Alden Swan dot com

Speaking of challenges to Darwinism:

In the 1860s Charles Darwin proposed a theory of the origin of species. He predicted it would be solidly supported by fossils when enough had been found to fill the gaps. But the fossil record is still just about as gap-py now as it was then: new discoveries are leaving as many empty transitional slots as they are filling. And nobody has yet observed a definite instance of speciation, especially one that involves new structures or functions, in all that time, despite up to 40,000 generations (of animals, bugs, plants, etc.) of trying.
– Tom Gilson

Tom’s blog is called Thinking Christian; it’s a site I visit often, as he usually has some interesting things to say. I like Christians who think about things; we need more of them.

You may also want to check out this; it is a short commentary on an article in Nature about the need to look for intermediate evolutionary life forms (a notable quote: Indeed, in their opposition to evolution, the proponents of ‘intelligent design’ have seized on our current ignorance of intermediates.”).

The issue, however, that I want to discuss is the challenge that entropy is to Darwinism. Entropy has often been raised as a challenge to Darwinism, as the 2nd law of thermodynamics essentially says that everything tends toward entropy or disorder, and this is in direct opposition to the claims that through a combination of random events and natural selection, without any “outside” influence, life began and became more complex and ordered. I’ve read where evolutionists summarily dismiss this argument as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only deals with temperature distribution. Ah… but does it?

Granville Sewell, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso, writes in A Second Look at the Second Law:

However, it was soon realized that other types of order can be defined which also never increase in a closed system, for example, we can define a “carbon order” associated with the distribution of carbon diffusing in a solid, using the same equations, and through an identical analysis show that this order also continually decreases, in a closed system. With time, the second law came to be interpreted more and more generally, and today most discussions of the second law in physics textbooks offer examples of entropy increases (or order decreases, since we are defining order to be the opposite of entropy) which have nothing to do with heat conduction or diffusion, such as the shattering of a wine glass or the demolition of a building.

Sewell, being a mathematician, points out that “The second law is all about probability, it uses probability at the microscopic level to predict macroscopic change…” This is then in opposition to non-IDist evolutionary theory, which is “widely accepted in the scientific world as proof that natural selection — alone among all natural forces — can create order out of disorder, and even design human brains, with human consciousness. Only the layman seems to see the problem with this logic.”

So, it seems we are back to a point I made previously, that sometimes thinking too much makes you blind to the basic principle of Occam’s Razor.

Sewell recognizes the common response to this proposition, that the Earth itself is not a closed system, as energy is being received from the sun, etc. The reverse-entropy created by evolution is small in relation to the total entropy of the universe, so it all balances (or unbalances) out. This, however, appears to be mathematical hogwash: “… an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable by the occurrence of other events which are more probable.”

Being a mathematician, he is uniquely qualified to comment on the mathematical equations which are the foundation for the theory. As it turns out, the creation of order from disorder is no less improbable in an open system; in fact, the only way for order to increase is for order to be imported into the system! Therefore, he says, “THE EVOLUTIONIST … cannot avoid the question of probability by saying that anything can happen in an open system, he is finally forced to argue that it only seems extremely improbable, but really isn’t …”

The article goes on to point out a number of the other inconsistencies of Darwinism, and how (these are my words, not his) philosophical materialism is a “science of the gaps” approach, and it’s worth reading.

Again, for what it’s worth, a naturalistic approach to evolution has to be doubted in light of Occam’s Razor. That is, unless you presuppose philosophical materialism, because then any simpler, more probable (and some would add obvious) explanation has merely been excluded from consideration.

As I’ve said before, the whole ID v Darwin debate was never of great concern to me (although the stupidity of some of the statements made on both sides would often irritate me). When I recently became re-interested in the issue, while I was certainly not coming from a philosophical materialist point of view, I was open-minded about evolution; I could have easily accepted the Francis Collins approach, without much thought.

Ay, but there’s the rub: without much thought. The more I read the arguments from both sides, the more I am convinced that Darwinism (or neo-Darwinism) is so full of holes that it would instantly collapse if it were not for all of the hot air being blown into it by its supporters. I don’t think that it even qualifies as a theory. Rather, Darwinism at this point is a collage of hypothesis, data (there is some data), speculations, assumptions and assertions, all pasted onto a foundation of philosophical materialism. It only works if you assume that there is nothing outside of the material world, and therefore the reach of science. As soon as you open the presumed system, it collapses.

Anyone who’s done any reading on the subject at all has encountered the ridicule that the “scientists” heap on the ID community; the ad hominem approach is, I think, their first line of defense. By portraying IDists as fools (i.e. Creationists), so therefore there is no need to even consider the ID position. This is not true of all Darwinians, obviously, but it appears to be the norm for those outspoken on the subject. Other complaints are that they don’t understand the subject matter, they misquote evolutionists, they use selective facts, and so on. What I am often finding, however, is that the evolutionists are the ones guilty of ignorance of the IDist arguments, who misquote IDists, and so on.

As I have complained before, I would really like an evolutionist to seriously consider the various anti-Darwinian arguments, and give serious responses. There are a few out there, but they are very few and far between (more rare than the mythological transitional fossil).

The truth is that macro-evolution, which many Darwinists claim is no different than micro-evolution, is not supported by the evidence (unless, again, you presuppose a materialist, evolutionary world). Instead of ID being a “God of the gaps” argument, neo-Darwinism is very much a “theory of the gaps” argument. Rather than admitting that there are holes in the theory, you hear things like, “we just don’t know enough; when we do, it will make sense.” What is that, science? Hardly. It is nothing more, as someone has said, but the creation myth of Philosophical materialism.

The list of problems with macro-evolution is too long to list here. Things like the inadequacy of the fossil record, the fact that there are no smooth transitions but many jumps like the Cambrian Explosion, and the problem of the Big Bang, are all major problems for Darwinism that have no real answers, just a faith in future science. Even the oft-ridiculed “irreducible complexity” argument has not been disproved, but deserves a good, close review.

Tomorrow, a look at another often-overlooked challenge to evolution.

I have a hypothesis, based on my own recent observations, that thinking too much makes you stupid. This is not necessarily a new or groundbreaking thought; in fact, it fits well with the well-known and generally accepted principle known as Occam’s (or Ockham’s) Razor, which I’ll talk about in a moment. First, take a look at this, from USA Today’s website under Science & Space:

“Scientists, educators and policymakers have long been concerned about American adults’ resistance to certain scientific ideas,” note Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg in the review published in the current Science magazine. In 2005 for example, the Pew Trust found that 42% of poll respondents think people and animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, a view that is tough to reconcile with evidence from fossils. Many people believe in ghosts, fairies and astrology. “This resistance to science has important social implications because a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning,” the psychologists say.

Okay, let that sink in for a moment.

Occam’s Razor, named after a 4th century Franciscan friar, William of Occam, states that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” It’s been translated from Latin, but it still may need some interpretation. Isaac Newton restated the rule as “we are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” This has been further adapted by scientists today to mean that all things being equal, if you have the option between 2 explanations for something, the simplest one is probably correct.

Now, consider that old William (of Occam) was first of all, a Catholic friar. Furthermore, note that he used this principle to argue, among other things, that the only entity that need exist is God. He also argued that God’s existence cannot be proved exclusively through reason; we will only know that through revelation. For William, the “simplest” explanation would be God. Fast forward a few hundred years, and we have the materialists using the Razor as a basis for dismissing all talk of God; the Razor has evolved to say that if there is a materialistic explanation for something (whether it is “simple” or not), God is the “excess” entity that we don’t need to consider. I suspect that the logic used to turn the razor inside out is flawed, as it is now used to support overly complex and occasionally illogical theories and to exclude more simple and obvious theories.

Now, consider that Occam’s Razor is only a method for deciding between competing theories of equal merit – the key to the rule is “all things being equal.” And, it doesn’t mean that the simplest answer is necessarily true; it’s just a rule based on probability. The more complicated an answer is, the greater the probability that there is some defect in the analysis. It’s like a new car with all the extras vs the old VW bug. The new car has way more things to go wrong, and the chances that you’ll need to take the car to a shop is far greater.

Looking back to the quote above, I have to ask the question, “could it be that people can’t accept some of science because they are asking people to violate Occam’s Razor in order to accept it?” Perhaps the problem isn’t in people’s “resistance” to accept that everything a scientist is true” (the 50’s are over, people!) but is rather that sometimes it just defies common sense? Maybe, for instance, people see a disconnect in being warned against eating genetically altered food, but encouraged to genetically engineer people? Perhaps it’s not the “findings” of science itself, but the fact that there are competing worldviews, and materialism doesn’t cut it? Or, perhaps it’s just that materialism as science can’t see the gaps in what it presents?

Granville Sewell, mathematics professor at the U of Texas El Paso, states:

SCIENCE HAS BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL in explaining natural phenomena that the modern scientist is convinced that it can explain everything, and anything that doesn’t fit into this model is simply ignored. It doesn’t matter that there were no natural causes before Nature came into existence, so he cannot hope to ever explain the sudden creation of time, space, matter and energy and our universe in the Big Bang. It doesn’t matter that quantum mechanics is based on a “principle of indeterminacy”, that tells us that every “natural” phenomenon has a component that is forever beyond the ability of science to explain or predict, he still insists nothing is beyond the reach of his science.
– from A Second Look at the Second Law

So, William of Occam, how would you use your razor here?