Ralph:
> >However, you are an intelligent agent, and therefore, you may build it by
> >adding multiple parts together, with foresight, and future usefulness.
You
> >are natural selection with eyes.
> >These give some clues as to who the designer is, namely, an intelligent
> >agent with at least human intelligence.
>
>Ralph:
>Given our current level of knowledge about gene manipulation, I think we
>are a long way from being able to generate a working molecular motor in a
>biological organism that didn't already have one.
>
>Nelson:
>Well we can make stators , rotors, propellers etc. It doesn't take a
>"higher" intelligence to make them, and there is nothing preventing us from
>doing so, just advances in technology.We can make irreducibly complex
>systems. In the Conference of Molecular Nanotechnology held in 1998 they
>were actually able to make a motor much like the flagellum. There is also a
>patent on such a motor:
[snip much interesting information on nanotechnology]
Ralph:
Thanks for all that information on nanotechnology. I was aware of
these motors. I read as much as I can about nanotechnology. It's
a fascinating area with a lot of promise.
Nelson:
Indeed.
Ralph:
However, we could put 100 of these motors into a test
subject and they would not be able to pass on even 1 of them
to their children. I may be wrong but I don't think we know
how to do that. Yet the ID accomplished the task a long
time ago. I think your claim that an ID has at least a human
level of intelligence is a serious underestimation.
Nelson:
If you ever read "Engines of Creation" the thinking is to do that very
thing. Also, we can engineer proteins and even whole structures and pass
that on to their offspring. Once again, the level of intelligence has
nothing to do with technological advances.
Ralph:
If we assume that the flagellum and their molecular motors were
designed, then the question remains: how did the bacterium acquire
them? I can think of two ways.
1. They always had them. In short, the bacterium were created pretty
much as we now see them, without a fossil history. (A subset of
this would be that the bacterium arose naturally without flagellum or
molecular motors but these were inserted as an already built unit
at some later date). I think this would call for a level of knowledge
and ability usually only associated with supernatural beings.
Nelson:
It could, but intelligent agency at the level of human beings is enough to
account for such patterns. Once again, such systems have been engineered by
humans, and engineered proteins do exist. Not only this, but the patterns of
design are there. Thus we infer design from those patterns. This is
indicated by the actual workers in the field as Behe pointed out:
David DeRosier's in the journal Cell: "More so than other motors, the
flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human.".
Ralph:
2. The pieces of the molecular motor were brought together and
assembled over time. This method would have to be differentiated
from evolution's step-by-step-over-time explanation. This could be
done by specifying a time-span too short for evolution to be feasible
or by specifying that the parts were not only designed but guided
during construction so that there would be none of the false starts
and dead-ends that would make the process look like evolution.
I don't think this could be done by an ID that was limited to a
human level of intelligence.
Nelson:
I don't see how this follows from the evidence, could be a bit more
specific?
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