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As a former biochemist graduate ... I strongly disagree with Michael Behe's ideas on Irreducible Complexity. It is not 'pure logic' because your analogy is fla

As a former biochemist graduate ... I strongly disagree with Michael Behe's ideas on Irreducible Complexity. It is not 'pure logic' because your analogy is flawed - biological systems are not arches or mousetraps. Imagine a system as a triangle of three components that all rely on each other. The vertices of the triangle are component (proteins, organs, whatever) and the edges are 'dependencies' of some kind. Now add a fourth component, dependent on some (or all) of the others. Now remove some of the edges until you have a square (or 4-cycle). Now this system is 'irreducible' as breaking the dependent links breaks the cycle. Essentially, all biological systems have a 'chain' of previous versions that were functional and evolvable into the next version. This is only possible because these systems have redundant parts, and flexible associations. For example, many proteins 'moonlight' as alternate roles within an organism.

Tphil 4y ago
Ok this is the définition of gradualism, but it is a great claim, a nice story never scientifically proven. Which mecanism ? which statistics, odd of creation of functional protéins ? Since biochemistry darwinists have to work and to prove now !
- gilleain 4y ago
  Who said it had to be scientifically proven? Behe's claim is that it is theoretically impossible, and clearly that is not the case. "Since biochemistry darwinists have to work and to prove now!" - This sentence doesn't even make sense. It is Intelligent Design advocates like Behe that are making the claim that these systems "could not" have evolved. As another commenter said, this is the 'Argument from Ignorance' : "We do not know how it evolved so it could not have!". We know the structure of biological systems in more and more detail. We know how they change at the smallest level. The theory is fairly basic : redundant, self-assembling, flexible systems can change through gradual evolution. Gould would talk about 'rewinding' the tape of history. There's no way to go back in time and see for sure what previous systems looked like. However that in no way means the tape itself does not exist.

Tphil 4y ago

Ok this is the définition of gradualism, but it is a great claim, a nice story never scientifically proven. Which mecanism ? which statistics, odd of creation of functional protéins ? Since biochemistry darwinists have to work and to prove now !

gilleain 4y ago
Who said it had to be scientifically proven? Behe's claim is that it is theoretically impossible, and clearly that is not the case. "Since biochemistry darwinists have to work and to prove now!" - This sentence doesn't even make sense. It is Intelligent Design advocates like Behe that are making the claim that these systems "could not" have evolved. As another commenter said, this is the 'Argument from Ignorance' : "We do not know how it evolved so it could not have!". We know the structure of biological systems in more and more detail. We know how they change at the smallest level. The theory is fairly basic : redundant, self-assembling, flexible systems can change through gradual evolution. Gould would talk about 'rewinding' the tape of history. There's no way to go back in time and see for sure what previous systems looked like. However that in no way means the tape itself does not exist.