The following is section 2.3 of my new book Christianity for Doubters. As the title indicates, much of this book is explicitly theological, but the first two chapters are about intelligent design. In the preface, I wrote “Of course, you do not have to believe anything in chapters 3-6 of this book or anything in the Bible to believe in intelligent design…. In fact, some intelligent design advocates are uncomfortable with a book that combines chapters on intelligent design with explicitly Christian chapters, because it might encourage those who claim that ID proponents do not understand the difference between science and religion. Most of us do understand the difference, we are just interested in both. And so are ID critics.” By the way, chapter 6 in the new book is almost the same as the essay “Is God Really Good?” posted here May 21, 2015.
Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.
The idea that the “survival of the fittest” could produce all the magnificent species on Earth, and human brains and human consciousness, is so unreasonable—how did such an idea ever become so widely-accepted in the scientific world? There are two reasons.
First, science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in Nature that—understandably—today’s scientist has come to expect that nothing can escape the explanatory power of his science. And Darwinism, as far-fetched as it is, is the best “scientific” theory he can come up with for evolution. As microbiologist Rene Dubos puts it in The Torch of Life “[Darwinism’s] real strength is that however implausible it may appear to its opponents, they do not have a more plausible one to offer in its place.” But we have already seen in section 2.1 why evolution is a very different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science, and why it requires a very different type of explanation.
Second, for most modern minds, the similarities between species not only prove common descent, they prove that evolution was the result of entirely natural causes, even in the absence of any evidence that natural selection can explain the major steps of evolution. The argument is basically, “this doesn’t look like the way God would have created things,” an argument used frequently by Darwin in Origin of Species. But if the history of life does not give the appearance of creation by magic wand, it does look very much like the way we humans create things, through testing and improvements.
In fact, the fossil record does not even support the idea that new organs and new systems of organs arose gradually: new orders, classes and phyla consistently appear suddenly. For example, Harvard paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson writes:
It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution…. This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large. These peculiarities of the record pose one of the most important theoretical problems in the whole history of life: Is the sudden appearance of higher categories a phenomenon of evolution or of the record only, due to sampling bias and other inadequacies?
Actually, if we did see the gradual development of new orders, classes and phyla, that would be as difficult to explain using natural selection as their sudden appearance. How could natural selection guide the development of the new organs and entire new systems of interdependent organs which gave rise to new orders, classes and phyla, through their initial useless stages, during which they provide no selective advantage? French biologist Jean Rostand, in A Biologist’s View, wrote:
It does not seem strictly impossible that mutations should have introduced into the animal kingdom the differences which exist between one species and the next… hence it is very tempting to lay also at their door the differences between classes, families and orders, and, in short, the whole of evolution. But it is obvious that such an extrapolation involves the gratuitous attribution to the mutations of the past of a magnitude and power of innovation much greater than is shown by those of today.
Rostand says, nevertheless, “However obscure the causes of evolution appear to me to be, I do not doubt for a moment that they are entirely natural.”
We see this same pattern, of large gaps where major new features appear, in the history of human technology. (And in software development, as discussed in my Mathematical Intelligencer article “A Mathematician’s View of Evolution.”) For example, if some future paleontologist were to unearth two species of Volkswagens, he might find it plausible that one evolved gradually from the other. He might find the lack of gradual transitions between automobile families more problematic, for example, in the transition from mechanical to hydraulic brake systems, or from manual to automatic transmissions, or from steam engines to internal combustion engines. But if he thought about what gradual transitions would look like, he would understand why they didn’t exist: there is no way to transition gradually from a steam engine to an internal combustion engine, for example, without the development of new, but not yet useful, features. He would be even more puzzled by the huge differences between the bicycle and motor vehicle phyla, or between the boat and airplane phyla. But heaven help us when he uncovers motorcycles and hovercraft, the discovery of these “missing links” would be hailed in all our newspapers as final proof that all forms of transportation arose gradually from a common ancestor, without design.
The similarities between the history of life and the history of technology go even deeper. Although the similarities between species in the same branch of the evolutionary “tree” may suggest common descent, similarities (even genetic similarities) also frequently arise independently in distant branches, where they cannot be explained by common descent. For example, in their Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences article on carnivorous plants, Wolf-Ekkehard Loennig and Heinz-Albert Becker note that
…carnivory in plants must have arisen several times independently of each other… the pitchers might have arisen seven times separately, adhesive traps at least four times, snap traps two times and suction traps possibly also two times…. The independent origin of complex synorganized structures, which are often anatomically and physiologically very similar to each other, appears to be intrinsically unlikely to many authors so that they have tried to avoid the hypothesis of convergence as far as possible.
“Convergence” suggests common design rather than common descent: the probability of similar designs arising independently through random processes is very small, but a designer could, of course, take a good design and apply it several times in different places, to unrelated species. Convergence is a phenomenon often seen in the development of human technology, for example, Ford automobiles and Boeing jets may simultaneously evolve similar new GPS systems.
So if the history of life looks like the way humans, the only other known intelligent beings in the universe, design things—through careful planning, testing and improvements—why is that an argument against design? Somehow we got the idea that God doesn’t need to get involved in the details, so He should be able to create anything from scratch, using a magic wand. But no matter how intelligent a designer is, he still has to get involved in the details, that’s what design is!
Amen. Convergence does suggest design more then descent or chance. A common blueprint being invoked for needs so creatures can survive and breed.
conbvergent claims are wild enough but coming to like conclusions from undirected biology is more wild and impossible. Its asking the impossible.
Its rejecting Dollo’s law.
The main argument for ‘similarity proves evolution’ comes from the supposed 99% genetically similarity claim between chimps and humans. Yet, although the 99% percentage is almost certainly overblown due to the evolutionary bias in the way the sequences were, and are, aligned,,,,
Even Darwinists have admitted that the 99% figure is misleading:
Frankly, until I encountered the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution, I’ve never even heard of such a thing being allowed in science as ‘prefiltering’ the data to accord with desired conclusions. If such ‘prefiltering’ of data to fit a desired conclusion happened in physics, or chemistry, the researchers would be severely questioned and their results would certainly not ever be considered trustworthy.
Yet, although the 99% percentage is almost certainly overblown due to the evolutionary bias in the way the sequences were, and are, aligned, i.e. ‘prefiltered’, by Darwinists, even if the 99% figure were true it would tell us next to nothing as to how it could be remotely possible to change a chimp into a human. First, in echoing Dr. Sewell’s observations of unexpected convergence, genetic similarity is also found in widely divergent species:
Quote of note:
Even King and Wilson, in the original paper that started the whole 99% similarity myth off, admitted that genetic similarity tells us next to nothing about how it is remotely possible to change one creature into another creature:
And indeed when researchers looked at the genetic regulatory systems, particularly the alternative splicing patterns, that is where they found wide differences between species.
Moreover, in the following excellent study, it was found that alternative splicing can produce up to a million distinct polypeptides that display strikingly different interaction profiles and also that the proteins appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other
Of related interest is this earlier study from 2008:
As well, in this earlier study there was found to be a ‘rather low’ conservation of Domain-Domain Interactions occurring in Protein-Protein interaction networks between species:
This ‘low conservation’ for DDIs and PPIs between chimps and humans is very interesting from the Intelligent Design perspective since Michael Behe has shown it to be extremely difficult to generate novel protein-protein binding sites.
Thus, when all the genetic evidence is taken into consideration, (instead of just looking at the ‘prefiltered’ genetic evidence that Darwinists think fits their narrative), humans and chimps are found to be as distinct from each other as would be expected if they were indeed created uniquely by God.
Verse:
I’ve always found it interesting that common descent is out to show that similarities are because of descent from a common ancestor. And yet, convergence suggests common descent isn’t needed at all to explain similarities.
How come all keyboards on the planet are best operated by an entity with ten digits?
as to:
And where exactly is the typist for all these keyboards to be found?
I work in software development. Sometimes we cut and paste code. Sometimes we rewrite code so that it does the same thing, only better. Sometimes we write completely new code for novel functionality. Sometimes we slightly modify some code, enabling it to do something totally different.
We see the same pattern in the living world. Absolutely nothing observed in the natural world contradicts design.
Absolutely nothing observed in the natural world contradicts design.
There is 1 exception to it: people who don’t want the natural world to be designed, people who generally hate the idea of a designer and people who don’t want to be accountable to anyone because they enjoy the behavior that’s questionable to their designer.
bornagain77
Your wrong that the man/chimp likeness is the source for similarity concepts. Nothing to do with it. Its based on comparing all of biology .its simply seeing the truth of likeness in all of biology and then the hunch its from a common descent origin. It rejects, not a option, common design. its been a flawed concept .
However design to them would be a unnatural intrusion into scientific investigation. Yet too bad and anyways any rejection of other options is a intrusion into credibility of scientific investigation.
Creationism needs mechanisms also but this working upon a foundation of creation and creation week.
Mr Byers, I do not consider your opinion(s) to be typical or of any value since you never reference the literature. Have not for years. I usually ignore your posts. I suggest you do the same with mine.
Perhaps it was precisely because it offered a rational explanation of how all the magnificent species on Earth – including human beings – could have been produced by natural processes, that there was no need to resort to some creation ex nihilo belief.
Science has indeed been very successful at explaining phenomena in Nature using naturalistic assumptions and methodology. So much so that it is only reasonable to continue with that approach to see how far it can take us.
That is true of all theories in science, not just evolution.
The similarities are evidence for common descent and there is a lot more to the current theory of evolution than natural selection.
This is a strawman. The theory of evolution in no way depends on claims about how the Christian God might have designed living things. Darwin’s allusions to God were made primarily to forestall the criticisms of his theory that he anticipated would come from the Christian creationists of his day. You could strip out all those references and his theory would still stand.
And this is an obvious flaw in ID thinking. If life on Earth was designed it was not by contemporary human beings. At the very least, it must have been by some extraterrestrial intelligence considerably more advanced than we are in terms of science and technology. What reasons do you have for thinking that their designs must look like human designs of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries?
There is an assumption underlying design speculations that there must be common properties of all designed objects, regardless of the source, by which they can be reliably identified. That may be true but with out any alien artefacts to test that assumption against it remains speculative.
Why is design thinking so prone to argument by weak analogy? The strength of an argument by analogy depends on the degree of similarity between the two cases under consideration. This particular one collapses immediately if you assume that future paleontologists are smart enough to distinguish artefacts like Volkswagens from living organisms.
News @ 6
Because, as we well know, they were designed by an entity with ten fingers for that purpose?
‘First, science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in Nature that—understandably—today’s scientist has come to expect that nothing can escape the explanatory power of his science.’
There’s nothing understandable about it. It’s childishly presumptuous.
‘Science has indeed been very successful at explaining phenomena in Nature using naturalistic assumptions and methodology. So much so that it is only reasonable to continue with that approach to see how far it can take us.’
A grotesque parody of the truth. How you atheists have been permitted to get away with that tosh for so long is more mysterious than evolution, the risible abiogenetic conjecture, unicorns, pink pixies, etc. Enlightenment ? More like ‘Obscurement’.
They were not ‘naturalistic assumptions’, at all. It was simply that at the mechanistic level, Christian metaphysics, any metaphysics was irrelevant. One of the keys to the success of science was precisely its treatment as a very limited Lego/Meccano-like, intellectual discipline, a kind of a pedantic backwater – something that even dunces could get a handle on. Everything not strictly involved was left out of consideration leaving, almost literally, Just the ‘nuts and bolts’. It was all made possible, of course, by Christian metaphysics, built, as it is on the rational foundation and construction of creation by a rational Creator.
Quantum mechanics changed all that ‘in spades’. You atheists, Seversky, are hangers-on, parasites, because you people could never have even conjectured QM in even the broadest outline, because it’s too mysteriously anti-scientismical… like.. .. like unicorns ‘n’ stuff…; even admitting ubiquitous non locality !!!! reverse time-travel. A lot of weird stuff.
We had to wait until the discovery by deist and witheringly anti-atheist, Max Planck, to discover quantum physics.
Dr Sewell asks:
The Sev replies
Darwinian evolution certainly did not, and certainly still does not, offer a ‘rational’ explanation as to how all biological life and our consciousness came about. In fact, the leading scientists of Darwin’s day rejected his theory precisely because it was irrational and was not based on sound science, whilst the liberal clergy of Darwin’s day accepted his book precisely because it was based on bad theology.
A few notes
Moreover, the assumption of Naturalism in science leads to epistemological failure.
Some people have criticized this section of the book by saying that of course cars cannot evolve like animals, because they cannot reproduce, so there are no “variations” for natural selection to work with. But my main point in this section has nothing to do with natural selection, it is only that similarities between “species” (of cars or animals) do not prove absence of design.
However, even though it is irrelevant to my point here, let’s look at the argument that evolution is easier to explain if there is reproduction. Really? If cars were able to reproduce themselves almost perfectly, with slight errors or occasionally slight improvements, would that make the evolution of cars easier to explain without design, than if individual cars underwent slight changes or improvements directly, though rust or crashes or other natural causes? We are just so used to seeing animals make nearly perfect copies of themselves that we all consider that a “natural” process; but if we saw cars giving birth to cars, maybe we would realize that this would actually make automobile evolution even more amazing and more difficult to explain without design.
As to:
Indeed as more difficult as it would be making improvements to a car while it is running down the highway as compared to making improvements when it is in the garage. Multiple coordinated ‘beneficial’ changes have to be made at the same time in order to implement an improvement on a car rather than rendering the car completely non-functional:
Yet multiple coordinated beneficial changes are shown to be, by the mathematics of population genetics, astronomically unlikely to occur:
Here is an excerpt from the ‘Living Waters’ video that gets this point across very well:
Here is a peer-reviewed paper that makes the same overall point:
Of related note
More like ‘Obscurement’.
The Obscurement. I like it.
Granville Sewell @ 16
No, and neither do they prove its presence. But if the observed “similarities” can be accounted for by a theory of common descent, such that they become evidence for it, then, if you wish to show that intelligent design is a better explanation, you must find other evidence and arguments to support that claim. An argument using the analogy of the evolution of car designs is not sufficient.
You seem to be missing the point. The argument is not that evolution is easier to explain if there is reproduction, it is that evolution depends on imperfect reproduction. If a self reproducing organism made perfect copies of itself, it would never evolve. It would never change, which is what perfection means in part.
An important point arising out of this in respect to intelligent design is that, if we take human design as a model, then what we observe in the natural world is unlikely to have been designed. For example, when aeronautical engineers design an aircraft like a Boeing 747 they strive for a solution that is the lightest, strongest, most efficient and, above all, most reliable that can be achieved. The very last thing they want is for it to be vulnerable to unpredictable changes in structure or function that could result in it falling out of the sky. Yet this is what we see in the natural world, continual little changes some of which apparently have no effect, others which can have catastrophic effects on the organism. What kind of design is it where the processes employed involve random changes over time that render any outcomes unpredictable and, consequently, any purpose in the mind of the designer academic?
“Why Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Design
I guess this supposed to mean that similarities prove evolution… How about the total lack of similarities (lets call them the total lack of evidence for obvious reasons) or a chasm in evolution where similiariies should be there but they are definitely not there?
What could the Darwinian police do? Attack instead of providing evidence?
bornagain77
Being a YEC is not typical for those very interested in origin subjects.
Typical or not its irrelevant to accuracy or merit of the contention.
In discussions like this referencing is a waste of time say in special important cases. We are all beyond entry level data. it doesn’t persuade people.
At least you only USUALLY ignore my posts. there is some hope.
i read yours if they are not choked by wordy references.
I’m a born again Christian and respect all who try and pass a threshold of ability. Usually on these blogs thats everyone who is regular.
I find the title of this post puzzling. Does anyone claim that the absence of design can be proved? I would think that’s impossible.
Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig has an excellent article up on ENV:
He shows that Natural Selection, according to population genetics itself and according to the real world, is far more random and impotent than is popularly believed.