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Earlier this month, controversial federal judge Phyllis J. Hamilton in San Francisco dismissed the Caldwell v. Caldwell lawsuit which alleged that the government-funded NCSE/UC Berkeley “Understanding Evolution” website endorses a particular religious view of evolution. However, Judge Hamilton's order dismissing the lawsuit is nothing short of bizarre. It implies that the internet is an Establishment-Clause-Free-Zone where government websites are free to proselytize or establish religion at will. It is difficult to imagine Judge Hamilton's peculiar ruling being upheld on appeal.
According to a Daily Californian article, attorney Larry Caldwell believes that by sponsoring the Understanding Evolution website “the state of California is taking a position on religious issues and advocating certain religious values, which is clearly a violation” of the Establishment Clause. Perhaps the most egregious example of such a violation is the title of a page which states, "Misconception: 'Evolution and religion are incompatible.'"** By labeling this belief a “misconception,” the government is clearly taking sides on what is essentially a religious and not a scientific question: the question of whether religion and evolution are compatible. Religious persons who believe that evolution is incompatible with their religion might feel that this website is forcing them to change their religious beliefs about evolution. The problematic religious graphic accompanying this website was previously discussed here, here, and here.
Yet according to Judge Hamilton, a citizen being personally offended by seeing a religious message from the government on the internet isn't sufficient "injury in fact" to give standing to bring a civil lawsuit. Moreover, Judge Hamilton implied that plaintiff Jeanne Caldwell had suffered merely a “psychological” injury rather than an injury in fact, when in reality there was an injury in fact due to Caldwell’s inability to use the website without facing a religiously offensive message.
Problems with the Ruling
While there were some correctable reasons for the dismissal, the most bizarre aspect of the dismissal order was the holding that state-funded websites are exempt from violations of the Establishment Clause. Judge Hamilton held:
Moreover, the unique nature of the internet cannot be overlooked. It is a vehicle for communication that is not capable of ready analogy to any other. The internet contains millions upon millions of websites and webpages, spanning a limitless number of subjects and target audiences. It is in daily use by millions, all of whom decide on a voluntary basis (for the most part) which websites and webpages to access. Given this massive appeal and impossibly broad spectrum, it is simply inconceivable that the mere viewing of certain webpages that do no more than make plaintiff feel “offended” and like an “outsider” is sufficient to give rise to injury in fact standing. If this were so, then every webpage on the internet could give rise to a claim, simply based on an individual’s negative emotional response to that webpage. This is particularly significant, when one considers that the very nature of certain websites and webpages is to be provocative, and to risk offence [sic].
(Caldwell v. Caldwell, No C 05-4166 PJH, Order Granting Motion to Strike and Motion to Dismiss (hereafter “Dismissal Order”), pg. 12; note: the British spelling for "offence" was used in the original order.)
Judge Hamilton essentially ruled that no one has standing to challenge a violation of the Establishment Clause that occurs on the internet.
But Hamilton's analysis simply begs the question. Perhaps many provocative pages do exist on the internet, but all internet websites are not in question here--only those sponsored by the U.S. government. Provocative actions which might offend people happen in the world all the time. But we can only prohibit those religiously offensive actions which constitute action by the government, not those by a private group or citizen. Moreover, courts have developed specific tests (i.e. Lemon test, and its flavors, such as the Endorsement test) to perform the very job Hamilton claims cannot be done: discriminating between a mere “negative emotional response” and government action which actually establishes religion, thus causing real injury. There is no rationale, in principle, why government websites on the internet cannot be a legitimate targets of lawsuits alleging violation of the Establishment Clause.
Hamilton’s ruling that the internet is an Establishment-Clause-Free-Zone could lead to many unwanted consequences. Under Judge Hamilton's rationale, the state of California or a federal agency could establish a church on the internet, and no one would have standing to sue to prevent it. Apparently the judge believes there would be no legal basis to prevent any of the following hypothetical actions:
A school board setting up a website to train teachers to teach that evolution is incompatible with religion.
A state-run medical center explaining on its website how people can heal themselves through Hindu (but not Christian or Buddhist) meditation.
A state-funded abstinence program telling teenagers on its website to remain virgins because Jesus commands it.
A school district in Dover, PA posting the entire text of Genesis 1-3 as the “true creation story” somewhere on their school district website.
Is this really what Judge Hamilton wants?
In Fact There Was Great Injury
Judge Hamilton also dismissed the suit because supposedly there was no injury in fact. The Dismissal Order explains:
Here, plaintiff alleges that the injury she suffered was in being “offended” by viewing the website, feeling like an “outsider,” and “being exposed to the government endorsed religious messages,” to her harm. See Complaint at ¶ 26. On their face, these allegations fall directly within Valley Forge’s prohibition on standing where a plaintiff alleges only a “psychological consequence” produced “by observation of conduct with which one disagrees.” As such, plaintiff’s allegations state only a generalized grievance against defendants, and are insufficient to confer injury in fact.
(Dismissal Order, pg. 11)
Judge Hamilton misunderstands constitutional law and misinterprets the facts of the Caldwell lawsuit compared to the holding in the Valley Forge case, especially considering how Valley Forge has been interpreted by the Ninth Circuit.
(1) Misunderstanding of Constitutional Law
Hamilton’s putting of the word “outsider” in quotes might make one think that this is not a legally correct term. In reality, considerable precedent shows that alleging that one was made to feel like an “outsider” due to government endorsement of a religious viewpoint is commonly associated with a legally redressible injury. When formulating the endorsement test, Justice O’Connor wrote:
Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. Disapproval sends the opposite message.
(Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 668 (1984), Justice O’Connor, Concurring (emphasis added).)
According to numerous cases employing the endorsement test, government action which endorses a religious viewpoint such that the plaintiff alleges being made to feel like an “outsider” is the beginning of a valid injury in fact sufficient to bring a lawsuit. For example, in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 309-310 (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court found it highly relevant that various attendees at a high school commencement ceremony were made to feel like “outsiders” as a result of the passing--but non-enforcement--of a policy to permit a non-sectarian prayer at the ceremony. One such case relying upon this precedent happens to be Kitzmiller v. Dover, where Judge Jones wrote that the Dover Policy was unconstitutional because:
A reasonable observer is presumed to know the social meaning of the theory-not-fact deliberate word choice and would ‘‘perceive the School Board to be aligning itself with proponents of religious theories of origin,’’ thus ‘‘communicat[ing] to those who endorse evolution that they are political outsiders, while … communicat[ing] to the Christian fundamentalists and creationists who pushed for a disclaimer that they are political insiders.’’
(Kitzmiller v. Dover, 400 F.Supp.2d 707, 723 (M.D.Pa. 2005) (quoting Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe))
Yet Judge Hamilton's order could be taken to imply that being made to feel an "outsider" by the Understanding Evolution website could not contribute to Jeanne Caldwell's injury.
(2) Misapplying the Facts and Misinterpreting Precedent
To reiterate, Judge Hamilton dismissed the Caldwell case because she claimed plaintiff Jeanne Caldwell had no injury in fact, as “these allegations fall directly within Valley Forge’s prohibition on standing where a plaintiff alleges only a ‘psychological consequence’ produced ‘by observation of conduct with which one disagrees.’” (Dismissal Order, pg. 11).
In Valley Forge, a plaintiff alleged that the federal government violated the Establishment Clause when they learned, via a news release, that the government had transferred federal property to a Christian college. The U.S. Supreme Court held that there was only a “psychological consequence” of this action to the plaintiff, and no real injury in fact. In Buono v. Norton, 371 F.3d 543 (9th Cir. 2004), the Ninth Circuit distinguished Valley Forge by recognizing that a citizen who cannot use public land without being subjected to an offensive religious message has an injury in fact. In Buono, an Oregonian man was offended by seeing a five to eight foot cross located eleven miles off the interstate and visible for only one hundred yards in a 1.6 million acre federal desert preserve in Southern California had standing to sue the U.S. Department of Interior and require the cross to be removed. The Ninth Circuit held that “Such inhibition constitutes ‘personal injury suffered ... as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error,’ beyond simply ‘the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees.’” (Buono, 371 F.3d at 547)
Similar to Buono, in this Caldwell v. Caldwell lawsuit, it is clear that there is much more than a mere “psychological consequence.” Jeanne Caldwell cannot utilize the Understanding Evolution website without being subjected to an offensive message. As stated in the complaint:
Plaintiff desires to participate as an informed citizen in these elections, public debates and processes, so she makes use of the “Understanding Evolution” website described in paragraph 13 below as a resource, to learn how the University of California recommends that public science teachers teach evolution to K-12 students in California. However, when plaintiff utilizes the “Understanding Evolution,” she is offended by the government’s endorsement in the website of religions and religious denominations that subscribe to the religious doctrine that their religious belief is compatible with evolutionary theory, and the government’s attempt to proselytize citizens such as herself to adopt the government’s preferred religious beliefs about evolution, and plaintiff is offended by the government’s express and implicit disapproval in the website of any irreligious or religion or religious denominations that subscribe to the religious doctrine that their religious belief is incompatible with evolutionary theory.
(Caldwell v. Caldwell complaint, at page 12)
That Jeanne Caldwell had standing to sue can be seen for a number of different reasons:
In the Buono case, the plaintiff had standing to sue, even though he had to travel hundreds of miles out of his way just to get to the public preserve, and then had to drive to a particular "football field" sized spot in this vast preserve even to see the allegedly offensive cross. Also, in Buono it was found that a citizen has the right to use the desert preserve without encountering the "offensive" message. Similarly, once the state puts up an evolution website and invite the general public to use it, as they have in this case, citizens have the right to be able to use the ENTIRE website without encountering an unwelcome governmental religious symbol or message. But according to Hamilton, Jeanne Caldwell who is unable to access the entire Understanding Evolution website from her home without seeing an offensive message of religious endorsement could have suffered no injury in fact.
In Santa Fe, the prayer policy at issue had not even yet been implemented, such that there was no concrete injury but only a psychological feeling of being an “outsider” as a result of the passage of the policy and impending prayer, and yet there was standing to sue. Surely Caldwell has suffered a greater injury than the one in Santa Fe!
Ironically, the University of California had urged Judge Hamilton to look to the "static government-sponsored religious display" cases for the proper legal analysis for her to use in deciding this case on the merits. Then, when Caldwell cited those Ninth Circuit's "static religious display" cases on the standing issue, the University of California (and Judge Hamilton) claimed those cases don’t apply.
Perhaps following precedent was not important in this Dismissal Order.
Some Take-Home Messages
Judge Hamilton disregards the holding in Buono because it's a case about a citizen's right to full use of a government-owned public parkland rather than a citizen's right to full use of a government-owned public website. But there does not seem to be any legitimate rationale for permitting the Establishment Clause to apply on government-owned parkland but then claiming it doesn't apply to government-owned cyberspace. (Ironically, the Buono case involved the religious display involved was a cross, and there is a cross depicted on one of the challenged pages of the Understanding Evolution website.)
The plain message of this Dismissal Order should be clear: The Establishment Clause does not apply to the internet. Under Hamilton's order, state legislators who are atheists can apparently start using state-funded websites to promote secular humanism. State Attorney Generals who are Christians can apparently start quoting Bible verses all over websites for the purpose of proselytization. And any Governors who are Orthodox Jews can start making official recommendations for keeping Kosher over the upcoming Passover holiday for state residents. Following the logic of Hamilton’s order, apparently anything goes when it comes to the government endorsing religion on the internet.
The message of this blog post should also be clear: Judge Hamilton's order was wrongly decided, and the legality of the NCSE/UC Berkeley “Understanding Evolution” website is far from settled.
** According to the dictionary, a “misconception” is a "mistaken thought." Thus according to the Understanding Evolution website, it is a mistaken thought to believe that evolution and religion are incompatible. The question is of course “whose religion?” Obviously, it's only a misconception if you don't adopt the website's endorsed version of religion.
Many news sources have picked up the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent interview with The Guardian newspaper reporting a couple of minor comments he made about teaching creationism in schools. (For examples, see the Associated Press story or the New York Times story or the Reuters article in the Washington Post.)
With headlines like, “Archbishop Opposed to Teaching Creationism” (Associated Press) “Anglican Leader Says the Schools Shouldn't Teach Creationism” (NY Times) or “Anglican leader opposes creationism in schools” (Reuters) one would think that the comments about creationism were central to the interview. Moreover, given that all of the articles discussed intelligent design, one would think that ID was relevant to the Archbishop’s comments. But not only did the Archbishop not focus on science curriculum in the interview, the interview never discussed intelligent design. Check for yourself, the entire interview transcript is available from The Guardian, and in more than 12,800 words, a scant 330 are devoted to “creationism;” no where is there any mention of intelligent design. Why, then, would each article talk about intelligent design?
Ironically, much of the interview was dedicated to the Archbishop’s view of his relation to the media and how he thought an Archbishop should not make frequent moral pronouncements to make headlines. The interview was more concerned with topics such as the Archbishop with the media, the state of the Church of England, relations with Moslems, gay clergy, and the Anglican Church in Africa.
Be that as it may, the American media seems to think the interview is newsworthy in relation to the controversy surrounding the teaching of intelligent design. To it’s credit, The New York Times article does mention that the Archbishop’s position on “creationism” is nothing new for Americans, and basically tracks a resolution adopted in 1982 by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
However, the Associated Press article, which mentioned intelligent design, defined creationism in a way which is clearly different from intelligent design:
“Followers of creationism believe in the literal truth of the Genesis account in the Bible that God created the world in six days.”
Contrast that statement with the NY Times characterization of intelligent design in a 2001 article:
"[E]volutionists find themselves arrayed not against traditional creationism, with its roots in biblical literalism, but against a more sophisticated idea: the intelligent design theory. Proponents of this theory, led by a group of academics and intellectuals and including some biblical creationists, accept that the earth is billions of years old, not the thousands of years suggested by a literal reading of the Bible. But they dispute the idea that natural selection, the force Darwin suggested drove evolution, is enough to explain the complexity of the earth's plants and animals. That complexity, they say, must be the work of an intelligent designer."
(Biologists Face a New Theory of Life’s Origin, The New York Times, April 8, 2001, pg. A1, by James Glanz)
If we are to take these definitions seriously, there is no basis for labeling intelligent design as “creationism,” or habitually mentioning intelligent design in articles that only deal with creationism. It thus seems inappropriately partisan for the Reuters “news” article to editorialize:
"In the battle to bring God into the classroom, Christian conservative supporters of creationism and intelligent design seek to deny or downgrade the importance of evolution."
(Anglican leader opposes creationism in schools, Washington Post, by Paul Majendie)
Finally, given the full context of the interview, it hardly seems headline-worthy that the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks “creationism” (not intelligent design) should not be taught in British schools. Even that summary overstates his position, as the Archbishop left the door open for teaching about creationism, and teaching more than Darwinism:
"And that's different from saying - different from discussing, teaching about what creation means. For that matter, it's not even the same as saying that Darwinism is - is the only thing that ought to be taught. My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it."
(Archbishop interview transcript from The Guardian)
The media should avoid conflating “creationism,” as used by the Archbishop, with intelligent design, which he clearly did not address. Perhaps the journalistic impulse to mention intelligent design every time there is a story about "creationism" should also be resisted.
I'll say this for administrators at Baylor University in Waco, Texas: They certainly know how to provoke lots of free attention. But it might not be the kind of attention they want. The University's denial of tenure to conservative scholar Francis Beckwith is beginning to generate a buzz on the world wide web. But it's the type of buzz that carries a sting. Commenting on the Beckwith decision yesterday, Joseph Bottum of First Things responded with withering scorn:
Baylor has apparently decided to sink back into its diminished role as a not terribly distinguished regional school. President Sloan is gone, the new high-profile faculty are demoralized and sniffing around for positions at better-known schools, energetic programs like the Intelligent Design institute have been chased away, and the bright young professors are having their academic careers ruined by a school that lured them to campus with the promises of the 2012 plan and now is simply embarrassed by them.
For some of the other web articles commenting on the Beckwith situation, check out:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9583
http://telicthoughts.com/?p=614
http://lufkindailymuse.com/?p=86
http://dallasmorningviews.beloblog.com/archives/2006/03/baylor_wars_aga.html
http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2006/03/beckwith_balks.html
http://reformclub.blogspot.com/2006/03/amazing-outrage-baylor-denies.html
http://ateam.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/25/1840047.html
http://reformclub.blogspot.com/2006/03/dallas-morning-news-on-beckwith-tenure.html
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/618
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/616
Last week Baylor University in Texas denied tenure to noted scholar Francis Beckwith. Beckwith is an impeccable scholar with a distinguished publication record, including a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press. He is also a gentleman in the classic sense of the term, someone who is liked and respected even by his fair-minded opponents.
But Beckwith has a problem: His views are out of sync with the left-wing ideologues who control much of American academia. First, he is a prominent critic of the morality of abortion, and his work on this issue is cited all over the place by other scholars (including in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic). Second, Beckwith has defended the the constitutionality of teaching about intelligent design. Note: He has not advocated the wisdom of teaching ID, nor has he taken sides on the ultimate rightness or wrongness of ID. He has only defended the constitutionality of presenting the debate. (But this is no doubt too much for Darwin dogmatists.)
That a scholar of Beckwith's stature should be denied tenure at Baylor raises serious questions about the university's commitment to fairness and academic freedom. This is especially the case since it has been reported that Beckwith's annual evaluations leading up to the tenure denial were glowing. He is said to have received the rating "exceeds expectations" each year. Apparently he exceeded expectations too much for some members of Baylor's faculty.
Given Beckwith's exemplary record as a scholar, it seems entirely likely that he was rejected by Baylor because of his viewpoint. If so, it wouldn't be the first time thought-police on Baylor's faculty tried to supress a scholar for harboring views they despised. Several years ago, mathematician William Dembski was accorded similarly raw treatment by some of Baylor's close-minded secular fundamentalists.
If it turns out that Beckwith's views on intelligent design played a role in his rejection at Baylor, then he will have become the latest victim of a campaign by Darwinists to deny academic freedom to any scholar or grad student who disagrees with them. Recall, for example, the recent cases of Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian, Caroline Crocker at George Mason University, and Bryan Leonard at Ohio State University.
Darwinists and other ideologues in academia are obviously afraid of scholars like Beckwith. Unable to answer their arguments, they want to silence their right to speak. Such ideologues know they can't win in the freemarketplace of ideas, so they try to hold on to their current monopoly power in academia at all costs.
It is frequently claimed by anti-Darwinists that the eugenics movement of 100 years ago was a fluke and not really the product of Darwinian science—even though the science establishment of the time was proud of the Darwinian justification, backed eugenics completely and was ruthlessly dismissive of any other view (sound familiar?).
The Nazi embrace of eugenics discredited it for nearly a half century. But it is re-emerging in our time, as Discovery senior fellow Wesley J. Smith has pointed out repeatedly and does again in the Weekly Standard. Slowly, the awareness dawns.
A recent poll reported in "Inside Michigan Politics" found that 76% of Michiganites agree with the following statement: "Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it."
Only 17% of Michigagonians felt that "Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it."
If that poll question sounds familiar to frequent readers of ENV, that's because it's identical to one of the poll questions commissioned by The Discovery Institute earlier in 2006 and reported here.
But there's one major difference between this Michigan poll and the prior poll commissioned by Discovery: The Michigan poll is improperly touting a poll question about teaching both scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism as if it is about teaching alternatives to Darwinism.
To reiterate, the Michigan poll found that 76% of Michiganistas agree that: "Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it." But then the Inside Michigan Politics Poll Report incorrectly says this data shows support for teaching alternatives to Darwinism: "TEACH DARWIN, SURE, BUT TEACH OTHER THEORIES TOO: POLL
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution? Intelligent design? Creationism? Anything else out there? Whatever, teach 'em all, say Michigan voters, who by a 4-1 margin claim they would prefer to see Darwin's theory as well as theories opposed to it all taught, not just Darwin's theory alone." But that isn't what the poll question asked. All the question asked was if "scientific evidence against" evolution should be taught. Teaching scientific criticisms of Darwin is something very different from bringing in alternative explanations, such as intelligent design. That is why in Discovery's recent poll, we crafted a separate question which asked about teaching alternative explanations to Darwinism. If the Michigan pollsters wanted to know about support for teaching alternative explanations, then they should have asked a question to that effect.
To illustrate the difference between these two approaches, one can look at vertebrate embryos and recognize that they start developing very differently in a way which challenges the famous "biogenetic law," inspired by the faked 19th century "research" drawings of Ernst Haeckel (below). One can inform students that actual embryological data challenges the notion of common descent without saying anything about intelligent design or other alternatives to Darwinism.
Haeckel's Faked Embryo Drawings:
Conclusion:
Educators, legislators, and the rest of the public need to realize that teaching strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory is different from bringing in a replacement theory for evolution. Traipsing Into Evolution, which I recently co-authored, explains how obfuscating the differences between a "teach criticisms of evolution" and "teach alternative theores like intelligent design" approach has resulted in "[a] chilling effect on open inquiry" (TIE, pg. 77) in places like Ohio and South Carolina where only "strengths and weaknesses" policies should were at stake.
Though Darwinists work hard to obscure the differences, these are different pedagogical approaches, recognized by the courts as such. Educators, legislators, and the public should understand the differences too.
One of the most publicized debates over teaching evolution in 2005 was the improvement of science standards in Kansas by the state's board of education (SBOE). (See some of our coverage of the Kansas standards debate here, here, and here.)
Thanks to Darwin only lobby groups like Kansas Citizens For Science there has bee a flood of misinformation about the standards in the media. It ws so bad that last year the SBOE published a statement of rationale explaining their decision. This did little to stop the mistaken claim that Kansas had forced intelligent design into the classroom.
Now the group that helped to revise the standards, Kansas Science Standards 2005, has published a clear and concise brochure answering the most common questions about the standards. You can download it here.
There are many good parts to this FAQ. One section in particular addresses Kansas' definition of science. When the SBOE had hearings last year CSC senior fellow Dr. Jonathan Wells testified about the definition of science and Discovery issued a comprehensive study of all 50 states definitions of science, the conclusion of which was: The definition of science proposed in Kansas is fully consistent with definitions used by all other states in the U.S. By contrast, the definition of science currently used in the Kansas standards and defended by the Majority is idiosyncratic and out of step with current educational practice. Q: How does the 2005 definition of science differ from the 2001 definition?
A: The 2005 definition replaces a novel definition of science not found in other state standards or the national standards with a traditional and objective definition. The 2005 traditional definition states: “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” [The definition continues for two more paragraphs that increase, rather than decrease the scientific rigor of this concept.]
Q: Does the 2005 definition redefine science?
A: No. It is a traditional definition that is consistent with other state science standards and the National Science Standards, is rigorously objective and focused on empiricism, derives from the Ohio Academy of Science definition, and is consistent with the definition embraced by the Supreme Court.
Q: Doesn’t the new definition imply that Kansas will now seek supernatural causes?
A: No. By describing science as an open-ended search for more adequate or reliable explanations of the natural world using empirical methods, it implies nothing about the supernatural. Be sure to download this brochure and share it with your friends to counteract the misinformation about the standards.
The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list continues to grow. Last month we announced the list now had over 500 scientists. Since that time we've had nearly another 100 PhD scientists contact and request to be added to the list. The next public update of the list will undoubtedly see it grow to over 600. One recent scientist added to the Dissent list submitted a letter with his request to be on the list. With his permission you can read it here. Dr. William Hart, PhD. Mathematics, is currently an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
His letter opens: I am a PhD mathematician who has recently (in the last couple of years) examined carefully the claim that the neo-Darwinian synthesis adequately accounts for the variety of life on earth. I have read countless texts on geology, biology (and cosmology) in a multitude of sub-disciplines and can honestly affirm that I am skeptical that the evidence points toward anything like mutation plus natural selection as being the cause of the variety of life that we see both today and in the fossil record.
Furthermore, I do not find any of the more involved hypotheses to hold water. Many of them are without evidence, or inferred from studies which are chosen specifically to support that particular hypothesis, and even then the fit is poor. Also, individual hypotheses which are cited as being well-supported components of the theory of evolution, in fact contradict one another. Hart goes on to very concisely summarize many of the problems with Darwinian evolution. He points to a certain arrogance among scientists that has led them to arrive "at the current point in the history of science by systematically looking for evidence to support our favorite conjectures, rather than actively seeking evidence which independently confirms conclusions reached by other lines of scientific enquiry."
He concludes: I feel that it is unlikely that my position with regard to evolution will change dramatically in the near future, the state of affairs being so dire. Therefore I see no reason why my name should not be added to the list of PhD. scientists who dissent from the theory of evolution. I predict that there are many, many more scientists like Dr. Hart, and that the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list is just the tip of the iceberb.
Last summer, New York Times reporter Jodi Rudoren was surprised that we had at that time nearly reached 400 signers. She even commented to me that it seemed to her we'd obviously found the majority of scientists who doubted Darwin's theory. Often people are surprised to find out that there are indeed sizable numbers of scientists who are skeptical of Darwinian evolution. That's not as surprising to scientists who are familiar with vast numbers of articles in the scientific literature that expose the unresolved problems and challenges to Darwinian evolution.
In the April, 2006 issue of First Things, Villanova Law professor Robert T. Miller offers an opinion on “Darwin in Dover, PA.” (available online next month) that brings up several points worth highlighting.
Regarding Kitzmiller, Miller only half agrees with Judge Jones, agreeing that ID is not science as he defines it (which I will comment on more later), but disagreeing that ID is religion. To make his case, Miller’s opinion offers two different “senses” of science, one of which ID satisfies, the other of which he claims ID does not satisfy. Overall, the article focuses on the philosophy and nature of science, and devotes only a scant few paragraphs to the legal issues presented in Kitzmiller.
The Legal Analysis: Only Half Right
Regarding the law, Robert T. Miller argues not only that Judge Jones was bound by Supreme Court Establishment Clause precedent, but also that Jones’s conclusion that ID is religion and not science is only half-right. Though Miller agrees with the Judge that ID is not science, he does not agree that ID is religion. “Design is not science, at least not in the usual sense, but neither is it religion.” Miller goes on to point out that religion involves revealed doctrine and matters of faith. “That’s not what Intelligent Design is at all, and to the extent that he held otherwise in Kitzmiller, Judge Jones is mistaken.”
This places Miller’s apparent approval of the Kitzmiller decision on peculiar grounds. Though he disagrees with Judge Jones on whether ID is religion, he seems to favor the result of the decision—that ID should be expunged from science classrooms:
”So, if Intelligent Design is not science but still not religion, is Kitzmiller rightly decided? I think so. Like Cardinal Schönborn, I think it is unhelpful to get philosophy mixed up with science. . . . We ought not inject a philosophical argument into a science class; this is bad epistemology, and it is likely to create confusion.”
Miller concludes,
“Regardless of how we ought to understand the Establishment Clause, Intelligent Design does not belong in high-school biology classrooms.”
Instead of having parts of intelligent design taught in science class, Miller favors introducing a full class in philosophy which would include intelligent design, Aristotle, Aquinas’s Five Ways, arguments for the existence of God, Hume and even Kant. Miller believes such a philosophy class would alleviate the “atheistic drift” that he believes motivated the school board in Dover.
As one who majored in philosophy in college, I am amenable to proposals for teaching more philosophy in high school. However, Miller’s proposal, and his praise for Jones’s Kitzmiller decision as “rightly decided,” leave me perplexed. Miller agrees with a policy of not teaching ID in science classes (and adding a philosophy class instead), and yet he rejects Judge Jones’s conclusion that ID is religion. Given these two points, I cannot understand how Miller supports Kitzmiller, which decided as a matter of constitutional law that ID should not be taught in science classrooms.
If ID is not religion, then for Establishment Clause purposes, federal courts would have no legal basis for re-writing a school board’s science curriculum by tearing ID out of the science classroom. If it is really true that “[s]tates and local school boards are generally afforded considerable discretion in operating public schools” (Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 583 (1987).) then courts should remember that “the wisdom of an educational policy or its efficiency from an educational point of view is not germane to the constitutional issue of whether that policy violates the Establishment Clause.” (Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 827 F.2d 684, 694 (11th Cir. 1987).) Given the many secular purposes for teaching ID in a science classroom, it seems that a school board should not be censured for teaching it in a science classroom, especially given that Miller believes ID is not religion. Given this point, I cannot see how Miller believes Kitzmiller was "rightly decided."
Quinean Science and Strict Science?
The heart of Miller’s article is his proposal that we understand science in two different senses. He also notes that ID, as he understands it, has two parts, a negative challenge to neo-Darwinism and a related positive case that intelligent design best explains the data.
Drawing from W.V. Quine’s seminal Two Dogma’s of Empiricism, Miller notes that for one sense of science “we posit things unseen in order to explain and predict what we observe.” This “Quinean sense” of science offers an explanation for observable phenomena. Miller believes that intelligent design easily fits under this sense of science.
However, he goes on to offer a much stricter definition of science:
“There is a more robust sense of science in which we require not only that a theory explain and predict phenomena but also that it appeal to lawlike generalizations—to statements that purport to be not only true but necessarily true.”
For this lawlike sense of science, Miller believes that science must only work with explanations that are necessarily true, or “true in every case there ever could be.” He further explains that the lawlikeness of scientific laws make them predictive, and allow them to be falsified by appropriate experiments. This more strict sense of science is what Miller believes scientists usually have in mind.
From this, Miller argues that the positive argument of intelligent design can never count as science, because “a designer would operate not by lawlike necessity but by intelligence and free choice.” The intelligence of a designer, according to Miller, disqualifies the explanation from strict science. Intelligent agents “are not scientific in the sense that physics and chemistry and biology are scientific.” However, there are many aspects of intelligent design which are empirical and testable (see here), which cut against Miller’s argument.
I have two major problems with Miller’s argument that intelligent design cannot be science, as he strictly defines it. First, Miller has reintroduced the demarcation problem that philosophers of science have long critiqued. Alvin Plantinga recently noted the problem of relying on falsification for demarcating science (here). Second, Miller fails to apply his “robust,” strict limitation on science to the theory of neo-Darwinism. There is a peculiar double-standard employed where the positive explanation of intelligent design is not science, as chemistry is science, yet Miller does not explain how neo-Darwinism is itself falsifiable science, like chemistry.
For example, applying Miller’s “strict sense” of science to his own discussion of neo-Darwinism produces a peculiar result. Miller invokes exadapation as the evolutionists answer to Behe’s irreducible complexity. Of all the things that can be said about the evolutionary ‘mechanism’ of exadapation, surely “necessarily true” by a lawlike rule is not one of them. I believe that his own account of neo-Darwinism falls outside his narrow view of science. This is not an isolated case of neo-Darwinian explanation falling short of logical necessity (see here and here for more examples).
Furthermore, Miller’s stricter understanding of science would rule out much of what is currently discussed in high-school sciences classes. While lawlike rules of nature are indeed part of science, there is much that does not derive from axiomatic laws of nature. Evolutionary “explanations” for how things evolved are not even lawlike, let alone necessarily true. How did the wing evolve? How did the supposed "RNA world" turn into the current DNA / protein-based cell? These “explanations” are necessarily un-lawlike, based upon historical contingencies, and are typically rife with speculation. For Miller’s case against teaching ID in science to stand, one must justify his very narrow definition of science (which bears many similarities to methodological naturalism), and one must explain how the neo-Darwinian explanation for an organism meets this definition in a more substantial way than the intelligent design explanation.
 Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision (DI Press 2006) is the first book to critique federal Judge John E. Jones' decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, the first trial to address the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design in public schools. In this concise yet comprehensive response, Discovery Institute scholars and attorneys expose how Judge Jones' decision was based upon faulty reasoning, non-existent evidence, and a serious misrepresentation of the scientific theory of intelligent design. Despite Jones' protestations to the contrary, his attempt to use the federal bench to declare evolution a sacred cow turns out to be a textbook case of good-old-American judicial activism.
“The Dover trial was hardly the final word in the debate over evolution,” says attorney Casey Luskin, a co-author of the new book. “Mark Twain once allegedly refuted his own obituary by proclaiming that ‘the report of my death was an exaggeration.' Traipsing Into Evolution disproves similar exaggerated reports from Darwinists about intelligent design in the wake of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision.”
The authors conclude that because of Judge Jones' ruling “teachers seeking to ‘teach the controversy’ over Darwinian evolution in today’s climate will likely be met with false warnings that it is unconstitutional to say anything negative about Darwinian evolution.”
“Even students who ask critical questions about Darwinism may now be censored by nervous school administrators,” said Luskin. “There already has been a chilling effect on open inquiry in places such as Ohio and South Carolina. Judge Jones’ message is clear: give Darwin only praise, or else face the wrath of the judiciary.”
The book is priced at $14.95 and is available at bookstores throughout the country and online at Amazon.com. It also can be ordered directly by calling 800-643-4102. A limited number of copies are available by contacting the publisher at cscinfo@discovery.org.
“The mainstream science establishment and the courts tell us, in censorious tones that sometimes sound a bit desperate, that intelligent design is just a lot of fundamentalist cant. It's not,” said Steven D. Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego and author of Law's Quandary (Harvard University Press, 2004). “We've heard the Darwinist story, and we owe it to ourselves to hear the other side. Traipsing Into Evolution is that other side.”
The book was written by David K. DeWolf, professor of law at Gonzaga University; Dr. John G. West associate professor and chair of the political science department at Seattle Pacific University; Casey Luskin, attorney and program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute; and Dr. Jonathan Witt a senior fellow and writer in residence at Discovery Institute.
Traipsing Into Evolution is part of a series published by Discovery Institute Press. Previous books include Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. The Critics of Strong A.I. by Jay W.Richards et. al., Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution by the Discovery Institute, and Why Is a Fly Not a Horse? by Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, published in 2005.
Chapters in Traipsing Into Evolution look at: Kitzmiller’s Partisan History of Intelligent Design; Kitzmiller’s Unpersuasive Case Against the Scientific Status of Intelligent Design; Kitzmiller’s Failure to Treat Religion in a Neutral Manner; Kitzmiller’s Limited Value as Precedent; and The Need for Academic Freedom.
The book also includes a lengthy response to the ruling from Dr. Michael Behe, entitled “Whether ID is Science: Michael Behe’s Response to Kitzmiller v. Dover.” Dr. Behe was the lead expert witness for the defense at the trial.
###
Today's Washington Times' carries an interesting interview with Carson Holloway, author of the new book, The Right Darwin: Evolution, Religion and the Future of Democracy. Holloway criticizes efforts to ground morality in Darwinian biology.
Last night, the Board of Trustees of the Lancaster School District in southern California voted unanimously to adopt a "Science Philosophy" policy permitting teachers to present scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. The policy had been supported by the groups Integrity in Academics and Quality Science Education for All.
The new policy states that Darwin’s theory should not be taught as "unalterable fact" and states that "Discussions that question the theory may be appropriate as long as they do not stray from current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis and theory." The policy further allows the use of supplemental materials by teachers in teaching about science.
"This is an innovative effort by the Lancaster School District to propel science education out of the nineteenth century and into the twenty-first century, " said Alex Branning, President of Integrity in Academics, which organized support for the new policy.
Attorney Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, also praised the policy. "It is refreshing to see school officials willing to stand up against Darwinian fundamentalists to give their students a science education rather than a science indoctrination," he said. "After all, effective science education is all about teaching students to ask meaningful questions and follow the evidence wherever it leads."
A press release from Integrity in Academics, which includes the full text of the policy, is available here.
Bob Brustman had an intriguing and thoughtful piece recently in the Harvard University Gazette entitled "Evolving Ideas" which investigates why many people are skeptical of evolution.
He starts off describing a simple but ultimately inadequate argument from Richard Lewontin:
"If you believe in atomic energy, he said, then you believe in rates of decay. If you believe in rates of decay, then you believe in radiation dating. If you believe in radiation dating, then you believe that we can identify strata of rock from different times.
Those strata of rock contain fossil evidence of plants and animals. Different strata of rock contain different types of fossils, yet each fossilized plant or animal had parents. Therefore, at some point, a parent life form must have given birth to progeny that were different from the parent. If you accept all of this, then, voila! You believe in evolution."
I have no objections to any of that logic. But the question is, what do we mean by "evolution" when we arrive at it as our conclusion?
Typically, "evolution" can have one of three possible meanings:
(1) Change over time
(2) All organisms share a common ancestor
(3) Random mutation coupled with blind natural selection was the primary agent of that change with common descent.
Eugenie Scott seems to concur with this view as she outlines the meanings of evolution in her Declaration in the Hurst v. Newman case:
“Evolution,” broadly defined, is “a cumulative change through time.” It refers to the fact that the universe has had a history — that if we were able to go back in time, we would find different stars, galaxies, and planets, and different forms of life on Earth.
[...]
In biology, evolution is the claim that living things share common ancestors and have, in Darwin’s words, “descended with modification” from these ancestors. The main — but not the only — mechanism of biological evolution is natural selection.
(Hurst v. Newman, Declaration of Eugenie C. Scott in Support of Plaintiffs...)
It is the third definition -- as Scott puts it "The main — but not the only — mechanism of biological evolution is natural selection" -- that educators are aiming for. Brustman quotes Harvard professor Richard Wrangham stating that this should be an easy sell if one's mind is "open:"
"The case for evolution by natural selection is so strong that if you have people with open minds, it's easy."
Apparently the more than 500 scientists who agree with this statement simply don't have "open minds":
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
And perhaps eminent biologist Lynn Margulis, a deeply committed evolutionist who believes that symbiogenesis drove much evolutionary change and that natural selection does not generate real novelty, also has a closed mind. Margulis and Sagan write:
“We agree that very few potential offspring ever survive to reproduce and that populations do change through time, and that therefore natural selection is of critical importance to the evolutionary process. But this Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric. Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement. One mutation confers resistance to malaria but also makes happy blood cells into the deficient oxygen carriers of sickle cell anemics. Another converts a gorgeous newborn into a cystic fibrosis patient or a victim of early onset diabetes. One mutation causes a flighty red-eyed fruit fly to fail to take wing. Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation. Then how do new species come into being? How do cauliflowers descend from tiny, wild Mediterranean cabbagelike plants, or pigs from wild boars?”
(Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of the Species, pg. 29 (Basic Books, 2003))
A final intriguing quote in the article comes from Professor Wrangham on how the successful teaching of evolution is dependent upon showing people how evolution and religion are compatible:
"Wrangham admitted that religion and the teaching of evolution sometimes bumped heads. He said, "The reason so many people do not believe in evolution is surely because they had very strong religious beliefs first ... and if we are going to teach evolution successfully, we have to find a way to marry those two things."
In Wrangham's analysis, we simply have to open people's minds to evolution by natural selection by changing their religious beliefs about evolution, and then all the skepticism will disappear. Let's reiterate: Wrangham said, "if we are going to teach evolution successfully, we have to find a way to marry [evolution and religion]." At least now it is out-in-the-open: these evolutionists have an agenda to "find a way" to change people's religious beliefs about evolution.
Will they be successful in erasing skepticism? Evolutionists have been trying to modify people's religious beliefs about evolution for decades, but the public remains skeptical.
Perhaps there's more in the objections to evolution than mere religion.
Ultimately, it seems that growing scientific skepticism over evolution by natural selection means that Wrangham will have to "find a way to marry" evolution (3rd definition), and the empirical data. Meanwhile, some of us who have been following this debate for a while may feel justified in giving up on waiting for the wedding invitation.
In 1897 Mark Twain reportedly sent a cable from London to the Associated Press in New York, saying "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." after a mistaken obituary announcement appeared in a newspaper. The mistaken announcement is not unlike Robert Pennock's article of March 6th in Science & Theology News which also greatly exaggerates the significance of Dover for the ID movment.
Robert Pennock has made a career of critiquing ID; thus it comes as no surprise that he is now trumpeting the Dover decision. But Ph.D. though he may be, there are so many logical fallacies in his article that it is ripe fodder for Irving Copi's Introduction to Logic. Robert Pennock may be a third, or perhaps a fourth rate philosopher, but a first rate critique of his kind of reasoning along with Judge Jones’s by a top tier philosopher is available on the very same website by no less than Alvin Plantinga. Rather than repeat Plantinga’s devastating riposte, allow me to critique Robert Pennock and by extension Jones on slightly different grounds.
It is true that Judge Jones said:
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. However predicting what one’s critics will say goes nowhere towards invalidating their critiques and to pass it off as such is an old canard called “poisoning the well”. Jones was right to worry about being labeled a judicial activist because he behaved in an activist manner. Rather than rule on a simple matter of law, whether the policy failed the Lemon Test, he chose an activist approach and ventured into areas outside of his pay grade to reconcile science and religion. Such issues are best debated among the philosophers of science, not a judge who has had only a few days of scientific testimony for his education on the issue.
A second fallacy is that of an “appeal to illegitimate authority.” Robert Pennock gloats over the supposed claim that “The judge seriously considered the ID claim that it is not religion but real science, but he found the arguments completely unconvincing.” Judge Jones may be versed in law but arbiter of what is and is not science he certainly is not. Besides Jones couldn’t even get basic factual points correct. Let’s take one simple issue and assess if Judge Jones was correct.
In no fewer than six different location, in his decision, Judge Jones stated that ID proponents have published no peer-reviewed science literature supporting their views. Let’s hold off on the critique of how lousy a criterion this is for delimiting science from religion and deal with the factual nature of the claim. In one of those six instances, Judge Jones wrote: “we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals” (pg. 89) In logic this is called a “universal generalization”. But is this generalization really true? Discovery Institute in its Amicus Brief Appendix, noted there are a number of peer-reviewed articles published in mainstream scientific journals which support ID. Here’s the reference for one interesting article:
Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2) (August, 2004):213-239.
And since it takes but one to negate a universal generalization Judge Jone’s assertion stands refuted.This is a fairly black-and-white issue, which would be difficult to get wrong and yet Judge Jones did.
A claim is only as good as the citation which backs it up. Robert Pennock cites Jones to back up his claim that ID isn’t science. But Jones was guided by Robert Pennock in his decision. And neither offer a trustworthy account of ID. Never mind how out of their league both Jones and Robert Pennock clearly are in understanding the current nature of the debate over the demarcation criteria of science. I would recommend both Jones & Robert Pennock start with Gary Ferngren’s History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition. If I might be so bold as to suggest a starting place, turn to page 17 and read the essay titled “The Demarcation of Science and Religion” by Stephen C. Meyer to get caught up on that current debate over demarcation criteria. One will find that the falsification delimiter that Jones and Pennock are so fond of would suffer the death of a thousand qualifications because it would rule out many disciplines that we consider science such the historical sciences like archaeology.The additional irony is that several contemporary design arguments nevertheless meet the falsifiability criteria. See here for a list.
A final example of fallacious reasoning is that of an irrelevant conclusion. Robert Pennock along with Barbara Forrest use an argument much like this: "the wedge document" exists demonstrating that many design theorists want to renew Western culture by overthrowing Darwinism; therefore peppered moths do in fact rest on tree trunks (Go here to see why the fact that they don’t spells trouble for Darwinism). Sorry Robert but this mode of argument with all of its motive-mongering simply shows you have no case apart from your tin-foil hat conspiracy theories.
Outside of these fallacies are the simple errors of fact. Far from what Robert Pennock would have you believe ID did not field its "A" game in Dover, not even close. Nor did we want to Two excellent ID scientists provided expert testimony on their areas of expertise, but that’s hardly a full team or a full court press. Several of our top scholars did not participate, and our legal advice was ignored. Robert Pennock would have you believe things that he wasn't even there for or privy to. Robert Pennock's wasn't there when we urged the Dover School Board to drop their deeply flawed policy, but my colleague Seth Cooper was (see his letter explaining how he tried to persuade the Dover School Board to not adopt their policy requiring ID).
Thus Robert Pennock is attempting to rewrite history. He states that “For years, the Discovery Institute had been pushing ID by lobbying elected officials; publishing legal guides, op-eds and videos; and offering legal advice.” This is a lie wrapped in a tissue of truths. We have been promoting our ideas through op-eds and science documentaries (as well as in peer-reviewed and peer-edited books and articles). But as documented to Judge Jones in Discovery’s Amicus Reply Brief in the Dover Case, Discovery has not advocated that ID be pushed into schools. Rather, as our policy has been for years, we think that ID should not be mandated in schools, but that rather teachers should have the academic freedom to teach ID if they choose to do so at their personal discretion. Thus, our public advice for education policy is as follows: As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort to require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to mandate teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community. Furthermore, most teachers at the present time do not know enough about intelligent design to teach about it accurately and objectively.(Discovery Institute's Science Education Policy) We invited the Dover Area School Board to follow this advice by telling them NOT to mandate ID both before and after Dover passed its ID-policy. As stated in a 2002 editorial by Center for Science and Culture director Stephen Meyer, Discovery thinks that education boards considering teaching ID ought to teach about strengths and weaknesses of evolution rather than mandating ID:
I also proposed a compromise involving three main provisions:
(1) First, I urged Ohio school board members not to require students to know the scientific evidence and arguments for the theory of intelligent design.
(2) Instead, I proposed that Ohio teachers teach the scientific controversy about Darwinian evolution. Teachers should teach students about the main scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory. And Ohio should test students for their understanding of those arguments, not for their assent to a point of view.
(3) Finally, I argued that the state board should permit, but not require, teachers to tell students about the arguments of scientists, like Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, who advocate the competing theory of intelligent design.
(Teach the Controversy, by Stephen C. Meyer, (Cincinnati Enquirer March 30, 2002) That doesn’t sound like a “pushing” approach to me. Robert Pennock is twisting the facts.
Is the game really up?
The genie is out of the bottle and ID is gaining interest worldwide. The supreme irony in all of this will be if the Darwinists succeed in their power-play here in the United State to stifle the academic freedom to teach and discuss intelligent design in the classroom; while students in former Soviet satellites like the Czech Republic and Romania will have free access to the scientific evidence for design. But even if this was true, not all would be lost for as Churchill once observed, were England to fall, the banner of freedom could still be carried forth from the dominions. It would be ironic indeed if former Soviet satellites had to give us a lesson in intellectual freedom.
The critical response to Judge Jones's decision in the Kitzmiller case continues to build. Renowned philosopher Alvin Plantinga has recently written a short article analyzing part of Judge Jones’s reasoning. Having Plantinga’s analytic expertise and philosophic understanding come down against the Kitzmiller decision does not bode well for the intellectual vitality Judge Jones may have hoped his opinion would achieve.
For those who may not know, Alvin Plantinga is a highly respected philosopher who has written extensively on such topics as epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. As one of the worlds leading thinkers about the ‘science of knowledge,’ epistemology, Plantinga has published a seminal trilogy centering on warrant. He is highly respected in the philosophy community and has served as the president of the American Philosophical Association. All this makes Plantinga’s analysis of the reasoning employed in Kitzmiller highly relevant.
Though Kitzmiller has been the subject of extensive commentary and news, one section of the case in particular, where Judge Jones claims to resolve for the entire country that “Intelligent Design is not science,” has been subjected to relentless criticism. The far-reaching claims of the “ID is Not Science” section (p.64-89) have been criticized for legal reasoning (here), understanding of science (here), factual and other concerns (here, here and here), and now Plantinga has provided a more formal philosophic criticism of the argument.
Plantinga has concerns about a judge attempting to settle disputes by “judicial declaration” or “judicial fiat.” Plantinga then goes on to analyze some of the reasoning Judge Jones used to support his overly-bold claims. I’ll highlight just a few of the more interesting parts of Plantinga’s article. Keying off page 64 of the opinion, Plantinga identifies two claims: “First, he [Judge Jones] said that ID is not science by virtue of its “invoking and permitting supernatural causation.” Second, and connected with the first, he said that ID isn’t science because the claims IDers make are not testable — that is verifiable or falsifiable.” Plantinga finds major problems with both these arguments.
Plantinga first recalls how difficult it has been for philosophers to come up with a decent definition and analysis of falsification or verification (concepts that Judge Jones assumes to be true for his argument). Plantinga brackets this problem and argues that “propositions about supernatural beings not being verifiable or falsifiable isn’t true at all.” He explains:
For example, the statement “God has designed 800-pound rabbits that live in Cleveland” is clearly testable, clearly falsifiable and indeed clearly false. Testability can’t be taken as a criterion for distinguishing scientific from nonscientific statements. That is because in the typical case individual statements are not verifiable or falsifiable.
As another example, the statement “There is at least one electron” is surely scientific, but it isn’t by itself verifiable or falsifiable. What is verifiable or falsifiable are whole theories involving electrons. These theories make verifiable or falsifiable predictions, but the sole statement “There is at least one electron” does not. In the same way, whole theories involving intelligent designers also make verifiable or falsifiable predictions, even if the bare statement that life has been intelligently designed does not.
These examples show how absurd it was for Judge Jones to categorically assert that ID is not falsifiable. Not only does ID make testable claims, the standard of falsification does not apply universally for theories that Judge Jones would consider scientific. (See this link or this link for more on the positive predictions of ID theory.)
Plantinga also points out that Judge Jones not only relied on concepts of falsification, which intelligent design can “pass” as well as other scientific theories, but he relied on methodological naturalism to define ID out of science. “But what is the reason — if any — for accepting methodological naturalism? Apparently, the judge thinks it is just a matter of definition — of the word “science,” presumably.” Along this same line of analysis, Plantinga points out the problem of Judge Jones’s attempt to define ID out of science while demonstrating his trademark analytic skill lightened with a touch of humor:
Suppose I claim all Democrats belong in jail. One might ask: Could I advance the discussion by just defining the word “Democrat” to mean “convicted felon”? If you defined “Republican” to mean “unmitigated scoundrel,” should Republicans everywhere hang their heads in shame?
So this definition of “science” the judge appeals to is incorrect as a matter of fact because that is not how the word is ordinarily used. But even if the word “science” were ordinarily used in such a way that its definition included methodological naturalism, that still wouldn’t come close to settling the issue. The question is whether ID is science. That is not a merely verbal question about how a certain word is ordinarily used.
While ID does not even conclude or mandate the action of the supernatural, Plantinga nicely addresses the problems with Judge Jones’s sweeping assertions about the nature of science and the status of ID. The decision relies on semantically defining ID out of the picture rather than a reasoned defense. Plantinga’s article catalogues a number of other proposed constraints on the definition of science; all of which make the point that science being constrained by methodological naturalism (as Jones did in Kitzmiller) is anything but a self-evident truth.
In the end, Plantinga points out just a few of the problems with the proposed limitation on science from methodological naturalists. Plantinga’s article does not purport to be a comprehensive review of Kitzmiller, nor of all the claims made in the “ID is Not Science” section. It does, however, neatly respond to several of the essential propositions relied upon for that section.
As someone with a lot more experience in the debate about the philosophy of science, and methodological naturalism specifically, Plantinga easily runs circles around the astoundingly weak reasoning from Judge Jones’s Kitzmiller decision.
The New York Times recently ran an article that highlighted microevolution, without ever defining it as such, "Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story." Basically, the article explains how over time humans have adapted to their surroundings, "evolved" into the human species we recognize today, and may still be "adapting". "Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in a population as their owners have more progeny. " There is nothing very newsworthy here, since this is not something we didn't already know, nor is it anything that most scientists disagree with.
Chuck Colson's Breakpoint today is right on point on the New York Times crusade to prop up neo-Darwinism and attack Darwinian critics and tear down intelligent design theory. What this does not mean is that one species ever evolved into another. As Dr. Jay Richards of the Acton Institute explains, “All we’re talking about here is the action of natural selection on an already existing population. . . . There’s nothing in this story about the emergence of new genes via a mutation merely under selection pressure. . . . At most,” says Richards, “it would refer to a tweaking of an already existing gene under selection pressure, which isn’t inherently problematic.”
To sum up, there’s nothing here that is new or exciting. Read the whole article here.
Scotsman Alistair Donald recently engaged Peter Jones concerning intelligent design and the age of reason, and came off sounding both intelligent and reasonable. His first letter:
One of the principles of the Enlightenment was the careful examination of evidence before reaching conclusions. It is, therefore, startling that Peter Jones (Opinion, 7 February) should conclude that Islamic extremism and the theory of intelligent design are both manifestations of irrational, anti-Enlightenment thinking.
ID is not a religiously-based idea but an evidence-based theory about life's origins. A seminal text, William Dembski's The Design Inference, was published by Cambridge University Press, not usually thought of as a fundamentalist publishing house.
It is true that many have found that ID provides support for theism, but that is not grounds for dismissing it. To do so is to confuse the evidence for a theory with its possible implications.
Significantly, it was the evidence for design in cell DNA, as expounded by ID theorists, that persuaded the philosopher Antony Flew to renounce atheism some months ago. His words are instructive: "We must follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
This prompted some silly responses, citing Judge Jones of Dover fame as the last word on the history and philosophy of science, and denying that intelligent design theory played a role in philosopher Antony Flew’s change of mind. Donald responded thus:
In response to Alistair McBay (Letters, 16 February), defining what is and is not science has proved notoriously difficult for philosophers of science to agree on. Is it seriously to be maintained that the decision of one American district court can be the last word on the matter?
The use of authority to try to circumscribe scientific inquiry does not have a noble history. In the past, some inconvenient findings were suppressed by religious authorities, but the truth came out in the end. In a neat reversal, it is today's widely-accepted dogma that we are the product of blind and purposeless processes that is now being increasingly questioned, on the basis of the scientific evidence itself.
Contrary to A Guthrie Stewart (Letters, 17 February), Antony Flew did cite the arguments of design theorists in his renunciation of atheism, when he said: "Investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved."
Donald has a doctorate in environmental science, worked in acid rain research and other pollution control work, and this May will be doing a seminar in scientific apologetics at a conference in Hungary.
Lawrence Selden analyzes a recent Zogby poll asking whether public high school students should learn only the scientific evidence for Darwinism or the evidence both for and against the theory:
Here are the results of a new poll by Zogby measuring the public's views on Teaching the Controversy v. Darwinian Totalitarianism. The Evo News post is here. What I find most striking is the clear progression when looking at age demographics. Support for teaching the controversy is as follows:
Age //Support
18-24 // 83.9%
25-34 // 79.6%
35-54 // 70.5%
55-69 // 61.1%
70+ // 51.2%
This does not bode well for the future of Darwinian Totalitarianism.
The full essay, including Selden's mischievous title, is here. He concludes the piece thus:
I also got a good chuckle out of another tidbit: the education demographic where the Darwinistas do best is the group with less than a high school diploma.
Alvin Plantinga, one of the world's leading philosophers, asks:
Suppose I claim all Democrats belong in jail. One might ask: Could I advance the discussion by just defining the word “Democrat” to mean “convicted felon”? If you defined “Republican” to mean “unmitigated scoundrel,” should Republicans everywhere hang their heads in shame? What's his point?
Ultimately, that while Judge Jones gave two arguments for concluding that ID is not science (in the Dover trial), neither argument is sound.
The full article is here at Science and Theology News.
A recent story by Richard Monastersky in the Chronicle of Higher Education presents a decidedly biased take on the growing scientific controversy surrounding neo-Darwinian theory and the chemical origin of life. But the article goes beyond editorializing to clear misrepresentation in describing the evolution policy adopted by the Grantsburg (WI) School Board in late 2004.
According to the Chronicle's alternate reality, one Michael Zimmerman (a Dean at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh) was drawn into the "fight" surrounding the teaching evolution "when he learned that the town of Grantsburg, Wis., passed a law in 2004 restricting the teaching of evolution."
In reality, the town of Grantsburg NEVER passed any kind of city ordinance, regulation or law on the subject of evolution. And the town of Grantsburg certainly NEVER passed any law "restricting the teaching of evolution."
The true story is that the Grantsburg School Board deliberated on how to best teach evolution in science class. (Side-note: local school boards don't have the power to pass "laws.") In late 2004, the School Board passed a curricular evolution policy, calling on students to learn even MORE about evolution. The Grantsburg School Board policy reads:
"Students are expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information. Students shall be able to explain the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. This policy does not call for the teaching of Creationism or Intelligent Design."
We previously spotlighted the Grantsburg policy in a 2004 press release (here).
Why didn't the Chronicle's writer engage in basic fact-checking or why did he choose to editorialize what happened in Grantsburg? Is accuracy and objectivity too much to ask for the Chronicle of HIGHER EDUCATION?
Had the Chronicle's writer accurately read the policy's words in their ordinary sense--the truth of Grantsburg's policy should have been clear. Grantsburg's policy nicely embodies the idea of "teach the controversy": simply teach the scientific strengths of scientific theories, such as neo-Darwinism or theories of chemical evolution, but also teach the scientific weaknesses of such theories (without mandating any alternative scientific theories).
This just in, the South Carolina Board of Education has rejected new science standards language that would have called for students to critically analyze evolution in their biology classes.
According to the Charlotte Observer: The primary change the EOC had asked for was to add the words in italics to the standard governing the teaching of evolution: "The student will demonstrate an understanding of biological evolution and the diversity of life by using data from a variety of scientific sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." Apparently, even modest language like this was opposed by the Darwinian education establishment.
Where the South Carolina debate over how to teach evolution is headed now is somewhat unclear, but it doesn't seem that it will be going away any time soon. Rep. Bob Walker, a Spartanburg Republican and a member of the EOC, urged the board to add the phrasing so students can talk about the holes in Darwin's theories on evolution and natural selection. He presented the state board with a letter signed by 67 members of the House, which in part said the Legislature may intervene if the board rejects the EOC's recommendation to add the "critically analyze" phrasing.
State Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum says the vote means the state will continue to use its old evolution-only teaching guidelines until this issue is resolved.
Chris Dixon, reporter at the Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina gets a hearty thank you from me for his recent reporting on the debate over how to teach evolution. This is in start contrast to the reporting from The State newspaper, which has steadfastly conflated intelligent design with critical analysis of evolution. In fact, The State newspaper reporter Bill Robinson has waged a one-man confusion crusade to make sure that his readers are completely misinformed about what it is that the state board of education is considering in regards to how evolution should be taught in South Carolina. (see here and here)
I am especially encouraged to see that Dixon allows proponents of intelligent design to actually define the theory of intelligent design themselves – as opposed to just reporting what critics and non-ID proponents claim it is. In a debate filled with loaded terms, defining "intelligent design" is fraught with peril. In a 2002 article on an Ohio evolution debate, a New York Times reporter wrote: "In contrast to the biblical literalism of creationists, proponents of intelligent design acknowledge that the earth is billions of years old and that organisms evolve over time. But they dispute that natural selection is the sole force of evolution, arguing that life is so complex that only some sort of intelligent designer, whether called God or something else, must be involved."
Although most intelligent design proponents agree that the universe is billions of years old, Crowther said there is not universal agreement on the source of the intelligence or the level of design.
"Intelligent design theorists argue in favor of design theory based on the recognition of things like the digital information in DNA and the complex molecular machines found in cells," he said. "They do so because invariably we know from experience that complex systems possessing such features always arise from intelligent causes." While this is a big step in the right direction, and Dixon’s story is pretty fair overall, there are some factual errors in the story the do need to be cleared up. These first two are the most important.
1) Early on in the story Dixon writes: “The institute has countered that it does not back intelligent design and only wants science teachers to "critically analyze" shortcomings in the evolution theory.” This is not accurate. Discovery Institute definitely supports the theory of intelligent design. What I think Dixon has done is confuse our position on intelligent design as a scientific theory (we’re all for that) with our education policy position on intelligent design being required in classrooms (we’re not for that). Let’s go to our education policy statement -- which I sent to Dixon. “As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. …”
“Although Discovery Institute does not advocate requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, it does believe there is nothing unconstitutional about voluntarily discussing the scientific theory of design in the classroom. In addition, the Institute opposes efforts to persecute individual teachers who may wish to discuss the scientific debate over design in an objective and pedagogically appropriate manner.” 2) Later Dixon writes: The Discovery Institute's two speakers, von Sternberg and Keller, met Jan. 23 in Columbia to tell Education Oversight Committee members why South Carolina's highly regarded science guidelines should carry critical analysis language pushed by Fair. This misleads readers as to our involvement in South Carolina. Neither Dr. Sternberg, nor Dr. Keller, are Discovery Institute Fellows. We did recommend them to Sen. Fair when he called to ask if we had Fellows to speak. Specifically we recommended these scientists because of their obvious expertise in the relevant areas: Dr. Sternberg, a biologist with two PhDs in evolutionary biology, and many peer-reviewed journals to his credit; and Dr. Keller who has a PhD in biology, and who is experienced in writing and developing science curriculum. Discovery’s scientists were unable to participate because of teaching and research schedules, but we gave several names to Sen. Fair and he was able to have Dr. Sternberg and Dr. Keller there. While we helped make this connection, it is a misrepresentation of their affiliation to call them Discovery speakers. (Read Dr. Sternberg's testimony to the EOC here.)
There are some other things I’d like to clarify as well.
Dixon also wrote: “According to its spokesman, Rob Crowther, it now considers the state a main focus in its war over what it considers the rigid scientific dogma of Darwinism.” I don’t believe I ever said that South Carolina is “a main focus” for the Institute. We have lots of different things we’re focusing on of which this is just one. No offense to South Carolina intended, but it just isn’t our most important focus right now.
Dixon’s statement about our position in Ohio also is inaccurate. “The fellows argued that scientifically valid challenges to Darwinian evolution should be sufficient reason to include intelligent design or at least criticism of evolution into science curriculum.” Actually, we have always opposed mandating intelligent design in science classes in Ohio, and our scientists argued that challenges to Darwinian evolution should be included, but not intelligent design theory. ID had been proposed by others in Ohio for possible inclusion, but we publicly said that was not the right approach. Stephen Meyer even wrote an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2002 clearly explaining our policy position.
Dixon reports a quote from Martha Wise that is both wrong and misleading. “"What it's been is the evolution of terminology," Wise said. "A little wedge here, then in Kansas, South Carolina, Utah, and all over the United States. That's Discovery's modus operandi." First, neither our position, nor how we describe it has “evolved.” We have been completely consistent, and Wise’s statement is simply an attempt to disparage us in the eyes of her constituents.
Her comment makes it sound as if we are the driving force behind all of this. Not so. We did not initiate anything in any of these state.. We were contacted by board members in Kansas and South Carolina and asked to provide information, or recommend scientists to speak about challenges to Darwinian evolution. In Utah we had no involvement whatsoever, other than to comment on it occasionally on here at Evolution News & Views.
In my discussions with Dixon I explained that this is typically how these things come about. We are often finding out about what is going on only when someone calls us, or when we read about it in the newspaper. We have never had a plan to go into specific states and try to influence their standards, and we’ve never attempted to do so proactively. We have only ever become involved when requested by legislators and/or policy makers, and always as a part of the processes currently set in place.
Dixon later writes: Although the Discovery Institute publicly said the Dover board's intelligent design language was too strong, it sent two of its most prominent fellows, Michael J. Behe and Scott Minnich, to argue the case. Behe is the author of "Darwin's Black Box," a book that makes a scientific case for intelligent design. Actually, we did not send Behe and Minnich. They were asked to be expert witnesses (not fact witnesses directly supporting the defense) by the defense attorneys. They accepted on their own behalf as scientists, and we supported them in their testimony as to the science of intelligent design. They did not comment on the veracityof the facts of the case, as far as I know, but rather delivered testimony in regards to the theory of intelligent design and their own scientific research related to the theory. “I think what cross examination revealed is that behind some fancy terms like 'irreducible complexity' and a whole lot of writing, there is really nothing going on scientifically with ID, " Rothschild said.” Obviously Mr. Rothschild is mistaken, and we disagree with him completely. But so do many in the mainstream scientific community. Cambridge University Press thought there was enough of a scientific debate to commission the leading scientists on both sides to present articles for a book, “ Debating Design” that was published in late 2004. Michigan State University Press did likewise by publishing " Darwinism, Design and Public Education" and in addition to the leading scientists on both sides, they included legal views from prominent legal scholars and law professors, again from both sides of the issue. There are other books like these, which all indicate that there is very lively and serious debate going on in the scientific community, whether Mr. Rothschild wants to believe it or not. There is a lot “going on scientifically with ID” that Mr. Rothschild either isn’t aware of or doesn’t want anyone to know about.
A new nationwide poll by Zogby International shows that 69 percent of Americans support public school teachers presenting both the evidence for Darwinian evolution, as well as the evidence against it.
“This poll shows widespread support for the idea that when biology teachers teach Darwin’s theory of evolution they should present the scientific evidence that supports it as well as the evidence against it,” said Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
By more than two to one, voters say that biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it. Approximately seven in ten (69%) side with this view. In contrast, one in five (21%) feels that Biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.
Not only do a majority of people in virtually every sub-group agree that both sides should be presented when teaching evolution, but people in every sub-group are at least twice as likely to prefer this approach to science education. Among the biggest supporters are 18-29 year-olds (88%), 73% of Republicans, and 74% of independent voters. Others who strongly support this approach include African-Americans (69%), 35-54 year-olds (70%) and 60% of Democrats.
The public is also strongly supportive of students learning about the evidence for intelligent design in biology class. More than three-fourths of respondents (77%) agree that when Darwin’s theory of evolution is taught in school, students should also be able to learn about scientific evidence that points to an intelligent design of life. Furthermore, a majority (51%) agrees strongly with this statement. In comparison, one in five (19%) disagrees with the statement.
“While we don’t favor mandating the teaching of intelligent design we do think it is constitutional for teachers to discuss it precisely because the theory is based upon scientific evidence not religious premises,” added Luskin. “The public strongly agrees that students should be permitted to learn about such evidence.”
Seventy percent or more of people in just about every sub-group agree that when Darwin’s theory of evolution is taught in school, students should also be able to learn about scientific evidence that points to an intelligent design of life. Just over two-thirds of Hispanics (68%) strongly agree with the statement, as do good majorities of Republicans (57%) and residents of the South (57%) and rural areas (58%). Others who highly agree include over four-fifths of 18-29 year-olds (87%), African Americans (83%), and Catholics (83%).
Richard John Neuhaus, the one-time Lutheran pastor/philosopher who became a Catholic priest (he didn't just "evolve" into it, however), edits First Things magazine with the kind of scholarship and grace one might hope to find in a particularly sparkling discussion over dinner with an old college friend. His "While we're at it" column is especially sought out each month for Fr. Neuhaus' take on topical events. This month he has some tough things to say to the science community that seems to think it is a royal priesthood itself, set above even legitimate criticism.
Landing on the fiasco of South Korean cloning claims that were pumped up by those supposedly flawless "peer reviewed science journals" until the story of the scam was made public--from Korea, not the U.S. science world--Neuhaus proceeds to the "blunderbuss verdict" of Judge John E. Jones in the Dover case. (Regrettably, the March First Things is not online yet; hence, no link. Break down and buy a copy.)
Discovery is releasing its own new poll this week, but it is useful that Neuhaus calls attention meanwhile to a Virginia Commonwealth University (CVU) poll showing that "only 15 percent of the public thinks only evolution should be taught in public schools, while 73 percent favor teaching also the controversy about evolution."
Serious scientists should ponder such numbers as they continue to find themselves represented by the National Academy of Sciences and the AAAS. These organizations have taken extreme positions that pretend that there are no scientific flaws in Darwin's theory and that display total unwillingness to compromise with the public's desire for a fair hearing of the issue. "(I)t has become increasingly evident," writes Fr. Neuhaus, "that much that is called education in science is, in fact, indoctrination in philosophical, moral and ontological assumptions that most people do not share, for good reason." Read that sentence over again and think about it.
Fr. Neuhaus points out that "Huge enterprises such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, along with science programs in the universities, depend upon public support." Whose fault is the public's suspicions of the science establishment? The public? People like Discovery Institute? Or might the science establishment do well to look in a mirror?
One other thing. These comments by Fr. Neuhaus fit nicely with the article released this week by Catholic Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City.
You aren't going to read about such opinions in the New York Times, because the editorial AND news policy there is that Catholics are just fine with Darwinism, and, by implication, materialism, scientism, and positivism. They continue to cling to the mistaken idea that only "evangelicals" are doubtful of Darwin's theory, and that mainly because of religious motivation.
Sure.
New questions are being raised about the accuracy of the New York Times' article on scientific critics of neo-Darwinism last week, spurred by an amazing admission by Times' reporter Ken Chang that only a small minority of the scientists he interviewed actually fit his story's stereotyped description of Darwin's critics. While Chang's story conveys the clear impression that scientists who support Discovery's Dissent from Darwin statement are motivated by religion rather than science, Chang has now admitted in an interview that 75% or more of the scientists he interviewed did not fit this description. In other words, Chang and his editors selectively reported the results of their own investigation to convey the exact opposite of what they found. It turns out I was right to warn before the article's publication that when it comes to the evolution issue, the Times' motto should be "all the news that fits"!
Although published on the science page, last week's New York Time's article about the 500+ doctoral scientists skeptical of neo-Darwinism could have run on the religion page. Misleadingly titled "Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition," the story focused much more on the supposed spiritual beliefs of scientific critics of Darwin than their scientific views. While reporter Ken Chang conceded in his article that "of the signers who are evangelical Christians, most defend their doubts on scientific grounds," you couldn't tell that from the rest of his article, which repeatedly implied that those on the list were motivated by religion, not science. The article stressed how "several said that their doubts began when they increased their involvement with Christian churches," and again that "some said they read the Bible literally and doubt not only evolution but also findings of geology and cosmology that show the universe and the earth to be billions of years old." Of the five signers of the statement quoted by Chang, four were presented in terms of their Christian religious beliefs. Two of the four (half) were depicted as Biblical creationists who read the Bible literally, while a third signer was quoted as finding encouragement from "scientific evidence that points to God." Only one of the Christian scientists quoted (James Tour) was presented more in terms of his scientific views. The obvious impression conveyed by Chang's story was that a majority of the signers based their objections to Darwin on religion.
But is that an accurate summary of what Chang actually found in his investigation? You be the judge.
In an interview with Discovery Institute's Rob Crowther last Friday, a clearly uncomfortable Chang admitted that the overwhelming majority of those he interviewed were not Biblical literalists whose skepticism of evolution grew out of their religious beliefs.
In fact, when pressed as to just how many signers actually told him that "their doubts [about Darwin] began when they increased their involvement with Christian churches," he admitted that it was only "up to a quarter or five" of the twenty scientists he interviewed. Hence, by his own admission, 75% or more of the scientists he interviewed did not say this.
Similarly, when asked how many scientists he interviewed were Biblical literalists who rejected the standard geological age of the earth, he admitted that only a "few" fit this description, which presumably would be even less than the five he cited previously.
Why, then, didn't Chang clearly communicate in his article that the overwhelming majority of scientists he interviewed were neither Biblical literalists nor inspired to doubt Darwin through increased religious involvement? Presumably because that admission would have undermined the stereotype being pushed by the Times that scientists doubt Darwin only for religious reasons. It's pretty obvious that Chang was assigned to write this story by editors who hoped to "expose" the supposed religious motivations of Darwin's scientific critics. But when the Times' investigation did not produce the results Times' staffers clearly anticipated, they were faced with an embarrassing problem. If they reported the true results of their investigation they would add to the credibility of the many scientists who dissent from Darwin--something they definitely didn't want to do. So they decided instead to present only those facts that fit their stereotype.
When grilled about the fairness of his story by Crowther, Chang insisted that his article was fair and accurate. He also backpedaled on the article's insinuations that scientists critical of Darwin should be dismissed because of their religious beliefs. Referring to the scientists he interviewed, Chang conceded to Crowther that "fundamentally their doubts [about Darwinism] are scientifically based." He further said that he did not mean to imply that the scientific views of scientists who are evangelical Christians should be dismissed because of their religious beliefs. Too bad he didn't make these points plain in his article.
On a related issue, Chang did not want to tell Crowther why he only investigated the religious beliefs of the scientific critics of Darwinism and did not similarly investigate the religious (or anti-religious) beliefs of supporters of Darwinism. He instead referred Crowther to a posting on the New York Times website that he said would answer the question. In that post, Chang confirmed that although his article cited a list of scientists supporting Darwin, he neglected to interview any of its signers about their religious or anti-religious beliefs. "This article focused on Discovery's petition and thus I did not interview evolution supporters," he wrote defensively.
Well, why not? If the question of religious motivation is important for critics of Darwin to answer, why isn't the question equally important to put to defenders of Darwin? And since Chang actually references a statement by scientists in support of Darwin in his article, why didn't he didn't he treat those signers with the same amount of scrutiny?
For that matter, what about Ken Chang's own religious beliefs? If it is important for people to know about the religious beliefs of scientists who criticize Darwin, why isn't it important for them to know about the religious beliefs of science writers who defend Darwin? When Crowther asked Chang about his own religious affiliation, Chang replied "I don't want to answer that." When pressed as to whether he was an agnostic, an atheist, or something else, Chang replied "I don't think it's relevant." Of course, Change is right. His article ought to be judged on its own merits, not on his personal religious or anti-religious views. But why shouldn't that same standard apply to scientific critics of Darwin? As I told Chang earlier, his double-standard really is "stunning hypocrisy." If he and the Times genuinely believe that religious motivations are relevant for judging the credibility of scientific critics of Darwinism, then why aren't the religious motivations of Chang and his editors equally relevant for judging their credibility? Apparently, those who work for the Times only believe in full disclosure for other people, not themselves.
I don't want to be too hard on Chang. I credit him for honestly admitting the results of his interviews when asked, as well as for quoting my criticism of the Times' double-standard on religious motivations as "stunning hypocrisy." I think Chang tried to be professional in how he reported on this issue. But I also think he--and his editors--were blinded by their own bias in favor of Darwinism, a bias so deeply-ingrained that it prevented them from seeing how they were slanting the facts of their own investigation in order to perpetuate a stereotype.
Despite its bias, I am grateful for how Chang's report highlighted the growing number of doctoral scientists who are skeptical of Darwinian theory. Since Chang's article was published, more than 60 scientists have contacted us asking to have their names added to our statement, and the Dissent from Darwin statement has been downloaded or accessed from our website more than 175,000 times. The New York Times (and Ken Chang) have spread the word about the scientists who are skeptical of Darwin far more effectively than we could do on our limited budget.
Jack Krebs has kindly posted on Pandas Thumb a response to my challenge that someone provide some kind of evidence supporting the notion that the Kansas Science Standards open the door to teaching ID. I greatly appreciate that Mr. Krebs contacted me personally to inform me of his post and kindly invited me to respond.
My initial challenge posed an exceedingly low standard to be met, as I wanted to see what people would say in response. I give Mr. Krebs credit: he has made probably the strongest argument possible in favor of the notion that the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) open the door to teaching ID. If this is the strongest argument possible, then I'm fairly confident that the Kansas Science Standards do NOT include ID. What follows is an assessment of Mr. Krebs' argument.
Mr. Krebs' argument is a four-step process which goes like this:
(1) The KSS requires teaching the "the full range of scientific views that exist" regarding biological evolution (pg. ii). Thus any scientific view regarding evolution should be taught.
(2) Intelligent design is defined as scientific ("We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design, the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.") (KSS, pg. ii)
(3) Intelligent design is also defined as a view in opposition to evolution. (See above quote.)
(4) Given (2) and (3), under (1), intelligent design must be taught.
Mr. Krebs calls this issue "black and white." Once one understands how courts analyze statutes, it's clear Mr. Krebs is right.
Mr. Krebs' argument that the KSS include ID is totally ambiguous. It is a tenuous four-step process that requires linking separate paragraphs of the KSS while ignoring other parts, yet nowhere in the KSS is there a clear call to teach students that life was designed. There is a call to teach “the full range of scientific views," but this comes from a section discussing biological evolution, not intelligent design. Given that ID is not simply an argument against evolution (see below), it's not clear how this could give rise to the teaching of ID without the positive content required to argue for intelligent design. The content sections of the KSS discuss numerous lines of evidence supporting and critiquing evolution, but nowhere do they invoke replacing evolution with the view that life was designed. Mr. Krebs' argument is tenuous at best, and complete misreading of the KSS at worst.
A teacher reading these standards and trying to interpret them would not go through Mr. Krebs four-step process. Rather, a teacher wanting to know if the standards require her to teach ID would simply look at the KSS statement "We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design" and conclude, "Seems pretty unambiguous that I don't have to teach ID." Mr. Krebs' argument requires that every teacher in the state be in on some grand conspiracy, so that when the KSS state "you don't have to teach ID" that they really know "that doesn't apply, I'm actually supposed to teach ID."
Clearly the standards do not prohibit teaching ID. But if ID is being taught, then it isn't being taught because of a requirement under the KSS. The KSS clearly states that ID is not required nor prohibited.
How would a court deal with this?
The Kansas Science Standards would be interpreted like a statute. Thus, when we analyze them we have to apply the legal rules of statutory analysis. The cardinal rule of statutory analysis has been affirmed numerous times by the U.S. Supreme Court:
"'In determining the scope of a statute, we look first to its language. If the statutory language is unambiguous, in the absence of `a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.'" United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 580 (1981), quoting from Consumer Product Safety Comm'n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102, 108 (1980). See also Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 110 (1983); Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 60 (1980)." (Russello v. U.S., 464 U.S. 16 (1983), emphasis added)
Thus, given the extreme tenuous nature of Mr. Krebs' argument that the standards require the teaching of ID, we have to look closely at the text and then to legislative intent. In this case, the Kansas Science Standards have an unambiguous textual statement reflecting the legislative intent regarding intelligent design:
"We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design"
Mr. Krebs was right: this issue is indeed black and white. The text of the KSS has a clear plain meaning that reflects the legislative intent that ID is not mandated. I can't see how this dialogue isn't over.
The Take-Home Message: Don't Listen to Darwinists Who Try to Define ID
Mr. Krebs concludes that "the take-home message" is that "teaching the 'strengths and weaknesses' of evolution, teaching evolution 'objectively', teaching the students to 'critically analyze' evolution, or any other variant of 'teach the controversy' is teaching ID." This is akin to Patricia Princehouse's intriguingly false statement that "Critical analysis is just another name for creationism.” (Ohio Drops Demand That Evolution Be Challenged, by Stephanie Simon, 2/15/06) Mr. Krebs' take-home message is based upon a wholly false understanding of ID.
The problem is that Mr. Krebs assumes that the argument for design is entailed in a negative argument against evolution. Thus if we critique evolution, we must be teaching ID. This is the wishful-thinking Darwinist definition of ID. In reality, arguing for intelligent design requires positive content, where we detect information in nature which matches our understanding of the type of information produced when intelligent agents act. Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and Michael Behe explain this point well:
"Intelligent design provides a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of large amounts of information, since we have considerable experience of intelligent agents generating informational configurations of matter." (Meyer S. C. et. al., "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, edited by J. A. Campbell and S. C. Meyer (Michigan State University Press, 2003).)
"Though defined as a negation, design delivers much more than a negation … To see why the filter is so well suited for recognizing intelligent agency, we must understand what it is about intelligent agents that reveals their activity. The principal characteristic of intelligent agency is directed contingency, or what we call choice. … Specification is the only means available to us for distinguishing choice from chance, directed contingency from blind contingency." (William A. Dembski, The Design Inference, pg. 62, 64 (emphasis in original).)
"As I testified, the ID argument is an induction, not an analogy. Inductions do not depend on the degree of similarity of examples within the induction. Examples only have to share one or a subset of relevant properties. For example, the induction that, ceteris paribus, black objects become warm in the sunlight holds for a wide range of dissimilar objects. A black automobile and a black rock become warm in the sunlight, even though they have many dissimilarities. The induction holds because they share a similar relevant property, their blackness. The induction that many fragments rushing away from each other indicates a past explosion holds for both firecrackers and the universe (in the Big Bang theory), even though firecrackers and the universe have many, many dissimilarities. Cellular machines and machines in our everyday world share a relevant property — their functional complexity, born of a purposeful arrangement of parts — and so inductive conclusions to design can be drawn on the basis of that shared property. To call an induction into doubt one has to show that dissimilarities make a relevant difference to the property one wishes to explain." (Whether Intelligent Design is Science A Response to the Opinion of the Court in Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District, by Michael Behe.)
The KSS contains nothing requiring discussion of anything remotely resembling this sort of necessary positive content for ID. Moreover, as Michael Francisco points out, Krebs' argument that the KSS define ID negatively mis-reads and misconstrues the text. The Darwinists contended vigorously at the Dover trial, "Intelligent design has arguments with fancy names like 'irreducible complexity' and 'specified complexity,' but these arguments are not a positive case for intelligent design, just negative attacks on evolution." (Day 1 AM, pg. 11, see also Dr. Ken Miller's testimony at Day 1 PM, pg 15) They also claimed that ID is nothing more than a negative argument against evolution. They wish to completely ignore the positive case for intelligent design.
So here's a short lesson in ID for Mr. Krebs and the Darwinists: ID has positive content, and without that positive content you don't have an argument for design. This positive content is completely lacking from the Kansas Science Standards, so there's no way that you're going to get ID out of it.
And for everyone else, the take-home message is don't listen to Darwinists when they try to define ID. They constantly misconstrue the nature and definition of ID to serve their own ends. Let the proponents of ID define their own theory.
Conclusion: the Real Take-Home Message
Mr. Krebs argument thus employs the "false dualism" that arguments for ID rely solely upon the falsification of evolution. This false dualism exists only in the minds of Darwinists, who subsequently implanted it into mind of Judge Jones. It assumes that the argument for ID is solely based upon a negative argument against evolution. This is not the case, as arguing for intelligent design requires positive content.
Mr. Krebs' argument also ignores how courts would interpret the unambigously clear statement of legislative intent regarding the KSS. I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
"We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design."
This isn't a conspiracy where every teacher in the state somehow "knows" that the KSS don't mean what they unambigously say. Mr. Krebs' argument requires the greatest conspiracy in education ever known, and baseless claims that "teaching the controversy" is equivalent to teaching intelligent design. Mr. Krebs' argument is based upon conspiracy theories and baseless claims that "teaching the controversy" is equivalent to teaching intelligent design. This argument should not sway informed people.
In Jack Krebs' post at Pandasthumb, he takes Casey Luskin up on a challenge to show that the Kansas Science Education Standards somehow “sanction the teaching” of intelligent design. (Luskin has now responded as well.)
According to Krebs, “the standards do say to teach ID” (emphasis his). Unfortunately for Krebs, his reading of the Kansas standards is an exercise in torturing a text to say what one desires, instead of respecting the plain meaning of the text.
To make his case Krebs relies on a flawed chain of inferences which, at best, would establish that the standards merely permit teaching about some intelligent design ideas.
Krebs makes two big errors. First, he completely fails to explain why the standards include unambiguous language which say the standards “neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about” intelligent design. Krebs would have us stick our head in the sand and pretend the language doesn't exist. Second, Krebs purposefully misreads into the KSS far more about intelligent design than the standards actually say.
Reading Too Much Into the KSS
The Kansas standards note that Intelligent Design is “the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.”
From this Krebs makes two observations:
First, ID is a scientific disagreement, according to the Board. Secondly, ID is defined negatively as a disagreement with evolutionary theory as they purport to understand it.
The KSS does not claim to be offering an all-inclusive definition of ID. Krebs treats the description as more than it is. He makes two observations that ignore the key design aspect of the Kansas description. The KSS says that Intelligent Design disagrees with “many evolutionary biologists” and the nature of that disagreement is over design, the apparent design which those biologists claim is “illusion.” The KSS thus clearly implies that Intelligent Design believes that the appearance of design comes from a designer. This would be a positive claim, as opposed to Krebs attempt to read the KSS to treat ID as only being negative criticism. This does not characterize the inference to design as simply a "negative argument" against evolution. Rather, it simply notes that ID proponents disagree with many evolutionary biologists about whether the "appearance of design" is an "illusion." No statement is made about ID requiring mere negative arguments against evolution. In fact, the KSS say very little about how we infer design.
Additionally, Krebs over-reaches when he equates the Kansas quote, which identifies “many evolutionary biologists” with his own “evolutionary theory.” This again, tries to read the one sentence explanation in the KSS as being a broad, universal claim to define ID.
Krebs this uses this misreading to set up a chain of inferences. He notes, quite correctly, that the Kansas standards call for instruction “about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory” and that “opposing scientific evidence” will be involved. From this part of the Kansas standards, he infers that since Intelligent Design is defined as a scientific critique, it may be taught.
Ignoring Plain Meaning
Krebs conveniently offers no explanation for why the explicit language of the KSS that ID is “not included” and not “mandated” should be completely ignored. Even worse, Krebs offers an interpretation of inference from general terms that contradicts the clear specific language of the KSS. Following normal standards for interpreting statutes, this method fails.
Following common sense, courts give effect to every term in a statute, avoid internal inconsistencies, and use more specific terms to understand more general terms. Accordingly, it makes no sense to avoid the plain language of the KSS which excludes ID from being mandated and instead to rely on a tenuous stretching of other general terms in the text. A court faced with interpreting the KSS would no doubt read and account for the clear, specific language. Krebs’ wishful misreading of the statute remains conveniently silent.
Perhaps Krebs wants us to believe that the Kansas board lied or intended to mislead the public when they included the clear language clarifying that teaching about the controversy is not teaching about ID. This would be a bold claim and certainly deserves more explanation than Krebs provides. If the clear language really should be avoided, then we deserve a good explanation why.
Once Krebs’ “black and white” reasoning is compared with the full text of the Kansas Standards, it becomes clear that they do not say what Krebs desires the standards to say.
In this Catholic News Agency article about the statement of Kansas Archbishop Naumann, it is clear that the Archbishop understands the policy issue: both ID and Darwinian materialism have a philosophical base (theoretical science does have, folks), so you can't rule out one and retain the other just because you prefer it. Either keep both out, he says, out or let both in.
Sensibly, Archbishop Naumann thinks students would be best served by acknowledging the place of philosophy in science (it is philosophy, after all, that defines science) and stop using an invidious reading of the First Amendment to disallow ID because of its theistic implications, while ignoring the atheistic implications of Darwinism.
We have taken an even more modest approach in the current pedagogical struggle: mandate teaching the scientific evidence for and against Darwin's theory, and leave the tougher questions for later.
(Of course, even that is too much for the Darwinists, who, at all costs, don't want the scientific truth--found in the scientific literature--about the Darwinian theory exposed.)
I hope that Archbishop Joseph Naumann's sensible statement will be covered by the Kansas and national secular media and by religious media internationally. Even if his preferred policy is not likely to be adopted in Kansas public schools (where the Darwinists are trying to eject state school board members for even allowing students to know he pros and cons of Darwin's theory), it is exactly the right approach to be taken in PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS, where Darwinian dogmatism currently goes unchallenged in most biology classes.
In a recent and now syndicated Los Angeles Times piece, former Episcopal priest Garret Keizer argues that the theory of intelligent design is not only bad science but also bad religion, since it supposedly valorizes science over religious and aesthetic ways of knowing, and attempts to substitute reason for Christian faith. The argument, an increasingly common one, misrepresents both orthodox Christian theology and intelligent design, a point I make in the most recent issue of Touchstone. There I comment:
Fr. George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, the astronomical research division of the Catholic Church, and John Haught, Professor of Theology at Georgetown University — insist not only that the natural world provides no such evidence [of intelligent design], but that it would be a problem if it did.
... Soren Kierkegaard insisted that one entered Christianity through a leap of faith, not by way of scientific arguments or logical proofs. According to one contemporary philosopher, he believed “that any such proof would undermine our freedom to choose Christianity. . . . If God could be demonstrated like a math problem, then wouldn’t one have to believe in Him by force of logic? Rather than by love, by choice, by gambling one’s very existence with fear and trembling on the Unknown, the very stuff of the human spirit as described throughout the Bible?”
Kierkegaard’s view entered twentieth century Christian theology through Karl Barth and his criticism of natural theology. Barth claimed the Apostle Paul for his inspiration, but Kierkegaard’s influence is obvious, and through him, the impulse has passed into contemporary Christianity.
According to one Touchstone reader (responding to an earlier article of mine), the notion that nature points clearly to a designer “may actually violate an important notion of theology, which is that God hides.” Paul Thomas continues:
If information were conclusively discovered in the genetic code, for example, then God would have conclusively revealed himself in nature . . . belief in God would become deterministic, a no-brainer forced upon humankind, not an act of free will. God would no longer be a lover who approaches us with a still, small voice, but rather one who forces his love on human beings, turning them into automatons.
Before deciding if this view holds water, it’s important to be clear about what it will contain if it does. Even Christians skeptical of intelligent design in biology — like John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge University physicist and Anglican priest, or Kenneth Miller, a Catholic biologist and leading defender of Neo-Darwinism — have appealed to evidence of God’s handiwork at the cosmic level
And understandably. First, growing scientific evidence shows that the universe is not eternal but had a beginning. Who or what caused this remarkable event? And second, physicists and chemists have determined that the many physical constants of our universe — things like gravity and the electromagnetic force — are just right to allow for complex life. These findings provide strong evidence that a creative intelligence was responsible for the origin of our universe.
...
Return now to those who insist that God would never strip us of free will by providing clear indicators of design in nature. To be consistent, they must dispense even with design arguments from physics and cosmology, must insist that such evidence does not point to a grand designer, must insist that brute atheism should explain every feature of the physical universe adequately, all the way back to and including the origin of the universe in the finite past; for even a single feature pointing clearly to design would — according to their position — strip us of the freedom to disbelieve in God.
The argument, then, is a very large bucket. Fortunately, it does not hold water. Kierkegaard came at the problem of faith from within an overwhelmingly Christian culture that moved effortlessly, even unconsciously, from evidence of design directly to the triune God. Kierkegaard also was reacting to what he saw in Hegel as an overemphasis on detached, objective reflection. For Kierkegaard, Hegel took too little account of the central role of choice in human existence, gave too little attention to the free individual.
I mention these influences because Kierkegaard is manifestly a profound thinker and, here, manifestly in error. The conjunction calls for explanation, and what I am suggesting is that the answer lies partly in what Kierkegaard was reacting against.
Now let’s examine the error: the claim that evidence of design in nature would compel belief in the God of the Bible. Consider the bacterial flagellum, an extraordinarily intricate rotary engine inside living cells. Biologist and design theorist Michael Behe argues that the best explanation for this structure is intelligent design.
However, while the flagellum provides evidence of design and hence a designer, we find nowhere on the bushings of the little engine the words, “Made by Jehovah.” This evidence from nature doesn’t tell us who the designer is, much less compel us toward a living faith in the God of the Bible.
This is obvious from instances near and far. British philosopher Antony Flew has been called the world’s most influential philosophical atheist. As far back as his debates at C. S. Lewis’s Socratic Club at Oxford University more than half a century ago, he argued that there simply wasn’t enough evidence for a creator. But recently he investigated the argument for design in the origin of life and, in the process, left atheism behind. “It now seems to me,” he says, “that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”
But that evidence has only drawn Flew from atheism to a non-specific theism. He still rejects the God of the Bible, rejects the idea of any Creator who would consign his creatures to eternal punishment. Flew only affirms what he calls the God of the philosophers, a non-specific designing intelligence.
That such a reaction is possible is both common sense and orthodox Christian teaching:
If the angel of death and Lazarus risen from the dead are not enough to strip a man of his free will, one needn’t tremble before the bare evidence of design in a living cell. Perhaps Kierkegaard had in mind those defenses of God that made facile leaps from glorious design to the Gloria Deum. Perhaps he found the reality of God so obvious that the bare evidence of design in nature was to him uninteresting.
...
Kierkegaard offered a second reason for his distaste for design arguments. He said he would “surely not attempt to prove God's existence” for even if he began the process, he would never complete it, leaving him “constantly in suspense, lest something so terrible should suddenly happen that my bit of proof would be demolished.”
... This is the tack many take with contemporary design arguments, and it’s the tack urged by the plaintiffs in a Pennsylvania trial over intelligent design. In the opening days of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial that I attended last fall, the ACLU argued that design arguments could prove dangerous to a student’s religious faith: since such design arguments might not pan out, or might raise insoluble questions about things like death and suffering in the world, better not to expose students to them in the public classroom.
Such thinking is misguided. Is the evidence for design real, and are arguments based on that evidence soundly constructed and well informed? If so, who are we to insist these are gifts God shouldn’t have given?
We live in an age where the secular institutions of the West have closed the book of nature by insisting that science can only consider material causes, must obey a methodology that constructs only theories fully consistent with atheism. They rarely put the matter this baldly, of course. It usually goes by the benign, official-sounding term “methodological materialism.” The term is sleep-inducing and appropriately so, for materialism is a spell cast upon the West, a spell potent enough that even some Christians frown disapprovingly at scientists who risk their careers to announce that they see, through today’s powerful microscopes and telescopes, evidence of design.
And while some Christians fret over an imagined incompatibility between faith and indicators of design in nature, the Psalmist proclaims from under a starry sky without qualification or apology, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech.”
Deeper into his hymn of praise, David moves from the generic El to the Creator’s personal name revealed in Scripture: Yahweh. He makes this switch just as the subject moves from the book of nature to the book of God’s written law. Thus in a single psalm David has suggested for us a pattern of witness: The evidence for design can point a man toward a grand designer, thus laying the groundwork for a personal encounter with the Lord of Scripture.
...
Make no mistake: the science of intelligent design is a form of human exploration valuable in its own right, the scientist open to the truth, searching out the best explanation for some corner of the natural world, fashioning a compelling argument for design based on empirical evidence and sound reasoning. But in being all of these things first and foremost, it can function secondarily as a powerful tool of pre-evangelism.
There are people, many of them young, standing on a far shore. They have heard of the man Jesus, but they’ve been told that he is just out of reach, a lovely myth, a figure from a time before reason when men believed in miracles, in a white-bearded God forever tinkering with the world, trying to set it aright.
...
Such people do not need cautious explanations of why evidence of design would strip them of their freedom. They are in bondage already, are under the spell of materialism, and they need someone to break the spell.
Unfortunately, design theorists are massively undermanned and underfunded, Davids against the Goliath of a luxuriously funded, highly placed, and intensely motivated group of people opposed to the tiniest hint of evidence for design slipping into the mainstream of science.
At the beginning of every episode of the old PBS series Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan told the audience that the universe is all there is, ever was, or ever will be. Design theorists need strong support from the larger Christian community to get the evidence out to the broader public that Carl Sagan was manifestly wrong, that the book of nature tells a very different story.
They need both encouragement and help spreading the truth about where the evidence in science points, because far too many people — inside and outside of Christianity — are busy explaining that evidence away. They, like Kierkegaard, forget that the evidence from God’s book of nature need not be a dwelling place. It can also be a stepping stone.
Note: The article from Scientific American was Steve Mirsky’s “Sticker Shock” (February 2005); the description of Kirkegaard is taken from The American Thinker (www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4761); and the quote from Antony Flew is taken from “Interview with Gary Habermas” in the Winter 2004 issue of Philosophia Christi (www.biola.edu/antonyflew).
Recent news articles on various aspects of the overall debate over evolution and intelligent design continue to highlight the fact that many in the media are falling for the false claims of Darwinists.
In Ohio, in Utah, in Wisconsin, in South Carolina, and elsewhere Darwinists are claiming that any criticism of Darwin’s theory is the same as intelligent design. (Christian Schwabe, Lynn Margulis and other staunchly anti-ID scientists would be quite surprised to learn their strident criticisms of Darwinian evolution have turned them into ID proponents.)
The Darwinists say it, and for some reason reporters just accept it without any questioning. This leads to other reporters reading the same thing and then turning around and confirming it in their own articles.
For instance, Richard Monastersky at the Chronicle of Higher Education contacted us this week and asked this question: With Kitzmiller, Ohio, and now Utah, there have been several legal and political defeats for ID. Am I correct in assuming that the Discovery Institute is not abandoning its support for ID? If so, where do you go from here? And I answered: This just isn't true. You are mistaken in telling people that Ohio or Utah were about intelligent design. That is factually wrong. Ohio was very clearly NOT about intelligent design, contrary to the bogus claims of the rabid Darwinists that sought to mislead the public and the policy makers there. I hope you do not misreport this important fact. Teaching students both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution is NOT the same as teaching the theory of intelligent design. In Ohio the standards called for students to critically analyse Darwinian evolution. In Utah, the proposal was basically a disclaimer to students that there are unresolved problems in evolution and that scientists disagree over what this means. Discovery has never favored disclaimers, either in the classroom or on
textbooks. Instead of telling students there is a problem with Darwinian evolution, show them what the problems are. The scientific literature is full of unresolved issues and challenging problems for Darwinian evolution, and we think students should be learning about that. If a tenth grade student can understand evidence that supports Darwin's theory, they certainly can understand the evidence that challenges it.
It's too bad that whenever attempts to teach both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution come up, there is a howl of protest from the Darwin only lobby that bullies schools and legislatures into shutting down the discussion. It will be interesting to see how much –if any-- of that will appear in the Chronicle when the story comes out.
Still, this is the perfect example of how misinformation spreads. I hope that reporters who read this site will ask about the difference between criticism of Darwinian evolution and advocating a completely separate theory such as intelligent design. It’s important that the public understand that these are two very different things, contrary to what Darwinists are now claiming.
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