In
his book Darwin's Doubt,
Stephen C. Meyer calls our attention to an unexplained anomaly in paleontology. When we examine the fossil record, we
don't see fossils appearing in larger and larger sizes, at an even
rate of progression between 3 billion years ago and 100 million years
ago. Instead, we see relatively little fossil evidence of life prior
to the Cambrian era about 500 million years ago. But during the
Cambrian era there is a sudden surge of fossils in the fossil record.
This sudden blossoming of life during the Cambrian era is
known as the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion is illustrated in the diagram below, from a paper suggesting a prosaic explanation for it. The "known fossil range" lines go back no further than the Cambrian era.
Meyer
(who has a PhD from the University of Cambridge) argues that this
Cambrian explosion is the result of intelligent design at work in the
evolution of life. But there is an alternative to assuming a
supernatural hand at work in such a thing. Maybe the Cambrian
explosion was caused by extraterrestrials.
We
can imagine a hypothetical conversation that could have occurred
millions of years ago, aboard an alien spaceship that entered into orbit
around our planet.
Xynus:
So give me the facts. What is the status of life on this planet?
Zeesin:
Our underwater robot probes have confirmed
that this planet is an evolutionary dud. There's hardly
anything here in the way of life. What a waste of time coming here to
this crummy little rock! I told you we should have checked out Alpha
Centauri instead.
Xynus:
But maybe we can turn this “dud” into a success. What if we were
to accelerate the evolution of life on this planet? Maybe we can turn
a dull planet into something where intelligence might eventually
evolve.
Zeesin:
What do you have in mind? Finding some of
those dismal organisms in this planet's oceans, and then
gene-splicing them to soup up their evolution? That would be a pretty
hard chore. You know I don't like to get my four feet wet.
Xynus:
No, I have something very different in mind. We can create some
species ourselves using our nanotechnology biology lab. We need
merely specify some requirements, and the computer will take care of
designing the appropriate DNA. We can print out the organisms cell
layer by cell layer using our molecular materializer. Then we just
dump the newly designed organisms into the oceans of this planet.
Zeesin:
Okay, I guess there's nothing much else to
do around here.
There
are three ages in time when the idea of extraterrestrial
intervention might be helpful. The first is the point when the most
primitive life developed. Modern science has not yet explained a
plausible scenario by which that occurred, partially because of the
difficulty of explaining both the origin of a self-replicating
molecule and the difficulty of explaining the origin of the genetic
code. The second age in time is the Cambrian explosion mentioned
here. The third age in time is the time when we saw the emergence of
human intelligence. We might call this the “consciousness
explosion,” when man seemed to gain in a relatively short span of
time (geologically speaking) a variety of subtle mental
characteristics such as aesthetic abilities, spirituality, math
abilities, language abilities, musical abilities, introspection, and
moral reasoning. Accounting for this consciousness explosion is
perhaps more difficult than accounting for the Cambrian explosion,
given that most of these things are not easy to explain through
natural selection, as they are mostly not traits that increase an organism's
likelihood of surviving until reproduction.
But
there is a barrier to anyone suggesting that some design – either
extraterrestrial or supernatural – may have played some role in the
origin of life or earthly life or human life. Some scientists have
declared that any mention of design in discussing such matters is
“not part of science” or “unscientific.” This thought taboo
is indefensible. A
few examples show very clearly that there is no truth to the idea
that “scientists don't consider the possibility of design” when
trying to consider causes.
For
example, imagine a strange radio signal is received from deep space.
If the signal is sufficiently suspicious, a scientist will indeed
consider the hypothesis that design was involved, and that the signal
may be a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization. Or imagine
that some suspicious looking structure (on an asteroid, moon, or
planet) is photographed by a space probe. A scientist will indeed
consider the hypothesis that design was involved, and that the
structure may have been designed by some extraterrestrial expedition
that arrived in our solar system. Or suppose a scientist finds some
artificial-looking object buried in a geological bed. A scientist
will indeed consider the hypothesis that design was involved, and
that the structure may have been designed by some human or some
extraterrestrial visitor. Any scientist could advance any of these
ideas in a scientific paper without fear of being excluded because he
had considered some possibility of design.
The
notion, therefore, that considering (or arguing for) a possibility of
design in discussing the origins of life on earth is unscientific (or
not admissible in a science publication) makes no sense. Such claims
need to be translated. When a scientist claims that a hypothesis is
“not part of science,” what he typically means is that such a
hypothesis “is forbidden or should be forbidden to scientists.”
When he claims that a particular hypothesis is unscientific, what he
typically means is that such a hypothesis is a taboo that violates
the tribal norms of the scientific community. Such claims tell us
about sociological and cultural restrictions and prohibitions within the scientific
community, but usually don't give us any cogent principle as to how
our thought should be limited.
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