First I must say, HAHAHAHa, :P I should of have expected you to make a thread about this eventually.
regardless of what computer you are using
Well luckely for me I am actually on the right computer, and I think that I will be all of today and tomorrow, although I still don't see why that isn't a valid excuse because I have all of my bookmarks and such on this computer and I do not have all of that information from all of those different sites memorized, and it has been a long long time since I have debated on this subject that I don't really remember much about any of it.
or at least simply cite the relevant pieces from the book or discussion.
I have done that in the past.
Anywhooo;
Here are somethings that I had posted on jesusradicals,
Here is another web site that has a whole list of things. http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/creationtc.htm I have only read a little bit from there. This is one part I found pretty interesting.
) PLANETS AND MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM APPEAR TO BE YOUNG
i) FACTS ABOUT PLANETS AND MOONS
CREATION-EVOLUTION ENCYCLOPEDIA
http://pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/03-ss3.htm
There are other facts about the planets and moons which disagree with the various evolutionary theories of origins—p. 14.
More reasons why the theories are not true:
1 - Nearly all the sideways movement is in the planets, yet nearly all the mass is in the sun! The theories require the opposite.—p. 14.
2 - The orbits of Mercury, Pluto, asteroids, and comets are not in the same level plane as the others.—p. 14.
3 - Both Uranus and Venus rotate backward instead of forward. Uranus is literally rolling along!—pp. 14-15.
4 - A third of the sixty moons orbit backward not forward. No theory of self-origin can possibly explain that.—p. 15.
5 - One example would be Triton, one of Neptune's inner moons. It revolves backward, has a nearly circular orbit, and is so close to the planet that it should fall into it.—p. 15.
6 - There are many differences between the various planets and moons. Yet, if they came from the same gas, they should all be alike.—p. 15.
7 - The elements in the sun are very different than in the earth or other planets.—p. 15.
ii) SATURN'S RINGS CANNOT BE MORE THAN 10,000 YEARS OLD
CREATION-EVOLUTION ENCYCLOPEDIA
http://pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/03-ss3.htm
FACTS ABOUT SATURN
The rings of Saturn are mainly ammonia, yet it should vaporize away. How could those rings have been formed? Why do its 17 moons never collide with its rings? How could Phoebe, the farthest moon, not collide with the others?—pp. 15, 17.
[Dr. Baugh, op. cit., p. 11]:
"When our space probes were sent to Saturn, the mission discovered a very unique thing in their observations. It was found that the rings of Saturn are actually intertwined. They appear to be braided. All the laws of physics show that after several tens of thousands of years, this intertwining of the rings would have been lost, and the rings would have amalgamized to the point where they were relatively uniform in composition. This means that Someone designed them in their braided form just a few thousand years ago."
Here is another artical from the web site http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articl...on=view&ID=1842 (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842) It has some pictures to go along with it at the web site.
Evidence for a Young World (#384)
by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.
Abstract
Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages.
Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the Biblical age (6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus, the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the Biblical time scale. Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with the old-age view only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a recent creation.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called "density waves."1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the "Whirlpool" galaxy, M51.2
2. Too few supernova remnants.
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3
3. Comets disintegrate too quickly.
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and © other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.
Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.
5. Not enough sodium in the sea.
Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.10 Calculations11 for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.
6. The earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.
The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15
7. Many strata are too tightly bent.
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.16
8. Biological material decays too fast.
Natural radioactivity, mutations, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material rapidly. Measurements of the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age of "mitochondrial Eve" from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years.17 DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from fossils allegedly much older: Neandertal bones, insects in amber, and even from dinosaur fossils.18 Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old apparently have been revived with no DNA damage.19 Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts.20
9. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic "ages" to a few years.
Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.21 "Squashed" Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale.22 "Orphan" Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply accelerated nuclear decay and very rapid formation of associated minerals.23,24
10. Too much helium in minerals.
Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.25 Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newly-measured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.26 This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously.
11. Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.
With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world's best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon.27 These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old.
12. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.
Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began,28 during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.29 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas.
13. Agriculture is too recent.
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.29 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in item 12 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Flood, if at all.31
14. History is too short.
According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.30 Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.31
References
1. Scheffler, H. and Elsasser, H., Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp.352-353, 401-413.
2. D. Zaritsky, H-W. Rix, and M. Rieke, Inner spiral structure of the galaxy M51, Nature 364:313-315 (July 22, 1993).
3. Davies, K., Distribution of supernova remnants in the galaxy, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1994), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 175-184, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
4. Steidl, P. F., Planets, comets, and asteroids, Design and Origins in Astronomy, pp. 73-106, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983), order from http://www.creationresearch.org/.
5. Whipple, F. L., Background of modern comet theory, Nature 263:15-19 (2 September 1976). Levison, H. F. et al. See also: The mass disruption of Oort Cloud comets, Science 296:2212-2215 (21 June 2002).
6. Milliman, John D. and James P. M. Syvitski, Geomorphic/tectonic control of sediment discharge to the ocean: the importance of small mountainous rivers, The Journal of Geology, vol. 100, pp. 525-544 (1992).
7. Hay, W. W., et al., Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of sediment subduction, Journal of Geophysical Research, 93(B12):14,933-14,940 (10 December 1988).
8. Meybeck, M., Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans, Revue de Géologie Dynamique et de Géographie Physique 21(3):215 (1979).
9. Sayles, F. L. and P. C. Mangelsdorf, Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 43:767-779 (1979).
10. Austin, S. A. and D. R. Humphreys, The sea's missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 17-33, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
11. Nevins, S., [Austin, S. A.], Evolution: the oceans say no!, Impact No. 8 (Nov. 1973) Institute for Creation Research.
12. Humphreys, D. R., The earth's magnetic field is still losing energy, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 39(1):3-13, June 2002. http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/artic...39_1/GeoMag.htm (http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm).
13. Humphreys, D. R., Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis flood, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 113-126, out of print but contact http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm for help in locating copies.
14. Coe, R. S., M. Prévot, and P. Camps, New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal, Nature 374:687-92 (20 April 1995).
15. Humphreys, D. R., Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the flood, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 129-142, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
16. Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 113-126, out of print, contact http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm for help in locating copies.
17. Gibbons A., Calibrating the mitochondrial clock, Science 279:28-29 (2 Jan-uary 1998).
18. Cherfas, J., Ancient DNA: still busy after death, Science 253:1354-1356 (20 September 1991). Cano, R. J., H. N. Poinar, N. J. Pieniazek, A. Acra, and G. O. Poinar, Jr. Amplification and sequencing of DNA from a 120-135-million-year-old weevil, Nature 363:536-8 (10 June 1993). Krings, M., A. Stone, R. W. Schmitz, H. Krainitzki, M. Stoneking, and S. Pääbo, Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans, Cell 90:19-30 (Jul 11, 1997). Lindahl, T, Unlocking nature's ancient secrets, Nature 413:358-359 (27 September 2001).
19. Vreeland, R. H.,W. D. Rosenzweig, and D. W. Powers, Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal, Nature 407:897-900 (19 October 2000).
20. Schweitzer, M., J. L. Wittmeyer, J. R. Horner, and J. K. Toporski, Soft-Tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex, Science 207:1952-1955 (25 March 2005).
21. Gentry, R. V., Radioactive halos, Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23:347-362 (1973).
22. Gentry, R. V. , W. H. Christie, D. H. Smith, J. F. Emery, S. A. Reynolds, R. Walker, S. S. Christy, and P. A. Gentry, Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification, Science 194:315-318 (15 October 1976).
23. Gentry, R. V., Radiohalos in a radiochronological and cosmological perspective, Science 184:62-66 (5 April 1974).
24. Snelling, A. A. and M. H. Armitage, Radiohalos—a tale of three granitic plutons, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (2003), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 243-267, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm. Also archived on the ICR website at ICCRADIOHALOS-AASandMA.pdf.
25. Gentry, R. V., G. L. Glish, and E. H. McBay, Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste containment, Geophysical Research Letters 9(10):1129-1130 (October 1982).
26. Humphreys, D. R, et al., Helium diffusion age of 6,000 years supports accelerated nuclear decay, Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(1):1-16 (June 2004). See archived article on following page of the CRS website: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/artic...41_1/Helium.htm (http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/41/41_1/Helium.htm).
27. Baumgardner, J. R., et al., Measurable 14C in fossilized organic materials: confirming the young earth creation-flood model, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (2003), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 127-142. Archived at http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC_Baumgardner.pdf. See poster presented to American Geophysical Union, Dec. 2003, AGUC-14_Poster_Baumgardner.pdf.
28. McDougall, I., F. H. Brown, and J. G. Fleagle, Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia, Nature 433(7027):733-736 (17 February 2005).
29. Deevey, E. S., The human population, Scientific American 203:194-204 (September 1960).
30. Marshack, A., Exploring the mind of Ice Age man, National Geographic 147:64-89 (January 1975).
31. Dritt, J. O., Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in evolutionary timetables, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 73-78, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
*Dr. Humphreys is an Associate Professor of Physics at ICR.
This is in response to about they should just send there stuff to scientific journals,
volution doesn't necessarily need God in order to happen but a six day creation does.If only Scientific Journals would accept to publish something that opposes evolution. Heres an example of some letters that went back and forth between Michael Behe and two journals from the website http://www.trueorigin.org/behe07.asp Michael Behe is the author of Darwin's Black Box and he has a "Ph. D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania (received an award from Sigma Xi for "Best Thesis), postdoc'd for four years at the National Institutes of Health (as a Jane Coffin Childs Fund postdoctoral fellow), have been an academic biochemist for 14 years, have gained tenure at a reasonably rigorous university, have published a fair amount in the biochemical literature, and have continuously had my research funded by national agencies (including a five-year Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health) and currently have research funds."
Correspondence w/ Science Journals
Response to critics concerning peer-review
Michael Behe, Discovery Institute
© 2000 Michael Behe. Originally published at the Discovery Institute’s website.
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. [Last Modified: 28 May 2002]
Introduction
Much of the material shown posted as “responses to critics” on this website was originally submitted to several science journals for consideration for publication. In every case it was turned down. Below I have included the correspondence between the journals and myself. Names of journals and individuals have been omitted. The take-home lesson I have learned is that, while some science journal editors are individually tolerant and will entertain thoughts of publishing challenges to current views, when a group (such as the editorial board) gets together, orthodoxy prevails. Admittedly the conclusion is based on a small number of experiences, yet years go by while the experiences accumulate. So far my experience with philosophy journals has been quite different, and I have published a reply to specific criticisms in Philosophy of Science (Behe, Michael J. (2000). Self-organization and irreducibly complex systems: A reply to Shanks and Joplin Philosophy of Science 67, 155-162.)
A Brief Response
I initially emailed the editor of a journal in the field of evolution about the possibility of publishing a full-length reply-to-critics paper. As seen below, he suggested a very much-shortened paper. The shortened version essentially consisted of section II from the article “In Defense of the Irreducibility of the Blood Clotting Cascade” on this website. I argued that Darwinian scenarios need to include more than just a general invocation of gene duplication to be justified. The correspondence includes: (1) an email from the editor to me; (2) my letter back to him; (3) his letter rejecting the manuscript; (4) the criticisms of the reviewer; (5) a response letter from me.
[The following is an email from the editor of the journal.]
Subject: Re: inquiry about submission
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 10:21:54 ?0500
From: [the editor]
To: "Michael J. Behe" <
[email protected]>
Hi Mike,
I'm torn by your request to submit a (thoughtful) response to critics of your non-evolutionary theory for the origin of complexity. On the one hand I am painfully aware of the close-mindedness of the scientific community to non-orthodoxy, and I think it is counterproductive. But on the other hand we have fixed page limits for each month's issue, and there are many more good submissions than we can accept. So, your unorthodox theory would have to displace something that would be extending the current paradigm.
What I would suggest you do is to write something quite short—a letter—that would fit in, say, three pages or so of [the journal]. Then, if your letter is sufficiently provocative and lively, I might have an easier time convincing the other editors of its worth.
[The following is my next response to the editor.]
June 11, 1999
Dear Professor . . . ,
Here is the short response to critics that I discussed with you earlier, which I would like to be considered for publication as a letter in the [journal]. I hope you find it to be fruitfully provocative. The text is a little less than 3,000 words, which I calculate should fit in about three pages, as you suggested. Since it is a short letter, I didn’t include an abstract; if one is needed, the first paragraph could serve. I have listed the names of a few potential reviewers on an attached page. Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Behe
Professor of Biological Sciences
[The following the editor’s response to my letter]
July 12, 1999
Dear Dr. Behe,
Because of the controversial nature of your letter to [this journal], and concern about whether it would be appropriate for a scientific journal, I asked a senior [journal] advisor to take a look at your submission. As you will see, the accompanying review identifies many apparent flaws in your arguments, and also questions the basic premise of your arguments, that complex systems cannot be dissected to reveal individual components’ roles. I concur with this reviewer’s sentiment: complex systems are being unraveled!
So, I am going to take the liberty as Editor not to seek additional reviews, and deny the request to have your letter published in [this journal]. I would like to encourage you to seek new evidence for your views, but of course, that evidence would likely fall outside of the scientific paradigm, or would basically be denials of conventional explanations. You are in for some tough sledding.
Sincerely,
[The editor]
[The comments of the senior advisor follow]
Review of “Obstacles to gene duplication as an explanation for complex biochemical systems” by Michael Behe.
In the section "Meaning of explanation," the author harps on the extreme difficulty of elucidating complicated cellular interaction systems and of tracing the evolution of biological complexity. It is ironic that he should voice his concerns just as technical as well as conceptual progress has opened the door to investigating on a much larger scale than heretofore the mechanisms of development, and the increase in gene interaction complexity along certain lines of descent. Michael Behe is depicting a hopeless situation for the biological sciences, or at least for their evolutionary aspects, just as biology is proceeding through a glorious age.
A classical error of people who believe that complex gene interaction systems and other complex biological systems present an insuperable difficulty to evolutionary science is to imply that every component of the system has or has had only one function. In reality, every gene, or its ancestors, or its duplicated brothers and cousins, or all of these, usually exert multiple functions and can be re-mobilized for building up new complex systems or can be dropped from a complex system without being dropped from the functioning genome. The function of the system itself may change (an oft quoted morphological example: folds that act as gliders related to wings); intermediate stages function differently from the terminal stage considered, but do function, indeed. If evolutionary pathways were difficult to find, nature faced these difficulties and solved them. The scientist’s job is just to follow nature, and that he believes he can do.
It is interesting to show—Behe examines this claim—that by knocking two genes out of this cascade, the resulting organisms are less abnormal than those that have lost only one of two genes. Yet, it is by no means necessary to be able to provide such a demonstration. Not being able to provide it does not authorize anyone to consider the system as “irreducibly” complex, in Behe’s metaphysical sense of irreducible.
On the other hand, the mutational acquisition of modified or new functions by duplicated genes has been witnessed many times by sequence comparisons and other approaches, and there is no trace of an “irreducible” difficulty here either, despite Behe’s claims.
This reviewer is no authority on the blood clotting cascade, but if a plausible model for its evolutionary development, compatible with all known facts, has indeed not been generated so far, the remaining question marks are not threat to science—on the contrary, they are a challenge added to thousands of other challenges that science met and meets. In this instance, too, science will be successful.
Is that too bold a prediction? On the contrary, it is not bold. If science, in the modern sense of the word (defined by its method), were only just beginning its career, onlookers would naturally be divided into optimists and pessimists. But, as young as science still is, its accomplishments have verified over and over again that the world of the observable and the measurable is understandable in terms of the observed and measured. Pessimism in this respect has come to lack intellectual status.
In the face of this evidence, Dr. Behe’s stance is quasi-heroic, but it is heroism at the service of a lost and mistaken cause. He is not deterred by the fact that molecular biology is only about 50 years old, that during this period it has generated an almost overwhelming amount of fundamental understanding, that more understanding is obviously on its way; further, that the study of the molecular bases of development had to wait for its turn: it was able to take off seriously only within the last decade. All of these studies will be amplified if there is peace in the world, and many biological problems that Dr. Behe today uses as drums to proclaim his faith will be solved in ways that cannot be but disappointing to him.
The trust expressed by the present referee is based on the lessons of several hundred years of history of science. It is really a very short history judged in terms of human history in general, and, considering the recorded accomplishments, it takes a fair amount of intellectual “chuzpah” to reproach science for the understanding that it has not yet achieved.
This reviewer thinks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding around the role of intelligence in the world. The world itself, through the interactions that take place under the reign of natural law, manifests a sort of intelligence—an intelligence much greater than our intelligence—out of which our intelligence has very likely arisen as a product. No wonder, then, that, to our intelligence, the universe appears intelligent: there is a close kinship between the universe and our mind—as one would expect, since our intelligence is shaped so as to permit us to get along in the world. (“. . . So as to permit us . . .”: language often induces us to seem to express the presence of an intent when none is implied; none is here.) Consistently to use the phrase “intelligent design” instead of God is almost cheating, since this use has an ambiguous relation to the presence in the universe of a sort of intelligence that, except perhaps in a pantheistic sense if one wishes to think so, has no implication regarding the existence of a God. God, here, stands for a being that combines consciousness, will, and universal power.
Of course science has its limits, but they are surely not where Behe places them; they are not, indeed, in the realm of biological evolution. The perception of science’s limits will evolve as science itself evolves, and the limits won’t furnish an argument in favor of intelligent design in the sense of a design imagines by a universal “person.” The argument will be in favor of the finiteness of the analytical powers of the human mind. The limits of science will probably be recognized as being, in part, imposed by the position in the universe of the intelligent (human) observer. Whatever God’s role in the universe, if any, biology will be understood without reference to him. That is implied by the essence of science.
Behe wants to be able to say that this is not so, and he needs to say it very quickly, because every day any conceivable ground for making his statement shrinks further. The faith of scientists is that the world of phenomena can be understood, and that the transformations of this world leading up to the present state of affairs can be understood. Developments conform every day that, progressively, scientists are winning this bet. Whatever is discovered, the most surprising as well as the less surprising, will be part of nature: the supernatural has no place in the observable and measurable.
Metaphysicians who want science to speak out in favor of their beliefs, if not demonstrate them, are already put in a tight spot by the science of yesterday and have nothing to fear more than the science of tomorrow.
In this referee’s judgment, the manuscript of Michael Behe does not contribute anything useful to evolutionary science. The arguments presented are weak.
Incidentally, publication in a scientific journal of this article could not be construed as anything resembling a First Amendment right. Naysayers such as Michael Behe have not been muzzled. They have repeatedly aired their point of view, and so be it.
If Behe were right in spite of all, it would become apparent in due time through failures of science. It would be very much out of place to denounce such failures now, since they have not occurred. Having not yet understood all of biology is not a failure after just 200 years, given the amount of understanding already achieved. Let us speak about it again in 1000 years. Meanwhile, metaphysicians should spare scientists their metaphysics and just let the scientists do their work—or join them in doing it.
[My next letter to the editor follows]
July 19, 1999
Dear Dr. . . . ,
Well, I guess I should have expected it, but I have to admit I’m disappointed. For the record I’d like to point out that the “senior [journal] advisor” who reviewed my recent submission (“Obstacles to gene duplication . . .”) didn’t react to my actual arguments in the paper, but to associations he made. The manuscript did not argue for intelligent design, nor did it say that complex systems would never be explained within Darwinian theory. Rather, it just made the simple, obvious, and unarguable point that gene duplication by itself is an incomplete explanation. Apparently, however, my skepticism about Darwinism overshadowed all other points. Everything I wrote beyond the first sentence was pretty much ignored or dismissed without engagement. I should also point out that, on the one hand, my paper discussed published experiments on specific genes in the clotting cascade of mice, the published misinterpretation of those experiments, and why that shows we need more information than sequence similarity to explain the origin of the cascade and other systems. The senior advisor, on the other hand, discussed our “glorious age” of biology, the history of science, how the world has “an intelligence much greater than our intelligence,” God as “a being that combines consciousness, will, and universal power,” and so on. Yet he thinks he’s being scientific and I’m being metaphysical. Go figure.
I must admit I’m quite surprised by your current stance, Dr. . . . . In our email correspondence you wrote that you were “painfully aware of the close-mindedness of the scientific community to non-orthodoxy” and that you would entertain a manuscript from me that was “sufficiently provocative and lively.” That led me to believe that I could express skepticism of Darwinism and still have a hearing. But then in your rejection letter you worry about “the controversial nature of your letter to [the journal]” as if you weren’t expecting controversy, and you choose to send the manuscript to be reviewed by someone who says things like “If evolutionary pathways were difficult to find, nature faced these difficulties and solved them” (so there!)—not exactly the sentiments of someone with an open mind. Well, perhaps you’ve had a change of heart. That can happen if one discovers that the “close-mindedness of the scientific community” has some bite to it. But as the senior advisor bravely writes, “Let us speak about it again in 1000 years.” Perhaps by then the readers of [the journal] will be able to handle skepticism.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Behe
Professor of Biological Sciences
A Lengthy Response
Later in the summer of 1999 I submitted a lengthy “Reply to Critics” paper to a biology journal that publishes long articles. Included in the article was most everything shown on this website with the exception of the articles on mousetraps, “The Acid Test,” and sections III and following of the article on blood clotting. Here follows the correspondence, starting with the response I received, my reply, a second letter from the journal, and my final reply.
[The response of the editor follows]
23 July 1999
Dear Dr. Behe:
Thank you for submitting your manuscript, “Reply to My Critics,” to [this journal]. Although the manuscript is interesting, it is our firm policy not to publish articles that are primarily rebuttals to criticism. Thus we cannot publish your article in its present form.
Although I have no idea whether the proposal I am about to make would receive the endorsement of the other editors, there would be no point in even presenting it to them without your concurrence. The notion of intelligent design is one that may warrant further exploration, even though the topic has been dealt with extensively by both practicing scientists and philosophers of science. Should this exploration take the form of contrasting viewpoints in articles by two persons, published in the same issue, on the more general aspects of the topic, then our editorial policy of presenting current issues of significance in the biological sciences might be satisfied.
Recast in more general terms, your article could present the “pro” side of the issue, and in that context it could address some of the criticisms that have appeared since your book was published, but it would have to provide a much broader perspective. In particular, it would have to assume a readership that is not familiar with your book, at least not in any detailed way. An accompanying article could present the “con” side of the issue, again taking a general perspective. No doubt your book would figure prominently in both articles, but the theme would be modern concepts of intelligent design rather than a specific publication.
This approach would almost certainly reach a broader readership than a detailed response to specific criticisms. It also has the added advantage of allowing you to present a synopsis of your entire case rather than just defending specific aspects of it. Such a paired set of articles would imply that the topic is important, and therefore would attract additional readers.
Let me know whether this proposal is agreeable to you. If so, we could discuss it at length at a future meeting of the editors (which may not be possible until Fall). I have no particular person in mind to present a contrasting viewpoint, and certainly we will not seek to identify one until we know what your response is to this suggestion.
We do appreciate your interest in [this journal] as a forum for your ideas, and perhaps it will be possible to work out a mutually agreeable arrangement.
Yours sincerely,
[The editor]
[My next response follows]
August 4, 1999
Dear Professor ...,
Thanks very much for your letter of July 23. Yes, the proposal you outline would be agreeable to me—to contribute an article from a broad perspective discussing the “pro” side of modern concepts of intelligent design, to appear in the same issue as an article taking the general “con” side. I agree that such an arrangement would have advantages, including attracting the attention of a larger readership. I’d be glad to discuss specifics with you if the proposal receives the endorsement of the other editors. Please let me know when a decision is reached. Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Behe
Professor of Biological Sciences
[The editor’s next response follows]
9 February 2000
Dear Dr. Behe:
We are sorry to have been delayed in getting back to you about the possibility of organizing a dialogue on the question of purposeful intelligent design. We have explored the notion with a number of individuals and have had extensive discussion among ourselves over a period of time.
The editors have concluded that the journal should not undertake this project. The reasons are varied, but primarily they reduce to our general feeling that it is not possible to develop a meaningful discussion when the fundamental assumptions of the arguments are so different: on the one hand, the concept of intelligent design beyond the laws of nature is based on intuitive, philosophical, or religious grounds, while on the other, the study and explanation of all levels of the living world, including the molecular level, is based on scientific fact and inference.
As you no doubt know, our journal has supported and demonstrated a strong evolutionary position from the very beginning, and believes that evolutionary explanations of all structures and phenomena of life are possible and inevitable. Hence a position such as yours, which opposes this view on other than scientific grounds, cannot be appropriate for our pages.
Although the editors feel that there has already been extensive response to your position from the academic community, we nevertheless encourage further informed discussion in appropriate forums. Our journal cannot provide that forum, but we trust that other opportunities may become available to you.
Yours sincerely,
[The editorial board]
[And my final response is below]
February 22, 2000
Dear [editorial board members]:
Thank you for your letter of February 9 informing me that you have decided not to organize a dialogue on the question of purposeful intelligent design in the pages of [your journal]. I nonetheless very much appreciate the time and consideration you have given the issue. I agree with you that “the fundamental assumptions of the arguments are so different.” In fact, your letter itself confirms this. While you attribute the conclusion of intelligent design to “intuitive, philosophical, or religious grounds,” I attribute it to the same “scientific fact and inference” you claim for Darwinian evolution. I suppose this is one of those issues where people disagree about what “science” means. Again, however, I do appreciate your considering the project. Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Behe
Professor of Biological Sciences
Here is a review of his book and one by Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory In Crisis from the website http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/locke.html
The Scientific Case Against Evolution
A Review of Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis & Michael J. Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box
by Robert Locke
I AM NOT A CREATIONIST, and must confess that until recently, I treated people who questioned evolution with polite dismissal. But there has recently emerged a major trend in biology that has been suppressed in the mainstream media: evolution is in trouble. More importantly, this has absolutely nothing to do with religion but is due to the fact that the ongoing growth of biological knowledge keeps producing facts that contradict rather than confirm evolution. These two books – Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Michael J. Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box – describe this phenomenon.
The first surprising thing Denton points out is that there has always been a dissident faction of highly distinguished scientists, of impeccable credentials and no religious motivations, who have declined to concede that evolution has been proved. This is inconvenient for evolutionists who would like to dismiss their opponents as Bible-thumping hicks and claim that questioning evolution is tantamount to questioning the value or validity of science. He also points out biologists like Richard Owen, who were prepared to allow that evolution had taken place but thought that other causes were involved in bringing about the origin of species.
The first big problem with evolution is that the fossil record increasingly does not, honestly viewed, support it, a fact that famous Prof. Steven Jay Gould of Harvard has described as "the trade secret of paleontology." Evolutionary theory claims that there once existed a whole series of successive forms of the various organisms alive today. These supposedly changed by infinitesimal amounts with each generation as they evolved into the present varieties, so the fossil record should show these gradual changes. But it doesn’t. Instead, it shows the sudden emergence of new species out of nowhere, fully complete with all their characteristics and not changing over time. It is almost entirely devoid of forms that can plausibly be identified as intermediates between older and newer ones. This is popularly known as the "missing link" problem, and it is massively systematic across different species and time periods. Worse, this problem is getting worse, not better, as more fossils are discovered, as the new fossils just resemble those already found and don’t fill in the gaps. In Darwin's day, it was easy to claim that the fossils were there but had not been discovered. Problem is, we now have hundreds of thousands of well-catalogued fossils, from all continents and geologic eras, and we still haven't found these intermediate forms. As Denton puts it,
"Despite the tremendous increase in geological activity in every corner of the globe and despite the discovery of many strange and hitherto unknown forms, the infinitude of connecting links has still not been discovered and the fossil record is about as discontinuous as it was when Darwin was writing the Origin."
The quantity, quality, and range of the recovered fossils is impeccable. But the more we dig, the more we keep finding the same forms over and over again, never the intermediates. Various ad hoc explanations for the gaps in the fossil record, like a temporary dearth in the environment of the chemicals needed for organisms to produce the hard body parts that fossilize well, do not stand scrutiny.
The usual response of evolutionists at this stage in the argument is a theory they call punctuated equilibrium, Gould’s great contribution, which basically says that evolution occurs not gradually but in spurts. This would explain why there are gaps and not continuity in the fossil record. The problem with this theory, which is too complex to go into in detail here, is that while it explains away the non-existence of small gradations, it still requires there to be large ones (the individual spurts) and even these aren't in the record. Furthermore, for punctuated equilibrium to have occurred, a very precise set of conditions have to have obtained throughout the entire past period represented in the fossils, and this is unlikely.
Another development that has undermined evolution is the spread of computers into evolutionary biology. Basically, computers have shown that the neat evolutionary trees that get drawn up are in fact based on imaginary relations of similarity and difference that owe more to the human mind’s tendency to perceive patterns than to the raw biological data. Computers have shown that when the characteristics of different living things are encoded in numerical form and the computer is asked to sort them into sequences based on their similarities and differences, the computer can find any number of ways of doing so that have just as much support in the data as those drawn up by humans to fit an evolutionary tree. The data say "no evolution" just as loudly as they say "evolution"; it’s just the pattern-craving human mind that gives prominence to the former way of viewing it. This is known as phenetic analysis. When the computer is constrained to push the data into an evolutionary tree, (this is called cladistic analysis) it tends to generate trees with all species as individual twigs and no species forming the crucial lower branches of the tree that evolution demands. As a result of this, many biologists have in practice stopped using the idea of ancestors and descendants when classifying new species. When the British Museum of Natural History did this a few years ago, they started a small war in scientific circles.
Evolution also suffers from the problem that many putative sequences which look logical based on the progression of one set of anatomical characteristics suddenly look illogical when attention is switched to another set. For example, the lungfish superficially seems to make a good intermediate between fish and amphibian, until one examines the rest of its internal organs, which are not intermediate in character, nor are the ways in which its eggs develop. And if different species have common ancestors, it would be reasonable to expect that similar structures in the different species be specified in similar ways in their DNA and develop in similar ways in their embryos; this is frequently not so. So evolutionary relationships depend upon an arbitrary choice of which characteristics of the organisms in question are considered most important, and different relationships can be "proved" at will.
Furthermore, Denton argues, the classic cases printed in biology textbooks to show the evolution of present-day organisms from their supposed ancestors are in fact highly conjectural if not downright false. We read the same examples coming up again and again in textbook after textbook because there are only a few species for which an even remotely plausible fossil genealogy can be propounded out of the 100,000 fossil species known to paleontology. He takes the horse as an example and points out that several of the standard claims about the pattern of equine evolution, such as the gradual reduction of the side toes, are extremely questionable and that the morphological distance covered from the earliest horse to the present horses is so small, compared with the vast changes that evolution must encompass, that it is questionable whether the series, even if true, proves much at all. And even the emergence of one species from another has never been directly observed by science.
Another problem with evolution that continues to worsen is that it remains incapable of explaining how anything could evolve that doesn't make biological sense when incomplete. The wings of birds are the classic example: what good is half of one? Other examples abound. This is a problem that evolutionary theory has promised a solution to for a long time and not delivered. Worse even than visible examples like wings are the complex chemical reactions and molecular structures that living things are made of. This is the principal point of Darwin's Black Box (these micro-processes are the black boxes), a book too technical to be satisfying reading for the layman but that convincingly argues that many of these micro-processes make sense either complete or not at all. There are no plausible accounts of how they could have evolved from other simpler processes because as one hypothesizes back down the hypothetical chain of complexity, one comes to a point at which the process simply won’t work if it gets any simpler. At this stage, the process couldn’t have evolved from anything else because there is nothing simpler for it to have evolved from. And at this stage, the process is still far too complex to have been thrown together by any known non-living chemical event. At one time, knowledge of the complex processes of living things was limited enough, and hopes for the discovery of intermediate processes that they could have evolved from wide-open enough, that evolutionists could ignore this problem. But as biological research has progressed, this gap too has been filled with more and more inconvenient facts. As in the case of the other problems challenging evolution, the key thing here is the intellectual direction: research is consistently making the problem worse, not better.
Another similar example: one of the things that has happened since evolution was first proposed is that biology has achieved a precise cataloging of the thousands of different proteins that make up organisms. It was hoped that a thorough cross-species comparison of these would reveal the kinds of relationships of graded similarity that evolution implies. But it hasn’t. Instead, it has given the same picture of distinct species that examination of gross anatomy does. It’s the same old story of a tree with all twigs and no branches! Worse, analysis of the closeness and distance between different species reveals bizarre results. For example, according to the sequence difference matrix of vertebrate hemoglobins in the standard Dayhoff Atlas of Protein Structure and Function, man is as close to a lamprey as are fish! This problem repeats itself with other characteristics of organisms that have been brought within the scope of evolutionary comparison since Darwin’s day.
Another problem with evolution that has only gotten worse with increasing biological knowledge is the question of how life initially emerged from dead matter. As recently as the early 50's, it was still possible to hypothesize that discoveries would reveal the existence of entities intermediate between single-celled organisms and complex lifeless molecules. The existence of these intermediates (certain kinds of viruses were candidates for the role) would imply the possibility of an evolutionary transition from dead chemicals to intermediates to life. Unfortunately, the discovery of DNA in 1953 killed this hypothesis in its simplest form, and subsequent discoveries have only made the matter worse. Vast numbers of microorganisms are now known, as are vast numbers of complex molecules, but nothing in between. Furthermore, even the simplest possible cell imaginable within the limits of biology, let alone the simplest actually existing cell, is far too complex to have been thrown together by any known non-living chemical event. So even if evolution has an explanation of how species evolve from one to another, it has no way to "get the ball rolling" by producing the first species from something that is not a species.
There are even distinguished philosophers of science, like Sir Karl Popper, a man of impeccable credentials and no religious ax to grind, who have openly questioned whether evolution is a science at all, in principle and not just in practice, because its assertions are not potentially falsifiable. A true science, like physics, makes claims that can be tested and thus potentially falsified; this vulnerability is what makes it worthy of belief when despite this, the falsification does not happen. But evolution does not make claims of this kind. Furthermore, it is one of the touchstones of science that it is based on repeatable experiments. The data used to support evolution are neither experiments nor repeatable, nor can they be, since the origin of species on earth was a unique event. This doesn’t necessarily make evolution nonsense, but it strongly suggests it doesn’t have the right to demand the kind of acquiescence that physics demands on the strength of its being straightforwardly a science. What exactly evolution is, if Popper is right and it is not quite a science in the conventional sense, is an open question. It is probably not without significance that what is now called biology used to be called natural history, an older and perhaps more appropriate concept.
Anyone who doubts that the bulk of the scientific community could be wrong about a fundamental question like this should consider the case of Newtonian physics, which was thought to be unshakable until Einstein disproved it. (Lest anybody quibble about the approximate validity of Newtonian physics at non-relativistic speeds, may I point out that Newtonian physics was formerly thought to be valid at all speeds, throughout the universe, and this Einstein refuted.) Evolution is not a fraud being perpetrated upon the public, but it is a theory that has far too many problems to be treated as something that everyone is obliged to believe in on pain of being classified as a fool, as if it were the claim that the earth goes around the sun. Its credibility will continue to wane (or wax) with additional developments in biology over the coming years, but the absolute prerequisite for solving this intellectual puzzle is for free debate on the issue to be permitted again. I am quite happy to change my position if new facts come out, and I urge my readers that this is the only rational view.
Copyright © 2001 by Robert Locke. Reproduced with permission.
Here is an artical from the website http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/m/jmc6/second_law.html It is written by John M. Cimbala Professor of Mechanical Engineering The Pennsylvania State University. It is about why there has to be a God.
edit - fixed the cutoff and moved it to a below post.