Stephen E. Jones

Creation/Evolution Quotes: Classified quotes: Fossil Record

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The following are previously unclassified quotes about design, now classified under that heading, as a temporary intermediate step towards integrating them into my quotes pages proper.

Design

1. Bacterial flagellum
"Each flagellum is attached by a short flexible hook at its base to a small protein disc embedded in the bacterial membrane. Incredible though it may seem, this disc is part of a tiny `motor'"

"Bacteria swim by means of flagella that are completely different from the flagella of eucaryotic cells. The bacterial flagellum consists of a helical tube formed from a single type of protein subunit, called flagellin. Each flagellum is attached by a short flexible hook at its base to a small protein disc embedded in the bacterial membrane. Incredible though it may seem, this disc is part of a tiny "motor" that uses the energy stored in the transmembrane H+ gradient to rotate rapidly and turn the helical flagellum ... The flagellum is linked to a flexible hook. The hook is attached to a series of protein rings (shown in red), which are embedded in the outer and inner (plasma) membranes and rotate with the flagellum at about 150 revolutions per second. The rotation is thought to be driven by a flow of protons through an outer ring of proteins (the stators which also contains the proteins responsible for switching the direction of rotation." (Alberts B., et al., "Molecular Biology of the Cell," [1983], Garland: New York NY, Third Edition, 1994, p.774)

2. Coincidences
• "Coincidences so numerous and so remarkable as those which we have met in examining the properties of matter as they are related to life ..."

"A HALF century has passed since Darwin wrote `The Origin of Species,' and once again, but with a new aspect, the relation between life and the environment presents itself as an unexplained phenomenon. The problem is now far different from what it was before, for adaptation has won a secure position among the greatest of natural processes, a position from which we may suppose it is certainly never to be dislodged; and natural selection is its instrument, even if, as many think, not the only one. Yet natural selection does but mold the organism; the environment it changes only secondarily, without truly altering the primary quality of environmental fitness. This latter component of fitness, antecedent to adaptations, a natural result of the properties of matter and the characteristics of energy in the course of cosmic evolution, is as yet nowise accounted for. It exists, however, and must not be dismissed as gross contingency. The mind balks at such a view. Coincidences so numerous and so remarkable as those which we have met in examining the properties of matter as they are related to life, must be the orderly results of law, or else we shall have to turn them over to final causes and the philosopher." (Henderson, Lawrence J. [late Professor of Biological Chemistry, Harvard University], "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, 1958, reprint, pp.274-276)

3. Egg
• "Each mutation occurring alone would be wiped out before it could be combined with the others. ... that their coming together was due to a series of blind coincidences is an affront ... to the basic principles of scientific explanation"
"The decisive novelty of the reptiles was that, unlike amphibians, they laid their eggs on dry land; they no longer depended on the water and were free to roam over the continents. But the unborn reptile inside the egg still needed an aquatic environment: it had to have water or else it would dry up long before it was born. It also needed a lot of food: amphibians hatch as larvae who fend for themselves, whereas reptiles hatch fully developed. So the reptilian egg had to be provided with a large mass of yolk for food, and also with albumen-the white of egg-to provide the water. Neither the yolk by itself, nor the egg-white itself, would have had any selective value. Moreover, the egg-white needed a vessel to contain it, otherwise its moisture would have evaporated. So there had to be a shell made of a leathery or limey material, as part of the evolutionary package-deal. But that is not the end of the story The reptilian embryo, because of this shell, could not get rid of its waste products. The soft-shelled amphibian embryo had the whole pond as a lavatory; the reptilian embryo had to be provided with a kind of bladder. It is called the allantois, and is in some respects the forerunner of the mammalian placenta. But this problem having been solved, the embryo would still remain trapped inside its tough shell; it needed a tool to get out. The embryos of some fishes and amphibians, whose eggs are surrounded by a gelatinous membrane, have glands on their snouts: when the time is ripe, they secrete a chemical which dissolves the membrane. But embryos surrounded by a hard shell need a mechanical tool: thus snakes and lizards have a tooth transformed into a kind of tin-opener, while birds have a caruncle-a hard outgrowth near the tip of their beaks which serves the same purpose. ... All this refers to one aspect only of the evolution of reptiles; needless to say, countless other essential transformations of structure and behaviour were required to make the new creatures viable. The changes could have been gradual-but at each step, however small, all the factors involved in the story had to cooperate harmoniously. The liquid store in the egg makes no sense without the shell. The shell would be useless, in fact murderous, without the allantois and without the tin-opener. Each change, taken in isolation, would be harmful, and work against survival. You cannot have a mutation A occurring alone, preserve it by natural selection, and then wait a few thousand or million years until mutation B joins it, and so on, to C and D. Each mutation occurring alone would be wiped out before it could be combined with the others. They are all interdependent. The doctrine that their coming together was due to a series of blind coincidences is an affront not only to commonsense but to the basic principles of scientific explanation." (Koestler, Arthur [soldier, writer and philosopher], "The Ghost in the Machine," [1967], Arkana: London, 1989, reprint, p.128)

4. Mimicry
• "Nabokov ... suspected a subtle intelligence was at work"

"Perhaps because the subterfuges of mimicry so resembled his own favorite tools as literary trickster, Nabokov [Vladimir Nabokov, lepidopterist, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University and writer] was loath to consign their wonderment to strictly mechanical causes. He suspected a subtle intelligence was at work. Remington believes it was Nabokov's "strong metaphysical investment in his challenge to selection" that made him unsatisfied with a Darwinian explanation." (Boyd B. & Pyle R.M., ed., "Nabokov's Butterflies," Nabokov D., Transl., Allen Lane / Penguin Press: London, 2000, p.65)

• "Only in mimicry did he suspect that the design behind things was apparent enough and explicit enough to be treated as science"

"Throughout his later fiction Nabokov [Vladimir Nabokov, lepidopterist, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University and writer] shapes his own worlds to match the munificence he senses behind our world's complexity. But although this feeling arose in good measure out of his science, he could not express it there. Only in mimicry did he suspect that the design behind things was apparent enough and explicit enough to be treated as science. No wonder, as he writes in his autobiography, `The mysteries of mimicry had a special attraction for me', no wonder he has Konstantin GodunovCherdyntsev in The Gift expound to his son `about the incredible artistic wit of mimetic disguise, which was not explainable by the struggle for existence...and seemed to have been invented by some waggish artist precisely for the intelligent eyes of man.'" (Boyd B. & Pyle R.M., ed., "Nabokov's Butterflies," Nabokov D., Transl., Allen Lane / Penguin Press: London, 2000, p.20)

5. Multiple universes
• "An infinity of other universes may well exist where the numbers are different"

"These six numbers constitute a 'recipe' for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be `untuned', there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator? I take the view that it is neither. An infinity of other universes may well exist where the numbers are different. Most would be stillborn or sterile. We could only have emerged (and therefore we naturally now find ourselves) in a universe with the 'right' combination. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, on our place in it, and on the nature of physical laws." (Rees, Sir Martin [Astronomer Royal and Royal Society Research Professor, Cambridge University], "Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe," [1999], Phoenix: London, 2000, p.4)

6. Plants
"the basic design of the [plant cell] wall is ...the same basic architectural design found in steel-reinforced concrete and in fiberglass."

"The exact chemical composition of the wall varies from species to species and from one cell type to another in the same plant, but the basic design of the wall is consistent. Microfibrils made of the polysaccharide cellulose are embedded in a matrix of other polysaccharides and protein. This combination of materials, strong fibers in a "ground substance" (matrix), is the same basic architectural design found in steel-reinforced concrete and in fiberglass." (Campbell, Neil A. [Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside], Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, pp.124-125)

7. Predictions
• "Design-stance prediction works wonderfully on ... Mother Nature's artifacts-living things and their parts"

"Design-stance prediction works wonderfully on well-designed artifacts, but it also works wonderfully on Mother Nature's artifacts-living things and their parts. Long before the physics and chemistry of plant growth and reproduction were understood, our ancestors quite literally bet their lives on the reliability of their design-stance knowledge of what seeds were supposed to do when planted. If I press a few seeds into the ground just so, then in a few months, with a modicum of further care from me, there will be food here to eat." (Dennett, Daniel C. [Darwinist philosopher and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, USA], "Kind of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness," [1996], Phoenix: London, 1998, reprint, p.39. Emphasis in original)

8. Water
• "But if to the coincidence of the unique properties of water we add that of the chemical properties of the three elements, a problem results under which the science of to-day must surely break down"

"For the coincidence of properties itself a rational explanation based upon known laws of nature is perhaps conceivable. Attention has already been called to the interconnection of such properties as latent heat of vaporization, thermal conductivity, molecular volume, the value of the van der Waals constant a, the dielectric constant, and ionizing power. Further, it is of course most probable that numerous other properties are necessarily associated with these; and finally it is not surprising that elements of low atomic weight, which become concentrated in the atmosphere on account of the small specific gravity of their gases, should possess unusual properties, like high specific heat, or if one property leads to another, many unusual properties. Be that as it may, chemical science is still a very long way from accounting for the simultaneous occurrence of the various characteristics of water, especially if we include such things as heat of formation, solvent power, the process of hydrolytic cleavage, the degree of solubility of carbon dioxide, the anomalous expansion on cooling near the freezing point etc. There is, in fact, exceedingly little ground for hope that any single explanation of these coincidences can arise from current hypotheses and laws. But if to the coincidence of the unique properties of water we add that of the chemical properties of the three elements, a problem results under which the science of to-day must surely break down." (Henderson, Lawrence J. [late Professor of Biological Chemistry, Harvard University], "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, 1958, reprint, pp.276-277)

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