tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post4591058972991321313..comments2024-03-18T09:58:09.828-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: CCC's and the edge of evolutionLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-82709788004193687342014-08-28T07:29:55.666-04:002014-08-28T07:29:55.666-04:00Such an infantile and pathetic response...would be...Such an infantile and pathetic response...would be interested in seeing a list of your peer reviewed and published worksAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17078155978265246901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-72908856087468546262014-08-21T10:18:51.046-04:002014-08-21T10:18:51.046-04:00I agree. Behe is a coward who won't comment he...I agree. Behe is a coward who won't comment here, who did not address our points nor did he accurately describe our objections. "Edge of Evolution"'s claims were experimentally falsified and Behe's figure of 10^20 is known to be wrong by a factor of 10^5. Since Behe squared 10^20 to get 10^40, his error is at least 10^10.Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86627618605178825202014-08-20T23:54:00.604-04:002014-08-20T23:54:00.604-04:00Hey Bilbo, why don't you contact your hero Beh...Hey Bilbo, why don't you contact your hero Behe and ask him why he doesn't reply to Larry and others HERE? If Behe has the one and only, omnipotent, omniscient designer-creator-god on his side I would think that Behe should at least have enough balls to discuss/debate his claims directly with people who challenge and refute his claims. Posting his claims on ENV, where no "reply", discussion or debate is possible, is the act of a coward. The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11473245799848816952014-08-20T23:02:10.607-04:002014-08-20T23:02:10.607-04:00Behe's posted his reply to Larry:
http://www...Behe's posted his reply to Larry: <br /><br />http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/guide_of_the_pe089161.htmlBilbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06231440026059820600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-1568160093166090032014-08-20T18:58:09.366-04:002014-08-20T18:58:09.366-04:00"The CCC has to do with both location and typ..."The CCC has to do with both location and type of a.a. difference using the P. falciparum model."<br /><br />That's not how Behe got to his conclusion about cloroquine resisitance in P. falciparum. We have been over this in another thread, so I repeat:<br /><br />Behe's major mistake is that he assumes the ten or so instances of CR that have been documented represents all instances of the evolution of CR in P. falciparum. The chance of developing CR in Behe's calculations, 1 in 10^20, is 10 (or so) divided by the total number of malaria parasites that have grown in all human victims over the study period. This makes an assumption: That those 10 instances of documented CR are the only instances ever to have evolved in the history of the species. This is a completely unsubstantiated assumption. It also necessitates at least 3 corollary assumptions:<br /><br />1. That all of those cases of CR arose in a population exposed a level of treatment with cloroquine such that CR rose to sufficient levels in the parasite population to be detected by health workers and documented to the point it could be published in peer-reviewed literature. Otherwise those instances of CR could not have become part of Behe's numerator in the 10^-20 calculation.<br />2. No instances of CR arose in a mosquito, or else<br />3. Every instance of CR that developed in a mosquito went on to infect a human who then went on to fulfill the requirements of 1.<br />Chris Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04778164246719803780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-80327738947363917372014-08-20T18:49:48.961-04:002014-08-20T18:49:48.961-04:00"Your example proves that to overcome huge im..."Your example proves that to overcome huge improbabilities in a "random" way won't happen. However, intelligent agents have no problem overcoming them."<br />The fact that the cards are manufactured by people is irrelevant. That has no bearing on the random dealing of a subset of those cards. You could have 52 different rocks and randomly pick a subset of them. That the cards were made in a factory in China and the rocls picked up out of a field have no bearing whatsoever on the probabilities of picking any defined subset of them.<br /><br />"Well, this is a little baffling. Behe's argument is that this could not have happened by 'chance,' not that it couldn't have happened."<br /><br />So the next logical conclusion is that some invisible omnipotent force supernaturally intevened to make those 25 aa substitutions? I propose a simpler hypothesis: Behe's calculations are wrong.<br /><br />Evolution says nothing about the existence of god; it is irrelevant to the evolutionary theory. Nobody has to prove god doesn't exist to study evolution.Chris Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04778164246719803780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-13919750557224032162014-08-20T16:32:31.885-04:002014-08-20T16:32:31.885-04:00Larry:
You write: What this means is that every ...Larry:<br /><br />You write: <i>What this means is that every time you sit down and play a few hands of bridge you are experiencing probabilities that are lower than the double CCC that upsets Michale Behe. You don't act suprised when you see your bridge hand and you don't attribute it to any of the gods.</i><br /><br />How were these "cards" designed? How were they manufactured? How were they grouped together as a complete deck? How were they "dealt"? <br /><br />Answer to each of these questions: human beings. I.e., intelligent agents. Your example proves that to overcome huge improbabilities in a "random" way won't happen. However, intelligent agents have no problem overcoming them.<br /><br />You also write:<br /><br /><i>Really? Does he really mean that there can't be any examples of two mutations occurring in the same gene since humans and chimps diverged? <br /><br />Let's think about this in two ways. First, the theory. . . . If we assume that only one of these occurs in a gene, then in the upcoming generation every single human on Earth will have a CCC (two new mutations in a single gene). Behe says that this is impossible.</i><br /><br />But, of course, in any single infected human, 10^12 replications of the malarial parasite takes place, and so, within any infected human, given the malarial mutation rate and the sheer number of replications, you will have 'genes' within the parasite that differ by two a.a.s. So, I don't see how this can be what Behe intends.<br /><br />It seems to me that Behe means that there is a "specific difference" at 'two' "specific locations" along the length of the gene. Given neutral drift, a two a.a. difference within a gene would be commonplace, but not a 'specific' difference at two 'specific locations.' The CCC has to do with both location and type of a.a. difference using the <i>P. falciparum </i>model.<br /><br /><i>I took the human fibinogen alpha chain and BLASTED it against the chimp genome. I used the amino acid sequences so we could see mutations that gave rise to new amino acids in the lineages leading to chimps and humans. The result is shown on the left.<br /><br />There are 25 amino acid substitutions.</i><br /><br />Well, this is a little baffling. Behe's argument is that this could not have happened by 'chance,' not that it couldn't have happened.<br /><br />If you assume that God doesn't exist, nor any other god with supernatural powers and intelligence, then that leaves material forces. But you can't "prove" evolution gives the proper answer by "assuming that God doesn't exist." It seems like you would have to prove that God doesn't exist---or any other god-like being. Can you do this?<br /><br />Lino Di Ischiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00904662370561530557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-10249715458924392062014-08-20T13:13:02.250-04:002014-08-20T13:13:02.250-04:00The whole truth wrote:
"And it has been a co...The whole truth wrote:<br /><br />"And it has been a couple of days and no pizza and pop has been delivered to me. Bummer."<br /><br />I'm just curious... Did you pray for it...???Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-39515864343166611182014-08-19T21:29:08.764-04:002014-08-19T21:29:08.764-04:00And it has been a couple of days and no pizza and ...And it has been a couple of days and no pizza and pop has been delivered to me. Bummer. The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-71329417862232450272014-08-19T20:14:12.270-04:002014-08-19T20:14:12.270-04:00"Every single scholar who has ever looked at ..."Every single scholar who has ever looked at this says that the uncanny knowledge, accuracy, and prediction "<br /><br />Yeah. You know what would be uncanny? An appendix in the Bible listing the first thousand digits of the decimal expansion of Pi, and then blocks of 100 digits from the expansion starting at digit i = 2^n for a couple hundred integer values of n. There is no way to forge that, no way to write the 'prediction' after the fact. We'd spend the rest of eternity computing the next block listed in that appendix and each time we found the next block that this ancient book already knew it we'd get a little confirmation of how remarkable this book is. That would be uncanny. <br /><br />But we don't get anything like that do we? We don't get even simple observations, like that matter is made up of atoms, or that radio waves exist, or penguins, or how useful it is to boil one's drinking water. It is a myopic book of mostly soap opera concerns of god(s) and humans, who likes/hates/has sex with/kills who, whose silence on virtually the entire realm of hard won human knowledge is not only unconvincing, but actually very damning. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04154347674738679778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-9099853770343428202014-08-19T19:46:14.820-04:002014-08-19T19:46:14.820-04:00@The whole truth Indeed. The Bible is full of ex...@The whole truth Indeed. The Bible is full of examples of ways to show that god exists. In the story in 1 Kings, Elijah shows the proper way to impress upon someone the existence of god: by getting fire to fall from the sky and land on an altar. While not unassailable , it's at least evidence of some sort. Notably, he mocked the prophets of Baal for their god's failure to show up: “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” Elijah strikes the right note here. Why shouldn't we use the exact same taunts when your god fails to show up now? <br /><br />Now, in Sunday School I was taught that that story was the proof. That's clearly ridiculous. If stories were evidence, then this story doesn't make sense, since in the story Elijah already had the stories of the parting of the Red Sea and the Plagues and other sundry stuff he could have quoted to the prophets of Baal as 'evidence'. But he didn't do that because everyone knows stories aren't convincing evidence. So he does something reasonable, and arranges a demonstration. Whoever wrote 1 Kings knew that nothing less would seem convincing. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04154347674738679778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-82069355872496285242014-08-19T19:33:03.108-04:002014-08-19T19:33:03.108-04:00@Piotr Yes, humans have a particular blind spot ...@Piotr Yes, humans have a particular blind spot for probability and even among the trained, intuition often leads one astray. Very few things in probability are actually obvious or "clear" in that sense, and so it's probably wrong, even when you have the right answer, to say that it is. I had read of experiments by Tversky and Kahneman illustrating how badly our probabilistic intuition fails, even among people trained in statistics, but the Erdős story is exceptionally striking. <br /><br />In the case of the birthday problem, I did actually know how to compute it correctly (both versions). I've even taught this in a class. So I'm equal measures puzzled at why I came up with the bogus number and embarrassed that I did. I know I was quoting form memory the 50/50 result (inaccurately, it's closer to 23 people). In any case, your point is well taken: compute always. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04154347674738679778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-47035847187913472442014-08-18T17:14:27.859-04:002014-08-18T17:14:27.859-04:00Ack! What a horrible gaff on my part. Serves me ri...<i>Ack! What a horrible gaff on my part. Serves me right for attempting an off-the-cuff comment so far after my bedtime.</i><br /><br />In fact, you weren't far off, as 20/365 = 0.5479..., but with the intuitive logic you seemed to regard as "clear" the probability that someone in a group of 365 random people has the same birthday as you should equal 1, while it's really 0.6326...<br /><br />It's fascinating how easy it is to be wrong about probabilities. Paul Erdős, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, was inexplicably confused by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem" rel="nofollow">Monty Hall problem</a> and found it hard to accept the correct solution after it had been explained to him.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-38650741645651086682014-08-18T16:54:09.901-04:002014-08-18T16:54:09.901-04:00Gluon: Pedro: I think even if there was only one ...Gluon: <i>Pedro: I think even if there was only one way to get resistance in P.f. and Behe could show it, Behe would still have major work ahead of him to demonstrate that evolving other traits of interest are similarly constrained.</i><br /><br />Yes, and Behe does try to do that later in <i>EoE</i>. Eventually, I hope Moran and Behe will debate that as well. So far, I have enjoyed and appreciated Moran's taking the time to discuss these issues. I hope he finds the time to continue the discussion. Bilbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06231440026059820600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-14351842687555258462014-08-18T16:49:22.913-04:002014-08-18T16:49:22.913-04:00Pedro: But it should have been clear by now that ...Pedro: <i> But it should have been clear by now that neither Behe nor anyone else knows how many alternative ways to get resistence are there. </i><br /><br />But as Behe points out <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/how_many_ways_a088981.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>, if there are other ways for <i>P. falciparum</i> to develop chloroquine resistance, they would be even less probable. Bilbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06231440026059820600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-51360377572844268822014-08-18T15:40:44.790-04:002014-08-18T15:40:44.790-04:00Piotr: Ack! What a horrible gaff on my part. S...Piotr: Ack! What a horrible gaff on my part. Serves me right for attempting an off-the-cuff comment so far after my bedtime. <br /><br />Diogenes: Clearly, some power has been at work in your family. <br /><br />Pedro: I think even if there was only one way to get resistance in P.f. and Behe could show it, Behe would still have major work ahead of him to demonstrate that evolving other traits of interest are similarly constrained. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04154347674738679778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-52670450281494300412014-08-18T09:35:17.310-04:002014-08-18T09:35:17.310-04:00John Block said: "We must put all worldviews ...John Block said: "We must put all worldviews not the table for evaluation and not rule out any a priori."<br /><br />Well then, let's put Satanism on the table, and Voodoo, and Pastafarianism, and Wicca, and every personal worldview that any human has now and has ever had. That, of course, would include every individual's version of christianity and all other religions throughout the entire history of humans. <br /><br />How would you suggest that all the caveman worldviews be presented and evaluated? You don't want to leave out all the caveman worldviews, do you? The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-32667479802237591232014-08-18T09:13:17.604-04:002014-08-18T09:13:17.604-04:00Pedro, the judge's opinion in the Dover case g...Pedro, the judge's opinion in the Dover case goes on at length about this false argument that there are only two choices, and thus for anything evolutionary theory can't explain in full right now, ID is the only alternative. That of course is why virtually all ID argumentation and research consists of trying to raise questions about evolution. The only pro-ID argument I can recall that is not of this form is the paper I believe Jonathan Wells co-authored saying "It looks designed to me, therefore it *was* designed."judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-42691050919230039102014-08-18T09:08:51.312-04:002014-08-18T09:08:51.312-04:00John Block said: "...but it seems to me also ...John Block said: "...but it seems to me also plain that you have never consulted any academic resources or Biblical scholarship about the Bible."<br /><br />There's no such thing as academic resources or scholarship about the bible, in the way that you're asserting. The bible is a variously translated, variously edited, variously interpreted, horribly written, incredibly boring, antiquated, mostly incomprehensible, contradictory collection of monstrous, impossible, sado-masochistic fairy tales. It doesn't take "academic resources" or "scholarship" to figure that out. <br /><br />You asked: "...is the character of Jesus in the Gospels (read them all carefully) somehow morally lacking to you?"<br /><br />And: "But where does Jesus look like a self-indulgent, hateful criminal or crook to deserve this scorn?"<br /><br />Well, since you asked, here are just a couple of things in the bible that you seem to have missed:<br /><br />Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34<br /><br />But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27<br /><br />Sounds self-indulgent and hatefully criminal to me. <br />The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-1069141390038800322014-08-18T08:18:35.841-04:002014-08-18T08:18:35.841-04:00One aspect of the intellectual dishonesty of ID pr...One aspect of the intellectual dishonesty of ID proponents is somewhat tangential to this discussion but relevant: when Newton came up with his gravitation theory, the orbits of the planets were shown to be unstable. Some people were quick to point out that god was stabilizing the orbits for our benefit. Laplace, ~150 years later, showed that a mechanistic explanation was perfectly suitable. Then Mercury was the problem. ~100 years later, Relativity took care of that. The History of Science (and religion) is full of god-of-the-gaps claims that just kept (and keep) being pulverized to oblivion.<br /><br />Let's imagine, <i>for the sake of the argument</i>, that Behe is right and that the present molecular evolutionary models we have are insuficient and that the probabilistic arguments are actually clear and irrefutable; why exactly would it follow that god/design is the answer? Isn't it far more sane and sensible that the models we have now would just be wrong and that better mechanistic ones would be needed? That perhaps there are mechanisms that we are not aware of? Given the entire history of science why exactely would this *not* be a much more reasonable position than another god-of-the-gaps argument? When two hypothesis are available, showing that one is wrong doesn't make the other right, specialy when there is zero evidence for the alternative (gods, miracles, resurrections, magic). Compared to ID, even Natural Genetic Engineering or the strong versions of Panspermia sound plausible. Why not one of those instead? Isn't it obvious that there is an agenda here that has little to do with science and more with conforting our faith? Behe, Dembsky, and Denton, know this fully well.Pedro A B Pereirahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15195139833344839287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-45851915441672817962014-08-18T08:07:38.429-04:002014-08-18T08:07:38.429-04:00John, Mikkel has alluded to what I'd describe ...John, Mikkel has alluded to what I'd describe as the "meta-evidentiary" problem. A couple of thousand years ago, as evidence of miracles we have pillars of fire and seas being split. Now we have *better* opportunities for observation (everywhere - if there were a pillar of fire or a sea splitting anywhere on Earth today, it wouldn't be missed), but for "miracles" we're down to faces on tortillas or a pattern of fertilizer spray on a window that looks to some people like European Renaissance paintings of Mary. It's a property of reality that more opportunities for observation result in more observations. With miracles, we see many more opportunities and few or no observations. What conclusion does this lead to regarding whether miracles are real?judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-85407026846287990062014-08-18T07:57:27.105-04:002014-08-18T07:57:27.105-04:00I'm going to repeat a recommendation of a book...I'm going to repeat a recommendation of a book by a noted Bible scholar that helps explain and put into historical context the "fulfillment of [Old Testament] prophecy" we see in the New Testament regarding Jesus: http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-41569296105677184752014-08-18T07:52:44.504-04:002014-08-18T07:52:44.504-04:00Everything seems completely non-quantitative and i...<i>Everything seems completely non-quantitative and ill-defined. No one knows or has given detailed models concerning what it takes to construct developmental circuitry, kernels, pathways, whatever else in evolutionary sequence.</i><br /><br />As Diogenes has said rather forthrightly, if you think this, (1) you are quite wrong, and (2) it shows you haven't bothered to do much if any reading in the scholarly literature, where hundreds of papers on just this type of topic are published in peer reviewed scientific journals every single year.<br /><br />Far from demonstrating problems with evolution, what you have thus demonstrated is that your faiths (in God and against evolution) have made you lazy and overconfident. Do the necessary background research, *then* consider yourself qualified to comment.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-89090152565484302032014-08-18T07:47:11.426-04:002014-08-18T07:47:11.426-04:00Finally, what evidence is there that there are so ...<i>Finally, what evidence is there that there are so many viable adaptive trajectories for specific adaptational demands?</i><br /><br />Well, there IS evidence of different paths being evolved to achieve the same adaptation. The Flavobacterium, Sp. KI72, that evolved nylon-digesting enzimes, evolved a different set of enzimes than Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which also evolved nylon-eating enzimes, but different ones. How many more variants can there be? 1? 10? 100?<br /><br />It would alos be good not to forget about frameshift mutations, which have the potential to produce significant, and fast, changes with functional viability. Point mutations isn't all there is for evo to work with:<br /><br />http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754306001807Pedro A B Pereirahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15195139833344839287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-32056846687984642052014-08-18T07:34:16.717-04:002014-08-18T07:34:16.717-04:00John Block -
What are the chances your parents fo...John Block -<br /><br />What are the chances your parents found each other, out of all the people on Earth? And their parents, and their parents, and their parents...? Therefore, odds are strongly against your existence. Please prove to me you are real. (It must be a miracle!)<br /><br />Actually, it's all down to something Behe himself said in his book:<br /><br /><i>the likelihood that such a mutation could arise just once in the entire course of the human lineage in the past ten million years, is minuscule—of the same order as, say, the likelihood of you personally winning the Powerball lottery by buying a single ticket.</i><br /><br />Behe keeps calculating odds with the perspective that there is only one "correct" mutation of set of mutations by which evolution can take place, and therefore we're restricted to the odds of *you* winning the Powerball. But there are many, many mutational/evolutionary paths organisms can take and have taken, so the perspective we should have is, what are the chances that *someone* will win the Powerball? And that happens all the time, doesn't it?<br /><br />Every time you read about another Powerball winner, remind yourself that this is an example of Dr. Behe being wrong about the math he uses regarding evolution.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.com