Nature “writes back” to Behe Eight Years Later
| April 8, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Science |
Eight years ago, biochemist Michael Behe wrote this open letter to the prestigious scientific journal, Nature:
Sir-
As a public skeptic of the ability of Darwinian processes to account for complex cellular systems and a proponent of the hypothesis of intelligent design, (1) I often encounter a rebuttal that can be paraphrased as “no designer would have done it that way.” …
If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions, however, might not other biological features that strike us as odd also have functions we have not yet discovered? Might even the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye serve some useful purpose?
….
Hirotsune et al’s (3) work has forcefully shown that our intuitions about what is functionless in biology are not to be trusted.Sincerely, Michael J. Behe
An Open Letter to Nature
Contrast that with Ken Miller’s now falsified claim in 1994:
the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles.
Although Miller won in Judge Jones’ Kangaroo Court, Behe has won where it counts, in the court of empirical facts. Behe has won the argument over the backward wiring of the eye (see the essay by medical researcher Michael Denton: Inverted Retina).
And Behe has scored a second victory in the debate over junk DNA. Although Nature may not have had Behe in mind when they wrote the following, it seems, the net effect is as if they have “written back” eight years later to Behe and affirmed his views while essentially trashing their poster boy Ken Miller the honest Darwinist.
In Human genome at ten: Life is complicated, we read:
Just one decade of post-genome biology has exploded that view. Biology’s new glimpse at a universe of non-coding DNA — what used to be called ‘junk’ DNA — has been fascinating and befuddling. Researchers from an international collaborative project called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) showed that in a selected portion of the genome containing just a few per cent of protein-coding sequence, between 74% and 93% of DNA was transcribed into RNA2. Much non-coding DNA has a regulatory role; small RNAs of different varieties seem to control gene expression at the level of both DNA and RNA transcripts in ways that are still only beginning to become clear. “Just the sheer existence of these exotic regulators suggests that our understanding about the most basic things — such as how a cell turns on and off — is incredibly naive,” says Joshua Plotkin, a mathematical biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
But here is something reported at UD from ScienceDaily regarding ENCODE almost 3 years ago:
The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network…
So Miller is wrong, the genome is not “full of junk and scribbles” in the way he claims. Furthermore:
the ENCODE effort found about half of functional elements in the human genome do not appear to have been obviously constrained during evolution
Translation: at least half of the functioning genome didn’t acquire function via Darwinian processes! I remind the reader of Darwin’s own words:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
There you have it. We’ve discovered functional systems not under the constraints of Darwinian selection, therefore they were not evolved via Darwinian selection. So Darwin was wrong. [I referenced earlier how such inferences are made. See: Peer Reviewed Article Critical of Darwinian Evolution by NAS Member.]
Despite this we have Darrel Falk and friends repeating the same old line:
almost certainly much, if not most, of the DNA plays no role, and in many cases can be harmful
Darrel Falk
Professor of Biology
Evolutionary Biologist Richard Sternberg Challenges Darrel Falk
Given how badly Falk and Miller have been refuted by the evidence, I have to ask : “Is this their Varsity?”
HT: Rob Crowther: Exploding the Darwin Friendly Myth
34 Responses to Nature “writes back” to Behe Eight Years Later
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Seversky @6:
What the existence of the fovea establishes, however, is that the greatest visual acuity is achieved where there is no obstruction between the photoreceptors and incoming light. Given that, why isn’t there a much greater area of HD retina? Why couldn’t the designer have given us the vision of a hawk, for example?
That the human visual system works and works well, in spite of the inverted retina, is not in doubt. But clearly it is not as good as it could be. The question design theorists must answer is why their putative designer did not do better.
and @ 29:
As for there being no salvation in Darwinism, you might as well complain that a ship cannot fly like a plane. The simple answer, if one were needed, is that ships were not designed to fly…
Seversky, How much help do you need to see the cul-de-sac you have driven into? Since you apparently admit that it’s reasonable and expected to make a ship that floats but can’t fly, then why can’t God make an eye that works according to limitations designed for our benefit? Would our sight be better if we could see sound waves, for example?
Back to the ship. It sounds to me that you, not scordova, are complaining that a ship can’t fly. Please level with us. Is it okay that a ship can float but not fly, or is that an inherent design flaw?
bornagain77
but this exactly what you seem to be doing, with your links and videos. You find somebody who’s viewpoint you agree with and use them to bolster your argument.
When I asked you a simple question, how far away is the “edge of the universe” you did anything but answer me, making all sorts of claims about what I believe instead when in fact you have no way of knowing any of that.
So I ask again. You claim the universe is bounded by an edge. How far away is that edge?
Please don’t bother to reply with links to videos and websites, I won’t follow them.
bornagain77,
I also asked you why you believe in the interpretation of quantum mechanics that you do. You simply ignored the question.
It’s ok to admit you did not understand the question, but to ignore it and call me wrong? Simply unacceptable. And probably a sin…
riddick @ 31
Scordova’s complaint was that:
My reply was quite simply to point out that the theory of evolution was being criticized for not being somthing it was never intended to be in the first place. Darwin wrote a scientific theory not a theological treatise. The analogy of ship and plane illustrates that point. Scordova’s complaint is similar to criticizing a ship for not being a plane. A ship is not designed to fly so it makes no sense to criticize it for not being what it was never intended to be.
Returning to the eye, if it was designed, we can infer from what we know of its function that it was intended to be a visual sensor, a device to enable us to see, not an ear. If we look at the eye we can see ways in which that design could be better so the question is, why did the putative designer not include them?
If we go back to the ship/plane analogy, it is silly to criticize one for not being the other but that does not prevent us from seeing where each could be improved. For example, in the early days of monoplane fighter aircraft development before WWII, it became the practice to cover the cockpit with a canopy, even though pilots of the time did not like it. The reasons were that increasing speeds made it necessary to carry airflow more smoothly over the surface of the machine and provide better protection for the pilot. In the early designs the dorsal fuselage aft of the pilot was raised so as to provide a smooth continuous line from the canopy back to the tail.
These designs worked well but it became apparent that they had a defect. Although the pilot had good vision ahead, above and to the sides, the view astern was partially obscured by the raised fuselage behind the cockpit. Unfortunately, this is precisely the direction from which fighter pilots prefer to attack their opponents if they get the chance. This is why, as WWII progressed, you will observe a near-universal transition to bubble canopies in subsequent fighter designs. In other words, although the earlier designs worked well, the designers of the time identified a flaw which, if corrected, could improve performance. And, as soon as it was practicable, that is exactly what they did.
This is analogous to the situation with the vertebrate eye. It works well but we can see areas where it could be improved. And if we can see flaws we have to assume that the designer, who must have been more advanced than we are now, could see them as well. So, yet again, the question is, why was nothing done about them?
It’s not as if it would require radical changes, just a rejig to re-align the photoreceptors and route the wiring and plumbing differently. If, at the same time, some additional photoreceptors could be put in to improve resolution over the whole retina, then so much the better. Sure, it would make the eyes more ‘expensive’ to run in biological terms but that could be solved just by increasing the upstream and downstream capacity of the ‘service’ systems. In fact, while we’re at it, why not do that throughout the body?
See, it’s not so difficult to improve things, especially if it’s done incrementally. It’s what natural selection can do, so why didn’t the Designer?