Tuesday, March 28, 2006

 

God's Publicists?

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There is an interesting article by Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian’s Education section entitled "Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins." After discussing the festschrift being published for the 30th anniversary of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and the publicity attending Daniel Dennett’s book tour for his Breaking the Spell, she states:

The curious thing is that among those celebrating the prominence of these two Darwinians on both sides of the Atlantic is an unexpected constituency - the American creationist / intelligent - design lobby. Huh? Dawkins, in particular, has become their top pin-up.

How so? William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"

She also discusses Michael Ruse’s criticism of Dawkins and Dennett, including the sillier depths Ruse has sunk to of late. One charge Ruse levels seems improbable. After noting that the National Center for Science Education thinks that as much as 20% of American schools are teaching creationism in some form, Bunting continues:

Evolution is losing the battle, says Ruse, and it's the fault of Dawkins and Dennett with their aggressive atheism: they are the creationists' best recruiting sergeants.

Unless Ruse can show that a single scientist and a single philosopher are somehow more important in explaining that figure than the fact that something close to 50% of Americans believe that God created species as is, he is just falling for the creationist rhetoric he deplores.

Another charge by Ruse is rooted in ignorance of the case law involving the Establishment clause of the Constitution:

If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool.

The courts are much more sophisticated in their analysis than Ruse imagines and have no particular problem dealing with the "incidental effects" of valid pedagogy. And if some court wants to find against the teaching of evolution, it will be able to do better than an excuse as strained as pointing at two academics.

That said, it does feed the fears of moderates as well as fundamentalists to hear prominent evolution supporters gleefully proclaim the triumph of science over religion. A touch of humility might not be amiss.
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Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 9:48 PM
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