What could/would falsify Irreducible Complexity?

I don't think IC is nonsense. Out of curiosity, do you have an exact quote? The best part of it is that you're not going back far enough Try closer to 70 years: Genetic Variablity, Twin Hybrids and Constant Hybrids, in a Case of Balanced Lethal Factors, by Hermann J Muller:

quote:

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In the first place, it is likely that lethals are really among the common-
est forms of mutants, but they would be discovered much more readily
if they were dominant in regard to some visible character than if they
were completely recessive, and this would cause the proportion of lethals
among the dominant mutant factors to appear to be excessively high,
when compared with the proportion among the recessives. Most pres-
ent-day animals are the result of a long process of evolution, in which
at least thousands of mutations must have taken place. Each new mu-
tant in turn must have derived its survival value from the effect which
it produced upon the "reaction system" that had been brought into being
by the many previously formed factors in cooperation; thus a compli-
cated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was de-
pendent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different ele-
mentary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which,
when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary be-
cause other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become
changed so as to be dependent on the former. It must result, in conse-
quence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of
these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery; for this
reason we should expect very many, if not most, mutations to result in
lethal factors, and of the rest, the majority should be "semi-lethal" or
at least disadvantageous in the struggle for life, and likely to set wrong
any delicately balanced system, such as the reproductive system.

​

Although this conclusion had suggested itself to the writer in 1912 it
would manifestly have been very difficult to obtain experimental evi-
dence for it...

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emphasis mine. IC is a prediction of Evolutionary Theory. My opinion? Behe wants a mutation by mutation account before he'll accept the conclusion (or so he says). The evidence so far is 'not good enough'.

I'm just using ID's own understanding of the words irreducibly complex. From DBB, p9:

quote:

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A single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning"

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That's Muller's interlocking complexity right there.Dembski says:

quote:

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A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, nonarbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function. The set of these indispensable parts is known as the irreducible core of the system.

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I agree naive might enter into it, but that's ID for you. Yes indeed - but don't let him fool you. There's a line between irreducible complexity and Darwin's own proposed falsification "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down".Behe might try and blur that line a little. He claims that if you look at an 'organ' and you if it every part is necessary for it to function - then it is irreducible. If it is irreducibly complex he then argues that it comes under the type of thing Darwin was talking about. At Dover, Behe defined irreducibly complex as:

quote:

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By irreducibly complex, I mean a single system which is necessarily composed of several well matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.

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Once again, Behe is using the naive understanding. The type of understanding that was predicted by Muller. The kind of interlocking complexity that is not a problem for evolution at all! They are not perfect accounts though. They don't detail every single mutation, just the fundamentally important ones. Now any reasonable person, who doesn't earn a fabulous living over being an anti-evolutionist would agree that it is 'good enough'. Behe is a reasonable person. Unfortunately the latter condition is a problem...