It's been a while since I talked about an argument from god, but I'm back. This argument is an extension of the teleological argument for the existence of god, but it's presented as an actual biological/ chemistry argument. This is perhaps the "most rigorous" form of the teleological argument in that they have mocked it up to look like legitimate science even going so far as to establish their own Journals to publish scientific-looking papers. I'll admit that I found this argument compelling when I was younger, because it was proposed in such a manner. Yet looking back at it as an adult I think this was just because I went to a private school that taught the "failures of evolution" rather than the actual science.
What is it?
As part of the other teleological arguments the main idea is that the universe could not be as we see it today without a creator/ intelligent designer. Specifically this argument is that certain organ systems are "irreducibly complex." The main idea here is that all of the parts of an organelle need to come into existence at once for functionality and this would not make sense under the evolutionary model of slow incremental changes.
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- Behe
Michael Behe
Is one of the best proponents of this hypothesis/ argument, and for the purposes of this Take we're just going to look at his works as it covers all of the arguments that I think are germane to the topic. Behe is an American biochemist and professor at Lehigh University. Lehigh University I would like to point out is a private Christian institution in which the professors will, "teach in ways respecting the evidences of Christianity." With that pointed out I want to add a caveat that apparently this is an incredibly rigorous institution, but I have to wonder if this theological background has provided a bit of a safe-haven for theories like Behe's despite repeatedly being denounced within the academic community. Behe is also a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. We'll now look at his arguments/ examples.
Mousetrap
The mousetrap example is good for understanding the general argument being proposed. The mousetrap has 5 pieces working together for the purpose of catching a mouse. It has a base, a catch, a spring, a hammer, and a hold-down bar. The removal of a single piece of this mousetrap means that it can no longer work for its intended function. Of course the problem is that there is an inherent assumption that these pieces are intended for the function of catching mice. These same pieces could be used to make a keychain, a toothpick, a paper clip, etc.
Eye
The eye is one of the most frequently quoted examples to defend the idea of irreducible complexity.
"greatest challenge as an example of superb 'irreducible complexity' in God's creation" -Sarfati
They will often point out that even Darwin himself stated,
"to suppose that the eye ... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree - Darwin
The problem here being that they are either intentionally misquoting (lying) Darwin, or are parroting someone who did so. This was a rhetorical device used by Darwin and he went on to describe exactly how natural selection could account for the formation of an eye. In fact, I think it was on the very same page that he did so. Regardless, we know that in fact the eye is not actually an irreducibly complex system. We actually appear to have a very good idea of how the eye came to develop. Starting with light sensitive cells, then invagination, etc.
Flagellum
Lastly we come to what I remember to be Behe's prime example of irreducible complexity. The rotary flagellum noticed in some bacterium is quite complex. It involves 40 different proteins all working together to have the desired function and the removal of just one of these proteins results in a nonfunctioning (rotary) flagellum. This claim has since been contested by Rajagopala and his colleagues in The Protein Network of Bacterial Motility in which they pointed out that in fact proteins could be removed and the flagellum would still work, albeit with decreased functioning. Additionally, as pointed out before with the mousetrap example this assumes that the function of a flagellum as being used to increase motility. We know that this is not the case as the T3 secretion systems of certain bacteriophages use their flagella to inject others and only share 10 protein parts in common.
Conclusion
The idea of irreducible complexity appears to be a baseless hypothesis on the point of ID theorists and they don't even bother to look into the literature within their own field. Additionally, the theory appears to by necessity sneak in an invalidated assumption that is integral to the entire argument, namely they are presupposing that the organ had some purpose intended for it. The purpose and intention are things that have to be demonstrated, not just assumed.
This actually went far faster than I thought it would... I think I did a decent job of getting across the ideas I wanted to... I may do another myTake tonight though because this took me less than an hour to write and I still have 6 hours to kill at work.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Criticism appreciated.
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