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To: Frumious Bandersnatch

None of these articles even mentions irreducible complexity or biotic systems.

Peruse the following articles.  Irreducible complexity may, in fact be not.

How Can Evolution Cause Irreducibly Complex Systems? {29 June 2000}

Behe coined the name Irreducibly Complex for systems which would stop working if any of their components were removed. An example he gave is the biochemical system that makes clots in your blood. He said that this was like the common mousetrap, which becomes useless if you remove its spring. 

Behe argued that such systems cannot evolve by a series of small modifications, each of which is a slight improvement to some initial system. His proof was that he did not know any plausible scenarios for their evolution. 

Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe {Talk Origins}

In 1996, the Free Press published a book by Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe called Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. The book's central thesis is that many biological systems are "irreducibly complex" at the molecular level. 

Is the Blood Clotting Cascade Irreducibly Complex?

In his 1996 book, Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe argued that the vertebrate blood clotting cascade was "Irreducibly Complex."  What Prof. Behe means by this is that each and every element of the complex cascade of enzymes and cofactors must be in place for blood clotting to work. Since, according to Behe, an irreducibly complex system cannot be produced by Darwinian natural selection, it must have been produced by something else. It must have been designed.

Of Mousetraps and Men {Niall Shanks & Karl H. Joplin, East Tennessee State University}

In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, biochemist Michael Behe claims that biochemical systems exhibit a special kind of complexity -- irreducible complexity - that cannot possibly have evolved and must have resulted from intelligent design. In common with other creationists, Behe is vague about both the identity and methods of his intelligent designer, though he does distinguish between the hypothesis of natural design (by space aliens, perhaps) and that of supernatural design (1996, p. 243-253).


332 posted on 02/22/2002 8:19:47 AM PST by Junior
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To: Junior
"How Can Evolution Cause Irreducibly Complex Systems?"

The bolas spider's system could have evolved gradually. Imagine a spider with a normal sticky web. Add the pheromone. Lots of moths get caught, so there's no point in wasting effort on a great big web with lots of glue. The web is gradually simplified all the way down to one strand with one dot of glue. But the pheromone, which was just an improvement, gradually becomes a necessity.


A lot of assumptions here.  That they could have evolved gradually is an unsupported hypothesis and, as such, should be discarded.  Secondly, the claim that the peromone is just an improvement is also unsupported.  This is all supposition with not one iota of evidence either way.  All conclusions are being made on assumptions that have no support.  Therefore, the conclusions themselves are suspect.  Also, he seems to have selective criteria for what is and is not irreducibly complex.  Whereas he claims his spider scenario is irreducibly complex, he claims that Behe's mousetrap one is not.

Sorry, but he's going to have to do better than that.

"Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe"

Yep. The wooden base can be discarded. Where do you put a mousetrap? On the floor. What if I assemble the mousetrap by pounding the staples into the floor? Would I have a fully functional mousetrap? Of course I would. Would it be just as useful? Nope -- there is actually a selective advantage to having a typical mousetrap, rather than a kit. Not only do I have to assemble the mousetrap, but I can't put it on a stone or concrete floor, or a very irregular floor or a very soft one (such as soil). It's a nuisance to put behind or under appliances & furniture. I can kiss my security deposit goodbye. Clearly it is inferior. But just as clearly, it is functional!


He misses (probably wantonly) the point of Behe's argument.  While Behe's analogy is not perfect (neither are most analogies), substituting the floor for the board as the base merely transfers the base from the board to the floor.  It is also a total strawman.  The point that Behe is trying to make is that there are materials needed to make a successful moustrap.  And when you are missing critical components, you cannot make a moustrap.  Period.  Furthermore, the author destroys his entire argument when he requires something (probably a hammer) to pound the staples into the floor.  The staples, by themselves, go nowhere.  The staples and hammer by themselves do nothing.  In this case, nothing is done until the mousetrap is created.  By Intelligent Design.

"Is Blood Clotting Cascade Irreducibly Complex?"

I don't know much about this, so I'll make only one point.  The author asserts that a slight improvement in blood clotting will be favored by natural selection.  The assumption is that favorable mutations, no matter how slight, will have trump bad mutations.  Unfortunately for the author, mutations are generally unfavorable.  Also, his argument is quite one-dimensional, because who is to say that non-related inter and/or intra mutations won't win out?  Basically, the author is assuming that the blood-clotting did not start out complex to begin with.

"Of Moustraps and Men"


This guy talks about gene duplication, but conveniently ignores how genes came into being in the first place.  Again he assumes too much without giving the evidence for it.

The question that all of these authors fail to address is how did (for example) did flagella and the motors for driving them arrive at the same time?  The odds of that happening are beyond belief.  Then when you need all the other parts which go together to create a living organism, the odds get even more staggering.

So, one question I have for all these authors is: "Where did the origin of information come from?"
351 posted on 02/22/2002 9:52:26 AM PST by Frumious Bandersnatch
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