Paul Rosenberg's excellent diary about Intelligent Design, has spurred me to share part of a discussion I've been having with a relative who is, on the right side of the political and religious spectrum.
I have hesitated to share this discussion because it is not "news" with Links and such. I hope no one is mad at me for taking up diary space. Let me know and I won't do it again. Also, please excuse the rather professorial ranting tone. I know most of you are familiar with much of the science type information here, but I just wanted to make a coherent arguement with my relative. We teachers can't seem to help taking on a teaching task by organizing the information in a connected sequence.
As part of our discussion, my relative read some Carl Sagan, and I read a book he sent me called "Darwin's Black Box." So anyway, if you are interested in one high school science teacher's debate with a relative about evolution vs intelligent design, read on. Here are some excerpts from my letter to him.
Dear Relative,
As you anticipated, I'm not much swayed or impressed by the arguments made in Darwin's Black Box. The science is fairly familiar to me, though of course I don't have all that biochemistry at the tip of my tongue anymore as I'm not teaching it. I find the words "intelligent designer" to be a very thinly veiled term for God. Though you have said the author "came right up to but did not get into religion," I would argue the entire book has a religious agenda. Anyway, I don't want to go through a point by point refutation of each of the author's examples of phenomenon which he purports illustrate intelligent design, because the premise itself is not arguable, or testable in a scientific sense. His hypothesis is a religious one, not a scientific one. Science does not seek to prove or disprove the existence of a God. Many scientists have a strong faith in God; many are agnostics or atheists. (I am probably the only near atheist in my department.) Science and religion are two entirely different realms, and I believe, to mix the two will ruin both. To try to prove one's religious beliefs scientifically will always ultimately fail and thus weaken the pillars of the faith. Conversely, to try to explain science with religious beliefs, to give the "God hypothesis" for all the things we do not yet understand from a scientific perspective, is to stifle exploration.
What I would really like to discuss in the context of this book, is the continuing conflict between creationism and evolution, or religion and science, and is ramifications for our times, because this is, I believe, what is truly at the heart of Darwin's Black Box. This conflict is the reason the author wrote the book, I think, and though he tries not to be too obvious about it, his agenda is to convince us, members of this society, that his argument deserves at least our equal consideration, and I suspect, probably inclusion in the public school curriculum, preferably in a science classroom not a religion class.
First I just want to say a bit about Charles Darwin himself, since he is in the title of the book. And also a bit about the times he lived in, along with the ongoing discoveries of the nascent scientific community of the 18th and 19th centuries. Darwin, it appears to me is often vilified by the religious right, as if he alone is responsible for the start of an apparent decline in the morals values of western civilization. Though this book takes a gentler tone towards Darwin the underlying criticism of him still seems to be present between the lines. Our culture's habit of blaming Darwin and his ideas for a host of ills, bespeaks a lack of knowledge of who he was as a human being, how he investigated nature, the pains he took to reconcile his discoveries with his very strong religious beliefs, and what his actual ideas were. Not many people who are not scientists, have plowed through the 700 pages of Origin of Species or a biography of Darwin, so what folks tend to know is apt to be hearsay and presented with extreme bias one way or another. A little sincere investigation reveals a devout and humble man, who spent a lifetime analyzing his collections in an attempt to understand a world he saw as divinely created by God. There also seems to be, among some conservatives, the misconception that scientists hold Darwin as some sort of hero to follow, almost in a religious sense because scientists "believe" in evolution. This is not the case. Though Darwin is greatly respected for the quality of his work, scientists, if they are being true to the nature of the discipline, do not hold "beliefs" in the sense most people usually use that word. (You know how fussy I am about using the word "belief.") There are many things not widely known about Darwin. Among them is the fact he was not working in a vacuum of knowledge in coming up with the concept of evolution. If not Darwin, someone else would surely have articulated these ideas very soon. There were others hot on the trail, one of whom published his independent work nearly at the same time as Charles.
So now I'm going to go into a bit more of a skeletal lecture on the history of science, a subject I find fascinating, and very relevant to this whole discussion. Please forgive my professorial tendencies. Darwin lived at a time when sciences of all sorts were making great progress in their understanding of the world. Charles Lyell, the "father of geology," was recognizing two of the most basic concepts of how the earth works: younger rocks are deposited on top of older rocks, and processes observed in the present day can be used to interpret what has happened in the past. Thus geologists were realizing layers of sedimentary rocks represented deposition over time, and the fossils within those rocks were left by creatures who lived then and there. Also people were coming to the understanding mountains must be pushed up (though the mechanism of plate techtonics was not yet known), weather and erode, providing sediments for rivers to carry and spread across the surface of the land, creating the layers of rocks we observe today. Even before radiometric dating techniques were developed, it was obvious these processes would take immense amounts of time.
Caroleus Linneaus had pioneered binomial nomenclature and classification of organisms into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species, and natural history had taken off as scientists everywhere were identifying and naming species by the thousands. The entire concept of classification was, and is, based on grouping organisms according to common characteristics. Now we understand those common attributes in the context of evolution, and we can demonstrate relatedness by similarity in DNA, but in Darwin's time scientists were, in their minds, simply cataloguing the wonders of God's creation. (In fact all of science was viewed in this light.) Others investigating fossils could not help but notice older rocks contained the remnants of simpler organisms, and complexity of species correlated with a more recent time. The study of anatomy revealed more information about similarities of organisms, such as homologous bone structures in the fin of a whale, the wing of a bat and the arm of a human. You probably know all these basics from both the angle of having learned them in school, and also creationism's response to each of these. (I've read those little pamphlets given out by Jehovah witness type groups in which there is an answer to each of the above.)
Anyway, the stage was set for the idea the earth is old, has changed dramatically over time, and the organisms living upon it have evolved into countless species, related by common descent. Darwin was not alone in his insights, but he was unique in the meticulous manner in which he investigated, compiled evidence, and wrote in a self-effacing, and comprehensive manner. Of course his ideas met with much resistance at the time, especially when he finally had the courage to publish The Descent of Man, as they seemed counter to the widely accepted fact that God had created earth in 6 days along with all its creatures in present forms, about ten thousand years ago as can be calculated by the all the begats listed in the Bible. It does seem to be the nature of humans to hang on to a long held belief with some degree of desperation, my observation at any rate, and we continue this same debate a couple hundred years later. But science kept coming up with facts and evidence that ran counter to Genesis. This actually confounded and even dismayed early scientists as they held strongly to the paradigm of the great flood to explain geologic observations, and divine intentions for just about everything. They struggled to fit their observations about fossils and rock layers into this model, and in the end, had to give it up. One of the neatest books I've read about this early time, starting in the 1600's is A Seashell on the Mountain Top, about a young man from Copenhagen, who studies seashells, and geology, and quite a bit of animal anatomy by dissecting everything he could find, and in the end is so disturbed by the way his discoveries and inferences do not seem to jibe with his religious beliefs, abandon's his work and ends up as an extreme ascetic priest, dying of malnutrition and disease by about age forty. This book certainly gives some insight into the early struggles between religion and science within the human spirit.
One way I've seen conservative religion seeking to attack evolution is to
remind us all that it is "just a theory." The problem is the word theory means two entirely different things in common versus scientific usage. More science lesson coming here, much of which you probably know, but this all makes a tidy little presentation. Commonly we use the word theory more like scientists use the word hypothesis. "I heard a theory people commit more crimes during a full moon.", or "I'm eating more tomatoes because I have a theory it reduces my risk of cancer.", or "The theory is that scorpios and pisces don't get along." These are hypothesis, some of which can be tested and proven to be sound or faulty. In science a theory is more like a law that cannot be expressed mathematically. A law is an explanation of how things work which can be calculated. For instance E = mc2 relates energy to mass and the speed of light, F = ma says force equals mass times acceleration, or PV = nRT, explains the behavior of gases in relation to pressure, temperature, volume and number of particles.
I'm really sounding like a high school teacher here and I apologize for it, especially if you are already familiar with all these distinctions. But to complete the thought, a theory is like a law, but it is about something that is not so mathematical or can not be demonstrated quantitatively so well. A theory is an all-encompassing explanation, which ties together and explains countless observations and experimental results and is well accepted by the scientific community. For example there is the "Cell Theory," which states two things: all cells are derived from other cells, and all organisms are made of cells. It seems obvious to us now, but in the 1830's with the use of quality microscopes, it was a new revelation. There is the theory that DNA is the molecule which stores the information needed for everything about a living thing. In chemistry there is the Kinetic Molecular Theory, a set of concepts about how and why particles like atoms and molecules, do what they do under different conditions of pressure, temperature and other variables. There is the Quantum Theory explaining the behavior of electrons as they exist in an atom. No one would doubt any of these theories because they are so well confirmed by countless observations and experiments. The so called "Theory of Evolution" is on par with all of these. Among serious scientists, the concept of evolution is the established paradigm because all evidence about the earth and living things points directly to it. To deny the validity of evolution requires either a lack of science training and knowledge, or willfully ignoring the facts which support it.
Another common tactic for attacking evolution is to reveal that scientists argue about evolution, therefore they must not be confident in it as a paradigm, and thus there is a good chance it is wrong. Again, this is simply a misunderstanding. Scientist do not argue about IF evolution occurs, but about HOW it happens, at what rate, stimulated by what sorts of events, does it happen at the organismal level or the level of a population, and so on and so forth. Healthy debate is intrinsic to science and should not be mistaken for something it is not.
So, let me get to one of the cruxes of the overall issue in my mind, as it certainly is often right in our faces as educators. How would teaching "intelligent design" in the biology classroom be a problem? Can't we talk about Native American creation myths, intelligent design, and evolution all at the same time? Actually no, in my opinion, we can't treat these ideas in the same way if we want a high quality science education in America. Confusing science with religion misses the entire concept of how science works and will not develop kids who can go on to further understanding and advancement in any of the scientific fields. Forcing public schools to "tone down" their discussion of evolution and to present other "theories of origins", as has been happening, is absolutely to inject religion into science education, and thus to weaken it.
Religion is not, cannot and never will be, scientific. Science seeks to find theories and laws to explain evidence. Religion tries to fit observations to beliefs. Science is about proof. Religion is about faith. Science is about testing, tossing out faulty ideas, and coming up with new explanations. Religion hangs on to a fixed dogma. Science is about questioning everything. Religion abhors doubt. Science requires rigorous peer review and duplication of results in experiments. Religion favors trusting the pastor or priest's interpretation, or perhaps one's own reading of the Bible.
This is not to say people of faith do not respect, admire and even practice science in every sense of the word. The problem occurs when a few conservatives attempt to tame science, bend it to their will, and use it for what they view as good things to help humans, and at the same time, side-line those pesky ideas which seem to contradict their beliefs.
The problem is, you cannot have it both ways. The gifts of science depend on a thriving community of investigators who can have an unrestricted, transparent, and lively discussion. There cannot be a healthy scientific community if you forbid, or curtail talk about certain ideas because they offend your religious senses.
Here's the deal, the problem with trying to cut evolution out of education and keep the other stuff. The concept of evolution is not limited to the sphere of biology. It is tied to, embedded in, and interwoven into the paradigm of nearly all sciences. We would need to toss out the science of Geology, for example. For its concepts of slowly moving and colliding plates, driven by the hot core of the earth, pushing up mountains which erode over time, to be turned into sedimentary rocks with accompanying fossilized organisms, which are pulled under the earth's crust at subducting plate boundaries, to be melted down to create new igneous rock.... all are antithetical to a 10,000 year old earth. So we must abolish Geology and forbid its teachings, as it contributes to the heretical idea of evolution. We must somehow learn to teach anatomy, physiology, taxonomy and genetics, without mentioning the most obvious facts about relatedness of organisms. How do you do that? Why would you do that? We must also abolish astronomy, because this science has many fundamental concepts indicating an ancient universe and very old planets. We must deny the concept of light years, because time is too short. (or else God has an impish sense of humor) We must also reject particle physics because its investigation leads us to an understanding of all 4 of the fundamental forces inherent in matter: gravity, electro-magnetism, the strong and weak forces. In seeking to understand matter at its most fundamental level, scientists are also learning about the earliest moments of the Universe. Really cool stuff. But we must toss out all this because it raises too many questions contradictory to Genesis. And while we are at it, we must reject chemistry as well, because of its close relationship with physics in its understanding of atomic structure and matter itself. So, by discounting evolution, we not only reject THE paradigm in which we understand all living things, we also must reject much of the rest of the foundations of science as well. This is why you find educators fighting so hard against the elimination of evolution in our public schools.
I am reminded of Russia early in the 20th century when the ruling oligarchy was enamored with Lamark's hypothesis of inheritance of acquired characteristics. He believed offspring will have attributes their parents gained as a result of interacting with the environment. For example he said Giraffs have long necks because their parents made their own necks longer by reaching for leaves, then were able to pass longer necks to their offspring. The scientists who understood the process of evolution to be one of natural selection from a population with variation, lost the argument, and the ear of the government, and because the autocratic state controlled everything, from public education to funding research, the USSR slipped decades behind other countries in its understanding of genetics. They lost a generation of growing scientists and they still have not caught up. Limiting science education ultimately risks throwing a culture into ignorance and superstition. Well, you've read Carl Sagan's stuff, so you know where I'm coming from on this one.