Philosophy and Religion
21 April
2005
Why Joe Schmoe
Doesn’t Buy Evolution
William Dembski
Most of the American population do not buy conventional evolutionary
theory. Yet many evolutionists regard it as a sign of stupidity when someone
doesn’t buy their theory. What follows is a beautiful example of why a
reflective layperson, when confronted with the inflated claims of
evolutionists, is unlikely to be persuaded. The layperson in this case was an
engineer and friend of mine whose son was being encouraged to drop his
reservations about evolution:
In the school year beginning in the fall of 1996, my son [hereafter AW], at
that time a Sophomore in High School, attended a course in Oceanography at
Dr. G is a well known professor of oceanography, having authored a
commonly-used text book on the subject. He is always on the lookout for
promising young students, hoping to steer them in the direction of a career in
the field of Marine Science.
In the summer of 1997, Dr. G invited AW to join the Honors Lab students in
a field trip to the Scripps Institute for a “behind the scenes” tour of the
research facility there. Because he was a home-schooled student, Dr. G invited
my wife NW, and I [hereafter DW] to join them as well, and we did.
The Scripps marine institute in
Dr. Latz had the lab ready for us, with beakers of glowing plankton, videos
of his work on dolphin studies using bioluminescence, and a microscope displays
of dinoflagellates.
During the course of his presentation, Dr. G made a point of interrupting
to proudly point out to his students that Dr. Latz was working on a new
hypothesis regarding the evolution of bioluminescence. It was Dr. Latz’ belief
that bioluminescence had evolved as follows: Radiolarians, or some other such
single-celled creature, originally did not have the ability to produce light
chemically. When such a capacity evolved, it would seem on the face of it, that
such a feature would be a detriment to survival, since the individual(s) that
had such a feature would draw special attention to themselves by a predator,
for example the copepod. It was Dr. Latz’ innovation however to suggest that
the bioluminescent glow would also attract the copepod’s predator, the
vertebrate fish, which would have an easier time locating copepods because they
would be near glowing radiolarians. So, in fact, bioluminescence was a survival
trait after all!
After the lecture, Dr. Latz stepped into the hall, and invited anyone with
questions to join him out to discuss them with him. I went up to him at a
convenient time, and asked him if he could clear-up one confusing point for me.
How, I asked, could vertebrate fish provide the solution for the usefulness of bioluminescence,
when according to Darwinian theory, it would have taken many millions of years
for the vertebrates to show up? His reply was that this was all just
speculation anyway!
Another related incident occurred about a year later. That year, AW took Dr.
G’s Honor’s Lab. At the completion of that course, Dr. G had an informal
meeting with AW, during which Dr. G pressed him on his beliefs. Paraphrasing:
· ‘So, AW, do you
enjoy Marine Science?’
· ‘Yes, I do.’
· ‘Do you think
that you might be interested in pursuing a career in it?’
· ‘Maybe…. I’m not
sure.’
· ‘What do you
think about the theory of evolution?’
· ‘I think it is
interesting, and something I really need to learn.’
· ‘Yes, but do you
believe that it’s true?’
· ‘Not really, not
all of it.’
· ‘Well AW, you
know, you are going to have to get past those reservations if you want to
pursue a career in this field. It just isn’t possible to succeed in Marine
Science if you do not accept the theory of evolution.’