"I meet many people who are offended by evolution, who passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God than to arise from blind physical and chemical forces over eons from slime. ........  Only nine percent of Americans accept the central finding of modern biology that humans (and all other species) have slowly evolved by natural processes from a succession of more ancient beings with no divine intervention along the way."

        Carl Sagan,  The Demon Haunted World:  Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1996.
 
 
 

"The attack on evolution, the most thoroughly authenticated fact in the whole history of science, is an attack on science itself."

        Ashley Montagu, quoted on back cover of Science on Trial
 
 
 

"I need offer no argument for evolution, since to doubt evolution is to doubt science, and science is only
another name for truth."

        O. C. Marsh, quoted in Dewar Difficulties of the Evolution Theory, 1931 pg 2-3.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Goals:

 
1.  Define naturalist and creationist positions

2.  Outline a framework for sorting through the arguments

3.  Discuss some argument strategies that cause confusion

4.  Introduce the intermingling of science and philosophy
 

Outline:

 
I.  Positions defined

II.  Suggested framework for sorting through the arguments

III.  Why study this subject?

IV.  Argument strategies that cause confusion

V.  Protecting the integrity of science

VI.  Falsifiability

a)  Is macroevolution and the hypothesis of common ancestry falsifiable?
b)  Is the hypothesis of Intelligent Design falsifiable?

I.  Positions Defined
 
 
 
 

Scientific Naturalist

All aspects of our existence (including origins) are explainable by invoking only matter, energy, and natural law.   Science is the only way to truth.

"The basic idea of The Blind Watchmaker is that we don't need to postulate a designer in order to understand life, or anything else in the universe."
        R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Pg 147

"It (Darwinism) provides the only satisfying explanation for why we all exist, why we are the way we are."
        R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Introduction to June 1996 edition

This book is written in the conviction that our existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries,
but that it is a mystery no longer because it is solved.  "Darwin and Wallace solved it , ...",
        R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, preface

No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature (though Newton's clock-winding god might have set up the machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run).  No vital forces propel evolutionary change.  And whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature.
         S. J. Gould, In Praise of Darwin, in Darwin's Legacy, p. 6-7

"... universe devoid of intrinsic meaning for our lives"
         S. J. Gould, The Panda's Thumb, pg 83

"The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be"
        C. Sagan, Cosmos

"We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution"
        C. Sagan, The Cosmic Connection, pg 4

"...man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."
        G.G. Simpson The Meaning of Evolution, p 344.

"Man is the result of a materialistic process having no purpose or intent; he represents the highest fortuitous organizational form of matter and energy."
        G.G. Simpson quoted by W. Gitt, "In the Beginning Was Information", p 78.

Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms - but this seems to be the message of evolution.
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial,  pg 13.

"...biology provides no evidence for omnipotence, intelligence, purpose, or design."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial,  pg 14.
 
 

"Naturalism assumes the entire realm of nature to be a closed system of material causes and effects, which cannot be influenced by anything from "outside".  Naturalism does not explicitly deny the mere existence of God, but it does deny that a supernatural being could in any way influence natural events, such as evolution, or communicate with natural creatures like ourselves.  Scientific Naturalism makes the same point by starting with the assumption that science, which studies only the natural, is our only reliable path to knowledge."
        P. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, pg. 116, 117.
 
 
 
 

Naturalism is not equivalent to science, it is a religion or philosophy!
 
 

Intro-1            Intro-2          Intro-3            Intro-4            Intro-5

An important aspect of this course is to recognize the importance of this distinction, and the role that naturalism plays in interpreting the data
 
 
 

What are some implications of a purely naturalistic worldview?

 
  W. Provine:

  No "intelligent designer"
  No life after death
  No ultimate foundation for ethics
  No ultimate meaning in life
  No free will
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The origin of certain aspects of our existence is supernatural, the existence of a Designer is manifest in the natural world

 

 
In Christianity:
 

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands"
            Psalms 19:  1, 2 NASV
 

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them:  For God made it evident to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."
            Rom 1: 18-20 NASV
 
 
 
 
 
 

What about so-called intermediate positions - God is behind it all but uses only naturalistic (or undetectable) processes?
 
 
 
 
 
 

II.  Suggested framework for sorting through the arguments
 

The typical argument for a purely naturalistic, evolutionary origin of life and biological diversity includes the following:

  microevolution (small-scale change, moths changing colors)
  artificial selection (larger ears of corn)
  imperfect design (God wouldn't do it that way, eye wired backwards)
  patterns in biogeography (most marsupials in Australia)
  comparative anatomy/morphology (vertebrate forelimb)
  comparison of gene or protein sequences (99% of positions in cytochrome c
            are the same in humans and in chimps)
  embryology (similarities in human and shark embryos)
  so-called vestigial organs (rudiments of pelvis in boa-constrictors)
  evidence for long ages (radiometric dating)
  sequences of fossils in geological strata (order of first appearance:
            marine creatures, amphibians, reptiles, mammals)
  naturalistic worldview (excludes external agents by definition)

 However, the following are essential for strong scientific conclusions:
 

   direct evidence   and/or   plausible mechanism

Three important questions to ask about inferential evidence:
 

1.  Is it accurate? (normally yes, but see Well's book "Icons of Evolution" for some examples where it is not)

2.  Is the data being presented selectively?  (i.e. only evidence which agrees with a preferred story is cited)

3.  Is the evidence distinctive?  (does it really distinguish between the two views?)

Darwin recognized the pivotal importance of having a plausible mechanism:
 

"In considering the origin of species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relation, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and such other facts, might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species.  Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory until it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting the world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which most justly excites our admiration."  (reprint of Origin of Species, 1979, pg 66.)
 

a)  What we believe about where we came from affects our entire worldview.
 

b)  To be infused with spiritual vitality by seeing God's direct providence in nature.
 

c)  For those with a theistic worldview, this subject can be disconcerting, destabilizing, confusing  (can lead to compartmentalization of one's life, or weaken one's faith)

 

Bible - the natural world clearly reveals "fingerprints" of the Creator.

 
"The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands"
     Psalms 19:  1, 2 NASV.

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."
    Rom. 1:20 NASV
 
 

Scientific Naturalist - the natural world shows no evidence of God, since our entire existence, including origins, can be explained by laws of chemistry and physics.
 

No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature (though Newton's clock-winding god might have set up the machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run).  No vital forces propel evolutionary change.  And whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature.
         S. J. Gould, In Praise of Darwin, in Darwin's Legacy, p. 6-7

The above conclusion is often presented as if it were a scientific fact

d)  Develop better apologetic for one's views
 

e)  It is incredibly interesting
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

IV.  Argument strategies that cause confusion
 

a)  Multiple uses of the term "evolution":
 

 1).  evolution = microevolution (observations of adaptation)
 

after one has seen evolution actually happening "debating the reality of the process seems as absurd as debating the existence of gravity."
        Weiner, The beak of the Finch, A Story of Evolution in Our Time.

"... the team had amassed a freezer full of data on how the bacteria had evolved over an  impressive 10,000 generations - long enough to see evolution in action."
        C. Mlot,  SCIENCE  272, 1741, (1996).

What is the source of this machine-like impersonal activity?  Studies by many generations of experts in field and laboratory indicate that biological systems are products of the interdependence and adjustments that result in a delicate balance between organisms and their environments.  The flexibility with which accommodations are made to change lies in the marked tendency of life forms to vary, and through their variation they are able to take advantage of opportunities to reduce stress.  When the biological accommodations become fixed in heredity, we say that evolution has taken place.
        N Newell, Creation and Evolution - Myth or Reality ,  pg 5.
 

  2.  evolution = macroevolution (common ancestry)

We are dealing with two distinct questions.  The first is the historical question of whether or not evolution has actually occurred:  have living forms actually descended by common ancestry from earlier forms?
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial,  pg 170

 3.  evolution =  change (any scale)
 

 "  A very large part of the general public still equates evolution with the monkey-to-man parody instead of the scientific view of great and persistent changes in nature - changes in life, the earth, and the entire universe.
        N. Newell, "Creation and Evolution", pg 6.

 "...evolutionary principles - the scientific mechanisms of change - have come to form the basis of all science which is dynamic, not static:  astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and the social sciences."
        N. Newell, "Creation and Evolution", pg 11.
 

 4.  evolution = purely naturalistic, comprehensive theory of origins (of life, universe)
 
 

Which definition is being used in the following statements:
 

"But evolution is also a fact of nature, as well established as the fact that the earth revolves around the sun."
        S. J. Gould, "Darwinism Defined:  The Difference Between Fact and Theory",  Discover, Jan. 1987

"Evolution has, by now, the status of fact".
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial, preface

"The consensus among evolutionists is that evolution is a universal fact of nature."
        N. Newell, Creation and Evolution:  Myth or Reality, pg 12.

"Evolution is a fact, fact, FACT!",
        M. Ruse, Darwinism Defended, 1982.

"It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
        R. Dawkins , quoted in Darwin On Trial  pg 9
 
 

We are dealing with two distinct questions.  The first is the historical question of whether or not evolution has actually occurred:  Have living forms actually descended by common ancestry from earlier forms?  The second question is:  If evolution has actually happened, what mechanisms have been responsible for it?  Both these questions have traditionally been subsumed under the term "the theory of evolution."  But I wish to distinguish them carefully, for I consider the first question to have been resolved into fact, and the second question to fall into the category of theory."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial, pg 170

"In making much of the idea that scientists do not agree even among themselves about evolution, the creationists fail to distinguish between the fact of evolution and the theories of evolution."
        N. Newell, Creation and Evolution, pg XXX

"Actually the differences pertain to technical details about the mechanisms of evolution which would not be understood by a lay reader.  The consensus among evolutionists is that evolution is a universal fact of nature.
        N. Newell, Creation and Evolution, pg 12
 

 What does (should) it mean to say something is a "scientific fact"?
 

"An observation is accepted as a scientific "fact" only if it can be repeated by others individuals who follow the same methods."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial, pg 166.

 "To a scientist or a science educator, the distinction between scientific theories and scientific facts is well understood.  A "fact" is a property of a natural phenomenon.  A "theory" is a naturalistic explanation for a body of facts."    "....scientific facts and theories are not interchangeable: an explanatory principle is not to be confused with the data it seeks to explain."
        72 Nobel Laureates in "Friends of the Court" brief,  prior to 1987 Supreme Court decision on Louisiana balanced treatment bill.
 

                          Is macroevolution an explanatory principle, or data?
 

Ex. 1.  "The mass of evidence from the geological record, embryology, comparative  morphology, biochemistry, and the rest of biology indirectly proves the common ancestry of living organisms to the satisfaction of biologists generally.  This may seem an elitist basis on which to judge a proposition factual, but it is no more so than the elitism we accept in astronomers or, for that matter, in physicians who attribute disease to germs rather than to spirits."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial, pg 170
 

Ex. 2.  "But evolution is also a fact of nature, as well established as the fact that the earth revolves around the sun."
        S. Gould, "Darwinism Defined:  The Difference between Fact and Theory", Discover, Jan 1987.
 

Ex.3.  "Well, evolution is a theory.  It is also a fact.  And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty.  Facts are the world's data.  Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts.  Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them.  Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.  And human beings evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered."
        S. Gould "Evolution as Fact and theory", in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, pg 254.

 Under what conditions can something be stated as a fact based on inferential or circumstantial evidence alone?
 
 
 

 
In this view, belief in God does not conflict with science because they are separate domains that do not overlap.  Naturalists allow that God may exist in principle, but insist that one can't detect evidence of his existence in the natural world.   The mechanisms of origins must be purely naturalistic.
 

Gould writes that religion and science should not conflict "because science treats factual reality, while religion struggles with human morality".
        S. Gould, Scientific  Amer. July 1992.

Science can address how, not why.  Scientists leave the why to theology and philosophy.
        Eugenie Scott, debate with P. Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio, 1992.

"The proper field of concern of their religion should be morality and spirituality, not the nature, origin, and history of the universe.  These matters belong to science."
        N.  Newell, Creation and Evolution  pg 21
 

 
"How does it happen that so many people with a comparatively high level of education are today unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality?"
        N.  Newell, Creation and Evolution  pg 21

"It is not surprising that people who prefer emotional stimulation to analytical thought frequently turn to hallucinogens, mysticism, and religious cults - psychological crutches that replace self-discipline, responsibility, and rational doubt.  The current exaggerated interest in astrology, the occult, monsters, creationism, and visitors from outer space is a mass renunciation of mature reason, since these topics are deficient in both theory and evidence."
        N.  Newell, Creation and Evolution pg 23
 

Science is a particular way of knowing  -  what are the limitations?

Creation-science is not science because:  "It (creation science) fails to display the most basic characteristic of science:  reliance upon naturalistic explanations.  Instead, proponents of "creation-science" hold that the creation of the universe, the earth, living things, and man was accomplished through supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding."
        National Academy of Science
 

Does non-science mean nonsense?
        P. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, pg 14
 
 

Does naturalism = rationality?  Whose job is it to decide this for society?

d)  Ignoring the distinction between origin and operation of the natural world
 

"Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.  And human beings evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered."
        S. Gould "Evolution as Fact and theory", in Hen's Teeth and  Horse's Toes, pg 254.
 

Elsewhere, however, Gould notes a distinction between studying the operation of the natural world and investigating historical events:

 
"Hypothesis, predictions, experiments, and answers:  the scientific method.  But many sciences do not and can not work this way.  As a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, my trade is the reconstruction of history.  History is unique and complex.  It cannot be reproduced in a flask.  Scientists who study history, particularly an ancient and unobservable history not recorded in human or geological chronicles, must use inferential rather than experimental methods."
        S. Gould, The Panda's Thumb,  pg 28.

The repeated experiment is a cornerstone of scientific methods  -  although evolutionists,  dealing with nature's uniqueness, do not often have an opportunity to practice it.
        S.  Gould, The Panda's Thumb, pg 207
 

The difference between origin and operation has to do with information.  The principles which describe the operation of an automobile, are not sufficient to account for its origin.  Its origin lies in the process of imposing information onto matter by the designer.  I contend that biology is the study of machines much more intricate and complicated than automobiles which could only have arisen through design by an intelligence!
 
 

Is belief in causation beyond nature in conflict with
the progress of science?
 

  Intro-7

“One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious.  We should not retreat from this accomplishment.”

                S. Weinberg, Skeptical Inquirer, Sept./Oct. 2001 pg 68.

           title of D. Futuyma's book  -  "Science on Trial"
 

"It is difficult to believe that in the last decades of the twentieth century, when we have sent spacecraft past Saturn, discovered the pathways of the cell, and revealed the molecular structure of the gene, science should still be at war with the remnants of medieval theology.  But religious orthodoxy, while it has retreated before physics and chemistry, has still not come to terms with biology."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial  pg 4.
 

"In short, all the sciences are under attack.  But it is not only the content of the sciences that is contested.  The creationists are assaulting the entire mode of scientific thought and the guiding principle of science: that traditional beliefs are open to skeptical inquiry."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial  pg 5.
 

"....scientific truth is at stake"
        R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, preface
 

"The creationist revolt is not simply an emotional revulsion against man's animal connections.  It is an anguished protest against the whole cosmology of science and many other aspects of modernity."
        N. Newell, in Creation and Evolution   Myth or Reality,  pg 11
 

"the creationists have adopted an anti science strategy"
        N. Newell, in Creation and Evolution,   Myth or Reality,  pg 15
 

"...resistance to science and intellectualism"
        N. Newell, in Creation and Evolution,   Myth or Reality,  pg 19
 

"...hold science responsible for the disintegration of spiritual and moral values and the deterioration of the environment."
        N. Newell, in Creation and Evolution,   Myth or Reality,  pg 19
 

In fact, design proponents strongly support science (separated from a naturalistic worldview), and science strongly supports a nonnaturalistic origin!
 
 

f)  Inaccurate characterization of Creationist position
 

In Biology, by Curtis and Barnes, pg 1-2, the creationist position is described as:
 

 "..each type of living thing came into existence in its present form"

 "fixity and unchanging species"

"According to creationist doctrine, each species was created specially for a particular way of life and placed in the locality for which it was suited ..."
        Curtis and Barnes, Biology, pg 966

 

Creationist position  - Universe came into being suddenly and has been unchanged since.
        Eugenie Scott, debate with P Johnson on NPR

"...everything in the world, every species and every characteristic of every species, was designed by an intelligent, purposeful artificer, and that it was made for a purpose."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial,  pg 12-13

 

The misrepresentation of the Creationist position is clear when microevolution is cited as a refutation.
 

Ex.  New York Times Sunday Magazine, May 8 1994 and review of the following week.
 
 
 
 

Two views:

 
a)  must consider only naturalistic explanations

(give up too early, miss naturalistic mechanisms)

 

b)  must consider alternative(s) to naturalism
 

(plausibility simply assumed, mechanism not addressed, apparently insurmountable problems ignored, evidence against cannot exist and so must be wrong - worldview trumps data)
 
 

Examples:
 
 

1.  Albq. Museum of Nat. Hist. - origin of life exhibit

“gas + energy  =  DNA”
 

2.  George Wald - type thinking

“time itself performs the miracles”      (Sci. Amer., 191, 1954, pg 45.)

3.  "... the time available for the origin of life seems to have been short, a few hundred million years at the most.  Since life originated on the earth, we have additional evidence that the origin of life has a high probability."
 

        Carl Sagan, Scientific American, 1975, 232(5), pg 82.
 
 

4.  Stanley Miller's insistence that the atmosphere of early earth must have had methane and ammonia despite the strong evidence against.
 
 

5.  Uncritical acceptance of extrapolation of microevolutionary processes to account for all of biology
 

“I believe that one day the Darwinian Myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.  When this happens, many people will pose the question:  How did this ever happen?”

Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism:  The Refutation of a Myth  (New York: 1987) p 422.

[The extrapolation of microevolution to macroevolution] "is simply an affront to reason.  A flagrant violation of common sense."

M. Denton, video interview

S. J. Gould honestly admits that the Neo-Darwinan synthesis is not supported by fossil evidence and

"is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy."

S. J. Gould, "Is A New And General Theory Of Evolution Emerging"  Paleobiology, 6(1), pg 120, 1980.

VI.  Falsifiability
 

a)  Is macroevolution and the hypothesis of common ancestry falsifiable?
 
 

What are the important (risky) predictions of NeoDarwinian macroevolution?

 
1)  mechanism of heredity must exist that can build information by random variation and natural selection

2)  fossil record - cone of increasing diversity, species diversity precedes disparity in body plans, universe of transitional forms

3)  all biological systems can be built by a series of successive slight modifications (and provide advantageous function all along the way)
 

Are these key predictions is supported by the evidence?

 

Contrast these predictions with the type of evidence suggested by some as a possible refutation of Darwinism:

 
"Many conceivable observations, such as mammalian fossils in Precambrian rocks, could refute the hypothesis of evolution."
        D. Futuyma, Science on Trial, pg 222.

polar bears in the Devonian
        Eugenie Scott, debate with P. Johnson on NPR
 
 
 
 

With regard to the separation of the "fact of evolution" from theories of mechanisms, Phillip Johnson states that "recasting the theory as fact serves no purpose other than to protect it from falsification."
        P. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, pg 68.

One must separate detecting design from questions about the designer or how it happened

-the characteristics of design are empirically detectable - (see Dembski's Intelligent Design)

Such principles are routinely applied in SETI, archaeology, forensic science, etc.  A design inference can be ruled out by demonstrating that necessity or chance are adequate.

-hypotheses about who the designer is or how the designing was accomplished are not falsifiable

for example, one cannot disprove the existence of God

 

 
Darwinian macroevolution:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
        C. Darwin, The Origin of Species,  pg 219.

Effectively impossible to meet this criterion.  One must consider an infinite number of possible unintelligent processes.  One cannot do an infinite search.

 

Intelligent Design:

Irreducibly complex systems cannot be produced by any unintelligent process.

Easily testable hypothesis.  If a single unintelligent process can be found that can produce an irreducibly complex system, intelligent design is disproved.

REVIEW:     Tuning up your baloney detector
 
 

1.  Multiple uses of the term "evolution"
 

2.  Attempts to separate the "fact" of evolution from arguments about the mechanism
 

  "fact":    i)  repeatable observation

                ii)  inferential evidence which can only be interpreted one way, and plausibility
 
 

4.  Scientific truth is at stake
 

5.  Science = naturalism
 

6.  Belief in creationism is against the progress of science
 

7.  Must consider only natural causes in order to protect the integrity of science
 

8.  Risky predictions versus patterns which do not distinguish between natural and intelligent causes
 

9.  Casting a belief into a form which is unfalsifiable