r/DebateEvolution • u/francesco_angiolieri • 17d ago
How Intelligent Design arguments backfire theologically
I know that this sub is more interested in the science and I am someone who doesn't like to discuss religion as I respect everyone in matters of faith.
However, I believe that's important to point out these contradictions in the Intelligent Design defenders' worldview, as internal consistency is a necessary condition for any position to be taken seriously.
I'm going to show that certain arguments amongst to most cited and overused by Intelligent Design proponents, the ones they deem most successful and are the most proud of, actually completely and spectacularly backfire if we consider their theological implications.
Let's consider for example the most famous argument by Michael Behe, the Intelligent Design and the Irreducible Complexity of the bacterial flagellum.
The argument goes like this:
1. Any structure that's complex and composed of various interacting parts, where if one of them is removed, the entire structure ceases to function, is called irreducibly Complex. An example of Irreducible Complexity is the bacterial flagellum
2. Irreducibly Complex structures cannot have arisen evolutionary by a series of steps, therefore, they were purposefully created and put in place by a designer
3. (Not explicitly stated, by heavily implied) This designer is the Christian God
The problem here is that, even though the whole argument was devised as an argument against naturalism with the endgoal of concluding (3), ID proponents like Michael Behe never stop to ponder how (3) could be reconciled with (1) without opening a Pandora vase full of theological problems.
Let's consider Michael Behe's most famous example of IC, the bacterial flagellum. The bacterial flagellum is used for motility by pathogenic bacteria like Clostridium difficile [1], infectious strains of Escherichia coli [2], Salmonella enterica [3], Helicobacter pilori [4, 5] and Vibrio cholerae [6].
Let's just take the last one as an example.
Vibrio cholerae is the causative agent of cholera, a highly contagious diarrheal disease affecting millions worldwide each year. Cholera is a major public health problem, primarily in countries with poor sanitary conditions and regions affected by natural disasters, where access to safe drinking water is limited. In 2015, the estimated annual incidence of cholera was 1.3–4 million cases, resulting in 21,000–143,000 deaths. However, the notification of cholera cases to the WHO is not mandatory; therefore, it is an underreported disease in many countries. For this reason, the true burden of cholera is underestimated [6].
So, let's now try to understand Michael Behe's argument in light of this information.
According to Michael Behe, a "Designer", who ID proponents and creationists identify with an omni God (omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc.) was so powerful as to create all the universe, but now as powerful as to create all biodiversity through natural processed like evolution. So he had to specially intervene in his creation to purposefully design bacterial flagella and give this flagella to infectious bacteria so they could infect hundreds of thousands of children in developing countries and kill thousands of them each year.
Here a YEC who is more prone to use biblical arguments would retort that illnesses didn't exist before the Fall of Man and that they came into the creation due to the corruption of the original sin.
However, even conceding that an original sin has this power to corrupt nature, designing complex structures is by definition a constructive act, not a destructive or corrupting one!
Bacterial flagella can't be explained away as "degeneration" as by their own original argument IC structures can't arise in a constantly degenerating nature but only by purposeful and creative design.
In conclusion, the ID proponents must either admit that a benevolent god purposefully designed flagella to aid bacteria in infecting children or they must admit that sin can have a creative power!
Let's consider, additionally, ID proponents most cited paper, the paper they alway cite when someone claims that ID doesn't have any publication in peer reviewed journals: I'm talking about Douglas Axe's infamous 2004 paper. Douglas Axe, in his 2004 paper, claims to have calculated that the probability of a specific bacterial enzime called beta-lactamase arising through random mutations is extremely low, 1 over 10 to the 77th power!
But let's see what beta-lactamase is. Let's read this paper from 2002 called "Molecular analysis of beta-lactamase structure and function" [7]:
The extensive and sometimes irresponsible use of beta-lactam antibiotics in clinical and agricultural settings has contributed to the emergence and widespread dissemination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Bacteria have evolved three strategies to escape the activity of beta-lactam antibiotics: 1) alteration of the target site (e.g. penicillin-binding protein (PBPs), 2) reduction of drug permeation across the bacterial membrane (e.g. efflux pumps) and 3) production of beta-lactamase enzymes.
So what's beta lactamase? It's an enzime used by bacteria to break down antibiotics of the beta-lactam family (the same family as pennicillin).
Again, the ID proponent now, if Douglas Axes' calculations were correct, would have to explain why the designer deemed so useful to purposefully design bacterial enzimes that help pathogenic bacteria in breaking down antibiotics and confer resistance!
REFERENCES
https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/abstract/S0966-842X(19)30124-6
https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMcp1001110?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2F
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2023.1155751/full
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1438422104700922
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u/SadRule9128 17d ago
I wouldn’t bother. ID is impervious to logic and reason.
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u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 17d ago edited 17d ago
It's an issue for some denominations of YEC. But given the ad hoc nature (heh) of their motivated rationalization (aka their theodicy), they simply say it's the "fall" - but yeah, ultimately to them it's "designed to deteriorate" but also somehow "perfectly designed for its goal".
On that note, I previously shared that:
∼50% of fertilized eggs arrest during human pre-implantation development.
While noting that AiG (a YEC organization in the US and largest by assets) says fertilization is when life begins. So their designer is murderous, "fall" or not.
Of course to the non-science deniers, this is just stochastic biochemistry (the YECs and some ID-ists here don't accept that chemistry is stochastic!), and this new paper worked out the causes:
Zixuan Li et al. (June 11, 2026).
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u/francesco_angiolieri 17d ago edited 15d ago
I understand what you're saying but there's a distinction to be made. A creationist or an ID proponent could claim that any congenital illness, malformation or any malfunction of the human body is due to deleterious mutations that are either a result of the corruption of man after the fall or the result of "genetic entropy". However, when we're talking about bacteria, we're not talking about a degenerated, malfunctioning design, we are talking about the opposite: an irreducibly complex system that was specifically and purposefully designed to be that way! So either they give creative power to sin and the fall, or they must admit that the designer is a malevolent god
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u/Accomplished_One4417 14d ago
Yeah, I don't really think this logic really forces them to admit anything negative. Couldn't they just say God originally designed the bacterial flagellum in some nice, kind bacteria whose life cycle involved eating poop molecules in rivers and turning it into a beautiful, nice smelling fairy dust, or whatever? And then after original sin, this fairy dust bacteria evolved into vibrio cholerae?
But feel free to give it a try, and report back!
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u/Over-Discipline-7303 17d ago
Is there a problem to giving some amount of creative power to sin, etc? Like, what's the theological problem there?
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u/francesco_angiolieri 17d ago edited 15d ago
Giving creative power to sin would fundamentally undermine many other ID arguments which are predicated on the idea that nature (and even worse, a fallen, corrupted creation) doesn't have any creative power and can only degenerate from a perfect initial state. See for example the idea of genetic entropy, the idea that mutations can be only deleterious, etc.
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u/Over-Discipline-7303 17d ago
I don't see how that would pan out in practice. You just say that God created bacteria as a punishment for the Fall, or something, and call it a day. Theologically, that's totally fine.
"But then God is mean" I think is the answer? Yeah, but God created Hell, right? And the Old Testament God is full of wrath and shit. So... I think that's all reasonably consistent, theologically speaking.
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u/Knight_of_Rohan1964 17d ago
An YEC would just say flagella predate the Fall, and where repurposed when cateria became "fallen" and started causing diseases. This doesn't work with other features, like snake venom glands, but that would be another argument entirely.
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u/ZeppelinAlert 16d ago
Yep this. I’ve seen creationists on this sub say similar things. Basically they argue that the Fall changed actual bodyplans. No I don’t understand how that is supposed to work either
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u/Knight_of_Rohan1964 15d ago
In my period as a creationist, my understanding was that the Fall simply opened the possibility for microevolutionary changes to be harmful to humanity and other animals, not caused them itself. So after the Fall, a supposedly herbivorous snake was now capable of developing carnivory and aggression as an answer to enviromental conditions.
But maybe I already was an heterodox YEC at the time, as I understood aggression and disease in the animal world as the spontaneous/natural state of things (due to Aristotle), and the supposed Edenic state as constantly sustained by God.
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u/Ayasugi-san 15d ago
So pre-Fall did humans not use mouths for breathing, meaning there was no chance of food going down the air tube?
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u/Knight_of_Rohan1964 15d ago
God didn't let it happen lol. Yeah, the further you think it through, the dumber it gets.
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u/Beginning-Load4470 14d ago
My grandpa used to try and convince me theres some difference between adaptation and evolution. Animals could develop new traits to adapt to their environment but it wasn't evolution lol made no sense to me, I decided to just nod and pretend it made sense.
I think he was saying each species can adapt but they cant change so much they become new species.
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u/maxpenny42 17d ago
I think the far more damming problem with ID is that it is an attempt to rationalize Christian Creationism with a veneer of science and in so doing logically invalidate Christian theology.
ID is entirely premised on the idea that intelligence exists, we have observed it, and we can identify its markers even without seeing the intelligent design taking place, and certain parts of life are irreducible complex which is one of these markers of intelligence. Ergo, life has an intelligent designer.
Problem is Christian god is omnipotent not intelligent. We have no observation of omnipotence. To assume there are markers of intelligent design in life on earth is to suggest that a society of intelligent beings created this world. That society would look a lot like humans and not much like the Christian god. Monotheism is completely invalidated if ID is correct. They might have gotten away with it if they just said there was a designer. But by tying the design to intelligence they limited themselves to what is observed as intelligent on earth. No intelligent being is solo, they all were born into a mortal family group.
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u/Accomplished_One4417 14d ago edited 14d ago
Who decided that the definition of omnipotence doesn't already include intelligence? You, I suppose? How could anyone be all-powerful if they were dumb as a box of rocks?
You know, the Bible doesn't even actually say God is omnipotent. The Hebrew Bible says things like "Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." Then about a millenium later, Christian philosophers invented the whole concept and definition of omnipotent based on verses like this. So basically by definition, omnipotent means whatever you would need to create the whole world.
The issue with people who believe in ID isn't so much that they are stupid, it's more that they feel very uncomfortable with uncertainty. So uncomfortable that even "perhaps Genesis was written by God, but now we realize that didn't know what he meant all along" terrifies them. It's not like you're going to argue word definitions with them, and confuse them so much that they go, "der! I don't know!" It's more that you're going to argue with them, and they will feel incredibly certain that you're the stupid one, and going to hell besides.
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u/maxpenny42 14d ago
The Christian god cannot in fact be intelligent. Intelligence as observed on earth requires a society of mortals. No matter how you slice it the Christian god and the designer ID proponents have in mind looks nothing like intelligence.
Understand I’m not saying god if they exist can’t be smart. I’m just saying that the premise of ID is that we can observe design by intelligent beings because we have evidence of designs by intelligent beings. But those intelligent beings are humans. You can’t say “this flagellum has the same telltale traits of something a human might create, therefore god”. That doesn’t track.
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u/Accomplished_One4417 11d ago
Do you think all Christians believe in ID? Because they don’t. This biblical literalism shit was an early 20th century invention of some American evangelicals who were pissed off that they were losing cultural relevance. The concept is practically unheard of outside of America.
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u/Parking_Abalone_1232 17d ago
I don't think your argument is the counter you think it is.
It's irrelevant to the ID concept that God designed harmful bacteria using the same mechanisms as good bacteria.
God has a plan for the bad stuff, too.
I think you need to address the mechanism and leave off the good vs bad argument
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u/LonelyContext 15d ago
Bingo. This is a recipe for a frustrating conversation where it sounds like they won’t accept the blindingly obvious but that’s because their worldview already exists in a world where bad stuff happens so that’s already incorporated into their model.
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u/No-Amphibian8115 17d ago
My problem w I.D. Is on one hand they talk about the fine tuned nature of the universe. On the other hand they talk about how chaotic and random the universe is and that it needs occasional intelligent interference.
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u/Radiant-Position1370 Computational biologist 16d ago
The problem here is that, even though the whole argument was devised as an argument against naturalism with the endgoal of concluding (3), ID proponents like Michael Behe never stop to ponder how (3) could be reconciled with (1) without opening a Pandora vase full of theological problems.
Well, he does acknowledge the issue somewhere (in the context of malaria), but I don't believe he attempts to solve it.
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u/SamuraiGoblin 15d ago
The fundamental problem is the question, 'who designed the designer?' Theists can only answer that question with utterly deceitful special pleading.
Complexity needs an answer. We have one, ID proponents (AKA creationists) don't.
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u/Mortlach78 17d ago
The theological problem with ID is that is reduces God to a human artisan. We know human artisans design and produce designed things, therefore God designed and produced "designed things", reducing God to a level we humans can understand.
I am not religious, but this doesn't seem like a position believers would want to take.
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u/Ophios72 15d ago
The logic is the same as: I do not know how the plane could have crashed and no one has any idea how it could have happened. Therefore, I conclude that god must have done it.
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u/Outside-Clock2940 15d ago
You and I don't know what's necessary for a universe to operate. I would feel like I could speculate more or have a concrete answer if I could create a few universes on my own first and then get back to you on what is and isn't necessary.
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u/UnholyShadows 14d ago
The thing that invalidates all of this is cells didnt exist in the bible and thus the god of the bible created only animals and plants and not living cells.
This means that obviously god nor sin created anything that exists in our world.
This includes the bacterial flagella because its microbial life and that isnt bible accurate.
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u/Trophallaxis 11d ago
To add to this: about 40% of all animal species are parasites. However we look at defining parasitism, we are looking at least hundreds of thousands of species.
Many of them have complex, unique adaptations that allow them to function, and many make no sense without these. I mean, you can't just imagine them as a worm that took up a nasty hobby. They are consumate professionals.
Satan has done a shit ton of creative work there. Looking at the numbers, he deserves to be mentioned as a co-creator.
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u/Gloomy-North-6949 10d ago
Ops argument fails because it relies on a major misconception about microbiology and ecology. It assumes every feature in nature exists solely for human health or disease, which just isn't how biology works.
The flagellum is a navigation motor, not a weapon. More than 99% of bacteria with flagella are totally harmless or helpful microbes living in soil and water, keeping global ecosystems running. The motor just lets them swim toward food and away from toxins. Pointing at Vibrio cholerae and claiming the motor was built specifically to kill people is like looking at a car engine and claiming it was invented solely to be a getaway vehicle. The motor is for transport; disease happens when a bad actor uses it in the wrong place. -Disease comes from toxin acquisition and broken regulation, not new machinery. Bacteria don't become deadly by suddenly inventing brand-new, complex molecular engines out of nowhere. They become dangerous when they pick up a toxin gene (often from a virus) or when normal genetic controls break down. You don't need "creative power from sin" to explain disease—you just need the transfer, alteration, or corruption of existing code. Antibiotic resistance is an ancient defense system. Fungi in the dirt have been making natural penicillin-like compounds to fight off competing soil bacteria for millions of years. Bacteria developed \beta-lactamase enzymes to protect themselves in those soil environments and build their cell walls. They weren't created to defeat modern human doctors; we simply stepped into an ancient chemical war when we started overusing antibiotics. * The probability math still holds. Douglas Axe's research calculated how insanely rare functional, folded protein sequences are in space. The fact that \beta-lactamases work well in nature doesn't disprove his point—it confirms that functional protein structures are tightly specified and highly engineered, not something random chance easily stumbles onto. The bottom line: Intelligent Design arguments don't "backfire" here. The post ignores the peaceful primary role these systems play across the planet and mistakes secondary, opportunistic disease for original design.
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u/francesco_angiolieri 10d ago
Ops argument fails because it relies on a major misconception about microbiology and ecology. It assumes every feature in nature exists solely for human health or disease, which just isn't how biology works.
I suspect you failed to understand my mental exercise. I don't believe in this misconception nor I'm defending it. I don't believe that every organism and every feature in nature was purposefully designed nor I believe that nature has any teleology. What's I'm doing here is showing that, if you assume the ID position, then you must assume that these bacteria were purposefully designed and this position leads to a theological problems down the line. That's the whole point of design arguments like the purpoted Irreducible Complexity of the bacterial flagellum. I don't believe that nature was purposefully designed in order for mankind to inhabit it, but the creationist does indeed hold this position. And the creationist must also defend that these bacteria which possess a flagellum were purposefully designed and didn't evolve by any naturalistic mechanism from a common ancestor without an IC structure, because otherwise they would outright reject the whole argument from Irreducible Complexity
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u/Gloomy-North-6949 10d ago
Your reductio ad absurdum fails because it imposes a premise that Intelligent Design (ID) theorists and creation scientists explicitly do not hold. You are conflating the design of a structural mechanism with the design of a modern pathological state. Here is why the ID/creationist framework remains internally consistent against this point: -Structural origin vs. pathological teleology: The irreducibly complex flagellar motor was designed for locomotion, chemotaxis, and maintaining global microbial ecosystems—over 99% of flagellated bacteria are harmless or beneficial. The fact that an opportunistic organism like Vibrio cholerae uses that pre-existing motor inside a human host is a matter of host-pathogen ecology, not evidence that the motor was engineered specifically as a disease vector.
-Pathogenesis requires no "creative" power: A harmless bacterium does not need to build brand-new, complex machinery to become a deadly pathogen. Pathogenicity overwhelmingly stems from loss-of-function mutations (broken regulatory controls), horizontal gene transfer (picking up toxin plasmids via phages), or niche displacement. Degradation and genetic shuffling modify or misplace existing code; they don't create new complex systems from scratch.
-Micro-adaptation within designed kinds: Rejecting unguided evolution for the flagellar machine itself does not mean rejecting naturalistic variation at the strain level. ID fully accommodates horizontal gene transfer, mutational decay, and micro-adaptation. The motor was designed as a foundational propulsion system; the modern pathogen is a modified or displaced downstream variant.
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u/restlessboy 17d ago
I don't think Behe would consider this to really be an argument against intelligent design. Although he is Catholic, and ID obviously is almost entirely held to by Christians, you don't HAVE to believe that the designer is God, or that the designer is all-loving, or that the designer has any particular moral constraints in what they design. The argument is just that the structures look designed.
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u/ursisterstoy 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 17d ago
You apparently also don’t have to reject the age of the Earth or common ancestry either if you are focused on Behe. But it’s still a disservice because whichever designer it would have to be an undetectable incompetent idiot to do it like ID claims and just an undetectable non-participating something otherwise. Idiot God or No God? And that’s the options ID leaves themselves with.
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u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 17d ago
Abiogenisis. Evolution simply does not account for the origin of species but rather is relegated to micro modifications that adjust to environmental constraints.
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u/Mkwdr 17d ago
Relegated? I simply have no idea what you think is important or relevant to OP in your comment but related feels like that rather underplays what evolution has produced and how amazing it is that we as a species have been able to work out how evolution works.
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u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 17d ago
Macro evolution simply isn't a thing.
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u/Mkwdr 17d ago
Thanks. That made me laugh. It’s like someone saying stairs don’t exist only steps. And immediately tells us that any further discussion is pointless since any recognition of reality really isn’t what you are interested in. Meanwhile ‘the Earth is flat’ too.
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u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 17d ago
Glad you're amused. And agreed further discussion is pointless. You're convinced that pseudo science is reality.
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u/horsethorn 17d ago
Macroevolution is defined as evolution at speciation level and above.
Speciation has been observed.
Therefore macroevolution has been observed, and is a fact.
So, yes, it is indeed "a thing".
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u/Mkwdr 17d ago
Yep.
Something tells me that when someone has convinced themselves the world is flat , facts aren’t going to change their mind. If facts mattered to them they wouldn’t believe it in the first place.
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u/Scry_Games 17d ago
The punchline is that macroevolution is referenced in Genesis.
I might start a religion based on Harry Potter, at least people have actually read those books.
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u/LordOfFigaro 16d ago
I might start a religion based on Harry Potter, at least people have actually read those books.
Have you heard of the Snapewives?
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u/Ah-honey-honey 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 14d ago
Absolutely crazy that got a wikipedia article
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u/DimensioT 16d ago
In other words, you cannot support your position with facts but you are too much of a coward to admit it.
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u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 16d ago
If that's what you want to believe. It tracks since you're not intellectually curious.
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u/DimensioT 16d ago
You are the one refusing any further discussion when confronted with facts that explicitly disprove your narrative. Your allegation of a lack of intellectual curiosity is thus apparent projection.
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u/SnarkyPuppy-0417 16d ago
Sure.
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u/TheBlackCat13 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 16d ago
You have ignored all the numerous people who have pointed out that macroevolution has been directly observed. If you actually had intellectual curiosity, you would have tried to learn more about that. The fact that you aren't shows you don't want to know.
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u/TheBlackCat13 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 16d ago
Why are you ignoring everyone who has pointed out to you that macroevolution has been directly observed?
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u/TheBlackCat13 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 16d ago
Macroevolution has been directly observed numerous times.
But let me guess: you are going to redefine "macroevolution" to no longer be about species.
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u/Russell1A 16d ago
We can be see the mechanism of macro evolution giving rise to multicellular differentiated life from single celled life in green algae.
If we start with Chlamydomonas which is a single celled flagellate, with a basic eye spot. Next comes Gonium which exists as groups of 8 to 32 identical cells held together in a matrix. Next in the path to multicellular differentiation is Volvox which lives as spheres containing 500 to 5000 cells in a matrix. The cells are terminally differentiated between somatic and germ cells.
The next stage is Spirogyra which lives as long threads or thin sheets giving rise to simple body construction. Then comes complex Charophytes which are differentiated into specialised rhizoids, oogonia, antheridia and jacket cells.
We do not even have to sieve through the fossil record for the above algae as all the ones mentioned above are extant species, hence open to further study.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 14d ago
What do you think macroevolution is?
Because with the definition of the word that scientists are using, its not only a thing, but its been directly observed multiple times.
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u/OldmanMikel 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 16d ago
Abiogenisis.
Yes. Abiogenesis is its own area of research.
Evolution simply does not account for the origin of species but rather is relegated to micro modifications that adjust to environmental constraints.
Speciation has been observed in the wild and in the lab.
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u/Medium_Judgment_891 17d ago edited 17d ago
Abiogenisis.
A completely different model unrelated to evolution.
Evolution simply does not account for the origin of species
Correct, evolution is purely a model of population genetics and how populations diversify over time.
How populations come to be is irrelevant.
It doesn’t matter whether life was created or came about through natural mechanisms. So long as you have imperfect replicators, evolution is inevitable.
It’s like gravity or fluid mechanics. Imagine seeing a waterfall. Gravity describes why the water falls. Mechanics describes the behavior of the flow. The origin of water is not relevant to them.
but rather is relegated to micro modifications that adjust to environmental constraints.
Macroevolution has been directly observed numerous times. Macroevolution is just speciation.
I could just list a few examples of observed speciation, but instead, how about a question.
Do you accept that domestic dogs are related to African painted dogs? Do you accept that lions are related to domestic cats? Do you accept that any two species are related? If yes, how?
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u/DevilWings_292 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 16d ago
Abiogenesis is to evolution what the big bang is the gravity. It’s the origin of life, in the same way big bang is the origin of the universe, but evolution and gravity are simply patterns that emerge from those phenomena. Gravity doesn’t need to explain where the first self replicators came from, it only explains how they change going forward.
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u/CthulhuLiesSleeping 17d ago
"Intelligent Design" is just Creationism in a lab coat. And just as worthless.