The book Darwin Devolves

[shunyadragon]

But does this mean you haven't read the paper?

Blessings,
Lee

This is the reason I try to avoid citing sources based on limited access abstracts only, and I want to emphasis you were guilty of this here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

repeatedly citing this reference: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

. . . and ignored my request to access the article so we could put your claims concerning the authors citation in context.

[Tassman]

Well, that is what we are discussing! Evidence that a deity designed the universe.

This is an argument from ignorance. As a deductive argument it fails because there is no way to verify the truth of the premise, namely god exists. Therefore you cannot assume the truth of the conclusion. There is no verifiable evidence that a deity or deities exist or responsible for designing anything.

[Roy]

Well, that is what we are discussing! Evidence that a deity designed the universe.

We're discussing Behe's malpractice and your attempts to argue from ignorance.

[lee_merrill]

This is an argument from ignorance. As a deductive argument it fails because there is no way to verify the truth of the premise, namely god exists. Therefore you cannot assume the truth of the conclusion. There is no verifiable evidence that a deity or deities exist or responsible for designing anything.

One way to verify that God is real is to ask him to reveal himself to you if he exists. "Those who seek, find." (Jesus)

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

This is the reason I try to avoid citing sources based on limited access abstracts only, and I want to emphasis you were guilty of this here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

repeatedly citing this reference: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

. . . and ignored my request to access the article so we could put your claims concerning the authors citation in context.

Could you post more specific links? Glad to make amends if I did this.

Blessings,
Lee

[HMS_Beagle]

Yesterday yet another damning review of Darwin Devolves was released, this time by two biology professors at Lehigh University, Behe's own school.

Evolution unscathed: Darwin Devolves argues on weak reasoning that unguided evolution is a destructive force, incapable of innovation

Worth the read as it goes into some detail of the blunders and deliberate misrepresentation Behe has become infamous for.

[shunyadragon]

Could you post more specific links? Glad to make amends if I did this.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Yesterday yet another damning review of Darwin Devolves was released, this time by two biology professors at Lehigh University, Behe's own school.

Source: Lehigh

Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

© Copyright Original Source

Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.


Again overstating Behe's point.

Source: Lehigh

Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality.

© Copyright Original Source

But where is the argument here? Is this all they can say in reply?

Source: Lehigh

Compared to the vast majority of natural genetic variants, loss‐of‐function variants have a much lower allele‐frequency distribution (MacArthur et al. 2012).

© Copyright Original Source

But I'm not sure how they're getting that from the MacArthur paper:

Source: MacArthur

Here we apply stringent filters to 2951 putative LoF variants obtained from 185 human genomes to determine their true prevalence and properties. We estimate that human genomes typically contain ~100 genuine LoF variants with ~20 genes completely inactivated.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

As I have heard there are about 10-100 mutations per generation.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!

Blessings,
Lee

[Tassman]

One way to verify that God is real is to ask him to reveal himself to you if he exists. "

Merely asking the question implies belief in his existence or do you ask all the gods?

Those who seek, find."

Confirmation bias will likely lead you to that conclusion if you are desperate enough.

(Jesus)

Not Jesus, but whoever wrote Matthew around 85 CE.

[rogue06]

Source: Lehigh

Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

© Copyright Original Source

Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.

Actually, that is Behe's claim, which as we can see by the polar bear example is poorly backed by cherry-picked evidence and misrepresentation.

[Roy]

Source: Lehigh

Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality.

© Copyright Original Source

But where is the argument here? Is this all they can say in reply?

No, it's not all they can say in reply, or even all that they do say in reply. The argument can be found in the very next sentence:

Source: ibid

]"Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality. Showing that a hammer cannot evolve into a fishing rod tells us nothing about real constraints on protein evolution."

© Copyright Original Source

Why didn't you quote that sentence, Dory?

Further expansion on the argument can be found later in the article:

Source: ibid

Proteins are promiscuous. They moonlight, by chance interacting with other cellular components to effect phenotype outside their traditionally ascribed roles. These adventitious functions can be strengthened by selection, allowing a protein to assume a new or a dual role.perform multiple functions and, therefore, evolutionary paths that seem unlikely when considering only one function may be realized through a series of stepwise improvements on another function.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Lehigh

Compared to the vast majority of natural genetic variants, loss‐of‐function variants have a much lower allele‐frequency distribution (MacArthur et al. 2012).

© Copyright Original Source

But I'm not sure how they're getting that from the MacArthur paper:

Source: MacArthur

Here we apply stringent filters to 2951 putative LoF variants obtained from 185 human genomes to determine their true prevalence and properties. We estimate that human genomes typically contain ~100 genuine LoF variants with ~20 genes completely inactivated.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

They probably read the paper:

Source: ibid

the signature of strong purifying selection against high-confidence LoF variants as a class, and the discovery of numerous known and predicted severe recessive disease alleles, indicates that many LoF alleles with large effects on human fitness exist at low frequency in the human population.

© Copyright Original Source

Quote-mining coprolite.

[shunyadragon]

Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!

Blessings,
Lee

Anyone can cite from anything, but you made the accusation that an article was not available only the abstract to understand what was cited. This the case with your reference, only the abstract was cited and no article was available without the article and conclusions to put your citation in context. Your citation was misleading from the context of the intent of the author's intent.

[TheLurch]

Source: Lehigh

Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

© Copyright Original Source

Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.

That's kind of the whole point: he doesn't show that, because it's not true. The review cites extensive data showing that's only likely to be true in lab-based long term evolution experiments.

Behe wants to believe that, because it makes a nice argument. But as we all know, what we want to be true and what is true can be very different.

[TheLurch]

Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!

They probably read the paper:[cite=ibid]the signature of strong purifying selection against high-confidence LoF variants as a class, and the discovery of numerous known and predicted severe recessive disease alleles, indicates that many LoF alleles with large effects on human fitness exist at low frequency in the human population.

You're "allowed" to do anything you want. To participate in an honest debate, however, you also need to make sure what you're quoting accurately represents the content of the paper.