Behe Jumps the Shark [response to Michael Behe's NYTimes op-ed, "Design for Living"]

William A. Dembski

Dembski doesn't know what the heck irreducible complexity is, and he's the guy who's developing it. I've seen several conflicting definitions, most recently on a post from him on the ARN boards. I'm not impressed.

It sounds impressive, but I've read several articles by Behe, and they make excellent sense. I say that not from a religious perspective but as someone with an interest in science.

Here's some of my own analysis of Behe's central thesis -- let me know if you find any oversights in it, or if you think that I'm only disagreeing with him because I "have a stake in evolutionary theory and don't want to hear anything different", in your own charming words...

The next idea you probably will not like, and that is irreducible complexity.
As an "idea" I like it just fine, and so do evolutionary scientists. The problem is that Behe (and the creationists who follow him) have created a "straw man" version of "IC" which is quite simply incorrect -- but appears to give the conclusion they want.
The original notion of "IC" goes back to Darwin himself. He wrote:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
That's "Irreducible Complexity" in a nutshell. It's not as if Behe has pointed out anything that biologists (or Darwin) didn't already realize.
But let's examine Darwin's description of "IC" in a bit more detail (emphasis mine):
No doubt many organs exist of which we do not know the transitional grades, more especially if we look to much-isolated species, round which, according to my theory, there has been much extinction. Or again, if we look to an organ common to all the members of a large class, for in this latter case the organ must have been first formed at an extremely remote period, since which all the many members of the class have been developed; and in order to discover the early transitional grades through which the organ has passed, we should have to look to very ancient ancestral forms, long since become extinct.
We should be extremely cautious in concluding that an organ could not have been formed by transitional gradations of some kind. Numerous cases could be given amongst the lower animals of the same organ performing at the same time wholly distinct functions; thus the alimentary canal respires, digests, and excretes in the larva of the dragon-fly and in the fish Cobites. In the Hydra, the animal may be turned inside out, and the exterior surface will then digest and the stomach respire. In such cases natural selection might easily specialise, if any advantage were thus gained, a part or organ, which had performed two functions, for one function alone, and thus wholly change its nature by insensible steps. Two distinct organs sometimes perform simultaneously the same function in the same individual; to give one instance, there are fish with gills or branchiae that breathe the air dissolved in the water, at the same time that they breathe free air in their swimbladders, this latter organ having a ductus pneumaticus for its supply, and being divided by highly vascular partitions. In these cases, one of the two organs might with ease be modified and perfected so as to perform all the work by itself, being aided during the process of modification by the other organ; and then this other organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose, or be quite obliterated.
The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration. The swimbladder has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fish, or, for I do not know which view is now generally held, a part of the auditory apparatus has been worked in as a complement to the swimbladder. All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is homologous, or 'ideally similar,' in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there seems to me to be no great difficulty in believing that natural selection has actually converted a swimbladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for respiration.
[Example snipped]
In considering transitions of organs, it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another, that I will give one more instance. [Long detail of example snipped] If all pedunculated cirripedes had become extinct, and they have already suffered far more extinction than have sessile cirripedes, who would ever have imagined that the branchiae in this latter family had originally existed as organs for preventing the ova from being washed out of the sack?
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
Darwin makes two critical points here:
1. A modern organ need not have evolved into its present form and function from a precursor which had always performed the same function. Evolution is quite capable of evolving a structure to perform one function, and then turning it to some other "purpose".
2. Organs/structures can reach their present form through a *loss* of function or parts, not just through *addition* of function or parts.
Despite the fact that these observations were laid out in 1859, Behe's version of "Irreducible Complexity" pretends they are not factors, and defines "IC" as something which could not have arisen through stepwise *ADDITIONS* (only) while performing the same function *THROUGHOUT ITS EXISTENCE*.
It's hard to tell whether Behe does this through ignorance or willful dishonesty, but the fact remains that *his* definition and analysis of "IC" is too restrictive. He places too many "rules" on how he will "allow" evolution to reach his examples of "Behe-style IC" structures, while evolution itself *IS NOT RESTRICTED TO THOSE RULES* when it operates. Thus Behe's conclusion that "Behe-style evolution" can not reach "Behe-style IC" hardly tells us anything about whether *real-world* evolution could or could not have produced them.
For specific examples, Behe's example of the "Behe-style IC" flagellum is flawed because flagella are composed of components that bacteria use FOR OTHER PURPOSES and were evolved for those purposes then co-opted (1, 2), and Behe's example of the "Behe-style IC" blood-clotting process is flawed because the biochemistry of blood-clotting is easily reached by adding several steps on top of a more primitive biochemical sequence, *and then REMOVING earlier portions which had become redundant* (1, 2).
Even Behe's trivial mousetrap example turns out to not actually be "IC".
The usual qualitative formulation is: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced...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..."
Note the key error: By saying that it "breaks" if any part is "missing" (i.e. taken away), it is only saying that evolution could not have reached that endpoint by successively only ADDING parts. True enough, but Behe misses the fact that you can also reach the same state by, say, adding 5 parts one at a time, and then taking away 2 which have become redundant. Let's say that part "A" does the job, but not well. But starting with just "A" serves the need. Then add "B", which improves the function of "A". Add "C" which helps A+B do their job, and so on until you have ABCDE, which does the job very well. Now, however, it may turn out that CDE alone does just fine (conceivably, even better than ABCDE does with A+B getting in the way of CDE's operation). So A and B fade away, leaving CDE. Note that CDE was built in "one change at a time" fashion, with each new change improving the operation. HOWEVER, by Behe's definition CDE is "Irreducibly Complex" and "could not have evolved (been built by single steps)" because removing C or D or E from CDE will "break" it. Note that Behe's conclusion is wrong. His logic is faulty.
The other error in Behe's definition lies in this part: "...any precursor to an irreducibly complex system, that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional". The problem here is that it may be "nonfunctional" for its *current* function, but perfectly functional for some *other* function helpful for survival (and therefore selected by evolution). Behe implicitly claims that if it's not useful for its *current* function, it's useless for *any* function. The flaw in this should be obvious.
"Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on."
True as far as it goes, but but this is hardly the same as Behe's sleight-of-hand in the first part of his statement, which relies on the false premise that a precursor to a structure is 100% useless for *any* purpose if *taking away* (but not adding) one part from the current purpose makes it unsuitable for the current purpose. Two gaping holes in that one...
Behe (an anathematized name)
For reasons I've outlined above.
talks of the bacterial flagellum, which contains an acid-powered rotary engine, a stator, O-rings, bushings, and a drive shaft. The machinery of this motor requires approximately fifty proteins.
Except that it doesn't. As many biochemists have pointed out, other organisms have function flagella (even *as* flagella) with fewer proteins (and/or different proteins). That flagellum isn't even "IC" by Behe's own definition since you *can* remove proteins and have it still work as a flagellum. [...]

For a far more realistic look at the evolutionary "invention" of the flagellum, see Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum , which I linked earlier in this post. From the abstract:
The model consists of six major stages: export apparatus, secretion system, adhesion system, pilus, undirected motility, and taxis-enabled motility. The selectability of each stage is documented using analogies with present-day systems. Conclusions include: (1) There is a strong possibility, previously unrecognized, of further homologies between the type III export apparatus and F1F0-ATP synthetase. (2) Much of the flagellum’s complexity evolved after crude motility was in place, via internal gene duplications and subfunctionalization. (3) Only one major system-level change of function, and four minor shifts of function, need be invoked to explain the origin of the flagellum; this involves five subsystem-level cooption events. (4) The transition between each stage is bridgeable by the evolution of a single new binding site, coupling two pre-existing subsystems, followed by coevolutionary optimization of components. Therefore, like the eye contemplated by Darwin, careful analysis shows that there are no major obstacles to gradual evolution of the flagellum.
Now *that's* science. Behe's stuff is just hand-waving and ivory-tower blowhardedness.

And:

For an analysis of numerous errors and such in Dembski's Design arguments/examples, see Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book No Free Lunch. It also contains material on the flagella issue you raise next.
As for Behe (the other author):
One small example is the flagella on a paramecium. They need four distinct proteins to work.
Actually they need a lot more than that. And as far as I know, Behe never used the cilia on paramecia as his example, he has primarily concentrated on bacterial flagella.
They cannot have evolved from a flagella that need three.
Contrary to creationist claims (or Behe's) that flagella are Irreducibly Complex and can not function at all if any part or protein is removed, in fact a) there are many, many varieties of flagella on various species of single-celled organisms, some with more or fewer parts/proteins than others. So it's clearly inaccurate to make a blanket claim that "flagella" in general contain no irreplacable parts. Even Behe admits that a working flagella can be reduced to a working cilia, which undercuts his entire "Irreducibly Complex" example/claim right off the bat.
For a semi-technical discussion of how flagella are *not* IC, because many of their parts can be eliminated without totally breaking their locomotive ability, see Evolution of the Bacterial Flagella
But even if one could identify, say, four specific proteins (or other components) which were critically necessary for the functioning of all flagellar structures (and good luck: there are three unrelated classes of organisms with flagella built on three independent methods: eubacterial flagella, archebacterial flagella, and eukaryote flagella -- see Faugy DM and Farrel K, (1999 Feb) A twisted tale: the origin and evolution of motility and chemotaxis in prokaryotes. Microbiology, 145, 279-280), Behe makes a fatal (and laughably elementary) error when he states that therefore they could not have arisen by evolution. Even first-year students of evolutionary biology know that quite often evolved structures are built from parts that WERE NOT ORIGINALLY EVOLVED FOR THEIR CURRENT APPLICATION, as Behe naively assumes (or tries to imply).
Okay, fine, so even if you can prove that a flagellum needs 4 certain proteins to function, and would not function AS A FLAGELLUM with only 3, that's absolutely no problem for evolutionary biology, since it may well have evolved from *something else* which used those 3 proteins to successfully function, and only became useful as a method of locomotion when evolution chanced upon the addition of the 4th protein. Biology is chock-full of systems cobbled together from combinations of other components, or made via one addition to an existing system which then fortuitously allows it to perform a new function.
And, lo and behold, it turns out that the "base and pivot" of the bacterial flagella, along with part of the "stalk", is virtually identical to the bacterial Type III Secretory Structure (TTSS). So despite Behe's claim that flagella must be IC because (he says) there's no use for half a flagella, in fact there is indeed such a use. And this utterly devastates Behe's argument, in several different ways. Explaining way in detail would take quite some time, but it turns out that someone has already written an excellent essay on that exact thing, which I strongly encourage you to read: The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" .
(Note: Several times that essay makes a reference to the "argument from ignorance", with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with it. I'd like to point out that contrary to the way it sounds, Miller is *not* accusing Behe et all of being ignorant. Instead, he's referring to this family of logical fallacies, also known as the "argument from incredulity".)
That is called irreducible complexity.
That's what Behe likes to call it, yes. But the flagella is provably *not* IC. Oops for Behe. Furthermore, while it's certainly easy to *call* something or another "Irreducibly Complex", proving that it actually *is* is another matter entirely.
As the "Flagellum Unspun" article above states:
According to Dembski, the detection of "design" requires that an object display complexity that could not be produced by what he calls "natural causes." In order to do that, one must first examine all of the possibilities by which an object, like the flagellum, might have been generated naturally. Dembski and Behe, of course, come to the conclusion that there are no such natural causes. But how did they determine that? What is the scientific method used to support such a conclusion? Could it be that their assertions of the lack of natural causes simply amount to an unsupported personal belief? Suppose that there are such causes, but they simply happened not to think of them? Dembski actually seems to realize that this is a serious problem. He writes: "Now it can happen that we may not know enough to determine all the relevant chance hypotheses [which here, as noted above, means all relevant natural processes (hvt)]. Alternatively, we might think we know the relevant chance hypotheses, but later discover that we missed a crucial one. In the one case a design inference could not even get going; in the other, it would be mistaken" (Dembski 2002, 123 (note 80)).
For more bodyblows against the notion of Irreducible Complexity, see:
Bacterial Flagella and Irreducible Complexity
Irreducible Complexity Demystified
Irreducible Complexity
Review: Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box"

The fatal flaws in Behe's argument were recognized as soon as his book was published, and countless reviewers pointed them out. And yet, creationists and IDers, who seem to rely mostly on the echo-chamber of their own clique and appear to seldom read much *actual* scientific sources, still seem blissfully unaware of the problems with Behe's thesis, and keep popping in on a regular basis to wave the book around and smugly yell something like, "See, evolution has already been disproven!"

What's funny is that by Behe's own argument, a stone arch is "irreducibly complex" because it could not have formed by nature *adding* sections of stone at a time (it would have fallen down unless the entire span was already in place -- and indeed will fall down if you take part of the span away):

Needless to say, what Behe's argument is missing in the case of the stone arch is that such arches form easily by natural means when successive layers of sedimentary rock added on top of each other, and *then* erosion carves a hole out from *under* the arch by *removing* material after the "bridge" of the arch itself *was already there*.

Similarly, Behe's arguments about why certain types of biological structures "could not" have evolved fall flat because he doesn't realize that evolution does not only craft features by *adding* components, it also does so by *lateral alteration*, and by *removing* components.

Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument is fatally flawed. It only "proves" that a *simplified* version of evolution (as envisioned by Behe) couldn't give rise to certain structures -- not that the *actual* processes of evolution could not.

Please see post #42.

A slight clarification. It may very well be that Mary Shelley did not misread vorticellae as vermicelli - what I know of the Shelley Circle would lead me to guess that she understood the original experiment just fine. Rather, it may've been that she either viewed the misphrase to be more apt in the context of her work of fiction, or instead that some silly people did indeed say that E. Darwin claimed to have animated a bit of pasta. The Temple of Nature was a popular and influential work in its time and it's certainly possible that some ignorant people thought that E. Darwin was referring to a type of pasta...

yep!

Critique of 29 Evidences of Macroevolution

lol!

But the IDers are doomed to fail. The longer this is prolonged, the greater will be the attention upon this issue. Once that happens, the resistance by the imposed upon scientific community will increase, leading to a more dramatic and humiliating ID defeat.

Professional organizations have pretty much already stated their positions, but they don't have the time to go around participating in county fair hog-wrestling contests with slimy creationist showmen. They make their livings doing research, not selling books and tapes full of lies.
Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution. Excellent statement.
AAAS Board Resolution on Intelligent Design Theory. ID isn't science.
The National Association of Biology Teachers' Statement on Teaching Evolution. Over 9,000 members.

And the ID gang have stated their aims:
Discovery Institute's "Wedge Project". Replacing science with theism.
The Wedge at Work. The Discovery Institute's war against reason.
The "Wedge Document": "So What?" The Discovery Instutute defends the Wedge document.

[Thunderous applause!]

As I said, I don't expect to convince any die-hard Darwinists, so there's no point in being snide about it.

"PS. Your credibility is about nonexistent as it is, but I'm curious where you picked up this latest bit of tripe? Oh, and what do you mean to have one infer from your cite of "Temple of Nature"? Have you taken even a cursory glance at the work, or are you just fantasizing whatever ominous signification you think it might have?

Temple of Nature is simply a poem, written by Charles Darwin's grandfather. That grandfather was one of the founding members of the Lunar Society.

The significance? Well ..... evolution is just loooony!

As for tripe, see here the kind reference by the gentleman of the arts...: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1337381/posts And as for Mary Shelly directly witnessing the good doctor's experiments, I confess I misread the attribution of her direct involvment w/ E. Darwin. Her intellectual loyalty to Pre-Charles Darwinism however? That seems beyond dispute.

By the way, my feelings are hurt ... that crack about my credibility .....

As I said, I don't expect to convince any die-hard Darwinists, so there's no point in being snide about it.

Actually the point is that you were snide about it from the start.

And speaking for myself at least, I'd be glad to chance my conclusions if anyone could present me with evidence that warranted it.

Critique of 29 Evidences of Macroevolution

...and a very detailed point-by-point critique of Camp's "critique" and all the many errors it contains (neatly placed into 17 different categories of error)

If you feel that there remains any portion of Camp's critique which has not yet been shredded, or if you find a flaw in any part of the rebuttal to Mr. Camp, feel free to specifically state it and make your case. Until then, why don't you stop repeatedly posting this bit of creationist hand-waving and fluff, since you've previously been informed of its flaws?

And if that's not enough, here's my own review of Camp's "critique":

which has been thoroughly debunked in A Critique of 29 Evidences for Macroevolution as well as on several threads right here on FreeRepublic.
Oh, puh-leaze... "Frantically denounced" is not the same thing as "thoroughly debunked". Let's take a look at your link, shall we?
Ashby Camp attempts to "debunk" item "4.2 DNA Coding Redundancy", but he screws it up royally. First, he attempts to summarize the argument as:
The alleged prediction and fulfillment are:
1. If universal common ancestry is true, then ubiquitous genes will have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species.
2. Ubiquitous genes have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species.
This COMPLETELY misses the point of the DNA Coding Redundancy argument. In fact, it practically *reverses* the actual argument entirely. It's a downright laughable attempt at summarizing the actual argument, and grossly misrepresents the original point being made.
Ashby Camp can hardly "debunk" an argument if he doesn't even understand it to start with.
Instead, the actual argument which Camp is misrepresenting goes like this: If modern life arose through common descent, then the redundancy in the DNA coding (which allows *many* different DNA sequences to produce *identical* protein results) should result in very similar DNA sequences between recently-related species (for the same protein), less similar DNA sequences for less-recently-related species, and very less similar DNA sequences for distantly-related species. For *all* species relationships and *all* coding sequences.
That's *quite* a bit different than Camp's ridiculously oversimplified version, which grossly distorts the above into "some sequences will be found to be similar, somewhere". The *actual* prediction is *far* more specific, and *vastly* less likely to occur by chance or some other method which does not involve common descent. The actual prediction makes testable, narrow predictions about *every* ubiquitous gene sequence in *every* species. It's extremely specific, and leaves no wiggle-room for observations which might violate the prediction.
Camp then uses his own skewed version of the argument to say, "It is not a prediction of the hypothesis of universal common ancestry or the more specific hypothesis of Neo-Darwinism that ubiquitous genes will have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species." That's true enough for Camp's distorted version, but *NOT* for the original.
Camp further claims: "If the codon sequence in such a gene was not the same or “similar” in two or more species, evolutionists simply would vary the time of divergence and/or the mutation rate, which is claimed to vary for different genes, to account for the differences." No, absolutely not. What Camp is missing is that this line of evidence applies not to absolute amounts of differences, but *relative* amounts of differences. Yes, the neutral mutation rate for some genes is larger than others. But that's irrelevant to this line of evidence, because whatever the mutation rate for a given gene, what's being compared is larger differences versus smaller differences when examining multiple pairs of species. "Larger" is distinguishable from "smaller" no matter what the absolute sizes might be.
Camp reveals his further misunderstandings when he writes: "Once again, the real argument being made is theological, not scientific. The claim is that, since God could make a gene for a protein with many different codon sequences, he would not have used an identical or similar series of codons in the cytochrome c gene of separately created species." No, Camp blows it again. There is, in fact, absolutely no argument of any sort in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution about what God might or might not choose to do. That's Camp's own hallucination. What's worse, he obviously entirely misunderstands the *evidenciary* arguments being made in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. What makes this even more unforgiveable is that the points that Camp misses are spelled out explicitly in one of the "29+ Evidences" pages (this one).
What Camp entirely misses is that the 29+ lines of evidence for macroevolution are *not* given as "proofs". Nowhere is the argument made that there could be no other possible explanation for a particular type of observation, or that any given observation might not match the predictions of some other theory as well. That's *always* a "given" in science, because there's *always* some other theor(ies) which could likewise explain the evidence (if nothing else, some sort of unrecognized variation on the current theory, or even something radically different that no one's thought of).
What Camp misses entirely, because he's not a scientist (he's a lawyer) is that you don't "prove" a given theory by allegedly presenting something which can't be explained any *other* way (because this is almost always impossible to do even in principle), instead you *support* a theory by working out as many of its implications (i.e. predictions) as you can, and then check to see (via examination of known evidence, and experiment, and other methods) whether all observations you can manage to do actually "fit" the theory (and more importantly, whether any are found which *don't*).
The more evidence which falls into line to match the expectations of the theory, the more the theory is strengthened. Any evidence which appears to be a blatant violation of the expectations of the theory weighs *very* heavily against it. Furthermore, a theory is very much strengthened if the evidence which matches its predictions are from not just one type of prediction or line of argument, but from many. In the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution page, there are over *29* independent lines of evidence, all of which beautifully match the predictions of the theories of common descent and macroevolution. And each line of evidence is supported by *thousands*, and in some cases *millions*, of individual pieces of evidence.
In short, evolution has an enormous amount of evidence supporting it.
I strongly invite readers to ignore Gore3000's "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" attempt, and actually go *read* 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution for yourself (yes, all several pages). It'll take a couple hours, but it's well worth the time. After you read it, you'll understand why creationists are being hugely dishonest when they claim that there is "no" evidence supporting evolution, or that evolution is not a "scientific" or "predictive" theory. The pages at that link show in great detail how empty those claims are, even if you choose argue with a few particular points or disagree with its conclusion. There's an enormous amount of meticulous, well-researched evidence for evolution, and that page gives a large taste. Don't let anyone tell you there's not. And I trust any reader with an open mind will see for themselves how strong the evolutionary foundation truly is, contrary to hte "house of cards" declarations by its opponents. Again, even if you disagree with the conclusion, at least be honest enough to admit there's a lot of good evidence behind it -- if you take the time to look.
Camp blusters in several sections about how "well, maybe God chose to make things the way that the evidence indicates". Fine, maybe he did. Feel free to go off and develop a "scientific theory of creationism". But note that you can't just say (as Camp does), "maybe God wanted to do it in a way that only *appears* to match the expected results of evolution, we don't know why", because that's *not* a *scientific* prediction, because it doesn't let you predict *ahead* of your observations what you think you're going to find and why. As soon as you develop a "scientific theory of creationism" which *does* claim to grasp enough of God's processes and reasons to be able to predict (repeat: *predict*) enough of the details of His works that you'll be able to test your theory against the evidence (and also honestly deal with it if your predictions are falsified), *then* you'll have something that can truly be called "scientific". So far, no one has offered such a theory. "God could make it any way at all if he wanted to for His own mysterious reasons" does *not* qualify, because it is neither predictive nor falsifiable. It is, in fact, a declaration of *lack* of knowledge rather than a contribution to science (which is the *accumulation* of what we know and can confidently count on and predict about the world).
Camp even unwittingly admits this when he writes, "But even if there were no unknown design constraints on the gene for cytochrome c, how could one be sure that God would not conserve codon sequences when creating cytochrome c gene in separate species?" Yes, exactly. If one "can't be sure" -- if there's no way to test the unknowability of God's whims or predict what they will be in a given case -- then it's a philosophical issue, but it's not a scientific theory.
Camp's concluding paragraph for this section of his "debunking" only further reveals his misunderstandings:
Thus, the similarity of codon sequences in the cytochrome c gene of humans and chimps does not “make it look exactly like we are genealogically related.”
This quote appears nowhere in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Camp is either summarizing, or was working off an older version of the web page. In any case, he misunderstands it. The meaning is that the gene similarities and differences between man/chimp are exactly the type we would expect to see if we were genealogically related, and closely so. It's not a claim that the gene sequences by themselves are some sort of irrefutable proof that we are.
That conclusion only follows if one ignores the possibility of unknown design constraints, insists that God introduce novelty for novelty’s sake, and denies that there could be other divine purposes, such as sending a biotic message, for the pattern of similarity.
See above. Camp repeatedly misunderstands the argument(s) which are actually being made in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, and thus his "debunking" misses the mark entirely.
Similar major flaws are present in the rest of his alleged "debunking" article. And you have "forgotten" to mention that talk.origins itself posts a lengthy rebuttal to Camp's sloppy 'critique'. In it, they describe his attempts to critique their material (and quite fairly, in my opinion), as:
Mr. Camp's critique is error-ridden in various ways, and is primarily characterized by:

Straw man arguments
Red herrings
Self-contradictions
Equivocation
Two wrongs make a right
Fallacies of accident and converse accident
Ignoratio elenchi
Naive theological assumptions
Insufficient knowledge of basic biology, molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics
Misunderstanding of the scientific method
Forwarding of untestable competing "hypotheses"
Mischaracterization of evolutionary theory
Misleading mis-quotes
Fallacies of accent
Distortion of scientific controversies
Arguments from authority
False analogies

The repeated use of these errors and others in Camp's "Critique" will be abundantly clear in the following rebuttal.
...and then they go on to very thoroughly document those errors in Camp's critique.

Interesting article.

It doesn't seem to me that he disproves Behe or Dembsky. He does suggest that instead of, say, 18 complex organic molecules having to develop simultaneously, some of these molecules may appear in other processes, so only 12 need to develop at the same time. And similarly with other examples.

You could take this two ways. The odds against developing 12 such compounds simultaneously is nearly as astronomical as developing 18. So he had reduced the odds maybe from 10 to the minus 700 to ten to the minus 690 (I am using arbitrary figures here since I'm working from rough memory of the article.) That's still astronomical.

There are two possibilities. Perhaps there are other processes which would explain even more of these chemicals as having been separately developed. But the article doesn't show that (and perhaps shouldn't be expected to).

In other words, the article doesn't really disprove the Irreducible Complexity argument, but it takes a small bite out of it. I don't think that's really enough to say that Behe has been disproved or demolished or whatever.

It's commonplace to argue that complex organic substances arose out of an organic soup over very long periods of time. But we are still extremely far from demonstrating that this is possible.

He does suggest that instead of, say, 18 complex organic molecules having to develop simultaneously, some of these molecules may appear in other processes, so only 12 need to develop at the same time. And similarly with other examples.
You could take this two ways. The odds against developing 12 such compounds simultaneously is nearly as astronomical as developing 18. So he had reduced the odds maybe from 10 to the minus 700 to ten to the minus 690 (I am using arbitrary figures here since I'm working from rough memory of the article.) That's still astronomical.

I don't find any reference in Miller's article to the need for any particular number of compounds to leap together simultaneously (an admittedly hugely unlikely occurrence). This is the crux of the matter: such probabilistic arguments are bogus because they ignore the cumulative effects of small changes over vast stretches of time.

You should now read Ichneumon's post #42 in this thread (if you haven't already).

wedge-like placemarker

NYT and it's like minded friends by making conservatives look like anti-science religious fanatics who want to sneak religion into the science classroom of public schools via the back door.

Roger that!!!!

"Review: Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box""

You pinged me Mr. I. Why ping me? What a waste of bits. But, since you did ...

That link above didn't work. How lazy of you.

Now, also, you omitted all references to the blood clotting stuff. For pete's sake, lets get comprehensive here! In detail, discuss why gradual evolution of blood clotting with 10 protein feedback loops all working at once is actually quite feasible evolutionarily speaking.

Now, one other thing. Chances are pretty good you have strong feelings about marriage. I mean, you're the king here on your side regarding the details of ToE. And since you're here at FR, meaning you love the GOP and W, and we know marrieds, esp married moms w/ kids overwhelmingly voted for W., .... well this means you likely really, really support marriage. Good ol regular one husband (man) one woman (wife) marriage. What links do you have for this support?

And kids; chances are you have one or two that demand some of your attention. What say you regarding how they should be raised regarding religion? Should they NOT go to church? My guess is that might hurt the GOP. The atheists overwhelmingly vote democrat; we need to limit how atheists reproduce, shouldn't we? Where are your links promoting this line of thinking?

And even dogs ... you would agree folks that deliberately avoid dogs (or worse, refuse to own dogs; they can only handle cats) ... you'd agree dog owners vote for W. disproportionately. Right? I mean, look at how cute Barney is! (And remember what happened to Buddy?) Where are your links about how dogs can help the GOP?

Or, is it this: Ayn Rand hated kids and dogs, and only kept cats ..... and its Ayn's Answers that will save the day?

Would you say most scientist types love cats? I'm just asking mr. I....

After all ... you pinged me, and I'm just trying to understand your frame of reference.

And one other thing; what is your opinion regarding the fact that the overwhelming number of admissions to sex change hospitals feature hordes of men desperate to get rid of their equipment? Very, very few women will get caught alive or dead in a sex change clinic; why is that?

I mean, chances are good you have an opinion on this. Do you think that some men could have an autoimmune response to their own testosterone and that's what drives this madness?

And one last thing: have you read Shelly's 'Frankenstein'?

There is a large body of research substantiating Intelligent Design, and the work stands up to scrutiny far better than evolutionism does. It fits the evidence!

This is the fundamental flaw in the intelligent design theory.

The problem with ID is not that it may or may not fit observation. That is not the issue. Only the ID and creationist idiots think that; and largely because they don't have a clue as to what science is.

To wit:

Science isn't defined by outcome. It is defined by process.

Therefore, ID may or may not be "obvious". I don't care to argue the point and it is irrelevant. The issue is that ID does not meet the definition of science because it has not followed the fundamental process of science.

I don't doubt that there are many flaws in evolution. I don't doubt that more will be found. But evolution is science by definition, because the process of deriving it was scientific.

It's commonplace to argue that complex organic substances arose out of an organic soup over very long periods of time. But we are still extremely far from demonstrating that this is possible.

Ever notice that the astronomer's never have to celebrate 'Gravity Day' to get our attention? But, boy oh boy, these evo types... they are certainly animated about their beliefs.

Behe Jumps the Shark

By P Z Myers