Nobel laureate in physics Steven Weinberg recently revamped his 2008 Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard University for an essay entitled "Without God" in The New York Review of Books. As the essay moves toward a close, Weinberg tells us:
the worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature, of the sort imagined by philosophers from Anaximander and Plato to Emerson. We even learn that the emotions that we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over millions of years. And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our emotions. At our best we live on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.
What, then, can we do?
Answering his own rhetorical question, Dr. Weinberg believes
that the first thing we need is a healthy dose of humor, beauty, inspiration, and honor. Regarding the need for humor, Weinberg rightly notes that,
In some of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, just when the action is about to reach an unbearable climax, the tragic heroes are confronted with some "rude mechanical" offering comic observations: a gravedigger, or a doorkeeper, or a pair of gardeners, or a man with a basket of figs. The tragedy is not lessened, but the humor puts it in perspective.
In addition, we can seek beauty in the high arts and find inspiration in beautiful poetry. Yet in the end,
Living without God isn't easy. But its very difficulty offers one other consolation—that there is a certain honor, or perhaps just a grim satisfaction, in facing up to our condition without despair and without wishful thinking—with good humor, but without God.
As a young man, I was enamored with Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialists. When I got to college, I found that Nietzsche was greater than them all. Even though by this time I had come do disagree with their metaphysics, I admired their courage to live intellectually honest, consistent, and honorable lives.
But one day it dawned on me—as I believe it will one day dawn on Dr. Weinberg—that speaking of honesty, courage, and honor as though they were actually objectively honest, courageous, and honorable was inconsistent with naturalistic metaphysics. If you asked Nietzsche why one should forge his own way rather than follow herd morality, I believe he would have answered: "Are you kidding? Think about it. Which one would you prefer? Wouldn't you prefer this noble enterprise of making your own way? Oh, well maybe you wouldn't, Gage, you wretched sheep! Baaaahhhhhh!"
Or at least that's how I imagine him speaking. But, this is simply not convincing. The whole notion of an honorable and noble existence is a residue of Christendom that Nietzsche should have recognized and rejected.
And the same goes for Weinberg. The first question he should ask himself is why, if we live in a naturalistic universe, did it produce humans with a need to cope with a naturalistic universe? I mean, why does Weinberg feel so out of place? Shouldn't he feel at home if naturalism is the true metaphysic?
Moreover, Weinberg must understand that his coping mechanism (a heavy cocktail of humor, beauty, inspiration, and honor) is not the panecea for which he hopes. He is not being consistent here. If Weinberg can explain away religion and all other things as Darwinian adaptations...what does he think humor, beauty, inspiration, and honor are? Why is it that only traditional religion and morality are seen as undermined by the Darwinian mechanism? Looks to me like things he likes are reduced to mere chemicals in the brain while things he enjoys—like the inspiration he gets from Philip Larkin's poetry—he is unwilling to reduce.
Weinberg is trying to have his Darwinian atheism on the cheap. He cannot maintain that the universe has no inherent meaning, is essentially nihilistic, and still hold on to a handful of meaningful, comforting pleasures as though they had real value. To retain all of his physicalist reductionist explanations, his panacea must also be reduced.
Conversely, for Dr. Weinberg to have a truly courageous existence, courage must be real. Some of us may take comfort in the fact that Weinberg's Shakespearean analogy, if it holds any lesson for us, tells us that humor—far from being a meaningless adaptation—is real, for it was intended by intelligent design.
Anglican Spokesman Recommends Church Apology to Darwin Over Legendary Affairs
The media is abuzz about a suggestion made by a Church of England spokesman that it should apologize for initially opposing Darwinian evolution back in Darwin's day. An Associated Press article in the International Herald Tribune says that "[t]he church did not take an official stand against Darwin's theories, but many senior Anglicans reacted with hostility to his ideas, arguing against them at public debates." The example given is the account of Bishop Wilberforce: "At a University of Oxford debate in 1860, the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, famously asked scientist Thomas Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed to be descended from a monkey." According to the legend, Huxley reportedly replied that he would "rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop." This has led to claims that Huxley vanquished Wilberforce, who in legend is reported to have said, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." But how much truth is in this legend?
In an essay titled "Darwinism and Religion: A Revisionist View of the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate," John Hedley Brooke, Professor of Science & Religion at Oxford University, argues, "One answer to the question why this celebrated exchange occurred at all is that it didn't - or at least that the legend is deeply misleading." According to Brooke this legend "probably was invented -at least in part."
Brooke continues:
In fact, the more closely we look at the legend the more suspect it becomes. The idea that Huxley won a famous victory was not even countenanced in Leonard Huxley's heroic Life. The result of the encounter, though a check to the anti-Darwinian sceptics, could not be represented as an "immediate and complete triumph for evolutionary doctrine". This was precluded by the "character and temper of the audience, most of whom were less capable of being convinced by the arguments than shocked by the boldness of the retort." One of Huxley's most recent and empathetic biographers, Adrian Desmond, agrees that talk of a victor is ridiculous. The Athenaeum put it rather well: the Bishop and Huxley "have each found foemen worthy of their steel, and made their charges and countercharges very much to their own satisfaction and the delight of their respective friends."
While this heated exchange where Huxley emerges victorious and embarrasses Wilberforce might have been an invention, Phillip Johnson's commentary on this recent "apology" suggestion is not; Johnson recently wrote me an amusing e-mail observing that the Anglican church hardly stood in the way of Darwin:
I am waiting for the Archbishop of Canterbury to apologize to Richard Dawkins for not resigning his office immediately when Dawkins announced that Christianity is a delusion, and a harmful one at that. The Church of England must have dawdled for at least a month before surrendering to Darwin.
(Phillip Johnson, private correspondence, with permission)
Texas Darwinists Reject the Scientific Method of Analyzing “Strengths and Weaknesses” of Scientific Theories
Over the coming months, the Texas State Board of Education will be deciding whether to remove or bolster its requirement that students learn the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories, "using scientific evidence and information." The pro-Darwin lobby group National Center for Science Education (NCSE) does not want that standard to be applied specifically to evolution. In fact, Texas Darwinists want that language completely removed from the Texas Science Standards. To reasonable people, it is apparent that investigating the “strengths and weaknesses [of scientific theories] using scientific evidence and information” is exactly what scientists do all the time. Discovery Institute believes that if scientists can dispute the core claims of neo-Darwinism (as these scientists do), then students can learn about those views:
Discovery Institute believes that a curriculum that aims to provide students with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories (rather than teaching an alternative theory, such as intelligent design) represents a common ground approach that all reasonable citizens can agree on.
Texas Darwinists reject this approach because they will accept nothing less than the one-sided dogmatic presentation of the pro-Darwin-only position in public schools. Thus, the NCSE and other Darwinist groups have developed arguments to convince people that when science standards say teach the "strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information," they’re really conspiring to teach religion.
(Update 9-30-08: For another example, Dan Quinn of the Darwinist group "Texas Freedom Network" reportedly argues that "teaching the strengths and weaknesses of theories such as evolution has become 'code' for pushing those religion-based ideas in schools." Mr. Quinn's imaginative hypothesis requires that when the Texas science standards say teach the "strengths and weaknesses" that Texas science teachers are actually in on a big conspiracy where they all believe that the language really means "teach religion.")
For example, a recent NCSE press release states that learning about the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinism will "dilute the treatment of evolution." Not only is this a false claim, but it isn't even an argument: this merely shows that what the NCSE wants is the dogmatic presentation of only the pro-Darwin viewpoint in schools. For the NCSE, allowing students to learn about scientific critiques of neo-Darwinism will “dilute” their dogmatic approach.
Likewise, the NCSE quotes Texas Darwinists saying that teaching the strengths and weaknesses will “damage and corrupt science textbooks.” Again, such rhetoric is not an argument: it merely demonstrates Darwinists think it will “damage and corrupt” education if students learn that neo-Darwinism might have scientific flaws because in their dogmatic view, neo-Darwinian evolution has nothing that rises to the level of a weakness. Such authoritarian statements have no place in science, and they serve to indoctrinate students rather than teach students how to think critically and skeptically—like scientists.
But perhaps when it comes to evolution, that’s exactly what Texas Darwinists want.
The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit "Quality" of Evolutionary Icon is "Poor" in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance
Over the past couple years, Tiktaalik, a fish-fossil touted as documenting key aspects of the transition from fish to 4-legged tetrapods, has become a new celebrated icon of evolution:
PBS's "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" featured Tiktaalik as their premier transitional fossil (an anachronism since the fossil wasn’t even reported until months AFTER the Dover trial concluded).
The National Academy of Science’s 2008 "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" booklet also prominently features Tiktaalik, pushing it as "a notable transitional form."
In early September, Carl Zimmer was so eager to mention Tiktaalik as a fossil that "illuminates our ancestors’ transition from sea to land," that he plugged it in a New York Times article about a video game that had absolutely nothing to do with Tiktaalik.
Clearly, Darwin’s public relations team has invested much rhetorical capital into this fossil. If past experience is to be our guide, the only event that might cause Darwinists to criticize Tiktaalik would be the publishing of a fossil that was claimed to better document evolution. In the past, I have called such events, evolutionist "retroactive confessions of ignorance." And with a recently published re-analysis of the fish Panderichthys, Darwinists are now praising Panderichthys for having features that are "much more tetrapod-like than in Tiktaalik," and are retroactively confessing weaknesses in their precious Tiktaalik, which is now admitted to be a fossil with a "quality" that was "poor."
The latest retroactive confessions of evolutionist ignorance comes on the heels of a published re-analysis of the bones of Panderichthys. The study used CT scans to show Panderichthys apparently had a few well-defined radial bones in its pectoral fins. (Radial bones are found only in fish fins, but evolutionary paleontologists contend that radial bones are homologous to digits in tetrapod limbs.) When commenting on this new find, the paper’s lead author, Catherine A. Boisvert, boasted in an interview with The Scientist that "it is now completely proven that fingers have evolved from distal radials already present in fish that gave rise to the tetrapod." Boisvert also praised her findings, stating: "The disposition of distal radials in Panderichthys are much more tetrapod-like than in Tiktaalik."
Confident that her fossil showed evolution better than Tiktaalik, Boisvert and other Darwinists then proceeded to admit striking criticisms of Tiktaalik: The interview with Boisvert at The Scientist states, "Previous data from another ancient fish called Tiktaalik showed distal radials as well -- although the quality of that specimen was poor. And the orientation of the radials did not seem to match the way modern fingers and toes radiate from a joint, parallel to each other." (emphasis added)
The "quality" of Tiktaalik as a fossil specimen was “poor”? When did we see Darwinists admit this previously? Never. They wouldn't dare make such admissions until they thought they had something better.
Moreover, now that we have Panderichthys, Darwinists are openly admitting that the orientation of Tiktaalik's radials do "not seem to match the way modern fingers and toes radiate from a joint." That's a good point, but it's old news for readers of ENV: in August, I observed that Tiktaalik’s radial bones could not be likened to tetrapod digits unless you "[d]ramatically repattern, reposition, and transform the existing radials by lining them up, separating them out."
And now we must turn to Panderichthys. How convincingly "tetrapod-like" are its newly reported radial bones? Below is a picture comparing the radial bones in the fin of Panderichthys to the digits of a true tetrapod limb:
(Adapted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature, Catherine A. Boisvert, Elga Mark-Kurik, & Per E. Ahlberg, "The pectoral fin of Panderichthys and the origin of digits," Figs. 2c and 3d (Sept. 21, 2008); all text but radius (R), ulna (U), and ulnare (Ure) bone labels added by me.)
To my eyes, there’s not much of a comparison to be made. In fact, as reported in a National Geographic (NG) news article, not all evolutionary paleontologists are convinced that these bones were the precursors to real tetrapod digits:
Michael Coates, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, called the new findings "intriguing" but is not convinced that the digit-like structures in Panderichthys's fin are the equivalent of our fingers.
For one thing, they seem unusually flat for radial bones, Coates said.
"Radials are generally cylindrical. When you look at [a] cross-section [of the digit], they're dumbbell-shaped."
The structures are so peculiar, they might just be fragments of damaged bone, he added.
The extremely un-radial-like and un-digit-like flat shape of these bones can be seen in the CT scan from the paper below:
Given the jagged and "peculiar" shape of these "radial" bones in the scan seen above, and the fact that they are flat like the other nearby bones in the fin, Michael Coates makes a good argument that these alleged radials are really just "fragments of damaged bone."
In the same NG article, one of the paper's co-authors Per Ahlberg said that if Tiktaalik were to remain the form that is closer to tetrapods, then "finger development took a step backward with Tiktaalik, and that Tiktaalik's fins represented an evolutionary return to a more primitive form." In other words, at least some the alleged similarities to tetrapods found in these fossils do not actually represent features that are homologous to tetrapods, i.e. they are convergent similarities, also called homoplasies. This means that similarities between these lobed-finned fish fossils and tetrapods imply homology, except for when they don't, making the Darwinian rationale for inferring "homology" appear weak and arbitrary.
My main observation is this: if Panderichthys is dethroning Tiktaalik as the icon of the fish-to-tetrapod transition, what does that say about all the hype we've seen surrounding Tiktaalik? It says that "poor" and "primitive" Tiktaalik was never all it was hyped up to be.
Contradictory Confessions
The problem with making too many retroactive confessions of ignorance is that sometimes they contradict one another. For example, when Tiktaalik was reported, Darwinists attacked Panderichthys as being un-tetrapod-like, stating:
Panderichthys possesses relatively few tetrapod synapomorphies, and provides only partial insight into the origin of major features of the skull, limbs and axial skeleton of early tetrapods. In view of the morphological gap between elpistostegalian fish and tetrapods, the phylogenetic framework for the immediate sister group of tetrapods has been incomplete and our understanding of major anatomical transformations at the fish-tetrapod transition has remained limited.
(Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, "A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan," Nature, Vol. 440:757-763 (April 6, 2006).)
Now that Panderichthys is back in vogue, they are attacking Tiktaalik as a fossil of "poor" quality with radials that "did not seem to match the way modern fingers and toes radiate from a joint, parallel to each other." But with Tiktaalik dethroned, it seems that there are many reasons to critique its would-be successor, Panderichthys.
Darwinists are famous for making retroactive confessions of ignorance, where they only admit how poor the evidence was for a given fossil transition after some new fossil (which supposedly better demonstrates evolution) is reported. Darwinists have used this approach multiple times in the past when discussing the alleged fish-to-amphibian evolutionary transition. (For example, please see here or here.) This behavior should leave critically thinking readers asking two questions:
What admissions of ignorance aren’t they making about the transitional fossil du jour (in this case, Panderichthys)?, and
How strong is the evidence for this evolutionary transition, really?
The most worrying thing about a McCain presidency is not so much a President
McCain as a Vice-President Palin. Sarah Palin, Alaska's governor and McCain's
running mate, opposes all research into human embryonic stem cells. She is a
creationist....
Contrast that with Obama's statement on page 448, in which Nature asked him
about the teaching of intelligent design in science classes. It is not easy to
address students' questions about evolution without falling prey to the false
notion of 'teaching the controversy', as the Royal Society's director of
education discovered last week in a public-relations meltdown (see 'Creation
and classrooms'). But Obama could not be more clear: "I do not believe it is
helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific
theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental
scrutiny," he wrote.
Now those who have been following the issue know that Gov. Sarah Palin's position is a bit more complicated than being "a creationist." In fact she has explicitly said that she does not want to teach only creationism. So I guess if she is a creationist she is a creationist in a sense different than Darwinists at the NCSE are Darwinists, as they want to teach only Darwinism.
Other Brits have been more thoughtful,
noting that Palin's statements basically said she supports students discussing alternative views—that there should not "be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
So no, Palin is not as radical or scarey as Nature and other sources would have you think.
Regarding Obama's position, as a thoughful person, I hope he comes to learn that ID proponents are not pushing to mandate the inclusion of ID in the classroom. Rather, what we have long been asking for is that Darwinism be taught in an even-handed way, with scientific evidence both for it and against it discussed. Rather than perpetuating misconceptions, it would be nice to see the post-partisan candidate come endorse such an even-handed approach which has the support of nearly three out of four Americans.
In the media, Catholicism is the religious tradition most frequently, and misleadingly, held up for approbation as having no problem reconciling Darwinism with theistic faith. The tradition next most often cited as Darwin-friendly is my own, Judaism. You can bet a new Rabbis’ Letter in support of evolution will garner the usual uncomprehending applause.
Boasting 305 signatures so far, the letter holds that "It is possible to be inspired by the religious teachings of the Bible while not taking a literalist approach and while accepting the validity of science including the foundational concept of evolution."
The Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science From American Rabbis, as it’s formally called, has already scored an admiring report in the Chicago Tribune, full of the standard confusions. The article, like the letter, implies that what's at stake in the Darwin debate is nothing more than a contest between simple-minded fundamentalist literalism, which Judaism indeed has always rejected, and science.
In the lead paragraph, Rabbi Gary Gerson is quoted, affirming evolution as a confirmation of his faith, demonstrating the "higher order" in "creation." "We as Jews every day praise God for the times and seasons and the order of being, and that perhaps is the greatest miracle of all."
First of all, what does God’s ordering the "times and seasons" have to do with evolution? More fundamentally, Gerson and all the other signers of the Rabbis' Letter miss the point that it is the mechanism that Darwin proposed to explain how his tree of life developed that presents the really grave challenge to theistic faith.
God is understood by the Jewish and Christian traditions as the creator of our own world and all the life in it. What the work of creation entailed is a subject taken up by Jewish mysticism, kabbalah, a subject requiring the most intense erudition to begin to appreciate.
For his part, Darwin sought to explain how the various forms of life could have arisen, once the very first life was somehow seeded, without the need for divine interference. Natural selection and chance variation would do the entire job, he argued. As Darwin clarified in his Autobiography: "The old argument of design in nature…which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered." Nothing could be clearer. Read even in the most metaphorical manner, Genesis depicts God as directing and approving each stage of the world’s development: "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (1:31). Darwin's theory obviates the need for such a creator.
The piece in the Tribune also cites a bogus legend that implies that Maimonides would approve of Darwinian evolution. The truth is quite to the contrary, as I've shown in Moment magazine and the Jerusalem Post.
Almost all the signers of the Rabbis' Letter are liberal clergy, from the Reform and Conservative denominations. Evidently, Orthodox rabbis mostly declined to sign or maybe they weren't asked. I'd like to think they were guided by the teachings of the German rabbi who inspired Modern Orthodoxy. Samson Raphael Hirsch in 1878 used the Biblical image of the idol Baal Peor, worshipped in the most grotesquely animalistic fashion (mixing defecation with sexual intercourse), to illustrate "the kind of Darwinism that revels in the conception of man sinking to the level of beast and stripping itself of its divine nobility, learns to consider itself just a 'higher' class of animal."
For a more historically informed perspective than you'll get in the Rabbis' Letters, a recent book from the University of Chicago Press is worthy consulting. In Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism, edited by Geoffrey Cantor and Marc Swetlitz, the more interesting essays describe attempts by rabbis and other Jewish leaders to find an appropriate response to Darwin's materialism, from the mid-19th century to today. Some of the research will surprise readers who assume that Jews have always been friendly to evolution.
In his own essay in the book, Swetlitz presents the opinions of prominent and theologically liberal rabbis, representing the Reform and Conservative movements, who wrote and gave sermons during the 1950s and ’60s, questioning natural selection as a mechanism sufficient to explain the development of life. In effect, they were premature advocates of intelligent design.
Study Challenges Two Icons of Evolution: Functional Junk DNA Shows “Surprising” Genetic Differences Between Humans and Apes
In 2004, cognitive scientist Keith E. Stanovich took the position that junk DNA "is essentially a parasite," and that "junk DNA is a puzzle only if we are clinging to the assumption that our genes are there to do something for us."1
In 2006, Michael Shermer asserted, “Rather than being intelligently designed, the human genome looks more and more like a mosaic of mutations, fragment copies, borrowed sequences, and discarded strings of DNA that were jerry-built over millions of years of evolution.”2
The following year, a human physiology textbook stated that “junk DNA” is "considered defective” and comprises “inherited sequences [that] perform no currently known ‘genetically useful’ purpose, yet they remain part of the chromosomes.”3
These sources promoting the classic “junk DNA” icon of neo-Darwinism need updating, as a Yale University news release from earlier this month recalls the fact that “[i]n the last several years, scientists have discovered that non-coding regions of the genome, far from being junk, contain thousands of regulatory elements that act as genetic ‘switches’ to turn genes on or off.” In this case, the junk triggered genes that control human thumb and foot development.
But this wasn’t the only interesting finding they made. According to the article, finding these genetic differences were “especially surprising, as the human and chimpanzee genomes are extremely similar overall.”
Most studies that have claimed that humans and apes have nearly identical genomes have primarily looked at the gene-coding portions of the genome, not the non-coding DNA (formerly claimed to be “junk”). Perhaps as biologists study the non-coding regions of our genome, they will find evidence that challenges two icons of evolution: Not only does “junk” DNA have function, but humans aren’t as genetically similar to apes as was once thought.
References Cited: [1.] Keith E. Stanovich, The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin, pgs. 16-17 (University of Chicago Press, 2004). [2.] Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, pg. 75 (Times Books 2006). [3.] William D. McArdle et al., Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human Performance, pg. 1024 (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007).
As Engineers Turn to Marine Biology to Improve Wing, Turbine, and Armor Designs, the Media Tries to Quash Intelligent Design Overtones
According to a Science Daily news release, engineers are turning to marine biology for insight into building better turbine blades and wings. The article reports that "[t]he shape of whale flippers with one bumpy edge has inspired the creation of a completely novel design for wind turbine blades. This design has been shown to be more efficient and also quieter, but defies traditional engineering theories." Apparently small bumps on the leading edge of the flippers create vortices as the whale moves through the water, and this uneven flow "help[s] to generate more lift without the occurrence of stall, as well as enhancing manoeuvrability and agility."
The authors of the article seem cognizant of the unwanted design overtones, and thus lead off the article with an otherwise superfluous evolutionary spin: "Sea creatures have evolved over millions of years to maximise efficiency of movement through water." Yet one scientist was quoted saying, "The lesson from biomimicry is that unsteady flow and complex shapes can increase lift, reduce drag and delay 'stall', a dramatic and abrupt loss of lift, beyond what existing engineered systems can accomplish." The alternative view, of course, is that “existing engineered systems” already contained this innovation before humans discovered it.
Attempts to quash the design overtones of engineers mimicking nature were also made in an MSNBC article earlier this summer, which explained that Polypterus senegalus (an African freshwater fish also known as the gray bichir) has "[i]ncredible fish armor [that] could suit soldiers." One scientist was quoted saying, "Such fundamental knowledge holds great potential for the development of improved biologically inspired structural materials."
Apparently not wanting readers to consider any intelligent design implications from such statements, the article opens with the non-subtle but otherwise superfluous subtitle, "Millions of years of evolution could provide exactly what we need today." Another scientist is then quoted making a superfluous attempt to re-emphasize that point: "millions of years or hundreds of millions of years of evolution would be a good starting point for what we need for this day and age."
Blind and unguided processes created "exactly what we need today"? Well aren't we all just that lucky.
"The Book Is Written With Mr. Berlinski's Characteristic Literary Verve."
Rick Richman, editor of Jewish Current Issues, has an article in American Thinker about Neo-Atheism and the response to it from three different authors, including CSC senior fellow David Berlinski.
In April, David Berlinski, a secular Jew and well-known skeptic of Darwinism, who holds a Ph. D. in Philosophy from Princeton and has written widely on mathematics and science, published "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions." The book defends religion by attacking atheism's attempt to enlist science in its cause.
The book is written with Mr. Berlinski's characteristic literary verve. To a Nobel Prize scientist's argument -- offered at a conference on "science, religion and reason" -- that "for good people to do evil things, [it] takes religion," Berlinski responds: "Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons?"
"If memory serves," he writes, "it was not the Vatican."
Richman concludes:
It is ironic that what ultimately makes neo-atheism not only unconvincing but off-putting is the fact that it often exhibits the very fundamentalism it purports to find in religion: an absolute certainty in its views, an uncritical worship of its god -- science -- as a saving force, and a denigration of those who refuse to be saved. Berlinski, Novak and Wolpe, in their divergent ways, demonstrate that a religious outlook that does not deny doubt, values humility, and appreciates the implications of the miracle of our existence, is the more reasonable approach to life.
You Have the Right to Dissent... But Only When I Say You Do!
In an op-ed in Scotland's The Journal, student Simon Mundy connects the flak over Michael Reiss to Matt Damon's comments on Sarah Palin, pitying them both for being used by the intelligent design lobby (those cruelly powerful IDers!) and warning that ID "is coming perilously close to respectability." Quell horreur! But the best is at the very end, where Mundy writes:
The right to a dissenting opinion lies at the heart of our society. But future generations will not thank us for undermining scientific theories that have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
In other words, we have a right to our dissenting opinion, just so long as it doesn't undermine (I think Judge Jones would prefer the term "disparage," actually) Darwinism.
Can't you just see the astronomers coming after Copernicus, lining up and telling him in unison, "Hey, Copernicus, we support your right to think whatever you want, but it totally bites that you undermined Ptolemy. It was proven beyond all reasonable doubt before you came along!"
On this episode of ID the Future, CSC’s Casey Luskin is joined by Dr. Steve Fuller, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. Dr. Fuller shares his perspective on the recent forced resignation of the former Director of Education at the Royal Society, Michael Reiss. Reiss is an ordained Anglican Priest, has a doctorate in biology, is currently a professor of science education at the Institute of Education at the University of London, and is widely regarded and respected as an expert in science education. Reiss stepped down from his position as Director of Education due to the controversy over his recently expressed opinions on creationism in the classroom. Listen as Dr. Fuller shares his belief that Reiss was forced to step down merely because he refused to say that creationism was false.
The McCain-Obama sex education for kindergartners flap doesn't seem to be going away. Despite the best efforts of the traditional news media to deny reality, the facts have been trickling out thanks primarily to alternative media outlets like National Review Online (here and here), The Weekly Standard, and Rush Limbaugh.
But there is a whole lot more to this story that hasn’t been widely reported yet—and it needs to be.
As I documented in chapters 12 and 13 of my book Darwin Day in America, there is a growing movement in the United States to provide explicit sex education to very young children. I''s a movement that thoughtful parents have every right to be disturbed about. What is scandalous is the way "mainstream" reporters are doing their best to make sure nobody finds out what is actually being proposed.
First, a recap of the current brouhaha: The flap started earlier this month when the McCain campaign aired an inflammatory ad accusing Senator Obama of supporting a bill in the Illinois legislature that would have required comprehensive sex ed for children starting in kindergarten. For days, the ad was denounced by most major media outlets as a contemptible lie. Too bad the journalists making such claims didn't bother to read the legislation for themselves. Had they done so, they would have seen that the bill for comprehensive sex education supported by Sen. Obama clearly proposed expanding instruction about sexually transmitted diseases from grades "6-12" to grades "K-12" (see pages 1, 5, and 9 of the bill).
According to the SIECUS standards, children starting at age 5 are supposed to be taught about vaginal intercourse (p. 26), homosexual relationships (p. 29), same-sex marriage (p. 39), masturbation (pp. 51-52), unwanted pregnancies (p. 61), AIDS (p. 65), and other sexually transmitted diseases (p. 63). That's right, all this starting at age 5. If you don't believe me, read the SIECUS guidelines for yourself. One can support "age appropriate" sex education (as I do) without embracing SIECUS's intrusive effort to force five-year-olds to deal with all manner of explicit topics.
Unfortunately, SIECUS is far from a fringe organization. It is the leading "mainstream" sex education group in the United States. That's not to say it doesn't have a pretty sordid history. As I recount in detail in my book, SIECUS was founded by partisans of evolutionary biologist Alfred Kinsey, who revolutionized sexual morality by attempting to apply a reductionist Darwinian approach to human sexuality.
In Kinsey's view, so long as you could find a sexual practice occurring among animals somewhere in nature, that practice must constitute "normal mammalian behavior" and should not be condemned. Kinsey's approach led him to denounce efforts to stigmatize such behaviors as bestiality, and even to downplay the seriousness of child molestation. (For extensive documentation, see my book.)
Although SIECUS has always tried to cultivate a public image of moderation, in the past it has promoted the work of scholars with views even more radical than that of Kinsey. Indeed, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, SIECUS finally began to attract notoriety for promoting the views of sociologist Floyd Martinson, who claimed that incest could be a positive experience for children and who tried to legitimize child molestation by arguing that "in sex, as in most aspects of life, the older teach the younger." SIECUS founder Mary Calderone, meanwhile, argued for the "acceptance of the sexuality of children and infants," and urged that "this must happen if 3-year-olds are to achieve ownership of their own bodies with all of their functions." (You can find these views of Martinson and Calderone clearly expressed in their contributions to the 1981 book Sex Education in the Eighties: The Challenge of Healthy Sexual Evolution, a volume originally commissioned by the SIECUS board of directors). After facing scorching criticism for its association with such nutty views, SIECUS in recent years has backtracked, but its underlying agenda of undermining traditional sexual standards remains. (Again, for the details, read my book.)
I'm not exactly surprised that the traditional news media have botched the current story. Like media coverage of the evolution issue, reporting on sex education since the 1960s has been dominated by stereotypes and ideological bias. As I recount in my book, during the past four decades most "mainstream" journalists have chosen to depict nearly every controversy over sex education as a battle between the forces of enlightenment and moderation (represented by sex ed reformers) and the forces of darkness and extremism (represented by any parents or citizens who refuse to go along with the sex ed reformers agenda.) Journalists almost never expose the extremists who dominate the sex ed lobby itself. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people rely on the "mainstream" media as their only source for facts.
Darwin Day in America Favorably Reviewed in New Oxford Review
Darwin Day in America, by John West, has garnered praise and driven Darwinists crazy with it's overwhelming preponderance of evidence showing that Darwinian biology and reductionist science have been used to degrade American culture over the past century through their impact on criminal justice, welfare, business, education, and bioethics.
It is in the area of eugenics that West has really exposed the devastating — and dehumanizing — consequence of Darwin's evolutionary ideas. A new review of DDA in the New Oxford Review gives a good overview of the book, but examines most closely the portions dealing with eugenics.
Writes reviewer Anne Barbeau Gardiner:
Scholars today place the blame for the eugenics debacle on politicians, but West finds it more accurate to describe the movement as "an effort by scientists to dictate government social policy based on their presumed scientific expertise." This was the first time they used science "to expand the power of the state over social matters."
She goes on to point out that:
Darwin Day in America is a thoroughly documented book (with almost 100 pages of endnotes) written in an easy, fluent style.
Definitely a reivew, and book, worth reading, showing yet again that ideas do have consequences.
Defending Dissent from Darwinism in Final Rebuttals to Intelligent Design Critics on OpposingViews.com
Late last night I posted my final rebuttals to the NCSE on OpposingViews.com. This makes 12 total rebuttals for the pro-ID side and zero for the anti-ID side (though Americans United did post a sur-rebuttal tellingly titled “You Lost the Case -- Get Over It”). Here are my links to my latest rebuttals:
(Note: The OpposingViews.com website has had a nasty habit of losing footnotes, so some footnotes may be missing. I'm told they will be fixing this problem soon.)
In my second rebuttal to the NCSE, I refute a Darwinist YouTube video that the NCSE cites to attack the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list. I periodically get e-mails from people asking about this video. A closer look easily shows that the video is factually bankrupt and should not be taken seriously. Below I've pasted my refutation of this video as...
Since the NCSE wishes to deny that there is any credible dissent from neo-Darwinism, they argue that it is "possible to discredit" the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list by referring people to a YouTube video titled, "Evaluating an antievolution petition," created by some would-be internet critic.
That's right, the NCSE cites to a random YouTube video.
I don’t know anything about the person who created that video, but he clearly has major misunderstandings about the list. His false claims and misrepresentations are too numerous to catalogue, not the least of which is the fact that the version of the list he attacks in the video is a long-outdated version that may be up to 7 years out-dated, taken from a time when the list first started and had only about 100 signatories. Today the list has over 750 signatories. For the latest public version of the list, please see:
Just some of the outlandish and false claims about the list in the video include:
The critic pulls a bait-and-switch by redefining evolution in a way that is clearly not intended by the list, and then claims that some list-members don’t belong under the definition that the list never intended to use. To be more specific, he defines evolution as "common descent," and then claims that some list-members don’t "doubt evolution," so defined and thus "shouldn’t be on the list." But the list has always been called "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism"—using a neo-Darwinian definition of evolution as the claim that "random mutation and natural selection [can] account for the complexity of life" (from the list’s statement). The list is plainly not about skepticism of common descent; it’s about skepticism of the sufficiency of the neo-Darwinian mechanism. The fact that the critic finds list-members who accept common descent but doubt neo-Darwinism should not be surprising. The critic has given no good reason to explain why those list-members should be off the list.
The critic touts a bogus survey by claiming the list is discredited because he contacted people on the list who didn’t want to be on it. But this critic only contacted biologists, and of those biologists, only 16 replied. Of those 16, he only gives a couple examples of people who claimed that they didn’t want to be on the list. This means that he had contact with less than 2.2% of the total signers on the list. That makes for a pretty meaningless analysis of the list, as far as survey statistics go.
This critic makes a false criticism of the list by claiming that it "dishonestly" misrepresents the credentials of list-members by listing either their current institution or the institution where they earned their Ph.D. There is no dishonesty here: the list clearly states at the top of the first page that list-members can be listed by EITHER current institution OR location of Ph.D., as it reads: "Scientists listed by doctoral degree or current position." (emphasis in original) It’s obvious which scientists are listed by current institution and which are listed by Ph.D. institution: those listed by "Ph.D." say, simply, "Ph.D." For example, the critic attacks one list-member who is listed as "Ph.D. Neuroscience-Case Western Reserve" and the critic incorrectly charges that the list says that he "worked" at Case Western. In fact, the list clearly lists this biologist by his "Ph.D." Even worse, the critic claims that this scientist only went to Case Western for "undergrad." Perhaps it is ironic that the video flashed the word "Lie" at this point—because in fact the scientist in question did get his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve (his "undergrad" was completed at Michigan State University). Contrary to the critic’s false claims, there are no misrepresentations about the credentials of list-members in this regard.
The critic claims that some people asked to be removed from the list but were not. Again, his criticisms are misplaced because he uses a long out-dated version of the list. For example, he claims Fred Sigworth was not removed from the list, but in fact Sigworth has not been on the list for years. The critic again asserts that there were people who wanted to be removed from the list "7 years ago," but he never gives any examples to back up his charges and accusations. Had the critic used the current version of the list, he would have found that scientists like Sigworth were removed long ago.
The critic claims that biologists such as Ralph Seelke and Michael Behe are not true skeptics of "evolution" and don’t belong on the list. It’s incredible that someone would cite Behe (one of my pro-ID co-participants in this debate) in an attempt to boast about scientific support for neo-Darwinism. Moreover, Ralph Seelke just co-authored a textbook, Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism, that provides many potent criticisms of neo-Darwinism. Such scientists who the critic claims are "pro-evolution" actually have huge doubts about the core claims of neo-Darwinian theory. Due to the fact that the critic claims that leading Darwin-skeptics like Ralph Seelke and Michael Behe don’t qualify as dissenters from Darwinism, it’s clear to me that this guy really has very little clue of what he’s talking about regarding the list and his objections are neither credible nor compelling.
This video also makes false scientific claims. For example, the critic claims that molecular-based phylogenetic trees agree with phylogenetic trees based upon the fossil record "seamlessly." Trisha Gura wrote an entire review article in Nature entitled "Bones, Molecules or Both?" devoted to examining the difficulties encountered by evolutionary scientists when trying to reconcile molecule-based phylogenetic trees with phylogenetic trees based upon bones. In Gura’s words, the commonality of these conflicts has led to great "evolution wars" among evolutionary scientists over whether they should use "bones," "molecules," or "both" when constructing phylogenies. As Gura observes, there are "disparities between molecular and morphological trees."8 Similarly, a review article by Colin Patterson dimly concluded, "As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology."9 Another science article likewise wrote, "That molecular evidence typically squares with morphological patterns is a view held by many biologists, but interestingly, by relatively few systematists. Most of the latter know that the two lines of evidence may often be incongruent."10 Finally, Matthew Wills studied whether fossil data has helped improve the congruence of phylogenetic trees and concluded, "Despite increasing methodological sophistication, phylogenies derived from morphology, and those inferred from different molecules, are not always converging on a consensus."11 In contrast to the claims of the video critic, morphological, fossil, and molecular data data do not fit together "seamlessly" when used to construct phylogenetic trees.
The critic also claims that endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) provide unequivocal evidence for common descent, even though biologists are beginning to suspect ERVs have function and are not merely functionless genetic "junk."12
Towards the end of the video, the critic performs a meaningless calculation which allegedly gives the list "every mathematical concession possible" and claims that only 0.00275% of scientists reject "evolution" (which he defines as "common descent"). But the calculation makes no reasonable "mathematical concessions" to the list since his statistic makes the unashamedly false assumptions that (1) all 3,661,320 scientists that he claims exist have been contacted to sign the list and therefore that number can be placed in the denominator to determine the total percentage of scientists who doubt Darwinism, and (2) that even among those scientists who were contacted, that all who doubted neo-Darwinism chose to sign the list. Assumption (1) is false because of course only a fraction of all scientists are probably even aware of this list. Assumption (2) is false because I personally know a significant number of Ph.D. scientists—particularly professional biologists—who doubt neo-Darwinism and would like to sign the list, but are afraid to do so because they fear what might happen to their careers if the sign it. So the statistic at the end of the video is meaningless.
Finally, it should be observed that the video constantly flashes irrelevant graphics referring to young earth creationist groups and personalities that have nothing to do with the narration. At one point the video calls the U.S. the "United States of Jesus." Some people may find this kind of thing really funny, but the video is clearly not a serious or credible attempt to rebut the list. Given the NCSE’s claim to be religion-friendly and the fact that NCSE’s executive director Eugenie Scott has admitted that "most ID proponents do not embrace a Young Earth, Flood Geology, and sudden creation tenets associated with YEC,"13 it would seem that the NCSE is contradicting itself by promoting this video. Apparently the NCSE is so desperate to deny the existence of scientific dissent from neo-Darwinism that it is resorting to relying upon this non-credible, inaccurate, and factually bankrupt YouTube video.
[9.] Colin Patterson et al., "Congruence between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies", Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, Vol 24:179 (1993).
[10.] Masami Hasegawa, Jun Adachi, Michel C. Milinkovitch, "Novel Phylogeny of Whales Supported by Total Molecular Evidence," Journal of Molecular Evolution, Vol. 44, pgs. S117-S120 (Supplement 1, 1997).
[11.] Matthew A. Wills, "The tree of life and the rock of ages: are we getting better at estimating phylogeny," Bioessays, Vol. 24:203-207 (2002).
[12.] See Andrew B. Conley, Jittima Piriyapongsa and I. King Jordan, "Retroviral promoters in the human genome," Bioinformatics, Vol. 24(14):1563–1567 (2008); Daisuke Kigami, Naojiro Minami, Hanae Takayama, and Hiroshi Imai, "MuERV-L Is One of the Earliest Transcribed Genes in Mouse One-Cell Embryos," Biology of Reproduction, Vol. 68:651-654 (2003).
[13.] Eugenie C. Scott, Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, pg. 128 (Greenwood Press, 2004).
Leading Theistic Evolutionist Makes Religious Arguments for Evolution
In his book Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil, biophysicist Cornelius G. Hunter explains that in Darwin’s day, some of the most commonly used arguments for evolution were theological arguments, not scientific. It seems that little has changed in the past ~150 years. Last year we reported that UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala was making religious arguments for evolution. Likewise, in a recent news article, George Coyne, a Catholic priest, reportedly said people should oppose intelligent design (ID) and accept evolution because ID allegedly "belittles God." While reflecting upon his new crusade, Coyne said, "I am going to, for better or worse, take on the intelligent design movement in this country … I'm not going to apologize on the statements I make." Last year, when arguing in favor of neo-Darwinian evolution, Coyne stated that “[i]f we take the results of modern science seriously, it is difficult to believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient…"
Now then, I must ask, whose view is it that actually "belittles God"?
Royal Society on Creationism vs. Evolution: "No Comment"
If you watch baseball then you are probably familiar with the time-honored tradition of a team president or general manager expressing on Tuesday night after a game how they stand 100% behind the manager, who is summarily fired on Wednesday morning. Such statements of support are almost always a signal that the end is near for a team’s manager.
Consider this statement in The Times last Friday, reportedly issued by the Royal Society in the wake of Prof. Michael Reiss, a biologist and the Society's director of education, suggesting discussion of creationism in science classes to explain how it isn't science, but Darwinian evolution is.
“A spokesman for the organisation, which counts 21 Nobel Prize winners among its Fellows, confirmed yesterday that Professor Reiss’s views did represent that of its president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the society.”
Now you can’t even mention creationism to say it isn’t science. It’s as if the idea itself doesn’t exist. As far as the Royal Society is concerned, if a student asks a question about creationism, the answer is, "No comment."
Darwin's Dogmatic Defenders Say Follow Only Some of the Evidence When Teaching Evolution
The recent comments by a Royal Society scientist and education expert about creationism being taught in science classes in the UK have got PZ Myers' panties all in a bunch. Of course, Myers' panties are used to being in a bunch because it doesn't take much to get his dander up.
To be clear Discovery does not support the inclusion of creation science in science curricula. However, teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of a scientific theory, such as Darwinian evolution, is a far cry from teaching creationism, or any other alternative views.
For Myers it is too much for anyone to even suggest discussing creationism with the intent to knock it down, and ultimately to uphold a dogmatic view of the Darwinian orthodoxy.
This is an important distinction that is blurred by most people who advocate that tired old slogan, "teach the controversy" or "teach both sides". There is only one side, the pattern of the evidence. There are, of course, cases where the evidence is still open to interpretation, and there it is appropriate to present a more ambiguous answer and explain how scientists are still working to resolve the problem.
Discovery "believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned."
Simply put, if a tenth grader can understand some of the evidence that supports Darwin’s theory, she can understand some of the evidence that challenges it.
What are the cases where the evidence is still open to interpretation I wonder? Would it be discussion of Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings?
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.
A friend of mine tells me that the only things he remembers about evolution from his high school biology course are photos of black and white peppered moths resting on light and dark tree trunks. They were presented as the classic case of Darwinian evolution in action, explaining how a trait that enhances survival could be acquired through an unguided material process.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, most biology textbooks featured photos of peppered moths (scientific name: Biston betularia) on tree trunks. Canadian textbook-writer Bob Ritter explained why in 1999: High school students are “very concrete in the way they learn,” he said. “The advantage of this example of natural selection is that it is extremely visual.”
Soon after 2000, however, the peppered myth succumbed to mounting scientific criticisms. The most embarrassing was that peppered moths in the wild don’t normally rest on tree trunks, and the textbook photos had been staged — as The New York Times pointed out in an article on scientific fakery in 2002. Darwinists trying to save the peppered myth turned what should have been a quick and merciful death into a long and painful demise, but it expired anyway. Most biology textbooks have now dropped it entirely.
Or maybe it's the controversy over the similarity of chimps to humans?
(1) Is the 99% Human/Chimp DNA-similarity statistic accurate? While recent studies have confirmed that certain stretches of human and chimp DNA are on average about 1.23% different, this is merely an estimate with huge caveats. A recent news article in Science observed that the 1% figure "reflects only base substitutions, not the many stretches of DNA that have been inserted or deleted in the genomes."1 In other words, when the chimp genome has no similar stretch of human DNA, such DNA sequences are ignored by those touting the statistic that humans and chimps are only 1% genetically different. For this reason, the aforementioned Science news article was subtitled "The Myth of 1%," and printed the following language to describe the 1% statistic:
"studies are showing that [humans and chimps] are not as similar as many tend to believe";
the 1% statistic is a "truism [that] should be retired";
the 1% statistic is "more a hindrance for understanding than a help";
"the 1% difference wasn't the whole story";
"Researchers are finding that on top of the 1% distinction, chunks of missing DNA, extra genes, altered connections in gene networks, and the very structure of chromosomes confound any quantification of 'humanness' versus 'chimpness.'"
Indeed, due to the huge caveats in the 1% statistic, some scientists are suggesting that a better method of measuring human/chimp genetic differences might be counting individual gene copies. When this metric is employed, human and chimp DNA is over 5% different. But new findings in genetics show that gene-coding DNA might not even be the right place to seek differences between humans and chimps.
Clearly, there are different interpretations on lots of aspects of modern evolutionary theory. Instead of discussing creationism's pros or cons when teachers present evolution, they should present both the evidence that supports it and the evidence that challenges it. That's just good pedagogy.
NCSE Promotes Shrill Editorial Suggesting "Students be Forced to Consider the Possibility that There Is No God"
"Bastion of ignorance"? "Right-wing political ideology"? "Pseudo-scientific claptrap"? Not exactly the sorts of taunts you expect from a purportedly calm, collected, objective scientific source like the president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Undoubtedly, such over-the-top rhetoric brings coos of approval from ID's most vehement critics, such as those at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).
Gregory A. Petsko, president of the ASBMB, recently published an article in ASBMB Today attacking intelligent design (ID) printing the rhetoric quoted above. But that's not all he did. His article (which was also published in the journal Genome Biology) goes so far as to insinuate that people believe in religion due to "insecurity and need for certainty" and suggests that students at Christian private schools should "be forced to consider the possibility that there is no God, or that the Muslim faith, or Hindu faith, or Jewish faith, might be the true one". The NCSE, which claims it is both pro-Darwin and religion-friendly, must have liked Petsko’s article, because they are now promoting it on their website:
"Two articles in the August 2008 issue of ASBMB Today react to recent creationist initiatives. ASBMB's president, Gregory A. Petsko of Brandeis University, pulls no punches in his column, beginning, ‘They're at it again. Armed with another new idea from the Discovery Institute, that bastion of ignorance, right-wing political ideology, and pseudo-scientific claptrap, the creationist movement has mounted yet another assault on science. This time it comes in two flavors, propaganda and legislative.’"
First, Petsko’s article attacks the Louisiana academic freedom law because it allegedly permits the teaching of "creationism." What part of the law’s provision that, "This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion" does Petsko not understand?
Next, following the lead of Darwinists like Bryan Carstens, Petsko is also unable to acknowledge the existence of scientists who dissent from neo-Darwinism, stating, “Just because a few misguided so-called scientists question the validity of the concept of evolution doesn’t mean there is a controversy.” In Petsko’s version of reality, the professional Ph.D. scientists who testified before the Louisiana State Legislature about scientific problems with neo-Darwinism, or these 700+ scientists, are now merely "so-called scientists" who might as well believe "the earth might be flat" (Petsko’s words).
With scientists like Petsko presiding over over major scientific organizations, it’s no wonder our country faces a stark need for legislation like Louisiana’s Academic Freedom law to protect the academic freedom of educators who question evolution.
Finally, none of this compares to Petsko’s argument about why religious schools should force students to consider atheism (discussed briefly above). To elaborate more on Petsko's argument, he writes:
[I]f we accept the creationists own rationale for this bill, then shouldn’t right-wing fundamentalist Christian schools be forced to “teach the controversy” about religion? It’s a much more controversial subject than science. Shouldn’t their students be forced to consider the possibility that there is no God, or that the Muslim faith, or Hindu faith, or Jewish faith, might be the true one? Or that there are so many different translations of the Bible that there is no way of knowing which one is the “word of God”?
(Gregory A Petsko, "It Is Alive," ASBMB Today, pages 3-4 (August, 2008); also published in Genome Biology, Vol. 9(6), Article 106 (June 23, 2008).)
Did you follow Petsko’s pop-atheism logic? If not, here’s Petsko’s argument broken down:
Premise 1: Public schools are supposed to promote evolution; Premise 2: Private religious schools are supposed to promote religion; Conclusion: Therefore if you allow public schools to attack evolution, it’s only fair to force private religious schools to attack religion.
Setting aside the other absurdities in Petsko’s argument, why should attacking evolution therefore mean you must attack religion? The missing piece of Petsko's twisted logic would be this: Premise 3: For Petsko, evolution functions like a religion, so if you attack his religion, it’s only fair to attack all others.
Even more troubling is that under Petsko's vision of fairness, it seems that he wishes the government could force private religious groups to attack their own religious viewpoints. Thankfully, the First Amendment provides the protection that no law may prohibit "the free exercise" of religion. In other words, you cannot force private religious groups to attack their own religious viewpoints. Does Petsko support this First Amendment principle?
Petsko closes with more anti-religious rhetoric and a call to "familiarize ourselves with the facts of evolution so that we can mount a spirited defense against the forces of ignorance and charlatans who would exploit human insecurity and need for certainty." I'm all for learning about evolution, and I'm all for combatting ignorance, but not using the kind of anti-religious agenda that Petsko clearly wishes to integrate into such evolution-education.
Petsko ends by saying that "Carl Sagan memorably called science 'a candle in the dark'" and that "the darkness is around us, closer than you think sometimes." With influential scientists like Petsko threatening scientific, educational, and religious freedom, and the NCSE happily endorsing his editorial on its website, perhaps the darkness is "closer than you think" indeed.
Grayling's method is to simplify opponents' arguments to the point of misrepresenting them. Just as bad, Grayling's "review" reveals a woefully disappointing grasp of the the origins of modern science and the history of Christianity. One begins to wonder whether the days of truly intellectual atheists are over. Perhaps it is no longer possible for atheists, uneducated in the history of Christianity and its doctrines, to level serious, challenging criticisms of the faith. It seems they just have too little knowledge. And in this case, this theological miseducation leads Grayling to misunderstand the history of modern science and spew 19th century clichés about "religion" the way Matt Damon regurgitatesMaureen Dowd's anti-Palin talking points.
The review was so smug and flimsy that Fuller's smack-down reply is warranted. Do have a look.
