Transcript INTELLIGENT DESIGN ON TRIAL (With comments on the Kitzmiller v Dover trial) What is Intelligent Design? Both of these aspects will be discussed: • A.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN
ON TRIAL
(With comments on the Kitzmiller
v Dover trial)
What is Intelligent Design?
Both of these aspects will be discussed:
• A movement with political and cultural goals,
heavily influenced by religion, aimed at toppling
“Darwinism” (here understood as a broad
cultural mindset, not simply evolution)
AND
• A set of ideas about detecting design within
science, coupled with a critique of “Darwinism”
(here understood as evolution by natural
selection, unguided by any detectable agent)
What is Intelligent Design?
• ID is not “creationism,” despite Judge Jones’
decision and the testimony leading to it. It
clearly lacks some crucial distinguishing features
of creationism and the specific religious
concerns that drive creationism.
• E.g., it takes no stance on the central theological
issue that drives creationism, “death before the
fall” (theodicy). If one does not understand this,
one does not understand what creationism is.
ID is not “creationism”
• E.g., ID does not “explain” the fossil record
by claiming that the Biblical flood accounts
for it
• E.g., ID does not deny the “Big Bang”
theory—indeed, some of the most
interesting “design” arguments assume the
truth of the “Big Bang” theory
• E.g., ID does not deny the great antiquity
of the earth and universe
What is Intelligent Design?
• Currently, the ID movement is, to use its own
language, a “big tent” under whose sprawling
canvas there is plenty of room for differences of
opinion about theological and biblical issues
related to the age of the earth.
What is Intelligent Design?
• ID does however resemble creationism in its
tone—evolution is often seen as a false scientific
theory and as the leading cause of moral and
spiritual decline in modern America.
• Furthermore, ID adherents have often been
reluctant clearly to admonish creationist allies.
E.g., a few years ago creationists in Kansas
removed the “big bang” theory from state
science standards, and many of the same
people are allied with ID advocates now in
ongoing efforts to change science education in
Kansas.
What is Intelligent Design?
• Much confusion about what “ID” is, relative to
“creationism,” at the popular level.
• E.g., in Annville-Cleona (PA) a few years ago,
“creationists” on the school board banned the
use of a children’s book mentioning the “Big
Bang” theory, and at the same time made
reference to “irreducible complexity.” A failure
here to realize that most ID advocates embrace
both of these things.
What is Intelligent Design?
• E.g., my experience at the Smithsonian
Institution showing of The Privileged Planet DVD
in June 2005.
What is Intelligent Design?
• This has led to situations such as the one
in Dover, in which the school board
members themselves were clueless about
what ID actually is. They were unable to
answer questions from journalists about
what ID is, yet they voted to refer to it in a
statement that was ordered to be read in
biology classes!
What is Intelligent Design?
• ID is NOT, at least not yet, an alternative theory
to evolution, an alternative “theory of everything”
in a certain sense
• ID, unlike “creationism,” does not purport to be
such a theory. It does not, for example, offer an
answer to such questions as how and when
dinosaurs came into existence; or how old the
universe is.
• This, IMO, counts against its acceptance by the
scientific community
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (1962)
• “ … once it has achieved
the status of paradigm, a
scientific theory is
declared invalid only if an
alternative candidate is
available to take its
place.” p. 77
• “The decision to reject
one paradigm is always
simultaneously the
decision to accept
another …” p. 77
What is Intelligent Design?
• Presently there is no ID “theory” to “teach,”
no alternative explanation of the history of
the universe and the life it contains.
• ID is, however, a philosophical critique of
the explanatory efficacy of evolution.
What is Intelligent Design?
• ID is not (yet) discussed in professional scientific
literature (for the most part), but it is being
discussed in some professional literature about
the philosophy of science.
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
nature, and science can
detect it. How?
• William Dembski: when
we find, in some aspects
of nature, “specified
complexity,” enormously
improbable events that fit
a specific pattern
• Such things cannot be
accounted for by chance
and law alone, or chance
and law working together
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
nature, and science
can detect it. How?
• William Dembski: The
Design Inference
What are key ID ideas?
• Dembski: “The
Explanatory Filter
faithfully represents
our ordinary practice
of sorting through
things we alternately
attribute to law,
chance, or design.”
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
nature, and science
can detect it.
• Where?
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
the universe itself
• Fine tuning of the
cosmos (linked with
big bang and strong
anthropic principle)
• And the cosmic
singularity
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
the origin of life
• The first ID book,
before there was an
ID movement, is
perhaps still the best:
The Mystery of Life’s
Origin (New York:
Philosophical Library,
1984)
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in the
“irreducible complexity” of
cells
• Michael Behe: unguided
forces of nature cannot
produce some complex
structures
• E.g., bacterial flagellum
What are key ID ideas?
• Design is evident in
the Cambrian
explosion, the “big
bang of biology”
• Steven Meyer
(philosopher of
science and former
geophysicist)
What are key ID ideas?
• Paul Nelson: We need
more explanatory tools to
account for biological
diversity and complexity
• That is, we need “design”
• “Design” is invoked to
supplement “natural”
causes
• Here, “natural” contrasts
with “intelligent,” not
“supernatural”
What are some goals of the ID
movement?
• A narrower goal: to replace Darwinian
evolution as the dominant paradigm in
biology, in this present generation if not
the next
• A wider goal: cultural transformation
What are some goals of the ID
movement?
• Phillip Johnson: The
“wedge” strategy
• “Design” is the “entering
wedge of truth, splitting
the foundations of
naturalism.”
• Johnson believes that
accepting methodological
naturalism (MN) fatally
damages morality and
culture
What are some goals of the ID
movement?
• Dembski believes that ID’s challenge to
evolution and naturalism is “ground zero of the
culture war.”
What are some goals of the ID
movement?
• “Because of Kitzmiller v.
Dover, school boards and
state legislators may
tread more cautiously, but
tread on evolution they
will — the culture war
demands it!” (from
Dembski’s preface to
Darwin’s Nemesis)
What about naturalism?
• ID advocates see
naturalism, not evolution
itself, as the ultimate
problem
• “Theistic or ‘guided’
evolution has to be
excluded as a possibility
because Darwinists
identify science with a
philosophical doctrine
known as naturalism.” (p.
114)
What about naturalism?
• ID advocates typically accept naturalism for
understanding how the world works now, but
they reject it for understanding some aspects of
how the world came to be the way it now is.
That is, they push the distinction between the
“empirical sciences” which can be verified from
direct observation and the “historical sciences”
in which (in their view) “just-so stories” can
always be invented to explain away the
appearance(s) of design.
What about naturalism?
• That is, they push the distinction between
the “empirical sciences” and the “historical
sciences” much further than mainstream
scientists would push it.
• Historically, “creationists” have also
pushed this distinction very, very hard—it
is in fact crucial to creationism. Is it also
crucial to ID?
What about naturalism?
• Historically, scientists
have always sought
to find naturalistic
explanations for as
many phenomena as
possible. This does
seem to put ID on a
collision course with
the history of science.
Historical vs Empirical Sciences
• The late Ernst Mayr
gets at this distinction
in some of his
writings, such as
What Makes Biology
Unique? (2004)
Historical vs Empirical Sciences
• Quoting a review by
Lukas K. Buehler: “With
this book Mayr demands
a philosophy of biology
that treats biology as an
autonomous science,
distinct in many respects
from the dominant hard
science (Wissenschaft) of
physics and chemistry,
and similar to the soft
science of the humanities
(Geisteswissenschaften),
particularly history.”
Historical vs Empirical Sciences
• “Mayr distinguishes two
aspects of biology: functional
biology that relies on
experimental approaches of
the hard science and asks how
something happens, and
evolutionary biology that is
driven by asking why and uses
methodologies familiar to the
humanities like historical
narratives and comparison, for
instance in anatomy and
genomics (studying
similarities).”
What are some specific
strategies?
• To challenge the way in
which evolution is taught
in schools: evolution
should be taught, but
“teach the controversy”
also
• That is, tell students that
some parts of evolution
as presented in textbooks
are contested by some
scientists
What about Dover?
What about Dover?
• Text of the intelligent design statement
Dover, Pa., teachers were instructed to
read to their students:
• The Pennsylvania Academic Standards
require students to learn about Darwin’s
theory of evolution and eventually to take
a standardized test of which evolution is a
part.
What about Dover?
• Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues
to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The
theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for
which there is no evidence. A theory is defined
as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad
range of observations.
• Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin
of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The
reference book, “Of Pandas and People,” is
available for students who might be interested in
gaining an understanding of what intelligent
design actually involves.
What about Dover?
• With respect to any
theory, students are
encouraged to keep an
open mind. The school
leaves the discussion of
the origins of life to
individual students and
their families. As a
standards-driven district,
class instruction focuses
upon preparing students
to achieve proficiency on
standards-based
assessments.
What about Dover?
• One thing was entirely clear from the
testimony and the judge’s decision: the
local history of events in Dover linked ID
with creationism inseparably—in Dover, at
least.
• The judge’s ruling went further than this,
however, and controversy has erupted
over this.
What about Dover?
• “The evidence at trial
demonstrates that ID is
nothing less than the
progeny of creationism,”
Judge Jones wrote.
• As a result, “it is
unconstitutional to teach
ID as an alternative to
evolution in a public
school science
classroom.”
What about Dover?
What about Dover?
• Forrest’s study of the
“evolution” of a key ID
text, Of Pandas and
People, was crucial to
the judge’s ruling.
What about Dover?
What about Dover?
• Where does Judge
Jones’ decision leave us?
• I don’t think we really
know yet. At the moment
it applies to two area
codes.
• And its wording does
seem to leave the
possibility that science
teachers might still
discuss ID in certain
contexts.
What about Dover?
• Prior to the ruling,
Edward Larson, the
leading scholar of
creationism and the
law, held that a
science teacher could
discuss ID if he or she
had a clear secular
educational purpose
for doing so.
What about Dover?
• 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 the relevance of the
subject to questions regarding the interpretation of data
and the formulation of hypotheses; and to questions
regarding the nature of science itself.
• I believe that a science teacher might still be allowed to
mention ideas linked with ID as examples of ideas in the
philosophy of science—if they choose to. At the same
time, however, I believe that teachers should point out
the controversial nature of those ideas.
Larger Issues
• The First Amendment
does not drive opposition
to evolution, but it does
shape it substantially.
• Is evolution really
religiously neutral?
• Do public schools have to
remain religiously
neutral?
• Is religious neutrality the
same thing as
secularism?
Larger Issues
Larger Issues
• The demographics suggest an unstable
situation for many years, with large
numbers of Americans wanting both
evolution and either creationism or ID
taught in public schools, while the
scientific establishment opposes this.
• Is it possible to find any solution to this
situation that is acceptable to enough
Americans to make it politically viable?
Larger Issues
• On April 28, 2005, the journal
Nature suggested in an
editorial headed “Dealing with
Design,” 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.”
• Is this even possible and/or
desirable in public school
science classes?
• What about at the university
level?
Larger Issues
• “… faceless, bureaucratic state
power intrudes more and more
into our lives and removes
choices and options that
should belong to individuals
and communities. I can
understand that evolution in a
mandated state curriculum
might be seen as one more
insult on all these grounds.”
• Gould goes on to deny that
evolution is really the culprit,
but I think we would be badly
mistaken to conclude that it
has nothing to do with the
problem.
Concluding Thoughts
• I do not see any solution on the horizon
that will satisfy both the majority of
Americans and the scientific community.
• If we want to work more productively
toward possible solutions, however, my
suggestion is to keep in mind the following
four things.
Concluding Thoughts
• Science is not value-free.
• Education is not value-free; and "secular," public
education is not actually religiously neutral.
• If we are to give religious citizens the same
respect we give to other citizens, we need to
take religion more seriously. We might even
need to expand the range of viewpoints that will
count as publicly funded educational options—
although this might not be a politically viable
option.
Concluding Thoughts
Failing this, we need at least to take science more seriously
in public education:
• To help students clarify the type of knowledge it actually
represents, relative to philosophy, religion, etc.
• To explain far better than we presently do how scientific
hypotheses are formed, tested, and evaluated—and,
since instructional time is a zero-sum game, some other
scientific content must be sacrificed to do this.
• To discuss some of the ways in which science relates to
religious beliefs. I believe that more attention to the
history and philosophy of science in science classes is a
potentially helpful way to accomplish this.