the Greater Nomadic Council

More on Intelligent Design

I apologize for harping on this topic, but Phil at Umbrae Canarum has a post up that puts forward several classic misunderstandings of evolutionary theory that ID proponents tend to use. I respect Phil, but on this topic he's just plain wrong. Since I'm not a biologist, however, I'm going to have to rely on other resources. Thus my post will be heavy on links. Consider this more a guide to refutations than a refutation itself. In other words, follow the links I've provided. They contain the vast bulk of the argument.

Phil writes:

1) The evolution from species to species has suffered from a lack of confirming evidence in archeology and paleontology. The data, therefore, is less than impressive for the evolution theory. Moreover, there are various biological systems that are hard to explain in evolutionary terms, especially "irreducibly complex" systems at the cellular level - in other words, these systems are complex enough that they must be there all at once, or it can't function. Moreover, this "can't function" is in such a way that the materials involved aren't just useless - they are fatal to the organism itself.

This is actually two separate and completely different points. Since the "irreducibly complex" argument is by far one of the most common ones, we'll start with it. Here's an article that takes Michael Behe's definition of IC (Behe is the one who introduced the term), shows its problems on a semantic level, then gives numerous examples of processes that appear to be IC, but have evolved. Another general discussion of IC is in a review of Darwin's Black Box, Behe's book. Here are some articles demonstrating how various things that are supposedly IC have evolved: blood-clotting, photosynthesis, flagellum, and immunity.

The next point is that there's a lack of evidence confirming species to species evolution. Since Phil doesn't provide any specifics for this point, I'm not sure what to say except he's wrong. I assume this is a vague way of saying that there's no fossil evidence for transitional species, a blatantly untrue statement. Here's a FAQ on transitional vertebrate fossils and here's a detailed list of various transitional species with numerous examples and an explanation of the various ways speciation occurs. I would point out that the evidence of hominid evolution is well known and quite strong. If the many proto-humans don't count, then I doubt any other evidence of transitional species would be sufficient to convince otherwise.

2) Moreover, the theory itself suffers problems. One problem is its tendency towards "just-so stories" (an illustration is here). Its major causal functions are often left woefully underdefined. As such, there is a problematic tendency in evolutionary theory (problem #2) towards unfalsifiability (itself not an unproblematic concept, but good enough for purposes here) - or, in other words, there is no biological phenomenon conceivable (short of YHWH Himself coming down and saying, "Yep, I made it all. It was me.") that cannot be "explained," often in a post hoc sort of way, by evolution.

For falsifiability, I would point out that Intelligent Design is, by its very nature, unfalsifiable. Where is the hand of God (or aliens)? How can we prove or disprove it? The idea that Darwinian evolution is not falsifiable is a misunderstanding of the concept (read the discussion thread). For more on this topic, read this. As for the "just-so" stories, the example given seems to be from a documentary, not a valid place to find evidence for or against the theory. I suppose the objection here is that evolution accounts for new discoveries in the fossil record and elsewhere, but that's precisely what all scientific theories are supposed to do. There are also plenty of examples of predictions made by evolutionary biologists that turn out to be true. Just because they can't predict everything in advance doesn't mean that figuring out how evidence fits into a theory discredits that theory. To assume so is a misunderstanding of the scientific process. The real problem with the theory would be if its predictions were found to be wrong or evidence were found that refutes it. Then either the theory would have to be scrapped or modified to fit the facts. For a long list of evidence for macroevolution that includes many predictions that have been verified, read this.

3) This hints at a deeper, philosophical problem. Specifically, evolutionary theory is relying on an outdated notion of science, highly influenced by nineteenth-century naturalism, often nearly mechanistic. So, in terms of its system, it is remarkably closed - the only causes are material causes, all available (at least in theory) to science. So, things like the mind are somewhat problematic (either it is hard to explain, or one runs into an epistemological tailspin, i.e. is the theory truly knowledge or just another highly developed survival technique, with no way for us to tell the difference?). Moreover, evolutionary theory unjustly connects its fortunes to the whole of biological science - arguments for it tend towards saying, "If evolution is brought down, indeed science itself is lost."

Consider how arrogant this is, especially for a science. As a matter of comparison, say that a major party of physicists in the early twentieth century claimed that "Newtonian theory is the height of science - if it falls to these 'relativity' and 'quantum' theories, so falls science!" (no doubt they would be especially up in arms over Einstein daring to mention God so often, immanitized Spinozian God though it be...). By claiming such unqualified certainty in the theory, it basically dismisses any notion that science is both provisional and potentially progresses.

I'm not sure what to say about this. Pretty much all science assumes that there are material causes to effects available to its inquiry. If I'm wrong about this, I hope someone will tell me how evolutionary theory differs in this respect from, say, quantum mechanics or neurology. Is this an argument for unexaminable causes? If so, what are they? Since an unexaminable cause would necessarily be an untestable one, it would also be one that is irrelevant to any branch of science. If it's not testable or knowable, it's not science. That science is limited in this sense is, of course, obvious; science cannot account for poetry or music, nor should it try to. Science's inability to explain a poem does not refute it. As for evolution being connected to the whole of biological science, Phil has it backwards. Evolution is the comprehensive theory that accounts for what we see in biology. It is a theory rather than a hypothesis precisely because of its power to account for the findings of biology. Perhaps the theory is wrong, but there's no evidence that it is and plenty of evidence that it's correct. It is not arrogance to continue using a theory that time and again works. As for the claim that if evolution falls, so falls science, I doubt you could find even a handful reputable scientists who claim that. Theories are subject to change as necessary. To be a scientist is to accept implicitly this fact. Furthermore, the philosophical underpinnings are irrelevant so long as the theory is useful and seemingly correct. Perhaps I'm misreading this point, though, as it's the one that mystifies me most. What branches of science do not assume material causes? How do they test their theories? What good are they?

All that said, for a much better discussion of science's naturalist underpinnings and what this means for evolution and ID, read this article. It also corrects and modifies some of the points I've made above, exemplifying why I'm providing many links rather than relying on my own lack of expertise. For more articles on philosophy and science, check here.

4) This leads to the more sociological and political problem behind evolutionary theory. Its defenders often times sound more like religious zealots in defense of the true faith rather than scientists defending a theory, the scientist Dawkins and the philosopher Dennett being the primary examples of this. By these popularizers, evolutionary theory is claimed as the Truth, indeed apparently the only scientific truth (short of the revolution in astronomy centuries ago) that can claim such a thing - even physics is not so bold. The reason is that the materialistic naturalism of evolution is most amiable to certain world views of life, especially those that remove the notion of God as an ordering factor in the universe (or any existence at all, for that matter). Moreover, it serves another social function - it separates the "intelligent" from the "rubes," the "enlightened" from the "fundamentalists." This is often reflected in the attacks on ID - it is not untypical for a defender of evolution to a priori accuse the ID defender of being a Bible-beating Creation Scientist (i.e. someone who believes in the literal Genesis story, and that it occurred approximately 6000 years ago). That various ID theorists don't even have a religious belief does not stop such accusations - it tends to be easier than dealing with the issues at hand. We have, then, not so much a debate of "faith vs. reason" as much as "critique [ID] vs. faith [evolution]."

This is not a scientific argument but an observation of a social phenomenon, thus not an argument for or against evolution. However, I will grant that there are those who go overboard defending evolution. This is because it is constantly under attack by those who do not understand it, but feel justified in criticizing the theory anyways. Even so, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the theory's applicability or evidence. The fact that science is amenable to those who do not believe in God is simply a side-effect of the fact that science is interested only in testable theories and observable facts. God is neither. Thus, he is not considered a part of science. I point out, however, that there are plenty of Christian or otherwise theistic scientists. The two are in no way mutually exclusive.

The rest of Phil's post is about ID and the value of competing theories in science. I agree that competing theories are great, but ID is not a theory in the scientific sense. At best, it is a hypothesis. As such, it must put forth criteria by which it can be tested and proven. Given that we have around 100 years of evidence for evolution, the onus is upon those who would advance a competing hypothesis to provide evidence. So far, that has not happened. From what I can tell, this is because Intelligent Design proponents are not trying to be scientists. They are trying to tear down evolutionary theory in order to justify religious beliefs, ironic since IDers regularly call evolution proponents "zealots" or "dogmatists." It is not dogmatism to defend a well-supported theory against unreasonable or dishonest attacks.

P.S. It's indicative of the general state of the discussion that both Phil and I spent most of our time discussing evolution, not Intelligent Design. You would think from the titles of our posts he would be defending ID and pointing out the evidence for it while I'd be trying to tear it down; that this is not the case is just another example of how ID is not a serious scientific hypothesis with positive assertions.