I am going to re-post a note I did back in 1996. The very same argument
you just made can be made about the world's economy. If you remove a
piece, it doesn't work. Yet we KNOW from history that the economy evolved
to its present irreducibly complex state. The irreducible complexity
argument is not very good.
Here it is:
There has been much talk about biological irreducibly complex systems on
these
lists of late. Let me through this out.
Consider our economic system. It is an extremely complex phenomenon. I find
oil and gas to heat your homes, power your cars, make synthetic fibers for
your clothes etc. Others grow food for my family, smelt steel to make cars
that I drive, fly airplanes so my son can visit me at Thanksgiving, heal me
when I am sick etc. Each discovery of science has created entirely new
industries and niches for people to earn their living. When I was born there
were only a few computers in research departments. Today we have entire
groups
of people making their living by marking 1's and 0's on magnetic media. This
industry did not exist just 50 years ago. In addition we now have people who
spend their entire days making hard disks, computer chips etc. This system
which we call our economy is irreducibly complex. If you remove any part, the
whole ceases to function.
Consider what would happen to the world if no more iron were mined. This
would mean no cars, no oil wells, no planes, no refrigerators, no trains and
no electrical generation.
Consider what would happen to the world if no farming is done. Nothing in our
economy would survive and most of us would die.
Consider what would happen if teachers were forbidden to teach anymore. The
economy would collapse within a few years.
Consider what would happen if computer chips were taken away. The newest
airplanes like the 767 would be unable to fly, rockets would be unable to
send
satellites into orbit. Much of the world's money (which is accounted for in
computers now) would disappear. No one would have any proof of whose money
was whose. I would be unable to find oil. Ships would be unable to navigate
the seas since they all use GPS now and fewer and fewer people are able to
use
the sextant.
Consider what would happen if astronomical knowledge were removed. Navigation
would go out the window. Without navigation trade would cease. Oil from Saudi
Arabia and Prudhoe bay would not get to our shores in sufficient quantities
to
power our cars. No cars and trucks and the harvest of wheat in the Great
Plains could not get to the baker, but then he would have to go chop down
trees to bake your bread because I can find no oil and natural gas if I can't
get steel pipe delivered by trucks. Satellites which fix on a given star to
help keep the antenna pointed at earth would be unable to do so and
communication satellites would be useless.
[sarcastic mode on]
What this proves to me is that the design people are absolutely correct. This
extremely complex economy was designed by some one. It is irreducibly
complex;
remove one part and the whole crumbles. There is absolutely no way that the
economy could have arisen gradually from a simple hunter-gatherer society.
Now we just need to decide who did the designing.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm