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Every House is Built By Someone
I've just recently become aware of a fascinating new book. It has a tremendous
message relevant to the evolution/creation issue, but since the message is
anti-Darwinian, the public attention has been subdued.
Michael J. Behe is a 44 year-old biochemist at Lehigh University, and his book
was released in the fall of last year, called DARWIN'S BLACK BOX: The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. He begins with a premise stated by Charles
Darwin in The Origin of Species: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex
existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down."
Behe has done the lab work and he affirms that Darwin's challenge can be met.
But more important, in meeting that challenge - there is the acknowledged role
of an intelligent designer!
Behe's research has confirmed that "molecular machinery and complex systems in
the cell are dependent upon far too many interconnected parts to have been built
up gradually, step by tiny step, over time." In establishing this, Behe talks
about a system that has a quality he calls "irreducible complexity." He
explains: "...I simply mean it is a system composed of several well-matched
interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of
any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."
To illustrate this in ordinary language, Behe gives his readers and audiences a
tour of the ordinary household item, the mousetrap! This has become his
"trademark illustration of irreducible complexity." A recent article in
Christianity Today explains: "After pointing out the five parts necessary for
mousetrap function, he added, 'You need all the parts to catch a mouse. You
can't catch a few mice with a platform, then add the spring and catch a few
more, and then add the hammer and improve its function. All the parts must be
there to have any function at all. The mousetrap is irreducibly
complex'." Likewise the cell is chocked full of systems like these that are
irreducibly complex.
Further, Behe explains that "as you search the professional literature of the
last several decades, looking for articles that have been published even
attempting to explain the possible Darwinian step-by-step origin of any of these
systems, you will encounter a thundering silence. Absolutely no one - not one
scientist - has published any detailed proposal or explanation of the possible
evolution of any such complex biochemical system. And when a science does not
publish, it ought to perish." Thus, Darwin's own test flunks spectacularly at
the molecular level.
Everywhere we look - in the universe, the earth, the human body, the human eye
and the simple cell - evidence is abundant that "every house is built by
someone, but He who built all things is God," (Hebrews 3:4).
I'm indebted to Alan LaRue for calling this to my attention, and to a three-part
article, "Meeting Darwin's Wager," located at the web site of Christianity
Today. The article was written by Tom Woodward, © 1997.
By Warren E. Berkley
The Final Page
From Expository Files 4.6; June 1997
