Biologos posted Francisco Ayala’s “response” to Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell. Ayala did not address the major points in Meyer’s book. Rather, he went off on a tangent about “suboptimal design.” He also repeatedly referred to the book by the wrong name. In sum, I had the impression that Ayala had not read the book.
My comments to that post follow below, with a little editing.
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Dr. Ayala appears to be one of the many reviewers who have not read Dr. Meyer’s book. If he has read it, he has not explained why he chose not to address any of the main arguments Meyer’s makes in the book.
He also does not seem to understand Intelligent Design. He goes on and on about “bad design” in nature, without showing any awareness of the responses to such arguments that design proponents have made for many years. This does not further the debate.
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Dr. Ayala states: “The keystone argument of Signature of the Cell [sic] is that chance, by itself, cannot account for the genetic information found in the genomes of organisms.”
This is not the keystone argument of Signature in the Cell, which makes the rest of his comments the knocking down of a straw man. Since Dr. Ayala repeatedly gets the title of the book wrong, I wonder if he even read the cover
Ayala does not even consider or discuss whether the Fall or the introduction of sin, evil and death into the world could be the cause of the apparent “bad design” he observes. He does not seem to realize that ID does not state that evolution plays no role in biological history. All ID proponents affirm at least micro-evolutionary processes. Michael Behe accepts much more.
Ayala seems to think that the Problem of Evil defeats ID. He does not move on to the question of whether Darwinian theory deals with it any better. Theistic evolution holds that God used evolution to create. Does that really solve the problem? If God used random mutation and natural selection to produce all the horrible things Ayala describes, how does that solve the problem? The TE proponent cannot attribute evil and death to The Fall. They were part of the random mutation and natural selection processes that God created from the very beginning, before Mankind had a chance to rebel.
And yet the Biologos folks think this is impressive stuff.
You don’t have to be a scientist to see when a scientist does not understand the basic concepts of intelligent design or the state of the current debate or the underlying philosophical and theological problems.
Hello! I found your blog through your comment at Thinking Christian on Ayala’s review of Signature in the Cell. I think you make some very valid points. I too am interested in the spectrum of views on design and creation and the impact on apologetics. I teach both science and theology, and the interaction of the two areas of study is of great interest to me.
I appreciate a good dialogue with people who hold a different view from me. What I cannot respect is those who dismiss a certain position without really understanding it fully. As you point out, Ayala seems to do just that. He demonstrated his same lack of understanding in his debate with William Lane Craig on the question: “Is Intelligent Design Viable?” I put some comments from various people in response to the debate that you may find interesting, and if you haven’t already I think the debate itself is worth listening too, not for Ayala’s comments, but for Craig’s clear and succint presentation of some of the main points of ID.
You commented on Ayala’s “design flaws” argument. Some of my recent posts have also been addressing the supposed design flaws in the human breathing system and the vertebrate eye. Perhaps these posts will be of interest to you, although you have probably heard versions of them before.
Thanks again for doing what you are doing to help further and raise the level of the debate!
Kendalf,
Thanks for the kind words and the helpful information!
Hi PDS,
I’ve written some additional thoughts on Ayala’s review in a new post that considers the problem of evil and design.
[...] My previous comments on Ayala’s piece are here. [...]
“He also does not seem to understand Intelligent Design. He goes on and on about “bad design” in nature, without showing any awareness of the responses to such arguments that design proponents have made for many years.”
What are these responses, and what is the rationale for considering their responses to have impeached the argument?
[...] My previous comments on his pseudo-review of the book are here. [...]