What is the difinition of Irreducible complexity according to Behe?
If I remember correctly is a biological system composed of various
indispensable andstratigically assembled parts. If any of these parts
is missing the system will not function.
Now. Can anybody think of a few things we can remove from the world
economy and yet it will contuinue to function? If you can the answer
is that the world economy is not I.C.
Now regarding the "evolution" of the various "designs". Let me just
remit this curious quote.
"The true parallel of the evolutionary development of organisms could be
illustrated, for example, by a historical exhibition of bicycles,
showing how this machine gradually changed from year to year, from
decade to decade, or, in the same way, of railway-engines, motor-cars,
aeroplanes, typewriters, etc. Here, just as in the natural process, it
is obviously essential that the machine in question should be
continually used and thus improved; not literally improved by use, but
by the experience gained and the alterations suggested. The bicycle, by
the way, illustrate the case, mentioned before, of an old organism,
which has reached the attainable perfection and has therefore pretty
well ceased to undergo further changes. Still is not about to become
extinct!" From MIND AND MATTER, the Tarner Lectures, delivered at
Trinity
College, Cambridge, in October of 1956 by the famous Physicist Erwin
Schrodinger, published in the book "What is Life?" (this essay was
written in 1944 by E.S.) by Cambridge University Press 1992, p.114.
E.S. does some very good calculations as a physicist in this work and
predicted the size of the "genetic units" and identified them as the
loci
of mutations more than a decade before the structure of DNA was
discovered. However, if you'd like to see an example of how the
philosophical/theological standing of an scientist influences his work,
this is a short (a bit difficult to follow at several places though) but
rather good example. E.S. was highly influenced (as he freely admitted)
by "The Unified Theory of the Upanishads" (Hinduism).
It is amazing to me that E.S., being such luminary in Physics would make
the statements about evolution I quoted above. Behe is right,
darwinists come up with the "wrong" examples even when given time to
think about them. Their best parallels are those of deterministic,
goal-oriented, engineered designs and developments. But that's not all,
what do you make of the sentence "not literally improved by use, but by
the experience gained and the alterations suggested"? Who does the
suggesting in macro-evolution? Am I to think that bacteria is a dead
end, "optimized", branch of evolution? In other words, perfect things
do not evolve .................. Thank GOD.
I believe Glenn is making the same mistake of E.S. and of Berra who
used the "evolution" of a sport car. Variation in designs is what I
see.
"Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net> wrote:
>
> At 05:41 PM 5/31/98 -0700, E G M wrote:
> >
> >i have refuted glenn's argument about the world economy being
> >irreducibly complex. it is imo a very poor and faulty example of
i.c.
> > i don't have the time to point to these previous messages but they
> >can be found in the asa archives. briefly, 1. the world economy is
not
> >i.c. because maby of its parts can (and have) removed or changed and
> >yet it continues working (thus it does not fulfill behe's i.c.
> >definition. & 2. the world economy contains zillions of intelligent
> >interventions, thus it is not darwinism. part of the problem i think
> >is that darwinism is somewhat equated with theistic evol. in this
list.
>
> I don't find these arguments so refuting. Your argument depends upon
the
> concept that biological systems don't change or can't have altered
parts.
> But altered biochemical parts is exactly what evolution does to the
> organism. Just as parts of the economy can be altered, so can
proteins be
> altered yet they perform the same function. Not only can the
sequence be
> altered but also the sequence length. Human insulin is not the same
as cow
> insulin which is not the same as sheep etc. There are several
different
> oxygen carrying pigments in the bloods of various animals (Preston
Cloud,
> Cosmos, Earth and Man, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), p.
206).
> Lampreys, marine worms and insects all have a single chain
hemoglobin; most
> higher animals have a doublechain hemoglobin molecule (a change of
> biochemical system). But mammals have an additional form of
hemoglobin
> (gamma) which apparently isn't found in other parts of the animal
kingdom
> and is used in the fetus only. And primates have a small fraction of a
> fourth version of hemoglobin, the delta chain(see E.O. Wilson, et
al, Life
> On Earth, Sinauer, 1973), p. 809-815).
>
> Cytochrome c is not the same across the various species. So
proteins, in
> the biochemical 'economy', are changeable also.
>
> If one might claim that there is an invariant portion and a changeable
> portion and thus the 'functional' part doesn't change, one can make
the
> same analogy with the economy. While today we use trucks and
automobiles
> for transportation and past generations used wagons and chariots,
both of
> these means of transportation have invariant and variant parts. Both
> chariots/wagons and trucks/autos have wheels. Wagons and trucks
have beds
> for carrying the load.(invariance) but trucks have motors where
wagons have
> horses (variance).
>
> In biological systems, sometimes the same molecule performs a very
> different function. Hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to the bodies of
> land-animals has been found in green plants ( and are involved in
nitrogen
> fixation. (Encylc. Brit. 1982, 4:918)
>
> So, I find your 'refutation' less than convincing. But while it is
nice to
> simply say you have refuted it, saying it doesn't mean you did it.
What you
> have overlooked is that biochemical systems change exactly as do
economic
> systems. If one is irreducibly complex, then so is the other.
> glenn
>
> Adam, Apes and Anthropology
> Foundation, Fall and Flood
> & lots of creation/evolution information
> http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm
>
==
EGM
"in ipso enim vivimus et movemur et sumus sicut"
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