The mechanisms of evolution (e.g., natural selection) are based on logical argument more than anything else. Natural selection, as formulated by Darwin, is a syllogism based on three (more-or-less, depending on who’s counting) primary observations: 1) Variation exists, and at least some of this variation is inheritable. 2) All populations have the capacity to create more offspring than can be sustained, given limited resources. 3) Competition for those limited resources exists, both from within the population, and from without. Given those premises, then it can be concluded that those individuals who possess variations which yield an advantage in obtaining the limited resources available will be most likely to pass on those variations to their offspring. Over time, then, the population will shift in such a way that those successful variations will tend to become “fixed”, and the population will then be said to be “adapted”.
Each of the premises is falsifiable, therefore the conclusion itself ought to be falsifiable. If, for exmaple, it can be shown that competition does not exist within a population, then it can be shown that the evolution (or perceived evolution) of the population is not driven by natural selection. Similarly if the characteristics which allow an individual to be “successful” are shown to not be inheritable, then, again, natural selection cannot be said to be responsible for the prevalence of those characteristics.
Darwin also made another falsfiable claim: that natural selection was the primary mechanism of evolution. Even Lamarck admitted that adaptation could occur (as a secondary process); however, Darwin argued it was the most prevalent mechanism. If it can be shown that natural selection only holds sway in a minority of cases, then adaptation via natural selection cannot be the driving (or creative) force of evolution.
[Slight hijack]
Ben you say you’ve seen Behe’s spiel several times, right? Is there always a ‘question and answer’ period, where people from the audience can question him? If there is, is there usually a knowledgable person their to refute his claims? How does he handle the person-does he just handwave them away?
I’ve always wonder what those sorts of speeches were like (I’ve never been to one obviously).
[/slight hijack]
Ah, so it seems Behe’s “Creator” doesn’t possess any consistent properties, as there’s no possible events that would indicate that the Creator didn’t exist.
Just want to point out, because I deal with this in RL whenever the subject of Evo comes up. The variations that survive are not always (and I contend are mostly not always) the trait’s that are ‘most adapted’.
Often times there are events that can cause even the most well adapted animals to go extinct, like a meteor strike, or wide swept disease or what have you. If it is catastrophic enough, the species in question will not have time to adapt and will go extinct.
If the event is widespread enough, the animals that survive, may simply be the animals who happened to be in a hole on that day, or what have you. They may then pass on MANY traits that serve no purpose, or may in fact be detrimental to them (like a propensity for heart disease).
This is one way in which IC organs or systems MAY propogate. An individual mutation occurs in a species resulting in a non-functioning though harmless add on system (or possibly one that is harmful, though not reproductive ending). The species is divided into two populations on either side of a river. The ones in the south have the mutation while the ones in the north do not. A bad flood happens on the north side, and is immediately followed by a drought, whiping out the entire northern population. The southern population survives and eventually repopulates the north. Now both sides have this functionless trait, even though it isn’t an adaptation for survival, all the ones who survive share the trait.
These kinds of things are constantly happening in nature. Over long enough periods of time, enough of the mutations may occur to produce an ‘Irriducably Complex’ system, without ANY of the individual peices being a ‘survival adaptation’, though they may in fact be.
Since I have been gone almost 200 replies have been posted to this thread. .Surprisingly, It seams to me, very few of the replies come from people who have actually read Behe’s Book, therefore replying in ignorance.
Of the rest of the replies most attack Behe personally and accuse him of bending the truth to his advantage.
I do not claim to have the knowledge that some one like” Ben" possesses when it come to this subject, so I to come from a point of ignorance. So let me ask this question.
Has there been a reply written, by a microbiologist or a qualified scholar, to dispute each of Behe’s questions?
I’m not asking for absolute proof of evolution, nor is Behe, just some answers to some of his questions.
Not answers, to use Behe’s example, that are incomplete adding complex system to complex system like the following example:
“How is a stereo system made?”
Oh, “by plugging a set of speakers into an amplifier, and adding a CD player, radio receiver, and tape deck.”
I want an explanation of how Darwinian theory can account for the assembly of the speakers and amplifier.
But at least scientific theory on how “biochemical” evolution is possible. If Behe is correct very little literature exists on this subject.
Please don’t bother replying if you haven’t read “Darwin’s Black Box” Thank You!
Also, plenty of people have given direct, on point rebuttals to Behe’s theory despite your baseless claim that we have only responded with ad hominems.
Please be specific. Give us a specific argument or question from Behe that you think challenges evolutionary theory.
Your continued insistence that only those who have read Behe’s book are qualified to respond to his theory is a straw man. How do you respond to the points that have been made?
** Your cite describes two seperate experimental confirmations: Relativity’s accounting for the orbit of Mercury, and the distortion of starlight by a major mass (the Sun).
Ben:
My mistake, I intended that question to go to Brad.
As for the straight line, it was an attempt to illustrate that small changes become large changes over time (drawing a straight line 3 miles long would be difficult without some mechanism/tool to keep you on that straight path), sounds like it wasn’t a very good analogy so lets ignore that statement.
Brad:
But I think it’s still a valid question so here goes again:
If someone believes in micro-evolution, what mechanism would prevent those small changes from accumulating and becoming large changes over a long period of time?
I have a feeling, Brad, that you are just wasting our time: that all our work in posting long explanations and discussion of subtle points will result in more “oh yeah? So what! You’re all just angry” posts like you just made. But what the hey, I’m ready for more punishment!
But these are not simply insults, nor are they even attacks purely on his character. They are cited and illustrated examples of the way he bends the fact and makes sloppy arguments in EXACTLY the field under discussion!
Check out “Tower of Babel” and “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.” Richard Dawkins has also written extensively debunking Behe.
Behe’s examples almost always misrepresent the key elements of the things he’s discussing. The mousetrap has been debunked to death.
Behe’s essential trick here is to illicitly switch from something that is true by definition to something he claims is empirically true. The mousetrap is a case in point. He argues that if you remove any of the parts, it will not function as a mousetrap: “by definition non-functional” he claims. But functional for what? It may not be exactly like a mousetrap, but Darwinism doesn’t suggest that precusors ever had to be as effective as later forms, or even fill the same functions. There is actually a sequence (can’t find the link) where a scientist shows that you CAN remove parts from a mousetrap and have it still catch mice, even if it doesn’t operate exactly as, or as well as, the final mousetrap design. And that’s not even accounting for the fact that a single inanimate object being engineered is a terrible analougy for an entire population of creatures with a particular biological system, or exaptions.
So Behe has essentially gone from an abstract argument he says is true by definition to a conclusion that purports to have the weight of a real empirical argument.
The beavers running across the highway one is less well known, but equally faulty. All of these are arguments that appeal to a layman as long as they don’t think seriously about the example and the way it differs from evolutionary theory in key and telling ways. The beaver example uses a single beaver: but to be even partially accurate, you need to consider an entire population with the ability to replenish its numbers at various points.
It can’t. Speakers and amplifiers are simply terrible analougies for living processes. If this is really how he characterizes evolutionary biology, I would have to say that it’s a vicious and laughable straw man.
As was pointed out when Behe’s book was published, this claim is just flat out wrong. There is an extensive literature on the subject. Claiming there isn’t certainly makes things look more sketchy, but it doesn’t make it so.
It is bad, but why it is bad is worth considering. What it seems to contain is the idea that there has to be some determined and sustained effort to proceed in a particular pre-decided endpoint, traveling through a pre-defined path. But that’s not how anyone claims evolution works at all. Evolution is a process, not a plan: it includes no information about future ends or possibilities, only present conditions. The endpoints only look significant in hindsight: looking backwards in time it might seem as if everything was heading in the direction of the endpoint, albiet through a roundabout way. But that’s not at all how it works moving forwards in time.
Quite right (which is why I said “most likely”). Natural selection is not a guarantee of survival for any individual (nor is it an automatic death sentence), but is rather a statistical phenomenon: on average the genotype of the population will change in such a manner. Nor does it guarantee that only the “most fit” will pass on their genes, and that all disadvantageous mutations will be removed from the genome.
Apos:
I only meant to imply a destination because of Behe’s belief in micro-evolution. The use of that word implies to me that despite “small” changes over time, an organism would be pretty much be the same (whatever that means) as far into the future you travel.
So my question, for anyone willing to respond:
What mechanism do micro-evolutionists believe prevent small changes in an organism from accumulating over long periods of time into a net “large” change in that organism?
I can well believe that Behe uses the techniques you describe in various attempts to immunize his theory from falsification. Perhaps I should be clear about this, while I’m at it: I’ve never read Behe’s book. Judging from what I’ve read about it in this and other threads, however, it sounds pretty atrocious.
Unfortunately, from a strictly formal, falsificationist standpoint, your objections are irrelevant. Behe’s own response to obvious falsifications of his theory has no bearing whatsoever on the falsifiability of said theory. You are confusing Behe’s response to an instance of falsification with the falsifiability of theory itself, and thereby contradicting yourself to boot. Thus you write:
Here you state that ID has been falsified; yet you simultaneously claim that it cannot be falsified. My point is this: regardless of how Behe reacts, his theory has nevertheless been falsified. You write this yourself. The fact that Behe regresses 1000 times in his argument will never change the fact that the random exon shuffling you refer to (whatever that might be) has actually falsified his theory.
Yeah, I know: pretty sneaky, ain’t it?
Anyway, I believe the above is an accurate representation of Popper’s own take on questions such as this. It’s late here, and I can’t explain the entire argument in detail, but to simplify, it refers to a concept Popper called “worlds,” I believe. Popper argues that the objective falsifiability of a theory belongs to one “world,” and the response of human agents to such a falsification belongs to a completely different “world.” One must be careful not to confuse these two “worlds,” as conceptual chaos would result. A caveat: I’m writing this from memory, having returned all of my Popper books to the library recently, and my summary might not be 100% correct. But it’s pretty close. Darwin’s Finch:
Interesting points; I’ll think about them and get back to you. In the meantime, do you have a specific reply or rebuttal to my assertion, above, that all possible observable outcomes in nature can be explained by virtue of the mechanisms you posit, thus rendering them unfalsifiable? Is my analysis incorrect, or am I missing some important point? Voyager:
No, no, no, no, no. In fact, if you go back and review your own cite, you will notice that it doesn’t mention Mercury at all. For good reason: the glitch in Mercury’s orbit is not related to the observations of light bending in the gravitational field of the sun.
Let’s take the last one first. As your cite notes (to simplify a bit), approximately 6 years after Einstein published his first paper on special relativity (in 1905), he realized that a specific characteristic of special relativity might actually have empirical consequences, to wit: it might be possible to measure the effect of a gravitational field on the trajectory of a light wave. (It is worth noting, as an aside, that Einstein’s theory was generally accepted long before he made this discovery.) Measuring such an effect, however, requires an astronomical body of considerable mass, namely, the sun. The idea was that beams of light passing through the gravitational field of the sun would “curve,” thus causing an apparent visual displacement of celestial bodies situated on the other side of the solar disc. The mass of the sun was so large, and its gravitational field so strong, that this curvature would be measurable, if Einstein’s calculations were correct. Problem: sun very bright. How can we see these other bodies? Solution: measure them during a solar eclipse. (P.S. Little known fact: Newtonian physics also predicts that a powerful gravitational field will cause light to bend. Difference: Einstein’s theories predict a higher value for the curvature.)
A few more years went by. Einstein’s theory became the accept paradigm of physics – with little or no empirical backing. Finally, events converged: Eddington, arguably the only physicist besides Einstein who, at the time, fully understood the implications of relativity theory, organizes an expedition – well, specifically, two expeditions, one to Sobral, Brazil, and the other to a West Africa island named Principe. Date: March, 1918. Purpose: take photos of the solar eclipse, compare measurements of stars made visible during the eclipse, and compare their positions to see if they are displaced. Results: well, technically, inconclusive. But Eddington discarded plates that failed to confirm Einstein’s theory, and then fiffled the numbers on the rest so as to present a result that almost confirmed the theory. He presented this result to the British Astronomer Royal, who declared on November 6, 1919, that the observations “confirmed” (or, if you prefer to be Popperian about it, “failed to falsify”) the theory of relativity. Nevertheless, considerable controversy over the results continued for years, and numerous other attempts at similar measurements during eclipses failed to give the results predicted by Einstein’s theory (for what it’s worth, they tended to be too high).
It is perhaps worth noting the stretch of time between the publication of Einstein’s paper (1905), his realization that graviation would bend light (1907), his realization that this could be observed astronomically (1911), and the attempt to make such an observation (1918). That’s a total of 13 years. In fact, Einstein’s theory was generally accepted among physicists long before this falsification test was conducted. Conclusion: Popper’s musings about falsification don’t really describe the reality of scientific advance very well.
Briefly: the glitch in Mercury’s orbit was in fact known well before 1859 – although you may be right to a certain extent, it was officially recognized that year. Prior to that, astronomers who noted the glitch were brow-beaten or ignored, since it contradicted Newton’s theory, and therefore couldn’t possibly reflect correct celestial measurements.
Not sure of the date, some astrophysicist (not Einstein) gets the idea that relativity might explain the glitch – the perihelion of Mercury advances a few degrees every time the planet circles the sun – and does the math. Low and behold, using Einstein’s equations, the match between Mercury’s orbit and the astrophysical prediction is near perfect. Most excellent: a perfectly falsifiable prediction, apparently. Einstein is vindicated, and vindicates Popper as well.
Glitch: calculations assume a perfectly spherical sun. Unfortunately, since the sun is a gigantic rotating ball of gas, it isn’t precisely spherical. It bulges at the equator. Plug an estimated value for the deformation (no one has yet been able to accurately measure it) into Einstein’s calculus, and the prediction of Mercury’s orbit is thrown off by, if memory serves me correctly, something like 9 or 10%. Not a very accurate prediction after all.
My point: these are two entirely different attempts to confirm, or disconfirm, relativity. You’ve mistakenly mixed them into one: the expeditions had nothing to do with measuring the revolutions of Mercury around the sun.
It’s late here in the Great White North, and Mrs. Svinlesha beckons. A saintly woman, I don’t know how she puts up with a computer geek like me. I retire for the evening, patiently anticipating bonzer’s historical corrections of the above tomorrow.
I have one thing to say to you…want specific arguemnts or questions read the book you’ll have you hands full. Until then you speak from pure ignorance.
Sig line![//quote]
Shouldn’t that be “Siege line”? You’re welcome to it. By the way, could you send me an e-mail when you get a chance?
[/minor hijack]
Brad:
But I think it’s still a valid question so here goes again:
If someone believes in micro-evolution, what mechanism would prevent those small changes from accumulating and becoming large changes over a long period of time?
Is it possible to have micro-evolution? **[/QUOTE
Raft
I believe micro evolution is mostly a proven theory, but to take small changes and accumulate to large changes, takes way more than just stating it on paper.
Like I say I am not versed in microbiology, but if you read Behe’s book he makes it very clear what some of those extremely difficult things are.
And again my question is about his book not only about evolution. You need to read it to understand, because I am not going to spend the time or risk plagiarism to convey his thoughts to the people who haven’t read it.
You’re welcome to it. By the way, could you send me an e-mail when you get a chance?