Penn State's Center for Infectious Diseases is having a Darwin Day celebration with:

THE WORLD'S LARGEST EDIBLE TREE OF LIFE

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Forthekids, a blogger who writes regularly at Reasonable Kansans, has been keeping things interesting since August of last year, holding the Kansas media accountable and getting to the truth of the matter, especially in regards to the debate over intelligent design. She had a great post Sunday on the nature of science and how those involved in the debate often are mischaracterized and misunderstood. Forthekids’ response to Jeremy, a commenter who claimed she was “being deceived” by the *ahem* slick army of ID proponents, follows below:

No need to be sorry, I’ve known for quite some time that you think I’m “being deceived”, which in other words means that you believe my ability to research for the accuracy of the claims being made by ID advocates is sorely lacking. I’ve listened to the arguments repeatedly for about three years now and have witnessed many highly credentialed individuals (scientists included) question Darwinian mechanisms just as laypeople like myself have. If it were just me who was not able to wrap my head around the ~unquestionably factual~ evidence for Darwinian evolution, then I’d just have to get past it. But, the funny thing is that I’m not the only one…It seems extremely obvious to many of us that Darwinian evolution is sorely lacking in many respects.

And, it’s also interesting that you believe there is “desperation” among the ID supporters. Funny, it seems to me that the Intelligent Design movement is growing by leaps and bounds. More scientists are signing off on the dissent form Darwin statement all the time, and the United States is definitely not the only country talking about these issues anymore. Even Sue Gamble (Kansas board of Ed) recognizes that ID has grown. At the KU panel discussion, she mentioned that in ‘99 she received emails from other countries wondering why the US has such a problem with “creationism”, yet in 2005, she was receiving emails from all over the world complaining that “the problem” is at their doorstep now as well. People are waking up, Jeremy...faster than I expected actually.

It seems to me that Darwin supporters are a bit more “desperate” than you care to admit. It’s interesting to consider the methods they are willing to resort to, like the recent demand that an entire freshman class (or at least a large part) at UCSD was required to listen to Robert Pennock speak on the evils of the ID movement with absolutely no time given to an ID advocate who would be able to explain what ID really entails.

So am I being “deceived”? I don’t know....are you being “deceived”?

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

NPR’s Morning Edition recently had a story on Northwestern High school in Baltimore. Students there have been struggling to pass the state science test. The interesting part of this story is the muddled but all-too-common way the featured biology teacher handles students’ perception of conflict between their religious beliefs and Darwinian theory.

According to the teacher, what students' churches and families told them about God creating the world is not wrong; rather, it is just not based on “fact.”

You've got your area of faith. You've got the things your parents have taught you, your church has taught you. And all those things are good. But because we're in a science class, science is not based on faith. Science is based on fact. But I'm not saying this is right or wrong. All I'm telling you is this is on your [test].

This is one of the most patronizing lines in the debate over Darwinism and public schools. Call me simple, but if something isn’t based in fact, why isn’t it wrong? To believe something is to believe it to be true. To believe something is true is to believe that it corresponds to reality--or to put it another way, the facts about the world.

Perhaps when discussing Darwinian theory, concerned parents at school board meetings should say, “I’m not against the teaching of Darwinism. It is all well and good; it’s just that it is not based on facts. The fossil record, DNA experiments, and the presence of irreducibly complex systems merely show that acceptance of Darwinism is not based on factual considerations. It is not wrong though; it is all well and good. I mean, you are still allowed to believe it at home or at the civic club even though it is based on things other than facts—just not in our science classes.”

Posted by Logan Gage at 6:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

New Mexico State Senator Steve Komadina has introduced a bill into the New Mexico Senate which would protect the academic freedom of teachers to discuss scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. The bill requires that the New Mexico Department of Education adopt rules to “give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so.” The bill would not only protect teachers, but also students: it requires the adoption of rules to “encourage students to critically analyze scientific information, give them the right and freedom to reach their own conclusions about biological origins and provide that no student shall be penalized in any way because the student subscribes to a particular position on biological origins.” A joint memorial (a.k.a resolution) is also being submitted to the New Mexico legislature stating support for similar protections.

If adopted, the bill would sanction and protect the teaching of science, and science only in the science classroom. In protecting the teaching of “scientific information,” the bill is explicit that “‘Scientific information’ does not include information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines.”

Who would oppose such legislative protections? I will make a prediction: many Darwinists will vehemently oppose this bill, exposing that it isn’t the teaching of science they care about, but the teaching of a particular brand of pro-Darwin-only science. The scientific evidence supporting evolution will still be presented under this bill. But this bill opens the classroom up to genuine scientific critiques of neo-Darwinian evolution, and not everyone wants that scientific evidence to be heard. Nonetheless, the protections under this bill are vital to fixing the status quo, expanding student learning of the biological sciences, and fulfilling the nationwide call to improve science education.

In our present climate, many teachers are intimidated—whether by power-wielding Darwinists or ACLU attorneys—into teaching a biased, incomplete view of the biological evidence about neo-Darwinian evolution. Teachers and students need these protections so that all the scientific information about Darwinism can be objectively taught. For this very reason, expect such foes of academic freedom in science education to come out swinging against this bill.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Dr. Jonathan Wells today has a short opinion piece in his alma mater's newspaper, the Yale Daily News, that encouarges churches not to honor Darwinism on Evolution Sunday because Darwinism as a theory is simply bad science.

But experiments have consistently failed to support the hypothesis that variations (including those produced by genetic mutation) and selection (natural or artificial) can produce new species, organs and body plans. And what may have once looked like solid evidence for universal common ancestry (fossils, embryos and molecular comparisons) is now plagued by growing inconsistencies. It is actually the Darwinists who brush aside these awkward facts who “embrace scientific ignorance.”

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In Part I of this short response, I explained some false information about intelligent design promoted by George Kampis at East Tennessee State University. This second and final post will discuss the false information about both intelligent design arguments and Phillip Johnson that Kampis spread.

Dr. Kampis's view was summarized as:

"Dr. Phillip Johnson, ID founder and longtime critic of Charles Darwin, rejects the concept of natural selection"

But does Phillip Johnson "reject the concept of natural selection"? In reality, Johnson observes that natural selection occurs and that it works just fine; he just questions its creative power. The problem for Darwinian evolution is giving natural selection something to select for: "Natural selection is the most famous element in Darwinism, but is not necessarily the most important element. Selection merely preserves or destroys something that already exists. Mutation has to provide the favorable innovations before natural selection can retain and encourage them." (Phillip Johnson, Darwin On Trial, pg. 31)

Johnson even recounts six established examples of natural selection, including the Galapagos finches: "There is no reason to doubt that peculiar circumstances sometimes favor drug-resistant bacteria, or large birds as opposed to small ones..." (pgs. 26-27). This is ironic because Kampis' claim that "evolutionary theory is well grounded in facts" was based upon a discussion of Darwin's observations in the Galapagos Islands. Yet Johnson is rightly unimpressed with the minor variations between finch species on the Galapagos Islands:

None of the 'proofs' provides any persuasive reason for believing that natural selection can produce new species, new organs, or other major changes, or even minor changes that are permanent. ... That larger birds have an advantage over smaller birds in high winds or droughts has no tendency to prove that similar factors caused birds to come into existence in the first place. (Darwin on Trial, pg. 27)

"Johnson co-founded the Discovery Institute, a think tank that promotes the teaching of ID in the science classroom."

Given how Kampis barely managed to engage ID, I assume that Harker had nothing to worry about after sponsoring this lecture.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Access Research Network has noted a Darwinist's lecture at East Tennessee State University entitled "Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Science Thought," by historian, philosopher, and cognitive scientist George Kampis. ARN aptly observes, "Dr. Kampis hit every 'talking point' of Darwinists." Dr. Kampis' lecture spread much misinformation about intelligent design. For example, a premed female student said: "he raised a good point when he said Intelligent Design wasn't science." Would her view have been the same if she had heard the facts about ID and not a false caricature? A few of Kampis' errors will be highlighted over a series of two posts:

Dr. Kampis says:

"The Intelligent Design movement holds that living organisms are too complex to have arisen through random mutation and natural selection, and therefore must have been designed by some outside entity."

"When they can't explain a phenomenon they immediately claim that it must be the work of God. This is just giving in."

Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role the origin of the system. ... Although some may argue this is a merely an argument from ignorance, we regard it as an inference to the best explanation, given what we know about the powers of intelligent as opposed to strictly natural or material causes. We know that intelligent designers can and do produce irreducibly complex systems. We find such systems within living organisms.

(Scott Minnich and Stephen Meyer, "Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic bacteria")

"Supporters of Intelligent Design don't take the normal route to creating a theory. They don't write peer reviewed papers or present research at scientific seminars."

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Discovery Institute’s study, which found that 90.9 % of Judge Jones’ section on whether ID is science was copied essentially verbatim from the ACLU’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, provoked much discussion. As expected, most Darwinist defenders of Judge Jones swept some of the criticisms of judicial copying aside while engaging in harsh ad hominem attacks against us. I have already responded to some Darwinist defenses of Judge Jones. A few other Darwinists have continued to respond, and still they fail to rebut my legal arguments and misunderstand the type of normal analogical and policy legal reasoning I employed. I close this debate with a new response to such Darwinist critics available at: “Analogical Legal Reasoning and Legal Policy Argumentation: A Response to Darwinist Defenders of Judge Jones' Copying from the ACLU”.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Eminent philosopher of science Elliott Sober is always worth reading. He takes ID seriously and tries to offer principled critiques—and he’s even willing, if need be, to let his critiques slice both ways.

Case in point: Sober recently spoke at the University of Montana, criticizing both ID and Darwinian arguments for

allegedly smuggling in assumptions about the designer’s purposes. He believes that ID proponents cannot say something is designed unless they know the purpose for which the thing is designed.

Likewise, Sober criticizes Darwinian dysteleological arguments for claiming knowledge of a designer’s purposes. Stephen Jay Gould’s argument that the panda’s thumb is poorly designed, for instance, depends upon knowing the designer’s purposes. After all, the natural question is: For what is the panda’s thumb badly designed? According to Sober, Darwinists cannot claim a designer would not have designed the panda’s thumb if they do not know what purpose the designer had in mind. Pandas’ thumbs may be badly designed if they were designed for typing; but they may be well designed if they were designed to strip bamboo.

At the risk of sounding biased, I think his critique of dysteleological arguments holds while his critique of ID does not. Here’s why:

Dysteleological arguments are inherently theological. They amount to “a designer would not have done things this way.” It is a theological objection which requires a theological response. Christians usually claim natural evil comes from the Fall; Buddhists claim evil is an illusion; Zoroastrians claim Angra Mainyu is responsible, and so on.

But do ID arguments claim that things are designed because a designer would have done things a certain way? No, and they do not need to. Designed objects generally exhibit certain hallmarks of intelligent activity (e.g. specified complexity or irreducible complexity), and these can be identified regardless of the designer’s motives or purposes. (We are not even "assuming" the designer is intelligent; we are inferring it from evidence.)

ID merely studies natural objects to see if they exhibit these features. It does not try to study or identify the designer or designer’s motives. This focus on identifying empirically detectable features is what makes ID a scientifically testable concept. We are inferring intelligence--not postulating motives and purposes.

Finally, as another way to see Sober’s error, think of things that we know are designed--the arrangement of stones at Stonehenge, say, or the statues at Easter Island. Now if you are like me, you have no idea who made these things or why. And yet we know they are designed. This clearly shows that design inferences can be independent of assumptions about designers’ identities, motives, and purposes.

Posted by Logan Gage at 1:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The County Press Online newspaper has an insightful editorial pointing out that the debate over evolution has hardly been laid to rest.

The 2005 Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District decision in our fair state was thought to resolve the debate that Intelligent Design is a religious movement, just a new wrinkle on Creationism. That hasn't happened largely because Intelligent Design, or I.D., is not.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 5:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Robert Naeye at Sky & Telescope recently posted a simplistic rant against intelligent design. His logic is astoundingly bad, and his “attacks” on ID are the most elementary sort that have been rebutted too many times to mention. (But I will anyhow — go here, here, and here just to start.)

Here’s his big complaint:

This controversy led me to imagine a trip to a car dealership. The salesman shows me a model that has sleek lines, gets great gas mileage, has a 5-year warranty, and fits my budget. Everything about the car is perfect, except for one thing: The engine contains a part called a kanootin valve that occasionally breaks down. And when it does, the engine explodes. When I ask what good the kanootin valve does for the car, the salesman replies, "Oh, it does nothing at all. You only know about it when it fails." I respond, "Hmmm… this vehicle does not seem to be designed particularly intelligently. I think I'll buy another model."

No auto manufacturer would design a car in such a way. And yet that is how the human body is "designed." We have an organ called the appendix that does nothing positive for us, and yet it can kill us if it becomes inflamed. And when it breaks down, only human physicians, using their scientific training, can save our lives.

The existence of the appendix is powerful evidence that the human body is the product of random mutations and natural selection operating over immense timescales, and that intelligent design is pure bunk.

Naeye goes on to report as “fact” a couple of things that are still being researched and are far from having been decided — such as the similarity of human and chimpanzee genes. (These are not as similar as he thinks; see “Human-chimp difference may be bigger”.) And he seems to be clueless about this, but there’s still a debate about the other fact he cites as well.

Evolution is a well-established fact, not an opinion.

Naeye’s whole argument seems to rest on the idea that the appendix is completely useless — yet another controversial idea that has not been scientifically established. Dr. Chris Wilbers wrote this paragraph in response:

For a paragraph, as a physician, I'll address the appendix. Usually it is the evolutionist who accuses the creationist of invoking the "god of the gaps." In your argument, the tables are oddly turned, and since you have no teleological explanation for the appendix you attribute its existence to evolution. Many times the evolutionist patiently explains to the creationist that just because you don't have evidence of an evolutionary explanation of something YET, doesn't negate that you might not discover one in the future, and then lay out an imaginary evolutionary pathway that he posits might be able to result in the structure in question. In this case, however, scientific elucidation of at least some purposes for the “useless” appendix has begun. The organ is part of the mucosa associate lymphoid tissue (MALT) system, along with the tonsils and adenoids, among many others, which functions as part of the generation of immune responses within the mucosal tissues. Tantalizing in their implications are papers describing an increased rate of Crohn's disease and a decreased rate of ulcerative colitis in patients who have undergone appendectomy (surgical removal of the appendix). Another study noted the fascinating fact that women who have undergone tonsillectomy are about 5.2 times more likely to subsequently require appendectomy, whereas men are only about 1.7 times as likely. Elucidation of the exact physiological purpose of the appendix appears to be a "work in progress," but it seems safe to conclude that the appendix is certainly not physiologically useless. Furthermore, the appendix has had inestimable value in the history of medical and surgical advancement. As recognized by an article by G. Rainey Williams, MD (Annals of Surgery, 1983, 197(5): 495 - 506), the history of the study of appendicitis, its diagnosis and treatment, has been a keystone in the development of general surgery and surgical technique. By 1950 over 13,000 articles or books dealing with the appendix had already been published, according to Dr. Williams. Since Dr. Williams' article, the appendix has probably been second only to the gall bladder as the surgical target for the rapidly advancing science of laparoscopic surgery, which has greatly reduced the morbidity associated with many operations that formerly had to be performed by an open technique. Many, many surgeons-in-training have honed their surgical skills through successfully operating on innumerable appendixes, enabling them subsequently to progress on perform many more dramatic and lifesaving surgeries. Finally, of a more philosophical nature, as stated by Dr. Williams "appendiceal disease has clearly affected the course of history." He cites just a few examples of prominent individuals known to have had their lives affected (or deaths effected) by appendicitis and its complications. In light of concepts like chaos theory, who could ever truly know the affect that this tiny organ has had upon the totality of human history? Kanootin valve? NOT!

Intelligent design basically tells us to stop investigating the natural world, because when we hit a brick wall in our knowledge, we can find the answers in god. …
… Intelligent design, on the other hand, stifles our perseverance because it says that answers to the great questions have already been handed to us on a silver platter. It's the mindset that says that maybe we should buy the car with the kanootin valve.

If that were the case, why would Michael Behe have written Darwin’s Black Box? Or, why would Jonathan Wells be at a major science conference hypothesizing about whether centrioles generate a polar ejection force? Why would ID biologist Ralph Seelke be studying the evolution of bacteria in his lab at the University of Wisconsin, Superior?

Intelligent design is not a science stopper. Rather, it is dogmatic Darwinism that stifles research and stops science. Naeye seems to think that there is no need to research the appendix any further. In his Darwinian mindset, it’s useless. Now that sounds like a science stopper to me.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at ARN's ID Update David Tyler is considering the sad situation in science where ID is ruled out a priori and Darwinian explanations are ruled in.

More importantly, it is good practice in science to consider multiple hypotheses and to find ways of evaluating them. One often notes arguments by Darwinians making the claim: "an intelligent designer would not do it this way", always leading to rejection of the intelligent design hypothesis. Here is a case where there are good reasons, supported by a mathematical model, why an intelligent designer would do it that way.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In 1970, Nobel laureate Jacques Monod called DNA the “secret of life” and said that the discovery of its structure and function – especially “the understanding of the random physical basis of mutation” – means that “the mechanism of Darwinism is at last securely founded" and that humans are “a mere accident.”[ ¹]

According to neo-Darwinism, all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified by natural selection acting on random variations that are generated by DNA mutations. But only if an embryo’s development were programmed by its DNA could mutations in DNA provide the raw materials for large-scale evolution. So neo-Darwinism assumes that embryo development is controlled by a genetic program.

But there is a serious problem with this assumption.

The many different kinds of cells in an animal or plant develop from a single fertilized egg cell. Humans, for example, consist of cells that form bone, skin, muscle, digestive organs, nerves and many other tissues. Such cells are so different from each other in form and function that an untrained observer might conclude that they represent different species.

Yet all of these cells contain the same DNA, a fact long known to embryologists as “genomic equivalence.” As the fertilized egg divides, it bequeaths a complete set of DNA (its “genome”) to all of its descendants – with a few minor exceptions, such as red blood cells, which have no DNA at all. But if bone, skin, muscle, digestive and nerve cells all have the same DNA, why are they so different? Why don’t nerve cells secrete juices that digest the brain? Part of the answer is that although brain cells have the genes for digestive juices, those genes are turned off in nerves. As an embryo develops, its cells go through a phase called “differentiation” that turns some genes on and leaves others turned off.

But this does not solve the problem, since it begs the question of why two cells with the same DNA would differentiate in two distinct ways.

Another part of the answer is that cells somehow know where they are in the body and differentiate appropriately. In July 2006, a scientific article reported that certain cells have “zip codes” in their DNA that correspond to their locations. According to the article:

A major question in developmental biology is, How do cells know where they are in the body? For example, skin cells on the scalp know to produce hair, and the skin cells on the palms of the hand know not to make hair… In this study, the authors present a model that explains how cells know where they are in the body. By comparing cells from 43 unique positions that finely map the entire human body, the authors discovered that cells utilize a ZIP-code system to identify the cell’s position in the human body. The ZIP code for Stanford is 94305, and each digit hones in on the location of a place in the United States; similarly, cells know their location by using a code of genes. For example, a cell on the hand expresses a set of genes that locate the cell on the top half of the body (anterior) and another set of genes that locates the cell as being far away from the body or distal and a third set of genes that identifies the cell on the outside of the body (not internal). Thus, each set of genes narrows in on the cell’s location, just like a ZIP code. [²]

If the DNA corresponds to zip codes that are originally the same on every envelope, where in the embryo are the postmaster and the slots? What is it that highlights one zip code but not others? Where is the all-important developmental information that directs cells to different parts of the body and tells them where they are and how to differentiate?

By focusing attention on DNA as the supposed source of raw materials for evolution, neo-Darwinism has systematically downplayed the nature and location of developmental information elsewhere in the embryo. Obviously, there is more to embryo development than is dreamt of in neo-Darwinian philosophy.

----------------------

NOTES

[¹] Quoted in Horace Freeland Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), pp. 216-217.

[2] Rinn JL, Bondre C, Gladstone HB, Brown PO, Chang HY (2006) Anatomic Demarcation by Positional Variation in Fibroblast Gene Expression Programs. PLoS Genet 2(7): e119 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0020119.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 6:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Recently I received a thoughtful e-mail asking questions about Discovery Institute. A slightly modified and adapted version of my reply is below:

Question (1): “Does the DI have any religious affiliation? (My understanding is DI is specifically neutral on religion and open to all scientific teaching and research regardless where the evidence leads)”

You’re basically correct--this question is answered on our website at "Top Questions":

Is Discovery Institute a religious organization?

Discovery Institute is a secular think tank, and its Board members and Fellows represent a variety of religious traditions, including mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and agnostic. Until recently, the Chairman of Discovery's Board of Directors was former Congressman John Miller, who is Jewish. Although it is not a religious organization, the Institute has a long record of supporting religious liberty and the legitimate role of faith-based institutions in a pluralistic society. In fact, it sponsored a program for several years for college students to teach them the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

It is the sense of the Senate that: (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.

Good question! I believe that anything that cannot be justified via empirical evidence, but instead requires some kind of philosophical or metaphysical justification, crosses the line into indoctrination. For example, if one says “If we assume that mammals evolved from reptiles, then mammalian limbs are homologous to reptilian limbs,” that could be considered a scientific statement. However, if one says “Only undirected material causes were involved in the history of life, therefore we only consider hypotheses where mammalian limbs are homologous to reptilian limbs,” I'd say that crosses a line into indoctrination.

Question (4): “What kind of test can a teacher / parent / student use if they are trying to avoid being indoctrinated or being agents of religious indoctrination?”

Here are some principles I’d consider:

Tests should never imply that a student must modify or abandon their religious beliefs.

Students should not be required to pledge belief in any given scientific theory. They should be required to learn and understand about scientific theories such as evolution, but their personal views about evolution should have no bearing upon their grade or treatment in the class.

Students and teachers should have the right to voice skepticism of evolution on a test or in a classroom (although they can be required to demonstrate an understanding of the subject matter of evolution), and any scientific evidence for or against evolution should be permitted to be taught or discussed in the classroom.

Include discussion of both scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution—this ensures evolution is taught objectively and doesn't force a particular viewpoint upon students.

Allow students to critically evaluate the scientific evidence for and against evolution and weigh the evidence for themselves, coming to their own conclusions.

Movies like Inherit the Wind give a false view that skepticism of evolution is all religiously based. For that reason they have little pedagogical value when teaching evolution and tend to indoctrinate students with a false characterization of the various viewpoints that exist on evolution. If you do show them, have students critically evaluate such films to determine whether they give an accurate portrayal of the reality of the debate over evolution, or a false caricature.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This is the final installment of a four-part series responding to Larry Arnhart’s comments about my book, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest. The first three installments can be found here, here and here.

5. Darwinism and Economic Liberty
Arnhart contends that Darwinian theory supports economic freedom, but in my book I argue that efforts to apply Darwinism to economics are misleading and based on false analogies. In particular, I criticize the claim that F.A. Hayek’s idea of “spontaneous order” is in any important sense analogous to Darwin’s idea of unguided evolution. I also dispute the claim that “spontaneous order,” properly understood, is incompatible with intelligent design. I further point out that in the history of ideas, Darwinism has been used much more often to stigmatize capitalism than to support it.

Arnhart does not respond to any of these specific criticisms. He merely restates his view that social order involves “genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and deliberate reasoning.” But this restatement of his earlier position does not meet the objections I raised. Those who would like more information about the relationship between Darwinism and capitalism are encouraged to read chapter four of my book.

6. Darwinism and Limited Government
Arnhart argues that Darwinism provides support for limited government, and he attempts to disassociate Darwin’s theory from the utopian crusades of “Social Darwinism” such as eugenics. Indeed, he argues that Charles Darwin is unfairly blamed for eugenics and that “much of what has been identified as social Darwinism... is a distortion of Darwinian science.” However, in my book I show how Darwin himself in The Descent of Man provided the rationale for what became the eugenics movement, and how the vast majority of evolutionary biologists early in the twentieth century were right to see negative eugenics as a logical application of Darwin’s theory. In his response, Arnhart continues to insist that eugenists and other Social Darwinists “were not really acting out of a clear and accurate understanding of Darwinian science” and contends that blaming Darwinism for Social Darwinism is tantamount to claiming that “Christianity was responsible for Hitler’s anti-Semitism because Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism was often cited by the Nazis.” The Luther comparison is inapt. Martin Luther was not the founder of Christianity, and so any claims he may have made are not necessarily authoritative interpretations of the Christian tradition. But Charles Darwin was most certainly the founder of his own theory. So if Darwin himself provided a logical rationale for eugenics in his writings, it is hard to see how others can be accused of “distorting” his teachings in their embrace of negative eugenics. Moreover, the fact that virtually all leading evolutionary biologists in the first part of the twentieth century embraced eugenics on Darwinian grounds should make one think twice about claiming that eugenics was simply a distortion of Darwin’s theory.

Arnhart insists that Darwin himself would have supported only such sensible measures as “prohibiting incestuous marriages” or voluntary efforts to discourage marriage and reproduction among the carriers of Tay Sachs disease. But in order to make this argument Arnhart must radically downplay the centrality of the struggle for survival in Darwin’s account of human progress. As I describe in my book, Darwin continued to believe that natural selection was the engine of human progress, and he feared that efforts such as small-pox vaccinations and welfare programs for the poor were counteracting natural selection and leading to the destruction of the human race: “No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man... hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” In such a situation where natural selection has been undermined, it would be perfectly logical to argue for instituting “artificial selection” in order to allow human progress to continue.

Bringing things up to the present, I would add that it is difficult to see any valid Darwinian objection to expansive bioengineering of humans today. As I pointed out in my book:

once one understands the evolving nature of “human nature” [according to Darwinism], it is difficult to see any in principle objection to efforts to transform human nature through bioengineering. Drawing on a report from the President’s Council on Bioethics, Arnhart attempts to outline a Darwinian argument against radical human bioengineering, but his argument is less than persuasive. “Our desires have been formed by natural selection over evolutionary history to promote survival and reproduction,” he writes. “Knowing this should make us cautious about using biotechnology to radically change our evolved nature.” But why? Natural selection is a messy, hit-or-miss process of dead-ends and false starts. Why shouldn’t human beings use their reason to direct their evolution in order to produce a new kind of human being? What is so sacrosanct about existing human dispositions and capacities, since they were produced by such an imperfect and purposeless process?

Arnhart and the President’s Council on Bioethics seem to want to clothe human nature with a kind of sacred awe that will restrain human beings from tinkering with it. But such awe is alien to the Darwinian mindset. In his autobiography, Darwin recounted how he had once had such feelings, but they had evaporated... In the Darwinian framework, there is nothing intrinsically right about the current capacities of human beings, so there can be nothing intrinsically wrong about trying to alter them. In the end, Arnhart’s main arguments against radical human bioengineering are his prediction that it may not be technically feasible and his hope that it may be restrained by certain deeply-ingrained human desires. Let’s certainly hope so, but Darwinism itself provides little or no barrier against such schemes. As Carson Holloway points out, the Darwinian account of morality all but invites “wholesale biological engineering.”

Those who desire more information about any of the issues discussed here are encouraged to consult the relevant chapters of my book.

Posted by John West at 7:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Chronicle of Higher Education is currently running a refreshing op-ed piece entitled, "Why Can't We Discuss Intelligent Design?," by J. Scott Turner, arguing for open discussion of ID on university campuses. The twist: Dr. Turner is a an associate professor of biology at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry who thinks intelligent design is "wrongheaded," but nevertheless deserves to be discussed in academia.

Turner, who studies termites and their "remarkable structures," relates how recently, his mere use of the term "design" in a lecture incited an anti-ID heckler to interrupt Turner repeatedly in an effort to prevent him from completing the lecture. Ironically, Turner doesn't even attribute such apparent "design" in termite structures to an intelligent cause.

Turner marvels at how, since Darwin, the mere mention of "design" in connection with biology can evoke what Turner calls "The Pause, the awkward silence that typically follows a faux pas." Turner then observes:

If just one freighted word like "design" can evoke The Pause, combining two — as in the phrase "intelligent design" — seems to make otherwise sane people slip their moorings. If you enjoy irony, as I do, the spectacle can provide hours of entertainment. I wonder, for example, what demon had gripped a past president of Cornell University when he singled out intelligent design as a unique threat to academic and civil discourse. Aren't universities supposed to be a place for dangerous ideas?

"Friends, intelligent design is just an idea." You might believe (as I do) that it is a wrongheaded idea, but it's hard to see how that alone should disqualify it from academic discourse. Academe is full of wrongheaded ideas, and always has been — not because academe itself is wrongheaded, but because to discuss such ideas is its very function. Even bad ideas can contain kernels of truth, and it is academe's role to find them. That can be done only in the sunlight and fresh air of normal academic discourse. Expelling an idea is the surest way to allow falsehood to survive.

Turner is to be applauded for his courage in proposing an open debate of the scientific significance of the appearance of design in nature, and The Chronicle of Higher Education is to be applauded for publishing Turner's op-ed. Let us hope that others in academia will recognize the value in permitting the theory of intelligent design to be openly discussed and debated—whether or not they agree with ID.

Posted by Larry Caldwell at 12:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Samuel Chen and William Dembski are discussing a talk given by Donald Wise at the Geological Society for America conference in October, 2005, where Wise recommended that Darwinists use dysteleological arguments against ID rather than discussing science. Wise stated in his talk abstract that Darwinists contending against ID should not go “off-message with debates on origins of life” but should “pound simple themes of obvious design failures.” Basically, Wise recommended that they avoid discussing relevant scientific questions and instead raise fallacious and irrelevant theological objections to ID, which have nothing to do with ID and to which religions have had answers for millennia. But then again, Wise was not interested in addressing the scientific issues, as his talk's abstract suggested, “[a]ll the tools of political campaigns should be used: slogans, songs, bumper stickers (‘Human skeletal errors: Incompetent Design or Evolution ?’).”

It’s further difficult to believe Wise's later claim that “[t]he last thing we want to do is get into arguments of religion” since Wise led GSA conference attendees in mocking a traditional Christian hymn (Battle Hymn of the Republic) by singing:

My bones proclaim a story of incompetent design.
My back still hurts, my sinus clogs, my teeth just won’t align.
If I had drawn the blueprint, I would cer-tain-ly resign.
Incompetent Design!
Evo-Evo-Evo-lution! Design is but a mere illusion.
Darwin sparked our revolution. Science SHALL prevail!

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

After posting about the law review article in the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion which argued that Judge Jones went too far, I was sent an unsolicited e-mail by someone I'll call SGB with the subject, "Intelligent Design is Not Science." The e-mail was sent as a letter to the Editor-In-Chief and Managing Editor of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, apparently intended for public consumption. I was cc'd on it, along with Richard Dawkins and Glenn Branch (of the NCSE). It's a long letter, which largely misunderstands ID and Mr. Italiano's legal arguments. But SGB's conclusion was most interesting:

In a book titled "The God Delusion", author Richard Dawkins considers "the God Hypothesis." He defines the God Hypothesis as follows: "there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us" (page 31). He asserts that "God is a scientific hypothesis like any other" (page 50). He concludes that the validity of the God Hypothesis has a "Very low probability [of being correct], but short of zero" (page 51). He regards God as "a pernicious delusion" (page 31) and I agree with his assessment.

Religion can be compared to a brain virus. Religion impedes a person's capacity to think rationally. If the members of a public school's governing board try to inject that disease into the brains of children then their efforts should be stopped cold. I therefore applaud Judge Jones' ruling in the Kitzmiller case.

Intelliget [sic] design is not science!

Sincerely, [SGB]

cc: Casey Luskin, Richard Dawkins, Glenn Branch

(emphasis added)

Despite Judge Jones' efforts, it’s clear that persons such as SGB (and Richard Dawkins) are happy to rely upon Kitzmiller as part of their crusade against religion. But 2 questions remain:

(1) Do SGB's actions support Judge Jones’ bold holding that evolution "in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator"? (emphasis added)

(2) In light of these quotes from Judge Jones, what business does a federal judge have ruling on the proper theological interpretation of a scientific theory? The quote from U.S. v. Ballard answers this question below.

In conclusion, all should be reminded of a passage from a famous U.S. Supreme Court case from the 1940s which makes it clear that it is not the business of a court to declare any religious belief false under any circumstances:

Heresy trials are foreign to our Constitution. Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. ... The religious views espoused by respondents might seem incredible, if not preposterous, to most people. But if those doctrines are subject to trial before a jury charged with finding their truth or falsity, then the same can be done with the religious beliefs of any sect. When the triers of fact undertake that task, they enter a forbidden domain.

(U.S. v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, at 86–7 (1944) (internal citations omitted))

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Spoof.Com has a funny article, “Flaws Found in Intelligent Design Theory,” poking fun at dysteleological arguments against ID. The parody has biochemist “Dr. Jack Harvey” complaining about the fact that penguins can’t fly and that they must live in a very harsh environment. “Dr. Harvey” goes on to complain that humans aren’t designed because they sometimes have large noses and illness. The article said, “Some scientists say that Harvey's claims bolster the ridiculous idea of ‘evolution’.” If only this type of thing really were a spoof. Unfortunately, Darwinists make these fallacious arguments all the time. For example, today at Uncommon Descent, William Dembski discusses how various scientist have mocked the Christian hymn “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by singing about our “incompetent design” due to back pain. But Rutgers University English Professor George Levine takes first prize. In his book, Darwin Loves You, Levine actually makes precisely the same argument about penguins spoofed in the Spoof.com article:

What designer with any competence and with any compassion at all would construct a mode of living and survival that entails so much pain, so much awkwardness, such clumsy reuse of organs and limbs apparently adapted for other purposes? Why force aquatic birds (with wings that don’t work as means to flight but are already readapted for swimming) to “march” for seventy miles from their source of food to their breeding grounds, or to walk on their heels for months in order to protect the egg from touching the ice and immediately freezing? Was it an intelligent designer, or the penguins, who figured out that this was a manageable way to do things, and then did it?

(George Levine, Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Reenchantment of the World (Princeton University Press, 2006), pgs. 256-257)

All of these arguments make two false assumptions: (1) that the designer must only make things which are pain-free and have no suboptimal features, and (2) that the design is indeed suboptimal. In short, all of these dysteleological arguments about pain or suboptimality are theological arguments which do not make a dent in the scientific theory of design. As Dembski says in response to the "Incompetent Design" song, "yes, the performance is poor, but poor design is not the absence of design." These Darwinists are making theological objections (to which many religions have very good theological answers) which have nothing to do with the scientific theory of intelligent design. As I wrote in response to Zimmer:

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?

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Scidev Network is run out of the UK and seems to be focused on Latin America, South America, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia.

The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) aims to provide reliable and authoritative information about science and technology for the developing world.

Two recent articles caught my interest immediately, "Explaining controversial issues to the media and the public" and "Reporting on controversies in science." I'm always interested in seeing how people are advising the public to convey their message, as well as how journalist are being advised on how to report those stories.

The first article on explaining controversies to the media provided several very good points which scientists on both sides of the Darwin debate would be well advised to heed:

In many cases, scientists can make it more difficult for the public or journalists to understand an issue clearly. They may speculate casually about the implications of preliminary findings that have not been fully examined. They may use jargon that proves impenetrable to the layperson.

Some additional points made by the author:

Ultimately, you are seeking to leave your audience with a clear understanding, neither exaggerating nor underplaying the controversy that surrounds the issue. You should be willing to acknowledge conflicts and to explain clearly why they exist, even if your own views put you firmly on one side of an argument.

You may also be asked to comment on the motivations of individuals who are involved in a controversial issue, because these can add ‘colour’ to a story. Be careful not to cause offence, and do not speculate. In many cases, opposing views in a controversy are honestly held, and the protagonists and their supporters will hardly welcome comments that cast doubt on their integrity, for instance by suggesting they have an ulterior motive for their views.

Remember that some degree of uncertainty exists in almost every area of science. Be prepared to explain how significant the evidence is and make sure you recognise when other scientists might credibly offer different interpretations of it. Make a clear distinction between evidence and the conclusions drawn from it. Even when the evidence is inconclusive, you should indicate where the weight of evidence and opinion lies, although there is a chance that a minority view may ultimately be proved correct. (emphasis mine)

The second article, "Reporting on controversies in science", also had some good advice.

Journalists are obliged to be inquisitive, sceptical and fair to all sides of the debate. They cannot be sure of being right, but they can try to be responsible.

But remember that mostly scientists will be telling you something that seems to be the case, at that moment, on the evidence of the latest research. They are unlikely to be lying ... But they may be mistaken, misled or just too fond of a theory to give it up. If in doubt, talk to a scientist from a competing research group. (again, emphasis is mine)

Distinguished scientists tend to be more confident, and more persuasive, than younger researchers; but they are, in some cases, just as likely to be wrong.

A reporter’s job is to report the latest evidence, the latest twist in a debate.

As evolution, driven by such events, shifts out of scientific realms and into political and legal ones, it ceases to be covered by context-oriented science reporters and is instead bounced to political pages, opinion pages, and television news. And all these venues, in their various ways, tend to deemphasize the strong scientific case in favor of evolution and instead lend credence to the notion that a growing "controversy" exists over evolutionary science. This notion may be politically convenient, but it is false.

At two elite national papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, the opinion pages sided heavily with evolution. But even there a false sense of scientific controversy was arguably abetted when The New York Times allowed Michael Behe, the prominent ID proponent, to write a full-length op-ed explaining why his is a "scientific" critique of evolution.

Perhaps journalists should consider that, unlike other social controversies — over abortion or gay marriage, for instance — the evolution debate is not solely a matter of subjective morality or political opinion. Rather, a definitive standard has been set by the scientific community on the science of evolution, and can easily be used to evaluate competing claims. Scientific societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have taken strong stances affirming that evolution is the bedrock of modern biology. In such a situation, journalistic coverage that helps fan the flames of a nonexistent scientific controversy (and misrepresents what’s actually known) simply isn’t appropriate.

At the very least, newspaper editors should think twice about assigning reporters who are fresh to the evolution issue and allowing them to default to the typical strategy frame, carefully balancing "both sides" of the issue in order to file a story on time and get around sorting through the legitimacy of the competing claims.

When it comes to opinion pages, meanwhile, there’s certainly more room for dissent because of the nature of the forum — but that doesn’t mean editorial-page editors can’t act as responsible gatekeepers.

If they want to be professional journalists then here are three points from the code of ethics that Mooney and Nesbit need to work on.

Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.

Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.

Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[Editor's Note: This blog post was mistakenly listed as the last in a four part series, when in fact it is the third. The fourth and final installlment will be published in the near future.]

This is the third installment of a four-part series responding to Larry Arnhart’s comments about my book, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest. The first and second installments can be found here and here.

3. Darwinism and Religion
In the section of my book on religion, I make clear that “evolution” can be compatible with theism in general and Biblical theism in particular—depending on how one defines the term “evolution.” If all one means by “evolution” is “change over time,” or “microevolution” through natural selection, or even biological “common descent,” then evolution would seem perfectly compatible with most forms of theism. Only if one insists that evolution is an undirected Darwinian process of chance and necessity, with no particular end in view, does there seem to be a serious problem with traditional theism. But even here there are at least two potential solutions.

First, one could choose to believe that evolution is a directed process even though it looks undirected. As I explain in my book, most consistent Darwinists would reject such a view because it essentially guts Darwinism’s core claim that evolution is undirected. Alternatively, one could stress that Darwin’s theory, strictly speaking, begins after the first life has developed, and so it does not necessarily refute the claim that there may be some kind of “first cause” to the universe that stands outside of nature. I agree with Arnhart that this second view is logically possible according to Darwinism. However, in his book Darwinian Conservatism, Arnhart claims not only that Darwinism is compatible with the idea that there is a “first cause,” but that it is “compatible... particularly with biblical theism.” (emphasis added) I am highly skeptical of the latter claim. As I explain in my book, the God of the Bible actively supervises and directs the development of life in a way that is detectable, but this is precisely the kind of God that Darwinism cannot allow.

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Does Darwinsim lead to Moral Relativism? Click here to watch a video clip from Dr. John West's presentation on his book Darwin's Conservatives.

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Darwinian evolution and intelligent design theory are in the same boat here. They are both open to the possibility that nature depends on some supernatural First Cause. But whether this is the “God of the Bible” is a matter of faith beyond any rational study of nature. As West admits, the proponents of intelligent design cannot determine “whether the intelligent cause is the Judeo-Christian God.”

Intelligent design as a scientific theory cannot prove whether the intelligent cause behind life is the God of the Bible. But—unlike Darwinism—it leaves open the genuine possibility that such an intelligent cause exists, allowing philosophers and theologians to continue to discuss and debate this possibility.

4. Darwinism and Intelligent Design
Arnhart has little to say about my chapter on Darwinism and intelligent design, except to continue to insist that “for ID to have some positive content, its proponents would have to explain exactly where, where, when, and how a disembodied intelligence designed ‘irreducibly complex’ structures like the bacterial flagellum.” I think the response in my book to that charge still stands:

But why? Can’t we know that something was produced by an intelligent cause even if we do not know the method used by the intelligent cause? If I am hiking in the desert and come across what appears to be the ruin of a giant building, can’t I conclude that an intelligent cause was at work even if I know nothing about how the building was created or who had inhabited the area previously? Discovering the methods by which intelligent causes organized matter and energy in a certain way is an interesting inquiry, but determining whether an intelligent cause was involved at all also seems to be a legitimate question. Faulting intelligent design theory for not answering a question it does not even purport to answer seems unreasonable.

Second, and more importantly, the standard of proof is naturally higher when someone invokes a cause to explain something it would not normally explain. As I discuss in my book, we have overwhelming evidence from the natural and social worlds that intelligent causes are routinely capable of creating structures that exhibit the complex and purposeful arrangement of parts. At the same time, we have similar evidence that processes of chance and necessity do not ordinarily produce new structures of such specified and functional complexity. Given this situation, the burden of proof is on the evolutionists to show why it is plausible that a process of chance and necessity like random mutations and natural selection can generate these kinds of structures.

In my final installment of this series, I will respond to Arnhart’s comments about Darwinism and economic liberty.

Those who desire more information about any of the issues discussed here are encouraged to consult the relevant chapters of my book.

Posted by John West at 12:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We reported a survey last year ("Poll: 60 Percent of Doctors Reject Darwinism") that showed a surprising percentage of doctors simply don't agree with Darwinian evolution. While doctors seem to be more apt to doubt Darwin's theory than biologists, apparently biologists and scientists are more apt to be arrogant than the general public.

In a blog at The Panda's Thumb, Steve Reuland writes:

It is true of course that doctors are more prone to being creationists than scientists in general and biologists in particular. This is to be fully expected, as it’s unlikely that you’re going to find any one group of people who are more convinced about evolution than biologists and other scientists. But the fact is, we see a steady increase in the acceptance of evolution when we move from the uneducated to the educated, and from those whose educations are irrelevant to evolution towards those who are more relevant.

You seldom see this kind of arrogance outside of academia. And you would never see scientists making such proclamations to the general public. Or to doctors. Not if they didn't want it noted on their permanent record.

The bottom line for Reuland and other dogmatic Darwinists is that scientists are Darwinists because they're smarter than you. And biologists are more likely to be Darwinists because they're even smarter than other scientists.

As for doctors who dissent, why not listen to Dr. Geoffrey Simmons (author of the forthcoming Billions of Missing Links) explain why he doubts the claims of Darwinian evolution. ID The Future features a two-part interview with him on this very topic.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A student note in Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion agrees that Judge Jones overextended the judicial arm when he decided on the question of whether ID is science. Observing that Judge Jones correctly found that the Dover School Board members had religious motives, Philip A. Italiano then explains that the ruling should have stopped its analysis there and not extended into broad questions about the definition of science. Italiano recognizes that the Kitzmiller facts did not present the appropriate case in which to decide whether ID is science:

Perhaps there theoretically could exist a factual scenario in which the motives of those who write intelligent design into a public school science curriculum are nonreligious, and in which the only way for a court to ascertain whether the policy has the effect of an actual or perceived endorsement of religion is to determine whether intelligent design is or is not science. Kitzmiller was not such a case, however, and until that case arises, courts should strike down such policies on narrower grounds. The Kitzmiller court could have struck down Dover's policy under either the Lemon test's purpose prong or under the endorsement test without judging the scientific validity of intelligent design.

(Phillip A. Italiano, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District: The First Judicial Test for Intelligent Design, 8 Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion 4, 46 (Fall, 2006) (internal footnotes omitted).)

In the realm of constitutional law, especially, this Court has perceived the embarrassment which is likely to result from an attempt to formulate rules or decide questions beyond the necessities of the immediate issue. It has preferred to follow the method of a gradual approach to the general by a systematically guarded application and extension of constitutional principles to particular cases as they arise, rather than by out of hand attempts to establish general rules to which future cases must be fitted.

(Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 397 (1926).)

This opinion, though dispatching of a policy in violation of the Establishment Clause, raises deeper questions that may need to be answered in years to come. Should courts establish legal definitions for what qualifies as science and as religion? How far should courts venture into the world of science and particularly into the origins of man, where the lines of science, philosophy, and religion merge? It should not be the role of the courts to provide theories such as intelligent design an avenue through which to enter the mainstream, whether in public schools or elsewhere; rather, it should be the role of scientists themselves. Likewise, it should not be the role of the courts to suggest that the work and observations of Dr. Behe, for example, are inherently religious. Ultimately the scientific process itself should be the means by which a theory such as intelligent design wins or loses credibility.

(Italiano, 8 Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion at 45 (internal footnotes omitted).)

Italiano concludes that intelligent design will progress as a science regardless of what Judge Jones said, stating “even though the Middle District of Pennsylvania struck a blow to the intelligent design theory, its proponents will continue to make the case for its scientific validity.” (Italiano, pg. 44) Again, Italiano is absolutely right: a court cannot change the scientific data, and scientific research into intelligent design continues to progress, regardless of Judge Jones' claim that none of this is science.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The introductory letter from Bobby Henderson in The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster states:

"[T]he church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) invites you to learn a little more about us ... [W]e need a book. (Doesn’t every religion have a book?) The Jews have the Bible (The Old Testicle), the Christians have ditto (The New Testicle), and Muslims have the Q-tip or whatever, the Jains have Fun with Dick and Jain, the Suffis have Sufis Up!, the Buddhists have the Bananapada, and the Hindus have the Ten Little Indians…" (pg. xiii, emphasis added)

Sometimes I've found FSM amusing, but since I've graduated from junior high and don't mock world religions, this quote from Henderson is not funny (no offense to our junior high-age readers, but you get the point). Henderson’s attempts at humor may have gone too far: the Jews supposedly read "The Old Testicle" and “Hindus have the Ten Little Indians"! The deputy director for the NSCE already said he defends FSMism. Would the NCSE defend these remarks?

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An article in Murfreesboro, Tennessee’s Daily News Journal, ironically titled “American history slips into oblivion,” shows just how dramatic the media’s misconceptions of intelligent design are. Ed Kimbrell writes "look at Kansas and Georgia, where the boards demanded that intelligent design be taught along side evolution." But neither Kansas nor Georgia taught intelligent design.

The text of the Cobb County, Georgia, School Board’s disclaimer, which has nothing to do with intelligent design, may be found here, and it merely states "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Even Judge Cooper’s terrible original ruling, which was vacated by an appellate court, recognized that “the issue before the Court is not whether it is constitutionally permissible for public school teachers to teach intelligent design.”

We have had many posts discussing how Kansas never required teaching intelligent design (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). Perhaps Kimbrell himself could use a lesson in history. After all, the Kansas Science Standards themselves explain to teachers that "the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design." Rather, they focus on teaching the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution without getting into alternative views like intelligent design.

If Kimbrell can’t check his facts to find out what’s in science standards, how do we know he is correct to assert that intelligent design is “religion, not science” simply because a court said so?

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In the New Scientist profile last month of the new intelligent design research lab, there was discussion of two technical articles published in the Journal of Molecular Biology by protein scientist Doug Axe (for abstracts, see here and here). As the New Scientist acknowledged, funding for the research underlying these peer-reviewed articles was provided by Discovery Institute's research fellowship program—thus disproving the twin canards that Discovery Institute does not support scientific research, and that pro-ID scientists do not publish peer-reviewed research. Yet the New Scientist tried its best to downplay the relevance of the articles to the theory of intelligent design, contrasting the positive interpretations of Axe's research offered by intelligent design theorists William Dembski and Stephen Meyer with the dismissive views of unnamed "scientists." The implication seemed to be that Dembski and Meyer have misrepresented Axe's research by claiming that it provides evidence against neo-Darwinism and corroboration for intelligent design. Interestingly, the one person whose voice is left out of the New Scientist's discussion of Axe's research is Dr. Axe himself. One might have hoped that the New Scientist would be interested in what Dr. Axe thought of the relationship between his own research and intelligent design. It turns out that the reporter for the New Scientist did ask Dr. Axe for his view, but she then chose not to disclose Axe's response to readers.

Dr. Axe was asked via e-mail by writer Celeste Biever to respond to the charge

[t]hat you have neither confirmed nor denied claims by William Dembski (in his book "Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA" and in several articles he has written) that a paper you published in 2000 (J Mol Biol, 2000 Aug 18; 301(3):585-95) is evidence for ID, or by Stephen Meyer, in his paper "The origin of biological information" (PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 117(2):213-239. 2004), that your 2004 paper (J Mol Biol. 2004 Aug 27;341(5):1295-315) is evidence for ID.

Dr. Axe wrote back the following, which the New Scientist declined to quote:

I have in fact confirmed that these papers add to the evidence for ID. I concluded in the 2000 JMB paper that enzymatic catalysis entails "severe sequence constraints". The more severe these constraints are, the less likely it is that they can be met by chance. So, yes, that finding is very relevant to the question of the adequacy of chance, which is very relevant to the case for design. In the 2004 paper I reported experimental data used to put a number on the rarity of sequences expected to form working enzymes. The reported figure is less than one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Again, yes, this finding does seem to call into question the adequacy of chance, and that certainly adds to the case for intelligent design.

Hmm. The author of the articles in question agrees with Dembski and Meyer that his research "adds to the case for intelligent design." But the New Scientist didn't think that fact important enough to report to its readers.

Posted by John West at 2:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Guardian published an editorial by Richard Buggs today which corrects the error, so common in the British media, that intelligent design is not to be seriously evaluated as science but conveniently written off as “religion.”

Buggs, who holds a DPhil in plant ecology and evolution from the University of Oxford and sits on the scientific panel of Truth in Science, first addresses the claims made by Darwin’s defenders:

Darwin made a massive contribution to science, and his ideas still suggest hypotheses today. These provide the starting point for my own research, published in journals of evolution. But despite the brilliance of Darwin's work, it is overoptimistic to claim that his theory explains the origin of all living things.

After examining the evidence, he compares the ability of ID to predict certain features of our universe with that of Darwinism. While some evolutionists argue that ID is “science-stopping,” Buggs counters with the facts of the matter and a little history:

If true, ID is a profound insight into the natural world and a motivator to scientific inquiry. The pioneers of modern science, who were convinced that nature is designed, consequently held that it could be understood by human intellects. This confidence helped to drive the scientific revolution. More recently, proponents of ID predicted that some "junk" DNA must have a function well before this view became mainstream among Darwinists.

Posted by Anika Smith at 4:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Casey Luskin recently highlighted the mocking, anti-religious attitude expressed by Darwinists promoting the so-called "Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." Now in an interview with the Toronto Star, Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has defended such mocking of traditional religion by Darwinists as "light hearted fun" that is "probably healthy." Indeed, according to Branch, such mockery seems to be a perfectly legitimate activity for Darwinists "who need the chance to blow off steam" after engaging in the "tiring and often thankless chore" of battling "creationist activity." Branch further suggests that criticism of anti-religious Darwinist propaganda by Luskin and others affiliated with Discovery Institute is illegitimate, asking: "Why would mocking traditional religion be of concern to a purely scientific organization?"

There is a perfectly obvious answer to Branch's question, which I will get to in a moment. But first I have a question of my own: Why is mocking traditional religion in the name of science apparently OK for the NCSE?

We've heard for years from Branch's boss Eugenie Scott that evolution and religion are perfectly harmonious (indeed, the NCSE has helped use our tax dollars to promote the message that true theology endorses evolution, and its director Eugenie Scott has recommended that students study theological statements endorsing evolution during biology class). But now it turns out that mocking religion in the name of science is "probably healthy" and that it is illegitimate for proponents of ID even to question such anti-religious diatribes.

So why do ID proponents think mocking religion in the name of science is a bad idea? The answer is simple. As we've repeatedly stated in the past, Darwinists who try to enlist science to "prove" atheism or attack religion are misusing science, and anyone concerned about real science ought to oppose such efforts. Contrary to the NCSE, one doesn’t have to be religious to understand that twisting science in order to attack religion is unhealthy for both science and the freedom of religion. The fact that the NCSE's spokesman seems to think it is "probably healthy" for Darwinists to mock religion says a lot more about the real attitude of NCSE staff toward religion and science than their various PR efforts touting the supposed harmony between Darwinism and religion.

Posted by John West at 12:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This is the second installment of a four-part series responding to Larry Arnhart’s comments about my book Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest. The first installment can be found here.

2. Darwinism, Free Will, and the Soul
In my book I pointed out that leading Darwinists and Darwin himself drew implications from Darwinism contrary to human free will and moral responsibility. In response, Arnhart says that he regards “human moral freedom as an ‘emergent’ product of the evolution of the human brain.” But it is highly questionable whether the Darwinian account of evolution can account even for the emergence of human intelligence let alone the emergence of human moral freedom. After all, how does intelligence “emerge” from a completely unintelligent material process of chance and necessity? If you begin with unintelligent matter and energy alone, how do you magically get mind somewhere later in the process?

Most committed Darwinists seem to grasp the negative implications of their theory for free will, which is why so many of them have denied or at least diminished human free will. Ironically, in order to defend the idea of “emergence” in his book Darwinian Conservatism, Arnhart ends up citing the research of a neuroscientist who is skeptical of Darwinism and supportive of intelligent design. At the same time, he must disassociate himself from the consistent reductionism of leading Darwinists over the past century who have agreed with Darwin’s own view that free will is a “delusion.” If Arnhart wants to add credibility to his claim that Darwinism is compatible with free will and personal responsibility, he first needs to persuade the leading proponents of Darwinism that their reductionistic view of the human person is wrong.

In my book’s discussion of “emergence,” I also point out that Arnhart’s redefinition of the human soul as simply a large and complex neocortex “conflicts with the traditional Judeo-Christian belief in an immaterial soul that gives equal dignity to each and every human being, no matter how physically incapacitated.” As I explain in my book, Arnhart’s materialistic conception of the soul makes it very difficult for him to effectively criticize the views of Darwinian bioethicist Peter Singer:

While Arnhart agrees that “only human beings have a soul,” he redefines the soul in material terms as simply a large and complex “neocortex, which allows for greater behavioral flexibility....” If this is the case, however, what is the worth of human beings with damaged or undeveloped neocortexes? Does a person who has a damaged brain—say, an elderly woman with dementia—merit treatment as a human being? Or can she be treated as a defective dog or cat, which can be euthanized? What about a newborn infant with a genetic defect like Down’s Sydrome?

As Arnhart himself notes, Darwinian bioethicist Peter Singer has sought to justify infanticide and euthanasia of mentally defective individuals precisely on the grounds that their damaged brains makes them worth less than lower animals... To his credit, Arnhart tries to refute Singer, but his attempt to do so exposes the ultimate weakness of his own position. Unlike traditional opponents of euthanasia, Arnhart cannot argue for the intrinsic value of handicapped infants or adults. Instead, he condemns Singer for saying that in the case of defective infants “we should put aside feelings based on the small, helpless, and —sometimes—cute appearance of human infants.” According to Arnhart, such advice is a mistake because it “assume[s] that we can organize our moral lives around norms derived from abstract reasoning without guidance from our natural emotions.” Since our emotions were developed through a long process of evolution, Arnhart believes that ignoring them would be tantamount to going against human nature.

Arnhart’s alternative to Singer seems to boil down to “if it feels good, do it”—hardly a position most conservatives would want to embrace. Actually, Arnhart himself recognizes that his argument is insufficient, because he quickly adds: “Of course, when our moral emotions conflict, then we must employ practical reasoning to develop rules of action to resolve the conflict.” But this concession eviscerates the force of Arnhart’s original objection.

Consider again the case of infanticide. Yes, parents usually have a natural emotional attachment to their baby. But if their baby is seriously defective, they will likely have other emotions as well: They may experience sadness about the child’s plight, and pity about his suffering. They may feel anxious and overwhelmed by the burden of dealing with a handicapped child. If the baby’s face or limbs are physically deformed, they may even feel revulsion. In other words, those situations where most parents would consider infanticide would be precisely the situations where Arnhart admits that our emotions are insufficient to help us make a moral choice. Given that parents considering infanticide will likely face conflicting emotions, why is Singer’s use of “abstract reasoning” inappropriate? Arnhart supplies no convincing answer.

Instead of responding to my critique of his effort to disassociate himself from the views of Peter Singer, Arnhart simply denies that there is a “traditional Judeo-Christian belief in an immaterial soul,” claiming that “[t]he dualism of immortal soul separated from mortal body seems more characteristic of pagan philosophy than Biblical teaching” and that “the New Testament teaching about the resurrection of the body suggest[s] that the resurrected soul depends on a resurrected body.” It is certainly true that the New Testament portrays human beings as far more than disembodied spirits. Human beings are properly considered body-soul unions, and a material body is a natural part of the completed human person. At the same time, the New Testament clearly indicates that human beings are more than their physical bodies. An immaterial soul is also a requisite part of the completed human person, and this immaterial soul is able to survive death and continue its existence before the resurrection of the body. (See, for example, Hebrews 12:23; Rev. 6:9-11; Matt. 10:28; Luke 16:19-31, 23:42-43.) Anyone who doubts that this has been the consistent teaching of historic Christianity should read theologian John W. Cooper’s definitive analysis in Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Regardless of whether one accepts the idea of an immaterial soul (and one need not be a Christian or a Jew to do so), it is simply untenable to claim that the modern materialist understanding of human beings can be squared with the traditional Judeo-Christian conception of the human person.

In my next installment of this series, I will address Arnhart’s comments about the relationship of Darwinism to religion and his response to my defense of intelligent design.

Posted by John West at 4:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

John Derbyshire, the vitriolic anti-ID crusader over at National Review Online, must have had a really bad Christmas. Or something. In his post-Christmas column at NRO, he is more shrill and bombastic in his denunciations of ID than ever, if that's possible.

At the same time Derbyshire criticizes supporters of ID for their supposedly "ad hominem" arguments, he also: (1) accuses "ID fanatics" of threatening the life of Judge Jones of Kitzmiller v. Dover fame; (2) denounces "the whole ID business… [as] riddled with dishonesty"; (3) lashes out at "Intelligent Design buncombe and its shifty promoters"; (4) says that while he "daresay there are some honest and sincere people pushing the ID agenda… taken as a whole, it is all a bit shabby and ignoble"; (5) insinuates that ID proponents are money-grubbing low-lifes who are mostly interested in "merrily raising funds… whizzing round the country on their junkets… collecting their book royalties, and disdaining to do anything as grubbily tedious as actual scientific research." Derbyshire seems to be competing with himself to see how many ad hominem attacks he can include in a single column. Such outbursts must be embarrassing for National Review, a fine publication which used to be a model of reasoned debate and thoughtful analysis. It still is in most areas, but Derbyshire's intemperate rants don't do it any credit. It says something when PBS has been more fair-minded in its coverage of ID than a writer at NRO (see here and here). Derbyshire is entitled to his viewpoint, of course. Unfortunately, he shows very little evidence of having read both sides of the current debate, instead relying almost wholly on such impeccable sources as Barbara Forrest, the long-time board member of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association who seems to think that anyone who supports ID wants to impose theocracy.

For the record, ID scientists not only do scientific research and produce scholarly publications, they often face persecution and intimidation if they express their views openly. Indeed, as the case of evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian Institution shows, a scientist who merely treats intelligent design with an open-mind is liable to be subjected to harassment and discrimination. And the insinuation by Derbyshire that ID proponents are somehow in it for the money rather than because of their sincere beliefs about the evidence is the sort of baseless smear one would usually expect from the far-left, not a writer for National Review. The claim is also laughable, given the fact that the entire ID program at Discovery Institute receives far less funding than the budget, say, of the biology program at a single major state university; it also receives far less funding than the budgets of the major Biblical "creationist" groups. If ID scholars are making a difference, it's not because of the power of their pocketbooks, it's because of the power of their ideas.

The very shrillness of the attacks by Derbyshire and other anti-ID zealots exposes the bankruptcy of their position. Unable to respond to the substantive arguments being put forward by ID proponents (except when they caricature them), these critics increasingly rely on trying to demonize supporters of ID. But in the process they only discredit themselves.

Posted by John West at 3:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Political science professor Larry Arnhart, author of the book Darwinian Conservatism, is probably the most thoughtful and articulate proponent of Darwinism as a support for conservatism. My recent book Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest is largely framed as a response to Arnhart's arguments. I appreciate how seriously Arnhart takes the debate over the implications of Darwin’s theory, and also how committed he is to a civil discussion. Arnhart has now responded to my book in two posts (here and here) on his Darwinian Conservatism blog, and in a four-part series over the next several days I will be offering my response to his comments. After some initial clarifications, today's post will focus on the issue of Darwinism and traditional morality.

Unfortunately, Arnhart starts his analysis of my book by mischaracterizing my position. He states that I reject “evolutionary science as totally false.” But that claim is incorrect. It is true I am deeply skeptical of the neo-Darwinian claim that all of the highly intricate features observed in nature are the products of an unguided material process of natural selection acting on random mutations. The scientific evidence, in my view, does not substantiate such a claim. But this does not mean that “evolutionary science” is “totally false.” Certainly evolutionary theory offers interesting insights into a wide array of microevolutionary changes, such as the development of antibiotic resistance or changes in the size of finch beaks. Evolutionary science also seems to offer at least a plausible hypothesis about the role of common ancestors in biology, although some of the reasoning used to support common ancestry seems circular and the evidence for universal common ancestry seems lacking. One reason I prefer to use the limiting term “Darwinian” or “neo-Darwinian” when I talk about “evolution” is to make clear that I do not rule out or reject all types of evolutionary explanations.

In the past, Arnhart has also mischaracterized my views about morality and religion, claiming that I “insist that Biblical religion is the only reliable source of moral norms,” and suggesting that I reject the idea of a “natural moral sense.” Yet as I explained at the session in which we both participated at the American Political Science Association in August 2006, I embrace the natural law tradition and believe that human beings have access to morality not only through revelation (e.g., the Bible), but through reason and conscience—the moral law “written on our hearts.” My acceptance of the idea of natural law has been a consistent theme in my writings, including my work on C.S. Lewis (Public Life in the Shadowlands and The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia) and my work on religion and politics, including The Politics of Revelation and Reason: Religion and Civic Life in the New Nation and the introductory essay to The Encyclopedia of Religion and American Politics.

Arnhart is right about one point: Just because I am skeptical of Darwinism doesn't mean I reject a biological grounding for certain human behaviors and traits. He is correct that I am open to some of the ideas he offers about a “biological conservatism.” I just do not think that Darwinism provides a convincing or helpful explanation for how most biological traits developed.

Following is my response to Arnhart’s continued effort to enlist Darwinism to support traditional morality.

1. Darwinism and Traditional Morality

In my book, I challenge the attempt to locate a non-relative justification for morality in Darwinism. According to a Darwinian conception of ethics, every behavior regularly practiced by at least some subpopulation of human beings is ultimately a product of natural selection. Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to Darwinism, so is infanticide. While monogamy is “natural,” so are polygamy and adultery. Because of this uncomfortable truth, even some noted Darwinists such as Thomas Huxley have recognized the difficulty of grounding ethics in a Darwinian understanding of nature. If all human behavior patterns are equally justified by natural selection, then there is no way to use Darwinism itself to classify any particular behavior as intrinsically right or wrong. For example, if natural selection is a complete explanation for pedophilia on the part of certain males, how can we say that such behavior is intrinsically wrong in Darwinian terms? Pedophilia must persist in a certain subpopulation of males because it offers a survival advantage selected for by natural selection. Thus, in Darwinian terms, the behavior of pedophiles is just as defensible as the behavior of non-pedophiles. Of course, if we believe in a moral standard that exists outside of the Darwinian process of natural selection, we can judge pedophilia according to that standard and declare it to be wrong. But according to Arnhart, no such standard exists. The most significant problem with Darwinism is not that it encourages amoral behavior but that its purported account of morality undermines the ability to make objective and non-relative distinctions between what is moral and what is immoral.

Rather than respond directly to my analysis of Darwinism as an insufficient grounding for the principles of morality, Arnhart tries to shift the focus to the presumed insufficiencies of the Bible as a guide to morality. Before responding any further I need to make something clear: Even if Arnhart’s critique of Biblical morality happens to be correct, it does not absolve Darwinism from the charge of fostering moral relativism. Darwinian morality needs to be defended on its own terms, not merely by pointing out perceived weaknesses of a Biblical understanding of morality. Arnhart’s critique of Biblical morality essentially dodges the central question of whether Darwinism itself is capable of justifying permanent moral standards. (As a secondary matter, it should be mentioned that Biblical morality is not the only alternative to Darwinian morality. The natural law/natural justice tradition provides another way of understanding moral universals. Thus, even if Arnhart shows that the Biblical account of morality suffers from the same problems as Darwinism, that does not mean that all other systems of morality are equally problematic.)

While I believe Arnhart’s critique of Biblical morality to be a diversion from the main question, I am willing to respond to it because I think his critique is largely wrong. I say “largely” not “wholly” because Arnhart is right to point out the challenges of applying moral truths to real life. Deciding how to apply an abstract principle of morality to any particular situation can be difficult and requires the ability to engage in prudential reasoning. This is a challenge for any system of ethics, whether Biblical or Darwinian. But logically prior to the determination of how to apply a moral principle in practice is the question of whether a moral principle is authoritative in the first place. The problem with Darwinian explanations of morality is that they provide no adequate way to distinguish “moral” behaviors from “immoral” behaviors because (by definition) all behaviors that exist must exist because they somehow promoted survival and were selected for by natural selection. Thus, in Darwinian terms, men who commit adultery are just as biologically “justified” as men who remain faithful to their spouses.

By contrast, in older systems of ethics such as Biblical morality or Greek idealism or the natural law tradition, at the foundation of moral reasoning were certain virtues and vices that were regarded as intrinsically right or wrong. This was true even for Aristotle, a thinker Arnhart prizes. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes that

[t]here are some [vices] whose very name implies wickedness, as e.g. malice, shamelessness, and envy, among emotions, or adultery, theft, and murder, among actions. All these, and others like them, are censured as being intrinsically wicked, not merely the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is never possible then to be right in respect of them; they are always sinful. Right or wrong in such actions as adultery does not depend on our committing them with the right person, at the right time or in the right manner; on the contrary it is sinful to do anything of the kind at all.... [Nicomachean Ethics, Bk VII, chapter 6, trans. by J.E.C. Weldon]

Unlike Aristotle—or Biblical morality or the natural law tradition—Darwinism does not supply a basis for categorically declaring any traits to be permanent virtues or vices across time and culture.

Arnhart’s main response to this objection seems to be a claim that the precepts of Biblical morality are just as prone to relativism as Darwinian morality, and he cites the practices of polygamy, infanticide, slavery to prove his point. These practices are typically cited by critics of Darwinian ethics to show the inability of Darwinism to defend such concepts as monogamy, the sacredness of human life, and human equality. But according to Arnhart, the Bible has espoused a view of these practices that is very similar to the Darwinian understanding. As I noted previously, even if Arnhart has correctly identified flaws in the Biblical approach to morality, it would not absolve Darwinism from its own inability to justify moral universals. However, I think Arnhart’s exposition of Biblical teaching is strained and unpersuasive.

(a) Polygamy and the Bible.
Consider Arnhart's claim that “polygamy is endorsed in the Old Testament.” Really? In the Bible’s account of the institution of human marriage in Genesis 2:21-24, monogamy is clearly upheld as the original pattern for the human family: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” In the Biblical account, the marriage of Adam and Eve before the Fall sets the marital ideal as monogamy, not polygamy. In the rest of the Old Testament, polygamy is tolerated and occasionally regulated, but only the most superficial reading would claim that it is “endorsed.” To the contrary, an underlying theme of Old Testament accounts of polygamy seems to be the tragic consequences of departing from God’s original ideal of monogamy. In the Old Testament, polygamy almost invariably produced family and ethnic discord (e.g., the story of Hagar and Ishmael in Gen. 16 and 21; the story of Leah and Rachel in Gen. 29-30; the conflict between Joseph and his brothers in Gen. 37). Polygamy also encouraged idol worship and unfaithfulness to the true God (see the account of King Solomon in 1 Kings 11). In sum, the Biblical ideal in marriage was monogamy from the very start, and departures from that ideal were shown to be harmful to relationships between human beings and between man and God. Just because polygamy is not explicitly prohibited in the Old Testament does not mean the Bible is neutral toward the practice. As Aquinas wisely pointed out, one cannot legally prohibit every violation of Biblical morality in a sinful world. Nevertheless, the Biblical ideal of monogamy as the original form of human marriage provides a basis for discouraging other types of conjugal relationships as inferior. In the Darwinian account, by contrast, there can be no ideal form of marriage to appeal to across time and culture. Mating practices continue to evolve according to needs for survival of each period of time, and presumably each mating practice that persists has been preserved by natural selection because it somehow promotes survival.

(b) Slavery and the Bible.
Arnhart likewise insists that “the Bible endorses slavery. In fact, the Biblical basis for slavery is so explicit that the proslavery Christians in the American South were adamant in defending slavery as Biblically justified.” But in the Biblical story of creation—unlike in the Hindu creation account of the Laws of Manu—human beings were originally created equal in the image of God. Because of this, slavery cannot be considered God’s original ideal for human relationships. Instead, as Augustine explained in the City of God (Book XIX.15), slavery should be regarded as a consequence of sin, not as part of God’s original plan. Far from encouraging slavery, the Bible sought to circumscribe its practice and articulated a clear vision of human equality before God that made slavery increasingly indefensible over time. In the Old Testament, the Jews’ exodus from Egypt celebrated the movement from slavery to freedom that is central to both Jewish and Christian theology. Jews were forbidden to enslave their fellow Israelites (Lev. 25:42-43), and anyone “caught kidnapping one of his brother Israelites” into slavery was given the death penalty. (Deut 24:7) Jews were allowed to become temporary indentured servants, but they had to be released after six years of service or at the next year of jubilee (Ex. 21:2, Lev. 25:39-41). Only foreigners were allowed to be purchased as permanent slaves (Lev. 25:44-46). In the New Testament, “slave traders” were put on the list of the “ungodly” (1 Tim. 1:20), Christians were urged not to sell themselves into slavery (1 Cor. 7:23), and Christians already enslaved were encouraged to gain their freedom if they were able (1 Cor. 7:21). Most important of all, the New Testament taught unambiguously the equality of slaves and masters before God, because in Christ “[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female... all are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) Thus, a Christian slave was to remember that he was now “the Lord’s freedman,” while a Christian slave-owner was to remember that he was “Christ’s slave.” (1 Cor. 7: 22) While slaves were encouraged to serve their masters “wholeheartedly” as if they “were serving the Lord, not men,” masters were urged to “treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” (Eph. 6:7-9, emphasis added) Like many practices resulting from human evil, slavery has been difficult to completely eradicate. But the Biblical recognition that human beings were originally created in God’s image inspired countless people throughout history to work for slavery’s amelioration and eventual abolition. The Bible’s emphasis on equality before God provides a clear basis for preferring freedom over slavery. The Darwinian account of morality, by contrast, provides no such guidance. As Carson Holloway perceptively points out in his recent book The Right Darwin:

at best Darwinism can only report our natural ambivalence with regard to slavery without giving us any compelling reason to either choose or reject it... in light of the ambivalence of our natural desires, both slavery and freedom are in some sense natural.... A moral theory that cannot persuasively condemn slavery cannot, of course, repudiate any less extreme forms of injustice or tyranny, whether perpetrated by majorities, minorities, or individual despotic rulers. [p. 95]

(c) Infanticide and the Bible.
Arnhart tries in vain to find a general endorsement of infanticide in the Bible. Most of the passages he cites do not even deal with infants, let alone infanticide. The two that do mention infants in passing deal with killing civilians during the conquest by Israel of Canaan. While the question of killing civilians during wartime is an important moral issue, it has nothing to do with the debate over whether parents should be allowed to put to death their recently born children. Incredibly, Arnhart tries to cite the story of Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22 as an endorsement of infanticide. Let alone the fact that Isaac was hardly an infant in this story, reading the story as an endorsement of child killing is absurd. Child sacrifice is treated with abhorrence throughout the Old Testament and perpetrators were subject to the death penalty under the Mosaic law (see Lev. 18:21, 20:2-5, and Jer. 32:35). Ancient Israelites hearing or reading the story of Abraham and Isaac clearly would have understood that God was asking Abraham to do something that in the normal course of affairs would be immoral. The main point of the account is to show Abraham’s absolute trust in God, not to justify child killing. It also should be noted that Isaac is not killed in the story, because God brings a ram for the sacrifice. If anything, the message communicated by the story is that unlike the gods of ancient Canaan that did demand the sacrifice of children, the God of Israel does not desire human sacrifice. (In Christian theology, of course, the story of Abraham and Isaac prefigures the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.) In any case, in no way does the story endorse either infanticide or the killing of children.

To reiterate, even if Arnhart's interpretations of Biblical teaching happened to be correct (and I don’t think they are), they would not rescue Darwinism from its own inability to provide a coherent basis for moral universals.

In future posts, I will respond to Arnhart’s comments about my book’s treatment of free will, economic liberty, limited government, religion, and intelligent design.

Posted by John West at 12:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I don't necessarily believe that religion has to always be incompatible with evolution, but it’s always amusing when unreligious people try to convince the religious that Darwinism is highly compatible with religion. The famous example is of course Eugenie Scott, a signatory of the Third Humanist Manifesto, who recommends that biology teachers discuss pro-evolution theological viewpoints in public schools. This past week has revealed two more examples of attempts by unreligious scholars telling the public that religion and evolution are compatible:

H. Allen Orr
In an article in the latest issue of New York Review of Books, evolutionary biologist H. Allen Orr attacks Dawkins for fighting against religion and says, "it's far from certain that there is an ineluctable conflict between the acceptance of evolutionary mechanism and the belief that, as William James put it, ‘the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe.’” But Orr also acknowledges: “I don't pretend to know whether there's more to the world than meets the eye and, for all I know, Dawkins’s general conclusion is right.”

Ronald Numbers
Another attempt to sway the religious was made by famous historian of creationism, Ronald Numbers. His article in Journal of Clinical Investigation last summer gave minimal indication that evolution and religion can conflict:

[T]he creationists have fostered a false duality between science and religion. A majority of people do not hold a literal young-earth interpretation of the Bible. The clerical community has a shared interest in keeping science and religion apart. They do not want religion to be presented as science and, like a large block of religious scientists, do not see any conflict between religious belief and evolutionary theory.

What are your religious beliefs now?

I don’t have any.

Are you an atheist?

I don't think so. I think that's a belief -- that there’s no God. I really wanted to have religious beliefs for a long time. I miss not having the certainty of religious knowledge that I grew up with. But after a number of years of trying to resolve these issues, I decided they’re not resolvable. So I think the term “agnostic” would be best for me.

(Seeing the light -- of science: Ronald Numbers -- a former Seventh-day Adventist and author of the definitive history of creationism -- discusses his break with the church, whether creationists are less intelligent and why Galileo wasn't really a martyr, by Steve Paulson (Salon.com)

In the United States, the 90 percent who are theists far outnumber the 10 percent who are nontheists. So you want to remember that you are a minority, and that you need to get along, so some compromise might be in order. I'm not suggesting that he should compromise his own views. But by arguing not only that the implications of evolution for him are atheistic but that evolution is inherently atheistic is a risky thing.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A number of scientists, most notably Richard Dawkins, are presently engaging on what is being called a "crusade against religion, not just intelligent design." Richard Gallagher, editor of The Scientist calls it "thought-provoking and worthwhile." But not so H. Allen Orr, who attacks Dawkins’ latest book as "an extended polemic against faith."

Orr calls Dawkins "an enemy of religion" and says he is "is on a mission to convert." But Orr is apparently not on such a mission, saying “I’m among those scientists who must part company with him." Orr calls The God Delusion "badly flawed" because it "never squarely faces its opponents." In short, Orr believes that Dawkins rejects religion too hastily and in too dismissive a fashion, saying, “You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology in Dawkins's book.”

But one of Orr’s primary complaints strikes against an issue related to the scientific theory of intelligent design--namely, Dawkins' extensive reliance upon the “who designed the designer” objection. Orr writes:

First, as others have pointed out, if he is right, the design hypothesis essentially must be wrong and the alternative naturalistic hypothesis essentially must be right. But since when is a scientific hypothesis confirmed by philosophical gymnastics, not data? Second, the fact that we as scientists find a hypothesis question-begging—as when Dawkins asks "who designed the designer?"— cannot, in itself, settle its truth value. It could, after all, be a brute fact of the universe that it derives from some transcendent mind, however question-begging this may seem. What explanations we find satisfying might say more about us than about the explanations. Why, for example, is Dawkins so untroubled by his own (large) assumption that both matter and the laws of nature can be viewed as given? Why isn't that question-begging?

Orr concludes "I once labeled Dawkins a professional atheist, I'm forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he's actually more an amateur." He has a scathing conclusion:

One reason for the lack of extended argument in The God Delusion is clear: Dawkins doesn't seem very good at it. Indeed he suffers from several problems when attempting to reason philosophically. The most obvious is that he has a preordained set of conclusions at which he's determined to arrive. Consequently, Dawkins uses any argument, however feeble, that seems to get him there and the merit of various arguments appears judged largely by where they lead.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 5:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you haven't been keeping up with the ID The Future podcasts, you will want to make doing so one of your new year's resolutions. IDTF has become quite popular and recently has started producing occassional video podcasts as well.

Today there is a short podcast about how to properly define and explain what the theory of intelligent design is.

Last Friday IDTF featured a short video clip from Dr. Stephen Meyer's recent appearance on the PBS program Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg.

Previous podcasts have included:

• Junk DNA and Darwinian Evolution as a Science-Stopper
  
• Michael Medved Interviews Michael Behe: Clip #1
  
• How Data and Evidence for Intelligent Design is Bringing About a Scientific Revolution: An Interview with Dr. Jonathan Wells
  
• Biology Professor Dishes the Dirt on Bacteria and Microevolution vs. Macroevolution
  
• George Gilder on technology, evolution, Darwin and intelligent design

Posted by Robert Crowther at 4:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)