Behe Disproves Irreducible Complexity

[bagtaggar]

Very entertaining read:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/10/behe_disproves.html

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Is it just me, or does this sort of thing, over and over, make you think these guys are just a bunch of liars or fools?

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

Funny, the paper didn't reveal any divine appendages manipulating the DNA in order to cause mutation. Behe isn't trying hard enough.

[jjramsey]

Is it just me, or does this sort of thing, over and over, make you think these guys are just a bunch of liars or fools?

Why does it have to be one or the other? :)

[Tricky]

Is it just me, or does this sort of thing, over and over, make you think these guys are just a bunch of liars or fools?

~~ Paul
Wrong conjunction.

[Bob Klase]

Why does it have to be one or the other? :)

It really doesn't "have" to be one or the other. And it's the creationists... er IDer's that make it have to be one or the other.

But one is science and belongs in science class, the other is religion and belongs in church, or religion classes.

[Melendwyr]

Isn't it revealing that the subject everyone says should be in a religious studies or philosophy class is a complete load of garbage?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Well, you know what the cheapest department to run at a university is, right?

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

Isn't it revealing that the subject everyone says should be in a religious studies or philosophy class is a complete load of garbage?

No, because there are things that belong in a philosophy class that aren't necessarily garbage. For example, who on this board is going to argue that Occham's famous razor should not be taught?

A great books program would be much better than a traditional classroom approach, if you are going to teach ID, because Of Pandas and People would look like the stupidest thing in the world after several seminars on Origin of the Species. Or if you want a more philosophical approach, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Spinoza, Nietzche... Pandas. Either way, the final seminars are going to be about the mystery of how the authors of "Pandas" were able to survive despite natural selection.

[Tony]

Someone help me out here. I typically avoid getting into discussions over evolution/ID and the theories of such because, although I'm very interested, I'm not terribly knowledgable when it comes to science, particually biology. First, let me explain my understanding of irreduciable complexity and tell me if I'm wrong. Irreducible complexity is the idea that living things are made up of parts so complex, that if the animal were to be without one of the parts, (before the part evolved) it wouldn't function. Am I wrong?

http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives/2005/10/behe_disproves_irreducible_com.php

It says that IF you assume a population of bacteria on the entire earth that is 7 orders of magnitude less than the number of bacteria in a single ton of soil...and IF you assume that it undergoes only point mutations...and IF you rule out recombination, transposition, insertion/deletion, frame shift mutations and all of the other documented sources of mutation and genetic variation...and IF you assume that none of the intermediate steps would serve any function that might help them be preserved...THEN it would take 20,000 years (or 1/195,000th of the time bacteria have been on the earth) for a new complex trait requiring multiple interacting mutations - the very definition of an irreducibly complex system according to Behe - to develop and be fixed in a population.

In other words, even under the most absurd and other-worldly assumptions to make it as hard as possible, even while ruling out the most powerful sources of genetic variation, an irreducibly complex new trait requiring multiple unselected mutations can evolve within 20,000 years. And if you use more realistic population figures, in considerably less time than that. It sounds to me like this is a heck of an argument against irreducible complexity, not for it.

Ok saying that. How does Behe disprove irreducible complexity here?

[Melendwyr]

No, because there are things that belong in a philosophy class that aren't necessarily garbage. For example, who on this board is going to argue that Occham's famous razor should not be taught? I was first taught that method in science class.

[c4ts]

It's not valid scientific theory, though. It's a refutation of Scotus's needlessly complicdated dual universes.