SJ: Why *two* against one? Sounds a bit one-sided! Dennett is an
ultra-Darwinist like Dawkins, who deludes himself by thinking that
just because he thinks he can imagine a possible solution, then the
"Mystery" is somehow "Solved". It sounds a bit like the medieval
ontological argument for the existence of God - I can imagine there
is a God, so there must be one!
Sounds a bit like Behe, who deludes himself that irreducibly complex
systems cannot have 'evolved'. Which is of course incorrect as has been
shown.
SJ: This is a chilling warning of what would happen if Darwinist
fundamentalists like Dennett or Dawkins came to power!
Not nearly as chilling as if what Dennett feared most came to power.
I hope that you were being sarcastic here.
SJ: Agreed. Darwinians have not shown *in any detailed way* how
*all levels* of "living things" (in this case at the biomolecular
level) "have arisen gradually by Darwinian natural selection".
Sure, but that does not mean that they have not shown in detailed way how
some level of things have arisen.
SJ: "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major
transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our
imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has
been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of
evolution. St. George Mivart (1871), Darwin's most cogent critic,
referred to it as the dilemma of "the incipient stages of useful
structures"-of what possible benefit to a reptile is two percent of a
wing?" (Gould S.J., "Is a new and general theory of evolution
emerging?", Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p127).
And in 1994, to add to your quote collection, we have Stephen
Jay Gould, writing of whales in _Natural History_ 5/94, pp.8-15:
"... I am absolutely delighted to report that our usually
recalcitrant fossil record has come through in exemplary
fashion. During the past fifteen years, new discoveries in
Africa and Pakistan have added greatly to our paleontological
knowledge of the earliest history of whales. The embarrassment
of past absence has been replaced by a bounty of new evidence -
and by the sweetest series of transitional fossils an
evolutionist could every hope to find. ... I don't mean to
sound jaded or dogmatic, but Ambulocetus is so close to our
expectation for a transitional form that its discovery could
not provide a professional paleontologist with the greatest of
all pleasures in science - surprise."
SJ: You can't fly with 2 percent of a wing or gain
much protection from an iota's similarity with a potentially
concealing piece of vegetation." (Gould S.J., "Bully for
Brontosaurus", 1991, p140)
Of course the same comments applied to the eye, yet intermediate stages
can have advantages other than fully functional flight or vision.
Insolation or detection of light are some examples.
SJ: "Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes
to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are
what I term "irreducibly complex." That means the system needs
The problem is that Behe has failed to show that the system is irreducibly
complex or similarly that irreducibly complex could not have arisen
through intermediate steps.
several components before it can work properly. An everyday example
of irreducible complexity is a mousetrap, built of several pieces
(platform, hammer, spring and so on). Such a system probably cannot
be put together in a Darwinian manner, gradually improving its
function. You can't catch a mouse with just the platform and then
Of course this 'mouse trap' idea has already been addressed and been shown
to be a poor example since Behe assumes that the intermediate steps cannot
have any advantages or function or that the final step required could not
have arisen gradually. Behe's mistake is to assume that the mousetrap only
functions as a mousetrap and that it requires all items for it to
function. Both assumptions are wrong.
SJ: catch a few more by adding the spring. All the pieces have to be in
place before you catch any mice. An example of an irreducibly
complex cellular system is the bacterial flagellum: a rotary
propeller, powered by a flow of acid, that bacteria use to swim. The
flagellum requires a number of parts before it works - a rotor,
stator and motor. Furthermore, genetic studies have shown that about
40 different kinds of proteins are needed to produce a working
flagellum." (Behe M., "Darwin Under the Microscope", New York Times,
October 29, 1996)
Nice example of proof by assertion. Behe has shown that the rotor is
complex, not irreducibly complex.
SJ: Behe points out that no one has ever published a model of how the
bacterial flagellum originated:
That by itself is no proof of irreducibly complex either.
"The general professional literature on the bacterial flagellum is
about as rich as the literature on the cilium, with thousands of
papers published on the subject over the years. That isn't
surprising; the flagellum is a fascinating biophysical system, and
flagellated bacteria are medically important. Yet here again, the
evolutionary literature is totally missing. Even though we are told
that all biology must be seen through the lens of evolution, no
scientist has ever published a model to account for the gradual
evolution of this extraordinary molecular machine." (Behe M.J.,
"Darwin's Black Box", 1996, p72)
SJ: "As a final comment, one can only marvel at the intricacy in a simple
bacterium, of the total motor and sensory system which has been the
subject of this review and remark that our concept of evolution by
selective advantage must surely be an oversimplification. What
advantage could derive, for example, from a "preflagellum" (meaning a
subset of its components), and yet what is the probability of
The author is wondering about the advantage but does not address whether
he believes that there is none.
"simultaneous" development of the organelle at a level where it
becomes advantageous (Macnab R., "Bacterial Mobility and Chemotaxis:
The Molecular Biology of a Behavioral System," CRC Critical Reviews
in Biochemistry, vol. 5, issue 4, December 1978, pp291-341)?
A few rethorical questions are not proof SJ.
SJ: The "obvious" answer is that we are discussing whether a
fully naturalistic `blind watchmaker' mechanism alone can accomplish
the building of one of Behe's claimed "`irreducibly complex'
structures". Clearly an intelligent designer, human or divine, can
Why not ?
SJ: build an irreducibly complex structure. Note: I accept that God
could work through a mchanism that appeared totally random to human
beings (Proverbs 16:33; 1 Kings 22:34), even a fully naturalistic
`blind watchmaker' mechanism, if He so chose. But the question is,
did He?:
Who cares ? It cannot be proven in a scientific manner. You assume that
god could build an irreducibly complex structure but nature couldn't.
Interesting assertion but how would you go about proving this ?
TG>One person commented that Darwinists expect irreducible
>complexity.
SJ: I am amused by this. Why then do Darwinists attack Behe?
Because of his assumptions that irreducibly complex structures point to a
designer ? Because of the abuse of Behe's work by some to promote an
unprovable philosophy of the existance of an intelligent supernatural
designer ?
SJ: Actually, this is Dawkin's "Stonehenge" argument:
SJ: "Stonehenge is incomprehensible until we realize that the builders
used same kind of scaffolding, or perhaps ramps of earth, which are
no longer there. We can see only the end- product, and have to infer
the vanished scaffolding" (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991,
Penguin, pp148-149)
And indeed that is the best and compact argument indicating why
irreducibly complex is not a very good argument.
SJ: By this sort of all-purpose `missing evidence' argument Darwinism can
explain anything and its opposite. If there are "Tell-Tale Traces"
then the "Mystery" is "Solved". If there are none, a hypothetical
`just-so' story is invented to explain where the "Tell-Tale Traces"
went. Either way, the "Mystery" is "Solved" for Darwininists,
because evidence is not necessary for something that just has to be
true.
No, the mystery is not solved but the Behe problem of irreducibly complex
has been shown to be based on poor logic and assumptions.
Simple.