[...]
>
>Brian, you have made this point quite a few times, and have
>pointed out that the colloquial use of "complex" is quite
>different from the technical use of the term in information
>theory. This is unfortunate but important to keep in mind, of course.
>I never really thought about it before, and I have
>not read Mike Behe's book (Darwin's Black Box), but when
>Behe describes his concept of "irreducible complexity"
>is he using "complexity" in the colloquial or the technical
>sense? If it is the colloquial sense, this probably muddies
>the waters more than it clears them. Can you answer this?
>
>Thanks for your careful and clear posts!
>
Hmm... This is kind of tough to answer. First of all, when I
gave the mousetrap as an example of organization without
complexity I did have Mike in mind with my point being exactly
what Tim has already pointed out. The mousetrap is irreducible
but IMHO, not complex. Its hard for me to fault Mike on this
for two reasons:
(1) He's trying to explain a concept to a general audience and
thus needs a simple example. But there's a catch 22, how can
you have a simple example of complexity ;-). Perhaps it would
have been better to point out carefully that the mouse trap is
intended to illustrate the irreducible aspect of IC. I really
don't think Mike suffers from some delusion that a mouse trap
is an adequate analogy for a biological system in any other
respect, in particular in terms of its complexity.
(2) The biochemical/biological systems for which the mouse trap
is (perhaps) an unfortunate example really are complex. Now,
I cannot recall if Behe gives any precise definition of complexity,
but even if he doesn't I'm not particularly bothered by that.
This is not to say a precise definition is not needed. But suppose
someone did come up with some precise definition of complexity
according to which the systems Mike discusses are considered
non-complex. Personally, I would fault the definition rather
than Mike :). IOW, a test of any definition one would try to
arrive at is that it would render the systems Mike discusses as
complex.
Personally, I kind of like the terminology irreducibly complex
provided its left as a description of the intrinsic structure
of a system. We have a reasonable idea what complexity is. We
add to this the idea that some complex systems have parts which
interact in such a way that if one of those parts is removed
the system doesn't function. The problem as I see it is that
of trying to incorporate that which one wants to show into the
definition, i.e. to say that an irreducible system could not
have evolved into its current state. Let's leave that as a
separate issue. First we decide if there are irreducibly complex
structures in nature. We can then call this the fact of irreducible
complexity. Once this is established we can go about developing
theories as to how IC systems came into being.
OK, after having said all that let me take this opportunity to
rant and rave a little about what really bugs me. What really
bugs me is this argument that seems to be used uniformly by all
creationists. Science has no explanation about how such and such
could have arisen naturally, therefore such and such was designed.
Well, this is an extreme version of the argument. Some replace
"...therefore such and such was designed" with "this is very
strong evidence for design" or something similar. Besides this
being an enormously weak argument, it also strikes me as rather
odd considering the source. As I've tried to argue previously,
this argument contains a subtle form of scientism, i.e. inherent
in the argument is the idea that science is so almighty and powerful
that if a naturalistic explanation exists then science will find
it.
Related to this is the observation that the method employed as
the basis of the argument is none other than methodological
naturalism. i.e. it is by the principles of methodological
naturalism that one reaches the conclusion that science has
no explanation for such and such. Has anyone considered that if
the rules of science are relaxed, as most creationists insist
they should be, then their entire argument gets washed down
the drain? Also irritating is the use of arguments against an
opposing view which one doesn't consider to be fairly applied
to one's own position. It's kind of like playing a tennis match
wherein the net is lowered as we hit the ball and then suddenly
raised ten feet when the ball's in the other court. Hey, even I
could beat Jimmy Conners with them rules ;-).
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University
"It appears to me that this author is asking
much less than what you are refusing to answer"
-- Galileo (as Simplicio in _The Dialogue_)