Intelligent Design on Trial

I think science should be taught in the public school science classroom. But it would also be appropriate to explain why creationism and ID are not appropriate subjects there.

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When I lived in the Federal Republic of Germany and attended school there, we had religion classes in public school and the science classes were separate. Why can’t we have that in the United States. Protestants went to their class, Catholics and Jews to theirs, and atheists to theirs. I do not see why in the United States that we make such a problem of it. Does Germany have separation of church and state now? Yes! Why are Americans so afraid to study philosophy of religion in public schools?

Henry,

If you mean “philosophy” classes that teach about Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism and maybe even Astrology … that sounds fine. Do you think any Evangelicals would approve of such a broad-minded curriculum?

George

Judge Jones did mention that Intelligent Design would be an acceptable topic in a philosophy or comparative religion class.

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Edward,
Because it would be totally impractical as well as illegal to teach religion in public schools. School lead prayer in schools have been outlawed in the 1950’s. As for a class on the philosophy of religion in public schools, I seen this tried in many public schools mostly sponsored by Christian groups but have been cancelled by these same groups because it was impossible for them to treat all religions equally. Philosophy is an area of study that is usually introduced at the university level.

Hello Dr Ted,

Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of the trial in Dover. Having followed the trial pretty closely at the time, I find your analysis to be very insightful and thoughtful.

What the school board in Dover did was nonsensical in my opinion. ID may include some good arguments (i.e. irreducible complexity) but they are all god-of-the-gaps arguments. It does not constitute a body of science that can compete with evolution. In other words, if we removed evolution and replaced it with ID, there would be virtually nothing scientific to teach to explain what we see regarding life. A huge step backwards in my opinion.

Tom

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@TedDavis

The larger issues about what can be, and what should be, taught in public school science classes are surely insoluble here, and perhaps also anywhere else.

Unfortunately I must vehemently disagree with this point when it comes specifically to ID or similar topics - the bar of what is taught in science classes must be no lower than having the material be accepted as science by at least a majority of scientists. Otherwise it simply is not science, period.

IMO, students benefit significantly when a bit less instructional time is given to certain basic scientific information, in order to devote at least some time to historical and philosophical aspects of science.

In difference from the first sentence, I actually fully agree with this statement. In fact, it can be argued that the most valuable knowledge students gain from science classes is the scientific method itself and how it can be used to tell fact from fiction where scientific methods apply. It would thus be excellent to have at least one more class covering the philosophical principles of science and how its fundamental critical approach can be applied to other aspects of society. Unfortunately this class would need to cover ID as an example of what not to do as a candidate scientific approach.

All of that said, seems like quite a divisive topic to bring up just a couple of days before Christmas. May we all remember that all Christians here honestly adore God and are equally humbled by the gif of our Saviour whose birth we’re again celebrating this season. God is everything, including intelligence and including design of all that ever was, is and will be. Neither He nor we need science to appreciate that.

Ted,

Thank you for the article. I am not particularly interested in the socio-political matters you’ve written about, simply because I’ve personally grown a little tired of it. Constructive debate on those issues is often non-existent; consequently my desire to get involved in those topics comes and goes. I am however very interested in the science and reasoning behind the ID argument. You and I had a couple of brief conversations a few years ago (on another matter) and I appreciated then your respectful interaction with me, and I appreciate now the even-handedness of several comments in this article. I would like to directly address one empirical issue though.

About irreducible complexity, you write:

This, however, only begs the question of whether or not ID advocates are right about the inadequacy of Darwinian mechanisms to explain things like the bacterial flagellum.

I’ve spent the last seven years researching the scientific literature on the topic of semiosis in the cell. Specifically, I was attempting to inventory all the physical conditions required for one object to represent another object in a material universe (where no object inherently represents anything whatsoever). This issue goes directly to the informational aspects of biology, which is the part of design theory that interested me most.

The long and the short of it is this; irreducible complexity was the farthest thing on my mind as I researched semiosis, but I found that the core argument of irreducible complexity is completely and unambiguously confirmed by the study of semiosis in the cell. In the starkest terms possible, IC is not merely a speed bump for evolutionary accounts, it is the only thing that allows evolutionary accounts to exist in the first place. Moreover, among researchers of semiosis (particularly those within the physics domain) this fact of irreducibility has been acknowledged and written about for years.

Very briefly, the organization of the heterogeneous living cell is only made possible by the translation of an informational medium into physical effects – and that process is not physically possible without one set of objects serving as an informational medium, and another set of objects establishing what is being represented. These two sets of objects have been clearly identified in the cell (i.e. nucleic codons and their cognate aaRS). The defining attribute of the system is that it can only function if the medium is specifically organized as a genuine representation (which has also been clearly identified). This architecture creates a set of relationships in the operation of the genetic system, and these relationships are what we now call the Genetic Code.

If you are not quite following what I am describing, I’ve put the issue into easy terms and published it on a website, Biosemiosis.org. I would encourage anyone interested in these issues to peruse it there.

There is one other extraordinary finding that cannot go unnoticed. To a physicist, a system such as this is entirely unique in the physical world, and is completely identifiable among all other physical systems. This specific system has only been identified in one other instance anywhere else in the cosmos. That instance is in recorded language and mathematics – two unambiguous correlates of intelligence. The intractable fact of the matter is that the singularly-unique physical conditions required for this system – which would ostensibly not exist on Earth until the rise of an advanced intelligence – were completely evident at the very origin of life. They are the physical means by which the cell becomes organized.

It is also notable that none of these material observations are even controversial. Perhaps over the course of the next years these physical realities will become more widely known.

– Also, you might enjoy a different perspective on Behe’s legacy of irreducible complexity, Here.

@Biosemiosis.org

If you are not quite following what I am describing, I’ve put the issue into easy terms and published it on a website, Biosemiosis.org. I would encourage anyone interested in these issues to peruse it there.

I would actually much rather read it from a peer-reviewed publication in a mainstream journal. Is there a citation for such a publication describing this model?

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In my public high school in a liberal suburb, they had an experimental class in the English department called “Theology in Literature” team-taught by a Jewish atheist and a Catholic ex-Jesuit-in-training. We studied literature like Heart of Darkness, Paradise Lost and even Dakota: A Spiritual Geography for half the class and the Hebrew Bible-as-literature (including Wellhausen’s JEDP and the rest) for the other half of the class. It was formative in jarring me out of my “fundamentalist” phase (that was the word I used to self-identify at the time).

Earlier, in my other public high school in a conservative, rural area, we had a class in the geography curriculum on World Cultures, taught by a dynamic teacher who would later become a progressive UCC minister, and my classmates learned the basics of all major world religions there. This, too, was formative for many in my year (though, sadly, I was assigned to the other geography teacher that year and didn’t learn nearly so much).

So I think if done well, teaching religion — not teaching what is true so much as teaching what people believe — is indispensable to forming young Americans to interact with a world where religion motivates many of their (global and American) peers.

Unfortunately, on a practical level, as you pointed out, it is too easy to fall into the trap of doctrinaire partisanship.

As to intelligent design, it seems to me if the guild of any particular discipline has decided that something lies outside their purview, then that something shouldn’t be taught in that discipline’s classes. Surveys show that high school teachers have a hard enough time teaching basic evolutionary theory as it is, no?

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Actually this reply is intended not just for @Nuno, but for many others as well.

IMO, the range of opinions expressed already, relative to classroom content in public education, supports my statement that this problem is insoluble. I can’t respond to everyone, unfortunately, but let me espond to this, from Nuno:

“Unfortunately I must vehemently disagree with this point when it comes specifically to ID or similar topics - the bar of what is taught in science classes must be no lower than having the material be accepted as science by at least a majority of scientists. Otherwise it simply is not science, period.”

I’d be surprised if this view were not shared by many in science education. It’s a reasonable standard, but the problem remains. Nuno’s reference to a “majority of scientists” implies that conclusions in science are reached democratically, which is partly true, but those eligible to “vote” in that election are a tiny subset of the larger population. Whether or not science is democratic, science education in a democratic republic ought to be democratic, as far as possible. Indeed, this was perhaps the strongest argument of William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes era—namely, that “the hand that writes the paycheck rules the schools.”

Let me point to the results of a fascinating poll, carried out by Cornell University experts just a few months before the Dover trial:

(graph taken from Geotimes — September 2005 — Evolution & Intelligent Design: Understanding Public Opinion)

For me, this is an eye-popping “wow.” In every single demographic group, cutting across political lines, save one—those who stated that they have “no religion”—there was very strong support for teaching ID as an alternative to evolution. I’ve already said that I don’t believe ID really is a scientific alternative to evolution, which would have complicated my own response to the pollsters, but this does mean something.

One thing it means, IMO, is that the presently received interpretation of the First Amendment, in which extra-Constitutional language about “a wall of separation between church and state” (from a letter by President Jefferson, who did not write the Constitution), is used to determine the meaning of the disestablishment clause in the Constitution. This state of affairs profoundly shapes the evolution controversy in public schools, making it essentially insoluble.

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The graph IS eye-popping!

If it wasn’t for the fact that ID is CLEARLY a RELIGIOUS school of thought … training and investigation in Evolutionary science would probably have been crushed by the religious right long ago.

Old Earth ID is acceptable in my view. But NOT in public grade schools (K to 12).

It’s too easy to bend this topic into religious discussions… and I don’t know anyone who thinks Public schools (12th grade and below) is the place for religious discussions.

George

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As always, polls must “pixelate” or lump together finer gradations of views. So as ‘eye-popping’ as the ID pole is that Ted shows above, just reflect on how you would have answered in that poll if your choices were “evolution only” or “support ID as alternative”. I would love to see the actual question worded to respondents regarding that latter category. Was it something like: “do you support teaching ID as an alternative…?” or was it, as seems to be implied in the actual chart wording: “do you support ID as an alternative…?”. Without that distinction, I would be in a quandary as to how to respond to that poll as I don’t find either category all that defensible. But I have no problem (along with Ted on this) dedicating good class time to the essential task of discussing how science is done, and unreservedly bringing in the full gamut of origins philosophies as appropriate to such a discussion. And furthermore, as a teacher I endeavor to keep the classroom as “safe” as I can for varied adherents across this full gamut – i.e. I’ll have none of this nonsense of only bringing some of them up for the purpose of mocking opprobrium from myself or (to the extent that I can control it) from any other students. If there is to be “danger” to any of these approaches (as there must necessarily be) it needs to come from our collective (and as objective as humanly possible) appraisal of God’s Word and God’s world, not from us (especially teachers) venting our own politics.

In that vein of thought, I want to comment on AMWolfe’s thought:

I think this could potentially branch to a discussion of its own, but I think it is significant to reflect on the distinction being attempted above. How many times do we teachers think we are “staying above the fray” if we merely say: “well … here is what group A thinks … and groups B and C think this…”; and we may even never let on to our classroom in which group (if any) we ourselves claim membership. It sounds so neutral (I’ve uttered similar words many times) and students as AMWolfe testifies do many times find that approach to be more than adequate for their needs. But what is the subtle message (the teacher’s inevitable excursion into teaching truth as opposed to merely teaching what people believe) that is still being presented to the class as the teacher pretends to be above it all? It is this: “there is a neutral platform from which we can all evaluate these alternatives and I present myself and this classroom to you as just such a neutral space.” And perhaps on many small/trivial issues we can have that near absolute neutrality --with virtually no axes to grind by anyone in the room. But can such all-encompassing questions about origins and methods of access to Truth itself ever be in that trivial category? I would suggest not, and so offer up for reflection that when I/we engage in these neutrality presentation tactics in a science class we may just be engaging in a subtle and unwitting promotion of one of the key religious (and false) doctrines of Scientism: that pure science provides a purely objective platform for which we can strive.

@TedDavis

Thank you for the informative graph - polls such as this are exactly why I support BioLogos’s outreach/education mission and wholeheartedly agree that philosophy and history of science are very important topics that should be taught and discussed in public grade schools K-12. For very similar reasons, I would also like to see philosophy and history of religion discussed at some point maybe 7-12. While it is important for schools to teach basic knowledge and methods, it is arguably even more important that schools teach critical thinking for evaluating alternative hypotheses and how to construct coherent arguments to support whichever view one seeks to uphold.

Unfortunately we do seem to disagree on this critical point - representative democracy is based on the principle that people delegate decisions to those whom they deem equipped (e.g., trained and discerning enough) to make those decisions.

Imagine that decisions on which active compounds to release as therapeutic drugs was made by public vote based on published literature of administrating the compounds to mice or other model organisms. This would be a total disaster since it is obvious that even trained scientists cannot perfectly predict the efficacy of a drug in humans, let alone leaving this decision to untrained individuals. Thankfully we have the FDA and we have established rigorous protocols for assessing whether compounds are “good enough” and “safe enough” for making them available as possible therapeutic drugs.

When it comes to science, the corresponding standard (i.e., the “science clinical trial”) is that whatever model is proposed should make testable predictions that are confirmed by unbiased observation. As such, this very clearly distinguishes evolution (whose predictions are confirmed) from ID, which has no proposed model and makes no testable predictions (it is little more than a collection of anecdotes such as the flagellum motor). I know you already clearly stated that you don’t consider ID to be a science - my point here is that this distinction should not be misconstrued as a “belief” or “personal preference” - there are very objective criteria that need to be met for something to be called a science. This is why deciding what is science and what is not science is not a democratic choice.

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Children deserve to be taught consensus views of science in the public schools. But if not, why stop with science? In a school district with mostly Mormon kids, should they teach that a group of Jews sailed to America in ancient times? (To Mormons, this was the origin of Native Americans!) Should we teach Holocaust denial if enough parents want it as a history alternative? Should we teach alternatives to germ theory if enough Christian Scientist parents request it? (Christian Scientists believe that sin causes illness, not germs.) What about climate change? Should it be taught as fact, or should we make room for conservative views? What about vaccinations? Should schools teach that vaccinations cause autism in a district with lots of anti-vax parents?

So, by all means, be respectful of parents and children with alternative views, but teach mainstream science in the public school science classroom.

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This is an excellent question with respect to “methods of access to Truth itself”, as there is indeed the danger that just saying “well … here is what group A thinks … and groups B and C think this…” can just lead to uncertainty and confusion. However, the danger at the other extreme is that a sense of absolute certainty will be inherently communicated where that certainty is not actually there - scientism is a perfect example of this, as you very well also pointed out.

In my view, the way to present “methods of access to Truth itself” is to a) clearly delineate what “types” of Truth can be be addressed by which methods and b) explain the limitations of the methods and why none of them is applicable to all “types” of Truth. The goal should be to teach students to critically assess and properly understand the scope of the claims advanced by each method. Of course, such a presentation makes a lot more sense in a class on “philosophy of critical thinking” than in biology, chemistry or math, even if examples from those disciplines are used to illustrate and contrast the pros and cons of different methods.

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I became curious about what my own public school system was doing these days in science. I learned that Heredity and Evolution are first taught in elementary school (in an age-appropriate way)! By high school, kids can take Earth Science, Marine Science, Biology 200, Biology 300, Biology 400, Chemistry 300, Physics 300, Physics 400, and The Science of Forensic Investigation

I’m proud of my school system!

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@TedDavis

Thank you for this very well presented documentation of the history and present state of the Science/Intelligent Design interface, including all the pertinent available links for further research. To get to the point, what interests me was the following comments at the end of your piece in reference to the philosophy of science;

“Yet - and this is critical to bear in mind - ideas associated with ID are being advocated in some refereed professional literature related to the philosophy of science.”

“Pennsylvania science standards call for teachers to discuss the “nature of science” - which in the language of science education is a reference to aspects of the philosophy of science. The existence of refereed professional literature on ID in the philosophy of science suggests that the approach is relevant to questions regarding the interpretation of data and the formulation of hypotheses.”

“The magazine Nature went even further in an April 28 editorial headed “Dealing with Design,” which stated that scientists in the lecture hall “should be prepared to talk about what science can and cannot do, and how it fits in with different religious beliefs.” Similarly, public school science teachers have a legitimate secular purpose in discussing various philosophical objections to aspects of evolution that have been raised by scientists in the 147 years since Darwin’s book was published. The general education of a science student is well served when such topics are introduced.”

“Still, I cannot criticize the judge for overlooking this possibility, because the defense did not make a case for it. Rather, the defense kept insisting that ID is science, not philosophy of science, despite the near total lack of backing for that claim in the scientific literature.”

The implications of philosophy of science particularly have deep significance in the question of Science, Evolutionary Creationism, and Intelligent Design. Since Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy assigned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science, central issues are concerned with, what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. The discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology specifically, as it explores the relationship between science and truth. Therefore, because this is what concerns us here I feel obliged to present this email discussion I had with Eddie last Christmas season. Eddie begins;

Hi, Tony,

Now for something about the biology …

To understand where Jon and I are coming from, you have to carefully distinguish between what the TE/EC people say, and what their biology implies. And you also have to understand Darwin and neo-Darwinism. Let me say that I have read the writings of Darwin extensively and of many neo-Darwinists as well. (By the way, I was a science buff in my youth, read copiously re science and history of science, and went to university on a science scholarship, so my knowledge is not limited to theology.) Both Darwinian and neo-Darwinian biology are in principle anti-teleological, i.e., the goal and purpose of the biology is to explain the origin of species without any reference to teleology, and indeed to prove that teleological explanation is neither needed nor useful and that non-teleological causes fully and adequately explain everything that happened in the history of life. I take this as given, and won’t try to prove it to you, but I’m certain I’m right in characterizing Darwin and neo-Darwinism in this way.

Now, the BioLogos-TEs—at least the biologists—Falk, Venema, Applegate, Ard Louis, Denis Alexander, etc.—are hardcore neo-Darwinians in their biology. They don’t believe, as scientists, that there needed to be any kind of tinkering, guiding, or planning to get evolution to produce man or any other outcome. They have argued repeatedly that randomness plus natural selection can do it all. But as Christians (in a different compartment of their mind) they believe that somehow God ordains the outcomes. Jon and I have pressed them on how an inherently non-teleological process could ever have guaranteed outcomes, but they will not discuss it. They appeal vaguely to mystery or providence, then drop the discussion. This is a cowardly way of facing an intellectual difficulty with one’s theology.

So the problem is not that BioLogos combine evolution with Christian theology—I’m happy with that. The problem is that it combines neo-Darwinism with Christian theology. I’m unhappy with that, and will continue to fight that combination.

I am not claiming that the BioLogos people are insincere in their statements of belief in God, that God is responsible for evolution, etc. I am claiming that their views are intellectually incoherent. And I am frustrated that they won’t explicitly deal with my objections, or Jon’s. And I am frustrated that they won’t acknowledge that ID—which is very explicit about God’s design—has something important to contribute to the discussion.

You speculate as follows:

“However, my insights tell me the TE/EC biologists at BioLogos, and elsewhere for that matter, have moved away from the traditional assumptions of neo-Darwinism. This is the only explanation that can account for the seeming contradiction you refer to. Ergo, this is why they don’t want to discuss it—BioLogos doesn’t believe the time has come yet for this revelation to go public.”

You have no evidence for this speculation. You don’t know any of the TE/EC people either personally, or by long email contact, as I do, and your conjecture here about what they might be thinking, or might be holding back from the public, is therefore unwarranted. In any case, I know quite enough biology to recognize neo-Darwinism when I see it, and Falk and Venema are dyed-in-the-wool neo-Darwinists, as are the others I mentioned.

You seem more inclined to imagine motives and thoughts than I am. I don’t impute motives or thoughts to people unless I have things they have written or said to go on. But nothing these people have written or said would justify your above speculation.

You write:

“I don’t think BioLogos’ position is that the teleological behavior that organisms display arose as the accidental by-product of wholly non-teleological processes.”

But this is exactly what Kathryn Applegate argued in her columns on randomness and the immune system!

You write:

“Several of my past comments, to some extent, mentioned the connection of epigenetics to the neo-Darwinian controversy. I believe there is a significant relationship between epigenetics and neo-Darwinism. In epigenetics specifically, the way in which the expression of heritable traits is modified by environmental influences or other mechanisms without a change to the DNA sequence and the way that the random copying errors of neo-Darwinism are actually triggered by the environmental influences.”

As soon as you take into account epigenetics and environmental triggers, you have moved beyond neo-Darwinism. Indeed, especially epigenetics seems to strongly support a built-in teleology, as opposed to neo-Darwinism which rejects any such thing. Epigenetics offers very strong support for ID—but of course Venema etc. don’t read it that way.

When Stephen Meyer argued strongly that life could not have originated without design, he was savagely attacked on BioLogos by Ayala, Falk, and Venema (not one of whose specialty was origin of life); he was also attacked by Steve Matheson, another TE from Calvin College. But why should Christian scientists be so angry when a Christian philosopher of science argues that God’s design was needed to get life going? The TE/EC hostility to ID on origin of life makes no sense, from a religious point of view. Aquinas, Calvin, and yes even Wesley the great TE hero would all have said: Of course God designed the first life.

TE/EC biologists serve two masters (I trust you know this Biblical reference). They want very much for the secular scientific world to respect them as scientists—which means they must deny that there can be any evidence in nature for design. But they want to be faithful Christians—which means they must somehow work design in. And the tension is distorting their thought, and accounts for the incoherence of their arguments and their evasiveness when challenged. Very sad.

My reply;

Hi Eddie…

Your description of biology is rather interesting in that it is teleological—it has a goal and purpose, i.e., “to explain the origin of species,” however, “without any reference to teleology.” The implication is that biology has a goal and purpose (to explain the origin of species), but not a goal and purpose to explain that species [have] a goal and purpose. Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian biology explain evolution in terms of change over time through the process of natural selection working on random variations. Natural selection is the determining factor that selects from these variations for fitness. In evolution theory, fitness is the “ability to adapt” to the changing environment. Therefore, “adaptability” suggests the existence of “goal and purpose” in the process of natural selection. This goal and purpose must necessarily be the assured survival and prolongation of life of the organism. The predominant central goal and purpose of all life is the driving characteristic of survival—from the microbial world of bacteria and viruses, to the animal kingdom of survival of the fittest, to the urban jungle of endeavor for acceptance, success, and wealth. Of course, by stochastic chance variations, certain organisms become best suited to given environments, but this fact does not diminish the certainty that all organisms strive to survive.

The theory of evolution might be able to be explained in biological terms without mention of teleology, however, this does not mean that teleology is not at work in the process. It only suggests that the methodology behind biological evolution has been established upon the principles, methods, and rules of discussing evolution in non-teleological terms. Underlying this methodology, as has been elaborated before—philosophy establishes the systematic rigorous standards for intellectual deliberation by which the methodological procedures of the given sciences are organized that regulate this inquiry procedure. Thus, Darwinian and neo-Darwinian biology must abide by these ascribed standards—to not impute teleology into its deliberations for evolution. Teleology is necessarily a philosophical consideration, thus, while you are correct in characterizing Darwin and neo-Darwinism in this way (meaning that its proponents do not discuss evolution in terms of teleology) they very much understand teleology as being a fundamental principle in nature.

Accordingly, since I agree that the BioLogos TE/EC biologists—Falk, Venema, Applegate, Ard Louis, Denis Alexander, etc.—are hardcore neo-Darwinians in their biology, this does not invalidate the fact that they are more than knowledgeable that evolution [can] be described philosophically, in teleological terms. This is in agreement with your statement, “They don’t believe, [as scientists], that there needed to be any kind of tinkering, guiding, or planning to get evolution to produce man or any other outcome”—the randomness plus natural selection of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian biology can explain the process within its own methodology.

Here’s a relevant quote from James Stump taken from the comments section of the article posted by Deborah Haarsma, “What Americans Think and Feel about Evolution.”

“Divine action—and the action of agents in general—is notoriously difficult. The absence of a clear and compelling rigorous account of it does not distinguish BioLogos from any other organization I know of. Still, we are well aware that we need to be able to speak to the problem. This issue, like historical Adam and Eve and the Fall, is not one that we’re going to rush into and squelch discussion by mandating an official position for those in our community. But in broad strokes, we’re not deists; we believe that God is “mightily hands-on” to use Jeff Schloss’s phrase (Mightily Hands On - BioLogos). We believe God intentionally created human beings in his image. But we are suspicious of accounts of the providential action of God (I’m not addressing miracles here) that treats it as just one of the causes that scientific inquiry discovers and catalogs. There is something more going on in the world than science can detect, yet scientific explanations might very well be complete within their domain.”

This is where philosophy methodologically comes into the picture to fully elaborate on the matter and dictate the final dissertation on the metaphysics. As James Stump asserts, “Divine action—and the action of agents in general—is notoriously difficult.” Nevertheless, the BioLogos position is clearly presented, "…in broad strokes, we’re not deists; we believe that God is “mightily hands-on.” Mightily hands-on denotes a “steering” towards a certain goal and purpose—in other words, intention. Therefore, as one of their spokespersons, we can extrapolate from James Stump’s declaration that the BioLogos official position [is] teleological in nature, regardless of his statement that—“The issue…is not one that we’re going to rush into and squelch discussion by mandating an official position for those in our community.”

You write,

“Jon and I have pressed them on how an inherently non-teleological process could ever have guaranteed outcomes.”

However, they understand that it is not a non-teleological process—that teleology [is] required to guarantee outcomes. You state, “they will not discuss it.” However, they have discussed it—one must be able to read between the lines. This contradiction can only be explained in terms that you and Jon are not reading between the lines—You’re looking, but you’re not seeing, and, you’re listening, but you’re not hearing. You said, “They appeal vaguely to mystery or providence, then drop the discussion. This is a cowardly way of facing an intellectual difficulty with one’s theology.” Although… James was not appealing to mystery, nor to providence. The BioLogos position was clearly presented, "we’re not deists, he said, “…we are suspicious of accounts of the providential action of God.” This, of course, is because BioLogos believes in a “mightily hands-on” God—a God who is both imminent (who’s hands are “anthropomorphically” at the “steering wheel” of all creation and all life) and transcendent (above and beyond all creation and all life). For me, panentheism is but only an alternative way of bringing together and describing the imminent and transcendent aspects of God.

Hence, while I understand and sympathize with your point concerning the intellectual incoherence between neo-Darwinism and Christian theology, and your claim that ID has something to contribute to the discussion, I also understand that God is actively engaged with the final events befalling this world before the return of Christ. It would seem that the intellectual incoherence you refer to is part of the grand scheme of things—the observance and preservation of order and consistency amongst the ranks. In regard to ID having something important to contribute to the discussion—I suspect it already has and continues to do so (the speculation, discussion, and debate that it has set in motion).

It has become clearly evident that I wasn’t sufficiently specific in my previous comment concerning the neo-Darwinian biologists here at BioLogos and elsewhere. As illustrated above, neo-Darwinian biology explains evolution in terms of natural selection acting on random variations. Biologists adhere to this methodology as established and maintained by the leading members of the administrative faculties of our universities. In biological terms, it explains well the process of evolution. However, it lacks in one important respect—it excludes the premise of the teleological involvement for the selecting process of natural selection—which is actually the adaptability (ability to adapt) of the organism to its environment. If the significant element that the organism [strives to survive] were to be clearly understood it would establish the veracity of natural selection and the theory of evolution as a whole. It’s fair to say then, that a certain number of biologists (as many others in society) are of the opinion that natural selection is a blind process with no goal and no purpose. As a whole, the BioLogos organization professes the Christian tradition, therefore, I cannot fathom that any team member would implicitly or explicitly hold to unchristian beliefs (that there is no goal or purpose in life). Therefore, my original comment should have read that many TE/EC biologists in the [secular] world “[have] moved away from the traditional assumptions of neo-Darwinism”—moved away, from traditional assumptions, in that teleology [is] observed and recognized—if at all, teleology was not originally observed and recognized. Obviously, this includes the biologists at BioLogos.

I understand your concern that as an individual I, myself, lack the hard empirical evidence to justify my statements, therefore, these same statements are considered unwarranted. However, I will attempt to accurately and clearly substantiate my claims:

You noted, “you seem more inclined to imagine motives and thoughts than I am,” and have stated, “I don’t impute motives or thoughts to people unless I have things they have written or said to go on. But nothing these people have written or said would justify your above speculation.”

First and foremost, I will have to say that your assumption is wrong, because many things BioLogos has written and said [do] justify my speculations—I have already stated, above, that Jon and yourself are not correctly reading what BioLogos is saying. Secondly, it should be kept in mind that the issues that BioLogos discusses concern far more than BioLogos itself—it has already been voiced, in my previous comment, that I believe BioLogos represents the “Godhead,” an element far greater than BioLogos itself. Therefore it is pertinent to take into full consideration what has been written and said elsewhere by those whom BioLogos represents. Furthermore, your hesitation and distrust of “imagining and imputing motives and thoughts” can be used to illustrate the significance of the imagination. I will not go into detail here, but only mention, in passing, that the imagination can be used as a “sixth” sense to acquire previously unknown knowledge—of course one must be very careful, suspicious, and skeptical of fully trusting these imaginary observations without question. Other truths and facts must be taken into consideration within the whole context of the imagined verification process. Naturally there are methods and techniques used to sharpen this ability to extraordinary lengths. The imagination is also used incessantly for creative means—everything that comes into existence in this world is first imagined… only then, as a result, are the necessary steps taken into consideration to materialize them into reality. The Kabbalah states that God imagined the world (universe), including man, into existence—however, this is but anthropomorphization—God is (the eternal animating force). Just the same, millennia ago, man imagined a kingdom of peace and justice, a global society where war and crime would be no more and righteousness would reign supreme. The necessary initial steps were taken long before, but only now are coming to full fruition.

Therefore, If all these factors are taken into consideration with the point James Stump declared above, that, “There is something more going on in the world than science can detect, yet scientific explanations might very well be complete within their domain,” we can be confident and correctly affirm that at the appropriate time, through the agency of BioLogos, the Godhead will go public and fully explain the metaphysics. So, my claim that the BioLogos biologists are part of [that] group of biologists that have moved away from the traditional assumptions of neo-Darwinism stands as is—in that they understand the full meaning of neo-Darwinism (the teleological implications that have been constructed into the neo-Darwinian theory itself).

I wrote, “I don’t think BioLogos’ position is that the teleological behavior that organisms display arose as the accidental by-product of wholly non-teleological processes” and you replied, "But this is exactly what Kathryn Applegate argued in her columns on randomness and the immune system!

Accordingly, to bring this discussion full circle, “In vitalist philosophy, before phenomena move toward certain goals of self-realization they are initially guided by mechanical forces.” In this context, the definition of teleology implies that “final causes exist,” however, the definition of teleology also implies that “purpose and design” are a part of or are apparent in nature. Therefore, “final causes” can have different levels of consciously intentional “purpose and design.” However, that “final causes” exist [should not] unquestionably suggest that they have “purpose and design,” in that conscious intention is involved. Final causes can also have “purpose and design,” in that they are influenced and determined, or, given direction or tendency to by mechanical forces. (Note that the reference to different levels of conscious intention necessarily includes the primitive “instinctive behaviors” of earlier, or baser, forms of life). The origin of life clearly presents the borderline between strictly deterministic mechanical forces and different levels of consciously intentional “purpose and design.” We should rest assured and be of the opinion that [this] is the intimate point where intelligent design should be considered to have emerged—with the formation (creation) of life on earth, through deterministically directed mechanical forces, [life itself] becomes intelligent to design and evolve into the various species of our world.

During the Dover Trial on intelligent design evidence for irreducible complexity was presented before the court and shown to be myth. According to Behe’s reasoning, if any one part of the bacterial flagellum “motor” was missing it could not function. He therefore believed it could not have evolved, but rather, was designed fully assembled. However, this was found to be a false assumption. As part of his testimony Behe also wrongly attributed biologist David DeRosier’s statement in the 1998 “Cell” article, entitled—The Turn of the Screw: The Bacterial Flagellum Motor, that the Bacterial Flagellum Motor was designed. In the journal, David DeRosier writes—“More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human.” DeRosier later affirms, “What I wrote was that this machine looks like it was designed by a human—but that doesn’t mean that it was designed—that is by intelligent design.” He said, “This, more, has the earmarks that it arose by evolution.” It’s interesting, isn’t it, that even DeRosier feels compelled to distinguish between—designed (determined mechanical forces) from designed (intelligent design).

Indeed, taking into account epigenetics and environmental mechanisms we move beyond the basic assumptions of neo-Darwinism and into a whole new field of inquiry. That epigenetics seems to strongly support a built-in teleology shouldn’t be viewed as being in opposition to neo-Darwinism. Instead, epigenetics should be treated as a distinct science specialized in the specific characteristics of a new field of neo-Darwinism. Falk, Venema, Applegate, etc., must surely understand these categorical considerations!

At this point we must determine the definitions of the words “life,” “intelligence,” and “design” in order to answer the question of whether “the first life” could have originated without “design.”

Life: “the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.”

Intelligence: “capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.”

Design: Verb—“to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), especially to plan the form and structure of.” Noun—“an outline, sketch, or plan, as of the form and structure of a work of art, an edifice, or a machine to be executed or constructed.”—Note that determined mechanical forces [can] “prepare” the preliminary sketch or the plans for a work to be executed through momentum, impetus, or course of events. As such, this would be considered the outline, sketch, or plan of nature’s formation (creation).

To infer that “first life” was designed by intelligent design, life and intelligence would necessarily be essential. Since “first life”—by necessity—is “first life” no life could have existed before “first life.” Accordingly, since design (in the strict sense of the word) cannot exist without intelligence, an intelligent designer cannot exist without life. Therefore the premise that life was designed by an intelligent designer is false.

Alternatively, if we say that the universe, through deterministic mechanical forces, had the capacity to develop life and intelligence, and through that life and intelligence was able to learn to intelligently design more complex life, the premise that life was developed through deterministic mechanical forces would be true.

Thus, the answer to the question of whether “the first life” could have originated without “design?”—is a resounding Yes! For the purpose of clarity it should be repeated—“the origin of life presents the borderline between strictly deterministic mechanical forces and different levels of consciously intentional “purpose and design.” We should rest assured and be of the opinion that this is the intimate point where intelligent design should be considered to have originated.” Life intelligently designed itself once the deterministic mechanical forces of nature sparked “the first life” into existence.

Therefore, the reason Stephen Meyer was savagely attacked on BioLogos by Ayala, Falk, and Venema was because he argued strongly in support of a false premise—that life could not have originated without design. There is no way around the rational and empirical methods of scientific inquiry which are directed and guided by strict methodological philosophic tenets. The difference between who the Christian is and who the Christian is, all depends on the intention behind “who” and “what” they are fighting for. The TE/EC hostility to ID on origin of life makes no sense from a religious point of view, however, it makes all the sense in the world from a philosophical point of view. Aquinas, Calvin, Wesley, etc. would all have said: Of course God designed the first life—through “determined mechanical forces”, no doubt—if they were in their right mind.

That the TE/EC biologists at BioLogos want very much for the secular scientific world to respect them as scientists is only natural, of course. This necessarily suggests that they must deny any evidence of intelligent design on origins. However, that “the first life” intelligently designed itself is a different matter altogether. As such, that there can be no evidence in nature for design is a wrong statement in itself, since the “first Life,” through intelligence, designed all subsequent life. TE/ECs definitely want to be faithful Christians, which means that they work design in—where the science leads them.

Finally, the tension in the center is very powerful indeed between TE/EC and ID, just as it is between the militaries of the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, and between the white pieces and the black pieces in a fierce game of chess. The tension in the center must be relieved at the appropriate moment—when it is in the favor of those concerned. Distortion of thought is often all too familiar and definitely accounts for the incoherence of arguments and evasiveness when the novice is challenged. However, here, we are grand masters and the world champion can easily find the check mate in 12, which is why I very much believe the game is coming to a swift close. In the game of chess, as in real life, the bishops are very tricky fellows indeed.

[End]

With all the delusions of grandeur, I don’t think Judge Jones was the deluded one either!

Tony

With respect to teaching “science” (and I’ve taught science in colleges for some 30 years), the situation is horrible. Students don’t learn about the scientific method. In the biological sciences they learn facts, not how we know and understand about life. In Chemistry and Physics they learn how to solve problems–e.g. stochiometry, ballistics, etc–that have little relevance to what science is all about…
We would do much better to teach the history of science. Students would then learn that science is fallible. Theories that were acceptable at one time–phlogiston, the caloric, ether–become superseded by new theories, new experimental data. But since the teachers of science in the public school have never engaged in the practice of science, the curricula will not change, alas…

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