The ID Report

Ideas have consequences. That was the title of Richard Weaver's 1948 book which opened with this observation: “Every man participating in a culture has three levels of conscious reflection: his specific ideas about things, his general beliefs or convictions, and his metaphysical dream of the world.” The primary focus at ARN is on the Darwin vs. Design debate, but the reason we think it is such an important debate is because these are powerful ideas that have consequences in many other areas of life. Bioethics is one such area we would like to focus on in this month’s newsletter. What is the underlying ‘metaphysical dream of the world’ that was driving the decisions of those involved in the Terri Schiavo case? For the most part they remain unstated, but like a CSI forensic scientist we can piece together the clues with the help of our featured authors Jim Reitman and Wesley Smith to get a pretty good picture.

Perhaps more painful than any other object lesson to emerge out of the life and death of Terri Schiavo is this recurring realization: Once end of life controversies are relegated to the courts, all the colorful subtleties that comprise meaningful life making it worth pursuing, are bleached white by the caustic chlorine of the ethic of radical individualism, and its derivative Contractual Model of decisionmaking upon which both the courts, and increasingly the medical profession, lean all too heavily. It has become obvious over the last 40 years in a succession of legal controversies over the so-called “end of life” issues that the god of personal autonomy has now bullied its way into medicine and has all but totally extinguished the ethics of care.

Our featured author, Jim Reitman, has tackled three such “end of life” dilemmas in a series of articles promoting a rational alternative to the Contractual Model of decisionmaking, a Wisdom Model based on precepts found in Old Testament wisdom literature. Drawn from the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom Model reveals that ambiguity is the rule rather than the exception in “end of life” decisionmaking, and the added pain and disillusionment of suffering while life remains, typically makes a travesty of ethical individualism and the Contractual Model of decisionmaking: Personal preferences expressed in the face of uncertainty are “held hostage” by the pain of suffering and the contagion of despair. Such preferences are thus bedeviled by ambivalence and jeopardize true community and care. The Wisdom model looks suffering and ambiguity squarely in the face to reveal how these counterparts of suffering induce our profound disillusionment with self-sufficiency and draw our attention away from our own demands and toward a larger design for our lives. Such Wisdom cannot help but restore true community and care to end of life decisionmaking.

The first article deals with the issue of Physician Assisted Suicide and exposes how the radical individualism underlying recent legal precedence in end of life cases has insidiously emasculated the medical profession by ignoring moral deliberation, and eliminating the prerogative of true care and advocacy in end of life scenarios that come to the courts’ attention. The article makes it clear why the next step to Court Assisted Suicide in the Schiavo case was such a short step, revealing how both due process and equal protection for the medically disabled were trampled by the radical individualism that has imbued the “death with dignity” movement with such power that determines the outcome in such cases.

The second article tackles the dilemma of Medical Futility and exposes how the premise that advance directives can truly preserve autonomous choice has really become the “emperor with no clothes.” Even conservative theists have been hoodwinked into believing that Advance Directives, including the Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare, can really protect the wisdom of community and care against the incursions of legally sanctioned radical autonomy. The Wisdom model illuminates why neither Schiavo’s parents, nor the governor of Florida, nor the medical profession (in their futile attempt to physiologically define the limits of meaningful life), nor the President, nor the Congress of the United States could withstand even the most tenuous and ambiguous of presumptive “previously expressed preferences.” The article also reveals why the very notion of expressed preferences is itself fatally flawed by the ambiguity and uncertainty that typically characterizes end of life decisions.

The third article exposes the deceptive and deadly philosophical underpinnings of the rationale for Partial Birth Abortion as a legitimate solution to the agonizing anguish of Fatal Congenital Anomalies discovered in utero by genetic testing. By revealing how the rationale itself is fatally flawed even in this seemingly logical and acceptable way to mitigate the suffering of bearing a doomed pregnancy to term, the article uses the Wisdom Model to subvert the rationale for abortion in any case, possibly excepting clear and present danger to the life of the mother (as in ectopic pregnancy).

Together, these three articles provide a sound rationale to question radical autonomy as ever constituting an adequate or legitimate basis for finding lasting meaning in so-called “end of life” dilemmas. The Wisdom Model provides a rational template to surface the issues that truly contribute to lasting meaning, and to develop the circle of community that helps discover that meaning over time, as disillusionment and the pain of suffering give way to redemptive purposes in that suffering.

Regular readers may recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic, "Was Darwin Wrong?". NGs tend to hang around a long time in school systems, so a handy source of corrective information may prove useful. Later, I will put all the information on the By Design or by Chance? website as well. Meanwhile, you can find it at the end of each of my blogs, starting with "National Geographic Cheerleads for Darwin but Drops the Baton".

On pages 14–15, we see a moth that has an 11-inch proboscis, and that depends for its sustenance on an orchid found in Madagascar. The orchid sports an 11-inch nectar receptacle. Darwin, on observing the orchid, predicted the existence of the moth. Sure enough, 40 years later, two entomologists found it. NG identifies this relationship as an instance of co-evolution. So far so good …

The problem is, this level of co-evolution is not a good demonstration of how species become other species. Let's keep in mind here that Darwin did not offer to explain to us that the world is full of weird and wonderful things, such as two species that keep developing longer and longer appendages in order to keep up with each other's ever longer appendages. He offered to demonstrate how the whole panoply of life could become what it is today without any design at all. The moth and orchid are not a demonstration of anything like that.

The moth and orchid do provide a good demonstration of how species become extinct. Most species that have ever lived are extinct, for a variety of reasons, so it is worth considering probable causes. These two species have greatly increased their risk of extinction by becoming so dependent on each other. That is, if the moth becomes extinct, the orchid will too. It is too bad that National Geographic wanted to use these exotic life forms to demonstrate origin of species, when they make so much better an example of how radical specialization can help explain extinction of species.

The frustrating thing about the National Geographic cover story on evolution (November 2004) is that it lists a number of facts about the general history of life that are not in dispute (men have nipples and snakes have the remains of leg bones, for example) and then claims these facts as evidences for Darwin's theory in particular. (See pages 12–14.) But Darwin's theory is not distinguished by its ability to come up with an explanation for these effects; it is distinguished by its insistence that all life forms, with all their complexity, arose without any design whatsoever, as an outcome purely of chance mutations, acted on by natural law. As you might expect, the NG article carefully obscures that point.

To see what I mean about explanations, let's look at an alternative source: Some Christians interpret the first chapters of the Book of Genesis literally. I don't myself, but for now, let's do that. Without going any further than Genesis 2:6, I could explain why men have nipples: because Eve was taken from Adam's side, and she needed them even if he didn't. I can possibly explain why the snake once walked, but now doesn't: Perhaps it was a punishment for bad behaviour, though I suspect that the talkative creature in Genesis is no average snake …

Now, let me be quite clear about the point I am making here: All sources of received wisdom or inspiration attempt to explain the way life is; we pay attention to those explanations that accord with our global understanding of life and discount the others. So the mere fact that Darwinism can provide an explanation does not entitle the Darwinist to claim that the facts for which he can offer an explanation prove his theory that life forms develop over time without design. Other explanations must be considered as well. Are other explanations better or worse?

Here is an example: A key fact that NG cites in support of Darwinism is the five-digit limb that characterizes so many vertebrates, whether it appears as a hand, paw, flipper, or wing. Darwin is said to have "supplied the answer" (page 13). The five-digit limb, we are assured, was caused by "common descent, as shaped by natural selection." But was it?

If all these creatures have five-digit limbs simply because they are descended from a common ancestor, we will find that early embryos develop limbs using the same body segments. But they don't. Here is how biochemist Michael Denton describes limb development in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

"The forelimbs develop from the trunk segments 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the newt, segments 6, 7, 8 and 9 in the lizard and from segments 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 in man" (page 146). As I said in By Design or by Chance? this finding is more consistent with a design hypothesis than a Darwinian one. It looks very much as though a design is put into effect in each case, and the creature struggles toward its eventual shape using whichever materials are most convenient. It is the goal that is common here, not the source. And goals are associated with design, not chance.

None of this proves intelligent design, disproves common ancestry, or demonstrates that natural selection does not occur. But it does show that the "overwhelming" evidence for Darwinian evolution that we keep hearing about from Darwinists is largely an illusion. The illusion is created simply by appropriating a large base of assorted facts and stating that Darwin explained them, therefore Darwinism is true. No wonder there are now so many controversies over the compulsory teaching of Darwinism in the school system! It will be interesting to see when, if ever, the old mainstream print and broadcast media start to get the picture.

Regular readers may recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic, "Was Darwin Wrong?" NGs tend to hang around a long time in school systems, so a handy source of corrective information may prove useful. Later, I will put all the information on the By Design or by Chance? website as well. Meanwhile, you can find it at the end of each of my blogs, starting with "National Geographic Cheerleads for Darwin but Drops the Baton".

Moving right along here, on page 8, we are told, "Evolution is both a beautiful concept and an important one, more crucial nowadays to human welfare, to medical science, and to our understanding of the world than ever before." First, let's keep in mind that by "evolution," National Geographic means Darwin's theory of evolution, according to which life forms evolved through time from an amoeba to a human without any intelligent design at all. (If you think there is any design at all, you are not a Darwinist.) The term "medical science" struck a chord with me because of a story I researched and briefly told in By Design or by Chance?, and will now present here:

Micah Spradling, who planned to become a doctor and specialize in prosthetics, had no problem in his Texas Tech classes with learning about the evidence for human evolution from lower animals. But he was surprised and concerned when his professor, Michael Dini, demanded in 2002 that he "truthfully and forthrightly" believe in it if he expected a letter of recommendation to medical school. The language is reminiscent of creeds and religious revivals. Worse, Dini was the only professor whose recommendation would be relevant to Spradling's career plans.
When it comes to medicine, Dini argued, on his Web site: "How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?" Acknowledging that all the needed information on human ancestry is not yet available, he said that if physicians do not accept common ancestry of humans and lower animals, it is easy to imagine that they can make "poor clinical decisions."

Several area doctors took issue with Dini's claims and said that evolution has nothing to do with clinical decisions. "That would be like Texas Tech telling him he had to be a Christian to teach biology," said one. He asked: "How dare someone who has never treated a sick person purport to impose his feelings about evolution on someone who aspires to treat such people?"

The university backed Dini, arguing that the decision to write a letter of recommendation was a personal one. It also claimed in published documents that Dini was a devout Christian who had studied for the priesthood and that his criteria "are not discriminatory against Christians." The university's Honors College had also named him Teacher of the Year in 1998 1999. Michael Duff, in his column in Universitydaily.net, described Dini as "defending his profession against barbarians who would tear it down."

It came out that Dini was in the habit of talking about religion in his biology class. One student claimed that the professor wasn't "anti-religion" but that he "just believes that religion has no insight on evolution," a comment that gives more insight into the character of the class discussion than the student perhaps realized.

Liberty Legal Institute, which specializes in religious freedom, contended that Dini is a state-paid official using a state-funded Web site to discriminate. In January 2003, the US Justice Department investigated a complaint filed by the Institute.

After discussions between the university, the Liberty Institute, the Justice Department, and Dini, Dini changed his policy in 2003. He changed the wording slightly so that students must be able to explain the Darwinian theory of evolution in scientific terms, while not being required to explicitly profess a belief in it. Justice department lawyer Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., assistant attorney general for civil rights, said:
The new policy rightly recognizes that students don't have to give up their religious beliefs to be good doctors or good scientists. A biology student may need to understand the theory of evolution and be able to explain it. But a state-run university has no business telling students what they should or should not believe in.

Micah Spradling was not in a position to wait for the mess to be sorted out the following year. He transferred to Lubbock Christian University. He almost didn't get in because the classes were full, but when LCU officials were shown Dini's original policy, they relented and made a place for him.

So, is the main effect of Darwinism on medicine the fact that it bars entry to those who doubt it? Next time, we will look more at the state of the evidence for the key mechanism of Darwin's theory: natural selection.

National Geographic on why people don't believe Darwinism

Regular readers may recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic , "Was Darwin Wrong?". NGs tend to hang around a long time in school systems, so a handy source of corrective information may prove useful. Later, I will put all the information on the By Design or by Chance? as well. Meanwhile, you can find it at the end of each blog, starting with "National Geographic Cheerleads for Darwin but Drops the Baton."

Moving right along, on page 4, we are informed that "Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory." So, we are told, is relativity, the sun-centred solar system, continental drift, and so forth. They are all theories. And the clear implication is: Shame on you if you do not accord Darwin's theory the same amount of credibility that you give to the fact that the Earth orbits the sun.

Indeed, we are informed that the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of whether we could classify them as religious fundamentalists, reject Darwin's theory (45 percent are creationists and 37 percent are theistic evolutionists, according to Gallup figures cited by the magazine). Only 12 percent believe that "humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god" [which is what Darwin believed]. The magazine blames these low numbers on creationists who interfere with the teaching of science and on Americans' ignorance about science.

Nonsense. The reasons that so few people believe in Darwin's theory are:

1. It is incredible. We are asked to believe that a pondful of amoebas turned into the French academy (in George Bernard Shaw's famous phrase) with no design or guidance whatsoever. Now, that could be true. After all, some incredible things are true. But the fact that it is incredible makes it a tough sell that requires a lot of credible evidence.

2. It is unlikely. If there really is a God, He almost certainly does affect life on Earth. So we should expect to see at least some evidence of design, and most people say they in fact do.

3. Many facts in nature do not accord particularly well with Darwin's theory. Among the ones discussed in earlier weblogs are the Big Bang, the fine tuning of the universe, the relative rarity of planets like Earth, and the awesome complexity of life forms. The general drift of these findings clearly suggests a designed universe with the creation of intelligent life forms as the goal.

I tend to be suspicious when informed that the reason the vast majority of ordinary people disbelieve in a theory promoted by Top People is merely that the people don't know any better. Almost always, the people do know better. I never realized how much trouble Darwin's theory was in until I started to examine some of the well-written but shallow explanations of why we should believe it.

National Geographic's fancy pouters: Under all that fluff lurks a plain old "Do Not Feed" pigeon!

In recent blogs I addressed the editor's comments, but now let's look at the photos and text. To start, on pages 3 and 17 are some fine photos of fancy breeders' pigeons, and page 16 features an impressive bulldog. Pigeons, like dogs, can be bred to a variety of appearances. Darwin studied fancy pigeon breeding in order to see whether these captive creatures might help him understand how a pond full of amoebas can turn into the French academy.

The trouble is, they don't help us. When pigeons are taken from the wild, artificially segregated, and bred to produce a distinct type, two facts stand out:

a) The breeding decisions are acts of intelligent design, not Darwinian survival of the fittest. The fancy products of human design compare to the natural bird in about the same way as the fancy pet rat compares to the wharf vermin. Almost all the ways in which the human-bred type differs from the wild type make it less fit, not more fit. So Darwinian evolution is precisely what the fancy bred animal cannot contribute to.

b) Segregating birds (or dogs, horses or other animals) in this way enables characteristics that were always possible in the wild type to be artificially protected from the cruelties of nature. If the creatures are released into the wild, any survivors return to a generic type that still offers the fancy possibilities but expresses the ones most likely to promote survival.

Thus, your local urban park is overrun with Do Not Feed pigeons, not a variety of fancy pouters.

So we have not turned a pond full of amoeba into the French academy. All we have done is expressed some interesting possibilities in a protected setting.

Darwin hoped that after millions of years a natural selection process might cause a new type of bird to somehow arise from the pigeon without the input of intelligent design. Could it happen? Maybe, … but fancy breeding does not demonstrate that. Stay tuned. This gets to be even more fun later.

National Geographic and "faith which lies beyond"

Regular readers may recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic, "Was Darwin Wrong?".

At the close of his truly amazing editorial, editor Bill Allen writes,

"Our magazine aims to explore the world, often by highlighting scientific concepts such as evolution. Is this approach necessarily at odds with faith, which lies beyond the possibility of scientific proof? No. … "
Now, the assertion that faith "lies beyond the possibility of scientific proof" is a theological statement. It's rare for editors of secular publications to make such statements. This one is actually a critical theological statement.

Leading Christian in science Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, specifically denounces the view that faith is not based on evidence in his recent book Dawkins' God Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life (Blackwell 2004). He takes aim at fellow Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous Darwinist who has long used Darwinian evolution as a platform for promoting atheism. McGrath made a special study of Christian theologians to find out if any of them thought, as Dawkins claims, that faith means belief without evidence. He did not find any.

The reason I make an issue out of this is that—perhaps unintentionally—editor Allen has defined faith in a way that undermines it by cutting it off from the world of evidence. A better definition of faith is given in By Design or by Chance?: "belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible" (William James). In that case, evidence becomes important rather than irrelevant. We'll soon see why that would be a problem for National Geographic's defense of Darwinism.

Regular weblog readers will recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic (NG), "Was Darwin Wrong?". NGs tend to hang around a long time in school systems, so a handy source of corrective information may prove useful. Later, I will put all the information on the By Design or by Chance? website.

Editor Bill Allen thinks that the public is confused about what Darwinian evolution means.

In "From the Editor," he writes, "Some of the confusion stems from the phrase the 'theory of evolution.' When scientists say 'theory,' they mean a statement based on observation or experimentation that explains facets of the observable world so well that it becomes accepted as fact. They do not mean an idea created out of thin air, nor do they mean an unsubstantiated belief."

Allen himself sounds a bit confused. No theory becomes accepted as fact. Theories become accepted, period. A theory is an explanation for a pattern of events. No amount of confirmation can make the theory into a fact; it remains a well-confirmed theory.

But who on earth thinks that when scientists use the word "theory" they mean thin air or unsubstantiated belief? The core of the controversy, which is not based on confusion, is the fact that Darwinists attempt to suppress any theory of evolution other than theirs.

Life forms change over time. Various theories try to explain changes, large and small. The question is, what theory explains a change best?

As I said in By Design or by Chance?, "Evolution is the theory that all life forms are descended from one or several common ancestors that were present on the early earth, three to four billion years ago." That theory may be right or wrong, but it does not rule out design.

However, Darwinian evolution—the kind that is taught in school and is controversial—is a theory that "each life form has certain random mutations that make it either more or less fit to survive in a given environment. Over time, these random mutations create the vast array of life forms that we see, from sponges to elephants to people. There is no need for design."

The main reason for confusion, which seems more widespread in media than anywhere else, is that Darwinian evolutionists have largely succeeded in making their particular no-design theory about how evolution happens sound equivalent to the fact of the change in life forms over time. And they can make life very difficult for anyone who disagrees.

As biologist Stephen E. Jones notes, when questioned specifically about whether Darwin might be wrong, "' … evolutionists switch the question to the vaguer term Evolution. But that's not working as well as it used to, hence the tizzy of spin doctoring in major media.

If in doubt, doubt—but now you can check it out!

There have been masses of stories in the print media lately about intelligent design. Some are thoughtful. But unfortunately, in addition to its fair share of ideologues, the print media feature many hardworking and competent but overworked journalists with drop-dead deadlines who simply phone up a local ID opponent and ask for a juicy quote. It shows, too. The good news is that these legacy media practices help to demonstrate the real power of the weblog. Forget the print media. Check out what ID scientists themselves say ID is. A print medium can't let you do that, but a weblog can.

And stay tuned. It gets wilder by the week out there.