Why Darwin Matters (11 page)

Fourth, there may be an underlying principle behind all the finetune equations and relationships that will be forthcoming when the grand unified theory of physics is discovered. In the grand unified theory there will not be six mysterious numbers, there will be just one. Here we would do well to remember skeptical principle number two:
Before you say something is out of this world, first make sure it is not in this world
. Until we have a unified theory of physics connecting the quantum world of subatomic particles to the cosmic world of
general relativity, we cannot conclude that there is something beyond nature to explain the anthropic principle.

Fifth, we may live in a
multiverse
, in which our universe is just one of many bubble universes, all with different laws of nature. Those with physical parameters like ours are more likely to generate life. Cosmologists theorize that there may even be a type of natural selection at work among the many bubble universes, in which those whose parameters are like ours are more likely to survive. According to inflationary cosmology, each time a black hole collapses, it does so into a singularity—the same entity out of which our universe may have sprung. Every time a star collapses into a black hole in our universe, the “other side” of the black hole may yield a new baby universe. Since there have likely been billions of collapsed black holes, there could be billions of bubble universes. Those universes whose initial conditions and physical laws do not produce stars like ours will not have black holes and thus will not reproduce more life-giving universes. Those bubble universes whose parameters are like ours are more likely to give rise to universes with life, perhaps even complex life with brains big enough to conceive of God and evolution.
¹⁷
How elegantly recursive!

In a slightly different scenario—one in which the universe is created out of a fluctuation in the quantum foam of space (it turns out that space is not so empty at the quantum level and that pure energy may give rise to matter)—Stephen Hawking answered the anthropic principle problem by conjecturing that new baby universes may be created in the same manner: “Quantum fluctuations lead to the spontaneous creation of tiny universes, out of nothing. Most of the universes collapse to nothing, but a few that reach a critical size, will expand in an inflationary manner, and will form galaxies and stars, and maybe beings like us.”
¹⁸
Indeed, the multiverse is the next natural step in our expanding knowledge of the
cosmos: from the earth to the solar system to the galaxy to the universe to the multiverse; that is, from the Copernican revolution that overturned the medieval worldview with the earth at the center and the stars and planets rotating close by on their crystal spheres and created within the last ten thousand years, to the early-modern worldview of the Milky Way galaxy as the entire known universe created within the last several million years, to the modern worldview of an accelerating expanding universe of some 13.7 billion years of age, to a multiverse of perhaps infinite age and containing perhaps an infinite number of universes.

Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered. Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we
see
the universe as having been designed just for us?

The Design Inference: There is a distinct difference between objects that are naturally designed and those that are intelligently designed
.

Mount Rushmore is made entirely of natural material (rock), but no one would infer that the natural forces of erosion account for the design of four U.S. presidents’ faces on the granite. This is an example of what Intelligent Design theorists call a “design inference,” another staple argument, this one with its roots in lutemakers and William Paley’s watchmakers. Of course, there are lots of examples of natural forces that do account for designed-looking objects: the rock formation in Maui’s Iao Valley State Park that bears
a striking resemblance to President John F. Kennedy in profile; the eroded mountain on Mars that under coarse-grained resolution looks like a face; the eagle rock off the 134 freeway in Southern California that overlooks the town of Eaglerock; the “Nun Bun” found by a Tennessee baker that resembles Mother Teresa; the Virgin Mary stained on the side of a bank building in Clearwater, Florida, or on a Chicago freeway underpass, or on a cheese sandwich in a Las Vegas casino. Although they were created entirely by natural forces, almost no one infers that there is an Intelligent Designer behind such artifacts of nature (with the possible exception of the Virgin Mary stains, which some religious devotees regard as miraculous apparitions). How can we tell the difference between natural design and artificial design?

“Design theorists infer a prior intelligent cause based upon present knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships,” writes the philosopher of science and Intelligent Design advocate Stephen Meyer. “Inferences to design thus employ the standard uniformitarian method of reasoning used in all historical sciences, many of which routinely detect intelligent causes.” Archaeologists, for example, employ statistical and physical criteria to discriminate between natural-made and human-made artifacts, so it is fair to say that “intelligent agents have unique causal powers that nature does not. When we observe effects that we know only agents can produce, we rightly infer the presence of a prior intelligence even if we did not observe the action of the particular agent responsible.”
¹⁹
Intelligent Design theorists point to the elegance, uniformity, and ingenuity of DNA: It is no more naturally designed than the pyramids. If it looks intelligently designed, it was.

But the inference to design is subjective. Sometimes it is obvious, other times it is not. The difference between a rock and a watch is
obvious; the difference between a rock and a chipped-stone tool made by an Australopithecene three million years ago is not obvious. And the inference to design is specific to each claim. In the chippedstone problem, for example, a rock that has been chipped on both sides in a symmetrical fashion is more likely to be intelligently designed than naturally flaked. Nevertheless, archaeologists admit that they likely infer false positives, and there is no surefire design inference algorithm that applies to all archaeological problems, let alone one that applies to all scientific fields. The set of criteria used by archaeologists to determine whether a stone was chipped by chance or design is completely different from the set of criteria used by astronomers to determine whether a signal from space is natural or artificial.

Second, we perceive nature to be intelligently designed based on our experience of human artifacts. We know some human artifacts are intelligently designed because we have observed them being made and we have vast experience with human artificers. By contrast, we have no experience with a nonhuman intelligent designer, and no experience with a supernatural agent—outside of inferring that one exists by identifying the current gaps in our knowledge of apparently designed objects. The skeptical principle,
Methodological Naturalism, or, no miracles allowed
, refutes the inference to supernatural intelligent design. Not yet understanding how something was created naturally does not make it a supernatural creation.

Last, we must be cautious about inferring design because our experience with intelligently designed artifacts in our culture biases us to see intelligent design where none exists (for example, those Virgin Mary apparitions). Long before Darwin debunked the watchmaker argument, the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire
satirized this problem in his classic novel
Candide
, through the character Dr. Pangloss, a professor of “metaphysico-theology-cosmolonigology”: “’Tis demonstrated that things cannot be otherwise; for, since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches.”
²⁰

Explanatory Filter: A tool for discriminating between natural design and intelligent design shows that only an Intelligent Designer can account for complex specified information and design
.

Mathematician William Dembski has devised an “Explanatory Filter” through which intelligent design can be distinguished from natural design. Dembski asks, “When called to explain an event, object, or structure, we have a decision to make—are we going to attribute it to
necessity, chance
, or
design
?”
²¹
If necessity (natural law) and chance (randomness) cannot explain the phenomenon, then design (intelligence) is the default answer. The filter operates in a three-step process:

1.
Does natural law explain the design?
If event E has a high probability, accept
necessity
as an explanation; otherwise move to the next step.

2.
Does chance explain the design?
If event E has an intermediate probability or E is not specified, then accept
chance;
otherwise move to the next step.

3.
Does intelligent design explain the design?
Having eliminated necessity and chance as the explanation for a highly specified but low probability event, accept
design.
²²

The Explanatory Filter is a tool by which we can tell the difference between the naturally designed JFK rock formation and the intelligently designed Mount Rushmore rock formation: “I argue that the Explanatory Filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design,” Dembski explains. “Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives. Thus, whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design, it does so correctly.”
²³

But the Explanatory Filter assumes probabilities that cannot be determined in practice; it is nothing more than a thought experiment and cannot practically be used in science. Indeed, in order to eliminate all necessity and chance explanations assumes that we know all configurations of these explanations, which, of course, we do not. Even if we did, and rejected them all, the design inference does not follow. Design, as it is commonly defined by the Intelligent Design movement, means
purposeful
and
intelligent
creation, not simply the elimination of necessity and chance. In other words, design is not just a default conclusion when all else fails to explain. Design requires positive evidence, not the rejection of negative evidence. The Explanatory Filter cannot survive the scrutiny of two skeptical principles—the
Burden of Proof
and the
Either-Or Fallacy
.

In addition, even if positive evidence for design were presented, by the logic of the Explanatory Filter we should be able to apply the filter to the design’s designer. Assuming necessity and chance are mathematically (if not morally) rejected for the design’s designer, the logical conclusion would be that the design’s designer was designed, and that that design’s designer’s designer was also designed, ad infinitum. If the Explanatory Filter’s design does not explain Intelligent Design, then by the logic of the Explanatory Filter we have to infer that necessity or chance created the Intelligent
Designer. By the logic of Shermer’s Last Law, as we saw in the preceding chapter, the Explanatory Filter asserts that the Intelligent Designer and Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence are indistinguishable.

The ultimate answer to the design inference is to provide a cogent theory of natural design that can account for the complexity of the universe and life. This we have through the sciences of complexity, in which we recognize the properties of
self-organization
and
emergence
that arise out of
complex adaptive systems. Self-organization
means that the system requires only an input of energy into it in order to generate an action, which comes from within the system itself. An
emergent property
is one that is more than the sum of its parts.
Complex adaptive systems
are those that grow and learn as they change, and they are
autocatalytic
, which means that they contain self-driving feedback loops. For example:

Water
is a self-organized emergent property of a particular arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

Consciousness
is a self-organized emergent property of billions of neurons firing in patterns in the brain.

Language
is a self-organized emergent property of thousands of words spoken in communication between language users.

Law
is a self-organized emergent property of thousands of informal mores and restrictions that were codified over time into formal rules and regulations as societies grew in size and complexity.

Economy
is a self-organized emergent property of millions of people pursuing their own self-interests without any awareness of the larger system in which they work.

Life
is a self-organized emergent property of prebiotic chemicals; complex life is a self-organized emergent property of simple life, where simple prokaryote cells self-organized to become more complex eukaryote cells (many of the little organelles inside cells were once self-contained independent cells); multicellular life is a self-organized emergent property of single-celled life; and so on up the chain of complexity to colonies, social units, societies, consciousness, language, law, and economies.