The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity"
by: Kenneth R. Miller
-Miller attempts to show that there were precursors to the system therefore not making it irreducibly complex.
-he holds up a Type-III Secretatory system as a precursor to the flagellum
-this device is used by certain cells to do cool thinks like spread the Bubonic plague
-the TTSS system, as it's called, and the flagellum share about ten proteins with the flagellum having about 30 more unique ones
-we can see a lot of similarity in the structures by looking at the pictures below
-Dembski has 2 responses to this:
-1) the TTSS system has a different function from the flagellum and the former couldn't get to the latter with intelligent design
-he says that a motorcycle engine can be used as a heater but it couldn't evolve into
a motorcycle without intelligent design
-the TTSS system represents only one step in a long series of processes that would
have take place - can't walk from California to Japan just because you found the
Hawaiian Islands
-2) it is much more reasonable to say that TTSS evolved from the flagellum
-water has been around for about 2 or 3 billion years making the flagellum a long
needed invention
-the TTSS systems is used on multi-celled organisms which means that is probably
a much more recent invention