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

Just a reminder that you’re still trying to shift the burden of proof. Ostensibly, you’re here to show that ID is right, we didn’t seek you out to claim that evolution is right; the claim of ID being correct is yours, therefore you have to show two things:

1) The flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex. You have to show that your claim is true; asking us to falsify your claim is nothing but the argumentum ad ignorantiam. You have to show that the flagellum cannot possibly have evolved.

2) Exactly how did the flagellum came to be? To spell it out, in this case we’re provisionally granting you that the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex; now give us all the gory details how an irreducibly complex structure actually came into being. Did it just pop into existence or what? What mechanisms do you propose?

In other words, do what you’ve been asked to more times than I care to count. Make the case for ID.

To repeat, we are not debating whether or not evolution is wrong, but whether ID is right. You commit another elementary error in logic by your unstated assumption that “proving” evolution wrong automatically “proves” ID right.

To put it bluntly, shit or get off the can.

And another round of spot the fallacy.

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.

Assume a claim C pertaining to biology, supported by biologist B. It would be fallacious, as in the argument from authority, to state that C holds true by merit of B being an authority on biology. It would be likewise fallacious to state that an incompatible claim IC does not hold true by merit of the person making that claim not being an expert in biology.

However, this misses an important point about the nature of the argument. Scientific theories are not truth claims in and by themselves, therefore the evaluation of which theory better fits the observable data is not a deductive argument, but an inductive one. In the context of an inductive argument, it is appropriate to give statements of experts greater weight than those by persons that are not experts in the problem domain. This is why courts make a distinction between expert witnesses and laymen, isn’t it?

So, the technically correct way of phrasing it would be that a well-argued claim by an expert is more credible than an ill-supported claim by a non-expert.

I think we have made progress.

Having failed to establish (or really even attempted to seriously) a biological or non-biological scientific footing for the argument, Mxzy appears to have taken Consi’s earlier advise and backslid into this most recent position:

Mxzy writes:

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. 

Earlier, Consi advised:

4) You would be in a much better position that is insulated if you were to posit that God created the world and all that is in it, but utilized evolution as a means to an end.  All they can say is “Can’t prove itâ€? and “Uhnt-uh, nooooooo he didn’t.â€?

Uhnt-uh, nooooooo he didn’t.

Insulated, indeed.

And can he (or anyone in the ID camp) prove an Intelligent Designer? No.

Of course they could use all that church money to hire lawyers and just change the definition of ‘science’. Oh wait...they already did that. Guess there’s no problem changing all the ‘science’ textbooks then. Anyone still with any doubts about the real meaning behind the Creationists honey coated words is well advised to read about the Wedge Document and the Discovery Institute.

This is not about science. Never has been. It is about the DI’s attempts to “affirm the reality of God”. Choose which side you are on and dig a deep trench. You might as well be trying to convince these people there is no Zeus.

‘nuff said and sorry for the multiposts…

rgjp, in my tired state I can’t fully divine your meaning, but you may have misconstrued the nature of Consi’s advice. What he suggested is a way to neatly reconcile Christian belief with the scientific knowledge gleaned from nature - “god did it and evolution is how.” Done, case closed, science as usual, y’all stop hyperventilating.

Theistic evolution I can live with; while it rests on a premise outside of the scope of science, but people who think like this have no need to inject this premise into the science curriculum.

Yeah, I’m pretty tired too. (Physically and otherwise.) Sorry Consi if I misinterpreted your advice. Just thought I saw a link there...tomorrow may prove me wrong.

Correct me if I’m wrong (anyone), but Mxzy really doesn’t have a huge problem with the details of the processes and predictions of evolution (as used everyday with success by biologists everywhere), except where the beginnings of all life on earth comes into question…

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

Huh?  You seem to be infering that ID isn’t science.

OK, glad to have you on board

To repeat, we are not debating whether or not evolution is wrong, but whether ID is right.

“We?”:  You got a laboratory rat in your pocket? 
From my first entry:

If you truly accept the prognosis of a lot of the critics of ID, you’d think anyone who dares suggest any belief in it at all is a hard-headed, ignorant, young-earth “fundie.� The fact is,there’s a much larger spectrum covered by the belief in creationism,

Claim #1:  Not everyone who believes in ID is a flat-earth fundie.

Dembski is no ignorant “fundie.� He has 2 Ph.D.’s, in mathematics and philosophy, and holds degrees in theology and psychology.
His work was followed up by Darwin’s Black Box, by cellular biologist Michael Behe,

Claim #2: The main two proponents are not “ignorant fundies” either.

So there does not have to be the uncrossable chasm between faith and science that so many people insist must be the case.

Claim #3: The attempt to label anyone ignorant who argues against evolution is a false one.  The attempt to marginalize is and ever was a parlor trick.

I really have no problem with some basic ideas of evolution, that is, theories about the process and patterns of evolution that are discernible and provable even over periods of relatively short duration. I have a bigger problem with what is termed “descent with modification,� the “larger picture� of evolution that makes unproveable assumptions concerning life origins, and modification across species lines.

Claim #4 (a) I agree there are evolutionary changes within species.
(b) I do not agree with claims about descent with modification, which I have understood, wrongly or rightly, to mean evolutionary change across species lines.
(c) I believe evolution makes unproveable assumption concerning life origins and modification across species lines.

I would think scientific method and “quality education� both would demand that all theoretical possibilities be considered and taught, rather than choosing a path that is the equivalent of censorship of valid ideas.

Claim #5:  In determining life origins, all theoretical possibilities ought to be considered.  (Or as some have called it, “teach the controversy.")

IN SHORT:  I made my first comments after observing people who are more than insistent, more like obsessive, concerning “scientific method,” chanting the mantra at every opportunity, making the absurd blanket generalization that all who believe in ID or in Creationism are ignorant.  (Some say ignorant, some say fundie, they basically use the terms interchangeably.)
The gist of my objection at that point was no, we’re not all ignorant fundies.  Dembski and Behe were not cited for support of ID, they were cited as examples of my main premise that not all Creationists are ignorant, labeling people as such is an attempt to marginalize. 
At that point, I set out a few statements to address my own viewpoints to give an idea where I was coming from:  change within species--yes, across species--no, evolution makes a case for explanation of life origins--no.  As relates to the topic and the school issue, teach all viewpoints--to which I would add, “without prejudice.”
Debating whether ID is right?  Don’t see it there.  In fact, the little I said was in reference to what I believed about the claims of evolution, not about ID. 

Being new, I allowed the badgering of the boo-bird chorus to back me into a corner, until I realized you and others were making demands that I make statements in defense of what really had nothing to do with what I had originally addressed.  Your renewed insistence led me to go back and re-read my remarks at entrance.  Clearly, “claiming ID to be correct” is an inapt description, nor would I even characterize it as “claiming evolution is in error,” the general thrust was, “not all Creationists are ignorant fundies.”

So now I find a new discovery:  I no longer have to make a case against ad hominem arguments, it is clear they were there even before I first posted, they just got redirected and aimed at me when I took exception to the false generalizations.

Continue your tirade if you must, you are demanding things irrelevant to what I addressed as I entered, and I will decline being backed into a corner of your choosing.  It worked for a little while and you had your fun, try addressing what was said and put your straw man back in his box with the tin man and the lion, and take Dorothy’s advice to Toto that we’re not in Kansas.

I take it by your continued evasion that you know of no other actual studies than the Hall study?

Correct me if I’m wrong

Glad to be of service. Granted, M. refuses to tell us what he believes ID to be, but from what I can gather the ID game plan is to say “we accept evolution, except in a few specific cases we will claim that something is irreducibly complex and therefore cannot have evolved. Oh, and in case any example we care to mention backfires, us bad, it was just a bad example. See you next Tuesday for another round of Whack-An-IDolator.”

It’s a mockery to call ID science in any way, shape, or form. It commits more fallacies than you can shake a stick at, but it plays well to a fundamentalist audience and it implements the principle of the big lie - repeat a lie often enough and eventually people will start to believe it. ID has but a tenuous connection to actual biology, just enough to find the next purported irreducibly complex whatchamacallit, flagellantum.

Somehow this thread reminds of this wacko!

What he suggested is a way to neatly reconcile Christian belief with the scientific knowledge gleaned from nature - “god did it and evolution is how.�

That is correct. That is what I was suggesting.

Granted, M. refuses to tell us what he believes ID to be,

The only thing I have “refused” is the hijacking of what I actually did say, and the straw man substitution introducing some fallacious misread for it.

You dance divinely, by the way.  Ducked right past the “what studies have been done besides the Hall flop?”

Myxi,

a few notes. If you read your posts carefully, you as the guest here have lost the bragging rights about ad hominem. Just saying.

You say that you do not defend the position that ID is right, but methinks you protest too much. Been backed in a corner? Cry me a river.

But perhaps we can go down your list of intial claims and put your offended ego to rest?

Claim #1:  Not everyone who believes in ID is a flat-earth fundie.

True. There are also Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, a few people that can’t cope with sharing a common ancestor with the great apes, and a few oddballs that fall between the cracks. Big deal. However, the thrust of your claim amounts to astro-turfing. We all know about the transparent agenda behind ID, don’t we?

Claim #2: The main two proponents are not “ignorant fundies� either.

Just fundies with an agenda. If you care to specify what they are supposed to be ignorant of, you might get a different answer. Please note that academic degrees are not incompatible with fundyism.

Claim #3: The attempt to label anyone ignorant who argues against evolution is a false one.  The attempt to marginalize is and ever was a parlor trick.

Tu coque. Creationists try to marginalize people with a scientific bent. But granted, not everybody who’s against evolution is ignorant; some reject it willfully and deceptively to remove a threat to their accepted religious dogma.

Claim #4 (a) I agree there are evolutionary changes within species.
(b) I do not agree with claims about descent with modification, which I have understood, wrongly or rightly, to mean evolutionary change across species lines.
(c) I believe evolution makes unproveable assumption concerning life origins and modification across species lines.

This is not a claim, but a statement of personal belief and therefore does not warrant comment.

Claim #5:  In determining life origins, all theoretical possibilities ought to be considered.  (Or as some have called it, “teach the controversy.")

This is an absurd demand, because there is an infinite number of theoretical possibilities, starting with all shades of invisible unicorns to supernatural pasta.

Since you refer to the controversy, what you probably meant was that in addition to teaching rationally tenable hypotheses, the supernatural should be admitted to the ride. I can provisionally grant this, provided “the controversy” is taught outside of a science class and in a philosophy or theology class instead.

I take it by your continued evasion that you know of no other actual studies than the Hall study?

That’s a puzzling question. By your own admission do not qualify as a neutral observer, so the purpose of this challenge must be to defend ID. But wait, what do I see?

Debating whether ID is right?  Don’t see it there.

Okay.

So to summarize: Not all IDolators are flat earth creationists; some of them are not ignorant fundies but worse; you have issues with evolution and want to sneak in the supernatural into (presumably) the science classroom. We are mean to Behe, Dembski, and just about anybody that doesn’t get evolution and don’t give them a fair hearing. We commit ad hominem, “gang rape” in your own words, yet you willingly come back for more, crying foul while dishing out the same. You do not, however, wish to debate either “evolution is wrong” or “ID is right”.

I’m not asking you, but the others. Is that just about right? Oh, and can we have David back?

Myxi- elwed speaks for me in his point-by-point discussion.  I will only add this:

Claim #4 (a) I agree there are evolutionary changes within species.
(b) I do not agree with claims about descent with modification, which I have understood, wrongly or rightly, to mean evolutionary change across species lines.
(c) I believe evolution makes unproveable assumption concerning life origins and modification across species lines.

As I have shown, you either quote-mined, or simply didn’t understand, Matzke’s paper on the evolution of the flagellum.  Again- you may believe what you want, but your credibility in this area is null.

Thinking about your style of argumentation, I realize that what arc said

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.

cuts to the root of the problem.  When you criticized Matzke’s paper, it was not on the basis of understanding the science (which you obviously don’t) but on what you perceived his motivations were, or should have been, and I have the feeling you simply parsed the article for words like “controversial” and “flaws”.  In other words, what you did with Matzke was simply a more sophisticated and convoluted form of this:

{original}I made my first comments after observing people who are more than insistent, more like obsessive, concerning “scientific method,� chanting the mantra at every opportunity, making the absurd blanket generalization that all who believe in ID or in Creationism are ignorant.

{improved version}I made the absurd blanket generalization that all who believe in ID or in Creationism are ignorant.

Now, of course what you did was a lot more subtle and harder to unravel, and I’m quite willing to believe that it was not done deliberately, but because you didn’t understand the context, which was admittedly pretty technical.  But you were wrong, and that tends to make your opinions about evolution moot.

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!{...}For the record, I was simply being factitious. 

Indeed- the shudderworthy prospect of religion being taught in public school science classes is all too “factitious”, and not at all “facetious"…

Being new, I allowed the badgering of the boo-bird chorus to back me into a corner…

Now we’ve gone from ad hominem to ad avem attacks- what next?  Whips?  Oh, right- we’ve had those already…

...until I realized you and others were making demands that I make statements in defense of what really had nothing to do with what I had originally addressed.  Your renewed insistence led me to go back and re-read my remarks at entrance.  Clearly, “claiming ID to be correctâ€? is an inapt description, nor would I even characterize it as “claiming evolution is in error,â€? the general thrust was, “not all Creationists are ignorant fundies.â€?

So now, if I understand correctly, you’re saying that you
a) don’t claim ID to be correct, and you
b) don’t claim evolution to be wrong, but only claim that
c) “not all Creationists are ignorant fundies”?

Since the topic here is ID and not Creationism per se, I take it that you agree with our gneral conflation of the two, as evidenced (among other indications) by the Wedge Document, barring the odd flying saucer IDer.  If a) and b) are the case, and I believe no one here claimed that all Creationists are ignorant fundies, then we can all go home satisfied.

For shame, Spocko! Talk about off topic!  That wacko didn’t say one word about Irreducible Complexity, and I would venture to guess she would be a sad case even if she were a Wiccan, or an atheist.  But a particular flavor of fundamentalism certainly provided a well-fitting framework for her pathetic ravings.

No, a more serious and pertinent link dealing with ID is here, courtesy of jinx at Pharyngula… hehe…

I’m not asking you, but the others. Is that just about right? Oh, and can we have David back?

elwed- a)yes, b)no, David is having a little contretemps with the Invisible Pink Unicorn and is not available at the moment…

One last point, somewhat off topic (well, if Spocko may, then I may too!).  Myxi, some time ago you mentioned that theologians have their own “gap theory”.  Now, I know you didn’t say whether you endorsed it or not, but it intrigued me, and I found this site which explains it nicely.

The “gap theory” is the attempt by some Christians to explain the seeming discrepancy between the scientific evidence for an old Earth, and the creation account in Genesis.  But the authors of this article convincingly (to me- admittedly no Bible scholar) show that you can’t have both an old Earth and a literal belief in Genesis.  Their conclusion is that science must be wrong, because Genesis can’t be.

Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Intelligent Design…

Elwed writes…

So to summarize: Not all IDolators are flat earth creationists; some of them are not ignorant fundies but worse; you have issues with evolution and want to sneak in the supernatural into (presumably) the science classroom. We are mean to Behe, Dembski, and just about anybody that doesn’t get evolution and don’t give them a fair hearing. We commit ad hominem, “gang rape� in your own words, yet you willingly come back for more, crying foul while dishing out the same. You do not, however, wish to debate either “evolution is wrong� or “ID is right�.

I’m not asking you, but the others. Is that just about right? Oh, and can we have David back?

That about sums it up correctly from where I’m standing. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. I’ve gotta give David credit for at least being coherent most of the time and for being honest about what he was arguing about even if it was stupid.

Oh. My. Shit. Spocko, that was awesome. And for further awesomitude, check out the official recap of the show on the Fox website:

Margaret tears up Jeanne’s ungodly envelope, declaring it to be unclean. As only a true spiritual warrior could do, Margaret throws the pieces of paper out the front door. A dozen evil ghosts immediately rush out of the house and try to put the envelope back together. But they can’t do it in time, and their ethereal presence simply dissolves.

Whoever wrote that needs to be spending some time over here.

Okay.

So to summarize: Not all IDolators are flat earth creationists; some of them are not ignorant fundies but worse; you have issues with evolution and want to sneak in the supernatural into (presumably) the science classroom. We are mean to Behe, Dembski, and just about anybody that doesn’t get evolution and don’t give them a fair hearing. We commit ad hominem, “gang rape� in your own words, yet you willingly come back for more, crying foul while dishing out the same. You do not, however, wish to debate either “evolution is wrong� or “ID is right�.

You missed one:

“what studies have been done besides the Hall flop?�

That’s pretty simple.  I’m not asking for any theoretical stuff either, obviously.  Science can’t deal with the concrete?  Or maybe everybody misses it every single time it posts? 

Well, let’s double the odds and repeat it twice in one post:

“what studies have been done besides the Hall flop?�

there’s an old joke that pretty much sums up what’s happened here if Myxi’s decided to back up to her original assertion.

A hunter goes hunting in the woods. He sees a bear. He aims the gun at the bear, his hands shaking a bit. The bear says, “If you try to shoot me and you miss, I’m gonna rape you”. Sure enough the hunter fires at the bear, misses, and the bear rips his pants off and goes at it.

Hunter comes back the next day, having cleaned and checked his gun, prepared for what he was about to do. Points the gun at the bear, and the bear says, “You know what’s gonna happen if you screw up, right?”. The hunter nods and fires. He still misses, and sure enough, the bear has his way with the hunter. Bear laughs his ass off, hunter goes home humiliated.

Hunter comes back the next day, points the gun at the bear, and the bear says “You don’t come here to hunt, do you?”.

Looks to me like the hunter is directly on target.  First the bear ignores the wound, then he ignores it again, and now he tries to laugh it off.

Where is the verifying “test” you spoke of earlier?  It was, after all, your insistence that “ That’s where science comes in, tests it, and finds that it isn’t entirely coincident. . .”

Myxi must be going through a lot of pants these days. He’s even adopted an apropos avatar.