Recently
I wrote a column about
the theory of Intelligent Design, which holds that that life, both in its
origins and its changes over time, are the result of design instead of chance. Several
hundred comments and emails arrived, more than I could read. This was not
surprising as there seems to be considerable public interest in the question,
while a virulent political correctness prevents discussion in most forums. In
particular the major media prevent mention of Intelligent Design except in
derogatory terms.
Interesting
to me at any rate was that the tone of response was much more civil and
thoughtful than it was say, a decade ago.
A fair few respondents quoted the Bible. I wondered why the Bible and
not the Koran or Bhagavad Gita. The Bible seems to me the chaotic literature of
a barbaric tribe and characterized by morally unpleasant stories. Why it is
thought to have any relevance to abiogenesis is not clear to me.
Some readers, quoting Carl Sagan, said approximately, “Fred, an extraordinary
claim requires extraordinary evidence to support it.” I don’t disagree. The
claim that ocean water will in time produce Manhattan seems to me sufficiently
extraordinary to require extraordinary evidence. So far, there is none.
Evolutionists have not shown that sea water can produce any life at all, much
less the New York Philharmonic.
Other readers insist that Intelligent Design is not scientific. If not, so what?
The question should be not whether it is scientific but whether it is true.
What an ideological group calling themselves scientists believe is not a valid
test of truth. When I was in the eighth grade, I watched Crusader Rabbit on
television. This is not science, yet it is true.
If
science deals with the reproducible, then paleontology is not science, as
neither is the chance creation of life, which has not proved reproducible. If
science must make predictions, then physiology is not science, being entirely
descriptive. If science is the study of the quantifiable, then evolution isn’t.
What is the unit of selective pressure?
Much of evolutionary theory assumes what is to be proved.
Many readers did just this.
Consider
the spontaneous generation of life from seawater. Do we know of what the
primeval seas consisted? Know, as distinct from think, suspect, theorize, wish, or desperately
hope.
No,
we do not. Remember that chemical reactions, assuredly including organic and
biochemical, depend crucially of such things as a pH, temperature,
concentrations, radiation, half-lives of intermediate, and presence or absence
of other compounds that may or may not inhibit desired reactions.
If
we do not know what seas existed, do we at least know what sorts of sea would
be necessary for the spontaneous appearance? Again, know. We do not. The question is made
more difficult since we do not know just what it is that we think evolved. The
event has not been reproduced in the laboratory or even convincingly
demonstrated on paper.
You
see: Life evolved because the necessary conditions existed. We know the
necessary conditons existed, because life evolved. Uh….
Readers asked, “If life was designed, who designed the Designer?”
Consider
the following three questions: “Who designed the Designer?” From a
five-year-old, “But Mommy, where did God come from?” From a freshman in a dorm
room, “What came before the Big Bang?”
These
questions are equivalent. Designer, God, or Bang, the human mind cannot handle
questions of ultimate origins. No matter to what we attribute life or the
universe, the question of what came before will remain unanswered. This is as
true of evolutionism as it is of Intelligent Design. The solution sometimes
offered, that the universe is eternal and has neither beginning nor end, can
equally be applied to Designer, Yahweh, or Shiva.
A problem afflicting evolutionism all through the living world, which I am
not sure I conveyed clearly, is that of multiple simultaneous mutations,
sometimes called irreducible complexity. These refer to complicated systems
which cannot work at all unless all parts appear simultaneously. When the
individual parts have no value, which is usually the case, there is no reason
for them to stay in the gene pool.
Consider
the horn of the rhinoceros. At the forlorn level of National Geographic or NPR, there is nothing
mysterious here. The horn obviously evolved so that the rhino could defend
itself against lions. (“So that” raises questions of purpose, which run through
evolutionism, but we will here let it drop.) All right, that makes sense.
Except that it doesn’t.
The
Wikipedia will tell you that the horn is not of bone, but of keratin, and thus
evolved from hair. Well, who could doubt it–but just how did this happen? Did a mutation
occur that caused hair to clump together into a hard substance? Would one
mutation do this? Why laterally centered on the forehead instead of, say, on a
hind leg? After the hair-stick’’em-together mutation did another occur to make
the hard patch a cleanly limited ovoid? Next, was there a grow-really-fast
mutation to make the hard patch get longer, or long at all, accompanied by a
grow-faster-in-middle mutation to make it pointed–at which time finally, it
would be ready for poking lions. So what kept it in the gene pool all that time
when it had as yet no function.kl?(Actually the horn is more complex, and
therefore even less likely.)
To
judge by my mail, I suspect that many people, thanks to popular television,
think of mutations as major changes that just happen, such perhaps as the
rhino’s horn appearing all at once . In fact mutations are changes in the
nucleotide sequence of DNA that may produce a new protein. The mathematical
likelihood of getting multiple mutations that just happen to engender a complex
result is essentially zero. The mathematics is clear but not easily explained
to a television audience, no matter how intelligent.
In many years of of writing columns, I have learned that the tenacity of
attachment to emotionally important ideas is nearly infinite. This is as true
of evolutionists as it is of Christians, the politically ardent, or the rabidly
patriotic. Things that do not fit the belief are just ignored, forbidden, or
explained away by wishful thinking.
Consider
evolution and male homosexuality. This condition would seem to have very strong
selective pressures against it. You do not increase your rate of reproduction
by not reproducing. While some homosexuals have children, they do so at a rate
far, far below that of normal men. The condition should have long since gone
out of existence. Yet homosexuals are still with us, apparently no less
commonly than in Greek and Roman times.
This
is not a trivial matter.for evolutionism. If no reason can be found, then there
exists a clear case of anti-Darwinian descent. To avoid this, evolutionists say
that a virus causes homosexuality. There is no evidence for this. People do not
have a slight fever and turn into homosexuals. Such a virus has not been found.
Evolutionists just know that it exists because if it didn’t, homosexuals could not
exist. Here again, the theory is taken for granted and the existence of
supporting causes imagined.
Parallel universes: More of the same. Many underlying physical constants such as
gravitation have exactly the values needed to make life possible. That is, the
universe looks designed. This observation is usually called the Anthropic
Principle. The correctness of the observations is not in doubt. The condition
is so peculiar that evolutionists, desperate to explain this unlikely
coincidence, assertthe existence of an infinite number of universes among which
by chance ours just happened to have the necessary constants. Well and good,
except that there is no evidence for it. These universes are not detectable.
They are necessary to prevent a Darwinian embarrassment.
Darwin of the Gaps: Note the pattern of inventing unobservable causes to explain
lacunae in the theory. Oceans suited to the chance appearance of life must have
existed (though we do not know of what they consisted) since life exists. A
virus causing homosexuality must exist (though there is no evidence for this)
because homosexuals exist. An infinity of parallel universes must exist (though
we have no way of knowing this) as otherwise th universe we live in might look
designed.
What
fun.
(Republished from Fred on Everything by
permission of author or representative)