Scientific
knowledge for Aristotle was certain knowledge through causes. This leads to difficulties because nature’s
causes are generally hidden from us as opposed to its effects, which are
apparent through sense knowledge. Thus,
in the science of nature, we typically begin by what we know, the sense
knowledge of effects, and proceed to what is more known by an intellectual
grasp of their causes. An aide in doing
this is the causal model where analogues help us to understand something
that is not apparent in sense experience [3] [10] [11].
The
causal model identifies four factors that are called “causes” each
functioning in a distinctive way in a causal explanation. These factors are usually identified as
“matter”, “form”, “agent”, and “end”.
More explicitly, they are referred to as “material”, “formal”,
“efficient”, and “final” causes respectively.
These four causes are separate but interconnected, which can be seen by
looking at an example of a kitchen chair.
An agent or efficient cause (the craftsman and the tools used) worked on
a particular kind of matter (e.g., oak), and shaped it into a form (that of a
kitchen chair), which had a distinctive end (providing something comfortable to
sit on while eating) [11].
This
examples shows that form is intimately related to its matter. Form is the shape or figure that the matter
assumes when the chair is made, so that form becomes part of its being. As such, it is intelligible, providing a
window through which the world of nature, a logical extension, is seen, and through
which many of the natures that inhabit it are readily understood. The agent or efficient cause for our example
points to a craftsman as the “principal agent”. The craftsman had the
capability of making the chair because of the motive powers lodged within his
nature. These powers explain how he
could be an efficient cause in the production of the chair [10] [11].
It
turns out that human beings are natural organisms that possess many powers;
this enables them to serve as a paradigm for the investigation of agencies in
nature. We consider how natural it is
for humans to think, will, speak, and write, activities of the mind, not the
body. The production of material things
is also characteristic of humans. The
final factor in the causal model is the end or final cause [11].
Today, this problem is important because of the theory of evolution. Do we live in a world of “pointless indifference”, or an ordered world in a teleological context that not only is predetermined by nature, but more importantly, by an “Author of nature,” Who had a definite design in mind?
In
an attempt to answer these questions, or at least from a natural science
standpoint, consider the best candidates for answers, we will look at our causal
model, focusing primarily on examples from nature that point from goals or
final causes to their philosophical parents, formal, material, and ultimately,
efficient causes. We will not consider
formal proofs of efficient causes per se but rather the evidence inferring
their existence from an intelligent design alternative to macroevolution or
Darwinism that holds that every living thing came from a common ancestor via
natural selection in the total absence of intelligent design. We will proceed
in the same manner that St. Thomas Aquinas did in his proofs for the existence
of God, which are found at the beginning of the First Part of his Summa
Theologica [1]. These proofs,
called the “five ways” were proposed as proofs from effect to cause, i.e., as a
posteriori demonstrations [1] [2] [11].
Before
we look at questions of intelligent design, however, we will consider why we
should. What are the stakes? Simply put, do we want to be miserable to
the point of despair, courtesy of the bankrupt atheistic materialistic
philosophies of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Sartre, who tell us that “nature is
all there is” with not even a remote thought to considering of whether nature
had an intelligent author, or do we want to be open to the truth that
philosophy and science as a subset must seek to be honest with itself?
For Jean-Paul Sartre in "Existentialism and Humanism," there is no eternal truth because there is no divine mind to think it. God has been erased from the equation. It was Sartre who provided a basis for the non-Naturalism of moral judgments, a deep reason why "Is can never ground an ought," i.e., man has no guidelines for doing the "right" thing in a world where there is no longer any such thing as "right or wrong." An atheist like himself, Sartre observed, has to be thorough. If God is dead and out of the picture, with Him must go everything that assumes His existence. Sartre felt that those who thought God could be excised and the world and society would still look basically the same are simply foolish. Of necessity, for Sartre, the world must be drastically changed [9].
The theist or believer holds that human beings are creatures of God. One
could consider creation analogous to the human artisan who fashions something
for a purpose, a useful or good purpose else quality control dictates that it
be discarded. The artisan's work is what it is because of this purpose
that is the work's nature and, as such, a means for evaluation of the
work. If man is an artifact of God's, man has a nature that provides a
measure of his action. Acts that thwart
his nature, i.e., acts that are unnatural, are bad, those that fulfill its
potential are good. There is this criterion of good and bad action prior
to a person doing anything at all. He will be good if he fulfills the
purpose his Maker has embedded in him, and bad if he does not.
In a Godless world there are no natures because there is no divine artisan.
Consequently, there are no guidelines one must consult before acting. One
is free to do whatever he wants. His is a total freedom which is not a
freedom measured by what he is or what he is designed for. This freedom,
which becomes license, is not a freedom to do what you ought but rather what
you want. This is Sartre's warped view of the world. One's initial
glee that with the dropping of all constraints life is a "bowl of
cherries" is dispelled by Sartre's gloomy description of what absolute
freedom is like. There are no excuses as there is nothing to diminish our
responsibility for what we do [9].
This becomes a freedom too far which man is condemned to. Anything is permitted if God doesn't exist. Many have taken the Sartrean or Nietzschean route looking at the implications of man not having a nature or a destiny or any basis at all in the way things are for appraising them one way or another. This nihilistic mentality takes the form of modernist slogans such as "there is no such thing as right or wrong," "don't impose your morality on me," "I'm OK, you're OK," "reproductive rights," "get out of my bedroom," and one of my personal favorites, "get your rosaries off of my ovaries." This madness has resulted in a juridical devolution that allowed a so-called "c"atholic, and I use the term loosely, Supreme Court justice to declare that each of us has the right to define the universe as he wishes, to determine the point and purpose of our reproductive system, to approve or disapprove of abortion. In short, anything goes. The Supreme Court by this decision has made universal emotionalism the law of the land leaving unanswered the question of how long can any society stave off anarchy under such a bankrupt law.
Essence precedes existence for theists as they see God as a Creator and His
creation as possessing the nature God gave them, a nature that provides a gauge
for the possessor in terms of seeking the good. This good becomes
ultimately Perfect Good, which is the Creator with the common good of society
resulting as an effect. Contrast this with the atheist who eliminates the
Creator resulting in no essence thereby providing no prior guide for action.
The statement cannot be made that one ought to do something which is a function
of a human nature which can be appealed to for judgment reinforcement.
Absent a nature, “what we are” is defined by the acts we perform - existence
preceding essence with the "god in the mirror" being the sole
judge. This is how sodomy becomes a virtue rather than the vice that it
is. The fact that there are very good physical reasons for describing
sodomy as a vice as reported in the Center for Disease Control HIV/AIDS
Surveillance Reports is totally ignored as there is a direct correlation with
trashing God and the ills of society.
Atheists have no problems with the notion that there are no absolute truths,
i.e., everything is relative, because absolute truths have a religious
connotation, which they would be very uncomfortable with. Imagine someone arguing that human dignity
is not absolute, but merely relative. What's interesting to note is that
the relativist is actually making an "absolute" claim in stating that
"everything is relative."
Not only do relativists theoretically contradict themselves with their own
first premise, they contradict themselves in practice. As Peter Kreeft
notes, "The relativist lets the cat out of the bag when you practice what
he preaches, when you act toward him as if his own philosophy of relativism
were true. He may preach relativism, but he expects you to practice
absolutism." Kreeft gives the example of telling his relativist
students that all women in the class will flunk. Given their relativist
premises, the students have no argument to make against so blatantly unfair a
practice. Who are they, after all, to “impose their beliefs on him?”
Now apply this reasoning to the dignity of all human life. Many today
wish to apply relativism to the value of human life, arguing that manhood is
not absolutely, but only relatively, applicable to all human beings. But
the lines drawn in such application, based on convenience, are completely
arbitrary. If someone tells you that life is complex and demands such
arbitrariness, you could ask him, "so does that mean that you wouldn't
mind if a thief, faced with the 'complexity' of his own existence, decides to
draw some arbitrary lines and steal your wallet?"
No one in his right mind stands for the relativistic view of human dignity when
it comes to his or her own human dignity. Each of us - even the hardened
secularist who preaches relativism - instinctively recognizes that our dignity
as persons implies certain moral absolutes of behavior. These moral
absolutes are a function of the Natural Law, without which anarchy exists.
The following question begs an answer. What keeps said atheistic,
relativistic society from deciding that a certain group is undesirable and thus
can be eliminated for the good of the whole? It's happening in Holland
with euthanasia that started out as physician assisted suicide, evolved to
voluntary euthanasia, and now is pure and simply involuntary
euthanasia. Are people worthless because they are old? Tell that to
the fans of Pablo Casals who was a virtuoso cellist at 90. It's happening
to millions of babies in the womb - the holocaust of our time with the
blessings of an activist judiciary who usurp the legislative branch of
government by making laws instead of interpreting them contrary to the tenets
of a Constitution, which if it means anything, must remain static to give any
kind of meaning to "separation of powers."
Who would you appeal to in a Godless society when the knock arrives at your
door and you're told, it's time for you to meet the great nothing? Surely, even
atheists would hold that you have some rights? But what happens when
those rights are perceived to be yours alone and the appeal for your life is
taken as “forcing your beliefs down someone else’s throat.” What do you do in
such a situation?
The bias of contemporary existentialism is to manage at all costs to make
atheism livable no matter how ridiculous the consequences. The question
of what if by chance that could not be managed does not even arise. It is
deliberately squashed and forbidden for very good reasons - a little thought
easily proves its illogic. The straw that breaks the camel's back is that
Sartre declares himself firmly optimistic, leaving the tragic sense to
Christians. There is nothing equal to the stature of a Nietzsche and his
disciples whose most original and highly appreciated contribution of their
existentialism to our age, per Jacques Maritain, is the renunciation of any
measure of grandeur [9].
The metaphysician knows that his task is to search for the ultimate foundation
of the intelligibility of things as of every other quality or perfection of
being. He finds it in God since metaphysics is a Divine Science, the
highest rung on a ladder of hierarchical knowledge having all the other
sciences subordinate to it. He understands that in the final analysis
there exists no human nature if the divine Intellect did not perceive Its own
Essence, and in that Essence the eternal idea of man, not an abstract and universal
idea as our ideas are, but a creative idea. Maritain says "that a
philosopher is not a philosopher if he is not a metaphysician." This
would seem only logical since philosophy is a search for the truth and if the
search leads to a capitalized version of Truth, i.e., Perfect Truth, what
better vehicle for bridging to the supernatural, to theology, than
metaphysics. To constrain a philosophy to the natural realm when it leads
elsewhere is bad science by any definition. You don't say to the theoretical
mathematician," sorry, you cannot extend the concepts of analytic geometry
to more than three dimensions because we won't let you." That would
be an absurdity, which is the correct descriptor for Sartrean existentialism.
Maritain asks a good question, "Why should it be astonishing that at the
summit of all beings, at the point where everything is carried to pure
transcendent act, the intelligibility of essence should fuse in on absolute
identity with the super-intelligibility of existence, in the incomprehensible
unity of Him Who is?" In other words, why should man be afraid to
find rational proof for the existence of God?
Aquinas teaches that in every authentically moral act, man, in order to apply
the law, must grasp the universal in his own singular existence where he is
alone face to face with God. The contemporary atheistic existentialists,
on the other hand, reject the ethical universal along with all essence.
They repudiate it, moreover, dismiss it out of hand and believe that if there
were a system of moral rules, those rules would automatically apply to
particular cases making a mockery of all morality. What the liberal
ideologues have done is to suppress generality and universal law with the end
result that liberty, their battle cry, is suppressed. This in turn
suppresses reason. I'm reminded of an old game show of the 50s-60s called
"Truth or Consequences." The title is apropos today. We
don't want the truth; the consequences are Planned Parenthood vs. Casey where
freedom for the autonomous unencumbered self is confused with license, as every
man becomes his own god, creating his own universe. The fact that said
universes invariably collide was totally ignored by the majority of our
illustrious Supreme Court justices.
Feuerbach declared that God was the creation and the alienation of man;
Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God. They were the theologians of our
contemporary atheistic philosophies. Evidently, it never occurred to them
why would someone invent an immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, all-merciful,
all-just (because mercy without justice has no meaning), eternal God when the
inventors would bear equal responsibility for obeying Him and suffer the same
consequences for disobedience. No one would invent a God like that; you
would invent a "feel-good" god to make you comfortable with your
vices - a god in a constant state of evolution as a function of man's increased
technical prowess. This god exists today where faith is watered down so
as not to offend the sensibilities of modern man whose self esteem must survive
at all costs.
The question must be asked, "Why were Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Sartre and
their disciples so bitter?" The answer is simple. If man is not
known to God, if he only has the experience of his personal existence and his
subjectivity, then he also has the experience of his desperate solitude.
He longs for death and beyond with total annihilation the only thing left for
him. Everything linked to the combat for the salvation of self,
resembling a posture of faith has disappeared. The soul has been
evacuated. With it went the sense of sin and man's dignity. Misery
loves company with this sorry trio having many companions today. The stakes for “driving a wedge” into their
materialistic philosophies become very great, indeed – the very moral fabric of
civilization as we know it with anarchy the inevitable result if we fail.
The above philosophical observations can be reduced to the simple fact that if man allows for no intelligent design in the Universe, which erases God forever, there is no “Original Sin”, and hence, there is no need for a Redeemer to save mankind from the effects of that sin. In one fell swoop, Christianity’s claims in the New Testament fulfilling the Old are equated with Greek Mythology, and presented as such in our schools, especially our colleges.
We will now look at those who are “driving the wedge”, i.e., making an attempt to show to unbelievers, without any appeal to revelation, adhering strictly to well-established concepts of scientific reasoning, that there is an increasingly strong case being made for “intelligent design” in the Universe that cannot be dismissed out-of-hand as the rants of religious fundamentalists. Before we do this, however, we must keep one thing paramount. Believers have nothing to fear from reason as beautifully pointed out in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason). The God that created the Universe is All-Good. He is incapable of being anything else because of the very supernatural nature of His Being [1]. Faith enables reason; reason reinforces faith. They are not diametrically opposed principles that are divorced. As such, believers must recognize the fact that what can be expected from the scientific studies that are about to be discussed is not a negation of God, but rather an affirmation that “intelligent design” exists, and inferring from the causal model that this design must have, of necessity, a designer. The God that gave us faith is the same God that gave us reason, i.e., faith and reason are forever intertwined (married) in that both, coming from God, are good since God cannot contradict Himself given that He is omniscient. Ergo, we do not have to retreat into enclaves of “fideism” fearing what the consequences of reason might be. St. Thomas Aquinas himself recognized the necessity of presenting proofs for the existence of God that appealed to unbelievers by concentrating in particular on a reasoned, logical exposition of his proofs that focused on a more hardcore audience in his Summa Contra Gentiles [2]. We do not need a “faith escape” because there is nothing to escape from other than a lack of faith in the God who gave us faith and reason as “good” gifts to be used wisely. What we do need is the courage of our convictions, as rational human beings who believe in a First Cause, to encourage reason to reinforce that claim for the entire world to see. Once you start presenting evidence for “intelligent design”, sooner or later you will be forced to consider “Who the designer is.” And that will have far reaching effects on an increasingly materialistic world that envisions religion as nothing more than a “narcotic for the masses”, something to mollify them so that they can be unquestioningly enslaved to the state, their rights subtly usurped so gradually that they don’t notice their increasing enslavement.
Philip Johnson, a graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago, a teacher of law for thirty years at the University of California at Berkeley, in Defeating Darwinism [8] reminds us that “textbooks and other educational materials today take evolutionary naturalism for granted, and thus assume the wrong answer to the most important question we face: Is there a God who created us and cares about what we do?” He noted how the scientific community is baffled at its failure to convince the general public to believe in evolution. [Evolution will be taken to be Darwinist “one common ancestor for all living things” macroevolution in a natural selection sense for purposes of this discussion as there is evidence for variations within species (microevolution) as opposed to one species “evolving” from another. This is a very important distinction that often gets confused when the “macro” proponents “bait-and-switch” to infer “macro” from “micro”, which is a logical fallacy.] It is interesting to note that “if something doesn’t sound right, it usually isn’t right” comes into play here with the public as polls show that under 10 percent of Americans believe in the official scientific orthodoxy, which is that humans (and other living things) were created by a materialistic evolutionary process in which God played no part. The people suspect that what is being presented to them as “scientific fact” consists largely of an ideology that goes far beyond the scientific evidence, which is why they resist it. Johnson makes the observation that:
Those retreating to a “faith escape” pay a high price, which is that they tacitly agree not to dispute the naturalistic doctrine that God, like Santa Claus and Zeus, is a product of human culture. In consequence, for intellectual purposes Christianity ranks among what some call the “higher superstitions,” meaning the kinds of irrational belief that are relatively respectable in polite society. Christian beliefs are studied in religious studies programs alongside primitive myths as subjective belief systems that are not based on scientific knowledge [8].
Johnson reminds us that “science” as defined in our culture has a philosophical bias that needs to be exposed. It is empirical, relying on experiments, observations and calculations to develop theories and test them, while noting that contemporary science is naturalistic and materialistic in philosophy, meaning that materialistic explanations for all phenomena are assumed to exist. This gets us to The National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) definition of evolution as an unsupervised process that is simply true by definition – regardless of the evidence. Arguing about the evidence when one side has already defined the terms of the argument is a waste of time. What you have to do is use the evidence to the contrary to force an, albeit, grudging acceptance of the fact that the concept of evolution being an “unsupervised process” does not hold water. You must hammer away with your “wedge” on the truth that the evidence for “intelligent design” is no longer in dispute. The God Who is our Creator is not known only by faith and is invisible to reason. He is neither a God Who acted undetectably behind some naturalistic evolutionary process that was mindless and purposeless, nor a God Who just started that process, and then was AWOL thereafter – the “deist” position. We are speaking of a God who acted openly, and who moreover, continues to act openly, leaving His fingerprints all over the evidence, a God Who cares about us to the point of loving us unconditionally, giving us every opportunity to fulfill the purpose of our creation, eternal happiness with Him in Heaven. Unlike the “deist” God, which some Darwinists have no problem accommodating, the God of Creation Who is omnipresent throughout His creation demands that man consider His purposes for creation for man’s own eternal well-being, his final end.
Johnson quotes the late physicist Richard Feynman, who in his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology said:
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is [more than] not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen [8].
I would disagree with only one aspect of Dr. Feynman’s quote. I believe that it is an absolute requirement, something “very” essential to not only science but to every profession, that you should not fool anyone. Once your credibility is lost, what do you have left? What’s sad nowadays is that Feynman’s message, which should be part of the required curricula in ethics courses related to all branches of study, is glaringly absent in favor of a politically correct spin-doctoring approach that rewards those in power, who can shout the loudest. How is a commencement speaker like Feynman going to undo the damage wrought in four to five years of indoctrination that has replaced education?
Educators aren’t allowed to address the issues about which their students and the public are most concerned. How many times have we seen teachers, who challenge students to think about how their worldviews affect the understanding of the creation-evolution controversy, attacked by so-called civil liberties lawyers censoring the teaching by threatening to bring a lawsuit that the school district can’t afford to defend? This is happening daily as Johnson correctly points out. What ever happened to the concept of free speech? Answer – it doesn’t exist when the agenda of the secular humanists is in danger of having a “wedge” driven into it, exposing its lies for all to see. Talk is cheap. Our university administrators proudly proclaim the virtues of free speech while concurrently doing everything that they can to stifle it when it doesn’t agree with the “company line.” If you don’t believe that, try speaking the truth on major culture wars issues, something considered the most politically incorrect sin committable today, and see what happens to your research funding or your chances for promotion.
We will now examine the cracks in Darwinism thanks to some very astute “wedge drivers.”
We will start by literally opening up Darwin’s Black Box [5] looking at the work of Michael Behe, Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania, a professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. In his book by the same name, molecular biologist Behe explains that scientists have begun to open the black boxes of biology. What they have found is a very complex world of interacting proteins and enzymes underneath. The following is but one sample of this complexity in reference to the molecular mechanism for vision:
When light first strikes the retina a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. (A picosecond is about the time it takes light to travel the breadth of a single human hair.) The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein’s metamorphosis alters its behavior. Now called metarhodopsin II, the protein sticks to another protein, called transducin. Before bumping into metarhodopsin II, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with metarhodopsin II, the GDP falls off, and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP [5]).
The above explanation is, in Behe’s words, a “sketchy overview of the biochemistry of vision.” It is, however, the level of explanation for which biological science must aim in order to truly understand a function by understanding in detail every relevant step in the process. The relevant steps in biological processes occur ultimately at the molecular level, so a satisfactory explanation of a biological phenomenon, e.g., sight, must include its molecular explanation.
The opening of vision’s “black box” demands that evolutionary explanations of that power consider more than just the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the 19th Century. These steps, previously thought to be “simple” actually involve greatly complex biochemical processes that cannot be glossed over. All of the molecular components described in this process can be considered the result of a formation of their constituent matter at the molecular level to attain an end goal or final cause of “seeing.” Our causal model has been reduced to the micro level with the matter being the molecular components, the form being the interaction of the components, all of which are required, in order for the final cause or end of “seeing” to be realized. Our human analogue might be the members of an orchestra for the components, the sound the orchestra makes for the goal or final cause, the conductor manipulating the orchestra members as a sculpture would a piece of clay to form them into a musical group whereby the end goal can be realized. We are left with the conclusion that the orchestra cannot play properly if some members are missing. Similarly, the vision process will not be realized if some of the molecular components necessary are missing, precluding the macroevolution scenario of Darwinism. Our molecular vision process is called “irreducibly complex” to signify this condition since all of the parts are simultaneously necessary for vision to occur. Our orchestra is “irreducibly complex” for similar reasons. It cannot do justice to the composition at hand if all of the instrumental parts are not present. You can’t have orchestra members randomly showing up in the course of a performance and do a good rendition of the Overture from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. They have to all be there from the beginning. For now, we will leave the question of who designed the complex molecular vision process or who tutored our orchestra conductor open, recognizing that this question must ultimately be addressed because you can’t randomly draw names from a jar and expect to find people capable of conducting the New York Philharmonic any more than you could randomly expect all of the molecular constituents necessary for the vision process to work to the precision required to attain vision. There is a clear design inference here. It appeals to common sense, not just science experts.
Behe’s work reinforces the fact that an irreducibly complex system, a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to its basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on. We are left with no pathway of functional intermediate stages by which Darwinian evolution could build such a system, step by small step.
Molecular mechanisms, Behe says, are as obviously designed as a spaceship or a computer. You can’t explain the origin of any biological capability, e.g., our vision example, unless you can explain the origin of the molecular mechanisms that make it work. Evolutionary biologists have pulled a con game on us by “pretending” to know how these systems work by treating them as black boxes, even having the audacity to say in some instances, that it wasn’t necessary to open the boxes. Just “trust us.” Unfortunately, for this group, biochemists like Behe are opening these boxes, seeing what’s inside, and now knowing that the Darwinian theory is just a story, not a scientific explanation. This truth has yet to make it to many of our science textbooks used at all education levels from primary to secondary to college. Today’s children, thanks mainly to the propagation of the macroevolution lie via the media and those scientists who didn’t pay attention to Dr. Feynman’s commencement address, are not being told the truth about an issue related to the very cause of their existence. It has not escaped the minds of those who have seen the difficulties with evolution that this has occurred primarily because “intelligent design” demands investigation as to who the “intelligent designer” is – the implication being readily apparent. If we’re not caused by random chance, if we don’t come from Carl Sagan’s primordial slime, there must be a reason for our existence, which logically leads to consideration of our essence in a Thomistic sense. Because of this problem with Darwinism current studies in molecular biology, per searches that Behe has done, show little or no references to evolution, which, in turn, show that molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There are only assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations. The theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published; thus, it should perish [5].
The following example by Behe is my favorite in regard to the detection of design.
Imagine a room in which a body lies crushed, flat as a pancake. A dozen detectives crawl around, examining the floor with magnifying glasses for any clue to the identity of the perpetrator. In the middle of the room, next to the body, stands a large, gray elephant. The detectives carefully avoid bumping into the pachyderm’s legs as they crawl, and never even glance at it. Over time the detectives get frustrated with their lack of progress but resolutely press on, looking even more closely at the floor, You see, textbooks say detectives must “get their man,” so they never consider elephants.
There is an elephant in the roomful of scientists who are trying to explain the development of life. The elephant is labeled “intelligent design.” To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity; rather, they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed, then took steps to bring the systems about. Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.
The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself – not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry had done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.
The dilemma is that while one side of the elephant is labeled intelligent design, the other side might be labeled God [5].
Johnson asks us to consider a contradiction between materialism and reality that occurs frequently in biology, in particular when we consider the human mind. “Are our thoughts ‘nothing but’ the products of chemical reactions in the brain, and did our thinking abilities originate for no reason other than their utility in allowing our DNA to reproduce itself?” He observes that even scientific materialists have a hard time believing that. He notes that materialism applied to the mind undermines the validity of all reasoning, including one’s own. If our theories are the products of chemical reactions, how can we know whether our theories are true? Those who believe in Darwinism, for example, may only do so because they have a certain chemical in their brains with their beliefs critically a function of brain chemicals, which begs the obvious question, if science cannot explain the mind, then what explanation can there possibly be? The answer frightens some people. Typically these people want to remain atheists regardless of the absurdities that they have to accept in order to do so.
Johnson’s
“Chemical mind” dilemma has an analogue in contrasting human knowledge from a
modern Cartesian Descartes vs. an Aristotelian Thomistic approach. Descartes doubted everything in the world as
lacking certitude. Thus, he is burdened
with an isolated ego or mind over here as opposed to a world over there. How do you get from here to there? Descartes constructs a ghost-like man who
has problems. There is no content to
thinking, i.e., thinking just for itself, the cogito, “I think,
therefore I am” is all there is. How do
you know other minds? How do you know
the external world? How can universals
be apprehended from singulars, an intellectual process when singulars depend on
sense knowledge that is cut off, precluding apprehension? In short, “What the
heck are you thinking about?” Asking, “How can an egotistical, self-centered,
thinking substance interact with the external world?” can summarize this.
From
the Aristotelian perspective, the above setup is artificial and contrived as
the view of man as actively engaging with things is the starting point for
Aristotle and Aquinas. The global doubt
of Descartes cuts us off from the external world. For Aristotle and Aquinas doubts arise but they are local and
temporary, not global, due to confusion in experience. It is not to put into global doubt the
fundamental relationship of the mind with the world.
But
lest we digress further let’s return to the question at hand – intelligent
design.
Some
of the most profound statements that Johnson makes in his book are the
following:
Jesus did not tell his disciples to form
a protected community where they could shut out corrosive philosophies. He told them to “go and make disciples of
all nations.”
A faith that has to be protected behind
walls is like a house built on sand.
When the protection ceases, the faith collapses. Faith is confirmed by testing and validated
by struggle in a world that gives a multitude of reasons to doubt. Instead of hiding our light under a bushel
to protect it from darkness, today we need to be more like the biblical men of
Issachar, “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”
If we understand our own times, we will
know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination of
materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind [8].
Jonathan
Wells, Ph.D. Religious Studies, Yale, Ph.D. Molecular and Cell Biology,
California University, in Icons of Evolution [12] gives us some of the tools that Johnson recommends in
witnessing to the world concerning the lies of Darwinism. He exposes the exaggerated claims and
deceptions existing in many standard textbook discussions of biological
origins, in spite of contrary evidence.
These claims have been hitherto unassailable until one reads his book. His “Evaluation of Ten Recent Biology
Textbooks,” and “Suggested Warning Labels for Biology Textbooks,” which are
included in two appendices are alone worth the price of his book. The examples in order are: The
Miller-Urey-Experiment, Darwin’s Tree of Life, Homology in
Vertebrate Limbs, Haeckel’s Embryos, Archaeopteryx – the
Missing Link, Peppered Moths, Darwin’s Finches, Four-Winged
Fruit Flies, Fossil Horses and Directed Evolution, From Ape to
Human: The Ultimate Icon, and Science or Myth. Each icon is compared with published
scientific evidence, which reveals that much of what we teach about evolution
is wrong. This is a fact that raises
troubling questions about the status of Darwinian evolution. If the icons of evolution are supposed to be
our best evidence for Darwin’s theory, and all of them are false or misleading,
what does that tell us about the theory?
Is it science, or myth? Moreover, what does it say about the credibility
of the “scientists” perpetuating these false claims? Richard Feynmans – they’re not!
In
Darwin’s theory, there is no way phylum-level differences could have appeared
right at the start. However, what does
exist is the fossil record due to the Cambrian explosion with instead of
starting with one or a few species that diverged gradually over millions of
years into families, then orders, then classes, then phyla, the Cambrian starts
with the abrupt appearance of many fully formed phyla and classes of
animals. In other words the highest
levels of the biological hierarchy appeared right at the start totally
uprooting Darwin’s tree [12].
Haeckel’s
embryos seem to provide powerful evidence for Darwin’s theory as they can be
found in almost every modern textbook dealing with evolution. Yet biologists have known for over a century
that Haeckel faked his drawings; vertebrate embryos never look as similar
as he made them out to be [12].
Darwin’s
finches are evidence of accepted species variation, not evolution from one
species to another [12].
And
Wells’s story of fraudulent icons continues in a similar fashion.
At
this point one might logically ask, “What in the name of sanity is going on
here.” That answer was addressed in the
“stakes” question earlier. It can be
summarized by a quote from a well-known proponent of Darwinism, Richard
Dawkins, an Oxford Zoologist, who said, “Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
Wells asks, “If there is such overwhelming evidence for Darwinian
evolution, why do our biology textbooks, science magazines and television
nature documentaries keep recycling the same tired old myths?” He notes a pattern that demands an
explanation. Instead of continually
testing their theory against the evidence, as scientists are supposed to do,
Darwinists consistently ignore, explain away, or misrepresent the biological
facts in order to promote their theory, year after year. One important question remains
unanswered. What should we do if
empirical evidence and materialistic philosophy are going in different
directions? This is what is
happening. The biologists must tell us
whether they are asking us to believe in materialism because of what they know
from studying the facts of biology or whether they are so devoted to the
philosophy that they are willing to disregard evidence that doesn’t fit it.
Michael
Behe in his paper, “Darwin’s Breakdown”
[6], gets to the heart of the problem with Darwin’s theory in the single word, random.
The claim is that science sees no purpose in living things because there is no
purpose, and therefore there is no God.
For Richard Dawkins and his Darwinist colleagues, “The universe we
observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no
design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pointless
indifference.” Behe notes that clearly
such assertions go well beyond the domain of science. But that’s the uneven playing field that the evolutionary
biologists demand. They can say
anything they want when it comes to dismissing the metaphysical. But those who disagree with them, with
strong evidence to the contrary, are not allowed, in fact, are forbidden under
penalty of extreme ostracism, ruined careers and reputations, to even hint at
the metaphysical answer to our earlier questions of who tutored our orchestra
conductor or who designed the molecular mechanism for vision. Science cannot, must not ever consider the
agent or first cause to “intelligent design” on this field where only one
outcome is allowed.
This
atheistic view of man’s origin is to be contrasted with Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger’s in a book entitled In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of
the Story of Creation and the Fall.
There he wrote:
Let us go directly to the question of evolution and its mechanisms. Microbiology and biochemistry have brought revolutionary insights here. [We] must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error . . . [They] point to a creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before [6].
Behe
notes three things about the Cardinal’s argument. First, he is claiming that life is the result of intelligent
purpose, not ontologically random events.
Second, he bases this claim on physical evidence (i.e., the great
projects of the living creation that point to a creating Reason), not on
scriptural or theological arguments.
Finally, he implies that biochemistry, the study of the molecular basis
of life, provides particularly strong support for his view. In Behe’s estimation, Cardinal Ratzinger has
a formidable point. In fact, he goes on
to say that Cardinal Ratzinger anticipated ten years earlier the main point of
his book Darwin’s Black Box.
In
“The ‘Just So’ Universe” [6] Walter L. Bradley, Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering,
University of Texas, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the
Polymer Technology Center at Texas A&M University, makes us aware of the
fact that all of the incredibly diverse phenomena that we see in nature are
characterized by a small number of physical laws, each of which assumes a
simple mathematical form. We refer to
the Fundamental Laws of Nature via Hamilton’s Equations for Mechanics,
Maxwell’s Equations for Electrodynamics, Boltzmann’s Equations for Statistical
Mechanics, Schroedinger’s Equations for Quantum Mechanics, and Einstein’s
Equation for General Relativity.
We
are asked by Bradley to consider that the equations of physics have in them
incredible simplicity, elegance and beauty, which is sufficient to prove that there
must be a God who is responsible for these laws and for the universe. However, mathematical form alone is
insufficient to guarantee a universe that is a suitable habitat for life. The particular mathematical form is also
critical. Bradley invites us to examine
the precision necessary to guarantee a chance for life. For example, it is essential that the
mathematical form provide for stable systems at the atomic and cosmic level. The solutions to Hamilton’s equations for
non-relativistic Newtonian mechanics and for Einstein’s theory of general
relativity are unstable for a sun with planets unless the gravitational
potential energy is proportional to 1/r, a requirement that is only met for a
universe with three spatial dimensions [6].
For
the solution to Schroedinger’s equations for the hydrogen atom to give stable,
bound energy levels, again, a universe with three (or fewer) spatial dimensions
is required. Maxwell’s equations are
also only valid for a universe with three spatial dimensions. Furthermore, Richard Courant has found that
high fidelity transmission of electromagnetic or acoustic signals is optimized
in our three-dimensional universe: “Our actual physical world in which acoustic
or electromagnetic signals are the basis of communication, seems to be singled
out among the mathematically conceivable models by intrinsic simplicity and
harmony [6].”
Hence, the specific mathematical character of our universe is essential for it to provide a suitable habitat for life, a precision in a mathematical context that is problematic from a naturalistic or materialistic worldview. Bradley goes through a litany of the Universal Constants, the Mass of Elementary Particles, and the Fine Structure Constants to show the incredible precision necessary for life, as we know it, to exist in our universe, i.e., on our planet. In summary, the precision demanded by the Fundamental Laws of Nature, the Universal and Fine Structure Constants, and the Mass of Elementary Particles in regard to initial and boundary condition solutions to partial differential equations to explain known physical phenomena, and to give evidence for physical theories like the “Big Bang” cannot be explained by a “cosmic accident,” a position held by many scientists who have changed their minds over the past thirty years. The evidence for “intelligent design” becomes more compelling the more we understand the necessary conditions to allow for life [6].
William
Dembski, Ph.D. Mathematics, University of Chicago, and philosophy, University
of Illinois at Chicago, M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, in The
Design Inference [7], quantifies the “intelligent design inference” via an Explanatory
Filter, which tests highly probable, intermediately probable, and small
probability events that may be specified, to come to conclusions regarding
regularity, chance, or design with the realization that “highly improbable
events don’t happen by chance.” His is
another effort in a statistical probabilistic sense to put more force on the
wedge into the Darwinist view of man’s origin.
Dembski’s premise is that intelligent causes can do things that
unintelligent causes cannot do, and scientific investigation can tell the
difference. We intuitively recognize
the products of design vs. the products of natural forces. We detect design by applying the Explanatory
Filter that first rules out chance and law, i.e., scientists first
determine if something is the product of merely random events by whether it is
irregular, erratic, and unpredictable. If
chance doesn’t explain it, they next determine if it is the result of natural
forces by whether it is regular, repeatable, and predictable. If neither of these standard explanations
works – if something is irregular and unpredictable, yet highly specified
– then it bears the marks of design.
The four president’s faces on Mt. Rushmore are irregular (not something
we see happening generally as the result of erosion), yet specified (they fit a
particular pre-selected pattern).
Applying the Explanatory Filter, the evidence clearly points to
design [6].
Dembski
acknowledges that when the “design inference” infers design, its primary effect
is to limit our explanatory options.
Only secondarily does it help identify a cause. To identify a cause we need to investigate
the particulars of the situation where design was inferred. Dembski is convinced to date of the
robustness of his algorithm in dispatching counterexamples. He states, “I have yet to see a convincing
application of the design inference that infers design for coincidences that
our ordinary inclination attributes to chance.”
It
is difficult to understand how supposed "scientists" can plead
ignorance to the documented misrepresentations of their science, which they
hold to such a dogmatic level. How can anyone call himself a scientist
and do that? Beats me. As a research mathematician in underwater
acoustics I would not have employment long if I published a paper claiming that
frequency modulated signals gave better Doppler resolution than pure tones for
signal detection/classification purposes, no matter how I couched the
"supposed" evidence for my claim. (It is well known acoustically
that the reverse is true.) I would be
politely referred to very simple experiments in acoustics that show otherwise
in the lab, and in the field before I would be summarily fired. Yet we
have a group of "learned academicians" who get away with pawning
unverified theory as fact, and few seem to call them to task for it. This
is indoctrination, not bona fide scientific investigation.
Behe
correctly points out that there are usually other agendas at work here.
When you want to verify your lifestyle, for example, you have motivation to
verify materialism in the way of Dawkin's world of "pointless
indifference" as opposed to Cardinal Ratzinger's world of
"intelligent design", with a KNOWN DESIGNER. Science
doesn't have to point out who that designer is, but it shouldn't be afraid to
traverse a path that leads to the concept of "intelligent design",
which is what Behe and others are traveling in the Lilliputian world of
molecular biology and chemistry.
If
science is a search for the truth, and if the evidence for intelligent design
continues in a direction totally opposite from the proponents of Darwinism,
science will at some point have to come to grips with the fact that, as a part
of philosophy, it must look to metaphysics if it doesn’t want to risk being
hypocritical. It can be no less open to
the truth leading to the requirement for metaphysics as the pagan Aristotle was
in the De Anima [4]. It is that necessary metaphysical bridge from
philosophy, which encompasses all of the sciences in some form, to theology
that people like Aquinas traversed to let us know that the name of the
"intelligent designer" is God Almighty Who is Perfect Truth,
something Pontius Pilate didn't understand when he was staring at Truth face to
face. Recall he asked Christ, "What is truth?" That
large, gray elephant can’t be ignored by the detectives, today’s Pontius
Pilates masquerading as scientists, indefinitely.
All
of what Behe is talking about in terms of "irreducible complexity" is
what Aquinas is talking about when he discusses the concept of a "first
unmoved mover." It's really the very same thing. Behe keeps asking,
"But you explained only one part of the organism, what about its complex
inner structure? How did that get there? Aquinas keeps asking,
"Who moved the mover?" You cannot have a natural answer for
that because if you did, you would have an infinite regress, which is
impossible. Therefore your answer must be immaterial, incorporeal,
something infinite that cannot be moved in finite time, nor having all parts
that can be moved in finite time because it transcends time itself. It
exists in the eternal present where past, present and future, temporally, as we
understand them do not exist. That is what Aquinas is saying in the Summa
Theologica [1] and the Summa Contra Gentiles [2].
Behe
and company have let us know that if the evidence is not there for Darwinism
for the cell, how can it be there for the higher organism? Talk about a
leap of faith! Similarly, if the
evidence is there for “intelligent design”, how can we fail to investigate who
that designer might be? And if we find
out that the word “who”, in that case, requires capitalization. So be it.
That seems to be what Dembski is saying in “Signs of Intelligence” [6]
when he says, “Yet, despite its far-reaching implications for science, I regard
the ultimate significance of this work on design to lie in metaphysics . . .
The world is a mirror representing the divine life. The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this fact . . .
Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated
in the idiom of information theory.”
1.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologica Volume I, Translated by
Fathers of the Dominican Province,
Benzinger Brothers, Inc. 1948, Reprinted by Christian Classics, Westminster,
Maryland 1981.
2.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God, Translated
with an Introduction and Notes by Anton C. Pegis, F.R.S.C., University of Notre
Dame Press, Notre Dame London 1975.
3.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Translated by
Richard J. Blackwell, Richard J. Spath, And W. Edmund Thirlkel, Dumb Ox Books,
Notre Dame, Indiana 1999.
4.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, Translated by
Kenelm Foster, O.P., and Silvester Humphries, O.P., Dumb Ox Books, Notre Dame,
Indiana 1994.
5.
Behe, Michael J., Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,
Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster, New York 1996.
6.
Dembski, William A., Kushiner, James M., (editors), Signs of Intelligence:
Understanding Intelligent Design, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
2001.
7.
Dembski, William A., The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small
Probabilities, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK 1998.
8.
Johnson, Philip E., Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, InterVarsity
Press, Downers Grove, Illinois 1997.
9.
Maritain, Jacques, Existence and the Existent, Pantheon, New York 1948.
10.
Wallace, William A., Elements of Philosophy: A Compendium for Philosophers
and Theologians, Alba House, Society of St. Paul, New York 1977.
11.
Wallace, William A., The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and
Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis, Catholic University of America Press,
Washington, D.C. 1996.
12.
Wells, Jonathan, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution is
Wrong, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C. 2000.