Stephen E. Jones wrote:
>"Gradualism" is not a "straw man". It is what they actually *teach* in
>schools and university Biology classes.
They've taught plenty of wrong things over the years.
>And "Irreducible-complexity" is *precisely* the test that Darwin himself set
>as falsifying his theory:
>
>"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could
>not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight
>modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. --Charles Darwin,
>in The Origin of Species ... In his talk, Behe quickly reviewed the modern
>theory of evolution and then flashed onto a screen his favorite quote by
>Darwin from The Origin of Species (see p. 15), acknowledging the kind of
>evidence that would be necessary to refute the Darwinian theory of
>evolution. Behe took up the challenge of Darwin's test and asked, "What
>type of biological system could not be formed by numerous, successive,
>slight modifications? Well, for starters, a system that has a quality that I
>call irreducible complexity." (Woodward T., "Meeting Darwin's Wager,"
>Part 1 of 3, Christianity Today, Vol. 41, No. 5, April 28, 1997, p.14.
>http://www.christianity.net/ct/7T5/7T514a.html)
Behe is right, the gradualism part of Darwin's theory does break down,
it does not satisfactorily explain the evolution of certain complexes in
nature.
>Evolutionists who rule out "Irreducible-complexity" in principle, are
>unwittingly making Darwinism even more unfalsifiable, and showing that
>Darwinism is to them a `religion', rather than just a scientific theory.
It is indeed, note how they put their fish on the back of their cars
like the Christians do their own. With its implications of progress,
happy advancement to better and better things, it really is filling in
for religion.
>CL>The general principle can explain how the interrelated machinery of the
>>cell came to exist.
>
>See above. One would then have to come up with a symbiotic story for
>each one of the separate components of the prokaryotic cell, like:
One doesn't have to come up with a story, one need only recognize
that this is a plausible mechanism.
>Cliff would then need to explain how all those mindless pre-prokaryote
>symbionts eating each other also just happened to get it so right to lay the
>foundations for all prokaryotic *and* eukaryotic life for the next 3.8 billion
>years.
Well, it took a long time and a lot of luck, whether it happened originally
on Earth or somewhere else.
>CL>Just so happened, in the midst of an astronomical number of what could
>>be viewed as unsuccessful attempts.
>
>Cliff has no independent evidence that there were "an astronomical number
of...
>unsuccessful attempts". It is just an *assumption* based on naturalistic
>philosophy that it must be so, otherwise they couldn't have just happened
>to get it right in a small number of successful attempts.
This is a basic tenet of evolutionary theory, that most mutations are
unsuccessful.
>The evidence is that if they did all merge, that it was a series of unique
>events. In the case of the mitochondria, for example, the free-living
>components components, the prokaryotes exist in the trillions, yet never
>show any signs of forming new, permanent symbiotic mergers like that
>which would have had to have formed into eukaryotes.
Such bizarre experiments would have had a better chance of viability
before all the predatory eukaryotes and metazoans appeared.
>CL>Successful innovations accumulate, lineages diverge, I don't see
>>the problem.
>
>So in the end, Cliff is back to Darwinism and the `blind watchmaker'! But if
>that is the case, then why so we need his theory, since Darwinism can
>explain it all without Cliff's pan-symbiosis?
Darwinism is gradual, my proposed model is not. Darwinism explains
everything, as does ID. My model is more limited.
>>SJ>I don't understand Cliff's point. I am able to follow the "logical
>arguments"
>>>that evolutionists make and yet believe that they are "false".
>
>CL>If the conclusion is false, then either the premises or the logic must be
in
>>error.
>
>Not really. A scientific theory can be logically sound, but the *evidence* is
>simply against it. Almost all failed theories were at least logically sound.
But you claim that without God, evolution must logically be gradual; even as
you point out that the evidence is against this.
>There is an "irreducible complexity" problem in Cliff's own pan-symbiosis
>theory. Each one of the free-living components had to be complex enough
>to survive and flourish in plentiful enough numbers so they could find each
>other and merge by chance. But if they were that successful already, why
>did they *need* to merge?
To outcompete the old independents.
>CL>I have doubts about conventional kinds of testing being able to reproduce
>>rare events of a billion years ago; we can only theorize as best we can.
>>But even these long-ago events are observable in principle, and so testing
>>cannot be logically excluded.
>
>So in the end, Cliff's theory is untestable?
Theories about history are always in principle testable.
>If science is about what works, then ID *will* work!
ID can do anything, with the greatest of ease. That's the trouble with it.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ 415-648-0208 ~ cliff@cab.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 13 2000 - 06:17:46 EDT