The following consists of a response by Secular Web denizen Kyle Gerkin to our original article on poor logic by evolutionists. Our original response is in normal type. Gerkin's response is in bold. Our counter-response is in this color.

"Why don't you write about evolution?" Every once in a while I get a smug letter from some skeptic or another asking me this question. I'd like to at least give them a point for consistency: Those who believe that it is possible to become an expert commentator on Hebrew exegetical and literary methods merely by reading Thomas Paine would no doubt think it likewise possible for me to become an instant expert on creation/evolution issues by merely picking up Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker and From Goo to You by Way of the Zoo. Unlike these skeptics, I respect the knowledge of those more informed than I am (as in the hard sciences) and do not presume to know their stuff better than they do.

That said, we are certain that skeptics have speculated a certain cognitive dissonance on my part where evolution is concerned. Not a bit of it. The reason I do not buy or sell the evolution story is that while I cannot comment upon the "hard science" issues, when it comes to things I do know, it is all to clear that the strongest promoters of evolutionary theory could simply not reason their way out of a paper bag, even one with arrows painted inside in bright neon and a tour guide pointing to the exit. Evolutionists often explain evolution by analogy. One of these illustrates evolution via the development of the automobile. Excuse me? How can evolutionists not see that this is all wrong for what they want to prove? Each of these devices was put together by an intelligent designer, separately. The analogy only proves a theory of special creation, not naturalistic evolution! While it would no doubt be protested that this is not the point, it is a point that to blindly use such an analogy in the first place demonstrates a clear lack of critical/analytical thinking.

Can you please provide a reference for the automobile analogy? I will refrain from commenting on it until I can read the actual text, however, I will say that it is possible for an analogy to be accurate in some respects, without the comparison being valid across the board. In fact, this is almost certainly the case, as the two things being compared are not going to have a one to one correspondence. For instance, I might say that "Mark Spitz swims like a fish", and this is intended to convey the idea that he is a superlative swimmer, not that he propels himself through the water with fins and a tail. Am I then demonstrating a lack of critical thinking by using the Spitz/fish analogy? Such a charge would be unfair because one could almost always twist the analogy to where the two aspects being compared are no longer valid.

In order to illustrate my own dissatisfaction with evolutionary arguments, I would like to offer two more examples of just such illogic in action, both from the work of one of the leading drum-pounders of evolutionary theory, Richard Dawkins. The first example comes from pages 51-2 of the paperback edition of The Selfish Gene. Dawkins pulls in an analogy of a chess-playing computer working, and of the relation is has to a human programmer:

...[The programmer] is definitely not manipulating the computer from moment to moment, like a pupeteer pulling strings...He writes the program, puts it in the computer, and then the computer is on its own...Does the programmer perhaps anticipate all possible chess positions, and provide the computer with a long list of good moves, one for each possible contingency? Most certainly not, because the number of possible positions in chess is so great that the world would come to an end before the list had been completed. For the same reason, the computer cannot possibly be programmed to try out 'in its head' all possible moves, and possible follow-ups, until it finds a winning strategy. There are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the galaxy...

The programmer's actual role is rather more like that of a father teaching his son to play chess. He tells the computer the basic moves of the game, not separately from every possible starting position, but in terms of more economically expressed rules...When it is actually playing, the computer is on its own, and can expect no help from its master.

This, Dawkins uses to illustrate his thesis of genes controlling the behavior of their hosts, but the analogy has passed by rather too quickly here. He is quite right about the programming methods, but far too simplistic: as with the automobile analogy, it proves exactly the opposite of what he wants. The chess computer (gene!) had an intelligent programmer.

First off, analogies don't "prove" anything. They are explanatory tools, often useful for illustrating a point, but they are not evidence. Thus, Dawkins is not trying to "prove" something here. He is trying to communicate an idea to the reader. As you acknowledged, the comparison Dawkins draws involves similarities between the way genes and chess programs affect the behavior of their respective hosts. This analogy is no less effective just because Dawkins could have used a different aspect of the same two things (such as initial programming) to illustrate an Intelligent Design thesis. In fact, even if Dawkins were wrong about the behavior of genes, this would not dilute the effectiveness of the analogy in making his point. He would simply be making a point which was in error. Paley's Watchmaker provides a nice counter example. It is a wonderful analogy in that it very clearly expresses Paley's idea. The fact that Paley's thesis was ultimately wrong, does not mean it was communicated poorly. Indeed, its enduring power as argument that has spring boarded itself into the modern day ID movement, is a testament to its compelling nature.

This site offers a description of just what it is that such programs do. What Dawkins sums up as "basic moves of the game" and "economically expressed rules" actually amounts to giving the computer these tools: Opening library, Ply search depth, Alphabeta minimax maethod, Database of opening moves, Database of midgame positions (limited), Database of endgame positions, Evaluative functions (an understanding of the importance of) relating to: Pawn structure; Material Capture; Piece Mobility; King Safety; Domination of centre of the board. "Basic moves of the game"? This is like saying giving someone, somehow, the skills of a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. amounts to giving them "basic rules about driving."

To be fair, Dawkins wrote The Selfish Gene in 1976 when chess programs were considerably less advanced than today. Dawkins notes that "best programs today can defeat a good amateur". Since the best programs today can defeat a Grand Master, the level of sophistication has obviously increased. However, even if Dawkins was too cavalier in his description of the program's tools, his general point of comparison still holds. That is: genes cannot have instructions for every possible environmental situation that the body in which they reside will be subjected to, just as chess programs cannot have instructions for every possible move on the board. Rather, both operate with sets of rules and strategies that are effective across a broad enough spectrum of possibilities to meet with regular success.

Our second and last example, I draw from The Blind Watchmaker [80]. The work as a whole runs upon a premise of an immensely begged question (evolution must have taken place, because here we are),

Indeed, here we are. So we must have come from somewhere. The question is: why should we think organisms evolved over the course of history rather than having been created "as is" to begin with? Dawkins work, as a whole, is dedicated to answering this question.

but one example in particular has always struck me as the disconnected lynchpin of evolutionary thinking. In answering charges that the slightest error in the evolution of an eye would cause problems and lead to a failure in natural selection, Dawkins writes:

The odds cannot be far from 50/50 that you are reading these words through glass lenses. Take them off and look around. Would you agree that 'a recognizable image is not formed'? If you are male the odds are about 1 in 12 that you are colorblind. You may well be astigmatic. It is not unlikely that, without glasses, your vision is a misty blur. One of today's most distinguished...evolutionary theorists so seldom cleans his glasses that his vision is probably a misty blur anyway, but he seems to get along pretty well and, by his own account, he used to play a mean game of monocular squash.

Anecdotal squash games aside, what is wrong with this picture? Every person Dawkins writes to here has been living for years -- in most cases with previously perfect or sufficient vision -- and has developed other mechanisms, and gained familiarity with the world and circumstances in the meantime, that the loss or corruption of eyesight merely makes less convenient to whatever degree. His friend has been playing squash for years and had finely honed reflexes, a fit enough body, a fully developed mind, and knowledge of the game and its strategies. A creature in the wild who managed to evolve vision for the first time (and never mind that it would be far, far from being as useful as the weakened vision of most of Dawkins' readers, to say nothing of other biological matters beyond my ken) won't be selected unless its vision is accompanied by other traits already in place, and where did those come from, since they too can't be selected without accompanying traits?

Who says vision cannot be selected without accompanying traits? Vision is no less useful for the deaf. In fact, it is probably more vital for survival.

A creature with a new gift of vision also needs the ability to process what it sees and react accordingly. What if we were to take Dawkins' friend off the squash court and place him, naked and defenseless, deprived of all his other senses, on another planet filled with beasts and conditions he had never seen before?

Those would certainly be rough circumstances. Yet, Dawkins' friend would still have a better chance of surviving with limited vision than none at all. A better comparison would be to place thousands of clones of Dawkins' friend on the planet, but randomly blind some of them, and leave others with limited vision. Which group do you think would survive longer? And still, the analogy is not quite fair. After all, animals that evolved proto-eyes were not in completely alien environments. They lived in environments for which they were already genetically adapted for survival, and the proto-eye was an additional advantage, not a primary survival tool.

I could say more, including commenting on the absurdity of pointing to lack of function as evidence for evolution (as in the example of cave organisms "devolving" and losing their eyes -- how do steps backwards prove steps forwards?!?), but the point is, Dawkins has it backwards for what he is trying to prove.

This is one of the classic misunderstandings of evolutionary theory. Part of it probably stems from the use of the word "devolve", which ought to be eliminated from the evolutionary vocabulary. It is anthropomorphic to speak of steps forward and step backward. In evolution, there is really no "direction" because there is no overarching goal. Organisms simply evolve based on which adaptations are advantageous for propagating their genes in their current environmental circumstances. They are not progressing towards some sort of Platonic ideal organism. This is why cave organisms lose their eyes. Such organisms once lived under the open sun, but have since settled in an underground ecological niche. Of course, eyes are only useful in the light, and serve no purpose for creatures which live in utter darkness. But constructing an eye has a real cost in energy expenditure borne by the developing embryo. That energy could have been spent in productive capacities, such as building a finer sensitivity to vibrations. Thus, those cave organisms whose embryos, by random variation, spend a little less on visual acuity and a little more on useful qualities will tend to be more successful at surviving and propagating those "lesser visual quality" genes. Over millions of years, this process will select descendants lacking eyes.

Therefore, skeptics, I say unto you: Don't ask me to write about evolution. If this is the best sort of thinking your side has to offer, I don't want to hear about it.

Within the context of Dawkins' books, I think the analogies he draws are illustrative of the points he is actually trying to make. But even if you disagree, you are only casting aspersions on Dawkins ability as a communicator of evolutionary concepts. This has nothing to do with whether such concepts are actually true or false. Dawkins does not hold evolution to be true because of arguments by analogy. In short, if you are making a decision on whether or not to buy (or sell) evolution, you ought to look at the actual evidence. A good source on the web can be found here. And of course, there are more books than you can shake a crucifix at, from "On the Origin of the Species" to works by modern scientists such as Dawkins, whose books are far more than collections of analogies. If you don't have time to bother with the evidence, you could always take the path you endorsed in your opening paragraph and "respect the knowledge of those more informed" than you, granting the benefit of the doubt to the years (and lifetimes!) of study made by members of the scientific community.