The world is full of complex biological systems (for one example see below):
Here is a brief overview of the biochemistry of vision. When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)
GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.
Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=51
Creationists believers, scientists (and ID proponets) point to the origin of such complex machinery (composed of many interworking componet parts) as evidence of /and or best explained as being the result of intelligent design. (Specific scientific arguments -such as probablity studies have also been provided for the origin of various biological items.)
Some evolutionists however claim that such an argument is logically invalid because for example "if design requires a designer -then the the designer himself would also require an even more complex designer ad infinitum, thus requiring an infinite regression of designers."
The problem with such an evolutionist argument is that it based on a misunderstanding/ misrepresentation of the design argument.
What they fail to take into account is that the design argument has always meant to deal specifically with directly observable items that 1.) are believed to have an origin and 2.) specific types of complexity (for example -machine like complexity-composed of componet parts- such as the vision system example provided above).
Since there is nothing in the design argument that requires the designer (wich creationists acknowledge to be God) to 1.) have an origin and/or 2.) an analogious type of complexity )such as machine like complexity composed of componet parts), there therefore is nothing in such argument that necessitates an infinite regression of designers.
Nor is it "special pleading" to "exempt" an eternal God (with no origin-who is also not believed to be composed of mechanical componet parts) from a such "design argument"- since the "design" requirement/and or "evidence of design" argument was only meant to deal with with observable items that have certain characteristics (such as an origin, ect.), and was never meant to even begin to deal with other types of entities that don't have such characteristics (such as non-mechanical existence).
The following (from a review of Dawkins) gives the same points:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4900/
The fact that Dawkins’ critiques of many carefully argued and long-standing arguments for God’s existence are dealt with in very few pages tells us more about the power of his own self-belief than the soundness of his refutations. For instance, arguments that invoke Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Unmoved Mover’ and ‘Uncaused Cause’ (or similar) are plain wrong, he says in a blatant ipse dixit, 7 because the implied/explicit infinite regress must also apply to God himself (p. 77–78) (although philosophers argue cogently that only that which has a beginning needs a cause).
Chapter 4 ‘contains the central argument of my book’, says Dawkins, and he gives a useful six-point summary of it (pp. 157–158). To précis this yet further: It is tempting to explain design using the watchmaker analogy but this is false because the Designer then needs an explanation (again misconstruing the designer as having a beginning in the first place, as well as explaining away the fact that God is not composed of different parts). Ergo, natural selection is the only option and we ‘can now safely say’ design is merely an illusion. An ultimate origin (i.e. of the universe itself) awaits a better explanation but the multiverse theory is favoured by Dawkins, even though the alleged other universes are not observable even in principle, so it is hardly a scientific theory. ‘We should not give up hope’ of finding ‘something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology’ to explain cosmology. That is basically all there is to the book’s central argument and anyone conversant with Dawkins’ previous writings (e.g. Climbing Mount Improbable) will find nothing novel here. 8
He does engage with Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity 9 —though very weakly indeed. After quoting from Darwin, he concedes,
‘The creationists are right that, if genuine irreducible complexity could be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin’s theory. … But I can find no such case. … Many candidates for this holy grail of creationism have been proposed. None has stood up to analysis.’ (p. 125)One wonders how thoroughly Dawkins has explored each case of claimed irreducible complexity. For instance, his attempt at a refutation of the bacterial flagellum motor is straight out of Kenneth Miller’s discredited book Finding Darwin’s God, an argument that is as fallacious as it is audacious. 10 Surprisingly he even gets his facts wrong, claiming that:
‘The flagellar motor of bacteria… drives the only known example, outside of human technology, of a freely rotating axle.’ (p. 130)‘It has been happily described as a tiny outboard motor (although by engineering standards—and unusually for a biological mechanism—it is a spectacularly inefficient one.’ (pp. 130–131)On the contrary, Dawkins is apparently ignorant of the F1 ATPase motor, 11 direct observations of the rotation of which were published in Nature in 1997; that same year, several scientists shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this discovery. Also, the bacterial flagellum motor is 100% efficient at cruising speed. 12 Such errors hardly inspire confidence.
It’s notable that Dawkins says he recommends Miller’s book to Christians—showing clearly how he treats theistic evolutionists as ‘useful idiots’ who undermine their own faith.
In fact, his insinuation of a ‘god of the gaps’ mentality grossly misrepresents the argument for irreducible complexity. Far from being an intellectual cop-out (‘we can’t imagine how this complexity was produced so God must have done it’), design is the only credible scientific explanation for certain data based on what we do know—it is precisely for this reason that non-theists and agnostics have joined the ID movement.
However, no matter how powerfully a case can be made for irreducible complexity, Dawkins will then appeal to his final ‘clincher’ argument:
‘…the designer himself (/herself/itself) immediately raises the bigger problem of his own origin. …Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.’ (p. 120)Aside from the fallacy pointed out already, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has pointed out that his argument also begs the question by presupposing materialism. In other words, it presupposes that God is composed of the same sort of matter/energy as the universe, and subject to the same laws. Such an approach a priori rules out the notion that God is spirit, is the uncaused First Cause, is eternal, etc. It thus seeks to discredit God’s own claims about Himself without engaging them on their own terms, ruling them inadmissible by default.
See also the following from this forum: