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I've read Behe's book, and it's intellectually empty. There are some rather out-of-date summaries of known biological processes (his discussion of the clotting cascade, for instance, is marred by some old-fashioned terminology and omissions), and then there his whole flawed premise of "irreducible complexity". IC is not novel -- Muller had the basic idea something like 60 or 70 years ago -- and it is not an obstacle to evolution. Muller was actually arguing that something like ICness would inevitably emerge as a consequence of natural processes.
It's a shame, actually. Behe seems like a nice guy, but he had this one wrong idea that has sent him off the rails and is now being used to rationalize the teaching of garbage in our public schools. What an unfortunate legacy!
I neglected to say that I thank Mr. Carson for his apology, although I hardly think one was necessary. I've heard considerably worse (as no doubt Mr. Carson himself has)...:>))
But thank you, in any event.
Oh, okay, I see your question. Let me make several points about this:
"I am confused by Mr. Silber's response to me though. I brought up the issue of whether Behe's *critique* ought to be dismissed out of hand. In response, Mr. Silber attacked Behe's positive explanation (or lack of it as Mr. Silber would have it). Why aren't these logically separate? I'm really asking, because this is a move I've seen time and time again and it just doesn't make sense to me. If an experiment or argument punches a deadly hole in my theory wouldn't the proper response be to reject the theory whether an alternative theory is ready at hand or not? Is the statement "I don't know" unscientific?"
First, it depends on what specifically the statement "I don't know" is made about. As Dawkins' book(s) and the Scientific American article I reference make clear, all the major points have been adequately explained. There might remain some details about how exactly we got from point A to point B on some particular evolutionary track -- but that doesn't mean there is not an explanation. It simply means we don't know the full explanation with regard to that specific in detail yet (although we do know the more general explanation in terms of the principles involved). In this limited sense, to say "I don't know" is perfectly valid in my view.
Second, certainly the two elements you identify can be treated as logically separate. But for the reasons I've explained, Behe offers no "positive explanation." Maintaining that X is "irreducible" and therefore must have been designed is the utter absence of an explanation; it's throwing one's hands up and saying that no explanation is possible, save that X was designed.
As to the second element, also for the reasons I've explained, I do not accept that Behe has "punche[d] a deadly hole" in evolution, Behe's own non-explanation set aside for purposes of this analysis. In fact, as Dawkins' work makes clear, evolution does explain all the major points. (The Scientific American article also addresses many of the relevant issues.)
So with regard to the theory and fact of evolution, there is nothing of importance that we "don't know." We do know -- but in my view, some people simply don't choose to accept the explanation. And even if we treat the two aspects you identify as logically separable (which they are), Behe's arguments fail on both counts.
Sure, if someone points out a fatal flaw in a scientific theory, you ought to reject it and it's quite respectable to say "I don't know." But Behe fails to disprove evolutionary theory and commits the error of coming up with a phony non-scientific "explanation."
I intemperately wrote before I had looked over a previous post by Mr. Silber addressing Behe's arguments that he linked to in today's commentary:
http://coldfury.com/reason/index.php?p=127
I apologize. This post makes it clear that Mr. Silber is familiar with Behe's arguments, even if not in detail, and offers a response.
I am confused by Mr. Silber's response to me though. I brought up the issue of whether Behe's *critique* ought to be dismissed out of hand. In response, Mr. Silber attacked Behe's positive explanation (or lack of it as Mr. Silber would have it). Why aren't these logically separate? I'm really asking, because this is a move I've seen time and time again and it just doesn't make sense to me. If an experiment or argument punches a deadly hole in my theory wouldn't the proper response be to reject the theory whether an alternative theory is ready at hand or not? Is the statement "I don't know" unscientific?
With all due respect, Mr. Carson, I don't need to have read Behe's book to make the arguments I do. And that is true for the fundamental reason none of the intelligent design proponents will ever address: they offer no explanation at all. It is not an "explanation" to say: "Well, something or someone must have designed this." This simply pushes back the questions one step: where did the designing something or someone come from? It results in an infinite regress. I repeat: it is no explanation whatsoever. That is all that "irreducibly complex" means in this context: we can't explain it (yet), therefore it's "irreducible." Therefore, something or someone must have designed it.
As I said in one of my earlier posts about Summers' comments, this is ignorance parading as knowledge. You can dress it up any way you like: it is still ignorance.
Mr. Silber's post on Behe pulls a neat rhetorical trick. In a lengthy attack on Behe's article in the NYT, he quickly slips this in "But I haven’t read his book...". He goes on to make this painfully apparent by, without comment, quoting Dawkins saying: "To ‘tame’ chance means to break down the very improbable into less improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates between them. However improbable, a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable."
But this is precisely what Behe has attacked in his book Darwin's Black Box. Using his knowledge of how cells function, he argues that there is NO intermediate step possible for certain systems within the cell that function together and, therefore, they are "irreducibly complex". Behe is obviously quite familiar with Dawkins sort of argument and has developed a novel critique of it. Now he may be wrong, but nothing in what Mr. Silber writes makes it clear why Behe's work should be rejected out of hand without even bothering to know what his basic argument is.