In his book, The Edge of Evolution; the Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Michael Behe tries to find where exactly the limit to Darwinian evolution is. In a previous thread, Behe's Test, Take 2, it was admitted that if it takes more than two mutations (with the question of whether this includes neutral mutations being brought up by not discussed at length) before a selective advantage is bestowed, then Darwinian evolution probably wouldn't happen. The question is whether or not more than two mutations have ever been needed for evolution to occur. Behe would say, "Yes." And in Chapter 7, "The Two-Binding-Sites Rule," he presents his argument. First there is a long discussion on the nature of "shape space," and then Behe gets to his argument, beginning on page 133: Read the rest of this entry »

(Yeah, yeah, I'm on vacation, and I was staying away from the library. Who knew I would stumble upon another computer linked to the internet and read what was going on at Behe's Test? So here I am trying to repair the damage. Who knew leaders of the ID movement could shoot themselves in the foot so many times? Oh yeah, we did.)

A very hearty, big "THANK YOU!!!" to our own, obsessive, compulsive Thought Provoker for finding and providing a link to Barry Hall's paper! I assumed that I would have to go to a college library and hope they carried the journal that Hall's paper was published in. It didn't occur to me that it would be online and for free. I suggest that anyone interested in pursuing this topic further, first read the paper. It's short, and despite the technical jargon, not that difficult to understand. But read it. Don't just scan it. Read the rest of this entry »

In his book, The Edge of Evolution; the Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Michael Behe cites work by Barry Hall in support of his view that there are limits fairly narrow limits to what Darwinian evolution can accomplish: Read the rest of this entry »

Monkeys Give a Hoot notes the folllowing:

"Watch out!" It's a simple phrase, but researchers have long debated whether nonhuman primates use something like it. A new study indicates that they do: Even when not threatened themselves, African blue monkeys warn neighbors of nearby predators. However, some skeptics maintain that the animals are acting out of fear, not concern for others.

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Yep. That's the headline. Whole thing reads…

Biology Enters 'The Matrix' Through New Computer Language

Bradford posted about a Protein Folding Game, where scientists are hoping humans turn out to be more efficient than computer modeling programs have been at functional folding. This article is about a new computer language that can mimic the 'mind' of a cell.

Yep. You read that right. Enter "Little b," working off an AI programming language called LISP…

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Denyse O' Leary posted this blog entry at Uncommon Descent. She notes Mike Gene's book The Design Matrix in referencing the notion of design and Darwin's take on it. What is striking is the lack of evolution of objections to design. To Darwin imputing design signifies: prove that God exists. There can be no physical evidence for a process implicating design because that is ruled out a priori. A good indicator that standards of evidence are in the eye of the beholder.

Evidence, evidence, evidence. Lots of people like to use this ill-defined and subjective concept to score points, as it allows people to sit in judgment, pronouncing whether or not some data are "evidence" or whether the evidence is "sufficient." It's quite the power-trip to sit in judgment not only of other people, but of Reality. Despite these problems, we cannot ignore the importance of evidence. For example, if we are to convict Jones for the murder of Smith, there had better be evidence to support this contention if we are going to take away Jones's freedom.

Yet this very example serves to make both points. Yes, evidence is important when making decisions about our natural and social world, but relying solely on the evidence may very well deliver only a superficial, or even false, understanding of the world. We know this simply from the fact that in court rooms around the world, judges and juries have followed the evidence before them to determine guilty people are innocent and innocent people are guilty. This holds true even if we rule out corruption and biases.

Consider some movie where you, the viewer, know that Jones killed Smith, because you watched it happen. Jones, of course, subjectively knows that he killed Smith. The police investigator doesn't know this, he simply believes that Jones killed Smith because of some clues. The investigator then privately confronts Jones and accuses him of murder. Jones, privately knowing the investigator is correct, simply replies, "There is no evidence and you can't prove it" and the investigator knows this is true.

Right there, in that scene, we see the difference between evidence and truth. Relying solely on the evidence may very well deliver only a superficial, or even false, understanding of the world.

Mike has highlighted the importance of proteins. Proteins are involved in all sorts of cellular functions including their own synthesis. Each step in the pathway to protein synthesis involves proteins. That includes the regulation of genes (whether or not a gene coding protein will be expressed), the transcription process and translation. It takes proteins to generate proteins. The proteins involved in the synthesis of other proteins are synthesized by the same cellular mechanisms they become part of.

There are two ways of analyzing the role of proteins. Proteins illustrate the interdependence of cellular functions and the dependence of cells on the proper coordination of its separate parts. That in turn is evidence of downward causation- a paradigm favorable to ID.

But we could continue to approach the matter of life's origin solely from a reductionist perspective. After all reductionism has led to success in other fields and provides an inductive argument for its continued utilization in origin of life research. Spinning wheels can keep an occupant in the same place but rabbits have another means of advancing.

Our semi-annoying, semi-enlightening commenter and sometimes contributor Thought Provoker has spent the better part of the past week valiantly attempting to defend Charles Darwin from Ben Stein's charge in the movie Expelled that Darwinism led to eugenics, and eugenics led to Adolph Hitler's eugenics laws, which led to… The Holocaust.

I admit to sensitivity on this issue, as both my Godparents were Jews, very recent immigrants from Europe. Both of them had tattoos and had lost their entire families in the Holocaust. They never had any children of their own. Can you guess why? So I got 'indoctrinated' very young in the importance of what Never Again! means.

My husband's Aunt Melba (still spry but blind at 96) was sterilized as an adolescent when she and her sister were dropped off at an orphanage back when being an orphan was considered a symptom of "undesirable genetic inheritance" in America. So both sides of this family have some eugenics horror stories in the family album and a serious commitment to making sure it never happens again.

These family stories are related. Such things were as common when I was growing up as unfortunate survivors of polio and thalidomide babies and radiation-induced cancer clusters from atmospheric bomb testing. What happened to my Godparents had its insidious roots in what happened to Aunt Melba years earlier in Oklahoma. Direct, irrefutable connections, as history amply documents in collections from Cold Spring Harbor to the Holocaust Museum.

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Somewhere in Telic Thoughts, Mike Gene went on record as saying that he did not consider SETI to be science. Meanwhile, Zachriel said:

SETI is based on a well-defined, albeit weak, scientific hypothesis.

SETI's (the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) hypothesis, if I understand it, is that if we found a narrow bandwidth radio signal from outerspace, it would be reasonable to conclude that it was generated by an extra-terrestrial intelligence. This is based on (1) the prior experience that we human beings generate such narrow signals, due to the energy required to produce a radio signal powerful enough to send long distances, and (2) the lack of knowing what non-intelligent causes would produce narrow bandwidth signals. Further evidence might come, if the signal is of a type unlikely to be produced by non-intelligent means, such as the prime numbers, from 2 to 101 (as in the movie, Contact).
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