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Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design: Meyer, Stephen C.: 9780062071484: Amazon.
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Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design Paperback – June 3, 2014
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When Charles Darwin finished
The Origin of Species
, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the “Cambrian explosion,” many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock.
In
Darwin’s Doubt
, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life—a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. During the last half century, biologists have come to appreciate the central importance of biological information—stored in DNA and elsewhere in cells—to building animal forms.
Expanding on the compelling case he presented in his last book,
Signature in the Cell
, Meyer argues that the origin of this information, as well as other mysterious features of the Cambrian event, are best explained by intelligent design, rather than purely undirected evolutionary processes.
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"A wise proverb warns that it isn't what you don't know that gets you in trouble; it is what you do know that isn't so."
"It soothed us--it beguiled us--then, to hear
Once more of troubles wrought by magic spell." (1)
A Prelude Of Hermeneutical Suspicion
In this very brief essay, my primary goal will be to better explain why such contentious divisions exist between the majority of positive amazon reviewers and a minority cohort of very recalcitrant atheist reviewers regarding Darwin's Doubt. I will amply demonstrate that this divide is mostly grounded in philosophical differences(2) which have permitted little compromise; in particular, I've found it to be a volatile admixture of antithetical philosophies, combined with ventures into theodicy, and literally hundreds of irreconcilable disputes over field and genetic data. And forget about apologies or erratas as intellectual battle lines are etched in stone as evidenced by the bimodal distribution of reviews.
And so, I'll be taking a slightly different approach in my book review. As an old earth, day-age theist, I'll be writing with an eye given to brief historical review, a liberal use of metaphors in the spirit of evolutionary biology and attention to Meyer's very decisive use of scientific reasoning known as vera causa. Consequently, my essay is specifically directed to an audience of fellow theists and open-minded agnostics as I've yet to find any evidence, here at amazon or elsewhere, that dialogue with a new-atheist audience would prove to be anything other than obscurant. The elegance of Intelligent Design, as a scientific theory, is that it levels the philosophical playing field amongst theists and materialists alike as each engage the scientific enterprise, being mindful of the 1960's Wistar Institute's conference that ruled out evolutionary algorithms having been unintelligibly derived.
Before proceeding though, I hope you'll keep in mind throughout this short essay, a question which has served me well in keeping this reckless debate in perspective. The question is: What evidence would ever be permissible by materialists that's indicative of an intelligent signature in the book of nature given their enmity against this Signature being considered as part of legitimate scientific inquiry? The real reason for their prohibition, of course, is found in Romans 8:7 despite their many disingenuious protestations about the materialist nature of science given that design in nature is readily demonstrable and requires wilfull and deliberate distortion in describing it as only "apparent". From this biblical admonition, we may deduce that most materialists are spiritually schizoid. Nonetheless, Dawkins and Crick seem to have only postponed their answer to this question by resorting to some form of panspermia, itself subject to materialist causation. Still more revealing, university professors who have posted harsh comments to 5-star reviews have not themselves challenged Dr. Meyer or Dr. Mark McMenamin to a public debate at either The Discovery Institute or an academic setting of their own chosing.
Is Darwinism Really A Dangerous Idea Or Mind Over Matter?
An excellent place to begin, for purposes of this essay, is with Daniel Dennett's, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", as he discusses how John Locke answered, "Which came first, mind or matter"? Locke said mind while Hume failed to muster up a solid alternative. This Dennettian interlude is yet only an extension of that ongoing debate which began with the Greek philosophers who championed schools of both material self organization vs mind over matter. Enter Darwin's modest, dare I say, innovative scientific theory about successful adaptations via natural selection process; with the later addition of genetics, microevolution has remained an undisputed matter; still, upon closer examination though, natural selection itself has often been described as a misleading metaphor per Lewontin, Oyama, Griffins & Gray. But did I say a modest theory? Well, as Dennett goes on to point out, it actually broached a significant philosophical watershed by providing a "scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind."
Here lay, I maintain, the impetus for what has become a beguiling, materialist dream come true as its "universal acid" spread, as he puts it, all the way up and all the way down the scientific establishment, invoking a taunting "revolutionized worldview". In context, a reversal in philosophical grounding evolved with such ebullient finality that it has become unthinkable, yea Heretical, to ascribe any biological innovations attributable to an Intelligence, period. Unsurprisingly, Dennett also suggests that theistic minds should be restricted to cultural zoos.
Ladies And Gentleman Of The Jury: Have You Reached A Verdict?
Yet, a fascinating 2012 Gallup Poll was recently conducted which bears irrefutable testimony to the public's overwhelming rejection of this revolutionized dream which is deeply held by members of Darwin's materialist posse; a dream in which they hope that the masses will eventually embrace a beguiling, Dawkinsian baal enshrined as scientific fact. Nevertheless: 46% of the public remain creationists, 32% of the public remain guided evolutionary creationists, and a minority 15% of the public remain blind watchmaker devotees. These statistics have remained virtually unchanged for the past 30+ years now though you might not have necessarily thought so with all the bragging rights exercised by modern day disciples of Darwin; particularly given such recent court trials rendering verdicts similar to the Dover decision and ongoing indoctrination of evolutionary biology in the public schools and institutions of higher learning e.g. repression of Professor Eric Hedin's inclusion of ID reading materials in an interdisciplinary honors course at Ball State University which was instigated by Jerry Coyne. Please note that the Amazon distribution of reviews also mirrors that of the Gallup Poll.
Predictably though, despite truncated legal victories, those bragging rights have become very premature and ineffective against an evolutionary-schooled public in this information-dominated age with google search, podcasts, blogs, and electronic access to research libraries; unintended results, no doubt, for very disappointed materialists with expenditure of all those taxpayer dollars. This is why I find duplicitous criticisms of Phillip Johnson, as a mere jurist who is outside of his expertise when criticizing evolution, now to be found wanting. From this poll, one easily surmises that overused quips like "god of the gaps, citizens are ignorant, goddidit, science is materialism, The Dark Ages and Dishonesty Institute" have not significantly increased the percentage of uber-darwinist converts; merely listing such may elicit accusations of yet more out of context quote-mining.
This dissent, because it's so widespread and unchanged, tellingly reveals that students and the public have identified materialism disguised as scientific fact which can be accompanied by very sardonic, anti-Christian bigotry which delves into Bart Ehrman or David Hull styled theodicy. In 2014, scholarly criticisms of both Neo-darwinism and Intelligent Design are easily accessible to and can be read with just a click of a mouse. I must confess that this prospect holds much promise for the ID Movement as natural selection continues to favor and swell the ranks of creationists at such a propitious, differential reproduction rate over that of darwinian 15-percenters.
Deck The Halls Of The Materialist Elite
Another fascinating survey which highlights materialist influence, this time more specifically within the halls of academia, was conducted by Edward Larson and Larry Witham in 1996. This historian-journalist team repeated a survey completed by psychologist James Leuba back in 1914 and again in 1933. Leuba was interested in measuring the attitudes of scientists toward traditional religious beliefs by asking 2 questions: a.) "Do you believe in a God in intellectual and affective communication with man to whom one may pray in expectation of receiving an answer" and b.) "Do you believe in personal immortality". As you might expect, the answers were given anonymously with yes, no, or don't know responses. (3) Their random sample of names was taken from a directory entitled, Men and Women of Science. Their results, in 1996, mirrored those of Leuba obtained in 1914: 40% of scientists-in-general believe in a prayer answering God and in personal immortality, 40% disbelieve, and 20% were unsure. From this survey which specifically measured attitudes of scientists toward religion, clearly, a significant percentage of theists are also members of the scientific establishment though materialist responses to Doubt, here at amazon, might suggest otherwise.
Just as interesting, Larson and Witham repeated this survey for elite-scientists in 1998 defined by elected membership into the halls of the National Academy of Sciences; its membership scored over 90% with "no" responses; for biologists, "no" responses topped at 95%. As can also be seen, this 95% has adversely impacted the potential of ID research being published in biology journals. Stranger still, in a broader context and under ordinary circumstances, the Darwinian Left would otherwise champion and espouse proportional representation and eschew the practice of viewpoint discrimination.
A Priori Materialism: Prevent Intelligent Design By Any Means Necessary.
As I hinted at earlier, this story really began as most folk already know after the publication of Darwin's, "Origin of Species", which has become part of today's tumultuous and often confusing culture wars. Yet, with the release of "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson, back in the 1990s, the public got their first glimpse into why devotees of the blind watchmaker respond with very defensive and angry retorts when their cherished belief, framed as a scientific theory, is doubted by those of us who question its exclusive explanatory prowess. Johnson as well as other ID scholars, including Stephen Meyer, have revealed the answer to this singularly most important question which now defines the character of this watershed debate. The answer quite simply is this: members of Darwin's materialist posse have made an a priori commitment to materialism before examining the record of nature while strategically wedding the exercise of methodological naturalism and the definition of science to this philosophical framework.
Surprisingly, it was during this time period that eminent darwinian disciples, such as Richard Lewontin, Michael Ruse, Kenneth Miller, and Robert Pennock, also came to acknowledge that materialism was, indeed, the philosophical framework to which the scientific enterprise had been rightly wed just as Phillip Johnson had astutely observed in his landmark treatise; the works of philosopher Alvin Plantaga have also delved into this philosophical quandary for those interested. More specifically, a materialism characterized by unintelligent, unguided, undirected, mindless, and purposeless material processes which only appear to mimic intelligent design yet having been endowed with the ability to program information at the molecular level via natural selection and mutation.
Subsequently, though Darwin's modern-day posse has continued to defend the theory on strictly "scientific" grounds, Michael Ruse made yet another interesting observation; he maintains, that for many uber-darwinists, their materialist defense is greatly influenced, of all things, by a belief system which functions as a type of secular religion e.g. Darwin's Day celebration. In that vein, Lynn Margulis also acidly stated that Darwinism would eventually be judged as a minor religious sect of Anglo-Saxon biology (Lynn Margulis and palentologist Mark McMenamin were very close colleagues who shared much doubt regarding this blind watchmaker thesis). Interestingly, Darwin himself admitted that many of his contemporaries had done much the same in his day; just perhaps current darwinian fundamentalists will yet relent just a lil' with their Marxian cliche that religion has served as an opiate for the masses, after all? In any case, this explains, if you haven't already noticed here at amazon, helps to explain the reactionary passion, hostility and dogma devoted to their righteous cause; for these responses flow out of an ideologically calcified worldview which, in keeping with the spirit of Darwin's Origins, conscientiously militates against a serious, present day discussion of the information content of living cells which is attributable to any intelligence while simultaneously preempting "a divine foot in the door".
Counter-intuitively I might add, we are asked to suspend our otherwise uniform and repeatable experiences that have led us to empirically verify that the varied expressions of "information" have always traced back to an intelligent cause, without exception; and it's uniform, verifiable and repeatable experiences which compose an important part of scientific reasoning. Nevertheless, with so narrowly defined an edict, please permit me to inform you that if you do not unquestioningly believe in the sanctity of this gradualist-fundamentalist doctrinal creed, you will very likely be chastised by a materialist patriarch or member of Darwin's materialist posse, being told that you are stupid, ignorant, insane, delusional and possibly even wicked. This is contrarian, oppositional defiance and not science. Stephen Jay Gould, who remains one of my favorite evolutionary authors, once informed us that the neo-darwinian synthesis was very beguiling for materialists, and so, is it any wonder that another just-so story in the form of macroevolution with designoids and selfish genes has proven to be just too irresistible? These are materialists employing "science" just as Phillip Johnson revealingly exposed in "Darwin on Trial".
Splitting The Log Of Materialism
Enter Stephen Meyer's splendiferous magnum opus, "Darwin's Doubt". Meyer, who has degrees in physics, geology, and philosophy of science, captures the imagination of materialists in their obsession with mindless operations in nature. With Meyer's background both in applied science and philosophy, I was not very surprised to learn via recent Discovery Institute podcasts that Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne declined debates extended to them. (4) With his Signature and Doubt treatises, he once again aids his readers to more keenly differentiate between matter and information. In that regard, George Williams, recently deceased but a darwinist with impeccable credentials, once criticized evolutionary biologists for not recognizing that information and matter are incommensurable domains: " In biology, when you're talking about things like genes and genotypes and gene pools, you're talking about information, not physical objective reality." (5)
This lack of recognition was clearly documented throughout Doubt and particularly as Meyer explored Post-Darwinian theories currently being pursued in order to account for the generation, retrieval, and storage of digital information. This backdrop is significant as Meyer frames throughout this exhaustive work how Intelligent Design serves as a scientific theory by using the very exact scientific reasoning that Darwin based his modest theory on; variously known as vera causa, inference to the best explanation or, as Gould once affectionately described, a consilience of induction, this reasoning is used throughout forensic sciences. Ironically, even though Darwin conscientiously used vera causa to elude Intelligence, Meyer boldly, brazeningly, and brilliantly reintroduces evidenced based Signature by using the very same scientific reasoning. This is why criticisms along the line of "god of the gaps", which amount to accusations of an argument from ignorance, are but a philological ruse without merit. The evidence is quite clear regarding this overused strawman as ID theory posits positive, affirming knowledge of the cause, now in operation and in the spirit of Lyellian uniformitarianism, that explains the genesis of ALL information which is easily verifiable while also critiquing the "informational gaps" found throughout the Blind Watchmaker thesis.
But don't expect most materialists to admit this as their secularized, religious ideology strategically rules out Intelligence in the very definition of how science works; obviously, to do so would threaten their worldview with falsification. The audacity of materialists to equate materialism with science is nothing more than prejudicial front-end loading resulting in that Darwinian baal I mentioned earlier; creationists, on the other hand and in comparison to Darwin's materialist posse, have an appreciable historical heritage of scientific reasoning and discovery with roots tracing back to the scientific revolution. (6) But there's also a very interesting socio-political dynamic at work here; a materialist consensus is being wielded, albeit unsuccessfully, in an attempt to shutdown legitimate scientific dissent to promulgate a materialist worldview; orchestrating such by the misuse of academic authority narrowly concentrated in the hands of an atheistic elite as the Larson and Whitham survey amply demonstrates.
For me, their attempt at doing so is not really surprising even as similar individuals continue to be vey unsuccessful at discouraging legitimate dissent here at amazon with their use of uncouth, caustic, and ad hominem comments. For example, witness the spirit of Occupy Wallstreet on full display complete with materialist squatters who while denying anti-Christian bigotry endorse the cantankerous rantings of a bombastic former young-earth demagogue and spokesman now turned theistic evolutionist whom both they and Richard Dawkins would still call delusional: see recent "One Who Learns Online" comment below as he continues to obsequiously seek after a mere pittance of materialist approval while mysteriously guarding his former young earth identity. Their taking advantage of such a misguided, authoritarian personality type who yearns for their acceptance composes only part of a much broader unconventional strategy elsewhere employed by fellow Leftists who are especially adept at the use of utopian devises: morph into "Transformers" in a politically correct defense of Darwin when discussing the roots of social darwinism; defend the tragi-comic passage and imposition of ObamaCare upon the public; liberally approve of Coyne's role in the Ball State University's gag order directed against ID; endorse pro-choice mob which wrecked havoc during the last special session of the Texas Legislature; approve of Darwin lobby which helped to mislead Judge Jones, in the Dover Trial, into actually believing that evolution of new genetic information has occurred via natural process; indifferent to the possible use of Executive Orders being issued by President Obama to implement social justice edicts; tacit approval of skullduggery associated with cancellation of Darwin's Dilemma screening at the California Science Center.
The Wedge of Truth: Asking The Right Questions
Continuing, this is the same bias which also helps to explain interest in Carl Sagan's SETI program in their pursuit of finding "little green men from space" or finding remains of fossilized microbes beneath the polar-desert of Mars as they WANT to find evidence for ETs or evidence that Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is not so fictional after all; this would be yet more evidence that the Blind Watchmaker has been creating elsewhere throughout the cosmos even as they squint at a gnat discerning whether or not the implantation of a human zygote into the uterine wall merits preservation; yesz, human designers are also welcomed too. But evidence of Intelligence staring them right in the face within the vast biological realm here on Earth is only apparent so they tell us; an illusion, a deception of nature's improbabilities, and nothing more Dawkins would lament. Could this be the universal acid that Dennett has in "mind"? I concede that this is the type of question only a creationist would dare ask.
In contrast to materialist misrepresentation, ID has methodically introduced an important scientific middle ground assuming neither materialism nor theism while conscientiously using methods specifically amenable to historical sciences. Again though, don't expect materialists to publicly state that there is a distinction between ID and creationism even as my essay has rhetorically shifted between the two: some will only perseverate upon the weakness of negative argumentation; many who do understand perfectly well will not concede the obvious point because of a dogmatic belief that a Post-Darwinian theory will yet be discovered; some who readily grapple with the implications of theodicy seem to only grudgingly embrace Nietzsche and avoid the implications of social darwinism; and for still others, they just, I mean, they just don't get it. For example, page 412 has been used to suggest an admission to creationist formulation of ID theory, the supposed Phase II of the Wedge and a favorite smoking gun; never mind the fact that Meyer specifically states otherwise on page 413, in the very last paragraph, having simply pointed out second order philosophical implications which they continue to conflate.
While ID theory is certainly falsifiable should a materialist explanation be discovered, these self-organizing and auto-catalytic theories remain impotent into the foreseeable future. Why? Meyer outlines 3 basic informational barriers that materialists must account for: 1.) the digital code found in DNA, 2.) the genesis of neurochemical circuitry and engineering necessary for the construction of body plans, and 3.) the hierarchical organization of epigenetic information via Neo-Lamarckism. Attempts to reduce information to mere materialist processes involving chemical selection, without a doubt, is what philosophers call a category mistake because DNA is only the medium and not the message though Post-Darwinian researchers would, of course, greatly differ. It's the difference between using the laws of physics and chemistry to describe the ink and paper composing a page in a book AND a mind which comprehends the information which was transcribed onto that page by intelligence. And so, a really fair reading of "The Wedge" is about asking the right questions, inference to the best explanation also invoked by Darwin himself, and Popperian dissent. The Wedge is grounded in scientific reasoning despite its many misinformed distracters.
Epilogue
The Apostle Paul once noted that the Epicureans, Stoics, and pagans at Mars Hill were most religious with their worship of many gods during his time; not much has really changed as even now the vast majority of the American public has had to confront the worship of a 21st century god of scientism; a Dawkinsian baal, endowed with the powers of natural magic beyond mathematization, she once again enjoys the worship from an academic elite who dogmatically believe her existence, this time, is rooted in macroevolutionary science with biology once again yielding to metaphysics.
Metaphysics? Well, my essay suggests that it all depends upon what you know just ain't so; these metaphysicians, these strident messengers of Paine, Rousseau, and Voltaire.
"There are more things in heaven
And earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (7)
End Notes
(1) "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism" by Phillip Johnson, 2000; "The White Doe of Rylstone", 33-34, by William Wordsworth.
(2) Broadly speaking, for most orthodox materialists the essential philosophical difference is best described by Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria(NOMA) which separates science and religion into non-overlapping magisterium. Gould's NOMA is particularly significant in that it represents a very important pillar of scientism now extant throughout evolutionary biology. Scientism, however, is a dumb-downed version of positivism which stipulates that authoritative knowledge may only be gained via mathematical treatments or experimental verification. The opinion that scientism is true is not itself, of course, a truth that can be demonstrated by science: Is scientism really true, and did "science" tell you that?
And so, Gould's NOMA represents more of an epistemological leap of faith based on philosophic materialism than upon ontological verification as this doctrine cannot be mathematically demonstrated or experimentally verified; like so many deeply held scientistic convictions, NOMA ultimately is self-refuting. And yet, while his NOMA is widely indulged and applied by fellow materialists, Gould also described a more modest approach, a "consilience of induction" invoked by Darwin himself, in his 1992 Scientific American review of Phillip Johnson's, "Darwin On Trial. What's important here is that NOMA, as a strict tenet of scientism, is actually incompatible with consilience of induction though materialists often unwittingly gloss over this as though it's a distinction without a difference; this helps to explain why Gould was often criticized by Darwinian Fundamentalists for equivocation. For anti-theists, the New Atheists of our time, their scientism is also self-defeatingly, self-refuting for the same reasons.
Also, reviewers will find that most amazon materialists will present a revisionist version of the very recent debate between Meyer and Charles Marshall found at: evolutionnews"dot"org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811"dot"html . Though Marshall stated that he "enjoyed reading" Darwin's Doubt, thought it was "good scholarship", and said that it "looked like good science", many will nevertheless attempt to distort his positive comments, using a logical fallacy known as "a distinction without a difference". Fair-minded listeners will learn that for every critique that Marshall presents, Meyer astutely addresses and refutes.
(3) "Scientists and Religion in America" by Edward Larson and Larry Witham in Scientific American, 1999.
(4) Evolution News & Views for refutations of criticisms.
(5) "Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges" by George Williams, 1992.
(6) Reasons To Believe with Hugh Ross; reasons"dot"org: search ENCODE for discussions about skeptics, multiple overlapping codes and "codon usage bias".
(7) Hamlet Act I, scene v.
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What Meyer's book is *not* about is pushing religion. In the first two parts, and the first two chapters of the third (16 of 20 chapters in all), he looks at the orthodox view of evolution, which he reports accurately. I speak as someone with a degree in zoology and a little research experience in the subject; so whilst I don't claim to be an expert, I know enough to know he's not distorting anything. At the same time, his aim is to show that orthodoxy does not explain the evidence of the fossil record with respect to the Cambrian period, nor how so many new body plans could have arisen in such a comparatively short time, with no readily identifiable pre-Cambrian precursors.
He's not alone in this view, even amongst non-ID-supporting scientists. In fact, in Chapters 15 and 16, he examines alternatives to standard neo-Darwinism (or the New Synthesis if you prefer) being put forward by them as we speak. And generally, throughout the book, you will find copious references to the literature, as well as amplifying footnotes at the end of the book. Check out the references; chase up the bios of the chemists, biochemists, geneticists, paleontologists, geologists, etc. who in various ways and degrees challenge an orthodoxy that is frequently put across to the public as completely settled, completely unquestionable truth. I've done quite a lot of such checking, and I can report that many of them are hardly great fans of ID.
It's a fascinating read, and I hope that open-minded people will welcome a single tome that tells them so much about orthodox views, and at the same time offers evidence why the explanatory power of those might be open to question. It's evidence I personally find persuasive, whilst I accept others might not; but even so, if one has an open mind, it should be found engaging. All the more so if one isn't overly familiar with the subject of evolution: because it covers a great deal of ground in a pretty accessible way. It's quite an education, and I'm speaking as a trained and qualified (recently retired) educator. I learnt an appreciable amount that I didn't already know, and it clarified my understanding on a number of specific scientific points.
If you don't want to read about ID, fair enough: simply ignore the last 4 chapters, which is the only place he explicitly deals with it. He thinks ID explains what neo-Darwinism, and those other competing, but non-ID theories I alluded to earlier, can't. He may be right or wrong about that, but that has no bearing on the previous 16 chapters where he's demonstrated the severe shortcomings of neo-Darwinism in explaining the Cambrian explosion, during which the majority of phyletic body plans still extant today seem to have arisen: something that is absolutely contrary to orthodoxy, where body plans should have gradually appeared through time.
We should find evidence for a single tree of life (with an ultimate single ancestor in the first single-celled life form on earth, appearing maybe 3.8 billion years ago, well before the Cambrian began around 500 mya). However, what we actually find in the case of animals is what appears to be an "orchard", with separate animal lineages diversifying ever since the Cambrian. Top-down rather than bottom up: complex plans appearing early, not late.
It's true that there were a few body plans of multicellular organisms extant before the Cambrian in the pre-Cambrian (including the extinct Ediacaran fauna), and that one of those, that of the sponges, still persists to this day. But one can find nothing in the pre-Cambrian that is an obvious precursor of trilobites (early arthropods) or any of the other new body plans that emerged in the Cambrian (around 20 of them, still around today, including the Chordates to which humans belong--amongst a total of around 25-35 depending on the classificatory system applied).
It stretches credulity beyond breaking point to postulate that precursors in the pre-Cambrian were soft-bodied and hence not fossilised, when in fact soft-tissue preservation in both the pre-Cambrian and Cambrian is readily demonstrable. It stretches credulity to think that we haven't yet found precursors but one day will, when statistical analysis of the fossil record shows it's extremely unlikely we would have missed *all* such evidence.
The new Cambrian body plans must have come from somewhere, unless your idea is of an intelligence that can magic up something from nothing, but Meyer doesn't deny the possibility of common descent, and certainly not the reality of evolution in the sense of change over time. He fully accepts that the earth is billions of years old, and, one might wrily argue, that the fossil record means what it actually says: that neo-Darwinian gradualism doesn't occur at the macro-evolutionary level (e.g. the formation of new body plans), even if it might occur at the micro-evolutionary level (e.g. low-level species divergence within a genus). He doesn't even deny that random mutation and natural selection have a role to play at the micro-evolutionary level.
Meyer gives a very good introduction to the concept of Shannon information and how that contrasts with functional, or specified, information. Put simply, any random combination of, say, fifty alphabetic characters is as likely, and contains as much information, as any other. But only a very few would spell out a recognisable English sentence. Vanishingly few from the 26^50 (approx. 5.6 x 10^70) combinations would do so. The issue is enormously amplified when one considers a modest protein containing 150 amino acids, for which any of 20^150 (approx. 1.4 x 10^195) combinations are possible, but for which a vanishingly small proportion have been demonstrated to be likely to be of functional use to organisms.
Neo-Darwinists will insist that it isn't only random mutation that is involved in evolution, but crucially, natural selection. But before the latter can select for a mutation, it has to have occurred, and most mutations are likely to be harmful than beneficial. The problem gets even worse when it is realised that innovations may require a number of proteins to act in a coordinated fashion. These are the kinds of facts that are addressed in "post-Darwinistic", non-ID theories (such as evo-devo and self-organisation, neo-Lamarckism, neutral theories and natural genetic engineering) discussed in chapters 14 and 15, and I have to agree with Meyer, they aren't convincing either.
If there's one key theme throughout the first 16 chapters, it's to do with where *new* information comes from as organisms evolve over time. An enormous amount of specified information is required to change a putative pre-Cambrian precursor into a Cambrian one. Information, for example in the case of a trilobyte, enabling the formation of the complex arthropod exoskeleton and its accompanying muscles and ligaments, not to mention the appearance of complex compound eyes. The Cambrian predator, Anomalocaris ("strange shrimp"), up to a metre or so long, had very advanced compound eyes, only exceeded in complexity by present-day dragonflies. We even find primitive jawless fish (ancestors of lampreys) appearing in the Cambrian.
It's all quite astonishing and I can't for the life of me see how anyone would prefer to stick with the one theory that can't possibly explain it. I don't know what *does* explain it, but I have to hand it to Meyer, nothing currently explains it better than a postulate of intelligent input of some sort. He probably believes that is the Christian God, but by no means all ID proponents do. I even know of some people who are atheists who think that intelligence may in some sense be inherent in nature in everything from atoms to stars and galaxies to organisms. Maybe some non-ID explanation will eventually be forthcoming that better explains it, but for the moment, ID's at least worth consideration.
Darwin's Doubt is a fascinating read, and for its content alone, it's worth 5 stars. However, it is not entirely without fault, because in places it seems somewhat repetitive and in need of tighter editing, which might have reduced its size appreciably. So overall, I'll give it 4 stars along with a recommendation for any independent-minded person to read it. Don't pay a lick of attention to 1-star reviews from ideological neo-Darwinists who obviously can't bring themselves to read it, yet nonetheless feel it's okay to carpet-bomb the Web with their ill-informed comments. They have little integrity and even less good manners.
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Livro excelente porem chegou com uma orelha de burro enorme amassado e levemente rasgado empacotaram mal
Meyer has written a groundbreaking classic. The weight of the science stands on its own merit, regardless of associations or origins. Like his nemesis Donald Prothero, Meyer has produced exquisite science, but unlike Prothero, he has produced it without recourse to adversarial language. The downside of this is that Meyer's work is weighty with words and evidence. It should have been made easier for non-experts to read: I had to work hard to be sure I'd understood it (as did even Amazon's highest-starred reviewer, Prof David Snoke). And it might even slip past people's awareness that Meyer fully supports the notion of evolution over millions of years. It is simply a key detail of evolution with which Meyer has issue, but it is a detail seen by many scientists in many relevant areas of research.
"Darwin's Doubt" takes its name from the one area of evolutionary theory in which Darwin himself expressed doubts - what is known in geology as the Cambrian Explosion. What geology shows is that after billions of years in which only sponge and single-cell fossils are found, representatives of nearly all the main groups (phyla) of animals suddenly appear, in a geological "explosion" of essentially five million years. This is a simplified picture but Meyer deals with anomalous details, like the fascinating Ediacaran fossils, without losing the overall perspective.
Meyer shows that the current evidence, while supporting evolution in principle, is totally ranged against the accepted modus operandi of Natural Selection. Damning evidence arises again and again, as the findings of statistical probability are applied to many different areas of evolution research. The official science has generally slid over these feasibility challenges; there has been little checking of statistical probabilities. Evolution "happens". Sure, all the evidence shows it happens. The issue is the modus operandi, the mechanism.
Meyer goes into the question of the likelihood of the selection of helpful mutations in enormous detail, mainly but not entirely working at the chemical molecular level, and with consistent support from the findings of other scientists, including many who are not ID fans. What Meyer draws together from all the cutting-edge research, and from quoting others' estimates of statistical probabilities, is that the probability of "natural selection" of favourable mutations to the point of new species creation is vanishingly small in practice, in any natural process of evolution.
Chapters 9 and 10, devoted to the issues of mathematical probability, must be understood in order to grasp this failure of Evolution's presumed modus operandi. It is the failure to estimate statistical probability that has enabled evolutionists who believe in Natural Selection to continue, in all areas of evolution, to make claims which assume the workings of chance mutations in chemical processes. Meyer demonstrates again and again that the statistics of probability show that mechanistic Natural Selection is impossible even over a timescale of millions of years. It is only in the light of such vanishingly small likelihoods, demonstrated at all the cutting edges of evolution research (and which a growing number of scientists acknowledge) that Meyer finally suggests that we could consider whether a hypothesis of "intelligent design" could actually help Science begin to grapple legitimately with an otherwise intractable mystery.
It is clear that many scientists privately support such an approach. David Snoke actually quotes what would appear to be a typical example of the many US scientists who would like to speak out openly, if they were not in fear of their academic lives being cut short, if it were to become known that they supported, or even simply expressed desire to explore, the theory of "intelligent design". It is a shame that many who are rightfully critical of "young earth" Creationism conflate those claims with the very different claims of Intelligent Design. It is a shame that Meyer's pure science here, which has not the slightest hint of either ad hom or of slanting the balance of evidence, should be conflated with the work of activists. Meyer's work stands on its own merit, whatever the funding and whatever the attitudes of others who support him. Given the history, it is understandable, but still a crying shame that such conflation has reached screaming pitch in the US, and that this has seriously compromised freedom of speech in the context of academic science - and is now seriously preventing Evolution Science from advancing.
Meyer's hypothesis does not limit the freedom of scientists to do research. Rather, it gives them wider resources on which to draw for further investigations. Thankfully, there is a growing number of scientists, many of firstrate calibre and qualifications, but still mainly outside the accepted halls of Science, who are working with phenomena which simply do not fit the current scientific laws of reality. This all looks like good scientific potential. But it does present a big challenge to those who believe that all scientific hypotheses, and even Scientific Method, have to exclude supersensible levels of reality. For there is nothing in the essence of Scientific Method which precludes its application to supersensible levels of reality.
The scientific and statistical evidence Meyer puts forward stands on its own merit, and should therefore not be associated with any "fundamentalist Christian" takeover threat. It is perfectly feasible to separate the issues - as should always be the case. I say, Dismantle the current evolutionists' Berlin Wall! Meyer has provided the cool mathematical evidence that openness to higher realities than what the materialistic explanation of Evolution allows, is now needed, for the sake of Evolution and indeed Science itself.
I have again subtly rewritten my review, to further separate the pure science from the activism on all sides. It now provides slightly clearer answers to the many points commenters have made. But I cannot make anyone read me more carefully if they have already closed their mind. Yet the science cannot advance until the shouting/repressing stops ON ALL SIDES!!!!!! (!) Shouting/repressing usually betrays insecurity: is fundamentalist Christianity inadequate on scientific truth, and fundamentalist Science inadequate on evidence for God? Why not work to build bridges and start mending past inadequacies and faults?
Both Science and Christianity are essentially and ideally about truth, despite the failings of both in practice. But only Christianity has built into it the pursuit of both Love and Truth as "moral imperatives". It should therefore fall to Christians to take up the work of reconciliation, which has to listen to the other side, listening for their truths however partial, listening for the emotional roots of grievances. I haven't been able to do complete justice in this respect to my commenters. It has been hard work to try to winnow any just grievances from the bombardment, wearisome repetition, simple irrelevance, and subtly ad-hom comments that have nothing to do with Meyer's science. But I've done what I could and hereby put out the request for more attention to this in future.
"Darwin's Doubt" takes its name from the one area of evolutionary theory in which Darwin himself expressed doubts - what is known in geology as the Cambrian Explosion. What geology shows is that after billions of years in which only sponge and single-cell fossils are found, representatives of nearly all the main groups (phyla) of animals suddenly appear, in a geological "explosion" of essentially five million years. This is a simplified picture but Meyer deals with anomalous details, like the fascinating Ediacaran fossils, without losing the overall perspective.
Meyer shows that the current evidence, while supporting evolution in principle, is totally ranged against the accepted modus operandi of Natural Selection. Damning evidence arises again and again, as the findings of statistical probability are applied to many different areas of evolution research. The official science has generally slid over these feasibility challenges; there has been little checking of statistical probabilities. Evolution "happens". Sure, all the evidence shows it happens. The issue is the modus operandi, the mechanism.
Meyer goes into the question of the likelihood of the selection of helpful mutations in enormous detail, mainly but not entirely working at the chemical molecular level, and with consistent support from the findings of other scientists, including many who are not ID fans. What Meyer draws together from all the cutting-edge research, and from quoting others' estimates of statistical probabilities, is that the probability of "natural selection" of favourable mutations to the point of new species creation is vanishingly small in practice, in any natural process of evolution.
Chapters 9 and 10, devoted to the issues of mathematical probability, must be understood in order to grasp this failure of Evolution's presumed modus operandi. It is the failure to estimate statistical probability that has enabled evolutionists who believe in Natural Selection to continue, in all areas of evolution, to make claims which assume the workings of chance mutations in chemical processes. Meyer demonstrates again and again that the statistics of probability show that mechanistic Natural Selection is impossible even over a timescale of millions of years. It is only in the light of such vanishingly small likelihoods, demonstrated at all the cutting edges of evolution research (and which a growing number of scientists acknowledge) that Meyer finally suggests that we could consider whether a hypothesis of "intelligent design" could actually help Science begin to grapple legitimately with an otherwise intractable mystery.
It is clear that many scientists privately support such an approach. David Snoke actually quotes what would appear to be a typical example of the many US scientists who would like to speak out openly, if they were not in fear of their academic lives being cut short, if it were to become known that they supported, or even simply expressed desire to explore, the theory of "intelligent design". It is a shame that many who are rightfully critical of "young earth" Creationism conflate those claims with the very different claims of Intelligent Design. It is a shame that Meyer's pure science here, which has not the slightest hint of either ad hom or of slanting the balance of evidence, should be conflated with the work of activists. Meyer's work stands on its own merit, whatever the funding and whatever the attitudes of others who support him. Given the history, it is understandable, but still a crying shame that such conflation has reached screaming pitch in the US, and that this has seriously compromised freedom of speech in the context of academic science - and is now seriously preventing Evolution Science from advancing.
Meyer's hypothesis does not limit the freedom of scientists to do research. Rather, it gives them wider resources on which to draw for further investigations. Thankfully, there is a growing number of scientists, many of firstrate calibre and qualifications, but still mainly outside the accepted halls of Science, who are working with phenomena which simply do not fit the current scientific laws of reality. This all looks like good scientific potential. But it does present a big challenge to those who believe that all scientific hypotheses, and even Scientific Method, have to exclude supersensible levels of reality. For there is nothing in the essence of Scientific Method which precludes its application to supersensible levels of reality.
The scientific and statistical evidence Meyer puts forward stands on its own merit, and should therefore not be associated with any "fundamentalist Christian" takeover threat. It is perfectly feasible to separate the issues - as should always be the case. I say, Dismantle the current evolutionists' Berlin Wall! Meyer has provided the cool mathematical evidence that openness to higher realities than what the materialistic explanation of Evolution allows, is now needed, for the sake of Evolution and indeed Science itself.
I have again subtly rewritten my review, to further separate the pure science from the activism on all sides. It now provides slightly clearer answers to the many points commenters have made. But I cannot make anyone read me more carefully if they have already closed their mind. Yet the science cannot advance until the shouting/repressing stops ON ALL SIDES!!!!!! (!) Shouting/repressing usually betrays insecurity: is fundamentalist Christianity inadequate on scientific truth, and fundamentalist Science inadequate on evidence for God? Why not work to build bridges and start mending past inadequacies and faults?
Both Science and Christianity are essentially and ideally about truth, despite the failings of both in practice. But only Christianity has built into it the pursuit of both Love and Truth as "moral imperatives". It should therefore fall to Christians to take up the work of reconciliation, which has to listen to the other side, listening for their truths however partial, listening for the emotional roots of grievances. I haven't been able to do complete justice in this respect to my commenters. It has been hard work to try to winnow any just grievances from the bombardment, wearisome repetition, simple irrelevance, and subtly ad-hom comments that have nothing to do with Meyer's science. But I've done what I could and hereby put out the request for more attention to this in future.
16 people found this helpful
Report
Jonathan Green
5.0 out of 5 stars
It has taken me quite a long time to read this book (all 413 pages, excluding reference material), but it was worth the perseverance! Not because the book was badly written, on the contrary, I found it superbly written - and very stimulating... The perseverance was associated with looking up the substantial amount of notes, bibliography and other allied documentation.
Somewhat like his previous book, `Signature in the Cell', Stephen Meyer has presented us with a `milestone' book i.e. one which, in my opinion, substantially places `Intelligent Design' on the scientific `map'.
The book is very well set out; in three main parts, with a logical series of chapters making up each part.
Part one - "The Mystery of the Missing Fossils"
Stephen Meyer gives a good historical background to Charles Darwin's book, `On the Origin of Species'; he even calls it a "singular achievement"..., but he swiftly moves on to describe the main problem facing Darwin's hypothesis, namely, the `Cambrian Explosion'.
Meyer also spends time introducing contemporaries of Darwin, such as Agassiz and Sedgwick (both of whom were, respectfully, leading palaeontologist and geologist of the day). They had serious doubts about Darwin's proposition of the abrupt appearance of the Cambrian creatures. Darwin proposed that the geological record was "a history of the world imperfectly kept" rather than anything seriously wrong with his theory, but Agassiz and Sedgwick would have none of it.
As expected, the Burgess Shale is given its own chapter, with good historical coverage of Charles Doolittle Walcott, the discoverer, also director of the Smithsonian Institution. Sketches of the fossilised creatures are excellent, with good explanations about morphological diversity and various family trees.
There is a very good chapter dealing with `punctuated equilibrium', the proposal by Eldredge and Gould to explain the systematic `gaps' in the fossil record, where, according to neo-Darwinian theory, there ought to be a continuum of transitional forms leading from one body plan to another.
Meyer explains fully why "punk eek" fails as an explanatory proposal for the origin of complex creatures found within the fossil record.
All of the supportive diagrammatic sketches that Meyer includes, within his text, are superbly produced and very easy to understand. This applies throughout the book.
Part two - "How to Build an Animal"
This part is principally about biological information, and in this respect, there is an overlap with Stephen Meyer's first book `Signature in the Cell.'
There is a short explanation of Shannon information, and how this differs from functional information (or specified information) found in living organisms.
Meyer waxes lyrical about the contribution made by Murray Eden in respect of the "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution". Murray had pointed out that "the combinatorial space corresponding to an average-length protein"... is about 10 to the power 325 "possible amino-acid arrangements. Did the mutation and selection mechanism have enough time - since the beginning of the universe itself - to generate even a small fraction of the total number of possible amino-acid sequences corresponding to a single functional protein of that length? For Eden, the answer was clearly no." This was in the 1960's - but according to Meyer, the `mathematical challenge' has been an issue that has not been satisfactorily resolved ever since. He spends a substantial amount of space justifying this position through the work of Douglas Axe, who in the late 1980s examined the then accepted work of Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker, in which Dawkins used a computer programme to illustrate how natural selection could "generate the Shakespearean phrase: "Me thinks it is like a weasel.""
Intelligence was found to pervade this kind of `evidence' to prop up the Neo-Darwinian model...
Meyer goes on to build on his case that the mathematical challenges have remained un-bridged throughout "the various experiments and calculations performed between 2004 and 2011." Although Meyer makes a substantial case here, he is too reliant upon the work of too few specialists, in my opinion.
Meyer's section on "Developmental Gene Regulatory Networks" was particularly interesting - and helped to introduce even greater complexity issues in the origin of body plans etc... Likewise, the section on "the Epigenetic Revolution."
Part three - "After Darwin, What?"
In this final section, Meyer takes on the post-Darwinian world - and theories of self-organisation, such as the work of Stuart Kauffman and Stuart Newman.
Cutting to the chase, Meyer pus it like this: "what needs to be explained in living systems is not mainly order in the sense of simple repetitive or geometric patterns. Instead, what requires explanation is the adaptive complexity and the information, genetic and epigenetic, necessary to build it." (pg. 305). He makes a strong case in justifying this statement!
In like manner, Meyer presents a robust summary of his issues with "evo-devo" and "Lamarckian mechanisms."
All of the foregoing builds a strong case to support his final four chapters:
"The Possibility of Intelligent Design", "Signs of Design in the Cambrian Explosion", "The Rules of Science" and finally "What's at Stake"....
Meyer spends some time telling "My Story", which explains his initial interest in intelligent design through to holding robust scientific reasons for his belief in "indicators that make intelligent design scientifically detectable from the evidence of the living world."
All in all, this book is far from some form of simplistic `biblical creationism', as suggested by other reviewers, but, in my view, a logically and soundly argued piece of scientific research, which draws conclusions toward an `inference to the best explanation.'
Coupled with his former book `Signature in the Cell', Meyer makes the strongest case yet for `intelligent design' - and places it squarely within the scientific domain. To reject it as pseudo-science would be blind prejudice - and damaging to science in the long term, simply because ID makes testable predictions. Examples of these are given in this section!
This is how Meyer concludes his book: "The theory of intelligent design is not based upon religious belief, nor does it provide a proof for the existence of God. But it does have faith-affirming implications precisely because it suggests the design we observe in the natural world is real, just as a traditional theistic view of the world would lead us to expect. Of course, that by itself is not a reason to accept the theory. But having accepted it for other reasons, it may be a reason to find it important."
In other respects, the book has been beautifully produced by HarperOne, is superbly illustrated and documented - with some nice colour plates of fossils to boot!
I heartily recommend this excellent book!!
Somewhat like his previous book, `Signature in the Cell', Stephen Meyer has presented us with a `milestone' book i.e. one which, in my opinion, substantially places `Intelligent Design' on the scientific `map'.
The book is very well set out; in three main parts, with a logical series of chapters making up each part.
Part one - "The Mystery of the Missing Fossils"
Stephen Meyer gives a good historical background to Charles Darwin's book, `On the Origin of Species'; he even calls it a "singular achievement"..., but he swiftly moves on to describe the main problem facing Darwin's hypothesis, namely, the `Cambrian Explosion'.
Meyer also spends time introducing contemporaries of Darwin, such as Agassiz and Sedgwick (both of whom were, respectfully, leading palaeontologist and geologist of the day). They had serious doubts about Darwin's proposition of the abrupt appearance of the Cambrian creatures. Darwin proposed that the geological record was "a history of the world imperfectly kept" rather than anything seriously wrong with his theory, but Agassiz and Sedgwick would have none of it.
As expected, the Burgess Shale is given its own chapter, with good historical coverage of Charles Doolittle Walcott, the discoverer, also director of the Smithsonian Institution. Sketches of the fossilised creatures are excellent, with good explanations about morphological diversity and various family trees.
There is a very good chapter dealing with `punctuated equilibrium', the proposal by Eldredge and Gould to explain the systematic `gaps' in the fossil record, where, according to neo-Darwinian theory, there ought to be a continuum of transitional forms leading from one body plan to another.
Meyer explains fully why "punk eek" fails as an explanatory proposal for the origin of complex creatures found within the fossil record.
All of the supportive diagrammatic sketches that Meyer includes, within his text, are superbly produced and very easy to understand. This applies throughout the book.
Part two - "How to Build an Animal"
This part is principally about biological information, and in this respect, there is an overlap with Stephen Meyer's first book `Signature in the Cell.'
There is a short explanation of Shannon information, and how this differs from functional information (or specified information) found in living organisms.
Meyer waxes lyrical about the contribution made by Murray Eden in respect of the "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution". Murray had pointed out that "the combinatorial space corresponding to an average-length protein"... is about 10 to the power 325 "possible amino-acid arrangements. Did the mutation and selection mechanism have enough time - since the beginning of the universe itself - to generate even a small fraction of the total number of possible amino-acid sequences corresponding to a single functional protein of that length? For Eden, the answer was clearly no." This was in the 1960's - but according to Meyer, the `mathematical challenge' has been an issue that has not been satisfactorily resolved ever since. He spends a substantial amount of space justifying this position through the work of Douglas Axe, who in the late 1980s examined the then accepted work of Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker, in which Dawkins used a computer programme to illustrate how natural selection could "generate the Shakespearean phrase: "Me thinks it is like a weasel.""
Intelligence was found to pervade this kind of `evidence' to prop up the Neo-Darwinian model...
Meyer goes on to build on his case that the mathematical challenges have remained un-bridged throughout "the various experiments and calculations performed between 2004 and 2011." Although Meyer makes a substantial case here, he is too reliant upon the work of too few specialists, in my opinion.
Meyer's section on "Developmental Gene Regulatory Networks" was particularly interesting - and helped to introduce even greater complexity issues in the origin of body plans etc... Likewise, the section on "the Epigenetic Revolution."
Part three - "After Darwin, What?"
In this final section, Meyer takes on the post-Darwinian world - and theories of self-organisation, such as the work of Stuart Kauffman and Stuart Newman.
Cutting to the chase, Meyer pus it like this: "what needs to be explained in living systems is not mainly order in the sense of simple repetitive or geometric patterns. Instead, what requires explanation is the adaptive complexity and the information, genetic and epigenetic, necessary to build it." (pg. 305). He makes a strong case in justifying this statement!
In like manner, Meyer presents a robust summary of his issues with "evo-devo" and "Lamarckian mechanisms."
All of the foregoing builds a strong case to support his final four chapters:
"The Possibility of Intelligent Design", "Signs of Design in the Cambrian Explosion", "The Rules of Science" and finally "What's at Stake"....
Meyer spends some time telling "My Story", which explains his initial interest in intelligent design through to holding robust scientific reasons for his belief in "indicators that make intelligent design scientifically detectable from the evidence of the living world."
All in all, this book is far from some form of simplistic `biblical creationism', as suggested by other reviewers, but, in my view, a logically and soundly argued piece of scientific research, which draws conclusions toward an `inference to the best explanation.'
Coupled with his former book `Signature in the Cell', Meyer makes the strongest case yet for `intelligent design' - and places it squarely within the scientific domain. To reject it as pseudo-science would be blind prejudice - and damaging to science in the long term, simply because ID makes testable predictions. Examples of these are given in this section!
This is how Meyer concludes his book: "The theory of intelligent design is not based upon religious belief, nor does it provide a proof for the existence of God. But it does have faith-affirming implications precisely because it suggests the design we observe in the natural world is real, just as a traditional theistic view of the world would lead us to expect. Of course, that by itself is not a reason to accept the theory. But having accepted it for other reasons, it may be a reason to find it important."
In other respects, the book has been beautifully produced by HarperOne, is superbly illustrated and documented - with some nice colour plates of fossils to boot!
I heartily recommend this excellent book!!
18 people found this helpful
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AmazonUserFromCanada123
5.0 out of 5 stars
I have never heard of Stephen C Meyer until this year. The logical and scientific voice for intelligent design I have been looking for. He explains things in a logical and scientific manner that can't be denied. Darwin did not have access to this kind of data in his lifetime. The genetic code, yes code, is vastly superior and far more complicated to computer code. Code requires a designer and code has a purpose.
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