|
|
|
MODERATED BY: Jim Glassman
PRODUCED BY: Neal B. Freeman
© Copyright 1997, The Blackwell Corporation
|
VHS Videocassette: $29.95 The Blackwell Corporation USA Today Building 1000 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, VA 22209 (703) 524-2300 |
Transcribed by: Federal News Service, Inc. 620 National Press Building Washington, DC 20045 (202-347-1400) |
Biologist Paul Gross is a visiting
scholar at Harvard. Like many scientists, he remains unconvinced
by Behe.
MR. PAUL GROSS, Harvard University (From video): The best
argument for Darwinism, forgive me if I make a parallel, essentially
this question is like the question, what's the best argument for
gravity? Darwinism is now a dirty word among people like Behe
and others. It is meant to represent a particular view of the
mechanism of evolution. But, no serious person argues with the
fact of evolution, as Behe does not, by the way, which means that
creationists should be very careful before adopting and hyping
the book as they are now doing.
ANNOUNCER: Gross says that without knowing previous links
in the evolutionary chain, one can't know whether the complexity
is irreducible or not. The cells of an eye, for example, might
have originally served some purpose other than vision.
MR. GROSS (From video): There are many examples of molecules,
parts of -- molecules that are now parts of machines at the cell
level that we know have one function that certainly had a different
function earlier.
ANNOUNCER: Gross believes that as we learn more about the
evolution of cells, Behe's theory of irreducible complexity will
collapse, as have similar arguments in the past. But, given the
data available, no one has yet been able to prove Behe wrong.
MR. JIM GLASSMAN, Host, TechnoPolitics: Welcome to TechnoPolitics.
I'm Jim Glassman. We're here today on the campus of Microsoft
Corporation, which has become an international symbol of modern
technological life, to explore the most fascinating, oldest question
of human life: How did we get here? Who or what created us?
To help answer that question, please welcome our special guests.
Phillip Johnson is a professor of law at the University of California
at Berkeley, and the author of Darwin On Trial. Michael
Ruse is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph
in Ontario, Canada, and the author, most pertinently, of Darwinism
Descended. Michael Behe is a professor of biochemistry at
Lehigh University, and the author last year of the acclaimed book
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge To Evolution.
Mike, let's start with you. Now, in examining the architecture
of the cell, you became convinced that there was an intelligent
design behind it.
MR. MICHAEL BEHE, Author, Darwin's Black Box: In
the 19th Century, when Darwin was doing his work, the basis of
life was unknown. The cell, which we now know to be that basis,
was thought to be a little glob of protoplasm that was a black
box. It did things, but people didn't know how it worked. And
people thought it would turn out to be simple. But, in the past
few decades, science has found out that far from being simple,
it's enormously complex. And, in particular, it's filled with
little molecular machines that gets many of the tasks of the cell
done.
MR. GLASSMAN: And it's so complex that you call it irreducibly
complex. You don't think it could have evolved from something
else?
MR. BEHE: That's right. Many of the components are what
I call irreducibly complex. And what that means is, they -- these
machines need a number of components to work. A good example of
it is a mousetrap. A mousetrap you buy at the hardware store has
a flat wooden platform, and a spring, and a hammer, and a bar
to hold the hammer in place. And if any of those parts are missing,
you don't get a mousetrap that works half as well, or a quarter
as well, you have a broken mousetrap.
MR. GLASSMAN: Michael Ruse, how did all these things get
into the proper place through evolution that when they all came
together and formed an eye, but how did they know to be there
in the first place through natural selection?
MR. MICHAEL RUSE, Editor, But Is It Science?: Well,
of course, they didn't know how to be there in the first place
through natural selection, because we don't go from the scrap
yard to a functioning 747 just in one step. Evolution builds up
gradually.
Now, I appreciate what Mike's saying, he's saying, yes, but the
trouble is, you can't build this up gradually because you've got
A, B, C, and the trouble is, if you've just got B, C, it doesn't
work without A. I take it that -- I don't want to misunderstand
your argument before I knock it down. But, what I would want to
say is, of course, evolution doesn't suggest that this -- it necessarily
worked in this sort of way.
The kind of analogy that I like is something like this, that if
you saw a stone arch bridge, you'd see the stones going up like
this, up to there, and you know that if you took one stone out,
the bridge would fall. I mean, we're not talking about cement,
we're talking about one where the stones are put in place like
that. We know that if you took one stone out, the bridge falls.
You know that if you try to build it like this, you've got to
go up, but as soon as you start to go in, whoops, it keeps falling.
How did this happen? It must be a miracle. But no, of course,
we know what happened is that the architect or the bridge designer,
builder, put in either a wooden structure first, or an earthen
structure first, and then built the stones on that, and then took
the bits out underneath. And so, you're left with a bridge which
couldn't be, as it were, but obviously is.
And I suggest that this is at least a way that ought to be explored.
And don't forget we're talking empirical stuff here. I mean, one
can't say apriori that this is actually what happened. But I'd
want to suggest that this is at least a way that ought to be explored
in dealing with these very complex entities that Mike is talking
about.
MR. GLASSMAN: That things may have existed and then been
removed through natural selection.
MR. RUSE: That's right. That's right. That in the past,
what we're seeing now is something which wasn't that way originally
and as it built. And, of course, the thing is, the evidence has
often been removed.
MR. GLASSMAN: All right. Let me bring Phillip Johnson into
this discussion because we've talked about evidence, and I know
that this is one of your specialties, evidence. You are a fan
of Mike Behe's work, and one of the reasons this is -- that you
may be a fan is that there's not a lot of evidence one way or
the other that he's right. Isn't that true?
MR. PHILLIP JOHNSON, Author, Darwin On Trial: Oh,
I think that there's a lot of evidence, but you have to decide
how to interpret it. Darwinian science is defined as the attempt
to explain the whole process of creation in strictly materialistic
terms, strictly naturalistic terms. If matter is all that there
fundamentally is, if in the beginning were only the particles,
then the particles had to have the power to do all the creating.
Now, that's an a priori, and many Darwinians will admit
that if you press them. Michael might even admit it if he's pressed
enough on it. You see, so any possibility of intelligence or design
is ruled out of order a priori.
Now, this is very relevant to the points that Michael Behe has
been raising, because I would say that if you look at the facts,
if you look at the developing evidence, without that materialist
bias, you see, then they seem to point to the need for a designer,
the need for a planner who brings all of this into existence.
And the problem there is not with the facts, not with the science,
it's that the whole Darwinian community is so wedded to this materialist
philosophy. So, what they say essentially is, don't bother us
with the facts, we've got the faith.
Now, if it were just --
MR. RUSE: Oh, come on.
MR. JOHNSON: -- a matter of exploring this, as Michael
said, that would be okay. But they tell the public, we've already
got the answers, we've proved the whole materialistic story. That's
not science, you see, that's world view promotion.
MR. GLASSMAN: But there really isn't any evidence to prove
Behe's theory?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, it depends on what you mean by prove.
When you show irreducible complexity, when you show something
that has to have a lot of complicated parts, and the parts don't
do a useful function unless they're all there together, then you're
showing something of the kind that in our experience can be brought
into existence only by design. It's like a computer program.
MR. GLASSMAN: I know. But the question of irreducibility
is kind of an open one. We don't have any fossils that might have
cells that might be somehow at a kind of a reduced stage before
we get to this irreducible one to refute them.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, then, it's open to people, of course,
to say the complexity isn't really irreducible. That's essentially
the path Michael is taking, and they can provide a detailed testable
scenario. But all we get is vague hand-waving, storytelling, and
when you actually try to test these things, you see how weak the
evidence is. What's the actual demonstration that we've ever seen
of the creative power of mutation and selection? You know, you
get finch beak variation, you get peppered moth variation.
MR. GLASSMAN: Finch beak variation being the beaks of finches
grow longer in the Galapagos Islands?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, they -- actually, all it means is that
in a population of beaks of varying sizes, sometimes there are
more large ones, and sometimes there are more small ones. Natural
selection has never been shown to have any real creative power
at all.
MR. GLASSMAN: But you -- you don't disbelieve in natural
selection?
MR. JOHNSON: No, it's just that it only has relatively
trivial effects.
MR. GLASSMAN: Okay.
MR. JOHNSON: Natural selection --
MR. GLASSMAN: Okay.
MR. JOHNSON: -- is not the kind of thing that creates things
like computer programs, computers, spaceships, or biological cells.
MR. BEHE: You'll notice that that bridge was designed by
an intelligent agent, and that the scaffolding anticipated the
bridge. It was put there in order to let the person build the
bridge. Even in their examples, even when they're given months
to think about it, Darwinists always come up with examples that
use intelligence. And Michael said that in reviews, evolutionary
biologists have taken umbrage at some of the things I've said,
and that's certainly true, and I anticipated that. But what nobody
has ever said is that any of those biochemical examples that I
came up with have been explained.
And, as a matter of fact, if you look in the scientific literature,
we're sitting here discussing this, and an idea pops into somebody's
mind, well, how about, you know, if these complicated systems
were put together in this way or that way or the other way, but
if you look in the scientific literature where scientists publish
their actual experiments in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, or the Journal of Molecular Biology,
or whatever, you can't find any good models for how these things
could be put together in a gradual, Darwinistic way.
MR. GLASSMAN: Well, let me -- Michael, let's -- maybe we
should get a little away from molecular biology for a second.
Can you give me an example of a highly complex structure that
did evolve, and how did it evolve?
MR. RUSE: Well, I think that a lot of people would argue
that something like the mammalian ear was something which evolved
gradually, and under the forces of natural selection from other
parts of the jawbone, and these sorts of things like that. So
we do have some fossil sort of evidence of things which have changed
gradually, as it were, through the rocks, or this sort of thing.
But, you see, what worries me is, if I could pick up on the point
that Michael Behe made, he says, but, you know, your example of
a bridge, or something like this, is an example of design. And
I want to say, yes, yes, yes. That is the whole point. If you
read, for instance, Richard Dawkins, who is almost as Darwinian
as I am, I mean the whole point is that we Darwinians say, that
is the point. We do see design-like effects in the world.
Now, people who are not Darwinians, and I --
MR. GLASSMAN: So, does that mean you think a creator created
this design?
MR. RUSE: No, I didn't say that. I said design-like effects.
And, of course, somebody who's not a Darwinian, or who's challenging
aspects of Darwinism, like Steven Jay Gould, wants to deny that
the world is quite as design-like as all of that. But we know
that Darwin got his, if you like, his paradigm or his way of looking
at the world from natural theology. We know that he read Paley
and these people. So, yes, I want to say I expect to see design-like
effects in the world. I expect to see bridge-like effects, if
you like, with the stones up like that. The point is, natural
selection done it.
MR. GLASSMAN: So, is that -- Phillip, does that convince
you that natural selection is the engine behind the design?
MR. JOHNSON: Richard Dawkins, who has just been cited,
begins his book, The Blind Watchmaker, by saying, biology
is the study of extremely complicated things that look as if they
were designed by a creator for a purpose. See, this is the apparent
design. That's step number one. Step number two is, but, no, there
is no designer. This blind, purposeless process of random mutation
and natural selection actually did it. So, first there's design,
but then there's no designer.
Now, the question I'm raising, and I'll just ask Michael this,
is, that no designer, is that a philosophical assumption or is
it an empirical question? That is to say, would it be open to
debate on even terms on the basis of the evidence as to whether
you really need a designer as opposed to a materialist designer
substitute or is that a matter that's decided in the very definition
of science, because science is committed, as so many Darwinists
say, by definition to materialist philosophical premises? What's
your answer to that?
MR. RUSE: Well, now, come on. I mean, I'm always -- I'm
always dubious about agreeing with anything that you say, Phil,
if only because I know you're such a good arguer, and then the
premises will come out, and at the end, you know, the Earth is
flat and I accept that. But, no.
First of all, it is just simply not the case that Darwinists are
against a designer. For instance, I think it -- there's strong
evidence that Darwin, when he came up with natural selection and
right through to the publishing and after the publishing of The
Origin of Species, certainly believed in a God as designer.
And certainly eminent evolutionists since then, for instance Ronald
Fisher in England in this century, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and
others, have certainly believed in a God who was a designer. The
point is, they didn't feel that they could draw this out of their
science. This was a philosophical, and I agree with you, a philosophical
or religious way that one interprets these things.
So, I mean, you know and I know that I agree with you when somebody
like Richard Dawkins says, Darwinism proves that there is no God;
I agree, I think that that's a philosophical statement, and I
don't think it proves that at all, whether or not there's a God.
MR. GLASSMAN: We're going to get to God a little bit later.
MR. RUSE: Okay. He's here all the time, you know.
MR. GLASSMAN: I think you've purveyed this discussion.
And you know who else is here all the time is Bill Gates. Some
people would say that there's a similarity between these two.
But, so, let me bring up a Bill Gates analogy, that DNA is kind
of like a super-complicated piece of software. Now, if that's
true, I mean, isn't it possible that DNA, in fact, could be something
that has evolved? I mean, it just happens to be really, really
complicated.
MR. BEHE: Well, I'm not aware of too much software that's
popped up out of existence without a creator. Microsoft headquarters,
where we are, employs, you know, several intelligence designers
to come up with their programs. The fact that DNA is or can be
likened to a program is very strong evidence, at least in my mind,
that it's -- that there was intelligence behind it.
Additionally, software writers do not get into the gritty details
of chemistry that chemists have to do. And if you look at the
chemical literature on how you might come up with something like
DNA, or protein, or any of the other components of the cell from
an abiotic world, a world with no life, billions of years ago,
you find out that in the past 45 years, ever since a man named
Stanley Miller first tried to bring the origin of life under scientific
study, we have learned a whole lot about the difficulty of trying
to imagine an undirected chemical origin of life, but we are no
closer to understanding how an unintelligent process might have
made DNA, functional DNA, or protein, or anything else like that.
So, I'd disagree with that.
MR. GLASSMAN: So, Michael, why don't you just simply --
why don't you -- why aren't we popping the corks? I mean, why
aren't we saying, hey, look, there really is an intelligent designer,
why don't we just concede that, and say, this is a fabulous invention,
I mean, a fabulous discovery? Why is it -- why do you resist it?
Why do so many scientists just don't want to admit that that's
a possibility?
MR. RUSE: First of all, let's not talk about this as being
a fabulous discovery. I mean, this is, if you like, a rediscovery.
I mean, this is something -- the idea of design goes back at least
to Plato, so we're not talking, as it were, some new idea or some
new theory. We're talking about refurbishing a very old idea.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. All good ideas are in
Plato, so I'm not -- I'm certainly not objecting to that.
What I'm objecting to, I think, is, I mean -- well, the second
point I'd make is that there are going to be problems with the
design issue anyway which we've not yet raised, the sorts of things
like, what about malmutations, mutations which cause great human
suffering, and these sorts of things. If you believe in a designer,
how do you deal with these? But --
MR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, that's a good -- let me just ask --
let me ask Mike that question.
MR. BEHE: I hear Michael Ruse, or other people, come along
and say, how about the problem of evil? And to my -- you know,
my way of thinking, that's saying, you know, sickle cell anemia
exists, therefore, the bacterial flagellum was put together step-by-step
by a Darwinian process. That -- one has nothing to do with the
other to me.
The designer -- I'm a Roman Catholic, I believe in God, but as
far as the scientific evidence, I just say that the -- you know,
that these things were designed. I don't claim anything about
the personality of the designer from the bacterial flagellum,
or anything else.
MR. GLASSMAN: But you do claim that it is an intelligent
design. And forget about evil for a second, what happened to the
saber-toothed tiger?
MR. BEHE: Well, you know, again that's a philosophical
question.
MR. GLASSMAN: Why -- how intelligent is the designer to
create things that are going to drop out of existence?
MR. BEHE: Well, all of us are going to drop out of existence.
You know, why is the problem of the extinction of species any
greater than the fact that we all have to die.
MR. GLASSMAN: Thank you, Michael Behe. Thank you, Michael
Ruse. And thank you, Phillip Johnson. And thank you, audience.
(Applause.)
MR. GLASSMAN: And, for TechnoPolitics, I'm Jim Glassman.
We'll see you next time.
(End of tape.)
Copyright © 1997 The Blackwell Corporation.
All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
File Date: 1.20.98