Family Holloway

A fascinating transcript of a trial in which biochemistry professor Michael Behe is called to testify about a Creationist idea called Irreducible Complexity: the suggestion that some things in nature are too complex to have evolved from simpler forms. Irreducible Complexity is positioned against Evolution.

Irredicible Complexity is little more than pointing out something unknown, and others have called it an “argument by lack of imagination”. Behe has given some specific examples including the eye (a mediocre piece of design in humans), and bacterial flagellum which is a simple biological motor.

Here’s the court testimony in which Behe undoes his own argument:

Q. Just for some more foundation. In the first paragraph, it says, Intelligent design’s leading scientist, Dr. Behe, a professor of biochemistry, visited the U, which I understand to be the University of Minnesota, last week as a guest of the McLauren Institute, and that, in fact, did occur?

A. Yes, I visited Minnesota as a guest of the McLauren Institute.

Q. And if you could turn to the third page of the document. And there’s some discussion on that third page about the bacterial flagellum and the type III secretory system?

A. Yes.

Q. And Mr. Kurzinger makes his own observation about the type III secretory system being a subset of the bacterial flagellum?

A. I’m sorry. Could you say that again?

Q. In the paragraph that begins, much to Dr. Behe’s distress –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor, that’s hearsay. He’s pointing to a paragraph for the truth of what’s in the statement.

THE COURT: Well, it’s sustained to the extent that you’re going to read it. He can read it and put it into context.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. Could you read the paragraph that says, much to Dr. Behe’s distress?

A. Out loud, or –

Q. Please.

A. Okay. This paragraph says, Much to Dr. Behe’s distress, the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum. That’s right, a part of the supposedly irreducible bacterial outboard motor has a biological function.

Q. And I’m not going to ask you about whether you were distressed or not. But the next paragraph then says that he asked you about this at lunch, correct?

A. That’s what it says, yes.

Q. And you did have lunch that day?

A. We had lunch, and I recall a conversation about this, but again, I don’t recall many details.

Q. Okay. And according to Dr. Kurzinger, you acknowledged that the claim that –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor. He’s referring to an editorial, and he’s trying to recount this as an exact conversation. Dr. Behe doesn’t have recollection of what occurred. This article has no relevance.

THE COURT: The next paragraph starting with, when I asked Dr. Behe, I think, is where you’re going.

MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.

THE COURT: Why don’t you go right to that, as it’s expressed there, instead of trying to paraphrase it.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. It says, When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch, he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct. Paren, I have witnesses. He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.

My question here is, is Mr. — Dr. Kurzinger’s account that you agreed that the claim that the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum, did you agree to that?

A. I don’t recall, but I would, if I was going to answer it very carefully, I would make a lot of distinctions before saying so.

Q. Okay. But you don’t recall whether you said that or not?

A. No, I don’t.

Q. Okay. And then you go on to say that you still think — well, I’ll leave that. Your argument is that, even if the type III secretory system is a pre-cursor to the bacterial flagellum, is a subset, the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex because that subset does not function as a flagellum?

A. That’s correct, yes.

Q. And, therefore, the bacterial flagellum must have been intelligently designed?

A. Well, again, the argument is that, there is — that when you see a purposeful arrangement of parts, that bespeaks design, so, yes.

Q. And yesterday, you testified that, that doesn’t mean the bacterial flagellum was necessarily designed, appeared abruptly in one fell swoop, correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Could have been designed slowly?

A. That’s correct.

Q. So under this scenario, at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all of its parts until the design was completed?

A. Could you say that one more time?

Q. Yeah. Under this scenario of slow design — which was what I experienced with my kitchen — at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all its parts until the design was completed?

A. That’s right.

Q. And so without all its parts, it wouldn’t be functional?

A. That’s right. Not as a flagellum, yes.

Q. So that is a phenomenon in both intelligent design and natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Q. In slow design, the bacterial flagellum has some prior existence, it doesn’t have all its parts, right?

A. Well, if — until it has all its parts and it starts functioning, I guess it’s problematic to call it a flagellum.

Q. It has some subset?

A. I guess things that will eventually be part of the flagellum would begin to appear, yes.

Q. Just not function like a flagellum?

A. Yes, the system would not yet function as a flagellum.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m sorry.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Our submission’s introduction reads “Today, a large proportion of interactions with copyrighted material involves personal use through personal computers and devices with internet connections. It is fair to say that, in turn, a proportion of these interactions involve infringement of copyright. Understandably, there is much debate as to how to interact with the new paradigm of creation and distribution that the internet represents. Some have responded to this new digital era by seeking to extend the scope of copyright, and the methods of its enforcement, so that existing ways of creation and distribution are protected, if not privileged. We do not share this view.”

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I was recently asked by a NZ primary school student to help explain evolution for a 5 minute presentation. Naturally I told them that I’m not qualified but I gave them some pointers to youtube videos about it, and I provided the following speech. I had to make some generalizations but I tried to be accurate and here’s what I sent her:

You might have heard people say you look like your parents.. perhaps you have your mother’s eyes, or father’s ears. When you were in your mother’s womb you grew your eyes and ears from a recipe called DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid, which tells bodies how to grow. DNA is a recipe for life, and all living things on earth use it to grow and reproduce. Trees have DNA and so do all animals. Human children are all the result of about 50% of our parents DNA with 100 to 200 mutations, which is why we look a bit like each of our parents. Because of your parents DNA and those 100-200 mutations your DNA is unique (unless you’ve got a twin).  Little bits of DNA is in all parts of our bodies.. in our blood, our muscles, and our hair. If a crime scene had DNA that was like yours but not quite the same then it would mean that the DNA was from someone in your family.

A poodle is a weird animal that didn’t exist 500 years ago. Dogs are domesticated wolves, and since people began breeding wolves we’ve been able to breed them into poodles, chihuahuas, and other hairy and hairless dogs. Someone trying to make a friendly dog would just breed friendly dogs together to get friendly dog DNA. Someone trying to make a small dog would breed the smallest dogs together to get small dog DNA. People breed dogs, horses, birds, and all kinds of plants. People breed all kinds of life on earth, and what they’re controlling is DNA. A scientist named Charles Darwin wondered if people could make such a massive change to dogs by breeding them then could nature do it too? In wild forests would weak animals get food, or would the strong get food? If there was a strong animal would it have more children? What Darwin discovered was that nature had a natural ability to breed… to naturally allow the smartest and strongest to survive. About 150 years ago he wrote a book that explained this and it was called “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”

What Darwin discovered is that just like dog breeders being able to encourage the growth of small dogs, nature had been breeding all life on earth for a long time. Dogs can be bred to the size of chihuahuas in a few hundred years, but nature had been doing it for millions of years. About 200,000 years ago there weren’t any people, but there were hairy apes. The weakest and dumbest apes didn’t have as many children as the strongest and smartest, and with those mutations that we talked about earlier those apes eventually became humans. Before apes were fish that breathed air called lung fish. and before that were fish in the water. Life keeps changing shape and adapting. So all life on earth is related in a big family tree that looks like this

This is called Evolution, which is a fact and a theory about how every life form is related and how different species of plants and animals arose. Although some people don’t believe in Evolution they have never been able to prove it wrong and infact Evolution has mountains worth of evidence.