Marshall’s elaborate fairy tale shows that the materialists cannot extricate themselves from miracles. Creationists readily admit that God works miracles, and that the creation was miraculous. Evolutionists despise miracles, but find them very handy. They shield their miracles in “presto!” words, saying such-and-such a complex animal or organ (even eyes!) just emerged, arose or developed. If you watched carefully, you saw that was exactly what Marshall did. Though earlier he criticized other explanations for failing to provide an account for the origin of the genetic information required, he just pushed it offstage, and when needed, had a stage hand ready to sneak it in the hat, so that he could claim the rabbit was there all along. His “Abracadabra!” was the term morphogenetic rule, some kind of unspecified, miracle-working process that builds complex bodies out of nothing. With that sleight of mind, he distracted the audience’s attention from the fact he had cheated when we weren’t looking. Rules imply a Rulemaker, and necessity is the mother of invention only when there are intelligent designers around.
His math is bad, too. Marshall thinks that a simpler “combinatorial” genetic system in the invisible ancestors is sufficient to produce eyes and circulatory systems and all the rest when the landscape “roughens”. Any kid can try this with a Lego set. Scatter them at random all over a trampoline, start bouncing, and see what happens. The number of useless combinations vastly exceeds anything ordered and functional. 5 million years – 10 million – 20 million – 65 million is pitifully insufficient to hope for anything interesting, and the parts themselves are not sentient beings to care whether they live or die. No amount of time is going to produce robots and tanks and monsters out of bouncing Lego pieces; but turn a kid loose applying his intelligent design, and you will get all these things prestissimo, along with a complete ecology in which they interact that he will be glad to explain to you.

- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, April 28, 2006