Irony and Comedy Live Together in Mike Behe

In 1996, at the tail end of the 20th century, a biochemist named Michael Behe published a book in which he reveals an idea that he describes (in a fit of uncharacteristic humility) as only being one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last 100 years (cue triumphant music). It really is an amazing idea; amazing because it points scientists to God. (Disclaimer: does not necessarily point scientists to God. *wink*)

This amazing idea was apparently less amazing when it was first presented to the world eighty years earlier by someone else. Perhaps because that older version was (ironically?) more correct. I'll get to that later.

Anyways, we've got our irony: the new discovery is not only not new, it's also not as correct as the original.

Now let's actually look at Behe's Big Idea. It's quite simple. Because evolution (those of you who like to think that your love of authority is easily transferable to others - via the process known as projection - likely know it as "Darwinism") works in a purely additive process, any structure that ceases to function when a part is removed cannot have come about through evolutionary processes. He calls this Irreducible Complexity. It's complexity that can't be reduced to any simpler form and still work. See? Simple.

Except evolution isn't purely additive!

Okay, let's go back eighty years prior to Behe's Black Box, to 1918, when geneticist Herman Muller came up with a strikingly similar idea that he called Interlocking Complexity. It even sounds very similar to Irreducible Complexity! However, it has one very important difference: a key component known as subtraction. It states that since living things have become built up with their parts in interaction with each other, changes that increase functionality in a redundant way can become necessary when their additional functionality makes older parts superfluous and are eventually removed.

As a simple analogy, let's say you have two rocks. One is good for hitting and the other has a sharper edge useful for cutting. One day, your hitting rock shatters on one side, leaving that one side just as good as the sharp rock at cutting. So you throw the cutting rock away, because the combo rock is capable for both tasks. According to Irreducible Complexity, you must have always had the one double-purpose rock because if you lose one aspect of it, you never had that functionality.

Another analogy is arch-building. Until the keystone is put in place, the rest of the arch will fall. So how are they made? With an extra part to hold everything up until the keystone is added. This extra part is called a centring. Once the arch is complete, the centring is removed and the arch becomes Irreducibly Complex! You can't remove anything without it all falling down.

So where's the comedy? Well, the comedy is really just more irony... which may or may not be ironic. (Paging Doctor Morissette...) It turns out that while evolutionary processes may be Interlockingly Complex and not Irreducibly Complex, one's understanding of evolutionary processes seems to actually be Irreducibly Complex. Behe's understanding of it is lacking a key component (more irony: subtraction) and it has ceased to function.

Ha!