Reflectorites
Here is a Metaviews article by William Dembski, on Darwinist dogmatism,
which some may think relevant, and others irrelevant! :-).
I do not agree with the introductory remarks by Billie Grassie that
"Dembski presents Intelligent Design Theory as THE alternative to
Darwinism". Dembski clearly says: "Whether intelligent design is the theory
that ultimately overturns Darwinism is not the issue".
Because of my studies, I haven't got time any more to debate this. Indeed
this is a good time to re-state my previous policy (see
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199906/0086.html, that in future
I am going to only respond to only about one or two messages every
couple of days, if that. Previous experience has show that I tend to get
attacked on all sides, by both theistic and non-theistic evolutionists, and if I
responded to them all (which I used to do), the Reflector gets clogged up
by my messages.
So as the Reflector heats up (as it does from time to time) I have to start
prioritising. So my replies to larger threads (e.g. Richard's) will tend to be
late. At some point I will just have to terminate them. No doubt some will
flatter themselves that it must be because their posts were so devastating
that I couldn't answer them! :-(
Steve
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http://listserv.omni-list.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind00&L=metaviews&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=3423
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 23:29:13 -0500
Reply-To: Billy Grassie <grassie@META-LIST.ORG>
Sender: meta views <metaviews@META-LIST.ORG>
From: Billy Grassie <grassie@META-LIST.ORG>
Subject: 027: Disbelieving Darwin and Feeling No Shame, by William Dembski
Comments: To: metaviews@meta-list.org
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Metaviews 027. 2000.03.16. Approximately 2150 words.
Below is a column from William Dembski from the Polanyi Center at
Baylor University with the title "Disbelieving Darwin - And Feeling
No Shame!" Dembski makes a compelling inductive argument from past
scientific failures that we should be skeptical about Darwinism. He
presents the dominant biological orthodoxy as dogmatic and out of
step with the public and the evidence. Dembski develops a tentative
case for moving beyond Darwinism.
In the end, Dembski presents Intelligent Design Theory as THE
alternative to Darwinism, but there are other possibilities to be
considered. I would also like to see the terms "intelligent" and
"design" defined in a rigorous manner. Finally, one wonders whether
the radical skepticism that Dembski advocates for science would also
be applied to his religious beliefs and how. All in all though, we
have a poignant counterpoint to Michael Shermer's recent thread.
-- Billy Grassie
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From: William_Dembski@baylor.edu (William A. Dembski)
Subject: Disbelieving Darwin -- And Feeling No Shame!
Science, we are told, is tentative. And given the history of science,
there is every reason for science to be tentative. No scientific
theory withstands revision for long, and many are eventually
superseded by theories that flat contradict their predecessors.
Scientific revolutions are common, painful, and real. New theories
regularly overturn old ones, and no scientific theory is ever the
final word.
But if science is tentative, scientists are not. As philosopher of
science Thomas Kuhn rightly noted, it takes a revolution to change
scientific theories precisely because scientists do not hold their
theories tentatively. Thus, in his *Structure of Scientific
Revolutions*, Kuhn quotes with approval Max Planck, who wrote: "A new
scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with
it."
No scientist with a career invested in a scientific theory is going
to relinquish it easily. And a good thing that is! The only way to
make headway with a theory is to be fully invested in it. Scientific
theories are frameworks for solving problems. Scientists risk their
careers and livelihoods working on theories they hope will solve
interesting problems. Consequently, scientists need to be persuaded
that their theories provide not only fundamental and profound
insights, but also avenues of research sufficiently fruitful to span
an entire scientific career (typically forty or so years).
By itself a scientist's lack of tentativeness poses no danger to
science. It only becomes a danger when it turns to dogmatism.
Typically, a scientist's lack of tentativeness toward a scientific
theory simply means that the scientist is convinced the theory is
substantially correct. Scientists are fully entitled to such
convictions. On the other hand, scientists who hold their theories
dogmatically go on to assert that their theories *cannot* be
incorrect. How can a scientist keep from descending into dogmatism?
The only way I know is to look oneself squarely in the mirror and
continually affirm: *I may be wrong* ... *I may be massively wrong*
... *I may be hopelessly and irretrievably wrong* -- and mean it!
It's not enough just to mouth these words. We need to take them
seriously and admit that they can apply even to our most cherished
scientific beliefs.
A simple induction from past scientific failures should be enough to
convince us that the only thing about which we cannot be wrong is the
possibility that we might be wrong. This radical skepticism cuts much
deeper than Cartesian skepticism, which always admitted some
privileged domains of knowledge that were immune to doubt (for
Descartes mathematics and theology constituted such domains). At the
same time, this radical skepticism is consonant with an abiding faith
in human inquiry and its ability to render the world intelligible.
Indeed, the conviction with which scientists hold their scientific
theories, so long as it is free of dogmatism, is just another word
for faith. This faith sees the scientific enterprise as fundamentally
worthwhile even if any of its particular claims and theories are
subject to ruin.
In place of faith in the scientific enterprise, dogmatism substitutes
unreasoning certainty in particular claims and theories of science.
Now the problem with dogmatism is that it is always a form of
self-deception. If Socrates taught us anything, it's that we always
know a lot less than we think we know. Dogmatism deceives us into
thinking we have attained ultimate mastery and that divergence of
opinion is futile. Self-deception is the original sin. Richard
Feynman put it this way: "The first principle is that you must not
fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." What's more,
Feynman was particularly concerned about applying this principle to
the public understanding of science: "You should not fool the laymen
when you're talking as a scientist.... I'm talking about a specific,
extra type of integrity that is [more than] not lying, but bending
over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong."
I open with these general remarks about tentativeness and dogmatism
in science because their importance is too frequently neglected in
discussions of biological evolution. It hardly makes for a free and
open exchange of ideas when biologist Richard Dawkins asserts, "It is
absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to
believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or
wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." Nor does philosopher
Michael Ruse help matters when he trumpets, "Evolution is a fact,
*fact*, *FACT!*" Nor for that matter does Stephen Jay Gould's proteg¥
Michael Shermer promote insight into natural selection when he
announces, "No one, and I mean *no one*, working in the field is
debating whether natural selection is the driving force behind
evolution, much less whether evolution happened or not."
Such remarks, and especially the attitude behind them, do nothing to
settle the ongoing controversy over evolution. Gallup polls
consistently indicate that only about ten percent of the U.S.
population accepts the sort of evolution advocated by Dawkins, Ruse,
and Shermer, that is, evolution in which the driving force is the
Darwinian selection mechanism. The rest of the population is
committed to some form of intelligent design. Now it goes without
saying that science is not decided in an opinion poll. Nevertheless,
the overwhelming rejection of Darwinian evolution in the population
at large is worth pondering. Although Michael Shermer exaggerates
when he claims that no research biologist doubts the power of natural
selection, he is certainly right in claiming that this is the
majority position among biologists.
Why has the biological community failed to convince the public that
natural selection is the driving force behind evolution and that
evolution so conceived (i.e., Darwinian evolution) can successfully
account for the full diversity of life? This question is worth
pondering since in most other areas of science the public readily
signs off on the considered judgments of the scientific community.
Why not here? Steeped as our culture is in the
fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the usual answer is that
religious fundamentalists, blinded by their dogmatic prejudices,
willfully refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming case for Darwinian
evolution.
Although there may be something to this charge, fundamentalist
intransigence cannot be solely responsible for the overwhelming
rejection of Darwinian evolution by the public. Fundamentalism in the
sense of strict biblical literalism is a minority position among
religious believers. Most religious traditions do not make a virtue
out of alienating the culture. Despite postmodernity's inroads,
science retains tremendous cultural prestige. The religious world by
and large would rather live in harmony with the scientific world.
Most religious believers accept that species have undergone
significant changes over the course of natural history and therefore
that evolution in some sense has occurred (consider, for instance,
Pope John Paul II's recent endorsement of evolution). The question
for religious believers and the public more generally is not the fact
of evolution but the mechanism of evolutionary change -- that chance
and necessity alone are enough to explain life.
I submit that the real reason the public continues to resist
Darwinian evolution is because the Darwinian mechanism of chance
variation and natural selection seems inadequate to account for the
full diversity of life. One frequently gets the sense from reading
publications by the National Academy of Science, the National Center
for Science Education, and the National Association of Biology
Teachers that the failure of the public to accept Darwinian evolution
is a failure in education. If only people could be made to understand
Darwin's theory properly, so we are told, they would readily sign off
on it.
This presumption -- that the failure of Darwinism to be accepted is a
failure of education -- leads easily to the charge of fundamentalism
once education has been tried and found wanting. For what else could
be preventing Darwinism's immediate and cheerful acceptance except
religious prejudice? It seems ridiculous to convinced Darwinists that
the fault might lie with their theory and that the public might be
picking up on faults inherent in their theory. And yet that is
exactly what is happening.
The public need feel no shame at disbelieving and openly criticizing
Darwinism. Most scientific theories these days are initially
published in specialized journals or monographs, and are directed
toward experts assumed to possess considerable technical background.
Not so Darwin's theory. The locus classicus for Darwin's theory
remains his *Origin of Species*. In it Darwin took his case to the
public. Contemporary Darwinists likewise continue to take their case
to the public. The books of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen
Jay Gould, E. O. Wilson, and a host of other biologists and
philosophers aim to convince a skeptical public about the merits of
Darwin's theory. These same authors commend the public when it finds
their arguments convincing. But when the public remains unconvinced,
commendation turns to condemnation. Daniel Dennett even recommends
"quarantining" parents who teach their children to doubt Darwinism
(see the end of his *Darwin's Dangerous Idea*).
How is it that the public is commended for its scientific acumen when
it accepts Darwinian evolutionary theory, but disparaged for its
scientific insensibility when it doubts that same theory? The mark of
dogmatism is to reward conformity and punish dissent. If contemporary
science does indeed belong to the culture of rational discourse, then
it must repudiate dogmatism and authoritarianism in all guises. If
the public can be trusted to evaluate the case for Darwinism -- and
this is what Darwinists tacitly assume whenever they publish books on
Darwinism for the public -- then it is unfair to turn against the
public when it decides that the case for Darwinism is unconvincing.
Why does the public find the case for Darwinism unconvincing?
Fundamentalism aside, the claim that the Darwinian mechanism of
chance variation and natural selection can generate the full range of
biological diversity strikes people as an unwarranted extrapolation
from the limited changes that mechanism is known to effect in
practice. The hard empirical evidence for the power of the Darwinian
mechanism is in fact quite limited (e.g., finch beak variation,
changes in moth coloration, and development in bacteria of antibiotic
resistance). For instance, finch beak size does vary according to
environmental pressure. The Darwinian mechanism does operate here and
accounts for the changes we observe. But that same Darwinian
mechanism is also supposed to account for how finches arose in the
first place. This is an extrapolation. Strict Darwinists see it as
perfectly plausible. The public remains unconvinced.
But shouldn't the public simply defer to the scientists -- after all,
they are the experts? But which scientists? It's certainly the case
that the majority of the scientific community accepts Darwinism. But
science is not decided at the ballot box, and Darwinism's acceptance
among scientists is hardly universal. A growing movement of
scientists known as "design theorists" are advocating a theory known
as "intelligent design." Intelligent design argues that complex,
information rich biological structures cannot arise by undirected
natural forces but instead require a guiding intelligence. These are
reputable scientists who argue their case on strictly scientific
grounds and who are publishing their results in accepted academic
outlets (cf. my own work, that of Jonathan Wells, Siegfried Scherer,
and others; cf. also www.baylor.edu/~polanyi).
Whether intelligent design is the theory that ultimately overturns
Darwinism is not the issue. The issue is whether the scientific
community is willing to eschew dogmatism and admit as a live
possibility that even its most cherished views might be wrong.
Scientists have been wrong in the past and will continue to be wrong,
both in the niggling details and in the broad conceptual matters.
Darwinism is one scientific theory that attempts to account for the
history of life; but it is not the only scientific theory that could
possibly account for it. It is a widely disputed theory, one that is
facing ever more trenchant criticisms, and like any other scientific
theory needs periodic reality checks.
William Dembski
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