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From a Theistic Evolutionist, Long-Ago Answered Critiques of Stephen Meyer’s Book

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It recently came to my attention that when Stephen Meyer’s book Return of the God Hypothesis (ROTGH) came out three years ago, a theistic evolutionist named Scott Buchanan compiled various critical responses and posted them on his blog. Buchanan is a self-described theistic evolutionist and a BioLogos fan with a PhD in chemical engineering. His review is now being recirculated because of the positive attention that Meyer has received from his recent Piers Morgan interview. Some people are claiming it refutes ROTGH. Does Buchanan’s review provide an effective critique of the book? No, it doesn’t. It just rehashes a few critiques of ROTGH that we addressed long ago, and raises other issues we’ve also already addressed in other contexts. Below is a summary of the arguments and my responses. 

A Low Level of Discourse

Buchanan is a Christian, so it’s doubly unfortunate that his blog uses nasty rhetoric, name-calling, and personal attacks — calling non-evolutionary scientists “dishonest,” “liars,” etc. His review of ROTGH is no exception, as he affirmatively quotes material that calls Meyer and other ID folks “dishonest,” “incompetent,” evincing “rank dishonesty.” He even attacks Meyer’s readers, stating, “One has to marvel at the spectacular degree of ignorance Meyer expects of” them. He could not even bring himself to link to ROTGH in the review. That level of discourse tells you where Buchanan is coming from. 

Those who have read ROTGH know that Meyer’s argument has four parts: 

  • (1) The Judeo-Christian worldview was vital to the rise of science. 
  • (2) The Big Bang and evidence for a beginning of the universe require a first cause, which points to design.
  • (3) The fine-tuning of nature which has yielded a universe habitable for life indicates design.
  • (4) The origin of life and animal body plans would require infusions of information which can only be explained by an intelligent cause. 

Buchanan’s review doesn’t contest argument (1), and basically endorses Meyer’s physics-based arguments. As Buchanan says, “The physics of what Dr. Meyer presents for cosmology are, I think, fine as far as they go.” He mainly takes issue only with argument (4) — material from the two chapters of ROTGH that cover biological design — Chapter 9 on the origin of life, and Chapter 10 on the Cambrian explosion. 

The title of Buchanan’s post is “Scientists’ Responses to Stephen Meyer’s ‘Return of the God Hypothesis’” — implying he’s collected responses from many “scientists.” But Buchanan focuses on just three reviews of ROTGHand only one is by a scientistDarrel Falk, a thoughtful PhD biologist and a senior advisor at BioLogos whose review of ROTGH we answered years ago

The other two reviews are not by scientists. One is by Jim Stump, Vice President of Programs at BioLogos, who is a smart and thoughtful academic, but not a scientist. The third review is by “Puck Mendelssohn,” a pseudonym, who describes himself as an atheist, attorney, and small business owner, and whose claim to fame is posting potty-mouthed reviews of ID books on Amazon. Buchanan’s review would have been more accurately titled “A scientist, a philosopher, and an atheist Internet troll respond to Return of God Hypothesis.” 

Below I’ll discuss five main points raised by these three reviewers. 

1. Darrel Falk, the RNA World, and the Origin of Life 

Buchanan quotes Darrel Falk on Meyer’s discussion of the origin of life based upon RNA world experiments. Falk argued that Meyer’s discussion of these experiments was outdated because a 2014 paper showed how an RNA molecule can copy itself with “100 percent effectiveness” (Falk’s words). Brian Miller wrote a forceful rebuttal to Falk here: “Darrel Falk Badly Mischaracterizes RNA World Experiments…and Stephen Meyer.”

Miller showed that Meyer in ROTGH had addressed a very similar experiment which did not show any self-replicating RNA. As for the experiment that Falk cited, it showed the same thing — there was no self-replicating RNA. It simply showed an RNA linking two halves of another RNA together. But the system was not a self-replicating RNA. Indeed, the experiment copied the RNA using modern-day machinery of life — which obviously would not have been present the origin of life. 

2. Darrel Falk and the Origin of Limbs

Buchanan also quotes Falk’s citation of a 2021 Cell paper, published after ROTGH came out. The paper purported to show genetic changes that turned a fin into a limb. I responded to this paper and Falk’s claims in detail, showing that nothing like a tetrapod limb was produced, and the paper did not even claim to show such a thing. The two “bones” produced were not even claimed to be homologous to bones in a tetrapod limb. This mutant phenotype would likely have provided no survival benefit in the wild. For details, please see:

3. Jim Stump and the Cambrian Explosion

In 2021, Jim Stump had Stephen Meyer on the BioLogos podcast to discuss ROTGH, and later posted a “Guide” to the podcast. The latter included attacks on Meyer’s statements, which Meyer had no opportunity to answer during the podcast. David Klinghoffer covered this incident here. Buchanan cites Stump’s “Guide” linking to a BioLogos article about the Cambrian explosion. Many of these points are answered at: “FAQ: The Cambrian Explosion Is Real, and It Is a Problem for Evolution.” Some specific problems with the BioLogos article include:

  • It wrongly says the Cambrian explosion was tens of millions of years in length — a claim answered years ago at: “How ‘Sudden’ Was the Cambrian Explosion? Nick Matzke Misreads Stephen Meyer and the Paleontological Literature; New Yorker Recycles Misrepresentation.”
  • It invokes various methods of explaining away the Cambrian explosion as an “artifact” of an “incomplete” record or simply representing the origin of “mineralized structures.” Yet leading Cambrian experts reject these ad hoc explanations and believe the Cambrian explosion was a real event. For details, please see here and here.
  • It cites various Precambrian fossils as supposed precursors to the Cambrian animals. Günter Bechly and I have written on why these “Precambrian animals” are not precursors to Cambrian forms. Please see herehere, and here. In Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen Meyer also notes experts who believe Precambrian animal fossils are lacking: “As Graham Budd and Sören Jensen state, ‘The known [Precambrian/Cambrian] fossil record has not been misunderstood, and there are no convincing bilaterian candidates known from the fossil record until just before the beginning of the Cambrian (c. 543 Ma), even though there are plentiful sediments older than this that should reveal them.’ Thus they conclude, ‘The expected Darwinian pattern of a deep fossil history of the bilaterians, potentially showing their gradual development, stretching hundreds of millions of years into the Precambrian, has singularly failed to materialize.’”

Buchanan also cites Stump’s Guide discussing orfan genes, claiming they derive from junk DNA sequences. I responded to these arguments from BioLogos scientists here, pointing out that no one knows how genes arise “de novo” from “junk DNA” because this would require large number of spontaneous coordinated mutations — what one paper compared to “Darwinian alchemy.” The likelihood of this happening by chance is very low, and invoking magical-sounding phrases like “de novo” gene origination doesn’t solve the problem. 

4. “Puck Mendelssohn” and the Fossil Record

As noted, Puck Mendelssohn (hereafter “PM”) is an Amazon reviewer who frequently posts nasty and uncivil reviews of ID books, full of hateful invective and personal attacks. Buchanan reprints a large portion of PM’s Amazon review of ROTGH — and does so affirmatively, calling it “a detailed critical review” which “packs a lot of information.” Yet, as noted earlier, PM’s review calls Meyer and other ID people “dishonest,” “incompetent,” and even attacks readers of ROTGH, stating: “One has to marvel at the spectacular degree of ignorance Meyer expects of his readers.” Evidently Buchanan wants to promote these personal attacks. 

Most of PM’s review focuses on Meyer’s treatment of evolution. He calls Darwin’s Doubt a “profound misrepresentation of paleontological and genetic evidence in relation to the Cambrian explosion” and claims Meyer “overstates both its speed and the difficulty of explaining it.” Ironically, PM then cites “the excellent book by Doug Erwin and James Valentine on the Cambrian.” We’ve also cited that excellent book because it supports Meyer’s views about the rapidity of the Cambrian explosion and admits it is a real and “unresolved” event, not an artifact of incomplete sampling or preservation. For details, see:

PM’s biggest complaint about ROTGH refers to the following passage from Meyer:

Although the Cambrian explosion of animals is especially striking, it is far from the only “explosion” of new living forms. The first winged insects, birds, flowering plants, mammals, and many other groups also appear abruptly in the fossil record, with no apparent connection to putative ancestors in the lower, older layers of fossil‐bearing sedimentary rock.

It’s well documented that these groups appear abruptly in the fossil record. For details see here or Meyer’s chapter with Günter Bechly, “The Fossil Record and Universal Common Ancestry,” in the volume Theistic Evolution

PM is particularly upset about Meyer’s comments about mammals, but many authorities cite an “explosion” or “explosive diversification” of major mammal groups in the Tertiary.1 Paleontologist Niles Eldredge notes that “there are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate ‘transitional’ forms between species, but also between larger groups — between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals.”2

PM’s main complaint is that Meyer should have cited Thomas Kemp’s book The Origin and Evolution of Mammals, but Meyer in the textbook Explore Evolution, which he co-wrote, offered a lengthy critique of evolutionary accounts of the first mammals. There, in fact Meyer et al. do cite Kemp’s book, noting serious inaccuracies: 

Some textbooks alter the scale of pictures showing the order of appearance of groups such as the mammal-like reptiles. This makes the features appear closer in size than they really are, and creates the impression of a close genealogical relationship, and an easy transition between different types of animals. Presentations of the sequence from mammal-like reptiles to mammals, in particular, often enlarge some skulls and shrink others to make them appear more similar in size than they actually are. 

Explore Evolution, p. 29

They offer the following diagram showing how this supposed evolutionary sequence is not nearly as neat and tidy as Kemp presents: 

Given how Kemp overstates the case for reptile-to-mammal evolution, Meyer had good reason for not citing the book in ROTGH.

Meyer et al.’s textbook further states that many of these supposed mammal ancestors don’t appear in a sequential manner: “five ‘intermediate’ forms that cladograms predict should have arrived neatly in sequence over a long period of time actually appear suddenly at the same time in the fossil record.” So the case for mammal evolution is not as clear-cut as PM would have us think.

Also, regarding mammals, Buchanan claims that whale fossils provide good evidence for evolution. We’ve addressed this argument many times. For example, please see, “Adam and the Genome and Whale Fossils.”

5. “Puck Mendelssohn” and the Origin of New Genetic Information

PM also attacks Meyer’s argument that blind evolutionary mechanisms must struggle to produce the new information needed to generate new biological forms. He focuses on Meyer’s citation of Douglas Axe’s 2004 research showing the difficulty for random mutation in producing new functional proteins, claiming that Axe’s “absurd view is rejected by every last scientist working in the field and has gained no traction in the decades since.” But Axe is hardly alone in seeing difficulties for chance mutations in producing new protein types. Consider comments in a 2013 article in American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Today from Dan Tawfik, a leader in the field of protein evolution before his tragic death in 2021:

Overall, what the field of protein evolution needs are some plausible, solid hypotheses to explain how random sequences of amino acids turned into the sophisticated entities that we recognize today as proteins. Until that happens, the phenomenon of the rise of proteins will remain, as Tawfik says, “something like close to a miracle.” [Emphasis added.]

PM asserts that Axe’s results were refuted by a 2017 study that allegedly found it was much easier to evolve the beta-lactamase enzyme’s function than Axe claimed: 

The very same enzyme activity that Axe extrapolated could only occur in one in 10^77 sequences has been found twice by screening only 10^8 sequences (Shahsavarian et al., FEBS Journal 2/2017, p. 634-653). Sixty-nine orders of magnitude. That’s not a small error.

We’re well aware of Shahsavarian et al. (2017), and PM has severely misunderstood or misrepresented the study. Axe’s work measured the rarity of the beta-lactamase enzyme at 1 in 1077 sequences. This number is so low because of the difficulty in obtaining a stable structure that supports the activity of the active site. Axe’s measure is fully plausible because it’s very difficult to produce stable structures through random sequences. Indeed, as Brian Miller and I note hereTian and Best (2017) reported that some studies have found that functional stable proteins are even rarer than Axe’s results on beta-lactamase!

In any case, Shahsavarian et al. (2017) did not set out to refute Axe, and was studying a fundamentally different problem. The paper started with a massive library of antibodies — which are special proteins made by our immune system cells that are designed to be stable and yet have certain parts that can mutate freely and possibly latch on to different things. PM’s claims notwithstanding, they did not use completely random sequences but instead used segments of pre-existing antibody proteins and mutated their “active site” only. Again, antibodies are designed to provide a stable backbone, meaning that the hardest part of producing a functional protein — getting a stable structure — is already solved. 

So Shahsavarian et al. (2017) started with a stable structure provided by the antibody fragments — arguably the hardest part of producing the beta-lactamase enzyme. They then mutated the variable region of the antibody (something antibodies are designed to allow) and found that 1 in 108 to 109 antibodies could latch on to the antibiotic drug normally destroyed by beta-lactamase. That’s not surprising because the antibody constant region was providing the stable structure for the binding site. With that stable structure in place, generating a functional binding site is far easier. 

Thus, Shahsavarian et al. (2017) really did not measure the likelihood of creating a beta-lactamase enzyme from scratch. To do so they would have had to measure the difficulty of both creating a stable structure (very hard) and the binding site (difficult but not as hard). They only measured the latter, not both combined. Thus this really did not measure the same difficult task (generating both) that Axe measured. 

Finally, PM cites the evolvability of COVID as evidence that new proteins can evolve. Mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein are very common — but they always preserve the overall shape and structure of the spike protein. So yes, you can mutate a protein to a limited extent provided that you don’t change its overall shape or structure. Indeed, Meyer and Axe in particular have been very clear in affirming that mutations can modify and even optimize existing protein functions provided they do not alter the structure of the protein fold. They have instead insisted that the mutation/selection mechanism lacks the ability to generate novel protein folds in part because as mutations accumulate they will degrade and destroy the structure of the fold long before a new fold can arise.  Indeed, that’s the most difficult part of getting new proteins: evolving new folds. So PM is NOT citing examples of what we say is very difficult: the evolution of new proteins folds with new structures. 

6. Falsely Framing Intelligent Design

Lastly, Buchanan’s review contains a narrative and larger framing of ID that is false. He claims that ID has been refuted by numerous “scientists,” is constantly changing its “strategy,” and is on its last legs. But his understanding of ID is acutely underinformed, highly inaccurate, and full of severe misconceptions. To provide some factual information:

  • New scientists join our movement literally every week and our community of scientists is growing. Just two weeks ago we posted an update to our ID peer-reviewed articles page documenting the over 150 peer-reviewed papers that have been published supporting ID. We also just posted a new page documenting exciting aspects of our very active science research program. Buchanan is probably unaware of any of the scientific progress of ID, which is why his framing is so inaccurate. 
  • Buchanan provides an inaccurate narrative about ID’s relationship to religion and public-school education policy — false claims we’ve addressed many times. ID proponents are very open about whether they believe in God, and we’ve never hidden anything in this regard. Also, our reasons for claiming that ID doesn’t identify the designer aren’t “strategic” but are principled and stem from a desire to respect the limits of what we can learn through scientific methods of design detection. For details, please see: “Principled (Not Rhetorical) Reasons Why Intelligent Design Doesn’t Identify the Designer.”
  • We also never “disguised” any religious connections of ID nor have we ever denied that ID has larger implications that are friendly to theism. Our amicus brief in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case argued what we’ve always said: ID is a scientific theory with larger religious implications, which makes it much like evolution or Big Bang cosmology. For details, please see, “Any larger philosophical implications of intelligent design, or any religious motives, beliefs, and affiliations of ID proponents, do not disqualify ID from having scientific merit.” 
  • Discovery Institute has long opposed trying to push ID into public schools — both before the Dover trial, and after. For details, please see herehere, and here.

In the end Buchanan’s review falls short — he cites reviews and arguments that we’ve previously and decisively refuted. It’s unfortunate that Buchanan’s resorts to endorsing such nasty name-calling and personal attacks from highly uncivil ID critics. But despite his inflated rhetoric, there are no serious challenges to Meyer’s arguments to be found in the review. 

Notes

  1. Peter D. Ward, Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere (Joseph Henry Press, 2006), p. 224; David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel, Evolution of the Insects (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 37; Stanley A. Rice, Encyclopedia of Evolution (Checkmark, 2007), p. 6; Edwin H. Colbert, Evolution of the Vertebrates: A History of the Backboned Animals through Time (John Wiley & Sons, 1969), p. 123; Niles Eldredge, Macroevolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks (McGraw Hill, 1989), p. 44; Robert A. Martin, Missing Links: Evolutionary Concepts and Transitions Through Time (Jones & Bartlett, 2004), pp. 135, 139. 179; Marc Godinot, “Fossil Record of the Primates from the Paleocene to the Oligocene,” in Handbook of Paleoanthropology: Principles, Methods, and Approaches, ed. Winfried Henke and Ian Tattersall, 2nd ed. (Springer, 2015), pp. 1137-1259; Alan Feduccia, “Explosive evolution in tertiary birds and mammals,” Science, 267 (5198): 637-638 (February 3, 1995); Maureen A. O’Leary, et al., “The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals,” Science, 339: 662-667 (February 8, 2013).
  2. Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism (Washington Square Press, 1982), p. 65.