William Reville: Science Should Not Antagonize Religion

William Reville, writing for the Irish Times, argues that the strategy that many of the outspoken atheists have of trying to promote science over religion is not working:

Associating science with secularism exposes science to collateral damage when secularism is resisted and Harrison summarises: “The thesis that science causes secularisation simply fails the empirical test and enlisting science as an instrument of secularisation turns out to be poor strategy.”

Why then do prominent scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris (“Science must destroy religion”), and the late Stephen Hawking (“Science will win because it works”) still campaign to replace religion with science? Firstly, it seems to me that if these scientists knew their history they would realise that they are supporting a failed strategy. Secondly, the specific factors that motivate these scientists, and understandably so, such as fundamentalist terrorism and creationism, are also vigorously opposed by mainstream religion. Yet they campaign against all religion, the mainstream as well as the extreme fringes.

Dawkins has a history of using this strategy, to the point of arguing that bringing kids up in a religious home is tantamount to child abuse. That doesn't wear very well.It is a short read but worth it.  Readers of this blog know that I am a Christian but oppose young-earth creationism because I believe it to be scientifically groundless, theologically suspect and a millstone around some believers' necks who are struggling with the data. 

Ted Davis Waxes Theological, Todd Wood Responds

Ted Davis, like the rest of us, is tired of how the origins debate is playing out between mainstream and non-mainstream science.  He has great praise for those that display clear-headed thinking on both sides in the debate such as Michael Ruse and Todd Wood.  He writes:

I also tip my hat to YEC proponents Todd Wood and Paul Nelson. Each was featured in the YEC film, Is Genesis History?, but neither dismisses proponents of EC with the back of his hand. They both have the courage and conviction to seek the truth, even if takes them places where their creationist friends don’t want them to go. For example, on the same day the film was released, Dr. Nelson dissented from how his ideas were presented in the film. Dr. Wood didn’t do that, but he does candidly admit elsewhere that “Evolution is not a theory in crisis,” that “it is not teetering on the verge of collapse,” nor has it “failed as a scientific explanation.” He finds “gobs and gobs” of evidence for evolution,” denies that it is “just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion,” affirms that it “has amazing explanatory power,” and frankly says, “There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.”

I am quite sure that this last quote will haunt Todd Wood to the grave because most evolutionary creationists (including myself) keep it in their back pocket. Wood has taken on some heavy hitters who have misused science and has done so in an honest and thoughtful way and he has truly striven to understand biodiversity as it pertains to his way of thinking. Furthermore, unlike many in the young earth creationist camp, his posts are free of invective and insult.  For these things and others, he should be commended.

Davis continues:

There’s always the danger than one can overplay one’s hand, or forget that those who see things differently are also made in the image of God. Sometimes, one’s opponents in a public disagreement really are mean-spirited, arrogant, or intellectually dishonest, tempting one to respond in kind. In such situations, do your best to take the high road. Stick with the facts, spell out why you hold different opinions, and be fair to ideas defended by others, even when you strongly disagree: no one has a monopoly on truth. Intellectual honesty and humility do not imply cowardice or lack of commitment to the Gospel. 

This is something I am often guilty of. I find it all too easy to take a blowtorch to the writings of Answers in Genesis in a nasty way, typically because I am writing in anger.  This often happens when I discover a post or article in which it is clear that the person writing the article has little knowledge of the subject about which they write and their tone is insulting or condescending.  It is all too easy to open up both barrels. He finishes with an admonition to avoid indoctrination:

Individual Christians have every right to think for themselves, without being browbeaten into submission by fear, accused of holding dangerous views simply for favoring a different interpretation of Genesis, or publicly shamed as intellectual cowards for accepting consensus science.

There is a great danger in taking the attitude that if two people have a disagreement about something, that one of them is not in the spirit. This behavior results in arrogance, haughtiness, broken relationships and lots of finger-pointing. We are all guilty of sin, especially the sin of self-righteousness.

Todd Wood responds by adding another way that he would like to see the debate change: less of “diagnosing the enemy”: 

There's two big problems I see with Diagnosing the Enemy. First of all, it's just a profoundly arrogant thing to do. How can anyone seriously think that reading a Facebook comment or blog article would actually reveal all the intricacies and complexities of human thought? Some days, I can barely put two words together, and you think that's going to actually reveal the inner workings of my mind and years of study and research and prayer and thought?

Also arrogant is the ulterior motive of Diagnosing the Enemy: I have the cure. Because, let's face it, diagnosing a problem isn't really the point, right? The point is: if only my enemy would watch my video or read my book or do what I tell them, then everything would be fine. Because not only can I diagnose your problem by engaging in a superficial reading of superficial comments, I'm the guy who's gonna cure you! When you think about it like that, it's obviously and embarrassingly silly, but it still doesn't stop us from reading certain triggers and sticking people in that pigeonhole.

Which brings me to the second big problem: It's dehumanizing. Instead of complex people with complex thoughts and attitudes and personalities, we reduce our enemies to one simplistic issue. There aren't just ideas out there that float around having battles by themselves. Ideas are held by real people with real personalities, and histories, and values, and fears. And all of that immensely complicated personality gets entangled with the way we think about the world and our faith. When disagreements pop up, though, these people for whom Christ died suddenly become defined by one perceived "defect."

I am of two minds about this response. It is certainly correct that people are complex and that a single blog post or Bookface post does not remotely capture their complexity.  As noted above, it is all too easy to fire off a response to a post that you know has gotten some basic information wrong.

The problem is that when an entire body of work of an organization continually misrepresents science and the authors of that body of work show absolutely no interest in correcting this misinformation, a response is necessary. When an entire body of work is continually scientifically inaccurate, it begins to inform about the people who are producing it.  In short, at least on one level, it makes it possible to “diagnose the enemy.”

 If you read all of the posts on my blog or my writings on BioLogos, you would get a pretty good idea of what I think about science and theology. It might even be possible to “diagnose” me a bit. To be sure, you would not have insight into what I think about abortion, gun control or how good a father I am to my children, but it would be pretty clear that I am a card-carrying evolutionary creationist.

Davis's post is a clarion call for both sides to take the high road.  That is often hard to do when you are being called “evil, stupid evolutionists” and you know that what they have written is just plain false.
Wood remarks that it is disheartening to see BioLogos identified as the “middle ground.” If we are not the middle ground, what are we? We are people who are firmly convinced in the salvation of Jesus Christ and the integrity and primacy of God's word to us.  We are also people who want to understand the universe that God has created, but to do so in an honest, forthright, and scientifically sound way.

Evolutionary creationists are dismissed by atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris for believing in fairy tales and being scientifically compromised by their faith.  This is a false charge.  We operate within the scientific framework with the understanding that everything around us is God's handiwork.  We are dismissed by many young earth creationists as being “compromisers” and not taking the bible seriously.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the things that seems to drive this invective is that atheists are convinced the Bible is false and that we are idiots for believing in it.  Young earth creationists are convinced that their understanding of scripture is absolutely correct, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It is easy enough to understand where the atheists are coming from, since they see nothing beyond the observable universe.   It is the YEC perspective that I find perplexing. It leads to people like Wood, himself, saying about evolutionary creationists that they “ought to know better,” even though, by his own admission, there is a massive amount of evidence for evolution.  Ken Ham takes it a bit further by questioning whether we are, in fact, Christians at all, and that if we pass on the EC perspective to our children, we are endangering their salvation.

Is it possible that Wood and his fellow YEC supporters are correct in their scriptural assessment?  It absolutely is.  Is it possible that we have evolution wrong?  Is it possible that the earth was created six thousand years ago?  Again, it absolutely is.  But the weight of evidence currently doesn't support those positions.  In fact, there is little to no empirical support for them.  Many good, devoted Christians are out there are wrestling with these facts.  To be told that they “ought to know better” than to accept them or that they aren't Christians if they do is insulting.  Further, as noted above, it betrays a troubling aspect of this perspective: the idea that our understanding of scripture is unbiblical. 

Secondary to this is that, in all of the young earth creationist literature that I have read, there is a remarkable lack of self-examination when it comes to scriptural interpretation.  To those who support the young earth model: we might be wrong about our interpretation of scripture, but you might be, also.  For the origins debate to change, there must be an acceptance of this on both sides of the aisle.  Only then will progress be made and name-calling cease.  

Slightly Off-Topic: The March for Science

The Christian Science Monitor wonders aloud if science and political activism can co-exist.  Amanda Paulson writes:

The foray into activism and politics is a tough one for some scientists. And although the organizers have taken pains to note the march is nonpartisan, concern that the focus will become political has sparked some controversy and debate among scientists.

Many supporters of the march note that science is already political, and that ignoring its importance to policy is disingenuous. The march is needed, they say, due to the increased attacks on science, threats to slash funding for research, and lack of understanding of what scientists do.

But critics worry that despite all the declarations that the march is “non-partisan,” it will be viewed by many Americans as anti-Trump and anti-Republican, and that it will only increase the partisan divide and cement the impression in some people’s minds that scientists are driven by ideology rather than evidence.

“I worry there will be people there carrying signs that have incendiary messages, and it’s that one percent that will become the meme for the conservative blogosphere,” says Robert Young, a coastal geologist at Western Carolina University. He cringes imagining rural America’s reaction to, say, a sign saying “Make America smart again.”

One of the things that I have anecdotally noticed in the thirty some years that I have been associated with science in one way, shape or form, is that people have a tendency to develop their socio-cultural viewpoints irrespective of the science that they practice. For example, I have never seen science turn a Christian into an atheist, or vice versa.  Richard Dawkins once wrote that evolution allowed him to “...be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”  In other words, he was already an atheist.  He was just now using evolution as a cover to justify it.  Given that I know other people that view evolution as displaying the glory of God, the argument that one is tied to the other is somewhat suspect.

One thing is certain: there are already quite a few people out there that have watched the democratic party and its associated left-leaning groups implode after the election and thought to themselves “Good thing I voted for Trump.” The very same thing could happen here if the March for Science is hijacked by leftist groups. It could very well result in Trump and his advisors thinking that, why yes, it would be perfectly appropriate to start cutting these budgets.

The organizers have a golden moment on their hands.  If they can show the world that the scientific endeavor is benefiting all of humanity in noticeable, tangible ways, then it will have done its job.  If it descends into Trump-bashing and elitism, then expect that the general public's support for science, which is already at an all-time low, will continue to erode and, yes, expect budgetary cuts.

Richard Dawkins Parody

Warning: this one is a bit off-color but quite funny nonetheless.  Recall, in recent years, the low-level animosity that has been leveled at Starbucks for not having a Christmas-themed coffee cup.  Well, some enterprising soul put up a wicked parody of this with Richard Dawkins on the front of a Dunkin' Donuts cup.  I won't reproduce the image here, this being a family site and all, but I will add the description from the original Above Average site (warning: crude description):

When I stopped into Dunkin Donuts yesterday, I was greeted by a terrible surprise when the cashier handed me my hot chocolate in their new holiday cup. There was no Christmas motif, no red and green, and not a seasonal snowflake to be found. It was just the Dunkin Donuts logo and a picture of notorious atheist Richard Dawkins giving me the finger. I asked to speak to the manager immediately.

“This is outrageous!” I yelled at her. “How could you make such a horrible cup?!”

“I don’t know, I don’t make the cup designs,” she replied sheepishly. “They were just trying to be inclusive I guess? I honestly don’t even know who that is.”

Apparently, quite a few people didn't recognize the parody for what it was and Bookface lit up like a Christmas Tree with complaints about Dunkin' Donuts (which they probably didn't appreciate one bit). The parody showed up on Snopes pretty quickly, who had this to say:

This article was just a satirical take on the annual "War on Christmas" controversies that have in recent years included Starbucks' holiday cups, including the 2015 version that did not feature any religious symbols, as well as the coffee chain's November 2016 (non-holiday) green unity cup.

Funny.

Joel Edmund Anderson: The Heresy of Ham

In my convalescence, I finished Joel Edmund Anderson's The Heresy of Ham: What Every Evangelical Needs to Know About the Creation-Evolution Controversy.

The book is a work of passion, borne out of exhaustive examination of Answers in Genesis and some terrible treatment by fellow “Christians” who hew only to the young earth model and cannot see beyond that. The book covers the early church and how the church fathers saw the collected works that became the Bible and how it addressed the numerous heresies that arose in the first two centuries after Christ. Then it works directly into how the Reformation altered the understanding of the early church and the theological chaos that followed. He finishes up with how young earth creationism, as practiced by Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis is heresy. This is laid out succintly here:

The heresy of Ham that is actively “subverting, destabilizing, and destroying” the core of the Christian faith is the claim that a modern, scientific interpretation of Genesis 1-11 as literal history is fundamental prerequisite for the trustworthiness of the Gospel of Christ. It is the claim that if the universe is not 6,000 years old, if there was no historical Adam and Eve, and if there was no worldwide flood 4,000 years ago, then that would make God a liar, that would mean there is no such thing as sin, and that would mean Christ died for nothing. Such a message is heresy, and that message has subverted, destabilized, and destroyed the Christian faith of many people, has destroyed careers, and unfortunately, has taken root within a significant portion of Evangelical Christianity.

Along the way, he quotes liberally from the writings of the Hammish one, himself, who clearly has no idea how science is actually practiced.  One point that he makes, though, that is quite interesting is that, when comparing Ham to enlightenment thinkers who sought to divest the bible from the practice of science, he notes that Ham is, in fact, no different.  For example:

In an ironic twist of fate, we find that Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins are both thorough Enlightenment thinkers who share the same fundamental worldview. Both have determined that the physical sciences are the ultimate determiner of truth and reality, and the trustworthiness of the Bible is dependent on whether or not Genesis 1-11 is scientifically accurate. Such thinking actually turns the medieval notion of theology being the “queen of the sciences” on its head.

He is quite correct about this. If we are to take the Primeval History as scientifically accurate, and it is the foundation of our faith, then it MUST reflect reality.  The two are inextricably linked: if we find holes in the scientific accuracy of the PH, then our faith crumbles.  It can do nothing else.  If, on the other hand, we view parts of the PH as non-literal, then science and faith can be decoupled, a position that Ken Ham is unwilling to take.  Yet, if we decouple them, then faith thrives and scientific discourse retains its integrity.  Otherwise, we have what Michael Dowd calls “Flat Earth Religion.” It is not capable of growing theologically or spiritually and it is always on the defensive, always fending off attacks from mainstream science.  Young Earth creationism cannot grow spiritually because it is eternally tied to how it understands physical reality.  That is ironic, indeed.

This, to me, is the central heresy in not just Ken Ham's understanding of reality but in young earth creationism, in general: that is it tied to physical reality and that our understanding of who God is, is tied to this reality.  It deprecates the spiritual realm in favor of what is tangible and observable.  In some senses, young earth creationists argue that the physical world is all there is and that the PH reflects this physical world.  So much for faith.

He ends his book with a clarion call in the last chapter:

Many sincere Evangelical Christians today are desperately trying to “get back to the early Church,” thinking for some reason that back then things were just perfect. “If only we could get back the to the early Church,” some think, “then we would be the kind of Church Christ wants!” As well-intentioned as that kind of thinking may be, the fact is, it is entirely misguided. Our challenge as Christians today isn’t to “get back to the early Church.” Rather, it is to take the creedal [sic] fundamentals of the Christian faith—the Capital-T Tradition that defines the Church and that articulates what Christians have always believed—and translate that Living Tradition to our world today, and thus let the transforming power of the Holy Spirit work through the Church, which is the Body of Christ, continue to redeem, not just individual people, but communities, societies, and ultimately the world.

P.S. A caveat to the book: I would ordinarily give it five stars because of the content but, as I noted above, it was clearly written in passion and frustration.  As a result, it is written in a very colloquial, almost conversational style.  The advantage to this is that you feel the frustration that he feels.  The disadvantage is that the prose is, often, repetitive and he sometimes makes assertions that are not directly or completely sourced, and the reader has to go elsewhere to determine their veracity.  From an academic perspective, this is annoying.

I enjoyed this book, despite the slight misgivings above and, if you, like me, have always wondered whether or not young earth creationism borders on heresy, this might answer the question for you.  

More Stones Thrown at the Phrase "Theistic Evolution"

Forbes has a post by John Farrell, the science and technical writer, about the inadequacy and inappropriateness of the term “Theistic Evolution.”  He points out that those who label themselves as such are often pariahs not just to modern young-earth creationists but to atheists as well.  Both sides regard them as “compromisers.” But, beyond that, he notes that there are problems with the appropriateness of the term, as well.  He quotes Stacy Tracanos, who writes: 

“Think about it. If you are a believer, it is already implied that you see all biological and physical processes as created and held in existence by God. You do not need “theistic” in front of biological terms. Who speaks of theistic reproduction? Or theistic gestation, theistic meiosis, or theistic menstruation? Plus, to qualify a biological process as ‘theistic’ implies that the opposite is possible, that God may not be involved in creating certain laws of nature.”

She is correct about this. This is why I tend to favor the term “evolutionary creationist.” It takes the emphasis off the “evolutionist” and puts it on the “creationist.”  This differentiates it from “progressive creationist” or “young earth creationist.” Farrell finishes with this:

The main point is Christian scientists who accept evolution have a much broader understanding of God than—chief engineer. And ‘theistic evolution’, as its summarized for example at Wikipedia, simply misrepresents their position.

Atheists have voiced many arguments for wondering how Christians can maintain belief in a benevolent deity in a world that features so much apparent waste and suffering ‘built in’ to the program, as science has revealed.

But ‘theistic evolution’ isn’t one of their answers, at least not among the serious scientists I know who are theists. And it’s well past its sell-by date.

Probably true.

Human Evolution = Apartheid?

About seven years ago, a Texas county official by the name of John Wiley Price made unwanted national news when he referred to the astronomical term “Black Hole” as racist. From the original story:

Later, Price told MyFOXdfw.com that he believed it and other terms were racist.

"So if it's 'angel food cake,' it's white. If it's 'devil's food cake,' it's black. If you're the 'black sheep of the family,' then you gotta be bad, you know. 'White sheep,' you're okay. You know?" Price said.

Price said people should watch their words when it comes to stereotypes.

"I think people should always be careful. You know, I'm okay if I'm 'bartering' with you. ... But if I try to 'Jew you down,' Oooooh. Is that racist? I thought it meant the same thing? No, maybe it doesn't."

Rather than confirm that the term “Black Hole” is racist, this story, instead, confirmed that science education had completely failed Mr. Price.That he could not distinguish between an astronomical term and a racial epithet was truly amazing.

A story today from South Africa is broadly similar in its absurdity.  As PhysOrg reports:

Some prominent South Africans have dismissed the discovery of a new human ancestor as a racist theory designed to cast Africans as "subhuman", an opinion that resonates in a country deeply bruised by apartheid.

"No one will dig old monkey bones to back up a theory that I was once a baboon. Sorry," said Zwelinzima Vavi, former general secretary of the powerful trade union group Cosatu, a faithful ally of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

"I am no grandchild of any ape, monkey or baboon—finish en klaar (Afrikaans for "that's it")," he said on his Twitter account, which is followed by more than 300,000 people.

His comments were backed by the South African Council of Churches (SACC), which was historically involved in the fight against apartheid.

Cloaked in the fight against apartheid to give it legitimacy, this perspective is nothing more than anti-evolutionary creationism.  Incredulous, Richard Dawkins comments:

It "breathes new life into paranoia," said prominent British biologist Richard Dawkins on his Twitter account this week. "Whole point is we're all African apes."

He is correct. Importantly, just like Mr. Price, science education has failed Mr. Vavi. We are not descended from baboons. We never were. The large-bodied and small-bodied primates split sometime around the Oligocene Epoch, some 35 to 40 million years ago.  Baboons went one way and the apes went the other.

I am waiting for the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis to jump all over this.  The DI has attempted to link evolutionary theory with eugenics and racism before. As far as AiG is concerned, evolution is just plain evil. 

Bill Nye Says He Underestimated Impact of Debate

Bill Nye now says that he underestimated the impact that his debate with Ken Ham had on the evolution/creationism debate.  As he writes in the Skeptical Inquirer:

I do about a dozen college appearances every year. It’s a privilege that I enjoy immensely. At first, I figured this appearance and this encounter would get about the same amount of notice as a nice college gig. There’d be a buzz on Twitter and Facebook, but the world would go on spinning without much notice on the outside. Not here: the creationists promoted it like crazy, and soon it seemed like everyone I met was talking about it.

I slowly realized that this was a high-pressure situation. Many of you, by that I mean many of my skeptic and humanist colleagues, expressed deep concern and anger that I would be so foolish as to accept a debate with a creationist, as this would promote him and them more than it would promote me and us. As I often say and sincerely believe, “You may be right.” But, I held strongly to the view that it was an opportunity to expose the well-intending Ken Ham and the support he receives from his followers as being bad for Kentucky, bad for science education, bad for the U.S., and thereby bad for humankind—I do not feel I’m exaggerating when I express it this strongly.

In hindsight, it is, perhaps, understandable that he would think this, but Ham is a showman, who plays for high-stakes and, because creationists are normally not given the time of day by your average scientist, this presented a golden opportunity to tear down what he honestly believes is the heart of the philosophical naturalism that is turning people away from God. That Nye is not known for his church-going behavior only added fuel to the fire. It didn't matter how important Nye thought the debate was.

The other concern, voiced going in, was that, while Ken Ham eats, lives and breathes creationism, Nye was not an expert in this field.  He writes:

I am by no means an expert on most of this. Unlike my beloved uncle, I am not a geologist. Unlike my academic colleague and acquaintance Richard Dawkins, I am not an evolutionary biologist. Unlike my old professor Carl Sagan or my fellow Planetary Society Board member and dear friend Neil deGrasse Tyson, I am not an expert on astrophysics. I am, however, a science educator. In this situation, our skeptical arguments are not the stuff of PhDs. It’s elementary science and common sense. That’s what I planned to rely on. That’s what gave me confidence.

What might seem like common sense to him is, by way of every poll I have ever seen, not common sense to a good deal of the population, especially the evangelical Christian subset, the direct taxonomic descendents of the fundamentalists from the 1920s.  This is, for many people, no less than a struggle between good and evil and, as I mentioned a bit back, modern evangelical fundamentalism has gotten to the point where if science is seen to conflict with scripture at all, it is to be regarded with skepticism and suspicion and rejected, if necessary.  Nye should have seen this as an uphill battle going in.

Nye did, however, have charitable things to say about his debate opponent:

I was and am respectful of Ken Ham’s passion. At a cognitive level, he believes what he says. He really means it, when he says that he has “a book” that supersedes everything you and I and his parishioners can observe everywhere in nature around us. I respected that commitment; I used it to drive, what actors call, my “inner monologue.” I did not choose, as I was advised, to attack, attack, attack. My actor’s preparation helped me keep things civil and be respectful of Mr. Ham despite what struck me as his thoughtless point of view. I’m sure it influenced the countless people who’ve written to me and come up to me in public to express their strong and often enthusiastic support. Thank you all.

I am also respectful of Ken Ham's passion but not the results that it produces. I am not respectful of the untruths (here and here) that he and his organization perpetuate in the service of his passion. I am not respectful of his disdain and condescension of mainstream scientists, and I am not respectful of his attacks on other Christians (here and here) who are also trying to find their way in the science/faith maze. Consequently, it is difficult for me to be respectful of Ken Ham as a person, no matter what he believes.

Ian Philbrick: Why Science and Atheism Are Incompatible

Ian Philbrick has a piece for the Georgetown Voice that tackles the controversy concerning Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its host, a professed agnostic with tinges of religious antipathy.  He writes:

Tyson’s perspective is even more relevant to the increasingly antagonistic relationship between science and faith. Perhaps first popularized in American public discourse by the 1925 Scopes so-called “Monkey Trial,” modern “active atheists” (in Tyson’s words) have elevated acrimony to new levels. This activism has been spurred by the emergence of science intellectuals, including Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, whose vociferous atheism is inextricably wedded to their public personas.

While campaigns, petitions, and protests are certainly the prerogative of individuals, they become dangerous when applied wholesale to a discipline like science that derives its foundational credo and central legitimacy from objective inquiry. While dogma and impartiality can certainly exist as facets of an individual (as can religious belief and scientific rationality), the two are less easily reconciled on an institutional scale. Reconciling active atheism and science becomes a problem of participation and fundamentally conflicting ideology. Science, which must resist pigeonholing and generalization by its skeptical nature, is inherently incompatible with an activist movement that brands all faith practices invalid.

In their wonderful book, Science Held Hostage, Howard van Till, Davis Young and Clarence Menninga highlight the pitfalls of using science either in support of a belief position or an atheist position, instead arguing that science, practiced properly, cannot confer meaning in any sort of ultimate sense. It is simply a vehicle by which we understand the working of the universe.This is my general discomfort with the ID movement: using science, you can never show that God exists.  The movement's only recourse is to try to show that ID exists as a plausible notion, often at the expense of mainstream science.  This has resulted in an almost complete scientific sterility because there is no theoretical basis from which to work.  What sort of hypothetical question could you construct for which the null is "God doesn't exist."

by the same token, atheists, such as Richard Dawkins are out of their depth when dealing with religious subjects because atheism doesn't flow from the scientific enterprise.  Consequently, his book The God Delusion, was not well-received.  Dawkins, it was said, was a good scientist, but a rotten moralizer.

Science is best practiced as it is. It tells us how things work and, within its own confines, how they work, but it does not tell us what their ultimate purpose is. 

What Did Thomas Nagel Write?

Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy, has written a book entitled Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, a book that has been given the singular distinction of being the Most Despised Science Book of 2012.  I have not read this book but here is what one reviewer had to say:

So what caused the offence?

Several things, but consider one: the contention that evolution may tend towards consciousness. Nagel is explicit that he himself is not countenancing a designer. Rather, he wonders whether science needs to entertain the possibility that a teleological trend is immanent in nature.

There it is. The t-word – a major taboo among evolutionary biologists. Goal-directed explanations automatically question your loyalty to Darwin.

That nature would have some sort of direction and purpose has a distinct air of not just “intelligent design.” He is clear that he is not invoking a god of any sort, which leaves EC out in the cold.

The funny thing about the criticism that I can tell is that by just suggesting that there may be a direction in nature, he is drawing evolutionary biologists into the realm of philosophy where they are not as comfortable. In that realm, there is no logical reason for arguing that nature cannot have direction and purpose. When it stays within its own realm and is properly practiced, evolutionary biology has no say in whether or not nature has direction and purpose. That is the purview of the philosophers and theologians. Nonetheless, it has been the impulse of atheists like Dawkins and Myers to cross into the realm of philosophy in evaluating the role of evolution in the world around us. Consequently, when Dawkins released The God Delusion, it was not universally well-received and many critics argued that he had overstepped his bounds.

Darwin provided a mechanism for which evolution could be understood within a naturalistic perspective.  He did not, however, write anywhere that nature was inherently godless and admitted a reluctance to jettison his own beliefs in God, even if they did not take the form of Christianity. Whether or not one believes in God should have no bearing on the acceptance or rejection of evolutionary theory, nor should one's acceptance of evolutionary theory necessitate rejection of belief in God. 

Higgs: Dawkins is a "Fundamentalist"

The Mail Online has an interesting post on the differences in atheistic approaches to the science/religion debate invoked by Peter Higgs and Richard Dawkins.  Steve Doughty writes:

Professor Higgs has used his new status to pour scorn on 71-year-old Professor Dawkins, a champion of evolution and author of The God Delusion which argues that belief in God is irrational.

Professor Dawkins's contempt for religion has recently led him to suggest that being raised as a Roman Catholic is worse for a child than physical abuse.

But Professor Higgs said that Professor Dawkins has caricatured religious believers as extremists and ignored those who try to reconcile their beliefs with science.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Professor Higgs, who is 83, said: 'What Dawkins does too often is to concentrate his attack on fundamentalists. But there are many believers who are not just fundamentalists.

While I would agree that Dawkins' approach to religion and the science/faith interaction is somewhat one-dimensional, I would venture to argue that Dr. Higgs has not visited the United States anytime recently, where fundamentalism is alive and well.  This is not to say there are no non-fundamentalists, but in traditional evangelical Christianity, we are in the minority.

He continues:

'Fundamentalism is another problem. I mean, Dawkins in a way is almost a kind of fundamentalist himself.'

Professor Higgs also told the newspaper: 'The growth of our understanding of the world through science weakens some of the motivation which makes people believers.

'But that's not the same thing as saying they are incompatible. It is just that I think some of the traditional reasons for belief, going back thousands of years, are rather undermined.

I would respond that this is only true for those that believe that the science and faith interaction is a zero/sum game. Sadly this seems to describe a lot of people who do not truly understand either the limits of science or the limitless bounds of faith.  An explanation for why something is the way that it is does not mean that God did not create it, only that we know more of how it was created. 

Well, At Least He's Honest...

Richard Dawkins is interviewed and admits that he cannot be sure that God doesn't exist.



He argues that on a scale of 1 that God exists to a 7 that God doesn't exist, he is a 6. It is short clip but informative.

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Peter Hess is “Clearing the Middle Path”

Robert Luhn, the Director of Communications for the National Center for Science Education sent me a link to an American Scientific Affiliation profile of Peter Hess. Hess is the staff theologian for the NCSE. The profile is written by Emily Ruppel. She writes:

Two years ago, ASA member Peter Hess participated in a colloquium on Intelligent Design at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. He argued that science can neither discover nor rule out the existence of God. A few days later, in the online discussion sparked by this event, a blogger labeled him the Anti-Christ.

Gotta love that Christian tolerance on full display.If he is the Anti-Christ, then there are a whole bunch of us running around. Onward.

“The problem with Biblical literalists is that they are ignorant of exegetical history,” says Peter, “and are generally unaware that an insistence on a woodenly literal understanding of scripture is a relatively recent invention imposed on the Church’s traditional four-fold interpretation. They’re as ignorant of theology as they are of the sciences they presume to critique…

“On the other hand, the issue with some scientists who are atheists is that they fail to see that they are actually making a theological claim by declaring that there is nothing to believe in. Scientists who feel they are qualified to comment authoritatively on religious faith because they have apprehended some of the truths of the natural world are putting on a very ill-fitting philosophical hat.”

The four-fold sense of scripture interpretation (if I understand it correctly) is that scripture should variously be interpreted in a literal sense, where actual events have been recorded, an allegorical sense, where seemingly actual events are not meant in a literal sense but in an allegorical one, a moral sense in that all scripture is good and useful for teaching a Godly way of approaching life, and an anagogical one, in which a truth or event signifies something greater or points us to Heaven. This is yet another area of my theological education that is severely wanting.

It is also hard not to read the second part of that quote and think of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and how badly it fared at the review table. Hess, indeed, wonders why Dawkins has been so ignorant of contemporary issues in Christianity. He is so for the same reason that Ken Ham is so abysmally ignorant of basic evolutionary biology and the fossil record. It is much easier to maintain a hostile position to the other side if you perceive them as promulgating lies and misinformation. That honest, thought-provoking scriptural interpretation or education about the natural history of the earth get lost in the process is simply collateral damage.

The entire article is very good and profiles someone who is honestly struggling to find a common ground where all can discuss the issues. This is, or should be, our fervent prayer.

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John Evans — “Science and Religion: A False Divide?”

I missed this when it came out. John Evans of the L.A. Times (not normally a newspaper I pick up) wrote an interesting column about the controversy between science and religion and his contention that the whole thing is overhyped. He writes:

On most issues, there is actually very little conflict between religion and science. Religion makes no claims about the speed of hummingbird wings, and there are no university departments of anti-resurrection studies — scientists generally are unconcerned with the vast majority of religious claims and vice versa.

There are, of course, a few fact claims in which conservative Protestant theology and science differ, such as the origins of humans and the universe. Here we find that typical conservative Protestants are likely to believe the teaching of their religion on the issue and not the scientific claim.

We could complain that they are being inconsistent in believing the scientific method some of the time but not always. Yet social science research has long shown that people typically are not very consistent. The people who are more consistent are those who are punished for inconsistency: philosophers, media pundits, political activists and politicians.

I have often marveled at how much emphasis this topic has taken up in the media and religious world. As I pointed out in my post on the Miss America pageant, that the contestants were asked whether or not evolution should be taught in public schools had very little relevance to them. All it did was single out the religious conservatives and also point out that science education had all but failed them in this area. For your average person, the creation-evolution controversy has little traction and most view it as a curiosity of modern society. Consequently, when my church friends ask me about it, I always ask them why it is important to them to learn the science behind the old earth model since such knowledge will needlessly complicate their lives. That doesn't seem to stop them, though.

Evans has one other nugget:

The greatest conflict between fundamentalists, evangelicals and science is not over facts but over values. While scientists like to say that their work is value-free, that is not how the public views it, and conservative Protestants especially have homed in on the moral message of science.

This is a slow realization for most scientists. I tend to view evolution in much the way that I view nuclear energy: regardless of what values we attach to it, it exists—independent of those values. David Klinghoffer, over at the Discovery Institute, argues that “Darwinism” has ruined society and caused evils of all sorts, as if somehow if we brand it as evil, it will just go away.

It is also not just that the vast majority of scientists tend to view science amorally, they view attempts to infuse scientific discourse with morality with repugnance. It is the few here and there that seek to venture beyond the bounds of science to argue for or against the existence of God and even if they are highly regarded in their fields (for example Richard Dawkins), their efforts to do this are not.

The problem is these few are very highly visible and, unfortunately, set the tone for the discourse and the understanding of the scientific enterprise. After all, if Richard Dawkins is an eminent evolutionary biologist and he claims, vociferously, that God doesn't exist, why shouldn't evangelicals attach morality to his science?

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Agitation Against Creationism in the UK

David Attenborough has joined a group of scientists who are arguing that the government must forcefully ban the teaching of creationism in schools.  Duncan Geere of Wired UK has the story:

While in power, Gordon Brown's Labour government released guidance to schools that creationism shouldn't be taught in science classes, but stopped short of enshrining the recommendation into law. The coalition government hasn't acted on the subject either. Attenborough has joined three Nobel prize winners and Richard Dawkins in protesting against creationism and intelligent design, asking for it to be completely banned.

The former director of education for the Royal Society, Rev Michael Reiss, who has in the past referred to evolution as "god's work", is amongst the signatories. He told the Telegraph: “Evolution is an extremely powerful idea that lies at the heart of biology. At the same time, it's a sufficiently simple concept that there's no good reason why it should be left out of the primary curriculum.”

It is not clear how far this will go or what impact it will have. That Richard Dawkins is part of the organization will have a polarizing impact, I am sure.  Attenborough has a world-wide reputation as one of this generation's greatest naturalists and has made many wonderful documentaries about life in the wild. 

Richard Dawkins: Not So Bad After All?

The independent has an article on Richard Dawkins which casts him not as the devil incarnate but rather, not such a bad guy. As Kevin Myers writes:

The popular meme of Dawkins The Bigot is the creation of the Christian Creationist Right, who loathe him for the power of his advocacy of the idea that Darwinian natural selection is the sole creator of our living world.

The focus of the article, however, is the idea that natural selection can work wonders over the vast amounts of time. He writes:

The key element here is not the emerging species, but the mutating genes guiding them. One of many delightful revelations that Dawkins makes in his latest book, 'The Greatest Show on Earth', is that the gene which makes haemoglobin is a mutation of the same gene that makes the root-pod in legumes, wherein bacteria fix nitrogen: and what they visibly retained in common, across millions of years of separation, is their colour. Yes, both the ultimate sources of pea and pee are blood-red.

Dawkins is simply not the austere and proselytising dogmatist of myth. Such people expect and almost seek confrontation, whereas he merely wishes to make his case.

Moreover, he is quite clearly baffled by the extraordinary vituperation to which has been subjected, usually by the nameless thugs and religious skinheads who stalk the lightless slum-corners of that strange and troubled city, the internet. Take my advice. Forget the meme. Buy the books.

All well and good, but this sidesteps a whole host of absolutely nasty things that Dawkins has said about Christianity and parents who bring up their children in a religious home, comparing the latter to sexual abuse. To portray him as a scientist only interested in the science of natural selection is disingenuous at best and deceptive at worst. Nobody that is only interested in the science puts out a book called The God Delusion. The meme is there for a reason.

Religous Agnostic Wins Templeton Prize, Atheists Infuriated

That is a bit of a dramatic headline but the story is exactly that. The winner this year is Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal in Great Britain. Steve Connor, of the Independent, writes:

Martin Rees, the former president of the Royal Society and master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was given the award for "exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension" through his research and writings on cosmology. Lord Rees of Ludlow, who has said he holds no religious beliefs, defended the prize on the grounds it was awarded by a foundation which has given money to fund important science projects at respectable research institutions, including Cambridge.

This did not sit well several members of the scientific establishment:

Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, said the Templeton Foundation is "sneakier than the creationists" by introducing the idea of faith into a discipline where faith is anathema. "Religion is based on dogma and belief, whereas science is based on doubt and questioning. In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice," he said.

Oddly, Coyne is correct here. Science, especially evolution, is demonized by many as being dogmatic and religious, yet Coyne is presenting it exactly as it is, a scientific discipline that proceeds along scientific principles. In other writings, it is clear that Coyne thinks that religion in general is a vice but that is not his point here.

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Richard Dawkins Interview in the Houston Chronicle

On Sunday, Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle sat down with Richard Dawkins. Given the stridency with which Dawkins has attacked religious belief and championed evolutionary theory, the results were a bit surprising (to me at least). First the non-surprising part:

Q. Are you surprised that, in the 21st century, we're still debating evolution in the public square?

A. Yes, I'm very surprised. I'm not quite sure why of all the sciences, it is evolution that should be singled out for this remarkable treatment. Amateurs who know nothing of science don't attempt to dictate what goes into chemistry or physics textbooks, as far as I am aware. But in the case of my own subject, biology, it's a free-for-all where anyone can say what they think as a personal opinion. These are not matters of personal opinion, these are matters of fact. And matters of fact are determined by the evidence. And it is the evidence that should define what goes into textbooks.

I had this discussion with my pastor way back when. I asked him, “Don't you think it is odd that every other major science discipline has figured out how the world works but biologists have gotten it completely wrong?” He admitted that this was puzzling and worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, it is also behind the many “academic freedom” bills that have littered state legislatures in the past few years, since the Dover decision. While there is lip service to the idea that all scientific disciplines should be examined for their strengths and weaknesses, no one seriously doubts that the entire thrust of these bills is aimed solely at evolution.

Dawkins does say something somewhat startling, though. When asked:

Q. From your perspective is there any credible evidence for the existence of a God?

He replies:

A. No, not to my mind. But I think it's a respectable thing to have an argument about. It's something we can have an intelligent argument in which intelligent people can make points on both sides.

This strikes me as being a bit of a lurch from his “Age of Reason” program in which he castigated parents for imparting religious values to their children. If the religious people are “intelligent” people, why can they not pass on these values to their children?

A bit later, however, Dawkins reminds us that a good evolutionary biologist can be a very bad sociologist. The question posed is this:

Q. Do you fear the United States is on its way to becoming a theocracy?

Unaccountably, Dawkins answers the question thus:

A. I think that when George W. Bush was president it was starting to look that way. I was of course hugely encouraged by the election of Barack Obama, so I don't think the United States is on its way to becoming a theocracy. But it's something we need to watch. I think there are countries in the world that are theocracies, and they're terrible, terrible examples. Looking at Saudi Arabia, we really, really don't want my part of the world or your part of the world to go anywhere near that.

This is patent nonsense. The United States has never even come close to a theocracy, nor will it ever come close. He comments that during George Bush, it was "starting to look that way." No it wasn't. It was during the presidency of George Bush, for example, that anti-Christmas campaigns got going in earnest. There were no freedoms curtailed, there was no religious dictate from on high. There was nothing. One of the people who commented on the story also wrote:

It's hard to take seriously anything else the guy says when he says something that dumb. I'd love to know what Bush policy he's referring to. Is he talking about Bush's faith based initiative program? If so, he doesn't know his facts since Obama has continued the program.

Like I said, great evolutionary biologist, mediocre theologian and sociologist at best. Read both the interview and the comments, if you have time.

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Richard Dawkins' Problem

It is that none of his opponents seem to be coming to his lectures. As Andrew John in Digital Journal writes:

Of his travels in the USA’s Bible Belt, he said that no one who disagrees with his view “ever comes to my lectures – or, if they do, they keep very quiet afterwards.” And the often mild-speaking professor doesn’t always keep his cool when confronted by those who refuse to believe the scientific evidence. But, in his defence, he quoted a favoured sentence once written by the Independent’s feature writer, Johann Hari: “I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.”

Gee, can't imagine why nobody is coming.

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Gerald Schroeder: The Science of God

I am currently refamiliarizing myself with Gerald Schroeder's The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom which was written in 1997. Schroeder is an applied theologian with a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.

His opening premise, if I understand him correctly, is superficially similar to that of Francis Collins' and John Polkinghorne's in that God has created a self-sustaining world. His approach to the evidence, however, is very different from theirs. He covers much of the same ground early that Hugh Ross did in his book The Fingerprint of God, and presents a good deal of evidence for the fine tunedness or "tweaking" that the universe. He writes:

As a scientist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology I was convinced I had the information to exclude Him—or is it Her?—from the grand scheme of life. But with each step forward in the unfolding mystery of the cosmos, a subtle yet pervading ingenuity, a contingency kept shining through, a contingency that joins all aspects of existence into a coherent unity. While this coherence does not prove the existence of a designer, it does call out for interpretation. (p. 25)

He does, however, unlike Ross, invoke a potential problem in such a "tweaked universe" scenario: that such an argument is effectively argument from personal incredulity. As I argued with my wife last night, and as he puts it:

The design in nature's move toward life might be pure chance. Perhaps we are here because good fortune smiled and produced by chance the multitude of events needed to coax life from the chaos of the big bang. It would be something like winning a lottery for which a million people—even a billion—had purchased tickets. A miracle? Not really—someone had to win and you were the lucky person. (p. 26)

It is an argument he doesn't believe, however, because Paradoxically he then argues that modern physics and nature are based on the idea that the very, very, very unlikely never happens. This is difficult to square with any definition of nature and science that I have ever heard.

Schroeder takes a very different view of the debate between those who argue for a six-literal day creation and those who argue for an old-earth creation (4.5 billion year old earth). Here, he delves in relativity, arguing that it does not make sense to argue either of these perspectives because they are both correct. He writes:

CBR is the clock of the cosmos. Its wave frequency is the rate which the cosmic clock ticks. "the directly measurable coordinate along the line of sight (into space) is not time, but redshift (z)"—the ratio of CBR frequencies observed today. Just after the big bang, when the universe was vastly more compact, all the radiation spread throught today's huge universe was pressed within a small primordial space. the immense concentration of energy resulted in CBR temperatures and wave frequencies million upon million times greater than that of the frigid 2.73° of space today. The cosmic clock then "ticked" much more rapidly than it does today. (p. 61-62).

Using this logic, every creation day on earth took less and less time until all of the six days took up all of the fifteen billion years that the universe and the earth have existed. This means that the earth, created on day 3, is between 3.5 and 4.5 billion years old. In such a concordist view, the dispute over how old the universe is. There is now plenty of time for both views.

When it gets down to discussing biological life and evolution, Schroeder is comfortably in the intelligent design camp. Here, he invokes the "latent library" model of origins which posits that all early life had in it latent blocks of information waiting to be switched on at the right time. By his own admission, this flies in the face of the standard notion of accumulation of beneficial mutations to account for species change. In support of this model, he uses examples of morphological constraint and the formation of similar structures in different organisms, arguing that it would be almost impossible for these structures to have arisen independently through mutation. Here, his understanding of evolution seems to break down.

Like Michael Behe, he demands that all of the evolutionary change happen at once. This is a peculiar error that is common to these two and to William Dembski, who has posited this misconception of evolution several times. Consequently, his calculations show that when you multiply all of the probabilities of these evolutionary events occurring, the probabilities are astronomically small. Falling back on the familiar "random sequence of letters" example, he argues:

The only way random letter generation ha a prayer of producing meaningful sentences is if the programmer instructs the computer how to recognize meaningfulness and how to preserve it. The same may be said for random mutations in the genome producing useful strings of amino acids (proteins) and their preservation. But this supposes that nature knows what is good for it. (p. 103)

Such a scenario fails to account for the fact that rarely do beneficial traits arise all at once. This is similar to the METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL program of Richard Dawkins. Although flawed in its expression, Dawkins wanted to demonstrate that over time, given the fixation of beneficial mutations (correct letters), random changes in letters will produce meaningful output. Dawkins understood that this was a teleological scenario (he knew the outcome). As H. Allen Orr put it:

Start with a random sequence as before but i) randomly change each character that doesn't match the target sequence; ii) if a resulting character matches the target keep it and in the next round change only those characters that don't match. So, if we start with SATHINKS, at the next step we'll randomly change only the first two letters; and if those changes yield MQTHINKS, then at the next step we'll randomly change only the second letter. This two-step evolutionary algorithm of mutation plus selection arrives at the phrase METHINKS… with surprising speed

Schroeder argues that the compound eyes of different organisms could not possible have all arisen independently by chance through evolution but that they were guided in their formation. In truth, it is quite possible that each eye arose independently through the accumulation of beneficial mutations in similar environments. Evolutionary history is replete with examples of convergent evolution, from the New and Old World monkeys to the marsupial forms that are found in Wallacea. In both cases, you have a fossil record that records the evolutionary steps that led to the convergence. Where there is an ecological niche, adaptive radiation takes over.

His understanding of biology is also a bit peculiar. He writes:

Nature strives toward complexity because complexity carries with it survivability through intelligent adaptability. The simplest form of life, bacteria, lacks this feature. Though as a group bacteria have been on earth longer than any other form of life, as individuals they are not a success story.

Nature does not strive toward complexity, it strives toward adaptability. Many organisms have changed little in millions of years. Contrary to what he writes, these are success stories. Each one is marvelously adapted to its environment. Complexity is a byproduct of changing adaptation to changing environments. If the environment doesn't change, or changes little, organisms do not change.

Although he mentions the fossil record, much of it is glossed over. For example, he writes about the appearance of Neandertals and their overlap with modern humans but gives little notice to the myriad human fossil forms that precede Neandertals and the wealth of transitional forms encountered. This would present a set of evidence that would need to be explained. There are many other such sequences in the fossil record that go unmentioned as well.

The last half of the book deals with the creation of humans and Adam and Eve and weaves Talmudic and biblical passages together in an attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole. A persistent problem for the biblical interpretation that Adam and Eve were the first people is the evidence that humans have been on this planet in one shape or another for around 5 million years. Modern humans have been around for around 150,000 years. However, for the first two chapters of Genesis, there are a total of four people mentioned. Add the puzzling passages where the Bible clearly states that Cain knew his wife (who was that?) and then went and built a city. If there are no people around to build a city, who did he build it for?

Here, Schroeder invokes the Talmudic interpretation that, between the death of Abel and the birth of Seth, Adam and Eve split up for 130 years, during which time, Adam had relations with other women that did not have the spirit of God on them. These would have been the other humans on the planet, the "Cro-Magnons" that were present on the landscape. From this, we are to understand that all of human civilization up until the birth of Adam six thousand years ago was without the benefit of the Spirit of God—human animals, in Schroeder's words. One of the big problems, of course, in this reading is that it is selective in providing a beginning for the human soul in Adam (despite there being a large number of "humans" around that were God-created but which had no more importance than the animals) but failing to account for the flood story a scant two chapters later. Modern human occupation around Adam and Eve has been continuous in the Old World from 150,000 years ago and in the New World from 20,000 years ago. At no point in this occupation is there evidence for a world-wide flood. It seems odd for Schroeder to take such great pains to formulate a model putting Adam and Eve in relation to other humans only to not mention the story in which they get annihilated.

Ultimately, the book succeeds where Schroeder can stick to physics and he provides a truly unique perspective in the creation of the universe and the use of time dilation. Had he stopped there, the book would have been a highly engaging work which would have gotten an unqualified recommendation. As it is, like so many who espouse intelligent design, evolution is just too tempting a target to stay away from and, because he does not have a background in biology, he makes a hash of it.

Ironically, given his understanding of Adam's place in nature and his relationship to the "soulless" humans around him, Schroeder need not have even addressed evolution at all. He appears to include this section to bolster an argument that the history of life was teleologically driven toward humans. He has, however, failed to understand that there is nothing inherent in evolutionary theory that posits randomness. It is certainly true that there is a stochastic nature to mutation but that is true in the modern world as well as the prehistoric one.

Where evolution is not random is in the action of selection, gene flow and genetic drift. Those processes are what drive evolutionary change. Like so many other intelligent design promoters, Schroeder fails to see this.

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