I previous post you have told me we know very little about lungs because
they aren't preserved as fossils. Now you know that they started as
something else and then someone got the great idea of breathing, and so
used them for this......
It doesn't make any difference however, because they had to have been lungs
for a while before being in their present state, and what they started as
has no significance.
>
>>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 ?
>>
>
>Donald: <<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.>>
>
>Not necessarily. What about a football stadium with a vaulted roof. Even
while the roof is being built, the stadium can serve its purpose, just no
roof and when it rains, the field gets wet.
>Irreducibly complex presumes that there is no use for intermediate steps.
But that can easily be shown to not be a requirement. Note that it might
still be correct but it should not presume but show that intermediate steps
could not have a purpose
>
What is the use of the roof? Does it serve a purpose while it is being
built? That's like saying that if you already have one arm, then having a
half made arm is fine because you can still do things with the other arm!
I have a friend who's little finger on his right hand didn't work. Even
though in a few generations this finger may have started to work, he had it
amputated. Do you know why? Because it was useless, and it got in the way.
If you had the start of a roof, with all the scaffolding and supports there
but it didn't protect you from the weather, and you weren't going to finish
building it, I think you would tear it down, becuase it would be useless
and would get in the way, and would probably not be safe.
>>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.
>>
>
>Donald: <<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.>>
>
>The presumption that without all parts, it's useless could be erroneous.
>>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.
>>
>
>Donald: <<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? >>
>
>Nope but it shows that something 'irreducibly complex' can still have its
origin in small steps.
>But I was refering to the example of the chemical pathway. Perhaps you
should look again ? It shows how using small steps the end result is
irreducibly complex, yet it was reached through small incremental steps
which weren't. That shows that Behe's argument does not hold.
>
It showed something that wasn't irreducibly complex!
I read the example of the chemical pathway, and I think it may be just a
play on words, and putting words into Behe's mouth. Here's an illistration
of what it said:
There were two people throwing a ball to each other. Then another person
asked to join in, so now the ball is moving in a triangle. If now one of
the people leave, and the remaining people still try and throw in a
triangle, it won't work, the system falls down.
This seems to me like a trick. It's an addaption of you enviroment by a
chain of events, but if it can adapt one way, it should be equally able to
adapt in the opposite way. So that if you remove one player, it should be
able to change just as well as it did to include that player to start with.
This means that it is not a irreducibly complex system. I felt as though
someone was trying to trick me into believing that Behe was wrong, using
clever wording and only semi relevent examples. Like the fact that one of
the examples used to show that Behe is wrong, is a system that he doesn't
claim is irreducible complex, but they say looks a bit like one that could
be, but it isn't! And therefore he is wrong. I think that's really bad.
>>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.
>>
>
>Donald: <<True, but that still implies that it was useless untill
completed, just
>like our bridge, and that is Behe's argument.>>
>
>Again, this is not implied but presumed by Behe. Behe's argument is
inherently flawed as it presumes that it could not have had any function
until completed. The talk.origins page as well as others have shown this
argument to be 'meritless'.
>Behe might want this to be the case but his argument becomes circular in
that he considers a system irreducible if it could not have gotten there
through small steps and then calls something irreducible because removing a
part makes it fall apart and concludes that therefor it could not have
gotten there through small steps.
>
Well, lets ignore Behe for a moment and ask these questions. Could a very
complex system, such as a lung, arrive at the state it is currently in,
through a series of small steps? If so, was it useable throughout the
process? If it wasn't useable throughout that process, when did it become
useable? If not untill near completion, how did it progress to a useable
state, and what drove it?
My logic here is that in all the examples you have given, the object is
useless untill completed, if that is the case, then I see that as a
fundamental flaw in the theory of evolution on a large scale.
Donald
Donald Howes
Acting Research Systems Co-Ordinator
Research Services
University of New England