Irreducible Complexity ... for the rest of us!

An Irreducibly Complex Organism ... which exists within some of the "simplest" bacterial cells [Click on the picture to see and read its labels more clearly!]

No doubt, many -- if not most -- of you have read something or other about the debate ongoing as to whether "intelligent design theory" should or should not be taught alongside "evolution theory." (And yes, I know that evolution theory is taught as a "fact" in most textbooks and classes at the high school and below level).

Well, I pondered the problems inherent in Darwin's Theory of Evolution as early as in the late 1950s when I majored in, among other disciplines, biology. My thinking while an undergraduate student at Western Reserve University in Cleveland was admittedly sophomoric, but I was particularly bothered by (1) the evolution of life itself and (2) the in-between species.

Only recently when I read the book, Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe, did I even think about how irreducibly complex organisms came into existence. Darwin himself said it best in his famous book, Origin of Species, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down ..."

The bacterial flagellum, shown above, is a perfect example (in my opinion) of an organism that meets Darwin's conditions. Take away any "part" of the organism ... and the remaining parts won't do ... anything! It would be like taking the hammer or the spring or the holding bar or the catch or the platform away from a simple mousetrap. The remaining parts would do nothing and thus, we might state unequivocally that the mousetrap was designed through some sort of "intelligent" process ... and didn't evolve from wood from trees and metal mined (or not mined) from the earth.

Other such organisms are the DNA molecule; the retina, pupil, cornea, iris and optic nerves in our "vision apparatus" -- the human (or any mammalian) eye; the cilium; and ... the list goes on and on. Interestingly, these organisms are taught carefully and honestly at the university level -- without resorting to the Theory of Evolution, but it is against the law in many school districts to even mention intelligent design (with or without a mention of some sort of Supreme Being or God as the "designer") alongside evolution theory when discussing the "origin of living organisms" -- let alone, entire species.

Of course, I was trying to conceive the development of the wings on butterflies and moths back in the 1950s and then just "accepted" the Theory of Evolution as the answer to all such questions as I pushed on towards a Doctorate in Engineering.

Then I picked up Behe's book (Darwin's Black Box) earlier this year and all of that "engineering" knowledge paid off in spades! Behe's arguments were largely engineering in nature, just as Demsky's (also arguing for some theory of intelligent design --or simply "ID") were largely mathematical -- oh yes, mathematics was the major of one of my Master's Degrees.

But school boards all see ID as "religious" in nature and Darwin's Theory of Evolution (which requires a great deal of "faith" to accept carte blanche) as "science."

But then we do live in a peculiar world, don't we?