Deceitful Design

I shared an interview with Dennis Venema on Facebook, highlighting this quote from the piece:

[T]he evidence is everywhere. It’s not just that a piece here and there fits evolution: it’s the fact that virtually none of the evidence we have suggests anything else. What you see presented as “problems for evolution” by Christian anti-evolutionary groups are typically issues that are taken out of context or (intentionally or not) misrepresented to their non-specialist audiences. For me personally (as a geneticist) comparative genomics (comparing DNA sequences between different species) has really sealed the deal on evolution. Even if Darwin had never lived and no one else had come up with the idea of common ancestry, modern genomics would have forced us to that conclusion even if there was no other evidence available (which of course manifestly isn’t the case).

A colleague who says he is a Christian asked what the evidence is that excludes explanation in terms of a common Designer. In response, I pointed out that I had before drawn to his attention specific pieces of evidence, such the fact that humans have one less chromosome than other primates, one of ours is elongated and matches up with two that other primates have, and that chromosome of ours has near its middle – and precisely lined up with where it occurs in the corresponding chromosome in other primates – genetic material that is distinctive of the tips of chromosomes. And so, having mentioned this again, I added the following:

In addition to specific pieces of evidence there is also the whole family tree. Would you argue that the resemblance of your own children’s genome to your has nothing to do with heredity but is due to a special independent creative act by a common Designer?

The “common design” argument should be renamed “the deceitful designer” argument, since it posits a creative activity that deliberately makes the evidence consistently point in the wrong direction to mislead us when we study it. That view of the Creator is incompatible with Christianity at the most fundamental level. And yet there remains a handful of Christians who pretend that this view is not only compatible with Christian faith, but quintessentially Christian!

I’ve been blogging about young-earth creationism, Intelligent Design, and evolution for a really long time now, and so please do take a look at some of my earlier posts on this topic. Here is a small sampling that is especially relevant to this post: