ID Theory & Neo-Darwinism

Intelligent Design (ID) theorists are challenging neo-Darwinian macroevolutionary theorists. A growing number of scientists and scholars are finding neo-Darwinist explanations insufficient to explain biological complexity. For example, biotic things appear to be like machines. If biotic things are like machines then they are, as Michael Behe claims in his book Darwin's Black Box, "irreducibly complex." Irreducibly complex organisms cannot be explained by neo-Darwinism precisely because partially made machines confer no selective evolutionary advantage. Thus Behe quotes Darwin himself, writing in The Origin of Species: "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." Many machines not only are not formed this way but could not have formed this way. If biotic organisms are really like machines, then Darwin's explanation fails.