Intelligent Design and Evolution at the White House

On August 1, 2005, a group of reporters from Texas met with President Bush in the Roosevelt room for a roundtable interview. The President’s remarks suggest that he believes that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught so that “people are exposed to different schools of thought.” There have been so many articles since his remarks that it’s useful to read the relevant portion of published interview:

Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President’s comments. On Aug. 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger’s scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate.

Marburger also spoke with Dr. Marvin Cohen, President of the American Physical Society, and recipient of the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002. In an Aug. 4 release, Cohen explains that the APS is “…happy that the President’s recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world.” It would be better to hear this directly from the President. Likely, the intelligent design advocates will ignore Marburger’s explanation. Like the fabled little Dutch boy, Marburger, stuck his finger in the dike in hopes of saving the day.

Unlike the brave boy, Marburger did not prevent the flood of print and electronic coverage that ensued. From August 2 to the present, Google-News tracked more than 1,800 articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor on intelligent design. That’s about 120 per day since the President’s remarks.

In the days following the interview, major educational and scientific organizations issued statements that criticized the President for considering intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution, for confusing religion with science, and for advocating that intelligent design be taught in schools.

“President Bush, in advocating that the concept of ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America’s schoolchildren at risk,” says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. “Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21 st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses.” (AGU, Aug. 2, 2005) AGU is a scientific society comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists.

Likewise, the American Institute of Biological Sciences criticized the President: “Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes,” said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake. “If we want our students to be able to compete in the global economy, if we want to attract the next generation into the sciences, we must make sure that we are teaching them science. We simply cannot begin to introduce non-scientific concepts into the science curriculum.” (AIBS, Aug. 5, 2005) The American Institute of Biological Sciences was established as a national umbrella organization for the biological sciences in 1947 by 11 scientific societies as part of the National Academy of Sciences. An independent non-profit organization since 1954, it has grown to represent more than 80 professional societies and organizations with a combined membership exceeding 240,000 scientists and educators. (AIBS website)

Science educators are equally dismayed. “The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world’s largest organization of science educators, is stunned and disappointed that President Bush is endorsing the teaching of intelligent design – effectively opening the door for nonscientific ideas to be taught in the nation’s K-12 science classrooms. We stand with the nation’s leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president’s top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom, said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director.” (NSTA, Aug. 3, 2005) NSTA has 55,000 members who teach science in elementary, middle and high schools as well as college and universities.

The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12 th grade teachers, was even harsher. “President Bush’s misinformed comments on ‘intelligent design’ signal a huge step backward for science education in the United States. The president’s endorsement of such a discredited, nonscientific view is akin to suggesting that students be taught the ‘alternative theory’ that the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it is not science.” (AFT, Aug. 4, 2005)

There is a problem here. Obviously, scientists and educators understand that intelligent design has no place in the classroom. Intelligent design is, simply, one of several varieties of creationism that offer religious explanations for the origin and current condition of the natural world. As such, it does not merit being taught alongside evolution as a “school of thought.” There’s significant legal precedent from US Supreme Court that creationism - in any clothing - does not belong in the American classrooms. Teaching creationism is in violation of the separation of church and state, and has been ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court in several cases. It’s unfortunate that the President apparently does not understand that science is not equivalent to a belief system but is description of how the natural world works. Creationism, including intelligent design, is a religious point of view, not science.

At a time when industrial, academic, and business leaders are calling for more American students to train in engineering, mathematics, science and technology, we need to teach science in science classrooms. Let’s teach the scientific ideas that are supported by overwhelming evidence such as gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Creationist ideas/beliefs, such as intelligent design, don’t belong in science classrooms. In our haste to leave no child behind, let’s not leave science behind either.

Oracle Commentaries 8/15/2005 By Jack Kinsella

Intelligent Design?

Speaking with reporters in Texas recently, he answered a question about the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution by saying it was something school districts should decide. However, he said he thought both should be taught in science classes "so people can understand what the debate is about." Bush's statement raised the ire of editorialists around the country. Wrote the Middleton, NY Times Herald-Record; "Debate? There is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution. It is an important scientifically verified concept of the way life has developed on our planet. Generations of scientists have added to the vast store of empirical knowledge of how we got where we are since Darwin first posited his theory." Can that be true? That there is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution? Then why is it in the news in the first place? According to the editorialist, "Intelligent design is really just creationism dressed up with a new name and a new approach to trying to get it taught in public schools. That approach, in essence, is to pretend that there is a serious scientific debate on the merits of evolution versus intelligent design." Let's revisit that last paragraph again. First, 'intelligent design' is not 'creationism'. 'Creationism' is the belief that the Sovereign God as He is identified in the Book of Genesis created the universe, the earth, man, trees, animals, water, light, air, and every thing else in creation that was created, and that He did it in six literal days, resting on the seventh. THAT is creationism. 'Intelligent Design' is the belief that the universe, in its complexity and attention to detail, could not have come about by a series of random coincidences and therefore, is the product of an unidentified Intelligence. The debate (yes, Middleton, there IS a debate) has grown more intense as science has begun to unlock the secrets of the genome and realized that genes are really micro supercomputers. 'Intelligent design' does not identify the Designer, ignores the Bible, imposes no moral or religious accountability, and allows for any and all religious worldviews. It is NOT creationism, or anything approaching creationism. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory for the Designer to be anyone from a Creator God to space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Writes our editorialist, "Many scientists believe that, while Darwin's theory of natural selection explains much about the development of life, it does not necessarily provide all the answers on the origin of life. Like nonscientists, they have their own theories, but these are philosophical or religious beliefs that differ from one another and, critically, from a scientific viewpoint, cannot be empirically proven." Sez you. Critically, from a scientific viewpoint, natural selection cannot be empirically proven. Indeed, for evolution to be correct, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the provable observation that all things eventually decay and break down with age, would have to be thrown out the window. Let's look at it this way. A living things live, die, decay and revert back to dust. This can be empirically proved -- there is no debate. The theory of evolution argues that, add a few million years, the process reverses itself. Since nothing can be empirically observed over a few million years, and since the passage of a few million years cannot be recreated in a laboratory, there is absolutely no empirical evidence for evolution. Both the evolutionist and the proponents of Intelligent Design are left with the same scientific conundrum. Evolution takes on faith that its theory is correct, based entirely on what we observe today and theorize backwards to its origin. Intelligent Design does exactly the same thing. The evolutionist theorizes that all that exists came into existence as the byproduct of random chance that cannot be examined, recreated or observed under laboratory conditions. Intelligent Design proponents look at the same evidences and say random chance cannot explain it. But, unlike evolution, Intelligent Design CAN be empirically proved. It CAN be recreated in a laboratory. It is not only possible, it is fact. Geneticists can manipulate genes to 'create' a different creature, in effect, 'designing' something altogether new. The same evolutionists who decry intelligent design also decry efforts to impose ethical standards on scientific breakthroughs on cloning. And if cloning isn't empirical evidence of intelligent design, then what would be? Sniffs the editorialist, "But the validity of evolution is regarded as a subject for scientific debate pretty much only by believers in creationism, which is to say, intelligent design. Science attempts to explain what can be observed, not the more elusive questions, such as why any of it matters. One belongs in school, the other at home or in places of worship." Liar, liar, pants on fire. Intelligent design is not based on religion. It is based on scientific observations based on empirical evidence, not religious texts. The theory proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause as opposed to an undirected process such as natural selection. Although controversial, design theory is supported by a growing number of scientists in scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books. While intelligent design may have religious implications (just like Darwin's theory), it does not start from religious premises. Its best-known exponent was English theologian William Paley, creator of the famous watchmaker analogy. If we find a pocket watch in a field, Paley wrote in 1802, we immediately infer that it was produced not by natural processes acting blindly but by a designing human intellect. Scientists use the term "black box" for a system whose inner workings are unknown. To Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, the living cell was a black box because its fundamental mechanisms were completely obscure. We now know that, far from being formed from a kind of simple, uniform protoplasm (as many nineteenth-century scientists believed), every living cell contains many ultra sophisticated molecular machines. Darwin himself set the standard when he acknowledged, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." The complexity of the human genome, by Darwin's own standards, totally collapses the possibility of random chance. There is a project called 'SETI' or, the 'Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence' that spends millions each year scanning the universe for radio signals that would suggest they were transmitted by some extra-terrestrial intelligence. Outer space is filled with random radio waves, all of which are random and without coherence. SETI is looking for coherent signals. Since there is nothing in the laws of physics that requires radio signals to take one form or another, a coherent series of signals would indicate intelligence. Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic trademark or 'signature'. That signature is found where a complexity is contingent and therefore not necessary. For example, a piece of wood is a piece of wood. That is all that is necessary for it to be a piece of wood. Add a metal bar and a few springs and our piece of wood becomes a mousetrap. Specific complexity designed to a purpose not necessary to existence of its component parts. Do you follow? Scientifically, something's complexity is related to how easy it is to repeat it by chance. Evolution ignores the evidence of intelligence in the design of the universe, because it imposes its theory after the fact. Consider a guy who shoots arrows into a wall at random, and then paints targets around them, painting the bullseye around each arrow. That is how random chance theory works. They start with the fact that there are men and there are monkeys. They seem to be related. From there, evolution paints bullseyes around random chance theory that seemingly explains the origins of both. To make it work, monkeys had to at one time evolved from fish. Somehow, all this evolution occurred without leaving a single example a transitional lifeform somewhere along the line between fish and monkeys. Now, consider a guy who takes existing targets and then, aiming carefully, shoots arrows into the bullseye. Each bullseye is hit by design. That is how Intelligent Design works. Since the signature of intelligence is scientifically observable in everything from our genetic code to the fact that apple trees grow apples and we just so happen to eat apples, the theory of Intelligent Design is empirically demonstrable, and therefore scientific. Personally, I am a strict Creationist, which, by definition, means I agree with the ID theory, to the limited degree I believe God designed the universe and that God is an intelligent Being. But Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism. It is not religious. It does not impose worship of any deity. It doesn't even impose a deity at all. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory, as I noted, for space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Evolution is a religion. It is the religion of secular humanism, which worships man as god. That secular humanism is a religion is a matter of settled law. In the case Torcaso v. Watkins, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.” Intelligent design is decried by the humanist as a religious belief rather than science, because it is a threat to his faith. It takes more faith to accept random theory as fact that it does to come to Jesus, (since humanism doesn't include a call from the Holy Spirit). For ID theory to be acceptable, the humanist must first abandon his faith in man as the supreme being, since, by definition, if the universe was designed by an intelligence, it is superior to man. And if there IS an Intelligent Designer, it at least opens the scientific possibility that there is Divine accountability. Nothing slams the door shut tighter on a secular humanist's mind than accountability to some Supreme Authority. Even a secular humanist knows in his heart, that if there is an accounting to be given for the deeds of this life, he will fall short of the mark, even if he doesn't know where that mark is. We are created that way. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? " (Jeremiah 17:9) Consciousness of sin is as built-in to our genetic makeup as the color of our eyes. Even the humanist will admit to having a conscience. What else is that but consciousness of sin? And if there is consciousness of sin, then sin must exist. And if sin exists, then accountability again comes into play. If man is accountable to a Higher Authority, then the basic tenet of the humanist faith is shattered. Suddenly, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity and so forth must be viewed in a new light. ID theory is not religious, but its validity means the destruction of secular humanism. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:22-25) The propaganda campaign against ID Theory is already kicking into high gear, with the ACLU sharpening their pencils, and the secular media digging out experts to make the case the ID Theory is some Creationist conspiracy to impose religion over science. But the religion actually being imposed here is secular humanism, not Christianity. The rest is propaganda. Link

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Evolutionists in a Panic--What's Going on at The New Republic? Wednesday, August 17, 2005 Dr Albert Mohler

What's going on at The New Republic? The current issue of the magazine features two broadside attacks on the movement known as Intelligent Design [ID], and the magazine's online edition adds a third. The articles are filled with rhetoric, vitriol, and urgency. Clearly, panic is setting in in some quarters--and that panic is over evolution. In the August 22 edition of the magazine, literary editor Leon Wieseltier sets the stage by attacking Intelligent Design as "an expression of sentiment, not an exercise of reason." In the online edition, reporter Ross Douthat argues that Intelligent Design "will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions." Then, the magazine offers a massive article and book review by Jerry Coyne, a professor at the University of Chicago. All this seems a bit much if the magazine's editors really believe that Intelligent Design is about to run out of steam. Coyne writes the cover story for the magazine, placing Intelligent Design and other criticisms of evolution in what he sees as their places--far outside the mainstream of what he considers to be intelligent thought. A faculty member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Chicago, Coyne argues that Intelligent Design is simply the latest form of creationism, albeit a disguised form that constitutes a subtle political threat to the dominant scientific worldview. He argues that "Christian fundamentalist creationism has undergone its own evolution, taking on newer forms after absorbing repeated blows from the courts." As he sees it, Intelligent Design "is merely the latest incarnation of the biblical creationism espoused by William Jennings Bryan in Dayton." Lest anyone miss his point, Coyne then asserts: "Far from a respectable scientific alternative to evolution, it is a clever attempt to sneak religion, cloaked in the guise of science, into the public schools." Like many scientists fervently committed to evolutionary theory, Coyne demonstrates frustration and perplexity when confronted with the reality that so many millions of Americans reject the theory. By any measure, Coyne is a confident and assertive proponent of evolution, willing to argue that we should now know evolutionary theory to be true. "We have known for a long time that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old . . . and that species were not created suddenly or simultaneously (not only do most species go extinct, but various groups appear at different times in the fossil record) and we have ample evidence for species' changing over time, as well as for fossils that illustrate large morphological transformations." Efforts to legislate curbs on evolutionary teaching in the public schools are, in Coyne's view, evidence of a basic anti-intellectualism among the American people. Beyond this, he consistently asserts that opposition to evolution must be a disguised form of religious argument. Coyne's article provides an interesting perspective into the mind of those scientists and proponents of evolutionary theory who simply will not accept any acknowledgement that evolution remains a controversial issue among the American people. When schools in several states decided to paste warning stickers on biology textbooks, proponents of evolution immediately took to the courts. Just this year, a federal judge ordered stickers removed from biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia. The stickers had read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." One might think that evolutionists, if truly confident of their theory, would see these stickers as nothing like a threat to their dominance in the academy. Not so. As Coyne argues, "By singling out evolution as uniquely controversial among scientific theories, the stickers catered to religious biases and thus violated the First Amendment." Talk about a stretch of logic. Furthermore, Coyne's statement is a blithe effort to ignore the obvious--that evolution is "uniquely controversial among scientific theories," at least among the American people. In Coyne's rather conspiratorial version of the controversy's history, creationists simply came up with Intelligent Design after all else failed. "They are animated, after all, by faith," he explains. "And they are very resourceful." Coyne's potshots follow the usual pattern of scientific condescension. Intelligent Design is dismissed as "the latest pseudoscientific incarnation of religious creationism, cleverly crafted by a new group of enthusiasts to circumvent recent legal restrictions." Evolution, he argues, is both "a theory and a fact." He adds: "It makes as little sense to doubt the factuality of evolution as to doubt the factuality of gravity." Opponents of Intelligent Design who wish to come into the real world for a moment will recognize the limitations of such claims. After all, gravity, though unseen, fits naturally into the worldview of most conscious persons, who observe the operation of gravity on a daily basis and find the "theory" of gravity to be an intellectually satisfying way of explaining the world they observe. This is hardly the case with the theory of evolution. Coyne certainly has no lack of confidence in evolutionary theory. After describing the dominant neo-Darwinian account of evolution, he then offers several paragraphs of "proof" for the theory. "And so evolution has graduated from theory to fact," he asserts. "We know the species on Earth today descended from earlier, different species, and that every pair of species had a common ancestor that existed in the past. Most evolutionary change in the features of organisms, moreover, is almost certainly the result of natural selection. But we must also remember that, like all scientific truths, the truth of evolution is provisional: it could conceivably be overturned by future investigations. It is possible (but unlikely!) that we could find human fossils co-existing with dinosaurs, or fossils of birds living alongside those of the earliest invertebrates 600 million years ago. Either observation would sink neo-Darwinism for good." Coyne sees the theory as safe, secure, and satisfying. So why are so many persons drawn to the theory of Intelligent Design? More broadly, why do so many persons reject the theory of evolution? Coyne doesn't even see the universe as offering an appearance of design. Instead, he sees only evidence of what would be an incompetent designer. "Organisms simply do not look as if they have been intelligently designed," he asserts. "Would an intelligent designer create millions of species and then make them go extinct, only to replace them with other species, repeating this process over and over again?" If so, the intelligent designer must be "a cosmic prankster." But if Coyne misses the attraction of Intelligent Design--and fails to understand why so many Americans have such an aversion to evolutionary theory--Ross Douthat thinks that he gets it. "The appeal of 'Intelligent Design' to the American right is obvious. For religious conservatives, the theory promises to uncover God's fingerprints on the building blocks of life. For conservative intellectuals in general, it offers hope that Darwinism will yet join Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of pseudoscience." Nevertheless, Douthat sees Intelligent Design as a potential "political boom for liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives." Extending the debate over evolution to the nation's Culture War, Douthat argues that the evolution wars allow liberals "the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, 'therapeutic' cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism." The embrace of Intelligent Design on the part of many conservatives "reshapes the ideological battlefield," Douthat argues, helping "liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics." We have been warned. But it is Leon Wieseltier who takes the argument to the next level. Of the three articles, Wieseltier's is the most acerbic, dismissive, and revealing. After all, Wieseltier argues that intelligent persons must not only reject Intelligent Design, but what he describes as any "literal" belief in the Bible. As Wieseltier styles the issue, Intelligent Design "is a psalm, not a proof." Here's how he sets the issue: "The problem is that the cosmology in Genesis does not resemble what we know about the origins of the world. Which is to say, Intelligent Design was prompted by the consequences of literalism in the interpretation of Scripture. Now, there is no more primitive form of monotheistic religion than this. If you believe that the world was created by God in six days because the Bible says so, then you must also believe that the Israelites saw God's hand, because the Bible says so, and that Moses spoke to God face to face, because the Bible says so, and that God's feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, because the Bible says so, and so on. The intellectual integrity of monotheism depends upon the repudiation of such readings. Sanctity is not an excuse for stupidity." Now, he certainly put those who believe the Bible to be true in our place, didn't he? Wieseltier's tactic is to style any understanding that the Bible conveys actual truth claims as "literalism," which must be dismissed by all right-thinking people. Wieseltier's article is helpful because it underlines the anti-supernaturalistic bias that stands behind the intellectual condescensions of the intellectual elite. "I do not mean to gloat," Wieseltier insists. "If you were raised on Scripture as a child, if the Bible was your first enchantment, then it is not an easy matter to pull slightly away, to confer upon your improvising intellect so much power over its significations." He continues: "There really is something childish about the notion that everything is exactly as the Bible says it is: this is the spell of fairytales." Wieseltier has been liberated from such "fairytales" and now encourages all thick-headed literalists to follow his example. Note carefully that Wieseltier's rejection of biblical "literalism" goes far beyond a denial of six day creationism. Indeed, he rejects a literal understanding of all Scripture. It's just poetry, after all. Perhaps the most important lesson offered by this hyperbolic issue of The New Republic is the fact that the intellectual elite is directly threatened by the persistence of those who reject evolution. These three articles may represent intellectual condescension at its worst, but they also demonstrate intellectual anxiety. Someone has hit the panic button.

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