The ID Report

"This belief, that Darwinian evolution is 'random', is not merely false. It is the exact opposite of the truth" -- Richard Dawkins, in his best selling book, The Blind Watchmaker.

Darwinists are in a pickle, which could explain why they are always so sour. Realizing they have no recourse to intelligence in explaining creation, they place blind faith in nothing but genetic mutations to provide beneficial new life features from which natural selection can mindlessly and blindly select. Not only is there is no evidence that unguided mutations can offer up such a smorgasbord of goodies, there is also no scientific reason to believe that blind natural selection would have the foggiest notion what to do with the first of the necessary legion of mutations required for even one beneficial new change. Even worse is the stifling materialistic worldview that mandates only one politically correct explanation for the origin of species, resulting in very literally the blind leading the blind.

Perhaps the sheer ludicrousness of the thought of blind, unguided evolution creating beneficial new body plans via random mistakes in copying cellular DNA is why very few believe in Darwinism. Here's a simple test of Darwinists' credulity and Darwinism's veracity: with genuine respect to people having genetic birth defects (and their loving families), given the opportunity, would anyone ordinarily choose to have a random genetic mutation induced in their unborn baby? Why in the world, then, do people ordinarily choose to believe that the exact same mechanism has built every beneficial feature of every bodily organ of every life form on earth? Is this not sheer absurdity?

Those heavily invested in the truth claims of unguided, purposeless Darwinism squander their existence hopelessly oblivious to the profound dearth of scientific evidence to explain any more than slight changes in existing species. Look it up: the theory that unguided mutations can provide the information-creating, morphology-changing, cellular factory-building raw material for preservation by unguided "natural selection" is embarrassingly devoid of any evidentiary support. Nevertheless, without even a devil for the details, Darwinists irrationally pin all their hopes and dreams on genetic mutations, necessarily using words like "chance" and "random," knowing that such words naturally make ordinary people think that Darwinism is a highly unlikely chance or random process. And every un-indoctrinated person knows, either intuitively or by experience, that when it comes to gambling on impossible odds the house always wins. Why bet your life on such odds?

Today's most prominent promoter of the Darwinian casino of life, Richard Dawkins, is particularly confusing on the idea of "randomness". Of course, his fault is only in attempting to be articulate, for the great deficiency of Darwinism is its propensity to become hopelessly confounding when squeezed for details. For example, knowing he can't explicitly deny chance, Dawkins nevertheless tries at every turn to dispel "that old canard" that Darwinism is a theory of "pure chance." By carefully choosing his words (such as modifying chance with "pure," not unlike referring to sewer water as "sewage, but not pure sewage"), and focusing on natural selection as non-random, Dawkins wants to deflect the obvious, that Darwinism is at bottom a theory that relies on the unplanned results of randomness--and lots of it.

Dawkins has little patience with those he claims "misunderstand" on "the issue of 'chance', often dramatized as blind chance." Dawkins' objection to "dramatizing" chance as blind is particularly interesting. What other kind of chance is there but "blind" chance? "Peeking" chance, perhaps? And to imply there might be some other kind of chance, or that there might be some deficiency in the ability of blind chance, is especially fascinating coming from the author of a book entitled The Blind Watchmaker. But even Dawkins, officially tasked by Oxford University with the "public understanding of science", on this issue must resort to confusion over convincing, clearly annoyed that thinking people don't think like him: "The great majority of people that attack Darwinism leap with almost unseemly eagerness to the mistaken idea that there is nothing other than random chance in it." Again, Dawkins' lawyerly choice of words works against him. Whether there is "nothing other than" random chance is beside the point. The fact is that at least one of Darwin's steps in the evolutionary process of mutation and natural selection is an event best described as random or chance. One random event in a multi-step process renders the entire process random.

Because words like "chance" and "randomness" are never associated with building increasing, beneficial complexity in any other context, Darwinist hucksters face a dilemma in peddling their snake-eyes oil to suspicious town folk: how to play down the random nature of mutations, the only Darwinian mechanism for creation of new life forms exhibiting increasing, beneficial complexity. (Remember, natural selection can only select from the choices genetic mutations offer up). But ordinary people know that randomness renders Darwinism no more likely to produce a general trend of broad-based life creation than gambling is to produce a general trend of broad-based wealth creation. Imagine a gambler at a craps table trying to convince someone that with enough time he is sure to get rich, since the result of a few thousand lucky random rolls (with no losing setbacks) is a non-random, non-chance, automatic, cash award. Suppose he strenuously argues that because of the automatic payoff gambling is not "pure" chance, and criticizes you for even thinking that there is "nothing other than random chance" in his gambling. This gambler's reasoning is logically equivalent to that of Darwinists who think that because one step (i.e., natural selection) in the evolutionary process is said to be non-random, somehow chance is minimized (if not eliminated) as a factor.

Ironically, Darwinists can successfully remove "chance" or "randomness" from any part of the Darwinian vocabulary, but in doing so they end up in a less believable and less scientifically supportable place than they are already. Consider: the whole point of Darwinism, creationism, intelligent design, or any other theory of origins is to hypothesize the cause of the diversity of life on earth. Yet what is "chance" but merely the probabilistic character of an otherwise deterministic physical cause? The outcome of a flip of a coin is not "caused" by chance; it is caused by physical forces that determine its outcome. Chance and randomness are simply words we use to describe the outcome of an event for which we cannot understand and compute all the causal inputs. But once the coin leaves the fingers, its fate is set under the influence of the determinant forces of nature just as surely as if angels were personally escorting it to its resting place. Chance plays no causal role; randomness is only an illusion.

In the same way, according to mainstream science, our "flip of the coin" occurred with the Big Bang, and since that moment, like billiard balls having been struck with the first cue ball, or dice thrown across a craps table, matter simply moves in motion dictated by the only four known forces of nature: gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and electromagnetic forces. That's it. These four simple forces of nature working in physics and chemistry are all the causal agents Darwinism has from which to draw. Like wind-blown leaves, and gravity-drawn raindrops, in a Darwinian world genetic activity simply follows the deterministic forces of nature; there is no "choice", and "selection" is an illusion.

And Darwinists want us to believe there is some clever watchmaker-force lurking about, blindly and blithely guiding nature on a steady course of design. But Darwinism's "blind watchmaker" is a myth, a modern materialist god-of-the-gaps fiction, thought to ceaselessly, if not inefficiently, tinker about in nature's lavish workshop. But in reality, blindness is too generous a qualifier, for the watchmaker is not merely blind; it is deaf, dumb and senseless, mindless, clueless, unintelligent, worse than stupid, literally dead. In fact, there is no Darwinian "maker" of any kind in a materialistic worldview, but simply atoms in motion, still moving from the first moment of the Big Bang under the unguided, purposeless influence of gravity, the nuclear forces, or electromagnetism. It's really that simple. There are no secret guiding forces, no mysterious designer-substitute causal agents, and no magic self-organizing principles beyond what the four forces can achieve through physics and chemistry. Barring any intelligent intervention, is it believable that unintelligent, unguided forces of nature can drive atoms-to-Adam evolution?

Not a chance.

Roddy Bullock is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio (www.idnetohio.com) and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by Access Research Network. Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

Copyright (c) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

Comments: Have your say on this topic by going to here to IDnet Ohio's Blog on Truth. Do you have evidence of unplanned genetic mutations producing the information-creating, morphology-changing, cellular factory-building raw material for unguided "selection" to preserve? If so, go here and let us see it.

References:

Richard Dawkins' opening quote: Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996), p. 49.

Richard Dawkins on "chance": Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1996), See, e.g., p. 80.