Evolution versus a Creative Intelligence
Contents
Evaluating the Truth of Ideas
Recycling
Discarded Ideas
What is
Evolution?
What is
Creationism?
What
are Creative Intelligence and Intelligent Design?
What is the
Controversy Between
Evolution and Creative Intelligence?
Criticism of Intelligent Design as Science
The Practical Aspects of the Creative
Intelligence Challenge
Conclusion
Further Information on this Controversy
Books Available from Amazon and Other
Booksellers
More Scientific Information
About This Topic On Line
Evaluating
the Truth of Ideas
Religion, philosophy, and science are the
main forms of human activity that deal primarily with evaluating the
truth of ideas*, but they do not use the same methods nor do they have
the same definitions of truth. Many anthropologists think that
ancient keepers of sacred knowledge about the powers of the natural
world were the people who first organized humans into cultural
activities that became traditions. These ancient priests developed
ideas about the sacred and profane that they used to compel their
followers to comply with their plans and demands, giving themselves
the privileges of leadership. Later, religious and political
leadership differentiated, and the priestly class became a validator
of the legitimacy of political rulers, as with the priests who
created the god-like Egyptian pharaohs and the Celtic druids who
legitimized
their warrior kings. Truth for these keepers of sacred knowledge became
compatibility with their dogma, and a major task for them was to
discourage and eliminate ideas that might threaten the faith and
their own privileges. For the pious, truth flows from authority,
either directly from a god or in traditions as codified in sacred
books,
interpreted by theologians, and conveyed by elders or testaments. Faith
is the disposition to accept the tenets of religion.
[*Some may object that the arts and
humanities also seek truth, but their place in my categorization is a
separate issue. Briefly, these disciplines primarily may try
either to
represent some truth, as in arts, or to establish factual truth, as in
history. Evaluating the truth of
conceptual ideas is not the
primary activity of these disciplines, but when they do evaluate ideas,
their methods are drawn from the three disciplines discussed here,
usually science in this era.]
Philosophy is a discipline that has
organized knowledge and criticized ideas for thousands of years.
Philosophers are generally a highly trained group of experts, but
their methods of distinguishing truth from fiction include largely
logical, symbolic, and verbal mechanisms of reasoning. For the
philosopher,
truth flows from the qualities of arguments, based on conventions or
rules. Certainty about truth is elusive with an approach that relies
on such inherently fallible skills as rhetorical ability. During the
recent 500 years or so, a specialized outgrowth of philosophy, known
as science, developed from the discovery by philosophers that
many philosophical questions could actually be investigated rather than
merely debated. Evidence might be collected and compiled in such a
way as to provide greater confidence about the answers to particular
questions, such as how we perceive and learn about the world, why
things are beautiful or ugly, etc. For the scientist, the truth flows
from how empirical evidence is used to support specific concepts that
concern the explanation of cause and effect. The rapid advances in
technologies for creating such evidence over the last century have
produced our contemporary scientific and technological society.
Science, philosophy, and religion all seek
some kind of truth, and often address the same issues and problems from
different approaches. Truth for a given person, however, is something
accepted as useful and important, something that makes sense in the
person's view of the world. Since people differ in their perspectives
on life and their world, what they accept as the truth may vary. Each
of the fields of endeavor described here fosters, promotes,
inculcates, or teaches somewhat different views and may recruit people
to their ranks who fit into these different perspectives. The clergy
recruits
people who are especially concerned with spiritual matters and absolute
standards;
philosophers recruit introspective and critical people interested in
reflecting on deep issues, and scientists recruit skeptical people
whose truths
depend on observations. These different views on truth may have in
common the characteristic that each offers something to help a person
make sense of his or her personal experiences. Anyone who often solves
problems knows that the truth is perceived as ideas make increasing
sense
and improve understanding of the problem, and the closer the solution
is,
the more apparent the truth. So it is that the people who engage in
seeking the truth retain knowledge that fits and discard the rest. The
progress of each perspective in discarding
the false ideas is unequal.
Recycling
Discarded Ideas
Ideas that are discredited or fall out of
favor remain in the reservoir of notions that are preserved by a
culture. Experts in all fields of inquiry have at least one advantage
over people who are not trained in a particular discipline. The
experts learn about the ideas that historically appeared in their
field of study and what is right or wrong about them. Thus, a priest
readily recognizes heresy; a philosopher easily detects spurious
arguments; and a scientist knows what makes an idea testable or not.
If only experts composed a society, definitely poor ideas would
be weeded out and discarded permanently.
In contrast, non-expert (lay) people are
untutored about which ideas are poor, and they find most of the ideas
in a specialized discipline unfamiliar. When considering these ideas,
a lay person may view an idea discarded by experts as worthy of
attention and even as promising or useful. Such a person usually does
not know the experts' opinions, and may ignore them in any case.
Thus, many discredited ideas are kept alive and nurtured by
ignorance, in a reservoir of discredited opinion, "urban legends,"
folklore, or mythology.
Experts can, of course, discover new information or have a slightly
different conception that rehabilitates a previously discarded idea,
and the process of evaluation begins anew for them. The DataFace
website discusses some of these issues in regard to studying the
human face, the spurious ideas of phrenology
and what is scientific and useful about the study of physiognomy,
and what is not. The ideas of evolution and a creative intelligence
also have a history in religion, philosophy, and science.
What is
Evolution?
Evolution is an ancient philosophical idea
that the natural world changes, e. g., that animals might change
their form over time to adopt one more advantageous for themselves.
Ancient Greek philosophers were debating evolution nearly three
thousand years ago, and the idea has appeared in discussions ever
since. This notion of evolution was opposed to the philosophical idea
that the world is static, unchanging, and relatively perfect.
Aristotle was the most influential and successful promoter of the
static world idea, and he proposed that humans sat at the top rung of
a hierarchy of life on this earth in an inviolable natural order.
Even though Aristotle was a gifted categorizer and knew many of the
similarities
among different kinds of animals, he probably never imagined similar
animals were
related by their ancestry. These Aristotelean ideas were assimilated
into
Christian doctrine by the philosopher Thomas Aquinas about 800 years
ago, but today these ideas about a hierarchy of life and a static
world are not central to the theology of most Christians, unlike
their beliefs in past centuries. Although Darwin did not invent the
generic
idea of evolution, he proposed some profound principles about
evolution that put this concept into the realm of science. In other
words, Darwin presented evidence for a set of theories about how
evolution, or as he called it "descent with modification,"
worked and how it could be observed and studied. Darwin's ideas would
probably have remained within the confines of academic debate, but
his claim that mankind was no different from other biological
creatures, insofar as people were subject to evolution and had
ancestors in common with those of apes, inflamed passions outside the
small
circle of scientists and significantly impacted the general culture.
Darwin wrote that humans were subject to the same natural forces of
evolution as other animals and ultimately descend from the same
ancestral species. As Darwin knew it would, this proposal struck at
two contemporaneous assumptions of Christian theology, that man was
at the pinnacle of life (in the image of God) and that the world is
the same now as when God created it.
The concept of evolution enunciated by
Darwin changed as other scientists
began to investigate this theory with the advantages of a better
fossil record, comparative embryology and improved descriptions of
homologous structures, an understanding of genetics, and the more
recent technologies of comparative immunology and molecular biology.
A brief definition of evolution according to the contemporary view is
“a change in the gene frequencies of a population over time caused
by differential reproduction of genetic variants.” The modern
conception of evolution is the most important idea in biology, or
perhaps in all of science, and one of the most thoroughly tested. The
evolution of
biological organisms, as a theory or explanation, has several
important pillars that
are well substantiated by evidence. Some aspects of evolutionary
theory are still being developed, and probably new ideas will always
come along as more is learned. Modification of ideas in light of new
evidence is how science works.
What is
Creationism?
Creationism is the idea that a supreme
being, a god or gods, made the universe and our world. The
creation of the world is one of the oldest beliefs of mankind, and
takes many forms among the innumerable creation stories of various
tribes, ethnic groups, organized religions, sects, etc. The ubiquity
of these beliefs tells us more about how the human mind works than
about the truth of these stories. The crucial difference between the
origins of such creation fables and the scientific picture of
creation is that scientists hold nothing in the explanation to be
sacred, and they continuously make amendments to it, retaining only the
elements that make the most sense in light of the evidence available,
which also changes as investigation proceeds. In contrast, a
creationist, someone who believes in supernatural creation of the
world, holds the fable as sacred, e. g., that God created the universe,
and cannot change this sacrosanct belief regardless of the evidence.
Today, the term "creationist" most
often refers to fundamentalist Christians who interpret
the Bible as true in a literal sense, although creation myths
predominate in other cultures, such as Islamic societies. This literal
interpretation of the
Bible's
story of Genesis and other passages leads creationists to believe in
such
ideas as: the world was created about 6000 years ago (the young
earth), all the creatures on earth today were created about the same
time and have not changed since, and a flood covered the entire world
early in human history. Centuries ago, virtually all Christians
accepted similar assertions without critical examination. As evidence
emerged from scientific and other inquiries that such statements
could not literally be true, most organized Christian religions
dissociated themselves from their obsolete interpretations, aided by
modern Bible scholarship that emphasized the spiritual truths of the
Bible, rather than its descriptive, literal truth. The minority of
Christians that remained to dispute the scientific ideas
contradicting their literalist interpretations found that their
proselytizing efforts were increasingly rejected by a better educated
public. Most people can see that the important assertions of
religion, such as the existence of God, whether God was behind the
creation of the universe, etc., are beyond disproof by scientific
methods and therefore outside its scope, and that the Bible reveals
little about the specifics of God's works. Many creationist
assertions that are testable with scientific methods, such as the
age of the earth, were proved false. As the religious roots of
such claims began to hinder acceptance of doctrine, those with a
creationist orientation
needed a new approach
to countering the challenges to their interpretations by the scientific
advances in understanding origins of
life, humans, and the physical world.
What
are Creative Intelligence and
Intelligent Design?
The idea of an "intelligence"
that oversees the universe is also not a new idea, and has long been
in the repertoire of religious and philosophical ideas. Sometimes,
this idea is connected to a creator god that produced the universe
and the objects in it, but it is also known in atheistic religious
forms. This idea is an essential part of the monotheistic religions
which see God as the creator, an Intelligent Designer of an impressive,
even incomprehensible, universe. At least as early as John's Gospel,
which in the English King James
Version begins "In the
beginning was the Word..." the plan of God for the world has been
a center of Christian thinking. The details of this plan have been
variously interpreted, but Christian creationists have their own view of it, and despite
lacking specific details of creation in the Bible,
insist that evolution contradicts the Bible. Most
other Christians consider facts scientists learn about the mechanisms
of origins compatible with their religious teachings and the Bible. Recently, during the late 20th century, people with
fundamentalist Christian views elaborated this generic idea of
an intelligence or plan behind the operation of the world into a more
specific idea of a "Creative Intelligence," an inherent guiding
principle for the
design of the universe. The unique aspect
of this proposal is the claim that such a purpose, or Intelligent
Design, is a scientific
theory and an alternative
to evolution.
One of the originators of the Intelligent
Design concept, Philip Johnson, a former University of California,
Berkeley,
law professor, founded a group for studying these subjects called
the Center for
Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute,
a think tank and action center for
conservative Christian issues. Important
proponents of this view who have scientific training
include biochemist Michael Behe
and mathematician-philosopher William Demski.
Two main theoretical concepts have emerged as central to arguments from
these proponents, "irreducible complexity" and "complex
specified information." These concepts are often presented by their
authors with facile analogies and difficult technical arguments and
mathematical presentations, but actual research evidence related to
them is virtually nonexistent. Another
major point of contention raised by the
Intelligent Design proponents is the
so-called "Cambrian explosion," which, the creationists argue, shows
the
hand of God creating the species of animals at a point in geological
time, a conclusion vigorously refuted by
paleontologists.
Steven
C.
Meyer, a philosopher and original
member of the Intelligent Design inner circle, published a paper
about evolutionary information, specified complexity, the Cambrian
explosion, and creative intelligence
in
an
obscure scientific journal, a rare
achievement since most similar papers
are not viewed favorably for publication in such journals. His article The
Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
is available on various websites. As one of the more
successful presentations of a creative intelligence proposal, it is
useful to examine his clearly written article. It raises many
issues that biologists indicate are problematic areas for evolutionary
theory and briefly discusses prominent theoretical attempts that
address them. Meyer's discussion revolves around two questions central to the
Intelligent Design proposal: how was the complexity of living creatures
able to increase over time, and, where did the information behind this
complexity come from? He argues that various evolutionary solutions
proposed by biologists are inadequate to answer these questions, in
part, because the likelihood of the development of complex organisms
via mechanistic, accidental processes is vanishingly small. The
"sudden" appearance of greater complexity circa the Cambrian period
makes these explanations especially difficult to accept. Instead, he
points to the persistence of teleology as a possibility in biological
theorizing and specific theories, such as channeling of evolution in
the direction of certain goals, as indicating a place for purpose and
design in biological evolution. The "mind" of an Intelligent Designer
underlying evolution of life makes good sense, as illustrated by the
human mind behind the creativity we observe routinely. Meyer does not
consider recent counter-arguments by evolutionary scientists, like
those in the books listed below, nor does he cite any empirical
evidence for his position, consistent
with his role as philosopher. His
argument boils down to a
restatement of an old mistake, that it is so hard to believe that a
mainstream scientific explanation can account for a particular fact,
therefore, God
must have done it. The technical
refutations
of these arguments are available elsewhere, including the books linked
below.
The Intelligent Design idea
improves on one of the old arguments for the existence of God, that the
universe is so perfect that if must have been designed by a Supreme
Intelligence. A closer look by scientists at examples of such
perfection, such as the human eye, showed that the apparent perfection
was a misconception based on ignorance. Although organs, like the eye,
are marvels of function, they are not particularly well designed from
an engineering standpoint, as anyone can verify for themselves when
choking on a piece of food that mistakenly passed into the bronchial
tube rather than the esophagus. This mix up results from a problematic
sharing of the pharynx by two essential systems, respiratory and
digestive, a common pathway that has a clear evolutionary explanation,
but none based on design. An intelligent designer would not have made
this mistake. The Intelligent Design proposal replaces misapprehended
perfection by notions such as "complexity" or "information"
as the quality that can be explained only by the work of God.
What is
the Controversy Between
Evolution and Creative Intelligence?
The conflict between creationism
and science
has a long history, from the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 to the Kansas
school board's rejection of evolution
in 1999, and more recently, in similar attempts to
remove evolution from schools and substitute creationism. As an
improved version of
creationism with its claim to scientific status, intelligent design
increases the intensity of this struggle. The innovation of the
Intelligent Design proponents, however,
is a vigorous public relations campaign to market their ideas to the
public and their legislators, who typically are overly impressed by the
scientific pretensions of this appealing, but scientifically
empty, idea. The
Intelligent Design proponents understate the close connection of their
claims to religious beliefs when their audience consists of teachers,
politicians, and others interested in the merits of their ideas as
science, but are clear about the underlying connection when encouraging
audiences who espouse creationist viewpoints. Many levels of the
controversy complicate
discussion of the issues involved in this controversy, which are
explicated in the books listed below, but the focus here is on the
competing
religious, philosophical, and scientific viewpoints in a search for
truth.
The ultimate goal of Intelligent
Design proponents is to overturn the naturalistic orientation of
science and technology, and its principal guiding viewpoint,
materialism. This objective makes sense to the extent that naturalism
conflicts with supernaturalism and materialism conflicts with
assertion of non-material causes. Those who believe in gods or a God,
by definition, believe in the
supernatural, beings and events that are outside the natural existence
of our realm of ordinary experience and which may produce arbitrary
outcomes
unpredictable from any law of nature. Many religious people believe
that even the most routine events in their lives are determined by the
supreme power of God and are part of God's plan for them. In contrast,
naturalism assumes that humans can trace the causes of events we
observe to prior events that happen according to some lawful pattern in
the natural world of our own experience. Materialism asserts
that everything we observe in our universe results from the interaction
of elementary particles and forces that operate predictably according
to natural laws that might be known by humans. According to
materialism,
a god is not necessary to explain any event observed by humans in terms
of their proximal causes. These differences are related to the way
truth is evaluated under each viewpoint, by faith from authority or by
evaluation of evidence.
Despite these apparent
philosophical conflicts, the naturalistic orientation of science does
not necessarily preclude a metaphysical
belief in the supernatural. Although many scientists may be
theological atheists, some scientists also profess a belief in God.
Accommodating conventions minimize conflicts between theistic beliefs
and
a scientist's naturalistic approach to science. For example,
unknowable and unobserved ultimate causes cannot be studied by humans;
therefore, the
question of the existence of gods or supernatural powers that cause
them is outside the
evidential scope of science. Only the few Christians who are
creationists reject such compromises (as do committed atheists).
Materialism as a scientific viewpoint also does not absolutely preclude
believing in spiritual causes of things that may be beyond explanation
by
science, such as the origin of the universe or what might be outside
it. (See the Wikipedia entry on naturalism
for another, more detailed exposition.)
The
materialist perspective is
compatible with the modern, naturalistic practice of science that has
led to many
discoveries about our natural environment and to the development of
machines for our technological world. Materialism is a
robust and
strong position, and nothing has emerged to compel scientists
to adopt any competing viewpoint. Materialism is, however, not a
scientific theory,
but instead a meta-theory, or a philosophy, that is consistent with the
theories, laws, and discoveries of science and technology. Other
meta-theoretical or philosophic views may be equally consistent, but
they are not preferred in the current era. (A naturalistic approach to
science need not be
based on materialism, but that is a whole
different story.)
Some religiously inclined people
condemn
materialism, blaming it for encouraging people to turn away from God
and reducing faith in the power of the supernatural, and thus, becoming
a cause of evil and sin in this world. The naturalist's method of
finding truth through evidence is seen as an obstacle for finding truth
through faith. A mistake of the
intelligent design proponents and many preachers in this tradition is
their equation of the spread in materialist scientific theories, such
as evolution,
with a decreasing religiosity and faith in God. Few in the general
population know or care about any of the details of evolutionary
theory, and those educated about evolution are not forced to abandon
faith in god, only to reject the spurious claims about the causes of
natural events
that are based on religious misconceptions. Capriciousness of natural
events,
dangerous and desperate situations, uncertainty and ignorance about the
sources of sickness, pain, and death, and fear of the unknown are the
real underpinnings of the intensity of religious fervor. The decrease
in these factors in the last century due to technological and
scientific advances has
probably been the most effective method for removing the mystery from
everyday events, and obviating their ascription to supernatural forces.
The mere acquisition and use of technological devices to control one's
environment, e.g., setting a thermostat, listening to selections on an
mp3 player, or driving to a preferred destination, convey an underlying
message that the a person controls one's own life and destiny
(unfortunately, without a corresponding increase the appreciation for
the science behind these technologies). By reducing ignorance and
misery, science probably has been indirectly
responsible for decreasing religiosity, but not through the spread of
any theory or philosophy.
As with misidentifying the causes
of decreased piety, so the strategists of Intelligent Design
misconstrue the consequences of supplanting the paradigm of evolution.
Protagonists in the Intelligent Design controversy tend to blur the
differences among how religion, philosophy, and science search for
truth.
For example, scientists who gather evidence to support their
evolutionary theories sometimes too quickly claim that their evidence
confirms materialism.
Evolution is a scientific
conception, but materialism is a philosophical viewpoint. Evidence can
disconfirm evolution, but there is no known empirical test to
distinguish materialist from competing philosophies. Scientific
research usually works by creating conditions where observations might
show that something is wrong with the idea that motivated the research.
If repeated tests cannot find anything wrong, then acceptance of the
motivating idea becomes increasingly justified. This approach is
incompatible with the constitutional attitudes of creationists and the
Intelligent Design proponents who are committed by their faith to the
belief in a creator God, regardless of the fate of the Intelligent
Design debate.
One area where the Intelligent
Design proponents make progress, at least for short periods, is getting
their ideas approved by administrative fiats, or by seeking a ruling
from judicial authorities, or validation from some kind of legislation.
This type of justification through authority is most compatible with
the history of any religious idea. All these regulatory, judicial, and
legislative victories are short lived as countermeasures from opponents
override them.
The section above examines the controversy about Intelligent
Design in the context of
different approaches to evaluating the truth of ideas. Making
distinctions is one of the most important intellectual activities in
critical thinking, that between truth and untruth being of utmost
significance. In searching for truth, the distinction about the kind of
truth sought, religious, philosophical, or
scientific, should be
underscored, not blurred or overlooked. Identifying concepts as
appropriate in the context of religion, philosophy, or science is
therefore a worthy endeavor, an effort that might be encouraged in a
wide range of educational settings. This training process could yield a
more fruitful result than one from marketing and preference polling,
social popularity, or a political or judicial process. The concept of
Creative Intelligence, derived from religious and philosophical ideas,
is not even accepted as scientific by scientists, and, thus, its truth
from the scientific perspective has not even begun to be established,
partly because the tests to do so, if any, are not explicit. From this
perspective alone, we can see how very premature are the efforts to
teach this idea as science in public schools. The following section
briefly summarizes the main criticisms of Intelligent Design often made
by critical scientists who reject such ideas as scientific.
Criticism of Intelligent Design as Science
Not a Scientific
Theory - Recent critical
thinking underscores the difficulties of identifying what makes an idea
scientific, but there are important characteristics that indicate a
theory is scientific. One is that the theory generates one or more propositions
that
can be tested to see whether they are false. The specific mechanism
might not exist for making the test, perhaps because the machines are
not available, but at least the statements are definite and seem
potentially capable of a test. Otherwise, as scientists say, "it's only
philosophy" or in the case of Intelligent Design, "it's only religion."
Every time a scientist makes a scientific statement,
it can be tested and proved false. Many religious
statements, in contrast, are not falsifiable by scientific
methods. This difference defines a boundary between science versus
religion. The
former attributes cause and effect to naturalistic events that have
predictable outcomes, whereas the latter rejects such explanations as
limited because the ultimate cause is a God or gods whose supernatural
powers can produce outcomes that are unpredictable, arbitrary, and
incapable of understanding by humans.
Virtually all religious doctrine does not
meet this criterion of testable predictability, and is not intended to
do so, as the truth of
these ideas involves faith, not evidence and proof by scientific
methods. The promoters of Creative Intelligence
claim to have changed the old religious idea of a supernatural
intelligence enough
to make it scientifically testable, but actually have produced little
or no evidence, and this idea remains a religious
idea because it has not generated testable statements.
It might be possible to investigate
scientifically the possibility that
purpose or design is at work in the universe, although virtually
nothing has been done along these lines so far. At best, Intelligent
Design is bad science; at worst, a misleading fraud that attempts to
undermine the very rationality that is the core of science. The
Intelligent Design proponents have proposed that the workings of God
can be detected by observations and studied, but their activities have
produced no evidence nor any compelling arguments for this view.
Instead, the proponents of Intelligent Design would like to define the
scientific enterprise as including theories that are mere beliefs, not
necessarily open to testing, revision and falsification.
Advocates of
Creative Intelligence Do Not Act Like Scientists - Skepticism is part of the nature of scientists
because they need evidence to accept or reject ideas. If the evidence
shows that a scientific view previously
accepted
is wrong, scientists are prepared to
abandon or change
it.* The activities of scientists revolve around
rejecting some ideas and accepting others through research, but those
of creationists revolve around
advocating a particular view. Advocates
of Intelligent Design give no
indication that any
amount of contrary evidence would change their mind about God and
creationism.
They are constitutionally resistant to accepting disconfirmation of
their faith by any
empirical evidence. Instead, they view
God as the Intelligent Designer because of their faith, not scientific
evidence, and view Intelligent Design more as a sacred doctrine than a
discardable hypothesis. One might
imagine what the consequences would be if somebody proved Intelligent
Design impossible. It is likely that its proponents would maintain
their belief in an Intelligent Designer and propose new ideas as
justification. Most of the work in Intelligent Design uses a strategy of finding gaps
in scientific knowledge and arguing that only an Intelligent Designer
could fill it. When something goes
wrong with their arguments, the proponents make up excuses or ad hoc explanations rather
than adjusting their ideas or proposing new tests to resolve
difficulties.
[*This obligation does not mean
science lacks resistance to
abandoning ideas, only that this resistance must be rationally argued
from the evidence, not from personal preferences, authority of the
advocate, etc. Scientists also are not without
favorite hypotheses or bias towards the evidence or
interpretations.]
Some intelligent design proponents,
especially Demski, describe their methods as distinguishing Intelligent
Design from the natural or undirected causes proposed by evolution, but
their logic is to assign
to design anything that cannot be explained by chance or natural law.
Scientists typically would say about such things lacking explanation
that understanding is
insufficient, that a law is defective, or that observations are flawed.
Scientists assume that any phenomenon can ultimately be explained by
natural laws, whereas the Intelligent Design advocate assumes that a
creator
exists that can explain any phenomenon. Much recent activity of the
creative intelligence advocates has been to identify phenomena that
supposedly
cannot be accounted for by natural laws, but proving this negative is
theoretically impossible and their efforts, though interesting, have
been unconvincing. The
Intelligent Design proponents have proposed that the hand of God
can be detected by observations in nature and studied, but their
activities have
produced no evidence to substantiate this view.
Instead, many proponents of Intelligent Design would like to re-define
the
scientific enterprise so as to include religious dogma as appropriate
for discussion, but not
necessarily open to testing, revision, and falsification. The
Intelligent Design proponents have found it extremely difficult to cast
their basically religious idea into an empirical scientific framework,
though such
a feat is conceptually possible.
The Intelligent Design proponent have had
more success marketing their convictions than in finding evidence
for it. Although many scientists promote their viewpoints, most of the
efforts of the Intelligent Design proponents are poured into marketing
campaigns and advocacy that attempts to influence practical decisions
and policy before any findings of substance are available. These
efforts are more political than scientific.
Not a
Reasonable
Explanation - At one time
hundreds of years ago, the
marvelous qualities of living organisms were so impressive and
inexplicable that natural causes for them seemed unlikely or
implausible. Some unfathomable, and
probably supernatural, power seemed reasonable and necessary for an
explanation by people who only had
at best a rudimentary understanding of causes in the biological and
physical
world. As scientific investigation proceeded, a reasonable place for
such supernatural causes receded further and further in the chain of
cause and effect. The ultimate cause of the universe may not be
accessible to the human mind, but as knowledge accumulates, the concept
of an Intelligent Designer becomes appropriate only for what cannot be
rationally comprehended. The basis of this belief is faith and not
reason.
Other Criticisms - The concept of Intelligent Design has critics
outside the discipline of science. Theologically, this idea
is similar to others condemned as heresy or rejected as the
view of deists, pantheists, and atheists. It is surprising that
Christian believers opposed to evolution are putting so much emphasis
on such a theologically problematic concept as Intelligent Design.
For example, if it could be proved to exist, it says nothing about
whose god is the Designer. The hypothesis is abroad that life
on earth began as an experiment of an ancient form of intelligent life, so advanced that humans could not distinguish
these beings
from gods, and who came from another
star
system that ceased to exist long ago. In what way is this proposal less
plausible than that of a supernatural power? In fact, it does not
require another, separate plane of existence from
our own, but merely a long history of the universe, and conceivably
might be easier to verify, and is therefore a more rational, though
fantastical, conjecture. Intelligent Design borders on atheism because
distinguishing the predetermined plan of a Designer from the lawful
unfolding of a set of natural random preconditions is difficult.
The Practical Aspects of the Creative
Intelligence Challenge
A remarkable aspect of modern life is that
a small group of dedicated and skillful advocates can influence large
segments of the population using public relations and modern
communications channels, with minimal reliance on fact as support.
The campaign for Intelligent Design is a case in point. A surprising
majority of Americans
believes in ghosts, the soul, an afterlife, and other similar
superstitious or religious notions that
have no empirical basis. The widespread
acceptance of such beliefs is conducive to believing in Intelligent
Design as an
alternative to evolution, as this view has no basis in fact either.
Modern education emphasizes training in facts and how to discover them,
and thus, educational practice attracts the interest of the Intelligent
Design advocates, who wish to redefine or refute facts about biology,
based on a different view of truth. They would like to alter education so that it incorporates more of
their religious view of truth, and educators' response to this demand
has important ramifications.
American universities matriculate
students imbued with religious concepts and unsubstantiated beliefs
from the repertoire of cultural mythology. These views may be
compatible with the religious goals of sectarian institutions, but
often are inconsistent with the educational goals of secular schools.
In the latter schools, the educational process too often fails to put mere beliefs into
perspective, subject them to greater critical scrutiny, and eradicate
erroneous beliefs of students. In some cases, major universities have
granted
advanced scientific degrees to students who openly reject core
scientific knowledge in favor of religious
doctrine. Some professors and educators
tolerate or even protect other teachers
who endorse or promote ideas about creative intelligence, under a
mis-guided sense of laissez faire
and academic freedom.
Primary public schools in the United
States have become a battlefield for cultural and
political wars, and partly in response, they are losing the
trust and commitment of their students. American education, compared to
the success of other advanced
nations, is in trouble, especially in training scientists
and engineers. Intelligent Design is a good example of a
serious challenge to clear, hard-headed thinking about the nature of
life and existence by replacing it with a pablum formula that embraces
endless ad hoc explanations.
Human
ideas make progress when they are challenged and forced to confront
objections, not because ideas attain an inviolate status. In these
struggles, facts should be at the center, not the latest promotion or
spin on chronically deficient ideas.
Part of the problem with primary education is that teachers do not get
many students to invest themselves in their own education. Those who instead have a greater buy-in to
fundamentalist theology will not adopt a
positive attitude to science curricula.
They are inevitably excluded from the pool of future scientists.
Beyond the classroom, the number of jurists,
politicians, administrative bureaucrats, and other citizens who view
creationism
with favor, despite apparently good
educations, dismays many scientists. In
a country where
science and technology have provided much of the nation's intellectual
and economic well being, the failure to understand major scientific
principals seems not merely inappropriate, but dangerous. The
importance of understanding science increases as the problems of modern
civilization become more acute, but the robustness of countervailing
creative intelligence ideas slows solutions to these problems. This
issue is clearly observed in the "global warming" controversy, where
fundamentalist factions have slowed measures recommended by technocrats
and scientists. Unlike controversies about evolution, this response has
direct consequences, and is likely to change as evidence changes.
Conclusion
The sections above
consider differences in the evaluation
of truth among religion, philosophy, and science, and into which category
Intelligent Design falls. Intelligent
Design is a recycled version of an old religious-philosophical idea about creative intelligence that its few advocates
have recently tuned-up and touted as a scientific proposition. The
skills to make the important distinctions in determining whether this
claim is true are relevant to the training of scientists and other
scholars. Intelligent Design might be useful as an example for making
such distinctions, but it is, at best, premature to include it as a
scientific theory.
The most compelling aspect of evolution is
that it explains so many of the observations of biology, and
evolutionary counterarguments to Intelligent Design provide another way
to appreciate its power of explanation. Rational argument
can never convince the creationists of the applicability of evolution
to questions of ultimate origins because their conviction is not based
on such logic. The basis of creationism lies outside scientific reason,
keeps ideas
behind Intelligent Design alive, and provides a foundation for new
waves of believers in successive generations. Educational institutions
are still pulled in
opposite directions by their ancient mandate to indoctrinate students
versus a modern emphasis on facts and the skills to discern which
concepts they support, even when heretical or revolutionary.
Further Information on this Controversy
The books below expand the limited treatment of
the controversy between creationism and evolution presented here. These works are interesting because they show the
response to a wholesale attack on a pillar of science, and
the way evidence is used in
refutation. This discussion is opportune and helps sharpen even
informed views. Several of the works
below explain Intelligent Design's
primary political and social agenda, and
why persuading
scientists is not among its primary goals. Also below are additional web links to significant
sites
that focus on these issues.
Books Available from Amazon and other
Booksellers
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Science and Creationism: A View
from the National Academy of Science by
the National Academies (National Academy Press, 1999)
This 48 page pamphlet provides a succinct
summary of the theories and scientific evidence behind three kinds of
inquiries concerning evolution: origin and development of the universe
and earth, biological evolution, and evolution of the human species.
For each inquiry, the opposing creationist views are presented and
criticized. The views of theists who find no conflict with science are
also summarized. This nutshell version of the controversy comes in a
pretty package. You pay for the paper, printing, color pictures and
diagrams, etc. of the booklet, but you can read this title on line, or
perhaps get a free PDF download of it from The National Academies
Press.
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Evolution
and the Myth of Creationism by Tim M. Berra (Stanford U. Press,
1990)
The author wrote this book specifically to refute creationist views, to
warn that these views are unacceptable in science curricula for public
schools, and to help support opposition to creationism as science. He
provides an introduction to the ideas of
evolution and the evidence for them,
and shows the power of the theory of evolution versus the weaknesses of
creationists claims. A chapter is devoted to the politics and social
issues. Berra spells out the dangers of creationist ideas to clear
thinking, and does not pull his punches in criticizing proponents. This
book appeared before the latest wave of creative intelligence
assertions, but it is a clear and ringing call to action against
creationism from an outraged scientist and partisan.
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What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr
(New York: Basic Books, 2001)
A straightforward, eminently readable, undergraduate-level account of
evolution for the general reader by one of the important contributors
to its development. This book is unusual among titles about evolution
because it attends to the concerns and proposals of those in the
creationism and "creative intelligence" camp in an inoffensive, but
firm, way. Mayr starts by describing the kinds of evidence evolutionary
scientists use, then provides an evolutionary view of how life arose
and developed. He then uses the central ideas of evolution to explain
how and why this process happens. Finally, he discusses species
diversity, how evolution proceeds in populations, and how mankind
evolved. Throughout, he provides many examples of specific phenomena of
nature that are much better explained by evolution than any other point
of view, many of which have a poor or no explanation by intelligent
design creationists, or from religion in general.
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Creationism's Trojan Horse: The
Wedge of Intelligent Design by Barbara Forrest & Paul R. Gross
(New York: Oxford, 2004)
The authors trace the origins of the Intelligent Design movement, its
religious connections, and its political and social goals. They
elucidate an energetic, long-term, well funded and organized strategy,
called "the Wedge," for making creationism and evolution co-equal
curricula in schools. This
effort is largely a public relations and social networking action that
uses the spurious ideas of the pseudo-scientific intelligent design
proponents to mislead the voting public. The authors examine the
creative intelligence proponents up-close and personal, and their
unlikely allies among the
anti-scientific political left and the anarchistic elements of feminism
and post modernism. If you are a technically proficient scientist who
has already seen through the shallowness of the intelligent design
proposals, but wondering what all the hubbub is about, this an book is
essential and interesting account of the social aspects of science and
its opponents.
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Why
Intelligent Design Fails by Matt Young & Taner Edis (Eds.)
(Rutgers Univ. Press, 2004)
This collection consists of chapters by scientists who are experts in
material frequently referenced by Intelligent
Design advocates, and who also are knowledgeable about the Intelligent
Design arguments. The authors refute the arguments of Intelligent
Design with documents that demonstrate in a practical sense how
scientists think and the nature of scientific inquiry. Their arguments
revolve around scientific merits of the case, making this book useful
for scientists who want an example of how challenges to important,
established scientific viewpoints are discredited. This material is
sometimes technical and specialized, but is authoritative and clear.
The two major foci of the book are the significance and applicability
of the concept of irreducible complexity and the origins of complexity
in biological systems.
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More Scientific Information
About This Topic On Line
National Center for Science Education
Talk Origins
Talk Reason
Was Darwin Wrong
anti-evolution.org
A
Few Links About Michael Behe & Darwin's Black Box
David Ussery's review of Wells'
Icons of Evolution
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