From: Craig Rusbult (craig@chem.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 09:34:48 EDT
Terry wrote:
>>Now if you're going to say, as Mike does, that if it
>>evolved then it apparently wasn't irreducibly complex,
>>then you're just being tautological. [...]
and Tim responded,
>I don't think that is a tautology; "confused" would be a better
>description. Systems are determined to be IC (v1.0) on the basis
>of extant, physically determinable properties, independent of
>any considerations about their origins. Behe's work was to show
>that IC-ness is a reliable indicator of design.
Yes, and people within the ID community (including Behe)
agree that -- especially in the original definitions in his
book -- Mike didn't do a very good job of clearly defining IC
and distinguishing between the two different questions that
Loren calls inter-locking complexity and non-evolvability.
As pointed out by Terry, there is strong evidence that
some currently-IC systems have evolved, so a claim that ALL
IC-systems are non-evolvable is falsifiable and is (at least
at a level that seems reasonable) falsified. But a claim
that "SOME (one or more) currently-IC systems could not have
evolved" is scientifically interesting and worthy of serious
consideration and investigation.
Craig
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