emotional

Oh dear ... "a believer of the evolutionary theory". And I suppose you've stopped beating your wife as well.

Where there is evidence, there is no belief, there is only acceptance. I believe in the existence of God and of life after death, because there's no conclusive evidence for them. I don't believe in evolution - I accept it. There's much more evidence for evolution than for the existence of Julius Caesar.

GunnerJ

What is this comment meant to accomplish?

Principia

I've seen it at MG/JT's site: http://www.idthink.net/biot/flag1/index.html

And from there follow the citations:
PS: Of course, the AE thread is a great place to start too.

emotional

I apologise for my bluntness. Reference here.

lpetrich

Actually, irreducible complexity can emerge without trouble by way of non-designed evolution. Some human designs provide some hints as to how this can happen. Consider building an arch out of stone blocks or bricks or one's favorite blocky building material.

In a corbelled arch, each higher block sticks a little bit more in, while being stably supported by the blocks below, so an incomplete arch will be stable.

However, an incomplete true arch is unstable, because the top blocks can easily slide off. Thus, it is irreducibly complex.

But one can build a true arch by building a scaffold that holds the blocks until all of them are in place, and then removing that scaffold.

The ancient Romans were the first to learn this trick, which is why a true arch is sometimes called a "Roman arch".

Biological irreducible complexity can emerge in much the same way, through some intermediate state that has a scaffold in it.

Consider honeybee societies. The workers do all of the work, but cannot reproduce. The queen does all the reproducing, but cannot survive in isolation. Thus, honeybee society is irreducibly complex.

But in many species of bees, like bumblebees, the queen can do the tasks that a worker can do, and when a queen founds a hive, she must do everything that her workers will eventually do. This arrangement can emerge from how solitary bees live by daughter bees staying at their mother's nest. And it can lead to honeybee society with the queen becoming totally dependent on her workers, and founding new hives with the help of a swarm of workers.

So what Behe is talking about is the molecular equivalent of solitary bees vs. honeybees. However, it's not clear that there is no molecular equivalent of bumblebees in what he's talking about.

theyeti

This may (or may not) be the consensus, but it's of minor relevance. Once it's conceded that the flagellum is made up of functional subsystems, then its "irreducible complexity" is called greatly into question, because one can't rule out that it came from a simpler precursor. For example, there may have been a simple secretory system that the flagellum evolved from, from which the modern type III secretory system came. IDists who protest that the modern T3SS came from the flagellum are missing the point.

theyeti

Kevbo

And, of course, when Behe discovered that the bacteria were endowed with this amazing organelle that could not have possibly arisen by evolution, he could not have come to any other conclusion than that it was designed by an Almighty God who wished to endow bacteria with the ability to rule the Earth.

What? What do you mean, he's a Christian?

Doubting Didymus

I kind of like the idea that unguided evolution is responsible for nearly all biological complexity, our eyes, hands, brains, but that theres a god around giving all these bloody bacteria little tails. I'd like to meet that god. I bet he's microscopic and composed of phospholipids and protein.

Kevbo

You sneaky little prokaryotic god, you.

Harumi

*sigh*

And I see that the word "belief" has offended quite a few people...again. I had a feeling that it was the wrong word to use, but couldn't think of another one at the time. I thought that people here would be better than to be offended simply because of a little semantic problem. I guess I was stupid to think that, since here are people implying I have fanatic religious devotion to "evolution" (which I don't), when the point isn't about my fanatic religious devotion to evolution, it's about finding answers to questions.

No, of course I do not "believe" in evolution. I hadn't meant that in any way shape or form. The word I had been looking for was accept, but well, forgive me, but I have just been speaking in a different language for the past forty-eight hours and the transition back into English can sometimes be difficult (for those of you who don't have such problems, congratulations, you're all far more intelligent than I am).

That being said, I would like to thank everyone who has given me their input without insults. I'm glad that people have provided me with links, and I will certainly check them out, and show them to my brother, who will definitely appreciate the extra help. Some of the things people have noted here make a lot of sense, and if possible, I'll try to read up on what they've said.