Mark Hartwig, "Darwinists Deny the Obvious" (1996)

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. But I can find no such case."³

In Darwin's time, however, no one appreciated the excruciating complexity of living things. Cells, for example, were thought to be little more than tiny blobs of gel. But electron microscopes and advanced research techniques have revealed a level of complexity in even the humblest bacterium that makes a microprocessor or compact disk player seem primitive.
> <br> Biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, points out that "the simplest self-replicating cell has the capacity to produce thousands of different proteins and other molecules, at different times and under variable conditions. Synthesis, repair, communication -- all of these functions take place in virtually every cell."
> <br> What's more, Behe said, many systems in the cell are irreducibly complex.
> <br> "An irreducibly complex system," Behe said, "is one that requires several interacting parts to function, where if you remove or destroy one of the parts, then the function is also destroyed."

An everyday example is a mousetrap. A mousetrap has five parts: a platform, holding bar, hammer, catch, and spring. When assembled there's no gradual improvement of function. It doesn't work until every part is in place.
> <br> The same thing is true inside a living cell. Many of its systems just won't work unless every part is there. One such system is that which moves proteins from one part of the cell to another.
> <br> Proteins don't just float around freely inside of cells, Behe said. "It turns out that eucaryotic cells [cells that make up most living things] have a number of different compartments, like rooms in a house. When a protein is made it has to get from the compartment where it's made to the compartment where it's supposed to be."
> <br> Consider what's involved in simply moving a protein through a compartment wall. Cells have two fundamentally different ways of doing this: gated transport and vesicular transport.⁴
> <br> In gated transport, the compartment wall is equipped with a "gate" and a chemical "sensor." If a protein bearing the right "identification tag" approaches, the sensor opens the gate and allows the protein to pass through. If one with the wrong tag approaches, the gate stays shut.
> <br> Note the irreducible complexity in even this simple example. All three components -- the gate, the sensor, and the tag -- must be in place. There's no way to produce the system in a gradual, Darwinian fashion.
> <br> If the tag is missing, the gate won't open. The same is true if there's no sensor, or if there's just a solid wall. And if there's a hole where the gate should be, proteins will pass through haphazardly.
> <br> Vesicular transport is even more complicated. As with gated transport, the compartment wall is equipped with sensors. In this case, however, there's no gate. Instead, when a protein bearing the right identification tag comes along, the wall grabs it and then bulges outward, pinching off into a little "bubble" (vesicle) with the protein inside.
> <br> The vesicle, which has it's own identification tag, travels to its destination -- another compartment. There, a sensor on the compartment recognizes the vesicle and lets it merge with the compartment, spilling the protein inside.
> <br> Here we have two sensors, two identification tags and the vesicle. The vesicle itself is a complex object made of fats and special proteins that allow it to bud off from the original compartment. And that's not to mention the other proteins that help it merge with the destination compartment.
> <br> Furthermore, this complexity is not limited to cell transport. In his forthcoming book, Behe discusses several other examples, including blood clotting, the chemistry of vision, the immune system, and the structure of cilia -- little hairlike contraptions that some cells use as oars.
> <br> In the face of irreducible complexity, Darwinism falls mute. Because there is no simpler level to which they can appeal, Darwinists can't explain how these systems arose.
> <br> "If you look in the professional science literature about how such systems arose, it turns out that nobody has published anything," Behe told Citizen. "Scientists simply assumed that it happened through evolution. But if you try to call them on it they can't produce anything. They just kind of wave their hands."
> <br> Evidence? What Evidence?
> Many Darwinists, of course, are unfazed by the evidence against evolution. Like paleontologist Kevin Padian, who is fully aware of the Cambrian Explosion, they persist in saying that there is no evidence refuting their position.<br>
> According to Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, a critic of Darwinism and the author of <i>Darwin on Trial<i>, this denial is not surprising, given Darwinists' philosophical commitments.
> <br> "The heart and soul of Darwinism is its unquestioning allegiance to naturalism," Johnson told Citizen. "To a Darwinist, nature is all there is.
> <br> "If God exists at all, He's more of an onlooker than a creator. That being the case, Darwinism must be true, because nothing else works. God is out of the picture, and the other naturalistic theories are even worse than Darwinism."
> <br> Thus, in the minds of Darwinists, there's no such thing as evidence against Darwinism -- only minor problems that science will eventually solve.
> <br> "Obviously we can't expose children to this evidence, because they might be confused and think that there really is evidence against Darwinists," Johnson said wryly. "That's how the reasoning goes."
> <br> In addition, Darwinists often muddy the water in public debate by using varying defintions of the word "evolution." According to John Wiester, chairman of the American Scientific Affiliation's Science Education Commission, Darwinists use the word "evolution" in many different ways.
> <br> "Sometimes it simply means 'change over time,' " Wiester said. "Other times it refers to minor changes, like changes in the size and shape of bird beaks, or the color of moths."
> <br> Still other times, Wiester said, it refers to the grand Darwinian view that the living world is a product of natural forces and chance. And they could be using any one of these definitions when discussing evolution.
> <br> "Just when you think you've nailed them with the evidence, they shift ground and say, 'Oh, I was only talking about change over time' or something like that. Then when the heat is off, they go right back to talking about Darwinism. It's a shell game. You have to make them define their terms up front," Wiester said.
> <br> Darwinists think their theory is an indisputable fact. They'd like everyone else to think that, too. But it's not a fact, and students should have a chance to weigh the evidence for themselves -- all the evidence. []
> <br> This article appeared in the June 1996 issue of Citizen magazine.

Mark Hartwig is Religion and Society Analyst for Focus on the Family. He is also a specialist on the Origins Debate.