Female thicket flycatcher (Ficedula hyperythra) captured at the Taiwan Forest Bureau Zueyenshi Forest Reserve in Nantou County, Taiwan. 

Designing Mount Rushmore

Intelligent design (ID) proponent William Dembski is fond of Mount Rushmore. He often uses the American landmark carved into the granite hills of South Dakota by Gutzon Borglum in1941 as an obvious example of our ability to recognize design in nature. Of course Dembski is right. Clearly the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln were shaped out of the South Dakota granite by intelligence. But, how exactly do we come to this conclusion? Well, the most obvious evidence is the documented history of the project in writing and even film. We can look to the historical record and actually see Borlum and his workers suspended from the Rushmore cliffs chiseling out the images of these influential American presidents. But, what if we didn’t have that historical record? What if after thousands of years it is lost and future explorers rediscover Rushmore beneath the overgrown jungle of perhaps a now tropical South Dakota warmed by climate change? Could they recognize it as design and not the result of wind and rain on granite? Well, Dembski is right again, of course they could recognize it as such. But, why is this so? What is it exactly about the structure of Rushmore that would lead some future archeologist to conclude it was shaped by intelligence?

Dembski says we can recognize Rushmore for the human creation that it is because of specified complexity. The shape and structure of any hill side is complex with projections, undulations and cracks interwoven in intricate patterns, but, in the case of Rushmore these features are specifically concordant with the features of these four former presidents. The complex pattern we observe on Rushmore is specified to match the complex pattern unique to the faces of these four American presidents thus revealing the cliff face’s designed origins.

But, where does this specificity come from? What specifically draws our attention to the cliffs of Rushmore that so obviously screams “design”? Well, it is of course because we ourselves have faces. We see a nose, an eye, a chin and even spectacles because human beings have these features. We are familiar with these features. What’s more we recognize faces we are familiar with, faces seen in books, paintings and in the case of Roosevelt, even films. This would be true for human archeologists of the future. Even if the historical record were lost future explorers would still recognize these faces as human faces because they would have their own faces to compare them to. Also, these archeologists would know a little about the limitations of human designers. They could date the feature in the field with help from their pocket sized combination mass spectrometer and radioisotopic analyzer and determine it was formed in the mid-twentieth century. Knowing a little about the primitive humans of this era they would know that carving a mountainside would be a challenge but within the capabilities of human agents. If future human societies are anything like those of today and those societies of thousands of years ago they would also realize that human societies build monuments to their Gods, military generals and political leaders.

Future archeologists would have a template on which to match the pattern of the rock face, either recorded images of Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson or simply their own human faces. They would have an idea about the capabilities of the proposed designer and realize that such design was within human limits of the time. They also would have a clear idea of the purpose of the design, namely as a monument to some revered figures. These elements taken together are why we can recognize design in human artifacts. We know about human appearances, human abilities and limits and human needs and wants so recognizing human design is well within the capabilities of scientific investigation.

But, Dembski uses the example of Rushmore as an example of detecting design in general, even if the designer is not human or not even a material entity at all but a divine, omnipotent agent. Can we make this extrapolation? Is it possible to take the example of a human designed structure such as Borglum’s Rushmore and use it as a guide for detecting the actions of some divine intelligence on the material world? Let’s consider that for a moment.

We clearly recognize Rushmore as a human design because we match the pattern on the rocks to our own human faces or better yet the faces of the former presidents the sculpture is designed to represent. What about features designed by aliens? What should they look like? Well, it may be very difficult to recognize an alien portrait as we have no idea what aliens look like. If aliens look much the same as we do with faces, eyes, two arms, two legs, etc. (much like the aliens of Hollywood films) then maybe it would be quite easy to recognize an alien image carved in the landscape of another planet. But, what if aliens were amorphous blobs? They may have many distinguishing features easily recognized by other amorphous blobs but we would be completely unfamiliar with these forms and be unlikely to recognize the blob version of Rushmore, “Blobmore”, even if we were scaling up its face. Likewise the Amorphous Blob Society for Archeology would, having never seen a human face, or any face for that matter, have considerable difficulty recognizing the design of Rushmore and may easily and quite logically from their perspective chalk it up to a feature created by erosion. Omnipotent Gods are no better. Perhaps the face of God Almighty looks exactly like the Hillary Step on Mount Everest. If so then generations of climbers have been unceremoniously scrambling up this sculpture without a clue of its obvious design.

How about the capabilities of designers? Mount Rushmore was a massive undertaking but it was within the capabilities of a human race with access to chisels and pneumatic jackhammers in the mid-twentieth century. Modern molecular genetic tools allow us today to synthesize long stretches of DNA. What if we find an sliver of DNA imbedded in amber and very ancient, perhaps not coding for any particular gene product, but, a stretch of DNA nonetheless, could we pose a designer for this complex bit of nature. Well, human designers indeed can fabricate a stretch of DNA to match any sequence they so wish and future archeologists exploring the abandoned catacombs of the National Institutes of Health upon finding a stretch of DNA could indeed invoke design as such actions were within the capabilities of the intelligent agents known to exist during that time. However, they could not invoke design in regards to the same stretch of DNA dated to a time hundreds of thousands of years prior to the advent of automated DNA synthesis.

What about purpose? Rushmore was designed in homage to Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln and we expect such monuments to be built by humans as humans love to build big complex structures to honor Gods and great leaders. What about non-human design? The fact is other than human beings and a handful of other organisms who build things we have no idea as to why designers would build anything. Maybe alien designers or supernatural agents would design for exactly the same purposes we do, both practical reasons borne out of necessity and sociological ones, but, then again, maybe they wouldn’t. Dembski would say a stretch of DNA that codes for nothing, so-called “junk DNA” is "undesigned", probably the product of random mutation accumulating a locus because that locus is not constrained by selection, a perfectly natural explanation. But, what if divine agents just like to string together DNA for no reason? What if such sequences while serving no practical purposes in our cells, we would be perfectly fine without them, simply please their designers? What if complexity for complexity's sake was the designer's purpose? What if they do have a purpose that is completely unknown to us but obvious to a divine omnipotent designer? Again, without knowing this facet of the designer, His/Her purposes, unlike the example of Rushmore where the purpose of the monument could easily be deduced by future human archeologists, it becomes impossible to recognize design from “non-design”. Everything could potentially be consdered designed depending on the personal quirks and whims of the designer one is posing.

Dembski and other ID proponents are reluctant to say anything about who the designer(s) of nature are but in doing so they undermine their claim that they can recognize design through science. They often make parallels to archeology. Of course in archeology we can recognize design because we have very particular designers in mind. We know about their physical appearance. For example, we know the size of their hands and can recognize the size expected for a stone tool. We know about their limitations and know what sort of materials are available to them and thus we can use this data to recognize design and even design specific to different periods in human history. We also know about human needs and wants and thus can determine design by understanding the sort of things humans would create for themselves. We know none of these things for aliens, seeing as there is no compelling physical evidence for alien beings to begin with, nor do we have any clue as to any of these things as they pertain to divine, omnipotent agents. In fact divine, omnipotent agents could potentially be consistent with any conceivable data thus they can not be tested as science.

As long as ID remains silent on the identity of the designer it can not be tested as science. Maybe the designers are aliens as many ID proponents claim is a possibilty, but, we have no evidence aliens exist much less what sort of things they would design and why. Maybe the designer is an omnipotent God, perhaps in this respect ID proponetns are right, but, seeing as omnipotent Gods could have just as well directly designed a structure such as the Hillary Step as one resembling the face of Mount Rushmore such an assertion makes no testable predictions and therefore it isn’t amenable to the scientific method.

For a collection of William Dembski's writings on Intelligent Design click on the link below.
Design Inference Website: The Writings of William A. Dembski

Steere's babbler (Liocichla steerii). A forest songbird endemic to the mountains of Taiwan. 

Keep Religion Out of Science, as Long as it is Western Religion

Science is neutral on matters of religious faith simply as a matter of its methodological limitations. Scientific inquiry can not address the supernatural nor is it a tool to decide matters of ultimate spiritual or moral purpose. Of course scientific inquiry can test the bare claims of a religious tradition, claims stripped of any divine causation, claims such as a global Noachian deluge or a young earth. But add the intervention of a divine agent and we simply can not take these claims seriously as testable ideas.

Unfortunately many scientists have forgotten these limitations and have attempted to use science to deny a particular religious viewpoint. But, are scientists always so hostile towards religion? Oddly enough the answer is no. Typically criticism of religious beliefs from within science has been directed towards Judeo-Christian beliefs for the simple reason that these are the prominent religious beliefs in western societies and Judeo-Christian beliefs underlie pseudoscientific challenges to evolutionary biology such as scientific creationism and intelligent design theory. However, many within the scientific community adopt an entirely different opinion towards non-western religious traditions.

For example, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader in exile Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dali Lama, has been asked to speak at the annual meeting of Society for Neuroscience (Cyranoski, D. 2005. Neuroscientists see red over the Dali Lama. Nature 436: 452). Despite the protests of more than 500 members of the society the Dali Lama will speak on Buddhist meditation at the November 2005 meeting of the society (Cyranoski, D. 2005. Dali Lama gets go-ahead for meditation lecture. Nature 436: 1071). The Dali Lama’s participation in the meeting has even prompted support from outside the neuroscience community (Dickinson, J. 2005. Buddhism is no bar to an open mind. Is science? Nature 436: 912). By having one of the world’s major religious figures speak at a national scientific meeting the life sciences are sending one message that religious ideas have no place in the science classroom and another by having a particular religious viewpoint presented in the context of a scientific meeting. I wonder the reaction if Pope Benedict XVI were asked to speak at the society’s meeting on the subject of prayer?

I agree that dialogue between scientists, philosophers, theologians and religious leaders is incredibly valuable and scientists should consider the influence of their work in a broad societal context. However, I see little the value of such a dialogue in the context of a scientific meeting. A more appropriate forum would be one that included scientists and religious and spiritual leaders of traditions beyond just Tibetan Buddhism. Unfortunately scientists operate in a culture that on the one hand sees little problem in inserting Darwin’s name in a symbol of Christian solidarity since Roman times, the Ichthys, but would likely frown upon any desecration of a Buddhist prayer wheel or the Tibetan flag (a popular bumper sticker among the faculty and graduate students on college campuses usually along side a ‘Darwin fish’). Hopefully there are some scientists, like myself, that would see any desecration of either religious symbol as irresponsible and reject the presentation of one religious view either in the science classroom or at a scientific meeting in lieu of others.

Intelligent Design as a Reactionary Movement

The intelligent design (ID) campaign is in full swing. With the help of local ID proponents the Kansas state school board is revising science standards and President Bush’s appeals to teach all sides of the evolution “debate” ID’s public relations campaign seems to be bearing fruit. ID is widely regarded as unworkable as a scientific theory and ID has made virtually no inroads into the peer-reviewed scientific literature. What’s more despite claims to the contrary evolution shows no sign of waning in importance among professional scientists. To the contrary, modern biology continues to reaffirm the importance of evolution and common descent as central unifying principles in the life sciences. The president’s own science advisor, Dr. John H. Marburger, said it best during a February 14, 2005 visit to the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado saying, “Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. Period. What else can you say?” (For a complete transcript of Dr. Marburger’s comments see here)

So, where is the controversy? Why do proponents of ID theory claim evolution is in such dire straits among scientists? Why do they pose ID as a competing hypothesis? The truth is this is a controversy over faith not science. Conflict between science and religious faith is nothing new and with the dramatic growth of science in the past century people of faith feel their views have become increasingly marginalized. It is easy to view the current debate in terms of ID as a threat to good science and good science education, an attempt to inject religious beliefs into the public schools. In this view ID poses the threat and evolutionary biologists are reacting in defense. However, I think to fully understand this issue we also have to look at the flip side. The threat, either real or perceived, of evolutionary biology to the religious faith upon which ID is ultimately based is at the heart of the problem.

Science is neutral on matters of faith as scientific methodology has no means of dealing with divine supernatural agents and ultimate spiritual and moral purpose. This is not to say that such agents do not exist only that such phenomena are not a topic science may address. But, listening to many of the most vocal evolutionary biologists science’s neutrality in regards to religious faith is easy to miss. Richard Dawkins is famously quoted for his comment that Darwin has made it possible to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist” (Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. W.W. Norton & Company, New York) and science philosopher and historian William Provine has written that those scientists of faith need “check their brains at the church house door” (Provine, W. 1988. Evolution and the foundation of ethics. Marine Biological Laboratory Science 3: 25-29.). More recently in response to an editorial in the journal Nature (Dealing with design. Nature 434: 1053) prominent evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne described the science classroom as a place where religious worldviews “crumble” (Coyne, J. 2005. When science meets religion in the classroom. Nature 435: 275). So, it is hardly surprising that people of faith feel their beliefs are under attack by scientists.

What are intelligent people of faith to do? Well, my view is that both sides should take the time to listen to the other and understand the role that both science and faith play in society and understand the limits of each. However, most have not chosen this route. The reaction of the faithful to the notion that the only ideas that carry any worth are those based around science, a notion fueled by the writings of Dawkins, Provine and Coyne, is to force one’s religious beliefs to be scientific.Voila! There you have it. Creationism! ID is the modern version of creationism and it has taken this approach as far as possible, attempting to lend scientific legitimacy to Judeo-Christian beliefs. I think it is high time for us scientists to start thinking about the evolution/creation controversy for what it is, a reactionary movement, and recognize our own role in the success of ID in the public arena. All too often we give them just the enemy they expect. Refusing to recognize our own role in promoting an atmosphere within science that is not neutral but hostile towards religion will only mean we can hope to deal with ID more in the future not less.