In Kenneth Miller’s book, Only a Theory, he talks about the fundamental concept underlying “intelligent design” and goes on to show how the fundamental concept is wrong, and not supported in biological research.  The fundamental idea is that there are some aspects of nature that that are just too complex to have “evolved” to their present state; they must have been design by an intelligent being.  ID proponents call this “irreducible complexity.”  In biology, one of the examples that proponents use is bacterial flagellum.  To these proponents, the flagellum is too complex to have evolved, and indeed was designed as is.  They claim that without all of the proteins that make up the flagellum system, it won’t work.  Research biologists have shown that parts could serve other purposes, and through evolution the more complex system evolved.

One of the analogies that IDers use to explain to us the nature of irreducible complexity” is the mousetrap. To the ID proponent, the mousetrap is an irreducible complex entity.  But Kenneth Miller points out that machines like the mousetrap are made up of multiple parts (just like in a living cell).  True if you remove a part of the mousetrap, it probably will not function as a mousetrap; however, it might function as something else.  Indeed, as Miller points out, if you remove a part, you can use the mousetrap as a very nice tie clip.

Here is a video of Miller talking about the mousetrap, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, and evolution.  What do you think of what he has to say and his demonstration?

How does this become a valuable teaching lesson?  How would you use the mousetrap analogy in your own class to help students understand evolution and intelligent desgin?