<<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.>>
Jim: 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.
Only two problems with your argument 1) you conclude that if an author
makes an error that the rest of his work is not worth discussing 2) Behe
claimed that irreducible complex systems could not have evolved. THis
author as well as others have pointed out that this is an erroneous
assumption. Therefor the conclusion reached by Behe, which is based on an
erroneous assumption, has lost its foundation.
Jim: 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.
If you can point out to me any such publications by Behe ? Perhaps we can
only then legitimately show his errors ?
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. >>
Jim: This is, laughably, the same fable, albeit in fancy verbiage. What is
being
said here when you cut to the chase? "We can posit..."
Which is really not different from what Behe has done. He posited that
irreducible complex systems could not have evolved. Now it has been shown
that they could have done so after all.
Jim: 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.
Behe's argument is based on the erroneous assumption that this supports
his assertion that IC systems could NOT have arisen naturally. Since it
has been shown that Behe;s IC systems could very well have evolved
naturally, there is no foundation for his assertions. All we have now is
that Behe claims that it has not been shown conclusively. But that is not
required for showing that Behe's argument is erroneous. If a natural
pathway could be envisioned, whether or not this actually happened is
irrelevant, which leads to an IC system through natural means then there
is the possibility that IC can appear naturally and Behe's assumption has
been shown wrong. Now if Behe's argument is that IC systems might evolve
naturally but that it has not been shown, then we can argue to what extent
this is correct or not. If the argument is that Behe has shown that IC
could never have evolved then Behe has been shown wrong.
It's as simple as that. Behe cannot imagine that something could have
happened, others acn imagine that it could and show how this could have
happened. Therefor Behe's imagination was lacking.
Perhaps Behe could adhere to your principles and publish a scientifically
testable hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal. But he hasn't as far as I
know and I wonder why he limits himself to popular media rather than to a
scientifical discussion ?
To get back to the original poster who wrote about Haig:
"Next, he looked at the structure of ovomacroglobulin--a molecular
"mousetrap" for proteases--a structure that physically traps the
protease in a large cavity in the tetramer after undegoing a
conformational change upon protease binding to the "bait region" (the
protease binding site). He showed how this system of interworking parts
"where the function of the whole is dependent on each part being
present" might have evolved by gradual means. He discussed the
structure of the alpha-2 macroglobulin which has a similar monomer
structure, a bait region, but does not have the tetrameric
conformational change that physically traps the protease in a cavity.
This protein undergoes a conformational change upon protease binding to
the active site that then exposes a reactive thioester that covalently
binds to the protease and disables it. In other words, here is a
functional intermediate on the way to forming the complex molecular
machine."
"Finally, he looked at the complement system--one of complex systems
discussed in Darwin's Black Box (131-136). He presented a plausible
scenario, all taken from the biochemical literature, for the evolution
of the complement system, based on evidences of gene duplication and
data from comparative biochemistry. He also noted the interesting
observation that part of this pathway is functioning in fat cells for
unknown reasons, but probably unrelated to immune system function.
Regards
Pim