Some Modern Alternatives

Transcription

1 Chapter 4. Some Modern Alternatives Three alternatives to Darwinism that are important in the modern controversy are creationism, theistic evolution, and intelligent design. The distinctions among them are often blurred, and some people would consider themselves included in more than one of them. For example, there is not always a clear distinction between old-earth creationism and theistic evolution, and some young-earth and old-earth creationists are also intelligent design proponents. Nevertheless, it is helpful to distinguish among these three alternatives, if only to clarify the issues in the controversies. The three alternatives differ primarily in their starting-points. Creationism starts with the Bible and interprets the evidence from that perspective. Old-earth creationism accepts the modern geological time scale, according to which the earth is billions of years old, while young-earth creationism regards the earth as several thousand years old; but both forms reject Darwinism the view that all living things are descendants of a common ancestor, modified by unguided processes such as natural selection and random variation. Theistic evolution starts by accepting most or all of Darwinian evolution and then interprets religious doctrines from that perspective. All theistic evolutionists accept the descent with modification of all organisms from common ancestors that lived many millions of years ago; but some theistic evolutionists maintain that the process was divinely though undetectably guided (implicitly denying the unguided aspect of Darwinism), while other theistic evolutionists maintain that evolution really was un-guided but that God started the process and perhaps foresaw its outcome. Intelligent design starts with evidence from nature and infers that some features of the world and living things are better explained by an intelligent agent than by unguided natural processes. Since it claims that some features of living things are designed it rejects Darwinism; since it does not start with the Bible it is not the same as creationism; and since it claims that design is detectable it is different from theistic evolution. Creationism Like evolution, creationism has various meanings. Most broadly, it can mean simply that the universe was divinely created. Somewhat more specifically, it can also

2 mean that life on earth was divinely created. Even Charles Darwin might have qualified as a creationist in this broad sense, since he concluded The Origin of Species (after the first edition) with the statement that life was originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one. (Though it is questionable whether he was sincere in this. He wrote in an 1863 letter: I have long regretted that I truckled [i.e., bowed] to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant appeared by some wholly unknown process. ) 1 In modern controversies, however, creationism generally refers to a more biblical view though not necessarily a literal interpretation of Genesis chronology. When Dar-win published The Origin of Species in 1859 it generated considerable debate, but not over the age of the earth. Although Christians before 1800 took a young earth for granted, by the 1830s most had accepted the modern geological view that the earth is quite old. Critics of Darwin s theory of natural selection rejected it primarily on scientific grounds, and nineteenth-century creationists who rejected it for religious reasons did not do so on the basis of biblical chronology. For example, Princeton geologist Arnold Guyot and Canadian geologist John William Dawson accepted the evidence pointing to an old earth but rejected Darwin's theory in favor of a progressive form of evolution in which human beings were created by God. And Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge criticized Darwin's theory of unguided evolution because it denied the doctrines of creation and providence, not because it contradicted a literal reading of Genesis. 2 Like Guyot, Dawson, and Hodge, most creationists in the first decades of the twentieth century believed that the geological evidence pointed to an old earth. Some people adopted the gap theory, according to which the original creation of the heavens and the earth recorded in Genesis 1:1 was followed by an indefinitely long interval before the subsequent days described in Genesis 1:2-2:3. Others adopted the day-age theory, according to which the days of Genesis represented periods of indefinite duration (see Chapter 2 above). In 1909, the widely used Scofield Reference Bible promoted the gap theory. Geologist George Frederick Wright, who contributed an essay titled The Passing of Evolution to The Fundamentals (from which Fundamentalism gets its name), advocated the day-age theory. Baptist clergyman William Bell Riley, who founded the World s Christian Fundamentals Association in 1919, said there was no intelligent fundamentalist who claims that the earth was made six thousand years ago; and the Bible never taught any such thing. Riley, like Wright, defended the day-age theory. So did William Jennings Bryan, who prosecuted John Scopes in 1925 for teaching that humans are descended from lower animals. 3 The young-earth creationism prominent in current controversies emerged when self-educated American geologist George McCready Price published The New

3 Geology in As a Seventh Day Adventist, Price held to a literal six-day creation and rejected both the gap theory and day-age theory. Price also attributed the fossil record and many features of the earth s surface to Noah s flood. He called his view flood geology and maintained that it resolved every major problem in the supposed conflict between mod-ern science and modern Christianity. In 1938, Price and other Seventh Day Adventists started the Deluge Geology Society (DGS) to promote the view that creation took six literal days, and that the deluge should be studied as the cause of the major geological changes since creation. 4 In 1941, evangelical scientists in the United States formed the American Scientif-ic Affiliation (ASA) as a forum to discuss issues on which there is honest disagreement between Christians. Although the ASA did not take an official position on the creation-evolution controversy, it soon became dominated by old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists (see below) who were critical of young-earth creationism. 5 Soon afterwards, the DGS fell victim to disagreements over scriptural interpreta-tion and the age of the earth. In 1958, the Geoscience Research Institute was founded in Loma Linda, California by the Seventh Day Adventist church, which believes that the creation week occurred in the relatively recent past. 6 At about the same time, two Christians who were not Adventists, Bible teacher John C. Whitcomb and engineer Henry M. Morris, teamed up to write The Genesis Flood, which defended a literal six-day creation and attributed much of the earth's geology to a worldwide flood. The authors based their argument partly on the grounds that fossil-bearing rock strata could have been produced only after death was introduced by the fall of Adam and Eve. Although they cited scientific evidence to support their views, Whitcomb and Morris insisted that the real issue is not the correctness of the interpretation of various details of the geological data, but simply what God has revealed in his word. 7 In 1963, Morris joined with geneticist Walter E. Lammerts and several others to form the Creation Research Society. The same year, Lutheran pastor Walter Lang started the Bible-Science Newsletter to promote young-earth creationism. In the early 1970s, Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in California, and biochemist (and ICR staff member) Duane T. Gish published a bestselling book defending flood geology, Evolution: The Fossils Say No! In 1974, Morris published Scientific Creation-ism, which came in two versions: one for public schools that omitted biblical references, and another for Christian schools that included a chapter on the Bible. Originally affili-ated with Christian Heritage College, ICR became autonomous in 1981, when it received approval from the State of California to offer Master of Science degrees in Astronomy, Biology, Geology, and Science Education. In

4 2007, ICR relocated to Dallas, Texas. 8 Influenced by Whitcomb and Morris, physician Carl Wieland founded the Creat-ion Science Association (CSA) in Australia in The CSA soon merged with another Australian group to form the Creation Science Foundation, the staff of which included science teacher Kenneth A. Ham. In 1986 Ham was loaned to the ICR in California, and in 1994 he left ICR and moved with his family to Kentucky to set up a new ministry, Answers in Genesis (AiG). In 2007, AiG opened a 70,000 square foot Creation Museum, where the Bible speaks for itself and which features exhibits illustrating the six days of creation, the garden of Eden, and Noah s ark. 9 Meanwhile, old-earth creationists remained active. In 1983, geologist John Wiester, a member of the ASA (see above), published The Genesis Connection, in which he argued from an old-earth perspective that the cosmological, geological and paleonto-logical evidence was consistent with the Bible. Wiester also co-authored (with David Price and Walter Hearn) an ASA handbook for teachers titled Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy. 10 In 1986, astronomer and old-earth creationist Hugh Ross founded Reasons to Believe (RTB), a Christian ministry dedicated to showing that science and faith are allies, not enemies, and to communicating the uniquely factual basis for belief in the Bible. According to RTB s Statement of Faith, the Bible is the Word of God completely without error (historically, scientifically, morally, and spiritually) in its original writings. Although the Bible is our supreme and final authority in all matters that it addresses, RTB interprets the Genesis days as long periods of time and thus rejects young-earth creationism. But it also rejects Darwinism on the grounds that God has miraculously intervened throughout the history of the universe in various ways millions, possibly even billions, of times to create each and every new species of life on earth. Furthermore, the physical universe, the realm of nature, is the visible creation of God. It declares God's existence and gives a trustworthy revelation of God's character and purpose. So like nineteenth-century natural theology, RTB defends God s existence and attributes with evidence from nature. 11 Although creationism is disparaged or ignored by the Darwinists who dominate not only modern science but also most other academic disciplines, it is very widespread. Public opinion polls taken in the United States from 1982 to 2006 show that about 45% of Americans believe that God created human beings in pretty much their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The same polls show that about another 35% of Americans believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. Only about 10-15% believe the Darwinian view that humans evolved but God had no part in process. The 45%

5 who believe God created humans within the last ten thousand years are certainly creationists, but not necessarily young-earth creationists, since the earth could be much older than the human species. The 35% who believe that humans evolved over millions of years with God's guidance are certainly not young-earth creationists, but neither are they Darwinists. Some of the 35% might consider themselves old-earth creationists, while others would probably consider themselves theistic evolutionists. 12 Theistic Evolution Like old-earth creationists, theistic evolutionists accept both the prevailing view of modern geology that life on earth originated billions of years ago, and fossil evidence that the history of life went through various stages from primitive to progressively more modern organisms. But old-earth creationism regards the history of life as punctuated by separate acts of creation (a position sometimes called progressive creationism), while theistic evolution attributes it to uninterrupted natural causes. Theistic evolutionists also accept the Darwinian view that all living things are descended with modification from one or a few common ancestors by variation and natural selection. Not only do they accept this view most are also convinced that Christians and other theists should embrace it and integrate it into their theology. For example, paleontologist Keith B. Miller, an evangelical Christian, wrote in 2003 that the descent with modification of all living things from a common ancestor is an extremely well-supported and fruitful theory. Although the most solidly supported aspect of Darwinism is universal common ancestry, the fossil record is completely consistent with the wide range of evolutionary mechanisms that have been proposed. Natural explanations exist even for the Cambrian explosion. Evangelical Christians must thus pursue the integration of an evolutionary understanding of earth and life s history with theological understandings of God s creative and redemptive activity if we wish to effectively impact our increasingly technological and scientific society. 13 Physician Francis S. Collins a Christian and former head of the U. S. Human Genome Project wrote in 2006: The evidence in favor of evolution is utterly com-pelling. Darwin s theory of natural selection provides the fundamental framework for understanding the relationships of living things. So it would be foolish for Christians to deny it. Yet for those who believe in God, there are reasons now to be more in awe, not less. Collins considers theistic evolution to be by far the most scientifically consistent and spiritually satisfying position in the modern controversies over evolution; it allows science and faith to fortify each other. 14

6 Kenneth R. Miller, a cell biologist who attends a Roman Catholic church, wrote in 1999: In the real world of science, in the hard-bitten realities of lab bench and field station, the intellectual triumph of Darwin s great idea is total. Evolution means that material causes, the laws of physics and chemistry as played out in living things, are sufficient to account for the history and complexity of life. Yet from time to time Miller explains to his students not only why Darwinian evolution does not preclude the exist-ence of God, but how remarkably consistent evolution is with religion, even with the most traditional of Western religions. Indeed, in many respects, evolution is the key to understanding our relationship to God. 15 Catholic theologian John F. Haught takes Darwin s theory to be a reasonably close, though incomplete and abstract, approximation of the way life has developed on earth. He takes this position out of respect for the thinking of most contemporary scien-tific experts, and especially the majority of biologists. Haught wrote in 2008: Evolu-tionary science has dramatically changed our understanding of the world, and so any sense we may have of a God who creates and cares for this world must take into account what Darwin and his followers have told us about it. In particular, Darwin s gift to theology was to show that the God of evolution does not fix things in advance but shares with all creatures their own openness to an indeterminate future. 16 All four of these thinkers defend methodological naturalism (see above). They also believe that the evolution of living things was due to an uninterrupted chain of natural causes. All four reject an interventionist view that invokes divine action at any point in the history of life. According to Keith Miller, complete scientific descriptions of events or pro-cesses should pose no threat to Christian theism, because all natural processes are the personal, purposeful act of a creator God. Since God is in control of random or chance events a completely seamless evolutionary history of life would be entirely acceptable theologically. He calls this continuous creationism or evolutionary creationism. 17 So Keith Miller believes that evolution was divinely guided though (as we saw above) Darwin clearly rejected this view. Collins argues that evolution might have been God s elegant plan for creating humankind, though he acknowledges that some believers in God simply cannot accept that God would have carried out creation using such an apparently random, potentially heartless, and inefficient process as Darwinian evolution. According to Collins, the solution is actually readily at hand, once one ceases to apply human limitations to God. If God is outside of nature, then he is outside of space and time. In that context, God could in the moment of creation of the universe also know every detail of the future. That could include the evolution of humans. 18 Unlike Keith

7 Miller, Collins does not claim that God invisibly guided evolution only that he foresaw its outcome from the start. In Kenneth Miller s view, the indeterminate nature of quantum behavior means that the details of the future are not strictly determined by present reality. God s universe is not locked in to a determinate future, and neither are we. The fact that mutation and variation are inherently unpredictable means that the course of evolution is, too. Yet this very indeterminacy is a key feature of the mind of God. Why? If events in the material world were strictly determined, then our actions and even our thoughts would be pre-ordained. So evolution is the only way a creator could have made us the creatures we are free beings in a world of authentic and meaningful moral and spiritual choices. It is false to say that evolution s goal was to produce us. Instead, given evolution s ability to adapt, to innovate, to test, and to experiment, sooner or later it would have given the creator exactly what he was looking for a creature who, like us, could know him and love him. 19 Unlike Collins, Kenneth Miller does not claim that God foreknew the pre-cise outcome of evolution only that he took advantage of what it eventually presented to him. According to John Haught, the randomness and undirected features of evolution are not just apparent they are, in fact, essential features of any world created by a gracious God. This is because a coercive deity would be incompatible not only with human freedom but also with the prehuman spontaneity that allows the world to evolve into something other than its creator. Haught bases his thinking on Alfred North White-head s process philosophy, in which even elementary particles are seen as having a measure of autonomy and free choice. Instead of controlling events by overriding this freedom, God lures them toward his goals. This leads to evolutionary theology, a radical reinterpretation of classic religious teachings in terms of Darwinian concepts. So nature, after Darwin, is not a design but a promise. God s plan, if we continue to use the term, is not a blueprint but rather an envisagement of what the cosmos might become. 20 Thus for Haught, God neither guides evolution nor foresees its outcome, but merely holds up a vision of the direction he hopes it will take. Despite their acceptance of Darwinism, all four of these thinkers reject the athe-ism of Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins. According to Keith Miller, scientists who use science to promote an atheistic philosophy do great disservice to science. Francis Collins criticizes atheism as a form of blind faith, in that it adopts a belief system that cannot be defended on the basis of pure reason. Kenneth Miller points out that Daw-kins s personal skepticism no more disproves the existence of God than the creationists incredulity is an argument against evolution. And John Haught writes that the only truly novel feature of Dawkins s new atheism is a

8 sweeping intolerance of tolerance. 21 Like other theistic evolutionists, however, these four men regard atheism as an unwarranted addition to Darwinism, rather than its philosophical foundation. They believe that Darwinism is solidly based on scientific evidence, independently of any philosophical assumptions, and that atheists are simply misusing it to promote their materialistic philosophy. Intelligent Design Intelligent design (ID) is the view that it is possible to infer from empirical evi-dence that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. 22 Intelligent design cannot be inferred from complexity alone, since complex patterns often happen by chance. For example, if we see twenty-eight letters and spaces lined up in the sequence WDLMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQC O P, we would not infer design even though the exact sequence is highly improbable (and thus complex). But if we see twenty-eight letters and spaces lined up in the sequence METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL, we immediately infer that the sequence was produced by an intelligence. Although the logic by which we infer design is debated by philosophers (see below), we all do it every day, often without realizing it, whenever we see or hear something such as a meaningful sentence that in our common experience is invariably produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. Cosmologist Fred Hoyle used the term intelligent design in 1982, writing that unless a person is deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. In 1984, chemist Charles B. Thaxton impressed by Michael Polanyi s argument that the information in DNA cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry joined with materials scientist Walter L. Bradley and geochemist Roger L. Olsen to publish The Mystery of Life s Origin. The authors relied on the uniformitarian principle that the kinds of causes we observe producing certain effects today can be counted on to have produced similar effects in the past and concluded: We have observational evidence in the present that intelligent investigators can (and do) build contrivances to channel energy down nonrandom chemical pathways to bring about some complex chemical synthesis, even gene building. May not the principle of uniformity then be used in a broader frame of consideration to suggest that DNA had an intelligent cause at the beginning? 23 In 1985, molecular biologist Michael Denton published Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,

9 which criticized the evidence for Darwin s theory and defended the view that design could be inferred from living things. Since living things are machines for the purposes of description, research, and analysis, Denton wrote, it is legitimate to attribute their origin at least partly to intelligent design. He concluded: The inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications though Denton did not draw any but it does not depend on religious presuppositions. 24 Four years later, biologists Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon (under the editor-ship of Charles Thaxton) published Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins. Written to balance the overall curriculum in biology classes, the book concluded: Any view or theory of origins must be held in spite of unsolved problems [but] there is impressive and consistent evidence, from each area we have studied, for the view that living things are the product of intelligent design. 25 In 1993, Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson (author of Darwin On Trial, cited in Chapter 3 above) hosted a small, private meeting of ID proponents near Mon-terey, California. Participants included many of the scholars who later became prominent in controversies over ID among them, geologist and philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer, biochemist Michael J. Behe, and philosopher and mathematician William A. Dembski, whose work is described in more detail below. Three years later, Meyer and political scientist John G. West started the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (later renamed the Center for Science and Culture, or CSC) as a project of the Discovery Institute, a public policy organization in Seattle, Washington, that had been founded in 1990 by former ambassador (and member of the Reagan administration) Bruce K. Chapman. The CSC is now the international home of what has become known as the intelligent design movement. 26 a) Michael J. Behe In 1996, Behe argued in Darwin s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolu-tion that some features of living cells are characterized by an irreducible complexity that cannot be explained by Darwinian processes but points instead to intelligent design. According to Darwin, 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. Behe wrote: What type of biological system could not be formed by numerous successive, slight modifications? Well, for starters, a system that is irreducibly complex. By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched interacting parts

10 that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. 27 Behe described several features of living cells features unknown to Darwin that he considered to be irreducibly complex. One of these is the light-sensing mechanism in eyes. A second is the human blood-clotting cascade, and a third is the motor of the bacterial flagellum. Behe argued that biochemists know what it takes to build irreducibly complex systems such as these; it takes design. He wrote: The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day. 28 Darwinists have criticized Behe on several grounds. For example, biochemist Russell F. Doolittle writes that experiments have shown that if one component of the blood-clotting cascade is knocked out in one group of mice and another component is knocked out in another group, both groups lack functional clotting systems. But he claims that when the two lines were crossed, for all practical purposes, the mice lacking both genes were normal! Doolittle concludes: Contrary to claims about irreducible complex-ity, the entire ensemble of proteins is not needed, and the blood-clotting cascade can be explained by Darwinian evolution. But Doolittle misunderstood the scientific articles on which he bases his argument. When mice from the two abnormal groups were crossed, their offspring were not normal, but lacked a functional clotting system and suffered from frequent bleeding. Behe points this out and concludes that there are indeed no detailed explanations for the evolution of blood clotting in the literature and that, despite Darwin-ian protestations, the irreducible complexity of the system is a significant problem for Darwinism. 29 Biologist and theistic evolutionist Kenneth R. Miller (see above) disagrees with Behe s claim that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. Some disease-causing bacteria possess a structure called the type III secretory system, or TTSS, with which they inject poison into the cells of their victims. The TTSS resembles a subset of the flagellar apparatus possessed by other bacteria, and Miller argues that since the TTSS has a function apart from the flagellum as a whole, the latter is not irreducibly complex. Miller concludes: What this means is that the argument for intelligent design of the flagellum has failed. Behe replies that irreducibly complex systems sometimes contain parts that perform other functions in other contexts. For example, a mechanic could dismantle an outboard motor and run the gasoline engine by itself, but the outboard motor cannot function without it.

11 According to Behe, Miller is switching the focus from the function of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine to the ability of a subset of the system to transport proteins across a membrane. However, taking away the parts of the flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine, as I have argued. Thus, contra Miller, the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex. 30 b) William A. Dembski In The Design Inference (1998), Dembski formalized, quantified, and generalized the logic of design inferences. According to Dembski, people infer design by using what he calls an Explanatory Filter: Whenever explaining an event, we must choose from three competing modes of explanation. These are regularity [i.e., natural law], chance, and design. When attempting to explain something, regularities are always the first line of defense. If we can explain by means of a regularity, chance and design are automati-cally precluded. Similarly, chance is always the second line of defense. If we can't explain by means of a regularity, but we can explain by means of chance, then design is automatically precluded. There is thus an order of priority to explanation. Within this order regularity has top priority, chance second, and design last. In Dembski s view, the Explanatory Filter formalizes what we have been doing right along when we recognize intelligent agents. 31 Of course, different aspects of the same thing can be due to different causes. For example, an abandoned car will rust according to natural laws, though the actual pattern of rust may be due to chance. Yet, the car itself was designed. So regularity, chance, and design, though different, can be complementary. When inferring design, ruling out regularity is the easiest step. Ruling out chance is more difficult, since mere complexity is not enough. Something that is complex could easily be due to chance (as we saw above in the random sequence of twenty eight letters and spaces). To avoid inferring design when it is not present, Dembski introduces another criterion: specificity, or conformity to an independently given pattern. The sequence METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL is not only complex but also specified, in the sense that it conforms to an independently given pattern (namely, a line from Shakespeare s Hamlet). So in order to infer design, the Explanatory Filter requires answering Yes to all three of the following questions: Is the feature contingent (i.e.. not due to natural law or regularity)? Is the feature complex (i.e., highly improbable)? And is the feature specified (i.e., does it conform to an independently given pattern)? The hallmark of design is thus specified complexity. According to Dembski, it is a

12 universal human experience that whenever people encounter specified complexity, it is a product of an intelligent agent (though the agent need not be supernatural). If specified complexity can be found in nature, then it, too, must be due to intelligent agency. As Dembski wrote in The Design Revolution in 2004: The fundamental claim of intelligent design is straightforward and easily intelligible: namely, there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence. 32 Some critics of ID object that although one can infer design in the products of human actions because people have personal knowledge of the goals and abilities of human agents, no one knows enough about whatever produced the universe and living things to attribute design to it. Philosopher Elliott Sober considers this the Achilles heel of the design argument. Using the famous watch metaphor of nineteenth-century natural theologian William Paley (see Chapter 2 above), Sober writes: When we behold the watch on the heath, we know that the watch s features are not particularly improbable, on the hypothesis that the watch was produced by a designer who has the sorts of human goals and abilities with which we are familiar. This is the deep disanalogy between the watchmaker and the putative maker of organisms and universes. We are invited, in the latter case, to imagine a designer who is radically different from the human craftsmen with whom we are familiar. But if this designer is so different, why are we so sure that it would produce what we see? 33 Dembski rejects Sober s criticism and defends the analogy. We infer design regularly and reliably, Dembski wrote, without necessarily knowing the characteristics of the designer or being able to assess what the designer is likely to do We do not get into the mind of designers and thereby attribute design. Rather, we look at the effects in the physical world that exhibit clear marks of intelligence and from those marks infer a designing intelligence. This is true even for those most uncontroversial of embodied designers, namely, our fellow human beings. We recognize their intelligence not by merging with their minds but by examining their actions and determining whether those actions display marks of intelligence. 34 c) Stephen C. Meyer Irreducible complexity and specified complexity are not the only ways to formulate a design inference. According to philosopher Paul Thagard, inference to a scientific theory is not only a matter of the relation of the theory to the evidence, but must also take into account the relation of competing theories to the evidence. Inference is a matter of choosing among alternative theories, and we choose according to which one

13 provides the best explanation. 35 Meyer applies this inference to the best explanation approach to the information in DNA. According to Meyer, the subunits of DNA are like a four-letter alphabet carrying information just like meaningful English sentences or functional lines of code in computer software. This information cannot be reduced to the laws of chemistry and physics. In 2003, Meyer wrote: The information contained in an English sentence or computer software does not derive from the chemistry of the ink or the physics of mag-netism, but from a source extrinsic to physics and chemistry altogether. Indeed, in both cases, the message transcends the properties of the medium. The information in DNA also transcends the properties of its material medium. 36 Since a typical gene contains hundreds of such subunits, and an organism contains hundreds of genes, the information carried in an organism s DNA is extremely complex. Furthermore, a living cell needs not just any DNA, but DNA that encodes functional proteins. To be functional, a protein must have a very specific sequence, so the inform-ation in DNA is not only contingent and complex, but also specified as Dembski s Explanatory Filter requires. Like Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen, Meyer also argued that historical science explains events in the past by relying on a uniformitarian appeal to causes that can be observed in the present. Meyer then formulated a scientific inference to the best explanation for the origin of information in DNA. Inferences to the best ex-planation, he explained, do not assert the adequacy of one causal explanation merely on the basis of the inadequacy of some other causal explanation. Instead, they compare the explanatory power of many competing hypotheses to determine which hypothesis would, if true, provide the best explanation for some set of relevant data. We know from ex-perience, he wrote, that conscious intelligent agents can create informational sequences and systems. Since we know that intelligent agents do produce large amounts of information, and since all known natural processes do not (or cannot), we can infer design as the best explanation of the origin of information in the cell. 37 Kenneth R. Miller objects that origin-of-life research refutes Meyer s hypothesis that intelligent design is the best explanation for the origin of information-rich sequences in DNA. According to the RNA world hypothesis, life originated when a non-living mixture of relatively simple proteins and RNA molecules began to self-replicate. Based on this hypothesis, Miller argues that natural selection then refined the mixture and began to accumulate enough information to produce the first living cells without the need for intelligent design. Meyer responds that the proteins and RNA molecules Miller describes already contain complex specified information, the origin of which remains unexplained. Furthermore, even with intelligently designed molecules in a carefully controlled laboratory situation, RNA world researchers

14 have not produced anything approaching the specified complexity in a living cell. Meyer concludes that intelligence remains the only cause known to be capable of producing the large amounts of biological information in RNA and DNA. 38 Evaluating the Alternatives Although some creationists (both young-earth and old-earth) are also proponents of intelligent design, ID is not the same as creationism. Intelligent design relies on scientific evidence, not scripture or religious doctrines, and it makes no claims about biblical chronology. Nor does it tell us that the designer is omniscient, omnipotent, or even good. ID limits itself to the claim that we can infer from evidence in nature that some (but not necessarily all) features of the world are better explained by an intelligent cause than by unguided natural processes. According to historian Ronald L. Numbers (who is neither a creationist nor an ID proponent), it is inaccurate to call ID creationism though in the current climate of controversy it is the easiest way to discredit intelligent design. 39 The most prominent old-earth creationist organization in the U. S., Reasons to Believe (RTB), has publicly distinguished its views from ID. While applauding the efforts and integrity of intelligent design advocates, Hugh Ross, the founder of RTB, wrote in 2002: Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars... The time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap. 40 Two of the most prominent young-earth creationist organizations in the world have likewise distinguished their views from intelligent design. Henry M. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research wrote in 1999 that ID, even if well-meaning and effectively articulated, will not work! It has often been tried in the past and has failed, and it will fail today. The reason it won't work is because it is not the Biblical method. Morris concluded: The evidence of intelligent design... must be either followed by or accompanied by a sound presentation of true Biblical creationism if it is to be meaningful and lasting. In 2002, Carl Wieland of Answers in Genesis (AiG) criticized design advocates who, though well-intentioned, left the Bible out of it and thereby unwittingly aided and abetted the modern rejection of the Bible. Wieland explained that AiG s major strategy is to boldly, but humbly, call the church back to its Biblical foundations, so we neither count ourselves a part of this movement nor campaign against it. 41 Thus creationists criticize ID for not going far enough. Theistic evolutionists, on

15 the other hand, criticize ID for going too far specifically, for claiming that design is de-tectable in nature. They give several reasons for making this criticism. First, theistic evolutionists consider the search for design in nature to be a God of the gaps approach. In Keith Miller s words, God s creative action is seen only, or primarily, in the gaps of human knowledge where scientific description fails. With this perspective, each advance in scientific understanding results in a corresponding diminu-tion of divine action, and conflict between science and faith is assured. According to Francis Collins, various cultures have traditionally tried to ascribe to God various natural phenomena that the science of the day had been unable to sort out whether a solar eclipse or the beauty of a flower. But those theories have a dismal history. Ad-vances in science ultimately fill in those gaps, to the dismay of those who had attached their faith to them. Ultimately a God of the gaps religion runs a huge risk of simply discrediting faith. We must not repeat this mistake in the current era. Intelligent design fits into this discouraging tradition, and faces the same ultimate demise. 42 But Collins s God of the gaps description of the history of science is inaccurate. In 2001, physicist (and Christian) David Snoke wrote: Did anyone ever argue for the existence of God because we did not understand magnets or the orbits of the planets? Perhaps some pagan shaman somewhere has argued that way, but I see no evidence for any serious Christian argument along these lines. 43 Miller and Collins are also mistaken when they claim that ID is based on gaps in our knowledge. As we saw above, ID is not an argument from ignorance. No rational person argues, I don t know what caused X, therefore it must be designed. We infer design in our daily lives when X resembles things that we know from experience are produced by intelligence and could not plausibly have been produced without it. In Behe s examples from living cells, design can be inferred only after we have enough evidence about a feature to show that it is irreducibly complex. Darwin attributed living cells to chance and necessity because he knew so little about them; he thought they were simply blobs of energized jelly. We can now infer design because we know so much more than Darwin did about the enormously complex mechanisms inside living cells. Theistic evolutionists also deny that design is detectable in nature because they feel it would make God look incompetent, or worse. Kenneth Miller writes: To adopt the explanation of design, we are forced to attribute a host of flaws and imperfections to the designer. Our appendix, for example, seems to serve only to make us sick Whatever one s view of such a designer s motivation, there is one conclusion that drops cleanly out of the data. He was incompetent. 44 As we saw above, though, Miller is mistaken about the appendix. He is also mistaken about intelligent design. ID does not claim that design has to be perfect; something may be intelligently designed even

16 if it is flawed (as are many things made by humans). Furthermore, ID does not claim that everything is designed; natural law and chance still operate they just don t account for everything. But the main reason theistic evolutionists object to detecting design in nature is that it would contradict Darwinism, and their starting-point is the assumption that Darwinism is true. According to Darwin s theory, no details of living things are designed; they are all due to unguided natural processes. On this point, Darwinism is absolute; there can be no exceptions. If only one instance of actual design were found in living things no matter how minor the feature or how flawed the design Darwinism would collapse. And if Darwinism collapses, so does the whole enterprise of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution plays into the hands of materialists who insist that religion has no business meddling in the world of science. Stephen Jay Gould wrote in 1997: Each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority and these magi-steria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or 'nonover-lapping magisteria'). The net of science covers the empirical universe The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. 45 In other words, objective reality belongs to materialistic science (and thus to Darwinism), while religion is restrict-ed to subjective feelings and opinions. As ID proponent (and Christian) Phillip E. Johnson has pointed out, NOMA really is a power play emanating from the magisterium of science. From the NOMA perspec-tive, theology is not entitled to any cognitive status because it provides no knowledge. It is science founded on materialist premises that discovered not only evolution but everything else that is known about the universe and how human beings came into exist-ence. All modernist theologians can do is to put a theistic spin on the story provided by materialism. According to Johnson, accepting NOMA is equivalent to surrendering theism and embracing materialistic philosophy. 46 Without Darwinism, John Haught would not need to erect a new evolutionary theology on Whitehead s process philosophy. If Darwinism is true if it is empirical science supported by the facts then according to Haught the notion of God as an intelligent designer is inadequate, and we are left instead with a vulnerable, defense-less, and humble deity what Annie Dillard calls God the semi-competent. But if Darwinism is false if it is materialistic philosophy unsupported by the facts then there is no scientific justification to radically reinterpret traditional theology in terms of process philosophy. In 2001, religion scholar Huston Smith wrote: Has science discovered any facts that make the first (traditional) alternative less reasonable than the second? If it has we must follow its lead. If no such facts have turned up, scientistic [i.e. materialistic] styles of thought

17 are guilty of colonizing theology. 47 There remains one challenge posed by Darwinists that is not answered by modern creationism or intelligent design: Why do new species appear in the fossil record looking as though they have some connection to species that preceded them? Even if new species do not originate by decent with modification through unguided natural processes, why do single-celled organisms precede multicellular ones? Why do fish precede reptiles, and why do reptiles precede mammals and birds? Why do humans come last? Kenneth Miller regards this challenge as fatal to anti-evolutionism, and especially to intelligent design. In 1999 he wrote: The designer produced one organism after anoth-er in places and in sequences that would later be misinterpreted as evolution by one of his creatures Intelligent design advocates have to account for patterns in the designer s work that clearly give the appearance of evolution. Is the designer being deceptive? Is there a reason why he can t get it right the first time? Miller concluded: Intelligent design does a terrible disservice to God by casting him as a magician who periodically creates and creates and then creates again throughout the geologic ages. Those who be-lieve that the sole purpose of the creator was the production of the human species must answer a simple question not because I have asked it, but because it is demanded by natural history itself. Why did this magician, in order to produce the contemporary world, find it necessary to create and destroy creatures, habitats, and ecosystems millions of times over? 48 Creationism, in both its young-earth and old-earth forms, focuses on refuting Dar-winian materialism and reconciling evidence with the Bible. Intelligent design focuses on inferring design in particular cases, and does not attempt to explain broad patterns in the history of life. But Miller is correct in saying that the question demands an answer. If Darwinism is not true, then why do many species seem to be related to species that preceded them? Like many other elements in this controversy, the answer to Miller s question has been around a long time though today it is largely overlooked. Huston Smith wrote about it in a 1976 book aptly titled Forgotten Truth. 49 As we shall see in the next chapter, the answer reappears with new vigor in Unification Thought.