The arguement that recently convinced me of god's existence

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Biochemist Michael Behe said the probabliity of linking 100 amino acids to create one protein molecule would be the same as a blindfolded man finding a marked grain of sand in the Sahara desert- not once but 3 different times.

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what is timetable for the blind man? his natural lifetime? a day? before he dies of thirst?
sorry, not at all relevant to the discussion, but part of me really wants that quantified. it seems too specific to simply be a hyperbolic statement on Behe's part.

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Biochemist Michael Behe said the probabliity of linking 100 amino acids to create one protein molecule would be the same as a blindfolded man finding a marked grain of sand in the Sahara desert- not once but 3 different times.

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LOL... What a statement. That will get him maybe to appear on Oprah or the pre-school lecture circuit, but it surely will not get him closer to the Nobel prize than the blind man to a specific grain of sand in the desert.

It is amazing that creationists let people loose with statements like that. I mean it is evident why they are a laughing stock.

Lets look at the statement. First, of course is the objection already raised. It doesn't quantify anything. How long has he got etc...

But the grossest error committed by the biochemist (? obviously with zero knowledge of statistics or science) is that he fails, by insidiously putting forward an erroneous view pushed by creationists. That somehow, specifics known linking of 100 amino acids are the ONLY way to create a protein molecule useful to life. as they are are something remarkable or peculiar and somehow they only one that could be related to the phenomena of life. Of course, a scientist make no such claim. We have far from exhausted investigating all possible proteins structures (if in themselves they are neccesary to life and there are NO other possibilities. Not known either). To put the analogy a bit more correctly, altough still lacking in quantification, assume that the sand is made up af yellow, black and red grains. Now the probability may be mooted a bit more accurately by saying it would be equivalent to the likehood of the blind man picking three yellow grains in a row if he kept picking grain all his life.

Anyway, a very interesting observation... at least as an indication of the level of intellectual prowesses by Mr Behe. LOL again.

[college kid]

Again, I'm out of my element here. But it IS possible, and given enough time/trials it WILL happen. So just because it's unlikely to happen at all doesn't mean that once it has happened, it therefore must be something devine. We just put a bad beat on probabilistic natural occurance. What a suck out. NH.

[jthegreat]

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Science doesn't provide certainty either. It provides cogency.

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That's not the point. The point is that you can be certain that nature is ordered because it's axiomatic. If you "knew" through induction, you wouldn't be 100% certain.

Calculating the odds of a single complex structure arising by the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution is not an idea that is automatically trumped by pointing out that there are many possible complex structures that could have evolved.
I like thinking of cars rather than chairs. I calculate the odds of a Corvette arising by the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution. Someone says - well a Porshe could have evolved or a Mazda or Lord help us a Yugo - even a plane - even a boat etc. That doesn't trump the argument. Its just one more thing to consider in the calculation. And it is considered by many people who advance the intelligent design arguments.
Some people here are crying for quantification and you are right. Youve got to look at the math and the specifics. Just as a rough example - The odds of picking one correct number in a lottery with 4 numbers is one in 10 to the 4th power - or 1 in 10,000. But if I tell you that you have 1,000 numbers that are winners your odds aren't that bad. But what if the lottery has 1 million numbers and you only have 1,000 chances (the corvette, the porshe, the boat and the plane etc...). So whether you have one chance or a thousand chances at a lottery with one million digits doesn't really change the argument of the likelyhood of winning.
So its important to look specifically and thoroghly at these kinds of questions. And thats where Micheal Behe's most famous book, "Darwin's Black Box", does a good job. The book is a tough read though because it gets into a lot of biology and biochemistry, but you can still follow a lot of his arguments.
Also - Behe careful - I see comments about Behe being a crazy Creationist and unqualified in his field. He is well qualified, and Behe is not a creationist. He has stated he prefers evolution over creation. There are really 3 camps out there now:
1. Evolutionists who hold pretty much to the Neo-Darwinian model of Evolution, allowing maybe a few tweeks to come along in the future.
2. Creationists who are motivated mainly to prove a set of religious beliefs.
3. Those who may agree with evolution as a general principle but are challenging the Neo-Darwinian model. (Also in this camp I think are people who more or less believe in creation but are not pushing a literal interpretation of Genesis. Perhaps that deserves a 4th camp for now putting them together is OK)
So Behe is in camp #3. And so am I. I believe there are serious difficulties with Neo-Darwinism as a mechanism for evolution. Part of the problem is that the evolutionists have been under fire from camp #2 for so long that they are tired of the debate. Camp #2 has been motivated by proving specific religious beliefs. But camp #2 has hit the evolutionists with some very legitimate points over the years. And when camp #3 uses some of the same points, they get labelled as being in camp #2 and the walls go up.
Maybe I will do a thread some day on the objections to the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution and some of the perspectives of camp #3.

[noggindoc]

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So my close christian friend lends me a book, because I've always been bugging her and questioning christianity, and she told me it'd answer most of my questions.

So I start reading the book and the very first chapter talks about this.

Say you are walking down a field, and you see a wooden chair in middle of no where. Now you know someone must have made that chair, because chair's don't just "happen". You've never witnessed the builder of the chair working on the chair, but you could only assume that someone out there, made the chair and placed it there for whatever reason.

Now if something as simple as a wooden chair can't just "happen" the book argues that something as complicated as humans, cell structures, plants, animals, countless laws of physics that govern the universe could not have just "happened". Somebody must have created us. If you think a wooden chair could not exist with out a builder, consider how infinately more complex body structures we humans have.

And I think the reasoning is fairly solid. I do now think that it is silly to imagine things like mitosis, DNA, human eyes could have appeared by random chance.

The book also goes into absolute lack of evidence in macro-evolution (aka missing links) and how the scientists were still unable to create life out of chemical reactions as they proclaim.

But I do not want to get into the macro evolution/ biogenesis theory stuff, but just would like a discussion on use of logic in the chair anology.

thanks.

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Geez man this argument is old and lame. Why can't random interactions over an infinite period of time produce what we perceive to be complexity? You've not heard the one where a monkey randomly banging on a typewriter over an infinite amount of time would eventually write all the books known to man?

[jthegreat]

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3. Those who may agree with evolution as a general principle but are challenging the Neo-Darwinian model. (Also in this camp I think are people who more or less believe in creation but are not pushing a literal interpretation of Genesis. Perhaps that deserves a 4th camp for now putting them together is OK)


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Behe is not simply challenging the model. He is presenting an alternative "hypothesis" that is *philosophical*, *not* scientific in nature. He is not simply saying "This model doesn't explain this well. Let's think of other biological means for this occurrence." He's saying "This model doesn't explain this well. Therefore the model is totally wrong and let's use an untestable explanation instead."

It's a bunch of crap that any intelligent person should be able to see through. It's equivalent to saying "Since Newtonian physics doesn't completely accurately describe physical motion, let's just say that ghosts move things around."

On the one hand one person can say life is infinitely complex so it could not have evolved. On the other hand another pserson can say you have an infinite number of tries to create life so it will eventually happen. Neither side wins this debate. Life is very complex, but not infinitely complex. And there is not an infinite amount of time. Spontaneous generation of life somewhere in the Universe is one thing, but basically evolution is saying we went from a monkey type brain to a human brain in about 2 million years. The brain is really complex on the one hand - on the other hand 2 million years is a long time. So you've got to get into the specifics of the problem. Brains are not the only thing to look at. There are pretty good time estimates for quite a lot of evolutionary developments. Simpler structures can be evaluated and that's what people are debating, with good points being made on both sides.

[Rduke55]

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Why can't random interactions over an infinite period of time produce what we perceive to be complexity?

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(I'm agreeing with you noggin, I just am using part of your post to make a point)

This is one of Behe's problems. While variation is random, selection is NOT. This is a major point that a lot of evolution's opponents miss. Stringing together a bunch of amino acids isn't a random process in organisms. The mechanisms have been selected for.

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Science doesn't provide certainty either. It provides cogency.

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That's not the point. The point is that you can be certain that nature is ordered because it's axiomatic. If you "knew" through induction, you wouldn't be 100% certain.

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I'm not 100% certain. And, by "Universe", I'm talking about the whole thing. Not just the part we've observed. We are talking about NotReady, here... and his point was that scientific knowleged relies on faith. Again, science doesn't provide certainty. It uses induction. But, that's not "faith". I have no idea what your argument is here.