It’s quite the case of unintended consequences. He didn’t mean it this way, of course, but the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould’s iconic “panda’s thumb” argument for evolution poses an effective, if surprising, difficulty for atheists and agnostics. In a recent peer-reviewed essay, I examined Gould’s argument.¹ I have also written a series of posts on it at Evolution News, of which this is the fifth and final. The others can be found here, here, here, and here. Readers may also find of interest an ID the Future episode on the topic, here. Gould’s case, as we’ll see, is incompatible with the evolutionary views of many of his fellow atheists and agnostics. 

Gould’s View

Gould’s own conflicted worldview is a fine entry point into this problem. His argument about the panda’s thumb hinges upon a theological claim — that God wouldn’t (likely) create or allow a suboptimal thumb. While there may be nothing wrong per se with using a theology-laden claim as a premise in an argument for evolutionary theory, doing so creates a problem for Gould (and others like him). In this case, he draws on partisan theology. As I explain in my longer essay, Gould “tries to establish evolution and refute design rivals by drawing upon theology that is, in some sense, foreign to these rivals.”² As I summarize there:

Gould’s theological claims are partisan. Gould does not borrow the tenets of his various creationist rivals to show on their own grounds that the facts of the natural world support evolution more than [their creationist views]. Instead, Gould imports his own positive intuitions about what a “sensible God” would do. In short, Gould’s theology is sectarian relative to a range of perspectives, including some, like young-earth creationism, that are heavily involved in origins discussions.³

This means that Gould must supply his own justification. He hasn’t drawn on theology that is accepted by his opponents. As I note, “the theology in the panda argument does not require independent justification if all parties in the conversation already accept this theology. But such is not the case.”⁴

So, what is Gould’s justification? He provides none. 

Deeper Still

But matters get worse. Gould — and others like him — hold beliefs that actually conflict with the “panda’s thumb theology”:

The question becomes pressing in light of Gould’s view of human evolution, in which humans were not created by God in order to know Him but were produced by mindless evolutionary processes (cf. Darwin 1958, pp. 92–93; Churchland 1987, pp. 548–49; Crisp 2016). In the late 1970s, Gould claimed that “mind, spirit, and God . . . are just words that express the wondrous results of neuronal complexity” (Gould 1977, p. 13). And “. . . if mind has no real existence beyond the brain, can God be anything more than an illusion invented by an illusion?” (Gould 1977, p. 25). That is, the notion that our “minds” apprehend “God’s nature and ways” is akin to the notion that one illusion can reliably apprehend another illusion.⁵

Are our minds able to reliably do theology? That is a very difficult question for a person who believes that our minds are the result of mindless processes aimed at survival and reproduction. 

In this light, one might wonder how Gould can reliably know certain claims about the deity. Gould avers that God would not (likely) create or allow suboptimal designs, yet, in his view, the human mind was never specifically designed to apprehend such truths. At most, humans were fashioned by chance and selection to survive and reproduce on the African savannah. How likely is it that homo sapiens, having ultimately arisen from primitive organisms, evolved cognitive powers to know true subjunctive claims about a (proposed) omnipotent deity’s intentions for a tiny sliver of the biosphere — the panda’s thumb — which is far removed from human survival and reproduction? Of course, it is possible that our lineage evolved this ability. But is it probable?⁶

This is a difficult question. 

An Objection and Reply

Of course, evolutionists have their answer. They sometimes reply that religious belief (and behavior) is an evolutionary adaptation. It too can be explained by natural selection.

Yet this reply only makes the problem worse. If religious belief (or its underlying cognitive structures) confer a survival advantage, then evolutionists like Gould must contend with the problem that they now have significant evidence that evolution does not lead to truth. 

After all, natural selection selects for fitness advantage. And if holding religious beliefs (and associated behavior) confer a fitness advantage — as the objection states — then natural selection has fashioned minds that have fallen into great error. Clearly, natural selection has favored survival over truth when it comes to worldview-level beliefs. How then can atheists and agnostics trust the reliability of their brains when it comes to their own worldview-level beliefs?

All of this is reminiscent of Darwin’s own struggle. He acknowledged in his autobiography the limitations of the human mind when wrestling with the origin of “this immense and wonderful universe, including man.”⁷ “But then arises the doubt,” he worried, “— can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”⁸ The human mind was apparently ill-equipped by evolution for such matters.

Sawing at the Branch

The panda argument, we find, is incompatible with the views of thinkers who believe that evolution is unplanned. And atheists and agnostics typically fit this category: if a person doesn’t believe in God, then there’s no one around to do the planning. This means that the human mind was not formed by a Being who wants to be understood and known, but rather by mindless processes that care nothing about theology. Yet it is precisely atheists and agnostics who sometimes have strong opinions about what God would or wouldn’t do in organic history! But their own understanding of evolution undermines any basis for making such theological claims. They saw off the very branch upon which they are sitting.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, then, Stephen Jay Gould’s panda argument does not provide evidence against intelligent design. Instead, it raises troubling difficulties for those who accept unguided evolution. To be consistent, these thinkers ought to reject it.

Notes

1. Dilley, Stephen. 2023. “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb.” Religions 14: 1006. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel14081006.
2. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 3, emphasis added.
3. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 20, original emphasis.
4. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 12
5. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 21. The citations in the quote refer to: Darwin, Charles. 1958. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. Edited by Nora Barlow. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Churchland, Patricia. 1987. “Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience.” Journal of Philosophy 84: 544–53. Crisp, Thomas M. 2016. “On Naturalistic Metaphysics.” In The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism. Edited by Kelly James Clark. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 61–74. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1977. Ever Since Darwin. New York: W.W. Norton.
6. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 21, original emphasis.
7. Darwin, Autobiography, p. 92.
8. Darwin, Autobiography, p. 93.