Galleries / Intelligent Design's 8 Biggest Fails

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Andrew Moseman; published September 17, 2009

Mitochondria Evolved, and So Did You

The Venus Fly Trap: Better Than a Better Mousetrap

Complex, But Not Irreducibly So

You Say Macroevolution, I Say Evolution

Immune to ID

Irreducible Complexity Itself: Fail

Bacteria That Eat Nylon--and Fake Science

Dover Was Wrong? We Think Not.

<p>You've probably heard about the mainstay intelligent design (ID) claim that systems like the eye and the bacterial flagellum are so complex that their creation required--and existence implies--the presence of a supernatural designer. Since scientists debunked this argument years ago, ID advocates have been busy scrounging for new ways to poke holes in evolution (which is, after all, <a href="http://www.notjustatheory.com/" target="blank">just a theory</a>.)</p><p>Cellular machinery is a favorite ID target, since it might appear at first glance that the pieces of a cell couldn't have emerged by gradual mutations, because they all depend on each other to function--so-called "irreducible complexity." However, a <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/25/0908264106.abstract" target="blank">study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month</a> showed that mitochondria--originally free-living bacteria that got chomped by complex cells and turned into energy providers--were present in cells millions of years ago, and <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/reduciblecomplexity/" target="blank">slowly evolved their present function</a>. </p><p>Chalk it up as another case of reducible complexity.</p>

<p><a href="http://calitreview.com/260" target="blank">Michael Behe</a>, a biochemist and ID's chief scientific apostle, loves the mousetrap analogy in arguments for design: Because it requires all its parts to perform its function and wouldn't work without one, it must have been created by some intelligent something-or-someone-or-other. (Biologist <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/" target="blank">Kenneth Miller</a> of Brown University, one of Behe's chief rivals, and others have exposed the problems of this analogy.)</p><p>Fortunately, there is something in the natural world that strongly resembles a mousetrap: a carnivorous plant like the Venus fly trap. It has a trigger (hairs), a hinge that closes quickly, and a cage to keep prey locked down--a system that wouldn't work if you took out one of the parts. </p><p>But close inspection shows that it <a href="http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html#venus" target="blank">could have evolved from simpler models, like the sundews that use a flypaper-like trap</a>. Another reducible machine.</p>

<p>The cascade of proteins that causes blood clotting has been a key point for irreducible complexity among ID-ers. However, <a href="http://ncseweb.org/resources/part-7-dr-michael-behe-dr-kenneth-miller-qa" target="blank">Ken Miller and others have refuted this theory</a> in multiple ways. Whales and dolphins lack proteins that are normally in the cascade but still manage to clot their blood; the puffer fish lacks three of the "necessary proteins" and still manages to do it. And the sea squirt, a distant relative of vertebrates whose blood doesn't clot, has nearly all the necessary genes scattered across its genome. </p><p>Back in 2002, at a <a href="http://ncseweb.org/resources/part-7-dr-michael-behe-dr-kenneth-miller-qa" target="blank">forum at the American Museum of Natural History</a>, Miller got Behe to concede that blood clotting isn't actually "irreducibly complex." "In the same sense that a rat trap is not, that's correct," Behe says.</p>

<p>Intelligent design doesn't deny "microevolution"--small genetic tuning, like the way bacteria and viruses develop antibiotic resistance over the timescale of several years. Instead, it denies "macroevolution," saying that organisms were designed in roughly their present form, and that natural selection can't lead to entirely new species. </p><p>In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Only-Theory-Evolution-Battle-Americas/dp/067001883X" target="blank"><i>Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul</i></a>, Miller uses the fossil evidence of horse evolution to dispel this idea. In response to changes in climate, food sources, or other factors, the specimens show existing species changing or going extinct, and new species emerging--certainly macroevolutionary events, unless the "designer" was constantly designing new horse species and <a href="http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Macroevolution.cfm" target="blank">breathing life into them.</a></p>

<p>This image is of immune cells attacking anthrax bacteria, a process ID proponents claim is irreducibly complex. We'll let John E. Jones III, the federal judge who decided <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html" target="blank"><i>Kitzmiller v. Dover</i></a>, have this one: </p><p>"In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not 'good enough.'"</p>

<p>Many of the scientific responses to ID claims focus on finding evidence to refute ID's nitpicks against evolutionary theory (stemming from incomplete fossil records and the like). But a <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060406231032.htm" target="blank">2006 paper in Science</a> instead went after the very logic behind the case for design, skewering "irreducible complexity" at a more basic level.</p><p>Simply put, as long as the pieces of a complex system were around in an organism, evolution can put them together, sometimes reconstituting the pieces for a different function than they served before. To quote lead researcher Joe Thornton of the University of Oregon, "[s]o-called irreducible complexity was just a reflection of a limited ability to see how evolution works."</p><p>Biologist John McDonald put together a simple but effective explanation of this idea: how <a href="http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html" target="blank">a mousetrap itself could have emerged from stepwise changes</a> to a mere piece of springy wire.</p>

<p>Beyond irreducible complexity, another of ID's core points is specified complexity, as set forth by theologian <a href="http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm" target="blank">William Dembski</a>. According to his argument, the "designer" created the specified and complex information, like an organism's genetic code, and those patterns couldn't have evolved naturally.</p><p>The idea is rife with logical problems, but thankfully, it can actually be tested and dispelled in the real world. One way is through the existence of nylon-eating bacteria. </p><p>Nylon is a synthetic material invented in the twentieth century, but bacteria have evolved means to break it down. For specific complexity to be correct, either the designer inserted the information for breaking down nylon into bacteria when the need arose, or the designer foresaw their need for it and programmed that into bacteria from the beginning.</p>

<p>Court cases, it seems, are never over. For some, the appeals drag on and on. But in the case of <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html" target="blank"><i>Kitzmiller v. Dover</i></a>, ID proponents decided that the way to deal with their penultimate legal defeat was to try and discredit the entire affair. </p><p>Last December, ID proponent Casey Luskin published a series of long Web posts accusing Ken Miller of distorting the arguments during the case, and Judge Jones of wrongly deciding it. This prompted Miller to <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/01/02/smoke-and-mirrors-whales-and-lampreys-a-guest-post-by-ken-miller/">post a lengthy defense on Carl Zimmer's DISCOVER blog, "The Loom."</a> </p><p>Unfortunately, it appears the ID challenge, and its goal of getting to schools to "teach the controversy," isn't going away anytime soon.</p>

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