Your survival guide to Darwinism's zombie apocalypse.

For the Public School Biology Teacher, Zombie Science Makes an Outstanding Resource
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

Imagine you’re a public high school biology teacher in a state where you are permitted to share objective scientific critiques of evolutionary theory in the classroom – the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism. Where do you turn for a reliable, responsible resource to help you clarify the issues for your students?

Here’s a great idea: check out biologist Jonathan Wells’s new book,  Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution. Dr. Wells and fellow biologist Ray Bohlin talk about that in a new ID the Future podcast.

Listen to it here now, or download it here.

Dr. Bohlin was closely involved with recent revisions to science standards in Texas, and he describes what happened in his state. So let’s say you’re a 9th grade biology teacher there. You want to talk with students about the consistent pattern of abrupt appearance of species in the fossil record – an observation inconsistent with Darwinian predictions; about the mystery of where biological information in DNA comes from, or the puzzle of whale evolution.

Zombie Science covers all of these subjects. The idea, obviously, isn’t to use it as textbook. It’s written (very accessibly) with the thoughtful adult in mind, not for a 9th grader. But teachers will find the book very useful for the background it provides.

Wells and Bohlin do note that in a public high school setting, it would be very ill advised to take the discussion some steps further to the question of design in life’s origins. If Darwinism is hobbled as an explanation for biology’s grandeur, however, what then? Dr. Bohlin admits that as a teacher, he’s uncomfortable saying “I don’t know.” But this is the wisest response.

Letting the stones speak.

Letting the stones speak II

Phillip Johnson tells why he will not buy the wares of a blind watchmaker.

Discarded on the battlefield?

Evolutionary Biologist Backs Off from Computer Simulations
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

PZ Myers is an atheist activist and evolutionary biologist whose blog is more about promoting his left-wing politics than it is about evolution. But this caught my eye. In denouncing me for a  brief post here recommending a podcast interview with Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics   co-author Winston Ewert, Professor Myers tellingly backs off from the idea of computer simulations of evolution,at least where the Cambrian explosion is concerned.

He doesn’t like our use of the term “falsify,” or that I call the geologically sudden Cambrian event an “event.” But these are minor points. This I find very interesting. Dr. Myers writes:

I also take exception to creationist’s [sic] constant focus on “computer models”. Computer models are useful tools for assessing some ideas, but they’re no substitute for real data…especially when the events you’re pursuing are not simple, and have a million different equally valid ways of producing a result. Again with the binary thinking: Cambrian evolution will not be described with a “yes” or a “no”.

I’m also going to call shenanigans on his assumptions. The Cambrian was not an “event”. It was a long, multi-million year series of events, and it was driven by multiple phenomena. There was the pre-Cambrian bioturbation revolution, in which the evolution of worms with hydraulic skeletons drove massive turnover of nutrients in sediments; there was the gradual increase in atmospheric oxygen, which made more energetic organisms possible; there was a long history of evolution of animal lineages before the Cambrian that set the stage with breadth and depth of diversity. How do you “simulate” all that on a computer? And why bother, because you know creationists like Klinghoffer will simply reject any result that shows an increase in complexity without an infusion of biological information (whatever that means) as cheating?

Most importantly, no one with any sense or competence would carry out such a simulation to falsify creationism, an endeavor with no reward, since they’ll just move the goalposts as they always have.

Now, Dr. Ewert’s point was that computer evolution simulations, as a rule, fail. I would expect this. If they succeeded, that would be a problem for alternatives to unguided evolution.

Ewert was simply reiterating the conclusion that he and co-authors Robert Marks and William Dembski reach, after meticulous investigation, in their book. As Marks puts it,“There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Period. By ‘model,’ we mean definitive simulations or foundational mathematics required of a hard science.” In turn, Marks, Dembski, and Ewert were responding to the challenge of a distinguished mathematician, Gregory Chaitin, in his book,Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical

Dr. Chaitin wrote:

The honor of mathematics requires us to come up with a mathematical theory of evolution and either prove that Darwin was wrong or right!

Giving some mathematical rigor to evolutionary theory is not the “focus” of “creationists,” as Myers thinks. Gregory Chaitin is not a “creationist,” or a proponent of the theory of intelligent design. But he is a candid and gracious interlocutor. In a comment about the Marks-Dembski-Ewert book, he said that it was “An honest attempt to discuss what few people seem to realize is an important problem.” Well, well.

Others feel similarly. Here are a couple of further comments gathered by the publisher. Bijan Nemati of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

With penetrating brilliance, and with a masterful exercise of pedagogy and wit, the authors take on Chaitin’s challenge, that Darwin’s theory should be subjectable to a mathematical assessment and either pass or fail. Surveying over seven decades of development in algorithmics and information theory, they make a compelling case that it fails.

Professor Donald Wunsch, who directs the Applied Computational Intelligence Lab at Missouri University of Science & Technology:

Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics is a lucid, entertaining, even witty discussion of important themes in evolutionary computation, relating them to information theory. It’s far more than that, however. It is an assessment of how things might have come to be the way they are, applying an appropriate scientific skepticism to the hypothesis that random processes can explain many observed phenomena.

That – whether “random processes can explain many observed phenomena” in life – is exactly the question to consider. Another atheist evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, used to think that simulations held out great promise for settling the issue. (See, for example, Jonathan Witt’s post,Richard Dawkins’s Weasel Program Is Bad in Ways You Never Dreamed ) This is not an issue that “creationists” invented.

And now, just as a major work of ID research arrives, at the cutting edge of thinking on the subject, PZ Myers whines about how simulations are hopeless anyway: “How do you ‘simulate’ all that on a computer? And why bother, because you know creationists like Klinghoffer will simply reject any result that shows an increase in complexity…”

It’s just what Robert Marks wrote here the other day.. He responded to ten common objections to the evidence in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. This one is Myers in a nutshell:

2. But Darwinian evolution is so complicated, it can’t be modeled!

If this objection is true, we have reached the same conclusion by different paths: There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution.

Which means that on anyone’s honest analysis, Darwinism fails to deliver on an expectation of what Marks calls “hard science.”

Myers is saying that simulations can’t work, and even if they could, “no one with any sense or competence” would “bother” going through with the exercise for fear of being shown the door by…who? Me? What?? Sorry, that is just a pathetic excuse, among the lamest from evolutionary advocates that I’ve heard in a while, which is saying something.

Incidentally, for more on the Cambrian explosion from the perspective of biological information and the challenge of making evolution mathematically rigorous, see our brief video, The Information Enigma, highlighting the work of Doug Axe and Stephen Meyer. Click on the image – a scene from the video – at the top of this post.