Darwinist: Evolution is a fact fact fact! The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. The theory is as well proven as the theory of gravity.
IDer: Well, OK. If by “evolution” you mean that the biosphere is very different now than it was in the past, you get no argument from me.
Darwinst: Then genuflect with the rest of us at the altar of St. Charles. Bow down damn you. Submit. Acknowledge his genius.
IDer: Wait a minute. I thought we were talking about evolution in the broad sense of “the biosphere is different now than it was in the past.” Now you’re asking me to sign off on a particular theory of why it is different. I am not prepared to do that.
I will certainly give Darwin his due. His theory explains very well things like the development of antibiotic resistance among bacteria. That is an elegant, even spectacular, empirical verification of Darwinian processes. I would be a fool to deny the plain and uncontested empirical data, and I will be the first to admit that Darwin’s theory works wonderfully to explain things like antibiotic resistance, blind cave fish, and finch beak variation. I’ll even give you peppered moths, though there is reason to believe that experiment was tainted.
Darwin’s theory works fine to show how degradation of function (antibiotic resistance; blind cave fish) or variations within an existing kind (finches and moths) can lead to reproductive differential as a result of natural selection. So if that’s all you’re asking, I acknowledge Darwin’s genius in discovering this process.
But I am not prepared to concede that Darwin’s theory accounts for how bacteria, cave fish, finches and moths came to be in the first place. A theory that shows how degradation of function or variations within an existing species can lead to a survival advantage does not necessarily work to account for the development of morphological novelty such as new body plans, new organs, or new systems or the radical increases of information in the genome that must accompany such morphological innovations.
One thing is certain: Unlike minor variations that lead to, for example, the development of antibiotic resistance, Darwinian processes have not been empirically observed to result in substantial morphological or genomic novelty.
Darwinst: Infidel! IDiot! Follow these links [insert links to dozens of papers discussing the evolution of, for example, the mammalian eye]. I have now demonstrated how Darwinism explains the development of the mammalian eye. Will you bow now or will you continue to wallow in your ignorance and apostasy?
IDer, after having read the papers linked, replies: Well, this is typical. All of these papers, every single one of them, sets forth a speculative model based on an extrapolation from molecular and morphological studies. The researchers who wrote the papers are invariable straightforward about this. That is why they use words like “uncertainties abound,” and “speculation is involved,” and “likely” and “may have been.” All of the papers you link are models showing what might have been. None of them purports to demonstrate what actually happened.
Darwinist: You don’t seem to understand the overwhelming evidence from morphological and genomic homologies. Morphological characters like the five-fingered mammalian forelimb point to a common ancestor. In the same way, similar DNA sequences in closely related species point to a DNA sequence in their last common ancestor. The evidence from homologies is irrefutable.
IDer: Well, I certainly agree there are morphological and genomic similarities between similar species. That’s what makes them “similar.” But let me ask you about this word “homology” that you use. What does it mean?
Darwinist: When we are talking about morphology, homology means a similar physical structure, like the forelimb I mentioned earlier. When we are talking about the genome it means a similar DNA sequence.
IDer: OK. And you are saying they are similar because they both descended from a common ancestor?
Darwinist: Of course.
IDer: But isn’t that what you are trying to demonstrate in the first place? In other words, if you assume that a homologous structure or sequence is homologous because it is shared with a common ancestor, you can’t then turn around and say that the homology is evidence for the very thing you assume (common descent).
Be that as it may, I have made numerous concessions today, and in that spirit I will make another. Certainly morphologic and molecular homologies are consistent with theories of descent with modification generally. They are even consistent with the particular mechanism (random variation sorted by natural selection) that Darwin proposed to account for descent with modification.
Darwinist [gleefully]: I am glad you admit that, because I have you now. Since nothing else could possibly explain the data it is time for you to bend the knee!
IDer: Ah, here is where we get to the nub of the issue. Your assertion “nothing else could possibly explain the data” is at the bottom of our difference, and I will explain why that is the case. First, I will make yet another concession: If one assumes that all causal explanations must be consistent with methodological naturalism (if not metaphysical naturalism), AND one assumes that methodological naturalism excludes intelligent agency as a causal explanation in biology, then something like Darwinian evolution must be true as a matter of simple logic. That is why Richard Dawkins wrote in The Blind Watchmaker that “Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.”
Two important things are happening here: First, Dawkins is rigging the game so that only one answer – Darwinism – can ever possibly be correct. And second because the game is rigged to result in only one possible answer, any evidence (indeed Dawkins is candid enough to admit that even no evidence) is good enough to support that answer.
Darwinist: But science depends on methodological naturalism.
IDer: I will return to that, but before I do I want to make sure you understand the foundation of our difference. You approach the data with Dawkins-like assumptions. Those assumptions color everything. It is almost literally impossible for you to see how anyone could disagree with Darwinism. It just has to be true, and this causes you to say things like speculative models of how evolution might have worked to produce an organ are actual evidence for the theory, as if speculative extrapolations from the data are just as good as the data. It causes you to say that homologies are both defined as the result of common descent and at the same time evidence for common descent without the slightest irony.
On the other hand, the ID proponent is free to accept the data on its own terms, and when he does so he quickly realizes that the evidence for Darwin’s theory is not all that impressive. Certainly it is not the “overwhelming evidence that compels assent” that it is so widely touted to be. For example, the ID proponent looks at the fossil record and sees that it is almost totally at odds with the gradualism that Darwin’s theory demands. For the Darwinist, with a very limited number of exceptions, the fossil record – which is almost exclusively characterized by sudden appearance and stasis and not the gradualism Darwin expected – is something that must be explained away.
Then there’s the math. Oh yes, the math. Since the Wistar conference in the 60’s scientists have known that it is extremely difficult to square Darwinian theory with mathematical probabilities, and things have only gotten worse since then. To cite just one instance, the search space for a single protein fold is so unimaginably vast as to exhaust all of the probabilistic resources available in the universe, much less this single little planet.
And don’t even get me started on information. The DNA code is a semiotic code, and to suggest that any semiotic code – far less the most super-sophisticated semiotic code in the known universe — can be written though the accretion of random errors sorted by a fitness function is just absurd.
I am not saying that I know for a certain fact that Darwinian evolution is false. I am saying there are very good reasons for believing so. Certainly the theory has not been overwhelmingly confirmed by the evidence as is so often claimed.
In the face of all of the counter-evidence, hubris like we see so often from Darwinists is unseemly. When a theory has so many problems isn’t it more honest to admit those problems?
Darwinist: So your answer is God musta done it. That is not science.
IDer: Certainly as a Christian I believe God’s fingerprints are all over the biosphere. But as an ID proponent that is not what I am saying, and this is where I get back to methodological naturalism. ID is perfectly consistent with methodological naturalism if one does not arbitrarily exclude intelligent agency as a causal explanation. I mean geez louise even arch-atheist Richard Dawkins admitted to Ben Stein that design could, in principle, explain the data:
Stein: What do you think is the possibility that that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?
Dawkins: I suppose it is possible that you might find evidence for that [i.e., that an advanced civilization designed life and seeded it onto earth] if you look at the . . . details of biochemistry or molecular biology. You might find a signature of some sort of designer . . . And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe . . .
Dawkins is here admitting that there is nothing “supernatural” about the bio-chemistry of life. The development of life as we know it does not depend on a miracle. It is within the ken of sufficiently advanced technology. Critically, Dawkins admits that if life were designed, upon investigation we might find the signature of a designer. I take it he has not abandoned his atheism. He is not saying that the advanced civilization would have performed a miracle. Their design would be both perfectly natural and empirically detectable. Therefore, even if I concede for the sake or argument that science depends on methodological naturalism, even Richard Dawkins admits this is no barrier to biological design detection within science.
As an aside we see that Dawkins himself admits that his assertion in The Blind Watchmaker is false. If what he said to Ben Stein is true, then it follows that Darwinism is certainly not the “only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life.”
And at the end of the day – this may amaze you but it is true – I agree with Richard Dawkins. Darwinism is one theory. It may be true. Indeed, certainly aspects of the data (including homologies) are broadly consistent with it. On the other hand, there are many good reasons to believe it is not true. ID is another theory – perfectly consistent with methodological naturalism at one level – and there is very good reason to believe it is the best explanation to account for the data. So please; don’t look at me like I have two heads when I am not impressed when you cite a dozen papers discussing speculative models of how Darwinian evolution might have produced the eye all of which ignore all of the apparently insuperable obstacles to that project.