There is a noteworthy signal in biology that has a very troubling message for those who maintain faith in a standard Darwinian tree of life. In a conversation at the 2025 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, Stephen Meyer and Paul Nelson discussed the issue of “generative entrenchment,” defined in a 1986 paper co-authored by Dr. Nelson’s University of Chicago mentor William Wimsatt:
The generative entrenchment of an entity is a measure of how much of the generated structure or activity of a complex system depends upon the presence or activity of that entity. It is argued that entities with higher degrees of generative entrenchment are more conservative in evolutionary changes of such systems. …The resulting picture suggests that generative entrenchment acts as a powerful and constructive developmental constraint on the course of evolutionary processes.
Unavailable to Be Toyed With
There arises from this what Meyer and Nelson call a “You can’t there from here” problem. An “entity,” and they give several examples, may be so fundamental, so entrenched, arising so early in embryonic development, that it can’t be toyed with by evolutionary processes. Meyer explains the problem for the evolutionary tree:
What is that signal telling us? We’ve been told that all life arose through a process of continuous biological change such that the history of life can best be depicted as a great branching tree, a single tree, what in biology is called a monophyletic view of the history of life. But if there are, even at the molecular level, systems that can’t be altered without being destroyed and if there are animal forms that can’t be altered without being destroyed or circuitry that can’t be altered without being destroyed, that suggests a discontinuity. That means that you can’t have a continuous morphing and changing and hope to maintain the function that’s necessary for natural selection to preserve something and pass it on.
Nelson summarizes in his own words: The problem “will never be solved in an evolutionary framework because the signal from nature is you cannot perturb these early stages and get a functional animal out of it.” The presentation, again, was at our 2025 Dallas Conference. The 2026 Conference, “Endowed by Our Creator,” in February, promises to be even bigger, even more fascinating, and also very timely. Find more information and a link to register here.
