Mere Creation:
Reclaiming the Book of Nature
Conference on Design and Origins
Biola University, November 14-17, 1996
It is helpful to think of the universe and processes within it as being described by a small number of differential equations which contain various universal constants. The events within the physical world are the result of the form of these equations, the universal constants they contain, and the boundary or initial conditions used in their solution. That the universe has such a simple mathematical form, with just the right values for the various physical constants, and with the critically selected boundary conditions, would seem to imply an intelligent designer.
Richard Dawkins, Stuart Kauffman, and others would claim that such complexity can be the inevitable consequence of self-organizing principles in nature or of algorithms which can generate such complexity from simplicity. What kinds of complexity occurring in nature can potentially or actually be described by such natural schemes? Furthermore, do these schemes which give the appearance of the generation of complexity from simplicity actually mask the importing of complexity in the starting conditions (e.g., computer-like behavior for an algorithm to be performed)? What if any relevance do such schemes have to the various types of complexity we see in nature?
The very universality of homeotic genes, however, belies the role Darwinian biologists ascribe to them. Since they affect radically different structures in so many different organisms, they actually contain very little developmental information. And if similar homeotic genes were inherited from a common ancestor, then they were present in a primitive organism lacking the adaptations which now make them selectively advantageous, so their origin is more difficult for neo-Darwinists to explain.
Since 1980, comparative biologists have also discovered many cases in which different developmental pathways can result in similar morphologies. Not only does this contradict the evidence which Darwin thought supported his theory, but it also indicates the need for a radically new approach to the study of living organisms.
This new approach is based on design. Unlike the metaphysical naturalism of neo-Darwinism, a design paradigm can encourage the sort of thinking which may lead to the discovery of the laws of embryonic development, and thus to future progress in biology.
Yet I suggest that there are good reasons for returning to the site of battle and asking whether it was, in fact, won fair and square. I propose to show that the battle was not won by Darwin in the sense that is normally meant: I will argue that Darwin was a turning point in biology, not because the empirical evidence was persuasive, but because his theory proved useful in advancing a particular philosophy -- a philosophy of science, first of all, but often a general metaphysical position as well. And if indeed the motivation for accepting Darwin was not scientific but philosophical, then we in the twentieth century are justified in calling for a resurrection of the old debate. For the sake of science itself, the truth and validity of Darwinism ought to be considered anew by our own generation.
I argue that Darwinism is clearly insufficient; that design holds great promise for science; and conclude by discussing some open questions facing any design paradigm.
In general, whenever we are called to explain an event, we must choose from among three distinct modes of explanation: law, chance, and design. These modes may be conceived as stages or nodes on what I shall call the Explanatory Filter. Given an object or event that we wish to explain, we refer it to the filter: if the event will always happen (or almost always), given certain antecedent circumstances, we explain it via natural law or law-like regularities. The second stage in the filter, on the other hand, captures events we explain by chance. The first and second stages correspond to events of high and intermediate probabilities, respectively.
If neither law-like regularities nor chance explain an event, however, we pass to the last node on the filter: small probability. Yet small probability alone does not deliver design as a cause. Extremely improbable events, after all, happen by chance all the time. Specified events of small probability, however, cannot be explained by natural law or chance. Rather, they can only be explained by design -- that is, intelligent causation.
I shall explicate the notion of the Explanatory Filter, and its potential as a tool of explanation in the natural sciences. In particular, I discuss the key notion of specification, which, when conjoined with small probability, reliably yields design as a necessary cause.
This paper will show that intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of one particular example of biological complexity, namely, the information contained in large biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. To make this case, I bring together developments from molecular biology, origin-of-life research and the information sciences, including the probabilistic calculus presented by Dembski in a previous talk. I argue that neither chance, nor "pre-biotic natural selection," nor physical-chemical "necessity" (in whatever theoretical guise) can explain the origin of information in the first cell. My discussion will be limited to the question of the origin of biological information in a prebiotic context. An important feature of this paper will be its use of the method of "inference to the best explanation" and its development of criteria that will enable scientists to eliminate processes described by natural law as potential explanations in certain circumstances.
Thus, a design theorist might argue that it is impossible to perturb certain elements in the development of any animal; for instance, the morphogen bicoid in Drosophila, which establishes the anterior-posterior axis of the insect's body plan. Furthermore, the design theorist, unlike his naturalistic counterpart, need not qualify this claim: the necessity of bicoid can be extended into the past as a strong prediction about the functional design requirements of Drosophila. Design allows for (and in fact predicts) discontinuities in organic form and function.
Because design can explain primary discontinuities, the theory gives an account of phenomena inexplicable on naturalistic scenarios. These phenomena include the necessary minimal complexity of cells, incongruence between developmental pathways and morphological homologies in different taxa, the functional complexity of organismal systems (e.g., the inner ear), the hierarchical structure of development, genetic pleiotropy, and architectural aspects of three-dimensional form and function. I discuss these patterns, and present some ideas for the testing of design claims via well-established experimental methods.
These machines, I argued, are irreducibly complex -- that is, they need a number of closely-matched components before they can function -- and thus are mammoth barriers to gradualistic, Darwinian evolution. I further argued that such irreducibly complex systems are best interpreted as the result of deliberate intelligent design. In this paper, I will proceed from that point to consider the likelihood of design for other biochemical systems. That is, given that some cellular systems were in fact designed, what can be said about other biochemical systems in which design is less obvious? The focus will be on how a theory of intelligent design can illuminate the structure of biochemical systems and how it can usefully direct further research.
Using a genetic criterion based on interspecific hybridization, it is suggested that a systematic category above the genus level may be defined objectively: two organisms belong to the same basic type if (i) they are able to hybridize or (ii) they have hybridized with the same, third organism. The basic type category is, in principle, open to empirical validation. Based on limited data it appears that (i) the basic type criterion can be applied successfully in animal as well as plant taxonomy, (ii) a clear gap of overall similarity exists between different basic types, (iii) within basic types a variety of microevolutionary processes may help to explain speciation, and (iv) the distribution of characters across different species of the same basic type may be discussed under the hypothetical assumption of a large hidden variation potential harbored by a genetically complex ancestral population.
Historically, similarities between organisms have been interpreted both within theistic and materialistic world views. I suggest that the idea of basic types might have originated "by design" provides an alternative, non-macroevolutionary framework which allows an interpretation of the "book of nature," embracing both theoretical and experimental biology.
(1) No general consensus has yet emerged considering the major evolutionary transitions toward modern man. Four questions remain to be answered: (i) Which of the Miocene hominoids are potential ancestors for the hominid stock supposedly giving rise to early hominids? (ii) Which of the early hominids -- Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis, A. afarensis, A. africanus, or any other still unidentified early hominid -- link Miocene hominoids to the genus Homo? (iii) What is the phylogenetic and taxonomic status of "H. habilis" considered by most workers as a composite of two or three taxa? (iv) Which of the Plio-Pleistocene Homo forms (H. ergaster, H. erectus, Neanderthals, archaic sapiens, Middle Pleistocene "mosaic" forms) gave rise to modern humans, indicating the place of origin? New fossils with unexpected morphologies or geological provenance continuously create new phylogenetic hypotheses.
(2) Climatic, geophysical and ecological turnovers with subsequent immigration and emigration activities are generally acknowledged to trigger increased radiations (taxon pulses) and successions of ecological systems. In the woodlands of East African Miocene and Pliocene, the radiations of hominoid basic types are followed by the cercopithecid radiation (colobines and cercopithecines), while during the more arid Pliopleistocene habitats, the australomorph radiation is followed by the radiation of the human basic type. New findings are easier to accommodate within this model.
Because there are many behaviors that at least appear to be "altruistic," this issue is regarded as a cutting-edge theoretical challenge in modern evolutionary theory. Indeed, it cuts with great potential impact in two directions. Either the world not only lacks altruism, but is governed wholly by a process that excludes even its possibility. Or natural selection is not a sufficient explanation for the behavior of living systems. This paper reviews the recent explosion of theoretical attempts to explain prosocial animal behavior, radical human altruism, and moral exhortations to self-sacrifice in light of evolutionary theory. I contend that legitimate evidence of natural selection's influence on specific behaviors has been conflated with adequate grounds for the selective origin of all behavior. Moreover, current evolutionary accounts of sacrifice and morality reflect irreconcilable disparity between themselves, serious internal inconsistency, over-reliance on models and theoretical speculation unhinged from empirical data, and frequent inconsistency with what data exist.
Event causation and libertarian agency are different; the latter is unacceptable to either philosophical or methodological naturalism. When God acts by way of secondary causes, the mediating chains of events used may be seen as event causes, captured by a covering law model of explanation. But when God acts as a first cause, the immediate effects should be explained by Personal explanation.
Theistic design is not limited to primary causes. Such acts are important, however, because of the type of explanation they require. I illustrate this in three areas: (1) the origin of the universe, (2) later episodes in the history of the cosmos where we have grounds (theological or otherwise) to expect that God acted primarily, and (3) the existence of mental entities. I attend mainly to (3), by comparing a theistic explanation of mental phenomena with a rival naturalistic explanation offered by John Searle.
Popular current versions of theistic evolution hold that nature has an internal, operational integrity of its own. Among the consequences of that are an absence of any need for intervention in the historical course of nature (including evolution), and a resultant absence of any direct empirical evidence of such intervention. In this first area -- design in nature -- some explanatory resources in principle available to design theory are thus not available to theistic evolution.
The other is a bit more complicated. At the heart of perceived tensions between theistic evolution and design (and of perceived internal inconsistency within theistic evolution itself) are the intuitions that any genuine evolution rests upon chance-driven processes, and that design is irreconcilable with dependence upon chance. However, certain sorts of pre-creation options (category [ii] above) available to a supernatural designer permit the intentional pre-creation appropriation of deliberate and desired ends, of results of genuinely random events and processes. Such ends do not involve intervention in the historical course of nature. The results are in one sense products of design, despite having causal histories fundamentally shaped by chance-based processes. Under certain circumstances, indirect empirical cases for such appropriation may be possible. This type of design is consistent with theistic evolution. The area of potential consistency between design theories and specific versions of theistic evolution may thus be larger than suspected.
The critic of "gap" reasoning argues, however, that in the long term this policy is misguided. Eventually science discerns a natural explanation for the phenomenon in question and the putative gap disappears. Theism is damaged by its hasty predictions, which are parasitic on the incompleteness of science. The God of the Gaps argument, on close examination, is not really an argument at all. It is a bit of apologetic advice. Yet despite the claims of some worried Christians scientists and philosophers, the argument has limited historical applicability. It falsely assumes that theories about God's actions are rendered false by the mere existence of naturalistic accounts dealing with the same events. Further, it fails to define any of its terms, and is therefore too vague to be of any practical epistemological value.
A more intimate connection is suggested by the cosmological argument's demonstration that the First Cause is a personal agent who chooses freely to bring the universe into being. If successful, this argument already gives the design theorist a personal mind behind the cosmos, and evidences of design are confirmatory of this conclusion. The success of the argument will depend on the notion of an immaterial personal cause and on whether quantum theories of the origin of the universe can explain the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause.
In the past few months, three additional characteristics of the universe and nine additional characteristics of the solar system attest to the necessity of delicate fine-tuning for any kind of life to exist. This has made the probability of a non-theistic explanation for the universe and the solar system much remoter than it already was.
Such speculations have not been as necessary in biology, perhaps because the understanding of the fundamental processes underlying living organisms is not yet comparable to that of less complex physical systems. Christian de Duve, however, in his book Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative, claims that "Life is increasingly explained strictly in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry." Duve's thesis embraces the "anthropic" nature of these laws, as he argues that "the universe was -- and presumably still is -- pregnant with life. To me, this conclusion is inescapable. It is based on logic, not on an a priori philosophical tenet." This paper explores the idea that following "logic" in either physics or biology, the universe is the way it is "because we exist" -- or because it was designed that way.
Darwin's theory stands or falls with the doctrine of random variation and natural selection. Falls, I think. I believe it to be empty, almost entirely lacking serious scientific content. I find the evidence in favor of some form of evolutionary change very strong, although not overwhelming; it is the Darwinian mechanism (or theory) of change with which I scruple. In this paper I intend to rehearse the old familiar charges, but to pursue a number of conceptual themes downward, to the place where things are confused because they are fundamental. Hence my title -- Radical Darwinism.
Artificial Life (AL) is a new discipline which seeks to produce life in the computer rather than the test-tube by abstracting features thought to characterize known life forms, and simulating them mathematically. Several proposals from AL are here examined, with a view to the question of how life might have started, particularly the origin of significant self-reproduction. These proposals include the cellular automata devised by von Neumann, Codd, Langton, and Byl; a proposed self-replicating system operating within the constraints of Conway's popular game "Life"; the complexity of life forms within Ray's "Tierra" universe; and the minimal complexity of known computer viruses. All of these proposals have problems which suggest that our universe does not contain the probabilistic resources necessary to explain the origin of life naturalistically.
