The Questioning Librarian

One of the arguments that those defending evolution and good science continually have to fend off is the absurdity that is "irreducible complexity," the old argument of Paley that was dusted off and reinvigorated by Michael Behe. This argument has many manifestations, but at heart they are similar forms of the same basic idea. The young earth creationist points to something in nature, such as the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting system in humans or the human brain to give a few examples, and argue that it is too complex to be the product of evolution by natural selection. Therefore it must be, in the mind of the creationist, a fine example of design by a Creator of the young earth/ literal Genesis type. Within the last week or so two more of these so-called examples were brought to my attention by creationists eager to demonstrate that my acceptance of evolution is wrong, wrong, wrong. A few days ago, I was sent another one of those horrible Creation Moments daily pi...

One of the favorite tactics of creationism is to engage in the "God of the Gaps" argument; if science can't explain something, then it must have been God/ the Intelligent Designer. Or, conversely, if one can poke enough holes in evolution then not only will it be destroyed but everyone will have no choice but to accept the creationist alternative. This tactic has evolved (pun intended) into the "irreducible complexity" argument of the Intelligent Design hucksters, most notably espoused by Michael Behe of Darwin's Black Box  and the 2005 Dover Intelligent Design trial. The argument goes that a number of observable features in nature are irreducibly complex, that is to say that if one part is removed then the whole system collapses. Thus the "irreducibly complex" feature could not possibly have evolved and is proof of the work of an Intelligent Designer (which may or may not be the God of the Bible; ID proponents are cagey on this, saying in public...