Unless Mr. Bahe is the final authority on ID, ID has NOT been tested nor proven false; Mr. Bahe's claim that there is an irreducible complexity HAS been proven to be false. So his claim no longer holds up.
ID doesn't address the designer. If you see a mouse trap on Mars and determine that it was intelligently designed, that still doesn't tell you about the nature of the designer. Its out of the realm of science at this point.
ID makes one VERY specific claim about the designer: the designer MUST be supernatural! If the designer was natural, then we can assume that either the designer was designed (meaning we can end up with an infinite regression of designers, much like the infinite layers of turtles holding up the Earth and thus another supernatural origin at some point), OR that the original designer arose from natural processes, which could be evolution.
I think you are missing the point of irreducible complexity. There are systems in a cell that require all the parts to function. If one protein is missing or altered, the system will fail.
Oh, I get the claim, it's just that the conclusion drawn by the claim is false! We already know - from the hard, pure mathematical world of genetic algorithms and chaos theory - that we can start with an infinite problem-space and hundreds or thousands of failing solutions. And within a matter of a few dozen or hundred generations end up with solutions that START to work. And over a few hundred or thousand generations, with solutions that work really well!
Therefore the system can not evolve through random mutations and natural selection because that would require a gradual progression. The only way around this is for there to be a different function for the system at earlier stages in the evolutionary process.
No, you do NOT need a gradual progression - you need a proper set of mutations on an earlier basis. Much like genetic algorithms. They work beautifully when your solution-space is filled predominantly with discontinuous answers (infinite results, like dividing by zero - think of it as black holes or empty results). You have tiny little spikes of answers in your space (or tiny little planets). And in each of those spikes you have several VERY good solutions.
GAs (genetic algorithms) will allow you to NOT "gradually progress" from spike to spike, but to sometimes make the BIG jump from spike to spike. Mutations. Mutations can have a VERY powerful impact on the resulting children!
If you (or anyone) can use an algorithm to show an evolutionary pathway to the flagellum with each intermediate step having a function that would be advantageous to the organism, then irreducible complexity would be falsified.
No, that's not what's required. We know from GAs that we can have big jumps in results from a few mutations. So we can translate that over to create a hypothesis for scientific research.
And we do see micro-evolution happen all the time, which also lends credence to at least tha hypothesis that macro-evolution may occur.
For Mr. Behe's claim, though, what is the scientific basis for it? Other than his belief that something must be irreducibly complex and thus must have been designed?
100 years ago, the concept of an atom was itself the "irreducible complexity", for the word atom comes from the Greek atomos - something that cannot be divided! It was the irreducible complexity. Yet we know now that atoms are created of electrons, protons, and neutrons. And furthermore that those particles are made of quarks and leptons! In 100 years we've discovered two further layers of simplification that REDUCE the complexity of the atom (from 117 unique atoms - elements - to 6 leptons and 6 quarks).
To ancient man, a tree was of irreducible complexity; system-level processes such as the sap system weren't known or considered. Sap was part of the tree. And that didn't even consider the cells, or the sub-cell components. Or the atomic level. At one time, the tree WAS irreducible, but it is no longer.
We have several cases where Mr. Behe's assertions break down and in fact where we can show mathematical proofs where his assertion of irreducible complexity does not hold up. And as you know, a single negative is all that's required to break your hypothesis - you need to drop it or change it.
And his claim is also specious in that there are 3 distinct types of flagellum. If it is irreducibly complex, then how can 3 different and completely useful types exist?
So fundamentally, Mr. Behe's claim of irreducible complexity is false. It is an interesting philosophical claim, but we see that there can be reduction in his complexity (even within flagellum - some are more complex than others in terms of protein counts), and within the parts of the complexity.
And his claim is testable, and has been found lacking, for there are lower levels of complexity which DO exist (proteins, for example - just add an extra neutron to a few of the atoms within a protein and the protein dies - it is a complex and unique build of elements) within his own structure.
So evolutionists have micro-evolution, and a fossil record to point to as a set of data relating to evolution. What does ID have? What can ID supporters point to as a set of data that shows ID?
Not true.
Oh, I get the claim, it's just that the conclusion drawn by the claim is false! We already know - from the hard, pure mathematical world of genetic algorithms and chaos theory - that we can start with an infinite problem-space and hundreds or thousands of failing solutions. And within a matter of a few dozen or hundred generations end up with solutions that START to work. And over a few hundred or thousand generations, with solutions that work really well!
If your algorithm was worth anything, it would be put to use solving a real problem using real chemistry.
How does the algorithm determine if a mutation is viable or not? Unless it is used in a real world context it is interesting but useless. It sounds like a complicated game of hotter/colder.