3 ms·

I've heard claims that Behe's idea of irreducible complexity has been refuted. Does anyone know more about this?

• mbrubeck 17y ago
  One counter-argument I've heard is the idea of "scaffolding": The system may have had other supporting parts in earlier stages of evolution; those parts have since disappeared. What's left behind is "irreducible" since you can't take anything away and still have a working system. But that doesn't refute evolutionary theories, because evolution itself is not purely additive. You might need to add parts (not just "reduce" them) to get from the current state to an earlier state.
  • PebblesRox 17y ago
    Do you know of any specific examples?
    • mbrubeck 17y ago
      This page claims to give some examples: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/evolve_irreducible.html http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/evolve_irreducib... However, since this forum is populated mostly by computer programmers and entrepreneurs (including myself) rather than biologists, I find it's not a particularly advantageous place for discussing such topics. I probably shouldn't have waded into this thread to begin with. Please forgive me if I flag and move on.
  • deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  • PebblesRox 17y ago
    This website addresses the scaffolding idea, but it isn't very well written. Do you know of any better resources? http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/behe/ http://www.ccrnp.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/behe/