Kenneth Miller: Darwin, Design, and the Catholic Faith

Kenneth Miller has a lengthy post for Beliefnet on evolution and faith.  There is no date on the page, so I don't know when it came out.  He writes:

Science is, just as John Paul II said, silent on the issue of ultimate purpose, an issue that lies outside the realm of scientific inquiry. This means that biological evolution, correctly understood, does not make the claim of purposelessness. It does not address what Simpson called the "deeper problem," leaving that problem, quite properly, to the realm of faith.

The rest of the argument is, in many ways, a boiled down version of the one he proposed in Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, where he argued that contingency is built into the system. He writes:

The neo-creationists of intelligent design, unlike Popes Benedict and John Paul, argue against evolution on every level, claiming that a "designer" has repeatedly intervened to directly produce the complex forms of living things. This view stands in sharp contradiction to the words of a 2004 International Theological Commission document cited by the Cardinal. In reality, this document carries a ringing endorsement of the "widely accepted scientific account" of life's emergence and evolution, describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as "virtually certain," and echoes John Paul II's observation of the "mounting support" for evolution from many fields of study.

More important, the same document makes a critical statement on how we should interpret scientific studies of the complexity of life: "whether the available data support inferences of design or chance cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence."

Miller is coming at this from the back side. It is a common misunderstanding that evolution is a random process. This is argued by Cardinal Schönborn (who he quotes in the post as calling evolution an “unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” ) as well as quite a few Discovery Institute fellows like David Klinghoffer and David Berlinski.  Here is the problem: natural selection is measurable and it is directional.  Therefore, if you want to argue that evolution is an “unguided, unplanned process,” than the forces that act on plants and animals in nature are unplanned and unguided as well. I doubt any Christian wants to go down that road theologically.   This is exactly contrary to what Miller is suggesting.  He argues that the events in nature are not random, as is generally conceived by philosophical naturalism, but are, instead, contingent in ways that we, perhaps, cannot understand.

The point he is making is that the scientific enterprise cannot examine this problem.  It is a theological one, not a scientific one.  It is not just that at a gross level we cannot use science to prove or disprove God's existence, but that even at a subatomic level, there is no certainty.  We act on faith, and, sometimes, that has to be enough. 

Another Conservative Drinks From the Wrong Bottle

Granville Sewell has written a piece for Human Events, titled Intelligent Design Theories Gaining Steam in Scientific Circles.  As nearly as I can tell, he has gotten everything wrong.  Lets start with who Granville Sewell is.  He is a mathematics professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and a long-time supporter of intelligent design.

First, the title is indefensible.  Whether or not he, himself, came up with it, there is no evidence whatsoever that intelligent design is gaining ground in scientific circles.  In fact, there is contra-evidence.  There have been no intelligent design-based articles published in any of the mainstream journals and the only journal that is devoted to it, Bio-Complexity, has had one article and two critical reviews published for the entire year of 2013.  The article is co-written by two members of the editorial staff, to boot.

 He writes:

Darwin thought he could explain all of this apparent design through natural selection of random variations. In spite of the fact that there is no direct evidence that natural selection can explain anything other than very minor adaptations, his theory has gained widespread popularity in the scientific world, simply because no one can come up with a more plausible theory to explain evolution, other than intelligent design, which is dismissed by most scientists as “unscientific.”

This is ignorant nonsense with an arrogant tone attached to it.  The theory of evolution has gained widespread popularity because, as a theory, it is incredibly robust, with over 150 years of evidence to back it up, coming from the fields of biology, palaeontology, biogeography, microbiology, molecular biology, geology and others.  Every year, the evidence for evolution continues to pile up as we fill in more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.  Witness recent discoveries that have shown that the first tetrapods evolved in the late Devonian in shallow seas, that feathers evolved and diversified in dinosaurs as a means of insulation before they evolved into a means of flight, or that the femur of Orrorin tugenensis shows transitional characteristics between late Miocene apes and the earliest hominins.  These are not minor adaptations.  They show selection and evolution across taxonomic levels and reflect predictions about what would be found in the fossil record IF evolution were true.

He writes: 

But, in recent years, as scientific research has continually revealed the astonishing dimensions of the complexity of life, especially at the microscopic level, support for Darwin’s implausible theory has continued to weaken, and since the publication in 1996 of Darwin’s Black Box by Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, a growing minority of scientists have concluded, with Behe, that there is no possible explanation for the complexity of life other than intelligent design.

Really?

Contrast the publication record of Bio-Complexity with the journal Evolution which, in 2013 alone, published 200 articles. Furthermore, Journal Citation Reports lists 29 journals that have "evolution" in the title. This does not even count those that publish articles on evolution, such as The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Cell and Systematic Biology to name just a few.

With regard to the "growing minority of scientists,"  if he is referring to the "Dissent From Darwin" list put out by the Discovery Institute, that constitutes no evidence against evolution whatever.  When I analyzed the list a few years back, I found:

13 physicists, 1 plasma physicist, 10 biochemists, 24 chemists, 8 engineers, 7 mathematicians, 2 psychologists, 13 geneticists, and 5 medical doctors.

There are only five geologists on the list, and one lone palaeontologist on it. 

Like most ID writers such as David Berlinski, Cornelius Hunter and David Klinghoffer, he argues that there is dichotomy between accepting evolution and ID:

If you believe that a few fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones, you are probably not an ID proponent, even if you believe in God. But if you believe there must have been more than unintelligent forces at work somewhere, somehow, in the whole process: congratulations, you are one of us after all!

Here is one-dimensional, reductionistic thinking on display. it is either/or. There is no third option, the evolutionary creationist, who argues that the evidence for evolution of life, in all of its 3.5 billion year existence, can be explained as the work of a fantastically inventive and creative God, who took great joy in watching his creation unfold. It is also the thinking of someone who has taken no time to actually learn the basics of evolution and what the evidence is that supports it.  As long as this is the case, we will continue to be subjected to substandard prose such as this offering by Dr. Sewell. 

Gonzalez Won't Teach ID

Guillermo Gonzalez has made a public attestation that he will not teach intelligent design at Ball State University.  As the Muncie Star Press reports:

Gonzalez, who was hired by BSU this summer as an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy, is best known for his advocacy of intelligent design.

“As I communicated to members of the department during my interviews, I plan to continue my research on astrobiology and stellar astrophysics,” Gonzalez said in a statement issued this week.

The statement reported that he will not be discussing intelligent design in the classroom, and that he did not discuss intelligent design when he taught at Iowa State University, either

That may not be enough to soothe folks like Coyne and Harris but it is a huge step forward to placate the faculty at Ball State, I am sure. It is important for him to distance himself from the modern ID movement in this sense and for them to understand that. The anti-science comments made by the faculty at Iowa State are not without merit.

It is one thing for ID supporters to believe that the universe is created and guided by an intelligence. It is another for modern ID supporters to, having no theoretical constructs of their own, take pot shots at organized science in support of their ideas.  At least "mainstream" creationism, warts and all, has a testable framework. You can test the hypothesis "the earth was created six-thousand years ago." That's easy. Trying to test the hypothesis "God created the heavens and the earth," That's hard.  Add to that the fact that the public face of ID as purveyed by people like David Klinghoffer, Cornelius Hunter, William Dembski and David Berlinski is rabidly "anti-Darwinian," and you have a science credibility problem.  Gonzalez is wise to stay well away from that. 

Yet Another "Beside the Point" Post From the Discovery Institute

Michael Flannery pens yet another tiring post about the theology of Charles Darwin, as if, somehow, the religious persuasions of Darwin have any bearing on evolutionary theory.  He writes:

Darwin frequently claimed to be in a theological muddle. He often assumed this posture in letters to close friends and colleagues. But when it came to taking a stand on religion, the separation of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to have emboldened him. This is evident in his staunch support of American freethinker Francis Abbot (1836-1903), founder of the Free Religious Association and editor of its radical weekly voice, The Index. In the December 23, 1871, issue Darwin gave a rare and unequivocal glimpse of his religious beliefs. Responding to Abbot's radical manifesto Truths for the Times, he wrote that he admired Abbot's "truths" "from my inmost heart; and I agree to almost every word," adding, "The points on which I doubtfully differ are unimportant." So what exactly were those "truths" to which Darwin gave his complete -- even passionate -- approval?

It is fairly well known that Darwin rejected the idea of a personal savior due, in large part to the death of his beloved daughter Anna.  Darwin made no secret of this and no secret of the fact that he thought that intelligence and religious understanding had evolved.  Flannery continues:

Darwin's secular humanism and radical materialism was no late additions to his thinking either. In the spring of 1838, long before he had unveiled his theory to the world, Darwin asked in his private notebook, "Why is thought, being a secretion of brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves." Ironically, by dethroning god Darwin committed the greatest hubris of all: admiring only his theory and pacing his faith in man.

In light of this there would seem to be only three choices for theistic evolutionists. First, simply accept the incompatibility -- learn to live with the contradictory idea that a God of purpose and intentionality has created and sustained a universe of (in John Herschel's famous phrase) "higgledy-piggledy." After all, God can do what He wills.

His other two options are humanism and nihilism.

This is nonsense. Albert Einstein contributed more to the study of relativity and quantum physics than anybody before or since. Yet we know that, despite his belief in a higher power, he also rejected a personal God. Should all physicists adopt his theological perspectives as well? Of course not. His theological views are divorced from his studies in physics, just like our study of evolutionary biology have no bearing on our theological views, unless it is to show us the grandeur and inventiveness of God's creation. Some who accept evolution are Christians, some are deists, and some are atheists, just as there are some of each that practice physics.

He closes with this gem:

But then why trust the theory that emanated from Darwin's mind any more than those of a monkey's? Whether it's his theory of evolution or his ideas about god that emanate from it, the monkey is still on Darwin's back.

Aside from being insulting, I wonder if Mr. Flannery is aware that the idea of natural selection was co-authored by Alfred Russel Wallace. Would he also fit Wallace into his thinking?  Furthermore, I wonder if he is aware of the 150 years of evolutionary research that have not only corroborated Darwin's and Wallace's theoretical constructs but extended them to include population mathematics, genetics, biogeography and a whole host of disciplines.  Probably not.  Like David Klinghoffer and David Berlinski, also from the Discovery Institute, he seems trapped in the late 1800s. 

Christopher Hitchens Takes On David Berlinski

Christopher Hitchens, the outspoken atheist, who is battling esophageal cancer reserved special energy for a debate with the Discovery Institute's David Berlinski. Berlinski occupies that niche that is even stranger than evolutionary creationism: an anti-Darwinian secular Jew. The account, by Greg Garrison, is in Al.com. He writes:When

Berlinski linked Nazism and Darwinism while connecting atheism with violent government regimes of the 20th Century, Hitchens bristled and went on the attack in his next turn at the podium.

Connecting Nazism with Darwinism "is a filthy slander," Hitchens said. "Darwinism was derided in Germany."

Hitchens said Adolf Hitler claimed in "Mein Kampf" that he was doing God's work with his policies against the Jews and that the first Nazi treaty was with the Vatican.

"To say that there is something fascistic about my beliefs, I won't hear said, and you shouldn't believe," Hitchens said to the audience, almost thundering despite his diminished voice.

Berlinski responded that fascist and Communist governments including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia held in common the proposition that "No power was greater than their own, and they acted on that." They were godless governments, despite some "infiltrations of religious thought," he said.

This seems to be a particular sticking point with the Discovery Institute and several posts here and elsewhere have dealt with this subject. Writers such as Berlinski and David Klinghoffer (and here, also) seem compelled to ascribe all of the world's evil to evolution and they do not seem to care how much they get correct or how much academic and intellectual dishonesty they commit in the process.

It has been established that Hitler did not use Darwinian principles during the Third Reich. The problem is that if the Discovery Institute admits that, then it is hard to paint evolution in a moral light. It becomes what it should have always been: a scientific theory. Nothing more, nothing less. I am not a fan of Hitchens' theology. In many ways, he gets exactly the same things wrong for different reasons. He accuses Berlinski of using Darwin as a scapegoat for the world's evils then proceeds to argue the same thing for religion. The truth is that violence is committed both for secular and religious purposes and it is simplistic to point to one or the other as the culprit.

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David Klinghoffer: Signature of Controvery

David Klinghoffer has taken it upon himself to defend Signature in the Cell, the book by Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design. In a new online book Signature of Controversy, he has collected rebuttals of different individuals, including Stephen Meyer to the criticisms of the book. The Discovery Institute is providing it as a free download here. More on this later.

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David Berlinski on PJTV

Avi Davis, the president of the American Freedom Alliance, has an interview on Pajamas TV with David Berlinski, who is the author of the book The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions. It is about fifteen minutes long and is an interesting study in being off-the-mark. Here are the comments that I left on the site about it, which are somewhat choppy due to space limitations:

This is a fascinating interview between two people that have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Is this the sum total of Berlinski's book? On both sides, there has been a striking lack of research. Davis remarks about "Expelled": "...how the scientific community has attacked anybody that has propounded intelligent design, that careers have been ruined. Richard Sternberg is a case in point..."

Not true.

Sternberg didn't lose his job, he was an unpaid editor. His career wasn't ruined. He resigned from the Smithsonian six months before the flap that got media attention, and then he was rehired in 2006.

Berlinski states: "When you read a headline, “another triumph for Darwinian theory,” you say to yourself, “uh oh, another problem.""

Also not true.

Evolution is a booming field with daily fossil and genetic discoveries that overwhelmingly support the theory. Yet another example of a disturbing conservative/anti-science connection. This will sink the GOP.

It is interesting that most of the people that commented did so negatively. Could this be another case of the GOP base deviating from the leadership in a particular issue? I would like to think so.

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