Important objections deserve to be examined rather than avoided. The questions below identify challenges raised about the evidence and the design inference. Select one to examine the objection, why it matters, the response offered, the question that remains, and the research sources used.
Many examples offered as evidence for evolution involve changes within populations, adaptation, altered gene frequencies, or modification of existing structures. Critics may argue that these examples demonstrate only small-scale change, often called microevolution, and do not show how fundamentally new biological structures or body plans arise.
Laboratory evolution experiments have produced substantial adaptation and, in some cases, striking new phenotypes. The Lenski long-term evolution experiment, for example, produced a population of E. coli capable of exploiting citrate under aerobic experimental conditions. If evolutionary innovation can be observed directly, why question the creative power of evolutionary mechanisms?
A duplicated gene initially produces another copy of information that already exists. Critics therefore argue that duplication itself does not explain the origin of genuinely new biological information or function.
If some genes arise from DNA that previously did not encode a gene, this appears to provide a direct natural mechanism for generating new genetic information. Does evidence for de novo gene birth therefore answer the Intelligent Design challenge concerning the origin of biological information?
New species and reproductive isolation have been observed, but critics may argue that speciation generally involves divergence within an existing type of organism rather than the origin of fundamentally new anatomical structures. Does observed speciation really demonstrate the larger transformations proposed in evolutionary history?
Critics argue that Intelligent Design identifies gaps in current evolutionary explanations and then attributes those gaps to design. Because scientific explanations can improve as new evidence is discovered, an argument based only upon what science does not presently know would become weaker whenever a new mechanism or historical pathway is found.