Probably the most common criticism of evolution is that the order and immense complexity that we see in living things could not have come about through a random process, which they believe that evolution is.
For example, one creationist web site tries to show that evolution is impossible, beginning its analysis with these words:
“You have to understand that evolution is a random process which requires the use of mathematics to analyze its probability.[1]”
Indeed it is true that a truly random process could not allow evolution. The odds against a set of positive genetic changes without any accompanying negative genetic changes are simply too long to be reasonable.
Julian Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley and a distinguished scientist in his own right, once calculated the odds of a horse suddenly appearing as the result of a massive number of mutations without the benefit of natural selection. He conservatively calculated the number of required mutations and then expressed the odds against them all occurring in this way:
"The figure 1 with three million naughts after it: and that would take three large volumes of about 500 pages each, just to print!...No one would bet on anything so improbable happening; and yet it has happened.[2]"
Note that Huxley is referring to odds of a horse appearing without the benefit of natural selection. Those odds are very long indeed. (It is worth noting that many creationists misrepresent Huxley’s number as the odds against a horse evolving at all. That’s dishonest. It is actually meant to represent the odds of a horse evolving without natural selection[3]).
It’s not correct to call evolution a “random process”. Evolution is indeed based on random inputs (genetic changes called mutations that occur at random). But those random inputs are affected by a process – natural selection – that is decidedly not random.
Natural selection provides a mechanism for random genetic changes (mutations) that make an organism less well-adapted to its environment to be removed from the population. It also provides a mechanism for ultimately allowing the random genetic changes that do make an organism better adapted to its environment become a part of the population’s genome.
Other processes exist in nature which create apparent order from random inputs. If you were to put gravel containing random sized rocks into a quickly flowing river, it would be sorted by a process called “hydrologic sorting”. The rocks would be sorted such that the larger ones would be underneath the smaller rocks. Waves on an ocean beach do the same thing.
Ironically many creationists use this mechanism to try to explain the fossil record. So, on the one hand they accept the idea that natural processes can perform sorting and create apparent order even when the inputs are random. Yet they reject the idea that a natural process can sort genetic characteristics and they call evolution a “random process”.
[1] http://www.hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/DNA.html, referenced on May 30, 2008
[2] Julian Huxley. 1953. Evolution in action. Chatto & Windus, London, p. 46
[3] Here’s what Huxley said immediately after presenting his very large number: "Of course, this could not really happen, but it is a useful way of visualizing the fantastic odds AGAINST getting a number of favorable mutations in one strain through pure chance alone...NO ONE would bet on anything so improbable happening; and yet IT HAS HAPPENED.
It has happened, THANKS to the workings of natural selection and the properties of living substances which make natural selection inevitable."
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Intelligent Design - Identifying the "Designer"
ID really doesn’t make any sense if the identity of the “designer” is unknown.
Consider two alternatives: God or an intelligent “alien” life form.
If God is the designer, then supernatural means were used and there isn’t really any reason to learn anything about the mechanisms used.
On the other hand, if aliens are the “designers” then presumably some sort of naturalistic mechanism was employed. In that case we might be able to learn that mechanism and use it ourselves.
Moreover, our natural curiosity would force us to try to learn the identity of the designer.
To support this claim, I will use the example of the book and movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” again. The majority of the story is about a space voyage. During that voyage a computer named HAL goes berserk and kills most of the humans on board. Only one human – Dave – survives.
What, exactly, was the purpose of that voyage?
The book goes into greater detail about that than does the movie. It seems that the stone monolith described in the book and movie was buried underground. When the sun first hits the top of the monolith after the astronauts had uncovered it, a directional radio signal is released. The scientists monitoring the monolith can tell that the radio signal is sent at Jupiter. It seems reasonable that whoever the designers were, there is something about Jupiter that would help identify them. So the decision is made to send a space mission to Jupiter.
In other words, the entire purpose of the space mission (that ends up going so horribly wrong) is to make contact with the designers of the Intelligently Designed monolith!
So the book and movie – though admittedly fictional – portray the reaction that Arthur C. Clarke predicted that humans would have in response to finding an Intelligently Designed (but not human designed) item somewhere. They would search for the designer.
I doubt that his prediction was off-base. I think that anyone who gives it any thought would agree. This “the identity of the designer is unimportant” argument is not realistic.
Consider two alternatives: God or an intelligent “alien” life form.
If God is the designer, then supernatural means were used and there isn’t really any reason to learn anything about the mechanisms used.
On the other hand, if aliens are the “designers” then presumably some sort of naturalistic mechanism was employed. In that case we might be able to learn that mechanism and use it ourselves.
Moreover, our natural curiosity would force us to try to learn the identity of the designer.
To support this claim, I will use the example of the book and movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” again. The majority of the story is about a space voyage. During that voyage a computer named HAL goes berserk and kills most of the humans on board. Only one human – Dave – survives.
What, exactly, was the purpose of that voyage?
The book goes into greater detail about that than does the movie. It seems that the stone monolith described in the book and movie was buried underground. When the sun first hits the top of the monolith after the astronauts had uncovered it, a directional radio signal is released. The scientists monitoring the monolith can tell that the radio signal is sent at Jupiter. It seems reasonable that whoever the designers were, there is something about Jupiter that would help identify them. So the decision is made to send a space mission to Jupiter.
In other words, the entire purpose of the space mission (that ends up going so horribly wrong) is to make contact with the designers of the Intelligently Designed monolith!
So the book and movie – though admittedly fictional – portray the reaction that Arthur C. Clarke predicted that humans would have in response to finding an Intelligently Designed (but not human designed) item somewhere. They would search for the designer.
I doubt that his prediction was off-base. I think that anyone who gives it any thought would agree. This “the identity of the designer is unimportant” argument is not realistic.
Intelligent Design - Irreducible Complexity
The other main argument used by Intelligent Design advocates is called “irreducible complexity”. The person who came up with that phrase is Dr. Michael Behe. Dr. Behe is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He is also the author of a book titled “Darwin’s Black Box” that was published in 1996.
In his book, Behe claims that there are many genetic “designs” in various organisms that require many individual components to all be working correctly. That could not happen through evolution because evolution requires the gradual accumulation of components rather than the sudden appearance of many components that work together perfectly at one time.
The analogy he uses is to a mousetrap. If you remove any component used in the mousetrap – the wooden base, the spring, the stick, the hammer, etc. – the mousetrap is ineffectual. Therefore the mousetrap is “irreducibly complex”.
Behe then claims that there are organisms with “designs” which are also irreducibly complex. He cites the blood clotting system in mammals and the flagellum of the bacteria as primary examples.
Behe is correct when he says that evolution could not come up with a mechanism that explains irreducible complexity. However there are flaws in his argument when applied to his examples.
In general, his examples require a level of technical detail that is beyond the intended scope of this book. (Even in his book “Darwin’s Black Box”, Behe highlights his more technical discussions and warns the readers that they may not understand those sections.) However, other biochemists who do understand his examples claim to have shown that Behe’s arguments of “irreducible complexity” are wrong and that there are very reasonable pathways for those things to have evolved gradually, step-by-step, as evolution requires. For example, the biochemist Dr. Kenneth Miller dedicates a chapter in his book “Finding Darwin’s God” to specifically refuting Behe’s claims. Dr. Miller and others point out how there are blood clotting mechanisms that work quite well without all of the components that Behe insists are necessary and also how the flagellum of the bacteria is very similar to non-flagella in other bacteria. People have even described examples of how a mousetrap could evolve through a gradual set of steps[1].
At a common-sense level, there are two fundamental problems with his arguments.
First, he is really just using the “God of the Gaps” argument. He claims that if he doesn’t personally understand how some particular feature could have evolved then there is no possible explanation for how it could have evolved. As became obvious during his testimony in a Dover, Pennsylvania, court case regarding intelligent design, Behe is unwilling to consider evidence, even when published in scientific papers, that contradicts his claims that some things are irreducibly complex. If he were more honest, he would concede that it is impossible to “prove” a negative claim and that his examples may have evolutionary paths that he simply doesn’t understand.
Second, Behe insists that evolution only works through the accumulation of “components”. In fact, it sometimes works through the deletion of “components”.
A vivid example of this can be found at the talkorigins web page at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html. On that web page Dr. Douglas L. Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University uses the example of a stone bridge, as shown below, to show how something can evolve through the deletion of components to appear as if it were irreducibly complex.
[1] See http://answers.org/newlook/behe2.html for example.
If someone was to look at this bridge completely independently of anything else, they would say that it is irreducibly complex. If you remove any of the components, the bridge won’t work.
But the original bridge may have looked quite different. For example, it could have looked like this:
There is a perfectly functional bridge made up of individual components. Those components could have been added one-at-a-time. If, for example, the bridge crossed over a stream the individual stones might have been added one-at-a-time as the stream widened.
Then at a later time, another – basically redundant component – was added such that the bridge looked like this:
Note that we can provide an explanation for how each and every one of these components was added incrementally. We still have a perfectly functioning bridge.
It’s now apparent that the middle foundation stone could be removed with no loss of functionality resulting in the apparently “irreducibly complex” bridge with which we started.
And, in fact, we see many cases where there are redundant genes in organisms[1]. Therefore such a proposed hypothesis could be applied to living organisms without any problems. Note that DNA and genes don’t fossilize. So there is no way of confirming how any particular set of genetic characteristics came into existence at the micro-biological level. But every example that Behe or other ID advocates use can be easily explained by such mechanisms[2].
The bottom line: Behe cannot claim that he has falsified evolution with his examples of irreducible complexity.
Another important point is that ID is not scientific. It cannot be falsified.
A creationist that I have debated said this:
> ...some say that ID has no predictive value. Of course
> they have already rejected, with a wave of the hand,
> the significance of finding irreducibly complex structures
> ones that cannot be made by adding pieces one at a
> time. Yet living things are full of them.
Effectively the argument that we see here is that ID makes testable predictions. The problem is that these are not potentially falsifiable predictions.
[1] See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_redundancy (referenced on February 2, 2009). A Google search for “redundant genes” resulted in an estimated 2 million hits.
[2] It is worth noting that in his most recent book titled “The Edge of Evolution” Behe finds a few other examples of irreducible complexity that many theistic people would find offensive. For example, he clams that the disease malaria is the result of an intelligent designer because it is irreducibly complex. In other words, Behe’s designer has quite a malicious streak.
In his book, Behe claims that there are many genetic “designs” in various organisms that require many individual components to all be working correctly. That could not happen through evolution because evolution requires the gradual accumulation of components rather than the sudden appearance of many components that work together perfectly at one time.
The analogy he uses is to a mousetrap. If you remove any component used in the mousetrap – the wooden base, the spring, the stick, the hammer, etc. – the mousetrap is ineffectual. Therefore the mousetrap is “irreducibly complex”.
Behe then claims that there are organisms with “designs” which are also irreducibly complex. He cites the blood clotting system in mammals and the flagellum of the bacteria as primary examples.
Behe is correct when he says that evolution could not come up with a mechanism that explains irreducible complexity. However there are flaws in his argument when applied to his examples.
In general, his examples require a level of technical detail that is beyond the intended scope of this book. (Even in his book “Darwin’s Black Box”, Behe highlights his more technical discussions and warns the readers that they may not understand those sections.) However, other biochemists who do understand his examples claim to have shown that Behe’s arguments of “irreducible complexity” are wrong and that there are very reasonable pathways for those things to have evolved gradually, step-by-step, as evolution requires. For example, the biochemist Dr. Kenneth Miller dedicates a chapter in his book “Finding Darwin’s God” to specifically refuting Behe’s claims. Dr. Miller and others point out how there are blood clotting mechanisms that work quite well without all of the components that Behe insists are necessary and also how the flagellum of the bacteria is very similar to non-flagella in other bacteria. People have even described examples of how a mousetrap could evolve through a gradual set of steps[1].
At a common-sense level, there are two fundamental problems with his arguments.
First, he is really just using the “God of the Gaps” argument. He claims that if he doesn’t personally understand how some particular feature could have evolved then there is no possible explanation for how it could have evolved. As became obvious during his testimony in a Dover, Pennsylvania, court case regarding intelligent design, Behe is unwilling to consider evidence, even when published in scientific papers, that contradicts his claims that some things are irreducibly complex. If he were more honest, he would concede that it is impossible to “prove” a negative claim and that his examples may have evolutionary paths that he simply doesn’t understand.
Second, Behe insists that evolution only works through the accumulation of “components”. In fact, it sometimes works through the deletion of “components”.
A vivid example of this can be found at the talkorigins web page at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html. On that web page Dr. Douglas L. Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University uses the example of a stone bridge, as shown below, to show how something can evolve through the deletion of components to appear as if it were irreducibly complex.
[1] See http://answers.org/newlook/behe2.html for example.
If someone was to look at this bridge completely independently of anything else, they would say that it is irreducibly complex. If you remove any of the components, the bridge won’t work.But the original bridge may have looked quite different. For example, it could have looked like this:
There is a perfectly functional bridge made up of individual components. Those components could have been added one-at-a-time. If, for example, the bridge crossed over a stream the individual stones might have been added one-at-a-time as the stream widened.Then at a later time, another – basically redundant component – was added such that the bridge looked like this:
Note that we can provide an explanation for how each and every one of these components was added incrementally. We still have a perfectly functioning bridge.It’s now apparent that the middle foundation stone could be removed with no loss of functionality resulting in the apparently “irreducibly complex” bridge with which we started.
And, in fact, we see many cases where there are redundant genes in organisms[1]. Therefore such a proposed hypothesis could be applied to living organisms without any problems. Note that DNA and genes don’t fossilize. So there is no way of confirming how any particular set of genetic characteristics came into existence at the micro-biological level. But every example that Behe or other ID advocates use can be easily explained by such mechanisms[2].
The bottom line: Behe cannot claim that he has falsified evolution with his examples of irreducible complexity.
Another important point is that ID is not scientific. It cannot be falsified.
A creationist that I have debated said this:
> ...some say that ID has no predictive value. Of course
> they have already rejected, with a wave of the hand,
> the significance of finding irreducibly complex structures
> ones that cannot be made by adding pieces one at a
> time. Yet living things are full of them.
Effectively the argument that we see here is that ID makes testable predictions. The problem is that these are not potentially falsifiable predictions.
We’ve already discussed irreducible complexity and seen that it can’t be proven to exist. We have also discussed how in the last few centuries, a hypothesis must be falsifiable in order to be considered scientific. (There must be some possible piece of evidence which, if found, would show that the hypothesis is false.) But the real point of emphasis is this: if, hypothetically, all of those supposed examples of irreducible complexity were found to have evolutionary explanations, would ID have been falsified? Would everyone who supported ID be forced to give up that hypothesis?
Of course not! The ID advocates would simply shrug and move on to find other “evidence” supporting their claims. None of them would concede a single piece of evidence which, if found, would falsify ID once and for all.
Therefore, because ID is not falsifiable, it is not science.
That’s a very good reason for believing that it should not be taught in science classrooms.
Of course not! The ID advocates would simply shrug and move on to find other “evidence” supporting their claims. None of them would concede a single piece of evidence which, if found, would falsify ID once and for all.
Therefore, because ID is not falsifiable, it is not science.
That’s a very good reason for believing that it should not be taught in science classrooms.
[1] See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_redundancy (referenced on February 2, 2009). A Google search for “redundant genes” resulted in an estimated 2 million hits.
[2] It is worth noting that in his most recent book titled “The Edge of Evolution” Behe finds a few other examples of irreducible complexity that many theistic people would find offensive. For example, he clams that the disease malaria is the result of an intelligent designer because it is irreducibly complex. In other words, Behe’s designer has quite a malicious streak.
Intelligent Design - Specified Complexity
The primary argument that ID advocates use is that Intelligent Design can be identified when seen. The classic example is the argument made by William Paley in his book “Natural Theology” more than two centuries ago (in 1802). That book was a favorite of Charles Darwin. Here’s that argument:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”
I doubt that anyone would dispute Paley’s claim that anyone who saw a watch, even if only for the first time, would identify it as the work of an intelligent designer.
The challenge comes in finding a way to objectively quantify whether something is intelligently designed. A watch is a pretty obvious example. But not everything is so black-and-white.
We’ve all probably seen or heard of examples where someone sees an image of something or someone – often the Virgin Mary – in a reflection on a window, or in a bagel or even in a stain on a highway bridge. Those with more vivid imaginations claim that they are witnessing a miracle and that the image they see is divinely “designed” or inspired. Others often see no images at all.
Shown below is an example of such an image in a piece of toast. This toast was sold on the Internet for $28,000.
Some people see an intelligently designed picture of a woman’s face in the toast. Other people don’t. (I see a face myself but I doubt that it is intelligently designed.) How do you tell who’s right?
Another example is a rock formation on Mars that appears to be a human face when the shadows are just right. Here’s a picture of the rock taken at the “right time”.
Some people see an Intelligently Designed face here and others don’t, believing that it is simply a product of shadows at a particular time of day.
Here is an on-line quote that shows how adamantly some people feel that this rock formation is an intelligently designed face[1].
"NASA can't hide the truth any longer, there's no mistaking the image of a Lion's face and ornamental headdress when the photo is viewed in its proper orientation."
.....
"The raw NASA image was not altered. I colorized it to make the features more apparent. The impression of a face is very striking. It has all the qualities you would expect to see in a face. There is even an arched eyebrow on the left side above the eye socket! A pupil is plainly visible. There's also a very clear and distinct eye on the right. It's remarkably human-like. Yet it has a cat-like nose and even striations on the cheek like whiskers!"
Shown below is the “modified” picture that the author is referring to in these paragraphs.
To me it looks less like a face than it did in the previous picture. Alas.
A similar debate can be formed over features that we see in living things. To some they seem “designed”. To others they seem to be “jury-rigged” and not the result of intelligent design. But it is clearly all in the eyes of the beholder. There is no way of quantifying the artificiality of any of these things in order to determine if they are intelligently designed or not.
A mathematician (and theologian) named William Dembski has come up with a proposal on how to distinguish design from non-design. He calls the criteria that should be used to identify Intelligent Design “Specified Complexity”. In summary he claims that something can be identified as being intelligently designed if it is complex, performs a specific function (has specificity) and is unlikely to have been produced by purely random processes. One example that he uses is:
"A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.[2]"
Dembski’s argument is rejected by the vast majority of mainstream scientists and mathematicians. One major argument is that it is impossible to calculate the odds of a particular thing happening by chance. How can someone look at the “picture” of the Virgin Mary in the piece of toast shown earlier and calculate the odds of that forming by chance? As I mentioned, someone paid $28,000 for that piece of toast. If “specified complexity” was a worthwhile concept, you should be able to use it to determine whether or not that was a reasonable purchase.
An even stronger argument against Dembski’s claims is that complexity isn’t really a sign of intelligent design. Instead artificiality is the only indication, and artificiality can’t be quantified.
A crack is a sidewalk can be very complex. But such cracks can be formed by simply having something falling on the sidewalk. Or they can be formed by nothing more than a tree root. On the other hand, a simple letter ‘A’ carved in the sidewalk would be relatively lacking in complexity. Yet it would be much more likely to be the result of intelligent design than would the much more complex crack. As a matter of fact, Dembski even uses the single letter example as something that is “specified without being complex” while obviously completely failing to see that even a single letter in the right circumstances is all that is needed to recognize ID – no complexity needed.
“Artificiality” is really the same thing that Dembski calls “specificity”. You can look at something and see that it seems to be designed with a particular purpose in mind.
The very best example that I can think of comes from the movie “2001 - A Space Odyssey” based on a book by Arthur C. Clark. In the book and the movie, a stone monolith is found on the moon by astronauts. The monolith is a large pure-black, three-dimensional rectangular slab. Its dimensions are in the ratio of exactly 1:4:9 to whatever precision humans are able to measure them. (Of course, 1, 4 and 9 are the exact squares to the first three integers.) The monolith is deemed, just as Paley’s watch would be, as the undeniable result of intelligent design, in this case the work of an alien intelligence.
Another example from nature can be seen when we compare a typical forest to a Christmas tree farm. The forest consists of many trees of different species and ages planted in random patterns.
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”
I doubt that anyone would dispute Paley’s claim that anyone who saw a watch, even if only for the first time, would identify it as the work of an intelligent designer.
The challenge comes in finding a way to objectively quantify whether something is intelligently designed. A watch is a pretty obvious example. But not everything is so black-and-white.
We’ve all probably seen or heard of examples where someone sees an image of something or someone – often the Virgin Mary – in a reflection on a window, or in a bagel or even in a stain on a highway bridge. Those with more vivid imaginations claim that they are witnessing a miracle and that the image they see is divinely “designed” or inspired. Others often see no images at all.
Shown below is an example of such an image in a piece of toast. This toast was sold on the Internet for $28,000.
Some people see an intelligently designed picture of a woman’s face in the toast. Other people don’t. (I see a face myself but I doubt that it is intelligently designed.) How do you tell who’s right?Another example is a rock formation on Mars that appears to be a human face when the shadows are just right. Here’s a picture of the rock taken at the “right time”.
Some people see an Intelligently Designed face here and others don’t, believing that it is simply a product of shadows at a particular time of day.Here is an on-line quote that shows how adamantly some people feel that this rock formation is an intelligently designed face[1].
"NASA can't hide the truth any longer, there's no mistaking the image of a Lion's face and ornamental headdress when the photo is viewed in its proper orientation."
.....
"The raw NASA image was not altered. I colorized it to make the features more apparent. The impression of a face is very striking. It has all the qualities you would expect to see in a face. There is even an arched eyebrow on the left side above the eye socket! A pupil is plainly visible. There's also a very clear and distinct eye on the right. It's remarkably human-like. Yet it has a cat-like nose and even striations on the cheek like whiskers!"
Shown below is the “modified” picture that the author is referring to in these paragraphs.
To me it looks less like a face than it did in the previous picture. Alas.
A similar debate can be formed over features that we see in living things. To some they seem “designed”. To others they seem to be “jury-rigged” and not the result of intelligent design. But it is clearly all in the eyes of the beholder. There is no way of quantifying the artificiality of any of these things in order to determine if they are intelligently designed or not.
A mathematician (and theologian) named William Dembski has come up with a proposal on how to distinguish design from non-design. He calls the criteria that should be used to identify Intelligent Design “Specified Complexity”. In summary he claims that something can be identified as being intelligently designed if it is complex, performs a specific function (has specificity) and is unlikely to have been produced by purely random processes. One example that he uses is:
"A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.[2]"
Dembski’s argument is rejected by the vast majority of mainstream scientists and mathematicians. One major argument is that it is impossible to calculate the odds of a particular thing happening by chance. How can someone look at the “picture” of the Virgin Mary in the piece of toast shown earlier and calculate the odds of that forming by chance? As I mentioned, someone paid $28,000 for that piece of toast. If “specified complexity” was a worthwhile concept, you should be able to use it to determine whether or not that was a reasonable purchase.
An even stronger argument against Dembski’s claims is that complexity isn’t really a sign of intelligent design. Instead artificiality is the only indication, and artificiality can’t be quantified.
A crack is a sidewalk can be very complex. But such cracks can be formed by simply having something falling on the sidewalk. Or they can be formed by nothing more than a tree root. On the other hand, a simple letter ‘A’ carved in the sidewalk would be relatively lacking in complexity. Yet it would be much more likely to be the result of intelligent design than would the much more complex crack. As a matter of fact, Dembski even uses the single letter example as something that is “specified without being complex” while obviously completely failing to see that even a single letter in the right circumstances is all that is needed to recognize ID – no complexity needed.
“Artificiality” is really the same thing that Dembski calls “specificity”. You can look at something and see that it seems to be designed with a particular purpose in mind.
The very best example that I can think of comes from the movie “2001 - A Space Odyssey” based on a book by Arthur C. Clark. In the book and the movie, a stone monolith is found on the moon by astronauts. The monolith is a large pure-black, three-dimensional rectangular slab. Its dimensions are in the ratio of exactly 1:4:9 to whatever precision humans are able to measure them. (Of course, 1, 4 and 9 are the exact squares to the first three integers.) The monolith is deemed, just as Paley’s watch would be, as the undeniable result of intelligent design, in this case the work of an alien intelligence.
While the movie and book are works of fiction, surely if such a monolith was actually discovered exactly as described in the book, it would be called a result of ID just as surely as it is done in the book.
But the shape of the monolith is not complex at all! In fact a rectangle is one of the simplest and least complex shapes possible. Even the color – pure-black – is less complex than any other color; certainly it less complex than any pattern of colors would be. But that ratio of 1:4:9 and color are very artificial. It is the artificiality that indicates ID, not complexity.
What’s even more interesting about this example is that it comes from a book written in 1968, well before the Intelligent Design movement had its roots. Yet the author theorized that if an alien civilization wanted to communicate with humans through an “intelligently designed” symbol, then the symbol would be simple rather than complex!
As a matter of fact, if you give the matter a little thought, it is obvious that complexity has absolutely nothing to do with Intelligent Design! Surely many intelligently designed things are complex; something like the space shuttle comes to mind.
But there are surely at least as many intelligently designed things that are not complex as there are examples of intelligently designed things that are complex.
As one simple, every-day example, consider what happens when someone weeds their garden. Removing the weeds reduces the complexity of the garden itself. So the gardener is using their intelligence to design something that is less complex than it would be otherwise. In fact, when starting a garden in the spring, a gardener often removes all pre-existing plants, considering everything in the garden to be weeds. Surely a piece of ground with nothing in it but dirt is the least complex patch of ground that is possible.
But the shape of the monolith is not complex at all! In fact a rectangle is one of the simplest and least complex shapes possible. Even the color – pure-black – is less complex than any other color; certainly it less complex than any pattern of colors would be. But that ratio of 1:4:9 and color are very artificial. It is the artificiality that indicates ID, not complexity.
What’s even more interesting about this example is that it comes from a book written in 1968, well before the Intelligent Design movement had its roots. Yet the author theorized that if an alien civilization wanted to communicate with humans through an “intelligently designed” symbol, then the symbol would be simple rather than complex!
As a matter of fact, if you give the matter a little thought, it is obvious that complexity has absolutely nothing to do with Intelligent Design! Surely many intelligently designed things are complex; something like the space shuttle comes to mind.
But there are surely at least as many intelligently designed things that are not complex as there are examples of intelligently designed things that are complex.
As one simple, every-day example, consider what happens when someone weeds their garden. Removing the weeds reduces the complexity of the garden itself. So the gardener is using their intelligence to design something that is less complex than it would be otherwise. In fact, when starting a garden in the spring, a gardener often removes all pre-existing plants, considering everything in the garden to be weeds. Surely a piece of ground with nothing in it but dirt is the least complex patch of ground that is possible.
Another example from nature can be seen when we compare a typical forest to a Christmas tree farm. The forest consists of many trees of different species and ages planted in random patterns.
A Christmas tree farm consists of trees of the same species (or just a limited number of species) all roughly the same height illustrating that they were planted at the same time, arranged equally spaced in rows.
Yet it is the tree farm that is intelligently designed, not the regular forest. We can recognize that fact only because it is more artificial; the complexity or lack thereof is a non-factor.
One of the points of confusion is the meaning of the term “complexity”. A computer can quantify the complexity of data in a file by compressing it and then the number of bits (or bytes) in the compressed file can be used as a measure of its complexity. In more general, and possibly more practical terms, the complexity of something can be quantified by the number of words that are required to describe it. Something that lacks complexity can be described in relatively few words. On the other hand, something that is complex takes many more words to adequately describe it. A square is an easier shape to describe than is a trapezoid. So a trapezoid is more complex.
But here’s how one creationist argued against the arguments that I have just presented, focusing on my claim that “complexity” is not relevant:
> Specificity alone is insufficient. Drop five coins
> onto the table, and all five coins may land heads-up.
> That is quite specific, but not terribly complex,
> and doesn't particularly indicate intelligent
> manipulation.
> Drop a thousand coins and they land up approximately
> half heads and half tails; that's complex, but
> not specific, and doesn't indicate intelligent
> manipulation.
> Drop a thousand coins and they all land heads,
> that's both specific and complex, and you'd be
> highly suspicious that some intelligence had
> manipulated the coins somehow.
In fact, 1000 coins that are all-heads is not really more complex than five coins that are all heads. In either case, it can be described with this simple phrase: “all-heads”. With the larger number of coins, you have more data points but really no more complexity.
One way to understand this is to consider photographs. You could take a picture of a perfectly monochrome blue sky with both a low-resolution and a high-resolution camera. The high-resolution camera would have more data points (i.e. more pixels). But surely the two pictures would be judged by anyone as being equally complex. No one could look at the higher resolution image and claim that it is more complex merely because it has more data points. In fact, for all practical purposes you could describe either picture with a single “sky blue” pixel! That single point really describes, by itself, what the entire sky looked like.
Moreover with the picture of the blue sky, the additional data points don’t add artificiality any more than they add complexity. It is our perception that if one part of the sky is blue, there is an excellent chance that the rest of the sky will be blue as well. We’ve all seen completely blue skies. Nothing makes us view these pictures as unnecessarily artificial.
The only way to add complexity to the picture is to add additional items against the pure blue sky. If you added a cloud, an airplane or a bird to either image you would make it more complex. Similarly the pattern of coin flips becomes more complex as soon as some of the flips come up as tails. But as the pattern becomes more complex, it becomes less likely to be the result of intelligent design. So yet again, complexity tends to work against the recognition of ID.
As a matter of fact, all of the additional coins coming up only as “heads” are adding artificiality and not complexity. It is more artificial because we can calculate the odds that only “heads” will come up with each flip and at some relatively arbitrary point, come to the conclusion that the coin toss is “fixed” meaning that an intelligent agent is involved.
The odds that a fair coin will come up “heads” are one-out-of-two or 50%. The odds of “heads” coming up ‘N’ times consecutively are one in 2N.
The odds that heads will come up five consecutive times are 25 or one-chance-in-32. That’s about 3%. That might make a hardened skeptic suspicious, but many others would probably accept it as a reasonable chance even if it wasn’t very “likely”.
The next coin flip to come up “heads” decreases the odds by a factor of 2 to about 1.5%. The “heads” that comes up after that decreases the odds by yet another factor of 2. At this point, probably a few additional people are suspicious. As each coin flip comes up heads a continuously higher percentage of people become skeptics that the coin being flipped is honest. Surely after 1000 such flips, no one believes that some intelligent being didn’t do something to “fix” the coin so that it can only come up heads. But it is still just a matter of perception and the specific point where any particular individual becomes a skeptic will vary.
But a pattern of ten “heads” in a row isn’t more complex than a pattern of five “heads” in a row any more than a high-resolution picture of a perfectly blue sky is any more complex than a low-resolution picture of that same perfectly blue sky. It is simply more artificial because it is less likely to be the result of random events. In the case of flipped coins, we can calculate the amount of artificiality. We can’t do that with other things such as patterns on pieces of toast or faces in rock formations on Mars or the pattern of genes in DNA.
The only reason that people like Dembski use complexity in their arguments is that it allows them to bring lots of numbers into the argument. Over the years there has been a great deal of practical and theoretical work done, especially in computer science, towards quantifying complexity. Such studies provide algorithms that can be used to remove redundant information from messages allowing those messages to be sent more efficiently from one computer to another primarily over the Internet. If Dembski or some other ID advocate can convince people that complexity is a key factor in recognizing intelligent design, then they can apply these mathematical formulas and come up with numbers that have very many zeroes in them. Suddenly they can argue that something “specified” (i.e. “artificial”) could not have come about by chance because it is so unlikely.
But the argument is simply bogus. Complexity has nothing whatsoever to do with Intelligent Design. Artificiality is the only criterion that can be used to determine if something is intelligently designed. Artificiality can’t be quantified, except in very rare cases such as coin flips where specific odds of individual components are known.
Yet it is the tree farm that is intelligently designed, not the regular forest. We can recognize that fact only because it is more artificial; the complexity or lack thereof is a non-factor.
One of the points of confusion is the meaning of the term “complexity”. A computer can quantify the complexity of data in a file by compressing it and then the number of bits (or bytes) in the compressed file can be used as a measure of its complexity. In more general, and possibly more practical terms, the complexity of something can be quantified by the number of words that are required to describe it. Something that lacks complexity can be described in relatively few words. On the other hand, something that is complex takes many more words to adequately describe it. A square is an easier shape to describe than is a trapezoid. So a trapezoid is more complex.
But here’s how one creationist argued against the arguments that I have just presented, focusing on my claim that “complexity” is not relevant:
> Specificity alone is insufficient. Drop five coins
> onto the table, and all five coins may land heads-up.
> That is quite specific, but not terribly complex,
> and doesn't particularly indicate intelligent
> manipulation.
> Drop a thousand coins and they land up approximately
> half heads and half tails; that's complex, but
> not specific, and doesn't indicate intelligent
> manipulation.
> Drop a thousand coins and they all land heads,
> that's both specific and complex, and you'd be
> highly suspicious that some intelligence had
> manipulated the coins somehow.
In fact, 1000 coins that are all-heads is not really more complex than five coins that are all heads. In either case, it can be described with this simple phrase: “all-heads”. With the larger number of coins, you have more data points but really no more complexity.
One way to understand this is to consider photographs. You could take a picture of a perfectly monochrome blue sky with both a low-resolution and a high-resolution camera. The high-resolution camera would have more data points (i.e. more pixels). But surely the two pictures would be judged by anyone as being equally complex. No one could look at the higher resolution image and claim that it is more complex merely because it has more data points. In fact, for all practical purposes you could describe either picture with a single “sky blue” pixel! That single point really describes, by itself, what the entire sky looked like.
Moreover with the picture of the blue sky, the additional data points don’t add artificiality any more than they add complexity. It is our perception that if one part of the sky is blue, there is an excellent chance that the rest of the sky will be blue as well. We’ve all seen completely blue skies. Nothing makes us view these pictures as unnecessarily artificial.
The only way to add complexity to the picture is to add additional items against the pure blue sky. If you added a cloud, an airplane or a bird to either image you would make it more complex. Similarly the pattern of coin flips becomes more complex as soon as some of the flips come up as tails. But as the pattern becomes more complex, it becomes less likely to be the result of intelligent design. So yet again, complexity tends to work against the recognition of ID.
As a matter of fact, all of the additional coins coming up only as “heads” are adding artificiality and not complexity. It is more artificial because we can calculate the odds that only “heads” will come up with each flip and at some relatively arbitrary point, come to the conclusion that the coin toss is “fixed” meaning that an intelligent agent is involved.
The odds that a fair coin will come up “heads” are one-out-of-two or 50%. The odds of “heads” coming up ‘N’ times consecutively are one in 2N.
The odds that heads will come up five consecutive times are 25 or one-chance-in-32. That’s about 3%. That might make a hardened skeptic suspicious, but many others would probably accept it as a reasonable chance even if it wasn’t very “likely”.
The next coin flip to come up “heads” decreases the odds by a factor of 2 to about 1.5%. The “heads” that comes up after that decreases the odds by yet another factor of 2. At this point, probably a few additional people are suspicious. As each coin flip comes up heads a continuously higher percentage of people become skeptics that the coin being flipped is honest. Surely after 1000 such flips, no one believes that some intelligent being didn’t do something to “fix” the coin so that it can only come up heads. But it is still just a matter of perception and the specific point where any particular individual becomes a skeptic will vary.
But a pattern of ten “heads” in a row isn’t more complex than a pattern of five “heads” in a row any more than a high-resolution picture of a perfectly blue sky is any more complex than a low-resolution picture of that same perfectly blue sky. It is simply more artificial because it is less likely to be the result of random events. In the case of flipped coins, we can calculate the amount of artificiality. We can’t do that with other things such as patterns on pieces of toast or faces in rock formations on Mars or the pattern of genes in DNA.
The only reason that people like Dembski use complexity in their arguments is that it allows them to bring lots of numbers into the argument. Over the years there has been a great deal of practical and theoretical work done, especially in computer science, towards quantifying complexity. Such studies provide algorithms that can be used to remove redundant information from messages allowing those messages to be sent more efficiently from one computer to another primarily over the Internet. If Dembski or some other ID advocate can convince people that complexity is a key factor in recognizing intelligent design, then they can apply these mathematical formulas and come up with numbers that have very many zeroes in them. Suddenly they can argue that something “specified” (i.e. “artificial”) could not have come about by chance because it is so unlikely.
But the argument is simply bogus. Complexity has nothing whatsoever to do with Intelligent Design. Artificiality is the only criterion that can be used to determine if something is intelligently designed. Artificiality can’t be quantified, except in very rare cases such as coin flips where specific odds of individual components are known.
[1] http://www.ufoseek.org/marsleo.htm, referenced on January 3, 2009
[2] William A. Dembski (1999). Intelligent Design, p. 47
Intelligent Design Background Information
A fairly recent movement in the creationist community is the development of “Intelligent Design” (ID). ID has been proposed by creationists as an explanation for the diversity of life that they insist does not involve evolution does not depend on the Bible nor does it depend on the existence of God. They have eliminated all references to the Bible as well as any direct references to any sort of God (or god) and try to present arguments against evolution which they claim are solely “scientific”. They claim that the identity of the “designer” (or “Designer”) is irrelevant. That designer may be God, but they insist that it may just as easily be something completely different such as an alien life form. They publicly say that their arguments are not intended to promote a belief in any form of God.
That’s not their honest intent, however.
An organization named the “Discovery Institute” (DI) is the primary research and political arm of the ID movement. One of the leaders of that organization is Dr. Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson is a former law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also written a number of anti-evolution books focusing on ID as the best alternative explanation for problems he sees with evolution.
Dr. Johnson wrote a sort of manifesto describing the goals and strategies of the ID movement. It was called The Wedge Document. The document is given that title because it outlines a strategy to create a public affairs program that would create an opening for the supernatural in the public discussion of science.
"In the document’s own words it “describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to ‘defeat [scientific] materialism’ represented by evolution, ‘reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions’ and to ‘affirm the reality of God.’ Its goal is to ‘renew’ American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical Protestant, values.[1]”
“The wedge metaphor, attributed to Phillip E. Johnson, is that of a metal wedge splitting a log and represents using an aggressive public relations programme to create an opening for the supernatural in the public’s understanding of science.[2]”
The Wedge Document was intended to be kept secret. However, in a true story that would be difficult to make up, a janitor discovered a copy of the document while cleaning the Discovery Institute offices, made his own copy and then distributed that to interested members of the scientific community. The DI has since confirmed that it is a valid document.
Of course phrases like “a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions” unmistakably demonstrates religious goals for ID. No one should really be fooled by any other statements that they might make.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy, referenced on June 4, 2008
[2] Ibid.
That’s not their honest intent, however.
An organization named the “Discovery Institute” (DI) is the primary research and political arm of the ID movement. One of the leaders of that organization is Dr. Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson is a former law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also written a number of anti-evolution books focusing on ID as the best alternative explanation for problems he sees with evolution.
Dr. Johnson wrote a sort of manifesto describing the goals and strategies of the ID movement. It was called The Wedge Document. The document is given that title because it outlines a strategy to create a public affairs program that would create an opening for the supernatural in the public discussion of science.
"In the document’s own words it “describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to ‘defeat [scientific] materialism’ represented by evolution, ‘reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions’ and to ‘affirm the reality of God.’ Its goal is to ‘renew’ American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical Protestant, values.[1]”
“The wedge metaphor, attributed to Phillip E. Johnson, is that of a metal wedge splitting a log and represents using an aggressive public relations programme to create an opening for the supernatural in the public’s understanding of science.[2]”
The Wedge Document was intended to be kept secret. However, in a true story that would be difficult to make up, a janitor discovered a copy of the document while cleaning the Discovery Institute offices, made his own copy and then distributed that to interested members of the scientific community. The DI has since confirmed that it is a valid document.
Of course phrases like “a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions” unmistakably demonstrates religious goals for ID. No one should really be fooled by any other statements that they might make.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy, referenced on June 4, 2008
[2] Ibid.
Summary of the problems with the Flood of Noah
The listing of problems with the flood account in Genesis that I have presented on the BLOG, doesn’t come close to being complete. We also need to figure out how the animals got to the Ark, how the carnivores were kept from eating the other animals while living for a year together, how polar icecaps can exist through a flood, how plants survived, how diseases which require a living host survived (which of Noah’s family had each of the various venereal diseases) and many, many other problems, the sum total of which would fill a large book by themselves.
If you begin to discuss these individual problems with creationists, eventually they will almost certainly throw up their hands and admit that God was probably forced to perform numerous miracles.
One creationist put it this way:
> Special creation means that regardless of the factual evidence,
> God still could have done it and he owes us no defense for
> the way he has created and governed his world.
But isn’t that such an admission really a concession that God must be deceitful? What this creationist is saying is that God does some things and then apparently He hides all of the evidence.
Why would God do that? God doesn’t need to apologize for doing things however He wishes, but doesn’t He need to explain why He does things and then hides the evidence that He did those things? It surely seems to be a pretty pathetic explanation to claim that an omniscient being needs to “test our faith”.
Creationists are really trying to “prove” God’s existence by trying to find evidence that the Bible is inerrantly true. If God doesn’t hide evidence because He is deceptive, then at a minimum He is saying that He doesn’t want there to be evidence proving that the Bible is inerrant. Whatever God’s reasons are, aren’t creationists going against God’s wishes by looking for proof?
I must share another observation here. As long as I have been debating creationists, I have noticed their utter lack of enthusiasm for discussing problems with the flood account in the Bible. For a long time, I felt that was only a matter of creationists being unwilling to look at their own beliefs.
More recently my view has changed a bit. Surely many creationists are still unwilling to test their own views. But I now believe that creationists are more influenced by another factor.
That factor: the cause of the flood was God. God can do anything. As I mentioned before, creationists simply believe that God performed a lot of miracles.
So all of these many questions have the same answer in the eyes of most creationists:
Q: Where did the water for the flood come from?
A: It was a miracle.
Q: Where did the water for the flood go afterwards?
A: It was a miracle.
Q: How did the animals get to the Ark?
A: It was a miracle.
And so on.
If there are 1000 problems with the flood account, then God performed 1000 miracles.
No problem!
Actually there is a problem. That problem is that these many, many miracles define a God who isn’t really very competent. There were many ways for God to achieve his goal without using so many miracles.
God sent the Flood because men had become wicked and man’s heart was only filled with evil at all times.
The reason why God chose to kill all of the animals as well (except for those on the Ark) is unclear, but only Noah found favor with God and only Noah and his family was to be saved.
But is a global flood really needed in order to accomplish that?
What if, instead, God had created some very contagious, instantly fatal disease but made Noah and his family immune to that disease?
Problem solved, or so it would seem. At most two miracles are required.
Even if God really wanted to do something similar to all of the animals, he could have done something similar with them as well. All of the problems that we see with the flood would have disappeared.
So why did God choose a course of action that required possibly thousands of miracles when it is quite possible that only a single (or at least a small number) of miracles was really necessary?
In essence, a strong argument could be made that an insistence that the flood account is true diminishes God’s character by making him barely competent. (I get the image of God slapping his forehead and saying, “Why didn’t I think of that when asked about using diseases?”)
And, in fact, a truly competent God could have come up with another solution even more elegant than the one that I suggest here.
So we have yet more support that creationism is actually anti-God.
If you begin to discuss these individual problems with creationists, eventually they will almost certainly throw up their hands and admit that God was probably forced to perform numerous miracles.
One creationist put it this way:
> Special creation means that regardless of the factual evidence,
> God still could have done it and he owes us no defense for
> the way he has created and governed his world.
But isn’t that such an admission really a concession that God must be deceitful? What this creationist is saying is that God does some things and then apparently He hides all of the evidence.
Why would God do that? God doesn’t need to apologize for doing things however He wishes, but doesn’t He need to explain why He does things and then hides the evidence that He did those things? It surely seems to be a pretty pathetic explanation to claim that an omniscient being needs to “test our faith”.
Creationists are really trying to “prove” God’s existence by trying to find evidence that the Bible is inerrantly true. If God doesn’t hide evidence because He is deceptive, then at a minimum He is saying that He doesn’t want there to be evidence proving that the Bible is inerrant. Whatever God’s reasons are, aren’t creationists going against God’s wishes by looking for proof?
I must share another observation here. As long as I have been debating creationists, I have noticed their utter lack of enthusiasm for discussing problems with the flood account in the Bible. For a long time, I felt that was only a matter of creationists being unwilling to look at their own beliefs.
More recently my view has changed a bit. Surely many creationists are still unwilling to test their own views. But I now believe that creationists are more influenced by another factor.
That factor: the cause of the flood was God. God can do anything. As I mentioned before, creationists simply believe that God performed a lot of miracles.
So all of these many questions have the same answer in the eyes of most creationists:
Q: Where did the water for the flood come from?
A: It was a miracle.
Q: Where did the water for the flood go afterwards?
A: It was a miracle.
Q: How did the animals get to the Ark?
A: It was a miracle.
And so on.
If there are 1000 problems with the flood account, then God performed 1000 miracles.
No problem!
Actually there is a problem. That problem is that these many, many miracles define a God who isn’t really very competent. There were many ways for God to achieve his goal without using so many miracles.
God sent the Flood because men had become wicked and man’s heart was only filled with evil at all times.
The reason why God chose to kill all of the animals as well (except for those on the Ark) is unclear, but only Noah found favor with God and only Noah and his family was to be saved.
But is a global flood really needed in order to accomplish that?
What if, instead, God had created some very contagious, instantly fatal disease but made Noah and his family immune to that disease?
Problem solved, or so it would seem. At most two miracles are required.
Even if God really wanted to do something similar to all of the animals, he could have done something similar with them as well. All of the problems that we see with the flood would have disappeared.
So why did God choose a course of action that required possibly thousands of miracles when it is quite possible that only a single (or at least a small number) of miracles was really necessary?
In essence, a strong argument could be made that an insistence that the flood account is true diminishes God’s character by making him barely competent. (I get the image of God slapping his forehead and saying, “Why didn’t I think of that when asked about using diseases?”)
And, in fact, a truly competent God could have come up with another solution even more elegant than the one that I suggest here.
So we have yet more support that creationism is actually anti-God.
Caring for all of the animals would have been impossible
This question raises a whole host of issues that don’t have satisfactory answers.
Many animals require very specialized diets. Koala bears, for example, only eat eucalyptus leaves. How was that food accumulated and stored?
Many animals require fresh food. Food on a large ship in a humid, poorly-ventilated environment for a year would surely spoil and be infested with pests. Note that there were no refrigerators around. How was the food kept fresh?
Many animals require exercise. How was that accomplished in such a confined area?
How were the waste materials handled? There would have been many tons of manure produced each and every day.
Note that all of this care and feeding was accomplished with a crew of only eight people.
The American Zoo Association (AZA) publishes recommendations[1] for staff sizes depending on the number of animals to be cared for. They distinguish between vertebrates and invertebrates. (Invertebrates lack a “vertebral column” – commonly called a backbone. They are animals like worms and insects that generally take less care than vertebrates. Most invertebrates live in water.)Here are some statistics for AZA-accredited institutions.
Smallest zoo: 20 animals (6 species)
Smallest staff: six.
Animal-to-staff ratio: 3.3:1
Largest zoo: 12,907 animals (824 species)
Largest staff: 1,390.
Animal-to-staff ratio: 9.3:1 (These include vertebrate as well as invertebrate animals.)
Vertebrate animal-to-staff-number ratio at the National Zoo: 7.8:1.
None of these zoos have a ratio of more than ten vertebrates per staff member.
Of course modern zoos are also staffed with many people who have college and advanced degrees in animal behavior and biology, including at least one veterinarian at even the smallest zoo. They also have access to modern equipment and medicines.
On modern farms, it is possible to have as many as 86 animals per farm worker[2].
That’s only because all of the animals are the same species with the same diet, etc. But even that figure falls far short of what would be required of Noah and his family.Noah's family of eight people could realistically take care of no more than 500 animals in total. Even that is stretching it dramatically.
Creationists would have us believe that Noah and each member of his family - all apparently non-professionals certainly without any modern equipment and medicines - was able to care for thousands of individuals species of animals individually.
That is simply not possible.
[1] http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10932&page=9, referenced on May 8, 2008
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/news/2001_03/21/fandm_info.shtml, referenced on May 8, 2008
Many animals require very specialized diets. Koala bears, for example, only eat eucalyptus leaves. How was that food accumulated and stored?
Many animals require fresh food. Food on a large ship in a humid, poorly-ventilated environment for a year would surely spoil and be infested with pests. Note that there were no refrigerators around. How was the food kept fresh?
Many animals require exercise. How was that accomplished in such a confined area?
How were the waste materials handled? There would have been many tons of manure produced each and every day.
Note that all of this care and feeding was accomplished with a crew of only eight people.
The American Zoo Association (AZA) publishes recommendations[1] for staff sizes depending on the number of animals to be cared for. They distinguish between vertebrates and invertebrates. (Invertebrates lack a “vertebral column” – commonly called a backbone. They are animals like worms and insects that generally take less care than vertebrates. Most invertebrates live in water.)Here are some statistics for AZA-accredited institutions.
Smallest zoo: 20 animals (6 species)
Smallest staff: six.
Animal-to-staff ratio: 3.3:1
Largest zoo: 12,907 animals (824 species)
Largest staff: 1,390.
Animal-to-staff ratio: 9.3:1 (These include vertebrate as well as invertebrate animals.)
Vertebrate animal-to-staff-number ratio at the National Zoo: 7.8:1.
None of these zoos have a ratio of more than ten vertebrates per staff member.
Of course modern zoos are also staffed with many people who have college and advanced degrees in animal behavior and biology, including at least one veterinarian at even the smallest zoo. They also have access to modern equipment and medicines.
On modern farms, it is possible to have as many as 86 animals per farm worker[2].
That’s only because all of the animals are the same species with the same diet, etc. But even that figure falls far short of what would be required of Noah and his family.Noah's family of eight people could realistically take care of no more than 500 animals in total. Even that is stretching it dramatically.
Creationists would have us believe that Noah and each member of his family - all apparently non-professionals certainly without any modern equipment and medicines - was able to care for thousands of individuals species of animals individually.
That is simply not possible.
[1] http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10932&page=9, referenced on May 8, 2008
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/news/2001_03/21/fandm_info.shtml, referenced on May 8, 2008
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