But Is Evolution Science?

Review:
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III
Middle District of Pennsylvania (Dec. 20, 2005)

 
    In 2005 Judge John E. Jones III of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania handed down his ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. It is regarded as the definitive court ruling on Intelligent Design.
    The case arose when the Dover Area School Board adopted a policy requiring teachers of 9^th grade biology to read to their students a brief disclaimer about the theory of evolution. The statement said that evolution was a theory and not a fact, that Intelligent Design is another explanation of the origin of life, and that a book was available in the school library if students wished to know more. The statement did not actually say that Intelligent Design was necessarily true or that evolution was false. Nevertheless, several irate parents sued the school district, alleging an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into a public school classroom. The judge reviewed the evidence and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
    [We should explain to our readers in the British Commonwealth that in the U.S. a "public school" is a school supported by tax dollars and controlled by the state. It is not an exclusive private school, as in England. Moreover, since the U.S. Constitution forbids an "establishment of religion," i.e., a state church, the content of public school education becomes a matter of controversy. How is it possible to provide an "education" that is secular, without becoming implicitly atheistic?]
    The judge reviewed the history of the Intelligent Design movement and concluded that "ID," as it is called for short, is essentially the same as creationism and is a form of religious belief. Since the U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled that creationism may not be taught in a public school classroom, Judge Jones ruled that neither may Intelligent Design.
    Judge Jones could have left the issue at that, but he did not. Instead, he wrote a 139 page opinion that explored all aspects of the issue, from the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas to the inner politics of the Dover school board.
    According to Judge Jones, the "seminal question" in the case was whether or not Intelligent Design is science. But what exactly is "science"? The judge cited a definition from the National Academy of Science: "In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from the confirmable data – the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not part of science" (Kitzmiller, p. 66). The judge noted that since the scientific revolution of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries science has limited itself to naturalistic explanations of phenomena. "Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea's worth. In deliberately omitting theological or 'ultimate' explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural world, science does not consider issues of 'meaning' and 'purpose' in the world" (p. 65). He then concluded, quite correctly we think, that Intelligent Design does not meet that definition of science.
    What Judge Jones failed to mention, however, is that most of the great scientists of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries believed that nature has a rational structure precisely because it came from the hand of an intelligent Being. Virtually none of them thought that nature was the result of a process of natural evolution. In other words, almost all of them believed in some form of what we would call today "Intelligent Design," or what was know then as "natural theology." While they adhered rigorously to the empirical method, they did not claim that it could tell them the ultimate origin of things. As Sir Francis Bacon put it, "My first admonition (which was also my prayer) is that men confine the sense within the limits of duty in respect of things divine: for the sense is like the sun, which reveals the face of earth, but seals and shuts up the face of heaven" (The Great Instauration, preface).

Charles Darwin

    What Judge Jones also failed to notice is that Darwinism does not meet his definition of science, either. The plain fact of the matter is that evolution offers us an "ultimate explanation," but one that cannot be confirmed or tested by experiment. Moreover, Darwinism does in fact consider "issues of 'meaning' and 'purpose' in the world" – it is emphatic that there are none, at least none that inhere in nature. Why then is Darwinism so widely accepted among mainstream scientists? It is because it is philosophically coherent. In other words, Darwinism attempts to do the very thing that Judge Jones (and Francis Bacon) say that science should never do. And it is precisely here that evolution comes into conflict with religion.
    The common disability under which both theories labor is that an alleged prehistoric event cannot be subjected to direct observation and experiment. Neither theory is testable. Neither theory can be verified by means of the scientific method. And until a theory has been tested and validated through experiment it is still tentative: it may not be true at all.
    Why, then, is evolution considered "science"? It appears that Darwinists have suddenly change the definition of "science." Evolution is presumably science because it offers a completely naturalistic explanation for the origins of life's forms. Intelligent Design, by this reckoning, is obviously not science, because it leaves room for divine agency in nature. In other words, "science" is no longer just a method; it is a worldview.
    Because Christian theism is inherently religious, Judge Jones ruled that it has no place in the public school classroom. But does the First Amendment really require the public school system to indoctrinate our youth in a materialist philosophical system?

How Darwin and Dewey Destroyed Western Civilization

John Dewey in 1902

    "That the publication of the 'Origin of Species' marked an epoch in the development of the natural sciences is well known to the layman." Thus begins John Dewey's essay "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy," which was originally published in 1910 and more recently appeared in The Philosophy of John Dewey, edited by John J. McDermott (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981). The essay is an intriguing attempt by Dewey to fathom the implications of Darwinism for Western culture generally.
    Interestingly Dewey downplayed the impact of Darwin's ideas on religion, and instead focused on Greek philosophy. He pointed out that for 2,000 years Western philosophy and science had revolved around the concept of "species" or "eidos," a fixed and immutable category that exists in nature. Observing that the individual specimens within a given species all grow and mature into the same archetypical form, the ancient Greeks concluded that each species must have its own specific purpose or aim, ("telos") to conform to the predetermined type. "The idea of eidos, species, a fixed form and final cause, was the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic of science. Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes, holding them thereby within the metes and bounds of fixed truth. Completely to know is to relate all special forms to their one single end and good: pure contemplative intelligence" (op. cit., p. 34).
    This idea of a fixed species having a definite aim and purpose "accounted for the intelligibility of nature and the possibility of science," while at the same time it "gave sanction and worth to the moral and religious endeavors of man. Science was underpinned and morals authorized by one and the same principle, and their mutual agreement was eternally guaranteed" (p. 36).
    Dewey went on to say that "the Darwinian principle of natural selection cut straight under this philosophy" (p. 37). If evolution is the result of a purely natural process of selection, "there is no call for a prior intelligent causal force . . . Hostile critics charged Darwin with materialism and with making chance the cause of the universe" (Ibid.).

Asa Gray

    Dewey went on to describe how Asa Gray attempted to find a role for divine providence in evolution, but noted that Darwin flatly rejected the idea. The process was too random to see the hand of God in it. Thus Darwin's critics, in the main, were correct. Darwin was a materialist who made chance the cause of the universe.
    Dewey pointed out that Darwin's theory had the effect of changing the focus of philosophy. Whereas previously philosophy had been preoccupied with finding the unifying principle of reality, it now focused instead on solving the concrete problems of temporal existence. Dewey, the Pragmatist, saw this as a positive step forward. But it leaves certain disturbing questions unanswered. If the older philosophy "accounted for the intelligibility of nature and the possibility of science" and "gave sanction and worth to the moral and religious endeavors of man," what happens to science, morality and religion under the new way of thinking? Dewey didn't say. But if everything is evolving and there are no fixed categories in nature, how is it possible to make generalizations about anything in either science or morality? There is only the superficial appearance of stability and permanence. Are we not driven to sheer skepticism and nihilism?
    At the conclusion of his essay Dewey made an astonishing admission. "But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume – an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them; we get over them" (p. 41). He then went on to observe: "Doubtless the greatest dissolvent in contemporary thought of old questions, the greatest precipitant of new methods, now intentions, new problems, is the one affected by the scientific revolution that found its climax in the 'Origin of Species'"(Ibid.).
    But what were "the old questions"? Wasn't it a worldview, the values and ideals, the social and artistic norms, the hopes and aspirations of traditional Western culture? In short, what was "dissolved" was civilization as we knew it. 

You may also be interested in (click on the links):
How Science Committed Suicide 
The Case for Moral Absolutes 

Thomas Jefferson, Dan Barker and Natural Rights

Dan Barker

    In his book godless (sic), near the end of his chapter on morality, atheist Dan Barker responds to a comment made by Clifford Goldstein, the editor of the Seventh Day Adventist Liberty Magazine. Mr. Goldstein argued that "Had Jefferson been influenced by Darwin instead of Locke, Joseph Stalin's views on religious liberty would have been deemed progressive." Goldstein went on to say that in a "Darwinian universe" truth rests "on a foundation as whimsical as the electorate or whichever despot happens to be in control" (quoted in Barker, pp. 216-217).
    Mr. Barker responded essentially by sidestepping the objection. Instead of addressing the point made by Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Barker asserted that the God of the Bible is a tyrant, a claim he attempted to support by taking a number of Old Testament texts out of context. He then further asserted that Hitler had misused Darwin. He then proceeded to misconstrue Jefferson in much the same way he often does the Bible.
    First of all, Mr. Barker claims that when Jefferson, as a Deist, used the word "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence he meant something less personal than the biblical God, something more akin to "nature" rather than "Jehovah." He then goes on to make the extraordinary assertion that "when Jefferson claimed that all people are 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,' he could not have meant 'endowed' in the sense of a sovereign granting a privilege that might be denied" (p. 218). Mr. Barker tries to support this dubious contention by asserting that "if something can be endowed, then it can be un-endowed," and therefore is not inalienable. According to Mr. Barker, and "inalienable right" that is "endowed" is an oxymoron.
    Mr. Barker then goes on to say that "a 'natural right' is a claim to a freedom, privilege or power that you possess inherently, by nature . . . " (Ibid.). According to him, what Jefferson really meant was that "we are 'endowed by nature' with common human needs," and are therefore "justified in expecting society to honor our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (p. 219).

Thomas Jefferson

    What Mr. Barker has done here is to substitute his own theory of natural rights for Jefferson's. Jefferson quite plainly said "endowed by their Creator," and clearly intended that phrase to be understood literally. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, written several years after the Declaration of Independence, commenting on the institution of slavery he declared, "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probably by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest" (Query XVIII). Jefferson was hardly an orthodox believer, and he emphatically rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; yet here he ascribes to God the attributes of wrath and justice,, expresses his faith in divine providence, and quite explicitly traces the source of our liberties to God Himself. It is hard, then, to mistake his meaning in the Declaration.
    Part of the problem here is that Jefferson and Mr. Barker are working with entirely different conceptions of "natural law." When Jefferson used the phrase, "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them," what he had in mind was a concept that had a long history in Western thought. As explained by the great 18^th Century English jurist Sir William Blackstone, the "law of nature" consists of "the eternal, immutable, laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all His dispensations conforms: and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such, among others, are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to everyone his due . . ."
    But Mr. Barker's view of natural law is far different. "I learned that relativism is all we've got. Human values are not absolutes – they are relative to human needs. The humanistic answer to morality, if the question is properly understood, is that the basis for values lies in nature. Since we are a part of nature, and since there is nothing 'beyond' nature, it is necessary to assign value to actions in the context of nature itself" (p. 210). "'Value' is a concept of relative worth. And since concepts, as far as we know, exist only in our brain, which are material things, it is meaningless, even dangerous, to talk of cosmic moral attributes" (p. 211).
    Mr. Barker claims that nature has endowed us with common human needs, and that therefore we are "justified in expecting society to honor our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But since when are "liberty" and " the pursuit of happiness" human "needs"? It is entirely possible biologically to survive without them, and the great masses of mankind have, in fact, done so. And since when does a "need" constitute a "right" to have something? Why are others obligated to "respect my right" to have something?
    The incongruity of Mr. Barker's assertions are especially apparent when we consider his view of nature itself: "Living organisms are the result of the mindless uncaring reality of natural selection" that uses "the blunt process of weeding out failures, which are denied the opportunity to reproduce by being eaten, starved, frozen, killed in competition, or not being chosen as a mate, and so on" (p. 106). In this context it is ludicrous to speak of "rights."
    Mr. Goldstein was right: had Jefferson been influence by Darwin instead of Locke, Joseph Stalin's views would been deemed progressive, and in a Darwinian universe truth does rest on the whims of whatever despot happens to be in control. Rights are inalienable only when they are sanctioned by a higher law, a law that transcends all human authority. If God had not said, "Thou shalt not kill," there would be no "inalienable right to life," and the U.S. Supreme Court amply demonstrated in Roe v. Wade. There would only be "nature, red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson).

The Culture Wars

    In his editorial in last Monday's USA Today Stephen Prothero deplored the bitter divisiveness of the current "culture wars," and suggested as an antidote what he calls "The American Bible," a collection of core texts that define us as Americans. He then concluded his piece with a quote from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address: "Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. . . . Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans -- we are federalists."
    We can hardly blame Mr. Prothero for wanting to restore a measure of civility to our public discourse, but at the same time we think that he has vastly underestimated the differences that divide us. The sad fact of the matter is that we are no longer "brethren of the same principle," as Jefferson so elegantly put it.
    In Jefferson's day there was a consensus on certain core values that no longer exists today. It is fascinating to note the makeup of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. In included Benjamin Franklin, and , of course, Jefferson himself, both free-thinkers, as well as John Adams, who would eventually become a Unitarian. But the committee also included a devout evangelical Christian, Roger Sherman of Connecticut. In spite of this difference of religion, they were agreed on certain core principles which they said were "self-evident": that all men are created equal, and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
    Would they have put it that way today? It seems unlikely. What separates us today from the world in which they lived is Charles Darwin. While Jefferson, Franklin and Adams were religious liberals or free-thinkers, they were not atheists. They believed in a rationally ordered universe created by an intelligent Supreme Being. Darwin, however, called all of that into doubt, and with it the whole rationale for the Declaration. In Darwinian thinking there is no Creator, and all living beings are in a constant state of evolution, locked in a struggle for survival. On this construction of things it is hard to see how there could be such a thing as an "inalienable right": there is no Supreme Being to endow anyone with any rights. Thus the values of human dignity, freedom and equality are no longer "self-evident truths," and the Christian is thrown back on a direct appeal to divine revelation to support the idea of human exceptionalism. This, in turn, is unacceptable to the modern secularist. Thus today we are no longer "brethren of the same principle." Rather, the debate is over whether or not universal principles exist at all.
    As faulty as David Barton's historiography undoubtedly is, his supporters have a sense of something of immense importance. What they sense is that civilization itself is at risk. We have become a society that has lost its faith in its core values, the universal norms of justice and humanity. Militant atheism is a denial of values and ideals of every kind. Do we, as a nation, still have anything worth fighting for?

 

How Science Committed Suicide

    In his book Why Evolution Is True, Professor Jerry A. Coyne begins by discussing a court case that involved the teaching of evolution in a public school. The school board of the Dover (PA) Area School District had adopted a simple statement to be read by high school biology teachers to their classes which said, in effect, that evolution is a theory and that Intelligent Design is an alternative explanation as to how life began. Some parents protested, and the matter eventually went to a federal court. The judge ruled that Intelligent Design was a religious belief and therefore could not be presented in a public school classroom.

    Professor Coyne's comment on the case is that the decision was "a splendid victory for American schoolchildren, for evolution, and, indeed, for science itself" (p. xiii). He then goes on to say that the battle for evolution "is a part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition. What is at stake is nothing less than science itself and all the benefits it offers society."

    But was the court's decision really a triumph for rationality? Frankly, it is hard to see how squelching debate and withholding information from students furthers the spirit of free inquiry. But beyond that, it can be shown that, ironically, the theory of evolution itself leads ultimately to irrationalism.

    To understand why, one must go back to the situation that existed before 1859, when Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. It was widely believed then that the world was created by God and that therefore it had a rational structure and order. This viewpoint was ably stated by an English theologian and philosopher named William Paley, who argued that the marvelous adaptation of living things to their environment was evidence that they were designed by an Intelligent Being. Nature obviously has a Designer.

    According to Prof. Coyne, it was Darwin's great achievement to demolish Paley's argument by showing that the appearance of design in nature was really the result of natural selection. ". . .the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science" (p. 3).

    To understand the impact that Darwinism has had on Western culture it must be noted that not only had Darwin gotten rid of the Designer, he had gotten rid of the design itself. But then what kind of world do we live in? Prof. Coyne tells us: "The message of evolution, and all of science, is one of naturalistic materialism. Darwinism tells us that, like all species, human beings arose from the working of blind, purposeless forces over eons of time" (p. 224).

    But if that is the literal truth of who we are and how we got here, doesn't that mean that our lives are essentially meaningless and purposeless? Prof. Coyne does not exactly deny this, but does make what is apparently intended to be a helpful suggestion: "And although evolution operates in a purposeless, materialistic way, that doesn't mean that our lives have no purpose. Whether through religious or secular thought, we make our own purposes, meaning, and morality" (p. 231).

    This last statement is worth weighing carefully, for it gives us the key to understanding the dramatic changes that have taken place in Western culture over the past century and a half. In Prof. Coyne's view, purpose, meaning, and morality have no basis in objective reality. Rather, they are artificial and man-made. To put it crudely, we make them up as we go along. And therein lies the whole problem. For if they are essentially artificial and man-made, then they carry no real weight or authority, and frankly, people are free to ignore them as they please. To a militant secularist like Prof. Coyne this may seem tremendously liberating. But it means that there are no absolute standards of right or wrong, and consequently no such thing as justice or human rights. All we are left with, in effect, is the law of the jungle, a world full of organisms competing for scarce resources, governed by the blind forces of nature, and locked in a struggle for survival.

    But what then becomes of science? If there is no such thing as Intelligent Design, if the only intelligence is human intelligence, then rationality exists only in the human mind. When the scientist seeks to interpret the facts and make generalizations, he is imposing structure and meaning on a reality that does not possess these qualities in itself. Even the very concept of a "species" becomes suspect in a world where everything is changing and in a state of transition. How then can any generalization, any theory, be valid? Prof. Coyne (and his master Charles Darwin) have left the door open for Post-Modernism's radical critique of science.

    Nor is this scenario the idle speculation of a desperate creationist. This has been the actual course of Western philosophy since the time of Darwin. Virtually the whole story of philosophy since that time has been the attempt to do exactly as Prof. Coyne has suggested: make our own purpose, meaning, and morality. Post-Modernism has simply taken his suggestion to its logical conclusion: all truth and rationality are artificial. The theory of evolution itself is just one more "metanarrative," and deserves no more respect than any other.

    In the final analysis there is no objective rationality apart from God. Science can function only because it works in a structured cosmos created by an Intelligent Being, and because scientists themselves were created in God's image and therefore have the ability to think and reason. To reject God is to commit intellectual suicide. Ironically, Darwin the scientist destroyed the basis for science.

    Christianity was the basis of a civilization. It held that there is a rational order to the cosmos, put there by an intelligent Supreme Being. Morality originates in the mind of God and is binding on all human beings. Justice and human rights are real qualities and are worth pursuing and protecting. Christianity motivated a multitude of social reformers to devote their lives to the pursuit of an ideal; making the world a better place in which to live. It inspired some of the greatest works of art and literature in human history – the music of Bach and Handel, the paintings of Rembrandt, the poetry of Milton. And what does atheism have to offer? A meaningless existence followed by the cold grave.

WHY EVOLUTION IS FALSE

Review:

    Why Evolution Is True

    Jerry A. Coyne, Viking, 233 pages

 

    It is perhaps fitting that the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150^th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species should see the appearance of Why Evolution Is True by Professor Jerry A. Coyne of the University of Chicago. The work is a fine exposition of the theory of evolution, both clear and readable, and certain to make its mark in the ongoing debate. Prof. Coyne shows a familiarity with Creationist arguments (which he generally treats with contempt), and interacts with them throughout his own work.

    The book, however, does not really change the nature of the debate. Prof. Coyne mainly rehashes the familiar arguments for evolution, most of them drawn from Darwin himself, whom Prof. Coyne quotes frequently and appreciatively.

    Prof. Coyne insists that evolution is a "scientific fact." What is a bit confusing to us laymen is that scientists have their own criteria for establishing a "scientific fact." According to Prof. Coyne, a scientific theory is not necessarily something debatable. A theory is a set of propositions that explain a phenomenon. If the theory seems to explain adequately the evidence, and it is confirmed by subsequent discoveries, then it is considered a "fact." A scientist like Prof. Coyne knows this as the inductive method, unbiased, objective, and incontrovertible. A lawyer like Phillip E. Johnson recognizes it as an attempt to build a case on circumstantial evidence, an argument marked by circular reasoning and logical non sequiturs. There are two major weaknesses in this kind of argument. First of all, what if the evidence does not fit perfectly, if there is something that the theory cannot explain? And secondly, What if we cannot establish a direct causal link, the proverbial "smoking gun"? In this case the question is whether or not it is even possible for evolution to take place at all.

    On the first question, let us take for example the fossil record. Prof. Coyne recites the familiar argument we have all heard before. But does the evidence really support the theory? Prof. Coyne posits a very slow process of gradual change. But that would seem to call for a vast continuum of transitional forms. What we actually see in the fossil record on the other hand is what we see today: distinct species or "discontinuities of nature," as Prof. Coyne call them. He is honest enough to make this intriguing statement: "When you look at animals and plants, each individual almost always falls into one of many discrete groups" (p. 169). That is the indisputable fact. But which theory does it support, evolution or creation? We think the latter.

    On the second question, the question of causality, it is ironic that Prof. Coyne's most original contribution to the debate, his background in genetics, serves to undermine his own argument. In the second half of the book he discusses at great length how mutations enable species to adapt to their environments, sometimes even developing new features. But all of the examples he cites involve taking existing genetic material and modifying it or recombining it in some way to generate new characteristics in the species. Once it is apparent how this "microevolution" takes place, it becomes obvious why "macroevolution" cannot take place. Macroevolution, as Prof. Coyne conceives of it, would require passing over the genetic barriers that separate one species from another. Moreover, it would involve progressing from simple forms of life to more complex. As Prof. Coyne puts it, evolution is "the amazing derivation of life's staggering diversity from a single naked replicating molecule" (p. 233). Amazing indeed it is! It is impossible! This would seemingly require adding new genetic material where it did not previously exist. A mutation modifies an existing gene; it does not create a new one. Since each species has a set number of chromosomes, and the chromosomes come in pairs, in most cases the evolution from one species to another would require adding whole pairs of chromosomes. What Prof. Coyne has not explained is where the extra chromosomes would come from. Thus, while microevolution is quite explicable, macroevolution seems genetically impossible. The "murder weapon" in the case remains to be found.     

Thus, in spite of Prof. Coyne's fine effort to produce a very readable and informative book, we are pretty much where we began: Darwinism is still vulnerable to most of the same criticisms that were leveled against it in Darwin's own day. In fact, in some ways, Prof. Coyne's explanation of the genetics involved makes the Theory of Evolution even less convincing. But the book is a useful primer for anyone interested in the controversy.

                        Robert W. Wheeler