Behe's argument in Darwin Devolved

Behe has a new book out called A Mousetrap for Darwin. It puts together a lot of his essays over the last near quarter of a century, in reply to his critics. Notably his replies to the critics of DBB, also Edge of Evolution and Darwin Devolves. He was interviewed at the idthefuture podcast, where he discusses this new book.
 
Behe has a new book out called A Mousetrap for Darwin. It puts together a lot of his essays over the last near quarter of a century, in reply to his critics. Notably his replies to the critics of DBB, also Edge of Evolution and Darwin Devolves. He was interviewed at the idthefuture podcast, where he discusses this new book.
With everything else going on, I missed your comment here.

I haven't got that book, because I suspect most of it will be a rehash of stuff I have read already. However, I think the evidence against Darwin's Theory is extraordinary, and it is only going to grow in strength. In a way, it is surprising that such a weak, vague theory lasted so long.

Do you have a link to his interview?

David
 
This is a little removed from Behe's arguments I think but I thought this would be an appropriate thread for this. Consider what this means for the ailing modern synthesis.

A few years ago I posted about the amazing discovery of electrical signaling observed in the formation of a tadpoles body plan in particular it's face. It seemed that this signal was dictating the individual cellular identity as well as the larger scale structure or pattern.

Seems this dramatic discovery is serving up some tantalizing breakthroughs in bioengineering, medicine and evolutionary thought.
This really does change everything. One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in a long time, this could be huge.

 
This is a little removed from Behe's arguments I think but I thought this would be an appropriate thread for this. Consider what this means for the ailing modern synthesis.

A few years ago I posted about the amazing discovery of electrical signaling observed in the formation of a tadpoles body plan in particular it's face. It seemed that this signal was dictating the individual cellular identity as well as the larger scale structure or pattern.

Seems this dramatic discovery is serving up some tantalizing breakthroughs in bioengineering, medicine and evolutionary thought.
This really does change everything. One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in a long time, this could be huge.


It is an interesting video, but.....

It reminds me of something Rupert Sheldrake mentioned many years ago - the fact that if you take a newt embryo and remove the lens of one eye, a new lens forms. However, it forms by a different pathway than it does normally - growing in from the tissue that was surrounding the rim of the old lens.

He interpreted that as strong evidence for his morphogenetic fields - not for some fancy software!

The problems as I see it are:

1) Somehow all the software that is so glibly discussed would have to have evolved through RM+NS, and frogs and newts are two a penny, it would be ridiculous for them to have mechanisms to make them robust in the case of mutilations of this sort evolved by RM+NS.

2) A real computer contains a lot of mechanisms to avoid signals getting corrupted - can one really operate at the level of a small number of interacting cells with all that aqueous material round them (water conducts electricity!).

3) Biology is amazing, but the problem with positing ever more sub-layers of mechanism is that you soon crunch down to the question - where can all that stuff be encoded and processed?

Sheldrake didn't invent his idea of morphogenetic fields without good reason!

David
 
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