# *Irreducible Complexity

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Posted by david [Felicity] on November 26, 1999 at 23:08:52 {2lTH7z2znEFFrEmGrZRUOJmDKI0QM2}:

In Reply to: Irreducible Complexity posted by Snowball on November 26, 1999 at 20:00:00:

Hi,

Marilyn called me in to have a look at this, so I went off to have a quick look at Behe's work. Of course this light perusal is not necessarily a good way to deal with such a complex and difficult area, as many of the arguments are difficult and lengthy and cannot be given reasonable justice in a few lines.

However,I was disappointed to see the prominence of Behe's argument about the analogy of the mousetrap. It is surely just visiting the old watch problem again. I think he would have done better to start with a biological example - how about the venus flytrap?

Or the longstanding example of the evolution of the eye?

The word 'complexity' also caught my attention, but disappointingly it refers in his work to the traditional meaning, rather than the exciting area of scientific discovery led by the group at the Santa Fe Institute (Stuart Kauffman, Murray Gell Mann and others). Their work is offereing new insights into evolutionary biology.

So basically my view is that he's just come up with a new term 'irreducible complexity' for an old problem which has bee elegantly addressed by many authors much more erudite and knowledgable of the field than myself.

Cheers,

David

Follow Ups:

- **Irreducible Complexity SpudMama 11:44:42 11/27/99 (0)

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