The “blind
watchmaker” thesis advanced by people like Richard Dawkins is that
we can believe the most remarkable products of evolution were
produced without any intelligent designer being involved, because
natural selection (with the help of random genetic mutations) is
capable of acting like a designer. According to such a thesis,
natural selection and random mutations are the “blind watchmaker.”
But do we actually have good evidence that natural selection and
random mutations are capable of such creative marvels, that they are
capable of acting like a watchmaker?
Below I will look at
some of the things that are typically cited as evidence that natural
selection and random mutations can act like a watchmaker, and explain
why they don't work to establish such a thesis.
You don't show
that natural selection and random mutations acted like a watchmaker
by discussing that some disease has evolved to be more antibiotic
resistant.
One item commonly
cited to support the idea of the power of natural selection is the
fact that certain diseases have evolved to become more antibiotic
resistant. But the changes that a microorganism needs to make to
become antibiotic resistant are trivial from a structural standpoint
(compared to the changes needed for the evolution of something like
the human eye or the human brain). Antibiotics are designed in the
lab to exactly conform to a particular microorganism, rather in the
same way that a particular key is designed to match a particular
lock. It is therefore often relatively easy for a microorganism to
change in some way that makes it resistant to an antibiotic, just by
changing a little so that the “key no longer fits the lock.” In
other cases, the bacteria just chemically neutralizes the antibiotic,
which doesn't require any new watch-like functionality in the microbe.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations acted like a
watchmaker by discussing some change in the appearance of moths.
Another item
commonly cited to support the idea of the power of natural selection
is the fact that moths have evolved to have camouflage that matches
trees that have been blackened by industrial pollution. But any
change in the appearance of an organism is a merely cosmetic type of
change that is very trivial compared to the changes needed for the
evolution of something like the human eye or the human brain. Color
changes in moths may show that natural selection and random mutations
may act as a “watch painter,” but does not show that they can
act as anything like a watchmaker.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations acted like a
watchmaker by discussing some change in the digestive capabilities of
microorganisms.
The longest ongoing
lab experiment on evolution is one that has been run by Richard
Lenski at Michigan State University. The experiment has recorded
something like 50,000 generations of bacteria. The main example of
evolutionary change shown is that somewhere along the line the
bacteria developed an ability to “metabolize citrate.” But that
is very trivial compared to the changes needed for the evolution of
something like the human eye or the human brain. So such a finding
does not at all show that natural selection can act like a
watchmaker, nor does any other thing discovered by Lenski.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations acted like a watchmaker by discussing
some change in the lactose intolerance of humans.
The claim that there
is evidence for a change in the lactose intolerance of humans is one
of the first things that comes up when I do a Google search for
evidence for natural selection. But even if such evidence exists, it
is only evidence of a minor change, not something that can be used to
establish the thesis that natural selection and random mutations can act like a
watchmaker.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations acted like a watchmaker by discussing
some change in the age of first reproduction (AFR) for
humans.
The claim that there
is evidence for an earlier age of first reproduction (AFR) in humans
is another of the first things that comes up when I do a Google
search for evidence for natural selection. But even if such
evidence exists, it is only evidence of a minor change, not something
that can be used to establish the thesis that natural selection and random mutations can
act like a watchmaker.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations acted like a watchmaker by discussing
any changes whatsoever in microbes.
Here I may simply
note that to demonstrate that natural selection and random mutations acted like a
watchmaker you actually have to show that they make
dramatic innovations in visible organisms. No microscopic changes in
organisms too small to see can properly be compared to the
manufacture of a visible watch.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations were like a watchmaker by discussing
changes in the beaks of finches.
Darwin observed that
on different islands in the Galapagos, different finches had different
sizes for their beaks. But this doesn't show any “watchmaker”
capability for natural selection and random mutations. For one thing,
the gene pool may have already had a variety of genes for a variety
of beak sizes, before such finches even got on these islands. For
another thing, such a variation doesn't show that natural selection
and random mutations produced the innovation of the finch beak. If
Darwin had observed an animal without beaks evolve into an animal
with beaks, that might have been a different matter.
The claim that observations of differences in finches sparked Darwin's theory is incorrect. The differences between the finches was not even mentioned in The Origin of Species. On page 134 of his recent biography of Darwin, A.N. Wilson states the following:
Peter and Rosemary Grant, evolutionary biologists from Harvard University, spent twenty-five summers studying these birds....They revealed that the beak changes were reversible -- this is hardly 'evolution.' Beaks adapted from season to season, depending on whether droughts left large, tough seeds, or heavy rainfall resulted in smaller, softer seeds.
You
don't show that natural selection and random mutations were like a watchmaker by merely
showing that natural selection has occurred.
Some scientists try
to look for statistical evidence of natural selection in the genome.
There have been many such studies, and the statistical approaches
used are a matter of controversy. I merely note that you do not at
all prove that natural selection and random mutations can act like a
watchmaker simply by showing that natural selection exists or that it
can have measurable effects. It's still perfectly possible that
natural selection exists but is entirely incapable (even with random
mutations) of producing impressive macroscopic biological
functionality such as the human eye or the human brain.
When people try to
show that natural selection and random mutations can act like a
watchmaker, they typically follow the same general pattern. They
present a few examples of microevolution (small scale changes) that
they claim are caused by natural selection and random mutations, and
then imply that we can assume that macroevolution (dramatic
structural or intellectual innovations) are also caused by natural
selection and random mutations. This is a little like someone showing
that a horse can jump over a puddle, and then asking us to infer from
this that a horse can jump over a lake. It is all too possible that
natural selection and random mutations are capable of producing minor
examples of microevolution but not capable of producing the more
dramatic examples of macroevolution such as the appearance of the
human eye and brain.
But is there any way
that you could prove natural selection and random mutations act like
a watchmaker? Yes, in theory there is. But it has never been done,
and would be a nightmare to do, as it would take ages.
Imagine
how the project might be executed. After building some special
testing environment (perhaps some special large building or zoo), you
would start out with a population of some large species with a
lifespan of more than decade. You would take samples of the DNA of
each organism in such a population. You would then monitor such a
population over many generations, frequently taking DNA samples to
see how the DNA was changing. Since a generation for such organisms
would take at least a year, the project would have to probably last
for thousands of years. All in all, it would be a project more
difficult than landing men on Mars. No one has ever done such a
project, or even one tenth of such a project.
Darwinists say that
natural selection is aided by random changes in DNA caused by things
such as random mutations and copying errors. There's a simple
two-word phrase that we can use to concisely describe such random
variations in a genome. The phrase is “DNA typos.” Even though
such changes are not caused by someone typing the wrong key on a
keyboard, the underlying effect is very much analogous to the effect
produced when you type the wrong key on your keyboard – a random
change is made in a previous body of information.
So here is the
equation that Darwinists want you to believe in:
DNA typos +
“survival of the fittest” = the appearance of amazing new
functionality more intricate than a watch (for example, the human eye
and the human brain).
There
is something very implausible-sounding about this equation. It
doesn't sound right; it doesn't ring true to our ears; and the
validity of this equation has not been proven. One reason it doesn't
sound right is that 99.99% of all typos degrade information rather
than improve it. (As the paper cited in the next paragraph says, “It
is now generally recognized that beneficial mutations are rare, and
that high-impact beneficial mutations are extremely rare.”)
Last
week four scientists (one from Cornell University) published a
scientific paper entitled “The Waiting Time Problem in a Model
Hominem Population,” which was published in the journal
Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling. Using a computer
simulation, they “simulated a classic pre-human
hominin population of at least 10,000 individuals, with a generation
time of 20 years, and with very strong selection (50 % selective
elimination).” They were basically trying to see how long it would
take before you got a mutation consisting of two nucleotides (which
is a fairly minor mutation, only some tiny fraction of the mutations
needed for the evolution of human intelligence). This is called the
“waiting time problem.” The authors summarize their results as
follows:
Biologically
realistic numerical simulations revealed that a population of this
type required inordinately long waiting times to establish even the
shortest nucleotide strings. To establish a string of two nucleotides
required on average 84 million years. To establish a string of five
nucleotides required on average 2 billion years. We found that
waiting times were reduced by higher mutation rates, stronger fitness
benefits, and larger population sizes. However, even using the most
generous feasible parameters settings, the waiting time required to
establish any specific nucleotide string within this type of
population was consistently prohibitive.
Here is a visual from their paper, which shows a "waiting time" of some 5 billion years to get a crummy little six-nucleotide mutation.
This is a result
that positively screams at us that natural selection and
random mutations aren't up to the job of being a watchmaker. In order
for us to explain the marvels of evolutionary innovations, we should
begin to think about principles far deeper than random mutations and
natural selection.
Part of the problem
is that the early human population was believed to be very small, and
the smaller the population, the harder it is to get natural selection
and random mutations to work as an explanation for dramatic
biological innovations. As the authors of the paper say at the end of
their paper:
In
small populations the waiting time problem appears to be profound,
and deserves very careful examination. To the extent that waiting
time is a serious problem for classic neo-Darwinian theory, it is
only reasonable that we begin to examine alternative models
regarding how biological information arises.
But
you may protest:
I can't believe that our evolutionary biologists may have blundered
by giving us the wrong explanation of the main cause of evolution.
But consider all the silliness going on in theoretical physics and
cosmology. Quite a few of our theoretical physicists try to sell the
silliest theory imaginable (the groundless theory of parallel universes, that there are an infinite number of copies of you and
me). Quite a few others bombastically sell theories such as string
theory (for which there is no compelling evidence). Sometimes lacking in the
intellectual humility they should have, our cosmologists often claim
to know details about the first second of the universe's history,
which they back up by overselling (and routinely describing as
factual) a dubious, problematic theory (the cosmic inflation theory)
for which there is no good evidence (although there is evidence for
the broader idea of the Big Bang). Many of our theoretical
physicists and cosmologists also try to sell us almost infinitely
extravagant multiverse theories which actually explain nothing. Such
thinkers even sometimes make highly incorrect statements while
selling such groundless theories, such as this outrageous
misstatement: “It is
important to keep in mind that the multiverse view is not actually a
theory, it is rather a consequence of our current understanding of
theoretical physics."
So why should you not think that our swaggering evolutionary
biologists such as Dawkins have been guilty of the same type of
intellectual sins – sins such as explanatory overconfidence and
overselling of dubious explanations which they haven't proven?
Postscript: See the link here for a 2-sentence statement signed by hundreds of scientists and PhD's. The statement states exactly the following:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural
selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the
evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged
Postscript: See the link here for a 2-sentence statement signed by hundreds of scientists and PhD's. The statement states exactly the following:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural
selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the
evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged
No comments:
Post a Comment