A conversation with Dr. Michael Behe & Dan Cardinale on “The Edge of Evolution”

[Frank Robert]

Dr. Behe is coming back on, this time to talk about his second book, “The Edge of Evolution”. We’ll be talking today (7/7/21)at 1pm EDT (GMT -4).
Creation Myths

Returning guest Dr. Michael Behe and I will discuss his second book, "The Edge of Evolution". We'll be talking about the evolutionary biology underlying Dr. Behe's argument in "Edge". Many other people have commented at length on the specific cases Behe examines at the molecular level. Two notable examples are the long exchange between Behe and Dr. Larry Moran, which you can find here: https://discourse.peacefulscience.org... And the exchange between Dr. Abbie Smith, Dr. Ian Musgrave, and Dr. Behe on HIV evolution. The Behe/Musgrave portion of that can be found in the right sidebar here: https://bereanarchive.org/articles/bi... And Dr. Smith's portions, which started the whole thing, can be found here: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007... http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.... http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.... https://scienceblogs.com/erv/2010/05/...

 

[pitabread]

I'm interested to see how this discussion goes. I watched the previous discussion Dan had with Behe about irreducible complexity. Dan kept pressing Behe on defining a line between IC and non-IC.

At one point Behe resorted to discussion of probabilities. Dan brought up an IC example in HIV that we have directly observed the evolution of, which Behe said could probably evolve since the population sizes and mutation rates are high enough. Yet he also pushed back on other systems evolving for the same reason (e.g. not large enough populations or high enough rates).

My takeaway is that Behe's IC argument largely boils down to things that could conceivable evolve but in Behe's view probably didn't. Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly leave IC being very useful as a means of design detection, given all the baggage associated with assigning probability modeling to evolution.

It will be interesting to see how today's discussion goes.

 

[Phred]

I'm interested to see how this discussion goes. I watched the previous discussion Dan had with Behe about irreducible complexity. Dan kept pressing Behe on defining a line between IC and non-IC.

At one point Behe resorted to discussion of probabilities. Dan brought up an IC example in HIV that we have directly observed the evolution of, which Behe said could probably evolve since the population sizes and mutation rates are high enough. Yet he also pushed back on other systems evolving for the same reason (e.g. not large enough populations or high enough rates).

My takeaway is that Behe's IC argument largely boils down to things that could conceivable evolve but in Behe's view probably didn't. Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly leave IC being very useful as a means of design detection, given all the baggage associated with assigning probability modeling to evolution.

It will be interesting to see how today's discussion goes.

I'm going to be scraping dirt out from under my fingernails with a cleaver. So sorry to miss this.

His previous argument was that you can't have half a wing. He believes that every creature must know its final goal. That's... beyond stupid. Every creature is a fully functional creature that lives its life escaping, hunting, breeding... whatever. It doesn't have half a wing thinking, "in another 800 generations my kids will be able to fly." Do you think flying squirrels look at birds and think they're stunted? Do you think otters look at seals and think they're somehow stunted? They are whatever they are. And they use whatever they have to do whatever they do.

 

[essentialsaltes]

From my (layman's) review of the book.

[Behe's position is] sensible, but it amounts to an argument from ignorance. He looks at observed mutations in malaria and draws a line in the sand. "Okay, random evolutionary forces can do that much, but no more. Beyond that intelligence is required." But if and when an experiment showed that evolutionary processes can go beyond his line, he can just relocate his edge a little further out, and say that intelligence is required to go beyond that. This is not just an academic objection; since publication, Behe has already conceded that the edge needs to be drawn a bit further out:

Yes, I’m perfectly willing to concede that this does appear to be the development of a new viral protein-viral protein binding site, one which I overlooked when writing about HIV. So the square point in Figure 7.4 representing HIV should be placed on the Y axis at a value of one, instead of zero, and Table 7.1 should list one protein-binding site developed by HIV instead of zero.

In absolute terms, a step from 0 to 1 is not very far, but going from never to sometimes is hugely important when talking about whether something is impossible or possible.

 

[pitabread]

Just finished watching the video. It was a good discussion.

Towards the end where they touch on the notion of mechanisms is where I think the weakness on the ID argument reared its head. Behe claims that knowledge of design mechanisms are not required in order to conclude design. But how is he concluding design? By simply arguing that evolutionary mechanisms are inadequate to explain what we see. In a nutshell, it seemed like Behe is making the exact mistake every other ID proponent: he assumes design as the null hypothesis of evolution.

But as Dan pointed out at the beginning of the talk, the Darwinist mechanisms that Behe seems to be arguing against aren't the entirety of modern evolutionary theory.

ID proponents need to come up with positive evidence for design. The only way that will likely ever happen is if they can't start proposing mechanisms for how such design is effected in living things.

It was also interesting to see Behe state that it's possible that design is ongoing. Certainly that would have monstrous implications for biology, yet he seemed oddly incurious about that notion. You'd think if they could propose and detect real-time examples of design (other than human directed) ID proponents would be all over that.

 

[Ophiolite]

It was also interesting to see Behe state that it's possible that design is ongoing. Certainly that would have monstrous implications for biology, yet he seemed oddly incurious about that notion. You'd think if they could propose and detect real-time examples of design (other than human directed) ID proponents would be all over that.

One mechanism by which design might be imposed on biology - to me the obvious one, assuming the "I" in ID had the appropriate powers - is by generating a suitable mutation, upon which natural selection and other evolutionary mechanisms could then operate.

But then how could one distinguish a natural mutation from a directed one? One would be back, for example, to determing the probability of a large number of observed mutations occuring naturally. Which is where we came in, with 747 self-assembling in a junk yard arguments from the creationists, I mean ID proponents.

To me the best of the creationist and ID arguments boil down to "I don't believe in evolution, so I'm going to use every bit of reason and evidence I can find that calls it into question (so there!)". Some of the arguments and evidence are actually quite good, but once they have been accounted for it really becomes tiresome to see them recycled continuously.

 

[pitabread]

But then how could one distinguish a natural mutation from a directed one? One would be back, for example, to determing the probability of a large number of observed mutations occuring naturally.

This is where I think proposing a specific mechanism becomes key. You need a way to distinguish what causes the mutation and I don't think probabilities alone works. Behe's arguments kind of fall apart in this regard, because there are examples of IC systems (the HIV example that keeps coming up in the discussion being one) where it meets his definition of IC, but is is an example of evolution. And Behe basically agrees that because the population size and mutation rates are high enough, of course it can naturally evolve. But that effectively falsifies IC as a notion that IC systems are in fact non-evolvable.

With GM organisms we have real world examples where artificially designed sequences are created And how do we detect those? Either via matching the sequences in question or identification of specific genetic indicators of methods used to do the sequence insertion.

If ID proponents want to propose a designer manipulating genomes by induced mutations or whatever, they need to propose how that could occur and what the specific indicators of that process should look like. Only then will they have something they can try to use to detect design.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

One mechanism by which design might be imposed on biology - to me the obvious one, assuming the "I" in ID had the appropriate powers - is by generating a suitable mutation, upon which natural selection and other evolutionary mechanisms could then operate.

But then how could one distinguish a natural mutation from a directed one? One would be back, for example, to determing the probability of a large number of observed mutations occuring naturally. Which is where we came in, with 747 self-assembling in a junk yard arguments from the creationists, I mean ID proponents.

To me the best of the creationist and ID arguments boil down to "I don't believe in evolution, so I'm going to use every bit of reason and evidence I can find that calls it into question (so there!)". Some of the arguments and evidence are actually quite good, but once they have been accounted for it really becomes tiresome to see them recycled continuously.

The 'mutation tweaking' idea seems to ignore the factors involved in making a mutation a selective advantage (e.g. internal & external environment) that make it likely to spread through and become fixed in the population; it's also fairly unusual for a single mutation to have a significant selective advantage in complex multicellular organisms...

 

[Ophiolite]

The 'mutation tweaking' idea seems to ignore the factors involved in making a mutation a selective advantage (e.g. internal & external environment) that make it likely to spread through and become fixed in the population; it's also fairly unusual for a single mutation to have a significant selective advantage in complex multicellular organisms...

There may be more, but I can only imagine two kinds of Intelligence that would be the "I" in Intelligent Design.

• An omnipotent, or near omnipotent deity
• Aliens advanced far beyond humanity in terms of technology and knowledge

Either would be aware, in advance, which mutations would prove more effective in regard to all relevant environmental aspects. They would also have the ability to induce each mutation simultaneously in multiple organisms and in an appropriate sequence. This would seem to negate your objections.

As I suspect you can see I am invoking Clarke's Third Law. And that is probably my main point: ID is likely to be impossible to identify until humanity gets a lot more "I".

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

There may be more, but I can only imagine two kinds of Intelligence that would be the "I" in Intelligent Design.

• An omnipotent, or near omnipotent deity
• Aliens advanced far beyond humanity in terms of technology and knowledge

Either would be aware, in advance, which mutations would prove more effective in regard to all relevant environmental aspects. They would also have the ability to induce each mutation simultaneously in multiple organisms and in an appropriate sequence. This would seem to negate your objections.

As I suspect you can see I am invoking Clarke's Third Law. And that is probably my main point: ID is likely to be impossible to identify until humanity gets a lot more "I".

You're right in as much as those two kinds of hypothetical intelligences could do what you suggest, but given our genomic analysis capabilities, I'm wondering if such targeted interference would not stand out like a statistical sore thumb...

 

[Ophiolite]

You're right in as much as those two kinds of hypothetical intelligences could do what you suggest, but given our genomic analysis capabilities, I'm wondering if such targeted interference would not stand out like a statistical sore thumb...

I'm monstrously ill equipped from either a genetics, or a statistics viewpoint to argue against that. Instead I ask, if such interference had been frequent and routine for three billion years and we had not recognised it, how would it show up? That's a poorly phrased question, but I'm hoping you detect the gist of it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm monstrously ill equipped from either a genetics, or a statistics viewpoint to argue against that. Instead I ask, if such interference had been frequent and routine for three billion years and we had not recognised it, how would it show up? That's a poorly phrased question, but I'm hoping you detect the gist of it.

I guess it would depend on how widespread these interferences were, but if they were significant, there would presumably be significantly more beneficial mutations and mutation sequences in particular areas of the genome, and/or in particular species, and/or for specific phenotypic traits.

I don't know if we could make that determination yet, or whether interference could be hidden in additional mutational 'noise' in some way, but there comes a point where it would make a mockery of the original genetic 'design'...