Darwinism refuted?

Some days ago a sophomore came into my room looking for a book. We chatted awhile and he noticed a copy of Charles Darwin's seminal work, "The Origin of Species", on my desk. He asked me if I had read it, to which I said that I had read only a few parts and that too as a complementary reference while I was reading Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". Then he told me that he had made a presentation in a humanities course the previous year and 'disproved Darwinism' before his class. My response to his remark was one of amusement and that, coupled with the fact that he was a sophie stopped me from jumping to my heels and starting a debate. Notwithstanding my urge to correct his phrase from 'disproving Darwinism' to 'presenting arguments from literature that reveal inconsistencies in the theory of natural selection', I asked him to describe some of the points of contention where evolution could be held hostage. Having read "The Selfish Gene" and "What Evolution is" (Mayr) recently and with Darwin's spirit in my room, I felt confident. That he was a sophomore helped substantially too. He replied saying that he would mail me the presentation for it was a long time since he had given his talk. One of the main arguments that he had presented against the theory, he told me, was that it hasn't been showed conclusively that random mutation leads to natural selection. I wasn't sure if this was right but I told him that I knew of a lab in Caltech led by Prof. Frances Arnold which pursued research in the area called "Directed Evolution" and the principle on which they genetically engineer phenotypes is based on the scientific paradigm of evolution through random mutation. Besides, one just had to read any popular book by Richard Dawkins, Ernst Mayr (well known biologist) or Jared Diamond (well known evolutionary biologist and anthropologist) to encounter a plethora of examples on examples of natural selection in the plant and animal kingdom. Especially significant is Mayr's work in seasonal changes in the average beak size of the birds of Melanesia where one could observe natural selection at times scales of half a year. That the phenomenon under scrutiny was indeed natural selection and nothing else was an inescapable inference.

I found the presentation in my mailbox the very next day. To be honest, I thought it was a well made document and the presenters had judiciously tried to decant a wide range of perspectives that criticized evolution, though I found the title "Darwinism refuted" slightly pompous. To begin with, the word 'Darwinism' is used in a pejorative sense to refer to much of the assumed social and metaphysical consequences of Darwin's theory of evolution, not all of which are justified and many of which are merely superfluous extrapolations (Ex. The principle of the survival of the fittest directs men to be immoral and selfish to thrive in this world). But nonetheless from transitivity, the opponents of Darwinism, the so called 'Creationists' or 'Intelligent Design theorists' have to end up opposing biological Darwinism (evolution of an organism through natural selection as the primary mechanism) which has been supported by a myriad experiments and observational evidence. At the end of the day, the makers of the presentation were only undergraduate students such as myself and had only used the jargons they found in the so-called 'dissent from Darwinism' literature. I have been wanting to read about the intelligent design theory in some detail to better understand its paradigms but was not able to do it primarily because it derives inspiration from Christian propaganda and hence is something I don't want to waste my time on. In other words, I am willing to concede a finite probability that they may be true but with my current sense of the real world, I wouldn't waste my time on a thousand page antiquated Hindu treatise which explains a model of the universe where an eclipse is the result of a demon swallowing the sun until the crusaders fight him out and pull it out of his bowels. Another slightly impertinent reason I wouldn't bother about it is that my life doesn't not depend upon the absolute veracity of either this model or that one.

So I was pretty excited to know that the inaugural lecture in Techfest 2008, IITB's annual technology fete was going to be delivered by Prof. Henry Schaefer, the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Prof. Schaefer is a world renowned chemist and supposedly the sixth most cited chemist from 1981 to 1997, as his wikipedia page puts it. Further, he is a supporter of the intelligent design theory and one of the few distinguished scientists in the band. It turns out that there is a growing band of people who oppose Darwinism consisting of a few scientists and mostly pseudo-scientists, theologians, philosophers, evangelists and members of the church. From whatever I know, the intelligent design theory is hardly a theory. It is just a throw up of hands when you arrive at an overwhelming predicament while formulating an ambitious scientific theory; a refusal to persevere and probe further, an act of defeat. But because it is not just any theory but Darwin's theory of evolution, the principles of which are directly orthogonal to the model of the universe and life propounded by the New Testament, we have a whole lobby of Christians who call themselves 'Creationists'. I thought it would be a good opportunity to hear an articulation of Creationism from an eminent scientist; the following was the synopsis of his talk:

The evolution of universe, its content have always been debatable even after stephen hawking discussed them in "A Brief History of Time" , still the subject of cosmology; more generally, poses many questions about the interface between science and theism, and some of these will be explored in the much awaited lecture. Discussing god's contribution in the making of universe while answering and commenting on the some of the never answered questions like extent and content dimensons of the universe; its beginning, its creation, its irreversibilty ,its eternity, what governs laws and constant of physics. Mr Schaeffer gives his stand on these debatable topics. Hear the nobel nominee himself answer and comment some of the untouched aspects of the mighty universe @ Techfest 2008.

Much to my disappointment, the talk turned out to be a bummer. It turned out nothing like what one would anticipate by reading the synopsis. The problem that I have always had with the Christian propagandist manner of promoting intelligent design is the absence of a coherent line of reasoning and a diffidence to acknowledge the same. For instance, a true scientist would defend a scientific theory in the following manner- be it General Relativity, Evolution or Quantum Theory:

"This is a theory which is based on a particular premise of assumptions which you may call axioms. They may be self evident truths or otherwise but they contain the essential character of the theory. From these axioms we will go on to construct the consequences of the theory by applying it to natural systems and the theory would be judged at each step on its ability to predict or account for real world phenomena. This process would involve integration of this theory with other well known theories which on the other hand would have evolved from a different set of axioms. If at any point, there arises an inconsistency in theory and observation, one would first try to eliminate extraneous possibilities that could have been responsible. Still, if all evidence points to an inconsistency in the theory itself then it is a moral imperative on the scientific community to re-examine the premise"

Such a temperament involves no kind of literalism and is communicable in an elementary language (elementary need not mean simple :) and universally comprehensible). What holds together such a framework is consistency. Moreover, basing itself upon a finite set of axioms, it seeks to possess a predictive capability, transcending the ad hoc character of an explanation. In contrast, the proponents of the biblical model of creationism would say the following:

"Adherence to our religion necessitates our faith in a model of this universe that is propounded by its holy book, "The Bible", which is the word of God. Man by himself is incompetent to comprehend the complexities of this universe. Men were wretched sinners oblivious to the moral way of life until God sent his son on this earth to instruct them. The Bible is the root of all morality in this world and if men denied it there would only be chaos. Physics, Biology and the other natural sciences have their limitations and there is no way they can account for everything. One has to turn to God and hence the Bible for higher truths. Moreover, any man-made theory that contradicts the biblical word is wrong and unchristian and has no place in the world of man."

The creationists view is a literalist view; it is grossly unscientific but he does not see it or accept it. On one hand we have a theory which is overwhelmingly supported in most of the scientific community not because it is particularly appealing aesthetically but because it is largely consistent. There are always questions asked about a theory as there are about any other but the only thing that can replace a theory such as that of evolution is another theory that shows more consistency and offers predictive advantages. "Intelligent design" is not a theory; it is pigheadedness and foolishness put together. It is vague, ambiguous, offers no predictive capabilities and insults the creativity of the human mind and the unlimited bounties and surprises that nature can offer.

The one hour that Schaefer talked, all he did was quote famous scientists' views on God and creationism. Somewhere in the middle he quoted the Singularity theorem and explained the Big Bang model and wonderfully concluded that a beginning of time points to a higher cause, which has to be God and no one else. It was a combination of exasperation and amusement to hear a famous chemist who had done outstanding work in his field talk in such vague terms. Rather than present a coherent defense for "Intelligent Design", he merely tried to provide legitimation to the belief by quoting other eminent scientists' affiliation with the same. And the last nail on the grave was hammered when Schaefer hailed the Christian view of life in a pseudo-evangelical manner before an audience he knew to be largely non-Christian. If anything can be called scientific heresy, it is this!

In the next few days, I am planning to read some books on Creationism to better understand what the lobby is trying to say. The only books on religion that I have in my room are those of Dawkins, Russel and Sam Harris and they go a long way in brewing frustration in my head against religious fundamentalists, of whom these Creationists are a mere innocuous fraction. But then from what it seems at the surface, they need to do a lot better before they can displace Darwin's legacy.