I laud his efforts but in a way it is a sad commentary on our society.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/morgan5.html


My Life After Darwin

by John R Morgan, MD



Like most people, I never really bought the idea that life just
spontaneously developed out of nowhere, and then humans came from fish
or whatever.

It just didn't make sense.

A man named William Dembski with a PhD in mathematics from the
University of Chicago and a PhD in philosophy from the University of
Illinois has developed one good explanation why I always felt this way.


Let's say that you go to see the carving of Confederate heroes on
Stone Mountain right outside of Atlanta. Even though you didn't
actually see anyone perform the carving, you can infer that a designer
made the images. Now if you go to the back of the mountain and see
various amorphous shapes (although they are statistically as improbable
as the carving), you assume that they were randomly formed by erosion.

I know what you are thinking. This is basic common sense.
Unfortunately, however, we live in a time where common sense must be
justified; hence, Dembski is creating mathematical models to test the
validity of inferring design from something that is improbable and
specific. He hopes to prove that life falls into the category of
intelligent design.

I laud his efforts but in a way it is a sad commentary on our society.

Another man, Berkley law professor Phillip Johnson, has criticized the
intellectual leaps of faith necessary to accept evolution as a
life-creating force (leaps that I was never convinced to take). Johnson
argues that Darwinism has ceased to be a scientific theory and is now a
tautology that conveniently explains everything in nature. Although
Darwin himself operated within the context of the scientific method by
giving examples of empirical observations that would refute his
hypothesis, modern-day evolutionists entertain no such claims. Their
position is derived from a presupposed metaphysical belief that God
cannot exist.

As Johnson points out, in 1859 when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species
(actually entitled The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection;
or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), the
fossil record was relatively incomplete. Darwin predicted that further
examination of fossils would demonstrate slow gradual change in living
organisms. Paleontologists have since found the abrupt appearance of
new organisms followed by long periods of static existence before
abrupt distinction.

The pattern of life as portrayed by the fossil record prompted Nobel
Prize-winning scientist, Francis Crick (he co-discovered DNA), to
suggest that space aliens must have visited earth at different times
bringing new species. Even the guy who discovered DNA has doubts about
evolution!

(Crick is actually an interesting fellow. He signed the "Resolution in
Scientific Freedom" with 49 other scientists noting that left-wing
institutions are censuring and punishing some scientists for
politically incorrect research.)

In Darwin's time it was also believed that cells were made of simple
vitalistic goo that contained life. Molecular biology has since
revealed that even the most primitive organisms contain amazingly
complex, interdependent parts. Micheal Behe, a professor of biological
sciences at Lehigh University, has adduced the concept of irreducible
complexity that challenges the logic of natural selection driving the
creation of complicated mechanisms with multiple independent parts.
(How can a sophisticated structure like a wing develop piecemeal if its
only functions in its completed form?)

My personal intellectual journey with Darwinism began at the University
of Georgia as an undergraduate. I majored in microbiology (graduating
1st in my class of roughly 5,000 students in 1991) and did non-human
genetic cloning research. I was overwhelmed with the diversity of life
and the power of genetics. In fact, I came to understand that genes
really matter. At the same time, I didn't buy the weak little theory
of survival of the fittest creating life.

I saw intraspecies change like bacterial anti-biotic resistance
(microevolution) but I needed missing-link evidence (macroevolution).
No one could give it to me.

I sincerely resented my professors conflating my skepticism in
Darwinism with irrational anti-intellectualism. I loved science and
truly respected the power of DNA. I just didn't think they had proven
how life was created.

I began reading everything I could get my hands on about evolution. I
put aside my biology textbooks that presented evolution as a
universally accepted law and started devouring the primary writings of
the modern-day evolution experts. It was at this point that I realized
that millions of students were being taught bad science for religious
and political reasons.

I also learned that a potentially internecine civil war was raging
within the Darwinian Nation.

On one side were the strict constructionists led by Richard Dawkins of
Oxford University in England. Dawkins was more like a religious zealot
than a political ideologue. He had long since accepted the fundamental
primacy of survival of the fittest, and was applying its logical
corollaries to human behavior.

On the other side were left wing ideologues led primarily by the
brilliant but ruthless Stephen Jay Gould. Gould, a self proclaimed
Marxist, loved the metaphysical liberation and culturally transforming
power of Darwinism. He despised, however, "the universal acid of
natural selection ... reducing human cultural change to the Darwinian
algorithm."

Basically, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

Remember, leftists like Gould require a worldview where human behavior
is 100% culturally conditioned; and here was Dawkins stating that
culture itself was an extension of human genes. (At this point I should
note that Dawkins is not a right winger, and received the Humanist of
the Year Award in 1996)

Gould viciously attacked the "ultra-Darwinists."

In a perfidious stab in the back to those committed to keeping "the
divine foot out of the door" (to borrow from another left-wing
ideologue, Richard C. Lewontin) Gould proclaimed, "Darwin is dead!" He
went on to attack the inadequacy of natural selection to explain the
complexity of life. He also cogently argued that the fossil evidence
did not support slow gradual change.

He proposed a new theory of (macro)evolution that he called punctuated
equilibrium. Basically, he suggested that (macro)evolution must have
occurred in quick spurts not captured by the fossil record. In
addition, he attempted to down play the importance of survival of the
fittest. Using his talented literary skills, he painted the world of
biological change as a non-threatening nebulous impression. He
fashioned himself an "evolutionary pluralist."

Now what was a confused young student to do?

I knew Darwin had stated that any reliance on macro mutations (or
saltations as he called them) would cause him to reject his theory of
evolution because it is not plausible; and here was Gould asking me to
accept (macro)evolution based on some unknown rapid genetic change,
basically a macro mutation. (Phillip Johnson has argued that punctuated
equilibrium is a euphemism for miracle)

I also didn't trust Gould. His primary concern seemed to be
maintaining the leftist moral code of life rather than the scientific
understanding of life.

I also couldn't buy Dawkin's historical narrative of life. The
power of Darwinism rested in its claim to a plausible mechanism (which
Gould destroyed) and its claim to a process without intentionallity.
Dawkins was writing about "selfish genes." How could the substrate of
evolution (DNA) be selfish and at the same time be without intention?

In addition, I was learning about other mechanisms of genetic
inheritance called genomic imprinting. Without going into detail, the
evolutionists were touting this phenomenon as a genetic "battle of the
sexes." Again, they were asking me to accept Darwinism because DNA
changed without purpose while simultaneously rejoicing that female DNA
held a grudge against male DNA (I hope to fully describe the
inconsistencies in logic of genomic imprinting and natural selection in
another setting).

Basically, I came to realize that Dawkins and Gould were not the
sophisticated atheists they wanted to be. They actually had faith in a
god - the DNA molecule. They seemed to believe that it was
omnipotent. To Dawkins it was a selfish god. To Gould it was an
egalitarian god.

Personally, I decided to pass on worshipping the double helix. No, sir,
I decided to keep the Christian faith of my ancestors.

But maybe it wasn't actually free will that brought me to my
decision. Maybe it was determined by the genes God gave me.



John R. Morgan, MD, is a practicing physician in Atlanta.