Posted by AF [AF] on November 27, 1999 at 07:28:04 {nwG7wj0NI.0hi4VK0MIQdaOt1gg/Zk}:
In Reply to: Irreducible Complexity posted by Snowball on November 26, 1999 at 20:00:00:
I agree with J.H.'s comments. Behe's arguments look very good on the surface but essentially appeal to the emotions of wanting to believe in a higher power rather than to science and logic.
The problem is that we simply do not know enough about how matter acts in all cicumstances to say whether Behe's ideas are correct or not. Matter interacts with energy and other matter in incredibly complex ways, ways that often surprise researchers when they find out the actual mechanism of some physical phenomenon.
A good example is the flight of the bee. According to the understanding of the mechanisms of flight understood by mid-19th century scientists, the bee should not be able to fly. Some people took this and made fun of scientists, saying that "according to your theories bees can't fly! Hah hah hah! Dumb scientists." But all that showed is that the theories were incomplete and wrong. Today scientists understand what was incomplete about the old theory and they now understand why bees can fly. But they've only come to this understanding in recent times as computers have allowed them to better understand the dynamics of turbulence in flying machines.
The point is that until a subject is thoroughly understood, one cannot claim that an aspect of that subject is right or wrong. That's Behe's mistake. It's also the mistake of all who claim that they can prove mathematically that evolution is impossible.
For all anyone knows, it may be the case that evolution is impossible according to some variation of Behe's notions. It may be that these notions are completely out to lunch. We simply do not know, and history demonstrates that people who make dogmatic claims about a poorly understood subject are ultimately embarrassed.
AF