What does IC have to do with evolution of biological life? The argument is just looking at the origin of particular biological systems.
Why think I bought into it? I’m merely formulating an argument using the concept of IC as a premise. I haven’t read Behe’s work so I don’t know how he presents the argument, but of course I recognize that “IC systems cannot evolve” is simply a hypothesis, and one that no one outside the ID camp really holds to.
OK, then go ahead and provide that information for the origin of IC systems. Please be sure to support any assumptions you make with the relevant scientific research and data. I’ll wait. 
IC3 structures are not evolvable by known natural process, by definition. That is how they are defined. However, we do not have a way of determining which (if any) structures fit in this category.
I offer the spliceosome as a candidate 
Because you expressed it in the same way Behe does!
That’s not how we do real science.
Sure, as a premise that needs to be defended in order for the argument to go through. That says nothing about whether I agree with this premise.
Why not? I defined a class. No we can determine if objets fit in that class by testing hypothesis like “X is IC3.” Of course we have not found anything we can be certain fits in IC3.
@Mercer, your beef with Behe is that he equates IC1 = IC3, but that is not what I am doing here. IC1 is clearly not IC3.
I understand. But what’s the point scientifically? Have you seen this approach used anywhere in science?
I’m not saying that you agree with it.
The point was to clarify Behe’s different meanings of IC and point out that IC3 is not what IC1 is, nor do we have a way of determining IC3 systems, let alone IC4 systems.
My point is about resisting Behe’s framing.
This may be a reasonable first premise, this cannot be proven to be true.
If it could be proven, then there would be even fewer atheists.
And why would that be unevolvable? I was not aware that the spliceosome is defined to be unevolvable. Please show how you established it’s unevolvability.
IC3 is unevolvable by known mechanisms by definition. @colewd is offering the spliceosome as a candidate. However there is no way to establish that it is actually in the IC3 class. Even if it was, it might still be evolvable with unknown mechanisms.
This premise is only coherent if “intelligent design” has the meaning “a supernatural process”. Since “supernatural process” implies neither intelligence nor design, and since all known instances of intelligent design are the results of natural processes, I don’t see why this argument has any relevance at all to intelligent design.
Exactly right. Proving a negative is not for the faint of heart
Its coherent if it means a consciously intelligent mind is behind what we are observing.
No, that doesn’t make it coherent. The choices were “known natural processes”, “unknown natural processes” and “intelligent design”. If you rule out the first two, you are left with “supernatural processes” as the alternative, not “intelligent design”. Unless you’re arguing that all non-natural processes have to involve an intelligent agent, ruling out natural ones doesn’t tell you anything about whether intelligence was involved. (And if you are making that argument, it should be listed as a premise.)
Thanks for explaining this. I agree with your explanation. He needs to make “supernatural process” a subset of intelligent design or differently stated a conscious intelligence behind the universe.
That does not make sense. At minimum there would have to be natural and supernatural intelligent design. And supernatural intelligent design would be a subset of all supernatural processes. And natural intelligent design would be a subset of all natural processes.