The Key to I.D.

As Intelligent Design is thrown into the spotlight by our bonfire, I think it would be good for us to know what the key argument of Intelligent Design is. It's technical term is the Rule of Irreducible Complexity. In layman's terms, this basically means that organisms or machines need to have a certain number of working parts that work together for it to be considered an organism or machine. Michale Behe defines it as: "A single system that is composed of several interacting parts, where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to cease functioning." He uses the example of a moustrap: "The mousetraps that my family uses consist of a number of parts. There are: (1) a flat wooden platform to act as a base; (2) a metal hammer, which does the actual job of crushing the little mouse; (3) a spring with extended ends to press against the platform and the hammer when the trap is charged; (4) a sensitive catch that releases when slight pressure is applied; (5) and a metal bar that connects to the catch an holds the hammer back when the trap is charged. Now, you can't catch a mouse with just a platform, add a spring and catch a few more mice, add a holding bar and catch a few more. All the pieces of the mousetrap have to be in place before you catch any mice. Therefore, the mousetrap is irreducibly complex."

What does this look like in nature? Consider the evolutionary explanation of how we got thumbs. An animal, several mutations away from a fully developed human, doesn't have any thumbs, only regular fingers, much like a dogs paw. Suddenly, there is a mutation, and the skin to hold a thumb appears on a hand. After that mutation, is passed on through the generations, a bone appears. After that mutation, cartilage, then knuckles, then tendons, etc. This process, although taking a long time, eventually leaves us with a fully functional opposable thumb. Now this sounds great, but there a lot of holes in the idea, some of them coming from Darwin himself.

Natural selection, the idea that the strong survive because they are more able to cope with their environment, makes mutation difficult. To look at the thumb example, the species begins to develop an opposable thumb will be hindered by its development until it is fully functional. They will be hindered in finding a mate, in gathering food, in defending themselves, etc. According to natural selection, this would classify the animal as injured or defective, and they would usually die off before they were even able to pass on this gene to another generation. Imagine if a worm were to begin to develop an eye. Each step in the process, whether it is having an eye socket, extra nerves run to the eye, developing the unique tissues that make up the eye, or even being able to actually see and process what you are seeing, would be a hindrance to the day to day activities of the worm. These changes, unless they all came at once, would cause the worms death rather than give it a better chance at life.

Now consider something infinitely more complex, the human body. There are so many pieces that make us what we are. What I.D. argues is that this could not have happened by coincidences strung together that happen to give us a cell, then more cells, than an organism, then animals, etc. The idea of irreducible complexity is that all of the pieces had to be there, fully functioning, at the same time in order for it to work and to be passed on to the next generation. This is an argument that Darwinian Evolution has no answer to.

I hope you find this information helpful as you prepare for our Bonfire on Friday night. See you there.

-Michael Behe: from "Signs of Intelligence- Darwin's Breakdown: Irreducible Complexity and Design at the Foundation of Life" pg. 93-94