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Introduction: The Illusion of Design [Richard Dawkins]
Natural History Magazine ^ | November 2005 | Richard Dawkins

Posted on 12/07/2005 3:31:28 AM PST by 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

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: biology; crevolist; darwin; dawkins; evolution; intelligentdesign; mireckiwhatmirecki; paleontology; religion; richarddawkins; science
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To: cornelis
Don't be shy, whiskers. Tell us how much the primitive elephant lived to see the far side.

Given the combination of an erection with a hunting-related fatality, I'm afraid The Far Side is about what I had in mind.

Cheers!

881 posted on 12/10/2005 1:16:03 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: RightWhale

Hawking contended that information could not escape a black hole. He made a bet to that effect with John Preskill of CalTech. Last year Hawking concluded that information could escape but Preskill was unconvinced ny Hawkings proof. At any rate Hawking paid up.


882 posted on 12/10/2005 1:16:04 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: Virginia-American; Alamo-Girl; cornelis
[ If something like "spiritual revelation" ever happened to me, I'd make an appointment with a neurologist to see if I had epilepsy or a brain tumor or such like. ]

UNLESS it was a real one.. then;
You might blow the neurologists mind.. on that visit.. IF he were lucky..

883 posted on 12/10/2005 1:23:28 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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To: grey_whiskers

Ok, I'm back to Belloc.


884 posted on 12/10/2005 1:36:49 PM PST by cornelis
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To: cornelis
The problem with your (one-sided) characterization is that you can't build a civilization from thorazine and epileptics.

Please expand on this, it doesn't make much sense to me.

Personally, I think that the Arabs (and a lot of others!) would be a lot happier now if thorazine and dylantin had been available at the time of the Prophet.

885 posted on 12/10/2005 1:38:32 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Virginia-American

You associated revelation with neurosis. That is a one-sided characterization because it fails to explain the beauty of Western Civilization.


886 posted on 12/10/2005 1:45:42 PM PST by cornelis (We walk on the shoulders of giants.)
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To: grey_whiskers; Alamo-Girl; hosepipe; marron; Right Wing Professor; aNYCguy; snarks_when_bored
(What are later "electro-archaeologists" or extraterrestrial aliens doing their own SETI going to make of the juxtaposition of ABC's Nightline with ads for Oprah or Britney Spears?)

LOL grey-whiskers!!! Possibly they would conclude that "we" are an insane asylum bursting with vitality!!! (To crib from Eric Voegelin here.)

To any person interested in the articulation of human symbols (e.g., cultural anthropologists, philosophers, et al.), there is no "might have that significance" to it. Plus I used the correct technical term for it, which is a fertility symbol, pointing to the life yet to come....

Thank you so much for writing!

887 posted on 12/10/2005 1:49:33 PM PST by betty boop (Dominus illuminatio mea.)
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To: RightWhale

I would pick July 28 to August 3, 1914. That's when the Nineteenth Century was bludgeoned to death.


888 posted on 12/10/2005 1:56:56 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Virginia-American

Andrea Yeats vs Joan of Arc: both had "more certain than any other type of knowledge" it seems. Of course, Joan was responsible for far more deaths.


889 posted on 12/10/2005 1:59:54 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: betty boop
[ Plus I used the correct technical term for it, which is a fertility symbol, pointing to the life yet to come.... ]

Phallus pointing to the life yet to come..
That comment could burn the eyes right out of a femi-nazi..after reading it..
You're dangerous..

890 posted on 12/10/2005 2:01:50 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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To: Dimensio

Exactly. Evolution is a mere hypothesis, a failed one that should be discarded and regulated to the ash heap of history.


891 posted on 12/10/2005 2:04:33 PM PST by streetpreacher (If at the end of the day, 100% of both sides are not angry with me, I've failed.)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Of course, Joan was responsible for far more deaths.

Yes, the nerve of such a young girl defending her homeland against invaders. The shame of it all.

892 posted on 12/10/2005 2:11:23 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: streetpreacher

It would be, except that like capitalism, it is better than all the alternatives.


893 posted on 12/10/2005 2:13:07 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: streetpreacher

regulated = relegated


894 posted on 12/10/2005 2:16:07 PM PST by streetpreacher (If at the end of the day, 100% of both sides are not angry with me, I've failed.)
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To: betty boop
...Why the phallus -- except to denote the idea that death and life were even then understood to be intimately, inseparably intertwined?

did the people who painted the cave know the relationship between sex and birth? I remember reading that there are some modern hunter-gatherers who were unclear on the concept, but I might be misremembering.

PS, the figure has also been interpreted as a shaman with a bird mask in a trance, partly because of the bird-headed staff near him.

895 posted on 12/10/2005 2:50:35 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: betty boop
"Oh, definitely with feathers!!! "

I knew you would choose the elegant option.

896 posted on 12/10/2005 3:08:34 PM PST by YHAOS
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To: Doctor Stochastic

Yeah, I was thinking of the American pragmatists, who got off the isolationist kick after a while.


897 posted on 12/10/2005 3:51:23 PM PST by RightWhale (Not transferable -- Good only for this trip)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
when the Nineteenth Century was bludgeoned to death

And then went on to live in the voice of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf.

898 posted on 12/10/2005 3:52:05 PM PST by cornelis
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To: DennisR
Well, if "Richard Dawkins, a world-renowned explicator of Darwinian evolution" says it, it has to be true. /s

Nope...as Rod Serling used to say, "Presented for your consideration..."

899 posted on 12/10/2005 4:10:14 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: betty boop

The phenomenon you mentioned is very common.


900 posted on 12/10/2005 4:18:33 PM PST by RightWhale (Not transferable -- Good only for this trip)
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