Philosophy of Biology Cafe

I'm looking for interesting readings on "irreducible complexity" for a session on intelligent design in my phil bio course. I'm worried that there isn't enough meat in the pieces I've looked at so far (Behe's Darwin's Black Box and "Molecular Machines") to maintain an interesting discussion. If anyone has some suggestions, I'd very much appreciate hearing them!

thanks in advance!

Laura Franklin-Hall

Hi Laura!

I can certainly empathize, as I've struggled with readings for similar units in courses I teach. The problem I've run into is that the pro-Intelligent Design (ID) literature simply isn't very compelling, at least not to the standards we typically look to for philosophical (or biological) work. Much of the debate has taken place in non-academic settings and is primarily political; this has certainly affected the rhetoric and strategy of argumentation. The upshot is that ID proponents are pretty good at political rhetoric, though often at the expense of good philosophical or biological arguments (though that's not entirely accidental). It also means that a lot of the literature is from popular sources. The upside to this is that it's often very engaging, the downside is that the arguments are typically less developed.

I would recommend drawing from the popular literature, though you may have to make the case for ID where the ID proponents have not. Sahotra Sarkar does this in Doubting Darwin (which I'm using in my Phil Bio class), providing historical examples of new scientific theories that also required major changes in underlying metaphysical commitments. In doing this, he sets criteria by which to judge the ID challenge, and finds it badly wanting.

Ultimately I think you have to decide whether you want to tackle the political side of things, or simply look at the biology. Personally, I find the former generates a more interesting discussion, and can easily incorporate the latter.

That said, here are some things to consider looking at from Behe if you want something more systematic:

• Behe's Biology and Philosophy article, "Reply to My Critics: A Response to Reviews of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution"
• Behe's response to the Dover Trial ruling. I couldn't find it on the Discovery Center website, but if you email me I can send you a copy.

I'd also recommend H. Allen Orr's New Yorker article "Devolution: Why Intelligent Design Isn't", from May 30, 2005. It does a nice job explaining what's wrong with ID, and also discussing some of the underlying politics. Or consider Jerry Coyne's (2007) “The Great Mutator” The New Republic, June 18, 38-44. Both are popular pieces, but very good.

Anyhow, that's a start. I'd be curious what other people assign if they tackle the subject.

A short and fairly accessible discussion of the bacterial flagellum case:
M. Pallen and N. Matzke (2006) "From The Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella." Nature Reviews Microbiology 4: 784-790.