"The evolution wars" in Time [Time Magazine's cover story]

National Center for Science Education ^ | 11 August 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

The cover story of the August 15, 2005, issue of Time magazine is Claudia Wallis's "The evolution wars" -- the first cover story on the creationism/evolution controversy in a major national newsweekly in recent memory.

With "When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew hotter: Is 'intelligent design' a real science? And should it be taught in schools?" as its subhead, the article, in the space of over 3000 words, reviews the current situation in detail. Highlights of the article include:

• A photomontage -- available only in the print edition -- on p. 26 and half of p. 27, with the elderly Darwin at the center, orbited by images of Pepper Hamilton's Eric Rothschild (a lead litigator in Kitzmiller v. Dover) brandishing a copy of Of Pandas and People, students in a biology classroom in Kansas, President Bush, the Cobb County disclaimer, and so forth.

• A comment from Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, on President Bush's remarks on "intelligent design": "It sends a signal to other countries because they're rushing to gain scientific and technological leadership while we're getting distracted with a pseudoscience issue ... If I were China, I'd be happy."

• A map, compiled from data provided by NCSE, showing antievolution proposals considered by state legislatures and boards of education since 2001 and antievolution proposals considered by local schools or panels in 2005. As members of NCSE and regular visitors to its website will have guessed, the map is crowded.

• A pair of definitions from Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine's Biology textbook on the one hand and Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon's Of Pandas and People on the other hand. According to the latter, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact."

• A brief history of the development of creationist tactics from the Scopes era to the post-Edwards era, under the heading "A subtler assault," which quotes NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott as quipping, "You have to hand it to the creationists. They have evolved."

• A paragraph explaining the significance of state science standards as a new venue for creationists. NCSE's Glenn Branch told Time, "The decision-making bodies involved in approving state science standards tend to be small, not particularly knowledgeable and, above all, elected, so it's a good opportunity for political pressure to be applied."

• A recognition of the disparity between President Bush's seeming endorsement of teaching "intelligent design" and the Discovery Institute's recent distancing of itself from such proposals, with Connie Morris (a conservative Republican on the Kansas state board of education), and Senator Rick Santorum seeming "to be reading from the same script."

• A section in which scientists -- primarily the Oxford zoologist and popular expositor Richard Dawkins, as well as the Harvard mathematician and evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak -- castigate "intelligent design" as resting on misconceptions and mischaracterizations of bology.

• A pithy diagnosis of the "teach the controversy" strategy by David Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason: "The intelligent-design people are trying to mislead people into thinking that the reference to science as an ongoing critical inquiry permits them to teach I.D. crap in the schools."

• A sidebar asking four prominent figures -- the National Human Genome Research Institute's Francis Collins, Harvard's Steven Pinker, the Discovery Institute's Michael Behe, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Albert Mohler -- "Can you believe in God and evolution?"

While Wallis's article is inevitably not as scientifically detailed as, for example, H. Allen Orr's recent article in The New Yorker, or as politically astute as, for example, Chris Mooney's recent article in The American Prospect, overall it accomplishes the important goal of informing the general reader that antievolutionism -- whether it takes the form of creation science, "intelligent design," or calls to "teach the controversy" -- is scientifically unwarranted, pedagogically irresponsible, and constitutionally problematic.

[general_re]

Basically that is correct.

Okay. Basically, you're completely at odds with mainstream science, and you're totally off the reservation as far as ID theory is concerned - they have a lot of fancy math intended to distinguish between things that are designed and things that are not designed, but you say everything is designed, so clearly all their math must be hokum, by your logic - but that's okay. We can call it Chesterism, I guess.

How He does so is a matter for science to explore...

LOL. As long as the "how" isn't evolution - Chesterism a priori rules that invalid. Mighty bold of you, telling God what He can and can't do, what He did and didn't do. I'd be a little less arrogant myself, but that's just me.

[PatrickHenry]

Looks that way to me too.

[PatrickHenry]

[Fester Chugabrew]

Basically, you're completely at odds with mainstream science . . .

Nope. Mainstream science operates with an intelligently designed universe, and leaves the intelligently designed aspect of it in the background. It is simply the given in which most science operates. The oddballs in science are those who would foist pure conjecture and philosphy upon science and expect the rest of the world to accept it as such.

As long as the "how" isn't evolution - Chesterism a priori rules that invalid.

Nope. I simply consider evolutionism to be invalid as science, not invalid altogether. Do you know the difference, or are such distinctions lost on you?

[b_sharp]

"Direct observation is simply a way of adding veracity to scientific method and expression. What in the world makes you think ID is less scientific than any other theory if direct observation is left out of the equation?

The lack of a theory, untestable hypotheses, inability to falsify, inability to objectively quantify specified complexity, the number of false positives when using Dembski's probability calculations (design inference). How many more reasons do you need?

"I consider astrology to be scientific insofar as it entails direct observation."

There are no direct observations in astrology other than the position of a few constellations and planets in the sky. Direct observation of the predictions based on those positions is nonexistent.

"Evolutonism does not enjoy as much. "

Some of the mechanisms of evolution have been directly observed as has the variation of allele frequencies. Just as in some other fields of study, such as quantum mechanics, the observations have been indirect rather than direct. We observe the results of evolution in both extant and extinct organisms. It is verified by DNA studies.

"You want to call resonable conjecture over unobserved, unrecorded events "science?" Fine. Then shut your yap when creationism comes along and wants to do the same thing.

Not directly observed. Indirect observation is as valuable as direct observation.

Creation Science is not science not because of the directly unobservable but because of the lack of: theory, testability, and falsifiability. The results of Creation Science are not given credence because they require the twisting of the basic laws of physics to fit Biblical stories a priori.

[PatrickHenry]

[Fester Chugabrew]

For the umpteenth time, what *direct observation* will support or falsify astrology?

I haven't studied astrology enough to know how it makes connections between the position of stars, behavior, and future events. At least it has a wealth of detailed records based upon direct observation of current phenomena in its day, and to this day makes use of direct observation of the heavenly bodies. That is more than I can say for evolutionism. The lack of any human records detailing a 4.5 billion year old earth is just one more case of "absent" evidence.

[b_sharp]

"Inasmuch as atomic theory makes use of materials and phenomena presently at hand it is indeed making use of direct observation. "

If you are stipulating that direct observation is dependent on current rather than past observations and this definition is a replacement for the observation of the cause rather than the consequence, you are playing fast and loose with definitions, there-bye making them useless.

The ToE uses materials and phenomena presently at hand, including populations of wild organisms, domesticated organisms and DNA from both extant and extinct organisms.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The lack of a theory, untestable hypotheses . . .

Fairly well decribes evolutionism, which not only lacks a theory, but refuses to recognize or acknowledge its starting assumptions.

Some of the mechanisms of evolution have been directly observed as has the variation of allele frequencies.

Changes on a small scale between and among specices have been observed and recorded over a considerable period of time. Pretty good science. Do you consider it good science to extrapolate therefrom the conclusion that all life forms are derivitive of a common ancestor?

Indirect observation is as valuable as direct observation.

You may equate the two in terms of certitude. I do not. Direct observation and repeatability are the best tools for understanding the physical universe. Indirect observation has its place, too, but every step removed from the present moment and direct observation places one further away from certitude.

Creation Science is not science . . .

Have you heard me say that it is? If so, please point out the location so I can correct myself.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If you are stipulating that direct observation is dependent on current rather than past observations . . .

It is hardly a useless distinction or practice to lend more certitude to direct obervation of current events than to the results and interpretation thereof. Direct observation, testing in real time, and repeatability. These are what make for strong science. These are what evolutionism lacks.

[b_sharp]

"I haven't studied astrology enough to know how it makes connections between the position of stars, behavior, and future events. At least it has a wealth of detailed records based upon direct observation of current phenomena in its day, and to this day makes use of direct observation of the heavenly bodies. That is more than I can say for evolutionism. The lack of any human records detailing a 4.5 billion year old earth is just one more case of "absent" evidence."

What do you believe would make radiometrics 4.5 X 10⁹ - 6 X 10³ = 4.499994 billion years inaccurate?

[b_sharp]

"Fairly well decribes evolutionism, which not only lacks a theory, but refuses to recognize or acknowledge its starting assumptions.

The Theory of Evolution

"Changes on a small scale between and among specices have been observed and recorded over a considerable period of time. Pretty good science. Do you consider it good science to extrapolate therefrom the conclusion that all life forms are derivitive of a common ancestor? "

That is what science does, extrapolate. The tests of this, through genome comparisons, have born the conclusion out. And it is a conclusion, not an assumption.

"Creation Science is not science . . .

"Have you heard me say that it is? If so, please point out the location so I can correct myself.

I never said you did, I was answering the following statement from you.

"You want to call resonable conjecture over unobserved, unrecorded events "science?" Fine. Then shut your yap when creationism comes along and wants to do the same thing.
[emphasis mine]

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Indirect observation has its place, too, but every step removed from the present moment and direct observation places one further away from certitude."

Just like the Bible :)

"Fairly well decribes evolutionism, which not only lacks a theory, but refuses to recognize or acknowledge its starting assumptions."

This isn't even a good joke. It neither lacks a theory nor hides it's starting assumptions (naturalistic regularity of the laws of nature.... the staring point of EVERY science).
Keep chugging those beers!

[b_sharp]

"It is hardly a useless distinction or practice to lend more certitude to direct obervation of current events than to the results and interpretation thereof. Direct observation, testing in real time, and repeatability. These are what make for strong science. These are what evolutionism lacks."

Genomic comparisons have indirect observation, testing in real time and repeatability. Direct observation of speciation, and the testing of the correlation between related species has been repeated.

Learn the science behind evolutionary biology before you claim it doesn't meet your science specs.

[Fester Chugabrew]

For the umpteenth time, what *direct observation* will support or falsify astrology?

Astrologers argue that associations between the signs and planets and certain characteristics were empirically made: that over the centuries it became clear that man was more amorous when Venus was prominent, more prone to violence when Mars was active; that when certain planets were in Gemini at the time of the birth of a baby, it would grow up to be talkative, quick-moving and hasty. And certainly there is much evidence to suggest that the elaboration of the techniques of astrology came about not through psychic guesswork, or even the symbolic unconscious, but (as in science) through observation and careful record.

It seems that a good portion of astrology is based upon direct observation, even though its inferences and conclusions may be off base. That's more than can be said for those who today believe in a 4.5 billion year old earth, for they have neither observation itself nor records of observations dating that far back. Astronomy still makes use of ancient astrological records, thus placing it among the sciences that have greater certitude.

[Fester Chugabrew]

What do you believe would make radiometrics 4.5 X 109 - 6 X 103 = 4.499994 billion years inaccurate?

A set of working assumptions that effects both the hypothesis and, by extension, the results.

[Fester Chugabrew]

That is what science does, extrapolate.

Science is free to do so, and on occasion may do so usefully. In this case the extrapolation is not warranted. It may be reasonable. It may even be right. But it is no longer empirical science (or even applied science) but history, or a philosophy of history.

[JohnnyM]

"Direct observation of speciation"

This has never happened. Speciation claims are laughable because science has no concrete definition of what a species is. It is at the whim of the scientist involved.

JM

[Fester Chugabrew]

Link to page quoted at #315.

[Fester Chugabrew]

naturalistic regularity of the laws of nature.... the starting point of EVERY science

Regularity is not the friend of those who espouse anything but an intelligent agent for its existence. Come to think about it, that might explain the constipated ramblings of evolutionism.