Keeping
Science & Religion Separate in Schools: The Vigil after
A Free Public
Forum, May 17, 2006,
·Co-sponsored by
The University Research Magazine Association: www.urma.org; and The Florida State University Office of Research: www.research.fsu.edu; in conjunction with
The Tallahassee Scientific Society:
www.tss.eng.fsu.edu
Transcription
provided by Elizabeth Allen,
[crowd noise]
Deborah Blum (moderator): Welcome. Welcome to
tonight’s forum and panel discussion, “The Vigil after
For those of you who are arriving late, there is an
overflow room for this meeting; it’s room 1200. There are people outside this
room who can direct you there. For those of you in this room, and that room,
the last half hour of this meeting is dedicated to questions from the audience.
We have microphones at the back of these two aisles, so that if you want to ask
a question, you need to go to those microphones in order to be recorded, in
order to be part of the webcast, and in order to be heard in the overflow room.
For anyone who is in the overflow room now listening to me, if you think of a
question you want to ask, at that point you should come to this room and line
up at one of the microphones.
With that, I’m going to introduce our very
distinguished panel, (and) give a brief statement of introductions. This
particular forum is designed something along a Science Friday-type format, that
is, it is unrehearsed. I will be asking our panelists questions, and they will
spontaneously come up with brilliant answers or be booted off the panel.
[laughter]
Unidentified Panelist: American Idol.
[laughter]
Deborah Blum: Right. We’ll be voting intermittently.
So, what I want to (do is) begin by introducing them
from my left here and just going down (the row).
John Haught is a distinguished research professor at
Eugenie Scott. Eugenie Scott is the executive director
of the
[applause]
Deborah Blum: Now, I’ve lost my next
thing. Robert Pennock, who – I’ve just managed to scramble up my introductions
here – Robert Pennock is a professor of philosophy and engineering and computer
science and science at
Who’s next? Dean Travis. Dean Joseph Travis is dean
of the
Michael Ruse is a professor of philosophy, and –
like everyone on this panel really – (is) one of the country’s leading scholars
in exploring the connections and disconnections between science and religion.
He is a fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. He was instrumental in the 1980s’ creation
science trials in helping the courts define or establish a definition for
science. He is the author of last year’s The
Evolution-Creation Struggle and of a book to be published in July, Darwinism and its Discontents. And I
should mention that he and Dean Travis are collaborating on the Harvard Companion to Evolution, which
they’ve promised me will be out next year. Or which we hope will be out next
year.
[laughter, applause]
Deborah Blum: And finally, last but not
least: Professor Steven Gey is the David and Deborah Fonvielle and Donald and
Janet Hinkle Professor of Law at
And I hope you’ll join me in welcoming …
[applause]
Deborah Blum: … a very distinguished
panel. I’d like to begin with a quote,
actually … “It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the
plan of creation, unity of design, etc. and to think we give an
explanation. The day will come when this will be seen as a curious illustration
of the blindness of preconceived opinion.” The person making that statement was
Charles Darwin, in 1859, in the first edition of On the Origin of Species. And although the focus of our panel
tonight is obviously a little more recent, I thought I would begin, as they
say, in the beginning. Almost 150 years have passed since
In a time when science claims enormous power over
our lives from medicine to meteorology, it seems entirely logical that it must
be taught well, and that it cannot be taught well without teaching its
fundamentals, including Darwinian evolution. And yet we don’t always make our
decisions according to logic.
It’s worth noting that within 10 years of the
publication of On the Origin, Alfred
Russell Wallace, whose independent study of the theory of natural selection was
the catalyst for Darwin’s publication, had decided that mechanical evolution
was not enough, that it could not adequately explain human intellectual
development or address questions essential to moral development. Wallace
proposed that an intelligent designer might be required for those aspects of
evolution. In 1868,
It’s the balance of fact and faith, physics and metaphysics, that yet confounds us. Again and again, since
the days of Darwin and Wallace, we struggle, not always successfully, to
resolve that conflict. So we get Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board last
fall in
In the Dover case, which is the focus of our, or at
least the launching point for our discussion tonight, U.S. District Court Judge
John Jones issued a ruling saying, in small part, that the trial had yielded
overwhelming evidence that intelligent design is a religious view and not a
scientific theory, and was, therefore, unconstitutional, a clear violation of
separation of church and state.
Dr. Scott, I’m curious as to your assessment of the
Eugenie Scott: Oh yeah, there’s no
question that Kitzmiller v. Dover definitely threw sand in the gears of
efforts to get policies like Dover’s requiring the teaching of intelligent
design to be passed. Of course, the Discovery Institute, which is the major
think tank for intelligent design, did not want the
Deborah Blum: Professor Pennock, you were
a witness in the trial. Did you (yourself) see this sending, from a very small
school district in
Robert Pennock: This was a trial that, I
think, from the beginning everyone recognized had national import. It was
covered nationally; it was covered internationally. I mean this was a big, big
story. It’s often the case that the turning place on which these stories happen
is a little town. The Scopes trial occurred in a little town, and big ideas can
sort of be shown there. The intelligent design group may not have wanted this to be the particular place, but
they had wanted some court case, and they had been looking from the very
beginning. The whole strategy had been crafted to try to get around the
problems that the earlier strategy of creation science had stumbled into. It was clearly a religious view, and
they thought that they had a strategy that would stand up in court. And they
were almost cocky about it beforehand. One of the main intelligent-design
leaders, William Dembski, sort of boasted that should it ever come to trial, he
would bet a bottle of single-malt scotch that it would stand up against the
constitutional test. And he owes us a bottle of scotch now.
[laughter]
Deborah Blum: And he hasn’t delivered.
[laughter]
Robert Pennock: Yeah, he hasn’t delivered
on that either.
Deborah Blum: Actually, you raise a point
that I think is an interesting one, and it certainly was true in Dayton, Tennessee,
although there were a lot of complicated reasons for Dayton, Tennessee. Do you
see this as being driven more by small, rural districts than urban districts –
if you looked at Altaone, California, or some of the other school districts, do
you see the drive toward ID being an urban versus rural kind of effect in the
same way that some have argued is the real story rather than red state, blue
state, urban versus rural politically?
Eugenie Scott: Yeah, yeah, for years I’ve
been saying this: that it’s not so much a demographic; it’s not so much a
regional problem. The creation and evolution issue is really a demographic
problem. It occurs in suburbs and small towns rather than in big cities. You’re
not going to see it in
[laughter]
Eugenie Scott: …but you can find …
Robert Pennock:
Except for Phillip Johnson.
Eugenie Scott: Well, yeah, we have Phil,
but he’s not going to influence the school board and that’s the issue. But you
don’t have to go very far outside of the Bay Area into the Central Valley of
California to find these issues cropping up. And it’s because of the
homogeneity and religious conservatism of these smaller communities. And the
South and the Midwest are chockfull of small towns, which is why we tend to
have more problems there than we have, say, in
Deborah Blum: Do you agree with that,
Professor Haught? Do you see a complicated theology in this country? I mean, we
tend to say “religious” or “religious right” as if it’s a monolithic thing. Do
you see this being driven by small-town rural conservatism, say, versus …?
John Haught: Well, I’m not an expert in
the demographics of it, but it certainly seems to me to be the case that that’s
happening.
Deborah Blum: And did you, when you
assessed the
John Haught: Well, I see the whole issue
as a problem that arises partly from inadequate science education in this
country mixed with inadequate religious education, and when you put the two
together, it’s a rather noxious mixture.
[laughter, applause]
John Haught: So this is only the
beginning. I hope that it excites people enough to start thinking about just
exactly what science is and that’s a major problem – what scientific
explanation consists of, what the limits of science are. And before we can have
a meaningful discussion of the relationship between science and religion, we
have to do what the medieval philosopher said: We have to distinguish in order
to relate, and much of the conversation on this issue, it seems to me, betrays
a kind of conflation of all explanation into one explanatory slot. And if
science is filling that slot for some people, then there’s no room for theology
or religion. If religion fills that explanatory slot, then there’s no room for
science. So to me, what needs to be done is to develop a taste for what I would
call “layered explanation,” by which I mean that almost everything in our
experience admits of a plurality of levels of understanding, of levels of
explanation, and that would be a starting point. I won’t develop that now, but
that’s where I would start.
Deborah Blum: But I would like you to
explore one point you raised slightly more in depth and that’s the idea of an
adequate religious education. How would you define that and how, in our society
given the restrictions of teaching religion, really, would you facilitate that?
John Haught: Well, I think in the
Catholic schools, for example, we learn very early not to take the Scriptures
with scientific, literal presuppositions, and that is something that I think is
going on in the mainline churches all over the country. But it’s not going on
everywhere. For many people, the whole story of the meaning of their existence
is something that’s deeply connected to a scriptural text. I’ve seen this not
just in our country but elsewhere. I just came back from a trip to
Deborah Blum: Professor Ruse, you were an
expert witness at one of the earlier and very influential trials looking at
creationism in the schools in the
Michael Ruse: Well, I’m glad you asked
that question. That means I’m not quite sure I’ve got a good answer to it, so
….
Deborah Blum: You could answer another
one …
[laughter]
Michael Ruse: Before I get to that
question, can I disagree quite strongly with some of the comments made by the
earlier panelists?
Deborah Blum: Yes.
Michael Ruse: I really think that this
evangelical, biblical literalism is more a phenomenon of the South and the West
than it is of the North and say the Pacific areas. I agree that you’re going to
get an urban-rural divide; there’s no question about it. But to say that
there’s no intelligent design in
[laughter]
Michael Ruse: So … speaking with some
feeling, I really think that the divides of the, let’s say the divides of the
Civil War era are still with us on this. And I think this leads actually into
the question that you asked me, because I personally don’t think that this
whole debate about evolution versus religion is really so much a question about
gaps in the fossil record or fruit flies or the sorts of things that Joe Travis
does as a scientist. I think that this, these are litmus tests if you like, for
deep moral, social, cultural divides that we’ve got in this country, that we
saw, for instance, in the last election. And for that reason, although clearly
intelligent design is different from
scientific creationism, a lot of intelligent designers, in fact, take on board
a lot of evolution; they certainly don’t think that the earth is only 6,000
years old. So there are differences, but nevertheless, I see this as a movement
which is a face for an anti-naturalist, anti-modernist, anti-Enlightenment
movement which is deeply opposed, I would say, to the gifts that Enlightenment
has given us. For instance, understanding that men and women are both human
beings, that men are not superior to women, that
heterosexuals are not superior to homosexuals and that whites are not superior
to blacks. And I really feel that the whole intelligent design-creationist
movement is, in fact, a manifestation of what I can only describe as a
pre-Enlightenment movement and moral values “you make me sick.” This is not the
moral values of Jesus of Nazareth.
[applause]
Eugenie Scott: Deborah, can I make a quick
clarification …
Deborah Blum: Would you like to respond to
that?
Eugenie Scott: I wasn’t saying that there
are no intelligent design supporters in
Michael Ruse: They might even be in this
room, Eugenie!
Eugenie Scott: I would not be at all
surprised.
Michael Ruse: But they’re very nice.
Eugenie Scott: Oh yes, I get along fine.
The point that I was making had to do with the political pressures on elected
school board members and the fact in, that I will defend, in large communities,
large cities, religious conservatives have a lot tougher time getting the upper
hand, whereas in small, more homogeneous communities, they do (get the upper
hand). So I think we understand each other on that; I don’t think we’re greatly
different. And I don’t … I’m sure you … just (be)cause
this is going to show up on a creationist blog tomorrow, I’m sure. I don’t
think you’re saying that all the creationists are racist and homophobic, etc.
etc. I don’t believe that’s actually what you said, right?
[laughter]
Eugenie Scott: [laughing] Professor Ruse?
[laughter]
Eugenie Scott: Because I think that would
be a gross generalization, which one could not make without better empirical
data.
Deborah Blum: Uh, do you want to respond
to that, Professor Ruse?
Michael Ruse: Well, you know, I’m sure if
we looked long and hard, we will find examples of creationists who are not
homophobic, you’re quite right. But, if you read, for instance, the mentor –
the éminence gris behind the intelligent design movement is the retired law
professor from Berkeley, Phillip Johnson – and if you read his books, you know,
it’s the fossil record in the first chapter, and then he settles in to what he
really wants to talk about: anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-capital
punishment, and dear God, cross-dressing. I think he thinks that every
evolutionist goes home at night, you know, Larry Abele and Joe Travis go home
at night and say, “Dear, I’ve had a hell of a day. Can I have a dry martini,
stirred not shaken, and is my pink chiffon back from the cleaners?”
[laughter; applause]
Deborah Blum: I feel that we should give
Dean Travis a chance to respond, but also …
Michael Ruse: Did you want me to explore
this theme further?
Joseph Travis: Pink is not my color …
Deborah Blum: But also, Dean Travis, what
I wanted to do was to return more to the issue of the so-called science of
intelligent design. Taking it out from, reducing it from, the really
fascinating large, social, cultural issues we’ve got going here, back down to
science for a minute, do you feel that this is more directed to an attack on
science, a lack of knowledge of science – I mean, did you have a sense of
science education going the wrong way in this trial?
Eugenie Scott: Who are you addressing?
Deborah Blum: This is to Dean Travis,
sorry.
Joseph Travis: Yeah, in terms of
intelligent design as an attack on science?
Deborah Blum: Right …
Joseph Travis: It’s an interesting
phenomenon – intelligent design, to my eyes, has two components. The first is
an interesting question, which is: Some features of organisms are so
complicated that natural selection can’t explain them. And at some level that’s
a scientific issue – is that true or isn’t it? And the job of the scientist is
to answer that, much as we might have said: “Gee whiz, the Rutherford atom, the
Deborah Blum: So, if I’m following you,
you’re saying that a basic misunderstanding of what science is opens this door
to allow people to propose a supernatural alternative.
Eugenie Scott: Well, it’s more than that,
because the intelligent design people know very well that science as it is
practiced today – as Rob very clearly identified in his expert testimony –
science as it is practiced today restricts itself to natural cause. They are
absolutely explicit about trying to change that, I mean they, it’s really true,
they want a revolution in science. They want to change
science so that for certain kinds of things—they call it origin science, which
translates to those aspects of science that have implications for their
particular religious interpretations that they don’t like; that’s origin
science—for certain aspects of science, you have to allow in the supernatural
and still call it science. And that would be truly a science stopper, because once
we allow ourselves to say, “Gee, this problem is so hard; I can’t figure out how it works – God did it.” Then we
stop looking for a natural explanation; and if there is a natural explanation,
we’re not going to find it if we stop looking. So the scientific community is
very strongly on the side of retaining what Rob defined as methodological
naturalism, restricting science to explanation through natural causes and not
letting in theistic science, as the intelligent design people call it.
Deborah Blum: I want to take a slight
bend and then come back to science, because I wanted to ask Professor Gey (a
question), while we were still talking directly about the
Steven Gey: Well, how they’re
responding is that they’re depressed, because this was a massive failure of the
theory when it came into conflict with the First Amendment. And first of all,
you have to understand why ID is what it is. ID is what it is because, in a
way, it’s a classical example of evolution at work, because ID is creationism
that evolved in response to a series of legal decisions, which said
“Creationism isn’t going to fly under the First Amendment.” And so the first
generation of these statutes said, “You can’t teach evolution,” and the Supreme
Court in 1968 said, “Well, that’s not going to fly, under the First
Amendment.” So then it evolved into a
kind of equal time sort of statute that said, “Well, if you teach evolution,
you’ve got to teach creationism.” And the Supreme Court in 1987 said, “Well,
you can’t do that either.” And so it evolved again into what we now know as ID.
And ID is simply creationism stripped of all the details but one, and the
problem is the one detail that they leave in the theory is the very detail that
makes it unconstitutional, because the detail they leave in the theory is God.
And so, they’ve got a real problem here.
And you have to understand also that the science, from
the legal perspective, the science comes into play not directly but indirectly,
because the claim that this is science really comes into these cases as a
defense to the claim of the, in this case, the parents in Dover, that this is
religion. And so the parents say, “You’re teaching religion to our kids in
class; that’s a violation of the First Amendment.” And their response is, “Oh
no, this is not religion; this is science.” And so all the
science is really part of their defense. It’s not really part of the
case directly at all. And how they’re going to respond to this, I suspect, is,
well, two ways: One way is: Do it again. They’re going to re-litigate this in
another jurisdiction, with another set of judges that are more amenable to
their perspective on the world and hope for a better result, in which case,
they’ll have a conflict in the circuits and they’ll take it up to a Supreme
Court that they hope is more friendly toward their
side. And by the way, they haven’t got that yet, but they may have it soon if
you lose one of the five justices that I suspect is still in what would be a
majority to strike this stuff down. So I think one response is to just
re-litigate this again in another circuit, maybe the circuit that we live in,
the 11th Circuit, because the Cobb County case is pending right now
in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And there is a very good
chance that we will lose that case on some ground or another, and if we lose
that case, then depending on what the court says, you may actually have a Dover
and a non-Dover, and their perspective is going to be, “Oh see, it was just
some wacky judge in Pennsylvania; he got it wrong.”
Deborah Blum: Does everyone here know the
Steven Gey: Yeah, the Cobb County case
is a case being litigated in Georgia right now in federal court, in which the
Cobb County School Board put a much less specific sticker on biology books in
Cobb County that basically said, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact, and we
urge students to critically analyze this when they think about it.” It’s much
less specific than the Dover sticker because the Dover sticker referred
specifically to intelligent design, specifically referred students to a book
called Pandas and People, which is
sort of an ID tome, 60 copies of which were donated anonymously, sort of, to
the Dover School Board. The
Deborah Blum: That’s really helpful.
Professor Haught, we hear a lot, in fact, of the religious right and the
enormous political influence of conservative Christianism. We hear far less of
the enormous influence of moderate theologians. There was, in fact, organized
out of
John Haught: There are probably many
reasons, but what stands out to me is the failure of the media to recognize
that between the extremes in this debate there has been, ever since Darwin
himself, a whole spectrum of alternatives in which theologians have, in a
sense, given thanks to Darwin for enhancing our sense of the grandeur of
creation. Charles Kingsley, for example, a contemporary of Darwin, famous
Anglican theologian, wrote to him pretty soon after the publication of Origin of the Species, in effect,
thanking him for that, because he says this ultimately enhances the authority
of the Creator, that a Creator who can make things that can make themselves is
much more impressive than a Creator who is pulling things like puppet strings,
as it were. And that’s only one example; there are many examples of theologies
of evolution that I’ve come across in my own studies to which most people have
not been exposed. You don’t read about these in the (literature), even in the
literature of the churches themselves, and in many cases the suburban pulpit really
ignores this whole thing too. So in many ways it’s a failure of our seminaries.
And a point I try to get across to seminary presidents everywhere: You’ve got
to start teaching seminary students to get into this whole issue of science and
religion, or we’re just going to perpetuate this whole problem, ad infinitum.
Deborah Blum: Do you get any
receptiveness to that, I mean …
John Haught: Yes, in principle, and I
think, but most people just simply have not been frankly exposed to these more,
I would call them “urbane” interpretations of theology in an evolutionary
world.
Deborah Blum: Dean Travis, I’d like you
to address then, the sort of comparable scientific side of this issue. Many
people have mentioned the reluctance of scientists to take on some of these
conflicts directly, and I was recently, in the last few months, talking to a
reporter from
Joseph Travis: I think the reluctance to
enter the debate is a function of two things: First of all, scientists, by and
large, are nerdy little people who have achieved …
[laughter, Joseph Travis shrugs]
Michael Ruse: … in pink chiffon …
Joseph Travis: Exactly, achieved
tremendous success …
Deborah Blum: In a nice way.
Joseph Travis: Oh, harmless, nerdy little
people …
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: Charming, loveable, nerdy
little people …
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: Endearing, nerdy little
people, who have actually achieved a great deal of success by being very focused on very narrow things. And they’re very much at
home talking to other people like them.
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: Heaven knows, as a dean and
a department chair, many of my colleagues are not even at home talking to
students – feel very uncomfortable, have a great deal of difficulty.
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: So, first of all,
scientists themselves have been, in a more serious vein, scientists themselves
have gone through a process of natural selection that has …
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: …that has molded them into
being very good at communicating with one another, but perhaps less good at
communication to those who are not scientists. As a result, many well-meaning
scientists feel, recognize that they really are ineffectual at this. There’s
also a second problem, which is the fact that many scientists feel that there’s
no reward in it for them. There’s no reward in being a public promoter of
science, which is very striking, because
Michael Ruse: And you’re getting a B+ so
far …
[laughter]
Joseph Travis: I don’t know if the TV
camera picks up the strings [gestures
between himself and Michael Ruse]. But I think there’s a
reluctance on the part of many scientists to engage in the public debate
because they feel as though it’s not worth their time. You know, you’re only as
good as your last grant, your last publication in Genetics, and this is just, well, “My chair is going to give me an
official concern on my evaluation if I do this sort of thing.” And I think
that’s a real concern, even if it’s not well-articulated by many scientists.
Michael Ruse: Yeah, I just have to jump
in here, because you’re absolutely right about this. I mean, the simple fact is
that if an untenured faculty member comes to his chair and says, or her chair,
and says, “I’m going to spend the summer working to fight ID,” the answer is
going to be, “Well, don’t look for a good third-year review.” And I think we
can do something about this. I really think we must. I’ve seen, since I’ve been
a teacher over 40 years, I’ve seen an unbelievable sea change in the
seriousness with which we take teaching. When we started, when I started, when
Larry Abele started, we know that, you know,
people paid lip service to teaching, but by and large it went nowhere. Now,
people really take teaching a lot more seriously. Now I’m not saying that
everybody’s going to be a good communicator at the public level, but I think that
we’ve really got to make big efforts here, and, as you say, reward, encourage
people who’ve got those abilities to do that, and recognize that this is an
important part of being a university professor.
[applause]
Deborah Blum: Professor Pennock, would you
like to also respond?
Robert Pennock: Yes. Just to give one
additional reason for why scientists would decline the invitation to
participate in
Deborah Blum: And they didn’t do that in
the 1980s, when this issue went to the Supreme Court?
Robert Pennock: There was a little blip of
interest there, but not really in the same way that we’re seeing now. And I
hope that this isn’t a blip, I hope that this becomes a sustained change.
Steven Gey: You know there’s also,
you’ve got to keep in mind again, the way that the standard is changing. The
reason they didn’t participate to a great extent in the ’60s and the ’80s, when
the two previous cases came up, was because they didn’t have to. Because,
again, those cases were litigated primarily on secular purpose grounds, which
means the main objective of those cases was demonstrating the intent in the
minds of the legislatures passing the statute. It is going to be different
soon, because we have a different Supreme Court now. The Court has been
politicized in a way that it hasn’t been in my lifetime, and you have basically
a 5-to-4 split on the Court on these issues. The crucial fifth vote is Justice
Kennedy; Justice Kennedy does not like the secular purpose component of the
present analysis. If you get another case within the next two, three, four,
five years, I strongly suspect that that part of the analysis is going to be
dropped out, and what you’re going to be left with is basically a standard that
says, “It is illegal to coerce, on religious grounds, anyone in a public school
classroom.” What that’s going to mean, in terms of the practical litigation
strategy, is that we’re going to have to go into these cases and demonstrate,
as we did effectively in Dover, that this is not science, that the only thing
it is, is religion. But what you’re going to have to do to demonstrate that is
to put the Ken Millers of this world and the Rob Pennocks of this world on the
stand, and they’re going to have to communicate to an audience comprised
largely of lawyers. And you know, bless our hearts, we’re a loveable breed, but
….
[laughter]
Steven Gey: … but we’re scientifically
illiterate. I mean, the reason we’re in law school instead of medical school is
because we don’t know anything about science.
[laughter]
Steven Gey: So, you’re going to have to
communicate to a group of people who are genetically predisposed against
anything scientific. And you’re not just going to have to talk to the general
public, you’re going to have to talk to us, and that’s worse. But this is
something that is going to have to happen. And I think what you’ve seen in the
recent couple of years, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the National Academy of Sciences have been much more aggressive in
getting involved in these cases and putting their name on the letters and
petitions and briefs, and saying, “We think this stuff is bogus.” They have to
do that, and they have to do it aggressively and relentlessly, in every single
case.
Deborah Blum: Did you want to respond
also, Dr. Scott?
Eugenie Scott: Yeah, because the National
Center for Science Education is the organization that focuses 100 percent on
this issue, and so to some degree – I have a very grassroots perspective on
what’s going on, and I, in support of my fellow scientists, the backbone of the
anti-evolution movement, at the grassroots, in Dover, and in states where
there’s legislation, and other states where there are community problems – is
the scientific community. There’s no question but that the first people to step
up to the plate are scientists and teachers. Scientist participation in this
issue is absolutely necessary. Scientists are the ones who can stand up there
before the school board and the state legislature or wherever these problems
arise, and make the point, “This is what science is. This is what creationism
is. Creationism is not science. We should be teaching evolution. We should not
be teaching these religious views as science.” And scientists are the only ones
who can legitimately make that claim.
That is necessary; that is not sufficient because,
frankly, this is not – the creation-evolution problem is not – a problem that
can be solved by throwing science at it. You can pile the science higher and
deeper, but you are not going to change the position of a school board member
if that school board member believes that the majority of the people in the
community want to have evolution disclaimed or dismembered in some other
fashion or some sort of religious view taught. In addition to the scientific
community, we absolutely depend on the civil liberties community, the sort of
things that Steve Gey is talking about. The law has kept these subjects
largely, well, it’s kept these subjects from being
taught by statute. I assure you there is plenty of creationism being taught
around the country. I hear stories from teachers. But the faith community needs
to step up to the plate in this as well, and here my friend, John Haught, and I
are in complete agreement. We need to have the mainstream clergy being much
more explicit about explaining mainstream Christian theology to the people on
the other side of the pulpit, which largely is that, “Yes, evolution happened,
we’re (in agreement with) science in that regard, but it is part of God’s plan;
God is involved. You don’t have to have this dichotomous view of either
evolution or God: Either evolution happened and everything is materialistic, or
God had nothing to do with it. It’s possible to combine the two.” But scientists
have taken an important role, they continue to take an important role, and –
just one last point – the most important scien-, the most important role
scientists can play in this controversy is to teach evolution better to those
undergraduate students in their classes. Because those students are the ones
who are going to grow up to be schoolteachers and teach the next generation of
high school and junior high students about this topic or not, as the case may
be. And those students are going to be college graduates who will be people
voting for school boards, or serving on school boards, or running for state
legislatures, and unless we have a – I’m echoing Bob’s, or Rob’s, point here –
unless we have a better educated citizenry in terms of nature of science and
the particular science of evolution, we will continue to have this problem.
So I’m always haranguing university science faculty:
The buck stops with you. Clean your own house first. Think about how you can
bring evolution into every single week of your biology semester, regardless of
whether you’re teaching biochemistry, molecular biology, organismic biology,
whatever it is. You can think of how you can bring the principle of common
ancestry into that topic. And once you do that, your students, by the end of
the course, will be saturated with the idea that, “Yeah, living things had
common ancestors, I get it now. Oh, that’s evolution.”
[applause]
Deborah Blum: Why don’t we talk a little
more generally then, about the state of science education? I’m inclined to also
bring in K-12 as well as university undergraduate. And I thought I might run
through first one of these obvious science literary,
science literacy surveys for
“How
long does it take the earth to orbit the sun?” In this survey, 54 percent got
the right answer: They said one year; that was up from 50 percent the previous
year.
Next
question: “Is this true or false? Lasers work by focusing sound waves.”
Fifty-five percent got that wrong; 45 percent correctly said, “No, light
waves.”
“Antibiotics
kill viruses as well as bacteria.” Fifty-one percent got that correct (and)
said, “No, antibiotics don’t affect viruses.”
“The
earliest humans lived at the time of the dinosaurs.” Forty-eight percent said
no.
And
finally, “Human beings developed from earlier species of animals.” Fifty-three
percent said no.
Dr.
Scott, I don’t think we can account for this solely due to a complicated
attitude toward teaching evolution. So how do you rate the teaching of K-12
science in this country?
Eugenie Scott: Well, it, the teaching of
K-12 science in the
Deborah Blum: Do you agree with that,
Dean Travis? That the buck stops at the way universities, colleges of arts and
sciences train their graduates to go out and spread the scientific word?
Joseph Travis: Absolutely, because we, as
I think we’ve said, the students in the classrooms today are the citizens who
vote tomorrow. They’re the ones who actually elect the people who make the
policy decisions. And if we’re not sending people out with the knowledge that
lasers focus light and not sound, that the earth takes a year to go around the
sun, we’re doing something really wrong. Now, one of the things I think we do,
I personally think, we do wrong is when we teach evolution as a course, we tend
to teach it to biology majors. So when I, I taught it for 20 years here, and I
often would have science education majors in the same class as the biology
majors, and I failed to appreciate at the time that those two groups of
students probably need to know it at different levels. That is to say, the arcane
population genetics details that might be appropriate for a
biology major are completely inappropriate – to a significant extent,
not completely – for a science education major. And so we don’t do a very good
job, I think, of teaching evolution as a process to the students who are not
biology majors or deep science majors. And I think that’s where our failing
begins. But I couldn’t agree more – the buck stops here.
Michael Ruse: But it stops with us, too,
Joe. I mean, speaking as someone from the other side of the campus, the
humanities side, I think we’ve got a job to do, too. Because if what I’m saying
is right, that this is not just an issue of science, but an issue, a deep issue
of culture, and I think it is. I’m, obviously, I’m 100 percent in favor of
better evolution teaching. That’s partly why, mainly, completely why you and I are doing this volume for Harvard, because
that’s what we want to do to hit good high school students. But at the same
time, I think that we philosophers and people in departments of religion,
people in English, these areas, we’ve got to help America to frame – what shall
I say – a moral vision, which I think, we’re not getting across at the moment.
I mean, to think that moral values – what Karl Rove was pushing in Kansas in
the last election – I mean it’s a travesty, it’s heretical, and I think that
we’ve got to do much more to show people that moral values [are] not th[ese] narrow, simplistic solutions: marching to Iraq,
support Israel because you’re in fav-, you think it’s bound up with end times,
and these sorts of things. And I think that if you do that, then we can start
to whittle away at this sterile, biblical literalism. And part of whittling
away, of course, is getting away from Revelations, and Daniel, and Genesis, and
starting to look at the Gospels.
Deborah Blum: Professor Ruse, how would
you have a state-funded university teach morality?
Michael Ruse: A
state-funded university do what?
Deborah Blum: Teach morality.
Michael Ruse: Well, I don’t know. I’ve
been doing it for, well, for 41 years now. I don’t think that teaching
morality, I mean, it violates the distinction between church and state, for
instance. I don’t think that in pushing a morality, I’m doing that at all. I
think that in pushing morality, I try to find the common values that we’ve got
in our society, that women and blacks and gays are equal human beings, that not having socialized medicine is deeply
morally wrong, and I think that what we’ve got to do is …
[applause]
Michael Ruse: … what you’ve always got to
do with these things is you reach out to your students with the best that we’ve
got in the past, to try to speak them, to their concerns and needs, to give
them the tools, so that, frankly, they’re going to do a lot better than we’ve
done in our generation.
Deborah Blum: Professor Pennock, you also
are a philosopher of science. Would you agree that the best way to approach
this then is in a full and comprehensive sense, rather than teaching science
better here, teaching morality and ethics over here?
Robert Pennock: So, I teach in a unit
[whose] mission statement involves showing the relationship between science and
the humanities. And that’s a mission that I think is crucial to this debate. I
mean, we’ve heard it here already: It’s not the one or the other. Both of these
things have to be done simultaneously for the reasons we’ve already heard. One
is the abysmal state of science understanding in the country, but more than
that, this particular issue has to do with the culture wars; it has to do with
values; it has to do with the meaning of life. If you take a look at
creationist writings – and this goes all the way through from creation science,
you’ll see exactly the same things in intelligent design writings – in the end
it has to do with a worry that somehow if you accept evolution, it’s equivalent to thinking that there’s no meaning and
purpose and … it’s an existential worry here. That’s something that has to do
with philosophy and values and religion and so on. And no amount of evidence
that you present scientifically is going to be sufficient if someone thinks
that they’re going to lose the meaning of life. So somehow you’ve got to be
able to present both sides, so that you can show that there is value and
meaning and beauty in science, but also the kind of values that you have on the
other side, the moral values, the religious values are not lost by appreciating
that value in science. So I think if you try the one without the other, you’re
bound to lose. This has to be something where there’s cooperation across the
board.
Eugenie Scott: I agree…
Robert Pennock: And there’s actually, it’s
sort of interesting I think, that one of the things that’s really come out –
not just of Dover, but really the escalation of creationist activity – is the
waking up of scientists and science educators and now hopefully others as well,
about the need to do this. I mean, I’m certainly seeing a change now, where
people are starting to say, “How can we do this better? How can we incorporate
not just: ‘here are the facts to learn’, but ‘let’s understand why scientists
accept these facts.’?” I mean, otherwise, it sounds like something you’re
supposed to memorize and believe, as opposed to understanding the methods of
science. Similarly, on the humanities (side), I mean, there’s much more
interest now in talking about these things. So there’s a sense in which we
should thank the creationists for sort of bringing us together and to wake
people for the need to do that. It’s like in
Deborah Blum: Professor Haught, would you
like to respond to that?
John Haught: Yes, I completely agree
with almost everything that’s been said tonight, and just to pick up on some
points that Rob made, I think it would be helpful if the scientific community,
the university community in general, would be perhaps a bit more sensitive to
what is at stake for so many religious people in this whole discussion. And
that means that, we have to recognize that for many of them, their most cherished
belief – that there’s a providential God who cares for the universe – a lot of
people simply can’t reconcile that immediately with what they hear in biology
classes, as well as the sense of values that we’ve been talking about. And I
think the reason for that is, I think we all have to admit that, historically,
our sense of the divine, our religious sensibilities, as well as our ethical
sensibilities were sculpted historically, primarily in a pre-evolutionary,
pre-scientific world that was essentially hierarchical in organization –
vertical, static – so that you have a scale of values, a great chain of being
running from matter, through plants, animals, humans, angels, up to the divine.
And there was a sense in this hierarchy that some things are more valuable than
others. There was a sense of discontinuity between and among the levels, and
for many people, when they first look at the Darwinian story, of the
evolutionary story of life, they’re going to ask,
“Where is the scala naturae, the scale of values?” What evolution seems to
present is a picture of nature in which matter existed dominantly for billions
of years, and then grudgingly gave rise to life, and there’s no real, sharp
discontinuity between matter and life, between life and mind, between mind and
values. And in that setting, it’s very possible and easy for many intellectuals
to look upon values as nothing more than what we humans project back onto what
seems to be an indifferent universe. So it is, in many ways, it is a question
of, “How are we going to ground values in a post-Darwinian world?” So, that is
the issue for theology and evolution, but it’s also something that I think
science needs to be aware of.
Deborah Blum: That’s a good point, and it
reminds me that although we have some very rational reasonable scientists on
this panel, there are outspoken scientists – I’m thinking of Richard Dawkins as
sort of being the standard-bearer for this – who take a much more hard-line
position, and would in fact say, “You have to choose – you have to choose
evolution or faith.” And they’re louder – again, in the same way that some of
the right-wing conservatives are louder – than you all are, normally. How does the scientific community deal with Dawkins or even, I’m
thinking of another philosopher of science, Daniel Dennett’s most recent book,
which was pretty hard-line. Would you like to address that, Professor Haught,
again?
John Haught: Yes, it’s, what has
happened is that evolutionary explanations are extremely powerful and extremely
robust, and it’s understandably natural that we would want to take evolutionary
explanations as far as we possibly can. But as you just suggested, it’s
something I can’t go into too great detail right now, but there are prominent
scientific thinkers and writers, who (themselves) have, unconsciously I think,
have folded their evolutionary science into a kind of worldview that goes by
different names. The name I would give it is scientific naturalism, which is
the view that nature is all there is, and, therefore, there simply cannot, a
priori, be any other explanations than purely scientific ones. So that means
that if you’re a scientific naturalist, when you look at the world of religion,
you’re going to have to look for purely natural explanations for why we are
religious, for why we are ethical and so forth. And all I would, I mean, I
think it’s important to push evolutionary explanations as far as we possibly
can, but we have to be careful of when an evolutionary science makes the kind
of gradual slippage into a kind of materialist or naturalist world view. And
the irony of this is that it sabotages and subverts the whole mission of
science education when in a culture where 90 percent of the people are
theistic, some of the most readable and popularized presentations of biology,
in effect, tell them, “Logically, you have to be a materialist or an atheist if
you’re really going to understand the science.” So it’s very important that the
scientific community, the science education process, become aware of the
distinction between scientific method, or what Eugenie called methodological
naturalism and metaphysical naturalism, which is a world view that nature or
matter is all there is.
Michael Ruse: John, you know, you’re just
too nice to these people. …
[laughter]
Michael Ruse: I mean, you know, your
Christian niceness keeps coming out. Let me speak as a non-believer – Dennett
and Dawkins are absolute bloody disasters for our side at the moment. That what
they’re doing is they tie atheism, hard-line atheism and Darwinism just like
this. Every time they open their mouths, the creationists, the ID people,
cheer. These people make no effort whatsoever to look at what religious people
are saying, to try to have any understanding of how
the average American mind works. They call themselves brights,
and everyone else then, I take it, is a thicky, starting with Joe Travis. I
mean, you know, I defend to the death their right to say this, but they are not
helpful; they are deeply not helpful. I mean, Dennett’s recent book starts out
by talking about parasites in the first chapter and the first paragraph, and in
the second paragraph is, “and religion is one too.” Until we evolutionists make
a real effort to reach out to American culture, to try to understand what
motivates average people in
[applause]
Deborah Blum: One of the things that we
hear – and this is really for the whole panel – up on the Wisconsin tundra
where I live – is
that after
Eugenie Scott: At NCSC we talk about the
pillars of creationism, which are three. These are three categories in which
any creationist argument can be fit. One: that evolution is a
theory in crisis – scientists are giving up on evolution – well, [that]
comes as a surprise to the science faculty. Two: that science and Christianity, excuse me, evolution
and Christianity are incompatible and that’s one they work at a lot. And the
third one is the one you’re talking about, and this is the fairness argument,
or its various permutations. “Well, it’s only fair to balance evolution with
something.” First it was balance evolution with creation science, and as Steve
pointed out, that didn’t work in the courts. And then it was balance evolution
with intelligent design, and that is not working out well in the courts either.
And now it’s balance evolution with the evidence against evolution, the
strengths and weaknesses of evolution, a critical analysis of evolution or
“teach the controversy.” Whenever you hear language like that, what you are
hearing is, “balance good science with bad science,” which doesn’t strike me as
a pedagogically very good way to go in a country which needs a great deal more
improvement of science education, rather than deliberately mis-educating
students. But it’s incredibly powerful in a country like the United States,
where fairness and town hall meetings and being able to speak your mind and
everybody has to get their day in the sun and so forth. This is an enormously
powerfully, culturally powerful argument to make and we have a tough time in
the science community, because the answer that we automatically come back with
is, “but science isn’t a democratic process.” We cheerfully discriminate
against those ideas that don’t work – it’s not like this is a meri-, this is a
true meritocracy in the sense that those ideas, explanations, theories that
really do explain nature are the ones that last and the ones that we, that
trickle down into high school. But teaching something that is completely
outside the canon, so to speak, just because it would be fair to do so in the
minds of some individuals who don’t like a particular
subject matter, is hardly defendable pedagogical policy. But make no nevermind
about it; this is an extremely powerful argument, and in the scientific
community, we need to have better ways of addressing this than we have. “Teach
the controversy,” says the Discovery Institute and that’s a very snappy phrase,
and it resonates. If you dissect it, what they mean by “teach the controversy”
is, “teach students that scientists are arguing about
whether evolution took place.” Well, we don’t argue about whether evolution
took place; we argue about the mechanisms of evolution; we argue about the
patterns of evolution.But it’s a category error to say that because we argue
about details of evolution, we are, therefore, doubting
whether living things have common ancestors. But it’s a powerful, powerful
argument, and we don’t have any good, snappy responses to that.
Deborah Blum: Good point. Professor Gey?
Steven Gey: Yes, first of all, this is
an argument that’s been around for a long time. If you go back and read the 1987
opinion from the Supreme Court dealing with creation science, it was a 7-2
case, one of the two dissenters was Justice Scalia, and Justice Scalia’s
perspective on the case was, “Well, it’s not really an unconstitutional thing
for them to teach this, because it wasn’t really religiously motivated at all;
maybe they’re just stupid.”
[laughter]
Steven Gey: “Maybe there’s selection, maybe they’re just dumb. And there’s nothing
unconstitutional about being stupid. And so, if they’re just teaching stupid
stuff, okay, that’s fine; it’s maybe a bad idea, but it’s not
unconstitutional.” And it’s true. I mean, if what it amounts to is them saying
things and us responding by saying, “They’re just stupid,” then we lose the
case, because to win these cases, under the constitution, you have to
demonstrate that what they’re doing is religious in nature and, therefore, a
violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Now, the way you do
this – the way you litigate the new generation, if that’s where they’re going,
which I suspect you’re right, I suspect that’s exactly where they’re going –
the way you litigate this stuff is, I suspect, not that differently than you
litigated KM. And in fact if you look at KM, if you go and read the decision in
KM, it’s a thumbnail description of all of these arguments and the responses to
them, because in KM there was testimony about the various empirical claims that
the ID folks are making about the flaws in evolution. And the judge sat there
during the testimony and listened to it, and said, “It’s just wrong. It’s
embarrassingly wrong. And it’s embarrassingly wrong because of the standards
that they used to get to those conclusions.” If you look at the testimony of
Michael Behe for example, Michael Behe was led down the garden path by Eric
Rothschild, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, and Eric got him to admit
first that you really had to change the definition of science from natural
explanations for natural phenomena, to broaden it to include supernatural
explanations for natural phenomena. And Eric said, “Well, that’s an interesting
definition, and under that definition then, astrology is science.” And Michael
Behe thought about that for a second and said, “Yeah, that’s right.” Okay …
keep talking. If that’s where you’re going, if that’s what you’re going to say,
and if you’re going to raise these arguments, the logical conclusion of that to
a judge that’s not already predisposed in favor of ID is, “Look, something else
is going on here, other than a legitimate discussion about scientific disputes.
This ain’t science; this is something else, and the only other something else
it can be is religious, religion.” And frankly, they know it, we know it, the
judges know it, and after a day or two of testimony by the likes of Behe, everybody’s
going to know it. And I know that from just talking to reporters who covered
the trial and had no scientific background, had no legal background, but were
called up for comment on the trial and would say, “You know, that guy was just
an embarrassment.” Yeah … so, the answer is, it is going to make it tougher to
litigate the cases because they’re hiding the ball deeper and deeper and
deeper, and what we’re going to have to do it again, as a lawyer who litigates
this stuff and writes briefs for the National Academies of Science on this, and
various other groups – you’re going to have to help me out here, you’re going
to have to give me scientific testimony and scientific explanations that can
communicate these ideas clearly to laypeople, or the category beneath that,
which is lawyers.
[laughter]
Steven Gey: You’re going to have to
help me do that, all right? But it can be done, and KM, I think, gives us the
model for doing it. But it’s going to be more expensive; it’s going to be
harder, frankly, if you’ve got a hostile judge. That’s going to make it an even
bigger problem.
Deborah Blum: Professor Pennock?
Robert Pennock: Yeah, I just want to say
one other reason that this new strategy of not mentioning intelligent design
and instead talking about teaching the arguments against evolution and things
of that sort … did appear in the
Eugenie Scott: But that’s exactly why it’s
going to be tried – because it doesn’t look like you’re saying, “Go forth and
teach creationism.” It’s a backdoor way of slipping creationism in. So there
are going to be school boards around the country who think, “Oh good, this is
our way of teaching creationism. We’ll just teach the evidence against
evolution.” Because students think dichotomously – they think there’s either
evolution or creationism. Disprove evolution; what’s the default? So you don’t
have to call it creationism; you don’t have to call it intelligent design. You
just prove to students that evolution is crappy science and they themselves
will conclude, “Well, therefore God did it. Therefore special
creation.” It’s a very clever strategy and it’s going to be very tough
to deal with, because in order to convince a judge of this, as Steve has
described, you really have to go into the whole history of this movement, which
is what they did in Selman v. Cobb County, the textbook sticker case
that Steve mentioned. The judge actually has a very nice discussion in there –
he listened to the testimony and went off and read a bunch of law review
articles which traced this “evidence against evolution” approach, this
dichotomous “disprove evolution and creationism wins by default,” and was
convinced that the “theory not fact” disclaimer sticker in Selman and Cobb
County was really a way of bringing creationism in through the backdoor. But
you have to be able to get a judge who’s able to recognize that. And then, like
Steve said, make a very careful case. It’s, you know, the ante keeps getting
raised; it doesn’t get any easier.
Deborah Blum: So I think it’s clear, if
we listen to the panel, that no one thinks that
Mark Hessen: Good evening. Can you hear
me?
Deborah Blum: And we’ll begin over here.
State your name and let us know your question, and I’ll repeat it up here if
it’s difficult to hear.
Mark Hessen: Alright, my name’s Mark
Hessen. I have two children in the public school system right now, and I am a
creationist and I do acknowledge, and I believe most informed creationists do
acknowledge that natural selection and mutations do exist, they have been
proven scientifically. However, the going from lower life forms to higher life
forms, that’s where we have a problem, the genetic information – I’ve never
seen or heard of any sound evidence to show that there’s a
new genetic information added to the gene pool to create new species or
highly complex life forms. And I would like to know, particularly Dr. Scott, if
you acknowledge that there are problems with that – evidence where there’s
actually new information being added to the gene pool to provide higher li-, or
to increase a process of higher life forms.
Eugenie Scott: What I believe you are
referring to is the concept of the created kinds, in which you can have
variation and natural selection within a kind, but it is impossible to go from
one kind to another; there’s no common ancestry of kinds. That’s ….
Mark Hessen: Actually I believe there’s,
it provides for changes within species or within kind, but not to create a new
kind. And also, the Second Law of Thermodynamics also seems to support …
Eugenie Scott: Well, that’s point two.
We’ve got to deal with one point at a time here. Your statement that there’s no
way that new genetic information can be formed, I’m afraid, is simply wrong.
There are, there’s quite an extensive literature in genetics – and I’m sure Joe
could elaborate on this and give you some good sources for it – showing how new
genes can arise by a variety of different, a half a dozen or so different
methods, including duplications and translocations and a variety of things like
that. We have experimental evidence of this, and we have observational evidence
of this. But the big issue, I think, for most creationists with whom I’ve
conversed and discussed this issue, is the inability
to visualize “kinds” of organisms – which are more than species, as I understand
it from the creationist point of view – as having common ancestors. But yet,
the evidence we have from so many different sources of information –
comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, the biochemical similarities and
differences, the fossil record, lots and lots of different sources of
information – allow us to make this inference. And evolution is an inference;
it is definitely an inference – we infer common ancestry from all these
different sources of information. But there’s no reason, from what we
understand about genetics or other areas of biology, that we cannot make that
inference on very solid grounds. And we do.
Mark Hessen: So you don’t acknowledge
that there’s a loss of genetic information through these mutations?
Eugenie Scott: No. And it is actually a
way that new genetic information can be introduced into the gene pool.
Deborah Blum: You also wanted to respond,
Professor Pennock.
Robert Pennock: Yeah. This is actually one
of the most common arguments and especially characterized within the ID
movement, although not distinct to them, it was made by creation science before
that, that you can’t get, through natural selection and random mutation, new
information. Where’s it come from? How do you get complex, functional traits?
And this is something where you can do experiments and make measurements and
see it happen. So some of the work that I do and – not just me, but many folks
do – with what’s called evolutionary computation, which essentially takes that
Darwinian process, Darwin’s Law, and implements it in a computer and lets
computer viruses randomly mutate, as they self-replicate, have them compete
with one another and be subject to natural selection. Essentially, it’s
Deborah Blum: Dean Travis?
Joseph Travis: Your question is a good
one, because as Rob points out, one of the early criticisms of
Deborah Blum: We’re going to move on to
this gentleman here.
Arthur Washington: Yes, I like your last
comment, Dr. Travis. There’s something that I’m concerned about. I’m Arthur
Washington from
Joseph Travis: That’s an interesting
question. Are we losing them because we don’t give them the depth necessary to
appreciate what’s going on? Or are we losing them because we don’t give them
positive examples that they can understand? And that’s a dilemma. One of the
things that’s hard for me to wrestle with in my own statement, and you point
this out, so much of the new and very exciting evidence is at the molecular
level, at the genomic level. And it’s very hard, not impossible, but very hard
to communicate that to a group of students who really didn’t do well in high
school biology and are still struggling to understand some of the fundamentals.
It’s very difficult to communicate that. My own approach has been to use
different examples and to use, rather than the example I just used at the
molecular level, the novel morphological features, and the transformation of
morphological features, because even students even at the more basic levels
understand the structure of bones and the structures of muscles and ligaments.
And I usually tell them, “Look, if you’ve eaten a fried chicken and can pick
out the bones, and you’re sure it’s not a rat, then I
can give you some really good examples that will motivate you along.” But it’s
a good point, I wrestle with it, and therefore I don’t end up, or I end up
perhaps not portraying the true power of the evidence, but I have to figure out
where do I compromise between losing them to tales they don’t understand and
perhaps not giving them the full power of the evidence. That’s a tough
question.
Deborah Blum: That’s a good answer. Over here?
Unidentified Questioner: My question is for the two scientists on the panel.
Basically, I’m wondering if you can discuss the collision probability of,
basically, let’s give something with a very high Stokes-Einstein diffusion
coefficient, let’s say a hydrogen atom, two hydrogen atoms, in a primordial
soup on the order of 10 to the ninth cubic kilometers and then extrapolate that
to the complexity of three billion base pairs, 200,000 genes, 40,000 proteins,
and discuss your calculation within the context of the entropic contribution to
the free energy of this process.
Eugenie Scott: What on earth are you
talking about?
[laughter]
Unidentified Questioner: Thank you.
Eugenie Scott: This sounds very much like
something from Kent Hovind’s web page. I mean, is
this, are you, is your point that evo- that the origin of life is incredibly
improbable, therefore…
Unidentified Questioner: My point is that you know
I’m not disputing, you know, I’m not disputing the evolution, but what I am
disputing is that it doesn’t explain, it still doesn’t explain the origin of
the species.
Eugenie Scott: Oh, what, the origin of
species?
Unidentified Questioner: Yes. I would like to see I,
I challenge…
Eugenie Scott: What’s your understanding
of species?
Unidentified Questioner: I challenge any one of the
scientists to…
Eugenie Scott: Species are a dime a dozen;
species are all over the place. Why are you having a problem? Speciation theory
is a whole separate component of evolutionary biology, and it explains how
isolating mechanisms can arise when genetic contact between populations is cut
off.
Unidentified Questioner: I’m not arguing that.
Eugenie Scott: And that is how you get new
species, through those kinds of…
Deborah Blum: I’m not sure what your
question is either. Can you either state it more clearly, or we’re going to
move over here?
Unidentified Questioner: I’ll take that you can’t
answer it.
Deborah Blum: No, I think that you didn’t
ask it.
Unidentified Questioner: Yes, I did.
Another Unidentified
Questioner:
[barely audible – calling from the audience] He’s asking what is the origin of
life? Can you prove the origin of life?
Eugenie Scott: No, that’s not what he’s
asking ’cause I …
Deborah Blum: Sorry, we need to get you
on the mic. This gentleman believes you’re asking what the origin of life is.
Unidentified Questioner: I’m asking for someone to
put a single-celled organism into a test tube; it doesn’t even have to be 10 to
the ninth cubic kilometers, the volume of the primordial soup,
Eugenie Scott: Oh, pass.
Unidentified Questioner: …put it in a test tube and
make a human out of it.
Eugenie Scott: I’m sorry, but …
Unidentified Questioner: Thank you.
Deborah Blum: No, thank you.
Eugenie Scott: …but that would not prove
or disprove evolution in the slightest.
Deborah Blum: Okay, over here.
Pete Dunkleberg: Hi, I’m Pete Dunkleberg, and
I’m a member of Florida Citizens for Science, and I guess some of the questions
so far, illustrate Dr. Travis’ point, and some of the rest of you, we could use
more science education. If I could help out just a teensy bit here, you know,
on the question of information, there is no quantitative definition of
information that you can apply to a genetic string that only allows mutations
to decrease. You can clearly have a mutation that increases it if you apply any
of the quantitative definitions of information. So that’s not really a problem,
and you didn’t answer the questions about the, “Oh, what about the Second Law
of Thermodynamics?”
Deborah Blum: Right, I think …
Pete Dunkleberg: We don’t have a chance to go
through any equations right now,
Eugenie Scott: [quieter] That’s why I didn’t answer …
Pete Dunkleberg: …but since we know that evolution is a process
that goes on around us all the time, if it did violate the laws of
thermodynamics we would just have to say to the physicists, “Well sorry
fellows, that’s not a law after all.” Let’s see here, I guess I’d better get to
a …
Deborah Blum: Question.
Pete Dunkleberg: …question pretty soon here.
[laughter]
Pete Dunkleberg: I was going to mention that the whole
evolution-creation struggle obviously relates to power of different church
groups and power of different religious groups in society. In other words, it’s
a question of politics and church versus church politics. And it would clearly
be a big coup of certain church factions to get their theology taught to
everyone in school as science by teaching bogus science. And, do you agree, any
of you, that this is a church versus church politics issue of different
churches struggling for power? And in the future, might a panel such as yourselves include someone whose field is church politics?
Deborah Blum: Do you want to touch that
one, Professor Haught?
John Haught: No, I don’t really want to,
but …
[laughter]
John Haught: Let me just tie the last
two questions together. The earlier question was about how to explain the
origin of life and this question too, I think, admits of a similar type of
response, and this is a good example of what I was talking about earlier. We
need to develop a sense of explanatory pluralism, that there can be a plurality
of levels of approach to any particular phenomenon, including, say, the origin
of life. From the point of view of physics, you know, you’re going to talk
about it in terms of thermodynamics, self-organizing properties of matter; all
of that enters into the explanation of the origin of life. If you’re a chemist,
you’ll talk about the, such things as the bonding properties of carbon with
other atoms. If you’re a biochemist, you’ll talk about RNA cycles, protein
replication, all
sorts of things like that. And recently, you can bring in another science,
astrophysics. If you ask Martin Rees, the Royal British Astronomer, to explain
the origin of life, he’ll say we can’t hope to explain the origin of life until
we go back and look at, what he calls, the six numbers that had to be
established right at the time of the big bang and made it probable for
evolution to come about. And if you’re Harold Morowitz, you’ll talk about the
origin of life as one of 28 different chapters in the emergence of the
universe. And my view is, let’s push these explanations as far as we can. They
don’t overlap; they’re incommensurate in many ways, and if you’re theologically
oriented, you can accept all those explanations as being accurate, and you
don’t have to look upon it as the more robust scientific explanations become,
the less significant theological explanations would be. For example, you could
take all those explanations, and in principle at least, make them compatible
with the idea in religion and theology that there’s a generous principle,
ultimate reality, that wants the universe to emerge in a spontaneous way, in a
manner compatible with rich diversity. The earlier questioner was a little bit
disturbed about whether science is going to undermine the idea that theology,
that God, is interested in a diversity of life, but you don’t have to see con-,
you don’t have to see science as in any way competing with these fundamental
religious positions. And you should not try. Second, this is my last word on this, we should not try to insert theological explanations
at any of those levels where scientific explanation is going on. And all of
this would be acceptable if we could just relax and accept the possibility that
there could be many, many levels of understanding of the causal ingredients
that enter into the explanation of almost anything that happens in our
universe.
[applause]
Deborah Blum: Over here.
Wade Young: Yes, I, my name is Wade Young. I am a Catholic Christian. I do believe in
science. I also believe in evolution. My faith tells me that it is okay to
believe in that; it has always told me that. And I have a daughter who is in
school and is well-educated in science, and I hope one day she’ll be a
physicist. I would like to ask the speaker if I could say a quote, since at the
beginning you quoted from
Deborah Blum: Is it a short quote?
[laughter]
Wade Young: It’s a very short quote.
Deborah Blum: All right.
Wade Young: This is from Roger Bacon,
who I believe is, he was a Franciscan who taught at
Deborah Blum: Professor Haught?
John Haught: Well, just a brief word. I
think that a lot of people are unaware of the fact that historically, in the Middle
Ages for example, there were many people, and then of course there was Roger
Bacon, who instructed theologians to let experimentation, to let science, push
natural explanations as far as they possibly can. These people, long before our
own time, were aware that it’s not the business of theology to come in and
intrude into the work, the good work, the ongoing work of science. But if
theology should do anything, it should encourage science to push natural
explanations as far as they possibly can. And I’m not sure that the
Enlightenment is the cause of the problem we have today. But what can happen
is, and what has happened is, that some people have discovered that natural
explanations are so powerful that they seem to render superfluous any, at any
point, any invocation of the idea of divine wisdom as somehow underlying the
universe. But when that jump takes place, you’re no longer doing science;
you’re into philosophy; you’re into your own worldview. So the worldview of
scientific naturalism is, I think, inevitably going to conflict with the
worldview of religion. But I don’t want to mistake that conversation with a
real and important and enlivening conversation between science and theology.
Eugenie Scott: Yeah, and I’d just like to
underscore that because I am one of those scientific naturalists. I am a
materialist in my personal philosophy, but I don’t believe that science compels
that conclusion. I believe that science is an equal opportunity substratum for
religion or any philosophy you want to come up with – and I think Jack would
agree with me here – there’s a very … we can learn a phenomenal amount about
the natural world by applying this methodologically naturalistic approach that
we call science, by restricting (ourselves) to natural cause even when it’s
really tough. One of the things scientists get very used to saying is, “I don’t
know yet.” And you might have to wait before you can explain some phenomenon
until you develop better instrumentation or other theories or something. And
sometimes you just have to say, “I don’t yet know how the bacteria flagellum
evolved.” You don’t come to the conclusion that, “Because I don’t yet know,
it’s unexplainable.” But I think that the basic idea that because science is
incredibly powerful, because we have explained so much through science, it is
not unreasonable to take from that the conclusion, “Therefore, there is no
God.” It’s also not unreasonable to take from that conclusion that, “Science
says nothing about the existence of God.” Science does not compel you to a
naturalistic or a non-naturalistic
conclusion, and I think that is the mistake that people like Dawkins make. They
believe that there is this necessary tie, but even someone who disagrees with
Dawkins philosophically can agree with him on the nature of science.
Deborah Blum: Over here.
Tom Clorick: My name is Tom Clorick. I
have a question about a slightly different angle on the relationship between
religion and science. And I don’t have anyone I’m addressing it to, so, whoever
is interested, I’d be interested in everyone’s response. There have been some
scientists who have made a pretty good effort in the direction of trying to
explain religion with their scientific skills. I’m thinking about David Sloan
Wilson, who has looked at religion as an adaptation of a group which has
conferred selective advantage to groups, so there’s basically an evolution, and
religion is something which has been good for humans in that regard. And then
I’m thinking of Pascal Boyer, Religion
Explained, who looks at, a little bit more at the psychological mechanisms
that we all share as humans which tend to make us
religious creatures. And both of those books, I was struck by how these
scientists were so respectful of religion, when I was through reading, I was
left wondering, which church do they go to? You know, there was a love of their
subject matter – what my question is, is what place might this have in bringing
some rapprochement, or resolving some of the tensions or enlightening us about
the nature of religion and science?
Deborah Blum: Does Darwin’s Cathedral bridge the gap?
Michael Ruse: Yes, can I speak to this?
Because, in fact, this is a topic which is first raised by David Hume,
actually, in the 17th century, 18th century rather, in
his Natural History of Religion. And
Hume lays out sort of a natural course of how he thinks religion develops,
which incidentally, was very influential on Darwin in The Descent of Man; he’d read Hume and studied him carefully. And
Hume, and Darwin following him, says, “Of course, the fact that I give a
naturalistic explanation of something doesn’t tell you absolutely in any way
whether it’s true or not. You’ve got to have independent arguments for this.”
And I think that this is very true. I mean, the fact, for instance, that if I
see a truck bearing down on me and I hop out of the way and you say, “Oh, well,
you don’t [know] that the truck really was there because, you know, you’ve got
it through your evolutionarily acquired characteristics, your eye and these
sorts of things.” I say, “Yes, but it doesn’t mean to say that the truck didn’t
exist.” And I think that you could use exactly the same argument with respect
to religion. Now, some people, and we’ve mentioned Dennett earlier, some people
have a rather different twist on this, because Dennett starts with the belief
that religion is not true and then what he wants to do is give an evolutionary
explanation, which is to show how we could be such fools to be deceived by
religion so much. And of course, this is why he gets into his parasite and
likens religion to being like the liver fluke and something like that. But
Dennett of course is doing a rather different argument; he’s not disproving
religion through evolution. He’s already, if you like, assuming or disproving
religion and then going in that way. And I think it’s a very dangerous argument
to go the other way [and] just simply say, “Ah well, because I’ve given a
naturalistic explanation of something, therefore, this shows that it’s false.”
I mean, I think Ed Wilson makes this mistake in On Human Nature, and as I say, Hume two centuries before was right,
but I’m not surprised because Hume tends to be right on all the important
issues.
[laughter]
Tom Clorick: But I didn’t get the sense
that either one of those authors were at all approaching religion from a
scientific viewpoint, had any thoughts that they were somehow weakening
religion or disproving it or anything of the like.
Deborah Blum: I’m going to ask Professor
Haught if he’d also address this issue.
John Haught: Well, let’s take the
question: Why are we religious or why do we have a tendency as a species to be
religious? I think it’s important to listen to what the evolutionists say on
this, and I have no trouble answering a question as long as we allow for a plurality
of levels of explanation. At one level, yes, I think we are religious because
religion has proven to be adaptive from a Darwinian point of view. Or if you’re
a neo-Darwinian you might say that, “What’s going on in religion, is that genes
are getting into the next generation.” As long as you don’t say that’s all
that’s happening. I mean, you can maintain all this and still, at the end, say,
“I’m also religious because I’m being addressed by a great mystery to surrender
myself to something of ultimate truth, goodness and beauty.” So it’s possible,
we should never have to say, “It’s Darwinian selection rather than some (explanation) addressed by the divine.” But that’s
what happens, on both sides of the issue. And my definition of reductionism is
the suppression of explanatory pluralism. And religious people can be just as
reductionist as scientists here, whenever they say, “No, it’s God, rather than
natural processes, that are involved in our being religious.” Let’s allow room
for all levels of understanding, and I think we’ll have a richer understanding
of our world.
Deborah Blum: Folks, we’re out of time. I
realize that there are a fair number of you up here that yet have questions,
and perhaps if you want to come down and ask the panelists directly, they’d be
happy to answer them.
[laughter]
Deborah Blum: But …
[applause]
Deborah Blum: Thank you for a terrific
panel; it was a pleasure to be here.
[applause]
[crowd noise]