There were fewer than a dozen in all, all leading scientists, serious skeptics of the conventional wisdom that Darwinism was proven fact. All highly credentialed, American and foreign citizens, who shared a dissatisfaction with the accepted belief that Darwin’s theory of evolution fully explained the origins of life and was established scientific fact. Yet that is what they had all been taught, and what they knew was still being taught, even in advanced biology curricula. Michael Behe, a world-renowned biologist at Lehigh University, expressed his dismay (anger) that he had completed a Ph.D. program without ever being exposed to the strong arguments against Darwin’s conventional theory that were presented in a book by Michael Denton , “Darwin in Crisis”. Dr. Dean Kenyon, Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Biology at San Francisco State University was there, as were Drs. Paul Nelson, Stephen Meyer, William Demsky, Jonathon Wells, Jed McCosko, and Scott Minich: biologists, chemists, philosophers.

They discussed the ramifications of modern laboratory equipment, such as electron micrography at 50,000 times magnification of living cells, technology unknown until recently, and advanced knowledge in many related fields that posed substantial challenges a century and a half. old Darwinism – all ignored by the popular media, the courts, the universities and the public. Through their studies and personal experimentation, all of these scientists had come to question the conventional belief system of Darwinism, and certainly did not agree that it was proven science. In an unlimited atmosphere of free expression, they exchanged ideas and concepts, theoretically exploring the mystery of life, including all rational scientific options.

Many would later describe the meeting as a turning point in their technical lives.

Charles Darwin

They began with Charles Darwin, who in 1831, during a five-year voyage of exploration, spent a month on the isolated Galapagos Islands, finding unique animals, plants and birds unlike those seen elsewhere. Among the latter he discovered thirteen species of finches, with different shapes and sizes of beaks, which, twenty-five years later, in his revolutionary book “On the Origin of Species”, became the centerpiece of his theory. His theme was that time and occasional random mutations had provided a natural advantage in obtaining food from seeds in various locations with different plants, which, over time, resulted in the optimization of the various beak shapes relative to a private venue. Food fountain. That was the significant conclusion of their observations: slight variations in beak shape over generations, initiated by random chance mutations but providing a beneficial advantage in the competitive struggle for existence through functional improvement, would gradually result in a beak shape. beak optimized for a specific food source There was no need for “intelligent” guidance from a supreme being: Darwin then extrapolated his thesis beyond optimizing finch beak shape: to major variations in all basic animal life forms, drastic physical changes in appearance and function that improved the chances of success in competing for survival. Darwin’s terminology: “natural selection through survival of the fittest.”

As scholars and scientists reviewed Darwin’s words, “…he cannot make a sudden leap, but must proceed in short, sure, but slow steps,” they noted what he had also said (and what his followers had never said). seem to recognize), “However, if it could be shown that some complex organism existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would collapse altogether.” (Emphasis added.)

Bacterial Flagellum Motor,

Much interest was aroused by the well-known elements of current science, a thimbleful of cultured organic fluid containing billions of single-celled bacteria, each teeming with complex circuitry and microscopic molecular “machines.” The common bacterium, powered by its rapidly spinning whip-tail flagellum, was analyzed in detail. “Like an outboard motor,” commented Dr. Behe. Harvard’s Dr. H. Berg had called it “the most efficient engine in the universe.” Dr. Scott Minich, with two decades of study of the phenomenon, described it: “…it spins at 100,000 rpm, stops at a quarter turn, and then spins in the opposite direction, while constantly receiving and processing input from the environment to avoid obstacles. He explained that detailed examination of the microscopic mechanism revealed components and functions analogous to the optimized mechanical complexity of a standard outboard motor and propeller system.

As an approximation to his scientific evaluation of the whipped tail, the concept of “irreducible complexity” was discussed. Using the common mousetrap as an analogy, it was very clear to everyone: five components: a bait; a capture (or killing) mechanism; a retention device; a trigger device; and a platform to which all the elements are attached in the proper relationship. Of great importance to scientists were three specific Darwinian factors, which should be applicable to living entities:

1. Until all the elements of a system are present and working, the system will not work;
2. until the system works, elements that do not work are not a benefit but an obstacle to the survival of the entity; Y
3. according to Darwin’s own theory of natural selection, such non-beneficial appendages would be eliminated in subsequent generations.

The complex marvel of function, as shown under the microscope, was divided into the analogous and numerous elements of an ordinary motor propulsion system: forty parts, equivalent to the sections of the rotor, the drive shaft, the stators, the brakes, flexible joints, etc. (plus an additional feedback sensor). Every part of such mechanical systems, with modern and competitive technology, is specifically designed and engineered for maximum overall operating efficiency, in stark contrast to Darwin’s theory of random mutations, small accidental steps, (somehow) continuous generational improvement a through an overall advantageous performance. . The visual evidence of the whipped tail was obvious and completely incompatible with Darwin’s theory. To their rational minds, the theory of small changes by chance, somehow fortuitously combining to achieve a marvel of operational complexity and efficiency, was totally unacceptable by any scientific standard. It wasn’t just a challenge to Darwin’s theory of evolution, it was its destruction!

Inference to the best explanation,

They were scientists in search of understanding. While Darwin’s theory was brilliant and clearly applicable at the subclass level (for finch beak shapes, or skin colorations for bears or humans, optimizing the amount of vitamin D uptake for different local sun exposures, whether harmful or beneficial), for the basic and initial origin of living entities, however, the analogy with the outboard motor was inescapable. The end result, logically, could only be achieved by “intelligence” of the end goal, driving specific and detailed elements of “design engineering.”

The methodology of Science is specific regarding the acceptance of the “inference to the best explanation”. With Darwin’s theory clearly inadequate and absent from other feasible theories, the alternative concept, first introduced by Behe ​​in his book “Darwin’s Black Box”, was firmly selected by the group of scientists as the best possible explanation for the origin of life forms. “Smart design”!