A Designer World is Neither Confirmed nor Disconfirmed by Science
Charles F. Austerberry, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology, Creighton University, Omaha, NE 68178
Copyright 2002 - All Rights Reserved.

John D. Martin makes some good points in "A Designer World." Indeed, some evolutionary biologists wrongly claim their science as evidence against the existence of a Creator (it is not). The evidence neither supports nor contradicts belief in a Designer.

What biological evidence clearly shows is that species of living organisms evolve from other species. Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box," accepts this. Jonathan Wells, author of "Icons of Evolution," does not. William Dembski so far has reserved judgment on the issue. All three agree, however, that scientific methods can and do detect design in living organisms. I think there may indeed be design by God inherent in living organisms, but I don't think the scientific method is capable of discerning it.

Take Michael Behe's concept of "irreducible complexity," the idea that several cellular structures and biochemical pathways are too complex to have evolved step-by-step from simpler precursors, because anything simpler would not be functional and natural selection cannot preserve something that lacks function. In fact, every one of Michael's "irreducibly complex" examples has at least one plausible evolutionary explanation. At a meeting in St. Louis a few years ago I told Michael about organisms with simpler cilia-like structures (called pseudocilia) that lack some of the structures in true cilia (which Michael considers irreducibly complex). The function of true cilia is motility, but pseudocilia serve an entirely different function. The organism that has these pseudocilia appears very primitive in other ways, and it's possible that the pseudocilia represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of true cilia.

No one can keep track of all of the biological literature, so no one can blame Michael for not knowing about these pseudocilia. No one can fault him for failing to imagine their existence either; most discoveries in biology catch us all completely by surprise and present us with previously unimaginable realities. But I do fault Michael for not remembering that life surprises us again and again, and that our imaginations are never good enough to anticipate the intermediate stages of living organisms. Until we make a real discovery, we must simply wait. Unfortunately, Michael published his book full of assumptions that biological systems and structures have always had their current functions, and that if he can't imagine how they arose step-by-step, then a designer must have done it.

How does Michael regard proposed evolutionary origins for things he considers "irreducibly complex"? He brushes them off as too speculative. Of course they are speculative! Indeed, no one knows whether pseudocilia are really primitive, or whether they have degenerated from true cilia. More evidence is needed. No one can say when, or even if, we will find that evidence. But to speculate, or worse yet presume, that cilia-like structures could never have functions other than motility and thus could never arise via evolution is simply wrong and, well . . .presumptuous!

According to some intelligent design theorists such as William Dembski, methods used by forensic scientists and archaeologists to detect design by human designers can also detect the design of living organisms by an obviously non-human designer. They claim that the nature and identity of the designer doesn't matter, and they note that similar methods are used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), where less can be assumed about the designer. Note, however, that even extraterrestrials would be subject to natural law! Therefore, even in SETI as well as in archaeology and forensics, probabilities of both natural occurrence and intelligent design can be calculated and compared. Distinguishing products of design from products of nature always involves comparing those two probabilities. For example, given our knowledge of geology, what is the probability that an arrowhead-shaped stone could form naturally? Given our knowledge of human cultures and technologies, what is the probability that such a stone was designed and shaped by human hands to be an actual arrowhead? Both calculations are needed; neither probability is certain enough to be sufficient by itself, especially when little can be assumed about the designer.

What happens if the designer is totally unspecified and thus could be supernatural? There is now no way to compare two probabilities, because a potentially supernatural designer can do absolutely anything. "Evidence" of intelligent design in living organisms relies on probability calculations invalidated by this and several other problems. However, this does not constitute evidence against a designer either! Students should not be taught, explicitly or implicitly, that evolution disproves God, or even divine design. Students should learn that the naturalistic, mechanistic and impersonal theories of science do not necessarily imply any single metaphysical stance, theistic or atheistic.

I think the following four concepts can help keep science and religion/metaphysics from being confused when it comes to the origins of living organisms.

1. Our knowledge is limited.

The origins of the universe and life are very complex mysteries. Generations have lived and died without complete answers; so will generations after our own. We are making progress, in science and in theology. Future teachers will remind their students that those of us here today weren't stupid, just ignorant. Yet, those teachers will be pointing their students towards still more open questions. Good scientists remember that their current explanations are at best incomplete, and maybe even wrong. Good theologians likewise remember that their discipline will continue to progress, and that God will never be fully known this side of heaven.



2. Science can't tell us when all possible natural explanations have been exhausted.

We should readily admit that we can't even imagine a plausible natural explanation for some things. To assert that no plausible natural explanation could ever exist in such cases, however, would be presumptuous. How can we dismiss all natural causes when we don't even know what we are dismissing? The lack of a plausible natural explanation would constitute evidence for "intelligent design" only if we could somehow know that we've imagined, analyzed, and eliminated all of the "non-design" alternatives. In his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina Galileo articulated a perspective that remains as valid today as it was in 1615:
"Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known? Let us rather confess quite truly that 'Those truths which we do know are very few in comparison with those which we do not know.'" [Stillman Drake, _Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo_ (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957), p. 187.]



3. Science cannot rule out the supernatural.

The absence of a natural explanation may be more than a matter of ignorance. Some phenomena may, in reality, have no natural explanations. For example, supernatural intervention could be essential for life to exist. Naturalism is the proper methodological stance for doing science, but it is not the only ontological (metaphysical) stance consistent with a modern scientific world view. Belief in a Creator who might act outside of natural law is reasonable, and is not a threat to science unless it is taught as science or allowed to limit scientific investigations.



4. The Creator might work through natural events and processes.

Scientific explanations are mechanistic and impersonal, but not necessarily the things being explained. There are multiple ways to imagine a "God's-eye" view of nature. For example, a preference for regularity and order on God's part could lie behind all processes that to us appear completely determined by 'autonomous' natural laws. In addition, God's omniscience may be absolute if all events that we consider random are in fact predictable from God's perspective. On the other hand, theologian-scientist Arthur Peacocke is among those who consider some randomness in the universe to be ineradicably unpredictable even to its Creator:
"For, in order to achieve his purposes, [God] has allowed his inherent omnipotence and omniscience to be modified, restricted and curtailed by the very open-endedness that he has bestowed upon creation." [Arthur Peacocke, _Theology for a Scientific Age_ (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 121.] Regardless of how one envisions the details, it is certainly possible that God has created, and continues to create, through evolution.

Given the importance of scarcity, competition for survival, and death in the process of natural selection, it may be hard to imagine a loving God creating through evolution. Indeed, the problem of theodicy loomed large to Charles Darwin and may have been the primary reason for his personal drift from Christian theism to agnosticism. However, pain and death were recognized long before Darwin. In a prescientific but still powerful way the Bible addresses both "natural evil" such as natural disasters, diseases, etc. and human (moral) evil, as do the sacred scriptures of other religious traditions. Loss of religious faith need not accompany the acceptance of evolutionary theory.