Creationist Smackdown: Pterosaur Edition

While browsing The Guardian today, I came across a fun creationist smackdown. An article from the Institute for Creation Research (one of the larger, well-known creationist organizations) suggested that evolutionary presuppositions led to the initial incorrect judgment that pterosaurs could not fly. Paleontologist Dave Hone, who studies pterosaurs, would have none of that and effectively shows not only that the article is wrong on historic grounds (i.e. the history of science), but that it was actually creationists of the time who originally thought pterosaurs couldn't fly. Speaking to creationists and referring to current knowledge, the last sentence sums it up nicely:

It is scientific researchers who got us here, not you; those outmoded ideas you are sneering at as having come from incorrect preconceptions came from your philosophical ancestors, not ours.

I have a long-standing rule of thumb that creationists simply cannot be trusted, and it is because of things like this. That's not to say that everything mainstream scientists write is 100% accurate (scientifically or historically), but I find that it's best never to accept a creationist argument at face value. The moment you think that a creationist has a good point is the moment you should be very cautious.

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The Basis for ABO Blood Typing Undermines Common Design

When Darwin first proposed the idea of common descent there seemed to be no evolutionary connection between humans and apes. Then the bones and fossils of extinct Neanderthals and other human/ape-like creatures began to come forth--some more like humans, some more like apes--providing confirmation that Darwin was on the right track. Meanwhile scientists began to discover that the proteins of humans and other apes were similar. When the structure and coding of DNA was worked out, scientists began determining the sequence of genes, culminating in the sequencing of whole genomes in the last 15 years or so, including that of Neanderthals. What scientists found in genetic sequence solidified the inferences already arrived at by other means: that among living species, humans are most closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas, with which they share a common ancestor. The evidence for common descent contained in our DNA is rich and multi-layered.

Creationists, however, counter that similarity of DNA is not evidence for common descent. Rather, it is evidence of common design. The basic idea is that since humans and chimpanzees (or any other grouping of species) have similar anatomy and physiology, it makes sense that the Designer would use similar genetic sequences. This assertion certainly has a commonsensical appeal since it casts biology as an extension of human experience in the modern era of mass production, computer programming, and bio-engineering.

The central paradox of this assertion is that in attributing commonalities to common design, one must also attribute to design many ordinary and mundane genetic characteristics that are otherwise explainable on principles of microevolution. Those who make the common design assertion rarely address the patterns of both similarities and differences.

The ABO blood system makes for an interesting case study. The system is a classic example of genetic co-dominance that is often taught in high school biology class, and is also a classic example of the need for matching in blood transfusions or organ transplants. The basis for the system is the pattern of certain molecules expressed on human blood cells and other organs and tissues. Everyone expresses the basic molecule called the H antigen, and if your blood type is O, that's the end of the story. People with A, B, or AB blood-type also have genes for glycosytransferases, which are enzymes that add an extra sugar molecule onto the H antigen--kind of like topping off a Christmas tree with a star, or adding a cherry to an ice cream sundae. The difference between A and B is the type of sugar molecule added to the H antigen. The A enzyme adds one kind, the B enzyme adds a different one. People with type O don't technically lack the transferase genes, they just have versions that are broken due to mutation, though there are no known diseases associated with this. The immune system of people with O or A type will react against type B antigen as a foreign invader, and the same applies to people with O or B in relation to A antigen. People with both genes (A and B) will make both antigens (A and B), and therefore their immune system will not react against A antigen, B antigen, or H (O) antigen.

The A and B glycosyltransferases are actually extremely similar. In fact, there are only four amino acids different between them, and only two of those determine which sugar the enzyme adds to H antigen. I have aligned the protein sequences [1] of the A and B transferases in the following figure. Letters are standard abbreviations for different amino acids (building blocks of proteins), and periods represent identical amino acids. I have highlighted the four differences, and the blue arrows point to the two key amino acids that determine which sugar is added:

If we were to look at the DNA sequence we would see seven differences, instead of just four. However, three of those differences do not change the amino acid sequence. The reason is that many amino acids have several three-letter DNA codes (codons), so changing one of those DNA letters may simply change the three-letter codon to an equivalent codon. Such mutations are called silent because they have no effect on protein function. In contrast, in the four highlighted examples the change in the underlying DNA resulted in a codon for a different amino acid.

These two sequences are so similar that it shouldn't surprise you to learn that scientists believe that one of them originated from the other. At some point one of the genes was duplicated (a common occurrence), and mutations gave one of the two copies a different specificity. And the changes didn't stop there. What I have shown are the two most common sequences for A and B, but some people have variants (alleles) that have other mutations. Most of those mutations are silent, but some of them do change amino acids in various parts of the protein.

The ABO blood groups have been looked at in other animals, and primates have the same basic system. The following (modified) figure shows the evolutionary relationship of various primate species and the blood types that have been found [2]. (Click for bigger image.)

The ABO types are found in varying combinations among hominoids, old world monkeys, and new world monkeys. Previously it was thought that the B alleles were re-created from the A allele in several different lineages. However, a more recent study [2] found that the A and B alleles of the various species are more closely related to one another (A to A, B to B) than any of the A alleles are to the B alleles (with the apparent exception of orangutans). This implies that both A and B were present in the ancestor of primates, and that in some lineages one or the other has been independently lost. In contrast, the O alleles are not all closely related to each other (since there are many ways to break a gene).

Remember, the part of the protein that determines whether the transferase acts as type A or B is dependent on those two amino acids. Interestingly, some primates have a silent mutation in their A gene at one of the important amino acids. I have illustrated this difference with the following figure (compare to the blue arrows in the first figure above):

For each transferase gene, A and B, the DNA sequence is given with the amino acid translation below. The A gene has two versions of the DNA sequence, with the silent mutation (T) in red. Although you might expect CTG and TTG to code for different amino acids, a quick consultation of a codon table shows that both code for leucine (L).

Now here's where things get interesting. Let's look again at the figure showing primate evolutionary relationships, but this time I'll show it without modification [2].

It turns out that the silent mutation in the A gene is only found in old world monkeys; hominoids and new world monkeys have the other version (CTG). Overall, hominoids are more closely related to old world monkeys than new world monkeys, as shown in the figure. But for this piece of the A gene, old world monkeys are different. The simple evolutionary interpretation is that the silent mutation, which is probably selectively neutral, occurred in the lineage of old world monkeys just after they split away from the hominoid lineage. An alternative explanation is that there were multiple independent mutations in the old world monkey lineage. Clearly, several different species independently having the exact same mutation arise and become dominant in the population is of much lesser probability.

So What?

With all of that as background, let's turn our attention to the assertion that similar DNA represents similar design rather than an evolutionary relationship. If the Designer was using similar genetic sequence to make similar organisms, why make a silent DNA change only in old world monkeys?

There are three basic creationist responses that I can think of. First, it could be that each old world monkey species with type A independently had that mutation arise and become fixed in the population. This is essentially the same alternative that was rejected above.

Second, a creationist might argue that the pattern of A alleles represents a sense of whimsy and artistry by the designer. After all, sometimes we do things just because we feel like it. That such alleged artistry happens to also fit an evolutionary scenario might give us pause. At any rate, if the defense of someone's hypothesis when contradicted by the data is simply to assert that the Designer just felt like it, they clearly are not engaged in a scientific discussion and are instead simply seeking to rationalize a conclusion they have already made.

A third creationist argument is more subtle. He/she might note that silent mutations can have an effect on the efficiency with which a protein is made. So perhaps that silent mutation in the A gene actually plays an important role in the context of old world monkey gene expression and physiology. This argument contains at least a grain of legitimate science. That this one silent mutation affects the efficiency of gene expression is highly doubtful, but is testable in principle. However, the notion that it is important for the long-term survival of old world monkeys becomes absurd when you consider that:

1. Like humans, not every member of a particular old world monkey species will have the A gene. Whatever effect the mutation has is irrelevant for those individuals.

2. At least two old world monkey species have apparently lost the A gene altogether! Clearly the mutation has no relevance for those species.

3. As mentioned above, there are other alleles of the A gene found in humans that contain other mutations, and the same holds for old world monkeys. Natural mutations clearly do occur in the A gene. How can naturally occurring mutations be differentiated from designed ones?

Conclusion

Here we summarize and circle back to the paradox of the common design argument. Considering the variability of the presence of A and B genes within individuals, populations, and species, and considering the fact that various polymorphisms exist within each species (some of which are silent, some of which are not), can the difference of a single silent nucleotide really be justified on principles of common design?


Notes:
1. Source of sequences: Human A - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/58331215; Human B - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/AB844269.1

2. Ségurel L, Thompson EE, Flutre T, Lovstad J, Venkat A, Margulis SW, Moyse J, Ross S, Gamble K, Sella G, Ober C, Przeworski M. The ABO blood group is a trans-species polymorphism in primates. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Nov 6;109(45):18493-8. Figure 1 from the paper contained a mistake; the corrected version is here.

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On the Origin of Hitler

About a month ago I was browsing through Science and noticed a review of a recent book by historian Peter Bowler. (The review requires a subscription, so instead I'll direct interested readers here for a roughly equivalent review.) His book, Darwin Deleted, imagines a world where Darwin did not exist, as a device for illuminating other ideas about evolution. Apparently he argues that if Darwin had not existed, evolution might not have been as contentious of an issue. This is because, while many religious people weren't particularly thrilled with the idea of evolution, it was natural selection as a mechanism that really got their dander up. It was just too materialistic--even for some scientists. In fact, during the early twentieth century natural selection took a back seat until the modern synthesis of the 1940s put it back in the center. As I understand it, Bowler imagines a world where evolution was accepted relatively peacefully, with natural selection being discovered later.

Bowler also argues that the atrocities of World War II would still have occurred without Darwin. This seems completely obvious to me, but a staple of anti-evolution propaganda is to blame Darwin for Hitler. In fact, just last week the Discovery Institute posted a video on YouTube doing just that. At first glance you can see why the argument appears convincing. Darwin said that evolution occurs by survival of the best adapted, so Hitler took Darwin's theory to the logical conclusion by attempting to eliminate the weak.

I can accept that some people just repeat this kind of thing because that's what they heard, but it's harder for me to believe that thinking people take such things seriously. It seems transparently nasty and dumb to me. For one thing, even if Darwin did serve as a source of Hitler's inspiration, that fact wouldn't have any logical consequence for the validity of Darwin's ideas about how nature works. (I bet the German artillery loved Newton's ideas too!) Moreover, we could hardly hold Darwin responsible for the deeds of a future sociopath. But what I find more annoying is that people who say this must ignore or forget known facts and social currents that existed independent of Darwin.

For example, animals were bred for desired traits for centuries and millennia before Darwin. Darwin himself drew on artificial selection--i.e. breeding--for his insight of natural selection. Consider the following quote:

… Experience has long since taught mankind the necessity of observing certain natural laws in the propagation of animals, or the stock will degenerate and finally become extinct. But strange to say, in regard to the human animal, these laws, except in certain particulars, are more or less disregarded in these latter times. The inevitable consequence is, the race is degenerating, new diseases are introduced, while effeminacy and barrenness are on the increase: and worse than all, this evil condition of the body has its effects upon the mind…

That was George Q. Cannon writing in 1857, three years before he was called as an Apostle and a year before Darwin published Origin of Species. You could just as easily say that Hitler was applying widely accepted principles of animal breeding to humans. It simply doesn't take a theory of species formation to decide that your race (however defined) is better than others, or to hate Jews, or to be nationalist, or to think the "weak" are a drain on society, and so on. The Nazis appropriated anything that seemed to lend support to their ideology. If Darwin's theory was one of those, then that's unfortunate but it's hardly Darwin's fault (he died in 1882, for heaven's sake) and means nothing for its validity as science.

One more thing: the idea that species progress was not Darwin's. Darwin understood that natural selection would result in adaptation to environmental circumstances, not the production of some kind of platonic ideal. Thus, to argue that elimination of the weak was necessary for human evolutionary progress would be a bastardization of Darwinian evolution. As I mentioned above, Darwinian evolution was eclipsed for a while by other ideas about evolution, some of which involved progress. (If blame is to be laid, I would bet those ideas had more influence.)

In their zeal to cast aspersions on evolution, anti-evolutionists also often go a step further and say that Darwin himself was a supporter of social Darwinism. To the extent that is true it is unfortunate although, again, it doesn't matter what Darwin thought with respect to the validity of his theory. But although he was a product of his time, Darwin was relatively progressive in some of his views (eloquently opposing slavery, for example) and it seems that detractors have a difficult time making their case without distorting his writings. For example, in The Descent of Man he wrote:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.

Oh, that's terrible! Except when you look at the context you see that the sentence is the first half of a hypothetical he uses to make a point about how extinction erases the gradations between species. And considering Europe's colonial enterprise Darwin's statement probably seemed like an unremarkable prediction [1]. It's rather uncharitable to rip that sentence out of context and present it as though Darwin hoped for the extinction of other races, as the DI video does, but that's the kind of garbage I've come to expect from them.

Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement, to say nothing of the Nazis, were wrong. If we pawn it all off on Darwin, however, then we miss important lessons about the naturalistic fallacy, the naive application of science, human rights, ethics, the golden rule, economics, and so on. When it comes to Hitler, Darwin is a distraction.


Notes:
1. Americans weren't innocent either. Manifest destiny, anyone?

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Why I Still Dislike Intelligent Design

Over at Interpreter, Gregory Smith has written a longish review of several books on the theme of evolution and religion. I haven't read his review in detail, but my skimming (and past experience) suggests that Smith has what I take to be a pretty healthy view on the issue. One of the books reviewed was written by William Dembski who, although I don't hear much about him anymore, was once one of the leading lights of Intelligent Design at the Discovery Institute. Several of the comments below Smith's review are supportive of ID, with one person wondering why LDS scientists don't align with ID more than they do.

It has been a while since I have mentioned ID. Although it hasn't gone away, it is much less of a public issue lately than it used to be. Nevertheless, I thought I would take a moment to review why I do not accept ID (something I first articulated here.) For fun, I have arranged it in a question-answer format.

Q: Isn't Intelligent Design a scientific idea?

A: ID is more of a religious/cultural movement than a scientific one. Defenders of ID complain about ID being lumped together with young-earth creationism and assert that it has secular intellectual merit on its own. However, it is a matter of historical record that the ID brand, so to speak, was formulated as a response to court rulings prohibiting the teaching of creationism in public schools, and as a weapon in an ideological battle against naturalism. The scientific component of ID has always been minor, which is to say that scientific research has not been a focus of ID proponents. ID is mostly polemics, and it was the Discovery Institute that sought to introduce ID into public schools notwithstanding the fact that it had scant support in higher education and among professional scientists. When the background of ID and its proponents are considered, it becomes clear that ID is a religiously/ideologically motivated movement.

Q: Don't some scientists advocate Intelligent Design?

A: There are a few practicing scientists, such as Michael Behe, who openly advocate ID, but most ID proponents tend to be non-scientists (e.g. lawyers, philosophers, mathematicians, etc). Others have an educational background in science, but did not pursue a career in science. For example, as a member of the Unification Church with a Ph.D. in religious studies, Jonathan Wells went on to obtain a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology with the specific intent of fighting against 'Darwinism,' and has spent his career doing so. Again, ID is not really a scientific movement.

Q: OK, but if we put aside motivations and history, couldn't Intelligent Design have some merit?

A: Sure, any part of this world and life on it might have been designed, but ID arguments for such have been unconvincing. Usually the arguments boil down to simple disbelief that things found in nature could have been produced by nature. Many biological features that appear designed can be understood in the light of normal biological principles, although the exact step-by-step history may forever remain unknown. That is simply not good enough for ID proponents like Michael Behe, who once demanded each mutational step,

And not only a list of mutations, but also a detailed account of the selective pressures that would be operating, the difficulties such changes would cause for the organism, the expected time scale over which the changes would be expected to occur, the likely population sizes available in the relevant ancestral species at each step, other potential ways to solve the problem which might interfere, and much more.

In other words, ID is impossible to falsify. So sure, it could be true on some level, but so could many other unprovable or unfalsifiable propositions.

Q: Well what is the harm in just having another perspective to consider?

A: None, as far as it goes. However, in advancing their arguments, ID proponents seem to chronically either misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent mainstream science. One gets the sense that they must do this in order to make their arguments look strong by comparison. As Nick Matzke recently wrote in a review of Stephen Meyer's latest book,

To anyone familiar with [the science], it is simply laughable and pretty much insulting to see Stephen Meyer proclaim throughout his book that fossils with transitional morphology don’t exist, that the Cambrian body plans look like they originated all-at-once in one big sudden step. These statements don’t respect scientific process, they don’t respect the peer reviewed literature, they don’t respect the intelligence and knowledge of people who actually do know what they are talking about, they don’t respect the hard work of all the scientists that went out in the field and found these fossils, and then spent countless hours preparing them, describing them, inspecting them in microscopic detail, coding them in a morphology database, and analyzing them, all with care and effort and detail never taken by any creationist/IDist writer in any effort of comparative biology. And most importantly, Meyer’s statements don’t respect the data. They don’t follow the evidence wherever it leads, mostly because Meyer is ignoring most of the evidence.

In my experience, Matzke's critique applies more generally to many ID proponents. They not only spread an idea that is scientifically dubious, they damage scientific understanding in the process.

Conclusion:

My basic conclusion is that ID proponents are, to be frank, mostly a bunch of hacks and cranks. The hacks have all the characteristics we see in political hacks: they stick to a central message, they never admit to being wrong about anything substantive, and they distort facts and knowledge to support their talking points. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the main driver of ID is a think tank. The cranks are less evil, just obtuse. They seem simply to enjoy being in an intellectual insurgency, while overestimating their grasp of science. Neither group is interested in genuine scientific and intellectual inquiry. This is not to say that all people who are attracted to ID are hacks and cranks; I have no doubt that many who find ID persuasive are thoughtful and honest people. But this is certainly how I feel about the leaders of ID at the Discovery Institute.

So there you have it.

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Converging Paths to Truth...and Peace?

A little over a decade ago I purchased my first book on Mormonism and science, The Search for Harmony. It contains a number of classic essays, and it will always have a fond place in my heart. However, as I have revisited it from time to time, I've noticed that it has a somewhat gloomy tone as various authors express their sadness that the Church has betrayed its original openness to truth and marginalized supporters of science. Given that most of the essays were written during the 70's and 80's, this is understandable. After all, it was 1980, for example, when Apostle Bruce R. McConkie included evolution in his talk, "The Seven Deadly Heresies."

As I look back at the essays in that book, I don't share the sense of gloom. Most Church members and leaders are perhaps not as enlightened on scientific topics as I wish they were, or think they ought to be, but more and more I sense a return to the spirit of President Heber J. Grant's admonition to leave science to scientists.

As evidence, I would like to highlight the Summerhays lectures, a series of talks given at Brigham Young University by faculty on science and religion between 2003 and 2008. In 2011 the lectures were published by both the Religious Studies Center (a publishing arm of the BYU religion department) and Deseret Book. The RSC has since made the book available for free on its website. The lectures themselves are not all that remarkable--some are better than others--but I believe that their very existence, combined with the publishers standing behind them, make them important. The book models the attitude expressed in a Church Newsroom commentary last July that,

Mormons welcome truth from whatever source and take the pragmatic view that where religion and science seem to clash, it is simply because there are insufficient data to reconcile the two. Latter-day Saints approach such tensions as challenges to learn, not contradictions to avoid.

Contributors include Terry Ball (dean of Religious Education), Robert Millet, (former dean of Religious Education), and Michael Whiting (evolutionary biologist), and their essays anchor the book (in my opinion). Each contributor presents his own view, but collectively the lectures contain positive comments on the role of BYU in education in the sciences, critique of creationism and defense of Darwin's character, an overview of the BYU Evolution Packet with a link to where it can be found, calls for peacemaking and a "healthy agnosticism," and more.

Below I excerpt parts that I liked, or think important. I also have some criticisms and additional comments, but I'll save those for a separate post.

Ball:

Rather than adding to the tension that some individuals and institutions create between science and religion, a Brigham Young University education should help students increase their understanding and appreciation for both. ...we should not only avoid alienating secular learning from spiritual development but also endeavor to avoid compartmentalizing and departmentalizing the two. Spiritual development can and should occur in all classes taught on the BYU campus, and secular learning may indeed find application in Religious Education classes.

How tragic it would be if a BYU student who had the potential to become a James E. Talmage or a Henry Eyring never reached that potential because some teacher, purposefully or unwittingly, convinced that student that one must abandon faith in God in order to be a credible scientist, or conversely, that one with a testimony of the restored gospel cannot accept the tenets of science. It is imperative that as a community of learners at BYU we work to avoid such a tragedy.

Millet:

More times than I would like to remember, during the decade that I served as dean of Religious Education, I received phone calls from irate parents who simply could not understand why Brigham Young University was allowing organic evolution courses to be taught. They would then ask what I planned to do about it, as though I were the head of the campus thought police. I would always try to be understanding and congenial, but I would inevitably remark that such things were taught at this institution because we happened to be a university; that what was being taught was a significant dimension in the respective discipline; and that we certainly would not be doing our job very well if a science student, for example, were to graduate from Brigham Young University and be ignorant of such matters.

I must admit sadly that when I was a student here at BYU and even in my first years as a faculty member, it was not uncommon for ideological grenades to be flying back and forth between the Joseph Smith Building and the Eyring Science Center. This person was labeled as godless, and that one was categorized as ignorant or naive. This faculty member hustled about to put forward his or her favorite General Authority quote, while that one relied upon a Church leader with a differing perspective. Thereby authorities were pitted against one another. Very little light, if any, was generated, but there was a great deal of heat, including much heartburn for university and college administrators. And of course the real losers during this “war of words and tumult of opinions” were the students. They admired their science teachers and valued their opinions but did not want in any way to be in opposition to what Church leaders believed and taught. They trusted their religion teachers but were not prepared to jettison their field of study. Further, such standoffs did something that for me was even more destructive: they suggested that one could not be both a competent academic and a dedicated disciple—one had to choose. And such a conclusion is tragically false. It defies everything that Brigham Young University stands for.

It is wrong to hide behind our religious heritage and thus neglect our academic responsibilities; there may have been a time when some faculty members at BYU excused professional incompetence in the name of religion, on the basis that BYU is different, that it is a school intent on strengthening the commitment of young Latter-day Saints. This was commendable but insufficient. It is just as myopic, however, to hide behind academics and thus cover our own spiritual incompetence. We can be thoroughly competent disciples and thoroughly competent professionals. We do not hide behind our religion, but rather we come to see all things through the lenses of our religion.

If my Latter-day Saint colleagues and I can enjoy such a sweet brotherhood and sisterhood with a growing number of Evangelical Christians—a group with whom we have been in intense dialogue since 2000—then surely it is possible for men and women of faith who labor in varying avenues of science to enjoy cordial and collegial relationships with those involved in the study and teaching of religion, especially at Brigham Young University, the best of all worlds. Our epistemological thrusts may be different. Our presuppositions may be different. Our tests of validity and reliability may be different. But our hearts can be united as we strive to look beyond the dimensions of our disciplines toward higher goals. Some things we may and should reconcile here and now, while other matters may await further light and truth and additional discovery.

Whiting:

I am not aware of any other scientific idea that has generated as many diverse views in the Church as evolution has, and very often the discussion of this wide range of ideas has resulted in more heat than light. When I teach evolution in the BYU classroom, I must often curtail students who begin selectively quoting their favorite General Authorities and pitting the quotations of one against another, as if one General Authority could beat the other up. While I am grateful that the Church has never expressed the same extreme views about evolution as have other religious denominations, there still persists a belief that evolutionary ideas and Church doctrine are fundamentally hostile to each other and that the full acceptance of one requires the compromise of the other.

I, of course, recognize that there are ideas in evolutionary theory that can be spun in such a way as to be in direct conflict with the doctrines of the Church, and unfortunately some prominent evolutionary biologists have gained great fame by doing so. Likewise, I recognize that there are interpretations of Latter-day Saint scripture that can be formulated in such a way as to contradict current ideas in evolutionary theory. What I would caution against is forcing a Joshua ultimatum here with “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15), as if these are fundamentally and diametrically opposed views of creation with no degree of overlap and no possibility of reconciliation. In my experience, students who continue to think of this as a dichotomy will either have their faith so shaken when they learn the evidence for evolution that they drift away from the Church, or they will simply shut their eyes and their minds to what I consider to be a glorious way to view creation.

Ball:

In recent times, religious scientists not only have had to defend their faith in God and revelation, but also frequently find their commitment to scientific principles unjustly questioned. A Georgia judge, arguing against the teaching of evolution in school, offered an overzealous polemic that illustrates the point well. Making absurd accusations about the effect of Darwin’s theories on society, the judge claimed that the “monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types.” Such pejorative and irrational rhetoric only serves to fan the flames of hostility between science and religion while deepening the dilemma for men and women devoted to both disciplines.

Whiting:

I might mention here that some portray Darwin as a man eager to destroy faith and tear down religion. These people are like the detractors who paint Joseph Smith and the history of the Church with similar brushstrokes. Within the Church, I have occasionally heard members equate Darwin with Korihor, the anti-Christ from the Book of Mormon. But these caricatures are too simplistic and not true to the record. (It seems to me that members of the Church should be particularly sensitive to the misrepresentation of mid-nineteenth-century historical figures in order to push a particular agenda forward.) Certainly the ideas that sprang from Darwin’s work had a profound influence on religious thought and still continue to do so, but by all accounts Darwin was a loving father and a kind man, afraid of confrontation, and someone who would much rather study the mining habits of earthworms than be involved in a debate over science and religion. Darwin was a complex man, and many lengthy biographies have delved into factors in his life that may have influenced his scientific ideas, including his faith, but at his very core, Darwin was simply a scientist trying to explain patterns in the natural world, and the notion that he had a hidden agenda to destroy religion is simply wrong.

There has been a temptation for some members of the Church to place us in the same category as religions that identify themselves as creationists. I tell my students that Mormons are creationists in the same way we are born-again Christians. Does the Church have a doctrine of being “born again”? It certainly does, but it is so radically different from churches that label themselves as born-again Christians that we have not adopted the name because we do not embrace the dogmas associated with being “born again.” Likewise, the Latter-day Saint doctrine of creation is sufficiently distinct from those religious groups that label themselves “creationists” that I am grateful the Church has not adopted this label.

Intelligent design is based on the (flawed) notion that there are certain features in the biological world that are too complex to be explained via evolution and that the probability of evolution giving rise to complexity is so vanishingly small that it is simply not possible. Consequently, they argue, the only scientific explanation for biological complexity is that there must be an intelligent designer working behind the scenes. The attempt to mandate the teaching of intelligent design in public schools led to a lengthy trial centered in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2004. The overwhelming evidence during the trial established that intelligent design was a mere relabeling of the type of creationism described above and that it [is] not a scientific alternative to evolution. So while the Latter-day Saints do indeed have a doctrine of creation and certainly a belief in a Supremely Intelligent Creator, we are neither creationists nor proponents of intelligent design because both labels come with unwanted and uncomfortable doctrinal baggage.

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Relics of Eden

If you like my series, What Separates Humans from the Animals?, then you will like reading Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA by Daniel J. Fairbanks. Fairbanks is a geneticist and was a professor in the department of plant and wildlife sciences at BYU for 20 years, where he also served as dean of undergraduate education, and is now at UVU.

Relics of Eden fills an explanatory gap that has existed for too long. Fairbanks explains his approach:

With the ongoing controversy over intelligent design, people often ask me to recommend a book on the molecular evidence of human evolution. Unfortunately, most popular human evolution books either fail to include DNA evidence, or, if they do, they cover only a few highlights. Instead, they tend to focus on archaeological, geological, anatomical, physiological, and theoretical evidence with little or no discussion of the literally millions of molecular fossils in DNA. These requests, and my dismay at repeated claims of meager and flawed evidence supporting human evolution, led me to draft the book you are now reading. [p. 7-8]

The intent of this book is to present just a fraction, but a very compelling fraction, of the DNA-based evidence of evolution. I have chosen to focus on human evolution because some people are willing to accept the idea that other species have evolved but draw the line with humans, usually for religious reasons. [p. 14]

These are some of the same reasons I started my series mentioned above. In fact, at times it almost felt like I had written the book because Fairbanks seemed to have stolen my own thoughts, if not my specific examples.

Most of the chapters deal with DNA evidence. Later there is a brief history of the creationist movement, some analysis of Intelligent Design, and some history of the development of molecular genetics. It is easy reading and has plenty of helpful diagrams. If you comprehend the information he lays out, you will begin to see how silly denials of human evolution are--especially those that claim a lack of scientific evidence.

I have one parochial complaint: When it comes to virology, Fairbanks is a little confused. Contrary to what is stated in the book, there are only a few infectious human retroviruses and influenza is not among them. Retroviruses represent just one of a number of families of RNA viruses, and retroviruses are unique in their ability to integrate into DNA. Although it is an RNA virus, influenza is not a retrovirus. (It's an orthomyxovirus, for those who care.)

My complaint aside, I enthusiastically recommend the book. I don't know of another one like it.

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FARMS Reviews "The Case for Divine Design"

The Case for Divine Design: Cells, Complexity, and Creation, by Frank B. Salisbury, is reviewed in the most recent FARMS Review (2008, Volume 20, Issue 1). The review article is "The Clockmaker Returns," by James L. Farmer. Dr. Salisbury is an emeritus professor of plant physiology, and Dr. Farmer is a BYU emeritus biology professor.

I have read The Case for Divine Design completely through once, mostly through a second time, and bits and pieces even more. I think the review is pretty straightforward and even-handed, and I generally agree with it. My one quibble is that toward the end Dr. Farmer seems to see Intelligent Design (ID) as only associated ("guilty by association") with Creationism. However, the fact is that ID grew out of creationism in response to court decisions that prevented the teaching of creationism in public schools.

Now for some of my own comments on The Case for Divine Design:

The main point of the book is to argue that science does not disprove God--not that there is scientific evidence for God (Salisbury rejects ID as legitimate science), but that the history of life is not known in sufficient detail to rule out divine intervention. It is in that sense that he seems to feel affinity toward ID.

He describes his worldview as follows (pg 22):

My belief also includes the idea that an Intelligent Creator, God, played a critical role in this process. I have no conclusion about what that role might have been. Did he engineer the first life on Earth and then let evolution take over, as deists and others believe? Or did he intervene in other ways intelligently creating every species? My attitude is that we simply lack enough information to speculate at this time.

It comes as no surprise that science cannot refute such a position.

Although I am less attracted to ID than Salisbury (and I am repelled by the ID movement), my own view is actually quite similar. Yet in spite of that core agreement, I have a few reservations about the book. First let me say that I appreciate the thought that Dr. Salisbury put into the book. There are a shortage of public LDS-scientist role models and his effort to communicate his years of thinking to another generation is to be commended, and his arguments are worth considering.

In a different FARMS Review article that was written by Dr. Salisbury, he suggested that the authors "are so busy defending evolutionary theory that it never seems to occur to them that there might still be problems with the theory." I think I would turn that around here: Dr. Salisbury is so busy trying to find problems with evolution that he misses some of its strengths. To be clear, he assures us that he is not a "bitter anti-evolutionist," and in an interesting end note, he writes that he "was personally deeply troubled" by Joseph Fielding Smith's book, Man, His Origin and Destiny. (He later met with then-Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, who told Salisbury "that he knew little about the science...and had no personal convictions on the matter," and that President Smith's book was "not to be considered Church doctrine" [quotations from the book, which paraphrased Elder Kimball].) Nevertheless, in my opinion his treatment of evolutionary theory is incomplete, as the following two examples illustrate.

1. Adaptationism and genetic drift. Salisbury repeatedly expresses concern that plausible "just-suppose stories"--especially in regard to the power of natural selection--are accepted too readily as final explanations. You could argue that holding a provisional position (and rejecting others) based on existing knowledge and pending additional information, is not a bad thing--and science is not about achieving metaphysical certainty anyway. But that aside, he seems unaware that scientists such as Stephen J. Gould have made similar criticisms. Probably the most famous example is a paper Gould and Richard Lewontin wrote in 1979 called, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme," in which Gould and Lewontin argued for a pluralistic approach to evolution that does not entail explaining every detail in terms of natural selection.

This is relevant because Salisbury seems unaware of a significant alternative to natural selection: genetic drift, which is where the frequency of a particular gene can become the norm (or driven to extinction) due to chance events. Imagine an animal hunted to near-extinction; that species will have restricted genetic diversity going forward. In many cases, the reason certain genes will be most frequent in the recovering population will have nothing to do with natural selection. They will be predominant simply because animals with alternate versions happened to get killed by hunters.

This failure to consider genetic drift, in turn, leads him to puzzle over what in my opinion are probably non-existent problems. For example, Salisbury seems to wonder how natural selection can account for the gene that causes Huntington's disease, which kills people in mid-life (i.e. post-reproduction). Although I can imagine a genetic scenario that could lead to the Huntington's gene being spread by natural selection, it is also quite possible that natural selection has nothing to do with it. The gene might simply have spread by chance (i.e. genetic drift). Likewise, Salisbury worries about how a selectively neutral mutation in cytochrome c can spread until it becomes fixed (i.e. present in all individuals of a population). Again, this is the domain of genetic drift, which becomes a dominant factor in small populations.

Salisbury might accuse me of spinning just-suppose stories--which I guess I am, since I haven't looked into the scientific literature concerning the evolution of these genes. However, the point is that once we release ourselves from explaining everything in terms of natural selection and turn to other established evolutionary principles, some otherwise perplexing problems evaporate. Moreover, scientists have devised various statistical tests for differentiating between natural selection and genetic drift.

2. Genetic relatedness. Before genes were understood to be coded by DNA, copies of which are inherited by offspring, evolutionary relationships were determined primarily by comparative anatomy. In the second chapter Salisbury uses a literary device to express his internal deliberations and pondering by putting arguments in the mouths of "the Biologist" and "the Skeptic." The Biologist discusses the relationships inferred by anatomy and the fossil record, but the Skeptic argues (at least twice) that anatomical similarities do not prove genetic relatedness. Inexplicably, the Biologist never points out the evidences of genetic relatedness! The closest we get is a brief treatment of an evolutionary tree generated from cytochrome c sequences in the fourth chapter. He writes:

The conclusion is that, because humans and chimpanzees have identical sequences, they must be closely related, while humans and higher plants must be distantly related, since they have the fewest sequences in common. Stories such as this are compelling and are among the most impressive and plausible evidences that an evolutionist can produce, which is not to say that an Intelligent Creator could not have designed things that way.

This is quite unsatisfactory. Genetic sequences contain treasure troves of evidence suggesting common descent and genetic relatedness, and by and large the inferred relationships match those that were previously determined by comparative anatomy. He may be correct (for now) that we cannot demonstrate a genetic relationship between us and other hominans (for lack of surviving genetic material to study), but if the genetic trail goes cold at Homo erectus, it gets rather hot again with chimpanzees and gorillas. A genetic relationship with a cousin implies a genetic relationship with a common grandparent, even if the exact identity of the parents or grandparents remain uncertain.

In summary, I think that The Case for Divine Design makes some interesting points that are worth considering. However, in the examples I have discussed, as well as some I have not, I think the book raises needless doubt as to why evolution is the central organizing principle of biology. Given the wide range of material that the book covers in so short a space, readers should use the book as a springboard rather than an ending point.

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Miller, Matzke, et al. Dissect ID Revisionist History

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005) was a serious blow to the Intelligent Design movement, and Brown University biologist (and active Catholic) Ken Miller played an important role as an expert witness for the plaintiffs against the ID claims. (If you are unfamiliar with the Kitzmiller case, or need refreshing, may I recommend this review article?) The Discovery Institute has found things to complain about the trial ever since (see the above referenced article), and lately they've attacked Ken Miller's testimony, particularly about 'irreducible complexity,' as "smoke-and-mirrors." This is not just a nerd-fight over history; the Discovery Institute and other ID/creationists are still at work--not doing science, mind you--and they would love for the public and education officials to think that the case was wrongly decided.

Ken Miller has now responded in a three-part guest post on Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom, and he is great--as usual. Part 1, Part 2 (I found this post particularly juicy), and Part 3.

Nick Matzke, who helped on the plaintiff's side, also responded with a lengthy but informative and entertaining must-read rebuttal (God of the Gaps...in your own knowledge. Luskin, Behe, & blood-clotting). Here is a money quote:

This is exactly the problem with ID/creationism – invoking God into gaps in knowledge is pretty troublesome, but creationists do something even worse. They insert God into gaps in their own knowledge, assuming, usually without even a vaguely serious attempt at a literature search (!!!), that whatever tidbits of biology they happen to have picked up represent the sum total of scientific knowledge on a topic.

And then for some icing on the cake, see While we are piling on Casey Luskin....

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Richard Lenski Hands Conservapedia Their Backsides

If you get any kind of a kick out of the science side of the culture wars, you'll want to see this. I recently drew attention to a 20-year E. coli experiment. Here is some quick background:

Richard Lenski, a new member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been growing E. coli for 20 years. His lab has a recent paper where they report that around generation 30,000 the bacteria gained the ability to grow on citrate. A defining characteristic of E. coli is their inability to get citrate across their membranes, but these bugs have evolved a way to do so. That's a very bare-bones description, so please follow the link in my original post.

This result is threatening to creationists who refuse to allow that random mutations can do anything but destroy. The yahoos at Conservapedia (i.e like Wikipedia, but without all the liberal bias, like science) had the gall to write Lenski and demand that he release his data (reminding him of his taxpayer support) for them to examine. Lenski responded with a polite letter that corrected some of their misconceptions, and suggested that they actually read the paper. The yahoos demanded again.

Lenski has responded again, and it's a doozy. I want to touch on part of it in another post, so for now I will simply urge you to read it.


Addendum: The correspondence back and forth is posted at RationalWiki.

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Intelligent Design: Context Matters

[This post is part of a series: (Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon.]

If an intelligent designer was involved in the creation of life, how might we know of their involvement? Certainly one way would be for the designer to publicly announce their involvement. But what if we only consider the world around us, how could we tell? Natural theology and its descendant, Intelligent Design, posit that complicated features of life that appear to have purpose bear the hallmark of thoughtful design. Darwin upset the applecart by coming up with a convincing way for apparent design to arise naturally, without recourse to intelligent intervention.

And here we come to a problem: science, which employs methodological naturalism, takes nature as its guide to reveal what nature is capable of. Leading ID proponents have sought to put a cap on the abilities of nature by asserting that certain features are 'irreducibly complex' or contain 'specified complexity.' They have sought to plant these conceptual flags on various biological features, not because any designer has specified direct involvement in the creation of those features, but precisely because such a designation is lacking. Only if the designer does things that cannot be done in the ordinary course of nature can his works be identified. ID proponents assert that nature as we know it cannot produce some of the things that are found--in nature. They justify their position by appealing to archaeology, forensics, and SETI, each of which are accepted scientific disciplines or ventures that seek to uncover the works of intelligent beings. At the same time, they deny that any knowledge about the designer, his methods, or intentions are needed to justify judging something found in nature as intelligently designed.

The problem is that archaeology, forensics, and SETI each operate with a large background knowledge, not only of what kind of things intelligent beings do, but of what kind of things nature does in the absence of organisms with intelligence levels approaching human. They look for the artificial, which is judged against the background of nature [1]. In my opinion, ID proponents have not yet produced sufficient justification for distrusting nature, and without a more thorough knowledge of the universe with which to make comparisons, science can only employ methodological naturalism to probe life's mysteries. Unless the designer decides to speak up in a clear and open manner, nature is all we have.

ID stands in contrast to the Book of Mormon, for which supernatural claims were made from the beginning, and for which scholarly apologetic arguments depend on knowledge of the circumstances of its production.

Notes:
1. For purposes of simplicity, I am not taking up the argument over whether human intelligence is itself a product of nature.

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(Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon

One component of the controversy over ID has to do with the scientific method itself. ID proponents would like to change science to allow supernatural explanations. As one who has followed, published on, and testified in court regarding the ID movement, Barbara Forrest has written,

Science requires testable hypotheses. Because conjectures about the actions of “designers” or other supernatural agents are not testable (at least, no one has yet developed a way to test such conjectures) the methodology of science, sometimes called “methodological naturalism,” limits scientists to the search for natural explanations of natural phenomena. Despite the historical fact that, several centuries ago, scientists abandoned as unworkable the attempt to explain natural phenomena by appeals to the supernatural, ID proponents argue, like earlier creationists, that modern science’s exclusion of the supernatural as a scientific explanation is arbitrary. In Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson argues that evolution is accepted by the scientific community only because scientists have made a dogmatic, a priori commitment to naturalism (Johnson, 1991).

It seems obvious to me that invoking acts of God to explain phenomena that we don't understand prevents obtaining deeper scientific understanding. Furthermore, such invocations have failed time and again.

Now a flashback: I remember, as a missionary, reading the preface to Hugh Nibley's Since Cumorah. Regarding the Book of Mormon, he asked,

How could anyone "grounded in naturalism, rejecting the supernatural" be anything but prejudiced in favor of naturalism and against the supernatural?

It seemed obvious to me that if you discount the supernatural from the beginning you will necessarily miss it. If the test is rigged from the beginning, how can it constitute a search for truth?

Given this contradiction, some might argue that either one must accept Intelligent Design along with the Book of Mormon, or reject them both. I disagree and in forthcoming posts I will present some of my thoughts on this issue.

Addendum: In response to comments below, I should clarify that for the purposes of this series, I am using the term 'supernatural' in a straightforward way--i.e. things unknown to science such as God, angels, etc.

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Other posts in this series:
1. The Book of Mormon and the Supernatural: Context Matters
2. Intelligent Design: Context Matters

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NRO, Expelled, and Dishonesty

(via The Panda's Thumb) -- John Derbyshire of National Review Online has written a column critical of the movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, wherein he laments the dishonesty of today's creationists and says that the movie is anti-Western civilization. A couple of money quotes:

My own theory is that the creationists have been morally corrupted by the constant effort of pretending not to be what they are. What they are, as is amply documented, is a pressure group for religious teaching in public schools.

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I think this willful act of deception has corrupted creationism irredeemably. The old Biblical creationists were, in my opinion, wrong-headed, but they were mostly honest people. The “intelligent design” crowd lean more in the other direction. Hence the dishonesty and sheer nastiness, even down to plain bad manners, that you keep encountering in ID circles. It’s by no means all of them, but it’s enough to corrupt and poison the creationist enterprise, which might otherwise have added something worthwhile to our national life, if only by way of entertainment value.

He also links to another NRO column by Discovery Institute fellow David Klinghoffer. I am not a regular reader of NRO, but this is not the first time I have read opinions of Discovery Institute fellows there.

Klinghoffer, as if to make Derbyshire's point, recently was shown to have quote-mined a historian, and in the linked column he either quote-mines or near-quote-mines Darwin three times. The second and third Darwin quotes are dealt with here and here, respectively.

As to the first: Klinghoffer says that Darwin thought morals came from natural processes rather than God and quotes him as follows:

We may, therefore, reject the belief, lately insisted on by some writers, that the abhorrence of incest is due to our possessing a special God-implanted conscience.

Read in context, Darwin makes the point that,

The nature and strength of the feelings which we call regret, shame, repentance or remorse, depend apparently not only on the strength of the violated instinct, but partly on the strength of the temptation, and often still more on the judgment of our fellows.

Darwin then relates examples of such peer-pressure, such as a man that felt compelled by duty to kill an innocent woman of another tribe. Darwin also notes that incest, which he refers to as an example of "real and great crimes," is often--but not universally--taboo, and that different cultures make different moral judgments. The offending quote then follows.

Now you could argue that Klinghoffer was correct; that Darwin saw morals as outcomes of natural processes. Fine. What is missing is that Darwin based his view in part on the behavior of humans. Indeed, Darwin might ask Klinghoffer, if "the abhorrence of [murder] is due to our possessing a special God-implanted conscience," why were the Nazis so successful at it?

Furthermore, if Klinghoffer looked further on in the chapter he would find passages like this:

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions.... This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion.

Or this:

The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals; but I need say nothing on this head, as I have so lately endeavoured to shew that the social instincts,- the prime principle of man's moral constitution - with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise"; and this lies at the foundation of morality.

Hitler probably missed those passages as well.

Klinghoffer concludes,

Yet it is surely of interest that, at the very heart of his message, Hitler appealed to Germans primarily as devotees of modern biological science. He could have framed his pitch in any terms he liked. He chose evolutionary terms. No one knows what he believed in his heart, if he had one. But we know what he judged would stir up fellow Nazis and ordinary citizens to commit themselves to his movement. In that, he judged correctly.

The Discovery Institute, too, knows a thing or two about framing its pitch in terms of modern biological sciences in order to stir people up.

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Scientific American on Expelled

The editors at Scientific American watched a screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and have posted their reviews. Surprisingly, associate producer Mark Mathus actually sought out the SciAm staff and brought the movie to them.

The reviews and the podcast are interesting, but what I really enjoyed was the spirited hour-long conversation between the SciAm folks and Mark Mathus. Mathus was certainly not a shrinking violet, and I give him credit for taking the heat, but I have to say that I really enjoyed editor in chief John Rennie. (Steve Mirsky was good too.)

Neither side was flawless, but I thought the propaganda-like nature of Expelled was made apparent. Listen and decide for yourself.

In other news, Expelled Exposed has gone live.

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Expelled Exposed

Have you been following the story of the forthcoming movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed?

Here's the short version: It's a documentary, hosted by Ben Stein, that has two major themes: (i) that "Darwinists" persecute and discriminate against anybody that questions Darwinian orthodoxy (i.e. espouses Intelligent Design), and (ii) that Darwin is basically responsible for the atrocities of Stalin, Hitler, and eugenics [1]. Last year a number of prominent science and evolution defenders were asked for interviews for the film under false pretenses, and now the film is being shown in a number of private screenings around the country. At one recent screening, biologist-professor-atheist-blogger PZ Myers (who is interviewed and thanked in the film) was denied admittance to a screening for which he had legitimately signed up. However, the rest of his party was allowed in, including Richard Dawkins, who apparently was not recognized. The filmmakers have tried to spin this ridiculous and rather ironic episode, but it remains ridiculous.

Anyway, the NCSE has set up a website, Expelled Exposed, that will be their official response page. For now, it is a collection of links to news stories and film reviews. I'll keep the link on the sidebar for a little while for easy reference.


1. Mormons were not immune to eugenic ideas. In fact, George Q. Cannon espoused such ideas before Charles Darwin or Francis Galton published their major works, and eugenics served as an apologetic argument for polygamy. See Eugenics at By Common Consent.

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Don't Mess [Up] Texas

It looks like Texas might be the next place for a food fight over intelligent design. Here's the sum up: the science director of the Texas Education Agency (a partner of the state board of education) was apparently forced to resign after forwarding an "FYI" email announcing a talk by Barbara Forrest. (Forrest, of course, was a key witness for the complainants in the Kitzmiller case in Dover, PA.) But beyond that, according to the New York Times:

The standards, adopted in 1998, are due for a 10-year review and possible revision after the 15-member elected State Board of Education meets in February, with particular ramifications for the multibillion-dollar textbook industry. The chairman of the panel, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist and Sunday School teacher at Grace Bible Church in College Station, has lectured favorably in the past about intelligent design.

As I understand it, big states like Texas can have a significant effect on textbooks used in other states. If you are a publisher of textbooks, who are you going to tailor your textbook to, Texas or Rhode Island?

For more reaction, see the NCSE.

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PBS NOVA: Judgement Day, ID on Trial

PBS NOVA will air a program on the Dover, PA court case from 2005 dealing with Intelligent Design in public schools. The program received a positive review in Nature. This case was a big loss for ID, and if you did not follow the case at the time, you should watch this program to see why. The program airs tomorrow--Tues, Nov 13--at 8 pm (check local listings to be sure), but will be available on the website for viewing as well.

Some ID proponents refused to participate. As the senior executive producer explains:

However, Michael Behe, Scott Minich, and other ID proponents affiliated with the Discovery Institute declined to be interviewed under the normal journalistic conditions that NOVA uses for all programs. In the midst of our discussions, we even offered to provide them with complete footage of the interviews, so that they could be reassured that nothing would be taken out of context. But they declined nonetheless.

In some sense, though, we do hear from both Behe and Minich in the program through our recreated trial scenes; the words that our actors speak are taken verbatim from the trial transcripts. And of course we hear directly in the program from lawyers for the defense—Richard Thompson, Patrick Gillen, and Robert Muise—as well as from Phillip Johnson, who is often credited as "the father of intelligent design." [italics added]

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Of Disbelief and Silliness

Philosopher of science, Ian Hacking, wrote an article in The Nation that reviews several recently published books on evolution/creationism/Intelligent Design. I liked this paragraph:

I have said nothing about the second sticking point for the anti-Darwin movement, that chance variation and natural selection have sufficed to produce the living world as we know it. It is an incredible doctrine. Darwin himself was pretty cautious about it. I respect anyone who says he cannot believe it. But that is where one should stay, in a state of disbelief. Once you start arguing against it, you end up being silly.

I regret that ID folks (and other creationists) have turned respectable disbelief into silliness.

He also describes another view, which I find attractive:

Leibniz proposed that the actual world is the one that combines the maximum of variety with the minimum of complexity for its fundamental laws. The "best" world, the world sought by the most intelligent designer, is one that maximizes variety in its phenomena and simplicity of basic law. Such a world has no place for a specific set of plans for the Arctic tern. The upshot is not attractive to those who favor intelligent design. It is in effect a proof that we live in a world of quantum-mechanical laws that are counterintuitive (to humans) but intrinsically simple--a world that, once these laws are in place, is then allowed to evolve out of a very few raw materials by chance and selection into unendingly complex patterns, including life on earth as we know it. It is a fact that you will get complex structures if you just let such systems run.

The wisest designer would choose the governing laws and initial conditions that best capitalized on this mathematical fact. A stupid designer would have to arrange for all the intricate details (the Arctic tern again) that anti-Darwinians eulogize, but an intelligent designer would let chance and natural selection do the work. In other words, in the light of our present knowledge, we can only suppose that the most intelligent designer (I do not say there is one) would have to be a "neo-Darwinian" who achieves the extraordinary variety of living things by chance. [italics in original]

God using simple means to bring great things to pass...I like the sound of that.

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HIV Denial

You may find this hard to believe, but there are people who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. In fact, some don't even believe HIV exists. A commentary in PLoS Medicine, "HIV Denial in the Internet Era," gives some basic background on this movement. In addition to their day jobs, Tara Smith blogs at Aetiology, and Steven Novella is the host of the great podcast, "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" (I've been listening for about a year and a half, now).

HIV denial is not uncommon among the leading lights of Intelligent Design. Of course, it would be a logical fallacy to say that because they are wrong on HIV, they are also wrong on ID. But I think it is suggestive of being a contrarian crank.

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Behe Picks Up Other End of Stick

Michael Behe, of Darwin's Black Box fame, has a new book out titled The Edge of Evolution. I have not seen it yet--and frankly, I doubt I will read it--but critical reviews have been coming in, which I will link to below. Apparently, the gist of the book is that, in addition to re-iterating 'irreducibly complexity', Behe calculates the probability of a malaria drug resistance gene arising and uses that as the standard by which one can declare a mutation to have been designed or not. Or something like that.

It has long been apparent that if the argument of design is to be taken seriously, then it must apply to pathogens and parasites as well. Behe apparently takes that step with this quote:

Here's something to ponder long and hard: Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely purposeful arrangement of parts. C-Eve's children died in her arms because an intelligent agent deliberately made malaria, or at least something very similar to it.

Well, at least he is consistent. (Of course, the designer of malaria need not be God; it could have been Satan. Take your pick. And welcome back to an age where diseases are caused by God's cursing or Satan's meddling.)

Anyway, here is some further reading:
Of cilia and silliness (more on Behe) - wherein Nick Matzke discovers the irony that malaria undercuts Behe's argument about the irreducible complexity of cilia.

Not for the faint of heart: the continuing dismemberment of Michael Behe - which contains links to a number of reviews.

See especially Sean Carroll's review in Science.

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Kitcher On Design

Our public library system has a used bookstore where they sell off extra books--for cheap. Fortunately we only recently found this out, or else who knows how much money we would have dropped at that place.

Anyway, I picked up Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosphy, which contains a number of short essays from a variety of authors (ancient and modern) on a variety of topics. One chapter is taken from Philip Kitcher's book Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. I encountered a different excerpt from his book previously, and I've been impressed with Kitcher's analysis. (I almost checked the book out from the library once, but it literally smelled bad and I decided that I could not abide it for bedtime reading.)

Kitcher's book was published in 1983, when 'creation science' or 'scientific creationism' was a prominent issue. However, some of it is just as applicable to Intelligent Design (or versions of it) as a purported legitimate science.

...if we take the idea of a single creative event seriously, we must view it as the origination of an entire system of kinds of organisms, whose needs themselves arise in large measure from the character of the system. ...The needs are not given in advance of the design of structures to accomodate them, but are themselves encompassed in the design [italics in original].

Perhaps a way of re-stating that is that one cannot separate the problem from the solution. If you say that our immune system is designed to defend us from germs, then you must also say that at least some germs are designed to kill us. Or, our atmosphere protects us from solar radiation--but why must there be solar radiation in the first place? Or--an example Kitcher brings up--why must ruminants have complicated digestive systems that require the help of bacteria rather than have the right enzymes to process cellulose in the first place? It is hard to get anywhere with such questions from a design perspective.

So we encounter the strategy exemplified by [Henry] Morris: Talk generally about design, pattern, purpose, and beauty in nature. There are many examples of adaptations that can be used--the wings of bats or "the amazing circulatory system," for example. But what happens if we press some more difficult cases?

...Since no plan of design has been specified, Creationists have available another all-purpose escape clause. But it is precisely this feature of Creation "science" that impugns its scientific credentials. To mumble that "the ways of the Creator are many and mysterious" may excuse one from identifiying design in unlikely places. It is not to do science.

In my view, this is not to say that God does not have any plans, it is just folly to try to merge the general plans described in scripture with the physical world, in a specific way, and call it science.

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