Additional excerpts from Charles Colson's book and video series, How Now Shall We Live?

The late Christian evangelist Francis Schaeffer used to offer an argument against evolution that was simple, easy to grasp, and devastating: Suppose a fish evolves lungs. What happens then? Does it move up to the next evolutionary stage. Of course not. It drowns. Living things cannot simply change piecemeal---a new organ here, a new limb there. An organism is an integrated system, and any isolated change in the system is more likely to be harmful than helpful. If a fish's gills were to begin mutating into a set of lungs, it would be a disaster, not an advantage. The only way to turn a fish into a land-dwelling animal is to transform it all at once, with a host of interrelated changes happening at the same time---not only lungs but also coadapted changes in the skeleton, the circulatory system, and so on. The term to describe this kind of interdependent system is irreducible complexity. And the fact that organisms are irreducibly complex is yet another argument that they could not have evolved piecemeal, one step at a time, as Darwin proposed. Darwinian theory states that all living structures evolved in small, gradual steps from simpler structures---feathers from scales, wings from forelegs, blossoms from leaves, and so on. But anything that is irreducibly complex cannot evolve in gradual steps, and thus its very existence refutes Darwin's theory. The concept of irreducible complexity was developed by Michael Behe, a Lehigh University professor of biochemistry, in his 1993 book, Darwin's Black Box. Behe's homey example of irreducible complexity is the mousetrap. A mousetrap cannot be assembled gradually, he points out. You cannot start with a wooden platform and catch a few mice, add a spring and catch a few more mice, add a hammer, and so on, each addition making the mousetrap function better. No, to even start catching mice, all the parts must be assembled from the outset. The mousetrap doesn't work until all its parts are present and working together. Many living structures are like the mousetrap. They involve an entire system of interacting parts all working together. If one part were to evolve in isolation, the entire system of interacting parts would stop functioning; and since, according to Darwinism, natural selection preserves the forms that function better than their rivals, the nonfunctioning system would be eliminated by natural selection---like the fish with lungs. Therefore, there is no possible Darwinian explanation of how irreducibly complex structures and systems came into existence. Interestingly, Darwin himself grasped the problem and even admitted that it could falsify his theory. "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," he wrote, "my theory would absolutely break down." Today we can confidently say that his theory has broken down, for we now know that nature is full of examples of complex organs that could not possibly have been formed by numerous, slight modifications---that is, organs that are irreducibly complex. Take the example of the bat. Evolutionists propose that the bat evolved from a small, mouselike creature whose forelimbs (the "front toes") developed into wings by gradual steps. But picture the steps: As the "front toes" grow longer and the skin begins to grow between them, the animal can no longer run without stumbling over them; and yet the the forelimbs are not long enough to function as wings. And so, during most of its hypothetical transitional stages, the poor creature would have limbs too long for running and too short for flying. It would flop along helplessly and soon become extinct. There is no conceivable pathway for bat wings to be formed in gradual stages. And this conclusion is confirmed by the fossil record, where we find no transitional fossils leading up to the bats. The first time bats appear in the fossil record, they are already fully formed and virtually identical to modern bats. A classic example of irreducible complexity is the human eye. An eye is no use at all unless all its parts are fully formed and working together. Even a slight alteration from its current form destroys its function. How, then, could the eye evolve by slight alterations? Even in Darwin's day the complexity of the eye was offered as evidence against his theory, and Darwin said the mere thought of trying to explain the eye gave him "a cold shudder." Darwin would have shuddered even harder had he known the structure of cells inside the eye. Contemporary Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins have tried to solve the problem by tracing a pathway to the evolution of the eye, starting with a light-sensitive spot, moving to a group of cells cupped to focus the light better, and so on through a graded series of small improvements to produce a true lens. But as Behe points out, even the first step---the light-sensitive spot---is irreducibly complex, requiring a chain reaction of chemical reactions, starting when a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which changes to trans-retinal, which forces a change in the shape of a protein called rhodopsin, which sticks to another protein called tranducin, which binds to another molecule . . . and so on. And where do those cupped cells that Dawkins talks about come from? There are dozens of complex proteins involved in maintaining cell shape, and dozens more that control groups of cells. Each of Dawkins's steps is itself a complex system, and adding them together doesn't answer where these complex systems came from in the first place. It's as if we asked how a stereo system is made and someone answered, "By plugging a set of speakers into an amplifier and adding a CD player and a tape deck." Right. The real question is how to make those speakers and amplifiers in the first place. The most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all coordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell. No such system could arise in a blind, step-by-step Darwinian process. The most rational explanation of irreducibly complex structures in nature is that they are products of the creative mind of an intelligent being. ON ALL FRONTS, scientists are being forced to face up to the evidence for an intelligent cause. Ever since the big bang theory was proposed, cosmologists have had to wrestle with the implications that the universe had an absolute beginning---and therefore a transcendent creator. The discovery of the information content in DNA is forcing biologists to recognize an intelligent cause for the origin of life. So, too, the fact of irreducible complexity is raising the question of design in living things. Science cannot tell us everything we might wish to know about this intelligent cause, of course. It cannot reveal the details of God's character, and it cannot explain his plan of salvation. These are tasks for theology. But a study of the design and purpose in nature does clearly support the existence of a transcendent creator---so clearly that, as the apostle Paul writes in the New Testament, we stand before him without excuse (Romans 1:20). Since the scientific evidence is so persuasive, why does the scientific establishment cling so tenaciously to Darwinian evolution? Why is Darwinism still the official creed in our public schools? Because the real issue is not what we see through the microscope or the telescope; it's what we adhere to in our hearts and minds. Darwinism functions as the cornerstone propping up a naturalistic worldview, and therefore the scientist who is committed to naturalism before he or she even walks into the laboratory is primed to accept even the flimsiest evidence supporting the theory. The most trivial change in living things is accepted as confirmation of the most far-flung claims of evolution, so that minor variation in finch beaks or insecticide resistance is touted as evidence that finches and flies both evolved ultimately from the slime by blind, unguided natural processes. The core of the controversy is not science; it is a titanic struggle between opposing worldviews---between naturalism and theism. Is the universe governed by blind material forces or by a loving personal being?   CHECK OUT THE BOOK HERE:   BACK TO THE PR BOOMER PAGE