At 10:49 PM 08/17/2000, you wrote:
>Chris Cogan wrote:
> >>Irreducible complexity is a good criticism of microevolution;
> >>and thus, for those who assume evolution, irreducible complexity is a
> >>good argument for macroevolution.
> >
> >Chris
> >I don't think so. Because it assumes that there is only *one* prospective
> >pathway from ground-zero to the complex structure (straight up), and that
> >no roundabout paths are allowed. This does not mean that there are never
> >large steps of some sort that we would not want to call microevolution, but
> >only that the concept of irreducible complexity (as defined by Behe) is
> >quite narrow -- so narrow that finding something that is irreducibly
> >complex (by Behe's definition) has almost no significance whatever for
> >microevolution, which predicts that over a long time and varying selective
> >conditions, some evolution *will* be roundabout.
Cliff
>There could be roundabout evolutionary paths that are microevolutionary
>all the way. But for the Cambrian explosion, the time factor, the geological
>suddenness, weighs against that possibility.
Chris
Not with small organisms that are replicating rapidly in an environment
with constantly-appearing new ecolological niches.
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