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.

[js1138]

The quantum knows.

[MEGoody]

Were you replying to a different post?

Yes, sorry.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your reply!

The difference between what you are saying and what we are saying is that emergent properties are an observable feature of the natural, material world as understood by mainstream physicists, chemists and biologists.

Emergent properties are indeed observable but they are not all corporeal and certainly mechanisms whereby they are theorized to have emerged (self-organizing complexity, cellular automata) are not corporeal, i.e. they are mathematics.

Moreover one must understand non-corporeal properties such as intelligence, mind or soul as either a primary phenomenon or an epiphenomenon, a secondary phenomenon which can cause nothing to happen.

The worldview that “all that there is” is “matter in all its motions” demands that such things be epiphenomenal, i.e. only the corporeal can cause anything to happen. For instance, your thinking to press the “post” key was an illusion, it was actually the physical brain that did it.

Other worldviews disagree and assert that willfulness is a primary phenomenon which causes things to happen. For instance, the selection of a mate causes the offspring to have unique characteristics. Yet another example, a bird thrown off a building chooses to fly away.

Such worldviews are philosophy, they are also non-corporeals and they are directly related to how we “do” and understand science.

Emergence and reduction are both valid ways of studying phenomena, just as style and grammar are both valid ways of examining writing. No mystical properties need apply in the domain of science.

Mathematics is not mysticism.

The way you used the word “mystical properties” - I presume you mean the “supernatural”. If so, we find ourselves at the false dichotomy. Where methodological naturalism prevails, the investigation seeks and thus can only arrive at a naturalistic conclusion. It is the only place it looks because naturalism is the presupposition to the investigation.

But it is a false dichotomy to say that “natural causes” and “supernatural causes” are mutually exclusive. In many if not most theologies (especially Christianity) – the natural was caused by the supernatural which is both transcendent and immanent. Finding a natural cause does not mean that the supernatural does not cause the natural cause, overarch the natural cause or imbue the natural cause.

But getting back to mysticism per se for a moment…

A more correct meaning of the term is divine knowledge. I speak a great deal about Spiritual revelation which is something that is probably intelligible only to those who have experienced it, i.e. Christian Spiritual revelation. Those who have never experienced it would likely deny that it exists.

But those of us who have experienced it know that it does not come from within our own reasoning or from sensory perception. That “Jesus Christ is Lord” is a Spiritual revelation which appears within us. From there, we receive many additional revelations which build on that foundation, which is the most certain knowledge we possess.

God the Father has revealed Himself in Christ, in the indwelling Spirit, in Scriptures and in His creation – which includes the physical and the spiritual, the heaven and the earth. So, yes, every time we Christians observe something in nature – whether corporeal or non-corporeal – whether formula, philosophy, agency or phenomenon – we see the hand of God.

A lot of scientists are Christian and hence have had at least one Spiritual revelation. They may not call it “mysticism” – but they too cannot miss the revelation of God in nature.

It's not that mystical properites need to apply to the domain of science, but rather that the context of everything the Christian learns about nature - or anything - is Christ Himself.

This great hierarchy of being - God, Man, World (nature/universe), Society - has likewise been understood from ancient times and across many cultures throughout history, albeit some never heard of, nor received, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

[betty boop]

But what on earth could you have said at post 1065 to make such an auto-response occur?

I'd hazard a guess, but its application to our friends RWP and js1138 would be pure speculation, and therefore not to be indulged.

Still, having said that, I am keenly aware that at least some people nowadays place their faith in science because they believe that it has the ability to explain the world without God. Our friend b_sharp expressed this idea very well in noting that (to paraphrase) as the sphere of science expands, the sphere of God shrinks. I think it's clear that this theme is evident in Richard Dawkin's public commentaries on his own work. For whatever reason, or maybe no reason at all, some folks are convinced that God is not necessary to human purposes at all, nor to the origin and structure of the Universe, nor to the very foundation of truth and reason.

If people are convinced in this manner, then how can they be reasoned with by folks of opposite worldview, who believe that, without God, the Universe could neither have come into existence, nor maintain itself as a Universe ever since? Etc. There are other dimensions to this issue, but these remarks are probably the most basic to our present concerns.

Whatever. I pray for God's grace and light on all of the parties to these debates. And I thank my friends for taking the time to write to me every now and then.

[Right Wing Professor]

You don't need to guess. I am tired of having ascribed to naturalists the most idiotic caricatures of reductionist views, rather than an honest discussion of their actual arguments. I am tired of seeing the same old slurs against intellectuals like Pinker. I am tired of sanctimony.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply! I join with you in your prayers!!!

For whatever reason, or maybe no reason at all, some folks are convinced that God is not necessary to human purposes at all, nor to the origin and structure of the Universe, nor to the very foundation of truth and reason.

If people are convinced in this manner, then how can they be reasoned with by folks of opposite worldview, who believe that, without God, the Universe could neither have come into existence, nor maintain itself as a Universe ever since? Etc. There are other dimensions to this issue, but these remarks are probably the most basic to our present concerns.

Indeed. As you have said many times, even the word rational is based on the concept of ratio. When a correspondent does not recognize a standard much less the standard, there's just no anchor for reasoning.

[betty boop]

I am tired of sanctimony.

Me too, RWP, me too. And you have just given a splendid example, you splendid ol' grizzly bear from the GWN!

[Right Wing Professor]

:-)

Have a good weekend, BB!

[betty boop]

You too, RWP. You too.

You know, I just had a silly thought. I was reminded of a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Wile E. Coyote and Sheepdog. Every morning, the two of them show up at the sheep pasture, lunchboxes in hand, civilly greet each other, and punch into the time clock. Then they proceed to "contend with each other" all day long.

Eventually the five o'clock whistle blows. So Wile E. and SD, now-empty lunchboxes in hand, come back to the time clock, punch out, and very civilly exchange cordial goodbyes.

Next day, it all starts all over again. :^)

Even cartoons can be "true!" (Did you ever see the Simpsons one, where Homer gets "lost" in a higher dimension? Who says cartoons are just for kids! I'd say most of the Simpsons is inaccessible to children....)

Thanks for writing RWP!

[Right Wing Professor]

Even cartoons can be "true!" (Did you ever see the Simpsons one, where Homer gets "lost" in a higher dimension? Who says cartoons are just for kids! I'd say most of the Simpsons is inaccessible to children....)

The best cartoons are always written so children and adults can watch together. They just don't laugh at the same things.

One of my biggest regrets, now my youngest is 15 and won't be seen dead at a "kids' movie", is I have no legitimate excuse to go to G-rated movies any more (the last thing I persuaded him to see with me was the Incredibles). Until one of the older ones provides me with grandchildren, I'm stuck with DVDs.

[hosepipe]

[ You know, I just had a silly thought. I was reminded of a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Wile E. Coyote and Sheepdog. Every morning, the two of them show up at the sheep pasture, lunchboxes in hand, civilly greet each other, and punch into the time clock. Then they proceed to "contend with each other" all day long. ]

A velvet glove with roll of pennies in it.. as delicately swiped to the cheek as any swiping I've even seen swiped..

The art of insult is NOT DEAD... about as lovely a piece of work as I've ever seen.. an apt too.. pure grace..

[hosepipe]

[ But getting back to mysticism per se for a moment… ]

I have never liked that word talking about the real God..
For the real God is only mystical to those that DON'T know him.. or only know of him.. God is quite real to those that do.. I know its a sidebar but that word defames God in my experience.. A common word and expression but it chafes my hindquarters ever time.. On the other hand ALL ancient and modern gods(religions) were mystical.. thats why they were called Mystery Religions.. Reality is not a mystery.. There I said it, I'm done..

[Baraonda]

Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design?

Designed by the almighty God and the proof is everywhere.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOLOL! I only have a vague recollection of that cartoon - but oh how fitting an end to this week and perhaps, this thread.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, betty boop is a master wordsmith - eloquent, subtle and powerful.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your concerns!

Indeed, the word "mysticism" - like the word "myth" - has managed to pick up some unpleasant intension - probably because both words are often used to describe malevolent or bizarre occults.

But of a truth, the word "mysticism" merely means divine knowledge, or more specifically, direct Spiritual knowledge - thus in Christian theology, the indwelling Spirit is called Christian mysticism. We have the mind of Christ.

Likewise a "myth" is secret speech, a lesson or teaching in story form. By using allegories, metaphors and other literary devices myths convey understanding where more direct language fails. Parables are like short myths. The "lesson" conveyed by a myth may be insignificant or profound.

[hosepipe]

[ But of a truth, the word "mysticism" merely means divine knowledge, or more specifically, direct Spiritual knowledge - thus in Christian theology, the indwelling Spirit is called Christian mysticism. We have the mind of Christ. ]

I know.. I just don't like it(the word)... I'm not real hot on the word God either...LoooL.. Seems so impersonal.. I use them both but they both seem be missing something, I prefer other words.. talking about you know who.. d;-) There are other words that crawl my nape too.. Like saying orientated instead of oriented... Yeah I'm a little nutz..

[Oztrich Boy]

Let's pretend it doesn't really mean occult placemarker

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for explaining your instinct concerning certain words!

I have a long list of words which set off "red flags" to me - most of them because they are mean-spirited or prejudicial. For instance, in my view, words like “liar” and “fool” say more about the speaker than the subject.

[betty boop]

Until one of the older ones provides me with grandchildren, I'm stuck with DVDs.

I hope you won't have too wait too long, RWP!