Please explain. Why do you say this?
>Donald Hows: << An arch, if it not used to support things, is a rarity. If
we assume that an arch is used to support things, like bridges, then a half
made arch is no arch at all.>>
>
>But the bridge is built step by step. Only in the end does it serve to
support ?
>
What does a bridge do when it's only been built the first few steps?
Assuming that it will take many generations to build this bridge, and that
no-one know's what it will do in the end, what does it do? Why have one,
why make one? A lot of effort and a lot of bricks for nothing. That's what
irreductbly complex is all about, it's useless untill it's finished.
>Howes: << I think this is the logic being used here. If this arch can't
support things, and in fact needs
>supporting, then to suddenly change to being a support would be a strange
thing. I confess that it could get there in small steps, but only if an
intellegent desginer was overseeing the whole thing, with the out come in
mind.>>
>
>Well, at least we agree that Behe's argument is wrong. The only difference
is that you require an 'intelligent designer', without further proof that
this is indeed the case.
>
Behe's argument is that without all the parts there, it's useless. I agree
with that, because even if someone is designing it and overseeing it's
constrution, it will still server no purpose untill completed.
>
>IBehe: << would like to see an example of a structure that is very
complex, that can perform a funtion at all different stages of production,
and that at completion can't work once one peice is removed. Even a
hypothetical one would be nice, just to grasp your logic. Otherwise I will
be inclined to
>agree with Behe's argument.>>
>
>You already seem to agree that he is wrong in believing that it could not
have happened in small steps. The only thing left is that you still require
an intelligent designer. Of course the problem is that you require 'an
outcome in mind'. But the question is: "Is there a goal ?" And how do we
identify the goal and distinguish it from the outcome ?
>
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html shows a pathway through
which an irreducibly complex system could have arisen in small steps with
the functions intact.
>
I didn't see anything that showed a pathway, there was a bad example of a
mouse trap as a irreducibly complex system, that turned out to be not
irreducibly complex. Does this mean that there is no such thing as
irreducibly complex? No, it showed that a mouse trap isn't. This article
then claim's that there must be no such thing, because a mouse trap isn't
one, I think that's amazing and illogical.
>The fact that removing a piece now leads to a collapse does not mean that
there were no supports in the past that allowed pieces to be added or removed.
>
True, but that still implies that it was useless untill completed, just
like our bridge, and that is Behe's argument.
Donald Howes
Acting Research Systems Co-Ordinator
Research Services
University of New England