Congratulations to Mike for his book and for the forceful statement of
his argument, well summarized by Jim's glowing blurb!
I have my own take on Mike's thesis and hope to do a formal review of
the book at some point. Mike and I "debated" his point at the ASA
meeting at Bethel College in 1994. Here is the abstract of my
contribution. The full talk is now on the web at
http://mcgraytx.calvin.edu/evolution/irred_compl.html
Indeed, let the tremors begin!!!
TG
________________________________________
ABSTRACT
Complexity--Yes! Irreducible--Maybe! Unexplainable--No!
A Creationist Critique of the Irreducible Complexity Argument for
Intelligent Design
Irreducible complexity has long been used by Creationists as an
argument against evolution. The classic example is the origin of the
eye. It is hard to imagine how natural selection could have produced
in stepwise fashion such a complex system with so many interworking
parts; therefore such systems are explained by appeal to "intelligent
design".
The irreducible complexity argument has recently been advanced again
in the context of various systems that are observed at the cellular and
molecular level in organisms. Protein structure, cilia and flagella,
and protein targeting have been cited as examples of irreducibly
complex systems.
I will respond to the irreducible complexity argument in four ways.
1) The entire universe, as the product of God's creative and governing
hand, is designed, even when we can account for its various features
with scientific explanations. 2) Hemoglobin, the oxygen transporting
protein of the blood, is a complex molecular machine. Although
hemoglobin is a fairly simple system compared to a cilium, I believe
that comparative studies of hemoglobin at the protein and gene level
have suggested to us how such molecular machines might come about. 3)
The relatively new science of complexity theory may provide a
non-Darwinian solution to this problem. A property of complex systems
far from thermodynamic equilibrium is that order and new properties
arise spontaneously. 4) Premature appeal to special divine activity
to explain the world around us damages the Christian theistic
apologetic.
____________________________________________
> Let the tremors begin. Michael Behe's stunner of a book,
--Darwin's
>Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution--, is out now from
Free
>Press. Everyone who claims to be interested in and objective about
whether
>evolution is true needs to run out and get it. (I got mine via the
Internet's
>super bookstore, www.amazon.com)
>
> All this book does is show how Darwinism, basically a relic of
the
>19th Century, is blown apart by what Darwin (and even Richard Dawkins)
did not
>anticipate: the revolutionary field of biochemistry. We are able to
see life
>at the base level, something Darwin could never do, and what we find
there are
>numerous examples of life FRUSTRATING Darwinian explanations (here, we
must
>give a nod to Walter ReMine, who has argued the same thing in his
--The Biotic
>Message-- Vindication!)
>
> The reason this is so shattering to evolution is that people
like
>Dawkins have been saying for years that life LOOKS designed, but there
are
>naturalistic explanations for it. Even further, Dawkins has said if he
were
>ever shown even a SINGLE case of a complex organ that could not have
been
>formed by "numerous successive slight modifications," he would cease
to
>believe in evolution.
>
> Now, Behe has provided Dawkins with a whole bunch of them!
What we see
>at the biochemical level is "irreducible complexity," which means
something
>"composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute
to the
>basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the
system
>to effectively cease functioning."
>
> But how did these exceedingly complex systems, which look even
more
>intelligently designed than what Darwin or Dawkins saw, arise? It
challenges
>credulity to think that gradualism could do it (and Behe explains
why), and
>you can rule out punctuationism altogether.
>
> And you can do another thing: you can scan the scientific
literature
>till the cows evolve (ahem), and you won't find ANY paper offering a
testable,
>Darwinian scenario for the evolution of these complex systems. (Behe
has an
>entire chapter on this).
>
> This is truly where the "naturalism of the gaps" meets its OK
Corral.
>Post Behe, it can no longer plausibly be maintained that nature could
have
>done this. As Glenn Morton likes to say, we can't dismiss "what we see
with
>our eyes." And what we see is design, without any naturalistic
explanations.
>
> Behe has done nothing less than shift the entire playing
field.
>Evolution can no longer be discussed on the anatomical level alone.
Just think
>how this affects things like the fossil record:
>
><<<<[B]iochemistry offers a Lilliputian challenge to Darwin. Anatomy
is, quite
>simply, irrelevant to the question of whether evolution could take
place on
>the molecular level. So is the fossil record. It no longer matters
whether
>there are huge gaps in the fossil record or whether the record is as
>continuous as that of U.S. presidents. And if there are gaps, it does
not
>matter whether they can be explained plausibly. The fossil record has
nothing
>to tell us about whether the interactions of 11-cis-retinal with
rhodopsin,
>transducin, and phosphodiesterase could have developed step-by-step.
Neither
>do the patterns of biogeography matter, nor those of population
biology, nor
>the traditional explanations of evolutionary theory for rudimentary
organs or
>species abundance.>> [DBB, pg. 22]
>
>
> So what are we left with? Intelligent design theory, of
course. Behe
>spends a couple of chapters on this, explaining and then dealing with
some of
>the standard objections (e.g., pseudogenes, vestigial organs, the
argument
>from imperfection, etc.) These chapters are brilliantly done. Just as
>perspicacious is his final chapter on the philosophic and
psychological
>reasons "science" has such trouble with intelligent design. It is a
matter of
>"scientific chauvinism" and "understandable emotion," but facts are
facts and
>we need to be grown up about them.
>
> Science once "disturbed" some cherished religious beliefs, and
we had
>to deal with it. Now, science is disturbing the cherished beliefs
surrounding
>evolution. We must deal with those as well.
>
> Humanity, concludes Behe, can certainly endure the opening of
Darwin's
>black box.
>
>
>Jim
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt
*This mission critical message was written on a Macintosh with Eudora
Pro*
A special message for Macintosh naysayers:
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