Inviting Behe and Axe into Dialogue

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This is a valid request. I’ve mapped this out in several ways in the past, but it deserves collecting them all here. I would point to:

  1. @art’s article from 2007 on T-urf13, that has not been addressed by Behe publicly, except by way of an email to @colewd. On the evolution of Irreducible Complexity

  2. The issues raised here: Which Irreducible Complexity?.

Within this last article, I raise several points:

  1. A shifting definition of IC. Which one is he arguing for now? Which arguments does he feel are false? Why does he emphasize Darwinism when that was falsified by Kimura in 1958?

  2. A well research article, that point’s to the Muller two step as a clear mechanism for demonstrating IC. In fact, he did not invent the concept of IC, and should likely attribute it to Muller going forward. The Mullerian Two-Step, or Why Behe's "Irreducible Complexity" is silly.

  3. An example of an IC system evolving by natural process he does not address: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962892400889667 This, of course, is a different mechanism than that demonstrated by @art with T-urf13.

  4. Several different definitions of IC, noting his fixation on positive selection driven “Darwinism”, an already falsified view of evolutionary change. Which one is his definition? It appears to be IC2, but this is not relevant to anything in biology. Alternatively, he may be equivocating all these together. I want clarify about which IC definition he is using, and to explain why he disputes the examples we’ve provided of IC1 evolving in the lab and in the wild.

There are similar concerns that arise elsewhere. The message that he sent by way of @colewd was that these would all be addressed in his book. I saw a preprint of his book. This is not true. They are not addressed in his book.

If he would like to keep the thread confined to just me and him, I can enforce this easily on the forum. He need not deal with random posters on the internet. I have nothing but respect for him. I consider him a friend. I however think these are questions too important to let slide. Even if we disagree in the end, clarity on his position here should be valuable for everyone.

[Note to @Agauger and @pnelson: I will fill this out and clarify in the coming weeks. Please direct Behe here to understand my questions.]

[NOTE: Both have selectively engaged at times with scientists in the past. The concern here is in the response to requests to engage and clarify over the last several years]

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