From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Fri Sep 26 2003 - 09:33:48 EDT
>From: Donald Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
>
> I am no biologist either, but for what its worth I offer an assessment.
> I have followed the postings of Mike Gene (pseudonym) on ARN and ISCID forums
> for a couple of years and I have been very impressed by what he has written.
> I have gained the impression that if anyone can develop an ID scientific
> research program then Mike will be the one to do it. However, he is obviously
> not a typical ID proponent of the Johnson-Behe-Dembski variety. You will note
> that in this thread (01 August), in response to Yersinia (Nic), Mike writes
> ‘I am certainly not arguing that “the flagellum is IC, thus it must have been
> designed.” '
>
> I think that the discussion is well summarised by Mike's statement (22
> August) ‘Insist that the Darwinian evolution of the flagellum is plausible
> and I will agree that the level of detail we have today supports this
> contention. Insist that the flagellum did evolve by Darwinian evolution and I
> will not agree that the level of detail we have today supports this
> contention.’
A suggestion: Look carefully at the working definition for the term
"Darwinian evolution" in these statements. In typical ID literature the
meaning of "Darwinian evolution" is very often restricted to extremely
gradualistic processes only (as in point mutations) and excludes a host of
non-gradualistic processes that might well be important contributors to
evolutionary histories. When reading ID literature one must pay
exceptionally close attention to the meanings of key terms.
Example: In my reading of Dembski's No Free Lunch, I found that the term "by
chance" most commonly, but not always, meant "by the joint action of all
known and unknown natural processes."
Howard Van Till
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