Introduction: The Illusion of Design [Richard Dawkins]

Natural History Magazine ^ | November 2005 | Richard Dawkins

[snarks_when_bored]

Introduction: The Illusion of Design

By Richard Dawkins

The world is divided into things that look as though somebody designed them (wings and wagon-wheels, hearts and televisions), and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics (mountains and rivers, sand dunes, and solar systems).

Mount Rushmore belonged firmly in the second category until the sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved it into the first. Charles Darwin moved in the other direction. He discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics—the laws according to which things “just happen”—could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design. The illusion of design is so successful that to this day most Americans (including, significantly, many influential and rich Americans) stubbornly refuse to believe it is an illusion. To such people, if a heart (or an eye or a bacterial flagellum) looks designed, that’s proof enough that it is designed.

No wonder Thomas Henry Huxley, “Darwin’s bulldog,” was moved to chide himself on reading the Origin of Species: “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that.” And Huxley was the least stupid of men.

Charles Darwin discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design.

The breathtaking power and reach of Darwin’s idea—extensively documented in the field, as Jonathan Weiner reports in “Evolution in Action”—is matched by its audacious simplicity. You can write it out in a phrase: nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary instructions for building embryos. Yet, given the opportunities afforded by deep time, this simple little algorithm generates prodigies of complexity, elegance, and diversity of apparent design. True design, the kind we see in a knapped flint, a jet plane, or a personal computer, turns out to be a manifestation of an entity—the human brain—that itself was never designed, but is an evolved product of Darwin’s mill.

Paradoxically, the extreme simplicity of what the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett called Darwin’s dangerous idea may be its greatest barrier to acceptance. People have a hard time believing that so simple a mechanism could deliver such powerful results.

The arguments of creationists, including those creationists who cloak their pretensions under the politically devious phrase “intelligent-design theory,” repeatedly return to the same big fallacy. Such-and-such looks designed. Therefore it was designed.

Many people cannot bear to think that they are cousins not just of chimpanzees and monkeys, but of tapeworms, spiders, and bacteria. The unpalatability of a proposition, however, has no bearing on its truth.

To pursue my paradox, there is a sense in which the skepticism that often greets Darwin’s idea is a measure of its greatness. Paraphrasing the twentieth-century population geneticist Ronald A. Fisher, natural selection is a mechanism for generating improbability on an enormous scale. Improbable is pretty much a synonym for unbelievable. Any theory that explains the highly improbable is asking to be disbelieved by those who don’t understand it.

Yet the highly improbable does exist in the real world, and it must be explained. Adaptive improbability—complexity—is precisely the problem that any theory of life must solve and that natural selection, uniquely as far as science knows, does solve. In truth, it is intelligent design that is the biggest victim of the argument from improbability. Any entity capable of deliberately designing a living creature, to say nothing of a universe, would have to be hugely complex in its own right.

If, as the maverick astronomer Fred Hoyle mistakenly thought, the spontaneous origin of life is as improbable as a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and having the luck to assemble a Boeing 747, then a divine designer is the ultimate Boeing 747. The designer’s spontaneous origin ex nihilo would have to be even more improbable than the most complex of his alleged creations. Unless, of course, he relied on natural selection to do his work for him! And in that case, one might pardonably wonder (though this is not the place to pursue the question), does he need to exist at all?

The achievement of nonrandom natural selection is to tame chance. By smearing out the luck, breaking down the improbability into a large number of small steps—each one somewhat improbable but not ridiculously so—natural selection ratchets up the improbability.

Darwin himself expressed dismay at the callousness of natural selection: “What a book a Devil’s Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!”

As the generations unfold, ratcheting takes the cumulative improbability up to levels that—in the absence of the ratcheting—would exceed all sensible credence.

Many people don’t understand such nonrandom cumulative ratcheting. They think natural selection is a theory of chance, so no wonder they don’t believe it! The battle that we biologists face, in our struggle to convince the public and their elected representatives that evolution is a fact, amounts to the battle to convey to them the power of Darwin’s ratchet—the blind watchmaker—to propel lineages up the gentle slopes of Mount Improbable.

The misapplied argument from improbability is not the only one deployed by creationists. They are quite fond of gaps, both literal gaps in the fossil record and gaps in their understanding of what Darwinism is all about. In both cases the (lack of) logic in the argument is the same. They allege a gap or deficiency in the Darwinian account. Then, without even inquiring whether intelligent design suffers from the same deficiency, they award victory to the rival “theory” by default. Such reasoning is no way to do science. But science is precisely not what creation “scientists,” despite the ambitions of their intelligent-design bullyboys, are doing.

In the case of fossils, as Donald R. Prothero documents in “The Fossils Say Yes” [see the print issue], today’s biologists are more fortunate than Darwin was in having access to beautiful series of transitional stages: almost cinematic records of evolutionary changes in action. Not all transitions are so attested, of course—hence the vaunted gaps. Some small animals just don’t fossilize; their phyla are known only from modern specimens: their history is one big gap. The equivalent gaps for any creationist or intelligent-design theory would be the absence of a cinematic record of God’s every move on the morning that he created, for example, the bacterial flagellar motor. Not only is there no such divine videotape: there is a complete absence of evidence of any kind for intelligent design.

Absence of evidence for is not positive evidence against, of course. Positive evidence against evolution could easily be found—if it exists. Fisher’s contemporary and rival J.B.S. Haldane was asked by a Popperian zealot what would falsify evolution. Haldane quipped, “Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.” No such fossil has ever been found, of course, despite numerous searches for anachronistic species.

There are other barriers to accepting the truth of Darwinism. Many people cannot bear to think that they are cousins not just of chimpanzees and monkeys, but of tapeworms, spiders, and bacteria. The unpalatability of a proposition, however, has no bearing on its truth. I personally find the idea of cousinship to all living species positively agreeable, but neither my warmth toward it, nor the cringing of a creationist, has the slightest bearing on its truth.

Even without his major theoretical achievements, Darwin would have won lasting recognition as an experimenter.

The same could be said of political or moral objections to Darwinism. “Tell children they are nothing more than animals and they will behave like animals.” I do not for a moment accept that the conclusion follows from the premise. But even if it did, once again, a disagreeable consequence cannot undermine the truth of a premise. Some have said that Hitler founded his political philosophy on Darwinism. This is nonsense: doctrines of racial superiority in no way follow from natural selection, properly understood. Nevertheless, a good case can be made that a society run on Darwinian lines would be a very disagreeable society in which to live. But, yet again, the unpleasantness of a proposition has no bearing on its truth.

Huxley, George C. Williams, and other evolutionists have opposed Darwinism as a political and moral doctrine just as passionately as they have advocated its scientific truth. I count myself in that company. Science needs to understand natural selection as a force in nature, the better to oppose it as a normative force in politics. Darwin himself expressed dismay at the callousness of natural selection: “What a book a Devil’s Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!”

In spite of the success and admiration that he earned, and despite his large and loving family, Darwin’s life was not an especially happy one. Troubled about genetic deterioration in general and the possible effects of inbreeding closer to home, as James Moore documents in “Good Breeding,” [see print issue], and tormented by illness and bereavement, as Richard Milner’s interview with the psychiatrist Ralph Colp Jr. shows in “Darwin’s Shrink,” Darwin’s achievements seem all the more. He even found the time to excel as an experimenter, particularly with plants. David Kohn’s and Sheila Ann Dean’s essays (“The Miraculous Season” and “Bee Lines and Worm Burrows” [see print issue]) lead me to think that, even without his major theoretical achievements, Darwin would have won lasting recognition as an experimenter, albeit an experimenter with the style of a gentlemanly amateur, which might not find favor with modern journal referees.

As for his major theoretical achievements, of course, the details of our understanding have moved on since Darwin’s time. That was particularly the case during the synthesis of Darwinism with Mendelian digital genetics. And beyond the synthesis, as Douglas J. Futuyma explains in “On Darwin’s Shoulders,” [see print issue] and Sean B. Carroll details further for the exciting new field of “evo-devo” in “The Origins of Form,” Darwinism proves to be a flourishing population of theories, itself undergoing rapid evolutionary change.

In any developing science there are disagreements. But scientists—and here is what separates real scientists from the pseudoscientists of the school of intelligent design—always know what evidence it would take to change their minds. One thing all real scientists agree upon is the fact of evolution itself. It is a fact that we are cousins of gorillas, kangaroos, starfish, and bacteria. Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity’s sake, let’s stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact.

Richard Dawkins, a world-renowned explicator of Darwinian evolution, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, where he was educated. Dawkins’s popular books about evolution and science include The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1976), The Blind Watchmaker (W.W. Norton, 1986), Climbing Mount Improbable (W.W. Norton, 1996), and most recently, The Ancestor’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), which retells the saga of evolution in a Chaucerian mode.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Long ago, in a galactose far away...a sweet thing....

[aNYCguy]

I think maltose, formerly called "The Fifth Group," has been gaining acceptance since 1933. The standard nutrition model may be changed soon.

[hosepipe]

[ For some strange reason, I can imagine 5 dimensions, and acknowledge there may be more than 5. That's about as far as I can get at this point. Maybe you will help me see that these 5 actually "reduce" to a smaller number, maybe 3. ]

Sorry.. WELL I know what I mean, kinda..
What I mean is... In my world there are three dimensions.. length, width, depth.. and maybe, time(because I do have time NOW here)... but I see time not as a dimension.. but merely as sequenced timing..

Actually I see the whole Universe as 3 dimensional.. at least the one I know about.. i.e. if I were on a galazy far away I would still be in the 3rd dimension.. because I myself, as least my body is, 3 dimensional, like that..

Prognosticating multiple dimensions.. can be fun I suppose.. like me prognosticating I were a two dimensional "creature" trying to concieve of a three dimensional one. Of course there are no two dimensional creatures like there are no four dimensional creatures (that I know about or can concieve of).. Seems like I am limited to this 3D world, for now..

Thats how I used the word dimension in this context.. Maybe there is a better way to say it, beyond me.. Also why I posit the 4th dimension is an actual dimension that I call the Spiritual dimension.. I have some experience with the "Spirit" and the only way I can explain it as a reality with a real personality there is by there being a 4th dimension.. Could be its the 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th dimension but its all the same to me.. in my reality.. You get beyond the 3rd dimension and its all mental constructs.. in my world..

Could be I have my own meaning to the word dimension.. would not reject another word.. but cannot find one that fits.. Would like to explain this better but I am doing my best now.. The Spiritual dimension is a bit hard to grasp being 3rd dimensional as I am.. But the reality of another existence far and way better, deeper, richer in content is not beyond me imagining.. Viola! the 4th dimension.. The 4th dimension being merely "time" (in my context) seems like a rip off..

Maybe you make sense of what I just said, or were trying to say.. hope so.. I value your input, both of yours..

[PatrickHenry]

Simply not true [we observe that everything has a cause]. We observe the opposite at the quantum level.

Right. I was addressing the classical First Cause issue.

[betty boop]

You can only know a person if he makes himself known.

Exactly, spunketts. Which is why I speak with such assurance.

On the other hand, you can always refuse to acknowledge the person who desires to make himself known to you.

[hosepipe]

[ What created the creator of the universe? ]

Basically that was Satans question to Eve in garden of Eden..
Do you crawl on yer belly also.?... d;-)..

[PatrickHenry]

We observe the opposite at the quantum level. We are surrounded by uncaused phenomena.

If the classical philosophers had known of this, and their view of the world were that "some things are caused and some aren't," then I wonder if they would have ever come up with the concept of a First Cause.

[Liberal Classic]

To put it bluntly, you want God to "play by your rules"

No, you just want science to play by yours.

[RightWhale]

there are three dimensions.. length, width, depth

My Bible, and yours too, says there are four: length, width, breadth, and depth. Not counting timeth.

[Liberal Classic]

All this time I was taught Sutcliffe was "The Fifth Sugar." Those darn nutritionists, they can't make up their mind.

[aNYCguy]

you cannot infinitely regress the chain of causation.

Sure you can.

Forgive me: I'm not sure I'm following you here, aNYCguy.

Either everything which exists was preceded by a cause, or the converse is true.

If the former, there is an infinite chain of causes. If the latter, the chain may be arbitrarily broken at any point, and there is no reason for a god to exist; the singularity from which the Big Bang arose may well be the head of the chain.

Causality is universal or it is not. Neither case makes an argument for what one would normally think of as a god, although certainly one could declare "God" to be the head of the chain, no matter how it looks, and acknowledge that God may well be a long-destroyed singularity.

[hosepipe]

[ To put it bluntly, you want God to "play by your rules" No, you just want science to play by yours. ]

Science is not God to some people.. to others it IS...
Basically a clash of religions..

[hosepipe]

[ My Bible, and yours too, says there are four: length, width, breadth, and depth. Not counting timeth. ]

LoL...

[betty boop]

I see time not as a dimension.. but merely as sequenced timing..

I see time as having a "particle-like" nature (temporal sequence) as well as a "waveform-like" nature (as the context in which the sequence takes place). In the latter sense, time is a dimension. But this is not an either/or proposition; certainly we cannnot deny humans experience time as a sequence of events; time in the other sense (as a dimension) provides the manifold in which the sequence occurs.

At the gross level, it appears that one's body is three-dimensional. But we have to realize that, absent the context provided by the fourth dimension of time, no movement would be possible. We would be completely static, unable do anything at all. There would also be no movement within our bodies, e.g., at the molecular and cellular levels. For those entities have to execute processes, and processes are sequenced events extended in time. Unable to perform the functions of metabolism, etc., etc., because the cells, etc., couldn't do anything, we would not be able to maintain ourselves in a living state. But then even the second law of thermodynamics would be "disabled"; so even bodily dissolution could not take place.

In short, we can't even imagine what a world without time as context would "look like."

You are a four-dimensional creature yourself....

It's a real struggle working through ideas like this, hosepipe. I am deeply interested in your thoughts regarding the matter. You mention a "spiritual dimension" -- which I imagine is effectively timeless -- being out of time in the sense of sequence, and well beyond the concept of time in the sense of context or field....

Your thoughts???

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for you excellent essay-post and insights!

The bible goea a bit further than this and makes a very audacious statement that our cosmic rebellion affects the very processing of data by our (pick one or more:) minds/souls/psyche/brains/etc. It claims that the truth of the Creator is "plain" from creation and that men "hold"(the gk word really means "to push back, or suppress") that truth in unrighteousness. The "noetic effects of sin" (theoological term --> noos is gk for "mind") does not mean that a person who is in rebellion against God can't derive pi past 3 digits. It DOES mean that as we filter and process the data, we have a deep desire and predilection to construct the data in a way that allows us to escape God. You see a certain amount of this in any debate, as people's egos cause them to make logical errors. It just needs to be on the table that the claim is that our psyches are hard wired to reject "evidence" that is "plain." That is wny believers keep coming back to "evidence for a creator." It is obvious to us, and sometimes we look at the mark of our Creator and we are moved to worship......, and when we are free of the stupid shit like wanting just to win an argument for our own ego, we want you to worship, too.

Excellent points!

[RightWhale]

You are equating motion with time. No doubt you understand all this at a much deeper level than do I. The best I have been aware of equates motion with causality, which is a separate dimension from time, and treats space as a single dimension that can be subdivided as often as needed.

[wotan]

No. You're a moron.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Creationist's Best Argument Placemarker

[spunkets]

"But we can infer the nature of matter in the center of the earth -- something that hasn't of yet appeared on my doorstep."

You can only infer the nature of the center of the Earth, because you know the physics. You know the physics, because it underlies the observations. IOWs the physics are plain to see. Reality has presented itself.

You can not infer the existence of an unobservable person from physics, or by the use of logic and declare that person real. All you can do is create a logical construction. What is physically real must be observable.

[betty boop]

No, you just want science to play by yours.

Not at all, Liberal Classic. Unless you mean by this statement that I want science to stick to what it does best, and leave all the rest to philosophy and theology. That is a "rule" I'd like science to follow. But as long as it sticks to that one rule, I will gladly follow its findings, wherever they may lead.

Don't forget science is essentially confined to deriving propositions regarding observables and subjecting them to falsification tests -- it may not do more and still call itself "science."

Philosophy and theology are not confined to "observables," and so legitimately may deal with the nonphenomenal aspects of reality where science has no methodological purchase.

It's not a case of either science or philosophy being "better" than the other. It's a case of: They are complementarities. We need them both.