[asa] What Neo-Creationists Get Right

Interesting article today on thescientist.com (quoted below) (
http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/news.jsp?type=news&o_url=news/display/54759&id=54759
):

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  Two and a half years ago, in what is so far the "trial of this century,"
federal district judge John Jones III
ruled<http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/194/>that it was
unconstitutional for a school board in Dover, PA to teach intelligent
design <http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/36664/> (ID) theory in
a public high school science class. The decision was stunning; the ID
movement lost on every front. When Jones called the school board's efforts
to introduce ID into the curriculum "staggering inanity," the anti-ID chorus
roared its support. Jones declared the ID movement's science bogus, their
tactics corrupt, and their religious motivations transparent. Intelligent
design, Jones said, is the most recent species in the highly adaptive
lineage known as American
Creationism.<http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15273/>

The Dover trial seemed, for a brief moment, to be a wooden stake driven into
the heart of creationism. But ID is once again back up and on the march. So
far in 2008, legislators in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan, and
Missouri have tried to require that classrooms teach both "the scientific
strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory," code for unteaching
evolution. Similar legislation
passed<http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/house_approves_changes_in_teac.html>both
houses of the Louisiana legislature this month and is coming
perilously
close to passing in Texas.

American creationism's resilience is tied mostly to its cultural and
religious roots, in particular the Religious
Right's<http://www.the-scientist.com/2006/7/1/48/1/>conviction that
scientific naturalism promotes cultural relativism. But in
the debate over evolution, I also think creationists' doggedness has to do
with the fact that they make a few worthy points. And as long as
evolutionists like me reflexively react with ridicule and self-righteous
rage, we may paradoxically be adding years to creationism's lifespan.

First, I have to agree with the ID crowd that there are some very big (and
frankly exciting) questions that should keep evolutionists humble. While
there is important work going on in the area of biogenesis, for instance, I
think it's fair to say that science is still in the dark about this
fundamental question. It's hard to draw conclusions about the significance
of what we don't know. Still, I think it is disingenuous to argue that the
origin of life is irrelevant to evolution. It is no less relevant than the
Big Bang is to physics or cosmology.
Evolution<http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23321/>should be
able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the very
first organism that could replicate itself through biological or chemical
processes. And to understand that organism fully, we would simply have to
know what came before it. And right now we are nowhere close. I believe a
material explanation will be found, but that confidence comes from my faith
that science is up to the task of explaining, in purely material or
naturalistic terms, the whole history of life. My
faith<http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/52986/>is well
founded, but it is still faith.

Second, IDers also argue that the cell is far more complex than
Darwin<http://www.the-scientist.com/2008/6/1/32/1/>could have imagined
149 years ago when he published
*On the Origin of Species.* There is much more explaining to do than those
who came before us could have predicted. Sure, we also know a lot more about
natural selection and evolution, including the horizontal transfer of
portions of genomes from one species to another. But scientists still have
much to learn about the process of evolution if they are to fully explain
the phenomenon. Again, I have faith that science will complete that picture,
but I suspect there will be some big surprises. Will one of them be that an
intelligent being designed life? I doubt it. Even if someone found
compelling evidence for a designer, for us materialists, it would just push
the ultimate question down the road a bit. If a Smart One designed life,
what is the material explanation for its existence?

The third noteworthy point IDers make has its roots, paradoxically, in a
kind of psychological empiricism. Millions of people believe they directly
experience the reality of a Creator every day, and to them it seems like
nonsense to insist that He does not exist. Unless they are lying, God's
existence is to them an observable fact. Denying it would be like insisting
that my love for my children was an illusion created by neurotransmitters. I
can't imagine a scientific argument in the world that could convince me that
I didn't really love my children. And if there were such an argument, I have
to admit I'd be reluctant to accept it, however compelling it appeared on
paper. I have too much respect for my own experience.

Which leads me to a final concession to my ID foes: When they say that some
proponents of evolution are blind followers, they're right. A few years ago
I covered a conference of the American Atheists in Las Vegas. I met dozens
of people there who were dead sure that evolutionary theory was correct
though they didn't know a thing about adaptive radiation, genetic drift, or
even plain old natural selection. They came to their Darwinism via a
commitment to naturalism and atheism not through the study of science.
They're still correct when they say evolution happens. But I'm afraid
they're wrong to call themselves skeptics unencumbered by ideology. Many of
them are best described as zealots. Ideological zeal isn't incompatible with
good science; its coincidence with a theory proves nothing about that
theory's explanatory power.

Should IDers be allowed to pursue their still very eccentric and outlying
theory? Absolutely. There must be room, even respect, for eccentricity in
science; it can lead to great discoveries.
Alchemy<http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53274/>led to
chemistry. Astrology to
astronomy. <http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/10317/> Much more
often, of course, it leads nowhere. Looking for evidence of design in the
natural world isn't itself unscientific (though, as I argue in my book,
insisting that any designer must be a supernatural being is!) and if it were
found, that would be big and fascinating news. But if I had a biology
department with only seven faculty spots in it, I would not want someone who
believed the cornerstone of modern biology was hogwash filling one of them.
And I certainly don't want an improbable outlying hypothesis taught to my
own teenage son as an alternative to one of the most powerful explanatory
theories to illuminate the human mind.

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Received on Fri Jun 20 13:11:40 2008