Autor anónimo
© 2011 Fellowship de El Libro de Urantia
NOTE: The Fellowship Herald’s board of directors has accepted the author’s request for anonymity.
The following article is “a walk through the evolutionary debate” from a human perspective. The author is quite familiar with The Urantia Book. Although the primary purpose of this article is not to draw parallels between modern science and The Urantia Book, the article nevertheless describes the growing overlap between recent research in evolutionary science and key concepts related to evolution presented in The Urantia Book.
Neo-Darwinism has been the dominant scientific explanation of evolution in recent decades. Because neo-Darwinism accepts no principle other than material causality, chance plays an essential role. Chance processes can only occur slowly and through incremental changes. The immense array of complex and diverse life forms, neo-Darwinists assert, arises through gradual accumulations of adaptive traits.
But neo-Darwinism’s reliance on gradual change doesn’t hold up in light of today’s research. Using tools like genome sequencing, biologists are showing that evolutionary changes likely occurred suddenly, as The Urantia Book states:
«[Life forms] do not evolve as a result of the gradual accumulation of small variations; they appear as new and fully developed orders of life, and they appear suddenly.
»The sudden appearance of new species and diversified orders of living organisms is entirely biological, strictly natural.» [58:6.3-4] (P. 669)
Evolutionary transitions in unicellular life forms, in plants, and in multicellular vertebrates and invertebrates, including the predecessors of humanoids, all occurred suddenly.
“The higher protozoan types of animal life appeared early, and they appeared suddenly.” (UB 65:2.4)
“It was from a small, agile reptilian dinosaur of carnivorous habits, but having a relatively large brain, that the placental mammals suddenly arose.” (UB 65:2.12)
“A little to the west of India, on land now under water and among the offspring of the old North American lemur types that migrated to Asia, the early mammals suddenly appeared.” UB 61:6.1
“These new intermediate mammals—nearly double their ancestors in size and height and possessing proportionately increased brain power—were scarcely well established when the primates, the third vital mutation, suddenly appeared.” UB 61:6.1
Evolutionary transitions not only occurred suddenly, according to The Urantia Book, but they occurred in great leaps: “…you will have no possibility of finding the connecting links between the great divisions of the animal kingdom, nor between the higher types of prehuman animals and the men of the early human races. The so-called ‘missing links’ will remain forever lost, for the simple reason that they never existed.” (UB 58:6.2)
Neo-Darwinism is a theory that excludes any supermaterial causality—there is no design, no guidance, no ultimate goal or purpose. However, one of the most important discoveries of recent scientific research is convergent evolution—the repeated evolution of similar adaptive traits—not only at the organismal level, but also at the organ or molecular level. The Urantia Book asserts that there is a design for life that explains the patterns of life systems and the apparent direction of evolution.
“A purposeful plan was functioning throughout all of these seemingly strange evolutions of living things, but we are not allowed arbitrarily to interfere with the development of the life patterns after they have once been set in operation.” (UB 65:3.1)
“After organic evolution has run a certain distance and human-type free will has appeared in the higher evolving organisms, the Life Carriers must either leave the planet or take vows of renunciation.” (UB 65:1.5)
Science has no clear answer as to how inanimate matter became animate. The Urantia Book states that life was not a mere accident in time or the result of a deterministic chemical process, but rather, life was implanted on Earth by intelligent beings.
“Life does not originate spontaneously…” (UB 36:0.1)
“[We Life Carriers] can and do carry life to the planets, but we brought no life to Urantia … all the life that has appeared on the [planet] was formulated by us right here…” (UB 58:4.1) (bold is mine.)
“The Urantia midwayers have assembled over fifty thousand facts of physics and chemistry which they deem to be incompatible with the laws of accidental chance, and which they contend unmistakably demonstrate the presence of intelligent purpose in the material creation.” (UB 58:2.3)
According to The Urantia Book, life is not entirely material, nor are human intellect and consciousness a purely chemical-mechanical phenomenon.
“In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals—of love and hate, of cowardice and courage—represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.” (UB 195:7.21)
“To say that mind “emerged” from matter explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.” (UB 195:6.11) (Bolding mine.)
The theory that comes closest to the evolutionary explanation presented in The Urantia Book is intelligent design. Intelligent design attempts to expand science by incorporating nonmaterial causality as a viable hypothesis. However, the scientific establishment has rejected such intrusion and has adapted a strictly materialist paradigm. This article merely points out the consequences of secularism and materialism. The Urantia Book is more explicit.
“The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.” (UB 195:8.13) (Bolding is mine.)
Comments can be directed to the author at nkteleol@gmail.com.
“Darwin made it possible for an atheist to feel totally fulfilled using his intellect alone.” [1] That’s what Richard Dawkins, the world’s most influential scientist and intellectual, said. The idea that evolution is irreconcilable with belief in God in general, and with Christian theism in particular, may seem surprising and a little distressing to some people.
When Dawkins refers to Darwin in the above quote, he is speaking of Darwinian evolution in its modern form, that is, neo-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism can be considered a term applicable to the set of viable theories that assume that only material causality is acceptable in the explanation of natural phenomena. The secular orientation of secular humanism owes much to the influence of neo-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism is the main driver of the conflict between religion and science, and it is what gives rise to the impression that religion is in retreat, that it is yielding to the inexorable advance of science. Religious people are seen as grasping at straws and must eventually surrender to the principle of Occam’s razor as science discovers material explanations for phenomena attributed to Deity. This is the so-called God-in-the-gaps fallacy, to which materialists repeatedly see religious people succumb. Secular humanism, backed by the power of academic scientists, has laid siege to traditional values based on Judeo-Christian theology, using neo-Darwinism as its primary weapon. The result goes to the very core of what matters in the human experience: whether we exist by a purposeful act of a loving God and have an eternal purpose, or are mere accidents of time, alone in a purposeless and uncaring universe.
But if we can show that the strictly materialist explanations offered by science for the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the parameters of the universe, the origin and evolution of life, and the advent of sentient beings are unsatisfactory, then recourse to the God of the Gaps fallacy is itself a fallacy. And if we can show that scientific advances reveal not the signature of chance, but the signature of a designed plan, the color of the debate will change completely.
Evolution means, depending on the context, one of two things. For some, it simply means descent with modification, which refers to the theory that all creatures, great or small, are related—that they came from a remote common ancestor. We often refer to this as “the fact of evolution.” Within the academic scientific community, the term “evolution” more often encompasses the proposed mechanism of evolution. Darwin proposed that the mechanism of evolution was variation and natural selection. At that time, genetics was not known. In the early and mid-twentieth century, the idea of “variation” in the mechanism of evolution became more clearly defined. The modern synthesis, often called neo-Darwinism, postulates that the mechanism of evolution consists of random variation (mutation) and natural selection.
“Random mutation” means that the raw changes that provide the input to the process of evolutionary change are chance events—accidental changes in the segments of DNA that are believed to determine the structures and functions of living entities. They are, neo-Darwinians say, changes not requested and not facilitated by the organism. This means that there is no direction—no purpose—in evolution. That there is no direction means that sentient beings are not inevitable. We are merely the result of an accumulation of chance and necessity—of mutation and natural selection. “How can one imagine that there is a divine purpose for human existence if the process from which we arose has no purpose?” Nobel laureate Jacques Monod has said:
“Only chance is at the origin of all innovations, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, only chance, absolute but blind freedom… Man finally knows that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe, from which he has emerged by chance. His duty, like his destiny, is written in nothingness.” [2]
An important corollary of this is that the human intellect is purely physical—that there is no mind apart from the physical brain. If the human intellect can be explained entirely as a purely physical phenomenon and as the result of a purposeless process, it seems highly unlikely that the brain would, by chance, turn out to be suitable for some kind of non-material encasement such as a mind, free will, or soul (‘ensoulment’). Thus, the edifice upon which traditional Christianity is built crumbles; hence Richard Dawkins’s statement: ‘To try to reconcile Christian theology with evolution is to misunderstand evolution’.
William Provine of Stanford University said:
“If evolution is true, there is no God, no life after death, no ultimate foundation for ethics, no free will, and no ultimate meaning for life.” [3]
Without a true north on an absolute moral compass, there is no absolute Truth. Truth and error are ephemeral things subject to the whim of those who have seized power at a given moment. They are purely human constructs. There is no barrier—certainly no permanent barrier—to conduct. Everything can be justified. And if one doesn’t believe in free will—in the capacity to transcend material algorithms and the inclinations of the brain—there is no reasonable basis for holding people accountable to any human-created ethical construct. And so, one of the pillars of Western civilization collapses. As Daniel Dennett has said:
“[Neo-Darwinism] devours almost every traditional concept in its wake and leaves in its wake a radically changed worldview, in which most of the old can still be recognized, but fundamentally transformed.” [4]
All “brands” of humanism—that is, Marxism and its derivatives, socialism, and modern liberalism—are markedly influenced by this way of thinking. Leading figures in the Western intellectual establishment have long since discarded any idea of a creator or supreme being, especially that of a compassionate and omniscient God, and now make their case with increasing force. My experience is that modern secular humanists would prefer there were no God.
This idea finds its artistic expression in John Lennon’s song Imagine—the great anthem of secular humanism:
«Imagine there is no sky, it’s easy if you try.
No hell below us, in our heads only heaven
Imagine everyone living in the moment.
They are so convinced of the truth of materialism and so wedded to the idea that this life is all there is that they have little or no interest in hearing any counterarguments. They seem to relish the idea that they can shatter the myth of God and salvation from the minds of those who wait for some divine plan to give their lives meaning. This happens on American college campuses every day. If you think what I’m saying is overly cynical, I encourage you to read Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea [4:1], Corliss Lamont’s The Illusion of Immortality [5], or any of the books by Richard Dawkins—the most influential scientist in the world—who in effect says to children, “Evolution or God, boy, take your pick.”
The paradigm of science today is “methodological naturalism.” Methodological naturalism assumes a priori that there are no non-material influences or causes in the natural world. Renowned geneticist Richard Lewontin explains this as follows:
“[Scientists] have a prior commitment… to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept material explanations of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create a research apparatus and a set of concepts that will produce the material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive or baffling they may be to the uninitiated. Moreover, such materialism is absolute because we cannot accept divinity as having its foot in the door.” [6]
Phillip Johnson, the founder of the modern intelligent design movement, pointed out that if only materialist explanations of evolution are accepted, then neo-Darwinism or some other materialist theory of evolution must be true. This explains why neo-Darwinists are so confident in their theory, despite its flaws.
Theistic evolutionists do not accept the conclusion that theism and neo-Darwinism are incompatible. Theistic evolutionists are scientifically literate, religious people who accept the current consensus on evolution and its neo-Darwinian explanation—namely, that we are all the result of a series of chance, random events within living cells coupled with natural selection. Prominent scientists in this category include Francis Collins, Simon Conway Morris, Ken Miller, and Robert Russell. Theistic evolutionists point to the Big Bang theory and the discovery that the universe appears to be finely tuned—adapted—to allow complex configurations of molecules, and especially living organisms, to arise as evidence that God exists. [7]
What might be surprising to some is that many theistic evolutionists have come to accept the scientific consensus regarding human intellect and consciousness, which holds that the brain is all there is—that is, there is no immaterial covering over the brain. Most, however, do not accept that there is no such thing as a mind or a soul. Immortality is brought about through the resurrection of the physical body. Theistic evolutionists believe that a pseudo-mind “emerges” from the physical brain. “Emergence” is a term that describes a phenomenon in which the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. But it is a term that has not been clearly defined with respect to the human intellect. I get the impression that it is simply applying “a label to a mystery,” to use a phrase coined by Phillip Johnson.
Neuroscientists and material scientists have convinced theistic evolutionists that the interaction between a hypothetical non-material entity (the soul) and the material brain violates the laws of physics. Additionally, scientists have discovered correlations between brain activity and observations of human consciousness. Altering the brain causes predictable phenomena of consciousness, and conscious phenomena have predictable activity in the brain. I’m not sure why this is considered important evidence against the existence of the mind. What would be the alternative to no correlation? Clearly, the brain is there to do something.
Free will is another matter. For anything to meaningfully explain human experience within a traditional Christian context, free will must be safeguarded. Theistic evolutionists speculate that interactions between the material brain and the non-material aspects of the human intellect may occur in ways that are undetectable because their functioning is below human detection, courtesy of the uncertainties of quantum mechanics. However, quantum mechanics offers a potential opening to a deterministic and closed system. This opening allows for, or at least does not exclude, the possibility of free will. Others speculate that this opening provided by quantum mechanics might make it possible both for uncertainties to be actual divine action (on an ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics) and for the opposite idea that they are simply a limitation of our current knowledge (on an epistemological interpretation). The current consensus is that quantum uncertainties are real.
What does the Catholic Church say? John Paul’s first statement in 1996 was ambiguous. He implied that evolution was a theory, not simply a hypothesis. But it did not address the origin of life, and it did not clearly define what evolution is. In other words, this statement did not comment on the mechanism of evolution. [8] The Pope may simply have been referring to a common origin. More recent comments have also been unclear. Comments that “true contingency” is not incompatible with divine plan point to a position more consistent with theistic evolutionists’ beliefs. However, other comments suggesting that evolution has been somehow guided by God are more consistent with the claims of intelligent design theory.
Intelligent design proponents look at the grandeur of the universe, the way the physical parameters of the universe are fine-tuned, or adapted, to accommodate life, the complexity of life, and the wonder of the human intellect, and infer that reality is likely the result of a prior intelligence. Intelligent design theorists view their system as a superset that includes theistic evolutionism, creationism, and those who accept some form of “guided evolution” or any other variant of teleology. Theistic evolutionists would be terrified of being classified as a variant of intelligent design. Because evolutionists accept the scientific explanation of evolution, it is not surprising that they are held in higher esteem within the academic scientific community than intelligent design proponents. Academia has nothing but contempt for intelligent design.
How intelligent design should be viewed with respect to theistic evolution and creationism is an academic matter. A fair amount of mud has been thrown around these terms. The usual convention is for those developing a school of thought to define what it is. The early theorists, though not the originators, of intelligent design are Michael Behe, a molecular biologist; William Dembski, a philosopher, theologian, and mathematician; and Stephen Meyer, a historian of science. In Dembski’s and Meyer’s view, intelligent design encompasses those who believe that intelligence was imparted at some point to produce a particular outcome, whether that point was located before the beginning of life, at the beginning of life, or throughout the development of life. [9]
However, creationists have also used the term “intelligent design” to describe a form of creationism that typically involves the belief that each species is the result of a distinct divine act. Creationists frequently use the term “creationism” more broadly to refer to any belief that the universe and living creatures on Earth are the product of divine creation. The belief that guided evolution, by some act of the Creator or others empowered by the Creator, caused the development of life can be considered creationism. The fact that each new creature was an indirect, rather than direct, act of a Creator is an unimportant detail.
The key difference between what most theistic evolutionists believe and what non-creationist intelligent design advocates advocate is that the latter do not accept that the physical parameters of the universe could have been fine-tuned by an intelligent agent sufficiently to direct chemistry along a deterministic “path” that would lead to the emergence of life, or to its emergence with a high degree of probability, if not certainty. (A “path” in this context is simply a deterministic, step-by-step process by which chemistry becomes biology.) Furthermore, if a chemical path to biology were to be discovered, it is unlikely, intelligent design advocates would argue, that such an approach to design could ensure the unfolding of life in a directed manner—that is, directed toward the inevitability of the emergence of sentient beings capable of hosting supermaterial qualities such as mind or soul.
But the demarcation between intelligent design and theistic evolution is not as sharp as many assume. Some prominent theistic evolutionists, Ken Miller and Francis Collins for example, assume that perhaps intelligent intervention occurred at the beginning of life on Earth. This is virtually indistinguishable from what most non-creationist proponents of intelligent design believe, which is ironic because both Collins and Miller are among the most vocal critics of intelligent design. If Collins and Miller are willing to concede that the origin of life may have required prior intelligence, why do they go to all the trouble with neo-Darwinism to try to explain the complex features of evolution? Is it reasonable to think that an intelligent agent assembled life—because chance could not—and to maintain that life limps along and fails to produce anything more interesting than a few slugs?
The 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania, lawsuit offers a textbook case of why it is important to define terms precisely. Creationist advocates on the boards of education wanted biology teachers to read a statement regarding evolution to freshman biology students. The statement referred to “Darwin’s theory” without clearly defining what it meant. Did Darwin’s theory simply mean common origins, or did it extend to neo-Darwinian mechanisms—that is, random mutations and natural selection? The statement also referred to a book, Of Pandas and People, [10] which can be interpreted as advocating creationism.
The case went to court, and Judge John E. Jones ruled that intelligent design is a form of creationism and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because the statement did not specify what Darwin’s theory was, and because it referenced a book that supported creationism (the special creation of each different species), ACLU lawyers were able to argue against it based on the credit Darwin’s theory of common descent earned over creationism. The evidence in favor of common descent is very strong. Arguing against intelligent design by focusing only on common descent, rather than further specifying the neo-Darwinian mechanism of random mutations and natural selection, is a common tactic of neo-Darwinists because it is much easier to accomplish. Furthermore, because the statement associated the book Of Pandas and People with intelligent design, the ACLU was able to establish the legal precedent that intelligent design is a part of creationism, not that creationism is a part of intelligent design.
The case would likely have been lost if the statement had included any comments suggesting that material causes cannot fully explain each and every life form. Ultimately, a judge—who doesn’t understand science—will tend to respect the side with the greater preponderance of expert scientists. Clearly, scientists who advocate intelligent design, guided evolution, teleological evolution—or whatever you want to call it—are a small minority, unless there are many other scientists who don’t speak out to avoid jeopardizing their careers. Advocating such a position impacts careers. Molecular biologist Michael Behe, a prominent proponent of intelligent design, has become a pariah at Lehigh University, where he teaches, despite fully accepting common origins.
Proponents of intelligent design reject methodological naturalism. Why, they ask, limit the scope of hypotheses before truly understanding the ultimate causes of nature? Therefore, if science is defined as strictly concerned with material causality, it can be argued that at least part of what intelligent design proposes is not science.
Academic scientists claim that intelligent design isn’t science because it can’t be disproved. Can intelligent design be disproved? I think it can. Scientists could demonstrate through laboratory experimentation that a complex characteristic can evolve, or has evolved, by chance and natural selection. Alternatively, paleontologists could provide evidence from a sequence of fossils showing gradual, continuous evolution of a complex characteristic. Such a sequence doesn’t exist. The fossil sequences they do have, however, are sufficient to demonstrate the truth of common origin, Darwin’s primary claim.
The evidence presented by materialist scientists in support of neo-Darwinism’s central claim—that the combined mechanism of random mutation and natural selection explains how life evolved—is very weak. But can neo-Darwinism be refuted? Since neo-Darwinism is based on chance, its claims, at least in theory, are susceptible to confirmation or refuting by the mathematics of probability. This is what William Demski and other members of the intelligent design movement have attempted to do. The scientific method requires that an attempt be made to refute a theory or hypothesis. But materialist scientists are not strongly motivated to do so because refuting neo-Darwinism would likely lead to a rethinking of methodological naturalism, which is necessary for materialism.
When attempting to refute neo-Darwinism, intelligent design theorists focus on the probabilities associated with random mutations, rather than debating the strength of natural selection. They do this because natural selection is a tautology and cannot be refuted. “Natural selection” means survival of the fittest. But the fittest are defined as those who survive. In other words, natural selection means “the survival of those who survive.” This explains why neo-Darwinists always emphasize natural selection and say so little about mutations. They believe that the necessary mutations will arise if given enough time.
Refuting neo-Darwinism through the mathematical probabilities associated with random mutations is difficult. Why? There are two reasons. First, the strength of natural selection is difficult to assess. It is difficult to determine how significant the incremental benefit a mutation provides must be in order to confer a minimal selective advantage, especially compared to other competing attributes in the organism that are also subject to variation.
Second, since neo-Darwinism is a process of random change, it has no goal. Therefore, the probability of this or that particular molecule, molecular machine, cell system, organ, or evolving organism cannot be easily calculated, because there may be many other viable biological solutions in the general set of possible genetic configurations. And no one knows how large this set may be.
Shakespeare’s sonnets are often used as an illustrative analogy for the theme of probability in relation to evolution. Imagine trying to calculate the probability of creating a Shakespearean sonnet using an automatic text generator and a selection process. Following the analogy, you can think of the sonnet as a gene and each letter as a different amino acid.
The first thing to note is that using a specific sonnet is purposeful, but since Neo-Darwinism is a random process, it has no purpose. Therefore, one cannot simply calculate the probability of a particular sonnet and conclude from this that it cannot be produced by the methods of Neo-Darwinism—chance and selection. It is more appropriate to ask whether a process that generates random combinations of words, to which selection is added, can create any coherent sonnets in the Shakespearean style. This is difficult to determine because the number of sonnets that can be considered Shakespearean is unknown. What can be calculated—approximately—is the number of possible word combinations (the denominator) that would form the “probability space” of the much smaller set of coherent sonnets (the numerator). The typical length of Shakespearean sonnets is about 120 words; Therefore, the possible number of word configurations is immense: approximately 10 to the power of 600 (assuming the language has 100,000 words). But without knowing the numerator—that is, the set of possible coherent sonnets—the final probability cannot be established.
Neo-Darwinism may make valid points, but they come nowhere near solving the issue. Due to the interdependence of living systems, there are constraints that considerably reduce the number of possible solutions—that is, the set of all possible genetic configurations in an existing system. With constraints, the numerator becomes smaller because the range of viable beneficial mutations is a smaller set. This means that there is a much smaller set of viable mutations in the total set of possible mutations that can be produced by a gene that produces a protein that contributes to improving a minimally functioning biological characteristic. Reaching more stringent constraints is indeed a goal because in doing so, the range of mutations narrows. As the constraints become more stringent, the calculation of probabilities becomes more plausible. Why? Let’s take Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 as an example:
Shall I compare you to a summer day?
You are more beautiful and restrained
Stormy winds shake the beloved buds of May,
And summer times are too short-lived
Sometimes the eye of the sky shines too hot
And others their golden complexion weakens
And all beauty sometimes declines
By chance or changes in withered nature;
But your eternal summer does not go out
Nor lose possession of that beauty that you have
Not even Death will boast that you wander in his shadow
When you grow up in the eternal lines of time
As long as the eyes breathe or the eyes see
As long as this lives, it will give you life.
Suppose the entire sonnet has been produced except for the last line. The set of word combinations that can enhance the sonnet’s meaning is very small compared to the set of all possible word combinations, due to the restrictions imposed by the existing part of the sonnet. The words must fit the same number of syllables, they must make sense in the context of the sonnet, and they must have Shakespearean elegance. For an additional set of characters to have value—in this case, enhancing or completing the sonnet’s meaning—the additional line will probably have to occur entirely at random.
Natural selection cannot make its selection based on some configuration of genes/proteins based on their potential. There is no approach in which one can incrementally improve meaning word by word, unless one is foolish enough to resort to a goal; in other words, to selecting words as long as one knows that they must fit the context of the target phrase “As long as eye breathes or eye sees.” Any mutation must result in a gene whose resulting protein provides clear survival value at the present time for that biological characteristic. A mutation that provides some value might eventually lead to a stalemate. One might think that a small set of words that sounds good and holds promise as part of a sonnet might not integrate and enhance an existing sonnet.
If the complete replacement of a line has to take place randomly by adding random words, the resulting probability barrier is immense (approximately one in 100,000 to the 10th power [10 to the 50th power]). It is not easy to translate these probabilities to human evolution, for example, because there are a variety of other factors; but given the small size of the hominid population and the generational cycles, a chance in 10 to the 50th power could easily be described as an insurmountable barrier. The total number of hominids since the branch leading to apes and the branch leading to humans split has been at most ten trillion individuals and probably much less. Ten trillion is far too small a population size to overcome a probability barrier of 10 to the 50th power.
The analogy of using a single sonnet and selecting letters or words to simulate natural selection is a vast oversimplification because in an already functioning organism, there are many biological attributes that can vary in the overall phenotype (structures and functions) of a creature, and many others that interact. To arrive at a valid analogy, one must imagine an entire work, such as Shakespeare’s complete works. If random changes are to be made to several acts and scenes (for example, when republishing them), the question arises of which of the many texts in the play to be varied to select, analogous to which of the many attributes of a living organism are selected based on the criterion of improvement they provide. A minor incremental change in one scene of the play may be obscured by the overall variation in the rest. This factor makes neo-Darwinism less defensible because natural selection seems to lack the acuity to know how to select one of the many specific attributes to be varied. Fitness (survival) in the Darwinian sense is a binary function: either there is survival and reproduction, or there isn’t. So it may be that an organism with a favorable novel mutation doesn’t survive because other frequently varying traits have acted in ways that diminished its ability to survive, and then the random mutation would have to occur again randomly.
The refutation of neo-Darwinism raises the question of whether or not there are cases—many cases—in which multiple (simultaneous) changes per mutation are required for minimal selective advantage to result. The underlying question is whether it is reasonable to believe that complex organisms, while immediately trying to adapt through natural selection, often find that the genes coding for the development of an incipient characteristic (such as a primitive eye) are stuck, alone in the genetic probability space, and many multiple (simultaneous) mutations away from any further viable adaptive improvement. If complex biological entities cannot be built step-by-step (incrementally) using each time only one or a few changes per mutation that natural selection can select for—fix—then neo-Darwinism is completely implausible. Can biological functions be built step-by-step through random changes and selection?
Michael Behe, a molecular biologist and proponent of intelligent design, uses the term “irreducible complexity” to describe molecular machines that are so complex that they cannot be assembled piece by piece by a random process, as described by neo-Darwinism. The systems he cites in his books Darwin’s Black Box [11] and The Edge of Evolution [12], such as the tail end of a bacterium, consist of many components—more than 100 proteins. There is usually something overlooked in biological systems, for example, the lack of specificity within each gene (not all the amino acids in a protein are suitable for threading matter) and in a molecular system as a whole (not all proteins are essential); but in the case of the cilium, many of its components appear to be essential for it to perform its function properly. The different pieces are extremely interdependent—that is, they have a high degree of specificity.
Dr. Behe created a real stir throughout academia by postulating that neo-Darwinism could not explain the existence of complex molecular machines. The entire biological academic community rallied around Behe’s defense and denied that there was any problem at all with neo-Darwinism regarding the creation of complex traits in living beings. There were many responses claiming that such scenarios had been well documented throughout a peer-reviewed literature. But when the curious began to look for such explanations, they turned out to be as rare as unicorns. James Shapiro, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, agreed with Behe, saying, “There is no detailed Darwinian explanation for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a wide variety of willful speculation.” 14 It should be noted that Dr. Shapiro is a lay scientist and critical of intelligent design.
William Dembski used Behe’s insightful insights into molecular machines and came up with a provisional probability calculation for the emergence of the cilium. The calculations that William Dembski arrived at do not support neo-Darwinism at all. The result of his calculations falls beyond the universal limits of probability, which is the theoretical barrier for any stochastic (random) process. The universal limit of probability is set at 10 to the power of -150. The universal limit of probability takes into account the number of particles in the universe, the age of the universe, and the smallest measurable increment of time, “the Planck time.” However, a much lower probability barrier—on the order of 10 to the power of -43—is often considered a more realistic limit of what is possible. What makes this probability so low is that when you have multiple dependencies, that is, when multiple things have to happen simultaneously, the resulting probability is the product of the probability of each event, not the sum. And living systems are full of interdependencies.
Many words have been spoken in the debate between neo-Darwinism and intelligent design. Many have been quite unpleasant, and many others have been downright poisonous, especially from the neo-Darwinian camp. Both sides have a hidden agenda that will result in the introduction of philosophy into science. Stephen Meyer points out that neo-Darwinists, who are signatories, either in letter or spirit, of the Humanist Manifesto, are just as guilty of injecting philosophy into science as Christians or Jews who defend intelligent design. Their respective arguments must be assessed based on the evidence they present.
Aside from ad hominem comments and a dismissive stance toward intelligent design, neo-Darwinists frequently argue from a position of authority, pointing to a clear scientific consensus in favor of neo-Darwinism. To the citations that can be made within the intelligent design camp of hundreds of reputable scientists who question neo-Darwinism, neo-Darwinists counter a longer list of scientists whose given name is “Steve” (after the late Stephen J. Gould) and who support neo-Darwinism.
However, many of the newer theories advanced by researchers attempt to fill neo-Darwinism with substance, and in some cases, surpass it. Thus, it is tacitly admitted that neo-Darwinism, in its most conventional form, cannot explain the complexities of life. This is something that proponents of creationism and intelligent design have been claiming for decades. Much, or most, of what neo-Darwinists have been saying with enormous confidence about how we came to exist seems not to be correct. To emphasize this point, I may mention what James Shapiro recently said: “Richard Dawkins is a man who lives in fantasy.” [13] Certainly, the credibility of many scientists is in question. What remains to be determined is whether the credibility of science itself is in question by virtue of its strict adherence to methodological naturalism.
A common approach of neo-Darwinists when confronting intelligent design is to confuse it with creationism, and to confuse evolution with neo-Darwinism. Their goal is to debate the issue publicly on the basis of evolution, that is, common descent, rather than on the basis of neo-Darwinism’s mechanism of random mutation and natural selection. However, the most prominent intelligent design theorists (William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and Michael Behe) are very clear about what intelligent design is. They have repeatedly pointed out that intelligent design is compatible with the Darwinian principle of common descent.
Neo-Darwinists have a wide variety of responses when confronted with evidence purporting to demonstrate the very small probabilities that result from random mutation and natural selection to explain the wonders of life.
One tactic is to point out that these extremely improbable things happen every day. If you think about all the things that happen in the game of baseball, for example, any given outcome is extremely improbable. Similarly, it is extremely improbable to get any given outcome in a series of 1,000 coin tosses, given the possible number of outcomes (roughly 1 in 10 to the 300th power). Isn’t this relevant? No. A given outcome is extremely improbable, that’s true. However, any sequence is a certainty if a coin is tossed 1,000 times. But all series of coin tosses are equally probable; there are no exceptional outcomes by any means. The complexity of any outcome is low because the information content and specificity are low. There are no dependencies between any two tosses. However, if all 1,000 tosses come up heads, don’t you think one or both eyebrows will be raised?
Another tactic is to use a game of chance, such as dice, and determine the difference between rolling, say, ten dice that land on the same number—ten sixes, for example—which would have a very low probability, versus having to roll ten sixes in a series of rolls of ten dice, but being able to choose each six that appears, thus simulating natural selection. We have a couple of problems here. First, selecting sixes is invoking a goal, which is prohibited in processes subject to chance. Second, the threshold for selection in biological entities is certainly much higher than a defined event such as a roll of sixes.
The reason neo-Darwinism seems credible despite even our present knowledge of the ever-increasing complexity of living systems is due to the amount of time available. Random mutations and natural selection, along with “the depth of time,” make it seem credible. After all, mutations could be very small and could accumulate by taking advantage of the possibilities of natural selection. Mutations could be small because of the breadth of time—hundreds of millions of years—available for them to occur, or so it seems.
But how much trust can we place in time, even when we have vast amounts of it? To better understand how ineffective chance is, even given vast amounts of time and opportunity (the population size), we can recall Thomas Huxley’s remark that a million monkeys could type the complete works of Shakespeare if given enough time. He was completely wrong about this, unless we assume we have eternity. But let’s say we could gather not just a million monkeys, but all the primates that have ever lived on Earth—we can estimate them at about 50 trillion—and have them type nonstop on a typewriter for the entire lifetime of the universe. Do you think they could ever type the sentence “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”? The answer is “no”; not even close.
This example uses a target, so it’s not really meant to be any kind of proof. But if we were to assume that at some point, evolution—and more importantly, the development of life, which doesn’t have the advantage of natural selection, at least in the early stages—would encounter barriers whose complexity and limitations were comparable to those of that exercise, we can say that progress toward life would have stalled. What’s really important is the population size, not the time taken. Population size depends on the size of the organism and the reproduction rate. The parasite that causes malaria has an extraordinarily large population (approximately one trillion individuals in each infected person, and there are hundreds of millions of people infected each year). And yet, over the course of thousands of years, it hasn’t changed much. It has been able to mutate, driven by human-created medicines, because only a few changes were required. But even with its huge population (and consequently large opportunity to mutate), malaria has not been able to mutate under the influence of sickle cell disease. [12:1]
Empirical evidence for how neo-Darwinian random mutation and natural selection can incrementally build, say, an eye is, to be charitable, very slight. There are no mutations that occurred in the laboratory that could offer such evidence, nor are there any fossil series. The fossil record does present a wide variety of eyes of varying complexity but no evidence that they form series with each other. Neo-Darwinists therefore have to turn to computer models and supplement them with storytelling. Richard Dawkins updated the story of Darwin’s eye in his book Climbing Mount Improbable [14] and uses computer models that purport to show that a complex eye can evolve quite rapidly.
Typically, these explanations are oversimplified, ignore the interdependencies between other associated functions of the eye and the organism, and focus on high-level global anatomy rather than molecular details. There’s a common saying among engineers: “The devil is in the details.” To continue using our Shakespeare play analogy, it’s much easier to imagine how a play might be constructed by focusing only on acts and scenes rather than on the development of dialogue and characters.
If you were to type the words “Michael Behe” and “irreducible complexity” into Google, you would undoubtedly be inundated with information claiming that the concept is discredited. “Discrediting” irreducible complexity means, for neo-Darwinists, that they have been able to present a potentially credible explanation for how such complex structures could have evolved. These explanations resort to the phenomenon of “spreading” or co-option, which responds to the common observation that genetic components are frequently reused for different purposes throughout the history of life. Recent research has revealed that there are far fewer genes in sequenced genomes than might be expected given the complexity of living entities. The reason for this is the ability of living organisms to reuse and assemble gene components—as in a Lego game—into new genes that code for additional complex proteins.
Neo-Darwinists claim that this repurposing—rather than creating new genes—supports the materialist explanation because they no longer have to address some of the more thorny issues of how the many genes that make up a complex molecular machine or organ can be created by modifying DNA piece by piece. Integrating many existing parts to create complex functions might actually be easier than reassembling them entirely, but it is far from the case.
Using our Shakespeare example, I wouldn’t expect that one could reconstruct his entire work from a handful of sonnets by randomly duplicating and restructuring existing words. It requires intelligence to find and choose which parts of the prose are relevant and how to order them coherently, assemble them into a unified whole, and then integrate them within the acts and scenes of the individual plays. Beyond that, neo-Darwinists still have to explain how genes initially arise and how the mechanisms for their repurposing arise.
When it comes to presenting evidence for random mutations, neo-Darwinists say that mutations are not a problem. Yet, few, if any, random mutations of any significance have been observed in the laboratory. Neo-Darwinists often point to mutations in the form of antibiotic resistance as evidence of mutations in particular and of evolution in general. Antibiotic resistance mutations and virus mutations are presented as evidence in Darwin exhibits in various museums. Mutations associated with antibiotic resistance should not really count because in all but a few unimportant cases, no additional complexity (new information content) is added to the bacterium, as is the case, for example, with the eukaryotic microorganism that causes malaria, which undergoes a mutation that makes it resistant to antibiotics. In the vast majority of cases, when a bacterium becomes resistant through mutation, the change is a degradation of its functionality—that is, one of its proteins or enzymes is broken in some way.
Neo-Darwinists often cite the observed variations in animals, especially domestic animals, as evidence of the kind of mutations that can produce complex traits in living creatures. This is a strange response because variation in a species is simply variation in the animal’s existing attributes. Nothing new is created. It’s like rewriting an existing novel by changing the names of its characters, the setting, and the time period, and trying to pass it off as a new and important work. This is plagiarism, not creativity. If anything in the breeding of domestic animals shows the limitations of variability, it is the limits of what can be done with a dog, for example. It may be big, small, skittish, friendly, fast, slow, long-haired, short-haired, intelligent or not, but a mother dog will always give birth to another adorable puppy.
So it seems there are reasons to doubt neo-Darwinism’s ability to create these wonderfully complex features of life. However, I have discovered that there is no point that scientists have raised about intelligent design, no matter how sensible it may seem, that hasn’t been objected to; strict neo-Darwinists never make any concessions. This alone should put us on our guard.
Citing “imperfect design” is another straw that neo-Darwinists grab onto when arguing that life is the result of random mutations and natural selection, rather than design. A common claim is that the mammalian eye is imperfectly configured, resulting in a blind spot. “No careful engineer would design an eye that way,” neo-Darwinists claim. There has been discussion about this claim, but the matter is not settled. As any engineer can point out, when it comes to striking a balance among the multitude of alternatives and constraints that invariably arise in complex systems, something always has to be compromised. One may wonder whether neo-Darwinism is so fragile that it needs to rely in its defense on a minor anomaly that appears in our eye. When it arrives at the gates of Paradise, it may have some advice for those responsible for implementing life on Earth, but criticism of the eye’s blind spot will not be one of them. If I hadn’t been told about the blind spot, I wouldn’t have even known it existed.
Darwinists also note that DNA contains a large number of pieces that do not code for proteins. They call these pieces “junk DNA” and point out that a large amount of useless DNA is exactly what you would expect from a random process, and that it wouldn’t be the case if life forms were designed. Richard Dawkins talks a lot about this in The Selfish Gene. [13:1]
The problem for neo-Darwinists is that recent research has shown that a large portion of this non-coding DNA is not junk, but rather something very useful for a variety of regulatory functions. So not only has the useful concept—useful to neo-Darwinists—of junk DNA seemed to have disappeared, but at the same time, many of the pieces of DNA are being used in complex ways never before imagined. The greater the complexity, the more one concludes in intelligent design. This is a case where methodological naturalism has stifled scientific progress. If scientists had considered a wider range of potential hypotheses, like the design hypothesis suggested by intelligent design proponents, they would have discovered long before that “junk DNA” had uses.
There is a general unease among many Darwinists about the brutality of the struggle for existence. Darwin himself mentioned this. There are some clarifications to be made here, especially considering that many life forms—such as the malaria parasite—have exacted a heavy toll from humanity. How can one accept the view that parasites like malaria are the result of design, even indirectly, while at the same time seeing the pain and suffering they cause? This is not an easy challenge for theists to face. Generally, arguing against design on the basis of the brutality of the struggle for survival and human suffering presupposes precise knowledge about the designer and their methods, intentions, and capabilities, based on assumptions that cannot be made precise. Pain and suffering exist; no one denies that. But a philosophy of design must be consistent only with itself. Theism need not be consistent with the sentiments of a secular humanist who regards this life as the end of our existence. From a theistic perspective, pain and suffering either have a purpose (they have value), or are inevitable, or are the result of imperfect design, or are a mixture of all of these. Many of us have clearly lost sight of the purpose and inevitability of pain and suffering. Perhaps only in light of our eternal salvation and an understanding of God’s plan can such a thing be fully understood and appreciated.
What should be clear at this point is that refuting neo-Darwinism is difficult. It might be an insoluble problem. In that case, perhaps the best we can do is reach a conclusion about how we came to be. Such a conclusion might help us assess whether it is appropriate for science to have adopted methodological naturalism. The important point is that if scientists have been wrong to adopt methodological naturalism as a paradigm and the universe has in fact been designed, accepting such a paradigm would greatly limit the range of hypotheses guiding empirical experiments. In such a case, scientific progress can be expected to stagnate.
How can we reach a conclusion between design and chance? One way would be to consider the attributes, that is, the structures and functions of life, and assess whether what they manifest is design or chance. There are two general attributes we can consider: 1 — complexity and 2 — causality.
Complexity is essentially information content. One way to understand information content is to assess the human text required to explain an object or system completely and efficiently. A biology textbook is a reflection of the complexity of what it describes. Imagine you are writing a comprehensive biology textbook that covers every aspect of the science in minute detail. You could first gather all the different facts about biology. The different facts are the various sentences or paragraphs that describe a biological concept. You can think of them as analogous to genes or gene fragments in biology. There are undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of such facts about biology.
Complexity increases as these different facts or statements accumulate. Gathering them is only part of the entire task of writing a book, and therefore only part of the total complexity. A set of unrelated facts is data, but not information. Transforming different statements about facts into information requires considerably more intelligence in the enterprise to correlate and associate all the data. Complexity increases as the different statements are organized in the proper order, under the proper heading, and placed in the proper section and chapter . Complexity is proportional to the amount of data and the degree of coherence required in its organization to transform it into information.
Correlating data to turn it into information involves describing the interassociations between data. There are several ways to interassociate components (or data). Some interassociations are like-for-like in nature; in this case, the interdependencies between components require the presence of several other components. Many molecular machines have multiple components. Frequently, removing any one of these components causes the machine to malfunction or not function at all. In a textbook, interdependent realities that cannot be understood without one another must be addressed in the same paragraph or section and in the proper order, otherwise the transfer of information will be adversely affected.
Imagine the relative complexity of describing the components of a watch, randomly placed in a table, in human text, compared to having to explain these same components in their operation in a working watch. Let’s look at this another way: imagine the relative difficulty of designing, planning, and manufacturing a set of watch components that don’t have to interact, versus a set of components that do.
In the analogy of the textbook with the biological systems described therein, the complexity of the textbook is vastly less than that of biological systems because living systems reproduce and have metabolisms. A more accurate analogy between biology and the creation of a biology textbook would be to write a computer program that would create a perfectly bound biology textbook using a printer that would make each page from pieces of wood supplied to the printer, and then print it. This has greatly increased the complexity.
The second important attribute to consider when assessing whether living systems are the result of chance or design is causality. Neo-Darwinism is a random process, so its causality is said to be “contingent.” A process that depends on contingent causality is directionless; that is, it has no direction, no goal, and no certainty of anything. On the other hand, the existence of final causes—teleology—assumes that intelligence has been bestowed upon the process or system at some point, an intelligence that directs the process toward a final goal or series of goals. Evidence of causality can be obtained by investigating studies of present-day living forms and by examining the fossil record. A process governed by final causes would exhibit the following characteristics:
A pattern:
Pattern is repetitiveness, that is, the same things happen over and over again. In the context of biological systems, pattern implies that the same types of complex living traits and entities evolve over and over again.
Final forms:
“Final forms” describes a phenomenon characterized by a tendency toward a defined end, and by little change once this end has been reached. In the context of biology, this would imply that evolution stops at some point once a final form has been reached.
Anticipation:
Anticipation describes a characteristic of the way things are built. Are living systems built bottom-up or top-down? Is there a hierarchical organization in the functioning of living systems that associate to form a living entity? Human artifacts and machines are built according to a top-down design. An analogy for top-down systems might be the way humans carry out construction: plans before construction, frame before molding.
Modularity and reuse:
This attribute describes the characteristic of reusing different modules in various ways to assemble things. Modularization and reuse are common practices in human engineering. Walk into any telecommunications exchange in the world and you’ll see a series of aisles, with racks, shelves, and modules. The same modules are used over and over again. And if you were to open any of these modules, you would find the same components: integrated circuit chips, the same cables, and the same circuit boards. And if you further look at the virtual “construction” of programs, you would find the same programming components used repeatedly.
Pattern, final forms, anticipation, and modularity characterize human engineering. It is difficult to imagine that we would ever find these same methods in a process based on chance, even if these methods were predicted by Darwin or one of his successors. And yet, biological research finds that these characteristics are very common in living systems. In fact, it is difficult to imagine how complex living systems could function without them. Interestingly, there is an engineering discipline whose purpose is to derive engineering principles from biological processes.
Let’s take a closer look at these two attributes (complexity and causality) in relation to biological entities, to help us assess whether living systems are more likely the result of chance than the result of design, or vice versa.
Living systems are extremely complex. No one denies this. Developmental biologist Sean Carroll, and many others who have commented, assert that living systems far exceed the complexity of any human artifact. Dr. James Shapiro of the University of Chicago calls the complexity of even the most primitive cell astonishing and unimaginable. [15] Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, has said that “We can walk and talk because the chemistry that makes it possible is far more complicated and sophisticated than anything we scholars have ever considered.” [16]
The origin of life is beyond the scope of this article but has some bearing on the topic of evolution. The most difficult part of “evolution” is the origin of life because natural selection was not available, at least initially, to aid in the development of complexity. When asked what the best scientific explanation is for how we went from inanimate matter to the simplest form of life, Richard Dawkins replies, “We have no explanation for that.” [17] Harvard systems biologist Marc Kirschner says that the uniqueness and complexity of the cell so far surpasses anything inanimate in the world today that trying to figure out how it got there leaves no one puzzled.
Evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin, for example, states about the origin of life that:
“The origin of life is a chicken-and-egg problem: efficient systems of reproduction and transmission were needed for biological evolution, which is regulated primarily by natural selection, to get off the ground, but even the most limited cores of these systems appear to be the product of exhaustive selection… there is at present no convincing picture for the origin of reproduction and transmission, the key process that encompasses the core of biological systems and the apparent sine qua non of biological evolution.” [18]
Konin goes on to describe the probabilities of assembling a sine qua non initial life form based on rapid “toy” modeling and concludes that this probability is less than 1 in 10 to the power of 1.018. This significantly exceeds the limit of universal probability. Well, if materialist scientists can’t explain the origin of life, nothing else matters.
Even at the most fundamental level—that of protein synthesis, or protein transmission—the complexity is breathtaking. Cells use their genomes to make proteins (enzymes) that carry out all their life functions and form their structures. Amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) are synthesized, and then DNA is copied (transcribed) into RNA, which is then transported to specific locations within the cell for its information transmission and component assembly.
Transcription involves multiple phases, each regulated by a large number of proteins. Transcription is carried out both by the protein unit itself and by associated regulatory proteins. Error detection and correction mechanisms, maintained by many specialized proteins, ensure the fidelity of the process.
Following transcription and before protein synthesis or transduction takes place, other specialized proteins cleave the non-coding sections of mRNA before it reaches the ribosomes where transduction takes place. Transduction also involves multiple phases—activation, initiation, elongation, and termination—in which associated enzymes are used.
Following transmission, proteins must fold into the proper configuration. Folding proteins into a three-dimensional structure is essential for their proper function. The process depends on the presence of “chaperone” molecules. Chaperones are proteins that assist in the folding and unfolding, and the assembly and disassembly, of other macromolecular structures such as protein sequences.
Note that it depends on multiple essential proteins involved in the entire process. We must ask which of these essential and mutually dependent proteins came first. No one knows.
The function of even the simplest cell is extraordinarily complex. Cells have complex life cycles with many interconnections. The cell divides to create two new daughter cells. First, they reproduce their DNA, starting at specific locations with specific sequences. They use specialized proteins (enzymes)—in large quantities—to find the correct locations to begin the reproduction process, which occurs at a rate of 100 base pairs per second and has, for example in humans, less than one error per ten billion base pairs. The cell division process has gates that function as checkpoints (decision points) and error detection and correction points. The process continues only if things progress appropriately. If the criterion corresponding to a checkpoint fails to be met, the process is delayed. Throughout this entire process, the cell must continue gathering nutrients to feed the new daughter cells and continue performing its functions within the organism as a whole.
Cell division is a cognitive process that, to ensure its success, requires central control, precise timing, decision-making, and communication with the various processes and components throughout the cell. It requires the coordinated efforts of dozens and dozens of enzymes and other molecules. Where do these high-level control algorithms come from? How did the signaling system evolve? Which enzyme was the first if they are all dependent on others or mutually interdependent? How can a complex process, with all these specific components and interassociations, be built incrementally as neo-Darwinism demands? No one knows.
That Charles Darwin should suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting focus at different distances, for accepting different quantities of light, and for correcting spherical and chromatic aberrations, could have been formed by natural selection, [19] appears to me, I freely confess, to be absurd in the highest degree.
The description of how the eye works provided on Wikipedia is very good and relevant:
“The eye is a complex optical system that collects light from its surroundings, regulates its intensity using a diaphragm, focuses it using an adjustable lens system to form an image, converts this image into a set of electrical signals, and transmits these signals to the brain through complex neural pathways that connect the eye, via the optic nerve, with the visual cortex and other areas of the brain.”
The eye uses many complex components to carry out this intricate cascade of functions, all of which are perfectly fitted together and interact with each other with multiple dependencies and interdependencies. Not only must all parts of the eye fit together and interact with each other, but they must also interact with other organ systems of the creature, and in fact, the eye is directly dependent on several of them. The eye’s functioning and performance depend on the brain, the nervous system, the muscular and circulatory systems, and it needs to be properly positioned relative to the skeletal structure and the skin. These systems depend on each other and have interdependencies within themselves. Which of these systems or components came first? No one knows.
The complexity of the eye’s functioning is only part of the story of its overall complexity. The organism must create the eye during its development. Imagine the complexity involved in the organism building a complex organ like the eye as it grows. Each part must grow and continue to fit together, act, and interact with the other systems of the organism as it grows. Each cell must know what type of cell to differentiate into and where to position itself in relation to all the other components and structures of the organism. Each cell must know when to stop dividing. There is a set of master control genes that initiates the entire developmental process. The process is controlled by a network of signals between cells and within each cell, a network of signals that translate the genetic material into actions. These networks of signals control, in a precise manner in time and space, the events related to the form and function of the developing organ.
And the question that arises is: Which of these equally essential systems and components came first, those of the eye—and if so, which ones? The controlling genes that orchestrate development, or the network of signals that enable this control? Did the muscular system, the skeletal structure, and the nervous system evolve first to make the eye possible? No one knows.
Living systems add another dimension of complexity compared to human artifacts, in that they must grow from a single cell. This greatly increases complexity. The analogy with human artifacts is that we must consider not only the complexity of the device itself, but also the complexity of the engineering, manufacturing, and maintenance processes required to create and sustain it.
Examining the development of the common fruit fly and other animals, scientists have discovered a complex, hierarchical series of control genes that organize the development not only of each organ system, but of the entire organism, always from top to bottom. The high-level pattern is laid out first, and then the development of the animal gradually progresses through each different part. The process is controlled by genetic regulatory components, or a suitable “toolkit.” What these genes produce determines the fate of each cell, which has intermediate stages with different spatial patterns over time to create the overall plan, the tissues, and organs of the body. Involved in the process are a multitude of proteins that are used for communication between cells and that define the fate of “undifferentiated” cells by determining which genes will be expressed.
For any human engineer trying to develop a device that has even a semblance of the complexity of living systems, these problems might be insoluble. The dependencies and interdependencies are numerous. The process of “morphogenesis” has been described as “A spectacular process and a masterpiece of temporal and spatial control of gene function.” [20] [21] But materialist scientists claim that attributing this astonishing complexity to a prior intelligence is a level of error at the highest level. Random mutations, natural selection, and “deep time” are all that is needed, they claim.
In each of the examples of complexity in basic biological functions described above, there are many essential proteins. The presence of multiple proteins means that there are many interdependencies that result in stringent constraints. These constraints greatly limit the range of viable mutations that can contribute to the improvement of a trait. Restricting the range of viable mutations significantly reduces the likelihood of building viable traits through a random process.
Neo-Darwinists often point out that the great “depth of time” needed to allow small mutations to accumulate using the powers of natural selection is available. Large amounts of time could make a process based on chance plausible. Therefore, the plausibility of neo-Darwinism can be expected to be inversely proportional to the increase in complexity over time. The higher the increase in complexity over time, the greater the likelihood of concluding with design. The lower this increase, the more plausible neo-Darwinism. Discoveries showing that living systems are more complex decrease the plausibility of neo-Darwinism. Any discovery that limits the time over which living systems evolved will also make neo-Darwinism less defensible. But how much time was actually available, and at what rate did evolution occur? The fossil record shows that evolution occurred in various starts and stops. Changes occurred in sudden bursts. New changes appeared in the fossil record fully formed. Stephan J. Gould referred to “the extreme rarity of fossil transitions” as “the secret trade of paleontology.” 23 To explain these gaps, he developed the theory of “disrupted equilibrium.” Gould argued that evolution occurs most rapidly at the species level in small, isolated populations. Large populations decrease the effectiveness of natural selection and attenuate beneficial mutations through genetic drift. Disrupted equilibrium, in my view, is really just a ruse that emphasizes the benefits of natural selection in small populations at the expense of the problems associated with random mutations in those small populations. Gould reasons that small populations will evolve more rapidly and leave fewer fossils. But he overlooks the problem that beneficial mutations in small populations will be less frequent, thereby slowing evolution.
The term “transitional fossils” does not mean that any of the kinds of gradual continuums of evolution of a complex trait predicted by Darwin appear. It is less ambitious than that. A transitional fossil is any fossil that can be used to show that this creature is probably descended from this other one and an ancestor of that one beyond. While there are certainly large gaps in the fossil record, it is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of Darwin’s theory of common origin.
The most remarkable case of rapid evolutionary change is the Cambrian explosion, in which the major phyla arose quite suddenly in a relatively short period of time. The phylum is the highest category of animals below the kingdom and above the class. This short time period was initially between 5 and 15 million years. Some paleontologists seem to have extended it somewhat to as much as 80 million years. It is difficult to say how much of this is real and how much is pure wishful thinking produced by the annoyance of a shorter time frame. In any case, the Cambrian was the prelude to a rather impressive series of new and complex animal forms. But the time frame, whether it is between 5 and 15 or between 5 and 80 million years, does not assume a gradual unfolding and development of these creatures over that time. The 5, 15, or 80 million years are rather a limitation of the granularity of the fossil record. If we were to judge the fossil record by appearances, we would have to conclude that these new creatures appeared instantaneously, with no evidence of a gradual accumulation of complex traits. Trilobites, for example, appeared all at once and already had eyes, a heart and circulatory system, a digestive system, nervous systems, and so on. The question that arises is how all these organs, with all their dependencies and interdependencies, arose as a whole and without any prior indication. No one knows.
While the fossil record shows a compressed timeframe for the Cambrian explosion, during which many new creatures with complex traits suddenly appeared, the extent of this compressed timeframe may remain forever unknown due to the limited granularity of the fossil record. Therefore, the fossil record is not a definitive measure of how rapidly complexity arose. However, if the fossil record had described a gradual, incremental accumulation of complex traits, as Darwin predicted, it would have been an important piece of evidence for neo-Darwinism.
Recent research using genetic sequencing seems to support what the fossil record describes: that complex life systems arose quite suddenly. Marc Kirschner says that innovations such as “the first eukaryotic cells, the first multicellular organism, the large bilateral planes of animals, neural crest cells… [arose] in a few waves of innovation.” [20:1]
Evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin compares the evolutionary process to Big Bang cosmology. His statement is illuminating in that it is entirely frank and honest. The following is a quote from a technical paper written by Koonin that summarizes his view. Following the quote is an exchange between a critic and Koonin over the frankness of admitting that evolutionary change up to and throughout the Cambrian was non-Darwinian—that is, neither gradual nor incremental. Referring to the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds, the major groups of viruses, archaea, and bacteria, and the major lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains, the eukaryote supergroups, and the animal phyla, Koonin says:
“At each of these major junctions in the history of life, the major ‘types’ appear to have emerged rapidly and fully endowed with the characteristic features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate ‘grades’ or intermediate forms are detectable between the different types… It is striking to find that all the major transitions in the evolution of life appear to share common attributes. In each new class of biological objects, the major types emerge abruptly, with no intermediate grades (i.e., intermediates between the precellular stage of evolution and prokaryotic cells, or between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells) usually identifiable.”
Critic William Martin of the University of Dusseldorf makes the following comment on Koonin’s statement:
“In every important case of biological objects, the main types emerge already formed, and no intermediate stages can be identified. Oops! This will be on intelligent design websites in no time.”
Koonin’s response to the critic:
“I don’t really understand where the concern lies here. I changed “already formed” to “abruptly” to avoid any allusion to intelligent design and added the necessary clarifications, but beyond this, there’s little I can do because this is an important sentence that accurately and clearly describes a crucial, and to the best of my knowledge, actual feature of evolutionary transitions… if our goal as evolutionary biologists is to avoid providing any help for intelligent design, we can simply state that Darwin, “in principle,” resolved all the problems of the origin of biological complexity with the history of the eye, and that only minor details remain. In fact, I think the position of some ultra-Darwinists comes very close to that. However, I think this is entirely counterproductive and that such an idea is flatly false. And the intelligent design people do this very well, in their own stubborn way. They are not fooled by such false simplicity and are quick to exploit it. I think we (evolutionists) should openly admit that the emergence of new levels of complexity is a complex problem and should attempt to develop solutions, some of which may be clearly unorthodox; however, intelligent design does not appear to be a viable solution to any of the problems.” [21:1]
This passage and this exchange of views are extraordinarily revealing. First of all, the transitions discussed—the origin of complex RNA molecules through the emergence of animal phyla in the Cambrian—really include all the hard stuff. The rest is “pure window dressing.” Second, it should be noted that recent science supports intelligent design because it shows that complexity occurred rapidly—“already formed.” “All difficult biological features actually occur abruptly.” Third, here are two scientists considering ways to describe the rapid emergence of complexity in a way that downplays (to some extent) the fact that scientific discoveries support intelligent design and do nothing to support any theory of materialistic evolution. Fourth, note the disparagement of intelligent design—“it’s not a solution to any problem” even though intelligent design is the only theory whose underlying principles offer the best hope for explaining rapid complex change, while the theory that materialist scientists have embraced for decades—neo-Darwinism—has suffered a great deal of disregard. And intelligent design people are called “obstinate.” Finally, the overall tone of the exchange clearly illustrates how committed science is to methodological naturalism.
Final causes, or teleology, are another attribute by which we can conclude whether or not we are the result of design or chance. Anticipation, pattern, reuse, and modularity are common techniques in engineering, and these same techniques have been shown to be important features of life. The more reuse, modularity, and especially pattern and anticipation are evident in the way life evolves, the more it will be conclusive in design.
Human engineers build things from the top down, meaning they first create a system’s high-level design and then specify the underlying details. Recent scientific discoveries show that evolution has managed to discover a similarly logical approach to building complex life.
There are many types of eyes in the animal kingdom. Until a couple of decades ago, evolutionists believed that the eye evolved independently in various places between 50 and 100 times throughout the Cambrian. It has recently been discovered that there is a single control gene that initiates eye development, and that this control gene is common to all animals. Given this information, the principle of common origin requires that all eyes had a common ancestor in a proto-eye, or a very primitive eye—little more than a light-sensitive spot. This is the most primitive animal eye known to have existed before the Cambrian, around 540 million years ago. There could be no other reasonable explanation from a Darwinian perspective. Well, Darwinists now have to explain how a master control gene, which produced one nascent eye, turned out to be able to initiate the cascade of events that subsequently produced all the other diverse and more complex eyes.
Furthermore, it is now known that the genes controlling all the various body plans introduced in the Cambrian are common to virtually all animals. It is difficult to explain how a top-down, layered engineering solution could have arisen from a contingent process. Layered architecture greatly increases complexity because an additional layer of dependencies must be introduced. Layered engineering is one way for human engineering to control complexity, and it takes intelligence to do so. Recent research shows that “the genes controlling organ development in animals predate the very origin of these animals.” 23 The instructions for construction (some of them) existed before the construction itself! These control genes do not carry a huge amount of information; they specify the high-level structure and initiate the cascade of its development. How can a high-level function appear before the components it controls and specifies if intelligence is not invoked?
This phenomenon of highly complex traits and functions arising before any obvious selective advantage parallels the similar phenomenon of the brain, with its forms and capabilities, in the human intellect, which evolved before the higher levels of abstract thought were necessary. David Berlinski, an agnostic apologist for intelligent design, compares this to “…the discovery that the liver, in addition to being able to create bile, can play the violin.” [22]
Recent research shows that there are far fewer genes in the genomes sequenced to date than might have been expected given the complexity of living organisms. This is due to the ability of living organisms to reuse and reassemble gene components—much like a Lego set—to form new genes that code for multiple complex proteins, with each protein used for many biological functions. For example, the proteins for producing milk in mammals are present in reptiles and birds, and the proteins used in human neurons are also present in many earlier organisms.
As seen above, repurposing makes neo-Darwinism more credible because new genes aren’t needed for each new function. But repurposing raises interesting questions. Isn’t it surprising that genes that exist in primitive life happen to be suited, just by chance, to build the complex organs of much more sophisticated life forms, including the human intellect? Human engineers routinely repurpose, but how could a biological cell have enough knowledge to come up with similar techniques by chance? Depending on the premise from which one operates, repurposing can be seen as supporting both design and chance.
Contingent processes, like those of neo-Darwinism, have no goals. However, the fossil record shows that similar complex traits of life evolve repeatedly, as if there were goals and objectives. This is called convergent evolution (when there is no recent common ancestor that has those common traits that are present in both). Convergent evolution is a fact.
The world’s leading expert on convergence in evolution is paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, who has written two books on the subject of evolutionary convergence. He says that evolution exhibits a “disturbing predictability.” Developmental biologist Sean Carrol echoes this point, saying that convergence is “…one of the most important revelations of recent research.” [23] Convergence at the organ level is common. The evolution of the eye is one of the best examples. The eye is said to have evolved independently in different locations 40 to 100 times from a single early common ancestor. Another example is the way the reptilian jaw bone “evolved” into the mammalian inner ear bone—the “crown jewel” of the fossil evidence. This, too, Morris claims.
Perhaps the most striking example at the organismal level is the similarity between various marsupials and placental mammals. The placenta of female wolves, for example, has a very similar marsupial counterpart. Yet their common ancestor lacks many of the traits and attributes common to both.
Scientists have known about the convergences between the organ and organism levels for some time. Recent laboratory tests tell scientists with equal certainty that these same convergences exist at the molecular level, such as in the controls that regulate the work of genes.
Neo-Darwinism asserts that contingent causality governs evolution, and yet an examination of the fossil record and living creatures shows that evolution leaps immense barriers of complexity and creates similar adaptive solutions. How is it possible that a random process, which must, by sheer necessity, continually seek an immediate benefit from any incremental change, manages to repeatedly find the same elegant final solutions? It is one thing to say that an improbable series of events occurred by chance once, and quite another to say that the same complex adaptations took place by chance over and over again. The pattern—the repeatability—is a mark of design, not chance, of final causality, not contingent causality. Despite this, neo-Darwinists have embraced this seemingly anomalous phenomenon in their theory and assert that the law of natural selection is so powerful that it directs life through a limited set of viable adaptive life forms.
Stephen J. Gould offers an explanation—the theory of punctuated equilibrium—for the phenomenon of rapid bursts of innovation followed by extended periods of little or no change—stasis. Once a wave of innovation has occurred, creatures vary in size, proportion, color, and so on, but no new features appear. This is somewhat similar to what happens with a model of car: it appears with different upholstery every year, but with little other change. Virtually all the body plans of the animal kingdom were laid out by the Cambrian, 450 million years ago. Stasis—like convergent evolution—is strongly conducive to thinking in terms of final forms or causes, not contingent causes. Each case of stasis can be viewed as a final form.
Neo-Darwinists argue that because most creatures have become extinct, reasons for God that are based on design (“design reasons”) and that use stasis to support final forms and causes are flawed. Those who reason this way generally assume that those promoting these design reasons are creationists who believe that every creature was created by a divine act. Such creationists would not normally propose reasons based on the truth of common origin. On the other hand, proponents of intelligent design can cite many examples of how human artifacts evolve from a modest initial situation to solutions that meet the highest requirements of the idea that created them. The idea of development based on earlier stages, the idea that everything has its time and place, is very familiar and unsurprising in human creativity.
Stephen J. Gould was deeply concerned that religious people might be encouraged by the idea that one end result of evolution—humanity—was inevitable. He was concerned because even a cursory examination of the fossil record and life forms shows continuing advancement in complexity and sophistication, and furthermore, the repeated breaking of immense barriers of complexity to find similar adaptive solutions. The obvious conclusion is that evolution is subtly guided, regardless of what materialistic scientists claim about evolutionary mechanisms themselves. Gould rolled up his sleeves and set about trying to dispel this idea. He wrote two books on the subject (Wonderful Life and Full House) attempting to show that evolution was contingent and not in any way directed. “Play the tape again,” and the result will be very different. The evidence says one thing; Gould claims something else.
Strict neo-Darwinists are not without their challengers in the scientific community. Neo-Darwinism is in the midst of a crisis brought on by the molecular revolution. “There is a growing feeling that neo-Darwinism is in need of a transformation,”[24][25] according to Eva Jablonka of Tel Aviv University. Much of the debate remains hidden in the public eye, hidden in scientific journals. However, in 2008, a convention was held in Austria to bring together leading biologists who were dissatisfied with the current neo-Darwinian theory, which places a stronger emphasis on natural selection. The proceedings of the conference were documented by science journalist Suzan Mazur in a book (The Altenberg 16: An exposure of the Evolution Industry). According to Mazur:
“Over the years, most biologists outside of evolutionary biology have mistakenly believed that evolution was natural selection. Today, there is a wave of scientists who question the importance of natural selection, although few admit this publicly.” [26]
A wide variety of theories have been proposed in an attempt to complete or complement neo-Darwinism. In some cases, the proposal is more of a complete revision than just a tweakment. The common idea among all these new theories is to place the emphasis on change and, consequently, shift it away from natural selection. The intelligence within the cell, rather than the genome, is also emphasized as being of primary importance. The central dogma—the linchpin of neo-Darwinism—is apparently pure fiction. This central dogma stipulates that all hereditary changes proceed from genes to proteins through accidental mutations, and not vice versa. If this central dogma and natural selection are relegated to the dustbin of history, little more remains of neo-Darwinism.
Marc Kirschner of Harvard and John Gerhart, a developmental cell biologist at Berkeley, propose a new theory to complement neo-Darwinism that they call “aided change.” The most prominent tenet of their theory is that evolution proceeds in leaps and bounds produced by small jolts in regulatory genetic control that occur during development. New adaptive traits are built by using existing genetic components—that is, repurposing them for a different purpose. Over time, evolution—selection—has favored creatures that are built so that small changes in genotype can be leveraged to produce large changes in phenotype. They call this attribute “evolvability.” 30
Eva Jablonka, a professor of the history of the philosophy of science at Tel Aviv University, and Marion Lamb, a former assistant professor at Birkbeck, University of London, propose a new set of ideas involving non-random, non-genetic changes to complement neo-Darwinism. In response to certain highly stressful conditions, organisms process signals from within the cell and from the environment, causing them to increase the rate of their mutations. These mutations are random in the sense that they are not produced with any useful function in mind, but they are non-random in two ways: 1. They are a response to environmental conditions, and 2. They concentrate in regions of DNA that hold the greatest promise of success. Their ability to target specific regions of the genome is part of intelligence—“the interpreted change of the cell that has been building up over time through conventional neo-Darwinian mechanisms.”
Jablonka and Lamb also detail a wide variety of “epigenetic” factors in evolution. “Epigenetic inheritance” refers to changes that occur during the developmental process and are inherited. These mechanisms involve feedback loops through which a protein produced in that process ensures that its genetic source, memory systems for cell structure, and the marking of how chromosomes are configured, are maintained. In this respect, research appears to be less mature, and there is more speculation about the extent to which epigenetic mechanisms may have played a role in evolution.
According to James Shapiro of the University of Chicago, cells use clever “natural genetic engineering” techniques to carry out broad evolutionary transitions. These broad evolutionary steps are more like genetic rearrangements than random mutant accidents. Natural genetic engineering techniques allow the organism to respond to a wide variety of stimuli from inside and outside the cell, calculate the response, and make changes in its regulation that initiate a cascade of actions likely to lead to a well-adapted organism. The genome has a format characterized by repetitive elements previously thought to be “junk DNA.” Natural genetic engineering uses its knowledge of genome format to focus on specific configurations of the genome that are known to provide functional genetic systems. [26:1], [27]
The great hope of these new theories is that somewhere, yet to be discovered, there is a goldmine of explanations for how to rapidly create complexity. These new theories may in fact be more harmful than helpful to the materialist explanation of evolution. By recognizing that incremental mutant changes are insufficient to account for the creation of life’s wonderful and complex features, rather than saving neo-Darwinism, they may be adding another nail—perhaps the final nail—to its coffin. The facts these researchers present to support their theories are undoubtedly correct, but they fit better within the theory of design or guided evolution than within a strictly materialist theory. Of course, that’s not how they think.
There are two fundamental flaws in each of these theories. First, it turns out that the tests used by these researchers are limited to relatively simple adaptive changes. They hope to explain, by extension, more complex adaptations. It is one thing to say that organisms have the information and sophistication necessary to create simple adaptations to changing conditions, and quite another to claim that these same techniques can eventually create an entirely different creature that displays extraordinarily complex new traits. It is not that there is a difference—a huge difference—in their degree, but in their very nature. Where, then, would the anticipation necessary to generate complex new traits come from?
Second, they assume that the infrastructure for creating new adaptations through these improved mechanisms of change is always available. How can one claim that creating relatively simple adaptive traits requires a prior complex infrastructure (because random mutations and natural selection are insufficient) and yet trust that these same neo-Darwinian mechanisms will first create the complex infrastructure? It’s a bit like the joke about how to become a millionaire: First, get a million dollars. Second, living systems are either the result of design or chance, not design by chance.
How do Shapiro, Kirschner, Jablonka, and others attempt to explain how evolution created these wonderfully complex techniques? Essentially, they leave it to future research. Appealing to future research is a reasonable response, but it raises the following question for me.
If these new theories can’t explain the really hard questions of evolution, what can? Ultra-Darwinists would suggest that neo-Darwinian mechanisms of random mutations and natural selection are the only possible explanation. Evolution, they would say, has to proceed by small random mutations and natural selection. Why? Because large coherent (functional) changes are exceedingly unlikely, and are in all likelihood close to, or even far beyond, the limit of universal probability. If the mutant changes are not small, they are extremely unlikely to be random. As Richard Dawkins has said, “We can assume that we have some luck, but not that we have too much luck.” [28] But what if “depth of time” isn’t sufficient for random mutations and natural selection to work their supposed magic?
Suppose science confirms that evolution and the origin of life occurred in such a way that the extremely complex changes and adaptations actually occurred very rapidly. Eugene Koonin’s “toy” calculation of the probability of originating from a basic “replicator” (a precursor to the most basic life form) shows a value of 10 to the power of -1018. This is an immensely small number and far beyond the limit of universal probability. What answer can we expect from materialist scientists? A material process ultimately based on chance has only one resource to draw on: time. If the depth of time doesn’t offer ample opportunity, infinity most certainly will. If the universe could create itself once, why not imagine that it could create itself an infinite number of times? If there are an infinite number of universes with varying physical parameters, not only are the most extremely improbable things possible, they are a certainty. In other words, infinity trumps probability.
This is how Eugene Koonin said it:
“[Therefore] the plausibility of the different models for the origin of life depend directly on the cosmological scenario adopted [italics mine]. In an infinite universe (a multiverse), the emergence of highly complex systems is inevitable.” [29]
Remember that Koonin stated categorically that “intelligent design is not a solution to anything” when referring to sudden transformations in evolution.
He and most of the rest of the academic scientific community would adhere to the imaginary story of an infinite number of universes before accepting that intelligence is the cause of complexity because they don’t want “divinity to get a foot in their door.”
Koonin’s use of the unlimited resources of infinity to explain the diminishing probabilities of life’s creation is an extension of the technique materialist scientists use to explain the fine-tuning of the universe. In 1973, physicist Brandon Carter presented a paper in which he looked at the “fine-tuning” of the universe’s constants (the masses of different particles and the magnitudes of the basic energy forces). This fine-tuning is very precise in many cases, and if any of these parameters had been different, even by the smallest amount, the resulting universe could not have supported life of any kind. Theists have seized on this fact as evidence of design: of all the values the physical parameters of the universe could have, these are the ones it has.
The preferred approach among materialist scientists to argue against this fine-tuning defense of design is to propose a variety of multiverse theories, perhaps an infinite number of universes, with different physical parameters. It will almost certainly turn out that some of these universes will be constituted in such a way that complex living creatures can emerge and exist. The fact that we find ourselves in one of the universes most favorable to the hosting of life should not be surprising, if we adhere to anthropic reasoning. Discussing the merits of the multiverse theory is beyond the scope of this article. It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to refute it. And this might be its most important and useful feature, and the first explanation for its existence. Infinity could be the final refuge for materialists’ explanations.
A theist might also embrace the idea or principle of multiverse theory. Michael Behe, the foremost molecular biologist in the intelligent design movement, proposed such a theory in his latest book, The Edge of Evolution. If we assume that there are an infinite number of possible universes with varying attributes and outcomes, all known to an omniscient God, this God is free to choose to make any of them actual. Since the possibilities are infinite, anything not totally ruled out by the laws of physics is a certainty. One such certainty is the very universe we find ourselves in; the only one God chose to make actual.
The rise of multiverse theory could lead to a stalemate in the debate over the existence of God regarding the design conclusion. This is true only if we assume that the structure of all reality, including the human intellect, is entirely material. But if the human intellect cannot be fully explained by material causes, neither the depth of time nor even infinity are of any use against the design conclusion. Are there aspects of the human intellect that material causality cannot explain?
I’ve previously discussed the importance of complexity and causality in arriving at a conclusion about design. I cited several examples of each. But there is one example, far more compelling than convergent evolution, reuse, anticipation, and stasis, that demonstrates that evolution is a process governed by final rather than contingent causes. There is one supreme example of the existence of an ultimate goal or zenith in evolution, an example that also demonstrates the most astonishing leap in complexity. It is a phenomenon in which these two attributes—complexity and final causes—converge.
Any humanist would agree with the idea that nature is transparent to human reason; it is the cornerstone of methodological naturalism. This means that the human intellect is capable of understanding all of reality, which secular humanism assumes to be entirely material. If the human intellect is capable of understanding all of reality, the complexity of all of reality is then in fact subsumed by the complexity of the human intellect synthesized in human knowledge: what is now and what can be. However, there is nothing that surpasses the complexity of the human intellect. Ask yourselves what the odds might be that a random process would result precisely in the assembly of an organic system of that complexity and with those exceptionally unique attributes, as rapidly as it happened, from a handful of genes that happened to be in primitive animals, and that it was that way before such a capacity was needed. I would say the odds of anything like that are really zero. How do materialist scientists react to the apparent existence of a final cause and the extraordinary complexity revealed by the human intellect? Some raise an eyebrow; others wave their hands; most simply shrug.
Some might consider the remarkable phenomenon of the human intellect, and what it represents regarding complexity and final causes, as “proof” for the existence of God. I believe it is. But such proof could only serve to move skeptics from a position of atheism or agnosticism toward deism, and it is susceptible to being countered by the infinity reasoning emanating from multiverse theories. What evidence can be presented to move someone from deism to theism that goes beyond chance, even in light of the possibility of an infinite multiverse? Put another way, what qualities of life, and specifically of the human intellect, go beyond material explanations? There are at least four: 1. the complexity gap between the human intellect and the complexity of the genetic components responsible for the human intellect; 2. the existence of free will; 3. the phenomenon of human identity, which might be called “the continuity of the self”; and 4. the phenomenon of genuine love and compassion, which might be called “the ontology of love.” All four reveal a non-material aspect of the human intellect. But they are largely subjective.
The human intellect can understand (subsume) the complexity of all reality, including the interrelationships of the cell and its genome. How is it possible that the developmental process can bring into existence a phenotype—the human intellect—of such astonishing complexity from a much simpler genotype? What is there in developmental ontogenesis that explains the additional complexity? How can the modest quantitative difference between the DNA of humans and chimpanzees result in such a qualitative gap in intellectual capacities?
If neo-Darwinists are right and there is no God, then there is no free will either. Neo-Darwinists do not deny this. Compatibilists claim that materialism and free will are not irreconcilable, but they do so by relegating free will to a decision-making process that works similarly to the way computers make decisions—algorithmically. That free will does not exist means that the human brain is essentially an organic computer. A computer has algorithms and data. It is a system entirely dependent on prior causes; it is a deterministic system. But that free will does not exist means that you are not really free to do whatever you want. Every action is determined by prior events and by the present configuration and state of the molecules in your brain. The French philosopher Henry Bergson, reflecting on the implications of determinism and its requirement that every action required a
prior cause, he remarked: “What an insult to credulity!” If he were to go to the desert and be asked to choose one of billions of grains of sand, would his choice of a particular grain of sand be an act of free will or merely the result of a deterministic molecular algorithm? Could he have chosen just one grain… or rather any grain?
Materialists imply that the mind is algorithmic and that consciousness and identity arise from it. But isn’t it strange that no matter how much your brain’s neurological makeup changes throughout your life, you still maintain a sense of who you are? We all seem to have a single, immutable identity. How can this be so if the underlying constituent elements change? How can something like this arise from a complex network of ever-changing neurological signals?
Is love real? Neo-Darwinists tell us that love and compassion are illusions—mere artifacts of the evolutionary process based on reciprocity—much like one-party politics. Darwinists claim that altruism emanates from the self and diminishes as genetic relatedness decreases. This is probably mostly true. But is it entirely true? Only our own insight can determine whether compassion and love are genuine. But it is not so easy to ignore the selfish effects imposed by the limits of our existence on a finite planet and the heritage of our animal ancestors. Compassion is frequently intertwined with self-interest. Do you truly care about others? If you had unlimited means, would you help everyone you could? If you had the power to do so, would you grant every decent person eternal salvation? If love and compassion are real, how can we imagine that the God who created us does not also have these same attributes of love and compassion in a much greater measure?
My own tentative proposal—which is largely speculation and based on limited knowledge—is that an intelligent but imperfect agent, authorized by God, assembled the initial life forms. I suspect that a great deal of intelligence was already in these initial cells. The initial cells contained much of the information needed to bring about the unfolding of life. The major events could have been random in the temporal sense—that is, in when they would occur but not in whether they would occur. These macromutation events could have been triggered by environmental cues, or they could have been planned to occur randomly in time and be effective only if the environment was ready to accept them—with natural selection as the arbiter. Each event could be a series of relatively simple regulatory choices that initiated a cascade of changes resulting in a fundamentally different creature with complex new traits that used existing genetic components.
But there is no clear evidence that all the genetic components necessary for higher mammals were in the earliest cells. And indeed, there is evidence that new genetic material was incorporated at key evolutionary transformations, at least in the Cambrian. Moreover, if all the genetic components had been present in the earliest cells, but unused, they would have been subject to destructive mutations unless there was an as-yet-undiscovered mechanism to preserve them. Are there natural mechanisms that can explain the emergence of additional genetic components? Yes: horizontal gene transfer (HGT). But analyzing HGT is beyond the scope of this article.
The unfolding of life from a few initial cells is consistent with current research, with the exception noted above, and is a beautiful counterpart to the way a single cell is able to develop in the womb into a living creature. Common descent and natural selection must be true—up to a point. Common descent and natural selection are the only way a designer can ensure that life unfolds in a way compatible with a planet’s geological and biological environment without the need for constant adjustment and intervention. Moreover, evolutionary transitions, especially in animals, cannot be too abrupt, as creationists might propose, particularly as creatures acquire greater intelligence. A good deal of creatures’ ability to survive is related to learning. So we have every reason to believe that, as animals become more complex and more capable of learning, the evolutionary increments could be, and should be, small. You cannot expect a shrew to give birth to an elephant. Aside from the physical appearance of such a thing, it is difficult to imagine a viable parenting plan for it.
Neo-Darwinism is a harmful philosophy, and I suspect that in the future it will be considered one of the greatest falsehoods in the history of human thought. The only explanation for its ascendancy and persistence is that materialist philosophy has invaded science. And indeed, the adoption of methodological naturalism necessitates neo-Darwinism, or some theory very similar to it. Methodological naturalism was a choice that evolved into a mandate and then an exclusive principle.
Science is doing what it should: making discoveries and modifying its theories. And brilliant research is underway. Science is on the verge of discovering, I believe, some of the most interesting things, and perhaps the most important discoveries, in its entire history. These discoveries have the potential to lead us to a revival of religion, overturning the ascendancy of secular humanism that brought, ironically, Darwinism. As science closes gaps in our knowledge, these gaps create larger ones that the material-based theory of evolution must fill. Appealing to the fallacy of the God of the gaps could itself turn out to be a fallacy. As Eugene Koonin says:
“At each of these major nexuses in the history of life (the origin of complex DNA molecules and protein folds, the major groups of viruses, archaea, and bacteria, and the major lineages within each prokaryotic domain, the eukaryotic supergroups, and the animal phyla), major “types” appear to have emerged rapidly and fully endowed with the distinctive features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate “grades” or intermediate forms can be detected between the different types.” [29:1]
What proponents of creationism and intelligent design have been asserting for decades, and neo-Darwinists have been denying for decades, is apparently confirmed. The key question, which will become clearer over time, is whether neo-Darwinism or any other strictly materialist explanation can account for the emergence of the complexity of life in such a short period of time. If it is confirmed that living organisms could not evolve strictly through random physical processes, atheism would largely be untenable. The design conclusion would see a resurgence as the pendulum swings back from materialism to idealism.
Today, scientists do not accept any theory that has even the slightest hint of the idea of design or teleology. Only with time and a new generation of more open-minded researchers can a true paradigm shift take place. But religious people have a role to play in this change. Religion should lead to action. At the very least, religious people would be better equipped to defend the idea that science does not rule out belief. Religious people should be active in bringing about the transformation from “how things are” to “how things ought to be.” When the need arises to push hard, religious people too often stand on the sidelines, waiting for divine help. Religion can only compete with the scientific attitude of secular humanism through knowledge, reason, and participation.
In modern civilization, authority in matters of truth is increasingly considered to fall within the domain of science, and furthermore, secular humanism now dominates intellectualism. If religious people cede authority in matters of truth to secular humanism, they risk cultural suicide. Without a firm belief in God and salvation, I doubt that modern civilization can truly continue to call itself moral, sustain its population levels, or defend itself. The erosion of moral standards and the low birthrates of advanced nations, and their acquiescence to malevolent states, is clear evidence of this. Great and promising civilizations have already disappeared before us. There is little in history to comfort those who hope that divine intervention will save us from a similar fate. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
Self-importance, not work-importance, exhausts immature creatures; it is the self-element that exhausts, not the striving to achieve. You can do important work if you do not become self-important; you can do several things as easily as one if you leave your self out. UB 48:6.26
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Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions, MIT Press, 2005. ↩︎
James Shapiro, A 21st century view of evolution: genome systems architecture, repetitive DNA, and natural genetic engineering, Gene, 2005-2005. ↩︎ ↩︎
James Shapiro, Revisiting the Central Dogma in 21st Century, 2009 ↩︎
Dawkins “We can assume…” ↩︎
Koonin “In each of these capitals…”. Note: More quotes from Richard Dawkins can be found at: www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/dawkins.htm and on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard Dawson. ↩︎ ↩︎