RE: Where's the science?--AGAIN

John E. Rylander (rylander@prolexia.com)
Wed, 15 Dec 1999 06:11:56 -0600

> I've been thinking about the irreducible complexity issue. *If*
> some complex
> structure could be shown to be necessarily constructible only in ways that
> are definitely not accessible to evolution, it *would* be proof that
> *something* odd was going on. It would not, of course, support
> non-naturalistic ID theory, but it *could* support naturalistic ID theory.

Why would it not evidentially support non-naturalistic ID theory as well?
You are a clearer thinker by some margin than your main interlocutor, except
when it comes to theism, against which you seem to have an almost hysterical
grudge sometimes, a grudge that permeates otherwise more cogent areas of
your thinking.

> In any case, this is an area for research. But it does not help
> that Jone's
> and Behe pretend to have proved something when they've only just barely
> *begun*.

I think it would be very tempting but nonetheless a serious error to
conflate Michael Behe (or Nelson, Dembski, Meyer, et al) with his supporters
here. ID gets a quantitatively strong defense on this list, but the quality
is sadly lacking. Remember, I agree fully that ID is a philosophical
research program (no insult there, in my view), often supported by unsoundly
over-stated arguments, that conceivably may someday become scientific --
it's certainly not a serious scientific rival for evolution right now.

Behe et al are wrong, I think; but not (unlike some) incorrigible.