July 21, 2009
Fallacies of the “Reducibly Complex Mousetrap”
Virtually every introduction of Intelligent Design invokes Michael Behe’s idea of “irreducible complexity”, which states that some systems depend on multiple parts to work together and missing any one piece results in no functionality at all, rather than reduced functionality [1]. This all-or-nothing nature of such systems, Behe argues, cannot be developed through “numerous successive, slight modifications” as Charles Darwin theorized.
Among more complicated biochemical systems, Behe cites a mousetrap as an example. On his website [2], a picture of the mousetrap illustrates the five essential parts, a hammer, a spring, a catch, a holding bar and a platform. He argues that any missing piece renders this mousetrap useless. Therefore, in order for random mutation to produce such a system, it must come up with all the necessary parts and assemble the system at the same time. This becomes prohibitively difficult for complex systems. For example, the flagellum of a bacterium has more than 30 parts, and it is just a small part of the organism.
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