> -----Original Message-----
> From: evolution-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:evolution-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of FMAJ1019@aol.com
> Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2000 5:00 PM
> To: evolution@calvin.edu
> Subject: More on Ruse
>
> The transcript
> http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm
>
> Tom Woodward's interpretation
> http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/ruse.html
>
> Korthof's evaluation
>
> http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/korthof7.htm
There was a discussion on this issue on CompuServe back in 1994, based on
the claims in the Woodward article cited above that Ruse had "Given away the
store." At that time, I was faxed Woodward's article and a butchered copy of
the transcript by the section leader for the Religious Issues forum. The
impression given at the time, aside from Ruse's words, was that Eugenie
Scott had taken the podium away from Ruse to stop him. Read the opening of
Woodward's article, then the context (near the end of the talk) in the
original (below or at the ARN site above).
I finally found a complete transcript through NCSE and a comment by Ruse on
the transcript itself. The message I posted at that time, with Ruse's
comments and the complete transcript (including Johnson's addition) is
copied below. I hope, as I did in 1994, that Ruse won't mind me reproducing
the document here.
Don Frack
===============================================================
From a Compuserve message (date in text):
[Note: This text file was scanned from a copy of Ruse's speech (with
Phillip Johnson's added comments) received through the National Center
for Science Education. The original transcript was made, apparently by
Johnson, from an audio tape of Ruse's impromptu talk. It has been
widely disseminated by creationists. NCSE is not responsible for the
transcript, but offered it to correct misstatements of what Ruse said
or implied. The transcript also allows readers to decide whether the
actions of moderator Eugenie Scott are accurately represented in the
article "Ruse 'Gives Away the Store' Admits Evolution a Philosophy"
(Woodward, T. 1994. _The Real Issue_, vol. 13 No. 4) [no pp. on reprint
in distribution] which opens: "'Wait a minute!' called the moderator,
trying to take back the podium from the speaker at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science."
Ruse has commented on Johnson's use of the transcript in the journal
*Biology and Philosophy* (1993) (see Booknotes section, no pp. on
available photocopy). In part:
"...I think what I had to say in Boston was worth saying. On the other
hand, transcribed talks are crude - in my case very crude; the wind-up
discussion at the end of the symposium, where I had a chance to
elaborate on my thinking, was missing; and even though I had given
permission for the taping, I do think that an author should have some
say before words are transcribed and disseminated. At least I think
that this is what should happen if one is working in a scholarly
context.
Which brings me to the point of my story. On reflection, if Johnson
wants to transcribe and send forth my words, then so be it. I do not
write or speak to be ignored. But his actions did break me from my
complacent dream that perhaps we had moved on from the early crude
days, where science was so clearly being attacked by people who had no
genuine interest in finding the truth. Apart from one's wondering at
the very fact that an academic would want to spend his/her time getting
other people's talks transcribed and sending them to all and sundry
(and so eagerly), Johnson's response showed that his concern was not at
all in scholarly debate. He wanted merely to take shots, simply to win
at any cost."
This file was originally uploaded to the Religion Forum: Religion and
Science section of CompuServe 12/17/94 at the request of the section
leader. NCSE approved this use. Michael Ruse was not consulted but
hopefully will not object.]
...............................................................
[BEGINNING OF SCANNED TEXT]
This transcript of the speech by Michael Ruse at the 1993 meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science also has an
explanatory footnote at the and by Phillip E. Johnson.
Speech by Professor Michael Ruse
Saturday, February 13, 1993
1993 Annual Meeting of the AAAS
At the symposium "The New Antievolutionism"
.................................................................
Eugenie Scott: Our next speaker is Dr. Michael Ruse, from the
Department of Philosophy at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
I thought I saw him a little earlier today. Michael, hello.
Michael is actually doing a couple of sessions today, he's been a very
busy fellow. And we're very pleased that he was able to make ours as
well.
Michael Ruse is a philosopher of science, particularly of the
evolutionary sciences. He's almost a person who needs no introduction
in this context. He's the author of several books on Darwinism and
evolutionary theory, including an analysis of scientific creationism
entitled <But Is It Science?> No. I don't think I've spoiled the plot.
I mean, I would recommend that you read this book, it's really quite
good. But that is his conclusion. He'll be speaking today about
"Nonliteralist Antievolution." Michael? Would you like some more
light?
[The speaker's podium is dark.]
Ruse: It's the first time I've actually sort of given a lecture
literally in the dark, as opposed to just metaphorically.
Actually, the title of my book <But Is It Science?, the Evolution -
Creation Controversy>, is intended very much to raise the question
about both evolution and creationism, and, in a way, that's the theme
of what I want to say today. I've noticed that we're moving right
along, so I'm not going to say very much at all, but I am going to
throw out one or two ideas, which, in the words of Father Huddleston,
who of course got them from somewhere else, "I trust they're not to
your comfort."
[The microphone is moved closer to Ruse.]
God, not only am I in the dark, I've got this bloody great thing
sticking in my face too! Even if you can see me, I can't see you
anymore. Talk about non-intelligent design going on here. I was
intending to come along, when I was asked to participate in this
colloquium, I was intending to come along and talk about the book by
the California lawyer Phillip Johnson, the title of the book I'm glad
to say, has thankfully escaped me just at the moment.
<Darwin on Trial>, okay. What happened was I was asked to review
Phillip Johnson's book a couple of years ago, and it was an exercise in
what not to do, from my point of view, what not to do if you're a book
reviewer. Namely, if you write such a critical review of a book, the
editor who has commissioned the review might look at your review and
say, obviously that book is so lousy I don't think it's worth talking
about in our journal. And that's what happened to my review of Phillip
Johnson. It became a non-review, not I think in any sense because it
was being censored, but simply because the editor, the book review
editor, said, well frankly, I've got a lot more interesting books that
we could talk about, so we'll just drop it.
In fact, when I read Phillip Johnson's book, I mean, at one level, it's
a very impressively put together piece of work.
Phillip Johnson is certainly I think a very good lawyer, he's got a
good legal mind, and he does a good slick job of packaging. I think
that when you look, when you dig down underneath, you do start to see
many of the same sorts of themes and the ideas coming across which have
been expressed -- perhaps more crudely, let's put it -- by some of the
friends who have been mentioned earlier, people like Duane Gish and
Henry Morris. Like everybody who reads a book who's written anything
themselves, I looked up my own name in the index first, and then went
to the passages which refer to me, and thank God, I am -- it's not just
Stephen Jay Gould who's being referred to these days -- but there were
a couple of comments about me -- regretfully in footnotes. And I was
able to satisfy myself quite readily that in fact Phillip Johnson was
playing much the same trick that everybody else was.
I was quoted as putting forward some fairly hard-line social Darwinian
views, in East Germany, of all places, a country which as you know no
longer exists. And, in fact, fortunately the comments I had in fact
made in what was East Germany in those days were taken down and in fact
are printed. And I went and I checked, and, I must say, not to my --
to my great relief, anyway -- I was saying the exact opposite of what
Phillip Johnson was saying.* I mean, I'm much given to contradiction,
but, thank God, this was one of those -- thank God, well, thank Darwin,
anyhow, as we've just heard -- this wasn't one of those occasions.
SO, I was intending, as I say, to come along and talk about Phillip
Johnson. What happened between then and now, on the way, was that a
few months ago I was invited to participate by some evangelicals in
what was a sort of weekend session that they'd got, and Phillip Johnson
and I were put face to face. And as I always find when I meet
creationists or non-evolutionists or critics or whatever, I find it a
lot easier to hate them in print than I do in person. And in fact I
found -- I must confess -- I found Phillip Johnson to be a very
congenial person, with a fund of very funny stories about Supreme Court
justices, some of which may even be true, unlike his scientific claims.
We did debate, and in fact I thought that we had, as others said
afterwards, both evolutionists and non-evolutionists, I thought that we
had what was really quite, and I want to be quite fair about this, I
thought we had a really quite constructive interchange. Because
basically we didn't talk so much about creationism. We certainly
didn't so much talk about his particular arguments in his book, or
arguments that I've put forward in <Darwinism Defended>, or these sorts
of things.
But we did talk much more about the whole question of metaphysics, the
whole question of philosophical bases. And what Johnson was arguing
was that, at a certain level, the kind of position of a person like
myself, an evolutionist, is metaphysically based at some level, just as
much as the kind of position of let us say somebody, some creationist,
someone like Gish or somebody like that. And to a certain extent, I
must confess, in the ten years since I performed, or I appeared, in the
creationism trial in Arkansas, I must say that I've been coming to this
kind of position myself. And, in fact, when I first thought of putting
together my collection But Is It Science?, I think Eugenie was right, I
was inclined to say, well, yes, creationism is not science and
evolution is, and that's the end of it, and you know just trying to
prove Chat.
Now I'm starting to feel -- I'm no more of a creationist now than I
ever was, and I'm no less of an evolutionist now that I ever was -- but
I'm inclined to think that we should move our debate now onto another
level, or move on. And instead of just sort of, just -- I mean I
realize that when one is dealing with people, say, at the school level,
or these sorts of things, certain sorts of arguments are appropriate.
But those of us who are academics, or for other reasons pulling back
and trying to think about these things, I think that we should
recognize, both historically and perhaps philosophically, certainly
that the science side has certain metaphysical assumptions built into
doing science, which -- it may not be a good thing to admit in a court
of law -but I think that in honesty that we should recognize, and that
we should be thinking about some of these sorts of things.
Certainly, I think that philosophers like myself have been much more
sensitized to these things, over the last ten years, by trends and
winds and whatever the right metaphor is, in the philosophy of science.
That we've become aware, thanks to Marxists and to feminists,
criticisms the criticisms of historians and sociologists and others
that science is a much more idealistic, in the a priori sense,
enterprise, than one would have got from reading the logical
positivists, or even the great philosophers. The people like Popper
and Hempel and Nagel, of the 1950s and 1960s, which was when my
generation entered the field and started to grow up.
Certainly, historically, that if you look at, say, evolutionary theory,
and of course this was brought out I think rather nicely by the talk
just before me, it's certainly been the case that evolution has
functioned, if not as a religion as such, certainly with elements akin
to a secular religion. Those of us who teach philosophy of religion
always say there's no way of defining
religion by a neat, necessary and sufficient condition. The best chat
you can do is list a number of characteristics, some of ,which all
religions have, and none of which any religion, whatever or however you
sort of put it. And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the
past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists,
evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us
say, akin to being a secular religion.
I think, for instance, of the most famous family in the history of
evolution, namely, the Huxleys. I think of Thomas Henry Huxley, the
grandfather, and of Julian Huxley, the grandson.
Certainly, if you read Thomas Henry Huxley, when he's in full flight,
there's no question but that for Huxley at some very important level,
evolution and science generally, but certainly evolution in particular,
is functioning a bit as a kind of secular religion. Interestingly,
Huxley -- and I've gone through his own lectures, I've gone through two
complete sets of lecture notes that Huxley gave to his students--Huxley
never talked about evolution when he was actually teaching. He kept
evolution for affairs like this, and when he was talking at a much more
popular sort of level. Certainly, though, as I say, for Thomas Henry
Huxley, I don't think there's any question but that evolution
functioned, at a level, as a kind of secular religion.
And there's no question whatsoever that for Julian Huxley, when you
read <Evolution, the Modern Synthesis>, that Julian Huxley saw
evolution as a kind of progressive thing upwards. I think Julian
Huxley was certainly an atheist, but he was at the same time a kind of
neo-vitalist, and he bound this up with his science. If you look both
at his printed stuff, and if you go down to Rice University which has
got all his private papers, again and again in the letters, it comes
through very strongly that for Julian Huxley evolution was functioning
as a kind of secular religion.
I think that this -- and I'm not saying this now particularly in a
critical sense, I'm just saying this in a matter-of-fact sense -- I
think that today also, for more than one eminent evolutionist,
evolution in a way functions as a kind of secular religion. And let me
just mention my friend Edward 0. Wilson.
Certainly, I think that if you look at some of the stuff which caused
some much controversy in the 1970s, what is interesting is not so much
the fact that Wilson was talking about trying to include humans in the
evolutionary scenario. Everybody was doing that. It was not so much
even the fact that he was using what is now called sexist language,
like "Man,' because I went to look at Richard Lewontin's book, which he
published the year before Wilson, and in the index it says 'Homo
sapiens, see 'Man'" -- so, I mean, we were all committing that sort of
mistake, as it is now judged. But certainly, if you look for instance
in <On Human Nature>, Wilson is quite categorical about wanting to see
evolution as the new myth, and all sorts of language like this.
That for him, at some level, it's functioning as a kind of metaphysical
system.
So, as I say, historically I think, however we're going to deal with
creationism, or new creationism, or these sorts of things, whether you
think that this is -- that what I've just been saying means that we'd
better put our house in order, or whatever - - I think at least we must
recognize the historical facts. I think also, and I am going to speak
very, very briefly, because time is so short, is I think that we should
also look at evolution and science, in particular, biology, generally
philosophically I think a lot more critically -- and I don't say
negatively, please understand that -- I think a lot more critically
than we were doing ten years ago. Sensitized, I say, by the work of
the social constructivists and others, historians, sociologists, and
these sorts of people.
And it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution
as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism,
namely, that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these
sorts of things, come what may. Now, you might say, does this mean
it's just a religious assumption, does this mean it's irrational to do
something like this. I would argue very strongly that it's not. At a
certain pragmatic level, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
And that if certain things do work, you keep going with this, and that
you don't change in midstream, and so on and so forth. I think that
one can in fact defend a scientific and naturalistic approach, even if
one recognizes that this does include a metaphysical assumption to the
regularity of nature, or something of this nature.
So as I say, I think that one can defend it as reasonable, but I don't
think it helps matter by denying that one is making it.
And I think that once one has made such an assumption, one has perfect
powers to turn to, say, creation science, which claims to be
naturalistic also, and point out that it's wrong. I think one has
every right to show that evolutionary theory in various forms certainly
seems to be the most reasonable position, once one has taken a
naturalistic position. So I'm not coming here and saying, give up
evolution, or anything like that.
But I am coming here and saying, I think that philosophically that one
should be sensitive to what I think history shows, namely, that
evolution, just as much as religion -- or at least, leave 'just as
much," let me leave that phrase -- evolution, akin to religion,
involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at
some level cannot be proven empirically. Guess we all knew that, but I
think that we're all much more sensitive to these facts now. And I
think that the way to deal with creationism, but the way to deal with
evolution also, is not to deny these facts, but to recognize them, and
to see where we can go, as we move on from there.
Well, I've been very short, but that was my message, and I think it's
an important one.
Eugenie Scott: Any questions?
[There is a momentary silence.]
Ruse: State of shock! Yes, Ed Manier.
[Manier is on the faculty of Notre Dame University.]
Manier: 'Well, congratulations. I mean, you took less time than Bill
Clinton. I think -- maybe not quite. But you made a remark about
Stephen Gould. I earlier made a remark about Stephen Gould. I think
there is perhaps some sense in which you and Stephen disagree, either
scientifically or metaphysically. I wonder if you could comment on
that.
Ruse: That we agree or disagree?
Manier: That you disagree. I'm always more interested in disagreement.
Ruse: Certainly I think that Steve Gould and I, we certainly disagree
about the nature of evolution, there's no question about that. At some
level, I'm a hard-line Darwinian. That means, you know, I'm somewhere
to the right of Archdeacon Paley when it comes to design. I mean, when
I look, even at you, Ed, when I look even at you, I'm already
speculating why you've got a bald head, and, you know, why this makes
you sexually attractive, and so on. So, I mean, yeah -- whereas I
think that Gould falls very much into the other, much more Germanic
naturphilosophie tradition, which stresses form over function. I don't
think there's any question about that. And at a certain level, I'd be
inclined to say that these are, if you like, metaphysical assumptions,
paradigms, or something like that, a priori constraints that we're
putting on the ways that we're looking at the world and all those sorts
of things. Certainly, at that level, we do differ.
Where else do we differ? Gould says that he thinks that science is
simply, you know, disinterested reflection of reality, then again we
differ also. But of course the thing is that Gould, although he denies
being a Marxist or anything like this, certainly if you look at Gould's
work, for instance, when he's praising stuff, even apart from when he's
criticizing stuff, I think that Gould -- as much as anybody, more than
most -- has long been sensitive to the fact that science involves a
kind of metaphysical assumption. I use the word "metaphysical' because
I don't look on the word 'metaphysical' as a dirty word. Like I don't
look upon "teleology' as a dirty word. He may, you know, he may very
ardently say don't call me a metaphysician, but I suspect that we
agree, whatever we call the terms. I mean, the trouble is,
metaphysics, you know, people think of metaphysics and Scottish
idealists and Hegelians and all those sorts of things. So he may not
want to use my language. But I suspect chat about the nature of
science -- I suspect, but ask him -- I suspect chat we don't differ
there. But we do differ about how we want to cash it out in the actual
evolutionary realm.
Manier: Well, if I could just pursue that, for just a minute, he may
very well be more of a Naturphilosoph than you. And perhaps, although
I suspect that you deny this in almost every context, more of a
Romantic than you. But I'm wondering --
Ruse: How can you say that about me? After the things you said
last night over drinks, but go on --
Manier: You made reference to my baldness, and I'm sensitive about
that.
Ruse: I was trying to give it an adaptive function. It's okay, I
don't think it's a mistake. I mean, you know, I think God designed it
that way. Go on.
Manier: But you say that about everything. .
Ruse: I That's right. I'm somewhere to the right of Archdeacon
Paley on this, I really am.
Manier: Well, pardon me if I'm not flattered. What I'm curious about
is the extant to which your talk suggests a strategy to the National
Society of Science Teachers to have something like a pluralistic
approach to these issues. That is, it's one thing to be snide about
them --
Ruse: Yes, I think that's a point well taken. The trouble is, you
know, Ed, I mean, everybody, I mean, the trouble is, we're balancing,
we're trying to juggle so many balls in the air.
On the one hand, we're trying to do some philosophy. Another ball is
trying to be science educators, both at the university level, but more
particularly, at the schools level. At another level, we've got the
actual political facts, of how do you fight school boards, and that
sort of thing. At another level you've got the legal questions of, you
know, your laws are different from my laws, for instance. Up in Canada
we don't have a Constitution in that sort of way. Or at least, we've
got a Constitution which has a weasel clause, you know, 'in a
democratic and fair society' which means that it can all be altered, if
they want to, and it often is.
So, I mean you've got all of these sorts of issues, and I'm very
sensitive to the fact that if a philosopher tries out, say, ideas and
thinks those sorts of things, people might well say, well I hope to God
you don't say this outside in public, because we're going to run into
problems with the third or fourth ball, and I'm very sensitive to that.
And, to a certain extent, I think I personally have for many years
used, to a certain extent, self -censorship, you know just basically
not talking too much on these sorts of lines. But at the same time, I'm
not sure chat the way forward is by simply not thinking about things
philosophically or responding to ideas, or saying, well gosh, I find
what the social constructivists are saying very interesting, but, by
God, I'd better not believe or accept any of this -- because it's going
to get us into trouble at the school board level. I mean, that's a
tension. But I think that somehow, it seems to me, well, maybe two
wrongs don't make a right, or do make a right. But I just don't want
to do that.
As I hope I said right at the end, I don't come here preaching
creationism or preaching, you know, some message of negativism: folks
give up, modern philosophy of science is now showing that science is
just as much a religion as creation science, so frankly folks there's
nothing that you could do, and if I could go back ten years to Arkansas
I'd just reverse everything. I think that you can do it. I mean I
think you can't do it in just a gung-ho, straightforward, neo-Popperian
way: here we've got science on the one side, here we've got religion on
the other side, evolution falls on the science side, creationism falls
on the other side, and, you know, never the twain shall meet. I think
you've got to go at different ways, things like, as I mentioned,
pragmatism, for instance. Taking some sort of coherence theory of
truth, or something like that. I still think that one can certainly
exclude creation science on those grounds.
Now, whether or not -- how that fits in with your laws -- one has to
ask the lawyers, those sorts of things. I certainly think that's
something chat you can do.
(Applause)
Eugenie Scott: Wait a minute, just --
Ruse: Before you start applauding, she's going to cut off all of my
buttons, and drum me out of the society.
Scott: Not a bit, but he's not done yet. I'm going to take my
chairman's prerogative, to ask a question, if I may. I wonder whether
it might be useful to distinguish between the naturalism or materialism
that is necessary to perform science as we do it in the twentieth
century, as opposed to the Baconian approach, etc., and distinguish
that from philosophical attitudes that we as individuals may or may not
have regarding materialism or naturalism. And perhaps some of this
confusion that we find at the practical level, at the school board
level, and in dealing with people with Johnson, is that Johnson, for
example, does confuse these two things. He assumes that if you are a
scientist then you therefore are a philosophical materialist, in
addition to being a practical materialist, in the operation of your
work.
Ruse: Oh yes, I think that point is well taken. I think to sort of
redress some of the rather flip comments I made, I think that's
absolutely true. Let me end certainly by saying that although I got on
quite well with Johnson at the personal level, I still think that his
book is a slippery piece of work. And you're absolutely right that he,
like any lawyer, is out to win. That's the name of the game in law.
And certainly he can get points by shifting back and forth on meanings
of naturalism, or if he can get a report on what Ed Manier and I were
doing, and then sort of take it out of context, I've no reason to think
that he wouldn't do that sort of thing. Don't misunderstand me. I'm
not saying, I'm not denying the power or the importance of the sort of
thing he's doing, or the importance of combating that sort of thing.
What I am saying, nevertheless, and I will sit down now, is I don't
think that we're going -- well, I don't know whether we're going to
serve -- I mean, the easy thing is we're not going to serve our purpose
by -- let me just simply say that I as a philosopher of science am
worried about what I think were fairly crude neo-positivistic attitudes
that I had about science, even as much as ten years ago, when I was
fighting in Arkansas. This doesn't mean to say that I don't want to
stand up for evolution, I certainly do. But I do think that philosophy
of science, history of science, moves on, and I think it's incumbent
upon us who take this particular creationism - evolution debate
seriously, to be sensitive to these facts, and not simply put our heads
in the sand, and say, well, if we take this sort of stuff seriously,
we're in deep trouble. Perhaps we are. But I don't think that the
solution is just by simply ignoring them.
Eugenie Scott: Now you can applaud, he's done.
* [Note by Phillip E. Johnson] Michael Ruse's claim to have been
misquoted in *Darwin on Trial* refers to the following footnote from p.
135 of the book:
2 Although Halstead's charge (of Marxist bias at the British
Natural History Museum] was groundless, it is a fact that political
ideology and biological ideology are often closely related. Prominent
Darwinists such as Harvard's Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould
have proudly claimed Marxist inspiration for their biological theories.
Darwinists of the right have frequently related their biological
theories to notions of economic or racial competition. At a scientific
meeting in East Germany in 1981, the Darwinist philosopher of science
Michael Ruse observed (with approval) that "Biology drips with as many
wishes/wants/desires/urges, as many exhortations towards right actions,
as a sermon by Luther or Wesley."
The quotation is accurate. The quoted sentence may be found on p. 246
of Ruse's lecture "The Ideology of Darwinism," in the collection
*Darwin Today,* (Geissler & Scheler ed., Akademie Verlag, Berlin,
1983). The lecture was delivered at the 8th Kuhlungsborn Colloquium on
Philosophical and Ethical Problems of Biosciences in 1981, under the
sponsorship of official academic institutions of the former "German
Democratic Republic" and UNESCO.
I assume that Ruse's complaint is based on the mistaken impression that
he is referred to as a "Darwinist of the right" in the third sentence
of the footnote. No such reference was intended, nor to my knowledge
has anyone else read the note in such a strained way. The concluding
quotation is meant to illustrate the theme of the note as a whole and
the theme of Ruse's 1981 lecture -- that Darwinism has always been
closely linked to political and moral philosophies in the minds of its
proponents, from Darwin's day to the present. Ruse is certainly
correct that he did not offend his hosts by advocating Social
Darwinism. On the contrary, his lecture made favorable references to
the Marxist inspiration claimed by Lewontin and Gould, in support of
his theme that "value and ideological commitments lead, not to bad
science or non-science, but to the very best science.' (p. 250)
I should add that the important discussion of Michael Ruse in *Darwin
on Trial* is at the beginning of Chapter Nine, where his testimony at
the Arkansas creationism trial is severely criticized. He makes no
protest about this and no wonder --since that testimony was entirely at
odds with the "Darwinism is permeated by ideology" theme of the lecture
he gave at about the same time in East Germany, and the similar
acknowledgment which was the main theme of his talk at the AAAS. He
even states frankly that it is appropriate to say different things
about this subject to different audiences:
"I mean I realize that when one is dealing with people, say, at the
school level, or these sorts of things, certain sorts of arguments are
appropriate. But those of us who are academics, or for other reasons
pulling back and trying to think about these things, I think that we
should recognize, both historically and perhaps philosophically,
certainly that the science side has certain metaphysical assumptions
built into doing science, which -- it may not be a good thing to admit
in a court of law -but I think that in honesty that we should
recognize, and that we should be thinking about some of these sorts of
things."
I hope that influential members of the academic and scientific
communities will ask themselves if it is really a good idea to mortgage
their credibility to this strategy of selling a myth of Darwinian
objectivity and religious neutrality to the public, when the people who
have been doing the selling acknowledge among themselves that they no
longer believe the myth.
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