Re: Behe, Dennett, Haig debate at Notre Dame 1/2

Jim Bell (70672.1241@CompuServe.COM)
05 May 97 15:51:21 EDT

Pim writes:

<<Care to address the issues then ? The paper, by showing a viable pathway
for a irreducibly complex system to form, has chopped away at Behe's idea
that such systems could not have formed without a designer.>>

You keep missing the point, Pim. You believe this "paper" shows a "viable"
pathway. Viable according to whom? Talk.origins? By an author who makes a
fundamental blunder elsewhere? Sorry.

The point of peer reviewed, legitimate journals is to let other experts have
at it. THAT is the issue I've been addressing lo these many posts. Deal with
it.

You can, of course, believe what you wish. But don't think that this is any
consolation:

<<Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he
concludes
that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An
irreducibly
complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while
initially just
advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very
simple.
Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps).
Another part
(B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it
merely
improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a
way that
B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get
folded
into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be
required. >>

This is, laughably, the same fable, albeit in fancy verbiage. What is being
said here when you cut to the chase? "We can posit..."

Well, if you can posit, friend, let's see it in testable detail so we can
determine if it is science or superstition (to quote ol' Rod). That's Behe's
point, still irrefuted: Nothing in the literature in testable detail to
support the notion of IC systems arising naturally.

Jim