Why so few Americans believe in natural selection

Very few Americans believe in the theory of natural selection. A recent news article summarizes: “Gallup puts that number at 14 percent, while the Pew Research Center puts it at 26 percent.” Why?

It’s not a difficult question. The theory of natural selection is deeply counter-intuitive. One fall afternoon with milkweed pods and maple leaves, one summer morning watching trout in a pool of crystal-clear water, one experience of raising a horse from birth to adulthood, one look into the eyes of an awestruck child, and the idea that all these things came about through a process governed by chance alone vanishes into thin air.

If you think you have a better explanation, I’d like to hear it. 

Comments

[Stephen Barkley]

I blame our collective ego.

Humanity took a hit when we first realized the earth was not the center of the universe. How much more discouraging is it to hear that your whole existence is shaped through natural selection?

[JohnFH]

Maybe so. However, note that Psalm 8 is a witness to a non-geocentric view of the cosmos.

Believers of the Jewish and Christian traditions ought to, if faithful to their own roots, think of themselves as very *micro,* very small, compared to the *macro,* the entire cosmos, in which the moon and the stars are obviously the greater entities.

Most people I think have little difficulty with the notion that our existence is shaped or *determined in part* by chance. It is the notion that it is completely or overwhelmingly determined by chance that is counter-intuitive.

[G. Kyle Essary]

Our family read Psalm 8 last night and I was thinking the same thing about how micro we really are in God's grand scheme...and yet we are so dear to him.

I balk at the term "natural" selection as a Christian, just as much as I would balk at "supernatural" selection.

My account for biodiversity would be the same as most biologists...but wouldn't they take offense if I said I said it was "created" selection? Since I frame everything in terms of God's Creation, doesn't it seem redundant for me to speak of "created" selection? I find "natural" to be similar. If by "natural" you mean that it is part of nature, then its as obvious as saying its created since it's part of Creation, and thus an unnecessary term.

If something else is intended by the term, what is it? But is the term to exclude God's providence in the process, or his foresight and wisdom in setting things up this way? If so, then I'm opposed to it.

[G. Kyle Essary]

By the way, I balk at "supernatural" selection, because to a Christian its a useless term. God providentially upholds all things, and the process of evolution would be no less (or more) supernatural than my eating breakfast each morning or reading a book to my kids. In Him we live and move and have our being after all, so if that means everything is "supernatural" then the term really doesn't have any meaning.

[Steve]

I would imagine that it is because these Americans, like you, don't acknowledge that natural selection isn't the same thing as "random" evolution.

Natural selection is one of the reasons evolutionary processes are not just random chance. And it's not at all counter-intuitive: traits are selected because of an advantage they yield. Granted, scientists today acknowledge many more factors in evolution than simple "survival of the fittest, but seriously - who would doubt that, e.g., a society that preferred brown eyes would after a couple centuries be composed mostly of brown-eyed people?

[A Facebook User]

I tend to agree that unless one spends a lot of time at a zoo or a natural history museum, travels widely with an eye to nature or studies biology asking “why?” and “how?” rather than simply “what?” questions, natural selection is not a priori intuitive. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken Darwin and Wallace to figure it out. However, most (all?) intuitions are learned; they are not a priori. As a nation, I think we are woefully undereducated in the basics of biology. Teacher and administrator fear of dealing directly with the subject at every grade level or sometimes any grade level drives some part, perhaps some large part, of this. In addition, I think many Americans have a rather twisted view of authority. We tend to subject legitimate authority to unceasing skepticism (a good thing on its own) but questionable authority will nearly always find an audience. When questionable authority reinforces prejudices (i.e. false intuitions) it will often find a big, often vocal, audience. Our news media doesn’t help in this. By seeking two or more opinions on every subject, even those for which there is but a single reasonable opinion, it provides an outlet for ideas that have otherwise not earned an outlet in the court of studied opinion.

[JohnFH]

Hi Steve,

Actually, I was not describing my own position. I was just trying to answer a simple question.

Please, explain yourself better. If survival of the fittest is not the only thing driving evolution, what are the other drivers?

[JohnFH]

Facebook User,

A lot of things that scientists know to be the case are counter-intuitive. I concur. The law of gravity, for example, or the behavior of split protons.

But I don't see how science can establish that the process of evolution lacks design at a high level of abstraction. I'm not saying that it can establish it, either.

I'm just thinking this through. Your remarks are welcome.

[A Facebook User]

John,

It is not uncommon for there to be design without a designer. Some self-assembling geological formations are rather obvious examples. I’m not sure what “high level of abstraction” means.

I have no idea why my comment came trough as “Facebook user.” My (ab)normal name is Duane

[Alan Lenzi]

John, I think there is a cognitive propensity in humans to find order and agency around them, whether it exists or not. This is something that is deep-seated; it is part of our hard-wiring. So natural selection as a blind process, I think, is counter-intuitive in a very, very deep sense. What we observe looks quite ordered, even designed. So of course people will have a hard time accepting that it isn't. Mix in a culture permeated with resistance to evolution based in religion, and it's no wonder the numbers are so low.

[smijer]

Extremely good discussion in these comments. I'll try to phrase my agreement with elements of what John says and elements of what other commenters say all together.

As Alan says, due in part to the cognitive propensity in humans to find order and agency around them whether it exists or not, John is right that it is deeply counterintuitive to see the awesome complexities of nature as having come about without the aid of a purposeful agent. As Steve says, the misunderstanding of natural selection as a "chance" or "random" process on the part of many Americans who are, as Duane/Facebook notes woefully uneducated, leaves many with an incorrect but counterintuitive notion of how natural selection works. But, as Duane/Facebook also points out, a better understanding of the process of natural selection does reveal the power of that process and therefore diminishes the counterintuitive effect.

To answer Kyle, the original distinction that entailed the nomenclature of "natural" selection was with "artificial" selection, or deliberate breeding by human agencies. Natural selection means that selection occurs as a result of natural circumstances. I would object to "created" selection because 1) it assumes that there is creation, which is not a scientific result, 2) it could be confused readily with "cosmic tinkering" - which I don't believe is how you understand it. I believe you understand it that nature was created with the teleological purpose that - through its process - creatures desired by God would come to exist. Which is not inconsistent with science. But, we would expect to seem something different than what we do see under the scenario of "cosmic tinkering", and "cosmic tinkering" entails the necessity that nature was inadequate to do the job its creator (presuming that your view is correct) had in mind for it, suggesting limitations on the power of providence.

John, to answer your question, there are a number of effects evident in natural history and in modern population genetics that influence evolution. Genetic drift and other forms of neutral selection come to mind. More radically, endosymbiosis and retroviral insertion come to mind... though selection can act on the results of these last two processes, and they could possibly be subsumed under the heading of "genetic variability" upon which natural selection operates. They are however, unique methods of bringing genetic variation, and *I* at least look at them as bringing elements into play not accounted for by the modern synthesis.

Of course genetic variation does come about in part by processes constrained deterministically but which have degrees of freedom within that deterministic constraint that are correctly understood as "chance" variation. I think this introduction of a limited role for "chance" within the process is what confuses the many who incorrectly believe that selection is a "process of chance".

[Manlius]

Natural selection isn't the same thing as evolution. While the evidence for evolution has strengthened, natural selection as evolution's key explanation has been increasingly questioned. Philosopher Jerry Fodor is an atheist and evolutionist, but his book _What Darwin Got Wrong_ is a stinging critique of natural selection as theory. Check out this dialogue on bloggingheads: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/26848

Religious people should realize that observational science, as in natural history, supports evolution. Scientists, however, need to be more philosophically aware that evolution has not yet found its foundational theory. As Fodor points out, scientists need to admit that being a good scientist doesn't necessarily make one a good philosopher of science.

[smijer]

Manlinus, I've read Fodor & Patielli's central criticisms of NS. They badly misunderstood the theory, and therefore, their critique fell well short of undermining it.

[JohnFH]

Duane [AKA Facebook User],

That is so weird with the login glitch. Perhaps if you log out and log in fresh, you can sign in correctly, and by hand.

I love self-assembly. I've always thought of that as excellent evidence for the existence of a first-rate Technologist in charge of the whole works. Sorry, just being a tease.

From an online source I couldn't find the author for:

"Self-assembly is ubiquitous in nature, and can be observed in the formation of galaxies, in the evolution of geological formations and climate patterns, in the formation of bubbles and snowflakes, in the sedimentation of colloids, in chemical reactions, and in the process in which a fertilized egg together with the surrounding nutrients in the womb self-assembles into a baby."

Let's take the self-assembly of bubbles. What could be more obvious than the self-assembly of bubbles? Absolutely cool.

Yet it is still counter-intuitive to suggest that bubbles are uncaused. They always are caused. And it is counterintuitive to suggest that, as one moves back in the chain of cause and effect, there isn't someone with a great sense of humor who designed a universe to be full of hilarious bubbles. Even though no one believes that God creates the bubbles one by one every time we boil water, though I might say that in a poetic frame.

Note: I'm not saying it's not possible for there to be no answer to the question, why are there bubbles, butterflies, and sunsets, rather than nothing of the kind? I'm just saying it's counterintuitive to say this kind of question is without an answer. That no one is behind these amazing things.

Furthermore, let's face it, said questions are beyond the purview of science as normally understood. I'm hoping we can at least agree on that.

[JohnFH]

Smijer,

I'm very appreciative of your expert comment here. I've read enough to have heard of genetic drift and endosymbiosis, and to know that natural selection is under debate at the moment, and not just from F & P. I just wanted to get someone else to put forward one of the many current syntheses on offer at the moment. I like yours very much.

Why? Because of the homologies of the new and improved biological theory with the interface of chance, free will, and divine determinism in a carefully thought out biblically-informed worldview.

[David Ker]

I'm OK with natural selection. I see it in my flowerbed and even in the classroom.

Maybe it's natural selection as the basis of complexity, blah blah blah that people balk at.

What I liked about those statistics from Gallup is the number of people who don't have an opinion or in other words who don't really care since it doesn't really matter that much.

[JohnFH]

I agree David. "Fully 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, 85 percent in heaven and 82 percent in miracles," according to one recent poll.

Who cares then, if God created the biosphere through the miracle of evolution, or by some other miraculous means?

Those scientists not part of those very high percentages may frown, but I think that sums it up pretty accurately. Most people find the idea of God, heaven, and miracles necessary postulates somehow.

[Rev. Bryant J. Williams III]

Dear John,

I look at Creation as the order world that was Designed by God in good (perfect) order. A lot of evolution theories indicate the disorder of the cosmos. True Creationist will see both.

You may ask, "What did he just say?" Yes, I said both. The reasons are quite simple. God created everything good (perfect), but Adam sinned and that caused "chaos" in creation. Thus, if the evolutionist wants to explain creation by means of a "purely" naturalist (anti-supernatural) explanation, then go for it, but don't say that the evidence does not point to a creator.

"The fool hath said in his heart,'There is no god.'"

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

[blop2008]

John and to all reader,

I am certain it is incorrect to compare Tornadoes, snow flakes and other naturalistic formations in nature with living organisms that include living cells and DNA.

I don't want to retype all the information to defend this position, please follow these links, which I have analyzed back in 2007-2008 during a dispute I had with atheists:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/perryspeaks/

and this:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/iidb.htm

and this one:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/naturallyoccurringcode.htm

Enjoy!

[blop2008]

Oh! and this one:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dnanotcode.htm

[JohnFH]

Bryant and Blop, Thanks for your contributions.

[blop2008]

Sure John! No Problem.

DNA, the basis for all living organism - even for viruses which aren't considered "Bio" - is a self-splicing, self-assembling, self-detecting and self-correcting language and code. It contains the high-specified information to direct chemicals and micro as well as nano-substances into not only their assembling but their repair as well.

Viruses need a host and can't self-replicate. That's why they aren't Bio. But they are still "machines" and contain DNA or RNA directing their very robotic purpose of injecting their Code into a host.

A snow flake or tornadoe will NOT repair itself nor detect malformations. That's why they are snowflakes or tornadoes. Life is not mere Chemicals, it's highly specified information that makes the consituents work together to form complex systems and sub-systems. It's more complicated than the Error correcting Code (ECC) Memory Modules in the network servers we have at our pharmaceutical plant (I work in IT).

To compare naturalistic formations with living organisms is like comparing McInstosh Apples with Bananas. They aren't just the same color, they are not even the same shape :-)

[Brooke]

The concept of natural selection as an explanation for the fact of evolution, properly understood, is so simple that it's hard for me to grasp why Americans fail to accept it.

Often, they misunderstand it as "blind chance" (the Boeing-jet-from-a-junkyard canard). Or, they misunderstand it as a theory for the beginnings of life, confounding it with the abiogenesis issue. Some may be emotionally unprepared to embrace the kinds of "deep time" necessary for natural selection to work.

Overall, though, it's because a larger percent of Americans than other countries have (religiously-motivated) *emotional* reasons to recoil at the theory. And, as a theology professor of my acquaintance is fond of saying:

"Emotion trumps reason. Every time."

[JohnFH]

The funny thing, as you know Brooke, because we've discussed it a bit offline, is that it is not that hard to come up with a clarifying metaphor for how natural selection works so long as one allows for the possibility that it is, at a hidden level, guided.

That is the metaphor of a gambling casino.

Each "occurrence" in biological mutation happens in the same way that things happen in a gambling casino. Every singular event is governed by the rules of chance.

Nonetheless, the setup as a whole is purpose-driven: to reap profits for the casino owner. Which it does, big time.

God is the owner of the casino we call the biosphere. He lets all kinds of things happen on the floor. Even cheating, within limits. But
he still gets what he wants out of what happens, day after day.

And, as you might add, if the house is set up properly, then attempts by individuals to find evidence of the larger purpose within the patterns of short-term, local phenomena (winning or losing streaks, say, or patterns in red and black coming up on the wheel) will be confounded at every turn.

As for the interrelation of reason and emotion, I've come to the conclusion that a dichotomy between the two doesn't get us very far.

We really need to reverse the Cartesian dictum, cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. Antonio Damasio has done a great job of showing this. But really, he was beaten to the punch by the author of 1 John, who said (I paraphrase slightly): I love, therefore I know (1 John 4:7-8).

Damasio's research with patients with prefrontal damage points the way. Such patients are able to reason logically, but their damaged emotional capacity impairs their ability to make (so-called) rational decisions. They are able to endlessly enumerate advantages and disadvantages, but without emotions they did not know what to choose in the end (see Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain [New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994] 44-51, 191-96).

The larger question: why exactly are emotions, ever-so-subjective feeeeelings, essential to moral decision-making? First of all, anyone well-read in evolutionary biology will know that the faux Darwinian notion of the selfish gene is a bunch of hooey. Already according to Darwin, the evolutionary development of morality has its roots in social instincts reinforced or modified by community opinion (The Descent of Man, 101-31 in the 1989 edition thereof).

But it's not just moral decision-making that requires emotional input. All choice-making of any significance is an embodied act. We are not brains on a stick.

[DanielJL]

Great discussion.

Even if the mechanism is natural selection, is there any reason whatsoever why natural selection works the way it does? Is there any reason why there are colors? Is there any reason why there are those bubbles? Is there any reason why there is laughter? Is there any reason why there are palm trees? Is there any reason why we even enjoy these thing? Then what about death and destruction?

I think that's part of the whole grand narrative Genesis portrays; things were made good but something went wrong. Of course these questions are beyond the scientific method of reasoning. Then what about death and destruction? But it's reasonable to expect this with a theistic account to creation, not the contrary.

[blop2008]

Quote:
"The concept of natural selection as an explanation for the fact of evolution, properly understood, is so simple that it's hard for me to grasp why Americans fail to accept it."

Brooke,

It's a simple *theory* that cannot explain what we see in nature nor in the empirical science nor in historical science, which is why YECs, some OECs and ID debate the *specificalities* of it. Mutations nor natural selection can increase the information of a living organisms so that they become something other than what they already are. Evolutionists were way off about Junk DNA many years ago and now many have admitted it that it's not Junk after all. But because they keep embracing the rest of the "evolution evidence", they seek to find how this fits with the standard model.

It's not simple. Not at all. Because the real core issue isn't if the Standard evolutionary model (Mutations/Natural Selelection/XXX) has happened or can happen, but what it can *DO*. Don't overlook information theory, it's part of the puzzle.

If you spend a few years analyzing ID, YEC, OEC and other proponents that mix things, since not one party has it all figured out, you'll understand what I mean.

[blop2008]

...This is why I propose for the moment, but I may be wrong - I'm no expert - that God created each kind of living organism: Fish, Land animals, birds, Humans and than the species were generated from the prototypes; sorting and loss of information occurred producing different kinds of species and sub-species; or something similar to this.

Taxonomy and anthropology is weak - but must not be overlooked - and experts can argue about bones all year long, Read: *Anthropological Parallelomania* :-)

[JohnFH]

Blop,

Let's see if I understand you. You see various genera (plural of genus) coming into existence first, from which the species individuated. But not apparently with primates in the case of hominids, or at least not in the case of homo sapiens.

Here are some issues. Paleoanthropologists for example (including friends of mine) don't argue about bones so much as try to make sense of them. Geneticists look at the almost identical DNA and presume that we are related to chimpanzees by common descent. It's not about arguing. It's about starting with a credible working hypothesis and running with it.

Do you think you have an alternative working hypothesis a scientist ought to find credible? Then you need to work it out carefully and show how it explains all the data in hand better than the reigning hypothesis. Anything less is just putzing around.

ID is compatible with evC, YEC, and OEC, so we can put that aside. But you refer to YEC as if it were plausible whereas you seem to think of evC as scarcely plausible.

I don't see how you can reach this conclusion except on the basis of (I think faulty) exegesis of biblical passages.

For example, I have yet to read one paper suggestive of a young earth except by people who think that the earth is young or the Bible is full of hooey. But if that is the premise, it is worse than weak from a scientific point of view. It is positively poisonous.

The study of physics, biology, chemistry, genetics, etc. has to develop hypotheses based on evidence within its purview, not interpretations of ancient cosmological literature of the kind we find in the Bible, the Quran, or somewhere else. It's not clear why such texts should be drawn into the discussion unless one starts from the assumption that they were designed to anticipate the kind of conclusions scientists would reach today if they were in their right minds. But that assumption is very hard to defend.

I have heard Muslim apologetes suggest that the Quran prefigures modern discoveries and whatever they don't like in current scientific theories, they ignore or write off - as you seem to do - because it is going to be refined again in the future, who knows by how much, as it has in the past.

That is a game apologetes like to play, but it is the opposite of science. Science is not a spectator sport. You have to run with a ball and try to score. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. One thing that is not much appreciated: people who throw stuff from the peanut gallery. This is how YECers and OECers come across to scientists I know. The situation with IDers is more complicated.

[blop2008]

John,

Don't know which Geneticists you refer to, perhaps their framework is narrow. Similarities in DNA John does not make a "primate" common to our descent. If so, then we must come from fruits and vegetables! What I just said is very exaggerated, but this is part of the Junk DNA theory that has been quietly been put aside, although I acknowledge I am a bit behind as of now in the game since I haven't been actively researching this matter for several months. There very close similarities between Humans and other living species. Both ID *and* YEC understand that similarities in DNA does not do it that easy. Many kinds of living organisms have similarities, even high similarities but the fact is that from the pool of letters in DNA many different results can take place.

Junk DNA has been found to be used during the formation of a fetus, during which high specificalities occur.

It's a bit like Dermatalogists who try to "cure" acne with Drugs and facial products. It doesn't work that way. It helps, but that isn't the root of the problem. How many Dermatologists have claimed that food doesn't cause acne? Many! And they have credentials! All over! But food does trigger sebum production; depending what it is. I'm NOT tying this to evolution at all, just making a point.

I wish I could expound more but it would be time consuming.

We're just exchanging here. I'll be reviewing this whole matter of evolution in the months to come, time permits, but I want to get back to learning modern and biblical Hebrew/Greek :-)

I'll send you an email later in the year to ask you for resources to advance my research.

[JohnFH]

Happy to help out with the biblical languages, blop. You will want to find a flesh-and-blood teacher first of all, of the kind that eats fruits and vegetables.

Have you ever read anything by Antony Flew? Great guy, very logical. He was an atheist most of his life, but came to believe in a creator God late in life. Not much flesh on his God, about as much on that of Einstein's God. Still, it's interesting.

Flew has essential advice for those who wish to be sincere in intellectual engagement. Go here:

http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/intermediate/flew-speaks-out-professor-antony-flew-reviews-the-god-delusion.htm

Key quote:

The fault of Dawkins as an academic was his scandalous and apparently deliberate refusal to present the doctrine which he appears to think he has refuted in its strongest form.

It's important not to fall into Dawkins' error. It's something to keep in mind when you examine the theory of evolution in greater depth.

[blop2008]

Right, thanks!

Concerning YEC, take Dr. Russell Humphreys for instance. He was an evolutionist and became creationist. He has published real peer-review articles. His cosmological framework was highly criticized. A real scientist. Some YEC were evolutionists, and didn't just become YEC because they believe the Bible; that doesn't make them right, nor vice-versa.

QUOTE from Humphreys (a bit out of context):

" I remember having similar attitudes when I was a grad student in physics, while I was still an evolutionist. I was wondering about a seeming inconsistency in biological evolutionism. But, I told myself, surely the experts know the answer, and I've got my dissertation to do. I had no idea that (a) the experts had no answer for it, and (b) the implications were extremely important, affecting my entire worldview".

Ref: Creation Ministries International, Monthly Newsletter, December 2008.

[JohnFH]

No, Blop. I'm not trying to decide whether someone is right or wrong here. I'm trying to point out that a YECer is not going to publish YECist theses in a journal of geology, biology, physics, whatever, if what they are doing is setting aside the reigning hypothesis on the basis of an interpretation of the Bible or the Quran.

I have yet to meet a YECer who claims to do otherwise. The YEC approach is not data-driven, except in the sense that a YECer treats his or her interpretation of the Bible or the Quran as data.

You don't mind this. You are fine with it. And that's okay. You are trying to integrate knowledge from various sources, and you allow the age of the earth you think you can derive from the Bible to trump whatever evidence leads scientists to hold that the earth is rather old. Okay, just so long as one is honest about what is going on.

But a scientist cannot present a paper at a conference or get it published if he allows his interpretation of the Quran or the Bible to determine his conclusions. I trust you will agree that it is right and proper that it is so.

[blop2008]

Right. Ok capiche. But understand as well that YEC have also proposed things or already understood things that evolutionists now find are incorrect. I understand that using the Bible as scientific data or as basis is incorrect. We already discussed this in the other post. It's mainly because of their view on inspiration and innerancy. Remember?

I compute John. YEC do not, mind you, publish material just about Young Earth Creationism (geological/cosmological material). Im not a YEC. Im undecided because the matter is extremely complicated cosmologically and biologically. I have researched much more concerning biological matters than geological and cosmological dilemmas. But yeah, your point is indeed correct. I'll leave it here, it was a great exchange.

[JohnFH]

It was a great exchange. Thanks for your patience and wit.

[Dannii]

Hi John,

I agree with Steve above, who said you musn't understand the distinction between natural selection and evolution.

I believe that natural selection is entirely intuitive. We would expect that animals with longer fur will survive more easily in cold climates, and will struggle in hot climates. Of course animals with the genes for a higher muscle to body weight ratio will run faster and escape predators more than their slow relatives. That's natural selection and I don't think anyone would doubt it.

But it can only select from traits that exist already. Populations will have genes for long and short fur, and natural selection will select which genes become dominant in each population based on the environment etc. What evolution is about is adding new traits to the population, through random mutation. That random processes can add helpful and useful traits to a population (which can then be selected and eventually pass through the whole population) is what I, and many others, find counter-intuitive.

[JohnFH]

Hi Dannii,

Perhaps we are in thorough disagreement here. You say:

"That random processes can add helpful and useful traits to a population (which can then be selected and eventually pass through the whole population) is what I, and many others, find counter-intuitive."

I find *that,* on the contrary, to be intuitively the case. Life in some sense seems to be exactly that, an ordeal in which all kinds of things are thrown at you, for whatever reason, and those things either make you, or break you.

Conversely, whereas the examples you give of natural selection, I grant, are intuitive, the examples I gave are not. It is not a sufficient, or at least, it is not an intuitive explanation of art to describe it (as sociobiologists have) as a strategy for attracting mates. Art isn't about being helpful or useful. At the very least it is far more than that and, in specific cases, is helpful only and precisely in the sense that is not helpful.

There are many things in nature that fall, intuitively, in the same basket. The list I gave, beginning with milkweed pods and maple leaves are examples. It boggles the mind to think of the end result as an accumulation of helpful and useful traits.

As Shakespeare noted, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

To recap, I agree with what you affirm - that it makes intuitive sense that some things in nature, of the kind you list, are the result of natural selection - but not with what you deny - that many other things are not.

Furthermore, I remain convinced that people find it intuitive that life and the development of life are analogous to, I don't know, Crash Bandicoot and a million other video games, an ordeal in which what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

[Dannii]

I find *that,* on the contrary, to be intuitively the case. Life in some sense seems to be exactly that, an ordeal in which all kinds of things are thrown at you, for whatever reason, and those things either make you, or break you.

The random processes I was talking about were the mutations - entirely unrelated to the (sometimes) random ordeals we face in life.

There are many things in nature that fall, intuitively, in the same basket. The list I gave, beginning with milkweed pods and maple leaves are examples. It boggles the mind to think of the end result as an accumulation of helpful and useful traits.

I agree! The art of the nature world is entirely the result of the deliberate, intelligent and creative acts of God. For sure it plays a part in romance, as humans share a small part of God's good taste of beauty (the animals too share an even smaller part!)

But, natural selection does not accumulate anything. It selects pre-existing traits, keeping the helpful ones and disposing of the bad ones. Evolution proposes that mutations are the source of new traits (which can then be filtered and selected). That's where my problem is: how can directionless random mutations produce both beauty and information-rich new traits?

[JohnFH]

Thanks for the conversation, Dannii.

I brought up random ordeals in individual human experience not because they are *related* to random processes in nature but because they provide an analogy of the kind that makes it intuitive that random things can either make you or break you.

We are not talking about *relatedness* - you inadvertently switched the subject - we are talking about things being intuitive or not.

But hey, intuition is a subjective thing, so if it's not intuitive to you, maybe it just isn't.

We are in agreement that it is not intuitive that many things in nature of extraordinary beauty serve a purely utilitarian purpose. Maybe they do, but it is not and never will be an easy conclusion to reach.

It is much easier to see what Gerard Manley Hopkins saw than it is to accept that everything from the colors of a sunset to a Van Gogh painting have an explanation in natural selection:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

[Dannii]

I brought up random ordeals in individual human experience not because they are *related* to random processes in nature but because they provide an analogy of the kind that makes it intuitive that random things can either make you or break you.

I think it makes a poor analogy, because we respond to our ordeals with intelligence and creativity. We get stronger through repetitive muscle exertion. But mutation is neither intelligent nor creative and DNA doesn't change through exercise. If such an analogy makes it seem intuitive that is only through ignorance.

It is much easier to see what Gerard Manley Hopkins saw than it is to accept that everything from the colors of a sunset to a Van Gogh painting have an explanation in natural selection:

That depends on what kind of explanation you are after: their continued existence could most likely be explained by natural selection (just as many ugly things are preserved.) But the genesis of either cannot.

[JohnFH]

I see you've thought this through a bit. Once again, thanks for the conversation.

You make an interesting distinction between genesis and continued existence. Are you suggesting that the genesis of things is charged with grandeur of God for you, but not their continued existence, which may be explained, apparently without remainder, by natural selection?

Just trying to understand your take.

I don't know if you are familiar with Curt Richter's 1957 rat experiments. I'm pretty sure it's a classic example.

In 1957, at Johns Hopkins, Curt P. Richter experimented with drowning rats. He put rats in a dish of water, with sides too high for climbing, and water too deep for standing. All the rats could do was swim. After a few minutes, the rats would stop swimming and drown. But if Richter gave rats the experience of surviving threatening circumstances (through catch-and-release, through a kind of repeated waterboarding that was non-life-threatening), and later subjected them to the same experiment, he found that the rats would swim an average of 60 hours before drowning.

Note how survived ordeals in rats produce behavior in them we associate it with intelligence and creativity.

So here's the question: is there a fundamental difference between the intelligence and creativity of rats and men, and how does that affect your initial sense of the counter-intuitiveness of random processes either making or breaking biological individuals?

[Dannii]

You make an interesting distinction between genesis and continued existence. Are you suggesting that the genesis of things is charged with grandeur of God for you, but not their continued existence, which may be explained, apparently without remainder, by natural selection?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but I'll attempt an answer, which even if doesn't fit your question, will hopefully clear up some of what I believe too.

I don't think it would be commonly disputed that although it both took God's power for the creation of all things and continues to need his power for them to be sustained/held together (to use the language of Colossians 1) there is a substantial difference between the two. This second category has been called providence and is the way when God acts non-miraculously. God chooses to act in consistent and regular ways, which I'm thankful for, it's what makes science possible! If God always acted in unique miraculous ways we couldn't do science.

Natural selection is one part of God's providence, but obviously not the only part. The laws of thermodynamics or the constant strength of a rock have nothing to do with natural selection. Natural selection is a name for the fairly simple observation that creatures with some advantage will generally survive longer and reproduce more than those without. In genetics more specifically it means that within a population advantageous genes will become prevalent, and disadvantageous genes will become rare or extinct.

What I am suggesting is that based on my knowledge of genetics and information theory there is no natural process which will produce new information-rich genes. I believe that the source of all biodiversity is God's original creative act.

Mutations can sometimes produce advantageous genes, but I do not believe we have enough evidence to say that mutations produce new genetic information. We see many clear examples of this with bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics etc. Often what happens is that the bacteria's appearance is changed such that the threat can no longer identify it, or so that it can't hold on tight (to attack.) To make up another poor analogy, it's as if you scattered paint randomly on some expensive artworks you owned. Sure it may protect them from thieves (antibiotics would be like filling your house with thousands of art theives) but it hardly improves the artwork itself. Often the mutations have large negative side-effects too. A useful mutation to protect you from malaria is sickle-cell anaemia. But that's not good overall, and even without the negative side effects, it wouldn't let us do anything other than survive. That's because the genetic change has no new information.

So here's the question: is there a fundamental difference between the intelligence and creativity of rats and men, and how does that affect your initial sense of the counter-intuitiveness of random processes either making or breaking biological individuals?

The difference isn't so much about intelligence but between behaviour and genetics. There would be some cases where a learned behaviour does propagate throughout a population and could be regarded as the result of natural selection. This is the idea behind "memes". If there was a new behaviour, a new meme, it would be the result of intelligence. There might be experimentation - trial and error even - but the successful behaviour couldn't have arisen without intelligence.

So to summarise my rambling thoughts: natural selection is the intuitive theory that the advantageous are selected and survive, the disadvantageous are deselected and get killed off. But it can only select from a pre-existing set of traits, usually genes, but memes too sometimes. I believe the origin of new information is always intelligence. With genes it was God's intelligence, with memes, it could also be the intelligence of God's creatures.

[JohnFH]

Just trying to understand, Dannii, where we see eye to eye, and where we might differ.

If I understand you correctly, you put the origin of all biodiversity in one basket, the miraculous one, and whatever happens through the process of natural selection, in another basket, the non-miraculous one, with God as the origin of both biodiversity and the process (not the individual steps) of natural selection.

You also think of information-rich genes and intelligence as facts of miraculous origin.

Did I get that right?

[Dannii]

Yes, that sounds right.

Only thing I'd change is to say that God is the origin, the source, the reason behind each individual "step" of natural selection too.

I don't normally like discussing this stuff, but I believe it is important that we speak accurately, and from your comments it appeared to me that you had misunderstood what natural selection is.

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Dannii. We've now come full circle.

If as you say, "God is the origin, the source, the reason behind each individual 'step' of natural selection," then selection is, as most people understand it, not natural after all.

Which is why only 1 out of every 4 or 5 Americans finds the expression "natural selection" a fair summary of their position. They find it more intuitive, and truer to their own perceptions, to think of the genesis of things and their continued existence as charged with the grandeur of God.

A poet like Gerard Manley Hopkins speaks the truth for them more than Darwin, Dennett, or Wilson do.

I don't blame them. But this is where scientists like Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and John Polkinghorne come in. They offer a third way: that of exploring fields like biology and genetics on the basis of the most accredited working hypotheses currently available, and with no less fervor than before, rejoicing in Psalm 8, Genesis 1, Psalm 104, and Hopkins' poem.

[Dannii]

If as you say, "God is the origin, the source, the reason behind each individual 'step' of natural selection," then selection is, as most people understand it, not natural after all.

I can't speak for other people, but that doesn't make any sense to me at all. God's providence always feels entirely natural. Natural selection should feel as natural as gravity or Newton's laws of motion. But all of these are from God as much as the miracle of resurrection is.

I can't explain the poll, but my guess must be that the majority of Americans are deeply ignorant of both what they believe and what they reject. That so many people who believe in evolution reject natural selection, when evolution depends on natural selection, shows they don't understand these theories.

[JohnFH]

"God's providence always feel entirely natural."

Very nice. I don't want to deny the truth of what you are saying, but I would point out that God's providence in the Bible is not presented as feeling or being "entirely natural." It is presented as counterintuitive (the birth of Isaac to Sarai and Abram), and wonderful and scary at the same time (Psalm 139).

Back to "natural selection." What you are missing is that in the collocation "natural selection," "natural" is normally understood as implying that God is *not* "the origin, the source, the reason behind each individual 'step' of natural selection."

If that is the case for people in general, though not for you, they are not being deeply ignorant about what they believe and what they reject in this instance. They are simply construing the words in a fashion which you do not find congenial.

Atheists and theists both, in general, tend to think of (1) "natural" and (2) "God-originated" at "each individual step" as mutually exclusive characterizations of selection.

Thus I think you miss the boat in this instance. In order to understand the kind of question I posed in this post, it is essential to put yourself in the shoes of other people. You can't speak for them, but you need to understand where they are coming from, without assuming that they, unlike you, are dumber than a doornail.

That said, I'm sure you're right that the majority of Americans are deeply ignorant of both what they believe and what they reject, in this instance and in general. This seems to be the general human predicament. Of course, you are free to suggest that Aussies are an exception to the rule.

I take reality to be made up of discrete layers, each of which has rules of its own which have no need of an "x" in their equations from another level higher up. The math of an event does not need an "x" from the science of physics for its equations to work; quite the contrary, even and especially when the event is a physical one. Nor does the biology of natural selection need "God" from theology for its equations, quite the contrary.

In my view, this is the element of understanding that is usually missing in conversations of this kind.