Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T18:18:21.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Self-Organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems: A Reply to Shanks and Joplin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Michael J. Behe
Michael J. Behe*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some biochemical systems require multiple, well-matched parts in order to function, and the removal of any of the parts eliminates the function. I have previously labeled such systems “irreducibly complex,” and argued that they are stumbling blocks for Darwinian theory. Instead I proposed that they are best explained as the result of deliberate intelligent design. In a recent article Shanks and Joplin analyze and find wanting the use of irreducible complexity as a marker for intelligent design. Their primary counterexample is the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, a self-organizing system in which competing reaction pathways result in a chemical oscillator. In place of irreducible complexity they offer the idea of “redundant complexity,” meaning that biochemical pathways overlap so that a loss of one or even several components can be accommodated without complete loss of function. Here I note that complexity is a quantitative property, so that conclusions we draw will be affected by how well-matched the components of a system are. I also show that not all biochemical systems are redundant. The origin of non-redundant systems requires a different explanation than redundant ones.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 155 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, 111 Research Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015.

References

Behe, Michael J. (1996), Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Bugge, Thomas H., Kombrinck, Keith W., Flick, Matthew J., Daugherty, Cynthia C., Danton, Mary Jo S., and Degen, Jay L. (1996a), “Loss of Fibrinogen Rescues Mice from the Pleiotropic Effects of Plasminogen Deficiency”, Cell 87: 709–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bugge, Thomas H., Xiao, Qing, Kombrinck, Keith W., Flick, Matthew J., Holmbäck, Kenn, Danton, Mary Jo S., Colbert, Melissa C., Witte, David P., Fujikawa, Kazuo, Davie, Earl W., and Degen, Jay L. (1996b), “Fatal Embryonic Bleeding Events in Mice Lacking Tissue Factor, the Cell-Associated Initiator of Blood Coagulation”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 93, 6258–6263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles. (1859), The Origin of Species. New York: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Dembski, William A. (1998), The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Richard J. (1972), “A Reaction Periodic in Time and Space”, Journal of Chemical Education 49: 308–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldbeter, Albert. (1996), Biochemical Oscillations and Cellular Rhythms: The Molecular Bases of Periodic and Chaotic Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Peter and Scott, Stephen K. (1994), Chemical Oscillations and Instabilities: Non-Linear Chemical Kinetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kolter, Thomas and Sandhoff, Konrad (1998), “Glycosphingolipid Degradation and Animal Models of GM2-Gangliosidoses”, Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease 21: 548–563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nishikimi, Morimitsu and Yagi, Kunio (1991), “Molecular Basis for the Deficiency in Humans of Gulonolactone Oxidase, a Key Enzyme for Ascorbic Acid Biosynthesis”, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 54: 1203S–1208S.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schreckenberg, Michael and Wolf, Dietrich E. (1998), Traffic and Granular Flow. Singapore: Springer.Google Scholar
Scriver, Charles R. (1995), The Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease. New York: McGraw-Hill, Health Professions Division.Google Scholar
Shanks, Niall and Joplin, Karl H. (1999), “Redundant Complexity: A Critical Analysis of Intelligent Design in Biochemistry”, Philosophy of Science 66: 268–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, Milton T. and Bode, Wolfram (1994), “Coagulation Factors and Their Inhibitors”, Current Opinion in Structural Biology 4: 823–832.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sun, William Y., Witte, David P., Degen, Jay L., Colbert, Melissa C., Burkart, Melissa C., Holmbäck, Kenn, Xiao, Qing, Bugge, Thomas H., and Degen, Sandra J. F. (1998), “Prothrombin Deficiency Results in Embryonic and Neonatal Lethality in Mice”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 95: 7597–7602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyson, John J. (1994), “What Everyone Should Know About the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction”, in Levin, Simon A. (ed.), Frontiers in Mathematical Biology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 569–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar