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Is there design in Nature?
Khalid Chraibi
28 November 2010
Is there design in nature?
I became interested in this question after reading Jacques Monod
who explicitly and
detailedly raised the issue of design in living beings, in his
book Chance and Necessity.
(Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1971). He said that it was a fact
which one could not overlook,but had to confront in order to
explain its existence in a scientific way. To this end, he went
into a lengthy discussion grounded in genetics and molecular
biology (which most readers can
easily understand, because the book was written to be read by
non-biologists as well as
specialists). He then presented his conclusion, which was that
this design was the mere
product of chance and necessity, as explained by the theory of
evolution (i.e. genetic
mutations, natural selection, genetic drift and the like), and
was not attributable to a designer.
If Monod had stopped his explanations at this point, he would
have said nothing original. He
would merely have repeated what the paradigm stated. He would
not even have confirmed the
paradigm, because his developments in genetics and molecular
biology, interesting as they
were, did not provide any corroborating evidence for this
conclusion, which was expressed
rather like a Truth which required no supporting evidence.
But, Monod did not stop at this conclusion. He put great
emphasis on the fact that living
beings had a unique property, which he called teleonomy (a novel
concept introduced a few
years earlier by other writers). According to him, teleonomy was
the built-in capacity of living
beings to evolve along more and more complex life forms and
systems. They had all the
appearances of design, but were not, in fact, the product of a
pre-conceived blueprint. They
were only the products of chance and necessity.
This explanation is not satisfactory, within the framework of a
scientific discussion.
"Teleonomy" appears in Monod's explanations suddenly, like a
deus ex machina in a
Greek play, (the God suddenly coming out of a machine , on
stage, at the end of the play,
to settle all the intricate issues raised in the play). Monod
doesn't explain the specifics of
teleonomy, and how living beings come into possession of this
extraordinary faculty. He uses
it like a magical wand, to provide a pseudo-explanation of
something which he obviously
neither understands nor can explain. The teleonomical
explanation has thus as much scientific
standing as the explanation that, say, God did it .
So, where did Monod go wrong?
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Monod relied on the explanations provided by the official
paradigm of ToE (genetic
mutations, natural selection...). So, the central point of the
discussion has to do with
mutations. Monod, and the paradigm, say they take place
according to random processes. This
is true of many verified cases of mutations. But, what if
mutations also took place, in some
specific situations, not in a random way, but in an organized
way, according toinstructions which exist in the genome, and which
come into play when some factors
appear (in the same way that adaptation to a new environment
takes place, according to
accepted scientific explanations of ToE)?
If that were the case, there would be no need, anymore, for a
magical explanation like
teleonomy . Design would exist in Nature, in living beings, not
as the product of
random mutations, but as the result of organized mutations,
based on the genetic
instructions in the genome, which come into play when some
specific factors exist in the
environment which activate some specific set of
instructions.
This would be in line with Monod's intuition that living beings
have a built-in capacity toevolve along more and more complex life
forms and systems.
As can be seen, this explanation is not very different from the
official explanation of the
paradigm, since both are centered on the instructions in the
genome. But, I substitute
"organized mutations" to "random mutations" to explain the
appearance of design,
because it makes more sense, when one takes all the relevant
data and explanations into
account.
In theory, this explanation could be analyzed, tested and
verified by bona fide researchers in
this field. If it is wrong, it should be easy to demonstrate its
fallacy. This would reinforce the
existing paradigm with regard to this alternative.
On the other hand, if it can be scientifically established that
mutations take place, in some
situations, in an organized way, and and in other situations in
a random way, this would
modify in a significant way our understanding of what evolution
is, and how it works.
The ToE paradigm would then accept the two processes as equally
valid, equally at
work, depending on the context.
When I wrote the preceding ideas, I was not aware of the
existence of cases of very rapid
evolution, which would confort my approach. I have since read
the following article in
National Geographic, about the rapid evolution of some Croatian
lizards, whose specificschanged considerably over a period of four
decades:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html
Should we attribute the rapid evolution of these lizards to
chance and necessity, random
mutations, natural selection, genetic drift and the like? Or
should we explain this rapid
evolution by a rapid adaptation of these lizards to a new set of
conditions in their
environment, thanks to the existence in their genome of a
built-in capacity to adapt to
such a change? That's the question. The answer is easy to
obtain, based on the thorough
analysis by biologists and researchers of this concrete case of
evolution.
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.htmlhttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html
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A brief account of this rapid evolution of Croatian lizards
appears in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard_evolution. It reads in
part:
Rapid evolution
P. sicula gained attention in 2008 following the publication of
a research study[5] that detailed
distinct morphological and behavioral changes in a P. sicula
population indicative of "rapid
evolution".[6][7][8][9][10]
In 1971, ten adult P. sicula specimens from the island of Pod
Kopite were transported 3.5 km
east to the island of Pod Mraru (both Croatian islands lie in
the Adriatic Sea near Lastovo),
where they founded a new bottlenecked population.[5][11] The two
islands have similar size,
elevation, microclimate, and a general absence of terrestrial
predators[11] and the P. sicula
expanded for decades without human interference, even
outcompeting the (now extinct[5])
local Podarcis melisellensis population.[6]
Following the war, scientists returned to Pod Mraru and found
that the lizards currently
occupying Pod Mraru differ greatly from those on Pod Kopite.
While mitochondrial DNA
analyses have verified that P. sicula currently on Pod Mraru are
genetically indistinguishable
from the Pod Kopite source population,[5] the new Pod Mraru
population of P. sicula was
described, in August 2007, as having a larger average size,
shorter hind limbs, lower maximal
sprint speed and altered response to simulated predatory attacks
compared to the original Pod
Kopite population.[11] These population changes in morphology
and behavior were
attributed to "relaxed predation intensity" and greater
protection from vegetation on Pod
Mraru.[11]
In 2008, further analysis revealed that the Pod Mraru population
of P. sicula have
significantly different head morphology (longer, wider, and
taller heads) and increased bite
force compared to the original Pod Kopite population.[5] This
change in head shape
corresponded with a shift in diet: Pod Kopite P. sicula are
primarily insectivorous, but those
on Pod Mraru eat substantially more plant matter.[5] The changes
in foraging style may have
contributed to a greater population density and decreased
territorial behavior of the Pod
Mraru population.[5]
The most surprising[7] difference found between the two
populations was the discovery, in
the Pod Mraru lizards, of cecal valves, which slow down food
passage and provide
fermenting chambers, allowing commensal microorganisms to
convert cellulose to nutrientsdigestible by the lizards.[5]
Additionally, the researchers discovered that nematodes were
common in the guts of Pod Mraru lizards, but absent from Pod
Kopite P. sicula, which do
not have cecal valves. The cecal valves, which occur in less
than 1 percent of all known
species of scaled reptiles,[7] have been described as an
"evolutionary novelty, a brand new
feature not present in the ancestral population and newly
evolved in these lizards".[9]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard_evolution.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard_evolution.
