Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design? [Human Events goes with ID]

Human Events ^ | 12 December 2005 | Casey Luskin

[PatrickHenry]

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 is up for tenure next year 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.") Earlier this year 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.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

ID even misrepresents ID. After Behe's comments in Dover, no on knows what ID is.

[Pete]

I fail to see how this improves your original point but I'll address it anyway.

It actually proves my point. If ethics is defined this way, then there is no such thing as purpose, which means that nihilism is the only logical and valid worldview.

[antiRepublicrat]

If I handed you a deck of cards in perfect numerical order, would you refuse to believe they were ordered by an intelligent being unless I showed you a video of someone doing so?

How many times does this have to be explained? The odds of a deck of cards being in numerical order are exactly the same odds as it being in any other order. There is NOTHING special about numerical order except that we may value that specific combination above others.

IOW, if our numerical system went in order 5 2 6 3 9 0 1 7 4 8 $, base 11, then your perfectly ordered deck of cards would have no special value, being out of order, and you wouldn't think twice about 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9... popping up randomly.

[js1138]

It is the Discovery Institute that couldn't muster enough evidence to debate in open court. They said so. They have no research and no plans for research.

I've pointed out several possible lines of research for them. All they need to do is point out the underlying principles that would allow a designer to make a new creature. Just figure out what mutations and changes are required to make the a new and unique object, the way an engineer plans a product before going to the expense of manufacturing it.

Basically, demonstrate that design is possible.

[hosepipe]

[ Not to people that desire to see religion in everything. Of course, a school of thought that allows everything to be described as a religion makes the word pretty much useless as a descriptor. ]

What is religion, then?..
I beleive Jesus came to make ALL religion obsolete, and did..

What do you see religion "as"..

We might be on the same page...

[Pete]

I could come up with countless more situations where morality hurts your chance to reproduce and therefore pass on those beneficial "morality genes."

You make a good argument for the position that the source of morality is something other than the evolution - a notion at which your Darwinian brothers would scoff.

[Physicist]

How did human thought escape the influence of evolution? Where did it come from?

The only changes that can be shaped by Darwinian evolution are the changes that are encoded in the genes (and some associated structures). Human thought simply isn't passed along that way! It's passed along in books, it's passed along in arguments, it's passed along with facial expressions, it's passed along on the dinner table, it's passed along with a birch switch.

Human thought (culture) does change over time--in that loose sense it "evolves". But that evolution has nothing to do with the Darwinian evolution that nettles your sensibilities. Crucially, its transmission doesn't depend on one's own survival, or on the survival of one's children. That's how it escapes Darwinian evolution.

Are you claiming that human intelligence is anything other than "matter-based"?

No. I sincerely believe that all human thought is the result of the material workings of the physical brain. But to claim that such meaning is an intrinsic, inheritable property of the matter is as foolish as asserting that tomorrow's New York Times lies latent in a jar of ink. There is matter and energy, and there is (as you seem to have forgotten) the pattern in which the matter and energy are arranged. I've seen no evidence that anything more is necessary to explain the human mind.

[donh]

I am satisfied by the evidence available. If you are not, and require the impossible in order to be satisfied, so be it. I fail to see why it is incumbent upon me to provide it to you, however.

Precisely what an evolutionary biologist would, quite justifiably, say to you.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Put me down in the former monkey group.

Ok. Which one are you? Mickey Dolenz, Davey Jones, Michael Nesmith or Peter Tork? :-)

[Right Wing Professor]

I was not suggesting that an ordered deck of cards resembles a living organism. I was merely giving an example of a situation in which "intelligence" can be statistically inferred without actually showing how, when, or why the intelligence was introduced

You know humans exist, and that they have the ability to order the cards. You know the 'order' corresponds to the way humans order cards.

In the case of ID, we don't know the identity or nature of the designer; we don't know by what means such a designer could implement the design; and we don't know what form the design would take. Three strikes, you're out.

You evolutionists are true masters at aggressively missing the point. One the one hand, you make general philosophical assertions about ID theory ("isn't even a theory," "is unfalsifiable," etc.), then when you are challenged on your logical principles you revert to particular cases to obfuscate the underlying philosophical point.

You IDers argue by analogy, the weakest form of argument; and then when we point out the flaws in the analogy, retreat into vagueness.

[Senator Bedfellow]

You understand my point perfectly, I think. ;)

[Pete]

Thanks for the conversations. I'll probably check back in on the thread but chances are I won't continue to respond to every post - at some point, a thread is meant to end and life goes on.

Thanks again.

[RightWhale]

My hope is that the party doesn't take any official stand for ID (and against science).

Many are still fighting the ancient battles. Communism was the great enemy of conservatism, and communism was seen as scientific, so things scientific must be against conservatism. However, to deny science is very difficult anymore. Did God create the universe? Okay, fine, but did God create the SUV and the Internet? Did God create the Federal government? Did God create science? How about money? Does money grow on trees? Etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The ultimate conservative would live under a leafy tree and eat bugs and berries and marry the first woman he could catch and drag home. Everything else is reform, and anything but conservative.

[dread78645]

The Darwinists tell us that Darwinism has "nothing to do" with religion. That is misleading. Darwinism basically says, "go ahead and believe in God if you wish, but he is absolutely and completely irrelevant to any scientific understanding of the origin of man."

That is correct. Evolution has zero, zip, zilch, nada to say about gods.
So "nothing to do" does indeed equal "completely irrelevant". Thanks for noticing.

Evolution has a great deal (and almost exclusively) to say about flora and fauna other than humans, yet somehow it's the "origin of man" that raises the fur of religious fundamentalists.

Sorry, but that is a very profound anti-religious position whether the evolutionists are willing to admit it publicly or not.

Only if you're a religious paranoid.

The evolutionists claim that any notion of ID is "unscientific" and "outside the domain of science,"

It's not the notion of ID that's the problem, it's the research; There is none.
Nothing to observe, nothing to predict, nothing to test -- ergo: "not science".

... then later they claim that ID has been thoroughly refuted by science.

As far as I know, you're the first to make that claim.
Scientists need "something" to test to support or refute a hypothesis. ID doesn't have that "something".

When the premise and the conclusion are the same, what is the value of the conclusion?

Like Intelligent design?

[puroresu]

"Social Darwinism" refers to natural selection, not evolution per se. I believe fully that natural selection occurs. I expect there's little doubt about that among conservatives. What I doubt is that you and I are descended from single celled organisms as a consequence of an incredibly long series of mutations. It's this latter concept that many conservatives reject, but leftists embrace.

[caffe]

Again, why don't you just take a little time and go visit the site and see their statement. I note when your caught lying, you love to switchthe subject. It's laughable that they would listen to you give them "possible lines of research" LOL
You remind me Murka trying to tell Bush how to run the war.

[Constantine XIII]

Why would this damage the conservative movement? Do we all have to agree on EVERYTHING?! Geez, it isn't like it's Mao's Red Guard or something.

No one is going to vote for Dems on account of this.

[PreciousLiberty]

"Ok. Works for me, too. Just one question. What is the benefit of survival?"

For most people, it seems preferable to the alternative. ;-)

I've already addressed the second part of your post, so I shan't do it again.

[js1138]

Not addressed to you in particular. Just something that popped up on another thread: Who said this?

"I have therefore no difficulty accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semetic stories which were Pagan and mythical."

[Constantine XIII]

You're probably right. :)