Behe vs Swamidass: Why?

According to Joshua Swamidass Michael Behe and him have a lot in common… Swamidass has even publicly defended Behe on his blog by demanding a fair hearing.

Not only that, Swamidass agrees with Behe on many evolutionary/ID issues, such as guided evolution…

So, why would Behe and Swamidass square off at Texas A & M University in 2020?
What are they going to discuss? Not the polar bear evolution/devolution fiasco, right?

What do you think?

137 thoughts on “Behe vs Swamidass: Why?

  1. Entropy,

    I understand it: …Organized by the cellular processes in the maternal cells, which in turn, physical/chemical properties and dynamics, ad nauseam.

    I think you should consider going with a caricature of your beliefs.

  2. phoodoo: Your analogy is randomness making meaningless shapes, is comparable to randomness making something precise and useful.

    I prefer analogies that are analogous actually.

    Interesting. You consider snow crystals to be meaningless, yet you have called them “interesting to look at” and “pretty”.

    Tell me, what do you consider the practical use of a butterfly, or a flower, or pubic lice? After all, they all have precise developmental programs apparently resulting in something you consider meaningful shapes.

  3. Corneel: Tell me, what do you consider the practical use of a butterfly, or a flower, or pubic lice? After all, they all have precise developmental programs apparently resulting in something you consider meaningful shapes.

    Right, I understand, to you, life is the same as a rock. There is nothing inherently different to the materialist.

    Are you a big game hunter?

  4. DNA_Jock: That’s not really describing the technique, is it? Perhaps J-Mac will provide more details of his experimental set-up, but I’m not hopeful.
    Last time around, J-Mac claimed that “if decoherence happens, the cell division is halted”.
    When asked to support this claim he ran away.
    It has become a pattern.

    Really?!
    And then you are going to tell me you don’t believe me?

    I don’t need to spend all this time to know that it is going to be your pattern…lol
    If you really want to know, read it yourself :

    http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/viewArticle/BIO-C.2014.2

    http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2014.2/BIO-C.2014.2
    PDF is detailed…

  5. phoodoo: Right, I understand, to you, life is the same as a rock. There is nothing inherently different to the materialist.

    And there is nothing inherently different about amorphous rocks and snow crystals to the theist 😀

  6. Corneel: And there is nothing inherently different about amorphous rocks and snow crystals to the theist

    Right.

    That’s controversial?

  7. J-Mac: PDF is detailed…

    Yes, it’s detailed; it’s a review by Jonathan Wells. But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with quantum information and decoherence.
    So, yet again, you are unable to come up with any experimental evidence to support your Quantum Woo.

    If take 100 fruit-fly embryos and you take half of them and disrupt quantum information in them, most of them would die or develop with abnormalities…
    The other half, 90% or more, would develop into normal fruit-flies …

    Why should I believe you?
    Shades of LDL.

  8. phoodoo:
    I understand it: …Organized by the cellular processes in the maternal cells, which in turn, physical/chemical properties and dynamics, ad nauseam.

    If you understood you’d be able to do better. But it’s fine by me if you prefer to remain ignorant phoodoo. It doesn’t seem to keep you happy though. It looks as if somehow you feel offended by the knowledge of others. Still, not everybody is a scientist.

    phoodoo:
    I think you should consider going with a caricature of your beliefs.

    They’re not “beliefs,” they’re well-informed stances. Give me something better, I’l go for it.

    Caricatures? Nah. They’re not informative about anything but the scientific illiteracy of creationists.

  9. phoodoo: Right.

    That’s controversial?

    I’d say yes. There is of course the small matter of self-organization, which *might* be relevant to living things as well.
    I am a bit more surprised that, as a “materialist”, it is up to me to defend the value of beauty to be found in nature. Don’t you think that the Designer might consider “pretty” things to be important?

  10. J-Mac:
    OOL is a perfect example: nobody has been able to recreate life and yet, if someone does do it, will it mean that random processes were responsible for life’s origins? Of course not but people like Entropy do not even allow a logical inference like that to cross their mind because of confimatiom bias… They are only interested in finding some some kind of explanation no matter how ridiculous it is..

    Of course not J-mac. I’ve told you a billion times. There’s both, random and deterministic phenomena, and combinations therein. So, of course not. Mere randomness cannot explain the origin of life. But combinations of randomness and deterministic phenomena explain quite a bit.

    I allow logical inferences. But they have to be well informed, and rest on firm philosophical and scientific foundations.

    You, on the other hand, refuse to try and understand what we have explained a billion times already. After so many times, you should not be surprised that you come across as an illiterate buffoon.

  11. DNA_Jock: Yes, it’s detailed; it’s a review by Jonathan Wells. But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with quantum information and decoherence.
    So, yet again, you are unable to come up with any experimental evidence to support your Quantum Woo.

    This is a perfect example why you are such a waste of time…You obviously haven’t read the paper yet, but you’ve already made up your mind… Nice!

    Wells’ paper has references to other papers and experiments but you are not really interested, so I did the right thing by not providing you with details…

    No, nobody I know has done quantum information relevance testing in DNA, but even Byers can google and find out that ultimately everything material, such as DNA, is built of subatomic particles you refer to as Quantum Woo, which requires quantum information, including ignorance though there is no consensus yet… lol

    DNA_Jock: Shades of LDL.

    Stop embarrassing yourself!
    The healthiest people on earth today Tsimane have elevated to high LDL levels…Why don’t they have heart disease since it is such a cardiovascular killer?
    Here is another kicker; Tsimane also have very high CRP levels and yet, they have few diseases associated with this blood marker of inflammation, such as cancer or CHD. Why?

    BTW: If people eat high fat diet, like polar bears, they get in to ketosis…
    Polar bears don’t get into ketosis even if they are hibernating… and yet they have high cholesterol levels, including LDL.
    Why? Must be convergent evolution or something …lol
    Ciao!

  12. phoodoo: The new theory of evolution!

    Never forget…Organized by the cellular processes in the maternal cells, which in turn, physical/chemical properties and dynamics, ad nauseam.

    Pile on new Darwinian or even non-Darwinian nonsense… Entropy is clueless but has to write something to keep his beliefs alive… at least in his mind… lol

  13. Entropy,

    Blah, blah, blah, blah and nothing of value has been found in his last 1038 comments…
    Why don’t say: “You are wasting your time. I already found the truth, as I see it, or I would like it to be… “

    It’s much easier and no time would be wasted reading your first sentence of each and the same comment… 😉
    Bye for now!

  14. J-Mac,

    Well, I should not be surprised that you’re too stupefied by your quantum woo to understand any of it.

  15. J-Mac: The healthiest people on earth today Tsimane have elevated to high LDL levels…Why don’t they have heart disease since it is such a cardiovascular killer?

    Well, they don’t have elevated LDL, for starters. According to Kaplan et al 2017, which I bet is the source of your (third hand?) information, average LDL for the Tsimane (over 40) was 91 mg/dL (2.35mM). U.S.Americans have managed to get their average down from 129 mg/dL (in the nineties) to 116 mg/dL. So the Tsimane have significantly lower LDL than the USA.
    “Stop embarrassing yourself!”, indeed.
    LOL
    They do have strangely low HDL, however : an average of 39.5 mg/dL (1mM), which is fractionally below the lower limit normal (40 mg/dL). That would be a warning sign for CVD in the sedentary West, and that is the source of the debate.
    But there’s a lot of other strange stuff going on with them; I suspect that the low level of atherosclerosis is related to the fact that 2/3rds of the adults have intestinal parasites (“healthiest people on earth today”, indeed!), and performing physical labor for 7 hours a day. Elevated HLA expression too; don’t know if that’s genetic, or thanks to the helminths…
    Medicine is complicated. It is evidently beyond you.

  16. J-Mac: Wells’ paper has references to other papers and experiments but you are not really interested, so I did the right thing by not providing you with details…

    Oh, I am interested; just not too optimistic. Don’t be so coy, which of the 448 references support your claim that

    If take 100 fruit-fly embryos and you take half of them and disrupt quantum information in them, most of them would die or develop with abnormalities…
    The other half, 90% or more, would develop into normal fruit-flies …

    ?
    You appear to be just making stuff up, yet again.

  17. Corneel: I’d say yes. There is of course the small matter of self-organization, which *might* be relevant to living things as well.
    I am a bit more surprised that, as a “materialist”, it is up to me to defend the value of beauty to be found in nature. Don’t you think that the Designer might consider “pretty” things to be important?

    I don’t know what you want to say here.

    First, what is it that you feel is self-organizing? The snowflake? How so? What is organized? If each is different how is that organized? Organized to what purpose?

    Secondly, you think a snowflake it beauty. Ok, what about a river, is that? What about a shiny rock? A desert? Is a desert self-organized? Is it analogous to the code of an embryo?

    I believe we were getting at how a code can come along by accident. I don’t see in any way at all how a snowflake helps that theory.

  18. phoodoo: First, what is it that you feel is self-organizing? The snowflake? How so? What is organized? If each is different how is that organized? Organized to what purpose?

    Snow crystals have organised structure by definition (of what crystals are). This can be easily seen from the sixfold radial symmetry of the example picture I posted. If you browse the site I linked to, you see that snow crystals come in a wide variety of other regular shapes as well. The variation is caused by random variations in humidity and temperature that the flakes encounter as they tumble through the air. The purpose of those things is your field, not mine; I am just a stone-hearted materialist. I think they are pretty, and I know humans make things just because they look pretty, so I don’t understand why you think the Designer will turn up her nose for aesthetics.

    phoodoo: Secondly, you think a snowflake it beauty. Ok, what about a river, is that? What about a shiny rock? A desert? Is a desert self-organized? Is it analogous to the code of an embryo?

    That’s two questions. First, yes I think there are aspects to development that are analogous to the self-organisation of crystals. That is what Entropy has been trying to tell you: the chemical properties of biomolecules causes some processes to unfold without need for intervention.

    Second: yes there is beauty in that. Again, I don’t think that is its purpose. I believe meaning and purpose is what people put there , but you believe meaning is what the Designer puts there. So if you see Design, I assume you can see its purpose. Hence my question: what is the use (purpose) of a butterfly?

    phoodoo: I believe we were getting at how a code can come along by accident. I don’t see in any way at all how a snowflake helps that theory.

    The exact shape of a snowflake is caused by a mixture of randomness and order. I was trying to find common ground by asking whether, by analogy, you would allow for some randomness in biological Design. Will the Designer have designed the code of oaks to generate that exact shape of leaves, or did she leave that to chance?

  19. DNA_Jock: You appear to be just making stuff up, yet again.

    Speaking of making stuff up, Greg Bear’s Forge of God/Anvil of Stars duology ends (spoiler alert!) with a space battle where the weapons destroy whole planets by disrupting the digital code which is the basis of all reality. This metaphysics is inspired by the digital philosophy of eg Edward Fredkin, popular when Bear wrote the books, and now updated by Wolfram’s cellular automata models for science and reality.

    So am I saying that J-Mac was inspired by this type of SF? Nah.

    I read him as confusing structural information with quantum information. Quantum information quantifies the quantum correlations of entangled systems. It is “disrupted” every time such a system interacts with another, eg in a chemical reaction. That is, all the time. No big deal.

    Structural information refers to relations of subsystems within a system.as represented in a scientific model. So, for example, a mutation or a copying error would disrupt the structural information captured in a model of DNA and the biochemical processes it undergoes.

    I have not looked at J-Mac’s references. Based on previous experience, I doubt that they will shed much light on the logic in his posts.

    Now back to your regular programming.

  20. Corneel,

    The term “self-organizing” is used to refer to all kinds of ridiculous things-like flocks of birds and traffic and even the growth or decline of companies. Its sort of a word like emergent. We can call almost anything self-organizing if we feel like it.

    But in the case of a snowflake, again, what do you think it is organized into? A shape that looks interesting? If there was no people alive to think it looks interesting, then what? Its like if someone said, I think rabbit pellets are interesting. I think its similar to the coding of a biological cell, because that is also interesting.

  21. BruceS: I read him as confusing structural information with quantum information. Quantum information quantifies the quantum correlations of entangled systems. It is “disrupted” every time such a system interacts with another, eg in a chemical reaction. That is, all the time. No big deal

    At least, unlike some here, you looked it up…;-)
    Why don’t you tell us the difference between the disruption of quantum correlations; i.e. quantum information and structural “information”, such as in chemicals bonds…
    Here is a tip: each time a cell divides, if something could disrupt quantum correlations say… in DNA, but not chemical bonds, what should be the result?
    In other words, should the cell go through normal processes of mitosis anyways?
    If not, what should be the logical conclusion?

    Sal?

  22. phoodoo:
    The term “self-organizing” is used to refer to all kinds of ridiculous things-like flocks of birds and traffic and even the growth or decline of companies. Its sort of a word like emergent. We can call almost anything self-organizing if we feel like it

    Self-organizations, self-creations etc. are just escape routes used by materialists to avoid the superior intelligent cause needed to explain creations beyond human intelligence to replicate…

    W.E. Loenning, world’s renowned geneticist, in the interview on German television said it as it is:
    ‘Darwinists and materialists make wild claims that life and universe created themselves due to random, natural processes and yet, if you offer each one of them 100.000 Euros, they will take it, but none of them, using his intelligence, will be able to re-create even a mere blade of grass…’

    That’s how the so-called intelligence has lead many to stupidly in order to believe crap like this…

    When one doesn’t want something obvious to be true, he has to turn to the most outrageous ideas in order to satisfy his or her wishful thinking or desire…

  23. This is something Behe and Swami should discuss:

    “Genes play a role in—but cannot alone predict—same-sex sexual behaviors, according to a study published today in Science.”

    https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/giant-study-helps-clarify-role-of-genes-in-same-sex-sex–66371

    If genes can’t predict sexual orientation, what else could???
    How about epigenetics? Or, environments? Or, guided evolution?
    These subjects have balls…literally… most of the times…😉

  24. J-Mac:
    Why don’t you tell us the difference between the disruption of quantum correlations; i.e. quantum information and structural “information”, such asin chemicals bonds…
    Here is a tip [Thanks!]: each time a cell divides, if something could disrupt quantum correlations say… in DNA, but not chemical bonds, what should be the result?

    You mean like a mutations? Or a copying error? Is that the kind of chemical reaction you mean?

    Or do you just mean normal biochemistry involving DNA in the usual cellular processes?

    My point is that you are assuming “disrupted” means something bad. But you cannot assume that. You have to look at the biochemistry of the cell and how the reaction affects it. Those effects can only be judged good or bad by understanding how they relate to the evolutionary processes that resulted in the biochemical process being considered. Are they a required part of some process which led to greater fitness? If so, they are “good” disruptions. So copying errors are “bad” disruptions but standard copying is not.

    (I recognize that copying errors are part of what drives evolution, so the picture is more complicated if you consider that as well as day-to-day life of the cell. But I will leave that complication for another time).

    More generally, I am not aware of where you defined “disruption” in terms of the quantum theory. Have you? I am taking it to mean decoherence, so that quantum information in the bond is always “disrupted” in a reaction in the sense that it “spreads” into the interacting system in a way described formally by QM. That’s decoherence. Can disruption mean anything else that is aligned with theory? In particular, one cannot speculate about hypothetical changes to quantum information which are prohibited by QM (unless one is writing SF).

    Now besides decoherence, there is another way to consider disruption, which has nothing to do with the discussion, but is interesting. That is the black hole information paradox. I have not seen you speculate about tiny black holes in cells, so here is more grist for your mill.

    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-do-black-holes-destroy-information.html

    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/08/solutions-to-black-hole-information.html

    In the first post, Sabine does clarity that the issue for evaporating black holes is not loss of information, it is loss of reversibility. But the two can be related, at least conceptually, as can thermodynamic entropy and decoherence. But that’s enough for now.

  25. phoodoo: The term “self-organizing” is used to refer to all kinds of ridiculous things-like flocks of birds and traffic and even the growth or decline of companies. Its sort of a word like emergent. We can call almost anything self-organizing if we feel like it.

    Like this? 🙂

    I can sort-of see why you dislike emergence as a non-explanation of consciousness, but for flocks of birds? C’mon it’s rather intuitive that starling swarms are not coordinated by some outside flight control. Swarm dynamics emerge (yes!) from the behaviour of the individual birds. It can even be modeled in computer simulations. Same goes for crystals. Who lays out the pretty pattern? Nobody does. The regular shape emerges as a result of the properties of the individual molecules it is composed of. Why do you resist that?

    phoodoo: But in the case of a snowflake, again, what do you think it is organized into? A shape that looks interesting? If there was no people alive to think it looks interesting, then what? Its like if someone said, I think rabbit pellets are interesting. I think its similar to the coding of a biological cell, because that is also interesting.

    No, it is not a mere matter of subjective interest. Crystals are highly organized structures and biological systems share that property with crystals*. You will find that many members of both “teams” here at TSZ agree that organized patterns are inherently meaningful (like the 500-heads-in-a-row). Of course, as a biologist, I fully agree that among all organized systems living things are the most interesting, but unfortunately I’d have to concede that that is just my subjective opinion.

    *It can be quantified by a measure that you encounter quite often here at TSZ: entropy, but that is outside of my comfort zone so will leave it that.

  26. J-Mac: This is something Behe and Swami should discuss:

    “Genes play a role in—but cannot alone predict—same-sex sexual behaviors, according to a study published today in Science.”

    Why? Do you think there is anything in it they would disagree about? What aspects do you think that Behe and Swamidass could discuss?

  27. Corneel: Why? Do you think there is anything in it they would disagree about? What aspects do you think that Behe and Swamidass could discuss?

    Same-sex-behavior is a very hot topic today…even in mid-schools and high schools…
    Behe and Swami are squaring off against each other to promote their books…
    They agree on too much though Swami thinks they don’t…
    Why would anybody today go to see two guys chatting about their minor differences?
    Controversy sells tickets and books and not Swami’s aspirations to become the new voice in human origins….IMV…

  28. BruceS: Now besides decoherence, there is another way to consider disruption, which has nothing to do with the discussion, but is interesting. That is the black hole information paradox. I have not seen you speculate about tiny black holes in cells, so here is more grist for your mill.

    Bruce, no offense but you have no idea what you are taking about…

    You’ ve diverted the topic of quantum information disruption in quantum correlations, to the information paradox, which is totally different… While Sabine is a particle physicist, though currently without a job, who is allowed speculative fiction, many years ago Steven Hawking “saved” the the quantum information paradox:

    “In July 2004, Stephen Hawking published a paper presenting a theory that quantum perturbations of the event horizon could allow information to escape from a black hole, which would resolve the information paradox…”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

    If you would like to have a serious discussion about quantum information conservation in life systems or DNA, first you need to realize that life systems can interact with the environment; water for example, which can influence quantum correlations…For many years scientific community objected quantum mechanics influence in lifesystems thinking that they are too wet and too warm to maintain quantum correlations…It came as a shock when it was proven that photosynthesis was quantum…

    Now we know that DNA, for example, is protected from external interactions, such as water and other…

    So, when decoherence tools are used on lifesystem, such as an fruit fly embryo, the experiment outcomes can lead to only one logical conclusion…

  29. J-Mac: Bruce, no offense but you have no idea what you are ta[l]king about…

    Thanks for letting me know!

    I’m afraid you missed the point of the black hole stuff. Not that am am surprised by that.

  30. J-Mac: So, when decoherence tools are used on lifesystem, such as an fruit fly embryo, the experiment outcomes can lead to only one logical conclusion…

    Given this experement has only been performed in your imagination and given that your version of logic is, well, somewhat unique you’ll have to expand on what “…” actually means as nobody is going to be able to infer it.

  31. A friend who is less skeptical than me mentioned biophotons to me and suggested I should check out Popp (who seems mainstream) and the healing power of biophotons (which seems less so). I see the technique is referred to as quantum medecine. 😏

  32. phoodoo:
    But in the case of a snowflake, again, what do you think it is organized into?

    It’s called a crystal.

    phoodoo:
    A shape that looks interesting? If there was no people alive to think it looks interesting, then what?

    It would still be a crystal. Only nobody would be there to say so, or call it so, nor to have an opinion about it being interesting, or boring.

    phoodoo:
    Its like if someone said, I think rabbit pellets are interesting. I think its similar to the coding of a biological cell, because that is also interesting.

    No, it’s not. You’re missing the point, and it looks like a rather desperate attempt at missing the point. Same point I’ve been making and you refuse to understand. The crystal is highly organized, this is due to the inherent properties of the molecules, and the differences in patterns of crystallization depend on a few things that vary somewhat randomly. The point is that we, evil physicalists, do not see nature as mere randomness, and that understanding why is actually simple.

  33. Entropy: The crystal is highly organized

    Yea, I heard that the KonMari method was originally invented by a group of snowflakes.

  34. phoodoo:
    Yea, I heard that the KonMari method was originally invented by a group of snowflakes.

    Making my point again? If only you had read the rest of my comment, you would not look so much like an idiot.

  35. I personally believe that Behe vs Swami has a disaster written all over it unless the organizers of the encounter come up with a new controversy…

    Swami’s Genealogical Adam seems like a fiasco and Behe had a hiccup with the fast and furious evolutionary processes of polar bears with extremely high cholesterol diet, no atherosclerosis, no mechanism to explain the paradox, no nothing…lol

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