January 2009

Dr. Jerry Coyne is a prominent evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. He has written extensively about the Darwinism/intelligent design controversy, and he is highly critical of I.D. Recently in The New Republic, he published a review of two books: “Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution” By Karl W. Giberson and “Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul” By Kenneth R. Miller. Dr. Coyne’s review, entitled “Seeing is Believing” is long, and is an fine example of the convoluted arguments used by Darwinists to defend their ideology against the overwhelming scientific evidence that favors design in biology and against the American public who overwhelmingly favor (by a ratio of 3:1) discussion of the strengths and weakness of Darwinism in public schools. Dr. Coyne’s review is, in other words, a fine example of Darwinist ideological distortion of science and endorsement of censorship in education.

So I’ll review Dr. Coyne’s review in detail. I’ll quote Dr. Coyne, then reply.

Early in his essay Dr. Coyne writes:

… the history of creationism in America has itself been an evolutionary process guided by a form of natural selection. After each successive form of creationism has been struck down by the courts for violating the First Amendment, a modified form of the doctrine has appeared, missing some religious content and more heavily disguised in scientific garb. Over time, the movement has shifted from straight Biblical creationism to “scientific creationism,” in which the very facts of science were said to support religious stories such as the Genesis creation and Noah’s Ark, and then morphed into intelligent design, or ID, a theory completely stripped of its Biblical patina. None of this has fooled the courts…

Dr. Coyne misunderstands the history of this issue. Regardless of whether or not creationism has undergone an “evolutionary” process, ID isn’t on the historical continuum with creationism. Creationism is the opinion that Genesis is more or less literally true as science. Many Christians hold to that view, and they have my respect, but I (and the vast majority of I.D. advocates) disagree.
Intelligent design is the opinion that design is empirically detectable in biology, and that it is the best scientific inference to explain many aspects of biology, especially the genetic code and the complex molecular machinery inside cells. I wasn’t a creationist, ever. I was a Darwinist, for most of my life, until I looked closely at the evidence. Most ID advocates have had similar experiences. Most ID advocates were never creationists, and ID is not creationism nor is it derived from it. In fact, ID has been criticized by the creationist community. ID is an appeal to evidence in the natural world, not an appeal to Biblical revelation.

I must say that I’ve never understood the rhetorical force of the ‘God of the Gaps’ argument. The God of the Gaps sneer is invoked to imply the inexorability of materialism as a complete explanation in natural science. Any critique of materialist dogma in science from a design or immaterial perspective is derided as a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument. But the real issue is the gaps, which are plentiful and very wide.

Dr. Novella is fond of the God of the Gaps sneer, in the form of “Dualism of the Gaps.” I have not met a materialist as supremely confident of the complete explanatory power of materialism as he is. It’s ironic, as Dr. Novella claims the appellation “skeptic,” yet he shows no skepticism for his own materialist dogma. Profound skepticism for the views of opponents, combined with complacent credulity for one’s own views, is the stuff of ideological advocacy, not skepticism.

Dr. Novella responded recently to my post in which I clarified my views on the mind-brain problem. He accuses me of using a ‘Dualism of the Gaps’ argument. I’ve merely pointed out that the salient characteristics of the mind, such as intentionality, qualia, free will, incorrigibility, restricted access, continuity of self through time, and unity of consciousness (the ‘binding problem’) seem to be impossible to explain materialistically. Materialistic explanations for subjective mental states are not impossible merely because we lack experiments or evidence. Materialistic explanations for the mind are impossible within the framework of materialism itself, because mental properties are not physical properties. Nothing about matter as understood in our current scientific paradigm invokes subjective mental experience. The essential qualities on the mind are immaterial. Invocation of immaterial causation that incorporates subjectivity seems necessary for a satisfactory explanation of the mind.

Atheist/materialist ‘Skeptico’ (why are these guys/ladies so afraid to have their names associated with their ideas?) has announced the “Golden Woo” awards, which he-she has decided to bestow on people who have expressed views incompatible with Skeptico’s personal ideology. Skeptico explains:

I decided I would start some of my own — The Golden Woo Awards for outstanding work in the promotion of Woo in the previous year. It’s a bit like the Golden Globes, only for, er, Woo.

What is “Woo”? Skeptico explains:

Now, some of you might notice that the award titles look similar to Randi’s Pigasus Awards, with just the words “paranormal,” “occult” etc. replaced with Woo, and might think I’ve just run out of ideas for posts and purloined Randi’s idea as my own. (Cough.) Clearly that isn’t true as I have at least one extra category that Randi doesn’t have. However, if you were to view this post as my Golden Globes in advance of Randi’s Oscars… then you could. Perhaps the great man might even read this and get some ideas for April 1st?…OK so here goes — the Golden Woos for 2008. I hope you’ll find them entertaining.

Skeptico, who emulates atheist/materialist magician “The Amazing Randi,” has decided to give out awards to other people that he believes are devoted to silly ideas. And the first Golden Woo Award recipient is…your humble neurosurgeon and atheism/materialism ‘denialist’:

The scientist or academic who said or did the silliest thing related to Woo…Michael Egnor for his tireless support of Intelligent Design Creationism, and especially his many recent assaults on materialism.

Skeptico, who believes that all life, including the genetic code and intricate nanotechnology inside living cells, arose from primeval mud by a process of chance and tautology (random heritable variation and natural selection), is certainly well-situated to recognize Woo. So what exactly is it about my scientific and philosophical views that Skeptico finds so…Wooful?

Discovery Institute is pleased to announce two intensive summer seminars on intelligent design, science, and culture from July 10-18, 2009 in Seattle. The first seminar is for students in the natural sciences and philosophy of science; the second seminar is for students in the social sciences and humanities (including politics, law, journalism, and theology). These seminars are designed for highly-motivated college students who seek a deeper understanding of science and its implications for society. The seminar focusing on ID in the natural sciences will explore the scientific issues in greater technical detail and the seminar on ID in the social sciences and humanities will give more in-depth attention to the social impact of science. Past seminars have included such speakers Read More ›

[Author’s Note: This is a fun statement that I recently posted on the IDEA Center’s website. Since it discusses the latest Darwinist rhetorical trends regarding the entire ID movement, I thought readers of ENV would be interested in reading it as well. The original article is posted on the IDEA Center’s website, here.] IDEA Center: “I feel happy, I feel happy” Display "Monty Python and The Holy Grail "Bring out your dead"" from YouTube Click here to display content from YouTube. Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy. Always display content from YouTube Open "Monty Python and The Holy Grail “Bring out your dead”" directly “I feel fine … I think I’ll go for a walk … I feel happy, I Read More ›

Kudos to the New York Times for filing a story on the actions of the Texas State Board of Education that actually describes what happened last week. Unlike much of the rest of the newsmedia, the Times doesn’t tell only half of what happened or play up the hysterics. The story’s even-handed title is telling: “Split Outcome in Texas Battle on Teaching of Evolution.” Of course, being the Times, pro-Darwin bias does creep in at points, most egregiously in the ludicrous “definition” offered of intelligent design (“the notion of a divine hand guiding creation”). It used to be common courtesy for reporters to allow supporters of an idea to explain what they mean by it rather than rely on an Read More ›

It was as predictable as soggy weather in Seattle in November. First, reporters insisted that the Texas State Board of Education dealt a body blow to supporters of the critical analysis of evolution by dropping language in their existing science standards that call on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories. Of course, these same reporters neglected to inform the public that the Board also passed several amendments to the evolution standards requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” the main concepts of evolution such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. Once evolutionists began to complain about some of the changes to the evolution standards, the reporters apparently changed their mind. Now the Texas story is quickly Read More ›

According to a reporter who contacted me earlier today, the Darwin-only crowd in Texas is now smearing the State Board of Education for adopting amendments to the proposed science standards on evolution that promote “creationism,” and young earth creationism to boot. So what else is new? In reality, there is nothing in the amendments adopted that promote creationism, yet alone young earth creationism. But the Darwin-only crowd automatically attacks anything they don’t like as creationism. It’s a reflex action. They can’t help themselves. Yet in this case they just look plain silly. For example, how does it promote creationism to insist that students “analyze and evaluate” all the major parts of evolutionary theory? “Analyze and evaluate” is language they earlier Read More ›

Earlier today, the Texas State Board of Education unanimously approved the first reading of new science standards for the state. It was one step back, two giant steps forward. Although the Board refused to reinstate language calling on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, the Board added new language requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” all the major parts of evolutionary theory, including common descent, natural selection, and mutation. The additions to the proposed science standards were adopted yesterday in committee, but as we reported last night, most of the newsmedia completely missed the boat on what happened, probably because many reporters didn’t stay to the end of the meeting. Here is a preliminary summary of what the Board did:

Kudos to Austin American Statesman reporter Molly Bloom. She apparently stayed for the entire Texas State Board of Education meeting, unlike some of her colleagues in the press. She’s the first reporter I’ve seen who actually reports the fact that the Texas Board voted to revise proposed standards on evolution to require students to analyze and evaluate the key concepts of the theory such as common ancestry and natural selection. Her story, “Third state education board vote mandates teaching students challenges to evolution” gets the basic point right, even though she is still off on the details. She only describes the new evolution standard added at the behest of state board Chair Don McElroy, failing to mention earlier approval of Read More ›