On the contrary, when scientists find anything at odds with existing theory, the race is on to publish before someone else can scoop them by publishing first. The same methods used to confirm Common Descent (a prediction from ToE) might also be used so show some other hypothesis is an even better explanation for the data. All that is lacking to put ID to the test are hypotheses.
In all the ID literature, do you know how many testable hypotheses have been published? I’ll blur it for suspense …
One. The Dependency Graph (Ewert 2016).
It’s an old sad story about how science is entrenched and ID is (Help! Help! I’m being) repressed. It just ain’t so. Well accepted methods to test ID hypotheses exist. The data are voluminous and growing every day. Scientists stand to gain reputation and promotion by refuting old ideas, not by maintaining a broken status quo. ID research could and (IMO) should be putting their own ideas to the test and publishing instead of complaining about how repressed they are. Why are ID researchers so afraid of testing their own ideas?
Here is another example which discusses tests of Common Ancestry and demonstrates a new/refined method to test Common Ancestry versus Separate Ancestry. Any ID research could copy these methods and substitute any ID hypothesis. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/036327v1.full
2 Likes
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
102
The only way to change ToE is by scientific analysis.
If Dr. Behe thinks “Design” happens behind the curtains of providential natural processes,
can you think of any way of demonstrating the ABSENCE of design?
Not in as many words. The only thing is IC and it seems that is an impossible concept for science to either grasp or accept, in terms of construction. As long as scientists think that anything can be built piece by piece like a Lego construct nothing will change.
‘Scientists’ - those involved in evolutionary biology, at least - don’t think that and never have. Evolution is known not to work by building things piece by piece. Almost all evolution consists of duplicating, modifying and combining existing ‘pieces’.
Nor is Irreducible Complexity (IC) an impossible concept for ‘science’ to grasp. It is grasped, it’s just not accepted. Nor should it be, not just because the way evolution actually works means that IC is not an obstacle, but also because there is evidence for IC systems evolving.
IC is a creationist concept that is only convincing to those who don’t know enough about evolution to understand how it happens in practice. Nor is it helped by the fact that the main examples of IC that have been touted by creationists and IDers - flagella, blood-clotting, eyes - are all demonstrably not irreducible.
P.S. Anyone who wants to see who really doesn’t understand IC should check out this thread.
Then know you are not alone, because no one else in ID can put this into words either. The key problem; there is no hypothesis about Design to define when it is absent. This CAN be done for specific hypothesis (like separate origins), as the articles I linked demonstrate, but it seems no one within ID is interested in doing science.
It was nearly 100 years ago that a scientist (H. Muller, 1931?) predicted that “IC” could evolve, except I think he called it “Interlocking Complexity”.
The LEGO analogy cuts both ways, because how else would a Designer work if not assembling piece by piece? If the Designer is doing it’s work in the same way as evolution, then the two are indistinguishable; the Designer could be evolution itself
4 Likes
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
106
You seem to think that if people don’t believe as you do then they don’t understand your beliefs. That isn’t the case. Scientists understand the concept of irreducible complexity just fine, they just happen to disagree with it and have the evidence to back it up.
A parallel example is certain Flat Earth arguments. For example, Flat Earthers will claim that scientists don’t understand centripetal forces because if they did they would understand that people would be hurled off of a rotating Earth that spins at 1,000 mph at the equator. Of course, scientists reject this argument because they do understand centripetal forces, they do understand gravity, and they are able to do the math which the Flat Earthers seem incapable of doing. The same applies to IC. You used bird features as an example of IC and gave us a list of components that all had to be present in order for birds to work. We showed you Microraptor, an extinct species that didn’t have all of those features but still functioned just fine, including flight feathers. We also have examples of IC systems evolving in the fossil record, such as the irreducibly complex mammalian middle ear.
No scientist thinks that.
2 Likes
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
107
In case you need the reference in the future:
“… thus a complicated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was dependent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different elementary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which, when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary because other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become changed so as to be dependent on the former. It must result, in consequence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery; for this reason we should expect very many, if not most, mutations to result in lethal factors …”
Muller, H. J. (1918) “Genetic variability, twin hybrids and constant hybrids, in a case of balanced lethal factors.” Genetics 3:422-499.
If a system can evolve it is not IC, I do not care how much you dispute this. Rewriting IC is a cheat.
The whole point of an IC is that it cannot be made using the evolutionary process.
More pendantic deflection?
Evolution relies on small changes. IC claims that such a system cannot be made that way. That is the whole point.
Richard
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
109
If you do not know, then you do not know evolutionary theory.
Richard
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
111
Then it would appear you don’t know. Otherwise, you would be able to describe the criteria for determining what can evolve. You are illustrating the intellectual bankruptcy of IC.
Besides, I have been trying to weedle out of you what constitutes a “small” change for several years now, and as that is the crux of the whole discussion I am not going to give you the pleasure of claiming me wrong.
You are rewriting the definition of IC every time you claim it means a system that can’t evolve. It does not.
4 Likes
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
114
I’m going with Behe’s definition since he is the one that came up with it.
“By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution.”–Michael Behe
Microraptor and the mammalian middle ear both demonstrate that IC systems can function with fewer parts and can evolve through slight modifications.
So you refuse to define the evolutionary process (again) Without that definition, there can be no identifying what it can or cannot do. (Or what would constitute an IC)
Richard
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
119
The evolutionary process is descent with modification. It is also defined as the change in allele frequencies over time. Mutations can modify organisms, and natural selection can select against or for those modifications.
Changes? how big? A new limb or two? A heart? A pair of wings? A complete thermionic control system?
Brilliant! and as vague as the length of a piece of string!
A change over time!
How can you claim something can or cannot happen if you have no idea what the scope of the change is!
There is no definition. There is no quantity, no data, nothing
And quoting one of your genetic tables is meaningless when you do not know what it means in terms of physiological changes.
IC is about physiology not genetics. It is about systems not Alleles. It is also about ecological interaction and reliance which does not come under individual genetics.
This is basic evolutionary theory, not the stuff you keep on about.