[olePigeon]

Holy cow, that I.D. guy got his ass handed to him. Kinda felt sorry for him, must've been embarrassing.

They were both really intelligent, but that I.D. guy was a friggin' slimeball. Nearly every one of his answers were just like a politicians, completely avoiding having to answer the question posed by bringing in other issues. The evolutionary biologist even pointed that out a few times. The I.D. people don't have a single argument in their favor. Just as with every other Christian Science based belief, they have nothing to offer to the scientific community other than negative arguments that Evolution doesn't answer all the questions... but can't provide any answers for themselves!

It seemed like the the evolutionary doctor (I completely forgot their names, I was pretty tired when it was on) started nearly all his answers with, "Dr. (someone) completely avoided the question... again... here's how it really works" and the other doctor just shut up and very rarely argued the evolutionary microbiologist's statement.

Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.

By the way, the Evolutionary Biologist was using a Aluminum PowerBook.

[Kerrigan]

I also feel pity when I listen to these ID guys ramble on about how things are "irreducibly complex". I have known two ID followers in the US, and I feel sorry for them. I read a Wall Street Journal article recently that said around 1/3 of the biology majors at the University of Idaho believe that life and the universe were created less than 10,000 years ago by a higher power. When it comes to university students, ID believers are the dumbest of the dumb.

I would be embarassed if my university began teaching ID courses.

[Pendergast]

Looking for the debate over Noah's Ark.

[lurkalot]

Thanks for the heads up. I will watch this later today.

I assume you meant the section of Washington Journal about teaching intelligent design which was broadcast on November 21, 2005 on C-SPAN2?

The entire show is online at the c-span website. Washington Journal Real Clip

If I'm not mistaken these were the guests on that program - with the clip of their 30 minute (each) segment. At least that's what I got after a search of the c-span site.

Sean Cavanah, Reporter for Education Week. Real clip

Michael Behe, Biochemistry Professor at Lehigh University. Real clip

Matthew Chapman, author of "Trials of the Monkey". Real clip.

Is that the program you saw or was there something on C-SPAN2 about I.D. again last night - Nov. 24?

Another edit - After watching a bit of what I posted it seems unlikely that this Nov. 21 episode of Washington Journal was the program you watched. Do you have more info about the program you refer to?

[Uncle Skeleton]

Thanks for posting those links, lurkalot. As much as it pains me to say so, Real's streaming implementation is amazingly functional, especially compared with the QT streams I've watched (not many).

It doesn't sound like it's the same show as the OP described though. I didn't see any of this:
"The evolutionary biologist even pointed that out a few times"
or this:
"started nearly all his answers with, "Dr. (someone) completely avoided the question... again... here's how it really works.""
The guests didn't even address each other in this one, they only addressed callers and the hostess.

And no powerbook in there either that I saw.

[lurkalot]

I agree, there are too many dissimilarities between the broadcast olePigeon describes and the Washington Journal clips I posted. Pity we don't have more info about that debate. It sounds interesting. More interesting than the Washington Journal turned out to be. Sorry for causing any confusion -and for robbing an hour and a half by posting the wrong clips.
I hope I run into the debate olePigeon described soon if it is available online.

I noticed that the price for the DVD version of the American Enterprise Institute debate about teaching I.D., broadcast by c-span on Oct. 21, is a bit steep. That one was available for free at the c-span site just a couple of weeks ago. One part at the c-span store with links to the rest of the conference at the bottom.

Perhaps that was the debate olePigeon saw? It's a bit older but that show more closely resembles what he described. I thought Kenneth Miller was once again quite effective. Several people also used computers during their presentations, although not very successfully. I can't remember if there was a Powerbook present.

OlePigeon, can you tell us a little more about the broadcast you saw? Perhaps we may be able to find it online. I guess for now my answer would have to be; no, I haven't seen the particular debate you describe although it does conform to the outcome of the debates I've seen so far where evolutionary scientist and ID proponents engaged each other in discussion.

As for the comparison of QT, Real and other players. It looks like the only alternative to Real at c-span is WMP and in that case I usually prefer Real. Perhaps I'm not doing something correctly with the settings but for me it depends on the particular broadcast which player functions best or delivers the best image. I've seen great footage with all players but unfortunately have also sat through some clips that were barely watchable, with all of them. Fiddling with the preferences was only partially successful some of the time. The tips I ran into here, at MacNN, about changing the settings for protocol and connection speed for QT streams, did improve the quality of some QT clips dramatically for me.
Sometimes the stand alone player is better, other times the browser -plugin- footage is better. I can't make much sense of it, nor offer an educated opinion about my preferences for any particular player at this point. They all do the job, relatively painlessly, most of the time for me.

[CharlesS]

Is this it?

mms://wm.capitalreach.com/aei/windows/3739.asf

[Uncle Skeleton]

Dear CharlesS, thanks for finding that for us.

Dear jackass who filmed that, who wants to see the talking heads and not the slides they keep talking about?!?!?!

[lurkalot]

Damn, I can't believe I missed that video link at the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks for posting it CharlesS. Since that program was replayed by c-span on November 24 I'd say the odds are pretty decent that it was the footage olePigeon saw.
I'm adding this link because the handout files from the conference that are posted there are probably useful as well. It looks like they contain at least some of the presentations that were not visible in the video footage and it appears that some people here might be interested in seeing those slides. AEI

[ShortcutToMoncton]

While I'm in my final year of a biology undergrad and therefore have learned a bit about origins of life and basic genetics, I do agree that the "irreducibly complex" argument has valid points. Actually I'm just sitting here going over the metarhodopsin chain in the eye, and it's pretty insane. These complexes are all irrevocably linked, and are in themselves linked with events such as active transport, etc. I've yet to see an explanation how this could have evolved all at once, or piecemeal. It just really doesn't make any sense to me.

Meanwhile, the "7000-year-old earth" is so ridiculous as to make geologists howl. So.

Yeah. Just thought I'd throw that loose change in there.

greg

[Uncle Skeleton]

The problems with irreducible complexity are that it assumes (a) that everything has always had the same function as it does now (at least in that video they sure thought so), and (b) that mutational changes are in some sequence of building up to something (which really only makes sense if you're hung up on there being a design).

(a) is really backward, since another objection of ID'ers is that no new genetic material ever shows up; when something "new" is shown them, they always complain that it's really just a small change to something old, usually from a different system. Well what is that exactly? It's obviously a direct refutation of that assumption (a) above. (an example from the video is the type 3 secretory pathway being homologous with about 20% of the bacterial flagella)

(b) is less obvious, but consider that mutations can remove components as well as add them. If there was a larger more clunky reducibly complex version of the flagella, or considering part (a) a version of some completely unrelated structure, it's not hard to imagine a mutation allowing the system to be streamlined by removing certain components which left the remainders apparently irreducible. For example, the chaperone proteins ubiquitin and HSP-whatever. If one of their substrates developed a mutation that made the chaperone proteins unnecessary, one could imagine that extricating that substrate from the chaperone pathway would give the organism a measurable metabolic advantage. I would also guess there's a good chance that new system/pathway would appear irreducibly complex, especially if the chaperones later disappeared altogether. Basically, just like protein components of a system could easily have originated in another system, necessary intermediaries in their history might no longer be around.

Now, ID'ers won't like this argument one bit, since if the evolutionary pathway of one of their pet systems depends on a large superstructure having once existed and now be gone, there's very little chance we'll ever be able to prove it explicitly. But this little thought exercise does show that the tactic of "irreducible complexity" can never be decisive, as long as molecular evolution is known to go on. Likewise, once an apparently irreducibly complex system is ever shown to be in fact reducible, the whole irreducble complexity argument is out the window.

Basically, it's just another God of the Gaps tactic. "Until you find a way to prove it's your way, it must be my way" just isn't logically sound.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Is this it?

mms://wm.capitalreach.com/aei/windows/3739.asf

YES!! That's it.

Too bad the quality is friggin' sucksass.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by lurkalot

Damn, I can't believe I missed that video link at the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks for posting it CharlesS. Since that program was replayed by c-span on November 24 I'd say the odds are pretty decent that it was the footage olePigeon saw.
I'm adding this link because the handout files from the conference that are posted there are probably useful as well. It looks like they contain at least some of the presentations that were not visible in the video footage and it appears that some people here might be interested in seeing those slides. AEI

Yep, that's it.

Maybe someone recorded it and can repost as H.264.

[Sky Captain]

I'm a staunch evolutionst/big-bang natural cycles and all.
Our modern instruments can sow us the physical properties of matter and the effects of energy/magnetism. But have yet to explain why and what creates the attraction.
What is in the void between atomic particles. What are they made of?

[Uncle Skeleton]

Also I thought Ken Miller said some pretty interesting things I'd never heard of before, like how human chromosome 2 is made up of 2 ape chromosomes fused together, still with broken telomeres in the middle, and how bacteria had evolved enzymes to digest nylon and 2,4-dinitro-toluene.

Anyone ever heard of those before?

I was also disappointed in him though, for letting Nelson get away with claiming the RNA-world problem had anything to do with evolution. It is a serious puzzle, but it only matters in the time before the first cell was able to reproduce, and evolution doesn't address that time any more than ID addresses the time when the designer was being created, before he started designing us.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Sky Captain

What are they made of?

They're made of love. And gravity is made of hate.

[Sky Captain]

And the particles themselves?
Indifference?

[Uncle Skeleton]

the particles are made of sarcasm

[Pendergast]

Originally Posted by Sky Captain

What is in the void between atomic particles.

It's likely to be void...

Since Planck, we know that the universe is quantified; quanta of space, time, energy, matter.

Superstrings Theory is almost out as it has no validity. There is also the issue regarding the creation of particles as we accelerate to a speed closer to that of light (or fall in a Black Hole, which is the same, in the end).

And then, maybe there is no emptiness. Maybe we are wrong in our way of understanding the world. Maybe we ought to consider other concepts that matter and energy to truly understand the world we are part of.

What is the most interesting, is that we cannot conceive the void as "void", but rather, as something relative to movement around it. Juts as the void becomes full as we accelerate to the speed of light. Or that particles can just pop out out of nowhere sporadically, randomly... We may need to stop looking at ourselves as independant from the world, but rather, in constant state of flux with the rest of the universe.

This design is superb I tell ya!

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton

(b) is less obvious, but consider that mutations can remove components as well as add them. If there was a larger more clunky reducibly complex version of the flagella, or considering part (a) a version of some completely unrelated structure, it's not hard to imagine a mutation allowing the system to be streamlined by removing certain components which left the remainders apparently irreducible. For example, the chaperone proteins ubiquitin and HSP-whatever. If one of their substrates developed a mutation that made the chaperone proteins unnecessary, one could imagine that extricating that substrate from the chaperone pathway would give the organism a measurable metabolic advantage. I would also guess there's a good chance that new system/pathway would appear irreducibly complex, especially if the chaperones later disappeared altogether. Basically, just like protein components of a system could easily have originated in another system, necessary intermediaries in their history might no longer be around.

"it's not hard to imagine. . . ." "If one of their substrates developed a mutation. . . one could imagine that. . . ." "I would also guess there's a good chance. . . ." ". . .could easily have originated in another system. . . ." While I respect your scientific argumentation, there appears to be a considerable amount of supposition, blind conjecture and complex logic acrobatics in your endeavor to defeat intelligent design. If the notion were so laughable scientifically, I would have expected a clean, concise refutation.

But this little thought exercise does show that the tactic of "irreducible complexity" can never be decisive

You have failed to illustrate the decisiveness of your view, so I'm tempted to label your argument fallacious.

[RIRedinPA]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Is this it?

mms://wm.capitalreach.com/aei/windows/3739.asf

I couldn't get audio on the file. What is everyone using to view it? I tried VLC and got an error message and in WMP I couldn't get the audio.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

If the notion were so laughable scientifically, I would have expected a clean, concise refutation.

It's not laughable, it's just flawed in certain subtle ways that prevent it from being decisive. I'm sorry my response wasn't concise enough (I really am, I'm a stickler for brevity), it was just off the top of my head. Below is a more concise (and complete) representation (from here, which I just found while looking for the exact definition of irreducible complexity). What I mentioned above are parts B and C, which I still find the most convincing of the 4. I first arrived at this idea while reading John McDonald's reducibly complex mousetrap, which includes an intermediate component that is removed from the final product.

premise:
"An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional." -Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box

refutation:
(A) The first part of the sentence refers to slight changes. Removing a whole part is a major change; this is a major 'disconnect' between the parts of Behe's argument.
(B) It is not true that a precursor missing a part must be nonfunctional. It need only lack the function we specified. Even a single protein does something.
(C)The actual precursor may have had more parts, not fewer.
(D)If the individual parts evolve, the precursor may have had the same number of parts, not yet codependent.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by RIRedinPA

I couldn't get audio on the file. What is everyone using to view it? I tried VLC and got an error message and in WMP I couldn't get the audio.

I copied the url into WMP9's "open location" box (or something like that, I'm not at a mac right now to check), and it worked fine. What version of WMP are you using?