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柯林斯看到上帝创造了宇宙──然而生命却是另一回事
by Jonathan Witt 唐理明译
译者按
2006年5月，美国人体基因图谱计划负责人柯林斯（Francis Collins）出版了一本畅销书《上帝的语言（The Language of God）》，副题为「一个科学家呈献信仰的证据」。他曾和克林顿总统在2000年共同宣布基因谱计划完成。在以无神思想为主流的媒体大环境中，这位知名的科学家竟写出一本赞同信仰的书，基督徒岂能不欢欣鼓舞？然而，基督教界对此书的态度却分歧不一。为什么呢？柯林斯自己在书中给了答案──是因他在生物的产生论上采取「神导进化论」的缘故。
位于西雅图的发现学社（Discovery Institute），是提倡智设论的智库（Think Tank）。虽然柯林斯的书反对智设论，但据笔者所知，此书发行之后，发现学社仅在网上发表三篇短评，且都是浅评其中某一点。经过半年，直到当年11月底，该学社资深研究员威托（Jonathatn Witt）才在《Touchstone》杂志上发表了一篇全面性的评论 “Random Acts of Design”。此文说理中肯，逻辑严紧，行文谨慎，故笔者译成中文，以供基督徒平衡的参考。
笔者曾在去年四月《恩福》杂志上发表「智设论仍在转动」一文。请参阅该文有关方法论的自然主义（methodological naturalism）、历史性科学（historical science）和智设论定义等段落，以助了解。又，文中译者所添之词以方括弧〔〕为记。
柯林斯是人体基因图谱计划的总监，这项重大而成功的计划将人体三十一亿基因码绘制成谱。众人总以为世上「卓着的科学家」都是「坚定的无神论者」，但令人惊讶的是，柯林斯却是位认认真真的基督徒。在他的新畅销书《上帝的语言：一个科学家呈献信仰的证据》中，他以遗传学家和医师的素养，说服大众既接受达尔文进化论，也接受一位超越（Transcendent）的造物主。
他所赞同的进化论，是指自宇宙开始直到人类的出现，其间毫无直接理智的介入（intelligent input）。然而他亦言之凿凿地指出，基督教的神论是有道理的，不但造物主有凭有据，就连神迹、耶稣的神性、和复活的真实性也都是有可能的。他认为一个科学家可以相信这些基督教的教义，并不需要在入〔教堂〕门前调整（check）头脑。1
主流媒体侧重报导此书的两方面：强调达尔文主义并不威胁基督信仰，以及达尔文对一系列物质界的解释比创造论科学（Creation Science）或智设论（Intelligent Design）更高明。然而这本书有一大特色却为众人视而不见，亟待见诸笔墨，即：柯林斯为智设论提出了科学的论据。
智设论所探讨的，不仅是物质的起源，更延伸到思想（mind）的起源。其理论为：自然界某些特征最佳的解释是理智的因素（intelligent cause）。柯林斯在第九章反对在生物界采用智设论，媒体就此大为宣传。但在第三章「宇宙的起源」中，他却陈明，「自然界某些特征最佳的解释是理智的因素」，在此他是指生命起源之前就存在的特征。
柯林斯的论证
他在该书的这部份首先回顾了二十世纪物理学和宇宙学上的各项发现，其中多半肯定了基督教的教导。例如，十九世纪时，科学家一般认为宇宙是永恒的，但到了二十世纪，证据不断增加，说服他们宇宙约在140亿年以前才开始。柯林斯认为，这和圣经「从无到有」的创造教义吻合。
然后，他概述了〔宇宙常数〕精调（fine tuning）的问题。不断积累的证据显示，自然界的物理常数（重力、电磁力、宇宙质量等）是极其精密调整的，让复杂甚至高等的生命可以存活。任何一个倘若有极小的变动，现存的生命就不可能出现。
接下来，柯林斯陈述了现今国际物理学、化学、天文学、宇宙学家所提出的三种解释：(1) 除了我们的宇宙之外，还有许多个宇宙，数目或许无穷无尽，当中必定至少有一个所具备的常数恰到好处，可以支持高等生命；(2) 我们只是运气太好，好得让人难以置信；(3) 这些物理常数看来像是精调的，因为它们本来就是经过精调的。换言之，它们是出于设计的。
在该章的结尾，柯林斯并没有说：「我偏好第三种选择，因为它肯定了我先前的宗教信念。」他反而作了一个以证据为基础的论证，并且以标准的推理方法为诉求，辩明设计的假说乃是以上物理证据的最佳解释。
他的结论很明确──尽管用语十分谨慎。论到那两个非设计的选择，他说：「根据或然律，第二种选择最不可能。这样一来，只有第一和第三可选。第一种选择在逻辑上可以站得住，但数目近乎无穷、又观察不到的宇宙，使它的可信性降至极低；它诚然通不过奥卡姆剃刀（Occam's Razor）原则。」2
上述引文只能浅略刻划出柯林斯如何借整章行文引导读者走向第三种选择；由于他用语谨慎，实在难以用简短的篇幅表明。举个例子，在这段引文之后，他又有效地（虽然力度不强）对付一种反对的说法，即，「引进一个超然设计者也违反了奥卡姆剃刀原则」；而且他提到，「然而可以论证说，大爆炸本身便似乎强力指向有造物主。」
他以大爆炸和宇宙的精调作为他的设计论证两项主要的论据。（第三项将在下面谈到，是检视各种不同文化普遍皆有的道德律，和人类利他精神的事实。这些特征达尔文主义无法解释，而最佳的解释则为：人是按上帝的形像造的。）
在当前知识界的大环境，倡导智设论的科学家曾经遭到骚扰，甚至被开除；新闻报导和道金斯（Richard Dawkins）、丹那特（Daniel Dennett）等人所写的畅销读物经常攻击这个主张。如今人体基因图谱计划总监竟为智设论提出一个科学的论据，实在应当受众所瞩目。
柯林斯的瑕疵
然而为何这情况没有出现？这是因为柯林斯接受了反对智设论者的误导说法，作为他的标准论据。他们认为，智设论是一种反对达尔文主义的纯粹负面论证，再加上「填补空缺的上帝（God-of-the-gaps）」神学。
他们认为，智设论仅仅在达尔文主义戳上了几个洞，就宣称这些洞证明了上帝设计了生命。大体而言，他们宣称，智设论者只不过是根据我们目前的无知，没有足够的唯物机制来解释某些自然界的现像，就直接辩称是出于理智设计。
但事实并非如此。诚然，生物学界的智设论者的确对达尔文主义提出大量的批评，但他们也从正面提出了智设的证据。他们所根据的，是我们对自然界日益增长的知识，包括柯林斯所论及的细胞学界，以及我们对于理智仲介（intelligent agents）──现今所知能产生「资讯」或「不能简约的复杂机械」（二者都能在细胞中见到）的唯一原因──的了解。
以第三章中的两个例子来看。首先，他提到脊椎动物眼睛〔视网膜〕的「反向布线（backward wiring）」。表面看来这样的结构效果不佳，使得光线必须经过神经和血管3才能达到眼睛的光感细胞。他主张，这乃是新达尔文主义的证据，他不认为有一聪明的设计者直接掌理了这个器官的进化。「在仔细考察之下，眼睛的设计并非完全理想。」他写道，而这类不完美似乎「令许多解剖学家以为，人体的形成不是出于真正的智慧设计4」。
这种说法是道金斯和广大达尔文主义者所津津乐道的。然而遗传学家兼医生的但顿（Michael Denton）却已经证明，这种反向布线改善了〔视细胞的〕氧气流通，这是极重要的优势，也是达尔文批评者所要求的正向布线所不能达到的。智设论者曾经多次要人注意这一点，但看来柯林斯并不知道。他既没有讨论，也没有提及。（道金斯和其他达尔文主义者一般则避而不谈。）
柯林斯的细菌鞭毛
第二个例子则显示柯林斯对于智设论学者领衔的工作并不熟悉。他讨论了有关一种微小的旋转发动机──即细菌鞭毛──的科学争论。这细菌鞭毛是智设论理论家所津津乐道的，因为他们相信，除了设计之外，用其它方法来解释其起源都显然徒劳无功，同时，鞭毛的图像无异将「设计」忽之欲出。
里海（Leihigh）大学生物化学家贝希（Michael Behe）借着《达尔文的黑盒子》一书，让这个精良的分子机器出了名。他论证说，它具「不能简约的复杂性（irreducible complexity）」，因此是设计的证据。他以一个简单的捕鼠夹来解释「不能简约的复杂性」。捕鼠夹如果缺少任何一个部件（木板座、弹簧、打击杆、固定杆、或扳机），就不能工作；即使五件中有四件，也完全没用。因此，这个捕鼠夹就是不能简约地复杂。它要么部件齐备，要么就不是一个捕鼠夹。
同样，细菌鞭毛是由四十多种不同类蛋白质组成的机械，必须要全部都在场才能工作。倘若只有三十九种蛋白质，也没有作用。
「不能简约的复杂性」和达尔文主义有什么关系呢？一个有知觉〔理智〕的设计者可以集合各个无功能的部件，组成一个完整而有功能的整体。但否认理智指导的达尔文进化论，其进展只能是一小步的，一次只可以从一个功能转进为另一个功能。那么，按达尔文进化论的机制，一次只能作一部份，如何能造成一个具不能简约复杂性的鞭毛发动机？──这个马达要等全部配件装好之后才会动。〔因为自然选择必须有功能优势才能被选上。〕
柯林斯用了达尔文进化论维护者急先锋米勒（Kenneth Miller）和其他人的说法，主张自然可以共选（co-opt）较简单的分子机械来创造细菌鞭毛，并且用「第三类分泌器（type three secretory apparatus [System, or TTSS]）」5 来作这种间接道路的证据。但智设论理论家早已指出，这种解释有叁个重大问题。
首先，这个微注射器〔（TTSS） 5〕 只有十种蛋白质，其余三十种蛋白质还是没有交代，而这三十种蛋白质从来没有在其它生物体中找到。其次，从大量文献来看，这个系统可能是在较复杂的细菌鞭毛之后产生的，而不是在它之前。
最后，即使是自然（nature）一手取得所有构成细菌鞭毛的正确蛋白质零件，要把它们准确地按时间顺序组装起来，则还需要某些东西，就好像汽车在工厂组装起来一样。现今这种工作是怎样完成的？微生物学家密尼克（Scott Minnich）和哲学家迈耶（Stephen Meyer）如此说明：「要统一指挥组装鞭毛马达，现今的细菌需要一个详细的分子生物指令系统，还要有许多其他蛋白质机械为这些组装指令的表达来有条不紊地计时。」
柯林斯从来不提这类事情。诸如此类的事，再加上其他例子──例如，有关〔智设论〕可试性的问题，认为智设论不能作预见性判断的说法，还有他对现代智设运动的历史经常搞错（他忽视了80年代为智设论奠基的科学家和哲学家的着作，错误地以为它始于1991），可见他固然是位第一流的实验生物学家，但却从未与智设论第一流的论证交手过。
自然主义者
在同一章中，他援用所谓方法论的物质主义（也称为方法论的自然主义）之规律，来辩称，面对一种生物结构，生物学家不应当只因为科学家还未发现其成因，就放弃寻求唯物的（即达尔文式的）解释。
这是他反对智设论理由的一部份。「智设论是一种『填补空缺的上帝』的理论，在倡导者认为科学不能解释的地方，插进一个需要超自然干预的假设。」他还写道，「倡导者犯了一个错误，就是把未知误为不能知、未解决误为不能解决。」
这说法是认为智设论者被缺乏想像力所困住，无法想像达尔文机制如何能够产生类似鞭毛马达般精良的东西。其实，缺乏想像力的是达尔文主义者，他们提不出达尔文式进化之路如何可以产生鞭毛，更不用提实验室的证明了。
在这种情况之下，只有两个可能性：(1) 有一条无指导的进化之路，而科学家最终会发现它；或 (2) 除了由理智的指导之外，并没有进化之路。柯林斯拒绝考虑后者，无疑犯了「未经证明而将论点假定为真（begging the question）」的谬误。
假想，一个男孩对一个女孩说，他能够爬上火星，因为有一道自然阶梯，从一个行星伸展到另一个。女孩告诉他，地上没有一个人找到过这种阶梯，而且有理由可以相信它不存在──因为行星之间的距离一直在变，太阳会横断其间等等。男孩对女孩摇摇头，耐心地说：「这是以不知为论证。6科学家在我们太阳系中不断找到新事物。你看看月亮，那是全程的第一步。等着瞧，所有的事都会顺理成章的实现。」
柯林斯认为我们一定可以找到细菌鞭毛的达尔文式进化道路，当然，他的意见不像上述例子那样离谱，但推理方式是相同的。他把「达尔文式道路一定存在」〔的想法〕，和「怀疑可能找不到的科学家即等于放弃──也就是说，他们不配作科学家」的指控结合起来。
跟随贝希
但有一件事很希奇，这事令研究《上帝的语言》一书饶有兴味。前面我们看到，柯林斯并不总是犯这个错误。例如，当他以宇宙的起源和精调为宇宙有设计辩论时，他用的论证和贝希为设计所用的论证是一样的，即按照推论，设计是现有证据最佳的解释。评论者则可以用每一个例证来指出，柯林斯本身违反了方法论的物质主义之规律──而这规律正是他反对智设论的理由。
同样的批评也可用于他另一个有关设计的论证。他用人心中的道德律作为设计的证明。柯林斯批评另一个对道德律的主要解释，即，我们以为的道德律，不过是达尔文进化中生存本能或直觉的积累。他争辩道，更佳的解释应为：我们不仅仅是物质，也有灵魂。
彻底的方法论物质主义者则可以这样说：「柯林斯博士，我们暂时还不能用达尔文式的途径来解释诸如利他精神之类的事，但这并不表示我们永远不会找到。你是以『不知』来为设计论证，你不能这么作。」
柯林斯没有理会上述的思路，而从宇宙起源、宇宙精调、人心道德律推论出设计，这是正确的。反对者说，他只是从「我们对充分的唯物原因一无所知」来为设计辩论，但这种反对乃是在还没有提出证据之前，就假定了该原因实际存在。8真正的科学方法（approach）则应该采用历史性科学家一贯的作法：比较现有的证据，根据最佳的解释作出推论，然后再看这推论在新的证据之前能否继续站立得住。
这位世界级的遗传学家，在宇宙学和人类经验的领域中坚持他可以用这份权利，如此，他无形中已将我们推前了一步，更接近众人普遍接受这方法的日子──无论所讨论的是奇点（first singularity）或是第一个细胞。
柯林斯的神学
柯林斯诚然提出了一个神学论证，说明他何以选择性地应用「方法论的物质主义」，以及他何以相信达尔文主义不会对基督信仰产生威胁。他认为，上帝精调的宇宙初始状况已臻完美，无需再作进一步的干预。等到祂预备造出一个种形──初人hominine）──时，祂才赋予它进化所不能注入的不朽灵魂。柯林斯争辩道：「人类在好些方面非常独特，是进化论所不能解释的，指向我们有属灵的本质。」
按这个观点看，宇宙的起源、人类的起源和历史都是上帝直接的作为。但祂「完全的智慧」却意味，在两者之间的140亿年中，自然界不需要额外的指导（或设计）。柯林斯认为，那位全智又全能的上帝所造的，必是「恩赐完备的受造界（fully gifted creation）」 （我是借用物理学家范梯尔〔Howard van Till〕的话），凡比它差的，就配不上祂。
柯林斯如此说：
智设论把全能的上帝描绘成一个笨拙的创造者，经常需要插手来调整祂自己原先那产生复杂生命的计划。对于神无法测度的智慧和创造的奇才只能瞠目结舌的信徒而言，这种形像很难令人满意。
因此，他认为，在物质起源和人类起源之间，我们有很好的神学理由，可以前后一致地应用「方法上的物质主义」原则。
但是在作这段论证时，柯林斯处理上帝和时间的关系，与他在第三章对这个题目的处理法前后矛盾。在那里他提到，基督教的上帝创造并超越了时间──无论过去、现在或将来。这是他用来解释上帝如何能在大爆炸之前就存在，并如何能知道祂所精调的新宇宙有一日能进化成地球和人类的理由。
但他忽略了这神学理由其实具另一含义。他批评智设论设想的上帝，不能一次（在「恩赐完备的受造界」起源之初）就把设计搞对。但如果这位全能者是在时间之外，如果他凌驾过去、现在和将来，那么这些干预乃是出现在这位全能者永恒的面前──不论是140亿年以前一次性的出现，或是在宇宙历史中不同时间点出现，都是一样的。
我们也看到，柯林斯未加深虑，就把设计者在创造中不断的参与，等同于无能。（他推荐米勒〔Kenneth Miller〕所写《寻找达尔文的上帝（Finding Darwin's God）》，书中米勒向「费城提问者」说，智设论者的上帝「像一个不太懂机械的儿童，他必须不断揭开车盖，笨拙地把弄引擎。」）
为什么要这样说？说不定创造者愿意不断参与？说不定祂不愿意上紧宇宙表的发条，任由它机械式地产生一切东西──从超新星到向日葵？说不定祂和宇宙的关系如同园丁和花园一般？说不定祂愿意弄脏自己的手？7
上帝的机会
柯林斯的综论还有一个重大的缺陷。他既截短了上帝的主权，也截短了达尔文理论的核心──随机的因素（random element）。该段落是在第十章。他问道：「上帝如何能碰运气？如果进化是随机的，祂怎能真正掌控？祂又怎么能有把握最后会出现有智慧的人呢？」他继续说：
实际上，只要不以人的局限性来看上帝，答案就近在咫尺了。如果上帝在自然界之外，祂就是在空间和时间之外。在这样的状况下，上帝能够在创造宇宙的那一刻就知道将来的每一个细节。这包括星体、行星、银河、所有化学、物理、地质和生物的形成（这些导致地上生命的形成），以及人类的进化，一直到你阅独本书的这一刻──和未来。
如果这是真的，我们这些在「线性时间（linear time）暴政（tyranny）局限」下的人，会以为进化「是被机会（chance）所驱动的，但从上帝来看，其结果则早已完全定下了。」
如果上帝仅仅大约知道未来的事情，例如人类的起源，同时放手让随机运行，来展开宇宙，那么达尔文式的随机性还可以保存。但这样一来，上帝便无法设定如柯林斯所讲特定的结果。如果，另一方面，上帝并没有让进化过程随机运行，那么我们所讲的就不再是达尔文的进化论；而柯林斯既承认，结果早已完全被上帝定下，这就等于说是出于上帝的理智设计──尽管是用次一级的成因。
在前一章中，柯林斯把所谓不良设计归咎于达尔文式的进化（例如视网膜的反向布线），但如果每项物件的开展，都是依据从宇宙之始就制定的计划，那么上帝对眼睛的这种反向布线就当负起全部的责任，正如祂直接设计一样。历代基督教神学家所维护神大能的护理（Providence）角色，乃与此类似。但柯林斯却无法一方面诉诸神的护理来解释生命的进化，一方面又同时说，所谓进化上的问题与错误都是随机的责任，而不是上帝的责任。
优良的传统
柯林斯在《上帝的语言》中要将达尔文主义和正统基督教综合在一起，他诚恳的努力却是失败的。但是这位在科学界具崇高地位的人，也作成了一件很重要的事。可幸的事，在一些例子中，他违反了方法论的物质主义，让自己能以设计作为最佳解释，来说明宇宙的形成、物理常数的精调、和人心中的道德律。
在赋予自己这种自由时，柯林斯乃是回到了科学革命的起点。现代科学是基于两个双胞信念所产生的，即，宇宙是一个理性心智所造的可理解产物，而这位造物主不会每一步都受上个世代演绎的三段论（deductive syllogism）9所拘束，这就意味，科学家要断定造物主究竟是怎么作的，最好的办法就是转向大自然，仔细去作研究。
柯林斯最大的成就，是把自然界放在这个优良的传统中，拒绝受那「未经证明而将论点假定为真」之方法论规律的束缚，相反的，却跟随证据走，不论它引向何处。
译后记：
威托此文表达了他对柯林斯爱惜交错的心情。柯林斯的可爱之处，是他不受方法论的自然主义束缚，证明宇宙有一位创造主。可惜之处则是，他没有始终一贯地运用这个原则。这就说明了他在逻辑上缺乏训练（他搞的是实验科学）。因之他的论证也就限于朴素的水平。正因为他有可爱之处，威托才写此文，颇有苦口婆心的味道。
读者需谨记，智设论并不讨论上帝，只在科学领域上探讨。智设论确实在哲学上对有神论是友好的，但下一步的推论乃是哲学和神学的工作，已超出了科学的范围。然而柯林斯不理会这个交界，威托为帮助他，也只好依就了他，但他专设了一段，跨出科学而谈柯林斯的神学问题。
译者现为UCSF医院肿瘤登记员。本文已由译者征得作者的同意翻译。
译注：
1. 这是康乃尔大学无神论进化论教授William Provine的话，语见Philip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, P124, 1991年版。
2. 奥卡姆，14世纪英国逻辑学家。他认为在解释任何现像时，应当用越少的假设越好。其它需用剃刀削去。对同一个现象，如有两个同样满意的解释，则以提最少假设者为胜。
3. 视网膜上四对血管对视力无甚妨碍。这是小题大作。
4. 智慧设计：人们对这个名词有一种误解，以为既是智慧设计，就应当十全十美，毫无缺陷，倘若不是十全十美，就不是出于设计，必然是进化来的。这种论理本身就违反了逻辑学上禁止用负面证明作演译（deductive）结论的规律，它还在实践上违反了常识。因(1) 批评者并不了解设计者的原意。(2) 设计者在统筹协调中会有所取舍，或委屈求全、妥协。(3) 设计者本身的局限性，原型往往次于改良型。但原型依然是个设计品。为避免不必要的上述论理或解释，笔者故从现在起采用清华大学翻译的「理智设计」。理智设计论仍简称智设论。
5. TTSS是鼠疫桿菌，用来对宿主注射致死毒素的注射器。现多认为这是一个退化的微器官。
6. 以不知来论证（argument from ignorance）是逻辑错误之一。
7. 如果祂愿意弄脏自己的手？此段道出了神导进化论的深刻神学错误。神导进化论者常规地给上帝戴上好听的高帽，全智的、睿智的、无限远见的、全能的等等。但他们却不许上帝有主权（sovereignty）参与整个创造，特别是生物的创造。
8. 这就是方法论的自然主义所产生的想法。他们下意识中已把它变成哲学的自然主义 （metaphysical naturalism）了。
9. 这是古希腊科学家的思想局限性，他们企图用逻辑法则来导出必然性（logical necessity），两个不同重量的铁球重者下跌得快，就是其中的一个产物
《恩福杂志》 Vol.7 No.2 04/2007 第七卷 第二期 { 总23 期 }
Random Acts of Design
Francis Collins Sees Evidence That God Made the Cosmos—But Life Is Another Matter
by Jonathan Witt
Francis Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project, the monumental and successful effort to map the 3.1 billion letters of the human genetic code and, surprisingly in a world where “leading scientist” is assumed to mean “hardboiled agnostic,” a serious Christian. In his new bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he draws upon his training as a geneticist and physician to make a case to a popular audience for both Darwinian evolution and a transcendent Creator.
The evolution he argues for involves no direct intelligent input after the origin of the universe until the origin of humans, and yet he also makes a case for a specifically Christian theism, arguing not only for a Creator but also for the possibility of miracles, the deity of Christ, and a literal resurrection. He insists that a scientist can believe these articles of Christian doctrine without checking his brain at the door.
The mainstream media have emphasized two aspects of the book: Its insistence that Darwinism is no threat to Christianity, and its argument that Darwinism better explains a range of physical evidence than either creationism or intelligent design. What has gone begging for ink, how-ever, is a feature of the book hidden in plain sight: Francis Collins makes a scientific case for intelligent design.
According to the theory of intelligent design, which extends from the origin of matter to the origin of mind, an intelligent cause is the best explanation for certain features of the natural world. In chapter nine Collins argues against intelligent design in biology, and this the media have picked up. But in chapter three, “The Origins of the Universe,” he argues that an intelligent cause is the best explanation for certain features of the natural world, in this case, features that existed before the origin of life.
Collins’s Case
He begins this part of the book by reviewing twentieth-century discoveries in physics and cosmology, many of which reinforce Christian teaching. For example, whereas scientists of the nineteenth century generally believed that the universe was eternal, a growing body of evidence in the twentieth century convinced them that the universe began about 14 billion years ago, a theory, Collins notes, nicely in harmony with the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo, that is, creation out of nothing.
Next, he summarizes the fine-tuning problem, the growing body of evidence suggesting that the physical constants of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, and the mass of the universe, among many others) are exquisitely calibrated to allow for complex and even advanced life. A very tiny difference in any of these and life as we know it would be impossible.
Collins then describes the three live explanations for fine tuning among the international community of physicists, chemists, astronomers, and cosmologists: (1) There are a multitude of universes in addition to our own, perhaps an infinite number, and at least one was bound to have the right physical constants for advanced life; (2) we’re just incredibly lucky; and (3) the physical constants look fine-tuned because they were fine-tuned. That is, they were designed.
He does not wrap up the chapter by saying, “I prefer option 3 because it confirms my prior religious commitments.” Instead, he makes an evidence-based argument, coupled to an appeal to standard methods of reasoning, to argue that the design hypothesis best explains the physical evidence in question.
His conclusion is clear, though his language is guarded. He says of the two non-design options: “On the basis of probability, option 2 is the least plausible. That then leaves us with option 1 and option 3. The first is logically defensible, but this near-infinite number of unobservable universes strains credulity. It certainly fails Occam’s Razor.”
Even this quotation undersells how much he guides the reader toward the third option in the course of the chapter, but his guarded language makes this difficult to demonstrate briefly. For example, after this quotation he deals effectively, if less than forcefully, with the objection that introducing a supernatural designer violates Occam’s razor, too, and notes that “it could be argued, however, that the Big Bang itself seems to point strongly toward a Creator.”
His appeal to the Big Bang and the fine-tuned cosmos form two of his key design arguments. (The third, discussed below, looks at the moral law found across cultures and the fact of human altruism, features that Darwinism fails to explain but which are explained well by the claim that humans were created in the image of God.)
In our present intellectual climate, where scientists have been harassed and even fired for advocating intelligent design, and the idea is routinely attacked in news stories and the popular books of writers like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, the fact that the head of the Human Genome Project makes a scientific case for intelligent design should stand out before all the others.
Collins’s Flaw
Why hasn’t it? Because Collins accepts as a standard talking point the misleading deion of intelligent design employed by its critics. According to them, intelligent design, or ID, is a purely negative argument against Darwinism coupled with a God-of-the-gaps theology.
They claim that design theorists poke holes in Darwinism and then insist that the holes prove that God designed life. More broadly, they claim that ID proponents supposedly argue from our present ignorance of any adequate material cause for certain natural phenomena directly to intelligent design.
But this is not the case. Design theorists in biology do offer an extensive critique of Darwinian theory, but they also offer positive evidence for intelligent design. They argue from our growing knowledge of the natural world, including the cellular realm with which Collins deals, and from our knowledge of the only kind of cause ever shown to produce information or irreducibly complex machines (both found at the cellular level): intelligent agents.
Take two examples from chapter three. First, he refers to the “backward wiring” of the vertebrate eye—an apparently inefficient structure that forces light to pass through the nerves and blood vessels on its way to the eye’s light sensors—and argues that this is evidence for neo-Darwinism and against the idea that a wise designer played a direct role in the evolution of this organism. “The design of the eye does not appear on close inspection to be completely ideal,” he writes, and its imperfection seems “to many anatomists to defy the existence of truly intelligent planning of the human form.”
This is a favorite argument of Dawkins’s, and of Darwinists generally. However, geneticist and physician Michael Denton has demonstrated that the wiring improves oxygen flow, an important advantage not achievable by the tidier approach demanded by Darwinism. Design theorists have called attention to this point repeatedly, but Collins shows no evidence that he is aware of it. He neither addresses it nor mentions it. (Dawkins and other Darwinists generally avoid discussing it.)
Collins’s Flagellum
A second instance where Collins betrays his lack of familiarity with the work of leading design theorists is his handling of the scientific controversy surrounding a micro-scopic rotary engine called the bacterial flagellum. The flagellum is a favorite of design theorists because they are convinced that attempts to explain its origin apart from design are manifestly inadequate, and because images of the flagellum practically scream design.
In his book Darwin’s Black Box, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe made this sophisticated molecular machine famous by arguing that it was “irreducibly complex” and therefore evidence of design. He used the simple mechanism of a mousetrap as an example of irreducible complexity. If any part of the mousetrap is missing (the base, spring, hammer, holding bar, or catch), the trap cannot work. Even with four of the five parts in place, it is utterly useless. The mousetrap, then, is irreducibly complex. It is either complete, or it is not a mousetrap.
In the same way, the bacterial flagellum, composed of more than 40 distinct kinds of protein machinery, needs every one in place to function. If it has only 39 proteins, it will not work.
What does irreducible complexity have to do with Darwinian evolution? A conscious designer can pull together several dysfunctional parts and assemble them into a functional whole, but Darwinian evolution—which denies the possibility of intelligent guidance—must progress by one slight, functional mutational improvement at a time. So how can the Darwinian mechanism build an irreducibly complex motor one part at a time, if the motor cannot propel at all until all of its parts are in place?
Using the arguments of leading Darwin defender Kenneth Miller and others, Collins argues that nature could have co-opted simpler molecular machines to create the bacterial flagellum, and points to the “type three secretory apparatus” as evidence of such an indirect pathway. But design theorists have noted three crucial problems with this explanation.
One, the micro-syringe at best accounts for only ten proteins, leaving thirty or more unaccounted for, and these other thirty proteins are not found in any other living system. Second, as a wider body of literature suggests, the system probably developed after the more complicated flagellum, not the other way around.
Finally, even if nature had on hand all the right protein parts to make a bacterial flagellum, something would still need to assemble them in precise temporal order, the way cars are assembled in factories. How is such a task presently accomplished? As biologist Scott Minnich and philosopher Stephen Meyer explain, “To choreograph the assembly of the parts of the flagellar motor, present-day bacteria need an elaborate system of genetic instructions as well as many other protein machines to time the expression of those assembly instructions.”
Collins never mentions any of this. In these and other instances—the question of testability, for example, and the claim that intelligent design makes no predictions, and his error-prone history of the modern intelligent design movement (he ignores the work of the scientists and philosophers who founded intelligent design in the 1980s, incorrectly dating its beginning to 1991)—he comes across as a superb experimental biologist who, nevertheless, simply has never engaged the best arguments for intelligent design in biology.
The Naturalist
In the same chapter, he invokes a rule called methodological materialism (also called methodological naturalism) to argue that biologists should not give up looking for a material (meaning Darwinian) cause for particular biological structures just because scientists have yet to discover it.
This forms part of his argument against intelligent design. “ID is a ‘God of the gaps’ theory, inserting a supposition of the need for supernatural intervention in places that its proponents claim science cannot explain,” he writes, and its “proponents have made the mistake of confusing the unknown with the unknowable, or the unsolved with the unsolvable.”
The suggestion here is that design theorists are hobbled by a failure of the imagination, an inability to imagine how the Darwinian mechanism could have achieved anything as sophisticated as the flagellar motor. But it is the Darwinists who have been unable to imagine, much less demonstrate in the laboratory, a credible Darwinian pathway to the flagellum.
The situation suggests two possibilities: Either (1) there is an unguided evolutionary pathway and scientists will eventually discover it; or (2) there is no evolutionary pathway apart from one guided by intelligence. By refusing to consider the second option, Collins commits the fallacy of begging the question.
Imagine a boy who tells a girl he could climb to Mars because a natural ladder stretches from one planet to the other. The girl points out that nobody on earth has ever found such a ladder and there is reason to believe it doesn’t exist—because of the constantly changing distance between the planets, the sun getting between them, etc. The boy shakes his head at her and patiently explains, “That’s an argument from ignorance. Scientists are finding all sorts of new things in our solar system all the time. Look at the moon. It’s one step along the way. You see, everything is falling into place.”
Collins’s suggestion that we are sure to find a Darwinian pathway for the bacterial flagellum isn’t this outlandish, of course, but it employs the same reasoning. He combines the assumption that the Darwinian pathway certainly exists with the charge that any scientist skeptical that we’ll ever find it is simply giving up—is, in other words, failing as a scientist.
Following Behe
But here is the odd thing, the thing that makes The Language of God such an interesting study. As seen earlier, Collins does not always commit this error. For instance, in his arguments for design from the origin and fine-tuning of the universe, Collins makes the same kind of argument for design that Behe makes, inferring design as the best explanation of the current evidence. In each case a critic could note that Collins has himself violated the rule of methodological materialism he has invoked against intelligent design theory.
This same criticism could be leveled against his other design argument, in which he appeals to the moral law in the human heart as evidence of design. Collins critiques the other leading explanation for the moral law—that what we think of as the moral law is only an aggregation of survival instincts instilled by Darwinian evolution—and argues that a better explanation is that we are not just matter but also spirit.
To this, the thoroughly consistent methodological materialist could respond, “But Dr. Collins, just because we’re ignorant of a detailed Darwinian pathway to things like human altruism doesn’t mean we won’t ever find the pathway. You’re arguing from ignorance to design, and you can’t do that.”
Collins was right to ignore this line of thinking in inferring design from the origin of the universe, cosmic fine-tuning, and the moral law within. The objection that he only argued to design from our ignorance of an adequate material cause assumes ahead of the evidence that such a cause actually exists. The truly scientific approach is to do what historical scientists routinely do: compare the available evidence, make an inference to the best explanation, and then see how that inference holds up in light of subsequent discoveries.
By insisting on that right in the realms of cosmology and human experience, one of the world’s leading geneticists has nudged us a step closer to the day when such an approach will be taken for granted, whether the subject be the first singularity or the first cell.
Collins’s Theology
Collins does offer a theological argument for his selective application of methodological materialism and his belief that Darwinism is no threat to Christianity. He suggests that God fine-tuned the initial conditions of the universe so perfectly that no further intervention was needed until he was ready to raise up one form, hominine, by investing it with an immortal soul that evolution could not instill. Collins contends that “humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature.”
On this view, God acted directly in the origin of the universe and in the origin and history of humanity, but his perfect wisdom meant that nature required no additional guidance or direction (or design) during the intervening 14 billion years. Collins suggests that anything less than such a “fully gifted creation” (I am borrowing physicist Howard van Till’s term) is unworthy of a God who is both omnipotent and omniscient.
As Collins puts it:
ID portrays the Almighty as a clumsy Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the inadequacies of His own initial plan for generating the complexity of life. For a believer who stands in awe of the almost unimaginable intelligence and creative genius of God, this is a very unsatisfactory image.
Thus, between the origin of matter and man, he suggests, we have a good theological reason to consistently apply the principle of methodological materialism.
But in making this argument, Collins treats God’s relationship to time in a manner inconsistent with his treatment of this subject in chapter three. There he notes that the God of Christianity invented and transcends time, both past, present, and future. He makes this point to explain how God could exist before the Big Bang and how he could know that his finely tuned new universe would one day lead to the evolution of planet Earth and human beings.
But this theological point has an implication he overlooks when he criticizes intelligent design theory for positing a God who can’t get the design right the first time (at the origin of a “fully gifted” universe). If the I Am is outside of time, if he stands over past, present, and future, then those interventions occurred in the eternal present of the “I Am” whether they occurred “all at once” 14 billion years ago or at different points throughout the history of the universe.
Also notice how blithely Collins equates the designer’s ongoing involvement in creation with incompetence. (Miller, whose book Finding Darwin’s God he recommends, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the God of intelligent design theorists “is like a kid who is not a very good mechanic and has to keep lifting the hood and tinkering with the engine.”)
Why? What if the creator likes to stay involved? What if he doesn’t want to wind up the watch of the cosmos and simply leave it to crank out everything from supernovas to sunflowers? What if his relationship to the cosmos is also like a gardener to his garden? What if he wants to get his hands dirty?
God’s Chances
Collins’s synthesis possesses another crucial shortcoming. It undercuts either God’s sovereignty or the random element at the heart of Darwinian theory. The relevant passage is in chapter ten, in which he asks, “How could God take such chances? If evolution is random, how could He really be in charge, and how could He be certain of an outcome that included intelligent beings at all?” The answer, he continues,
is actually readily at hand, once one ceases to apply human limitations to God. If God is outside of nature, then He is outside of space and time. In that context, God could in the moment of creation of the universe also know every detail of the future. That could include the formation of the stars, planets, and galaxies, all of the chemistry, physics, geology, and biology that led to the formation of life on earth, and the evolution of humans, right to the moment of your reading this book—and beyond.
This being the case, we who are “limited . . . by the tyranny of linear time” would think evolution “driven by chance, but from God’s perspective the outcome would be entirely specified.”
If God merely knew about future events like the origin of humans, while granting an element of random play to the unfolding of the universe, Darwinian randomness might be preserved. But then God would not have specified the various outcomes as Collins suggests. If, on the other hand, God did not grant the evolutionary process an element of random play, then we are no longer talking about Darwinian evolution, and Collins’s admission that the outcome was entirely specified by God is as good as saying that it was intelligently designed by God, albeit through the use of secondary causes.
In an earlier chapter Collins blamed Darwinian evolution for supposed bad design (like the backward wiring of the eye), but if every physical event unfolded according to a plan hard-wired into the universe from the beginning, then God is every bit as responsible for the backward wiring of the eye as if he had designed it directly. Christian theologians through the ages have defended a similarly strong role for Providence, but Collins cannot invoke Providence to explain the evolution of life while at the same time suggesting that a random process rather than God was responsible for supposed evolutionary problems and failures.
High Tradition
In The Language of God, Collins has made a sincere but unsuccessful effort to synthesize Darwinism and orthodox Christianity. But he has also done something very important for a man of his stature in the scientific world. In some cases, happily, he violated the rules of methodological materialism by allowing himself to consider design as the best explanation for the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the physical constants, and the moral law within the human heart.
In granting himself this freedom, Collins is returning to the origins of the scientific revolution. Modern science was born of the twin convictions that the universe was the rational product of a rational mind, and that this maker was not bound at every turn by the deductive syllogisms of an earlier age, meaning that the best way for a scientist to determine how the Creator had done things was to turn to nature and carefully scrutinize it.
At his best, Francis Collins engages the natural world in this same high tradition, refusing to be bound by a question-begging methodological rule and, instead, following the evidence where it leads.
SOURCES: Denton, “The Inverted Retina” (www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od192/invertedretina192.htm); Minnich and Meyer, “Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic bacteria” in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Design and Nature (September 1, 2004), see also William Dembski’s “Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Kenneth Miller” (www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm); Miller, “Evangelicals divided over evolution,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (May 30, 2005).
Who’s Serious?
At one point in The Language of God, Francis Collins echoes a favorite assertion of the most outspoken defenders of Darwinism: “No serious biologist today doubts the theory of evolution to explain the marvelous complexity and diversity of life,” with the context making clear that he means Darwinian evolution. But a recent poll conducted by HCD Research, Inc., in conjunction with the Finkelstein Institute found that a large percentage of Collins’s fellow doctors reject Darwinism.
Additionally, scores of biologists have signed a public list of more than 600 Ph.D. scientists skeptical about Darwinian evolution. Biologists make up the largest group on the list, a group that includes evolutionary biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen; Richard Sternberg, a Smithsonian Institution evolutionary biologist and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnology Information; Giuseppe Sermonti, the editor of Rivista di Biologia, one of the oldest currently published biology journals in the world; and Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.
Are none of these biologists serious? If not, how does one qualify as “serious”? By accepting neo-Darwinism? If so, Collins’s assertion is a mere tautology: No adherent of the theory of evolution doubts the theory of evolution.
— Jonathan Witt
Jonathan Witt is a senior fellow and writer in residence at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He and his wife Amanda have three children, whom they home school.