A Fifteen-Second, Five-Finger Response to the Evolution Question

The friendly, mature volunteer at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden showed us the fascinating internal features of a saguaro cactus skeleton. I marveled aloud at its “amazing design.”

The docent (guide) continued: “Yes, the mutations made this beauty of nature.”

I didn’t want to argue and so decided not to contest the “mutations made it” claim. But I realized I need a powerful, clear, non-combative, easy-to-remember response to the question, “Why don’t you believe in evolution?”

Here’s what occurred to me. We have a Five-Finger Response that does not immediately trigger the usual arguments about the fossil record, Darwin’s finches, bacteria resistance to antibiotics, or species sharing common DNA segments. And we can deliver it all in 15 seconds.

The 15-Second Answer

When someone asks you: “Why don’t you believe in evolution?” The elevator-pitch can be:

Because five central features of living things — code systems, software, systems of subsystems, behavior, and reproduction — all require purpose, planning, engineering, and foresight. Undirected mutation and natural selection do not have those powers.

In a setting like the Botanical Garden with the friendly volunteer docent, we might bring out the points more slowly. So, after they say that “mutations” created the saguaro cactus’s internal features, the conversation could go like this.

The Conversation

Visitor: “These features seem designed. They don’t seem to come from accidental mutations.”

Docent: “Oh, so you don’t believe in evolution?”

Visitor: “No, I don’t, and I have several science-based reasons for that.”

Docent: “What reasons?”

Visitor: “Five reasons on five fingers.” Then, counting off on one hand:

Code systems

Software

Systems of subsystems

Behavior

Reproduction

“Neo-Darwinian evolution lacks the power to create or significantly modify these features in animals and plants.”

Docent: “Evolution is a proven fact. Scientists have shown that all those things evolved through millions of years of mutations and natural selection.”

Visitor: “In fact, none of these features can be adequately explained by undirected mutation and natural selection. Research as long as you want online or ask a chatbot. You won’t get the step-by-step sequence of physical events that must take place if neo-Darwinian evolution produced any one of these five features.”

Docent: “I don’t know about step-by-step, but if you have millions upon millions of years, that’s enough time for Evolution to work. That’s really not a debatable fact.”

Visitor: “Time doesn’t create anything. Processes of some kind can create things. If you can’t show how physical processes would create a thing, then you can’t really claim to know physical processes did it without intelligence. More importantly, from our uniform and repeated experience, all five features require four key elements of intelligent design:

Purpose

Plan

Engineering

Foresight

Has anyone explained to you how any of those five features could physically arise without these four elements?”

Docent: “Evolution is a proven fact, as certain as gravity. You will have to prove your claim against what all the scientists say.”

[Now, you can give a concise explanation for any of the five features or let the other person choose one.[1]]

The Five Features Requiring Intelligent Design

Code Systems[2]
A code system is a symbolic code, such as ASCII or Morse code, along with the encoder and decoder devices needed to use it. A symbolic code is where you have a symbol, which is a physical thing, that stands for a sound or an idea. The letter “a” stands for a meaning; it also stands for a sound we can speak or hear. We see how writing and speaking in human language involve symbolic codes along with encoding and decoding functions.

In our uniform and repeated experience, undirected forces acting upon matter do not create code systems. To make a code system, you need purpose, a plan, the ability to engineer the necessary elements, and foresight.

Foresight is crucial.[3] No one starts developing a code, an encoder, or a decoder unless he expects the system to be used in the future. Unintelligent matter and energy do not “expect” anything in the future.

Likewise, every communication system uses some kind of code or data representation. Messages can exist only when there is a sender, an intended receiver, and a future-oriented intent to communicate.

DNA itself functions as an encoded message. Code systems are integral to DNA and cell biology. Cells transmit, receive, and process information. An animal embryo contains the encoded information needed to build the adult animal. If that information is not already there, then it must come from some external source unknown to physical science.

Neo-Darwinian theory doesn’t show an adequate physical mechanism for the origin of this kind of code-based biological information system. The theory also doesn’t explain how the encoded information changes between groups and families of animals or plants.

Software[4]
To run computer hardware requires software. Software is a set of instructions that directs hardware components. Software also includes stored data. From our uniform and repeated experience, software always comes from a mind, not from undirected or random forces acting on materials.

Biological hardware requires software in much the same way that computer hardware requires software. For example: Just because an animal has legs does not mean it can use them.

A brain-damaged animal may have two, four, six, or even eight legs and still be unable to walk. Without the proper know-how, an animal cannot use its legs. Legs do not run by themselves.

That know-how is a form of programmed intelligence. Using a leg requires a detailed set of instructions. Somewhere in the animal, there must be instructions that direct the leg to lift, extend, stop, apply pressure, reverse course, stop again, reverse pressure, and lift again — all in coordination with the other legs performing related actions. That sequence must then be repeated quickly, precisely, and constantly.

Walking likewise requires instructions. Jumping, running, skipping, crawling, climbing, and balancing all require different sets of instructions.

In The Advent of the Algorithm, David Berlinski observes that locomotion occurs through “powerful computational routines.” That observation is important. Biological motion is not merely a matter of having body parts. It requires control systems.

Neo-Darwinian evolution does not adequately explain how unintelligent matter and energy developed the purpose, plan, engineering, and foresight needed to produce biological software.

Even the seemingly simple act of adjusting one’s ankle to avoid a rock while jogging requires a software-driven decision. The body must sense the need, process the information, select a response, and coordinate a movement.

Software ties directly back to code systems. Software depends on code. Code systems are essential to software, and code systems are integral to DNA and cell biology. That means biological software becomes much harder to explain as coming from the interactions of undirected forces and matter.

Systems of Subsystems[5]
The human body is not merely a collection of parts. It is a system of interrelated subsystems. For example, the body includes:

Approximately 200 types of specialized cells

206 specialized bones

Organs that communicate with one another

Chemistry regulated within narrow tolerances

Negative feedback loops

Healing and repair systems

Regeneration

Reproduction

Every cell also contains multiple organized features, including:

Containment

Specialized gates

Chemical controls

Structure

Modular subunits

Internal transportation systems

Energy production systems

Materials production

Information storage

Information processing

Over the entire biological organism, whether animal or plant, several larger requirements must also be met:

Orchestration of elements and subsystems

Repair and maintenance of elements and subsystems

Reproduction or replacement of elements and subsystems

Neo-Darwinian theory, relying on undirected mutation and natural selection, does not adequately explain how these integrated systems came together from previous things that lacked them.

From our uniform and repeated experience, developing systems of subsystems requires purpose, planning, engineering, and foresight. Those four elements come from minds, not from undirected interactions of unintelligent matter and energy.

Behavior[6]
Behavior presents another major difficulty. Whenever we observe an if–then operation that alters a creature’s actions based on a new or changed situation, we see behavior, and we have evidence of programmed decision-making.

The key point: An if–then operation uses previously acquired information to decide whether to take an action already prepared for. For example, for animals such as birds:

If danger appears, flee.

If food appears, pursue.

If a mate appears, initiate courtship behavior.

If offspring cry, respond.

If environmental conditions change, adjust behavior.

Such behavior requires stored information, interpretation, and action. It is not enough for an organism to have physical parts. It must also know how to use them in changing circumstances. Behavior results from specialized operational software. Hardware alone can only operate or behave when specifically designed to do so by neatly crafted mechanics or by running software.

People can say that such behavior is “just instinct.” That view hides the necessary designed systems and their coordinated interactions. Such systems require software.

The question for neo-Darwinian theory is not merely whether behavior changes over time. The deeper question is where the behavioral software is stored, how it is physically encoded, how it is modified, and how mutations can build new behavior-guiding programs.

“Evolutionary psychology” attempts to explain behavior through evolutionary history. But even its advocates do not explain where the relevant behavioral software is stored, how it physically changes, or how random mutations to physical genetic material produce new decision-making routines.

Reproduction[7]
Reproduction is a distinct feature because it’s not only a biological function within a system. It is the process by which biological systems copy, transmit, and rebuild themselves in their entirety. Reproduction requires:

Stored information

Accurate copying

Coordinated cellular activity

Developmental timing

Specialized structures

Male and female compatibility in sexual reproduction

Error correction or quality control

Embryological development (from fertilized cell to full stand-alone life-form)

A pathway from one generation to the next

In sexual reproduction, the problem becomes quite difficult. Two different but complementary reproductive systems must exist, function, and coordinate successfully. They must also produce offspring capable of developing, surviving, and reproducing again.

For a “parent” device to reproduce itself to the tiniest detail, it must hold the data and software needed to direct the hardware to build the “child” device. And the parent device must survive and operate while it is building the child device. That’s a practically impossible feat for human designers, let alone for undirected processes.

A partially developed reproductive system does not obviously confer a survival or reproductive advantage unless enough of the system already works. That raises a major difficulty for gradual, undirected neo-Darwinian explanations, because you can’t wait for reproduction to finally evolve. It must work immediately, or all of evolution cannot work.

Neo-Darwinian evolution must explain not only how organisms survive, but how the entire reproductive machinery arose in the first place. Without reproduction, there is no evolutionary process to continue.

Confirmed evolution believers won’t likely concede any points when first hearing them, but they won’t have a refutation either. Just raising questions and doubts in their minds is a success.

References:

[1] To refute the “undisputed proven fact” claim, cite Prof. Gerd Muller’s 2016 speech to the British Royal Society quoted in “Evolutionary Theorist Concedes Evolution Largely Avoids Biggest Questions of Biological Origins”: https://scienceandculture.com/2017/08/evolutionary-theorist-concedes-evolution-largely-avoids-biggest-questions-of-biological-origins

[2] Resources: “Gandalf on Mars,” Salvo (Winter, 2010)
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo15/gandalf-on-mars ; “Immaterial Mind,” Salvo (Summer, 2020),
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo53/immaterial-mind; Perry Marshall, Evolution 2.0 (2015); Werner Gitt, et al., Without Excuse (2011).

[3] Marcos Eberlin, Foresight (2019), https://discovery.press/b/foresight

[4] Resources: “Biological Software,” Salvo (Winter 2011),
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo19/biological-software; David Berlinksi, The Advent of the Algorithm (2000).

[5] Resources: “Marvel of Marvels,” Salvo (Spring, 2025),
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo72/marvel-of-marvels; Glicksman & Laufmann, Your Designed Body (2022); “Your Intelligently Designed Body Is a System of Systems,” https://scienceandculture.com/2022/11/your-intelligently-designed-body-is-a-system-of-systems; “Designed Body: Engineered System Displaying Irreducible Complexity on Steroids,”
https://scienceandculture.com/2017/03/designed-body-engineered-system-displaying-irreducible-complexity-steroids

[6] Resources: “Is Human Psychology Better Explained by Evolution or Design?”, https://scienceandculture.com/2023/03/is-human-psychology-better-explained-by-evolution-or-design; “Biology Journal: Evolutionary Psychology Is Impossible,” https://scienceandculture.com/2020/05/biology-journal-evolutionary-psychology-is-impossible; “Why an Evolutionist Disses Evolutionary Psychology,” https://scienceandculture.com/2019/04/why-an-evolutionist-disses-evolutionary-psychology; “Evolutionary Theorist Concedes Evolution Largely Avoids Biggest Questions of Biological Origins,” https://scienceandculture.com/2017/08/evolutionary-theorist-concedes-evolution-largely-avoids-biggest-questions-of-biological-origins; Evolutionary psychology overview:
https://nobaproject.com/modules/evolutionary-theories-in-psychology.

[7] Resources: Laufmann & Glicksman, Your Designed Body (2022); Howard Glicksman, “In the Beginning: Male & Female ,” https://scienceandculture.com/2016/06/in_the_beginnin; Jonathan McClatchie, “Sex, The Queen of Problems in Evolutionary Biology,” https://scienceandculture.com/2011/07/spinning_fanciful_tales_about_;“Software for Sex,” Salvo (Summer 2013).
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo25/software-for-sex.

Recommended Resources:

Why Science Needs God by Dr. Frank Turek ( DVD and Mp4 )

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek ( DVD , Mp3 , and Mp4 )

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek ( DVD and Mp4 )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek ( Book , 10-Part DVD Set , STUDENT Study Guide , TEACHER Study Guide )

Richard W. Stevens is a retiring lawyer, author, and a Fellow of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center on Natural and Artificial Intelligence. He has written extensively on how code and software systems evidence intelligent design in biological systems. Holding degrees in computer science (UCSD) and law (USD), Richard practiced civil and administrative law litigation in California and Washington D.C., taught legal research and writing at George Washington University and George Mason University law schools, and specialized in writing dispositive motion and appellate briefs. Author or co-author of four books, he has written numerous articles and spoken on subjects including intelligent design, artificial and human intelligence, economics, the Bill of Rights and Christian apologetics. Available now at Amazon is his fifth book, Investigation Defense: What to Do When They Question You (2024).