Reasons to (dis)Believe
Monday, October 20th, 2008After a short hiatus on actual, skeptical blog posts, we’re back!
While reading Michael Shermer’s book Why We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, I came across a creationism apologist website called Reasons to Believe. I read through a few of the articles, which are in essence “proofs” for the existence of God. (Many of them replace the word God with Creator, Designer, and so on, but as in the case of Intelligent Design for Creationism, these are just pseudonyms.)
Picking an article (almost) at random, I came across Bombarded by Design by Dr. David H. Rogstad. I actually enjoyed the article quite a bit, save the first and last paragraphs. It begins with quotes (taken out of context) from Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and Paul Davies, followed by this non-sequitur:
“In light of such statements, it is not a stretch to claim that scientific evidence supports the idea of design in nature.”
It seems almost cruel to follow a Dawkins quote with that sentence. Anyone even remotely familiar with Richard Dawkins would question how someone could link “design in nature” with anything Dawkins said.
The article then goes on to describe the Bombardier Beetle – a remarkable bug that can shoot poison up to 20cm away with incredible accuracy, and with variable droplet size, to scare off its predators. This part of the article was incredibly captivating - I love biology, and this bug is too cool! You can read more about it at Wikipedia (there’s even a section there on the Creationist Dispute of the Bombardier Beetle).
The article describes two researchers who studied the beetle and managed to copy the poison-spitting technique used by the little guy. Instead of poison, though, they used hot water, and managed to fire it to distances of up to four meters, regulating the size of the droplets in the spray. Rogstad talks about the potentional applications for this, in medicine, automotives, and firefighting. Then he mentions the bug’s link to Creationism - and that’s when the article loses its coherence. The last paragraph reads:
“Once again, nature provides inspiration for human technology. The bombardier beetle’s exquisite defense mechanism surely invigorates William Paley’s argument for the source of design in nature being a “Watchmaker” rather than random chance!”
The first sentence is bang-on - this bug certainly is an inspiration for human invention, and there are absolutely many other animals whose “exquisite” characteristics we’ve stolen ideas from (such as the bird’s wings for airplanes, plant burrs for Velcro, and currently medical adhesives are being developed based on gecko feet - see more examples here). But just because a beetle has a nifty defense mechanism doesn’t mean there’s a god out there - that’s a non-sequitur if I ever heard one. If Dr. Rogstad is trying to apply the Irreducible Complexity argument, he fails in the same way Michael Behe failed in trying to show the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum. You can read a full account of the evolution of the bombardier beetle’s defense mechanism here - basically, all beetles have a chemical in their skin which tastes bitter to predators and thus deters them. For most beetles, their entire shell is covered in this, however in some species an indentation evolved which collected all this fluid into a single droplet, carried in a sac. The bombardier beetle evolved a valve on the end of this sac, causing pressure to build up, which makes the liquid “squirt” when the valve is opened.
“Bombarded by Design” is an extremely weak effort to convince someone of the existence of God. Dr. Rogstad barely supports his claims, and his premise is ridiculous. While I appreciate the interesting facts about the Bombardier Beetle, I was not at all convinced by the arguments presented. Sorry, Doctor, but you’ll have to do better that this to convince us skeptics.
If you’re in the mood to pull your hair out, read through some of the other articles and try to deconstruct them (then email it to us - info@calgaryskeptics.com - and we’ll post it on the blog!). There are some real gems on this site…