Stephen Jay Gould was renowned as a paleontologist, not as a theologian. Yet perhaps his most iconic argument is theological in nature. 

He claimed that the “panda’s thumb” was suboptimal and, thus, counted as evidence in favor of evolution over special creation. His influence as a scientist, historian, and popularizer enabled the panda argument to take on a life of its own.¹ It has become something of a symbol of the deeper claim that poorly functioning biological phenomena count as evidence for evolution and against intelligent design. In a recent peer-reviewed essay for the journal Religions, I took up Gould’s argument as well as a cluster of related matters.² I return to it here in a five-part series, of which this post is the second.

In my first post, citing major empirical studies that have illuminated the exceptional functionality and engineering of the panda’s thumb, I showed that the thumb is not suboptimal at all. Gould was exactly wrong. 

However, let us assume for the sake of the argument that it is suboptimal — “clumsy” and “highly inefficient,” as Gould puts it.³ One question becomes: Is intelligent design theory compatible with the existence of such a thumb? 

God-Talk at the Center

Gould’s argument actually hinges on a theological claim. Here is how he frames the issue: “[o]dd arrangements and funny solutions” point to evolution whereas “ideal design” points to a “sensible God.” His line of reasoning implies that the thumb supports evolution rather than divine design.⁴

But to make this argument work, Gould assumes that if God were to have created the panda species, He would not create (or allow) a suboptimal thumb. Without this claim, Gould cannot argue that the thumb supports evolution over divine creation. The case is thus theological. 

But would God really do no such thing? Or, more broadly, would an intelligent designer also avoid such a thumb? Are intelligent design theorists obligated to accept Gould’s theology? And are other people obligated? As I explain in Religions:

Who is rationally obligated to accept [Gould’s theology]? That is, who is rationally obligated to accept that God would not make (or allow) the panda’s suboptimal thumb…? These questions are more difficult to answer than one might think — in no small part because they breed a further array of queries. Given that Gould believes God would (probably) not allow a suboptimal thumb in the present, one might ask: on Gould’s view, what should God do if the environment changes? Should God prevent change? If so, to what degree should He maintain stasis? Or should God create new animals, as the famous nineteenth century scientist Georges Cuvier believed? Perhaps He should instead act parsimoniously and limit Himself just to modifying extant animals?⁵

I note: “[T]he 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.”⁶ Indeed, nearly every relevant party in the conversation has grounds to reject Gould’s theology!

Intelligent Design and Gouldian Theology

Let’s start with intelligent design theorists. Must they accept Gould’s God-talk? The answer is no. As I observe:

[I]ntelligent design theory itself does not entail the acceptance of [Gould’s theology]. The theory holds that certain features of the natural world are best explained by detectable intelligent agency rather than mindless materialistic processes like natural selection and random mutation (Meyer 2013, p. 339). While ID theorists generally expect to find well-engineered systems or organisms in the natural world (Miller 2022), the theory is consistent with at least some degree of ‘devolution’ in the present day (e.g., Minnich and Meyer 2004, pp. 301-2). And the theory itself focuses on intelligent agency rather than the theology-rich concept of an “omnipotent creator”. Thus, insofar as a person accepts ID theory, she has grounds (in principle) to refrain from accepting [Gould’s theology].⁷

And, in fact, a given ID advocate is free to accept a range of other beliefs that make Gould’s theology even less probable. Such beliefs have been articulated by St. Paul, John Calvin, William Dembski, and Peter van Inwagen, among others.⁸

Young Earth and Gouldian Theology

Although my own interests are in ID (as a big tent) rather than in young-earth creationism, most young-earthers are hardly obligated either to accept Gould’s theology:

In the present day, young earth creationists routinely claim that the Fall of man adversely affected the created order such that it is no longer optimal. In the seminal text of modern creationism, The Genesis Flood, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb argue that the original creation was without flaw, but “the Edenic curse had far-reaching effects upon nature” including physical changes to animals as well as predation and death (Whitcomb and Morris 1961, p. 459). Andrew Snelling argues a similar line in Earth’s Catastrophic Past (2010), arguably the most comprehensive defense of creationism today. He contends that creation was originally “complete and perfect. There was nothing out of order — no pain, no suffering, no disease, no struggle for existence, no disharmony, no sin or evil, and above all, no death” (Snelling 2010, vol. 1, p. 245). But “[m]an’s fall from his created state of innocence” had a “pivotal effect upon. . . the whole earth” which adversely altered the animal kingdom, humankind, and even “the very elements of the ground itself” (Snelling 2010, pp. 253, 245–59). Snelling, Morris, and Whitcomb are hardly alone. To my knowledge, nearly all contemporary young-earth creationists affirm the existence of an omnipotent God and the adverse effects of the Fall on creation (Nelson 1996, p. 500). Given the degraded state of creatures and their environment, it is hardly surprising that some organisms are poorly adapted to their current ecological niche.⁹

Thus, given their views, young-earthers are not rationally obligated to accept Gould’s theological preferences.

Nineteenth-Century Creationism and Gouldian Theology

Still more surprising, even if one were to apply Gould’s argument to mid-19th-century views alone, it would still be problematic:

Even if we were to charitably confine Gould’s argument to Darwin’s era, problems still remain. Perhaps the most prominent creationists of that day — Louis Agassiz and William Paley — would also not be obligated to accept Gould’s theology. Take Louis Agassiz, for example. In his greatest theoretical work, Essay on Classification (1859), he defends what we might call “taxonomic creationism.” Agassiz believes that species are incarnations of ideas in the mind of God, and their (taxonomic) relations reflect a grand divine plan. On this view, God created basic organismal types that allow variation, some of which are less functional than others. He did not create each species (or structure) optimally adapted to its (current) environment…¹⁰

Agassiz drives this point home early in Essay on Classification:

The argument for the existence of an intelligent Creator is generally drawn from the adaptation of means to ends, upon which the Bridgewater treatises, for example, have been based. But this does not appear to me to cover the whole ground, for we can conceive that the natural action of objects upon each other should result in a final fitness of the universe and thus produce an harmonious whole; nor does the argument derived from the connection of organs and functions seem to me more satisfactory, for, beyond certain limits, it is not even true. We find organs without functions, as, for instance, the teeth of the whale, which never cut through the gum, the breast in all males of the class of mammalia; these and similar organs are preserved in obedience to a certain uniformity of fundamental structure, true to the original formula of that division of animal life, even when not essential to its mode of existence. The organ remains, not for the performance of a function, but with reference to a plan, and might almost remind us of what we often see in human structures, when, for instance, in architecture, the same external combinations are retained for the sake of symmetry and harmony of proportion, even when they have no practical object.¹¹

So, Agassiz is clear that his type of creationism does not require each specific organ or limb to have good function (or any function at all). 

Paley’s version of creationism is also fully consistent with a suboptimal panda’s thumb:

Strikingly, William Paley also implicitly rejects Gould’s theology. In Natural Theology (1809), he argues for the existence of an omnipotent deity based on organismal adaptation. Yet he thinks that limited cases of imperfection pose no difficulty because the sheer quality and quantity of exquisite adaptations provide a preponderance of evidence for the existence and traditional attributes of God (Paley 1809, pp. 56-58). As such, Paley points out that an ostrich’s wings can be “reckoned an imperfection in the bird” because, “although they may greatly assist it in running, do not serve for flight” (Paley 1809, p. 220). Paley also allows “totally useless” structures as long as they are “extremely rare” (Paley 1809, p. 59). (Notably, Gould does not believe the panda’s thumb is totally useless but rather “workable” (Gould 1980, p. 24)). So, Paley’s creationism is consistent with the existence of a clumsy panda’s thumb.¹²

Surprisingly, Darwin’s own nemesis would not have a problem with a poorly functioning thumb! So, not even Paley would be touched by Gould’s famous argument.

Summary

This is quite something. Nearly every relevant party in the discussion is free from any obligation to accept Gould’s claim about God. This makes the panda argument very weak as a stand-alone polemic for evolution over divine design:

[Gould] claimed that an omnipotent creator (almost surely) would not have suboptimally designed the panda’s thumb for its primary function in the panda’s current environment. Such a Being neither creates nor permits poor function. But not only does Gould fail to offer positive support for his view, quite a few thinkers in the discussion have ample reasons to reject it. Such thinkers include taxonomic creationists, Paleyian creationists, contemporary young-earth creationists, intelligent design theorists, mainstream Christians, and many others.¹³

Looking Ahead

Additional questions remain. For example, one might ask, even if ID is compatible with the panda’s thumb, doesn’t such a thumb generally fit better within an evolutionary paradigm than with a design paradigm? And don’t many cases of suboptimality favor evolution over design? After all, evolution seems to predict suboptimality whereas design apparently just accommodates it. These are reasonable points, to which I will turn in my next post.

Notes

1. See Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 1.
2. Stephen Dilley. 2023. “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb.” Religions 14: 1006. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel14081006.
3. Stephen Jay Gould. 1980. The Panda’s Thumb. New York: W.W. Norton, p. 29. Stephen Jay Gould. 1986. “Evolution and the Triumph of Homology, Or Why History Matters.” American Scientist 74: 60-69, esp. p. 63.
4. Stephen Jay Gould. 1980. The Panda’s Thumb. New York: W.W. Norton, p. 20-21. Note also that Gould believed a “single” artifact could clearly point to evolution (over creationism). See the citations in Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 1, 6. 
5. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 12.
6. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 12.
7. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 14. The citations in the quote are to: Stephen Meyer, 2013. Darwin’s Doubt. New York: HarperCollins. Scott Minnich and Stephen Meyer. 2004. “Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic bacteria.” In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Design & Nature, Rhodes, Greece. Edited by M. W. Collins and C. A. Brebbia. Southampton: Wessex Institute of Technology Press, pp. 295-304. Brian Miller, 2022. “Engineering Principles Explain Biological Systems Better then Evolutionary Theory.” In Science and Faith in Dialogue. Edited by Frederik van Niekerk and Nico Vorster. Cape Town: AOSIS Publishing, pp. 175–212.
8. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 11-17.
9. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 14. The citations in the quotation are to: John Whitcomb and Henry Morris. 1961. The Genesis Flood. Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing. Andrew Snelling. 2010. Earth’s Catastrophic Past. Dallas: Institute for Creation Research, 2 vols. Paul Nelson. 1996. “The Role of Theology in Current Evolutionary Reasoning.” Biology and Philosophy 11: 493-517.
10. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 15.
11. Louis Agassiz. 1859. An Essay on Classification. London: Longman et al., p. 11-12.
12. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 15. Other citations are to: William Paley, 1809. Natural Theology, 12th ed. London: J. Faulder. Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, p. 24.
13. Dilley, “God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb,” p. 15-16.