AN AUDI FOX, A SKIPPING TIMING BELT AND THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE: So it’s 1975 and the wife and I are sailing East on I-20, having just departed family in Tyler, Texas, and heading to the nation’s capitol. We’re driving a brand new brown/creme colored 1976 Audi Fox, first new car I’d ever bought.

Loved that little Audi because it had a great power-to-weight ratio, a fine-handling suspension set up, and a comfortable, intuitive interior design. It also had an inline-four cylinder engine with an overhead camshaft attached to a timing belt that suddenly decided to slip ever so slightly. Our journey was delayed until the necessary repair was made. I learned a great deal more about such things years later when I started racing a Formula Ford in the SCCA!

Why am I sharing this memory with you? Because it’s a great illustration of “Irreducible Complexity,” which just happens to be the point of biochemist Michael Behe’s Secrets of the Cell, Part 2, on HillFaith. Therein you will find the connection suggested in this post’s heading above. I don’t know if Behe ever owned an Audi Fox.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Occasional Reader for pointing out my reversible mis-type, i.e. Irreversible-which-should-be-Irreducible Complexity. A diplomat OR isn’t but he was right-on on the mistake.