At the suggestion of an atheist friend of mine, I finally got around to reading a couple of classics on evolutionary theory: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859), and The Greatest Show on Earth, the Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins (2009). A few years ago I expressed My Problem with Evolutionary Theory from a purely logical and scientific viewpoint. This is an update of my thoughts on the subject after reading these famous scientists' volumes.
My views really haven't changed much and here is why:
I came away dissatisfied with the suggestions and proofs for evolution that these guys came up with. Mind you, both works were very scientific and very detailed - almost to the point of monotony, and there was a purpose in their thoroughness; they wanted the facts to be overwhelming.
The problem with the minutia for me is that I am a big picture sort of guy. While reading these books I still had trouble with a few very fundamental ideas.
Something from Nothing
It is counterintuitive to think that starting from some accident of nature millions of years ago, life could first form as a single cell and through an impossible sequence of chance "upgrades" eventually produce the complex forms that exist today. Actually, neither Darwin or Dawkins says much about these initial beginnings, since nobody has a good idea of how it actually happened, although there are a few theories.
Darwin describes Natural Selection or The Survival of the Fittest as the series of very small changes (mutations) that accumulate over a very long period of time to bring about the eventual morphing of one species into another species (it is a separate species when it can no longer breed with its predecessors). These changes have what Darwin describes as a "tendency to improvement". And improve they must, though nobody knows how. He says, "Although we have no good evidence of the existence in organic beings of an innate tendency towards progressive development, yet this necessarily follows... through the continued action of natural selection." (p.210, The Origin of Species)
Did you catch that? He says the tendency to improve has no proof, but it is essential to natural selection. That is a very honest statement and very astute, and to me, it brings the entire proposition into question.
Darwin acknowledges that there is a creative force at work in every improvement of a life form. He is absolutely right. You can't get here (complexity) from there (simplicity) without creativity. A creative force is at work in evolution. Darwin acknowledges the Creator in the final paragraph of his work, "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." (p.507, The Origin of Species)
In his book, Richard Dawkins assumes but does not acknowledge this creative force, and he never uses the word or any form of the word "create".
Dawkins spends a lot of time on genetics. Of course, Darwin knew nothing of genes and chromosomes - since they hadn't been invented yet. Heh.
The creative force that Dawkins assumes but never mentions is at work in the genes. The changes that come about in any adapting and improving life form are taking place in the DNA. Chromosomes, of course, are sub-microscopic menus for constructing individual organisms. But they are incapable of planning. As Dawkins says, "nature, of course, has no understanding or awareness of anything at all." (p.35 The Greatest Show on Earth) "Natural selection doesn't look into the future." (p.389)
Being the very practical guy that I am, this is a problem I can't get around scientifically. Evolution, as meticulously described by Darwin and Dawkins, is obviously a creative process. Yet, atheists, including Dawkins seem oblivious to this and rely on evolution to prove there is no creator. Hmm.
I see this conflicting assumption of a creative force within the genes while denying the creator, as the elephant in the room of Dawkins and every other atheist. For theists, of course, it is not a problem. God is capable of creating in any number of ways, and evolution could be one of those ways - if it weren't so damn unscriptural according to Biblical literalists. (although there are contradictions in the literal reading of Genesis 1, the sun being created on Day Four of creation. What sort of days were the first three?)
DNA is Stupid
I addressed this problem in my analysis a couple of years ago, and these guys have not helped me to understand it any better. How can evolution come up with complex systems like the sense of vision? In his section on "Perfect Organs" Darwin hypothesized that perhaps the eye could have evolved from the simple light-sensing tissue that exists in some jellyfish. Wow, that would require some massive improvements, wouldn't it?
The problem with this is that it requires planning and no small amount of follow-through spanning millions of years of evolutionary process, and as Dawkins conceded, nature is incapable of planning.
And this is still a big roadblock to my understanding of how sexual reproduction could have evolved. You cannot evolve if you cannot procreate. But you cannot procreate unless all of the essential parts exist in a viable form. One of the earliest ancestors of mankind and other higher life forms was apparently the slime mold which reproduces by the production of spores which can be asexual (the products of mitosis) or sexual (the products of meiosis). At some point, as things progressed, there was a fundamental biological change-over to a much more complex sexual reproduction. But that required a huge creative advancement in a moment of time, or else no subsequent offspring would be produced. Could organisms continue to reproduce via spores while also evolving a penis, vagina, and everything else that goes with sexual reproduction? Neither Darwin or Dawkins attempted a hypothesis on this. I guess if they thought of it, it was better not to bring it up.
Adaptation on Steroids
As I stand back and look at the big picture as presented by these famous scientists, it looks to me like they have taken the process of adaptation to a whole new level. They have made it capable not only of crossing from one form of species to the next - and back again, but also of devising entirely new systems and structures. Incredible.
Darwin described in detail the structure of a certain orchid that is pollinated by a very specific bee. The bee needs the nectar and climbs inside the orchid to gather it, but in so doing, it falls into a pool of water in the lower part of the flower. Its wings now wet, the bee struggles to climb out - and finds to its delight - that there is an escape tunnel exactly shaped to fit its body. Crawling out through the tunnel, its wings rub on the roof of the tunnel where it gathers pollen, then flies off to the next flower which it inadvertently pollenates as it climbs around inside. Dawkins revisits this scenario, calling it a wondrous sort of co-evolution.
Really? The orchid adapted to the bee and the bee adapted to the orchid, and they must have somehow kept each other mutually satisfied - that is, reproducing - while all of this adaptation was taking place.
Sorry, I don't think so. I am too practical a thinker for that. Give me some intelligent design so I can resolve these impossibilities in my mind.
Throughout their books these scientists cite innumerable instances of spectacular relationships that must have co-evolved. They are detailed in their awed descriptions of advanced and miraculous instincts and behaviors and life forms that came to be the way they are through this painfully slow process of natural selection. (Dawkins even called some of them "phantasmagoric" in his chapters on genetics. p. 250) Apparently, "We are fearfully and wonderfully evolved." (Psalm 139:14... sort of)
In his chapter on the fossil record and the absence of missing links, Darwin suggests that the penguin may be a living example of a transitional species. The flippers may have been leftover wings from when it was a bird. Then later in the same book he suggests that maybe it was evolving in the other direction and would eventually leave the water and fly again.
Again, I am stuck with the necessity of some sort of intelligent volition for this to take place - in either direction. Genes have no brain and can't hold a thought long enough to initiate the most essential of changes that would make a bearing on the next generation, let alone hold that thought for the millions of years it would take to develop lighter bones, feathers, aerodynamic shape and so on, that would be needed for a used-to-be penguin to take to the skies.
Faith in Evolution
I am struck by the amount of speculation that exists in evolutionary theory. Darwin and Dawkins are full of it. But that doesn't seem to be a problem to them. Darwin says, "It is impossible to conjecture by what serviceable gradations the one could have been converted into the other, but it by no means follows from this that such fractions have not existed." Paraphrase: "Just because we can't imagine how evolution takes place, doesn't mean it's not true." Not very scientific-sounding is it?
Well maybe it is true. But if so, it is nothing short of miraculous. And it defies logic.
Evolutionary Creationism
I have never been more the skeptic of natural selection than after reading Darwin's and Dawkins' books. But just because I have serious doubts doesn't mean that my questions will never be answered. It is early in the game. Scientists are collecting more data every day. I am really interested in what DNA mapping might disclose about the connections of all species in the future.
I believe in adaptation, and at this point, I am not ready to categorically reject evolutionary theory, but for now, I cannot embrace the evolutionary scenario that Darwin presents as theory and Dawkins presents as fact. Not without some creative force at work in the middle of it to give those essential boosts that each species needs to get from one level to the next.
I don't know if that makes me an Evolutionary Creationist, an Agnostic Evolutionist (agnostics have a "wait and see" attitude), or simply a Creationist with an open mind.
And really, it doesn't matter that much to me. God is no less God if he created by means of evolution. In fact, if he did, it indicates a long-term and continuous attention to the inhabitants of earth as he zapped various species at strategic moments in time to fabricate a wondrous and spectacular existence for all of us. Not exactly a six-day creation, but more consistent with the ageless existence of God.
As Richard Dawkins says, "Phantasmagoric!"
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Read my earlier post on My Problems with Evolutionary Theory here.
And the follow-up, Evolution on Steroids here.
