Irreducible match of orchid and moth?

From a book by Darwin on orchids I had heard contained a passage about a prediction Darwin had made based on the length of the “nectary” of a species of orchid in Madagascar that was ten to eleven inches long. Quite a long “nectary,” which raised the question, what species could reach that far inside the orchid to enjoy its nectar and pass along the orchidʼs pollen to the next orchid? Darwin reasoned that “in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!” No such moth species was known at the time, and they were only discovered years after Darwinʼs death. The length of the nectary appears to have evolved along with the length of the tongue of a particular moth species (perhaps other moth species were also evolving longer tongues at first, but only this species was able to keep up with the lengthening of the orchid?).

Was a designer playing games in designing this oddly irreducible match between this species of orchid and this species of long-tongued moth? Or did this irreducible match come about by virtue of the moths with the longest tongues surviving to continually lick up a source of nectar available only to them? Any strong opinions either way?
Best, Ed

The writings of Charles Darwin on the web
by John van Wyhe Ph.D.

Darwin, On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised. London, John Murray, 1862.

Chapter V.

I fear that the reader will be wearied, but I must say a few words on the Angræcum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travellers in Madagascar. A whip-like green nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. In several flowers sent me by Mr. Bateman I found the nectaries eleven and a half inches long, with only the lower

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inch and a half filled with very sweet nectar. What can be the use, it may be asked, of a nectary of such disproportional length? We shall, I think, see that the fertilization of the plant depends on this length and on nectar being contained only within the lower and attenuated extremity. It is, however, surprising that any insect should be able to reach the nectar: our English sphinxes have probosces as long as their bodies: but in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!

[…]

If the Angræcum in its native forests secretes more nectar than did the vigorous plants sent me by Mr. Bateman, so that the nectary becomes filled, small moths might obtain their share, but they would not benefit the plant. The pollinia would not be withdrawn until some huge moth, with a wonderfully long proboscis, tried to drain the last drop. If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angræcum would become extinct. On the other

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hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from depredation by other insects, the extinction of the Angræcum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. We can thus partially understand how the astonishing length of the nectary may have been acquired by successive modifications. As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life, either in the larval or mature state, or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angræcum and other deep tubular flowers, those individual plants of the Angræcum which had the longest nectaries (and the nectary varies much in length in some Orchids), and which, consequently, compelled the moths to insert their probosces up to the very base, would be fertilized. These plants would yield most seed, and the seedlings would generally inherit longer nectaries; and so it would be in successive generations of the plant and moth. Thus it would appear that there has been a race in gaining length between the nectary of the Angræcum and the proboscis

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of certain moths; but the Angræcum has triumphed, for it flourishes and abounds in the forests of Madagascar, and still troubles each moth to insert its proboscis as far as possible in order to drain the last drop of nectar.

I am familiar with this puzzling case. But, try to write out a specific detailed Neo-Darwinian genetic sequence for it.

Me? I canʼt even write out a genetic sequence to make Cambellʼs soup. Darwin knew there were moths with longer tongues than most other species of orchid pollinators [like butterflies and bees and flies] and those moth species pollinated orchids with longer nectaries than most. Darwin assumed in this extraordinary case it was a moth with a tongue ten to eleven inches long getting to the nectar. He was right.

Do I know why the orchidʼs nectary evolved to such a length, or why the mothʼs tongue continued evolving to such a length to reach the base of the nectary? Perhaps because as the nectary grew longer the nectar became the sole property of whomeverʼs tongue could reach it, and thus a nitch for food opened up that no other creatures could reach, ensuring that whomever reached that niche could have all the spoils to themselves, a rich prize. And only those whose tongues could reach it, continued to reach it. While the shorter tongued cousins of the long-tongued moths settled for more hotly contested shorter nectaries, or grew extinct.

Philosophe, If you are out of your depth, perhaps you will accept my suggestion that no one can describe the genetic sequence, which at best would only be a series of guesses.

What is a philosophe? Someone from Voltaireʼs day? And what did it used to mean to call someone “Ms. Philosophe?” (Is Ms. an abbreviation of “Monsieur?”)

I agree with you that I am out of my depth. Who isnʼt “out of their depth” at this point and with our limited knowledge? I bet that moth and its near cousins in Madagascar are no where near having their genomes elucidated and compared and evolutionists are no where near understanding how everything functions and changes in such species.

For the rest, you seem to be describing a directed evolutionary theory, not evolution with chance alteration of the genome, a path I am confident you do not want to follow. It did not require much ingenuity to propose that such a flower would require an insect with a long tongue, or one small enough to make the trek by foot.

I thought about the question the same way, and thought why not a really small insect like a teeny beetle creeping down that ten to eleven inch long nectary for the nectar? Maybe because a single moth with a long tongue made more sense based on the cousin species of moths that already pollinate cousin species of that species of orchid in Madegascar, and Darwin assumed that evolution works with whatʼs already there?

Perhaps you might like to try your hand at writing some scenarios for the separate development of the human sex organs. You might even make the explanation amusing, perhaps leading to a Hollywood contract.

Wow, what a challenge! And a Hollywood contract to boot! But didnʼt Woody Allen already do the movie version of Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask? Seriously, Lynn Marguilis has written on the evolution of sex, though I donʼt know if sheʼs talked much about the evolution of human sex organs. From what little I know it does appear that in the womb early on we are all “female” moreso than “male,” relatively speaking. The gonads remain relatively in place for females while the male of the species has his gonads descend via two openings in the lower abdomen, and the tubules that lead from his gonads to his urethra have to grow longer since they are stretched up and around the tubules leading from his kidneys to his bladder (do I have that right?). The male prostate is another confusing matter, and doesnʼt appear to function very well where it is, causing difficulties with urination, especially as we age. (Speaking of difficulties as we age, whatʼs with “wisdom teeth” anyway?) As you can see Iʼm out of my depth in this matter as well. But are I.D.ers more in their depth concerning such subjects?

Daring scientists to explain one thing and then another thing, first the moth and orchid, then the evolution of sexual organs, including all the environmental/sexual/embryonic selective pressures and the kind and order of genomic mutations that occured over periods of thousands to millions of years, seems quite a task to demand of anyone.

Knowing that such matters have not been explained, I.D.erʼs jump in and explain it their way, by saying “it was a Designer!” I.D. class in college is going to be relatively short if most explanations come down to “Thatʼs just the Designer doing his thing, donʼt ask him how! That would be like trying to peek in Godʼs closet and thereʼs no point to that, since we already know itʼs I.D.” (Less Christian instructors will add that the Designer might also be aliens or time travelers.)

It does not appear to me that the I.D. explanation will take science any where, though it will doubtlessly absorb the minds of children with unquestioning reverence of some sort, toward either God, aliens or time travellers.

Still, I must add that there are also Darwinian Christian evolutionists who have reverence for God. Todayʼs prime example might be biologist Kenneth Miller who continues to debate with I.D.ers head to head.
Another such Christian appears to be Howard Van Till who refuses to align himself with the I.D. movement. Around the turn of the century there were others. See Darwinʼs Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought by David N. Livingstone. They appear to agree that perhaps a creation that required constant miraculous adjustments over zillions of years wasnʼt such a great reflection on the creator after all. But if creatures evolved naturally and death and change were part of natural processes, as natural as new stars being formed and new elements being formed from simpler elements inside stars, then the Creator was all the more impressive in having been able to set such things up right from the beginning. I mean, itʼs one thing to have to keep pulling rabbits out your hat every day or century or year, but to make human beings out of seventeen-billion-year-old hydrogen, well, thatʼs even more impressive than making a human being out of a single cell in nine months. Itʼs quite a trick, makes the constant dipping into the magic hat look repetitive, tiresome. And then to also produce creatures curious enough to study and rediscover the whole natural process and follow the clues backward, why thatʼs quite an inspiration to enhance curiosity. Can I.D. truly compare with that?

“How I hate the man who talks about the ‘brute creation’ with an ugly emphasis on brute…As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees, and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?”
W. N. P. Barbellion

“When the rationality of the hross tempted you to think of it as a man…it became abominable — a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have…and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost…the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.”
C. S. Lewis, Out Of The Silent Planet (a Christian science-fiction novel)

So what if Darwinism gives atheists solace. Are the atheists to be denied solace? Is God, the true God and creator, really as insecure as creationists assert, and always going around blaming people for if they donʼt believe in him and praise him for everything? Maybe heʼs not particularly proud of everything he sometimes gets praise for? Like miraculous football passes, or finding oneʼs eyeglasses? Maybe he leaves a lot up to us, and likewise up to nature, because letting things do their own thing is cooler than being a micro-manager? Maybe thatʼs Godʼs lesson to us. And likewise, maybe he doesnʼt take credit when things go wrong either, like extinctions or volcanoes. A cosmos that runs itself and evolves itself is gonna have things that run into one another, jury-rigging is expected. Maybe this is not the best of all possible worlds, just the best of all possible Self-Evolving worlds? Anyway, thatʼs my three hundred dollars and Two Cents on those matters.

I originally brought up the “irreducible long-tongued moth and long-nectary orchid” because it seemed pretty straightforward: Lengthening nectary, lengthening tongue over time. Seems like it could happen, knowing other moths with longish tongues and orchids with longish nectaries. Though a designer might just as well have left both the length of the tongue and the length of the orchidʼs nectary of average size. (Thereʼs only a single known species of bedbug that stab-rapes other males of the same species so as to inject them with his sperm that then finds its way through the stabbed maleʼs organ into the female he has stab-raped. Other species of bedbug only stab-rape the female in the abdomen and the males do not stab-rape each other. Likewise though the Bombardier beetle has a moving squirt appendage which can direct its heated chemicals. Other cousin species donʼt have the moving appendage, and they spray the chemicals outward and also on themselves. And beetles of that type already produce the hydroquinones that are used in other capacities in beetles and already have anatomical divisions that could be used as the two chambers to store those chemicals. And thereʼs only one bird species than can fly backwards. And thereʼs only one species of orchid and moth with such very long tongues and nectaries. So for every marvelously specialized species there appear to be lots of less highly specialized cousins sharing similar anatomies and physiologies.)

Was the lengthening of the orchid and the lengthening of the mothʼs tongue directed? Who knows? The antlers on the heads of Irish elk apparently grew to increasing lengths over time, and then no more Irish elk, they became extinct. (Because of the increasing size and length of their enormous antlers? I donʼt know. No one knows. But the antlers of the Irish elk do appear to be of an awkward length — jutting out so far to each side — that I imagine just swinging itʼs head quickly from one to side to the other might create enough momentum to strain itʼs neck — not a genuine hypothesis, just a joke based on the momentum of twisting and twirling objects, not to mention how such antlers could make it difficult to maneuver and double park in a forest full of trees). Perhaps that orchid with its long nectary might become extinct one day, having specialized itself into extinction, and if that moth is only especially attracted to that orchidʼs nectar it too could become extinct. There are tapir-like species in the fossil record that show up again later in time with increasingly elongated noses and a pair of elongated teeth until species with longer noses and longer front teeth appear and finally the first elephants with trunks and tusks appear. All thatʼs left today are the modern day tapir and the modern day elephant with those other species between them having gone extinct. If I.D. is life-giving and every one of its irreducible specializations demonstrates the farsighted perfection of an intelligent Designer, then why all the extinctions? Why are the earliest birds more like ancient reptiles than modern day birds? I mean if we found a hummingbird (the only one that can fly backwards) among the earliest birds, Iʼd be surprised, but we donʼt. We find birds with reptilian shaped triangular skulls with the same shaped individual skull bones as reptiles, and other features that label them as “birds in progress.” (How competent a Designer are we talking about?) And then once the progress has been achieved every early birds is wiped out. In this case the early bird did not catch the worm, it caught the grave. And this happens time and again. Mammal-like reptiles. Wiped out. All those mesyonchids with those weird shaped ear bones that resembled early whaleʼs ears, wiped out, not good enough I guess. (How competent a Designer are we talking about?) All those early Eocene whales, Ambulocetus, Rhodocetus, Basilosaurus, wiped out. Leaving only the species we see today, which still pop out embryonic hind legs in the womb where they are reabsorbed — or in some cases are not completely reabsorbed and we find a grown whale with bumps on its hind regions that contain (when x-rayed) a small femur, tibia, fibula and phalanges. (How competent a Designer are we talking about?)

Those are questions that I think are as valid as any others.

Mark Twain Questions the Intelligent Design (I.D.) Hypothesis

Not many people know that Mark Twain wrote an article in 1903 that questioned the “I.D.”-like hypothesis of Alfred Russell Wallace, who appears to have argued for an early version of the “anthropic principle.” Twainʼs depiction of evolution below, with the evolution of life taking place in a mere “hundred million years” and with both men and birds evolving from the Pterodactyl, is intentionally farcical. Twain deliberately wants to appear bumpkinish in his ideas of evolution (and in the silly names he invents for species) to make the essays final “I Dunno” all the more poignant.

Following Twainʼs essay is another titled, “Little Bessie” from an uncompleted work, The Myth of Providence, that fits in with the theme in the essay below.

I do not present these essays as the last word in the I.D. / Darwinism debate, though I do think that whomever reads them may gain a firmer grasp of the fact that the present dispute is not likely to be “settled” any time soon. (My own middle of the road “Divine Tinkerer” hypothesis does not appeal to many though I find it hopeful without being unrealistic.)

Best, Edward T. Babinski

“Was The World Made For Man?” [1903]

“Alfred Russell Wallaceʼs revival of the theory that this earth is at the center of the stellar universe, and is the only habitable globe, has aroused great interest in the world.”—Literary Digest

“For ourselves we do thoroughly believe that man, as he lives just here on this tiny earth, is in essence and possibilities the most sublime existence in all the range of non-divine being—the chief love and delight of God.”—Chicago “Interior” (Presb.)

I seem to be the only scientist and theologian still remaining to be heard from on this important matter of whether the world was made for man or not. I feel that it is time for me to speak.

I stand almost with the others. They believe the world was made for man, I believe it likely that it was made for man; they think there is proof, astronomical mainly, that it was made for man, I think there is evidence only, not proof, that it was made for him. It is too early, yet, to arrange the verdict, the returns are not all in. When they are all in, I think they will show that the world was made for man; but we must not hurry, we must patiently wait till they are all in.

Now as far as we have got, astronomy is on our side. Mr. Wallace has clearly shown this. He has clearly shown two things: that the world was made for man, and that the universe was made for the world—to steady it, you know. The astronomy part is settled, and cannot be challenged.

We come now to the geological part. This is the one where the evidence is not all in, yet. It is coming in, hourly, daily, coming in all the time, but naturally it comes with geological carefulness and deliberation, and we must not be impatient, we must not get excited, we must be calm, and wait. To lose our tranquillity will not hurry geology; nothing hurries geology.

It takes a long time to prepare a world for man, such a thing is not done in a day. Some of the great scientists, carefully deciphering the evidences furnished by geology, have arrived at the conviction that our world is prodigiously old, and they may be right, but Lord Kelvin is not of their opinion. He takes a cautious, conservative view, in order to be on the safe side, and feels sure it is not so old as they think. As Lord Kelvin is the highest authority in science now living, I think we must yield to him and accept his view. He does not concede that the world is more than a hundred million years old. He believes it is that old, but not older. Lyell believed that our race was introduced into the world 31,000 years ago, Herbert Spencer makes it 32,000. Lord Kelvin agrees with Spencer.

Very well. According to Kelvinʼs figures it took 99,968,000 years to prepare the world for man, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see him and admire him. But a large enterprise like this has to be conducted warily, painstakingly, logically. It was foreseen that man would have to have the oyster. Therefore the first preparation was made for the oyster. Very well, you cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oysterʼs ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety of invertebrates, to start with—belemnites, trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them to soak in a primary sea, and wait and see what will happen. Some will be a disappointments - the belemnites, the ammonites and such; they will be failures, they will die out and become extinct, in the course of the 19,000,000 years covered by the experiment, but all is not lost, for the amalekites will fetch the home-stake; they will develop gradually into encrinites, and stalactites, and blatherskites, and one thing and another as the mighty ages creep on and the Archaean and the Cambrian Periods pile their lofty crags in the primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of the world for man stands completed, the Oyster is done. An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it is reason ably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen-million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme, yet.

The oyster being achieved, the next thing to be arranged for in the preparation of the world for man, was fish. Fish, and coal to fry it with. So the Old Silurian seas were opened up to breed the fish in, and at the same time the great work of building Old Red Sandstone mountains 80,000 feet high to cold-storage their fossils in was begun. This latter was quite indispensable, for there would be no end of failures again, no end of extinctions—millions of them—and it would be cheaper and less trouble to can them in the rocks than keep tally of them in a book. One does not build the coal beds and 80,000 feet of perpendicular Old Red Sandstone in a brief time—no, it took twenty million years. In the first place, a coal bed is a slow and troublesome and tiresome thing to construct. You have to grow prodigious forests of tree-ferns and reeds and calamities and such things in a marshy region; then you have, to sink them under out of sight and let them rot; then you have to turn the streams on them, so as to bury them under several feet of sediment, and the sediment must have time to harden and turn to rock; next you must grow another forest on top, then sink it and put on another layer of sediment and harden it; then more forest and more rock, layer upon layer, three miles deep—ah, indeed it is a sickening slow job to build a coal-measure and do it right!

So the millions of years drag on; and meantime the fish-culture is lazying along and frazzling out in a way to make a person tired. You have developed ten thousand kinds of fishes from the oyster; and come to look, you have raised nothing but fossils, nothing but extinctions. There is nothing left alive and progressive but a ganoid or two and perhaps half a dozen asteroids. Even the cat wouldnʼt eat such. Still, it is no great matter; there is plenty of time, yet, and they will develop into something tasty before man is ready for them. Even a ganoid can be depended on for that, when he is not going to be called on for sixty million years.

The Palaeozoic time-limit having now been reached, it was necessary to begin the next stage in the preparation of the world for man, by opening up the Mesozoic Age and instituting some reptiles. For man would need reptiles. Not to eat, but to develop himself from. This being the most important detail of the scheme, a spacious liberality of time was set apart for it—thirty million years. What wonders followed! From the remaining ganoids and asteroids and alkaloids were developed by slow and steady and pains-taking culture those stupendous saurians that used to prowl about the steamy world in those remote ages, with their snaky heads reared forty feet in the air and sixty feet of body and tail racing and thrashing after. All gone, now, alas—all extinct, except the little handful of Arkansawrians left stranded and lonely with us here upon this far-flung verge and fringe of time.

Yes, it took thirty million years and twenty million reptiles to get one that would stick long enough to develop into something else and let the scheme proceed to the next step.

Then the Pterodactyl burst upon the world in all his impressive solemnity and grandeur, and all Nature recognized that the Cainozoic threshold was crossed and a new Period open for business, a new stage begun in the preparation of the globe for man. It may be that the Pterodactyl thought the thirty million years had been intended as a preparation for himself, for there was nothing too foolish for a Pterodactyl to imagine, but he was in error, the preparation was for man, Without doubt the Pterodactyl attracted great attention, for even the least observant could see that there was the making of a bird in him. And so it turned out. Also the makings of a mammal, in time. One thing we have to say to his credit, that in the matter of picturesqueness he was the triumph of his Period; he wore wings and had teeth, and was a starchy and wonderful mixture altogether, a kind of long-distance premonitory symptom of Kiplingʼs marine:

ʻE isnʼt one Oʼthe regʼlar Line,
nor ʻe isnʼt one of the crew,
ʻEʼs a kind of a giddy harumfrodite [hermaphrodite] —
soldier anʼ sailor too!

From this time onward for nearly another thirty million years the preparation moved briskly. From the Pterodactyl was developed the bird; from the bird the kangaroo, from the kangaroo the other marsupials; from these the mastodon, the megatherium, the giant sloth, the Irish elk, and all that crowd that you make useful and instructive fossils out of—then came the first great Ice Sheet, and they all retreated before it and crossed over the bridge at Behringʼs strait and wandered around over Europe and Asia and died. All except a few, to carry on the preparation with. Six Glacial Periods with two million years between Periods chased these poor orphans up and down and about the earth, from weather to weather—from tropic swelter at the poles to Arctic frost at the equator and back again and to and fro, they never knowing what kind of weather was going to turn up next; and if ever they settled down anywhere the whole continent suddenly sank under them without the least notice and they had to trade places with the fishes and scramble off to where the seas had been, and scarcely a dry rag on them; and when there was nothing else doing a volcano would let go and fire them out from wherever they had located. They led this unsettled and irritating life for twenty-five million years, half the time afloat, half the time aground, and always wondering what it was all for, they never suspecting, of course, that it was a preparation for man and had to be done just so or it wouldnʼt be any proper and harmonious place for him when he arrived.

And at last came the monkey, and anybody could see that man wasnʼt far off, now. And in truth that was so. The monkey went on developing for close upon 5,000,000 years, and then turned into a man - to all appearances.

Such is the history of it. Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the worldʼs age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent manʼs share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.

---

Also by Mark Twain, “Little Bessie,” The Myth of Providence

“In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us afflictions to discipline us and make us better…All of them. None of them comes by accident; He alone sends them, and always out of love for us, and to make us better, my child.”

“Did He give Billy Norris the typhus, mamma?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Why, to discipline him and make him good.”

“But he died, mamma, and so it couldnʼt make him good.”

“Well, then, I suppose it was for some other reason. We know it was a good reason, whatever it was.”

After a pause: “Did He make the roof fall on the stranger that was trying to save the crippled old woman from the fire, mamma?”

“Yes, my child. Wait! Donʼt ask me why, because I donʼt know. I only know it was to discipline some one, or be a judgment upon somebody, or to show His power.”

“That drunken man that stuck a pitchfork into Mrs. Welchʼs baby when…”

“Never mind about it, you neednʼt go into particulars; it was to discipline the child - that much is certain, anyway.”

“Mamma, Mr. Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid, and lockjaw, and more than a thousand other sicknesses and, mamma, does He send them?”

“Oh, certainly, child, certainly. Of course.”

“What for?”

“Oh, to discipline us! Havenʼt I told you so, over and over again?”

“Itʼs awful cruel, mamma! And silly! And if I…”

“Hush, oh hush! Do you want to bring the lightning?”

“You know the lightning did come last week, mamma, and struck the new church, and burnt it down. Was it to discipline the church?”

(Wearily) “Oh, I suppose so.”

“But it killed a hog that wasnʼt doing anything. Was it to discipline the hog, mamma?”

“Dear child, donʼt you want to run out and play a while? If you would like to…”

“Mamma, Mr. Hollister says there isnʼt a bird or fish or reptile or any other animal that hasnʼt got an enemy that Providence has sent to bite it and chase it and pester it, and kill it, and suck its blood and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mamma, because if it is true, why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?”

“That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I donʼt want you to listen to anything he says.”

“Why, mamma, he is very interesting, and I think he tries to be good. He says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down their nests in the ground - alive, mama! - and there they live and suffer days and days and days, and hungry little baby wasps chew the spiderʼs legs and gnaw into their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and ever so kind; for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that, he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he…”

“My child! oh, do for goodnessʼ sake…”

“And mamma, he says the spider is appointed to catch the fly, and drive her fangs into his bowels, and sucks and sucks and sucks his blood, to discipline him and make him a Christian; and whenever the fly buzzes his wings with the pain and misery of it, you can see by the spiderʼs grateful eye that she is thanking the Giver of All Good for…well, sheʼs saying grace, as he says; and also, he…”

“Oh, arenʼt you ever going to get tired chattering! If you want to go out and play…”

“Mamma, he says himself that all troubles and pains and miseries and rotten diseases and horrors and villainies are sent to us in mercy and kindness to discipline us; and he says it is the duty of every father and mother to help Providence, every way they can; and says they canʼt do it by just scolding and whipping, for that wonʼt answer, it is weak and no good - Providenceʼs invention for disciplining us and the animals is the very brightest idea that ever was. Mamma, brother Eddie needs disciplining, right away; and I know where you can get the smallpox for him, and the itch, and the diphtheria, and bone-rot, and heart disease, and tuberculosis, and…
Dear mama, have you fainted?”

“God” and Chaotic Inflation Theory

Excerpts from “It Doesnʼt Take All That Much To Create A Universe

Danieru wrote: It doesnʼt take all that much to create a universe. Resources on a cosmic scale are not required. It might even be possible for someone in a not terribly advanced civilization to cook up a new universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how our universe came into being?

“When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter,” Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I reached him by phone at Stanford. “Thatʼs enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but thatʼs how the inflation theory works—all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So, whatʼs to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!”
[…]
“You might take this all as a joke,” he said, “but perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker.”

Lindeʼs theory gives scientific muscle to the notion of a universe created by an intelligent being. It might be congenial to Gnostics, who believe that the material world was fashioned not by a benevolent supreme being but by an evil demiurge. More orthodox believers, on the other hand, will seek refuge in the question, “But who created the physicist hacker?” Letʼs hope itʼs not hackers all the way up. - The Big Lab Experiment
The idea that universes somehow ‘evolve’ stems naturally from this.

A universe capable of maintaining life expands, cools and grapples with its own entropic forces
The life evolving within that universe has enough time and resilience to achieve a level of intelligence equal or greater to our own
That life becomes aware of other universes (perhaps of an infinite variety) residing in higher dimensions of reality
The desire to join in the multiversal fun grows beyond all reason…

At this point a baby universe is made in a lab, or by whatever means, and branches off. The baby universe contains enough of the ‘genetic’ information of the parent universe for it to be deemed a relative.

Perhaps intelligent life tweaks the contributing factors in its baby universe, effectively altering its composition to suit their self-reflective needs. In this way universes would evolve, intelligent life being their means of procreation. Perhaps all reality is this way. Perhaps our universe is still in its infancy, a larger, protective parent exerting its gravitational force across the many planes of the multiverse.

Perhaps…

Dr. Orphusi writes:
I like this hypothesis.

Itʼs not unlikely that our universe has already spawned a baby universe, fostered to life by an intelligent species in some far off galaxy that had a head-start on us. I wonder what sort of universe they have created?

But hereʼs a question…

We speak of spawning baby ‘universes’, but perhaps we can only really create galaxies/worlds within a single sub-universe, or more precisely, a single reality, the one which is created by our hands in our reality. How can I explain this…?

When and if we create a baby universe of our own, I think that it could be a part of the same sub-universe as the one created by the hypothetical ‘other’ intelligent species in some far away galaxy.

So their baby universe is really just a part of the sub-reality in which our own baby universe is a part…

And it keeps cascading downwards, one reality at a time…

Although itʼs possible that because the nature of the consciousness of each species (human, extraterrestrial) is different (is it, I wonder?), then the universes we create will naturally be separately realized.

Either way, itʼs an intriguing question. However I believe our universe is beyond its infancy… we canʼt guess at the extraterrestrial chances of self-reflection, but when man first perceived the world and himself, it was then that the universe changed… like a blind baby recently emerged from its motherʼs womb, opening its eyes for the first time. But more analogously, I think our universe is akin to a child that can begin to remember, that can speak and make sense of its thoughts. Its growing up as we grow up.

Ishmael writes:
Iʼd be interested to know how Lindeʼs theory comes to terms with the first law of thermodynamics—while itʼs probably pointless for a non-physicist such as myself to wonder about such things, the technical details of a pocket universe would seem to offer some clue as to their nature.

For instance, assuming that they do obey the laws of thermodynamics—that no energy is created in the creation of a new universe, and that they simply subsist on the energy of the tiny chunk of matter that they are created from in the parent universe, does that mean that their energy levels are simply “scaled down” from ours? And what of the sizes of fundamental particles? Are their protons small than our protons? But that would seem to contradict one of the most interesting passages in the article, namely that such constants are variable:

But then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator and creation—the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, has the power to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being. So says the theory. He can determine, for example, what the numerical ratio of the electronʼs mass to the protonʼs will be. Such ratios, called constants of nature, look like arbitrary numbers to us: There is no obvious reason they should take one value rather than another. (Why, for instance, is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with the digits 6673?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these dozens of constants, could write a subtle message into the very structure of the universe. And, as Linde hastened to point out, such a message would be legible only to physicists.

(Insert here the obligatory reference to Contact. Note also the relationship between the present topic and Stephen Baxterʼs excellent Manifold trilogy, in which (spoilers) the first book resolves the Fermi Paradox by positing multiple universes, some sterile, some life-bearing, and one (ours) just lucky enough to eke out one sentient civilization—a fluke—but a fluke that enables the protagonist to have a hand in the creation of another, more promising universe.)

But then, perhaps pocket universes do not obey the first law—at least in the sense that we know it. Let “Existence” denote the sum of all universes and pocket universes. Perhaps the total amount of energy in Existence is constant, but fluid throughout its constituent universes. That is, energy does exit and enter any given universe* while coursing through the totality. This idea could gel in several ways with Dr. Orphusiʼs ideas of multiple realities; i.e., energy is constant within a reality, but does not travel between them. This would still mean, though, that there is a “direction” to the flow of energy throughout Existence. That older universes die while young ones are born, the energy leaving them and pouring into the new creations, and actually, unless there is some bracketing factor such as Orphusi suggests, the multiplicative proliferation of new universes would demand more energy than Existence is able to provide, and none of the pocket universes would have the energy to develop into universes at all, much less life-bearing ones. Essentially, itʼs heat death all over again. Or have I missed something essential?

*Note the presence of undeveloped and probably incoherent ideas here about dark energy and the weakness of gravity. Prompted in part by Danieruʼs poetic conclusion “across the many planes of the multiverse,” and in part by some Scientific American article I read long ago about gravityʼs strange weakness compared to the other fundamental forces, perhaps accountable by its operation through many universes.

There is also the question, returning briefly to my inquiries about scale, of instability below the Planck length. If, as the article says, a pocket universe would not expand outward, consuming its parent, but would curl inward until it is imperceptibly tiny, at what point do new universes become impossible because of the random energy fluctuations that permeate space? Or does it possess its own space? I hope someone here knows more about physics than I do…

Annnd, winding up now, for now, let us not forget virtual universes, a subject near and dear to my heart. What are the possibilities, if any, for sentient life (or simply life, if you see a difference…) to develop in a virtual universe? Such a universe would necessarily be limited by the physical constraints of its parent universe (its largest possible scope being the parent universe itself, if you buy the idea of our universe as a giant computer), but as we have seen on the Exponentially Small Planet Earth, one hardly need simulate a universe to obtain life. It would seem not to, in fact, take a village to raise a child, if by “village” you mean galaxy or interstellar community, and if by “child” you mean us. Many more thoughts here, but methinks I ought best stop typing.

Danieru writes:
Many thoughts Iʼll dare to dwell on… Lovely replies…

Gravity is the only force thought to permeate the dimensional barriers. As Ishmael alludes to, gravity is undoubtedly the weakest force we have knowledge of (a magnet the size of a pea can overcome the gravity of the entire planet Earth when used to pick up a paper clip). Yet gravity is the true craftsman of reality, carving pathways which galaxies, planets and people can roam; building pockets of entropically divergent matter where life finds time to evolve.

I like the idea that the beginning of the universe, i.e. the big bang, is a black hole in reverse (a white hole). Michio Kaku manages this image better than I:

If the singularity at the center of a black hole lies in the future, representing a final state, the singularity of a white hole lies in the past, as a beginning, as in the big bang. So if our universe is a white hole, the big question is: is there a black hole universe on the other side of the big bang?
So, youʼve spawned your baby universe in your massively expensive laboratory, but you are worried it will off-set the balance of nature (the first law of thermodynamics)? What if that first law could be balanced both in and outside the system we understand as this universe?

The baby universe is on the opposite side of a black hole for all intents and purposes. Perhaps it continues to feed off the energy of its parent, or maybe its black hole status is short lived; the bubble segmenting off from our reality and floating off into the multiverse alone. Either way, because energy is mass (Einstein says hello) and because all matter exerts gravity across the multidimensional planes, the baby universe and the parent universe would balance each other out. The baby universe might be obtaining energy from this reality, but in turn its gravitational presence acts as a stabilizing force, effectively keeping equilibrium in check across the planes.

Now, my physics here is shaky, granted, but you get my over all point: nothing, not even a universe, is completely self contained. Beyond the temporally formalized singularity we call ‘the beginning of time’ there is surely a primeval source of energy, and beyond that countless infinities more besides. Perhaps, if you take the perdurantist view on temporality, time itself should not be factored into the model we have drawn. In this way energy could enter the system at any point along the time axis, just as long as the first law of thermodynamics kept balance in balance in balance in balance throughout the entire system*….

Gets you thinking though for sure. Do all black holes lead to baby universes?

*The entire system in the perdurantistʼs view encompasses all the universe from the ‘beginning’ to the ‘end’ of time. Imagine time as a 4th dimension, effectively turning the universe into one fat 4 dimensional block of cheese. Slice through the cheese at the 14.3 billion year mark and youʼll find me typing this, you reading this or an empty forum in want of a conversation. Only by looking at the whole of the cheese can you be said to be perceiving the universe…

Author writes: I canʼt quite get my head around the fact that Iʼm looking at the inside of a sphere, which has a radius of the distance traveled by the light of the big bang; when Iʼm seeing the outside of the smallest sphere imaginable, seeing as how I look back to the beginning of time in all directions.

The Fine-Tuning Hypothesis, an alternative to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis

“Fine Tuners” acknowledge that “accident” may not be the best way to explain the whole cosmos, and they acknowledge “intelligence” in nature. But they also find that the Intelligent Design movement embraces faulty simplistic arguments and “proofs.” Here are some of the shakers and movers among the Fine Tuners:

1. Michael Denton (one of the “fathers” of the modern day “Intelligent Design” movement) in his second book, Natureʼs Destiny, proposes that evolution is inevitable. See the following in-depth review of Natureʼs Destiny at the “Was Darwin Wrong?” website.

   Even at the ARN website you can read about Denton and Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute) going at it on their way to a “Mere Creation” conference: First stop, who gets in but Paul Nelson. Paul and I have known each other. Then Thane Ury (Bethel College) gets in. We start talking and then son-of-a-gun Paul says, “There is Michael Denton”—I couldnʼt believe it. Lean 50-ish guy with a shock of white, close-cropped hair wearing a shirt that looks like the top for a pair of long underwear. I spent two weeks one summer vacation in Montana outlining various chapters from Evolution: A Theory in Crisis just to drive out the Darwinian poisons I imbibed from my motherʼs milk. The biggest shock was finding he is so engaging and approachable! He and Nelson started dukeing it out right away. It was fantastic. Here I was with a bad cold, barely holding on to my name tag, fortunate to have taken all the right turns thus far—and bango, the conference starts en route. Paul says “common ancestry is an assumption.” Denton says, “the such-and-such goes down and around the something else and why doesnʼt it just go straight across?” And Paul says, “But how do you know that the down and around isnʼt optimal?” I remember that point. Then Denton says, “Yeah but when you have delivered as many babies as I have you notice things.” He gestures downward with both hands cupped as though he is about to deliver one. He says “Right after they are born they go like this”—he then does a grasping motion with both hands raised. In my semi-fevered state I saw a new born hominid grasping its mothersʼ fur—right there in the van. He gave a name for the reflex [primate grasp] but even without it I could see that he knew a thing or two about how our kind and kin are born. The conversation in the van was not really a conversation. Denton started talking and gesturing in a very distinctive fashion. He makes his points by jabbing the air with his middle finger—quite unselfconsciously. Possibly this too is a primordial rhetorical reflex with an interesting aeteology. Denton proceeded to develop an evolutionary cosmology, the point of which is that there is abundant evidence for common descent and it is equally clear that evolution is directed and programmed. Indeed Denton affirmed two things—and this is apparently the thesis of his book now under contract at Simon and Schuster—that humankind literally is the point of creation and he is the end product of a divine design. Paul seemed to just let him go, but I sensed Paul was saving up for another time.

2. Howard Van Till (Christian evolutionist who teaches astronomy at Calvin College). I have exchanged a few brief emails with him and he once allowed me to cite passages from one of his books in an issue of Theistic Evolutionists Forum that I edited in the mid 1980s. Till was one of the contributors to Three Views on Creation and Evolution (Zondervan 1999) in which Till defended theistic evolution while Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute) defended young-earth creationism. Till and Nelson also traded barbs on the question of “Intelligent Design” in Zygon magazine: Howard J. Van Till (1999) “Does ‘Intelligent Design’ Have a Chance? An Essay Review” Zygon 34(4): 667 - 675. Paul A. Nelson (1999) “Is ‘Intelligent Design’ Unavoidable - Even By Howard Van Till? A Response” Zygon 34(4): 677- 682.

   Here is my review of Till and Nelsonʼs exchange in Zygon, my review was posted at the ASA website.

   (I also wrote a review of Nelsonʼs contribution in Three Views on Evolution and Creation. Sent on request.) For Tillʼs view of the I.D. movement see his article, “The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?” in Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics, ed. by Robert T. Pennock See also Tillʼs online essay.

   And his exchanges at the American Scientific Affiliation archive.

   Till also wrote a piece concerning I.D. that was published in Darwinism Defeated?

   See 3) below.

3. Denis O. Lamoureux (a Christian biology Prof., former creationist and co-author of the book-length debate, Darwinism Defeated? by

   Phillip E. Johnson,

   Denis O. Lamoureux,

   J. I. Packer

   Lamoureaux sent me his testimony about his change in viewpoint, and even shared with me a copy of his very first email exchange with Johnson, a letter that later became part of the above book. Lamoureuxʼs articles on “Evolutionary Creationism” and “The Philip Johnson Phenomenon”.

4. Other Christian Fine Tuners, besides Till and Lamoureux, have their articles at the American Scientific Affiliation website.

   The ASA is an older organization of Christians in science than ICR. The founder of ICR (Henry Morris), used to be a member of the ASA but when some ASA members began to question Morrisʼ young-earth creationism arguments, Morris left to form ICR and made all members of ICR sign a statement of faith concerning the age of the earth that kept out any who questioned Morrisʼ young-earth views.

5. The Zygon Center for Religion and Science produces a journal named Zygon with articles by many Fine Tuners.

   I already mentioned Van Tillʼs encounter with Paul Nelson in one issue of Zygon above. Zygon also links to other sites of Fine Tuners.

6. Kenneth Miller (Catholic biology Prof., author of Finding Darwinʼs God) His latest critiques of I.D. arguments.

7. Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., non-Christian theist, neurosurgeon, and author of The Genius Within: Discovering The Intelligence of Every Living Thing (Harcourt, Inc. 2002). Nice synopsis and review of that book in Smithsonian magazine.

   The Genius Within is only the latest in a series of important and largely ignored books and articles by biologists refuting the widely held presumption that DNA, the cellʼs repository of genetic material, holds the “secret of life.” Remarkably, these challenges to the primacy of DNA-an assumption nearly tantamount to dogma-come from the ranks of the scientific community itself, not from creationists or theologians arguing an “intelligent design” of the universe. Vertosick calls into question the gospel according to double helix decoders Watson and Crick, rooted in the Darwinian idea that life evolves through random events as “a blind process, possessing neither insight nor forethought.” I must admit Iʼve waited more than half a lifetime for this book. As a high school student staring for hours through microscopes, I was filled with wonder about the behavior of single-celled organisms, whose life cycles seemed to encompass both randomness and purpose. I spent summers in the woods, observing spiders and wasps, salamanders and snakes, fascinated by the seemingly intelligent behavior of animals. I perceived sentience in creatures assumed to operate on the basis of instincts and genes alone. But I was taught to dismiss such heresy. The Genius Within has stirred up those youthful notions. Vertosick provides a new framework for understanding the intelligence of all life, from bacteria to cancer cells to brains. There is mind in nature, he argues, and itʼs everywhere. Bacteria may not write sonnets, but they have the capacity for intraspecies communication. “Chemistry is their language,” he says, “and theyʼve been speaking it for millions of years.”

   (An excellent companion to Vertosickʼs book would be the very recently published, Darwin in the Genome, that explains certain genomic properties such at the fact that “jumping genes” do not jump into parts of the genome totally at random, but that there are certain parts of the genome that they apparently “jump” into more readily than others, and “jumping genes” can take unused inactive genetic information, i.e., “junk,” and incorporate that information into the genome again in an active section. The author of Darwin in the Genome makes it point to differentiate between “junk” and “garbage.” There is lots of “junk” in the genome, stuff that is not being used, duplicated pseudogenes with lots of stop codons and not being used by the cell and accumulating mutations at a higher rate than the rest of the used genes in the cell. But that does not make such pseudogenes “garbage,” because garbage is something that just needs to be thrown out, but “junk” is something that can lie around serving no use until a use may later arise, like old crates in the attic that you later build bookshelves out of. In other words there is a certain law and order to evolutionary mutational changes.)

8. Robert Wright, non-Christian, and author of the bestseller, non-zero, argues that evolution has a direction, as all zero sum games do. He critiques Gouldʼs view of “accidental” evolutionary interpretations.

   (An excellent companion to Wrightʼs book would be the very recently published work In the Blink of an Eye that outlines the latest hypothesis concerning the Cambrian “explosion,” namely that the evolution of “sight” was the main reason why such an “explosion” took place.)

9. Howard Bloom (author of The Lucifer Principle and Global Mind).

   Argues like Wright for a direction to evolution. (Though neither Wright nor Bloom appear to be theists, I could be wrong about that.)

10. And of course the authors of the Anthropic Principle, Tippler and Barrow, are also Fine Tuners. Fine Tuners are evolutionists who think that the cosmic constants that lead up to the production of all the elements inside stars (from simple hydrogen), also lead up to the evolution of the first living organisms, such things all being based on those same initially “fine tuned” cosmological constants. They oppose the way the “Intelligent Design / Mere Creation” movement tries to make “theistic evolution” itʼs own idea (ala Beheʼs suggestion that a single “super-cell” was specifically designed in the beginning with a super abundance of genes whose descendants later became less and less abundantly full of each of those genes, until that super stuffed cell slowly “broke down” into every living thing (which was a suggestion that I believe Behe has since dropped). To “Fine tuners,” evolution remains a valid and complex process involving mutations and natural selection.

    P.S. The “evidence for design” (of the sort proposed by the Discovery Institute who lead the “Intelligent Design” campaign in the U.S.) is being formally questioned by scientists who are not members of that Religious Right Think Tank, the Discovery Institute. See the soon to be published book Unintelligent Design by Mark Perakh, a physicist and leading critic of Dembskiʼs “proof” of “intelligent design.” Even fellow I.D.er, Del Ratzsch, has subjected Dembskiʼs book, The Design Inference to a thorough critique in the appendix to Ratzschʼs, Nature, Design And Science: The Status Of Design In Natural Science (Suny Series In Philosophy And Biology) A couple of other places on web that discuss “unintelligent design” though not necessarily related to Perakhʼs book: Talk Reason (many of Perakhʼs articles can be found here).

    “A Presentation Without Arguments: Dembski Disappoints” by Mark Perakh

    The Unintelligent Design Network, Inc. (no relation to Mark Perakh or his book, though a point made by Kenneth Miller is cited at this website)

    “Design Yes, Intelligent No,” by Massimo Pigliucci

    Cool article below, an atheist defends the fine-tuning argument. He accepts the validity of the fine-tunerʼs arguments, and even defends them against atheist attempts to sweep them aside. But he concludes that the question of why the universe “permits life” is not answered by simply proposing that “God designed it that way,” because…“That suggestion just pushes the question another step further back: for why should a God exist with the right characteristics to create a universe? If the theistʼs reply is that God can exist uniquely without the need for any further explanation, then the theist is admitting that Unusual and Significant Things Can Exist Unexplained. But if that is admitted, then we donʼt need to postulate a Designer for the universe after all.”
    An Atheist Defends the Design Argument
    by Toby Wardman

Intelligent Design (I.D.) and Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton wrote that he believed God occasionally intervened miraculously to set the planets right in their orbits, i.e., to correct cases of minor perturbations.

Apparently Newton was aware that sometimes two or more planets might be circling the sun and pass relatively near each other, influencing each other gravitationally, pulling each otherʼs 3-D orbits out of whack slightly, and that could add up over time. So Newton pictured God as intervening from time to time to keep his perfect celestial clock running smoothly, correcting such minor perturbations.

Today, astronomers no longer invoke “God” to restore orbital perturbations. Neither do they invoke “God” to explain how all the elements continue to rise out of fusing simple hydrogen atoms (a reaction that occurs inside stars via fusion, with the heaviest elements being created during novas).

In fact, todayʼs astronomers speak in terms of a messy astronomical past filled with orbital perturbations, and also speak in terms of a treacherous future filled with bleak possibilities for our planet and/or solar system:

Articles from New Scientist

“Birth of the planets: The Earth and its fellow planets may be survivors from a time when planets ricocheted around the Sun like ball bearings on a pinball table” 24 August 1991 issue 1783

“Jupiter drifted towards sun in its youth” The giant planet drifted tens of millions of kilometers towards the sun in its youth, a new study suggests, perhaps even helping to form the Earth. 26 September 2004

“Wandering Jupiter took trek towards the sun” 25 September 2004

“Planet formation is violent, slow and messy” A new view of planet formation is revealed by observations of nearby stars - it suggests Earth-like planets might be common. 19 October 2004

“Did a planetary wobble kill the dinosaurs?”… A wobble in Mercuryʼs orbit could have wiped out the dinosaurs…to see when the next potentially catastrophic planetary wobble will be…

“New moons suggest brutal beginnings” Five new moons circling Neptune, and two tiny moons newly discovered around Saturn hint at violent pasts 18 August 2004

Or a nearby star could go nova, or simply pass near our sun. Also, thereʼs the fact that hundreds of asteroids cross the earthʼs orbital path each year.

So we live with far more uncertainty than Newton did. Even our genes apparently have undergone loads of perturbations due to mutation-facilitating ALU sequences, according to this weekʼs news. (“Scientists track ‘stealth’ DNA elements in primate evolution” 02 May 2005)

Not to mention living with the knowledge of other kinds of perturbations, like several major (and many minor) periods of extinction in the past.

Not to mention the fact that a third to a half of all fertilized human eggs simply donʼt survive. Even of those humans who get to emerge living from the womb, half of them used to die by age seven (according to Buffon, writing 200+ years ago).

In nature some species lay several thousand eggs, that vast majority of which donʼt survive. Plant seeds face a similar rate of death. Some bacteria divide so fast that they could fill the oceans and land in a few days, but their death rate is likewise enormous.

My observation is simply that given all we know, above, natural selection is an obvious hypothesis. Each organism is tested by nature beginning with pre- fertilization “sperm wars,” then during the zygote and early embryogenesis stages when a third to a half of them all donʼt survive, and thereʼs the missing twin syndrome later on in pregnancy, a quite common failing, such that perhaps 30% of all single births were once twins in the womb, and then after birth during childhood more testing from mother nature takes place with a large childhood mortality rate (which if you survive that test, your odds of surviving to old age are greatly enhanced), all the way up to adolescence when human beings begin another breeding cycle, and then social and sexual selection plays a further testing role. Such a rigorous testing plan occurs throughout nature for every individual of every species. Thatʼs how natureʼs perturbations are dealt with—not by “god” stepping in miraculously to “correct” things. If that is not “selection” of some sort then what is it?

And if this process selects out the deleterious mutations, then doesnʼt that also mean that it also “selects-in” the beneficial mutations that make a healthy life and sexual reproduction more likely next time? (Just think of it this way—When a Christian sport-person crosses themselves and prays silently that their side “scores a touchdown,” or “makes a basket,” or “gets a hit” and “wins,” then arenʼt they also praying that the other side loses? Such things work both ways.)

Just a thought.

What is Intelligent Design?

January 28, 2005, Sharon wrote: I really donʼt understand what Intelligent Design is all about — or the arguments against it. Itʼs a mish mosh of techno babblings that goes in one ear out the other and right over my head.
I guess you need a firm grasp on biology and astronomy to *get it* because I donʼt.
You ought to write an article “What is Intelligent Design?” and covering the basics for amateurs like me. Baby stuff — you crawl, then walk, then run. Try “I.D. for Dummies”.
From my understanding it boils down to: “I.D. is based on the belief life is too complex to have simply formed on its own, therefore God did it.” (And of course the Christian God is credited.)

I have a real problem with that. Go back 3.8 billion years ago, approximate date of the oldest known fossil material — and go back earlier in time when life began evolving. Who says that life came about *poof* overnight when complex organisms like Humans themselves are a product of less-complex life, one-celled organisms — spanning four billion years of evolution? [Human Evolution, Mother Of Man - 3.2 Million Years] The origins of life itself could have evolved over time. DNA could have evolved from something less complex. Humans didnʼt pop into existence, [our first ancestors only came on the scene around four million years ago]. If humans didnʼt, why should DNA? Just because it seems complicated today after four billion years of evolution does not mean it was so four billion years ago.

Edward Babinski It only takes 9 months for a human to arise from a single cell, yet creationists are absolutely certain that given a couple billion years, and even the directing hand of God (as in theistic evolution), a single-cell could never become a human being, and upright large-brained apes could never become human beings.

Thatʼs because they would never dare doubt the words of a pre-scientific scribe, as they literally understand them.

I really donʼt understand how “Well, itʼs too complicated to understand therefore God did it.” And to me, physics is complex, astronomy and genetic engineering — those subjects are way beyond my grasp — but if I were to study them, Iʼm sure I would learn quite a number of things. How long ago was DNA discovered? In the 1940s or 1950s? [ see footnote #1 ]
Creationists have barely given science the time to even crack the human gene and jumping the gun saying “Itʼs too complex.” Given another 75 years or so, itʼll probably become common knowledge how DNA works — and perhaps something more on its origins and perhaps even the big question: Abiogenesis, the origins of life itself.

I think Intelligent Design is summed up as: “Impatience on behalf of Creationists”.

Edward Babinski Youʼre right on target, sounds like “impatience” to me too.

But then, many creationists are impatient for everything to over, the whole shebang, rapture, Armageddon, etc. *sigh*

Perhaps you have a better definition than mine?
I mean isnʼt “Itʼs too complex to understand, therefore a supernatural being did it”… the basis for all superstition? and superstition does not belong in the classrooms of the public school system.
Speaking from personal experience, what I see happening with such a hypothesis built on superstitious belief “itʼs too complex to understand, therefore a spirit did it”, is telling children, itʼs a waste of time to study deeper into the origins of life… pack up your books, you wonʼt need them — forget that chemistry or biology degree — itʼs a closed case. Thus, a student that would have potentially became another Francis Crick or James Watson to advance the understanding of DNA and origins of life — well, they decide to become an engineer in an unrelated field that avails opportunities to exercise their critical thinking skills.
Itʼs the same old song from the Dark Ages. “Itʼs too complex, therefore why waste time studying it? The Bible has laid it all for mankind in black and white… the greatest mystery of all! Read! Learn.”

How many centuries will that book hamper scientific progress and enlightened thought?
Whatʼs ironic about the whole thing is that they say “Itʼs too complex to understand therefore it cannot be explained.” Theyʼre really ones to talk, when it comes down to their Bible. How many denominations have sprouted from one Christianity due to differences on interpreting one little book?
Thatʼs chaos… Thatʼs confusion that will never be understood. One little book. Yet, all of them believe they hold the monopoly on the one and only truth, and everyone else is wrong. Since the Bible cannot be explained, perhaps we should just throw in the towel and hang it up — abandon the Bible —and never waste our time reading the Bible again. After all, itʼs “supernatural” in origins, and therefore impossible to understand or decipher. Theyʼve been trying for two thousand years, and havenʼt gotten any closer to a coherent interpretation than the early fathers of the Church. Give up and not even try to investigate and superstition rule the day. Thatʼs what Creationists would like science to do in its pursuit of exploring the origins of life.

Hypothetically speaking:
The Bible itself states that God is not the author of confusion.
(Too complex to understand?)
1Cor:14:33: For God is not the author of confusion…
Logically speaking, since the New Testament God is a God of orderly reason, then it should be safe to conclude the discovery of how the origins of life came about, are right around the corner. Surely the good Lord used a scientific process that can be replicated in a lab, and in time, scientists will stumble upon it. [/sarcasm]
I really donʼt understand where theyʼre coming from in their reasoning. “The origins of life is too complex to understand therefore we need the Bible to unravel it.” God is in the chaos and confusion of life origins? Then God is also in the chaos and confusion of car wrecks where people are ripped mercilessly apart by natural forces. God is in the chaos and confusion of dangerous animals and deadly microorganisms which mankind has been plagued with for millions of years and tends with daily. God was in the Anthrax that circulated around 9/11. God is in the chaotic confusion of deadly weather formations like Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Avalanches and Blizzards and God can be found in the meaningless confusion of deadly geological events like Tsunamis, Volcanoes, Floods and Earthquakes. I suppose those too are “too complex to explain”, well, primitive and superstitious savages might would think so. Actually a good meteorologist or seismologist can explain those “awe-striking events” quite well and without need to mention a god. (And, need I add that despite the passing of decades and centuries of studying, these scientists are still making efforts to refine their techniques to predict catastrophic geological and atmospheric conditions, to save human lives.) Unlike Religion, Science is never a “done deal”, and certainly never “perfect”… though far less frequently “false” in what it asserts.
The way I see it, itʼs only one more historical hurdle for science. Intelligent Design seems to me like Superstitionʼs last ditch effort to drag scientific progress backward. But if thereʼs one thing human history has proven that is that Science will go forward.

I think you understand I.D. just fine. *smile* They try to win over the crowd with improbability calculations, but such calculations do not take into account the fact that nothing is inherently probable, since you have to do the hard work of studying what life does, how it moves and lives and how it develops and changes from the tiniest scale to the largest scale, even the social scale. And that takes increasingly detailed knowledge about molecules and life in their living matrix, something the I.D.ists have no time for, since they have one answer and one answer alone to all such questions:

“You Need Lots of Dees Here Molecules Working Togeder To Make Dings Work, Lots of ʻUm Molecules, Yup, One Dare, and Anuder One Dare, And, Anuder Over Dare, and Some Down Dare, And, Oh Heck, Just Say Da Designer Did ID. Class Dismissed!”

Footnote #1
Englishman Francis Crick, American James Watson with the help of two English scientists, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins discovered DNA through x-ray diffraction in the year 1953. In 1961, Drs. Watson, Crick and Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Dr. Franklin died before she received the famous award.
Source: My Name is Gene, N.L. Eskeland, Ph.D and N.C. Bailey, Ph.D
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Conversation with William Dembski on Intelligent Design

On November 14, 2003 Ed Babinski wrote:
Subject: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”

Edward: Thanks very much Dr. Gilbert. Your online lecture raises intriguing points, and it was very recently posted, so it is “news” worth sharing, especially the many examples you provide of organisms that share the same basic developmental genes and how those genes have kept getting reused and changed only slightly in each case. Hence, not a lot of “mutation” is required to produce large scale changes, even to turn feathers to scales, as you point out below. And eyes need not have evolved over 40 times separately, since the same hox gene that induces eye formation is found in those species. Ultimately such studies might also unveil how little had to be changed in the genes of early primates in order to produce man. Or, as you state in the conclusion of your lecture:

“Many critics pointed out that population genetics cannot directly explain macroevolution. But when you add developmental genetics to the theory, you have a wonderfully robust mix that can explain evolution both within species and in higher taxa. It turns out that we humans are closer to other animals than we thought, and that the mechanisms by which the living world is generated are highly conserved.”

“Scott Gilbert”: Dear Ed,
Thanks for your kind note. My lecture can be found online at Developmental Biology
[Scott Gilbertʼs lecture at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting, Madison, 2002, titled, “Teaching Evolution Through Development.” First posted: Nov 07, 2003]
I enjoyed your website on why we believe in a Designer. Years ago, when I told my wife about Intelligent Design, she laughed. She is an obstetrician/gynecologist. They donʼt particularly believe in the “perfection” of design.

[Edʼs comment: I know of one female creationist with an anthropology degree, so Iʼm sure there are female I.D.ists with advanced degrees. But the exact meaning of “perfection” in any particular instance of nature remains elusive because invoking the word, “perfection,” leaves you wondering, “perfect” compared with how many other possible designs?]

Best wishes!
Scott

On November 17, 2003, Edward Babinski wrote:
Subject: Re: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”

Dear Dr. Dembski,

Wow! Thank you very much for your generous and timely response!

Just a few comments. I am unaware of any “state of crisis” as my I.D.ist friends claim exists. If there is any “state of crisis” isnʼt it on the side of those who claim that invisible entities are micro-managing nature over billions of years of death and suffering and extinctions? (Doesnʼt sound like a highly impressive “micro manager,” I mean, “perfecting” so many species only for them to become extinct over and over again.)

Hereʼs a question I have, based on three examples from nature:

1. The Bedbug—The male bedbug has a penis that penetrates the females abdomen in a traumatic act, but hereʼs the point I want to raise, only a single species of bedbug is known to have evolved to the point that males of that species penetrate the abdomens of other males while the first male is inseminating a female.
2. The Bombardier beetle—Only one species of “bombardier” beetle has a moving turret to direct its spray, the rest can only spray in one direction, usually covering their own backs, and other species of beetles have similar overall anatomies but without spraying anything.
3. Home Sapiens Sapiens—There is only one surviving species of human being but many primitive extinct primates, and loads of extinct hominid species. Based on such examples, my question is why does specialization in the cases I have cited, always leave behind so MANY less highly “specialized” species for the very few highly specialized species? If a Designer is micromanaging the specialization, then why leave the majority of creatures “behind” as it were? Isnʼt that more a prediction of evolution than “design?” To put it other ways: Why should a Designer require two to three billion years to move from the earliest known single-celled creature to the first multi-cellular creatures? Why does a Designer require six million years to produce human beings and also have to leave behind so many extinct primate species and then extinct hominid species in the process?

And what do you believe is left of the truth of Genesis according to your I.D. view? Is there a definitive I.D. commentary on Genesis? Why not? Are Godʼs words less sure of interpretation than science is? I mean I.D. says it knows “the” truth about science, but it canʼt agree on an interpretation of Genesis even though “Scripture is given of God and not of private interpretation,” and, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth?” Well, whereʼs the “truth” in Genesis that all the theists can plainly read? If it is just some general truth that canʼt even distinguish between helio or geo-centrism (there are geocentrist creationist Bible believers who can point to verses that certainly seem to me to assume a geocentric cosmos). Or if God canʼt even speak so plain as to tell us if creation is thousands or billions of years old. Or if God canʼt speak so plainly as to tell us whether various species popped into existence instantaneously, or whether they came from each otherʼs wombs after individual micro-mutations, then Iʼd say there is nothing much that Genesis can honestly tell us, no more than any other ancient creation account found in any other religion, and therefore, Biblical interpretation is “in a state of crisis,” not science.

On November 17, 2003, Edward Babinski wrote:
Subject: Re: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”

“William A. Dembski” writes:
Comments interspersed.

Edward: Mine also. *smile* Thanks again for maintaining the correspondence. I am supposing that is Paulʼs email address above? I hadnʼt spoken with him in months, though we used to speak quite regularly for weeks on end, neither were there any hard feelings between either of us. He even published something I wrote at the ARN site, a small edited portion of something I wrote. Paul and I simply lost touch at one point. You can ask him about it and what we discussed. (My further responses appear interspersed below.)

11/17/2003, Edward Babinski wrote:
Dear Dr. Dembski,
Wow! Thank you very much for your generous and timely response!
Just a few comments. I am unaware of any “state of crisis” as my I.D.ist friends claim exists. If there is any “state of crisis” isnʼt it on the side of those who claim that invisible entities are micro-managing nature over billions of years of death and suffering and extinctions? (Doesnʼt sound like a highly impressive “micro manager,” I mean, “perfecting” so many species only for them to become extinct over and over again.)

One thing at a time. You sent me something about evo-devo, claiming that it closes the macroevolutionary gap. It doesnʼt.

Edward: Pardon, but it does close various evolutionary gaps. Instead of the genes that induce eyes having to evolve entirely separately 40 different times we have the same gene that induces eye development (conserved in all of those species, which evolutionists assume are descended from a common ancestor), and able to induce eye development in all of those species. So instead of many genes, a few hox-like genes are found to be major directors that facilitate some relatively broad changes like fins to feet, scales to feathers, and, they even decide whether there is no invagination of the skin and forming of an eye cup—or—the skin invaginates and forms an eye cup in the head region. In fact, that is exactly the sort of evidence that evolutionary geneticists have been seeking right along, ways to consolidate various major changes in broad ranges of diverse species via fewer shared genes and fewer genetic mutations.

Conversely, keep in mind that there is no “gap” at all in I.D., since miracles—from the tiniest micromutations to the instantaneous creation of whole new organisms and their habitats—explain both anything and everything.
*smile*

Whatʼs more, just because you and Scott donʼt recognize the crisis doesnʼt mean there isnʼt one. I expect that those who knew the Titanic was unsinkable were convinced there was no crisis until they actually saw the ship going down. Of course, the actual crisis ensued once the Titanic hit the iceberg.

Edward: Whose ship is taking on water is a moot point between us, so why waste your breath on a wry “Titanic” analogy more suitable for the pulpit than a scientific discussion?
One quotation that I ran across on my own is this one: “[Richard] Owen [the famed anatomist] says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a [short but prestigious] list [of scientific supporters], I feel convinced that the subject will not.” [Darwin in a letter to J. D. Hooker, 3/3/1860].

Speaking of my own view, I think the “fine-tuning hypothesis” raises more challenging questions than the “I.D. hypothesis.” See for instance:

The “Fine Tuners” Challenge the “Intelligent Design” Movement Fine Tuners acknowledge that accident may not be the best way to explain the whole cosmos. They also find that the Intelligent Design movement embraces faulty simplistic arguments and proofs.
The Fine-Tuning Hypothesis, an alternative to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis

As for God micromanaging nature, thatʼs a convenient caricature.
Precisely because God allows a world to unfold in freedom,

Edward: “Unfold in freedom” is an intriguing phrase. Please explain what kind of changes organisms “free” to engage in, and on what biological levels if you can say. Surely there are Christians like Miller and Denis Lameroux (sp?) who are biologists who can use the same phrase you do to express their belief that natural selection allows nature to “unfold in freedom.”

no micromanaging is required

Edward: Please elucidate. Are you saying that you believe that the very first cell was pre-programmed to “unfold” on its own into all subsequent life on earth? That there was no miraculous genetic tinkering, nothing being added or subtracted (in micro-managerial fashion) at later geological periods? If that is what you are saying, please let me know, and we could discuss that particular hypothesis. I believe Behe suggested that idea off the cuff in his first book, but now has doubts concerning it. I mean, just how much genetic information would the very first cell have to have? The earliest known organisms in the fossil record were merely bacteria! Tiny things, with tiny nucleusʼ compared with the Eukaryotes that appeared later. So it canʼt be a case of a bacterium with a nucleus that is many times the cellʼs bacterial-size, a nucleus that is merely whittled down over the geological eons, the has to keep splitting off to form hundreds of millions of unique species that must have existed over the eons. The “whittling down of a super nucleus” hypothesis appears dead in the water. But then we are left with a hypothesis in which we both agree, namely that a simple cell, as simple as a bacterium can evolve into super sized Eukarotes and billions of diverse species each with their own unique habitats and behaviors. And that would certainly imply evolution in my book, rather than I.D. So if you are trying to reduce the I.D. question down to the question of merely “abiogenesis,” and the “first cell,” you certainly appear to be more evolutionist than anything else. Especially since that would make Darwin and I.D.ist by such a definition! Just read the last paragraph of The Origin.

and a history of death, suffering, and extinction becomes compatible with a world that exhibits design (which is not to say that every aspect is designed). You seem wedded to a naive theology and stuck on the theodicy problem.

Edward: As I pointed out above, there are no “gaps” when miracles are invoked to explain things, even death, suffering, extinction, are all explainable, as are things that you say were “not designed,” though could you please give me a list of things in nature that are “not designed” so I can ascertain exactly what you mean by that phrase, and compare it with a list of things in nature that you are sure are “designed?”

Hereʼs a question I have, based on three examples from nature:

1. The Bedbug—The male bedbug has a penis that penetrates the females abdomen in a traumatic act, but hereʼs the point I want to raise, only a single species of bedbug is known to have evolved to the point that males of that species penetrate the abdomens of other males while the first male is inseminating a female.
2. The Bombardier Beetle—Only one species of “bombardier” beetle has a moving turret to direct its spray, the rest can only spray in one direction, usually covering their own backs, and other species of beetles have similar overall anatomies but without spraying anything.
3. Homo Sapiens Sapiens—There is only one surviving species of human being but many primitive extinct primates, and loads of extinct hominid species. Based on such examples, my question is why does specialization in the cases I have cited, always leave behind so many less highly “specialized” species for the very few highly specialized species? If a Designer is micromanaging the specialization, then why leave the majority of creatures “behind” as it were? Isnʼt that more a prediction of evolution than “design?” To put it other ways: Why should a Designer require two to three billion years to move from the earliest known single-celled creature to the first multi-cellular creatures? Why does a Designer require six million years to produce human beings and also have to leave behind so many extinct primate species and then extinct hominid species in the process?

See last point. The theodicy question is separate from the design question, and you donʼt resolve the design question by saying that any putative designer wouldnʼt have done it that way. Now if you want to talk theodicy, Iʼm happy to do so, but again, thatʼs not why you wrote me and thatʼs not what the chapter draft I sent you was about.

Edward: You misunderstood my question. It was not a question of “Theodicy,” it was a question of probabilities. Evolution predicts that specialization is a process over time, and that not all organisms achieve it, in fact it predicts that few achieve it, just as in the case of bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics or insects that develop resistance to pesticides, only a few mutate to the point of specialization that allows them to adapt and survive in large numbers in such an environment, while the majority of organisms do not specialize as rapidly or as completely, and die out. As I said, only a single known species of bed bug rapes other males, and, only a single known species of the suborder of beetles known as Adephaga, has a movable turret to point the chemicals that shoot out of it, and, only a single know species of primate, and then only a single known species of hominid, evolved into homo sapiens. That is what evolution predicts, it certainly fits evolution. But according to I.D. the possible scenarios for “designing” the living world seem endless instead of this whittling down process that the geological records actually reveals.

Take birds. They are preceded by feathered dinosaurs. And then by feathered gliding dinosaurs with long boney tails that create drag, heavier skeletons, reptilian-shaped triangular skulls, teeth and non-hollow bones that added weight, small keel bones instead of the massive keel bones found in modern birds that attach the flight muscles. In short, the early birds are clearly not as designed for flight, nor as highly specialized for it as modern species are. In fact only one species of bird can fly backwards, the hummingbird, a late arrival on the geological scene. Again, such a progression is one that evolution predicts, it fits evolution.

Take cetaceans, early whales were clearly not as highly specialized as modern day species. Early whales displayed earbones only partially-specialized for under water hearing. Early whales had nares at the tips of their snouts or later in the middle of their snouts, the nares didnʼt reach the top of their heads until later. Early cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) apparently shared the same ancestors, because the fossil record shows relatively smaller cetaceans early on, and only later did some species advance in size until we see the modern day Blue Whale as the largest organism ever to live on the planet (with the possible exception of some dinosaurian gigantosaurus). Neither did early cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) have the sonar apparatus found in most modern day species. Again, such a progression is one that evolution predicts, and which was borne out by the findings of paleontology.

As I said, yes, it is possible that I.D. or any hypothesis that invokes miracles could also explain such evidence—i.e., From non-specialized to highly specialized—From the many unspecialized to the few highly specialized—in order in the fossil record. But evolution is a more constrained and demanding hypothesis. So it seems that I.D. is going along with this evidence simply because it must, not because I.D. predicted it. (I.D. or some other varieties of miraculous explanations could have predicted things a zillion other ways.)

And what do you believe is left of the truth of Genesis according to your I.D. view? Is there a definitive I.D. commentary on Genesis? Why not? Are Godʼs words less sure of interpretation than science is? I mean I.D. says it knows “the” truth about science, but it canʼt agree on an interpretation of Genesis even though “Scripture is given of God and not of private interpretation,” and, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth?” Well, whereʼs the “truth” in Genesis that all the theists can plainly read? If it is just some general truth that canʼt even distinguish between helio or geo-centrism (there are geocentrist creationist Bible believers who can point to verses that certainly seem to me to assume a geocentric cosmos). Or if God canʼt even speak so plain as to tell us if creation is thousands or billions of years old. Or if God canʼt speak so plainly as to tell us whether various species popped into existence instantaneously, or whether they came from each otherʼs wombs after individual micro-mutations, then Iʼd say there is nothing much that Genesis can honestly tell us, no more than any other ancient creation account found in any other religion, and therefore, Biblical interpretation is “in a state of crisis,” not science.

You seem bitter about your YEC experience.

Edward: You ignore the question of Biblical interpretation that I raised, above, and you ignore questions concerning which of various hypothesis is more obviously in “a state of crisis?” (your phrase, not mine). Sidestepping such questions with a question concerning oneʼs psychology? Isnʼt that nearer to being a preacherʼs tool than a scientific or mathematical argument? I find that people who use the “bitterness” argument are arguing _ad “bitter” hominem_ if I may coin a phrase. In my eyes I have been reasonable throughout my intellectual journey, as I am willing to grant that your journey also appears so in your eyes. (But if you wish people to respond for you tit for tat, then I might have written that you seem “bitter” about evolution, describing it as the “sinking of the Titanic” and “in a state of crisis.” *smile*)

I suppose thatʼs understandable.

Edward: As is your psyche to me. *smile*

And perhaps your skeptic friends are providing you with the intellectual enrichment that you didnʼt find as a YEcreationist. But given your undue preoccupation with your YEC past, it seems you havenʼt fully resolved this aspect of your life (perhaps Leaving the Fold is helping in this regard). Iʼm planning a book on Genesis, Creation, and Theodicy in which I have some new angles on how suffering that results from an evolutionary history could in turn be the result of a space-time fall of humanity (the key is appealing to Newcombʼs paradox).

Edward: More ad hoc explanations simply to try and reconcile the Bible and Science? How exactly is your ad hoc hypothesis going to differ from Humphries latest YEC ad hoc hypothesis that maybe the earth was at the center of a white hole at creation and the cosmos as well as time and space itself got stretched out in “days,” thus leading to the mere “appearance” of an “old” cosmos stretched out in billions of “light-years?” Humphries “white hole” hypothesis is typically worthless, even moreso than the famed creationist and I.D. rebuffs of “natural selection” being a pure tautology. What could be more purely tautological than arguments like Humphries or like the one you are currently devising above?

On the other hand, I suppose thatʼs how theology “works.” I mean if the act of one man suffering the pain of nails being driven through his palms two thousand years ago, can make another man living today a “saint” in Godʼs eyes (after death), THEN, “Adam and Eve” eating a bit of fruit can be cited as the reason why millions of species suffered for millions of years before Adam and Eve popped out of an Australopithecusʼs womb. (Speaking of Adam and Eve, I saw a book recently here in the college library where I work which stated that geneticists have discovered a genetic basis for “Adam,” a genetic-bottleneck back in time, a single individual or very small group of related individuals, from whom all of the genes of our species is descend, as well as having already discovered a genetic basis for something close to “Eve” though not a single individual. One little problem, as mentioned in the book, is that thereʼs at least 30,000 years worth of generations of descendants between the genetic “Adam” and the genetic “Eve.”)

Christian theological explanations appear to be growing increasingly more weird as science progresses and theologians seek to accommodate both the notion of some “history” in Genesis and the evidence coming to light from science. (But so far the explanations Iʼve read do not appear as weird to me as the fact that there isnʼt a verse in the Bible that isnʼt compatible with the ancient flat earth view that was prominent in the ancient Near East when both Testaments were written. All attempts to make the Bible sound “scientific” regarding modern cosmology are ad hoc, and based on ignoring the fact that historically speaking there is no necessity to even attempt to make the Bible sound scientific. Come on a talking snake that was “wiser than all the creatures of the field that the Lord had made?” “Fruit of a tree of eternal life,” just one bite and you lived forever? How literally is anyone supposed to take such stories? Creatures formed directly from the dust of the earth, and to that dust they shall return?)

There is nothing even remotely requiring a “scientific” explanation in the Genesis account of creation. Here are some excerpts from a new work, that like you, I am in process of composing:

Did God “gab” the world into being? Did His glossolalia fill the void? Or might not creation by the “word” of God be merely a poetic description of how God “called” the cosmos into being? But if one can accept that the description of God “speaking,” and the record of His alleged “words” is poetry, then what does that suggest about how the rest of the creation account in Genesis should be viewed?
- E.T.B.

---

The Book of Exodus in the Bible states:

In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
- Exodus 31:17

According to learned editors of a Bible published in 1774, the true meaning of the Hebrew is, “on the seventh day He rested, and fetched his breath.” So, God is depicted as panting after over-exerting Himself? What a pretty piece of anthropomorphism.
- E.T.B.

---

In the Beginning there was Earth, Wind, and Fire?

All ancient “recipes for creation” begin with a few simple ingredients like “earth, wind, fire/light, darkness/night, and water.” According to ancient Egyptian tales of creation, nothing existed in the beginning except a waste of “waters,” also known as “the deep.” Greek tales speak of “earth, murky night, briny deep.” Babylonian tales speak of “waters.” One Sumerian tale spoke not of water, but of another basic ingredient, a mountain of “earth” that existed in the beginning. Phoenician/Canaanite tales speak of “the beginning of all things” as “a windy air and a black chaos which embraced the air and generated a watery mixture, and from this sprang all the seed of creation.” The Hebrew tale in the book of Genesis has the “spirit of God” (the literal Hebrew word for “spirit” also meant “wind or breath”) moving on the surface of “waters” in “darkness,” with “light” and “earth” to follow.

Neither does it appear to be a mystery why the same simple ingredients would appear in so many ancient tales of creation. The pre-scientific authors of such tales imagined that “earth, wind, fire, and water” constituted the “elements” of creation.

Abracadabra: the magic of the creatorʼs “word”

Many ancient tales of creation, not just the Hebrew one, attributed supernatural power to a godʼs “word,” i.e., simply “say the magic word” and things instantly appear, disappear, or are transformed. According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead every act of creation represented a thought of Temu and its expression in “words.” A host of Egyptian creation myths agreed that the agency of creation was the godʼs “word.” The pre-Babylonian civilization of Sumeria believed that all things existed and were created by the “word” of Enki. In fact, they viewed the “word” of all their gods as a definite and real thing—a divine entity or agent. Even Sumerian personal names reflected their belief in the power of the “word,” including names like, “The word of the wise one is eternal,” “His word is true,” and, “The word which he spoke shakes the heavens.” After the Sumerians came the Babylonians and their creation tale, Enuma Elish (nicknamed by scholars, the “Babylonian Genesis”), which began, “When Heaven had not been named, Firm ground had not been called by name… when no name had been named.” The Hebrew tale arose out of that same milieu.

Added to the ancient belief in the “magic” of “naming” things, was also the belief that the “word” of a ruler or king must be obeyed, and the gods were believed to rule over nature much like kings were believed to rule over their fellow men, i.e., by “divine right.” Therefore, whatever a god said, was “done” in nature. A fragment from Sumeria states, “Thy word upon the sea has been projected and returns not [void].” The Babylonian Enuma Elish, states, “May I [Lord Marduk, the Babylonian creator], through the utterance of my mouth determine the destines…Whatever I create shall remain unaltered, The command of my lips shall not return [void], it shall not be changed.” Compare the Hebrew usage of the same phrase in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my [the Lordʼs] word be which goeth up from my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, For it shall have done that which I desired.”

Divide The Ingredients In Two

It was a common feature of early Greek cosmological beliefs, which they shared with those of the Near East and elsewhere, that in the beginning all was fused together in an undifferentiated mass. The initial act in the making of the world, whether accomplished by the fiat of a creator or by other means, was a separation or division. As the Hebrew myth has it, “God divided the light from the darkness…and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.”
— W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, (Cambridge Univ. Press: 1962)

Ancient tales of creation often involved a division of primeval stuff into two equal halves—like cracking a cosmic egg in two and making “heaven” out of the top half and “earth” out of the bottom half. A Sumerian tale of creation has heaven and earth arise from a celestial mountain split in two. In Egyptian tales a god and goddess are pulled apart: “Shu, the uplifter, raised Nut (a water goddess) on high. She formed the firmament, which is arched over Seb, the god of the earth, who lies prostrate beneath her…In the darkness are beheld the stars which sparkle upon Nutʼs body.” The Egyptians also employed the less mythologized concept of a celestial dome (above which lies “the heavenly ocean”). In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, a water goddess is split in two by the creator to form upper and lower bodies of water, the upper half also becoming a “heavenly dome” that held back vast celestial waters. The Hebrew tale in Genesis has the creator make “a firmament in the midst [middle] of the waters, that it may divide…the water which was below the firmament from the water which was above the firmament.” Both the Babylonian and Hebrew tales continue with the “earth” being created in the lower half of the recently divided waters.

It is interesting to note that the Father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, was adamant that the Bible spoke of waters lying above the moon, the sun, and the stars. He countered the views of astronomers of his day with the words of Scripture:

Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters…We Christians must be different from the philosophers [astronomers] in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity; with our understanding.
- Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, Vol. 1, Lutherʼs Works, Concordia Pub. House, 1958

A Hebrew psalm also acknowledged the existence of “waters above the sun, moon, and stars”:

Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!
- Psalm 148:3-4

And when the book of Genesis described a “flood” that covered the whole world, and reduced the world to its pre-creation watery beginning, the story states that the “flood gates of the sky” were “opened.” Neither did the author of that fable suppose that all the water above the firmament fell to earth, but that the “flood gates” had to be “shut” to stop more water from falling, and the creator had to promise not to flood the earth again with such waters. So, the Bible agrees with Luther that “the waters above the firmament” remained “up there”—and this agrees completely with ancient tales of creation in which the world arose from a division of waters which encompass creation still, and which the creator keeps at bay, having prepared a place in the “midst of such waters” for the earth.

Make Do With Whatʼs at Hand

Ancient creation accounts never explain where the first “waters,” or “earth,” or “darkness,” came from. Nor do the various creators make everything “out of nothing.” They often have to resort to creating plants, animals and human beings out of the earth or from parts of divine beings. Sometimes this includes molding creatures like a sculptor molds images out of clay—then imparting some magic to them. The Hebrew tale of creation in Genesis is no exception. It does not say where the water and the darkness came from “in the beginning.” Neither does it say that the “earth” was created out of nothing, but simply that “the dry land appeared” after the creator “gathered together the waters into one place.” Moreover, the Hebrew creator does not create vegetation and living creatures out of nothing but has “the earth” sprout vegetation, and “the earth” bring forth living creatures. The Hebrew creator also “formed man from the dust of the earth.” Then “blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being,” kind of like blowing on a clay sculpture to magically bring it to life. Neither was the divine “breath of life” shared only with man, for the same phrase is used in regard to every living creature that the earth brought forth, “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” (Gen. 7:21,22)

In the Babylonian tale, Enuma Elish, the creator is called “the god of the good breath [of life],” and he creates man from something divine, the blood of a diety. (Sort of like the Hebrew tale where man is created in the “image” of the divine creator and brought to life by divine breath.) Alternate creation accounts from ancient Babylon have mankind springing up from the ground, or created from the flesh and blood of a god mixed with clay, or even fashioned by the chief Babylonian god with the help of a divine “potter”—not unlike the Genesis account of man being “formed [molded] from the dust of the ground.”

Things Were Created as they Appeared to the Ancient Mind

Another factor most ancient tales of creation share is that things are created as they appeared to the ancient mind. Plants and animals are described as having been created in the forms in which they appeared in the authorʼs own day. The earth appeared like the flat and firm foundation of creation, the sun and stars appeared to move across the sky on a daily basis, the sky appeared like a dome stretched over the earth with a blue color reminiscent of the oceanʼs waters below it, and the sky contained objects whose function appeared to be to “light the earth” below.

In a similar fashion, “days and nights” as measured on earth appeared central to earth-dwelling ancients like the Hebrews, who divided their tale of creation into six “days and nights” of earthly duration. While today, astronomers recognize the earth as one planet among many, each having “days and nights” of their own unique duration.

Moreover, every one of the “six days” of creation in the Hebrew tale is devoted to creating things for the earth alone. Even the “first day of creation” when the Hebrew creator instituted “day and night,” it was an earth-day and an earth-night which were instituted. And on the day when the Hebrew creator set lights in the firmament above the earth, they were created after the earth and “for” the earth—and a day after fruit trees! In fact the entire Hebrew tale supports the idea that naive earth-centered appearances dictated the tale from beginning to end.

Is any Inspiration Required to Account for Ancient Tales of Creation?

The level of inspiration required to explain the origin of naive and simplistic concepts like “earth, wind and fire,” “abracadabra,” “divide the ingredients in two,” “make do with whatʼs at hand,” and, “things created as they appeared”—is equal to the level of mental sophistication of a young child. In fact the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics conducted a study during the 1980s on the mental sophistication of children and discovered that almost one-half of children aged ten years and younger in the United States and other countries believe the earth is flat. And those who say it is round picture “round” as a giant pancake or a curved sky covering a flat ground. One in four thirteen-year olds also believes the earth is flat.
- E.T.B.

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“Evenings and Mornings” / “Days and Nights,” were Created Before the Sun?

Genesis tells us that the creator “divided the light from the darkness” and instituted “evenings and mornings.” But He did that “three days” before the “sun” was made! So the sun was kind of an afterthought, and alternating periods of light and darkness were Godʼs primary creations. The book of Job like the book of Genesis, agrees that “light and darkness” do not rely upon the sun, but have their own separate and distinct dwelling-places:

Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?
- Job 38:19

Therefore the belief arose, especially among Christians, that the light of “day” had no relationship to the light of the sun. Indeed, in the fourth century, Saint Ambrose wrote in his work on creation:

We must remember that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon, and stars another—the sun by his rays appearing to add luster to the daylight. For before the sun rises the day dawns, but is not in full refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendor.
(Hexameron, Lib. 4, Cap. III).

Ambroseʼs teaching remained one of the “treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the Church” right up till the Middle Ages at which time Jews could still be tortured or condemned to death for disputing it! Like all dogmas it inspired subversive humor from those forced to assent to it:

“Which is more important, the sun or the moon?” a citizen of Chelm asked the rabbi (“Chelm” being a village of Jews who lived in the shadow of the Inquisition).

“What a silly question!” snapped the rabbi. “The moon, of course! It shines at night when we really need it. But who needs the sun to shine when it is already broad daylight?”
- E.T.B. (Joke drawn from Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, Henry D. Spalding, Ed., New York: 1969)

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According to the first chapter of Genesis, the earth was created before the sun, moon, and “the stars also” (notice how the “stars” were regarded as mere trifles, lumped together at the end of the inventory). This order of creation is absolutely farcical. Our earth is a child of the sun. The offspring could not have existed before the parent.

The sun, moon, and stars were “made and set” in heaven “to give light upon the earth?” When we look beyond our solar system into the mighty universe of other suns and planets, we see that the cosmogony of Genesis is a dream of childish ignorance. When the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras dared to suggest that the sun was as large as the southern part of Greece he startled his Greek contemporaries. What must have been the notions of a grossly unscientific people like the Jews? For them it was easy to regard the sun, moon, and “the stars also,” as mere satellites of the earth, “set” up in the sky as lanterns for the human race.
- George William Foote, “The Creation Story,” Bible Romances

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If the sun, moon, and stars were created “to light the earth,” then why create 50,000,000,000 galaxies whose light is invisible to the naked eye? (The two nearby galaxies that can be seen with the naked eye appear no brighter than two dim stars in our sky.) In other words, 50,000,000,000 galaxies produce light that can only be seen with our most powerful telescopes, and it took a telescope mounted in space to detect 49/50ths of those galaxies! Moreover, each of those galaxies is composed of about 1,000,000,000 stars, some of which are far larger than our sun. God sure did go through a lot of trouble to not “light the earth” with those 50,000,000,000 galaxies, didnʼt He?

Recent astronomical evidence even supports the “dark” matter hypothesis, namely that most of the matter in the cosmos sheds little or no light at all.
- E.T.B.

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My older brother Joshua had become “enlightened” at about the age of eighteen and began to argue religious problems with my parents. I heard him say, “All religions are based on old books, but these books were written by men and men can lie, distort the truth, or have illusions. If we Jews donʼt believe in the old books of other religions, how can we know for certain that our books contain the absolute truth?” My parents could never give him a clear answer. All they could do was scold him and call him heretic, betrayer of Israel.

Yes, I began to study the Book of Genesis both with faith and with doubts. In my mind I had formulated many questions for the scribe of this holy book: What did God create first, the earth or the water? Or was the water already there beforehand? When did He create the wind which swept over the waters? And did He also create “the waste and the void?” I had heard that the light of day came from the sun. But according to the Book of Genesis, God created the light first and then the sun.

The more I read, the more questions and doubts assailed me. If God could have created Adam by the words of His mouth, why did He have to cast a deep sleep upon Adam to form Eve from one of his ribs? I have always heard from my parents that God is a god of mercy. But why did He accept the sacrifices of Abel and not those of his brother Cain? Didnʼt He foresee that this would cause jealousy and enmity between the two brothers? And why did He create the serpent to lure Adam and Eve to sin? [“The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”—Gen. 3:1]
- Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Genesis,” Congregation: Contemporary Writers Read the Jewish Bible, ed., David Rosenberg

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To stretch the chronology of Genesis a bit, creationists are willing to admit there are mini-gaps in the genealogies of Genesis that total several thousand years. But why, if God directly inspired Moses to write those genealogies, should there be any gaps at all?
- A. J. Mattill, Jr., The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs (enlarged edition)

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Why Does the Bible Fail to Mention that Creation was Never Really Finished?

According to the Bible, God made the stars on the fourth day of creation. Even more remarkable is the fact that He is creating them still, though the latter miracle is considered not worth mentioning by any of the Bibleʼs authors. (I wonder why? The creation of new stars is being chronicled continually in magazines and journals like Astronomy, Sky and Telescope and The Astrophysical Journal, just to name a few.)

And God is still creating new planets (that continue to form out of rings of matter circling stars—see the above mentioned magazines).

And God is still creating new elements out of simple hydrogen atoms inside stars where atoms continue to fuse and form elements with increasingly more protons and electrons (the heaviest known elements are created during super nova explosions of stars).

And God is still creating multi-cellular organisms out of single cells that keep dividing (embryogenesis).

And God is still transforming mere water and inorganic minerals into more and more living microorganisms that other organisms eat, thus keeping the food chain going, such that all life depends on the daily transformation of the simplest of molecules (water and inorganic minerals) into living microorganisms. So, if you include the “food chain” leading from the simplest organisms to man, God is still turning inorganic matter into human beings (and turning simple oxygen molecules into “the breath of life”).

Yet creationists argue that aside from the creation of new stars and new heavier elements inside those stars—aside from the turning of simple inorganic matter into an array of living organisms that keep increasing in number and branching off into new species—evolution is “prohibited by the second law of thermodynamics.” Iʼd say they are missing the forest for the trees which by the way, continue to grow from tiny seeds; trees that become forests which continue to reach out and envelop as much of the earth as they can, and whose members continue to branch off (forgive the pun) into new species as they do so.
- E.T.B.

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Genesis 1:16 depicts the sun and moon as creationʼs “two great lamps,” made after the earth, to “light” it, “rule” its day and night, and, “for signs and seasons” on earth. But a couple thousand years after the Bible was written, astronomers discovered a curious thing. They discovered that Mars has two moons. Yet Mars has no people who need their steps “lit” at night, or who need to read the “signs and seasons.” Even more curiously, it was discovered that Neptune has four moons, Uranus has eleven, Jupiter has sixteen, and Saturn has eighteen moons (one of them, Titan, is even larger than the planet Mercury)! The earth was created with just one; and it “rules the night” so badly that for three nights out of every twenty-eight it abdicates its rule and doesnʼt light the earth at all, at which time we bump into folks in the dark.
- E.T.B.

You might find it interesting. For details, stay posted to my website http://www.designinference.com/
—WmAD