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way have to provide advantages for the living thing in question. Since it is not possible for natural selection

and mutation to consciously pick out their targets in advance, the whole theory is based on the hypothesis that
living systems can be reduced to discrete traits that can be added on to the organism in small steps, each of
which carries some selective advantage. That is why Darwin said, "If it could be demonstrated that any com-
plex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,
my theory would absolutely break down."

Given the primitive level of science in the nineteenth century, Darwin may have thought that living things
possess a reducible structure. But twentieth century discoveries have shown that many systems and organs in
living things cannot be reduced to simplicity. This fact, known as "irreducible complexity," definitively de-
stroys Darwinism, just as Darwin himself feared.

The Bacterial Flagellum

The most important person to bring the concept of irreducible complexity to the forefront of the scientific
agenda is the biochemist Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University in the United States. In his book Darwin's Black
Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, published in 1996, Behe examines the irreducibly complex structure

of the cell and a number of other biochemical structures, and reveals that it is impossible to account for these by
evolution. According to Behe, the real explanation of life is creation.
Behe's book was a serious blow to Darwinism. In fact, Peter van Inwagen, Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Notre Dame, stresses the importance of the book in this manner:

If Darwinians respond to this important book by ignoring it, misrepresenting it, or ridiculing it, that will be evi-
dence in favor of the widespread suspicion that Darwinism today functions more as an ideology than as a scientific

theory. If they can successfully answer Behe's arguments, that will be important evidence in favor of Darwinism. 313

One of the interesting examples of irreducible complexity that Behe gives in his book is the bacterial flagel-
lum. This is a whip-like organ that is used by some bacteria to move about in a liquid environment. This organ
is embedded in the cell membrane, and enables the bacterium to move in a chosen direction at a particular
speed.
Scientists have known about the flagellum for some time. However, its structural details, which have only
emerged over the last decade or so, have come as a great surprise to them. It has been discovered that the fla-

gellum moves by means of a very complicated "organic motor," and not by a simple vibratory mechanism as
was earlier believed. This propeller-like engine is constructed on the same mechanical principles as an electric
motor. There are two main parts to it: a moving part (the "rotor") and a stationary one (the "stator").
The bacterial flagellum is different from all other organic systems that produce mechanical motion. The cell

An electric motor—but not one in a household appliance or ve-
hicle. This one is in a bacterium. Thanks to this motor, bacteria
have been able to move those organs known as "flagella" and
thus swim in water.
This was discovered in the 1970s, and astounded the world of
science, because this "irreducibly complex" organ, made up of
some 240 distinct proteins, cannot be explained by chance
mechanisms as Darwin had proposed.

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