tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post4161909672324751715..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: Notes on Draper's Article on Behe's Design Argument, Part 2: Three Bad CriticismsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-21072928859525603692008-11-24T18:35:00.000-05:002008-11-24T18:35:00.000-05:00Hi Badger3k,First off, wtf? If it can be shown to ...Hi Badger3k,<BR/><BR/><I>First off, wtf? If it can be shown to be reducible, no matter if it is said to be "simple: or "complex" (whatever that means), then it is not irreducible.</I><BR/><BR/>Careful: The objection isn't that some irreducibly complex structures are <I>reducible</I>, but rather that some irreducibly complex systems are <I>evolvable</I>.<BR/><BR/>But Behe allows that irreducibly complex systems are evolvable in principle. According to Behe's original definition of 'irreducible complexity', an irreducibly complex system is one "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein removal of any of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" (Darwin's Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 39). Behe thus doesn't build into his definition of 'irreducible complexity' that it can't be gotten via evolution. He gives independent argument for that. I sketch his argument in Part I of this series. As I mention there, Behe grants that it's possible in principle (though highly improbable) for an irreducibly complex system to evolve: "Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously." Behe, Darwin's Black Box, P. 40.<BR/><BR/>I discuss this in Part I, but very briefly: Behe distinguishes between direct and indirect evolutionary pathways. And his argument is that no irreducibly complex biochemical system can be created via a direct evolutionary pathway, for any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition non-functional. And while it's possible in principle to create an irreducibly complex biochemical system via an indirect pathway, the probability of this happening is too low to be plausible for systems that are very complex (and there are such systems).exapologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09915579495149582531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-49725636912329423062008-11-24T11:13:00.000-05:002008-11-24T11:13:00.000-05:00For objection 2 - some simple irreducibly complex....For objection 2 - some simple irreducibly complex...<BR/><BR/>First off, wtf? If it can be shown to be reducible, no matter if it is said to be "simple: or "complex" (whatever that means), then it is not irreducible. We've seen proposed evolutionary pathways for such things as the inner ear, eyes, and the blood clotting cascade (things that Behe admitted to not finding out about, assuming you believe his testimony).<BR/><BR/>I'm sure that the next posts will have dealt with the problem that his "explanatory filter" doesn't work, or that the analogies where he likens ID to SETI fall apart with a slight breeze.Badger3khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04008838430274720250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-74835883227769061572008-11-21T17:50:00.000-05:002008-11-21T17:50:00.000-05:00Behe feels that common descent simply works, and w...<I>Behe feels that common descent simply works, and works most of the time.</I><BR/><BR/>Behe's harder to pin down on this than you think - although as far as I remember he has stated there doesn't seem like another obvious explanation for eg shared pseudogene mutations, he whistles a slightly different tune at other times.<BR/><BR/>On a Christian radio show a while back, he seemed to give credence to the idea that YEC was a legitimate position for Christians to approach biology from (I'd have to search for the exact quotes, but it was statements to that effect).<BR/><BR/>I'm pretty sure he also contributed to Pandas and People, which quite clearly promotes denial of common ancestry.<BR/><BR/>I think he's also said that he feels that many of his common ancestry denying cohorts in the ID movement are more expert when it comes to the evidence regarding common ancestry than he is.Rocky Rodenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03620894198842461714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-7076633859920037462008-11-21T10:57:00.000-05:002008-11-21T10:57:00.000-05:00exapologistThanks for the nice distillation.Regard...exapologist<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the nice distillation.<BR/><BR/>Regarding Behe's ID-related arguments, I think they fail at a rather fundamental level, a failure which Behe himself admitted under oath at the Dover trial.<BR/><BR/>Implicit in Behe's claims of knowing what phenomena evolutionary processes are in principle not capable of producing, is the claim that he possesses full knowledge of all phenomena that evolutionary processes are capable of producing. However, on the stand at Dover, when confronted with a large number of peer-reviewed articles concerning evolution of his irreducible complexity mainstays of bacterial flagella, and blood clotting mechanisms, he confessed that he was not aware of them. Couple this with his ignoring the important evolutionary mechanisms of exaptation and scaffolding in "Darwin's Black Box," and we see that Behe's claim of possessing an exhaustive understanding of what can be produced through evolutionary mechanisms fails.<BR/><BR/>Behe does not understand even a fraction of what would be required before proposing his ID hypothesis. Indeed, if he did, the demands placed on him by the world body of science would be so great, that he would have no time at all for his Discovery Institute nonsense.Russhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15316459700934662467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-35308216678884823392008-11-21T09:42:00.000-05:002008-11-21T09:42:00.000-05:00Tommy Holland, you say:Behe feels that common desc...Tommy Holland, you say:<BR/><BR/><I>Behe feels that common descent simply works, and works most of the time. He implies that the Intelligent Designer only occasionally has to step in--one gets the impression that the Designer has to do so on an extremely reluctant basis--and work its magic to give a poor immobile bacteria its flagella.</I><BR/><BR/>Indeed. And strangely enough, the Intelligent Designer <I>only</I> steps in to give a helpful tweak to precisely those structures whose evolutionary origins happen not to be pretty fully elucidated yet. The correspondence is too unlikely to have resulted by chance: the Intelligent Designer must have known at the Beginning which structures we would eventually have trouble explaining, and He, She, or It twiddled and diddled only those particular structures. That proves that the Intelligent Designer is God.<BR/><BR/><I>Meanwhile, Young-Earth Creationists think that common descent never works at all. And yet they hold up Michael Behe as their poster-child of science, and Behe doesn't bother to correct them.</I><BR/><BR/>That's another disarming feature of ID: it's nothing if not egalitarian. Their big tent is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Moonies, even a few weird atheists; OEC's, YEC's, evolutionists, deniers, you name it. The fact that most if not all of these positions are mutually exclusive doesn't bother them. Ya gotta love that ecumenical spirit!zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-54029327765664880322008-11-21T09:23:00.000-05:002008-11-21T09:23:00.000-05:00One more comment: Has Behe ever speculated on how ...One more comment: <BR/><BR/>Has Behe ever speculated on how much time elapsed between a flagella-less bacteria and a bacteria that's fully mobile?<BR/><BR/>If the flagella appeared <I>instantaneously</I> on the southbound-end of a northbound bacteria, then he's arguing magic, and it's disengenuous to ask for intermediate forms to falsify his theory.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, if the flagella appeared gradually over several generations, each generation building on the previous with additional parts, then he's arguing for common descent--albeit a predeterministic descent. So what's the difference between Common Descent with the End firmly fixed in mind, and plain old ordinary Common Descent?<BR/><BR/>And since Behe accepts non-deterministic Common Descent, how can he tell the difference? Apparently its based on complexity. If Behe thinks something is ordindarily complex, then ordinary Common Descent is just fine. But if something is extraordinarily complex like a flagella, then Intelligent Design is required. This makes Behe's value judgements the standard by which complexity is measured.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15321466949515992295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-3316505612770037952008-11-21T08:51:00.000-05:002008-11-21T08:51:00.000-05:00Behe feels that common descent simply works, and w...Behe feels that common descent simply works, and works most of the time. He implies that the Intelligent Designer only occasionally has to step in--one gets the impression that the Designer has to do so on an <I>extremely</I> reluctant basis--and work its magic to give a poor immobile bacteria its flagella.<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, Young-Earth Creationists think that common descent never works at all. And yet they hold up Michael Behe as their poster-child of science, and Behe doesn't bother to correct them.<BR/><BR/>Bad science makes for strange bedfellows.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15321466949515992295noreply@blogger.com