Logic Times

Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design

Posted by Aslan, 05/05/05, 11:51pm. Comments (7)

Part Two: Where the Theories Succeed

Part Three: Punctuated Creation

In the last installment, Where the Theories Succeed, I argue that two seemingly contradictory elements comprise a new theory of evolution/creation:

Humanity is unique and clearly not the by-product of natural/random evolutionary forces, and
The idea of a God constantly intervening to place individual species on this Earth over the life of the planet makes no sense and unnecessarily limits the Creator. However, the rejection of "speciation via divine intervention" implies that some mechanism of species development – as yet not well understood (and certainly not Darwinism) – is likely true.

This contradiction can be reconciled if we recognize that LIFE and the UNIVERSE are incompatible. Entropy is the starting point.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT) – the law whereby order in the universe always decreases – is one of the over-arching laws of the physical universe. And what is a unique characteristic of the SLT and this decrease in order? Time. Time's Arrow (see here).

Time is essential for free will to operate. Without cause and effect, there can be no choices, and without choices there can be no expression of free will and without free will God does not get what He wants: reciprocation of love.

God "needs" time. Yet time comes with baggage: a decrease in order. Life is all about an increase in order. To suggest a local increase in order because of star power is one thing (i.e., coalescence of planets), postulating that all the coordinated, essential conditions for human life are part of a universal decline in order is, quite frankly, preposterous. The only answer that those opposed to Intelligent Design can offer is RANDOMNESS (and repetition), which wholly fails every test of significant complexity. Life cannot arise unaided in a universe governed by the SLT; entropy does not permit it (and, no, the flawed and simplistic 1953 Miller experiment does nothing to suggest otherwise).

So God created the universe with the Big Bang, and His initial creative effort was entirely sufficient to begin time and produce all the entropic majesty of a lifeless universe of planets and galaxies, organization on a relatively low scale with local increases in order easily explained (by the overall decrease in heat). Unattended, such a creation is a lifeless dead-end, doomed to slowly cool and drift apart (or perhaps cyclically re-collapse if Omega is slightly less than 1).

And such may indeed be our fate, except that God has, for His unique purpose, grafted life into this lifeless universe.

Why did God not create a Big Bang configuration such that life could begin in a universe governed by the SLT? Because He cannot. Do not fret, God remains omnipotent. Yet even omnipotent Beings are constrained by contradiction. God cannot create a circle-square. I do not mean he cannot make a circle into a square, but that he cannot create a shape that possesses both the characteristics of a circle and a square – such a shape is nonsensical and, by definition, cannot exist.

So, too, God cannot create a lifeless (entropic) universe with life hardwired into it – the laws of order contradict the laws of disorder. Enter the need for intervention.

An important point in this discussion must be restated: God is certainly capable of creating life that can evolve, even in universe that increases in disorder – we see the hint of such a system in natural selection. To object to evolution on the basis of it not being possible is to suggest God is incapable of designing a system of evolution. This must be rejected. One can reject evolution on the basis of the evidence (or lack thereof), but then one must argue for speciation via divine intervention, which defies the systematic nature of the rest of God’s creation and conjures up, with the aid of compelling circumstantial evidence, an illusion that evolution has indeed taken place.

Once life is established, variation and selection are more than capable of preserving traits and adapting life. Micro-evolution is fact and macro-evolution for non-complex traits seems well supported in areas of the fossil record (hominids, plants, fish, etc.) and in lines of descent. We know that variation and selection function to preserve advantageous traits – the question is: what is the missing mechanism that produces complex variation? I do not know. I do understand the scientific method and therefore must reject gradualism (Darwinism) as this mechanism. Of all the theories of evolution in the public domain, only one does not contradict observation and offers unproven but promising mechanisms for complex variation: punctuated equilibrium (PE) by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould. The theory described here embraces most aspects of PE.

God, therefore, need only introduce biological life (capable of speciation) into the lifeless universe to begin the process of creating human life. But there is a problem: the entropic universe is not only incompatible with biological life (ordered), it is also completely incompatible with spiritual life, which is non-physical and eternal. The introduction of biological life (the symbiote) into a lifeless universe (host) is only part of the operation necessary to achieve human life. A second intervention is required to incorporate spiritual life into the symbiote.

Now why should anyone take this theory, which I call Punctuated Creation, seriously? Because no aspect of this theory contradicts observation or an inerrant reading of the Bible. Some parts are certainly speculative, but spend five minutes with Hawking’s no-edges model of the universe if you want a real taste of speculation.

The main points:

God began creation with an initial singularity
The unfolding of this universe produced local increases in order we call galaxies, suns and planets
Life cannot emerge in a universe where all systems decrease in order
God intervenes to graft life into a lifeless universe
The addition of life, with its built-in selection characteristic, to the nascent, environmentally unstable Earth ensures dramatic variation which drives speciation
Such speciation cannot be explained through the gradual accumulation of variant traits, but must instead be the result of an intense mechanism, perhaps what Gould describes as "metasystem transition"
The end result of the evolution of life is limited (Flipper, Old Yeller, Koko), devoid of the spiritual complexity that is the hallmark of humanity
God incorporates the spirit into homo sapiens sapiens

Punctuated Creation has a friend in the Bible, where God creates a lifeless universe, then God creates life, and finally creates Man, unique and in His image, valued above all. This theory also has a friend in science, where theories that do not violate observation are given their due, and where hard gaps in knowledge are filled with Intelligent Design.

Comments

1: Larry Horacek

May 6, 2005 12:27am EST

Many thanks for offering a well-thought-out theory of how we are today. Still, your argument relies almost exclusively on the implicit strength of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to justify most of your conclusions (which I believe, in the end, is insufficient to be all convincing). Given the implications of other new theories, such as string theory, to describe how our universe and all therein could have evolved, leaning too much on the 2nd law does not open a new window of explanation.

I believe that God did create our universe, and that His plan for the universe is incredibly complex and not yet fully understood. Within that plan, nothing suggests that God could not intervene should He choose. Yet His plan is sufficiently integral and complete so that He does not need to intervene unless He chooses. So the universe (and God's plan) continues to unfold.

The exceptionally fine detail and relationship among the forces of our universe clearly proclaim a creative force. Yet neither science nor religion can convincingly prove a creative force within the scientific methods of today. Of course, many who possess a high "Spiritual Quotient"(1) don't need a scientific proof to accept a religious explanation to the mystery. On the other hand, those who rely on pure scientific method for answers are still searching because (with a clear conscience) they can neither prove nor disprove what others accept spiritually.

What bothers me most is that many are unwilling to even consider whether there is a spiritual dimension to our creation, thereby eliminating one of the more intriguing theories that explains why we are. Said in another way, I am surprised that every scientist is not spiritual because spirituality ignites the very possibility between us and the creative force that we know is there. Of course, this is anathema to pure scientists...dismissing any experience outside the scientific method. And yet I think it odd, that as we continue to discover new and amazing complexities in quantum theory, or how our universe has evolved, that we believe that the ONLY way to think about these matters is through the scientific method. True, it can lead the way, but can it find the way home?

(1) "Can a Smart Person Believe in God?" by Michael Guillen, Science Correspondent, ABC News

{Aslan: Thanks, again, Larry for your thoughtful comments. While I agree that, in the face of 10 dimensional string theory and quantum mechanics, the SLT has taken on a Newtonian quaintness, it still holds fast as a principle that governs our universe and defines time. My reliance upon the SLT is in contrasting disorder (time) with order (life) and examining the paradox thus created.

It is also important to make clear the two choices in this equation: evolution vs. "the whole placement of species." For those that want to reject all forms of evolution, they need to realize where they stand: the actual appearance out of thin air of fully formed and rigid species again and again and again, for the fossil record (that we understand) shows the staggered arrival of species on the scene (except for the Pre-Cambrian explosion 550 million years ago). I think some use the idea of intervention as sort of a vague, theological term and don’t consider the nuts and bolts. If you were sitting on a ridge on the North American plains 50 million years ago looking for Hyracotherium (an extinct midget horse), suddenly - **poof** - a herd of them would appear on the grassland below. That is the alternative to some form of evolution.

The point of my essay was to make a few points clear:

That atheism, not science, has dominated evolutionary theory.
That rejection of evolution means embracing the whole placement of species described above.
That we can answer some of the concerns of both camps by recognizing the clash between disorder and order.

I like your observation about science and spiritualism – truly, some of the most dynamic, open scientists I know are believers. They are "connected," as you suggest.}

2: RNR

May 6, 2005 2:11am EST

What a load of crap. You might as well put forth a theory that the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz are responsible for making different species. Just because you make crap up, doesn’t mean its worth the time to read it.

{Aslan: Glad you liked it!}

3: Trekram

May 6, 2005 9:34am EST

It appears to me that your entire theory just accepts most of Gould's PE evolution model and then inserts at the beginning and end the Creator's intervention of graft life and install spirit. Which is fine. I guess I was waiting for something more enlightening about macroevolution.

However, beating up on Darwin's theory was over done because in the end it's just an earlier and yes flawed original evolutionary model but "some TBD" theory of macroevolution still stands in your argument. One sentence could have put that point away and saved us all a lot of eggheads posting comments. But then again, that may have been your intent and design in bringing your theory along and baiting discourse and participation. And I actually enjoyed and learned from their responses.

I guess, to my liking, it would have been better to address science's struggle with the initial creation of life from matter than on Darwin's problems or any form of evolution because in the end, macroevolution as a theory was never your issue, just Darwin's gradual model.

On God's grafting of life, I could use your own argument and say you’re insulting God by not thinking he could create a system capable of bringing life from matter. Your SLT argument doesn't hold because in the system where life came into existence (namely ours) was in fact a system seeing an increase in order due to an influx of energy, specifically our planet being bombarded with energy from the sun. If I'm wrong here, please correct me.

On a personal matter, I'm still struggling with speciation and perhaps I need to look into this "metasystem.”

God installing the spirit in man is outside the bounds of science and cannot be argued or even considered by science.

In the end, you seem to be a 3 time exception Deist who sees God as winding the clock at initial creation and intervening for life and spirit, as opposed to me seeing God as an all present Being sustaining and controlling everything at every moment, including a guiding hand in evolution with trillions of interventions along the way. To limit the Creator to only an initial act and 2 other creative acts in my opinion "makes no sense and unnecessarily limits the Creator." It would be better and make more sense to argue the atheist position than Punctuated Creation. As I described years ago, I see God as the Master Artist creating a Masterpiece with each stroke of a brush.

{Aslan: Your criticisms are valid. I abandoned a more detailed treatment of PE because I thought I had already exceeded readability.

As for the mechanism of evolution, I have no special insight, except an intellectual honesty that allows me to recognize a farce (gradualism) when I see one. And the reason for my militant attack of Darwinism is that, unlike with you, this theory is not scrutinized and is broadly accepted as fact in the secular world. What appears to you to be an obvious and overblown criticism of a weak theory is actually, I believe, a rather radical challenge of a theory viewed in the same light as relativity and the Big Bang. I wanted to show why people with an open mind actually reject those "facts."

As for why "grafting," I explained my idea that definitions make impossible the predicate coexistence of time (disorder) and life (order). I happen to think this, while not quantum mechanics, is a pretty insightful observation that happens to address satisfactorily some deep theological issues.

Our universe has revealed itself to be systematic and predictive. While I cannot disprove your idea of the routine application of the hand of God to create and guide each specie, it is as defensible as arguing that nano Pixies burp out species. Your only guide is the literal - not inerrant, but literal - reading of the Bible that compels you to reject sizeable circumstantial evidence supporting evolution.}

(more comments here.)