Karl Giberson Weighs in On The Ball State Eric Hedin Case

Writing for HuffPo, Karl Giberson has suggested very politely that, with regard to the whole Eric Hedin Ball State controversy, Jerry Coyne go stick it where the sun don't shine.  He also cautions us about what academic freedom does and does not mean:

No evidence whatsoever supports Jerry Coyne's claim that Hedin is "proseletyzing for Jesus" in his Boundaries of Science class. Coyne is notorious for pretending not to understand the difference between a philosophically motivated theism and Christian fundamentalism and has waded into this controversy with his usual blinkered culture war mentality.

On the other hand, I can hardly agree with the intelligent design folk at the Discovery Institute that this is an academic freedom case. Academic freedom is a noble, if ambiguous, concept that can be invoked in support of many things but one of those is not the freedom to tell students things that are not true. If, as the syllabus suggests, Hedin's students are learning that the ideas of the intelligent design movement are the cutting edge of science and heralding a major revolution, there are grounds for concern. If the students leave Hedin's class believing that the scientific community is wrestling with the proposals that have come out of the intelligent design movement, then they have been misled and poorly served. Most practicing scientists understand that their disciplines have unanswered questions and "boundaries" of some sort. But virtually none of them are looking to an external "designer" to answer these questions.

I recently had a breakfast with a friend of mine who's set of twins are the age of my oldest son. They are all enrolled in a homeschooling co-op called Classical Conversations. Unfortunately, one of the books that has been assigned for this coming year is Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, a book of questionable value by Phillip Johnson.  My friend is a software designer/engineer and is, largely, unconcerned by the science/faith issues that cause me daily angst.  He was, nonetheless, quite surprised when I informed him that large sections of the Johnson book are not just different in opinion, they are wrong.  My friend was quite surprised to find that the theory of evolution is testable.  I outlined some basic instances in which this is the case.  If he has been reading any of the DI literature, I am not surprised that he thought that.  He also saw the wisdom of the question:  "how is it that all of the other major scientific disciplines have gotten their theoretical constructs correct and the evolutionary biologists have not?"  Even my pastor wonders about that.

In the end, Giberson concludes largely what I did, that this course is not what Coyne and other atheists call it and that Hedin has the right to teach it in the hopes of stimulating critical thinking in his students.  He does need to treat ID a bit more honestly, though. 

Steve Dutch Is Mad

Steve Dutch, professor of natural and applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, has written a column for the Green Bay Press Gazette in which he scolds Christian organizations for deception when attacking evolution:

The lies told by opponents of evolution are practically endless.

There are no intermediate fossil forms between major groups? A lie.

Methods for dating rocks are unreliable and give contradictory results? A lie.

Many scientists are beginning to doubt evolution? A lie.

These are not mere differences of opinion; they are deliberate misrepresentations or outright denials of published facts.

I have read more anti-evolution literature than just about anyone in this area, and I have done something most other readers have not — check it against real science. I can tell you flatly it is all junk.

Duane Gish? Ken Ham? Answers in Genesis? Discovery Institute? Philip Johnson? Michael Behe? Junk, all of it, with not a shred of scientific value.

I am often reminded of Ken Ham's smug response to scientists that confront him with data. He simply responds that we both have the same data, we just interpret it differently. The catch is that he does so without any scientific testing, rendering his conclusions scientifically invalid.

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Where Does ID Fit?

I received some criticism (correctly) that my taxonomic tree did not leave room for Intelligent Design. I responded by suggesting that they might fit in either the 'progressive creation' box or the 'theistic evolution' box depending on who they were. Here is the problem:

Michael Behe: writer of Darwin's Black Box and promoter of the flagellum as being intelligently designed—principle witness for the plaintiff at the Dover trial, YET, according to Kenneth Miller accepts evolution as it applies to common descent and species creation.

Scott Minnich: another witness for the plaintiff in Dover, when asked "Is Darwin's theory of evolution inconsistent with your private religious beliefs?" replied "no. He states that there is not unanimity with regard to how evolution works among biologists. Newsflash: there probably never will be. That does not make the theory bad.

William Dembski: Pulled out the the Dover Trial before it began. Mathematician who argues that "Darwinian evolution" cannot create biological information. Uses the Law of Conservation of Information to argue that evolution cannot produce new species. Has been criticized for suggesting that some of creation appears designed and some does not. Also criticized for having an unrealistic model of biology and biological systems.

Philip Johnson: Has this to say about evolution:

What we get as science in the Darwinian theory of evolution is not based on science. It's based on a prior commitment to materialism and philosophy. Facts take second place to that philosophy, and therefore what we're getting is what I call a materialist mythology. That's what I mean by intellectual superstition.

Casey Luskin: The Discovery Institute's chief mouthpiece. He is also the co-founder of the Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center. The center is designed to bring about awareness of the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. About evolution, he states:

Science and education are suffering because Darwinists are using bluffs about the evidence, fear-mongering about religion, and discrimination against minority viewpoints to stifle the debate over evolution.

He rarely addresses the debate in non-political terms.

This is a short list, but it seems clear to me that these guys are all over the map with regard to evolution. Some sort of belong to the 'theistic evolution' camp, some don't. None are out-and-out young earth creationists. This, as I said, is the potential drawback for this model, it pigeon-holes people. On the other hand, it potentially exposes cognitive dissonance as well.