwelcome attempts to personally engage me in exchanges that I find empty and irritating at best. Thanks.neurode
October 21, 2005
October
10
Oct
21
21
2005
07:59 PM
7
07
59
PM
PDT
1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply