Posted on 11/11/2004 3:44:08 AM PST by Lindykim
Has Darwin Become Dogma?
500 years ago science revolted against theological dogma as the source of all knowledge. Today it is science that is trying to assume the mantle of the sole arbiter of truth. On magazine covers such as this month's National Geographic and in legal battles across the country, the scientific community has become absolute in its belief that evolution will answer all of the questions regarding our beginnings. They have become so dogmatic that anyone who questions this belief is considered a heretic who should be ridiculed into silence.
November 11, 2004
Dear Concerned Citizen, by Dr. Benjamin Wiker
Nearly a century and a half has passed since the publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species. Evolution has been taught as an undeniable fact in high school textbooks for well over a half century. Why all of the sudden do we find the cover of the November 2004 issue of National Geographic emblazoned with the question, "Was Darwin Wrong?" It's that like asking "Was Copernicus Wrong?"
So, what's up? When we turn to the first page of the article, we find the same question again, this time written across the gray feathered breast of a domestically bred Jacobin pigeon, the outlandish plumage of which reminds one of the costumes of the late Liberace. Flip to the next page and we find our answer, a resounding 'NO' printed in a font a third of the page high. But if the answer is such a large and definitive NO, why would the venerable National Geographic entertain (even rhetorically) the apparently foolish question 'Was Darwin wrong?"
If you read the article, you'll wonder what all the shouting is about. The author David Quammen paints a calm picture of an established science unburdened by serious criticism. The only critics, so we are told, are 'fundamentalist Christians','ultraorthodox Jews', and 'Islamic creationists', all of whom view evolution as a threat to their scientifically uninformed theology. Obviously, they aren't the ones ruffling National Geographics feathers.
Who else arouses the great NO? As it turns out, 'Other' people too, not just scriptural literalists, remain unpersuaded about evolution. According to a Gallup poll, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.
"Why are there so many antievolutionists?' they ask impatiently. Why indeed? Unfortunately, you won't find the real answer in the article, which merely offers a fluff and flash, unambiguous public relations presentation of evolution.
The real answer is this. To the question 'Was Darwin Wrong?' the proper answer is not a clamorous 'NO' but a well-informed 'Yes and No'. While there are merits to his theory, there are also serious problems, serious scientific problems.
Listen to these words: 'despite the power of molecular genetics to reveal the hereditary essences of organisms, the large-scale aspects of evolution remain unexplained, including the origin of species. So Darwin's assumption that the tree of life is a consequence of the gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences appears to be without significant support." Are these the words of a 'fundamentalist Christian', 'ultraorthodox Jew', or an 'Islamic creationist'? No, they are the words of Dr. Brian Goodwin, professor of biology, one of a growing number of scientists who find that the powers of natural selection are woefully insufficient to perform the amazing feats promised in the title of Darwins great work of producing new species.
But that was the great promise of Darwin. Small variations among individuals are 'selected' by nature because they make the individual more 'fit' to survive. Those more 'fit' characteristics are passed on to the offspring. Add enough little changes up over time, and the species becomes gradually transformed. Given enough time, evolution will have produced an entirely new species.
So it was that Darwin assumed that little changes in character and appearance (microevolution) would eventually yield, through natural selection, enormous changes (macroevolution). From a single living cell, given millions upon millions upon millions of years, the entire diversity of all living things could be produced.
That was the grand promise of Darwins theory. And Darwin wasn't wrong about microevolution. But the case for macroevolution is far from closed. In fact, biologist Mae-Wan Ho and mathematician Peter Saunders contend that, "All the signs are that evolution theory is in crisis, and that a change is on the way." Darwins theory is in crisis, they argue, because it has failed to explain the one thing that made its promise so grand; how new species arise.
I quote the words of Brian Goodwin, Mae-Wan Ho, and Peter Saunders because they represent the growing number of scientific dissenters from orthodox Darwinism (or more accurately, neo-Darwinism). National Geographic makes no mention of them. That would make the quick and confident 'No' into a rather sheepish "well, sort of".
They also purposely avoid mentioning the growing Intelligent Design movement, a group of scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians who have very serious doubts about many other aspects of Darwins theory. One suspects reading between the lines that the real reason that National Geographic suddenly 'doth protest too much' against doubters of Darwinism, is that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement has done so much to bring the scientific and philosophical problems with evolutionary theory into the public spotlight. They cannot draw attention to the ID movement, however, or people might become more informed about the difficulties that beset Darwinism. So, we return to the question, 'Was Darwin Wrong?" National Geographic says "NO". But readers who aren't satisfied with such simple answers should read the following books.
Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Michael Behe, Darwins Black Box
Brian Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots
John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer, Darwinism, Design, and Public Education
William Dembski, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders, Beyond Neo-Darwinism
Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Benjamin Wiker, Moral Darwinism Scientific Difficulties with Darwinism
The origin of life: Darwin conjectured that all life was descended from a single, simple form. But where did the first living thing come from? In a now famous private letter to Joseph Hooker, Darwin offered a conjecture: if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., that a proteine [sic] compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, then we could explain the origin of life as a lucky chemical reaction. Against this hope, origin of life researchers have fallen on hard times. While there were some initial victories in the laboratory, generating small amounts of pre-biological molecules, scientists are unable to generate anything more biologically interesting unless they artificially rig their experiments in ways that contradict the actual conditions of early Earth.
The problem is so acute that many origin of life scientists have given up, and are now turning their efforts to trying to discover ways that complex, life-seeding molecules may have been delivered from space. Alas, the problems facing such efforts are just as severe.
The fossil record: According to Darwin, evolution had to occur very slowly, through slight changes not by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, the fossil record does not support such gradual transformation. Instead, species seem to appear quite suddenly, fully formed, stay the same for millions of years, and then just as suddenly disappear. The most significant problem for Darwinism is the Cambrian explosion, where quite suddenly, about 550,000,000 years ago, all the major phyla of the animal kingdom appear in the fossil record.
The Truth About Inherit the Wind "Of course, such a simple choice between bigotry and enlightenment is central to the contemporary liberal vision of which Inherit the Wind is a typical expression. But while it stands nominally for tolerance, latitude, and freedom of thought, the play is full of the self- righteous certainty that it deplores in the fundamentalist camp. Some critics have detected the play's sanctimonious tone-"bigotry in reverse," as Andrew Sarris called it-even while appreciating its dramatic quality and well-written leading roles. The play reveals a great deal about a mentality that demands open-mindedness and excoriates dogmatism, only to advance its own certainties more insistently-that promotes tolerance and intellectual integrity but stoops to vilifying the opposition, falsifying reality, and distorting history in the service of its agenda.
In fact, a more historically accurate dramatization of the Scopes Trial than Inherit the Wind might have been far richer and more interesting-and might also have given its audiences a genuine dramatic tragedy to watch. It would not have sent its audience home full of moral superiority and happy thoughts about the march of progress. The truth is not that Bryan was wrong about the dangers of the philosophical materialism that Darwinism presupposes but that he was right, not that he was a once great man disfigured by fear of the future but that he was one of the few to see where a future devoid of the transcendent would lead. The antievolutionist crusade to control what is taught in the schools may not have been the answer, and Bryan's own approach may have been too narrow. But the real tragedy lies in the losing fight that he and others like him waged against a modernity increasingly deprived of spiritual foundations." Carol Inannone First Things
The Debate Rages On Although nearly 100 years have passed since the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, the debate rages on. In Grantsburg, Wisconsin a firestorm of critique was leveled against the school board this month for revising its science curriculum to include more than one model/theory of origin in the districts science curriculum. Current Wisconsin state law mandates that evolution be taught but the school board viewed the law as too restrictive.
Similar skirmishes are being fought around the country. Ever since the Scopes Trial, the ACLU has been an active player, bringing lawsuits against any group who questions the Darwin dogma in school curriculum. After a group of parents in Cobb County Georgia complained about the exclusive presentation of evolution as the sole theory of origin in three biology textbooks in 2002, stickers were placed in the science texts intended to remind students to keep an open mind. Now the ACLU is representing another group of parents in a lawsuit against that school district claiming that the stickers promote the teaching of creationism and discriminate against particular religions.
The Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania recently voted to include the theory of 'intelligent design' and other alternative theories to evolution in their science curriculum. Similar action was taken by the Ohio board of education this spring when they narrowly approved a similar plan. Critics charge it risks a return to teaching creationism.
To say that evolution has not answered all the scientific questions regarding our origins does not suggest you have to teach creationism in schools as a scientific theory. What should be taught is an honest assessment of what science does and does not know regarding our beginnings. The questions regarding our origins are too big for science alone to answer. People of faith should not allow themselves to be relegated to an anti-science position for questioning Darwin. Questioning the validity of theories is what science is supposed to do.
Benjamin Wiker Benjamin Wiker holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, and has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas College (CA). He is now a Lecturer in Theology and Science at Franciscan University of Steubenville (OH), and a full-time, free-lance writer. Dr. Wiker writes regularly for a variety of journals, including Catholic World Report, New Oxford Review, Crisis Magazine, and First Things, and is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Register. Dr. Wiker just released a new book called Architects of the Culture of Death (Ignatius). His first book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists, was released in the spring of 2002 (InterVarsity Press). He is writing another book on Intelligent Design for InterVarsity Press called The Meaning-full Universe.
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Yeah, I can remember a few bars: Swaaaa-mee, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Swami ...
Dear marron, do you mean to suggest that the brain is here making a false report about the factual state of the system it governs? I.e., that the brain registers the severed limb as still attached, based on neuronal inputs? If this is the case, and mind or consciousness is merely the epiphenomenon of the brain, would mind be able to do anything other than confirm the brain’s false report?
If that is the case, then how can we – that is, you and I and all the other “epiphenomena” out there – form any kind of accurate picture of reality? How could science itself be possible under such conditions?
Thus we are merrily led into such conundrums to the extent we are persuaded by the materialist/mechanistic understanding of nature promulgated by the Cartesian/Newtonian worldview. It has become increasingly fashionable to regard the universe as having the nature of a clockwork: Once built, deterministic physical laws kick in and so the clock just keeps running along forever after without any further intervention needed. Somehow -- I can’t imagine why -- folks of materialist persuasion/imagination are content with this formulation of the ultimate questions.
The most salient thing the materialist seems to overlook in order to guarantee his contentment is one simple fact: Every single machine in the universe that we know about, or possibly could know about, is an artifact. Having said that, the other thing we know is that every artifact necessarily presumes an artificer — a creator, an artist, an architect, a poet, a scientist, et al.
But the question of “artificer” is the very thing that materialists want to leave out of the picture, the reason why they insist the brain, and not the mind, is “sovereign” when it comes to living beings. Thus the materialist position appears inherently self-contradictory. They want the artifact, but not the artificer by which the artifact is made possible in the first place.
The other really interesting thing that machines of all descriptions have in common is that they are really good at following the physical laws. But the reason they are able to do this presumably is because they have been designed, engineered, and tooled to achieve that outcome from “outside” themselves. Similarly, the very functions they are to execute are specified and supplied by an extra-systemic source; i.e., by their programmers.
Yet logically it appears that, when it comes to mechanistic systems, according to the “sovereign” brain/epiphenomenal mind model of metaphysical naturalism, it appears that it’s actually the epiphenomena – i.e., the “programmers” – that implicitly have been hoisted into first place regarding the actual design and function of the machine (whether the fact is explicitly recognized or not); and moreover probably, similarly (by analogical extension) the design and function of natural systems. Arguably, under such conditions, it would be the brain (and matter itself) that is the “epiphenomenon” of a greater principle of Nature.
In conclusion, we may define a material system as one that follows the laws of physics, whose behavior fits to the pathway computable from the physical laws on the basis of its initial and boundary conditions.
Please forgive me for suspecting that there is a heck of a whole lot more going on in LIFE than this definition recognizes or can explain.
Well thank you so much, dear marron, for your provocative suggestion, offered (I feel pretty sure) in the spirit of pure, unrestrained, vital merriment! :^) It is always a joy to chat with you.
Whoever said life had been explained? Perhaps there are som injudicious writings by individual scients, and a lot of lousy science journalins, but life has not been explained.
I know of no serious neuroscientist who would claim to understand te brain. But we do know some things, and what we do know is fully consistent with the hypothesis that the physical brain is required for consciousness.
Otherwise, why would the size of the brain in various species correspond with inferred intelligence?
Using the radio metaphor, why would it take a larger brain to have a deeper mind? I can hear Beethoven on a five dollar radio. Every note is there.
When you loose a limb you do not lose the knowledge of how that limb was used. If you aquire an artificial limb, you can learn to perform equivalent activities.
But if the brain is damaged, you lose not just an ability, but the knowledge of having had that ability. It is not like an out of tune radio or a cheap speaker. It is like losing both a station and the memory that the station ever existed. It is, in fact, losing a piece of your mind.
You are engaging in circular definitions here.
What property of the spritual allows it to interact with the physical, while simultaneously distinguishing it from being physical?
If one has a vivid enough imagination, anything can seem to make sense.
To paraphrase Alice: "I have often seen a brain without a mind, but I have never seen a mind without a brain." Even Donovan had to keep his brain in a bell jar.
In the missing limb scenario, if the mind is feeling an itch in a toe that is no longer there then the sensation is certainly false. The only physical means I could conjure to attribute such a phenomenon to the nerve endings at the point of the severed limb would be if those nerves (which is to say, all nerves) are holographic in mechanism. And I have never heard such a speculation.
People born without limbs do not seem to have the "missing limb" itch syndrome. (And those born with six fingers find it natural, too.) A simple hypothesis of the missing limb syndrome is just that one remembers the limb was there and what it felt like when the limb itched. It's like a dream in that the brain is activating circuits without necessarily having input.
IMHO, the results would look the same whether one views the mind as an epiphenomenon of the physical brain or whether the physical brain is the mechanism of mind.
Seems to me that your statement requires the physical brain to operate a database in which case all of the data, processes and logic of a man would be downloadable. That is great sci-fi but I am not aware of any such actual progress (or even agreement on the mechanism of storage/retrieval).
I am at post 1, and without reading further, I can predict the direction that this thread will take. The pro-evolution posters will be all over this article like a dog on a bone. The anti-evolution side must do something that I have yet to see them do, and that is to somehow persuade someone with first-hand knowledge such as the author of this article, or a Michael Behe, or someone else of that caliber to participate in the discussion. Although it saddens may to say so, the pro-evolution posters are usually more knowledgeable about arguments to support their position than are those on the anti-evolution side. However, although my technical/scientific knowledge is not in the biologic sciences, I find the ID arguments as put forth by the leading proponents very compelling.
How could this be observed? More importantly, how could this be falsified?
There's a moving account in Sacks' Man who mistook his wife for a hat of a (iirc) stroke victim who became blind and had no memory of what seeing was.
Yes. The brain is receiving a false signal, and its default is to interpret as it always has.
If this is the case, and mind or consciousness is merely the epiphenomenon of the brain, would mind be able to do anything other than confirm the brain’s false report?
Now you are moving into another realm, as I believe you fully realize. I would have to respond in two ways.
We are a physical being, a physical mechanism, with all that this entails. Of course, we are also more than that.
I was just referring to the phenomenon of nervous circuitry delivering a false signal to a particular point on the brain, and the brain receiving that signal, interpreting it in the normal fashion. The mind, having access to more data than just that one point, is able to recognize that this particular signal is false.
In my world, this happens all the time. You have circuits that fail, and either deliver no signal, or deliver a false one. If the programming is clever enough, the machine itself can work around it; if not, you have a human supervising it who should be able to recognize a false signal and either fix it or at least be smart enough to ignore it.
He is smart enough to recognize that the signal is aberrant because he has access to other data, and he has memory to compare it against. He knows what a true signal looks like.
In our case, with experience in our bodies and on this earth we come to recognize when our senses are failing us. At least, some of the time.
Our brain and nervous system are a fascinating piece of machinery, remarkably well programmed as you point out, and it will be a long time before we are able to come close to what it can do. But we will approach its capabilities, having it to use as a model, or example, we will over time reverse engineer it and use many of its lessons in our own creations.
But there is something else to the human machine which can't be accounted for by the machinery itself, and that is will. Machinery I deal with will always have a human operator, ultimately, who uses it for his ends. Our body also has a human operator, who directs it, and that human is somehow separate from his machinery, although he clearly can't live on earth, in this dimension, unless his machinery operates properly. The machinery fails, and he must depart this dimension or die. We cannot separate ourselves from our flesh and remain here, but we are not our flesh. We inhabit it, we direct it, we use it for our ends.
We are the ghost in the machine, made in the image of God. Separate from God, separate from the machine, we can't live on this earth. Separate from God, our lifespan can't exceed the lifespan of the machinery that we inhabit.
I think we are on the same wavelength here. The brain is a remarkable piece of hardware, a remarkable piece of programming. Physical control of the body, memory, reasoning, seem to take place there. These are physical attributes. Will, though, is something else. Will is an attribute of spirit. Will is the operator, the driver, the pilot. Will is you. At death, "will" disengages from the machinery by some means, and at that point your brain and body become cleverly designed meat. You can hook electrodes up to it and get muscle movement, but sovereign will, which is to say "you", has departed.
Perhaps you ought to read on.......you'll find that the pro-evo. posters have walked away fom any discussion concerning their fairytale 'creation story' even though I placed their names in the header.
But then if I had an improbably silly-sounding creation story like that as the foundation of my belief system, I'd also walk away from any discussion.
Great old flick. Speaking on behalf of my own brain, while I'm sometimes out of my mind, I'm never out of my body.
You are asking a question that cannot be answered if you insist on personally experiencing everything you believe to be true.
However, the effects of brain damage are among the most widely studied in the entire field of neuroscience. In addition to the case cited above, there is a famous case of an artist wh lost color vision as a result of an accident. He lost not only his color vision, but also his knowledge and memory of colors.
From the article:
"Re-constructed Memory
Mr I could not remember colour even from memories which he knew he had experienced in colour. This evidence supports Gerald Edelman's contention that memories are're-constructed' each time we remember them and do not exist as separate entities stored in a mythical filing cabinet.
It explains how characteristics of memories are amenable to change through various NLP Change Personal History techniques. The recent publicity of the detrimental implanting of 'false memories' by unskilled therapists highlights the importance of facilitating changes that are 'ecological' for the client. "
But Doc, who or what is the "one" that remembers? The brain? Or its epiphenomenon (i.e., the mind)? If it's the former, then the brain is giving a false report about the current state of the system. If it's the latter, then how does the mind know more than the brain does, since (apparently) you define the mind as epiphenomenal, that is, as a by-product of brain activity?
Also, I think your statement implying that there is no "input" to dream activity may be incorrect. But that depends, I suppose, on whether it is true that the mind or consciousness has independent reality. For if one were to admit that the mind is an existent in its own right, then one could hypothesize that the inputs to the dream state were coming from subconscious levels of the mind.
BTW, nowhere have I suggested that by being an existent in its own right, the mind can get along without a brain. But just because synergistic relation exists, that doesn't necessarily mean the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain.
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