McLatchie on Swamidass

Jonathan McLatchie comments on Joshua Swamidass' theory regarding Adam and Eve and human evolution:

An innovative and provocative attempt to harmonize evolutionary theory with an historical Adam and Eve has recently been proposed by computational biologist Joshua Swamidass of Washington University in St. Louis. [10] Swamidass proposes that Adam and Eve lived approximately six thousand years ago, in accordance with the traditional creationist understanding. He argues that Adam and Eve did not have parents and were in fact created de novo, as described in Genesis 2. Consistent with a face-value reading of Genesis, Swamidass proposes that Adam was formed from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. However, Swamidass argues that Adam and Eve were not the first humans. Rather, their genomes became ‘mixed’ with the rest of the human population outside of the garden through interbreeding (that is, humans who, unlike Adam and Eve, arose naturally through evolutionary processes), such that all extant humans can be said to trace their genealogical ancestry back to Adam and Eve, even though their genetic ancestry includes other lineages, unrelated to Adam, as well. Swamidass points out that universal genealogical ancestors (that is, individuals to whom all modern humans can trace their ancestry) are common, arising often throughout human history. Swamidass proposes that “Adam and Eve are to work as priestly rulers alongside Yahweh Elohim, to expand the Garden across the earth. Civilization is rising, and a new era is coming. Their purpose is to welcome everyone into their family, in a new kingdom of God.” [11] Swamidass distinguishes between what he calls “biological humans” and “textual humans.” [12] For Swamidass, “Biological humans are defined taxonomically, from a biological and scientific point of view. From at least AD 1 onward, they are coextensive with textual humans.” [13] On the other hand, “Textual humans are the group of people to whom Scripture refers. I argue that this group is defined by Scripture to be Adam, Eve, and their genealogical descendants, including everyone alive across the globe by, at latest AD 1. They are a chronological subset of biological humans, meaning that some biological humans in the past are not textual humans, but all textual humans are biological humans.” [14]

While Swamidass’ model is superficially attractive in that it does not require positing thousands of gaps in the Genesis genealogies, the problems that it raises are too intolerably great for me to commend Swamidass’ solution. For one thing, in what sense, if any, can non-Adamic biological humans be considered to be fully human? Are they affected by original sin, and did Jesus die to save them? Swamidass conjectures that these biological humans bear God’s image but “are not yet affected by Adam’s fall. They have a sense of right and wrong, written on their hearts (Rom. 2:15), but they are not morally perfect. They do wrong at times. They are subject to physical death, which prevents their wrongdoing from growing into true evil (Gen. 6:3).” [15] The Scriptures, however, make no such distinction between biological humans and textual humans. Swamidass’ view would seem to suggest logically that those individuals who were biological (but not textual) humans are qualitatively indistinct from other animals. But in that case it makes no sense to call their deeds evil, or to postulate that they had a sense of right and wrong. Moreover, if they, as Swamidass suggests, “do wrong at times”, then does this not suggest that Adam’s fall is but one of many falls that have occurred in human history? The theological ramifications that accompany this scenario are too severe for me to entertain Swamidass’ proposal.

What is evolution?

I've argued against evolution - or more precisely I've argued against certain components of evolution - on many occasions. I use evolution to mean Darwinism or rather neo-Darwinism which is the mainstream theory of evolution today.

That said, oftentimes debates over evolution forget the very basics. They often forget to define what evolution is in the first place. So I'll try to do that now in a hopefully simple manner accessible to most people reading this.

What is evolution? Evolution is the combination of six components:

1. Genetic change over time. A species undergoes change in their genes or alleles over time. (Alleles are simply variants of the same gene.)
2. Gradualism. It takes a long time (generations) to produce genetic change.
3. Speciation. The simple idea is splitting. One or more species can split off from another species.
4. Common ancestry. This is the flipside of speciation. If species can split off from other species, then we can trace the splitting back in time (via fossils and genetic sequences) to find the shared or common ancestor of two or more species.
5. Natural selection. Organisms in the same species may have genetic differences among one another. This in turn impacts their ability to reproduce and survive in an environment. The genes that are more conducive to reproduction and survival will more likely be passed on (heredity) to the subsequent generation while the genes that don't will be less likely to be passed on (heredity) to the subsequent generation. That's in essence what natural selection is.
6. Other mechanisms (besides natural selection). These include genetic drift, gene flow, and random genetic mutations which can cause evolutionary change. The primary mechanism (especially in a large population) is random genetic mutations. Broadly speaking, random genetic mutations are permanent alterations in a gene.

This is a fairly standard definition of evolution. In fact, it's so standard that it's based in large part on Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True!

Now that we have a mainstream working definition, we can begin to voice our concerns and disagreements with evolution (neo-Darwinism). Keeping this in mind, see my earlier post including its comments for many of my own thoughts on evolution.

Some comments on theistic evolution

For what it's worth, here are some comments (revised) on intelligent design and theistic evolution that I recently left in a previous post in a friendly conversation with Eric:

1. I'll use evolution as shorthand for neo-Darwinism. And I'll use ID for intelligent design.

2. To my knowledge, ID is relatively "new" in the sense that Dembski describes it in his chapter "How does intelligent design differ from the design argument?" in his book The Design Revolution. An excerpt is available here. However, ID is "old" in the sense that it's in the same or similar vein as teleological arguments in general (aka arguments from design, which might be more clearly termed arguments for design). This stretches back as far as Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways if not earlier.

3. I'm very sympathetic and greatly appreciate the work of the ID guys. At the same time, I think I'm persuaded by Alvin Plantinga (e.g. "design discourse") and Del Ratzsch (e.g. "the persistence of design thinking") when it comes to assessing their work.

4. My impression is, relatively speaking, secular physicists (cosmology) seem more open-minded about arguments for design (e.g. fine-tuning) than secular biologists. I mean, there are plenty of close-minded cosmologists, but I'm speaking in comparison to secular biologists. Secular biologists seem like the dwarves in the stable in C. S. Lewis' The Last Battle, imprisoned in their own minds, and "so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out". They stick their fingers in their ears and refuse so much as to entertain the possibility of anything other than a strictly material world. I guess most of them take after Lewontin: "materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door". Regarding fine-tuning, see the works of Robin Collins and Luke Barnes.

5. An interesting question to explore is whether evolution itself requires design to operate. By contrast, if the universe and all it contains including life is not designed, then would evolution even be able to get off the ground?

For starters, evolution appears to be goal-directed, that is, it appears to be teleological. It appears to be able to adapt means to ends. However, if the universe and all it contains is not designed, then how would evolution come to be goal-directed? How would it come to be able to adapt means to ends? For example, if all is undesigned, without teleological purpose, then how did the heart come to exist to pump blood to the body? A happy accident? Not to mention all the other functions in every organism on this planet. Multiply all this together and the chances of all these serendipitous events occurring seem improbable to say the least.

Stepping back, what are the chances of the origin of life? Next, of the origin of the first cell? Next, of the origin of the first multicellular organism? Next, of the origin of the first warm-blooded animal? Next, of the origin of intelligence or consciousness? And so on. Each step is not one small step, but a giant leap. A leap as giant as a human being becoming a star-child à la 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And all this is in addition to the chances of finely-turned laws to drive all this, but what are the chances of a law like natural selection in an undesigned universe?

An interview with Gunter Bechly

"Interview: Gunter Bechly (Paleontologist)"

Answering Swamidass on Theistic Evolution

Ann Gauger has a 3-part series responding to Joshua Swamidass' review of the book Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique:

1. Answering Joshua Swamidass on Theistic Evolution: A Religious Agenda?

2. Answering Joshua Swamidass on Theistic Evolution: What Do Theistic Evolutionists Believe?

3. Answering Joshua Swamidass on Theistic Evolution: Sketchy Science, and a Swerve into Metaphysics

I don't agree with everything, but I still think the entire series is worth reading. Gauger lands several solid punches. Here are a few excerpts:

The potter and the clay

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" (Rom 9:20)

Some poorly formed musings on a few separable topics which (hopefully) become more closely tied together at the end:

I think a fundamental issue at stake in the debate over LGBTQ issues is whether humans have a nature. Specifically a male and female nature. Is there some fixed core essential(s) that makes us human? Is there some fixed core essential(s) that makes us male and female? Or is human nature malleable or changeable?

If, let us say, atheism and neo-Darwinism are true, then it appears we have no fundamental human nature. Indeed, it appears neither does any other animal. Rather it would seem all living things are on a single ever-evolving spectrum of life.

Take whales and hippos. These are considered by neo-Darwinists to be close living relatives to one another. Yet they appear to be starkly different from one another. How can there be a fundamental whale nature or a fundamental hippo nature in such disparate animals which evolved from a common ancestor, which in turn evolved from another common ancestor, and so on?

Indeed, if we push it back far enough, all life on this planet shares a universal common ancestor. How could each organism's nature be fundamental to the organism when life presumably originated in a single kind of organism? Is the whole panoply of life of the same kind, only differing by degrees? Or is it different kinds - which, if so, how do different kinds differ at a fundamental level when they all originated from a universal common ancestor?

In addition, how could a fundamental nature exist before its corpus existed? We humans didn't exist at the beginning of life on Earth, according to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. So how could our natures have existed at this point in time?

Rather it would seem more likely there is no fixed point in terms of a whale or hippo or any other creature's fundamental nature. An organism's fundamental nature itself seems subject to evolutionary forces.

If it's true, though, that humans have no fundamental nature, then it would seem anything goes. Males and females may as well be interchangeable. Transgenderism wins.

In general, many if not most homosexuals oppose this, because they believe we have a fixed or fundamental nature, but a non-fixed sexual orientation. The former is immutable, but the latter is mutable. However, if the homosexual accepts atheism and neo-Darwinism, then on what basis would they argue we have fundamental male and female natures?

What's more, if we have no fundamental human nature, then why can't we mold humans into whatever we wish? Why shouldn't we mold humans into whatever we wish? Indeed, in atheistic totalitarian regimes, that's precisely what they do to their citizens. The state decides what people will be. The clay has become its own potter; the molded its own molder.

Phillip E. Johnson (1940-2019)

"Phillip E. Johnson, Who Put Darwin on Trial, Dies at 79"

"Died: Phillip E. Johnson, Lawyer who Put Darwin on Trial"

Update:

Bill Dembski reflects on his friendship with Johnson. Of course both were leading lights and brothers-in-arms in the ID movement.

Ever since Darwin

I don't know if this is worth posting since it's not like I'm covering new ground or anything, but here's my (lightly edited) response to an atheist on evolution:

You need to clear your head of McClatchie when it comes to evolution. The canard of unproven is false. You need to spend dome time understanding it better. Stop using your conclusion, the Bible, as a test for all else. Stop trying to make ideas fit your preconceived notion of reality in Christian terms fir your comfort...Seriously watch some other videos besides the discovery institute and Ken Ham. Have you ever watched Ken Miller. There us a Ken who us keen of evolution. And he is a Christian.

1. There are different legitimate means to know something is true. Empirical science is neither the sole nor primary method.

2. There are non-religious secular neo-Darwinists who are skeptical about neo-Darwinism (e.g. Denis Noble at Oxford University, James Shapiro at the University of Chicago).

a minority does not a consensus make. ID proponents can also be favorable to ID. Skepticism is a good thing, cynicism is not. The Consensus conclusion is Neo darwinian evolutionary theory is the current best model that explains evolutionary change in speciation. It holds and stands because it is rigorously challenged all the time, and I don’t mean lecture halls and churches, I mean in actual research. This does not mean that it can not be overthrown with a model that explains and makes better predictions. It just means it has not. Biblical or Islamic Creationism has not been able to, ID Creationism has tried but since the Dover Trial I have heard of no new ideas snd the ones proposed back then were dissmissed as inadequate and unsupported. Is there something new beside Bombardier beetles and Bacterial flagellum? I would like to hear it.

1. Yes, I'm familiar with "actual research" in science. I have a scientific background. I've presented at scientific conferences. I've published scientific research at a doctoral level.

2. You're talking about a lot of things I never even brought up. Lots of things irrelevant to what I've said. It just sounds like you're parroting talking points from village atheists rather than interacting with what scholars have said. It's ironic you earlier criticized Ken Ham because your arguments are like Ken Ham's arguments if Ken Ham was a neo-Darwinist.

3. If you think neo-Darwinism amounts to "evolutionary change in speciation" then you're highly ignorant of what neo-Darwinism is. Indeed, even a Young Earth Creationist could agree with that definition! For example, you leave out small-scale random mutations leading to wide-array structural changes in body plans, natural selection as the primary causative agent of adaptive change, and the role of genetic heredity in tracing a universal common ancestor. I'd recommend you read a text like Ernst Mayr's What Evolution Is if you want to know what a world-class neo-Darwinist argues. Mayr was an atheist and a neo-Darwinist. A doyen among evolutionists.

4. At the risk of stating the obvious, truth isn't decided by majority vote or consensus. Ultimately it depends on the scientific evidence, arguments, etc.

5. Sure, there's a lot of science that's settled science, so to speak, but there's a lot of science that's far from settled too. When it comes to neo-Darwinism, there are many fundamentals which even secular scientists who otherwise support neo-Darwinism would question. Neo-Darwinism only looks like a "consensus" to the uninformed layperson, but far from it when you read the academic and related literature. There's plenty of internecine debate even among secular scientists who otherwise support some kind of neo-Darwinistic model. Anyone can read a book like James Shapiro's Evolution: A View from the 21st Century or a paper like Denis Noble's "A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation" and come to their own conclusions.

6. One doesn't have to be a creationist to question neo-Darwinism. The people I've already cited aren't creationsts. They're not religious. They're just secular scientists who dissent from neo-Darwinistic principles.

A single-couple human origin is possible

Justin Taylor interviews Ann Gauger and Ola Hössjermon their new research paper:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/new-scientific-study-showing-come-original-adam-eve-interview-authors/

The species problem

THE THREE SPECIES PROBLEMS

The species problem is actually a number of problems that biologists have dealt with since the term was first applied to biological organisms by Aristotle. I call the three main problems the grouping problem, the ranking problem, and the commensurability problem. It will benefit us to clearly distinguish these at the beginning of our discussion and to bear them in mind as we consider the philosophy of species.

What is a species?

From Appendix B in Species: A History of the Idea (2nd ed.) by John Wilkins:

Microevolution and macroevolution

What's the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution?

Traditionally the distinction is supposed to be at the species level. Micrevolution involves evolutionary changes within a species, while macroevolution involves evolutionary changes beyond a species. Such as when one species becomes another species. Or one species becomes two species (speciation).

1. Yet, today, many scientists disagree with how to define a species. What, precisely, makes a species a species?

2. Also, why is the focal point of macroevolution at the species level? Why is species where we draw the line between microevolution and macroevolution? After all, isn't evolution supposed to be akin to climbing Mt. Improbable? If so, then evolution is simply a gradual but continuous series of changes in one direction (give or take). Hence, why couldn't the line be drawn elsewhere?

3. In fact, is it even a line so much as an outline or sketch? A fuzzy boundary?

4. Moreover, aren't there multiple blurred lines?

5. As such, the traditional demarcations between microevolution and macroevolution seem to overemphasize the significance and roles of species and speciation.

6. Yet, if the borders are hazy enough between microevolution and macroevolution, then that could potentially affect the theory of evolution as a whole. After all, of what use are concepts like microevolution and macroevolution if the borders are so hazy? We might as well simply call microevolution "small change" and macroevolution "big change" for all the explanatory power these terms have.

7. Macroevolution is supposed to be reducible to microevolution. Macroevolution is supposed to be the accumulation of small genetic changes over time (microevolution). Macroevolution is a continuous spectrum of microevolutionary changes.

   All this requires genetic changes. How do genetic changes occur? There are several ways, but the primary driver of these small genetic changes is supposed to be random mutations. In addition, these genetic changes can't be deleterious mutations, or even neutral mutations, but they must be beneficial mutations, in order to drive phenomena like speciation. However, the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial mutations. And according to mathematicians, the problem isn't solved even if given hundreds of millions of years to work with.

Biological information

In this post I'm going to talk about biological information, which in turn is relevant in debates over evolution.

However this post is just an introduction. As such I'm going to simplify a lot of things. I realize I'm sacrificing technical accuracy but I'm doing so in order to get some main ideas across for those who might have zero background in all this but who wish to be able to make a foray into the debate over evolution.

Without further ado:

What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, not a 'spark of life'. It is information, words, instructions. If you want a metaphor, don't think of fires and sparks and breath. Think, instead, of a billion discrete digital characters carved in tablets of crystal. If you want to understand life, don't think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology.

(Richard Dawkins, "The power and the archives", The Blind Watchmaker)

1. Let's start with a book, computer code, and DNA:

   A book contains pages and text, but the pages are just paper and the text is just ink. Rather it's the words that convey the story. Not the words as text, but the words as information.

   A computer program contains code, but code is fundamentally just a pattern of binary digits: 0s and 1s. Rather it's code as a set of instructions for a computer to execute that makes a program functional. Hence code isn't merely bits but code is information.

   The DNA molecule contains four bases (adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine), but these bases are ultimately atoms (e.g. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen), and atoms are just physical particles. Rather DNA (as genes) is biological information which can be transcribed and translated to build an organism.

2. These aren't mere arguments from analogy (pace Dawkins). I'm not saying text is like code which is like DNA. Rather this is a comparison of information. I'm suggesting the common denominator in all three is information.

3. Yet information is invisible. We can't sense it, not directly, but it exists. How does that work on atheism/naturalism and evolution/neo-Darwinism?

4. An atheist like Dawkins might argue information emerges from physical properties. Such as in the arrangement of words, code, or DNA.

   However, even if so, what would cause the information to be arranged in a particular manner? How does inert matter arrange itself? What causes the letters of the English alphabet to form words if left on their own? What causes DNA to arrange itself in a particular genetic sequence if it is merely a non-living molecule? Let alone a molecule which self-organizes and self-perpetuates.

5. Is it natural selection? Since when did natural selection act at the atomic level? How does natural selection act on subatomic particles?

6. Moreover, even if a few letters could, somehow, by chance, arrange themselves into words, and words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, and chapters into a book, each subsequent step would seem to prove increasingly challenging. It's the old question of how long it takes for a monkey to type out the works of Shakespeare.

7. There may need to be new information at each subsequent step. A phrase like "In the beginning" may have arranged itself randomly, not to mention somehow well enough to convey meaning, but the sentence "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" contains more information. Namely "God created the heavens and the earth".

   Likewise it's one thing to have a single gene, but it's a lot more to have an entire genome. Let alone an entire organism.

   Hence a question which needs to be addressed is from where does this extra information come? Who or what is adding extra words or sentences or paragraphs into our book? Who or what is injecting additional information into each subsequent step?

   Otherwise is the information self-generated somehow, like an artificially intelligent computer writing new code for itself? How so? That seems highly implausible in the earliest lifeforms which surely would have not been anything like an A.I. computer.

8. Any time information is generated, there needs to be some way to check it for errors. Quality assurance. Yet could one physical entity (an error checking mechanism) have (more or less) co-evolved with another physical entity (e.g. a molecule like RNA or DNA)? How could a complex error-check have evolved roughly simultaneously with a presumably simple molecule in the origin of life?

Kenny on Noble

Anthony Kenny on Denis Noble:

When I was a bachelor don at Balliol I shared a staircase with Denis Noble, who was a physiology tutor: my rooms were on one side of the staircase and his on the other. We were both courting at the time, and so would also meet each other's fiancées on the stairs. We shared students as well as premises. There was an honour school called PPP: Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology. Denis taught the students physiology and I taught them philosophy. At meals in college we often discussed topics of common interest: Denis was not only a physiologist but as competent a philosopher as any of my colleagues.

In those days, there was a broad consensus that the sciences formed a hierarchy in which each level was to be explained in terms of the one below it: psychology was to be explained by physiology, physiology by chemistry, and chemistry by physics. This scientific strategy was called 'reductionism', since all sciences were ultimately to be reduced to physics. The idea was pithily expressed by Jim Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA: 'There are only molecules – everything else is sociology.'

Reductionist science chalked up victory after victory, as more and more lower-level mechanisms were discovered to explain higher-level processes. One such discovery was made in 1984 by the young Denis. He explained the pacemaker rhythm of the heart in terms of the flow of ions of potassium and calcium through protein channels. This achievement established his credentials as a reductionist biologist. However, he did not long continue to be a card-carrying member of the fraternity. He soon realized that in the heartbeat there was not only upward causation from the molecular level to the cellular level, but also downward causation from the cell influencing the molecules. Denis chaired the meeting at which I challenged Dawkins on the explanatory power of genes, and he took my side in the argument.

After I became Master of the college I ceased to share students with Denis, and so we had less opportunity for scientific discussion. However, our paths remained entwined at an administrative level. For two years, Denis served as my vice Master. This period included the year in which Mrs Thatcher was proposed, and then rejected, for an honorary Oxford degree. Denis was a founder of the Save British Science campaign which protested against the Thatcher government's cuts to the science budget, and he took a leading part in the campaign against the proposal. After the proposal was rejected, 200 alumni wrote separate letters to Balliol, either to applaud or to condemn the decision of Congregation. Denis and I divided between us the burden of replying. I, who had voted in Council in favour of the degree, wrote to the pro-Thatcher correspondents, while Denis wrote to the rest.

In retirement, I have been delighted to resume philosophical and scientific discussions with Denis. He has now come a long way from his reductionist beginnings. In his latest book, Dance to the Tune of Life, he enunciates a principle that he calls 'biological relativity'. This states that in biology there is no privileged level of causation: living organisms are multilevel open systems in which the behaviour at any level depends on higher and lower levels, and cannot be fully understood in isolation. Levels are distinguished from each other by their degree of complexity. If we start with atoms, we move upward through the levels of molecules, networks, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, whole-body systems and whole organisms.

One of the goals of reductionism was to eliminate from science all teleology or goal-directedness. In fact, Noble argues, teleology is ubiquitous in nature. However, it operates in different ways at different levels. At the purely molecular level, the protein-membrane network that sustains cardiac rhythm has no goal: its function only becomes clear at the level of cells. In its turn, the cellular activity serves a purpose that only emerges at the still higher level of the cardiovascular system.

While he remains a thoroughgoing Darwinist, Denis challenges the neo-Darwinism of Dawkins. He rejects the assumption that natural selection working on chance variations in genetic material is entirely sufficient to explain all evolutionary change, and has followed up the critique of The Selfish Gene that we began in his Holywell Manor drawing room years ago. In Dance to the Tune of Life, he argues that genes are not agents – selfish or unselfish: they are only templates – mere organs of the living cell:

There is nothing alive in the DNA molecule alone. If I could completely isolate a whole genome, put it in a Petri dish with as many nutrients as we may wish, I could keep it for 10,000 years and it would do absolutely nothing other than to slowly degrade.

Moreover, DNA is not sealed off from the outside world: it is subject to modification from within the organism and from the environment. Human beings and other animals are not lumbering robots but autonomous agents who can affect not only their environment but also the make-up of their own genome.

In 2017, Denis organized a joint conference between the Royal Society and the British Academy on the new trends in evolutionary biology. Despite attempts made to block it by outraged neo-Darwinists, the conference was well attended and excited all the participants. I am proud to have had a hand in the early stages of its organization. Its proceedings have recently been published by the Royal Society in its journal Interface Focus.

To this day, Denis and I continue our discussions on the relationship between philosophy and science. We both agree that the notion that science is necessarily and uniquely reductionist is not an empirical discovery, but a philosophical postulate. We both agree that teleology is undeniable and ubiquitous, but that we do not know, and perhaps cannot know, whether this is simply a fundamental feature of nature, or whether there is some supreme level at which it has an explanation. Certainly science cannot tell us whence the universe originated, and whether it has an ultimate goal. In his latest book, Denis suggests that even in asking these questions we have reached a boundary across which we cannot go.

(Brief Encounters: Notes from a Philosopher's Diary, pp 185-188.)

Kenny on Dawkins

Anthony Kenny on Richard Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins and I have been Oxford colleagues for most of our lives, and have been sparring with each other for many years. We agree with each other that most of what religious people believe is false, but unlike Richard I accept that religious beliefs may be quite reasonable, even if untrue. While I am not competent to challenge any of Richard's scientific statements, and while I regard his The Extended Phenotype as one of the last century's finest books of popular science, I believe that he greatly exaggerates the power of genetics to explain human life and thought. We first clashed in a seminar at Holywell Manor, chaired by Denis Noble, shortly after The Selfish Gene appeared. Richard thought that now the DNA code had been cracked, we would be able to understand the book of life. 'Do you think that a knowledge of the English alphabet is all you need to understand Shakespeare?', I asked him.

When I read The God Delusion I found I agreed with about 90 per cent of what it said, but that the area of disagreement meant that the two of us came to quite different positions about the rationality of religious belief. I will mention just one example. I am an agnostic about the existence of God, whereas Richard is an atheist and believes that he can prove that God certainly does not exist. A designer God, he maintains, cannot be used to explain the organized complexity we observe in living beings, because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. He calls this argument 'The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit', in tribute to Fred Hoyle, who once said that the probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. God, according to Dawkins, is the ultimate 747.

A traditional theist would say that Dawkins' argument misrepresented the notion of God in two ways. First of all, God is as much outside the series complexity/simplicity as he is outside the series mover/moved. He is not complex as a protein is; nor, for that matter, is he simple as an elementary particle is. He has neither the simplicity nor the complexity of material objects. Second, he is not one of a series of temporal contingents, each requiring explanation in terms of a previous state of the universe: unchanging and everlasting, he is outside the temporal series. What calls for explanation is the origin of organized complexity: but God had no origin, and is neither complex nor organized.

I made this point in a lecture to the Royal Institute of Philosophy in 2007. A few years later I was asked to take part in a debate, in Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre, between Richard and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The topic of the debate was 'the nature of human beings and their ultimate origin'. As an agnostic, I was supposed to be a neutral chair holding the balance between the Christian and an atheist. But as the debate proceeded I began to think that the kindly archbishop was letting Richard get away with some pretty feeble arguments, and so I began to intervene on the other side. When Richard again produced his Boeing 747 argument, I protested that he was confusing two kinds of complexity – complexity of structure and complexity of function. A cut-throat razor was a much simpler structure than an electric shaver, but unlike the shaver it could also function as a cut-throat as well as a razor. The archbishop, fingering his beard, said that he did not feel competent to adjudicate between us.

Richard and I have always got on amicably face to face, but have not been afraid to be rude to each other in absence or in print. At dinner, after the Sheldonian debate, I remarked to Richard that moving from The Extended Phenotype to The God Delusion was like moving from the Financial Times to The Sun. This did not go down well, and led to a frosty exchange of emails. Later, Richard took part in a debate in Sydney with Cardinal Pell. At some point in the debate, I am told, the cardinal referred to my critique of the argument for atheism: 'Ah, Kenny', Richard said. 'He is a qualified obscurantist.' Well, I do have a doctorate in theology, which I suppose from Richard's point of view is a professional qualification in obscurantism.

(Brief Encounters: Notes from a Philosopher's Diary, pp 183-185.)

Nobel laureates vs. evolution

This looks like a useful compilation, though it's from Vincent Torley:

"Seven Nobel Laureates in science who either supported Intelligent Design or attacked Darwinian evolution"

Mathematical challenges to Darwin's theory of evolution

1. Computer scientist David Gelernter is a great mind. The interview is based on Gelernter's earlier piece. That said, see Steve's post "Giving up Darwin" for valid criticisms of Gelernter's article. Likewise David Berlinski and Stephen Meyer are highly intelligent and also make good criticisms against neo-Darwinism. Indeed, it was largely Meyer's Darwin's Doubt and Berlinski's Deniable Darwin that persuaded Gelernter on Darwinism. It's good to have all three men in dialogue like this, though I wish the interview had been longer since they covered a lot of topics that merited more time.

2. The discussion turned to intelligent design around 30 minutes or so. I think many people might find the second half of the discussion more interesting than the first half since the first half is mainly about the mathematical challenges but many people understandably find mathematics dry. In particular, it's interesting to hear two secular Jewish intellectuals, i.e., Berlinski and Gelernter, doubt intelligent design and the existence of God. The interview touched on dysteleology, theodicy, shades of anti-natalism, the argument from reason, the argument from consciousness. I think Meyer offered good if brief responses. Robinson, who is Catholic, takes on a privation theory of evil. I suspect Gelernter has in the back of mind what the unabomber did to him. I might respond to what Gelernter has said in a future post.

DNA is code

The Science Uprising series has been great. I wish I could have made these videos. There are six videos in the series so far. I recommend all of them, though that's not to suggest I agree with everything in them. Here's #3, DNA is code: