CONTROVERSY

Darwinism Versus Intelligent Design David Berlinski & Critics

PAUL R. GROSS: theory have all been given before- again in evolutionary biology and Congratulations are in order. In in the professional literature, in the mathematical physics. This, if true, his latest COMMENTARY essay on introductory biology courses of all would give it some scientific serious- "Darwinism"-as it is often called by decent colleges, in half a dozen very ness. But it is not true. There is not those who do not know much evolu- recent specialist books, on fifty one publication in recent biological tionary biology-David Berlinski flourishing scientific websites. How- journals, out of the tens of thousands seems to have reversed himself ["Has ever well intelligent-design apolo- of articles published annually-a Darwin Met His Match?," Decem- getics is doing as politics, there is huge subset of them devoted specifi- ber 2002]. He is now critical of the nothing new about its abject failure cally to evolution-that undertakes to effort to rehabilitate the ancient "ar- as science. rehabilitate the argument from de- gument from design," these days On the other hand, none of the sign. None of the intelligent- holiday-wrapped as "intelligent-de- reasons Mr. Berlinski hints at for re- design "theorists" mentioned in his sign theory." This change of mind is jecting "Darwinism" stand up. They essay has ever published the claim in all the more praiseworthy because are the familiar creationist pabulum, an original article in a regular, refer- Mr. Berlinski is not only the author supposedly demonstrating the grand eed biological journal. Nor, of course, of "The Deniable Darwin" (COM- flaws and gaps in evolutionary biol- has Mr. Berlinski himself done so. MENTARY, June 1996) but, according ogy. But these arguments, too, have As for William Dembski's lu- to his current author's note, closely been addressed in the professional cubrations on chance and probabili- associated with the Discovery Insti- literature, in tens of thousands of pa- ty-which even Mr. Berlinski now tute, the conservative Christian think pers, and in dozens of excellent, best- finds flawed-I know of no profes- tank that serves as the primary pro- selling popular science books-and sional publications (other than Dem- moter of "intelligent design." they have been soundly refuted. Un- bski's own books and his frenetic re- The manner of Mr. Berlinski's dis- fortunately, a non-biologist reader of sponses to critics) that treat them as missal is less creditable, however. His "Has Darwin Met His Match?," in- of interest for mathematical physics. argument might be paraphrased as nocent of this vast body of knowl- There are, however, a dozen point- follows: intelligent design has failed, edge, will have no notion of its con- by-point refutations of those claims, evolutionary biology has failed, and tent or even, perhaps, of its existence, many of them available on the Inter- therefore nobody has a plausible sci- and may therefore take Mr. Berlin- net, by well-known physicists, philo- entific explanation for the diversity ski's assertions as true as well as deep, sophers, mathematicians, and biolo- of life on earth. This is absurd. which they are not. gists. The reasons Mr. Berlinski gives Mr. Berlinski says that the argu- University of Virginia for the failure of intelligent-design ment from design has been taken up Charlottesville, Virginia

[9] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

MARK PERAKH: that would be troubling if Darwin- still myriad open questions today. What is perhaps most amusing ism were a theory about the origins Mr. Berlinski does not mention about David Berlinski's article is his of life. Since it is not, Mr. Berlins- Fisher or Hamilton or any of the apparent change of mind on the sub- ki's hand-wringing on the subject is other thousands of biologists ex- ject of intelligent design. Having inappropriate. ploring these open questions be- supplied rave blurbs to the books of The fruits of evolutionary theo- cause he is anxious to present evolu- such prominent advocates of this ry are disseminated in thousands of tionary theory as a fixed philosophy "theory" as William Dembski and research articles in dozens of jour- rather than a dynamic science. In- Michael Behe, he now casts doubt on nals every year. Obviously, the peo- deed, the only publishing biologist the concepts they promote. What ple charged with the responsibility he mentions is Jonathan Wells, the explains this new view? The advo- of entering their labs and solving Unification minister whose prayers cates of intelligent design are anxious problems find it useful. Numerous and conversations with the Rev. Sun to be taken seriously as scientists. complex systems have been studied Myung Moon convinced him, in From their standpoint, it may seem and the major steps of their evolu- Wells's own words, "that I should to be a step forward that Mr. Berlin- tion revealed. Where data are copi- devote my life to destroying Dar- ski gives their ideas a status equal to ous, they are all in accord with winism," which he reports as his that of Darwinism, even if only by Darwinian expectations; where mys- spur for studying biology. casting doubts on both equally. teries remain, the problem is a lack But no matter how vivid his the- The list of unsubstantiated asser- of data, not a lack of theoretical ro- ological motivations may be, Wells tions in Mr. Berlinski's paper is long. bustness. (or indeed anyone in the intelligent- Though enviably eloquent, it adds In response to all this, intelligent- design camp) will eventually have to nothing to the debate other than to design theorists fold their arms and offer an alternative explanation of try to put the failed hypothesis of shake their heads. That is their the variety we see among living intelligent design on a par with gen- right. But for all their bloated things that does not rely on the key uine science. claims and hyperbolic rhetoric, they evolutionary idea of descent with Bonsall, California have made no contribution toward modification. Furthermore, that ex- solving an actual biological prob- planation will have to be tested, and JASON ROSENHOUSE: lem. For that matter, neither has those tests will have to be scientif- David Berlinski's arguments David Berlinski. ic, not religious. against intelligent-design theory Kansas State University Here even Mr. Berlinski gets off suffer only from a lack of originali- Manhattan, Kansas the intelligent-design bus, because ty; critics have been making the he can see where it is heading. If the same points for years. Still, he gives CLAY SHIRKY: only way to defeat a scientific hy- a good picture of why most scien- David Berlinski expends a lot of pothesis is with another scientific tists find this field unpromising. energy trying to make evolutionary hypothesis, then we will never get Mr. Berlinski's ongoing antipathy theory look like religion. He men- to what he seemingly wants: a world to mainstream biology, by contrast, tions Darwin often and gestures to- where science stops trying to ex- is based on a caricature. Blubber- ward a set of beliefs called "Dar- plain things. He likes intelligent de- ing about gaps in the fossil record winism," as if Darwin were some sign for criticizing evolutionary cannot change the fact that, with sort of high priest and Darwinism a theory, but he dislikes it because it millions of fossils collected and clas- sect. But biologists do not practice is itself too much like science, and sified, not one is out of place from "Darwinism" any more than physi- may end up having to make testable a Darwinian standpoint. Also, Dar- cists practice "Einsteinism." For bi- assertions in the domain of what he winism requires continuity at the ologists, The Origin of Species is a his- calls "the ineffable inimitable." level of the genotype, not the phe- torical work, not a how-to manual. Because he cannot get his hands notype. And while it is true that in- Unlike Berlinski's "Darwinism," on the steering wheel, Mr. Berlin- formation is independent of the evolutionary theory is a field of vig- ski reaches for the brakes, asserting medium containing it, there is noth- orous and current debate. Darwin that a large domain of interest is or ing mysterious about the idea that had no idea how heredity worked- should be permanently exempt from changing the medium can alter the it took fifty years for R.A. Fisher scientific inquiry. This has been a information. Genes do mutate, and his colleagues to relate Darwin's standard plea of the religious for the thereby coding for different pro- work to Mendel's. Darwin likewise last several centuries, and Mr. teins from before, and new func- had no explanation for altruism-it Berlinski's formulation-that the tions are sometimes observed to took a hundred years and the work search for "the ineffable inimitable" arise as a result. The source of the of William Hamilton to develop a is fruitless-is a classic of the genre. code is indeed mysterious, a fact plausible hypothesis. And there are History has not been kind to those

[10] DIVERSITY

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S COMMENTARY MARCH 2003 who predict an end to scientific es for Christian audiences that its Nilsson and Suzanne Pelger's paper progress, and declare God to be the representatives admit their real be- on the evolution of the mammalian sole possible explanation for the re- liefs and goals. eye, I am flattered that he singled maining mysteries. Houston, Texas me, a physicist, out for criticism. It Brooklyn, New York is Mr. Berlinski, however, not the MORTON RoSOFF: biologists or I, who suffer, as he S.L. BAccus: Like creationists, David Berlinski writes, from "an inability to read the Intelligent-design theory can be targets natural selection in his cri- literature." summed up, as best I can determine, tique of Darwinian theory, oblivious In describing the paper by Nils- by two propositions: there is a cre- to other mechanisms of evolution son and Pelger (not Pilger, as Mr. ator and evolutionary theory is false. that Darwin never knew about: Berlinski misidentifies her), I wrote Its advocates do not believe the cre- pseudogenes, genetic drift, symbio- that they had performed a comput- ator is sophisticated enough to have sis, chromosomal rearrangements, er simulation of the development of created our universe in such a com- interbreeding, developmental pro- the eye. I did not write, as Mr. plex way. It appears they would pre- teins, etc. Berlinski suggests, that they used fer a magician, waving a wand and "Creation science," a slick varia- nothing more than random varia- shouting magical words of creation. tion of creationism, seeks to trans- tion and natural selection, and I Nor should one overlook that the port philosophical and theological know of no reference that says they creator, as defined by Mr. Berlinski ideas into a scientific program to in- did. and his associates at the Discovery vestigate intelligent design, but of- Mr. Berlinski's complaint that Institute's Center for Science & fers no empirical evidence, no mod- they described an eyeball, not an Culture (CSC), is the Christian els, no verifiable predictions, no pos- eye, is typical of those who tilt at God. The group's ultimate goal ap- sibility of correction or elaboration. neo-Darwinism. If Nilsson and Pel- pears to be getting Christian beliefs It is not intended to improve our ger had simulated the development taught in our schools. In his book, knowledge or extend scientific hori- of the light-sensitive patch with The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the zons but to support religious faith. which they started, Mr. Berlinski Foundations of Naturalism (2000), The writers whose work Mr. would have asked where the origi- Phillip E. Johnson writes, Berlinski describes propose a version nal cells came from, and so on back to primordial ooze. Criticizing what The proper metaphysical basis for of the "anthropic principle": that the science is not naturalism or ma- universe and its fundamental param- we know about biology by harping terialism but the fact that the eters must be such as to admit the on what we do not know is like crit- creator of the cosmos not only cre- creation of observers. The tautolog- icizing a sturdy, durable, and func- ated an intelligible universe but ical foundation of this idea is that tional concrete wall because there also created the powers of rea- observers find themselves in uni- are chinks in it. soning which enable us to con- verses that allow them to observe. It The paper by Nilsson and Pelger duct scientific investigations.... is only a short step from here to in- is a sophisticated simulation that [T]he materialist story thrives telligent design, the advocates of even includes quantum noise; it is only as long as it does not con- which have expressed theological in- not, contrary to Mr. Berlinski's as- front the biblical story directly.... clinations. sertion, a back-of-the-envelope cal- So it is of the greatest importance It is true that science has its own culation. It begins with a flat, light- that we ask the question: "Has philosophical or faith-like underpin- sensitive patch, which they allow to God done something to give us a nings. They consist of methodolog- become concave in increments of 1 start in the right direction, or has ical tools like Occam's Razor (don't percent, calculating the visual acu- He left us alone and on our own?" invent unnecessary entities to ex- ity along the way. When some oth- When we have reached that point plain something), falsification (can a er mechanism will improve acuity in our questioning, we will in- hypothesis, in principle, be falsi- faster, they allow, at various stages, evitably encounter the person of fied?), and balance (extraordinary the formation of a graded-index lens Jesus Christ, the one who has claims need extraordinary evidence). and an iris, and then optimize the been declared the incarnate Word These devices have served science focus. Unless Nilsson and Pelger of God, and through whom all performed the calculations in closed things came into existence. with great success for 300 years. Yonkers, New York form or by hand, theirs was, as I In the mission statement on its wrote, a "computer simulation." website, the CSC bends over back- MATT YOUNG: Computer-aidedsimulation might ward to avoid appearing as the Chris- Considering the great number of have been a slightly better descrip- tian creationist group that it is. It is biologists whom David Berlinski tion, but not enough to justify Mr. only in written material and s)eech- charges with failing to read Dan E. Berlinski's sarcasm at my expense...... d-- - x Y O

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COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

More important, had Mr. Berlin- other laws for that matter. The tonishing engineering to an obvious ski read more carefully, he would precise way in which Shake- purpose surely tells us that we are have recognized that Nilsson and speare arranged 113 words to looking at the work of a purposeful Pelger's accomplishment was not to fashion his [eighteenth] sonnet designer. "flog" a collection of cells up an ("Shall I compare thee to a sum- But the world in which organ- adaptive peak, "a point," he writes, mer's day. . . ") owes nothing to isms really live consists, primarily, "never at issue because never in any system of physical laws. of other organisms. And some or- doubt." Rather, they showed that Not so fast. Shakespeare presum- ganisms have organs that are very the required time was geologically ably moved his hand while compos- complex and ingeniously arranged short-a point very much at issue ing those immortal lines. Hand so as to do the work of killing or among Mr. Berlinski and his neo- movements are physical, so they parasitizing other organisms. Their creationist colleagues. have fully physical explanations, like potential victims have equally com- Colorado School of Mines any other physical event. It follows plex organs whose purpose is Golden, Colorado that they are strictly governed by clear-to evade, fight off, or endure the laws of physics; hence they are the insults enabled by their enemies' TONY DOYLE: physically explicable. Of course this ingenious designs. What is the pur- Although David Berlinski offers sort of explanation might not inter- pose of a designer working out sharp criticisms of the theory of in- est us much. We might prefer to clever mechanisms for organisms to telligent design, he is inclined to know something about the person work so hard to take and kill, keep pull punches. First, he leaves un- who inspired the lines or whether and survive? challenged Phillip E. Johnson's claim the poet penned the verse in July At this point, design advocates that naturalism is "wholly extra- swelter. But this does not mean that retreat into mysticism. The design- scientific" and thus no more justi- his composition owed "nothing to er, it turns out, works in mysterious fied than the theological account of- any system of physical laws" or that ways, and his purposes are beyond fered by those who would maintain we need to appeal to a divine "in- us. But the problem with the mys- that the organic world presents com- telligent agent" to explain his be- terious designer should be obvious. pelling evidence of design. This is havior. The only eligible intelligent It is from his purposefulness, not misleading. Naturalists simply con- agent was Shakespeare himself, just his skill, that we should infer his tend that, for any event or phe- physical from head to toe. existence, yet when his work is ex- nomenon that needs explaining, we Besides, suppose for the sake of amined at a scale greater than a sin- should seek only physical causes. argument that we cannot in princi- gle organism, he appears to be This is not dogma. We have a ro- ple explain physically how poetic in- working at cross-purposes. bust idea of physical causation, sup- spiration produces a sonnet. Just The remaining mystery is that ported by countless examples; time how is a non-natural or supernatu- these contradictions, which logical- and again, the search for physical ral agent supposed to help us? Can ly weaken the claims of design ad- causes and only physical causes has the theist explain how God is capa- vocates, seem instead to strengthen paid off. By contrast, we do not have ble of creating self-conscious beings their conviction. This is cleared up a clue about how the theist's non- who occasionally write gorgeous by a simple observation: when be- physical "causation" is supposed to love poems? Doesn't positing a de- lief grows as evidence wanes, we can work. The appeal to nonphysical signer or agent here just multiply be certain we are not dealing with causes, to which intelligent-design mysteries? science and uncertain knowledge, theory is committed, amounts to an New York City but with religion and certain faith. appeal to ignorance. While there is nothing wrong with Mr. Berlinski rejects William CHRIS BEALL: proclamations of faith, we are un- Dembski's version of the argument David Berlinski leaves untouched der no obligation to consider them from design, but he is well disposed the major contradiction at the heart serious contributions to our attempt toward Dembski's "very plausible of the intelligent-design argument. to understand how the world really general premise": Intelligent-design advocates want to works. Colorado [E]vents that can be explained have it both ways. On the one hand, Lafayette, neither by the laws of physics nor they claim that wherever we find by chance must be explained by a very complex and ingeniously ar- GEORGE C. WILLIAMS: an appeal to the intervention of ranged organ, we have evidence of Though I do think the Reverend an intelligent agent. It is surely both design and a designer. From William Paley's approach a good plain that many events cannot be the design we can clearly infer the one-for information about the explained in terms of the laws of designer's purpose-to make an or- Creator, examine creation-David mathematical physics, or any Dgan that serves. its owner. well. As- Berlinski seriously understates God's

[14] Partisan Review Winter 2003

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www.partisanreview. org COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

less attractive features. It is an im- Purpose in Nature (1996), Paley was or biological patterns that chiefly pressive universe out there, so that right that a scientific treatment of concern him follows an untroubled calling God almighty is appropriate. the creation can turn theology into continuum of inductive inference. Calling Him good I will briefly deal a rigorous science. As noted above, Inductions are never untroubled, with below. Calling Him wise was God can make elaborate biological however, because they always de- Paley's emphasis-as it is of recent adaptations by trial-and-error se- pend on the human judgment that anti-Darwin critics like Phillip E. lection, but it never occurs to Him all of the examples to be tested in an Johnson-and is what I want to dis- to alter the basic plan. So He is experiment are sufficiently similar cuss here. stupid! Is He good? The answer is to warrant being included in the test There are two ways of evaluating obvious from any objective evalua- set. From our observations of spar- functional designs: according to their tion of His biological creation. Go rows, pigeons, and blue jays we may general plan or according to the out into the woods and note the ra- feel entitled to infer that all feath- quantitative precision of their parts. tios of success to failure, of happi- ered bipeds fly; but then we discov- The second approach gives impres- ness to fear and pain. As Thomas er ostriches and kiwis. The question sive positive results. We have come Huxley recognized in his 1893 lec- then becomes what the relevant to understand the functional preci- ture "Evolution and Ethics," the analogy is; but relevance, unfortu- sion of such eye measurements as Creator is clearly evil. nately for Dembski's theory, is a the distance from the lens to the South Setauket, New York very large concept that probably retina, the dimensions and shape of cannot be formalized. the lens, etc. The eye is of nearly KARL WESSEL: As for Michael Behe, another in- optimum dimensions. In his critique of philosophical telligent-design prophet, Mr. Ber- As for general design features, naturalism, David Berlinski fails to linski avers in reference to his work consider two: our upside-down reti- see that restricting scientific re- that "the origins of irreducibly com- nas and the number of our eyes. The search to material causes and effects plex biological systems remain ... retinal orientation is the result of its must follow as the immediate logical an utter mystery." The only mystery embryonic origin and positioning in consequence of a position he him- here is why Mr. Berlinski has failed a tiny and nearly transparent ances- self defends in his article: that the to read the scientific literature rele- tor of all vertebrates. When descen- intentions of supernatural beings vant to this problem in the last five dants of this early ancestor got big cannot provide the basis of any fal- years. In a series of articles in Sci- enough for the upside-down retina sifiable, or even testable, theories. ence and elsewhere, Albert Barabasi to be disadvantageous, the problem Indeed, what if God is capable, as and his colleagues have shown that was partly solved by making the Mr. Berlinski writes, of "inadver- a scale-free, power-law topology is blood vessels and other services be- tence, anger, mockery, incompe- ubiquitous in the genomic regula- tween the retina and the lens as thin tence" and so on? What if he is a tory, protein-interaction, and meta- and transparent as possible. As for surrealist painter? Whatever hy- bolic networks of the cells of dozens having just two eyes: it orients them pothesis is capable of explaining ev- of organisms. optimally in relation to such con- erything perforce explains nothing, These biochemical networks are flicting ecological needs as distance which is why the intelligent-design irreducibly complex in exactly the perception and breadth of coverage. movement resembles nothing so sense Behe intends: when the most We have excellent distance percep- much as an obsessive hamster en- highly connected nodes are removed tion because our arboreal ancestors tertaining itself on an exercise from them they stop functioning. maximized their ability to judge the wheel. Because they neither develop nor distance to the next tree branch. Of course, it is still possible that evolve following Behe's naive assem- Unfortunately, having merely two intelligent-design theory might ex- bly-line model, however, this fact is forward-pointing eyes is seriously plain the bare fact of the world's perfectly irrelevant. Rather, they in- deficient in seeing what may be seeming design-which brings us to crease in complexity over time in re- sneaking up behind. Mr. Berlinski's discussion of William sponse to chance symmetry-break- All our adaptations and those of Dembski's theory of complex spec- ing processes-in particular through other organisms are similarly com- ified information. Here he makes gene duplication, which causes the promised by historical constraints. the obvious but important observa- preferential attachment of certain Adaptive changes can come only by tion that specifications are human nodes to each other within the net- natural selection altering quantita- gestures. work, thereby producing the char- tive variables such as size and shape Dembski often argues as if the acteristic topology. (or numbers when they are large, passage from conventional kinds of At least it is good to see Mr. like scale rows of fishes). specification involving, for example, Berlinski backpedaling from his Ac T rcalp in mv hnnlr Plan and archers and targets to the nhvsical 1996 COMMENTARY article, "The - " 5- . -. _ - -- - ...... -- .

[16] CONTROVERSY

Deniable Darwin." At this rate, by ilar and yet so different, are two nat- a universe that would not either col- 2008 he may even backpedal into urally divergent branches of the lapse back on itself or expand at the truth. same tree, rather than the product such a tremendous velocity that no Rancho Palos Verdes, California of a sophisticated design. orderly development of stars and In short, a hypothesis of biolog- galaxies could ever take place. ALEXANDER ETERMAN: ical design must be built not mere- That is precisely the problem The intelligent-design theorists ly as a negation of the theory of nat- with the argument that chance dis- discussed by David Berlinski have ural selection but as a series of proves design. Chance exists only their work cut out for them. They diachronically expanded theoretical within a limited period of time and must decide whether the designer models of design, consistent in all space; it cannot exist in infinity. In monitored his creation for a long of their links. It should be noted this case, chance is the design. And time-possibly to this day-inter- that building such a hypothesis is a the designer, if there is one, may ex- vening in its workings, or whether thankless task, in the course of ist outside time and space, outside he detached himself immediately which a good half of "designers" our universe, outside any universe. upon the "launch." If the presumed empirically go over to the evolu- Chappaqua,New York designer has long since detached tionist side. himself from his creation, it is cru- Jerusalem, Israel JONATHAN WELLS: cial to determine whether he left it David Berlinski's "Has Darwin to its own devices, like an animal set GEOFFREY KENT: Met His Match?" is a breath of free, or provided it with an in-built David Berlinski purports to pre- fresh air. Darwinism has become a long-playing program that prede- sent evidence showing that the nat- sort of anti-religion, and defenders termined its operations, the way we ural world is the result of neces- of the faith tend to demonize unbe- leave the computer on over the sity or chance, rather than design, lievers rather than try to understand weekend, having programmed it to and at the end of his article pro- what they are actually saying. As a perform certain calculations. nounces the ideas of those espous- result, Darwinists typically distort Before a design theoretician pits ing intelligent design to be mori- intelligent-design theory-the lat- his strength against Darwin, he bund. Though I find it difficult to est and most powerful challenge to should express his own narrative in defend the ideas with which Mr. their orthodoxy-beyond recogni- an intelligible manner. Thus, he Berlinski takes issue, I do not real- tion. Though a critic of intelligent- should specify whether the evolu- ly think that he has proved any- design theory, Mr. Berlinski is no tion of biological species (regardless thing, either-nor could he by ref- Darwinist, and he is refreshingly of its exact mechanism) took place erence only to the natural world. fair-minded in his analysis. at all, or whether the different Theoretical physicists now be- I think Mr. Berlinski is mistaken, species were produced by the de- lieve that our universe is one of an however, in characterizing the work signer gradually and independently infinite number of universes that that I and others have done as an at- of one another, or, perhaps, whether are constantly being created-that tempt to resurrect William Paley's they all appeared simultaneously it exists, in effect, as a bubble natural theology. Paley argued that and went on in peaceful coexistence formed from some other universe. design proves the existence of the until some of them gradually be- Accordingly, it is entirely consistent Christian deity, but I, for one, have came extinct. with chance that the charges as- never been convinced by his argu- If he accepts an evolutionary pro- signed to the subatomic particles ment. Design necessarily entails a cess of any kind, he must decide that that formed the material foundation designer; but the Christian deity is blind natural selection is capable of of our universe at the "time" of the much more than a designer, and ad- creating things that are new and Big Bang should be the only charges ditional premises and evidences sensible or, on the contrary, that any (within a very small variation) that must be adduced to prove His exis- biological change of the slightest would sustain our universe for a suf- tence. I happen to believe in the complexity is the outcome of en- ficient period of time to permit the God of Moses and Jesus, but my be- lightened design. The proponent of development of intelligent life. lief is based on much more than de- design theory will most likely reject Even given the extremely low sign. the suggestion that the mammalian probability that the particles would The basic issue for intelligent- eye is the product of natural selec- have the proper charges following design theorists is not whether design tion; yet he might concede that the the Big Bang, it is not improbable gets us to God, but whether de- hearing apparatus of mammals that, with an infinite number of uni- sign is real. Darwinists contend that evolved in a natural fashion, with no verses and an infinite period of it is not. For example, Richard outside help; or at least that the In- time, one explosion would eventu- Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker dian and African elephants, so allv take nlace which wouldll nnnrt sim------1~r--" _ -- rr- (1t986)\- - -- /) armous "that -thach-- b- -El...6al,rran-

[17] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

isms are "complicated things" and nied by grand philosophizing. On plexity." They look designed for the "give the appearance of having been the other hand, the fact that much same reason that nonbiological arti- designed," "the evidence of evolu- remains mysterious does not mean facts like mousetraps look designed, tion reveals a universe without de- we cannot conclude anything at all and non-design explanations have sign." Dawkins's claim is false, de- with reasonable certainty. turned out to be so much bluster. spite the Darwinists' mantra that On the general question of the It seems reasonable to me to con- they have "overwhelming evidence" sufficiency of unintelligent physical clude, while acknowledging our fal- for their theory. I pointed this out processes to produce the astonish- libility, that at least some features of in my book, Icons ofEvolution (2000), ing complexity of life, I think a neg- life were really designed by an in- and Mr. Berlinski agrees, writing ative answer is justified, for reasons telligent agent. that Darwinism is little more than a I gave in my book, Darwin's Black Lehigh University "fantastic extrapolation" in which Box (1995). I quite agree with Mr. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania the mechanism responsible for some Berlinski that my argument against minor changes within species "is Darwinism does not add up to a WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI: read into the global record of life it- logical proof. No argument that David Berlinski provides a clear self." rests on empirical observations can and popular summary of my work The evidence of evolution does have such force. Yet-despite my on the theoretical basis for detect- not reveal a universe without design, sloppy prose in suggesting that, "by ing design in nature. He also artic- and it remains a possibility that definition," irreducibly complex sys- ulates several criticisms of my work. some features of living things really tems cannot be approached gradu- As it turns out, I specifically formu- are designed. Intelligent-design ally-I intended the argument to be lated my theory to meet the con- theorists like Michael Behe and a scientific one, not a purely logical cerns that he raises. I am thus grate- William Dembski have proposed one. In a scientific argument, con- ful for the opportunity to clarify ways to determine which features clusions are tentative, based on the several key points about my theory. are designed and which are not. preponderance of the physical evi- (1) As Mr. Berlinski explains, cen- Mr. Berlinski argues that they have dence, and potentially falsifiable. tral to my theory of design detec- not succeeded. In any case, though, Here is my thumbnail sketch of tion are the twin notions of small their proposals for establishing cri- the modern design argument as I probability and specification. I ar- teria to detect design are not at- see it: either unintelligent process- gue that highly improbable events tempts to prove the existence of the es can explain all of life or they can- that conform to independently giv- Christian deity. not. Virtually everyone (including en patterns are correctly attributed If intelligent-design theory real- Darwinists) agrees that life appears to intelligent design. Mr. Berlinski ly were a reincarnation of Paley's to be intelligently designed. The correctly points out, however, that natural theology, then Mr. Berlins- only physical mechanism ever pro- some patterns are subjectively im- ki might be right that it is in danger posed that could plausibly mimic posed upon events (or perceived in of collapsing without a glimpse into design is Darwinian natural selec- events) and do not justify inferring the inscrutable mind of God. But it tion. Yet, as I have argued, the irre- design. He is absolutely correct as is not. It is an attempt to give a bet- ducible complexity of biochemical far as he goes. ter explanation than chance and ne- systems is a barrier to direct evolu- But he misses a critical distinc- cessity for what our senses tell us is tionary construction by natural se- tion in my work. In The Design In- evidence for design in living things. lection, leaving Darwinists to hope ference (1998), I explain that there In that light, it is poor Darwin who for circuitous, indirect routes. No are artificially constructed pat- is (as Mr. Berlinski declares of Pa- plausible indirect routes have been terns-I call them fabrications- ley) "dead at last, or at least not very proposed, let alone experimentally that do not justify design inferences. vigorously alive." demonstrated. There are other kinds of patterns Discovery Institute That leaves us with biological fea- that I call specifications, and these, Seattle, Washington tures that look designed, but only in the presence of small-probabili- promissory notes for how they can ty events, do justify design infer- MICHAEL J. BEHE: be explained by unintelligent pro- ences. Moreover, I show that there I always find David Berlinski's cesses. What's more, we know why is a clear way to distinguish specifi- writing delightful, and I agree with the features we see in biological sys- cations from fabrications. Specifi- much that he says in "Has Darwin tems look designed: they are at once cations are patterns that, in the Met His Match?" Specific claims functional and very unlikely-exact- parlance of probabilists, are condi- about how life arose in the murky ly what William Dembski, whose tionally independent of the out- past should always be examined work Mr. Berlinski also discusses, comes that they characterize and skeptically, especially if accompa- means by his- rphrase "specified com- that, in the parlance of complexity

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theorists, exhibit a low minimum- is not a necessary condition for de- tion of "teleonomy," which he de- description length (see www.mdl- sign, I have consistently argued that fines as a "characteristic property" research.org). Fabrications fail this specified improbability is a suffi- of organisms as "objects endowed test. cient condition for it. Mr. Berlinski with a purpose or project." In oth- The distinction between specifi- argues against this, but his argument er words: objects marked by teleol- cations and fabrications is readily il- hinges on a failure to distinguish ogy-or, if you will, by design. lustrated. Consider an archer who specifications from fabrications. But renaming a property to take shoots at a target. If the target is (4) According to Mr. Berlinski, away its metaphysical sting should fixed and the archer repeatedly hits highly improbable events happen fool no one. Monod claimed that he the bull's-eye, then we rightly draw "precisely as many times as one could dissolve teleonomy-the un- a design inference by attributing might expect, given their probabil- mistakable designedness of organ- skill to the archer. On the other ities." This claim is easily disproved isms-into chance and necessity. hand, if the target is movable and by flipping a coin a thousand times. Well, he did not, and if design the- always moves to where the arrow The probability of the sequence you orists are right, he could not. Chance lands, then we may not draw a de- get is around one in ten raised to and Necessity is one long dance sign inference by attributing skill to the 300th power. How often should around the problem, ending with the archer. In the latter case, the tar- you have expected this sequence to Monod's leaping into the arms of "a get is a fabrication, in the former a occur? Not at all! With all the ele- unique occurrence": the causally in- specification. mentary particles in the universe fu- explicable origin of life on earth, an (2) Mr. Berlinski is right that riously flipping coins for trillions of event, Monod observed, whose probabilities sometimes cannot be years, the expected waiting time for "probability was virtually zero." objectively assigned to various a given sequence places it well be- Chance abused in this way can events. But sometimes they can be. yond the predicted heat death (or "explain" anything. As a philosoph- And sometimes, when exact proba- big crunch) of the universe. ical naturalist, Monod was of course bilities cannot be assigned, credible I still hope to persuade Mr. being true to his principles. But let upper bounds can be. This suffices Berlinski that his concerns about us not give this sort of reasoning for a design inference. Sometimes detecting design can be (or have al- the good name of science. It is a probabilities can be determined on ready been) satisfactorily addressed. philosophy-one contender among theoretical grounds. Sometimes In any case, he has identified sever- many-and not much of a contend- they can be determined only on em- al key issues raised by my theory, er at that. pirical grounds, as by running ex- and I look forward to the critical The great theme that unites the periments or performing computer conversation that his piece will en- intelligent-design community is the simulations. Assigning probabilities gender in the design-theoretic re- falsity of naturalism as a philosophy to biological systems to determine search community. of explanation. Chance and neces- whether they are designed is an ex- Baylor University sity do not exhaust the causes that citing area of research opened up by Waco, Texas we know. The task facing design intelligent design. theorists is to turn this intuition into (3) Throughout my writings I PAUL A. NELSON: knowledge, by showing that their stress that the absence of specified As an admirer of David Berlin- theory provides understanding and improbability cannot rule out de- ski's intellectual stubbornness and discoveries not forthcoming within sign, because a designing intelli- independence, I welcome his criti- a strictly naturalistic framework. gence can act carelessly, or even cal scrutiny of the theory of intelli- Mr. Berlinski doubts that this is deliberately, in ways that do not gent design. No theory was ever im- possible. Time will tell. Paley is dead; produce specified events of small proved by being coddled. so is Darwin; so, too, is Monod. Let probability. For instance, I might Still, when Mr. Berlinski writes the dead bury the dead. deliberately tip an inkwell so that that design theorists "underestimate Discovery Institute the resulting ink stain is indistin- the enduring intellectual force be- Seattle, Washington guishable from a random accident. hind [Jacques] Monod's claim that But with that same ink I might also the categories of chance and neces- LEONARD LEVIN: spell a Shakespearean sonnet. In the sity are mutually exclusive and joint- David Berlinski's declaration of a latter case, the resulting ink "stain" ly exhaustive," I must note that stalemate between Darwinism and would exhibit specified improbabil- Monod himself did not rely solely intelligent-design theory strikes me ity and could not reasonably be re- on these categories. No sane human as premature. After so many inno- ferred to chance. being does. The argument of Mon- vative moves in the past decade, the Thus, while I have always con- od's masterpiece, Chance and Neces- players on both sides are warming ceded that specified improbability sity (1970), leans heavily on the no- to what may be a long and interest-

[19] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003 ing match. My bets and sympathies the divine attributes. We may satis- tion. This idea cannot be accepted are on the pro-design side. fy ourselves, rationally or subjec- by scientists because (a) it is not in- I question Mr. Berlinski's argu- tively, that life overcomes astro- teresting from a scientific point of ment that because improbability nomical odds, yet the next step of view (it does not point to further cannot be quantified, it cannot inference is much harder. It is not scientific research) and, more im- therefore be qualitatively asserted. chance-but what is it? Call it the portantly, (b) there is an over- Let me counter with an analogy. anthropic principle, elan vital, quan- whelming body of arguments from The improbability of a monkey tum reduction, negentropy, or "de- many fields in favor of evolution. typing a Shakespearean sonnet is sign"-we have only the token out- From this follows the second quantifiable because the set of type- line of an answer, and the frontier main problem: that despite the large writer-strokes is finite. The im- of the eternal mystery. To know number of flaws in Darwinism, probability of the same monkey what "design" is may be to presume there is no scientifically sound al- writing out a sonnet longhand is not to see God's face. ternative hypothesis. Criticisms of precisely quantifiable, yet it is obvi- Jewish Theological Seminary Darwinism will not convince pro- ously more improbable than typing New York City fessional biologists until the critics it. (The monkey can miss a "G" can describe a strong alternative only 25 different ways when typing MICHAEL SHERMAN: mechanism of evolution that can be but an indeterminately large num- As a professional biologist, I have tested experimentally. ber of ways when writing by hand.) always wondered why the Darwini- A third problem is that authors of The typing case thus sets a lower an idea of evolution is so accepted publications against Darwinism limit to the longhand case. Similar- among my colleagues. If one were mainly base their arguments on for- ly, the improbability of producing a to poll biologists, I would bet that al- mal logic, e.g., the idea that com- specific gene within the set of DNA most all of them would say that plex systems cannot evolve in mul- nucleotide permutations, though there has been evolution and that it tiple minor steps. Such arguments not defining the actual world of has taken place in accord with Dar- may convince physicists or mathe- possibility, sets a finite lower limit win's theory. Probably 95 percent of maticians, but they do not sway ex- to the improbability of the actual them, however, have never thought perimental biologists. From their case of producing it within the in- seriously about evolution, and the experience dealing with enormous- determinate set of all matter con- rest are convinced of it because it is ly complicated biological systems, figurations. It thus justifies our a clear, simple, materialistic idea. biologists know that hypotheses qualitative judgment that the latter On the other hand, reading the based purely on formal logic never is extremely improbable. papers on evolution published in re- work (especially if they involve some On the other hand, the molecu- spected science journals like Pro- mathematics). lar "scrabble" theorists have also ig- ceedings of the National Academy of Finally, there is the problem of nored a crucial factor: determining Science or Nature, one is surprised at where criticisms of Darwinian the- the percent of syntactically correct the weakness of the arguments. In- ory are made. To convince the sci- formations within permutations of deed, the standards of proof in the entific community of something, a given alphabet. What are the odds field are much lower than in the rest one should not publish books; one that a monkey will type not a spe- of biology. Such papers would nev- should publish in peer-reviewed sci- cific sonnet but any syntactically er make it through the peer-review entific journals of high profile. correct string of 200 characters in process if they concerned molecu- To conclude on a positive note: I English (or any language)? Not as lar or cellular biology. Of course, do believe that we can draw experi- small, but extremely small nonethe- there are obvious reasons for such mentally testable predictions from less. What are the odds (given the low standards, including the diffi- the theory of intelligent design. I machinery of producing DNA) of culty of testing evolutionary hy- say this based on three groups of re- randomly generating any syntacti- potheses through experimentation. cent findings: (1) paleontological cally correct string of nucleotides But if the theory is based on poor data showing that all major groups that will produce a viable protein? I arguments, why have criticisms of it of multicellular animals appeared al- have not seen this question ad- not succeeded in convincing main- most simultaneously, indicating a dressed by either side. It should be stream scientists? lack of gradual evolution of large amenable to analytical and experi- I see a number of reasons. The groups; (2) the very high homology mental approaches and may move first is that in arguments against of regulatory proteins that control the debate forward. Darwinism, people usually assume development of systems with simi- Theologically, we must still dis- that the alternative is creationism- lar functions that evolved indepen- tinguish between proving God's ex- that is, the creation of nature by dently (e.g., the mammalian eye and istence and presuming to describe God without an element of evolu- the eye of a fly); (3) the fact that the

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number of genes in the human DOUGLAS PORTER: head was once asked why he did not genome is not very different from David Berlinski's otherwise ex- write more clearly, to which he is that of worms or flies. cellent article is flawed by his exam- supposed to have replied: "Because I would suggest that since com- ple of a three-legged stool as an I don't think more clearly." Based plex systems cannot, in fact, evolve attempt to refute Michael Behe's ar- on the evidence of his various arti- by random changes, there was a de- gument that irreducibly complex cles in COMMENTARY, if David sign. When outlining multicellular systems cannot arise by small, ran- Berlinski were ever to be asked why animals, the designer would have in- dom steps. On this point, it is Mr. he writes so clearly, he could well troduced into the genomes of prim- Berlinski's logic that falls apart. reply: "Because I think clearly." itive species the information about In the first place, Behe's argu- Clear thinking is especially evi- complex organ systems required for ment pertains to systems requiring dent in his latest essay, where he future organisms. These complex complex processes to work, the fail- dissects the flaws in the arguments organ systems are silent in the prim- ure of any one of which dooms the of those who claim that both the itive organisms but can be activated, system. A three-legged stool, how- universe and biological systems giving rise to new, more complicat- ever, is not a system but a static have been intelligently designed (by ed organisms through the process of structure. Moreover, removing one God presumably, although some evolution. leg from a three-legged stool only authors are annoyingly coy about This idea does not reject the possi- causes it to fail because of gravity, a saying so). True, Mr. Berlinski ad- bility that these newly developed or- force outside the "system" and mits that members of the intelli- ganisms were fine-tuned through ran- therefore irrelevant to the argu- gent-design movement have high- dom mutation and natural selection, ment. Finally, it may be true, as Mr. lighted genuine dilemmas in Dar- but it does assume that the major Berlinski argues, that a three-legged winian theory. But more impor- complex organ systems were pre- stool can be constructed by "nu- tantly, he has exposed how their designed. With our present under- merous, successive, slight modifica- own positive proposals cannot re- standing of molecular biology, it tions" of a cylindrical block of ally provide an adequate explana- should not be too difficult or expen- wood, but such modifications can tion for the inexplicable mystery of sive to test this idea by finding infor- hardly be random or Darwinian in life-or the existence of the uni- mation about complex organ systems nature. They require a designer. verse. Complexity, even irreducible in the genomes of primitive multicel- Mr. Berlinski merely demonstrates complexity, is not the same thing as lular organisms and trying to find one way in which a three-legged a consciously intended effect. ways to activate these systems. stool can be designed-an argument I would only add that complexi- School of Medicine very much in support of Behe's po- ty, whether specified or not, cannot Boston University sition. emerge at all except from a prior Boston, Massachusetts The refusal of biologists to come background of order, and that fact to terms with the colossal improb- constitutes the real theological DAVID E. SAFIR: abilities of evolution is the reason point that seems to animate the in- I enjoyed David Berlinski's thought- that Behe's Darwin's Black Box has telligent-design movement. The ful and erudite article about intel- attracted so much attention. implicit (and sometimes explicit) ligent design. As a scientist, I had Albuquerque, New Mexico theological agenda of this brigade found Michael Behe's Darwin's leads Mr. Berlinski to his final Black Box a refreshing critique GEORGE JOCHNOWITZ: thoughts on theism and natural the- of Darwin. It always troubled me David Berlinski writes that "Dar- ology, and here too I think I am that much of evolutionary theory win's theory of evolution and theo- largely in agreement with his re- seemed to be built on faith alone, ries of intelligent design are in con- flections. The same issue that with enormous leaps required to ac- ceptual conflict. Although they may piqued the curiosity of Albert Ein- cept its view of how life formed and both be false, they cannot both be stein-whether the good Lord had changed. true." Not so. To an intelligent de- any choice in creating the world or What strikes me after 56 years as signer, evolution would be a brilliant not-can be expressed in terms that a biologist is how improbable it is invention, a way of forever expand- dominated the debate among the- that life occurred randomly-im- ing and refining creation. ist philosophers and theologians of probable but not impossible. We are College of Staten Island the Middle Ages. still left to make a "faith" choice. To Staten Island, New York By the time of Thomas Aquinas me, it seems most likely that some it was assumed by all Jewish, Chris- sort of high intelligence designed REV. EDWARD T. OAKES: tian, and Muslim thinkers that Aris- life as we know it. According to a story that is perhaps totle was right in defining God as Los Gatos, California bien trouve, Alfred North White- Pure Act. But if that is the case,

[21] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

then how can it be possible for God plate is a vast, mind-boggling, per- David Berlinski to create a possible world, since pos- fectly orchestrated universe. Al- sibility is excluded in God? Either though God chose which "necessi- On reading "Has Darwin Met God has a choice in creating the ties" would govern this universe His Match?," a number of my cor- world or He doesn't. But if He can and we are not privy to His secrets, respondents seem to have conclud- create, then possibility is embedded He Himself is not governed by the ed that, like Saul on the road to in Pure Act, a contradiction. This reality He has created. If ever He Damascus, I have seen the light and dilemma remained unsettled down chose to do so, He is perfectly cap- changed my mind. A conversion to to the days of Gottfried Leibniz; his able of changing the rules of the Darwinian orthodoxy is said to be way of resolving the tension was to game. imminent. These impressions I admit a range of possibilities facing But what difference does it must correct at once. I have never the deity, who would then be con- make? Why are so many serious expressed support for theories of in- strained by his reality as Pure Act to scientists determined to prove- telligent design, much less for cre- choose the best of all possible refute-God's copyright of cre- ationism, and my essay, far from worlds. ation? As Mr. Berlinski himself representing a change of mind-no The disaster to theodicy that this writes, "Could a designer whose na- bad thing, in any case-does noth- hypothesis led to is well known and ture we cannot fathom, using prin- ing more than amplify objections I gave Voltaire his great opening to ciples we cannot specify, construct have long held and often voiced. attack the notion of divine provi- a system we cannot characterize? If Six and a half years ago, in re- dence. My own point is that Leib- the question is unyielding, so too is sponding to critics of "The Deni- niz's dilemma still lives on in pre- its answer: who knows?" able Darwin" (COMMENTARY, June cisely the antinomies pointed out But this does not mean, as Mr. 1996), I made the point explicitly. by Mr. Berlinski. The only "solu- Berlinski states, that "chance now "Some readers seem to be persuad- tion" to that dilemma, really, is a returns as the default hypothesis, if ed," I wrote in the September 1996 line from Aquinas right after he only because it is the only hypoth- issue, "that in criticizing the Dar- concludes his famous five proofs for esis that is completely consistent winian theory of evolution, I intend- the existence of God: "As Augus- with our ignorance." After ed to uphold a doctrine of creation- tine says, since God is the highest all, if we are so ignorant, how do we know ism. This is a mistake, supported by good, He would not allow any evil nothing that I have written." A few to exist in His works unless His that chance is a more likely source of creation than God? Our igno- years later (September 2001), re- omnipotence and goodness were sponding to critics of "What Brings rance is not the problem; it is our such as to bring good even out of a World into Being?" (COMMEN- evil. This is part of the infinite absolute incapacity to confront TARY, April 2001), I was even more goodness of God, that He should God. Trying to analyze God's forthright: "If I thought that intel- allow evil to exist, and out of it pro- "mind" through human logic and ligent design, or any artful con- duce good." science is doomed to failure: trivance like it, explained anything Needless to say, such an assertion "Where were you when I laid the in any depth, I would leap to the cannot be grounded in science, foundations of the earth? Speak- cannon's mouth and say so. I do not since it requires for its verification if you have wisdom!" (Job 38: 2-4). and I did not." a view of the final outcome of the We can neither fathom nor con- For the record: I do not believe universe's career, a view not given front nor comprehend God. We that theories of intelligent design to the finite human mind. Only can only view His world, attempt to explain those features of living sys- faith avails here. To bring in science describe the mechanics that make tems that Darwin's theory of evolu- as a kind of almost literal deus ex it run, and serve Him in humility. tion fails to explain. And vice-versa. machina only gums up the issue, for I would suggest breaking our I wrote "The Deniable Darwin" both theology and science. scientific heads over more seem- and "Has Darwin Met His Match?" University of St. Mary of the Lake ingly mundane, but more prof- to say why. Mundelein, Illinois itable, matters that explain and af- fect the world we live in. We IN "HAS Darwin Met His Match?," YAFFA GANZ: should leave what Mr. Berlinski I suggested that theories of intelligent David Berlinski sums up his long calls the "ineffable inimitable" (and design and Darwin's theory of evolu- article by writing, "God alone I would call the Ineffable Inim- tion shared a strong family resem- knows what God is thinking.... itable) to theology. blance-the same guppy eyes, the We are in the position of observers Jerusalem, Israel same small ears, the same potato contemplating a vast, cosmic lot- nose. PAUL R. GROSS will have none tery." Not quite. What we contem- of it. Intelligent design is wrong and

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I am right to affirm the fact, but Mr. Gross rather resembles a stan- ing it completely. Had Darwin's Darwin's theory is right and I am dard fixture of the schoolyard brawl: publishers in 1859 asked for a blurb, wrong to deny it. the boy who refuses actually to fight I would gladly have said that The Mr. Gross's animadversions be- but instead adverts to the remark- Origin of Species is both quirky and gin with a reminder. It is only those able pugilistic powers of his older provocative. Sales might well have "who do not know much evolution- brother. My criticism of Darwin's improved. I would do as much now ary biology" who refer to something theory? "Creationist pablum," Mr. for Richard Dawkins's The Blind called "Darwinism." The profes- Gross declares with a snort. A Watchmaker, a book whose thesis I sionals know better. I quite under- mighty host is prepared to enforce reject but whose title I admire. stand Mr. Gross's concern. The the point: tens of thousand of pa- term "Darwinism" conveys the sug- pers, dozens of books, scores of JASON ROSENHOUSE assumes that I gestion of a secular ideology, a glob- websites, courses in all the better harbor an ongoing animus against al system of belief. So it does and so colleges. Specialists are on call. In "mainstream biology." Not so. it surely is.Darwin's theory has been resting his case on what others are Molecular biology, one of the glories variously used-by Darwinian biol- said to have said, Mr. Gross has is- of modern science, is where the ogists-to explain the development sued a challenge that it is not possi- mainstream lies; evolutionary biolo- of a bipedal gait, the tendency to ble rationally to meet. Let us by all gy remains what it has always been, laugh when amused, obesity, ano- means have the details-my claims, a distant and rather muddy tributary. rexia nervosa, business negotiations, those refutations-and then you and It is not molecular biology with a preference for tropical landscapes, I can fight. which I scruple, needless to say, but the evolutionary roots of political In still other respects, Mr. Gross Darwin's theory of evolution. rhetoric, maternal love, infanticide, is concerned to show that his vigor In my most recent essay-the clan formation, marriage, divorce, in combating the evils of intelligent one under discussion, I might re- certain comical sounds, funeral rites, design exceeds my own. The men mind Mr. Rosenhouse-I intro- the formation of regular verb forms, whom I criticize, he complains, have duced Darwin only to suggest that altruism, homosexuality, feminism, not published their work in peer- both his theory and theories of in- greed, romantic love, jealousy, war- reviewed journals. Quite true. They telligent design often lapse at the fare, monogamy, polygamy, adul- have not. But anyone who under- same points: the fossil record, for tery, the fact that men are pigs, re- stands how science works institu- example. Mr. Rosenhouse denies cursion, sexual display, abstract art, tionally will find this unsurprising. this because he denies that Darwin's and religious beliefs of every de- "Being right," as one shrewd critic theory lapses at all. "Blubbering scription. If Darwinian biologists has observed, "isn't enough. What about gaps in the fossil record," he have not yet appropriated the class you say, however right, must be said writes, his snort echoing Mr. struggle, this is only because of their in a currently acceptable language, Gross's, "cannot change the fact respect for competing ideological must not violate too brutally cur- that, with millions of fossils collect- prerogatives. rently acceptable taste, and must ed and classified, not one is out of I am also hardly the only one to somehow signify your membership place from a Darwinian standpoint." use the term "Darwinism" and so in a respectable club." That shrewd But what is at issue for Darwin's convey the suggestion of an ideo- critic was Paul Gross himself, writ- theory is not the fossils that exist but logical agenda. Adding his mite to ing in a 1998 publication of the Ma- the ones that do not. The Cambri- D.S. Bendall's collection, Evolu- rine Biological Laboratory. Allow an explosion is mysterious precise- tion from Molecules to Men (1983), me to introduce one Gross to the ly because the phyla that emerge Richard Dawkins entitled his essay other. during the Cambrian era have no "Universal Darwinism." Dawkins obvious physical antecedents. By the liked the word well enough to use As MARK PERAKH observes, I have same token, what is at issue for the- it again in "Darwin and Darwin- indeed endorsed books by both ories of design is not the fossils that ism," the title of his contribution Michael Behe and William Demb- do not exist but the ones that do. to Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia. ski. I would do so again. Behe's Dar- The reptile-to-mammal sequence is Then there is the series of short win's Black Box and Dembski's The confounding to intelligent-design books appearing under the title Design Inference challenge received theorists precisely because the or- Darwinism Today and published by opinion; they are carefully argued; ganisms, slotted head to tail, seem Yale University Press. The first and they address important issues. I to form an unbroken Darwinian se- book in the series is by the eminent agree with some of the claims made quence. The fossil record is a puz- Darwinian biologist John Maynard in both books, but not with all of zle for both views-a point urged Smith. the claims made in either. A man on me, I should add, by Phillip With regard to his other claims, may admire a book without endors- Johnson.

[23] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

Counterexamples are in any case in the intelligent-design camp. The A fascinating paper in the January open to challenge. In an essay enti- indefatigable Phillip Johnson has 10, 2003 issue of Cell deals with this tled "Phylogenetic Hypotheses of drawn my attention to a paper by topic. In "Molecular Rheostats the Relationship of Arthropods to John Woodmorappe in 77 15(1), Control Expression of Genes Cell," Precambrian and Cambrian Prob- 2001, pp. 44-52. (77 is self-de- Richard Freiman and Robert Tijian lematic Taxa" (Systematic Biology 45, scribed as a "creation journal," a fact observe that the machinery of ge- pp. 190-222), B.M. Waggoner ar- of no relevance to an assessment of netic regulation-which gene goes gues that at least some Edicaran fos- Woodmorappe's arguments.) Using on, which goes off-constitutes a sils fit into known phylogenetic cladistic analysis, Woodmorappe in- magnificently subtle and exquisite- groups and are thus ancestral to low- vestigated a discrete group of mor- ly complicated system, and one by er Cambrian metazoans: frond-like phological characteristics that pale- no means completely understood. fossils died dreaming of hitting the ontologists have offered as evidence The small differences between a hu- big time as cnidarians, he suggests, for the evolutionary nature of the man being and an earthworm, they and other members of the Edi- reptile-to-mammal sequence. At is- suggest, may owe as much to para- cara may have had ambitious plans sue is the claim that mammal-like metric changes in their respective to become annelids and arthropods. reptiles, when arranged in succes- regulatory systems as to the abso- L. W. Buss and A. Seilacher, in sion from the pelycosaurs on up, lute difference in the number of "The Phylum Vendobionta: A Sis- "show an essentially unbroken chain their genes, which in any case is not ter Group of the Eumetzoa?" (Pa- of progressively more mammal-like very great. leobiology 20, pp. 1-4), have held the fossils." With respect to 165 of the What a remarkable shift in view reverse, proposing gloomily that 181 anatomical characteristics cited this paper represents! The gene has Edicaran fossils represent life forms in C.A. Sidor and J.A. Hopson's been demoted: it is still the raw stuff that went nowhere because they "Ghost Lineages and 'Mammalness': of life-what else is there?-but not had nowhere to go. Assessing the Temporal Pattern of the source of life's variety. The pic- These are paleontological de- Character Acquisition in the Synap- ture now emerging suggests that the bates, of which the literature is by sida" (Paleontology, 24 (2), 1998, Ap- genome is like a billboard made up now considerable. The case against pendix 2, pp. 269-270), Wood- of thousands of lights. When the the Cambrian explosion has also morappe argues that "the majority... cell's rheostats are in one position, been made from a theoretical per- do not show a unidirectional pro- the billboard spells earthworm; spective. Evidence from molecular gression toward the mammalian when in another position, human clocks, Daniel Y.-C Wang, Sudhir condition" (emphasis added). being. How these regulatory sys- Kumar, and S. Blair Hedges have I have not studied Woodmor- tems themselves may have evolved, argued in the Proceedings of the Roy- appe's paper thoroughly, but I am the authors do not say, largely be- al Society of London (Series B, January quite sure that both his conclusions cause they do not know; indeed, 22, 1999), suggests that a great and the methodology upon which since many of the structural ele- many organisms from at least three they rest will be widely disputed, ments in the systems have been con- phyla must have been present on if they are ever widely noted. I re- served across long periods of evolu- earth before the Cambrian era. In- turn to my own starting point: nei- tionary time, they do not know deed, Hedges, the paper's principal ther Darwinians nor design theo- whether the systems have really author, is persuaded that the emer- rists can look to the fossil record evolved at all. gence of so many phyla during the with perfect equanimity. In concluding his defense of Dar- Cambrian era is no longer a mys- "Darwinism," Mr. Rosenhouse win's theory, Mr. Rosenhouse appeals tery-though in reaching this con- writes, apparently unaware of Paul to thousands of satisfied researchers, clusion he has replaced one mystery Gross's terminological strictures, rather as if he were framing advertis- by another, since the organisms "requires continuity at the level of ing copy for arch supports. "Nu- whose existence he champions on the genotype, not the phenotype." merous complex systems have been theoretical grounds remain undis- I am not sure what this might mean, studied," he writes, "and the major covered. "Why don't we see any fos- but I am willing to guess: small steps of their evolution revealed." I sils of these species long before the changes in the genotype may well would ask Mr. Rosenhouse to sup- Cambrian era?," Hedges asks, thus give rise to large changes in the ply a single example of a complex returning the discussion to the point phenotype. I suspect that Mr. biochemical system whose major at issue. Rosenhouse is correct; I have ar- evolutionary steps have been revealed On the other hand, the reptile- gued the point myself, including in and then explained by Darwin's to-mammal sequence, the jewel in my response to Arthur Shapiro in theory. A good place to start would the crown of Darwinian paleontol- the correspondence on "The Deni- be with the systems discussed by ogy, is not without critics of its own able Darwin." Michael Behe in Darwin Black Box.

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What Behe and I both require in velopment pathways are conserved and that my ultimate aim "appears this regard is quite simple: a de- in wingless phasmids, and that 're- to be getting Christian beliefs taught tailed, step-by-step biochemical ac- evolution' of wings has had an un- in our schools." I urge Mr. Bac- count demonstrating a plausible recognized role in insect diversifi- cus to consider my name, my devo- Darwinian pathway for the emer- cation." Will evolutionary biologists tion to Zion, and my dark Semitic gence of any irreducibly complex be forced as a result to reassess evo- good looks. Phillip Johnson's opin- system. Plausible-meaning, no ap- lutionary theory, concluding per- ions-the ones that Mr. Baccus peals to unlikely events; and Dar- haps that a theory that has failed to quotes-are interesting, but they winian-meaning, incremental im- account for the facts is in need of re- have nothing directly to do with provement at each step. Before Mr. vision or, perhaps, rejection? What what I have written. Rosenhouse proposes to pester me a thought. Within a few years, during office hours, a copy of Ken- "Loss and Recovery of Wings in UNDER THE mistaken impression neth Miller's Finding Darwin's God Stick Insects" will be counted a that my essay was a critique of Dar- in hand, I would suggest he consult Darwinian triumph, as the theory win's theory of evolution-perhaps Behe's own expert demolition of successfully manages once again to he has confused it with "The Deni- Miller's proposals. References are adapt to alien circumstances. able Darwin"-MoRTON ROSOFF available online at the Discovery In- At the time I wrote "The Deni- is eager to establish my ignorance. stitute's website: www.Discovery.org. able Darwin" in 1996, biologists Under the no less mistaken impres- were still concerned to keep their sion that I have endorsed intelligent CLAY SHIRKY is quite right to ob- disputes from the public eye. Their design, he next offers his own criti- serve that physicists do not practice reticence has given way. They are cism of the movement: "no empir- Einsteinism; but as I have already now inclined to exhibit their battle ical evidence, no models, no verifi- noted, Darwinists do refer con- scars like stigmata; the late Stephen able predictions, no possibility of stantly to Darwinism. "Like Freud Jay Gould was a virtuoso of the correction or elaboration ... , not and Marx," A.S. Byatt remarked re- form, his mournful recriminations intended to improve our knowledge cently, "Darwin has suffered from filling entire issues of the New York or extend scientific horizons." becoming a belief system, when he Review of Books. Although Mr. Shirky When he catches his breath, Mr. was simply a very original thinker." is persuaded that the factional de- Rosoff might wish to consult the es- Mr. Shirky might ask himself why bates within Darwinian biology are say I actually wrote for a few addi- this is so. a sign of glowing good health, an- tional suggestions. I did not discuss I do not believe that Darwinism other view is possible. These debates the anthropic principle, but as for is a fixed philosophical system. Like represent the conceptual confusions the other methodological tools he some primordial jelly, the thing is of a discipline that has simply not lists, I am all for them. both squishy and constantly in mo- achieved sufficient clarity to count tion. Terms, claims, and stories mul- as a serious science. THE ISSUES that MATT YOUNG tiply unceasingly. I failed to discuss the work of raises with respect to Nilsson and An example: some organisms lose R.A. Fisher or William Hamilton in Pelger's evolutionary model of the certain functional properties over my essay for the same reason that I development of the mammalian time. There are wingless insects, did not discuss late Sung poetry: eye are of greater moment than flightless birds, blind moles. Evolu- neither their work nor that of the they may appear to the casual read- tionary biologists have long main- late Sung poets has anything perti- er. They require a detailed response, tained that what is lost is destined nent to say about theories of intel- one that cannot be fitted into even to stay lost: it has been an article of ligent design. a lengthy exchange of letters. Here their faith. And one that has appar- The concluding paragraphs of I might just note in passing that ently been misplaced. In a recent re- Mr. Shirky's letter prompt me to while Mr. Young has obviously search report entitled "Loss and Re- wonder whose essay he has been looked at the footnote in which I ac- covery of Wings in Stick Insects," reading. Why on earth should he cuse him of reading carelessly, he Michael E Whiting, Sven Bradler, imagine that I desire a world in seems to have read carelessly the and Taylor Maxwell demonstrate which science stops trying to explain essay to which it is attached: how that stick insects of the order Phas- things? I am in favor of scientific ex- else to explain his reference to me matodea, having lost their wings planations wherever they may lead. and my "neo-creationist col- over evolutionary time, nonetheless leagues"? retain the capacity to reacquire No LESS perplexing is that S.L. them later (Nature 421, January 16, BACCUS should believe that I-of all "NATURALISTS" TONY DOYLE writes, 2003, pp. 264-267). "These results," people-have written a brief for "contend that for any event or phe- they write, "suggest that wing-de- the existence of the Christian God, nomenon that needs exDlaining. r.7z

[25] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003 we should seek only physical caus- orists now explain the charges tially or chemically isolated func- es." This is indeed the claim often carried by D-branes in terms of al- tional modules composed of several made, and I assume that Mr. Doyle gebraic K-theory. Every direct con- cellular components and carrying endorses it. But naturalism, broadly nection to a world of physical expe- discrete functions" should be con- conceived, is neither a premise to rience or causation has been lost. So sidered "fundamental building any of the great physical theories nor too, for the moment, has every in- blocks of cellular organization." one of their conclusions. Its role in direct connection, since string theo- The result is a model of the cell contemporary discourse is, as Phil- ry is not yet amenable to experi- resembling one of those horrible lip Johnson argued, wholly extra- mental tests of any sort. Swedish factories in which workers scientific. I agree that Shakespeare was sit glumly at red and white Ikea Mr. Doyle's defense of naturalis- "physical from head to toe." So is a desks and are isolated by glass par- tic doctrine is thus philosophical cat, and as every cat owner knows, titions. But Barabisi et al. also and historical. That is fine by me; I there is absolutely no saying what a recognize that the "thousands of am in favor of what the New York cat is going to do next. The laws of components of a living cell are dy- Times calls the living arts. Still, I be- physics are both unavailing and ir- namically interconnected," the Swe- lieve his philosophical views are in- relevant. dish factory now giving way to a correct and his historical analysis second model, one resembling an wrong. Mr. Doyle may have "a ro- As CHRIS BEALL notes, the design equally horrible discotheque, rather bust idea of physical causation," but inference, inasmuch as it goes be- like the old Studio 54, in which ev- David Hume, and the great Arabic yond the existence of a designer to eryone is simultaneously involved theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali conclusions about his nature, very with everyone else, frequently in before him, argued forcefully that, often topples over into incoherence. ways no one wishes to know. Rec- when analyzed, causation dwindles I agree. Very often it does. onciling the Swedish factory to the into temporal succession and con- discotheque is the burden of their stant conjunction: one thing fol- IT IS good to be reminded by the paper. lowing another. I urge Mr. Doyle to distinguished biologist GEORGE C. This is modestly interesting stuff, reread al-Ghazzali's The Incoherence WILLIAMS that complex structures if hardly calculated to induce an ar- of the Philosophersor Hume's Inquiry that are optimal in one dimension dent desire to see a sequel. But its ConcerningHuman Understanding. may well be sub-optimal in anoth- relevance to Mr. Wessel's concern is The inner connection that attaches er. As well as we may be able to see, somewhat limited. In the first place, a cause to its effect remains beyond we cannot see what is going on be- Barabfisi et al. do not often tie their our grasp, part of the mystery of na- hind our backs, not to mention what work to biochemistry, and when ture. When Mr. Doyle writes that is often beneath our noses. I am not they do, the results are inconclusive. "we do not have a clue about how sure what follows. "[I]t is ... apparent," they write, the theist' nonphysical causation is May I also observe that no one "that putative module-boundaries supposed to work" (emphasis added), with two ex-wives could possibly be do not always overlap with intuitive he is simply specifying a general lack unaware of the deity's less attractive 'biochemistry-based boundaries."' of understanding. We are pretty features? This prompts Barabisi to the con- much clueless across the board. clusion favored by every researcher By the same token, it seems to CONTRARY TO what KARL WESSEL facing a gap between his theories me profoundly incorrect to say that writes, I did not provide a "critique" and the facts: "further experimental in mathematical physics it is the of philosophical naturalism in my and theoretical analysis will be "search for physical causes and only essay. I mentioned it in passing, and needed." No doubt. physical causes [that] has paid off." paused only to agree with Phillip In the second place, Barabisi et When Isaac Newton introduced the Johnson that as a principle it is al. are perfectly aware of a point that universal force of gravitation in the wholly extra-scientific. has escaped Mr. Wessel, namely, Principia, he was appealing to a In commenting on my discussion that their work does nothing to set- power in nature that acted both in- of Michael Behe's work, Mr. Wes- tle any issue that Michael Behe may stantaneously and at a distance. The sel suggests that I have failed to read have raised. "Understanding the connection between any "robust the scientific literature, and in par- evolutionary mechanism that ex- idea of physical causation" and the ticular the work of A.-L. Barabisi. plains the simultaneous emergence assumptions needed to explain grav- Indeed? In a paper entitled "Hier- of the observed hierarchical and ity was thus broken from the very archical Organization of Modular- scale-free topology of the meta- first. Mathematical physics has pro- ity in Metabolic Networks" (Science, bolism, as well as its generality [sic] ceeded inexorably in the direction Vol. 297, August 30, 2002), Barabisi to cellular organization, is now a that Newton indicated. String the- and his colleagues argue that "spa- prime challenge." A prime chal-

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lenge-meaning a challenge that has variable can certainly have a con- IN CHARACTERIZING his own work, not been met. tinuous distribution-but that may MICHAEL J. BEHE is entirely too not be what he has in mind. unassuming. By demonstrating that I THANK ALEXANDER ETERMAN irreducibly complex systems cannot for his thoughtful letter, with which As JONATHAN WELLS writes in his arise along one Darwinian path- I agree. Intelligent design is doomed admirably clear letter, the gravamen the assembly-line model of con- to disappear as a movement if it can of the intelligent-design movement struction-he has indeed provided a do no more than criticize Darwin's is the inference to design, an infer- logical argument against Darwin's theory of evolution. Still, the pure- ence that carries us from the ob- theory. This is an important achieve- ly negative criticisms made by served properties of biological sys- ment. My point was only that his ar- members of the intelligent-design tems to the existence of a designer. gument has not been generalized to community have often been con- The identification of the designer include all Darwinian paths. This is siderable in their effect-certainly with the Christian deity requires a a modest criticism. more so than any criticisms I may separate inference, one that design As long as I find myself explain- have made. As a result, Darwin's theorists need not make. I accept ing Mr. Behe's achievements to Mr. theory has lost some of its intellec- the point. In my essay, I tried to Behe, let me go a bit further. It tual respectability even as it has con- suggest as much, at least implicit- seems to me that Darwin's Black Box tinued to extend its popular reach. ly, by incorporating Fred Hoyle's is destined to play the same role in A great many scholars are now supercalculating intellect into the evolutionary thought that Karl willing to say in public what they class of possible designers. Hoyle Lashley's "The Serial Order of Be- have long believed in private: that was a life-long atheist, and in read- havior" played in behavioral psy- random variation and natural selec- ing him I find no reason to believe chology over fifty years ago (cf. tion do not suffice to explain the that in fundamental matters he ever L.A. Jefress, editor, CerebralMech- observed facts in biology. An adver- changed his mind. anisms in Behavior, 1951). Although tisement to this effect, placed by the Still, I admit to a tickle of dis- a behaviorist by training-and a stu- Discovery Institute in the New York content at Mr. Wells's attempt to dent of John Watson, the founder Review of Books,* was signed by one dissociate the designer's existence of the field-Lashley came to un- hundred academics: under the let- from the designer's identity. It may derstand that a certain class of fa- ter "S" alone, the list stretched be helpful to put the matter in de- miliar psychological acts involve a from Henry F Schaefer, the direc- ductive form. If there is design in complicated serial order. In formu- tor of the center for computational nature, then there is a designer: that lating a sentence, we typically see to quantum chemistry at the Univer- is Mr. Wells's leading premise. A the end of the sentence before ven- sity of Georgia, to Richard Stern- second premise follows, embodying turing on its beginning, adjusting berg of the department of inverte- a factual claim: there is design in our stream of speech accordingly to brate zoology at the Smithsonian nature. The conclusion that there is account for grammatical relations Institution. Geshmak, as we right- a designer follows as a matter of of subordination and deferred place- wing Christian fundamentalists say. logic. ment. Serial order, Lashley realized, But, articulated in this way, the could not be explained by any sys- SOME PHYSICISTS may well enter- conclusion seems suspiciously triv- tem of associative "chaining" in tain the idea that "our universe is ial. If the designer's nature is not which each act in a behavioral one of an infinite number of uni- known, then in what sense does his repertoire is explained by an act that verses," as GEOFFREY KENT writes- existence tell us anything that is not has already taken place. striking evidence that during hard expressed in the second premise? To Psychologists were slow to ap- times, some physicists will entertain be sure, the twin propositions that preciate the force of Lashley's cri- anything and welcome anyone. But there is design in nature and that tique. But when Noam Chomsky, surely scientists who are happy to there is a designer do not say quite writing ten years later, pointed to urge Occam's razor against design the same thing; but, like certain certain features of natural language theory should hesitate before heed- houses in Paris, they have a tenden- that were inaccessible to finite-state lessly multiplying universes them- cy to collapse toward one another. mechanisms or even Markov pro- selves, the more so since the exis- Which designer? The one handling cesses, he was sharpening and ex- tence of the damn things is often the design. Which design? The one tending Lashley's insight. There- invoked precisely to avoid the in- handled by the designer. In the end, ference to design in the first place. we are left with the fact that certain *The text reads: "We are skeptical of claims I am not sure what Mr. Kent properties of living systems have not for the ability of random mutation and nat- ural selection to account for the complexity means by asserting that chance been explained. On this point Mr. of life. Careful examination of the evidence "cannot exist in infinity." A random Wells and I agree completely. for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

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after, a shrewd insight became a is Mr. Dembski's question. Two terials. For this class of artifacts, movement in thought: the so-called things, he argues, are necessary: probabilities are not relevant and cognitive revolution. small probabilities and reasonably specifications are inapplicable. It is curious that so few biologists tight specifications. When these cri- I am well aware of Mr. Dembski's appreciate the formal similarities teria are met, we are entitled to distinction between a specification between Darwin's theory of evolu- strike off chance; if the event in and a fabrication, the more so since tion and behavioral theories in psy- question is also not explicable by I discussed the distinction at length chology. But the same basic idea natural laws, design emerges as the in my book Black Mischief:Language, is at work, with "reinforcement" only plausible alternative. Life, Logic & Luck (1986), where Mr. in psychology called "natural selec- In developing his argument, Dembski's "fabrications" appear as tion" in biology. And here is an Mr. Dembski has a certain model "retroactive specifications." But this odd point. Although behaviorism in mind. The design comes first, distinction has nothing to do with is widely thought to have been expressed perhaps as a blueprint, the distinction between executive stabbed through the heart, most es- agenda, schedule, or even a system of and immanent design. Both speci- pecially by Chomsky's criticism of thought. Next comes the designed fications and fabrications apply, and B.E Skinner, the fact of the matter event or object. "How a designer," apply only, to events capable of pos- is that in the end, Skinner has he writes in No Free Lunch, "gets sessing an executive design. Ve- proved more durable than anyone from a thought to a thing is, at lasquez's painting of the royal court, might have guessed, and with bat- least in broad strokes, straight- which I cited in my COMMENTARY wings flapping has burst buoyantly forward: (1) A designer conceives a essay, lacks both a specification and a from his crypt. purpose. (2) To accomplish that pur- fabrication. A painting is not like We know that behavioral psy- pose, the designer forms a plan. a point in archery. It cannot be spec- chology provides an explanation for (3) To execute that plan, the de- ified before it exists, and specifying a limited class of experimental re- signer specifies the building mate- it after it exists is useless, voiding the sults; beyond those results, it fails. rials and assembly instructions. intended contrast between a speci- What an individual does in acquir- (4) Finally, the designer or some fication and a fabrication. ing a natural language cannot be ex- surrogate applies the assembly in- Although both Mr. Dembski and plained in terms of any schedule of structions to the building materials. I agree that specified improbabili- reinforcement. Indeed, it cannot be What emerges is a designed object, ties are not necessary to trigger a explained in terms of the environ- and the designer is successful to the design inference, we do so for dif- ment at all; reference must be made degree that the object fulfills the de- ferent reasons. On the question of to the individual's innate endow- signer's purposes." whether they are sufficient, we part ment. But linguists who came early This is executive design, to coin a company altogether. In "Has Dar- to scoff at Skinner-Chomsky now phrase and mark a distinction. In win Met His Match?" I argued that included-are involved in making my essay, I suggested that there is a specifications are not necessary to Skinner's argument on the level of range of states, acts, or processes trigger a sense that an unlikely event the species. For what are random that are clearly intentional-they has occurred, and that if specified variation and natural selection but are brought about by intelligent improbabilities are not necessary, a form of behavioral biology? agency-and yet share none of the they are also not sufficient to trig- The intellectual history of the features of executive design. The ger an inference to design, since past half-century is not without its design of a painting is very often re- plainly improbability by itself tells us ironical aspects. vealed in its execution and not be- nothing about design. fore. Design in this sense might well The issue, then, turns on a tight IN HIS graceful letter, WILLIAM A. be called immanent. The painter circle. My argument for the irrele- DEMBSKI argues that in some re- Francis Bacon often stressed just vance of Mr. Dembski's specifications spects I have misunderstood his this point in commenting on his begins with the obvious. A specifica- views, and in other respects I have own work (see FrancisBacon, 1975), tion is a human gesture, a bit of de- insufficiently appreciated their and the distinction between execu- scriptive apparatus. It does not force. It is certainly possible; the is- tive and immanent design appears change a system of probabilities, and sues that Mr. Dembski raises are as well in Nelson Goodman's Lan- so it has nothing to do with expecta- subtle, and his letter and my re- guages of Art, a book that design tions based on those probabilities. sponse should both be regarded as theorists might study with profit. Highly improbable specified events efforts to get things a little clearer. With respect to immanent design, happen precisely as many times as Under what conditions may we there are no prior purposes, no one would expect, given their proba- rationally eliminate chance as the plans, and no application of as- bilities, but so, for that matter, do explanation for certain events? This sembly instructions to building ma- highly improbable unspecified events.

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It is this last claim that Mr. Demb- conclusion that unlikely events hap- embodied in Monod's disjunction it- ski would deny. His counterexam- pen as many times as one might ex- self. But an inference to design is ple is a fair coin flipped 1,000 times. pect, given their probability. consistent with Monod's disjunc- The particular sequence of heads With the distinction between tion. A designer may have no choice and tails that results has the proba- specified and unspecified improba- in his design, a point I make in the bility of roughly one in ten to the bilities wiped out, the inference to concluding paragraphs of my essay. 300th power. "How often should [I1 design sputters. Improbabilities are But, equally, a denial of Monod's have expected this sequence to oc- not by themselves sufficient to trig- disjunction is consistent with the cur?" Mr. Dembski asks. Not at all, ger that inference, and, a fortiori, failure of an inference to design. he responds cheerfully. But the se- neither are specified improbabilities. There may be facts in nature that quence has occurred, and the rele- are the result of neither necessity, vant record of heads and tails is PAUL A. NELSON reminds me that, chance, nor design, and we must ac- there in plain sight. This persuades in Chance and Necessity, Jacques cept the possibility, at least, that the Mr. Dembski that, if left unspeci- Monod began by acknowledging the most obvious facts about living sys- fied, unlikely events tend to occur fact that living creatures are driven tems-their existence and their na- more often than any assignment of by a sense of their purpose in life, ture-may have no deeper explana- probabilities would suggest. and then persuaded himself that this tion than that this is the way things I understand Mr. Dembski's rea- obvious property was not so obvious are. soning, but I reject it as unwhole- after all. What seems to be their de- Something more is at issue in the some. He is stuck, after all, with an sign, Monod concluded, is an illu- assessment of naturalism because expectation-a particular sequence sion, or an artifact; there is necessity, something more must be at issue. I should not occur at all-that is in and there is chance, and there is encourage Mr. Nelson to make that plain contradiction to the facts-a nothing more. Richard Dawkins has something clearer. particular sequence has indeed oc- made almost the same argument in curred. This is not necessarily a fa- The Blind Watchmaker, and Mr. Nel- LEONARD LEVIN S remarks are tal flaw, but it does suggest that son is right to remark that there is in subtle and compelling. What he something has to give. What has to all this something nutty. Monod's ef- says about quantitative and qualita- give is the nice coincidence between forts to explain away the obvious did tive aspects of probability is correct. what the theory of probability af- not succeed. We do make qualitative judgments firms and what the facts reveal. Here Of course, there is a distinction of likelihood even when we are un- Mr. Dembski's intuitions seem to be between saying that Monod did not able to promote those judgments making certain clanging noises while succeed and saying that he could quantitatively. I may not be able to emitting a good deal of smoke. not have succeeded. Drawing that determine the probability that My own intuitions, by contrast, distinction, Mr. Nelson places his Basque will be declared the official are smoke-free and purr like a hopes for the latter possibility on language of the People's Republic of charm. Is the sequence that has just the prospects for intelligent design. China, but I can say that it is un- been revealed highly improbable? It But to the extent that design theo- likely. Judgments of this sort are in is. How often should it have oc- rists have overestimated their own constant use; they are the currency curred? Precisely as many times as arguments, to that extent-precise- of trade. one might expect, given its proba- ly-have they underestimated the But if commonly made, they are bility. In a sequence of identical and enduring force of Monod's claim also commonly flawed. Our quali- independent experiments, this par- that necessity and chance exhaust tative judgments are often insecure ticular outcome would not be real- our powers of explanation. In my and frequently unstable, a point that ized again until the heat death of the essay, I went no further than this, emerges more clearly when artifi- universe or the rehabilitation of Sen- and I am not prepared to go further cial examples are put aside. Is it ator Trent Lott, whichever comes now. more or less likely that North Ko- first. The fact that the sequence has Whatever the issue between Mr. rea will prove a greater danger than already occurred is of no signifi- Nelson and Jacques Monod, it is (as Iraq? Some guesses are possible, but cance. Nothing in the theory of he says) naturalism that is the real answers may change by the minute probability prevents an extremely target of the intelligent-design as information is presented or with- unlikely event from being realized in movement, and, I presume, his tar- drawn, one reason that policy ana- the very first experiment, just as get as well. If I cheer him on only lysts often try frantically to place nothing in the same theory prevents weakly, that is because it is not en- numbers on their judgments. a man from winning the lottery af- tirely clear to me what the target is In pursuing this argument, Mr. ter purchasing his very first ticket. I or how to fight it. From what he Levin draws a suggestive distinction see no reason to be swayed from my writes, I gather that naturalism is between two cases. In the first, the

[29] COMMENTARY MARCH 2003

proverbial monkeys are typing; in the second, they are writing (or scrawling) by hand. It is only the first case, he argues, that permits a quantitative judgment; the second case trails off because, given the monkey's scrawl, we cannot specify any set of discrete objects on which to peg a probability. "The improb- ability of the ... monkey writing out a sonnet longhand is not pre- cisely quantifiable, yet it is obviously more improbable than typing it." Is it? Two events are being com- pared. The first may be quantified by means of the calculations of probability. The second, Mr. Levin argues, is "not precisely quantifi- able." In fact, it is not quantifiable at all. "The monkey may miss a 'G'," Mr. Levin writes, "in only 25 different ways when typing but an indeterminately large number of ways when writing." But if the mon- key may miss that "G" in any num- ber of ways, he may also find that "G" in any number of ways. It de- pends on who is looking and who is counting and what criteria of suc- cess are in force. If we cannot assign precise probabilities to one of two events, then we cannot draw com- parative judgments between them, either. To say of these events-one quantifiable, the other not-that the second is more improbable than the first is very much like saying of two men that one is taller than the other, given only that one is six feet tall and the other trim. Mr. Levin complains that biolo- gists have not addressed his questions about molecular syntax. His ques- tions are precisely the questions I dis- cussed in "The Deniable Darwin," and before that in Black Mischief

MICHAEL SHERMAN'S letter raises a great many interesting questions, most notably why evolutionary bi- ologists are so dopey. If he is "sur- prised at the weakness of their ar- guments," imagine how I must feel. But having asked this question, he then asks a more difficult one: why has intellectual change not been

[30] CONTROVERSY

forthcoming? His own answers are known through trade books, which fore their premises. How the de- canny but unsatisfying. are, of course, not peer-reviewed, signer works is one question. What Biologists stick to Darwin, he other evolutionary biologists tend he did is another, and this question suggests, "because the alternatives to regard those efforts with quiet is logically prior. If certain struc- do not lead to further research." pride. tures cannot arise by Darwinian Now, this is not quite true, as Mr. In his concluding paragraphs, means, then, no matter the design- Sherman himself indicates. The al- Mr. Sherman takes an immense- er's intentions, he could not have ternatives do lead to further research, ly daring position-something realized them by means of a Dar- and he has suggested the agenda. In like old-fashioned preformationism. winian mechanism. He, too, has his fact, what is really at stake for most Now that he has ventured so far out limits. biologists is their chances of being on a limb, I might observe that funded, their place at the common something like this is just what re- I THANK FATHER EDWARD T. trough. But here Mr. Sherman cent work on genetic regulatory sys- OAKES for his very generous com- breaks the flow of his own argu- tems also suggests. Who knows ments, and would not dream of ment. Biologists are not inclined to what dreams of glory the earth- disputing theology with him. Still, explore the options he has outlined, worm harbors? But for a few para- in writing that by the time of he writes, because there is "an over- metric changes in its regulatory ap- Aquinas, Jewish, Christian, and Mus- whelming body of arguments from paratus, and a missing gene or two, lim thinkers had come to agree with many fields in favor of evolution." If it might rule the world. Aristotle that God is Pure Act, it that is so, then Mr. Sherman has an- seems to me that he has underesti- swered his own question in the most I AGREE with DAVID E. SAFIR that mated the complexity of Muslim straightforward way possible: biolo- is it improbable but not impossible thought. Aquinas, after all, criticized gists stick with Darwin's theory be- that life arose randomly. I would Avicenna's distinction between cause it is true. In fact, the "over- add only that the origins of mind essence and existence on the grounds whelming body of arguments" to and of matter are equally mysteri- that it came perilously close to imply- which Mr. Sherman alludes are ous. I am not sure, however, what it ing that existence is an accident. In- more overpowering than over- would mean to make a "choice" of deed, the more I study the extraor- whelming, and like Mexican food faith on these matters. dinary record of medieval Arabic they keep coming up without ever thought, the less I am inclined to em- quite going down. In this regard, DOUGLAS PORTER is making too phasize its unity and the more to Mr. Sherman has seen the light, but much of my stool. I invoked the stress its diversity. he has not used the light to see. thing only to make a modest point: The course that Father Oakes I am more than prepared to be- small incremental changes may lead traces between the Aristotelian doc- lieve that, as Mr. Sherman asserts, to an irreducibly complex system by trine of Pure Act and its apparent formal logic does not often sway paths that Michael Behe did not collapse some four centuries later is evolutionary biologists; as far as I consider. I agree that biologists have fascinating, but beyond my compe- can tell, it does not ever sway them. not come to terms with the "colos- tence to assess. I am also prepared to believe that sal improbabilities" of evolution. evolutionary biologists tend to dis- JAFFA GANZ writes to remind me miss theories of intelligent design I SUPPOSE that, as GEORGE JOCH- that the concerns expressed in my because the authors of those theo- NOWITZ suggests, an intelligent de- essay may not matter very much in ries publish books rather than peer- signer might have favored evolution the end. We do what we can; we ask reviewed essays. I have already ad- as a "brilliant invention," but this the questions that we can answer; dressed this issue in my reply to claim, which is often made by evo- and as for the rest, we face the il- Paul Gross, but I would point out lutionary biologists concerned to limitable, the unanswerable, and the that when Richard Dawkins and cover all of their bets, places the incomprehensible. Daniel Dennett make their views conclusion to certain arguments be- So we do.

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