[asa] Comments on Nature's Destiny by Denton

I've also posted this on my blog (http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com), where I can
include links.

Timaeus has made frequent mention of the work of Michael Denton, who has
written two books that are popular among ID sympathizers. The first,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, was published in 1985 and is regarded as a major
influence on the early ID movement. The second, Nature's Destiny, was
published in 1998 and seems to be far less influential.

I recently read Nature's Destiny, and offer here a review in two posts. In
this post, I present an overview of the book and its arguments, with a general
critique and comments on the portrayal of the book by Timaeus. The second post
(if I find time to collate it) will contain more detailed comments on technical
aspects of Denton's claims in areas of my expertise. In separate posts, I will
comment on Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (henceforth abbreviated as ETC).

Overview

Reading Timaeus' characterizations, one might reasonably suppose that Michael
Denton has written books that demolish "Darwinian evolution," in ways not seen
before and not answered (or answerable) by evolutionary biologists. Timaeus
asserts, for example, that Denton "rips the Darwinian mechanism to shreds,
armed with thousands of references to the latest knowledge in biochemistry,
genetics, embryology, physiology, comparative anatomy, etc." And that quote
clearly refers to Nature's Destiny.

This is a very serious mischaracterization of Denton's work. Denton did
attempt, in ETC, to undermine "Darwinian evolution" – unsuccessfully, as I
will explain elsewhere. In Nature's Destiny, his project is wholly different.
Nature's Destiny seeks to defend a law-based, teleological view of cosmic
history in which the development of humanity is the ultimate goal. The view
is non-Darwinian for sure, in the sense that such strong teleological
conceptions are non-Darwinian by definition. But any claim that Nature's
Destiny does damage to modern evolutionary biology is a significant distortion.
 In fact, I would be most interested in a conversation with Michael Denton,
both because I find his work intriguing and because I would be quite curious to
hear his response to Timaeus' triumphalistic pronouncements regarding his
ideas. Specifically, I wonder if Denton believes that he has "shredded" the
"Darwinian mechanism," and whether he would acknowledge that many of the
challenges he raised in his first book have failed completely in the face of
vast amounts of data arising from completely new biological subdisciplines.
(More on this in a future post on ETC.) My point is not that I think Denton is
a fool, but that on the contrary I'm pretty sure he'd be embarrassed by the
propagandistic ends toward which his ideas are being employed. (Perhaps there
is a clue here regarding his divestiture from the Discovery Institute.)

I found Nature's Destiny to be mostly interesting, occasionally informative,
occasionally exasperating, and ultimately unpersuasive. Ominously, I found
that the chapters I judged to be the weakest were the chapters on topics I know
the best. I suspect that cosmologists, physicists, biophysicists and perhaps
chemists would feel the same way. In any case, I hasten to add that I have not
concluded that Denton is wrong or that his failure to assemble a convincing
case is somehow evidence to the contrary. His book is far stronger than Behe's
Edge of Evolution, and unlike that unacceptably misleading and inaccurate work
of folk science, Denton does not invite speculation that he is willing to abuse
science in the course of metaphysical argumentation. Nevertheless, there are
times when he's clearly trying too hard, and this is one of my main criticisms
of the work.

Nature's Destiny does not attempt to destroy "Darwinism." It attempts to
defend a "teleological religious concept of the cosmos as a specifically
designed whole, with life and mankind as its primary goal and purpose." (p. xi)
 As Denton describes in his autobiographical account in Uncommon Dissent and in
the prologue, the book can be viewed as an updating and expanding of a classic
work by Lawrence Henderson (The Fitness of the Environment, 1913) that
describes the ways in which the cosmos (specifically its chemistry) is
remarkably fit for life. As Denton puts it in Uncommon Dissent (p. 168),
Henderson demonstrated that

    there is clear evidence that some adaptive fitness is given from within.
This is adaptation "for free" arising out of the intrinsic properties of
matter...

It may be that some forms of "Darwinism" cannot abide such talk, but those who
think that consideration of nature's "eerie perfection" is somehow
"anti-Darwinian" should read Simon Conway Morris. In fact, Conway Morris'
Life's Solution is the book that every ID proponent should read after reading
Nature's Destiny. Conway Morris' project overlaps with Denton's in obvious
ways, and Conway Morris cites Denton twice, approvingly. But one never hears
an ID propagandist brag that Conway Morris has "shredded the Darwinian
mechanism." This, to me, is telling. I urge those who take Denton seriously
to read Life's Solution. It simultaneously affirms Denton's basic view (that
life is an inevitable result of the "laws" of the cosmos) while putting the lie
to any claim that Denton or anyone else has undermined the theoretical
foundation of modern evolutionary biology. If there is hope for ID as a
serious intellectual movement, it lies in the deep cosmic concepts that unite
the work of Simon Conway Morris and Michael Denton. But as long as ID
propandists believe that Denton has wrecked evolutionary explanation, they will
purvey ignorance and confusion, and prolong the degeneration that gives us
Casey Luskin and the disastrously bad Edge of Evolution.

Critique

1. As the articulation of a certain metaphysical view of the cosmos, Nature's
Destiny works fairly well. As a defense of that view, it is wholly
unconvincing, and I suspect that Michael Denton would understand my criticism.

Nature's Destiny explores the notion of fine tuning and deep direction at
every level of organization; it is not primarily a book about biological
evolution. It begins with a standard retelling of the physics fine tuning
story, then turns to some special examples of proposed fine tuning in
chemistry. These chapters are fun to read, and contain very nice historical
and scientific summaries on topics such as the properties of water, carbon and
other elements, and gases. But even in these better chapters, and frequently
in later chapters, careful readers will detect numerous instances of special
pleading, and scores of arguments that go like this:

    X is a really good thing for life. It is likely that X must be this way
to enable biological function.

Or like this:

    X is a really good thing for life. It seems there is no other way to do
it, but somehow the cosmos found that way.

The key word is "seems." That word occurs over and over and over again, as do
"likely" and "appears" and "perhaps" and "it may be," and in one sense it is a
credit to Denton that he is careful not to overstate his case. (His admirers
often lack this wisdom.) For this reason, it felt somewhat strange to read the
book after seeing Timaeus' chest-beating.

The main impression I got from Nature's Destiny was this: Michael Denton is a
Platonist who has a strong preference for typology and for teleological
conceptions of the universe. To him, the universe seems to exist just for
humans. And so everything he looks at is made to conform to this view.

Now, this isn't meant to be an insult or a particularly damning criticism. I
have some preferences and predilections of my own (I am decidedly not a
Platonist, for example), and I would be a fool to deny that my views are
unaffected by these precommitments. My point is that those of us who don't
share Denton's somewhat odd viewpoint are able to see just how often his
arguments and his choices are strongly affected by the momentum of his cause.
To Denton, a lot of things "seem" to be extraordinary. Everything, to Denton,
appears to be supremely and perfectly optimized, to the point that he must look
for perfection (more accurately, fitness) in every aspect of biology and
biochemistry. To me and to others, life just doesn't look like this at all.
And so I see much of Nature's Density as weird and extreme, containing
speculations that range from reasonable to utterly off-the-wall, forced by a
view of cosmic perfection that I don't embrace for various reasons.

In chapter 13, "The Principle of Plenitude," the argument reaches a crescendo
when Denton embraces the pre-Darwinian notion that all – or nearly all –
possible life forms have been actualized on Earth. Phrases like "seems likely"
and "difficult to see" appear multiple times on each page. The equivocation
does not, to me, mask the odor of special pleading, which is strongest in the
sections on biological evolution.

2. When critiquing "Darwinian" evolutionary mechanisms, Nature's Destiny
offers nothing more than standard arguments from ignorance.

Again, Nature's Destiny is not the demolition of Darwinism of Timaeus'
caricature, but it does occasionally touch on the plausibility of Darwinian
explanation. Denton offers nothing new or creative here, simply repeating
arguments of the "it is difficult to see how" type. His descriptions of
"spectacular adaptations" are enjoyable, but the argument is tiresome and weak.
 It should be unnecessary to make this point: one does not demolish – or even
damage – evolutionary explanations by confessing one's personal incredulity.

This would be a good place to address another aspect of Timaeus' claim that
Denton's work in Nature's Destiny "rips the Darwinian mechanism to shreds,
armed with thousands of references to the latest knowledge in biochemistry,
genetics, embryology, physiology, comparative anatomy, etc." The book contains
about 600 notes, at least 1/4 of which are ibids. A few notes refer to more
than one reference, but scores are to historical sources such as Darwin, Cuvier
and Henderson, all of which are cited repeatedly. And more than half of the
book is on fine-tuning topics (water, carbon, etc.) that didn't make Timaeus'
list and don't concern the "Darwinian mechanism" as he obviously implies. To
call Timaeus' statement an exaggeration is to be generous. The truth is that
Denton makes relatively little reference to current science, and when he does
he creates a mixture of interesting scientific commentary and shameless
cherry-picking.

3. Like Behe, Denton peppers his descriptions of nature with effusive
metaphors and confessions of wonder and awe. Special pleading and inaccuracies
aside, these narratives are entertaining, educational and even inspiring. But
they cannot take the place of the argument that needs to be made, namely the
argument that adaptations, however spectacular or wonderful, are inexplicable
outside of the preferred metaphysical framework. Denton overplays his hand in
places, creating the impression that he is willing to substitute "shock and
awe" for careful argument. Of course biology is cool. Of course it inspires
awe. Not even Richard Dawkins would disagree with that.

So in summary, I found the book to be a bemusing and mostly unsuccessful
attempt to defend a view of the cosmos built completely on commitments to
typology, teleology, and law-based design. Unlike Behe's Edge of Evolution,
the book lacks the sinister implication of deliberate duplicity, and contrary
to certain propagandistic pronouncements, it neither attempts nor achieves a
damaging critique of evolutionary theory.

I recommend that Nature's Destiny be read as a metaphysical treatise, written
with a distinctly apologetic angle, and that readers understand that it is
characterized by special pleading. And I recommend that anyone who reads it
follow up by reading Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris. Both the overlap
and the contrast are striking.

Steve Matheson

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Received on Sun Nov 16 17:37:35 2008