Main points by Orr:
 

1.  Complexity is irrelevant; Darwinism can account for it
 

 
 4 x 10⁹ yrs is an unimaginably long time

 (actually 0.2 x 10⁹ yrs for first fossils)

anything can happen in an unimaginably long time?

This is not science!  Science requires an estimate of the probability!
 
 

Such estimates have been performed:
 

"There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged with the current conception of biology."
      Shutzenberger, M. P. (1967)  "Algorithms and the  Neo-Darwinian
      Theory of Evolution" in Mathematical  Challenges to the
      Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, ed. P. S. Moorhead and
      M. M. Kaplan,  Wistar Institute Press, Philadelphia, pg 75.

 2.  Many systems are now irreducibly complex, but didn't start that way
 

 "Some part (A) initially does some job ...."
 

Vague argument with a grain of truth on some level, (potentially applicable on level of microevolution), but irrelevant to real issue.
 
 
 

In support of this argument:
 

A.  hypothetical example - transformation of air bladders into lungs
 

 - no direct evidence, no conceivable mechanism

 -assumes that it happens, then cites it as an example!
 
 
 

B.  Inaccurate analogy - computer programs

 
 -one line doesn’t make a program!

 -often sections are irreducibly complex - entire groups of lines are required
 

 C.  Circumstantial/inferential evidence - closely related genes

 
 (arisen from ancestor gene by gene duplication +  random point mutations?)

 -explains how biochemical pathways get built?

 -genes can be duplicated, but haven’t been observed to mutate into something with entirely new function!

 -manufactures a scenario that has never been observed, and just assumes it to be true!  Yet that is the very esssence of what is at issue!
 
 

D.  Circumstantial/inferential evidence - pseudogenes

 
 (argument from imperfection, "God wouldn't do it that  way")

 -assumes what we see today is what God created!

 
 
 

 

1.  Did he suggest a Darwinian scenario for blood clotting, or bacterial flagellum, etc?
 

2.  Orr structures his arguments so that the essence of the claim doesn’t have to be addressed, but can simply be assumed.  He avoids the obligation of addressing a real system.

 
 just have to “understand Darwinian logic”

 real systems - lost in the irretrievable world of biological history

 

3.  How low is the level of scrutiny of the arguments compared to that characteristic of other branches of science?