A common claim made by the Dawkins school of atheism is that the Theory of
Evolution is incompatible with theories of Intelligent Design. It isn’t. Who says so? Charles Darwin, for one.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (all quotations from the
Collins' Clear-Type Press, London & Glasgow, no date) must surely be one of the
most beautiful books ever written. The cogency, lucidity and pure logic of its basic
argument make it irresistible. If we follow the example of the eye, Darwin explains
how the organ we know today must have developed from far more primitive forms,
one step at a time. With certain vital reservations, which we will consider in a
moment, there is nothing irrational or unscientific or illogical in the assumption that
complex things may evolve out of simpler ones. The principle applies to most areas of
life, as one generation builds on the progress of another, and the idea that
advantageous changes will survive should not cause too many furrowed brows even
among the religious. But that is the limit of Darwin’s theory. “How a nerve comes to
be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated”
(Chapter 6, Difficulties on Theory). Indeed, he might have added “how a nerve comes
to be a nerve.” Darwin’s theory deals with the origin of species, not with the origin of
life or of the actual ability to produce new organs, and at no stage does he ever
pretend that it does more. He is quite specific on this subject:
“It is no valid objection [to the theory] that science as yet throws no light on the far
higher problem of the essence or origin of life” (Chapter XIV, Recapitulation and
Conclusion).
It may come as a shock to many so-called Darwinians to read the final sentence of this
masterpiece:
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one…”
Dawkins also quotes this magnificent conclusion (p. 12), but takes his quote from the
1859 edition, which did not contain the words "by the Creator". Darwin would have
had his reasons for inserting them, and Dawkins certainly has his reasons for ignoring
them.
It is well known that in later years, Darwin lost his faith, but he himself maintained
that he had never been an atheist. He was an agnostic. And his open-mindedness
manifests itself again and again. Two more examples from Chapter XIV: “I see no
good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of
any one.” And “A celebrated author and divine has written to me that ‘he has
gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that
He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful
forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused
by the action of His laws.’”
Again Dawkins omits to mention such clear indications that Darwin himself kept an
open mind on the subject of origins. Anyone reading The God Delusion would
imagine that The Origin of Species was Darwin’s proof that there was no designer.
This is not to defend the various concepts attached by different religions to the term
‘Creator’. It is fair enough for atheists to complain if, for instance, Creationists want
to teach schoolchildren that the Earth is 6000 years old, and to parade this as a
scientific fact. But it is unfair and unscientific to claim that Darwinism enables us to
dispense with the notion of a conscious creator.
There are, of course, flaws in the theory – one of which, the “imperfection of the
geological record”, Darwin covers in great detail. Another is his belief in the even
flow of the process, the gradualism which he deemed absolutely essential, but which
some modern scientists (not Dawkins) have cast doubt on, preferring Stephen Jay
Gould's concept of “punctuated equilibrium”. A third is its reliance on sheer chance in
the form of useful but random mutations. The basis of the theory, though - common
descent and natural selection of advantageous changes - remains as firm as ever, but
since it provides no evidence to confirm or refute the idea of intelligent design, and
since the man who formulated it remained open-minded on the subject, it should
remain precisely where he left it: as Chapter 2 and not Chapter 1 in the History of
Life.
Dawkins is not prepared to leave it there, however. He seizes on the Boeing 747
example attributed to Fred Hoyle (i.e. a hurricane sweeping through a scrapyard
would never be able to create the plane, even if all the parts were available), and
dismisses it as “an argument that could be made only by somebody who doesn’t
understand the first thing about natural selection: somebody who thinks natural
selection is a theory of chance whereas – in the relevant sense of chance – it is the
opposite” (p. 113). Leaving aside the puzzle of what he means by the “relevant
sense”, it is not the process of natural selection that is attributed to chance here, any
more than the people who designed the Boeing would have thrown the bits and pieces
up in the air and hoped for a happy landing. The chance element lies in the creation
and combination of the materials on which natural selection works. Dawkins (perhaps
Hoyle too) is comparing the Boeing to the animal at the end (so far) of the
evolutionary process, but it is the separate coming into being of the living, selfreproducing
primeval organisms, the hitherto unthought-of even if primitive eye, ear,
nose, lung, heart, penis, vagina, etc., that presents the problem. Darwin himself
understood this, and so refrained from discussing such origins.
Dawkins, however, blithely announces that natural selection explains “the whole of
life” (p. 116). Even when dealing with the example of the eye, he tries to make out
that something so “apparently designed…was really the end product of a long
sequence of non-random but purely natural causes” (p. 116), as if the theory did not
depend on an entirely random but immediately effective mutation that gave birth to
the primitive light-sensitive nerve on which natural selection got to work. If you think
a primitive light-sensitive nerve is simple, try to explain exactly how it works.
In this context, however, it also needs to be borne in mind that the very concept of
sight did not exist before that random mutation, and yet the various unconscious cells
in some mysterious way “knew” that this primitive light-sensitivity could develop
further, and so quite spontaneously they were able to develop new nerves and cells
which eventually resulted in sight, and then in better sight. And hearing, and smell,
and taste, and touch, and so on. Each one the result of an initial random mutation and
an astonishing ability to improve on the original "invention".
Perhaps, then, for a moment we might pause to imagine precisely how this process
might work. Let us picture the primitive oojah lying beneath a tree when a bolt of
lightning strikes beside it. Perhaps, in order to boost the chances of probability, there
is a herd of oojahs. As a result of the shock or the powerful electrical discharge, an
oojah emerges with a genetic mutation: it has a primitive, light-sensitive nerve. For
some reason, this primitive nerve provides it with an advantage over the oojahs that
haven’t got one, and it is lucky enough to survive and pass on its light-sensitive nerve
to a new generation of oojahs. Then what happens? Neither oojahs nor their nerves
have the slightest concept of vision, and even if they did, no amount of straining
would enable them to develop new structures that would result in any change to their
light-sensitive nerve. No matter how many generations of oojahs and light-sensitive
nerves you count, by what means did they develop the additional, hugely complex
structures that lead, even step by step, from light-sensitivity to vision? The atheists’
scenario, as their creatures climb Dawkins' Mount Improbable, is of a “continuous
and shallow slope", evolving "by slow (or even, maybe, not all that slow) gradual
degrees." (p. 124). It's a very plausible image, but it only explains what happens and
not how or why it happens. Where did the mechanism of physical change spring
from? The initial random mutation – an amazing invention in itself – which Dawkins
attributes to luck, is followed by a vast chain of inexplicable additional mini-miracles
as each new generation of oojahs…does what, exactly? They can’t consciously
change what they have, any more than I can change the degree of my myopia; what
they pass on is only what they already have. At what point, allowing for the gradual
improvements, does a light-sensitive nerve turn into vision? Of course it all happened.
But how and, since vision did not exist as a concept, why? How did the new
connections, nerves, muscles form themselves? In this context of physical change,
natural selection explains nothing, because although it tells us why beneficial changes
survive and are perpetuated, it does not explain the mechanisms that enable such
changes to take place. Dawkins, with his smooth and effortless ride up "Mount
Improbable", graciously acknowledges that ignition was sheer luck, but conveniently
ignores the luck that created the mechanisms that produce useful random mutations,
pass them on, and even improve them.
There is one further anomaly in the Dawkins’ theory of evolution. What he calls the “jackpot or nothing fallacy”: “Either the eye sees or it doesn’t. There are assumed to be no useful intermediates. But this is simply wrong. Such intermediates abound in practice” (p. 122). He goes on to describe the eye of the flatworm (which can't see an image) as “less than half a human eye”, and of the nautilus (which can) as halfway between the flatworm and the human eye. But eyes at the "intermediate stage" still function. They would be useless if they couldn’t. There are three problems here. The first, once again, is the lucky break of a primitive, light-sensitive “nerve”, which if it
did not already provide some degree of advantage – even 0.0001% of human vision –
would not have survived. Secondly and thirdly, why and how is an oojah innovation passed on to and improved by a flatworm and a nautilus and a billion other species? This question
lies at the very heart of the discussion, because even if you believe as I do that
evolution happened, the why and the how remain wide open questions.
As far as "why" is concerned, a common theist answer is that God planned it this way, and humans are his end product. Looking at the vast quantities of extinct species, and the great range of life forms that have come and gone, even if I believed in a Creator, I would find it hard to detect a targeted plan. A common atheist answer
is that evolution happened because living creatures had to adapt to their changing environments or else die. But early, so-called simple life forms (bacteria) have survived without evolving into other forms. Scientists would be delighted if they found such forms on other planets, and they don't necessarily expect to find evolved species. If life just happened, it could have survived perfectly well
without evolution. And so we come to how. How did those successful, individual oojahs – for even over thousands or millions of years, the process can only develop
through individuals – transmute themselves into floojahs, then flatjahs, then
flatwoohs, and then flatworms? If, say, one particular oojah suddenly decided that it
would go and live under the earth, and this oojah was so successful that it spawned
more, where did its adaptability spring from? This again takes us right back to the
beginning. Darwin’s original few forms (or one) were simultaneously brought to life,
endowed with the ability to reproduce themselves, and – crucially for evolution – with
the potential capability of adapting themselves to changing conditions, passing on
their adaptations, and providing hitherto non-existent yet functioning organs. All these
skills assembled at a stroke by sheer chance.
There is a possibility that the huge problem of innovation may be tied in with that of
adaptation. Current research on epigenetics suggests that Lamarckism is making a
comeback, and that perhaps the communities of cells that join together and form all
living creatures have an innate intelligence of their own. Indeed, we know for a fact
that our organs act quite independently of our personal consciousness, and as they go
about their business of breathing, digesting, perceiving, fighting off intruders, they are
making decisions without our conscious guidance. Perhaps then, as environments
change, communities of cells come up with their own ideas, adapting and/or
innovating. The ID-er will understandably point out that this makes the initial
mechanism all the more complex, thus reducing ever further the likelihood of chance,
while both theist and atheist evolutionists will surely feel boosted by the possibility
that random mutations may prove to have a minor role in the great game of evolution.
This is potentially an exciting new field of research, and both sides can claim that it
strengthens their case!
The design argument thus relates to four things: 1) origins, 2) heredity, 3)
adaptability, and 4) innovation. All four involve a complexity that beggars belief.
Natural selection explains none of them, since all it can do is ensure the survival of
those creatures that have already produced the relevant adaptations and innovations. It
is true that most areas of our existence show that once the initial mechanism is in
place, complexity may develop from comparative simplicity, but in order to show just
how far-fetched the atheist scenario is, let me draw an invented parallel. The camera
is our nearest mechanical equivalent to the eye. The conscious, human mind has
created an instrument that can perform most of the eye’s functions. And yet for all our
conscious ingenuity, we are still not able to invent a camera that is capable of
spontaneously replicating itself, of spontaneously repairing its own defects, of
spontaneously improving itself, or of spontaneously passing on any improvements
made in itself. Apparently, only chance is capable of such engineering brilliance.
Dawkins’ misrepresentation of the design argument reaches its apogee in a typical
combination of two favourite themes: “Design is not the only alternative to chance. Natural selection is a better alternative. Indeed, design is not a real alternative at all
because it raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer?”
(p. 121) And so natural selection, which does nothing but ensure the survival of the
invention, has now somehow become the inventor. Who invented the inventor is, of
course, a perfectly valid question - and ample reason for an agnostic to stay clear of
theism - but Dawkins has not presented any alternative other than chance, which is
ample reason for an agnostic to stay clear of atheism.