Moon's Ass Gently Handed to Him
For those of you used to my high-handedness, I just want to provide a mute testament to my humility and my willingness to recognize when I've been slapped around like the bitch-ass punk pseudo-intellectual I sometimes reveal myself to be. Most recently, Mike the Mad Biologist and friends put me back in my place, far far away from biology and back in front of the law books to which, at least on a good day, I most properly belong. Check out MMB's post that started it all, and then check out the thread in which I am most roughly abused.
posted by Moon | 8/12/2005 02:43:00 PM
3 Comments:
Moon,
I hope you didn't think I bitch-slapped you. Just trying to lay things out as I (and a lot of other biologists) see it.
I bitch-slapped him. ;)
well, if binky says it's so . . .
but in all seriousness, i think what i'm still missing is the counter-explanation for cellular complexity, for one thing. several times in the book he points to six, eight, even ten stop processes no subordinate step of which would have had any salutary effect on the organism, thus suggesting that the probability of such a delicate arrangement arising spontaneously would have to run in the billion-to-one range.
if natural selection simply can't do that yet, of course, that hardly invalidates the theory. it does, however, comprise a legitimate critique deserving of discussion.
if. which i don't know. obviously. while it's true one can't talk about design without suggesting a designed, something behe's book can't avoid, i do think he very carefully stayed away from it and stuck to science. bad science, perhaps, as many evidently would have it. but that doesn't mean it's not worth discussion. why not engage it and demonstrate it's problems if it's so manifestly wrong.
i realize in saying this i sound like lots of people who i don't want to sound like, but questions like these deserve answers, not to be shouted down with thuggish intensity.
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