Behe on organismal evolution

Hello JasonChinIn one of your posts you make the following statement: I guess my question would be: Do you agree with his argument? Do you agree that we can’t know, therefore we will never know, therefore we should stop looking, therefore God did it? I hope not. For example, to say that the odds of the eye evolving are too low, therefore God had to do it, is a complete and utter mistake. To suggest that we should therefore stop looking for a scientific explanation is why Irreducible Complexity and Intelligent Design are both non-sciences.In another post you state: UmmmI’m not too sure how to respond here. I get the impression, however, that you seem to equate highly improbable with impossible. And this is often times accompanied by a lack of understanding of both statistics and the ToE, which I also think is likely in your case, based on statements like the following: This implies to me that you believe that evolution has some sort of goal or purpose. That you, for example, ascribe to the notion that euglena wanted to become mobile, so they evolved flagellathat birds wanted to fly, so they evolved wings that humans wanted to open doors, so they evolved opposing thumbs
Evolution does not work that way. It has no goal and it has no purpose. I think that this is perhaps the most difficult concept for many people to embrace. Euglena did not want to become mobile, so they decided to evolve a flagellum. Rather, flagella evolved, which allowed for motility. Birds did not evolve wings so they could fly, they can fly because wings did evolve. I realize that these examples are way oversimplified, but I only want to use them to get across my earlier point, which is that things simply evolve, and that organisms don’t evolve structures they think they may want or think they may need in the future.And as far as arguing against evolution on the grounds of probabilities, well it’s incorrect. You’re looking at it from the wrong direction. You’re seeing what we already have, and then calculating the probabilities of that having occurred. You can’t do that. The probability of an event occurring once it has occurred is 100 percent. Let me see if I can straighten you out on this one as well.
Picture yourself inside a basketball. Assume you are located in the exact center of the ball, and are held there so you can only spin in place, not move away from the center point. Ok so far? Let’s say that I do indeed set you spinning in some random fashion, that you also have a laser with you, and that at some point in the future I will tell you to fire the laser. The beam of light will travel outwards towards the basketball cover and will strike one of those dimples. Let’s further assume that each of those dimples represents a possible mutation. Now, can you predict which mutation (dimple) will be chosen when you fire the laser? Of course not, but you can calculate the odds of any individual mutation being the one that is hit by the beam of lightcorrect? What if the ball had 1000 dimples on it? Well the odds for each dimple would then be 1000 to 1 against being the chosen one (so to speak). What if there were 1,000,000 possible mutations (dimples) to choose from? What if there were 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 mutations (and by the way, I only chose a basketball because I assume you know what one looks like. Don’t start going off on how the beam may hit a seam on the ball, or may miss a dimplethat’s not the point)? As the number of possible mutations increases, the odds for any single mutation being chosen gets proportionally smaller. What does not decrease, however, is the odds that any mutation will be chosen. It is a 100 percent certainty when there are 1000 mutations, and it is still %100 when there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 mutations from which to choose. Try to think of biological systems and the ToE in a similar manner. We have eyes because that's what was chosen way back when, not because we wanted them. In other words, if it weren’t eyes that we got through evolution, then it would be something else. Who knowsmaybe the dimple on the basketball next to the eye dimple was telepathy. Damn that God for giving use something as crappy as vision when we could have had telepathy instead!

WoundedKing:Thanks...I see that now. Kind of a bummer that I wasted a post...but such is life. Um, how would I go about "bumping" this post into boot camp and/or starting a new thread there?

This post is a copy of the original from the Behepost. It didn’t seem to transfer over.Hello JasonChin,In one of your posts you make the following statement:I guess my question would be: Do you agree with his argument? Do you agree that we can’t know, therefore we will never know, therefore we should stop looking, therefore God did it? I hope not. For example, to say that the odds of the eye evolving are too low, therefore God had to do it, is a complete and utter mistake. To suggest that we should therefore stop looking for a scientific explanation is why Irreducible Complexity and Intelligent Design are both non-sciences.In another post you state:UmmmI’m not too sure how to respond here. I get the impression, however, that you seem to equate highly improbable with impossible. And this is often times accompanied by a lack of understanding of both statistics and the ToE, which I also think is likely in your case, based on statements like the following: This implies to me that you believe that evolution has some sort of goal or purpose. That you, for example, ascribe to the notion that euglena wanted to become mobile, so they evolved flagellathat birds wanted to fly, so they evolved wings that humans wanted to open doors, so they evolved opposing thumbs
Evolution does not work that way. It has no goal and it has no purpose. I think that this is perhaps the most difficult concept for many people to embrace. Euglena did not want to become mobile, so they decided to evolve a flagellum. Rather, flagella evolved, which allowed for motility. Birds did not evolve wings so they could fly, they can fly because wings did evolve. I realize that these examples are way oversimplified, but I only want to use them to get across my earlier point, which is the things simply evolve, and that organisms don’t evolve structures they think they may want or think they may need in the future.And as far as arguing against evolution on the grounds of probabilities, well it’s incorrect. You’re looking at from the wrong direction. You’re seeing what we already have, and then calculating the probabilities of that having occurred. You can’t do that. The probability of an event occurring once it has occurred is 100 percent. Let me see if I can straighten you out on this one as well.
Picture yourself inside a basketball. Assume you are located in the exact center of the ball, and are held there so you can only spin in place, not move away from the center point. Ok so far? Let’s say that I do indeed set you spinning in some random fashion, that you also have a laser with you, and that at some point in the future I will tell you to fire the laser. The beam of light will travel outwards towards the basketball cover and will strike one of those dimples. Let’s further assume that each of those dimples represents a possible mutation. Now, can you predict which mutation (dimple) will be chosen when you fire the laser? Of course not, but you can calculate the odds of any individual mutation being the one that is hit by the beam of lightcorrect? What if the ball had 1000 dimples on it? Well the odds for each dimple would then be 1000 to 1 against being the chosen one (so to speak). What if there were 1,000,000 possible mutations (dimples) to choose from? What if there were 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 mutations (and by the way, I only chose a basketball because I assume you know what one looks like. Don’t start going off on how the bean way hit a seam on the ball, or may miss a dimplethat’s not the point)? As the number of possible mutations increases, the odds for any single mutation being chosen gets proportionally smaller. What does not decrease, however, is the odds that any mutation will be chosen. It is a %100 percent certainty when there are 1000 mutations, and it is still %100 when there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 mutations to choose. Try to think of biological systems and the ToE in a similar manner. We have eyes because they evolved, not because we wanted them. In other words, what I’m trying to say is that if it weren’t eyes that we got through evolution, then it would be something else. Who knowsmaybe the dimple on the basketball next to the eye dimple was telepathy. Damn that God for giving use something as crappy as vision when we could have had telepathy instead