Ahmad
You can consider this Schraf's response, as well. It is, in fact, in part her response. I just started writing a response as well, and instead of duplicating effort, there's just this post. We're pretty cozy.
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Originally posted by Ahmad:
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In this sense, it is true that natural selection "designs", by favoring individuals with certain variations to reproduce more sucessfully than others in a given environment.
I really don't think Natural Selection designs anything. Natural selection can act only on those biologic properties that already exist [creation]; it cannot create properties in order to meet adaptational needs [macroevolution](Noble, et al., Parasitology, sixth edition, "Evolution of Parasitism," Lea and Febiger, 1989, p. 516).
This sounds out of context. And I could, I'm sure you agree, find a contradictory quote. So let's not trade quotes that are just summary assertions, let's look at evidence.
And besides, how is mutation and gene duplication or copying errors not new information? They are not the same as they were before and they do different things. How is this not new?
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In other words, it's a principle of local adaptation.. it does not add any new information to the genome.
So what do you think of bacteria which have developed the ability to digest nylon?
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Same goes for variation which are nothing but the outcomes of different combinations of the already existing genetic information and they do not add any new characteristic to the genetic information. I don't see how it can design anything.
Nylon digestion?
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Why do IC systems indicate ID? Where is your evidence that IC systems cannot occur naturally?
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You're probably asking the same question as mark.
Yep.
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Notice the definition. ALL components need to be present for the system to effectively function. Systems (IF) evolving by natural selection or random mutation.. are not IC.
So, you consider systems ID until they are proven otherwise? This is backwards to the way science is done. And again, there's a leap of reasoning between the two sentences above. The second sentence is just an assertion, it doesn't logically follow from the first sentence.
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Here is an analogy that may help illustrate what I mean:
Say you have a system composed of components A+B+C+D. This system is not, let's say, I.C.
Then a component is added. A+B+C+D+E. Clearly this is not I.C. either, since it would work without the E.
After a while, either because of modification of components or because E is redundant with another component, a component drops out.
Let's say we now have A+B+D+E.
Now, this system, by Behe's definition, may very well be irreducibly complex, in that you can't delete a component without the system failing. But, it could still evolve, hypothetically. Therefore, the argument that I.C. MUST indicate I.D. is false.
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Excellent analogy. Ofcourse, IC completely breaks down the linear darwinian evolution (change along a single axis), the analogy you put up is known as Elimination of Functional Redundancy sort-of. Now this analogy ,however, involves some sleight of hand. Originally you proposed ABCD as a non-IC. So that means if one of the components from ABCD goes off, the system will continue to function. Surprisingly, what you did is added up a component E (all out of the blue) and the system continues to perform its original function. Now this may sound very casual in such analogies, but are highly improbable in real life. From where exactly and how does component E come here? Thats the main question. [etc...]
No, that's not the main question. That's another, new, question. The question at hand is: Does I.C. logically imply I.D.? It is NOT "Can new, useful components form?" Certainly, Behe does not deny this. He believes in macroevolutionary change, and he does NOT believe that ALL systems are I.C. The logic of I.C. does not depend on denying the addition of components.
The logic of I.C. DOES depend on ignoring alternative evolutionary paths. As soon as you admit that other paths are possible, you abandon all logical force of I.C. --> I.D. Instead, if you still want to criticize evolution, you can try saying that new components can't form, etc. But that's a new issue. You've abandonded the general I.C. argument, and are now forced to argue the specific details of specific evolutionary pathways.
Before moving on to that, would you agree that the argument that I.C. means I.D. (or at least non-evolvable) fails if other paths, other than simple addition of components, are possible?
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You have it backwards.
Life evolved according to the laws of nature. If the laws were different, life wouldn't have occurred, or wouldn't be the same as it is now.
I would have second thoughts to the veracity of that explanation taking in account the just-perfect universe, the "design" in nature, the excellent coordination in IC/ID systems. It just fills me with awe and wonder...
Awe and wonder aren't under debate, of course! But now you're just using the "Argument from Personal Incredulity", not presenting positive evidence.
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What is your positive evidence for ID?
You're probably asking the same question as Eugenie scott did. She had an excellent response from Dembski here. I think Dembski sums it perfectly with an analogy:
This is a little too much to go into just now. I don't know, without closer inspection, whether this contains any new arguments from Dembski or not...it is, in principle, different from Behe's "irreducible complexity", and so needs a different response than the above. Get back to it later.
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This is still the same God of the Gaps fallacy; "we don't have an explanation, therefore Godidit."
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Oh but we do have the explanation. We know how the system works and functions, we know the role of the components in the system, and thus we come to the conclusion that the system is IC. That explanation, though not complete, is sufficient to indicate problems with postulating completely naturalistic explanations.
There's no "explanation", there. You have not "explained" how the I.C. system has been produced. You have said, "Godidit".
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Ratzsch, a philosopher, points out that "God-of-the-Gaps" is a pejorative
label that arbitrarily refuses in principle to recognise that there
may be gaps in the fabric of natural causation:
[book quote deleted]
If there are "gaps in the fabric of natural causation", then science doesn't apply. I would argue that reason doesn't apply. If you let "magical explanations" have equal footing, then you just have to give up trying to explain. That's what's wrong with "God of the Gaps" - it pretends to be an explanation, but it's really only a name ("Intelligent Designer"), and an obstacle to real explanations.
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What you so far have not been able to show is that IC systems cannot evolve naturally.
What "natural means" do you postulate for the evolution of IC systems? Go here nad tell me how many "naturalistic explanations" sound familiar.
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Exactly. However, if it's decided that bacterium flagella are IC, so they must be intelligently designed, then what is the point of doing research on the evolutionary history of them. What if someone comes along and finds the intermediate structure someday, just as the evolutionary pathway for blood clotting was found?
IC systems are open for all kinds of research. Just because we say the system is intelligently designed (since it's IC) does not close the room for further research. No way.. no how. And what exactly is the "evolutionary pathway" discovered recently for blooding clotting cascade?
A reference to the literature:
NCBI - Not found
An interesting comment From:
Is the Complement System Irreducibly
Complex?
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"This bears repeating: urochordates have a functional complement system, yet they lack a component of the cascade, C3 convertase, which is essential in the same cascade in vertebrates. Recall Dr. Behe's quote at the beginning of this essay: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional". This example of an irreducibly complex complement cascade that is clearly the result of Darwinian evolution belies Dr. Behe's claim."
Other reading on Behe and blood clotting:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb97.htmlhttp://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
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God of the Gaps.
Hey.. if evolutionists can't explain how IC systems evolved, why are we supposed to be blamed for that? We know the system is unevolvable in our present knowledge. If pathways are discovered, then we can deal with them. As far as I know, no valid evolutionary pathway has yet been discovered for any IC system. And exactly how and in what basis do you make such a prediction?
Using your own logic, If an atheist says God doesn't exist because we have no evidence for His existence, I can call his claim a "claim of the gaps" or if he bases an argument, an "argument from incredulity". After all, who knows, we might stumble on some evidence, in the future, that proves His existence beyond the shadow of a doubt. Ofcourse, then my atheist brethren will accuse me of tossing pascal's wager, now won't they? 
Your criticism is absolutely correct. It seems you think I'd disagree with it. I agree with it perfectly, and think that PRECISELY THE SAME ARGUMENT applies to I.D.
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NO, ID/IC is not scientific at all because there is no positive evidence. It relies on an absenceof evolutionary evidence rather than providing any positive evidence for itself. At best, it is a philosophical argument.
No it isn't. ID/IC is fully scientific and eligible to be called a "theory" just as evolution. We have positive evidence for them (IC). "Absence of evolutionary pathways" is irrelevant since evolution, itself, is a theory.
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If one is in keeping with scientific tenets, there can always be something we haven't thought of with regards to a problem. This is tentativity.
By contrast, Behe's IC/ID states that there is an end point in which we do not have to keep thinking. This is not science.
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Incorrect. If we conclude, from research, that a system is IC (therefore ID), it does not close the room for further thoughts and research. We can, then, utilize the research to find out the system's counter-parts... whether the system can work with other components or even evolutionists are free to explore the nature of the system and draw their conclusions. How does it establish an "end-point"? How does it violate the principle of tentativity?
Certainly none of these research are generated by I.D. Furthermore, I.D. tells you NOT to look for possible evolutionary pathways. None of your research questions arise from I.D., but you do close off a topic as "unproductive". This is why I.D. is stifling to research, not productive. Can you name one research question generated by I.D., that we wouldn't have thought of without it?
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