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    Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem: In a Nutshell, #4
    Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem: In a Nutshell, #4
    Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem: In a Nutshell, #4
    Ebook65 pages44 minutes

    Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem: In a Nutshell, #4

    By Robert P. Waltzer

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    About this ebook

    Join professor of biology Robert Waltzer as he shows how some evolutionists play a bait-and-switch game. They give examples of microevolution, such as changes in the average beak size of Galapagos finches, and then act as if this proves macroevolution—that is, the evolution of entirely new body plans in the history of life. Not so fast, Waltzer says. An insurmountable obstacle stands in the way of large-scale evolutionary change: irreducible complexity. What's more, your own body is actually an irreducibly complex system of irreducibly complex systems, pointing strongly to intelligent design.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDiscovery Institute Press
    Release dateSep 23, 2024
    ISBN9781637120606
    Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem: In a Nutshell, #4

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      Book preview

      Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem - Robert P. Waltzer

      EVOLUTION’S IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY PROBLEM

      ROBERT P. WALTZER

      SEATTLE     DISCOVERY INSTITUTE PRESS     2024

      Description

      Join professor of biology Robert Waltzer as he shows how some evolutionists play a bait-and-switch game. They give examples of microevolution, such as changes in the average beak size of Galapagos finches, and then act as if this proves macroevolution—that is, the evolution of entirely new body plans in the history of life. Not so fast, Waltzer says. An insurmountable obstacle stands in the way of large-scale evolutionary change: irreducible complexity. What’s more, your own body is actually an irreducibly complex system of irreducibly complex systems, pointing strongly to intelligent design.

      Copyright Notice

      © 2024 by Robert P. Waltzer. All Rights Reserved.

      Library Cataloging Data

      Evolution’s Irreducible Complexity Problem by Robert P. Waltzer

      50 pages, 6 x 9 in.

      ISBN-13 Paperback: 978-1-63712-058-3, Kindle: 978-1-63712-059-0, EPub: 978-1-63712-060-6

      BISAC: SCI008000 SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Biology

      BISAC: SCI027000 SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Evolution

      BISAC: SCI075000 SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects

      Publisher Information

      Discovery Institute Press, 208 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA 98104

      Internet: https://discovery.press/

      Published in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

      First Edition, First Printing, August 2024.

      CONTENTS

      EVOLUTION’S IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY PROBLEM

      RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

      ENDNOTES

      IMAGE CREDITS

      EVOLUTION’S IRREDUCIBLE

      COMPLEXITY PROBLEM

      Robert P. Waltzer

      YOU MAY HAVE HEARD IT SAID THAT EVOLUTION IS A FACT. The most reasonable response to such a statement isn’t yea or nay. It’s, what do you mean by evolution? That’s because the term evolution can mean many different things. It can refer to change over time in the plants and animals that have existed on earth. It can refer to relatively small changes within species. It can refer to the origin of fundamentally new species from earlier forms. It can refer to the common ancestry of all life on earth.

      More specifically, it may refer to the theory that natural selection acting on small variations over millions of generations explains the origin and diversity of all life—a theory first propounded by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the nineteenth century, and further developed and refined in the subsequent 160 years.¹ Finally, the term may refer to some extended version of this theory, one that involves the natural selection/variation mechanism but also other natural mechanisms.

      So the term evolution can refer to many different things. Being aware of this can help us navigate discussions of evolutionary theory, clear away some of the fog that often bedevils conversations on the topic, and equip us to better assess claims for and against evolutionary theory. To that end, let’s briefly unpack a few of the most common meanings of the term: change over time, common descent, natural selection, microevolution, and macroevolution.

      Change Over Time

      DIFFERENT PLANT and animal forms existed at different periods of geological history. Nobody seriously questions this claim. For example, if we look at the cat family (Felidae), some species became extinct, such as the Smilodon (known colloquially as the saber-toothed tiger), and others appeared more recently. So members of the cat family were not always the same throughout geological history. This sort of change over time is often described by the term evolution. Notice that, by itself, such changes over time say nothing about what drove the change or whether some or all of the different life forms in the history of life share a common ancestry. Change over time is a very modest claim about the history of life on earth, one that few if any question.

      Common Descent

      IT’S WIDELY believed that cats—from lions to panthers to domestic cats and everything in between—share a common ancestor. Going beyond the cat family and extending this kind of relatedness to all species, most of Darwin’s

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