Posted on 02/18/2004 11:42:08 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In addition to your career as a teacher and a research scientist, you have become deeply embroiled in America's controversy over origins. What led you to enter into the fray of creation and evolution?
I had just begun to teach general introductory biology during my last two years at Harvard, so that meant I was speaking to a crowd, which I enjoyed. I enjoyed teaching very much, I enjoyed working with students, and I enjoyed teaching what you might call general biology because it forced me to expand the range of what I understood. Rather than just talk about my own specialties, suddenly I had to learn something about muscle contraction, the way the nerve impulse works, the way the digestive system works, and even the way in which organisms are structured in the ecosystem.
When I started teaching at Brown, that was one of the kinds of courses I taught. In my second semester here, a group of students came to me. They said that a fellow named Henry Morris, the founder of the Institute for Creation Research from California, was coming to campus, and he had challenged anyone in the department of biology or geology to debate him on the validity of the theory of evolution. Several of these students who had taken a class from me the previous semester said, "You're a pretty good public speaker. You seem to know something about science. Would you like to debate him?"
Had you heard of Henry Morris before this point?
No, I had not. I hadn't heard of him at all, and I immediately said no to the students. I told them I was a cell biologist and I didn't know anything about evolution. And they came back to me and said, "Well, does that mean he's right?" And I said, "No, of course he's not right."
After thinking about it some more, I said, "I'll tell you what. I'll make you a deal. I don't know who this man is, or where he's coming from, or what he means, but if you will get me an audio tape of one of his speeches or, better still, an audio tape of him at another debate, maybe I'll say yes." So they got the tape of Henry Morris debating the eminent Princeton anthropologist Ashley Montague sometime in 1978 or 1979. I actually knew Montague very well. I had read several of his books. I had a very high opinion of him. I thought, "Surely Montague will have the answers to these questions."
But to my astonishment, Henry Morris completely outflanked Ashley Montague in debate and clearly carried the day with the weight of argument. I was astonished by a whole series of what I would call "tiny little arguments" that were made by Morris, as if there were no answers for them scientifically. And the lack of answers to these little problems he argued, meant that evolution was somehow flawed, and scientifically incorrect. Well, I knew better than that—even though I didn't at that moment know the answers to the questions Morris raised—simply because I already understood that science is a competitive and a contentious enterprise, and if there really had been serious flaws in the theory of evolution, those flaws would have been exploited far sooner by people within what is often called the scientific establishment.
When you say competitive, do you mean that people are looking to make a name for themselves at the expense of others in the scientific establishment?
That's exactly right. In science, one of the surest ways to build your career and make a name for yourself is by discrediting a strong and established theory. In a way that's a safety valve on the intellectual honesty of science, because as long as young people can make a career by trashing an existing theory, it means that every existing theory—and evolution is no exception in this regard—has to stand up to a constant barrage of criticism. The fact that evolution has survived suggested to me that it didn't have fundamental flaws as a theory.
So what I did, after accepting the invitation to debate, was to take three or four weeks and listen to all of Morris' arguments, go to the library, visit my colleagues, read as much as I could, and gradually assemble answers to one objection after another. When I finally ended up debating Morris, in April of 1981, it turned out to be, believe it or not, in front of a crowd of almost 3,000 people! I had two carousel trays filled with slides to amplify my points and to make it really clear what the nature of the scientific evidence was.
As far as I can tell, I carried the day. Henry Morris in his newsletter Acts and Facts let on as much, and that led to several invitations to debate other scientific creationists, including Morris again, but also Duane Gish, on several occasions over the next couple of years. That was how I was drawn into the evolution debate, and the further into it I got, the more I realized that I wanted to keep doing it. This concern was close to my heart; fundamentally it's a matter of the integrity of science.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are what I term "irreducibly complex." That means the system needs several components before it can work properly. An everyday example of irreducible complexity is a mousetrap, built of several pieces (platform, hammer, spring and so on). Such a system probably cannot be put together in a Darwinian manner, gradually improving its function. You can't catch a mouse with just the platform and then catch a few more by adding the spring. All the pieces have to be in place before you catch any mice.
An example of an irreducibly complex cellular system is the bacterial flagellum: a rotary propeller, powered by a flow of acid, that bacteria use to swim. The flagellum requires a number of parts before it works -- a rotor, stator and motor. Furthermore, genetic studies have shown that about 40 different kinds of proteins are needed to produce a working flagellum.
The intracellular transport system is also quite complex. Plant and animal cells are divided into many discrete compartments; supplies, including enzymes and proteins, have to be shipped between these compartments. Some supplies are packaged into molecular trucks, and each truck has a key that will fit only the lock of its particular cellular destination. Other proteins act as loading docks, opening the truck and letting the contents into the destination compartment.
Many other examples could be cited. The bottom line is that the cell -- the very basis of life -- is staggeringly complex. But doesn't science already have answers, or partial answers, for how these systems originated? No. As James Shapiro, a biochemist at the University of Chicago, wrote, "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
Intelligent design may mean that the ultimate explanation for life is beyond scientific explanation. That assessment is premature. But even if it is true, I would not be troubled. I don't want the best scientific explanation for the origins of life; I want the correct explanation.
Mutations are frequently cited by Darwinists, along with "selection" as the two essential ingredients for evolution. Yet, a review of empirical research shows that no clear evidence exists to support the belief that mutations in general can be beneficial. In actual fact, mutations are detrimental and should be considered evidence for "de-evolution."
For decades "experiments have been conducted on the effects of mutations, many on Drosophlla meianogaster, a vinegar fly from Kaduna, Africa," according to a report by Dr. Jerry Bergman, titled "Does the Research on Mutations Support Darwinism?" He says this "fruit fly" is an "ideal animal to use to evaluate the long-term effects of mutations." Thomas Hunt Morgan first studied it in 1909 at Columbia University and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933. He bred 900 consecutive generations of fruit flies. Bergman says the "mutant stocks" of fruit flies that he produced "are ail merely fruit fly variations, most or all of which would be undesirable or lethal in the wild."
A scientist who did breeding work on forest trees, Maciej Giertych, said "Mutations are either neutral or detrimental . . . We have no proofs for evolution from mutation research."
Bergman also quotes Pathologist David Demick, who works daily with the results of mutations, as saying that virtually thousands of human diseases are associated with mutations. Bergman cites one medical reference book that lists some 4,500 different genetically caused diseases. Demick concludes, "Not one mutation that increased the efficiency of a genetically coded protein has been found."
Bergman says. "Since it is well recognized that the vast majority, if not virtually all mutations, are harmful why do evolutionists still utilize this means as the major, if not the only, source of variation from which natural selection can select? The main reason is no other feasible mechanism has been postulated."
Bergman, in another article on the subject titled "A Review of the Causes and Types of Mutations, Does Evidence Indicate Any Can be Beneficial"" stresses that macroevolution is the Darwinian form of evolution and macroevolution involves natural selection of beneficial mutations.
He says, "Many mutations are a result of chromosomal damage called chromosomal mutations or aberrations, such as chromosomal-caused gene or DNA deletions . . . Virtually all, if not all, of the genetic damage that results from the loss of information is harmful.
Loss mutations, those that result in a non-functional protein, can be beneficial if the loss somehow benefits the animal or the animal's owner. An example would be the mutation that produced a short-legged sheep. The owner bred the sheep because the characteristic reduced the need for high fences. Such mutations do produce loss of information, but what is required for evolution, according to Bergman, are mutations that gain information.
In most cases, mutations do cause damage. Radiation (ultraviolet light, X-rays, neutron radiation, gamma rays, etc.) is mutagenic, meaning it is a factor that can cause mutation.
Bergman says, "Although ultraviolet radiation is hypothesized to have caused most, or at least many, of the mutations that historically drove evolution, it is unlikely that this source can produce beneficial mutations." UV usually only affects skin and eye tissues in multicellular organisms, and in single-celled organisms it causes so much damage virtually no cells can survive.
Because X-rays and gamma rays are more energetic than UV rays, they often produce free radicals, and no known case exists in which they have produced beneficial mutations.
In his summary Bergman states, "The possibility of a mutation that can cause small changes that may be beneficial cannot be categorically ruled out, but the likelihood of adding information to the genome by mutations is virtually nil." He also says, "it is universally acknowledged that over 99.99 % of all mutations are not beneficial but have either no effect or harmful, often lethal, effects."
Even if this is true, the other 0.01% of mutations can make a big difference. No beneficial mutations in humans? I'll name three off the top of my head:
1) Sickle-cell anemia;
2) Lactose tolerance;
3) Different skin colors.
But somehow they always spark the same old useless arguments from the creationoids. Funny, how they act as if they hadn't read the last umpty-ump threads on this subject and never seem to learn one new fact from their participation here.
Explain the "survival or reproduction advantage" of the "not-yet-fully-developed" bacteria flagellum while it was waiting for the 50 different parts of the motor. And how did the bacterium "know" that there would be an advantage as it dragged the non-functional flagellum around for several centuries?
And what new facts have you learned from the "creationoids" after reading the last "umpty-ump" threads?
If we accept, a priori, the view that natural processes cannot be sufficient to account for our presence in the world, we've got some serious decision-making to do.
We could, for example, allow that evolution might have produced every species except for us. Even the staunchest opponents of evolution do not take this position, and for very good reason. We humans are living creatures and share nearly every aspect of our biological existence with other living things. ... There just isn't enough about us that is biologically different from other animals to say that evolution applies to them, but not to us.
We have to find another place to draw the line.
We could, if we were especially cautious, draw that line in a way that includes as much science as possible. We might, for example, accept the general picture that historical geology has given us for the age of the earth. That would put us at peace with the physical sciences. We might further agree to the general validity of the fossil record and its sweeping pattern of descent with modification. That would keep the paleontologists off our backs, and save us from repeated attack as new discoveries flesh out further detail in evolutionary history. But we would still have to find at least one essential event in the history of life to stand outside these natural processes - one thing that must have been done by the Creator. And ideally, we'd make this an event so tiny and so distant in the past history of life that no historical record of how it actually occurred could ever be found. We could, following this strategy, argue that evolution cannot account for the biochemical machinery of the living cell. That's where we could claim that a designer is required, and that's how we would protect our worldview against the ravages of evolution. Such is the viewpoint espoused by Michael Behe and others, who hold up the lofty banner of "intelligent design".
- Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God, pp 59-60
Ah yes, for perhaps the thousandth time, the old, discredited bugaboo of Behe's so-called "irreducible complexity" rears its head. Here's a link to one of the more recent shoot-downs of that nonsense: HERE.
Uh-oh, you asked for it... :-)
[Morris & Whitcomb's 1961 classic, The Genesis Flood]'s primary thesis is that the appearance of evolution in the fossil record is an accidental artifact of sedimentation. When a great flood destroyed most of the life on planet earth, say the YECs, those living things that could not escape to higher ground wound up near the bottom of the sediment. These are the rocks that earth scientists regard as being from the oldest geological ages. The young-earth creationists contend that those animals that could swim or float or climb most effectively wound up near the top, in so-called recent ages. ...Is there a chance that these "flood geologists" are genuine, sincere scientists? Is it possible that they are lonely pioneers laboring in a great and noble tradition of scientific outcasts, fighting for respectability and ultimately for proof of their ideas? I don't think so; and I say that not to make a character judgement, but as an evaluation of scientific behavior. If they really believe in the validity of their interpretations of fossil history, they should be charging ahead to exploit a great scientific opportunity: the coprolite.
Coprolites are fossilized feces. Over the years, paleontologists have found thousands of these objects, including a notable one described from Nature magazine in 1998 with the alluring title, "A King-Sized Theropod Coprolite." The size and location of the object indicate it was produced by a meat-eating dinosaur, probably Tyrannosaurus rex. This coprolite was packed with large fragments of partially digested bone. Other coprolites are available, if our YEC colleagues prefer, from ancient mammals, plesiosaurs (swimming reptiles), and even from insects.
For young-earth creationists, these remains present a stunning opportunity to validate their ideas. All they would have to do is pick through these objects and find evidence of a single contemporary organism. Seeds or microscopic pollen grains from modern plants would do the trick in the case of herbivorous dinosaurs. If they could just find a couple of tuna bones in the stomachs of those plesiosaurs, they'd stand the geological world in its head by demonstrating that creatures of the "ancient" and the modern worlds existed side by side before the flood, as they have always maintained. The young-earth creationists make no such effort. They keep themselves carefully aloof from any hands-on contact with genuine evidence, such as the fact that the digestive systems of the plesiosaurs are filled with ammonites, extinct mollusks from the same geological age.
- Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God, pg. 62
Several years ago, I was invited to Tampa, Florida, to debate the issue of evolution with Henry Morris.... One never knows how such a debate goes, but the local science teachers in attendance were jubilant that I scored a scientific victory.As luck would have it, the organizers of this event had booked rooms for both Dr. Morris and myself in a local motel. When I walked into the coffee shop the next morning, I noticed Morris at a table by himself finishing breakfast. Flushed with confidence from the debate, I asked if I might join him. The elderly Morris was a bit shaken, but he agreed. I ordered a nice breakfast, and then got right to the point. "Do you actually believe all this stuff?"
I suppose I might have expected a wink and a nod. We had both been paid for our debate appearances, and perhaps I expected him to acknowledge that he made a pretty good living from the creation business. He did nothing of the sort. Henry Morris made it clear to me that he believed everything he had said the night before. "But Dr. Morris, so much of what you argued is wrong, starting with the age of the earth!" Morris had been unable to answer the geological data on the earth's age I had presented the night before, and it had badly damaged his credibility with the audience. Nonetheless, he looked me straight in the eyes. "Ken, you're intelligent, you're well-meaning, and you're energetic. But you are also young, and you don't realize what's at stake. In a question of such importance, scientific data aren't the ultimate authority. Even you know that science is wrong sometimes."
Indeed I did. Morris continued so that I could get a feeling for what that ultimate authority was. "Scripture tells us what the right conclusion is. And if science, momentarily, doesn't agree with it, then we have to keep working until we get the right answer. But I have no doubts as to what that answer will be." Morris then excused himself, and I was left to ponder what he had said. I had sat down thinking the man a charlatan, but I left appreciating the depth, the power, and the sincerity of his convictions. Nonetheless, however one might admire Morris's strength of character, convictions that allow science to be bent beyond recognition are not merely unjustified - they are dangerous in the intellectual and even in the moral sense, because they corrupt and compromise the integrity of human reason.
My impromptu breakfast with Henry Morris taught me an important lesson - the appeal of creationism is emotional, not scientific. ...
After listening to [YEC professor Kurt Wise's] stories and constructs of creationist geology, [magazine author Jack] Hitt found himself comparing them favorably to the, in his words, "random evolution, meaningless mutations, trial and error (mostly error), aimless procreation, the pointless void of space, the cold materialism of Darwin's damn theory." On every intellectual level, as Hitt made clear, evolution holds the scientific cards. Yet, when he considered what it would feel like to embrace the creationism presented by Wise, it produced an emotional tide powerful enough to sweep Darwin right off the table:
I felt again the warmth of believing that for every inch of infinity there has already been an accounting. Everything has a reason for being where it is. ... I had felt it before, in childhood, when everything around me radiated with specific meaning and parental clarity. That, after all, is what creationists feel that evolution has stolen from them."To Wise and many others, the disciples of evolution have crushed the innocence of childhood, poisoned the garden of belief, and replaced both with a calculating reality that chills and hardens the soul. How sweet it would be to close one's eyes to "Darwin's damn theory," and once again to sleep blissfully (Gould notwithstanding) in the bosom of Abraham.
- Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God, pp. 172-4
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