Why the creationist argument that “irreducible complexity” disproves evolution is utter nonsense
Irreducible complexity refers to a system (e.g., a living organism) in which the various parts work together to produce a given function, such that the function will not occur if any of the parts is removed. Creationists claim irreducible complexity disproves evolution.
Evolution refers to the natural adaptation of a species to its environment over time, usually going from a more simple or basic form to one that is more complex or advanced. In other words, evolution refers to genetic specialization over time, as time moves forward.
Unlike the case with evolution (progression from simple to complex as time moves forward), irreducible complexity starts with a highly evolved, complex organism and proposes to work backwards in time, subtracting pieces. “Look,” the creationist will say, “if we turn time backwards, by subtracting pieces from a complex organism, the organism will stop functioning. Therefore, evolution is disproved.”
Oh really? If evolution is about genetic progression (from simple to complex) as time moves forward, and irreducible complexity is about genetic regression (from complex to simple) — essentially going backwards in time — then isn’t it obvious that evolution and irreducible complexity have absolutely nothing to do with each other? Far from disproving evolution, irreducible complexity is a total non sequitur. The essence of the creationist “irreducible complexity” argument is that evolution can’t run backwards, therefore evolution is disproved. What utter nonsense.
- Why does “irreducible complexity” sometimes demand a creator and sometimes not?
- Yet another flaw in the creationist argument
- Don’t re-invent the wheel when you next hear a creationist claim
- Attacking Paley’s argument: How clock parts CAN assemble themselves into a functioning clock.
- Does evolution explain human nature?
I assume that the reverse path, one of merely subtracting out phenotypic pieces, is likely a different path then the forward path, not merely a reverse path. Traits can come and go on the way “up,” serving as scaffolding for further development, then disappearing (I’m thinking of nonfunctional eyes found in cave animals who were not always cave animals, for example).
Climbings Dawkins’ Mount Improbable, that slow grade on the backside of the cliff is a different path than jumping off the cliff in an attempt to see things in reverse.
That term “progress” is the thorny part. It’s so easy to think in those terms, but it’s misleading, and that’s where debates between Creationists and evolutionists bog down. “Complexity” does not equate to Progress, which is culturally loaded to mean “toward something better.” If you grant that notion, then it gets harder to teae apart the nonsense from the factual arguments. “Better” implies advancement toward a goal and that leads to a Plan which implies a Planner.
Better is the arguing in opposition to entropy, which is where all creationists trip up. Entropy applies (in the simplest terms) to closed systems, wherein complexity always dissolves over time. Earth and its environment are not closed systems. The energy required to drive variation comes daily from the sun in virtually limitless supplies (for our purposes) which drives competing biomes which intrude on each other and over time results in higher complexity.
The problem creationists have with this is that it leaves out entirely the idea that Human Beings are the pinnacle of so-called Creation. To admit that there is no “progress” or “goal” is render us just one more species that can be (and probably will be) replaced by something else.
Not only is the reverse path of “irreducible complexity” very different from the forward path of evolution, but the creationists even go one step even deeper into absurdity. They don’t merely replace one of the highly-evolved “complex” body parts with a less evolved part, they eliminate the part altogether. That’s what they mean by “irreducible complexity” — that each body part is so well integrated with the other body parts to form a unified whole that you can’t eliminate any one of the body parts without also losing the functionality of the unified whole. It’s like saying, “See, if we hack off one of the hind legs on that kangaroo over there (in their example, creationists use the spiral tail of a bacterial flagellum), then it can’t jump anymore and will quickly be killed by dingo dogs; therefore, the roo must have been designed by an intelligent creator and we have disproven evolution.” Obviously, amputating one leg of a kangaroo would be very bad news for the roo, but it would prove nothing at all about evolution nor even about so-called “intelligent design.” Irreducible complexity is merely one of several efforts by creationists to cloak their religious beliefs with science. I suspect that’s why they use the bacterial flagellum as their example rather than, say, a kangaroo — because flagella are familiar only to microbiologists, so it makes their example (and, thus, the notion of irreducible complexity) seem like a recent scientific discovery. The truth is that irreducible complexity is not a new concept at all; creationists just keep tarting it up with newly-discovered critters to try to give new life to their ridiculous, worn-out argument.
Let’s apply this concept to an evolution that we have seen happen in our own lifetimes — Microsoft Windows.
We can start with PC-DOS, a rudimentary operating system that worked on only one machine. It evolved into MS-DOS, that worked on only one type of machine. Then it evolved into Windows 3.1, with more features that made the PC more successful. Then there was Windows 95, that abandoned the 16-bit constraints in favor of 32-bits, though it still maintained 16-bit compatability (consider it a vestigial organ). By Windows ME, 16-bit compatability had been abandoned. Somewhere along the line Internet Explorer, Outlook, Media Player, and others — that had previously been standalone applications — became assimilated so deeply into the OS that, when anti-trust charges were leveled at Microsoft, they claimed that Windows had “irreducible complexity”; that removing Internet Explorer, for example, would cause the OS to stop functioning.
If it is assumed that Microsoft’s claim of irreducible complexity was true, does that prove that Windows didn’t evolve from PC-DOS?
Also, every example of irreducible complexity that the ID nuts have cited– bacterial flaggelum, blood clotting cascade, and others– fails when placed under REAL scientific scrutiny. A pointless nonsequitur in itself, irreducible complexity does not even exist.
Jason’s comment raises a couple of new points I’d like to follow-up on. The first is the tendency of creationists to play word games in their effort to insert a Plan (and thus a Planner) into nature, by suggesting that evolutionary change over time (usually toward increased genetic complexity) is equivalent to “progress toward a goal” or something that is “better” than what came before. But, as Jason points out, evolution involves no such value judgments. Species simply adapt to their environments while, correspondingly, environments adapt to their resident species. Over time, this mutual adaptation tends to increase the complexity of both, because survival tends to favor species that find specialized niches or, more broadly speaking, species that find increased symbiosis with other species. We see a similar adaptation process in human careers: jobs have become more specialized as work environments have become more complex, and the interaction of the two keeps driving both toward greater complexity. Does this imply “progress” toward a “goal,” or that humans (or other species) today are any “better” than our ancestors? Of course not. We are merely the current crop struggling to survive and reproduce in today’s environment. Ironically, many Fundamentalist Christians seem to burn with a belief that humans today are *worse* than our ancestors (witness their many attempts to reject modern life and return to yesterday’s lifestyles), but that too is merely their own value judgment. Neither nature nor evolution necessarily involve a species making “progress” toward a “goal, or becoming “better” in any absolute sense. Indeed, increased complexity and specialization cannot be said to be “better” in any absolute sense, because they usually carry with them an increased risk of obsolescence and extinction (as we have seen in both nature and human jobs).
As regard’s Jason’s second point, indeed creationists often trip themselves over the concept of entropy. Their entropy argument is just another red herring, which they use to try to cloak their argument with the words of science (just like irreducible complexity). Their argument usually goes like this: entropy (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics) states that the Universe (or any other closed system) tends toward chaos, but evolution says living creatures tend toward greater complexity (which is the opposite of chaos); therefore, evolution must violate entropy. Of course, as Jason points out, this creationist argument is nonsense, because entropy refers to a closed system (i.e., a system into which no energy is added), but life on earth is not in a closed system: the earth continuously receives energy from the sun, and this energy is what drives the evolution engine. Thus, contrary to the creationist argument, evolution does not violate entropy.
(Note: creationists also try to refute evolution on the basis of the First Law of Thermodynamics; namely, conservation of matter and energy. They argue that the Big Bang theory of how the Universe began represents a spontaneous creation of matter and energy, which violates the First Law of Thermodynamics. The obvious error in their argument is that humans know nothing about the quantity of matter and energy that existed before the Big Bang, so there is no way to know if the Big Bang conserved matter and energy, or not. Thus, their argument is nonsense. For more creationism-busting arguments, visit this excellent website: .)
I’m sorry, for some reason the blog blanked out another of my web links, so I’ll try again. This is the website for more creationism-busting arguments:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/index.shtml.
Just an observation about grumpypilgrim’s last point (First Law of Thermodynamics). We don’t know from whence all this Stuff came from, we can only surmise. Note, whenever a scientist or a scientifically-oriented persons says “We Don’t Know”, it is the practice of the fundie to stick God into that space.
One result of this would be–could be–the response that “Well, according to that, you mean to say that God is a Gray Area?”
“Creationists are still trying to salvage irreducible complexity. This generally involves a bait-and-switch game. Today, for example, the Discovery Institute tells us that the evidence of dolphins does not touch the argument for irreducible complexity. See, what you have here are two different irreducibly complex systems, with one that just happens to have an extra part. Just think about bicycles…”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/12/30/oh-no-ive-seen-the-impossible-my-eyes/