Plants and animals are composed of fantastically complex organs, organelles, and sub-cellular systems. It isn’t just that we are an unfathomably complex machine, we are composed of many ingenious and intricate biological and bio-chemical machines.
The problem for Darwinists is that much of our biochemical and biological machinery is “irreducibly complex.” By the term “irreducibly complex” we mean that if a biological mechanism consists of five components, and all five are necessary for the mechanism to carry out its function. In other words, the machine only works if all five of the component parts are present.
Assuming that individual components do not convey any survival advantage, then it does the organism no good to have one, two, three, or four of the components. The organism is only benefited—given a survival advantage—if it has the working mechanism, which needs all five components.
The difficulty irreducible complexity poses for the copying error theory of evolution should be obvious. The theory postulates that a mutation that conveys a survival advantage on the organism will be preserved and spread rapidly throughout the breeding population. But how could a mechanism with five necessary components evolve in a step-wise fashion if none of the first four components conveyed any survival advantage? Even if a mutation created one, two or three component parts of the machine, it would not convey a survival advantage and would not be preserved, much less spread throughout the entire population of the species.
The past half-century of discoveries in cellular biochemistry have made this problem far worse than it was previously imagined to be. In Darwin’s day, and even in 1930s and 1940s, when the Neo-Darwinian theory was being hammered out, life at the cellular level was largely unknown—a “black box.” But we now know that life at the sub-cellular level is full of fantastically complex biochemical mechanisms.
Michael J. Behe discusses this fact, and the problem it poses for the theory of evolution, in his book, “Darwin’s Black Box.” Mechanisms like the blood-clotting cascade, which must work perfectly to prevent death, are composed of many different proteins all working together. None of these proteins can be dispensed with, or the clotting mechanism will fail.
It is difficult to imagine, never mind to demonstrate, how these systems could have evolved in a step-wise fashion. Yet to suppose that a single mutation created all components simultaneously is to invoke a miracle; it is equivalent to rejecting the Darwinian and embracing a Creator God.
Below is an excellent, well produced series of short videos, averaging around six minutes duration, in which Michael Behe discusses the insuperable obstacle that irreducible complexity poses for the modern theory of evolution.
The first short videos tells how Behe became interested in problems in Darwin’s theory. He read Michael Denton’s 1985 book, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” and he realized that well trained and capable scientists had concluded that the modern theory of evolution cannot actually explain what it claims to explain. Denton’s book, which I also have read, is excellent, one of the finest critiques of evolutionary theory ever written. (I note that an updated version, “Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis” was published in 2016 and is available on Amazon for $10.00 as a Kindle download.)
In the second video, Behe discusses his favorite example of a simple irreducible mechanism, the mousetrap. It has five parts that all have to be present for the device to work: (1) the platform, (2) the hammer, (3) the spring, (4) the holding bar, and (5) the catch. Take any one of the parts away and the mousetrap is useless. The bacterial flagellum is another of Behe’s favorite examples. It is like an outboard motor on a boat.
In the third video, Behe discusses how mutations are believed to make the changes in animals and humans:
In part 4 of the series, Behe discusses how mutations are genetic copying errors, genetic mistakes, which result in the loss of genetic information. Mutations actually degrade the genome, sometimes these genetic mistakes help the organism in its environment. For example, the genetic instruction to make brown pigmented fur on a bear gets broken, but the resulting white fur is advantageous camouflage for a bear living in an arctic, snow-covered environment—hence the white fur of the polar bears.
There are plenty more examples. Two examples of “beneficial” mutations invariably cited are bacterial resistance to antibiotics and insect resistance to insecticides. Some cases of antibiotic resistance are due to spontaneous mutations that alter the bacteria’s DNA just enough so that antibiotics can no longer poison them. Mycin-type antibiotics, for example, work when the mycin attaches to a matching site on the ribosome[iii] of a bacterium and prevents the bacterium from assembling necessary amino acids. As a result, the bacterium makes the wrong proteins and cannot grow, divide, or propagate.[iv] If the bacterium has a mutation that alters the site where the mycin would normally bind, the drug can no longer interfere with protein production, and the bacterium has become resistant to mycin.
But scientists have found that mutations that make bacteria resistant to mycin degrade their ribosomes. The mutation makes the ribosome less specific and slower in translating RNA codons into protein.[v]
A similar effect has been noticed in insects. The insecticide DDT works when a molecule of DDT binds to a matching site on the membrane of an insect’s nerve cells, preventing the nerve cells from functioning properly. Eventually, when enough of the insect’s nerve cells have DDT molecules bound to them, its nervous system breaks down and it dies.
A mutation that changes the site of the nerve cell at which the DDT molecule would normally bind prevents it from binding and renders the insect resistant to DDT.[vi] Here again, however, scientists have noted that resistant insects are less active and slower to respond to stimuli than are nonresistant insects. Their resistance to insecticide is bought at the price of a more sluggish nervous system.[vii] Thus, as with other known mutations, the mutations observed in bacteria and insects are degenerative changes, but in these cases the degenerative change saves the organism from the poison.
In part 5, Behe states that the existence of so many irreducibly complex biological machines speaks of purposeful creative activity, and indicates an unimaginably intelligent designer.
There are several more of these high-production-value videos, but we will save them for another day. For now, we can safely conclude that irreducible complexity is an insuperable difficulty for the theory of evolution via random genetic copying errors. Yes, genetic mutations can explain many small differences between various individuals and species of the same basic type of creature, but they cannot explain the appearance of new complex biological machinery. Such machinery clearly indicates a superintending creative intelligence, i.e., a Creator God.
Professor Behe’s website is MichaelBehe.com. His most recent book is “Darwin Devolves.”
[i] Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution at 181; see also Spetner, Lee, Not by Chance! (Brooklyn, NY: The Judaica Press, 1997), pp. 138, 139.
[ii] Wells, at 182.
[iii] When our cells produce protein, a process similar to replication produces a modified copy of DNA called “messenger RNA.” A ribosome then moves along the messenger RNA, translating the three-letter codons into a different alphabet that specifies the twenty amino acids. The specified amino acids are then brought in order, each by a different version of a molecule called “transfer RNA,” and each is attached to the last to form a chain in the same order as the codons in the DNA. At the end of this process of concatenating amino acids, a protein has been formed. It is insane to believe that this intricate, information processing mechanism assembled itself.
[iv] Spetner, Lee, Not by Chance! (Brooklyn, NY: The Judaica Press, Inc., 1997), p. 139.
[v] Spetner, at 144, citing Gartner, T.K. and E. Orias “Effects of mutations to streptomycin resistance on the rate of translation of mutant genetic information,” Journal of Bacteriology, vol. 91, pp. 1021-1028 (1966).
[vi] Spetner, at 143.
[vii] Spetner, at 144, citing Rowland, M.W., “Fitness of insecticide resistance,” Nature, vol. 327, p. 194 (1987) (Rowland, who worked for the Crop Protection Division in Great Britain, comments, “Insecticide resistance genes give such an enormous advantage in the presence of insecticide that what would otherwise be quite major disadvantages might count for little.”).
BONUS VIDEO: Here is Behe being interviewed by Eric Metaxas about his book, “Darwin Devolves.” Yes, I posted this four years ago, when the book first came out, but if you missed it then, it is worth a look.