An intelligent actor may have influenced the history of Earth's organisms, Paul Nelson said at a Wednesday night lecture. Nelson -- a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute who holds a doctorate in philosophy -- examined difficulties in leading evolutionary theories on the origin of life and advocated further research on intelligent design.
In an analogy-filled address, Nelson approached the origin of life from theoretical and empirical perspectives.
From the perspective of theory, a minimally complex living organism must accomplish a variety of critical tasks. "To be alive requires certain specialized functions: transport, metabolism, information replication, a cell wall, energy conversion, and information storage and retrieval," Nelson said.
According to Nelson, the gap between the simplest living organism and the most complex non-living system is colossal. For an organism to evolve out of non-living materials, it would have to develop the ability to perform the numerous life-critical tasks almost simultaneously.
"It's way too much complexity to bring together all at once," Nelson said.
Empirically, current evolutionary theories also cannot account for the copious genetic diversity in organisms, Nelson said.
"Twenty to 30 percent of the genome of any organism that's been sequenced so far belongs only to that organism or its immediate relatives. Where did all that complexity come from?" Nelson said.
Nelson concluded that an intelligent being might be responsible for the origins of life on earth. Thus, researchers should not be bound by "methodological naturalism" -- the rule that statements of science must invoke only natural things and processes.
"There is plenty of evidence for intelligent design," Nelson said. "In the end, science would be more free and honest without a rule it doesn't need."
Critics such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State have called the Discovery Institute, Nelson's employer, "the most effective and politically savvy group pushing a religious agenda in America's public school science classes."
However, responding to a question after the lecture, Nelson said that he opposed the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
"It isn't a fully-fledged theory -- there isn't yet enough there to actually teach," Nelson said.
In response to another question, Nelson emphasized that intelligent design does not necessarily imply the intervention of a divine being.
Nelson's speech was sponsored by the Campus Crusade for Christ at Dartmouth.
