Darwinism and the cosmic lottery.

What's in a Word? "Randomness" in Darwinism and the Scientific Theory of Evolution
Jay W. Richards 

This is the third in a series of reviews of Alvin Plantinga's important new book, Where the Conflict Really Lies. For parts one and two, see here and here. For Plantinga's reply, see here.

One of the more difficult parts of Plantinga's book is his discussion of "randomness" in Darwinian evolution, and the related questions of "Darwinism" and the "scientific theory of evolution." In fact, the discussion is easily misinterpreted and potentially confusing, so let's consider it at length.

Plantinga offers several important clarifications on these subjects. Unlike so many who occupy the overlapping space of science and religion, he recognizes that the word "evolution" can refer to many things, and he's careful not to hide his own views in the ambiguity. "Evolution" can refer simply to change over time, or to the idea that the universe and earth are billions of years old. It can refer to the common ancestry of life. It can even refer, confusingly, to the chemical origin of life, which wasn't part of Darwin's theory. It can also refer to common descent, the idea that all living things are descended from one or a few common ancestors. And it can refer to that idea plus a mechanism for change. In the case of Darwinism, the mechanism is natural selection sifting the random variations in reproducing populations -- or what Darwin often called "chance" variations. In the modern form of the theory -- Neo-Darwinism -- new variations are identified with mutations in DNA.

Plantinga argues, plausibly, that most of these senses of "evolution" present no logical challenge to Christian theism. In Darwinism, however, many perceive a conflict. Isn't the whole point of the theory to provide a process or mechanism that can overcome the prohibitive barriers of mere chance and can mimic the work of an intelligent agent? When most biologists claim that adaptive complexity is largely the result of natural selection and random genetic mutations, don't they intend to provide an alternative to design? Don't they claim that selection and mutation, considered together as a single process, are unguided?

Despite appearances to the contrary, Plantinga thinks these questions are based on misunderstanding. He sees denial of purpose not as a part of Darwinism or the scientific theory of evolution, but as merely a metaphysical or philosophical add-on. There's "Darwinism," and then there's "unguided Darwinism." In his view, the scientific theory, which we can call Darwinism, affirms natural selection and random genetic mutations as the engine of adaptation, but makes no claims about purpose or the lack thereof in the history of life.

Getting the Main Issue Right

The word "random" (and its near synonym "chance") is a notorious source of mischief in science and religion discussions, so it's important to follow Plantinga's argument closely. Leaving terminological difficulties to the side for a moment, Plantinga must be commended for getting to the heart of the question over the compatibility of theism and evolutionary theory and for coming down on the right side: namely, purpose or guidance. Christian theism is committed to the idea that God intends certain things to come out a certain way in history. He intended human beings, for instance. He knew you before he knit you together in your mother's womb. So theism will be incompatible with any view, including any evolutionary theory, that denies that life and its history were purposively guided to accomplish God's ends.

On this, the central question, Plantinga gets it exactly right. Contrary to some contemporary theistic evolutionists, he understands that an event can't be both guided and unguided, both purposeful and purposeless. Far too many discussions of "God and evolution" appeal to God's mystery or his transcendence or his majesty or the fact that he's "not a Cosmic Tinkerer," to disguise a contradiction. Plantinga doesn't talk about "horizontal" versus "vertical" causality (as physicist Stephen Barr does). He doesn't cite St. Thomas' references to "contingency" and "chance," which had different meanings for Thomas than they have in the modern Darwinian context. And he doesn't make reconciliation easy by just stipulating a teleological definition of "random." He does discuss the possibility that an event might appear unguided to us but still be guided by God. There's no contradiction in that case because the event isn't really unguided. Looking unguided and being unguided are two different properties.

At the same time, he wants to show that there's nothing in theistic religion that conflicts with "science." This goal is nowhere more difficult than when he deals with the reigning theory of biological evolution, depending as it does on the Darwinian process of natural selection and "random" mutations. As a result, Plantinga must find a "scientifically reputable" definition (my phrase) of the word "random." This will be a definition that doesn't assume that the history of life either has or has not been guided. Natural science, we're told, is supposed to be empirical and not beg big metaphysical questions. If that's true, then we need a sense of the word that is metaphysically neutral. Plantinga finds just such definitions offered by Ernst Mayr and philosopher of biology Elliott Sober.

"When it is said that mutation or variation is random," Mayr explains, "the statement simply means that there is no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptational need of an organism in a given environment."1 Sober defines "random" even more carefully: "There is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur."2 Mutations' "being random in that sense," Plantinga notes, "is clearly compatible with their being caused by God" (p. 13).

Certainly, given theism, it's logically possible that an event such as a genetic mutation could be guided directly by God and independently of any physical mechanism. As a result, Plantinga can say that the Christian view "that God intended to create creatures of a certain kind" is "consistent with Darwinism, the view that the diversity of life has come to be by way of natural selection winnowing random genetic mutations" (p. 11). Note that he's defined Darwinism using Sober's, um, sober definition of "random."

Plantinga's logical point stands. Unfortunately, practically no one restricts the meaning of the word "random" in this way, and, a fortiori, few if any see Darwinism as limited to such a narrow definition. There are really three related terms at issue here: "random," "Darwinism," and the "scientific theory of evolution." In fact, even if all Darwinists adhered to Sober's precise definition, most would assume that Sober is offering a distinction without a difference, since physical mechanisms are the only mechanisms that exist.

Plantinga recognizes that it's "not entirely easy to say" what "contemporary evolutionary science claims" (p. 15). And yet in describing Darwinism he says: "If these mutations are random, aren't they just a matter of chance? But randomness, as construed by contemporary biologists, doesn't have that implication." This implies that contemporary biologists do have some unanimous sense of "random" to which they adhere, and that there is an official definition of the theory. But Plantinga has merely given two very narrow definitions of the word "random" in evolutionary theory by one scientist and one philosopher; he hasn't shown that these definitions are representative.

For Darwin and most Darwinists, in fact, random doesn't just mean uncorrelated to a physical mechanism that works in favor of organisms. Random mutations have some or another cause, to be sure, but the cause, in the Darwinian view, is blind, unguided, and purposeless. Unlike the meter, for example, which is officially defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1?299,792,458 of a second, there is no standard definition of Darwinian Theory. So we are left with the intentions of Darwin and those who follow him, and, to some extent, the ordinary meanings of the words they use.

What the Dictionary Says

And given ordinary English usage, Darwinists are quite right to use the word in that sense. Here's how Merriam Webster defines the adjectival form of the word:

1 a : lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern
Even the statistical meaning of the word in Merriam Webster has to do, not just with a lack of correlation, but with having an equal probability of success:
2   a : relating to, having, or being elements or events with definite probability of occurrence ‹random processes›
  b : being or relating to a set or to an element of a set each of whose elements has equal probability of occurrence ‹a random sample›; also : characterized by procedures designed to obtain such sets or elements ‹random sampling›

When used as a noun, Webster's gives fewer options:
: a haphazard course
  -- at random
: without definite aim, direction, rule, or method ‹subjects chosen at random›
I checked five other English dictionaries. They say more or less the same thing. It's no wonder, then, that when Darwinists use the word "random," they mean, and are rightly understood to mean, purposeless and unguided, even when they don't use those additional adjectives. This is not the result of confusion. It's the result of Darwinists using the standard meaning of the word. Besides, it's their theory, so they have the privilege of defining it however they see fit. Our task is to evaluate it based on reason and evidence.
You don't evaluate an argument of philosophical significance by citing the dictionary, of course. My point is to make it clear that using the word "random" in a highly circumscribed, metaphysically neutral way and then importing that to "Darwinism" is largely a private game. Clearly neither Darwin nor his followers have chosen to play the game by the same rules.

Darwinists Normally Intend to Offer an Alternative to Real Teleology

Even when they do not explicitly deny the possibility of purpose and design, Darwinists intend to make teleological explanations in biology superfluous. Darwin, unlike some earlier materialists who were content to appeal to blind chance, wanted to accommodate the appearance of purpose and teleology in the biological world. "Chance" determines which variations arise (to speak commonly though somewhat paradoxically), but not which variations are selected and perpetuated. This has led some scholars to describe Darwin's theory as itself teleological.3 But this is sloppy speaking, since it blurs the whole point of Darwin's proposal. He sought to provide an explanation for the appearance of purpose, but without recourse to real purpose.

Darwinists have followed in this tradition. They claim that random mutations are sifted by natural selection, and this blind and purposeless process as a whole gives rise to things that look designed, but aren't. They don't mean that natural selection and random variation are just a small part of the story. They intend for the Darwinian mechanism to provide a more or less sufficient causal explanation of the feature in question, though they often include other secondary physical factors alongside natural selection. The total set of blind physical causes is intended to provide the complete explanation of the feature. And that intention is incompatible with God guiding the mutations.

Now that I think of it, even Sober's highly restrained definition of "random" needs to be filled out to make selection-and-mutation clearly compatible with purposeful guidance and to rule out the a-teleological intentions of Darwinian theorists. The process needs to be defined in something like the following way:

When we say that an adaptation is the result of natural selection and "random" genetic mutations, we mean: (1) There is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur, and (2) there is no implication that natural selection and random mutation are complete or causally adequate explanations of adaptive complexity. (3) There is no implication that other, non-physical causes are not also required to explain adaptations and other, empirically manifest features of organisms.
Now we have a definition of Darwin's mechanism that is unambiguously compatible not just with intelligent design, but with Christian theism. We also have a definition that no one has ever used, until now.
A Denial of Real Teleology is the Essence of Darwinism

Plantinga says that "if we think of the Darwinian picture as including the idea that the process of evolution is unguided, then of course that picture is completely at odds with providentialist religion [which holds that everything that happens is intended or permitted by God]. As we've seen, however, current evolutionary science doesn't include the thought that evolution is unguided; it quite properly refrains from commenting on the metaphysical or theological issue" (p. 55). And then he defines "Darwinism" in such a way that it does not "seem to cut against providentialist religion" (p. 55).

This is a perplexing claim, especially since Plantinga cites in a footnote on the previous page Casey Luskin's article in God and Evolution. Luskin demonstrates that leading biology textbooks over and over and over and over again explain biological evolution in just the way Plantinga claims "current evolutionary science" does not. In fact, as the editor of God and Evolution, I asked Luskin to remove many of the examples he provided in the first draft of his chapter. He had provided far more examples than were necessary to prove the point. Do all these leading biology textbooks fail to teach "current evolutionary science"? Not likely. Thomas Kuhn rightly referred to textbooks as "pedagogical vehicles for the perpetuation of normal science." Normal science, for Kuhn, doesn't involve cutting edge discoveries that threaten to overturn the reigning scientific paradigm, but is rather the paradigm itself.

The denial of design and teleology in biology is an essential part of Darwinism and, unfortunately, it is how the modern theory of biological evolution is taught, explained, and understood by the vast majority of its champions and critics.

Of course, there were some who tried early on to reconcile Darwin's theory with teleology, but they mistook Darwin's intention in doing so. Asa Gray is the most prominent example. He sought to reconcile Darwin's theory with natural theology, and urged Darwin to allow that God oversaw which variations would occur and when. Darwin famously rebuked -- even mocked -- Gray for making this suggestion, which Darwin insisted was no part of his theory.4

Similarly, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection who later broke with Darwin, wrote a book entitled Darwinism in 1889. He continued to consider himself a "Darwinist" even after he rejected Darwin's materialistic applications to man, sentience, and the origin of life. He had a personal relationship with Darwin and so was more inclined to criticize Darwin's surrogates, such as Haeckel and Huxley -- a tradition that continues to the present. When Herbert Spencer received his complimentary copy of Darwinism, however, he wrote to Wallace, "I regret that you have used the title 'Darwinism,' for notwithstanding your qualification of its meaning you will, by using it, tend greatly to confirm the erroneous conception almost universally current."5 The erroneous conception was that Darwinism and Wallace's teleological or intelligent evolution were compatible. Spencer understood that they were not.

In his famous article "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought" in Scientific American (July 2000), Ernst Mayr dropped the modest pretense we saw above in his definition of "random," and explained that Darwinism offers "a secular view of life." Here are a couple of his salient points:

Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires God as creator or designer (although one is certainly still free to believe in God even if one accepts evolution).
Darwin's theory of natural selection made any invocation of teleology unnecessary.

Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. Since Mayr was one of the preeminent leaders of the Darwinian tribe in the twentieth century, I'm inclined to trust that he knows what Darwinism is. Notice his concession, characteristic of all but the most fanatical Darwinists, that one can believe in God and evolution. But he's not talking about evolution that is really and apparently guided by God. He's saying that you're free to believe in a God back there behind the scenes not acting in any tangible way or explaining anything we find in the world.
I'll resist the temptation to offer similar quotes from Darwin's notebooks, which make it clear how deeply materialistic (and not just deistic) his views were, and from leading Darwinists and official scientific organizations, who confirm what we've already seen.6

Take the Flagellum, For Example

Darwinism is the attempt to substitute a blind, material process for real teleology. Take the debate over the famous bacterial flagellum. Darwinists assume that given the time available, unguided natural selection and mutations can produce it, perhaps by way of several functional precursors. They've spent the last fifteen years since Mike Behe wrote Darwin's Black Box trying to come up with such scenarios to explain it in this way. Now let's say that researchers spend years finding the pathway by which this would need to happen, and they determine that getting a working flagellum from some flagellum-free species of bacteria requires 153 independent mutations to happen simultaneously. None of them individually and no subset provides the bacterium a survival advantage, so an unguided Darwinian process, which lacks the foresight to select that functional flagellum and take the steps necessary to attain it, would almost certainly never accomplish the goal.

However, (assuming theism) God could act directly, rather than through an additional physical process, to make sure these mutations take place when they need to, namely, simultaneously. Let's say that is what happened. So the best, correct and complete causal explanation for the origin of the flagellum would be that God directly guided 153 mutations (without using another physical mechanism) so that the bacteria would enjoy functioning flagella. This wouldn't just be intelligent design, but divine design. And given the tightly specified complexity of a flagellum -- the function in this case is the specification -- it would be empirically detectible, even obvious, design: real design, real teleology, not an unguided Darwinian process.

The alternative to intelligent design would be an unimaginably improbable run of chance. Now, would any Darwinist think this is a perfectly acceptable outcome for his theory? Chance here is no explanation at all, yet surely no Darwinist would be happy to appeal to purposefully guided mutations in order to explain this (or any) biological system. No Darwinist would say, "No problem. The official Darwinian definition of 'random' allows for the possibility that God (or someone) is guiding outcomes without using any physical mechanism." On the contrary, this is exactly the dilemma the Darwinist hopes to avoid.

A cautionary note: This discussion, like so many discussions involving God and evolution, risks giving the impression that there is good evidence that genetic mutations can build new biological systems, and we're just considering whether God could have guided them. There is no such evidence. We must avoid the temptation to move straight to reconciling Darwinian claims to theology without first evaluating the evidence for Darwinian claims.

In fact, based on the empirical evidence, I'm deeply skeptical that any series of genetic mutations alone, even if they are guided, can produce anything profoundly new (such as a new animal form or body plan), because there's far more going on in biology upstream from the DNA molecule. Just as you can't change the floor plan of a building by changing the color of the paint on the outside wall, you probably can't produce fundamentally new organisms with point mutations in DNA. Neo-Darwinism assumes that genetic mutations have all sorts of wonder-working powers since the theory needs a source of innovation of natural selection to preserve; but this is an assumption, not a dispassionate inference from empirical evidence.

For God to produce new biological forms, I suspect he would need to do much more than just coordinate genetic mutations. He would need to change things upstream, in the realm of epigenetic programming (to settle for a vague term). He would, to use a traditional term, need to provide a different form. If that's what has happened in the history of life, and organisms are, to some extent at least, the outcome of such divine activity operating outside of and in concert with material causes (of which he is also the source, given theism), then clearly the currently reigning theory of biological evolution would be incorrect.

Let's assume for a moment, however, that "random" in Darwinian evolution means only that an event is uncorrelated with any physical mechanism operating for the benefit of an organism. Given this definition, "Darwinism" and "current evolutionary science" would be compatible not just with intelligent design but with special creation, say, with God turning a small lizard into a flying bird in one generation by changing things upstream from the DNA and leaving evidence of his activity behind, as long as he didn't use a physical mechanism. If so, then even the most ardent special creationist can accept Darwinism and "current evolutionary science," and the most ardent Darwinist can also be a special creationist. This is implausible in the extreme, since special creationism was the explicit target of Darwin's critique in both the Origin and subsequent writings. No Darwin scholar would dispute this. So clearly we've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Two Competing Visions of Science

Plantinga wants to show that not just "evolution" in the sense of common ancestry is logically compatible with Christian theism, and not just that selection and variation play some role in the process. He wants to show that Christian theism and Darwinism are compatible as well. This is understandable, since his goal is to show that "science" and theistic religion are compatible, and the standard understanding of biological evolution among scientists is Darwinian.7 Unfortunately, the reality is more complicated than that.

In historical biology at least, we're not just dealing with a metaphysically neutral "current science" and a pesky little metaphysical parasite that some folks mistake for the theory. We are dealing with two competing visions of the scientific enterprise, which are sown closely together. Christian theism is compatible with, and helped give rise to, the older, proper understanding of science. Natural science in its proper sense is the search for the truth about the natural world -- including true causal explanations -- based on hypothesis testing, systematic observation, and the like, no holds barred. Science, from scientia, means knowledge, so this is as it should be. As a result, any properly scientific theory of biological evolution will not decide ahead of time what types of evidence will be found, and what kinds of causal explanations will be permitted to explain that evidence. It will be open to all the evidence for the purpose of discovering the truth. Plantinga only needs to show that Christian theism is compatible with this proper understanding of science, and he does so successfully.

Unfortunately, in the nineteenth century, another, competing definition of science emerged. This is natural science as applied naturalism. According to this view, the proper scientific explanation is the best naturalistic explanation. (In a sense, this was the ratification of Bacon and Descartes' earlier call to purge "formal" and "final" causes from what we now call natural science, a call that had been imperfectly implemented prior to Darwin.) This view became especially prominent in biology with the emergence of Darwinism, which explicitly (and uncharacteristically for theories in natural science) sought to replace and exclude teleological explanations. Darwin's argument in the Origin, unlike most scientific theories, employed the premise "God wouldn't do things this way" throughout. This is why we are told that science must employ, not methodological neutralism, but methodological naturalism. In biology, that supposed methodological rule is cover for an intrinsically naturalistic theory. Christian theism is incompatible with science understood as applied naturalism, and a fortiori, it is incompatible with Darwinism, which is the most explicit form of this view of science.8

Equivocation between these two views of science serves the purposes of naturalists. When criticized by a smart philosopher or testy school board member for larding their theory with more metaphysical weight than is appropriate in a scientific theory, they can appeal to subtle definitions of words such as the definition of "random" offered by Elliott Sober. They can say that science is metaphysically neutral and not committed to naturalism. It is then accorded the respect enjoyed by science understood as a systematic search for the truth about the natural world. As soon as the philosophers and school boards go back to doing whatever they do, however, Darwinists drop the pretense and return to treating science as applied naturalism and denounce any suggestions of purpose or design in biology as anti-science, creationism, and all the rest.

Because of this rampant equivocation in the literature, it's very important to speak clearly on these matters and to avoid using non-representative definitions of words. We court trouble unless we use words such as "Darwinism" and "random" in their widely understood meanings. Moreover, the definitions should match the actual views of Darwin and those who follow him. The highly specialized definition of "random," for instance, which is compatible with God's guidance, just is not the Darwinian meaning of the word -- despite the fact that some Darwinian philosophers and biologists, in moments of caution or strategic cleverness -- have offered such a definition.

"Science"

The purpose of Plantinga's book is to show the compatibility between "science" and theistic religion. But there's a bit of an ambiguity running through Plantinga's references to "science," in part because the word itself is ambiguous. In most cases, context resolves the ambiguity. Still, at times, "science" seems to refer to the institution of natural science. Other times it seems to refer to a scientific theory, such as Neo-Darwinism. And at other times, it seems to refer to the relevant empirical evidence within a subdiscipline of science. I think what Plantinga wants to say (and certainly can say) is that theistic religion is consistent with the founding spirit of science, with the institution of science properly understood, with well-established scientific theories, and with the empirical evidence of science, including the evidence of biology. He can certainly say that no one is justified in claiming that the evidence shows that the origin and history of life is the result of a blind, unguided process. He can say all that without showing that Christian theism and "Darwinism" are compatible.

What to say about Darwinism? Maybe we should say that the naturalistic definition of evolutionary theory is not really science or that it is counterfeit science. Perhaps we should say the same thing about Darwinism. Perhaps Darwinism is similar to Marxism and Freudianism. It offers some interesting but minor insights into a domain of reality, but Darwinists have profoundly oversold their idea and have ended up distorting the empirical evidence in order to make it fit the theory. If so, perhaps we should say Darwinism is a scientific theory -- a theory within the natural sciences -- but not a good or well-established one.

Still, none of this changes the fact that Darwinism is the reigning view in modern biology. We can speak of guided and unguided evolution, but to speak of unguided Darwinism is a redundancy. We severely understate the problem if we treat the naturalistic part as just a superficial metaphysical parasite on an otherwise respectable and metaphysically neutral theory of evolution. It never was a parasite; it has been the beating heart of Darwinism since its inception.


Notes:

(1) In Mayr, Towards a new Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 98. I am not persuaded that Mayr's definition avoids the implication of a-teleology as Sober's does. Mayr's definition of "random" is inconsistent with God (for instance) directly causing genotypic changes to correlate with the adaptive needs of an organism apart from a physical mechanism. Although it doesn't strictly prevent God from acting, it circumscribes what he can do. If he acts for the adaptive needs of an organism, he must hide the fact that he is doing so. Sober's definition avoids this implication, so I go with his definition in the discussion.

(2) Sober, "Evolution Without Metaphysics?" in J. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3.

(3) For example, James Lennox, "Darwin was a Teleologist," Biology and Philosophy 8 (1993): pp. 409-421.

(4) In Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th ed. Revised (London: John Murray,1872), p. 234; and Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols., 2nd ed., revised (New York: Appleton, 1883,) vol. 2, pp. 427-428. (1st ed. 1868). John Beatty treats the incident in detail in "Chance Variation: Darwin on Orchids," Philosophy of Science 73, no. 5 (2006): pp. 629-641.

(5) Herbert Spencer to A. R. Wallace, May 18, 1889, in James Marchant, Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1916), p. 301. Thanks to Michael Flannery for providing me with this reference and insight.

(6) For years, the National Association of Biology Teachers offered this definition of biological evolution: "[E]volution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection." Under criticism from Alvin Plantinga and Huston Smith (a prominent religion scholar), the NABT dropped the words "unguided, unplanned," but the subsequent debate and discussion made it clear that that is still what they meant when talking about random variation and natural selection. See E.C. Scott (2008) "Science and Religion, Methodology and Humanism," at: http://ncse.com/ religion/science-religion-methodology-humanism.

(7) Some claim that "Darwinism" is a pejorative term made up by creationists. On the contrary, the term is frequently used to refer to the currently reigning theory of biological evolution. It is often called the "modern synthesis" of Darwin's original theory with genetics. Hence the term "Neo-Darwinism." For a recent example, see David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber, "The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis," Biological Theory 6 (2011): pp. 89-102.


(8) Perhaps it's possible that natural science could be pursued along metaphysically neutral lines, conforming to what Plantinga has elsewhere called "Duhemian science." This "methodological neutralism," however, would restrict all sorts of questions from the domain of science that scientists constantly ask. Most historical and origins science would probably disqualify as science if we insisted on this approach. The more realistic approach, I think, is simply to accept that natural science is a complicated and diverse enterprise and that it sometimes bears on larger metaphysical questions. That's okay, as long as debatable metaphysical assumptions don't trump the empirical evidence, or become a justification for excluding evidence and arguments that have different metaphysical implications. In any case, it is methodological naturalism that often hides metaphysical naturalism, not methodological neutralism, with which we have to deal.

On Journalism,editorialising,literary composing and the design debate

Press Coverage of Darwin vs. Design Conference Reveals both Tolerance and Anti-ID Bias
Casey Luskin


The upcoming Darwin vs. Design conference at Southern Method University (SMU) has triggered controversy because some Darwinists are intolerant of discussion of ID taking place too close to their campus offices. When the DvD conference was held in Knoxville recently, the Knoxville News reported that an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Michael Gilchrist, was so concerned that he "petitioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory to remove Darwin vs. Design from its technical calendar." Gilchrist was quoted saying that "It is fine for people to think of these things, but it's a problem when they present it as science." It seems that for Gilchrist, he's OK with any view about ID being promoted as long as it is not the view which says ID is a scientific theory. The press has been sympathetic to free speech rights to discuss this debate over Darwin and design, but it has simultaneously revealed its anti-ID bias and its tendency to distort the arguments of ID proponents in favor of its own view. For example, Dallas Morning News religion reporter Jeffrey Weiss expressed dismay at the intolerance of SMU science faculty:

Not only did the professors misstate the facts, most of the protesters took actions guaranteed to help their opponents. By calling for the university to cancel the event (which was simply not going to happen. Contracts had been signed.), the science profs turned themselves into would-be censors and the ID side into victims standing up for free speech and the free exchange of ideas.
But Mr. Weiss also revealed his own bias against ID:
[T]he ID side jousted with me over the use of one word, "supernatural," using what I consider a sort of intellectual dishonesty that has nothing to do with whether ID is right or not, but makes many people suspicious of their point of view. ... Their bottom line: To describe the designer as "supernatural" is to limit the identity or nature of the designer. And they don't want to do that. I'll use the ID side's own strategy to explain why I think this is unfair word manipulation.
Perhaps Mr. Weiss does not understand the nature of scientific inquiry. Science only tries to answer questions which can be addressed via the empirical domain. We can look at the information in life and determine that there was intelligence behind it. But the information in the DNA encoding the bacterial flagellum does not tell you whether the designer was God, Buddha, Yoda, or any other designer. If you want to address the identity of the designer, you have to use methods other than science.
In contrast to what Mr. Weiss alleges, this is not some attempt to "manipulate" or be "dishonest," because ID-proponents have consistently given the principled explanation that ID's inability to specify the nature or identity of the designer stems from a desire to respect the limits of scientific inquiry. Moreover, ID-proponents are honest about their views on the designer, they just note that these views are their personal religious views and not the conclusions of intelligent design. Phillip Johnson gives a good example of this, writing: "[M]y personal view is that I identify the designer of life with the God of the Bible, although intelligent design theory as such does not entail that." Michael Behe gives another similar example in his quote given below.

Other Pro-ID Scientists and Scholars Agree
Mr. Weiss quotes from "a book co-authored by one of the scheduled presenters at the SMU conference" talking about the design of the universe. However, when it comes to biological design, ID-proponents are clear that the empirical data alone do not determine the nature or identity of the designer. Charles Thaxton, one of the first scientists to adopt "intelligent design" in the early 1980s, stated:

I wasn't comfortable with the typical vocabulary that for the most part creationists were using because it didn't express what I was trying to do. They were wanting to bring God into the discussion, and I was wanting to stay within the empirical domain and do what you can do legitimately there.
The textbook Thaxton helped write explicitly bore out this approach:
Surely the intelligent design explanation has unanswered questions of its own. But unanswered questions, which exist on both sides, are an essential part of healthy science; they define the areas of needed research. Questions often expose hidden errors that have impeded the progress of science. For example, the place of intelligent design in science has been troubling for more than a century. That is because on the whole, scientists from within Western culture failed to distinguish between intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot. Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science. (Of Pandas and People, 1993, pgs. 126-127, emphasis added)
Other ID-proponents have consistently held this view:
The most important difference [between modern ID and Paley] is that [ID] is limited to design itself; I strongly emphasize that it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. Thus while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo. (Michael Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pg. 165, emphasis added.)
By contrast, intelligent design nowhere attempts to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design in nature, nor does it prescribe in advance the sequence of events by which this intelligent cause had to act. . . . Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the remit of science. As Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis remark in their text on intelligent design: 'Science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy.' (William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, pg. 247-248 (InterVarsity Press, 1999))

There is no 'Made by Yahweh' engraved on the side of the bacterial rotary motor--the flagellum. In order to find out what or who its designer is, one must go outside the narrow discipline of biology. Cross-disciplinary dialogue must begin with the fields of philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, and theology. Design itself, however, is a direct scientific inference; it does not depend on a single religious premise for its conclusions. (Thomas Woodward, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design, pg. 15 (Baker Books, 2006))

In the end, Mr. Weiss wrote: "I say to the Discovery Institute: Twaddle!" and he constructed in his Dallas Morning News article his own definition of ID, one that proposes "a designer with the power to shape the cosmos." But he still hasn't explained how the DNA encoding the flagellum can, on a scientific level, tell you if the designer is natural or supernatural.

Reporters aren't supposed to editorialize. They're supposed to report. This presents a nice case study of how a reporter has imposed his own biases and misunderstandings upon the debate. For some unknown reason, Mr. Weiss refused to print the definition of ID coming from ID-proponents, so he created his own. That's not reporting -- that's creative writing.

Bats vs. Darwin

Bats as Fighter Pilots
Evolution News & Views 


Bam! Bam! That's how fast a bat can hit two targets separated by different angles. Japanese scientists were intrigued at the accuracy of bats hunting their prey, so they decided to investigate. They found out something interesting. Bats can plan their attack trajectories to hit multiple targets in sequence with a minimum amount of energy. To do this, they have to focus their attention on multiple targets at once. And, as we all know, they do it primarily with sound, not sight.

Most hunting animals focus on the immediate object of prey. It's quite a skill to sense multiple targets and quickly plan the best way to hit them. Good skeet shooters can do this with lots of practice, but bats come with the programming built in. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers summarize what they found:

When seeing or listening to an object, we aim our attention toward it. While capturing prey, many animal species focus their visual or acoustic attention toward the prey. However, for multiple prey items, the direction and timing of attention for effective foraging remain unknown..... Here we show that bats select rational flight paths to consecutively capture multiple prey items. Microphone-array measurements showed that bats direct their sonar attention not only to the immediate prey but also to the next prey. In addition, we found that a bat's attention in terms of its flight also aims toward the next prey even when approaching the immediate prey. Numerical simulations revealed a possibility that bats shift their flight attention to control suitable flight paths for consecutive capture.... These findings indicate that bats gain increased benefit by distributing their attention among multiple targets and planning the future flight path based on additional information of the next prey. These experimental and mathematical studies allowed us to observe the process of decision making by bats during their natural flight dynamics. [Emphasis added.]
A human fighter pilot with this ability would be able to dart into oncoming planes and shoot them down in rapid succession, turning on a dime between hits. This is Star Wars tech. Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon could hardly do better.

A bat can capture two insects in less than a second. What's required to achieve this level of flight performance? For one, the bat has to be able to adaptively change the characteristics of its sonar beam depending on the situation. It also has to be able to turn the beam quickly to the next insect while approaching the first. Then, it needs to design a flight path to hit them both in rapid succession by the most economical path.

Using both experimental and mathematical models, the scientists determined that bats routinely design the most "rational" flight path to successfully hit multiple targets.

Hence, wild echolocating bats plan their flight paths by distributing their attention among multiple prey items, which means that the bats do not forage in a hit-or-miss fashion but rather spatially anticipate their future targets for optimum routing.
If you've ever watched bats on the hunt in the evening, you know that they continue this rational flight planning continuously for hours, sometimes all night. It would be like a shooter facing a thousand skeet launched every 1-5 seconds in a 360-degree, 3D field and hitting every one for hours on end -- all while avoiding other individuals that are doing the same thing in the same space. And insects, we know, don't fly in straight lines or curves like skeet; they make sudden turns, too. Yet every night, each bat takes on this challenge as a matter of course.

In the past we have discussed optimization as an example of intelligent design science in action. One way the bat selects the optimum flight path is by getting both insects into the sonar beam.

This result demonstrates that the bats select their flight paths to effectively capture multiple prey items. Such parameter sets suggest that bats take a path in the direction of the next prey just before capturing the immediate prey, so that they can acoustically view both prey items (Fig. 1C). In other words, bats might select their flight paths to keep both prey items within their sonar beam.
The actual behavior of the bats, though, is even more complex than the scientists' mathematical model.

On the other hand, bats in the wild varied dynamically their parameter set (flight attention) from moment to moment as they approached multiple prey items (Figs. 3F and 4A). This result implies that the bats actually use a more complex behavioral strategy that has not been assumed by the current mathematical model.
Insect hunting on the wing is hard work. Bats expend 14 times their basal metabolic rate while hunting. They can't afford to waste energy. By rationally designing the most efficient routes, we might say they get the "most buck for the bang" -- i.e., the most caloric intake for the exercise.

Computer techs might be familiar with time-sharing algorithms. When multiple processes are competing for the same CPU, the operating system gives each one a time slice. It returns to unfinished work when a given process gets its next turn. But not all processes are equal; some have higher priority. An operating system designer's challenge is to rank the processes by priority and distribute the time slices fairly so that no process is ignored, but the higher priority processes get preference. Bats do this automatically. They have two competing processes, sonar and flight. In addition, each insect in the vicinity must get its share of attention:

For multiple targets, it is beneficial for bats in the wild to distribute their sonar attention and flight attention among multiple targets and to plan the future flight path based on the next prey for effective foraging. On the other hand, pipistrelle bats in the wild alternately and rapidly shift their sonar attention. This fact suggests that bats process echo streams from multiple targets in a time-sharing manner and then select the optimal flight path to capture and hunt a lot of airborne insects. These findings and suggestions originated from the unique capabilities of bats to fly while actively emitting sonar signals.

Does anybody know of a time-sharing central processor that was not designed by intelligent agents? Maybe that's why the Japanese scientists never referred to evolution in their paper. The scientists selected the bats, and the bats selected their targets, but "natural selection" never got a time slice in the research.

Darwinism vs.the real world XXVIII

Understanding Temperature: Cold-Blooded versus Warm-Blooded Animals
Howard Glicksman

Editor's note: Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News is delighted to offer this series, "The Designed Body." For the complete series, see here. Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.



Among the other dynamics of nature, the body must contend with heat (the transfer of energy from one object to another) and temperature (the random motion within an object or its internal energy). The body's core temperature is directly related to how much heat it produces through metabolism, the sum total of all of its chemical reactions. The human cell is able to harness only about one-quarter of the energy released from the breakdown of complex molecules like carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The remaining three-quarters is released as heat into the body. As with any working machine, the more active the body, the more heat it releases.

In addition to the heat released by its metabolism, the body's core temperature is also directly related to how much heat it loses to, or gains from, its environment. Sit directly in the sun on a tropical island and your body will quickly gain a lot of heat. Go out at night on the frozen tundra wearing just a T-shirt and jeans and your body will quickly lose a lot of heat. The body must take control of its core temperature because if it isn't just right, it can adversely affect enzyme function and the integrity of the plasma membrane and other cellular structures.

In my last few articles, I've shown that the body's normal core temperature is set by the hypothalamus at 97o- 99oF (36o-37oC). Studies indicate that this temperature range is the one in which the enzyme systems of the body work best. Thyroid function contributes to the core temperature by setting the basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is how much heat the body generates at complete rest. But life is a dynamic process where to survive the body must stay active, releasing more heat while living within an environment where temperatures fluctuate. The hypothalamus receives data from the central thermoreceptors and keeps the core temperature at its set-point by using both voluntary means (shedding or donning clothing) and involuntary means (shivering or sweating).

These irreducibly complex systems use their natural survival capacity to keep the core temperature right where it should be so the enzyme systems within the cells can work at peak efficiency. Clinical experience teaches that if our earliest ancestors could not have kept their core temperature within the normal range they never could have survived long enough to reproduce. Since humans, like other mammals and birds, can control and keep their core temperature relatively high through internal processes, scientists consider them warm-blooded. In contrast, the core temperature of most insects, amphibians, reptiles and fish is dependent on their surroundings and so they are considered cold-blooded. This article will look at what it means to be cold-blooded and warm-blooded and what might be required for one to develop into the other as evolutionary biologists claim.

Humans, like birds and most mammals, are able to regulate their core temperature at a level that is usually above their surroundings, and sometimes lower than it as well. They accomplish this through increasing their cellular respiration and releasing more heat from their metabolism, altering blood flow in the skin, sweating, panting, shivering, and releasing heat by breaking down fat. In this way they are able to control their core temperature from within. They are therefore called endotherms (endo = within + therm = heat). Since they can keep their core temperature relatively stable, they are also known as homeotherms (homeo = same). The increased need for energy to accomplish this type of thermoregulation requires a high resting metabolic rate, so these organisms have a tachymetabolism (tachy = fast + metabol = to change). In general, birds and mammals are endotherms and homeotherms with a tachymetabolism and are called warm-blooded.

Most insects, reptiles, fish, and amphibians, are not able to maintain a regular core temperature from within, and are therefore more dependent on the temperature of their surroundings. They are therefore called ectotherms (ecto = outside + therm = heat). Since their core temperature is quite variable, they are also known as poikilotherms (poikilo = varied). In order to live within these temperature guidelines, these creatures do not need to provide themselves with as much heat energy as those that are warm-blooded. These creatures tend to have a lower resting metabolic rate or bradymetabolism (brady = slow). In general, insects, reptiles, fish, and amphibians are ectotherms and poikilotherms with a bradymetabolism and are called cold-blooded.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being either cold-blooded or warm-blooded. In particular, since the efficiency of chemical reactions in the cell is dependent on the core temperature, being warm-blooded allows for more activity in colder environments. Warm-blooded animals are, in general, able to forage for food faster and defend themselves better in a wider temperature range than cold-blooded animals. Additionally, warm-blooded animals can support highly-complex energy-dependent organs like the mammalian brain.

However, to maintain a core temperature that is often far higher than its environment, warm-blooded animals must use more of the energy they obtain from food as heat. This means that warm-blooded animals require much more food (often about five to ten times more) than cold-blooded animals to survive. Compared to cold-blooded animals, warm-blooded ones are nature's equivalent to the gas-guzzling and energy-inefficient automobile, since they use so much energy to maintain their core temperature to keep their organ systems working properly. Cold-blooded ones are eco-friendly, energy efficient, and more in tune with their environment because they don't need to use up as much fuel to keep their organ systems working properly.

Conventional scientific wisdom says that warm-blooded animals evolved from cold-blooded ones. Little else is said about how this evolutionary development could have taken place or what viable transitions between these two steps would look like. Converting a cold-blooded animal into a warm-blooded animal would be like converting a Model-T Ford into a Lexus. Instead of cranking the engine to start, sitting in a drafty vehicle, and moving in a herky-jerky motion from shifting gears, the modern driver electronically starts the engine from a distance, sits comfortably in a climate-controlled airtight vehicle, and enjoys smooth acceleration from the automatic transmission.

An Exercise in Critical Thinking

The more you understand what it takes for life to survive within the laws of nature, the more you realize how inadequate and simplistic the theories of evolutionary biologists are. Imagine an exercise in critical thinking: Given the facts of current biology, determine the challenges that face evolutionary biologists in explaining how cold-blooded animals evolved into warm-blooded ones. Consider these three questions and responses for the exercise.

(1) Whether cold or warm-blooded, all life forms, even bacteria and amoebae, have some sort of thermoregulatory mechanism. Since temperature is one of many physiological parameters that must be controlled to maintain life, shouldn't evolutionary biologists have to describe each of these thermoregulatory mechanisms and how they became more sophisticated?

Each of these thermoregulatory mechanisms requires that the organism sense the change in temperature, decide what needs to be done, and then effect an adequate change in function to correct the situation. For example, when the core temperature of warm-blooded animals drops below the set-point, they can automatically increase their production of heat while at the same time limiting heat loss. Most cold-blooded animals, on the other hand, can only get warmer by lying out in the sun. How could such an irreducibly complex system have evolved while remaining functional and allowing for survival?

(2) One of the main differences between warm-blooded and cold-blooded organisms is that the former can generate more heat from their metabolism than the latter. It is important to note that when cold-blooded animals increase their level of activity, they give off more heat just like warm-blooded ones do. The key difference between them is that, in general, whether at complete rest or with activity, warm-blooded animals tend to give off more heat than cold-blooded ones. Wouldn't you think that in trying to show how cold-blooded animals evolved into warm-blooded ones, evolutionary biologists would first need to explain the mechanism behind this phenomenon and the changes that must have taken place along the way?

In fact, it appears that not only do the cells of cold-blooded organisms have fewer mitochondria and so release less heat through cellular respiration, but the process of cellular respiration seems to be different as well. In the last few decades, scientists have shown that there are uncoupling proteins (UCPs)within the cells of most organisms, which, particularly in warm-blooded ones, seem to reduce the amount of energy their cells store as ATP and cause the release of more heat. Although thyroid activity is present in most invertebrates and vertebrates, it would appear that one of its unique functions in warm-blooded animals is to activate these UCPs and increase the production of heat. The production and control of thyroid hormone is irreducibly complex and requires natural survival capacity because having too little or too much of it is incredibly harmful. This is a second very important point that should be addressed by evolutionary biologists before claiming to understand how cold-blooded animals evolved into warm-blooded ones.

(3) If, to keep the enzyme systems that make up the metabolism in their cells working at peak efficiency, warm-blooded animals must maintain their core temperature within a certain range to survive, how do cold-blooded animals stay alive at these lower temperatures? In other words, before claiming to know how cold-blooded animals evolved into warm-blooded ones, don't you think evolutionary biologists should address this other obvious difference in basic cellular function?

It appears that, when it comes to very important metabolic reactions, most cold-blooded animals have several different enzyme systems in place that are able to work at different temperatures to allow for survival. This means that, in general, when it comes to the genes that code for important metabolic processes, the cells of cold-blooded organisms usually have more than warm-blooded ones. This would mean that while cold-blooded animals were evolving into warm-blooded ones they would have been removing the genes for these various important metabolic processes at each step along the way. How the intermediate organisms could have survived during this transition -- involving a loss of metabolic flexibility and the development of increased heat production along with thermoregulatory control -- is another conundrum that evolutionary biologists need to address.

As biologist Ann Gauger has pointedly noted here at Evolution News, "Evolutionary biology's explanatory power is inversely proportional to its rigor." I maintain that if thoughtful adults were educated not just about how life looks, but how it works to survive within the laws of nature, views about evolution would look very different from how they do today.

Is Darwinism playing with loaded dice?

Evolution Appears to Converge on Goals -- But in Darwinian Terms, Is That Possible?
Denyse O'Leary 

Very different life forms frequently converge on eerily identical patterns of development (convergent evolution). That is odd if evolution is purely undirected and unplanned. There isn't enough time, given the history of the universe.

And, as I've noted before, the welter of data coming back from paleontology, genome mapping, and other studies are changing paleontology from a discipline dependent on grand theories to one more like human history, dependent on identified facts.

A century or so ago, British anatomist St. George Mivart noted that Darwin's theory of evolution "does not harmonize with closely similar structures of diverse origin" (convergent evolution). There is more evidence for Mivart's doubts now than ever.

According to current Darwinian evolutionary theory, each gain in information is the result of a great many tiny, modest gains in fitness over millions or billions of years, due to natural selection acting on random mutations. The resulting solutions should then follow inheritance laws, in the sense that the more similar life forms are according to biological classifications, the more similar their genome map should be.

That just did not work out. Different species can have surprisingly similar genes. For example, kangaroos are marsupial mammals, not placentals. Yet their genes are close to humans. Researchers: "We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not."

Kangaroos? Shark and human proteins, meanwhile, are also "stunningly similar." Indeed, sharks are genetically closer to humans than they are to aquarium zebrafish. Researchers: "We were very surprised... "

Sharks? But does all this not raise a serious question? The popular science literature claims that a near identity between the human and chimpanzee genome is irrefutable evidence of common descent. Why then do we hear so little about any of these findings, which muddy the waters? Why are science writers not even curious?

There is also the question of how easily a life form can "evolve" a complex solution to a difficult problem. Birds are said to have evolved ultraviolet vision at least eight times.

Similarly, whether large bird and mammal brains arise from common descent or convergent evolution is actually uncertain. Two distantly related groups of reptiles are thought to have given rise to mammals and birds, both featuring a much higher brain to body weight ratio than in their ancestors. Paleontologist R. Glenn Northcutt writes that the matter is "contentious and unresolved," because brains rarely fossilize.

It's not just mammals and birds. Two different species of deadly sea snake, with "separate evolutions," were found to be identical. Dolphins and insects, we are told, share components of a hearing system.

The smartest invertebrates, the molluscs (including squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish), seem to have evolved brains four times. From one study we learn, "The new findings expand a growing body of evidence that in very different groups of animals -- and mammals, for instance -- central nervous systems evolved not once, but several times, in parallel."

Cambridge paleontologist Simon Conway Morris's Map of Life website provides many other examples of convergence, listing, for example, the convergent evolution of foul smelling plants ("Love me, I stink"), convergence in sex (love-darts), eyes (camera-style eyes in jellyfish), agriculture (in ants) or gliding (in lizards and mammals).

Convergent evolution is evidence that evolution can happen. But the Darwinian model does not seem to be the right one. The life forms appear to be converging on a common goal.

That said, the problem presented for Darwinism by convergent evolution has hardly penetrated the world of pop science writers, high school teachers, politicians, judges, theologians, and entertainers. Mere evidence could not compete with a position so compelling as Darwin's.

Alternatively, however, there is the position taken by many great physicists: The universe is about information and consciousness, not matter. A sense of the results having been directed would not, then, be surprising. For more on that, consult William Dembski's Being as Communion.

Concern about inequality,a big deal about nothing?:Pros and Cons.

How a bill becomes a fruitless talk session.

Darwin of the gaps logic continues to collapse. II

Behold, a Further Use for Body Hair

David Klinghoffer 

purported incompetence or nonexistence of design reflected in bodies, but the hair on your arm or face or elsewhere turns out to have yet another use that was previously unknown. Hair follicles, along with the folds and oil-producing glands in the skin, form a habitat for microorganisms that are vital to the skin's ability to fight off harmful pathogens.

Nature News summarizes:

The folds, follicles and tiny oil-producing glands on the skin's surface create a multitude of diverse habitats, each with its own community of microbes.1 Most of these "commensals" live harmlessly on the skin, and their presence is thought to stop pathogenic microbes from invading the skin's habitats. But these benign residents are not just innocent bystanders -- according to a paper published today in Science, skin-specific bacteria also influence the response from the host's immune system to help fight off infection.2

Immunologist Yasmine Belkaid and her team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, decided to investigate the immunological role of the skin's resident microorganisms, known collectively as the skin microbiome. "For the first time, we've shown that the skin needs microbial signals for proper immune-cell function," says study author Shruti Naik, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, who is based in Belkaid's lab.

Mice raised in a sterile germ-free environment, thus without their normal complement of skin microbiota, were unable to mount an effective immunological response to attack by a particular pathogen -- but the ability was restored after scientists introduced a normally friendly bacterium, Staphylococcus epidermidis.

We have a dear friend who's quite germophobic and whose kids play with our kids. She's always insisting that nobody may come into her house without a severe scrubbing of the hands, face, etc. I need to remember to bring this to her attention.

In the Netherlands the abyss stares back.

The Culture of Death Is Like the Universe

 Wesley J. Smith 

Once set in motion, it never stops expanding.

Euthanasia boosters, as we know, are so full of baloney. To get the death agenda adopted, they promise the moon, that medicalized killing will be strictly limited, and always restricted to competent adults. Then, once society widely accepts killing as an answer to suffering, the age limits drops -- because how in the name of compassion can a (now) "right" to die be limited to competent adults? 

Belgium has already legalized assisted suicide for children deemed, by their death doctor, mature enough to decide. Now the Dutch Pediatric Association wants to go there too, where the current age limit -- once 16 -- is now 12. But that's not low enough! From the deVolkskrant story (Google translation):

The Dutch Association of Pediatrics (NVK) comes to the position after intense debate. If a child is incompetent, parents should be able to consult with the doctor to decide on euthanasia...

The 12-year-age limit for euthanasia is a problem for pediatricians: they see in practice that even younger children are often well able to see the consequences of their decisions.

Still, doctors are not allowed to do anything when a child between 1 and 12 years asks for euthanasia. The NVK therefore proposes to include "real mental competence" as a benchmark, rather than chronological age.

For children who can not make the decision, the physician in consultation with the parents can decide. This happens already in children between 0 and 1, but doctors believe it should also be possible for incapacitated children under 12 years.

Two points. Infanticide is legally (still) murder in Netherlands and yet, as the story admits, killing sick and disabled babies is an accepted part of Netherlander euthanasia practice.

You see, when it comes to euthanasia, "protective guidelines" and legal boundaries soon don't matter. Netherlander pediatricians and neonatologists kill babies in their cribs without consequence, proving that protective guidelines aren't worth the time it takes to read them. (See the Groningen Protocol, a published bureaucratic check list for deciding which babies can be killed.)

Second, note that the "suffering" would not have to be a terminal illness, which is not a required criterion for euthanasia in Netherlands. This means a depressed child with disabilities, who feels isolated and marginalized, could ask for euthanasia and be killed! Perhaps even a mentally ill child deemed, by a death doctor, sufficiently "competent" to decide that life is not worth living.

How Darwinism undercuts reason.

Lawyer, Scientist, or Animal? Choosing Between Evolution and Human Reason

Sarah Chaffee 

psychologist Tania Lombrozo asks, "Is the Mind's Approach More Like a Scientist or a Trial Lawyer?" She praises advances toward greater scientific objectivity, suggesting this holds promise that humans can overcome their natural biases. But the case for scientific objectivity only makes sense in a context where we can trust our reason. And guess what? That's an assumption more compatible with intelligent design than with an evolutionary framework. 

Lombrozo asks whether we tend to reason like scientists -- that is, examine the evidence and draw conclusions based on it -- or more like trial lawyers -- cherry-picking data to fit our case. She notes:

People are capable of impressive scientific thought (indeed, the best scientists are all people!). And at the same time, people are quite capable of fooling themselves into thinking the evidence does support their beliefs, even when a more objective assessment would suggest otherwise.

But she offers hope: Science is becoming more objective. Therefore we as human beings could be improving too. 

But optimists can point to a critical respect in which we might just be like scientists. Science is continually reinventing itself: We develop new statistical tools, better practices and better theories.

As one example, some scientists have recently adopted a practice called "blind analysis," which guards precisely against the kinds of confirmation biases that could otherwise influence scientific research. With blind analysis, scientists make all decisions about how data will be analyzed prior to seeing the data itself. As a consequence, these decisions can't be guided by their expectations or preferences about the conclusions the data will ultimately support.

If we're like scientists in this sense -- in the sense that we can recognize problems with our thinking and develop better practices, at least some of the time -- then there's room for a more optimistic view of the human mind. Instead of fooling ourselves into believing what we expect or want to believe, we can develop better ways to get ourselves to make the best decisions -- be it through education, artful nudges or better technology.

Blind analysis is a good idea. 

But notice this. Lombrozo places her confidence in science -- a human endeavor -- to reveal truth about the universe. Is that confidence justified? Well, it depends. Judging from her earlier blogging, Lombrozo seems to be in favor of materialistic evolution, but that same viewpoint undermines our trust in reason, or ought to do so if you're consistent. In The Magician's Twin, John West describes C.S. Lewis's views: 

The scientific method is premised on the idea that "rational inferences are valid," but the Myth [of materialistic evolution] undercuts human reason by depicting it as "simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of a mindless process at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. The content of the Myth thus knocks from under me the only ground on which I could possibly believe the Myth to be true." Darwin's own gnawing doubt rears its head yet again: "If my own mind is a product of the irrational... how shall I trust my mind when it tells me about evolution?" 

Lewis is joined in this argument by Nancy Pearcey in Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, and Alvin Plantinga in Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism. 

Darwinism, in other words, undermines itself as a scientific idea. It asks that we trust the theorizing done by human minds, yet tells us those minds are a step away from irrational animals. How did trustworthy reason "evolve" ex nihilo? Materialists sidestep that conundrum.

But if study of the universe reveals evidence of intelligent design, we may have reason to trust our minds after all. Yes, sometimes we evaluate facts objectively and revise our actions accordingly -- while other times we look for data that supports our preconceived notions. Scientists included.

Under materialistic evolution, we are neither scientists nor trial lawyers -- but animals. Under ID, at least there is the chance of human beings exercising right reason and, on that basis, making real scientific progress.

Maths in the dock for design.

How Did Mathematics Come to be Woven Into the Fabric of Reality?

Posted by Barry Arrington

We all learned pi in school in the context of circles.  Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.  It is an irrational number approximated by 3.14.

It turns out that pi shows up all over the place, not just in circles.  Here is just one instance.  Take a piece of paper and a stick.  Draw several lines along the paper so that the lines are the length of the stick from each other.  Then randomly drop the stick on the paper.  The probability that the stick will land so that it cuts a line is exactly 2/pi, or about 64%.  If one were to perform millions of trials, one could use the results to perform a very precise calculation of the value of pi without ever considering its relation to circles.

This is just one of many places pi pops up in reality, and pi is just one of several mathematical constants that appear to be woven into the fabric of the universe. One mathematician likened it to looking out over a mountain range, where the bases of the mountains are shrouded in fog, and the symbol for pi is etched into the top of each mountain – one intuitively knows that it is all connected at some basic level even if one has no idea why.

What are we to make of what physicist Eugene Wigner called the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in describing reality?  The word “unreasonable” makes sense only in the context of expectations.  If one expects the mathematical structure of the universe to be elegant and beautiful, the fact that it turns out to be elegant and beautiful is not unreasonable at all.  It is only unreasonable if one approaches it from the perspective of the metaphysical materialist.  In his universe reality consists of nothing but particles in motion randomly bumping into each other.  In that universe there is no reason to expect any underlying mathematical order, no reason to expect mountain tops etched with pi to pop up all over the place, and no reason to suspect that those mountain tops are connected by a unifying order at the base.

Given materialist premises, none of this makes the slightest bit of sense.  It is just a brute fact.  It cannot be denied or explained.  Yet there it is.

MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark has a theory.  He says consider a character in a computer game (let’s call him Mario) that is so complex and sophisticated that he is able to achieve consciousness.  If Mario were to begin exploring his environment, he would find a lot of mathematical connections.  And if continued to explore, Mario would ultimately find that his entire world is mathematical at its roots.  Tegmark believes we live in a universe that is not just described by mathematics; he believes that mathematics defines all of reality, just as the reality of Mario’s computer game world is defined by mathematics.

Here is the interesting part.  Tegmark makes no design inference.  (He is a multiverse fanatic).  This is astounding.  All he needs to do is take his own analogy one step further.  Why is Mario’s computer game world connected mathematically?  Obviously, it is because that mathematical structure was 
imposed on the game by the game designer.

Why is the universe we live in connected by an unreasonably beautiful, elegant and effective mathematical structure?  Come on Max.  You are a smart guy.  I know you can figure it out.

Cicadas vs. Darwin

The Cicada Challenge to Darwinian Evolution

Evolution News & Views They'll create quite a commotion next month, but they're mostly a harmless nuisance or a wonder of nature, depending on your outlook. They're the northeast brood of Magicicada, the so-called 17-year locusts. Smithsonian Magazine tells about them:

Residents in the Northeast U.S. waiting for warm temperatures may get a surprise along with their May flowers: When the soil reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit, they'll also get a visit from billions and billions of cicadas.

This latest brood is composed of several species including Magicicada septendecim, M. cassini and M. septendecula, and is expected to take over West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and a tiny spot on Long Island. 

In an event that only happens once every 17 years for this brood, the creatures will soon dig their way out of the soil, shed their exoskeletons and emerge en masse. The swarm will spend two to six weeks mating and singing their grating, sing-song call before dying and blanketing the ground with their crispy brown corpses. [Emphasis added.]

Here's a natural wonder worth thinking about. There are 14 identified species of periodic cicadas in the United States. A southern brood on a 13-year cycle came up in 2011 (see Live Science). Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers. Evolutionists have long touted their adaptive story about why this is. Smithsonian says:

Researchers have theorized that the insects spend such a lengthy time underground in an effort to outlive parasites that may harm them, Eoin O'Carroll wrote for The Christian Science Monitor in 2013. Other researchers speculate that the 13 and 17-year life cycles, both prime numbers, are an evolutionary adaptation and a mathematical trick that keeps cicadas from emerging during peak population periods for their predators. 

"A cicada that emerges every 17 years and has a predator with a five-year life cycle will only face a peak predator population once every 85 years," writes Patrick di Justo in The New Yorker, "giving them an enormous advantage over less well-adapted cicadas."

Live Science adds that the sheer numbers provide an advantage, too: no predator could possibly devour so many of them. But it's the prime number quirk that attracts evolutionists' attention:

The key factor is that both numbers are prime; they can't be divided evenly by any smaller numbers (except one). It is no mere coincidence that cicadas have evolved indivisible life cycles. As explained by the entomologist Stephen Jay Gould, prime cycles have a major evolutionary advantage over cycles that are multiples of smaller numbers of years, and for a simple reason: They make cicadas more elusive.

"Many potential predators have 2-5 year life cycles. Such cycles are not set by the availability of cicadas (for they peak too often in years of non-emergence), but cicadas might be eagerly harvested when the cycles coincide," Gould wrote in his best-seller "Ever Since Darwin" (Norton 1977). "Consider a predator with a life-cycle of five years: if cicadas emerged every 15 years, each bloom would be hit by the predator. By cycling at a large prime number, cicadas minimize the number of coincidences (every 5×17, or 85 years, in this case)."

In summary: "Thirteen- and 17-year cycles cannot be tracked by any smaller number."

We could leave it at that, and agree that evolutionary theory is wonderful the way it explains things. Yet think again. Don't the two explanations work against each other? If predation is a problem, why the billions at once? With so many, they could come up every year and do just fine. Why wait? And if selection pressure helps the cicadas, can't it help the predators the same way? Where are the 17-year predators? Besides, you wonder what the predators are eating outside the two-to-six week window the cicadas are active. 

Like the peppered moths and the Galápagos finches, the evolutionary story of cicadas offers a certain intuitive satisfaction, until you start asking questions. Worse, it distracts from the really interesting aspects that really need explaining. To wit:

• The remarkable timekeeping ability of the nymphs to silently count 13 or 17 years.
• The trigger that makes all of them emerge simultaneously. The temperature gauge needs to coordinate with the clock, otherwise they would emerge every year.
• The "incomplete metamorphosis" they undergo (i.e., unlike butterflies shown in the film Metamorphosis, cicadas do not have a chrysalis or pupa stage; the nymphs grow directly into adulthood). Even so, the larvae have to transition from one body plan into another that has completely new structures, like wings, eyes, antennae and reproductive organs. 

Other amazing facts about cicadas tend to get drowned out in the rush to explain the evolution of prime numbers. For instance, cicadas have amazing wing surfaces that burst bacteria. Three years ago, Nature News described nanoscopic pillars on the wings that pop bacterial membranes, shredding them to pieces (see videos in the article). It was such a clever method for disinfection, scientists envisioned creating similar materials that "could one day be applied to public surfaces that commonly harbour disease, such as bus railings." 

PhysOrg mentioned other advantages: "In marked contrast to the biochemical mechanisms of antibiotics, which are subject to acquired resistance, physical mechanisms are non-specific, and cannot be reversed or altered, tackling bacterial cells as a whole." This kind of "anti-microbial physics" could be designed to simultaneously nourish human cells, supporting "a variety of biomedical implants, anti-fouling surfaces or biosensors."

Obviously, any creature capable of powered flight deserves our admiration for impeccable design. Add to that all the other systems required for complex animal life: (e.g., reproductive, digestive, respiratory) and traits characteristic of insects (e.g., articulated legs, compound eyes, antennae) and we see a whole package of systems that challenge blind processes of natural selection.