Third Week in Penn-New York
This was originally intended to be a week of vacation for me
and Kathie in New England, but I ended up accepting some speaking
engagements and we decided to do our touring in New York State.
The fall colors were splendid and the weather mostly fair.
Monday, October 2. Having spent the night on the Grove City
College campus, Kathie and I started early. While Kathie went
exploring and children's-book shopping, I spoke at two biology
classes with Biology Chairman Dr. David Jones, my usual host at
GCC. David was a med school professor at Oral Roberts University,
and saw that initially promising idea come apart as a result of the
Founder's megalomania. David took me to lunch with two other
biology professors, and then I did a late afternoon seminar for all
the biology labs and an assortment of faculty. (The biology
faculty at GCG seems to be divided between those who welcome a
confrontation over the metaphysical issues, and those who regard
the prospect with horror and hide away until I am out of town.) The
evening lecture was full to the rafters, as all 600 students in the
first-year humanities curriculum were required to attend, and there
were numerous others from the college and surrounding community.
This was my fourth annual appearance as guest lecturer at the
College; I was awarded a plaque as "Pew Memorial Lecturer. A good
part of the faculty at Grove City is enthusiastic about my message,
and the college has become a regular home away from home in my
itinerant life.
Tuesday, October 3. Kathie and I set out early to drive to Houghton
College, at a remote location in Western New York State about
halfway between Grove City and Cornell. We arrived mid afternoon
after enjoying the fall colors and a hike in a state park on the
way. I went down for a nap while Kathie went out exploring the
campus with our gracious host. Chemistry professor Bernard Piersma.
Houghton has a beautiful campus and offers things like horseback
riding as well as a thoroughly Christian living environment.
Bernard had arranged a dinner for about 20, a dozen faculty and
some spouses, and I spoke frankly to them about what I am doing and
the mixed reaction I have had from the Christian academic
community. A very friendly discussion occupied the time before I
had to go to the large chapel for the evening lecture. The lecture
itself had been hastily arranged, but there was an adequate turnout
of about 250 from the college and environs, a very small community.
Faculty members at the dinner wanted me to talk plainly about the
reasons why some Christian faculty are not enthusiastic about my
message, and so I addressed this subject both at the dinner and at
the public lecture. One feature of the Houghton situation is that
many of the students come from fundamentalist homes, and may take
a dim view of opinions that depart from a strictly literal
adherence to Genesis. I explained that both the fundamentalists
and the accommodationists in the Christian world need to change
their thinking if they are to mount an effective challenge to
evolutionary naturalism in the secular world. Christian faculty
can't prepare students to meet the intellectual challenges of
evolutionary naturalism in the graduate schools, and in the culture
in general, unless students, parents and trustees understand the
program and give them plenty of elbow room. It is futile to try to
counter naturalistic thinking either by downplaying the conflict
with theism, or by invoking a Biblical authority that the secular
culture does not acknowledge. The only effective way of countering
evolutionary naturalism is to learn how Darwinists reason, and to
become skilled at recognizing hidden assumptions and critiquing the
arguments. Good education requires a willingness to take risks.
My aim was to assure Houghton faculty that I have a sympathetic
understanding of their situation, and that it is possible to
address these issues successfully without just generating a lot of
unproductive conflict.
Wednesday, Oct 4. We had breakfast in the college dining commons
with Philosophy professor Chris Stewart, who had missed the lecture
due to a teaching commitment in Buffalo, and then I joined him and
Piersma in the 8:00 AM philosophy class of Professor Jim Marcom,
who has doctorates in both biology and philosophy. We professors
had a high level discussion in the classroom with occasional
student participation. I left Houghton with the sense that I had
made some friends, and given faculty there a much clearer idea of
what the theistic realist program is about. The subject of
conversation at the end was when they would be able to get me to
come back for another visit. I don't know when that will be
possible, but I'd be glad to spend more time at Houghton.
Then it was off to Cornell, via the superb glass museum in
Corning. We arrived in Ithaca early afternoon at the home of our
hosts, law school professor Roger Cramton and his wife Harriet.
Roger has been a friend of mine for decades, and he was at Oxford
on sabbatical the year Kathie and I were in London and I began work
on *Darwin on Trial.* In consequence, my earliest discussions on
the proposed work were with Roger, and it was he who later sent my
first working draft to Will Provine and Richard Baer at Cornell,
which led eventually to the long-running Will-and-Phil show.
Wednesday evening there was a hastily-arranged lecture in Cornell's
Annabel Taylor Hall, audience of around 250, the arrangements
courtesy of Jeff Kraines of the Navigators.
Thursday, Oct 5. This was the usual (4th annual) full day with
Will Provine's evolutionary biology class for non-majors, with some
400 undergrads and 9 or so T.A.'s. This year the parallel course
for biology majors was also invited, and its instructor (Monica
Gaber) and Animal Science Prof John Pollock led off the hour with
brief statements proving the validity of neo-Darwinism. Pollock
said that cow breeders can produce great increases in milk yield in
a short time. True, limits in breeding are reached due to
temporary exhaustion of variation or overspecialization, but even
then it is possible to "identify segregating genetic loci with
large quantitative effects" and capacity for variation still
exists. Therefore, Pollock concluded, "theories of evolution are
consistent with practical observations." Gaber said that it is
easy for new species to arise in plants: modern domesticated maize
is derived from primitive Teosinte. Research shows that change in
a single gene can cause speciation -- although the breeding
barriers are not total and crosses can be made with difficulty.
Wild monkey flowers also speciate in this sense as a result of
changes in a very few genes. Will Provine then told about the
Hawaiian Drosophila species, and concluded with an overhead showing
Phil Johnson's theory of speciation (a complete blank, repeated 3
times). After this demonstration of what is apparently considered
good scientific thinking at Cornell, I gave a 10-minute statement
of my position, and then took questions from the class.
Unprejudiced observers (i.e., the people on my side) thought the
performance was effective, but of course anything I would say is a
drop in the bucket compared to the gallons of indoctrination the
students have received. Questions throughout the day indicated
that students have a great deal of trouble even getting started on
thinking critically about evolution. They tend to ask questions
about "whether evolution has occurred," as if I were denying that
it is possible to breed cows to become better milk-producers. The
purpose of these invasions of the inner sanctum of scientific
materialism is to plant a seed, not to overcome in a single hour
the effects of years of miseducation.
After the class I spoke to one of the small sections, led by
an amiable T.A. who is a sociology-of-science constructivist. Then
it was lunch with Will and the T.A.'s at our usual Chinese buffet,
followed by office hours until 3:00. The open office hour was
unfortunately dominated by a local character who seemed to have
come straight off the streets of Berkeley, and who advocated a
misty New Age pantheism. Much more interesting was the born-again
departmental secretary, who asked for a meeting so she could talk
with me about the difficulties of witnessing to people like Will
Provine. Then it was off to Roger's office at the law school and
home for a rest before the evening dinner with the Cramtons, Will
and his son Charlie, and Warren Allmon and a companion from
Allmon's Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca. Allmon is
a Steve Gould Ph.D from Harvard, same years as Kurt Wise (whom he
does not admire). Allmon wrote a hostile review of DOT for a
paleontology newsletter after he heard me speak at the U of South
Florida years ago; he promises to write a similar review of RITB.
That's fine, all we authors really fear is being ignored.
Friday, October 6. The rainy morning was spent writing this report
and taking care of email, then I did a brown bag lunch for about 20
grad students and faculty at Annabel Taylor Hall. Quite a good
discussion. One person present was a biochemist who listened
attentively but refused to speak; I think he was taking in the
proceedings in wonderment. Another was Plant Pathology Professor
James Aist, an Evangelical whose business card contains a program
for "six steps to salvation." I had just been reading about Aist
in the campus newspaper. He had put up signs offering help to gays
who want to leave their addictive lifestyle, so offended gays
brought charges of "sexual harassment" against him for it. After
fooling around with proceedings for a while, presumably in hopes of
intimidating Aist, the thought police realized they were on
dangerous legal ground and dropped the charges. Those present at
the brown bag discussion were quite attentive and active in
questioning. Such controversy as there was centered abound the
usual issues -- especially "why isn't methodological naturalism
appropriate for science?"
In the evening the Cramtons hosted a dessert for a variety of
people, including our long-time friends Martin and Judith Eger (see
chap 8 of RITB), who live on a farm in the area. Judith was just
back from an educational forum in Uzbekistan, and Martin (prof of
Physics and Philosophy of Science at CUNY) was his usual broad-
minded and thoughtful self. Cornell Chemistry Prof Bob Fay was
present again, as at all my events; he is working thoughtfully
through the issues from an accommodationist position. Dick Baer
also came; he teaches a popular course in ethics at Cornell from
an unusual departmental base in the school of natural resources.
Dick has been very courageous in challenging the dogmatic
naturalism of the universities in many respects, but he stops short
when it comes to evolution and I don't think he grasps the central
importance of the issue.
Will Provine also came, and this had its awkward aspects.
Will is so overbearing in his evangelism for atheism that I have to
put on the most aggressive side of my own personality to handle
him, and this gets in the way of more restrained discussion with
other people. Will's own idiosyncratic views about free will and
ethics tend to become the subject of discussion, crowding out more
significant issues. Will is quite open about his medical
condition; his untreatable brain tumor causes occasional seizures,
resembling petit mal epilepsy, and there is no telling how long it
will be before the condition becomes crippling or life-threatening.
Facing so directly the fact of his own mortality doesn't seem to
have changed Will's stance towards the ultimate reality. He is
healthy in appearance, and still looks ten years younger than he
is.
Saturday, October 7. This was a day of recreation; writing in the
morning, the Harvard-Cornell football game in the afternoon
(Cornell won a high-scoring thriller by a point when Harvard missed
a last second field goal), and an English comedy about a girls'
school done by the fine Ithaca College drama department in the
evening. This last entry is being written Sunday on the plane to
Detroit, where I look forward to a very full schedule at the U of
Michigan Monday and the rest of the week in Ohio.