"Genetic Death": The Evolution Meat Grinder

Italgato

Massagato

Mortkat . . .


anything ring a bell yet?

You know, I had a list under Favorites about the genomic map that weve been able to compile . In the genomic map are aseries of genes, throughout all organisms that control specific functions (like Hox a, Hox , b etc) I cant find the damn thing unless I stashed it on paper somewhere. Manana. no se.

DAmn , howd you know? is it on his rap sheet?

I read the book. Since it is supposed to be a book which is filled with lies and I am unable to detect these lies, perhaps someone who is far more brilliant than I can answer the questions posed in the following paragraphs.

And I mean answer the questions!!!


Behe--"Darwin's Black Box"-P. 22

quote

"Thus biocehemistry offers a LIlliputian challenge to Darwin. Anatomy, is quite simply irrelevant to the question of WHETHER EVOLUTION COULD TAKE PLACE ON THE MOLECULAR LEVEL. So is the fossil record. It no longer matters whether there are huge gaps in the fossil record or whether the record is as continuous as that of US Presidents...The fossil record tells us nothing about whether the interactions of 11-cis-retinal with thodopsin, transducin, and posphodiesterase COULD HAVE DEVELOPED STEP BY STEP. This is not to say that random mutation is amyth or that Darwinism fails to explain anything( it explains microevolution very nicely), or that large scale phenomena like population genetics don't matter. They do. UNTIL RECENTLY, HOWEVER, EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGISTS COULD BE UNCONCERNED WITH THE MOLECULAR DETAILS OF LIFE BECAUSE SO LITTLE WAS KNOWN ABOUT THEM. NOW THE BLACK BOX OF THE CELL HAS BEEN OPENED, AND THE

INFINITESMAL WORLD THAT STANDS REVEALED MUST BE

EXPLAINED."

I look for answers---no argumentum ad hominem-please!!!

He's like Hungry Joe in Catch 22--he tries to be cool, he tries to act normal, but, eventually, everything starts to slip, and then he starts to lose it altogether. Eventually, he'll get banned. His style has a lot to do with it. He'll start shouting soon (you know, the all caps thing), and his scurrilous personal attacks will pick up.

But he's such a hick about blowin' his own cover. In this thread, i referred to him as ItalMassaMortGato--and the joker reponds to the post ! ! ! In another thread a day or two ago, i referred to him as the dead kitty (Mortkat), and he started gettin' all riled up and accusatory. If he were not Ital-Massa-Mort-Gato, you'd think he'd be scratchin' his head about the references to screen names which are now on the ten most wanted list--but no, he responds.

BernardR, too, shall pass.

Farmerman,

Just saw this and read my way to here. Exciting story, and I'm very glad things are looking better for you now. It is particularly good to see you zestily tilting the familiar windmills again.

I'm sure you gave the doctors a memorable experience. I concluded long ago that the real psychological motivation for people going into medicine is a serrch for autonomy. (and of course the math deficiency that you referred to.) A patient who wishes to think for himself about his own body is a serious threat to the heart of their matter. You are a bit of a cranky guy anyway, and I'm sure you gave them their due.

Best of luck to you.

Are you able to answer the questions posed by Behe or is your Ad Hominem screed an admission that you cannot? I don't pay a great deal of attention to posts that say nothing of value.

See, he's started shouting already. Standard m.o.--he's been making posts in this identical style since he first appeared at AFUZZ years ago.

Hi Chiccy . . .

I understand that the questions posed by Dr. Behe are too difficult for you to answer. I thought that would be the case. That is why I posed them.

Bern(if I may call you Bern), youve taken a page from Behe and are trying to wave it around. I freely admit that Im incompetent to discuss the molecular reactions in the evolution of sight, yet Ken Miller has taken this very subject and in applying the old adage about evolutiion (EVO is taking an existing structure and doing something new with it) The "fossil record" something which I do have knowledge, records the evolution of eye and light colleting "sturctures " within the several bauplans of living organisms. The molecular compounds rhodopsin, transducin, and phosphodisterase have been found in several of the living (but different) organisms that each have their own solutions to light gathering (Dianae,Arachnida, Mollusca, and of course tetrapoda) we can see from analogous and homologous structures that the application of the molecular doesnt stray far from the physical structures that use the retinal v Enzyme a, b, c, d,( etc) interactions and reactions. Id defer to Ken Miller for this and the blood enzyme cascade since that too has been nicely put to bed.

Earlier (same book) Behe freely admits on page 6 that "I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and I have no reason to doubt it. (I paraphrase) ALthough Natural Selection may explain many things, I dont think it explains molecular life" Thats his main argument and from the examples hes been peddling since 1996 when he published "Black Box" most , if not all, have been fairly well crushed.
1The Bombardier beetle argument has been discovered to be an application of a catalysts already present in many Carabid Beetles gut, the fact that this catalyst, can make the explosive reaction of hydrogen peroxide (another common insect digestive chemical) and hydroquinone ( which oxidizes into quinone. The reaction, a form of digestion gone to an extreme, is just as common in insects and reptiles for formation of toxins , digestive enzymes and , finally evolved into protective strategy. Maybe its difficuklt to envision this coming from the "fossil record" but the structures of advanced enzymatic and venom delivery ARE seen in fossils and the chemistry can be easily translated from existing living species.

The enzymatic reactions for blood clotting involving Behes "complex cascade of enzymes" was found in part by Miller in his research for his Bio text. It turns out that thge enzyme cascades that Behe is so amazed at, exists in several animal forms and , in fact, incomplete sequences of enzymes in fish like rays and other cartilagenous fish, show incomplete cascading , or different cascading systems and all yield blood clotting. Evolution isnt a unique solution, usually its a bunch of simplistic or "jury rigged' solutions to a problem that show up in a myriad of forms. Behes problem is that he only discovered one and made it so unique sounding that we had to somehow be impressed (or so he wished)

Theres no need to become personally outraged at evolution Bern, Its not a perfect explanation, mature often takes some really stupid turns in adaptration. Thats why the concept of "Intelligent design" is quite funny. If only the full list of really dumb solutions to adaptive challenges could be discussed without any vehemence and name calling, itd be lots of fun trying to ascribe how anything intelliegent could have even been initially proposed.
We all know that the title"ID" was a convenient "madison Avenue" title by Phil Johnson just to circumvent the 1987 Supreme Court Decision. We all know that so lets not argue that ID is really a science. Its a dodgeball, a comfort factor to the religious whod just had their last shot salvoed back in their faces because they tried to push an agenda in Loisiana and someother states so they could return to the old days when Creationism didnt even need to be justified in science.

If ya ever wanna have me read you some really funny textbook **** that was passing for science in teh early 20 th centrury, Im game. I have a nice collection of early science textbooks and they are precious.

George-"Tilting at windmills"-Si, but is it that obvious? Perhaps I need more of a life. Perhaps I shall take up golf.






























not

In order to understand the questions posed by Dr. Behe, you must know more about the genetics of eye development. If you ask any geneticist about the genetics of eye development, you might not be able to get an answer, depending on whom you ask.

For example, if you were to ask Dr. Baljinder Mankoo, one of my old mentors, he would have no idea. His expertise was in muscle development, specifically the Meox genes. You ask him how the eye develops and he would have a vague idea at best.

He would, however, have been able to go into great detail about his line of work.

Dr. Behe and many Creationists use a disingenious argument of asking very detailed questions about very detailed disciplines. The average Evolution-supporter would not be able to answer, because it would require detailed knowledge of a rather large range of disciplines in order to successfully counter Dr. Behe's questions.

Dr. Behe, however, needs not detailed knowledge. The Creationist usually has no detailed knowledge in the so-called evidence he uses to support that evolution is not correct.

There, Bernie, were no questions in that paragraph you asked. However, I can tell you that a large number of scientists that work in cancer genetics do not work on human cells.

The main basis is this:

Organisms descended from a common ancestor. Those genes that are the most important would not have changed too much. Therefore, the action of investigating certain vital genes in model organisms is just as good as investigating it in human cells.

Let me think... Ah yes.

Take for example, the gene, Crb2. It's a homeobox gene for Schizosaccharomyces pombe (also known as fission yeast) in a cell cycle control cascade. It's Schizosaccharomyces cerevisiae (also known as budding yeast) equivalent is Rad9. They share high sequence conservation (i.e. similar sequences) in the important regions, but large sequence variations elsewhere. The human equivalent I think is Dc11 or something along those lines.

The genes themselves show similarities that could only have arisen through shared common ancestory.

The message in Behe's book boils down to one sentence, "I can't understand how it happened and I don't know everything about how it happened, so it must not be true." If we apply that same argument to God, then that means God must not be true either.

That is why Behe's book is complete tripe, because it is an argument from disbelief.

On a scale of one to ten for comprehension of what is involved in the question of whether things which are essentially irreducibly complex machines could plausibly evolve, Michael Behe is a nine and a half or a ten and you, Wolf, are at best about a .2 or .3. That's why Behe's writings on the subject sell so much better than yours.

Actually, I understand full well irreducibly complex and what it boils down to. You obviously don't.

Of course, it is idiocy to assume that Wolf either is or is not a published author. If he were, you'd have know way of knowing how well what he's written sells. As with all subjects you examine, you don't know what the hell you're talking about--which never deters you.

As for your praise for Behe's ability to gull the public with the drivel which the Discover Institute publishes for him (since reputable publishers of scientific works won't touch him with a ten-foot pole), i refer you to H. L. Mencken's pithy observation:

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

In the case of the creationist and "intelligent design" crowds, one might also cite their relative intelligence.

I am inclined to agree with your analysis, Set.

He's awfully easy to spot, once he warms up the rant engine.

BBB
I'm sitting here, giggling at the observation that Bernard's posts demonstrate the elvolution of an organism on A2K with his strings of names.

It also demonstrates that Intelligent Design chauvinists can, indeed, create organisms that evolve into idiots.



BBB

Behe's "Irreducible Complexity" claim is of less substance than the oilslick left behind by the Tirtanic;



IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA: Case No. 04cv2688 - Kitzmeiler vs Dover Area School District (Note: 139 page .pdf download)

Only an ID-iot would propose Behe's absurdity as an argument against evolution.

Amongst the things in the natural world which could not plausibly evolve because they are in fact irreducibly complex are (minimally) the following:

The mammalian eye
The flagellum motor system observed in certain bacteria
The defensive system of the bombardier beetle
The stinger defense system of bees, hornets etc.
Sex
Sonar amongst whales and bats....

There are any number of instances.


http://www.arn.org/mm/mm.htm