Intelligent design (ID) theory is minimalist creationism. It is a theory that claims there is irreducible complexity of biological systems and structures. According to this view, biological systems consist of many interacting components, none of which can work unless all the other components are present and operational. It is a form of creationism because, the defenders of intelligent design theory admit, only an intelligent Creator could have brought irreducibly complex systems into existence; irreducibly complex systems cannot be produced by a series of evolutionary steps. However, ID theorists like to distance themselves from old-fashioned creationism.

The most popular statement of this position has been Darwin's Black Box, by Michael J. Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University. Most of the following discussion is based upon Behe's book.

According to Behe, gone from ID are all the arguments that creationists usually present about gaps in the fossil record, young age of the Earth, and the Flood of Noah. Although most adherents of ID accept many or all of the tenets of creationism (for example, Jay W. Richards, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., still uses the "gaps in the fossil record" argument), the debate sidesteps these issues. Few ID theorists accept the historical facts of human evolution; but their publications generally do not address it. Instead, it is enough for them to point out that human (and other) biochemistry is too complex to have arisen by evolution. Scientists point out that the fossil record really does provide evidence that evolution occurred; Behe indicates that paleontology does not matter. Evolutionary scientists, starting with Darwin and continuing through modern scientists, point out the existence of intermediate stages in the evolution of the eye from the simple eyespot of a protozoan; Behe indicates that does not matter either. In his discussion of the bombardier beetle, Behe admits that other beetles have similar, and simpler, systems of defense; not surprisingly, Behe indicates that this does not matter either. All that matters, in his argument, is irreducible complexity on the biochemical and cellular level. Behe's examples of irreducibly complex systems include vision in a retinal cell; the explosive defense mechanism of the bombardier beetle; cilia and flagella (the whiplike mechanisms by which many single-celled organisms propel themselves); blood clot formation; and the mammalian immune response.

According to ID arguments, in order for evolution to produce biochemical complexity, uncountable billions of cells would have to die over the course of billions of years. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what happened during Precambrian time. Almost 80 percent of evolutionary history occurred when life on Earth was primarily microbial. It looks from the Precambrian fossil record as if nothing much was happening, but this is because the significant events were taking place on a molecular scale that no fossil could reveal. . .

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