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Some of the recent reporting on the evolution debate in the UK has been less than accurate. Looks like we're not the only ones to notice. Peter Hitchens had an insightful op-ed in The Mail last Sunday looking at why it is that some many in Britian are up in arms about the possiblity of schools teaching criticisms of Darwin as well as the argument for intelligent design. He rightly points out that proponents of ID are, for the most part, misrepresented in recent reporting. For what I noticed (as I have also observed over the global warming controversy) is that the people on one side of this dispute tend to misrepresent the other side. Rational scientists who are doubtful about Darwinism are abused. And expressions such as 'Creationism' are used to suggest that a complex, nuanced position is in fact a crude Hillbilly superstition.
I think this form of intolerance is always a bad sign.
He goes on to point out that ID is not a theory of everything, but rather a theory that challenges one key aspect of Darwinism, namely the claim that it can account for the complexity of life and the universe through natural selection and random mutation alone. According to Hitchens: All they are doing is casting doubt on the supposed certainties of Darwinism, and using advanced scientific knowledge to do so. If Darwinists are as secure in their beliefs as they claim to be, they should easily be able to see off the ID proponents, in school or out of it, without suppressing, abusing or misrepresenting anyone. He sums it up nicely at the end. Yet the evolutionists trumpet and bellow about this small, modest challenge, like an enormous elephant panicking over the presence of a mouse. I wonder why. Read the whole piece here.
 Our popular podcast (20,000 subscribers in just the past six months) today features Casey Luskin interviewing Dr. Thomas Woodward. They discuss his new book, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design, which analyzes the rhetoric used by Darwinists in their critiques of intelligent design. Woodward documents how Darwinists often use ad hominem attacks and promote “fantasy themes” about the supposed “theocracy” of intelligent design to avoid discussing the scientific issues.
Click here to listen to the interview.
Woodward of course is the author of Doubts About Darwin, the 2004 book that documented the emergence of intelligent design among scientists. Darwin Strikes Back is the sequel to that book and in it Woodward asks and answers some key questions, such as: Who are the key players on each side, and what contributions have they made?
How has the debate developed, and where is it headed in the future?
What conclusions can we draw about our origins based on the scientific evidence? Click here for more information about the new book, Darwin Strikes Back.
The debate over how to teach evolution has ignited a firestorm of controversy in Britain. And, as hard to believe as it is, the truth is that the reporting in the UK has been even worse than the reporting on the issue here in the US.
British media seem nearly universally incapable of discerning any difference between creationism and intelligent design. They use the terms interchangeably and often refer to “the Bible story of God creating the world in six days, 6,000 years ago,” no matter whether they are discussing creationism or intelligent design.
Here’s a typical British description of intelligent design: People who believe in Intelligent Design or ID say that it is a scientific alternative to evolution - It explains the way that life has developed on Earth as being guided by an intelligence, a force that many would call God. Its supporters say it is a more sophisticated explanation than creationism - which views the development of the world solely in biblical terms. Intelligent Design accepts many of the scientific aspects of evolution, but sees the guiding hand of God behind them all.
What’s humorous is that, at the end of the article, the BBC World Service felt that even more was needed and so printed a list of definitions, including this one: “ the guiding hand of God the leading role of a supreme intelligence who is the creator and ruler of the universe.”
Clearly, many in the British media simply can’t write a story that communicates ID supporters’ own views on the subject but rather insist on asserting that intelligent design seeks to name the intelligent cause we see scientific evidence for in the natural world.
Asserting that ID believes “God is behind it all” flies in the face of what British – and American – ID scientists have themselves said. I blogged briefly about BBC News Night’s interview with Prof. Andy Mcintosh of Truth in Science (TiS). Mcintosh repeatedly explained that in science you look at the scientific evidence, and that the evidence can’t tell you who the designer is. “We are not seeking to say in any way who the designer is when we’re examining science in the classroom. … Within the science classroom we’re simply asking to look at the scientific evidence.” Later Mcintosh restated this. “We are not asking for belief to be brought into the classroom we are simply saying let’s look at the evidence, let’s look at the scientific evidence to see whether it actually shows the design thesis or not.”
There have been a few cases where accurate reporting has leaked through. BBC’s Science & Nature website correctly reports that it was Phillip Johnson who helped to ignite the modern ID movement and even properly defines the theory. Johnson recruited other Darwin doubters, including biochemist Professor Michael Behe, mathematician Dr William Dembski, and philosopher of science Dr Stephen Meyer. These scientists developed the theory of intelligent design (ID) which claims that certain features of the natural world are best explained as the result of an intelligent being. Even while they were repeatedly slamming TiS in numerous articles, The Telegraph had to also report that: But the group is backed by a number of respected academics.
Its four-man board of directors includes Andy McIntosh, a professor of thermodynamics and combustion at Leeds University, and Maurice Roberts, a former classics teacher and now a minister in the Free Church of Scotland.
The group's advisory council includes Stuart Burgess, professor of design and nature at Bristol University, Derek Linkens, an emeritus professor at the department of automatic control and systems engineering at Sheffield University, and Dr Tim Wells, a senior lecturer in the school of biosciences at Cardiff University.
Thanks to an informed and irenic Turkish blog that I follow (thewhitepath.com), I already knew much of material covered in a Reuters story on Turks’ dislike of Darwinism. But it probably is news to many in this country, including the media. The Darwinists’ propaganda trope is that six-day creationism is the same as intelligent design, or might as well be the same. Yet it is obvious that Turkey really is primarily creationist--following a literalist reading of the Quaran rather than the Bible, of course--and that the creationists in Turkey have substantial funding, while ID has virtually none
Still, like certain creationists in the United States and Britain, those in Turkey do seem to make use of some of the same scientific research employed by Darwin critics who are not creationists and they likewise also may support some tenets of intelligent design. The ID movement, as such, is more limited, but enjoys substantial influence among officialdom, media and academics. Several Turkish scientists have signed the Dissent from Darwin statement.
No one in the Middle East has covered ID with such enthusiasm as the cultured and adroit science writer, Mustafa Akyol in Istanbul. His rejoinder last year to an article by the biologist Jerry Coyne in The New Republic was delightful. Writing in National Review Online, Akyol ran a shish-kebab skewer through Coyne’s professed fear that ID, supposedly the product of fundamentalist Christians, is the sort of thing that would worsen the West’s relations with the Muslim world. As Akyol observed, Muslims are not bothered by scientific arguments against Darwinism and for design. On the contrary, what they object to in the West is the strident secularist promotion of Darwinism and its pernicious public policy progeny. Poor Dr. Coyne, there he sat with his own argument running down his face.
Mustafa Akyol’s writing in Turkey and elsewhere covers myriad subjects in addition to ID. It can be accessed at the aforementioned blog, thewhitepath.com. (Akyol translates to The White Path in English.) It is a useful resource for anyone trying to understand the domestic Turkish politics surrounding the current visit to Istanbul by Pope Benedict XVI.
BBC News is reporting that 89 British secondary schools are using the materials sent to them by Truth in Science (TiS), which we reported on last month. The packets include the documentary “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and were sent to over 5000 schools in Britian, igniting a national debate over the teaching of evolution.
Last night BBC News Night ran a very interesting discussion between TiS spokesperson Professor Andy Mcintosh and Darwinist Professor Lewis Wolpert. You can watch it on their website – though this link may disappear soon. The nine-minute story starts at 18:46 and by the end of the piece even the newscaster seems to have tired of Wolpert’s monotonous — and apparently only — talking point that ID is just religion.
Finally, the newscaster lets Mcintosh briefly explain the argument for intelligent design from information in DNA. Wolpert of course has no clue how to respond and resorts to badgering Mcintosh about who the designer might be. Mcintosh knows that the issue is science, not religion, and so stuck to the science and made his case that TiS is simply seeking to follow the evidence where it leads, and that’s what should be presented in science classes.
The Associated Press has a story on the Kansas Science Standards which repeats the rhetoric of Kansas Darwinists. It states, “While Kansas public schools are likely to get their fifth set of science standards in eight years, the officials who want to ditch the anti-evolution ones now in place aren't planning to act immediately.” But the present standards are not “anti-evolution." The present standards teach more about evolution than do most statewide science standards and include extensive sections discussing the evidence both for and against evolution.
The article also wrongly asserts that the standards have a “tilt toward intelligent design,” and the article mentions intelligent design 7 times. This focus on intelligent design is misleading: as we’ve repeatedly discussed, the Kansas Science Standards state they “do not include Intelligent Design” and the standards “neither mandate nor prohibit” teaching about ID. Why were these quotes left out of this article?
The article also claims that the new standards change “a definition of science that doesn't specifically limit science to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.” As discussed here, the standards simply reset the definition of science back to a definition similar to how most states define science, including how Kansas did prior to 2001, and this was not an attempt to claim the supernatural is a part of science.
The article also claims that aspects of the standard which challenge common descent based upon paleontology and molecular biology are “intelligent design arguments, defying mainstream science.” Firstly, it should be noted that the standards present both evidence for and against Neo-Darwinism and do not unilaterally criticize common ancestry. For example, they require students to learn that, “The presence of the same materials and processes of heredity (DNA, replication, transcription, translation, etc.) is used as evidence for the common ancestry of modern organisms.” Of course the Darwinists and Associated Press omit mention of such statements in order to allege the standards are “anti-evolution.”
But what about the aspects of the standards that do critique Darwin? As discussed here, many aspects of the Kansas Science Standards which critique Darwin, including those dealing with common descent and micro vs. macroevolution, have their roots in mainstream scientific publications. For example, W. F. Doolittle (a Neo-Darwinist) writes "[m]olecular phylogenists will have failed to find the 'true tree,' not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree." The article is simply repeating Darwinist rhetoric and ignoring the fact that criticisms of Neo-Darwinism can be found in mainstream science.
Despite the fact that intelligent design was irrelevant to the article, the article does have a pretty good definition of intelligent design: “Intelligent design says an intelligent cause is the best way to explain some features of the universe that are complex and well-ordered.” If by “complex and well-ordered,” the reporter means “complex and specified,” then I’d have to say this is one of the best definitions of intelligent design in the media. Nonetheless, given its repetition of Darwinist rhetoric, the article also provides an excellent example of the media bias on this issue.
A common Darwinist myth is that the only people who are skeptical of evolution are Americans. A recent article in the Virginia Informer stated, “John Swaddler, UK native and associate professor of biology at the College [of William and Mary], noted that the media phenomenon of creationism/ID vs. evolution doesn’t happen in countries besides America.” Saddler is promoting a common Darwinist claim which is simply untrue:
As we’ve noted recently, there has been a push to teach intelligent design in the United Kingdom. This summer an article in the London Guardian noted that over 30% of British students support non-evolutionary accounts of the history of life. Such skepticism extends far beyond the U.K. Nature reported that Poland is experiencing an “aggressive anti-evolution campaign.” According to another Nature article, there’s a legal controversy over teaching evolution in Russia as well. Finally, a very recent Nature news article entitled "Anti-evolutionists raise their profile in Europe" discusses challenges to evolution in Poland, Belgium, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, Italy, and Turkey over the past few years.
Some of these disputes resemble American disputes over evolution-education. For example, Poland's minister of science, Micha Seweryski, perfectly expressed the typical position of Darwinists: “'There is no need for a discussion,'” he told Nature. 'Scientific evidence is clear and the opinion of a minority will not change teaching in schools.'” ("Polish scientists fight creationism," Nature, Vol 443:890, Oct. 26, 2006, emphasis added) Seweryski's dogmatism speaks for itself.
Of course Darwinists try to pretend that evolution-skepticism is unique to America in order to promote what Justice Antonin Scalia called the “beloved secular legend of the [Scopes] Monkey Trial,” which claims Darwin skepticism is entirely religiously based. Regardless of what Micha Seweryski says, there are many scientific reasons to be skeptical of Neo-Darwinism.
In my opinion, we should drop these myths, stop excluding “minority” opinions, and start discussing the evidence!
(Editors Note: This Post Was Revised and Updated on November 28, 2006):
Some people have contacted me insisting that not all freshmen were required to attend the lecture by Robert Pennock at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (first discussed here). In this regard, consider the following points:
I have posted a screen shot at http://www.evolutionnews.org/tritonlink_11-24-06.jpg which clearly stated on the main UCSD student website (called Tritonlink) that "All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend the event." To my knowledge UCSD has not issued any statements retracting or changing this announcement.
I have been presented with no credible evidence that the official UCSD student website statement was incorrect. A 6th College web page did state that "first quarter CAT students" in the 6th College at UCSD were "required to attend." But a statement that first-quarter freshmen in the 6th College of UCSD were required to attend the Pennock lecture doesn't mean that other freshmen were not also required to attend.
I've contacted two people who helped organize Pennock's lecture and neither were able to confirm the claims that the UCSD website announcement was wrong.
On a related matter, it seems that I misunderstood Ed Brayton's recent report on his experience with Robert Pennock, where I thought Brayton provided further corroboration that the UCSD lecture was required of all first-quarter freshmen. Brayton has responded that he has no independent information that the UCSD lecture required all freshman to attend other than my original post. So I have retracted my prior post here on Brayton.
It's interesting that certain Darwinists seem obsessed to prove that the Pennock lecture wasn't required for all students. Maybe that's because even they understand--at least subconsciously--the problem of imposing such one-sided indoctrination on students at a taxpayer-funded university. In any case, whether all first-quarter freshmen at UCSD were required to attend (as stated on the UCSD website), or merely first-quarter freshmen in the 6th College at UCSD , the problem is the same: Students at a state university who are compelled to attend a one-sided polemic against intelligent design without being afforded the opportunity to hear the other side of the debate are being subjected to indoctrination, not education.
Both Uncommon Descent and Telic Thoughts are discussing how less than 1 mile up the road from UCSD, scientists gathered last week at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies to bash religion. The New York Times' science section covered the conference, but failed to recognize that many ID-proponents accept Big Bang cosmology and even find it is evidence indicating cosmic design. Nonetheless, the vitriol and hatred coming from these scientists against religion is striking. Consider these excerpts from the article:
[O]ne speaker after another called on their colleagues to be less timid in challenging teachings about nature based only on scripture and belief . . . With a rough consensus that the grand stories of evolution by natural selection and the blossoming of the universe from the Big Bang are losing out in the intellectual marketplace, most of the discussion came down to strategy . . . By the third day, the arguments had become so heated that Dr. Konner was reminded of “a den of vipers.” “With a few notable exceptions,” he said, “the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”
(George Johnson, "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," The New York Times [November 21, 2006], emphasis added)
A small group of evangelicals is making waves in America, writing inflammatory best-sellers and going on a media crusade to spread their message of fear and intolerance. As CSC’s Logan Gage explains in this article from The Examiner, while it may seem counter-intuitive, these rabble-rousers defy the usual caricature of pitchfork-waving fundamentalists by virtue of their atheism.
In trying to figure out what’s gotten these atheists all in a tizzy, Gage asks, What is happening? Is it all just election-year hoopla against the religious right? I suggest another explanation. A quiet revolution is underway; and it will not be publicized.
Gage sees this rise of atheist fundamentalism as a reaction to the challenge of intelligent design:
Just as we have confidence that black holes exist, not by direct observation, but because of the movement of bodies around the blackness, so, too, can one be sure an intellectual revolution is underway when we increasingly find books on The New York Times best-seller list by evangelical atheists like Richard Dawkins.
These authors are surely responding to something. That something is powerful scientific evidence challenging their worldview. Time got it right: “This debate long predates Darwin, but the anti-religion position is being promoted with increasing insistence by scientists angered by intelligent design. …”
To see the whole article, read "Evangelical atheists crusade against ‘pernicious’ religions," by Logan Gage (The Examiner, November 17, 2006).
Meet Mark A. Farmer, Ph.D., of Winterville, Georgia.
Dr. Farmer is a Professor and Head of the Department of Cellular Biology at the University of Georgia. His research is on the "origin and evolution of eukaryotic cells." Until recently, Dr. Farmer also held the position of Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, with the National Science Foundation, with responsibility for soliciting grants for the NSF's "Assembling the Tree of Life" project.
Publicly, Mark A. Farmer says he is passionate about keeping religious alternatives to evolution out of biology:
Farmer signed a petition addressed to the Cobb County Board of Education objecting to "the proposal to allow 'alternative theories' of the origin and development of life on earth to be presented alongside evolutionary theory in Cobb County science classrooms" because it would "significantly degrade the quality of science education in Cobb County schools." Internet Infidels the on-line host of Farmer's petition, is "a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet." As Internet Infidels explains on its website, “[N]aturalism entails the nonexistence of all supernatural beings, including the theistic God.”
In May of 2005, University Affairs magazine reported that Farmer teaches students in his "Origins of Life" course "why scientists feel Darwinian theory offers the best explanation for biological diversity."
In a November 2005 letter to the Athens Banner-Herald, Farmer wrote that "the voters of Dover, Pa. were right to reject those school board members who would interject belief in the supernatural into America’s science classrooms."
Privately, Mark A. Farmer says he is passionate about putting religious alternatives to evolution into biology:
As president of Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), an organization dedicated to improving science education by including the scientific weaknesses of evolution along with its strengths in biology, I get e-mails.
In November 2005, I received an e-mail from Mark A. Farmer in which he wrote:
I was considering making a donation to Quality Science Education for All but in reading about your recent activities I am still a bit confused as to what the mission of QSEA actually is. Specifically I would like to know whether or not you support the word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ being taught in our public schools. This is an issue I feel very strongly about and would need to know your position before making a decision to financially support QSEA. (Emphasis added.)
Thank you very much,
Mark Farmer
Winterville, Georgia
In December 2005, Mark A. Farmer wrote the following in an e-mail to my wife, Jeannie Caldwell:
[Y]our recent lawsuit against the website at Berkeley seems based on drawing a very hard line between Church [and] state. . . . Should your lawsuit prevail I feel that the concepts of ALL religions, and thus alternatives to evolution, will be forever be banned from schools. (Emphasis added.)
Notably, in his correspondence with QSEA, Mark A. Farmer did not disclose his roles as biology professor and fervent Darwinist. We only discovered those dimensions of Mark A. Farmer through detective work on the internet by my wife, Jeannie.
So how did Jeannie determine with certainty that the "public" Mark A. Farmer who has made Darwinist statements and the "private" Mark A. Farmer who has made creationist statements are one in the same? Three simple lines of evidence establish the connection:
(1) The e-mail address from which "Mark Farmer of Winterville, GA" wrote to QSEA matches the e-mail address listed for Mark A. Farmer on the Winterville City Council official website, and when my wife wrote to Mark A. Farmer at that e-mail address, Mark Farmer responded to us from that e-mail address with his December 2005 e-mail message above;
(2) The Mark A. Farmer on the Winterville, GA City Council is the same Mark A. Farmer who is professor of biology at UGA: the picture of Mark A. Farmer on the Winterville City Council official website shows the same person as the picture of Mark A. Farmer on the University of Georgia website for Professor Mark A. Farmer;
(3) Winterville, GA, where Mark A. Farmer is on the city council, is less than 8 miles from the University of Georgia, in Athens, GA, where Mark A. Farmer is on the faculty, and where Mark A. Farmer wrote his letter to the editor of the Athens Banner.
So what are we to make of Mark A. Farmer, of Winterville, Georgia?
Have we uncovered the Strange Case of Dr. Darwinist and Mr. Creationist — a public Darwinist, but a closet creationist?
Or have we uncovered Inspector Clouseau in a labcoat — a bumbling Darwinist attempting a clumsy imitation of a Christian fundamentalist?
Only Mark A. Farmer knows for sure.
We would like to welcome our newest addition to the Evolution News & Views reporting team, Larry Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell is a parent and attorney in Roseville, California. He is also president of Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), a non-profit organization which has advocated for quality science education policies in the Roseville school district to guarantee that science will not be taught dogmatically and that teachers will "help students analyze the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories, including the theory of evolution." Under Larry's leadership, QSEA has been involved in a lawsuit to end Establishment Clause violations by Darwinists who are using taxpayer money to promote pro-Darwinian theology via the Understanding Evolution website. More information can be found at QSEA.org.
Larry will be occasionally reporting here to keep readers apprised of his activities and comment on issues related to the teaching of evolution. His kickoff-post recounts a biology professor who e-mailed QSEA, impersonating either a creationist or a Darwinist.
Parents and students beware: the author of a leading college biochemistry textbook believes that pro-intelligent design students are not smart and should not be admitted to college. Discussing the UCSD Robert Pennock lecture, UncommonDescent reports that Larry Moran, professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto and author of the widely used college biochemistry textbook, Principles of Biochemistry, thinks that UCSD should not admit students who are pro-ID. In a post entitled, "Flunk the IDiots," Professor Moran wrote:
I agree with the Dembski sycophants that UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake, it's hopeless to expect that a single lecture—even one by a distinguished scholar like Robert Pennock—will have any effect. The University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.
(University of Toronto Biochemistry Professor Larry Moran, author of Principles of Biochemistry in "Flunk the IDiots")
It is also worth noting that Professor Moran called ID-proponents "IDiots" and "sycophants." A sycophant is "a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite." This is the mindset and attitude of a leading biochemist who writes textbooks used by thousands of undergraduates.
This final installment of the response to National Geographic's recent evolution article will discuss both Carl Zimmer's scientific arguments regarding the evolution of the eye, and his theological arguments which he uses to claim the eye was not designed. Before Zimmer discussed "conservation" among genes controlling eye development in widely different types of eyes (reminiscent of common design), he does some blocking by using theological arguments against eye design. Up to this point, Zimmer avoided typical evolutionary icons, but once he started to make the dysteleological argument that the eye is "far from perfect," he slipped into classical Darwinist iconography.
Zimmer cites 3 lines of evidence which he thinks count against design of the vertebrate eye: (1) our retinas may become detached after "a sharp punch to the head"; (2) light-gathering cells point inward, not outward towards the light; (3) the optic nerve creates a blind spot because it starts in front of the retina before going into the brain. Based on this evidence, Zimmer concludes that "[e]volution, with all its blunders, made the eye."
Zimmer's argument is based upon 2 fallacies: (a) that "imperfect" or "suboptimal" design implies no design, and (b) that the eye has an obviously suboptimal design.
(a) Firstly, Zimmer's claim that an eye is not designed because our retinas may become detached after "a sharp punch to the head" is not a scientific argument: intelligent design doesn't require "perfection," nor does it require that a system always survive malicious physical attacks. Was the Ford Pinto, with all its imperfections revealed in crash tests, not designed?
Zimmer thus presents a straw-man argument against intelligent design, based upon his view that a designer must design things to withstand a certain type of malicious physical attack. This is not a scientific objection, but a theological objection. As a scientific theory, intelligent design does not require that systems always survive malicious physical beatings: as a science, ID requires the detection of specified complexity, and the moral purposes of the designer or the "perfection" of the design are irrelevant when determining whether an object was designed. But Carl Zimmer's personal theological views have no bearing upon the science of intelligent design. A more interesting question is, Why has National Geographic become a mouthpiece for a view of theology that states that a designer must design things to withstand certain types of physical attacks?
(b) Secondly, the design of the eye actually isn't inefficient, refuting this tired icon. Both the presence of the blind-spot and the inward orientation of light-recepting cells—cited by Zimmer as evidence against "perfection"—are actually the result of an eye design which appears optimized for high visual acuity. George Ayoub explains why vertebrate eye design does not even appear to be suboptimal:
It has been commonly claimed that the vertebrate eye is functionally suboptimal, because photoreceptors in the retina are oriented away from incoming light. However, there are excellent functional reasons for vertebrate photoreceptors to be oriented as they are. Photoreceptor structure and function is maintained by a critical tissue, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which recycles photopigments, removes spent outer segments of the photoreceptors, provides an opaque layer to absorb excess light, and performs additional functions. These aspects of the structure and function of the vertebrate eye have been ignored in evolutionary arguments about suboptimality, yet they are essential for understanding how the eye works.
[...]
[I]ndeed, our thought experiment has taken the vertebrate eye rapidly downhill. In trying to eliminate the blind spot, we have generated a host of new and more severe functional problems to solve. Our "repair" seems far worse than the apparent flaw we wanted to fix.
(George Ayoub, "On the Design of the Vertebrate Retina," Origins & Design 17:1; read the full article to get an appreciation for the argument)
Carl Zimmer's dysteleological argument makes inappropriate theological assumptions that a designer must make things to withstand certain physical attacks. The argument also makes inappropriate scientific assumptions which assumes that the presence of the "blind spot" implies suboptimal design. Both assumptions are false. It's time to put to rest the evolutionary icon of "poor design of the eye's retina.” Just like the panda's thumb, the vertebrate eye functions quite well.
Eye - Carumba
Carl Zimmer does make one scientific argument about the eye. His article has a diagram showing various types of eyes, asserting that the gradations of extant eye types imply that step-wise evolution of the eye is possible. This type of diagram is common among ID-critics, and it is almost becoming an icon in-and-of itself. It brings to mind an excellent passage from Thomas Woodward's new book Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design:
I once asked the renowned Princeton biologist John Tyler Bonner how he would explain the macroevolution of such complex organs. In response, he directed me to George Gaylord Simpson's book, The Meaning of Evolution. Simpson's answer--looking at a suggestive sequence or gradation of different eyes, from simple to complex--was not much advanced on Darwin's. Do we really know that natural selection can accomplish the drastic morphological transitions between these different types of eyes, with all the knitting and organizing of new complex proteins? (Thomas Woodward, Darwin Strikes Back (Baker, 2006))
Thank you for reading this series of responses. Readers with questions or comments may contact me at cluskin@discovery.org.
On Tuesday, I reported that the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) required all freshmen to attend an anti-ID lecture by Robert Pennock. Apparently it was a packed house in the 5000-seat RIMAC arena, illustrating that thousands of freshmen did attend (as they were required). In my prior post I noted that Pennock’s “arguments are fairly standard misrepresentations of intelligent design” and tried to make “educated predictions about Pennock will say.” I know many pro-ID people were in the audience. One friend contacted me and confirmed that most of my predictions about Pennock’s arguments were correct. Pennock made the following arguments, as I predicted:
Wrongly claimed ID appeals to the supernatural;
Misquoted ID proponents about the nature of intelligent design (for example, he apparently misquoted William Dembski, taking the Logos quote out of context);
Attacked ID-proponents for being religious (while obviously ignoring the anti-religious views of some leading Darwinists);
Made much ado about religious motives and the “Wedge Document” (while apparently not discussing anti-religious motives of ID-critics nor the scientific goals stated in the “Wedge document”);
Claimed all of this made ID unscientific and unconstitutional, ignoring the Principle of Methodological Equivalence for ID and Evolution.
Why Not Praise UCSD for Discussing ID?
A friendly questioner e-mailed me asking why I am not praising UCSD for discussing ID, as this would seem to endorse our "teach the controversy" approach in the college setting (where there is more academic freedom than the high school setting). I said the following in response (shortened a bit for this post):
My view of “teach the controversy” is like what Phillip Johnson had in mind:
"Of course students should learn the orthodox Darwinian theory and the evidence that supports it, but they should also learn why so many are skeptical, and they should hear the skeptical arguments in their strongest form rather than in a caricature intended to make them look as silly as possible.” (Phillip Johnson, The Wedge of Truth (Intervarsity Press, 1999), 82)
What Pennock has done is presented “a caricature intended to make them look as silly as possible”—he has not actually presented both sides of this issue in their strongest form. I can promise you: if UCSD later brings in a pro-ID speaker and requires freshmen to attend, I will put something up praising the university and retract anything I said earlier about their lack of fairness. (As I said, if I were a betting man, I’d bet large sums of money that this won’t happen).
Final Note: Did All Freshmen Have to Attend?
Finally, there have been questions as to whether all freshmen were actually required to attend. UCSD is composed of 6 undergraduate colleges, and one page suggested only students from "Sixth College" had to attend. If that is the case then ~1/6 of all freshmen would still have to attend. But the day of the event, the main student website at UCSD, Tritonlink, clearly stated that all UCSD freshmen have to attend. The website read, "All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend the event" (see here for a screen shot). To clear up any ambiguity, I called a friend who knows UCSD students and found that they had confirmed with an undergraduate that Pennock’s lecture was indeed mandatory for all freshmen. That seems to settle this question firmly.
Perhaps there is the remote chance that both the main UCSD student website and this undergraduate were wrong. Where does this leave us? This doesn’t change the fact that the main UCSD student website still posted the notice that “All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend the event” (emphasis added). From the reports I have been told, RIMAC, a venue that holds about 5000, was packed with students. I seriously doubt that such a large number of students were dying to attend Pennock's lecture on a Tuesday night. It still appears that thousands of freshmen attended this ID-bashing lecture, thinking they were required to do so.
Addendum: If all freshmen were not required to attend, then my posts had nothing to do with any potential confusion on the part of UCSD students: I did not post anything about this matter until about 1 hour and 20 minutes before Pennock's lecture started. Most UCSD freshmen probably do not constantly monitor this website, so that is not enough time for my post to have had any impact upon what UCSD freshmen thought. Rather, UCSD freshmen probably heard they had to attend from UCSD's main student website which stated all day prior to Pennock's lecture that freshmen were required to attend.
We recently discussed how New Scientist reporter Celeste Biever unnecessarily used a fake identity to talk to the IDEA Club at Cornell. Over the past year, I’ve had a few analogous encounters where Darwinist biologists have used their positions at major secular universities to feign being pro-ID in an unnecessary deception to engage in dialogue. One very recent example is a biologist at Northeastern University in Boston named Donald M. O'Malley.
In September, 2006, Dr. O'Malley wrote me an e-mail saying that he was pro-ID and that “the grandest of designs [is] the central nervous system.” He said that he shared this information “in confidence” because “there are certain parties that certainly would not be sympathetic to my views” and therefore wanted to stay “under the radar.” He even said, “I am having trouble getting my research refunded by NIH (20 rejected grant applications in a row). If they identify me as a design theorist, this would only get worse, I expect.”
I responded to O’Malley with the usual kindness which I extend to anyone, whether pro-Darwin or pro-ID. He then replied back:
You have been a kind and understanding person and so it is with some regret that I must tell you that my emails to you were misleading. . . . As a bit of a subterfuge, I feigned sympathy for the ID movement, within the context of understanding how the CNS works. . . . My writings were tailored to lead you to a false perception and I not only apologize for this deception, but I am also frankly embarrassed by my actions.
Ironically, O’Malley also claimed that the reason he contacted me with deception was because he was “originally interested in trying to understand how an intelligent person could hold [your] beliefs.” If he wanted to know my reasons for holding my scientific views, all he had to do was ask and disclose his true identity and intentions: I’m willing to talk to anyone as long as they are being honest with me, and I regularly engage in friendly dialogues with Darwinists.
Dr. O'Malley was a rare case of a Darwinist who ultimately followed his conscience and disclosed his true identity. That should be to his credit. Another example will be discussed in the coming days who does not seem to have yet admitted anything. But the moral of this story is that the public should be aware of this pattern: some Darwinists at major U.S. universities and in the media are using their power and position in order to deceive people through unnecessary lies--claiming they are pro-ID and attempting to get information from those who are pro-ID.
Science writer Denyse O'Leary has just published a four-part series about peer-review on her Post-Darwinist website. It is a thorough overview of what peer-review is and what some of the problems are with the current system. She has some interesting ideas on how this may be resolved in the future, but it is her identification of one major problem that is of most interest to the ID/evolution debate.
O'Leary notes that: Generally, the two most common complaints are that peer review fails to safeguard quality, which was its original purpose and that it punishes new ideas, regardless of merit. ...
Findings that support a consensus are too easily accepted - that is the inevitable flip side to squelching new ideas. Indeed, this is one of the problems that many design scientists have run up against in trying to get their papers published. Michael Behe has written about some of the problems he's faced in getting published in peer-review journals: The take-home lesson I have learned is that, while some science journal editors are individually tolerant and will entertain thoughts of publishing challenges to current views, when a group (such as the editorial board) gets together, orthodoxy prevails. Here are direct quotes from letters responding to submissions by Behe written by editors of major scientific journals: I'm torn by your request to submit a (thoughtful) response to critics of your non-evolutionary theory for the origin of complexity. On the one hand I am painfully aware of the close-mindedness of the scientific community to non-orthodoxy, and I think it is counterproductive. But on the other hand we have fixed page limits for each month's issue, and there are many more good submissions than we can accept. So, your unorthodox theory would have to displace something that would be extending the current paradigm. Another journal editor writes: As you no doubt know, our journal has supported and demonstrated a strong evolutionary position from the very beginning, and believes that evolutionary explanations of all structures and phenomena of life are possible and inevitable. Hence a position such as yours, which opposes this view on other than scientific grounds, cannot be appropriate for our pages. Of course Behe supports his work on completely scientific grounds, but the editorial board had already decided that someone whose views didn't completely match theirs would not be allowed to be heard. Behe defended his work as science in a letter responding to one journal that opted not to publish him: The manuscript did not argue for intelligent design, nor did it say that complex systems would never be explained within Darwinian theory. Rather, it just made the simple, obvious, and unarguable point that gene duplication by itself is an incomplete explanation. Apparently, however, my skepticism about Darwinism overshadowed all other points. Everything I wrote beyond the first sentence was pretty much ignored or dismissed without engagement. I should also point out that, on the one hand, my paper discussed published experiments on specific genes in the clotting cascade of mice, the published misinterpretation of those experiments, and why that shows we need more information than sequence similarity to explain the origin of the cascade and other systems. O'Leary hits the nail on the head in recognizing the main problem with the current peer-review system. The overwhelming flaw in the traditional peer review system is that it listed so heavily toward consensus that it showed little tolerance for genuinely new findings and interpretations. The print and postage-based technologies of the mid-twentieth century greatly increased the significance of this flaw because only a few parties could afford to operate publishing systems. A small like-minded cabal can easily get control of such a system and run it into the ground, without significant challenge. By contrast, Internet-based technologies permit widespread low-cost access. The Internet may help to restore a more open and creative conversation - though it certainly won't sound pretty at first. To sum up, science journals that are wedded to Darwinian evolution refuse to publish authors who explicitly advocate intelligent design. Then Darwinists attack intelligent design as unscientific because it isn't published in peer-reviewed journals. As Borat might say, "very nice."
For years the Darwinian lobbyists at the National Center for Science Education (NSCE) have falsely complained that scientists who support the theory of intelligent design don’t publish peer-reviewed articles, never mind that we have listed a number of pro-ID peer-reviewed papers on the Discovery Institute website. And there are hundreds of peer-reviewed articles that challenge one aspect or another of Darwinian evolution in the scientific literature.
When an article has appeared in a biology journal that the NCSE couldn't spin out of existence, they immediately clamored that the article shouldn’t have been published, despite the fact that it was approved by peer-review.
The article in question was, of course, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," written by CSC Director Dr. Stephen Meyer, and it appeared in the biology journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The Proceedings is a peer-reviewed biology journal published at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Meyer’s article explicitly argued that the theory of intelligent design explains the origin of the genetic information in early animal forms better than current materialistic theories of evolution.
"It's too bad the Proceedings published it," lamented anthropologist Eugenie Scott, executive director of the NCSE. "... This article is substandard science."
In an interview with The Scientist, the editor of The Proceedings, Richard Sternberg, confirmed that Meyer’s article went through the standard peer-review process, and the three peer reviewers of the paper "all hold faculty positions in biological disciplines at prominent universities and research institutions, one at an Ivy League university, one at a major U.S. public university, and another at a major overseas research institute."
At the time, Meyer commented, “Darwinists have argued that intelligent design isn’t science because it hasn’t been published in peer-reviewed journals. But now that an increasing number of scientists are making their case for design in scientific publications, Darwinists are ready to disown peer-review—temporarily, I’m sure.”
As O'Leary's report on the state of peer-review asserts and the responses from journal editors make obvious, Darwinists seem to embrace peer-review only when it confirms their pre-determined conclusions. Their goal isn’t peer-review, it’s censorship. They want to squelch any dissent from the Darwinian paradigm.
In Part I, I discussed how Carl Zimmer's recent article, "From Fins to Wings," in National Geographic quoted a biologist in a fashion that sounded like an advertisement for evolution. While the article obviously was not pro-ID, it ironically discussed much evidence which ID-proponents often contend supports intelligent design. This segment of the 3-part response will discuss evidence for design from "conservation" in developmental genes.
Evolutionarily Conserved Genes or Common Design?
"From Fins to Wings" discusses many examples of similar genes controlling similar developmental processes in widely different organisms. ID-proponents have taken this re-usage of genetic coding components as indicative of common design. Pro-ID scientist Mike Gene has noted that we have to be careful when advancing arguments about common design:
I am reluctant to advance the old thesis of common design because of its nasty ad hoc flavor. Nevertheless, we are exploring the world through the Design Matrix and I simply cannot subscribe to the notion that a designer would always reinvent the wheel every time a machine is invented.
(Common Design by Mike Gene)
Gene's statement seems fair. In my view, the case for common design becomes much stronger when one finds genetic similarity expressed in the fundamental programs of many species, in places perhaps unexpected by common descent. Thus the National Geographic article reports:
The genes responsible for laying out the fly's body plan have nearly identical counterparts in many other animals, ranging from crabs to earthworms to lampreys to us. The discovery came as a surprise, since these animals have such differently looking bodies.
But "the discovery" should come as no surprise to anyone who recognizes that designers often re-use parts that work in different designs. Other examples discussed in the article which ID-proponents might argue imply common design include:
Genes that control neural cell development in larvaceans are also at work in the development of our own brains;
The same genes control eye development in organisms as diverse as insects, cats, scallops, octuposes, and ragworms;
The same genes control the growth of feathers and scales;
A similar genetic map is found on the tips of stems before flowers grow and also on early animal embryos.
Designer Analogies
Sean Carroll is quoted in the National Geographic article noting that animal development entails "variations on a theme." But the "variations on a theme" metaphor is most applicable to an intelligent composer reusing basic music segments with slight variations to design beautiful music. Similarly, the article quotes Todd Oakley saying, "It's like remodeling a house. You don't have to start from scratch; you just change certain elements." While Carroll and Oakley are staunch evolutionists, in light of Mike Gene’s comments above, composers and construction engineers are interesting choices of analogy: both are intelligent agents.
How easy is it to remodel a house through a blind, random process? The article glosses over some difficulties faced by blind evolution of developmental genes recognized in other places. These difficulties were discussed in an earlier Time magazine article:
The drawback for scientists is that nature's shrewd economy conceals enormous complexity. Researchers are finding evidence that the Hox genes and the non-Hox homeobox genes are not independent agents but members of vast genetic networks that connect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other genes. Change one component, and myriad others will change as well—and not necessarily for the better. Thus dreams of tinkering with nature's toolbox to bring to life what scientists call a "hopeful monster"— such as a fish with feet—are likely to remain elusive.
(Where Do Toes Come From?)
Where are the detailed step-by-step explanations of how evolution "tinkered" with genes so as to create functional advantages and functional intermediates while "remodeling" species? Zimmer provides none. Successful "remodeling," it would seem, inherently implicates intelligent design.
Since 1998, Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson, Jonathan Wells, William Dembski, and Paul Nelson have all spoken at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). Now UCSD is striking back. Tonight, anti-ID philosopher of science Robert Pennock is being paid by UCSD's Council of Provosts and the Division of Biological Sciences to speak against intelligent design in a lecture that is free and open to the public in UCSD's RIMAC Arena (which holds about 5000 people). Of course, these groups are all taxpayer-supported. Not only is this free event open to anyone, but TritonLink, the UCSD student website, on its main home-page, reports that Professor Pennock's lecture is mandatory attendance for all freshmen: "All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend the event, which is open to the public":
If a major public biology research university like UCSD is requiring freshmen to attend talks by leading anti-ID philosophers, could the anti-ID bias in the academy be any clearer? Will UCSD later invite a pro-ID speaker which all freshmen are required to hear? I had a great experience at UCSD despite its anti-ID bias. But if you're a student at UCSD (like I was for 5 years, getting my undergraduate and masters degrees), would you consider this mandatory lecture to more closely resemble objective education or one-sided, mandatory indoctrination against intelligent design?
If you're not forced to attend, I say you should still go hear Pennock speak. I chose to take about a dozen courses dealing with evolution in an anti-ID fashion while at UCSD. But if you are forced to attend, what should you expect? Pennock was the anti-ID expert witness in philosophy of science for the plaintiffs during the Kitzmiller trial. I directly observed, in the courtroom, nearly all of Pennock's testimony during the trial. His arguments are fairly standard misrepresentations of intelligent design:
If you attend tonight, you will see him simply claim that ID requires supernatural causation, and therefore is a form of special creationism. He will then explain that science prohibits invoking the supernatural, asserting that a "ground rule" of science is methodological naturalism. He will then conclude that therefore ID is not science. His arguments are easy to refute.
A User's Guide to Refuting Pennock
I can't precisely predict what Pennock will say tonight. But based upon his Kitzmiller testimony, here are my educated predictions about Pennock will say, along with some useful resources for rebuttal:
ID appeals to the supernatural
Whether or not methodological naturalism is a ground rule of science, we can show that ID isn't unscientific by noting that it does not appeal to the supernatural, but respects the limits of science by only invoking intelligent causes which are detected using uniformitarian scientific reasoning. Pennock's claims are easily refuted by looking at what the textbook used in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case says on this point. Conspicuously, that Pennock mentioned none of these quotations in his Kitzmiller testimony (which you would think would be highly relevant to whether ID requires the supernatural):
If science is based upon experience, then science tells us the message encoded in DNA must have originated from an intelligent cause. But what kind of intelligent agent was it? On its own, science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy. But that should not prevent science from acknowledging evidences for an intelligent cause origin wherever they may exist. This is no different, really, than if we discovered life did result from natural causes. We still would not know, from science, if the natural cause was all that was involved, or if the ultimate explanation was beyond nature, and using the natural cause (Of Pandas and People, pg. 7, 2nd ed, 1993.)
Surely the intelligent design explanation has unanswered questions of its own. But unanswered questions, which exist on both sides, are an essential part of healthy science; they define the areas of needed research. Questions often expose hidden errors that have impeded the progress of science. For example, the place of intelligent design in science has been troubling for more than a century. That is because on the whole, scientists from within Western culture failed to distinguish between intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot. Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science (Of Pandas and People, pg. 126-127, 2nd ed, 1993).
The idea that life had an intelligent source is hardly unique to Christian fundamentalism. Advocates of design have included not only Christians and other religious theists, but pantheists, Greek and Enlightenment philosophers and now include many modern scientists who describe themselves as religiously agnostic. Moreover, the concept of design implies absolutely nothing about beliefs and normally associated with Christian fundamentalism, such as a young earth, a global flood, or even the existence of the Christian God. All it implies is that life had an intelligent source (Of Pandas and People, pg. 161, 2nd ed, 1993).
Clearly intelligent design refers to intelligent causes, and does not try to speculate about religious questions about the nature or identity of the designer, because ID theory respects the epistemological limits of scientific inquiry. This is not an attempt to dodge legal rulings or be coy, but is a serious attempt to construct a scientific theory which respect the limits of science. Indeed many ID-proponents who believe in God (such as me) are very open about that fact, and we also note that the belief that God is the designer is a personal religious belief and not a conclusion of ID-theory. ID only detects intelligent causes.
Indeed, the Pandas textbook seems to adopt methodological naturalism, Pennock's favorite definitional "ground rule" of science. Pandas thus states: "intelligence ... can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural ... cannot." So ID doesn't even violate methodological naturalism which Pennock will assert is a "ground rule" of science. For a more detailed discussion, read Traipsing Into Evolution.
Out-Of-Context Quotations of ID-Proponents Talking about God
As he did during his Kitzmiller testimony, Pennock may cite out-of-context quotations from ID-proponents where they discuss their religious beliefs in God. These egregious misquotes do not represent what ID-proponents actually think are the conclusions of ID theory, but are rather their personal religious beliefs. A detailed discussion of some of these common misquotes can be found here.
Mongering the Motives of ID-Proponents
Pennock may assert that ID-proponents are religiously motivated. There are multiple ways to address or rebut this argument. First, what motivation did the famous atheist philosopher Antony Flew have to say, "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design"? Flew’s statement demonstrates that ID is based upon empirical science. Second, what about Darwinist motives? Many of them seem to have explicitly anti-religious inspiration for promoting evolution. See here for documentation of anti-religious motives of some leading Darwinists, and here for documentation of the anti-religious beliefs of some leading Darwinists.
Making Much Ado About the Wedge Document
Pennock may discuss the "Wedge Document," asserting that it claims that ID seeks to insert the supernatural into science. This is not true, as is seen in The "Wedge Document": "So What?”. For another discussion of the Wedge Document, including documentation of the anti-religious documents endorsed by many leading Darwinists, see here.
References to his Avida Paper as a Refutation of Irreducible Complexity
Pennock may also discuss a paper he co-authored in Nature which used computer simulations to attempt to evolve complexity. The first question here is why is a philosopher co-authoring a technical paper on computer simulations of evolution in the most prominent scientific journal in the world? The answer? Because this was a politically charged paper which Pennock coauthored to ensure that the other authors, who were actually scientists, towed the Darwinian party line. Given the political nature of this paper, it comes as no surprise that it stacks the deck in favor of evolution. While the mutations occurred at "random," the types of allowable mutations were pre-programmed, such that given the types of allowable mutations, the starting point required only a relatively small number of such mutations to acquire the target function, called "EQU." [ This sentence revised for clarity of intent.] This paper poses no challenge to intelligent design, and a fairly detailed discussion can be found here. If there is no scientific controversy over evolution here, why are Darwinists publishing papers in Nature co-authored by anti-ID philosophers, to defend (albeit inadequately) Darwinism from the challenges of intelligent design?
The Principle of Methodological Equivalence:
Once you understand that Pennock is misrepresenting intelligent design when he claims it requires supernatural causation, you should keep this principle in mind as you listen to Pennock:
Science is a way of knowing. When assessing whether a given claim is scientific, all that matters is if an empirically-based, scientific methodology of knowing is given to back the claim. Alleging that a claim is religious and unscientific because of (a) the larger philosophical implications of the claim, (b) the religious beliefs of the claimant, (c) the motives of the claimant, or (d) some historical relationship between certain types of religious persons and that claim, uses an irrelevant argument. Evolutionists should consider this carefully because intelligent design and evolution are methodologically equivalent: Any argument invoking (a) through (d) to disqualify intelligent design from being science would similarly disqualify evolution from being science, if the facts and the argument were applied fairly.
ID is a positive, empirically based argument which does not appeal to the supernatural, which makes its arguments using uniformitarian reasoning and a scientific way of knowing, and no amount of motive-mongering by Pennock can change that fact.
Given that I'm a UCSD alum, I have a few friends attending the event. Perhaps Professor Pennock will even be kind enough to mention this blog post in his mandatory lecture to all UCSD freshmen. If you need help responding to anything Professor Pennock says, or would like to report on the event, feel free to e-mail me at cluskin@discovery.org.
If you have not seen it already, you will enjoy playing with this random mutation generator. You will see how wonderful the Darwinian process is at taking your text and moving on to ever-greater levels of complexity.
Many ENV readers may recall Richard Dawkins’s now famous blunder
in The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins claimed that a Darwinian process can create meaningful information, such as Hamlet’s phrase, “Methinks it is like a weasel." Whereas it is very improbable to hit upon this sequence of letters all at one time, Dawkins attempted to show that the Darwinian step-by-step process could do it by taking advantage of small “mutations,” preserving the advantageous changes and getting rid of the unhelpful ones. And in this way such a process could eek toward the meaningful Shakespearian sentence.
As Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt note in their new book, A Meaningful World,
Dawkins is trying to demonstrate that in assessing the powers of chance to produce a living being or a complex organ, evolutionists are not claiming that, say, a functional grackle’s wing pops into existence in one fell swoop. Rather, evolution always works by cumulative steps, building slowly to the goal through a long series of functional intermediates.
And in this way, Dawkins moves from a meaningless string of letters to the phrase “Methinks it is like a weasel.” But, as Wiker and Witt show, Dawkins’s experiment fails on at least two accounts. First, the process is not blind. That is, Dawkins programmed the computer with a target sequence of “Methinks it is like a weasel.” According to Darwinists, nature has no such goal. So the analogy is faulty. According to A Meaningful World, “The program mimics guided or teleological evolution, not Darwinian evolution.”
Second, “the functional intermediates aren’t functional.” For instance, even the starting sequence of WDLMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P does not have a function. Something truly mimicking Darwinian evolution would begin with a meaningful sentence and attempt to move to another meaningful sentence and maintain some sort of meaning (function) all along the way. "[A]ll nonsense strings would be eliminated as gibberish, only to be followed by another random go at the whole string on the next try."
For a fascinating discussion of how Dawkins’s reduction of Hamlet’s meaningful sentence is strikingly similar to the Darwinian reduction of organisms as unified living wholes, see chapter 2 of A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature.
CSC Senior Fellow John West is featured in Human Events this week, offering a reality check and a history lesson on the debate over Darwinian evolution.
The debate over Darwinian evolution is typically framed by the news media as a clash between “right” and “left.” Conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, while liberals are presumed to be supportive of it.
As in most cases, reality is more complicated.
There always have been liberal critics of Darwin. In the early 20th Century, progressive reformer William Jennings Bryan fought for women’s suffrage, world peace—and against Darwinism. More recently, left-wing novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a self-described “secular humanist,” has called our human bodies “miracles of design” and faulted scientists for “pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn’t possibly have produced such machines.”
Click here to continue reading the article.
Over at her new blog, Mindful Hack, journalist Denyse O’Leary is presenting different views of how Darwinism interacts with morality. Michael Shermer thinks Darwinian evolution easily accounts for “Christian morality.” John West, author of the recently published Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, claims that Darwinism really implies moral relativism. Given how natural selection is invoked by Darwinists to explain behaviors ranging from rape to marital fidelity to selfishness to the Golden Rule, one is reminded of the maxim that “the theory that explains anything actually explains nothing.”
Recently Francis Collins, the renowned scientist and harmonizer of Darwin and faith, lectured before a packed auditorium at George Mason University in Virginia. One attendee and avid ENV reader, unimpressed with the harmonization, sent me this report:
His lecture focused on how evidence from cosmology and biology points to the creative power of God. To add fuel to the already hot topic, Collins directed attacks at both evolutionists and Christians alike. He leaned into atheistic evolutionists for not crediting God with any creative power and similarly attacked Christians who fail to give credit to the “powers” of evolution. Collins, a Christian himself, made the case that God used evolution, and more specifically Darwinian evolution, to produce the plant and animal life we see today.
“But is that possible?” one may ask. Can God use evolution? The way to answer that question depends on how you define evolution. If by evolution you simply mean change over time or genetic inheritance, no one would find a problem with that. If, however, you are talking about God using Darwinian evolution, as Collins did, you are ultimately forced to either believe in a God who doesn’t interact with his creation, the God of Deism, or an illogical God who can guide an unguided process.
I know at this point some readers are saying, "Oh, come on. We don't have to believe that the Darwinian process is random!" My response: What have you been reading? Of course the evolutionary process need not be random; but a Darwinian process—by definition—does. According to an open letter sent last year to the Kansas State Board of Education by 38 Nobel laureates, evolution is "the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection" (emphasis added). This view of evolution is repeated in countless biology textbooks and statements from evolutionary biologists. To continue:
Collins ascribed to himself a position he titled “Theistic Evolution.” By this, Collins clarified, he means that “God used the mechanism of evolution” and that God “designed the plan.” But this ultimately begs the question: How can God "guide" an "unguided, unplanned" process?
Collins argued that those who claim that God couldn’t have guided Darwinian evolution have “put God in a box.” But would Collins say the same thing for those who claim that God can’t make square circles? What about someone who claims that God couldn’t make himself cease to exist?
If Darwinian evolution--by definition--is "unguided" and "unplanned," then Collins's view seems logically incoherent. How can a process be both "guided" and "unguided" (or "planned" and "unplanned") at the same time? Either evolution is "unguided" as the Darwinists contend, or it is guided in some way—which means that the Darwinian view of evolution must be false.
SEATTLE– While conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, many on the right, such as George Will, James Q. Wilson, and Larry Arnhart, have mounted a vigorous defense of Darwinism. As Discovery Institute’s John West explains in his new book, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest (Discovery Institute Press, 2006), their attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology misunderstand both.
In this small but incisive book, Dr. John G. West addresses how Darwin’s theory, contrary to its conservative champions, manifestly does not reinforce the teachings of conservatism. “John West rolls through the arguments for a pro-Darwin conservatism like an Abrams tank leveling a street barricade: methodically and irresistibly,” declares noted conservative thinker and writer George Gilder. “If there are any conservative Darwinists left after this rout, it’s only because they won’t stand and fight.”
According to West, Darwinism promotes moral relativism rather than traditional morality. It fosters utopianism rather than limited government. It is corrosive, rather than supportive, of both free will and religious belief. Finally, and most importantly, Darwinian evolution is in tension with the scientific evidence, and conservatism cannot hope to strengthen itself by relying on Darwinism’s increasingly shaky empirical foundations.
This book issues a challenge to conservatives they cannot afford to ignore. According to William Dembski, author of The Design Revolution, “Conservative pundits all too often have a blind spot for that outdated Victorian creation myth known as Darwinism… finally, here is a book that holds their feet to the fire and sets the record straight.” According to Steven Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan, “No one can consider themselves fully acquainted with the issue of intelligent design without confronting the serious critique in this book.” And Prof. J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas, Austin, hails the book for “showing clearly that Darwinism is not a source of conservative insight into human nature, but only a source of confusion.”
Discovery Institute will celebrate Dr. West's new work with a book release party on December 13, 2006. The event is free and open to the public.
To learn more about Darwin's Conservatives, click here.
To be released as a trade paperback in November, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest is 160 pages and has a suggested retail price of $14.95.
Dr. John G. West is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute. Formerly the chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, Dr. West has written, edited, or co-authored ten books, including Traipsing into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision and The Politics of Revelation and Reason.
National Geographic's pro-evolution articles sometimes come off like advertisements for Darwin (for an analysis of a prior ad, see here). Its November, 2006 issue has an article, "From Fins to Wings," by Carl Zimmer which quotes Harvard microbiologist Howard Berg saying "The basic idea of evolution is so elegant, so beautiful, so simple." With such a ringing endorsement, I expected the article to urge me to buy evolution at the local grocery store! Zimmer's article, however, was better than many past evolution-endorsements in National Geographic. Past articles used icons like Haeckel's false "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" concept and antibiotic resistance to sell evolution. While Zimmer's present article retains the fallacious "the human eye was poorly designed" icon, it improves the treatment of embryology, discusses extreme conservation of developmental genes, and even tackles the biological complexity. In short, it discusses much evidence which ID-proponents legitimately claim challenges Neo-Darwinism or supports ID.
Haeckel Just Won't Die
After over 100 years, biologists are still making mistakes reminiscent of Haeckel's distortions. This article asserts that "[t]he early embryos of three different vertebrates--a fish, a chicken, and a human--look much the same." To his credit, Zimmer doesn't endorse Haeckel, however his statement is misleading because vertebrate embryos start off very different and then converge upon a similar stage partway through development--the stage that Zimmer selectively displays in his article. This "hourglass" pattern of development is shown in the graphic below:
This diagram by Jody Sjogren from page 100 of Jonathan Wells’s book, Icons of Evolution, shows that vertebrate embryos start off quite differently. Zimmer's diagram selectively displays embryos from the encircled stage where they are most similar.
These facts don't so fit neatly with Zimmer's claim that "[e]volution often reshapes organisms by tinkering with the genes that control development" because the hourglass pattern of development shows that transitions from fishlike development ultimately into other forms of development would require radical restructuring (not "tinkering") from the earliest stages of development.
The Simple Evolution of Complexity
The article called evolution a "simple" process. In our experience, does a "simple" process generate the type of vast complexity found throughout biology? The article tackles the evolution of the flagellum, but the only evidence hard it provides is the Type 3 Secretion System. Dembski refuted this argument long ago:
[F]inding a subsystem of a functional system that performs some other function is hardly an argument for the original system evolving from that other system. One might just as well say that because the motor of a motorcycle can be used as a blender, therefore the motor evolved into the motorcycle. Perhaps, but not without intelligent design. Indeed, multipart, tightly integrated functional systems almost invariably contain multipart subsystems that serve some different function. At best the TTSS represents one possible step in the indirect Darwinian evolution of the bacterial flagellum. But that still wouldn't constitute a solution to the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. What's needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we've discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that.
(Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken Miller by William Dembski)
Here is Zimmer's attempt to meet Dembski's call to "do better":
It all started with a pump-and-syringe assembly like those found on pathogens. In time, the syringe acquired a long needle, then a flexible hook at its base. Eventually it was linked with a power source: another kind of pump found in the cell membranes of many bacteria. Once the structure had a motor that could make it spin, the needle turned into a propellor, and microbes had new mobility.
Like one of Rudyard Kipling's just-so-stories, there are no details here, just assertions which don't address any of the actual biochemical complexities of acquiring flagellar motility. Zimmer quotes Mark Pallen on the origin of the flagellum, but Zimmer would have been most accurate to inform the public what Pallen recently wrote in Nature Reviews Microbiology: "the flagellar research community has scarcely begun to consider how these systems have evolved." (Mark J. Pallen and Nicholas J. Matzke, "From The Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella," Nature Reviews Microbiology, [Sept. 5, 2006].)
With its irreducibly complex nature and machinelike properties, perhaps the simplest explanation for the origin of the flagellum is intelligent design.
Discovery Institute senior fellow and nationally acclaimed bioethicist Wesley J Smith is having it out with NRO's John Derbyshire over human exceptionalism.
We've blogged about Derbyshire in the past and disagree with his views on science and Darwinian evolution especially. Recently, Smith posted an insightful essay about some of Derbyshire's latest rants against intelligent design at the First Things blog and noted: What I think Derbyshire lost along with his faith is the realization that human beings are much more than the mere sum of our parts and functions. We, unlike any other species, have taken a bold step outside the Darwinian realm of genetic impulse, instinct, and reflex. We are moral and intellectual beings with the ability to create, civilize, project over time, and transcend. According to Smith, Derbyshire responded with intellectual dishonesty. As Smith writes today on his Secondhand Smoke blog: John Derbyshire has responded in The Corner to my First Things blog entry chastising him for rejecting human exceptionalism along with his faith. He has every right to do so, of course. But he doesn't have the right to mischaracterize my arguments. He claims I grant humans a special place because we are "chosen and gifted by God." I never wrote any such thing--ever. My position is entirely secularly based. Read my piece and Derbyshire's disengenuous [sic] response and you will see that I am right. You can continue to follow the debate over at Secondhand Smoke. And next Tuesday you can tune in and listen to Wesley's brand new podcast, Brave New Bioethics. You can subscribe at the podcast homepage, http://bravenewbioethics.podomatic.com.
Click here to learn more about Discovery's Bioethics program.
In the wake of US elections, which largely focused on international issues such as terrorism and the war in Iraq, there have been some who think that this somehow means that scientists should ignore evidence for intelligent design, such as the fact that digital code in DNA and molecular machines in cells exist.
Canadian science writer Denyse O’Leary (first of Post-Darwinist, now of Mindful Hack fame) commented on our tendency in the US to think that elections here set the pace for everything else in the world. I hope no one will mind me saying this but many American intelligentsias are very, very parochial.
Do they think they have a patent on the ID controversy?
Do they think everyone knows or cares who they would vote for?
Or that it makes any difference?
There is a multitude of ways of knowing that Darwinism is false.
I look out on the world, I see ferment everywhere.
I just launched my Mindful Hack site an hour ago (neuroscience implications of ID) and already nearly 50 people have visited it.
I wonder how many voted in an American election and how? Of course, Denyse is not wrong. No matter what happens in the polling booth, or the courtroom, the scientific controversy remains just that – a scientific controversy.
David Sepkoski's recent literature review (“Worldviews in Collision: Recent Literature on the Creation*Evolution Divide”) in Journal of the History of Biology provides another illustration of the fact that many science journals are biased against intelligent design. He uses pejorative language against ID, claiming its proponents engage in a "guerilla campaign," calling specified complexity "Dembski’s hobby-horse," and asserting that Stephen Meyer's article contains a "confused interpretation of the Cambrian explosion" (though Sepkoski provides no specifics to bolster his point). Given the pejorative language, could the anti-ID bias in the scientific community be any clearer?
Sepkoski's omissions are more interesting than what he includes. He reviews no books by scientific proponents of intelligent design, such as The Privileged Planet, which was published in the same time period as other books Sepkoski reviews. But there is good reason why Sepkoski doesn't review any ID books. He believes that even mentioning them will add legitimacy to ID. Sepkoski explains that many in the scientific community have blasted Michael Ruse for merely co-editing an academic book on ID with William Dembski:
Some critics have noted that Ruse has of late gotten a bit too chummy with certain creationists, specifically with Dembski, with whom he edited the collection of essays Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA. Others have publicly worried that by agreeing to participate in such an enterprise at all, Ruse has wittingly or unwittingly helped ID proponents claim legitimacy for their position.
Sepkoski is clearly expounding the Darwinist dilemma: ID proponents have made potent arguments. If you ignore them, you look like you have no answers. If you address them, you concede there's a controversy. Or you can tap-dance around the issue, like Christoph Adami did in Science, citing vastly insufficient evidence to claim irreducibly complexity was explained, and then proclaiming the dispute to be a "political" controversy. Regardless, Sepkoski's demeaning tone clearly illustrates the intolerance against ID in the scientific community. This shows just how right Thomas Kuhn was to say that scientists "often intolerant of those [theories] invented by others."
Finally, Sepkoski calls Discovery Institute’s response to Judge Jones’s ruling a "desperate effort," but his various book reviews give zero mention of our book, Traipsing Into Evolution, which gives extensive reasons why the Judge was wrong. It appears that Sepkoski wants to keep scientists in the dark about intelligent design through ridicule, pejorative language, and censoring mention of ID literature and many of the arguments contained therein.
Cornell Professor Emeritus Richard A. Baer has an opinion piece in the Cornell Daily Sun that is right on target in several areas but completely lost when it comes to freedom of scientific inquiry and intelligent design. Baer rightly points out instances where staunch Darwinists such as Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins have clearly crossed out of the realm of science and into philosophy by making dogmatically materialistic statements such as Sagan's famous line that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." Baer explains that in his experience: A far more serious problem at Cornell and at most universities is the many illegal border crossings that go on in the opposite direction: claims made by scientists, speaking as scientists, that are really theological, philosophical or ethical claims, rather than scientific ones.
And Baer also correctly identifies the tendency, so prevalent in academia, to try and highjack science to support moral and political views: During my 30-plus years at Cornell, I’ve frequently witnessed social scientists using the design and content of courses and public lectures to press on students and colleagues various doctrines that could not be justified by their social science as such but rested on normative religious and philosophical judgments. Examples are multiculturalism; moral relativism; non-traditional views of marriage, divorce, family, male/female roles, sexual morality, homosexuality; etc. These are big-time illegal border crossings, but sadly, Cornell’s academic culture shows little interest in curbing them. Instead, faculty self-righteously condemn high school science teachers and state boards of education for the slightest tendency to traffic in the opposite direction. Strangely, Baer doesn't seem to understand that his own bias against intelligent design is just as dogmatic and just as wrong. While he condemns scientists and socials scientists for their close-mindedness, he too has the same problem. Although it certainly is appropriate for the Arts College faculty to discuss why including ID in high school science courses is improper, this concern is highly selective and perhaps a bit hypocritical. He even recognizes that this is hypocritical, but yet at the same time endorses this position because as he points out several times "I do not think intelligent design ("ID") qualifies as legitimate science."
So, what does Baer consider legitimate science? Modern science is "naturalistic": it deliberately ignores moral, religious and aesthetic aspects of reality and studies the world as if nothing exists but physical phenomena. However, this is a methodological, not a metaphysical naturalism; it is adopted for the limited objectives of science, not as a total world view. That statement applies equally to intelligent design and scientists whose research deals with what they view as evidence for intelligent design -- the immense amounts of complex code in DNA, the numerous molecular machines in cells, the amazing fine tuning of the laws of physics. All of these are things that can be researched and studied as physical phenomena. Intelligent design theory ignores "religious and aesthetic aspects of reality and studies the world as if nothing exists but physical phenomena." Intelligent design is also adopted by its proponents "for the limited objectives of science, not as a total world view." Baer should keep that in mind when he next advocates the inclusion in Cornell's curriculum of a class that denigrates ID while opposing any class that considers it openly and objectively and allows for supportive views of the theory to be put forth.
TIME magazine this week has an interesting discussion between Richard Dawkins, author most recently of The God Delusion, and Francis Collins, author of The Language of God. It is worth reading. Two observations:
First, I just can’t figure Collins out. Dawkins says the question of God is a scientific one for which there could be evidence. Collins, on the other hand, says the question of God’s existence is not scientific but “outside of science’s ability to really weigh in.” That said, Collins also claims he does not like Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of NOMA where science and religion do not overlap. But then Collins uses evidence for the fine-tuning of the laws of physics to argue for God’s existence. So apparently scientific evidence can weigh in on the question of God. I’m not sure what I am missing here. But I guess the take home point is that in practice Collins does think scientific evidence can point toward design (for him, God) and away from chance.
Dawkins’s comments on NOMA are spot on. Say what you want about Dawkins, but he’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. “I think that Gould’s separate compartments was [sic] a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it’s a very empty idea.” He thinks there are “plenty of places” where religious and scientific questions overlap. Except for the equation of Darwinists with “the science camp,” I concur.
Second, while Dawkins started off the debate claiming that the question of God was a scientific one for which there could be evidence for or against, later on, his argumentation contradicted this assertion—and Collins had the sight to call him on it. Just as noted philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote recently, Dawkins essentially eliminates a Designer for the universe not on evidential grounds but a priori. He claims that one cannot invoke God as an explanation because God is improbable (and who knows what magic calculus Dawkins is doing in his head to determine this improbability). The obvious problem, then, is that evidence for or against design doesn’t really matter. One could never be justified in inferring design—regardless of how good the evidence for it is! This is clearly a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose argument.
Collins spots this and says that science should by all means keep exploring the multiverse hypothesis and other materialistic alternatives to a designing intelligence for the fine-tuning of the universe, but he objects “to the assumption that anything outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation…you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world….” One might say that Dawkins ends up with a zero probability before examining the natural world.
In other words, Dawkins says one cannot infer that the universe was designed because one cannot invoke an improbable entity like God. So the evidence doesn’t matter. Only Richard Dawkins’s calculation of God’s improbability matters; and no evidence for the design of the laws of physics is going to change this.
To see this same fallacy at work in another debate over God, check out philosopher William Lane Craig's dismantling of arguments by the popular historian of religion Bart Ehrman.
[N.B. The TIME piece was a debate about God. But, for the record, ID as a scientific theory cannot identify the God of the Bible or any other as the designer. ID studies natural objects and tries to identify patterns in nature which are likely the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected cause like natural selection. -Logan]
Yesterday I blogged about my correspondence with New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean, who covers the evolution debate for the Times. Today I thought I would remind readers that this is not the first time we’ve reported about editorializing by Ms. Dean on the evolution issue. Last year, Dean wrote an op-ed advising evolutionists on what they should do to win the public debate over evolution. But the Times still assigns Ms. Dean to cover the evolution debate. Question: Would the Times assign a reporter to cover the abortion debate who had written an op-ed advising the pro-life movement on what it needed to do to in order to prevail? Conflicts of interest apparently don’t matter when the issue is evolution.
A few days ago, I took New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean to task for putting words in the mouth of Ohio Board of Education member Deborah Owens Fink. According to an article by Dean, “Dr. Owens Fink...said the [Ohio] curriculum standards she supported did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism.” But as I pointed out, Dr. Owens Fink did not call intelligent design “an ideological cousin of creationism,” even though Dean’s wording makes this appear to be the case. Those words represent Dean’s own editorial evaluation (in what was supposed to be a news article, not an editorial). According to Dr. Owens Fink, “the reporter... put words in the article that may represent her view but not mine.”
I contacted Ms. Dean to give her a chance to respond to my criticisms, and she graciously replied. What ensued was an exchange of views that helps illuminate the mindset of many reporters who cover the evolution issue. Here is Dean’s first response:
1. As the article said, the standards Dr. Owens Fink supports "did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Rather, she said, they urge students to subject evolution to critical analysis, something she said scientists should endorse." I did not intend to say, and I do not believe a reasonable reader would conclude, that Dr. Owens Fink asserted in those sentences that creationism is an ideological cousin of creationism. However, as a precaution and in the interests of fairness, I consulted colleagues here who are more knowledgeable about grammar than I am. They agree.
2. Intelligent design IS an ideological cousin of creationism. To say otherwise would be to mislead our readers. [emphasis added]
3. As far as I know, the article you cite accurately represented what Dr. Owens Fink said in our telephone conversations.
I then e-mailed Ms. Dean as follows:
Thanks for the answers. The comment in question was part of a dependent clause in a sentence attributed to Dr. Owens Fink, so it was not independent of the earlier part of the sentence. The only way it can be justified is if the dependent clause was simply neutral explanatory information to help the reader understand the comments of Dr. Owens Fink. But the phrase was not neutral explanatory information; it was editorializing. Terms like "ideological" and "creationism" are highly pejorative. The fact that you apparently think this is merely an objective description shows just how biased you are. You apparently were so afraid of letting Dr. Owens Fink speak for herself that you had to append your own comments at the end of the sentence to make sure that readers would know the "right" way to view her comments.
If you really think this was simply objective description, I look forward to seeing your next article about evolution where you insert parenthetical comments like "evolution, an ideological cousin to materialism," or "evolution, an ideological cousin to atheism" after the comments from defenders of evolution!
Ms. Dean responded as follows:
I have no desire to get into an argument with you, but I cannot resist responding to two assertions in this note.
I don't know exactly what you mean by "materialism" but certainly science looks in the natural world for answers to questions about the natural world. That is what differentiates science from religion.
I would never write that evolution is an ideological cousin to atheism. There are far too many accomplished evolutionary biologists who are people of strong religious faith for that to be the case. I have written about some of them.
Let me know if you would like to know who they are and I will send you information about them. Perhaps you might like to add information about them to your blog.
I then replied:
You have made my point for me. Of course, there are theists who believe in evolution (although not many at the very top of the profession, if surveys of biologists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences, etc. are to be believed). So it would certainly be unfair for a reporter to describe evolution as "an ideological cousin to atheism." But I would argue, similarly, that it is just as biased to refer to intelligent design as an "ideological cousin to creationism." Creationism is generally understood (among the public, as well as among most reporters I've talked with) as an effort to try to defend the Biblical account of creation. Creationism starts with the Bible and then looks to the natural world for evidence to verify its account. Intelligent design starts with the facts of the natural world and asks what can be reasonably inferred from this evidence. The argument for design in the natural world predates the Bible and can found in Plato, so you would have been more accurate to call intelligent design "an ideological cousin to Plato." It was also embraced by Alfred Wallace, the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection; this was one of the issues on which Darwin and Wallace differed. As one of the many ID proponents who does not think Genesis is some kind of science textbook (and who also accepts the old age of the universe; and who also has no religious objections to common ancestry), I resent efforts by reporters to try to fit intelligent design into their preconceived stereotypes. When I was in journalism school as an undergraduate, stereotyping--especially of minority viewpoints--was something we were repeatedly warned against.
As for how I define materialism--I mean the claim that everything in the universe can ultimately be explained as the product of unintelligent matter and energy. Part of the debate here is the "nature of nature." Do natural causes only include unintelligent causes, or do they also include intelligent causes? I happen to believe that intelligence is a part of nature. We see the effects of it throughout the natural world, and not just in human beings. When a beaver builds a dam or a bird builds a nest, or a monkey uses a stick as a crude tool, we see the reality of intelligence in nature. In each of these cases, we can infer intelligence based on its empirical effects. Positing intelligent causes in nature is not appealing to religion.
Ms. Dean did not reply to this. Of course, I understand that she has many other things to do than respond to be, and I appreciate that she responded at all, just as I appreciate her candid defense of evolution and attack on intelligent design. While I think that the exchange speaks for itself, I would like to point out the obvious: Ms. Dean sees her job as not only reporting on the debate about evolution, but advancing one particular side of that debate. She views intelligent design as warmed-over creationism, and she sincerely believes it is her duty to convince readers to share this view--using the news section of the New York Times. Note to journalists working for the old-line newsmedia: Do you really have no clue as to why so many people are losing their trust in you?
As we recently discussed here, there was a factually challenged article against intelligent design in a UK newspaper, The Independent. Given the anti-ID motive-mongering in the article, it is not surprising to find that the British Center for Science Education (BCSE) helped put the article together. The BCSE's Roger Stanyard admits that "[s]ome of you are aware that I helped in putting it together" and gives the URL, saying the article is "based n [sic] material and advice supplied by BCSE." (see here)
So how closely is this "British Center for Science Education" tied to the "National Center for Science Education" (NCSE) based in the United States? It's not entirely clear, but recently the NCSE's Nick Matzke explained that "Roger Stanyard suggested that I join the forums so that I could contribute whatever small bits of wisdom I might have." BCSE's website hopes you will believe that the BCSE "has a close working relationship with the National Center for Science Education in the USA."
More importantly, the BCSE is using one of the NCSE’s common strategies: attack the academic freedom of proponents of intelligent design. In an article titled "Think Twice Before Studying at Leeds University," the BCSE tries to discourage people from studying at Leeds because one of the professors there, Andy McIntosh, is pro-ID. The article compares McIntosh to those who are "crackpot[s]," members of "Druid organisations," and those who want "a Taliban-style … government." So the BCSE wants people to avoid a respectable university because of these false ad hominem attacks they are leveling at one of its professors. This is a harsh attack upon the academic freedom of Dr. McIntosh to hold his pro-ID views within the academy.
This strategy of personal attacks and attacks upon academic freedom is all too familiar to those who follow the behavior of leading American Darwinists. According to an investigator with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the NCSE was heavily involved in similar attacks upon Dr. Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian Institution (SI) and National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) after Sternberg oversaw the publication of a peer-reviewed pro-ID science article in a biology journal:
Of great import is the fact that these same SI and NMNH employees immediately aligned themselves with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Our investigation shows that NCSE is a political advocacy organization dedicated to defeating any introduction of ID, creationism or religion into the American education system. In fact, members of NCSE worked closely with SI and NMNH members in outlining a strategy to have you investigated and discredited within the SI. Members of NCSE, furthermore, e-mailed detailed statements of repudiation of the Meyer article to high level NMNH officials. In turn they sent them to the Society. There are e-mails that are several pages in length that map out their strategy. NCSE recommendations were circulated within the SI and eventually became part of the official public response of the SI to the Meyer article. OSC is not making a statement on whether the SI or NMNH was wrong or right in aligning with the NCSE, although OSC questions the use of appropriated funds to work with an outside advocacy group for this purpose. This is only discussed to show that the actions taken on the part of SI employees clearly had a political and religious component. Therefore, it may lend credence to your allegations that your religious and political affiliations were investigated and made a part of the actions taken against you.
(U.S. OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL letter to Dr. Richard Sternberg)
Will the BCSE seek to use such tactics against Leeds University professor Andy McIntosh?
The Denver Post published a very good review of two important new books about the debate over Darwinism and intelligent design, earlier this week. Doug Groothuis reviews both CSC Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells's new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, and the new book by professional skeptic Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design.
Wells criticizes Darwinism - a view that says every aspect of the natural world is explained by unguided natural processes - because of its lack of evidence. This stance requires that Wells shoulder the burden of proof, since Darwinists control the scientific establishment.
But Wells takes up the challenge by sticking closely to the scientific and philosophical issues at the heart of the debate. He not only critiques the weaknesses in Darwinism, but presents intelligent design as a constructive alternative. While titled a "politically incorrect guide," the book is never glib, although it is not lacking in wit or confidence.
On the other hand, editor and author Michael Shermer, formerly a professor of psychology, is generally condescending toward intelligent design. He even writes that his friends Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins, leading evolutionists, advised him to not stoop so low as to write a book against the theory. Groothuis sums up his review by making the case for giving people the information and letting them make up their own minds. For Shermer, Darwin matters because he has been vindicated by science, and science gives us the best account of reality possible. For Wells, Darwin built a house of cards that is supported more by ideology and materialist philosophy than science itself. Thinking people should be apprised of both sides and judge accordingly, because two very different and exceedingly important visions of reality are at stake.
Later this month Discovery Institute Press will publish a new book examining the misguided attempts of some conservatives to embrace Darwinism and champion it as compatible with conservative views. Most conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, yet a number of thinkers on the right, such as George Will, James Q. Wilson, and Larry Arnhart, have mounted a vigorous defense of Darwinism. Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John West will explain in Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest that the attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology ultimately misunderstand both.
In Darwin's Conservatives West addresses how Darwin’s theory, contrary to its conservative champions, manifestly does not reinforce the teachings of conservatism.
According to noted conservative thinker and writer George Gilder: John West rolls through the arguments for a pro-Darwin conservatism like an Abrams tank leveling a street barricade: methodically and irresistibly. If there are any conservative Darwinists left after this rout, it’s only because they won’t stand and fight. West disagrees with those who try to make Darwin’s theory compatable with traditional conservative values in a number of key areas. According to West: Darwinism promotes moral relativism rather than traditional morality. It fosters utopianism rather than limited government. It is corrosive, rather than supportive, of both free will and religious belief. Finally, and most importantly, Darwinian evolution is in tension with the scientific evidence, and conservatism cannot hope to strengthen itself by relying on Darwinism’s increasingly shaky empirical foundations. Darwin's Conservatives is a direct challenge to conservatives they cannot afford to ignore.
According to William Dembski, author of The Design Revolution, Conservative pundits all too often have a blind spot for that outdated Victorian creation myth known as Darwinism… finally, here is a book that holds their feet to the fire and sets the record straight. According to Steven Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan, “No one can consider themselves fully acquainted with the issue of intelligent design without confronting the serious critique in this book. And Prof. J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas, Austin, hails the book for “showing clearly that Darwinism is not a source of conservative insight into human nature, but only a source of confusion.”
We’ve been told time and again by both mainstream science organizations and the national media that, as the National Academy of Sciences puts it, “Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious beliefs.” While some may dismiss this as a dubious theological statement, it seems that more and more Darwinists are rejecting the NOMA facts-values dichotomy for reasons as old as Darwin's theory.
Here comes Harvard's Marc D. Hauser, an evolutionary biologist who is ready to demolish any illusion of NOMA. The New York Times reported yesterday on his attempt “to claim the subject [of morality] for science, in particular for evolutionary biology.”
Dr. Hauser’s proposal is that there is a universal “moral grammar,” an innate sense of right and wrong which transcends cultural norms. To anyone familiar with C. S. Lewis’s argument for traditional morality from The Abolition of Man, this is evidence for natural law, or what Lewis called “the Tao.” For Dr. Hauser, it becomes instead the basis for assuming that “the system that unconsciously generates moral judgments is immune to religious doctrine.” By removing both revelation (religion) and reason from the equation, Hauser is left with only one option: Darwinian evolution must be both the cause of and the key to our moral sense. This argument, which starts with evolution and ends wherever we currently find ourselves, goes back to what Darwin himself wrote on evolution and human morality in The Descent of Man. What makes this particular instance so noteworthy is how often this argument is obscured in order to further the claim that evolution has no religious implications… and how this review of Dr. Hauser’s new book lets it slip that “the proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences.” How’s that? It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior. (Emphasis mine)
The article even goes on to say admit that “[m]atters of right and wrong have long been the province of moral philosophers and ethicists… Moral philosophers may not welcome a biologist’s bid to annex their turf.” It looks like NOMA has been officially discarded, at least by The New York Times.
The September/October issue of Books & Culture has a review by CSC senior fellow Jonathan Wells of The Plausibility of Life by Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart, two eminent biologists. The book has been acclaimed since its arrival earlier this year for providing answers for the last remaining "gap" in Darwin's theory of evolution. Wells —an eminent biologist himself— is, not surprsingly, skeptical of the claim. (He knows a thing or two about the gaps in Darwin's theory.)
To overcome the weakness in existing evolutionary theory, Kirschner and Gerhart propose what they call "a major new scientific theory: facilitated variation." The authors note that organisms consist of "core processes" that have apparently been "conserved" since their evolution from a common ancestor. The most basic of these are found in all living organisms from bacteria to humans; for example, dna replication, protein synthesis, and metabolic pathways. Kirschner and Gerhart acknowledge that they have no explanation for the origin of these in the first living cell. "Evidence is completely lacking about what preceded this early cellular ancestor," they write. "Everything about evolution before the bacteria-like life forms is sheer conjecture."
There are other major transitions in the history of life that Kirschner and Gerhart also concede remain unexplained. One of these was the "invention" of the first eukaryotes, cells with nuclei that are very different from bacteria. "Generating the first eukaryotic cell was a major and enduring accomplishment," they write. "Extensive innovation showed up in the complexity and organization of the eukaryotic ancestor." Another major transition was the origin of multicellular organisms, which require complex mechanisms for cells to aggregate and communicate with each other. Still another unexplained transition was the origin of animal body plans in the Cambrian explosion. "Once again," write Kirschner and Gerhart, "a new suite of cellular and multicellular functions emerged rather quickly and was conserved to the present."
Some other major transitions that Kirschner and Gerhart concede remain unexplained are the origin of limbs in the first land vertebrates, the origin of neural crest cells that sculpt the heads and nervous systems of vertebrates, and the origin of the neocortex in vertebrate brains. "The origin of these processes and properties would seem to be the primary events of evolution, requiring high novelty," but the authors admit they cannot explain them. So, what does their theory explain? According to Wells, Kirschner and Gerhart are basically just speculating. They don't have much evidence to backup their speculations. Where, then, is the evidence that "facilitated variations" can produce heritable changes that lead to evolutionary novelty? Kirschner and Gerhart write:
"At some point, such heritable regulatory changes will be created in a test animal in the laboratory, generating a trait intentionally drawing on various conserved processes. At that point, doubters would have to admit that if humans can generate [such] variation in the laboratory in a manner consistent with known evolutionary changes, perhaps it is plausible that facilitated variation has generated change in nature. Such experiments are just now becoming feasible."
What does Wells think of all this? In my book Icons of Evolution, I pointed out that using structural similarity ("homology") as evidence for Darwinian evolution is problematic. Without an unguided natural mechanism, it is impossible to establish that similarities are due to common ancestry rather than common design. Kirschner and Gerhart argue that their theory solves the problem. Maybe. Maybe not. It would help if they could provide good evidence for their theory, but the best they can do is promise us that such evidence will be forthcoming. In the meantime, they expect us to believe that "the modern molecular evidence for homology, its development, and its evolution, is unassailable."
So what are we to make of The Plausibility of Life? Its authors claim to complete Darwin's theory by closing its last remaining major gap, yet they concede that the completed theory has no explanation for the origin of core processes in the first cells, the first eukaryotes, the first multicellular organisms, animal body plans, or vertebrate limbs, heads and brains. There seem to be more gaps in evolutionary theory now than there were before Kirschner and Gerhart got started. The book also contains attacks on ID proponents, specifically Michael Behe, for which Wells takes the authors to task. The authors mention only one id proponent by name in the main text of their book: Michael Behe. They write: "Behe uses elaborate biochemical examples to intimidate us into believing that the complexity of living cells is beyond understanding." But this misrepresents Behe's position, which is that complexity is understandable—as the result of intelligent design. The review is worth reading, as is, I'm sure, the book itself.
I find myself in yet another odd alliance. I guess NRO’s John Derbyshire would side with me over Leon Kass (whom, once again, I greatly respect for the solid anti-reductionist arguments he has made). Scientific observation can and should affect one’s view of what it is to be human. (Derbyshire and I simply disagree about the strength of Darwinian claims.) He lists “Biology” as one of the major things shaping his view of “the human condition.” He writes:
Then about seven or eight years ago I struck up a friendship with Steve Sailer and joined his “Human Biodiversity” e-list. Through that I got acquainted with a lot of academic biologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and the like. I couldn’t follow much of what they were talking about at first, but I eventually got up to speed, at least enough so to be aware of the momentous discoveries of the past 50 years, and what they say, or suggest, about the human condition.
I can report that the Creationists [and here Derbyshire wrongly calls ID proponents "Creationists" and imputes fear to them] are absolutely correct to hate and fear modern biology. Learning this stuff works against your faith. To take a single point at random: The idea that we are made in God’s image implies we are a finished product. We are not, though. It is now indisputable that natural selection has been going on not just through human prehistory, but through recorded history too, and is still going on today, and will go on into the future, presumably to speciation, either natural or artificial. So which human being was made in God’s image: the one of 100,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? 1,000 years ago? The one of today? The species that will descend from us? All of those future post-human species, or just some of them? And so on. The genomes are all different. They are not the same creature. And if they are all made in God’s image somehow, then presumably so are all the other species, and there’s nothing special about us at all.
Now of course there are ways to finesse that point — intellectuals can cook up an argument for anything, and religious intellectuals, who cut their teeth on justifying some wildly improbable stuff, are especially ingenious — but the cumulative effect of dozens of factlets like this is devastating to the notion that human beings are a special creation. And without that notion, traditional religious belief is holed below the water line. The more you read and learn in the modern human sciences, the more your image of homo sap. fades back into our being just another branch on the tree of life, with all those wonderful features of ours — even language, the most wonderful feature of all — just adaptations, like fins or feathers, with an actual record of the adaptation written, and date-stamped, right there in the genome! [emphasis Logan's]
But doesn’t the I, the Me, that I mentioned earlier — the self-awareness that we humans uniquely have — doesn’t that make us special? Do tigers, toads, and ticks have an I? Do they have a connection to the Creator? I don’t know. Perhaps they have a fuzzier one — perhaps higher animals, at any rate, see through a glass as we do, but more darkly. In any case, that only makes us special in the way that an elephant is special by virtue of having that long trunk — more exactly, the way the first creatures who were able to register visible light as images were special. We are part of nature — an exceptionally advanced and interesting part, but… not special. [emphasis Logan's]
Or again, on whether “an individual human life has any purpose”:
From a cold biological point of view, every living creature has the purpose of bringing forth a new generation, and of living long enough to do so.
One can disagree with the conclusions Derbyshire draws from what the Darwinists are telling him is scientific fact. But at least he is seeking a unity to reality, staunchly unwilling to settle for an armistice between his common sense which tells him that humans are special and Darwinism which tells him they are not. He’s made up his mind on the side of Darwinism, and he rightly abandons the idea of purpose in nature.
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