An ‘introduction’, in-depth
A review of The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological
Systems by William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells
Foundation for Thought and Ethics, Dallas, TX, 2008
reviewed by Lael Weinberger
When first hearing the advertising for The Design of Life, I suspect many
were skeptical about the value of yet another ‘introduction to intelligent
design.’1 Are there
not enough already? We have Phillip Johnson’s classic, Darwin on Trial,
Dembski’s Intelligent Design, and Wells’ Politically Incorrect
Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, to name a few that are all touted
as great ‘introductions’ to the Darwin versus design debate. But The
Design of Life was written for a somewhat different audience, as its textbook-style
indicates. The Design of Life was designed as a follow up volume to Of
Pandas and People,2
the successful textbook on design that has been around for almost two decades. While
The Design of Life was in the works, Pandas was making headlines
in its own way. In a small Pennsylvania town in 2004, a school board passed a resolution
requiring teachers to tell students that Darwinism was ‘not a fact’.
Teachers were instructed to inform students that they could learn about an alternative
theory of origins, intelligent design (ID), by consulting a reference book in the
school library, Of Pandas and People. The end result was a highly publicized
court case that struck down the school’s pro-ID policy.3 The court did not go so far as to take the ID textbook,
Of Pandas and People, off the school bookshelves. But the book in the midst
of this controversy has not had an update since 1993, well before modern ID’s
most important arguments were even put forward.
Filling the need for a fresh textbook presentation is where The Design of Life
comes in. The Design of Life now fills an important position, as one of
the most systematic (and up-to-date) presentations of the case for biological intelligent
design.
Making the case, strategically
Photo from wikipedia.com
Can evolution explain the human mind? Dembski and Wells introduce this subject with
a discussion of William Sidis (1898–1944), considered to be one of the smartest
people to have ever lived. Sidis is pictured here at his graduation from Harvard
in 1914, when he was sixteen years old.
The Design of Life opens with a chapter on human origins, focusing especially
on the mind and evolution. The chapter begins with the fascinating story of William
Sidis (1898–1944), ‘perhaps the smartest person who ever lived’
(p. 1). He was reading the New York Times when he was eighteen months old,
taught himself Latin at age two, and graduated cum laude from Harvard at
age sixteen. Dembski and Wells then transition to a discussion of the gap between
man and the great apes. After a quick survey of the fossil record, they return to
the issue of intellect with a critique of the evolutionary explanation for Homo
sapiens’ big brain. If the evolution of the brain is not difficult
enough for evolutionists, Dembski and Wells bring in the origins of morality and
altruism, critiquing the explanations proposed by E.O. Wilson and the sociobiology
school.
From the start, Dembski and Wells are tactically astute. They are hitting evolution
where the evolutionists are often most uncomfortable, and where observers already
have their strongest instinct against naturalism. So as they proceed with the book,
their readers will already have some healthy scepticism regarding evolution.
ID systematics
The more systematic treatment of evolutionary theory begins with chapter two, ‘Genetics
and Macroevolution’. This chapter is worth summarizing, as it gives a good
sense of the overall tone of the book: generally familiar concepts get fresh presentations
and newer research, in a systematic, textbook format.
The Design of Life now fills an important position, as one of the most systematic
(and up-to-date) presentations of the case for biological intelligent design.
This chapter introduces the concept of natural selection, and points out that Darwin
did not originate the idea of natural selection—Dembski and Wells mention
Edward Blyth, a ‘proponent of design in biology’ (more precisely, a
creationist when he formulated his theory of natural selection), as one notable
researcher who beat Darwin to the idea (p. 27). What was original with Darwin was
the ascription of creative powers to natural selection, in contrast to Blyth’s
much more limited conception of natural selection as a ‘conservative’
‘quality control’ force (p. 27). But since natural selection acts only
on pre-existing structures, Darwin’s problem was that he needed ‘something
within organisms to give rise to new traits’ before natural selection could
begin to act on them (p. 29).
Darwin knew nothing of Mendel’s discoveries in genetics, but today this is
the flashpoint of controversy. Dembski and Wells devote several pages to explaining
the basic principles of genetics sufficiently for a lay reader, including an explanation
of how natural selection operates at the genetic level. Observed examples of natural
selection acting on species—such as the distribution pattern of varieties
of the English sparrow in the United States—involve natural selection selecting
‘advantageous combinations of genes already present.’ But this leaves
unanswered the key question for Darwinists: ‘does natural selection merely
preserve existing genes or does it also help to create new ones (as it must if it
is to bring about the novel genetic information required to originate new species)?’
(pp. 34–36).
Photo taken by Jessica Spykerman
Dembski and Wells argue that the giraffe poses a problem for Darwinism: the individual
components of the giraffe’s ‘adaptational package’ do not serve
any purpose until the whole system is in place. So how could natural selection have
‘selected’ for the giraffe’s ‘package’?
The typical Darwinian response is an appeal to mutations, so this is where Dembski
and Wells turn their attention next. They note several problems for the Darwinist:
first, mutations are rare; second, most mutations are harmful; third, the kinds
of changes that would be required for actually originating new biological structures
are multifarious. This final point is particularly important, and given extensive
space.
Another way of saying it is that a single mutation is often inherently incapable
of producing the kind of change that would be beneficial; thus, natural selection
would not select for the mutation; thus it is useless for explaining the origins
of new biological information. Dembski and Wells cite the giraffe’s neck,
the classic example4 of
what they call an ‘adaptational package’: the giraffe has a long neck
and long legs, neither of which would be useful without a powerful heart to get
blood to the brain. Yet with this setup alone, the blood vessels in the giraffe’s
brain would burst and kill the giraffe if it lowered its head to get a drink of
water. The reason giraffes survive is a complex coordinated system of blood pressure
controls.
The point of all this is to illustrate that the adaptational package does not serve
any purpose until the whole system is in place. (This really is another form of
‘irreducible complexity’, although in practice, Dembski and Wells limit
the use of that term to biochemical settings.) Thus, ‘to generate an adaptational
package requires not piecemeal change but integrated, systematic change’ (p.
44). This requires information, and massive amounts of it all at once. Intelligence,
Dembski and Wells remind us, is the only source that we know of ‘capable of
generating information such as we see in biological systems’ (p. 44). They
then round out the chapter by addressing evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology),
which some evolutionists have proposed as the key to the origin of new biological
features.
Further chapters examine the fossil record; explain speciation to rebut the Darwinian
claim that we have observed ‘evolution in action’; critique genetic
phylogenies; and respond to arguments from homology. The chapter on irreducible
complexity marks a subtle change in emphasis, from negative (arguments against Darwinism)
to positive (arguments for design). Dembski and Wells review the original arguments
for irreducible complexity that Michael Behe made over a decade ago and devote substantial
space to answering the criticisms from Darwinists.
A sophisticated presentation of complexity
Intelligence, Dembski and Wells remind us, is the only source that we know of ‘capable
of generating information such as we see in biological systems’
Dembski and Wells make two important observations regarding irreducible complexity
arguments that are often missed in popular discussion. First, they identify two
distinct arguments that come under the term ‘irreducible complexity’:
a logical argument and an empirical argument. The logical argument states that no
direct Darwinian pathway5
can account for an irreducibly complex system. The empirical argument states that
no indirect Darwinian pathway6
has been identified. Keeping these arguments straight highlights the extremely limited
range of options that Darwinists have to work with if they want to answer the irreducible
complexity argument.
Second, Dembski and Wells succinctly distinguish and explain the negative and positive
sides of the irreducible complexity argument:
‘In making its logical and empirical points, the argument from irreducible
complexity assumes a negative or critical role, identifying limitations of the Darwinian
mechanism. By contrast, in making its explanatory point, the argument from irreducible
complexity assumes a positive or constructive role, providing positive grounds for
thinking that irreducibly complex biochemical systems are in fact designed.’
(p. 159).
This distinction is important because it answers the key philosophical objection
that Darwinists have levelled against irreducible complexity, namely, that it is
an ‘argument from ignorance—you don’t know how it could have evolved,
so therefore, it must have been designed.’ But this objection would only be
true if the negative side of irreducible complexity were all that we had to work
with. Because irreducible complexity has a positive side, it is an argument from
knowledge, not from ignorance.7
Next is a lengthy chapter on ‘specified complexity’. This is probably
the most conceptually difficult chapter in the book, but it is explained thoroughly
and well. The chapter is not simply a repeat of the many summaries that Dembski
has already written of his mathematical ‘explanatory filter’ (explaining
that ‘complex specified information’ is statistically explainable only
by design).8 In fact, Dembski
and Wells do not so much as mention the ‘explanatory filter’ by name,
explaining it all in a way that felt fresh, if the basic ideas were not. (Actually,
for those who—like myself—have read many variations on the theme of
explaining Dembski’s explanatory filter, The Design of Life’s
version would have been easier to follow with more explicit references to that filter.)
The final chapter revisits the origin of life controversy. Oparin, Haldane and the
Miller–Urey experiment9
all get coverage, but with more space allocated to discussion of new proposals,
such as ‘RNA first’,10
the ‘iron-sulfur model’ and others. The chapter concludes with a return
to the theme of information science and the necessity of an information source that
is intelligent and ‘cannot be reduced to materialistic causes’ (p. 261).
The audience
The Design of Life will be particularly useful to two groups of readers.
First, it will provide a good introduction for those who have some familiarity with
science, but have had no real exposure to design arguments. Dembski and Wells’
presentation is sufficiently thorough and systematic that even someone fairly committed
to Darwinism will have difficulty sidestepping.
Second, it will be helpful for those who have already been introduced to the Darwin-versus-design
debate with popular level literature (such as Wells’ Politically Incorrect
Guide) or older literature (such as Phillip Johnson’s classic, Darwin
on Trial). The Design of Life will fill in a lot of the detail
and sophistication that is lacking in the popular level literature, and will bring
readers up to speed on the most important new arguments.
The Design of Life fits in as a bridge between these two fields, both facilitating
the transfer of sophisticated argument to a popular audience and equipping budding
academics
The demographic that probably won’t be reading The Design of Life
is the general public, the readers of New York Times bestsellers. For the
average man-on-the-street, this is probably not the best introduction. But there
are plenty of good popular level books on this subject. If The Design of Life
furthers the goal of convincing people who are at least somewhat more serious about
science than the man on the street, if it helps design proponents make more sophisticated
arguments, the book will have done its job. Beating a foe like Darwinism requires
that the fight be waged on many fronts. We cannot afford to focus on either the
ivory tower or on public opinion to the exclusion of the other. The Design of Life
fits in as a bridge between these two fields, both facilitating the transfer of
sophisticated argument to a popular audience and equipping budding academics.
A caveat about ID
The Design of Life is squarely within the Intelligent Design (ID) camp.
This book embodies many of the valuable contributions that ID has made to the origins
debate, most notably fresh presentations of important creationist arguments (such
as the argument based on information). But this book also embraces the key philosophical
and theological flaw in the ID movement: the unwillingness to identify the designer.
The issue is rarely addressed in the book, but when it comes up, Dembski and Wells
quickly make it clear that the designer need not look at all like any typical concept
of God (certainly not the God of Scripture). They write, ‘ … an intelligence
that brought life into existence need not be supernatural—it could be a teleological
organizing principle that is built into nature and thus be perfectly natural’
(p. 262).
This, of course, is in line with ID’s ‘big tent’ strategy, trying
to unite all possible opponents to Darwinism from whatever religious background.
Strategically, this is supposed to bring together the most possible people to oppose
Darwinism, and also emphasize the scientific (as opposed to ‘religious’)
basis for design. That this is generally well intentioned I have no doubt. But when
this allows for appeals to ‘teleological organizing principles’, the
efficacy of this strategy is questionable—it hardly sounds ‘more respectable’
than the discredited vitalism or ‘life force’ that some early evolutionists
appealed to,11 with almost
pantheistic overtones.12
(Vitalism is refuted by the biblical teaching that God finished His work
of creation after Day 6 (Gen. 2:3).)
It’s also worth noting that ID’s ‘big tent’ claim rings
hollow at times. While the ID camp does credit young-earth creationists for opposing
evolution and for pioneering the information argument (Prof. A.E. Wilder-Smith13), they too often pretend
by omission that YECs make little contributions to the design argument today.14
Whether leaving the identity of the designer for later is good strategy or not,
it is assuredly bad theology. Salvation rests not on the fact that we were
designed, but on the intervention of the designer as the identifiable Saviour, Jesus
Christ.15 And soteriology
is just the tip of the iceberg. If Christianity is true, and the Bible is the very
revelation of God, then we have a duty to take every thought captive to the obedience
of Christ, to do all things to the glory of God. As Christians, we must recognize
God’s sovereignty over biology as well as everything else. But the standard
ID approach states that if design happened, the identity of the designer is a question
that is yet to be determined. Unfortunately, this stands in opposition to any robust
Christian scholarship. If, on the one hand, we believe God’s word to be the
truth, and God to be the sovereign creator of all things, it does not appear consistent
to say on the other hand that the designer’s identity is inconsequential (or,
worse, is ‘up for grabs’) in the field of science.16 Avoiding the identity of the designer has another
significant problem: it gets in the way of important scientific and philosophical
theorizing. Dembski and Wells suggest that we don’t have to know the designer’s
identity to learn things about that designer—we don’t have to know who
the designer is to recognize that the designer is ‘not less than a nano-engineer’,
for instance (p. 254). What this standard ID position fails to recognize, however,
is that this minimalist approach fails to meet another aspect of the Darwinian challenge.
And as long as the ID camp is unwilling to face the question of the identity of
the designer, it never will be able to offer an alternate historical account of
origins.
Darwinism is history as much as it is anything else. Since ID lacks a coherent
history of the acts of a designer, it has two major vulnerabilities that misotheists
(like Richard Dawkins) and theistic evolutionists (like Kenneth Miller, see pp.
19–23)17 exploit:
- Apparent ‘bad design’ in the world, as well as design features that
are designed to hurt. But biblical creationists recognize that we live in a cursed
world that resulted from the Fall of Adam, so we are not seeing the world as originally
created.
- Extinctions and the fossil record: why would a designer be so incompetent that his
creatures die out? But this death is not only the result of the Fall, but also the
global Flood.18
And as long as the ID camp is unwilling to face the question of the identity of
the designer, it never will be able to offer an alternate historical account of
origins. Without the historical framework (which does depend on the identity of
the designer), ID can challenge Darwinism on many fronts, but it does not have the
stuff to replace Darwinism. In the words of an old political cliché, ‘You
can’t beat something with nothing.’19
All of this to say, The Design of Life, like all ID materials, must be
used with care. Biblical creationists cannot adopt the theological strategy of ID,
but at the same time, we cannot afford to miss out on the important work done by
the ID community. We must be strategic and make the most of the common interests
we share with ID, without compromising our theological and philosophical position.
Conclusion
The Design of Life is a well-conceived and well-written textbook. And the
textbook label should not be taken to mean that the book is any less interesting
than it would have been in another format. True, books usually sell to general audiences
when they are enjoyable to read, and textbooks generally sell to a captive audience
of students who are required to read the books by their teachers. Often, as a result,
textbooks can afford to be painstaking with detail and choppy in presentation. But
Dembski and Wells cannot count on their book being assigned by many teachers at
the moment. Contrary to the textbook stereotype, Dembski and Wells managed to use
a textbook format for some very good and readable writing, synthesizing a great
amount of information. Hopefully, it will get the attention it deserves.
Related Articles
Further reading
References
- Before its release, Dembski was calling it ‘The definitive
book on intelligent design’ on his website. The Design of Life , 6 December
2007, <www.designinference.com>. Return to text.
- Davis, P. and Kenyon, D.H., Of Pandas and People: The
Central Question of Biological Origins, 2nd ed., Foundation for Thought and
Ethics, Dallas, 1993. Return to text.
- Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D.
Pa. 2005). For a detailed critique of the court opinion itself, see DeWolf, D.K.,
West, J.G. and Luskin, C., Intelligent Design will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover,
Montana Law Review 68:7, 2007. Return to
text.
- The giraffe has been frequently discussed in creationist literature:
see, e.g. Bergman, J., The giraffe’s neck: another icon of evolution falls,
J. Creation 16(1)120–127, 2002; Jaroncyk, R. and
Wieland, C., The giraffe’s neck: icon of evolution or icon of creation?
creation.com/giraffe2, 5 January 2007. Return to text.
- That is, a pathway in which each step advances one functional
goal, which can then be ‘selected’ by natural selection.
Return to text.
- That is, a pathway in which each step advances one functional
goal, which can then be ‘selected’ by natural selection, and is then
later co-opted for an entirely different function, which can then itself be ‘selected’
by natural selection. Return to text.
- See further: Weinberger, L.,
Whose god? Identifying the god of the gaps, J. Creation 22(1)120–127,
2008. Return to text.
- The primary source on this argument is Dembski, The Design
Inference, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, reviewed by Truman,
R., Divining design, J. Creation
13(2):34–39, 1999. For popular level expositions of the argument,
see Dembski, Intelligent Design, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois,
pp. 153–83, 1999; Dembski, Signs of Intelligence, in Dembski, W.A. and Kushiner,
J.M., (Eds.), Signs of Intelligence, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, pp.
171–92, 2001. Return to text.
- See Bergman, J.,
Why the Miller Urey research argues against abiogenesis, J. Creation
18(2):74–82, 2002. Return to text.
- See also Mills, G.C. and Kenyon, D.H., The RNA World: A Critique,
Origins and Design 17(1):9–16, 1996; <www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/rnaworld171.htm>.
Return to text.
- See, for examples, Serafini, A., The Epic History of
Biology, Plenum, New York, pp. 142, 176, 236, 1993. The post-Darwinian vitalists
thought that their theory saved evolution from materialism, fearing (as one historian
has written) ‘that if there is no superadded life force in living beings,
… nothing but matter is left.’ Barzun, J., Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique
of a Heritage, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, p. 52, 1958. Return
to text.
- Compare also Pièrre Teilhard de Chardin’s mystical
description of ‘directed evolution’ (which, he believed, culminated
in ‘something he termed the ‘Omega point’, which he identified
with Jesus Christ’). Ruse, M., Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, p. 85, 2001; reviewed by Weinberger, L.,
Preaching to his own choir, J. Creation 19(2):42–45,
2005. Teilhard, actually, probably would not mind having his work characterized
as somewhat pantheist in its overtones—he was quite forthright about acknowledging
his sympathies for elements of pantheism. See his essay, Pantheism and Christianity;
in: Teilhard de Chardin, P., Christianity and Evolution, René Hague,
trans., Harcourt, New York, pp. 56–75, 2002. See also Lane, D.H., The Phenomenon
of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age, Mercer University Press, Macon, GA,
1996. Return to text.
- Dembski, W., www.designinference.com/documents/2005.02.Reply_to_Henry_Morris.htm,
1 February 2005; and see the critical response by Sarfati, J., ID theorist blunders
on Bible,
creation.com/dembski, 7 February 2005. Return to text.
- For example, Sarfati, J., By Design: Evidence for nature’s
Intelligent Designer—the God of the Bible, Creation Book Publishers,
2008. Return to text.
- Sarfati, ref. 14, ch. 16. Return to text.
- This problem with ID can also be stated in more philosophical
terms: basically, ID has embraced the naïve Baconian approach to science, empirical
research, and objectivity. See Weinberger, L.,
The problem with naturalism, the problem with empiricism, J. Creation
22(2):28–31, 2008. Return to text.
- Woodmorrappe, J.,
Miller’s meanderings: only the same bogus contentions, J. Creation
23(1):19–23, 2009. Return to text.
- Sarfati, ref. 14, chs. 12–13. Return
to text.
- Although, as other writers have pointed out, just because
nothing is offered ‘in place of theory X’ hardly means that theory X
(Darwinism in this case) is correct. Return to text.
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