For any new readers, I recommend starting at the beginning here and following the links through each argument (i.e., at the end of each installment, I’ve linked the next one, so you can go through the series without a lot of hunting around…and yes, you’re welcome). In this series, I am evaluating the creation/evolution controversy using a list of fifteen alleged “answers to Creation” meant to show how all Creationists are slobbering idiots who need to be locked up for their own safety and the public’s protection. We have looked at seven such answers and found them to be totally devoid of validity. The data when objectively considered actually supports creation rather than evolution. We will now turn to the eighth attempt:

8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.

Chance plays a part in evolution (for example, in the random mutations that can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend on chance to create organisms, proteins or other entities. Quite the opposite: natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses nonrandom change by preserving "desirable" (adaptive) features and eliminating "undesirable" (nonadaptive) ones. As long as the forces of selection stay constant, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce sophisticated structures in surprisingly short times.

As an analogy, consider the 13-letter sequence "TOBEORNOTTOBE." Those hypothetical million monkeys, each pecking out one phrase a second, could take as long as 78,800 years to find it among the 26¹³ sequences of that length. But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program recreated the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.

Sounds impressive…are the Creationists on the ropes with this one? Well, once again, unnatural selection has entered the picture as our protagonist gives you that portion of the information that he wants you to have, to wit, only those observations that would support his position. He does not actually consider the evidence objectively, as we shall see momentarily.

OK, so let’s start thinking critically about these statements and ask some probing questions. Mr. Rennie says, “natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses nonrandom change,” and thus does not “does not depend on chance to create organisms, proteins or other entities.” But by definition, “nonrandom” indicates “directed,” especially when, in context, it is contrasted with the “random” change of chance. So, who’s doing the directing? From where are these allegedly nonrandom changes emerging? From where does information content infuse such nonrandom change? How is it that real evolution, which has no foresight, can work towards a goal of any kind? I thought it was the “Blind Watchmaker.”

Similarly, when he continues with “natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce sophisticated structures in surprisingly short times,” how does natural selection “know” the direction in which to push? As mentioned previously, natural selection can only act upon the information that is present, it does not generate new information. It selects those characteristics that are expressed that have the greatest survival value. But the characteristic has to be there to be selected. No character, no selection, no “evolution.” Note the absence of any example for his assertions. Can he name one “sophisticated structure” that has been generated in a “surprisingly short time” and what evidence is there for this? Indeed, what is his definition of a “surprisingly short time?”

Mr. Rennie totally overlooks the fact that natural selection requires pre-existing material in the form of a self-reproducing entity on which to work and this has significant consequences for his position. And this is where the weakest link is: from where did that material come in the first place? Chance alone must produce the precise sequences needed, so his alleged refutation does not stand, and, in addition, these computer simulations he cites are not applicable.

What about these computer programs and their simulations? Don’t they show how easy it would be to generate the required molecules? Well, only if the assumptions Mr. Rennie helpfully keeps hidden are used. What he does not tell you are the nature of the assumptions which do not fit even the evolutionary model:

The simulations use “organisms” with:

1. high reproductive rates (producing many offspring),
2. high mutation rates,
3. a large probability of a beneficial mutation,
4. and a selection coefficient of 1 (perfect selection) instead of 0.01 (or less) which parallels real life more accurately.

Moreover, the “organisms” have tiny “genomes” with minute information content, so are less prone to error catastrophe, and they are not affected by the chemical and thermodynamic constraints of a real organism. For example, the alleged simulations do not account for the reversibility of chemical reactions in the primordial soup, which fact would intensify the difficulty of obtaining the right sequence by chance.

For more information, see this refutation of Dawkins’ book Climbing Mt Improbable, Weasel Words and Dawkins’ weasel revisited. Also, see here for an article about a more realistic computer simulation, Weasel, a flexible program for investigating deterministic computer “demonstrations” of evolution. The program can be downloaded for your own edification. The bottomline: the evolutionary goal is NOT reached if realistic values are programmed, or it takes so long as to make evolution simply impossible.

Finally, in the greatest of crowning ironies, consider that these brilliant programmers, who are trying to prove that life evolved without intelligence, pour so much brain power into making, dare I say, intelligently designing (!?), these sophisticated artificial organisms.  Keep that in mind when they declare this proves life arose by sheer brainless natural selection.

In conclusion, we find that this alleged refutation of creation only works in Mr. Rennie’s dreams. It shatters upon the harsh realities of logic and true science.

Next installment

Previous installment