Can Random Mutation Lead to Functional Complexity?

Those who know my history will also know I have questions about evolution. Not common descent, but about the idea that the complexity and specificity of life came about through what amounts to typos in DNA. As an author, I know that typos have never improved my books. They have certainly not written new chapters! And, yes, I’m aware of the argument that they might, given enough time.

I often used to tell my audiences that, if I come into a room and find the Scrabble pieces on the floor, I will believe that they got there through an accident. If the pieces spell “if” or “it,” I will still think it could have been an accident. But if they spell, “my brother is a jerk,” someone will be in trouble! Why? Because there are a lot of letters that go in that order (complexity), and they mean something (specificity).

Over the past few years, I decided to leave arguing about this to others. But, just recently, Dr. Michael Behe published a great article in the Spectator that was cross-posted and accessible to all. I’ve quotes the beginning below. Please read it. It makes sense to me. If you think differently, feel free to comment!

“Darwinism Is a Potemkin Theory of Evolution

Headlines about evolution can give you whiplash. “Was Darwin Wrong?” teased a cover of National Geographic in 2004. But turn the page and you’re conked over the head: “NO. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming”! Now jump to a recent book review in the journal Nature: “A new vision for how evolution works is long overdue…. [it] challenges a dearly held orthodoxy among evolutionary biologists.”

How could the evidence have been overwhelming but now orthodoxy is being challenged?

The short answer is that Darwin’s theory is a mishmash of multiple logically separate ideas. To avoid confusion, those independent notions have to be teased apart. A couple of strands of Darwinian thought are pretty well supported. Others are close to hopeless. Depending on whether a particular magazine article wants to lecture the rubes that science is in charge, or whip up excitement that something new might be in the air, it emphasizes one or the other.

Unfit to Survive

The aspect of Darwin’s theory that confounds most people — stick with me here — is that it tries to account for opposite features of creatures: their similarities and their differences. Unless you keep that prominently in mind, you aren’t fit to survive (at least not for discussions of evolution).

Similarities are the easy part.” More