Explain in detail the definition/concepts of ‘Intelligent Design’, ‘Irreducible Complexity’, ‘Anthropic Principle’, ‘Specified Complexity’, the ‘Principle of Causality’, ‘Evolution’, ‘Macroev

Seanmcdowell.org accessed May 09, 2015

Understanding Intelligent Design

Where did we come from? Why are we here? How did life as we know it come about? Are we accidental by-products of a purposeless, dark, and cold universe (as Darwinian evolution teaches)? Or are we the pinnacle of creation by a loving God? In other words: Is the world a cosmic fluke? Or is the universe the handiwork of personal God? Few questions, it would seem, are more important than these.

If you’ve taken Biology 101, visited a museum lately, or watched a recent Discovery Channel documentary you’ve probably heard that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. University Professor Francis Ayala recently said, “Scientists agree that the evolutionary origin of animals and plants is a scientific conclusion beyond reasonable doubt.”1

This idea shows up frequently in popular television shows, too. For example, in a Friends episode Phoebe and Ross discuss the merits of Darwinian evolution. Shocked to find that Phoebe rejects it, Ross says, “Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.” If you look closely, you’ll also find Darwinism being taught in the children’s movie Lilo and Stitch and in a recent episode of The Family Guy. The take-home lesson is simple: smart people are supposed to believe in evolution, and only fools believe the world was designed by God.

The Underwhelming Evidence for Evolution

Despite the common claim that evolution is duly supported by the evidence, the facts show otherwise. A growing number of leading scholars (with Ph.D.s from top secular universities) are questioning the merits of Darwin’s theory. For starters, while there is plenty of evidence for microevolution (small changes within a species) there is no compelling evidence for macroevolution (the theory that all of life descended from one common ancestor through random mutation and natural selection).

In science class today, the word “evolution” refers to Darwinian macroevolution, not microevolution. Nevertheless, it is amazing how many people confuse the evidence for microevolution with evidence for macroevolution. After a Newsweek article on evolution, one respondent wrote in to the editor in defense of Darwinism: “They say there’s no evidence for evolution. Yet there it is within my own lifetime. My older sister was one of the patients saved by the new wonder drug penicillin, which probably couldn’t save her now because microbes have evolved to the point that penicillin can’t kill them anymore. That’s fact, not theory—evidence that life forms can change over time.”2

Can you spot the confusion? While she offers evidence for microevolution, her example is irrelevant to the grand claims of Darwinism. If, in order to beat the antibiotic, the bacteria had evolved into jellyfish, that would be evidence for Darwin’s theory. But no such transition has ever been observed in either the lab or in the fossil record. Much of the evidence that supposedly supports Darwinian evolution—the Peppered Moths, Darwin’s finches, HIV mutations, and more

—only support microevolution. The move from these examples to Darwinism is a blind leap of faith.

To be fair, there are other “evidences” offered by Darwinists to support their theory. Just check out your school textbook. But these have problems, too. For a more in-depth treatment of the myths of evolution, see my recent book Understanding Intelligent Design (co-written with William Dembski). You will love our analysis of the fossil record!

The Case for Design

Not only are there insurmountable problems for Darwinism, there is also powerful case to be made that the world bears the marks of a Designer. Scientists are just recently finding evidence to support the claim King David made roughly 3,000 years ago—that the world reveals knowledge about God (Psalm 19:1-2). Consider two examples:

1. The Design of DNA. If you came across a message in the sand that read, “John Loves Mary,” what would you conclude caused it? Was it the result of wind, erosion, and waves? Or is it best explained as the work of an intelligent agent? The answer is obvious—a mind did it. The laws of nature simply can’t account for a message of this sort.

Since its discovery in 1953, scientists have realized that the DNA inside a cell carries information for the production of proteins. In fact, it’s been estimated that one cell in the human body has the equivalent of 8,000 books of information! Ordinary experience tells us that information, such as a book or computer program, comes from an intelligent source, such as that of an author or computer programmer. Information points beyond itself to an information- giver. Just as the message “John Loves Mary” points beyond itself to an author, the information in the human body points beyond itself to a Designer.

This evidence is so compelling that it even persuaded the most influential atheist of the past fifty years! Antony Flew spent most of his life arguing that God did not exist. But when he was confronted with the evidence of DNA, he changed his mind. Flew said, “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”3

2. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe. Imagine you came across an abandoned cabin in the woods. The temperature was set just as you like it, your favorite music was playing, books by your most beloved author were sitting on the table, new boots just your size were sitting by the door, and the fridge is filled with the snacks, drinks, and desserts you most enjoy. What would you conclude? Most likely, with each new discovery, you would conclude that this home was prepared with you in mind. The cabin, it would seem, was crafted uniquely for you ahead of time.

In the past few decades, scientists have realized that our universe is just like this cabin—it is crafted perfectly for human existence. In other words, the universe is “fine-tuned” for human life. The conditions that need to be satisfied for the universe to permit human life are so remarkably exact that even very slight variations in these conditions would result in an inhospitable world. Like Little Bear’s porridge, the laws of physics that govern the universe must be “just right.” For

example, if the force of gravity were even slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible. To be exact, gravity must be fine-tuned to one part in 1040 (that’s one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).4

This is only one example of the fine-tuning necessary for human life. Oxford physicist Roger Penrose concluded that if we jointly considered all the laws of nature that must be fine-tuned, we would be unable to write down such an enormous number, since the necessary digits would be greater than the number of elementary particles in the universe!5 Just as we “fine-tune” a shower in the morning to make it tolerable, the entire universe is fine-tuned to support human life.

There are many more examples of design that could be mentioned. To put it simply: the evidence for design in the natural world is compelling. Learning to see God’s fingerprint in nature will not only help you ward of skeptics who challenge why you believe in God, it will also encourage you profoundly in your personal faith. To help make the scientific case for design understandable, I recently partnered with mathematician and philosopher William Dembski to write, Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language.

~ Sean McDowell

Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures

As found on the IDEA Center website at http://www.ideacenter.org

"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."

–Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

With this statement, Charles Darwin provided a criterion by which his theory of evolution could be falsified. The logic was

simple: since evolution is a gradual process in which slight modifications produce advantages for survival, it cannot produce complex structures in a short amount of time. It's a step-by-step process which may gradually build up and modify complex

structures, but it cannot produce them suddenly.

Darwin, meet Michael Behe, biochemical researcher and professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Michale

Behe claims to have shown exactly what Darwin claimed would destroy the theory of evolution, through a concept

he calls "irreducible complexity." In simple terms, this idea applies to any system of interacting parts in which

the removal of any one part destroys the function of the

entire system. An irreducibly complex system, then, requires each and every component to be in place before

it will function.

As a simple example of irreducible complexity, Behe presents the humble mousetrap (left). It contains 5

interdependent parts which allow it to catch mice: the wooden platform, the spring, the hammer (the bar which

crushes the mouse against the wooden base), the holding bar, and a catch. Each of these components is absolutely essential for the function of the mousetrap. For instance, if you remove the catch, you cannot set the trap and it will never catch mice,

no matter how long they may dance over the contraption. Remove the spring, and the hammer will flop uselessly back and forth-certainly not much of a threat to the little rodents. Of course, removal of the holding bar will ensure that the trap never

catches anything because there will again be no way to arm the system.

Now, note what this implies: an irreducibly complex system cannot come about in a gradual manner. One cannot begin with a wooden platform and catch a few mice, then add a spring, catching a few more mice than before, etc. No, all the components

must be in place before it functions at all. A step-by-step approach to constructing such a system will result in a useless system until all the components have been added. The system requires all the components to be added at the same time, in the right

configuration, before it works at all.

How does irreducible complexity apply to biology? Behe notes that early this century, before biologists really understood the cell, they had a very simplistic model of its inner workings. Without the electron microscopes and other advanced techniques

that now allow scientists to peer into the inner workings of the cell, it was assumed that the cells was a fairly simple blob of

protoplasm. The living cell was a "black box"-something that could be observed to perform various functions while its inner workings were unknown and mysterious. Therefore, it was easy, and justifiable, to assume that the cell was a simple collection

of molecules. But not anymore. Technological advances have provided detailed information about the inner workings of the cell. Michael Denton, in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, states "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small,

weighing less than 10^-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more

complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." In a word, the cell is complicated. Very complicated.

In fact, Michael Behe asserts that the complicated biological structures in a cell exhibit the exact same irreducible complexity

that we saw in the mousetrap example. In other words, they are all-or-nothing: either everything is there and it works, or something is missing and it doesn't work. As we saw before, such a system cannot be constructed in a gradual manner-it

simply won't work until all the components are present, and Darwinism has no mechanism for adding all the components at

once. Remember, Darwin's mechanism is one of gradual mutations leading to improved fitness and survival. A less-than- complete system of this nature simply will not function, and it certainly won't help the organism to survive. Indeed, having a

half-formed and hence non-functional system would actually hinder survival and would be selected against. But Behe is not the

Shown above is a modified sketch of Behe's mousetrap as taken from http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/mousetrap.htm.

The bacterial flagellum

is a cellular outboard

motor that bears the

marks of intelligent design.

only scientist to recognize irreducible complexity in nature. In 1986, Michael J. Katz, in his Templets and the explanation of

complex patterns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) writes:

"In the natural world, there are many pattern-assembly systems for which there is no simple explanation. There are

useful scientific explanations for these complex systems, but the final patterns that they produce are so heterogeneous

that they cannot effectively be reduced to smaller or less intricate predecessor components. As I will argue … these patterns are, in a fundamental sense, irreducibly complex…"

Katz continues that this sort of complexity is found in biology:

"Cells and organisms are quite complex by all pattern criteria. They are built of heterogeneous elements arranged in heterogeneous configurations, and they do not self-assemble. One cannot stir together the parts of a cell or of an

organism and spontaneously assemble a neuron or a walrus: to create a cell or an organism one needs a preexisting

cell or a preexisting organism, with its attendant complex templates. A fundamental characteristic of the biological realm is that organisms are complex patterns, and, for its creation, life requires extensive, and essentially maximal,

templates."

Behe presents several examples of irreducibly complex systems to prove this point, but I'll just

focus on one: the cilium. Cilia are hair-like structures, which are used by animals and plants to

move fluid over various surfaces (for example, cilia in your respiratory tree sweep mucous towards the throat and thus promote elimination of contaminants) and by single-celled organisms

to move through water. Cilia are like "oars" which contain their own mechanism for bending. That mechanism involves tiny rod-like structures called microtubules that are arranged in a ring.

Adjacent microtubules are connected to each other by two types of "bridges"-a flexible linker bridge and an arm that can "walk" up the neighboring microtubule. The cilia bends by activating

the "walker" arms, and the sliding motion that this tends to generate is converted to a bending motion by the flexible linker bridges.

Thus, the cilium has several essential components: stiff microtubules, linker bridges, and the

"motors" in the form of walker arms. While my description is greatly simplified (Behe notes that over 200 separate proteins have been identified in this particular system), these 3 components form the basic system, and

show what is required for functionality. For without one of these components, the system simply will not function. We can't

evolve a cilium by starting with microtubules alone, because the microtubules will be fixed and rigid-not much good for moving around. Adding the flexible linker bridges to the system will not do any good either-there is still no motor and the cilia still will

not bend. If we have microtubules and the walker arms (the motors) but no flexible linker arms, the microtubules will keep on sliding past each other till they float away from each other and are lost.

This is only one of many biochemical systems that Behe discusses in his book, Darwin's Black Box. Other examples of

irreducible complexity include the light-sensing system in animal eyes, the transport system within the cell, the bacterial flagellum, and the blood clotting system. All consist of a very complex system of interacting parts which cannot be simplified

while maintaining functionality.

Since the publication of Darwin’s Black Box, Behe has refined the definition of irreducible complexity. In 1996 he wrote that “any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.”(Behe, M, 1996b.

Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry, a speech given at the Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference, August 10, 1996 Seattle, WA. http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm). By defining irreducible complexity

in terms of “nonfunctionality,” Behe casts light on the fundamental problem with evolutionary theory: evolution cannot produce something where there would be a non-functional intermediate. Natural selection only preserves or “selects” those structures

which are functional. If it is not functional, it cannot be naturally selected. Thus, Behe’s latest definition of irreducible complexity is as follows:

“An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more

necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.” (A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, PCID, Volume 1.1, January February March,

2002; iscid.org/)

Evolution simply cannot produce complex structures in a single generation as would be required for the formation of irreducibly complex systems. To imagine that a chance set of mutations would produce all 200 proteins required for

cilia function in a single generation stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. And yet, producing one or a

few of these proteins at a time, in standard Darwinian fashion, would convey no survival advantage because those few proteins would have no function-indeed, they would constitute a waste of energy for the cell to even produce.

Darwin recognized this as a potent threat to his theory of evolution-the issue that could completely disprove his idea. So the question must be raised: Has Darwin's theory of evolution "absolutely broken down?" According to Michael

Behe, the answer is a resounding "yes."

Copyright © 2004, IDEA Center. All Rights Reserved. Permission Granted to Reproduce for Non-Profit Educational Purposes.

www.ideacenter.org

April 22, 2013 STR.org Greg Koukl

Evolution Is Philosophy, Not Science Greg shows that Darwinism is driven by philosophy more than science.

I'm mystified by the opening sentence of an article in Friday's Union Tribune (October 25, 1996). It says, "In his most comprehensive statement yet on evolution, Pope John Paul II insisted that faith and science can co-exist."

So far, so good. I agree with the Pope wholeheartedly on this first point. If you heard my opening address at our conference on Science and Faith, you'd know why I think they can co-exist if they are properly defined. (How science and faith are defined is an important part of answering the question.)

I part ways with the Pope in his next statement. He said that "Charles Darwin's theories are sound as long as they take into account that creation was the work of God." That's an odd thing to say, it seems to me. I mean no disrespect here at all to Pope John Paul II. But doesn't that strike you as odd? It seems to me that Charles Darwin's theories–scientific theories, theories about the origins and development of things–are either sound or not sound. If they're not sound, you can't baptize them by bringing God into the picture and miraculously make them sound. And if they are sound in themselves, then you don't need to add God to make them work, do you? It's already doing fine on its own. Which is the point of evolution: mother nature without father God.

I don't think evolution works at all. I don't think Charles Darwin's theories are sound, so I'm not in the least bit tempted to baptize them with some form of theistic evolution.

By definition, evolution offered an explanation for how things got to be the way they are without God (I'm referring to what's known as the "general theory of evolution"). This is why it made such a splash. Do you think that if God could be worked into the evolutionary picture, then evolution would have taken off the way it did? Of course not.

Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker and one of the world's preeminent evolutionists, was right when he said that Darwin made the world safe for atheism. But if Darwinism can be easily baptized with theism, how can it be that Darwin made the world safe for atheism? It's precisely because evolution seemed to explain things that used to require the existence of God to explain them that Darwinism became so popular and accepted within ten to fifteen years after Origin of Species was published in 1859. It's precisely because God is out of the picture that evolution is so appealing.

When you listen to evolutionists like Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, he's very willing to admit you can believe in God and also be an evolutionist. No problem. But that doesn't mean Gould approves of theistic evolution. Gould means that plenty of his friends believe in God, but their belief in God is a religious thing they do in their closets, inside their homes and behind the closed doors of the churches. They don't mix religion and science, God and evolution, fantasy with fact.

Gould's attitude is typical of other evolutionary scientists. Believe in God if you want. Practice your religious alchemy in the privacy of your own home if you must. Just don't pretend that it

has anything to do with the real world. When it comes to the real world, the fact of the matter is that God was not involved in the process. Life evolved through non-directed, materialistic processes. Stephen J. Gould and everyone else who writes on this issue makes that very clear.

When people try to fit God into the process of evolution, that's when evolutionists like Gould stand up and say, "Wait a minute, you don't understand evolution if that's what you think actually took place. Evolution is by chance, not design, and you can't have design by chance."

Theistic evolution means design by chance. That's like square circles, ladies and gentlemen. There is no such thing.

The real question is whether the evidence supports evolution or not, not whether we can baptize evolution with the word "God" so Christians feel comfortable. To put it simply, lest there be any confusion about the matter, evolution must be dealt with scientifically, on its own merits. Is it an adequate explanation of the origin of things?

I think it's wholly inadequate. Contrary to the Pope's views, the more knowledge we get, the more problems we see with the origin of life by evolutionary means–the more problems we see with the change from one kind of life into another by evolutionary means.

The passage of time and the increase of knowledge haven't helped evolution; they've hurt it. Evolution was popular early on precisely because there was so little information about the process. Now we know much more about the details of biochemistry and genetics, and information theory, and the incredible complexity of even the simplest living thing. It's become evident that evolution is just not capable of explaining life.

You want proof for that? Here, it's very simple. This is my handy-dandy evolution refuter. It's the simplest way I know to right to the heart of the problem, proving that evolution is not based on fact, but on philosophy.

For evolution to be a fact, you must have two things, minimally. First, you've got to have life coming from non-life–abiogenesis. Second, you've got to have a change in that life from simple forms to complex forms over time. You must have the kick-off, and you must have the rest of the game.

Now, here's my question: How did life come from non-life? How did the game get started by evolutionary means. Does anyone know? Guess what? Nobody knows. Oh, there are some ideas and people have suggested some possible ways, but nobody has sketched out any way that really answers the question. There are so many problems and complications. There are competing models that have been suggested, but they're just starting places. They're just ways of saying, "Let's start here, and we'll see where it leads." There are possibilities, but no one knows how it happened, or even how it could have happened in enough detail to be compelling."

Now, here's the kicker. If you don't know how it happened by naturalistic, evolutionary processes, how do you know that it happened by naturalistic, evolutionary processes? Evolution is claimed to be a fact, but you can't have the fact of evolution unless you have the fact of abiogenesis. Yet nobody knows how such a thing could ever take place. And if life can't be shown to have come from non-life, then the game can't even get started.

Then why do we call evolution a fact when evolution can't even get off the ground, based on the information we have right now. The answer you get is always the same: Because we're here. It must have happened . That's called circular reasoning, friends, based on a prior commitment to naturalism that won't be shaken by the facts.

Which proves that this is not about science, it's about philosophy.