Beauty: By Evolution or Creative Design?

Beauty, and the abundance of things beautiful in this world, is surely one of the strongest arguments for God, and against evolution, that one can adduce. And why is that? Because the Bible offers a thorough rationale and explanation for a world filled with beauty, but evolutionary theory offers no rationale or explanation. I've seen several attempts by evolutionists to explain beauty and things beautiful, but they have been very unsuccessful. Here's why.

Since only one relatively unimportant species (humans) can discern or appreciate beauty, beauty is essentially “invisible” to all the other species. That's not a problem for Christian apologists, whose argument is that we are the only ones expected or intended to appreciate and benefit from beauty, but it is a serious problem for evolution apologists. Since beauty is “invisible” - that is, neither perceived nor appreciated as “beauty” - to all other species, it is wholly outside the influence or efficacy of any biotic component of “natural selection”, such as selective predation or mating or symbiosis. Consequently, it confers no reproductive success or advantage, and no survival advantage. Therefore, while the beauty of a living thing may be rooted in its genetics, there is no feedback or influence on its own or any other genome. Therefore, it cannot be explained or justified by evolutionary theory. “Evolution” and “beauty” are pretty much non sequiters.

On the other hand, the Christian arguments - that beauty reflects the nature and the esthetics of God; that it is His personal purpose and will; and that it is a gift from Him to humanity - derive naturally from the Bible and are each reasonable and logically consistent explanations within their theory of creation. In the Biblical paradigm of “intelligent design” by a Designer who loves both beauty and the one species capable of appreciating it, beauty is very much a “sequitur”!

To make my case, I want to briefly show you how evolutionary theory tries to account for, and explain, beauty. Then I'll take a few examples, like flowers and fish, and evaluate how well the evolution and the God and Creation paradigm works. To finish, I'll take a look at how beauty in the rest of the earth, the non-living physical beauty of our environment, is also explainable by the Christian theory while, if anything, it only weakens the usual evolutionary arguments.

First, we need to talk about what we mean by “beauty”. We don't need to define it so much as we need to find some common ground, to reach some consensus about what it is we're talking about. Since we all have differing ideas of what actually is beautiful, we need to avoid the rather common pitfall of setting up some rigid standards that merely reflect our own personal or cultural biases. I've seen quite a few authors make that mistake.

So let's just ask, “What is beauty”? It's very obvious that every person, and every culture, and every society, will have a few disagreements and different ideas about what is beautiful. But I think it is fair to say that every reasonable human being will agree that there is such a thing as beauty. Furthermore, they will agree, about 90 to 95% of the time, on just what things are “beautiful”. We don't really have to agree, to carry on this discussion, that any one thing is beautiful. We only need to be able to agree that there are some things out there that each of us will consider, in our own hearts, beautiful - if only to us, individually. I am certain that we can agree about that. I am also confident that you and I, and anyone else we might ask, will actually agree about 90 to 95% of the time as to just what particular things are beautiful.

For instance, nearly every human being will agree that flowers are beautiful. Some might prefer tulips to roses, or red roses to yellow, or violets to both tulips and roses. But these are usually only matters of taste or preferences, and it will be rare that anyone will absolutely and completely be of the opinion that no flowers whatsoever are “beautiful”. Similarly, nearly every human being will see an iridescent hummingbird, or colorful parrot, or soaring eagle as beautiful. Most will agree that towering pines, spreading oaks, craggy junipers, and graceful palm trees are beautiful. So, too, almost all of us admire graceful and delicate ferns, lush fields of grass, mossy grottos with waterfalls, and tide pools full of anemones and other sea creatures. The same goes for brilliant butterflies, colorful coral reef fishes, pomegranates, pineapples, and ripe strawberries. And last, but not least, how many of us do not react with pleasure when we see spotted fawns, baby lions, human infants, and the very young of almost every animal whether it is something that might grow up to eat us, or be a pet, or be eaten by us later on!

I am thoroughly confident that there are enough things among those examples that please you, that you are ready to agree that there's a lot of “beauty” in this world and that, even without some rigorous definitions or philosophical discussions, we do know what we are talking about and can carry on a serious discussion about it. I'm also going to take it for granted that you agree that we humans, and probably no other species, can actually recognize and appreciate things beautiful and respond to them differently than to things not beautiful. I, for one, am very delighted and thankful and grateful that all this beauty exists, and I think that it far outweighs the “ugly” stuff of our planet. I mention this because I think it is an important thing to acknowledge. We do live in a beautiful place. Even the most ardent Evolutionists agree with that. In fact, most I've met, seem to feel that the more pristine an environment (that is, like the original creation), the more beauty full it is.

So what do scientists, especially those of the evolution persuasion, say about the origins or reasons for things beautiful? As far as I've seen, only scientists of the evolution persuasion try to explain the reason for things being beautiful. Astronomers, physicists, chemists, etc., certainly see and appreciate beauty in what they study, but they don't usually feel compelled to explain the beauty. Evolutionists, on the other hand, seem to think they should. It's almost a necessity of their paradigm - that's a virtue, I think - to come up with explanations for everything.

The evolution paradigm greatly parallels economic theory. In fact, Marx, and his crowd, seized upon Darwin like flies on carrion, when he published his seminal, On the Origin of Species. They only took one bias, in their interpretation, that fit their agenda and I think we can also say that nature is like a good capitalist and follows stringent economic principles in its production of goods and services. In essence, evolution theory says that life (the manufacturer) continually proposes new products and natural selection (the competitive marketplace) screens them for efficiency and economy by virtue of a merciless cost-benefit analysis. The evolutionist scientist tries to look at each product in just the same way, and will examine every element and characteristic in the design of a living thing to see what purpose it serves. Every element, even those that that make up the beauty of a thing, in both creatures and plants, must have profitable purpose and identifiable economy in evolutionary explanations. Scientists come up with such things as “Flowers serve to attract pollinators; colorful feathers identify proper or better mates; butterfly patterns dazzle or confuse predators, or warn them of bad taste”, and so on. They believe that identifying such purposes comprises explanation.

These are what we call “functionalist” arguments. Evolutionist explanations are always functionalist, and usually tautological, statements. The evolutionist observes that a feature of a life form, “A”, does “b”. The explanation for “A”, then, is “b”. That is, since “A” does “b”, “b” is the reason for “A”. They assume that that is why life manufactured such a feature (“A”), and why natural selection bought off on it (it does “b”).

Now if that sounds more like a description than an explanation, to you, you're right. What makes it a satisfactory explanation, for an evolutionist, is their faith in “evolution” as a fact, not a theory. The real explanation is the teleological argument “Evolution created it!”, which is quite the equivalent of the Christian “God created it!”. You see, Evolutionists have only replaced God, the Divine Creator, with Evolution, the natural creator, as the first cause, the originator of all life. Theirs is a faith and system of belief in first causes which are as far beyond empirical proof as is the Christians'. One might say it's even further beyond proof, if the Christian testimony of a personal experience with his or her God can be believed.

Since the Evolutionists must choose what to believe, and what measure of faith to have in that set of beliefs (just as a Christian must), they naturally have already decided their paradigm of creation is right and Creationists' is not. A scientist of that persuasion is a professional practitioner and apologist trying to apply and demonstrate the efficacy of their theory. Now, Christians can be every bit as rigorous and empirical (as I try to persuade them to be) but they rarely are. Anyway, the evolutionist scientists believe their explanations are superior to the Christians' because of this concomitant analysis of a material function for a material feature. Theirs is a materialist faith rather than a spiritual faith and they very rarely give spiritual explanations any credence (though other disciplines are slowly forcing science to reconsider - see my article, Faith: Meeting at a Crossroad).

But that's why this article is being written. Beauty is something that the evolutionists also see and acknowledge, and have tried to explain with their paradigm, with no success. But I see Christians as having great success in their paradigm, and persuading people in both camps. Christians can confidently say beauty exists because God created it, and look into the Bible and find the principles of that paradigm support their position. The Bible explains the “why”. Evolutionists can confidently say beauty exists because evolution created it, and look into their textbook and discover that the principles of evolution do not support their position. There is no natural economic benefit for beauty since it has no market but ourselves. That's what we're about to show. We will see which paradigm can explain beauty by its own logic and principles. Let's turn to those examples.

The world is filled with flowers. Flowers are found everywhere, in virtually every environment that a human can live in. Of course, that's consistent with both Christian and evolution theory. The variety of flowers is endless. Think about how many you've seen in your lifetime.

There are dandelions and wild roses and irises. Ever seen wild lilac? If not, what about the “domestic” varieties we plant in our yards? Not just lilacs, but roses. Of course, the incredible varieties of roses we are familiar with are not “natural”, but bred - “artificially selected”. We had to exercise “intelligent design” or “unnatural selection” to produce them. And that's my point. The “natural” world is full of even more remarkable beauty. Something designed it.

Consider, for example, the orchids. Seems there's no end to their kind. They range from almost unnoticeable to the corsage in a single blossom. Imagine this one: it's a delicate but flashy pink with deep intricate purple veining of the petals and a brown fringe frill at the outer edge of each petal. How did that ever come to be?

About as different as you can get, are the blooms of the deserts. Have you seen even a few of the amazing variety of blooms the cactuses produce? While the orchid tends to make each of its few petals a work of art in its own right, the cactus assembles robust blooms packed with petals in strong basic colors to display its glory. They almost hurt the eyes, sometimes, with their intensity. They are so different from the orchids, but what they do is still the same - in both functional and esthetic terms!

Want another dramatic contrast? Compare the orchids and cacti to the bromeliads. Now there's a different kind of plant. Their flowers are about as different as you can get from both cactuses and orchids. But are they? They have the same requisite reproductive parts, the same wild and exotic displays of colors, the same profligate beauty. Comparing them, and trying to judge or rank them, and explain them, seems about as valid an exercise as comparing and judging and explaining the art of Picasso and Miro and Van Gogh, doesn't it?

But not all flowers are so grand and glorious. We should also consider the simpler things, like the lowly blossom of a blackberry or wild raspberry, and the much less glorious clovers, and the tiny buttercups and miniature salmon pink and blue things that grow no more than an inch or two above the ground. Include, too, the more demure and obscure trilliums and violets and sorrels that hide in the forests. Some might say they are less beautiful, but are they any less successful? I've found blackberries, plain and simple, are far more prolific than roses or irises. Apparently the evolutionary (reproductive) success of a plant is not correlated with the glory and beauty index of its flower.

Most flowers, or what ordinary people think are flowers, are made up of petals, though some actually consist of parts that technically only imitate petals. But most flowers are beautiful collections of petals artfully arranged, intensely or intricately and esthetically colored. The question is, to what purpose? What are the economics, or functions, worth the investments a plant must make to manufacture them, if they must be justified only to the harsh demands of gauche natural selection. What are the reasons for such beauty if they don't have to satisfy “market forces”, but exist merely because the Producer can afford all the artistic license He desires, instead?

The answer a scientist will supply is always an evolutionary explanation. That (usually) fancy, elaborate, and beautiful display is very much like a merchandiser's window display, the scientist will say. Flowers are always supposed to attract pollinators. They are a flashy sales message, a “Come here, baby”, addressed to the bees and birds and whatever else that flower's plant relies upon for pollination. The scent, the design, the colors, all must have a profit-making function because they cost a great deal to design and manufacture. Since they always dress up and include the reproductive parts, they are always explained as produced to attract and guide the pollinators into the crucial place and position for pollen transfer. Well, that's all very plausible. It's most probably true, that they do those things. But we have to respond, “So?” That's a good “what”, but not a “why”.

Henry Ford produced only black cars. He didn't need colors. They had nothing to add to the function of his cars, and he had all the customers he needed without any extra beauty, so he didn't waste the money. Colors came later when the market was saturated and Ford, in order to expand the market, had to add beauty so that wives and families wanted them, too. That is the “why” for the “evolution” of beauty in cars. Does that explain the “why” of plants adding flowers? No, because as we've noted earlier, there is no market for beauty in flowers in “natural selection”, no other species perceive beauty.

In the Darwinian economic paradigm, the irises and roses and orchids have wasted a lot of their resources on blooms far bigger and prettier and better smelling than necessary. The small plain and rather unscented blackberry blossom is every bit as successful in attracting pollinators, probably more successful. Beauty is non-essential. What we will find, as we peruse the whole universe of flowers, is that they all work, and except for a few, they all attract the same or similar pollinators. Success in reproduction, or avoiding predators, or in growing bigger or better or faster than competitors, has nothing to do with the beauty of the flower.

The beauty is a bonus that only we, humans, can appreciate. None of the pollinating insects or birds or whatever else (ants or flies or wasps or beetles or bats or rodents) really needed that wonderful display of beauty to come over for lunch. They would come to a yellow spot, or some other totally simple clue, as backyard hummingbird feeders amply prove. They just want dinner and they will come no matter what it looks like. Ugly; shades of gray, black and white; simple angular discordant patterns; all will work equally well to communicate to a pollinator that the pollen or nectar is here.

Some enterprising scientists have gone beyond the obvious and investigated how flowers appear in different spectra, such as ultra-violet, or infrared, noting that many insects and other pollinators see them in those spectra, or only in black and white. They discovered that the flowers usually present very different patterns and displays than what we see. Obviously, they represent “different strokes for different folks.” That only makes the question of beauty more mysterious and unexplainable. Evolutionary processes are thus removed even one more step from us who are the only beneficiaries of the “beautiful” perceivable in our senses. Such studies, you see, still fail to tell us anything new about beautiful in any wavelength.

The full evolutionary argument (historical) must always come back to the same logic, to wit: ultraviolet patterns in flowers (which are also usually quite beautiful, by the way) “evolved” (were designed and manufactured) in march step with some pollinators' (the marketplace) developing preferences or attractions to that new product. And we ask again, “So what?” To the dumb insect it could have evolved into “ugly”, no matter what spectrum, and still been every bit as effective.

The point I'm belaboring is that flowers needn't be big, fancy, pleasant, colorful, good-smelling, or anything else, to attract pollinators. We may choose our restaurants for their ambience, but most insects and birds simply go where the food is. They don't care about “beauty”. In fact, showiness is not only a waste of time, materials, and energy (in evolutionary economics), it can also be risky (called maladaptive, in evolutionary terminology). It can as easily attract unwelcome attention as it can attract helpful attention. Flowers, after all, are sometimes eaten, or picked, before reproducing, by such creatures as you and me, when noticed. Beauty thus only increases the likelihood we will cut them off before they fulfill their reproductive duties. Now, if we've been around for a million or two years, as the evolutionists believe, then that's even “natural selection” against beauty.

I didn't initially include “smell” in our idea of “beauty”, but thinking about flowers certainly brings up the point, doesn't it? This earth is filled with the perfumes of flowers. No doubt, for many of us, that is a part of their beauty. In fact, the smell of any thing - flower or plant or animal or place - has a lot to do with our pleasure, hence our opinion about whether it is beautiful or not. Beauty, remember, has to be defined by our pleasure. If we try to define it independent of our personal pleasure, as someone trying to be “scientifically objective” might want to do, then we are immediately back in the definition trap again. You don't like the smell of this, and I don't like the smell of that. But the truth is, both you and I like the smell of most of our world, and dislike the smell of only a few of the things and places in it. That is another fact that evolutionists have tried to explain, but not succeeded.

Many animals and insects do respond to the same chemicals that stimulate our sense of smell. When evolutionists try to explain the aroma of a plant or animal, they usually go back into the reproduction thing. They give us more “what's”, but no good “why's”. That's especially so when we ask about the beautiful part, the “perfume”.

There is no reason for scents to pleasure us. We may be attracted to some good smelling foods (like a ripe fruit), but we also eat things that are devoid of good aromas, and eat others that smell so bad we hold our noses, or process the “stink” out first. And, we eat very few roses and lilacs in spite of their attractive or welcoming perfume. That causes real problems for another evolutionist argument, which is that good smells attract and bad smells warn or repel us away. That may be so, sometimes, but the correlation is not great. That argument is also very weak at best. But the Christian argument, God has given us a world filled with perfumes and good smelling things out of His beneficence and care, is still consistent and rational.

You know, we can treat birds a lot like flowers. Just why nature should have taken the dinosaurs down this path (if we are to believe the prevailing evolutionary thesis), into becoming animate equivalents of flowers, puzzles me. But nonetheless, here they are. Birds come in an incredible assortment of colors and patterns and combinations of colors, sizes, and shapes; they fill the world about as thoroughly as flowers; run that gamut from plain to exotic, with more being beautiful than plain; and so on! They might not come with perfume, but they come with song and modes of flight that also captivate and delight and enchant their human audience, don't they?

When we look to see what sort of explanations the evolutionists offer for the characteristics that contribute to the beauty of birds we find they are also a lot like what they say about flowers. The demands of the evolution paradigm are the same, the economic issues are much the same, and the elements that make up the “beauty” are similar if not the same, so we shouldn't be surprised. The big difference, of course, is that birds are mobile animals and can go seek appropriate mates rather than ask pollinators to ferry between them.

The evolution paradigm still requires that the development and design and manufacture of birds, and new species of birds, be efficient and economical and produce a new and better product for the marketplace, to pass the ruthless and unaesthetic rigors of natural selection. One can make the argument that with so many species of birds (kind of like different brands of cars) in the marketplace (the environment) they need to differentiated by colors and patterns and such, so the birds themselves can sort out and find appropriate mates. That may be so, but it says nothing about making them beautiful. Many, if not all, birds don't see the color spectrum we do and none, it must be reemphasized, appreciate the beauty of their design as opposed to the uniqueness that can facilitate species recognition. In other words, there's still no need for them to be beautiful. That's an unexplained extra. Maybe it can occur by chance, but why? And if only by chance, why so often?

A common line of scientific explanation has to do with displays. They tell us that birds tend to court each other, and that one sex chooses its mate on the basis of best song or best plumage or best strut, etc. That's why songbirds sing, peacocks spread their most glorious tails, etc. Well, that may be so, but it still doesn't tell us the “why” of beautiful songs (crows do just as well as canaries) or of ornate and exquisite feathers and plumage (a peacock's tail could have evolved to look like a rusty truck radiator just as easily and been just as effective), only the “what” of species-unique songs and plumage. An Amazonian parrot could have turned out black and white (like the beautiful orca!) instead of reds and greens and purples and - well, you know! We are not being told “why” the beauty is a part of it.

Also, the evolutionary paradigm suggests these species, by selecting on the basis of these features, are always “improving”, or pushing toward greater definition and differentiation. So, did canaries used to sound like crows? Where did these “pretty” songs, and extraordinary patterns (like the “eye” of the peacock”), and brilliant colors start? Dull, simple and plain? Why don't they progress and differentiate into looking like army camouflage or Rorschach blots, and sounding like modern jazz (sorry, a bad joke)? Maybe a few have progressed that way, but hardly the vast majority. And perhaps more importantly, just why have we humans got such an eye for color, such an appreciation for certain patterns and shapes, and an ear (and soul) for music? These are difficult questions for science, but not for Christian theory.

Finally, we return to a refrain we've sung before. The beauty is both unnecessary, and totally unappreciated as “beauty” by any other species but the human species. Consequently, beauty, per se, confers no advantages in the arena of natural selection as far as perpetrated by nonhuman species. But with us in the equation, beauty can even be a real disadvantage. While other predators can, and do, take advantage of the song, and the mating display, and the easily espied colorful plumage, we humans have also, throughout our history, preyed upon some species precisely because of the beauty, thus making the beauty quite maladaptive! We have hunted some into extinction because we wanted their plumage, or to cage them for their song, and so on.

Have you ever dawdled in a tropical fish store? The beauty of some fish, like some birds, and some reptiles, and some flowers, is breathtaking! Many species of fish rival the best of flowers, and the best of human art. The fact that these fish are imported and exported around the world, to be sold for high prices, is proof of our widely shared sense of their beauty. Even plainer species, like bass and trout, have a graceful shape and a subtler canvas of color that most of us will find beautiful. Some plainer fish, like smelt and sardines, create beauty by their behavior, such as schooling and synchronized swimming. By the way, the usual evolutionary rationale that one fish's survival is enhanced by hiding in a crowd (school) seems contradicted, in my opinion, when thousands (even the entire school) are sacrificed into the jaws of predators attracted to, and taking advantage of, those very schools.

Well, like before, we can treat fish a lot like birds and like flowers. The evolutionist explanations for their hallmarks of beauty are the same - about species identity and mate selection, about camouflage, or confusing predators, etc. They are all equally ad hoc and tautological - and all irrelevant as regards beauty. Even if “A” does “b”, that neither establishes “A” came about because of the need for “b”, nor anything about why “A” is beautiful.

Colors and patterns may indeed help in any of those adaptive schemes (camouflage, warning, mate attraction, etc.), but beautiful colors and patterns and behaviors are absolutely unnecessary to that end, and unexplainable by evolutionary theory. Beautiful colors and patterns are reasonable expectations of the work of an artist, but not of chance or “natural selection”. A beautiful, brilliantly colored and patterned fish could happen by mere chance. But when such beautiful fishes are designed thousands of times over, in every color and type of design one can imagine, an Artist makes a lot more sense than mere chance. I've seen chimpanzees paint canvasses by chance, and never saw a work of art as good as any of those on exhibit in the Coral Reef Gallery.

I have seen it argued that the extraordinary colors and patterns can actually help define and create new species. That could be, but again we must ask “So what?” One species “evolving” into two that now share and compete in the same habitat may be a fact (though a bit counterintuitive) but it still “explains” nothing about why they are so colorful or beautiful.

Some trees are tall, some slender, some stately, some precisely geometrically patterned, and some are like mathematical formulae in expression. Like classical music. Others are almost chaotic, following few rules that we can see, but still emerge as something beautiful. Some are wizened and gnarled expressions of survival, but we admire them. We would hate to cut them down even if we were freezing and in need of fuel. I've seen a couple of “ugly” species, to my taste, but usually they're planted in someone's front yard! It's that 90 to 95% agreement thing, again.

Trees, which dominate (or did) almost every landscape and terrain, are beautiful to nearly every human eye. They needn't be, but they are. There's something about them, and about us, that “connects”. It involves colors, textures, designs and symmetries, even their stoic attitudes. There's no reasonable explanation that science can adduce. You have to turn to Scripture and the story of a Creator, Who has a sense of beauty, which He shared with us, if you want any sensible explanation. Not necessarily provable, but as easily argued as any evolutionary rationale, and your choice as to whether it is acceptable.

What about them? Science fiction movies do a great job of showing us alternative life forms, whether friend or foe, whether predator or prey. They never need be beautiful. But on our earth, there are very few animals that are not! Even those that would eat us, more often than not, evoke our appreciation of beauty. And if a cheetah or wolf doesn't really touch your beauty nerve (you're in that 5 to 10%), consider their young!

It's commonly explained that babies are soft and “endearing” to arouse our sympathy and nurturing feelings. Maybe so, but why should baby cheetahs and wolves touch our hearts? There aren't many people who aren't so touched, moved to an “awhhh, how cute”, by the baby of even the fiercest of our own foes. Why? There's no good evolutionary explanation. In fact, by all evolutionary reasoning, we should be turned off, made hostile, moved to kill them while we can, but rarely does that even cross our mind. Why?

Twilight is a dangerous time for prey. Predators are on the prowl, and I can imagine that more than one human has paid the price for dallying, its attention focused on a red sky or red cliffs, while the lion stalked. Sitting out under the stars, dreamily contemplating the dark and sparkling heavens, or gazing at salmon pink clouds, or lightening on the horizon, instead of seeking shelter and safety, sorely dares “natural selection” to permit our evolution as creatures with a sense for beauty.

The creation account, however, of Genesis 1 & 2 clearly tells us that this world was created for our pleasure. It tells us, as my more precise translation reveals, that it was fashioned and designed with love and intention. Many other scriptures tell us that the natural creation purposely and thoroughly reflects God's nature, and tastes, and purposes. The Bible tells us, several times, that if we want to know Him and discern His nature, we only need look closely at His creation. Romans 1:19,20 says it very plainly, and forcefully:

That, within the context of the creation account and many other scriptures, is a powerful explanation of beauty. You don't have to believe it, of course. It's totally your choice. You have complete freedom to believe or not believe in God, in a Creator, an intelligent designer, or in chance. But if you choose to believe in chance as the designer of the life that inhabits this planet, and look to evolutionary theory and rationale to account for the abundant wealth of beauty present on this planet, you'll be sorely disappointed. It will be a fruitless exercise, both scientifically and intellectually.