GM>Because flowers need to be pollinated. That is what the birds
>and the bees is all about.
SJ: This is what Behe calls a "Calvin and Hobbes" argument:
SJ: "It seems to be characteristic of the human mind that when it sees a
black box in action, it imagines that the contents of the box are
simple. A happy example is seen in the comic strip "Calvin and
Hobbes"...Calvin is always jumping in a box with his stuffed tiger,
Hobbes, and traveling back in time, or "transmogrifying" himself
into animal shapes, or using it as a "duplicator" and making clones
of himself A little boy like Calvin easily imagines that a box can
fly like an airplane (or something), because Calvin doesn't know how
airplanes work. In some ways, grown-up scientists are just as prone
to wishful thinking as little boys like Calvin." (Behe M.J.,
"Darwin's Black Box", 1996, p23)
Meaningless assertions. One could easily and with far more relevance
extend this to state that "it seems to be characteristic of the human mind
that when it sees something that it does not understand, it presumes the
need for an intelligent designer.
SJ: What I want to see from evolutionists is well worked out a
step-by-step `blind watchmaker' fully naturalistic Neo-Darwinian
argument, something like:
SJ: 1. Flowers arose.
SJ: 2. Insects tried to pollinate them.
SJ: 3. Flower genes mutated randomly.
SJ: 4. In smakk, isolated flower populations some mutations generated
flower parts that slightly matched insect mouth parts.
SJ: 5. Genetic drift fixed those mutations in that small, in-bred
isolated population.
Since those flowers were more likely to survive as species now that
insects were helping them out.
SJ: 6. Insects favoured those flowers which more closely matched their
mouth parts.
SJ: 7. Those flowers which insects favoured gained a competitive
advantage and increased in numbers.
8. These flowers later rejoined the main population and extinguished
those flowers without the favourable mutations.
9. Repeat steps 2-8 until flower parts closely match insect mouth
parts as today.
SJ: I don't have a problem with this (God can create any way He likes),
but what actual evidence is there that it actually happened this
way?
Perhaps it didn;t but it is hardly evidence that insect mouths were
prepared for flowers.
SJ: Do insects really notice slight changes in plant parts?
It is the plant who should notice. If the plant is more succesful in being
pollinated because the shape and form is more attractive or better
matching then it does not matter what the insects notice.
SJ: Is there any evidence in the fossil record of flower parts gradually
adapting more and more to match insect mouth parts?
Plants do tend to fossilize badly but the argument was that the insects'
mouth was pre-designed.
SJ:I doubt it.
Is there any evidence that they didn't ?
SJ: The actual fossil evidence for the origin of plants is, to the
unprejudiced, in favour of special creation, as Cambridge University
botanist E. Corner admitted:
How arrogant to refer to those who disagree with you as prejudiced,
SJ: "Much evidence can be adduced in favor of the theory of
evolution-from biology, biogeography and paleontology, but I still
think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in
favor of special creation.
A mere personal assertion. "I think that...." And that is your 'evidence' ?
SJ: If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of
classification, it would be the knell of the theory of evolution. Can you
imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same
ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist
must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down
before an
inquisition.' [Corner E., "Evolution," in McLeod A.M. & Cobley
L.S., eds, "Contemporary Biological Thought", 1961, p97 in Johnson
P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, pp196-197)
Again, personal belief and not even evidence of another explanation for
this hierarchy to form the knell of the theory of evolution. That one
cannot imagine how it could have happened (personal incredulity) is no
argument in favor or against.
I believe recently they finished the classification of the corn/rice to a
common ancestor.
SJ: Note also that the the above depends crucially on adaptive mutations
of the right sort, at the right time, in the right place, in the
right species.
This presumes 'a right sort', 'right time' and 'right place'. Faulty logic.
SJ: As zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse, past President of
the French Academy of science, editor of a 28-volume encylopaedia of
zoology, and for thirty years chair of the Department of Evolution
at the Sorbonne, Darwinism requires "miracles":
SJ: "The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants
to meet their needs seems hard to believe.
Personal incredulity
SJ: Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: a single plant, a
single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate
events.
No requirement. This presumes that there is a unique sequence of events
pre-planned rather than one of many outcomes.
SJ: This is just begging the question. You don't *know* that "insects
evolved". Nor do you *know* that "Flowers evolved". As Corner
pointed out the actual evidence for the origin of flowers "is in
favor of special creation."
No he asserts this not points out.
SJ: And the fossil record of insects conforms to the basic `creationist'
pattern of sudden appearance:
Ignoring all the other evidence against sudden appearance ?
SJ: "There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral
insects looked like, but there is no doubt that they are an
extremely ancient group of animals. For perhaps the past 250
million years they have been at least as numerous on the planet as
they are today." (Farb P., "The Insects", Time/Life Books:
Netherlands, 1964, p14)
No evidence of sudden appearance. Just ancient.
and stasis:
SJ: "The most primitive insects known are found as fossils in rocks of
the Middle Devonian Period and lived about 350,000,000 years ago.
No evidence against evolution. Stasis, gradualism and punctuated
equilbrium appear happily next to each other.
Regards
Pim