BOOK REVIEWS || JOURNAL OF CREATION 32(3) 2018

An unconventional evolutionist validates the irreducible complexity of living things

forced to choose, and casting your Purpose & Desire: What makes lot with one has meant being cast something ‘alive’ and why modern out from the other. But there is a Darwinism has failed to explain it middle path to follow, which I have J. Scott Turner argued in this book means coming HarperOne, New York, 2017 to grips with life’s truly distinctive nature—its purposefulness, its intentionality, and its distinctive intelligence. Failing to do this will stew of organic molecules, most of John Woodmorappe only cast us deeper into the shadows which are uninteresting, with the of irrelevance” (p. 298). interesting bits invariably present r J. Scott Turner is a biologist I do not find the author’s ideas, in quite small quantities. Imagine D(physiologist) and Professor of on purpose-driven evolution, either wanting to find a particular type Biology at the State University of particularly lucid or convincing. of screw in a warehouse of brads, New York College of Environmental However, in voicing his ideas, Turner nails, nuts, clips, and a zillion other Science and Forestry in Syracuse, explicitly endorses many of the fasteners, all jumbled together New York. He has published numerous considerations raised by scientific in a mountain of little scraps of books, and he has been featured in a creationists and by proponents of randomly shaped metal. How can variety of science programs. Intelligent Design (ID). That is the you argue that a screw is in there Turner identifies himself as an focus of this review. at all—or in the warehouse of the enthusiastic Darwinist (pp. 6–7). He primordial soup, how something also professes to be a Christian though, lifelike could come from that? The Inadequacy of evolutionistic in his own words, “not a very good answer is, ‘Not very plausibly’” origin-of-life hypotheses one” (p. x). (p. 233). Though unambiguously an Decades ago, creationist biochemist Dr Gish had focused on the evolutionist, Turner contends that Duane T. Gish had pointed out that any synthesis of prebiotic proteins. Since existing concepts of organic evo­ ‘chemical soup’ model suffers from a there are 22 amino acids in existence, lution are excessively reductionistic, number of fatal defects, not the least of there are 22 different possibilities for and inadequate as they stand. The which is the fact that there would be an the first position in the protein, times author speculates that, just as indi­ astonishing variety of chemical species 22 different possibilities for the second vidual organisms have an internal in any mix, and hence any ultimately position, times 22 different possibilities homeostasis, so also does nature as a ‘relevant’ chemical species would be for the third position, etc. For even a whole, and that is what is ul­timately diluted into insignificance. medium-sized protein, there are more sup­posed to drive evolution­ ary­ change. Using rather picturesque language, different possibilities than all the atoms Turner’s views can be summarized by J. Scott Turner reaffirms this sobering in the known universe. Turner alludes the following statements: fact. He comments: to the implications of the consideration “For nearly a century, our choice “Worse, the more we have learned, raised by Gish, “When you have has been stark: the purposeless the more daunting the problems enormous numbers of the precursors world of the materialist, or the have become. First, there is the jumbling around, there is a finite chance demon-haunted world of the vitalist. problem of yield. What cooks up that just the right sequence of events For nearly a century, we have been in a Miller–Urey flask is a diverse will occur; but the more interesting

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the desired product is, the smaller the ‘Laboratory-made life’, if everyone who worked to bring her chances of it arising spontaneously” anything, supports special into being. The paradox is that none (p. 233). creation, not evolution of this even slightly undermines the creationist argument for the origin Although a committed evolutionist, of life; it strengthens it [emphasis Clay-crystal magic Turner echoes creationists as he added]” (p. 227). to the rescue? discusses the imagined as well as As if to rub-it-in to the actual significance of Synthia, the first Author Turner tries to get around the evolutionist scoffer, Turner continues: ‘synthetic organism’. He quips: problem of the origin of life by dusting “Actual life did not need the “The logic is familiar: if scientists off the clay-crystal hypothesis for the JCVI [J. Craig Venter Institute] can make life in the laboratory, origin of life, advocated by Scottish to come into being, after all, nor this must prove that life could chemist A. Graham Cairns-Smith any of its scientists, not any of its have originated from just the right (1931–2016). Clay minerals, like all sophisticated machines, nor any chemistry, thereby proving that life minerals, serve as templates for the of its already-existing microbial needn’t come from the hand of God. growth of like-shaped minerals. Thus, helpers: it came about entirely on In our modern secular culture, this its own. How did that happen? If in a sense, clay crystals can already has sometimes emboldened the Craig Venter needed a platoon of naturally ‘reproduce’ by virtue of being nonbeliever to smite the creationist, the smartest people in the world crystals. They supposedly could be and with unseemly glee. The to cobble together a poor imitation subjected to ‘natural selection’ based biblical injunction to be mindful of life, just imagine the intelligent on their catalytic capability (that is, of the plank in one’s own eye force that had to have brought the their presumed ability to ‘devour’ (Matt. 7:3–5) is germane here, for original into being! [emphasis in less-catalytic crystals, thereby driving Synthia presents an uncomfortable original]” (p. 227). the latter to extinction). According to paradox for our atheist friends the scenario—and I stress the word to contemplate. We might call it scenario—these super-catalytic crystals the ‘hands-of-the-scientist-god’ Confessed irreducible could successively grow more complex paradox. Synthia carried a price tag complexity: DNA requires as a result of continued natural of about $40 million. This money proteins, and proteins selection. Finally—lo and behold—a supported the numerous scientists, require DNA living thing would emerge. What’s man­agers, and tech­nicians in­volved, Turner comments: more, the carbon that is part of this along with the highly so­phisticated­ “Metabolism, to be more than mere primitive carbon-silicate life would machinery and organizational chemistry, must be highly ordered, literally take on a life of its own. That infrastructure they needed to reliable, and reproducible. Bringing is, it would ‘kick away’ the silicate do their work. In short, Synthia this orderliness reliably into being scaffold, and so we would be left only was the collective product of the requires a high degree of spec­ with the kind of all-carbon-based life intelligence, foresight, and drive of ification, which must somehow be with which we are familiar. He admits: “It’s a crazy idea, but as is sometimes said, it may be just crazy enough to be true” (p. 240). But so can little green men on Mars. Turner, like Cairns- Smith, was driven to this ‘crazy idea’ simply because all other chemical evolutionary scenarios are even more chemically preposterous. Turner does not address a fun­ dament­ al­ question. If clay crystals themselves naturally become the objects of natural selection according to their catalytic abilities, then why aren’t our soils readily dominated Figure 1. Accidental differences in the DNA molecules are supposed to cause evolutionary by clay crystals that have fantastic differentiation. But how did DNA originate in the first place? And which came first, the DNA that catalytic capabilities? specifies protein sequence, or the protein sequence that is necessary to synthesize the DNA?

41 BOOK REVIEWS || JOURNAL OF CREATION 32(3) 2018

inherent in any presumptive living but because it is philosophically school system, and instantly threatens system. Currently we think this inconvenient” (p. 72). litigation.) specification inheres in replicators, in specific sequence codes of Litigation and thought control: Natural selection is a tautology nucleotides in DNA that speicify evolutionistic near-hysteria sequences of amino acids in Many different authors have (the author’s term) about proteins. So far, so good, but when identified ‘natural selection’ as a Intelligent Design (ID) we ask from where the replicators tautology. It is an empty concept that themselves come, things begin to Turner continues to take his fellow effectively speaks of ‘the survival of loop around on themselves. The evolutionists to task, in no uncertain the survivors’. In addition, ‘natural replicability that underlies DNA’s terms, as he comments: selection’, at least in the Darwinian status as a repository of hereditary “Exhibit A on this score is the sense, confuses the ‘survival of the memory depends upon a host of near-hysteria that recently gripped fittest’ (an obvious truism) with the metabolic processes specified by evolutionists worldwide over arrival of the fittest (a speculative particular protein catalysts. Those Intelligent Design theory (IDT). evolutionary inference). protein catalysts would not exist, Looked at objectively, IDT is Here is how Turner analyzes it: of course, without the replicable a rather harmless and benign “The problem: our current hereditary memory … . The resurgence of Neoplatonism. Yet it conception of this core evolutionary dilemma is obvious: each of the was commonly represented in the idea is essentially meaningless. two necessary attributes of current scientific ‘community’ as something What is adaptation? The product life—heredity and metabolism— akin to the Golden Horde storming of natural selection! What is must exist for the other to exist. It the Gates of Vienna, with all the natural selection? The outcome is impossible (deluded, actually) to illiberal responses one expects in of adaptation … the conclusion is imagine such an intertwined system a community that perceives itself a restatement of the premise, for coming together all at once, with under siege. The controversy was example, ‘it is what it is’” (p. 8). no intelligence guiding it. Yet if we more or less suppressed with a are to believe that original life was federal judge’s 2005 ruling in The concept of exaptation is anything like current life, we must Kitzmiller v. Dover that IDT is a multiplied form of believe they somehow did precisely not science and therefore was evolutionary tautology that. To use a loaded phrase, present proscribed from being taught in life seems to be ‘irreducibly science classrooms. The irony The author discusses various complex’” (pp. 229–230; see of ‘academic freedom’ seeking evolutionary speculations on how figure 1). protection behind a federal judge avian flight is supposed to have defining what science is was lost evolved. According to one of them, in the victorious celebrations that Evolutionistic hostility to feathers originally evolved so that followed the ruling” (p. 262). any hint of teleology the bird would have better heat There are further implications­ to balance. At some point, evolutionary Conventional evolutionistic think­ all of this. Many people, includ­ ing­ well- processes co-opted the feathers for ing is not merely hostile to God: It meaning Christians, have suggested flight. According to some other ideas, is averse to any idea that deviates that means other than persuasion (e.g. feathers originally appeared in order from strict materialism and chance. litigation) should not be attempted to to make the bird seem larger or more Turner makes this very clear: “It is try to ‘force’ creationism or ID into formidable. a different story altogether when it the classroom. Ironically, as Turner Turner points out the fatal problem comes to the problem of evolutionary shows above, this considera­ ­tion works with this kind of thinking: adaptation. Speak of purpose and both ways. Evolutionists­ have certainly­ “If you think that this all sounds desire for evolutionary adaptation and been using means other than persuasion like special pleading and scenario you’ll quickly be lumped in with the (e.g. litigation) to define-away ID as spinning, you would be correct. For God-botherers and other intellectually ‘unscientific’ and thereby to censor its one thing, the concept of exaptation malodorous tribes” (p. 71). presence in the classroom. (In the USA, suffers from the same tautology that The author adds: “Modern evo­ the so-called American Civil Liberties afflicts modern Darwinism. Where lutionism rejects this solution, not Union watches, like a hawk, any hint evolutionary adaptation is selection because it has been disproved, of Christian expression in the public of genes that promote adaptation,

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exaptation is an adaptation that is only apparent, because, in doing so, this idea of the well-ordered leads to another adaptation—it’s the worker’s self-sacrifice indirectly niche. No longer was the niche an the same logical fallacy, multiplied” enhances the survivorship of her own expression of a creature’s proper (p. 288). genes by enhancing the survivorship place in nature: it became a site of of the queen, which, after all, bears contention and competition, tied up the same genes. Thus, the ‘altruistic’ in nature’s tragic drama, red in tooth The giraffe’s long neck: character of the worker bee’s suicidal and claw” (p. 267). Darwin to the rescue? behaviour is illusory. As Turner puts Today, evolutionists often say, The author suggests that textbook it, “altruism was in fact a surreptitious with no small amount of intellectual orthodoxy is wrong, in which Lamarck form of genetic selfishness …” arrogance, that “nothing in biology was some kind of a dunce who (p. 196). makes sense except in the light of believed that giraffes got long necks by This textbook orthodoxy all sounds evolution” and that creationism and stretching them for many generations, convincing, until examined closely. ID have nothing to offer in terms of and Darwin was the brilliant scientist Turner shows that the queen bee is the advancement of our understanding who figured out differential survival: quite promiscuous, including with of nature. The facts are exactly the that giraffes have long necks because drones of other colonies, and that other opposite. Not only have many modern short-necked giraffes could not social insects (e.g. termites) also have biological concepts (to which we can add the ecological niche to the compete, and so became extinct. quite fluid mating and social systems list) originated before and without Turner quips: (e.g. p. 205). Consequently, the colony Darwinism, but had originally, at least “The familiar example of the giraffe and its specific genes can no more in part, been creationist concepts. just-so story should look familiar be the unit of natural selection than because it can be found in nearly the individual and its genes. In other every biology textbook written words, when the worker bee sacrifices Conclusions since. Usually, the giraffe story is herself for the benefit of the queen or There is a growing body of filed under Lamarckism, but in all colony, there is no guarantee that she is evolutionary scientists who, without fairness it should be filed under enhancing the survivorship of her own endorsing either creationism or Darwinism, for Darwin’s theory genes by enhancing the survivorship Intelligent­ Design, recognize that of pangenesis was a Lamarckian of the queen’s genes, as the latter may their ideas have at least some validity, scheme for the heritability of be different. and that standard evolution­ ­ary theory acquired characteristics across is fun­dament­ally defective. It is high generations” (p. 94). The concept of ecological niche time that these well-aimed criticisms was pre-Darwinian, and was of standard evolutionary theory be Kin selection and belatedly co-opted re­cognized and respected in academia. inclusive fitness by evolutionists According to conventional evo­ J. Scott Turner comments: lution­ ­ary theories today, genes are “The ecological niche is a selfish. The behaviours of living things venerable idea that predates the are therefore driven to perpetuate the neo-Darwinian synthesis … . As bearer’s genes. That is why living it was originally conceived, the things strive to survive, including niche concept was reminiscent at the expense of others. But how to of William Paley’s well-ordered account for altruistic behaviour in creation—every species in its place, nature? The conventional explanation together producing a harmoniously is that it is the gene that is selfish, functioning ecosystem” (p. 267). and the ultimate object of natural And then evolutionary theory selection, and not necessarily the ‘hijacked’ the ecological niche. Turner individual. For instance, the worker continues: bee sacrifices her own life by stinging “Like nearly everything else an actual or potential intruder. biological in the early twentieth However, according to conventional century, the neo-Darwinian revo­ evolutionary explanation, this altruism lution dramatically trans­form­ed

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