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.

[aNYCguy]

The universe logically requires an uncaused cause, an unmoved mover, to launch it. The cause of the universe does not arise in the universe.

I notice you have basically not responded to b_sharp's question: What created the creator of the universe?

If it's possible that the creator is uncreated, and timeless, your assertion that "the universe logically requires" any cause at all is contradicted.

[RightWhale]

What created the creator of the universe?

This has been known for a while. First God created the Universe. Then He created Himself.

[Right Wing Professor]

Ya know, dimmie, it's easy to dismiss those you disagree with as "wicked." It's also profoundly dishonest.

No, they might indeed be wicked.

[chronic_loser]

That objection has already been dealt with here. It is attacking a straw man. The fact is that causality forces us OUT of the finite into the infinite, either in an infinte regression of natural causes, or to an "uncaused" causer, both of which have moved outside our constructs for empirical reality.

When one thinks they have refuted the cosmological argument by simply positing "who caused the causer" it only shows that you don't understand the argument very well, not that you have refuted it.

[betty boop]

The unsourced text you posted appears to be wishful speculation....

As ever, RWP, you are welcome to your opinion.

With the exception of Michelangelo, the fact is very few artists have drawn "pictures" of God. A "primitive" man would be even less expected to do so than a man of more modern vintage, exposed to the traditions of classical and Judeo-Christian cosmologies which form the ambience of Western culture. [Plus as you know, Jews (and Moslems and some Christians) take a very dim view of depicting God in graphical images.]

My real point is man has always known about God. It is perhaps man's nature to know about God. Personally, I think we're all "programmed" with this knowledge. A man can willfully turn his back on God; but he can only do so because he knows about God. If he didn't know, he wouldn't willfully turn his back. He would have no reason to.

[Alamo-Girl]

For Lurkers: this sidebar with RWP started at post 368:

me: Were it not for space/time, inversion geometry would not exist.

you: We can define an inversion in an entirely hypothetical one dimensional universe.

You now ask:

If a mathematician solves a problem in 10 dimensions, does he have to become a ten dimensional being to do so?

Of course not. But again, I assert that were it not for space/time, inversion geometry would not exist. Likewise, were it not for space/time the mathematicians and geometric physics would not exist.

We got into a little sidebar on whether there could be an inversion in a single dimension universe. I don’t see how an inversion could occur at all in the absence of a time dimension or the context of a second spatial dimension.

If the single dimension universe consists only of the line, the inversion of the line is the same single dimension universe. There are no arrows of time, no context; the observer in the single dimension universe is the line.

That would not apply to a multiple dimension universe providing at least one of the dimensions is temporal. There, the geometer can invert points to his heart's content.

[r9etb]

I notice you have basically not responded to b_sharp's question: What created the creator of the universe?

At issue is a what could well be an artificial distinction between "natural" (things that are physical to us), and the "supernatural" (things with at least some part of their existence outside our physical universe).

The problem of the physical universe is that it apparently had a beginning. But a beginning from what? If "physical" existence had a beginning, then it arose from something else that must be somehow separate from "physical existence" as we currently understand it.

The alleged problem of "who created the creator" is somewhat mitigated by this: if the universe had a beginning, then there must be something "outside" -- perhaps "above" would be a better term -- the universe as we can sense it. And if that's the case, then the supposed logical difficulties of where a creator came from basically evaporate, even if our hopes of understanding same are no better satisfied.

[Right Wing Professor]

I don’t see how an inversion could occur at all in the absence of a time dimension or the context of a second spatial dimension.

I've given you the proof (it's scarcely more than a definition, actually).

[r9etb]

No, they might indeed be wicked.

True -- and the same could be said for those who argue for evolution. To make, however, a blanket statement as Dimensio did, is in fact dishonest.

[aNYCguy]

The fact is that causality forces us OUT of the finite into the infinite, either in an infinte regression of natural causes, or to an "uncaused" causer, both of which have moved outside our constructs for empirical reality.

I agree that there are two possibilities, the first being an infinite regression of causes, and the second being that causes are not needed in all cases.

Neither implies the existence of what one would normally call a god.

When one thinks they have refuted the cosmological argument by simply positing "who caused the causer" it only shows that you don't understand the argument very well, not that you have refuted it.

Interesting. Anytime anyone thinks they have refuted the cosmological argument by asking that question, it somehow reflects ignorance in me? I sure have the world on my shoulders...

[js1138]

I notice the sound of crickets when it is pointed out that we have overwhelming for uncaused causes all around us. Common sense doesn't count for much when the evidence is against it.

[r9etb]

If the single dimension universe consists only of the line, the inversion of the line is the same single dimension universe. There are no arrows of time, no context; the observer in the single dimension universe is the line.

Perhaps I'm being dim, but it seems to me that an inverse needs nothing more than a concept of "directionality" -- a way to go from here to there, and a way to get back to the starting point. If your universe is a line, wouldn't "ahead" and "behind" satisfy the requirements for a 1-D inverse?

[Right Wing Professor]

Actually, he said 'many of them'.

[spunkets]

"man has always known about God."

I think man has always posed questions. You can only know a person if he makes himself known. You can not create the reality of a person simply to answer any particular questions raised and then declare the person real.

[Right Wing Professor]

Perhaps I'm being dim, but it seems to me that an inverse needs nothing more than a concept of "directionality" -- a way to go from here to there, and a way to get back to the starting point. If your universe is a line, wouldn't "ahead" and "behind" satisfy the requirements for a 1-D inverse?

You're not being dim.

[cornelis]

Neither implies the existence of what one would normally call a god.

If you excise the normal god from the universe, you'll end up with the next one in line.

[aNYCguy]

My real point is man has always known about God. It is perhaps man's nature to know about God. Personally, I think we're all "programmed" with this knowledge.

Hats off for such an amusing exchange. Upon re-reading it, I see that it can be summarized thusly:

BB: Man has known about God for 39,000 years.
RWP: Huh?
BB: Well, ancient cave paintings depict birth, death, and symbols which may represent divine power.
RWP: That's speculation. There are no cave paintings of God.
BB: Well, of course not, but my point is that man has known about God for 39,000 years.

Oh my. Good times!

[js1138]

The reason we reach so far back into the chain of causation is because we observe that everything has a cause.

Simply not true. We observe the opposite at the quantum level. We are surrounded by uncaused phenomena. We are made of them. This is one of those cases, like the rising and setting of the sun, where thousands of years of common sense assumptions seem to be based on error.

[cornelis]

You cannot create the reality of a person simply to answer any particular questions raised and then declare the person real.

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

[betty boop]

If it's possible that the creator is uncreated, and timeless, your assertion that "the universe logically requires" any cause at all is contradicted.

How contradicted? Are you saying that God cannot cause anything if he is himself eternal, unlimited, and uncreated? Do you think only finite created things can create anything? Or are you saying that you think God is coextensive with the universe? E.g., the universe is similarly eternal, unlimited, and uncreated? Forgive me: I'm not sure I'm following you here, aNYCguy. Please help me understand you? (Are you a Buddhist?)

The creator is not "in" the universe. We know that the things "in" the universe -- physical things -- have physical causes. But you cannot infinitely regress the chain of causation. It must begin somewhere, or nothing could be anything at all. There would be only a random accidental development that has no reason to become anything; and there would be no answer to Leibntz's two great questions: (1) Why is there something, why not nothing? and (2) Why are things the way they are and not some other way?"

I won't even say that God is sui-generis, self-caused. All one can really say about God is, as Parmenides put it, "Is!" Or as the God of Sinai said to Moses, "I Am That Am."

God as creator, being outside spacetime, is not subject to the "rules" of spacetime reality. There is nothing that says God must have a cause. To insist that he must have a cause is simply to apply the information we have about what goes on in the physico-temporal category of reality to a "category" -- God -- where they do not at all apply.

To put it bluntly, you want God to "play by your rules," but the point is, he doesn't need to in any way, shape, or form; and I gather he doesn't. :^)