Behe on Darwin: polar bear discussion (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, March 18, 2019, 09:59 (1858 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Our debate is about whether bacteria are intelligent enough to do their own reprogramming when confronted with new conditions. According to you, this experiment shows that they are not. According to Shapiro, other experiments show that they are. You admit that this experiment is not at the same level as Shapiro’s, so why should I believe your minority view and not that of Shapiro plus all the other scientists in the field who believe that bacteria create their own instructions “on the hoof”, “de novo”? Are you really claiming that only your minority have “fully studied” the subject, and the majority haven’t?

DAVID: I am about to read Behe's comments about Shapiro. I'll try and transmit his opinion. Shapiro does not know if the reprogramming he finds is automatic or not. It is his opinion they appear intelligent. I agree. That is not saying he 'knows' they are intelligent, a fine difference, but valid.

Of course nobody KNOWS! If we knew, there would be no discussion. That's why I am perfectly happy with your 50/50, and am only complaining about your earlier insistence that there is a "tiny list" of scientists whose opinion differs from yours. It now turns out that yours is the minority opinion. That doesn't mean it's wrong, just as your statistic of 90% atheism among scientists doesn't mean there is no God. The difference between opinion and knowledge is not "fine", it is massive, and we dealt with it long ago in our discussions on epistemology.