Because across the country school boards and legislatures have mounted aggressive efforts to introduce intelligent design as a co-equal, alternate theory to evolution in public school science classes.
“Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and unprovable charade,” wrote the brilliant paleontologist and Harvard professor, Stephen Jay Gould, “a secular religion masquerading as science.” Signaling that those charges are still part of a contentious discussion about the origins of life, and how faith and science can coexist, even rabbis have come forward to lend their support to a continuation of the teaching of evolution and a resistance to pressure for public schools to question the validity of Darwinian theory and open the door to teaching alternate explanations of biological development — most specifically, the concept of “intelligent design.”
In the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, for instance, Rabbi David Oler of Congregation Beth Or this summer drafted an open letter, signed by over 200 national Jewish leaders, that affirmed their support for the teaching of evolution. The Deerfield letter followed the lead of a similar earlier open letter, the Clergy Letter, that was signed by some 11,000 religious leaders and also supported the teaching of evolution in schools. Why the sudden interest in Darwin by religious leaders? Because across the country — in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Kansas, to name several recent locations — school boards and legislatures have mounted aggressive efforts to introduce intelligent design as a co-equal, alternate theory to evolution in public school science classes.
Intelligent design is acknowledged by many observers to be the latest spin on the “creationism” concept that Gould repeatedly questioned as a true science; to him, and to other mainstream scientists, the movement was solely an attempt to legitimize a religious and Biblical explanation for life’s origins by giving it a scientific veneer. Frustrated by their defeats in court and inability to introduce creationism into schools as a viable, alternative theory to evolution, creationists have begun to publicly disavow religious sources for their philosophy and now suggest that life began through the work of an intelligent "designer," a supernatural force responsible for the entire creation of the universe and all life within it.
Unfortunately for intelligent design’s supporters, the courts have repeatedly seen attempts to introduce this pseudo-science into public school curricula as an attempt to advance a religious philosophy where the state and the law cannot condone such an intrusion, and which is specifically prohibited by the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
The intelligent design adherents, as well as their creationist predecessors, have aggressively attacked evolutionary theory as being no more valid a set of answers than their own explanation of the origin of life; in fact, they contend that evolution is merely a theory, not scientific fact, and therefore open to vigorous debate and scholarly inquiry.
If it is true that evolution is no more certain that intelligent design, they ask, why not expose students to both theories? Why keep students from investigating each scientific approach and choosing between them? "It's an academic freedom proposal," said Stephen C. Meyer of Seattle’s nonprofit Discovery Institute, the principal generator of intelligent design research. "What we would like to foment is a civil discussion about science. That falls right down the middle of the fairway of American pluralism."
There is one serious problem with the specious idea of teaching intelligent design in science classes as a concomitant scientific theory to evolution: no credible member of the scientific or academic communities has ever proven that intelligent design is anything more than a faith-based philosophy masquerading as science, grounded on the Genesis account of the creation of life. Despite the fact that they have tried, in pressing the intelligent design theory, to distance themselves from their faith, supporters have still not been able to convince the courts that intelligent design can stand on its own as a body of knowledge appropriate for science classes.
“The methodology employed by creationists is another factor which is indicative that their work is not science,” the court found in its extensive and insightful decision in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education. “The creationists' methods do not take data, weigh it against the opposing scientific data, and thereafter reach the conclusions [of the intelligent design theory].”
Science involves methodical investigation of unknown facts, with findings that are sometimes anticipated but frequently unknown, surprising, or serendipitous. Intelligent design fails as science because it was created as a specific contradiction to evolution, and was promulgated to support a pre-existing ideology. “While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose,” the court in the Arkansas case added, “they cannot properly describe the methodology as scientific, if they start with the conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation.”
The fact that intelligent design is not science is exactly the reason that it should not be part of any science curriculum — either as an alternative theory to evolution or as intellectual exercise by which students, exercising their "academic freedom," can investigate other approaches to the origin of life.
The fact is that not every intellectual viewpoint is worthy of being discussed in the classroom, merely because one group feels passionately that their issue has intrinsic value, is true, or should be heard as part of the marketplace of ideas. Some truths are absolute and do not require a fair and balanced measurement against some contradictory body of thought. An entire intellectual "industry" of Holocaust denial research has many fervent followers, for instance, but few sentient school boards would find it palatable or reasonable to have students exposed to the "theory" that the Holocaust never occurred along with history lessons expressing the verifiable and incontrovertible fact that it did.
Ironically, deniers conduct their research and have come to their findings about the Holocaust in a manner similar to the way intelligent design theorists come to theirs. In his essay “Why Revisionism Isn't,” Gordon McFee seems to echo, in the context of revisionist history, the court’s appraisal of how intelligent design was researched and promoted. Just as creationists start with the premise that the theory of evolution is flawed and subject to doubt, wrote McFee, “Revisionists depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion.” “Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology . . ., thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head . . . To put it tritely, ‘revisionists’ revise the facts based on their conclusion.”
Deniers may have concluded and may passionately want to believe that there was no “Final Solution,” that gas chambers were used merely to delouse prisoners, that only hundreds of thousands of Jews, not millions, were exterminated, and that the Holocaust is overall a hoax perpetrated by Jewish victims to extract sympathy and reparations from the world; but all of their invidious scholarship cannot prove the unprovable, and nor obviously would their theories deserve to be taught as an alternative "history" in public schools merely because they question history and employ perverse scholarship to deny and distort the magnitude of one of the most documented and pernicious events of contemporary times.
“‘Creation science,’” Gould wrote in an essay he called "Verdict on Creationism," “has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage — good teaching — than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?”
LAM,
I understand. I am not an expert either. However, expertise is not always what it is cracked up to be, I’m afraid.
I asked my question because diversity of species in not questioned by anyone. It is the “unguided processes” of simple life forms becoming more complex over time (macroevolution) that I question. Therefore, your example is not “evolution in action, right before our eyes.”
Evolution is change due to a variety of pressures, frequently environmental. Well, this is what is being played out in the two aforementioned cases. Clearly, here is a form of Punctuated Equilibrium in motion: these two species are diverging from the others of their species due to their specific environment, and the only guiding hand seen is that of the change in environment. That *is* evolution.
There are numerous other examples. For example, of what possible use is the Appendix? Clearly it was of use once, but now is merely vestigal. Same with our Coccyx, which was once a tail, now atrophied to a stub.
Remember, evolution acts over time to alter a species, sometimes to it’s benefit, sometimes not. Mostly the beneficial mutations thrive and the non-beneficial fade away.
See, issue number one I have with ID is that it presupposes some invisible guiding force behind these changes. But why is that required, when we can see and measure the environmental changes that force these changes? They are sufficient as explanation. In science, the simpler explanation is usually the correct one.
LAM,
Begging the question… diversity of species is not questioned, increasing complexity over long periods of time is.
There is is a difference between adaptation and mutation. We are not talking about mutation.
“Vestigal” organs is a non-sequitur. It presumes macroevolution to conclude vestigal status.
Yes, we can see and measure changes. But I’m wating to see and measure increasing complexity over long periods of time.
Yeah, and there’s the rub: we can only measure that increasing complexity from the fossil record, inasmuch as our records don’t cover long periods of time.
Which is a problem. ID proponents then usually state that the fossil record is 1) false or 2) misleading, or 3) backs up their POV.
Btw, a species diverging into two due to environmental pressures would fall precisely under the category of increasing complexity. Further, adaptation is frequently – and in the cases I mentioned exactly – mutation.
The Periwinkles above the tideline are moving towards being only able to handle the nutrients and environment available to them; the “old” environment may well kill them. Same with the Butterflies: they have now adapted to a new environment due to mutation of their appearance, which is just as valid a species change as losing or gaining a new organ.
And finally, I must add that vestigal organs and appendages are simply evidence of former attributes now lost. There must have been some mutations for a species advantage that caused it, which is again an evolutionary process; we’re merely seeing the results, not the process-in-motion in those cases.
Remember, evolution doesn’t necessarily entail increasing complexity (however you might measure that, I don’t know). Evolution is just inherited biological change.
Uima, that’s so. Evolution is change for some advantage versus your environment or against some predation pressure. It doesn’t necessarily have to be “better,” merely “more in conformance with the local environment.”
After all, for what possible reason could ID show why there are people being black versus others being white, if not their environment, as their species adapted painstakingly to accommodate it? Otherwise, there are virtually no reasons for our species to have diverged as it apparently has.
I recognize that evolution is change. But there are two subsets of evolution, micro evolution (variation) and macroevolution (change over time from simple to more complex). I insist that we do not conflate the two for the purposes of our discussion, because as I said, no one doubts variation.
The increasing complexity in the fossil record is an interpretation of data based on a worldview. The interpretation is a model, a way of understanding. If the premise of that worldview insists that what we see is due to undirected forces, then naturally all the reasoning that descends from the worldview fits within the evolutionist framework.
It was discussed above what it would take to disprove evolution (may I say again, macroevolution). I submit that nothing will disprove evolution, because the worldview will remain intact and the contrary information will simply be incorporated into the framework.
LAM, your example of back vs white people adapting in a particularly poor example, since whites and blacks are not simpler/more complex (or, as some might try to assert, superior/inferior), they simply differently pigmented and of the same species, capable of interbreeding, psoeesing the ability to live virtually anywhere on the planet at will.
Lastly, I will once again assert that what vestigal organs represent in terms of evidence is based on what worldview you embrace, and is conclusive of nothing.
MM: Evolution is a dynamic system, not a single expression. Adaptation is as much evolution as significant change.
The systems I describe are firmly within what’s known as “Puncuated Equilibrium.” A species can become isolated by geography, and then change to conform to it’s microenvironment. That is evolution in action. It doesn’t have to be an improvement across the species, just an improvement to the sub-group within that specific enviroment.
Vestigal organs and appendages are evidence of what once was, but is no longer. Certainly there must have been some serious environmental pressure to ditch those attributes. Again, this is Evolution.
And of course the color scheme mentioned is evolution. Those who’s ancestors stayed in those environments altered to conform to that environment. They were the one’s most evolutionary efficient, else we would still see White tribes in Africa, and Black ones in Northern Europe.
Yes, yes, it’s all a part of a system. But we can observe, manipulate, and test microevolution. We cannot do so with macroevolution, we can only infer based on data interpreted according to our worldview. You seem to want to mix the two together as if they are the same.
They are not. It HAS to be an increase in complexity to be macroevolution, and it HAS to be observable, testable, and repeatable to be anything more than a model. Microevolution describes an observable process that is a subset of the TOE, while macroevolution (another subset of the TOE) is inferred from data according to the premise that unguided processes changed basic life forms to more complex life forms.
If the premise is wrong, every conclusion drawn from it is suspect. It is absolutely critical that we examine facets of the TOE to see if they stand up under scrutiny. Species vary, yes, but that does not validate macroevolution in any sort of way.
Well, testing macroevolution would presuppose we lived thousands of years, or had projects that lasted thousands of years, so as to provide witnessed and measured evidence. That’s hardly possible, of course. Evolution is still a “young” science. Most of it’s observations are based on in situ observations and the fossil record.
So far, virtually all fossil examples can be related to some change in environment, which we can see the fossil evidence of species extinction, environmental change, what have you. It may not be direct evidence, but it is compelling.
Sorry, forgot to note:
Small changes are just as relevant as major changes in Evolution. Sub=Species in Punctuated Equilibrium vary due to the same pressures as major changes that sweep across an entire species. We’re talking about the same thing. Merely because an alteration occurs in an isolated subset of a species still makes it an evolutionary process.
“But there are two subsets of evolution, micro evolution (variation) and macroevolution (change over time from simple to more complex).”
To scientists, evolution is evolution. It is creationists who try to put some barrier into evolution, dividing “microevolution” (which they sometimes call variation or adaptation) from “macroevolution,” and maintain that the former happens while the latter does not. However, they don’t actually define what they mean by those terms, or what the barrier is between them.
“I insist that we do not conflate the two for the purposes of our discussion, because as I said, no one doubts variation.”
But what we were talking about before IS evolution. You seem to grant that evolution happens (which you want to rename as ‘variation’ or adaptation’), but that there is a limit. It stops somewhere, somehow. Where does it stop, and how?
“It was discussed above what it would take to disprove evolution (may I say again, macroevolution). I submit that nothing will disprove evolution, because the worldview will remain intact and the contrary information will simply be incorporated into the framework.”
It’s not a worldview. It’s a scientific theory pertaining to one particular part of nature: biological diversity. In science, the theory has to explain the evidence. As new evidence is found, the theory has to change to accommodate it, or be overturned in favour of a better one. But of course the new theory has to explain all the things the older one did, and be testable, etc.
Uima, thank you. That was quite concisely a great deal of what I was getting at: either micro-evolution or macro-evolution, they’re both still evolution. There is no difference.
From: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
“When sleep or hide makes the difference in MACROEVOLUTION”
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/35/E56.extract
From Wikipedia:
“Macroevolution is a scale of analysis of evolution in separated gene pools.[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution,[2] which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
Gary, Evolution doesn’t suddenly occur, as in some vast change overnight; it’s a slow and gradual process, punctuated with abrupt changes due to extreme stress. That IS the record.
GG: “”Macroevolution is a scale of analysis of evolution in separated gene pools.[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution,[2] which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population.”"
Yes, that’s how scientists use the terms. Microevolution is evolution within a gene pool, macroevolution is evolution in separated gene pools, which typically means at or above the species level. I’m well aware of that.
What I’m interested is the creationist usage, because they seem to think that one happens and the other doesn’t, but since we know that they both happen as the scientists define them, then the creationists must mean something else. But they never say exactly what.
Uima, from my experience Creationists have it well enough defined as a concept but it can be hard for them to word scientifically. That makes it easy to misunderstand what some are trying to say. The real problem I see is that Evolution Theory cannot explain what we want to know about. They don’t know about the Harvard dust/clay experiment now in origins science and other things. With none knowing what the missing science looks like there is no way for them to describe what is missing. It’s not so much they don’t accept evolution it’s that they see there having to be much more than that to our origins story. And they got kicked around by the theory, have to expect they would tell academia to go shove it then try to find a better one.
And Last Angry Man, Arrrrrrggghhhhhhhhhh! Your rambling on and on about things I already know mixed with what I know for a fact is false is going to make me crazy!!! I have to wonder whether the straw blows out of you when it gets windy or you’re just another victim of the half-baked science education that is still the national standard.
I’m still waiting for a scientific response to the science I presented. At least define your terms by explaining the origin of the phenomena scientists call “intelligence” and how the mechanism works.
OK, over your “Arrghh” moment?
Explain to me how one can discuss a science without discussing the science? You say “things you know mixed with what you know for a fact is false…” In short, it appears you’ve already made up your mind on this, and all the rest is merely verbiage leading nowhere.
Oh, something from a good science education as well: if you make a claim or claims such as you have, it is incumbent on you to prove you are correct, not demanding everyone else show you where you are wrong.
And so, that being said and done,in response to your last question, no Sir, why don’t *you* do so.
You made the claim that all I have been explaining is already well understood. You are now obliged to explain it!
Simply that’s wrong. Evolution is widely accepted; ID is not. When you make claims that Evolution is wrong and ID is, in fact, correct, then the onus is on you to prove you are correct. That is, in fact, how science works. Perhaps later, should some of your views be accepted, then people will take the next step, e.g. attempt to falsify your hypothesis’, but for now you really aren’t there yet.
On reflection, you go ahead and discuss this with the others; I will bow out. Lest all you and I do is go in circles about the scientific method and who proves what to whom.
Good day to you.