This is the last thing I’m going to write about Kevin D. Williamson’s responses to Stephen Meyer’s post here, "What Should Politicians Say When Asked About Evolution?" I’ve expended time on this only because Kevin is a reporter for National Review, of which I’m an alumnus and of which I cherish many fond memories, and so I take an avuncular interest in his work. Kevin tweeted, among other thoughts, that the theory of intelligent design is “basically a fraud”:

@d_klinghoffer @JonahNRO @RameshPonnuru This is, incidentally, a big part of why I think ID is basically a fraud.

— Kevin D. Williamson (@KevinNR) April 2, 2015

@d_klinghoffer @JonahNRO @RameshPonnuru Inasmuch as it directs its arguments mainly toward people without the ability to evaluate them.

— Kevin D. Williamson (@KevinNR) April 2, 2015

Well, what about that? Actually, ID advocates address the scientific community and the general public — and in much the same language. That’s probably a bit of a self-imposed handicap for us. ID theorists like Meyer, Behe, or Dembski don’t dumb it down. It likely would be strategic if they did, though less honest.

That’s in contrast to the approach taken by what Steve Meyer calls "Darwin’s Public Defenders." Is it unfair to characterize what they do as "defending," with all that implies of bias, of fixed and preconceived ideas? Not at all. They themselves call what they do "defending Darwin." Our colleague Casey Luskin writes at The Blaze about University of Kentucky biologist James Krupa’s cri de coeur over at Slate, "Defending Darwin." Luskin contrasts it with the way professional evolutionary biologists write when they think only their own fraternity is listening.

Krupa says he gets some pushback from religious students on his campus who take issue with his presentation, his defense, of human evolution. But listen to the way he speaks of his mission as a teacher:

Some colleagues ask why I bother, as if I’m the one who’s the provocateur. I remind them that evolution is the foundation of our science, and we simply can’t shy away from explaining it. We don’t avoid using the "g-word" when talking about gravitational theory, nor do we avoid the "c-word" when talking about cell theory. So why avoid talking about evolution, let alone defending it? After all, as a biologist, the mission of advancing evolution education is the most important aspect of my job.

In Krupa’s own telling, "advancing" education in biology means "defending" Darwinian evolution, including the idea of a smooth, uncontroversial transition from pre-human to human:

Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. One ancestral population evolved in one direction toward modern-day monkeys, while another evolved toward humans.

The transition may in historical fact have been as simple as that — but as Casey goes on to detail in his own article, the evidence itself is far from simple, as evolutionary scientists themselves admit.

Recently the prestigious scientific publisher Springer released a 2015 book titled "Macroevolution: Explanation, Interpretation and Evidence." One chapter, "Macroevolution in and around the hominin clade," co-written by respected George Washington University paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood and post-doc Mark Grabowski, reviews the fossil evidence for human evolution.

…

While lamenting "[t]he dearth of unambiguous evidence for ancestor-descendant lineages," they admit that the evolutionary origin of most hominin species is unknown:

[T]he evolutionary sequence for the majority of hominin lineages is unknown. Most hominin taxa, particularly early hominins, have no obvious ancestors, and in most cases ancestor-descendant sequences (fossil time series) cannot be reliably constructed…

After reviewing many fossil species, they observe: "At one time, or another, every early hominin discussed above has been presented as ‘the’ ancestor of later hominins, but in our opinion, only two pairs … are plausible examples of ancestor-descendant relationships." Both examples say little about human evolution.

One pair is Australopithecus anamensis and its supposed descendant Australopithecus afarensis — even though Au. anamensis is only known from a few jaw scraps and an otherwise highly fragmented skeleton, and is an entirely unimpressive "transitional form." The other possible "ancestor-descendant" pair pertains to two members of the genus Paranthropus, a gorilla-like offshoot whose lineage is thought to have gone extinct and is far removed from human origins.

In other words, according to two leading experts in a recent authoritative technical review, evolutionary relationships between hominins are in great doubt, and it’s impossible to construct a credible lineage of ancestors and descendants leading from ape-like creatures to our own species Homo sapiens.

Kevin Williamson? Let’s, I would say, all ease back on using words like "fraud" to describe ideas we don’t like. Instead, tell us why you don’t like them, without resorting to fallacious appeals to authority.

ID advocates are the ones who speak the same language to anyone willing to listen. Darwin "defenders" are the ones with separate modes of communication, distinct channels. One, for the uninitiated, including students and the lay public, speaks of Darwinian accounts of evolution as straightforward, uncomplicated fact, to be stoutly "defended," as readily demonstrable as gravity or the contents of the cell.

The other, intended for specialists, is far more candid about the challenges and frustrations in giving an account of human origins, among other things.

Having two manners of discourse — one for the public, one for behind the scenes — may not be evidence of fraud but it surely justifies some skepticism on the part of thoughtful adults.

Image: Darwin’s finches (large ground finch), by JOHN GOULD (14.Sep.1804 – 3.Feb.1881) (�bersicht �ber die Bilder: http://darwin-online.org.uk/graphics/Zoology_Illustrations.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.