Sunday, August 30, 2009

Darwin's Black Box: The Law of Irreducible Complexity.


All of the credit for this concept goes to Michael Behe, a brilliant Lehigh University biochemist and author. His most famous work was "Darwin's black box." This is highly recommended reading to anyone who is searching for the truth or looking for material to debate against the ever-eroding theory of evolution.

Behe's most notable idea is what he calls "Irreducible Complexity." This idea theorizes that "a single system which is composed of several 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." I know this can be hard to digest initially, but bear with me. Darwinian evolution says that today's animal world (including the "human animal") is the product of "numerous, successive, slight modifications" over countless millions of years. If this were true, at any point in the evolutionary process living things would contain systems and characteristics at all different stages evolution. BUT if these characteristics could only function at full development, how does the organism survive until evolution finally gets it right? That's easy; It's impossible! According to Darwin's own idea of "Natural selection" any characteristic that is not necessary or does not function correctly is discarded!

Consider a mouse trap. If you were to remove the platform, lever, spring, striker, or bait, the mouse trap would no longer be a mouse trap. It would be a collection of parts that had no function. Take Behe's example: the Bacterial Flagellum. You remember that little single-celled organism with that long hair-like tail. That tail is called a "flagellum." The bacteria cannot survive without the flagellum because the bacteria relies on movement to move food in and waste out. If we apply irreducible complexity to the bacteria, we see that the flagellum is a complex system involving the tail itself and the motor to drive the tail's motion. If it took thousands or even millions of years for the flagellum to evolve before it became a working model, how did the bacteria survive all those years without it? Irreducible complexity basically says that the bacteria would have died and become extinct because it's very existence required a fully-functioning flagellum. Darwin's idea of numerous, successive, slight modifications over incredible periods of time simply does not have an answer for irreducible complexity.


If you do some Internet research, you'll find a few professors and scientist who are brave enough to even acknowledge the idea of irreducible complexity. Most evolutionists conveniently don't talk about things they can't explain. Sadly, those that are still clinging to the idea of evolution don't make an honest effort to diamante the idea of irreducible complexity or even offer an original counter-idea themselves. They rely on the good old "Red Herring" defense. They mock, they call names, and they scoff, but none of them offer a reasoned defense. Like my favorite professor used to say, "A scoff does not amount to a refutation." (Thane Ury)

If you are resolved to enter into the discussion on evolutionary theory you will be subjected to vicious personal attack. I believe there are one of two reasons for this: 1) even the most brilliant scientists can become most irrational when confronted with something they can't explain, so they sling mud. 2) So many are committed to the Theory of Evolution because it eliminates the need for God, which is a convenient idea for anyone who does not like the idea of a higher power telling them how to live their lives.

The Apostle Paul exhorts all of us to "always be ready to give a defense" for what we claim to believe (II Timothy 3:15). There is a huge difference between accepting something to be true and really believing something to be true. How can you tell if you really believe something? Try explaining it to someone else.

If you can't articulate what you believe, then do you really believe it???

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Science requires positive evidence that biological complexity is intentionally designed. The so called "law of irreducible complexity" is no evidence.

“Bicycles have two wheels. Unicycles, having only one wheel, are missing an obvious component found on bicycles. Does this imply that you can remove one wheel from a bicycle and it will still function? Of course not. Try removing a wheel from a bike and you’ll quickly see that it requires two wheels to function. The fact that a unicycle lacks certain components of a bicycle does not mean that the bicycle is therefore not irreducibly complex.”

Unknown said...

Read a complete analysis of the main premise of this book at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html

IdahoJoe said...

Vlad, a unicycle is a functional whole as much as a bicycle is...Try removing the spokes from a unicycle or a bicycle, however, and both will fail with even half of them in place or missing. You're not comparing apples to apples. If the reproductive system in a woman were missing even a portion of the "spokes" necessary for the whole to reproduce, it would not function. The point of irreducible complexity is that it is impossible for a whole to function until all the "spokes" are in place. Therefore, reproductive systems which are irreducibly complex would be impossible to function and therefore would die in a single generation unless the whole were to develop in a single generation. In other words, if you look at a unicycle as a reproductive system and then tore it apart completely down to the nuts, bolts, and spokes...and then slowly began to put it together, the unicycle would be useless until it was all put together. Likewise, so is the reproductive system of a woman. It would be impossible for reproduction to occur before the whole was complete. We would have had to gradually developed such organs over time while all along reproducing asexually until, in a single generation, male and female began instantaneously to switch from asexual to sexual reproduction. Hence, evolution in mankind is foolishness.