Critique of James Kiefer's GEN03 RUFF File

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The Paley Argument, Argument #3 against Darwinism

When I first read this argument, something bothered me about it. I like the idea that Creation implies a Creator, or, more directly, that the Creator implied the Creation. However, the watch on the beach left me feeling uneasy. First of all, it implies that each and every step of the evolutionary process must be random, undirected, and unrelated to the previous step. Each and every gear, wheel, hand, lens, spring, and jewel must be an anomaly of nature until the exact moment when they all come together. Surely, this is stretching the evolutionary position to a degree of absurdity? No evolutionist suggests that there were hearts and lungs and limbs floating around until the right accident of Nature brought them together to form a man.

It would be more realistic to say that first a gear was somehow randomly chiselled out of flakes of metal drifting around the sea. These, then, once so evolved, possessed the ability to make more gears based on known processes: the Laws of Nature. Soon, we would have an ocean filled with just gears. Next, you would have an accidental process to, say, grind down a flat plate with holes in it for the gears to fit in. Once this was done, you would have an ocean filled with gears, and more advanced gears within housings. At each stage, the resulting item, gear, wheel, whatever, must be self sufficient, viable, and able to reproduce itself. This seems reasonably absurd so far as to lend support for the Paley argument. The Paley argument, after all, is that the process is purely random.

There are mitocondrea within the cells of our bodies, without which we could not live, nor they without us. However, it is not necessary for mitocondrea to be produced by spontaneous evolution each time a human is conceived. Once the first mitocondrea (or single celled plant in the sea, for that matter) came to be, the coding for successive organisms of the same type was also established in the form of genetic coding: DNA. This genetic coding forms a symbiotic relationship with the Laws of Nature, whereby the code directs construction of new organisms out of raw materials and the raw materials find organization according to the code. A nice relationship between Form and Matter.

Here is where the Paley argument breaks down.

It would be more realistic to say that, once the gear evolved, then it became a given, a platform upon which to build. As mentioned above, we would have a sea full of gears which somehow have a life of their own, living, dying, and possessing the ability to capitalize upon known processes to produce more gears. Perhaps it would be better to imagine a sea shore where gear cutters lay half submerged in the water which are driven by the wind. They are perpetually churning and mindlessly cutting at what ever falls into them like a fully outfitted machine shop that is running but not operated by any men. If a piece of metal happened to blow into a lathe, for instance, it might be shaped into a pin.

For the gear cutter on the beach, so long as a piece of material happened to fall into it, a gear was cut. In this example, the gear cutter is a natural process, such as loose hydrogen bonding in a carbon chain. It is a given which is always available for whatever process happens to use it. It is mindless, undirected, and always operates the same way. It is not so much a device, such as the gear cutter on the shore, but a process, such as enzymes combining according to chemical laws.

Now you would have mechanisms which spontaneously produce gears. Not randomly, mind you, but spontaneously, none the less. The mechanism is there. The raw material is there, as well. As long as the raw material gets 'thrown into' the process, Nature responds predictably. Two questions now remain:

1. How did they get there? Ie, who wrote the Laws of Nature?

2. How do they get together? Ie, who brings material A into process B to produce end produce C?

Back to the Paley argument. There is no mechanism inherent in any sea that we are familiar with which will favor the production of gears, wheels, etc. There is an environment with which we are familiar that will oxidize metals, combine acids, and produce carbon chains. So there is at least a favoring tendency toward producing the chemical reactions of life. There is none toward producing the constituents of watches.

The Paley argument, especially the Neo-Paley argument, is valuable, but not quite as powerful as it at first seems.

A better question would be: Do the Laws of Nature favor the evolution of consciousness? More on this later.

More on Evolution

Punctuated evolution, if I have my terms correct, states that a species will live quite nicely for an indeterminately lengthy period of time, and then suffer a series of rapid mutations, say, over three or four generations, thus producing the new trait or characteristic. Natural Selection will then accomplish the thinning process. In order for this to work, there has to be a long period of time where the Status Quo works quite nicely. In other words, and using Paley's example, we have a gear which is able to bring metal flakes to the gear cutter routinely, throw them in, and have new gears pop out the other side. In nature, this would be the successive generation of a particular species according to its own genetic coding as undertaken by the unchanging Laws of Nature.

In some modern machine shops, they have automated machinery. One variety of these consists of a regular machine which has been outfitted with a programmable operating device, much like a loom which can be programmed to produce a particular pattern of cloth. To operate the machine, you would have to complete two tasks. Task one, the material task, is to put the raw material into the machine, say, a lathe. You would place a piece of bar stock or a casting onto the wheel and clamp it in place. The second task, the programming task, is to place a paper tape with a particular pattern of holes cut into it into the tape reader on the machine. When you turn the machine on, it will machine your piece of raw material according to the instructions encoded on the paper tape as interpreted by the tape reader and directed to the gears, wheels, and cutters of the lathe. This is a crude example of a programmable machine.

We can imagine our Paley universe consisting of wheels which also come with paper tapes efficiently wound up and tucked into their centers, say around the shaft. Whenever a new gear was to be generated, an existing gear would find its way to an available gear cutter lying on the shore, fling in a piece of raw material, unwind its coding tape, and feed it into the machine. One other thing, part of the process of machining another gear must be to produce another tape exactly like the one being read by the machine, and coiling it up neatly into the finished piece. Perhaps each machine would be outfitted to copy the tape as it is being read.

This is how our Paley universe would have to subside.

At some point, there is a sudden change. One gear throws a piece of metal into the gear cutter, feeds in its tape, and out pops a wheel by mistake. (Alternately, a proper gear emerges, but the copy process gets garbled, say, by a passing tsunami which interferes with the copying, and produces the tape for a wheel instead of a tape for a gear. The next generation, assuming that this tape is read successfully, would be a wheel.) After that, this prototype wheel is able to instruct the gear cutter, which itself has not changed, to produce more wheels. Pretty soon, we have an ocean filled with gears and wheels, all living together for an indeterminate period of time until the mutation process happens to occur again.

Back at the Natural Selection Ranch: A species, or cell, continues to exploit the Laws of Nature by weaving available acids and bases into more copies of itself without innovation, until a random twist in the process causes the machinery to produce an unexpected result. A mutation is born. This mutation, once produced, now has no problem continuing, provided that it passes the laws of Natural Selection.

Back to the watch. I would have to say that Paley's watch is a product of both random occurrences and the exploitation of existing processes. That there is at least some sort of collusion going on between Nature and Matter that is not fully accounted for in his example. Granted, the conclusion is still sound: that the byproduct of these processes, both random and deterministic, should not be viewed as anything other than the handiwork of a Creator. However, I think the argument must be more subtle then presented. I propose the following conclusion to Paley's example:

I find a fully functioning watch lying on a beach. Further, around me I see a marvelous array of machinery which appears to be fully automated clockmaking apparatus. It is clear to me that this machinery, itself, is not evolved from anything else but has just always been there. This fact I must accept on faith(!) ie. That watchmaking machinery is present, it is perpetually operating, it can be predictably directed according to a standard programming language, and it is NOT DIRECTED BY ANY INTELLIGENCE. Now, I am to further suppose that this watch came to be, not by the random interaction of tide, wind, and time upon flakes of metal, bits of glass, and pieces of whatever, but that it was all produced by these machines working on flakes of metal, bits of glass, and pieces of whatever.

I am to conclude from this that the watch is a product of determinant actions performed upon random actions. Ie, the machinery is determinant. The event of any particular piece of material falling into a machine at any given time is random. I am to further conclude, using the evolutionist's argument, that this is totally due to Natural Selection with no driving will behind it. Stated thus, I find the conclusion untenable.

Furthermore, I suggest that the question still remains: From whence comes the Laws of Nature? They are an indispensable vehicle of this whole process, they have at least as much regularity to them as anything else, and yet they, themselves, in no way can be said to have evolved! They just are.

The evolutionist may at this point say, "Yes, yes. Of course they are. No question! We are talking about what occurred WITHIN Nature. Science does not claim to do any more that study what is. That's the given." I would suggest that that is a pretty big given. Much of the theory of Natural Selection ignores the fact that there is an astounding amount of order already inherent in the whole process. The Second Law of Thermodynamics drives us forwards. This planet is but a pinwheel in the flow of Entropy, catching a fleeting bit of order as it whisks by. All of our life processes are geared to its interminable flow.

That evolution can even occur, or that any chemical or electrical process can operate from one instant to the next, is wholly dependent upon the constancy, or even the courtesy, of Nature, no matter how random those events, themselves, may seem. Further, the process of evolution, itself, is punctuated by random adjustments to the processes, like a tinker who occasionally comes along and adjusts the settings of the watchmaking machinery on our beach. Although this is not quite right, since it implies a modification to the Laws of Nature. Our mystery tinker occasionally changes the order of operations or strings several operations together which were previously present but separate, occasionally punching a few extra holes in an existing tape or adding a strip onto another. Now we have new processes occurring which depend, happily, on the existing machinery.

On the evolutionary side, an amoeba will blithely go along, its atoms obeying the laws of nature, until a random collision of molecules, or perhaps even some indeterminate Quantum effect, causes our amoeba to acquire an extra chromosome or a thicker cell wall, or some such abnormality. From this point on, the machinery continues to work as flawlessly as ever, only producing new amoebas of this new makeup. According to Natural Selection, characteristics which are not beneficial are eaten (My paraphrase. Don't look for this in any text book.)

All of this hinges upon the existence of deterministic Laws of Nature which never vary and mutations which introduce occasional variances into the works. While these are not mutually exclusive, an occasional mutation does not invalidate the overall reliability of the process, it does introduce the question: If there is no Intelligence behind Creation, then how can we trust the Laws of Nature to be "correct"?

That the Laws of Thermodynamics, the charges of electrons and protons, the energy content of the initial state of the Universe, which led to its Low Entropy, non-homogeneous condition--that these things exist at all stretches credibility.

We are asked to accept the uncreated existence of the Universe. To allow the Universe the luxury of the statement, "I Am" and to deny that statement to its Creator seems ludicrous.

My conclusion is:

1. An evolved organism or mind depends upon organized Laws of Nature.

2. Even this is not good enough. Those Laws of Nature, like the clockmaking tools, must be 'tinkered' with by a Machine Operator.

3. A positive result (a functioning, rational being) is evidence of a successful tinker by a master Operator. Natural Selection does not seem powerful enough by itself to fulfill this function.

4. Further, the existence of rational, stable Laws of Nature (quality clockmaking machinery, adequate programming language and compiler/interpreter) is evidence of a Designer/Builder.

This argument brings us to the threshold of intelligence. Or, more importantly and enigmatically: Consciousness. If consciousness is a product of evolution, and, indeed, if consciousness is a product of programming such as can be captured in any other series of logic circuits, such as a silicon based computer, player piano, or a series of tinker toys properly geared together, then how did it come about? Where was it programmed? I cannot begin to do justice to a discussion on the nature of consciousness. However, I would direct the interested reader to a recent book by Roger Penrose called "The Emperor's New Mind" (Viking-Penguin Books, New York: 1991.)

Basically, and tremendously oversimplified, Penrose suggests that conscious awareness occurs due, not to determinant actions within the brain which can theoretically be duplicated by any other logic, or Turing, machine, but by non-deterministic Quantum effects. He states that certain clusters of molecules will grow on the side of a neuron, creating a little bump called a dendritic spine. The existence of this spine will cause messages traveling past this nerve, or originating with this nerve, to behave differently than if it had not existed. The size of this molecular construction, according to Penrose, is just within what he considers the Quantum threshold (the One Graviton Level, per Penrose), below which Quantum effects occur. Any structure above this level obeys classical (Relativistic) effects and would be fully deterministic. Any structure or particle below this level would obey Quantum effects and be probabilistic.

Now, take a given instant in a person's brain. One neuron is in a particular "Neuron State" (my term, not Penrose'). Let us say that the wave function for a given cluster of molecules, which could create a dendritic spine on this neuron, has not yet collapsed and is still a probability but not yet a reality. In the next instant, the next Neuron State of this neuron, this function will either collapse into a dendritic spine or it will not, in which case no spine will grow. There is absolutely no way to predict which way this process will go. It is purely non-deterministic. In one case, say, the wave function collapsing into a spine, the neuron initiates a signal which will, from that point on, cascade from neuron to neuron according to mundane, logical circuitry and eventually lead to this person mysteriously and magically composing the final, uncompleted portion of Mozart's Requiem. The other case, the wave function failing to collapse, will result in this same person going out and getting a pizza, instead.

In each case, an event which is purely unpredictable and seemingly random, really random, not just so confused as to be difficult or impossible for us to detect the underlying pattern, had an actual effect on a conscious thought. If Quantum effects can drive people's minds, then certainly they drive our interactions with the rest of the world, as well.

There are two ways we can interpret this (I am going beyond Penrose from now on). The brain, and consciousness, is a Quantum Computer. It operates upon principals which are not the same as conventional logic circuits. Assembly language programming would be out for a brain. However, there is some way of understanding this process which we have, as of yet, not discovered. Some day, when we unlock the last secrets of the Universe, we will understand the brain, as well.

The second way would be to postulate that this is the junction point between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. We do, indeed, have spirits, or souls, which are not of the same substance as our bodies. Not of time and space, matter and Laws of Nature. However, our spirits are married to our bodies and the Quantum, or probabilistic, level is that junction point. What appears to us random, or even contradictory in a bizarre, Zen fashion, is actually the window to eternity. The point where our eternal soul interacts with our temporal bodies.

In either case, the mechanism of consciousness and reason has become so fantastic as to become grotesque. And certainly beyond anything that Natural Selection can be said to have produced, unless Natural Selection, itself, is a Quantum effect. It smacks clearly of a directing force beyond the walls of reason and logic.

I will leave the reader to read Penrose' book for himself and draw his own, non-deterministic, conclusions.

The Neo-Paley Argument

Generally, I like it. It falls nicely in with the, 'How can we trust Nature?' question, above. For all we know, the Laws of Nature could be skewed ever so slightly as to produce one celled creatures that thought they were intelligent, rational beings able to contemplate the Laws of Nature. The argument quickly becomes existential, forcing us to realize that there MUST be a base foundation 'given' upon which to build. Without it, no understanding is possible. With it, some understanding, but not necessarily the correct understanding, is possible. If we are to believe that we have the correct understanding, or that the correct understanding is not categorically impossible to us, then we should be willing to accept that that understanding is implanted in the system and not merely inherent in it.

Of course, someone could argue that, of all the possible universes, ours just happened to have the necessary Laws of Nature which could produce life and reliable consciousness. He could speculate that there are an infinite number of other time-space continuums 'out there', each having its own peculiar entropy state, Laws of Nature, some with a Second Law of Thermodynamics, some without, etc. This is a variation of the Anthropomorphic principal. Our universe has consciousness in it because it is the type of universe which is capable of producing consciousness. Others don't because they aren't.

This, of course, is wildly speculative, impossible to test or verify, and difficult to refute. The only response to an argument like that is a pleasant smile.