A thousand pardons:  the previous post should have quotes around the first two sentences. 

And to elwed:  I can only assume that by your repeated demand, you are being as “factitious” as Les said he was earlier.  You already have a cemented opinion about ID anyway, anything I can say about it will not change that. 

I’ve already stated and clarified my position more than once, rather than continue to respond to the same questions, scroll up and read it.

What Mxyzptlk said.

lol, remind me not to get on rgjp’s bad side.

Definitely worth the effort, Ryan.

I can only assume that by your repeated demand, you are being as “factitiousâ€? as Les said he was earlier.  You already have a cemented opinion about ID anyway, anything I can say about it will not change that.

It should be obvious that the opinions regarding ID of all the participants in this thread are cemented. Nothing you can say will change that. So why bother?

To repeat, again, before launching into a detailed debate about Behe’s or any other IDolator’s work it is up to you to demonstrate that there is something worth talking about. Your continued and now explicit evasion only highlights that my conjecture is probably correct - if you were to state the concepts of ID, the debate would be over immediately.

I’d also like to remind you of Consi’s post. You are the guest and if you’re treated rudely, incessant whining about your treatment is not the way to further your agenda. You either play by the host’s rules without complaint and suck it up or you leave the site if you can’t take it - and feel free to go back to your ID buddies and point out how and where you martyred yourself.

Let me get this straight.. I’ve been away from the forums for a couple days as far as intensive reading goes. When I left, Elwed has posted something to the end of “make your case”. Myxyzptlk responds with a couple of classic arguments from ID. Critics knock that argument to the ground. She posts an outdated rebuttal; one that does not make consideration for anything that’s happened since around 2001? 2003?

Well, it’s almost 2006, Behe got put on the stand; his ideas got knocked down. He defended them persistently. So critics allowed Behe to explain what mechanisms were proposed, and apparently, he didn’t know. It’s like he just thought it up one day and said, “y’know? I can’t think of any better way of approaching it”. A statement such as the preceding would at least be discredited if Behe and crew had done real research. NY Times article hereAccording to the Templeton foundation, ID proponents are short on “rigor and intellectual seriousness”, because they haven’t been testing anything with the money they’ve been given by an institute that exists to establish Christianity within a scientific frame. Not only does that make ID sound bad, it takes away from whatever guys like Behe say, because they’re just talking shit until they actually meet what’s been asked of them by anyone who is taking it seriously.

So as far as the references to rebuttal go, no longer of any use. What you’ve claimed to be dogmatically certain-sounding claims don’t need certainty; all they need is the credibility enough to say that the statement is incorrect, or at the very least, lacking enough to cast serious doubt upon it. In this case, the statements were along the lines of X is irreducibly complex and that this constitutes a means of elimination for which there is no other possible answer than a creator. It is then shown that the presumption of creation based on premise X is invalidated because premise X is invalidated (it doesn’t have to be irreducibly complex, and in some cases, it actually isn’t). That problem could be overlooked if further research was done to revise ID’s position on these matters. Obviously, it hasn’t been, at least not by the people who were being funded for that specific purpose. The rest amounts to evidence scraping/data mining until such time as the claims of ID are established and tested.

You’ve spent an extensive amount of time quoting sources, and using their jargon in your explanations. Needless to say, it’s not making your position clear to people who could be your supporters (including me). If you are satisfied in the assumption that you can’t contribute anything to Elwed because he’s got a cemented opinion on ID, the least you can do is afford us the benefit of the doubt and serve what you’ve got. You’re certainly not doing me a favor. To that end, if you’re not going to present evidence at all, even if you claim to have it, then you’re treating everyone as though nothing you say will change anything.

In which case, please leave. You aren’t out to do anything more than rant, in that case.

Lastly, a lot of criticism has come from you over what is essentially “I don’t like the way you’re doing things”. You don’t have to; it’s their turf, not yours, and they stand by the scientific method in the evaluation of evidence, and it’s understandable that it’s not being excercised here. Why? Because ID makes no falsifiable claims. Criticism of them for failure to excercise a process that cannot be excercised in this context is useless. If they try to treat you like crap and you don’t like it, stick to hard evidence and let the chips on implicit personal attacks fall where they may. I’ll give you credit that in the last couple of posts you tried to cite a study which was not out to test the claims of ID, which is a nice attempt, but I came back from several days absence on this thread to find you’ve gone pretty much nowhere.

Arc, there is something that quite a people, including Consi and myself, tried to communicate to Myxi.

He is coming to this site on his own volition and he had or should have had any expectation of meeting opposition. If one wants to be taken seriously by a hostile audience, there is little choice but to proceed exactly like Consi suggested. By presenting a well-ordered argument, much like a court case or a scientific paper.

You start by clearly stating what you want to show, why you think your position has merit, and how you intend to proceed. As Consi is well aware of, you always play to an unknown audience. You never know who will read what you write, why, and what background they have. If you do a decent job of staking your claim, you might score points with somebody, somewhen, that you never expected to.

Depending on how this initial position statement is received, one conceivably can cut one’s losses and walk away. If things go well, continue to advance your argument one step at a time. Above all, if one can’t play by the house rules, make your excuses and leave.

For all I know and care, ID stands and falls with the concept of irreducible complexity. And it falls right there, because IC is nothing but a fallacy, the argument from ignorance. IC is intellectually unsupportable, as it implies that science has not now nor will it ever posit a conceivable or discover an actual evolutionary path. As apologists are so fond of saying, how can you have looked everywhere?

We can even go a step further, in jest like rgjp did or in earnest. Given a mutually agreed upon outline of ID, instead of wasting hours on a specific claim of IC, we can grant ID/IC for the sake of argument and put it to the test. E.g., take all the creationist canards and ask the ID proponents for their explanation. How does ID explain something that science allegedly cannot? What mechanism are involved? How? What? I believe it’s a much funner game to put ID believers through their paces than to butt heads over red herrings…

1) Now I know you’re on crack.

1) A little mean maybe but not exactly vicious. And perhaps it was a typing error? “Now I know you’re on track?“

2) Or maybe you’ve forgotten that science has its own “Piltdown Man?�
How could we forget. Ignorant people won’t let us live it down.

2) Well, it’s true. Many ignorant people do bring up the Piltdown Man, regardless of whether you yourself are one of them. And as far as many people are concerned, using the Piltdown Man as justification for rejecting science IS ignorant.

A number of aspects aided the survival of the hoax for forty years. It satisfied European expectations that the earliest humans would be found in Eurasia, and the British also wanted a “first Briton” due to national identity, leading to the dismissal of the first Frenchmen and Germans that the French and Germans already had (see Neanderthals). Professional jealousy kept the faked skull and jaw securely locked away from public gaze. The discoverers were well respected, the skull matched expectations (brain development before the jaw) and it was a well-executed forgery for its time. Even though it was quickly shown to be out of place and was relegated to the status of an unimportant curiosity, it was not dismissed as a forgery.[Wikipedia entry]

This was undoubtedly bad science, but it is important to note that the hoax persisted for so long primarily because, in the scheme of things, it didn’t make much of a difference. And, in the end, even though it was essentially a curio of minimal scientific importance, someone still took the time to debunk it. Also, the scientists who were swindled by the Piltdown Man weren’t real scientists, because no real scientist would be fooled by such a forgery. *cough cough*

3) I have to wonder what you’ve been smoking.

3) Professional curiosity, perhaps?

4) I’d just like to mention before the silly boy with the unspellable username posts again

4) I don’t know about your silliness, but your username is fairly unspellable. I kind of like it though.

5) In the end you can believe whatever you want, but then I’m free to believe you’re an idiot for your beliefs as well.

5) Too true.

6) It just seems to me that you are whining.

6) A legitimate statement of personal opinion, no doubt.

7) It’s idiotic statements like the ones you’ve made here that make it clear you’re talking out of your ass.

7) Well, perhaps Les thought your statements were idiotic and indicated that you were talking out of your ass. I don’t see how that’s an attack on your person rather than an attack on your opinions.

Here’s what an ad hominem argument looks like:
A makes claim B;
there is something objectionable about A,
therefore claim B is false.

People here may find plenty of things about you objectionable, but I’m pretty sure that the people whose comments you highlighted above didn’t reject your arguments out of hand on that basis. Most of us have taken the time to articulate why we don’t find your arguments persuasive in and of themselves. In other words, saying: “You say X and Y. I say A refutes X and B refutes Y. Additionally, you have a clear misunderstanding of issue Z (c.f. this source). This combination of factors has convinced me that you must be smoking crack.“

is different from saying: “You say X and Y. Well, I think you smoke crack, so X and Y must not be true.“  No one’s required to be nice about how they express their disagreement with your opinions, but at least most of us have taken the time to actually demonstrate what we find objectionable about them, rather than rejecting them purely because we find something objectionable about you.

Umm…actually Ulfrekr, I have a small correction to make in example #6:

rgjp wrote: 6) It just seems to me that you are whining.

That’s actually a typo. I believe I actually intended to write:

6) It just seems to me that you are winning.

Small point, I know. But the statement in question was actually intended as an early olive branch to our guest. Sadly it was a message of peace lost in the wash of the great battle to come.

One last post, Myxi, and I am outta here, at least until you show how ID explains the flagellum, instead of simply throwing mud at the evolutionists.
You say (of Matzke)

He did indeed reference, and then build upon, the work of Rizzotti, but only after stating the flaws and charting a course that did not make the same errors.  But the F1F0-ATP synthetase model is the one Rizzotti presented.  He charts Rizzotti’s model of it in Fig. 3, and a later (and I assume improved) version of it (Capaldi and Aggeler, 2002) in Fig. 4b.

Once again you’ve confirmed that you don’t understand these models.  Rizzotti’s model, depicted in Fig. 3, comes under the heading “Previous attempts to explain flagellar origins”.  It depicts, in three steps, “Rizzotti’s scenario for the origin of a proto-flagellum from an F1F0 ATP synthetase, via a ‘stirring filament.‘â€?  Fig. 4 depicts “systems with components homologous to flagellar components”. 4b depicts F1F0 synthetase, pointing out homologies of its subunits with other proteins.

Now, how does this constitute Matzke’s “building upon” the work of Rizzotti?  Matzke explicitly rejects Rizzotti’s scenario of the evolution of a protoflagellum, by pointing out the likely inutility of a “stirring filament”:

Rizzotti’s suggestion that stirring might be a primitive function of a proto-flagellum is intuitively appealing, but intuition is a poor guide to life at a low Reynolds number

And Matzke’s model indeed has no “stirring filament”, but instead proposes the evolution of the flagellum from the type III export apparatus, exactly the opposite of Rizzotti’s model:

Rizzotti hypothesized that once the central cavity became large enough, a secretion complex (presumably a type III export apparatus already functioning elsewhere) was patched in at the base of the rotor, allowing the secretion of a more complex filament.

So how is Matzke’s model “based on” Rizzotti’s?  Because both of them involve F1F0 synthetase?  Uh, neither Rizzotti nor Matzke discovered F1F0 synthetase, and I’m sure even Behe doesn’t deny that it exists in bacteria.  The homologies between F1F0 synthetase and basal flagellum proteins pretty much ensure that it will be involved in any new model of the evolution of the flagellum.

So Myxi, what you’re saying is that because Rizzotti’s tricycle has wheels, and Matzke’s car has wheels, then Matzke’s car is “based on” Rizzotti’s trike.

Let’s clear this up too.  You quote Matzke:

The type III virulence system contains homologs of most of these proteins (probably including an axial protein; Cordes et al., 2003), but as discussed previously its phylogenetic position is controversial.

and comment

You simply cannot assert your position as a dogmatic certainty (“demolishes”) when the author of the study himself says of the type III virulence system upon which you base your claim, “its phylogenetic position is controversial.â€?

Uh, Myxi, do you know what “phylogenetic position” means?  It means the point at which it evolved, relative to the other structures being considered.  Matzke did not say that its existence, or that the homologies between it and the flagellar basal proteins which disprove the “irreducibility” of the flagellum, are controversial.  Remember, he said elsewhere

The existence of a nonflagellar type III export apparatus falsifies the argument that flagellar components are useless if they are not part of a fully functioning flagellum.

That’s Matzke’s position on the “irreducible complexity” argument.
No, he was simply pointing out that it’s not certain (i.e. it’s “controversial”) that the type III virulence system (or a prototype thereof) evolved before the flagellum, which his model assumes:

If type III virulence systems are derived from flagella, what is the basis for hypothesizing a type III secretion system ancestral to flagella?  The question would be resolved if nonflagellar homologs of the type III export apparatus were to be discovered in other bacterial phyla, performing functions that would be useful in a pre-eukaryote world.  That such an observation has not yet been made is a valid point against the present model, but at the same time serves as a prediction: the model will be considerably strengthened if a such a homolog is discovered.

As I’ve said before, it’s the homologies between the type III secretion systems and flagellar basal proteins that show the flagellum to be “reducible”, not Matzke’s admittedly speculative model.  You may choose not to believe in these homologies, but don’t quote mine Matzke as doing so.

You may have noticed, in the last quote, that Matzke not only pointed out possible weaknesses in his model, but indicated directions for further research which could help establish, or falsify, his model.  That’s science.  Myxi, show us how ID can be falsified, or there’s really no point in comparing ID with science, or continuing this discussion.

consi, you and I disagree about many things.  Nevertheless, I have to belatedly commend and thank you for your attempt to bring reason to this debate.  Happy Holidays to you and yours.  Dance the wave.  Cheers, zilch.

I second what Zilch said about Consi. 

The expressions; “what you are smoking” and “you are on crack” - are seldom an accusation of drug use.  They are colloquialisms that mean “You are being very irrational”. 

My sons often say to me; “Oh, bullshit - you smokin’ crack again?“ which I take to mean that they disagree with what I just said.  They are not saying that I am literally smoking crack because they know I am a traditionalist and prefer snorting lines of coke off a hooker’s ass like any self-respecting wholesale importer of such products.

they know I am a traditionalist and prefer snorting lines of coke off a hooker’s ass like any self-respecting wholesale importer of such products.

Okay, that was a dead give away that you are obviously funning dof.  Everybody knows you snort coke off the tits and spank the ass.

Everybody knows you snort coke off the tits and spank the ass.

ROTFLMAO

Ah, I dimly recall a time when tits and ass were recreational ...

DoF, Consi, GM!  This discussion has finally come full circle, so to speak…

Everybody knows you snort coke off the tits and spank the ass.

Oh, man - no wonder all the really cool dealers make fun of me and spill their drinks on my Lamborghini: I had it all wrong! 

Ahem.  Loathe as I am to tear you all aways from more enticing subjects, I’ve found (via Pharyngula) some exciting new information about the evolution of the flagellum.  Hee hee.

Myxi, show us how ID can be falsified, or there’s really no point in comparing ID with science, or continuing this discussion.

Well, apparently science thinks they already have the method for doing that, all they supposedly have to do is offer sufficient evidence that the complexities of the flagellum are indeed reducible and more likely developed by natural selection through a series of gradual, adaptive changes.  Every argument so far here has tried to provide evidence they have done so.  One researcher claims that a flagellum exhibits characteristics that are not explainable by evolutionary arguments, and offers the flagellum as an example, and suddenly scientists are crawling out of the woodwork clamoring for involvement in the effort to falsify it.  If all these people truly believed it could not be falsified, I said truly believed it, they would not be wasting their time.  If everyone who has jumped to the defense against my comments on this forum, truly believed there was nothing of merit in them, there would not be the effort to argue them down.  Yet the claims have been viewed as meritorious enough to justify the use of invalid argumentations like ad hominem attacks against both me and the sources I quote, reductio ad absurdum in ridiculing Behe’s oral comments rather than the written study I cited, straw man substitutions, and probably a dozen others.  Attempts to point this out have been subjected to further invalid argumentation by ridiculing the very pointing out of invalid argumentation.  Around and around and around in the circles, from most of the responders here. 

One argument that has been constant, and repeated in various forms in an attempt to discredit Dembski:

Interesting to note that Dembski is a mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and psychologist, but not a BIOLOGIST. Hmmmm.

Another flawed argument in assuming that someone not degreed in biology could have anything to say on the subject that would be of any importance.

By suggesting this premise, you have discredited, in part at least, what Darwin himself had to say on the matter.  Not because he was not a biologist, but because of where he drew his ideas.  One key idea in Darwinian theory came from Thomas Robert Malthus, a philosopher, clergyman, and journalist who taught college-level history and political economy.  I don’t see biologist in there.  Darwin says in his autobiography, in reference to reading the theories of Malthus:

“it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.“

So apparently, the linchpin argument behind Darwinian theory of natual selection was inspired by the work of one who was not a scientist, but a philosopher.  Darwin also mentioned others from whose ideas he drew, and his interest in metaphysical discussions led him to read David Hume.

David Hume was a philosopher, historian, and economist,  and one whose ideas are still drawn on by scientists to support scientific claims and even evolutionary claims, particularly in reference to ID.  Philosopher, not scientist.  Discredit Dembski because philosophy does not qualify him to speak on evolution, and you may as well drop all Humeian support for evolutionist ideas.

Interesting to note that Malthus and Hume were both philosophers.  Dembski has a Ph.D. in philosophy.  Hmmmmm.

All I have to say is, when people debate ID, IDers say “Well why would they bother to debate it, if it had no merit? QED, GODDIDIT!“ But when people ignore ID, we hear “No one debates ID because they know they’ll lose! QED, GODDIDIT!“

Well, apparently science thinks they already have the method for doing that, all they supposedly have to do is offer sufficient evidence that the complexities of the flagellum are indeed reducible and more likely developed by natural selection through a series of gradual, adaptive changes.  Every argument so far here has tried to provide evidence they have done so.  One researcher claims that a flagellum exhibits characteristics that are not explainable by evolutionary arguments, and offers the flagellum as an example, and suddenly scientists are crawling out of the woodwork clamoring for involvement in the effort to falsify it.  If all these people truly believed it could not be falsified, I said truly believed it, they would not be wasting their time.  If everyone who has jumped to the defense against my comments on this forum, truly believed there was nothing of merit in them, there would not be the effort to argue them down.  Yet the claims have been viewed as meritorious enough to justify the use of invalid argumentations like ad hominem attacks against both me and the sources I quote, reductio ad absurdum in ridiculing Behe’s oral comments rather than the written study I cited, straw man substitutions, and probably a dozen others.  Attempts to point this out have been subjected to further invalid argumentation by ridiculing the very pointing out of invalid argumentation.  Around and around and around in the circles, from most of the responders here.

Wow. What an incredibly verbose way to say “I can’t”.  You evade questions better than the POTUS.

Myxi, I swear, it sounds like you are trying to provoke us to lose patience with you until we simply either give up responding, or call names, so you can claim victory.

One last time.  Pretty please with a cherry on top, explain to us, in your own words, what elwed asked some time ago.  If you do so, you will see that you have not answered the last question of my most recent response to you.  Hint: showing that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex does not falsify ID.

What is the theory of ID?

How does it explain the body of fact and observations that evolution currently does?

What mechanisms does it propose?

How we can we falsify the so-called theory of ID?

Are there any lab experiments that we can conduct to prove or disprove ID?

Ulfrekr- That is indeed the only real controversy about ID in the scientific community- whether to debate it or ignore it, with the IDers responding exactly as you say.  Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, at least by those who don’t understand the facts.

If everyone who has jumped to the defense against my comments on this forum, truly believed there was nothing of merit in them, there would not be the effort to argue them down.

Well, Myxi, there are all kinds of motivations to argue down ideas. Seeing the merit in them, and wanting to preserve one’s own prejudices, is certainly one motivation.

Seeing ideas that are not only wrong, but harmful, being pushed on children in public schools, provides another motivation, as I have mentioned before.

Imagine this scenario.  Friggitbigot comes to this forum and says “Niggas are dirty.  We should tell our clean white kids to stay away from them.“ How are we going to respond?  Probably by ignoring the idiot, or calling him names.

But what if Malarky comes here and says, “Studies by the Disintegration Institute show that blacks are inferior to whites.“  Suppose the Disintegration Institute existed, and it was trying to convince the public that these studies should be taught in public schools, with some success.  Wouldn’t we try to argue this down and fight it tooth and nail?

Now, you may object that the comparison between ID and racism is facile.  True enough- racism is much more dangerous and insidious.  But the prospect of our kids being taught religiously motivated falsehoods in science classes is alarming enough for us to respond forcefully.

So apparently, the linchpin argument behind Darwinian theory of natual selection was inspired by the work of one who was not a scientist, but a philosopher.

True.  One of the most important sources of inspiration for Darwin’s theory was not a scientist, not even a philosopher, but a bird- the Galapagos finch.  That’s why the Origin of Species is actually just a lot of squawking and clucking.

Let me just add here - the philosophers were inspiration, thay had some good ideas that were fun to play with for a while, and they showed some patterns that might have been consistent with X. That’s where science comes in, tests it, and finds that it isn’t entirely coincident with X. Good idea, but it still take science to make that idea stand or fall. You’re still complaining “I don’t like the way you’re doing things”, and you’re doing so on premises that are moving farther and farther from Ockham’s Razor.

*cluck* *flutter*

Let me just add here - the philosophers were inspiration, thay had some good ideas that were fun to play with for a while, and they showed some patterns that might have been consistent with X. That’s where science comes in, tests it, and finds that it isn’t entirely coincident with X. Good idea, but it still take science to make that idea stand or fall. You’re still complaining “I don’t like the way you’re doing things�, and you’re doing so on premises that are moving farther and farther from Ockham’s Razor.

Then show us the “tests.“  Not the “testable models,“ the tests. 

Show us exactly how the flagellum developed according to Darwinian theory. 

Science has no basis on which to criticize attempts to explain what they cannot. 

Seeing ideas that are not only wrong, but harmful, being pushed on children in public schools, provides another motivation, as I have mentioned before.

I hadn’t thought of it that way, and you certainly have a point.  Who knows, if we start giving kids the idea that there might actually be a Creator who made all this, how long can we expect it to take before they might even get the idea to   **shudder**  worship Him!

That last comment, by the way, was just a return jab in the “how absurd can you get” line of thinking being substituted here by those who choose to ridicule rather than debate.  For the record, I was simply being factitious.