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The earliest logical arguments for intelligent design’s substantiation were laid out as far back as 1806 by William Paley in the book «Natural Theology». The author proposed a «watchmaker concept,» which is called «argument from design». It is grounded on the following example: imagine that we have found a watch in a field. It would never occur to anyone to speculate that this watch had occurred itself as a result of a chain of random interactions of molecules. It is quite evident that the watch occurred as a result of the intelligent design, with a watchmaker as the author of it. The Universe and biological systems are much more complicated than watches. Paley argued that life obviously could not have existed if it had not been created by a «watchmaker» with an immeasurably more powerful mind than that of simple watches’ creator. The popularity of this analogy has prompted Clinton Richard Dawkins, an American biologist and distinguished Darwinist popularizer, to continue arguing with Paley in his book «The Blind Watchmaker». He showed that the blind process of evolution acts as the «creator» of complex organisms observed by people. Dawkins’s position is that natural selection fully explains the apparent practicality and complexity of biological diversity, and even if we draw an analogy with a watchmaker, we mean a soulless, unreasonable and blind watchmaker. In his opinion, the human genom «contains a huge amount of «garbage», idle and even deadly genes, such as, for example, oncogenes. Only a blind watchmaker but not a «wise» creator could create all this. «Dawkins turned out to be wrong, as the important function of this «garbage» has been defined.

In addition, Dawkins’s findings in favour of evolution were criticized by Jonathan Sarfatti in his book «The Greatest Hoax on Earth? Refuting Dawkins on Evolution» (2010).

Stanislav Lem in his paper «Are We Alone in the Universe?» (Czy jestesmy sami w kosmosie? Nurt. Poznan, 1977, №. 5) noted that «The action of the forces of nature can explain, for example, the occurrence of a star, amoeba or thunderstorm can be explained by the nature forces actions, but not the occurrence of a watch. The watch would not arise «itself» if we had been waiting for this for billions of years.

«The Intelligent Design» movement and theory’s modern founders are William Dembski, the American mathematician and philosopher, and Michael Behe, the American biochemist, Professor of the University of Pennsylvania at Lehigh and a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. They treat their views as a scientific theory, according to which certain features of the Universe and life are best explained by an intelligent first cause and could not occur as a result of natural processes without conscious control.

William Dembski, the mathematician, philosopher and theologian, developed the notion of «specified complexity». In his opinion, if an object possesses a certain level of complexity, it is possible to prove its creation by the intelligent creator, as it could not occur due to the natural processes. For example, a letter of the alphabet makes sense, but does not have complexity; a sentence composed of a random set of letters has complexity, but does not make sense, while Shakespeare’s sonnet is both complex and definite. The same principle, in his opinion, is applicable to biological objects, especially to the DNA sequences. W. Dembski believes that systems with the too low natural occurrence’s probability belong to a «certain complexity». The point of view of W. Dembski regarding the relationship between the «Intelligent Design» theory and Christianity is the contradictory one. He argued that «Intelligent Design» does not stand for God, but may be of a cosmic origin: «It could be space aliens. There are many possibilities. «One of his books is entitled «The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World» (2009). At the same time, in a number of cases, he defined the idea as the Christian God’s plan and associated it with the Christian materialistic replacement. W. Dembski entitled one of his books as «Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science amp; Theology» (1999). In my opinion, the «Intelligent Design» ideas cannot be associated with the religious ideas about God, which are preached by creationists and modern theologians. If the «Intelligent Design» advocates the idea of God, they contribute to the Christianity’s false and harmful ideas. The creation of the surrounding world has deeper roots than bizarre religious ideas about God, his son and the Holy Spirit and all saints.

Michael Behe, in his book «Darwin’s Black Box» (1996), with the subtitle «Biochemical Challenge for the Evolutionary Theory,» claims that the modern biochemical science’s findings are incompatible with both Darwin’s evolutionary theory and its more modern modifications often referred to as Neo-Darwinism. The book contains numerous scientific facts, which, according to the author, provide evidence of the spontaneous life occurrence’s impossibility.

M. Behe introduced the «Irreducible complexity» term which means that a single system, composed of several well suited to each other parts provides its main function. Elimination of one of the parts leads to the function’s failure. Natural selection could not have created irreducible complex systems, since they function only if all the components are available. According to M. Behe, such systems are the colon bacillus (Escherichia coli) bacterial flagella, the blood coagulation cascade, eyelashes, and the acquired immunity system. He provides several examples of complexity that cannot be simplified. For example, the absence of at least one of the many proteins involved in the blood coagulation mechanism will lead either to inability to coagulate and bleeding, or to complete coagulation of the entire blood mass in the body and to death, on the contrary. This complexity presumably means a very low probability of an accidental occurrence of such a system as a result of uncontrolled chaotic chemical interactions between its components.

The eye also cannot be simpler, since the absence of any part will lead to a disruption of its functioning. The creation of such a system should be planned and programmed by a highly developed intelligence. On this occasion, Isaac Newton, the great physicist, said the following: «Was the eye created without understanding optics, and the ear − without the knowledge of acoustics»?

In another example, having listed the bacterial flagellum numerous components, M. Behe demonstrated that such a system was too complicated to develop from a simpler predecessor, and Darwin’s evolution could not lead to the occurrence of such an uncomplicated complexity. The flagellum is designed specifically as a means of bacteria transportation and is composed of many interacting parts. In the absence of any of its components, functioning becomes impossible in case of any of its components’ absence.

M. Behe argues that the «irreducible complexity systems» existing in the body cannot be formed by means of the sequentially added elements, since the each element’s useful function is launched only when it is integrated into a complete system. But in such a case, organisms are the product of rational consciousness; that is, created in accordance to the plan. If the morphological evolution of animals can still be somehow imagined, then molecular one is difficult to imagine. The key point of M. Behe’s argumentation is that in no scientific source provides one with the detailed, testable scenarios of how incredibly complex biochemical systems could be formed under the influence of the evolutionary processes. In his opinion, the more complicated the system, the less its spontaneous occurrence likely.

M. Behe states that the alleged irreducible complexity could not be the result of an evolutionary process and therefore it can only be explained through the intelligent design. He does not deny microevolution based on Darwinian mechanisms that adapt the species to specific environmental conditions, but these mechanisms are not able to carry out structural changes in the body and generate the «inexcusable complexity» systems. As a result of the calculations, the scientist was able to establish extremely low values of the complex organic molecules’ spontaneous nucleation probability by means of calculations performed. Opponents of M. Behe believe that this value is explained by the extreme scarcity of information regarding the conditions under which chemical reactions can take place leading to the occurrence of such molecules. Therefore, this number cannot be considered as seriously justified one.

The irreducible complexity concept’s critics believe that in the course of evolution something which was just beneficial at first, may later, with the change of other parts, become necessary. Moreover, various parts of the system can spontaneously change, acquire other functions, or, having lost their functions, be removed from the system. For example, scaffolding supporting the «irreducible complex building» is necessary until the building can stand on its own. There are also the evidences provided that the bacterial flagellum has a precursor possessing proteins that are homologous to ones found in the bacterial flagellum. It should be noted that there should have been someone to create scaffolding and the flagellum predecessor. Nothing comes out of nowhere.

M. Behe’s doctrine opponents suggested that some parts could be temporarily borrowed from other organisms and simpler molecular systems. However, Scott Minik, who has been studying flagellar bacteria for 20 years, refuted this assumption having proved that 30 out of 40 parts that constitute the bacterial flagellum are unique and could not have been borrowed from any other system. Even if such parts had been found, borrowing would have been just a part of the problem, since its functioning requires not only specific details, but the exact assembly sequence as well.

Kenneth Miller, a biologist from Brown University, demonstrated a computer animation of the flagellum’s performance. He began to disassemble the «mechanism», removing dozens of parts from it, not one at a time. In the end, he removed a significant portion of the complex system, but the remaining parts continued functioning. It is believed that these data have refuted the main argument of M. Behe regarding the indivisible complexity. However, I have a question: can a computer animation, in which the movement of each flagellum part is programmed, correspond to the living organism’s functional characteristics?

Mark Perakh, a professor of Mathematics and Statistics of California State University, Fullerton, in his critical article «Intelligent Design or Blind Accident? «A clash of Two Worldviews» expressed the opinion that many biochemical systems described by M. Behe are characterized by excessive complexity. If so, it can be explained either by the result of the chaotic uncontrolled events’ sequence, or by the irrational design. In the absence of evidence that the complexity of the system is irredundant, this complexity is more likely to indicate a blind incident than the rational design. However, I believe that M. Perakh is also wrong in this aspect. It is not the excessive complexity that is observed, but the minimal complexity capable of the function’s provision.

Many biochemical systems described by M. Behe are not characterized by excessive complexity; they are the rational complexity necessary to perform certain complex functions. These difficulties are not excessive, but rational.

Rukhlenko I. A. (Рухленко Илья Александрович) (Dean of the faculty of ecology of Volzhsky University named after V. N. Tatishchev) in his two-volume book «What is the Answer to the Darwinist?» gives practical advice to people who have skepticism towards the modern theory of evolution, but are engaged in verbal disputes with sticklers for Darwinism. The author explains in detail that they should respond, if they refer to the following:

1) Palaeontological; 2) molecular genetic; 3) comparative anatomical; 4) embryological; 5) bio-geographical «evidences of evolution». Especially considered in detail the examples of observed evolution, based on the empirical void. They are unacceptably few and most of them are not examples of evolution. In addition to the of «evidences of evolution» criticism, the book covers a large number of facts related to different areas of biology that contradict the concept of natural evolution, and explains them by means of the Intelligent design’s different theories. The analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the Intelligent design’s theory compared to the theory of natural evolution is provided. The conclusion is that it is the concept of continuous creation that successfully explains most of the biological facts today.

The «Intelligent Design» movement’s leading representatives, working for the «Discovery Institute» non-profitable public organization, consider it as a scientific theory, according to which certain features of the Universe and life are best explained by an intelligent first cause and could not occur as a result of natural processes without conscious control. Intelligent design argues that there are enough evidences in nature that life and nature are the result of a thoroughly thought-out design plan. Nature can be treated more as a result of preliminary planning, but not as a simple adaptation’s consequence.

Books dedicated to the Intelligent Design «The Signature in the Cell», «Darwin’s Doubt» (S. Meyer), «Undeniable» (D. Ax) and «Darwin on Trial» (Ph. E. Johnson) are published in significant circulations and are sold well. However, works dedicated to this problem are not accepted by the peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. The «Intelligent Design» concept does not find recognition as a scientific theory and is considered as pseudoscience in the vast majority of American scientific organizations.

The «Intelligent Design» movement’s leading representatives work for the «Discovery Institute» non-profitable public organization based in Seattle (USA). It supports the promotion of the introduction of the creationist anti-evolutionary beliefs in the US curriculum along with generally accepted scientific theories. In 2005, the «Kitsmiller against Dover School District» lawsuit’s verdict was that the directive to teach Reasonable Design as part of natural science subjects as an alternative to the evolutionary theory contradicts the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The «Intelligent Design» is not a scientific theory and has a religious nature served as the basis for such a verdict.

Within 2001 to 2010, the Discovery Institute staff collected about 700 scientists’ signatures under the «Scientific Disagreement with Darwinism» thesis to show that there are many scientists who disagree with the so-called Darwinian evolution. This thesis says: «We are skeptical of statements about the random changes and natural selection’s possibility to be responsible for the complexity of life». This resolution has led to several campaigns aimed at showing the level of the evolution in the scientific community’s support, including the «Scientific Support for Darwinism», which collected more than 7 thousand signatures in four days. It should be noted that such issues are not resolved by the vote of people who do not have in-depth knowledge on this issue. The propaganda of the theory of the «Intelligent Design» in order to justify the divine creation of life fundamentally contradicts science and harms the development of mankind, as any other religion does.