[__ Science __ ] A Hill to Die On

[Barbarian]

Can you provide the quote? "to some degree" is vague. The subtitle of Behe's first book makes clear what he set out to do, provide a biochemical challenge to evolution. In his book he quoted Darwin:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." -Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
Behe has shown exactly what Darwin claimed would destroy the theory of evolution, through the concept of "irreducible complexity."

Behe has since admitted that irreducible complexity can evolve. It's been observed to evolve.

The principle is that an irreducibly complex system consists of a number of components, and the loss of any one of them would make the system inoperable.

In 1982, Barry Hall of the University of Rochester began a series of experiments in which he deleted the bacterial gene for the enzyme beta-galactosidase. The loss of this gene makes it impossible for the bacteria to metabolize the sugar lactose.What happened next? Under appropriate selection conditions Hall found that the bacteria evolved not only the gene for a new beta-galactosidase enzyme (called the evolved beta-galactosidase gene, or ebg), but also a control sequence that switched the new gene on when glucose was present. Finally, a new chemical reaction evolved as well,producing allolactose, the chemical signal that normally switcheson the lac permease gene, allowing lactose to flow into the cell.

In my book I quoted evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma's description of these experiments:

"Thus an entire system of lactose utilization had evolved, consisting of changes in enzyme structure enabling hydrolysis of the substrate; alteration of a regulatory gene so that the enzyme can be synthesized in response to the substrate; and the evolution of an enzyme reaction that induces the permease needed for the entry of the substrate. One could not wish for a batter demonstration of the neoDarwinian principle that mutation and natural selection in concert are the source of complex adaptations." [ DJ Futuyma , Evolution, ©1986, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. pp. 477-478.]

The system now consists of lactose, the evolved gene, and the evolved regulator. If one of these is not present, the system doesn't work. By Behe's definition, it's irreducibly complex. And yet it was observed to evolve.

It gets worse for Behe. He touted the bacterial flagellum and the vertebrate clotting system as irreducibly complex. With the data he had at the time, it seemed so. But as we learned more about it, turns out the flagellum has an evolutionary precursor.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
2015 Oct 5;370(1679):20150020.

Type III secretion systems: the bacterial flagellum and the injectisome ​

Abstract ​

The flagellum and the injectisome are two of the most complex and fascinating bacterial nanomachines. At their core, they share a type III secretion system (T3SS), a transmembrane export complex that forms the extracellular appendages, the flagellar filament and the injectisome needle. Recent advances, combining structural biology, cryo-electron tomography, molecular genetics, in vivo imaging, bioinformatics and biophysics, have greatly increased our understanding of the T3SS, especially the structure of its transmembrane and cytosolic components, the transcriptional, post-transcriptional and functional regulation and the remarkable adaptivity of the system. This review aims to integrate these new findings into our current knowledge of the evolution, function, regulation and dynamics of the T3SS, and to highlight commonalities and differences between the two systems, as well as their potential applications.

Yep. A simpler version exists, and it does a different function. But slightly modified, it can also provide movement.

Here's a rundown on the history of "I don't see how that could have evolved, so it's impossible."

https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~rogers/tch/evidevol/lectures/ircomp-2x3.pdf

The eye has been proposed to be irreducibly complex, but in nature we see every step from a simple dark patch on the surface of an organism to the highly complex vertebrate and mollusk eyes. In the mollusks, all these steps still exist.

Behe has shown exactly what Darwin claimed would destroy the theory of evolution, through the concept of "irreducible complexity."

Nope. His favorite examples all crashed and burned when tested.

Once people actually learn what intelligent design theory is

A religion, it was found to be by the Dover court. At best a philosophy, which overtly claims to be for the purpose of establishing God.
"Governing Goals

• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
• To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."

Discovery Institute's declaration of goals (see above)

As you're fond of saying, people are often down on things they aren't up on.

And here's another example. If you had done a little research you'd perhaps notice that some IDers (e.g. Michael Denton) have distanced themselves from the religion part of ID and have suggested a "designer" who "might be a space alien" (Philip Johnson, Darwin on Trial) who "front-loaded" the universe to produce living things by natural means. Denton goes out of his way to show that a reasonable philosophy of ID is inconsistent with special creationism and says so (Nature's Destiny)

Which seems pretty likely to me, given scripture and what I've seen of living systems. Except the space alien, of course. But it's still a religious doctrine, albeit an accurate one IMO.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

Never happened. It banned government from imposing prayer and the Bible in public schools. Students can and do pray in public schools and bring their Bibles. What bothers the bad guys is that they can't force those things on students.

No, that's wrong too. Our religious freedoms prevent government from imposing any religion at all, at the same time those freedoms prevent government from stopping us from practicing religion if we so chose. Which is exactly the way it must be in a free society.

Do you not see that if the government imposes it on us, it's not the nation whose God is the Lord?

I'm not talking about imposing or forcing God on anyone. A simple ammendment that the God of the Bible is the God we honor is enough.

 

[Barbarian]

I'm not talking about imposing or forcing God on anyone. A simple ammendment that the God of the Bible is the God we honor is enough.

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment to do that. God neither needs nor wants a government handout.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

He doesn't think there was time, either. He's just honest enough to admit that there is very good evidence that there was.

That's convoluted.

It's every student's right to honor God or not honor God in public schools.

Sorry, that's against our religious freedoms and against God's will. He wants us to come to Him freely, not under government compulsion.

Again, it has nothing to do with forcing anyone to believe in the only God there is.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment to do that. God neither needs nor wants a government handout.

God doesn't need anything. but If citizens followed his teachings, people of other faiths or atheists wouldn't have to fear persecution, which is the only reason the ammendment exists to begin with.

 

[Uncle J]

Intelligent design theory never was a legal strategy.

Uh, yeah it was. You ever read "The Wedge Strategy" (which Barbarian has already posted excerpts from)?

It's extremely open about how ID was a strategy to further Christian creationist social and political goals (primarily "defeating materialism"). For example...

"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

"Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in the broader culture."

And one of their main goals is: "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God".

We can also throw in the classic "cdesign proponentsists" case (where the creationists used the find/replace function to swap "creationists" with "design proponents" without changing the definition, but the software glitched).

Then we add the evidence from Barbara Forrest's testimony at the Dover trial, where she showed many of the ways in which ID is merely recrafted Christian creationism, including how ID creationists...

1) refer to ID as a "movement",
2) refer to themselves as creationists,
3) refer to their own arguments as creationist arguments,
4) define creation and ID in exactly the same terms,
5) in their writings switched "creation" to "intelligent design" with no change in content or definition after a federal court ruling struck down creationism in public schools,
6) advocate for creationism under the guise of "academic freedom",
7) adhere to the "two model approach", where life on earth is explained either by evolution or creationism,
8) present the exact same arguments young-earth creationists have been making for decades,
9) developed a strategy ("the big tent") to court young-earth creationists to join their movement,
10) refer to the ID movement as an exercise in religious apologetics,
11) developed the ID movement as a means to revive the evangelical crusade for teaching creationism in schools that many thought was dead following a SCOTUS ruling,
12) argue against evolution because it contradicts their religious beliefs,
13) make it very clear that the "intelligence" they refer to is the Biblical God, and
14) are heavily funded by religious foundations and a private donor who is a known Christian reconstuctionist.

If you're interested, we can walk through her testimony on each of those points.

But the scientists behind the theory had no such ambitions.

Forrest's testimony showed that they most certainly did.

The subtitle of Behe's book is the biochemical challenge to evolution. He set out to challenge the limit of Darwin's theory. You seem a reasonable person, do you honestly think challenging the limits of Darwin's theory is a legal strategy? Or that irreducible-complexity is about creationism?

Very much so. Behe even testified at the Dover trial that "the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God".

Also, "irreducible complexity" is a long dead creationist argument, and one that Behe et al. have changed a few times. At first (in "Darwin's Black Box") an IC system was one that has "well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function of the system, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". But then several scientists pointed out how not only can evolutionary mechanisms generate such systems, the evidence shows that they have.

So the ID creationists shifted the definition to a system that "includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, nonarbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function". Of course evolutionary scientists pounced on that by explaining how changing function (exaptation) is a fundamental aspect of evolutionary change.

In response, Behe redefined IC yet again to a system that "contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway", which made it effectively meaningless (it's incredibly difficult to identify unselected steps in lab experiments let alone quantify them, and it's impossible to do so for pathways that occurred in the distant past).

And that last redefinition was clear back in 2002, over two decades ago. It has had absolutely zero impact on evolutionary biology, biology, or science in general.

IOW, it's exactly as I described.....dead. Again, if you're a Christian creationist, then why not just be that and be done with it? There's really no need to keep advocating for a movement that died decades ago.

 

[Barbarian]

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment to do that. God neither needs nor wants a government handout.

God doesn't need anything.

Then just let it be His way. Government can't help religion. It can only assure that each person is free to worship or not as they see fit.

Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported before it was established by human policy.

Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments 1789

 

[Barbarian]

(Creationist Dr. Wise admits the reality of evidence for evolution)
He doesn't think there was time, either. He's just honest enough to admit that there is very good evidence that there was.

That's convoluted.

That's honesty. He's not the only one. Would you like to see more?
It's every student's right to honor God or not honor God in public schools.
(desire expressed to establish Christianity as the religion of the United States)
Sorry, that's against our religious freedoms and against God's will. He wants us to come to Him freely, not under government compulsion.

Again, it has nothing to do with forcing anyone to believe in the only God there is.

Then why even try to establish God by law? God neither needs nor wants that kind of "help." Indeed, as James Madison pointed out, it had the opposite effect, damaging Christian faith.

 

[Barbarian]

Behe even testified at the Dover trial that "the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God".

Michael Denton is not a theist in the conventional sense, but he appeals to some kind of "teleology" that "front loaded" nature to certain purposes. As Philip Johnson suggested "a space alien" might be the "designer."

If you can find a copy of Douglas Hoffstader's The Mind's I , read the essay Non Serviam for a look at one such scenario.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment to do that. God neither needs nor wants a government handout.

Then just let it be His way. Government can't help religion. It can only assure that each person is free to worship or not as they see fit.

Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported before it was established by human policy.

Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments 1789

Madison must have been looking at the gospel backwards, because "the law" was meant to bring sinners to Christ. Not by how good we are, but by how we all need mercy.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

(Creationist Dr. Wise admits the reality of evidence for evolution)
He doesn't think there was time, either. He's just honest enough to admit that there is very good evidence that there was.

That's honesty. He's not the only one. Would you like to see more?
It's every student's right to honor God or not honor God in public schools.
(desire expressed to establish Christianity as the religion of the United States)
Sorry, that's against our religious freedoms and against God's will. He wants us to come to Him freely, not under government compulsion.

Then why even try to establish God by law? God neither needs nor wants that kind of "help." Indeed, as James Madison pointed out, it had the opposite effect, damaging Christian faith.

You're missing the point. The point isn't how Dr. Wise thinks there might be a case. The point is what the Bible says, contrary to what men believe.

 

[Barbarian]

You're missing the point. The point isn't how Dr. Wise thinks there might be a case.

He doesn't say "there might be a case." He says that the many transitional fossils and series of transitional fossils are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."

Of course, the point is what the Bible says, contrary to the additions of YE creationists.

 

[Barbarian]

Madison must have been looking at the gospel backwards

He was looking at the history of Europe, where Christianity had been legally established.
Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

Turns out, establishment damages Christianity and results in "superstition, bigotry, and persecution." The founders lived in such an environment, and being good Christians, wanted none of it.

 

[Vaccine]

Uh, yeah it was. You ever read "The Wedge Strategy" (which Barbarian has already posted excerpts from)?

We've discussed the Wedge Strategy before on this forum.

There's an important distinction to make here since you're saying ID theory is a legal strategy. Legal strategies are one thing scientific theories are another. Nobody would argue climate science is a legal strategy. Since, obviously it isn't.

Is there some reason you ignored the question whether or not irreducible-complexity was a legal strategy?

We don't want to setup a strawman. ID theory is a scientific theory, not a legal strategy.
The theory of evolution is not a legal strategy anymore than ID theory is. Variation, heredity, and selection aren't legal strategies any more than irreducible-complexity or specified-complexity.

It's extremely open about how ID was a strategy to further Christian creationist social and political goals (primarily "defeating materialism"). For example...

"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

"Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in the broader culture."

And one of their main goals is: "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God".

We can also throw in the classic "cdesign proponentsists" case (where the creationists used the find/replace function to swap "creationists" with "design proponents" without changing the definition, but the software glitched).

Then we add the evidence from Barbara Forrest's testimony at the Dover trial, where she showed many of the ways in which ID is merely recrafted Christian creationism, including how ID creationists...

1) refer to ID as a "movement",
2) refer to themselves as creationists,
3) refer to their own arguments as creationist arguments,
4) define creation and ID in exactly the same terms,
5) in their writings switched "creation" to "intelligent design" with no change in content or definition after a federal court ruling struck down creationism in public schools,
6) advocate for creationism under the guise of "academic freedom",
7) adhere to the "two model approach", where life on earth is explained either by evolution or creationism,
8) present the exact same arguments young-earth creationists have been making for decades,
9) developed a strategy ("the big tent") to court young-earth creationists to join their movement,
10) refer to the ID movement as an exercise in religious apologetics,
11) developed the ID movement as a means to revive the evangelical crusade for teaching creationism in schools that many thought was dead following a SCOTUS ruling,
12) argue against evolution because it contradicts their religious beliefs,
13) make it very clear that the "intelligence" they refer to is the Biblical God, and
14) are heavily funded by religious foundations and a private donor who is a known Christian reconstuctionist.

If you're interested, we can walk through her testimony on each of those points.

Sure, I'm interested as long as we understand the difference between ID theory and the views of those associated with it. In other words, climate science is one thing while the real world impact of climate science is another.

Nobody denies the real world impact of science. Darwin even understood the impact of his theory:
"Finally, we may conclude that when the principle of evolution is generally accepted, as it surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death."-Descent of Man

ID theorists are not blind to the impact of their theory. Materialism will die once the principle of specified-complexity and irreducible-complexity is accepted. So what? Darwin's theory created atheists, who cares if ID creates some theists. I think it's a good thing. While my brother is an atheist he really went all in while getting his masters in chemical engineering. Scientific theories have consequences, ID theory is no different.

Forrest's testimony showed that they most certainly did.


Very much so. Behe even testified at the Dover trial that "the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God".

Quotes without a citation? I searched Behe's testimony he did not say those words.

Also, "irreducible complexity" is a long dead creationist argument, and one that Behe et al. have changed a few times. At first (in "Darwin's Black Box") an IC system was one that has "well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function of the system, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". But then several scientists pointed out how not only can evolutionary mechanisms generate such systems, the evidence shows that they have.

So the ID creationists shifted the definition to a system that "includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, nonarbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function". Of course evolutionary scientists pounced on that by explaining how changing function (exaptation) is a fundamental aspect of evolutionary change.

In response, Behe redefined IC yet again to a system that "contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway", which made it effectively meaningless (it's incredibly difficult to identify unselected steps in lab experiments let alone quantify them, and it's impossible to do so for pathways that occurred in the distant past).

In the assertion: "not only can evolutionary mechanisms generate such systems, the evidence shows that they have." is a world of improbability. Science deals in probabilities, not absolutes. Like the prudent scientist he is, Behe addressed such claims in Darwin's Black Box:
"Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously. And as the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin’s criterion of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows" -Darwin’s Black Box, p. 40

While Darwinists find their conclusions convincing, what they're not telling everyone is how improbable it is evolution produced such systems.

And that last redefinition was clear back in 2002, over two decades ago. It has had absolutely zero impact on evolutionary biology, biology, or science in general.

IOW, it's exactly as I described.....dead. Again, if you're a Christian creationist, then why not just be that and be done with it? There's really no need to keep advocating for a movement that died decades ago.

Because ID theory is one thing and creationist are another. It's the same reason I don't just call myself a socialist and be done with it. Democrats aren't seizing the means of production. All those argument tell me is how little those people know about socialism or the Democrat party.

Creationism is the belief God created the universe and all life in it. Intelligent design theory says we can determine an intelligent cause from an accidental or contingent cause. Which has been around a long time and isn't going away anytime soon. The most well know example of this is the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). These people get millions in government funding because they say the can determine the difference between static and intelligence. Forensic science says they can determine the difference between an accidental and intentional cause of death. Dembski, Meyer, and others say they can determine the difference between life having an accidental or intelligent cause and people want to label them creationists.
Slapping a label on that bad boy and hand waving shows a lack of critical thinking. Coming up with a rational, logical argument against Intelligent Design theory requires actually understanding the difference between ID theory and creationism. Seriously, has anyone who voted for a democrat even been persuaded not to because some conservative threw the label "socialist" at them?

Referring to ID theory as creationism in a cheap tuxedo may get some laughs from the peanut gallery. But it doesn't present any actual criticism. Meanwhile, Darwin's theory is dying a silent death.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

He doesn't say "there might be a case." He says that the many transitional fossils and series of transitional fossils are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."

Of course, the point is what the Bible says, contrary to the additions of YE creationists.

Ok. Then Wise is saying there's a good reason why scientists who think the earth is old are wrong.

 

[Uncle J]

Michael Denton is not a theist in the conventional sense, but he appeals to some kind of "teleology" that "front loaded" nature to certain purposes.

To paraphrase Jon Stewart...We're not saying the designer is a god, it's just something that has the skill set to go around designing universes.

As Philip Johnson suggested "a space alien" might be the "designer."

Of course Johnson believed no such thing and only said that to prop up the charade.

If you can find a copy of Douglas Hoffstader's The Mind's I , read the essay Non Serviam for a look at one such scenario.

Thanks, I'll keep any eye out for it.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

He was looking at the history of Europe, where Christianity had been legally established.

That's the point. History has always shown where God is concerned, all have sinned." This doesn't mean "live our lives for God without law." It means live our lives for God without condemnation." And how do we do that?

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Lk.6:37

This is how our Savior "nailed the law to the cross." (That is, his right to have evil men executed.)

The law is only done away by forgiveness.

 

[Barbarian]

Ok. Then Wise is saying there's a good reason why scientists who think the earth is old are wrong.

Yes. He says that he prefers his interpretation of the Bible to the evidence.

 

[Barbarian]

While Darwinists find their conclusions convincing, what they're not telling everyone is how improbable it is evolution produced such systems.

Well, let's look at that. If evolution can produce complex structures we should see various stages in nature.

Well, darn, there it is. No matter how "improbable" someone thinks it is, reality still wins. Anything else?

 

[Barbarian]

Referring to ID theory as creationism in a cheap tuxedo may get some laughs from the peanut gallery. But it doesn't present any actual criticism. Meanwhile, Darwin's theory is dying a silent death.

If you think so, you don't know any biologists. I did some research on that. I used the Discovery Institute's list of "Scientists who doubt Darwin" to see how many biologists were on the list. Then I compared that to "Project Steve", which is a list of PhD biologists (or a related discipline) who accept evolutionary theory and are named "Steve" or some variant of it. Then checked to see how many "steves" the other list had. Turns out about 0.3% (not 3%) of biologists with PhD doubt modern evolutionary theory. Or did a couple of years ago. Would you like me to look that up and try again, and present the data?

BTW, it was a conservative federal judge in the Dover case who found that ID was just creationism.

We don't want to setup a strawman. ID theory is a scientific theory, not a legal strategy.

Well, let's take a look.. The Discovery Institute says that the governing goals of ID are:
"Governing Goals

• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
• To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."

Wedge Document published by Discovery Institute.

Yep. It's a religious philosophy at best. Maybe a new religion. No matter how you try to slice it, that's not remotely what science is

Is there some reason you ignored the question whether or not irreducible-complexity was a legal strategy?

Missed it. Irreducible complexity is just when you have several components in a system and the removal of any one of them makes the system inoperative. It's not a strategy at all. It's just a description.

Like the lac operan that Dr. Hall observed to evolve in bacteria, where three things have to be present in order for the system to work.



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