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Essays on Environment and Health-Related Science Scientific Politics and Misconduct |
This is a work in progress.
EVEN IF A FORM DARWINIAN MACRO COULD EVER EXPLAIN ALL OF LIFE (NOT ACTUALLY EVEN THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE IN TERMS OF DEPENDENCE ON RANDOM GENE/DNA MUTATIONS ONLY ), SUCH AND EVENT WOULD NOT BE EVIDENCE AGAINST BUT RATHER EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF A SUBTLY CREATIVE GOD;
If Darwinism were the entire explanation for life (very improbable), it would point to the integration of all physical laws governing the universe in a way which could even overcome the noise in the universe and produce incredible amounts of coordinated information. The noise comes from the Big Bang background radiation, cosmic rays, thermal molecular excitation, radioactivity, quantum mechanical uncertainty, etc. If there were no separate guiding rule/law underpinning and determining the direction and rate of evolution, then there would still be the coordination of all the laws of physics to explain and that would point in all probability to God.
The evidence is, however, (based on very low probabilities of origin of life and Darwinian macro evolution) that for some reason, God did not exclusively follow the Darwinian paradigm. One could speculate as to why dependence only on Darwinism would not be the best option for this universe, but it would probably not be very informative. There is, in any case, little evidence that Darwinism determines true novelty and bridges discontinuities in the evolution of life. There is no evidence that evolution is dependent only on selection from random mutations.
Science has made it clear that changes in the ecosphere do occur, but is silent on the tradeoffs that God would make in determining how life evolves. It might even be that design tradeoffs are somehow determinate on the best mechanism to fine tune life. If Darwinism (mutation rates, imperfections in the molecular error correction machinery, multipurpose genes versus more or less single functions genes) were setup to produce macro evolution, the fine tuning mechanism which Darwinism unquestionably is, it could be that fine tuning would not function properly over time or that the balanced ecology of the world would not be possible. Science is silent on all these issues, but it is not hard to conceive of reasons for the evolution of life not to be primarily dependent on selection from random mutations alone.
Darwinism (macro
evolution) in its present form has two basic tenets; 1) The first one is the
belief that all changes in genes are supposedly
driven only by random mutations and 2) That all
life forms are supposedly
the result only of an extremely long string of micro mutations (very small changes) which can add up
to create entirely new life forms and truly novel life functions/features.
Both of these Darwinian tenets are just assumptions.
The laws of the universe, in fact surround us with beautiful and complex patterns, but science cannot show that these laws alone are sufficient to account for the complexity of life. Life of course is dependent on those laws, but that is far different that science showing that the laws alone are sufficient to account for life. If the laws alone were sufficient, that would probably be equivalent to God writing a message across the sky saying Here I AM, and that would eliminate the need for faith and trust and leave no room for mankind's freedom.
As
Einstein
put it, however;
“I
see a
pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern.
I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker.
The human mind is unable to conceive of four dimensions, so how can it
conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as
one.”
We believe that Einstein was clearly right and that we humans cannot begin to conceive of the deepest aspects of God's creation. Atheists have trouble with "God" when they try to define God in their own terms consistent with their prejudices. The subtlety and creativity of God is not directly knowable by science, but what we can see thru scientific means is awesome.
Life is far more complex than can be explained by simply adding the parts together to claim that God is not needed. Simple mathematical logic disproves such narrow evolution thinking. In reality, if it were possible for the laws of physics to create a series of the elements of life which could be simply added together, that would point to an incredibly robust "design imperative" of the laws of physics and a Designer.
In the following part of the essay, we will first outline a basic
argument (closely related to simple math and information) as to why we can never
be sure that there is not some simple order behind evolution and why Darwinism
can never be proven to explain all of life.
Even if one had close to the entire history of life (which will never happen because the geological instability of the earth as well as the processes of decay that have destroyed much of that history of life), one could never rule out the possibility of there being directed evolution. Even if no governing rule was discernable in a gene history, that would not prove that no directive rule (such as control by God) was ever present at some point in time in the evolution of that life form. This inability to say that no direction exists or governing rule exists is not only true of evolution as a set of information, but true of all sets of information which appear to be random or to have a large random component. This is a truth not dependent in any way on any belief about God or the creation and history of life.
Secondly, regardless of ones beliefs about God, no knowledgeable person would deny that the history of life contains an extremely large amount of information which if it could accumulate naturally by the laws of physics, would speak to an even more finely tuned universe geared for life as we know it. If nature can generate such incredible amount of complex interrelated and finely tuned information (this points to something far beyond that which can be demonstrated in the laboratory), again, that would speak to an extremely fine tuning of the laws of physics to a degree of perfection far beyond human explanation and probably only attributable to God doing something incredible with the laws of physics.
It is possible for information (on which could be God acting) to exist which has a very low probability of being directly detectable. There is a simple analogy with the numerical information which makes up the mathematical ratio of the diameter of a circle to circumference of a circle, known as "Pi".) Keep in mind that Pi is extremely simple (can be generated to a high accuracy with simple formulas) compared to the information involved in life and even a complete understanding of Pi is to some extent not fully knowable. Pi is known only to a limited number of decimal places. It is known to a huge number of decimal places, but that number will always be limited.
If the question is asked of even simple information such as a subset of the remainder digits of the Pi ratio; "does that information contain evidence of a governing pattern of formation"; there can fundamentally never be an absolute and certain negative answer to that question. Most if not all of the subsets of the remainder digits (those to the right of the decimal point) of Pi that one could select from those digits are not distinguishable from a set believed to probably be completely random. That does not mean that a rule was not used to generate the numbers of Pi. It only means that a rule for all of its (Pi) numbers is not discoverable (as far as is known) at that time, from in any subset of its numbers, if one does not know the subset was generated via a rule.
As with the sets of remainder digits of Pi, the information in life (incredibly more complex) can only ever have two certain things said about it; 1) a pattern (governing rule or relationship within the information) has been determined or 2) a governing rule has not been found. One can never say with certainty that a governing rule of the origin and structures of life do not exist. There will always the possibility that such a rule exists but simply has not yet been discovered. When the set of information is extremely complex, it is inherent that it will never be possible to say with certainty or even a high probability that no governing rule exists.
Given the above basic truth about information, it is irrefutable that to whatever degree Darwinian evolution plays a limited role in the existence of life, plus any and all evolution will by definition always be dependent on the laws of physics. It is an indisputable fact that the laws of physics are balanced with incredible precision to allow the existence of life. Very small changes in the laws of physics would almost certainly make life impossible in any but the most crude form, if that. If Darwinian macro evolution were true, it would just be homage to the Design of the universe, which science cannot explain other than operationally, thus leaving God as the answer.
To believe otherwise (not believing in the existence of God the Designer) virtually requires believing in the existence of an actual infinity of other less fit for life universes or believing that life by incredible chance just happens to be in this beautiful perfectly tuned to life one. As physicist P. Davies says in his book “The Mind of God” on page 190 quoting and agreeing with a philosopher R. Swinburne “The postulation of God is the postulation of one entity of a simple kind". The quote continues saying that the other possibility without God as an explanation is "The postulation of an actual existence of an infinite number of worlds between them exhausting al the logical possibilities--- is to postulate complexity and non-prearranged coincidence of infinite dimensions beyond rational belief.”
There are what are called anthropic arguments (the universe must be fit for life for life to observe the universe) that supposedly explains to some degree the near perfect balance of the laws of physics for life and the beauty of the universe. The noted physicist, Mr. Davies says, however, on page 220 of his book "The Mind of God"; “anthropic arguments work only for aspects of nature that are crucial to life.” In a book well worth reading, Mr. Davies makes many arguments that point to God as the simplest explanation for the universe and the incredible beauty and complexity of life. He (noted scientist in physics) clearly sees Gods hand as the simplest explanation for our existence.
Mr. Davies sums up where science points us when he says; “Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot merely accept it as a brute fact. There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation."
What all of this boils down to is that even if one could explain life as a natural outcome of the laws of physics, one would be left with God as the most probable explanation for such laws.
What follows is an elaboration on our argument that randomness can never be proven in evolution.
Darwinian evolution assumes that the changes/mutation of genes is random and there is little if any question that there at least is an appearance of a random component in the variations in genes. The fact remains, however, that such is just an assumption and all that can be said with certainty that any pattern of variation in the genes cannot be proven to follow any rule known to science at this time. It is even believed by a noted scientist that evolution if run again, would produce similar results and this points to some form of rule overriding the random gene variations.
C. deDuve (Nobel Prize winning scientist), says in his book; "Life Evolving; Molecules, Mind and Meaning" on page 183; "there is written into the very structure of genomes, more inevitability in vertical (macro) than in horizontal (micro) evolution, and that the degree of inevitability increases with the progression of vertical evolution.) Mr. deDuve the distinguished biologist goes on to say on page 185 about the evolution of life; ""Rerunning the tape" ---, in any case---no doubt would not produce exactly the same script but might well come sufficiently near the original story to make it perfectly recognizable.") This certainly argues against Darwinian dogma.
It cannot, in any case, be proven that history of genes is purely random. It cannot even be proven that what is thought to be garbage DNA is in fact just has not function that is needed in some life circumstance (disease or tissue damage) which may occur in the future. An analogy would be that if you were trying to solve a puzzle and could not find a solution, that would in no way prove that a solution does not exists. Similarly, just because science cannot find a pattern to gene mutation, that doe not prove such a pattern does not exist.
If we look again at “Pi”, we find that the numerical value is irrational (which means for one thing that it is an infinite progression of numbers.) As we have stated, if a subset of the numbers in pi is tested as a subset (this has essentially actually been done by mathematicians; refer to the book “Randomness” by D. Bennett, starting on page 158.), we find that we as far as we can determine, the numbers are purely random. We know, however, that we could start with the number "Pi" and use some simple rule to derive that particular subset. As Mr. Bennet did, if were to give that set of numbers (subset of pi) to a mathematician and they mathematically tested the numbers for randomness using statistical procedures, they would determine that the numbers were random to the best knowledge of mathematics. They would be wrong as the Darwinian macro evolutionists could easily be wrong in analyzing the information in life.
Evolution could easily look random while in fact it may actually have a pattern or a predetermined direction as a whole with some random variation/noise superimposed on it. Such a random component might be part of the "rules" which allow life to adapt in a limited way to the environment. Even if we never find a pattern or law governing the direction of evolution, that would not prove a pattern/law was not put there by God at the beginning of life. The initial conditions of life can never be known precisely.
The actual existence of patterns in evolutionary history is in fact noted by paleontologist and Darwinian evolutionists Niles Eldredge paleontologist; curator in the Department of Invertebrates at The American Museum of Natural History, in New York in his book “The Pattern of Evolution” on page 5 says; “Patterns in the history of life have been suggesting for at least a half century that there are regularly occurring sets of conditions that seem to control evolutionary activity—dampening it, often for longer periods, and triggering often rapid evolution at other times. Like ecological succession, evolution produces, not isolated, events, but repeated patterns which hold clues to how the process works”. He goes on to say on the same page in referring to the selfish gene theory (driven by purely random mutation and fitness selection) and referring to R. Dawkins the anti-Christian atheist; “Dawkins “selfish genes” are as incapable of triggering ecological succession as they are of directly causing evolutionary history.” Eldredge has other interesting things to say which raise questions about macro evolution dogma. (Eldredge still, however, is an evolutionist (which is virtually demanded in his profession, of course. Anyone openly questioning Darwinian dogma will be attacked by his peers.))
It is also worth noting that even if life contains a random (allowing fine tuning) component, the overriding reality is that the principle of cooperation (and altruism probably to a lesser degree) is fundamental to the development of complex life. Harmony predominates even at the cellular and gene level (refer to the book “The Cooperative Gene” by M. Ridley.)
Life is not dominated by selfish genes, chaos (in the negative sense), and unrestrained conflict as atheists would like us to believe. In truth, if someone looks at the reality of science including the life sciences, objectively, they find a beauty (a term often used in physics in the search for laws) and the strong implication of design in the laws of physics that is deep and profound. This is true even though we can only see a small part of the reality of the laws and truths of the universe and have only a small part of the evidence of the evolution of life available to mankind.
What all the above boils down to is that an open minded look at what Darwinian macro evolution (if true, (which is doubtful)) would be dependent on the beautifully balanced laws of physics in harmony with life and in harmony with other life and would point God of a nature which would be acceptable to most people of faith.
We recommending reading the book; "The Case For A Creator" by L. Strobel which contains a wide range of scientific references.
We also recommended; Science and Christianity, Conflict or Coherence?
Predicting Evolution; refer to "4. Predicting evolution"