The Edge of Evolution - review
| Page: 1 | Entries: 16 |
| 07.01.2010 11:02, gert korthof: |
| Thanks John! |
06.01.2010 18:28, John Farrell from Boston, MA   : |
| Great review. And an outstanding site. A superb resource and I want to express my thanks for all the time and hard work this has taken. |
| 15.01.2008 04:31, Glenn Shrom : |
| If you want to understand what Behe's three arguments were with Miller and what idea of Miller's was being argued against, re-read DBB on those pages. But I can tell you right now, that Behe was not arguing against pseudogenes or obsolete genes, and that being the case, Behe did not make an about face to later on admit to the existence of pseudogenes. Just from that little spell with Korthof, I am not too impressed. In the first section of the review, he tries to criticize Behe for not writing about intelligent design. It's long been known to people in the ID movement that arguments about the limitations of evolutionary explanations are NOT arguments for design. It seems to me that in DBB Behe set forth arguments FOR design, and in The Edge of Evolution Behe is talking about the limitations of evolution explanations. it is a good thing that they are two separate works, with two different objectives, and really on two different subjects or topics. Judge Jones missed the distinction that the ID movement already makes between those two distinct topics, and he acted like he was the one who could see it while the ID movement could not. Comparing these two works by Behe, one can see that the ID movement recognizes them as separate issues, even though Korthof wants them to both be lumped in together --- perhaps because he wants ID people to seem blind and ignorant like Judge Jones would have us believe. |
| 15.01.2008 03:59, Glenn Shrom : |
| 2. Korthof sets up a scenario in which Behe argues against pseudogenes. This completely ignores Behe's words in DBB p. 228: "During this process ... pseudogenes might occasionally arise and a comnplex organ might become nonfunctional. These chance events do not mean that the initial biochemical systems were not designed. The cellular warts and wrinkles that Miller takes as evidence of evolution may simply be evidence of age." Korthof agrees with Behe's main argument: that unknown function does not mean no function at all. What he fails to do is to understand that Behe is not trying to arguing that pseudogenes are actually genes with an as-of-yet unknown function. Behe is contemplating functions which the pseudogenes once served, and which they can no longer carry out because of "age", the way they have been "left on autopilot to reproduce, mutate, eat and be eaten, bump against rocks, and suffer all the vagaries of life on earth" (still Behe in DBB p. 228) to the point of no longer functioning. On pp. 227-228 Behe gives two types of explanations: functions which were programmed in at the beginning, but did not become operational until later on, ... and functions which at one time were operational but which later on ceased to function properly. |
| 14.01.2008 23:50, Glenn Shrom : |
| I checked out http://home.planet.nl/~gkortho
f/korthof86.htm I also checked out a section of Darwin's Black Box which is referred to. It's pp. 225-228 of the First Touchstone edition 1998. Gert Korthof makes two charges relevant to this section: 1. Behe claims that "the design of life is perhaps packed into its initial set-up", yet he also talks about non-random mutations occurring late in the history of life. Korthof claims that these two ideas are incompatible, and that Behe can't have it both ways. In DBB p. 227-228, however, Behe explains this. "Suppose that nearly four billion years ago the designer made the first cell, already containing all of the irreducibly complex biochemical systems ... One can postulate that the designs for systems that were to be used later, ... were present but not 'turned on'. In present-day organisms plenty of genes are turned off for a while, sometimes for generations, to be turned on at a later time." Behe is speculating about a non-random mutation which is planned at the beginning and the cell is made to one day go through a designed mutation, but then it has to actually what for some day thousands or millions of years later for that mutation to actually take place. |
| 09.01.2008 09:51, gert krothof : |
| I would never buy pharmaceuticals from the internet. Not for nothing are there strict regulations for medicines on the market. They are tested by government institutions to protect consumers. |
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| 01.11.2007 10:45, gert korthof : |
| James Sowder: Michael Behe is not giving a complete list of all evidence for Common Descent, but just a few examples. His goal is to disconnect common descent and the mechanism of random mutation. |
| 30.10.2007 03:49, James Sowder: |
| I'm wondering why Behe doesn't address ERVs. How can you write a chapter on evidence for common descent without addressing ERVs? Am I wrong in reading the review? I'm not referring to the blogger going by the name ERV; just to the content of the book. |
| 17.10.2007 15:57, gert kortho : |
| John Harshman quoted me saying: "According to standard scientific logic, if CD is true than it automatically follows that all species we see are created by RMNS [random mutation and natural selection]." and said "I know of no scientist who would make such a claim". However, my statement assumes the truth of CD, and than infers something from it. It is not the other way around. If Darwinism has available mechanism x,y,z only, then it is safe to conclude CD (or tree of life) must have occurred by mechanism x,y,z. There is no other mechanism. Next John quotes "He just says "Probably all DNA evidence for CD is based on random mutation supplemented with neutral evolution, genetic drift and horizontal gene transfer." But this is a different claim than the first quote (which is in par.5). Above that it is in the next paragraph. 6, so a different context. What I claim in par.6 is that if one analyzes molecular evidence for CD carefully, at bottom the validity depends on the validity of RMNS. This is not the same as claiming that RMNS is evidence for CD. I KNOW what evidence strongly suggests CD. I wrote "Common Descent: It's All or Nothing" (http://home.planet.nl/~gkorth of/korthof84.htm) so I know "nested hierarchy of similarities and differences." suggest CD. I do not claim that RMNS on its own can explain nested groups. John, if you look carefully at Behe's proofs of CD in my par 3, then you will conclude that the vitamin C pseudogene proof depends on mutation. If RMNS were not in place the CD-proof would not work, because a pseudogene is a mutated pseudogene. So RMNS-laws are in operation. John: "Why does Korthof make this claim?": my reason is not to infer CD, but to point out that "It is easy to see why Behe wants the two theories [CD and RMNS] to be independent. It is because he wants to be able to accept full CD and at the same time reject the ability of Random Mutation and Natural Selection to produce to full tree of life." My goal was to to re-connect CD and RMNS by pointing out that Behe's own CD-proofs depend on RMNS. So, he cannot consistently reject the logical inference: "if CD is true then RMNS is true" because his CD proofs are things like vitamin C pseudogene. I will see how I can make these things clearer in my review. Thanks John for your time. |
| 17.10.2007 09:53, gert korthof : |
| <b>Apologies for all previous guestbook writers: </b> due to unfamilarity with the motigo guestbook system, I missed all previous messages. They did never appear when I -almost daily- queryed for a list of guestbookposts waiting to be approved. It now appears that I pushed the wrong button. I am awfully sorry for that! All messages are published now. Gert Korthof |
| 22.09.2007 00:45, Vinod Bhardwaj : |
| Michael Behe suffers from doublethink just as most brainwashed people do. Evolution either took place with random variations or by non random variations. He believes that it was both. If man is an example of an intelligent being who does not write computer code randomly, why would the super intelligent designer do so? He would have only used intelligent changes and come out with the code of life in 6 days! He also does not understand statistics or computers. The probability of some one getting lottery out of a trillion is 1 but the probability of a specific person getting is one in a trillion. A malaria virus to fight against a specific medicine would be quite low while the probability of any species evolving to anything with natural advantage is quite large. May be the malaria would not be there at all if the medicines had existed in the past but that would not rule out every other life form not being there or evolution not taking place. Michael Behe also does not understand computers in the sense that a small piece of code at a higher level of a program can do a lot. As the organisms evolved in complexity even a small change in DNA could do a lot more than in a lower organism. So I do not understand why he would call the designer intelligent if he writes code by trial and error most of the time and then suddenly does something extremely intelligent after a billion years. For Michael Behe it is easy to believe that the designer is very dumb as well as very intelligent. Vinod Bhardwaj |
| 30.07.2007 08:27, djlactin : |
| Typos are unavoidable in a document of this size. But this one is particularly amusing: on the LAST line of your essay, you write: "It is either design of common descent. " Better change this one! |
| 30.07.2007 06:53, djlactin : |
|
| This is a great trashing of MB. /begin rant I note, however, one error that I see commonly in pro-evolution arguments:
This type of statement is almost Lamarckian: it implies that the mutation arose in response to the environmental challenge. In fact, evolution can only work on existing variation: in geek-speak, a challenge merely changes the selective coefficients of variants that already occur in the population. You do not have to conclude that the resistance mutation arose 7 times individually: more parsimoniously, the variant allele existed in the population at low frequency, and underwent positive selection in seven different groups. (Note that the allele, being at low frequency in the population, need not occur in all samples. ) /end rant Derek Lactin |
| 27.07.2007 18:14, John Harshman from eukaryotic : |
| Your review came up in talk.origins, and here is my response to one point in it. I'd be interested to know your response. >> Theres a new critique of Edge of Evolution, >> Either Design or Common Descent >> by Gert Korthof >> >> which addresses the silly notion of common descent with genetic >> frontloading >> >> http://home.planet.nl/~gkortho f/korthof86.htm >> >> Maybe you'll find some answers there. >> It's a reasonable critique, with one fundamental exception. Korthof's most important (to Korthof) criticism of Behe is that Behe allows for both common descent (CD) and intelligent design (ID) through non-random mutation. According to Korthof, this is impossible. To quote one such statement in the review: "According to standard scientific logic, if CD is true than it automatically follows that all species we see are created by RMNS [random mutation and natural selection]." But Korthof never justifies this claim. I know of no scientist who would make such a claim, and Korthof gives no examples. He just says "Probably all DNA evidence for CD is based on random mutation supplemented with neutral evolution, genetic drift and horizontal gene transfer." But he provides no evidence that this is true. As an evolutionary biologist, let me specifically deny that assertion right here. The main evidence for common descent relies on a nested hierarchy of similarities and differences. The most parsimonious explanation for this hierarchy is that it arose through a series of changes spread over a branching tree. The evidence lies in the distribution of changes. The causes of those changes are irrelevant to the pattern. God could have lovingly placed each and every change, and it wouldn't matter to the pattern or to its explanation. Korthof is wrong. Mind you, I do think that the changes we see were produced by the mechanisms Korthof mentions, and there is considerable evidence that what we see is, at the least, indistinguishable from the results of such mechanisms. My point is that this evidence is not relevant to inferring common descent; the causes are not relevant to the pattern. Why does Korthof make this claim? He doesn't explain that. If it's that the word "design" implies de novo creation of species, then fine, let's change the word. I propose that Behe's (apparent, but vaguely stated) model of common descent with occasional divinely caused mutations be called "intelligent tinkering" (IT), to distinguish it from typical creationist models that incorporate separate creation of "kinds" (ID). Behe definitely sees the advantages of such a model: it isn't contradicted by nearly as much of the evidence as standard creationism is. Let me repeat that except for this bizarre and unnecessary objection, Korthof ably skewer's Behe's "logic". |
| 22.07.2007 13:04, Enezio E. de Almeida Filho from Brazil : |
| As you know I am an IDist, but I couldn't help in cracking up not at Behe, but at your lousy Photoshop unintelligent redesigned comics. You can do a whole lot evolutionist better kind of work! Best regards from Brazil, Enezio E. de Almeida Filho |
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