The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies
2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE
Dr. Elliott Sober
Hans Reichenbach Professor &
William F. Vilas Research Professor
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Charles Darwin and
“Intelligent design”
Sponsored by OCEES &
The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical Sciences
Philosophy The College of Arts & Sciences
Albert Einstein Hans Reichenbach Hilary Putnam
probability
relativity
time and space
quantum mechanics
analytical philosophy
the mind
language
mathematics
computer sciences
Elliott Sober
simplicity
parsimony
evolutionary
biology
Important underpinnings of Evolutionary Biology
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Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary Theory
Evolutionary Philosophy
Adaptationism and Optimality
Psychology of Unselfish Behavior
Reconstructing the Past
Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference
The Nature of Selection
Darwinism and Intelligent Design
Elliott Sober
Philosophy Department
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Outline
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2
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What is Evolutionary Theory?
God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Guided Mutations
Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to
common ancestors.
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the only diagram in the Origin
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to
common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important
cause of the diversity we observe.
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to
common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important
cause of the diversity we observe.
• It regards mutations as unguided.
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Evolutionary theory is a scientific
theory, not a philosophy.
• It says nothing about God, or materialism, or
ethics, or free will, or life after death.
• It obeys the principle of “methodological
naturalism,” not “metaphysical naturalism.”
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The 2 naturalisms
Methodological Naturalism: scientific
theories should not postulate the existence of
a supernatural God.
Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural
God exists.
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The 2 naturalisms
Methodological Naturalism: scientific
theories should not postulate the existence of
a supernatural God.
Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural
God exists.
Evolutionary theory embraces the former, not
the latter.
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Outline
1
2
3
4
What is Evolutionary Theory?
God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Guided Mutations
Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is
true and there is no God.
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is
true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God
exists.
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is
true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God
exists.
Are theism and evolutionary theory
inconsistent with each other?
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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested
by science and science itself must be carefully
avoided.”
─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is
true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God
exists.
Theistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true
and God exists.
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Creationism (C)
(C)
God
the evolutionary process
│
complex adaptive
features of organisms
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What evolutionary theory rejects in Creationism
(C)
God
the evolutionary process
│
complex adaptive
features of organisms
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What evolutionary theory does not reject in Creationism
(C)
God
the evolutionary process
│
complex adaptive
features of organisms
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2 types of theistic evolutionism
Deism – God produces organisms via the
evolutionary process and then never intervenes
in what happens.
An interventionist God – God produces
organisms via the evolutionary process and
sometimes intervenes in what happens.
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2 types of Theistic Evolutionism
Deism (D) and the Interventionist Model (I)
(D)
(I)
God
God
the evolutionary process
the evolutionary process
complex adaptive
features of organisms
complex adaptive
features of organisms
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Outline
1
2
3
4
What is Evolutionary Theory?
God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Guided Mutations
Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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Theism and mutations
• Evolutionary theory says that mutations are
“unguided.”
• Does this mean that the theory denies that
God influences which mutations occur?
Guided mutations and
evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that
mutations are unguided or undirected or
random?
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Guided mutations and
evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that
mutations are unguided or undirected or
random?
• This does not mean that they are uncaused.
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Guided mutations and
evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that
mutations are unguided or undirected or
random?
• This does not mean that they are uncaused.
• It means that they do not occur because
they would be useful to the organism.
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An experiment
Some blue organisms are placed into
a green environment, others into a red.
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An experiment
Some blue organisms are placed into
a green environment, others into a red.
Protective coloration is advantageous. In a green
environment, green organisms survive better
than red organisms. In a red environment,
the reverse is true.
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Look at the frequencies with which
blue organisms mutate to …
Environment is
red
green
red
f1
f2
green
f3
f4
Mutate to
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the results
Environment is
red
green
red
Mutate to
green
f1
≈
f3
≈
≈
f2
≈
f4
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the conclusion to draw
The probabilities of these mutations are
not affected by the fact that one would
be better for the organism than the other.
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the conclusion to draw
The probabilities of these mutations are
not affected by the fact that one would
be better for the organism than the other.
This conclusion does not rule out the idea
that God causes everything.
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an analogy: mutations and coin tosses
• Coins do not land heads or tails because this would
be good for gamblers.
• Mutations do not occur because they would be
good for organisms.
Both claims are consistent with
God’s causing everything.
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an analogy: mutations and coin tosses
• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more
often when this would help gamblers.
• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur
more often when they would be good for organisms.
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an analogy: mutations and coin tosses
• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more
often when this would help gamblers.
• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur
more often when they would be good for organisms.
Neither experiment tests whether
God intervenes in nature.
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Outline
1
2
3
4
What is Evolutionary Theory?
God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Guided Mutations
Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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Darwin’s views on …
• Theistic Evolution v Creationism
• why special creation is a poor scientific
theory
• whether God exists
• Christianity
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The Origin begins with a quotation
from the philosopher William Whewell:
“But with regard to the material world, we
can at least go so far as this – we can
perceive that events are brought about not
by insulated interpositions of Divine power,
exerted in each particular case, but by the
establishment of general laws.”
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2 views of God’s relation to nature
“But with regard to the material world, we
can at least go so far as this – we can
perceive that events are brought about not
by insulated interpositions of Divine power,
exerted in each particular case, but by the
establishment of general laws.”
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2 views of God’s relation to nature
“But with regard to the material world, we
can at least go so far as this – we can
perceive that events are brought about not
by insulated interpositions of Divine power,
exerted in each particular case, but by the
establishment of general laws.”
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the 2 possibilities
(D)
(U)
God’s 1st decision
God’s 2nd decision
…
God’s nth decision
God
general laws
observation 1
observation 2
…
observation n
observation 1
observation 2
…
observation n
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Which theistic framework did Darwin prefer?
“to my mind it accords better with what
we know of the laws impressed on
matter by the Creator, that the
production and extinction of the past
and present inhabitants of the world
should have been due to secondary
causes, like those determining the birth
and death of the individual.” Origin
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Darwin was inspired by Newton
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally
breathed into a few forms or into one; and
that whilst this planet has gone cycling on
according to the fixed law of gravity, from
so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been,
and are being, evolved.”
Why Darwin preferred the
Unified Model U
“On the ordinary view of the independent
creation of each being, we can only say that
so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to
construct each animal and plant.”
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Why Darwin preferred the
Unified Model U
“On the ordinary view of the independent
creation of each being, we can only say that
so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to
construct each animal and plant.”
D thought that special creation is
scientifically empty.
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Was Darwin a theist?
“the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of
conceiving this immense and wonderful
universe, including man … as the result of blind
chance or necessity …I feel compelled to look to
a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some
degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to
be called a theist.” D’s Autobiography
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But on the next page …
Darwin refers to himself as an “agnostic,”
by which he says he means someone “who
has no assured and ever present belief in the
existence of a personal God or of a future
existence with retribution and reward.”
Elsewhere, Darwin describes himself as
being in a “muddle.”
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Francis Darwin, quoting his
father:
“the mystery of the beginning of all things is
insoluble by us; and I for one must be
content to remain an Agnostic.”
“I think an Agnostic would be the more
correct description of my state of
mind. The whole subject [of God] is
beyond the scope of man's intellect.”
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Darwin on Christianity
In the Autobiography, Darwin describes
Christianity as a “damnable doctrine”
because it says that his brother, father, and
grandfather must suffer everlasting
punishment for their lack of belief.
Why didn’t Charles follow the lead of his
wife, Emma?
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Darwin on the problem of evil
D and Asa Gray corresponded about the
parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae.
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Darwin on the problem of evil
D and Asa Gray corresponded about the
parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae. D says in a
letter that he can’t persuade himself that “a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have
designedly created” this arrangement.
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Darwin on the problem of evil
D and Asa Gray corresponded about the
parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae. D says in a
letter that he can’t persuade himself that “a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have
designedly created” this arrangement.
D on the death at age 10 of his favorite
daughter, Annie.
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How to think about whether God exists?
• There are several arguments for the
existence of God (the design argument, the
first cause argument, the ontological
argument, etc).
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How to think about whether God exists?
• There are several arguments for the
existence of God.
• Evil – this is a problem for theism to
address.
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How to think about whether God exists?
• There are several arguments for the
existence of God.
• Evil – this is a problem for theism to
address.
• There also is the question of whether belief
in God should be based solely on evidence,
or should be a matter of faith.
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How to think about whether God exists?
• There are several arguments for the
existence of God.
• The problem of evil.
• Should belief in God be based solely on
evidence, or should it be a matter of faith?
Evolutionary theory says nothing
about any of these.
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People v Propositions
Darwin had religious doubts, stemming
from the problem of evil.
This doesn’t mean that D’s theory is in
conflict with theism (or with Christianity).
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to
common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important
cause of the diversity we observe.
• It regards mutations as unguided.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the
existence of God.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the
existence of God.
• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God
who intervenes in nature, not just with a
God who creates nature and then sits back.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the
existence of God.
• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God
who intervenes in nature, not just with a
God who creates nature and then sits back.
• Believing in a God who created nature, or
who sometimes intervenes in it, is no
substitute for doing natural science.
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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested
by science and science itself must be carefully
avoided.”
─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity
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