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The Flagellum Unspun
The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity"
Kenneth R. Miller
University
Providence, Rhode Island 02912 USA
[REFUTED]
Almost from the moment The Origin of Species was
published in 1859, the opponents of evolution have fought a long, losing battle
against their Darwinian foes. Today, like a prizefighter in the late rounds
losing badly on points, they've placed their hopes in one big punch – a single
claim that might smash through the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence
to bring Darwin to the canvas once and for all. Their name for this virtual
roundhouse right is "intelligent design."
In the last several years, the intelligent design movement has
attempted to move against science education standards in several American
states, most famously in Kansas and Ohio (Holden 1999; Gura 2002).
[Winning the battle at Boards of Education or within any arena relative to the question of which is the preferred philosophy Creationism or Evolution is not an indicator of which is the right or the wrong on any point or overall. As a matter of fact untruth and evil has and will largely win these battles until the end of the this age and of the 7 years of worldwide violent tribulation when the Intelligent Designer will arrive to fix it all. The greatest discovery that mankind has revealed about himself throughout all of his history is that even in the ‘good’ that he does there is inevitably contained evil]
The principal claim made by adherents of the [creationist] view is that they can detect the presence of "intelligent design" in complex biological systems.
[Certainly this applies to the evolutionist point of view as well, for you all have implied and have outwardly stated that the universe and especially the earth have such an awesome inexplicably complex order about them - far beyond the capacity of man to understand it and create anything within the universe that even compares to the simplest of lifeforms. So I am surprised that you refuse to consider the plausibility / possibility of an Intelligent Agency. You have become attached to the belief system of evolution without scientific proof that there actually has been evolution over great periods of time that creates one species after another, (remember: observability of an actual evolvement of one complete species into another, repeatability of that precise event again and again and FALSIFIABILITY CONTROL of that event over and over again). Your rhetoric is NOT scientific, rather demeaning and ridiculing and shameful. Can a true scientist actually rule out such due to personal preference? Man has not even discovered an accurate progression of a lifeform and how it might have scientifically evolved into another without forcing assumptions to be true in order to prove those assumptions. After so many years have gone by and still there have been no proved out intermediary lifeforms discovered especially one that completely rules out a Creator of far greater intelligence than man can conceive of – Who created all lifeforms even those of similar design without having to have them evolve but including a marvelous capacity within each species of variation within that species Whose motivations are largely not well perceived, albeit they are largely made clear in the one reliable book for all men to understand]
As evidence, they cite a number of specific examples, including
the vertebrate blood clotting cascade, the eukaryotic cilium, and most notably,
the eubacterial flagellum (Behe 1996a, Behe 2002).
Of all these examples, the flagellum has been presented so often as a counter-example to evolution that it might well be considered the "poster child" of the modern anti-evolution movement. Variations of its image (Figure 1) now appear on web pages of anti-evolution groups like the Discovery Institute, and on the covers of "intelligent design" books such as William Dembski's No Free Lunch (Dembski 2002a). To anti-evolutionists, the high status of the flagellum reflects the supposed fact that it could not possibly have been produced by an evolutionary pathway.
[The elephant in the room is the persistent refusal to consider the plausibility of an Intelligent Creator Designer which is largely ruled out for no good reason – just personal preference. The universe is after all awesomely complex hence ‘intelligent'! ]
Figure 1: The eubacterial flagellum.
The flagellum is an ion-powered rotary motor, anchored in the membranes
surrounding the bacterial cell. This schematic diagram highlights the assembly
process of the bacterial flagellar filament and the cap-filament complex. OM,
outer membrane; PG, peptidoglycan layer; IM, cytoplasmic membrane (From
Yonekura et al 2000).
There is, to be sure, nothing new or novel in an anti-evolutionist
pointing to a complex or intricate natural structure, and professing skepticism
that it could have been produced by the "random" processes of
mutation and natural selection.
Nonetheless, the "argument from personal incredulity,"
as such sentiment has been appropriately described, has been a weapon of little
value in the anti-evolution movement. Anyone can state at any time that they cannot
imagine how evolutionary mechanisms might have produced a certain species,
organ, structure. Such statements, obviously, are personal – and they say more
about the limitations of those who make them than they do about the limitations
of Darwinian mechanisms.
[Could I not say the same about you? Let's see. Nonetheless, the “ ‘argument from personal incredulity,” as such sentiment has been appropriately described, has been a weapon of little value in the anti-creation movement. Anyone can state at any time that they cannot imagine an existence of an Intelligent Designer Who might have produced a certain species, organ, structure. Such statements, obviously, are personal - and they say more about the limitations of those who make them than they do about whether or not an actual Intelligent Designer does exist?]
The hallmark of the intelligent design movement, however, is that
it purports to rise above the level of personal skepticism. It claims to have
found a reason why evolution could not have produced a
structure like the bacterial flagellum, a reason based on sound, solid
scientific evidence.
Why does the intelligent design movement regard the flagellum as
unevolvable? Because it is said to
possesses a quality known as "irreducible complexity." Irreducibly
complex structures, we are told, could not have been produced by evolution, or,
for that matter, by any natural process. They do exist, however, and therefore
they must have been produced by something. That something could only be an
outside intelligent agency operating beyond the laws of nature – an intelligent
designer. That, simply stated, is the core of the new argument from design, and
the intellectual basis of the intelligent design movement.
[Ignoring the investigation of the probability of the eubacterial
flagellum evolving vs the estimated age of the universe vs an intelligent
designer’s existence is simply not scientific nor credible. Only because the
majority of mankind has been brain washed, (the reason for the worldwide flood
in the first place), can man dare to say there is no Creator / Intelligent
Designer because we have voted Him out of existence – mankind who can't even
find one missing link after all of this time]
The great irony of the flagellum's increasing acceptance as an
icon of anti-evolution is that fact that research had demolished its status as
an example of irreducible complexity almost at the very moment it was first
proclaimed. The purpose of this article is to explore the arguments by which
the flagellum's notoriety has been achieved, and to review the research
developments that have now undermined they very foundations of those arguments.
The Argument's Origins
The flagellum owes its status principally to Darwin's
Black Box (Behe 1996a) a book by Michael Behe that employed it in a
carefully-crafted anti-evolution argument. Building upon William Paley's
well-known "argument from design," Behe sought to bring the argument
two centuries forward into the realm of biochemistry. Like Paley, Behe appealed
to his readers to appreciate the intricate complexity of living organisms as
evidence for the work of a designer. Unlike Paley, however, he raised the
argument to a new level, claiming to have discovered a scientific principle
that could be used to prove that certain structures could not have been
produced by evolution. That principle goes by the name of "irreducible
complexity."
An irreducibly complex structure is defined as ". . . a
single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that
contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts
causes the system to effectively cease functioning." (Behe 1996a, 39) Why
would such systems present difficulties for Darwinism? Because they could not
possibly have been produced by the process of evolution:
"An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by
numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any
precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by
definition nonfunctional. .... Since natural selection can only choose systems
that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced
gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for
natural selection to have anything to act on." (Behe 1996b)
The phrase "numerous, successive, slight modifications"
is not accidental. The very same words were used by Charles Darwin in The
Origin of Species in describing the conditions that had to be
The Logic of Irreducible
Complexity
[So you do admit that there are innumerable complex structures whose detailed
evolutionary origins are not known. Have you even considered that they may not
have evolved at all – or is that ruled out because of your personal belief
system that is not based on science? Are you stubborn about only accepting what
you believe and not considering anything else?
If another belief system better fits the case why not consider its plausibility. Instead you simply ignore
the facts? What about other theories? Ever hear of the God particle? String
theory, multi-universes?]
Therefore, in fashioning an argument against evolution one might
pick nearly any cellular structure, the ribosome for example, and claim –
correctly – that its origin has not been explained in detail by evolution.
Such arguments are easy to make, of course, but the nature of
scientific progress renders them far from compelling. The lack of a detailed
current explanation for a structure, organ, or process does not mean that
science will never come up with one.
[True if you are objective. Are you? It seems that since you are
largely NOT following the scientific method and are operating on your
preferences -how many of your ‘theories have been proved wrong over the years
and replaced with ones that do no better without proving out a missing link
intermediate species?]
As an example, one might consider the question of how left-right
asymmetry arises in vertebrate development, a question that was beyond
explanation until the 1990s (Belmonte 1999). In 1990 one might have argued that
the body's left-right asymmetry could just as well be explained by the
intervention of a designer as by an unknown molecular mechanism. Only a decade
later, the actual molecular mechanism was identified (Stern 2002), and any
claim one might have made for the intervention of a designer would have been
discarded. The same point can be made, of course, regarding any structure or
mechanism whose origins are not yet understood.
[This does not rule out an Intelligent Designer, does it? Were you
there to observe, repeat and falsify? Who created the molecular mechanism,
since you did not stipulate that it evolved? Oh, that's right, you haven't a clue
how it did evolve – if it did at all. Besides that, just because you believe
something doesn't make that belief true. The earth was never flat despite so
many who believed that it was. What you do believe and maybe even operate on you may find out was
never true. Only future circumstances will tell? Can you think of the things you
believed in as a child that did not prove to be true. Is there a supernatural
Santa in your past? ]
The utility of the bacterial flagellum is that it seems to rise above
this "argument from ignorance." By asserting that it is a structure
"in which the removal of an element would cause the whole system to cease
functioning" (Behe 2002), the flagellum is presented as a "molecular
machine" whose individual parts must have been specifically crafted to
work as a unified assembly. The existence of such a multipart machine therefore
provides genuine scientific proof of the actions of an intelligent designer.
[Have you tested this scientifically, or are you limiting yourself
to what you believe? I did not read of any evidence that you took away some of
the elements from an active bacteria to see if it would still work. The idea of
going to another species with a similar design of flagellum but which does not
have the precise components of the first species and comparing them is bad
science. Each species has its own design, albeit some species might have a
similar design but NOT THE SAME DESIGN. Hence comparison is not legitimate]
In the case of the flagellum, the assertion of irreducible
complexity means that a minimum number of protein components, perhaps 30, are
required to produce a working biological function. By the logic of irreducible
complexity, these individual components should have no function until all 30
are put into place, at which point the function of motility appears.
[Within the same species. Did you do this test?????]
What this means, of course, is that evolution could not have
fashioned those components a few at a time, since they do not have functions
that could be favored by natural selection.
[Within the same species. Did you do this test?????]
As Behe wrote: " . . .
natural selection can only choose among systems that are already working"
(Behe 2002), and an irreducibly complex system does not work unless all of its
parts are in place. The flagellum is irreducibly complex, and therefore, it
must have been designed. Case closed.
[For that particular species is obviously implied]
Answering the Argument
The assertion that cellular machines are irreducibly complex, and
therefore provide proof of design, has not gone unnoticed by the scientific
community. A number of detailed rebuttals have appeared in the literature, and
many have pointed out the poor reasoning of recasting the classic argument from
design in the modern language of biochemistry (Coyne 1996; Miller 1996; Depew
1998; Thornhill and Ussery 2000). I have suggested elsewhere that the
scientific literature contains counter-examples to any assertion that evolution
cannot explain biochemical complexity (Miller 1999, 147), and other workers
have addressed the issue of how evolutionary mechanisms allow biological
systems to increase in information content (Schneider 2000; Adami, Ofria, and
Collier 2000).
The most powerful rebuttals to the flagellum story, however, have
not come from direct attempts to answer the critics of evolution. Rather, they
have emerged from the steady progress of scientific work on the genes and
proteins associated with the flagellum and other cellular structures. Such
studies have now established that the entire premise by which this molecular
machine has been advanced as an argument against evolution is wrong –the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly
complex.
[So far within the same species, i.e., within this particular
bacterial flagellum it appears to work properly only when all the observable
parts are in place. That is after all the implication. We are not comparing
apples and oranges or even MacIntosh Apples with Green apples, are we?]
As we will see, the flagellum – the supreme example of the power
of this new "science of design" – has failed its most basic
scientific test. Remember the claim that "any precursor to an irreducibly
complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional?"
[Within the same species. Am I repeating myself here?? Take a
human being with a ‘complete’ effectively working blood clotting system and
compare it with another human being, (notice same species), who has hemophilia
which indicates a defective blood clotting system, i.e., all the components are
not in the proper functioning capacity. Now you have a problem with irreducible
complexity because not all of the components are functioning properly. This
might be attributable to a bad stage of evolution or to the decision of an
Intelligent Designer Who because of His judgment upon sinful man. On the other
hand, you cannot compare the blood clotting system of a human being with that
of a dolphin as you have done in this article and thereby declare something
conclusive because the species Dolphin is quite different from the species
humankind sufficient to make the comparison inadequate to conclude that
evolution is in view or an Intelligent Designer is in view.]
As the evidence has shown, nature is filled with examples of
"precursors" to the flagellum that are indeed "missing a
part," and yet are fully-functional.
[Not proved because a system in one species might be different
from a system in another and are thereby NOT interchangeable. Have you actually
tested your hypothesis by taking out a part and replacing it with a less
complex part that appears to be of similar design less a few components and
then observing if the species still performs as it did? Answer: No.]
Functional enough, in some cases, to pose a serious threat to
human life.
[BUT EVIDENTLY NOT IN THAT PARTICULAR SPECIES:
The point is that within that particular species that you have
observed with the more complex system of locomotion you have NOT observed to
have the less complex system from another species that provides a toxic
delivery system instead – an entirely different function! So you do not know if
the bacteria would actually function properly or not, having not actually
tested it in real life. You’re just guessing. Also the toxic bacteria might not
function with the more complex system of locomotion either. You’re just
guessing again. Perhaps the missing component observed in the first bacteria was
required for some function in the first species that was not observed
functioning via your investigation hence viewed by you as not ‘required’ in the
second species that did not have that part. You’re just guessing. You did not
stipulate that your ‘scientific’ investigation addressed these all important
issues. In any case getting all those parts together in that first species in
the manner in which they were observed presents a problem to do that over time
and yet have that species function the way it was observed functioning, i.e.,
it nevertheless is irreducibly complex and demands an Intelligent Designer
relative to at least that one species, but the scope of your investigation may not
be applicable to all species. But if there is an Intelligent Designer it stands
to reason that being that intelligent He is Creator of all species in a short,
convenient and amazing period of time]
The Type -III Secretory Apparatus
In the popular imagination, bacteria are "germs" – tiny
microscopic bugs that make us sick. Microbiologists smile at that
generalization, knowing that most bacteria are perfectly benign, and many are
beneficial – even essential – to human life. Nonetheless, there are indeed
bacteria that produce diseases, ranging from the mildly unpleasant to the truly
dangerous. Pathogenic, or disease-causing, bacteria threaten the organisms they
infect in a variety of ways, one of which is to produce poisons and inject them
directly into the cells of the body. Once inside, these toxins break down and
destroy the host cells, producing illness, tissue damage, and sometimes even
death.
In order to carry out this diabolical work, bacteria must not only
produce the protein toxins that bring about the demise of their hosts, but they
must efficiently inject them across the cell membranes and into the cells of
their hosts. They do this by means of any number of specialized protein
secretory systems. One, known as the type III secretory system (TTSS), allows
gram negative bacteria to translocate proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a
host cell (Heuck 1998). The proteins transferred through the TTSS include a
variety of truly dangerous molecules, some of which are known as
"virulence factors," and are directly responsible for the pathogenic
activity of some of the most deadly bacteria in existence (Büttner and Bonas
2002; Heuck 1998).
At first glance, the existence of the TTSS, a nasty little device that allows bacteria to inject these toxins through the cell membranes of its unsuspecting hosts, would seem to have little to do with the flagellum. However, molecular studies of proteins in the TTSS have revealed a surprising fact – the proteins of the TTSS are directly homologous to the proteins in the basal portion of the bacterial flagellum. As figure 2 (Heuck 1998) shows, these homologies extend to a cluster of closely-associated proteins found in both of these molecular "machines." On the basis of these homologies, McNab (McNab 1999) has argued that the flagellum itself should be regarded as a type III secretory system. Extending such studies with a detailed comparison of the proteins associated with both systems, Aizawa has seconded this suggestion, noting that the two systems "consist of homologous component proteins with common physico-chemical properties" (Aizawa 2001, 163). It is now clear, therefore, that a smaller subset of the full complement of proteins in the flagellum makes up the functional transmembrane portion of the TTSS.
Figure 2: There are extensive homologies between type III secretory proteins and proteins involved in export in the basal region of the bacterial flagellum. These homologies demonstrate that the bacterial flagellum is not "irreducibly complex."
[They do NOT demonstrate that the
bacterial flagellum is not “irreducibly complex” because there are two species
involved in your investigation wherein you are presupposing one system in one
species is capable of operating within a second species replacing a more
complex system and function perfectly well within that species for the function
that the more complex system was performing; or you offer a different function which
would obfuscate the first function which was locomotion which would cause the
rapid demise of the species! And it appears you have not tested this hypothesis. Just because
you might observe a simpler transmission in a functioning Ford with components
that are the same as in a Toyota which has a more complex transmission with
more components; this does not then lead to the conclusion that the simpler
transmission would work as well in the Toyota unless you properly test this
hypothesis. The Ford might be similar in design relative to a number of
components identical to those in the Toyota, but you do not have sufficient
evidence that the simpler transmission in the Ford could perform the same or another
kind of function in the more complex Toyota, such as a carburetor. This point
was never thoroughly tested. Besides that, ‘another function” would leave the
Toyota without a transmission leading to its rapid ‘demise.’ The overall
complexity of the Ford vs the Toyota and how all of its components function
together in performing ALL of the functions was not investigated. After all,
Ford is one species, and Toyota another.
So the evidence of whether or not a lifeform was created by an
Intelligent Designer or evolved from another / other lifeform(s) is
scientifically dependent, by and large, upon that original lifeform, not upon another
species from which one is ‘guessing’ it evolved into / from which has a
different history / existence; and especially not if the species has
significant differences from the original species – which most species do.
Cherry picking features without presenting detailed evidence from one species
without connecting the dots of evidence to another species is hardly
scientific. Two or more species that are of similar design may well have been
created by an intelligent designer with significant yet original differences as
opposed to evolving from a common ancestor in a non-identical manner. The point
is that if either species evidences that all components must be available and
in place at the same time in order to function properly, then that species is
irreducibly complex, probability / statistically-wise not evolvable. It must
have been created by an Intelligent Designer. ONE SPECIES AT A TIME]
In this diagram (redrawn from Heuck 1998), the shaded portions of
the basal region indicate proteins in the E. coli flagellum
homologous to the Type III secretory structure of Yersinia. .
OM, outer membrane; PP, periplasmic space; CM, cytoplasmic membrane.
Stated directly, the TTSS does its dirty work using a handful of
proteins from the base of the flagellum. From the evolutionary point of view,
this relationship is hardly surprising. In fact, it's to be expected that the
opportunism of evolutionary processes would mix and match proteins to produce
new and novel functions.
[The evolutionary point of view is largely one of innumerable repeated
failures over eons of time until something of value is produced which
probability-wise is usually older than the universe is estimated to be, hence
unlikely – hence not plausible. Hence the more plausible conclusion is that the
species was created by an Intelligent Designer instantly and recently. Even if
plausibility is significant for the evolutionary model, THIS DOES NOT RULE OUT
THE INTELLIGENT DESIGNER MODEL which is in any case far more convenient,
efficient and promising. For the evolutionary mindset is hardly an
opportunistic process because it is built into their thinking that there will
be innumerable failures until one miniscule success is ‘achieved.’ Furthermore,
the TTSS species is not the same as the flagellum of a bacteria. There are similarities
amongst these two species, but they are not identical especially not relative
to the question as to whether either or both species was created by an
Intelligent Designer or evolved over eons after the ‘necessary’ innumerable
repeated failures]
According to the doctrine of irreducible complexity, however, this
should not be possible.
[Within the same species so far it has not been proved to be
possible to put the simpler component referred to in the TTSS into the more
complex bacteria and have it function properly either as a replacement method
of locomotion or a dispenser of toxins]
If the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex, then removing just
one part, let alone 10 or 15, should render what remains "by definition
nonfunctional."
[Has this actually been tested???? You don’t stipulate that you
have done this. So how can you conclude that the species in view does not need
the specified components and yet still operate as before???]
Yet the TTSS is indeed fully-functional, even though it is missing
most of the parts of the flagellum. The TTSS may be bad news for us, but for
the bacteria that possess it, it is a truly valuable biochemical machine.
[The TTSS and the flagellum of a bacteria are not the same
species. Apples and oranges. If the TTSS is a legitimate species to consider,
your examination of it was insufficient to prove that the flagellum of a
bacteria could indeed operate properly with the same system that is in the TTSS
as before or operate properly but differently. You haven’t provided that proof.
The system in the TTSS is different from the system in the flagellum! So it most
likely would NOT operate in the same way to provide locomotion for the bacteria
or any other way because you have not stipulated that you have found such
bacteria in existence which does!!!]
The existence of the TTSS in a wide variety of bacteria
demonstrates that a small portion of the "irreducibly complex"
flagellum can indeed carry out an important biological function.
[But not the same function as in a different species]
Since such a function is clearly favored by natural selection, the
contention that the flagellum must be fully-assembled before any of its
component parts can be useful is obviously incorrect.
[Your 'science' is faulty. Have you placed the mechanism in the TTSS
in the bacteria to test this?]
What this means is that the argument for intelligent design of the
flagellum has failed.
[No. You are testing the wrong hypothesis, proved something that
is irrelevant and boasted that you have defeated the concept of an intelligent
designer. Even if what you have determined is true, and it is not, an intelligent
designer could have created both species from nothing in far less time]
Counterattack
Classically, one of the most widely-repeated charges made by
anti-evolutionists is that the fossil record contains wide "gaps" for
which transitional fossils have never been found. Therefore, the intervention
of a creative agency, an intelligent designer, must be invoked to account for
each gap. Such gaps, of course, have been filled with increasing frequency by
paleontologists – the increasingly rich fossil sequences demonstrating the
origins of whales are a useful examples (Thewissen, Hussain, and Arif 1994;
Thewissen, Williams, Roe, and Hussain 2001).
[Species with similarly designed components do not nullify an Intelligent
Designer Who could create those species out of nothing in an instant. It is a
far better solution than to ‘wait’ for millions / billions of years for a
unique species to evolve – which time span is most likely older than estimates
of the age of the universe thus disqualifying itself as a rationale / plausible means for how the species exists.
Why not have all of the species be created and present at once and the
interdependence for food, survival, water and other benefits be immediately
available as observed in the universe today – albeit with fewer and fewer
species as time goes by? It appears this is more plausible especially because
there has not been observed any actually new species that have arrived on the
planet. The number of species appears to be diminishing not increasing. So the
world wide flood is a plausible and well corroborated event which event is more
plausible than the concept of millions / billions of years of time going by
because all that water would have destroyed the fossil record if there had been
one, leaving one with a recent creation not an ages old one]
Ironically, the response of anti-evolutionists to such discoveries
is frequently to claim that things have only gotten worse for evolution.
[They have]
Where previously there had been just one gap, as a result of the
transitional fossil, now there are two (one on either side of the
newly-discovered specimen).
[There have not been found ANY actual transitional fossils that
one can prove was a descendant of another fossil. More plausible is that there
are uncountable fossils of similar design, not descendants of one another.
Furthermore, the spaces between fossils in the frequently different fossil
order in the rock strata – which speaks more of a worldwide flood – contains
nothing!! How do you make something out of nothing unless you are an
Intelligent Designer / Creator?? Are you?]
As word of the relationship between the eubacterial flagellum and
the TTSS has begun to spread among the "design" community, the first
hints of a remarkably similar reaction have emerged. The TTSS only makes
problems worse for evolution, according to this response, because now there are
two irreducibly-complex systems to deal with. The flagellum is still
irreducibly complex – but so is the TTSS. But now there are two systems for
evolutionists to explain instead of just one.
Unfortunately for this line of argument, the claim that one
irreducibly-complex system might contain another is self-contradictory. To
understand this, we need to remember that the entire point of the design
argument, as exemplified by the flagellum, is that only the entire biochemical
machine, with all of its parts, is functional. For the intelligent design
argument to stand, this must be the case, since it provides the basis for their
claim that only the complete flagellum can be favored by natural selection, not
any its component parts. For the intelligent design argument to stand, this
must be the case, since it provides the basis for their claim that only the
complete flagellum can be favored by natural selection, not any [of ] its
component parts. However, if the flagellum contains within it a smaller
functional set of components like the TTSS, then the flagellum itself cannot be
irreducibly complex – by definition. Since we now know that this is indeed the
case, it is obviously true that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex.
A second reaction, which I have heard directly after describing
the relationship between the secretory apparatus and the flagellum, is the
objection that the TTSS does not tell us how either it or the flagellum
evolved. This is certainly true, although Aizawa has suggested that the TTSS
may indeed be an evolutionary precursor of the flagellum (Aizawa 2001).
Nonetheless, until we have produced a step-by-step account for the evolutionary
derivation of the flagellum, one may indeed invoke the argument from ignorance
for this and every other complex biochemical machine.
However, in agreeing to this, one must keep in mind that the
doctrine of irreducible complexity was intended to go one step beyond the claim
of ignorance. It was fashioned in order to provide a rationale for claiming
that the bacterial flagellum couldn't have evolved, even in principle, because
it is irreducibly complex. Now that a simpler, functional system (the TTSS) has
been discovered among the protein components of the flagellum, the claim of
irreducible complexity has collapsed, and with it any "evidence" that
the flagellum was designed.
[You evidently have NOT taken out one component in a system in a
species such as the locomotion system in a particular bacterium and replaced it
with a simpler one from another species such as the TTSS species that uses it
to toxify its host, in order to see if the first species of bacteria works
properly, have you? And if this works, such as with heart transplants, it STILL
does not refute an Intelligent Designer by using His designs to repair / alter something
He created in the first place. So an Intelligent Designer remains plausible and
the best answer to this question of which is the better model: Creationism or
Evolution because it takes a lot less time and the Intelligent Designer
evidently fails less and evidently cares more for His Creation]
Combinatorial Argument
At first glance, William Dembski's case for intelligent design
seems to follow a distinctly different strategy in dealing with biological
complexity. His recent book, No Free Lunch (Dembski 2002a),
lays out this case, using information theory and mathematics to show that life
is the result of intelligent design. Dembski makes the assertion that living
organisms contain what he calls "complex specified information"
(CSI), and claims to have shown that the evolutionary mechanism of natural
selection cannot produce CSI. Therefore, any instance of CSI in a living
organism must be the result of intelligent design. And living organisms,
according to Dembski, are chock-full of CSI.
Dembski's arguments, couched in the language of information
theory, are highly technical and are defended, almost exclusively, by reference
to their utility in detecting information produced by human beings. These
include phone and credit card numbers, symphonies, and artistic woodcuts, to
name just a few. One might then expect that Dembski, having shown how the
presence of CSI can be demonstrated in man made objects, would then turn to a
variety of biological objects. Instead, he turns to just one such object, the
bacterial flagellum.
Dembski then offers his readers a calculation showing that the
flagellum could not have possibly have evolved. Significantly, he begins that
calculation by linking his arguments to those of Behe, writing: "I want
therefore in this section to show how irreducible complexity is a special case
of specified complexity, and in particular I want to sketch how one calculates
the relevant probabilities needed to eliminate chance and infer design for such
systems" (Dembski 2002a, 289). Dembski then tells us that an irreducibly
complex system, like the flagellum, is a "discrete combinatorial
object." What this means, as he explains, is that the probability of
assembling such an object can be calculated by determining the probabilities
that each of its components might have originated by chance, that they might
have been localized to the same region of the cell, and that they would be
assembled in precisely the right order. Dembski refers to these three
probabilities as Porig, Plocal, and Pconfig, and he regards each of them
as separate and independent (Dembski 2002a, 291).
This approach overlooks the fact that the last two probabilities
are actually contained within the first. Localization and self-assembly of
complex protein structures in prokaryotic cells are properties generally
determined by signals built into the primary structures of the proteins
themselves.
The same is likely true for the amino acid sequences of the 30 or
so protein components of the flagellum and the approximately 20 proteins
involved in the flagellum's assembly (McNab 1999; Yonekura et al 2000).
Therefore, if one gets the sequences of all the proteins right, localization
and assembly will take care of themselves.
[Actually not. Signals might be sent out while the components have
not yet ‘evolved’ by chance in which case nothing would be accomplished yet,
and the configuration activity might be working but with no component in the
proper position to make installation effective. So it is evident that all three
have to occur at once.]
To the ID enthusiast, however, this is a point of little concern.
According to Dembski, evolution could still not construct the 30 proteins
needed for the flagellum. His reason is that the probability of their assembly
falls below what he terms the "universal probability bound."
According to Dembski, the probability bound is a sensible allowance for the
fact that highly improbable events do occur from time to time in nature. To
allow for such events, he agrees that given enough time, any event with a
probability larger than 10-150 might well take place. Therefore, if a
sequence of events, such as a presumed evolutionary pathway, has a calculated
probability less than 10-150, we may conclude that the pathway is
impossible. If the calculated probability is greater than 10-150, it's possible
(even if unlikely).
When Dembski turns his attention to the chances of evolving the 30
proteins of the bacterial flagellum, he makes what he regards as a generous
assumption. Guessing that each of the proteins of the flagellum have about 300
amino acids, one might calculate that the chances of getting just one such
protein to assemble from "random" evolutionary processes would be
20-300 , since there are 20 amino acids specified by the genetic code.
Dembski, however, concedes that proteins need not get the exact amino
acid sequence right in order to be functional, so he cuts the odds to just
20-30, which he tells his readers is "on the order of
10-39" (Dembski 2002a, 301). Since the flagellum requires 30 such
proteins, he explains that 30 such probabilities "will all need to be
multiplied to form the origination probability"(Dembski 2002a, 301). That
would give us an origination probability for the flagellum of 10 -1170,
far below the universal probability bound. The flagellum couldn't have evolved,
and now we have the numbers to prove it. Right?
[Suppose the time frame for this exceeds the proposed age of the
universe just for this one simple life form, never mind mammals and man]
Assuming Impossibility
I have no doubt that to the casual reader, a quick glance over the
pages of numbers and symbols in Dembski's books is impressive, if not downright
intimidating. Nonetheless, the way in which he calculates the probability of an
evolutionary origin for the flagellum shows how little biology actually stands
behind those numbers. His computation calculates only the probability of
spontaneous, random assembly for each of the proteins of the flagellum. Having
come up with a probability value on the order of 10 -1170, he assures us
that he has shown the flagellum to be unevolvable. This conclusion, of course,
fits comfortably with his view is that "The Darwinian mechanism is
powerless to produce irreducibly complex systems..." (Dembski 2002a, 289).
However complex Dembski's analysis, the scientific problem with
his calculations is almost too easy to spot. By treating the flagellum as a
"discrete combinatorial object" he has shown only that it is unlikely
that the parts flagellum could assemble spontaneously. Unfortunately for his
argument, no scientist has ever proposed that the flagellum or any other
complex object evolved that way. Dembski, therefore, has constructed a classic
"straw man" and blown it away with an irrelevant calculation.
By treating the flagellum as a discrete combinatorial object he
has assumed in his calculation that no subset of the 30 or so proteins of the
flagellum could have biological activity. As we have already seen, this is
wrong. Nearly a third of those proteins are closely related to components of
the TTSS, which does indeed have biological activity. A calculation that
ignores that fact has no scientific validity.
More importantly, Dembski's willingness to ignore the TTSS lays
bare the underlying assumption of his entire approach towards the calculation
of probabilities and the detection of "design." He assumes
what he is trying to prove.
According to Dembski, the detection of "design" requires
that an object display complexity that could not be produced by what he calls
"natural causes." In order to do that, one must first examine all of
the possibilities by which an object, like the flagellum, might have been
generated naturally. Dembski and Behe, of course, come to the conclusion that
there are no such natural causes. But how did they determine that? What is the
scientific method used to support such a conclusion? Could it be that their
assertions of the lack of natural causes simply amount to an unsupported
personal belief? Suppose that there are such causes, but they simply happened
not to think of them? Dembski actually seems to realize that this is a serious
problem. He writes: "Now it can happen that we may not know enough to
determine all the relevant chance hypotheses [which here, as noted above,
means all relevant natural processes (hvt)]. Alternatively, we
might think we know the relevant chance hypotheses, but later discover that we
missed a crucial one. In the one case a design inference could not even get
going; in the other, it would be mistaken" (Dembski 2002, 123 (note 80)).
What Dembski is telling us is that in order to "detect"
design in a biological object one must first come to the conclusion that the
object could not have been produced by any "relevant chance
hypotheses" (meaning, naturally, evolution). Then, and only then, are
Dembski's calculations brought into play. Stated more bluntly, what this really
means is that the "method" first involves assuming the
absence of an evolutionary pathway leading to the object, followed by
a calculation "proving" the impossibility of spontaneous assembly.
Incredibly, this a priori reasoning is exactly the sort of
logic upon which the new "science of design" has been constructed.
Not surprisingly, scientific reviewers have not missed this point
– Dembski's arguments have been repeatedly criticized on this issue and on many
others (Orr 2002; Charlesworth 2002; Padian 2002).
Designing the Cycle
In assessing the design argument, therefore, it only seems as
though two distinct arguments have been raised for the unevolvability of the
flagellum. In reality, those two arguments, one invoking irreducible complexity
and the other specified complex information, both depend upon a single
scientifically insupportable position. Namely, that we can look at a complex
biological object and determine with absolute certainty that none of its
component parts could have been first selected to perform other functions. The
discovery of extensive homologies between the Type III secretory system and the
flagellum has now shown just how wrong that position was.
[But have you actually observed a bacterium with the locomotion
component in which you replaced that component with another functioning
component that is similar or identical found in another species that is similar
to the first bacterium to see if it functions properly either for locomotion or
for other purposes such as producing toxins? Have you found any bacterium
without a functioning locomotion component? If you have not done any of these
things, then your conclusions are pure speculation with no real basis for
speculating, hence a waste of time. Note that an Intelligent Designer cannot be
ruled out in any case, because He could have created such functioning
components as well to be received by the lifeforms He created. For just as He
created sources of liquid and food to have it readily available for the
lifeforms He created to utilize in order to sustain itself, so He could have
created such components for the lifeforms to receive and placed them in such a
manner and in such quantities to assist His creation in surviving. The question
is have you found any of these components floating around in the environments
that the bacteria occupy. If not then don’t speculate further. None of these
things has to evolve over a long time, but be made immediately available for
the lifeforms He created which live upon the earth that He created]
When anti-evolutionary arguments featuring the bacterial flagellum
rose into prominence, beginning with the 1996 publication of Darwin's Black Box
(Behe 1996a), they were predicated upon the assertion that each of the protein
components of the flagellum were crafted, in a single act of design, to fit the
specific purpose of the flagellum. The flagellum was said to be unevolvable
since the entire complex system had to be assembled first in order to produce
any selectable biological function. This claim was broadened to include all
complex biological systems, and asserted further that science would never find
an evolutionary pathway to any of these systems. After all, it hadn't so far,
at least according to one of "design's" principal advocates:
There is no publication in the scientific literature – in
prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books – that describes how
molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur
or even might have occurred. (Behe 1996a, 185)
[Note that in this article you actually do admit to not knowing
the details of how anything evolved: “Living cells are filled, of course,
with complex structures whose detailed evolutionary origins are not known.”]
As many critics of intelligent design have pointed out, that
statement is simply false. Consider, as just one example, the Krebs cycle, an
intricate biochemical pathway consisting of nine enzymes and a number of cofactors
that occupies center stage in the pathways of cellular metabolism. The Krebs
cycle is "real," "complex," and "biochemical."
Does it also present a problem for evolution? Apparently yes, according to the
authors of a 1996 paper in the Journal of Molecular evolution, who wrote:
"The Krebs cycle has been frequently quoted as a key problem
in the evolution of living cells, hard to explain by Darwin’s natural
selection: How could natural selection explain the building of a complicated
structure in toto, when the intermediate stages have no obvious fitness
functionality? (Melendez-Hevia, Wadell, and Cascante 1996)
Where intelligent design theorists throw up their hands and
declare defeat for evolution, however, these researchers decided to do the hard
scientific work of analyzing the components of the cycle, and seeing if any of
them might have been selected for other biochemical tasks. What they found
should be a lesson to anyone who asserts that evolution can only act by direct
selection for a final function. In fact, nearly all of the proteins of the
complex cycle can serve different biochemical purposes within the cell, making
it possible to explain in detail how they evolved:
[Although you stipulate that a number of the components of the
Kreb’s cycle have been observed to participate in different biochemical
purposes within a cell or other cells; this does not make it possible for you to
explain in detail how they evolved. There has to be more information which
indicates the progression of that evolution stage by stage, failure by failure,
success by success over many years – lots of details which most likely require
you to be very very old – millions, billions of years old. For evolution by its
own self description is not straight forward progress but a series of virtually
endless failures interspersed with successes here and there until a huge amount
of trials / uncountable years go by and you have some constructive results that
you have called “random processes and natural selection” as well as “survival
of the fittest.” Since both Creationism and Evolution are faith based models of
how the universe / earth came about because neither is sufficiently observable
in how it came about – to be there as each species evolved or did not evolve
successfully; nor repeatable nor falsifiable in order to arrive at sufficient
scientific, objective data; and since there is evidently a quality of design
prevalent everywhere in the universe that is way beyond the imagination and
capacity of mankind so far, then there remains the plausibility of an
Intelligent Designer Who created the universe]
In the Krebs cycle problem the intermediary stages were also
useful, but for different purposes, and, therefore, its complete design was a
very clear case of opportunism. . . . the Krebs cycle was built through the
process that Jacob (1977) called ‘‘evolution by molecular tinkering,’’ stating
that evolution does not produce novelties from scratch: It works on what
already exists. The most novel result of our analysis is seeing how, with
minimal new material, evolution created the most important pathway of metabolism,
achieving the best chemically possible design. In this case, a chemical
engineer who was looking for the best design of the process could not have
found a better design than the cycle which works in living cells." (Melendez-Hevia, Wadell, and Cascante
1996)
Since this paper appeared, a study based on genomic DNA sequences
has confirmed the validity of this approach (Huynen, Dandekar, and Bork 1999).
By contrast, how would intelligent design have approached the Krebs Cycle?
Using Dembski's calculations as our guide, we would first determine the amino
acid sequences of each of the proteins of the cycle, and then calculate the
probability of their spontaneous assembly. When this is done, an origination
probability of less than 10 -400 is the result. Therefore, the result
of applying "design" as a predictive science would have told both
groups of researchers that their ultimately successful studies would have been
fruitless, since the probability of spontaneous assembly falls below the "universal
probability bound."
We already know, however, the reason that such calculations fail.
They carry a built-in assumption that the component parts of a complex
biochemical system have no possible functions beyond the completely assembled
system itself. As we have seen, this assumption is false. The Krebs cycle
researchers knew better, of course, and were able to produce two important
studies describing how a real, complex, biochemical system might have evolved –
the very thing that design theorists once claimed did not exist in the
scientific literature.
The Failure of Design
It is no secret that concepts like "irreducible
complexity" and "intelligent design" have failed to take the
scientific community by storm (Forrest 2002). Design has not prompted new
research studies, new breakthroughs, or novel insights on so much as a single
scientific question. Design advocates acknowledge this from time to time, but
they often claim that this is because the scientific deck is stacked against
them. The Darwinist establishment, they say, prevents them from getting a foot
in the laboratory door.
I would suggest that the real reason for the cold shoulder given
"design" by the scientific community, particularly by life science
researchers, is because time and time again its principal scientific claims
have turned out to be wrong. Science is a pragmatic activity, and if your
hypothesis doesn't work, it is quickly discarded.
The claim of irreducible complexity for the bacterial flagellum is
an obvious example of this, but there are many others. Consider, for example,
the intricate cascade of proteins involved in the clotting of vertebrate blood.
This has been cited as one of the principal examples of the kind of complexity
that evolution cannot generate, despite the elegant work of Russell Doolittle
(Doolittle and Feng 1987; Doolittle 1993) to the contrary. A number of proteins
are involved in this complex pathway, as described by Behe:
When an animal is cut, a protein called Hagemann factor (XII)
sticks to the surface of cells near the wound. Bound Hagemann factor is then
cleaved by a protein called HMK to yield activated Hagemann factor. Immediately
the activated Hagemann factor converts another protein, called prekallikrein,
to its active form, kallikrein. (Behe 1996a, 84)
How important are each of these proteins? In line with the dogma
of irreducible complexity, Behe argues that each and every component must be in
place before the system will work, and he is perfectly clear on this point:
. . . none of the cascade proteins are used for anything except
controlling the formation of a clot. Yet in the absence of any of the
components, blood does not clot, and the system fails. (Behe 1996a, 86)
As we have seen, the claim that every one of the components must
be present for clotting to work is central to the "evidence" for
design. One of those components, as these quotations indicate, is Factor XII,
which initiates the cascade. Once again, however, a nasty little fact gets in
the way of intelligent design theory. Dolphins lack Factor XII (Robinson,
Kasting, and Aggeler 1969), and yet their blood clots perfectly well. How can
this be if the clotting cascade is indeed irreducibly complex? It cannot, of
course, and therefore the claim of irreducible complexity is wrong for this
system as well. I would suggest, therefore, that the real reason for the rejection
of "design" by the scientific community is remarkably simple – the
claims of the intelligent design movement are contradicted time and time again
by the scientific evidence.
[In this case it is NOT contradicted. Apples and oranges. A human
being is not the same as a dolphin. Have you tried to find a human being that
does not have Factor XII in his / her blood clotting system to see if it
operates? Evidently not. Don’t dolphins have a different environment to live in
that might not need Factor XII? Yes. Have you refuted an Intelligent Designer
because Factor XII is redundant? No. For you may discover that Factor XII is
essential for human clotting but not for Dolphin clotting. An Intelligent
Designer is nevertheless not refuted because there is not proved out that there
is NO irreducible complexity present in the universe at all, therefore no
evidence that one might be required. It’s all about evidence]
The Flagellum Unspun
In any discussion of the question of "intelligent
design," it is absolutely essential to determine what is meant by the term
itself. If, for example, the advocates of design wish to suggest that the
intricacies of nature, life, and the universe reveal a world of meaning and
purpose consistent with an overarching, possibly Divine intelligence, then
their point is philosophical, not scientific.
[And so is yours philosophical because yours is not based on
scientific facts either because there has been not any opportunity for
observing one species evolving into another in a reasonable timeframe that does
not exceed the age of the universe, nor an opportunity for repeating and
falsifying. Furthermore, information that may contribute toward corroborating
one view does not refute the other which view might also be corroborated by the
same evidence]
It is a philosophical point of view, incidentally, that I share,
along with many scientists. As H. Allen Orr pointed out in a recent review:
Plenty of scientists have, after all, been attracted to the notion
that natural laws reflect (in some way that's necessarily poorly articulated)
an intelligence or aesthetic sensibility. This is the religion of Einstein, who
spoke of "the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence" and of the
scientist's "religious feeling [that] takes the form of a rapturous
amazement at the harmony of natural law." (Orr 2002).
This, however, is not what is meant by "intelligent
design" in the parlance of the new anti-evolutionists. Their views demand not
a universe in which the beauty and harmony of natural law has brought a world
of vibrant and fruitful life into existence, but rather a universe in which the
emergence and evolution of life is made expressly impossible by the very same
rules.
Their view requires that the source of each and every novelty of
life was the direct and active involvement of an outside designer whose work
violated the very laws of nature he had fashioned. The world of intelligent
design is not the bright and innovative world of life that we have come to know
through science. Rather, it is a brittle and unchanging landscape, frozen in
form and unable to adapt except at the whims of its designer.
[The
Creationist worldview is far more beautiful and will be even
moreso when the Creator comes to fix everything and bring us back to
the world
of the Garden of Eden before the Fall, including man. No more natural
disasters, cruelties to fellow man by man, perfect climate, no death,
only
eternal life. Or don’t you read the Bible logically in accordance with
the normative rules of language, context and logic to determine what it
really says and not what someone tells you it says?]
Certainly, the issue of design and purpose in nature is a
philosophical one that scientists can and should discuss with great vigor.
[Of course. You’ve supported my very point. Both evolutionists’
and creationists’ statements about the design and purpose of the universe /
nature must of necessity be philosophical because there is no a means by which true
scientific evidence can be arrived at that because such evidence is neither
wholly observable, nor wholly repeatable nor wholly falsifiable.]
However, the notion at the heart's of today intelligent design
movement is that the direct intervention of an outside designer can be
demonstrated by the very existence of complex biochemical systems.
[If a complex biochemical or other kind of system cannot gradually
evolve because the time involved would be greater than the supposed age of the
universe, then it demands an Intelligent Designer because the probability of
their evolving is too long – longer than the supposed age of the universe]
What even they acknowledge is that their entire scientific
position rests upon a single assertion – that the living cell contains
biochemical machines that are irreducibly complex.
[There are other assertions which creationists make as well. For
example, the world wide flood of which evidence is everywhere on the planet
testifies to a recent creation, which evidence would have destroyed the fossil
evidence of evolution in a very short time, (if there was evidence in the first
place), which thus demands an Intelligent Designer to create the universe so
quickly. But One assertion at a time please. And the bacterial flagellum is the prime example of such a
machine. One of the innumerable examples. To refute one is not to refute them
all. Each one must be adequately examined]
Such an assertion, as we have seen, can be put to the test in a
very direct way. If we are able to search and find an example of a machine with
fewer protein parts, contained within the flagellum, that serves a purpose
distinct from motility, the claim of irreducible complexity is refuted.
[Not so. And Intelligent Designer is not refuted just because He
created a particular design with multipurposes. I would think that what He did
was rather intelligent and amazing, wouldn’t you?]
As we have also seen, the flagellum does indeed contain such a
machine, a protein-secreting apparatus that carries out an important function
even in species that lack the flagellum altogether. A scientific idea rises or
falls on the weight of the evidence, and the evidence in the case of the
bacterial flagellum is abundantly clear.
[And the evidence is that a particular design has a number of
variations in it which performs a number of functions in a number of species.
That’s rather intelligent, don’t you think? Does that refute an intelligent
designer??? Not even if you can figure out that that species might evolve
before the universe is old. Otherwise there needs to be Someone Who can do it
faster, right?]
As an icon of anti-evolution, the flagellum has fallen.
[Only if you can provide the stages of evolution in this amazing
microscopic engine that seems as complex as an automobile]
The very existence of the Type III Secretory System shows that the
bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex.
[More than one function of this system in more than one species is
not what irreducible complexity is referring to. How did that system evolve in
the ONE species in view – stage by stage; and how did that system evolve in the
OTHER species in view is the issue and in how much time? If that time is longer
than the universe is old. Then look for another solution. You have not provided
this all important information]
It also demonstrates, more generally, that the claim of
"irreducible complexity" is scientifically meaningless, constructed
as it is upon the flimsiest of foundations – the assertion that because science
has not yet found selectable functions for the components of a certain
structure, it never will.
[I am going to stick with what is the best explanation we have so
far until something better comes along. So far we have a very complex universe
in which you have not fully explained every detail for over 150 years. It
appears so far to be left up to an Intelligent Designer over a very short period
of time, especially because of the overwhelming evidence of a worldwide flood
that would have destroyed the fossil record if there was one and produced its
own because of all of that water and sediment. A recent creation demands an
Intelligent Designer]
In the final analysis, as the claims of intelligent design fall by
the wayside, its advocates are left with a single, remaining tool with which to
battle against the rising tide of scientific evidence. That tool may be
effective in some circles, of course, but the scientific community will be quick
to recognize it for what it really is – the classic argument from ignorance,
dressed up in the shiny cloth of biochemistry and information theory.
[You state that creation is wonderfully complex and so far beyond
your comprehension to explain in detail, species by species. How does that rule
out an Intelligent Designer?]
When three leading advocates of intelligent design were recently
given a chance to make their case in an issue of Natural History magazine,
they each concluded their articles with a plea for design. One wrote that we
should recognize "the design inherent in life and the universe" (Behe
2002), another that "design remains a possibility" (Wells 2002), and
another "that the natural sciences need to leave room for design"
(Dembski 2002b). Yes, it is true. Design does remain a possibility, but not the
type of "intelligent design" of which they speak.
[Why not? Can you prove there is not an Intelligent Designer of
some sort until you can explain evolution a bit better?]
As Darwin wrote, there is grandeur in an evolutionary view of
life, a grandeur that is there for all to see, regardless of their
philosophical views on the meaning and purpose of life.
[Creationists and the Bible itself have a wonder about the
marvelous creation that appears before them – they consider it so incredible
that there must be some marvelous Creator responsible for its beauty and
unfathomable complexity, and responsible for a solution for all of the deaths
and disasters that nevertheless have occurred throughout the ages. The solution
is quite plausible if there is an Intelligent Designer. So far evolution has
not promised an offer for this solution]
I do not believe, even for an instant, that Darwin's vision has
weakened or diminished the sense of wonder and awe that one should feel in
confronting the magnificence and diversity of the living world. Rather, to a
person of faith it should enhance their sense of the Creator's majesty and
wisdom (Miller 1999). Against such a
backdrop, the struggles of the intelligent design movement are best understood
as clamorous and disappointing double failures – rejected by science because
they do not fit the facts,
[Actually Creation does indeed fit the facts especially since
there is not enough time for the universe to have evolved from its beginning
via random selection, especially since the worldwide flood demands a recent
universe]
and having failed religion because they think too little of God.
[What!!!
Explain. Are you writing of a god who lets death and random selection
go on
for billions of years??? Or according to the Bible the God Who created
everything out of nothing into a grand
and perfect universe, and then allows mankind to have his way and mess
it up and then provides a Savior to restore
it all as it was originally created, allowing all mankind to
participate in that salvation by a moment of faith alone in His Son
Jesus Christ alone. No I don’t think that’s less, the God of the Bible
is
far more than you think!]