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To: conservativebabe
Alright. Just keep in mind that the argument for irreducable complexity -- the cornerstone of ID -- ignores that a feature can come about through subtractive processes; that is, an organism starts with more than something like a flagellum and over time various parts are removed until the end-result is the flagellum.
97 posted on 01/19/2006 2:31:54 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Dimensio; conservativebabe
[Gotcha thanks. that's what I thought you meant after having watched something on ID. The bacterial flagellum being the explanation/evidence of ID.]

Alright. Just keep in mind that the argument for irreducible complexity -- the cornerstone of ID -- ignores that a feature can come about through subtractive processes; that is, an organism starts with more than something like a flagellum and over time various parts are removed until the end-result is the flagellum.

Likewise, evolution can make "lateral" changes, where it neither adds nor takes something away, but alters an existing component.

The other gaping hole in "Irreducible Complexity" is that it overlooks the fact that features can have *different* functions as they change over time.

Behe's entire argument is predicated on the presumption that a) evolution only proceeds by *adding* components (not subtracting or making lateral changes), and b) that if a structure loses its *current* function, it's completely useless to the organism.

Neither assumption is correct, and *each* of them alone demolishes the line of reasoning that Behe uses to reach his conclusion that "Behe-style 'IC' things could not have evolved".

Oops!

Nor can these defects in his argument be repaired, because it would require total omniscience -- one would have to be able to rule out *every* conceivable (*and* inconceivable!) arbitrary-length evolutionary pathway (involving subtractions *and* additions *and* lateral changes, in every possible combination), *and* every possible alternative function which a structure *might* have had under a nearly infinite number of alternative variations. Good luck with that!

Furthermore, even if Behe *had* managed to prove something "unevolvable" by Darwinian evolution, that *still* wouldn't actually constitute "evidence of ID". All it would do is rule out Darwinian evolution as the origin of that structure. It would *not* provide positive evidence that the structure was therefore "designed", because any number of other natural processes (or non-Darwinian evolution), not yet discovered, which might have been responsible instead. Things in the real world don't work the way they do in Sherlock Holmes novels -- you can't find the truth by "eliminating all other possibilities", because there are an *infinite* number of other possibilities, including vast numbers you haven't thought of yet. The only way to actually have evidence *for* ID (as opposed to *against* evolution) is to find evidence which matches the characteristics that would be expected of designed things, specifically. For a trivial example, like a copyright notice embedded in DNA. Mere "complexity" or "functional complexity" isn't good enough, because various natural processes can and do produce this as well.

156 posted on 01/19/2006 3:35:21 PM PST by Ichneumon
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