Editing Irreducible complexity (section)

==== 19th century ====
Chapter XV of Paley's ''Natural Theology'' discusses at length what he called "relations" of parts of living things as an indication of their design.<ref name="paley">[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A142&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 William Paley:''Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. Collected from the Appearances of Nature'' 12th edition, 1809] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430030715/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A142&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 |date=2008-04-30 }}</ref>

[[Georges Cuvier]] applied his principle of the ''correlation of parts'' to describe an animal from fragmentary remains. For Cuvier, this  related to another principle of his, the ''conditions of existence'', which excluded the possibility of [[transmutation of species]].<ref>See especially chapters VI and VII of {{cite book|first= William |last= Coleman |title= Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution Theory |url= https://archive.org/details/georgescuvierzoo0000cole |url-access= registration |location= Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher= Harvard University Press |year= 1964}} See also the discussion of these principles in the Wikipedia article on [[Georges Cuvier|Cuvier]].</ref>

While he did not originate the term, [[Charles Darwin]] identified the argument as a possible way to falsify a prediction of the theory of evolution at the outset. In ''[[The Origin of Species]]'' (1859), he wrote, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."<ref>[[Charles Darwin|Darwin, Charles]] (1859). ''[[The Origin of Species|On the Origin of Species]]''. London: John Murray. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=side&pageseq=207 page 189, Chapter VI] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930011159/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=side&pageseq=207 |date=2007-09-30 }}</ref> Darwin's theory of evolution challenges the teleological argument by postulating an alternative explanation to that of an intelligent designer—namely, evolution by natural selection. By showing how simple unintelligent forces can ratchet up designs of extraordinary complexity without invoking outside design, Darwin showed that an intelligent designer was not the necessary conclusion to draw from complexity in nature. The argument from irreducible complexity attempts to demonstrate that certain biological features cannot be purely the product of Darwinian evolution.<ref>See for example, {{cite book|first= Alan R.|last= Rogers|author-link=Alan R. Rogers|title= The Evidence for Evolution|location= Chicago|publisher= University of Chicago Press|year= 2011|isbn= 978-0-226-72382-2}} in pages 37–38, 48–49 citing Joseph John Murphy accepting natural selection within limits, excepting "the eye" with its multiple parts. {{cite news|first= Joseph John |last=Murphy|title= Presidential Address to the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society|journal= Northern Whig|location= Belfast|date= November 19, 1866|url= http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=image&itemID=CUL-DAR226.1.118-119&pageseq=1|url-status= live|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120718161404/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=image&itemID=CUL-DAR226.1.118-119&pageseq=1|archive-date= July 18, 2012}} and in page 48 citing {{cite book|first=C. |last=Pritchard|author-link=Charles Pritchard|title=The Continuity of the Schemes of Nature and Revelation: A Sermon Preached, by request, on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association at Nottingham. With remarks on some relations of modern knowledge to theology|chapter=Appendix Note A On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection|year=1866|pages=31–37|location=London|publisher=Bell and Daldy|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/continuityofsche00prit}}, especially page 33</ref>

In the late 19th century, in a dispute between supporters of the adequacy of [[natural selection]] and those who held for [[inheritance of acquired characteristics]], one of the arguments made repeatedly by [[Herbert Spencer]], and followed by others, depended on what Spencer referred to as ''co-adaptation'' of ''co-operative'' parts, as in: <blockquote>"We come now to Professor [[August Weismann|Weismann]]'s endeavour to disprove my second thesis—that it is impossible to explain by natural selection alone the co-adaptation of co-operative parts. It is thirty years since this was set forth in 'The Principles of Biology.' In §&nbsp;166, I instanced the enormous horns of the extinct [[Irish elk]], and contended that in this and in kindred cases, where for the efficient use of some one enlarged part many other parts have to be simultaneously enlarged, it is out of the question to suppose that they can have all spontaneously varied in the required proportions."<ref>Page 594 in: {{cite journal|first= Herbert|last= Spencer|title= Weismannism Once More|journal= [[The Contemporary Review]]|date= October 1894|volume= 66 |pages= 592–608}} Another essay of Spencer's treating this concept is: {{cite journal|first= Herbert |last= Spencer |title= The Inadequacy of "Natural Selection" |journal= The Contemporary Review |volume= 63 |year= 1893 |pages= 153–166}} (Part I: February) and pages 439-456 (Part II: March). These essays were reprinted in {{cite book|first= Herbert|last= Spencer|title= The Works of Herbert Spencer|year= 1891|place= London|publisher= Williams and Norgate|volume= 17}} (also Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1967). See also part III, Chapter XII, §&nbsp;166, pages 449-457 in: {{cite book |first= Herbert |last= Spencer |title= Principles of Biology |year= 1864 |place= London |publisher= Williams and Norgate|volume= I}} And: {{cite journal|journal= [[The Nineteenth Century (periodical)|The Nineteenth Century]] |first= Herbert|last= Spencer|title= The Factors of Organic Evolution |volume= 19 |year= 1886 |pages= 570–589}} (Part I: April) and pages 749-770 (Part II: May). "Factors" was reprinted in pages 389-466 of {{cite book|first= Herbert|last= Spencer|title= The Works of Herbert Spencer|volume= 13|location= London|publisher= Williams and Norgate|year= 1891}} (also Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1967)= volume 1 of ''Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative''.</ref><ref>One example of a response was in Section III(γ) pages 32-42 of {{cite book|first= August |last= Weismann |chapter= The Selection theory |pages= 19–65 |title= Darwin and Modern Science: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of The Origin of Species|chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.42056 |editor= [[Albert Seward]]|location= Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 1909}} See also Chapter VII, §&nbsp;12(1), pages 237-238 in: {{cite book|first= J. Arthur |last=Thomson|title= Heredity|url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.217008|place= London|publisher= John Murray|year= 1908|author-link= J. Arthur Thomson}} Both of these referred to what has become known as the [[Baldwin effect]]. An analysis of both sides of the issue is: {{cite book |first= George John |last=Romanes |title= Darwin and After Darwin: Post-Darwinian Questions, Heredity, Utility |volume= II |chapter= III: Characters as Hereditary and Acquired (continued) |pages= 60–102 |place= London |publisher= Longman, Green |year= 1895|author-link= George John Romanes }}</ref></blockquote> Darwin responded to Spencer's objections in chapter XXV of ''[[The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication]]'' (1868).<ref>{{cite book|title= The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication|first= Charles|last= Darwin|year= 1868|location= London|publisher= John Murray|chapter= XXV. Laws of Variation ''continued'' – Correlated Variability|volume= 2|pages= 321–338|chapter-url= http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?keywords=co%20ordinated&pageseq=236&itemID=F877.2&viewtype=text|url-status= live|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150925075611/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?keywords=co%20ordinated&pageseq=236&itemID=F877.2&viewtype=text|archive-date= 2015-09-25}} especially page 333 and following.</ref> The history of this concept in the dispute has been characterized: "An older and more religious tradition of idealist thinkers were committed to the explanation of complex adaptive contrivances by intelligent design. ... Another line of thinkers, unified by the recurrent publications of Herbert Spencer, also saw [[co-adaptation]] as a composed, irreducible whole, but sought to explain it by the inheritance of acquired characteristics."<ref>Pages 67-68 in: {{cite journal|first= Mark|last= Ridley|title= Coadapatation and the Inadequacy of Natural Selection|journal= British Journal for the History of Science |volume= 15|issue= 1 |date= March 1982 |pages= 45–68 |doi= 10.1017/S0007087400018938|pmid= 11610981|s2cid= 9704653|author-link= Mark Ridley (zoologist)}}</ref>

[[St. George Jackson Mivart]] raised the objection to natural selection that "Complex and simultaneous co-ordinations ... until so far developed as to effect the requisite junctions, are useless".<ref>{{cite book|title= On the Genesis of Species|url= https://archive.org/details/Mivart1871gk14P|first= St. George Jackson |last=Mivart|location= London|publisher= Macmillan|year= 1871|page= [https://archive.org/details/Mivart1871gk14P/page/52 52]|author-link= St. George Jackson Mivart}}</ref> In the 2012 book ''Evolution and Belief, Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist'', Robert J. Asher said this "amounts to the concept of 'irreducible complexity' as defined by ... Michael Behe".<ref>{{cite book|author= Asher, Robert J.|title= Evolution and belief: confessions of a religious paleontologist|location= Cambridge & New York|publisher= Cambridge University Press|year= 2012|isbn= 978-0-521-19383-2|page= 214}} See also Christian Faculty Forum at [[University of California, Santa Barbara|UCSB]], [http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/irreducible.html Irreducible Complexity] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018165943/http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/irreducible.html |date=2011-10-18 }} and the references cited there.</ref>