'Evolution News & Views: December 2007 Archives') ); ?> Evolution News & Views: December 2007 Archives

« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »

December 31, 2007

Answers to Student's Questions about Evolution and Intelligent Design

I was recently e-mailed by a student who is an evolutionist and skeptical of intelligent design. This student asked various questions about intelligent design, but they were honest questions from an inquiring mind. The student had many misconceptions about ID, and this is unfortunate, because in a different political environment it might be possible for such misconceptions to be dispelled by science educators. I felt it might be helpful to put these questions, along with my answers, in a post here:

You asked: “Do you think evolution exists at all?”

I reply: Yes. Every ID proponent I know acknowledges that random mutation and blind natural selection are real phenomena that can cause at least some changes within species. Moreover, they also acknowledge that species have undergone at least some degree of change in the past. ID proponents simply don’t think such random and blind processes can account for the origin of many complex biological features, like irreducible complex molecular machines, or the explosion of new body plans that appear in a geological instant during the Cambrian explosion. Also, you asked about whether I accept anti-biotic resistance (i.e. antibacterial soap) as an example of evolution. Again, every ID-proponent I know agrees that anti-biotic resistance is a real evolutionary phenomenon. But we generally observe that anti-biotic resistance typically involves trivial biochemical changes that do not explain the origin of complex biological systems. If you’d like to know more, I wrote an article about the fact of antibiotic resistance and how it does not prove that Darwinian evolution can produce complex biological changes at:

The Implications of Antibiotic and Antiviral Drug Resistance for the Power of Darwinian Evolution

I think that SUNY Professor of Neurosurgery Michael Egnor gives a good explanation of how anti-biotic resistance is a very real problem, but he shows that Darwinian evolution is not helping us to solve it or understand it:

“Microbiology tells us that bacterial populations are heterogeneous. Individual bacteria differ from one another. Molecular biology tells us that some bacteria have molecular mechanisms by which they can survive antibiotics. Molecular genetics tells us how these resistance mechanisms are passed to other bacteria and through generations of bacteria. Pharmacology helps us design new antibiotics that circumvent the bacterial defenses. What does Darwinism add to the sciences of microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, and pharmacology? Darwinism tells us that antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive exposure to antibiotics because of natural selection. That is, bacteria survive antibiotics that they're not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That’s it.” (Michael Egnor, Quick, Nurse, Give the Patient a Tautology!)

Finally, regarding this question, you might be interested in reading Michael Behe’s book The Edge of Evolution because it acknowledges that Darwinian evolution can cause some evolutionary change but argues there are many things that it cannot evolve. I think that book will help clarify your understanding of where ID stands on these issues.

You asked: “Or do you believe that this designer created everything as it is today?”

I reply: No, I do not believe that, and I don’t know of a single ID proponent who believes that.

You asked: “Do you think an atheist can believe in Intelligent Design?”

I reply: Yes. ID proponents have been firmly consistent in explaining that ID doesn’t try to address religious questions about the identity of the designer. My personal view is that the designer is God, but that’s not a conclusion of ID, that’s my personal religious view. I know ID proponents who do not believe in God, so it seems that it is possible to accept ID but not have any particular religious viewpoint.

You asked: “Do you look down upon supporters of evolution?”

I reply: No, absolutely not. In fact, I respect Darwin greatly as a scientist because he was a good observer, a good science-writer, and was so open about the weaknesses of his theory. As Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” I respect evolutionists who disagree with my views, and I wouldn’t want anyone to be convinced of anything apart from a reasonable and civil discussion about the data. There are some evolutionists today who are willing to candidly admit weaknesses in evolutionary theory. But I wish that more modern evolutionists would deeply consider Darwin’s words.

Additionally, while an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) I worked as a research assistant in the mainstream scientific community, and I had many friends and colleagues who were evolutionists. They were intelligent people—in my view equally as gifted as the scientists I am privileged to work presently in the ID movement. In fact, many of my closest friends in college were evolutionists, and I continue to respect these people and value their friendships today.

Finally, in my experience, people in the ID movement don’t look down on people. If you’d like to see some documentation regarding what some evolutionists think about ID-proponents, you might enjoy this blog post:

Asking the Right Questions Brings out Internet Darwinists’ True Colors

You asked: “Do you really, actually, in your heart, believe in Intelligent Design?”

I reply: In my view, ID is the best scientific explanation for the origin of much biological complexity. I have outlined my views in the attached document, The Positive Case for Design, which helps explain why I believe that ID is a compelling scientific theory. You can read more about how ID interacts uses the scientific method at:

Does intelligent design theory implement the scientific method?

For me, ID is about science and so I wouldn’t say that I support ID “in my heart”—my support of ID comes more from intellectual arguments of the mind. For me, I got interested in ID because I was taking evolutionary biology courses at UCSD, and from what I was learning in class, Darwinian theory did not seem like a good explanation for much of the data. Darwin was a gifted scientist and had many groundbreaking insights. 150 years later it’s clear that his ideas explain some small-scale changes, but a huge mass of data do not support many of his grander claims regarding macroevolution, common descent, and the origin of biological complexity. I like how Robert Carroll puts it:

“Biologists have long struggled with the conceptual gap between the small-scale modifications that can be seen over the short time scale of human study and major changes in structure and ways of life over millions and tens of millions of years. Paleontologists in particular have found it difficult to accept that the slow, continuous, and progressive changes postulated by Darwin can adequately explain the major reorganizations that have occurred between dominant groups of plants and animals. Can changes in individual characters, such as the relative frequency of genes for light and dark wing color in moths adapting to industrial pollution, simply be multiplied over time to account for the origin of moths and butterflies within insects, the origin of insects from primitive arthropods, or the origin of arthropods from among primitive multicellular organisms? How can we explain the gradual evolution of entirely new structures, like the wings of bats, birds, and butterflies, when the function of a partially evolved wing is almost impossible to conceive?” (Robert Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

In my view, the origin of biological complexity is best explained by intelligent design, because our observation-based understanding of the world shows that such complexity comes only from intelligence. As Stephen C. Meyer puts it, “[o]ur experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source from a mind or personal agent … the highly specified hierarchical arrangements of parts in animal body plans also suggest design, again because of our experience of the kinds of features and systems that designers can and do produce.” (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2177&program=CSC%20%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:01 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 30, 2007

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 7: "Evolving views of embryology" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 7 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

PBS observes that Darwin boasted that embryology provided "the strongest single class of facts in favor of" his theory of evolution. But Darwin penned those words in the 1860s, and developmental biologists have learned much since that time. In fact, Darwin staked much of his evidential support upon the work of the 19th century embryologist Ernst Haeckel. After Darwin, it was discovered that Haeckel promoted fraudulent data to falsely support vertebrate common ancestry by overstating the similarities between vertebrate embryos in their earliest stages of development.

Haeckel’s infamous embryo drawings obscured the differences between vertebrate embryos in their earliest stages, leading to widespread belief in the false idea that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” (i.e. development replays evolutionary history). The factual data reveal that vertebrate embryos develop very differently from their earliest stages in a pattern that is unexpected if all vertebrates share a common ancestor. Darwin himself was a victim of Haeckel’s fraud, and had Darwin known the truth, perhaps he might never have made the statement that PBS quotes above.

But there are even stronger reasons to understand that modern developmental biology challenges Darwin. Biologists have discovered, as PBS puts it, that “microbes to man … share a common ‘tool kit’ of so-called master genes.” PBS claims this supports Darwinian evolution because living animal groups inherited these genes from a common ancestor. While intelligent design is certainly compatible with common ancestry, PBS ignores the possibility that such recurring fundamental genetic programs across species could also be explained as the result of common design, i.e. the re-usage of genetic programs that fulfill the functional requirements of animal development. Indeed, common design may be the best explanation for the many instances where these master genes control the growth of analogous body parts in widely diverse organisms where it is even not thought that the common ancestor even had the body part in question.

For example, vertebrates, sea urchins, insects, and various other invertebrate groups all use the same regulatory genes to control growth of their widely diverse types of limbs, but it is not thought that their common ancestor had a common limb. Similarly, vertebrates, insects, and jellyfish use similar master control genes to control the development of their widely different eyes, but their alleged common ancestor is not thought to have had a common type of eye. In these cases, living animal groups would NOT be expected to have inherited their genetic “tool kits” from a common ancestor because there is no reason to believe that the common ancestor was using that genetic toolkit for some common body part. As Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, plant geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Genetics writes, "No theorist in evolutionary biology will ever derive chicken and insects from a winged common ancestor, and yet, clearly related sequences are specifically expressed in wing buds and imaginal disks."1

Darwinists try to resolve such quandaries by appealing to extreme examples of convergent genetic evolution, what one might term genetic predestination. But such examples of extreme convergence strain the credulity of Darwin’s mechanism. Can blind and undirected natural selection cause many animal groups to independently deploy precisely the same genetic toolkits for development? Such a high level of genetic similarity seems highly unlikely to evolve independently numerous times in the history of life.

Reference Cited:
1. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, "Dynamic genomes, morphological stasis, and the origin of irreducible complexity," in Dynamical Genetics pages. 101-119 (Valerio Parisi, Valeria De Fonzo, and Filippo Aluffi-Pentini eds., 2004) (quoting Cohn M.J., and Tickle, C. 1996, Trends Genet. 12, 253-257).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:38 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 29, 2007

The "Two Jones" Thesis and its Detractors: More ID opponents experience binary fission over Dover decision

Well, it appears that my article about the inherent contradiction in an important section of the Dover vs. Kitzmiller decision is making evident some potentially dangerous developments among Darwinist opponents of Intelligent Design. Both Richard Hoppe at Panda's Thumb ("The Disco 'Tute's New Man") and Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars ("ID and Testability") have offered arguments against my position, and with each other—and, it turns out (at least in Brayton's case), with themselves.

I had pointed out that Judge John Jones affirmed a blatant contradiction in his opinion. He argued that the alleged unsoundness of the argument from irreducible complexity is a blow to Intelligent Design, since it is "central to ID," and then later argues that even if irreducible complexity were true, it wouldn't confirm ID because it isn't central to it, but "merely a test for evolution, not design."

I also said that this kind of argument falls into the trap of affirming two more general contradictory positions: that ID is not falsifiable, and that it is false.

I argued two points:

1. That Judge Jones both affirmed and denied that irreducible complexity is "central to ID"; and
2. That, as a consequence, he only allowed irreducible complexity to count against ID, but not for it.

This was completely lost on Hoppe, who just ran on about how ID makes testable claims he says are false, and untestable claims that can't be judged true or false:

What Cothran is apparently unable to comprehend is that while ID proponents occasionally make testable empirical claims, ID theory itself does not.
No, sorry. Cothran comprehends Hoppe, but Hoppe doesn't comprehend Cothran. I understand Hoppe's point. In fact, I understand it so well that it is very plain to me that it doesn't address my argument. It's a convenient distinction to make, but it isn't a distinction the Dover decision makes.

Hoppe agrees with Jones—and he doesn't. He agrees with the Jones who says that irreducible complexity is not central to ID, but disagrees with the Jones who says that it does. But nowhere does he deny my central thesis: that there are two Joneses, and that they disagree with each other.

So what does Ed Brayton say to this? First, that he has heard my argument "many times" before. Shucks. And I thought my "Two Jones" thesis was my very own discovery. Turns out, claims Brayton, that someone beat me to it, although he doesn't say who it was.

Brayton, it turns out, is not only unimpressed by my argument (or the one I thought was mine before Ed informed me it wasn't—although, in a Jonesian logical maneuver, he's going to hold it against me anyway) but is less than impressed with Hoppe's refutation of it, saying that he gives my argument "too much credit":

I think he's actually making things more complicated than they are. There is no "ID theory" and there never has been. What ID proponents call "ID theory" is nothing more than a set of bad arguments against evolution, all straight out of the creationist jokebook. They all take the form of a basic god of the gaps argument: "not evolution, therefore God."

Note carefully what is going on here. Neither Hoppe nor Brayton addresses the two central points of my argument. Hoppe agrees with the Jones who says that arguments against evolution are not central to ID, and disagrees with the Jones who says they are, while Brayton agrees with the Jones who says that arguments against evolution are central to ID and disagrees with the Jones who says that they aren't.

Neither, however, denies there are two Joneses: they simply disagree on which is the better Jones. In fact, when you put them together, not only do Hoppe and Brayton not address my argument, they actually confirm it: in agreeing with different Joneses they implicitly recognize that there are two of them.

Yet, in the final analysis, even Brayton can't resist the apparently contagious logical schizophrenia that is increasingly infecting opponents of ID:

ID argument like this can be falsified because they are tests of evolution, not of the non-existent "ID theory." ID is a purely negative argument that invokes supernatural causation, and that is why it cannot be tested on its own merits.

In other words, Brayton too argues that ID is both false and unfalsifiable. Not only are there now two Joneses, there are two Braytons.

Is it only a matter of time before Hoppe too—and all the other ID opponents—begin to experience this peculiar form of alogical reproduction? Considering the consequences (such as the potential twofold multiplication of bad reasoning), let's hope not.

Posted by Martin Cothran at 12:37 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 28, 2007

God, Science and the Presidential Campaign

CSC Senior Fellow John West this week had an insightful commentary in the Tampa Bay Tribune about the growing discussion of religion and science in conjunction with the ongoing presidential campaigns.

Ironically, both the preoccupation with religion and the avoidance of science in the presidential campaign may have been fueled by the scientific community itself.

Increasingly, self-proclaimed defenders of science have tried to turn "science" into an ideological weapon to attack any questioning by religious believers of the "consensus view" of scientific elites on embryonic stem-cell research, global warming, Darwinian evolution, and similar issues.

Read the full piece here.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:16 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 27, 2007

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 6: "Darwinism: grounded in science or propped up by philosophy?" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 6 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

PBS observes that the famous 19th century naturalist, T.H. Huxley, declared that "evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention." But modern Darwinists have gone much further than Huxley. In Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, leading evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala celebrates that "Darwin’s greatest accomplishment” was to show that the origin of life’s complexity “can be explained as the result of a natural process—natural selection—without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent."1

America’s great champion of evolution, the late Stephen Jay Gould, similarly announced that “[b]efore Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us,”2 but because of Darwin’s ideas, “biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God.”3 Richard Dawkins is Oxford University’s Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and is probably the most famous evolutionist in the world. Yet Dawkins believes that God is a “delusion” and that "Darwin made it possible to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”6

Gould's and Dawkins's views are by no means uncommon among leading scientists. A 2007 editorial by the editors of the world's top scientific journal, Nature, stated that "the idea that human minds are the product of evolution" is an "unassailable fact," and thus concluded, "the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside.”4

Also noteworthy is the fact that key public defenders of Darwin involved in the Dover trial who were featured in PBS’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” documentary have strong ties to secular humanist groups. For example, Eugenie Scott is Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. She is also a public signer of the Third Humanist Manifesto, an aggressive statement of the humanist agenda to create a world with “without supernaturalism” based upon the view that “[h]umans are… the result of unguided evolutionary change” and the universe is “self-existing.”5 Similarly, Dover plaintiffs’ expert Barbara Forrest, also featured in the PBS show, is a long time board member of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association.

Indeed, PBS-NOVA’s star theistic evolutionary biologist Ken Miller has claimed in five editions of his textbooks that evolution works “without either plan or purpose” and is “random and undirected.”7 Two additional editions of Miller’s textbooks state: “Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products.”8 Harvard paleontologist and author Richard Lewontin explains how this materialism is an overriding assumption propping Darwinian thought:

"[W]e have a prior commitment … to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to … produce material explanations… [T]hat materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."9
Finally, leading Darwinian philosopher of science Michael Ruse admits that “for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned … akin to being a secular religion” whose main doctrine is “a commitment to a kind of naturalism.”10 Is it possible that there is more propping up the support of Darwinism than the mere empirical evidence?

References Cited:
1. Francisco J. Ayala, "Darwin’s greatest discovery: Design without designer," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 104:8567–8573 (May 15, 2007) (emphasis added).
2. Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, page 267 (W.W. Norton, 1977).
3. Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, page 147 (W.W. Norton, 1977).
4. "Evolution and the brain," Nature, Vol. 447:753 (June 14, 2007).
5. "Humanism and its Aspirations," at http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.htm.
6. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, page 6 (W. W. Norton, 1986).
7. Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine, Biology (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 1993), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; (5th ed. Teachers Ed., Prentice Hall, 2000), pg. 658.
8. Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine, Biology: Discovering Life (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed.. D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphasis in original.
9. Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Review of Books, page. 28 (January 9, 1997).
10. Michael Ruse, “Nonliteralist Antievolution” AAAS Symposium: “The New Antievolutionism,” February 13, 1993, Boston, MA (1993).

The graphic above was hot-linked from http://users.telenet.be/stamboom.broeckx/blog/darwin-god.jpg.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:17 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 26, 2007

Iowa Citizens for Science Stealthily Promotes Misinformation about Guillermo Gonzalez and Discovery Institute

On December 3, Discovery Institute helped organize a press conference at the Iowa State Capitol where we released evidence that Guillermo Gonzalez faced discrimination at ISU because he supports intelligent design as a science. Someone from the pro-Darwin activist group, Iowa Citizens for Science, attended that press conference and passed out a press release. Citizens were welcome to attend the press conference and we made no objections to this person attending and distributing his press release.

Within a couple days, a press release appeared on the Iowa Citizens for Science (ICFS) website, asserting that “[Guillermo] Gonzalez and the DI have announced plans to sue Iowa State University.” But that statement was both untrue and impossible: Discovery Institute is not Dr. Gonzalez’s legal representative and has no right to sue on his behalf, and that statement was directly contradicted at the press conference where Dr. Gonzalez’s attorneys made it clear that no decision has yet been made regarding whether to sue ISU. The correct position was public even before ICFS issued its press release at the Dec. 3rd press conference, having been repeated in the Des Moines Register. Soon after ICFS posted their press release, Dr. Gonzalez stated in the Iowa State Daily, "I haven't decided yet. I have not yet decided to pursue legal action."

The misinformation remained in ICFS’s website until last Sunday, when I e-mailed ICFS asking them to correct this statement. Thankfully, they did correct this point, responding quickly with a one-line e-mail stating the correction made to the press release. The e-mail I received in reply was sent by a generic ICFS e-mail address and was signed by … no one. We saw a similar pattern of behavior from ICFS at the Dec. 3 press conference: when the person who claimed to be a representative of ICFS at the press conference was asked what his name was, he answered with visible reluctance and only called himself “Greg.” Now, apparently a nameless operative is modifying their website and corresponding with the outside world on behalf of the organization. Whoever these stealthy “citizens” are at Iowa Citizens for Science, they continue to promote blatantly false information about Dr. Gonzalez:

In my e-mail to ICFS, also observed that “the Iowa Citizens for Science press release wrongly asserts that, ‘None of his graduate students had completed their programs.’” As I explained in my e-mail, the truth blatantly contradicts their false assertion:

Again, that statement is completely false. The truth is that in 2001, soon before Gonzalez left the University of Washington (UW) [to] join the faculty at ISU, he served as the primary advisor to a UW doctoral student in astronomy, Chris Laws. Gonzalez served as Laws’ primary scientific advisor over the course of Laws’ entire doctoral thesis, and Laws successfully graduated from UW with a Ph.D. in astronomy in December, 2004. Gonzalez also served on the committee of another Ph.D. student at UW, Rory Barnes, and this student also successfully graduated in 2004. You may want to also correct this false information as well and issue a retraction immediately.
ICFS did not correct that statement. Subsequently, Dr. Gonzalez’s attorney, Timm Reid, asked ICFS to correct the false assertion in their press release that “[n]one of his graduate students had completed their programs.” ICFS has gone into deep stealth mode and has sent him no reply. At present, this false claim remains uncorrected on the ICFS press release.

As a final problem with the ICFS press release, it cites the Chronicle of Higher Education to assert that “Gonzalez’ rate of publication had dropped off dramatically since he joined the ISU faculty.” Yet as we’ve recounted elsewhere, Dr. Gonzalez has the highest per-capita publication count and highest per-capita citation count among ISU astronomers since 2001, the year he joined ISU. So if there was any “dro[p] off” in Dr. Gonzalez’s productivity, he still outperformed the very ISU astronomers who voted against his tenure.

Moreover, as Rob Crowther recently documented, Dr. Gonzalez’s annual publication rate has remained about the same at both the beginning and the end of his probationary period at ISU, so ultimately there seems to be no “dro[p] off”. Dr. Gonzalez does have a temporary drop in publications during 2004, but this is because during that year he expended much time co-authoring a peer-reviewed astronomy textbook for Cambridge University Press—a textbook that is now used for teaching in his department! But Dr. Gonzalez immediately bounced back in his publication rate after the textbook was published, and as Crowther shows, when Gonzalez was denied tenure by ISU’s president, he was tied for the highest per-capita publication count among ISU astronomers since January, 2006.

ICFS’s objective claim that “[n]one of his graduate students had completed their programs” is flat wrong, and ICFS’s subjective claim that “Gonzalez’ rate of publication had dropped off dramatically since he joined the ISU faculty” is highly questionable. But don’t expect ICFS to change any of this false information—they seem much more interested in secrecy and promoting false information, and blaming the victim for the anti-ID discrimination at ISU.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:58 AM | | TrackBacks (1)

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 5. "Opening Darwin’s black box" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 5 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

“Darwin was ignorant of the reason for variation within a species,” writes Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe in his book Darwin’s Black Box, “but biochemistry has identified the molecular basis for it.”1 There were other things that Darwin did not know. For example, Darwin assumed that the cell was like a primitive blob of protoplasm that could easily evolve new biological functions. As Behe explains, “To Darwin, then, as to every other scientist of the time, the cell was a black box. ... The question of how life works was not one that Darwin or his contemporaries could answer.”2

Modern technology has allowed biochemists to open Darwin’s black box, revealing a micro-world of mind-boggling complexity. Even leading proponents of evolution have acknowledged this complexity. Past U.S. National Academy of Sciences President Bruce Alberts has described this complexity in the journal Cell as an elaborate factory: “The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.”3

But could such integrated complexity evolve in a stepwise, Darwinian fashion? Behe recalls that in Origin of Species, Darwin admitted that if “any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."4 According to Behe, “by opening the ultimate black box, the cell,” modern biochemistry “has pushed Darwin’s theory to the limit.”5

The simplest cell requires hundreds of genes, numerous complex biological machines and biochemical pathways, and a fully functional genetic code in order to survive. Darwinian evolution – blind natural selection acting on random mutations – has failed to provide Darwinian explanations for how basic cellular biochemistry might have evolved. Five years after Behe published Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Franklin Harold stated an Oxford University Press monograph that "there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”6

References Cited:
1. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution, page X (Free Press, 1996).
2. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution, pages 9-10 (Free Press, 1996).
3. Bruce Alberts, "The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists," Cell, Vol. 92:291 (February 8, 1998).
4. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859), Chapter 6, available at http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html.
5. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution, page 15 (Free Press, 1996).
6. Franklin M. Harold, The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life, page 205 (Oxford University Press, 2001).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:00 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 24, 2007

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 4: "The role of natural selection in evolution is controversial among scientists (continued)" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 4 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

As discussed in Slide #1, proponents of Darwinism often employ the “Evolution” Bait-and-Switch, using evidence for small-scale changes and then over-extrapolating to claim that such modest evidence proves Darwin’s grander claims. In fact, this is precisely what PBS does in its online materials for “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.”

A PBS web slide asserts, “Evolution happens through natural selection,” and then goes on to discuss small-scale changes in the sizes of beaks in finches on the Galapagos Islands as supporting evidence. Such small-scale changes do not demonstrate that natural selection can cause large-scale evolutionary changes, such as the origin of new body plans or perhaps even the origin of new species. In fact, all of the finch species in the Galapagos Islands remain so genetically similar that they can interbreed after millions of years of alleged evolutionary change.

If anything, the Galapagos finches demonstrate the limits of natural selection. Beak sizes increased during a drought, yet when the drought ended, finch-beaks predictably returned to their normal sizes. As biologist Jonathan Wells observes in Icons of Evolution, the bait-and-switch occurs when “evidence for oscillating natural selection in finch beaks is claimed as evidence for the origin of finches in the first place.”1 Are such Darwinist extrapolations warranted? According to UC Berkeley law professor and Darwin-critic Phillip Johnson, “When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble.”2

References Cited:
1. Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Why Much of what we teach about evolution is wrong, page 174 (Regnery, 2000).
2. Phillip Johnson, "The Church of Darwin," The Wall Street Journal (August, 16, 1999).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 5:50 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 23, 2007

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 3: "The role of natural selection in evolution is controversial among scientists" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 3 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

As noted in the Introduction, PBS asserts that the data “unequivocally” support the view that “[e]volution happens through natural selection.” In this dogmatic statement, PBS has again failed to clearly define “evolution.” If by “evolution,” PBS means that we can observe small-scale changes within species, then no one doubts that natural selection plays a role. But in fact, many scientists have questioned whether natural selection acting upon random mutation is sufficient to generate new species or new complex biological features. As evolutionary scientist Robert L. Carroll queries:

"Can changes in individual characters, such as the relative frequency of genes for light and dark wing color in moths adapting to industrial pollution, simply be multiplied over time to account for the origin of moths and butterflies within insects, the origin of insects from primitive arthropods, or the origin of arthropods from among primitive multicellular organisms? How can we explain the gradual evolution of entirely new structures, like the wings of bats, birds, and butterflies, when the function of a partially evolved wing is almost impossible to conceive?"1
Leading biologist Lynn Margulis, who opposes ID, also criticizes the standard Darwinian mechanism by stating that the “Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric.”2 She further observes that “new mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.”3

Stanley Salthe, author of an evolutionary biology textbook, proclaims, “I have become an apostate from Darwinian theory and have described it as part of modernism’s origination myth.”4 Evolutionary philosopher Jerry Fodor recently wrote that “at a time when the theory of natural selection has become an article of pop culture, it is faced with what may be the most serious challenge it has had so far.”5 National Academy of Sciences member Phil Skell also questions the explanatory utility of natural selection:

Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive – except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed – except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery. Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.6Indeed, over 700 doctoral scientists have signed a public statement proclaiming their agreement that, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."7 Yet PBS presents natural selection as the “unequivocally” accepted mechanism of evolution. Clearly there are significant scientific voices who dissent from the Darwinian view. Unfortunately, their voices are left out of PBS’s one-sided discussion of evolution.

References Cited:
1. Robert Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, page 9 (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
2. Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of the Species, page 29 (Basic Books, 2003).
3. Lynn Margulis quoted in Darry Madden, "UMass Scientist to Lead Debate on Evolutionary Theory," Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer (Feb 3, 2006).
4. Stanley Salthe ,quoted in Discovery Institute, “40 Texas scientists join growing national list of scientists skeptical of Darwin,” September 5, 2003. Available: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1555.
5. Jerry Fodor, "Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings," London Review of Books (October 18, 2007) at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/fodo01_.html.
6. Philip S. Skell, "Why Do We Invoke Darwin? Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology," The Scientist (August 29, 2005), available at http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2816.
7. See "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," at http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:20 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 22, 2007

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 2: "Following the evidence wherever it leads" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 2 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

No one doubts that Darwin was a gifted scientist who made careful observations of the natural world. The same could be said for Sir Isaac Newton, an early proponent of intelligent design whose ideas inspired both modern physics and modern science as a whole.

Yet despite the long-lasting success of Newton’s ideas, technological advancements in the early 20th century overturned Newtonian physics and replaced them with Einstein’s theories. If history is to be our guide, science must always be open to following the evidence where it leads, even if that means challenging orthodoxy.

PBS urges viewers to believe that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Such a statement reverses the scientific process by putting conclusions ahead of empirical observations of nature. PBS also quotes evolutionary paleontologist Niles Eldredge, stating, "Nothing that we have learned in the intervening 175 years has contravened Darwin's basic description of how natural selection works," and asserting that the data “unequivocally” support Darwin’s view. Such dogmatic statements fly in the face of the scientific spirit, which opposes dogmatic attachments to theories and promises to follow the evidence wherever it may lead.

In 1998, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences printed a guide to teaching evolution that included an essay by the eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, which stated: “One of the most characteristic features of science is this openness to challenge. The willingness to abandon a currently accepted belief when a new, better one is proposed is an important demarcation between science and religious dogma.”1 PBS may claim that evolution is open to scrutiny, but the authoritarian and one-sided treatment of the subject in "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" shows that they treat it more like a religious dogma than a science.

Were PBS to promote the tentative, skeptical mindset that underlies all good science, their online materials would have stated, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of the data.”

Reference Cited:
1. Ernst Mayr, "The Concerns of Science" in National Academy of Sciences, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science, page 43 (National Academy Press, 1998).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:05 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Devolve Your Beliefs

darwin%20card.jpgAt festive Winter Solstice Luncheons across the country, determined atheists are gathering to celebrate one of the oldest and most superstitious holidays of human history. As speakers present lectures on the history of Solstice celebrations, participants give and receive Winter Solstice Cards. These vary little from the general theme of my favorite card, which depicts Charles Darwin as Santa Claus on the front. Apparently, Darwin is the Patron Saint of Solstice. Inside, it reads simply:


evolve your beliefs.

CELEBRATE WINTER SOLSTICE

Yes, Solstice is here, that most wonderful time when atheists and humanists gather together “to give meaning to the shortest day of the year.” Why? According to the nicely alliterative Humanists of Huston, “It makes sense to celebrate human compassion, friendship, and family periodically. It also makes sense to do this during the coldest part of the year, given that weather effects [sic] our mood! Furthermore, by attaching our celebration to the winter solstice, we follow a long tradition while signifying our appreciation of the natural universe.” (emphasis added)

Ah, now we have it — appreciation of the natural universe. If you’re still scratching your head at this point, let’s return to the origins of the modern Winter Solstice celebration, starting with the Queen Mother of American atheists, Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

O’Hair had an issue with… well, a lot of things, most famously prayer in schools, but also Christmas and the way it was celebrated in American society. In a 1968 radio broadcast, O’Hair aired her grievances against Christmas. In her words,


Someone stole something from me. I don’t like it. What was stolen from me – and from you – was one of the most beautiful holidays in the world.

O’Hair went on to quote from a late 19th century American atheist, Robert Ingersoll, who proclaimed Winter Solstice as “the good part of Christmas,” which “is generally Pagan; that is to say, human and natural.”

For Ingersoll and others, “the most natural of all religions is the worship of the sun,” which makes it superior to Christianity, or any other religion which has a major observance in this season.

For O’Hair, the Christian celebration of Christmas was most detestable because it took the solstice celebration of light triumphing over darkness and “stole the most beautiful holiday of the year – and for what?... a god of a horrible, punitive, new religion called Christianity.”

The solution for O’Hair and many other atheists is simple: reclaim their Pagan heritage. That Paganism involves spiritual belief which would otherwise be anathema to most modern, enlightened atheists doesn’t seem to matter.

And so at these festive Winter Solstice gatherings across the country, fringe atheists are returning to their Pagan roots. The rather ordinary passage of the darkest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere has become a special focal point for atheists because it makes them more mindful of how humanity is “very much a part of the natural world.” No word yet on whether they have plans to celebrate sunrise and sunset in the same way.

Whether or not this is what Sam Harris and others had in mind when they admonished the new atheists to find some way of exploring and respecting spirituality, the truth is that they have been left with an alternative of nature worship which closely resembles the superstition and ritualism of the ancients.

Just take a look at the annual Winter Solstice concert held in New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Supposedly “the only non-religious event” held regularly in that sacred space, the program’s musical and visual climax is the ascent of the giant sun-god in full costume.

What does Darwin have to do with all this? According to Andrew Shaffer, the man behind the rather cheeky “Order of St. Nick” greeting cards, a diverse group of people celebrate Winter Solstice: atheists, agnostics, wiccans, and pagans. (It's worth noting that the "Darwin Atheist Holiday Card" is their #1 seller and endorsed by none other than P. Z. Myers.) He sees the Darwin cards as obviously “atheistic” — no surprise, given the theme of rejecting Christmas in favor of “evolved” beliefs — but what he doesn’t seem to see is how similar the different sub-populations of his customers are. In rejecting the Christian holiday, atheists who refuse to be “cultural Christians” a la Richard Dawkins are not progressing toward a more reasoned, enlightened holiday celebration, but are unwittingly defaulting to what was historically the most scientifically ignorant and superstitious belief system possible.

Ironically, as many atheists center their celebrations around the natural order of the sun and the Earth’s orbit, they see the evidence for the improbability of our existence – specifically, of our planet’s relative position to the sun, and also to the moon. When astronomer and design proponent Guillermo Gonzalez saw his first solar eclipse, he was inspired to investigate the case for cosmological design. In stark contrast to Gonzalez’s scientific quest, the American Atheists explain on their website that they


...reflect upon our astronomical uniqueness. We appear to be alone, in a universe devoid of plan or purpose. There is no cosmic intelligence that counts how many rides we complete on the merry-go-round whose axle is the sun… [we celebrate] the human species – the only species known that can understand and appreciate the implausibility of its own existence.

Welcome to the new paganism of Winter Solstice, where it’s always winter and never Christmas.

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:54 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 21, 2007

Chairman of the Texas Board of Education Don McLeroy Corrects Dallas Morning News

After yesterday’s article in the Dallas Morning News portrayed Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education Don McLeroy’s Sunday school comments as if they were the basis for his science education policy, McLeroy has a response in the Dallas Morning News today.

McLeroy asks a simple question — what do you teach in science class? — then clarifies for the record his "motivations for questioning evolution:"

My focus is on the empirical evidence and the scientific interpretations of that evidence. In science class, there is no place for dogma and "sacred cows;" no subject should be "untouchable" as to its scientific merits or shortcomings. My motivation is good science and a well-trained, scientifically literate student.

What can stop science is an irrefutable preconception. Anytime you attempt to limit possible explanations in science, it is then that you get your science stopper. In science class, it is important to remember that the consensus of a conviction does not determine whether it is true or false. In science class, you teach science.

Don McLeroy, chair, State Board of Education, College Station


McLeroy is absolutely right to insist on having science taught in science class — which includes giving students the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution and encouraging critical thought. Read his letter in its entirety here.

Posted by Anika Smith at 1:57 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Darwin's Failed Predictions, Slide 1: "Evolution happens. So what?" (from JudgingPBS.com)

[Editor's Note: This is slide 1 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]

PBS confidently instructs us that “evolution happens.” But should that matter? Even Darwin’s scientific critics agree that evolution happens. PBS is introducing equivocation into the discussion by failing to clearly define “evolution.”

Some use “evolution” to refer to something as simple as minor changes within individual species that occur over short periods of time (Evolution #1). Others use the same word to mean something much more far-reaching, such as claiming that all living organisms are descended from a single common ancestor (Evolution #2), or that natural selection has the power to produce all of life’s complexity (Evolution #3). Used one way, “evolution” isn’t controversial at all (i.e. Evolution #1); used another way, it’s hotly debated (i.e. Evolution #2 or Evolution #3). Used equivocally, “evolution” is too imprecise to be useful in a scientific discussion.

When you see the word “evolution,” you should ask yourself, “Which of the three definitions is being used?”

Critics of neo-Darwinism today usually take issue with Evolution #2 or Evolution #3. But the discussion gets confusing when a Darwinist takes evidence for Evolution #1 and tries to make it look like it supports Evolution #2 or Evolution #3. Proponents of Darwinism, including PBS, commonly pull this “Evolution” Bait-and-Switch, using evidence for small-scale changes, such as changes in the sizes of bird beaks (Evolution #1) and then over-extrapolating from such modest evidence to claim that it proves Darwin’s grander claims (Evolution #2 or Evolution #3).

The graphic above is hot-linked from http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/PlanetoftheApes/apes.jpg.
Some of the above discussion is adapted from Explore Evolution.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:19 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

The Questions Larry Arnhart Won’t—Or Can’t—Answer

Fresh from our debate at Seattle Pacific University last month, Larry Arnhart resumed his on-again-off-again attack on Darwin Day in America—a book he alternately praises and condemns. Arnhart originally misrepresented (here and here) Darwin Day by alleging that I tried to tie every example of scientific reductionism in my book back to Darwin. As I pointed out in a previous blog, Arnhart’s claim is untrue, and I showed how he had misread or misrepresented the particular examples he had cited. Rather than correct his erroneous claim, however, Arnhart now asserts that I engaged in “bait and switch” when I pointed out in my book that Darwinism is “only one part of [the] larger story” of “materialistic reductionism” even while also arguing that “the work of Charles Darwin ultimately supplied the empirical basis for a robust materialism finally to take hold." But if there is any “bait and switch” going on it is by Arnhart, not me.

Of course I believe that Darwinism was a powerful spur to scientific reductionism in the area of public policy and culture. The evidence for that proposition as an historical matter is overwhelming. That still doesn’t mean that I think Darwinism was the only inspiration for the application of scientific materialism to culture, or that I attribute in my book every example of scientific materialism to Darwin. For the reasons outlined in my book, I believe that Darwinism has been a key inspiration for scientific materialism, but also that scientific materialism goes well beyond Darwin. These aren’t mutually exclusive claims, and it seems to me that Arnhart has staked out a preposterous position in trying to make them so. As I said before, he continues to attack a straw man.

As for why I think Darwinism is a key part of the story of cultural scientific materialism, I have explained the case in detail in Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, as well as in chapter two of Darwin Day in America, which supplies a close reading of Darwin’s Descent of Man. It is telling that Arnhart for the most part has avoided responding to the specific arguments I have made about Darwin himself, as well as the serious questions I and other scholars have raised about Arnhart’s case for “Darwinian conservatism.” Yet these questions aren’t going to go away, no matter how much Larry tries to ignore them. The questions include the following:

1. If Darwinism provides the standard for determining what is moral or immoral (as Arnhart claims), how can we condemn any activity that persists over time among even a subpopulation of human beings or animals? Almost by definition, any such behavior must have been preserved by natural selection because it somehow promoted survival. According to Darwinism, all such behaviors must be equally “natural,” and therefore all such behaviors must be sanctioned by the Darwinian process. According to Darwinism, the maternal instinct is natural, but so is infanticide. Monogamy is natural, but so are polygamy and rape. Darwinism thus becomes an equal-opportunity justifier. Of course, if one believes there is a standard of morality that exists independent of the Darwinian process, then one can still judge these various behaviors as good or bad—but a standard independent from Darwinism is precisely what Arnhart seeks to deny.

2. If Darwinism is so friendly toward Biblical theism (as Arnhart insists), why do the vast majority of leading Darwinists identify themselves as atheists or agnostics? Are they all stupid? Arnhart’s main response to this question seems to be the repetition of the mantra that all biologists aren’t Richard Dawkins. Well, maybe they aren’t, but according to a 1998 survey nearly 95% of biologists in the National Academy of Sciences identify themselves as atheists or agnostics—far higher than any other scientific discipline. And according to a 2003 survey of leading scientists in the field of evolution, 87 percent denied outright the existence of God, 88 percent disbelieved in the existence of life after death, and 90 percent rejected the idea that evolution is directed toward an “ultimate purpose.” Again, why? Arnhart’s argument here is not just with me, it’s with the leading proponents of Darwinian evolution themselves.

3. If Darwinism is so friendly toward limited government (as Arnhart also claims), why did most of the leading Darwinian biologists in the first several decades of the twentieth century champion state-sanctioned eugenics, the effort to breed a better race applying Darwinian principles? Moreover, why did these evolutionary biologists insist that eugenics was a logical corollary to Darwin’s theory? Were they all stupid as well? Why and in what way? Again, Arnhart’s argument here isn’t just with me, it’s with the leading twentieth-century Darwinian biologists like Charles Davenport, who insisted that “eugenics is a branch of biology—social biology—and its study has been cultivated chiefly by the biologists.” Davenport should have known; he is generally regarded as the leading spokesman for the American eugenics movement. Trained at Harvard and a former zoology professor at the University of Chicago, Davenport was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the first director of the prestigious biological research lab at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island.

4. If Darwin himself only supported what Arnhart describes as “good eugenics” such as preventing incestuous marriages, how does Arnhart explain the remarkable passage in Darwin’s Descent of Man where Darwin warns of the dangers to the human race of helping the poor, caring for the mentally ill, saving the sick, and even inoculating people against smallpox? In Darwin’s own words, “no one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man… excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Darwin does goes on to indicate that we can’t follow the dictates of “hard reason” in such cases without undermining our “sympathy… the noblest part of our nature.” But such misgivings represent a lame objection at best. As I wrote in Darwin’s Conservatives: “If Darwin believed that society’s efforts to help the impoverished and sickly ‘must be highly injurious to the race of man’ (note the word ‘must’), then the price of preserving compassion in his view appeared to be the destruction of the human race. Framed in that manner, how many people could be expected to reject the teachings of ‘hard reason’ and sacrifice the human race?” Darwin clearly supplied a logical rationale for eugenics in The Descent of Man, even if his personal scruples made him somewhat ambivalent about pressing his concerns to a logical conclusion.

In one way or another, I have posed each of the above four questions to Arnhart at our encounters this year at the Philadelphia Society, at the American Enterprise Institute, and most recently at our debate at Seattle Pacific University. Arnhart’s response? Mostly silence or efforts to change the subject. In fact, his failure to even try to answer most of these questions was so noticeable at our Seattle Pacific debate, that many audience members were left scratching their heads about whether he had any response at all to offer. Perhaps he doesn’t. And, as I have said before, that may be the most telling point of all.

Posted by John West at 12:46 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

December 20, 2007

Two Years after Dover Intelligent Design Trial Darwinists, Like Judge Jones, Still Want to Have It Both Ways

The opponents of Intelligent Design have recently been trying to slither out of a logical dilemma they have created for themselves. Their problem is that they make two mutually exclusive claims: First that ID is not science, and, second, that ID makes false claims.

The primary reason opponents say that ID is not science is because it doesn't make falsifiable claims. But if it doesn't make falsifiable claims, then it can't be said to have made claims that have been found false. Yet this is exactly what they charge.

Opponents of ID have done logical contortions of extraordinary dexterity to get out of this dilemma, but they only seem to land themselves in further contradiction. This contradictory attack on ID is on full display in Judge John Jones arguments in Dover vs. Kitzmiller, the decision that has been hailed by ID's detractors as the end of ID.

In the Dover decision, Judge Jones unwittingly lays a trap for himself, and then spends a good part of his decision falling into it. On p. 64 of the ruling, Jones gives three reasons for determining that ID is not science:

  • 1. It permits supernatural causation
  • 2. It assumes a "contrived dualism" in the argument for irreducible complexity
  • 3. Its negative arguments against evolution (like irreducible complexity) have been "refuted by the scientific community"

In all of this discussion, there is a particular view of how to demarcate science from non-science. It is philosopher Karl Popper's demarcation criterion: that in order for something to be science it has to be falsifiable, or testable. We see this in the following comment by Jones:


Accordingly, the purported positive argument for ID does not satisfy the ground rules of science which require testable hypotheses based upon natural explanations. (3:101-03 (Miller)). ID is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in this world. While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory. (p. 82, emphasis added]

There are a lot of assumptions behind this argument, but it is in his statement of the second point where Jones sets himself up. He says that the argument for irreducible complexity is "central to ID". Otherwise, why would he include it in a discussion of whether ID is science? And, in reason 3., he also says it has been "refuted": in other words, falsified. But if the argument for irreducible complexity is, as Jones later determines, falsified, then ID is falsified, since irreducible complexity is "central to ID".

But if ID is not falsifiable, as he says in the first part of the argument, then (if you assume Popper's criterion) it is not science—and it cannot therefore be falsified. So how does Jones get around the fact that he says both that ID is not science because it can't be falsified, and that an argument "central to ID" has been falsified?

His method is simply to skip back and forth between the two arguments hoping the reader will not notice.

He says first that the truth or falsity of arguments for ID are irrelevant:


After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. (p. 64)

Judge Jones then goes on an extended argument explaining why he thinks the argument for irreducible complexity fails (the argument for which essentially consists of the fact that lots of evolutionists say so). But then, obviously cognizant of the inherent contradiction in his argument (that the court takes no position on the truth of the arguments for ID and that it does), he points out that irreducible complexity is an argument against evolution, not an argument for Intelligent Design:

Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich. (2:15 (Miller); 38:82 (Minnich) (irreducible complexity “is not a test of intelligent design; it’s a test of evolution”). [p. 68, emphasis added]

He says this, in fact, in several places:

As irreducible complexity is only a negative argument against evolution, it is refutable and accordingly testable, unlike ID, by showing that there are intermediate structures with selectable functions that could have evolved into the allegedly irreducibly complex systems. [p. 76, emphasis added]

Jones' argument is that the alleged failure of irreducible complexity can be charged to ID's account only if irreducible complexity is a part of Intelligent Design theory itself, since ID itself is not science and therefore not falsifiable. And yet, if it isn't a part of ID, then it obviously cannot undermine the theory itself.

Importantly, however, the fact that the negative argument of irreducible complexity is testable does not make testable the argument for ID. [p. 76, emphasis added]

But how can this be if irreducible complexity is "central to ID"? He wants to use the alleged refutation of irreducible complexity against Intelligent Design, but he doesn't want to do it at the cost of his argument that it isn't science. And he does this by employing an explicit contradiction: that irreducible complexity is both central to ID and not central to it!

He then complicates his position even further:


...[E]ven if irreducible complexity had not been rejected, it still does not support ID as it is merely a test for evolution, not design. [p. 79, emphasis added]

In other words, what Jones is saying is that the falsity of irreducible complexity can be held against ID since it is "central" to it, but that, even if it were true, it wouldn't count in favor of it, since it is not central to it.

It is a clever bit of sophistry: if irreducible complexity is false, then it counts against it, but if it is true, then it doesn't count for it!

If anyone was in any doubt as to whether the debate over Intelligent Design was rigged, Jones dispels it here. In the duel over Intelligent Design, the opponents are the only ones allowed a loaded gun.

How can Jones justify this? The short answer is that he can't--not, at least, if he wants to maintain any kind of rational credibility. But if it is not clear how he can do this and remain within the bounds of reason, it is clear why he does it.

ID is science insofar as irreducible complexity and other similar arguments are part of it, and unfalsifiable insofar as they are not. Jones knows this, but wants to have his cake and eat it anyway.

If opponents of ID want to hold irreducible complexity against ID, then they will have to abandon their argument that ID is not science. And if they want to preserve their argument that ID is not science, they will have to stop using arguments against irreducible complexity against ID.

It can't be comforting for opponents of Intelligent Design to know that the decision they all now point to as the death blow for ID contains a blatant contradiction. And arguments that contain contradictions don't kill anything but themselves.

Posted by Martin Cothran at 12:43 PM | | TrackBacks (1)

ENV Welcomes New Contributor Martin Cothran

We're pleased at ENV to welcome new contributor Martin Cothran to our team. Martin brings an educator's fresh perspective to our blog, as you can read for yourself.

Martin is a writer and educator who lives in Kentucky. He is the author of several logic and classical rhetoric textbooks, and is the editor of The Classical Teacher magazine. He is a frequent guest on radio and television on issues of public policy, and has spent over 15 years dealing with educational policy questions at the state level.

Posted by Anika Smith at 11:24 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

New Website Responds to PBS/NOVA's Judgment Day

We’ve just launched a new website, JudgingPBS.com, responding to the online materials for PBS/NOVA’s Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

JudgingPBS.com features 14 slides of “Darwin’s Failed Predictions,” recounting the failures of Darwinism left unmentioned by PBS/NOVA. I’ve included the first installment of the series (the introductory slide) below — but stay tuned for all 14 slides to be posted over the next couple weeks here on Evolution News & Views:

Introduction.
PBS asserts that the evidence “unequivocally supports [Darwin’s] theory of evolution by natural selection.” Do all scientists who approach biology with an open mind believe that the data “unequivocally” supports Darwin’s view? The following slides show that scientists are increasingly skeptical that natural selection is the primary agent of evolutionary change. Moreover, key postulates of Darwin’s theory – universal common descent, the continuity of life, and transitions in the fossil record – have come under intense scientific scrutiny from a diverse array of fields, including molecular biology, developmental biology, genetics, biochemistry, and paleontology. Some of Darwin’s failed predictions include:

  • The failure of evolutionary biology to provide detailed evolutionary explanations for the origin of complex biochemical features;
  • The failure of the fossil record to provide support for Darwinian evolution;
  • The failure of molecular biology to provide evidence for universal common descent;
  • The failure of genetics and chemistry to explain the origin of the genetic code;
  • The failure of developmental biology to explain why vertebrate embryos diverge from the beginning of development.

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

December 19, 2007

Help Support Academic Freedom by Supporting Discovery Institute

Two years ago this month, defenders of Darwinian evolution gleefully pronounced the death of the scientific theory of intelligent design because of a court ruling by an activist federal judge in Pennsylvania. But if Darwinists truly think intelligent design is dead, why are they continuing to spend so much time trying to kill it?

As a regular Evolution News & Views visitor, you have been continually informed of the ways in which leading Darwinists have unleashed an unprecedented wave of persecution, propaganda, and paranoia in an effort to strangle an idea that they insist is already dead.

Fortunately, America still thrives on the free exchange of ideas—despite Darwinists’ best efforts to stifle open discussion. That’s why the Center for Science and Culture exists at Discovery Institute—to support the hard work of scientists and scholars who are bringing the Darwin vs. design debate out into the open in science, in academia, in the media, and in the public arena. Recognized by the science journal Nature as “the nation’s leading intelligent design think tank,” we have been credited by The New York Times for having “transformed the debate [over evolution] into an issue of academic freedom.”

One of the myths promoted by the our critics is that we are somehow lavishly funded. Unlike Darwinists, however, we receive no tax dollars to support our research and education efforts on intelligent design. As a result, our budget is dwarfed many times over by our opponents. Just one small biology department at a mid-size college has an annual budget several times larger than the CSC’s. Think about how many such departments there are, not to mention the huge biological science establishment at major research universities – most of which are dominated by very dogmatic, intolerant Darwinists.

That’s why we need your help. It is only through the generous support of private donors that we can continue to provide:

  • scientific research and publications that meet the Darwinists on their own turf, forcing them to respond to the growing scientific evidence for design;
  • training for top graduate students in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities through our summer mentoring program;
  • this online news service (Evolution News & Views), which has received over 2.25 million page views in 2007;
  • our internet radio show ID the Future, publicizing information censored by the establishment media, and which has over 25,000 subscribers.; and,
  • practical help for teachers, scientists, and students who are facing indoctrination or persecution at their schools or colleges.
We’ll be honest: It can be wearying standing for truth on this issue. Your help right now would show the scientists and educators that we support that they are not alone in this battle, and would be gratefully appreciated. Please take a moment right now to donate online and help support our work on academic freedom.

donatebtn.jpg

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:03 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Dr. Don McDonald’s Persecution Story Submission for Expelled

The producers of Expelled are hosting a contest where people submit videos discussing their persecution as a result of challenging Darwin. One of these entries has already been posted on YouTube—the story of Don McDonald, who was forced to pledge allegiance to evolution while working on his sociology Ph.D., or he might not have been permitted to proceed onward with his dissertation. We blogged about his story back in April 2006. Now you can watch the Dr. McDonald’s submission for the Expelled contest on YouTube:

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:04 AM | | TrackBacks (0)