Over at the The Skeptical Zone there’s a reference to a post from Larry Moran’s blogsite. The question of irreducible complexity is revisited, and, torn to shreds in the eyes of evolutionary thinkers.
For them it seems sufficient to simply announce the “presence” of some needed ingredient of the putative IC system of proteins in order to debunk IC claims. For them, having identified certain portions of the needed complex somewhere else, and understanding this to be a part of the genetic tool box available to all because of common descent, is enough to make them feel they have satisfactorily undermined the latest attempt at identifying IC systems.
That’s where the Ralph’s Supermarket comes in.
Here’s what I mean:
Let’s say I’m interested in making a custard pie from scratch. Well, all the ingredients for a custard pie can be found in a Ralph’s market. There’s the eggs and milk in the dairy section. There’s the flour and salt on Aisle 15. There’s shortening on Aisle 17, pie pans on Aisle 4, bowls on 6, cinammon, nutmeg and vanilla extract on Aisle 21. An oven in the deli section.
All the ingredients are right there in the Ralph’s Supermarket! Therefore, we can explain the appearance of custard pies.
But, wait a second———how did it all the ingredients come together?
Well, the fact is that there really are custard pies you can find in dessert section of Ralph’s. A human being designed machinery to mix and prepare the ingredients. Other humans helped put the pies into ovens and see that they got out.
IOW, without the intervention of intelligent, dynamical people, you’d NEVER find a custard pie in a Ralph’s Supermarket.
If you open a LEGO building-block kit, all the parts are there to build all sorts of interesting and varied ‘forms.’ Put all those pieces together in a big tub, shake it all you want, only the most cursory, simple, and uninteresting of combinations will form in this random way.
These are obvious truths. It takes a Ph.D to see otherwise.
The next time you sit down for a Quiche Lorraine, remember that it was all made possible by the Ralphs’ Supermarket Store in your neighborhood. Or, so evolutionary theorists want us to believe.