Chris Cogan wrote:
>>Irreducible complexity is a good criticism of microevolution;
>>and thus, for those who assume evolution, irreducible complexity is a
>>good argument for macroevolution.
>
>Chris
>I don't think so. Because it assumes that there is only *one* prospective
>pathway from ground-zero to the complex structure (straight up), and that
>no roundabout paths are allowed. This does not mean that there are never
>large steps of some sort that we would not want to call microevolution, but
>only that the concept of irreducible complexity (as defined by Behe) is
>quite narrow -- so narrow that finding something that is irreducibly
>complex (by Behe's definition) has almost no significance whatever for
>microevolution, which predicts that over a long time and varying selective
>conditions, some evolution *will* be roundabout.
There could be roundabout evolutionary paths that are microevolutionary
all the way. But for the Cambrian explosion, the time factor, the geological
suddenness, weighs against that possibility.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ 415-648-0208 ~ cliff@cab.com
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