Lesson 7 – The Origin of the Species: Part II

Darwinian Evolution of the Cell

For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
- Psalm 139: 13, 14

We are very confident that strong selection for running – which came at the expense of the historical ability to live in trees – was instrumental in the origin of the modern human body form.
- Dennis Bramble, Biology Professor, University of Utah (statement regarding his article in Nature, 11/18/04)

Darwin on Darwinism

In his magnum opus, the Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin said, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” We will subject Darwinism to his own test and take for our object of study the fundamental building block of life -- the cell. Can it be shown that the cell could develop gradually by Darwin’s proposed mechanism -- variation and natural selection? The evidence for evolution is supposedly overwhelming so we will check it out in this lesson. If the evidence is not plausible for the cell, then Darwin’s theory breaks down from the start. Darwinian evangelist Richard Dawkins admits, “If (evolution) is not gradual...it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness ... we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation.”[i]

Biochemistry[ii]

Biochemistry is a relatively new science born in the early 1950’s. It is actually a group of sciences that investigate life at the molecular level. It includes, informs, and has spawned disciplines such as molecular genetics, embryology, cell physiology and genomics. These sciences have revealed much about how the basic building block of life -- the cell -- operates. Cells are molecular machines (or more appropriately, complex automated manufacturing factories), which have one additional and remarkable capability -- they can replicate (reproduce) themselves!

The Cell

The cell is the basic unit of living matter of all organisms -- plant and animal. It contains everything necessary for an organism to survive -- performing directed and pre-programmed work --

• stores and retrieves information


• builds cellular infrastructure


• produces and processes energy


• replicates itself

The fundamental molecules within the cell are:

• DNA – stores the “blueprints” for the construction of life molecules


• mRNA (“messenger” RNA) – carries a copy of the “blueprints” from the DNA to the building site of the proteins


• PROTEIN – constructs and repairs the living system it is in from the “blueprint” copy.

Note the repeated use of the term “blueprint” in describing the function of the fundamental molecules of the cell. The blueprints are specified instructions which direct and enable the cells to carry-out their function. How did these blueprints originate? Are they the product of random undirected forces as the evolutionist maintains, or are they the product of intelligent design? Can we ever know?

The structure and building blocks of the cell

In the last century, science has given us incredible instruments and tools for studying the living cell. To Darwin and his early followers the cell was just a microscopic “blob” of organic substance[iii] -- a “black box.”[iv] These new instruments and the science of Biochemistry have opened up this remarkable black-box (the cell) to find nothing short of an incredible self-running, self-replicating computerized organic manufacturing plant. If Darwinian evolution is true, then it must account for the molecular structure of the most fundamental part of this manufacturing plant --- the cell. In this lesson we will see that Darwinian evolution does not, and in fact, can not. We will use Darwin’s own criterion to show that evolution cannot account for the development of the cell by “numerous, successive, slight modifications.”

Let’s peek inside the living CELL and the process by which it builds PROTEINS from the genetic assembly instructions contained in the DNA within its nucleus.





The cell is the fundamental unit of life. The human body is composed of hundreds of trillions of cells. The defining features of the CELL are, (1) its membrane which divides the outside world from the interior of the cell, and (2) its nucleus which contains its DNA.[v]









Irreducibly complex systems

What type of system can not be formed by “numerous successive, slight modifications,” i.e. a Darwinian-derived system? Answer? -- an irreducibly complex system. Something as simple as a mousetrap is an irreducibly complex system. For it to function as a mousetrap it must be fully integrated. A fully integrated system is composed of many individual parts, all of which when integrated together contribute to its intended function. No part of a mousetrap can be missing for it to do its job; not one. And, each part must be available at the exact time needed to function. Each part must be minimally functional (not too long nor short, not too hard nor soft, etc.) to accomplish its task. Each part must be precisely “machined” to within certain tolerances or it will not work, even if all the parts are present.

Biochemistry has demonstrated that any biological apparatus involving a cell or cell system is an intricate web of many different, identifiable irreducibly complex systems. Cells are not just blobs of substance as thought in Darwin’s day. A typical cell contains thousands and thousands of different kinds of proteins and other more complex units. Proteins are made by chemically stitching together amino acids into a molecular chain. The cell’s work requires streams of proteins to function harmoniously together with each protein carrying out previously specified tasks. The instructions for this work are specified by a “blueprint” contained in the DNA molecules and communicated to the protein by messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules. For Darwinian evolution to be true it must provide an explanation for how the cell originates and carries out these functions by chance variation and natural selection. What biochemistry shows is that the cell is an irreducibly complex system whose origin and function can not be explained by Darwinian evolution.

The probability of cell assembly by random processes

In previous lessons we have shown that the origin of life by the chance assembly of chemical bonds within the simplest living cell is literally impossible.[vi] The incredibly complex molecules that make up the cell: DNA, RNA and proteins are all interdependent. For life to have originated by naturalistic processes, all three kinds of molecules would have to emerge spontaneously and simultaneously from inorganic molecules. Even the most optimistic of evolutionists now agree that the chance appearance of these incredibly irreducible complex molecules, at precisely the right time and place, is beyond the realm of natural possibility. Evolutionists, however, based on their philosophical presupposition that evolution must be true, continue to cling to “chance plus natural selection” as the mechanism for the origin of life so they continue to construct naturalistic theories[vii] that supposedly fill-in the gaps. Evolution is based on an ideology desperate to find a scientific foundation. This can be demonstrated by doing a scientific literature search for an explanation of the mechanism by which cell evolution occurs.

The scientific literature on the subject

Professor Russell Doolittle is a professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Harvard and is a world recognized expert in protein chemistry, molecular evolution, and origin of life research. His doctoral thesis on cell function was entitled, The Comparative Biochemistry of Blood Coagulation. He has written extensively in these fields. In his essay, Probability and the Origin of Life, which appears in the book Scientists Confront Creationism, Dr. Doolittle says that the state of knowledge of cell evolution is “well understood” and that Christian critics are “misguided” in their opposition to it. He concludes, “With this essay I have tried to show that the arguments that are raised about the improbability of the origin of life, particularly those concerning functional proteins, are often naive and misdirected.... the next time you hear creationists railing against the ‘impossibility’ of making a particular protein... you can smile wryly and know that they are nowhere near a consideration of the real issues.” You judge for yourself from the following if Dr. Doolittle makes a good case that cell evolution is well understood.

In 1993, Doolittle wrote an article on how the complex and delicately balanced cellular process of blood clotting (his doctoral specialty) evolved. It appeared in the journal, Thrombosis and Haemostasis. Professor Doolittle explains: Blood clotting is a delicately balanced phenomenon involving [complex chemistry] ...Various metaphors can be applied to its step-by-step evolution ... My favorite is the yin and yang.” He continues to develop the metaphor of the masculine principle (yang) and the feminine principle (yin). “Their marriage yields the true essence of all things ... consider the following yin and yang scenario for the evolution of vertebrate clotting. I have arbitrarily designated the enzymes...as the yang, and the non-enzymes as the yin.” Dr. Doolittle never cites any causative factors in this article. He concludes with, tissue factors “appear,” fibrinogen “is born,” antiplasmin “arises,” TPA “springs forth,” and cross-linking proteins are “unleashed.” What exactly, Dr. Behe asks, is causing all this “being born,” “springing forth,” and “unleashing?” Doolittle cites no causative factors. He obviously is engaging in philosophical speculation, which would be perfectly all right if it wasn’t being put forth as science. If I were an evolutionist, his analysis would not motivate me to: “smile wryly and know that they (the creationists) are nowhere near a consideration of the real issues.”

When legitimate scientific questions go unanswered, especially in a scientific journal, we have left science and entered the realm of philosophical speculation. Yin and yang metaphors are taken from Eastern religion. (As an aside, can you imagine a biblical metaphor getting published in a journal like Thrombosis and Haemostasis?) Doolittle’s “explanation” acknowledges that blood clotting is an irreducibly complex system. His bottom-line is that clusters of proteins have to function in a specific sequence all at one time. Therefore, we are left with postulating a “miracle” which creates all the right proteins by chance at precisely the right time. Doolittle’s audience is the leaders in blood clotting research. They know the state of the art. Yet, the article does not explain scientifically how clotting might have originated and subsequently evolved, even though that is its stated purpose. Instead he tells a “Just So” story. The fact is that no one on earth has the vaguest idea how any complex cellular process (such as blood coagulation) came to be or works. Paradigms of staggering complexity underlie almost all bodily processes. Faced with such complexity, Darwinian evolutionary theory falls totally silent and is totally impotent in its explanatory power.

Publish or perish

The Journal of Molecular Evolution began as a publication in 1971. It is devoted exclusively to research aimed at explaining how life at the molecular level came into being. Over 50 of the top names in the field have been on its editorial staff -- many in this prestigious group are members of The National Academy of Sciences. Each monthly issue contains a dozen or so scientific papers covering various aspects of molecular evolution. Dr. Behe found that none of the papers published in JME (over its entire history) has ever proposed any details by which a complex biochemical system might have been produced by Darwinian evolution. No one even asks those kinds of questions let alone attempts to answer them! This is very strong evidence that Darwinian evolution is an inadequate framework for understanding the origins of complex biochemical systems. Attempts to explain the evolution of irreducibly complex biochemical systems -- from simple “mousetraps” to complex blood-clotting systems -- by the gradualistic evolutionary route have been incoherent. No scientific journal publishes patently incoherent papers, so entries asking detailed questions of biological evolution at the cell level are not to be found.

Dr. Behe searched scores of other journals devoted to biochemical research, including the prestigious Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences. He did find some 400 papers concerned with molecular evolution, but not one paper was found offering any explanations. He next explored libraries around the world. “Surely,” he said, “there would be a book that tells me how specific biochemical structures came to be.” A computer search of the library catalogs showed there is no such work, even though there are inviting titles such as, The Causes of Molecular Evolution, and Evolution at the Molecular Level, among others. In fact, there has never been a meeting, a book, or a paper on the details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems! Why then is Darwinian evolution still credible with so many biochemists? Because, they have been taught in their scientific training that Darwinian evolution is true. Students learn by indoctrination in the classroom, in their textbooks, in the literature and at their conferences that Darwinian evolution is factual and that they are to view the world through the evolutionary lens.

“Publish or perish” is a proverb that academicians take seriously. If they don't publish their work for peer review, they have no business in academia. This proverb should apply to scientific theories as well. If a theory claims to explain something but does not even offer an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished. Theories of molecular evolution have not been published so they should perish, says Dr. Behe.

The “Peer Review” bias against Intelligent Design [viii]

In August 2004, Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Meyer's article argued that naturalistic theories of evolution can't account for the "origination of new biological forms" during the period known as the Cambrian Explosion, and suggested intelligent design as an alternative. This article had to go through the same peer-review process as any other scientific paper. But that wasn't enough for many Darwinists. Members of the Biological Society of Washington, as well as the National Center for Science Education, wrote to the journal protesting that the article was "substandard” -- before they'd even read it. Even the Biological Society's governing council distanced themselves from the article, saying that had they known about it beforehand, they "would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The statement went on to declare that "Intelligent Design … will not be addressed in future issues of the [journal]." The whole subject is just off-limits. As Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute says, "Instead of addressing the paper's arguments or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate."

How can a respected scientific organization get away with that kind of censorship? Simple: by portraying the subject as non-scientific. Never mind that three scientists approved Meyer's article, as did the journal's editor, who is an evolutionary biologist. Naturalistic evolutionists can't afford to think that Intelligent Design could possibly explain life. They can't even acknowledge it, for fear it would turn their whole philosophy -- yes, philosophy, not science -- upside down. To believe in design means believing in a Designer, and that belief wouldn't fit at all with the closed universe that's essential to the naturalistic worldview. So they take what they see as the only possible way out -- cut off debate and forget about academic freedom. It's frightening to see scientists deliberately decide that a line of scientific inquiry doesn't deserve to be pursued because it doesn't fit their beliefs. Who is putting dogma before science here? The scientists who complained about Meyer's article need to learn that you can't have it both ways. You can't, on the one hand, maintain that a scientific movement must publish a peer-reviewed article in order to be considered legitimate, and then turn around and claim that it wasn't legitimate for a journal to publish any peer-reviewed article from that movement!

Undiscovered natural laws

Of course, there is always the possibility that still some unknown naturalistic mechanism, Darwinian or otherwise, might be discovered that advances the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Some of the research programs in genomics are from the latest frontiers. As one of my professors was fond of saying in light-hearted moments, “Anything is possible except squeezing toothpaste back into its tube.” However, in the absence of any solid affirming empirical evidence after almost 150 years of trying, it is the conclusion of many scientists that evolutionary theory is long due for a “paradigm shift” because Darwin’s theory has failed to explain the one thing that made its promise so grand: the origin of new species. We have come to a point where neo-Darwinists reject common sense in their attempt to defend evolution, and resort instead to ad hoc proposals, ad hominem attacks, and political maneuvering. The priority of the evolutionary paradigm has taken precedence over common sense and empirical findings. Many evolutionists have become so dogmatic that anyone who questions their belief is considered ignorant, or a heretic who should be ridiculed into silence. This is the approach taken by many of the current day popular articles on the subject. The authors attempt to paint a calm picture of well-established science unburdened by serious criticism.[ix] But now that you know better, critically examine the evidence presented and you will quickly come to the conclusion that these articles are many times nothing more than propaganda, with cases built on weak circumstantial evidence and usually a misrepresentation of the creationist’s position as religious dogma.

We have reviewed the failure of presently known physical and chemical laws to explain the origin of life and the evolution of new species. Clearly the present theories are inadequate and those that are committed to Darwinism cling to it by faith rather than by scientific evidence. As I have previously shown, naturalists by definition hold that there are no scientifically meaningful answers from fields that transcend nature, e.g., philosophy and theology. They hold that true (real) knowledge comes only through scientific naturalism. After all, they say, naturalism’s track record has been so remarkable and its scientific methodology is self-correcting and nearly flawless. They comfortably conclude that they have every reason to have faith that someday science will find satisfactory naturalistic answers. So they wait …… going to their grave (or worse) without an adequate answer. In my view they will never find an adequate naturalistic answer because the fundamental answers they seek are beyond (transcendent to) the box in which they have put themselves, i.e., “Nature is all there is.”

Precedents of the past

There have been other times in history when the established scientific paradigm was totally wrong, but the passionately entrenched clung to the traditional wisdom even in the face of totally disconfirming evidence simply because they had nothing better to replace it with. In the 16th century astronomers clung to the Ptolemaic model of the solar system (the earth is at the center) even after hundreds of years of disconfirming evidence. The theory became so cumbersome and so inaccurate for explaining planetary motion that common sense told the new generation of astronomers (like Copernicus) that the tradition he inherited had finally “created a monster.” But by the late Middle Ages, the Ptolemaic model had become a self-evident truth after almost 1500 years. It was the one and only unalterable picture of cosmological reality. The mainstream astronomers along the way, who became aware of the unreality of the whole system, never bothered to consider an alternative theory.

In the late 18th century the same problem surrounded the theory of combustion (fire). It was thought that an invisible substance -- “phlogiston” -- was responsible for combustion. When something burned it allegedly released phlogiston. Experimentation eventually disconfirmed its existence but at every turn the defense of the theory by the intransigent establishment became more and more bizarre and contradictory. Instead of questioning the existence of this mysterious substance, they clung to believing in it even when spectacular proofs clearly demonstrated the theory had to be wrong (e.g. phlogiston had negative weight!). It turned out that phlogiston never existed, but it took a paradigm shift, viz. that combustion is the result of materials chemically combining with oxygen, for the shift in thinking to take place.

Today the same is true with Darwinism. The evidence against macroevolution ever having occurred, or even possessing the capacity to occur, is overwhelming. Yet to the committed Darwinist the evolutionary paradigm is accepted without a shadow of doubt and propagated as such. The current apparent continuing triumph of the theory is only psychological and subjective. In fact, fanatical clinging to the paradigm only emphasizes the metaphysical nature of its evolutionary claims and the lack of any sort of rational or empirical basis.

WHAT ARE THE BIOCHEMICAL LINES OF RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE COMPATIBLE WITH EVOLUTION?

Similarities of amino acid sequences within proteins[x]

The information that scientists derive from molecular biology may be used to compare and categorize organisms, just as “anatomical shapes” are used to classify animals (taxonomy). Biochemistry evaluates the sequences of the amino acids within the proteins that are common to the different species.[xi] For example, Darwinists have demonstrated that the amino acid sequences of proteins in humans more closely resemble that of monkeys than that of fishes. This is given as strong evidence to how closely related (at the molecular level) humans are to monkeys, and for Darwinian theory of common descent.

To a large extent biochemical classification has confirmed the classification traditionally developed from anatomy (taxonomy). That is, a horse (biochemically speaking) is more like a cow than it is like a bird, not only in obvious appearance but also in its amino acid sequencing. This is a remarkable scientific discovery and certainly substantiates the anatomical sciences. But, Darwinists hail these similarities in biochemical make-up as compelling evidence for evolution and confirmation that humans share a common ancestry with monkeys. Common ancestral descent, however, is not about classification of species; it’s about the transition between species. When one tries to tie the transition of species together using biochemical comparisons, the pattern that emerges contradicts Darwinian expectations. The biochemical comparisons hold only at the classification (taxonometric) level, but not at the transitional level.

To illustrate, consider the protein “cytochrome c” common among many species and often used for this kind of analysis. “Cytochrome c” usually consists of 104 amino acids. Upon a comparison of its amino acid sequences within humans to other species we find what evolutionists were expecting -- humans differ from Rhesus monkeys by a very small amount – in fact, only 1%. They differ from a pig by 10%; from a fish by 17%; and from an insect by 29%. However, if we try to explain the evolution of the species in Darwinian terms of common descent, i.e., simple-to-complex evolutionary progression, the evidence actually disconfirms it. If evolution were true, we would expect to see some evidence that the %-difference between species would change predictably as one goes up or down the evolutionary tree. That is, Darwinian theory predicts a greater %-difference from an insect to an amphibian than to a fish -- a greater distance still to a reptile; and greater still to a mammal. Yet this pattern is not found. Darwinism claims that fish evolved into amphibians. Thus one would expect that the “cytochrome c” in fish to be more similar to the “cytochrome c” in amphibians than it is to reptiles or mammals. That is not the case. The %-difference between a fish and a frog (amphibian) is the same as it is between a fish and a turtle (reptile), and between a fish and a horse (mammal). All are at about 13%. At the molecular level there is no trace of evolutionary transition from fish to amphibian to retile to mammal.

Similarities of genetic codes in DNA

This %-difference analysis is used to analyze DNA (gene[xii]) sequences as well. Perhaps the most baffling finding is that radically different genetic coding can give rise to animals that outwardly look very similar and exhibit similar behavior, while creatures that look and behave completely different can have far less genetic divergence. There are, for example, more than 800 species of frogs, all of which look superficially the same. But there is greater variability of molecular sequencing between them than there is between the bat and the blue whale. Had this information been available to opponents of Darwin in his day, Darwin’s ideas on evolution might very well never have been accepted at all.

Is it “common ancestry” or “common design and function”?

An alternate Intelligent Design explanation is that all living organisms must survive in the same universe and fit into the same food chain. That puts requirements on organisms to be of a common biological and anatomical base. All have carbon-based molecules and all perform common physical functions, e.g., eating, walking, reproducing, etc. It should be no surprise that organisms share similarities at some level in both anatomy and biochemistry.

A decade before Darwin, the biologists who described similarities between the species (homology) attributed these similarities to common design, not to common ancestry. How can one determine whether homology in living things comes from one or the other? Simply pointing to the similarities, as evolutionists do, does not prove anything as biologist Tim Berra inadvertently showed when he used different models of Corvette automobiles to illustrate “descent with modification.” In his 1990 book, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, Berra wrote that “descent with modification is overwhelmingly obvious” in Corvettes. But we all know that automobile similarities are due to common design rather than common ancestry. Only by demonstrating that a Corvette can morph into another model by natural processes could someone rule out the need for a designer. Similarly, the only scientific way to demonstrate that similarities in living things are due to common ancestry would be to identify the natural mechanism that produced them. According to Darwin’s theory, that mechanism is “natural selection” and the evidence for it is underwhelming.

Darwinism mechanisms of genetic change

There are no explainable mechanisms of genetic change that would lead to the appearance of new species. There are several lines of research, however, that are compatible with the idea of macro genetic change and common ancestry, and the Christian apologist should be aware of them.[xiii]

• Regulatory mechanisms: As we have seen, when the genomes of organisms are compared, there is an amazing amount of similarity (homology) between species. A great many of the genes (often in excess of 95%) are the same between species as distantly related as humans, mice and corn plants.[xiv] What this may mean is that the differences between organisms have more to do with how the genes are turned off and on, i.e., how they are regulated and the communication between cells, than to the specific gene itself. The evolutionary implication would be that small genetic changes could have larger effects than one might originally think.


• Mutations seem to fit: When you compare some of the similar genes you find in different organisms, they usually differ in some immaterial way that doesn’t change their overall function, e.g. the DNA sequences A-G-A, A-G-C, A-G-G and A-G-T (only the 3rd position changes), all code for the same amino acid Serine. The degree of difference between organisms in terms of these minor changes seems to fit the concept of “relatedness” that one would expect in an evolutionary model.


• Gene families: There are genes with strong similarities in their overall sequence that code for proteins with very different functions. So instead of all genes having very unique sequences, they tend to fall into certain families. This leads to a concept called “recruitment” – the idea that a gene having one particular function in the cell can be changed slightly and able to serve another function. In the case of the bacterial flagellum, for example, several of the proteins are extremely similar to proteins involved in different structures. This fact has been used against the irreducible complexity argument put forth by Michael Behe.[xv]


• Regulatory cascades: Many genes work in concert through something called a regulatory cascade. A signal molecule of some type can trigger one gene which in turn can make a whole series of other genes “turn on” – and they can trigger still others. This can happen in one cell or between many cells in different parts of the organism. The evolutionary implication is that a small change in one key regulatory gene at the beginning of such a cascade could have a very large effect.


• Vestigial genes: Winter Wheat is a grass crop that grows in temperate climates. Its seed will not germinate until it has been exposed to cold weather. This is beneficial because when the seed is produced in the fall it will not start to grow and then get killed in the winter. Rice is a tropical grass and has no “need” for seed dormancy, yet rice has the gene for dormancy on its chromosome but just doesn’t use it. This is certainly not proof of common descent, but it fits the model.


• Multiple mechanisms of change: Many of the arguments and calculations that have been made to suggest that evolution is statistically impossible only consider one way that DNA changes – a “point mutation”. In recent years many other mechanisms of genetic change have been discovered, some of which move around large sequences of DNA and which make combinations of sequences that are dramatically different (e.g., transposons, crossing over, retroviruses, etc.). The evolutionary implication is that genetic change can occur in ways that are unexpected and not easily modeled.

Multiple mechanisms of gene regulation: As previously noted, “what genes are turned on and when” might be as important as what genes are there in the first place. This is called gene regulation. Once it was thought to be a simple process, but now has been demonstrated to be much more complex. The upshot for evolutionary theory is that there can be important regulatory changes going on and that a small change in the regulatory mechanism might have a dramatically larger effect.

Christian response

None of the phenomena noted constitute evidence that macroevolution can occur – but it is scientific fact consistent with evolutionary theory. There is nothing in the scientific literature, however, (supported by pertinent experiments or calculations) that describes how these processes work as an evolutionary mechanism.

“Young-earth” and “old-earth” creationists comfortably conclude intelligent design is responsible for the diversity of life on the planet. Evolutionists remain convinced that something like Darwinism must have happened and that current evidence (and future scientific discovery) is sufficient to prove it. Theistic evolutionists, however, are many times caught in the middle. Whereas Intelligent Design creationists think that evolutionary evidence favors design, theistic evolutionists tend to think it favors Darwin. In discounting intelligent design, theistic evolutionists also tend to appeal to philosophical and theological considerations. In some theological traditions there is a pessimism about the powers of the native intellect to transcend the physical world. Other traditions see faith and science as two separate compartments that do not necessarily inform one another.

The naturalistic Darwinian establishment sees “theism” in theistic evolution as superfluous. God’s role is unnecessary in our understanding of the physical world. Therefore, the hard-core Darwinian establishment views theistic evolution as, “a weak-kneed sycophant that desperately wants the respectability that comes with being a full-blooded Darwinist but refuses to follow the logic of Darwinism through to the end. It takes courage to give up the comforting belief that life on earth has purpose. It takes courage to live without the consolation of an afterlife. Theistic evolutionists lack the stomach to face the ultimate meaninglessness of life, and it is this failure of courage that makes them contemptible in the eyes of full-blooded Darwinists. (Richard Dawkins is a case in point.)”[xvi]

Other evolutionary models

At the fundamental level of organic molecules within the living cell, the assertion of Darwinian evolution is mere hypothesis at best, and fantasy at worst. So, what are the alternative evolutionary theories being discussed?

At the dawning of the 20th century, another generation of evolutionists was mired in doubts and disagreement about how evolution operates. At that time, all the options seemed inadequate, even after 40 years of classical Darwinism. As we have noted in a previous lesson, Mendelian genetics and mutation theory gave new life to Darwinism so that by the 1930’s the neo-Darwinian synthesis became the reigning paradigm -- and has remained so to this day. But the problems with neo-Darwinian evolution started becoming evident right from the beginning. Disenchantment with it has been growing steadily since the 1940’s as lab instruments and biochemistry reveal exactly what is happening at the cell level.

Here are some of the alternative models that have been accepted over time.

• Lamarckism (Jean Batiste De Lamarck, 1744-1829)
  Lamarck proposed two lines of evolutionary thought – one naturalistic and one theistic. The naturalistic theme was the prevailing view just prior to Darwin. Survival advantages acquired by a species during its lifetime can be passed on to its offspring; therefore adaptive perfection can be achieved gradually as each successive generation strives to improve its survival characteristics. Lamarckism has inherent plausibility because social evolution seems Lamarckian in character. That is, we learn generation by generation and propagate our learning to the next generation.
  
  The theistic theme is that there is some non-material inner force, or “vital drive” within the organism that drives evolution. Vitalistic theories do not hold any appeal to purely naturalistic scientists because to them it smacks of theism and hence declared out-of-bounds.



• “Hopeful Monster” theory (Richard Goldschmidt – 1940’s)
  UC Berkeley evolutionary geneticist Richard Goldschmidt became so disenchanted with Darwinism that he proposed (perhaps tongue in cheek) a “hopeful monster” theory to replace it. In his theory, unexpectedly and without warning a reptile egg hatches into a bird! He did not propose a mechanism.



• Punctuated Equilibrium (Stephen J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, 1970’s - )
  Gould and Eldredge proposed Punctuated Equilibrium as an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution. Whereas Darwinian evolution occurs gradually by the accumulation of successive small modifications which account for evolutionary changes, “Punk-Eek” speculates that those changes are made in large leaps over short periods of time. No plausible mechanism is given.



• Cooperative and Symbiotic systems (Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts, 1980’s - )
  Like Stephen Gould, Margulis argues that conventional Darwinian mechanisms could not account for the stops and starts observed in the fossil record. “Symbiosis” she suggests could explain why species appear so suddenly and why they persist so long without changing. This theory postulates that multiple living systems come together for cooperative reasons to help each other develop. However, it assumes that already-functioning complex systems are in place. It offers no explanation as to how these cooperating systems came into being. This theory actually increases the complexity, and hence the improbability, of an evolutionary scenario.



• Panspermia – Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe (1980’s - )
  Panspermia postulates that life originated as “spores” elsewhere in the universe where evolutionary conditions were more favorable. These spores found their way to planet earth and took root.[xvii] The theory has two flavors. One proposes an extraterrestrial intelligence that evolved elsewhere and designed the spores casting them into the universe to populate distant planets such as the earth (“directed” panspermia). The second is that life-originating evolution, operating in a more favorable environment than earth’s, created the spores by chance and natural processes, and then the spores fortuitously found their way to earth (“undirected” panspermia). Earth’s evolutionary mechanisms were sufficient to finish the job. Atheistic astronomers Hoyle and Wickramasinghe proposed this theory in their book, Evolution from Space, A Theory of Cosmic Creationism, after they concluded that evolution of life on earth was about as “improbable as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747.” Panspermia does not answer the question of life’s origin any more than Darwinism does. It simply pushes the problem of origins off to some other galaxy.



• Complexity (self-organization) theory (Stuart Kauffman, Sante Fe Institute, 1990’s - )
  Kauffman began to suspect that Darwin’s theory of evolution was seriously flawed in that it could not account for the seemingly “miraculous” ability of life to appear and then to perpetuate itself in such “miraculous” ways. Kauffman’s theory postulates that systems consisting of a large number of interacting components spontaneously organize themselves into ordered systems. Life systems are not the result of the hard-won success of natural selection, but of pervasive order-generating effects. Kauffman thinks that accident alone cannot have created life; our cosmos must harbor some fundamental order-generating tendency. Studies in “biochemical predestination” by Dean Kenyon and others have shown the implausibility of this mechanism.



• Intelligent Design (Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, 1990’s - )
  A “completely outside the naturalistic box” theory was proposed in the early 1990’s by a group of loosely organized theistic scholars who advanced the idea that species are too complex to evolve by natural causes alone. While eschewing biblical arguments and chronologies, they see species as the product of “intelligent design.” Phillip Johnson stresses the idea that science should not a priori exclude supernatural causes of natural phenomena. Gaps and abrupt appearances in the fossil record are best explained by special creation. Michael Behe claims that organic molecules are too irreducibly complex to have evolved through small, random steps; and that intelligent design is a more plausible explanation. William Dembski has developed probabilistic theory to support what it means to be “designed.” Stephen Meyer has argued that naturalistic theories of evolution can’t account for the information content of biological systems, but intelligent design can. Intelligent design is a very promising line of research, but is currently prohibited from consideration by the evolutionary establishment -- strictly because of its naturalistic bias.

All these scientists have proposed alternative theories because they know that “something is fundamentally wrong” with Darwinism and they are attempting to offer a better explanation. Regardless of the acceptance of their theories by others, they have had the courage to speak out. Dr. Behe of the Intelligent Design movement, for example, cogently presented his idea of the “irreducible complexity” of the cell in his book, Darwin’s Black Box, in order to better explain scientifically, species as a product of design rather than of chance or natural law. Darwinian evangelist Richard Dawkins says that Behe is an "embarrassment to his profession," and is "lazy" and should get back to the lab to look for the evolutionary linkages. Ad hominem (i.e., personal) attacks of this sort are the last recourse of those who have nothing to say. It is just desperate name-calling by public figures of others who possess neither sticks nor stones, just facts.

Conclusion to Naturalism

Since no gradual path exists to evolve irreducibly complex systems, a straightforward conclusion would be (if no pre-existing bias existed) that biochemical systems were designed. That is, they were not formed by chance and natural selection; rather they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed, then took steps to bring it about. Life on earth, at its most fundamental level, seems to be the product of intelligent activity. This conclusion flows naturally and indubitably from the data themselves, not from sacred books. We could confidently conclude that an intelligent agent designed our biochemical systems. Up until Darwin this was neither the obvious conclusion of the learned nor the unlearned. Darwin offered up an atheistic alternative to intelligent design and the world gobbled it up. Committed atheist Richard Dawkins put it this way, “Darwinian evolution has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” The result of the last 50 years of biochemical science, however, cries out for an intelligent designer to be the Creator of life. The evidence is so compelling that today’s scientific ability to demonstrate its veracity should rank as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. It is as momentous a discovery as that of the earth going around the sun. The scientific community just refuses to acknowledge the obvious, says Behe.[xviii]

With all its deficiencies, the Darwinian model is still the best naturalistic model of evolution ever proposed because it evokes well-understood physical and natural processes. It just doesn’t have the causal power necessary to explain what it claims to be able to do – explain the origin of the species. The naturalistic Lamarckian model is incompatible with our current understanding of heredity – no case has ever been observed of inheritance of acquired characteristics. The Hopeful Monster and Punctuated Equilibrium models, i.e., jumps in nature occur without a trace or a mechanism, cannot be subjected to any sort of empirical confirmation. Symbiotic systems theory actually increases the complexity of an evolutionary explanation. Panspermia pushes off evolutionary origins to outer space where even less is known. Complexity theory is “fact free science” as mathematical modeling is proposed without empirical verification. And creationist models, such as Intelligent Design are off-limits to the naturalistic evolutionist. Therefore, Darwinism remains the paradigm left standing. Reject Darwinism and there is in effect, no good naturalistic theory of evolution to replace it. On the other hand, Intelligent Design (ID) theory is rational, reasonable and is developing a strong empirical basis to support it.

Christian response

Intelligent Design, though it has religious implications, should not be rejected on that basis alone. The question for science must always be whether or not something is true, not from where did it originate? ID is the best inference of the observable data. In the early 20th century there was much scientific opposition to the big bang theory because it implied a creation event; and that implied a Creator. The empirical evidence eventually became so overwhelming that the bias against the religious implication was overcome. Big bang cosmology doesn’t seem to have hampered scientific investigation or research programs because of the acceptance of a creation event. Likewise, as evidence accumulates for design, the religious implications for a Designer won’t foil science and throw it back into the dark ages as the nervous critics proclaim.

Evolutionists must face the fact that all scientific conclusions are ultimately based on unproven and unprovable philosophical premises. Arguments that come from secular scientists are not privileged. And those that come from people of faith are not somehow out of bounds. Religious arguments have no special authority in the scientific arena, but the attempt to label those arguments as illegitimate because of their origin is simply a fashionable form of prejudice.

As Christian apologists we are called to understand our opponent’s views, become knowledgeable about the issues, and engage in the apologetic task. We are to pray that the Holy Spirit will open-up the minds of those who are blind to the Creator/Designer so that they might see the data through a “saving” lens. Remember both the Christian and the non-Christian are looking at the same data, however through a different set of assumptions. The eyes of the Christian have been opened by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, but the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelieving.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world had blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”- 2 Cor. 4:4,5

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[i] River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins, (Basic Books, 1995), p. 83.
[ii] Much of the information about the biological cell in this lesson was adapted from the book, Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe.
[iii] Darwin’s cohort Ernst Haeckel declared the cell to be a “simple little lump of albuminous combination of carbon.” Scientists of that age thought the cell so simple that it might just “pop-up spontaneously from sea mud.”
[iv] The term “black box” is used to describe an object that can be understood from the outside by studying its operation, but little is understood of how it operates inside. An example of a “black box” is your personal computer. You can understand how it operates by mastering the keyboard and screen, but you may have no understanding how it works inside.
[v] Each human cell contains about 10 feet of DNA with about 3 billion sub-units. The total DNA of a particular organism is referred to as its “genome.”
[vi] Robert Shapiro in his book, Origins, A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, tells of the early work of Yale molecular biophysicist Harold Morowitz who calculated the odds of a chance creation of a cell at 1 in 10 to the hundred billionth power (10^{100,000,000,000}). This is the number 10 multiplied by itself a hundred billion times and would be written as 1 followed by 100 billion zeros. This is a number so infinitely large that to write it out in conventional form would require several billion pages and a near eternity of time! Morowitz describes his own work in, Energy Flow in Biology, (Academic Press, 1968).
According to French probability expert Emile Borel’s “single law of chance” -- beyond 1 chance in 10⁵⁰, things never occur, i.e. they are “impossible” as a practical matter. Morowitz’s odds are 99,999,999,950 times “more impossible” than the “impossible.”
[vii] A current example is that the first life forms arose from special “super” RNA molecules that could carry out all the essential functions of DNA, RNA and proteins. DNA, “regular” RNA, and proteins then evolved somehow from the “super” RNA molecules. There is no empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. Even if there was, RNA molecules could not survive without a cell for its environment. The cell would have to be constructed first, which is impossible without RNA as a building block. At every turn, we are led back to the “chicken and the egg” problem.
[viii] As reported in Breakpoint with Charles Colson; Commentary 11/23/2004.
[ix] A good example is the November 2004 issue of National Geographic. The cover story, Was Darwin Wrong?, and the more than 30 pages of articles under the title section: NO!! The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming. It simply ignores the problems and the controversy.
[x] Adapted from Of Pandas and People, by Percival Davis, Dean Kenyon and Charles Thaxton.
[xi] Biochemistry has discovered that the sequence of amino acids in a given protein is not fixed but varies from species to species. Though a protein might perform the same function in different species, it may differ in the sequencing of its amino acids. This “sequence difference” can be calculated by “lining-up” the amino acid sequence of the same protein from two different species, and counting the number of “amino-acid-positions” that differ. As a hypothetical illustration, consider two species (S1 and S2) containing the same protein c, which is made up of 10 amino acids (represented by the letters A through J). The amino acid sequences of c in S1 and S2 can be compared:

The amino acid sequence of
protein c in species S1 is:             A B C D E F G H I J
                                                                         :: :: ::
The amino acid sequence of
protein c in species S2: is:           A D C D J F B H I J

The sequences of the 10 amino acids differ in 3 positions (B::D; E::J; and G::B). The %-difference between species S1 and S2 is calculated to be 30% (3 out of 10 positions differ). If there was only 1 position difference, the %-difference would be 10% (1/10).
[xii] Genes are the segments of DNA passed-on from parent to offspring through heredity. Human beings are estimated to have 30,000 genes. In the neo-Darwinian synthesis, evolution occurs because chance-generated mutated genes produce advantageous traits in the offspring thereby increasing the frequency of those genes in the population (natural selection).
[xiii] Steve Savage Ph.D. contributes this section and wisely cautions the Christian apologist who is tempted to conclude something “can’t happen” because of irreducible complexity. When we make absolute assertions that something “can’t happen,” we don’t have to be fully refuted to loose credibility; we only have to be only “nicked” in our logic. There is no sense setting oneself up for being disproved on a small detail of scientific complexity if in the process we lose the main point. What we are learning about the cell from biochemistry is increasing daily so we must be careful about making irreducible-complexity arguments of “what can’t be done.”
[xiv] We have also shown that this similarity can be just as easily attributed to common design as it can be to common ancestry.
[xv] In response, Dr. Scott Minnich notes that at least 40 proteins are used in the assembly of the bacterial flagellum and at least 30 of them are unique – hardly “nicking” Behe’s argument.
[xvi] William A. Demski, Intelligent Design, The Bridge Between Science and Theology, (Intervarsity Press, 1999).
[xvii] Science has shown that some very rudimentary forms of bacteria can survive the hostilities of space.
[xviii] Romans 1:18-25 says that man clearly understands this conclusion, but willfully suppresses the truth.