The Greatest Show on Earth/A Book Review V
The Evidence for Evolution, by Richard Dawkins
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13- Is nature as perfectly designed as it seems?
Years of false education programmed our brains to believe in the illusion that we are designed in the most perfect model. We tend to look at things in a holistic non-detail, and reductionist perception that gives us a picture of the world as if it was designed by a master engineer. Just like looking at the brightness of color layout of a building without testing or seeing the deficiencies of its room layout or sewage and electrical systems. But if we look at it through a telescope and watch the details we would be able to see that this world is not only imperfect, but it also lacks the basics for a good design. A closer look reveals that, “Eyes and nerves, sperm tubes, sinuses and backs are poorly designed from the point of view of individual welfare.” As Dawkins explains while presenting each case. Yet, he consented that ” the imperfections make perfect sense in the light of evolution.” And that “The same applies to the larger economy of nature.” He says that, “An intelligent creator might be expected to have designed not just the bodies of individual animals and plants but also whole species, entire ecosystems. Nature might be expected to be a planned economy, carefully designed to eliminate extravagance and waste. (but) it isn’t ” Therefore he explains in detail in chapter twelve why the intelligent designer is not intelligent after all. And how complexity arising from simplicity makes perfect sense in light of natural selection. And why there is no ‘theodicy’ (literally, ‘justice of God’) with nature’s arm race.”
14- Does the theory of evolution contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
“The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, although energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it can – must, in close system – become more impotent to do useful work. ‘Work’: that is what it means to say that ‘entropy’ increases. ‘ Work’ includes things like pumping water uphill or – the chemical equivalent – extracting carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide and using it in plant tissues… both can be achieved only if energy is fed into the system, for example electrical energy to drive the water pump, or solar energy to drive the synthesis of sugar and starch in green plant. Once the water has been pumped to the top of the hill, it will then tend to flow downhill, and some of energy of its downward flow can be used to drive a water wheel, which can generate electricity, which can drive an electric motor to pump some of the water uphill again: but only some! Some of energy is always lost – though never destroyed.” as Dawkins explain the meaning of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Creationist usually claim that according to this law which states that, “almost all the energy in the universe is steadily being degraded from the forms that are capable of doing work to forms that are incapable to do work. There is a leveling off, mixing up, until eventually the entire universe will settle into a uniform, (literally) uneventful ‘heat death’.” And therefore, complexity cannot rise from simplicity. Dawkins, on the other hand says that the ones who make this claim do not understand the Second Law of Thermodynamic, as they don’t understand the theory of evolution. He says, “There is no contradiction ( and that is) because of the sun!” The sun is a constant source of energy. The whole system , “while never actually disobeying the laws of physics and chemistry – and certainly never disobeying the Second Law – energy from the sun powers life, to coax and stretch the laws of physics and chemistry to evolve prodigious feats of complexity, diversity, beauty, and uncanny illusion of statistical improbability and deliberate design…life evolves greater complexity only because natural selection drives it locally away from the statistically probable towards the improbable. And this is possible only because of the ceaseless supply of energy from the sun.”
15- How did evolution start in the first place?
Before going into how evolution started we have to know the difference between life and non-life. To this Dawkins answers, “The difference between life and non-life is a matter not of substance but information. Living things contain prodigious quantities of information. Most of the information is digitally coded in DNA, and there is also a substantial quantity coded in other ways.” which he explains in detail as four memories of information. As for how did it all start Dawkins says that, ” although we know a lot about evolution’s mechanics, we know little about how it all started, It could have been an event of supreme rarity. It only had to happen once, and as far as we know it did happen only once…One thing we can say, on the basis of pure logic rather than evidence, is that Darwin was sensible to say, (that life started) ‘from so simple a beginning’. The opposite of simple is statistically improbable. Statistically improbable things don’t spontaneously spring into existence: That is what statistically improbable means. The beginning had to be simple, and evolution by natural selection is still the only process we know whereby simple beginning can give rise to complex results.” Then in chapter thirteen Dawkings presents several theories presented in the scientific communities to explain how life started, whereby he assures us that there is no consensus among scientists on any of them. But he adds that he personally finds RNA World theory plausible, ” the ‘Catch -22′ of the origin of life is this. DNA can replicate, but it needs enzymes in order to catalyse the process. Proteins can catalyse DNA formation, but they need DNA to specify the correct sequence of amino acids. How could the molecules of the early Earth break out of this bind and allow natural selection to get started? Enter RNA.” And then he elaborated that, ” RNA belongs to the same family of chain molecules as DNA, the polynucleotides. It is capable of carrying what amount to the same four code ‘letter’ as DNA, and it indeed does so in living cells, carrying genetic information from DNA to where it can be used. DNA acts as the template for RNA code sequence to build up. And then protein sequences build up using RNA, not DNA, as their template. Some viruses have no DNA at all. RNA is their genetic molecule, solely responsible for carrying genetic information from generation to generation.” Then he adds, “Now for the key point of ‘RNA World theory’ of the origin of life. In addition to stretching out forms suitable for passing on sequence information, RNA is also capable of self-assembling…into three-dimensional shapes, which have enzymatic activity. RNA enzymes do exist. They are not as efficient as protein enzymes, but they work. The RNA World theory suggests that RNA was good enough enzyme to hold the fort until proteins evolved to take over the enzyme role, and that RNA was also a good enough replicator to muddle along that role until DNA evolved.”
And now that we are done with the most frequently asked questions, I would like to go to the last chapter (13) of the book where Dawkins presented a philosophical analysis (line by line) of the last paragraph in Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species:
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. there is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
And by doing this he proved that science is not callous and cold, but more grandeur in its view of life. And before I leave the subject I would like to add one more argument I personally was subjected to whenever a debate for the theory arises, and that is the claim that Darwin was a creationist. And their proof was this line in the paragraph above ‘there is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into few forms or into one’. As we can see that the bold words in the line did not exist in the paragraph that Dawkins included in his book, but it does exist in the copy I have. And the reason it exists in my copy and not his, Dawkins says, is because Darwin’s book went through six editions, the first one which he has (only 1,250 copies) did not include those words because, “presumably bowing to pressure from the religious lobby, Darwin inserted ‘by the creator’ in the second and all subsequent editions.” And he included a letter of 1863 Darwin wrote to his friend the botanist Joseph Hooker regretting this ‘sop to religious opinion’. As for the word ‘breathed into’ we have to understand that Darwin knew little about how life started. In fact, much less than we know now. Besides, “Darwin didn’t discuss how evolution began in On the Origin of Species. He though the problem was beyond the science of his day. In the letter to Hooker…Darwin went on to say. ‘It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.’ He didn’t rule out the possibility that the problem would eventually be solved (indeed, the problem of matter largely has been solved) but only in the distant future: ‘ It will be some time before we see “slime, protoplasm, etc” generating a new animal.”
Coming to the end here I have to stress that this book is a must, especially to Muslims who are not only blinded by miseducation but also by the media. I remember when Ardi was discovered in 2009, while all TV channels of the world presenting it as a discovery of one of the ‘intermediates’, Aljazeera Channel broadcasting it as a testimony against evolution, and deliberately manipulating the translation for that purpose. Alas Dawkins is right; this kind of audience want to hear this kind of nonsense.
The End
Finished
