Replies

The claims about how the flagellum evolved are made by others and based on a resemblance between the appearance in an enzyme and the appearance of a flagellum.

Nope. The resemblance is more than 'appearance'. It's structural and mechanistic.

It's not everyday that a concept like irreducible complexity gets swept off the game board so decisively.

It never was on the game board.

Results of SciFinder search for the term 'irreducible complexity'

2 references were found containing "irreducible complexity" as entered.�

Reference 1: Hanly M A Sado-masochism in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: a ridge of lighted health. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS (1993 Oct), 74 ( Pt 5) 1049-61. Journal code: 2985179R. ISSN:0020-7578. DN 94140508 PubMed ID 8307694 AN 94140508 MEDLINE�

Talk about dirty minds! Who would have thought there was S & M in Jane Eyre

Atlan H Automata network theories in immunology: their utility and their underdetermination. BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY (1989), 51(2), 247-53. Journal code: 0401404. ISSN:0092-8240. DN 89167279 PubMed ID 2924021 AN 89167279 MEDLINE�

Looks a little closer to what you want, but reading the abstract, I doubt it's really what Dembski thinks of as IC

That's it, your impact. Zero. Nada.

In fact, you can scan through any textbook in any field of natural science, and I'll be astonished if you find the term irreducible complexity'. And since apparently none of the people who believe in it so strongly (yourself included) know what it is, it's unlikely to have much future impact either. Dark uspeakable mysteries just don't last in our neighborhood

Thanks for your time and, once again, for your candor.

Candor is one of the things that distinguishes real science from mumbo-jumbo. Was it Brandeis who said that sunlight is the best disinfectant? In any case, happy to oblige.

The Mentality of Evolution There seems to be a cart before the horse attitude i.e. evolution has occurred, that's a fact ( it is never stated who proved this fact ), therefore we just need to twist the evidence until it fits our pre-conceptions. Of course, science is supposed to look at the evidence, and then derive the theory, but as Karl Popper admitted, the theory of evolution has never been a scientific theory due to its lack of testability, so normal scientific standards do not and have never applied to the theory of evolution. It has always been an emotional issue and not a scientific one - on all sides it must be stated in fairness. The main difference is that the worshippers of mechanistic reductionist Newtonian materialism try to pretend they are objective, when in reality most of them are not. The following extract from Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial puts it quite nicely:-

It is likely that Darwinist gradualism is statistically just as unlikely as Goldschmidt's saltationism, once we give adequate attention to all the necessary elements. The advantageous micro mutations postulated by Neo-Darwinist genetics are tiny, usually too small to be noticed. This premise is important because, in the words of Richard Dawkins, "virtually all the mutations studied in genetics laboratories which are pretty macro because otherwise geneticists wouldn't notice them are deleterious to the animals possessing them." But if the necessary mutations are too small to be seen, there will have to be a great many of them (millions?) of the right type coming along when they are needed to carry on the long-term project of producing a complex organ.

The probability of Darwinist evolution depends upon the quantity of favorable micro mutations required to create complex organs and organisms, the frequency with which such favorable micro mutations occur just where and when they are needed, the efficacy of natural selection in preserving the slight improvements with sufficient consistency to permit the benefits to accumulate, and the time allowed by the fossil record for all this to have happened. Unless we can make calculations taking all these factors into account, we have no way of knowing whether evolution by micromutation is more or less improbable than evolution by macromutation.

Some mathematicians did try to make the calculations, and the result was a rather acrimonious confrontation between themselves and some of the leading Darwinists at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia in 1967. The report of the exchange is fascinating, not just because of the substance of the mathematical challenge, but even more because of the logic of the Darwinist response. For example, the mathematician D. S. Ulam argued that it was highly improbable that the eye could have evolved by the accumulation of small mutations, because the number of mutations would have to be so large and the time available was not nearly long enough for them to appear. Sir Peter Medawar and C. H. Waddington responded that Ulam was doing his science backwards; the fact was that the eye had evolved and therefore the mathematical difficulties must be only apparent. Ernst Mayr observed that Ulam's calculations were based on assumptions that might be unfounded, and concluded that "Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are comforted by the fact that evolution has occurred.

Your rubber plastic ducky is sinking!

To: f.Christian

I took a few minutes to decipher that post, and I must say I agree with a lot of what you said.

These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.

God bless you, I think we both have a common enemy in the BRAVE-NWO.

452 posted on 9/7/02 8:54 PM Pacific by Dakmar

In fact, you can scan through any textbook in any field of natural science, and I'll be astonished if you find the term irreducible complexity'.

Irreducible complexity is not a matter of terminology. It is a matter of facts. Behe clearly defines what is irreducible complexity. This complexity is found in many things. In fact, the making of a single protein is in itself an irreducibly complex mechanism and requiring many different parts of an organism to work together. First you need the gene, but a gene is merely a factory, it takes orders from others. Then because of introns, you need to tell the RNA what part of the gene to use for the protein and what not. You also need another part of the organism to tell the gene when to start producing protein, when to stop, and how much to make at any given time. Then you need to have in other places in the organism a system to tell the developmental program where to produce the cells that will make these proteins, and how many cells to make of this kind. Then you also need some sort of mechanism to 'sense' when and where the proteins need to be made (ie - all our muscles due to the production of certain proteins which make them contract and expand, of course these proteins have to be made only exactly where one needs to move a muscle), you also need to have some sort of specific message ordering the production of that specific protein. So as you can see, even a single protein requires a tremendously large system to back it up and make it work. This makes practically every single function in an organism irreducibly complex.