Irreducible Complexity is an Obstacle to Darwinism Even if Parts of a System have other Functions

Discovery Institute ^ | February 18, 2004 | Michael J. Behe

[Junior]

The late creo Freeper, Little Boy Blue (not his real handle), used to love the platypus. Of course, he actually thought the animal had a real duck bill, and thus was a chimera and proof positive that creation occured. No amount of evidence to the contrary could sway him from this fervently-held belief.

[whattajoke]

*shudder*

I was actually gonna ask AndrewC to refrain from that coler earlier today, but forgot about it.

[Heartlander]

OoooooK, His argument is I find the peer-reviewed articles "vague" (Translation: I don't or don't want to understand them especially in light of the fact I'm making so much $$$ off of suckers) so it must be God.

Mike Gene is making money off of suckers? Wow, someone better inform him about this…
From his webpage:

Point of Clarification: Some people have expressed interest in seeing this page updated more frequently. The majority of the arguments/hypotheses found on this web page were spawned very late in the night, as I usually sacrifice sleep to keep the teleological ball rolling. Because of many other obligations in life, ID Thinking is something I reserve for spare time, an intellectual hobby.

Warning: Buyer beware. The internet is loaded with all kinds of kooky theories and arguments and who can say I am any different? My advice would be simply this: don't trust me as any type of authority and balance my views with those who don't agree with me. If you are interested in origins, learn as much biology as possible and then attempt to arrive at your own informed conclusions about the arguments presented on this site and elsewhere. And grains of salt come in handy.

Gene seems like a honest gentleman. Now, before you go half-cocked into another kooky money making conspiracy theory, maybe you should consider Miller’s stake in all of this…

[Dimensio]

Of course, he actually thought the animal had a real duck bill,

You ... you mean that it isn't a real duck bill?

[js1138]

Lost thread found placemarker

[whattajoke]

I'll agree, Mr. Gene sounds like an honest (for once) ID'er. here's how I read that:

Point of clarification: I'm full of crap.

Warning: I really want you to know I'm full of crap.

(Behe, OTOH, is making money off of suckers).

[Heartlander]

Mike Gene's comments are telling. He backpedals from the original point of the mousetrap argument once it's disproved, going from "the flagellum must have been intelligently designed" to "we don't know that it came about through step-by-step processes, so we should still consider intelligent design."

It’s interesting that you responded to post #27 this way. Mike Gene is quoting in his sixth paper what he originally stated in his first paper. He appears to be consistent.

In other words, his whole argument comes down to "you can't prove that it didn't happen this way!", which is not science.

I agree that "you can't prove that it didn't happen this way!" is not science, which is exactly what my problem is with methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism. They have put science into a naturalistic box and we are literally dealing with "you can't prove that it didn't happen this way!"

[js1138]

Behe is changing his definition of "irreducible complexity" again.

Breaking News: ID evolves!

[Heartlander]

What is your beef? Scroll down to the bottom of the paper and look at the sixty-some-odd references.

[Ichneumon]

You ... you mean that it isn't a real duck bill?

Technically, it's a duck invoice.

[Junior]

Bubba, my "beef" was about your going off on your "peer-review" rant.

BTW, regardless of the number of references, the question is -- are those to who he referred being represented fairly? Or, does the author, like some on these threads, pick and choose parts of others work that might seem (out of context) to support the author's assertions.

On a last note. Peer-reviewed papers are "original" works, not some literary compilation with footnoted references to others' works. Peer-reviewed works must contain original research, complete with enough detail to allow others to reconstruct that research. Herein may lie the rub for IDers: there is no such thing as original research in the ID community. IDers rely on parsing the works of others to hunt for tidbits that might support an ID position. This would be why no ID work ever appears in a peer-reviewed journal -- there is no actual research to be reconstructed.

[Junior]

Well, at least you avoided violating the "post no bills" rule...

[whattajoke]

On a last note. Peer-reviewed papers are "original" works...

Very, very well said. Should be cut and pasted many times in the future.

And yeah, speaking of Little Boy Blue, remember his online opus linking literally hundreds of scientific papers which fully supported evolution which, in his mind, somehow "proved" it wrong? That always left me bewildered.

[js1138]

How would you do original ID research? What would make it different from the standard procedure of asserting the null hypothesis?

[Dimensio]

It’s interesting that you responded to post #27 this way. Mike Gene is quoting in his sixth paper what he originally stated in his first paper.

I'm well-aware that he was quoting one of his previous works. You did format your post appropriately, it was not ambigious.

He appears to be consistent.

Consistent with what? Handwaving and diverting attention from the fact that the "mousetrap" example has been debunked?

I agree that "you can't prove that it didn't happen this way!" is not science, which is exactly what my problem is with methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.

Explain. Give examples.

[Heartlander]

Bubba? I responded to this:

Don't be a snot. Popular articles on science need not be peer reviewed, though they should be based upon peer-reviewed works.

Again, what is your beef? Scroll down to the bottom of the paper and look at the sixty-some-odd references. Complaining that something might be misquoted or misrepresented is moot until you do this… Bottom line.

[Heartlander]

Explain. Give examples.

The cosmos, DNA, consciousness and… pssst, this article (you believe something has been debunked because… ; )

[frgoff]

If you read Behe's book, you'll find that he has no hostility toward Darwinism and NeoDarwinism at all. He simply states that the current models cannot describe irreducibly complex systems.

Of course, this is a true statement, which is why there have been two types of responses to Behe: Calling him a nutcase, or trying to demonstrate that irreducible complexity does not exist in biological systems.

Behe's definition of irreducible complexity has remained consistent (read his book), and so far, the only way people have been able to prove one of his systems reducible is to change his working definition. A definition, by the way, which was NOT arbitrarily obtained. It is a definition that resulted from an OBSERVED weakness in the Darwinian model of natural selection.

Behe basically said: If a system X exists, it cannot have come about through natural selection. He then discovered numerous systems X. That's a point many people fail to recognize. It just isn't the flagellum. He also cites gated transport systems, mammalian blood clotting and a few others that escape me at the moment.

The reason that Behe publishes in the creationist papers and sites, is because they are the only ones that will accept his work, despite the fact that his theoretical models and arguments are sound and supported. I don't wonder that he's become slightly bitter toward the evolutionist crowd of late.

[balrog666]

He simply states that the current models cannot describe irreducibly complex systems.

[SNIP]

Behe basically said: If a system X exists, it cannot have come about through natural selection. He then discovered numerous systems X.

He is an uncommon conman. He has provided several examples of what he calls "irreducible complexity". In each case, he has been shown to be wrong.

Furthermore, he has never shown that his personal ignorance of evolutionary processes or mechanisms is a meaningful metric for biological studies or scientists in general.

[Ichneumon]

[The poster nicknamed Mr. LLLICHY (more commonly known as AndrewC) wrote:] And for a component to "remain" around it must be maintained,

That overstates the case, but I'll let it slide, since the larger errors in this post greatly overshadow this one.

so will it will be either unchanged due to its criticality for its present function(maximum fitness and "unavailable" for cooption) or be driven towards criticality for that function(seeking maximum fitness and "unavailable" for cooption) as predicted by Darwinian evolution.

It never ceases to amaze me how often the creationists on these threads grossly misrepresent what is actually "predicted by Darwinian evolution". I'm often left wondering whether they're ignorant of the field, or dishonest about it. But neither option inspires confidence, and they could of course be both.

This part of LLLICHY's post is so riddled with errors it's difficult to know where to begin.

Error #1: Note the rhetorical sleight-of-hand in the middle of the sentence, which magically changes from talking about how a component must be *useful* enough to be maintained, to (abracadabra) being *critical* and thus so indispensible that the organism can't survive without it performing its current function. Presto, chango, nothing up my sleeve! Nice try, but while it's (generally) true that components aren't retained (for extremely long periods, anyway) unless they perform *some* useful function, that's ENTIRELY different from presuming that all retained components or features are "critical" to the existence of the organism and could not possibly be turned to another use without making the organism unviable. For example, the protruding external ear on humans is *useful*, but not *critical* -- we could continue to live without them, hearing through a simple hole in our heads into the ear canal like birds do.

Error #2: The above passage presumes, incorrectly, that a component must have one-and-only-one function (and that it is "locked into" performing that one function, as explained in #1). Nonsense. Even gradeschool children can spot the flaw in this (so what's LLLICHY's excuse?) What child does not know that the human nose is used for respiration *and* smelling? And most high-school students know that the nose also performs filtering (nose hairs catch airborne debris before they reach the lungs), heat exchange (air is warmed by blood vessels in the nose before it reaches the lungs, protecting the lungs from cold damage), moisturizing (turbinates in the nose release moisture into the incoming air so as not to dry out the lungs), and so on.

Error #3: Conversely, LLLICHY (incorrectly) presumes that a component "must" be locked into its one "critical" function because if it ceases to perform that function, there won't be anything else to "fill the need". Again, even a child knows better. For example, the nose is used for breathing -- but the mouth can be too. Biological systems are replete with examples of redundancy and duplication of function.

Error #4: Not only do different components often perform or contribute to the same function, but the *same* component can diverge and go down *two* functional pathways, one of which continues to perform the original function while a "copy" is co-opted to some other use. This mechanism, gene duplication, has been known and studied since at least the 1960's. I'm sorry that LLLICHY is more than three decades behind on his reading in this field. Perhaps he might want to come up to speed before he attempts to critique this topic again. Through gene duplication, the descendants inherit *two* (or more) copies of the gene for the feature they code for. Initially both copies simply crank out copies of the feature as usual. However, the key point is that if one mutates or is selected in some other direction (e.g. to some other function), there's no problem, since the *other* copy of the gene continues to fulfill the original function. In short, the "spare" copy of the gene is *entirely free* to evolve away from the original function towards something else, since the other copy is still present. For just one real-world case out of literally thousands, see for example Positive Darwinian selection after gene duplication in primate ribonuclease genes.

Error #5: LLLICHY launched into this fallacious argument just days after he had already been informed of the flaws in it. Selective amnesia, or intellectual dishonesty? From this post of mine in response to his same mistakes six days ago:

First, stubbornly sticking to the "cars can only go to one destination" aspect of the flawed analogy not only doesn't "answer" RWP's point, it ignores *his* point, which is that fitness involves the fine-tuning of *multiple* functions in an organism, not just one-and-only-one.

Second, the whole "one car on one road" analogy is fundamentally flawed as a model of genetic evolution on several counts, the primary one being that due to gene duplication, genes most certainly *CAN* and *DO* go down "two (or more) roads at once" without having to "abandon" the "original destination" (i.e. current function). And even without gene duplication, a single copy of a gene can perform more than one function, yet again making the "single car" analogy ludicrously unsuitable and grossly misleading as a mental model of genetics and evolution.

And lest he attempt the "oh, I must have missed that reply" excuse, I'd like to point out that he posted replies in a thread which was entirely devoted to the topic of gene duplication: Genome Evolution | First, a Bang Then, a Shuffle , so he *is* well aware of the mechanism. Why, then, does he pretend not to be aware of its consequences to his "components are locked into to one function" argument here? Inquiring minds want to know.

Error #6: Not only is LLLICHY wrong on the facts, and using a bait-and-switch argument, but he's wrong about what is "predicted by Darwinian evolution". Not only does the modern field of evolution not match his straw-man version of it, but even *Darwin's* original presentation of evolution explicitly predicted the opposite of what LLLICHY claims it predicts. Rather than predicting that components must be "driven to criticality", Darwin actually predicts that they can remain free to change function:

Numerous cases could be given amongst the lower animals of the same organ performing at the same time wholly distinct functions; [my point #2 -- Ich.] thus the alimentary canal respires, digests, and excretes in the larva of the dragon-fly and in the fish Cobites. In the Hydra, the animal may be turned inside out, and the exterior surface will then digest and the stomach respire. In such cases natural selection might easily specialise, if any advantage were thus gained, a part or organ, which had performed two functions, for one function alone, and thus wholly change its nature by insensible steps. Two distinct organs sometimes perform simultaneously the same function in the same individual; [my point #3 -- Ich.] to give one instance, there are fish with gills or branchiae that breathe the air dissolved in the water, at the same time that they breathe free air in their swimbladders, this latter organ having a ductus pneumaticus for its supply, and being divided by highly vascular partitions. In these cases, one of the two organs might with ease be modified and perfected so as to perform all the work by itself, being aided during the process of modification by the other organ; and then this other organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose, or be quite obliterated.

The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration. The swimbladder has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fish, or, for I do not know which view is now generally held, a part of the auditory apparatus has been worked in as a complement to the swimbladder. All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is homologous, or 'ideally similar,' in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there seems to me to be no great difficulty in believing that natural selection has actually converted a swimbladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for respiration.

-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859.

LLLICHY is over 140 years behind on his understanding of evolution's predictions, apparently. And so is Behe, for the same reason.

Six major errors in one sentence (seven if you count the one I let slide). Impressive.

And as Behe makes clear, you build a straw man and knock it down by your mischaracterization of his argument.

Untrue. Steve-b's summary of Behe's core argument is entirely accurate (see below). Anyone who disagrees is free to present their own version of "Behe's argument" (instead of just sob, "is not!") so that we can A) compare it against what Behe actually wrote, and B) see if that version holds any water either.

Premise two is a false representation of his argument.

No. Here is premise two from Steve-b's post: "2)possession of only a subset of those parts conveys no advantage and thus is not preferred by natural selection". Compare to Behe's own words:

Irreducible complexity is just a fancy phrase I use to mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to cease functioning. [...] An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. [...] Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on.

-- Michael Behe, "Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry: From a speech delivered at Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference

That's exactly what Steve-b's shorter version says. Where's the alleged "straw man"?

He again has clearly stated above "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."

This is just Behe trying to have it both ways, and in the process invalidating his first argument. Hardly convincing.

Compare these two claims from Behe:

Claim A: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. ... Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on."

Claim B: "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."

A or B -- pick one, you can't have both. Well, not and be intellectually honest, you can't.

Either natural selection doesn't "have anything to act on" until the component is completely finished (claim A), *OR* it *does* have something to act on in the form of the functional-for-a-different-purpose subcomponents (claim B).

They're mutually exclusive.

If Behe wants to admit the truth of claim B -- and he knows he has to -- then he must abandon claim A. But he hasn't. Thus the criticisms against his self-defeating argument.