Deus ex Machina
Last time I discussed the need for a series of posts on science and its meaning. First up: evolution.
When you think of evolution the image which probably comes to mind is that of a fish flopping out onto land, which then magically grows feet, becomes a dinosaur, then a monkey, and finally a human. In reality, this view is more of a cartoon version of evolution.
Like any scientific field, evolutionary biology is full of twists, wonders and mysteries. But the basic idea of evolution is quite simple. The principle of evolution can be summarized quite succinctly.
First, start with the basic observation of life:
- Living organisms reproduce.
- Reproduction is imperfect (i.e. mutations occur).
- This results in a variations among living things.
Add to this some basic physics:
- Living organisms require energy and resources to survive.
- Energy and resources are finite.
- Therefore organisms must compete for energy and resources.
From these two simple facts, one comes to an obvious conclusion:
- In the competition of life, a variation can be advantageous (or neutral, or disadvantageous).
- Organisms with an advantageous variation are more likely to survive and reproduce.
- The process of variation and competition results in natural selection.
What we call evolution is simply natural selection over time. That’s it. The rest is, as they say, details.
There are some important points to keep in mind about evolution. To begin with, unlike the cartoon view of evolution, individual organisms do not evolve. Evolution occurs within and between species, not individuals. Another point to keep in mind is that evolution is not evolving toward some goal. Species don’t start evolving legs because they will need them in 1000 generations. Also, while variation is largely random, natural selection is not. Natural selection is the filter which removes disadvantageous variations and allows advantageous variation to build upon itself. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that the theory of evolution does not address the origin of life. The study of how life arose from non-living matter is a completely different field of study, known as abiogenesis.
Evolution has been observed both in the lab and in the wild. It is so well documented that even advocates of creationism and intelligent design concede that living things evolve. Where they part company with evolutionary biology is on the question of whether evolution is the ONLY mechanism for generating the diversity of life we see around us.
Evolutionary biology states very clearly that evolution is the only mechanism by which diverse species arise. This hypothesis has been verified countless times, which is why we call evolution a theory, not just a model. Evolution accounts for drug resistance in staph germs. It explains the fossil record. It is verified by DNA sequencing. There is simply no case of an organism or living mechanism which could not be derived though natural selection.
Proponents of intelligent design disagree. They argue that evolution could not possibly account for every diversity of life. In support of their claim, they look for examples which demonstrate “irreducible complexity.” Originally proposed by Michael Behe, the basic premise of irreducible complexity is that certain living things contain contain multiple interacting parts which could not have evolved in tandem. Remove a single part, and the whole system collapses. Since it couldn’t have evolved, so the argument goes, it must have been designed by some unspecified intelligence.
Proposed examples of irreducible complexity include the eye, the blood clotting cascade, and the bacterial flagellum. In all of these cases scientists have found mechanisms by which evolution can account for them, and so irreducible complexity is generally viewed as so much weak tea. Scientists generally place intelligent design in the same recycle bin as the caloric model of heat which held that heat was an invisible fluid which flowed from hot things to cold.
For many people, intelligent design has a certain appeal. People generally don’t like the idea that we have monkey cousins, and they certainly don’t like the idea of a universe without God. It gives parents an out. They want their children to learn about science, but they also want them to grow up to be God-fearing Americans. Nobody wants their children to be taught that life is a meaningless struggle to propagate DNA. Advocates of intelligent design frame themselves as standing in opposition to atheism and nihilism, which they think evolution represents.
It is ironic then that atheistic nihilism is exactly what intelligent design proposes. The basic premise of intelligent design, as I mentioned earlier, is that evolution cannot account for all organisms. Some organisms must have been designed. Not only that, since they didn’t arise naturally they must have been manufactured. Intelligent design advocates would probably prefer the term “created”, but the result is the same. Their argument is that some intelligence built us. Evolution can’t account for us, so an extra-terrestrial intelligence must have assembled us from parts. When we design and build things we call them machines. Robots, if you will. So what advocates of intelligent design are really proposing is that we are nothing more than meat robots.
Evolution says something very different. Meat we may be, but we are decidedly NOT robots. We are organisms. We are not manufactured items with no heritage and no connection to the world. We grew in our mother’s womb, just as she grew in her mother’s. We have a lineage which traces back through time. One which we share with all living things on our planet. Life begets life. Life changes and adapts. Life finds a way.
Despite this beauty, evolution remains plagued by the common view that it somehow strips humanity of its dignity or value. How are we supposed to give our lives meaning if our only purpose on this planet is to keep our DNA from becoming extinct? What possible purpose could life have if evolution is true?
It raises an interesting question, but one for another time.
Be Brave. Be Human. Evolve.
November 9th, 2007 05:22
Good Morning Brian,
or at least it is in the part of the world I am currently in !.
Please allow me to congratulate you on your last two posts, “O, For a Muse of Fire” and this one, “Deus ex Machina”.
These are the two of finest introspections I have read in quite a while on the meaning of science and the intersection of belief and scientific investigation.
Like you, I rely heavily on science in my profession, specifically the known attributes of materials science, chemical combustion, fluid dynamics, radio wave propagation and a slew of other physical disciplines. In fact, I bet my life every time I work that these physical bodies Really Do Know what they know.
I really value what scientists have been able to learn, document and verify. It makes life so much more civilized, comfortable, interesting, varied and challenging. In fact, our entire civilization could not survive without the knowledge you and your colleagues have amassed.
I, too, see a decline in science generally, in the schools and in the public at large. This has serious implications for a representative democracy. How shall individuals be responsible citizens when simple mathematical and scientific concepts are unfamiliar to them ?
In your introspections, there seems to me to be a strain of Either/Or: Science or Belief. I do absolutely hold that to do good science, one must be rigid in observation and testing without bias. But, does it also follow that one cannot hold a religious belief while doing good basic science. I do not necessarily see the conflict regarding faith. One can allow belief to influence work, whether it is religious, theory, bias, experience, etc. I would propose the enemy of good inquiry is not religious belief, but any bias one cannot, or will not, strain out.
Science can answer certain types of questions, such as How, When, What, Where, and Who. It is an approach to inquiry that is uniqely suited to resolving these questions.
The question, “Why ?”, is properly the domain of the Philosophical and the Religious inquiry.
There is no conflict here. These disciplines are complementary for most people, as most have need of answers in each realm.
The challenge of Science is to present itself for the challenge and the Quest that it so nobly is. Children, and adults, should be continually presented with the new developments we inquiring humans can discover.
This is being done, and the pity of it is that Science has become a victim of it’s own success. It has explained so much more than the typical person can understand that the amount of new information is daunting.
Nonetheless, I see Science’s formal role is to give people the facts.
Let their own beliefs and consciences resolve the meaning for themselves. This is the best offering Science can give us.
Take care,
Denis
November 9th, 2007 11:18
Dennis,
Thanks for the kind words. I have several more posts in the works, and if there is a topic you would like to see covered, let me know.
I certainly don’t mean to imply that one must be non-religious to do science. Most scientists throughout history were religious in some form or another, and even today there are many devout scientists.
Your description of the how vs. why realms of science and faith is very similar to what Stephen Jay Gould referred to as Non-Overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA, which he outlined in his book “Rocks of Ages.” In many ways I agree with him, but I see problems with that view as well. NOMA as it is often applied comes down to science saying “you can believe whatever mythology you want, as long as it doesn’t contradict reality,” and religion saying “Your theories can’t touch our truths, for they are absolute.” It becomes trench warfare, and the loudest voices on both sides are spreading the word that you must choose sides.
Where I think I’m heading with these posts is the idea that there really is more interplay between the two. Science and faith push against each other, and maybe that tension is a good thing. We’ll see when I get there.
Brian
November 9th, 2007 16:53
Brian,
I was heartened by your mention of Sagan in your first entry (Sagan is still one of my heroes), and I applaud you for recognizing what so many of Sagan’s critics failed to see; namely, that science must have someone who can communicate the poetry of science to the scientifically illiterate. I hope you don’t mind if I have included a link to your site on mine.
As a political conservative, I often find myself at odds with what seems to be the majority of my fellow conservatives, in that I value science, and I do not see it as the enemy. (To be fair, a great many liberals I know are equally willing to dismiss or villify science and scientists when they don’t seem to support political correctness). The problem is that too many people see everything as political, and that just isn’t so.
So I grind my teeth in frustration as the supposed thinkers of the conservative movement (as well as its vocal footsoldiers) blithely dismiss the enormous weight of the evidence in support of evolution simply because it doesn’t comport with their orthodox theology, or because they see it as supportive of nihilism and atheism. Their use of the term “Darwinism,” as opposed to “science,” illustrates their ridiculous belief that scientists are actively involved in a coherent political/religious movement, allied with socialism, whose aim is to destroy the basis of Western civilization.
I am even less impressed by those who seek to in compete with science as a theological/political adversary on this basis, seeking to get their camel’s nose in the tent of science education by dressing their theology in the language of science with none of the substance.
What you are doing on this site is necessary. It seems to me that in a world in which so much is politicized, and which is incresingly being dominated by politicians or theists vying for control, if scientists can’t learn how to fight in the political jungle, we will find our society re-descending into a morass of ignorance and superstition. I fear that this descent will be aided and abetted by those of the competing political classes and religionists who either through the corrosiive effects of reletivism, or on the basis of religious orthodoxy, encourage ignorance and emotion-based thinking as a path to power.
All the best,
J
November 10th, 2007 10:05
[…] the series of science posts, last time I described how intelligent design leads us to the conclusion that we are nothing more than meat […]
November 10th, 2007 16:50
J,
Thanks for the kind words, and the link to the site, and welcome to BraveHumans!
I’ve been thinking about doing a series like this for some time, but mainly held off because I had no idea how to be heard above the din of atheism vs. fundamentalism. I still have no idea how to break through the noise barrier, and I don’t think a few posts in a quiet corner of the blogosphere is going to be widely heard.
Still, I hope it is a start. Who knows, maybe people will read it, pass it along to their friends, and together we rebuild the perception that science is about more than just gizmos.
B
November 11th, 2007 20:34
HI Again Brian-
I’m reading three of these ina row and am responding as I read. I’d like to echo the compliments of Denis and “J”; this is good stuff. In this passage, I am wondering if you are not a bit too strident about your characterization of those opposed to your view. You say ” When we design and build things we call them machines. Robots, if you will. So what advocates of intelligent design are really proposing is that we are nothing more than meat robots.” While I abhor the inclusion of ID in school curricula, and I do not consider it science, are you perhaps unfairly putting unflattering words in their mouths? Certainly genetic engineering products (while perhaps ill-considered regarding long-term effects in many cases) are not considered robotic, but rather are seen as variant life-forms, and they are designed by men. If we are to go past current divisions to new understandings, we may need to be more cautious about how we characterize viewpoints that are not our own.
Nick
November 12th, 2007 00:47
Nick,
Thanks for the compliment. I agree the term “meat robot” is a pejorative, and probably too harsh. I think the interpretation that ID states we are machines is accurate, however. The whole premise of intelligent design is that life could not arrive in its present form by natural means. It had to be made. If that is true, then we really are bio-mechanical machines.
Even in genetic engineering we pull things from grown organisms, put them together, and then grow the organism. This is different from intelligent design, which argues that something built living things from scratch from scratch.
Part of my intent with this post was to point out that evolution tells us we are connected to the world, but intelligent design says we are detached from the world. This idea of being detached and separate from nature is deeply ingrained in western society, so it is not surprising that intelligent design reinforces that view.
What I really want to get at with this series is that the truth is more beautiful than the lies. There is a profoundness to the universe which is worth learning about.
Still looking for the poetry…
November 12th, 2007 17:06
Brian- I love that! The concept of being connected to the world, the universe, not somehow seperate (even if seperate by privilege of being the “only one” to have some requisite trait–intelligence, language, tool-ues, soul, consciousness) seems a loss for our humanity, not a gain. Intrestingly, most Buddhists do not have that world view–for them, all living beings have equal connection to that which is greater. I think many of my spiritual perigrinations over the years have been my working to address that perceived truth. But I love “…the truth is more beautiful than the lies.” You seem to be finding your way towards the poetry in this conversation. Perhaps, like some of Paul Fleishmann’s poetry, it needs to be poetry-for-two-voices. Write more about what you find profound.
Nick