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Berhow Defense Draft Copyright © 2017 Michael Caryl Berhow All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation and instruction. DARWIN, DESIGN, AND DYSTELEOLOGY: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF WILLIAM DEMBSKI AND FRANCISCO AYALA ON THE PROBLEM OF SUBOPTIMAL DESIGN A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Michael Caryl Berhow May 2017 APPROVAL SHEET DARWIN, DESIGN, AND DYSTELEOLOGY: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF WILLIAM DEMBSKI AND FRANCISCO AYALA ON THE PROBLEM OF SUBOPTIMAL DESIGN Michael Caryl Berhow Read and Approved by: Theodore J. Cabal (Chair) James A. Parker III Douglas K. Blount Date: To Becky, my wonderful wife and to Gus and Frankie, our delightful toddlers TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE………………..………………………………………………………….... vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………… 1 Background………………………………………………………………... 2 Explanation of the Problem……………………………………………….. 16 Methodology…………….………………………………………………… 19 Chapter Summaries…………………………….………………………….. 20 2. AYALA’S SCIENTIFIC CRITIQUE OF ID………………………………... 23 William Paley and Charles Darwin………………………………………... 24 The General Case for Evolution……………………………………….…... 30 Evidence for Human Evolution……………………………………..……... 43 Natural Selection and Teleology…………………………………………... 47 Scientific Problems with ID………………………………………...……... 50 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 57 3. AYALA’S THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF ID……………………………... 58 Introduction…………………………………………………………………. 58 God and Suboptimal Design………………………………………………… 61 Suboptimal Design in Biology………………………………………………. 62 iv Chapter Page ID and Suboptimal Design…………………………………………………. 66 Ayala’s Evolutionary Theodicy…………………………………………..... 70 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 75 4. DEMBSKI AND THE SCIENTIFIC PROJECT OF ID……………………… 77 ID as a Scientific Project…………………………………………………… 78 The Science of Detecting Design…………………………………………... 83 ID as Biological Science…………………………………………………… 91 Ayala’s Critique and Dembski’s Science………………………………….. 97 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 102 5. Dembski’s Metaphysical Project……………………………………………… 104 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 104 Dembski’s Early Critiques of Naturalism………………………………….. 105 Dembski’s Recent Critique of Materialism………………………………. 124 Dembski’s Information Theoretic Proposal……………………………….. 127 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 134 6. Conclusion: Making Darwin a Gift?.................................................................. 135 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 135 Reassessing Ayala’s Proposal That Darwin Is a Gift……………………… 136 Teleology and Evolutionary Theodicies…………………………………… 143 Does This Argument Apply to Ayala?.......................................................... 154 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 156 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………. 158 v PREFACE This dissertation has been an exciting, rewarding, and challenging scholarly endeavor. I am thankful for all those who have encouraged and coached me through the process, especially for Ted Cabal and James Parker, who took time to befriend a young seminary student. Cabal stimulated my thinking in every class during my M.Div. years, and then motivated me to pursue a Ph.D. after seminary. Parker’s teaching and emphasis on worldview studies provided me with invaluable categories to see every area of life from a Christian perspective. I am also thankful for Douglas Blount for serving on my dissertation committee; for Mike Hildreth for serving as my external reader; for Greg Peterson, who provided useful critiques of each chapter; and for Chris Bolt, Matt Albanese, Peter Mosher, and Mark Warnock, my seminary friends who sharpened my thinking theologically, missiologically, and ecclesiologically. In addition to all those who inspired me academically, I am grateful to Veritas Church (my church family in Brookings, SD), the Dakota Baptist Convention, and the North American Missions Board, all who provided me the opportunity to finish my Ph.D. while church planting. Last, I want to thank my wife, Becky, for working countless hours as a nurse, supporting me through seminary, serving the women at our church, and being an excellent mother to Gus and Frankie. I could not have completed this project without the support of so many people. God is faithful! Mike Berhow Brookings, South Dakota May 2017 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION A common theological critique of intelligent design (ID) centers on the problem of dysteleology. This problem states that because there are clear examples of suboptimal design in biology, life is probably not the product of an engineer-like designer. If it were, then one could argue that the designing agent falls short of perfection. Francisco Ayala (an ID critic) expresses this sentiment in the following question: “If functional design manifests an Intelligent Designer, why should not deficiencies indicate that the Designer is less than omniscient, or less than omnipotent?”1 This dissertation critically evaluates two approaches to answering this question, one offered by Ayala and the other offered by William Dembski (an ID advocate). In Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, Ayala describes numerous examples of defects and dysfunctions in the natural world. He argues that such examples undermine ID and further maintains that Darwinian evolution offers a profound but simple explanation for these defects and dysfunctions. For this reason, Ayala encourages religious believers to embrace Darwin’s theory, since it gets God off the hook regarding natural evil and suboptimal design. His argument is theological in nature, and my goal is to articulate the argument and then compare it with Dembski’s version of ID. My central thesis is that while Ayala does provide useful insights into the problem of dysteleology, he fails to undermine the notion of teleology expressed in Dembski’s ID project. To defend this thesis, I explore Ayala’s main theological critique of ID and contend that his 1Francisco J. Ayala, Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry, 2009), 22. 1 arguments are incoherent without a prior metaphysical commitment to discernable teleology in nature. Background Proponents of dysteleological arguments claim that the natural world (particularly in biology) contains countless examples of suboptimal design. These examples purportedly deliver scientific evidence demonstrating that God was not involved in creating life, and therefore represent a counterargument to various versions of the teleological argument. The term itself originated from Ernst Haeckel’s The History of Creation (1884), where he explains, The infinite importance of the study of rudimentary organs for the fundamental questions of natural philosophy cannot be too highly estimated; we might set up with their aid a theory of the unsuitability of parts in organisms, as a counter- hypothesis to the old popular doctrine of the suitability of parts. This latter dualistic teleology finally leads us to supernatural dogmas and miracles, whereas we obtain from the former, monistic dysteleology, a firm foundation for our mechanical interpretation of nature.2 Haeckel reminds readers in this passage that nature is not consistent regarding the suitability of parts within organisms. Some organisms certainly display features of intricate optimality, but others do not. Would it be wise, then, for one to interpret optimal design from a teleological perspective, and then interpret suboptimal design from a dysteleological perspective? Haeckel argues that such a dualistic interpretation would lead to supernatural dogmas that are not helpful in science. If one interprets nature solely from a dysteleological perspective, however, then one can affirm a mechanistic view of reality, which Haeckel claims is advantageous for science.3 2Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation: Or, the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes, 6th ed. (New York: Appleton, 1914), 1:331. 3Haeckel’s dysteleological perspective is closely related to methodological naturalism (the philosophical claim that scientific investigations should be limited to purely natural causes and events). 2 Dysteleology and Atheism Many atheists, while recognizing that dysteleology does not prove the non- existence of God, utilize Haeckel’s dysteleological argument to develop a moderate case for atheism.4 These atheists maintain that scientific developments from William Paley to Charles Darwin provide a historical case study that illustrates the increasing irrelevance of theism, or teleological explanations, within science. According to this narrative, Paley developed sophisticated scientific arguments in 1802 to demonstrate God’s existence by appealing to the apparent design of complex organisms. He famously argued that there “cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice,” and then skillfully presented numerous cases of apparent design in nature.5 One can easily concede that Paley’s teleological argument was based upon the best science of the early nineteenth century, and even that his interpretation of the evidence represented the prevailing wisdom of his day.6 As science progressed in the nineteenth century, however, Darwin introduced an alternative explanation for the contrivances of nature. He proposed that natural selection acting upon
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