Rug Vs Wallace

I have been to fighting keep religious teachings out of the public school systems for a long time now. One such part of religious teachings is creationism. Many creationist have been trying to get Intelligent Design taught in science classes for years. Even though every time it has been taken to court it has been proven wrong, not to be science, and violating the constitution. A part of my fight is to keep track of creationist posting on the internet. This allows me to know what their arguments are so I can be well prepared. However, when I came across J. Warner Wallace post today over at christianity.com. I got a little irritated by the second line of this post. Therefore, I thought it would be nice to do a thorough point by point debunking of this quote mined rhetoric.

Mr. Wallace starts off showing bias and ignorance right from the start when he quotes Richard Dawkins. 

"Much has been written about the evidence for design in biological organisms. In fact, the appearance of design is largely uncontroversial. Even famed atheist and evolutionist, Richard Dawkins has written, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”"

This quote is taken from The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. In fact this is from the first page of the first chapter. However, I think this was as far as Mr. Wallace read. The rest of the book is describing in great and almost painful detail how we can tell life was not designed. Creationist have been using this quote since the book came out. However, it still does not help their case.

The simple way to think of the issue with biology and its appearance of design is to realise that evolution is a type of design. Once you understand how evolution works it's quite simple to realise evolution has designed every living thing to fit its current environment with many, many failures along the way. The part that Dawkins takes issue with is the intelligent aspect of an intelligence designing these life forms. It's quite simple to realize that if there is a designer then it's not intelligent with one simple point. This point was made best by Neil deGrasse Tyson "Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system." Thank you Neil for that lovely thought of the day.

Mr Wallace goes on to ask some questions to prove there is intelligence behind the design. From the context of the article it can be safely assumed he will be leasing to life being designed. Therefore, I will quote them here, offer my answers, and explanations from a biology standpoint.

"Is random chance an insufficient explanation for the formation and assembly of the object we are examining?"

No, for the simple fact that evolution is not random chance. Mr. Wallace shows his ignorance of evolution with this question. When the bad "ideas" die before having kids and are not able to pass on this bad "idea" leaving only good "ideas" to be passed on. Therefore, random is taken out of the equation all together.

"Does the object resemble other structures we know (with certainty) were designed by intelligent designers?"

The answer to this is often yes. However, it is due to humans using ideas from nature. One such example of this would be a plane. The idea of flight came from birds and insects. Therefore, it is no surprise and aeroplane wing resembles a wing of a bird. This is just one of the many aspects creationist get backwards when trying to use unfamiliar things like logic and reason.

"Does the object display specificity, sophistication and intricacy consistent with the involvement of an intelligent agent?"

 This doesn't matter rather it's yes or no due to the fact that just because a object is good at something does not mean it was made to do it. A hard drive was not made to be a paper weight, but I use an old hard 5GB drive as one. It works really, really well. Almost like it was designed for the task of holding down papers. However, this hard drive was very intelligently designed to store digital data but it is really poor at doing so. This drive is slow, doesn't hold very much data, and no longer functions. Though it still makes an excellent paper weight.

"Is there any evidence the object was directed and created by way of instructional information?"

Ahh, the now common misrepresentation of "information". The "information" Mr. Wallace is referring to here would be DNA. Mr. Wallace there are two definitions of information. Instructions would be listed under the definition. "facts provided or learned about something or someone." While DNA is nothing more than " a particular arrangement or sequence of things." Therefore, the simple answer to this question is no.

"Does the form and assembly process of the object process to be goal-directed?"

No. The question makes no sense and could use a lot more explanation (which is not given). I am familiar with an assembly process but I have no idea what an object process is. However, if we leave that small (I'm guessing typo) out and we word the question to be "Does the form and assembly process of the object appear to be goal-directed?" Now this question makes sense. I am trying to be as fair as possible here. I think this is what Mr. Wallace really meant. However, even with the correction the answer is still no. Biology and evolution is not goal-directed or even goal-oriented. It's simply the best things continue while the worst die. I suppose in a poetic sense you could say the goal of evolution is for life to continue. However, in a realistic sense all life could die and it wouldn't matter to evolution.

"Are the laws of physics and chemistry insufficient to account for the form and function of the object?"

I think I'll answer this one with a rhetorical question of my own. Has any physicist or chemist ever said the known laws of the universe was perfect and could explain everything without being prove wrong? No, and really this question is leading to an argument from ignorance fallacy. Just because something cannot be explained yet does not mean it never will be. Otherwise, you wouldn't have that lovely post in the Internet. Since electricity was not understood at one time, but is now.

"Does the object display efficient, irreducible complexity reflecting the involvement of an intelligent designer?"

What exactly is meant by "efficient" in this context? Irreducible complexity is defined by wikipedia as "IC postulates that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler or "less complete" predecessors through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring chance mutations." Seeing that information on irreducible complexity I can only guess that "efficient" means that something will stump scientist. However, every case of "irreducible complexity" has been debunked by biologist thus far. In fact, way back in 1999 a book called Redundant Complexity debunked this claim and is available to read online for free. I can only hope that Mr. Wallace will get around to reading it some day.

"Does the object display evidence of conscious choices indicative of an intelligent designer?"

 No evidence of "conscious choices" has ever been found in the "design" of living (or dead) organisms. I am lead to think on the subject of what such evidence would look like. Surely it wouldn't like the recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve found in giraffe that goes from the head, all the way down by the heart and then back up to the head. That is a lot of wasted nerve tissue. By the way, you can watch an autopsy being done on a giraffe here where they point this fact out. Don't watch if you have a weak stomach.

Getting back to Mr. Wallace's post, the rest of it you can read for yourself. I stopped at this point because I couldn't take the level of willful ignorance on display. I did link to it at the top of this post. Please let me know if I got any of the context or intent of his post incorrect. I would be happy to fix it. I do not want to be guilty of quote mining.

There is one major point I would like to point out. There has never been any evidence for intelligent design (aka creationism) that has not been debunked at one time or another. Most of the effort of the creationist seem to be geared towards proving evolution wrong. I think they missed the fact that even if evolution is proved wrong (not likely) it does not mean there uninformed, unintelligent, ignorant, misguided, and absolutely absurd hypothesis is correct.

Oh, that is another thing I would like to point out. When dealing with the scientific process a guess is called a hypothesis. Once that hypothesis has been tested and proved to be accurate with verifiable (and normally undeniable) evidence then it is a theory. Saying evolution is "just a theory" is like saying gravity is "just a theory". Although with gravity I'm sure it would be easier to prove to the ignorant. One quick test is all it would take. Take them on a roof of a tall building. Tell them the fear they feel when they realise I'm about to push them off the edge is because they know gravity is real. I'm sure they would then admit to their error of logic.

Sadly, there is not a quick test to prove evolution to someone that is unwilling and/or unable to comprehend such basic concepts. Thus, the best anyone can do is make sure their stupid does not infect others. Then again, I'm just some random guy on the Internet named Rug. What do I know? Most likely not enough, but that's what I think.