Discussion

Title	Author	Date
Just my humble opinion...	Martin, Steve	Oct 23, 2005
I find the whole blood clotting cascade debate interesting, however, I think two points are being missed. The first point is that the elegant diagrams of the cascade most likely do not actually represent in vivo function of clotting factors. The second point is that when considering survival of an individual or species, platelets are much more important than clotting factors anyway. The discussion seems to be about blood clotting in general, but the arguments are all specifically about blood clotting factors. Blood clotting factors only play a small role in overall blood clotting. It seems everyone assumes that lack of these factors invariably leads to death at birth, but this is not true. Dysfunction of blood clotting factors leads to a broad spectrum of results in humans, ranging from early spontaneous abortion, to relatively healthy adult. While we are taught the extrinsic, intrinsic, and common pathways, this is most likely not the actual functioning in the human body. The "physiologic pathway" probably starts with the extrinsic pathway and jumps to the intrinsic pathway. The most important part of blood clotting is the blood platelet, not the clotting factors. What does this mean? It means these great arguments about the clotting cascade are really not relevent. Using the argument of the cascade as revealing intelligent design is not only wrong, it is a totally irrelevant analogy.

Title	Author	Date
Substitution of Argument	Wiolowan, Constantine	Apr 07, 2005
The article of Ion Musgrave substitutes the main argument of Doolittle vs. Behe: IC. Beside the incorrectness in saying that Fib-/Pl- mice are normal ("practically" etc.) the main flaw of Doolittle logic is this "Contrary to claims about irreducible complexity, the entire ensemble of proteins is not needed. Music and harmony can arise from a smaller orchestra". It is no wonder that Fib-/Pl- mice are doing better than Fib- or Pl-: the ENTIRE system does not function (let's forget about the inability to bring offspring). And the one-by-one (yin-by-yang) addition of factors results in severe disorders. Does Fib-/Pl- prove the absence of IC? No. They prove only the fact that underdone system is worse than no system at all. Mark Perakh has got the Doolittle false proof very well: he uses this "small orchestra" example to "prove" that clotting system is not IC-system at all. Using this argument as a template I could argue that a car is not IC (or doesn't have IC) because if a car without brake is dangerous, car without ignition and wheels is not, besides, I'm still normal because I can use my bike (=platelets)! So who talks about car as an IC?