Friday 21 June 2024
Thoughtful Darwinism to ID : lets be frenemies II
Evolutionary Biologist Concedes Intelligent Design Is the Cutting Edge
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying are well-known evolutionary biologists (and husband and wife) with a podcast, the DarkHorse Podcast. Recently Weinstein posed a provocative question, “Is intelligent design a competitor to Darwinian evolution?” His answer may surprise you: Yes.
No, he’s not about to come over to the dark side. Weinstein is confident that Darwinism will meet the challenges that ID has set, about the Cambrian Explosion and more, but he concedes that it hasn’t done so yet.
He describes conversations with Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, asking them why evolutionary biology hasn’t had a breakthrough since 1976 when Dawkins published The Selfish Gene. Dawkins and Coyne, separately, both answered that it was because all the big questions had already been answered, and all that was left was a “clean up” operation. Weinstein recognizes that that is just so much blowing smoke, and the work of Stephen Meyer and his “high-quality colleagues” in the ID research community has exposed the problems that Darwinists need to be working on to solve.
Settled Science?
About Dr. Meyer, he says:
I encountered people like Stephen Meyer, who were not phony scientists, pretending to do the work. They were actually very good at what they did. And I believe Stephen Meyer is motivated by a religious motivation, but we don’t generally ask the question when somebody takes up science, “What are you really in it for? Are you in it for the fame?” That’s not a legitimate challenge to somebody’s work.
And the fact is, Stephen Meyer is very good at what he does. He may be motivated by the thought that at the end of the search he’s going to find Jesus. But in terms of the quality of his arguments, I was very impressed when I met him: his love for biology, his love for creatures, the weirder the better, he likes them, right? So that looked very familiar to me.
No Mind Readers Here
In other words, motivation should be irrelevant. The quality of the science is what counts. I would add, none of us is a mind reader and we can never know what someone else’s motivation really is. In any event, says Weinstein, ID clearly is about science, not religion:
And it all also became obvious to me in interacting with Stephen Meyer and many of his high-quality colleagues that they’re actually motivated, for whatever reason, to do the job that we are supposed to be motivated to do inside of biology. They’re looking for cracks in the theory. Things that we haven’t yet explained. And they’re looking for those things for their own reasons, but the point is we’re supposed to be figuring out what parts of the stories we tell ourselves aren’t true, because that’s how we get smarter over time.
Shrinking from a Fight
Darwinists, say Weinstein, are shrinking from a fight they wrongly feel they shouldn’t have to bother with:
If you decide… that your challengers aren’t entitled to a hearing because they’re motivated by the wrong stuff, then you do two things. One, you artificially stunt the growth of your field, and you create a more vibrant realm where your competitors have a better field to play in because you’ve left a lot of holes in the theory ready to be identified, which I think is what’s going on. The better intelligent design folks are finding real questions raised by Darwinism, and the Darwinists, instead of answering those questions, [are] deciding it’s not worthy of their time. And that is it is putting us on a collision course.
“Giving Up Darwin”
Heying cites the 2019 public defection from Darwinism of Yale computer scientist David Gelernter, who pointed to Meyer’s writing as his primary reason for “Giving Up Darwin.” She admits she hasn’t kept up with the challenges from ID, but agrees that she should keep up, and that’s because challenges like those from ID can make the evolutionary establishment “smarter.” Ignoring the challenges makes the establishment dumber — stagnant and self-satisfied.
I’m not familiar with most of the arguments that are coming out of the intelligent design movement. It hasn’t felt like it was my obligation to be familiar with them. Perhaps what you’re arguing is it is our responsibility.
Weinstein, unlike Coyne or Dawkins, is up for talking and debating with ID proponents:
I’m open to that battle and I expect that if we pursue that question, what we’re going to find is, oh, there’s a layer of Darwinism we didn’t get and it’s going to turn out that the intelligent design folks are going to be wrong. But they will have played a very noble and important role in the process of us getting smarter. And look, I think Stephen Meyer at the end of the day, I don’t think he’s going to surrender to the idea that there’s no God at the end of this process. But if we find a layer of Darwinism that hasn’t been spotted, that answers his question, I think he’s going to be delighted with it the same way he’s delighted by the prospect of seeing whale sharks.
Again, these are remarkable concessions from a couple of scientists who are not at all looking to make the leap to ID, but who understand that intelligent design, not Darwinism, is currently at biology’s cutting edge.
Yet more on the fossil records anti Darwinian bias
Fossil Friday: Ediacaran Animal Embryos Put to Test and Put to Rest
The Weng’an biota of the Doushantuo Formation in South China is a famous fossil Lagerstätte, which is of particular importance, because it is dated to an Early-Middle Ediacaran age (590-575 million years ago), right in the time when molecular clock estimates place the origin of crown group metazoan animal phyla. The absence of actual unequivocal fossil animals from this period has often been explained away as an artifact of an incomplete fossil record. However, the discovery of various Ediacaran localities of the Burgess-Shale-Type decisively refuted this artifact hypothesis (Bechly 2020b), because those localities would have easily preserved any early small and soft-bodied animals, but only yielded macroalgae and a few problematic forms of uncertain affinity.
The Last Straw
The phosphatized microfossils of the Doushantou Formation, which are three-dimensionally preserved down to the cellular level, represent the last straw to somehow align the molecular clock expectations with the actual fossil record. This explains the urge by paleontologists to readily interpret some of the Doushantuo fossils as metazoan embryos. To the great frustration of evolutionists, all these attempts proved to be highly contentious and ultimately failed to provide any convincing evidence for Ediacaran metazoans. I discussed the dubious nature of these alleged animal embryos in several previous articles (Bechly 2020a, 2020b, 2022a; also see Evolution News 2016), where you can also find all the references to the peer-reviewed literature.
Now a new study by Sun et al. (2024), published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, looks at the developmental biology of the genus Spiralicellula that was previously proposed as a potential metazoan embryonic stage, a kind of planktonic larva. The authors found a very different developmental mode exhibited by Spiralicellula and all the other alleged metazoan embryos, lacking any cell differentiation, compared to any crown group metazoans. They therefore explicitly “reject a crown-metazoan affinity for Spiralicellula and all other components of the Weng’an biota, diminishing the probability of crown-metazoan diversification before the early Ediacaran.” The authors do not even consider Spiralicellula as a plausible stem-animal but conclude “that Spiralicellula is more likely affiliated with non-metazoan holozoans than with stem metazoans.” So the highly critical view that I elaborated in my previous articles is still well in line with the most recent mainstream research by the leading experts on these fossils.
A New Study
Therefore, it is well worth quoting at some length from the conclusions of this interesting and important new study:
While the embryo-like fossils from the Weng’an biota were once thought to represent the earliest metazoans, recent research has suggested that some species, including Caveasphaera [40], Helicoforamina [29], Ostiosphaera [47], Sporosphaera [33] and now Spiralicellula, have affinities that lie outside crown Metazoa. Interpretations of soma–germ cell differentiation in Megasphaera [21] have been used to support their interpretation as stem metazoans, at best. The primary evidence for a stem-metazoan affinity of Megasphaera derives from ‘matryoshka’ structures that are interpreted to reflect cell differentiation. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether these structures are endogenous or exogenous in origin [7,48]….
The Weng’an biota, renowned for its exceptional preservation fidelity, is considered a distinctive taphonomic window that holds great potential for documenting the earliest metazoans. The absence of definitive evidence of crown metazoans in the biota is inconsistent with the expectations of the molecular clock estimates which posit a Tonian or Cryogenian origin for the clade [1,2]. It remains formally possible that the absence of crown-group animals from the Weng’an biota and earlier strata reflects the incompleteness of the fossil record, and the discovery of unequivocal metazoans from the Weng’an biota or older strata remains a viable possibility, not least given the discovery of crown metazoans, including cnidarians and bilaterians, within the later Ediacaran [50–54]. However, claims of crown metazoans from the Cryogenian [55,56] and Tonian [57,58] are all highly contested [59–62] and intense exploration of the Weng’an biota, the most exceptional of all sites of fossil preservation, has failed to yield the anticipated evidence of early crown metazoans, instead yielding only evidence of non-metazoan holozoans or possible stem metazoans. Alongside the Weng’an biota, the Doushantuo silicified Lagerstätte in South China serves as its lateral counterpart [28,63–65]. Despite differing preservational settings, this Lagerstätte remarkably preserves fossil structures down to a subcellular level. It contains a diverse array of microfossils, including cyanobacteria, acritarchs, multicellular algae, and embryo- like fossils [63,66,67], all found in the Weng’an biota. Notably absent, however, are fossils of crown-group metazoans. As such, the available fossil evidence suggests a relatively low probability of crown metazoans diversifying in the early Ediacaran, rather than ecological constraints within the Weng’an biota’s preservational setting. Such insights prompt a recalibration of molecular timescales in light of these discoveries.
In short: There are no fossil animals in the Ediacaran, when they should be found according to the gradualistic predictions of Darwinian evolution and according to molecular clock datings. The fossil record does not agree with either of these predictions, so that the theory fails the empirical test.
Time for a Better Theory!
In his New York Times bestseller book Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen Meyer (2013) considered that the Ediacaran Doushantuo fossils may indeed include actual animal embryos of sponges. As I have already indicated (Bechly 2020b, 2022a, 2022b), this concession may have been far too generous. Even mainstream evolutionist science more and more recognizes that there simply are no metazoan animal embryos in the Doushantuo Formation. So, where are all the postulated ancestors of the more than twenty different animal phyla appearing abruptly in the Cambrian Explosion? Even Richard Dawkins (2009) has admitted that the Cambrian shows us a substantial number of major animal phyla “already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.” Well, maybe nature is telling you something.
References
Bechly G 2020a. The Myth of Precambrian Sponges. Evolution News May 12, 2020. https://evolutionnews.org/2020/05/the-myth-of-precambrian-sponges/
Bechly G 2020b. The Demise of the Artifact Hypothesis. Evolution News June 6, 2020. https://evolutionnews.org/2020/07/demise-of-the-artifact-hypothesis-aggravates-the-problem-of-the-cambrian-explosion/
Bechly G 2022a. “Lying on the Internet”? Debunking Dave Farina on Stephen Meyer. Evolution News December 1, 2022. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/12/lying-on-the-internet-debunking-dave-farina-on-stephen-meyer/
Bechly G 2022b. Let’s Help “Professor Dave” Understand the Precambrian. Evolution News December 2, 2022. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/12/lets-help-professor-dave-understand-the-precambrian/
Dawkins R 2009. The Greatest Show on Earth. Free Press, New York (NY), 470 pp.
Evolution News 2016. New Precambrian Embryos Are equivocal at Best. Evolution News August 18, 2016. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/new_precambrian_1/
Meyer SC 2013. Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. HarperOne, New York (NY), viii+498 pp.
Sun W, Yin Z, Liu P, Zhu M & Donoghue P 2024. Developmental biology of Spiralicellula and the Ediacaran origin of crown metazoans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 291: 20240101, 1–10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.0101
The carbon atom vs. Darwin.
The Remarkable Carbon Atom
In an article yesterday, I discussed the incredible design of the nonmetal atoms, and the striking coincidence that the very atoms from which one can build stable, defined shapes also give us the hydrophobic force, which is the key to arranging them into higher-level structures. Here, I will discuss the fitness of carbon for life, and the incredibly fortuitous circumstances that promote its abundance in the universe.
The Fitness of Carbon for Life
The carbon atom, the primary constituent of organic molecules, is, in several respects, uniquely fit for the assembly of the complex macromolecules found in the cell. First, due to the stability of carbon-carbon bonding, only carbon can form long polymers of itself, forming long chains or rings, while also bonding to other kinds of atoms. Though silicon can also form long chains by bonding with itself, these bonds are significantly less stable than carbon-carbon bonds. Plaxco and Gross note that “while silicon-silicon, silicon-hydrogen, and silicon-nitrogen bonds are similar in energy, the silicon-oxygen bond is far more stable than any of the other three types. As a consequence, silicon readily oxidizes to silicon dioxide, limiting the chemistry available to this atom whenever oxygen is present. And oxygen is the third most common atom in the Universe.”1 As Primo Levi explains, carbon “is the only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on earth (the only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance.”2
Second, carbon is tetravalent — that is, each atom can form four covalent bonds with other atoms. Third, carbon possesses a relatively small atomic nucleus, entailing short bond distances, thereby allowing it to form stable bonds with itself as well as other atoms. This property is also possessed by the other small, non-metal atoms in period two. Carbon is able to form single, double, and triple bonds with other atoms. Nitrogen can also form single, double, or triple bonds and oxygen can form single and double bonds. Contrast this with the nonmetal atoms directly beneath them in the periodic table — silicon, phosphorus, and sulfur — which possess larger atomic radii and therefore form such bonds less easily due to multiple bonds having reduced stability.
Another property of organic bonds is that their strength sits within a Goldilocks zone, being neither too strong nor too weak for biochemical manipulations in the cell. If the strength of those bonds were to be altered by a single order of magnitude, it would render impossible numerous biochemical reactions that take place in the cell. If it were too strong, the activation energy needed to break bonds could not be sufficiently reduced by enzymatic activity (enzymes strain chemical bonds by engaging in specific conformational movements while bound to a substrate). Conversely, if organic bonds were much weaker, bonds would be frequently disrupted by molecular collisions, rendering controlled chemistry impossible.
Another special characteristic of carbon is that there is not much variation in energy levels of carbon bonds from one atom to the next. Robert E. D. Clark explains that carbon “is a friend of all. Its bond energies with hydrogen, chlorine, nitrogen, oxygen, or even another carbon differ little. No other atom is like it.”3 Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross further comment, “Carbon presents a fairly level playing field in which nature can shuffle around carbon-carbon, carbon-nitrogen, and carbon-oxygen single and double bonds without playing too great a cost to convert any one of these into another… Given all this, it’s no wonder that on the order of ten million unique carbon compounds have been described by chemists, which is as many as all of the described non-carbon-containing compounds put together.”4
Carbon Resonance
As we have seen, carbon is absolutely fundamental to life. It also happens to be — after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen — the fourth most abundant element in our galaxy. A carbon nucleus can be generated by smashing together two nuclei of helium-4 to make beryllium-8 (containing four protons and four neutrons) and then adding a further nucleus of helium to generate carbon-12 (containing six protons and six neutrons). However, beryllium is quite unstable, and can be expected to break apart into two nuclei of helium in 10-16seconds. On occasion, prior to the breaking apart of beryllium, a third helium nucleus collides with beryllium, resulting in a carbon nucleus. As it happens, the carbon atom possesses a special quantum property called a resonance, which facilitates this process. A resonance describes the discrete energy levels at which protons and neutrons in the nucleus can exist. Indeed, it turns out that the resonance of the carbon atom just so happens to correspond to the combined energy of the beryllium atom and a colliding nucleus of helium.
As Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes explain, “if there were a resonance at just the right place in carbon, the combined energy of the beryllium and helium nuclei would result in a carbon nucleus in one of its excited states. The excited carbon nucleus knows how to handle the excess energy without simply falling apart. It is less likely to disintegrate, and more likely to decay to the ground state with the emission of a gamma-ray photon. Carbon formed, energy released… success!”5 Without this specific resonance level, the universe would contain relatively few carbon atoms — in 1953, this specific resonance that had previously been predicted by Fred Hoyle was discovered by William Fowler, precisely where Hoyle had predicted it would be.
A Remarkable Coincidence
This special carbon resonance (known as the Hoyle state), which corresponds to the energy levels of the combined beryllium-8 nucleus and a helium-4 nucleus, renders the otherwise improbable process of carbon-12 formation feasible and efficient in the high-temperature environments of stellar cores. This delicate balance of energy levels is a remarkable aspect of nuclear astrophysics that allows for the creation of the elements necessary for life. If it were not for this special resonance, life very probably would not exist in our universe. This is another one of many countless features of our universe that have to be “just right” for life — in particular, advanced life — to exist.
Notes
Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross. Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction, 2nd edition (The John Hopkins University Press, 2011), chapter 1.
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table (Abacus, 1990), 226-227.
Robert E.D. Clark, The Universe: Plan or Accident? 3rd edition, (Zondervan, 1972), 97.
Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross. Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction, 2nd edition (The John Hopkins University Press, 2011), chapter 1.
Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 116-117.
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