Re: fly ears - irreducibly complex?

Joel Duff (crinoid@midwest.net)
Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:18:09 -0500

>Joel Duff wrote:
>
>>Some, but not all flys in the Genus Ormia have this fully developed typanic
>>membrane system. What is interesting in the paper is that they look at the
>>close relative of Ormia and find that although they are also parasatoid
>>they do NOT locate hosts by sound yet they have various portions of what is
>>a complete ear in the Ormia but are not using it to "hear" their host.

Susan responded

>you should double-check what Behe means by "irreducibly compex." If the
>close relative has a reduced version of the ear, the the ear can be reduced
>and is not, therefore, irreducible.

Hi Susan,

Yes, I see but that of course assumes that the relative is reduced rather
than representing an ancestral condition. Futher my point really is that
what if all the relatives were extinct. Would it not appear that there
were no reduced forms and therefore this novel hearing organ would appear
to have popped into existence!

Joel