Cubist
Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007
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| Quote (Utunumsint @ Jan. 28 2010,14:46) | | Quote (Doc Bill @ Jan. 28 2010,14:36) | Doesn't Behe know better, you ask? Of course he does. Does that make him intellectually dishonest (like all creationists)?
You tell me. |
If this is true for Behe, then there is really nothing to ID. You'd think Lehigh University would have canned him by now... |
As has already been pointed out, Behe can't be canned because he's got tenure... but his university has explicitly disowned him with a "this guy's views are strictly his own, and have nothing to do with science as she is spoke by the rest of the faculty" disclaimer. Not exactly a common thing for universities to do, eh?
| Quote | | That said, I would like to go through some of his arguments in detail. Hopefull people will be patient enough for that. |
Okay by me! How about we start with Behe's arguments re: "irreducible complexity"? According to Behe, a system is "irreducibly complex" if every individual component in the system is required to be present in order for the system to perform its function. Thus, an irreducibly complex system which lacks any one of its components cannot function. So there is no way for evolution to produce an irreducibly complex system, because the immediate evolutionary precursor to an IC system would be lacking a component, hence would not function.
That's Behe's argument, as best I understand it. The problem is, his argument assumes that evolution can only add new parts to a system -- but evolution can also remove previously-existing parts from a system, and evolution can also modify a system's previously-existing parts.
So okay, Behe's IC argument ignores two of the three classes of change evolution can produce. Fine. Does that mean he's wrong? Well, sort of. Yes, Behe is correct that you can't get an IC system from any evolutionary process in which all the steps are "add a new part". But if you allow your evolutionary process to include "remove an old part" and/or "change an old part" steps in addition to "add a new part" steps, you can get an IC system in the following manner:
Step one: Add a new part to the system. At this point, the new part is not necessary for the system to function.
Step two: Modify one of the old parts so that said old part cannot function in the absence of the new part which was added in Step One.
For Behe's IC argument to be valid, it must not be possible for evolution to modify existing parts of a system... and it should be patently obvious that it bloody well is possible for evolution to modify existing parts of a system. To the best of my knowledge, Behe has never even acknowledged the existence of this counter-argument, let alone demonstrated that his argument survives said counter-argument.
What say you, Utunumsint?
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