Since you keep hammering this point, I feel like I must make a comment even
though I probably won't have time to follow through properly.
You've said, "That is, you assume evolutionary theory to be true because it
is accepted by the Christian scientists you know." This is only part of the
reason. Some of us (and here come the high priestly robes) have the
professional competence to judge these matters. We're personally
acquainted with the methods, data, theorizing, etc. and have the
professional expertise to judge them. No doubt we accept a lot on the
basis of others because we can't possibly be personally acquainted with all
of the data, but we are personally acquainted with some of the data and
render our judgment not on the basis of other's words but our own informed
professional judgments.
You've also made the following claim that I question, "Once it is shown not
to hold in one case, then after
that each case must be considered on its merits." Show me the case where
evolutionary theory doesn't hold. You (with all the rest of the Mere
Creation crowd) seem to assume that Mike Behe has proved his case and has
definitively shown that evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity.
(Again donning the high priestly robes), I don't think Mike Behe's
arguments hold water...as a biochemist I am not the least bit pursuaded by
them (in attempting to deal with the counter arguments, I believe that he
has in his own book given the germs of the refutation of his own critique).
Mike raises some very good evolutionary questions that many people (despite
his literature search) are working on. For example, Stuart Kauffman in the
opening chapters of *Origins of Order* raises some of the same questions
about the origin of irreducibly complex systems. Kauffman may call
Darwinism into question, but he proposes alternate mechanisms of evolution
that give a promising theory to untie this knot. *Darwin's Black Box* is
THE book for people who don't want evolution to be true. In it a
credentialed and professionally active biochemist expresses his own doubts.
I honestly doubt whether more than 1 or 2% of the people who read Mike's
book will have the competence to judge what he says or to know about what
he doesn't say. My own initial ideas have been expressed at my debate with
Mike at the ASA meeting in 1994 (see the manuscript from the debate at
http://mcgraytx.calvin.edu/evolution/irred_compl.html).
Well, that ought to stir the hornets' nest and my apologies in advance if I
don't respond to responses in a timely fashion.
TG
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt
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