At least in part, Dawkins wrote his most recent book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, as a reaction and response to the growing influence of creationists. Those who seek to obstruct academic progress, if not reverse it, by insisting on teaching their origins mythology in science classrooms.
Besides generally educating yourself (if not an expert on evolution already) a reading of Dawkins’ book can provide a number of comebacks to Creationist claims.
1) Argument from incredulity:
Evolution is so complex and mysterious (to me), therefore there must be supernatural influence (my favorite intellectual fudge factor).
The title to Dawkins’ eighth chapter succinctly says it: “You Did It Yourself in Nine Months”
Response: So, you need a god to explain the development of species from simpler forms? What about your development from a simpler form? After all, you begin life as one cell which became a ball of cells and then something quite alien, almost fish-looking, until a small you with huge head was born. And even then your personal evolution wasn’t complete. Tell me, where in that process is it necessary to inject supernatural influence? Mind you, science can explain it all the way from A to Z. What non-superfluous element would your god add? And how might this be different than evolution at large?
2) Stuck on fossil-record gaps:
But the fossil record has gaps and . . . yada yada yada.
Response 1: Well, it is a shame that no one was around the videotape all of biological history. So instead we have to rely on the photographic “stills” provided by an imperfect fossil record. If you have difficulty seeing the connection between one “still” and another, try stapling them together in a book and commence with flipping. See it now?
Response 2: That gap-filled fossil record you refer to provides more than a linear link of related species. Our earth’s geological strata are themselves a history book of sorts. One that says the same thing from continent to continent. In fact, that history book has helped us to understand plate tectonics. One of the ways we know land-masses have migrated is the fossil record that places species adjacent to one another. But only where the puzzle pieces physically fit together. To call this pure coincidence is magical thinking of a nihilistic variety.
Response 3: We have evolutionary “History Written All Over Us” (Dawkins’ 11th chapter title). The fossil record is but one line of evidence. Our very own physiology, and that of all other species, tells a tale in its own right. We share most of our genes with chimpanzees for a reason. From bone structure to the type of proteins in our cells, all this supports rather than refutes the evolutionary perspective.
Here’s a quick list of tell-tale facts from a sampling of species: Human beings get “goosebumps,” despite the fact that there is no advantage to erecting non-existent fur. Whales have bud-like hind “legs” hidden beneath their outer form. What purpose do they serve? The dolphin’s brain has a convoluted surface to its cortex, something that shows kinship with other mammals, not fish. The giraffe’s laryngeal nerve travels down its long neck to loop around the dorsal aorta befor traveling all the way back up. In ancestral species, that loop was just a short loop. But once the pathway was set, evolution worked with what was. And so the nerve was extended twice the length as was the giraffe’s neck. Design would surely have included a short cut. There is none. Just a ridiculously long nerve that could as easily be short.
3) Nature as manifesting design:
Nature is just so marvelous and beautiful and perfectly designed, it had to be designed by a A+ force (which just happens to be my conception of a deity).
Take off your rose-colored glasses and look closer at nature. Yah, that place where disease and suffering and death are commonplace.
First there are imperfections and outright flaws. While they don’t make sense in terms of design, they do make another type of sense. Dawkins writes:
“The human body abounds with what, in one sense, we could call imperfections, but, in another sense, should be seen as inescapable compromises resulting from our long ancestral history of descent from other kinds of animals.” p. 365
Lower back problems? Difficult childbirth? Are these evidence of a flawed design or of descent from non-upright ancestors?
Urinary infections? To urinate out of the same organ you procreate with, well, that’s not a divine plan so much as it is a “patch and go” evolutionary solution to near-term pressures. No far-seeing designer would place such problem-prone elements in his product.
Etc., etc., etc.
And then there is the monumental waste evident in creation. Most species create far more offspring than survive. Fish, turtles, birds and mice all lose great numbers of their offspring to predation, disease, starvation. And so they make more and more.
In his 12th chapter Dawkins speaks of the evolutionary arms race. And a massive example of this is . . . tree trunks. Yes, tree trunks. Why are there trunks? To elevate one species’ leaves above the leaves of competitors. And sometimes that elevation is hundreds of feet, requiring a massive amount of otherwise unnecessary fiber to support it. An intelligent designer would likely make more efficient elements, rather than having plants complete with one another, and engage in expensive means of getting a limb-up.
The slow, mosh-pit evolution of green matter attempting to outdo other species of green matter for limited resources (light, etc.) is evidence of evolution, not a paradise on earth. Not if you look closely. And speaking of looking closely, examine any tree close enough and you will find hundreds of other species living not peaceable with it, lion and lamb-like, but living off of it. Bacteria, fungi, woodpeckers, etc.
And that is how evolution works. Study the facts. Study the history of life on earth. Evolution is indeed an inescapable conclusion.
Oh, and maybe you should read Dawkins’ book. I recommend it.
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