Cambrian Expulsion of Darwin's Doubt

Stephen Meyer’s book, Darwin’s Doubt is an exploration of the fossil record, known as the Cambrian Explosion, as well as a meticulous analyzation of genetic requirements of what novel body plans in animals require in order to arrive on the scene of life.  In addition, it is a case-building exercise in promoting the theory of intelligent design as a viable option to the prevailing view of the neo-Darwinian synthesis that all of life arose by means of random, genetic mutations acted upon by natural selection.  
Readers familiar with the Cambrian explosion know that it is a name given to the sudden appearance in the fossil record of novel body plans, fully-formed and functional, and astonishingly distinct from the eukaryote organisms in the Pre-Cambrian record.  In the first part of the book, The Mystery of the Missing Fossils, Meyer discusses Darwin’s friend and challenger, Harvard paleontologist Louis Agassiz.  Agassiz doubted Darwin’s idea of descent with modification via tiny, incremental changes because he doubted the power of natural selection to produce a specific difference (difference in species).  Agassiz wrote in Darwin’s day, “It is a matter of fact that extreme variations finally degenerate or become sterile; like monstrosities they all die out,” (11).  It was the Cambrian fossil evidence that provided Agassiz with his antagonism toward the idea of tiny, gradual, accumulations of change in one species could give rise to another.  Further, as Meyer provides in his book by means of photographs and illustrations, there are some downright strange body plans found in the Cambrian layer!  One look at the Hallucigenia sparsa gives reason as to its onomatopoetic name.  
But perhaps this is old hat for those who read the evolutionary literature.  After all, we live in a day of genetic engineering, biomolecular study and gene manipulation, and so forth, and this leaves much to be desired by reasoning about intelligent design by means of studying ancient fossils in rocks.  The second part of Meyer’s book, How to Build an Animal, will satisfy readers who desire a detailed analysis of the origin of genetic information, protein folds, and de novo  origination of new species, as proposed by Manyuan Long, Kenneth Miller and others (Gishlick, Matzke, and Elsberry), where Meyer challenges the origination of genetic information as unexplained by biologists, who have begged the question “as to the origin of the specified information contained in genes or parts of genes,” and that they must “invoke completely unexplained de novo jumps--essentially evolutionary creation ex nihilo (“from nothing”).  For example, Meyer discusses how, while biologists propose protein folds as plausible evidential scenarios where genes from the folds could be different enough to produce proteins with different folds (critiquing Long again).  However, according to Meyer, the evidence (“in most cases”) is that when protein folds are fragmented off from their original chain, the fold loses its ability to form a stable structure (224).  If that is true “in most cases,” should it be viewed as a viable hypothesis?  To find the answer, readers will have to read through Meyer’s well-researched interaction with current research in the origin of genetic information, epigenetics, and so forth.  

Part three of the book, After Darwin, What?  Meyer states his case that intelligent design should be considered a scientific theory based upon historical reasoning, the ability to make predictions and the inference to the best explanation (abductive reasoning).  The book is an enjoyable read.  Meyer’s research is as vast as the cosmos, and yet he offers anecdotes and musings that delight the reader, such as this creative hypothetical: “Perhaps he (Agassiz) retired to his study the better to concentrate, scrutinizing the book’s (Origin) prespossessing title, recalling what he had already heard about the work.  He read the book with deep interest, making notes in the margin as he moved through it, but in the end his verdict would disappoint its author” (8).  No matter what one’s views are on Darwin’s idea of descent with modification via, slow, gradual, incremental changes, and whether natural selection has the creative power to form novel body plans, Stephen C. Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt will not disappoint, as it is researched to a T, full of diagrams, illustrations and pictures of key figures, fossils, and more, making the book easy to follow, as it gets tedious in its research. In any case, Meyer's book is well-worth the effort in reading it.  

What is Science?

There's a new atheist website up, and it's a good-looking one.  It's called "Christianity Disproven."  Now, it's a good thing to dispel commonly held myths, whether in the Christian world or the atheist world.  To be fair, many atheists have the right to be upset with the Christian church here in America, because it has fostered and encouraged amid its ranks serious maladies including anti-intellectualism, broad, sweeping appeals for a "child-like" and "blind" faith, (where 'child-like' means non-investigative, as opposed to the biblical idea of trust).  Christians in America have been homophobic, racist, and violent.  They have also been greedy, sexually immoral and physically lazy, too.  So, it seems fair that atheists would have some serious reserves about wanting to be Christian! 

Many atheists bring powerful, sophisticated arguments against belief in God, the reliability of Bible, the resurrection of Jesus and so on.  Some of the most powerful arguments deal with the conflict between the divine attributes of omnipotence and omniscience, for example.  Or, they might sound the trumpet with a tight argument against the goodness of God and how that is incompatible with the evil he apparently allows.  These are worthy discussions.  However, there are a number of atheists who use shibboleths, cliches, and one-liners in order to frustrate theistic belief.  An example is found on "Christianity Disproved" 

"This is AWESOME! I hope it helps people to understand where we really come from. We do not need "gods" any longer, we have science to answer our questions."

My response: Science is the interpretation of the natural world. Nothing more, nothing less. In order to do science, you have to presuppose cause and effect, the uniformity of nature, that your senses are reliable, that your mind (or brain, granting physicalism) coheres and corresponds to the external world outside of yourself.

So on what basis does someone believe all these things? 

"Scientism" is an extreme form of classic foundationalism which says that beliefs are justified if they are self-evident or evident to the senses.  On what basis would you say these things are self-evident? Is classic foundationalism self-evident? No. Is classic foundationalism evident to the senes? No. Scientism therefore, is self-referentially incoherent. 

_______________________________________________________________________________

That's the end of my comment on the site.  I'd like to add some further thoughts on what science is.  

Science is the orderly study systematic categorization of the truths in a given field. Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn spoke of 'paradigms" that change and evolve through verification, falsification and renewal (we might think of the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis).

When we use the term "science" alongside (or in opposition to!) other fields of research, study and knowledge ( Latin, scientia), we are thinking of our conclusions regarding the natural world and the way it works, using models and predictions to anchor further speculations as to how things go, the fields of which study are the "hard" sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics, with hydrology, geology und so weiter.

Many of these sciences (fields of study) are used to predict the future and speculate about the past.  In speculating about the past, and calling themselves "science," it is only right that we restore history, theology, metaphysics and the so-called "soft" sciences to the realm of science, making "science" a general, all-encompassing term.  

Philosopher of biology Stephen C. Meyer, (Ph.D Cambridge) notes in his book, Signature in the Cell that since the time of the Greeks, up to the scientific revolution (1300-1700), philosophers, theologians and those who researched the natural world ('scientists'), held to the worldview of idealism, which is to say that they believed mind preceded, originated and often-times sustained matter.  On this worldview, philosophy, theology and studies of the natural realm were rightly called "science" because they pursued fields of knowledge with the express purpose of delineating a systematic and taxonomic set of study in their particular fields.  Theology was the "queen of sciences" because it held the broader scope of all things under the rule and authority of the Almighty, an intelligent creator who orders an intelligent world, ripe for inquiry and study by his creatures (us).   

Enlightenment philosophers like Hume and Hobbes believed the opposite: matter gives rise to mind.  This is the worldview of materialism, that the universe has always existed, and that as time progresses, over eons and eons of flux and flow, simpler forms of life give rise to complex forms of life.  This is basically the Darwinian world-and-life view.  Given this worldview, we can see how belief in God is both unnecessary and quite possibly irrational.  

Today, when people say "Science tells us such-and-such," or, "Science has buried God," they are speaking from the worldview of naturalism.  Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga is known for challenging naturalism in his famous essay, "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism."  He asks how, given materialistic naturalism, we can trust our cognitive faculties?  Charles Darwin wondered the same thing when he asked in a now famous letter to William Graham Down, 

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

When people say "science will give us all the answers," they are both correct and incorrect at the same time.  They are correct in that all the fields study that produce knowledge will give us the answers we need in order to make sense of human experience (crystal balls and the like do not produce true knowledge).   On the other hand, "Science" with a capital "S," understood within a materialistic, naturalist universe, does not tell us anything about whether there is an immaterial world, and it cannot tell us "all the answers" re: the meaning and purpose of life, what is good or evil, whether history has a goal, purpose or end.

And yet, even evolutionary biologists do in fact tell us, from their own perspective, that the plain truth is that materialism is either false, or under serious jeopardy: Meyer on evolutionary biologist George Williams: 

"You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms because they both have mass and charge and length and width.  [But] you can't do that with information and matter....  Information doesn't have mass or charge or length in millimeters.  Likewise matter doesn't have bytes....This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains."  

If matter and information are two separate domains, and even evolutionary biologists support this view, how can we rationally hold to a materialist concept of the nature of the universe?  It stands to reason that the worldview of Idealism (mind produces and sustains matter) is the more rational view than materialism (matter gives rise to mind, and conscious thoughts are reducible to particles that have mass).  

Naturalist understandings of the natural sciences, i.e. the so-called "hard" sciences shows materialism to be false because of DNA and the informational code they produce when making genes.  Evolutionary biologist George Williams again:

""Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter....  The gene is a package of information, not an object.  The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene.  But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message."  

We can see that using our plain reason and observation, that information and matter are two different things, and if they are different, then information must be immaterial.  They must be different, as information cannot be a "different kind of material."  That wouldn't make any sense.  

Information, as non-material, brings us to at least, a non-reductive naturalism that espouses immaterial entities like laws, consciousness, etc.  And we must ask ourselves, "Where does the information come from?"  Not from material sources. 

No, the rational view is that immaterialism is true, and this opens the door for the rational person to feel justified in believing in immaterial things like an intelligent agent or agents involved in the origin and sustainability of life.  Further it shows that belief in God is not irrational, that it is rational, and is not threatened in the least by the studies of the natural world.  To the contrary, as the Belgic Confession (article 2) says, the creation is "a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God." 

Again, "Science" is a simple term from the Latin which means "knowledge."  Will "knowledge" tell us everything we need to know? Does "knowledge" now have the ontological status of personhood? "Knowledge" speaks to us?  Isn't it we who are the ones in pursuit of knowledge?  Yes, our research will "tell" us things, but surely there is a better way to discuss metaphysical questions concerning Ultimate Reality other than resorting to shibboleths like "Science has ruled out belief in God" and other such statements. 

Sources:
Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.
Alvin Plantinga, "Naturalism Defeated."  pdf file located at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf
Christianity Disproved located here.  http://www.christianitydisproved.com/

Science, Intelligent Design and Public Education

Amidst the encyclopedic volumes capable of satisfying a pyromaniac's bonfire dreams, there is the discussion here in this title. And I'll be a pyro's pariah for this one, I'm sure. I'm willing to learn and be corrected on this. Nevertheless, permit me to think "out loud" for a moment. But let me repeat: I'm willing to be corrected on this.

Let's first get down with some definitions. There's always definitions to be had, and by golly, we ought to have them. First, Science--with a capital "S" because well, hey, it's Science man! Can you see the high priests in their white lab coats demanding our obedience?

Serious. Simple: Science is basically the interpretation of the physical world. More specifically, Science is not about "what is observable, measurable and repeatable." Rather, science is a body of knowledge built up about the physical world obtained through deductive reasoning based upon the results of empirical inquiry. Of course, some philosophers of science would point out that there is no deduction without induction (probability). Science is based upon empiricism, which uses the senses to determine knowledge. But the a priori set of rules for the proper use of empiricism is that empiricism is the best way to go about obtaining scientific knowledge. Does that sound circular? "Those who believe in the ultimacy of sense-experience must presuppose it in arguing for their philosophy (empiricism).1 "Science," properly so-called is a philosophy, folks. There is no such thing as "bare factual Science" awaiting our arrival for its snatching away by our inquiring minds and working hands, like a treasure buried near Robinson's cave. There's philosophy in them thar laboratories.

Secondly, Intelligent Design (ID). ID is based upon the following enthymeme:
1) design is observed
2) design requires information
3) information requires mind
4) therefore, there is a mind as the causal agent of the information.

There is nothing here about God, the Bible, creationism or anything like that. There exist ID proponents who are atheists and agnostics. Repeat: there exist ID proponents who are atheists and agnostics.2 It is therefore impossible that ID is "creationism in scientific garb" (pseudo-science, in their minds). Furthermore, ID is not the "god of the gaps." The "god of the gaps" fallacy is the following thought: "Well, looks like we've reached our limits on scientific knowledge, and can't explain any more about the universe. Wup, God musta did it."

In fact, what ID opponents are guilty of is the "science of the gaps" fallacy. Consider the following thought: "Well, we don't really know how all this information got in the cell. Guess we'll just have to wait and see and keep researching, cuz Science will provide the answer."

In each case there is
1) knowledge of a thing
2) a limitation of that knowledge (the 'gap')
3) a conclusion of how the thing known came to be
Hence, either "god" or "science" of the gaps.

Neither "god of the gaps" or "science of the gaps" is good for the human enterprise in the quest for knowledge of the physical world and of our universe. But ID is not "god of the gaps." Rather, ID is the deduction of an informal syllogism that information requires mind. There is no "gap" that is crossed in making such a conclusion. To say that mind is required for information to exist is just plain good sense. Indeed, where does information come from, if not from mind? Information is abstract and unseen. It is manifested in what is seen, but it is unseen, just as gravity is unseen, but is manifested in its display of power. If the information comes from Chance, then that too, is a "gap" theory. And isn't that what Darwinists want us to believe, that Chance is the Father of us all? The Philistines believed the same thing (1 Samuel 6. Cool story).

Example: You're walking in the woods, and a bunch of stones are lined up in a certain sequence: "Girlfriend, you gotta dump that loser." You've gotten yourself some information, haven't you? And there's a mind behind it. You're not "unscientific" in concluding so. He really is a loser, and you'd best get out!

Thirdly, the public classroom. Opponents of ID say that ID should stay out of the science class, but should be welcome in philosophy or religion class. Opponents of ID also say that "science tells us the how" and "religion tells us the why." This latter statement is odd, because it is guilty of the "god of the gaps" fallacy, the very fallacy it intends to eschew in opposing ID. The former statement about the separate classrooms is fallacious as well. This is because we have already seen that science is the interpretation of the physical world. The fact that the physical world is interpreted by us humans shows that science is philosophical in nature and essence. There are no "brute facts" out there, as philosopher Cornelius Van Til used to say. All "facts" are interpreted. And just how are they interpreted by the high priests of science today? To wit, the epistemic dichotomy occurring here is one between faith and reason (evidence or "Science"), and no such dichotomy should exist. This is because empiricism, swimming in league with methodological naturalism, must assume a priori (beforehand) its tenets that observable data tell us all there is to know about reality. In other words, Science uses circular reasoning. That's religion, folks. There is no science without a prior faith commitment to how the world works, and why.

Today, science is whoops--forgot the capital "S." Er, Science, as the interpretation of the physical world, is built upon the epistemological paradigm of methodological naturalism. That is, Science's theory of how we know things (epistemological paradigm) has its way of doing things (method) in terms of naturalism. Naturalism is the idea that nothing exists except the natural world. Naturalism tells us that if you can't experience something with the five senses, then it ain't real, Jack. This is why people say things like, "Science belongs in the lab, while ID belongs in the philosophy department." It's a nice, condescending way of saying, "Hey bud. We know you got your religion and all, just don't bring it into the public sphere, because you and I both know that religion ain't real." Und so weiter.

In all my discussions on the great expenditure of my time on the internet, I've always challenged people with a proper definition of Science, and I've always challenged them on their epistemological grounds. The usual remarks I get are ad hominem attacks. Except the attacks aren't against me, as they are against a theory, ID. "ID is not science!" (But they never tell me what Science actually is). "ID is crap!" (But they never say why, except laying claim to the "god of the gaps fallacy" fallacy). These are mere assertions, and do nothing but sound like the angry boy screaming for his ice cream.

Finally, if people want to keep "religion" out of the classroom, then fine. I'm okay with that. But, there's a price you have to pay. When the student asks, "Teacher, why is there so much complexity in this cell?" or, "How did the information get there?" the teacher must reply in one of two ways:
1) we don't know: science will tell us some time in the future,
and
2) information requires mind.

Either way, the Science Teacher has encroached upon the philosophy teacher's can of coffee, and it's the good stuff. Someone's going to pay a price. But the real price will be the one placed upon the student's education. The student will not be able to ask questions of "why?" or even "how?" Instead, they'll just have to take their Teacher and what Science says...on faith.

I'll put the last word here: I'm willing to be corrected on this. But enough of the ad hominem attacks. Use reason and rationality, not mere assertion-making.

1.John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, P&R publishing, Phillipsburg, NJ.
2.For one such example, see Bradley Monton in his latest book: Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design."