Reflectorites
On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 16:34:26 -0600, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
>SJ>Please note the imposing list of speakers, including Cambridge palaeontologist
>>Simon Conway Morris of Cambrian Explosion fame, who has reportedly become
>>a Christian. It will be *very* interesting to hear what he says!
SB>there is a very intersting (and I think quite biased) review of his book
>"The Crucible of Creation" here:
In what way is Susan claiming that Bowler's review is "biased"? Bowler is
an ardent Darwinist and AFAIK an atheist.
Is Susan at last becoming even-handed and complaining about Darwinist
and atheist bias?
Or does Susan think that *anything* that seems remotely favourable to
creation must automatically be "biased", even if it comes from a Darwinist
and atheist?
Personally I think it is a very fair-minded review from Peter Bowler
considering that he is a Darwinist and AFAIK an atheist.
SB>http://www.amsci.org/amsci/bookshelf/Leads98/morris.html
[...]
Thanks to Susan for posting this URL. Even though I had posted it before
to the Reflector, I had overlooked how important it was in confirming
Morris' commitment to teleology (i.e. Intelligent Design) and indeed to
Christianity.
I will here post excerpts from the article with my comments in square
brackets.
Please note that the above web page seems to have developed a couple of
faults, ie. two words: "preordained" and "creation" have dropped out. I
have replaced these in square brackets with these words in the original
page I had downloaded.
Steve
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American Scientist
September-October 1998, Volume 86, No. 5 Scientists' Bookshelf
Cambrian Conflict: Crucible an Assault on Gould's Burgess Shale
Interpretation The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of
Animals. Simon Conway Morris. 242 pp. Oxford University Press, 1998.
$30.
Peter Bowler
Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life (1989) brought the beautifully
preserved fossils of the mid-Cambrian Burgess Shale to the attention of the
reading public. But Gould used the fossils to promote a highly contentious
interpretation that stressed the contingency of the evolutionary process...
According to Gould, if we could somehow "the tape" of evolution and let it
play again, chance would favor a different selection of that original
multitude, and the world would be a very different place from the one we
see around us. There is nothing "[preordained]" about the appearance of
humanity or the human level of awareness.
[This is fair summary of Gould's `cosmic accident' interpretation of life's
history by Bowler. But what Bowler doesn't mention is that Gould based
much of his book "Wonderful Life" on Conway Morris' work on re-
evaluating Walcott's descriptions of the Burgess Shale fossils, and even for
examples to support Gould's tape replay metaphor:
"Take two groups of modern oceans-one bursting with diversity, the other
nearly gone. Would we have known, at the Burgess beginning of both,
which was destined for domination and which for peripheral status in the
nooks and crannies of an unforgiving world? Can we make a plausible case
for a replay with opposite outcome? (Again, as for so much of this book, I
owe this example to the suggestion and previous probing of Simon
Conway Morris.)" (Gould S.J., "Wonderful Life", 1991, reprint, p293)]
Simon Conway Morris has produced another account of the Burgess Shale
creatures, explaining to a wide audience the significance of new discoveries
and new interpretations that have emerged since Gould wrote. ...this is no
coffee-table excursion through the details of an ancient ecosystem. It is a
full-scale assault on Gould's interpretation of the Cambrian explosion and
on the materialist philosophy of life embodied in that interpretation.
Conway Morris wants to convince us that we (or thinking beings very like
us) are the unique yet intended goal of evolution. The word "[creation]" in
his title is not to be taken lightly.
[I had read this review previously and even posted it to this Group. But I
had overlooked or forgotten the full import of Bowler's words: "It is a full-
scale assault on Gould's interpretation of the Cambrian explosion and on
the materialist philosophy of life embodied in that interpretation".
What Bowler seems to be saying (and I have not yet read Conway Morris'
book "Crucible of Creation"), is that one of the world's leading
palaeontologists, at Cambridge University (Darwin's old university), is, at
least in the broad sense of the word, a creationist!]
Like Wonderful Life, Conway Morris's book takes us through the story of
Charles Doolittle Walcott's discovery of the Burgess Shale and his efforts
to describe the animals revealed by the high level of preservation in this
very special (but now by no means unique) location in the Canadian
Rockies. Walcott was Gould's anti-hero, the paleontologist who
shoehorned a whole range of bizarre Cambrian types into a few known
categories, mostly arthropods...Be that as it may, Gould's real complaint
was that Walcott was blind to the obvious strangeness of the Burgess Shale
creatures because he was committed to the orthodox view that the cone of
evolutionary diversity must expand through time. Conway Morris to some
extent rehabilitates Walcott's reputation by showing that the diversity of
Cambrian forms was by no means as extensive as Gould claims. To
establish this point he gives us a fascinating tour through the research that
has transformed our understanding of the Burgess Shale creatures,
revealing that the strangeness is often only skin deep, concealing underlying
features that confirm their position within, or between, known phyla.
[Gould has made a specialty of showing how other people's philosophy
decisively shapes their interpretation of the data. Yet it never seems to
occur to him that his own materialistic philosophy has decisively shaped
*his* interpretation of the data!]
More discoveries from similar sites in Greenland and China have also
thrown light on the Cambrian fauna. The climax of the book is an
imaginary tour of the Cambrian seas via submersible and time machine,
with detailed descriptions of the structures and habits of the various species
as now understood (including some fascinating color plates).
The concluding chapters survey the theoretical significance of the new
interpretations. Conway Morris is keen to explain how and why the
Cambrian explosion took place, constructing a theory that combines
genetic triggers for structural innovations with an ecological pressure
generated by the origin of predators....
[Like Cliff's parabiosis theory, none of these secondary causes are a
problem to me. My Mediate Creation theory claims that God, after the
original creation of the universe's raw material, normally works through
existing materials and natural processes. But my question would then be,
"what is the cause these secondary causes such as "genetic triggers for
structural innovations" and " the origin of predators"?]
... His real concern, though, is to refute the claim that the explosion
requires the postulation of evolutionary forces that are no longer in
operation. The main plank of the argument is the denial of Gould's alleged
diversity of form. Using cladistic analysis, Conway Morris argues that the
Burgess Shale creatures can all be fitted into known phyla, or show
intermediate states that actually throw light on the process by which the
known phyla diverged from one another. ... Modern studies have now
shown that all the Burgess Shale arthropods can be accommodated within a
scheme that explains their origin in monophyletic terms -- from a single
common ancestor in which the basic arthropod structure was developed.
...Major transformations are involved, of course, but nothing that requires
the postulation of evolutionary forces outside the range of what can be
studied in more recent times.
[Interesting that Conway Morris argues against Gould's "inverted cone of
diversity" claim. Since I provisionally accept common descent, I personally
have no problem if Gould turns out to be wrong on this. But I do not
necessarily accept that common descent was monophyletic. There are
strong arguments at the molecular, genetic and embryological levels that it
wasn't.]
What I *am* interested in are the "Major transformations" which were
"involved". I do *not* provisionally accept that these were fully
naturalistic, until someone can plausibly demonstrate that they were.]
Conway Morris thus claims that Gould's scenario for the origin of animals
is disproved: There was no vast radiation and no winnowing out of many
early phyla by extinction. ...
[This is significant for ID. It is an anti- teleological argument that "why
would the designer make so many basis designs and throw them away?"
But if it turns out that in fact very few, if any, basic designs were thrown
away and that most, if not all, the original designs still live on in their
descendants, then that is a powerful argument in favour of the teleological
point of view.]
...But the disagreement between the two paleontologists is more
fundamental than this, because Conway Morris thinks that Gould's whole
re-running the tape idea is misleading if it is meant to imply that the
outcome could be significantly different from what we observe. He
certainly does not want to imply that evolution is directed by mysterious
goal-directed forces. But he appeals to the widespread existence of
convergence to argue that at least in its broad outlines, the outcome of
evolution is predetermined. ...
["predetermined" by Who? A `blind watchmaker' natural process doesn't, as
the very name implies, "predetermine" anything. Only an Intelligent Designer
can meaningfully be said to do that.]
...Convergence occurs when two lines of evolution independently develop
the same or very similar structures, as when ichthyosaurs (reptiles) and
whales (mammals) independently evolved a fish-like body plan. This occurs
because certain structures are simply the best for certain adaptive purposes
-- any vertebrate wanting to swim in the water is going to evolve in the
same direction. Conway Morris believes that the combined limitations of
the developmental pathways triggered by genetics and the demands of the
environment mean that the possible outcomes of the evolutionary process
are very limited. We can conceive of all sorts of alien creatures, but they
could never exist in the real world -- and what can exist is pretty much
confined to what we actually see. So re-running the tape would produce
more or less the same results, although the details might be different. There
would be something like whales swimming in the modern seas, although
they might have evolved from different mammalian ancestors.
[Interesting. I have no problem with this in principle. It is certainly an
improvement on Darwinism's barren inability to predict anything much of
what would happen if the tape of life was re-run. But when one looks at
what is required to convert a land mammal into a whale in only 5-10 myrs
(as previously posted) it IMHO requires the supernatural intervention by an
Intelligent Designer working through the existing materials and natural
processes, which include convergence mechanisms like developmental
constraints. IOW convergent natural processes are, in my Mediate Creation
view, necessary but not sufficient to explain the more major, rapid and
singular design innovations.]
Curiously, Conway Morris has himself demolished the most effective case
for the power of convergence -- Manton's theory of the independent origin
of the arthropod body plan by several different phyla. In fact, the possibility
of a polyphyletic origin for the arthropods goes back to Walcott's time and
may have influenced his original interpretations of the Burgess Shale
creatures. But it has now been disproved and with it the best example of
the power of convergence to predetermine the outcome of evolution....
[I agree with this criticism by Bowler. Conway Morris might have been too
keen to rehabilitate Walcott and his `shoehorn'! If life is polyphyletic
and similarities are due to convergence, then that guts Darwinism.]
... Instead, Conway Morris offers us the parallels between the marsupials
and the placental mammals, his best example being the independent
evolution of a marsupial very much like the saber-toothed tiger. The main
problem with this argument (and it is not a new one) is the kangaroo. If
convergence is so powerful, how was it possible for the kangaroos to
proliferate into a major component of the Australian fauna whereas nothing
like them ever became dominant among the placentals of the rest of the
world? ...
I would have thought the lack of large placental grazing mammals in
Australia would explain the radiation of kangaroos to fill that
environmental niche? Besides, convergence explains the similarities that
*do* exist among placental and marsupial mammals on long and widely
separated continents. It does not have to explain similarities that do *not*
exist!
... Gould's interpretation of the Cambrian explosion may have been
demolished, but this reviewer, at least, remains unconvinced by Conway
Morris's argument that the outcome of evolution is predetermined. If
placental kangaroos had taken charge outside Australia, who knows what
the world would look like now.
[Let's face it. If Bowler is an atheist, for all his admirable fairness,
he could not possibly be convinced "by Conway Morris's argument that the
outcome of evolution is predetermined", and still remain an atheist. For
Bowler to demand that placental-marsupial mammal convergences must be
100% paralleled on all continents is absurd.]
There is thus far more at stake here than the nature of the Cambrian
explosion. Conway Morris is quite clear about how far he wants to extend
the power of convergence: It guarantees the emergence of high intelligence
(in mollusks like the octopus and in vertebrates) and of human spiritual
faculties (in the Neandertals as well as our own ancestors). In the end, he
wants us to believe that something very like human nature was bound to
emerge sooner or later from the evolutionary process.
[From something I have learned elsewhere from a reliable source (but
which unfortunately I am not at liberty to reveal), it may be that Conway
Morris now believes that convergence, while more powerful that
Darwinists' grant, is nevertheless not sufficient, and that the *intervention*
of an Intelligent Designer was necessary to *fully* explain life's history.]
...This contrasts with Gould's position, which follows a materialist tradition
pioneered by the founder of modern Darwinian paleontology, George
Gaylord Simpson, who insisted that humans were a most unlikely product
of so haphazard a process. Gould's Marxist leanings are well known, and
we can see why he would favor a viewpoint that leaves the human race to
figure out its own moral values with no hints provided by any
transcendental source. Conway Morris's opposition to this is driven by a
more traditional perception of the human situation. He tells us that our
intelligence is a gift, that we shall be called into account and that the evils
perpetrated by humanity make sense only if they can be redeemed. ...
[This is clearly a Christian position and I am amazed that, although I had
read and remembered Bowler's words, I did not realise their full import.]
For him, we are not only the intended outcome of evolution -- we may also
be the unique embodiments of spiritual faculties in the universe. His last
chapter is a brief but clear-cut rejection of the popular assumption that
there are many life-bearing planets throughout the galaxy. Evolution is
predetermined, but it has only happened once.
[There is a major problem with this basically Deistic Evolution theory
whether it is even possible for God to,*in the sort of universe we actually
have*, to predetermine all the complexities of life from the initial conditions,
without intervention. Leading ID theorist Paul Nelson discusses this
problem in relation to a claim by theistic evolutionist biologist Ken Miller:
"Ken told the following story. "I knew a nun while I was a graduate
student in Colorado," he said, "who was also a biologist. She gave a lecture
on evolution, which she fully accepted, and was asked during the question
period how she could believe in a God who created through evolution.
How did that fit with her theology?" "Well, she replied," Ken continued,
"that it sounded to her like the questioner believed in a God who wasn't a
really superlative pool player. Imagine a pool player who says, 'I'm going to
sink all the balls on the table,' and he does so - but only one at a time. 'My
God,' said the nun, 'is like the pool player who lifts the triangular rack on
the 15 balls, lines up the cue ball, and sinks all the balls with one shot.'"
"And that's my God, too," said Ken. Now, one's first intuition, on hearing
this story, is to say, hmm, that would be quite a feat: sink all the balls with
one shot. Wouldn't that be the greatest design, to build the whole universe
so all its design unfolded right from the start - with one shot, so to speak?
But there's a very interesting problem buried in the nun's metaphor. No
pool player could possibly sink all the balls with one shot. It's impossible.
The pool player can't put enough physical information into the head of the
cue stick (so to speak), transfer that information to the cue ball, and have
the cue ball transfer the information (e.g., vectors) into the fifteen balls in
the rack formation to have those balls roll into the pockets of the pool
table. Sure, nothing in principle prevents all the balls from rolling into the
pockets. After all, after the impact of the cue ball, they have to go
somewhere, so why not into the pockets simultaneously? ut the pool player
can't do it, because he can't forsee (calculate) all the interactions, and even
if he could, he couldn't "get the information" (the interactions) into the
head of the cue stick, using only his muscles (which are subject to dynamics
of their own), eyes, nervous system, etc. Furthermore, as the cue ball
interacts with the cue stick and the cloth of the table , even before it
contacts the rack formation, some information will be lost. ....Thus, if the
theistic evolutionist starts with God creating "the laws of nature," he lacks
the explanatory resources to generate organisms later. The physical laws
and regularities are too information-poor. That is, they won't generate
specified functional (or informational) structures." (Nelson P., "A Report
on the ASA Conference Debate on Pandas and People Textbook", Access
Research Network", 1995. http://www.arn.org/docs/asa795rpt.htm.]
To a historian of science such as myself, the books by Gould and Conway
Morris seem themselves like a re-running of the tape of history, but in this
case there is a loop that was first played in the late-19th century and is now
repeating itself almost exactly. For all the new discoveries and the modern
apparatus of cladistic analysis, the alternative visions of the nature of
history are as clear today as they were to the biologists who tried to defend
their belief in a purposeful universe against the assault of Darwin's Origin
of Species. Gould himself once wrote about the "metaphors" of
paleontology, and on that point, Conway Morris has merely confirmed his
claim that the rival visions of nature are still in play.
[This only goes to show that one's prior metaphysical framework is the
most important factor in interpreting the vast panorama of life's history.
That two such learned palaeontologists as Gould and Conway Morris can
see the same facts, and interpret them so radically differently, shows that
the real problem is not the facts, but what Wilcox calls our `field of
dreams':
"In our ignorance, we assume a structure for GPS [genetic phase space].
We project back onto the vast and misty canvas a map of the structure of
reality that will support our view of cosmic formal cause. If we reject
intelligent cause, we assume GPS is rich in linked viable probabilities. If we
hold to intelligent cause, we realize that the GPS might be much poorer.
The statement that GPS must have a structure that would allow gradual
and undirected emergence is based on worldview assumptions, not on
observations. The GPS becomes our "field of dreams," its contours a
projection of our metaphysics." (Wilcox D., "How Blind the Watchmaker?"
in Templeton J.M, ed., "Evidence of Purpose", 1994, p175)]
Bowler's point that "there is a loop that was first played in the late-19th
century and is now repeating itself almost exactly", i.e. "the biologists who
tried to defend their belief in a purposeful universe against the assault of
Darwin's Origin of Species", is clearly referring to the resurgence of
Intelligent Design.
But the difference now is that we know a lot more about the evidence for
Intelligent Design that was not known in the 19th century, and we also
know a lot more about the limitations and failed predictions of Darwinism.
This is indeed an *exciting* time to be alive! I count myself *enormously*
privileged to be in at the ground floor of this great intellectual `counter-
revolution' which promises to profoundly change the science and society of
the 21st century!]
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Peter Bowler writes and teaches at Queen's University of Belfast, where he
is professor of history and philosophy of science. He is the author of 11
books, including Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the
Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940, just released in paperback
(University of Chicago).
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"From 1860 onward the more distant fossil record became a big issue, and
over the next two decades discoveries were made that at first seemed to
give support to the theory particularly the claimed discovery of a well-
ordered sequence of fossil horse' dating back about 45 million years.
Successes like this continue to be emphasized both to students and the
public, but usually without the greater failures being mentioned. Horses
according to the theory should be connected to other orders of mammals,
which common mammalian stock should be connected to reptiles, and so
on backward through the record. Horses should thus be connected to
monkeys and apes, to whales and dolphins, rabbits, bears. ... But such
connections have not been found. Each mammalian order can be traced
backward for about 60 million years and then, with only one exception the
orders vanish without connections to anything at all. The exception is an
order of small insect-eating mammal that has been traced backward more
than 65 million years..." (Hoyle F., "Mathematics of Evolution", [1987],
Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, p107).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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