Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank headquartered in Seattle and dealing with national and international affairs. For more information, browse Discovery's Web site at: http://www.discovery.org.
Posted on 02/18/2004 3:41:01 PM PST by Heartlander
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A Response to Sharon Begley’s Wall Street Journal Column Michael J. Behe Discovery Institute February 18, 2004 |
| In a recent column in the Wall Street Journal (February 13, 2004, Science Journal, page B1, “Evolution Critics Come Under Fire for Flaws In 'Intelligent Design'”) science writer Sharon Begley repeated some false claims about the concept of irreducible complexity (IC) that have been made by Darwinists, in particular by Kenneth Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University. After giving a serviceable description in her column of why I argue that a mousetrap is IC, Begley added the Darwinist poison pill to the concept. The key misleading assertion in the article is the following: “Moreover, the individual parts of complex structures supposedly serve no function.” In other words, opponents of design want to assert that if the individual parts of a putatively IC structure can be used for anything at all other than their role in the system under consideration, then the system itself is not IC. So, for example, Kenneth Miller has seriously argued that a part of a mousetrap could be used as a paperweight, so not even a mousetrap is IC. Now, anything that has mass could be used as a paperweight. Thus by Miller’s tendentious reasoning any part of any system at all has a separate “function”. Presto! There is no such thing as irreducible complexity. That’s what often happens when people who are adamantly opposed to an idea publicize their own definitions of its key terms--the terms are manipulated to wage a PR battle. The evident purpose of Miller and others is to make the concept of IC so brittle that it easily crumbles. However, they are building a straw man. I never wrote that individual parts of an IC system couldn’t be used for any other purpose. (That would be silly--who would ever claim that a part of a mousetrap couldn’t be used as a paperweight, or a decoration, or a blunt weapon?) Quite the opposite, I clearly wrote in Darwin’s Black Box that even if the individual parts had their own functions, that still does not account for the irreducible complexity of the system. In fact, it would most likely exacerbate the problem, as I stated when considering whether parts lying around a garage could be used to make a mousetrap without intelligent intervention. In order to catch a mouse, a mousetrap needs a platform, spring, hammer, holding bar, and catch. Now, suppose you wanted to make a mousetrap. In your garage you might have a piece of wood from an old Popsicle stick (for the platform), a spring from an old wind-up clock, a piece of metal (for the hammer) in the form of a crowbar, a darning needle for the holding bar, and a bottle cap that you fancy to use as a catch. But these pieces, even though they have some vague similarity to the pieces of a working mousetrap, in fact are not matched to each other and couldn’t form a functioning mousetrap without extensive modification. All the while the modification was going on, they would be unable to work as a mousetrap. The fact that they were used in other roles (as a crowbar, in a clock, etc.) does not help them to be part of a mousetrap. As a matter of fact, their previous functions make them ill-suited for virtually any new role as part of a complex system. Darwin’s Black Box, page 66.
The reason why a separate function for the individual parts does not solve the problem of IC is because IC is concerned with the function of the system: By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. Darwin’s Black Box, page 39.
The system can have its own function, different from any of the parts. Any individual function of a part does not explain the separate function of the system. Miller applies his crackerjack reasoning not only to the mousetrap, but also to the bacterial flagellum--the extremely sophisticated, ultra complex biological outboard motor that bacteria use to swim, which I had discussed in Darwin’s Black Box and which has becoming something of a poster child for intelligent design. No wonder, since anyone looking at a drawing of the flagellum immediately apprehends the design. Since the flagellum is such an embarrassment to the Darwinian project, Miller tries to distract attention from its manifest design by pointing out that parts of the structure can have functions other than propulsion. In particular, some parts of the flagellum act as a protein pump, allowing the flagellum to aid in its own construction--a level of complexity that was unsuspected until relatively recently. Miller’s argument is that since a subset of the proteins of the flagellum can have a function of their own, then the flagellum is not IC and Darwinian evolution could produce it. That’s it! He doesn’t show how natural selection could do so; he doesn’t cite experiments showing that such a thing is possible; he doesn’t give a theoretical model. He just points to the greater-than-expected complexity of the flagellum (which Darwinists did not predict or expect) and declares that Darwinian processes could produce it. This is clearly not a fellow who wants to look into the topic too closely. In fact, the function of a pump has essentially nothing to do with the function of the system to act as a rotary propulsion device, anymore than the ability of parts of a mousetrap to act as paperweights has to do with the trap function. And the existence of the ability to pump proteins tells us nil about how the rotary propulsion function might come to be in a Darwinian fashion. For example, suppose that the same parts of the flagellum that were unexpectedly discovered to act as a protein pump were instead unexpectedly discovered to be, say, a chemical factory for synthesizing membrane lipids. Would that alternative discovery affect Kenneth Miller’s reasoning at all? Not in the least. His reasoning would still be simply that a part of the flagellum had a separate function. But how would a lipid-making factory explain rotary propulsion? In the same way that protein pumping explains it--it doesn’t explain it at all. The irreducible complexity of the flagellum remains unaltered and unexplained by any unintelligent process, despite Darwinian smoke-blowing and obscurantism. I have pointed all this out to Ken Miller on several occasions, most recently at a debate in 2002 at the American Museum of Natural History. But he has not modified his story at all. As much as some Darwinists might wish, there is no quick fix solution to the problem of irreducible complexity. If they want to show their theory can account for it (good luck!), then they’ll have to do so by relevant experiments and detailed model building--not by wordplay and sleight-of-hand. |
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Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank headquartered in Seattle and dealing with national and international affairs. For more information, browse Discovery's Web site at: http://www.discovery.org. |
Behe's arguments have been blown to smithereens, on this thread and in the mainstream reviews I linked for you. "Read the book" does not pass muster as a rebuttal if you can't tell me what's in the book that no one has elsewhere addressed.
Now that's certainly true but for evolution to occur only the presence of an imperfect self-replicator is necessary. The origin of this self-replicator is not important.
In other words, the theory of evolution addresses the dynamics of the system and not it's initial conditions.
I know. Like I've said before, if you have no problems with the lack of an explanation of a necessary condition for biological evolution to even begin/occur, then there's not much else to talk about, no?
So, for example, we lost all the history of the first steam engines, they wouldn't exist?
Ther is quite a difference between knowing how a process works and knowing how the first instance of that process came to be. The process of evolution is ongoing, whereas the first cells left no fossils.
No. I heard your point, but perhaps you miss mine?
The necessary condition for evolution is the existence of imperfect self-replicators.
AND the esact existance of which is quite impossible outside of a miraculous event. Like I said, if this doesn't bother you, then there is no need for further debate.
Well, you could make that assertion; I wouldn't.
Ther is quite a difference between knowing how a process works and knowing how the first instance of that process came to be. The process of evolution is ongoing, whereas the first cells left no fossils.
There is also quite a difference between not being able to explain a process and a process that is an impossibility. If you have no problem with an impossibility as a necessary condition for the same theory your love and cherish so much, then I don't see what we further have to discuss. Do you?
Sez you.
I on the other hand think it's a bit too early to discard a natural explanation of the origin of these first self-replicators.
We know that complex organic molecules can form under certain conditions and which can even form larger structures. Also we are only at the beginning of examining possible pathways that could have given rise to these first replicators, so throwing your hands up in the air and declaring it a miracle is not an acceptable option IMO.
Watch closely or you might miss this . . . I never said "evolution" was impossible, but rather abiogenesis is impossible - a necessary condition for the beginning of the theory.
"Sez" me? Hardly! :-)
"Sez" Chemistry 101. Remember a little thing called "equillibrium" - it's the "monkey wrench" in abiogenesis thinking. Life exists as an incredible complex set of biochemical equilibrium rxns - all are interconnected - one rxn must exist for another rxn(s) to exist - take even one rxn away or let said rxn run its course to chemical equilibrium within the cell and you cease to live. Try building a system where you can control the exact concentrations of all few billion equillibrium rxns within a single cell, and maybe you could create your own life - sans this, life isn't going to happen, and if we can't force it, or anything close to it in lab, what makes you think an unintelligent biological soup got together what is chemically impossible?
If this isn't a problem for you . . .
There are a lot of possible scenarios on how even such simple biochemical systems can arise or how they can become more complex but at the moment our knowledge in this field is still very low, so declaring abiogenesis impossible and calling for a supernatural "explanation" is not justifiable IMO.
You, that's EXACTLY the same tactic that liberals use every single day...redefine the terms, so that they can win the PR wars.
Obviously, this proves that liberals are a product of evolution...while conservatives are obvioulsy created.
No it isn't. If Mars, for example, were "seeded" by us, the bacteria, lichens would certainly evolve, but abiogenesis would not have occurred there.
If Earth had been seeded with anything more complex than bacteria, that fact would show up in the fossil record. EG, it would abruptly end (really begin) with trilobites or algae or something.
So we're left with either the hypothetical designer made bacteria, or there is no such designer.
True
Evolution studies what is and how it works. For the moment you can have any theory you please as to how it started.
True
Even if we can set up the "super-Miller" experiment that starts with a bottle of inanimate gunk and produces a pussycat, we will not know the exact history of how live arose on this planet. Just as you will never know exactly, in complete detail, what happened to Nichole Simpson.
True one will never know in complete detail what supposedly happened a few billion years ago - no peer-reviewed journals. :-(
You can, however, say whether a Simpson theory is possible and plausible, or not.
True
However, my point has not been about "evolution" - of the universe or otherwise - but rather a simple statement about abiogenesis, and the impossibility thereof.
IMHO, you don't quite grasp the impossibilities of situation, you cannot "build" the biochemical and molecular basis of life simply by adding isolated feature/functions, because in a cell all features and functions, as a necessary condition, need other features and functions in order to work - the biochemistry is intimately tied together.
Really?! I would think that the impossibility of abiogenesis - anywhere (and abiogenesis "off-planet" creates more impossibilities than it solves - why do you think an "off-planet" origin of bacteria is necessary in the first place?) - would leave a bit more pause in the biological world - sorry, no cell, no evolution. It's quite simple, really, but grasp at straws if you must.
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