minimalist, from The Awful Forums
Irreducible complexity fails at every conceivable level. As a criticism of evolution, it's a complete non-starter.
It fails because it assumes we will not discover even simpler forms of the same system. It draws an arbitrary line across the map of human knowledge, and declares "HEER THER BEE DRAGONS, YE SHALL PROGRESSE NO FURTHERE". Since the publication of Darwin's Black Box, we've found lots of new bacterial species with flagella that work just fine with far fewer parts than Behe declared "absolutely necessary". Where will Behe draw the line next? More importantly, what justification does he have for doing so, beyond simply "well we haven't seen anything smaller yet"? That's hardly a compelling, or scientific, hypothesis.
It fails because it conveniently does not take into account the many compelling cases for natural evolution of so-called IC systems. Behe neglects to mention the close homologies between blood clotting factors, and the likely co-option of the Type III secretion system into what would later become the flagellum. Well-known and observed genetic phenomena like gene duplication and exon shuffling -- which provide the redundancy necessary for the evolution of "IC" systems -- are completely glossed over in Behe's writings.
It fails even at the conceptual level because it ignores the possibility that ancestral systems had more parts, and more redundancy -- and evolution since eliminated the unnecessary bits, rather like a game of pick-up-sticks. Such systems can give the illusion of being IC, but looking at the sequence homologies within and between organisms show the distinct marks of gradual genetic change. And, as mentioned above, we have observed all the mechanisms that would be necessary to effect such a change.
In short, "IC" only succeeds as an idea in a complete vacuum, in the absence of all the scientific data Behe chose to ignore. Like creationism (because it is creationism), it is not a theory unto itself, just a rotten, dishonest critique of evolution. It is pernicious not just because it isn't science, but because it denies so much of the science that we do know. Teaching ID in classes would amount to spending half the time teaching the science of evolution, then half the time undoing that by teaching complete untruths.
It fails because it assumes we will not discover even simpler forms of the same system. It draws an arbitrary line across the map of human knowledge, and declares "HEER THER BEE DRAGONS, YE SHALL PROGRESSE NO FURTHERE". Since the publication of Darwin's Black Box, we've found lots of new bacterial species with flagella that work just fine with far fewer parts than Behe declared "absolutely necessary". Where will Behe draw the line next? More importantly, what justification does he have for doing so, beyond simply "well we haven't seen anything smaller yet"? That's hardly a compelling, or scientific, hypothesis.
It fails because it conveniently does not take into account the many compelling cases for natural evolution of so-called IC systems. Behe neglects to mention the close homologies between blood clotting factors, and the likely co-option of the Type III secretion system into what would later become the flagellum. Well-known and observed genetic phenomena like gene duplication and exon shuffling -- which provide the redundancy necessary for the evolution of "IC" systems -- are completely glossed over in Behe's writings.
It fails even at the conceptual level because it ignores the possibility that ancestral systems had more parts, and more redundancy -- and evolution since eliminated the unnecessary bits, rather like a game of pick-up-sticks. Such systems can give the illusion of being IC, but looking at the sequence homologies within and between organisms show the distinct marks of gradual genetic change. And, as mentioned above, we have observed all the mechanisms that would be necessary to effect such a change.
In short, "IC" only succeeds as an idea in a complete vacuum, in the absence of all the scientific data Behe chose to ignore. Like creationism (because it is creationism), it is not a theory unto itself, just a rotten, dishonest critique of evolution. It is pernicious not just because it isn't science, but because it denies so much of the science that we do know. Teaching ID in classes would amount to spending half the time teaching the science of evolution, then half the time undoing that by teaching complete untruths.
