Why Atheism?

[Dadi]

Why Atheism?
by Mark Thomas

Just about everyone is an atheist when it comes to other gods — the gods that other people believe in or that nobody believes in anymore. I’m an atheist about all gods because there's no reliable evidence for any god, or even for Jesus. There is also extensive evidence that Jesus and all gods are fictional characters — myths created mainly by people who had little understanding of how our universe operates. We all like myths and other stories, but we don't have to believe them.


History and Development
of Science and Scientific Naturalism


Let’s start with a quick experiment. You can grab three coins and actually do the experiment, or just do a thought experiment.

Drop one coin and watch it fall. Do this again. Hold out the third coin.

If you were to the release third coin, what do you think would happen? If you could get ten good Christians to pray that this next coin wouldn’t fall, would it still fall? How about one thousand faithful Muslims? How about one million people of any faith? I think that it would still fall. Drop the third coin. [Note: Some Christians claim that their god would not do such party tricks, but their Bible has many examples.]

Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism — the basis of science. Naturalism is also the basis for how all people live their lives most of the time.

To be explicit, modern science relies on methodological naturalism. This means that science doesn’t incorporate any supernatural or religious assumptions and doesn’t seek any religious or supernatural explanations. Science is the use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process. Science also depends on mathematics, which likewise has no religious or supernatural component.

In “Cosmos” Neil deGrasse Tyson explained the basic rules of science. “This adventure is made possible by generations of searchers strictly adherent to a simple set of rules. Test ideas by experiments and observations. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject the ones that fail. Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything. Accept these terms, and the cosmos is yours.”

Dr. Steven Novella wrote this about science: “What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?”

OK, let’s do another experiment. If you were to take two coins and glue them together, then drop them at the same time as you drop a single coin, would they fall twice as fast as the single coin? Aristotle (384 BCE* – 322 BCE) thought so, and for over 1900 years his ideas were what was taught about this and many other subjects. Some of the other ancient Greeks had many ideas that are now a basis for modern science, engineering, math, philosophy, and democracy. Unfortunately for humankind, these ideas were largely forgotten for almost two thousand years while religion took control and Aristotle was revered as the source of supposedly scientific knowledge.


Galileo and Empirical Science

Around 1600, Galileo had a new idea for his culture. He decided to do something that now seems like common sense — to actually test the idea of what we now call gravity. He reasoned that two weights held together would fall at the same rate as one weight. Then he did experiments to test the idea — and, not surprisingly to us, it was true. This was the start of modern empirical science, and our collective understanding of the universe hasn’t been the same since.

“Empirical” is a word that I'll be using a lot. It refers to ideas that are capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. Empirical evidence is not simply one type of evidence, but rather it is the only evidence that we can rely on, because it is reproducible. Empirical evidence is the basis for physical science.

Galileo also took the new invention of the telescope, refined it, and used it to look at the night sky. He was astounded. On the moon he could see mountains and valleys. It wasn’t just some strange heavenly object; it was probably made out of the same stuff as Earth. In 1610 Galileo looked at Jupiter and discovered that he could see four moons. If moons orbited Jupiter then not everything orbited Earth, as the Catholic Church taught. The motions of the planets in our skies made sense if the theories of Copernicus were true, and Earth and the other planets orbited the sun. This was what Galileo taught, and in 1616 he had to appear before the Catholic Church’s Inquisition. They banned him from teaching this idea, which was “opposed to the true faith and contrary to Holy Scripture.” However, Galileo later got permission from the pope (a friend of his) to write a book, as long as the Church's ideas and Galileo's were given equal weight. Galileo's book did not treat the two ideas equally, of course, so he was called to Rome in 1632 by the Inquisition, and told to recant his heretical ideas.

This was no “simple request” by the Church. The Inquisition had already executed Galileo’s friend Giordano Bruno. Have you heard of him? In 1600, the Christian authorities in Rome took him out of the dungeon he had been in for eight years, drove a nail thru ** his tongue, tied him to a metal post, put wood and some of his books under his feet, and burned him to death. Bruno’s crime was writing ideas that the Catholic leaders didn’t like — Earth revolves around the sun, the sun is a star, there might be other worlds with other intelligent beings on them, Jesus didn’t possess god-like power, and souls can’t go to Heaven. For these heretical ideas, the Catholic Church punished this brilliant man with a slow, agonizing death.

Bruno was not the only man executed by the Christians for heretical ideas. At least 77 others were either burned alive or hanged by the Roman Inquisition between 1553 and 1600. Over the centuries, millions were killed in religious wars or for heresy (which often meant simply being the “wrong” type of Christian). Sometimes it was more explicit heresy which threatened the church's lock on truth. The Italian freethinker Lucilio Vanini suggested that humans evolved from apes. In 1618 he was tried in France and found guilty of atheism and witchcraft. He had his tongue cut out, he was hanged, and his body was burned — as was customary with all heretics. Six years later the French Parlement even decreed that criticism of Aristotle was punishable by death, and many more heretics were burned. In Spain the Inquisition killed tens of thousands over a period of four centuries.

Galileo no doubt knew what he was up against. For the crime of heresy the Inquisition could put him in a dungeon, torture or even execute him. So, after a long trial, this proud 70 year-old man obediently got on his knees and dutifully recanted. But even after recanting, he was still sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The Catholic Church officially condemned heliocentrism 31 years later, when Pope Alexander VII banned all books that affirmed Earth’s motion. However, even as powerful as the Church was, they could not hold back the tidal wave of scientific discovery. The Church eventually lost its battle over our view of the universe, but it only took them over three hundred years to admit it. In 1992, after 12 years of deliberations, they grudgingly noted that Galileo had been right in supporting the Copernican theories. Even then, they ascribed his genius to God, “who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions.” But no such reprieve has been given for Bruno. His writings are still on the Vatican’s list of forbidden texts, and Pope John Paul II refused to even apologize for the Catholic Church's torture killing of Bruno.

Galileo and others started something big — empirical science. Thru ** science and the scientific method, we have come to a good understanding of the workings of the world and universe around us. The weather, lightning, thunder, the planets and stars, disease, and life itself all function based on fairly well understood principles. A god doesn’t control them; the physical properties of matter and energy control the universe. This principle is at the center of naturalism — the idea that only matter and energy exist, and they have properties that are repeatable, understandable, and quantifiable within the limits of quantum mechanics. Naturalism is founded on the ancient Greek philosophy of materialism. We take naturalism so for granted that we typically don’t realize that it is based on several articles of faith. This faith, however, is quite different from religious faith (which is “unevidenced belief” or “pretending to know things you don’t know”). This faith can be called “justified confidence” and is based on overwhelming past experience and results. It is the faith that:

There is an external world that exists independently of our minds.
There are quantifiable natural laws that describe how things happen in this world, and we can attempt to understand them.
These natural laws won’t change when we’re not looking; the universe isn’t totally chaotic.

So far this faith in naturalism has been well-founded, as shown by the amazing accomplishments of modern science, engineering and medicine.


God of the Gaps, or Argument From Ignorance

Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people thought that a god or gods controlled everything. Why did the wind blow? Why was there lightning and thunder? Why did the sun, moon, and stars apparently go around Earth? Why did someone get sick and die? Why did anything happen? Well, obviously, God did it. If a person doesn’t know how something works or why something happened, they can say, “God did it.” This is known as the “god of the gaps,” or the “argument from ignorance,” and it is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. Science looks for natural causes, while religion looks for supernatural causes. Science is steadily winning, because as we understand more and more about the universe, the gap where a god might function grows smaller and smaller. Every time we learn more, gods have less room to operate. When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot or the Egyptian god Ra and his barge. When we understood what caused lightning, there was no need for the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, or the Norse god Thor.

In fact, the understanding of lightning was one of the first areas of battle between science and Christianity. When Ben Franklin discovered that lightning was just a big electric spark, he invented the lightning rod. It was enormously successful at preventing buildings from being struck by lightning. However, this caused a bit of a conundrum for the church leaders; should they trust in their god to prevent lightning strikes on their churches, or should they use these new lightning rods? Up until then, lightning hit churches much more frequently than other, more “deserving” buildings — such as taverns or houses of ill repute. “Why was that?” they might have wondered. Could it be that churches had spires and were taller, or was it SATAN and his WITCHES? …… Actually, that is what they often believed, and many a supposed witch was executed for having caused the destruction of a church. When they started putting lightning rods on churches, witch killings stopped soon thereafter. However, the obvious fact is that they were putting their trust in science and lightning rods, not religion and prayer.


Why God(s)? Why Not?

The idea of an all-controlling, caring supernatural god is a very attractive one. It can make our mortal lives seem less frightening, more comforting. Somebody’s in control and won’t let bad things happen to us. Many gods also promise that we can go to Heaven after we die, to live forever in some sort of bliss.

The idea of a god is also an easy answer to questions about the world around us. It satisfies a need that many people have where they would rather be certain than right. Where did the universe come from? A god created it. Where did life come from? A god created it, too. Where did humans come from? A god created us, and in his own image, to boot.

For almost all believers, it's not just “a god” that they believe in. They believe in a particular god or set of gods.

Religious philosophers have tried for thousands of years to prove that there is a god or many gods. They have come up with many arguments. We will look at these arguments. Because I live in a largely Judeo-Christian society, when I refer to God with a capital ‘G’ I will be referring to the Judeo-Christian god Yahweh (a.k.a. Jehovah) and probably the Muslim god Allah. This god is male and is typically defined as having free will, and being omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnibenevolent (all-good), perfect, eternal, and unchanging. This god also created the universe and is separate from the physical world while still intervening in the physical world. After all, what good is a god that doesn’t do anything? Most of the arguments I use here will also apply to most of the other thousands of gods created by humankind, and most of the thousands of religions. I certainly don’t know all of them, so I will deal with most of the major religions and their god(s). I will also closely link god(s) and religion. I do this advisedly because, for most people, one could not exist without the other. In addition, if there were a god I would think that this god would be able to appropriately guide the religions created for it.

There is at least one religion, essential Buddhism as thought to have been taught by Buddha, which does not have a god or any supernatural component. To keep things a bit simpler here, the arguments I make regarding religion will probably not apply to this Buddhism or any other religion without a supernatural component. However, almost all religions have grown from belief in god(s) and people's narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created just for their benefit.

We need to define “atheist” and “atheism.” A theist is a person who believes in a god or gods. The Greek prefix “a-” means without; thus an atheist is without belief and doesn't believe in any gods — and atheism is just the lack of belief in any gods. Atheists can simply say that the existence of any god hasn't been reliably proven. For many, atheism is also the conclusion that no gods exist, based on the complete lack of reliable evidence for any god. I take the strong atheist position — depending on how we define “God” we can prove that it does not exist, and I will use the typical definition just given for the Christian god Yahweh.

Why am I doing this? Is it just because I want to poke holes in people’s beliefs so that we can take away what makes them happy? No, I’m doing this because I want to know what is true, be intellectually honest, and be open to reality. And, I hope that you have similar reasons.

This article is an argument in support of reason, rationality, intellectual honesty, and truth. We must know the truth to act wisely, and truth comes from physical reality. I put forth many of the reasons why atheism is true — based on physical reality — so they can be examined and evaluated. I also show why atheism and the philosophical extension Humanism are important to the future of humankind.

The arguments for the existence of god(s) fall into several areas. I have arranged them into these categories:

Mysticism and Revelation-
“Scientific” Claims-
-Love and Morality
-Appeals to Authority
-Prophecies and Miracles
Appeals to Faith, Logic, and Emotion-


What Tools Can We Use?

How can we examine these claims? What tools can we use to determine truth of external reality? We have (1) empirical, verifiable evidence; and we have (2) logic. Evidence and logic are the best tools we have to determine how the universe really works. These tools have been extraordinarily successful in science, engineering and medicine, and in our daily lives. This is the standard that most of us expect in dealing with the real world; we expect doctors to use the latest medicine, and engineers to use empirical data when building bridges. Why should we use anything else for examining external reality?

When people believe things without evidence, they are left with no way to accurately judge whether or not what they believe reflects how things really are. Their beliefs must then be based on feelings and emotion or the unquestioned authority of something or somebody else, not evidence. I think that this is the reason for much of the emotional response to atheism. For many, the idea of atheism challenges their deeply-held beliefs and emotions. This can be painful, and can elicit a strong reaction.

Each of us can choose between a magical view of the universe (one or more invisible, immaterial gods did it), or the “what you see is what you get” scientific version. I think that science, using empirical evidence and rational logic, has done a far better job in explaining how the universe works.

Thinking is hard, and scientific thinking is hardest; it often leads to unpleasant conclusions with little emotional payoff. Dramatic religious story-telling that supports wishful thinking is usually easier, more interesting, and much more emotionally fulfilling.

At the center of science is intellectual honesty. In order for ideas to be accepted in science, they must be supported by sufficient evidence and arguments. Anybody can change what is accepted in science, if they can put forth evidence and arguments sufficient to show that their new idea is better. In fact, the larger the change created by an individual, the more that individual is honored. This is why Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein are honored — because their ideas radically changed our views of the universe. With this process of change, science can grow and improve our understanding of the universe. Conversely, most religions are stuck with unchanging “holy” words from a book or founder.


Mysticism, Revelation and Experience

Some people claim that there are other ways of knowing, such as mysticism, revelation or direct experience. People claim that they can experience a god, with Christians sometimes thinking that what they call the Holy Spirit has come into them. Many claim that near death experiences have shown them that a god exists. How can we verify these claims? We know that mystical experiences can be caused by hallucinogenic drugs, magnetic fields, brain injuries, and well-studied mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and seizures. The “Holy Spirit” experience seems to be very similar to the well-documented experience of catharsis. Near death experiences are likely the result of brain cells misfiring when they are oxygen-deprived, can be simulated by drugs, and are obviously subjective. Fighter pilots, for instance, experience "tunnel vision" during high-G maneuvers, when their brains are deprived of oxygen. People claiming knowledge thru mysticism or revelation often don’t even agree with each other. The only way that I know to verify any mystic’s abilities is for the supposed mystic to be able to accurately, repeatedly, and verifiably know things that are supposedly impossible to know — such as events of the future. I know of no one who can, or could. Of course, we have to be very careful in any testing of such claims, because a good magician can easily fool us. Even if there were somebody who could predict the future, that does not mean that there’s a god. It would only mean that this person has peculiar skills. I submit that mysticism and revelation result from internal, altered states of consciousness — with no basis in external reality. Mysticism, revelation, and any other religious experience can only count at most for those who experience them; for all other people, they are merely hearsay. In addition, religious experience seems to be highly subjective and varies dramatically between cultures. Thus, we can’t depend on mysticism or religious revelation to give us reliable answers to any issues.


“Scientific” Arguments for God(s)

The biggest weakness in using a god to explain anything scientifically is that the explanation is not falsifiable, and thus not even testable. There is no way to create an experiment to show that it’s wrong. For every possible set of a test and a result, we could simply say, “A god did it.” How did Earth and the universe begin, and why do they appear to be so old? “A god did it.” How did life start, and why does nature seem so balanced? “A god did it.” Once again, why does anything happen? If we say that a god did it, there is no reason or opportunity to learn how the world really works. If we had stayed with a god as the cause of all events, our modern culture would have been impossible. We would have no real science, engineering, or medicine. We would still be living in the Dark Ages.

The “god did it” or “god of the gaps” argument has probably been around since humans first started creating gods. It's the basic premise behind all the “scientific” arguments for the existence of a god. Here's what the logic looks like when applied to two common weather phenomena: Lightning and thunder are terrifying! They must be caused by something else (that we don’t really understand either). This something else must be a god because we can’t come up with a better explanation.

The obvious main fault of “god of the gaps” is its supposition that current lack of knowledge on a subject means that it can’t be known — that “unknown” means “unknowable.” If this applies to an individual, it’s the argument from personal incredulity — because a person doesn't understand something then he thinks that the subject must be unknown, unknowable, or false.

When faced with an unknown, let's first note that it's perfectly OK to say, “I don't know,” or, “We don't know,” — just as it would have been when people in the past asked, “What causes lightning or tornadoes?” or, “Why do things fall to the ground?” or countless other questions for which we now have straightforward scientific explanations. Obviously, just because we don't know how something happened does not mean that a god did it. Relegating an explanation of something to a god is easy; a person doesn't have to think much. Finding an explanation with science often involves hard work and analysis. We can't simply explain something mysterious by appealing to something more mysterious for which there is less evidence.

“God did it” is not an explanation. It tells no more than saying, “Santa did it.”

For the fringe areas of knowledge that we don’t understand, we are using the tools of science to learn the secrets of nature. As we have all seen, science has made excellent advances in our understanding of the universe, and will, no doubt, continue to do so. There may also be things that are too difficult or impossible for us to understand, but that doesn't mean that some god is behind them.

There are three common “god of the gaps” types of arguments for the existence of a god. We have: (1) First Cause, (2) Argument From Design (including Intelligent Design), and (3) origin of consciousness.


First Cause, or Cosmological Argument

The First Cause, or Cosmological Argument, says that everything has a cause, and, since we supposedly can’t have an infinite series of causes stretching into the past, a god must be the first cause — an uncaused cause. This argument was described by Aristotle, and has at least four problems.

The main problem of the First Cause Argument is the idea that every event has a cause. As we discovered in the 20th century, the universe is actually ruled at the bottom level by quantum mechanics, in which it’s possible for particles and events to have no cause. An obvious example of quantum mechanics in action is the radioactive decay of a uranium atom. There is no previous cause for each such event, and we can only predict it with probability. The averaging of quantum effects gives us the Newtonian experience that we have. However, Newtonian physics does not control the universe; quantum mechanics and Einsteinian relativity do. We now know that the universe has an intrinsic, bottom level of uncertainty that cannot be bypassed. Quantum mechanics also shows us that particles can appear out of nothing and then disappear back into nothing. Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing. This is a real and measurable process, via what are known as the Casimir effect and the Lamb shift.

Quantum mechanics shows us that subatomic particles such as electrons, protons and neutrons can disappear and reappear in a different place, without existing in the intervening space. Such particles can even be in more than one place at a time, if that time is brief enough. Perhaps even stranger, an electron can travel between two points by taking all possible paths simultaneously.

I'd like to emphasize that quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense in our experience of the world. As Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as she is — absurd.”


The Big Bang

The beginning of the observable universe — of all the matter and energy in it and even of time itself — is called the Big Bang. The science of quantum mechanics has only existed since the early 1900's, and already we've been able to use it to get extremely close to understanding the beginning of the observable universe — with no god needed. How close can we get? Approximately a trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. (Our current knowledge of physics doesn't work before then, and the Large Hadron Collider can't create experiments simulating conditions before then.) The Big Bang Theory is supported by extensive data from astronomy. Six prominent facts are:

The red shift of almost all galaxies, getting greater as their distance increases.
— This shows that the galaxies are flying away from each other, at greater speeds at greater distances.
The cosmic microwave background radiation.
— This is a remnant of the radiation from the Big Bang, and has cooled over time to the exact temperature predicted.
The variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.
— These variations fit theoretical predictions, and were caused by quantum differences near the start of Big Bang.
The proportions of the lightest elements and isotopes.
— This helps show that the calculations for nuclear interactions immediately following the Big Bang are correct.
The changes in galaxies as we look further away (and thus back in time), with distant galaxies more primitive and having fewer heavy elements.
— This shows some of the changes in the universe since the Big Bang, and confirms the deep time of the universe.
The change in the apparent speed of type 1a supernova as we look back in time, with distant supernova exploding more slowly.
— This shows that the light has been stretched out by the expansion of space over billions of years.

There are many well-respected physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, Alan Guth, Lawrence Krauss, Sean M. Carroll, Victor Stenger, Leonard Mlodinow, Lisa Randall, Michio Kaku, Robert A.J. Matthews, and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, who have created scientific models where the Big Bang and thus the entire universe could arise and expand from nothing but a random quantum fluctuation of vacuum energy — via natural processes and with a total energy of zero. Alan Guth calls this Inflation Theory.

Even tho Inflation Theory doesn’t make sense in the Newtonian physics of our experience of the world, it does make sense in quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity. In relativity, gravity can be negative energy and matter is positive energy. Because the two seem to be equal in absolute total value, our observable universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy — with the matter of the universe condensing out of the positive energy as the universe cooled, and gravity created from the negative energy. As Lawrence Krauss noted, "The total energy of the universe is precisely zero, because gravity can have negative energy. The negative energy of gravity balances out the positive energy of matter. Only such a universe can begin from nothing. The laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing. You don't need a deity. Quantum fluctuations can produce a universe."

Cosmologists have shown that the positive energy of the universe is divided into about 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter (both of which we now have little understanding), and about 5% regular matter such as atoms — everything we see. As Lawrence Krauss said, “Why such a universe in which we're so irrelevant would be made for us is beyond me.”

There is excellent experimental and theoretical evidence to support Inflation Theory. We may eventually determine that Inflation Theory is wrong or incomplete, and we may never be able to completely understand the actual beginning. It could be that we're not smart enough or that the physical science necessary is not possible for us to do. But, that doesn’t mean that a god caused the Big Bang — any more than our past lack of understanding of weather meant that a god caused lightning.


The Meta-Universe (a.k.a. Multiverse)

The next problem of the First Cause Argument is the assumption that an infinite chain of events is impossible. This argument is made moot by the Big Bang, which negates the need for considering an infinite chain of events in our universe. Because time started with the Big Bang, any question of what happened before is nonsensical — much like asking what is north of the North Pole. Also, many cosmologists have proposed that our universe could be part of a much larger, super and perhaps eternal meta-universe. In this meta-universe (a.k.a. multiverse) “baby” universes are created by pinching off from “parent” universes — leaving no way to inquire about the characteristics of a parent universe. We certainly don’t know for sure, and may never know. However, this meta-universe would allow infinite chains of events.

Another problem comes from the common definition of God as eternal, perfect and unchanging. If these qualities were true, then why would God need a universe and how could God change from not needing a universe to needing and creating one? This god would have existed for an eternity and then decided to create the universe. Thus, the Creator God that is eternal, perfect and unchanging is impossible.

The last problem with the First Cause Argument lies in its assumption that this eternal god exists, something that it is trying to prove. This is known as begging the question. Even a child can ask, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” If the answer is that God is uncaused, then the same answer could certainly be applied to the existence of the universe — that it is uncaused. Besides, which god are we talking about? People using the First Cause Argument always make the assumption that their god did the creating. Muslims think that Allah created the universe. Hindus think that Brahma did it. Christians and Jews think that Yahweh did it. Most religions have a story of how their god created the universe. The idea of a god as creator of the universe makes for a good tale, but it obviously tells us little about the characteristics of that god. What they are doing is explaining one mystery with a bigger mystery, and that is fallacious logic.


Argument From Design (Teleological Argument)

The Argument From Design states that the universe is so complex that it requires a designer, like a watch requires a watchmaker. It's just another argument from ignorance.

Many people think that the world looks like it was designed (and by their god, to boot). Of course, the sun also looks like it goes around the Earth. It is only thru science that we know that both of these perceptions are wrong.

To explain the complexity of the universe and life, all we need are the properties of self-organization and emergence that arise out of complex adaptive systems. Stars, galaxies and planets have come into being as the universe has slowly increased in complexity over time — from the simplicity of the Big Bang. Biology and paleontology have shown that life has also slowly grown in complexity over time — dependent only on the the rules of physics and chemistry. No god was necessary.

I will discuss more about complexity in the following sections on Intelligent Design and the Theory of Evolution.


Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Irreducible Complexity

One form of the Argument From Design is called Intelligent Design (ID), which has evolved from biblical creationism. It states that life on Earth is so complex that it must have had an intelligent designer, and it is gaining strength by masquerading as a science. It’s a belief structure and not science because there is no body of research to support its claims, and it makes no testable predictions. To get around legal restrictions on teaching religious dogma, proponents of ID often say that they don’t know what this designer was; it could have been an alien or a god. This is disingenuous. If it was an alien, then the obvious question is: where and how did the alien originate? If they really mean God, which is what some of them have admitted, then ID is basically creationism with a few new ideas. So, I will treat ID and creationism as basically the same.

Proponents of the Argument From Design and Intelligent Design make many claims:

The complexity of life and the universe require a cause that is not part of this natural universe.
Irreducible complexity shows that the odds against natural causes for certain processes are too great, so a designer is necessary.
The physical laws require a lawgiver.
The laws of physics were fine-tuned for life.
Science can’t explain all the features of life.
Our system of life on Earth was designed.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is impossible.
What they really claim is “God did it!”

Let's start with the apparent design of the universe, and use a story of Sir Isaac Newton as an example. A deeply religious man, Newton was struck by the order that he observed in the orbits of the planets, with all of them in the same plane. He could think of no reason for this, so he attributed it to God. Of course now, thru science, we understand the gravitational dynamics in the formation of solar systems fairly well, and no longer need to invoke a god. Science is similarly showing how the rest of the universe works and eliminating the need for theistic explanations.

Now let’s look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This states that any closed system will tend toward disorder. However, it does not apply to the Earth, because we live in an open system with energy constantly streaming in from our sun. This is the energy that powers almost all life on our planet. Thus the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to evolution or any living being.

Next, let’s consider the laws of physics. They are really just our current best quantified explanations or descriptions of how matter and energy behave — not anything like man-made laws. These descriptions have changed in the past (e.g. E=MC2) and will likely change in the future. We currently don’t know why the parameters of matter and energy have certain values, but that doesn’t mean that some god set them that way. The simple solution to the question of the source of the laws of physics is to accept them as brute fact, with no source. It could also be that there are almost countless universes, each with different self-consistent laws and constants. String theory, for example, allows for 10500 possible universes. If some of them exist and even one of those allowed life, then that would be our universe. This is known as the Anthropic Principle. In other words, if our universe had different laws we would not exist to see it, and thus we naturally live in one that allows us to exist.

Note also that gods are (pretty much by definition) exempt from any laws of physics. So, positing a god as the source of the universe can ignore any laws of physics.

If it were true that a god set up the universe specifically for us, he certainly waited a long time for the result. The universe has been around for about 14 billion years. It took about nine billion years before Earth was formed from the remnants of supernova stars. Single celled bacteria were forming ecosystems about a billion years after that, as shown by the evidence for Earth’s history in its rocks and fossils. For about two and a half billion years life consisted of only single celled organisms. Life evolved and became more complex with multi-celled organisms. It then took another billion years for fish, reptiles and mammals to appear. Then humans, God’s supposed reason for the whole creation, finally came along within the last 100,000 to 200,000 years or so — on one planet orbiting one of the septillions of stars. This seems like a lengthy, complex, massive, and apparently natural process for an omnipotent being that could have simply snapped everything (or just one magic planet) into existence. Using a god as the source of the laws of physics just doesn’t make sense. Once again, religionists are trying to explain one mystery with a bigger mystery.

Ultimately, an “intelligent designer” of the universe or order or life explains nothing. It simply moves the lack of knowledge up one level, because this “intelligent designer” is left without an explanation — unless you posit either that it always existed or there was a “more intelligent designer” of the “intelligent designer” ... ad infinitum and ad nauseum. If it always existed, then what caused it to go an infinite amount of time and abruptly decide to create the universe? Thus, the “intelligent designer” answer is plagued with two insurmountable infinity problems.

It's important to note that the universe was not designed for life; in practically the entire universe conditions are extremely hostile to life. Life is exceedingly sparse in the universe, even if it exists on every planet and moon. All we do know is that life exists on one oasis — Earth. Any sort of life that we can imagine only has a chance on what is likely only a small percentage of planets or moons. Most of the universe is nearly empty, and almost all of the visible (non dark) matter is in stars or nebulae. Saying that the universe is made just for us is like an individual arguing that the whole universe, Earth, life, the human species, all her ancestors, and her genes were created just for her. “After all,” she could say, “look at the odds against everything being just as it was. My god must have created everything just so I could exist.”

The core argument in Intelligent Design is the fact that evolutionary biologists can’t yet fully explain all the features of life; therefore ID claims that life must have been designed by some intelligent being. This is a “god of the gaps” argument, and it is scientifically, logically, and historically flawed.

ID is scientifically flawed because it violates the ground rules of science by allowing supernatural (meaning outside of nature) causation.

ID is logically flawed in two ways. The first logical flaw in ID is that it's based on a lack of knowledge — explaining gaps in knowledge by invoking the magic of an unknown (perhaps supernatural) being. Like all “god of the gaps” arguments, ID is not falsifiable, can’t even be tested, and says nothing about the moral qualities of this unknown being, god, or gods. The second logical flaw is in the assumption it makes that, because something is supposedly very highly unlikely, something else must have designed it. What ID proponents blatantly ignore, because they take the existence of their god as a given, is the fact that this unknown designer must be even more complex, and thus less probable, than what ID was invoked to explain. The basic question is thus, “Who designed the designer?” This argument dates back to David Hume in the 1700's. Richard Dawkins calls it the “ultimate Boeing 747 gambit” because it shows the fatal weakness of Fred Hoyle's ID argument that the “probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747.” A designer god would have to be immeasurably more complex than a 747 — an ultimate Boeing 747.

ID is historically flawed because science has shown excellent progress in explaining the world around us. As professor of physics Bob Park wrote, “All of science is built on territory once occupied by gods. Is there some boundary at which science is supposed to stop?”. There is nothing to show that evolutionary biology should be abandoned simply because it has not yet explained the origins of every single process of life. Because biochemical processes don’t leave behind fossils, it’s not as easy to explain their origins as it is for bone structures that do fossilize. However, evolutionary biologists are making excellent progress in understanding the origins and processes of the biochemistry of life.

Proponents of ID have also created the idea of irreducible complexity, which is central to ID. It states that many processes of life are too complex and irreducible to have evolved; therefore a designer must have created them. This complexity comes from many interrelated parts or processes, which supposedly are useless without all the other parts or processes. This is just another “god of the gaps” and it also falls apart under close examination.

“What good is half an eye?” they ask. The answer is simple. Any amount of vision is better than none, and any change that improves vision probably improves survivability. Starting with basic light-sensing cells, eyes have evolved thru natural selection — one small step at a time. Richard Dawkins has an excellent explanation of this (and much more) in his book Climbing Mount Improbable.

An icon of the irreducible complexity concept is the bacterial flagellum, with its many similarities to an electric motor — and about 30 protein components required to produce a working biological function. Unfortunately for the ID movement, research has demolished the flagellum's status as an example of irreducible complexity. Some bacteria use what is known as type III secretory system (TTSS) to allow them to inject proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell. TTSS has a strong likeness in structure to the flagellum, and uses about 15 to 20 of the same proteins. This shows that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex, because a functioning structure (albeit with a different function) can be made with 10 to 15 fewer proteins. A detailed analysis can be found in The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of “Irreducible Complexity”.

Intelligent Design is simply not science; it's religion dressed up to look like science to the uninformed. It is mystical pseudoscience.

I'd like to address a common statement made by creationists — that scientists have supposedly never actually witnessed evolution, so evolution either: a) isn't real science, or b) hasn't happened. First, this is a gross mischaracterization of science. There are many processes that scientists can understand without directly witnessing them, such as much of geology or fusion at the cores of stars. Second, this statement ignores the fact that evolution usually takes thousands or millions of years. It's like looking at a tree and saying that it's not growing because you can't see any growth in a day. Third, for many, many species we have excellent evidence in the fossil record and genetic data of the changes of the species. Fourth, scientists have actually witnessed the rapid evolution of new species — the apple moth from the hawthorn moth, a new species of polychaetes fish, and many more.


The Theory of Evolution

Life is a process — not a design. It requires an explanation — not an intelligent designer. This explanation is the fact and theory of evolution. “Evolution” simply means change over time. It’s a fact that enormous changes to life on Earth have occurred. The 3.5 billion year fossil record is clear and unambiguous on this. The Theory of Evolution explains the natural processes that caused these changes, and it explains the genetic similarities that all life on Earth has.

There are at least eleven areas of study and empirical data supporting the Theory of Evolution. They are:

Paleontology (fossils)
Distribution of Animals and Plants
Comparative Anatomy
Embryology
Vestigial Organs
Genetics
Natural Selection
Sexual Selection
Molecular Biology
Bad Design
Lab Experiments

I will only deal here with brief overviews of paleontology, embryology, vestigial organs, genetics, natural selection, bad design, and lab experiments. I will also look at the related science of abiogenesis (the study of the origin of life). For more extensive overviews of evolution, I suggest the article '29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent' by Douglas L. Theobald, the video 'Why Evolution Is True' by Jerry Coyne, and the article 'Top 10 Evolution Myths' by the Skeptics Society.


Paleontology


The history of life on Earth is in its fossils, and more than 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. (Note that this is a lousy record for any sort of intelligent designer.) We have extensive fossils showing how species have come and gone over the last several hundred million years. Here are just a few examples:

Trilobites appeared over 500 million years ago and existed for 300 million years (with over 15,000 known species).
About 375 million years ago, land animals were evolving from fish.
Dinosaurs (with an estimated 200,000 species) lived between 251 and 65.5 million years ago.
Horses are descended from the cat-sized Eohippus of about 55 million years ago.
Whales are descended from land animals of about 52 million years ago.
Humans are descended from a long line of hominids, over at least 4.4 million years.

The dating methods for determining the ages of fossils and rocks are well established. They usually depend on the radioactive decay of different isotopes of elements, and can be used on objects that are hundreds to billions of years old. For an in-depth explanation, see "Accuracy of Fossils and Dating Methods."

The evidence for evolution of life is overwhelming and conclusive. This evidence is not just in the fossils, but also in the body parts and genes of almost every living thing. If you have any doubts, take a little time to learn the concepts of evolution, then spend a few hours in any natural history museum or public library. If your mind is at all open, you will see the evidence. Remember, ignorance of how evolution works is no argument against it. The basic Theory of Evolution is completely solid, and will continue to be updated as we learn more about the complex history of life.

Embryology



Unlike other primates, humans don't have a thick coat of fur. At around six months after conception, humans and all other primates have a downy coat of hair called lanugo. For humans, this coat is usually shed about a month before birth, altho some premature infants are born with it. Even whale fetuses have and shed lanugo, which is a relic of their land ancestry.

The embryos of all cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and whales) also show the evidence of their four legged land ancestry, with hind limb structures that are obvious at about 24 days of age. In dolphins these typically have almost completely disappeared by 48 days, altho in 2006 a bottlenose dolphin was found in Japan with rear fins. In whales these structures often develop into a useless pelvis and rudimentary rear legs that are contained within the body.

All vertebrates have embryos that have fish-like features with tails and what are called branchial arches. In fish these arches develop into the jaw and gills. In humans and other mammals they go thru complex changes to develop into structures in the adult head and upper body.

Fish embryos become fish. Amphibian embryos start like fish, and add extra development to become amphibians. Reptile embryos start like fish, go thru developments like amphibians, and add extra development to become reptiles. Mammalian embryos go thru all these stages, then lose some reptilian development and add extra development to become mammals. In mammals the initial fish-like circulatory system turns into an amphibian-like system. It then changes to a system similar to embryonic reptiles, and finally turns into a true mammalian circulatory system.

This “recapitulation” of our evolutionary history is also followed in the embryonic development of other organs, such as our kidneys. Three different types of kidneys are formed sequentially, with the first two similar to those of fish and reptiles. Only the last (mammalian) organs are kept.

All these embryological changes only truly make sense when viewed thru the lens of evolution, where each individual (and eventually species) inherits the development processes of its immediate ancestor. Intelligent Design offers no explanation for these convoluted processes.


Vestigial Organs

You don’t even need to go to a natural history museum or library to see evidence for evolution; our own bodies have many signs of our evolutionary heritage. When we get goose bumps, our bodies are trying to keep warm by raising hairs that are no longer dense enough to help. The muscles that allow us to wiggle our ears are of no use for us, but they did help some distant ancestors. Humans also have many other useless, vestigial organs such as nipples and mammary glands on males (like all mammals) and the tailbone, which is just a holdover from when our primate ancestors actually had tails millions of years ago.

Many other species also have obviously useless, vestigial organs:

Flightless birds such as kiwis and ostriches have vestigial wings.
Some whales still have vestigial legs and pelvic bones, as noted above.
Some fish which live in caves are blind but still have vestigial eyes.
Dandelions reproduce without fertilization and basically clone themselves; altho they have the proper organs necessary for sexual reproduction, they do not use them.

Intelligent Design completely fails to explain these vestigial organs on embryos, adults, and plants — which are obviously suboptimal. The Theory of Evolution explains them perfectly. If some god designed us and all life, he/she/it certainly didn't do a perfect job. Stephen J. Gould stated it well; “Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution — paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce.”


Genetics

Every cell in our bodies contains the evidence of our evolutionary origins. The basic process of life on Earth is so common that we share about 50% of our genes with carrots, and about 99% of our genes with chimpanzees (but, that's a difference of 15 million to 30 million genes and gene switches). In fact, humans are genetically closer to chimps than mice are to rats. Here are some useful biological facts:

We get an exact copy of the mitochondria in each cell from our mother, almost every time.
Every male gets an exact copy of his Y chromosome from his father, almost every time.
Both mitochondria and Y chromosomes slowly mutate over time at known rates.

With this knowledge, geneticists can estimate how recently any two of us shared a common female ancestor, or any two males shared a common male ancestor. Using this information and other data, the evidence strongly points to the claim that most or all of us are descended from a group of Africans that started migrating about 100,000 years ago.

We share about 99% of our genes with chimps, but we have 23 pairs of chromosomes while chimps and other great apes have 24. A close examination of the chromosomes shows that one pair of our chromosomes is made of two from the other primates. Our combined chromosome even shows the evidence of where the two chromosomes joined, with the ends of the old chromosomes in the middle of the joined chromosome. For more, see Evidence of Common Descent between Man and Other Primates.

Most animals have the capability to synthesize vitamin C, but in humans and other primates the gene for this is broken and doesn't function. The differences in the DNA sequences for this broken gene (called a pseudogene) correlate to the genetic drift that is predicted by evolutionary theory, with chimpanzees being the most similar to humans — followed by orangutans and macaques.
Natural Selection

Let me address a common example that proponents of Intelligent Design use. [See general eye diagram.] “Look at the wonderful design of the human eye,” they say. “Surely this design could not have happened by chance. It must be that “God did it.” Actually, it did happen by chance — countless little chance events of changes in the gene pool over generations, all controlled by the harsh realities of natural selection and survival of the fittest. While the initial changes in the gene pool (mutations) were chance events, survival of the fittest is obviously not random. This is the heart of the basic Theory of Evolution; individuals can pass their genes and characteristics on to their offspring. If a gene makes an individual more likely to have offspring that survive, its offspring (carrying that gene) will also be more likely to have offspring that survive. In effect, species are designed to fit their environment. The designer is the blind process of evolution, however, not some god or gods. Evolution creates an illusion of human or supernatural design. This illusion is so powerful that it took until 1859 for us to discover it, when Charles Darwin put forth one of the greatest ideas in science — evolution by natural selection. This idea was the progenitor and center of the Theory of Evolution.

Darwin was limited by the scientific knowledge of the time, and thus didn't know about genes — the way that characteristics are inherited. This limitation was soon filled in by Gregor Mendel, who showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular mathematical laws.