Irreducible Complexity.

[leo-rcc]

Allow me to speed this along if I may.

"irreducible complexity" was actually first posited not by Behe, but by the evolutionary biologist Hermann Joseph Müller in 1918. He didn't actually invent the term, but he certainly invented the concept, which first appeared in the following scientific paper:

Genetic Variability, Twin Hybrids and Constant hybrids in a Case of Balanced Lethal Factors by Hermann Joseph Müller, Genetics, 3(5): 422-499 (1918)

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...id=1200446

Scroll down to page 464, and read on to near the end of the first paragraph of page 465, which reads as follows (relevant part highlighted in bold):

Hermann Joseph Müller wrote:Most present-day animals are the result of a long process of evolution, in which at least thousands of mutations must have taken place. Each new mutant in turn must have derived its survival value from the effect upon which it produced upon the 'reaction system' that had been brought into being by the many previously formed factors in cooperation; thus, a complicated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was dependent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different elementary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which, when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary because other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become changed so as to be dependent upon the former. It must result, in consequence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery.

This was placed on a rigorous footing by the 1930s, which means that evolutionary biologists have known Behe's canards about "irreducible complexity" to be canards for over six decades, which means that "irreducible complexity" as posited by Behe was dead in the water among real scientists before Behe was born.

Thence we come to the Müllerian Two Step which as the TalkOrigins link states, is represented by the following:

[1] Add a component;

[2] Make it necessary.

Which of course means that "irreducible complexity", as well as first being proposed as a concept by an evolutionary biologist, was also proposed not as a problem for evolutionary biology, but as a natural outcome of evolutionary processes. Behe has failed to recognise that he was pre-empted to his "big idea" by an evolutionary biologist 80 years before he started selling his soul to that speciation variant of creationism that has been caught stealing a lab coat, Intelligent Design.

Of course, the limits of Behe's canards extend beyond the misappropriation of Müller's work for creationist ends. Another more insidious canard that Behe propagates is the specious notion that any evolutionary change necessarily requires that the organism carrying the mutations must be optimal at every stage of the transition to the final state otherwise it will die. This is manifest nonsense - all that is required is that the mutations are insufficiently deleterious to impair the organism's ability to produce descendants. Even a mildly deleterious mutation, if built upon at a later stage by a second mutation whose effect, when synergistically coupled to the first, is one of net benefit, will suffice for the task.

Evolution doesn't require that every organism functions with Rolls-Royce elegance and finesse from the word go: it merely requires that organisms function sufficiently well to produce descendants, even if that functioning happens to be the result of, to continue the automotive analogy, a cut-and-shut job involving the front half of a Pontiac Aztek and the back half of a Ssangyong Rodius, which as any regular visitor to the Car Talk website in the States will know, are listed as being among the most hideous cars ever to take to the road.

But they function as cars. The hideous cut-and-shut vehicle I described above would be a crock, and I wouldn't want to drive one, but someone with a taste for dangerous living might find it suffices until such time as something less likely to be lethal turns up at the local car lot at an affordable price. Likewise, an unstable crock of mutations, if it functions well enough to produce descendants, can provide evolution with an unexpected opportunity if the right mutations turn up and produce something far more robust and elegant from the inauspicious beginnings.

Behe, however, mendaciously insists otherwise, despite the fact that mountains of evidence known to the real scientists refutes his duplicitous bait and switch wholesale. His notion is tantamount to suggesting that the cut-and-shut crock of a car I've described above would never work, and the only cars that would ever function would be the pristine products of Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Bugatti, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. Millions of lesser cars that do enough to get by make a mockery of that notion, and likewise, millions of lesser organisms that do enough to get by make a mockery of his insidious lie, that evolution can't achieve anything substantive because it can't produce the biological equivalent of a Bugatti Veyron at every step.

Evolution doesn't need to, and in any case Behe's assertion itself may yet be falsified further if scientists alight upon an evolutionary sequence in some organism at some future stage that delivers just that - a Bugatti Veyron at every stage of the process - in which case the amount of humble pie he will be required to consume will probably prove lethally toxic. Of course, the scientists don't need to deliver such a discovery, but oh, the joy we will all have seeing Behe's nonsense made even more absurd by observational reality should the scientists do just that!

With thanks to Cali for pointing out the scientific papers and links and helping me make sense of things.