Evolution versus Intelligent Design: The God of the Gaps
Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost has an outstanding article on the “God of the Gaps.” Joe explains in easily understandable terms that the notion “actually encompasses four different views based on distinctions between a “science gap” (a gap in our current scientific knowledge) and a “nature gap” (a break in the continuous cause-effect chain of natural process) that may or may not be bridged by miraculous-appearing theistic action.”
As technology advances, our science gaps close, but more science gaps often rise up to take their place. For example, we once thought that an electron was a sub-atomic particle that had no components. Now we know that electrons are made up of quarks and that quarks are made up of vibrating strings. Furthermore, for those strings to have the properties that they do, it is required that the universe have somewhere from 9 to 12 dimensions instead of the 3 dimensions that we operate with on an everyday basis. The other dimensions are very, very tiny and apparently curl back on themselves, but they exist nevertheless.
I’m going to upset some people here but I have no theological problem with evolution just as I don’t have any theological problem with gravity. It’s the science that makes me skeptical of all of evolution’s claims. As a matter of fact, I believe that evolution exists to some degree though I don’t know how large a role it has played in the history of life here on earth. A good example is the fact of natural selection. Scientists routinely breed mice with certain characteristics by tossing out any mice that don’t fit those characteristics. That’s human action interfering with something, of course, but we see it in nature, too. We see viruses adapt in the laboratory all the time. When we have another ice age (and we will), species who aren’t able to adapt will disappear. Whatever role evolution may or may not play, it is an invention of God because all truth is God’s truth.
However, as a Christian, I also firmly believe that “God created the heavens and the earth.” Moreover, as one with degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering and a lifetime career in science in one form or the other, I just cannot accept the claims of the hardcore Darwinists who believe that God, if he exists, had nothing to do with the growth of life here on earth. The numbers just don’t match up — the universe would have to be much, much older than it is for random mutations to have produced that variety of life that we see on earth. I have no doubts that God set things in motion and prods the development of new species. I just don’t have any idea how often he interferes miraculously with the laws that he set in place at the beginning of time. God is the creator and sustainer of all things and “in him we live and move and have our being.”
So what does all this bring me to? Well, Joe made a brilliant comment to his own post:
Neo-Darwinism sets such a low bar that it is almost impossible to falsify its claims.
…
ID advocates have long proposed an experiment that would shut them up: the bacterial flagellum. As Michael Behe says, to falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum—or any equally complex system—was produced. If that happened, he admits his claims would be neatly disproven.
Now why haven’t scientists tested this to prove Behe wrong? Because, when all is said and done, neo-Darwinism can’t stand up under experimental scrutiny.
I have to agree with Joe. Behe’s idea of irreducible complexity is a tremendous challenge to the hardcore Darwinists and the evolution controversy will not disappear. Too many scientists have problem with the explanations offered by the hardcore evolutionists. Some of those problems may disappear as we learn more but I have a feeling that we will still be debating this issue in 50 years.
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Comments
I like this post! I would like to invite you to submit this post to the Darwin is Dead Carnival listed on my blog, or submit another post in its place.
There is a submission form readily accessible from the link at the top of the page.
I have bookmarked your blog and very probably put it on my blogroll. In fact, should you enter the carnival I am sure that I will.
Thanks,Kimbal
Posted by: Kimbal | March 13, 2006 10:45 PM
“Moreover, as one with degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering and a lifelike career in science in one form or the other …”
Did you mean to write lifelong? Or are you just faking your way through life?
Just teasing. I enjoyed reading this, and the point about natural selection is often overlooked.
Posted by: DT | March 30, 2006 07:35 AM
I found this through the Christian Carnival. Thanks for posting it.
You wrote “I just don’t have any idea how often he interferes miraculously with the laws that he set in place at the beginning of time.” No more do I, or anyone, except, of course, for those who are convinced that He never does, or those who are equally convinced that nothing is left to “natural” processes, but that God determines every detail of what happens. Since we don’t have a good idea of this, there will, as you say, be arguments over this subject for the forseeable future.
Posted by: Martin LaBar | March 30, 2006 04:49 PM
“the universe would have to be much, much older than it is for random mutations to have produced that variety of life that we see on earth”
I don’t think you are an “authority”. I don’t believe the reference that you have linked to. So my opinion is that your opinion is just a “religious” opinion.
Posted by: Mike McCants | April 5, 2006 05:05 PM
The misinformation in this article is astounding. You claim that science tells us that electrons are made up of quarks. No scientist says this, because (drumroll …) experiments show that PROTONS and NEUTRONS are made up of quarks, not electrons.
If you need a quick primer as to the current scientific understanding of the fundamental particles of nature, check out:
http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/
It’s a fun site, heck a 10-year old can go thru the tutorial, it’s easy to understand and educational, and explains how scientists arrived at their knowledge.
Second, science has not shown that quarks are made of strings (yet). That is still a working model, not a theory. Which brings me to another pet peeve - the word theory. In colloquial usage, the word is used synonymously with “guess”, “hypothesis”, etc. However, a scientific theory is much more than that. It is “A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.” (definition from dictionary.com) It has explanatory power, it has predictive power, it is based on empirical observation, it can be falsifiable, etc.
String theory has not reached a point where experiments can be devised to confirm/falsify its predictions, and thus it is not a true scientific theory yet, and thus no scientist can state with ANY confidence that quarks are made of strings.
Seriously, I question your claim to be “one with degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering” seeing as how you think electrons are made of quarks … I can only assume, without additional proof, that you are outright LYING when you made your claim.
Posted by: Sobex | April 6, 2006 09:04 AM
I’m a Christian who has recently become interested in learning about evolution, so I have been reading as much as possible. I have a question. First you say (I think) that millions of years would not be enough for substantial changes due to evolution. And then you say (I think) that to prove to your satisfaction that a flagellum can evolve, a scientist would have to make it happen in a lab in a month or two. Could you explain further, please? Thanks for any help you can give. As I never had a school class in evolution, I don’t get many chances to ask questions on this subject.
Posted by: Julia | April 6, 2006 12:34 PM
Um, you have to have an experiment that proves complexity is irreducible, not the other way around.
Posted by: Karey | April 6, 2006 01:03 PM
Um, you have to have an experiment that proves complexity is irreducible, not the other way around.
Posted by: Karey | April 6, 2006 01:03 PM
While White’s paper appears to be informed, with a little critical analysis, it’s obviously more of the same tired arguments for creationism that have been trotted out and rebuffed a zillion times (that’s 10 to the 3n+3).
Creationist arguments like this are often couched in the ridiculously ignorant assertion that natural selection is driven by “coincidence.” White’s paper is no different; his very byline makes this claim. Selective pressures are simply not coincidental.
White’s argument regarding gravity and electromagnetism (“If even one of these forces had a slightly different strength, the life-sustaining universe we know would be impossible”) is classic tautology. He’s essentially saying that if things weren’t exactly as they are, then it wouldn’t be possible for them to exist as they do. The next several passages are simply reassertions of the same tautology. The fact that things are the way they are in no way suggests anything beyond that fact, let alone the existence of an intelligent creator.
The tautology continues in the paragraph about planetary requirements for life. Simplified, it asserts that for life to occur on our planet exactly as it did, conditions on our planet had to be exactly as they were/are. Same old drivel.
White then throws out a bunch of impressive-looking numbers that seem to suggest that a series of sequential random mutations could never have resulted in us. Well, the fallacy of this is simple; abiogenesis doesn’t suggest that mutations were sequential. This argument also ignores the considerable force of selective pressure on evolution. Please see Talk:Origins regarding abiogenesis.
Also, White is not a biologist nor a mathematician. He’s a “Professor of Christian Thought”, or a theologian who’s just repeating poor arguments for creationism.
Finally, Behe’s bizzare theory is hogwash. His university has publicly denounced him and his theory has been soundly debunked. Again, please see Talk:Origins
for a thorough critical review of Darwin’s Black Box.
Finally, a word about beetles.
“Estimates put the total number of species — described and undescribed — at between 5 and 8 million. This is why, when J. B. S. Haldane, a British geneticist, was asked what his studies of nature revealed about God, he replied, ‘An inordinate fondness for beetles.’”
Posted by: J Daly | April 6, 2006 04:10 PM
The numerical arguments against the big bang or evolution are actually a pretty weak. The probabilities are formulated in rather simplistic ways generally, and even when they are not, you have to remember that improbable is not the same as impossible. The example of card shuffling is a good one. If you randomly shuffle a two decks of cards together, the chance of getting the order you end up with is somewhere around 1/10(166). Yet it is not amazing that you got that order. The Dembski’s argument in the article linked to says something like this: since the chance of getting this order from the shuffle is 1/10(166), and it takes at least ~1 second to completely shuffle 104 cards together, if you were shuffling for less than 10^(152) years (the universe is not thought to be this old), you could not have ended up with this order.
Far be it for me to tell people not to believe in God, but please, don’t rely on bad math to justify your beliefs.
Posted by: 3J | April 6, 2006 05:45 PM
Actually, both electrons and quarks are equally fundamental. The proton, by comparison, is made up of three quarks.
String theory is not really known; it is still very much under development. Experimental testing of the model is a ways off. But basically, in string theory, fundamental particles like the electron and the quark are strings with different modes of vibration.
You can - and should - check this for yourself rather than taking my word for it. Nearly all introductions to particle physics should confirm it for you. There are a few that get it wrong, but it’s not hard to distinguish the authoritative sources if you check out a range of samples and pay special attention to those from physicists.
If you do the same with evolution, you’ll get the same result.
You and many other Christians find it consistent for God to be at work through natural processes, whether evolution or weather or physics or anything else studied by scientists. Unfortunately, some of your fellow Christians do think there is a problem, and this has lead to a lot of poorly founded and erroneous material relating to evolution in particular. An inexpert observer with no theological reservations can still be misled into thinking there is some substance to this body of rhetoric, but the scientific community is effectively unanimous about errors in ID in the style of Dembski or Behe.
Your link on maths has only one criticism of evolution, a trivially fallacious probability argument from Bill Dembski. He speaks of “odds” of getting a 1000 beneficial mutations in the “correct” order as one in 2^1000. There are many errors in this comparison. For example, Bill neglects the effects of evolution! Evolution does not proceed by flipping 1000 coins, and repeating until one set gets the order correct. A better model would be to flip a couple of coins, and then select those that are most viable. Then flip a few more, and so on. The changes accumulate, and by this means you tend to get all the mutations in a viable order. The effective sample space of flips is enormous; but selection means that the vast majority of it is irrelevant, and that means Bill’s numbers contribute nothing in the way of meaningful criticism.
Behe’s argument is just as silly; and the experiment proposed fails to understand how evolution works. The number of generations proposed is laughably inadequate. Evolution does not make new structures from nothing, but from ancestral structures that may have had different roles in the ancestors. You can’t just take “bacteria without flagella”. Scientists have conducted comparable experiments, and had bacteria evolve new structures and capacities, which though simple can still have multiple proteins necessary for function.
One of the many flaws in Behe’s work is that he has never given a good reason why IC should be a problem for evolution. He essentially presumes that evolution forms structures by adding them one unit at a time; and that is flat out wrong. Evolution also modifies the parts present (and hence changing the mutual dependencies), and modifies the functions for which parts and systems are used. The geneticist Herman Muller identified irreducible complexity (he called it interlocking complexity) as a prediction of evolution back in 1939, in his paper “Reversibility in evolution considered from the standpoint of genetics”.
Best wishes — Sylas
Posted by: Sylas | April 6, 2006 08:28 PM
I’ve just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don’t care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can’t be bothered with anything recently.
Posted by: Kaka33121 | April 18, 2006 03:32 AM