This is the third installment of “Missing Links: overlooked arguments, faulty connections and flawed logic in the evolution debate”. In this series, Greg Stevens considers a selection of claims made on both sides of the evolution vs. creationism debate, exposing woolly thinking wherever he finds it.
Picture: Silicon Valley Watcher
A favourite parlor game of evolution supporters is pointing out examples of inefficient “design” in biological organisms. In mammals, the retina is actually backwards, forcing the optic nerve to pass through the back of the eye and creating a “blind spot” in the visual field. The appendix in humans appears to serve no function other than the possibility of becoming inflamed and (potentially) causing death. And then there is the vagus nerve. A good example of the attitude taken by many evolution supporters can be found posted on the Christian Forums website:
There is the vagus nerve in mammals; most animals have one, you have one, fish, frogs, birds, snakes etc all own this nerve. Basically it’s a nerve that goes from your brain down around your aortic loop (this is a loop of a main artery above your heart) and to your throat. The point of this nerve is to essentially connect your throat to your brain. [...]
In fish, that makes it a short journey from brain to throat; in fish and sharks it’s often a straight line. As amphibians, reptiles and then mammals evolved, the nerve kept running through that loop, but the path from the brain to the throat now has to run down to the heart first (aortic loop, remember?). So in humans, the nerve is more than twice as long as it would need to be if efficiently engineered, or if it hadn’t been moved by evolution.
Now here’s the main thing, in giraffes, the vagus nerve is more than 15 feet long, typically, running from brain, down the neck, through the aortic loop (where it connects to nothing, of course), back up the neck, to the larynx…
The question for anti-evolutionists is why that nerve, connecting the brain to the throat, must run down to the heart…
So here is the question, often unstated but always implied by evolution advocates: Don’t proponents of “intelligent design” have to explain why organisms have these apparent “design blunders”?
NO, THEY ABSOLUTELY DO NOT.
This ridiculous claim has been made or implied by Dawkins, Gould, and many other “big name” supporters of evolution. And it is completely wrong.
First of all, have you ever created a universe? No? Then you really have no idea what all of the factors are that a Creator may have been trying to balance and take into consideration when devising the “optimal” universe. I don’t mean this in a weird mystical “God works in mysterious ways” sense: I mean it in a real practical sense.
The vagus nerve passes through the aortic loop because that’s how it develops embryonically. The fact that it has to get “stretched” to ridiculous lengths in giraffe necks is inconvenient, sure; but (one could imagine) it would be entirely more inconvenient for a “designer” to have to completely re-think the entire process of embryonic development just because of one long-necked species.
In fact, this kind of fanciful debate about what a creator “might have been thinking” when designing organisms can go on and on ad nauseum. Peter Gurney, for example, launched a long and eloquant exposition on why the “backwards” retina in mammals could have been intended by our creator to protect those cells from light damage. F. C. Kuechmann responds by suggesting that a creator would have been better off by making UV light less harmful to begin with. And so on it goes.
When it comes down to it, though, evolution supporters are falling into exactly the same trap that they accuse their creationist brethren of. When the tables are turned, this is what supporters of evolution call the “argument from ignorance“. Creationists say: “We do not understand how X could have evolved, therefore it must have been created on purpose.” Evolutionists say, “We do not understand why X would have been designed, therefore it must not have been created on purpose.”
Both of these arguments are bad, because they pre-suppose that our current state of understanding (or lack thereof) has some higher theoretical significance or explanatory power. “I do not understand” should never be the basis of an explanation of anything.
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48 responses
If there really was an omnipotent and omniscient creator, I am sure the process of «completely re-think(ing) the entire process of embryonic development» would’nt take him long. I am afraid your line of reasoning seems rather far-fetched.
Moreover, I don’t think it is fair to put the alleged arguments from ignorance on an equal footing. The arguments about «design blunders» serves to debunk creationist assertions (the creation is perfect, the Creator must be perfect as well).
When taken together they obviously provide strong support for common ancestry and evolution making the best of a bad job, rather than implementing the scheme of a divine creator.
This series has taken a turn for the worse, choosing to perpetuate the myth that there are two sides to the question rather than basing the argument on the preponderance of evidence.
It is particularly egregious to suggest that pointing out vestigial organs is an argument from ignorance. It isn’t. Vestigial organs suggest common descent and are in line with both the predictions made by the theory of evolution and other lines of evidence including genetics and fossils.
Why are there some rules an intelligent designer can make and some s/he can’t? That is, if there’s an intelligence behind the design, why can’t it change the way some animals’ embryos develop? Why can’t it simply decide, “giraffes? Nah, that’ll never work — the vagus nerve would have to be super long. Maybe some other animal can fit that niche.” If we assume that the fixed points of intelligent design are the same as those of evolution, that the mechanisms by which intelligent design iterates are identical to those explained by evolutionary theory, where does the intelligence come in?
All the evidence, and the evidence is massive, supports evolution by natural selection. The “intelligent designer” also known as the “Magic Fairy” has not one shred of evidence, which isn’t surprising because magic is a childish idiotic idea.
As has already been noted in these comments, talking of “degrees of inconvenience” makes no sense with reference to an an omnipotent designer god.
The problem of functionless vestigial organs is a far easier one to crack than the vagus nerve - just get rid of the offending organs! Even evolution can acheive this if given enough time.
Evolutionists don’t necessarily say things “must not” have been done on purpose - they simply (and rightly) say that in cases of doubt, the burden of proof lies with the I.D. supporters to say that there is a purpose. Until they do so, the evolutionary explanation should be preferred, because it is simpler.
As Dawkins put it, “When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.”
I smell theism. Is the author of this article a Christian?
This is a very unconvincing argument. As Tony points out, vestigial organs and a backwards-wired retina are strong evidence for common descent. Cephalopods, by contrast, have retinas that are wired-up “the right way”. Now, of course, a “designer” might want to design species in such a way as to give a remarkable simulacrum of common descent and natural selection, but Occam’s Razor would suggest such a suggestion isn’t worth entertaining. I, too, detect a whiff of anti-scientific thinking in this article - or at least a love of logical fiddlesticks.
These comments are fantastic. Because more than anything, many of these comments show that there can be a proliferation of “counter-knowledge tactics” on both sides of the debate.
In this article, I call into question one specific argument used by evolutionists that I don’t believe has any merit. And in response, I get:
DavidMWW making an ad hominem attack, asking if I’m Christian.
bobxxxx making the general statement that “all the evidence supports evolution” (something that I argree with, as it happens) without ever addressing the specific issue I brought up in the post.
Tony saying that it’s a “turn for the worse” to ever criticize ANY evolutionist arguments, because heaven forbid there ever be an engaging debate.
These are precisely the styles of argument that creationists use. In fact, these are the same styles of argument that a creationist used against ME in comments to previous posts of mine…. which I criticized.
So, let me make something totally clear: When I claim that supporters of evolution sometimes make bad arguments, I’m not saying that evolution is wrong. I’m not saying that those bad arguments discredit evolution. I’m not saying that “evolution and creationism are the same.”
I’m just saying that supporters of evolution sometimes make bad arguments.
Now, to address the specific points made by Knut-Sverre Horn and Heresiarch.
The core of my thesis is simply this: Your argument here rests on you making assumptions about the decisions or thought-process of a (theoretically) omniscient being. And, sadly, you are not yourself omniscient. This opens you (and anyone else) up to endless and meaningless iterations of, “Well, maybe the Creator did it this way for THAT reason….”
As a result, it’s simply a bad argument. It’s rooted in the fact that you “can’t come up with” an explanation for why someone who is smarter than you (God) would do something a certain way. That entire approach is not, on the face of it, convincing.
And finally, as others have pointed out, there is a huge mass of evidence for evolution that is very convincing. Which is why I am really apalled that people cling to an argument as poor as this one.
It wasn’t an ad hom attack, Greg. It was a hypothesis-testing question.
DavidMWW: “I smell theism.”….. yep, that’s the judgement-neutral tone of hypothesis-testing, right there.
Look, I’ll back off on my tone a bit; however, I do want to say this: yours was a knee-jerk reaction. I hope you recognize that it is exactly that kind of response, moreover, that inhibits dialogue with people who are yet-to-be-convinced.
As it happens, although it couldn’t possibly be less relevant to the discussion at hand, I’m an agnostic that was raised by a Unitarian painter and an athiest chemistry professor.
And although I whole-heartedly support evolution, I still recognize that people who believe good things can still make bad arguments.
I think actually you DO mean “God works in mysterious ways” in that weird mystical sense. You’re suggesting that any God smart enough to design a universe must be much smarter than we are, and might have seen reasons to do things in a way that seems weird to us because we’re not smart enough to understand it. This is exactly the argument put forth by some religious people to explain why bad things happen to good people: if we were God, we’d understand his master plan and it would make sense to us. Is there anything we CAN’T hand-wave away with this counterargument?
Evolutionary theory explains the vagus nerve by saying that we evolved from common ancestors, and that what made sense in fish doesn’t make as much sense in humans or giraffes, but since it’s based on previous designs and there’s no intelligent designer who could theoretically go clean-sheet for the giraffe and say “let’s make an efficient long-necked mammal for eating leaves from tall trees,” we’re stuck with it.
So if the outcome of supposedly “intelligent design” looks exactly as though the later designs evolved by natural selection from the earlier designs, the role of the intelligent designer is reduced to standing above the factory floor nodding and grunting at the automatic iteration of his or her designs. Deism? The intelligent designer sets everything in motion, then packs some suitcases and goes off to Cancun, ultimately superfluous to the ongoing process? Why postulate an intelligent designer in the first place?
encyclops: “You’re suggesting that any God smart enough to design a universe must be much smarter than we are, and might have seen reasons to do things in a way that seems weird to us because we’re not smart enough to understand it.”
Well… yes and no. I’m actually thinking along more specific lines than just that. You’re probably familiar with the whole concept of “sensitive dependence”, right? Popularized by the notion of the “butterfly effect”: making small changes in a complex system can have dramatic and unexpected outcomes.
I’m just saying that without actually tinkering around and examining the details of what an “alternatively designed ecosystem” would look like, it’s not a scientific claim to simply say, “Oh, such-and-such could easily have been done differently, without any other side-effects!” Not only is it not scientifically sound, but knowing what we do about the nature of biological systems, it is not even really probable.
To allow the vagus nerve to be wired more efficiently in the giraffe, its embryonic development would have had to have progressed differently. For that to have happened would require a different course of cell splitting and specialization. For that to happen, would likely have required a number of differences in genetic code.
And I don’t know (and I suspect you do not, either) exactly what those differences would be, or what side-effects they might have incurred. Maybe the only way to code a DNA strand to make the embryo develop in a way that produces an optimal giraffe vagus nerve would have the side effect of creating OTHER genetic problems. Maybe the only way to do it without bad side-effects would be to code protein synthesis in a mechanism other than DNA, which opens up a host of other new problems.
The thing is, because you haven’t done due diligence and created a giraffe with an “optimal” vagus nerve, you actually DON’T know that it “could” be designed better. You don’t know it in the details.
That is why this is not a scientific argument. You say you can “imagine” a world in which everything is exactly the same except that giraffes develop in such a way as to have a shorter vagus nerve. I’m saying that you are not qualified to “know” that at all.
People can “imagine” many things that are not actually logically possible.
I think it would be helpful for you to distinguish between the different types of belief in creation and/or ID as (in a previous poat) you do between different meanings of the term evolution. I believe in a Creator, but that does not mean I subscribe to many of the wacky theories that are usually propounded (and derided) as Creationist, nor that I necessarily dispute natural selection (though I do not see how it accounts for the major discontinuities between not-alive and alive, for example, for all Dawkins’ explanation…
“Tony saying that it’s a “turn for the worse” to ever criticize ANY evolutionist arguments, because heaven forbid there ever be an engaging debate.”
No. I think it’s a turn for the worse to present fallacious arguments in what I regard as a misguided attempt to appear even handed. Poor arguments for evolution should absolutely be rejected, vestigial organs however form part of the scientific evidence of evolution. If it were an argument made in isolation of the other evidence then it wouldn’t be a terribly strong one and certainly isn’t enough to be conclusive, but it does not exist in isolation, it exists alongside multiple other streams of evidence. It also supports the predictions made by the theory of evolution, one would expect if the theory is correct that leftover parts from early species would still exist and that inefficiencies would be expected.
My biggest issue with the notion of taking the middle ground in the “debate” between evolution and creation is that there really isn’t a debate. Evolution is a scientific theory backed by multiple streams of evidence, while creationism is the closed assertion that “God did it”. Intelligent design proponents suffer from the same limitation, only their contention is that “someone did it”.
When one side spends the whole time attacking the other without proposing any alternative then it isn’t really a debate.
Tony considers this article to be “what I regard as a misguided attempt to appear even handed.”
That’s actually not my “meta-motive”, as it were.
My “meta-motive” is to say this: if you’ve got really good, strong arguments on your side, don’t resort to parlor-games like “let’s imagine what a Creator SHOULD have done!” because it’s weak, it’s not scientific, and it’s not convincing.
Honestly, it always upsets me to see people make bad arguments for good conclusions. It side-tracks the debate. As I’ve said before, there is SO MUCH evidence for evolution, this is a distracting red-herring.
I’m not taking a “middle ground” and I absolutely do NOT think evolution and creationism are on even footing.
I just think it’s a bad idea to use bad rhetoric in support of a good theory.
Greg,
That Dawkins employs it is practically proof that it’s a tactic borne of counterknowledge and pseudo-scientific.
This is not to say that evolution is anything but true; rather that the Selfish-Meme peddler is a demagogue and deliberately misrepresents the truth to further his own arguments (his recent TV programme is proof positive of this; his reduction of the history of understandings of our origin to exclude theories of epigenesis is heinous enough, without claiming that his ’selfish gene’ stuff is accepted by the majority of scientists…)
Further, this kind of condemnatory, aloof disdain is typical of Dawkins’ materialist worshippers.
I am sure I will be accused of all kinds of calumnies, from theism to child-buggery, and that there will be fulminations against me for daring to criticise the great Dicky, but if this site isn’t about outing counter-knowledge regardless of who publishes it, then what is it?
C.P.:
When Dawkins uses the argument I talked about in the article, he’s using counter-knowledge tactics.
But, that being said, i’m not entirely sure from where all of your venom toward him comes.
A philosophical materialist and shameless self-promoter who sells T-shirts with a ruddy great ‘A’ for atheist on them; who has engendered a personality cult and who relies on sneering and poor understanding of basic philosophy to back up his empty world-view, who refuses to accept that the academic world has moved past him (cell biologist Lenny Moss has described his concept of the ’selfish gene’ as ‘a biology built of onto-theology’), and whose followers slavishly worship him, he engages in shallow debates and sways the masses as a demagogue through false argument and reductionism, in order to perpetuate his own flawed thinking and to spread his materialist claptrap (see the bus signs mentioned below…).
The man is, in short, a menace to the intellectual world and to the intellectual integrity of both the university of Oxford and the general public, but also, ironically, to the public understanding of science.
I fulminate against him not because he is necessarily wrong, but that the building-blocks he has used to reach his conclusion are so painfully lacking, and his supporters growing dangerously.
Your tone makes me a little sad. You accuse him of demagoguery, but go on to say that any argument used by Dawkins MUST be a bad argument because:
1) he is an atheist
2) people like him
3) you don’t like his tone
4) you don’t like the tone of the people who like him
Instead of restricting yourself to material criticisms, you pepper your prose with name-calling, directed both at him and the people who support him.
Honestly, it sounds a little hysterical.
Erm, I believe you’ve conflated two posts. The comment that Dawkins’ arguments are by definition bad actually came from a previous one, and was not intended entirely seriously.
You seem, however, decided to cast aspersions on my meaning that are not in what I have said. My accusations are that he is:
1) A populist and a demagogue (see T-shirts, etc.);
2) Intellectually dishonest (both in his claims that his discredited theories are widely accepted in academic circles and in his reductionist omission of all mention of Aristotelian epigenesis in order to create a false dichotomy, not to mention the weak and frankly academically unacceptable manner of his anti-religious works);
3) Causing harm to both the public and the academic world via 2;
4) engendering a personality cult around himself (something dangerous in itself).
I apologise if that wasn’t clear. At present I have flu, and I wrote that reply with a thumping headache. I hope this clarifies what I was getting at.
“My “meta-motive” is to say this: if you’ve got really good, strong arguments on your side, don’t resort to parlor-games like “let’s imagine what a Creator SHOULD have done!” because it’s weak, it’s not scientific, and it’s not convincing.”
Vestigial organs, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is one stream of evidence among many others for evolution. When it is used in an argument pitting evolution against creationism it is invariably in response to the absurd “how could something do perfect happen by chance?” and is pointing out that this “perfection” is simply illusory.
As I mentioned if this were the only argument in favour or evolution it would be fairly weak, but it is just one more piece of the rather complete puzzle.
Your articles so far have implied that you think there may be some doubt about the fact of species to species evolution. In the world of science there really isn’t.
OK, let’s start again.
Greg, you say that evolutionists who make arguments based on vagus nerves or retinas are playing “parlour games” by making assumptions about what God would do. What you miss is why they resort to these tactics. Allow your point that it is a bad argument - though it isn’t when, as Tony says, you take in in the context of all the other evidence. Why would evolutionists resort to bad arguments? Perhaps because the creationists’ arguments are themselves so bad that “good arguments” become simply otiose. If you’re going to argue with these people (which may, I admit, be pointless) sooner or later you’re going to have to come down to their level.
Put it a different way. The God hypothesis doesn’t exist in isolation: it requires a pre-existing view of what God is like and the sort of things God does, a view that has nothing to do with biology or any science, but derives squarely from religion. So to point out to believers in divine creation that God - as they tend to conceive of him - seems to be acting in illogical ways isn’t actually a bad argument, because it isn’t really an argument about the characteristics or behaviour of God at all, but rather an argument about the illogicality of their world-view.
This is why this comment spectacularly misses the point:
The thing is, because you haven’t done due diligence and created a giraffe with an “optimal” vagus nerve, you actually DON’T know that it “could” be designed better. You don’t know it in the details.
No, but you do know - logically - that an omnipotent God would have found a way. A God forced to make compromises in the way you describe would be by definition a limited being - or, alternatively, would be doing it on purpose as part of a cynical attempt to make people believe in evolution, and thus would not have the characteristics of truth and goodness also generally attributed to him.
Greg, I apologise for accusing you of Christianity.
To reiterate some of what Tony and Heresiarch have already said, the argument from design flaws is both a scientific argument and a theological argument.
Omnniscience and omnipotence are traditional attributes of the creator god. These attributes render your “Have you ever created a universe?” argument illogical. Those two omnis mean that everything made by the creator turned out exactly as it intended. A being of infinite knowledge and ability has no limits “in a real practical sense”. So a question like “Why the panda’s thumb?” is a legitimate one, to which “maybe because it would have been too hard to do otherwise” is only a reasonable answer if you are willing to ditch the omnis. Creationists, typically, are not.
So you are left with the “mysterious ways”, which exposes another contradiction. The god of creationists is a perfectly lucid and understandable one when it comes to relaying its opinions on stem cell research, euthanasia, abortion and homosexuality. It only becomes “mysterious” when you start asking awkward questions about it. The argument from design flaws provides just such an awkward quesition.
You are right that creationists “absolutely do not” have to explain design flaws. But their various responses (and silence is one of them) reveal weaknesses in their viewpoint in various ways.
Yes, people who believe good things can still make bad arguments. But the argument from design flaws is not a bad argument.
DavidMWW: “Greg, I apologise for accusing you of Christianity.”
“accusing”? I don’t know if you said that on purpose but that’s nice
“accusing”? I don’t know if you said that on purpose
On purpose? Certainly not. It evolved independently through natural selection.
Heresiarch’s nailed the key point here.
Creationist may not be required to explain the precise reasons for existence of inefficient ‘design’ elements in organic life, but they do have to square-off the presence of such flaws with their belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and infallible creator.
I wonder not if you are a Christian Greg but if you are into self - flagellation. The only people with whom it is more futile to try and argue than religious fundamentalists are humanist fundamentalists.
A while ago I entered a CiF thread to argue that people like Robert Winston and that guy who was thrown out of the Royal Society were not betraying science by being practicing members of a religious faith.
I was immediately attacked by a howling mob accusing me of being a creationists just like Winston and the other Guy, Reece? Neither of them are of course.
Ian Thorpe - the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Greg’s article is not a result of this site being populated by “humanist fundamentalists” (what on earth are they?). It is because his argument was fundamentally flawed in a way which nearly every commenter from the 1st one down pointed out.
If you make a bad argument in a forum such as this or CiF, there is no shortage of readers who are happy to explain where you went wrong. They will do so with varying degrees of civility.
I was not witness to your being “attacked by a howling mob” on CiF. But you should consider the possibility - and judging from your comment here, it is quite a strong possibility - that you may simply have been talking crap.
David,
Clearly you and I disagree about the validity of the “You have to explain why God made things differently than I would have made them!” argument. That’s fine. Personally, I think you are taking a naive view of what “omnipotence” means. I think an “omnipotent” God could still very well have a desire to create a self-consistent and coherent universe. My argument about sensitive dependence and understanding the side-effects of fundamental changes (e.g. the changes needed in DNA that would lead to changes in embryonic functioning that would allow the vagus nerve to develop more optimally in giraffes) presumes that God would not WANT to say “I will make this organism follow completely different physical laws than all other things!” It presumes that God would not WANT to say, “I’m just not going to bother with using DNA in this organism, I’ll use something else this time!”
In my view, it makes sense to think that God may want, in creating a universe with consistent laws and functioning, to allow some things to be non-optimal along factor X because he was optimizing instead along factor Y in a delicate and balanced system.
But, in my view, this all is just another illustration of why this is entire approach is such a very bad argument: it rests on speculations by ALL parties about what a creater “would” or “should” have done. That is where the dangerous ground lies, in my opinion.
In addition, I’ll point out something that troubles me slightly about this entire discussion. (This is not directed at you, David, in particular; this is a response to the entire thread.)
The real problem that I see in the above comments is the very strong parallels between the way that many have gone about debating this matter, and the way that creationists often debate. Let me point out some of the similarities.
1) I say “A is a bad argument”; someone responds by saying, “But we have arguments B-Z over here!”
When I said that this specific argument was a bad one, bobxxxx “defended” it by saying “all the evidence, and the evidence is massive, supports evolution by natural selection.” I agree that this is true, but it doesn’t make this specific argument any better. This is exactly the same strategy creationists use much of the time. You tell them that they misunderstand the definition of “transitional species”, and they respond by saying, “Well, how do you explain the soul?” It’s a strategy of distraction.
2) Irrelevant accusations
David’s “I think I smell theism” was about as rational an argument as saying “evolutionists worship Chance as if it were a god.” It’s not even worth addressing.
3) Questioning meta-motives.
Tony says, “I think it’s a turn for the worse to present fallacious arguments in what I regard as a misguided attempt to appear even handed.” Again, this is an “attack” that doesn’t address the actual argument I made, just derides my assumed motive. This is the kind of thing you see when creationists say, “You are just trying to suppress any belief in God!” It’s bizarre, and is a distraction.
If you really want to take the intellectual high-ground in this debate, you shouldn’t resort to the same conversational tactics that you criticize for being unscientific and unprofessional. Heresiarch pointed out that many times evolutionists are drawn into bad arguments because creationists use such bad arguments (and seem to refuse to understand good ones, as well).
That may be true, but to any outside observer, consider how this looks. You lose ALL credibility when you start acting exactly like your opponents.
What about:
4) Redefining fundamental terms in order to keep your argument afloat.
You say my (actually, not just my - also Knut-Sverre Horn’s, Tony’s, encyclops’s, Robert Stovold’s, Heresiarch’s and Unity’s, who all make the same point) view of omnipotence is “naive”. As opposed to your still-undefined definition of omnipotence, which is more …what? … sophisticated? down-to-earth?
Creationists do this all the time. Show them a transitional fossil and they’ll say it’s not “transitional” in the way they mean. Those fruit flys evolved a resistance to virus x? That’s not “evolution” as they define it.
By standard definition (by a creationist’s standards, that is), an omnipotent, omniscient perfect being is one of infinite power and knowledge. Such a being would - by definition - be unconstrained by practical limitations and therefore have no need to “allow some things to be non-optimal along factor X because he was optimizing instead along factor Y in a delicate and balanced system.”
You say:
Beside the fact that are making some extraordinary presumptions about the desires of god here (my nose is twitching again, sorry!), an omni-blah being would not HAVE TO say “I will make make this organism follow completely different physical laws than all other things” or “I’m just not going to bother with using DNA in this organism, I’ll use something else this time!” - he could achieve what he wants by any means he wants while maintaining a “perfectly consistent and coherent system”. That’s by definition - not presumption.
As I said before, the argument from design flaws is a good one because whatever the creationist’s response, it forces him to concede ground. Even if that involves just a redefining of “omnipotent” to mean something a lot less than he thought it meant before - it’s a small victory, and a baby step in the right direction.
I think this is a very poignant question that no one seems to be asking.
http://derrenbrownart.com/blog/?p=67
LOL. Classic !
This article is false and misrepresents the claims of Dawkins, Gould and others. The argument being discussed is actually a response to the claims that the proof of the existence of God is the perfection of the design of nature. If biologists can show that nature is not designed perfectly, but in fact in many instances imperfect, then this claim is obviously wrong.
Burden of proof is pretty meaningless in such a debate, but given that the statement being discussed is a response to an argument, rather than an argument in itself (as the author falsely implies), the creationists would need to be able to counter the imperfection argument if the want to be successful in convincing people that nature is indeed perfectly designed by God.
I find the Evolution vs Creationism debate fascinating. It strikes me that the extremes of both positions imitate each other. Let me explain. Aggressive science, such as the type employed by Dawkins, states emphatically that the concept of Creationism cannot intelligently offer anything to explain the origin of life. Creationism, so it argues, is not based on evidence, but faith. And so is bunkum. It is true it is not based on evidence. But is faith unintelligent? Not necessarily. I have never been to Mongolia. Yet I believe it exists. Why? Because a variety of authorities, whom I trust, tell me it exists, show me holiday snapshots of them drinking yak’s milk, etc. That is faith. I believe on the authority of the person telling me. And if that person is credible, that faith is not unintelligent.
However, when Creationists go further than an affirmation of faith, which most reasonable persons would respect, but attempt to go further, and treat Creationism as an empirical science? That is certainly unintelligent. For how can the acts of a spiritual being be subject to observation by the senses? It actually imitates Science in order to combat Science.
But consider the other extreme: I’
ll call it Militant Evolutionism. Evolution has never claimed to explain the origin of life.How does inert matter organise itself into a complex, self-sustaining and self-replicating organism? So far, it has not empirically demonstrated how that happens. Sure, evolution describes, imperfectly and incompletely, the journey of life, from empirical evidence. But not THE origin of life. Of course, simply because it does not explain it does not mean it won’t in the future. Just as, because it doesn’t explain, it doesn’t mean that direct creation must be the explanation. In order to supply this deficiency, ‘militant evolutionism’, as I have called it, acts like a Faith, requiring us to have faith that evolution alone has all the answers. So you have the two extremes having to imitate each other in order to maintain their power (yes, power-let’s not forget the political aspect of this debate).
What both sides need is a little humility. We should deny neither good Science nor the sense of humility and awe that is part of our spiritual being. Life is a wondrous thing ultimately beyond comprehension and perhaps explanation.
“Life is a wondrous thing ultimately beyond comprehension and perhaps explanation.”
Do you really think this? It seems unlikely to me but I would accept that it may take a while.
I think it should be a sad world when we have reduced life to mathematical equations and say, ‘we get it now’. There is something essentially spiritual about life. I am an admirer of the thinking of Paul Davies, the Australian physicist. He explains the universe as far as he can, and finally concludes that there is something about it ultimately beyond explanation. That is not to say he resorts to the ‘God, the First Cause’ explanation. He simply says there is something inexplicable.
I think that is a healthy attitude. It is arrogant on the part of both Science and faith to assume anything else. Science will explain more and more as time goes on but in the meantime it must be humble. It must also be mindful that just as faith is not competent to judge Science, neither is Science competent to judge faith.
“But consider the other extreme: I’
ll call it Militant Evolutionism. Evolution has never claimed to explain the origin of life.How does inert matter organise itself into a complex, self-sustaining and self-replicating organism? So far, it has not empirically demonstrated how that happens. Sure, evolution describes, imperfectly and incompletely, the journey of life, from empirical evidence. But not THE origin of life. Of course, simply because it does not explain it does not mean it won’t in the future.”
Evolution does not and will never explain the origin of life. The origin of life is a question to be answered by chemistry, not by biology. Evolution explains the diversity and distribution of life, suggesting that it should also explain the origin of life from non-living matter is a misrepresentation.
Gazza, I don’t see why understanding something reduces one’s wonder or appreciation of that thing. I know the sun is just a big burning ball of gas but I still stare in awe at a glorious sunset. To my mind, the more we understand the way things work and interact, the more wonderful it all is.
I fully expect that one day we will also understand the mechanisms that lead to feelings of awe, wonder, or, if you want, spirituality. It won’t stop us experiencing these feelings but, perhaps, it will help put to rest the idea that there is something inexplicable behind everything (really just another way of saying God isn’t it?).
I would argue that science is inherently humble insofar as it alters to encompass new evidence and is prepared to admit that we do not know everything (yet!). Faith seems to me to be quite the opposite; clinging to belief in the face of contradictory evidence and even inventing nonsense to support those beliefs. It may be that we differ in our definition of faith as your idea of faith in the existence of Mongolia is not, to my mind, faith. It is an accumulation of evidence that proves to you, beyond reasonable doubt, that Mongolia exists. Faith, in my view, is the belief in something for which you have no evidence (or evidence of such poor quality that there must be considerable doubt).
Tony, it’s semantics really isn’t it? At the molecular/atomic level physics, chemistry and biology seem pretty much indistinguishable.
“Tony, it’s semantics really isn’t it? At the molecular/atomic level physics, chemistry and biology seem pretty much indistinguishable.”
No it isn’t. The difference between science and rhetoric is not “semantics”. If somebody suggests that one day “evolution” will explain the origin of life from non-living matter then the likelihood is that they are looking at a strawman version of biological evolution.
I agree but that wasn’t what I was saying. The point at which life can be said to originate could be called chemistry or biology. Let’s call it biochemistry.
Cool. Like I said, evolution (for evolution read Science, biology, chemistry, whatever) does not explain the first animation of inanimate matter, and perhaps never will. So there is a mystery. The reasonable thing is to respect the mystery. Just as religion is not a science, neither is science a religion.
The Vagus nerve is a rather important nerve and it does a lot more than just connect the brain to the throat. It regulates your heart beat, helps with speech and digestion and a handful of other things. At least that’s what several books and websites told me…
You make such a bold claim, saying the Vegus nerve basicly just joins two body parts, but you don’t reference it? Who told you that’s all it does? How can you base an argument on misinformation?
I’m a christian and I just understand why u guys can’t have faith. It says to do so right in the bible, duh. U guys claim to be all scientific but u can’t even read.
“For You formed my inward parts… I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” Psalm 139:13-14
Psalm 19
Psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands
Doh … done it again. Seem I have missed out on this article whilst it was still a hot-topic. Never mind … maybe it will become ‘hot’ again sometime!
Hope you don’t mind but going to go slightly off the specific topic/argument of this post and paste in a comment I made in the 2nd article of this little series that Greg has done. I seem to have a habit of entering these things too late!
Came across this site when doing some research on Scientology, and got interested enough to read this debate.
So I can be pigeon-holed straight away … I’m a creationist of the most “nutter” variety! I believe the universe exists as an act of divine will. I believe that all life on earth comes from an act of divine will, and that all this happened in a timescale of 1,000’s of years not 1,000,000’s or 1,000,000,000’s of years.
I simply wanted to say that I have found this article one of the best evolution/creation critiques I’ve encountered. Most tend to simply belittle, ridicule and/or patronise. This actually takes some of the arguments seriously. And as Mr Stevens has pointed out, often there is simply a lack of common definition.
Just a few points & questions I would like to make -
(1) It seems that you are simply not allowed to be a critic of Darwinian evolution. Even if you do not propose an alternative, simply to point out any flaw, contradiction, falsehood or even to raise a question instantly condemns you to the position of an apostate heretic. [I use a religious analogy because the parallels are so remarkably uncanny].
(2) I am often gob smacked by the way that evolution is used as scientific ‘catch all’ to explain virtually anything you want - evolutionary psychology being the worst - with absolutely ZERO scientific method being applied.
(3) Why is DNA is attributed with anthropomorphic qualities … it has a ‘desire’ to ’survive’. It’s just a chemical isn’t it? Why is it bestowed with ‘desires’ and a ‘will’ of sorts? Why does it ‘want’ to do this more than sodium chloride?
(4) I’ve never yet heard a plausible evolutionary explanation for mutual species inter-dependence or reproductive inter-dependence but would love to pointed to one (sincerely I would). How could the mutually inter-dependant sexual reproductive organs evolve slowly over 100’s of 1000’s of years?
Appreciate the calm, considered style of this site … much better than some that I could mention!
On the specific argument that Greg made in his title article …
I think it’s interesting how many people in the comments have falling EXACTLY into the trap that Greg talks about.
Isn’t it just as flawed to say that IF God had designed things He should have done this-or-that as it is to say that if evolution occurred then why didn’t this-or-that happen. For e.g., as a creationist, I don’t understand what evolutionary advantage there is to LOSING the ability to fly/photosynthesise/diffuse oxygen under water etc… Surely which ever animal didn’t LOSE these abilities but simply developed additional ones would have had a better survival chance. [Please don't answer those specific questions ... they are there to serve the point on the futility of such an argument!]
Or again, why haven’t we evolved wheels. Ludicrous … but just as ludicrous as saying “if I were God I’d have designed the optic nerve like this”. Well if I were God I would have given us the ability to fly and breathe under water and see in the dark and not need to sleep … etc etc.
This is neither good theology (understanding of God) or natural science. Just pseudo-philosophy at it’s very worst and certainly not going to produce anything of value in a discussion on explaining the ‘origins of species’.
Basically, I agree with your article whole-heartedly Greg! And some of the responses you have had illustrate the point I made in my last post … that it seems you simply cannot criticise or critique any evolutionary argument without being jumped on by the “high priests” for daring to question their “orthodoxy”. I do find it quite saddening because it means that genuine discourse & debate just gets completely lost.
Still, your articles and the comments afterwards seem to come to the closest I’ve ever encountered in a long long while. Thank you.
Incoming links from other sites