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5/15/04 "Irreducible Complexity" Thomas Woodward's book, Doubts about Darwin offers a description of some rhetorical aspects of the debate between Michael Behe (author of Darwin's Black Box), who invented the phrase "irreducible complexity" as part of his argument that evolutionary theory cannot account for certain biological mechanisms, and his critics. It is enough to show the flaws in Behe's argument and assertions: "Irreducible Complexity" is a myth. Behe defines "irreducible complexity" as the state of a complex biological system that would not function if you removed any of its constituent parts. The discovery of such a system would, he argues, demonstrate that evolution cannot account for the development of that system. He further proposes that, if evolution cannot account for it, there must have been an intelligent designer at work (but he claims not to be a Creationist). The most prominent example cited in Woodward's book is that of the flagellum, a whiplike appendage on bacteria which functions like an oar for a kind of primitive propulsion. It is composed of around 40 constituent elements, all of which are necessary to its function. Since the removal of any one would render it inoperable, Behe argues, it is "irreducibly complex" and therefore could not have evolved naturally. Other biologists have exposed the flaw at the heart of Behe's argument: it assumes that each constituent part of such a complex system would have no other function. He cited a mouse trap as an analogy: each part of the mouse trap, outside the context of the trap, would just be a piece of wood or metal. But that is a contrivance consciously designed for a purpose (lo and behold, he tries to convince us a flagellum had to be designed by using the analogy of an object that had to be designed!). He must therefore rely on the assumption that the 40 elements of the flagellum would each be useless outside the context of the flagellum. Evolutionary biologists have shown that of those forty elements, ten of them were the constituent elements in a small pump-like structure. In other words, ten of the forty elements in the flagellum may already have existed and served other functions. It remains possible that the other thirty did, as well, and we just don't happen to have discovered yet what their functions were. Behe's argument is an argument from silence: "You can't show how something happened, therefore it didn't happen." But he can easily be hoisted by his own petard, using reasoning like that. For example, in countering an argument about the construction of the human eye, which is less suited to its only known function than the eye of the squid, for example, Behe has argued that an intelligent designer might have other purposes than simple efficiency. But unless he proposes a possible explanation, his own strategy of arguing from silence will refute his objection: without an irrefutable scenario to explain what goal the designer achieved by making the human eye less efficient for vision than the squid eye, we can conclude that a designer did not design the human eye, which proves the case Behe was trying to refute, that the human eye is more likely to have evolved than to have been designed. The truth is that Behe can't show that the flagellum did not evolve any more than his critics can show that God didn't create it. It is the job of the theologist, the priest, the minister, and the believer to assume that God created everything, and it is the job of the scientist to assume for the sake of research that all things in the universe came to be naturally. A scientist who tries to bridge the gap is no longer practicing science. 09/06/2004 |
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