It ain't rocket science... it's icky squooshy science

[essentialsaltes]

I'm delighted to see that some of my major beefs with Behe's Edge of Evolution (found in my mega-review) are quite similar to those offered by someone who actually knows what he's talking about: biologist Joe Thornton, whose work sheds light on the historical evolution of a cortisol receptor, one nucleotide at a time. Behe first called Thornton's work 'piddling', but later amended his judgment to 'great' once he decided that Thornton's work, which patiently shows how evolution can explain the phenomenon in a step by step process, actually shows that evolution can't explain it.

Anyway, Thornton has responded with a public letter, and I'm tickled to see the similarities - probability (especially after-the-fact probability), neutral mutation, telos. But again, Thornton has the distinct advantage of knowing what he's talking about and relevant scientific experiments to draw from.

Comments

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I hear ya.

Nevertheless, yes it is a good thing that his claims are being addressed, since otherwise the DI will whine that Science is ignoring the purported evidence for ID. Well, they whine that anyway, but at least we know they're liars.