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.

[microgood]

All you need to know about Dawkins:

You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.
-- Richard Dawkins, in Lanny Swerdlow, "My Sort Interview with Richard Dawkins" (Portland, Oregon, 1996)

It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
-- Richard Dawkins, quoted from Josh Gilder, a creationist, in his critical review, "PBS's 'Evolution' series is propaganda, not science" (September, 2001)

[Right Wing Professor]

Maybe there aren't any laws.

So then, if there aren't any laws, there can't be a lawgiver, can there?

It appears your God has a somewhat precarious existence.

[Right Wing Professor]

And the problem is?

(I'd consider 'wicked', but only since I've been on Free Republic)

[rootkidslim]

Thanks for this link. I believe in universal health care as well, it's called medical savings accounts and catastrophic insurance. Why are people who are rational about science so often irrational about politics?

[Right Wing Professor]

I'm just curious about a universal grammar that seems to say exactly nothing about actual instances of human grammar. Can you say anything at all about human language based on universal grammar?

I'm not an expert on linguistics. SeaLion is, but he was banned. So our discussion is less informed, because some room-temperature-IQ moderator got his/her panties in a twist about rational, intelligent posts that offended his/her superstitions.

[snarks_when_bored]

If you're a married man capable of fulfilling his marital obligations, and if your wife is an American, it would be true for you to say that you've had sex with an American. If you were once married, then divorced and married again, it might be true for you to say that you've had sex with Americans (plural). In the absence of more evidence, you don't know what Ruse's personal life is like and your willingness to speculate says more about you than it does about him.

Not that any of this is relevant to the truth or falsity of any philosophical or scientific claims he might make in the context of the present discussion.

[puroresu]

#####So then, if there aren't any laws, there can't be a lawgiver, can there?#####

I said "maybe".

#####It appears your God has a somewhat precarious existence.#####

It's a matter of faith. I'm not here to preach to you or try to convert you. That's not my place and I'll never do that here. I just don't think it's any less scientific to believe God created and governs all that we see than it is to believe the universe just happens to be here and just happens to work in whatever ways it appears to work.

[b_sharp]

Sorry to butt in snarks_when_bored.

Various snipped ad homs.

So you have no rational (or otherwise) rebuttal to his article other than a questionable breakdown of his personality?

This is a rather poor method of critical analysis.

[js1138]

You're holding back. Tell us what you really think.

[snarks_when_bored]

Mega Barf alert.

You should probably lay off that Ipecac...

[betty boop]

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." .... I stand with Whitehead on this question.

Me too, snarks. Me too!!!

No offense Aquinasfan, but Plato is Numero Uno!!! :^)

[js1138]

In the absence of more evidence, you don't know what Ruse's personal life is like and your willingness to speculate says more about you than it does about him.

Some folks are not familiar with reason, and prefer to spout off without knowing anything. Such folks make many kinds of errors, such as conflating natural laws with TRUTH.

[snarks_when_bored]

My problem with Dawkins is that he makes a wild jump from this "God of the gaps" charge to inferring that this firmly anchors "true science" as being done within a mechanistic, or materialistic framework, and that anything else is mystical hocum, a step away from bringing in the witch doctor to chant and dance away the evil spirits.

In fact, true natural science is done within a mechanistic, materialistic framework. That's the working hypothesis of the scientific method. Nor should that method be denigrated too hastily, since it is responsible for most of what we understand about the natural world today. In addition, the scientific method, as developed by Western European civilization, has fair claim on being the most important discovery in the history of humanity. Witch doctors (or their equivalents) are still haunting regions of this planet and are always seeking to regain their lost influence. They must always and everywhere be opposed by people who seek a better future for themselves and their posterity.

As for Dawkins's arrogance, I'll concede it. But, again, I don't have to live with the guy, so it doesn't bother me much.

[b_sharp]

"Darwin's defection from Xty had nothing to do with HMS Beagle or Origin. He fled orthodox Xty long before he first said "hmmmmmm" over finch beaks.

He fled Orthodox Christianity or he fled Christianity?

Is this an attempt to prove evolution is anti-christian?

[Stultis]

"It is rational to assume that where there is a law there is a law-giver, and where there is design there is a designer. No one's forcing you to take the side of irrationality. You have chosen it freely."

What is bordering on the irrational is to assume that because humans create legalities that we call laws that the phenomena behind the laws of physics must have been produced by law-givers. The laws of nature (I'm using this as a shorthand to refer to the phenomena the laws describe) and the laws of man are not similar.

I agree that Af's analogy -- of human "laws" to "laws" of nature -- is faulty, insufficient and unhelpful. Additionally, however, I don't find the argument particularly compelling even for human laws, at least all such laws. Most laws are not simply produced, as it where ex nihilo, by a "law-giver". Instead they are recognitions and codifications of practices and preferences that already exist within a human society, and often have developed their particular form at the time of codification through a long process of evolution and adaptation. Traffic laws, property law, and many other areas, all developed in this way. Practice came first, followed by innovation, adaptation and improvement thereof, with codification a final step.

[snarks_when_bored]

I wouldn't care to sign my name to every statement that Richard Dawkins has ever made.

[betty boop]

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 thought occurs to me, snarks, that Dawkins never accounts for the origins of the "unaided" laws of physics. I guess that's a question an atheist simply refuses to ask. He's happy enough to start, not from the beginning, but from Step 2....

If "matter" follows laws, then in what way is mimicry involved? What is being mimicked?

Thanks for the post!

[snarks_when_bored]

You're welcome (by me, anyway) to interject comments at any time, b_sharp.

[chronic_loser]

So you have no rational (or otherwise) rebuttal to his article other than a questionable breakdown of his personality? This is a rather poor method of critical analysis.

1) I find him obnoxious, condescending, arrogant, and intolerable.
2) I realize that this is not a substantive review of the article to say that I find him obnoxious, condescending, arrogant, and intolerable.
3) I do think that the sleight of hand substitution of empiricism for science is both academically incorrect and fundamentally dishonest.
4) My personal distaste for Dawkins only exacerbates number 3) above.

[snarks_when_bored]

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." .... I stand with Whitehead on this question.

Me too, snarks. Me too!!!

No offense Aquinasfan, but Plato is Numero Uno!!! :^)

(laughing) Poor Aristotle...Dante called him "il maestro di color che sanno", but his stock has sunk quite a bit since its Middle Ages peak.