By Jaime Ortega Simo.
Casey Luskin is one of the leading researchers on Intelligent Design in Seattle Washington.
1) Evolutionist scientist discredit the science behind the Discovery Institute, but are they fair complaints?
I reply: It’s tough to reply to this question without being given a specific issue or general type of criticism, but in my opinion the science of the ID movement is standing very strong and has not been refuted. m is thriving and shows that the scientific future of intelligent design is very bright. For details on many of these papers, please see http://www.discovery.org/a/2640.
2) It seems like a lot of scientist from different fields of science-academia are starting to jump the border to the ID theory, but are they also looking forward of losing their jobs as teachers?
I reply: Unfortunately there is a widespread nationwide pattern of scientists, academics, and educators who have lost their jobs or faced other adverse consequences because of their support for intelligent design. If an untenured scientist at a public university were to come out and publicly support ID, I would be concerned about his/or job. For example, in 2006 and 2007, a pro-ID astronomer at Iowa State University was denied tenure, and the evidence suggested it was largely because his colleagues were intolerant of his pro-ID views.
There are a number of similar cases. Last year, January, the University of Kentucky paid $125,000 to settle a lawsuit by astronomer Martin Gaskell who was wrongfully denied employment because he was perceived to be skeptical towards Darwinian evolution. Soon after the settlement of Gaskell’s case, Applied Mathematics Letters paid $10,000 and publicly apologized to avoid litigation after it wrongfully withdrew mathematician Granville Sewell’s paper simply because it critiqued neo-Darwinism. Also last year, the California Science Center paid $110,000 to settled a lawsuit after it cancelled the contract of a pro-ID group trying to rent an auditorium to show a pro-ID video. The evidence showed the contract was cancelled simply because the museum didn’t like the pro-ID viewpoint being expressed. Indeed, just this Monday a trial concluded in Los Angeles where a high level computer technician, David Coppedge, sued Jet Propulsion Lab alleging they wrongfully demoted him and terminated his employment due to a dislike for his pro-ID views.
And there are many other similar cases. You can read about some of them in the attached Student’s Guide to ID.
3) Is ID, really a threat to Evolutionist?
I reply: The debate over evolution can be confusing because equivocation has crept into the discussion. Some people use “evolution” to refer to something as simple as small changes in the sizes of bird beaks. Others use the same word to mean something much more far-reaching. Used one way, the term “evolution” isn’t controversial at all; used another way, it’s hotly debated. Used equivocally, “evolution” is too imprecise to be useful in a scientific discussion. Darwin’s theory is not a single idea. Instead, it is made up of several related ideas, each supported by specific arguments:
Evolution #1: First, evolution can mean that the life forms we see today are different than the life forms that existed in the distant past. Evolution as “change over time” can also refer to minor changes in features of individual species — changes which take place over a short amount of time. Even skeptics of Darwin’s theory agree that this type of “change over time” takes place.
Evolution #2: Some scientists associate the word “evolution” with the idea that all the organisms we see today are descended from a single common ancestor somewhere in the distant past. The claim became known as the Theory of Universal Common Descent. This theory paints a picture of the history of life on earth as a great branching tree.
Evolution #3: Finally, some people use the term “evolution” to refer to a cause or mechanism of change, the biological process which Darwin thought was responsible for this branching pattern. Darwin argued that natural selection had the power to produce fundamentally new forms of life. Together, the ideas of Universal Common Descent and natural selection form the core of Darwinian evolutionary theory. “Neo-Darwinian” evolution combines our knowledge of DNA and genetics to claim that mutations in DNA provide the variation upon which natural selection acts.
Intelligent design does not conflict with evolution if by “evolution” one simply means “change over time,” or even that living things are related by common ancestry (Evolution #1 or Evolution #2). However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism (Evolution #3), which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that “has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species.” It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design directly challenges. So in that sense, intelligent design does challenge “evolution.”
4) What is the movement of ID in other countries, is it also getting stronger?
The ID movement has gotten very strong in recent years in the U.K., as there’s a Center for Intelligent Design in the UK, as well as an education-focused group called Truth in Science. We also have ID supporters in many other European countries, and there are a couple very ID-friendly universities in Latin America, such as the Autonomous University of Guadalajara.
5) They say mathematically speaking that for evolution to happen it would take more 0’s than the amount of atoms currently existent in our universe, but then Evolutionist believe that God doesn’t exist either. Is the base behind evolutionary theory (considering the possibilities to occur) just as unlikely as the God they claim doesn’t exist?
I reply: I think that atheist arguments that God doesn’t exist are unrigorous and difficult to evaluate, so I won’t make a comparison between refuting Darwinian evolution and refuting theism. But ID research is showing that it is mathematically impossible for Darwinian evolution to produce many complex features we see in biology.
If a structure can be built where each mutation provides an advantage, then this might be possible to build it by Darwinian evolution. But when many mutations or changes are needed before you get any advantage, then Darwinian evolution tends to get stuck. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne affirms this when he states: “It is indeed true that natural selection cannot build any feature in which intermediate steps do not confer a net benefit on the organism.”[1] Though Coyne believes no such features exist, the ID research community has published a number of peer-reviewed papers suggesting that there are many features which could not be built by Darwinian evolution.
Pro-ID molecular biologist Douglas Axe performed mutational sensitivity tests on enzymes, published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, which found that enzymes must have very specific amino acid sequences in order to produce a functional protein. In fact, he found that only 1 in 10^74 amino acid sequences are functional.[2] Since there have only been 10^40 organisms on the planet, that means that the odds of producing a single functional protein by chance by Darwinian evolution over the history of the earth would be less than 1 in 10^34. Obviously that’s not going to happen.
In 2004, Michael Behe copublished a study in Protein Science with physicist David Snoke showing that if multiple mutations were required to produce a functional bond between two proteins, then “the mechanism of gene duplication and point mutation alone would be ineffective, because few multicellular species reach the required population sizes.”[3] In other words, many simple protein-protein interactions require too many mutations before any function is obtained for them to evolve by Darwinian selection.
In 2008, Behe and Snoke’s would-be critics tried to refute them in the journal Genetics, but failed. They found that to obtain only two simultaneous mutations via Darwinian evolution within humans “would take > 100 million years,” which they admitted was “very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale.”[4] It’s becoming increasingly clear that many such “multi-mutation features”, which would require multiple mutations before providing any benefit, are likely to exist in biology.
These results were corroborated in a 2010 peer-reviewed study, also by Axe, which calculated that when a “multi-mutation feature” requires more than six mutations to give a benefit, it is unlikely to arise in the history of the earth.[5] Another study by Axe and Ann Gauger found that merely converting one enzyme into a closely related enzyme-the kind of conversion that evolutionists claim can easily happen-would require a minimum of seven simultaneous changes,[6] exceeding the probabilistic resources available for evolution over the earth’s history. Another empirical study by Gauger and biologist University of Wisconsin, Superior microbiologist Ralph Seelke similarly found that when merely two mutations were required to restore function to a bacterial gene, even here Darwinian processes failed.[7]
Their results were corroborated by a review article authored by Michael Behe in The Quarterly Review of Biology in 2010. Behe reviewed numerous studies which found adaptations at the molecular level in bacteria or viruses. He found that most adaptations at the molecular level “are due to the loss or modification of a pre-existing molecular function.” In other words, it’s much easier for Darwinian evolution to find mutations that to break parts rather than build new ones.[8]
The bottom line is that many biological structures like proteins require too much complexity in order to function than can be generated on any reasonable evolutionary timescale.
6) Richard Dawkins claimed ID is a joke, what is the Discovery Institute think of Richard Dawkins response?
I reply: Calling ID “a joke” is not a response; it’s not an argument. Sadly, we commonly see that evolutionists like to use mockery and ridicule rather than serious argumentation. Why is that so common? If Richard Dawkins (or other critics) have a serious scientific responses to intelligent design, we’d love to hear them. But we are interested in a serious, civil scientific conversation about our origins—we’re not interested in wasting time with the kind of mockery and ridicule that Richard Dawkins likes to use. If Dawkins had a strong argument, he wouldn’t feel the need to use mockery and ridicule.
Again, you might find the attached student’s guide to ID helpful. Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Casey Luskin
“Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute responds criticism of Intelligent Design.”
Translation:
Casey Luskin, the uneducated with the stup#d looking face from the dishonest anti-science Christian Creationist Discovery Institute (which has never discovered anything) responds to ridicule of his childish idiotic supernatural magic fantasy.
Type “darwin killed god” in the google search box then click the I’m Feeling Lucky button.
“So in that sense, intelligent design does challenge evolution.”
Translation:
So in that sense, MAGIC does challenge SCIENCE.
There are some interesting points in time in this article but I don’t know if I see all of them center to heart. There is some validity but I will take hold opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we want more! Added to FeedBurner as well