Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design?

2007-11-22
By

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 has been denied tenure 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.”) In 2005, 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.This article originally published on humanevents.com.

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  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    GalapagosPete – your comment above is juvenile and unworthy of retort.

    If you or anyone reading this thread in the future wish to read a legitimate critique of Frank Tipler’s Omega Point Theory, I recommend David Deutsch’s book, The Fabric of Reality. Chapter 14 of Deutsch’s book is available here. Deutsch has acknowledged the validity of the OPT, and has fitted it within his own Four Strands structure for the Final Theory of Everything. As Deutsch acknowledged in his book, Tipler’s theory is indeed a significant contribution to cosmology and quantum physics.

    For Paul Burnett: Christian civilization is the mother of modern science. Christianity encourages discovery and progress for the purpose of ameliorating the human condition. No other civilization in the history of humanity (including the classical Greeks) can come close to making this claim.

    Contemporary atheism, on the other hand, has no track record of encouraging similar discovery and progress. In fact — as evidenced by your own contempt of teleology as a possible solution to the probabilities problem — an argument can be made that atheism and materialism are the true science stoppers.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    Pete, Tipler’s fantasy reminds me of Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero where they outran the the collapse of the Universe in a FTL cruiser run amok – as well as Fred Pohl’s Heechee stories whre they retreated insde a black hole to outlast the Universe. But Tipler’s work certainly doesn’t resemble any actual physics I’ve read.

    Mike, I don’t think Christianity as a whole is a “science stopper.” (But who burned Bruno at the stake?)

    Stopping science is entirely a contemporary idea cooked up by a small percentage of new wave Christian Protestant fundamentalists and their fellow travelers in the right-wing conservative movement, who pride themselves in their ignorance of science and want their children (and others’ children!) to remain ignorant of science.

    Answers in Genesis Christians deny not just evolution and biology and paleontology, but geology and astronomy and every other science. Do you deny that Answers in Genesis is a “science stopper”? (Have you been to their anti-museum?)

  • GalapagosPete

    Paul, Probably like you, I’m not really talking to Squiggy. I’m talking to some poor victim who might come across this site and be misled by the outright rubbish he and his friends post.

    And is it just me, or do you think Frank Tipler got much of his “theory” from reading the Galactus stories in Fantastic Four?

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    The claim that Christianity is somehow “anti-science” is patently false. Indeed, Christianity — and Christian civilization — has husbanded modern science almost from its inception, from St. Augustine to the Carolingians and right through the middle ages and into modern times. At every critical juncture in the birth of scientific modernity, Christians have been at the heart of innovation and discovery: St. Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Galileo, Issac Newton, and even Charles Darwin were all Christians and the products of their Christian culture.

    The notion that Christianity is a “science stopper” is entirely a contemporary idea cooked up by new wave atheists and their fellow materialists.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    Galapagos Pete, you’re spending entirely too much time on Squiggy – his mind is already made up. (grin)

    You’re right – I put no particular faith in biologists (or any other scientists as persons), particularly not in any religious context. But I do trust the massive body of peer-reviewed research and publication.

    And perhaps this is the place to mention that Squiggy does, too – as well as Mike LaSalle and Casey Luskin. Almost nobody goes to faith-healers any more – everybody goes to medical practitioners who practice medical science. Everybody who eats healthy food or even drinks water from a municipal water treatment plant is benefitting from science (ever heard of cholera?). The religious wingnuts who use modern publishing technology, much less rdio and television and computers, are using science. When they fly, they are putting their faith in aerodynamic science. This list goes on and on.

    And yet they say they want their children to remain ignorant of science. What hypocrites!

  • GalapagosPete

    I can’t speak for Paul, but I put no faith in biologists, per se. Biologists are people, and can make errors. What I accept is the repeatable, testable results of their research, just as in any other branch of science. Nor is this faith, since faith involves acceptance without evidence, in fact, even in the face of contradictory evidence.

    Atheism has nothing to do with evolution, or with the choices people make. But even if it did, it would make no difference, as far as I’m concerned. If someone, for some bizarre reason, commits some destructive act as a result of learning that the diversity of species is the result of a natural process, that’s unfortunate, but that’s likely due to a mental disorder. Scientific fact cannot be suppressed.

  • GalapagosPete

    In comment #62, Squiggy says, “As for the snake, I believe it also mentions that in those days, snakes had legs. They have since been found with vestigial appendages which “seem” to back that up. How could the writer of Genesis have known that if he was just making stuff up? A lucky guess?”

    Folklore. Many ancient people told stories about how this or that animal or rock formation or mountain came to be. Perhaps they thought they were divinely inspired, or perhaps they made it up to entertain their children, or to appear wiser than they really thought they were in order to impress people. In any case, snakes didn’t have legs six or eight or ten thousand years ago. The legged ancestor of snakes lived many millions of years ago.
    http://www.wonderquest.com/snake-legs.htm

    Squiggy again: “And by the way – is a “miracle” of a talking snake (whom the Bible says was possessed by Satan) a big deal compared to the creation of an entire universe? It wouldn’t even make the grade of “miracle”. ”

    This snake did not merely speak, he was having conversations with people. Since the claim is that, apart from having legs, it was identical to modern snakes, it had neither a speech center in its brain or vocal apparatus. For such an animal to speak at all would indeed be considered miraculous, to say nothing of it having the wherewithal to convince Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.

  • GalapagosPete

    In comment #55, Squiggy claims, “All “random mutations” observed have been destructive to the individual involved (and we’ve been looking very hard for a couple hundred years now). They never give a “survival advantage” to a creature, they kill it.”

    Yes, most mutations are bad. The mutants usually do not survive to pass these mutations along to the next generation. Neutral mutations don’t matter. Good mutations, those in the right place at the right time, are quite rare.

    Over billions of years, the relatively rare good mutations are passed along to the mutants’ descendants, and so accumulate that way. The probability of anyone ever seeing the first appearance of a good mutation is vanishingly small, given that we would have to continuously monitor every single plant and animal on Earth. Also, having already had millions of years to evolve, the need for any major adaptations are less. For a mutation to be retained, it must be useful. For example, if global warming persists, animals who live in what are now cooler areas and who therefore have thick fur may begin to sport shorter hair, providing the genes for such short hair is present in their genomes, and they have the time to adapt.

    Squiggy also asked, “As for falsifying evolution, how can you falsify something that is completely untestable?”

    There are many conceivable lines of evidence that could falsify evolution. For example:

    * a static fossil record;
    * true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together;
    * a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;
    * observations of organisms being created.

    http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211.html

  • Squiggy

    Childishness doesn’t win arguments. Nor does pretending you won when you couldn’t answer a single question. Your claim that you’re “not a biologist” pretty much proves you don’t have a clue. You may not be one, but you sure do put all your faith in them.

    This is a fact – Christ turns peoples live around. People who would be dead (from their own choices) instead turn into wonderful people. Atheism makes people talk about “doofuses”. Go cure some of your own ignorance, and maybe your big head won’t pop.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    I finished my comment #63 to Squiggy with “…your logic is flawed.” And in his reply, (#64), he agreed with me! His entire message: “The flawed logic, not to mention the excuses, of willful ignorance. ”

    Squiggy, I’m proud of you for being able to admit that about yourself. Congratulations! I hope I’ve given you enough links / citations to start curing some of that ignorance.

    I hope you and all the other readers have learned something about intelligent design creationism. Stay tuned to what the doofuses in Texas have just done for the next chapter in this story.

  • Squiggy

    The flawed logic, not to mention the excuses, of willful ignorance.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    Squiggy said: “You still haven’t tried to answer a single question I’ve posed.”

    I haven’t tried very hard to answer your questions about biology, because as I have repeatedly stated, I am not a biologist. And neither are you, as demonstrated by the very first thing you said in this discussion: “…evolution is their religion, and humanity is their deity.” As an anti-scientist, regurgitating biology questions out of your creationist playbook, you’ve made your viewpoint very clear.

    And in spite of your bet, I gave you some answers and discussion on random mutations. But you don’t seem to be able to accept or understand that random mutations take longer than 6,000 years to be expressed. You “bet’ is ludicrous, and your logic is flawed. And I’ve got better things to do. Happy weekend.

  • Squiggy

    There is no sequence of creation in Genesis chapter 2. And the only thing mentioned about plants is that none had been planted in the fields (i.e. no one had plowed and planted anything). It repeats the first chapter about man having been created from the dust of the earth. Nothing is mentioned about creating animals. It says only that God then gave man dominion over them, and the privilege of naming them. You can read conflicts into anything if you try hard enough. Try having knowledge next time you speak (maybe actually read it instead of quoting someone else.)
    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=1&chapter=2&version=31

    As for the snake, I believe it also mentions that in those days, snakes had legs. They have since been found with vestigial appendages which “seem” to back that up. How could the writer of Genesis have known that if he was just making stuff up? A lucky guess?

    And by the way – is a “miracle” of a talking snake (whom the Bible says was possessed by Satan) a big deal compared to the creation of an entire universe? It wouldn’t even make the grade of “miracle”.

    P.S. You still haven’t tried to answer a single question I’ve posed. Wonder why that might be? (Not because you can’t, I’m sure.) And no matter what you might think, they are valid questions. Questions any real scientist would try to answer.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    I asked: “Squiggy, which of the two different and conflicting creation myths in Genesis (Chapter 1 versus Chapter 2) do you subscribe to? And Squiggy responded: “What? There is no conflict unless you purposefully read one into it.”

    Oh, come now! Here’s the sequence of creation in Chapter 1:

    Sky, Earth, light
    Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky
    Plants
    Sun, Moon, stars
    Sea monsters, fish, birds, land animals, reptiles, insects
    Humans

    Here’s the sequence in Chapter 2:

    Earth and heavens
    Adam, the first man
    Plants
    Animals
    Eve, the first woman

    Are you going to tell me you don’t notice any conflicts?

    (And I won’t even get into the miiracle of the talking snake.)

  • Squiggy

    Paul Burnett said,

    Squiggy, which of the two different and conflicting creation myths in Genesis (Chapter 1 versus Chapter 2) do you subscribe to? And do you have faith that either one of them is testable or reproducible?

    What? There is no conflict unless you purposefully read one into it. And of course God isn’t testable. But science isn’t science unless it is testable.

    There’s been a healthy discussion over at Panda’s Thumb for the last few weeks on “random mutations” in the HIV organism, leading to antibiotic resistance. Have you been following that?

    No I haven’t, but of course life is adaptable. It couldn’t survive otherwise. But a creature is the same creature whether it learns to survive penicillin, or grows a thicker coat. Obviously the animal whose colors help it blend into a changing environment will have a survival advantage, and it’s offspring will be more likely to survive. Or of the billions and billions of viruses, one manages to survive a drug, so it is the one that makes more viruses (which of course have the same immunity). In no case ever has it been shown that one creature became a different species.

    P.S. Viruses aren’t harmed by “antibiotics”. This may sound nitpicky, but the point is, Christians aren’t dumb hicks who don’t know anything. We’re more likely to have been to college than the average Joe.

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    Comer was suspended shortly after forwarding an e-mail announcing a presentation being given by an author who says creationist politics are behind the movement to get intelligent design theory taught in public schools. Comer says evolution politics are behind her ousting.

    While I certainly condemn Comer’s “ousting” in this matter (as indeed, I condemn witch-hunts of any stripe), I think it’s a major stretch to drag the Discovery Institute into this.

    Also, for the record, I personally do not support the teaching of “intelligent design” in public high schools or grade schools.

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    Mike or Squiggy, do you know how much or if Casey Luskin was involved in the recent forced resignation of the Texas State Science Curriculum Director? Chris Comer forwarded an e-mail about a talk to be given by Barbara Forrest, who was a key witness in the 2005 Dover trial that was so spectacularly lost by intelligent design creationism.

    Texas is just a few months away from a science curriculum review exercise, and the buzz is that some members of the religious right want to get Texas to be the site of the next Dover-like trial by adopting intelligent design creationism (=religion, per a recent Federal court decision) into the state science curriculum. Comer was accused of showing favoritism to science (which was her job, actually) instead of religion, so she was expelled (to use a Ben Stein term).

    (See http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7425247&nav=1TjD and http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5337882.html and http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/TX/950_texas_education_official_force_11_29_2007.asp for some articles on this.)

    The question, of course, is just what part, if any, did the Discovery Institute play in all this? Was the Discovery Institute providing aid and comfort and propaganda to the enemies of real science within the Texas Education Agency? Is everybody in the Texas Education Agency now madly erasing all their e-mails from the Discovery Institute? Was Ms Comer’s fate a warning to other supporters of actual science in Texas to keep their mouths shut and their keyboards locked if they want to keep their jobs? Will this sudden burst of publicity blow the cover off another carefully-orchestrated step in the implementation of the Wedge Project?

    But at least now the Discovery Institute has an actual controversy to teach about. I can’t wait to see how quickly they will be able to respond to this one.

  • Pingback: Luskin’s on a Roll « Professor Smith’s Weblog

  • http://www.paulburnett.com/creation.htm Paul Burnett

    Squiggy, which of the two different and conflicting creation myths in Genesis (Chapter 1 versus Chapter 2) do you subscribe to? And do you have faith that either one of them is testable or reproducible?

    There’s been a healthy discussion over at Panda’s Thumb for the last few weeks on “random mutations” in the HIV organism, leading to antibiotic resistance. Have you been following that?

  • Squiggy

    Paul Burnett said,

    Squiggy, which branch of biological science is your doctorate in? Or do you just have faith in creationism?

    Give up, eh? I ask serious questions and you respond with demeaning comments. Typical pseudo intellectual with total faith in a completely untestable, unreproducible “science”.

    GalapagosPete said,

    Yes, the onus is on you, because mutation has never been demonstrated to be anything other than random. Evolution is the accepted scientific theory, it will have to be falsified before something else can take its place.

    All “random mutations” observed have been destructive to the individual involved (and we’ve been looking very hard for a couple hundred years now). They never give a “survival advantage” to a creature, they kill it.

    As for falsifying evolution, how can you falsify something that is completely untestable?

  • GalapagosPete

    After reading the Francis Crick link in #47 go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick#Religious_beliefs and read the second paragraph about how he abandoned the panspermia concept when (gasp!) science made it unnecessary. Not that he was ever that married to the concept, apparently he just found it interesting.

    You see, Mike, that’s what science does: it doesn’t DENY gods, it just ignores them and makes them unnecessary.

  • GalapagosPete

    You should probably check your link in #47. it doesn’t go anywhere. It certainly doesn’t support your assertion about Dawkins invoking the Many-Worlds Interpretation.

  • GalapagosPete

    Still waiting for you to explain the usefulness of IDC to science, and how we tell when something is too complex to have evolved and so must have been created.

  • GalapagosPete

    Quote mining, as you undoubtedly know, is lifting quotes out of context to make them seem as if they support a position they do not, or vice versa. What Paul was doing was quoting. Until and unless you can show that these quotes are out of context, your charge of quote mining is inappropriate.

    Tipler’s “findings” are nothing of the sort; they are sheer fantasy. Evidence points only to a possible collapse of the universe into a singularity. There is nothing at all whatsoever in the slightest degree at all in physics that can predict the existence, abilities, behavior, intentions, proclivities, appearance, or any other trait of hypothetical races billions of years in the future.

    Tell you what, though, you find some physicists who agree with his ramblings, you post their names and links to the sites where we can all read it.

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