Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design? [Human Events goes with ID]

Human Events ^ | 12 December 2005 | Casey Luskin

[PatrickHenry]

Occasionally a social issue becomes so ubiquitous that almost everyone wants to talk about it -- even well-meaning but uninformed pundits. For example, Charles Krauthammer preaches that religious conservatives should stop being so darn, well, religious, and should accept his whitewashed version of religion-friendly Darwinism.¹ George Will prophesies that disagreements over Darwin could destroy the future of conservatism.² Both agree that intelligent design is not science.

It is not evident that either of these critics has read much by the design theorists they rebuke. They appear to have gotten most of their information about intelligent design from other critics of the theory, scholars bent on not only distorting the main arguments of intelligent design but also sometimes seeking to deny the academic freedom of design theorists.

In 2001, Iowa State University astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez’s research on galactic habitable zones appeared on the cover of Scientific American. Dr. Gonzalez’s research demonstrates that our universe, galaxy, and solar system were intelligently designed for advanced life. Although Gonzalez does not teach intelligent design in his classes, he nevertheless believes that “[t]he methods [of intelligent design] are scientific, and they don't start with a religious assumption.” But a faculty adviser to the campus atheist club circulated a petition condemning Gonzalez’s scientific views as merely “religious faith.” Attacks such as these should be familiar to the conservative minorities on many university campuses; however, the response to intelligent design has shifted from mere private intolerance to public witch hunts. Gonzalez is up for tenure next year and clearly is being targeted because of his scientific views.

The University of Idaho, in Moscow, Idaho, is home to Scott Minnich, a soft-spoken microbiologist who runs a lab studying the bacterial flagellum, a microscopic rotary engine that he and other scientists believe was intelligently designed -- see "What Is Intelligent Design.") Earlier this year Dr. Minnich testified in favor of intelligent design at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial over the teaching of intelligent design. Apparently threatened by Dr. Minnich’s views, the university president, Tim White, issued an edict proclaiming that “teaching of views that differ from evolution ... is inappropriate in our life, earth, and physical science courses or curricula.” As Gonzaga University law professor David DeWolf asked in an editorial, “Which Moscow is this?” It’s the Moscow where Minnich’s career advancement is in now jeopardized because of his scientific views.

Scientists like Gonzalez and Minnich deserve not only to be understood, but also their cause should be defended. Conservative champions of intellectual freedom should be horrified by the witch hunts of academics seeking to limit academic freedom to investigate or objectively teach intelligent design. Krauthammer’s and Will’s attacks only add fuel to the fire.

By calling evolution “brilliant,” “elegant,” and “divine,” Krauthammer’s defense of Darwin is grounded in emotional arguments and the mirage that a Neo-Darwinism that is thoroughly friendly towards Western theism. While there is no denying the possibility of belief in God and Darwinism, the descriptions of evolution offered by top Darwinists differ greatly from Krauthammer’s sanitized version. For example, Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins explains that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” In addition, Krauthammer’s understanding is in direct opposition to the portrayal of evolution in biology textbooks. Says Douglas Futuyma in the textbook Evolutionary Biology:

“By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”³

Thus when Krauthammer thrashes the Kansas State Board of Education for calling Neo-Darwinian evolution “undirected,” it seems that it is Kansas -- not Krauthammer -- who has been reading the actual textbooks.

Moreover, by preaching Darwinism, Krauthammer is courting the historical enemies of some of his own conservative causes. Krauthammer once argued that human beings should not be subjected to medical experimentation because of their inherent dignity: “Civilization hangs on the Kantian principle that human beings are to be treated as ends and not means.”⁴ About 10 years before Krauthammer penned those words, the American Eugenics Society changed its name to the euphemistic “Society for the Study of Social Biology.” This “new” field of sociobiology, has been heavily promoted by the prominent Harvard sociobiologist E.O. Wilson. In an article titled, “The consequences of Charles Darwin's ‘one long argument,’” Wilson writes in the latest issue of Harvard Magazine:

“Evolution in a pure Darwinian world has no goal or purpose: the exclusive driving force is random mutations sorted out by natural selection from one generation to the next. … However elevated in power over the rest of life, however exalted in self-image, we were descended from animals by the same blind force that created those animals. …”⁵

This view of “scientific humanism” implies that our alleged undirected evolutionary origin makes us fundamentally undifferentiated from animals. Thus Wilson elsewhere explains that under Neo-Darwinism, “[m]orality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. … [E]thics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.”⁶

There is no doubt that Darwinists can be extremely moral people. But E.O. Wilson’s brave new world seems very different from visions of religion and morality-friendly Darwinian sugerplums dancing about in Krauthammer’s head.

Incredibly, Krauthammer also suggests that teaching about intelligent design heaps “ridicule to religion.” It’s time for a reality check. Every major Western religion holds that life was designed by intelligence. The Dalai Lama recently affirmed that design is a philosophical truth in Buddhism. How could it possibly denigrate religion to suggest that design is scientifically correct?

At least George Will provides a more pragmatic critique. The largest float in Will’s parade of horribles is the fear that the debate over Darwin threatens to split a political coalition between social and fiscal conservatives. There is no need to accept Will’s false dichotomy. Fiscal conservatives need support from social conservatives at least as much as social conservatives need support from them. But in both cases, the focus should be human freedom, the common patrimony of Western civilization that is unintelligible under Wilson’s scientific humanism. If social conservatives were to have their way, support for Will’s fiscal causes would not suffer.

The debate over biological origins will only threaten conservative coalitions if critics like Will and Krauthammer force a split. But in doing so, they will weaken a coalition between conservatives and the public at large.

Poll data show that teaching the full range of scientific evidence, which both supports and challenges Neo-Darwinism, is an overwhelmingly popular political position. A 2001 Zogby poll found that more than 70% of American adults favor teaching the scientific controversy about Darwinism.⁷ This is consistent with other polls which show only about 10% of Americans believe that life is the result of purely “undirected” evolutionary processes.⁸ If George Will thinks that ultimate political ends should be used to force someone’s hand, then I call his bluff: design proponents are more than comfortable to lay our cards of scientific evidence (see "What Is Intelligent Design") and popular support out on the table.

But ultimately it’s not about the poll data, it’s about the scientific data. Regardless of whether critics like Krauthammer have informed themselves on this issue, and no matter how loudly critics like Will tout that “evolution is a fact,” there is still digital code in our cells and irreducibly complex rotary engines at the micromolecular level.

At the end of the day, the earth still turns, and the living cell shows evidence of design.

---

¹ See Charles Krauthammer, “Phony Theory, False Conflict,” Washington Post, Friday, November 18, 2005, pg. A23.
² See George Will, “Grand Old Spenders,” Washington Post, Thursday, November 17, 2005; Page A31.
³ Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), pg. 5.
⁴ Quoted in Pammela Winnick “A Jealous God,” pg. 74; Charles Krauthammer “The Using of Baby Fae,” Time, Dec 3, 1984.
⁵ Edward O. Wilson, "Intelligent Evolution: The consequences of Charles Darwin's ‘one long argument’" Harvard Magazine, Nov-December, 2005.
⁶ Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson "The Evolution of Ethics" in Religion and the Natural Sciences, the Range of Engagement, (Harcourt Brace, 1993).
⁷ See http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/ZogbyFinalReport.pdf
⁸ See Table 2.2 from Karl W. Giberson & Donald A Yerxa, Species of Origins America’s Search for a Creation Story (Rowman & Littlefield 2002) at page 54.

Mr. Luskin is an attorney and published scientist working with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash.

[Dimensio]

I am the evidence.

How, exactly, are you evidence of the answer "the Christian God"?

[Dimensio]

It stands to reason that an intelligent cause will produce intelligible results, i.e. organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws.

Why do you believe that organized matter behaving according to "predictable laws" is an intelligent result?

[Fester Chugabrew]

I know! I know! It's the Intelligent Puller!

Umm, it's just you, pulling one out. How do General Relativity and Quantum Theory address the cause of gravity? Gravity operates consistently because it too, is intelligently designed. The forces and cause behind it are still an object of science, and if the theory of intelligent design is correct, science will, if it pursues the proper course, arrive at an intelligent designer as the ultimate agent behind its predictable behavior.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Do not underestimate the seductiveness of finding what you want to find, direct observation or no.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply!

I see that Doctor Stochastic has already replied, so all I shall do is add a link for Lurkers to meditate on the difference in auto-correlation between a decimal based Champernowne's constant and a binary: from Mathworld

Beyond that, I suspect the more direct approach to acheiving a compilation of Shakespeare's works is to digitize the same and merely count up to it. LOL!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

Based on a quick reading of 89 and 90, and the history of the Jews in the Maccabean period, I don't see much relationship between the two.

I wouldn't expect you to see such things, it is not your speciality. But the consensus of the scholars at the time of Laurence (before the carbon dating) was what it was.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOLOL! I expected both of you to agree fully with the post at 704. That is the point, that is your sense of "reality".

[Alamo-Girl]

Ouch... that had to hurt some calloused conciences.. Hmmmmm.. calloused conciences don't feel pain... DuuuH on my part...

Sad but true. Thank you so much for your post!

[Fester Chugabrew]

Why do you believe that organized matter behaving according to "predictable laws" is an intelligent result?

I consider these things to be the result and ongoing activity of an intelligent agent. I do not ascribe intelligence to the result, per se, as if matter and it's laws are intelligent agents in and of themselves.

My reasons for deducing intelligent input from the results are 1.) the ability for the results to manifest themselves to intelligent beings (communication of information), 2.) the ensuing characteristic of quantifiability, and 3.) the consistency demonstrated by both matter and its laws over a period of time extending throughout my experience as an observer.

One could just as easily argue that organized matter and predictable laws are the result of infinitely possible combinations of matter over an indefinite period of time without any intelligent agent whatsoever. I cannot answer that argument. It, too, can be used to explain everything. That does not make it a wholly unscientific argument or assumption. In fact it may prove handy for certain people.

[Dimensio]

I consider these things to be the result and ongoing activity of an intelligent agent.

And that's the source of the problem. You can't present a rational justification for asserting that this intelligent agent is the best explanation.

My reasons for deducing intelligent input from the results are 1.) the ability for the results to manifest themselves to intelligent beings (communication of information),

I don't follow the logic that the ability for an intelligent entity to observe an event is evidence that the event itself had an intelligent origin.

2.) the ensuing characteristic of quantifiability

Again, not a logical connection.

3.) the consistency demonstrated by both matter and its laws over a period of time extending throughout my experience as an observer.

You're restating your initial premise. Why is consistency amongst your observations evidence of an intelligent agent causing the events that you observe?

One could just as easily argue that organized matter and predictable laws are the result of infinitely possible combinations of matter over an indefinite period of time without any intelligent agent whatsoever. I cannot answer that argument. It, too, can be used to explain everything.

That is why neither your explanation nor your hypothetical "alternative" explanation are in any way, shape or form meaningful. If your explanation can be replaced by an equally explanatory one without any adjustments of evidence, then both explanations are fundamentally meaningless.

That does not make it a wholly unscientific argument or assumption.

Yes, it is, unless you dishonestly redefine science.

[Quark2005]

Once upon a time "science" referred to the entire body of knowledge, episteme - philosophy - spiritual and natural - all of it.

This is exactly why we distinguish the natural sciences from the broader spectrum of science (i.e. social science, philosophical science, etc.):

From the Oxford American Dictionary:

natural science
noun (usu. natural sciences)
a branch of science that deals with the physical world, e.g., physics, chemistry, geology, and biology.
 • the branch of knowledge that deals with the study of the physical world.

DERIVATIVES natural scientist noun

With all due respect, complaining that the natural sciences don't address the supernatural seems to me to be like complaining that a laxative won't get rid of your headache. I'm fine with ID being taught as part of the broader scope of philosophy (as are most other supporters of teaching evolution), but not under the pretense of it being part of the natural science of biology.

[Virginia-American]

Thanks for the info on Champernone's constants. It's a part of math I know very little about.

Something else I just found out about is Goodstein's theorem. This is an example of a Goedel-undecidable statement about the natural numbers.

The proof that every Goodstein sequence eventually reaches zero is straightforward enough (but try to actually write down the sequence starting with 4 ), but the proof that the result is independent of the Peano Axioms is (for me) hard to follow.

Merry Christmas!

[dread78645]

Festering laxatives placemark

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not "intependent" so much as "unprovable." The Peano axioms for arithmetic (qv) are provably not strong enough to prove this theorem. Peano's axioms would seem to be enough to define arithmetic, but not strong enough to prove all things about arithmetic.

Thanks for the reference.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I guess one could assume that Goodstein's theorem is false and not have a contradiction in arithmetic. This would give another model of set theory though. There would be no given number for which the theorem would be false though. Funny.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Astrology was not interested in the "forces", or if it was, it was a peripheral matter. It was interested in direct observation of both heavenly bodies and human behavior and then correlating the two."

And it correlated this behavior with the motions of the stars and planets horribly. The predictive power of astrology was and still is nil.

"It would not be "nonsense" if they observed recurring patterns on a consistent basis over a large population for hundreds of years. It was the best they had at the time."

They DIDN'T observe any of those things. There IS NO consistent pattern of human behavior based on birth date and the movement of the stars and planets. NONE.

"Not if you want to distill astrology into sheer mysticism and superstition. Otherwise the analog clock is one of many tangible benefits of the direct observations of ancient astrologers."

But we got those benefits DESPITE the astrological nature of their pursuits.

"I always thought they were somehow connected to lunar cycles."

Are you married? Have you been in a relationship with a woman? If so, you will know that menstrual cycles happen at all different times of the month, with no regard to what stage the lunar cycle is in. They are also not exactly 28 days. They vary. One month it can be 30, next month it's 27. What the ancients DID notice is the closeness to the LENGTH of time to the lunar cycle. This is why the Moon was considered a Goddess. This was long before astrology was developed.

"Did people need to see an astrologer to "know the schedule?" No."

Then what did the astrologer predict about menstrual cycles?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"That is because you, like your cheerleaders, do not have one. You cannot give one single example of how science can take place without intelligence, design, or some combination of the two."

The ONLY intelligence required for the practice of science is HUMAN intelligence. That's it. Nobody denies it's existence (though it seems lacking in some cases); to extrapolate from human intelligence to a universal intelligent agent is to go where the evidence won't take you.

[Fester Chugabrew]

It would be better if you read about the subject - a brief history - before making sweeping comments such as the above. You may have a gut feeling about it, but that's all.

[Fester Chugabrew]

You forgot to include design. You also forgot to provide an example of science that could be practiced without intelligence, design, or some combination of the two.

[DennisR]

I think a natural division amongst conservatives would be those who think they are descended from monkeys and those who think they are descended from humans. We can all choose our own heritage.

Oh - I choose humans. :)