Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

We live in Interesting times: August 1999: Board of Education in the State of Kansas votes to remove all mention of evolution from state science curriculum.

September 25, 2006 Trial Begins

Anti-Evolution activity is Nationwide “If you believe in God, creation, & true science, vote for Debbie.”.... “If you believe in evolution, abortion, & sin, vote for her opponent.”

Why is Evolution under attack? Darwin’s Ideas were (and are) regarded as a dangerous threat to a God-centered understanding of mankind’s place in the living world. Why Evolution? Why not Cell Biology? Physiology? Organic Chemistry?

Historical Background

The evidence supporting evolution includes Evidence of Evolution Physical remains of organisms Common ancestral species Similar genes which is composed ofwhich indicateswhich implies The fossil record Geographic distribution of living species Homologous body structures Similarities in early development

1) Arguments based on the fossil record as a “problem” for evolution failed The Fossil Record doesn’t support evolution? “So many intermediate forms have been discovered between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, and along the primate lines of descent that it often is difficult to identify categorically when the transition occurs from one to another particular species.” National Academy of Sciences, 1999

? ? ? ? Missing Intermediates Land Mammal

Dolphin reveals an extra set of ‘legs’ Scientists say fins may represent throwback to ancient land-dwelling ways Dolphin reveals an extra set of ‘legs’ Scientists say fins may represent throwback to ancient land-dwelling ways

Reconstructions of representative Eocene cetaceans. Clockwise from top: a beached Dorudon (Dorudontidae), Ambulocetus (Ambulocetidae), Pakicetus (Pakicetidae), Kutchicetus (Remingtonocetidae), and Rodhocetus (Protocetidae). These cetaceans are shown together for comparison, but they were not contemporaries and lived in different environments. Artwork by Carl Buell.

2) Data from whole genome sequencing could not be refuted by ID advocates “More than a century ago Darwin and Huxley posited that humans share recent common ancestors with the African great apes. Modern molecular studies have spectacularly confirmed this prediction and have refined the relationships, showing that the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus) are our closest living evolutionary relatives.”

Testing the Evolutionary Hypothesis of Common Ancestry Chromosome Numbers in the great apes: 46 human (Homo)46 chimpanzee (Pan)48 gorilla (Gorilla)48 orangutan (Pogo)48 Testable prediction: Testable prediction: If these organisms share common ancestry, the human genome must contain a fused chromosome.

Chromosome Numbers in the great apes (Hominidae): human (Homo)46 chimpanzee (Pan)48 gorilla (Gorilla)48 orangutan (Pogo)48 Testable prediction: Testable prediction: The marks of that fusion must appear in one of the human chromosomes. Centromere Telomere Ancestral Chromosomes Fusion Homo sapiens Centromere #1 Telomere sequences Centromere #2

“Chromosome 2 is unique to the human lineage of evolution, having emerged as a result of head-to- head fusion of two acrocentric chromosomes that remained separate in other primates. The precise fusion site has been located in 2q13–2q14.1 (ref. 2; hg 16: – ), where our analysis confirmed the presence of multiple subtelomeric duplications to chromosomes 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 19, 21 and 22 (Fig. 3; Supplementary Fig. 3a, region A). During the formation of human chromosome 2, one of the two centromeres became inactivated (2q21, which corresponds to the centromere from chimp chromosome 13) and the centromeric structure quickly deterioriated (42).” Homo sapiens Inactivated centromere (Pan #13) Telomere sequences Hillier et al (2005) “Generation and Annotation of the DNA sequences of human chromosomes 2 and 4,” Nature 434: Human Chromosome #2 shows the exact point at which this fusion took place Active centromere (Pan #12)

3) The “icons” of design have been exposed as false

“An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.” From a speech delivered at Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference, August 10, 1996 Seattle, WA Bacterial Flagellum

“More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human.” “Poster-Child” for Intelligent Design: The Bacterial Flagellum

Therefore, if we take away 40 of the flagellum’s parts: Leaving just 10. What’s left should be non-functional. Right? But they’re not!

Type-III Secretory System (10 parts) Bacterial Flagellum (~50 parts) “... any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.” But it’s not. In fact, those 10 parts are fully- functional! WrongWrong

“… none of the cascade proteins are used for anything except controlling the formation of a clot. Yet in the absence of any of the components, blood does not clot, and the system fails.” (Behe p. 86). ID does no better with the Blood- Clotting Cascade

So, let’s test: eliminate one component — see if blood will clot. Eliminate Factor XII Whales & dolphins lack Factor XII - and their blood still clots.

Puffer fish lack the entire 3-part contact phase system Jiang & Doolittle (2003) The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. PNAS 100: Jiang & Doolittle (2003) The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. PNAS 100: And yet they possess a functional clotting system

4. Arguments suggesting that evolution can not provide all the answers regarding the complexity of life are correct – but this does not suggest intelligent design.

Evolution can be understood in many ways: “The [Darwinian] universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (Richard Dawkins)

“Once we invoke Darwin's mechanism, we immediately place testable constraints on the patterns of natural history. If organisms show common ancestry, then we should find a nested series of relationships between existing organisms, which in fact we do. We should find that novel organs and structures are found only in the actual descendants of ancient species in which those structures first appeared, which is also true. Finally, and most importantly, we should find a consistent pattern of ancestor-descendant relationships that expands as new discoveries fill in the details of the fossil record. We have.” Scientific Point: Evolution’s Predictions are Testable. From Finding Darwin’s God

“...evolution was much more than an indirect pathway to get to you and me. By choosing evolution as his way to fashion the living world, He emphasized our material nature and our unity with other forms of life. He made the world today contingent upon the events of the past. He made our choices matter, our actions genuine, our lives important. In the final analysis, he used evolution as the tool to set us free.” Theological Point: Evolution defines a relationship between Creator and created based on moral independence and free will. From Finding Darwin’s God

There is grandeur in this view of life; with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been, and are being evolved.