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.

[Doctor Stochastic]

ID doesn't explain why almost all suggested taxonomies tend to be tree structured rather than grass structured. Why should entities be groupable at all? Why should phenotypic groupings (Linneaus) give essentially the same tree structure as genetic groupings?

Why should viral insertion also follow the same trees?

[caffe]

Hardly laughable..........Paley did not name the designer so your claim may have merit. The point is, there is no naturalistic explanation so it is a legitimate theory \You can say it is laughable, you can say it "proves" nothing. Yet, no scientific theory ever proves anything with finality.As evolutionists claim scientific theories are always vulnerable to further observations. The conclusions of science are always tentative and as evolutionists frequently claim, this is an essential characteristic of science.
Paley's theory does what every scientific theory must do - it denies we will ever see certain observations. That is what makes it testable. It is science and it is biology.
Evolutionists always emphasize the irrelevant.
Yet, evolutionists confidently use the argument from design in archealogy, the old Pildown case, and the SETI project
If you actually read Paley's argument , he does conclude that life had a designer, but he does not say the designer was supernatural. He is noncommittal about it.
Just review some of the posts here about the human mind or intelligence. Creative intelligence, some scientists admit, is not derivable from matter and naturalistic processes, so it contains an element of the supernatural.
Just look at what Eugenie Scott said with her ridiculous redefining of natural.

"To be dealt with scientifically, "intelligence" must also be natural, because all science is natural...SETI is indeed a scientific project; it seeks natural intelligence."

She is saying or defining natural as "whatever science deals with"
The natural world is not defined by science, it is observed by science'

[Senator Bedfellow]

Ah, I can answer that. That's because the designer was rather schizoid about the whole thing, alternating between bouts of neat-freakery, obsessively stuffing living creatures into little categories - the way an OCD sufferer might feel compelled to organize a sock drawer - and bouts of ennui and sloppiness, such as when he flipped your retina backwards but forgot to do the same for the squid.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The creationists were almost universally united in declaring us commies, fascists, atheists, homos, trolls from DU, etc.

So now they will add the Templeton Foundataion, George Will, and Charles Krauthammer to the list of commies, fascists, atheists, homos, and trolls from DU.

[narby]

It was not a simple conflict between science and religion, as usually portrayed. Rather it was a conflict between Copernican science and Aristotelian science

You missed my point entirely, so I'll spell it out for you.

The Catholic church has deliberately decided that the Bible cannot contradict science, because God created the science.

They acknowledge that there are arguments within the scientific community on issues (closed universe vs. open universe, etc.). But the Church refuses to take a position.

Whether that's because the Galileo issue actually was an argument between Aristotelian vs. Copernican science is irrelevant. What's relevant is that the Catholic church got a black eye from the disagreement, and they now intelligently stay out of the crossfire of scientific issues.

That's something that the fundamentalists apparently aren't bright enough to figure out.

When religion and science have tangled, science has always won. Always. It will do so again.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Gilgamesh and Enkidu were only myths?

[highball]

Ah, I can answer that. That's because the designer was rather schizoid about the whole thing, alternating between bouts of neat-freakery, obsessively stuffing living creatures into little categories - the way an OCD sufferer might feel compelled to organize a sock drawer - and bouts of ennui and sloppiness, such as when he flipped your retina backwards but forgot to do the same for the squid.

If he hadn't been obsessing over his little boxes - he might have done a better job designing. Not the mark of a very intelligent designer when 99% of your designs fail....

[Antonello]

How does being an expert in GPS systems make one able to overturn the work of thousands of physicists? lol

Uh...because he knows where he stands on the issue?
Sorry, just couldn't resist ;-)

[caffe]

I am talking about Paley's hypothesis or theory regarding the creation of life.

The natural world indeed has an objective reality independent of its discovery by science. For example, DNA, neutrons, microwaves were part of the natural world five hundred yrs ago, they just hadn't been discovered yet.
So the natural world is empirical. it can be observed by the senses. The behavior of the natural world can be expressed by laws that are consistent through time and space. They are repeatable and consistent from moment to moment and place to place. We can't observe electrons with our eyes directly. Yet we observe them in other ways and they obey regular laws. Electrons are naturalistic entities. Radioactive decay is a natural phenomenon. It is observable, though the exact moment of decay is not predictable but it follows repeatable laws.
Intelligence is more slippery. It seems to defy the natural world. It does not rigidly obey laws, It is not repeatable. We can't observe it with our senses. But we "obwerve" it with our minds. We observe its creations (math formula written on paper) No one has shown it is the result of natural laws operating on molecules and atoms. Is intelligence naturalistic or not?
So for discussion, I view the supernatural as something that fails the definition of the natural world. So can we show the existence of the supernatural without observing it in any way? CXan the supernatural be a legitimate part of science? Can the supernatural have a testable, scientific basis? I say YES

[Doctor Stochastic]

Magnets prefer a north-south orientation, even though the magnetic force itself is rotationally symmetric.

Sound's like Roul Julia's character in "Tequila Sunrise."

[hosepipe]

[ My definition of religion is a system of beliefs that encompasses a divine entity, a pre-life existence, and/or a post-death existence. More specifically, a religion is an institution that promotes some or all of these elements in order to devise a social and philosophical structure to which its adherents are expected to subscribe. Is this page close to yours? ]

Pretty much the same page, kinda..

Thank God.. Jesus started a family not a religion..
And its not what you believe that is important..
BUT Whom you Are that counts, not what you believe..

What you believe has little to do with Whom you Are, but Whom you Are has everything to do with what you believe..

Its the Catch Infinity, Infinity Syndrome.. Would make a good movie..
A Spiritual Drama Thriller..

Pitting Powerful Monkey Holiness against the Beautful beauty of Simplicity..
You know, beauty and the beast..

[Alter Kaker]

Gilgamesh and Enkidu were only myths?

I believe in a literal Gilgamesh.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"The point is, there is no naturalistic explanation so it is a legitimate theory."

Explanation for what? The origins of the universe? The origins of life? The origins of species? There are naturalistic explanations for all of them.

"Paley's theory does what every scientific theory must do - it denies we will ever see certain observations. That is what makes it testable. It is science and it is biology."

This is preposterous. Are you trying to parody creationists and ID'ers? How can the lack of observations make something scientific? Every theory has to has SOME observational base. ID has none. It's an argument from incredulity; it's a gutless choice.

"Yet, evolutionists confidently use the argument from design in archealogy, the old Pildown case, and the SETI project."

No, they don't. The knowledge that humans can design things is not Paley's argument from design. There is no way to test for an inscrutable, unknowable, unseen, designer.

"If you actually read Paley's argument , he does conclude that life had a designer, but he does not say the designer was supernatural. He is noncommittal about it."

It was perfectly clear that he was talking about the God of the Christian Bible. He had already written a book called, "Evidences of Christianity". And the full title of his 1802 book is "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature". He thought it was supernatural.

I am still waiting for the numerous tests that Paley's idea has passed.

[Senator Bedfellow]

My theory is that the designer was, in fact, a committee of some sort. One of those congressional blue-ribbon panel sorts of things. On the one hand, you have the taxonomic lobby, pushing for some sort of organization. On the other hand, you have the population-growth activists, asking where we're gonna put all these things anyway. On the third hand, there's the imperfectionists, whose inferiority complex demands that the creation not be too good. And so forth.

[PreciousLiberty]

"Creative intelligence, some scientists admit, is not derivable from matter and naturalistic processes, so it contains an element of the supernatural."

LOL! One of the sillier sentences I've seen in some time... For purposes of intellectual honesty, "admit" should be changed to "claim".

Presuming your story is true, what prevented these unnamed "scientists" from deciding that they just didn't have enough information (and/or a testable theory) to make a pronouncement on whether or not "creative intelligence is derivable from matter and naturalistic processes"? "I don't know" is a perfectly valid scientific statement...and far more believable than "I don't understand that, therefore it 'contains an element of the supernatural'".

[Doctor Stochastic]

Intelligent, but manic-depressive with a tendency towards schizoid paranoia? Sounds like Hugo Wolf as illustrated in the movie "Mahler."

[cornelis]

the source of morality is something other than the evolution

Dec 5, 1997 You're an oldtimer! Thanks. You are right to raise these very questions. Usually an attempt is made to square off some area of study and to shut up about the points you raise.

The source of morality cannot be answered as arising from natural causes--unless the universe is at odds with itself. For the argument of moral good resides both on the side of fitness and unfitness, on the side of life and on the side of death. Take your pick, but preference does not make a universal.

The origin of philosophical thinking in the Western world began on this very point. There is something different about human nature that it resists identification with nature.

[caffe]

perhaps you need to read my post again - slowly - your response is a non-response/

I guess you believe science must be self-consistent? IT must not contradict itself.

Can you agree with that? (watch out it may be a trick)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Intelligent, but manic-depressive with a tendency towards schizoid paranoia? Sounds like Hugo Wolf as illustrated in the movie "Mahler."

[Doctor Stochastic]

Well, the anti-intellectuals always claim that intellegent .NE. competent. An intelligent designer may be an incompentent builder.