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more complex and have more complicated flagella, while the latter are simpler and have correspondingly simpler flagella. Eubacterial flagella, consisting of a three-part motor, shaft, and propeller system, are observedly a more complicated version of archaebacterial flagella, which have a motor and a combined shaft-propeller system. To describe the three-part flagellum as being irreducibly complex is just plain wrong—it can be reduced to two parts—and disingenuous. Additionally, the eubacterial flagellum turns out to be one of a variety of ways that bacteria move about their environment.36 For many types of bacteria, the primary function of the flagellum is secretion, not propulsion. For others, the flagellum is used for attaching to surfaces and other cells.37

As to whether the flagellum is a product of evolution, eubacterial and archaebacterial flagella share similar structures owing to similar ancestry (known as homologies); there are also homologies between flagellar proteins and other systems, and functional similarity between the secretory systems and the propulsion systems of both eubacterial and archaebacterial flagella. Such similarities point to evolutionary development. We also know that eighteen to twenty genes are involved in the development of the simpler two-part flagellum, twenty-seven genes make up the slightly more complex Campylobacter jejuni flagellum, and forty-four genes exist in the still more complicated E. coli flagellum—a smooth genetic rise in complexity corresponding to the complexity of the end product. Finally, phylogenetic studies on flagella indicate that the more modern and complex systems share common ancestors with the simpler forms.38 So here an evolutionary scenario presents itself: archaebacteria flagella were primarily used for secretion, although some forms were exapted for adhesion or propulsion. With the evolution of more complicated eubacteria, flagella grew more complex, refining, for example, the two-part motor and shaft-propeller system into a three-part motor, shaft, and propeller system that was then exapted for more efficient propulsion. Complex science reduced to evidence for evolution!

The Conservation of Information: Evolution cannot increase specific information content and complexity of organisms, or, there is No Free Lunch.

One of the most scientifically ambitious claims of Intelligent Design is William Dembski’s Law of Conservation of Information (LCI), which is related to his analysis of complex specified information (CSI), an implicit ingredient in the four arguments above. LCI states that “natural causes are incapable of generating CSI” and that “the CSI in a closed system of natural causes remains constant or decreases.” Dembski sets an upper limit to specified complexity generated by law and chance, which he calls the Universal Probability Bound (UPB), which he sets at UPB = 1/2Χ10-150, or about 500 bits of information. If the probability of a specified event is less than the UPB—that is, if it is over 500 bits of information—then it cannot be attributed to law or chance. By the logic of the Explanatory Filter, intelligent design is the best inference.39

This is quite a brainful, so restated, the Law of Conservation of Information says that natural causes such as chance and evolution cannot increase the complex specified information content of an organism beyond 500 bits of information. Since almost all living organisms contain more information than the Universal Probability Bound allows, without the insertion of complex specified information into living forms by an Intelligent Designer, the evolution of complex life is impossible.

Dembski’s principles are embedded in a larger series of what he calls the “No Free Lunch theorems”—as though evolutionary theory were an attempt to grab a perk from the universe without paying for it. “The No Free Lunch theorems show that evolutionary algorithms, apart from careful fine-tuning by a programmer, are no better than blind search and thus no better than pure chance,” and “the No Free Lunch theorems show that for evolutionary