I’m new in this forum. I don’t know how to find older posts quickly.
I said very clearly that ‘IC’ is a concept of at least three levels.
You said that I think about the first level. Faizal Ali about the second. That’s not exactly my position (I’m arguing about the connection between leve 1 and 2).
That’s anything but clear. Again, it’s merely a definition(s). Dancing around that using “concepts” and “levels” looks more like obfuscation.
No. Is our present ignorance supposed to undermine our position? Why would it be?
With respect to the flagellum, we can in fact show how naturalistic mechanisms could do X.
I wrote quite lenghtly about that issue here in other posts.
Very shortly: Darwin’s mechanism was cumulative selection. That works fine if certain conditions (very important: a gradient of function) are given. Dawkins’ weasel-prgram is a perfect analogy. Behe calls that ‘direct darwinian pathway’ (my wording, too lazy to take the book from the shelf). You can show that that pathway runs into problems if there are IC-systems.
So Behe has an argument against at least one mechanism, but concedes that there are other (‘indirect routes’). But he had to defeat all naturalistic mechanisms (and even then a connection to Design would be at best very weak, maybe as IBE).
We don’t have to elaborate on this, you agreed already.
Quite so 
A closer look into the history of evolutionary biology ever since Darwin explains that. I could go into details, just one thought. When the Modern Synthesis was standard (from 1949 to maybe 1972) most theorists thought that everything is known in princple, just left to 'dot the 't’s and point the ‘i’s’. Nobody would have minded to be called a Darwinian. But then the same happened as in physics: the standard turned into a special case of a more general theory (AFAIK not yet formulated in evolutionary biology and I’m quite sure that we’ll never have, because evolutionary biology has so many different issues that it’s quite implausible that ‘one mechanism will fit all’, remember that Lamarck in the year Darwin was born published his theory, consisting of two mechansims, one for adaptation, one for anagesis, none for speciation).
Don’t get me wrong: Behe wasn’t of any relevance in these developments. But you can look how his concept fits into that frame.
If we assume Behe is trying to make a coherent argument, then it seems he no longer sees a connection between 1 and 2. If there was a connection then, when he was made aware of the T3SS, he would have responded “OK, then. The bacterial flagellum is not IC.”
Of course, the other possibility is that he has no interest in making a coherent argument and, instead, just wants to write things that those who share his religious prejudices will perceive as coherent arguments. I will admit his is quite good at that.
If you want to win in a culture war it’s not useful to be correct.
Not always, but it is even less useful to adopt your opponent’s patently false framing.
A sentiment that perfectly encapsulates the MO of the ID-movement if I ever saw one.
do you know how Behe responded to that?
And do you agree that the flagellum would remain IC concerning level 1 even if you could show how it evolves in the laboratory (refuting level 2)?
Would you bet that that mechanism would be a ‘direct darwinian pathway’ (cumulative selection)?
Yes we know. Does Behe’s response succeed in showing there is no naturalistic pathway to the flagellum?
It would, if we don’t assume that we don’t know. The question remains open. That’s the necessary condition for Behe’s position, but it’s not sufficient.
That depends on how you understand ‘show’.
Matzke’s article e.g. didn’t if you don’t grant certain premises.
But I agree that’s a very tricky question. Just one example. If you find homolog proteins you may be sure that a gene was duplicated. But the interesting question would be how one of the genes developed into the new.
do you agree that TTSS isn’t of any weight concerning the diagnosis ‘the flagellum is IC’?
You could ask if Behe would admit that there is a natural pathway.
AFAIK he didn’t and I would be very glad if we would know such a pathway which Behe would have to admit working.
Agreed.
Well if ‘show’ turns out to be the creationistic false distinction between “historical” science and “observational” science, then we also can’t show that any two species share common ancestry no matter how similar they are.
Yeah like known facts about molecular evolution, microbiology and so on. But isn’t this the case with all kinds of scientific inference?
By divergence through mutations? This shouldn’t be controversial to a reasonable person.
level 1 is a definition, level 2 and 3 not.
If you don’t know the different levels of the IC-Argument, no problem.
But that is incompatible with the original definition of IC. It’s also unclear. What would or would not count as intermediate? What does “incomplete” mean? We seem still to be under the assumption that evolution must work by the addition (or perhaps subtraction) of invariant parts, which ignores the possibility that the parts themselves can experience changes. Was that really a definition or a supposed (erroneously) consequence of the original definition?
That’s not “very clearly”; I’m not sure why a concept would have levels or what they might be. And the definitions of IC that @Faizal_Ali and I stated above are mutually incompatible, which doesn’t sound like “levels” to me.
Under what definition of IC? Under what definition of “direct”? I gave a hypothetical example of a pathway I would call direct, which you implicitly claimed was indirect. I asked for an explanation, which was not forthcoming.
He has an argument against one mechanism given an odd understanding of what is free to vary in evolution. I point out that such an understanding is flawed, so his argument doesn’t apply to the real world.
I would also suggest that the main difference between modern evolutionary biology and “Darwinism” is in a better understanding of the importance of neutral evolution and genetic drift.
I agree completely. The existence of the T3SS within the flagellum does not show that you can’t remove parts from the flagellum and make it stop functioning as a motility system. It is therefore IC with respect to that function of being a motility system.
It is, of course, of enormous weight in showing that the flagellum can have functional precursors, and therefore that there can be a pathway to the flagellum that involves the natural selection of fitness-improving functional intermediates.
As such the concept of IC is not actually an argument against evolution. It does not succeed in showing that ID is required to explain the existence of the bacterial flagellum.
Would have to admit? Good luck with that.
No. Think about Behe and his indirect pathways. He conceded that these pathways could generate IC-systems. But he wanted to get them shown to him in detail.
But you’re right, it get’s complicated and in the very last sense about standards concerning arguments.
You know that it’s extremely difficult to define what is ‘scientific’. This question isn’t relevant for practising scientists, but there are meta-disciplines. The rules of the game there are not defined by scientists.
as I wrote before, the property of a system (level 1) is a problem for certain evolutionary mechanisms (level 2).
But you have to look for other pathways, not concede Design in action.
If the ‘true acid test’ Miller proposed would work as he formulated it (not what he thought he had shown), Behe would have to admit exactly that.
Yes. I even provided a link to an article that summarized his response.
No.
Do think that Behe’s intention was merely to get people to consider pathways by which the flagellum or other IC systems could have evolved, that were not “Darwinian” or “direct” but also did not involve a designer?
Not until you explain exactly what you mean by those terms.
But, is it actually? I think you’re neglecting what cumulative selection can mean.