"Top Atheists Use God to Prove Evolution?!" ft. Dr. Steve Dilley

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 00:00

The two best book length treatment in the last 30 years by two extremely prominent biologists giving their best argument for evolutionary theory make exactly the opposite claims about what God would or wouldn't do. So one of them has to be wrong.

Allan CP (: 00:20

Dr. Steven Dilley studied two of the most influential pro-evolution books in the last 30 years, Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, and both authors made claims about what they believe God would or wouldn't do in nature to help their case for evolution. And yet they're atheists. And so Dr. Dilley takes us and walks us through why this matters, how it impacts science education, and what questions should we be asking?

Let's get into it. So Dr. Steve Dilley, thank you so much for joining us on the Science Dilemma podcast. know that you've done, of course, a lot of work in this field of intelligent design. And as you've studied the strongest Pro Evolution books out there, what shocked you the most? Like, what are the top books when it comes to people who saying like, these are our best arguments?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 00:56

Yeah, great to be with you, Alan.

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say in the last 30 years, the two very best book length treatments of evolution, not simply describing it, but making the case for it. Our books, so you can probably see them over my shoulder there. One is by Jerry coin. Why evolution is true. He's a, he was a retired now, but a very notable prominent geneticist at the university of Chicago. And the other is.

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, who formerly had an endowed chair at ⁓ Oxford University. And your question is what shocked me the most? What shocked me the most is as you read through those books, and of course they're making a cumulative argument, right? With lots of sub-arguments, but at the same time, they will also focus in on a key argument, say, here's the best standalone argument for evolutionary theory.

both Cohen does that and Dawkins does that. And what was surprising to me is in both cases, their crucial argument, their very best argument, hinged on certain partisan, what I would say are very partisan claims about what God would or would not have done in organic history. Now they're both atheists, so these are counterfactuals, but they're very competent that

If God were to have existed or were to exist and were to have created, he would do so in very specific ways. And as you know, the natural question to ask is, well, what are those ways and what's your support for them?

Allan CP (: 02:57

Yeah.

That's what my question was going to be is like, why are the top atheists using theology to argue for evolution? And then how are they even doing that? Like, how are they coming to those conclusions? What's their foundation?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 03:10

The question is really good and the well goes a mile deep. ⁓ a sense here, just cutting me off if I just keep going, but in a sense they come by it honestly in the sense that if you go back and study the origin of species, Darwin himself makes claims about what God would or would not have done as part of his case for evolutionary theory. Not simply at

for his case to attack special creation, but actually as a positive element of his case for evolutionary theory. And then if you continue to look at the literature from Darwin to the present. So for example, perhaps one of the most famous pieces ⁓ on evolutionary theory that defended the view is by a Russian geneticist who immigrated, Theodosius Tupshansky. He wrote it in the seventies.

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. He lays out seven arguments for evolutionary theory and this paper has been cited thousands, thousands of times in the literature for obvious reason. He lays out seven arguments for evolutionary theory in the paper and all of them contain at least one claim about God, about what he would or wouldn't do or what his properties are and so on.

By the time you get to gold and coin, the pattern is really well established. So now there's more to say on that, but it's not anomalous. They're not doing something new. They're not doing something unusual. They're very much mainstream.

Allan CP (: 04:56

And when there's pushback to them, is there much documentation of what their responses are to that pushback as far as using theology and making these assumptions about God?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 05:07

Yeah, that's a really good question. It hasn't been fronted enough.

It's the kind of thing that is so much in the water that, that hasn't risen to the surface enough for them to, think, really engage it in a serious way. So that's part of the answer. I think the other part of the answer is to them, it's just obvious that this is what God would or would not do. Or I think, and a third element is it's easy to see them as saying, well, look, I'm just taking the

the creationists view seriously what they say about God and then showing what they say about God actually contradicts the way the natural world would look on their own view. So in that sense, they would say, well, I'm actually not bringing my own theology to the party. I'm just describing my opponent's theology for the purpose of knocking it down. Well, it turns out that that's false. They do bring their own theology.

to the table, which makes your question even more poignant. well, where do you, where do you get it from? How do you justify it? And when you're pushed, how do you defend it? And it turns out it's, it's quite difficult for them to do that.

Allan CP (: 06:30

That just points to the fact that the very thing that they're saying that intelligent design scientists do or creationists even as well, which I know that those are two camps, ⁓ they almost blame us for being biased and funneling everything through our bias. But from what you're saying, they're also creating a theology from their bias is what it sounds like. There's not really a lot of literature that they're creating.

are getting these views from.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 07:01

Yeah. So let me give you a, let me give you a concrete example. then, and then we can unpack, you know, and, you know, your viewers and listeners can, can they make their own evaluation? Is this biased theology? Is it obvious or whatever? So, so, yeah. So here's an example from coin. the longest chapter in his book, why evolution is true is on the fossil record. And that's where he says the best evidence is.

Okay, so this is his best chapter, most evidence. And then if you read through the chapter, he brings his arguments to the head in the very last paragraph. And ⁓ I can, can I pull that up on my screen? Can your-

Allan CP (: 07:46

I think you can share your screen. Yeah.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 07:49

What is coin's argument? So keep in mind, this is the best argument. He says best standalone argument for evolution on the best data. There is no reason why a celestial designer fashioning organisms from scratch, like an architect designs buildings, should make new species by remodeling the features of existing ones. Each species could be constructed from the ground up.

But natural selection can act only by changing what already exists. It can't produce new traits out of thin air. Darwinism predicts then that new species will be modified versions of older ones. The fossil record amply confirms this prediction. All right, so what is that about? Well, he's saying if a celestial designer, his language, what it says,

When he went to create a new species, he could just produce it out of thin air. He wouldn't have to borrow anything from a previous created species. He could just do, he's got the power to do something brand new. He's created snails and then he might have in mind, well, I want to create a Robin. Well, he doesn't have to borrow anything to do that. He could just presto do it. But, Coins says, Darwinism on the other hand is slow and gradual.

So if you've got a snail, what would you expect in the fossil record you expect another snail like creature, you to evolve slowly over time. Eventually you might get, you know, something that could fly. And he says, when we actually look at the fossil record, what you see is gradual variation ultimately leading to major morphological differences. Okay. Well, he's, he's wrong about the fossil record. Okay.

Allan CP (: 09:39

I was about to ask, so is he right or wrong about... okay.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 09:43

⁓

f Vick, published by Crossway: 2017

So, anyways, yeah, go ahead.

Allan CP (: 10:15

No, I was just, I had one question about that. So is he basically saying that you'd completely need new materials for the other, like, so if you have a slug or a snail, he wants something that doesn't need anything that the slug or snail needs. So like cells or molecules or blood or whatever it is. Is that what you're saying? Like every single creature that's created cannot have what other creatures have?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 10:43

Yeah, so that's a very perceptive question. Yes. He seems to think if a celestial designer exists, there would be major differences, you know, cause God wouldn't have to borrow any, wouldn't have to borrow genes, blood vessels, structures, whatever. So your question is very good. I mean, we've got another question. The first question is, ⁓ would God always have to create from scratch? That's a theological claim. Coyne says he would always have to do that. So there would be,

no way in which God would make something beautiful and think, ⁓ that's stunning. I'm gonna take part of that and make something modified for a different purpose, but using that same basic structure, I've got a, we all have a five digit bone structure. You can see a five digit bone structure in the wing of a bat, for example. And ⁓ it's conceivable that human designers do this all the time. You design one module, it works great, and then you modify it.

Coin says, ⁓ God wouldn't do that ever. Okay, so that's one layer. You've already taken it to a deeper level. Namely, well, if God must create from scratch, then at what level could he use the same genes or would he have to do something? Would he be even allowed to use the same genes? Could he even allow, could he use carbon again? Could he use electrons in making one thing and in making, like at what point?

⁓ Does Cohen know when God would be able to use similar features and at what point would he not be able to use similar features?

Allan CP (: 12:24

This recipe is not allowed. then, okay, so how far, how far scratch does God always have to start from? Is it always different materials? Okay. Exactly.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 12:33

We have

to create brand. For each species would constitute a brand new universe that was utterly inconceivable from the previous species and a previous universe. ⁓ and of course you'll notice the only justification he gives is he makes this comparison to an architect. But even that's inaccurate because we know architects have philosophies and they have themes.

And you can identify, now sometimes that makes something radically new. Okay, that's the open possibility. But often if you look, say at a Frank Lloyd Wright, yeah, and then you look at another Frank Lloyd, right? You can see motifs that are similar. Why? Well, because he had a certain understanding of what architecture is supposed to do. And it was a coherent one. ⁓ So we do know that even architects borrow.

and don't always do something completely different with every single building. Yeah. mean, that'd be, would you hire a guy like that?

Allan CP (: 13:33

Yeah,

I was about to say, aren't there like foundational realities and laws that they have to abide by like building, making sure that there's a strong foundation and then even the infrastructure has to be created in a way like rebar if there's cement. So they might design it differently, but there's still laws that they're abiding by, right?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 13:53

There are lots of physics that they have to pay attention to, but there are also aesthetic preferences that you see over.

Allan CP (: 13:59

Yeah,

yeah. Okay. And so these ideas, are these the most prevalent ideas? Like are these extremely prevalent in academia as well? Or is it just on like the expert level? Where is this? Is this what's being promoted to basically public schools everywhere?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 14:16

Yeah.

Great question. So, let me give, can I give you one other example and then please, so here's the, I mentioned the other top book in the last 30 years, giving a book like, is Richard Dawkins the greatest show on earth. So if you read through it, he isolates what he says is the single best argument revolution. he thinks it has to do with D DNA similarities. We have similar genes in one organism and then

the, he thinks you can construct a tree of life where a common ancestor would evolve and evolve one way in one circumstance. It would evolve another lineage and another circumstance, but you can reconstruct that tree based on how, how similar their genes are all the way back to a common answer. And no matter what gene you take from a given organism and you compare it.

to another organism. So if you take genes for an eye from two organisms, and then genes from a liver from two organisms, you'll always have that same beautiful tree of life where every organism bears the same ancestral relations. Okay, so that's his view.

Allan CP (: 15:28

And it sounds compelling to a novice. does. for me, it sounds compelling. Yeah.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 15:32

It

does. turns out the, just as an aside, the empirical data is if you take, look at an organism and you reconstruct those genetic trees based on a gene here, gene here, I love her, whatever, they actually give very different, they, they, describe very different evolutionary relationships. So you don't have a unified gene. have a total mess relative to what you would expect on evolutionary theory. ⁓ we've published on this. So it's a, it's a big empirical problem.

Dawkins claim, but here's where the theology is of interest. Dawkins is competent of this view because he thinks God would, in fact, bar hope.

He thinks God would borrow whenever it was useful. If God is creating this organism here, brand new one, and he's got these three other organisms and, a previous organism that I created has some eye genes that would be handy for this new one, I'll take this. Another organism, I've created some liver genes. Hey, that would be good for this organism, right? So he would borrow this. So, Doc is-

Allan CP (: 16:38

So

here's the opposite view of Quint.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 16:41

He has

the exact opposite. God would borrow. Dawkins is very confident of this. And Dawkins justification is, well, human designers often borrow. And he's right. Human designers do borrow. But the question is, do human designers ever do something quite different? Well, sometimes they do. If you look at like Picasso, some of his pieces are totally different. And if you didn't know it was from him, you just wouldn't know they're

Allan CP (: 16:49

Okay.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 17:11

very, very different. Sometimes the designer will solve the same design problem in different ways. You you think of the problem of flight. Well, I've got bird wings, right? You've got insect wings, you have bat wings. Those are structurally all very different. Sometimes you, as it work in, show your genius by not simply borrowing something just to make another version of it, but doing something completely different. Okay.

So there were a lot of worries about Dawkins Theology. But to get to your point, the two best book length treatment in the last 30 years by two extremely prominent biologists giving their best argument for evolutionary theory make exactly the opposite claims about what God would or wouldn't do. So one of them has to be wrong. Yeah.

And the justification, as you can see, is thin on that.

Allan CP (: 18:13

And neither of them are theologians and they're making the theological claim, right?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 18:17

They're making a theological claim and the deep worry here is it's one thing to be say in a theological tradition and to take it really seriously and say, Hey, I have good grounds for this tradition, whatever those are. And when I take this tradition seriously, it really does say that divine action would occur this in this way. Okay. That's a venerable tradition. And then we can argue about whether their deep justification for that whole tradition is that's one thing. Okay.

but they don't really do that. They are operating from a theological position. They think theology is silly and unjustified and yet they're making substantive theological claims and they're making them way that's contradictory. And they're also making theological claims that their own worldview can't sustain. So think about that. Do you mind if I?

Talk about, can I just launch on that? Okay. Yeah. So suppose you're like a Christian theist or you hold Jewish beliefs or whatever, okay?

And let's suppose, well, we could bracket that. Just suppose that God exists and that God actually designed human beings to know the world and know who he is. Okay. Let's just suppose that. In that case, human beings are equipped to do theology, right? That's part of our cognitive apparatus. Just like God would have equipped us, suppose he equipped us to see things. Well, they would have given us eyes or some equivalent like that. So we can see it's just part of

the way we're put together. But now, shift the picture. Suppose, as per Coyne and Dawkins, who are atheists, there is no God. Okay? So our cognitive apparatus, it arose from mutations and selective pressures on the African savanna. Okay? We are designed by God in order to know God, in order to do theology. We're designed to... ⁓

survive and reproduce. Okay. The question is on that view, taking it seriously, what basis would we have to say what a imaginary divine being would or would not have done in organic history in episodes completely removed from our survival and reproduction? I mean, is there any objective answer to ⁓

ould have done, I don't know,: 2000

from another exceptional understanding. So the deep worry here is if you take atheism, coin and Dawkins atheism seriously on its own terms, then it seems to imply that the theology they bring to bear, they're not borrowing it from creationists in their own, the theology that they bring to bear is rendered, it's rendered,

It's undermined. guess that's the right way to put it. Okay. Because of their own evolutionary point of view. Now what's fascinating is if, wait a minute, wait a minute, if evolution, if it ends up undermining the best arguments for it, then you have something that looks self-defeating. If evolutionary theory is true, our minds are not designed to know God, but we need to have knowledge of God in some legitimate sense.

Yeah. In order to accept evolutionary theory, then it looks like you've undercut the ground for your own view.

Allan CP (: 22:32

With your background in philosophy, I can imagine one of the greatest skills to teach people, and a lot of our listeners probably more like the school, ⁓ like middle school, high school age student, or the family, or youth pastors of those students, is learning how to ask the question like what are the questions that best help them?

in having like as they read these things, as they learn these things, what are the best questions that you would tell them? Hey, learn to ask this constantly. ⁓ Especially as a philosopher, I can imagine you know how to ask the right questions typically that lead you in the right path towards truth. Yeah.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 23:16

I hope so. I remember when I'm, I, ⁓ my eldest daughter, my wife and I have four kids and my oldest daughter, when she was about three, she looked at me and said, dad, no evidence. kept asking her what her evidence was. That's one of the, that's one of the key questions ⁓ is what I would tell my undergrad students is try to develop a habit of asking two questions.

Allan CP (: 23:36

Yeah, yeah, but that's

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 23:47

What does this person say? Just what is the claim?

Allan CP (: 23:51

Like let me understand. yes. That's what you saying earlier. Like something that you do is help people understand what is the claim.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 23:58

Yeah. What is the argument? Just try to be clear on what's being said. So asking over, okay, what is, what's the key claim here or set of claims? And then the second question, ⁓ to my daughter's chagrin is what's the evidence for the claims? ⁓ why believe them? Okay. And, I think my own view is sort of keeping it simple is better, but it's kind of surprising when you habituate yourself to asking those two simple questions.

that a lot of what goes by are confident assertions that don't have a whole lot of justification that accompany.

Allan CP (: 24:37

Yeah, yeah, I can imagine how much asking those two questions, I mean, even just to today's topic, right? Like the topic on, hey, are they borrowing theology that has no foundation? So when you say, hey, what is your claim on this? And you don't have anything like that it's founded in, it starts to fall apart.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 25:00

Yeah, you're right. Yeah, sometimes just understanding it. And then once you understand it, you see you're 80 % of the way there, right? Yeah. In terms of assessing what justification is there really for it? Yeah, I agree.

Allan CP (: 25:14

Well,

as far as our listeners and getting to just read or be able to watch any of your work, where could they best go to maybe even see some of the articles that you've written on this topic and others?

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 25:27

Yeah, I do have, ⁓ my peer reviewed, published stuff is up. have some at, ⁓ academia.edu. Okay. Steven Dilley, those are free. And, what's the other major research gate. Okay. And, I may have, I gave a talk on the specifically Chloeman Dawkins earlier this year. that.

Video may be available soon. I need to double check on that. Okay.

Allan CP (: 25:58

I'll make sure if anything you could email me the link and I'll put it on there and then we'll be able to share it with all of our viewers because I think that they'd love to be able to even do a deeper dive on it. Yeah

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 26:09

Sure. Yeah. Thanks. The one thing I do want to come back to you ask a really good question. Can I come back to something? Yeah. Cause you, you're asking, ⁓ about how widespread these views are, you know, particularly education. ⁓ I've a colleague and I did a survey a few years ago of 32 biology and evolution textbooks.

Allan CP (: 26:17

Yes, please, please.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 26:38

We should have done like six, but within 32. And these are everything from high school books to general introduction to biology, college books, to biology textbooks. They're all textbooks for biology majors. And then even evolution specific textbooks, usually for like upper division majors. So the whole textbook would be on evolutionary theory. So we did a big survey and we asked this question.

What are the arguments for evolutionary theory? And ⁓ are there theological claims that are embedded in these arguments? And if so, what justification are they given? Yeah, really, what's the claim and what's the justification? And what we found is 80 % of the textbooks we looked at, and by the way, in the major categories, the major categories are,

general biology textbooks for non-majors, biology textbooks for majors, and then evolutionary textbooks. So those are the big three categories in terms of undergraduate education on this stuff. We looked at the top four in each of those categories. So as part of the 32 books, we looked at the big 12, the best of the best, the best selling of the best selling. What we found is 80 % of these textbooks in their presentation of evolutionary theory,

had one or another problematic claim about God, about what God would or wouldn't do in organic history with little or no, or even contradictory justification. So these books are training the general population. Yeah, mean like moms and dads at home, this is not just for the biology majors, this is for anybody who takes, know, I'm knocking my science credits out of the way. They're being taught theology, not just-

Allan CP (: 28:34

Yeah, so if your kids are going to university and they're taking a general science class, they're engaging with this.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 28:39

They're engaging a general science class that would include biology would be in so far as they include arguments for evolutionary theory. Very, very likelihood to encounter these arguments. So not just what I would say is dubious science as, as science, but dubious theology masquerading as science.

Allan CP (: 28:59

Yeah, yeah. And if our kids don't know to look for it or to ask the question, what is the claim and what is the evidence, then a lot of times they just fall into it when they're in that class and they're just like, well, the teacher's the expert, the experts are saying it in the textbook, so we'll just follow their lead.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 29:18

And the experts had been saying it all the way back to the origin species. ⁓ These aren't just one-offs. There's a long, it's really quite something.

Allan CP (: 29:24

Yeah.

Well, I thank you for your work because, I mean, even just a conversation like this, which I know you have this often, and as you instruct, as you get mentors for people or do mentorship and create curriculum and all those things, ⁓ what that's doing is equipping people like myself that wouldn't know any better. Because, I mean, I'm learning everything right now and I'm post college, but I can imagine so many families are going to benefit from this conversation just because they're going to be able to tell their kids, hey,

Let's ask those two questions often.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 30:01

that's great. That's great. Well, I mean, ⁓ you know, I think what we're trying to do at discovery and looking at evidence for design and yeah, it's trying to give fair minded evaluations of evolutionary view that only succeeds in so far as people know about it. And, so being able to chat with you is, is what it's all for. So, ⁓ thank you.

Thanks.

Allan CP (: 30:31

Yeah. Awesome. No, thank you. Thank you for this conversation. And I mean, our families are going to love all of this. I appreciate you, sir.

Dr. Steve Dilley (: 30:38

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, you bet.