A Critique of Evolution | Part 3

Evolution in Competition with a Theory of Design

This series sets out to demonstrate why the fact that evolution is the accepted scientific explanation of the origin of the species does not necessarily entail that evolution was the true origin of the species, nor that we should feel confident in assuming that

In Part I, we argued that science holds no justification for a “truth” claim by any theory. In Part II, we noted that the “evidence” for evolutionary theory is particularly weak. We ended by concluding that if we cannot use science to determine whether the claims of evolutionary theory are true, we must turn instead to philosophy.

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If one does not assume naturalism, it is fair and reasonable to consider whether the creation of life might be one of the phenomena that science will never thoroughly be able to explain or replicate (on account of its true cause having been supernatural).

A philosophical argument, however, cannot be built without the allowance of certain unproven premises. And I am afraid that I have little to offer in the way of an argument as to why those things, which seem most intuitively to the human race the most unlikely to have been brought about by means that comply with science's assumption of naturalistic determinism, are any more likely than other things to have been brought about by means that defy such an assumption (given that pretty much everything must have seemed to humans, at one time or another, divine), if my opponent is unwilling to grant me this as a premise. But I will say that it is not obvious to me that my opponent has the authoritative right to deny me this premise, if we have allowed as another premise that it is possible that some supernatural elements may be or have been at work in the universe. To get from one to the other, in fact, we would simply have to allow that it is possible that such supernatural elements would have effects that humans might often, though imperfectly, somehow perceive as having been brought about supernaturally. Which is, admittedly, a much bolder assumption—but remember, so far we are only positing that it is possible that such a perception of the supernatural can occur, not that it does. Furthermore, if we assume the pursuit of truth to have any chance of success whatsoever, it hardly does us any good to admit the possibility of the supernatural and then deny the possibility that we could ever know anything about it. It may be, of course, that the only supernatural elements that exist in the universe are the kind that we could never know anything about; however, despite our best efforts, we would never be able to know anything about them, so it would hardly do us any good to further consider this as a possibility. 

Let us limit ourselves, then, to considering the possibility of the kinds of supernatural elements that might leave traces that we humans might in some way be able to perceive as supernatural, whether through our natural senses and the application of logic or otherwise. Now, the most obvious candidates for such traces of the supernatural, if it should turn out that the supernatural does leave traces that we can perceive, seem to me to be: our subjective impressions of the existence of right and wrong; the fact that we seem to ourselves conscious beings capable of free choice; and the fact that life and the universe exist at all at the level of complexity and with such diversity as we witness around us today. 

Of course, my opponent is more than welcome to disagree with me on this point. But it would hardly be fair to accuse me of having chosen them at random; to the best of my knowledge, these are the three things that have most compelled humans throughout history to ascribe to forces that supersede the natural laws of physical reality.  And there are, of course, some naturalistic theories that attempt to account for our impressions of right and wrong, and perhaps one day science will offer a theory as to how exactly consciousness emerged from physical matter and a formula for calculating how exactly nature and nurture interact to determine our behavior. Right now, science, working under the assumption that everything is determined and can be explained according to natural causes, tells us only that about a third of our behavior can be attributed to nature, about a third to nurture, and the remaining third to some incalculable interaction between the two. If science ever develops a more rigorous model that can be used to predict and, by creating the right conditions, to replicate particular behaviors in individuals, we can be sure that more than theists only would contest such a model and actively work to find its flaws and those cases of behavior, however few they might be, that would defy it, and that they would find the model to be fallible, when subjected to such skeptical scrutiny. This would not happen because there are many narrow-minded, biased people in the world who would work to protect their cherished views even when those views were challenged by the evidence—or at least, not only for this reason. It would happen because it seems to so many people so clear, as they reflect on the evidence of their experience and observations, that there exists such a thing as choice, that our actions are not determined only by our genetics and our experience, that just because we make each choice that we make does not mean that we could not have chosen any other way on account of some natural, physical law that determines how the chemistry of our brain will react to certain stimuli under certain conditions. 

In the same way, I would argue, it is possible to look at the complexity of life, to look at the evidence, and to question the plausibility that it developed gradually from nonliving matter in accordance with fully natural, physical laws and processes, given the fact that such processes cannot currently be replicated and the evidence of the fossil record is ambiguous at best. Now, we do not ask such questions as scientists; as scientists, we must assume natural causes will one day explain everything so that we may develop the best models possible to explain as much as we can, so that we can accomplish, with those models, as much as can be accomplished. But as rational thinkers, who are concerned not with utility, but with truth, we are more than permitted to ask such questions. 

Might a supernatural account of the origin of the species outperform the theory of evolution in accounting for the available scientific evidence? 

And though the evolutionary theory is perfectly good science, though it offers a far better account of the evidence available to us than any other naturalistic theory—to the extent that many who have considered the evidence have gone so far as to say that evolution must be the truth behind the origin of the species, given that it explains some things so well and that no other scientific explanation appears to be forthcoming—in spite of all of this, I say, we do not have the authority to assert that the evolutionary theory outperforms a supernatural explanation of how life came to be, in view of all the evidence available to us. Though science precludes ascribing any phenomenon to supernatural causes, rational thought does not, and if we permit ourselves to consider the evolutionary theory to be in contention with a supernatural account of the origin of the species, we have to admit that the case for evolution is not so clear-cut as when we consider it in a vacuum empty of other possibilities. 

Take, for example, the evidence of DNA and the apparent relationships between the species. A common ancestry could explain these things, yes; but their commonalities could just as easily point to their having had the same Designer. What counts as support for the evolutionary theory when we allow ourselves to consider only naturalistic accounts does not necessarily tip the scales toward an evolutionary explanation if we weigh it against a supernatural one. Moreover, whatever creative power we might imagine can be attributed to the evolutionary process, we cannot deny that a supernatural force could have wielded more. Whether or not the evolutionary process is capable of building complex systems again and again to contribute to the formation of the life forms we see is still an open question so long as the process cannot be replicated. If we posit a supernatural creative force, though, we need not raise our eyebrows at the complexity of any living thing; a supernatural force need not have had limitations of any kind. 

The ‘Occam’s razor’ objection to challenging evolution with a supernatural theory 

The primary argument to level against a competing theory of this kind is not one that claims the evolutionary theory explains the evidence better than a supernatural explanation could; it is instead that positing a supernatural explanation fails the test of Occam's razor. Positing the existence of some divine Creator to account for something that could instead be ascribed to natural causes is needless, according to this argument—rather like positing a massive earthquake to account for the displacement of a few pebbles on the ground when a mere breeze might have done the trick. And yet, it has not been demonstrated that the evolutionary process would have had enough power to form today's living creatures in all their complexity; therefore, one cannot assert that positing a divine force would be overkill without making a great deal of assumptions that are as yet unsupported by any evidence. 

Objections to theories of design are philosophical rather than scientific 

Still, there remain other observations one could make that would seem to support an evolutionary theory over and above a supernatural account of the origin of life. It cannot be denied that the animal kingdom is full of violence, imperfection, mutation, competition, chaos, and waste. 'Survival of the fittest' is a ready explanation for these things, while the idea that a supernatural force carefully designed and brought into being complicated creatures and then left them to fend for themselves in a dog-eat-dog world, often producing dramatically mutated offspring, is a much less elegant account—especially if one makes the additional assumption that said supernatural creative force was in any way benevolent. 

The important thing to remember, though, is that when we begin to reason in this way, we have left the realm of science behind. Science is powerless to reason about the supernatural, to suggest how the supernatural may have operated or what evidence makes it more or less likely that a supernatural force may have been at work. We, as rational thinkers, are more than permitted to reason about such things, but to claim that any such argument is supported by science and thusly on better ground than the opposition is simply false. The fact is, the opposition can and does propose possible reasons that a powerful Creator might allow disorder in creation after bringing all the types of creatures into being, and science has no authority to assert that this is unlikely to have been the case. We, as rational thinkers, may assert its implausibility as an account of how the world as we know it came to be, but we ought to realize that such assertions are backed by nothing more substantial than our own personal philosophies. While I hope philosophy can be effective in the search for truth, I have to say again that philosophy depends upon the adoption of certain premises, and a philosophy that would support a theory of evolution over and above a supernatural one would have to include a premise along the lines of A supernatural creative force is unlikely to have created in such-and-such a way, and such a premise would be backed by nothing other than the opinion of those who would advance it. It is certainly not an assumption backed by science. 

Though the evolutionary theory is scientific and a supernatural account is not, science has no tools for weighing the one against the other, for suggesting that the evidence supports the one better than the other. Science can say that the evolutionary theory is well-supported by the evidence, but as long as the theory remains incomplete in explaining just how life evolved from non-life or certain complex systems were built up over time, this claim does not give us much reason to suppose that natural causes were more likely than supernatural ones to have brought about the complexity of life, because science has not established that natural causes could have brought about the complexity of life in the first place. If science ever demonstrates conclusively that natural forces could have brought about the complexity of life, then, yes, by the principle of Occam's razor, at least, we would have little reason to think that a supernatural force must have been at work. But given that that day has not yet come, all that science offers us is ambiguous historical and contemporary evidence that provides both problems and support for either of the conflicting philosophical positions that would attempt to explain it. If all life forms were made by a Creator, why so much disorder and waste in the animal kingdom today, why have we had success finding some supposedly "transitional" forms between groups in the fossil record, and why have the kinds of animals on the earth changed so much over time? But on the other hand, if all life forms evolved, how exactly did they come to be so complex, where are all the rest of the transitional forms, and why can't we replicate any of the major steps in the process? 

Now, it is my opinion that none of these questions poses an insurmountable challenge to either theory. Both theories, in my view, are possibly possible, and though a staunch advocate of the impossibility of either would be welcome to point out that I have no authority to assert this, I have to ask: would it really make any difference to the argument if I did? If I had Ph.D.'s in paleontology, and biology, and genetics, and statistics; if I could trace the development of any particular species back through the entire fossil record and tell you all the forms scientists currently think it could have gone through; if I could point to all the genes that could have mutated to move a generation of animals from one fossilized form to another and tell you just how many generations were missing from the record; if I could calculate the odds that all of this could have happened within the timeframes represented and tell you with some kind of statistical authority that it was possible, but astronomically improbable, and that there should have been more evidence than there is—would you be more inclined to agree that the scales are balanced, as far as the evidence is concerned? Or would the basic argument look just the same, albeit with a great many more specifics? I think so. And though my opponent is welcome to produce more detailed scientific evidence if he thinks it will answer some of the questions I've posed or tilt the argument for or against the possibility or impossibility of either evolution or a supernatural account of the origin of life, I seriously doubt that enough scientific evidence exists at this time to warrant a casual dismissal of any of the questions I've posed. 

We will close this series in Part IV, looking at a few more common challenges to any critique of evolution.

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Beth Peterson attended Johns Hopkins University as a National Merit Scholar and a Bloomberg Scholar and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Acting. She has been writing fantasy fiction since her middle school years and looks forward to making her first book deal.