Creation Myths: A chat with Michael Behe on Irreducible Complexity

No. Not to me at least.

I’m open to correction here, but I have a hard time seeing this as a “two or three-component IC system.” This is my understanding:

We have an organism that already has a pre-existing anaerobic citrate metabolism trait. Through a gene duplication, and a couple of mutations related to acetate metabolism (what I gathered from this video, and this point) , it can now metabolize citrate aerobically. It seems like a stretch to me to call this a “two the three component IC system”

I also read from this comment from @dsterncardinale (I might not have linked that properly):

My favorite thing about this experiment, other than the simple fact that it exists, is that the aerobic citrate metabolism trait is a directly observed experimental refutation of irreducible complexity [emphasis mine]

And so as I’m reading this, this ‘refutation’ can be extrapolated to any IC challenge such as blood clotting cascade, or ATP synthase.

Again, that seems like a stretch, an over-extrapolation. It makes me question the phrase I hear repeated: “IC has been refuted”. Just being honest…

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