Thoughts in a Haystack: The Other White Meat

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The Other White Meat

There is an interesting essay, "When Cosmologies Collide," by religion writer Judith Shulevitz, in Sunday’s Books section of the New York Times (needs free registration). It is mostly a review of Eugenie C. Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism: (University of California, $19.95) and Michael Ruse’s The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard University, $25.95) but a bit more wide-ranging.

If Shulevitz is reporting accurately, Scott’s book is a straightforward explanation of why scientists accept evolution and why creationist arguments are bogus. Ruse’s tome appears to be more controversial and perhaps, therefore, more interesting.

Ruse supposedly posits the existence of what he unfortunately calls "evolutionism," a part of evolutionary thought which he claims reaches beyond testable science and has a metaphysical agenda to address questions of origins, the meaning of life, morality, as well as the future of H. sapiens and the role we have in all of that. The term is unfortunate because it is one that creationists have already appropriated for use in a far broader sense than Ruse probably intends and because its kin-word, "evolutionist," is a valid term for an evolutionary biologist in use among scientists and, consequently, has a meaning far from either the creationists’ or Ruse’s usage. At the very least, because of Ruse’s choice of terminology, we can expect some juicy quote mines from Ruse’s book to be circulated.

That is not to say that Ruse doesn’t have a point. There certainly are people who treat science in general and evolutionary theory in particular as the universal solvent of human moral and philosophical issues. But I doubt they constitute much in terms of either raw numbers or as a percentage of working scientists. Without naming names, these people may have, ironically, an exaggerated impact on some sectors of society precisely because they are attacked by the religious right. That very opposition increases book sales for these advocates, a fact certainly not lost on them, resulting in even more of the same, with it all ending in something rather like a feedback loop.

I won’t even get into Ruse’s reported attempt to cast this conflict in the light of premillennialism and postmillennialism, an idea that strikes me as so bizarre that I’ll only believe it if I see it (pretty much guaranteeing I’ll buy Ruse’s book and maybe contribute to a slightly different feedback loop). In any event, Shulevitz promises us that Ruse takes the reader on a sweeping tour of evolutionism and proto-evolutionism, starting with the Old Testament. It has been my experience that Ruse is much better at the history of ideas than he is at the philosophy of science. If Shulevitz is telling us true, there should be pleasures enough in Ruse’s book to justify the price.

All of which said, those parts of the article were not what really caught my attention. It was this part from the very first paragraph:

In the merely controversial part of his decision last month banning "intelligent design" from biology classes in Dover, Pa., Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design, a theory that attributes the complexity of life to supernatural causes, amounts to religion, not science. In the part that really drove some of the theory's supporters crazy, he pronounced it "utterly false" to think that evolution is incompatible with faith in God. An editorialist on the Web site of the Discovery Institute, a research group that promotes intelligent design, declared that the judge had no right to tell him what to believe. "This is like a judge assuring us that it is 'utterly false' that Judaism is inconsistent with eating pork," he wrote.

Going to the Discovery Institute’s blog, Evolution News & Views, from December 21, 2005, we find that the original complaint by Robert Crowther is as follows:

Perhaps most startling and ironic about the case was Judge Jones' adoption of the testimony of John Haught, a theologian who testified for the ACLU. Haught gave his opinion that ID is religion, not science, but he quickly assured the court that there is no incompatibility between evolution and religion. Judge Jones picked up on this assurance and at the end of his opinion stated:

"Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."

This is like a judge assuring us that it is "utterly false" that Judaism is inconsistent with eating pork. "After all," a judge might say, "A distinguished rabbi testified that true Judaism no longer emphasizes dietary laws, but focuses on the ethical duties we owe to one another." Alarm bells should go off when a judge believes that he can resolve hotly contested issues about what someone's religion does or does not permit.

Cowther conveniently ignores where the Judge states that evolution is not "antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general," something that is daily demonstrated by millions of believers who nonetheless accept science. Many mainstream denominations have no problem recognizing that evolutionary theory is not antithetical to a belief in God. Perhaps the most striking example of this of late is The Clergy Letter Project which has collected over 10,000 signatures (rather putting to shame the Discovery Institute’s list of 400 scientists who either don’t understand science or who are political naïfs) on a letter that reads, in part:

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator.

Cowther’s analogy is literally standing on its head. It should read (if Cowther had the slightest intent of fairly representing the decision) "This is like a judge assuring us that it is "utterly false" that eating pork is inconsistent with a belief in a supreme being or religion in general just because many Jews think it is." Somehow, I think most of Cowther’s target audience would accept that contention. Of course, such a scenario would arise only if a Jewish organization cooked up a political movement to surreptitiously stop the serving of pork in any public school cafeteria . . .

For a final irony, Casey Luskin, The Discovery Institute’s peripatetic spokesperson and general shill, previously denigrated an ACLU FAQ making the same point as Judge Jones did after seeing the evidence. According to Casey:

[I]t is not clear why the ACLU makes this point because nothing in Pandas (or the Dover Policy) indicates that evolution is anti-religious. Perhaps I am ignorant about some of the facts of the case where the Dover School Board stated evolution was anti-religious. I have no idea. But as far as I can tell, I can find nothing indicating that it characterizes evolution as anti-religious.

If Casey really is ignorant of why the Judge would make this point, maybe he should walk down the hall and have a little talk with Robert Cowther.

Of course, this is just another example of the DI speaking out of many sides of its mouth in an attempt to satisfy the numerous interests it is trying to keep under the "big tent," while also maintaining a facade of reasonableness for the sake of the general public.

Consistency is one early casualty of a lack of commitment to speaking the truth.

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 7:11 AM