REVISE THIS:Two sides of the irreducible complexity argument (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, September 17, 2009, 16:14 (5545 days ago) @ David Turell

David, it is clear to me that when I asked some months ago for you to google "Wedge Document" you didn't do so.
> 
> Matt, I didn't respond to you request that I look at the Wedge document, because I have seen it many years ago and know what it contains. You seem to forget that I am Jewish. I have no interest in their trying to reimpose Christianity on everyone. Some of my ancient relatives succeeded in making a religion out of a fervent Jewish man who recognized the corruption in the religion that was occurring, and preached according to Hillel, who had preceded him. I can never buy into the fairy stories.
> -Nor can I. The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the most powerfully disturbing stories I've ever heard. Much good and useful mysticism is contained within it. -> On the other hand, I think you must learn to open your mind to folks who might seem like the enemy. Some of their ideas are quite reasonable, despite the underlying agenda we both are aware of. For example, I don't think the idea of irreducible complexity is unreasonable. You see, I don't think it is possible for stepwise evolution to make a functioning liver or kidney at the human level, and by this I mean latterday mammals in general. Yes, we can dialyze and give folks life, but ask them what that life is like,partially poisoned and anemic. Dialysis is tricks with osmotic pressure, nothing near what a living kidney can do. This is why kidney failure patients want transplants. And we still have no good method of doing liver dialysis, whic is why there are waiting lists for transplants. I do not find Behe unreasonable. I do not see that his book on malaria and mutation rates has an error. His imputed error by critics mistakenly does not recognize his data references, which are accepted science. I'll try and find a reference for you to this mistake on their part.
> -I have no problem with design as a valid philosophical position. I have a problem with organizations that try to pass themselves off as scientific organizations when their real goal has absolutely nothing to do with science. The Discovery Institute would be the equivalent of a leftist liberal getting their news from http://leftnews.org/ except that the organization calls itself "http://rightnews.org/" in an attempt to fool the public. It is unethical and immoral. -In Behe's case his algebraic error results in an error of 65 orders of magnitude; it makes his own result less likely. It was on his argument about bacterial flagellum, and it was the key equation of the whole book. Since "Darwin's Black Box" has been in print, this errata has been presented to him in numerous extrememly public events such as college campus debates. He has yet to fix the error. Scientists--when doing their job properly--fix errors when they are brought to their attention. Behe doesn't, therefore he's not a scientist. -
> You need to look at both sides, and stop dismissing out of hand: look at David Berlinski, Jewish atheist, The Devil's Delusion; David Stove: Darwinian Fairytales; Michael Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, which contains very interesting biochemistry showing the tree of life really doesn't work as yhou might expect.-Again, I have little issue with Design. You criticized me for looking at talkorigins previously--the Discovery Institute is just as awful if not worse, do to its political agenda; it shapes whatever they're willing to do, and they have been shown to flat-out ignore things such as what Behe and Dembski have done. Dembski is actually much worse than Behe in his use of mathematical terminology... cascades of equivocation with no clear intent aside from obfuscation. He even attributes ideas to wrong people and deliberately misquotes in his writing such as when he mis-paraphrased Dennett as advocating quarantining "religious people." (Which he still hasn't retracted.) Behe is just as much a politician... do some more digging. -There are honest authors for design, I simply have been far too jaded by the ones that seem to have the most clout; it destroys the credibility of the entire philosophy, and I for one would think you'd take a stronger position as it is organizations such as the Discovery Institute that poison the water against design by being the PETA of Creationism. Or another stormfront.org. -When my studies are done, keep those authors in mind as I'll look into them; Denton sounds like a good place to start.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"