Here is another quote from a rediscovered article in my previously unclassified pile of photocopies.
[Graphic: Watchmaker's tools, WatchDoc.]
In it the late Australian philosopher Alan Olding pointed out that even if Dawkins' `blind watchmaker' evolution was true (i.e. the science not the philosophy), it would not preclude design.
Because that in turn depends on the "stuff of the universe" being "just right for life" and in fact "marvel piles on marvel as we contemplate just how suitable in general the constituents of the universe are for putting together living things"!
Indeed, Olding cited the late leading Neo-Darwinist mathematician-geneticist J.B.S. Haldane who said that " if we postulate a `Director of our galaxy' then `His or her simplest method of producing a variety of forms of life may be to leave a few hundred million planets near suitable suns for three thousand million years in the confidence that within that time cellular life will have started on 90 per cent" (or even one planet) "`of those where the surface temperatures and so on are suitable':
"So then, taking the second argument first, the particulars of evolutionary history, according to Dawkins, do not require the hypothesis of intelligent design because matter, itself, in the right circumstances, is easily persuaded by natural selection's intimations to supply functional parts such as optically graduated lenses. Very well, but we should not leave the matter there so generally stated. In what way, precisely, is the stuff of the universe just right for life and how far does being made of the right stuff suggest design? The same questions are there, just begging to be asked, in relation to a theory once put by J.B.S. Haldane. In a classic article `The Origins of Life', in the long defunct journal New Biology in 1954, he wrote that if we postulate a `Director of our galaxy' then `His or her simplest method of producing a variety of forms of life may be to leave a few hundred million planets near suitable suns for three thousand million years in the confidence that within that time cellular life will have started on 90 per cent of those where the surface temperatures and so on are suitable.' [Haldane, J.B.S., "The Origins of Life," in Johnson, M.L., Abercrombie, M. & Fogg, G. E., eds, "The Origin of Life," New Biology, No. 16, Penguin Books: London, April 1954, p.24] Such a procedure for making life would be the simplest, and the `Director' could be confident of the outcome, only if matter, itself, has the properties apt for it. What, then, are these properties of matter which are so generously provisional on the supply side of biological manufacture? In fact, many years ago this question was asked and answered by the physiologist L.J. Henderson in a work, The Fitness of the Environment (1913), which has been relegated to the margins of biological thought albeit with some respect for its eccentric cleverness. However, the arguments contained in it have been kept flickering with fuel supplied by a number of knowledgeable scientists and now, with Michael J. Denton 's recent book Nature's Destiny (1998), we have a well written, detailed and up-to-date attempt to demonstrate just how astonishingly fit the cosmos is for life. ... Remarkable as it is that there was at hand as it were, appropriately transparent stuff of the right consistency to provide material for the evolution of good lenses for camera eyes, marvel piles on marvel as we contemplate just how suitable in general the constituents of the universe are for putting together living things." (Olding, A., "Maker of Heaven and Microbiology," Quadrant, Vol. 44, January - February 2000, pp.62-68, pp.62-63).
In fact Dawkins effectively conceded this point when he wrote, "the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way" (my emphasis):
"Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, p.5. Emphasis original).
Indeed Dawkins' entire "blind watchmaker" analogy is question-beggingly and fatally flawed when he asserts "the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics" (my emphasis). But quite clearly a watchmaker is not physically "in" his watch, but is always external to it. Moreover, it is no objection that the watchmaker's tools are "blind" (which is what the "forces of physics" would be in Paley's watchmaker analogy). In fact if they `had a mind of their own' he would replace them for ordinary "blind" ones!
Therefore, even if one accepted Dawkins' thesis (which I don't) that there has been no supernatural intervention or guidance in nature since the Universe began, even that would not preclude intelligent design because then it it would come down to what (or who) ultimately "deployed in a very special way" (my emphasis) "the blind forces of physics"?
And as this quote from Haldane's 1954 article itself, he regarded that "Life originated on our planet by a supernatural event" (which he defined as "supernatural creation or guidance") as a legitimate scientific possibility:
"Most of the suggestions as to its origin can be classified as follows: (1) Life has no origin. Matter and life have always existed. When stars become habitable, they are colonized by `seeds' of life from interstellar space, perhaps spares of bacteria or simple plants. These may have been driven out of planetary atmospheres by radiation pressure, as Arrhenius suggested, or even launched into space by intelligent beings. (2) Life originated on our planet by a supernatural event, that is to say an event of a kind incapable of description in the terminology of natural science, and a fortiori incapable of prediction or control by man. (3) Life originated from `ordinary' chemical reactions by a slow evolutionary process. (4) Life originated as the result of a very `improbable' event, which however was almost certain to happen given sufficient time, and sufficient matter of suitable composition in a suitable state. ... The postulation of a rare chance (hypothesis 4) is not even incompatible with that of supernatural creation or guidance. To avoid postulating infinities let us merely postulate a Director of our galaxy. His or her simplest method of producing a variety of forms of life may be to leave a few hundred million planets near suitable suns for three thousand million years, in the confidence that within that time cellular life will have started on 90 per cent of those where the surface temperatures and so on are suitable." (Haldane, J.B.S., "The Origins of Life," in Johnson, M.L., Abercrombie, M. & Fogg, G. E., eds, "The Origin of Life," New Biology, No. 16, Penguin Books: London, April 1954, pp.12, 24)
although he wrongly claimed above that such "an event" would be "of a kind incapable of description in the terminology of natural science, and ... incapable of prediction or control by man."
But as Christian philosopher Norman L. Geisler observed, a "supernaturally guided event" (which he termed "a second class miracle") could be "one whose natural process can be described scientifically (and perhaps even reduplicated by humanly controlled natural means) but whose end product in the total picture is best explained by invoking the supernatural" (my emphasis):
"It may be that some things are so highly unusual and coincidental that, when viewed in connection with the moral or theological context in which they occurred, the label `miracle' is the most appropriate one for the happening. Let us call this kind of supernaturally guided event a second class miracle, that is, one whose natural process can be described scientifically (and perhaps even reduplicated by humanly controlled natural means) but whose end product in the total picture is best explained by invoking the supernatural. Providing that the theist can offer some good reasons (by virtue of the moral or theological context of the event) for not accepting a purely natural explanation, then there is no reason to rule out the evidential value of such unusual natural events." (Geisler, N.L., "Christian Apologetics," [1976], Baker: Grand Rapids MI, Ninth Printing, 1995, p.277).
Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 9:18-19. 18The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.
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