One the of the top refutations of evolution is complexity. Nature doesn’t create anything with complexity because nature isn’t sentient. Nature simply acts upon the environment based upon the laws of physics. Atoms don’t naturally arrange themselves into watches, cars, airplanes, etc., all of which are complex things created and designed by intelligent beings for a specific purpose. Snowflakes, clouds, lightning and tornadoes are all fascinating natural phenomena, but they are not complex in the same way that man-made objects are. There’s a huge difference.

Consider, the first bicycle, invented in 1817 by Karl von Drais, consisted of two wheels with a steering column, but no pedals. We have never observed nature designing or producing anything like this. Nonetheless, we find molecular machines in biological organisms that are far more complex than any computer program ever written. Therefore, if nature is incapable of such design, then it’s reasonable to consider alternatives to a natural origin- perhaps a supernatural origin, by God. This is the argument against evolution; yet it could be refuted by observing natural systems producing complex designs. But that is never the case.

This brings us to a discovery made by Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine – Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi- for their research into regulatory T cells. Specifically, they discovered how these cells prevent autoimmune diseases. And it turns out that our immune system is far more complex than anyone previously thought.

Scientists, in fact, routinely discover that biological systems are more complex than they realized. Some believed that the first living organism came out of the primordial ooze… a simple cell composed of plasma. But the more we learn, the more complex life turns out to be.

In this case, Sakaguchi discovered that a “previously unknown class of immune cells” protects our bodies from autoimmune diseases. These cells are known as regulatory T cells (or T reg cells or Tregs) and they pay attention to other T cells searching for harmful foreign bodies. But without these regulatory T cells, our immune system would attack our own cells, causing autoimmune diseases. Therefore, to prevent such damage, our bodies are equipped with “a built-in brake.” Such ingenious designs infer foresight and purpose. Not natural processes.

Considering evolution, T cells are a specific type of immune cell found in vertebrates, but if they weren’t present from the very beginning, then the organism would go extinct. Likewise, if the regulatory T cells didn’t exist, then the organism would face extinction. Evolution, we’re told, takes millions of years… but organisms don’t have millions of years at their disposal to develop essential features required to survive. So how would evolution know what is essential, or how to build it in time?

Seriously, what mechanisms can nature impute upon a living organism if it doesn’t possess foresight or purpose, and if there’s no goal in mind? Nature doesn’t know that regulatory T cells could solve the problem, and even if it did, how would it know how to construct something so complex in the correct order for a specific function before extinction occurs?

Remarkably, there are numerous regulatory T cells, each designed with specific “immune-suppressing properties.”

How complex are these regulatory T cells? It’s impossible to do full justice, but they travel through our bodies, monitoring the immune system using sensors to identify problems (pathogens, microbes), apply rules to determine what action to take and when to take it, then implement one of dozens of different mechanisms, sometimes working in pairs to grab and suppress other cells that have just completed their task. This process shouts of a creator. Evolution, however, doesn’t have time to tinker around, one mutation at a time over millions of years to get it right the first time… before fatality.

Immunologist Daniel Davis said, “If there’s anything that you get from studying the immune system, it’s just the wonder of how complex it is.” He went on to describe the immune system as “mind-boggling.”

To be fair, true evolutionists aren’t bothered by such complexity. Why? Because they’re committed to evolution, and no amount of evidence is enough to overcome their belief system. They would say that, given enough time, anything can happen… as if time is a magic wand. Or they insist that we just don’t have enough data to draw the conclusion that nature isn’t a sufficient answer. That amounts to hope and faith in their underlying worldview.

The bottom line is, complexity points to a wonderful creation and design by God. And as more and more complexities are identified, this conclusion becomes more clear.