Incredible Dentists that Defy Intelligent Design

Because Ashley is the greatest girlfriend ever, and also because she shares my contempt for the pseudoscience of creationism/intelligent design, she brought home a DVD from the library last week entitled Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution, Vol. I. For we are drawn to that which offends us, likes moths to the flame. We watched it hoping for a laugh and a reminder of how very, very smart we are, and were not disappointed.

The video is the product of Dr. Jobe Martin, a Doctor of Dental Surgery who, in between teaching at dental school and performing prophylaxis on President Gerald Ford in the 1970s, stumbled quite accidentally on a shocking truth: the theory of evolution is totally wrong and, as it turns out, the creation account in the Book of Genesis is 100% literally true.

Did I mention Dr. Jobe Martin is a dentist? I don't point it out to disparage his dental career, or the field of dentistry in general; I would hope that a trained Doctor of Dental Surgery would at least know more about biology than I do. But how does a dentist with a theology degree decide he's qualified to disprove the central theory of biological science?

The cracks in evolutionary theory began to appear, says Dr. Jobe Martin DDS, when he was teaching a class at a dental college about the evolution of the tooth. One day he was approached by several students, who told him they did not accept evolution and that he should start looking into the evidence for creationism. Within a very short time, Dr. Martin (who, in a totally irrelevant detail, had recently become a born-again Christian) came to realize that evolution was impossible and that the Biblical creation story had to be true.

Though, I'm not positive Dr. Jobe Martin DDS even knows what the theory of evolution is. He gave a brief summary of it as he understood it, starting with the Big Bang (which is cosmology, and with which evolutionary biology is not concerned), which resulted in a young universe filled with "hydrogen gas." I'm not even a trained fucking scientist and I know there's a difference between the primordial universe where simple hydrogen was the only element, and a universe filled with hydrogen gas. But I digress. He gets to the first appearance of life on Earth, which, according to his summary of evolution, originates and evolves through random chance.

Evolutionary biology claims no such thing. The theory of evolution is about the development of life; it doesn't even try to answer the question of where it came from. Scientists in the field of abiogenesis have a few ideas, but their theories rely on chemical interactions, which occur according to natural laws and are not the least bit random. Evolution itself relies on random genetic mutation to introduce new or altered traits to a population, but the success or failure of organisms carrying these mutations is governed by natural forces, including natural selection. Saying that life evolved through random chance is like dropping a ball and arguing that it just happened to hit the floor.

But I haven't even gotten to the gist of the video: Dr. Jobe Martin DDS presents us with a series of animals which, according to him, defy the theory of evolution with their unique and inexplicable physiology.

The bombardier beetle, for instance. This little insect has the ability to shoot a toxic chemical mixture at high velocity out of a gland in its ass, a very effective weapon against predators. The process of mixing and safely firing the chemical is complicated, with several essential steps. Dr. Martin describes this procedure on the video, but I'll let someone with some expertise in the area fill you in. Here's Mark Isaak from his article "Bombardier Beetles and the Argument of Design":

Secretory cells produce hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide (and perhaps other chemicals, depending on the species), which collect in a reservoir. The reservoir opens through a muscle-controlled valve onto a thick-walled reaction chamber. This chamber is lined with cells that secrete catalases and peroxidases. When the contents of the reservior are forced into the reaction chamber, the catalases and peroxidases rapidly break down the hydrogen peroxide and catalyze the oxidation of the hydroquinones into p-quinones. These reactions release free oxygen and generate enough heat to bring the mixture to the boiling point and vaporize about a fifth of it. Under pressure of the released gasses, the valve is forced closed, and the chemicals are expelled explosively through openings at the tip of the abdomen.

The complexity of this process makes it impossible to have evolved naturally, goes the creationist argument. Also, Dr. Martin tells us, without the production of a chemical that inhibits the explosion of the peroxide/hydroquinones mixture, the beetle would be destroyed. The problem with that is, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones don't explode when they are mixed. They oxidize, and pressure from gasses released by the reaction forces the mixture to be expelled from the beetle's abdomen.

Plus, the "irreducible complexity" claim is an argument from incredulity. Because Dr. Martin, as an eminent dentist and theologian, is unable to conceive of a way the beetle's chemical weapon could have evolved naturally, it is therefore impossible. That lots of biologists with years of experience in the field can easily conceive of such scenarios doesn't seem to faze Dr. Jobe Martin DDS.

Martin repeats this argument, with different animals, over and over and over again for the remainder of the video. The mechanism of safely pumping blood up a giraffe's neck to its brain is a system that could not have evolved one piece at a time; the tongue of the red-headed woodpecker could not have evolved naturally; evolution cannot account for a chick knowing when to break out of its egg. One argument from incredulity layered upon another. Irreducible complexity arguments all assume that complex biological systems would have evolved one piece at a time. The giraffe's gigantic heart would kill it without the series of valves and vessels that ensure too much blood isn't sent up to the brain all at once, therefore all giraffes born before the valves had evolved must have died. The truth is, these complex systems don't evolve one piece at a time; the pieces evolve concurrently. Mark Isaac again:

The different features [of the giraffe's neck] could have (and almost certainly would have) evolved both simultaneously and gradually. Partial valves would have been useful for reducing blood pressure to a degree. An intermediate heart would have produced enough pressure for a shorter neck. A smaller net of blood vessels in the head could have handled the lesser pressure. As longer necks were selected for, all of the other components would have been modified bit by bit as well. In other words, for each inch that the neck grew, the giraffe's physiology would have evolved to support such growth before the next inch of neck growth.

After beating his bogus argument into the ground for almost an hour, Dr. Jobe Martin DDS uses the last few minutes of the video to outline a truly bizarre case for the universe being much younger than it looks. This is a big deal to Young Earth creationists like Martin, who believe the universe to be 6,000 years old and therefore have to account for why every last shred of scientific evidence points to it being much, much, much older. Martin's argument hinges on a close reading of the biblical creation account.

Adam and Eve, he says, were created as adults, not children. The first generation of animals were created mature, not as infants. Trees and other plants were created by God fully grown. So, Martin says (at least I think this is what he was getting at), we can assume the universe was made in the same way. If we were to look at the just-created Adam, we would assume he was a man in his twenties; when we look at the universe, we assume it is tens of billions of years old, when in fact it is only a few thousand.

To someone who believes the Genesis account is literally true, this might be a clever argument. To me, who regards that story as a myth with no scientific relevance, it's meaningless. But I could say the same thing about the entire video. Creationists don't aim their arguments at those who accept evolution; they target Christians who already agree with them. The goal isn't to persuade, but to reassure. Biblical literalists apparently enjoy a condescending pat on the head even more than average folk.

Dr. Jobe Martin DDS makes a point to describe himself as a former evolutionist who came to see the truth of creationism - both in this video, and elsewhere in his ultra-conservative Biblical Discipleship Ministry (which opposes not only premarital sex, but premarital kissing). He trusts that his conversion away from science and toward creationism will lend weight to his arguments, but it doesn't. His personal spiritual journey is irrelevant to his scientific arguments. Science doesn't work that way. I'm sure there are many, many former creationists who realized that the Genesis model doesn't reflect reality after taking a first-year college biology course. I bet there are more former creationists than former evolutionists. But you never hear evolutionary scientists trumpeting these conversions, because they have no bearing on the validity of the science.

. . .

I mentioned he was a dentist, correct?