richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

W H Y '11IKRK A L M O S T (.: F R T A 1 N [. Y 15 NO (, O I) 125
irreducible complexity, the smooth gradient of Mount Improbable.
The creationists are right that, if genuinely irreducible complexity
could be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin's theory.
Darwin himself said as much: '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. But I can find no such case.' Darwin could
find no such case, and nor has anybody since Darwin's time, despite
strenuous, indeed desperate, efforts. Many candidates for this holy
grail of creationism have been proposed. None has stood up to
analysis.
In any case, even though genuinely irreducible complexity would
wreck Darwin's theory if it were ever found, who is to say that it
wouldn't wreck the intelligent design theory as well? Indeed, it
already has wrecked the intelligent design theory, for, as I keep saying
and will say again, however little we know about God, the one
thing we can be sure of is that he would have to be very very
complex and presumably irreducibly so!
THE WORSHIP OF GAPS
Searching for particular examples of irreducible complexity is a
fundamentally unscientific way to proceed: a special case of arguing
from present ignorance. It appeals to the same faulty logic as 'the
God of the Gaps' strategy condemned by the theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer. Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day
knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is
assumed that God, by default, must fill it. What worries thoughtful
theologians such as Bonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science
advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to
do and nowhere to hide. What worries scientists is something else.
It is an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit ignorance,
even to exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests. As my
friend Matt Ridley has written, 'Most scientists are bored by what
they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.'
Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists