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Darwin and Intelligent Design

FRANCISCO J. AYALA

Introductory Summary Statement

The steering-wheel of a car has been designed for turning; the human eye has been designed for seeing. Most of us would be willing to accept these two statements, but would probably balk if somebody claimed that a mountain has been designed for climbing. We might note that mountain slopes are there whether or not there is anybody to climb them, but steering-wheels would never have been produced if it were not for the purpose they serve. Mountain slopes and steering-wheels have in common that they are used for certain purposes, but differ because steering-wheels, but not mountain slopes, have been specially created for the purpose they serve. This is what we mean when we say that steering-wheels are “designed” for turning: the reason why steering-wheels exist at all and exhibit certain features is that they have been designed for turning the car. This is not so with mountain slopes.

But what about eyes? Human eyes share something in common with steering-wheels and something with mountain slopes. Human eyes like steering-wheels have been “designed,” but only in the sense that were it not for the function of seeing they serve, eyes would have never come to be; and the features exhibited by eyes specifically came to be in order to serve for seeing. But eyes share in common with mountain slopes that both came about by natural processes, the eyes by natural selection, the mountain slopes by geological movements and erosion. Steering-wheels, on the contrary, are designed and produced by human engineers.

In The Origin of Species Darwin accumulated an impressive number of observations supporting the evolutionary origin of living organisms. Moreover, and most importantly, he advanced a causal explanation of evolutionary change – the theory of natural selection, which provides a natural account of the design of organisms, or as we say in biology, their adaptations. Darwin accepted that organisms are adapted to live in their environments, and that their parts are adapted to the specific functions they serve. Penguins are adapted to live in the cold, the wings of birds are made to fly, and the eye is made to see. Darwin accepted the facts of adaptation, but advanced a scientific hypothesis to account for the facts. It may count as Darwin’s greatest accomplishment that he brought the design aspects of nature into the realm of science. The wonderful designs of myriad plants and animals could now be explained as the result of natural laws manifested in natural processes, without recourse to an external Designer or Creator.

Biologists need to account for the functional features of organisms, their “design,” in terms of the goals or purposes they serve, which is accomplished by means of hypotheses ultimately based on natural selection. Physical scientists do not face similar demands. Inanimate objects and processes (other than those created by humans) are not directed toward specific ends, they do not exist to serve certain purposes. The configuration of sodium chloride depends on the structure of sodium and chlorine, but it makes no sense to say that that structure is made up so as to serve a certain end. Similarly, the slopes of a mountain are the result of certain geological processes and weather erosion, but did not come about so as to serve a certain end, such as skiing.

The Design Argument

The argument from design is a two-pronged argument. The first prong, as formulated for example by the English author William Paley, asserts that organisms, in their wholes, in their parts, and in their relations to one another and to the environment, appear to have been designed for serving certain functions and to fulfill certain ways of life. The second prong of the argument affirms that only God, an omnipotent and omniscient creator, could account for the diversity, perfection, and functionality of living organisms and their parts.

The argument from design has been formulated in different versions through history. The first prong comes, importantly, in at least two flavors. One version refers to the order and harmony of the universe as a whole; as for example, in St Augustine: “The world itself, by the perfect order of its changes and motions and by the great beauty of all things visible” (1998, 452–453); or in St Thomas Aquinas: “It is impossible for contrary and discordant things to fall into one harmonious order except under some guidance, assigning to each and all parts a tendency to a fixed end. But in the world we see things of different natures falling into harmonious order” (1905, 12). The second version of the first prong refers to the living world, the intricate organized complexity of organisms, as formulated, among others, by William Paley (1802) and the modern proponents of intelligent design (ID).

The second prong of the argument from design has been formulated in three important versions. One formulation of the Designer appears in classical Greece, including Plato, who postulates in his Timaeus the existence of a Demiurge, a creator of the universe’s order, who is a universal and impersonal ordering principle, rather than the personalized Judeo-Christian God. Plato’s Demiurge is an orderer of the world who accounts for the world’s rationality, but not necessarily for its creation. A second version of the Designer is the familiar one of the Judeo-Christian God, as formulated by Paley and other Christian philosophers and theologians, who is a “person,” the creator and steward of the universe, who creates a world from nothing and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and is provident for humans.

Proponents of ID have in recent years formulated a third version of the second prong of the argument: an unidentified Designer who may account for the order and complexity of the universe, or that may simply intervene from time to time in the universe so as to design organisms and their parts, because the complexity of organisms, it is claimed, cannot be accounted for by natural processes. According to ID proponents, this intelligent designer could be, but need not be, God. The intelligent designer could be an alien from outer space or some other creature, such as a “time-traveling cell biologist,” with amazing powers to account for the universe’s design. Explicit reference to God is avoided, so that the “theory” of ID can be taught in the public schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution without incurring conflict with the US Constitution, which forbids the endorsement of any religious belief in public institutions.

The Design Argument in Antiquity

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c. 500–428 BCE) was among the early pre-Socratic Greek philosophers who formulated versions of the argument from design. Anaxagoras primarily concerned himself with astronomical and meteorological questions, but also addressed biological doctrines. He postulated a Mind that accounts for order in the world: “All things that were to be … those that were and those that are now and those that shall be … Mind arranged them all, including this rotation in which are now rotating the stars, the sun and moon” (Kirk et al. 1983, 363). Diogenes of Apollonia, a near-contemporary of Anaxagoras, asserts that “what men call air … seems to me to be a god and to have reached everywhere and to dispose all things and to be in everything” (Kirk et al. 1983, 442).

In the Phaedo, Plato (427–347 BCE) puts the argument in Socrates’ mouth: “I have heard someone reading … from a book by Anaxagoras, and saying that it is Mind that directs and is cause of everything and placed each thing severally as it was best that it should be” (Plato 1997, 97c). In the Timaeus, Plato attributes creative powers to this Mind, which does not create by making something out of nothing, but accounts for rational order in the world and for the configuration of organisms.

Among the ancient Romans, it was particularly Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), the great statesman and orator, who argued that the purposeful complexity of the living world, such as we see in the eye, could not come about by chance, or without guidance.

Christian Authors

The argument from design was advanced in the early centuries of the Christian era on the basis of the overall harmony and perfection of the universe by St Augustine (354–430 CE), for example, and, according to St Thomas Aquinas, by St John of Damascus (675–749 CE).

Aquinas (1225–1274), in his Summa Theologiae, advances five ways to demonstrate, by natural reason, that God exists. The fifth way derives from the orderliness and designed purposefulness of the universe, which evince that it has been created by a Supreme Intelligence.

The most forceful and elaborate formulation of the argument from design, before William Paley’s, was The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation by the English clergyman and naturalist John Ray (1627–1705). Ray regarded as incontrovertible evidence of God’s wisdom that all components of the universe – the stars and the planets, as well as all organisms – are wisely contrived from the beginning and perfect in their operation. The “most convincing argument of the Existence of a Deity,” writes Ray, “is the admirable Art and Wisdom that discovers itself in the Make of the Constitution, the Order and Disposition, the Ends and uses of all the parts and members of this stately fabric of Heaven and Earth” (1691, 33).

The design argument was advanced, in greater or lesser detail, by a number of authors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Ray’s contemporary Henry More (1614–1687) saw evidence of God’s design in the succession of day and night and of the seasons. Robert Hooke (1635–1703), a physicist who became Secretary of the Royal Society, formulated the watchmaker analogy that would become common among British natural theologians of the time: God had furnished each plant and animal “with all kinds of contrivances necessary for its own existence and propagation … as a Clock-maker might make a Set of Chimes to be a part of a Clock” (Hooke 1665, 124). On the Continent, Voltaire (1694–1778), like other philosophers of the Enlightenment, accepted the argument from design. Voltaire asserted that in the same way as the existence of a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker, the design and purpose evident in nature prove that the universe was created by a Supreme Intelligence (Torrey 1967, 262–270).

William Paley’s Natural Theology

William Paley (1743–1805), one of the most influential English authors of his time, argued forcefully in his Natural Theology that the complex and precise design of organisms and their parts could be accounted for only as the deed of an Intelligent and Omnipotent “Designer.” With Natural Theology, Paley sought to update Ray’s Wisdom of God, but he could now carry the argument much further than Ray, by taking advantage of one century of additional biological knowledge. Paley’s keystone claim was that there “cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice … means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated” (Paley 1802, 15–16).

Natural Theology is a sustained argument for the existence of God based on the obvious design of humans and their organs, as well as the design of all sorts of organisms, considered by themselves and in their relations to one another and to their environment. Paley’s first extended example is the human eye. He points out that the eye and the telescope “are made upon the same principles; both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated” (Paley 1802, 20). Specifically, there is a precise resemblance between the lenses of a telescope and “the humors of the eye” in their figure, their position, and the ability of converging the rays of light at a precise distance from the lens – on the retina, in the case of the eye.

Natural Theology has chapters dedicated to the human frame, which displays a precise mechanical arrangement of bones, cartilage, and joints; to the circulation of the blood and the disposition of blood vessels; to the comparative anatomy of humans and animals; to the digestive tract, kidneys, urethra, and bladder; to the wings of birds and the fins of fish; and much more. Across 352 pages, Natural Theology conveys Paley’s expertise: extensive and accurate biological knowledge, as detailed and precise as was available in the year 1802. After detailing the precise organization and exquisite functionality of each biological entity, relationship, or process, Paley draws again and again the same conclusion: only an omniscient and omnipotent Deity could account for these marvels of mechanical perfection, purpose, and functionality, and for the enormous diversity of inventions that they entail.

In 1829, Francis Henry Egerton (1756–1829), the eighth earl of Bridgewater, bequeathed the sum of £8000 to the Royal Society with instructions that it commission eight treatises that would promote natural theology by setting forth “The Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation.” Eight treatises were published in the 1830s by distinguished British scientists, several of which artfully incorporate the best science of the time and had considerable influence on the public and among scientists. The Hand, Its Mechanisms and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design was written in 1833 by Sir Charles Bell, a distinguished anatomist and surgeon, famous for his neurological discoveries. William Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford University, wrote Geology and Mineralogy in 1836. In 1857, Hugh Miller, in The Testimony of the Rocks, would formulate what I call the argument from beauty, which allows that it is not only the perfection of design, but also the beauty of natural structures found in rock formations and in mountains and rivers that manifests the intervention of the Creator.

The “Theory” of Intelligent Design

Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) very much disposed of natural theology as an attempt to prove the existence of God based on the argument from design. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, several authors in the United States have revived the argument from design, notably Michael Behe, William Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer, among others. These modern proponents, at times, claim that the Intelligent Designer need not be God, but could be a space alien or some other intelligent superpower unknown to us. The folly of this pretense is apparent to anyone who takes the time to consider the issue seriously.

Proponents of ID call for an Intelligent Designer to explain the supposed irreducible complexity in organisms. An irreducibly complex system is defined by Behe as an entity “composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning” (Behe 1996, 39). The claim is that irreducibly complex systems cannot be the outcome of natural selection, which proceeds by small steps, slowly accumulating over thousands or millions of generations the components of complex systems. Evolutionists have pointed out, again and again, with supporting evidence, that organs and other components of living beings are not irreducibly complex – they do not come about suddenly, or “in one fell swoop” (see, for example, Miller 1999, 2004; Brauer and Brumbaugh 2001; Pennock 2002; Perakh 2004; Ayala 2007). Evolutionists have shown that organs such as the human eye are not irreducible at all; rather, less complex versions of the same systems have existed in the past, and some can be found in today’s organisms as well.

Natural Selection

Natural selection was proposed by Darwin (1859) primarily to account for the adaptive organization, or design, of living beings; it is a process that preserves and promotes adaptation. Evolutionary change through time and evolutionary diversification (multiplication of species) often ensue as by-products of natural selection, fostering the adaptation of organisms to their milieu. Evolutionary change is not directly promoted by natural selection and, therefore, it is not its necessary consequence. Indeed, some species remain unchanged for long periods of time, as Darwin noted. Nautilus, Lingula, and other so-called “living fossils” are Darwin’s examples of organisms that have remained unchanged in their appearance for millions of years. Nor does natural selection ensure that features that have evolved at a certain time and place as adaptations will be successful over long time spans. Indeed, more than 99% of all species that ever existed have become extinct.

Evolution affects all aspects of an organism’s life: morphology (form and structure), physiology (function), behavior, and ecology (interaction with the environment). Underlying these changes are changes in the hereditary materials. Hence, in genetic terms, evolution consists of changes in the organisms’ hereditary makeup.

As a genetic process, evolution can be seen as a two-step process. First, hereditary variation arises by mutation; second, selection occurs by which useful variations increase in frequency and those that are less useful or injurious are eliminated over the generations. As Darwin saw it, individuals having useful variations “would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind” (Darwin 1859, 81). As a consequence, useful variations increase in frequency over the generations, at the expense of those that are less useful or are injurious.

Natural selection is able to generate novelty and complexity by increasing the probability of otherwise extremely improbable genetic combinations. Natural selection, in combination with mutation, becomes, in this respect, a creative process. It is a process that has been occurring for many millions of years, in many different evolutionary lineages, and in a multitude of species, each consisting of a large number of individuals.

Natural selection is an incremental process, operating over time and yielding organisms better able to survive and reproduce than others, under the conditions prevailing in a given place and at a certain time. Individuals of a given species differ from one another, at any one time, only in small ways; for example, the difference between bacteria that have or lack an enzyme able to synthesize the sugar lactose, or between moths that have light or dark wings. These differences typically involve one or only a few genes (Carroll 2005), but they can make the difference between survival and death, as in the evolution of resistance to DDT in disease-transmitting mosquitoes or to antibiotics in people. Consider a different sort of example. Some pocket mice (Chaetodipus intermedius) live in rocky outcrops in Arizona. Light, sandy-colored mice are found in light-colored habitats, whereas dark (melanic) mice prevail in dark rocks formed from ancient flows of basaltic lava. The match between background and fur color protects the mice from avian and mammal predators that hunt guided largely by vision. Mutations in one single gene (known as MC1R) account for the difference between light and dark pelage (Nachman et al. 2003).

Adaptations that involve complex structures, functions, or behaviors involve numerous genes. Many familiar mammals, but not marsupials, have a placenta. Marsupials include the familiar kangaroo and other mammals native primarily to Australia and South America. Dogs, cats, mice, donkeys, and primates are placental. The placenta makes it possible to extend the time the developing embryo is kept inside the mother and thus make the newborn better prepared for independent survival. However, the placenta requires complex adaptations, such as the suppression of harmful immune interactions between mother and embryo, delivery of suitable nutrients and oxygen to the embryo, and the disposal of embryonic wastes. The mammalian placenta evolved more than 100 million years ago and proved a successful adaptation, contributing to the explosive diversification of placental mammals in the Old World and North America.

The placenta also has evolved in some fish groups, such as Poeciliopsis. Some Poeciliopsis species hatch eggs. The females supply the yolk in the egg, which furnishes nutrients to the developing embryo (as in chicken). Other Poeciliopsis species, however, have evolved a placenta through which the mother provides nutrients to the developing embryo. Molecular biology has made possible the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of Poeciliopsis species. A surprising result is that the placenta evolved independently three times in this fish group. The required complex adaptations accumulated in each case in less than 750 000 years (Reznick et al. 2002; see Avise 2006).

Natural selection produces combinations of genes that would seem highly improbable, because natural selection proceeds stepwise over long periods of time. Consider the evolution of the eye in humans and other vertebrates. Perception of light, and later vision, were important for the survival and reproductive success of their ancestors, because sunlight is a predominant feature of the environment. Accordingly, natural selection favored genes and gene combinations that increased the functional efficiency of the eye, according to the needs of different sorts of organisms. Such mutations gradually accumulated, eventually leading to the highly complex and efficient vertebrate eye.

Several hundred million generations separate modern animals from the early animals of the Cambrian geological period (542 million years ago). The number of mutations that can be tested, and those eventually selected, in millions of individual animals over millions of generations is difficult for a human mind to fathom, but we can readily understand that the accumulation of millions of small, functionally advantageous changes could yield remarkably complex and adaptive organs, such as the eye.

Natural Selection and Design

An engineer has a preconception of what a design is supposed to achieve, and will select suitable materials and arrange them in a preconceived manner so that the design fulfills the intended function. On the contrary, natural selection does not operate according to some preordained plan. It is a purely natural process resulting from the interacting properties of physicochemical and biological entities. Natural selection is simply a consequence of the differential survival and reproduction of living beings. It has some appearance of purposefulness because it is conditioned by the environment: which organisms survive and reproduce more effectively depends on which variations they happen to possess that are useful or beneficial to them, in the place and at the time where they live.

Natural selection does not have foresight; it does not anticipate the environments of the future. Drastic environmental changes may introduce obstacles that are insuperable to organisms that were previously thriving. In fact, species extinction is a common outcome of the evolutionary process. The species existing today represent the balance between the origin of new species and their eventual extinction. The available inventory of living species describes nearly 2 million species, although at least 10 million are estimated to exist. But again, we know that more than 99% of all species that have ever lived on earth have become extinct (Aitken 1998).

The arguments of ID proponents that state the incredible improbability of chance events, such as mutation, in order to account for the adaptations of organisms (e.g., Meyer 2009) are irrelevant because evolution is not governed by chance processes. Genetic mutations are random events that occur with certain probabilities. But mutations do not determine the outcomes of evolution. Rather, there is a natural process (namely, natural selection) that is not random, but oriented and able to generate order or “create.” The traits that organisms acquire in their evolutionary histories are not fortuitous but, rather, determined by their functional utility to the organisms, designed, as it were, to serve their life needs. Natural selection preserves the mutations that are useful and eliminates those that are harmful. Without hereditary mutations, evolution could not happen, because there would be no variations that could be differentially conveyed from one to another generation. But without natural selection, the mutation process would yield disorganization and extinction because most mutations are disadvantageous. Mutation and selection have jointly driven the marvelous process that, starting from microscopic organisms, has yielded orchids, birds, and humans.

The theory of evolution conveys chance and necessity jointly enmeshed in the stuff of life; randomness and determinism interlocked in a natural process that has spurted the most complex, diverse, and beautiful entities that we know of in the universe: the organisms that populate the earth, including humans who think and love, endowed with free will and creative powers, and able to analyze the process of evolution itself that brought them into existence.

Unintended Consequences: ID’s Denigration of Religion and God

The point I now want to make may come as a surprise to people of faith and scientists alike. I assert that scientific knowledge, the theory of evolution in particular, is consistent with a religious belief in a personal God, whereas creationism and intelligent design are not. This point depends on a particular view of God – shared by many people of faith – as omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. This point also depends on our knowledge of the natural world and, particularly, of the living world.

Before modern physical science came about, God (in some religious views) caused rain, drought, volcanic eruptions, and so forth to reward or punish people. This view entails that God would have caused the tsunami that killed 200 000 Indonesians a few years ago, or the earthquake that more recently killed tens of thousands of people in Haiti. Thus, it would seem incompatible with a benevolent God. However, we now know that tsunamis and other “natural” catastrophes come about by natural processes. Natural processes don’t entail moral values. Some critics might say “that does not excuse God, because God created the world as it is. God could have created a different world, without catastrophes.” Yes, according to some belief systems, God could have created a different world. But that would not be a creative universe, where galaxies form, stars and planetary systems come about, and continents drift causing earthquakes. The world that we have is creative and more exciting than a static world. This argument will not convince all, but is persuasive for some as an account of physical evil, and many theologians use it, whether implicitly or explicitly.

Turn now to badly designed human jaws, parasites that kill millions of children, and a poorly designed human reproductive system that accounts for millions of miscarriages every year in the world. If these dreadful happenings come about by direct design by God, God would seem responsible for the consequences. If engineers design cars that explode when you turn on the ignition key, they are accountable. But if the dreadful happenings come about by natural processes (evolution), there are no moral implications, because natural processes don’t entail moral values.

Nevertheless, some would say, once again, that because the world was created by God, so God is ultimately responsible: God could have created a world without parasites or dysfunctionalities. Yes, others would answer, but a world of life with evolution is much more exciting; it is a creative world where new species arise, complex ecosystems come about, and humans have evolved. This account will not satisfy some people of faith and many unbelievers will surely find it less than cogent: a deus ex machina. But I am suggesting that it may provide the beginning of an explanation for many people of faith, as well as for theologians.

One difficulty with attributing the design of organisms to the Creator is that imperfections and defects pervade the living world. Consider the human eye. The visual nerve fibers in the eye converge to form the optic nerve, which crosses the retina (in order to reach the brain) and thus creates a blind spot, a minor imperfection, but an imperfection of design, nevertheless; squids and octopuses do not have this defect. Did the Designer have greater love for squids than for humans and, thus, exhibit greater care in designing their eyes than ours?

The theory of ID leads to conclusions about the nature of the Designer quite different from those of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence that Christian theology predicates of God. It is not only that organisms and their parts are less than perfect, but also that deficiencies and dysfunctions are pervasive, evidencing “incompetent” rather than “intelligent” design. Consider the human jaw. We have too many teeth for the jaw’s size, so that wisdom teeth need to be removed and orthodontists can make a decent living straightening the others. Would we want to blame God for this blunder? A human engineer would have done better.

Evolution gives a good account of this imperfection. Brain size increased over time in our ancestors; the remodeling of the skull to fit the larger brain entailed a reduction of the jaw, so that the head of the newborn would not be too large to pass through the mother’s birth canal. Evolution responds to the organisms’ needs through natural selection, not by optimal design but by “tinkering,” by slowly modifying existing structures. Evolution achieves “design,” as a consequence of natural selection while promoting adaptation. Evolution’s ID is imperfect design, not intelligent design.

Consider the birth canal of women, much too narrow for easy passage of the infant’s head, so that thousands upon thousands of babies and many mothers die during delivery. Surely we don’t want to blame God for this dysfunctional design or for the children’s deaths. Science makes it understandable, a consequence of the evolutionary enlargement of our brain. Females of other primates do not experience this difficulty. Theologians in the past struggled with the issue of dysfunction because they thought it had to be attributed to God’s design. Science, much to the relief of theologians, provides an explanation that convincingly attributes defects, deformities, and dysfunctions to natural causes.

Examples of deficiencies and dysfunctions in all sorts of organisms can be listed endlessly, reflecting the opportunistic, tinkerer-like character of natural selection, which achieves imperfect, rather than intelligent, design. The world of organisms also abounds in characteristics that might be called “oddities,” as well as those that have been characterized as “cruelties,” an apposite qualifier if the cruel behaviors were designed outcomes of a being holding on to human or higher standards of morality. However, the cruelties of biological nature are only metaphoric cruelties when applied to the outcomes of natural selection.

Examples of “cruelty” involve not only the familiar predators tearing apart their prey (say, a small monkey held alive by a chimpanzee biting large flesh morsels from the screaming monkey), or parasites destroying the functional organs of their hosts, but also – and very abundantly – between organisms of the same species, even between mates. A well-known example is the female praying mantis that devours the male after coitus is completed. Less familiar is that, if she gets the opportunity, the female praying mantis will eat the head of the male before mating, which thrashes the headless male mantis into spasms of “sexual frenzy” that allow the female to connect his genitalia with hers. In some midges (tiny flies), the female captures the male as if he were any other prey, and with the tip of her proboscis she injects into him her spittle, which starts digesting the male’s innards which are then sucked by the female; partly protected from digestion are the relatively intact male organs that break off inside the female and fertilize her. Male cannibalism by their female mates is known in dozens of species, particularly spiders and scorpions. The world of life abounds in these kinds of “cruel” behaviors.

The design of organisms is often so dysfunctional, odd, and cruel that it possibly might be attributed to the gods of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, who fought with one another, made blunders, and were clumsy in their endeavors. For a modern biologist who knows about the world of life, the design of organisms is not compatible with special action by the omniscient and omnipotent God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The God of revelation and faith is a God of love and mercy, and of wisdom. A major burden was removed from the shoulders of believers when convincing evidence was advanced that the design of organisms need not be attributed to the immediate agency of the Creator, but rather is an outcome of natural processes. If we claim that organisms and their parts have been specifically designed by God, we have to account for the incompetent design of the human jaw, the narrowness of the birth canal, and our poorly designed backbone, less than fittingly suited for walking upright.

Most disturbing for ID proponents has to be the following consideration. About 20% of all recognized human pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage during the first two months of pregnancy. This misfortune amounts at present to more than 20 million spontaneous abortions worldwide every year. Do we want to blame God for the deficiencies in the pregnancy process? Is God the greatest abortionist of them all? Most of us might rather attribute this monumental mishap to the clumsy ways of the evolutionary process than to the incompetence of an intelligent designer.

The “Disguised Friend”

Proponents of ID would do well to acknowledge Darwin’s revolution and accept natural selection as the process that accounts for the design of organisms, as well as for the dysfunctions, oddities, cruelties, and sadism that pervade the world of life. Attributing these to specific agency by the Creator amounts to blasphemy. Proponents and followers of ID are surely well-meaning people who do not intend such blasphemy, but this is how matters appear to a biologist concerned that God not be slandered with the imputation of incompetent design.

The late theologian Sir Arthur Peacocke found it surprising “the way in which the ‘disguised friend’ of Darwinism, of evolutionary ideas, has been admitted (if at all) only grudgingly into Christian theology” (Peacocke, 2005, 60). Peacocke had in mind the statement of Aubrey Moore, a Protestant theologian who in 1891 wrote, “Darwinism appeared, and under the guise of a foe, did the work of a friend. It has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit” (Ayala 2007, 159).

Darwin’s theory of evolution is one of the great scientific developments of all times. It is also, in my view, a great gift to religion.

References

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Further Reading

Ayala, Francisco J. 2007. Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. Offers a way to reconcile science and religion on the issue of evolution by showing the different roles each discipline plays in human understanding.

Ayala, Francisco J. 2010. Am I a Monkey? Six Big Questions about Evolution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Provides succinct answers to important questions that religious believers have about evolution.

Peacocke, Arthur. 2005. The Palace of Glory: God’s World and Science. Adelaide: ATF Press. A collection of essays on science and religion by one of the field’s leading voices.

Pennock, Robert T. 2002. Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Catalogs the wide range of beliefs and weaknesses of creation science, focusing particularly on the scientific claims of intelligent design.