Swamidass & Behe Both Take the Wrong Approach

Can you generate a scientific question?

Science is more than just saying, “It is pretty clear to me”.

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I really think the OP is taking the wrong approach with ID.

If we’re going to treat ID as an actual scientific hypothesis, which is what Behe claims we ought to do specifically with regard to “irreducible complexity”, then we have three options:

 

Option 1
Hypothesis: Structures that fulfill the criteria for “irreducible complexity” cannot evolve via mutations gradually improving on a single function over long periods of time.

This is the way Behe states the hypothesis in Darwin’s Black Box - same function, gradual improvement, etc. Stated this way, the hypothesis is irrelevant to the broader question of whether system X or Y could have evolved, because it omits a huge swath of evolutionary processes.

Or…

 

Option 2
Hypothesis: Structures that fulfill the criteria for “irreducible complexity” cannot evolve via any evolutionary mechanisms. In other words, IC structures cannot evolve.

Stated this way, this hypothesis is falsifiable with single example of a system that meets Behe’s criteria for irreducible complexity evolving. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s been done. I really like the example of the lizards with placentas. By Behe’s criteria (multiple well-matched components, doesn’t work if any is absent, etc.), that qualifies as an irreducibly complex system, and yet we’re watching lizards evolve placentas right now. That’s one example. There are others (HIV-1 Group M Vpu tetherin antagonism, endosymbiosis in the genus Paulinella and a number of animals are also good). And that falsifies this version of Behe’s hypothesis.

But…

 

Option 3

Hypothesis: Some structures that fulfill the criteria for “irreducible complexity” cannot evolve via any evolutionary mechanisms.

Stated this way, the hypothesis is unfalsifiable. There could always be some other system that definitely can’t have evolved. You could address every claimed example of IC, and the response could be “oh but this other system cannot have evolved”. So this variant of the hypothesis is not valid.

 

So of those three options, one isn’t even relevant to the broader question of whether something “could” evolve, one is false, and one is unfalsifiable. That’s the conclusion if we take Behe at his word and treat his ideas as an actual scientific hypothesis.

And therefore Behe is wrong.

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