Science slowly explaining evolution detail

February 13th, 2006

Scientists say they are starting to understand the details of evolution and, in doing so, they're solving the riddles on which intelligent design is based.

Intelligent design posits Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong; life is so complex only an intelligent entity, God, could have produced it.

Although scientific research is not conducted as a response to intelligent design, it is unraveling the very riddles that ID proponents say could not be solved, The Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

Most scientists reject intelligent design, claiming it's a religious proposal not grounded in scientific observation. ID adherents, counter by arguing many tiny mechanisms, such as the tails of sperm and blood clotting, are so elaborate they must have been purposely designed.

Yet scientists are now using new genome data to discover how fish evolved the ability to clot blood, the Tribune said. And even the once-mysterious sperm's tail now appears related to other cell parts.

"Once you take apart any system in the cell, you find it's incredibly complex," Joel Rosenbaum, a professor at Yale University, told the newspaper. "But that complexity is (now) falling to experiment."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International