Jehovah's Witnesses & Evolution
Written: February 17, 1999
Published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the book Life: How did it get here? By evolution or by creation? is not only the standard reference work on evolution and creationism for Jehovahís Witnesses, but it appears to enjoy some measure of popularity among other religious conservatives. What does it say? How reliable is it?
Unfortunately, it isn't nearly as reliable or credible as it might otherwise appear on first glance. Our first clue that something fishy is going on is the title itself. The main question which must preoccupy the authors is the origin of life on our planet - how life itself got here. However, that isn't a question which concerns evolution. Despite this obvious fact, an entire chapter of the book, plus sections of other chapters, are devoted to this issue.
Witnesses
A bit of background is in order to help understand what is going on in this particular creationist book. The Jehovah's Witnesses is a minority Christian sect begun in the 1870's on the prediction that the world would end in 1914. Oddly enough, that didn't happen. Further predictions of the end of the world were then made for 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, and the last one was for 1975. Since then they have apparently gotten smart and stopped predicting any specific dates for the final Armageddon. Some, however, took the amazing tactic of maintaining that the world did in fact end in 1914, but that we're all too dense to recognize it. Jehovah's Witnesses are "old earth" creationists, which is to say that they accept the Genesis account of origins as being truthful, but perhaps allegorical in places. So the "day" in Genesis can be interpreted as occurring over any length of time they'd like, even thousands of years. The book under consideration here is their primary text in examining the questions of science and evolution. Many Jehovah's Witnesses are firmly convinced by this book, but many others end up leaving that faith once they find out how full of errors it is. This would probably explain why congregation members are discouraged from doing their own, independent research on the various quotes and claims found in the book.
Probabilities
As one might expect, they are quick to bring up the matter of "probability." Although the reported numbers usually vary considerably from creationist to creationist, it is almost a sure bet that every creationist work will use this argument. In this instance, we find the authors telling us that the odds of "..even a single protein molecule forming at random in an organic soup" is a one followed 113 zeros against. Do they bother to inform us of just where they obtained this number? Of course not. Creationists' numbers vary, and they're all quite bogus because there is no empirical basis upon which a mathematician can reasonably calculate them.
Despite this, the book is quick to add that Hoyle calculated the odds at 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power against the proteins serving as enzymes in a cell all forming by chance - more fraudulent calculations, to say the least.
As an example of how bogus these numbers must be, let's take a look at something simpler: dice. To figure out how likely a rolled die (assuming it is not loaded) will come up on any one side, you have to know how many sides there are. In other words, you need to know how many different, equally probably, possibilities exist. If there are 6 sides, the chance of any one side is 1 in 6. The above calculation states 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power? That would then indicate a 10 to the 40,000 different, equally probable possibilities. Where did they come by that number? Basically, they made it up. It is impossible to know with any confidence just how many possibile combinations existed at the time. Not knowing that means that is impossible to calculate those odds. Statisticians understand this; creationists either do not or, if they do, they hide it.
Then there is that tricky phrase "equally probably." If the die is "loaded," not all sides are equally probable. Many, if not most, things in nature are "loaded." Hold a ball in the air: how many possible directions are there for it to travel once you let go? Nearly an infinite number. Are they all equally probable? No, only one is: down. That's the way things work. Similarly, chemical process are "loaded" in that, given certain conditions, some results are more likely than others. Did the people offering/making the calculations take this into account? No. But if by some miracle they did, do they have good evidence to know what, exactly, the more probable results might have been and why? Not that I've ever seen reported.
Furthermore, the calculation involves a many complex molecules forming *all at once*. Who said it did? Most realize that this sort of thing develops slowly, bit by bit. Evolution is about organic matter developing gradually, not all at once. It is creationists who postulate living matter arising instantly at the behest of their deity.
In addition, the number of attempts is completely ignored. If I have a 6-sided
die and roll it 6 times, I have a good chance of getting #5. If 6 people roll such
a die once, we have a good chance of getting at least one #5 that time. If there
are a gazillion places on the planet where molecules are forming up, the chances
of getting a good, protein-producing formation, is pretty good that day. Half a gazillion
places? a couple of days. A quarter of a gazillion places? Maybe a week. You see,
if there are a lot of places where the process is being played out, any possible
result starts becoming more likely.
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And finally: If every possibility is equally likely, then it is also true that every possibility is equally unlikely. The formation of a protein molecule, then, is not more unlikely than any single instance of a non-formation. It isn't more unlikely simply because the results were good for us. Thus, if the attempted assembly only happened once, there had to be some result - and the protein-forming result is just as likely as any other. Some number has to win the lottery - the fact that protein won that lottery isn't any great mystery. If you buy a lottery ticket and your chances are one in a million - and you win - is it an Act of God? Nope, just good fortune...for you. Bad fortune for the others. That's how you'd expect things in a non-created universe.
If, for example, you have a deck of shuffled cards in front of you and draw five from the top, the odds against any combination of five are equal - no matter what the combination is. Drawing a royal flush might seem supernatural to people with a superstitious mind, but only because of our subjective preferences for it. Just because an outcome is favorable to us doesn't mean that it cannot have purely naturalistic origins.
As a matter of fact, we can easily use the same creationist arguments to "prove" that none of us should actually exist here and now. Each of us is the product of the union of one of some billions and billions of spermatozoa produced by our fathers and one of many millions of ova (eggs) produced by our mothers. What then are the odds against any one sperm combining with any on egg, thus making us? Quadrillions to one at least. We can increase this number to an absurd degree by including similar calculations of the odds against the conception of our parents, and their parents, and their parents' parents, and so on. By multiplying them all out, the numbers we'd produce would be beyond belief.
Yet here we are. We clearly exist.
So there must be some fundamental error in this statistical "argument" for the existence of god(s). It should be clear by now that the error is that although the odds against a particular sperm & egg combination are incredible, the against some sperm & egg combination are no problem. Similarly, the odds against living things today being just as they are mind-bogglingly high, but the odds against some kind of living thing arising by natural processes are not a problem at all. It only seems too high to be natural because we place such a high value upon the result: us.
In fact, more and more evidence has accumulated which points towards the idea that, given the nature of matter and the universe, life and its evolution are not at all unlikely, as we shall see below.
Don't miss the other section:
Part 2: Abiogenesis & Dishonesty
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