Episode 16: Soul Meets Body

Episode 16 of the Theopologetics Podcast is now available! In this episode I interview Dr. Glenn Peoples in part 2 of our discussion concerning Christian physicalism, challenging him with a number of biblical passages which seem to contradict his position. This second interview spanned 2 hours, so I've split it up into two parts, this being the second. See episode 15 for the first part.

Episode 15: Soul Man

Episode 15 of the Theopologetics Podcast is now available! In this episode I interview Dr. Glenn Peoples in part 2 of our discussion concerning Christian physicalism, challenging him with a number of biblical passages which seem to contradict his position. This second interview spanned 2 hours, so I've split it up into two parts, this being the first. See episode 16 for the second part.

Self-Defeating Science: The Irrationality of Evolutionary Naturalism

The Preterist Podcast recently turned me on to an awesome podcast called "Say Hello to my Little Friend," otherwise known as the "Beretta Cast" (and corresponding blog). As a disclaimer, I don't agree with everything I've come across at the blog; for example, I don't believe in "soul sleep," but rather that the immortal spirit is in some sense conscious in Sheol awaiting the resurrection--primarily because I don't believe Jesus' parables were rooted in fantasy. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed what I've listened to so far.

I was digging through the archive and came across a series of episodes explaining something called "presuppositional apologetics." I had heard of this style of apologetics before, but knew nothing about it, so I gave them a listen and was blown away. I highly recommend you listen to this series as it presents some powerful arguments for the existence of God. Episodes 11 through 13--go, listen, now.

I was particularly impressed with the third and final entry in the series discussing a Christian philosopher named Alvin Plantinga and his transcendental argument against evolutionary naturalism. Plantinga argues powerfully (and irrefutably, I think) that atheists who believe in evolution are utterly lacking in reason for believing that their beliefs are true. In fact, it is immeasurably more likely that any of their beliefs is false given their own world view. As such, evolutionary naturalism can only be described as irrational. I'll do my best to summarize Plantinga's argument.

THE PROBABILITY OF R

The question asked by this line of reasoning is as follows: How probable is it that our beliefs, assuming evolutionary naturalism, are reliably true? This is expressed as the p (probability) of r (reliably true) given ne (naturalism and evolution). So what is the probability of r? To some this may seem like an exercise in futility. How could we begin to answer such a question? The reality is, however, we can approximate an answer--and the answer might surprise you.

Let's frame the question more concretely. Let's assume for a moment that there is no God, and that the diversity of life we see today is the product of blind, random mutations taking place during reproduction, operated upon by natural selection, producing successively more complex organisms. This is evolutionary naturalism in a nutshell. According to this world view, our sensory organs (eyes, ears, noses, etc.) and the mechanisms by which information from those organs is transmitted, as well as our brains which process that information and our instinctive reactions to that information all developed over time through random mutations producing a survival advantage over one's peers.

According to this model, then, our beliefs are based on physiological structures and mental faculties which developed only because they made us more capable of surviving in our environment, without respect to whether or not those beliefs are true. Do you see the distinction? Undirected evolution through natural selection produces structures, faculties and beliefs which offer a survival advantage, whether those beliefs are true or not. The question remains, then: What is the probability of r?

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: BOB THE ALIEN

We humans do not often take part in the useful practice of thought experimentation, but let's do that for a moment. Imagine another world with a creature similar to a human--we'll call it Bob--which developed over millions of years through undirected evolution. Like us, Bob has developed sensory organs, transmission mechanisms and a brain by which he perceives his world, and has formed or had passed down to him beliefs about reality. Let's take a closer look at some of these.

Bob's eyes, optic nerves and brain have developed in a peculiar way. His species' primary predator is a terrible, tiger-like creature, but when Bob lays eyes on it he sees a giant, flashing sign with a message saying (in his language, of course), "Run fast in the other direction to experience great joy!" His endocrine system simultaneously developed to secrete a tremendous feeling of joy upon running sufficiently fast and sufficiently far in the opposite direction from the predator, providing him with the sense of great joy his eyes promised him.

Now, the peculiar way in which Bob sees this predator, and the way his body reacts when he runs fast and far enough away, have provided him with a survival advantage over his peers. But is he perceiving reality correctly? Of course not. There are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which Bob might perceive reality that give him an edge over his competitors, but which do not correspond to reality in an accurate way, and only one which is truly reflective of reality (which might not be advantageous, incidentally). Thus, the likelihood that anything he perceives is real is infinitesimally small.

The same is true of Bob's beliefs. Let's say that the surface of Bob's planet is riddled with pockets of dense, reddish mud. Bob has never touched the mud, and is not aware that it is thick and would so slow him down that any predator would easily catch him. He has had passed down to him, however, the belief that the mud is an acid that will eat away at his flesh. Therefore, he avoids it like the plague, which benefits him as he obeys the sign he saw, unknowingly running from the predator he incorrectly perceived.

Like his sense of vision, Bob's belief is wildly inaccurate and in no way reflects reality. Yet, it affords him a survival advantage in that it causes him to steer clear of obstacles which would slow him down and allow him to be caught by the predator chasing him (which he doesn't know exists). Again, innumerable possible false beliefs exist which would give Bob an advantage, and only one which is true. The likelihood that anything he believes is true is immeasurably tiny.

THE INESCAPABLE DILEMMA

Darwinists thus face an inescapable dilemma. Given evolutionary naturalism, what is the probability that one accurately perceives reality via one's senses? Little to none. Given atheism, what is the probability that one's beliefs correspond to reality? Little to none. The materialist is utterly devoid of justification for believing that anything he perceives, believes, or thinks he knows, is true. He exercises blind, warrantless faith that his senses accurately convey information, that his mind accurately interprets it, and that the beliefs he's formed and knowledge he's gained using those faculties are true.

Therefore, only if one believes there is a God is one justified in trusting in one's senses and beliefs. Indeed, one is justified in calling anything "knowledge" only if one believes a Creator made knowledge possible. Without a God, it is immeasurably unlikely that anything we sense, believe or think we know is trustworthy. But if a Designer fashioned the universe intending it to be able to be accurately perceived by its inhabitants, then we have reason to believe that knowledge is possible. True knowledge is only possible in a universe created by God.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Conclusion

Evolutionary theory, and its existentialist nature, are refuted by the fossil record and by new insights into the development of growing organisms, which demonstrate that "essence precedes existence." Critics of intelligent design theory charge that it is "bad science," and demand that any attempt to explain the origins of life and its diversity be testable through laboratory experimentation. Yet scientists in their own fields, and in "historical" sciences like geology, archaeology and paleontology, have posited legitimate scientific hypotheses that are not testable in the same way as in experimental sciences like chemistry and physics. Their theories are tested by comparing their explanatory power to that of competing theories attempting to explain what we see today by theorizing past events or conditions.

How can this legimiately scientific approach and its test of the explanatory power of competing theories be used to determine the cause of the diversity of biological life we see today?

INFERENCE TO THE BEST EXPLANATION

In 1991, philosopher of science Peter Lipton wrote Inference to the Best Explanation, in which he systematically explained and defended this way of reasoning. He wrote that, "beginning with the evidence available to us," we "infer what would, if true, best explain that evidence." Recognizing a known problem with this sort of abductive reasoning (affirming the consequent), he noted that when more than one cause can explain present evidence, scientists use a process of elimination to evaluate competing theories, rejecting those which don't adequately explain the evidence.

Thus, there are legitimately scientific theories which are not testable in the way intelligent design critics demand. As Stephen Meyer wrote in Signature in the Cell:

Clearly, this method of testing scientific ideas is different from that used by experimental scientists, who test their theories by making predictions about what will happen under controlled laboratory conditions. Even so, historical scientists are not the only scientists to use it. Arguably, Watson and Crick used this method to test their ideas about the structure of DNA against competing models. And many scientists--theoretical physicists, biochemists, psychologists, astronomers, pathologists, medical diagnosticians--as well historians, detectives, and thinking people everywhere use this method of reasoning every day to make sense of their experiences. (p. 170)

What, then, is the alternative scientific theory to modern evolutionary theory? In the future, I will blog about this topic at a greater depth as part of this series, but for now a simple summary serves to demonstrate how intelligent design serves as a legitimate scientific theory.

INFORMATION FROM INTELLIGENCE

The DNA molecule is an amazing source of information, not just informational capacity, but of specified information, complex digital code specifying proteins necessary to build life. Outside of DNA exists another source of specified information that directs the cell to properly assemble the parts defined by DNA. We know from experience that information and information-processing systems come from only one source: intelligence.

Consider the faces of U.S. Presidents of Mount Rushmore. These sculptures are no more complex or unlikely than the random configurations of rock in the surrounding hills. Yet nobody, unaware of the history of Mount Rushmore, would look at their faces and suspect that wind and erosion caused them. We naturally infer to the best explanation and conclude--instantaneously--that an intelligent agent created them. Why? Because unlike the equally complex and equally improbable configurations of atoms and molecules surrounding them, the faces we see specify something, they conform to a pattern recognizable to us: human faces, specifically those of former U.S. Presidents.

But it's not just information itself that we know intuitively comes from intelligent agents. We also know that information-processing systems are the products of intelligence. Consider CAD-CAM processes for designing and manufacturing parts. A human with an intelligent mind uses software to design parts, and this information is processed (translated) into information of another sort understood by machines, which interpret that information and assemble parts based on those instructions. Or consider software engineering. A human with an intelligent mind writes code in a programming language similar in certain ways to our human languages, and this information is processed (translated) by compilers into information of another sort understood by computers, which interpret that information and perform functions based on those instructions.

Thus we know that intelligence is "causally adequate" for producing information and information-processing systems--that is intelligence can create these things--and we know that it is "causally existent"--that is intelligent agents are in operation today. In order, however, to determine if intelligence is the best explanation, a third factory must be considered: the adequacy of competing theories.

THE CHANCE OF CHANCE

The theory of life's origins that competes with intelligent design is, of course, evolutionary theory. Evolutionary biologists posit that mutations occur during the transcription and translation of DNA during reproduction, and that these mutations occur at random times and in random locations and in random ways within the DNA molecule. Yes, once produced, the process of natural selection preserves some mutations. But the origin and nature of the mutations to begin with are the products of chance. What is the chance that "chance" could produce the information in DNA?

Consider that a protein defined by a gene in DNA is comprised of a chain of amino acids. There are some 20 amino acids that form proteins, and on average a working protein is made up of some 150 amino acids. Further consider that only certain arrangements of amino acids will link and fold into a working protein. This means we can determine the odds of random processes producing such a working protein, by calculating the ratio of the number of working proteins to the number of possible sequences. The chance of such a protein occuring at random is 1 out of 10 to the 74th power.

What does that number mean? Ten to the seventy-fourth power is a 1 followed by 74 zeroes. So for every working protein 150 amino acids long, there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (I had to insert a space just so the number would fit in the blog) other possible amino acid sequences. That's one hundred trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion possible combinations. The odds are staggering.

To help illustrate the gravity of this number, it helps to consider that astronomers estimate that there are only 10 to the 65th total atoms in our galaxy. This is an exponentially smaller number than the number of possible combinations of 150 amino acids. What this means is, you would have an exponentially better chance of selecting a desired atom out of the entire Milky Way, than you would have at producing an average protein by random. And proponents of evolutionary theory would have us believed this lottery has been won over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

THE SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Thus, intelligent design theory meets the qualifications of scientific explanation. It is testable in that it offers an inference to the best explanation, and indeed intelligence is "best". It is causally adequate, meaning we know intelligent agents can produce information. It is causally existent, meaning we see intelligence in operation. And its competing theory, unguided (supernaturally) evolution, doesn't adequately explain the evidence we see.

This is consistent with the Bible which teaches us that an intelligent creator designed the universe, the earth and its life, and then implemented that design by creating that which He conceived beforehand. As it is written:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:26-27).

Scripture teaches that God decided to create man, and naturally the creation of man reflects God's conception of what man is. God conceived of man as being a creature similar to Him in certain ways, and so, the essence of mankind thus having been conceived by God, He created man. Contrary to the claims of existentialism, "essence precedes existence."

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Part 5

As we've seen in this series, evolutionary theory and its existential nature is refuted by the fossil record and by our newfound insight into the development of an organism. Whereas evolutionary biologists illustrate the history of life using a "tree of life", the fossil record--if viewed in the way evolutionary biologists view it--illustrates the history of life instead as a "forest of life", a great many kinds of animals leaping into existence all at once with no common ancestry. Whereas random mutations during the copying of DNA are proposed as the mechanism by which genetic information increases over time, we now know that a second, mutually dependent source of information exists containing the instructions for assembling the protein parts defined by DNA, and this information is not in the DNA itself. These discoveries demonstrate that, unlike existentialism's "existence precedes essence," when it comes to life, "essence precedes existence."

How, then, do we "put the pieces together?" Can legitimate science point us to an alternative explanation? Is any appeal to a supernatural cause by definition unscientific?

NOT DOING SCIENCE

Critics of intelligent design often accuse its advocates as "not doing science." In Stephen Meyer's book, Signature in the Cell, he recounts that "reporters kept repeating the same criticism, namely, 'ID advocates aren't really scientists, because they don't do any experiments of their own'" (p. 138). In a recent debate between intelligent design advocates (including Meyer) and its critics (listen here), one of the design opponents said he was not aware of any intelligent design scientists who have labs and do experiments, implying that laboratory experimentation is the only way to properly "do science."

In the debate, evolutionary proponent Michael Shermer argued, "There's only two explanations...to answer the question of what's the origins of life or the diversity of life: one, science; two, everything else." He continued:

The problem is that by invoking something that is by definition not testable, there's no experiment we can run. You're now off the page of science. So, by invoking some kind of extranatural, supernatural, supranatural, paranatural--something beyond the natural, there's nothing we can do with that.

His partner, Donald Prothero, continued:

As Michael just said, we're talking about testable hypotheses...We cannot resort to supernatural explanations. It's not because we're antireligious...It's because religious ideas are simply not testable. There's no way to say, "God did it," and then find a test that works.

So, evolutionary scientists demand that the only way to address the question of the origins of life in a scientific manner is through a) laboratory experimentation, and b) testable hypotheses. Because, they claim, appeals to supernatural causes are by definition untestable, they are not scientific.

THE GUMSHOE DETECTIVES OF BIOLOGY

In April of 1953, J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick revolutionized biology when their article, "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid," appeared in the journal Nature. In their article, the pair revealed the molecular structure of DNA, winning a scientific race that had been going on for years. Yet, their work was not primarily the result of their own laboratory experiments. As Meyer put it in Signature, "While others approached the problem methodically, steadily gathering data in their labs, Watson and Crick behaved more like gumshoe detectives, heading from one place to another looking for clues to help them weigh the merits of competing hypotheses" (p. 72).

This approach is not unique among scientists throughout history. As Meyer notes in Signature:

Many of the great discoveries in science were achieved not just by experimentalists who produced new factual knowledge, but by theoreticians who taught us to think differently about what we already know. Examples of this kind of scientific work leaped to mind: Copernicus's De Revolutionibus orbium coelestrium, Newton's Principia, and the papers Einstein produced in his annus mirabilis...Charles Darwin also did little experimental science...his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, contains neither a single mathematical equation nor any report of original experimental research. Yet he formulated a great scientific theory. He did this by drawing together disparate lines of observational evidence and presenting an argument for a novel interpretation of that evidence. (p. 139)

Proper science does not by necessity include one's own, personal laboratory experimentation. Instead, legitimate science often involves reasoning like a detective, considering multiple suspects, weighing clues and excluding suspects that could not have committed the crime, eventually narrowing in on the one suspect whose involvement is pointed to by the weight of the evidence.

HISTORICAL VS. EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCES

One can see a distinction between these two scientific approaches when one looks at what might be called "historical sciences" versus what might be called "experimental sciences." Experimental scientists, such as chemists and physicists, hypothesize about how things work now, and then test those hypotheses through laboratory experimentation. Historical scientists, on the other hand, such as geologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, cosmologists, and yes, evolutionary biologists, look at multiple competing attempts to explain the past, weighing the merits of each, excluding those explanations which do not fit the evidence, and narrowing in those explanations that do fit the evidence.

In History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) and The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), scientist and philosopher William Whewell explained the distinctions between these two kinds of sciences. Instead of trying to establish universal laws by which nature operates, the objective of historical scientists is to determine ancient conditions or past causes. Rather than studying "forces that are permanent causes of motion, such as gravitation attraction," historical scientists study "causes that have worked their effects in temporal succession." And in attempting to reconstruct those "ancient conditions," historical scientists "calculate backwards" and determine what has occurred in the past based on known cause-and-effect relationships in operation in the present.

No chemist, physicist or biologist claims that historical scientists are "not doing science." The dictionary defines geology as "the science that deals with the dynamics and physical history of the earth;" archaeology as "the scientific study of historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures;" and paleontology as "the science of the forms of life existing in former geologic periods" (emphasis mine in each case). But scientists in these fields do not make hypotheses that can be tested through laboratory experimentation. Instead, they look at the present effects of past causes; they weigh competing attempts to explain what happened in the past based on what we see today.

The hypotheses of geologists, archaeologists and paleontologists, despite being untestable through laboratory experimentation, are not untestable altogether. They're merely tested in a different manner. Historical scientists look for the best attempt at explaining what occurred in the past resulting in what we see today. Given the effects of some event or condition in the past, they look at what causes, known to produce similar effects, could have occurred in the past, and exclude causes that cannot account for those effects.

THE TESTABILITY OF EXPLANATORY POWER

So while experimental scientists test their theories by predicting what will happen and validating or invalidating their hypotheses in the lab, historical scientists test their theories by comparing the explanatory power of competing theories. The claim made by critics of intelligent design theory, that it is untestable and thus not science, is refuted by some of the very heroes of evolutionary science like Watson, Crick, and Darwin himself, as well as by historical scientists like geologists, archaeologists and paleontologists.

How, then, can this legimiately scientific approach and its test of the explanatory power of competing theories be used to determine the cause of the diversity of biological life we see today? Stay tuned.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Part 4

So we've seen that the fossil record, as it is understood by evolutionary scientists, appears to give us an illustration of life's increasing diversity that contradicts the "tree of life" of evolutionary theory. Instead, it's a "forest of life" with distinct kinds of creatures coming into existence all at once, contradicting existentialism's "existence precedes essence."

Evolutionary theory also posits that complex biological structures comprised of many parts are the results of the happenstance assembling of the parts which appeared individually over long periods of time, without respect to one another. Bacteria have a moving "tail" called a flagellum, for example, which is comprised of dozens of individual proteins. According to evolutionary theory, there was once an ancestor organism that had none of these proteins. At some point, the first of these proteins appeared as the result of random mutations in DNA. Then, at some point in the distant future, another appeared, and so on and so forth until the bacterial flagellum was what we see today. There is no foresight involved, in this view, no idea of a flagellum that led to its existence. Instead, the random formation of its parts over long periods of time--existence--became the flagellum we see today--essence.

Is this a feasible explanation for the complex structures we see today? When we look at developing organisms closely, does what we see confirm or contradict evolutionary theory and the existential nature of the biological processes it proposes?

STRUCTURE BY SERENDIPITYINSTRUCTION

Evolutionary theory points toward random mutations during the copying of DNA as the mechanism by which a change in an organism is passed on to its descendants. But what biologists have discovered is that while an organism's genetic code defines the parts necessary for the organism to function, it does not contain the instructions for putting those pieces together.

Imagine opening a lego set, and finding the pieces that comprise the creation, as well as an instruction booklet that explains how to put those pieces together. The two are mutually depedent: without the instructions, you don't know how to put the pieces together; and without the pieces, the instructions serve no purpose. But the two are nonetheless separate and distinct from one another.

As it turns out, an organism's DNA is sort of like the lego pieces, in that the processes of gene transcription and translation in the cell create protein parts based on their definitions in the DNA. But the DNA isn't also the lego set's instruction booklet. The information necessary to put the pieces together appears somewhere else. This means that even if random mutations could produce a new part, the assembly instructions would be "unaware" of this part, and would not put it anywhere.

THE OPERATNG SYSTEM OF LIFE

For years, intelligent design advocates have been pointing out that DNA contains an enormous amount of information. We know that information comes only from intelligent sources. We know when we see a heart carved into a tree that a human did it, because it is unlikely, but also because it specifies something. The same is true of the faces of Mount Rushmore, or heiroglyphics carved into pyramid walls. In the same way, any organism's DNA is as unlikely a configuration of the genetic base pairs adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, and only a very select few of their possible combinations actually specify the chains of amino acids that can be formed into viable proteins.

But now we see that there are two separate sources of biological information within every organism. In a computer, an individual file is actually stored in small chunks scattered throughout the disk. The computer's operating system seeks out and locates those file chunks and assembles them into the file it is asked to work with. DNA is an organism's hard drive, each gene the chunk of a file. But the operating system of life, that seeks out and locates the genes it needs to build a structure, is somewhere else.

So even if random mutations in a creature's DNA during reproduction could account for new parts, it cannot account for the instructions necessary to assemble the parts into a complex structure. Even if we were to believe the impossible--that random processes can produce information--it would seem infinitely more absurd to believe that random processes acting upon two separate processes--the DNA that defines the parts and the instructions for assembling them--could produce new, mutually dependent information. No, the reason that the assembly instructions and the parts list line up so perfectly is because something conceived of the structure--essence--and then put into place the information necessary for the structure to be formed--existence.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

The study of biology actually contradicts evolutionary theory's "tree of life" and "structure by serendipity". Contrary to its existentialist nature, we can see that the "forest of life" illustrated by the fossil record, and the "structure by instruction" seen in an organism's assembly instructions correctly putting together the parts defined by DNA, demonstrate that in life, "essence precedes existence."

So, like the operating system of life, how do we "put the pieces together"? What does all this mean? To what does it point? If, as is obvious, random processes operating upon two separate sources of information cannot produce new, mutually dependent information at exactly the same rate, what could account for complex structures in an organism? Stay tuned.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Part 3

As we've seen, existential philosophy, as summarized by the phrase, "existence precedes essence," is woven into the very fabric of the biological processes evolutionary biologists claim are responsible for the diversity of life we see to this day. All life, having descended from a first, common ancestor, is illustrated using a great "tree of life," the first living organism being the trunk, from which branches extend representing very slightly different offspring, from which branches further extend representing very slightly different offspring still, and so on. There is no preexisting essence or conception of what it is to be an arthropod, there is merely a recognized similarity between a variety of organism we classify together in a category we call arthropoda.

Is this illustration an accurate representation of what we see in the fossil record, the very basis of this "tree of life?" Does the study of fossils confirm or contradict evolutionary theory and the existential nature of the biological processes it proposes?

THE TREEFOREST OF LIFE?!?!


In its December 4th, 1995 edition, the cover of Time Magazine called to the reader's attention a cover story reporting on "Evolution's Big Bang," saying, "New discoveries show that life as we know it began in an amazing biological frenzy that changed the planet almost overnight." The "big bang" referred to is otherwise known as a biological event called the "Cambrian Explosion."

In a period of earth's alleged history called the Cambrian period, some 570 million years ago or so, the majority of the "body plans" we see today appear to have leapt into existence in a geologic blink of an eye. So short was this period of time that if life's assumed history on this planet were condensed into a 24-hour period of time, it would be equivalent to a couple of minutes. These organisms, whose presumed ancestors appear nowhere in the fossil record, appeared suddenly, fully-formed, as complex as their apparent ancestors today.

Whereas evolutionary theory illustrates the history of life using a tree, a more accurate analogy would be that of a forest. Each tree in the great "forest of life" has at its base a single kind of creature, such as arthropods with their segmented body, jointed limbs and exoskeleton, or echinoderms, marine animals "radiating arrangement of parts and a body wall stiffened by calcareous pieces that may protrude as spines." As these early creatures with their separate and distinct body plans diversified further and further over time, more and more branches are added to each tree of life, such that we see in each group a variety of similar but different creatures: the insects, spiders and crustaceans of arthropoda, and the starfish and urchins of echinodermata.

Scientists who believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, including Darwin himself, recognize the difficulty the Cambrian explosion presents for evolutionary theory. Speaking of the Cambrian fossils, infamous atheist Richard Dawkins wrote, "It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history" (The Blind Watchmaker, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. , 1996). Of course, proponents of evolution have posited possible solutions to the problem.

Darwin, recognizing the problem of "Evolution's Big Bang", believed that the Cambrian and Precambrian periods were not yet fully represented in what we'd discovered from the fossil record. Given time, he wrote, we would discover the ancestors of these creatures earlier in the geologic strata. However, scientists have spent years and years evaluating the data, finding more and more fossils of organisms from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods. Still, the ancestors have not been found. Every time a new discovery is made, it is not a new kind of creature, but is instead a variation on the same theme: another arthropod, another echinoderm, and so forth, as fully formed and as complex as the ones found before. Again, without evidence in the record of an ancestor. Our picture of these periods of time appear to be virtually complete.

Some have argued that the ancestors to the Cambrian organisms were soft-bodied, too fragile to be preserved in the Precambrian strata. This seemed like a reasonable argument, until scientists in China discovered in the Precambrian rock tiny fossilized embryos of soft-bodied creatures! In other words, the sediment comprising the Precambrian period was able to preserve incredibly fragile, soft-bodied organisms as fossils. While the ancestors of the Cambrian creatures may have been soft-bodied, they certainly were more preservable than tiny sponge embryos.

So according to evolutionary biologists' own interpretation of the geologic record and its fossilized contents (I qualify it this way because I believe their interpretation is incorrect, a topic I will write about in the future), the majority of the kinds of organisms we have today appeared virtually overnight, fully-formed, with no apparent ancestors. No conceivable natural mechanism can account for the sudden existence of highly complex organisms--as complex, if not more so, than many we see today--representing dozens upon dozens of separate and distinct body plans. Something conceived of these disparate kinds of creatures--essence--and then assembled them in-place--existence. The philosophy of existentialism cannot account for this.

THE SEEDS OF LIFE

It's no wonder that some scientists believe these forms of life were "seeded" here by some extraterrestrial life. Called panspermia or exogenesis, exponents of this theory acknowledge the problem posed by the Cambrian explosion. They would argue, however, that this demonstrates that these early kinds of organisms were deposited on earth, as fully-formed as we find them, having originated elsewhere in the universe, and began to reproduce and diversify from there. This would seem to allow for the undirected nature of theorized evolutionary diversification, and thus its existential underpinning.

But as we'll see when we look at other recent discoveries in biology, and how they impact the theory that complex structures are formed serendipitously from parts which evolved separately, over time, the "seeds of life" theory falls flat. Stay tuned.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Part 2

Historically philosophers viewed things as having a transcendant, more fundamental "essence" shared by all like things. Chairs have chairness. People have humanity. And the existence of these things depends upon their preexistent essences, or ideals, which truly exist in the metaphysical realm. Existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre reversed this, saying instead, "existence precedes essence." To them, there is no real thing called an "essence"; there are merely things that exist, and what philosophers had previously called essences are merely categories imposed upon things by humans able to recognize similarity.

What does this have to do with biology? How are the theory of evolution and the philosophy of existentialism related? One might expect a Christian like myself would equate evolution with the philosophies often associated with it--such as materialism or atheism--and find the connection there, but one would be wrong. In fact, the philosophy of existentialism as summarized by the phrase, "existence precedes essence," is manifested in the very biological processes predicted in evolutionary theory.

THE TREE OF LIFE

Evolutionary biologists envision all species as having descended from a common ancestor, the first living organism. This first living organism reproduced, and eventually its offspring experienced a change in the hereditary information inherited from its parent. This change, the result of a mutation occurring during the copying of the parent's DNA, provided the organism some benefit, allowing it to survive better than its siblings and parents. And so on and so forth, life becoming increasingly diverse, resulting in the great diversity of life we see today.

This process of change over time, of all species sharing a common ancestor, is illustrated using a "tree of life." At the base the tree has a trunk, representative of the first living organism. Branches emerge from the trunk, representing those offspring which were ever so slightly different from their parent. Branches emerge from those branches, and so on and so forth.

Like existentialism's "existence precedes essence," according to this model there are no such things--not really--as kinds of organisms. There is no real kingdom, or phylum, or class, or order, or family, or genus, or species. These are merely categories humans impose upon creatures which are similar enough to be classified together. There is no "essence" of "what it is to be" an arthropod; there are simply creatures like lobsters and crabs which, by virtue of having soft insides and hard exoskeletons, are classified together using the name arthropoda in order to distinguish them from creatures which don't share these same properties.

So we see that the diversification of existing animals--existence--leads to the imposition of classifications--essence--upon them. "Existence precedes essence." But existentialism is not only apparent in evolutionary theory's conception of the "tree of life."

STRUCTURE BY SERENDIPITY

According to the theory of evolution, complex structures do not come about suddenly, fully formed, comprised of all their constituent parts. A creature was not suddenly born with eyeballs from a creature that had none. Instead, the parts that make up complex structures appeared gradually, over very long periods of time, bit-by-bit, over generations upon generations.

A random mutation in the copying of a parent organism's DNA might result in the offspring having one of a future complex structure's many parts. That individual part, by itself, provides the offspring with some benefit, making it better capable of surviving its environment. Thus, natural selection preserves that trait and it gets passed on to future generations. Some time later, this organism's DNA is further mutated during reproduction and its offspring manifests a second part. That part, in and of itself or in conjunction with the first part, again provides the offspring some benefit and both traits get preserved through future generations. This process continues, over millions of years and millions of generations, each part of a future complex structure coming into being by chance, piece-by-piece.

Again we see existentialism's "existence precedes essence" in action. Natural processes don't conceive of something called an eyeball, or an ear, or a brain, or a tail, or a stomach, and then put the pieces together. Instead, the pieces come about individually, without respect to one another, over long periods of time, and happen to form eventually into structures we give names to today. We call an eyeball an eyeball, but the concept of an eyeball--essence--came after the happenchance assembling of its randomly-produced parts--existence.

LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH LIVING CREATURES AFTER THEIR KIND

The Bible militates against this existential nature of the theory of evolution. Before God created anything, He conceived of it. He thought about it. He planned it. And upon deciding to bring into existence physically the creation He conceived of in His mind, He spoke it into existence:

Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. (Genesis 1:11)

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so. (Genesis 1:24)

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image... (Genesis 1:26-27)

God conceived of kinds of plants, and then brought them into existence according to those plans. He imagined kinds of animals, and then brought them into existence according to those plans. He devised a creature in His own image, and then brought man into existence according to that plan.

But what does the study of biology suggest? Does it confirm the theory of evolution and the existentialism woven into the very fabric of biological process responsible for the diversity of life? Stay tuned.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--Part 1

Biology is defined as, "the science of life". It is the study of "living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially with reference to origin" (among other things). The theory of evolution in the area of biology is an attempt to explain the origin of diversity in life through descent from a common ancestor, gradually changing over long periods of time.

Philosophy is "investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct." Contributors to Wikipedia define it as "an attitude to life or way or principle of living whose focus is on resolving the most basic existential questions about the human condition." One school of philosophical thought is known as existentialism, one of whose proponents coined the phrase, "existence precedes essence."

Where do biology and philosophy intersect? What is the correlation between the theory of evolution and the philosophy of existentialism? This connection will be explained in part two of this series. But first, let's look at the philosophy of existentialism.

THE WHAT IT WAS TO BE

The dictionary defines the word "essence", philosophically speaking, as "the inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything, as opposed to what is accidental, phenomenal, illusory, etc." As is said at Wikipedia, essence is "the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity." The Catholic Encyclopedia calls it "that whereby a thing is what it is...the radical or ground from which the various properties of a thing emanate and to which they are necessarily referred." Aristotle called it the to ti en einai, a Greek phrase meaning, "the what it was to be."

Yeah, okay, I know. What the heck does all that mean? In programming terms, essence is like a class defined in an assembly, and existence is an instance of that class created at runtime. For those of you who have no programming experience, here's a simple illustration.

There are a variety of different kinds of chairs: dentist's chairs, rocking chairs, dining chairs, reclining chairs, and so on and so forth. Yet, all of these chairs, with all of their differences in nature and in design and in purpose, nonetheless share one common property: that of chairness. They all share "the what it was to be" a chair, which is why we identify them all as chairs. So something's essence is that which it fundamentally is, as distinct from what it happens to be in the here and now, and which all other like objects fundamentally are.

Prior to existentialism, something's essence was viewed as a real thing, that actually exists--albeit metaphysically rather than physically. Also called the ideal, it was believed that a thing's essence was a higher, more fundamental form of existence than that which we experience with our senses. And, it was thought, concrete objects are dependent upon the preexistence of their abstract ideals, without which they could not exist.

EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE

Existential thought turned this relationship between essence and existence on its head. In existential thought, for those things which occur naturally, there exists no predetermined, metaphysical ideal or essence; there is merely that which exists. A hammer or chair, by virtue of being created by someone who conceived of it before bringing about its existence, does have a preexisting ideal or essence. But such is not the case for natural things--including mankind itself.

When it comes to natural things, what philosophers had previously called an ideal or essence is, in the existentialist's mind, merely a category imposed upon them by men. There is no essence of birdness; there are simply creatures which are similar enough that people classify them as birds. Thus, existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre coined the phrase, "existence precedes essence."

Existentialism as a philosophy addresses primarily the meaning of what it is to be human. According to existential thought, there is no ultimate meaning to being human. Instead, each individual human person determines his or her own meaning or purpose. There is no actual essence to mankind, no ideal human; there is merely the existence of each individual human person, and the meaning or essence he or she chooses to attribute to him- or herself.

LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE

The philosophy of existentialism thus contradicts the Bible which teaches that mankind exists because God conceived of man before creating Him. As it is written:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:26-27).

Scripture teaches that God decided to create man, and naturally the creation of man reflects God's conception of what man is. God conceived of man as being a creature similar to Him in certain ways, and so, the essence of mankind thus having been conceived by God, He created man. Contrary to the claims of existentialism, "essence precedes existence."

Whereas existentialism views people as defining their own essence, the mitzvot (commandments) of the Old Testament are imposed upon man because man's essence is a reflection of God's. As Peter wrote, "like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, 'YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY'" (1 Peter 1:15-16).

EVOLUTION AND EXISTENTIALISM

That existentalism contradicts scripture is not all that surprising. But what is the link between it and evolution? This will be explained in part two. Stay tuned.

Darwin's Dilemmas: Essence Precedes Existence--An Introduction

I caught the tail end of a video tonight and discovered some interesting correlations between evolutionary theory and the philosophy of existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre summarized a central tenet of existentialism using the phrase, "existence precedes essence," which, as will be explained in part one of this series, contradicts the teachings of the Bible. What I discovered in watching this video, however, was that this concept central to the philosophy of existentialism appears also in evolutionary theory.

I'll illustrate this correlation in part two of this series, but what excited me was that the fossil record, as understood by evolutionists, actually refutes evolutionary theory in the very ways in which it manifests this tenet of existentialism. As the Bible teaches, the fossil record also illustrates that, contrary to the claims of existential philosophers, "essence precedes existence."

Stay tuned to see how both the theory of evolution and the philosophy of existentialism are refuted by the fossil record.