Darwin's Heretic

Alfred Russel Wallace was a 19th century scientist who came up with a theory of natural selection remarkably similar to Darwin's.  This made the men colleagues and comrades.  Wallace was a member of the close, inner circle Darwin and Huxley gathered around them in London. 

But as Wallace's scientific investigations continued, he came to the conclusion based on the evidence that natural selection was inadequate to explain the complexities apparent in the natural world.  He concluded that the cell, consciousness and sentience, and the origin of life were too complex and must have the guidance of agent behind them.  He came to believe there was an overruling intelligence behind the natural world, though he was never a Christian or believed in the Bible.  He continued to believe in common descent and evolution, but he believed it was purposeful and designed.  He wrote:

"Materialism is a most gigantic foolishness."

"Everywhere...there is purpose."

When Darwin read Wallace's paper explaining his studies and conclusion, he was shocked.  "Eheu, eheu, eheu!," Darwin wrote on the article when he read it and sent it to Wallace. Though they continued to be friendly, Wallace was expelled from the inner circle.

Wallace represents a different perspective on science that isn't guided by methodological naturalism.  He used logic and inference to the best explanation, and followed the evidence where it led - regardless of the conclusions that are disallowed by naturalism.

Michael Flannery has researched Wallace and The Discovery Institute has produced a movie about Wallace because he represents a tradition in science that predates Darwin and is carried on today by scientists who reject Darwinism.  Wallace illustrates that science, not religion, motivates the inference to a designer. 

(Note: Michael Flannery will be on the radio program Sunday, January 29 to talk about Darwin's Heretic.)

Comments

[Josh Stewart]

..and the science denial continues..

[Kyle S.]

Has the Discovery Institute ever actually discovered anything? Other than new and exciting ways to undermine Darwin, I mean.

[Daron]

Awesome comment, Josh. What do you mean by it?
Was Wallace not a scientist? Is denial of agency actually a scientific discovery?

[Josh Stewart]

Kyle, it was named after a ship I think. Not because it was meant to discover things.

[Bennett]

Josh,

In fairness (and this is not speaking as a person who believes in ID), saying that a scientist or group of scientists is incorrect about their conclusions does not mean denying that science works or exists.

I also deny the lipid hypothesis of obesity and heart disease, abhor 'healthy whole grains', and firmly believe that statin drugs are Satan's handiwork (speaking facetiously there), but it's because of the evidence, not despite it. Most doctors would say I'm a heretic, but the biochemistry just isn't on their side.

Disagreeing with a community of educated, but mistaken, people does not necessarily mean throwing out babies with bathwater.

That all said, ID belongs more properly to philosophy than to empiricism. Whether that makes it 'science' or not is worthwhile to debate.

[Josh Stewart]

@Bennett
To be more clear, my comment was directed at the discovery institute and not at Wallace and his work.

I think that if Christians want thier world-view to be taken seriously in the market place of ideas. They need to distance themselves from people who deny evolution in the face of mountains of evidence. I don't disagree about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I just think I know bathwater when I see it.

[RonH]

The Wallace quotations in the OP that sound like ID were apparently mined from here.

It's an amusing read. He's a bit of a crank and he does rail against materialism.

But read it. If Wallace "used logic and inference to the best explanation" then the best explanation was this: "spirits, angels, gods" - call them "what you will" - "superintend" the management of our bodies.

In particular, according to Wallace these ubiquitous spirits/angels/gods/ or whatever transform our blood into skin here, nail there, and hair in yet another place.

That is not ID.

We can cut Wallace some slack. Something unseen was happening. There had to be some explanation. And nobody at that time knew any biochemistry.

RonH

[Bennett]

Yeah, the 19th century bred some interesting thoughts. Phrenology, 'racial science', theory of the ether, Freudianism, Marxism, theosophy (which even drew in no less than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), Darwinism, and a host of other theories concocted to explain observations.

To date, the only one on that which anyone still believes in is Darwinism. Evolution is a process. It would take a grand leap of incredulity to deny the evidence that it occurs (and anyone who does ought to be offered antibiotics from circa 1848 to deal with today's infections, if they really insist on being consistent).

One of the odd things that people for and against the theory of ID do is to conflate it with a denial of evolution as an existent thing in this world. As far as I understand it, the point is not to deny that things did or do evolve (although I cringe when I hear the hemming and hawing about 'micro' versus 'macro'), but rather to make a point about the engine which drives it.

An IDer is saying that, while evolution did indeed happen, it was not driven by chance. Which is pretty rational--chance doesn't drive or determine anything, it's simply a measurement. Nothing can be caused by seconds or kilometers either. When we say something happened "by chance" we mean that it did so without any outside interference.

Therein's the rub for ID versus even theistic evolution. Apparently every other natural process in the universe functions just fine without God or the angels needing to throw a magnetic ball on the roulette wheel, but biology is just too complicated for the All-Seeing, All-Powerful Creator to manage without having to get out his Holy Toolbox and make some ad-hoc modifications.

ID winds up taking the side of Newton against Liebnitz, which unfortunately for the theist ultimately just means a win for Laplace in the public discourse.

Sometimes I wonder whether God sighs or laughs when we try to "make room" for him.

[Daron]

Hi Bennett,
You say a lot of good things, but like so many others, you go off the rails with your critique of ID when you start claiming that it proposes or requires a tinkerer making ad hoc modifications.
ID claims only that Intelligence is evidenced in biological [in this case] development. It says nothing about how or when that intelligence acted and it is perfectly consistent with one single instantiation and no subsequent modifications.

[Josh Stewart]

"An IDer is saying that, while evolution did indeed happen, it was not driven by chance"

Most ID people I know would never say evolution did indeed happen. Also,
(not being snarky here)
There is a difference between random chance and natural processes.

[Daron]

Most ID people I know would never say evolution did indeed happen.

Then most ID people you know have gone beyond what ID itself has to say. This is similar to atheist scientist who claim that evolution itself tells us that there is no God, no afterlife and no morality. They are speaking outside of what the discipline itself can evidence.

There is a difference between random chance and natural processes.

Not if the natural process is ultimately the product of a random or chance event.

[Daron]

But Josh is right to point out the difference, because what ID people say is that no combination of chance and law without teleology can result in the type of bio-complexity we see.

[Josh Stewart]

"Not if the natural process is ultimately the product of a random or chance event."

No, the big bang created stars, stars created many of the elements we are familiar with. Gold, silver and the like. This was a natural process. Plants grow and bear fruit. Once again, a natural process. You don't go around challenging the process or the evidence regarding metals and fruit. By saying: "you think it happened by chance" Why do you do that with the natural process of evolution?

[Daron]

I do, in fact, challenge all of this. An unguided, chance event cannot create matter in the right proportions and behaving in the right way and with the proper regularities to expand into a universe rather than collapse upon itself or fly out of control. It cannot create the right conditions that there is the proper proportion of electrons to protons, hydrogen to helium, carbon ot oxygen, etc. , that said stars form and said life processes can exist. A chance event without guidance would not place our our solar system safely in our galaxy and our earth the right distance form the sun with the right giant planets to protect it with the right moon to sustain its tilt and rotation as well as to teach us about the light spectrum. It wouldn't start life off on this planet and do so under such so called natural processes that that it can repair, replenish and reproduce itself all the while developing well beyond the needs of survival to now turn around and contemplate the universe from whence it came.

I doubt that the Big Bang was capable of any of this without teleology. If the Big Bang was a chance event then all of this is by chance. And I do go around challenging that. And science has nothing to say against my position so there is nothing anti-science about it.

[Josh Stewart]

Do you think that strawberries need to be guided by God in every facet in order to grow and prosper? Or do you think that some natural process that can be measured and understood has at least something to do with it?

[Bennett]

Josh,

I think I bungled my phrasing. I meant to agree that there's a difference between chance and a natural process--namely that the latter does something, while the former simply measures something. I don't think direct divine intervention is any more necessary to evolve a nematode than it is to make billiard balls knock each other around, or clouds to produce lightning. The idea of 'providence' is a stickier one, especially since it's like Antony Flew said--how does an invisible, intangible gardener differ from no gardener at all? One could say 'the end result', but I'd be just as happy, when doing natural science, to just rule out miracles for the same reason that a physicist writes out gravity and air friction when doing his equations. Small chance it'll affect the theory, but why introduce a variable that doesn't occur uniformly?

----

Daron,

You'll have to forgive my ignorance of exactly what Intelligent Design advocates. I seem to hear a different explanation from everyone I ask, on either side of the aisle. It sometimes seems like a catch-all term without a solid, broadly agreed-upon definition. This is hardly your fault, I don't know that it's anyone's fault, but it makes the debate a bit murky to me.

[Josh Stewart]

And once again Bennett, I find I agree with you enough not to nit-pick. :)

[Daron]

Do you think that strawberries need to be guided by God in every facet in order to grow and prosper? Or do you think that some natural process that can be measured and understood has at least something to do with it?

This is a yes and no question. Everything in Creation is upheld every instant by God and owes its continued existence and being to Him. Is there a natural process? Of course, if by natural you mean something that happens with regularity and which can be observed from one instance to the other. Does this natural process explain strawberries, or their prospering? I think not. Every process on earth, no matter how detailed our descriptions of them, boil down past our explanation to the point where I think (though do not have quotes) that the expert in the field will finally say "we don't know why this happens, or is as it is, but that's what we see".

I was struck by this several years ago when I heard about a doctor forming ears for patients born without them, from the cartilage harvested from their ribs. The interviewer asked if you then had to make new ears as the patient grew. No, the cartilage continues to grow, even though its been harvested from a different part of the body for a different function. Why? We don't know, but it does, so we use it.

I think the same thing regarding cell division.Now why does the cell "know" that the chromosomes have to line up down the center of the nucleus, and why do the separate halves then part and go to the poles. Well, see, they are attached to centrioles that draw them to the centre, and then to the poles.
But that doesn't tell us why. It merely gives another mechanism. Listing mechanisms does not give us the final explanation.

This is what science does. It observes, postulates, experiments, tinkers and uses. It barely answers "how" and it does not touch "why".

[Daron]

Hi Bennett,

One could say 'the end result', but I'd be just as happy, when doing natural science, to just rule out miracles for the same reason that a physicist writes out gravity and air friction when doing his equations. Small chance it'll affect the theory, but why introduce a variable that doesn't occur uniformly?

Same problem. ID does not postulate miracles.

[Daron]

I suggest that the origin of life is best viewed not as lawlike, but as one more of the long, long chain of anthropic coincidences very, very finely tuned to yield life. In this view the origin of life was a unique event, like the origin of the moon, and was purposely arranged. For example, just as the origin of the moon involved a particular body of a particular mass traveling at a particular speed and a particular angle at a particular time, and so on, so might the origin of life involved an extensive string of particulars. Perhaps a particular molecule in a primeval ocean hit another at a particular angle when, say, a particular hydrogen ion was close enough to catalyze a particular reaction, and the product of that reaction underwent a long string of other, unique, particular events to yield the first cell. Although at the time the molecules may have been following standard physical laws, no law or general conditions were sufficient to cause the origin of life. It was simply a fine-tuned, unique event. ... I am saying the origin of life was deliberately, purposely arranged, just as the fundamental laws and constants and many other anthropic features of nature were deliberately, purposely arranged. ... But the assumption that design unavoidably requires "interference" rests mostly on a lack of imagination. There's no reason that the extended fine-tuning view I am presenting here necessarily requires active meddling with nature anymore than the fine-tuning of theistic evolution does. One can think the universe is finely tuned to any degree and still conceive that "the universe [originated\] by a single creative act" and underwent "its natural development by laws implanted in it". One simply has to envision that the agent who caused the universe was able to to specify from the start not only laws, but much more. ... The purposeful design of life to any degree is easily compatible with the idea that, after its initiation, the universe unfolded exclusively by the intended playing out of natural laws.

Michael Behe, The Edge Of Evolution, pp214 -232

[Josh Stewart]

I feel like daron continues to missunderstand the issue on purpose. Anyone care to translate here? Bennett?

[Daron]

Aw, Josh, that's not very nice.
Why don't you translate if I am so obviously wrong?

[Bennett]

I'm a little stuck on parsing the difference between the definition of ID being presented here, and the concept of theistic evolution. The way that Greg explained it on air last week was... somewhat different. Then again, Greg also made it sound as if conceding that evolution produced the human phenotype is just the first great leap towards apostasy. Catholics certainly don't have any issue with evolution.

According to the church hierarchy ("The Magisterium" if you like the fancy lingo), evolution is, quite literally, just a little footnote in the Book of Genesis (at least if you have an Ignatius Bible). But then, I suspect Greg might, in a candid moment, say "Exactly!"

(Of course, all that jazz makes me wonder why we all feel the need to make such a fuss about it. Evolution either proves nor disproves God, but it seems as if evangelicals on both sides would much prefer that it did.)

[Daron]

Here's an analogy I like.
You see a car swerve. Why did it do this?
Because the wheels turned. But that doesn't explain why they turned so that the car would swerve.
Further scientific investigation reveals that the wheels turned because the rack was adjusted. Again, another mechanism in a chain, but no explanation.
The turning of the steering shaft, the steering wheel, even the hands on the wheel and the muscles causing them to move. Nothing here explains why the car swerved. All they do is give greater detail about the mechanisms involved. In the end, teleology is required to explain the purposeful actions of the mechanisms.

[Josh Stewart]

Just as a car swerving is a chain of mechanisms. So is evolution.

[Daron]

Hi Bennett,
I didn't hear Greg last week, but when I have he has asked of the theistic evolutionist to show him where the theory requires theism. In other words, justify calling it "theistic". If it is merely Darwinian evolution form start to finish the bare fact that it is propounded by a theist does not make it theistic evolution. I hear this as Greg's question.

Like you, Behe is at a loss to find out why he is called a "creationist" and the ASA and Ken Miller are good old evolutionists. In terms of ontology they both require the same thing. Where he differs, and why he is a proponent of ID, is because he sees that life and the universe provides empirical evidence of the immanent design.

[Bennett]

Daron,

To be clear, I don't disagree that "Why did humans evolve?" can be answered with "Because they have thumbs," or "Because a bazillion years ago, some protobacteria in the ocean got their swerve on" or "Because God wanted something capable of bearing Imago Dei" or even "To keep the deer population of Wisconsin in check." Some of those would involve a Designer, others are indeed just mechanical.

But it seems to me like ID says "Because the mechanism is so complicated, there must be a designer," and I just don't know if that's true. I agree that there's a designer; I don't know if you can prove that by reverse-engineering or 'irreducible complexity'.

[Daron]

(Of course, all that jazz makes me wonder why we all feel the need to make such a fuss about it. Evolution [N]either proves nor disproves God, but it seems as if evangelicals on both sides would much prefer that it did.)

Agreed. But here we are, insulting ID proponents, and sarcastically attacking them from a position of admitted ignorance. Not really cricket, that.

[Daron]

Just as a car swerving is a chain of mechanisms. So is evolution.

Fantastic assertion. So you got the analogy. And note that there is still teleology implicated.

[Daron]

But it seems to me like ID says "Because the mechanism is so complicated, there must be a designer," and I just don't know if that's true. I agree that there's a designer; I don't know if you can prove that by reverse-engineering or 'irreducible complexity'.

ID does not say that complexity requires a designer. ID defines the types of arrangements and the specificity of complexity that requires a designer. You can absolutely disagree that reverse engineering points to a designer. That is not the same as mocking IDers as postulating Holy toolboxes and an incompetent tinkerer of a God.

[Josh Stewart]

I'm just putting it in your words so that it will hopefully make some impact. My own have failed as it stands.

Look dude, we obviously have radically different world-views. Your rant about what science is and the big bang and random chance is so convoluted and fractally wrong. I just don't know where to start. It's like I'm speaking with Deepak Chopra. You open your mouth and say words, but they don't mean what I understand them to mean. I don't think they mean what you think they mean. And the majority of the scientific community would see it the same way. I was just trying to get one simple point across and once again you are out of the ballpark let alone playing the game.

"Fantastic assertion. So you got the analogy?"

No assertion, and no I don't get the analogy. I think you are spinning semantics.

[Bennett]

Well, I think we're all in agreement that evolution is a mechanism, not a 'force' the way some people see to understand it.

Here's an even funnier question, then. Does evolution produce creatures, or do creatures produce evolution? Gould, for example, said that genes can't and don't interact with the environment. Only the phenotype (and the mind, in creatures which have one) interact, choose to breed, etc. So do genes determine the next generation, or does the prior generation determine which genes go forward, thus rendering DNA into a passive recorder, rather than a determining factor?

As to Greg's question, I'd counter that with a question as well. Why *should* theistic evolution look different from atheistic evolution? I think the reason we feel the need to tag the term thusly is because of the *connotations*, rather than denotations. It is precisely to say "I'm not a metaphysical materialist, but I accept the science explaining how the mechanism of evolution functions"

Theistic doctors sure look a lot like atheistic ones. They draw different conclusions about whether a miracle is a miracle if a patient jumps up inexplicably healed, but I sure hope neither one is waiting around for God to intervene if I flatline on the table.

[Bennett]

BTW, Daron, I honestly don't mean to be snide regarding the ID position. I've simply seem it represented as such, but if I'm operating under a misapprehension, I'll be happy to receive correction. My toolbox analogy was meant to point out the absurdity of assuming that God would need to tinker in the design, but if that was never your assertion in the first place, then it was certainly mistaken.

[Daron]

Such big anger from an internet man.
Look, dude, if someone is wrong it is quite easy to show that he's wrong. So show me. Or at least step up and say what it is you think is wrong.

"Fantastic assertion. So you got the analogy?"

No assertion, and no I don't get the analogy. I think you are spinning semantics.

You don't? Okay, let me try again, dude. I'll try not to rant.
Science explores mechanisms. It can dissect, find proximate causes, explain interactions, etc.
But doing so does not answer the teleological question. In fact, if anything, it only intensifies it.
If there is a reason to think that the observation requires a designer then no amount of mechanism at the micro level is going to do away with that inference.

If the car was set to go straight and nothing in the road conditions could cause it to turn left at a given moment, but it did so just in time to avoid a pedestrian, then teleology is implicated. Natural forces did not have the power to sort from the possibilities such that it is reasonable to infer as coincidence this result, given the pre-specified target (avoiding the pedestrian).

Likewise, if evolution arrives at a result that the proposed forces cannot account for selecting out of the myriad of possibilities, then teleology is implicate. This is the case whether you think there are sufficient mechanisms or not. Mechanisms don't erase design. In fact, they implicate it all the more.

[Bennett]

Josh and Daron,

I like both of you guys, but I think this discussion has turned into an argument and folks have started to let emotions flare up. Maybe we should all cool it for a while, and come back after we've had some time to chill out and gain perspective?

It does none of us any good to win a fight but lose a brother.

[Daron]

Why *should* theistic evolution look different from atheistic evolution? I think the reason we feel the need to tag the term thusly is because of the *connotations*, rather than denotations. It is precisely to say "I'm not a metaphysical materialist, but I accept the science explaining how the mechanism of evolution functions"

Maybe it shouldn't. And this is what the question addresses. Is the theistic evolutionist saying that evolution was planned, that God had a purpose and an end in sight, or are we the product of chance and law? If the former, then where is His operating, and why is this evolution "theistic" and not just evolution? And if the latter, if the evolutionary process would be identical either way, then the questioner wants to know if you are just baptizing the theory .

I should remind you now that I have not reviewed Greg's statements lately, and am actually now interpreting a hypothetical person who asks such questions.

[Josh Stewart]

"Such big anger from an internet man."

Sorry man, I just cannot communicate with you. I'm really not angry. Just frustrated by how far this spins out of orbit. That is probably as much my fault. I really just shouldn't try to converse with you.

[Daron]

Good words, those at 9:19, Bennett.
I've appreciated your comments and style on many a thread. But this is not the first time that you have mocked your brothers who have a different interpretation of science and of earth history than you.

[Daron]

I'm about to go to bed, Josh, but all you have to do is point to an error. Or now one non-orbital spin.

You opened with your sarcastic jab about science-denial, but did nothing to back that charge up, other than to further mock the Discovery Institute and make a false charge about denying evolution.

You said I do not argue against the processes that lead to metals and fruits as I (by your assumption) do with regards to evolution. And I answered your charge directly with reference to the observed fine-tuning of the universe.

You then asked about strawberries and I directly answered you on that. If you research strawberries I think you will find mystery upon mystery and the teleology is not answered by reference to hormones, chlorophyl, DNA, etc.
I think I was still pretty snugly in orbit.

Science just does not answer the question of teleology. By its nature it describes. So there is nothing anti-science, and no science-denying, to say that our observations of life are best explained with reference to a designer.
You were wrong with your first comment and you've done nothing to back it up.

If we are out of orbit it is because you have not looked at this and, instead, have chosen to ask question instead of provide answers.

[Josh Stewart]

*sigh*

[RonH]

Daron,

Science just does not answer the question of teleology.

What question do you mean?

RonH

[Daron]

Hi RonH,
Thanks for asking, I got too hasty with that statement and figured I'd come up against a bunch of rebuttals before I clarified.

Science does not answer the question of ultimate causes or purpose behind the universe in general or biological development in particular.
So it is impossible that asserting that there is design at work be a denial of science because science is mute on the question.

[RonH]

Hi Daron,

So it is impossible that asserting that there is design at work be a denial of science because science is mute on the question.

OK, let's stipulate that the assertion can't deny science.

Still, there's nothing impossible about composing an argument that denies science and using that argument to support the assertion.

When this gets to be a pattern...

Ron

[Daron]

Still, there's nothing impossible about composing an argument that denies science and using that argument to support the assertion.

Very true. And irrelevant except as an ad hominem. Russell, an eminent scientist, was not denying science by asserting design. STR is not denying science by referring to him or his investigation and conclusions. And there is no denial of science in the DI video, which became the alleged target when the jerking knee was pointed out. Therefore, the claim "science denial continues" is nothing but the usual, and completely typical, smear.

[Daron]

When this gets to be a pattern...

Yeah, I draw conclusions based on patterns, too. Hence, my remarks to Josh.

[Brad B]

Hey Daron, I'm finding this an interesting read. I dont think all of the participants of this discussion will, but I suspect you and maybe Bennett will find that discussion enlightening.

[Daron]

Thanks Brad,
I'm just getting started but am enjoying it. I love Keller but I find his presentation problematic. I don't impugn his motives, but I don't find his position necessary or consistent.

[Devon]

Mountains of evidence Josh claims....ha ha ha...if this wasn't so serious, it would be funny!

Where pray tell our those mountains of evidence for darwin's theory Josh???

Humor me....

[Bennett]

I'll confess that I read Keller's essay, among many others, at the site of its original posting (BioLogos.org). I found him to be pretty helpful, but it's really better to actually peruse the whole BioLogos ouevre instead of one guy's review of one essay posted there.

[Bennett]

By the by, at the end there, is he actually calling for the PCA to brand Keller a heretic? Good grief.