More Behe
Perhaps we can make up for our late post today by bringing you the latest available transcript, Day 12 AM (also known as this past Wednesday morning). It contains part of the cross-examination of Professor Michael Behe. It's surprisingly entertaining.
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 10/21/2005 09:21:00 PM
11 Comments:
Behe's testimony is a wonderful read.
As Richard Feynman once said to his graduating class "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool." Michael Behe is clearly a very smart man. And clearly he has fooled himself.
If you look at day 12, page 68, when asked by Rothschild " ... you conclude that intelligent design is a much more probable explanation [than exaptation]?"
Behe: "Not just based on that, based on the purposeful arrangement of parts."
Rothschild: "Fair enough, And you haven't actually quantified this, have you?"
Behe: "Not explicitly, but as a biochemist who understands what it takes to, for example, for a protein to function, for two proteins to bind specifically to each other, and so on, I rely on my experience of that in arriving at this conclusion."
Behe's logic of a supernatural explanation relies on an unquantified judgement call. It appears to be purposeful, therefore it must be a designer. And what kind of designer? One that can put together irreducible complexity, of course.
From his day 11 testimony, he says that the likelihood of it occurring from a natural intelligent designer is exceedingly improbable, so it is likely a supernatural intelligent designer.
Behe appears to be a very smart man. Clearly, he is not too smart to avoid fooling himself.
I am beside myself waiting for more transcripts. Thanks for all your efforts.
Gary Hurd
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/kroeten_20051021.html
This guy has neither A) Taken a class in evolution, B) Heard of Galileo, or taken any history of the western world for that matter(otherwise he'd have known the true scientific community thought the world was round long before the rest of the world accepted it), nor does he know what 'theory' means. Somehow, his submitted work managed to make it out on google news.
That Day 12 transcript is not listed on you list of transcripts. And it is far from the only example. You have mentioned several transcripts in the blog but not put them on your big list. I am sure that you are busy doing other important things, but when someone gets a chance it might be a good idea to update that list.
The Discovery Institute has a
transcript which I don't see listed by pro-science sites. It looks legit.
Keep up the good work!
Mike Hopkins
I just wanted to ask a question. I was going through the transcript and I saw a mention of an article that I had posted in the "Turnabout is fair play" post earlier. Did you use the article because I mentioned it? Or did you guys already know about it. If you did it because of me, let me know as I would be sooooo hyped about. Thanks so much.
PS you can email me at frankyj009 (A_T_) yahoo.com
Actually it was the "Welcome to the Machine" post
Reading Behe's testimony, there are many points in which his explanations of ID are curiously similar to the proposed (accepted) mechanisms of natural selection. Basically, all he says is that "some intelligence was involved at some point."
1) But we can't prove it either way - by Behe's own admission - so, so what?
2) He keeps saying "the purposeful arrangement of parts" - except that he himself owns that there is no way to determine "purpose" by a "designer", which invalidates his argument.
3) It is not surprising that a flagellum might resemble a human-designed motor, as they have similar functions and exploit the same properties of physics.
4) Behe seems to backpedal and be confused a lot here.
Why? Because ID has little to do with explaining natural laws and a LOT to do with justifying a particular theistic world view.
Reading the transcript I was struck by the omission to pursue the rate of mutation cited by Behe from his paper.
If 10^9 prokaryotes are expected to show the point mutation once in 10^8 generations, one might logically conclude that it takes 10^17 generation-cells to average that one mutation.
Given his agreement that there are 10^16 prokaryotes in 1 ton of soil, it logically follows that one would expect the mutation to occur in 1 generation in 10 tons of soil--or about 20 minutes.
Among all prokaryotes on Earth (given as 10^30), one would expect 10^13 such mutations *per*generation*.
In other words, the sheer numbers and depth of time make the mutations inevitable and provide ample time (and cell count) to give rise to much more complex mutations with ease.
Slate has another good article here
http://www.slate.com/id/2128755/
The Brontosaurus
Monty Python's flying creationism.
(Snip)
"What makes Behe's non-explanation a brontosaurus rather than an elephant is its resemblance to a famous Monty Python sketch in which a television newsman interviews a theorist."
(end snip)
My aplogies if this has been posted somewhere else.
Just a layman
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