Unintelligible Redesign

One of the biggest problems with ID is that there is absolutely NO supporting science. I read Michael Behe's book, "Darwins Black Box" a while ago and while it is a good read there are a number of problems with the central thesis. They generally revolve around the lack of any real data for design as well a number of theoretical errors and problems with his Irreducuble Complexity concept, not to mention what I considered poor literature searches for biochemical support for evolution. I am currently putting together a short critique on his blood clotting arguement based on the horseshoe crab and the LAL assay for endotoxin, I hope to have it posted on my sorry excuse for a web page on yahoo by the end of April. Basically it (my critique) trashes his concept that the clotting mechanism could not have evolved. Other problems with his arguements are that 1) he uses arguements against abiogenesis as arguements against evolution, and they really are apple and orange arguements, nothing in any of the theories on how evolution occurred/occurrs rely on abiogenesis, 2) a number of his statistical calculation are based on a numebr of a priori assumptions that are questionable at best, 3) he ignores/ignored some relevant research on cillia and flagella that undercut his arguements in those areas. One of the laeding founders of ID, P. Johnson, called M. Behe's work the leading edge of biological/biochemical ID, I am sorry to have to report that it looks like a rather blunt edge to me.There is another book that I just purchased, "Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics", edited by Robert Pennock the author of "The Tower of Babel". So far (I am only into the first chapter) the book appears to be quite good.

Yes, I have read the article. I was very underimpressed with the lit. searches that M. Behe reported that he had performed w.r.t. his book. I am sure that he does much better ones for his work at LeHigh. One reason that I am interested in the horseshoe crab example is due to the standard biological/biochemical practice of the "co-opting" of enzymes for novel purposes. The horseshoe crab has a wonderful system in liu of an active immunological system which blocks the entry or massive invasion of bacteria into it's system. It is a clotting system which uses many of the same components of the clotting system of "higher" organisms, if a massive infection occurs it will form a whole body clot but generally just seals the site of potential infection.A fatal flaw in Dr. Behe's statement concerning the Rube Goldburg machine is that if there is an organism with a simpler system or a similar system used for a different purpose then his arguement fails, the arguement is very similar to the one that Darwin used for the eye. It is even more supoprtive if the species has been around for a long time. At close to 500 million years the horshoe crab is a wonderful example.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz