Evolution and the God Debates

One of the most important aspects of any debate over a scientific issue is to separate out the science from the implications of the science. As non-experts, we aren't in a vantage point to comment on the scientific validity of certain propositions, as we lack the relevant expertise that would allow us to adequately assess the science. Thus any debate where we as non-experts try to comment on scientific validity is going to be a distraction from the real issues associated with the debate.

As non-experts on evolutionary biology, most of us aren't really affected by the debate over how natural selection works, or whether genetic drift is influential in the divergences between related species. Likewise, whether stochastic factors drive speciation doesn't matter to how we perceive evolutionary theory. Those are issues for experts to fight over in the peer review literature, and even if we think that we know the answer, our musings are not going to make a bit of difference because we are not part of the conversation biologists and philosophers are having with regards to evolution.

What we are interested in, however, and what we can have a say on, is how these facts fit into particular conceptions of how the world works.

It's easy to conflate the truth of evolution with the perceived implications of evolution, but it would be wrong to do so. As far as any debate ought to be concerned, it's only with the latter that we should concern ourselves with. If those particular implications are unpalatable, then too damn bad. I personally don't like the implications of what Nazism says about the human condition, but that doesn't give me recourse to deny the holocaust! And if I were to then deny the holocaust, people should rightly point out that my prejudices are seeping into my assessment of the history. As disturbing as I find the notion of genocide, it's a fact I have to live with*.

In terms of the god debates, arguments over evolution have been part of the conversation. I think there are three main reasons for this. The first is sociological, that there are many biologists who are also atheists taking part in the discussion. So there's the temptation to see the battle over evolution as being between atheists and theists, rather than as being an issue of science. Supporting this is that evolution-accepting biologists who are also theists such as Ken Miller and Francis Collins are attacked by other theists as being atheists themselves. In terms of ID, Philip Johnson's Wedge Strategy is built around changing the debate over evolution to a debate over the existence of God, though I wouldn't presume the strategy is a product of that line of thinking rather than causing that line of thinking.

The second issue would be a matter of theology, that evolution directly contradicts certain interpretations of creation accounts. It wouldn't matter in this case what the science says, because the supposition is that the biblical account of creation would be God's truth as opposed to the fallible truth of Man. There are a number of interpretations of the creation of man on this account, but what they all have in common is that they are based on scripture and have mankind as a special creation of God.

The final issue would be the philosophical inference to design, that without recourse to a particular theology, we would still have philosophical grounds for making an inference from the appearance of design in life to the cause of that design being the foresight and actions of a designer. We see a watch, we (reasonably) infer a watchmaker. We see something analogous to a watch in the natural world, so why wouldn't we then infer something analogous to a watchmaker as bringing about that order? Conversely, an atheist could argue that processes don't require a designer at all. Evolution by brute fact is one such process. So if evolution is true, then any designer would be superfluous.

With each of these three reasons, it's important to remember that such arguments are largely (if not wholly) tangential to the question of the science of evolution. In the first case, Philip Johnson and other ID proponents argue that science has been hijacked by philosophical naturalism, and thus biasing science away from design explanations. It's not a question of the validity of the science of evolution, but a question of the scientific enterprise itself. There are problems with Johnson's argument, but I won't go into detail here. In the case of theological issues, what the science says can be of no consequence to that view since Genesis is not a scientific text. It's only with the philosophical analogy to design that there's some overlap, namely whether the science has a coherence to it. And to that, again it's the science that would drive the arguments rather than the arguments driving the science.

What we are after, in effect, is a means of understanding the science in light of propositions in the god debates. If one is after a defeater argument for theism or atheism, then the science will prove a disappointment. The science may be able to rule on specific proposition (such as the age of the earth), but it requires further arguments beyond the scope of the science to make any sort of forceful point. The science of evolution does not imply atheism, just as the overturning of evolutionary theory does not imply theism. For both propositions, further argument beyond the science is required. The science itself should be left to the scientists.

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*Some people take exception to analogies between holocaust denial and evolution denial on the grounds that the holocaust is morally repugnant, and its that moral repugnance the evolution-proponent is trying to capitalise on. But that would be missing the point that's being made. Holocaust denial is a view that is supported by a minority of scholars, and there are more scholars in the historical community who deny there was a holocaust than there are biologists who deny evolution. In each case it's a tiny minority, but the point would stand about non-experts trying to take a stance on the issue left for experts. On what grounds would we have, beyond our own prejudices, for favouring the extreme minority view among scholars?

Fodor vs ID

A few months ago, I was on a facebook group where an ID proponent kept posting numerous links to pro-ID articles, coupled with grandiose points about the death of Darwinism. One thing that struck me about the links was link linking to Jerry Fodor, a philosopher who made a big splash a few years ago as the coauthor of a book called What Darwin Got Wrong. I took this opportunity to go back over what Fodor was (and wasn't) saying, to see how well Fodor's view sits with Intelligent Design. Long story short: it doesn't.

The sources are linked below for anyone who is interested. Listening to his discussions, Fodor said nothing that would even indicate that an intelligent designer was needed. He seemed quite content with accounts of biology involving the classic examples of enhanced survival value. His main contention was that the examples followed from the biologist's understanding of nature and not from the theory itself. His charge against Darwin was that Natural Selection is empty, and isn't a theory that can predict anything without biologists using the theory as a ventriloquist dummy.

Yet this account doesn't give any credence for ID, nor does it cast doubt on existing processes to be the organising principles that biologists demand. The charge is simply that it's not Darwin's theory that describes how this happens. Biologists and philosophers of scientists have argued back as to why Fodor is mistaken on this account, but it doesn't change that Fodor's view isn't pro-ID.

So why are pro-ID advocates using Fodor to promote their view? My guess is for the same reason as they promote Thomas Nagel's recent attack on evolutionary theory - ID amounts to little more than Darwinian criticism. Even Behe's main argument (Irreducible Complexity) is that certain structures cannot evolve by a Darwinian process. Even if that were true (it isn't), it doesn't follow that a designer did it.

Fodor's arguments against Darwinism don't even begin to support ID. Any ID proponent who uses Fodor is using his views like a ventriloquist dummy.

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A discussion between Fodor and scientist-turned-philosopher Massimo Pigliucci:

A discussion between Fodor and the philosopher Elliott Sober:

The Radiation Of Marsupials Post-Flood?

Following on from yesterday's post about a video by GreenSlugg, I want to follow up with something that emerged from the comments. Not content to sling arguments from my own blog, I engaged GreenSlugg on the comment section of his video. He claimed to have an answer to my objection about marsupials in terms of geographic distribution by sending me to another video.

Now that 9 minute video was quite tedious, he tended to lack a coherence to his argument and tended to ramble. Yet the video he wanted me to watch was over 3 times that length, coming in at 29 minutes! 29 minutes of him going through objections to Noah's Ark. You'd think in 29 minutes you could get through a lot, but he managed to get through four. Though to his credit, he managed to throw in a 2 minute plug for Jesus halfway through.

1. How did Noah get two of each animal?(Answer: Noah didn't, God did. Read your bible more)
2. a) How did Noah get so many species on the ark? (Answer: Noah didn't need to, the each pair of a 'kind' radiated out into all the species there are today)
   b) How did they stop the predators from eating the weak? (Answer: kept the predators in cages, just like at the zoo)
3. What about dinosaurs? (Answer: only needed 50 'kinds', kept them as juveniles "no bigger than a football")
4. What about marsupials? (Answer: it's a mystery to both creationists and evolutionists)

For anyone up for 29 minutes of creationist reasoning:

After all that, you could imagine my disappointment. He didn't give an answer at all, other than to make a tu quoque claim that evolution has a problem in answering the marsupial problem as well. My whole point is that Creation doesn't give reasonable explanations for why we should expect things to be the way they are; and sitting through 29 minutes of video to hear 6 minutes and 30 seconds of avoiding the challenge - that's simply pathetic. The closest thing to an answer was a link to a page on CreationWiki, but that could have been provided without the 29 minutes of incredulous tedium.

It's the lack of a good answer as to why the patterns are the way they are that's problematic. Without any reason as to why a certain pattern is the way it is means that there can be no claim of compatibility between an explanation and the evidence. All that we get is handwaving, as is the case in that video. He starts by claiming that it's wrong to call Noah's Ark a story, because that would imply it's a fairy tale - and he said: "I believe it's a true event". That's it!

For all the attempts to explain why objections fall flat, the main objection was dealt with as an article of faith. All that time trying to explain how small the dinosaur eggs were or that all the species really just came from a single breeding pair of a kind, or citing cave drawing as evidence humans and dinosaurs coexisted, or that kangaroos did migrate from the middle east - there was nothing beyond an article of faith that one should take Noah's Ark as something to even consider historically.

Noah's Ark and Biogeography

One cannot argue about the empirical in a vacuum; otherwise the claims will be ad hoc and unsubstantiated. When Jerry Coyne mentioned in a talk about biogeography not having a good account under creation, the Youtuber GreenSlug decided to take Jerry Coyne to task.

The response is not pretty in terms of its understanding of biogeography - in the end he frames it as a problem of migration for both evolution and creation. Even if this were the case (obviously there's migration), the reason why biogeography is such good evidence for evolution is the patterns of distribution. The question of why there are placental mammals and marsupials that are near identical in their appearance and evolutionary niche, but that marsupials are only found near other marsupials, is easily explained by evolutionary theory but has no reason as to why it should be so under Creation.

Yet GreenSlugg claims to have an answer: "biogeography makes perfect sense in light of creation: Noah". This is the problem of arguing in a vacuum. How does it make "perfect sense" exactly? Not through having any reason for any particular patterns just to be the way they are as arguing for migration post flood doesn't explain any patterns the way they are. How did flightless birds get to New Zealand but not any land mammals? How did Australia and South America end up with all the marsupials (and very different marsupials at that)?

GreenSlugg invoked land bridges for the animals to cross. In addition to the absurdity of why it is that certain morphologically-related animals all went in a similar direction, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that such land bridges even existed - let alone that's the way it happened. He hasn't explained anything other than to create a "just so" account with an implausible mechanism with no regard for any actual evidence. If it makes "perfect sense", it's because there's no trying to marry evidence with the hypothesis. It's junk speculation!


Yet to think about the kind of answer that GreenSlugg gives, it's a problem of trying to marry a natural account with a miracle. If he's just trying to say it's not impossible to see how a Creation account could handle biogeography, there are a lot of easier ways to do it. The Creator could have moved the animals to where the Creator desired, with no need to say there were land bridges. The Creator could have created all the species after the flood without any need to account for migration. The Creator, once you grant a miracle, could do anything to make the patterns how we see it now. It's why invoking a Creator is a bad explanation.

I don't see any need to try to make a supernatural account otherwise plausible, as the supernatural account is still going to be the sticking point. Instead of just saying "God did it the way God did it because God did it that way" (i.e. a miracle), it's God did it plus a lot of ad hoc claims that have no more validity than just invoking a miracle. Is there some veneer of plausibility that comes from trying to include a naturalistic framework around a supernatural? I don't see the point!

A good explanation is one that can be falsified; it's one that gives reasons for why things are the way they are, and why they are not the way they aren't. A bad explanation is one that can easily be modified to fit the data however it is. To say that Creation can explain biogeography would mean that the account of Creation would have to be able to sit closely with the evidence. Otherwise any attempt to say Creation can account for the pattern of evidence is trivial - there's nothing in the account that even tries.


The real absurdity in all this is supposing that Noah's Ark is literal history to begin with; that a grown man even tries to undertake a reconciliation between myth and history is pathetic. There was no global flood, there was no single point of radiation of life, and the Genesis account of the global flood is not meant to be taken as science. All else that follows is mistaken on that error, though it was interesting to see the failure in reason that such a pitiful "defence" offered.

Behaving Like Animals

The event* in Colorado was unspeakably tragic. There's simply not the words to adequately express the horror of such an action. Rubbing salt into the wound, though, are those who seek to capitalise the tragedy for their own agenda. Perhaps it's understandable when it's trying to highlight the plight of the mentally ill or to have a conversation about what role a society has with guns, as those conversations at least seem relevant. But there's Rick Warren, who was quick to point the blame at the teaching of evolution.


One could take issue with the cheap opportunism; that the convenient scapegoating has little to do with reality and only serves to push Warren's ideological agenda. But the sentiment seems quite in line with a narrative that fundamentalists have been pushing about evolution. One only needs to watch Expelled** to see the tight coupling of evolution and immorality. The biblical scholar Hector Avalos has gone so far as to say: "One understands nothing about creationism unless one understands that it is meant to be a system of ethics."

Evidentially, this is a hot-button issue among creationists. But however irritating the persistent associations between evolution and immorality are, the most irritating thing is how badly creationists miss the point. Of course we are going to behave like animals. We are animals, ergo we behave like animals.

What Rick Warren and others like him miss, is that there's nothing to preclude animal nature from having a moral component to it. It's an interesting question for biologists as to why it is that there's so much in the way of cooperative behaviour in nature***, but are we to see ourselves warning others of an impending danger to our own detriment as some angelic act, while dismissing the same in a prairie dog? Does our protection of the young have a nobility that a bear defending its young lacks?

Even if Rick Warren thinks that moral prescriptions are handed down from a deity, it doesn't mean that a view without a deity is simply how he sees the world minus what God adds to the framework. It's a failure to comprehend the view in question, which is what a good education system should work to alleviate. Perhaps if creationists weren't so busy trying to water down the teaching of evolution, they might at least understand what it is to be an animal.

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*The Dark Knight Rises shooting.
**Or not, it's a terrible film.
*** One interesting answer

Creationists Using "Reason"

It's fair to say that pretty much all creationist arguments are trite. It would also be fair to say that the belief in creationism has little or nothing to do with those arguments. Perhaps some design analogies might be of some influence, but for the most part reason doesn't factor into it. Well, reason around the creationist arguments anyway.

The sad fact is, though, that creationists will use creationist arguments without seeing the problem with them. After all, they come to the conclusion that they hold for other reasons, so how could they be wrong!? Unfortunately going through the arguments and picking apart their reasoning isn't enough, as the following video demonstrates.

The reason for the need to stand up for reason is right there. Even with all the arguments dissected and countered, creationist #2 still thinks that he's the one with truth on his side and that he's one bringing truth to the table. It's laughable.

But therein lies the heart of the matter. They are not arguing from reason, but from conviction. The arguments are merely a foil for that, not really understood except for their perceived implication - that their conviction is vindicated in reason. Any counter isn't going to be on the argument itself, but measured against the conviction.

In short, the creationists are playing a game that they are ill-equipped to play. Instead of taking the time and effort to understand evolutionary theory and work through the arguments, they've jumped on whatever sounds good to back up the position they already hold to be true. There's just no reasoning with that, as evidenced in the video. The only rectification is if the creationists would take the time to study what evolution is - but why would they do that when they know that it must be false!

The Memetic Fallacy

The fight behind climate change is very political in nature, with liberal-leaning and progressives being the main advocates of trying to fight global warming. The battle over evolution has a very religious component to it, with evolution often being advocated by atheists and creation by theists. Anti-smoking campaigns and rhetoric are nearly exclusively political now. The biggest pushers of science-based medicine are corporations whose only interest is their bottom line.

The question of whether or not climate change, or evolution, or the cancerous effects of smoking, or the efficacy of medicine are scientific questions, yet their propagation in wider culture often has very little to do with their scientific evidence. It's true that greenies and tree-huggers use climate change as a political tool to push their agenda, for example, but what does that say about the scientific validity of climate change? Very little...

Yet I have come across the argument that climate change science is an invention of leftists looking to push their political agenda. Just as I have come across that evolution is an atheist lie to deny God as the Creator, and the anti-vaccination movement is rife with claims about the science of vaccines being a Big Pharma scam. But it was a conversation with a friend about smoking that inspired me to write this post.

The notion of memes, as initially coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, is that ideas propagate in a manner akin to genes, so what survives in the realm of ideas are those that are good at being replicated. Whether or not memes are a good scientific construct is another debate, and for the purposes of this post it doesn't matter whether or not memes are a sound concept.

The memetic fallacy is a fallacy of relevance where one mistakes the reasons for its propagation as the reasons for its validity.

That climate change seems to go down a particular ideology is quite far removed from the science of it, which may lead to fabricated or exaggerated claims, but it would be a mistake to not look at where the weight of expertise lies. The propagation method may lead to embellishments or outright falsehoods, but that's not enough to dismiss the original evidence.

Likewise when it comes to evolution, the weight of expertise sits firmly on the side that it is true. That there are prominent atheists that are also evolutionary biologists or that atheists promote evolution doesn't mean that it's an idea created to undermine God and promote atheism. It might be a reason to be atheist, but that atheists promote it isn't the reason why the idea has done so well scientifically.


Perhaps like the concept of meme itself, the mistake is leaving something vital by focusing purely on its delivery. In the case of these arguments, the mistake is to leave out the content itself; that explanation of its propagation is taken as being sufficient to explain the content.

It's with good reason that we are wary of the messengers - the reputation that lawyers, advertisers, and especially politicans have received is not entirely undeserved. When there are ulterior motives, it does call into question how objective the messenger is, but is not in and of itself sufficient to dismiss the message itself as being a product of those same ulterior motives.

Materialism: The Ideology

Many creationists try to make a big deal out of the link between evolution and atheism. Those who stand up for teaching evolution are often branded as atheists, including many devout theists. It seems there are two central claims behind such links. The first claim is that evolution is incompatible with a belief in God - that it either leaves God redundant or diminishes our species to a mere accident. The second claim is that evolution is being used to push God out of the picture - that it's a materialist ideology masquerading as science.

The first case is one best left to theologians, but the second case pertains to the validity of evolution as a science. The relevant question seem to be whether something held for ideological reasons can also be valid. Even if it were true that evolution was purely materialist ideology whose leading proponents sought to exclude God, would this invalidate evolution as a science?


To look at this question I'm going to invoke a historical parallel. Jesus is the central figure to Christianity, without a historical Jesus most forms of Christianity would be wrong. So does the historical case for Jesus need exclusion on the basis that Christianity needs a historical Jesus?

I'm fairly sure I know the answer to this. Of course not! The case for a historical Jesus should be decided by the historical evidence. Indeed, I've heard the argument that the historical Jesus is the main reason to be a Christian.

So when it comes to evolution, even if there's people with an ideological agenda, surely evolution's status as a science depends on whether or not the theory is able to fit with observation and evidence. It could be that evolution is good science and good reason to be a materialist.


Interestingly enough, when it comes to evolution there is no divide among experts down religious lines. And when experts do speak about evolution, they talk about the evidence for evolution. Meanwhile the link between evolution and atheism is highlighted by creationists, who don't talk about evidence at all. It may be that Francis Collins has been brainwashed by materialists, or that he's not a True Christian™ if he's so willing to speak in favour of evolution, but either way such a statement shows where the ideological hand in the evolution discussion really lies...

Free-Floating Rationales

Why does a turtle have a hard shell? Why do tigers have large teeth and claws? Why do some plants develop spikes? Why does a cuckoo chick push other eggs out of its parasite nest? Why are toxic animals often brightly coloured? Why are there non-toxic butterflies that have a similar appearance to toxic species? Why are mammals in the Arctic often white? Why do some insects resemble plant material? Why does a spider make a web? Why do birds make nests? Why do trees in rainforests grow high in the sky with only leaves growing on the top?

Any number of these questions could be asked, and they would be meaningful questions with real answers. The answers are all found in the context of evolution. A tiger's teeth need to be able to rip flesh, as to be a tiger means needing to eat flesh. If a tiger were herbivorous, then we'd expect the predatory features not to be there.

Yet here I am thinking about the problem in terms of rationales. My bias as a sapient creature is seeing things how something with a mind would. Of course it's obvious to me that a tiger's teeth are for ripping apart flesh, just as a herbivores are for grinding plant material, just as a spider's web is just like our fishing nets for trapping pray. But unlike our fishing net, what does a spider know about building a web? Does a spider know that it builds a web in order to catch prey? It doesn't know anything, it just does it. So the story, it seems, is an invention of our own minds.

Enter what Dan Dennett calls free-floating rationales. Of course a spider builds a web to catch its food, just as a tiger has evolved teeth that are better at ripping flesh. These rationales exist, but aren't represented anywhere. The rationale is a maximisation of function, spiders that have better web-building genes do better than spiders that don't. Thus over evolutionary time, we should see spiders that are great at building webs because they're the ones that pass on their genetic material.

Perhaps then, it is our mind that has been shaped by natural selection, rather than our mind projecting onto nature. The obviousness of the structure of the tooth as being for the purpose of tearing through flesh might be just as obvious as thoughts that a tooth is for tearing through flesh.

The Power Of Evolution

If the eye is held up by creationists as indicative of God because of it's intricate complexity and function, yet that is perfectly explainable by evolution, then surely that attests to the power of evolution. So then why would the brain be any more of a problem for evolution than the eye?

Of course creationists don't accept that the eye did evolve, but the empirical evidence for it is overwhelming. And every time a creationist tries to make the case of how complex and optimal the eye is, it's really giving the case that evolution as a process is a lot more powerful that people give such a process credit for.

Biology Of Mind

We are evolved creatures, thus the mind is a product of evolutionary forces. Sometimes this is neglected for a priori musings about what the mind is, and problems get exacerbated by removing them from our biology an into the abstract.

So when I hear about particular problems of mind that seem to excite dualists, I really wonder just how closely they've thought about the problem. Have they taken into consideration the utility of such a function in an evolutionary perspective? Have they taken into consideration other animals that have similar behaviours to us? Have they identified something outside of the brain at play? If not, then why are we even considering something beyond the material?

The absence of a good account of organisation of thoughts into knowledge, or failures of the reduction of intentionality to brain states, doesn't to me seem at all good reasons to reject that it's causally reducible to the material. It simply says "we don't know", and warrants further investigation.

Select-For

Yesterday I was wandering though the National Botanic Gardens and came across a butterfly that took my eye. It had brightly coloured wings, but when it landed its wings closed and the underside looked very much like a dead leaf. Now in an evolutionary sense this seems explainable. The wings of the butterfly would be that way as to attract a mate, and the underside would be a camouflage again predators. There would be selection in both directions.

I wonder how Jerry Fodor explains that.

Darwin Myth

There's a myth going around that Darwin repented on his dead bed, something so prevalent given how utterly irrelevant the argument is. If Newton renounced gravity, it wouldn't mean that apples ceased to fall straight down. So the patterns in nature of what Darwin spoke of will still be there regardless of whether Darwin renounced them. If you shoot the messenger, the message remains.

So if it were true it would be irrelevant, that it's not true makes it all the more pernicious. But why should the argument work at all? Perhaps it's in the courage of others convictions that we find confidence. Experiments have shown that individuals are more willing to trust "experts" on the basis of confidence even if they're not very successful as predictors. Likewise, the science of evolution is not very well understood outside of scientific circles and most people are subject to authoritative statements by relevant experts. It's not hard to see that if Darwinism doesn't even have the support of Darwin, then what does it have left? And we are story-telling creatures. A story about a man who was opposed to God repenting on his death-bed might be a quite powerful one to the right audience.

For whatever reason it persists, it's important to remember that it's quite simply not relevant to the truth of evolution whether Darwin believed in it or not. The point of this exercise is making a argument from authority, and even though biology has moved on since Darwin he's still the great scientific authority.

Morning Scepticism: Vitamin C

We once had genes that synthesised vitamin C. We still have them in our DNA, but with deleterious mutations. But we still need it, so we have to get it from the environment. This comes from our diet. So it should ask the question why if we needed it did we lose it? The answer is that it's costly to synthesise for ourselves, and when we get it as part of our food source we're essentially get it "for free". I think this is a great example of how the environment is an important part of an organism, that in our phenotype there is the necessity for something that can only be gotten through consumption.

The implications of this give an explanation for items like glasses. Those who have problems with being short or long-sighted have no disadvantage in reproduction thanks to being born in an environment with a correction. Just as we don't need to spend our days eating because of the invention of cooked food, or have to worry about extremes in temperatures because we can live in dwellings that we don't need to make either.

Morning Scepticism: Complete

In comparisons between Creation and evolution, I've seen arguments where Creationism is taken as superior to evolution because Creationism explains the origin of life while evolution cannot account for it. While it would be nice to have a theory of life's origins, it doesn't mean that all the evidence for evolution can just be ignored because Creation can explain what evolution cannot. The fossils are still going to be in the same strata, dead genes will still sit in the DNA, species will continue to change over time, and the earth will still date to billions of years old. That one idea has the potential to explain more than an another is useless if that one idea doesn't explain what is already known. You just don't get to ignore evidence because "God did it" explains* gravity while dendrochronology can only count tree rings.


*it doesn't actually explain anything, only the perception of explaining something.

Morning Scepticism: Prior

Abiogenesis is often coupled with evolutionary theory in that the failure to have an explanation of life's origins is seen as a failure of evolutionary theory. This is like complaining about plate tectonics because plate tectonics require planetary formation. "How can there be plates if you don't have a theory that can account for the formation of planets to have plates on?" would be a comparable statement. Though to show the absurdity, perhaps a more extreme example should be used.

"How can you say that recipe makes an apple pie, when that recipe doesn't explain where spacetime came from?" As Carl Sagan said, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. The recipe for the pie doesn't need to explain cosmology, just how to make a pie. Likewise the theory of evolution doesn't need to explain the origin of life, just how life changes over time.

Morning Scepticism: SLoT

Creationists often make the claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The claim is that entropy means that everything tends towards disorder, so how could evolution make order out of disorder? My standard response is "what does the physics of heat have to do with DNA replication?" But of course that doesn't really satisfy the underlying quandary. Nor does saying that the earth is not a closed system, because the problem isn't with thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is just a way to have the underlying incredulity at order springing from chaos sound like it's contrary to nature. The problem is with the notion of design sans designer, and it's unfortunate that the question is asked in such a way that merits a scientific answer - because the scientific answer is not the answer to the question being really asked.

Morning Scepticism: Teleological

The Galileo story is one used to highlight the incompatibility between science and religion, or used to show that scientific ideas eventually get adopted into a religious framework over time - depending on your perspective on things. But the dethroning the Earth from the centre of the Cosmos is nothing compared to dethroning our species as the pinnacle of Creation. 150 years after Darwin published his work on the matter and there's still little acceptance of evolution via natural selection in religious circles, at least according to surveys (In the US, the majority see evolution as "God-guided"). Where we are might have challenged Biblical authority, but how we came to be challenges the very role of God. A creator with nothing to do is not really worthy of the title.

But I think another lesson can be taken away from this cultural controversy. The teleological argument is a very powerful argument indeed, and its no wonder that intelligent theists have shifted from the intricacy of the eye to the relative strength of the strong nuclear force.

Only Game In Town

Something I have seen come up a number of times is that atheists argue for Darwinian evolution because that's the only game in town. While theists can believe that God created through an evolutionary process, an atheist doesn't have the luxury of choice. The insinuation is that perhaps the support of evolution isn't for scientific reasons, but to justify a prior-held world-view.

I find this argument deceptive in a number of ways. Firstly it's ignoring the quality and predictability of explanation for its propagation. Second, if the argument were true then we should see parallels in other areas of explanation where this happens. Finally, that it's a misdirection to cover up their own doctrinal commitments.


Triumph of explanation
Consider the following statement:

Atheists need to accept a heliocentric solar system because there are no natural explanations for a geocentric universe.

Such a statement highlights the absurdity of what is being proposed. The reasons to support a heliocentric universe are because of the predictive success of modern scientific advancements in understanding gravitation and the observational data that a heliocentric model is able to explain. Scientists have used this model to land craft on Mars and send vessels to explore other worlds hundreds of millions of kilometres away.

The heliocentric model is the only realistic game in town, I say realistic because anyone could come up with a speculative suggestion about the nature of stars in the sky but we don't take seriously those stories. Evolution by natural selection is much the same, while there are many different possible explanations, it's the Darwinian paradigm that is the only realistic game in town. Not because it's the way to cast off God, but because it through empirical observation and analytic consideration is found to be able to explain life on this world.

Evolution by natural selection isn't the only game in town, but the only realistic one. Through an examination of the fossil record, the genetic code, geographic distribution and comparative anatomy. Through many different experiments on many different facets of biology, including on the addition and removal of various selective pressures. Through analytic contemplation of underlying philosophical considerations. Through all these the modern evolutionary synthesis has been deeply examined and has been found to be triumphant. It's the only realistic game in town for those reasons.


The cosmic competitors
Even if evolution by natural selection is the only game in town for good scientific and philosophical reasons, its propagation might be through atheists who don't understand a thing about it except that its a counter to the teleological argument. That is to say that the assumption that God made life as it is would be an incredibly powerful argument if not for Darwin's idea.

Yet the teleological argument doesn't only exist to explain life, but to explain the cosmos. The seemingly arbitrary values of a number of constants need to be so precise for life to exist that a personal intelligence would be the best explanation.

If this holds true that atheists are just grasping at whatever comes there way then we should see a uniformity in explanation - a tentative hypothesis billed as the only game in town. If there is one that can account for the universe that atheists default to, I can't for the life of me think of what it is. Of course my ignorance is not an argument against there being one but I'd actually be surprised if atheists in general really had sufficient knowledge of cosmology to be able to even comment on the assertion's coherence.


Projection
But why does it actually matter? The validity of evolution stands with the evidence for it and the issue is one big red herring. If I were to argue that astrology was nonsense because my magic 8-ball says it's crap, the problems of astrology persist irrespective of my reasoning for it. While my personal attack on astrology would be absurd, the discipline of astrology is neither strengthened or weakened by my argument.

My real rejection of astrology, however, comes from an understanding of what planets and stars are. I reject it because constellations are an artefact of our current position in space-time and there's nothing we know that could even suggest a link between the relative position of planets and stars with events in our lives. We can navigate by constellations, start wars on the position of Mars, but that's not the causal relationship needed for astrology to be valid - it's just us finding a pattern (that's not there) and acting upon it.

When people make a doctrinal commitment to the inerrancy of The Bible and that commitment leads to rejection of any contrary information, then a rejection of evolution can be said to be done out of necessity. Likewise, when those who are crusading not for creationism but to get more people to Christianity could be said to arguing against evolution out of necessity. After all if evolution makes God unnecessary then it's taking away a strong reason to believe. Indeed this is what the Wedge Strategy, just like so many other attacks on evolution indicate, spelled out. Evolution is just the tip of the iceberg in the larger culture wars.

This is why I think that such arguments are projections. There was nothing in declaring myself an atheist to make a commitment to evolution by natural selection. There are atheists who don't think that natural selection works, or that it's insufficient to explain life. The charge of the only game in town is trying to put the focus of doctrinal commitment away from those who have one.

Morning Scepticism: Mind Creationism

In the 150 years since evolutionary theory has been in the spotlight, a substantial amount of evidence has been built up showing not only that evolution took place but how it did. Even among those who reluctantly accept this fact, the new battleground is the brain. To follow their logic through, it's saying that evolution might be able to build an eye, but it can't build processing software for that signal. The tiger's dagger teeth are just fine, but a human's brain-designed dagger is proof of a brain designer!