Behe's Mousetrap.

[Gwyn ap Nudd]

I am currently reading The Case for a Creator by Lee Stobel, a former editor for the Chicago Tribune, and, more recently, "a former teaching pastor at two of America's largest churches."

In it he interviews Creationist technicians (I hesitate to call them scientists, even though their professions are in what are generally considered to be science fields.) on various subjects from cosmology and astronomy through biochemistry and genetics to psychology.

During the interviews, he does bring up some of the objections to their "findings," but only those objections for which they have their answers down pat, and he never follows up by pointing out the logical inconsistencies in their answers.

In the interview with Michael Behe, before Behe discribes how the flagellum is an example of Irreducible Complexity, he first defines IC with the example of a mousetrap.

It has 5 parts: the hammer/trap, the spring, the platform, the restraing latch/bar, and the catch/trigger to which the bait is attached. If any one of five parts is broken or missing, the whole trap is broken. As a system, it is irreducibly complex.

Strobel brings up the question of simpler traps. Behe says: "The point of irreducible complexity is not that one can't make some other system that could work in a different way with fewer parts. The point is that the trap we're considering right now needs all of its parts to function. The challange to Darwinian gradualism is to get to my trap by means of numerous, sucessive, slight modifications. You can't do it."

Strobel brings up an objection by Kenneth Miller of Brown University: "Take away two parts (the catch and the metal bar) and you may not have a mousetrap, but you do have a three-part machine that makes a fully functional tie clip or paper clip." [For Miller's examples you would have to drastically change the form, but not the function, of the platform. I can more easily picture those three parts as a clipboard by simply slightly changing the dimensions of the wooden platform]

Behe replies:"[L]ook at what he's doing: he's starting from the finished product -- the mousetrap -- and disassembling it and moving a few things around to use them for other purposes. ...

"The question is not whether you can take a mousetrap and use its parts for something else; its whether you can start with someting else and make it a mousetrap."

.......

There is a danger in discussing a human construct instead of a living organism, in that the agent of change is not random mutation but true intellegent design, but if we keep that in mind, we may be able to avoid the obvious pitfalls

.......

Behe's "answer" to Miller is pure and simple nonsense. If we are challenged to explain how this mousetrap might have evolved from simpler constructs, the fact that the components of the simpler constructs are components of this mousetrap cannot be dismissed. Otherwise IC becomes unfalsifiable and worthless.

His answer to the earlier question,about simpler mousetraps not being the same as this mousetrap, also fails. Consider a "Bugs Bunny" type box trap (which happens to be one of the simpler traps Behe specifically dismisses). It functions very much like Behe's trap. Each of it three components matches one of Behe's components. The box works exactly like Behe's hammer; the stick, like Behe's bar; the string like Behe's catch.

The differences are that gravity, rather than a spring provides the motive force to move the trap and the ground acts as the platform. Gravity is not always strong enough to move the trap as quickly as it should, and the ground is a soft and uneven platform. Together, these two conditions limit the efficiency of the trap.

Suppose a "mutation" should replace the box with the bar of a clipboard, with the spring and board attached. It would work more efficiently, and more gradual evolution will eventually shape it into Behe's mousetrap.

Edited for grammar

[epepke]

I'm not sure why this kind of thing requires a response. It's emblematic to most of the ID nonsense, which goes something like this:

"Now, take the human knee. Only let's say that it isn't a knee. Let's say that it's a television set hooked to power lines connected to a nuclear reactor serviced by people who use gasoline to drive to work and wear embroidered shirts with their names on them and eat at a diner named 'Joe's.' This is irreducibly complex, and then so is the human knee. Deedle deedle queep."

[Zep]

I suspect the barbed-wire canoe that is ID has been paddled far enough up the well-known creek by people like Behe to fulfil it's obvious design potential...


Incidentally, You should note that Behe is one of the more rational and sane ID proponents!

[Schneibster]

The difficulty being that Kaufman's At Home in the Universe has been out now for quite a while. Gee, I guess chemicals can evolve... after all, where do you think they got the enzymes in Zero Odor from? Every time they come up with something you "just can't do without Gawd" somebody does it a few years later and makes some bucks off it.

If you got pets, you better check Zero Odor out. It JUST WORKS. Like a firehose: turn it on, water comes out, whadda ya want?

[MRC_Hans]

Behe replies:"[L]ook at what he's doing: he's starting from the finished product -- the mousetrap -- and disassembling it and moving a few things around to use them for other purposes. ...


Uhhh, translation:

Behe: "This device is irrecusible complex, you cannot take away parts and still have a function."

Opponent: "Yes, you can, if you take away these two parts, it still has a function."

Behe: "No, no, that doesn't count! You are not allowed to take away parts."

In other words, the mouse-trap is irreducible because Behe has made the rule that you cannot take away parts.

I wonder what is wrong with these people :rolleyes:.

Hans

[Mongrel]

"The question is not whether you can take a mousetrap and use its parts for something else; its whether you can start with someting else and make it a mousetrap."

.......


Like on this page? (http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html)

[RatBoy]

Question from a layman, if I might...

Although perhaps irreducibly complex by some definition, could the mousetrap not be slide-ruled out to a scale large enough for it to be called a bear trap? Lay a deer carcass on a 4'x8' platform, with correspondingly larger springs and other workings...

This "mutation" would render the device useless as a mousetrap, but would give it another niche in the world of traps.

[MRC_Hans]

This is all a question of the arbitrary rules that IDers introduce ad hoc to try to prove their point.

First, it's "No parts of the mouse-trap can be removed without rendering it useless".

When somebody demonstrated that you can indeed remove patrs and the device would still have a use, it must suddenly stil lbe a mouse-trap.

And when somebody demonstrates that, you need to build it up from the start, in single steps.

Now that this has been so excellently demonstrated (see Mogrel's link), there will be a new rule.

Hans

[Psi Baba]

This thread is aply named, because the mousetrap analogy is Behe's own mousetrap indeed. That is, he's trapping critical thinkers into debating oranges about apples by using a designed contraption as an example to discredit natural selection. It would be difficult (although one could do it with a lot of imagination and time) to show hypothetical transitional forms of proto-mousetraps. He knows full well that the "irreducibly complex" eye and the flagellum have been explained by science, so he uses a mechanical contrivance to argue his point--a device that has been designed and constructed by humans who often design and build things purely from scratch with no simpler forms to which the final form could be reduced. (True, complex technological systems such as automobiles and computers have an evolution of their own, but simpler devices often originate from the designer's imagination). A mouse trap does not reproduce. It does not need to struggle to survive. We do not know how it is affected by its environment and what mutations would be beneficial to the mousetrap. Basically, arguing the mousetrap thing with Behe is an exercise in futility for the critical thinker and Behe knows it. It's just another example of ID sleight of hand to avoid discussing what ID really is.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

And what is saddest is that Behe and his cohorts think they are being terribly clever putting forward arguments that a bright 6 year old can see is nonsense. Unfortunately a clique of particularly dimwitted 6 year olds seems to be tightening its grip on science education in the US.

[epepke]

Question from a layman, if I might...

Although perhaps irreducibly complex by some definition, could the mousetrap not be slide-ruled out to a scale large enough for it to be called a bear trap? Lay a deer carcass on a 4'x8' platform, with correspondingly larger springs and other workings...

This "mutation" would render the device useless as a mousetrap, but would give it another niche in the world of traps.

Yes; that's an excellent counter. Trouble is that ID types call this "microevolution" just because of that.

[Gwyn ap Nudd]

Like on this page? (http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html)

Thanks for the link. The whole mousetrap argument was so disingenuous that I felt I had to respond. I should have known that others, more qualified and nmore talented would also have felt that need.
:o :blush: :) :D

[GodMark2]

This is all a question of the arbitrary rules that IDers introduce ad hoc to try to prove their point.

First, it's "No parts of the mouse-trap can be removed without rendering it useless".

When somebody demonstrated that you can indeed remove patrs and the device would still have a use, it must suddenly stil lbe a mouse-trap.

And when somebody demonstrates that, you need to build it up from the start, in single steps.

Now that this has been so excellently demonstrated (see Mogrel's link), there will be a new rule.

Hans

No, now they have just given up on this particular argument. They discovered that if you make the argument understandable by anyone, then anyone could also point out the flaws.

Instead, they now prefer to argue with complex mechanisms that require in-depth knowledge to refute. That way, the scientist can't explain the problems with their argument to the blue-collar populace.

It also has the side effect that you need a particular type of scientist to refute each of these arguments, so when you are talking with one, you can just switch to another argument that they don't have the knowledge to refute.

ETA: They will likely also conviently forget that they ever made this argument.

[chipmunk stew]

This thread is aply named, because the mousetrap analogy is Behe's own mousetrap indeed. That is, he's trapping critical thinkers into debating oranges about apples by using a designed contraption as an example to discredit natural selection. It would be difficult (although one could do it with a lot of imagination and time) to show hypothetical transitional forms of proto-mousetraps. He knows full well that the "irreducibly complex" eye and the flagellum have been explained by science, so he uses a mechanical contrivance to argue his point--a device that has been designed and constructed by humans who often design and build things purely from scratch with no simpler forms to which the final form could be reduced. (True, complex technological systems such as automobiles and computers have an evolution of their own, but simpler devices often originate from the designer's imagination). A mouse trap does not reproduce. It does not need to struggle to survive. We do not know how it is affected by its environment and what mutations would be beneficial to the mousetrap. Basically, arguing the mousetrap thing with Behe is an exercise in futility for the critical thinker and Behe knows it. It's just another example of ID sleight of hand to avoid discussing what ID really is.Taking this thought further: 1) a mousetrap gains nothing by trapping a mouse; 2) a mousetrap requires not only an Intelligent Designer but also an Intelligent Manufacturer and an Intelligent Operator. May as well call it IDIMIO Theory.

Whenever I read about IDIMIOers talking about mousetraps, I can't help but think of angels and pinheads.

[Psi Baba]

Taking this thought further: 1) a mousetrap gains nothing by trapping a mouse; 2) a mousetrap requires not only an Intelligent Designer but also an Intelligent Manufacturer and an Intelligent Operator. May as well call it IDIMIO Theory.
Very good points.

[athon]

I'm not sure why this kind of thing requires a response. It's emblematic to most of the ID nonsense, which goes something like this:

"Now, take the human knee. Only let's say that it isn't a knee. Let's say that it's a television set hooked to power lines connected to a nuclear reactor serviced by people who use gasoline to drive to work and wear embroidered shirts with their names on them and eat at a diner named 'Joe's.' This is irreducibly complex, and then so is the human knee. Deedle deedle queep."

Sorry, just had to jump in and congratulate you, epepke, for making me dribble coffee down my shirt in an attempt to not spray it everywhere.

I'm still crying. Nicely phrased... deedle deedle queep...

hehe

Athon

[headscratcher4]

WHy couldn't I take four of the parts away and use the little wood platform as a doorstop?

Or, for that matter, use it to plug a mouse hole?

[Bronze Dog]

WHy couldn't I take four of the parts away and use the little wood platform as a doorstop?

Or, for that matter, use it to plug a mouse hole?
Because that would mean the analogy doesn't support ID, and they'd have to do actual scientific work.

[HeyLeroy]

A most excellent thread.

Just as an aside, there's a book called Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat. Mr. Mowat was sent to the Arctic by the Canadian government to verify the 'fact' that arctic wolves were decimating the great caribou herds, thereby causing great hardship among the Inuit hunters. Scientific verification was needed to confirm the anecdotal evidence so that a mass extermination of bloodthirsty wolves could be justified.

Using an unconventional approach (setting up camp and observing as opposed to shootin' himself some wolves and dissecting their tummies) he discovered that arctic wolves lived primarily on fieldmice, and only occasionaly culled the weaker members of a caribou herd.

At first he couldn't believe that such a large animal could get sufficient nourishment from such tiny mice, so he guinea-pigged himself on a diet of...mice. He even includes a recipe.

It's a really beautiful book from many perspectives. Track it down and read it.

(Disney made a good film out of it. Didn't include the mouse part, though. I can't understand why.)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

WHy couldn't I take four of the parts away and use the little wood platform as a doorstop? Aha! Take a look here:

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/10/10/65535


When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct (I have witnesses). He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.
His response might seem like a minor concession, but is very significant. The old meaning of irreducible complexity was, “It doesn’t have any function when a part is removed.” Evidently, the new meaning of irreducible complexity is “It doesn’t have the same function when a part is removed.” Well duh.


~~ Paul

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

(Disney made a good film out of it. Didn't include the mouse part, though. I can't understand why.)


I came across that on telly a while ago. Quite a sweet film.

[HeyLeroy]

They took a few creative liberties, but not too many; it was basically a true story. Farley's one of the more prominent naturalists (and humourists) up here in Canada.