In the 90s, anti-evolution advocate Michael Behe introduced a theory he thought would shake the very foundations of evolution: mousetraps as a metaphor for irreducible complexity.

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There's a whole [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity) for this shit but long story short it holds that biochemistry is so complex that simpler versions of it can't exist, so therefore evolution is bunk. In the 90s, Michael Behe wrote a book about intelligent design where he put forward the theory that the chemical reactions in your cells are like a mousetrap. If you remove a single part of a mousetrap, it no longer functions. If a mousetrap was a thing that experienced evolution, there is no functional "ancestor" of it that could exist.

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Scientists the world over immediately laughed and wrote a few papers disproving it as a poor understanding of biochemistry, and the world of academic science moved on.

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Enter Alex Fidelibus. He's not a scientist, but a dude with a website, knowledge of basic HTML, and an interest in disproving intelligent design. He made a series of [pages](http://www.fidelibus.com/mousetrap/01.htm) of simplistic drawings showing how a mousetrap could "evolve" from a simple thing into a complex one.

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At some point, Michael Behe himself discovered this website and began exchanging emails with the author, which he then [published](http://www.fidelibus.com/mousetrap/behe/email01.htm). The exchange is rather tame.

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>Again, I haven't looked at the scheme really closely, but for purposes of argument I'll say that each step is an improvement, that as you say the ten steps "obey the rules of natural selection". The problem is going from step to step. I don't think your "steps" follow from each other, and you are unconsciously making a number of changes in each of what you call a single "step". What's more, I think you are using your intelligence (again, unintentionally) to direct the scenario where you want it to go. That might be guided evolution, but it isn't Darwinian evolution.

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>Sure, it's been nice corresponding with you. But, to tell the truth, my schedule is crazy and I won't be able to continue. Best wishes.

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But Fidelibus didn't just publish shitty 90's style pages about his correspondence with Behe. He also reproduced some of the hate mail he received from Christians responding to his website.

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[Here is one email chain where he mocks a Christian for his attitude](http://www.fidelibus.com/mousetrap/creationists/creationist_1/email01.htm)

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>> I figure it was written by some first or second year biology student who is trying to show us how brilliant he is by repeating the simple minded garbage fed to him/her by their college professor. The truth is that they know too little about biology and/or are to stupid to question what was being taught by the professor. The only thing this site proves is that there is a gross lack of common sense in too many of our universities and there are too many college professors who take advantage of the ignorance and lack of common sense of the students to keep their false religion alive.

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> It was written by me. Perhaps you're too stupid to question the unfounded dogma of the Bible.

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>> God Bless,

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> Screw you too.

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> You sound like a very intolerant, angry and arrogant person. You end your email with "God Bless" perhaps you should have begun with that attitude instead.

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[A follow up to this chain, where the other guy loses his shit and attack's Fidelbus's credentials](http://www.fidelibus.com/mousetrap/creationists/creationist_1b/email01.htm)

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> I wouldn't call anyone a moron if that fairy tale is the best story you can dream up as proof for evolution. That was so amateur compared to many that I have ripped apart for fun that I had to believe it couldn't have been put together by anyone with more than one year of biology in college. :-) It looked like it was put together by some 19 year old who had just taken his first biology class and thought he had just been taught the great answer that would once and for all prove evolution and disprove creation by some lying college professor. :-) But it turned out to be the lying college professor. ROFL in tears. What college did they let you teach at? Are you an English teacher or what? :-) I know, under water basket weaving!!!

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[Another chain with a Christian that starts out polite but quickly gets cocky](http://www.fidelibus.com/mousetrap/creationists/creationist_2/email01.htm)

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> You are trying to intelligently design an anomaly, which proves Behe's point. By designing it, it no longer qualifies to be reducibly complex by natural selection. Jordan fades, he shoots, SWOOSH! Ennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnh and the game is over!

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Do the shitty drawings, bare HTML, and angry emails end here? Oh hell no. Some actual honest to God scientist decided to spend time building ANOTHER page of a [reducibly complex mousetrap](http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html). Behe, of course, just had to respond this by making a [shitty webpage](http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mousetrapdefended.htm) of his own with even MORE shitty drawings.

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If one crawls around the skeptic forums they may be whole communities who carried on this mousetrap debate long after mainstream science stopped caring, but this will have to do for today.