Why did religion arise in the human species? Stanley Fish has a blog post at the New York Times observing that Richard Dawkins, "finds that the manufacturing and growth of religion is best described in evolutionary terms: '[R]eligions, like languages, evolve with sufficient randomness, from beginnings that are sufficiently arbitrary, to generate the bewildering – and sometimes dangerous – richness of diversity.'” Dawkins isn't the only scientist who takes this kind of approach. David Sloan Wilson is getting a lot of attention these days regarding his views on the evolutionary origin of religion. Wilson is much more serious in his approach than Dawkins, but Wilson has been frank regarding how many academics view religion through an evolutionary perspective. In his Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (University of Chicago Press, 2002), he observes that “inside and outside the ivory tower, religion is often portrayed as costly for the believer, delivering at best only vague psychic benefits in return.” (pg. 86) He declares his aim “to study religious groups the way I and other evolutionary biologists routinely study trees, bacteria, and the rest of life on earth.” (pg. 87) Wilson also exposes the mindset among some academics that “[r]eligious folk should abandon their beliefs in the face of superior knowledge and if they don’t they are being irrational.” (pg. 41) While Wilson urges his readers to resist the temptation to ridicule religion as irrational, he himself nonetheless contends that “many religious beliefs are false as literal descriptions of the real world” and specifically takes aim at Christianity, writing that an atheist historian would be “factually attached to … reality” while the Gospels of the New Testament provide may good wisdom but ultimately “distort the facts of the real world.” (pg. 228)

Is "Evolution for Everyone"?
To his credit, Wilson is very open about his own religious background: In his more recent book Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Delacorte Press, 2007), he acknowledges that “[m]y own background is not at all religious” and describes his father as highly “scornful of religion.” (pg. 236) Wilson recounts his “father’s gleeful expression” after telling a story about a preacher that boasted about the wealth in a church congregation, “as if the hypocrisy of all religion had been revealed.” (pg. 236) Nonetheless, Wilson is steadfast in stating that we should not view religion as a bad thing and praises John Marks Templeton for supporting research that seeks harmony between science and religion, and for being willing to fund “a proposal on religion from an evolutionary perspective.” (pg. 236)

This is most interesting: Wilson titles his book “Evolution for Everyone,” but how would “everyone” feel about the leading evolutionary hypotheses he describes that are put forward to explain an evolutionary origin of religion? According to Wilson, religious persons can select from any one of five evolutionary hypotheses to explain why their religion, and religion in general, exists:

[Editor's Note: This is Part 3 of a 4-part response. The full response can be read here.]

In Part I of this series, I discussed how Sean Carroll's review of Michael Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, misrepresents and oversimplifies Behe's arguments. In Part II, I discussed the fact that one of Carroll's citations actually confirms Behe's argument that there is an edge to evolution, and that evolution tends to not proceed forward when additional mutations decrease functionality. In this installment, I will discuss how many of Carroll's cited papers report types of evolution that Behe readily concedes can occur, and are unimpressive examples within the "edge" of evolution.

It's Easier to Tear Down Walls than to Build Them
To demonstrate the power of evolution, Carroll cites the evolution of toxins. But Behe provides a ready discussion regarding the evolvability of destructive proteins because they entail merely evolving the ability to break things in the cell—a relatively simple task:

Foreign proteins injected into a cell by an invading virus or bacterium make up a different category. The foreign proteins of pathogens almost always are intended to cripple a cell in any way possible. Since there are so many ways to break a machine than to improve it, this is the kind of task at which Darwinism excels. Like throwing a wad of chewing gum into a finely tuned machine, it’s relatively easy to clog a system—much easier than making the system in the first place. Destructive protein binding is much easier to achieve by chance.

(Michael J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, pg. 149 (Free Press, 2007).)

Carroll’s Sickening Citations
In another incredibly misplaced example, Carroll cites the evolution of malarial resistance to drugs as a rebuttal to Behe. Yet Behe spends multiple chapters discussing the evolution of resistance to malaria and how it generally entails unimpressive genetic changes that, in actually, demonstrate that there is a limit to evolutionary change

Finally, as I discussed in part II, Carroll also cites antibiotic resistance by referencing a paper that agrees with Behe's finding that there is an edge to the creative power of Darwinian evolution. In fact, Behe finds that bacterial mechanisms of antibiotic resistance present a challenge to natural selection that pales in comparison to the challenge posed by true complexity of the cell:

Where is it reasonable to draw the edge of evolution? ... One the one side ... several mutations can sequentially add to each other to improve an organism's chance of survival. An example is the breaking of the regulatory controls of fetal hemoglobin to help alleviate sickle cell disease. ... On the other side are the examples of what random mutation and natural selection clearly cannot do. ... The structural elegance of systems such as the cilium, the functional sophistication of the pathways that construct them, and then the total lack of serious Darwinian explanations all point insistently to the same conclusion: They are far past the edge of evolution. Such coherent, complex, cellular systems did not arise by random mutation and natural selection, any more than the Hoover Dam was built by the random accumulation of twigs, leaves, and mud.

(Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, pg. 111-112, (Free Press, 2007).)

Carroll simply isn't engaging Behe's arguments. He cites papers that discuss the evolution of biological functions that Behe already acknowledges are within the "edge" of what Darwinian evolution can produce. As discussed in the next post, Carroll’s only attempts to approach Behe’s edge of evolution fall far short.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Poor Baron Münchhausen, drowning in a swamp without hope of rescue, had no choice but to lift himself from the predicament by a concentrated pulling on his own hair. The prolific theoretical physicist Paul Davies has recently attempted a similar solution in respect of cosmological fine-tuning, but alas, mostly to depilatory effect. It’s a safe bet that the emperor has no hair!

In an op-ed published in The Guardian on Tuesday, Paul Davies eschewed both intelligent design and the meta-laws of the multiverse as explanations of the exquisite fine-tuning of the physical laws and constants of our universe, claiming that both are explanatorily vacuous (see here). We can in good conscience proclaim him half right in this judgment, which places him well ahead of a good many cosmologists. But then what solution does he suggest?

…I propose instead that the laws are more like computer soft-ware: programs being run on the great cosmic computer. They emerge with the universe at the big bang and are inherent in it, not stamped on it from without like a maker’s mark…. Seth Lloyd, an engineer at MIT, has calculated how many bits of information the universe has processed since the big bang. The answer is one followed by 122 zeros. Crucially, however, the limit was smaller in the past because the universe was younger. Just after the big bang, when the basic properties of the universe were being forged, its information capacity was so restricted that the consequences would have been profound.

Here’s why. If a law is a truly exact mathematical relationship, it requires infinite information to specify it. In my opinion, however, no law can apply to a level of precision finer than all the information in the universe can express. Infinitely precise laws are an extreme idealisation with no shred of real world justification. In the first split second of cosmic existence, the laws therefore must have been seriously fuzzy. Then, as the information content of the universe climbed, the laws focused and homed in on the life-encouraging form we observe today. But the flaws in the laws left enough wiggle room for the universe to engineer its own bio-friendliness… the laws explain the universe even as the universe explains the laws. If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it. The universe might indeed be a fix, but if so, it has fixed itself.

Let me explain. In virtue of animating nature by attributing intrinsic intelligence, purpose and meaning to it, Davies has declared himself in possession of resources adequate to the task of fine-tuning the laws and constants of the universe and generating the information requisite to life’s origin and development. However, he has no explanation for the intelligence and purpose he postulates to be incipient in primal matter, energy and spacetime, nor has he offered an account of its essential character – and the question of universal origins is still untouched. That the universe did not always exist is certain, even when multiverse scenarios are considered, since the mechanism of “eternal inflation” postulated to give rise to the multiverse is not eternal into the past (Borde, Guth & Vilenkin: arXiv:gr-qc/0110012 v2 14 Jan 2003).

But is Davies still entitled to a tu quoque with respect to ID? He seems to think so. He opines that “[d]umping the problem in the lap of a pre-existing designer is no explanation at all, as it merely begs the question of who designed the designer.” Let’s handle this matter expeditiously. First, design inferences are epistemically warranted when specified information of a certain complexity (high improbability) is observed, quite independent of whether we have an explanation for the intelligence behind the design. Here’s a particularly telling example: Roger Penrose has calculated that the entropy of the big bang itself, in order to give rise to the life-permitting universe we observe, must be fine-tuned to one part in e^10exp(123)≈10^10exp(123). Such complex specified conditions do not arise by chance, even in a string-theoretic multiverse with 10⁵⁰⁰ different configurations of laws and constants, so an intelligent cause may be inferred. What is more, since it is the big bang itself that is fine-tuned to this degree, the intelligence that explains it as an effect must be logically prior to it and independent of it – in short, an immaterial intelligence that transcends matter, energy and space-time. So much, then, for a personified universe engineering its own bio-friendliness: the universe is not a free lunch and the intelligence of which it gives evidence is not incipient within it.

Second, we must confront the implicit suggestion that articulating intelligent design as an explanation constitutes an appeal to ignorance. It does not. Science seeks to understand the past on the basis of presently operative causes sufficient to the explanation of what is observed. There is only one presently active cause known to be sufficient to the task of producing complex specified information: intelligence. When intelligence is put forward as the proper explanation of the extreme precision of life-friendly cosmological fine-tuning, we are therefore offering an explanation on the basis of what we know. It is an appeal to knowledge, not to ignorance.

Finally, there is the perennial taunt “So who designed the designer?” This is a philosophical and theological question, not a scientific one, so it does not constitute a scientific objection to intelligent design. Even so, the astute philosopher or theologian will recognize that the objection rests on a category mistake. Only contingent beings require an explanation for their existence, necessary beings do not. The question is, of course, whether there are any necessary beings other than inert abstract objects like mathematical entities. If we avail ourselves of the apparatus of possible world semantics, as philosophers are wont to do, a brief argument to the affirmative can be offered: the necessary existence of a transcendent personal being of consummate greatness (God) is possibly exemplified, i.e., the concept is logically coherent and therefore exemplified in some possible world. But a being that exists necessarily must exist in every possible world, and since the actual world is a fortiori possible, we may conclude, without qualification, that God exists. Where all of this leads, of course, is to the realization that the universe is indeed a fix, and that God did indeed fix it – it did not “fix itself.”

Posted by Dr. I. D. Finetuneski at 12:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of a 4-part response. The full response can be read here.]

In my previous post, I explained how Sean Carroll's review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution badly misrepresented Behe's arguments. Behe has responded to many of Carroll's arguments here, but unfortunately for Carroll, it gets much worse. One paper Carroll cites in an attempt to refute Behe actually explicitly confirms Behe’s position that there are limits to the creative power of Darwinian processes. Carroll argues that Behe claims that "multiple-amino acid replacements therefore can't happen." In contrast to Carroll's misrepresentation, Behe's actual position contends evolution can proceed forward where there is a stepwise advantage gained with each mutation, but Behe also contends that evolution gets stuck when intermediate states becomes harmful or do not increase fitness: "If two mutations have to occur before there is a net beneficial effect--if an intermediate state is harmful, or less fit than the starting state--then there is already a big evolutionary problem." (Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 106) Carroll cites examples of "cumulative selection changing multiple sites in evolving proteins," but one of Carroll's examples confirms Behe’s actual position.

One of the papers cited by Carroll demonstrates that 5 amino acid sites can change during the evolution of bacterial resistance to the antibiotic drug penicillin. Yet this paper actually confirms Behe’s view, as it reports that 102 of the 120 possible mutational combinations don't occur naturally for precisely the reason Behe says they won’t work: they don’t give stepwise mutational advantages. Consider how similar this finding is to Behe's argument above:

However, we demonstrate that 102 trajectories are inaccessible to Darwinian selection and that many of the remaining trajectories have negligible probabilities of realization, because four of these five mutations fail to increase drug resistance in some combinations.

(Daniel M. Weinreich, Nigel F. Delaney, Mark A. DePristo, Daniel L. Hartl, "Darwinian Evolution Can Follow Only Very Few Mutational Paths to Fitter Proteins," Science, Vol. 312:111-114 (April 7, 2006), emphasis added.)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 5:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The first major reviews of Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution are now up in magazines like Science, The New Republic, and The Globe and Mail. As Bruce Chapman noted here, certain Darwinists appear to be mounting a campaign to try to discredit Behe's argument — without, of course, ever directly addressing it.

While the Darwinists unfairly malign Edge, Dr. Behe has now responded to their criticisms over at his Amazon blog, a dynamic new forum where authors are able to reach their readers directly. Want to know what Behe has to say about Jerry Coyne, Michael Ruse, and Sean Carroll? Sure you do. Go check it out. You'll get a healthy dose of clear thinking and good humor from the venerable doctor himself.

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Tom Bethell of The American Spectator was present at the recent debate on Darwin and conservatism held at AEI. I am delighted that he was there or we would not have his droll, apt description of the event in the July-August number of the Spectator.

We are watching the Darwinists launch bold and deceitful attacks on all critics of their man’s theory. And they go farther—as witness Cornelia Dean, queen of The New York Times Science Page, in her assault Tuesday on the Catholic Church and the Christian effort to reserve the soul, at least, as something more than material expression.

In this environment, why is John Derbyshire National Review’s “designated point man” against intelligent design (as Bethell reports Derbyshire announced himself at AEI)? Who “designated” him? Why are conservatives still silent, with few exceptions, as the far left and the Darwinists personally berate scholars like astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez—just denied tenure at Iowa State (Iowa State!) because off-campus he is a proponent of intelligent design in the cosmos—and Michael Behe—whose hard logic and solid evidence in his new book, The Edge of Evolution, Darwinists believe can be answered best by personal abuse?

I know they can get away with it in the mainstream media, but why are conservatives so supine in the face of this kind of assault? Even old fashioned liberals, if there are any, should be appalled by the attempted opinion suppression practiced now on the Darwinist Left.

Fair, old fashioned debates like the one at AEI are prized by us as intellectual combat. We like them because they are relatively civilized and witnesses can weigh the arguments for themselves, without filters. We also like them because we think we win them. Say this for Arnhart (who, by the way, always conducts himself as a gentleman) and even Derbyshire: they aren’t afraid to appear against Discovery spokesmen. That is in contrast to the smear artists of the Darwinist Left.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 12:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

P.Z. Myers and I have been discussing this question for a while: is the brain sufficient for the mind? It’s clearly necessary for the mind, in everyday experience. Strokes and ethanol affect the brain and alter the mind. But necessity is not sufficiency. Is the brain alone — just matter — entirely sufficient for the mind? I think the mind needs an immaterial cause, like the soul. Myers doesn’t.

How, from a scientific standpoint, could we resolve our disagreement? We would have to show, empirically, whether matter alone could, under the right circumstances, give rise to a mind. This is an experimental question, and it turns on the ability to create artificial intelligence (A.I.). If we could build machines that have first-person ontogeny, which is self-awareness, we could show conclusively that matter alone is sufficient to cause the mind. A conscious computer would have a mind that emerged from matter, and Myers would be vindicated. If we can’t create A.I., my viewpoint would seem more credible.

How would we know that a computer had a conscious mind?

Alan Turing, in 1950, suggested a test for consciousness in a machine. In the Turing test, an investigator would interact with a person and a machine, but would be blinded as to which was which. If the investigator couldn’t tell which one was the person, and which was the machine, it is reasonable to conclude that the machine had a mind like the person. It would be reasonable to conclude that the machine was conscious.

Advocates of A.I. are passionate about their science. Transhumanist Ray Kurzweil is probably the most prominent proponent of the view that A.I. is possible, and even inevitable. He has written extensively on the scientific, philosophical, and cultural implications of A.I. His three most recent books are The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999), Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (2004), The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005). A.I. is, for many, a scientific eschatology.

Yet things have not gone well for A.I. After a half-century of remarkable advances in computer technology, no computer has passed the Turing test. No computer has, by general consensus, a mind. Not even close.

Many scientists and philosophers suggest that A.I. is not even theoretically possible. John Searle, a leading philosopher of the mind, has proposed a (now famous) thought experiment called The Chinese Room. Here’s my version:

Imagine that P.Z. Myers went to China and got a job. His job is this: he sits in a room, and Chinese people pass questions, written on paper in Chinese, through a slot into the room. Myers, of course, doesn’t speak Chinese. Not a word. But he has a huge book, written entirely in Chinese, that contains every conceivable question, in Chinese, and a corresponding answer to each question, in Chinese. P.Z. just matches the characters in the submitted questions to the answers in the book, and passes the answers back through the slot.

In a very real sense, Myers would be just like a computer. He’s the processor, the Chinese book is the program, and questions and answers are the input and the output. And he’d pass the Turing test. A Chinese person outside of the room would conclude that Myers understood the questions, because he always gave appropriate answers. But Myers understands nothing of the questions or the answers. They’re in Chinese. Myers (the processor) merely had syntax, but he didn't have semantics. He didn't know the meaning of what he was doing. There’s no reason to think that syntax (a computer program) can give rise to semantics (meaning), and yet insight into meaning is a prerequisite for consciousness. The Chinese Room analogy is a serious problem for the view that A.I. is possible.

But imagine that artificial intelligence could be created, and Searle is wrong. Imagine that teams of the best computer scientists, working day and night for decades, finally produced a computer that had an awareness of itself. A conscious computer, with a mind! So, finally, P.Z. Myers and I could agree on something. Myers would be right. If a computer had a mind, we could infer two things:

1) Matter is sufficient, as well as necessary, for the mind. The mind is an emergent property of matter.
2) The emergence of mind from matter requires intelligent design.

It’s not easy being a materialist.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 10:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[Editor's Note: This is Part 1 of a 4-part response. The full response can be read here.]

A few months ago we discussed my review of Sean B. Carroll's book The Making of the Fittest, the book in which Carroll intimates that the salvation of our species hangs upon accepting Darwin. Carroll has now invoked his own religious metaphors in his review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism in Science. While Michael Behe himself responds to Carroll here, I have a few comments which follow.

Carroll postures himself as Thomas Henry Huxley debating Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in a famous 19th century debate over evolution. Carroll even opens the review by invoking Huxley, saying, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." In his eagerness to attack Behe with the approval of "[t]he Lord," Carroll completely fails to engage Behe's actual arguments. Specifically, Carroll ignores that Behe quite contently acknowledges that at times multiple amino acids can change in a protein when there is a selective advantage for each mutation.

Carroll's mistake begins when he claims Behe says that "multiple-amino acid replacements therefore can't happen":

Behe states correctly that in most species two adaptive mutations occurring instantaneously at two specific sites in one gene are very unlikely and that functional changes in proteins often involve two or more sites. But it is a non sequitur to leap to the conclusion, as Behe does, that such multiple-amino acid replacements therefore can't happen. Multiple replacements can accumulate when each single amino acid replacement affects performance, however slightly, because selection can act on each replacement individually and the changes can be made sequential.

(Sean B. Carroll, "God as Genetic Engineer," Science, Vol. 316:1427 - 1428 (June 8, 2007).)

The Darwinian magic works well only when intermediate steps are each better (“more fit”) than preceding steps, so that the mutant gene increases in number I the population as natural selection favors the offspring…Yet its usefulness quickly declines when intermediate steps are worse than earlier steps and is pretty much worthless if several required intervening steps aren’t improvements).

(Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, pg. 112, (Free Press, 2007).)

This point is crucial: If there is not a smooth, gradually rising, easily found evolutionary pathway leading to a biological system within a reasonable time, Darwinian processes won't work.

(Behe, 2007, pg. 7.)

Although it hasn't yet occurred in nature, we shouldn't be at all surprised to see resistance of mosquitoes to the new insecticides arise and spread by Darwinian processes. The necessary preconditions are all there: tiny, incremental steps--amino acid by amino acid--leading from one biological level to another.

(Behe, 2007, pg. 76.)

But what happens when there is not an advantage gained at each step? This will be discussed as I recount Carroll's further mistakes in a subsequent post.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

They say that admitting a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. I'll admit that I'm something of a bookaholic: I'm constantly picking up books, especially books on evolution. It's been fascinating to read how Darwin is praised not only as the patron saint of “Western thought,” but sometimes as if he invented sliced bread and cupholders in cars.

For example, Douglas Futuyma’s textbook Evolutionary Biology stated that “it was Darwin's theory of evolution … that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism--in short, to much of science--that has since been the stage of most Western thought.” John Dupré rejoices that “Darwin’s theory provides the last major piece in the articulation of a fully naturalistic world-view and hence would, if fully appreciated, deliver a death blow to pre-scientific, theocentric cosmologies.” Stephen Jay Gould explained in his “In Praise of Charles Darwin,” that “Darwin has been the inspiration of my life and work.” Gould continued: “Let rejoice that we can identify, in our complex and ambiguous world, a man with such power of thought and such influence upon us all—a man who, at the same time, managed to be an exemplary human being.”

Darwin surely has had a profound influence upon many people, but what were his skills a field scientist? Lisowski and Strauss’s Biology: The Web of Life gives the standard treatment, explaining that Darwin “pursued his love of nature when he sailed to the Galapagos Islands” and praised Darwin because his “observations there led to a theory that revolutionized biology.” (pg. 233)

But David Tyler recently reports that a recent paper in Journal of Biological Education argues that some textbooks “have provided over-simplified and inaccurate accounts of Charles Darwin's contribution to the study of evolution over a period of many decades.” In short, they overstated Darwin’s field skills: “They have credited him with field skills and insight that he did not possess, and repeated several historical inaccuracies. Darwin's strength was as a synthesiser of information but, at least in his early life, he was not a particularly observant or careful field biologist. The specimens collected on his voyage on HMS Beagle were largely identified and analysed by others, but this is rarely acknowledged.” (Paul A. Rees, “The evolution of textbook misconceptions about Darwin,” Journal of Biological Education, Vol. 41(2):53-55 (Spring 2007), emphasis added.)

It seems that some textbook authors have a strange problem over-magnifying the abilities and accomplishments of Darwin. The question is, will they admit they have a problem?

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Fenton Communications, the left wing public relations firm that handles the Darwinist propaganda machine (along with groups like Moveon.org), undoubtedly has been anticipating the publication of Michael Behe’s new book, The Edge of Evolution, and helping to promote book reviews against it. Our friends at the Darwinist lobby, National Center for Science Education, are also on the case. They erroneously think that they can strangle this Hercules in his crib.

In terms of the interests of real science, it is a shame, though no surprise, that the initial Darwinist reviews are defensive and tendentious.We have asked Dr. Behe, a senior fellow of Discovery Institute, to reply to some of them and he has agreed, starting with Jerry Coyne's review from The New Republic. Since the same journals that would not provide space for him to reply to his critics after Darwin’s Black Box was published are unlikely to afford him access now (they have made it clear that it is a high academic crime to allow Darwin critics to speak for themselves), we hope that objective readers will spend a little time to “tear and compare.”

I am collecting stories of great scientists who were maligned in their time by the establishment journals and associations only to be vindicated later. Fortunately, Michael Behe, unlike some of his predecessors, is a relatively young man. He also has the merit of debating actual facts instead of hearsay and suppositions. The Edge of Evolution is outstanding.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 12:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A recent study in American Scientist should ignite a blaze of research in evolutionary psychology. In Evolution, Religion, and Free Will, Gregory Graffin and William Provine report their survey of the religious beliefs of eminent evolutionary scientists. The results are striking. Evolutionary scientists hold views about God and religious belief that are radically at odds with those of most Americans. To evolutionary scientists such extreme variance from the mainstream views would normally raise fascinating questions about selection factors associated with atheist adaptation. Graffin and Provine's study should give rise to scores of papers about the evolutionary origins of atheism.

But it won’t.

There’s no doubt that the religious beliefs of evolutionary scientists are radically different from those of most Americans. Graffin and Provine’s study, called the Cornell Evolution Project, evaluated the results of a questionnaire returned by 149 leading evolutionary scientists about their religious beliefs. Eighty percent of evolutionary scientists were strict atheists. Another six percent expressed atheist beliefs, but left some room for ‘mystery'. About five percent were deists, and five percent had a more or less traditional belief in God. Religious beliefs of evolutionary scientists are the inverse of the beliefs of the American public, nearly ninety percent of whom believe in God.

Yet the authors note that the great majority of evolutionary scientists (nearly ninety percent) see no conflict between religion and evolution. Ironically, this is not because evolutionary scientists believe that religion and science represent different ‘magisteria’, but because they believe that religious belief is a product of evolution. The vast majority of evolutionary scientists attribute belief in God to evolutionary mechanisms. That is, they deconstruct belief in God, and imply that it is merely an adaptive trait, or an accident— a spandrel. Evolutionary scientists' own scientific opinions about the evolutionary origin of belief in God correspond quite nicely to their own personal religious disbelief.

But then what is the evolutionary origin of disbelief in God? If evolutionary scientists were unbiased in their approach to the study of religious belief, they would study the evolutionary origins of their own beliefs, as well as the origins of the beliefs of others. Despite the significant evolutionary questions raised by the adherence of a group of intelligent well-educated professionals to a fringe ideology—atheism— that has had a profound influence on the 20th century, evolutionary scientists show no interest in honest evolutionary introspection. That’s surprising if their interest is genuinely scientific, but quite unsurprising if they are advancing an implicit or explicit ideological agenda with their work.

For evolutionary scientists, deconstructing religious belief is a method applied to other peoples' beliefs. Graffin and Provine, unpreturbed by this double standard and by the implications for the integrity of evolutionary science, point out the pragmatic implications of evolutionary scientists’ obvious theological bias:

Eminent evolutionists…worry that the public association of evolution with atheism or at least nonreligion will hurt evolutionary biology, perhaps impeding its funding or acceptance…Seeing religion as a sociobiological feature of human evolution, while a plausible hypothesis, denies all worth to religious truths.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow his criticisms to strike a chord with other Darwinists.

Turner starts by observing that the real threat to education today is not ID itself, but the attitude of scientists towards ID: "Unlike most of my colleagues, however, I don't see ID as a threat to biology, public education or the ideals of the republic. To the contrary, what worries me more is the way that many of my colleagues have responded to the challenge." He describes the "modern academy" as "a tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm." Turner explains that the "[r]eflexive hostility to ID is largely cut from that cloth: some ID critics are not so much worried about a hurtful climate as they are about a climate in which people are free to disagree with them." He then recounts and laments the hostility faced by Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian:

It would be comforting if one could dismiss such incidents as the actions of a misguided few. But the intolerance that gave rise to the Sternberg debacle is all too common: you can see it in its unfiltered glory by taking a look at Web sites like pandasthumb.org or recursed.blogspot.com [Jeffry Shallit's blog] and following a few of the threads on ID. The attitudes on display there, which at the extreme verge on antireligious hysteria, can hardly be squared with the relatively innocuous (even if wrong-headed) ideas that sit at ID's core.

(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)

Although there was general jubilation at the ruling, I think the joy will be short-lived, for we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and what is not science, and what may or may not be taught in the classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.

(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)

[I]ntelligent design … is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution. Unfortunately, many scientists fail to see this, preferring the gross caricature that ID is simply "stealth creationism." But this strategy fails to meet the challenge. Rather than simply lament that so many people take ID seriously, scientists would do better to ask why so many take it seriously. The answer would be hard for us to bear: ID is not popular because the stupid or ignorant like it, but because neo-Darwinism's principled banishment of purpose seems less defensible each passing day.

(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)

As we noted earlier, hopefully Turner’s criticisms will strike a chord with Darwinists who might otherwise close their ears to the argument for academic freedom for ID-proponents. Given the intolerance towards ID-sympathy that Turner describes, let us also hope that the chord is heard but the strummer is not harmed.

Guillermo Dekat, a law student and legal intern with Discovery Institute, helped contribute to this blog post.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Junk-DNA is clearly going the way of the dodo, in more ways than one. The film Flock of Dodos has become a textbook example of Darwinists attempting to rewrite history to erase their past scientific and textbook mistakes. Now that we're witnessing the apparent death of the "Junk-DNA" Neo-Darwinian paradigm, some pro-Darwin bloggers are already trying to rewrite history by claiming that Neo-Darwinism never supported the "junk-DNA" hypothesis after all. As one Scienceblogger wrote, "If you read evolgen you know that the term ‘Junk DNA’ is crap. From an evolutionary viewpoint it also seemed a bit peculiar to relegate most of the genome to non-functional status..." Just how valid is that statement? In 1995, Scientific American plainly expounded that under the Neo-Darwinian view, "[t]hese regions have traditionally been regarded as useless accumulations of material from millions of years of evolution." The view that non-coding DNA is "junk" has been adamantly promoted by TalkOrigins for years, as one leading contributor confidently asserted in 2001 that "[m]ost of human DNA is junk DNA." To be sure, over the years some rogue Darwinian biologists have bucked the consensus and promoted the view that non-coding DNA isn't mostly junk. But this doesn't change the fact that many leading Darwinists have had a long history of promoting the view that non-coding DNA is largely useless "junk." The comments above, and the quotes below document some examples of Darwinists asserting that non-coding DNA is thought to be "junk":

Susumu Ohno, a leader in the field of genetics and evolutionary biology, explained in 1972 in an early study of non-coding DNA that, "they are the remains of nature's experiments which failed. The earth is strewn with fossil remains of extinct species; is it a wonder that our genome too is filled with the remains of extinct genes?"[1]

In 1994, the authoritative textbook, Molecular Biology of the Cell, co-authored by National Academy of Sciences president Bruce Alberts, suggested (incorrectly!) that introns are "largely genetic 'junk'":

Unlike the sequence of an exon, the exact nucleotide sequence of an intron seems to be unimportant. Thus introns have accumulated mutations rapidly during evolution, and it is often possible to alter most of an intron’s nucleotide sequence without greatly affecting gene function. This has led to the suggestion that intron sequences have no function at all and are largely genetic “junk”…[2]

In 1996, leading origin of life theorist Christian de Duve wrote: "The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite or at best a harmless but useless passenger, hitching a ride in the survival machines created by the other DNA."[4] Another leading biologist, Sydney Brenner argued in a biology journal in 1998 that: "The excess DNA in our genomes is junk, and it is there because it is harmless, as well as being useless, and because the molecular processes generating extra DNA outpace those getting rid of it."[5] (Richard Dawkins makes similar pronouncements that DNA is junk in an article after 1998, here.)

Given the behavior of Darwinists in Flock of Dodos as they denied that Haeckel's embryo drawings have been misused in modern textbooks, one might suspect that Darwinists will try to rewrite history to claim their paradigm never called non-coding DNA "junk." Will junk-DNA truly go the way of the dodo?

Citations:
[1]. Susumu Ohno, "So much 'junk' DNA in our genome," Brook Haven Symposia in Biology, Vol. 23:366-370 (1972).

[2]. Bruce Alberts, Dennis Bray, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and James D. Watson, Molecular biology of the Cell, pg. 373 (3rd Ed., 1994).

[3]. Donald Voet & Judith Voet, Biochemistry, pg. 1138 (1995).

[4]. Christian de Duve, Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative, Basic Books, pg., 222-223 (1996).

[5]. Sydney Brenner, "Refuge of spandrels," Current Biology, Vol. 8(19): R669 (1998).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at the First Things blog On the Square, Francis Beckwith carefully shows how even Professor Dawkins cannot escape the common sense perception that the world is filled with agency, and those agents have a proper function. To get at all this, Beckwith describes Dawkins' lambasting of Kurt Wise, the young-earth creationist who did doctoral work under Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard.

Dawkins writes:

I find that terribly sad . . . the Kurt Wise story is just plain pathetic—pathetic and contemptible. The wound, to his career and his life’s happiness, was self-inflicted, so unnecessary, so easy to escape. . . . I am hostile to religion because of what it did to Kurt Wise. And if it did that to a Harvard educated geologist, just think what it can do to others less gifted and less well armed.

Beckwith notes that if design in living systems is really an illustion, then

this means that [Dawkins'] lament for Wise is misguided, for Dawkins is lamenting what only appears to be Wise’s dereliction of his duty to nurture and employ his gifts in ways that result in his happiness and an acquisition of knowledge that contributes to the common good. Yet because there are no designed natures and no intrinsic purposes, and thus no natural duties that we are obligated to obey, the intuitions that inform Dawkins’ judgment of Wise are as illusory as the design he explicitly rejects. But that is precisely one of the grounds by which Dawkins suggests that theists are irrational and ought to abandon their belief in God.

So if the theist is irrational for believing in God based on what turns out to be pseudo-design, Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction. For Dawkins’ judgment rests on a premise that—although uncompromisingly maintained throughout his career—only appears to be true.

Posted by Logan Gage at 3:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The journal Nature published an editorial recently in which the editors criticized Senator Sam Brownback’s New York Times essay What I Think About Evolution. Senator Brownback wrote:

Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as atheistic theology posing as science.

With all deference to the sensibilities of religious people, the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside.

…the idea that human minds are the product of evolution is not atheistic theology. It is unassailable fact.

The question raised is this: what is the evolutionary psychologists’ explanation for evolutionary psychology? More broadly, what is the evolutionary explanation for athiestic materialism? If, as the editors of Nature claim, our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution, then the opinion that our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution is itself just the product of evolution. The influence of atheistic materialism on modern culture and science is enormous, yet there are few if any studies on the evolutionary psychology of materialism as an ideology. Why are evolutionary psychologists so uninterested in the evolutionary origins of their own ideas?

One could certainly construct, in the tradition of evolutionary psychology, fanciful stories to explain the emergence of atheistic materialism in hominids. To put a negative spin on it, perhaps atheistic materialism arose because it allowed humans to compete ruthlessly with their fellows, unencumbered by concerns about supernatural moral codes or eternal accountability. Social Darwinism could be explained in this way. To put a positive spin on it, perhaps atheistic materialism arose because it freed it’s adherents from religious conflict, and allowed them to engage in more survival-enhancing efforts. In evolutionary psychology, there is no end of stories.

But, oddly, the stories do seem to end, right where atheistic materialism begins. Evolutionary psychologists seem loathe to deconstruct their own ideology. Why? If evolutionary psychology is a search for truth about the human mind, as the editors of Nature assert, it would seem that evolutionary psychologists would be falling all over themselves to understand the very idea that has led us to this epochal self-knowledge.

Evolutionary psychologists’ disinterest in the evolutionary origins of their own ideology is remarkable. Why do evolutionary psychologists exempt their own ideology from evolutionary deconstruction? Perhaps we would learn that atheistic materialism is, like belief in God, an evolutionary spandrel, or merely a survival tactic to secure group cohesion.

But atheistic materialism is where the evolutionary stories end. Why are evolutionary psychologists so reluctant to apply their own science to their own beliefs? Perhaps it’s because evolutionary psychology is atheistic theology, posing as science.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 9:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Discovery policy analyst Logan Gage was recently published in Washington DC's up and coming political paper, The Examiner, commenting on the recent flurry of debate among presidential candidates over evolution.

"I’m curious, is there anyone on the stage that does not believe in evolution?” came the question at the first Republican presidential debate. Much has been made of the fact that three candidates raised their hands. The candidates were not allowed to elaborate, but what should they have said had they more time?

What makes the original question difficult to answer yes or no is that “evolution” can mean many things. It can range from simple change over time, which no one disputes, to the specifically Darwinian idea that all of life’s diversity — from bald eagles to newborn baby boys — is owed to the mindless process of natural selection and random mutations and nothing more. As the eminent Harvard Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson famously summarized it, “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”

It is this specific Darwinian claim that change in the biological world is not owed to intelligence, that it has no goal other than immediate survival, which the majority of Americans reject. We still believe in the quaint notion that we are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. We believe that humanity was intended and is not the result of fortuitous mutations alone.

As Pope Benedict XVI said in his first homily, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.” While Americans are wary of rehashing court trials over evolution, candidates are on safe, middle-of-the-road ground in rejecting the Darwinian proposition.

But the question still arises, what does all this have to do with being president? Though he is not commander in science, the president can create an atmosphere of openness, freedom and honest dialog on this culturally hot subject. Many Americans are increasingly alarmed at the intolerance in this discussion at government and government-funded institutions.

As reported in Nature, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was recently denied tenure at Iowa State University. Despite “dozens of articles in top journals” and “an important discovery in the field of extrasolar planets,” Gonzalez’s pro-intelligent design views appear to have cost him tenure.

And as chronicled by a House subcommittee staff report, Richard Sternberg, a man with two doctorates in biology, faced harassment intended to force him to resign from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History after allowing the publication of a peer-reviewed article favoring intelligent design. This must stop. Good scientists should not be intimidated, especially using government funds, from expressing dissenting opinions.

Finally, what about the contentious issue of the teaching of evolution in public schools? Americans know that if our students are to compete in an increasingly global marketplace, they must learn to think critically. And this has implications for how science, especially contentious scientific issues such as global warming, embryonic stem cell research and evolution, should be taught.

Instead of dogmatically teaching kids only the arguments on one side of these debates, let’s encourage them to learn about the full range of informed views in the scientific community. Not only would this increase students’ knowledge of evolution and other scientific topics, but it would also allow them to weigh evidence and think critically about competing claims in science.

In short, we’d be teaching them to be better scientists. If qualified teachers want to discuss the scientific evidence for and against key aspects of Darwin’s theory with their students, they should be defended rather than reprimanded.

At the end of the day, surely presidential candidates can urge the American people to come together and discuss Darwin — and other scientific issues — thoroughly and openly. Students coming together to discuss and debate an idea that changed the world: What could be more American than that?

Logan Paul Gage is a policy analyst with Discovery Institute in Washington.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On Mike Behe's Amazon author's page there is an enlightening 13 part Q&A in which he clarifies his position on a number of issues related to the debate over evolution and intelligent design. It is well worth reading, as is the new book. Here is a just a taste of the types of questions that are posed to the author:

In Edge of Evolution you indicate that some of the evidence supporting common ancestry is pretty persuasive. Yet a number of scientists have questioned some of the evidence for common ancestry. Do you think it is beyond the pale for them to do so? In your mind is it scientific to question common ancestry?

In my view it is certainly not “beyond the pale” for a scientist to question anything. Questioning and skepticism are healthy for science. I have no solutions to the difficult problems pointed to by scientists who are skeptical of universal common descent: ORFan genes, nonstandard genetic codes, different routes of embryogenesis by similar organisms, and so on. Nonetheless, as I see it, if, rather than Darwinian evolution, one is talking about "intelligently designed" descent, then those problems, while still there, seem much less insuperable. I certainly agree that random, unintelligent processes could not account for them, but an intelligent agent may have ways around apparent difficulties. So in judging the likelihood of common descent, I discount problems that could be classified as "how did that get here?" Instead, I give much more weight to the "mistakes" or "useless features" arguments. If some peculiar feature is shared between two species which, as far as we can tell, has no particular function, and which in other contexts we would likely call a genetic accident, then I count that as rather strong evidence for common descent. So, if one looks at the data in the way that I do, then one can say simultaneously that: 1) CD is very well supported; 2) grand Darwinian claims are falsified; 3) ID is confirmed; 4) design extends very deeply into biology.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

P.Z. Myers' reply to my observation that ideas like altruism have no physical properties, like location, leaves a thoughtful observer to wonder: why do materialists have so much difficulty with this basic philosophical principle? It’s clear that ideas share no properties with matter. Ideas have no mass, or length, or temperature, or location. They’re immaterial. Clearly, under ordinary circumstances the brain is necessary for our ideas to exist, but, because matter and ideas share no properties, it’s hard to see how the brain is sufficient for ideas to exist.

Yet Myers insists that altruism is located in the brain. He's had some trouble with my previous thought experiments, so I'll try another:

Imagine that we can do complete split brain operations. We can separate the hemispheres of the brain completely, and not just partially as we can do now with corpus callosotomies. We can then further subdivide the tissue, keeping the brain parts biologically alive, in quarters, eighths, etc. Ignoring for the time being what would happen to the person’s consciousness (which brain part would mediate the first person experience of the original person, if any?), what would happen to the original person’s altruism? Would each one-eighth brain have one-eighth the altruism? Would each lobe contribute one-eighth of the previous brain’s annual contribution to the United Way? Would the altruism stay in one of the lobes- the left occipital lobe, and leave the other lobes heartless? What if we kept dividing? Is there an altruism neuron? The question seems nonsensical. Altruism, as an idea, doesn’t have ‘parts’. Unlike matter, ideas can’t be divided or localized.

In everyday life, the brain is clearly necessary for ideas, but there are good reasons to think that that brain is not sufficient to cause ideas. This observation is very old; philosophers from Plato to Aquinas to Descartes to Popper and Eccles have known it. Myers seems not even to understand this basic paradox of the mind-body problem. The materialist assertion that ideas are caused entirely by brain matter, with no need for the existence of a soul or other incorporeal substance, is philosophically and scientifically incoherent. It is a materialistic dogma, an act of faith.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 11:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In a remarkable editorial, the editors of Nature recently responded to Senator Sam Brownback’s essay What I Think about Evolution in the New York Times. Senator Brownback wrote:

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it….

Referring to materialistic evolutionary theories for the emergence of the human mind, Senator Brownback notes:

…Aspects of these theories that undermine [the] truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Natures’ editors took Brownback to task for ‘crossing lines’:

…there are lines that should not be crossed, and in a recent defence of his beliefs and disbeliefs in the matter of evolution, US Senator Sam Brownback (Republican, Kansas) crosses at least one.

They asserted, with confidence in their science:

Humans evolved, body and mind, from earlier primates. The ways in which humans think reflect this heritage…the idea that human minds are the product of evolution is not atheistic theology. It is unassailable fact.

The editors assert that the emergence of the human mind without intelligent design is an ‘unassailable fact’. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this claim, aside from the problems with their interpretation of the scientific evidence itself, is the admission by the editors that the question of intelligent design in biology can be adjudicated by the scientific method. If the evidence for or against intelligent design can be evaluated scientifically— as the editors at Nature firmly assert that it can— then intelligent design is a real scientific inference, albeit, according to the Nature editors, a mistaken one. And if they are asserting that intelligent design is mistaken from a non-scientific standpoint, then the editors are advancing an atheistic theology, as Brownback pointed out.

The mainstay of the materialists’ argument against intelligent design has been that it isn’t science. Yet, as the Nature editors inadvertently demonstrate so clearly, the materialists’ argument against intelligent design is self-refuting; they argue that intelligent design isn’t science, and that it’s scientifically wrong. Yet if intelligent design is scientifically wrong— if it is an 'unassailable fact' that the human mind is the product of evolution, not intelligent design— then the design inference can be investigated (and, they claim, refuted) using the scientific method. Then intelligent design is science.

Either the conclusion that the editors reached is the result of a scientific analysis of the design inference, or the conclusion that the editors reached is the result of a non-scientific analysis of the design inference, which would be, as Senator Brownback observed, atheistic theology posing as science.

Either intelligent design is science, or Senator Brownback got it right.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We mortals are easily impressed by palindromes – words or phrases that have the same spelling forwards and backwards. But try writing a sentence which has two different meanings: One meaning is gained when you start with one letter of the first word, and then an entirely different meaning is understood when you start reading with the second letter of the first word. Such a sentence would be most impressive, but what if such "sentences" existed in our DNA?

Leading evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala recently wrote in Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that "Chance is an integral part of the evolutionary process." Ayala then explained why he thinks Darwinian evolution is right and ID is wrong: "Biological evolution differs from a painting or an artifact in that it is not the outcome of preconceived design. The design of organisms is not intelligent but imperfect and, at times, outright dysfunctional.” ("Darwin's greatest discovery: Design without designer," PNAS, 104:8567–8573 (May 15, 2007), emphasis added.) This questionable standard and conclusion is Ayala’s punchline against ID.

What, then, does Ayala think of organisms whose design is intelligent and highly functional? A recent article in Public Library of Science discussed how dual-coding genes – genes which overlap and code for multiple proteins when read through different reading frames – are "hallmarks of fascinating biology" and "nearly impossible by chance" to the extent that evolutionary biologists have held "skepticism surrounding" their very existence. Now it seems they do exist, and they don't quite match Ayala's vision of biology, where "[c]hance is an integral part" of the "design of organisms is "dysfunctional" and "not intelligent." As the article, "A First Look at ARFome: Dual-Coding Genes in Mammalian Genomes," states:

Coding of multiple proteins by overlapping reading frames is not a feature one would associate with eukaryotic genes. Indeed, codependency between codons of overlapping protein-coding regions imposes a unique set of evolutionary constraints, making it a costly arrangement. Yet in cases of tightly coexpressed interacting proteins, dual coding may be advantageous. Here we show that although dual coding is nearly impossible by chance, a number of human transcripts contain overlapping coding regions. Using newly developed statistical techniques, we identified 40 candidate genes with evolutionarily conserved overlapping coding regions. Because our approach is conservative, we expect mammals to possess more dual-coding genes. Our results emphasize that the skepticism surrounding eukaryotic dual coding is unwarranted: rather than being artifacts, overlapping reading frames are often hallmarks of fascinating biology.

(Wen-Yu Chung, Samir Wadhawan, Radek Szklarczyk, Sergei Kosakovsky Pond, Anton Nekrutenko, "A First Look at ARFome: Dual-Coding Genes in Mammalian Genomes," PLOS Computational Biology, Vol. 3(5) (May, 2007), emphasis added.)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Many public schools in the U.S. are still showing biology students the 2001 PBS Evolution series. This 8-hour propaganda extravaganza — like most modern biology textbooks — distorts and exaggerates the evidence to convince people that Darwinism is true. When the series was first released, Discovery Institute published a detailed 150-page Viewer’s Guide exposing the distortions and exaggerations. The Guide includes extensive references to the scientific and popular literature, as well as eight activities that teachers and students will find helpful in critically analyzing this work of pro-Darwin propaganda.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution:

The controversy over Darwin’s theory of evolution has never been more intense. The American people – and especially American schoolchildren – deserve to know what the fuss is all about. They deserve to know what the evidence shows, what scientists really think, and why – after all these years – there is still widespread opposition to Darwinian evolution.

American public television can and should be used to educate people about this important controversy. The seven-part Evolution series, produced for public television by Clear Blue Sky Productions and the WGBH/NOVA Science Unit, could have been an important contribution in this regard. But Evolution is a work of advocacy, an advertisement not just for Darwinism, but for some of its more extreme manifestations. It distorts the biological evidence, mischaracterizes historical facts, systematically ignores the views of scientists, and misrepresents Darwin’s critics in order to convince the American people that evolution is absolutely true – and indispensable to our daily lives.

This Viewer’s Guide has been prepared to correct this one-sided presentation. Where Evolution distorts or ignores the facts, this Guide supplies them. Where Evolution ignores or misrepresents its critics, this Guide lets them speak for themselves. Although Evolution promotes the stereotype that all opponents of Darwin’s theory are biblical literalists, this Guide was not written to defend biblical literalism, but to defend honest science. It is simply based on the premise that the American people deserve to hear the truth – especially from the television network that they are supporting with their tax money.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 7:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Two recent news articles are discussing the death of the junk-DNA icon of Neo-Darwinism. Wired Magazine has an article pejoratively titled "One Scientist's Junk Is a Creationist's Treasure" that emphasizes the positive point that intelligent design has made successful predictions on the question of "junk-DNA." The article reports:

[A] surprising group is embracing the results: intelligent-design advocates. Since the early '70s, many scientists have believed that a large amount of many organisms' DNA is useless junk. But recently, genome researchers are finding that these "noncoding" genome regions are responsible for important biological functions.

"It is a confirmation of a natural empirical prediction or expectation of the theory of intelligent design, and it disconfirms the neo-Darwinian hypothesis," said Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

The Wired Magazine article openly and unashamedly confuses intelligent design with creationism, but it does admit that ID proponents are making positive predictions about the scientific data:

Advocates like Meyer are increasingly latching onto scientific evidence to support the theory of intelligent design, a modern arm of creationism that claims life is not the result of natural selection but of an intelligent creator. Most scientists believe that intelligent design is not science. But Meyer says the opossum data supports intelligent design's prediction that junk DNA sequences aren't random, but important genetic material. It's an argument Meyer makes in his yet-to-be-published manuscript, The DNA Enigma.

The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution. ... The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of "junk DNA" flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion "letters" of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of previously invisible tasks.

(Rick Weiss, "Intricate Toiling Found In Nooks of DNA Once Believed to Stand Idle," Washington Post, June 14, 2007)

But much of it seems to be playing crucial roles: regulating genes, keeping chromosomes properly packaged or helping to control the spectacularly complicated process of cell division, which is key to life and also is at the root of cancer. .... [S]everal recent studies have found that people are more likely to have Type 2 diabetes and other diseases if they have small mutations in non-gene parts of their DNA that were thought to be medically irrelevant.

Intelligent Design has Long Predicted This Day
Proponents of intelligent design have long maintained that Neo-Darwinism's widely held assumption that our cells contain much genetic "junk" is both dangerous to the progress of science and wrong. As I explain here, design theorists recognize that "Intelligent agents typically create functional things," and thus Jonathan Wells has suggested, "From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much ‘junk'." [4] Design theorists have thus been predicting the death of the junk-DNA paradigm for many years:

As far back as 1994, pro-ID scientist and Discovery Institute fellow Forrest Mims had warned in a letter to Science[1] against assuming that 'junk' DNA was 'useless.'" Science wouldn't print Mims' letter, but soon thereafter, in 1998, leading ID theorist William Dembski repeated this sentiment in First Things:

[Intelligent] design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.

(William Dembski, "Intelligent Science and Design," First Things, Vol. 86:21-27 (October 1998))

Soon thereafter, an article in Scientific American explained that “the introns within genes and the long stretches of intergenic DNA between genes ... ‘were immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk.’” John S. Mattick, director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia was then quoted saying this might have been “one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.”[3]

The next year, in 2004, pro-ID molecular biologist Jonathan Wells argued that "The fact that ‘junk DNA’ is not junk has emerged not because of evolutionary theory but in spite of it. On the other hand, people asking research questions in an ID framework would presumably have been looking for the functions of non-coding regions of DNA all along, and we might now know considerably more about them."[4]

Then in 2005, Sternberg and leading geneticist James A. Shapiro conclude that “one day, we will think of what used to be called ‘junk DNA’ as a critical component of truly ‘expert’ cellular control regimes.”[5] It seems that day may have come.

It seems beyond dispute that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm led to a false presumption that non-coding DNA lacks function, and that this presumption has resulted in real-world negative consequences for molecular biology and even for medicine. Moreover, it can no longer seriously be maintained that intelligent design is a science stopper: under an intelligent design approach to investigating non-coding DNA, the false presumptions of Neo-Darwinism might have been avoided.

Citations:

[1] Forrest Mims, Rejected Letter to the Editor to Science, December 1, 1994.

[2] Richard v. Sternberg, "On the Roles of Repetitive DNA Elements in the Context of a Unified Genomic– Epigenetic System," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 981: 154–188 (2002).

[3] Wayt T. Gibbs, “The Unseen Genome: Gems Among the Junk,” Scientific American (Nov. 2003).

[4] Jonathan Wells, “Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research,” Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, 3.1.2 (Nov. 2004).

[5] Richard v. Sternberg and James A. Shapiro, “How Repeated Retroelements format genome function,” Cytogenetic and Genome Research, Vol. 110: 108–116 (2005).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Will the summer of 2007 be remembered for largest Darwin-related cultural earthquake to date? Dr. Thomas Woodward, author of Darwin Strikes Back, thinks it just might.

Beyondthenews.com today published Woodward's review of Behe's The Edge of Evolution. Woodward says the book "is shaping up as a major turning point in the growing controversy between Darwinian evolution and the movement known as Intelligent Design."

Behe's first ID book, Darwin's Black Box, broke new ground in the debate over natural selection, and Woodward sees Edge of Evolution doing the same in regards to random mutations.

For example, Behe asks, where can we draw the line between what random mutations can do in biology and what they cannot do? To his own surprise, new genetic data recently unearthed from the cellular hard drives of humans and microbes led him to “draw the line” much lower on the scale of complexity than where he would have just ten years ago. Random mutations just break things; they don’t make things.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Is the brain alone necessary and sufficient to cause the mind? Here’s a thought experiment:

Imagine scientists living on an isolated island who have developed sophisticated science and culture, with one exception: they deny that telecommunication is possible. For assorted reasons, they deny that the human voice can be transmitted through space, except as vibrations in air. We’ll call this civilization the ‘Verizon Deniers.’

One day, they find a cell phone (it dropped from a plane or something). They turn it on, and they hear things. They hear hissing, cracking, and what sounds like voices!

The Verizon deniers are amazed! So it's off to the lab, and soon the Verizon denier scientists have the answer. They show that all kinds of things — chemicals, mechanical impacts, electrical interference — can change or ablate the voices. They find that certain sounds the voices make are consistently associated with patterns of activation in the cell phone circuits. They found that some aspects of the voices — tone, amplitude, etc. — are localized within the cell phone. They conclude that the voices are simply an emergent property of the cell phone circuits!

However, one of the scientists, a Verizon accepter, isn’t so sure. He says:

“What if the cell phone is necessary for all of the noises, but only sufficient for some? What if some of the noises in the phone are actual voices of living people, and are merely transmitted through the phone, but not caused by it?”

The Verizon deniers say: “How can you prove it?”

So the Verizon accepter goes to work. He studies the properties of all of the noises the phone made. Some of the noises, like the hiss or the cracks, he can explain as an emergent property of the phone — just oscillations from the circuitry transmitted through the speaker to the air.

But the voices are different. The sound of the voices certainly has some properties like those of the circuit — frequency, amplitude, power, etc — but there's more to them. They have meaning. These ‘voice’ noises express anger, love, purpose, judgment — all properties that are not inherent to electrical components.

So the Verizon accepter decides that the voices are not caused entirely by the cell phone. He concludes:

1) The cell phone is necessary for all of the noises
2) The cell phone is sufficient to produce noises that only have properties — like frequency and amplitude — that are shared with the circuitry in the cell phone itself
3) The cell phone is insufficient to fully account for the noises (i.e., the voices) that have meaning, because meaning is not a property of matter. The only thing that can cause meaning is a person.

The Verizon accepter shows that there is a method of determining whether the mind can be caused entirely by matter. If the mind has a property, such as meaning, that is not a property of matter, then matter, while perhaps necessary to the mind, is insufficient to cause it.

Too simple? I propose that any credible theory of the mind must at least provide a basis for discerning that a voice from a cell phone is generated by a person, not the phone. It’s a kind of inverse Turing test — it tests the theory, not the machine. As I see it, none of the materialistic theories of the mind would provide a clear basis for identifying the voice in a cell phone as a person and not as an emergent property of the phone. If a theory can't get a cell phone right, I don't trust it with the mind.

So, you ask, what was the denouement of the story about the scientists on the island? Well, things went well for the Verizon accepter, until he applied for tenure…

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The folllowing is from a sympathetic academic observer:

Having watched the spectacle of the Panda's Thumb feeding frenzy, not to mention the Sean Carroll and Jerry Coyne reviews (and more are coming), I wanted to pass on a bit of plain talk about Mike Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution (EE). 1. Don’t expect the sort of reviews that met Darwin’s Black Box (DBB) — but not because EE is inferior to DBB. Far from it.

In 1996, when DBB appeared, Mike was a largely unknown biochemistry professor. Now the name “Michael Behe” is known worldwide, by millions, who either love and admire Mike, or wish he were dead. EE will face a MUCH tougher reception than DBB, simply from the intervening 11 years of controversy. Reviewers will be openly gunning for Mike, mainly because of what they perceive him to represent. A writer like Mike, who challenges received scientific opinion, gets one chance to meet his readership without prejudice. Mike got that chance with DBB. In June 2007, by contrast, it's open season on a famous dissenter.

2. But Mike will come out of the hail of bullets in good shape. Here's why.

The experimental (observational) evidence strongly supporting Mike’s arguments in EE is far more extensive than most of his readers, including many professional biologists, will know. Mike could include only a small portion of that evidence in his new book. Moreoever -- and this is the great beauty of EE -- Mike’s arguments are rich with testable implications, in terms of current model systems and data from populations genetics, etc. Thus, unlike the “Well, you say Darwinism can’t, but I say it can” character of much of the debate surrounding DBB (he said, she said, who knows?), EE focuses the biological community’s attention on what can actually be known about the limits of Darwinian processes, with Mike arguing that we can know and detect those limits. The main point is this: If Mike is right that we can know, or locate, the edge of Darwinian processes, the question can be settled with evidence. In other words, the debate in months to come won’t be “Who knows what evolution might have done in the deep mists of time?”

Rather, Mike can say, hey -- let’s go to the evidence. The coming debate around EE thus promises to be very fruitful for ID, and for getting the biological (and larger) community to think about what evolutionary theory has actually demonstrated, versus what it has assumed.

3. READ THE BOOK before you take seriously wild-eyed, ill-informed criticisms of it. And when you do read reviews, factor in point (1), above. Let’s not be naïve and think Mike is drawing dispassionate, open-minded reviewers. There will be a great deal of rhetorical mud and misdirection to wash off, in the months to come, before the genuine biological issues can be properly addressed.

EE opens up a wide range of important questions for biology. Once the mud is washed off, and the evidence engaged, we’ll find the center of this debate will have moved again, as it did with DBB.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

P.Z. Myers, materialistic neuroscientist and blogger at Pharyngula, is looking for altruism. Responding to my observation that ideas like altruism can’t be caused entirely by neurochemistry because ideas don’t share properties (like location) with matter, Myers asserted:

…altruism does have a location. It’s the product of activity in [the] brain. Where else would it be, floating in the air, in [the] left foot, or nonexistent?

If altruism is located in the brain, then some changes in location of the brain must, to use a mathematical term, 'map' to changes in altruism. That is, if you move your brain, you move your altruism in some discernable way. And ‘moving’ altruism means changing its properties. It won’t do to say that moving altruism changes its property of ‘location,’ because ‘location’ of altruism is the issue. That begs the question.

Does altruism have location? The brain does; it can move in space by moving in any of six degrees of freedom: in a Cartesian system, it can move in the x, y, or z direction, or it can pitch, yaw, or roll. These are the movements possible for a material body.

Now moving your brain through ‘x,y,z’ or ‘pitch, yaw, or roll’ does change its material properties, which are located in the brain. The pulse pressure in your brain tissue is greater when you’re recumbent than when you’re standing (pitch). The venous pressure is lower when you’re standing than when you’re recumbent. Tilting your head to the left (roll) tilts the vector of carotid arterial blood flow to the left. Even material things that are less tangible, like neuronal action potentials, change with brain movement. Action potentials have direction, and can be described using spatial vectors. When you tilt your head, you tilt the vectors along which your axons transmit action potentials. When you turn your head 30 degrees to the left (yaw), you turn the direction of propagation of action potentials 30 degrees to the left too. In this sense, material changes in the brain can map to changes in location of the brain.

But how does moving your brain change your altruism? Do properties of altruism, like benevolence, have pitch, yaw or roll? Is generosity measurably and reproducibly different when you (and your brain) are on the north, rather than the south, side of the room? Are you measurably more or less charitable if you tilt your head 30 degrees to the left? If you walk around the room does your altruism change in a reproducible way? If you stand up, is your altruism different that when you’re sitting?

For altruism to be located in the brain, changes in altruism must map, in some reproducible way, to changes in brain location. But it’s obvious that no property of altruism maps to brain location. If no property of altruism maps to brain location, then altruism is independent of brain location, and it’s nonsense to say that altruism is located in the brain. Altruism is completely independent of location, so it can’t be located in the brain, or anywhere. It can’t be ‘located’ at all.

Myers makes a category error. Matter and ideas share no properties. Ideas like altruism aren’t material, so they can’t have a location. Altruism has no yaw or pitch or roll. Location is a property of matter, not ideas. Benevolence is a property of ideas, not matter. Matter can't be benevolent, and ideas can't have location. And matter can’t, by itself, cause ideas, because they share no properties.

Clearly matter can influence ideas (ethanol makes us think differently), and ideas can influence matter (we can move our legs on purpose). No one knows how matter and ideas influence each other. Dualism, which is the theory that the mind and matter are separate substances, has its own problems, the most serious of which is: how can mind and matter interact if they are completely different substances? I favor dualism, because I accept the reality of immaterial causes, and dualism is consistent with our intuitive and nearly universal belief in the existence of the soul. Although dualism obviously leaves explanatory gaps, it retains free will and intentionality, which seems to accord with reality. Implicit or explicit acceptance of free will and intentionality is a precondition for a meaningful understanding of the mind-body problem. Our opinions have no meaning if they're determined entirely by neurochemistry. Norepinephrine doesn't have 'meaning.'

Acceptance of free will and intentionality is a precondition for any meaningful discussion of reality. Strictly materialistic neuroscience is nonsense, because it inherently denies the existence of free will and of intentionality, and it entails basic category errors, such as the belief that ideas have locations. A strictly materialistic explanation of the mind is an oxymoron, because the mind isn't material. A real understanding of the mind must be open to immaterial causes.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Let the rewriting of history begin. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog recently carried a post claiming that Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure by Iowa State University (ISU) largely because “Mr. Gonzalez’s publication record has dropped off considerably since he was hired at Iowa State.” But this statement is a gross distortion of Dr. Gonzalez’s real publication record.

A simple decrease in publications is meaningless without reference to expected standards of publication for teaching faculty, departmental publication standards, or the publication rates of similarly situated faculty. A fair assessment would ask how Gonzalez compared to other astronomers in his department since the year he joined ISU (2001), especially compared to those astronomers that have already been granted tenure. And the answer to that question is clear: According to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Gonzalez has published 34 publications since 2001 and his normalized publication score is 2nd among all astronomers in his department. (Click here for the methodology on his absolute publication count.) In fact, he beats out all tenured astronomers in his department in the normalized number of publications since 2001! We’ve already highlighted that Gonzalez has the highest normalized citation count among ISU astronomers over the same time period. Moreover, even if one counts only the refereed articles Gonzalez published after coming to ISU, he significantly exceeded his own department's stated standard of the number of peer-reviewed publications needed for tenure. These significant comparisons show just how unfair (and irrelevant) the claim is that Gonzalez's publication rate “dropped off” compared to his pre-ISU days. The "drop off" claim is additionally unfair for reasons previously outlined by John West:

the insinuation that Gonzalez has somehow become unproductive as a scholar since coming to ISU is utterly false. It is true that he has published fewer peer-reviewed articles each year while at ISU than he did as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington. But that is perfectly normal. A postdoctoral researcher who has no teaching obligations obviously can produce more journal articles per year than someone who must teach classes and engage in various forms of university service. The relevant fact is that Gonzalez has continued to produce multiple new peer-reviewed journal articles each year, even while co-authoring a major college astronomy textbook, and even while teaching his classes and fulfilling the normal requirements for university service at ISU. It is notable that Gonzalez’s department nominated him for an “early achievement” award in research at ISU in 2004. Significantly, that nomination came before the controversy erupted on campus over the publication of The Privileged Planet.

(Chronicle of Higher Education Unearths New Evidence in Support of Gonzalez, But Tries to Discount It)

An early commenter named "Randy" asked an interesting question. Having watched FOD a few times now, I understand that many people (including me) will enjoy its humor and its apparent plea for honest communication. But in the final analysis the film does not practice its own lesson: Flock of Dodos promotes a subtle but unambiguous stereotype that ID-proponents are publicity-obsessed liars.

[Note: if you don't believe me because you blissfully hoped that a light-hearted movie could never intend a malicious message, this point was not lost on Pandas Thumb, which reported that one of FOD's "important points" is that "the intelligent design movement consists of nothing but lies invented for a public relations campaign."]

To give one example directly from the film, in FOD Randy Olson says ID is "emerging from public relations firms [and] understands the need to tell simple clean stories not constrained by the truth." Although Randy Olson tries to avoid directly using the word "liar" (probably for legal reasons), he all but uses the word through the imagery (like the scene juxtaposing Icons of Evolution next to a tabloid), and other discussions of ID proponents.

But the above quote from the film is very representative of the film's pervasive anti-ID stereotype. FOD says ID is merely (1) "emerging from public relations firms" and (2) "understands the need to tell simple clean stories not constrained by the truth."

I like Telic Thoughts because it seems to me that facts matter to people here a lot more than the preferred stereotypes of ID-critics. Let's break Randy Olson's stereotype down:

(1) When Olson says ID is "emerging from public relations firms," this claim comes from the part in his film where he claims that Discovery Institute has a huge $5 million budget which is largely spent on public relations, but not science. This claim is false on many levels. See - here for a rebuttal to FOD's misrepresentations of Discovery Institute's budget.

(2) When Olson says ID is "not constrained by the truth" (i.e. all but saying ID proponents are liars), this comes from the part of his film where he claims Jonathan Wells falsely claimed that modern biology textbooks have used Haeckel's fraudulent embryo drawings to promote evolution. Despite the confident-sounding puffing on this issue from Olson and his friends (like P.Z. Myers), FOD's claims about Haeckel are effectively rebutted by mainstream publications by acknowledging that Haeckel's drawings are reproduced in modern textbooks, and sometimes even noting that they are in there being used to promote evolution, including:

Stephen Jay Gould, "Abscheulich! (Atrocious!): Haeckel's Distortions did not help Darwin," Natural History Magazine (March, 2000).

Michael K. Richardson et al., "There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development," Anatomy and Embryology, Vol. 196:91–106 (1997).

James Glanz, "Biology Text Illustrations More Fiction than Fact," New York Times (April 8, 2001).

(Ah for the good-old days these papers represent, when Darwinists admitted that modern textbooks have had problems with their usage of Haeckel's drawings, and they were trying to fix things and move on with dignity. Now Randy Olson and his friends have tried a different tack by denying that modern textbooks have had any problems in their usage of Haeckel and accusing ID-proponents of being "not constrained by the truth" (i.e. lying) for claiming the textbooks have had problems.)

"Randy" asked why Discovery Institute has responded to the flim. Interestingly, I can't find any responses from Discovery posted prior to about February, 2007, and the film came out in April / May of 2006. But bear in mind that Randy Olson started this current debate by making false claims in FOD attacking Jonathan Wells and Discovery Institute. So I don't think anyone can blame Discovery Institute for defending Jonathan Wells and refuting with great detail and many examples from modern textbooks Olson's false information. Some of Discovery Institute's refutations of Olson's claims regarding Haeckel's drawings and Jonathan Wells can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I know there's a lot there, but I encourage readers who watched FOD to check out some of these rebuttals and compare them to what FOD claims.

In the end, I think Mike Gene quite accurately captures "the core problem" faced by some Darwinists that FOD targets to encourage them to better cover-up their elitist dogmatism when opposing ID. But unfortunately I think Mike Gene misses the underlying stereotype in the film: On the surface Flock of Dodos provides an entertaining show and purports to have a good message for all. But one of its main underlying messages is essentially this:

ID proponents are either stupid bumpkins or rich, slick liars, but if you're a Darwinist, you shouldn't say that explicitly publicly of you’ll look elitist and be counterproductive by turning people off from evolution.

Olson leads his fellow Darwinists by example by trying to portray ID-proponents exactly in that light and getting that message across without sounding elitist and dogmatic. But the anti-ID stereotype message is still there nonetheless, and that's why we should not fall for Randy Olson's false information and his stereotype of ID-proponents.

I hope Telic Thoughts readers will examine the facts for themselves and, I hope, reject such stereotypes against ID proponents.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This opinion piece by David K. DeWolf ran in the Boston Globe, yesterday.

IT'S THE QUESTION that won't go away. Twice during the Republican presidential debates and once at a forum for Democratic candidates, candidates were asked about evolution. For example, in the California debate all the candidates were asked to respond to the question of whether they believed in evolution. In the New Hampshire debate, follow-up questions were asked of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback. At the Sojourners Forum debate, John Edwards was asked, "Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in creationism?"

As several commentators have pointed out, these are trick questions, because "evolution" was never defined. Do I believe that the Corvette has evolved over the years? Yes, I do. Do I think that it evolved by random mutation and natural selection? No, I don't.

At the New Hampshire debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Arizona Senator John McCain a follow-up question: "Do you believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools?" This too is a trick question, because no serious advocate wants to teach "creationism." However, there is increasing skepticism among thoughtful scientists of a central claim of neo-Darwinism, namely that complex living systems can be generated from mindless processes like random mutation and natural selection. Thus, the question that Wolf Blitzer should have asked would be along these lines: "Do you think that the topic of Darwinian evolution should be taught objectively in our public schools, with evidence for and against the theory?"

Some candidates would undoubtedly answer "No," asserting that there "is no debate" over evolution and that teaching "both sides" of a non controversy does a disservice to students.
But we have heard that rhetoric elsewhere. For example, Al Gore has famously said that the debate is over regarding global warming. Even assuming that human beings cause global warming, scientists vigorously debate how significant the human contribution is and how beneficial remedial measures would be. "The debate is over" really means, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."

You might think that a public high school is a poor venue for controversies in science. But even in higher education political and ideological agendas are threatening academic freedom. For example, Guillermo Gonzalez, a talented astronomer at Iowa State University, was recently denied tenure. Gonzalez has published 68 scientific papers, more than three times the number normally expected for tenure in his department. His college textbook on astronomy was published by Cambridge University Press. His work has been featured in top scientific journals, including a cover story in Scientific American.

But in 2004 Gonzalez co authored a book, "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery," which made the case for attributing the life-sustaining features of our planet to something other than random chance. This was too much for some colleagues at ISU. A petition was circulated by a religious studies professor and signed by 120 colleagues, affirming their rejection of "all attempts to represent intelligent design as a scientific endeavor."

Some may have the illusion that science is devoid of politics. But whether we debate the efficacy of a pharmaceutical drug, the risks of electromagnetic radiation, or the potential benefit of embryonic stem cells, financial and ideological agendas are not easily set aside. As bad as political correctness may be in the humanities and social sciences, we should be particularly alarmed by a threat to the right to dissent from the "mainstream" when it comes to scientific knowledge, often a critical component of our public policy.

Those with the courage to challenge reigning orthodoxies ought to be able to follow the scientific evidence where it leads. Some may study the scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution and conclude that there is no God. Some may study the evidence for intelligent design and conclude that atheism is irrational. Some may reach the conclusion that Darwinian evolution and religious faith are perfectly compatible. The question of how best to explain the appearance of design in the universe should be fair game; scientists, teachers, and students should have the right to reach the answer that each finds most satisfying.

At the next presidential debate, I'd like to hear the following question: "Do you think public school students should be permitted to hear both sides of the debate about Darwinian evolution?" American voters want to know their answers.

David K. DeWolf is a professor of law at Gonzaga Law School in Spokane, Wash., and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle .

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Guillermo Gonzalez is the outstanding astronomer who was blacklisted from tenure at Iowa State University because of his support for intelligent design. As my colleagues here on ENV have pointed out, Dr. Gonzalez’ academic record is superb. Since his arrival in 2001, Dr. Gonzalez has been the most productive astronomer in his department, judged by the impact factor of his publications.

It’s clear that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure for only one reason: he stated publicly that he believes there is evidence for design in the universe. As I observed in a previous post about Georges Lemaître, the Catholic priest who is the father of the Big Bang theory, many of the most prominent astronomers in history have shared Dr. Gonzalez’s opinion about the evidence for design in the universe. Nowadays, it is very dangerous to state such beliefs in science departments of many universities, including Iowa State University.

Who else, besides Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Lemaître, would qualify for Iowa State’s blacklist? Nobel laureate Dr. Arno Penzias (photo) meets Iowa State’s implicit criteria for denial of tenure. He has discussed his opinions regarding the philosophical ramifications of his discovery quite openly, and, in many ways, has done so in a way that was more explicitly religious than Dr. Gonzalez.

Penzias, along with his colleague Robert Wilson, worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. In 1964, they detected diffuse isotropic radio noise of very low energy. After ruling out terrestrial sources, they realized that the noise was the cosmic microwave background radiation, a remnant of the Big Bang. They shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their seminal discovery.

Penzias stated to the New York Times on March 12, 1978:

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole.

“We don’t know, but we can reasonably say that there was nothing.” An upset listener called immediately, accusing Penzias of being an atheist. He wisely replied: “Madame, I believe you are not aware of the consequences of what I just said. Before the Big Bang there was nothing of what now exists. Had there been something, the question could be: where did it come from?” He continued commenting that if there was nothing and suddenly things began to appear, that was sign that Somebody had taken them from nothing, and concluded saying that his discovery could bring about the overcoming of the historic enmity between science and religion.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 6:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In a recent law review article in Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Stephen A. Newman, law professor at New York Law School, provides a wonderful example of how prevalent among some academics is the idea that it is acceptable and appropriate to censor intelligent design ideas. Newman writes:

Consider the experience of two librarians who received copies of two intelligent design books, Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe and Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson, as donations to their high school collections. When the librarians refused to put the books on the school library shelves, they were accused of censorship. In fact, exercising their professional judgment, they concluded that these books had “little or no value to our students and come from those with ulterior motives.” The books did not meet the usual selection criteria, which required that books “support the curriculum, receive favorable reviews from professional journals, and be age-appropriate.” Noting that intelligent design theory had been “repudiated by every leading scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences,” the librarians determined that teaching intelligent design “would be tantamount to teaching about the existence of Santa Claus.”

(Stephen A. Newman, “Evolution and the Holy Ghost of Scopes: Can Science Lose the Next Round,” 8.2 Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion (Spring, 2007), internal citations removed.)

In this present situation, we're not talking about making Darwin's Black Box or Darwin on Trial part of the required curriculum. We're simply talking about donating books to a library so students can have access to information about a controversial scientific and social issue over how life began. The censored books' authors are well-credentialed professors at top universities whose views are shared by other well-credentialed academics. Michael Behe's book was a New York Times bestseller and Phillip Johnson's book was debated by scholars such as Stephen Jay Gould and even deemed a view worthy of consideration by scientists like David Raup. There's no rational basis for banning these books from a library, other than plain and simple censorship of ideas you don't like.

Newman praises the "professional judgment" (i.e. the imposing of a viewpoint via censorship) of the librarians and ironically, he quotes the case Board of Education v. Pico to support his view: "Students must have access to ideas, to prepare 'for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.'” (quoting Pico, pg. 868). Newman then asserts, "Undermining the teaching of evolution deprives them of access to the best ideas in science."

But nobody in the ID-movement is advocating that any less evolution be taught than currently is taught. Evolution should be taught, but it should be taught with both its scientific strengths and it scientific weaknesses. This concept was well-captured by the Conference Report to the No Child Left Behind Act:

[A] quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society.

Res Ipsa Loquitor
Keep in mind that Discovery Institute strongly supports teaching evolution and isn’t trying to remove any scientific viewpoint from the classroom. Who is really opposing “access to ideas” here? As Randy Olson says in Flock of Dodos, “Res Ipsa Loquitor” (Stephen Newman speaks for himself).

The rest of Newman's article contains much water-cooler speculation about how the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court would respond to a lawsuit challenging the teaching of evolution. This section really doesn't interest me because it’s just a lot of speculation about how certain Justices on the Court might vote in certain hypothetical situations.

More alarmingly, Newman ends his article by using unscholarly and pejorative terms to describe Christians. Newman ends his article by declaring a desire to "protect science teachers from involuntary enlistment into the ranks of proselytizers of the Christian faith." His incredible bias is shown in the fact that such language passes acceptability in a legal journal without any thought that it is intensively demeaning to the religious beliefs of millions of Americans.

[Author's note: edited to remove a mistake regarding the case Board of Education v. Pico.]