Behe's Irreducible Complexity Squared

Joseph Mastropaolo (mastropaolo@net999.com)
Thu, 03 Sep 1998 13:59:04 -0700

With regard to Stan Zygmunt's inquiry on Behe's irreducible complexity,
I offered a short summary explaining the impossibility of even a part of
a living structure "evolving" because nothing functions or has any use
without all the parts which must be structurally and functionally
interfaced according to a unique blueprint and all of this requires
complex nanoengineering.

That was a simplified summary because the parts mentioned are composed
of proteins by the scores of thousands and each protein has a unique
blueprint of usually more than 100 (50 to 1000) amino acids of which
there are about twenty to choose from. So each portion of a part, the
protein, is composed of scores, perhaps hundreds, of subparts or
building blocks, the amino acids, and there are twenty different kinds
of building blocks which must also be flawlessly selected, sequenced,
joined and made to function according to a unique blueprint. The first
paragraph renders a superficial description properly known as
irreducible complexity. This slightly deeper look may be called
irreducible complexity squared.

And this isn't the whole story either. The further we go, the greater
the complexity and the more incredible the level of nanoengineering
required for even one cell. In my opinion, Behe's book is one of the
most powerful refutations of "evolution" to come along in the last 100
years.

Note. I put "evolving" and "evolution" in quote marks because the idea,
more than 2,000 years old, exists and has existed only as a fallacy.

Joseph Mastropaolo