darwin’s greatest discovery: design without designer francisco j. ayala university of california,...

Darwin’s Greatest Discovery:

Design without Designer

Francisco J. AyalaUniversity of California, Irvine

William PaleyNatural Theology, 1802

Alfred Russel Wallace, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type; Instability of Varieties Supposed to Prove the Permanent Distinctness of Species”

Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London (Zoology) 3 (1858): 53-62.

We believe that there is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further and further from the original type—a progression to which there appears no reason to assign any definite limits. This progression, by minute steps, in various directions, but always checked and balanced by the necessary conditions, subject to which alone existence can be preserved, may be followed out so as to agree with all the phenomena presented by organized beings, their extinction and succession in past ages, and all the extraordinary modifications of form, instinct and habits which they exhibit.

CYTOCHROME C

Charles DarwinThe Origin of Species

As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive … Can it be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.

Stages of eye complexity in mollusks

(limpet Patella)

(slit shell mollusk Pleurotomaria)

The “theory” Intelligent Design (ID) is not science

It cannot be tested (how do we know what the intentions of the Designer were?)

There is not any evidence, any research, any hypotheses to test

The ID of organisms is Imperfect Design, not Intelligent Design

Human jaw Human birth canal Forelimbs

Judge John E. Jones IIIDover: December 20, 2005, 139 pages

“It [is] abundantly clear that the … ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”

Judge John E. Jones IIIDover: December 20, 2005, 139 pages

“The leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.”

ID is contrary to religion: incompatible with an Omnipotent, Wise, and Benevolent Creator

Imperfect, incompetent, dysfunctional design Cruelty: predators (chimp eating a monkey;

baboon killing babies) Oddities: praying mantis, midge flies Sadism: parasitism (e.g. “river blindness”,

malaria, TB)