<<A "just-so" story is much different than an illustration, Jim. The former
invokes some plausible scenario as a factual explanation of something.
Kipling's story of how the leopard got his spots fits this definition. On
the other hand, an illustration is less ambitious and simply provides a way
in which to help the reader understand an abstract point. Illustrations do
not need to be factua, and some are in fact obviously fabulistic. My
criticism of irreducible complexity does not rely on any just-so story.>>
A "just-so story" is IMplausible, though explanatory. It plugs a fable into a
gap. The evolutionists' "early selective advantage" does the same thing. That
is what is being relied upon in the Behe "criticism" thus far, in my view.
I wrote, quoting Behe:
<<Yes. Behe discusses this point, and on pg. 40 says: "Even if a system is
irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however,
one cannot definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous
route.">>
Steve replied, hopefully:
<<So, Behe answers my question. There is no reason to assume, a priori,
FUNCTIONAL irreducibility. The thing that "one cannot definitively rule
out" is called evolution.>>
Steve didn't provide the rest of Behe's quotation, viz.: "As the complexity of
an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect
route drops precipitously. And s the number of unexplained, irreducibly
complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin's criterion
of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows."
So what do evolutionists do when faced with this skyrocket? They often say,
hopefully, "one can imagine a an early selective advantage!" Kipling had just
such an imagination.
Jim