Proof of Intelligent Designer (Finally)!
Aaron Kinney Permalink
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When you lose, you lose. Its time to concede victory to the Intelligent Design camp, and the Discovery Institute. This mysterious designer that intelligently designs everything in existence has been positively identified.
What grand intelligent designing entity is this? Why, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of course!
Finally, we have positive identification of an –until now– unknown designing entity. Finally, we have substance to support these designing claims.
How evolution can survive such an overwhelming argument? I don’t know. Nor do I care, for I am now converting. That’s right! I am no longer an atheist; I am now a member of the brand new and rapidly growing religion which was inspired by the Flying Spaghetti Monster: Pastafarianism.
All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all hail Bobby Henderson (pasta be upon him)!
RAmen.
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Follow up: boing boing has issued a $1million challenge for anyone that can produce empirical evidence that proves that Jesus Christ is NOT the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Good luck with that one, silly Christians. The truth is so obvious, and yet you are all so sinful and self-deceptivelly in denial of this obvious truth.
Fools!
Cool beans! I like it! There's nothing like an intelligent but funny retort to illuminate bogus logic.
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brucker speaks wisely. Pasta be upon him (pbuh).
RAmen.
I understand that the Flying Spaghetti Monster's meatballs are both fully organic and fully non-organic, fully pork and fully non-pork, fully edible and fully non-edible. But of course, these are not contradictions because the Flying Spaghetti Monster's meatballs, which have been resurrected from the meat-grinder, have two natures. So, no contradiction at all!
Isn't it neat what a little wordplay, doubletalk and nonsense can do?
Brilliant, not reformed and bahnsen burner!
I am making you honorary meatball priests.
Another reason that this religion is superior, is that you can actually eat the body (noodles) and drink the blood (sauce) of this deity, without using fake substitute substances like pita bread and grape juice (you know how those Christians are).
You guys can joke around like assholes, but the fact is, evolution is the biggest joke of all. If you have any sense of logic, you would've realised this a long time ago.
Thanx Dave. You have now convinced me that the carefully observed, empirically verifiable thoery of evolution is total bullshit.
I am now subscribing to your far-more-sensible superstition of talking shrubs, evil snakes, paradoxically perfect gardens with evil trees in them, beings of perfect good creating beings of perfect evil, and an infallible god who repeatedly changes his mind and destroys his own failed creations for merely exhibiting the traits which he instills in them.
Your tale of a god sacrificing himself to himself in order to circumvent a law that he created himself that would have forced him to send his own flawed creations into a hell that he created himself is WAAAAY more sensical and logical, and the fact that is has no real evidence is only a testament to the truth of its immaterial nature.
Pasta be upon you, Dave.
"You guys can joke around like assholes, but the fact is, evolution is the biggest joke of all."
Dave Harty is an asshole AND the biggest joke of all. Dave Harty is a troglodyte banging the keyboard with his big stick, grunting a prayer to his sky-fairy. Dave Harty should stop banging the keyboard with his big stick and go do what his Christians do best : threaten people with force until they follow his religion.
Did you guys see Daves profile? He says that he doesnt believe in God!
So what the heck does he believe concerning the origins of humans? I see no consistency.
I take that back. He's probably just some stupid post-modernist.
As a member of DUH (Design by Unintelligent Hand) I regret that we must now become bitter enemies. Your doctrine disagrees with the one I have chosen to follow in regard to the degree of intelligence of the Creator, and therefore you are wrong. I foresee a long period of name-calling and bickering ahead, culminating in a holy war. Do not despair, however. The potential loss of members to one of our organizations, caused by the other, will be more than made up by the publicity of our disagreement. Think of the accusations of persecution that we can hurl at each other! People will flock to our respective causes!
By the way, I hope that you carefully thought through the consequences of your actions before you left the safe little world of the atheist enclave. You must now decide whether you are going to amass a Following, or choose a leader that you will believe without question. This is very important since an irrational mob might be required at a moment’s notice to create the illusion of Public Opinion. Please give us your leader’s name as soon as possible so that we can begin the important business of mocking you. Please also stay away from Joseph Smith’s great-great-great grandson until we have completed negotiations with his agent.
You should also seriously consider becoming a martyr, or elevating some devout but annoying person in your ranks to that status. There is nothing like a good martyr to make the point that you are a serious religious contender. Perhaps someone could be persuaded to take one for the team while proselytizing at the Olive Garden? Just a thought. We are still working on a plan involving the “little bus”, and will be sure to include you in any press releases. I sincerely hope that this will be the beginning of a very profitable enmity, and look forward to many fine and public displays of screaming nonsense at each other.
Best regards,
Breakerslion
Unofficial spokesperson for DUH
Hey breakerslion ? Is it true you're part of a band ?
I have not been associated with a band in almost 30 years, and even then I was a sound technician and roadie, and only noodled around on the bass guitar. Sorry to disappoint, and where did that rumor come from, by the way?
I just re-read my last post. I meant no sacrilige when I said I noodled around on the Bass! ;-)
It is true, I think GOD is a joke as well. Religion is for the ignorant, or at least, the blissfully ignorant. I subscribe to Intelligent Design. I can already tell how, and from what direction you are going to attack me. (Your scent is in the wind.) Part of the problem here is that you tend to say the same things so often that they become your own truth, and you believe your own truth as fact. Like for instance, that those who believe in Intelligent Design are Christian fanatics. I'm am 100% Atheist. How do you account for this? You may have to re-examine your facts' origins.
What separates me from Holy Rollers who support ID? Well, first of all, Christians support Intelligent Design, because it fits into their model of creation. If evolution fit into a particular religious model, would it be okay to associate it with that religion? Second, I don't personally believe there was just one designer. If I said that, I may as well say god, because only a god (or Santa Claus) could do that much without breaking a sweat. I have come to hypothesize that groups of hundreds, perhaps thousands of designers (i.e. engineers) created life on this planet. Such a hypothesis would explain such notorious tenets as: DNA origins, complexity and continuity; the Cambrian Explosion, the rise and fall of the dinosaur; extinction, specification, supposed homology (Evolutionists today admit that "similar organs do not represent evidence of evolution."), predation, and the design "flaws." The engineers are intelligent, but even the most intelligent designer sometimes makes errors. This is of course assuming that mistakes were made. We assume an organ or a bit of bone serves the organism no purpose, but this simply means we have yet to discover its purpose. Clearly (as even stated on this blog) the human appendix has a purpose.
I'm not just ranting here like some unintelligent, internet junkie. I've studied evolution extensively and stay up-to-date with the newest observations and literature. I also read the on-going debates concerning origins. One such article I read recently featured Michael Behe's explaination of the irreducibly complex blood clotting system. The evolutionary rebuttal stated that the system is now believed to have evolved ("evolution duplicated, retargeted, and modified these proteins") from the simpler digestive cascade. There is no logic in this point. Saying it simply evolved really says nothing. It's an end-cap. How did it change? It evolved. The author makes no attempt to explain how the macroscopic organism would survive with an inoperable digestive cascade. Nor do they show the unbelieveable chances of a mutation occuring that would alter the DNA concerning that specific protein in such a way that it could lead to a future, as yet unrealized, blood clotting cascade protein. Not to mention how this miracle evolved blood cascade found its way to to the blood stream from the digestive system, and at the same time not causing the entire population carrying these genes to die off completely.
A comon trap (pardon the pun) many of these scientists fall into when rebutting, or explaining how evolution "could have done it," is that each sucessive step has to be completely random and yet still successive for the system to evolve. Working on pure chaos, John H. McDonald's "A reducibly complex mousetrap" falls apart by step 4, when the trap fails because the mouse can easily get the cheese without triggering the spring mechanism. The point here though, is that intelligence put the first piece of wire in front of the mouse hole, engineered the coil for trapping efficiency, adds bait, and by step four, provides the floor mounting. In a purely chaotic natural system, how does the wire get a coil? And what does it do in the billions of years until natural chaos spins one in? The coil itself is a pretty complex feature, biologically speaking it would comprised of thousands of very specific chemicals that specify: density, turn radius, elasticity, etc. All of which is information that would have to be in place for the coil to work at all. To say "Adding a coil" is to assume that this is as simple as picking up the wire and twisting it around a pencil. But that would require intelligent intent with a motive. I don't understand how an educated person could see the "reduciby complex mousetrap" as an explaination of anything. Sure the animations are cute, but they make the author seem fairly unintelligent. Natural selection would favor a better design within the first couple minutes.
Intelligent Design, however, can explain Blood Clotting. Intelligent designers could see the particular enzymes and proteins needed to cause such a complex cascade, as well as design the system as a sort of canal with lockdoors that prevent certain other celluar or chemical occurances. Blood clotting can only happen one way. I won't go into details here (see Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box for specific chemical names and the process.)
Why would a theory, supposedly based on pure science, need to falsify claims of evidence? The following is a list of such claims made by evolutionists over the years that have since been exposed as fraud: Piltdown man, Nebraska man, Java man, Ocre man, Neanderthal man, Haeckel's Embryo drawings, the Peppered moths. The most recent and perhaps the most infamous evolution fraud was committed in China and published in 1999 in the journal National Geographic 196:98-107, November 1999. Dinosaur bones were put together with the bones of a newer species of bird and they tried to pass it off as a very important new evolutionary intermediate! George Gaylord Simpson, world's foremost evolutionary paleontologist said, "The uniform, continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus (the evolutionary horse series), so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers never happened in nature. This is true of all the thirty-two orders of mammals. The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed." (George G. Simpson, Life Of The Past, p.119)
Michael Behe is not the only microbiologist or scientist to realize evolution is deficient. If you'll look back at your post, you'll notice my first comment on this blog featured an article documenting this. (You may need to scroll down, I'm the last comment.) A list of over 70 biologists have signed the "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism." Now this does not necessarily point to ID, but it does show that evolution is a joke with a punch line that the science world is just starting to get.
I'd like to share as a final point, an actual conversation between George (a bed & breakfast owner) and Jeff (a molecular biologist working in genetic research) who happened to be staying at George's establishment.
George: "Sounds like pretty complicated work."
Jeff: "You can't imagine how complicated!"
George: "Try me."
Jeff: "I'm a bit like an editor, trying to find a spelling mistake inside a document larger than four complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. One hundred volumes, thousands and thousands of pages of small print words."
George: "With the computer, you can just use spell check?"
Jeff: "There is no spell check, because we don't know yet how the words are supposed to be spelled. We don't even know for sure which language. And it's not just the spelling error we're looking for. If any of the punctuation is out of place, or a space out of place, or a grammatical error, we have a mutation that will cause a disease."
George: "So how do you do it?"
Jeff: "We are learning as we go. We have already read about two articles in that encyclopedia, and located some typo's. It should get easier as time goes by."
George: "How did all that genetic information get there?"
Jeff: "Do you mean, did it just happen? Did it evolve?"
George: "Bingo. Do you believe that the information evolved?"
Jeff: "George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by 'genius beyond genius,' and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."
George: "Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?"
Jeff: "No. It just evolved."
George: "What? You just told me ---"
Jeff: "Just stop right there. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold on to two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures - everything would stop. I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living."
George: "I hate to say it, Jeff, but that sounds intellectually dishonest."
Jeff: "The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the 'elephant in the living room'."
George: "What elephant?"
Jeff: "Creation (i.e. intelligent) design. It's like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up an enormous amount of space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn't there!"
Wow Dave! I think you just set a new record! There truly is no limit to the human imagination, but that's no excuse for disseminating drivel. The folks that run this blog need no help from me, but let me make a few observations anyway.
1. Long-windedness is no substitute for content, and that comes from a notorious long-poster!
2. Just because George V. Caylor posts an alleged conversation with some molecular biologist geek, that does not mean that the content is automatically a universal truth.
3. Michael Behe's theory is disgustingly flawed. Here's how: You want me to reduce a mousetrap? OK, sure. Get a cat. Don't like that answer? Ok, get a jar lid, put some Ginger Ale in it, and place it where you see mouse shit. Mouse will drink and die. Two parts, soda and container. The point is this, Behe's argument depends on the premise that I must use the parts of the machine he has, and does nothing to acknowledge that said machine EVOLVED over several iterations of the concept "mouse trap", each iteration being an improvement in efficiency. For that matter, Behe's mousetrap owes its existence to the spring and hammer mechanism of a flintlock pistol; it is a redesign of that principle with a different specialization. Before you jump on the word "redesign", let me say that natural forces can reduce mountains, why would you think that anything more would be necessary to reshape the biological element of this planet? A similar argument can be applied to the old "If you find a pocket watch in a meadow, the simplest explanation is that someone dropped it there, not that it evolved" argument. The pocket watch was not the first time-measuring device, nor is it more complex than the Queen Anne's Lace (plant) that is right next to it. As concerns the plant, it is more usual to assume that some animal or force of nature dropped a seed in that spot than that some totally unnecessary superbeing brought it forth from nothing.
I would like to hear what the others think, clearly you put up no original thought or even attempted to leave the metaphorical paradigm. Even if the conversation at the end of the article proves to be fiction, the growing list of scientists with serious doubts about evolution is not.
But since I have some time.
1. Long-windedness? Which of the specific points I made seemed to go on too long?
2. I never claimed the conversation was any sort of "universal truth." As I understood it, it was an actual conversation. If you can prove that this is a work of fiction, I invite you to. Until then, I have no reason to believe otherwise.
3. How have you proven that Michael Behe's theory is flawed? Have you actually taken the time to read his book, or have you simply read articles about it?
a. In your first example, you reduce a mouse trap by replacing the entire thing with a infinitely more complex system. Since you love your metaphors, biologically speaking that would be like reducing a tricycle by replacing it with Hummer.
b. Your second example is actually a irreducibly complex system. Take away the Ginger Ale, and you have a bottle cap, a trap that does better to collect crumbs than anything else. Take away the bottle cap and you have a puddle of ginger ale that either evaporates or seeps into the ground.
c. What you're getting at here is that intelligence evolves design, which is exactly my point. Engineers, such as those who designed the mouse trap started with simple designs and worked up. Clearly they had a motive to an end, the result being the functional mouse trap. Evolution, on the other hand depends on slight random mutation to move towards and end result without motive or a clear end view. In a lot of scientic articles I've read, mutation is used as a sort of magic wand. "The system needed AMP molecule, so a mutation occured." This is almost exactly how they read. What are the chances of that actually happening? And since evolution has no end view, how is this now crippled system (a system containing a mutation) propigated by natural selection?
d. Natural forces (i.e. erosion) pose no case for complex actions. Erosion is simply entropy. A mountain is a complex system of rock, roots, microcosms, geologic balance. Erosion does nothing to improve on the system.
e. This last point seems like complete gibberish. What point are you trying to make here? That the watch is less complex than the plant? I agree, it's vastly less complex.
I have a question, did you actually read my comment or just skim it? It sounds like you spotted Michael Behe's name and brought out your little bag of tricks.
What have you to say about my other points? How do you explain blood clotting evolution (please refrain from using metaphors.) Why have scientists felt the need to make fraudulent claims to further their theory? Please try to respond to me, not Michael Behe.
"the growing list of scientists with serious doubts about evolution is not."
Growing list of scientists with absolutely no competence related to Neo-Darwinism, yes. People with diplomas from diploma mills, who haven't published one measely paper (like the majority of ICR "scientists"), yes. Scientists who are actually relevant to the issue, NO.
Sorry about this, but you were begging for it.
SEATTLE--In an ironic greeting to the seven-part public television series "Evolution" that begins tonight, 100 scientists have declared that they "are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." The signers say, "Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based public policy center, compiled the list of statement signers (100). Among other things, the long list may help to answer the contention of designated spokespeople for the series "Evolution" that "virtually all reputable scientists in the world" support Darwin's theory.
Jonathan Wells, PhD Molecular & Cell Biology-U.C. Berkeley speaking before the Ohio Board of Education regarding Intelligent Design. Photo by Matt Sullivan for The New York Times
Institute officials charge that officials of WGBH/Clear Blue Sky Productions have used that contention to keep any scientific criticism of Darwinism from being acknowledged or examined in the eight-hour series.
"They want people to think that the only criticism of Darwin's theory today is from religious fundamentalists," said Discovery president Bruce Chapman. "They routinely try to stigmatize scientists who question Darwin as 'creationists'."
Chemist and five time Nobel nominee, Henry "Fritz" Schaefer of the University of Georgia, commented on the need to encourage debate on Darwin's theory of evolution.
"Some defenders of Darwinism," says Schaefer, "embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances." Schaefer was on the roster of signers of the statement, termed "A Scientific Dissent on Darwinism."
Meanwhile, a Zogby Poll released today shows overwhelming public support--81 percent--for the position that "When public broadcasting networks discuss Darwin's theory of evolution, they should present the scientific evidence for it, but also the scientific evidence against it." Only 10 percent support presenting "only the scientific evidence that supports" Darwin's theory. (Less than 10 percent said "Neither" or "Not sure.")
"Public television producers are clearly at odds with overwhelming public sentiment in favor of hearing all scientific sides of the debate," said Chapman, a former Director of the US Census Bureau. "The huge majorities in the poll cross every demographic, regional and political line in America." The national sample of 1,202 adults was conducted by Zogby International from August 25-29. The margin of error is +/-3.0%.
Discovery Institute commissioned the Zogby poll, though the survey itself was designed by the Zogby organization. It also included questions on education and "intelligent design," a theory that some scientific critics of Darwin support. (That theory makes no religious claims, but says that the best natural evidence for life's origins points to design rather than a process of random mutation and natural selection.)
Discovery Institute last week also opened a special website (www.reviewevolution.org) to critique the WGBH/Clear Blue Sky series in a scholarly "Viewer's Guide." Discovery officials say that the website analyzes all program segments in the series and has uncovered numerous scientific and historical errors, exaggerations and omissions. Full results of the Zogby poll also are available on the website.
"The numbers of scientists who question Darwinism is a minority, but it is growing fast," said Stephen Meyer, a Cambridge-educated philosopher of science who directs the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at Discovery Institute.
"This is happening in the face of fierce attempts to intimidate and suppress legitimate dissent. Young scientists are threatened with deprivation of tenure. Others have seen a consistent pattern of answering scientific arguments with ad hominem attacks. In particular, the series' attempt to stigmatize all critics--including scientists--as religious 'creationists' is an excellent example of viewpoint discrimination."
Signers of the statement questioning Darwinism came from throughout the US and from several other countries, representing biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, anthropology and other scientific fields.
Professors and researchers at such universities as Princeton, MIT, U Penn, and Yale, as well as smaller colleges and the National Laboratories at Livermore, CA and Los Alamos, N.M., are included. A number of the signers have authored or contributed to books on issues related to evolution, or have books underway.
Despite repeated requests, the series' producers refused to cover scientific objections to Darwinism. Instead, the producers offered only to let scientific dissenters go on camera to tell their "personal faith stories" in the last program of the series, "What About God?" According to Discovery's Chapman, "This was almost an insult to serious scientists.
Some of these dissenting scientists are not even religious. When you watch that last program, you realize they were wise to refuse to take part in it."
Jed Macosko, a young research molecular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a statement signer, said, "It is time for defenders of Darwin to engage in serious dialogue and debate with their scientific critics. Science can't grow where institutional gatekeepers try to prevent new challengers from being heard."
Dave you idiot. That 100 scientists thing is old news and was already blown out of the water by the "100 scientists named steve who support evolution" campaign. Where have you been hiding? If you want to play an argumentum ad populum game, you already know that youre beat.
Dave, your particular version of intelligent design belief doesnt answer the question of where we come from. IT MERELY PUSHES THE QUESTION BACK ONE LEVEL
Lemme explain: You said that thousands of engineers created life on this planet. Fine. But WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? Who designed them? Other engineers? Where did THOSE engineers come from? And on and on and on.
So Dave, we gotta get down to the bottom of the question, to the very foundation. What we gotta do is regress to the point where there is a life form in the universe that was the first, or the original. The ORIGINS of life.
So Dave, I got a question for you:
Do you think that life in the universe ORIGINATED via natural, unconscious forces in the universe, or do you think that life ORIGINATED via a conscious force?
Follow questions: If you think that life originated via natural forces, then why cling to intelligent design? And if you think life originated via a conscious force, then why do you call yourself an atheist?
He's probably some fucking post-modernist posing as an atheist, or maybe a Raelian. Or even a Scientologist. Some fucking whacko, at any rate.
Ok Dave, since you asked, some examples….
“I can already tell how, and from what direction you are going to attack me. (Your scent is in the wind.)”
– Non-informational, paranoiac, confrontational.
“I'm not just ranting here like some unintelligent, internet junkie….”
– Unnecessary attempt at persuasion. Your content should (and does) speak for itself.
“…or explaining how evolution "could have done it,…"
- Pedantic.
“Sure the animations are cute, but they make the author seem fairly unintelligent.”
– Opinion stated as fact, unnecessary to the central argument.
“Why would a theory, supposedly based on pure science, need to falsify claims of evidence? The following is a list of such claims made by evolutionists over the years that have since been exposed as fraud: Piltdown man, Nebraska man, Java man, Ocre man, Neanderthal man, Haeckel's Embryo drawings, the Peppered moths. The most recent and perhaps the most infamous evolution fraud was committed in China and published in 1999 in the journal National Geographic 196:98-107, November 1999. Dinosaur bones were put together with the bones of a newer species of bird and they tried to pass it off as a very important new evolutionary intermediate!”
– Spurious argument. “The theory” does not falsify anything, people do. The motives are personal notoriety and the same misguided belief system that causes religious fanatics to falsify all manner of “miracles”. To use this as an indication of invalidation is to throw the baby, the basin, and the whole house out with the bathwater. In any population, there will be a statistically measurable number of unscrupulous people.
“Part of the problem here is that you tend to say the same things so often that they become your own truth, and you believe your own truth as fact.”
- Unsubstantiated projection, generalization. Possibly true, but dismissive and requiring more intimate knowledge of your hosts than you have. Also requiring a background in psychology to be considered an authoritative statement.
“I'm am 100% Atheist. How do you account for this? You may have to re-examine your facts' origins.”
– Straw man. This is a fact that you yourself supplied. There is also no requirement that anyone else account for any part of your psyche. Also not relevant to your central argument against evolutionary theory.
“Now this does not necessarily point to ID, but it does show that evolution is a joke with a punch line that the science world is just starting to get.”
- Dissenting opinion shows only that there are alternative theories. The fact of dissent does not automatically invalidate anything. This sentence is propaganda, and it also assumes facts not in evidence by implying that scientists will flock to this banner in the future.
Examples of unnecessary, inaccurate, and/or yellow-journalistic modifiers:
“the unbelieveable chances”, “miracle evolved”, “completely random”, “Working on pure chaos”, “purely chaotic natural system” (I especially like that one, it is a self-contained oxymoron), “supposedly based “, “Clearly (as even stated on this blog) the human appendix has a purpose.”
I concede that, after line-by-line analysis, you are less long-winded than my first impression made you seem. The examples above, and your multi-pronged approach, are responsible for that impression.
“I have come to hypothesize that groups of hundreds, perhaps thousands of designers (i.e. engineers) created life on this planet. Such a hypothesis would explain such notorious tenets as: DNA origins, complexity and continuity; the Cambrian Explosion, the rise and fall of the dinosaur; extinction, specification, supposed homology (Evolutionists today admit that "similar organs do not represent evidence of evolution."), predation, and the design "flaws."
And who, may I ask, is responsible for designing these designers of yours? If they are complex enough to understand amino acids, proteins and peptides, I must presume that the same argument of “irreducibility” applies to them?
“(Evolutionists today admit that "similar organs do not represent evidence of evolution.")”
I think that should read, “Evolutionists admit, “Similar organs do not represent evidence of direct (linear) evolution.” They do, however, represent divergent biological solutions to the same problem.
Which brings me to Behe. In brief, you have missed my point. Behe creates a box, puts one in it, and then says, “Ha! You are in a box!” If you insist that I think inside his box, then he might be irrefutable, but I do not think his construct represents the parallel he draws to nature. For example: The conclusions drawn from the irreducibility of the clotting mechanism in blood does not take into account the possibly equally irreducible, less efficient, system that it might have replaced. Such a system need not even resemble the present structure. As a redundant system, the earlier, less efficient system could become a liability in terms of efficient use of energy to the organism and be bred out on that basis. As to how an organism could develop such a structure, one need only draw a parallel to the constant mutation of antibodies, and the cannibalistic functions of the liver. Could the liver be developed before there was hemoglobin for it to work on?
Let’s go back to the mousetrap. No mousetrap was ever invented before there was a perceived need for one. I suspect that the first mousetrap was a carefully thrown rock. Later models probably resembled a pitfall or a deadfall. My point is that no Victor Mousetrap sprang forth from someone’s head without a lot of iterative examples of the mousetrap idea that, while not failures, were not as efficient or convenient. Behe’s logic makes no accounting for the original process of creating mousetraps that culminated in that machine. As to your observation that I replaced the mousetrap with a more complex system (the cat), it really depends on how you look at it. Suppose I wanted to recreate the Victor Mousetrap from scratch without any outside help. First I would have to locate, mine, (first making the tools to do so), and smelt at least three types of ore (Iron, nickel, and zinc). I would have to build a forge, blacksmith tools, and temper the spring steel. I would also need to make charcoal at this point unless I wanted to reinvent the Bessemer Converter. I would have to create tools for cutting and finishing the wood part. I would have to make my own drafting board, writing instruments, and paper in order to design the finished product. I would have to find and powder more minerals for the paint (pigment), and crush flax seeds for the binder (more tools). Or, I could chuck the whole idea, find a pair of horny cats, and feed them.
As to George and his conversation, this paragraph makes it suspect for extreme editing if not downright fabrication:
"George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by 'genius beyond genius,' and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."
This is one of those overreaching statements found in many similar works that are known propaganda-fiction. It crams in too many “speaking points” to pass the sniff test. It also attempts to preempt independent thought with the phrase, “it is ridiculous to think otherwise.” This type of construction is often found in control-freak fiction. Besides, maybe Jeff doesn’t have many friends.
Okay, I've had my fill. (not admiting defeat yet) Clearly this push and pull isn't going to end anytime soon. You know what your next topic should be? Whether or not abortion should be allowed. I will say one final thing though, because it's going to bug me. I said I believe life on this planet was created by intelligent agents. It would not be hypocritical of me to say the engineers evolved. I've made no assumptions as to their origins, as I have no knowledge of life pre-dating life on this planet. The physical properties of this planet or solar system may differ greatly than in other systems, perhaps there is an as yet undiscovered, entirely different way for life to arrise. Perhaps the life that engineered terrestrial life in no way resembles the life they designed. That would explain why they had to start from scratch. But again, this all speculation. I don't know where the engineers came from, but they were intelligent and they designed life on this planet. I hate to use an old model (considering how many I've apparently used) but if you were to find an abondoned car without any markings, you would still understand that it was designed by somebody for some purpose, even if it was intended to be part of a pyrotechnic trick or something. Do you need to know who they were, where they were born, where they lived, where their parents came from, how their species arrose, etc. to infer design? If you could drop all the bullshit, and just think about it like a reasoning being, the answer is clearly no! You can substitute the car for a "pocketwatch" if that suits you better. The car, or even better, a computer, is more complex. Even something incredibly simple like a stick of deodorant was clearly designed for form and function. You don't have to be genius to figure that out. Take this how you like, but regardless, I don't need to know who the designer was to infer design, I can just use my brain.
Sorry, I said more than I meant to. And I know none of this is going to convince you or make you think twice. I just have the idea in my head I know to be truth. Surely you can understand that! I'm gonna go look at Olivia's toes. You guys have fun, play nice.
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