The ID Report

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"There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows."
(Francis Darwin (editor), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (New York: D. Appleton, 1887), Vol. I, pp. 278-279.)

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"Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned."
(George Gaylord Simpson [major mid-20th century Darwinian evolutionist], The Meaning of Evolution, revised ed. (Yale University Press, 1967), p. 345.)

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"We have established scientifically some disquieting facts: (1) human beings have evolved from nonhuman life forms, meaning that (2) at one time we did not exist, and that (3) according to paleontological and astronomical evidence, at some time in the future we shall cease to exist. Furthermore, from a scientific standpoint, there is no discernible reason that we had to evolve in the first place, and there is no guarantee that we shall continue to evolve successfully; more hominid species have become extinct than have survived. The price of such knowledge has been the gnawing question of whether human existence has genuine meaning if it was constructed with cranes rather than supported by skyhooks, as Daniel Dennett says.

"The problem of meaning is easily resolved for those who embrace a preconstructed system of meaning such as religion. However, religion cannot help us find meaning in any honest sense unless it can assimilate the truth about where human beings have come from, and the only real knowledge we have about where we came from we have acquired through science."
(Barbara Forrest [current Darwin lobbyist who testified in the current Dover case], "The Possibility of Meaning in Human Evolution," Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 35.4 (Dec 2000), 861-889, p 862, notes omitted.)

This last comment, by Forrest, is interesting because it is incompatible with any "revealed" historical religion such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, all of which insist that the most important knowledge of who we are and where we come from is received through revelation. Actually, Buddhism would claim that too, if we go by the importance attached to the Buddha's sermons This is fundamental to understanding the public opposition to Darwinism (as opposed to various theories in science advanced against it, such as Behe's concept of irreducible complexity).

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From By Design or by Chance?:

Many of the greatest scientists of previous centuries, for example, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, and Kelvin, believed that the universe was intelligently designed, and that its design was detectable.21 So great was the influence of these men that key terms or units of science measurement are named after them (e.g., the Galilean moons of Jupiter, the Copernican solar system, and units of measurement such as the pascal, newton, farad, and kelvin.) Newton, who died in 1727, is widely regarded as the greatest Briton who ever lived.
(Denyse O'Leary, By Design or by Chance?: The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2004), p. 193.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

em>Opposition to Schonborn from Vatican science advisor:

Here's Professor Nicola Cabibbo, for twelve hears head of the 78-member Pontifical Academy of Sciences, an expert panel which advises the pope on science, in interview with National Catholic Reporter's John L. Allen Jr.:

When Cardinal Schonborn says that purpose and design can be clearly discerned in the natural world, would you agree?

Not scientifically. As a scientist, I cannot draw this conclusion. What I can say is this: If the will of God was to create man, he certainly organized things in a beautiful way to do it. Of course, we know by revelation that God wanted to create man, but we don't know how he did it. This is what science attempts to explain. There cannot be any clash or controversy between science and religion, because they work on different planes.

Does the scientific understanding of how life was created and how it evolved, in and of itself, demand belief in a creator God?

I would say no. Scientifically, we don't know. We know the universe is highly complex, and we have no reason to believe there is only one universe, the one we can see around us. Theoretically this could happen in two different ways: some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest the idea of parallel universes, with histories different from our own. Cosmologists speculate on a multiplicity of "Big Bangs", giving rise to a multiplicity of universes. These are fascinating ideas and we find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Giordano Bruno when he proposed that stars are really suns, that there may be other planets and other solar systems, that the universe is much larger than previously thought. This was part of what got him into trouble! We really don't know. Science is incapable of supplying answers to ultimate questions about why things exist and what their purpose is.

Hmmm. It strikes me that the problem here is not a conflict between Cabibbo and Schonborn but between Cabibbo and the plain meaning of key passages in the Bible. Paul the Apostle says, for example, in Romans,

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Rom 1:18-20, NIV)

Most Christians would be more inclined to listen to Paul than to Bruno, a scientist and freelance theologian who was burned at the stake four centuries ago for heretical doctrines. (If you think having an alternative viewpoint is bad now, you should have lived back then!) Some of Bruno's science speculations hit pay dirt, as Cabibbo notes.

But more and more I am beginning to see why the Vatican will have to revisit this whole area. The only reason that science and religion can't be in conflict, in Cabibbo's formulation, is that they are on different "planes" and neither can apparently enable us to draw firm conclusions about the real world. But, faced with a choice, the Church should prefer current expert opinion to the wisdom of the ages?

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In case you wondered why there is an intelligent design controversy, here is a quotation from a textbook of recent memory:

"Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless--a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit."

"Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us."

(Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co., 1st ed. 1992; this language was not removed for the 2nd ed. in 1994), p. 152. Note: Apparently, this language has since been removed, but yunf!, what about all the previous students who thought that it is, like, science? )

I am utterly fascinated by the people who insist that we all ought to support this stuff with our tax money and - now that I am a member of The Writers' Union of Canada - I am thinking of applying for a Canada Council grant to study them! So please write in and make the case that I have a moral obligation to support philosophical materialism with my tax money, even though it is not the established religion of my country, let alone the one I belong to (as if that matters). By doing so, you will help get ME tax money in order to question the obligation.

Alternatively, if the Comments box does not fill up in the way that helps my case, I could try financing my opinions on publishers' advances ... hey, maybe that makes more sense because then no one who hates my ideas is forced to support them (which I wouldn't really want anyway), and in any event I am good at dealing with publishers and don't have trouble getting decent advances ... Now how shall we convert the Darwinists to that system?

Oh, and here's another good one, maybe even better:

Many investigators feel uneasy about stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely admit that they are baffled. There seems to be two reasons for their unease. Firstly, they feel it opens the door to religious fundamentalists and their god-of-the-gaps pseudo-explanations. Secondly, they worry that a frank admission of ignorance will undermine funding, especially for the search for life in space. (Paul Davies, The Origin of Life , Penguin Books, London, 2003, p. xxiv)

(Note: I just finished shuffling through a bunch of textbooks' chapters on the origin of life, and I never saw anything there like this blanket admission that experts "are baffled". Having recently edited a textbook chapter on origin of life myself, I am not sure why it is a suitable subject for discussion at the high school/first year U level, except as a fun item for speculative projects (and I am all for that, as long as we understand the level of uncertainty we are dealing with).

I am not claiming that OoL is unresearchable or a miracle. But when you don't know and don't really know how to find out, it is better to admit the problem than to speculate.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Inside Higher Education News provides a look at how UCal Berkeley plans to defend promoting liberal (as opposed to conservative) religion on its evolution Web site. Professor Roy Caldwell* is reported by Inside as saying,

"I am a scientist, and I understand what science is. It is fact-based. It involves hypothesis testing. It is not faith-based," he said. The Web site was designed to help teachers - especially those who may feel pressure because of the current attacks on evolution - better explain the science. The information about religious views was included on the Web site not out of a desire to change anyone's religious beliefs, Roy Caldwell said, but because many teachers ask for advice on how to deal with this issue, since their students ask them about it.

The information about religious groups is strictly factual, he said. "The fact is that there are many people who recognize that religious faith and science are not necessarily incompatible," he said.

(*Note: One of the professors running the Berkeley site is Roy Caldwell, who is not to be confused with Larry Caldwell, the lawyer who is suing UCal Berkeley.)

Well, fair enough, Roy Caldwell, but does the Berkeley site also offer links to dissent from Darwinism, such as that of Catholic Cardinal Schonborn or similar statements by many American religious denominations? You can't get away with claiming that you are simply "providing information" if it is entirely one-sided and clearly involves a religious issue.

Larry Caldwell asks,

Whatever happened to the National Center for Science Education/ACLU mantra that teaching about religious beliefs on evolution may be appropriate in a comparative religion class, but never in biology class? Come to think of it, aren't the NCSE and ACLU currently using that very argument in their lawsuit against the Dover, Pennsylvania school district - that the mere mention of intelligent design in biology class purportedly violates the Establishment Clause (since NCSE/ACLU incorrectly deem intelligent design to be a religious doctrine, rather than a scientific theory)?

Yeah really. It sounds as though the UCal position may be evolving into a much simpler rule:

- Anything diehard supporters of Darwinism say is science - even when they are quoting from the Bible.

- Anything critics of Darwinism say is religion - even when they are quoting from peer-reviewed science journals.

- Any questioning of Darwinian evolution is suspect as criticism of science in principle.

Well, I guess we will see the whole gang in court - not that a court will settle the issue, of course. But that's the next round.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

California attorney Larry Caldwell, who is currently suing evolution groups over the use of tax money to promote liberal religious views over conservative ones, has drawn my attention to a clear instance of introducing religion in biology class, but this time, sure enough, the purpose is to promote evolution and an old.Earth, from a presentation at a recent Geological Society of America meeting:

Modern Biblical scholarship indicates that interpreting the Genesis texts as historical or scientific documents, as done by biblical literalists, is inappropriate. Genesis contains two different creation accounts; Genesis 1 dates from the Babylonian exile (6th century BC) whereas the Genesis 2 story dates from the reign of King Solomon (10th century BC). These accounts differ in such aspects as language, emphasis, and mode and sequence of creation. In addition, the Bible includes several other widely differing creation accounts (e.g., Proverbs 8, Psalm 74, Job 26). Inclusion of such varying accounts in the Old Testament indicates that the writers did not intend them as historical, scientific narratives.

I find this outrageous. Let me be up front about my own commitments: I don't particularly doubt current conventional dating of the Earth or common ancestry of apes and humans. I do think that Darwinism is a passe materialist ideology and am merely waiting to see whether ID or some kind of structuralism - or something else altogether - will replace it.

But, I don't think that biology teachers have any business doing the clergy's job for them by explaining to their students how to understand biblical texts! UNLESS, that is, the teachers are prepared to give equal time to those who promote other understandings of the same texts. How many biology teachers have any significant background in exegesis of the Bible anyway? How many even want to get involved? My guess is, about as few as the number of biology teachers who want to read the Dover disclaimer to their students.

I think that today's science curricula should include a history of science module that teaches models for addressing conflicts in society over science findings. Intelligent design is hardly the only such conflict; what about global warming, new biotechnologies, spyware, and bioterror/pandemics? Another thing: Should New Orleans really be rebuilt on its present site? No doubt there are other good questions I can't think of just now, that integrate science knowledge into social issues.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In an interesting article in Current Biology (September 20), paleontologist Simon Conway Morris argues that human-life creatures would have arisen even if the dinos had not gone extinct:

The bolide misses and the dinosaurs go home for tea... You know the mantra: no K/T impact, no dinosaur extinctions, so no mammalian evolutionary radiations, so neither primates nor in due course apes and so ultimately no us. True, but trivial. Imagine a counterfactual Earth, with no K/T impact. Twenty million years later the planet still sails into major glaciations. Dinosaurs are doing fine, thank you, but look what's happening in the cooler temperate and polar regions. Warm-blooded critters are taking the initiative. Both birds and mammals are intelligent, social and have a tendency to make tools. This means that sooner or later a sentient species with technology will emerge: the demise of the heavy brigade is inevitable. Mass extinctions may accelerate (maybe postpone), but they never cancel.

This is, of course, the opposite of Stephen Jay Gould's position, espousing radical randomness of outcomes for evolution, as exprssed in Wonderful Life.

Morris also weighs in on whether extinctions are periodic:

Discussion of whether mass extinctions are cyclic ebbs and flows. At the moment most pundits say 'no', but the evidence remains intriguing. If correct, either biological diversity has some weird internal motor, or more likely the fossil record is telling us something about galactic history. Recall that presently the Solar System is embedded in what astronomers call the Local Bubble, but in the past-and future- when the Solar System encounters interstellar clouds, the heliosphere will shrink, with consequences such as a change in cosmic ray flux. Now that is beginning to sound interesting.

Yes, it begins to sound interesting. And in even speculating about a "weird internal motor", Conway Morris is beginning to sound like the ID advocates he has no use for. I suspect, along with the late David Raup, that critical to understanding evolution is understanding extinction.

(Note: You have to get CB through a library if you don't subscribe.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I received this press release today:

News Release

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE on October 12, 2005

Contact: Larry Caldwell
Phone: 916-774-4667
lcaldwell@qsea.org

Lawsuit Alleges that Federally-Funded Evolution Website Violates Separation of Church and State by Using Religion to Promote Evolution

San Francisco, CA - A California parent, Jeanne Caldwell, is filing a federal lawsuit today against officials of the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley for spending more than $500,000 of federal money on a website that encourages teachers to use religion to promote evolution in violation of the First Amendment.

"In this stunning example of hypocrisy, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in science classes are clamoring for public school teachers to expressly use theology in order to convince students to support evolution," said Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, who is co-counsel in the suit with the Pacific Justice Institute.

Called "Understanding Evolution," the website identified in the lawsuit directs teachers to doctrinal statements by seventeen religious denominations and groups endorsing evolutionary theory. A statement by the United Church of Christ, for example, declares that evolution is consistent with "the revelation and presence of... God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit."

The website further suggests classroom activities that explicitly use religion to promote evolution. In one suggested activity, teachers are supposed to share with students statements by religious leaders on evolution, but only those "stress[ing] the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution." In another activity, students are assigned to interview ministers about their views on evolution, with the purpose of showing students that "Evolution is OK!" Teachers are cautioned, however, that this particular activity may not work if they live in a community that is "conservative Christian."

"While the government has a legitimate purpose in educating students about the science of evolution, it's outrageous that tax dollars would be spent to indoctrinate students into a particular religious view of evolution. There are many different religious views about evolution. How dare the government tell students which religious view is correct!" said plaintiff Jeanne Caldwell. "This is propaganda, not education."

The lawsuit alleges that the state and federal government are promoting religious beliefs to minor school children through the website in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The suit seeks injunctive relief to remove these government endorsed religious beliefs from the website.

The lawsuit also alleges that the website is being used to further the religious agenda of a private organization, the National Center for Science Education (NSCE), which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. According to the suit, the NCSE, which helped design the website, provides religious "outreach" programs and "preaching" on evolution to churches, all aimed at convincing people of faith that there is no conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution.

"It turns out that the NCSE and its allies in the scientific and educational establishments don't mind having religious beliefs discussed in science class, as long as those discussions are aimed at convincing students to convert to the religious beliefs favored by the NCSE", added attorney Caldwell. "Their willingness to flagrantly violate students' constitutionally protected religious freedoms in order to sell evolution to our children is the height of hypocrisy.

###

I was also given a link to an astonishingly ugly cartoon that makes the mindless evo guy shake hands with the mindless religion guy, as if they were two child molesters agreeing to lie for each other. See "Misconceptions: 'Evolution and religion are incompatible'" The idea seems to be that two mindless ideas can work together fine. You know what? People like that can't win. (Anyway, who can take seriously people who shake left hands?)

There is also a link to a bunch of religious groups that don't see any problem with Darwinism. My friend, the Relapsed Catholic, calls them "the churches nobody goes to any more."

Virtually all religions teach that human beings were created for a purpose, which contradicts the key claim of Darwinism.

According to my information, the lawsuit alleges that officials are using government funding and resources to actively promote the religious beliefs held by a private organization, the National Center for Science Education, which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. The contact is attorney Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, (http://www.qsea.org) or Pacific Justice Institute (http://www.pacificjustice.org/)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Student Josh Dill kindly sends me an account of what happened when he started asking questions at Highline Community College in Washington State:

I recently left Highline Community college after receiving my AA. While at Highline I had an interest in Biology, specifically evolution and natural selection. A few of the classes I took were intro to Biology, where we discussed natural selection, evolution, and origin of life. I took Anthropology where we learned about human evolution, and our close relationship with chimpanzees, I even went to Central Washington University to the chimposium and observed the chimpanzees (not an assignment). I also took a class called 'Genetic Revolution' where we learned about the genome, genetic traits, protein synthesis, and I even did a presentation on human evolution to that class. I followed the textbook for the presentation in fear of my grade. This professor had written a few articles criticizing Intelligent Design. But after hearing "we are 98.8% chimpanzee" almost every single day, I used an article from National Geographic about lab rats and their genome. I applied the same method used in the chimp example and stated "we are 60% rat". The students laughed, but the professor didn't.

Naughty Josh. According to a learned rabbi we are also thirty percent banana. But you are not to draw any conclusions from that, do you understand? You are only supposed to draw the conclusions you are told to draw.

Anyway, Josh took to reading literature written by intelligent design theorists, a dangerous practice. He then booked a room at the end of the year and showed two videos, Icons of Evolution and Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Two biology profs attended. Here is Josh's account of what happened next:

I offered asked if they would like to say a few words in response to the videos (I did this out of respect to them coming to my event), but they declined and asked me to take questions from the students. I took a couple of questions from the students, but then an interruption came out, it was one of the professors.

He lambasted me with accusations of having a religious agenda, that I was just simply a creationist. He had immediately lost his temper with me and shouted at me in front of an audience of students. He accused me of misleading the students, "you should be ashamed of yourself ... what you're doing is criminal!"

He belittled me saying "just because you take a couple science classes doesn't give you the right!" I kept my composure and a good attitude. I tried to ask him science questions, after all, the event was intended to be about Intelligent Design, and evolution, not creationism or Christianity.

I asked the professor about embryology, he said "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny!" I questioned "well then why are the earlier stages, which we are not shown, different when those would be the ones that are the most important?" He said "yes they're different but that doesn't matter!"

I asked him to explain how natural selection can account for fossils in the Cambrian explosion where nearly thirty-five of the forty total phyla are found in a geologically short time span of ten million years with no precursors, and given the novel genes, thousands of novel proteins, and novel body plans needed for these organisms how can natural selection be applied? He avoided answering and asked me to take someone else's question.

He abstained from giving any explanation to how genetic material within our cells could have originated, he said "that's a different question, I'm talking about evolution!" He then looked at all the students and urged them that "the truth is that evolution is nailed down flat, its secure as gravity, I can't emphasize that enough."

The professor claimed that any scientist skeptical of Darwin's theory are only questioning because of religious motivations. I held up the list of names of 400 scientists who question the power of natural selection and asked him if he could account for every single one of those people, and he said "I would bet my pensions on it!"

I asked him how micro-evolution could be extrapolated to explain macro-evolution. He replied "well extrapolation is a good word, you have to use your imagination. Given the amount of time you have." I insisted that the probabilistic resources are not evident to allow for the scale of macro-evolution required by the theory of Darwinian Evolution. He didn't have an answer to this either. Now when I look back, I still can't believe he answered "you have to use your imagination." That should be a bit discerning to some scientists.

I think Josh means "disconcerting" here. (I'd be disconcerted too if I were paying good money to have these fellows teach me. As a writer, I am all for using one's imagination, but in my line of work we make a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction.)

Anyway, after one of the bio professors attacked Josh's character, a political science prof stepped in and defended him. The meeting ended on that note, but there was an interesting followup:

A couple of weeks later, the professor that I had an exchange with e-mailed me and was interested in meeting me one on one to have a discussion. I agreed and was thankful for his interest. I figured that in a one on one meeting he wouldn't be as irate and personally aggressive as he was in our first encounter, but I was wrong. He stayed resolute in stating that I am a dishonest person, and that I shouldn't have done what I did. He accused me of encouraging students to rebel in their science classrooms. I never asked students to question their professors in class. I never encouraged disobedience or disrespect, but he insisted that it was wrong. He told me that I should have opened with a preamble, telling students not to bring these questions into the classroom.

Well, there you have it. If you are a student who questions Darwinism, do not bring your questions into the biology classroom. Just memorize and reiterate the party line, and find out the true state of the evidence somewhere else. No wonder there has been a boom in ID-related books lately ...

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

University of California at Santa Barbara's Art Battson has come forward to say that he is the person behind the Cambrian explosion page linked below, that was taken off the UCSB site by a neo-Darwinist profbot (it still works at the link I gave you). He has asked me not to mention anyone else by name. I won't.

Here is his story:

My new boss (PhD in anthopology with undergrad work in sociology who still takes neo-darwinism seriously) shut down my ORIGINS QUOTES AND COMMENTS website unannounced earlier this week. He told me he had received a complaint from somebody in a university in Illinois and that the material was not related to ID (Instructional Development). I told him it was indeed related to ID but he didn't laugh as much as I would have liked. The bottom line is that he removed the faculty/Staff Christian Forum website along with the Veritas Forum website while leaving other websites that are also unrelated to Instructional Development. (We all have rented space on the ID server for years.)

Battson plans to file a complaint about viewpoint discrimination. Meanwhile, my advice to anyone who has a special interest in the Cambrian explosion or other probably non-Darwinian events in the history of life, download or print out the page linked below. Based on the Sternberg case that drew in the US federal government and the Gonzalez case, which I plan to blog soon, this is stuff that traditional materialists/naturalists/Darwinists do not want you to know, and - to the extent that they have power at universities and science institutions - they may have means of preventing you, if not now, then later.

Let's be grateful that none of this involves a loved one's health or something like that. If the Darwinists must go down fighting, let's just make sure they do not take anyone with them.

Now here's the original story with key link:
Yesterday, I noted that the controversial Privileged Planet filmmaker, Illustra Media, is making a film about the Cambrian explosion of life forms about 525 million years ago, which ID advocates think will help sink the ship of Darwinism.

Here's a site at the University of California at Santa Barbara that provides revealing statements about the Cambrian explosion from well-known paleontologists. A sample comment:

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)
The Myths of Human Evolution
Columbia University Press, p. 59

Other hot topics in evolution are addressed here too.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Los Angeles-based filmmaker, Illustra Media best known for The Privileged Planet, whose showing at the Smithsonian took "uproar" to a whole new level, is now working on a documentary The Cambrian Explosion:

The Cambrian Explosion will examine what many consider to be, the single most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution-the fossil record . When he wrote his book, Charles Darwin realized that the 19th century fossil record did not support his theory of gradual, step-by-step evolutionary change. Yet, he hoped that future generations of scientists would make the discoveries necessary to substantiate his ideas. Today, after more than 150 years of digging, fossil evidence of slow, incremental biological change does not exist. Instead, we find a pattern pf rapid, dramatic appearances of fully developed, complex organisms in the ancient rock strata of the world. A pattern that is best explained by the work of a transcendent intelligence.

Well, this should be interesting. What you never heard about the Cambrian explosion is mostly surprising. While I am here, I may as well shill books on the subject: Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life and Simon Conway Morris'sThe Crucible of Creation are both good reads, in my experience.
(Consumer intellectual safety warning: These books take opposite positions on key issues. Intellectual freedom required. The Darwinian thoughtbot suffered an engineered mishap this afternoon, while mistakenly left in O'Leary's thoughtful care, so no establishment-backed "we-tell-you-what-to-think" service is currently available, except possibly from the Comments box. No warranties available under the circumstances.)
(Notes: Emphases are Illustra's not mine. I don't currently have a link for this information. It came by post.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Jeff Jacoby weighs in at the Boston Globe on teaching about the intelligent design controversy:

How things have changed. When John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee in 1925, religious fundamentalists fought to keep evolution out of the classroom because it was at odds with a literal reading of the Biblical creation story. Today, Darwinian fundamentalists fight to keep the evidence of intelligent design in the diversity of life on earth out of the classroom, because that would be at odds with a strictly materialist view of the world. Eighty years ago, the thought controllers wanted no Darwin; today's thought controllers want only Darwin. In both cases, the dominant attitude is authoritarian and closed-minded - the opposite of the liberal spirit of inquiry on which good science depends.

My own view is that trying to legislate from the statehouse or the bench about what teachers should or shouldn't say is always a bad idea. Whether we are talking about intelligent design, sex education, or global warming, students lose confidence in the education system when they realize that they are getting a package in school, and that they cannot really ask about the things they hear about in the real world.

I am glad that when I was a kid, teachers felt free to bring up all kinds of topics in science class, including "Was there really a worldwide flood?" "Was there really only one big continent at one time?" [At that time, this was a controversial idea.] "What would happen if the Russians bombed Canada?" "What would happen if the Americans bombed Canada?" "How would evolution change humans over a million years?" "Is the paranormal real or fake?"

How come we didn't all end up screwed up or brainwashed? Because in those days the teacher was expected to be a professional of good character, whose performance was evaluated by peers, not by people looking for something to sue the school board about. I regret that students cannot have that kind of education today.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

On the subject of whether humans are almost chimps (or versa vice), Rabbi Belovski notes:

A while ago, I heard a radio broadcast in which a Californian academic with quite impressive credentials noted that as monkeys have over 90% of the genes of humans, they should be accorded rights in the same proportion. By this, he meant 90% of the healthcare facilities, social services etc. We may assume that in response, our simian friends will have to bear 90%% of the responsibility of humans - i.e. taxation and service in the armed. Presumably, in the future, we can expect to share hospitals wards, army barracks and dole queues with monkeys. Criminal monkeys will serve 90% of the prison sentences of their human counterparts and will be required to attend 90% of their quota of schooling. It may also means that a human who steals a banana from a monkey will be condemned to 90% of the consequences of robbing a fellow human. An old joke comes to mind - a monkey that has escaped from its cage is eventually found in a library holding a Bible in one hand and Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' in the other. When questioned about its behaviour it responds, 'I am wondering if I am my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother.'

A thought occurred to me on this theme - since bananas share some genes with humans, would it not be logical to accord them say 30% of the rights of people? Where is the line? Some people might even prefer sharing a prison cell with a banana than a monkey, although I think we can assume that the monkey would prefer to share with the banana!

There's also an adorable graphic of a girl chimp getting her hair done.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I haven't been posting many columnist links recently, so let me redress the balance. Here are some opinion pieces that crossed my radar screen in recent weeks:

Bill Buckley: "The planted axiom being encouraged by the secular community is that an acknowledgment of biological evolution not only acquiesces in scientific certitudes, it cannot coexist with any thought of intelligent design." In the National Review, Buckley also asks, In the United States, the battlefront is in the schools, on the question of evolution and creationism. If a 14-year-old student is introduced to the contingent possibility that life evolved as it did because its creator so willed it, which of the following risks, from the hard-line evolutionists' point of view, is that student taking? 1) His intellectual disqualification by admitting creationism, for which there is no scientific no warrant, into his thinking? 2) A lifelong intellectual confusion, perhaps disabling in its consequences, which will keep him from prevailing as a responsible thinker and actor? Or perhaps, 3) a lifetime as an agent of teleological confusion, with the result that he will not only mislead himself, but also mislead others? "

Jonah Cohen:

"I am not persuaded by intelligent design arguments, not because the theory of evolution is unassailable - it most certainly has weaknesses - but because I don't think anyone has successfully answered the criticisms of intelligent design offered by Hume, Kant and Kiergegaard. If those secular fundamentalists who wish to gag intelligent design theories are so worried about future generations, let them demand, then, that we also teach Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard in our public schools - rather than censorship! Our students should be exposed to this great discussion in all its dimensions, so that they can make up their own minds." [I hadn't heard of this guy, writing in The American Thinker, but he's good.]

John Derbyshire
"And what should we teach our kids in biology classes, concerning the development of living things on earth? We should teach them Darwinism, on exactly the same arguments. There is no doubt this is consensus science." Incidentally, Patrick O'Hannigan, the Paragraph Farmer, deconstructs Derbyshire.

Sally Jenkins: First, let's get rid of the idea that ID (intelligent design) is a form of sly creationism. It isn't. ID is unfairly confused with the movement to teach creationism in public schools. The most serious ID proponents are complexity theorists, legitimate scientists among them, who believe that strict Darwinism and especially neo-Darwinism (the notion that all of our qualities are the product of random mutation) is inadequate to explain the high level of organization at work in the world. Creationists are attracted to ID, and one of its founding fathers, University of California law professor Phillip Johnson, is a devout Presbyterian. But you don't have to be a creationist to think there might be something to it, or to agree with Johnson when he says, "The human body is packed with marvels, eyes and lungs and cells, and evolutionary gradualism can't account for that."

Tony Snow: "Evolutionary theory, like ID, isn't verifiable or testable. It's pure hypothesis - like ID - although very popular in the scientific community. Its limits help illuminate the fact that hypotheses are only as durable as the evidence that supports them."

Jacob Weisberg:
"That evolution erodes religious belief seems almost too obvious to require argument. It destroyed the faith of Darwin himself, who moved from Christianity to agnosticism as a result of his discoveries and was immediately recognized as a huge threat by his reverent contemporaries.
... So, what should evolutionists and their supporters say to parents who don't want their children to become atheists and who may even hold firm to the virgin birth and the parting of the Red Sea? That it's time for them to finally let go of their quaint superstitions? That Darwinists aren't trying to push people away from religion but recognize that teaching their views does tend to have that effect?"

George Will: "The problem with intelligent-design theory is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable: Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet-a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum."

There, half a morning's reading for you on the ID controversy.
P.S.: Many, many assorted and relatively anonymous loons have announced recently either that 1) armed and dangerous fundies are massing in the North Woods to march against civilization or, alternatively, that 2) God is at risk in this matter, and he's mad about it. Anyone who wants that sort of thing knows where to find it. Or if they don't, well, tuff.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I like this cartoon, riffing off the baffling tax code. Of course, the difference between the tax code and a cell in your body is that you work fo the tax code and the cell works for you. Let's keep the hierarchy straight here. Does anyone really believe that the tax code is as functionally effective as the cell? Sir, your government commends your faith in this matter.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Recently, Phil Skell, a National Academy of Sciences member, published a critique of the usefulness of Darwinism in present-day biology, under the title "Why Do We Invoke Darwin?" in The Scientist.

In Skell's view, "evolution" is invoked in many science papers in much the same way as a bureaucracy hounded by political correctness might invoke Aztec cosmology - relevant to the politics, certainly, but not to the findings.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word - "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

The huge response prompted a comment, "Let's Talk About This," from the editor of that publication:

Inadvertently, while I was still looking for evidence on the subject, The Scientist tested the quality of scientific discourse. The opinion of Philip Skell which ran in the Aug. 29, 2005, issue generated a staggering volume of comment. We have given over most of the Letters and Opinion pages in this issue to it, and even then we're not doing the reaction justice. The vast majority of the correspondence was negative, but it was also rational, reasonable, and detailed, with only a couple of letter writers resorting to abuse ...

Abuse? Oh my stars. The fact that so much negative opinion would follow Skell's completely obvious point tells us pretty much what we need to know about the cult of Darwinian evolution in biology today.

In both popular and semi-professional literature today, as well as professional literature, all kinds of silly ideas seep into public discourse because they claim to be natural consequences of Darwinian evolution. Just think of all the people who would be stuck for a pat answer to human dilemmas otherwise.

It is one thing to establish a religion when most people believe it, quite another to establish a religion when most people don't.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Blogger Mark Shea, who gets way more mail than I do, and responds to it more faithfully, answers the Darwinoids who camp on his list. He says, among other things.

We *never* look at the text of Hamlet, or Michaelangelo's David, or the code for Windows XP and try to give an explanation for these things as products of non-reason. The only time we do it is when we look at the staggeringly specified complexity of living systems. And we do so in obedience to a dogmatic philosophy of materialism. Here alone, in obedience to the priesthood of the Atheism of the Gaps, acolytes must crush their normal tendency to intuit the obvious by repeating the Spiritual Exercises of St. Francis Crick and reciting the creed: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

Note that word, "rather". It speaks volumes about the metaphysic being promulgated.

As to examples of specified complexity in biology, there are not ten but ten billion. There is no living system that is *not* highly complex and highly specified.

Then I get a mysterious question: "Isn't a rattlesnake fang/venom system complexly specified? Yes or no? Do you know? Does the DI? Do they care?"

I'm not sure what that means. Is my interlocutor suggesting that this system is *not* enormously complex and extremely specified? Is he saying that a good God would never make venomous snakes? Beats me. Then, in crowning incoherence, DI [Discovery Institute, an ID think tank] is compared to Jimmy Swaggart. But that's not an ad hominem argument or anything.

Mark provides some useful responses from the Catholic philosophical tradition.

(Note: "Shut up, he explained" is from a Ring Lardner short story. It is often used as a sort of Zen koan to teach writing skills. A person who doesn't "get it" should not try to make a living as a writer. Their connection to the rest of humanity, while it may be both broad and deep, is not mediated through language.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

When a person has become a pure cultural commodity, you can say what you want about them. The thriller by Pulitzer Prize-winner John Darnton is perceptively reviewed by Books editor Marjorie Kehe of Christian Science Monitor. She remarks that

Darwin never really goes out of fashion. Just when you think that maybe he's slipping from public view a bit, there's some kind of a trial, public hearing, or cultural disruption that shifts him and his everlastingly disputed findings back into the spotlight.

So John Darnton probably made a wise choice when he tapped the ever-controversial naturalist to serve as one of the protagonists of his new novel The Darwin Conspiracy.

[ ... ]

Clearly Darnton did his homework and the biographical information woven in about Darwin is interesting, but here he more nearly resembles a character in an Indiana Jones film than a man still rocking intellectual and theological boats.

Fair enough, but my sense is that Darnton's salable idea only works when the worldview itself has come under fire. It wasn't so long ago that Richard Dawkins wrote:

Living organisms had existed on earth without ever knowing why for 3000 million years before the truth finally dawned on one of them. His name was Charles Darwin.

(Ben Wattenberg quoted Dawkins to himself as saying this, on PBS's Think Tank (November 8, 1996), apparently reading from Dawkins's The Selfish Gene.

Wittenberg comments,

That sounds to me like a religious statement. That is a - that is near messianic language. And you are making the case that these other people have this virus of the mind. That tonality says, I found my God.

Dawkins's response is interesting.)

Even back then, Wattenberg felt compelled to protest. Today, a lot more people are asking questions about the Darwin cult in biology.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Fellow Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle, the "Relapsed Catholic", wrote recently on Whittaker Chambers, the uncool 1950s guy who blew the whistle on a bunch of American country club Cools who were traitors to the country that had afforded them a fine lifestyle.

Kathy unerringly singles out a stunning passage in Chambers's journey of understanding:

...I date my break from a very casual happening. I was sitting in our apartment on St. Paul Street in Baltimore. It was shortly before we moved to Alger Hiss's apartment in Washington. My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I like to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear -- those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: 'No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design.' The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.

Shaidle goes on to say:

Today, some of us battle the same enemy Chambers did, just with a different name. Others among us insist, as they did then, that docility and appeasement are the answer -- on our part, naturally, since the real enemy is "us". Despite the book's apocalyptic tone, Witness does not depress, because we have Chambers at an advantage: we know how the story ended, decades after the author's death -- with the fall of a wall "experts" believed, right up to the moment the first sledgehammer struck, would never crumble. A civilization that could produce a book like Witness is one worth fighting for. Chambers' masterpiece teaches us not just why we should fight, but how one man fought: as a lonely, despised herald to the painful truth that eventually set millions free.

What I find interesting about this is the way people are beginning to connect the dots. What might design mean? What might no design mean? Whether you believe in God or not, evidence of design underwrites moral responsibility because it implies that there really could be truth, as opposed to competitive lies.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

This essay in the Boston Review, first published in 1997, seems eerily prescient now:

... current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Nonetheless, neo-Darwinist writers like Dawkins continue to ignore or trivialize the new knowledge and insist on gradualism as the only path for evolutionary change.

The whole essay captures very well the issues in interpreting the history of life that have come to the fore, despite all attempts to obfuscate them.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In an article in the London Spectator (August 27, 2005), British historian Paul Johnson brands British Darwinist Richard Dawkins the "ayatollah of atheism". Johnson writes,

The likelihood that Darwin's eventual debacle will be sensational and brutal is increased by the arrogance of his acolytes, by their insistence on the unchallengeable truth or the theory of natural selection - which to them is not a hypothesis but a demonstrated fact, and its critics mere flat-earthers - and by their success in occupying the commanding heights in the university science departments and the scientific journals, denying a hearing to anyone who disagrees with them. I detect a groundswell of discontent at this intellectual totalitarianism, so unscientific by its very nature. It is wrong that any debate, especially one on so momentous a subject as the origin of species, and the human race above all, should be arbitrarily declared to be closed, and the current orthodoxy set in granite for all time. Such a position is not tenable, and the evidence that it is crumbling is growing.

This is one of the best articles I have read for capturing the mood of the intelligent design community, the sense that bloviating boffins may convince people new to the controversy, but the more you know, the less you believe, and that disbelief will only grow.

In particular, Johnson mentions a current critique by Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor of the least believable of all the efforts to prop up Darwinism, "evolutionary psychology" - the belief that current events can be best understood by a trip back to the Old Stone Age.

I am a post-Darwinist rather than a Darwinist, but if I were advising Darwinists, I would tell them: CUT that rotting branch pronto, before your whole tree is condemned by City Forestry! But of course, they won't listen, so they are probably doomed. (Shrug. Yawn. I wonder what the history of life really looks like, after the fog clears.)

Fodor says, among other things,

The canonical Evolutionary Psychology literature contains a number of ideas about how a creature's behaviour might be explained by attributions of motives that it doesn't have. I confess that they seem to me to be simply bizarre. Daniel C. Dennett suggests that, if Jones's behaviour is an adaptation, then it's (not Jones but) "Mother Nature" who is concerned about his contribution to the gene pool. But you might as well blame the Easter Bunny. There isn't any Mother Nature; and if unattached motives can't explain behaviour, neither can the concerns of fictitious persons. Richard Dawkins suggests that, if Jones's behaviour is an adaptation, then it must be (not Jones but) Jones's "selfish genes" that wish to maximize reproductive success. Steven Pinker seems to have swallowed Dawkins whole.

"Dawkins explained the theory . . . . People don't selfishly spread their genes, genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains . . . . Our goals are subgoals of the ultimate goal of the genes, replicating themselves . . . . The confusion between our goals and our genes' goals has spawned one muddle after another."

It has indeed.

It could be worse. To give you some idea of the kind of rot that infests evolutionary psychology, last Sunday I sent up a completely ridiculous evo psycho puff piece in National Geographic News in which some worthy loon chose to hold forth on the relationship between Canada and the United States, in terms of evolutionary psychology.

It seemed to have eluded the quotable southern loon that Canada and the United States are both nation states, not tribes. As the eminent political philosopher, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) would point out, had she lived so long, there is nothing for genetics to do in understanding the current relationship between two nation states because they are specifically defined by territory and style of government, and not by inherited characteristics of their populations. So evo psycho is completely irrelevant, and any educated person should realize that.

Yes, yes, sweetie hoo, we all descend from the Old Stone Age, but they didn't have nation states back then. So it is unlikely that anyone from back then could advise or influence the ways in which Canada and the United States manage their relationship. I humbly suggest that you would even have difficulty explaining it to them.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's another Chuck Asay cartoon, lampooning the media in the ID controversy. Chuck shows a sophistication rare among cartoonists here, as he highlights the way in which media tend to hone in on the bizarre and miss the significant.

I certainly know what Asay means. Just recently, I have been fielding calls from Canadian media about the lawsuit in Dover, Pennsylvania (which I will get around to addressing if my inbox does not explode first). One and all, they seem to want to hear that gangs of weirdoes are marching down from the North Woods. Seem so disappointed when I tell them no.

Aw, don't worry, fellow hacks. Your hot patooties are SAFE. Honest. Order yourself another frappachingo (frappachatte? frappalatte? frappadammitall? Personally, I'd rather have a coffee, but hey ... )

Yeah, lots of people think there is good evidence that the universe and life forms show intelligent design. They're not happy when educational systems promote the opposite view. They're also not happy with paying taxes to support institutions that persecute scientists who are willing to research or even be fair to the idea.

Whatsamatter with them? Why don't they just bring their tax dollars humbly and obediently any more? Didn't used to be so uppity.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Bill Dembski, the unofficial leader of the ID pack and, sometimes, bad boy, has introduced a computer game that bops ugly mechanical pandas, clearly a swipe at the anti-ID Panda's Thumb blog. (If you click on it, you may not be able to get back using the Back Browser button.) I think Panda-monium is a hoot, and I fully expect that the Thumbsmen will reply with a game of their own, maybe scrubbing bacteria, for example, given that the bacterial flagellum is the unofficial logo of the ID community. Dembski offers the rankings for bopping pandoids as well.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Neuroscientist Christof Koch thinks that maybe consciousness will be explained in our lifetimes:

These are heady times for neuroscientists. Our growing ability to monitor the brain's activity at the cellular level with unprecedented precision and breadth, and precisely manipulate these networks opens the stunning possibility that the quest to understand the oldest of all epistemological problems will come to an end in our lifetime.

If you read the article, "The Inchoate Science of Consciousness" (September 12, 2005) carefully, it doesn't look as though they are getting very far, despite the hype.

For example, Koch writes, regarding an animal experiment,

Strikingly, the reintroduction of one specie of molecule into a single brain region rescued certain complex exploratory and social behaviors. While the β2 knockout animals move rapidly through a novel terrain with little exploration, animals in which nicotinic transmission has been restored in the VTA show more adaptive behavior that, if observed in humans, would be associated with planning and consciousness.

Well, sure, but we associate human behaviour with planning and consciousness because we know that humans plan and are conscious. We know that mice plan to some extent, though it is not clear whether they are conscious in the sense that humans are. And no one doubts that certain chemicals and brain regions are associated with consciousness, such that interference with them can cause its loss.

The real problem, it seems to me, is that there is only so far one can get with studying something like consciousness for the purpose of explaining it away as random actions within the brain. My guess is that one learns a lot of interesting, even useful stuff about mice, and then confronts once again, the huge gap between mouse consciousness and human consciousness.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

According to a recent article in National Geographic News, the development of the spear led to an era of peace among early humans. So thinks University of Michigan anthropologist Raymond Kelly, who argues, in "Spear Led to Era of Human Peace, Expert Says" (September 6, 2005),

The ability to kill from a distance and the use of ambush tactics significantly affected border interactions.

The size of a group was no longer a guarantee of success, and the potential of being seriously wounded or killed increased.

Kelly believes the change in circumstances forced early humans to come up with new ways to resolve conflicts and to maintain friendly relations.

But Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham disagrees, saying,

"Maybe it did, but it seems to me unlikely to have done so," said Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It is easier to make surprise attacks with weapons than without, and hard to defend against them."

I like folk tales as much as the next person, but don't think that these "just-so" stories of evolutionary psychology should be represented as science. Indeed, this article is a classic for demonstrating how appealing to "human evolution" allows people to talk complete nonsense without either themselves or their readers being aware of it.

For example, here's a gem from the same article, where Kelly holds out a "ray of hope" for peace, allegedly based on human evolution:

"The U.S. was at war with Canada in 1812 and with Mexico in 1848 but has managed to live in peace with its neighbors for the past 150 years," he said. "So we clearly have the capacity to maintain peaceful relations with neighbors over extended periods."

"These capacities are as much a product of [human] evolution as the capacity to engage in lethal intergroup violence."

As a Canadian, I find the sheer naivete breathtaking, and, in a man of learning, bordering on offensive. The main reason there are no wars between Canada and the United States is the overwhelming military superiority of the United States! The United States is the most powerful military force in human history.

Canada has almost no military power. Therefore, even though we do have some serious issues with the United States, war is out of the question for us, never mind what direction "evolution" supposedly points Canadians in.

Also, there's the fact that Canada's economy depends almost entirely on trade with the United States, AND our economy is now mostly American-owned. So if the Americans attacked Canada, they would, for the most part, be killing their own employees and service providers and destroying their own property.

And if we Canadians attacked the United States, we would be violating a fundamental rule around here, formulated in the days when the Hudson's Bay Company traded with the First Nations (Indians): Never shoot the customer, no matter how much of a pain in the neck he is.

Of course, an evolutionary psychologist would undoubtedly say that relations between Canada and the United States are the inevitable outcome of "human evolution." Sure. Just tell him about your complex historical circumstances, and he will explain them based on something chimpanzees do or early humans supposedly did.

Why does the Darwinist think this way: The Darwinist does not believe that human intelligence is a human version of the intelligence behind the universe. He believes that it is the evolutionary outcome of accidentally overdeveloped brains, possibly but not certainly selected by natural selection.

As a result, he cannot accept that humans actually have consciousness or free will, or that our current circumstances largely result from the exercise of these functions. Rather, he needs to find the answers in the unthinking behavior of non-humans and pre-humans. Otherwise, he thinks we have not found an answer. And, here's the kicker, any explanation of that sort, no matter how ridiculous, will always make more sense to him than any explanation based on the effects of intelligence, as a creative force in its own right.

As I say, entertain yourself with this stuff if you like, but don't call it science.

(Note: The only finding for which we have hard evidence from history is that superiority in weaponry can go either way. Europeans destroyed many native American civilizations because they had guns. Arguably, the diseases they brought destroyed more people than the guns, but it was the spread of guns, not disease, that drove colonial policy. On the other hand, a huge empire typically suppresses local warfare because it is overwhelmingly more powerful than petty warlords. So it can be a force for peace - until it gets into a war with another empire.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh published an article in the Pittsburgh Catholic, in which he makes the point that great foundational thinkers in the Western tradition have generally come to the evidence-based conclusion that the cosmos is designed, without making use of theological arguments. Many were not Christians or theists.

On the one hand, in the years since Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1855, some scientists offer the theory that the best explanation for the existence of all life is random selection and the natural evolution of species.

On the other hand other scientists support the theory of intelligent design. This explanation of natural phenomena goes back, in a well documented manner, to the time of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. The great Greek philosophers and naturalists lived some 300 years before Christ and attempted to explain the cosmos solely from the light of human reason.

That's worth keeping in mind when we hear "culture wars" interpretations of the controversy.

It is not a conflict between fundamentalism and science; it is a conflict between the consensus position of Western civilization (in favour of design) and naturalistic materialism, which has attempted to gain a monopoly in science and suppress all evidence against itself.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

The recent Guardian profile of British philosopher Mary Midgeley, basher of ultra-Darwinist Richard Dawkins, is interesting for the way in which it seems to withhold praise for a generally admirable woman who made the mistake of questioning ultra-Darwinism during her philosophy career.

"I'm not anti-science," she maintains. "What I object to is improper science sold as science. I understand Dawkins thinks he was talking about the survival potential of certain lines rather than the motives of the genes themselves, but I believe he is mistaken. Scientists in this country have little cultural overlap with the arts and humanities and ... they are unaware of when they start bringing their own political and psychological views into the argument. There's nothing wrong with scientists having such views as long as they are aware of what they are doing ... Dawkins may argue that he is using selfishness as a metaphor but he must have been aware of how the concept might be interpreted and used. And Dawkins has to take some responsibility for that."

Obviously, naturalism (materialism) is an impotent ideology if any genuine criticism, on whatever ground, is seen as "anti-science." In fact, evolutionary psychology (EP), which Midgley rightly criticized in her disaproval of the "selfish gene", would be a big embarrassment to Darwinism IF the latter were itself more securely founded on fact.

You know the kind of thing we hear constantly from EP: If kids don't eat their greens, that's because "evolution" is protecting them from poisoning. Or if they do, well that must be because "evolution" is encouraging them to have strong bodies. Yeah right.

(Avoidance of chewy, non-greasy vegetables with complex flavours couldn't have anything at all to do with easy access to soft, greasy, sugary fast food in recent years. It must be shipped back hundreds of thousands of years in the past and called "evolution," ... possibly to assuage guilt?)

One reason I know Darwinism is on the way out is that Darwinists do not seem anxious to rise up, as a group, and drive this stuff off the scene. That fact alone implies that most arguments for Darwinism are similarly poorly founded.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

An American lawyer who is active in intelligent design issues has written me to say that the National Association of Biology Teachers, far from foreswearing atheism, has in fact merely moved some of its former upfront atheistic tenets to the supporting material under its current grand (and relatively innocuous-sounding) statement.

From the May 2004 version:

NABT endorses the following tenets of science, evolution, and biology education. Teachers should take these tenets into account when teaching evolution.

Essential Concepts of Biological Evolution

- The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of biological evolution - an unpredictable and natural process of descent with modification that is affected by natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, migration and other natural biological and geological forces.

Okay, well, wait a minute ... unless we know for sure that there is no meaning or purpose in the universe, how can we possibly know that biological evolution is unpredictable and (purely) natural?

A number of well-respected scientists who, incidentally, do not align with the intelligent design theorists, would dispute the view that evolution is unpredictable, notably Michael Denton and Simon Conway Morris.

Also, if one claims that biological evolution is unpredictable, it may also be untestable and unfalsifiable. That's too bad. I had hoped it would be more than nice graphics. I especially hoped that because I have just finished tickng off playwright Paul Rudnick on account of the fact that I thought his treatment of the subject is shallow. But if it's not science after all, maybe shallow wins.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here is playwright Paul Rudnick's take on the intelligent design controversy in the New Yorker, featuring way, way too many gods. It's clever, and it picks up an interesting theme: Does intelligent design mean that there are many gods? Not likely, but my sense is that, in any event, clever is about all that Rudnick's work on this subject is. It doesn't tell me or remind me of a single thing I really needed to know. If anything, it demonstrates the bankruptcy of the current intelligentsia. Still, they must obsess about intelligent design, which will bury them.

I would love to see a play about something real and important in the ID controversy, for example, about the stirring struggles of, say, Richard Sternberg or Guillermo Gonzalez, to open a window of intellectual freedom in a world stifled by materialist dogma.

Sorry, Paul, cute is cute, but cute doesn't cut it.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's a kid tee perfectly suited to the Darwinist activist mom, though it is anybody's guess what it would do for the kid.

From what I have seen, most kids who ask "Where did I come from," are expecting the, um, Big Talk. They sort of know there is something to know or they wouldn't even be asking.

Telling them they come from a slime mold or something isn't going to cut it. Most likely response: "So what? Can we get to the part about how people, um, do it." (Even if slime molds "do it," who really cares?)

It all reminds me of the Canadian kid who recently asked the "where did I come from" question. His devoted dad huffed and puffed his way through the complete (and politically correct) lecture, only to have the little swine respond, "Wow, Dad, that's way amazing. But ... I still don't understand. See, the reason I asked is that our new goaltender, Chung An, comes from Vancouver ...."

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Okay, here's a Frank and Ernest on the intelligent design controversy. Now, much as I like F&E, I didn't find this one particularly amusing. Frankly, I think all the "unintelligent design" jokes have been told, so any hack who chooses to title a new piece on the subject "unintelligent design" or riff on that theme is definitely an unintelligent hack - and that is no one's fault but his own. Quit beating the corpses of cute but dead intros. Be original, be relevant, and if you are a comic, be funny. Earn your keep.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

The trouble with being a secular evolution saint is that, a couple years down the road, you don't get no respect at all. Have a look at "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," a site (herafter called the J site) that uses Gould's name to market an anti-Darwinian self-organization theory of the development of life that I don't know if Gould ever endorsed. Gould died in 2002.

(The basic idea behind self-organization is the claim that order can take hold at the boundaries of chaos. Some argue that this accounts for the origin and development of life. The best-known exponent of the idea is Stuart Kaufmann , associated with the Santa Fe Institute but lately in Banff, Western Canada, according to his CV.)

The message at the J site is addressed to the 400 scientists who signed Discovery Institute's dissent from Darwinism. To them, J prophesies in a loud voice,

You are in accord with most evolutionary biologists who have long since relegated natural selection to micro-evolution at best. Leading among these was Stephen Jay Gould, although he was careful not to pronounce publicly for fear of its misuse by the Intelligent Design movement which is based on the claim that the only alternative to natural selection, or Darwinism, is God.

If anyone out there knows for sure why this is/is not an accurate summary of Gould's thinking, I hope they'll blog on it, so I can link to them. I have not read Gould's doorstop, Structure of Evolutionary Theory , in which he would have made such a point, if he ever did anywhere. It's no secret that Gould fell out with Darwinian fundamentalists (he may well have coined the term himself) like Richard Dawkins. But I've just never heard that he embraced self-organization theory as a consequence.

An urgent note is struck at the J site, regarding the crisis of Darwinism:

This may be the most important issue ever to face science. On its outcome depends nothing less than academic freedom in America. Some overzealous Darwinians have been using extreme means to suppress dissent. Some individuals who have published opposing views have been hounded and their careers threatened or smashed. This issue is soon to be tested in a number of legal cases which may rival the Scopes trial in impact. Most notably I call your attention to the case of Richard Sternberg vs. the Smithsonian Institute.

Okay, you got my attention, J. But then, following the prophecy is a warning:

While the list of 400 is impressive, its possible usefulness to scientific debate is compromised because it is published by the neo-creationist Discovery Institute, and includes individuals who believe that the vacuum caused by the failure of Darwinism should be filled by God, with no third possibility. It is impossible to determine who's who. Your name on this list may compromise your scientific credibility. If, in fact you believe in creationism, this letter does not pertain to you. Otherwise, you suffer guilt by association.

Funny, isn't it, that J claims to be concerned about intellectual freedom but then, in the very next paragraph markets the infamous notion of guilt by association, but let's move on.

We are told that intelligent design is winning the culture wars, with a theocracy shortly to follow.

You know, J, that theme's been, like, done, eh? Canadian literata Margaret Atwood beat the whole idea to death in The Handmaid's Tale thirty years ago, and she can write you into a corner any time. They even made her novel into a movie and I saw the Handmaid's neat red costume at a sci-fi exhibit in Ottawa a few years ago. And that's all that ever came of the theocracy.

We are then told that neo-Darwinism is a bust, because "Evolutionary biologists no longer believe that natural selection is the prime mechanism of evolution." They don't? That's not what most of them have been saying, but I better check my inbox.

Now J may be right, of course. They could know it's a bust and fail to admit it, the way directors of a failing company do. J goes on to mention something I had been meaning to draw attention to myself, and he almost beat me to it. But he says it in a kind of confused way, so I am going to say it in a clear way:

If you look at Michael Shermer's and Ricki Lewis's accounts of the "Woodstock of Evolution," the World Evolution Summit on the Galapagos last June, it is evident that Darwinian theory is indeed falling apart.

Now don't bother telling me that it is normal for scientists to have disagreements. Sure it is. But the reported disagreements were about such fundamental matters as the level at which natural selection occurs (yes, see Lewis's report), whether sexual selection even occurs, whether there really is a universal common ancestor, et cetera. Well, if after a century and a half, they are not even sure at what level natural selection occurs or whether sexual selection occurs or whether universal comon ancestry is true, I am not sure that what we are looking at is even a discipline, as opposed to a series of naturalistic speculations about the origin and development of life.

Apparently, at the gathering, evo-devo earth mother Lynn Margulis proclaimed the neo-Darwinian synthesis (= standard evolutionary theory, currently being rammed into kids' heads in schools, by law) to be dead - nonetheless proclaiming triumphantly, "I am a Darwinist". In the context, I guess she meant "I am a philosophical naturalist."

Which is precisely my point. If that's all that holds them together, it is not a science discipline; it is a band of believers.

Anyway, back to the J site: We are offered "The origin of species without Darwin or God." and a booklet called "Biological Self-Organization" which you can read online. There is also a book available, called Lifecode by art collector Stuart Pivar, who seems to have been a friend of Andy Warhol and is no slouch in biology. Lifecode is listed among self-organization books.

One problem with knowing what to make of all this is that an official Stephen Jay Gould site doesn't currently seem to be online, so I don't know that there is any public record of what the keepers of his official legacy would say in response. If I learn anything more of interest, I will post it.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

TheNobel laureates say pretty much what you might expect, about Darwin's theory being "indispensable," which of course it isn't - any more than Freud's theories were indispensable - but, what is interesting is that the linked Kansas Lawrence Herald article notes, about intelligent design,

That increasingly popular theory argues that some features of the natural world are best explained as having an intelligent cause because they are well-ordered and complex. Its followers attack Darwin's evolutionary theory, which says natural chemical processes could have created the basic building blocks of life on Earth, that all life had a common ancestor and that man and apes shared a common ancestor.

I have got so used to media bloopers on intelligent design that I have to rejoice at this, acknowledging that one out of three isn't bad.

YES, the intelligent design hypothesis argues that "some features of the natural world are best explained as having an intelligent cause because they are well-ordered and complex."

NO, Darwin's theory does NOT say that "natural chemical processes could have created the basic building blocks of life on Earth." Darwin was too smart to commit himself to anything as ambitious as an origin-of-life theory. He was only attempting to write, as the title of his key work indicates, On the Origin of Species. It was left to later researchers to reach a complete impasse on the origin of life.

NO, intelligent design theory does NOT entail rejection of common ancestry. In the context of ID, common ancestry stands or falls on its explanatory merits. Darwinism absolutely requirescommon ancestry because the possibility of design does not exist. ID does not require it because the design is considered an alternative (not a requirement, but an alternative). As a result, ID proponents differ from one another on the subject of common ancestry.

Anyway, hats off to the Lawrence Herald for getting at least one point right. Now let's work on some of the others ones, so we can have a real discussion.

As for the Nobel laureates, it is hard to believe that they would put their collective foot in their mouths by writing this:

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

but that's exactly what they did. (Note: If you click the link, you might not be able to use your back browser button to return.)

How do they know that the process is "unguided" and "unplanned"? They don't. It is merely a religious (well, anti-religious) assumption that they intend to impose on the school board. Even if no one believes it but them.

The good news is that, by writing this, they are helping to clarify what is really happening in Kansas. The school board is trying to get THAT stuff out of the system.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Well, if you don't believe in Darwin fandom, don't read this piece, in which Pulitzer Prize journo John Darnton writes,

Some years back, I was given a tour of Down House, Charles Darwin's country estate, and allowed to sit in the special chair in which he wrote "The Origin of Species" and other revolutionary works. The chair was one he had devised himself: High-backed, stuffed with horsehair, it had casters attached so that he could scoot around his study to reach his books, his working table and his microscope. He had fashioned a cloth-covered board to fit over the arms as a writing surface.

Once ensconced there, with the board lowered in place, I felt an indescribable thrill, like a child settling into the swing at a country fair when the bar descends to lock him in place. What a giddy ride Mr. Darwin has given us!

To listen to Darnton, you would think that Darwin was some kind of saint, and all his troubles came from the cruelty of the world around him. Historically, that's all bosh, of course, as such claims always are, when made about major historical figures. (If a child is killed by a drunk driver at five years old, maybe we can make that claim, but not otherwise.)

Interestingly, having treated Darwin as a sort of victim of his times in this article, Darnton is about to publish/has just published a novel, which promises to "reveal the secrets" of Darwin. According to a reviewer at Amazon, "this grandly ambitious novel goes a few steps further to intimate that he was a fraud - and a murderer." That's more than a few steps, in my view; it'll be interesting to see the reaction of those, like Dawkins, for whom Darwinism made it intellectually fulfilling to be an atheist.

This stage is not so surprising, really. As Darwinism slowly dies as a theory for understanding life, its founder is gradually being transformed into a folk figure, like Freud or Che Guevara - all the more recognizable - and a suitable subject for pure fiction - as he becomes more irrelevant.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's an encouraging development: A reasonable discussion of the question of evil in a science journal:

Theology and disaster studies: The need for dialogue
David K. Chester
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Volume 146, Issue 4 , 1 September 2005, Pages 319-328. Chester is at the Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK

Here's the abstract:

In hazard analysis the conventional wisdom holds that disasters are features of either human vulnerability and/or de-moralised nature. The notion of the 'Act of God' has been almost completely replaced. Using examples of volcanic eruptions and Christian theology, it is argued that many actual and potential victims of hazards continue to explain losses in theistic terms; even in societies where individuals are aware of alternative scientific and social explanations. In Christianity attempts to reconcile God's love, justice and omnipotence on the one hand and human suffering on the other, is termed theodicy, and it is proposed that recent developments allow more fruitful dialogue to take place between hazard analysts and theologians than has been the case hitherto. During the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990*2000) a consensus emerged that, if responses to disaster are to be successfully managed, then an awareness of local culture is vitally important. This consensus has continued, as research agendas are currently being formulated for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. In many disaster prone regions, religion is an essential element of culture and must be carefully considered in the planning process, and not simply dismissed as a symptom of ignorance, superstition and backwardness.

Apparently, the author references classic publications on the subject by C.S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, for example.

(Note: I can't see how to get this online for love or money, but this is the author's Web site.)

Why do I see this article as an encouraging development? Because, while covering the intelligent design controversy, I felt frustrated by a high level of backwardness and a double standard in dealing with theological argument in science journals.

For example, a scientist trashing Behe's or Johnson's pro-intelligent design writings, can carry on about the cruelties of nature, insisting there can't really be intelligent design because ... (insert problem here), and that's just fine.

But, one rarely sees a paper from a scientist trained in theology summarizing a variety of theological perspectives on the cruelties of nature or studying how they are commonly addressed. No doubt many editors would reject it on the grounds that it was "beyond the scope of science."

In other words, theology is within the scope of science when it is badly done by an amateur, on the fly, for the purpose of trashing a book he dislikes. Anyway, the volcanology journal seems to be a happy departure from that.

If people are going to point to evil or bad design as proof that there is no design at all in nature (a questionable assumption at best), experts in the study of cosmic dysfunction should be allowed to offer perspectives.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

You can sure tell that an idea is taking hold: All kinds of people offer an opinion who are not embarrassed by knowing nothing about it. Roger Ebert who, like A. O Scott , is reviewing the recently released pitchfork opera, The Exorcism of Emily Rose - which has nothing to do with intelligent design - opines:

The church is curiously ambivalent about exorcism. It believes that the devil and his agents can be active in the world, it has a rite of exorcism, and it has exorcists. On the other hand, it is reluctant to certify possessions and authorize exorcisms, and it avoids publicity on the issue. It's like those supporters of Intelligent Design who privately believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, but publicly distance themselves from it because that would undermine their plausibility in the wider world.

Now first, just for the record, the Catholic church is not ambivalent about exorcism; it is discreet about exorcism, and with good reason. Some people out there are obsessed by demons (not possessed, just obsessed). Avoiding publicity over the rare cases where exorcisms are done is prudent.

But on the main point, would Ebert like to say which supporters of intelligent design he is talking about? The major "literal interpretation of Genesis" group is Answers in Genesis. AiG has, famously, slammed the ID folks, for not relying on the Bible. I have interviewed and listened to many supporters of intelligent design, and those who are young earth creationists admit it.

It's no secret, I suppose, that a major source of controversy among actual ID scientists has been the demand by some that the few literalists in their midst (usually called "young earth creationists") be expelled, a demand that has so far been resisted. But those YEC scientists also admit that they are YECs. So I have a professional interest in knowing who Ebert is talking about - if indeed, he does himself.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm