Blood clotting is irreducibly complex (Talk.Origins)

Claim CB200.2:

The biochemistry of blood clotting is irreducibly complex, indicating that it must have been designed.

Source:
 * Behe, Michael J. 1996. Darwin's Black Box, New York: The Free Press, pp. 74-97.

CreationWiki response:

This is based on comparative studies that assume Evolution in their conclusions, no place do they demonstrate that such processes can actually occur. While the duplication and co-opting of parts would indeed help, it does not solve the challenge of irreducible complexity evolving gradually. The organism still needs have all the right parts together in the same place and correctly assembled. That problem is not addressed by Talk Origins.


 * 1) This would seem to simply show that dolphins and other animals which lack the Hagemann factor have a blood clotting chemistry that is different from humans. That’s not a surprise from a creation perspective, particularly given the fact that dolphins live in water while humans live on land.
 * 2) The most this shows is that Behe erred on this one point.
 * 3) The fact that some animals do not need the Hagemann factor for blood clotting says nothing about humans. If humans can get along without it, then Talk Origins would have a point, but otherwise the Hagemann factor could still be part of the irreducible complexity of human blood.

Behe's Response to this Objection
In fact, this objection to Behe’s argument for the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade is entirely beside the point. In the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, Behe, in his testimony, dealt explicitly with this ‘rebuttal’ as expressed by Dr. Ken Miller. Here is the relevant portion of Behe’s testimony, running from page 25, line 9 to page 30, line 5 (A = Behe):

Thus, this objection doesn’t even deal with Behe’s case for the IC of the blood-clotting cascade; it completely and utterly misses the target. As he points out in his testimony, Behe expressly limited his argument in Darwin’s Black Box to a specific sector of this biochemical pathway. This ostensible rebuttal to Behe addresses an entirely different sector; one that Behe explicitly excluded from his case for the IC of the cascade.

If Darwinists wish to rebut Behe, they must address the case that he actually makes rather than a mischaracterization of it. As it is, Behe’s attribution of IC to the blood-clotting cascade stands – unscathed by this misdirected and irrelevant attack.

This statement is bogus, being based on flawed logic.

This includes the impossible demand that those who hold to the position that irreducible complexity implies design disprove all possible evolutionary scenarios, even those that have not been invented yet.