The Joshua Letter

Chapter 1

DARWINISM: DEAD MAN WALKING

I. Introduction.

To listen to some scientists, one might think that science had finally answered the questions of ethics, freedom and the meaning of human existence. For example, William Provine of Cornell University, a leading historian of science, has stated:

Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with mechanistic principles. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces that are rationally detectable. . . .

Second, modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society.

Third, human beings are marvelously complex machines. The individual human becomes an ethical person by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influences. That is all there is.

Fourth, we must conclude that when we die, we die and that is the end of us. . . .

Finally, free will as it is traditionally conceived - the freedom to make uncoerced and unpredictable choices among alternative possible courses of action - simply does not exist. . . . There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.1
Some Americans might be resistant to Dr. Provine's sweeping inferences, despite his impressive academic appointment. How did scientists, who study bones, molecules, or balls of gas in distant galaxies, become qualified to declare the moral significance of my life?

On the other hand, there are many Americans who know that the weight of scientific opinion accepts evolutionary theory and who are willing to assume that there must be good reasons for this. What is often overlooked is that most scientists specialize in fields other than paleontology and biology and rely on specialists in those fields to reach conclusions about evolution. They assume that the specialists know the facts. But what if the specialists don't know?

Evolutionary biologists teach evolution as a fact of nature, as firmly established as that the earth revolves around the sun - even though they readily acknowledge that the mechanism for evolution is not known. But as Phillip Johnson points out, "‘Evolution’ in the sense in which these scientists use the term is a mechanistic process, and so the content of any ‘fact’ that is left when the mechanism is subtracted is thoroughly obscure. . . . Absent an explanation of how fundamental transformations might occur, the bare statement that "humans evolved from fish" is not impressive. . . ."2 As Michael Behe argues (Chapter 4) the changes which natural selection theory must account for take place at the molecular level. It is at this level that explanations must be given. Neither form of natural selection theory - Darwinism or punctuated equilibrium - even touches this question; nor has evolutionary biochemistry made any headway, as we shall see. In short, evolutionary theory is at an impasse insofar as explanations at the molecular level are concerned. The specialists don't know.

In considering the religious pronouncements which Provine makes in the name of naturalistic science, and also in asking how a consensus could develop around an unknown process, we will discover that if we unravel the naturalistic philosophy from the evidence and consider each independently of the other, we will be in a position to evaluate how the the philosophy shapes the interpretation of the evidence. My confident hope is that the reader will find that reaching an independent evaluation of the scientific evidence for and against natural selection theory is more manageable than was expected. Out of respect for the reader, the evidence will be presented first, because it is impossible that it will not be found impressive, or fail to prepare the reader to be receptive to the more theoretical material which follows. But first, a few definitions.

I. Darwinism Defined, the Issue Joined.

I choose to classify theories of origins, first, on the basis of whether they are personal or impersonal. I choose that classification because, as I hope to show, it emphasizes the most important issues, both philosophically and scientifically.

A. Impersonal Theories of Human Origins.

1. Darwinism.
There are two important impersonal, naturalistic and mechanistic theories of human origins, both of which involve natural selection: Darwinism and punctuated equilibrium.

Darwin's theory proposes the evolution of species by small, step-by-step changes. What causes the changes, supposedly, is the advantage which stronger individuals have in the competition for survival in a context of scarcity. Since they are stronger, they survive at the expense of weaker individuals. Since they survive, they are more likely to have offspring; and since they have more offspring, the attributes which conferred upon them the competitive advantages which enabled them to survive, become more widely dispersed within the population in the next generation. In this way, the species as a whole becomes stronger and better able to survive. Over vast periods of time, the species may gradually change radically - so much so, that it becomes another species altogether.

Consistent with his theory, Darwin predicted that the fossil record would reveal vast numbers of transitional forms between known species. This is the weak point of Darwinism, for as we shall see, the fossil record is almost entirely lacking in such transitional forms. 140 years after the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, a billion fossils have been collected, and the fossil record is substantially complete; yet with three or four exceptions which can be accounted for equally well or better by design theory, organisms occupying transitional positions between species, which Darwin predicted, have not been found. Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould has described the extreme rarity of transitional forms as the "trade secret of paleontology." What we find instead, he says, is that:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and "fully formed."3
Thus it was that in 1980 Gould wrote that the neo-Darwinian synthesis, "as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy."4

2. Punctuated Equilibrium.
In a desperate effort to breath life into Darwin's gasping theory, in 1972 Gould and Niles Eldridge proposed a new mechanism of evolution, which they called "punctuated equilibrium," for which the only evidence is the lack of transitional forms. Punctuated equilibrium is now the majority view among evolutionary theorists. That classical Darwinian theory has now been supplanted by punctuated equilibrium as the most widely accepted theory, despite the dearth of evidence for the latter view, is a measure of the weakness of classical Darwinian theory. Conversely, the refusal of many biologists to embrace punctuated equilibrium, despite the lack of evidence for Darwinism, suggests that the evidence for the new theory is also less than compelling.

According to punctuated equilibrium, evolution is supposed to occur when a relatively small number of individuals of a given species becomes isolated from the main population. The isolated group then evolves relatively quickly - again, as a result of competition with weaker individuals under conditions of scarcity - leaving no fossils to document its transitions. Then the changed individuals return to the main population, which they supplant because of the greater strength they have due to the advantages they have because of their new attributes.

Although punctuated equilibrium has become the new orthodoxy, it remains controversial. There are mainstream scientists in each of the two schools of thought, who deny the plausibility of the other view. Theorists already committed to a naturalistic explanation for the origin of biological diversity find they have few choices - there are only two impersonal, mechanistic theories for evolution. Thus, they choose one of them, whether they are happy about their choice or not.

But now, new discoveries are making that debate irrelevant, by showing that the cosmos is brimming with evidence of the personal, and that evidence, in a word, is: information.

B. Personal Causation of Life: Design Theory.
In the last 50 years, science - that is, science as conducted by scientists of all religious outlooks and none in particular - has produced an astounding body of evidence for intelligent design, without having gone looking for it. This evidence has nothing to do with a young earth, recent human origin or a catastrophic flood. It has everything to do with a universe and with living things bearing unmistakably the mark of intelligent design: namely, the mark of information, or specified complexity. Consistent with this approach to origins theory, design theorists make no claims about the identity of the designer. It may be the God of the Bible, or it may not; but it must be a conscious, intelligent agent, for there is no other way to account for the evidence.

Complexity is specific if it has some apparent meaning independent from the fact that it exists. For example, if I deal myself the perfect bridge hand three times in a row, my tablemates are likely to conclude I am cheating, because the odds against such a confluence of events happening by chance are so great that cheating is much more probable by comparison. That is, they will believe I dealt those cards by design, not by chance. Whereas, if I am playing "Go Fish," they, and perhaps I myself, will not even notice that I have a good bridge hand; or if they do, they may think it amazing, but they probably would not suspect me of cheating, because having a good bridge hand is no advantage in "Go Fish." They would not think I was cheating, because those cards are special only by reference to the rules of bridge.

There are only two kinds of causation that have been observed: personal causation and physical causation. An example of physical causation is the effect of erosion on rock, which can produce an endless variety of interesting shapes, and even useful shapes on occasion. Such processes do not produce information, however. No one stumbling across a discarded coffee mug in the forest will mistake it for an accident of nature. Outside of nature, information systems result only from personal causation.

It is not difficult to understand why this happens to be the case. As noted above, information systems are specifically complex; that is, they are complex with reference to something meaningful which is extrinsic to themselves. To say their referent is extrinsic is to say that there is no physical connection between them and their referent: there is no mechanical or physical way for the "information" to get from the referent to the "information system." Consequently it must be placed there by the purposeful decision of a conscious mind.

Design theory rests upon the assumption that when information is found in nature, it is reasonable to suppose that it may have resulted from a similar process.

At the molecular level, living systems are very, very complex. The English language hardly contains words which can adequately convey the degree of complexity which living things exhibit. The complexity has been described as "horrendous," "breathtaking," or "vast." Each living cell contains great numbers of machines made of hundreds of protein parts. Each protein is itself amazingly complex. There are thousands of different proteins in the human body, and each is assigned a specific task. Each biomolecular machine must have all its protein parts in order to carry out its function, which is also specific: each cell carries out the functions of protein manufacture, metabolism, intracellular transport of food material and waste material, and many more, all necessary for the cell and the organism to live, and all automatically from the moment of conception to the time of death.

However, an even greater problem for natural selection theory than the degree of complexity, is the kind of complexity within living things. In his 1996 book, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael Behe describes living systems as irreducibly complex. As just mentioned, subcellular structures consist of scores or hundreds of separate proteins, each one of which is essential to the function of the particular structure. Behe describes several human protein systems to illustrate his argument. Among those systems are the biochemical processes whereby an electrical signal is transmitted to the optic nerve when the retina is struck by a photon, the blood clotting system, and the immune system. These systems are irreducibly complex because all of the protein parts of which they consist are essential to their function: remove any one of them and the system stops.

This is a problem for Darwinian evolution because if these systems require all of their parts to function, then they could not have developed by any gradual, step-by-step process. If any one part is removed, they are not functional at all. If they do not function, the organism dies. If the organism dies, it does not propagate. If it does not propagate, it cannot pass its advantageous attributes on to its progeny - there are no progeny to which to pass them. Natural selection theory cannot account for this specified complexity in living systems. Thus, natural selection appears to be a mechanistic theory without a mechanism.

No one in the gradualist or punctuated equilibrium schools of thought has ever proposed a theory for the evolution of a single irreducibly complex biological system at the molecular level. The origin of the earliest living organisms remains a complete mystery to science. And as far as later, more complex organisms are concerned, there is not even a plausible idea as to how they might have developed. At the molecular level, even the simplest living systems are so breathtakingly complex and their many parts so radically interdependent that neither theory of natural selection has any explanation at all for their existence. Indeed, complexity of such a degree and kind - and later we shall consider the degree of complexity within living things in more detail - is powerful evidence of design. In many areas of science other than origins research, such as archeology, psychology, sociology, forensic science, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and cultural anthropology, specified complexity - information - is uniformly treated as a sign of active intelligence. Natural selection theorists can state no reason why the same criterion is inapplicable when we begin to ask Where We Came From.

Similarly in non-living material, from the most basic structure of the atom all the way to the cosmic level, information is again pervasively embedded. In recent years we have learned that there are hundreds of parameters which specify the form of physical matter and which, had they deviated from what they are by more than in infinitesimal degree, complex life would not have been possible. The forces holding subatomic particles together; the gravitational constant; the speed of light; the mass of the universe - these are just a few of the physical constants that are so exactingly specified that, as many non-theistic scientists have remarked, they show convincingly the existence of an Intelligence behind them.

These developments have given fuel to many scientists who were doing their work quietly and following their discoveries wherever they led. Among them are theists and non-theists alike; but whether theists or non-theists, they tend strongly to draw theistic inferences from their findings. Why? Because if supposedly "natural" phenomena unambiguously bear the marks of personal causation, one must posit a person of sufficient - which is to say, inconceivable - intelligence and power to bring them into existence.

Many scientists have long held that design theory is not scientific because design cannot be observed. This view turns out to be simply untrue. The universe at both the macro and the micro levels is brimming with the visible effects of design. The only basis for refusing to consider this evidence is an unscientific, prior metaphysical commitment against the possibility of design.

II. The Situation Will Not Last Long.

Perhaps before Darwinism's sesquicentennial in 2009, the world may recognize Darwinism as the greatest scandal in the history of science and could be asking, How did this happen? In cultural terms it would be a historical watershed. This seems certain to happen eventually for two reasons.

First, the evidence that evolution did not occur cannot be suppressed for long. Second, through the work of a growing cohort of philosophers of science, the fallacies of philosophical naturalism are being exposed. Once the erroneous metaphysical commitments which caused evolutionary theory to seem plausible are better understood, the philosophical logjam within the scientific community will break and the growing voice of dissent will be given a fair hearing. At that point, the media will find sufficient cover in the prestige of a sufficient body of leading scientists to publicize the debacle. Finally, a dazed public will take years to comprehend a completely changed world. Natural selection theory is, indeed, a "Dead Man Walking," in my opinion.

III. Words of Caution.

A. Natural Selection and Evolution Distinguished.
It is important to note that evolution and natural selection are separate theories. Thus, it is possible to be an evolutionist without subscribing to either version of the theory of natural selection. Some who believe that the evidence disproves natural selection still see in the fossil record a progressivity suggesting an evolutionary process. Michael Behe, whose teaching is important to the argument developed below, is such a person. He continues to regard evolution as a viable theory, and he has suggested the possibility that biological diversity developed through some form of directed mutation5. So conceived, evolution is not an impersonal process. Furthermore, the evidence recounted below is not inconsistent with such a theory of evolution, because directed mutation might account for the specified complexity in living things. On the other hand, both formulations of natural selection mentioned above are impersonal, and thus fail to account for specified complexity. Thus, it is not my intention in this essay to place in question evolution itself, but natural selection only. As Behe has suggested, to "lump" evolution, which has not been refuted, together with natural selection, which has, would be to go beyond the evidence.

B. Natural Selection Not Atheistic Per Se.
It should also be emphasized that neither Darwinism nor punctuated equilibrium precludes a belief in God. I would contend that both formulations of natural selection are impersonal, but not atheistic, strictly speaking. The most striking feature of the theory of natural selection is that it is thought to be capable of occurring "on its own" through a purely physical causative process - that is, without direction by any conscious, intelligent entity. Thus, God's existence is a possibility, but not a necessity. What Darwinism denies is not God's existence, but His relevance, because whether God exists or not, speciation is supposed to occur without any involvement on His part. (It is worth noting, of course, that despite the lack of any warrant for atheistic inferences from natural selection theory, most evolutionists seem to draw such inferences anyway.)

Thus, there are many theists who subscribe to Darwin's theory. Among them is Kenneth Miller6, whose thought is explored at some length below. These are theists who subscribe to a gradual, mechanical and impersonal process of evolution by natural selection.

C. Darwin's Theory Has a Surface Plausibility.
It would be a mistake to suggest that Darwinism is lacking in empirical support altogether. To the contrary, there is evidence supporting Darwin's theory. Furthermore, it is essential to consider that evidence and to understand both its strengths and weaknesses, for several reasons. Firstly, the evidence is there, and intellectual honesty requires that it be given whatever weight it deserves. Second, the failure to forthrightly consider the evidence favoring natural selection would lend pretext to those who might otherwise rush to the conclusion that we subscribe to a different theory of origins merely because we are unfamiliar with the evidence for natural selection. Also, it is imperative to understand the evidence in favor of natural selection in order to see how it could lead honest people to accept it even if it should, upon more careful reflection, appear to be misleading.

Accordingly, the evidence supporting Darwinism is summarized in Chapter 2. For now, suffice it to say that the fossil record presents the world of living things as containing organisms which have profound similarities, not merely within families of organisms, but across orders and phyla, and even among the various kingdoms. Moreover, we see in the fossil record a generally increasing degree of complexity through time. These circumstances and the discovery of the fossils of a small number of organisms which appear to embody transitions between major groups, are in a general way what one would expect to find if evolution by natural selection were true.

But that does not mean that natural selection has been proved. As we shall see in Chapter 3, the evidence for natural selection, while substantial, is seriously lacking in probative force; whereas, as we shall see in Chapters 4 through 7, the evidence for intelligent design is most compelling, and appears to refute natural selection.

D. Other Cautions.
The purpose of this essay is not to answer every question which might be raised concerning the origin of biological diversity. Rather, my purpose is to make more accessible the information which has impressed me most, in the hope that others will also find it valuable. Continued obfuscation by the scientific establishment and timidity on the part of mainstream media are preventing these discoveries from being disseminated as quickly and broadly as I think they deserve to be. I view the resulting perpetuation of ignorance on this subject to be enormously wasteful and injurious.

Also, I am not a scientist, and must rely on others for much of my information. However, like Philip E. Johnson, I am a lawyer by training and profession and feel qualified to make intelligent and careful evaluation of evidence. Moreover, what is presented below contains enough technical detail for any careful observer to make his or her own judgment as to whether the Darwinist account is already collapsing, and why.

Finally, I could be wrong. I do not claim to have understood my subject so completely as to avoid justifiable criticism, at least in the details, and perhaps even on some major points. It is even possible, I suppose, that the theory of evolution by natural selection is true. It is not the purpose of this essay to show that the matter is closed. It is, however, the purpose of this essay to show that at present evolutionary theory has no answer to the latest scientific discoveries in molecular biology and physics, and that at present, at least, it seems impossible that it ever will. The discoveries discussed below are so significant that anyone wishing hereafter to obtain a respectful hearing for a defense of evolutionary theory, may justly be expected to be familiar with those discoveries and to have a satisfactory answer.

Endnotes

1William Provine, guest editorial, The Scientist, September 5, 1988.
2Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), p. 12.
3Quoted by Johnson, p. 50.
4Quoted by Johnson, p. 11.
5Michael J. Behe, private correspondence, August 9, 2001.
6Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin's God (New York: HarperCollins, 1999)

© 2002 Thomas O. Alderman