The Discovery Institute’s own Michael Behe has a new book. I’ll admit I don’t know enough about protein-protein binding to actually understand what the hell he’s talking about. But I do know that scientists are laughing at him.
Behe uses a pitiful number of examples (count’em: four) to attempt to establish a generalization that binding sites can’t evolve, ignores numerous known cases where binding sites are known to evolve, and then concludes that anything involving the evolution of two or more binding sites is impossible without mystical unspecified guidance by a mystical unspecified supernatural force that somehow mysteriously frontloads nonrandom mutations into the beginning of the universe. Or something. Behe even says explicitly that malaria and HIV are intelligently designed in just this fashion. Along the way he repeatedly violates the First Commandment of Competent Argument Against Evolution – Get Thee To A Library and Double-Check Thy Generalizations About Biology Against The Biological Literature Or Thou Willst Look Like A Fool. My biggest problems with Behe are within this last point, but Chu-Carroll shows that the math area is just as bad. And I’m sure the philosophers will jump in at some point. Most amazingly, in The Edge of Evolution, Behe treds onto ground occupied by population geneticists. Behe’s first book talked about stuff like flagellum evolution, which was actually pretty devious because the number of people who know enough about evolution, creationism, and a random obscure biological organelle to give a detailed rebuttal is bound to be pretty small. But vast herds of population geneticists stampede around the evolution meetings, trampling all foolish enough to get between them and another exciting session on Drosophila genetics. So Behe invading that turf is kind of like the “land war in Asia” scenario. Not a good idea.
Or to make it more simple:
Wow, double the irreducible complexity! You can’t build cilia without a functioning IFT, so now you have to explain both the origin of the IFT and the origin of cilia. Except that, as Nick shows, this claim is just plain false. Just as his claim in his earlier book that every single factor in the blood clotting cascade must be present in order to function was easily disproven by pointing to dolphins, which lack Factor XII (Hagemann factor) yet still have blood that clots), this claim is easily disproven by showing that, in the real world, there exist organisms which have cilia but do not have the IFT.
Nick shows a chart and offers a citation showing that there is an existing organism that has a cilium but does not have IFT, an organism in a group called Apicomplexans. Specifically, a parasitic organism in that group. More specifically, a parasite known as Plasmodium falciparum. You might know it by its better known name: malaria. Yes, the very organism that Behe spends much of his book using as evidence of IC actually disproves his claim about the cilia/IFT system being irreducible. Oops.
Hmm. Well maybe a research assistant who deals with infectious diseases can shed some light on the subject.
1. Evolution can be modeled in terms of a static, unchanging fitness landscape.
2. The fitness landscape is a smooth, surface made up of hills and valleys, where a local minimum or maximum in any dimension is a local minimum or maximum in all dimensions.
3. The fitness function mapping from a genome to a point of the fitness landscape is monotonically increasing.
4. The fitness function is smoothly continuous, with infinitessimally small changes (single-point base chanages) mapping to infinitessimally small changes in position on the fitness landscape.Ouch. I dont talk about my research directly a whole lot here (except for pretty pictures, of course), but like I put in my blurb, I study the evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. Fitness and fitness landscapes are vital to my research. And if Mark has summarized Behes claims properly– Im kinda peeved *fumes*
No one can have a basic, basic, basic understanding of ‘fitness landscapes’ and come out thinking those four points are valid. Just watch, Ill explain fitness landscapes to you all right now in the context of HIV, and you will get it! You, even those of you with zero biological training, will be able to refute Professional Creationist Michael Behe! Yay!
And if you’re like me, you won’t actually get it, but you’ll get closer, so you might as well read go read it.
And this has some obvious real world implications. Namely if you don’t know how malaria works, it becomes very tough to cure malaria. Same with HIV or any other virus. If you’re hoping that God or magic or whatever unseen, unknowable force is acting on these diseases, well, I certainly believe in the power of prayer, but I also believe in knowing how things work. In experimentation. In moving slowly, one piece of data at a time, one experiment at a time, one peer reviewed paper at a time toward the truth.
That’s where the creationists and the intelligent designers bug the fuck out of me. Because even more important than any real world implication, is a basic attack on the truth. We humans believe a lot of crazy things (I certainly believe in the power of prayer). We take shortcuts in our thinking and we all bring in biases and our partial information to whatever we’re trying to discover. So science has taken great pains to figure out ways to minimize these problems so that we can get at the truth. And then these anti-intellectual institutions think they can just yell “nu hu!” and that their argument is just as good as the scientific method. But if evolution isn’t the best explanation, then do what plate tectonics and what quantum physics and every other new discovery in science has done: prove it! Make claims that can be proven wrong with experimentation (as opposed to God might do something, or He might have done something). Then if those claims aren’t proven wrong, you’re on the way. Publish in scientific journals. Repeat like a zillion times so you know it wasn’t a fluke and people will start to believe you. Then, maybe you can write your book.
But if you yell “nu hu!” enough, and let your biases and prejudices interfere with human advancement toward the truth, you create your own world. And that world can be scary to those of us looking at it from outside.
These folks living in their own world give skepticism a bad name. If it’s these creationists or if it’s Exxon scientists. And skepticism is vital to that advancement toward the truth. I’m thrilled that people are questioning even our basic assumptions. I’m disgusted that people think just saying “no” without proving it, or really even trying is the same thing as honest skepticism.
And it is embarrassing that a Seattle institution is getting in the way of finding the truth. It’s horrible to have to read, “Seattle’s Discovery Institute” as if the city had something to do with those freaks.
The antics of these delusional zealots are an embarrassment to sane, intelligent people of faith.
Just heard on Fox that the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill is dead.
I sure am glad there’s enough commonsensical people in the Senate to kill that piece of shit.
And with President Gingrich, we won’t have to worry about crazy shit like this.
What a great day…
I read a story in the ST today that the NAACP is closing offices and laying off staff.
It’s about fucking time that this racist organization start going out of business. They are fundamentally un-American.
Think I’m wrong? What is there was an organization called the “National Association for the Advancement of White Middle Aged Men”?
I rest my case.
Another great thing… the collapse of the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill effectively ends McCain’s run for POTUS.
Another RINO kicked to the curb…
Gee whiz, Mark the Obfuscator, you seem particuarly frenzied in your efforts to change the subject in this particular thread. Does your fragile little dominionist ego get all that threatened at the prospect that you aren’t someone oh-so-special that God herself hasn’t picked you to lead the way in the Rapture(tm)?
Guess what? Chances are that like so many deluded and ultimately disappointed zealots before you (starting with Paul), you’re going to have to wait until you’ve drawn your last feeble, rasping agonal breath to get out of here.
Nooooooo! If I didnt explain fitness landscapes in a way everybody can understand, tell me! Ask questions! I really want to get this right!
For those of you like fart above operating under the delusion that Murka is some kinda librul collectivist bastion just had your bubble burst today…
The defeat of the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill was a resounding statement that Murka is a land of laws, and a land where fundamental fairness still matters.
So for you librul moonbats out there who want to dole out The Producers’ money based on pigment just got your heads handed to you.
Think you’re gonna continue your anti Murkan jihad for anything longer than next election? Think again… fucking losers…
MTR – YOUR HEAD IS SO FAR UP YOUR ASS IT’S UNBELIEVABLE.
JUST PAY YOUR FUCKING GAMBLING DEBT AND LEAVE.
Not that I expect to Mark to get any of this, or to acknowledge if he did, but the whole “amnesty” provision was thrown in simply to make political hay. Nobody expected it to pass, not because the righties (or the rank and file of Democrats, for that matter) want to keep illegal aliens out of the work force. Rather, they want to keep exploiting them in the ultimate CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVE’s wet dream–have ’em go right on working in clandestine sweat-shops, getting paid pennnies under the table to do the nastiest, most dangerous jobs–and scared shitless of being arrested and deported so they don’t dare complain.
Notice there’s been all that yelling and screaming about “amnesty”, but Steve Ballmer goes to Washington and blathers about more H1b’s and everyone says, “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”
Fucking hypocrites.
So you moonbats think you got a big “mandate” in the last election.
So tell me, what exactly is it that you’ve accomplished?
Goldy’s ex-wife is running for Mercer Island City Council this fall for Position 3, which apparently has no incumbent:
http://www.maureenjudge.com/
If you look at the “About Maureen” link, she is claiming that their daughter lives with HER.
ERV @ 6
I guess you lost me at the second graph. I guess I’m not entirely sure about what I’m looking at. I can see the outlines, and the conclusions make sense, but I guess my brain isn’t very scientific.
YOS @ 8
Really. You think he’d pay up?
Carl @ 12
Mark will pay up his gambling debt a lot more readily than Joe Swzaja paid his child support debt. They had to garnish Swzaja for almost six years before he paid the Wisconsin judgment against him that was being collected in King County Superior Court.
Great news – the pretend President got thrown under the bus by his own party. He championed the immigration bill and it was the Publicans who denied him. The GOP is coming apart. This is just the beginning of them self-destructing. Man this is gonna be fun to watch. The Publicans are trying to play both ends against the middle. They’re tilting so faaar right on this issue that they’ll certainly give up any middle ground they gained. Great news for America.
@ 13
You don’t think there’s a difference between someone having to pay back a debt via garnishment because he can’t afford to pay it back and someone who can afford a debt simply refusing to pay up?
Just want to know where your moral compass points.
Mark Kennedy owes a gambling debt. Joe Szwaja owed child support. That will tell you where my moral compass points.
Carl,
Outstanding post. You acknowledge what you don’t know–that is the mark of someone who has something worth saying. I consider myself relatively intelligent. I attended graduate school at Cal-Berkeley, and have a law degree. Though I deal with scientific issues routinely in the course of my practice, I don’t really understand the science of my cases anymore than I absolutely have to. Then, I promptly try to forget whatever I may have picked up. My strategy is to defer to the experts I hire. Residents of Wingnut World, however, dimwits like MTR, want to argue scientific principles as if they really had adequate background to do so. They pretend to have something to say about topics like global warming or evolution. They want to argue with the experts. They, of course, just make themselves look silly in so doing. Nonetheless, their ilk has tremendous political power at this time. Al Gore’s book title, “The Assault on Reason” is entirely apropos of what we are enduring with the rightwing presently. As you point out, and as the rightwingers seem incapable of grasping, faith and reason are not combatants. More often than not, I go to church on Sunday. So, I pray God takes care of our global warming problem. In the meantime, however, I think those of us who are presently residing upon the Earth should do whatever scientists suggest we should do to ensure its future. Thanks for the post.
CARL @ 12
POPE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT.
MTR WILL PROBABLY NEVER PAY HIS GAMBLING DEBT.
AND WE’RE NEVER GOING TO LET HIM FORGET IT.
@ 16
Ah, so you have a moral compass that’s completely unaffected by truth. That’s good to know the next time you run for office.
Richard Pope has sufficient deficits with regards to elective offices that I have no concerns about his moral compass whatsoever. . .
Somehow, having Mr. Redneck posting drivel in a thread about pseudo science seems oddly appropriate.
(Sorry I haven’t been around more. It’s that “earning a living” thing. Gets in the way of arguing.)
On to the topic.
The fact that Mr. Behe’s “science” turns out to be more wishful thinking (and perhaps more wishful than thinking) is not terribly surprising. The Discovery Institute has been turning scientific method on its head for years.
Worse, at least from my perspective, is the fact that their speculation is neither scientific nor Biblical. In order to deal with a number of observed and observable facts, they have had to admit that the creation story in Genesis is allegory, rather than a literal, step-by-step description of the creation of the universe.
Having figured that out, there is no reason to deny Darwin’s basic premise. Darwin never tried to explain why creation came into being, he simply tried to describe some of the mechanism.
The Discovery Institute “scientists” seem to assume that God is a mediocre craftsman that has needed to continually re-work and re-engineer His creation in order to get to His desired results.
“Measure twice, cut once.” I’m pretty sure that God was able to figure out that concept.
Congrats Goldy – you got linked to by DailyKos.
Why do you believe in the “the power of prayer”? You actually believe there is some sort of supernatural force that makes prayers work? It sounds nice but it not real. You sound like an idiot when you believe in that shit.
“John”
When there is some actual evidence that prayer works (we can debate the reasons that it works at another time if you wish) and you make a statement like yours, you undercut your own position.
http://www.asu.edu/news/storie.....prayer.htm
And when you insult people that are arguing on your side of an issue just to make a snarky point, you undercut all of us.
John
I should do more on this at SJ. I have two quick restions.
1. WADR. the quality of the threads here suck. SP may be righty, but many threads I have seen there have real debate. Maybe this site attracts more wingnuts that Stefan’s.
2. Tou make a good point. The problem for the Creationist community is that any scientific alternatives to the current Darwin/Big Bang model, will indubitably bear no resemblance to any secific bibkical myth.
Take for example the flood. On SeattleJew I posted a link to the ad at the Craetion Museum for a geologist. That add includes a REQUIREMENT that the geologist beleive there was world wide flood. Trouble is this makes no sense, as it is described in the Torah.
There is a Jewish approach that i think may interest you and would make the Discovery Institute a lot more sane. Maimonides and Spinoza both taught that science IS revelation and is MORE reliable than the recorded records of revelations. So, when doiscrepancies exist, the jobh of a truew intelelctualo is to do their best atr reconciling the differences.
There is, IMHO, a scientific reason for accepting this approach. That is the evidence that the Torah is old enough to reflect flecks of exp0eriences “we” have experienced. This is especially important for discussions about archaeology. Dever has argued that there are numeorus pieces of data in books of Judges and Kings that combine well with scientific archaelogy to create hypothesis about the history of Canaan. This is good scieece.
I would go further. there are many reaisns, in my opinion, to link the Torah to more ancient things, including human evolution. Closest in time is the myth of Moses. Whether Moses did or did not exist, the semitic::Egyptian interplay is now well documented and included a period, the Hyksos, where semites were actiually rulers in Egypt. Sound faimilar?
My most extreme idea is that there may be a link between the Torah (and other ancient writings) and human evolution. The idea is this … “we” have only spoken for about 100,000 years and given the way evolution works, it is unlikley that this happened in one miraculous event. Speach, however, seems to have incuded a lot of other stuff .. inclusding myth making. Dis any of these earliest mths survive long enough t be recorded in the Vedas or the Torah? While there eas no world wide floood, could there have been floods or similar disasters that isolated subgroups of use as geneticists call “choke points?” Could one of those be the ancient semites?
The point is that the Torah, the Vedas, and Egyptian writings are the oldest documents we have. Leaving aside divinity, it makes good sense to use these3 as a source of data.
SeattleJew
@24
With all due respect, the link you provide doesn’t provide enough info to make the above claim.
Can this bozo Behe explain why the loving God that pseudo-Christians claim to believe in would deliberately design a malaria germ (or, for that matter, a smallpox, typhus, cholera, or plague germ) if She has any brains? I mean, why would an Intelligent Designer create humans — and then create germs to kill them off?
Oops, I think I may have just answered my own question ….
After humans evolve themselves into extinction, rabbits will run this place, and I’ll be their king!!
@2 “President Gingrich”
Redneck, you’re supposed to pour my gas into your SUV, not sniff it. Pay your fucking gambling debt!
@1 Don’t worry, hardly anyone pays attention to DI.
@3 “is there was an organization called the “National Association for the Advancement of White Middle Aged Men”?
Yes, it’s called the KKK.
@4 “effectively ends McCain’s run for POTUS”
Good. One down, 9 to go.
If we Democrats get really really lucky, the GOP will run (Choice #1) the adulterer or (Choice #2) the actor against ___________ (fill in name of any Democrat).
@11 “If you look at the ‘About Maureen’ link, she is claiming that their daughter lives with HER.”
I don’t think Goldy has ever said differently, Richard. It’s always been clear that Goldy gets his “joint custody” on certain days.
So, Richard, here’s a brain teaser for a veteran family law attorney like you: When a court awards “joint custody” to the parents, and divides the child’s time equally between the parents, who is the “custodial parent?”
@23 I disagree. I can make Redneck fart just by praying to the Mother Rabbit Spirit. To prove it, all you have to do is read this thread.
Unfortunately, I can’t make that welsher pay his gambling debt to Goldy by praying for it. The Mother Rabbit Spirit told me She can turn stones into blades of grass, but even She can’t turn a trailer park redneck’s empty pocket into $100. There is some things that are simply beyond divine power.
The true answer to evolution is here:
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
http://www.venganza.org/
This may have been inevitible. Anyway, it’s certainly funny.
(From AP by way of RawStory)
In a video shown at a new museum purporting to demonstrate how God created the universe, actor Eric Linden portrays Adam breathing life’s first breath.
A jaunt around the Internet shows Linden posing alongside a drag queen on an explicit Web site he owned called Bedroom Acrobat.
When it learned of Linden’s activities with the Web site, the Creation Museum pulled the 40-second video in which he appeared.
Milo stated:
Please note that my claim was “there is some actual evidence that prayer works” (emphasis added).
The link is to an Arizona State University article that referenced a paper written comparing a number of different studies, and not specifically referring to one particular faith or reason for the efficacy of prayer. Merely that it seems, for whatever reason, to work, and stating that a number of studies have said so.
I deliberately picked that article because it said nothing more than that and avoided the debate as to why prayer seems to work.
Remember that my comment was in response to the statement:
There is evidence, although there is also debate. Reasonable, intelligent, honest people, including some with no particular religious background, have found some evidence that suggests that prayer works.
Then we have folks with neither scientific nor religious backgrounds saying that anyone that believes in prayer “sound(s) like an idiot“.
I am not trying to get you to believe as I do. Merely trying to get folks to understand that some reasonably intelligent folks, with some evidence on their side, believe in prayer.
A famous Christian author, C.S. Lewis, once stated that an honest atheist is closer to God than a person that professes a faith, but does not really believe it. I agree.
If you don’t believe in prayer, then don’t pray. No problem. Just don’t insult me because I do.
For anyone to believe in prayer, a higher power, or even the untamed forces of nature, is sure to sound idiotic to anyone so supremely egocentric as to be unable to admit to any power greater than him/herself.
SeattleJew
Interesting information. I have heard several theories about the “great flood” that appear in many ancient beliefs.
Considering the fact that, for most paleolithic cultures, the “whole world” was actually not much more than their small corner of it, and that there is undeniable evidence of massive flooding that covered large areas, this really isn’t surprising.
On the subject of evolution, well, I’ve never seen a real conflict between the creation story of Genesis and the scientific evidence of evolution.
The first is a short description of creation, meant primarily for a culture of nomadic shepherds, to say that mankind is a special creation. Compare it to a “where do babies come from” story written for pre-schoolers.
In essence, the story is true, but leaves out most of the details that the listener simply isn’t ready for yet. Imagine trying to explain millions of years of evolution to a culture that has no word for “million”.
My biggest complaint with the “Discovery Institute” is that, having decided that Genesis is not a step-by-step instruction manual on how to create a universe, they proceed to insist on divine intervention in the evolutionary process.
The deity that the Discovery Institute worships seems a bit too small. I understand the concept of a deity that interacts with this odd, confusing and often irrational creation called “mankind”. Being that we were given free will, this sort of interaction makes some sense to me.
But non-sentient and pre-sentient things are a different matter. Without that free-will, it’s more of a matter of getting it right the first time, then letting the universe run.
If you need to constantly tinker with a machine, then that machine was probably either poorly designed or poorly built. This seems to be the assumption of the folks over at Discovery Institute, and it makes me wonder if they have thought out all the ramifications of their theories.
Hmmm. Gee, John you’re being awfully tough on those guys at the ‘Recovery’ Institute. . .you seem to be insisting that they formulate some sort of mature theology.
MTR is an idiot, so he has an excuse. Richard, you’re a bright guy.
“Mark Kennedy owes a gambling debt. Joe Szwaja owed child support. That will tell you where my moral compass points.”
The unfortunate fact is that you have no moral compass. At one time, I admired some of what you had to say, even though I may not have agreed. Turns out you’re just an asshole.
John
Well … I wrote about evolution of man, NOT creation. The creation stgory bears no real resemblance to science. Species were not created as such, they evolved and we KNOW that because we can read the record of evolution on their genomes.
Northwest Coastal people’s legends come closer to this tgruth than the Bible does.
SeattleJew:
Please understand that for me, at least, the two subjects are intertwined to the point of being essentially one.
This doesn’t prevent me from taking in the latest science about how the process worked, any more than my elementary school science class prevents me from trying (and for the most part, failing) to understand string theory.
Faith is more about why things happen and what we should do about them than it is about exactly how they happened. Something I wish that the Discovery Institute would figure out.
I actually have more difficulty understanding their position than I do the strict creationists.
Strict creationists rely on their faith in the Bible. While I may think them mistaken in their interpretation, it is, at least, consistent. While a strict creationist would make a lousy geologist or biologist, as their faith would prevent them from understanding the mechanisms of their professions, in most areas of everyday life, that strong, consistent faith would serve them well.
Others, such as myself, who look to our deity for guidance in how to live our lives and deal with others. We see creation as a marvelous, complicated and wonderful thing, that was created in an instant and unfolded over billions of years, following rules laid down in that instant of creation. For us, you are correct in saying that science is revelation.
In faith, just as in politics, compromise is not always the best answer, and may actually be the worst one.
(Political moderates are often accused of wanting compromise where we actually are working for consensus.)
With most faiths, and with most people of faith, there is an agreement to disagree, knowing that none of this is a really important part of our beliefs. We have an accommodation, even though we disagree.
Then we have these Discovery Institute folks trying for some kind of odd compromise, that works neither as science, nor as faith. The deity they seem to envision couldn’t get it right the first time.