Lacking any theory of a natural process that could plausibly produce very complex and information-rich biological innovations requiring very special arrangements of thousands of parts, evolutionary biologists are always appealing to miracles of luck, like the person in the visual below. But not everyone has jumped on their erring bandwagon.
The "Evolution News" site at www.evolutionnews.org provides many articles well worth reading, although it is not very rare for the site to provide erring articles. A typical article at the site will draw attention to the inadequacy of Darwinism as an explanation for the wonders of biology. Inside such an article you will very often get very good details helping you to learn about how well-organized and fine-tuned biological organisms are, and how mainstream thinking fails in its attempts to credibly explain such wonders of biology. Using American football terminology, we can call such articles touchdowns. But the site also has some fumbles. Some examples of erring articles at the site include these:
(1) One writer eager to claim molecular evidence of design in DNA repeated the groundless myth that DNA is a blueprint specifying how to construct a human body. DNA is no such thing. DNA merely contains low-level chemical information such as which amino acids make up proteins. DNA is indeed a rich repository of fine-tuned functional information, and by very strictly sticking only to what we know to exist in DNA, you already have a great wonder of fine-tuned information that Darwinism fails to explain, as Darwinism lacks a credible account of the origin of the genes that make up DNA.
(2) Another writer eager to tell a story of how brains show evidence of design repeated a groundless claim that "sharp wave ripples" are evidence of memory consolidation in human brains. The claim is groundless, being based on poor-quality research guilty of Questionable Research Practices such as way-too-small study group sizes.
Another example of a fumble at the www.evolutionnews.org site is William A. Dembski's recent post "Building a Better Definition of Intelligent Design." Dembski makes a long attempt to create a better definition of the term "intelligent design," but drops the ball.
Speaking of a definition of "intelligent design," Dembski tells us, "The one that until recently I used in my public lectures and that served as my working definition of intelligent design is this: Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence." That itself is a poor definition of the kind of writing that has gone on at sites such as www.evolutionnews.org and in books such as Stephen Meyers' "Darwin's Doubt." The word "pattern" is a very weak word to describe what an intelligent design theorist typically discusses. What such a person typically discusses are information-rich states of enormously high organization that are so fine-tuned and specially arranged and hierarchically ordered that they are not credibly attributed to unguided processes. Such states of matter are magnificent examples of engineering that are far more than mere patterns.
What is the most impressive result in biology? It is a human being. Is a human being a mere pattern? Certainly not. A good description of a human being is given by my acronym CHIRDREOC, which stands for Comprehending Hierarchical Information-Rich Dynamic Reproducing Enormously Organized Complexity. Let me justify some of the words in that acronym:
(1) Humans are information rich. Contrary to a widely circulated myth widely spread to serve the ideological purposes of Darwinists, it is absolutely untrue that living organisms carry around in their cells or DNA any blueprint or program or recipe for making such organisms. The DNA in cells merely contains low-level chemical information such as the amino sequences to make the polypeptide chains that are the starting points of protein molecules. But while DNA does not contain any specification of anatomy, it is at least information-rich. The essence of information is the use of representational tokens, in which some individual tokens (low-level semantic units) stand for or represent some larger physical or conceptual thing. DNA does qualify as information, because it is a series of nucleotide base pairs, and particular combinations of these base pairs stand for particular amino acids used to construct proteins. A human DNA molecule has 3 billion nucleotide base pairs, and these 3 billion units qualify as both information and representational information. So because a human is carrying a huge amount of information in each of his cells, we can call a human information-rich. Other simpler organisms also carry very high levels of information in their DNA, so every organism is information-rich.
(2) Humans are enormously organized. The degree of organization in large living organisms is greater than the organization of anything humans have constructed. A single cell is so organized that is has been compared in complexity to a factory or a city.
(3) Humans have a hierarchical organization. The organization of large organisms is extremely hierarchical. Subatomic particles are organized into atoms, which are organized into amino acids, which are organized into protein molecules, which are organized into protein complexes, which are organized into organelles, which are organized into cells, which are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems, which are organized into organisms.
(4) Humans are gigantically dynamic. Humans have known for centuries about two ways in which organisms are dynamic: first, the fact that organisms can move, and second that organisms grow from a small size to a large size. In recent decades, scientists have come to understand a third way in which organisms are dynamic: the fact that internally organisms are enormously dynamic, both because of constant motion inside in the body, and also because of a constant activity inside the body involving cellular changes. Just one example of this enormously dynamic activity is that fact that protein molecules in the brain are replaced at a rate of about 3% per day. A large organism is like some building that is constantly being rebuilt, with some fraction of it being torn down every day, and some other fraction of it being replaced every day. The analogy comparing a cell to a factory gives us some idea of the gigantically dynamic nature of organisms.
(5) Humans reproduce. Scientists understand how human females can become pregnant, but they do not at all understand how large organisms are able to reproduce. Scientists cannot even credibly explain how a single cell is able to reproduce. Scientists lack any credible explanation of how a speck-sized egg is able to progress to become the enormous organization of a large organism with so many different types of cells and organs. There is no truth to the claim that organisms reproduce because some blueprint or recipe for making the organism is read from the organism's genome or DNA. No such blueprint or recipe exists in DNA, which merely contains low-level chemical information such as the amino acids sequences of a protein molecule. Once you study all the very many types of incredibly dynamic and fine-tuned chemical and cellular choreography going on in the body, continuous intricate processes necessary for life, you may start to realize how childish is the very idea that an organism with such enormously dynamic internal activity could ever be specified by a blueprint (a plan for constructing static immobile things).
We take for granted the miracle of reproduction because it almost always happens under a certain set of conditions. Similarly, if you could always conjure up a delicious 10-course meal by saying "Abracadabra," you might take such a thing for granted, and think it nothing very special. Without resorting to misstatements such as false and childish claims that organisms reproduce by a reading of a DNA blueprint for making the organism, evolutionary biologists are unable to explain the reproduction of large organisms.
(6) Humans comprehend. Human beings have all kinds of mental abilities that biology fails to explain, including the capability of very subtle comprehension.
So those are some of the extremely impressive characteristics and capabilities of human beings, summarized by my acronym CHIRDREOC, which stands for Comprehending Hierarchical Information-Rich Dynamic Reproducing Enormously Organized Complexity. Do we adequately describe such wonders by using the term "patterns"? Certainly not. "Patterns" is an extremely weak word to describe the wonders of human beings that are not credibly explained by Darwinism. So you may reasonably criticize Dembski for clumsiness when he tells us that until recently "my working definition of intelligent design is this: Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence." "Patterns" is way, way too weak a word to be using to describe the accidentally unachievable attributes and capabilities of human beings.
But now Dembski tells us he has a new improved definition that he recommends should be used to describe the theory of intelligent design. Before giving us his definition, he launches into a longwinded discussion that makes heavy mention of Aristotle. It's the kind of discussion that will cause many a reader to stop reading (or maybe fall asleep while reading). Finally in section 7 Dembski gives us his very clumsy new definition of intelligent design, telling us this: "Intelligent design is the study of systems whose information output is best explained as the result of intelligently inputted external information rather than the inherent capacities of the systems."
Oops, Dembski has here fumbled badly. At the center of intelligent design is the study of humans. A human is not a mere system. A human consists of numerous different very organized physical systems, and also a mind. Intelligent design theorists have focused on the extremely high levels of physical organization in the human body, something that can also be described as a fine-tuned arrangement of physical parts. We have no mention of organization or arrangement or fine-tuning in Dembski's new definition of intelligent design. The physical marvel of the human body is not an "information output" but a wonder of dynamic physical organization. Similarly, the construction of an aircraft carrier is not an "information output" but a wonder of physical organization and fine-tuned functionality.
You cannot explain the origin of human bodies or human minds by a mere input of external information. DNA does not specify how to make anything bigger than a microscopic protein molecule, so you cannot explain the origin of human bodies by merely saying there was a mysterious external input of information into the human genome.
Very strangely, Dembski says, "Information (from the Latin verb informare) means to give form or shape to something." N0, that is not what the word "information" means. "Information" is defined as "facts provided or learned about something or someone" or "what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things." Those are the two definitions of "information" that I get when I do a Google search for "definition of information."
It seems that Dembski has got all enamored with something called information theory, and that he is proposing some wonky new definition of intelligent design that may have some appeal to information theorists. Most who are not information theorists will be puzzled or bored by his new definition of intelligent design, and the explanation that precedes it. Information theorists have a very bad habit of stretch-speaking in which they use the term "information" for almost everything. It reminds me of that old quip that to a carpenter everything looks like a hammer, a nail and a piece of wood. You might say that to an information theorist everything looks like information. Anyone wishing to get a clear easy-to-read introduction to the theory of intelligent design should skip Dembski's "new definition" post (a confusing affair), and read instead the post here by leading intelligent design theorist Stephen Meyer. Scoring many touchdowns, Dembski has often written more skillfully on this topic than his recent "new definition" post.
What would a good definition of intelligent design be? A web site on this topic gives this older definition that is better than Dembski's clumsy new definition: "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." But this definition has the weakness that it does not mention any particular characteristic of living things, and only vaguely refers to "certain features."
A good definition of intelligent design that is more informative (but mentions only humans) might go something like this: "Intelligent design is the theory that the information-rich hierarchical organization of human bodies involves so much special arrangement, fine-tuning, purposeful dynamism and hard-to-achieve interdependent component teamwork that it cannot be credibly explained as being the result of mere accidental unguided chance processes, but must in part be the result of superhuman intelligent agency." A fuller definition that includes a mention of cosmic fine-tuning might go like this: "Intelligent design is the theory that the information-rich hierarchical organization of human bodies involves so much special arrangement, fine-tuning, purposeful dynamism and hard-to-achieve interdependent component teamwork that it cannot be credibly explained as being the result of mere accidental unguided chance processes, but must in part be the result of superhuman intelligent agency, often along with similar thinking that the universe has fine-tuned features suggesting it is the product of superhuman intelligent agency."
The first of these definitions is a definition that could be comfortably used by either theists or those who are not theists. The phrase "superhuman intelligent agency" refers to some causal reality that could either be a deity or conceivably some extraterrestrial power that is not a deity. The second definition seems to hint at some divine agency, as no conceivable extraterrestrial power would have the ability to fine-tune the universe to give it the features needed to allow life to appear in it (features that would have to exist before any such extraterrestrial power existed).
If you don't understand what is meant by the phrase "interdependent component teamwork" in the definition above, I have two diagrams that may clarify the phrase. The first is this one:
The second diagram is this one:
A dictionary definition of "dynamism" is "the quality of being characterized by vigorous activity and progress." The term "purposeful dynamism" in the definition above refers to the mechanistically inexplicable progression from a speck-sized zygote to the vastly more organized state of a full-grown human body, and also refers to many other wonders of movement, organization, recycling and positioning continuously occurring within the human body, such as when different types of protein molecules conveniently form into very many different types of complex "molecular machines" needed for body function, when such protein complexes and organelles find the right positions within cells, and when newly created cells find appropriate positions within human bodies, positions not specified by DNA or genes.
For a look at another case of clumsiness in the rhetoric of intelligent design theorists, read my post here that criticizes Michael Behe's very weak analogy of a mousetrap, an analogy that is poor largely because the most impressive results of biology are marvels of organization almost infinitely more impressive than mere mousetraps.
If the above discussion fails to clarify the basic question here, I can try to state it as simply as possible. The basic question here is: is the human race an accident of nature? The Darwinist answers "yes," and the intelligent design theorist answers "no." An all-important consideration is that human bodies are very, very specially arranged, looking like something that was massively engineered, and requiring many thousands of types of very complex inventions (such as the 20,000+ different types of protein inventions in the human body, each requiring thousands of very specially arranged atoms to perform its function). The Darwinist says, "Accidental effects can produce very complex inventions and engineering effects," and the intelligent design theorist says, "No, very complex inventions resembling engineering results cannot be produced by mindless, blind processes of nature."
Postscript: There are some fumbles in an article at the Evolution News site entitled "Wrap Your Mind Around the Synapse — Just Try." Quoting someone mentioning the length of time it takes for only part of what goes on in the transmission of a signal across a synapse, the author (David Coppedge) tries to insinuate that the transmission of a signal across a synapse occurs in "a fraction of a millisecond." That is not correct.
There is a scientific term used for the delay caused when a nerve signal travels across a synapse. The delay is called the synaptic delay. According to this 1965 scientific paper, most synaptic delays are about .5 milliseconds, but there are also quite a few as long as 2 to 4 milliseconds. A more recent (and probably more reliable) estimate was made in a 2000 paper studying the prefrontal monkey cortex. That paper says, "the synaptic delay, estimated from the y-axis intercepts of the linear regressions, was 2.29" milliseconds. It is very important to realize that this synaptic delay is not the total delay caused by a nerve signal as it passes across different synapses. The synaptic delay is the delay caused each and every time that the nerve signal passes across a synapse.
Such a delay may not seem like too much of a speed bump. But consider just how many such "synaptic delays" would have to occur for, say, a brain signal to travel from one region of the brain to another. It has been estimated that the brain contains 100 trillion synapses (a neuron may have thousands of them). So it would seem that for a neural signal to travel from one part of the brain to another part of the brain that is a distance away only 5% or 10% of the length of the brain, that such a signal would have to endure many thousands of such "synaptic delays" requiring a total of quite a few seconds of time.
Synaptic delays are a very serious slowing factor in the brain. The cumulative delay caused by synaptic delays means that brains must be too slow to account for human thinking and recall, which very often occurs instantly. Furthermore, a synapse only transmits a signal with a reliability of 10% to 50%. A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower."
This means that when humans quickly recall large bodies of text with 100% accuracy, such as when a Moslem scholar perfectly recalls more than 6000 verses in the Quran, this cannot be occurring by retrieval of information stored in the brain. Senselessly, these crucial facts about synapses have been ignored by neuroscientists, who also ignore the short lifetimes of the proteins in synapses (less than two weeks), by making the absurd claim that memories that can last fifty years are stored in unstable synapses that don't last for years.
What we know about synapses is compatible with the theory of intelligent design, but not with the theory that brains produce minds and that brains store memories. There is no need for an intelligent design theorist to be defending the erroneous claim that the brain is like a fast, efficient computer, or the erroneous claim that the brain has features that can explain the human mind and all its capabilities.
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