Posted on 08/20/2002 2:15:59 PM PDT by restornu
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (Origin of Species, 6th ed. (1988), p. 154) – Darwin
It’s understandable that there exists a theological debate among differing religious views. After all, religious understanding and belief derives its momentum from faith-driven exercises rather than hard empirical evidence. But one would expect scientific debate to avoid such quibbles and disagreements in light of their own scientific method, which does derive its momentum from hard empirical evidence. Unfortunately, science is overseen by humans, and the same biases, institutionalized thinking, and raw power involved with any human venture are also present in science.
One debate, looming large on the horizon, pits the “high priests” of evolution against the proponents of “intelligent design.” In this article I examine Intelligent Design and its claims against evolution.
Intelligent Design
In 1802, William Paley penned his famous pocketwatch analogy. To wit, if we find a pocketwatch in the desert we assume that some human hand was involved and that the watch did not materialize through some blind natural process. The analogy here is that the complexity of nature points to an intelligent designing force.
This was the prevailing scientific view until Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. The evidence that Darwin asserted took the scientific community by storm and evolution has been the prevailing modus operandi since that day.
Evolutionary biology teaches that all biological complexity is “the result of material mechanisms.” In short, evolution claims that all things came into existence by means of natural selection and mutation, in minute “baby steps” of progression over millions of years. Organisms adapt for conditions adding to their functionality piece by piece until we are what we are today.
We should note here that no one doubts natural selection as a robust scientific theory. For example, a desert fox has developed longer ears over time to help expel heat from his body. If this were all that evolution purports, everyone would go home happy. Instead the debate turns on Darwin’s theory that all species evolved from a handful of previous species. Intelligent Design is a growing scientific movement that challenges Darwin and his naturalistic legacy.
Intelligent Design derives its impetus from systems that are “irreducibly complex.” Here’s a common analogy that’s used to explain the theory.
An everyday example of an irreducibly complex system is the humble mousetrap. It consists of (1) a flat wooden platform or base; (2) a metal hammer, which crushes the mouse; (3) a spring with extended ends to power the hammer; (4) a catch that releases the spring; and (5) a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back. You can't catch a mouse with just a platform, then add a spring and catch a few more mice, then add a holding bar and catch a few more. All the pieces have to be in place before you catch any mice.[1]
According to evolution, you should be able to reduce every biological system, piece by piece, down to its beginning. Evolution then could not be the scientific origin of the mouse trap, there must have been some intelligent hand involved. As Darwin admits in our opening quote, if you can demonstrate a complex biological system along the same line of reasoning, then his theory would break down.
Bacterium Flagellum
The question then is this: Are there biological systems that exhibit such complexity? One prominent example is that of bacterium flagellum. Bacterium flagellum are whip-like appendages that move bacteria throughout our body. These flagellum work very much like a motor; each has a rotor, a stator, O-rings, bushings, and a drive shaft. They are powered by the combination of 50 different proteins. These proteins exist independently within the human body and come together to power the flagellum. Take one of these proteins away, and the flagellum fails to operate. The mathematical probability of these 50 proteins coming together under the theory of evolution is so outrageous as to almost insist that there was some higher power involved.
Plasmids
Plasmids are circular pieces of DNA that can easily be exchanged among bacteria. Plasmids can also confer antibiotic resistance. When one bacterium releases a plasmid, another can absorb it, information from the Plasmid is infused from one into the other. The problem begins when we ask "where did the bacterium that released the plasmid information in turn derive it?" Any evolutionary explanation will be circular reasoning and insufficient to explain the matter.
Eukaryotic Cells
Michael Behe, one of the major proponents of intelligent design explains another example:
Another example of irreducible complexity is the system that allows proteins to reach the appropriate subcellular compartments. In the eukaryotic cell there are a number of places where specialized tasks, such as digestion of nutrients and excretion of wastes, take place. Proteins are synthesized outside these compartments and can reach their proper destinations only with the help of "signal" chemicals that turn other reactions on and off at the appropriate times. This constant, regulated traffic flow in the cell comprises another remarkably complex, irreducible system. All parts must function in synchrony or the system breaks down. [2]
Blood Clotting
The system that prevents our blood from clotting is yet another example. Blood clotting consists of a complex cascade of enzymes and cofactors which must be in place to work. The evolutionist’s rebuttal to this is that blood clotting experiments on mice have removed certain enzymes successfully. The Intelligent Design (ID) response is that the mice in the experiment were detrimentally affected by the reduced enzymes; which flies in the face of another evolutionary postulate: the mutated change in an organism must benefit the organism (survival of the fittest after all).
People, Places and Theories
There are a number of prominent players currently working on ID. Here are a few bios and links that you can peruse:
Philip E. Johnson, is a graduate of Harward and the University of Chicago. He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren and has taught law for over twenty years at the University of California at Berkeley.
Johnson's most prominent contribution has been Darwin on Trial which examines Evolution from a standpoint of sound reasoning and scientific support.
Michael Behe received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, is a professor of biological sciences at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University. His current research involves the roles of design and natural selection in building protein structure. His book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution is available in paperback (Touchstone Books, 1998).
Behe is one of primary proponents of ID. His book has been the focus of many of the evolutionist’s rebuttal. Behe has been lambasted and harangued for his viewpoints and his responses are mostly ignored by peer publications. Hmm… sounds like a familiar brick wall.
William A. Dembski, holds Ph.D.'s in mathematics and philosophy, is an associate research professor at Baylor University and a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute in Seattle. His books include The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). links
Dembski is known as the Isaac Newton of ID. He has taken informational mathematics to calculate the probability of irreducibly complex biological systems. He has also brought an historical perspective to the movement demonstrating how evolution failed to adequately dismiss British natural theology.
Jonathan Wells received two Ph.D.'s, one in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and one in religious studies from Yale University. He has worked as a postdoctoral research biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught biology at California State University, Hayward. Wells is also the author of Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong (Regnery Publishing, 2000).
Wells’ book has approached ID from an attack vantage point. He details 10 major flaws within evolution and shows how many supposed supports of evolution are nearly fraudulent but are still taught in our schools. Wells has been at the front of a debate in Ohio which is considering whether or not to allow ID to be taught as an alternative to evolution.
Conclusion
We should note that Intelligent Design is a theory just like Evolution is a theory. The debate between the parties is raging on and may eventaully reach a fervent pitch. Currently, several school boards across the country are examing its validity to determine if they should allow it to be taught in schools. Intelligent Design is an exciting venture for us to examine. In the coming months I will report on several books, theories and debates on the issue.
1. Intelligent Design a special report reprinted from Natural History magazine http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html#behe/miller
2. Ibid.
You understand, don't you? Pray.
1Cr 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
I've had them basically say that "building life from mindless matter" is a very common thing with a high probability of happening. To say that is to make a totally blind faith statement.
It's so simplistic and so irrational as to be blind faith.
Popper leveled some quite specific charges against evolutionary theory in particular. One of his problems with theories that proceed by post-diction, is that it is very hard to get a critical check on whether you are sharpening your tools or not using only post-diction. Your whole paradigm could be mistaken, and you won't be applying truly critical tests.
Stated another way--your revised explanations are more suspect when you can only make post-dictions rather than predictions.
However, enough post-diction out of left field, which is what micro-biology is to paleontology, and historical geology, and you have to begin getting that certain secure feeling.
No, nothing to do with instruments. Unless you want to go back to galilean or copernican astronomy, you are pretty much accepting data that was generated a minimum of 5 light years ago when you use a telescope. Unless you want to cast out all astronomy after Hubble, you are accepting data that was generated long before most of the fossil bones we've discovered were fossilized. Unless you are willing to believe things we've learned by inference from this ancient data, you don't believe there's science regarding the life histories of stars, or Fred Hoyle's & etc. story about how the matter we are made of cooks up in stars. When, after all, was the last time you saw a pulsar evolve from a gas giant?
This is an awful big chunk of current astronomy to be casting out in the cold.
Yes, this works for me. It also creates an environment for intelligent creation as well.
Yea, well, it also is just about as satisfying as the story about the earth sitting on a turtle shell, on a turtle shell, on a turtle shell...
It's called Mach's conjecture, if you want to look it up, and Mach was only thinking about centrifugal force at the time.
Real life (spiritual life) begins when one is 'born again' and gets out of the first Adam (death) and into the Second Adam (Life)
Intelligent design a 'theory'?
Maybe reality is a 'theory'? LOL!
Thanks for the post!
I'm sorry I posted the original comment meant as a tongue-in-cheeek remark about the right-to-life views. (You know I believe abortion is wrong but think most opposition to it has done more harm than good, especially the specious arguments.)
However, the idea of being "born dead" in the first Adam does not square with Scriptures such as Pual's: Ro 7:7-11 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Paul obviously believed he was born alive, and that it was sin, committed after being born, the slew him. It is, after all the wages of sin, (something you do), that is death, not the wages of the way you are born, (something that happens to you), that is death.
Certainly, we are all dead in trepasses and sin, not because of the way we are born, but because we all sin, by choice, just as Adam and Paul did. And certainly the new life begins at the rebirth by the word.
1 Pet. 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
Hank
I thought you might be stating it 'tongue in cheek'
However, the idea of being "born dead" in the first Adam does not square with Scriptures such as Pual's: Ro 7:7-11 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Go back to verse 7 which says that the Law revealed sin, not that there was no sin there.
In Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
The fact that all men die shows that Adam passed his 'image' unto mankind (Gen.5:3) which is sin and death.
Paul obviously believed he was born alive, and that it was sin, committed after being born, the slew him. It is, after all the wages of sin, (something you do), that is death, not the wages of the way you are born, (something that happens to you), that is death.
Romans 5 is speaking of the first Adam and those born in his image, and the Second Adam and getting born again so you can be conformed to His image (Rom.8)
Certainly, we are all dead in trepasses and sin, not because of the way we are born, but because we all sin, by choice, just as Adam and Paul did. And certainly the new life begins at the rebirth by the word.
Well, I think we can at least agree on the second point!
1 Pet. 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
Amen!
Amen! OP, you and I must be destined to agree in critical areas that are so simple it makes one wonder how a person can think otherwise. Pasteur's work is the Occam's Razor of the biological field. Life comes only from life.
Awesome, great, irrefutable arguments. thanks.
this proves that any theory that proposes "life from mechanistic natural processes" MUST be an extremely rare event. That makes it Behe's Intelligent Design work a MOST LOGICAL corollary of Pasteur's work.
The set of such exceptionally silly persons does not include biological scientists who are working on this question. Only creationists and the secularly uninformed hold this up as a scientific paradigm to be shot down. It is not, it is a creationist strawman.
Excuse? hummph. In my humble opinion, the evolutionary story is the single most triumphant and promising achievement of the last two century's science. We struggled mightily to scrape together a picture of our history from a few rags and scraps of data, and it's amazing how close to right-on the paleontologists were before micro-biological verification through mutational distance calculations came along. Pointing to a few frauds and mistakes and screaming bloody murder in the face of a world full of paleontology museums and referreed micro-biology journals is a particularly sterile joke. If there were actually gaping holes in this story, innumerable micro-biologists would be making their careers out of pointing them out.
In one sentence, you seem to be having problems with the meaning of Occam's Razor and also with the work done by Pasteur. I suppose I'm not going to make any headway with you on either point, but for anyone else who may be following this:
Pasteur never demonstrated that life didn't begin from inorganic material. He merely showed that full-blown infections and fermentations and such develop from bacteria. There is no scientific demonstration of the proposition you claim has been proven. Sorry, you're just wrong. And it's not difficult to discover this for yourself.
Proof by shouting. Pasteur proved nothing of the sort, as PatrickHenry just pointed out to you. Presently, naturalistic explanations of life's origin do not rely on the notion that cellular DNA life spontaneously lept into existence from spare parts. This is a creationist daydream. Get over it.
Was the tomb of Jesus empty?
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