Intelligent Design and
Evolutionary Biology:
When Worlds Collide
Stevan J. Arnold
Department of Zoology
Oregon State University
Overview
• Introduction
• Darwin’s legacy
• Protestant Fundamentalism and
Evolution
• The Collision Between Fundamentalism
and Science
• Evolutionary Biology Today
• The price if Fundamentalism prevails in
public schools
What is evolution?
• Variation (differences among individuals)
• Inheritance (resemblance between
parents and offspring)
• Selection (correspondence between
variations in a characteristic and fitness)
• Descent with modification (change from
one generation to the next)
“Descended from apes!
My dear, let us hope that it is not
true, but if it is, let us pray that it will
not become generally known.”
Wife of the Bishop of Worchester, about 1860,
upon hearing of Darwin’s analysis.
Protestant Fundamentalism
and Evolution
A “fundamentalist” is a person willing to “do battle
royal” for the fundamentals of the faith
(Curtis Lee Laws 1920).
The Fundamentals
•
•
•
•
Evangelism (salvation of individual souls).
Inerrancy (unwavering faith in the literal truth
of the Bible).
Premilliennialism (belief in a future period in
which Jesus Christ will rule the world for 1000
years).
Separation (establishment of independent
churches to avoid apostasy and compromise).
World War I as a
trigger for
fundamentalism as
a social movement
(1915-1925): a
perceived struggle
between Christian
civilization and
German barbarism
Scopes Trial 1925: Fundamentalism looses
credibility and is marginalized
Fundamentalism transformed and
organized (1925-1975): defining a new
enemy, “secular humanism”
Carl Henry (right),
author of Remaking
the Modern Mind
(1946): coined the
phrase “secular
philosophy of
humanism”
The re-emergence of Fundamentalism as a
social movement (1976-present): answers,
order, love and stability in the face of rapid social
change
• The challenges: women’s rights, limits on parental
rights, gay rights, no prayers in school, right to abortion.
• The reaction: home schooling and Christian academies.
• The reaction: active entry into politics, the Moral
Majority.
• The reaction: replace Darwinism in the public schools
with ‘creation science’
Fundamentalism and Science
“I like Biblical theology that … does
not begin with an hypothesis, and then
warp the facts and the philosophy to fit
the crook of our dogma, but a
Baconian system, which first gathers
the teachings of the word of God, and
then seeks to deduce some general
law upon which the facts can be
arranged” (Pierson 1895)
Baconian v. Kantian Science
• The task of science is
the discovery of the
Laws of Nature,
established by an allknowing God.
Francis Bacon (d. 1626)
Baconian v. Kantian Science
• “The order we
perceive, the forms
and categories
through which we
understand, are not
demonstrably present
in the natural world
itself but are instead
inherent in the ability
of the human mind to
reason”.
Immanuel Kant (d. 1804)
What is science?
• It is guided by natural law
• It has to be explanatory by reference to
natural law
• It is testable against the empirical world
• It’s conclusions are tentative, not
necessarily the final word
• It is falsifiable
Judge William R. Overton (1982) in Epperson v. Arkansas
The Creation/Evolution Continuum
The Collision Between
Fundamentalism and Science
• Why is evolution a dagger at the throat of
PF?
• If evolution prevails, Christianity looses:
“Science and divinely-revealed
religion/ethics cannot be isolated without
inviting long-range disaster. (Whitcomb
1983).
•
Evolution: a dagger at the throat
• “I object to the [evolution]
theory for several reasons.
First it is a dangerous theory.
If a man link himself in
generations with the monkeys,
it then becomes an important
question whether he is going
towards him or coming from
him – and I have seen them
going in both directions. I don’t
know of any argument that can
be used to prove that man is
an improved monkey that may
not be used just as well to
prove that the monkey is a
degenerate man, and the latter
theory is more plausible than
the former …”
William Jennings Bryan 1904,
“The Prince of Peace”
The Collision Between
Fundamentalism and Science
• Why is evolution a dagger at the throat of PF?
• If evolution prevails, Christianity looses:
“Science and divinely-revealed religion/ethics
cannot be isolated without inviting long-range
disaster. (Whitcomb 1983).
• Evolution violates the perceived right of every
believer to make private interpretations of
Scripture.
Battling Against Evolution in the
Classroom: A Succession of Tactics
• Outlawing evolution (<1925)
• Creation Science (1961-1987)
• Intelligent Design (1984-present)
Sputnik (1957): a wakeup call
The NSF-funded Biological Sciences Curriculum
Study (1963)
ICR: a Fundamentalist reaction to evolution in the schools
The Discovery Institute: Creationism repackaged
Michael Behe: leading proponent of intelligent design
What is Intelligent Design?
The proposition that the intricacy and
complexity of life is evidence for an
intelligent designer
Intelligent Design: a new idea?
• Thomas Aquinas (13th century)
• Reverend Paley (19th century)
• Thraxton et al. (1984, The Mystery of
Life’s Origin)
• Percival Davis & Dean Kenyon (1989, Of
Pandas and People)
The Discovery Institute’s Wedge
Document (1999)
Twenty year goals:
• “To see intelligent design theory as the dominant
perspective in science.”
• “To see design theory application in specific
fields including molecular biology, biochemistry,
paleontology, physics and cosmology in the
natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics …
• To see design theory permeate our religious,
cutural, moral and political life.
Collision in the Courtroom
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of
the United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof”.
Collision in the Courtroom
Scopes Trial (1925): Scopes convicted of teaching
evolution; reversed on a technicality.
Epperson v. Arkansas (1968): struck down Arkansas
state law prohibiting the teaching of human evolution.
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (1981): struck
down a law requiring ‘equal time for Creation Science
and evolution’ in the classroom.
Edwards v. Aquillard (1987): struck down a Louisiana
state law requiring equal time for Creation Science and
evolution in the classroom.
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005):
prohibited teaching intelligent design in Dover Area
public schools.
Quotes from Kitzmiller v. Dover
•
“We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient
to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the
centuries –old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting
supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to
ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed
creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution
have been refuted by the scientific community… ID has failed to gain
acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed
publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.”
•
“Notably, every major scientific association that has taken a position on the
issue of whether ID is science has concluded that ID is not, and cannot be
considered as such.”
•
“…Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in
peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific
community at large.”
More quotes from Kitzmiller v.
Dover
•
“ … we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to
an objective observer, adult or child”
•
“The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley [in the
early 19th century] and the argument for ID … is that ID’s “official position”
does not acknowledge that the designer is God.”
•
“Moreover, ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which
we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the
controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic
is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not
to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would
supplant evolutionary theory with ID.”
•
“…the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly
accepted by the scientific community, and … in no way conflicts with, nor
does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.”
The intelligent design movement’s
tactics of bamboozlement
• Claiming that intelligent design is a
scientific theory
• Pretending that evolution is controversial
within the scientific community
• Ignoring the scientific literature
• Misrepresenting scientific results
• Systematically disguising the creationist
origin of the movement
Discovery Institute’s Evolving Banners 1996-2005
Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture
(CRSC)
Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture
(CRSC)
Center for Science & Culture (CSC)
Center for Science & Culture (CSC)
Evolutionary Biology Today:
Intelligent Design –
What controversy?
Notable discoveries of the last 20
years in evolutionary biology
• The prevalence of junk DNA: nonintelligent design
• A molecular perspective on the
diversification of life
• Our relationship to chimps
• Human evolution over the last 5 million
years
COMMON ANCESTOR
YOU ARE HERE
The price if Fundamentalism
prevails in the public schools?
• Cost
• Credibility
• Confusion
Will Fundamentalism prevail in
the public schools?
Time magazine
(summer 2005)
… loosing the war
“Human beings developed from earlier
species of animals” (% Agreement)
Iceland
France
Japan
Gr. Britain
Norway
USA
Turkey
source: Eurobarometer Survey
63.1, 2005; US: J. Miller,2005;
Japan: NISTEP, 2001
85%
80%
78%
75%
74%
40%
27%
Summary
• Intelligent design is one item in the agenda of a social
movement known as Protestant Fundamentalism.
• Fundamentalists are at war with the modern world,
science in general, and evolution in particular.
• Intelligent design is a religious argument. It is not a
scientific hypothesis.
• Teaching intelligent design in public science classes has
been deemed a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
• The battle over teaching intelligent design and other
forms of creationism that masquerade as science is a
continuing struggle.
References
• Ammerman, N. T. 1991. North American Protestant
Fundamentalism. Pp. 1-65 IN: M. E. Marty & R. S. Appleby,
Fundamentalisms Observed. Univ. Chicago Press.
• Freeman, S. and J. C. Herron. 2004. Evolutionary Analysis.
Pearson/Prentice Hall.
• Moore, J. 1993. The creationist cosmos of Protestant
Fundamentalism. Pp. 42-72 IN: M. E. Marty & R. S. Appleby,
Fundamentalism and Society. Univ. Chicago Press.
• Scott, E. C. 2004. Evolution vs. Creationism. Univ. California Press.