Pim van Meurs
05-01-97 06:45 PM
To: 70672.1241 @ CompuServe.COM
cc:
Subject: Re: Behe, Dennett, Haig debate at Notre Dame 1/2
Pim writes:
<<Sounds a bit like Behe, who deludes himself that irreducibly complex
systems cannot have 'evolved'. Which is of course incorrect as has been
shown. >>
Jim:I guess I missed something. Where was this shown? To what
journals/articles/books are you referring?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
Behe's argument is founded on the assertion that an irreducibly complex
system could not have evolved. Therefor if one could show a pathway
leading to an irreducibly complex system without the need for an abrupt
'design' jump then a good piece of Behe's argument has been shown to be
wanting.
I quote:
A major claim of Behe's is that biochemical cascades are "irreducibly
complex".
The claim is that without all the parts of the cascade, the cascade cannot
function, and that therefore known evolutionary processes could not
produce such
a cascade by sequential addition of steps. p.87:
Because of the nature of a cascade, a new protein would immediately
have to
be regulated. From the beginning, a new step in the cacade would
require both
a proenzyme and also an activating enzyme to switch on the proenzyme
at the
correct time and place. Since each step necessarily requires several
parts,
not only is the entire blood-clotting system irreducibly complex, but
so is
each step in the pathway.
We can easily see that this broad statement is false; it is possible to
posit
such an evolutionary process. Furthermore, we can go from such a process
to the
expected results of such a process, and thereby make predictions as to
what might
be found in the living world.