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Francis Beckwith wrote: I think you're using theory in a somewhat anachronistic way here, but I agree in principle with the notion that it should be rejected because it fails, not merely as a matter of definition. There are of course multiple problems with Behe's thesis both on the theory level and the factual level. On the factual level, we have the problem that his definition of irreducible complexity (IC) doesn't really accord with the real world. For example, the blood clotting cascade was trumpeted by him as one of the primary examples of an IC system, and he defined IC as a system in which you could not remove a single component from the system and still have it function correctly (using the mouse trap analogy, of course, take any one of the components away and it doesn't catch mice anymore). But lo and behold, that turned out not to be true. Dolphins, for example, lack one of the primary components that Behe named as critical to the blood clotting cascade, a protein called Hagemann factor, or factor 12. Behe's definition of an IC system was that any precursor to the system that was missing a single component would be non-functional, yet dolphins have a perfectly functioning blood clotting system with one primary component removed. The other major difficulty is that his definition of IC rules out precursors that serve a different function and are later coopted to a new function, which usually happens as a result of gene duplication.An explanation doesn't have to be a theory. For example, if I were to claim that "undefined designer operating at some point in the past had to intervene in order for event X to occur since the event X exhibits the characteristics of a designed entity," I am offering an explanation. Suppose Behe's argument for irreducible complexity works, that is, certain biological entities cannot be accounted for by non-rational mechanisms since they exhibit the characteristics of entities designed by agents. Now, the "theory" is Behe's set of conditions that must occur in order one to be warranted in inferring a designer. Darwin, of course, provided an account that a vast majority of scientists believe is a defeater to Behe's view. But that means that Behe's view is a view that may count as an explanation, though many people believe he's wrong. But they believe he's wrong because his account has less explanatory power than the Darwinian account. We reject his account because it fails as an explanation, not because it can't pass a metaphysical litmus test. On a theoretical level, or perhaps even meta-theoretical level, the problem is that even if he was able to show that we have no way (currently) of explaining how a particular system evolved step by step, it doesn't logically follow that it therefore must have been created that way by some unknown designer. This is especially true in Behe's case because he accepts common descent and admits that there are lots of very complex biochemical systems that DID evolve, and it would be easy to go back only a short amount of time to a point where our current state of knowledge would have said the same thing of those systems: "we don't know how they could have evolved at this point". That's the problem with God of the Gaps arguments - the same argument has been used a thousand times in similar situations and the gaps keep getting filled in by our advancing knowledge and understanding of the biochemical processes. So even if his examples of IC were accurate, all it logically shows is a current gap in our understanding. But such gaps are filled in by continuing research, not by declaring it unsolvable. If the conventional framework for explanation (methodological naturalism) is applied, new avenues of research will provide more and more detailed explanations; if the ID framework is applied, research stops. One can easily envision ways to expand our understanding of, say, the bacterial flagellum and how it evolved, through testing and research at the genomic level. Indeed, scientists work on this question every day because the conventional scientific explanation opens up robust opportunities for research. But under the ID explanation - evolution didn't do it, God did it - there is no research imaginable that could confirm this or tell us anything more about it. That's why I said that ID is the "conversation stopper", at least in terms of ongoing research. I don't think this is an accurate analogy. There is a far bigger distinction between a rock and a rock that looks like Socrates than there is between a biochemical system that even Behe would admit evolved without the need for outside intervention and a biochemical system that he deems IC. The finished products you're comparing in the real world of biology are far more similar. There are a thousand very complex biochemical systems that Behe would look at and say, "yes, I accept that the evolutionary pathways leading from a precursor system to this finished system, even though it is enormously complex and has all of these necessarily interacting components, is well understood and there is no reason to invoke a supernatural creator to explain them." The only real difference between those systems and the systems he points to and claims are IC is that the latter systems are not as well understood *at this point in time*. There is an unjustified inferential leap from "I don't find your natural explanations satisfactory" to "therefore God must have done something there". And again, his reasoning could have been applied with equal justification in a nearly infinite number of circumstances in the past when our then-current state of understanding was unsatisfactory, including a large number of circumstances which he now would accept without dispute were instances of plain old evolution that did not require outside intervention.If I discover a piece of rock that resembles Socrates in my office tomorrow morning, am I not justified in claiming that someone designed even if I don't know the designer's name or how he did it (suppose I am completely ignorant of sculpture) and when? It seems to me that the "name/how/when" objection doesn't do the trick. Ed Brayton (who hopes this isn't too far off-topic) |
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