In a message dated 9/18/2000 9:20:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
nalonso@megatribe.com writes:
<< FMA:
Not the burden of proof is to show that an IC system cannot arrise through
chance and natural selection.
Nelson:
Thats exactly what I said above. You repeated my statement almost verbatim.
>>
So where is it shown that an IC system cannot arise through chance and
natural selection? It's asserted by IC not proven.
<<
FMA:
And even if it could, this would not prove
design merely disprove Darwinian evolution as a mechanism here.
Nelson:
Nope, it also shows that intelligent agency is needed to produce these
systems, since we observe them producing these systems, and they can only be
built by adding multiple parts together with foresight.
>>
Another common logical fallacy, well actually two:
1. False dicthomy: Elimination of chance and natural selection does not mean
therefore design
2. Design does not mean intelligence
3. Intelligent agency cannot exclude natural forces
4. It presumes foresight and presumes that it can only be built that way.
You are presuming that which needs to be proven.
<<
<< an irreducible system since the you cannot show an effective precursor.
Now
if you want to say "it could have evolved" you have to give me a pathway to
work with. I have proposed my pathway, namely intelligent design.
>>
FMA:
That's not a pathway. It's a place holder for ignorance. I have shown how an
IC system could arise naturally (Robison). Others include
Nelson:
Robison failed to show how a natural pathway could make an IC system. Sigh,
here we go again with more links.
>>
Nope show me how such a system arose through ID. You merely showed how an IC
system was adapted.
<<
Link Quote:
Instead, in September 1999 he said "The point in dispute is whether natural
selection can produce major innovations." But surely his book holds up the
immune system as a major innovation, and as of 1998 it was no longer
disputable that evolution could have caused that. "
Nelson:
Lets take a look:
"Rebuttal of Example: Cilia and Flagella
>>
That's not the immune system.
<< Although Behe describes these on pages 59-72, it isn't clear exactly what
the
irreducible systems are, and why they can't be reduced.
Suppose we took flagellin, which in E. coli K-12 is a chain of 497 amino
acids. What if we chop out a third of those? If the "system" is irreducible
then removing these parts should make it stop functioning. But that has been
done, and the flagellum still worked fine [1]. So is this reduced system
Irreducible? Apparently we don't have a good way to know, since the method
applied to the original system gave a wrong answer.
Nelson:
Behe made it _extremely_ clear which parts make up the IC flagellum. Namely
the stator, the propeller, and the rotor,etc. Ken Miller and Ian Musgrave
both conceded these parts to be IC.
>>
Reference please.
<< Quote:
Flagellin is also used for "active transport" inside cells, but a cutdown
version with 183 aminos will do that [2]. This implies that there was some
earlier molecule that was only used for transportation. Evolution replaced
that molecule with flagellin, and flagellin was then co-opted into its
flagella
role because it was lying around.
Nelson:
Once again, another "just so" story that doesn't reduce the actual parts of
the flagellum at all. Note the "just lying around" comment. Active
transports lie causally downstream from the flagellum, so this is completely
ad hoc. >>
It's not more ad hoc than "it could not have happened". It's a probable
pathway. If Behe wants to prove that it could not have happened that way then
fine. But it seems that Behe and ID'ers are not really interested in doing
the research to support their assertions.
SO far still no evidence that natural selection and mutations could not lead
to IC systems
A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution. Richard H.
Thornhill1 and David W. Ussery. Published in The Journal
of Theoretical Biology, 203: 111-116, 2000.
"Possible routes of Darwinian evolution can be classified into four
fundamental categories, as outlined below."
a) Serial direct Darwinian evolution.
This means change along a single axis. Although it can generate
complicated structures, it cannot generate
irreducibly complex structures
b) Parallel direct Darwinian evolution.
Parallel direct Darwinian evolution can generate irreducibly complex
structures, but not irreducibly complex
structures of functionally indivisible components (Fig. 1), and this is
the valid conclusion to draw from Behe's thesis.
c) Elimination of functional redundancy.
Redundancy elimination can generate irreducibly complex structures of
functionally indivisible components, and
a Darwinian evolutionary route of this type has been suggested for
biochemical cascades, such as the blood-clotting
system (Robison, 1996).
d) Adoption from a different function.
"Adoption from other functions, whether generating an irreducibly
complex structure or otherwise, appears to be widespread at the
molecular level. The following are a few examples: (i) Many bacteria
and yeasts contain chimeric flavohaemoglobins, consisting of a haem
domain which is homologous to non-chimeric haem proteins, and a
flavin-binding domain which is homologous to NADPH sulphite reductase,
toluate 1,2 dioxygenase, cytochrome
P450 reductase, and nitric oxide synthase (Moens et al., 1996). (ii)
Antifreeze glycoprotein in the blood of Antarctic
notothenioid fishes, which enables them to survive in icy seas, is
considered to have evolved from a functionally
unrelated pancreatic trypsinogen-like protease, and the recent discovery
of chimeric genes which encode both the
protease and an antifreeze glycoprotein polyprotein strongly supports
this theory (Cheng & Chen, 1999).
(iii) Crystallins (proteins with refractive functions in the eye lens)
are closely related or identical to stress-protective
proteins in non-ocular tissues (eg. Drosophila a-crystallins and small
heat-shock proteins are homologous).
Piatigorsky uses the term "gene-sharing" for the encoding in a single
gene of a protein with two or more functions,
and suggests that this may be a widespread evolutionary 'strategy'
(1998). "
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