My Typing Monkees, Or, An Eye For An Eye

Well, C.B., you've touched upon a subject I hold dear. Can I kick it?

After almost 150 years since the publication of “On the Origin of Species,” people are still terrified about the idea that humans weren’t created by God. To me that’s essentially why those callers took DeWaal to task for believing in evolution. It’s really the science of the matter—that humans are descended from simpler life forms—that freaks out a lot of anti-evolutionists. Darwin-haters couch their position in philosophical terms: “If everything evolved, then how was life first created?” Even “Do you BELIEVE in evolution” certainly implies a theological tone. Has anyone ever asked you “Do you believe in gravity?” or “Do you believe in electricity?” This theological filter slants the issue the realm of the less-quantifiable—and as long as the debate focuses on the religious implications of evolutionary theory, or how science is attacking people’s belief in God (or attacking God directly), then we’re not talking about empirical data from primate DNA (sorry, DeWaal), the fossil record, Galapagos finches, etc.

In some ways, evolution has come a long way since the Scopes Monkey Trial. You don’t have educators getting arrested for teaching students that the world wasn’t created in just six days. But creationists are a tricky bunch. These days, the debate in schools is less about “The Bible is science” and more about “Intelligent Design.” Supporters of I.D. want to sell us the idea that the complexity of an organ such as the eye, the frequency it appears in so many species, and the fact that it has a very specific purpose, is all evidence that a divine will must be the source of its creation—it could never have been created by “chance.” I remember a quote I read somewhere: “the existence of a stopwatch implies a creator—nothing so complex could come into being on its own; and a stopwatch would never exist without someone or something having an idea for the usefulness of a stopwatch.”

Even the phrase “Intelligent Design” has clear anti-science implications: it casts evolution as “Unintelligent” design. But take a look: simple multi-celled eukaryotes, over millions of years, develop a patch of cells that reacts to light and guides it toward the algae it eats. As the patch of cells enables the organism to survive at a higher rate than those who don’t have it, the genetic code for the patch becomes a significant factor in the species’ survival. The code gets passed on—over millions of years—and becomes more and more sophisticated. The patch gets more and more sensitive to light, develops the ability to move and roll in its search for light, and a film develops to cover and protect it. Is “Intelligence” at work here? Well, there’s no pre-conceived goal, there’s no “Eye Creator” with the intent to bestow an eye on eukaryotes, and there’s no blueprint for its development. But at each moment, the eye’s development was guided by usefulness, helpfulness in survival, and the ability to react successfully to a changing environment. To me, this development is an even more plausible, provable, and therefore intelligent explanation of the eye. Plus, you couldn’t even read a stopwatch without one.

Next installment: “What is Proof: The Why’s (not the What’s) of Evolution.”