irreducible complexity

A 1982 poll found that only 9% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes. Two years later, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued its first Science and Creationism booklet, stating that science and religion occupy "separate and mutually exclusive realms." ¹Public skepticism of evolution remained high — a 1993 poll found that only 11% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes.

This extensive volume contains essays by numerous Discovery Fellows who presented at an early intelligent design conference at Biola University in 1996. As Henry F. Shaefer III explains in the forward, the conference was not a typical “creationist” event, as “virtually none of the conference participants were creationists of the sort one frequently reads about in the popular press” and Read More ›

SEATTLE – After several years of claiming that there is no debate about the theory of intelligent design (ID) researchers have published an article bringing the debate to the pages of the latest issue of Science. Three researchers, Jamie Bridgham, Sean Carroll and Joe Thornton claim to have shown how an irreducibly complex system, such as that described by Discovery senior fellow Read More ›

Modern biology has discovered that cells are like miniaturized factories that function using micromolecular machines. In Darwin’s Black Box (1996), Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe proposed that many of these molecular machines exhibit irreducible complexity and therefore could not have been produced by an undirected Darwinian process. Instead, they appear to be the product of intelligent design. Behe’s book initiated a firestorm of controversy both inside and outside of the scientific community, and the debate continues to rage. As the responses below demonstrate, Behe’s arguments have not been refuted. Indeed, the case for the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum and other molecular machines has continued to grow.

Using examples of bacterial motors, cilia, vision, cellular transport, and more, Dr. Michael Behe explains why Darwinian gradualism fails to explain the origin of molecular machines. Through the incorporation of computer animations, this video brings Dr. Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box, to life.

Intelligent design is a scientific theory which states that some aspects of nature are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected cause such as natural selection.  Design theorists argue that we can find biological structures with the same informational properties we commonly find in objects we know were designed.  Design theorists observe that intelligent action produces large Read More ›