The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy, that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces the topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 7 of 11, "Genetic Calvinism or Demons and Dawkins".)

Stove here discusses Dawkins's view that, thanks to the magic of natural selection, genes can appear to behave selfishly. Selfish genes are the only real players in life, according to Dawkins.

The basic problem is that the only possible object of selfishness is a self. That is, selfishness is a quality of a mind/brain that is inordinately focused on itself (as a whole) as opposed to a hierarchy of needs that include the self but also other selves in an environment. Cruella Deville, who wanted to slaughter 101 Dalmatian puppies to make a coat, might be selfish, but her actual genes are as irrelevant to the idea of selfishness as viruses or prime numbers.

Dawkins admits that he is speaking figuratively when he says that genes are selfish, but does that rescue his concept? Stove thinks not, because if he were right, identical twins should be willing to give each other all their worldly goods and heartthrobs, and even their passwords, yet they generally are not. (p. 125)

Stove goes on to suggest that Dawkins's The Selfish Gene is just another instance of fatalism, like astrology, Freudianism, Marxism, and Calvinism. He argues that many people like this sort of thing because it confirms what they feel they have always known, that either they or someone they know is born to lose. They are but puppets, and the selfish gene is a puppet master that suits them well. So anything can be blamed on genes, and genes never defend themselves.

Dawkins might have rescued his idea if he had just let it go at that. After all, some people honestly believe they are puppets of fate. As with any other type of belief, the believers can always assemble anecdotes to demonstrate their case. Developing a general theory that actually works is another matter, and that's where Dawkins's theory loses its wheels.

Incredibly, Dawkins insists at one and the same time that altruism "has no place in nature," but nonetheless asserts "let us try to teach generosity and altruism." (p. 126) But how can we? How are we to acquire altruism if it has no place in nature, let alone teach it?* And remember, we are but puppets of our genes. At this point, it is fair to say that Dawkins isn't making any sense.

It gets worse. As Stove notes (p. 128), in addition to the selfish gene, there is also the meme. Memes are allegedly anything that can be transmitted from one human to another by non-genetic means. They infest our brains and manipulate them, whether they are ideas, beliefs, attitudes, styles, customs, fashions.

Do not bother to ask whether neuroscience has discovered any correlate of a meme. Of course not.

Stove usefully contrasts the scientific discoveries related to genes with the entertaining but useless intellectual froth associated with memes (pp. 132–33).

He ends up wondering about Dawkins's sanity (p. 133), perhaps unnecessarily. Many clever people develop odd ideas without quite going over the edge. But we are hardly called to take it all seriously.

In Chapter 8, Stove addresses the theory of kin selection, according to which both animals and people are more altruistic toward those who share more of their genes. Is that what we actually observe? Chapter 8: "'He Ain't heavy, He's My Brother' or Altruism and Shared Genes"

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), which seems to be part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy, that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces the topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 8 of 11, "'He Ain't heavy, He's My Brother' or Altruism and Shared Genes.")

Stove introduces the basic sociobiological belief that generally, how altruistic (unselfish) an organism is toward another of the same species depends on the proportion of genes they share. This is part of the theory of kin selection or inclusive fitness — inclusive means that you will care about someone according to how many genes you share. Altruism has always been a problem for Darwinism.

Stove has little sympathy with the Darwinists on this point for, as he says, "The problem is evidently a self-inflicted injury, and as such deserves no sympathy. ... If you don't believe the theory that conspecifics [members of the same species] are always struggling for life with one another, where is the problem in the fact that altruism survives? There is none." But the Darwinists did believe that there was a problem with why altruism survives, and therefore they had to come up with a theory that explained why some creatures sacrifice themselves for others.

Now the mid-twentieth century kin selection theory sounded plausible when explaining the behavior of social insects, which feature a rare genetic situation in which the workers are actually more closely related to each other than they are to their own mother, the queen. But how well does it explain animal behavior generally, let alone human behavior?

According to the theory, bacteria, which reproduce by simple fission and share their genes should be filled with altruism toward each other, and so should plants and insects that boost their numbers by reproducing parthenogenetically (p.144). Yet neither the petri dish nor the roadside demonstrate any such thing.

For that matter, identical twins, however emotionally close, do not consider their interests identical (pp. 146– 47), but inclusive fitness would suggest that they should. If anyone wonders about this, a simple test would be to watch what happens when an identical twin steals her sister's boyfriend. The most altruism you are likely to get from the bereft twin is, "Well, honestly, I would have shot her, but Mom would be devastated ... " It's hard to imagine that matters are much different among twins in the animal world where what mother might think would hardly figure.

Not surprisingly, Stove provides many reasons to doubt the theory of kin selection, but there is no reason to list them here. Anyone who observes families in the immediate neighborhood can generate their own objections with little trouble. Stove does propose an interesting thought experiment, however.

Suppose one day, at maternity hospitals, there is a massive baby switch. Groggy women recovering from anaesthetic are given a bundle and told it's theirs. The size, sex and skin colour arouse no suspicion.

Now what? If the kin selection theory is correct,

"Every one of those babies, consequently, is going to feel the effects of a total absence of parental altruism toward it. There is going to be, in fact, a simultaneous world wide disappearance of parental altruism. Infant mortality is going to undergo an enormous and inexplicable increase, etc., etc." (p. 148)

As Stove points out, the fact that no one thinks that anything of the kind will really happen is not as significant as the fact that, if kin selection theory is really thought to be true, very many people ought to think it will happen. Yet the theory's supporters apparently do not believe it either.

For what it is worth, even among many animal species such as cats , nursing mothers can be got to accept offspring not their own, if the nursling is slipped in unobtrusively. If a cat really knows that the new kitten is not hers, she gives no sign. Bereft cats have been known to steal kittens from other, luckier cats. Similarly, jealous chimpanzees will steal babies from other females, a fact that even Dawkins admits. And the cuckoo's and cowbird's trick of getting other species of she-bird to raise their eggs depends precisely on the fact that birds do not seem to know who their kin are.

In a humorous passage, Stove asks us to consider the plight of the cock robin, whose territory is invaded by a rival. Even assuming that the cock robin knew that the intruder was his nestmate, what use is he to make of the information?:

A robin defending his territory is an extremely busy man, and he is not running a charity either. ... Even if he is as altruistically disposed to the bum as the shared genes theory says he must be, he cannot get him a paid job, or find him a wife who works or is rich. What can he do about the situation at all? Nothing whatever.

Thus, shared genes or not, the cock robin must simply drive the intruder out, just as if they were not closely related at all. (p. 152)

The real question, of course, is why Darwinian biologists believe a theory that must so obviously be false. Stove offers an explanation:

Scientists sometimes (as is well known) continue to work with a theory which they themselves know is false. Laymen, when they hear of such a case, are apt to be audibly critical of the scientists' conduct; but of course they have no better theory to suggest, and the only result is, that the scientists grow angry and impatient with their lay critics. But these features of scientists' behaviour are not ones which deserve esteem, and still less, imitation. They are departures from rational behavior, not forms of it. They arise only because professional scientists, without the guidance of some theory, however unsatisfactory, do not know what to do with themselves.

He sums up,

A rational interest in science, as distinct from a professional one, is an interest in what is true, or probably true, or probably close to the truth: in that, and in nothing else. If a scientific theory is certainly not even near the truth, then, whatever attractions it may have for scientists, it is of no interest to a person who is simply trying to have rational beliefs and no others.

But today, the lay person may well find that Darwinism is by law established, much as if it were an established church, even if it is contradicted by common experience available to anyone.

Chapter 9: "A New Religion", he discusses the ways in which Darwinian sociobiology's selfish gene must be understood as a new religion, featuring powers greater than ourselves.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), which is part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy, that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces the topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 9 of 11, "A New Religion.")

Selfish gene theory (your behavior is ultimately controlled by your genes, which get you to copy them by producing offspring) is certainly the best-known neo-Darwinian theory today, spawning scads of adulation for Dawkins and an amazing amount of nonsense. Stove here introduces the point that began to function more or less like a religion, , a point he will develop further in Chapter 10.

One problem is that, while sociobiologists (adherents of selfish gene theory) claim on the one hand that genes are not really selfish or consciousness or purposeful, they write as though they in fact are. For example, Dawkins informs us (in The Extended Phenotype ) that when the cuckoo lays its egg in the nest of a reed warbler, the cuckoo's genes are manipulating the reed warbler's genes, to the cuckoo's advantage. But manipulation implies intelligence and purpose (though causation as such does not necessarily imply that.

And what are we to make of the cleverness of the cuckoo's genes in such a case? Stove writes,

If the nest parasitism of cuckoos is a case of manipulation, it is certainly a staggeringly clever one: far too clever for cuckoos, in particular, to be capable of. Can a cuckoo have a purpose as complicated as that of getting a reed warbler to feed a cuckoo nestling better than it fees its own young? That must be extremely doubtful. Still, let us suppose that a cuckoo is clever enough for that. He would need to be cleverer still, to be able to think up a way of achieving this purpose. In particular, could he think up a way of achieving it which did not involve any cuckoo's every going even within a mile of a reed warbler? No: there is no one who will credit cuckoos with so great an intellectual feat. (p. 173)

Here we are talking about a bird that cannot even build a nest. In sum, for Dawkins's idea to work, the cuckoo's genes must be not only smarter than the cuckoo itself, but probably smarter than most human beings, which raises certain problems. They must then be the equivalent of pagan immortal gods.

Not surprisingly, Dawkins attributes immortality to the genes (p. 174), which Stove suggests, provides a clue: Yes, this is a religion. Now, Stove has not much time for any religion, but of sociobiology in particular, he says,

Sociobiology is not incomprehensible, but it is one of the religious that are obviously false. The only part of it that is true is the doctrine that genes are invisible. But this is not something peculiar to sociobiology. Everyone agrees that genes are invisible .... (p. 175)

The problem is that genes are so unlikely to really function the way the sociobiologist needs them to that the self gene hypothesis can only be held on faith as a religion:

They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.

This excerpt from Dawkins gives the general idea. The genes are our masters and we are the flock of their pastures and the sheep of their hand, as the BOok of Common Prayer would say, addressing a more august deity.

It is not really surprising that most people who are drawn to religion prefer traditional monotheism to this stuff.

In Chapter 10 , Stove shows how, consistent with the religious aspect of their enterprise, the Darwinians have smuggled purpose back into biology, in the form of the selfish genes, thus giving 19th century clergyman Paley, long a butt of criticism, his ultimate revenge.

(Note: This is the third of 12 posts, working backwards to the Preface. I will replace this note with links to the other chapters later, for reader convenience.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), which is part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy, that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces the topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 10 of 11, "Paley's Revenge or Purpose Regained.")

Essentially, Stove shows, selfish gene theory smuggled purpose back into biology, only now it is a gene, not a god that has a purpose, to replicate itself. He explains how the god-like "selfish gene" entered Darwinian theory in the first place. Why was it so important?

While the major theoretical work on the idea of the gene that selfishly perpetuates itself was done by George C. Williams ( Adaptation and Natural Selection, 1966), the idea was popularized by Richard Dawkins, a far more interesting writer, in The Selfish Gene (1976).

The problem, of course, is that everywhere in biology we see apparent purpose: Caterpillars that look like bird droppings, praying mantises that look like fallen pink petals, plants that trap insects and eat them. The source of the purpose is unlikely to be the plant or animal's own unintelligent ancestors, or the human observer - and for philosophical reasons the Darwinist rejects divine purpose or cosmic law. Speaking of a spider that mimics a bird dropping, Stove remarks,

The intelligence displayed in this case probably exceeds human intelligence, and certainly exceeds the intelligence of spiders or their ancestors; and the engineering ability displayed enormously exceeds human ability, which in turn far exceeds the engineering ability of any other animals. (p. 181)

Most people prior to Darwin (1859) had simply shrugged and attributed the purpose to divine design, whether or not they were religious believers, let alone churchgoers, in any usual sense.

Darwin famously proposed that a long, slow series of adaptations could result in such enormous changes. And he carried the day because he eliminated the element of divine purpose at a time when many people dearly wanted that. But - and this is what you will not hear from the Darwinist - he did not in fact solve the problem.

As many have pointed out, looking only one per cent like a bird dropping will not save a caterpillar from a hungry bird. Probably not even five percent or ten. Some purpose working behind the scenes is required to sustain major projects over the long periods in which they do not appear to pay.

That's where the selfish gene comes in. It attempts to get itself replicated in as many descendants as possible. It will persist through many iterations until it succeeds, and is thus capable of these apparently miraculous transformations.

As Stove remarks, referring to William Paley, a nineteenth-century clergyman who insisted that nature showed divine purpose,

Thus has Paley had his long delayed revenge on Darwinism. For more than a hundred years, the proudest boast of Darwinians had been, that they had at last complied with Bacon's famous injunction, and expelled 'final causes from their science. Paley was remembered, when he was remembered at all, only as the most atrocious of all offenders against that injunction. And yet we find, in the last third of the 20th century, many Darwinians of the highest reputation ascribing adaptation to the purposive activity of beings which possess more than human intelligence and power. This is certainly a sufficiently remarkable historical comeback; een if Paley redivivus has had to settle, (as I said), for plural and immoral divinities. (p. 186)

Stove shows that Darwinians often use language to describe the activity of genes (plural and immoral divinities) that implies that they have a sense of purpose (pp. 184–86). Darwinists deny that they "really" mean purpose, of course. Dawkins writes, "Natural selection ... has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all."

But the problem is no one believes that abstractions such as "natural selection" or "artificial selection " or "warfare" have purpose. To deny that abstract entities have purposes is to deny what no one has ever maintained.

Concrete existences do have purpose, however. Are genes such existences or not? Stove reminds us that consciousness is not needed for purpose. Indeed, an ant can intentionally sting you, but we need not suppose that the ant is conscious. A pitcher plant traps bugs for the purpose of eating them, but the plant is certainly not conscious. Genes are not even whole organisms, like plants, they are merely nucleotides strung together inside the nucleus of a cell. So then we must ask, does Dawkins really attribute purpose to genes or doesn't he?

He says no, but Stoves notes,

... for every once that Dawkins says that genes are not purposive, he says a hundred things, (many of which I have quoted), which imply that genes are /em> purposive. And that Williams, likewise, says countless things which imply that genes are purposive, although he doubtless believes (while never actually saying) that they are not. If the writer of a book says a certain thing twice or once or never, but implies the opposite over and over again throughout his book, a rational reader will take it that the writer's real opinion is the one which he constantly implies; not the other one. (p. 187)

The basic problem is that Dawkins and Williams before him never address a central confusion between the language of description of what genes do and the language of purpose, which makes them into plural and immoral gods.

The central question is: Can genes indeed superintend a project that transforms a caterpillar into a living likeness of a bird dropping if they do not have purpose, and if they do have purpose, how do they have it? It is no use protesting that they only appear to have purpose. Stove suggests that the Darwinists owe the world a translation manual (p. 190).

Essentially, Stove puts his finger on the problem: Darwinism has an unpaid teleological debt (a debt regarding purpose), even since Darwin was hailed as banishing purpose, when he didn't really do so.

they never paid this debt: they have in fact become progressively less conscious, with time, of the fact that they owe this debt. This is a natural failing, of course, in people with debts which have remained unpaid for a long time. But it is not the less, on that account, an inexcusable failing. (p. 191)

In other words, in attempting to explain complex adaptations, Darwinism transferred purpose from an unselfish God to selfish genes, without giving any clear account of how or why genes should do all that Darwinists need them to do. Nor have Darwinists ever demonstrated that they actually do.

Stove shows that if Darwinists were prevented from smuggling teleological language into their descriptions of the activity of genes, they would not be able to demonstrate that genes ever even "try" to get themselves replicated at all. How could they? They are rows of molecules, not mail order brides.

Because he is not a religious believer, philosopher Stove does not write with the intention of substituting a more conventional theistic explanation for the Darwinian religion of the selfish gene (he describes it as such). He is content to point out that it is a religion, which transfers the debt of purpose to the gene. Indeed, the religious character of Darwinism has often been remarked on by other sources. Dawkins has famously said that Darwinism made him feel fulfilled fulfilled as an atheist.

That's as may be, but forcing it on the public as the only acceptable explanation for a variety of puzzling life forms is increasingly, and very understandably, controversial.

In Chapter 11 , Stove addresses Darwinism and human nature.

(Note: This is the second of 12 posts, working backward to the Preface. I will later replace this note with links to the other chapters, for reader convenience.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy, that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces some key topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 11 of 11, "Errors of Heredity or The Irrelevance of Darwinism to Human Life.")

In the eleventh and last chapter, Stove addresses the fact that, from a Darwinian perspective, humans must be a biological error. "A biological error, or error of heredity, is an organism which does not have as many descendants as it could have. or a characteristic of an organism witch prevents it having as many descendants as it otherwise could." (p. 212)

Now, he reasons, among plants or cockroaches, there is no biological error. They do not fail to have as many descendants as they can. Yet humans routinely do so, for a number of reasons, ranging from natural or voluntary celibacy through lifestyle choices that reduce fertility through heroic self-sacrifice.

Stove quotes major Darwinians on human biological errors: Darlington on celibacy, Wilson on failing to kill your enemies, Dawkins on adoption, and Fisher on heroic self-sacrifice. Stove is particularly hard on Fisher, who remarks, amazingly,

The hero is one fitted constitutionally to encounter danger; he therefore exercises a certain inevitable authority in hazardous enterprises, for men will only readily follow one who gives them some hope of success. Hazardous enterprises, however, are not a necessity save for the men who, as enemies or leaders, make them so, and the high esteem in which tradition surrounds certain forms of definite imprudence cannot be ascribed to any just appreciation of the chances of success. (pp. 215–16)

In Fisher's world, there is no need for self-sacrifice, not even on 9-11. But heroes do apparently insist on coming along and making trouble. I wonder what he would have made of the two young men who jumped into the pit of the Toronto subway in 2005, to pull out an older woman who had fainted? In what sense can we say that their "hazardous enterprise" was unnecessary? Dangerous, yes, and not at all likely to improve their chances of leaving descendants. Transit officials perform their duty, of course, when they counsel riders against such heroism. But very few of us would admire the young men more for taking the officials' advice.

As Stove points out, Fisher is living in a different mental space from most human beings on this point. Most of us, even if we accept religious teachings against artificial contraception, have never attempted to maximize the number of our descendants.

Now, Stove's key point - and if you grew up with Darwinism, you may miss it at first - is that humans cannot, by definition, be biological errors. A state of existence can neither be true nor false. It simply is or isn't. If human behavior is not what the Darwinians make it out to be, the reason is that the Darwinians are wrong.

But, he notes, that is not what Darwinians conclude. Rather,

"Wherever Darwinism is in error, Darwinians simply call the organisms in question or their characteristics, an error! Wherever there is manifestly something wrong with their theory they say that there is something wrong with the organisms. ..." (p 220)

Or, they simply deny the facts and assert a contrary propositions. For example, a respected sociobiologist, R.D. ALexander, wrote in 1979, " ... we are programmed to use all our effort, and in fact to use our lives, in reproduction." (p. 221)

Stove responds,

This is one of those statements which are so breathtakingly false, that initially their only effect on the reader or hearer is to produce stupefaction. One can at best only gasp out something like, "Well, in that case, the programme isn't working and never has worked."

Of course, another possibility would be for the Darwinian to exempt humans from his discussion of natural selection, as - whatever may be the case with other life forms - his theory definitely does not describe the behavior of humans. But that is precisely what he would never want to do. The principle Darwinian project has always been to include include humans in the grand theory.

I hope it will be clear to the reader that my account of Stove's critique of the Darwinist account of human nature (and many points of animal nature) leaves out much very informative material, incisive arguments, and entertaining digressions that readers can enjoy at their leisure.

One thing his account certainly clarifies for me is why Darwinists today need to entrench their theory in school systems, contrary to public opinion. They must get students to accept it implicitly and uncritically, because it will not withstand common-sense criticism such as Stove supplies. The child must learn that Darwinism is absolutely true and accepted by all scientists before he learns that most adults do not embrace parenthood nearly as readily as a child assumes - before he learns, for example, about the rapidly growing demographic crisis of low birth rates . That way, he won't be tempted to blurt out embarrassing questions in biology class, with the devil to pay later.

On the other hand ... the willingness to think clearly cannot be so easily suppressed as the Darwinist supposes. In the end, Stoves main achievement in Darwinian Fairytales is to show that the theory was always conceptually flawed in important ways. Its status as an ideology is its best protection.

(Note: This is the first of 12 posts, working backwards to the Preface. I will replace this note with links to the other chapters, for reader convenience.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

Academic Freedom Championed at JCE
© 2006 by Kevin Wirth
www.arn.org
Note: You can download a PDF version of this report by clicking here

One of the adversaries of Intelligent Design (ID), Dr. Eugenie Scott, is on record stating that, in her view

“A very popular American tradition is the ‘fairness’ or ‘let’s let all sides have their say’ and so forth. This is a wonderful cultural tradition – it’s irrelevant in science…It sounds really unfair, but it isn’t the job of the high school teacher to decide that students need to be exposed to views that are on the fringe of science. The job of the high school teacher is to try to communicate the consensus view of science – otherwise, you’re really misleading those kids.”

Many are inclined to accept this clearly stifling and unproductive educational approach, were it not for evidence and sentiments to the contrary. Thankfully, we have a recent example that Scott’s claims are without merit in the current issue of the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE). It seems that William Howard (University of Alaska) made some waves last year in his peer reviewed article about Potassium-Argon dating methods. This month, a letter appears in JCE by one Karen Bartelt of Eureka College, taking Howard to task for implying that “there is a controversy about the validity of radiometric dating”, calling his piece, among other things, “a caricature of critical thinking”, noting that “to cast doubt on the accuracy of K–Ar dating, Howard sets up nonsense criteria—red herrings—that inculcate doubt in his audience, but are irrelevant.”

Howard, equal to the challenge, responds to Bartelt, noting that

Radiometric dating is a well-established field of science, but this fact should not be used to intimidate someone from asking questions. Scientific knowledge advances only when well-established practices are questioned, and questioning radiometric dating is the responsibility of all professional scientists everywhere.

When teaching chemistry, I introduce my students to a number of theories, such as Atomic Theory, Quantum Theory, Valence Bond Theory, Molecular Orbital Theory, Crystal Field Theory, and more! These theories are well-established and supported by a great deal of experimental evidence. Nevertheless, I encourage my students to question the experimental support and to think of new experiments that could potentially falsify the theories. This activity is extremely important for producing first rate scientists. The students are well aware that these theories are not “controversial”, and that we question these ideas simply as an intellectual exercise.

There is an extremely valuable lesson here, and it runs counter to the tune currently being played out by adversaries of ID. In the view of Dr. Eugenie Scott and others like her, it seems likely that ID doesn’t qualify as an idea that can effectively stimulate students in their discovery of what real science is and is not.

But the exchange between Howard and Bartelt becomes an even more valuable lesson as the original reviewers of Howard’s paper respond to Bartelt’s complaints. Their comments provide us with some extraordinary insight that opponents of ID would do well to heed.

Reviewer Reed Howald notes that

Karen Bartelt’s letter is not a fair evaluation of the William A. Howard paper. There are educational advantages of getting students involved in the scientific analysis of even controversial topics like the potassium–argon method of dating minerals.

I trust that student discussion of the potassium–argon method of dating minerals can be valuable in teaching the scientific method.

However, the comments of referee reviewer Richard Firestone adds these pearls of wisdom:

Karen Bartelt’s letter criticizing the paper by William Howard that I reviewed goes too far. I may have been naïve about Howard’s intentions, and I agree with her concerns about intelligent design, but this paper must be considered on its merits, not on perceived intentions. The Howard paper should be credited for teaching students to be critical in their analysis of data.

Students should be taught to be very critical of established analytical procedures. Results should be analyzed with an eye on whether they are reasonable, not only precise. A Ming vase dated to 700,000 B.C.E. would make no sense, no matter how careful the measurement seems. Howard’s intentions may be clear to Bartelt, but I don’t think that he crossed the line with his arguments. Bartelt’s concerns are shared by many of us, but are we going to reject this paper on the basis of our perception of the author’s intentions? It is not the job of the Journal of Chemical Education to create a litmus test for what papers might or might not have hidden intelligent design meanings. (emphasis added)

Notice that Bartelt’s interpretation of Howard’s motivation or intentions are dismissed by Firestone – as they should be. Motivations are ultimately irrelevant when determining the validity of any scientific theory. In the ID debate, many opponents claim that ID advocates have ‘religious’ motivations, which should have absolutely no impact on the scientific validity of ID. Many valid ideas in science have come to us as the result of dreams and imagination. In the end, motivation and inspiration of an idea are not important in the scientific enterprise – what truly matters is whether an idea can stand on it’s scientific merits alone.

The entire JCE exchange is well worth reading, and is very instructive on the value of presenting students with ways to critically analyze even established practices of science.

Now, if we could just get our courts to agree…

About the author:
Kevin Wirth is a correspondent for Access Research Network (ARN) and can be reached at kwirth@arn.org

On one of my many bookshelves rests a copy of The Genesis Flood, by Henry Morris. It's the original edition, which my wife read in college. I've never read the book myself, having entered the origins debate a couple of decades after its publication. And I've always been more interested in biology than geology. Nonetheless, his book changed the course of my life.

Thanks to that book, and Morris' many other efforts, the question of origins entered once again into public awareness, sparking a resurgence of creationism in North America. The growing movement drew thinkers of many persuasions into the arena, which brought a richness and vitality to the debate. It was a mix that I found irresistible when I was first exposed to the debate in late 1984. I was soon devouring whatever I could get my hands on, and what began as an avocation eventually became my vocation.

I didn't share many of Morris' views, but I do owe him a debt of gratitude for his work. If it weren't for his work, I wouldn't have had mine.

I think something similar goes for many of Darwin's most prominent defenders. Thanks to Morris, many Darwinists have attained professional acclaim who would otherwise have spent their entire careers in obscurity. Of course, that's not exactly something any of them would care to acknowledge. Who'd want to admit that they owe their paycheck and visibility to the very "rabble" they're fighting.

Still, the Darwinists could show a modicum of decency in the wake of Morris' passing. Following the passing of Stephen Jay Gould, I wrote a largely sympathetic obit. But I was roundly chastised by Darwinists for a remark, made in passing, that his sometimes contradictory comments occasionally exasperated friends and foes alike: How dare I speak so disrespectfully of the dead!

Yet apparently, the same standard does not apply to creationists. When I visited talk.origins today I was appalled at the thread discussing Morris' death. I won't repeat the disgraceful things that were said. But the words and the celebratory tone spoke volumes about the writers' lack of character and humanity.

What have we come to when people can't put aside their arguments in the face of a human being's suffering and death? When they, in fact, vindictively celebrate that suffering? When their own petty grievances triumph over matters of life and death?

To put it another way, where's the profit in winning the debate if, in the process, you lose your very soul? That is indeed a loss to be mourned.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Here's a longish essay on the state of artificial intelligence, that should be must-reading for people who have been taken in by predictions of thinking, feeling computers.

Not only hasn't it happened, but it is unlikely to happen. Mark Halpern, who has spent fifty years working with computer software helps explain why in the Winter 2006 edition of The New Atlantis.

In October 1950, computer genius Alan Turing published a paper titled "Computer machinery and Intelligence" in the British quarterly Mind, according to which properly programmed computers would generally be accepted as thinking by about 2000. That is, they would successfully respond to human questions in a human-like way. Turing proposed his famous "Turing Test" in that paper. Can you tell the difference between interacting with a computer and interacting with a human?

Anyone who has suffered through the Muzak on a hold line offering a number of useless canned options and responded by hammering the zero button to get hold of a person at a call center in Bangalore, India, or New Brunswick, Canada, can certainly tell the difference. And this is now 2006 and counting.

In 1950 very few people had any idea of the supercomputer-like complexity of a single cell. Your body sheds millions of them every day, shrugs (so to speak), and recruits more. Never mind what the human brain is like either - that's the most complex object in the universe, and it is nothing like a computer. People don't think the way computers process jobs. Never have and never will.

So in the 1950s, large promises were easy to make, and they found their way into abundant science fiction where mechanical brains terrorized the population and warred among themselves. Some, like HAL, were even entertainingly but murderously insane.

According to Halpern, what really happened to the Turing Test was that artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiasts simply changed the original challenge posed by Alvin Turing:

While they have programmed the computer to do things that might have astonished even him, today’s programmers cannot do what he believed they would do—they cannot pass his test. And so the relationship of the AI community to Turing is much like that of adolescents to their parents: abject dependence alternating with embarrassed repudiation. For AI workers, to be able to present themselves as "Turing’s Men" is invaluable; his status is that of a von Neumann, Fermi, or Gell-Mann, just one step below that of immortals like Newton and Einstein. He is the one undoubted genius whose name is associated with the AI project (although his status as a genius is not based on work in AI). The highest award given by the Association for Computing Machinery is the Turing Award, and his concept of the computer as an instantiation of what we now call the Turing Machine is fundamental to all theoretical computer science. When members of the AI community need some illustrious forebear to lend dignity to their position, Turing's name is regularly invoked, and his paper referred to as if holy writ. But when the specifics of that paper are brought up, and when critics ask why the Test has not yet been successfully performed, he is brushed aside as an early and rather unsophisticated enthusiast. His ideas, we are then told, are no longer the foundation of AI work, and his paper may safely be relegated to the shelf where unread classics gather dust, even while we are asked to pay its author the profoundest respect. Turing’s is a name to conjure with, and that is just what most AI workers do with it.

For example, he notes,

In a survey article in the Proceedings of the IRE in 1961, Minsky defends the idea that computers might think by saying that "we cannot assign all the credit to its programmer if the operation of a system comes to reveal structures not recognizable nor anticipated by the programmer," implying that at least some part of such a surprising result must be due to thinking by the machine. He caps his argument with the words: "Turing gives a very knowledgeable discussion of such matters." He quotes nothing specific, just appeals to Turing's stature and authority. But in 2003, Minsky expressed his disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress made by AI toward achieving Turing's goals: "AI has been brain-dead since the 1970s.... For each different kind of problem, the construction of expert systems had to start all over again, because they didn't accumulate common-sense knowledge.... Graduate students are wasting three years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking.

One basic problem, as Halpern explains it, is this:

... anyone with an understanding of how computers are made to mimic human responses would need no subject-matter expertise whatever to detect a computer posing as a human. Such a judge would simply demand that the hidden entity respond to the ideas represented by his questions, warning that it would be severely penalized for repeating any of the key words in those questions. Using this interrogative technique, the discriminative ability of judges should increase much faster than programmers' abilities to mimic human responses, and the Test should become correspondingly more difficult and thus more serious.

But in the actual Turing Tests Halpern amusingly describes, the human judges don't appear to make use of any such strategies. One judge decides that a learned scholar is a computer just because she appears to be smart and knowledgeable about her subject.

The 1992 test series Halpern analyzes demonstrate clearly that humans who lack judgement don't make good decisions, but they doesn't demonstrate much else. What people do when they think is just not what computers do.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).