Now I know what I hope to get for Christmas! Wayne Eyre wrote a masterful review in the National Post of David Berlinkski’s new book, The Devil’s Delusion. Atheism and It’s Scientific Pretensions . In his review Eyre provides a wonderful context for the book’s subject and provides enough insight into the author’s credentials and the book’s’ content to let the reader decide if it’s worth spending one’s hard earned dollars (or in my case, perhaps someone else’s hard earned cash) on the purchase. (continue reading…)
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Category: DarwinismThe National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a 70 page article by a committee of 15 authors, chaired by Francisco J. Ayala, entitled Science, Evolution, and Creationism . This article, published in 2008, is far too long for me to discuss in one Blog, so I propose to discuss it topically over several shorter submissions.
First of all this article is written for the non-science practitioner since the text consists of one long list of assertions with little or no critical review of the actual data. I presume the authors chose this route to keep the discussion simple, however it does mean that very complex topics are summarized for the reader based on the authors’ point of view and there is no possibility to examine the data to see how it speaks to the assertions presented.
In this post, I would like to focus on pages 12-15 where Ayala et al. quotes many sources to make the point "acceptance of evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith." He argues that there is no inherent conflict between religious faith and evolution and underlines the complementarity of science and religion. The condescending tone of this discussion aside, I agree with this complementarity statement with some qualifications.
One problem lies in the definitions. If everyone is using the same definition for "evolution" and for "faith" then well and good, but often in these kinds of discussions that is not the case. For example, if evolution is defined in "change in organisms over time" then virtually everyone would can accept that evolution occurs since virtually everyone acknowledges pigmentation changes in the races, development of infectious immunity and similar examples. To avoid this confusion, I prefer the term Darwinism (see my blog entitled Tanks, Testing and Terminology ) to refer to what Ayala means by evolution.
The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments. [1995 official Position Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers]
This problem of definitions also occurs in the quotes of various clerics, rabbis, and theistic evolutionists cited by Ayala et al. Virtually all Christians subscribe to the Apostles’ Creed. The first line of the Apostles’ Creed states: I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. Given the Apostles’ Creed, it takes a good deal of discussion to understand what people mean when they say that they say "evolution is compatible with religious faith." Given the Apostles’ Creed it is difficult to reconcile Maker of heaven and earth with "unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable" (which by the way are untestable statements – how do I prove a process is unsupervised?).
Now let me turn to what I find most interesting in Ayala’s [I'm going to say Ayala when I mean Ayala et al.] discussion. He has made the point that if the evidence for evolution is there, then it is possible for Christians to accommodate this evidence and maintain their faith. What Ayala does not do is turn this statement around.
Ayala brought Christians and other Theists (some 40% of the science population as I recall) into the discussion. What about the other 60%? Can an Atheist (perhaps more properly a Materialist or Philosophical Naturalist) accommodate empirical evidence contrary to Darwinism with their world view?
I think the answer is an emphatic "no!" As Dawkins has pointed out "Evolution makes Atheism reasonable." If Ayala is going to open the faith versus evolution question at all, he ought to point out that while scientists that are Theists can accommodate change over time with their beliefs, Atheists on the other hand would have their whole world view severely challenged by empirical evidence that pointed to the actions of a Creator. I believe this is an important point because one needs to identify potential bias in the stakeholders of these discussions. Everyone has biases. Atheist biases are very strongly on the side of a Darwinist explanation.
In the end, both Atheists and Theists ought to find common ground by agreeing that we are seeking the truth. We will probably differ on how we weight the evidence. I think everyone no matter what their world view, if they are honest, will acknowledge there is some difficulty in integrating all of the evidence that confronts them. It would be helpful if we could discuss our differences without rancor or vituperation.
So why is this such a contentious issue? I think Atheists such as Dawkins (and Ayala echoes the same sentiments on p37-39) see Intelligent Design as a way of introducing religion into the classroom [I do not agree with this perspective and believe it to be a prejudice]. However, listening to Dawkins speak, he also believes that understanding unguided Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of life in general and Homo sapiens in particular, is also a vehicle for destroying people’s religious beliefs (which Dawkins regards as a good thing). And so I think, at its core, this is really a contest about who gets to proselytize in the public school system (Atheists or Theists) and so it is this question, rather than science, that makes tensions run very high.
I have much more to say on Ayala’s manuscript, but overall I found it rather one-sided and patronizing. He underestimates the understanding of science by most of his audience, over simplifies the arguments of his opponents and puts words in their mouths rather than let them speak for themselves. If he really wanted to model the scientific method, he would avoid so many categorical statements affirming evolution. Furthermore, rather than enumerating data to support evolution, he ought to make an honest, vigorous attempt to disprove the theory (that’s what we as scientists are supposed to do) and also openly acknowledge difficulties and things that are hard to explain, given our current knowledge. Then the reader could make up his own mind on the evidence and learn something about how science works at the same time.
Thanks for reading,
~Peter
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opened in Canada last night. I had family visiting so I went to the late showing to see what all of the internet buzz was about. In the end I think it is an excellent documentary that draws attention to the academic blacklisting of researchers who have demonstrated the audacity to reference or provide data that supports Intelligent Design. Although I knew of several of the individuals interviewed, there were many I had not heard about. As a person with one foot in academia, and who is quite familiar with the grant and publication peer review process, I could readily understand how that process could shut the door on any researcher who wanted to investigate a blacklisted topic such as Intelligent Design, however, what surprised me were the examples where this process was also applied to journalists who had attempted to highlight the plight of Intelligent Design researchers. The fact that journalists also have had their careers threatened for writing sympathetically on Intelligent Design was chilling. (continue reading…)