In his recent video Michael Behe explains the reasons for his acceptance of common descent.
Do you find it confusing?
Most members of the Discovery Institute find the idea of common descent lacking. Behe, ‘for the sake of the argument’ , is willing to accept it and, instead, focus on the mechanism of Darwinian evolution, natural selection and random mutations, as insufficient to explain evolution.
Here is an example of what I mean:
If a five pound land walking mammal is an ancestor of a 50 ton whale, through common descent, and the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on variations is insufficient to explain their ancestry, as per Behe’s own admission, isn’t his acceptance of common descent confusing, or even contradictory?
If the mechanism of evolution can’t account for common descent, why would anybody accept it?
Watch the video and judge it for yourself…
ETA: Larry Moran is using Behe’s acceptance of common descent as evidence that he (Behe) accepts evolution…https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-is-fact-and-theory.html?showComment=1581708597421#c1276531141808451482
Is Behe confusing: No.
Is Behe confused: Yes.
Larry Moran:
“You argued that “brilliant minds” like Francis Collins and Micheal Behe would dispute my claims but, in fact, they both agree with me that evolution is a fact that can be demonstrated today and that the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming.
It’s going to be difficult to have a rational discussion with you if you continue to misrepresent the views of people like Behe and Collins and if you keep trying to move the goalposts by changing the topic to the origin of life and the complexity of the cell.””
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-is-fact-and-theory.html?showComment=1581708597421#c1276531141808451482
Are you confusing? Yes.
Are you confused? You don’t have to answer that. It’s obvious.
J-Mac:
No, but poor Bill Cole is freaked out by it.
Lol
Let’s see what he says…
“Darwin’s mechanism of random mutation and selection was the key to try to explain where these new sophisticated new features come from”
Really, Behe? Really?
He certainly knows that Darwin never new about DNA & mutations. Is that a Christian thing to do, to lie through your teeth like that?
That’s why I wrote: “…the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on variations”…
Behe was a great researcher of science and will always be famous as a pioneer in destroying evolutionism in our time.
he accepts common descent for the sake of arguement and thus aim at mechanism plus seemingly plain accepting it.
The mechanism for evolution is crazy 1800’s alchemy.
yet the likeness of bodyplans easily is explained, even demanded, by the idea of a thinking being. why would god create different bodyplans for all members of biology? whould you do that? God is about measurement as in physics and math and geology. Why not biology? It could only be that on ceation week God gave evreryone the same eyeballs and tongues. Its not reasonable for evolutionists to only see a option for common descent to explain eyeballs/tongues.
in fact its been quite incompetent if they mean to say biology can’t be explained by a God doing independent creations in biology kinds.
Robert Byers,
Are you a big drinker, Bob?
Have you been celebrating today? Valentine’s? With Entropy, perhaps? 🤔
To the rest of us you sound just like Bob. Ponder that…
Just because I expose your beliefs as inadequate?
I thought you would pleased…
When otheres exposed my beliefs as false many years ago, I didn’t call them names, I didn’t get angry, I didn’t threaten them…You, and many other atheists, are different.
Rather than appreciating that someone like me brings you out of darkness, you want to continue to be in darkness.
Why is that?
I don’t get that…
Can you explain it?
More confusion from Larry Moran?
“Francis Collins supports common descent and so does Michael Behe. Here’s what Michael Behe says on page 3 of The Edge of Evolution.
“In the past hundred years science has advanced enormously; what do the results of modern science show? In brief, the evidence for common descent seems compelling. The results of modern DNA sequencing experiments, undreamed of by nineteenth-century scientists like Charles Darwin, show that some distantly related organisms share apparently arbitrary features of their genes that seem to have no explanation other than that they were inherited from a distant common ancestor.
Since you must have read Michael Behe’s book, do you agree with him that “… the evidence of common descent seems compelling” and that evolution is the best explanation?
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-is-fact-and-theory.html?showComment=1581708026040#c4938058006581851050
This is exactly what I meant in this OP.
People, like Larry Moran, use common descent as compelling evidence for evolution and use, or abuse, Behe’s acceptance of common descent to support it. They don’t care – Larry Moran certainly doesn’t – to mention that Behe also, or most of all, doesn’t believe that the mechanism of evolution can explain common descent…
So, should we blame Larry Moran for misrepresenting of Behe’s stand on evolution? Is it confusing? Is Behe confused, as Neil suggested?
ETA: Bill Cole? Thoughts?
Behe’s main point is that common descent is a limited explanation. Joshua Swamidass also believes this. The discussion is how limited.
Who believes that we can explain all living innovation from reproduction and its associated variation alone?
That depends on what you mean by “explain”.
Evolution can account for what we see. But, as an explanation, it is incomplete.
That’s the wrong question. The right question is can you provide an explanation that advances our understanding? That adds something new.
We are all aware that our understanding of biology is incomplete. It seems to me you only have criticisms to offer, not advances. Which, you know, is fine and all. But they seem to be based on your misunderstandings rather then from a place of knowledge (otherwise why are you here instead of publishing these valuable insights? Answer: They are not valuable insights).
So you are asking the wrong question. The right question is what can you add to our sum total of knowledge regarding biology?
Neil Rickert,
I am not sure what you mean by this. What is “evolution” in this context.
It’s not surprising that there is confusion. But there is confusion much closer to home.
colewd refuses to speculate on if his “designer” is possibly an alien or a god. nobody knows what phoodoo believes regarding intelligent design or Intelligent Design (thanks Gregory). In fact, it’s not clear what you believe either J-Mac, something quantum something Jesus I think.
Whereas everyone else holds to the same position, that there appears to be no evidence for supernatural intervention in biology so far. Simple and easy to understand and nobody is afraid to state it.
So look to your own house first perhaps.
A explanation that does not require Intelligent Intervention from whatever it is you believe is needed.
I get that. Behe thinks that common descent could account for the similarities between organisms, but it can’t explain the differences between the organisms.
Behe thinks that natural selection and random mutations can’t explain the differences… He thinks that the Darwinian mechanism of evolution is limited.
Is that right? Correct me, if I’m wrong please!
Broken genes or neutral mutations do nothing or degrade the organism…
The evolution of a five pound land walking mammal into a fifty ton whale by breaking genes or doing nothing?
This is the missing explanation or the incompleteness…
If you hadn’t censored my OP on LTEE, you wouldn’t have found out more about it; what Lenski has been really able to accomplish, or rather, what evolution has not been able to accomplish.
But I don’t think you are really interested…
He sees similar organisms – therefore evolution…
You see differences between similar organisms too great to explain by natural selection and random mutations, you don’t buy it…
Simple.
Possibly…Which one? Yours or mine?
This stuff doesn’t matter once design is on the table…
Gregory is confused, possibly deliberately, and that’s why he refuses to engage in my thought experiment…
Just imagine it is a god of your preference who doesn’t require a cause, as in QM…
If that’s true, where is the experimental evidence?
If natural processes are responsible for the five pound land walking mammal evolving into a fifty ton whale, intelligent scientists should be able to tweak bacteria into something other than bacteria, or a dog beyond anything but a dog…
But, so far, it remains in the wishful thinking realm…
Well, you first I guess…
J-Mac logic™
dazz,
Are you saying that they shouldn’t be able to do that? Is it that hard?
I think you got me confused with Mr Darwin?
They’ve tried… fruit flies are still fruit flies, bacteria are still bacteria, finches are still finches, dogs are still dogs…
Do you realize bacteria is an entire domain in the taxonomic rank? This has been pointed out countless times here by the local biologists. To ask for bacteria to turn into something else is like asking for a eukaryote to turn into something else. Land mammal to whale? bah! it’s still a eukaryote!
Not to mention that J-Mac is claiming that we should be able to produce in his lifetime, the kind of variation that took millions of years. Well, I guess intelligent designers are not up to the task if they can’t do that. ID disproved!
Yea, I am trying to figure out Dazz’s argument. Is it, “Bacteria couldn’t possibly be expected to be anything other than bacteria! Don’t be ridiculous, they are bacteria!” ?
Or is it, “They could,but…Well, it just takes too long!”
As predicted… excuses…
Yeah, it takes time, like so many other natural phenomena that you don’t question because they don’t conflict with your religious beliefs
What’s to figure? Intelligent scientists can’t replicate what random processes must’ve done… Therefore proof for evolution… Dazz logic TM
No, if the claim is that evolution of whales from land mammals took say 50M years, it doesn’t follow that we should be able to reproduce it in 50 years in a lab as you claim. That’s just silly, for many obvious reasons.
Try the formation of planets for an analogy. We can’t replicate that in a lab by juggling a bunch of asteroids. Why aren’t you using that same argument against gravity, since you hate Einstein so much, my antisemitic friend?
Sure. I agree. I don’t think anybody here would expect that… I certainly don’t.
But the LTEE is the equivalent of millions of years of human evolution, no?
Shouldn’t bacteria have evolved beyond becteria after 65.000 generations? What would be the evolutionary predictions?
Are there any? Give me a hint…
Maybe I’m wrong. I have been wrong before 😊
Again, do you understand bacteria is a whole taxonomic domain? If I’m interpreting this right, the split between Bacteria and the Archaean/Eukaryote domains, occurred some 2 billion years ago, so it took a couple billion years and probably trillions or quadrillions (or whatever) of generations of bacteria to produce something other than bacteria.
Okay. So, if I’m interpretating it right, you are saying there is no way for bacteria in LTEE experiment to evolve into something else other than bacteria, at least in our lifetime?
Yeah, pretty sure if those flasks of bacteria turned into squirrels or something, that would actually disprove evolution. Why is this news to you?
Huh?
J-Mac,
i think your funny inm a off broadway funny way. I guess your dismissing my comment but it is what it is.
I mean, yes, there’s no way bacteria will evolve into something else than bacteria in the course of the LTEE experiment, even if it went on for several centuries.
Glad we agree that it makes no sense to demand that such a thing must happen if evolution is true. I guess you’ll stop doing that now, right?
J-Mac,
You’ve got it. He thinks the mechanism is limited to the genus level. Thats the data he accumulated in Darwin Devolves.
I don’t know of a single creationist who rejects common descent. So why do creationists accept common descent?
Is it because of science?
Bill,
Behe accepts common descent (including the descent of humans and chimpanzees from a common ancestor).
Have you come to grips with Behe’s position, or does your head still explode when you’re reminded of it?
Why do you persist in demanding physical evidence of the ineffable?
What matters most at the moment is how Michael Behe & S. Joshua Swamidass are preparing to face each other head-to-head in a few days from now. How they choose to focus their “common ground” and establish their “lines of contention”, will impact the future of at least USAmerican “origins” discourse. In all likelihood, this encounter will mark a strategic new way forward in the USA-centred origins-debate landscape will proceed. If they are too cautious, it will reveal that their combination unoriginist WOO is going nowhere.
Common descent here isn’t mainly the issue, since one can see (no such thing as “prebiological natural selection” – Dobzhansky) later “divine Design” or, less sharply, “divine Creation” unfolding through a natural evolutionary process. That is what BioLogos means, the way Collins spelt it in “The Language of God”.
Behe’s in many ways far within the norm of Roman Catholic theology. He has, however, on top of that, embedded himself within USAmerican evangelical Protestantism through the DI’s “science and faith” apologetics initiatives, and this is a major factor also in the debate/discussion/argument/confession/obsession event upcoming at Texas A&M. The fact that this thread’s author cannot engage in coherent, sustained, respectful discussion of those “denominations” of Christianity, involved largely (but not entirely) alone in the “controversy” that is behind the making of this very hosted website (TSZ), make it likely I won’t respond to that person in this thread, but rather prefer another.
You are welcome. Yes, I find id vs. ID(TMism) an essential distinction to cut through much of the noise coming from IDists, still swirling around Seattle. They’re nice people there, the staff anyway, just to repeat of my experiences at DI. It is terribly sad to see what they’ve done to themselves in their conceptual idol-worship of ‘design/Design’.
I would challenge this as unsubstantiated distortion, and indeed, that there is considerable evidence to the contrary. What is the claim “most members” based on? Which “members”, like people officially linked to the DI, or just people who receive even one of their several newsletters? Or do you mean Fellows? Either way, this is a sociological statement. (I wish to leave aside the “idea of common descent lacking” part of the sentence.) This thread may reveal a sad absence of respect for reality & healthy relationships, which seems direly lacking in the OP author’s writing here.
I’ll back the challenge up based on direct personal experience at the Discovery Institute, not only with leaders of the DI, but also with their “only hope” in the neXt generation of students, at the DI’s summer program at Seattle Pacific University in Washington. “Most”, as in only Paul Nelson and one or two of the students, was a “young earther”. At least, that according to one informal poll I did there with the students.
Nelson is caught on horns of his own making, though there are many responsible for that intellectual-spiritual detour, going back in the main cases to a few leading 7th Day Adventists, both from Canada & USA. The term “uncommon descent” was invented, like most IDist things, rather playfully as alternative, if one wishes to get stuck on that dialectic (which I don’t).
I’d like to know if the OP author has any personal contact, not on the internet, but in person, speaking directly, with *any* staff member or Fellow of the Discovery Institute, to please Name that person here now. Otherwise, with no direct answer, I’ll jump off for another thread.
keiths, to colewd:
Mung:
If head explosions are physical evidence of the ineffable, then I’m not demanding them. Someone has to clean up the mess.
I’d be happy with a yes or no answer.
Wait, wait, wait. Just because something occurred two billion years ago, doesn’t mean that it took two billion years to occur. When something happened is not the same as how long it took, you understand that part right?
So now, how do we narrow down how long it actually takes for a bacteria to become something other than a bacteria. We have no way of knowing this. Maybe it only takes two seconds. Pop! Bacteria is something else. A new mutation made it something else. We aren’t starting from zero after all. We already have the bacteria. So if at some point in the past a bacteria became something other than a bacteria, why can’t it do it again? There had to be a first right?
Sorry, evolution’s hard to resolve problem of change, when and how, isn’t my problem, its yours.
phoodoo,
Symbiogenesis.
Alan Fox,
So how long does it take? Can we do it in a lab? If we can do it in a lab, then why can’t we keep doing it until we get a dog?
Or were you just practicing typing?
phoodoo,
Transitional symbiotic systems exist in nature.
More practicing typing Alan?
Are you making any suggestions about why you can’t change a bacteria from a bacteria in a lab?
Are we at least past the billions of years excuse?