The sheer improbability stacked against the notion that life could evolve functionally to new life forms makes it physically impossible, thus showing that design is the best inference when it comes to life. Ultimately, Axe concludes, “Functional coherence makes accidental invention fantastically improbable and therefore physically impossible” (160). There is a specific “target area” which must be achieved to get life, and the odds against hitting that target are infinitesimal to the point that they are practically impossible (113ff). Axe argues that “aimless wandering” of chance effectively means that anything but design for the results we observe is impossible. There is no amount of repetition possible to offset the improbability of life in our universe and life as we see (103).Ĭounter-arguments to design are addressed, including the multiverse. It is insight that is required to achieve the results that we see in biology, he argues. He also utilizes mathematical modeling to show that it is effectively impossible to achieve certain results purely by chance (89ff). This intuition, argues Axe, is supported by experimental data, including difficulties with forming proteins to form specific chemical transformations (33ff).
Axe contends that by appealing to “common science”-the notion that experience is integral to how we live and that each individual is, in a sense, a scientist because we use experience to make models and figure out how things work (60-61)-the inference to design will be vindicated.Ī central aspect of Axe’s case is appeal to what he calls “The Universal Design Intuition” defined as “Tasks that we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge” (20).
(Nov.Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life is Designedby Douglas Axe is an explanation of Intelligent Design theory at a lay level. Nye’s popularizing talents shine in this one, and if he’s preaching to the science-loving choir, at least he’s giving them easy-to-understand explanations to bolster their inevitable dinner-table or internet arguments. With his conversational wit, Nye both counters classic creationist tactics-such as the appeal to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the idea of the uselessness of half a wing-and explains evolutionary concepts such as punctuated equilibrium, bottlenecking, the theory of the Red Queen, and “good-enough design.” Connections to fields like geochemistry and oceanography support his stance that “the natural world is a package deal you don’t get to select which facts you like and which you don’t.” Nye takes advantage of his soapbox to address hot-button issues like vaccines and antibiotics, genetically modified foods, and cloning (perhaps overstepping when he dives into the psycho-evolutionary basis of evolution denial). “The Science Guy” jumps off from and expands the arguments from his public debate with creationist Ken Ham, positing that to deny the reality of evolution is tantamount to denying science as a whole, ignoring the advances in medicine and agriculture that make modern human life possible, and destroying our children’s future by leaving them ill-equipped to understand the world.
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