On Fri, 11 Apr 1997 15:47:50 -0400, Terry M. Gray wrote:
TG>A "mini-conference" on Michel Behe's *Darwin's Black Box* was held at
>Notre Dame on April 4 and 5. Mike Behe presented a summary of his book
>as the opening statement. Harvard evolutionary theorist, David Haig,
>critiqued Behe's biochemical arguments, and Daniel Dennett, author of
>*Darwin's Dangerous Idea", responded on a slightly more philosophical
>level with a talk entitled "The Case of the Tell-Tale Traces: A Mystery
>Solved; A Skyhook Grounded".
Why *two* against one? Sounds a bit one-sided! Dennett is an
ultra-Darwinist like Dawkins, who deludes himself by thinking that
just because he thinks he can imagine a possible solution, then the
"Mystery" is somehow "Solved". It sounds a bit like the medieval
ontological argument for the existence of God - I can imagine there
is a God, so there must be one!
TG>For those unfamiliar with Behe's views and the common criticisms,
>there are a fair number of on-line resources. Here is a list of a
>few of them.
[...]
Thanks to Terry for posting these URLs.
TG>OVERVIEW
>
>My overall reaction to the mini-conference is this: I was pleasantly
>surprised at how much the debate stayed on the fundamental science
>question, i.e. is there a plausible account for the origin of
>"irreducibly complex" systems in a Darwinian framework. Even though
>Behe has become an advocate of "intelligent design" and Dennett is an
>advocate of accepting the full implications of "Darwin's dangerous
>idea", i.e. a full-blown atheism, the presentations and question/answer
>periods focused on the basic, technical biochemistry questions. The
>rhetoric (on both sides) surrounding whether or not "intelligent
>design" is a scientific notion was largely missing.
This is nice to hear, especialy concerning from Dennett, who seems to
be advocating that creationists be caged in zoos like wild animals
and their children taken off them to be taught evolution:
"Do you believe, literally, in an anthropomorphic God?...But we must
face the fact that, just as there were times when tigers would not
have been viable, times are coming when they will no longer be
viable, except in zoos and other preserves, and the same is true of
many of the treasures in our cultural heritage..." (Dennett D.C.,
"Darwin's Dangerous Idea", 1995, p514)
"My own spirit recoils from a God Who is He or She in the same way my
heart sinks when I see a lion pacing neurotically back and forth in a
small zoo cage. I know, I know, the lion is beautiful but dangerous;
if you let the lion roam free, it would kill me; safety demands that
it be put in a cage. Safety demands that religions be put in cages,
too-when absolutely necessary." (Dennett, 1995, p515)
"Save the Baptists! Yes, of course, but not by all means. Not if it
means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the
natural world...Misinforming a child is a terrible offense. A faith,
like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment
changes. It is not a gentle process in either case...You are free to
preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does
not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we
have to learn some accommodation...We tolerate the Hutterites because
they harm only themselves though we may well insist that we have the
right to impose some further openness on their schooling of their own
children...The message is clear: those who will not accommodate, who
will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest and wildest
strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to
cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they
fight for..." (Dennett, 1995, p516)
"lf you insist on teaching your children falsehoods-that the Earth is
flat, that "Man" is not a product of evolution by natural
selection-then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us
who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teaching
as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this
to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future
well-being-the well-being of all of us on the planet-depends on the
education of our descendants" (Dennett, 1995, p519)
This is a chilling warning of what would happen if Darwinist
fundamentalists like Dennett or Dawkins came to power!
TG>BEHE
>Mike Behe presented the basic thesis of his book. A good summary
>can be found at http://www.arn.org/arn/articles/behe924.htm and
>http://www.atr.org/discovery/behespch.html.
>
>The structure of the paper was essentially unchanged from his 1994
>presentation at the ASA meeting in his debate with me. He puts forward
>the argument that living things are irreducibly complex and thus could
>not have arisen gradually by Darwinian natural selection.
Agreed. Darwinians have not shown *in any detailed way* how
*all levels* of "living things" (in this case at the biomolecular
level) "have arisen gradually by Darwinian natural selection".
There is nothing new in this argument. It was first used by
non-Darwinist evolutionist St. George Mivart in 1871:
"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major
transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our
imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has
been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of
evolution. St. George Mivart (1871), Darwin's most cogent critic,
referred to it as the dilemma of "the incipient stages of useful
structures"-of what possible benefit to a reptile is two percent of a
wing?" (Gould S.J., "Is a new and general theory of evolution
emerging?", Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p127).
Gould admits that Mivart's argument was (and still is) "the primary
stumbling block among thoughtful and friendly scrutinizers of
Darwinism today":
Mivart gathered, and illustrated "with admirable art and force"
(Darwin's words), all objections to the theory of natural
selection-"a formidable array" (Darwin's words again). Yet one
particular theme, urged with special attention by Mivart, stood out
as the centerpiece of his criticism. This argument continues to rank
as the primary stumbling block among thoughtful and friendly
scrutinizers of Darwinism today. No other criticism seems so
troubling, so obviously and evidently "right" (against a Darwinian
claim that seems intuitively paradoxical and improbable)"
Mivart...called his objection "The Incompetency of Natural Selection'
to Account for the Incipient Stages of Useful Structures."...We can
readily understand how complex and fully developed structures work
and how their maintenance and preservation may rely upon natural
selection-a wing, an eye, the resemblance of a bittern to a branch or
of an insect to a stick or dead leaf. But how do you get from
nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed
through a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by
natural selection? You can't fly with 2 percent of a wing or gain
much protection from an iota's similarity with a potentially
concealing piece of vegetation." (Gould S.J., "Bully for
Brontosaurus", 1991, p140)
TG>By irreducibly complex systems Behe refers to systems in which
>each component plays an essential role in the functional whole such
>that only when all the components are present and functioning
>correctly does the functional whole exist. The argument against
>evolution neatly flows, almost syllogistically, from this
>definition. It is impossible for natural selection to produce such
>a system in a stepwise fashion since all the parts must already be
>present to in order to have a function to select.
This is the basic problem that has long bedevilled naturalistic
origin of life scenarios and now Behe has again pointed out that it
also bedevils naturalistic origin of molecular biological systems
too. Perhaps the strongest example of an "irreducibly complex
system" is the bacterial flagellum molecular motor:
"Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes
to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are
what I term "irreducibly complex." That means the system needs
several components before it can work properly. An everyday example
of irreducible complexity is a mousetrap, built of several pieces
(platform, hammer, spring and so on). Such a system probably cannot
be put together in a Darwinian manner, gradually improving its
function. You can't catch a mouse with just the platform and then
catch a few more by adding the spring. All the pieces have to be in
place before you catch any mice. An example of an irreducibly
complex cellular system is the bacterial flagellum: a rotary
propeller, powered by a flow of acid, that bacteria use to swim. The
flagellum requires a number of parts before it works - a rotor,
stator and motor. Furthermore, genetic studies have shown that about
40 different kinds of proteins are needed to produce a working
flagellum." (Behe M., "Darwin Under the Microscope", New York Times,
October 29, 1996)
Behe points out that no one has ever published a model of how the
bacterial flagellum originated:
"The general professional literature on the bacterial flagellum is
about as rich as the literature on the cilium, with thousands of
papers published on the subject over the years. That isn't
surprising; the flagellum is a fascinating biophysical system, and
flagellated bacteria are medically important. Yet here again, the
evolutionary literature is totally missing. Even though we are told
that all biology must be seen through the lens of evolution, no
scientist has ever published a model to account for the gradual
evolution of this extraordinary molecular machine." (Behe M.J.,
"Darwin's Black Box", 1996, p72)
TG>Behe appeals to biochemistry in defense of his thesis. Modern
>biochemistry has opened the "black box" of living systems by
>elucidating the incredible complex molecular machinery underlying them.
>The novelty of his claim, as against other similar arguments against
>evolution (and for a designer) such as Paley's, is that now we
>understand life at its fundamental molecular level.
Yes. But Behe's argument is essentially Mivart's updated. But this
time Darwinism's preadaptation defence may not be available. Dr.
Robert Macnab of Yale University concluded a major fifty page review
of this mechanism with these remarks:
"As a final comment, one can only marvel at the intricacy in a simple
bacterium, of the total motor and sensory system which has been the
subject of this review and remark that our concept of evolution by
selective advantage must surely be an oversimplification. What
advantage could derive, for example, from a "preflagellum" (meaning a
subset of its components), and yet what is the probability of
"simultaneous" development of the organelle at a level where it
becomes advantageous (Macnab R., "Bacterial Mobility and Chemotaxis:
The Molecular Biology of a Behavioral System," CRC Critical Reviews
in Biochemistry, vol. 5, issue 4, December 1978, pp291-341)?
TG>My notes are scarce on the Question and Answer period, but two
>questions/comments do stand out in my mind. Philosopher of science
>Ernan McMullin asked Behe if he thought that God could cause
>"irreducibly complex" structures to arise using "natural causes". Behe
>paused, as one should when one is asked about something that God might
>not be able to do. His answer was revealing, however. He suggested that
>God could have ordered the universe so that 40 different cosmic rays
>might simultaneously strike some primordial cell causing the
>simulataneous mutation of all the right genes that would result in the
>formation of a novel irreducibly complex structure. [TG: Why God
>couldn't do the same thing in a "less obvious" way strikes me as the
>obvious question to follow-up with.]
The "obvious" answer is that we are discussing whether a
fully naturalistic `blind watchmaker' mechanism alone can accomplish
the building of one of Behe's claimed "`irreducibly complex'
structures". Clearly an intelligent designer, human or divine, can
build an irreducibly complex structure. Note: I accept that God
could work through a mchanism that appeared totally random to human
beings (Proverbs 16:33; 1 Kings 22:34), even a fully naturalistic
`blind watchmaker' mechanism, if He so chose. But the question is,
did He?:
"If scientists had actually observed natural selection creating new
organs, or had seen a step-by-step process of fundamental change
consistently recorded in the fossil record, such observations could
readily be interpreted as evidence of God's use of secondary causes
to create. But Darwinian scientists have not observed anything like
that. What they have done is to assume as a matter of first
principle that purposeless material processes can do all the work of
biological creation because, according to their philosophy, nothing
else was available." (Johnson P.E., "Shouting `Heresy' in the Temple
of Darwin", Christianity Today, October 24, 1994, p26)
TG>One person commented that Darwinists expect irreducible
>complexity.
I am amused by this. Why then do Darwinists attack Behe?
TG>The idea is that the initial function arises in the
>context of a more complex system (but not necessarily irreducible)
>and that evolution fine tunes this system and removes extraneous
>pieces leaving the absolute minimum structure that looks, indeed is
>in its present state, irreducible. Behe's response was simply that
>if you can't explain the origin of the less complex system, then it
>would be more difficult to explain the origin of the more complex
>system.
Actually, this is Dawkin's "Stonehenge" argument:
"Stonehenge is incomprehensible until we realize that the builders
used same kind of scaffolding, or perhaps ramps of earth, which are
no longer there. We can see only the end- product, and have to infer
the vanished scaffolding" (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991,
Penguin, pp148-149)
By this sort of all-purpose `missing evidence' argument Darwinism can
explain anything and its opposite. If there are "Tell-Tale Traces"
then the "Mystery" is "Solved". If there are none, a hypothetical
`just-so' story is invented to explain where the "Tell-Tale Traces"
went. Either way, the "Mystery" is "Solved" for Darwininists,
because evidence is not necessary for something that just has to be
true.
[continued]
God bless.
Steve
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 9 448 7439 (These are |
| Perth, West Australia v my opinions, not my employer's) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------