Thoughts in a Haystack

Ow! Ow! Ow!

How do you treat third-degree irony burns?

The Discovery Institute's highly skilled meat cutter, Dr. Michael Egnor, is back and committing neuron arson at an alarming pace. Just consider this opening paragraph:

His "there is much misrepresentation, mostly on one side of the debate" (by which, Egnor makes clear, he means "scientists") is particularly ironic given that it is immediately followed by calling those scientists "Darwinists." Now it should be pointed out that "Darwinism"/"Darwinists" (more often referred to as "Darwinian"/"Darwinians") has been used to describe a particular view of evolution, emphasizing natural selection and adaptationism, but he goes on to demonstrate that he is not using the term in this narrow philosophic sense:

What follows is a confused and confusing exposition that, to anyone trained in science, must sound like disjointed babble but which, to those of us forced to endure hours on hours of theological instruction, makes a weird sort of sense if you accept certain premises that Egnor does not set out explicitly. But it all ends in a massive irony. Let me see if I can explain. First, let's break down some of Egnor's claims:

~ Evolution occurs, and it is teleological.

~ We know that evolution is teleological because "biological structures and functions have obvious purposes." [Emphasis added]

~ Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of teleology.

~ Teleology is "intrinsic to biological change and in fact intrinsic to all changes in nature."

~ Natural selection equals "[s]urvivors always survive.

~ "Natural selection applies to all evolutionary change — adaptive, drifting, and designed."

~ "There are several camps on the Darwinist side: there are adaptationists, who believe that most or all evolutionary changes are the result of natural selection, and the drifters¹, who believe that much evolutionary change is neutral with respect to selection." Since natural selection applies to all evolutionary change, the debate between these camps is "witless."

~ "Theistic evolution," holds that "God played a (subtle) role in guiding evolutionary change" but is vague and "generally stated with such imprecision as to render them sentiment" (ummm ... called in some circles "faith") "rather than science" as well as being "generally poor theology" (which somehow must have gotten a bad opinion of faith).

~ There are two "teleological theories" of evolution (apparently scientific, unlike theistic evolution). They are: ID, which asserts that the most reasonable explanation for some aspects of evolution is a process of design analogous to human design; and the "Thomist (after St. Thomas Aquinas) theory," which is explicitly "the Catholic view of evolution" and agrees "that evolution is teleological but take exception to the 'extrinsic' design implication of design theory." Instead, the Thomists "see evolutionary change as a manifestation of Final Cause, as understood by Aristotle and Aquinas." There is some evidence that Egnor counts himself among the latter "theorists," both because he is Catholic and because he has previously gone on about "Aristotelian final causation."

Now there is a part of Egnor's screed that I do not understand, though it continues his "theme" that "Darwinists" are merely misrepresenting the meaning of words:

Egnor never specifies which words "Darwinists" are supposedly abusing but, as close as I can figure, it has something to do with denying that the "obvious" functionality in biology equals teleology.

So how does this all come together? Adaptation of organisms occurs. Adaptation equals function and function equals teleology. Teleology equals design and, once you have design in nature, it implies divine design (see John Wilkins' epistemological hat). Therefore, there must be design in all of nature (if God's in for a penny, He's in for a pound). Choose your poison: "extrinsic design," where God "tinkers" with his creations or "intrinsic design," where God determines the "final cause" (that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done) while the material, formal and efficient causes (the stuff that science studies) carries out the final cause. Thus, Egnor can dismiss drift because even chance is in service to the final cause and natural selection is simply the expression of final cause because that which has the purpose to survive survives. Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of teleology because without it there would be no purpose -- no final cause -- and, in a neat bit of circular reasoning, all we'd be left with is adaptation and natural selection which are, themselves, evidence for teleology and design.

The irony starts to roll up: "design theory" is science and has nothing to do with religion, even though one major school of it is Catholic. According to Egnor, the evidence for teleology is overwhelming but, nonetheless, he gives none, stating, instead, that it is "obvious." But most ironic of all:

... sayeth the man who is expounding his personal opinion of what is obvious in service of medieval theology but calling it science in order to evade the Constitutional barrier against teaching that theology in public schools.

As a public safety measure, the man should have a warning label tattooed on his forehead.
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¹ The image of Larry Moran singing "This Magic Moment" is too precious to ignore.
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