"I
see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock
the religious feeling of anyone," Charles Darwin wrote in the
closing lines of The Origin of Species. It was a nice
try at positive spin by the British naturalist, but in the end
only wishful thinking. Darwin's treatise on evolution did, of
course, shock his 19th century audience and has continued to upset
some people ever since, particularly those Christians who hold
a literal understanding of the Bible.
The last few years have been especially upsetting as a protracted
public controversy has raged over attempts to introduce an alternate
to evolution that critics allege is religion disguised as science.
Supporters of Intelligent Design (ID), which argues that
complexity in nature suggests a Designer, insist the theory is
valid science. The stridency of the debate stems in part from
the fact that for some people on both sides this is a religious
war, while for others it is a matter of safeguarding the integrity
of the scientific method.
Last fall the battleground flared in Dover, Pennsylvania, and
in Kansas. Parents sued the Dover school board over a pro-ID statement
to be read to students, claiming it was an unconstitutional establishment
of religion. Meanwhile in Kansas, an intense debate surrounded
the state board of education's new science standards that require
teaching gaps in evolution and adoption of a broader definition
of science that allows for a theory such as Intelligent Design.
More than 30 states have either passed or are considering legislation
permitting the teaching of Intelligent Design, while six states
have introduced legislation allowing teachers to challenge evolution.
It's no surprise that such battles over evolution have been
a fixture of American history. While the scientific community
has long regarded Darwin's theory to be a bedrock principle of
modern biology, it's been a tougher sell to the broader culture.
A 2004 Gallup poll, in fact, found that 35 percent of Americans
believe that evolution is unsupported by the evidence and 45 percent
believe that human beings were created in their present form about
10,000 years ago.
'Old theory, new package'
The current challenge to Darwin is an old theory in a new package,
says Notre Dame historian of science Phillip Sloan. In fact, Intelligent
Design was the reigning principle at the time Darwin published
The Origin of Species in 1859. The argument that a Designer
(God) can be deduced from observing order in the universe is a
form of natural theology dating back to the 17th century British
philosopher John Ray, with even earlier roots going back to antiquity,
Sloan observes.
"Strictly speaking, it's not a biblical argument nor even a
Christian argument," he says, pointing out that it originated
with the Greek Stoics. Sloan notes that Catholic arguments for
God traditionally have focused on the fact that creation exists
at all, not on any perceived order in the universe. Therefore
he urges caution "in allying Catholicism with forces that are
pursuing an agenda that I suggest involves an inauthentic reading
of the Christian and biblical tradition."
However, Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the influential
Catholic journal of religion, politics and culture First Things,
sees things differently. Writing in the October 2005 issue,
he says, "Intelligent Design, or ID as it is called, is important
in deflating the philosophical, and often atheistic, claims that
pass as evolutionary science in the classroom."
The most famous version of the design argument is William Paley's
watch/watchmaker analogy. The 17th century philosopher argued
that a close inspection of a watch reveals parts assembled into
an intricate machine for the purpose of telling time. From the
watch one can infer a watchmaker. Likewise, he says, by observing
the intricacies of a living organism one can infer a Designer.
"The marks of design are too strong to be got over," Paley wrote
in his 1802 book Natural Theology. "Design must have
had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person
is God."
Two-hundred years later, in his book Darwin's Black Box,
Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemist, harkens back
to Paley when he argues for a Designer by citing the complexities
of cellular biochemistry. At the cellular level, he argues, life
is composed of intricate biochemical machinery that is "irreducibly
complex." In other words, if even one part is missing, the entire
mechanism will not work.
For instance, he says that flagella, tiny whiplike structures
that propel certain bacteria, are made up of a series of highly
specialized proteins that form a complicated machine complete
with a universal joint, drive shaft and motor. The system is "irreducibly
complex" because if almost any protein part is missing it won't
function.
This is significant, Behe contends, because he says it is impossible
to imagine the propulsion system developing in a step-by-step
fashion over many generations, as Darwin's theory would predict.
In Darwin's "survival of the fittest" principle, only traits that
already work are passed on to the next generation. The propulsion
system doesn't work until all of its pieces are in place, so they
could not have gradually assembled from components in earlier
generations. Since Darwin's natural selection can't account for
the propulsion system, Behe argues that an Intelligent Designer,
which is never specified as God, must be behind it.
He does not, however, suggest that the Designer miraculously
intervenes directly. Behe says undetected secondary causes or
laws of nature may yet explain the development of life, but these,
too, would be the result of design. Further, the Lehigh professor
says ID is not an outright denial of evolution. He acknowledges
the validity of "micro-evolution," such as when an insect species
becomes resistant to a pesticide over generations, but contends
that natural selection does not explain "macro-evolution," the
emergence of new creatures.
Behe argues that what evolutionists call an illusion of design
in nature, the product of chance, can be proven to be a product
of real design. "Evolution no longer looks like a random process
to me," he says. "It looks like a set-up job."
Besides Behe, the other major scientific theoretician of the
ID movement is William Dembski, a mathematician and philosopher
who directs the Center for Science and Theology at the Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Dembski's
contribution to ID theory has been the concept of "specified complexity,"
a complicated mathematically based argument which states that
certain complex patterns found in living organisms are "markers"
of design by an intelligent agent. He argues that it is statistically
improbable that natural selection could produce the diversity
of life on Earth.
Intelligent Design proponents also argue against
evolution by asserting that it can't explain the so-called "Cambrian
explosion," when a wide variety of new organisms including shellfish,
insects and animals with spinal cords "suddenly" appeared on the
Earth over several million years. They argue that this burst of
creativity, which was quick in geologic terms, could not have
come about through the slow, gradual steps of random selection.
They also contend that the fossil record shows no evidence of
transitional stages from simpler to more complex organisms, an
assertion critics dispute. Finally, they say evolution can't explain
"abiogenesis," namely how lifeless organic chemicals in the primordial
ooze at some point spontaneously sprang to life.
ID and the scientific community
If Darwin has been a tough sell to the American public, however,
Intelligent Design has been an even tougher sell to the mainstream
scientific community. The science establishment has been unimpressed
with the ID camp's attacks on Darwin via the Cambrian explosion,
the fossil record and abiogenesis. None of those issues casts
doubt on the basic validity of evolution, they assert. The scientists
also point out that simply because science can't explain something
today does not mean it won't explain it tomorrow. Such has been
the history of science. Cornell biology professor Will Provine
scoffs, "Any time the intelligent designers find a mystery that
scientists can't explain, they shout 'See! See!'"
Intelligent Design is fighting an uphill battle, says Notre
Dame's Sloan. He points out that opponents can easily counter
any pro-ID argument with an equally valid Darwinian explanation.
The apparent design can come about through chance processes working
over enormous lengths of time, evolutionists would say. "Neither
side seems able to declare victory in this classic dispute, although
scientific consensus is heavily against the ID position."
As for Behe's complexity argument, Kenneth R. Miller, a professor
of biology at Brown University and the author of Finding Darwin's
God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution,
says it doesn't stand up. Behe's assertion that a complex
biological machine like flagella could not evolve from individual
components is wrong, Miller contends. He says the evidence shows
that systems evolve, not individual components. In the
process of evolution these systems gradually expand and take on
new roles.
Miller cites the small bones in the ear that transmit sound
vibration as an example. He says the fossil record shows that
as mammals evolved, bones which had been part of the rear reptilian
lower jaw gradually became smaller and migrated to the middle
ear. There they took on the new function of carrying sound vibrations.
He points out that the fossil record includes a transitional
species which has a double articulation of the jaw joint, allowing
the animal to hear and eat. Despite Behe's contrary arguments,
Miller says, nothing suggests that evolution can't operate similarly
on the cell biochemistry level. In fact, Miller cites the work
of the biologist Russell Doolittle, who, he says, has demonstrated
how evolution modified proteins originally used in the digestive
system to produce the vertebrate blood-clotting system.
Notre Dame evolutionary biologist Hope Hollocher finds Intelligent
Design unbelievable in part because she finds so much un-intelligent
design in nature. "If I were going to design something intelligently,
I would certainly design it to work well, not sort of work," she
says.
"There are countless examples of imperfection in nature," she
adds. "Just one example is that human beings are prone to back
problems because we still carry around our tetrapod past. Our
bodies aren't all that different from a dog's with respect to
having four limbs." Further, Hollocher asks, "Or why would you
leave a pelvis in a whale when it has no legs, and it's not attached
to anything? The bone is just 'there,' and it's really strong
evidence of a history of connection between different organisms."
One gauge of the level of mainstream science disapproval of
ID is illustrated by the feat of the archaeologist R. Joe Brandon,
who singlehandedly gathered more than 8,000 scientist signatures
on a "Scientific Support for Darwinism" statement in a few weeks
last fall. That effort contrasts with the four-year, 400-scientist
signature "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" drive by the Discovery
Institute, a Seattle-based think tank. Also, in 2002 the board
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
primary science organization in the United States, passed a resolution
opposed to the teaching of ID theory in U.S. science classes.
Meanwhile, the biology department at Behe's own university,
Lehigh, has distanced itself from him on the topic, issuing a
statement last fall that the department is "unequivocal in its
support of evolution" and that it believes "Intelligent Design
has no basis in science." The biology department at Baylor University,
the Southern Baptist school where Dembski formerly taught, also
issued a statement supporting evolution and disavowing Intelligent
Design.
The ID theorists are unfazed by the rejection. Behe, in fact,
claims Intelligent Design will one day lead to a paradigm shift
in biology. ID supporters acknowledge that only a small minority
of scientists currently supports the concept, but they assert
that the movement is growing. They point out that within the last
year three articles discussing ID have been published in mainstream
scientific journals and within the past five years books on the
issue have been published by the academic presses of Cambridge,
MIT and Michigan State University.
Case Western Reserve physicist Lawrence Krauss says ID leads
to a scientific dead end. "If you say a creator guided the process,
as the Intelligent Design people do, then there's nothing more
to investigate. You can't look further for understanding." Dembski
counters that Design offers a whole new set of research questions
often overlooked. "Once we know that something is designed we
will want to know how it was produced, to what extent the design
is optimal, and what is its purpose."
The fray and public schools
One reason the scientific establishment has been
upset with the ID movement is that they see it as illegitimately
trying to worm its way into the public school science curriculum.
Normally, something doesn't appear in a textbook until there has
been a consensus of expert approval after testing and re-testing
in peer-reviewed journals. ID, however, under the auspices of
the Discovery Institute, the think tank that is the primary mover
of the cause, has subverted that process through an aggressive
political lobbying and public relations campaign. The route has
been through courts, Congress and pressure-group politics on school
boards rather than through peer-reviewed journals. The critics
ask: Should something be taught merely because a group agitates
for it?
Because Intelligent Design hasn't passed the muster of scientific
scrutiny, it doesn't belong, critics argue. They allege it sets
a bad precedent for science education. If an untested, overwhelmingly
rejected theory like Intelligent Design can be forced into the
curriculum, what is to stop other untested, fringe theories from
being taught simply because a pressure group wishes it so? The
ID movement does a disservice, many scientists say, by attempting
to pit "the people" against "the experts."
In response to such criticism, the Discovery Institute shifted
gears from urging the installation of ID into science curricula
to its "Teach the Controversy" campaign. That was launched in
2002 during the contentious debate over ID before the Ohio State
Board of Education. Since then the institute has urged schools
to teach the "pros and cons" of evolution, and to permit, but
not require, the teaching of Intelligent Design. That policy notwithstanding,
pending legislation in many states often requires ID as an alternative.
"Teach the controversy" is a bad idea, at least in science classes,
says Gary Belovsky, Notre Dame professor of biology. "In the classroom,
we don't give alternatives to gravity, do we?" he asks rhetorically.
"We don't, because gravity is the accepted scientific explanation.
Among established biologists, evolution is the accepted scientific
explanation." To present alternatives that have long ago been
rejected would be counter to the scientific process, he asserts.
"It implies evolution is really questionable, when in fact the
weight of the evidence has been overwhelmingly in its favor."
Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that the existence
of strong debate on the topic means it should be taught as a matter
of principle in science classes. Still, he acknowledges that this
may not be the best venue. "A lot of the important issues are
broadly philosophical and theological, and biologists typically
don't want to get involved in that sort of thing."
The war of Darwinism
Indeed, while the current battle may be in biology
over the nature of evolution, the real war is in the philosophical
implications science has for the broader culture. It's a conflict
that goes back to the beginning. As Notre Dame's Sloan notes,
the ink was hardly dry on The Origin of the Species
when "Darwin's scientific theory was transformed into 'Darwinism,'
a comprehensive materialistic philosophy used to combat revealed
religion and any claims to a divine origin or even a divine aspect
to humankind."
In recent years, the British zoologist Richard Dawkins, author
of The Blind Watchmaker, along with Cornell biology professor
Will Provine and Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett, have been considered
the leading proponents of this brand of Darwinism. They contend
that the mounting evidence of evolution logically leads to an
atheist materialist worldview.
Plantinga is critical of Dawkins and others who intermingle
philosophy with science. "Dawkins presents his science as a big
melánge," he contends. "A lot of the things he says are
philosophy or metaphysics or theology, but he presents them with
the force of science."
The Dawkins/Dennett/Provine school of thought attempts to extend
the chance-like character of natural selection into a complete
worldview of "how things are," Sloan says. But the Notre Dame
philosopher argues that such an extension is an unwarranted rhetorical
flourish.
It is this philosophical Darwinism, however, that is the real
target of many in the Intelligent Design movement. The attack
on evolution is a means to an end: an overthrow of the secular
materialist worldview. The reasoning goes: If it is true, as Dawkins
famously said, that Darwin made atheism intellectually credible,
then the way to make it incredible is to attack evolution.
In his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism, the retired Berkeley
law professor and Discovery Institute program adviser Phillip
E. Johnson wrote, "If we understand our own times, we will know
that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination
of materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind. With the
assistance of many friends, I have developed a strategy for doing
this." Integral to that strategy, known as "The Wedge," is the
advancement of Intelligent Design in the public arena.
Meanwhile, Johnson's Discovery Institute colleague Dembski wrote
in a 2005 article for the website designinference.com, "The problem
with materialism is that it rules out Christianity so completely
that it is not even a live option. Thus, in its
relation to Christianity, Intelligent Design should be viewed
as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual
rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving
serious consideration."
Notre Dame's Ernan McMullin doesn't see it that way at all.
"These Intelligent Design proponents don't do believers any favors,"
the emeritus philosophy professor argues. "They make it seem as
if Christian faith and mainstream science are incompatible. It's
ironic. It begins with some scientists like Richard Dawkins making
a bad inference from science, namely that evolution demands atheistic
materialism, and then the ID people accepting it, saying if that's
the case, there must be something wrong with evolution."
McMulllin points out that a "chance" event is "as much the work
of the Creator as are the laws of nature themselves." He adds,
"There is absolutely no reason why long-term selection over random
hereditable variations should not have been the Creator's way
to bring about the Creator's ends. . . . Indeed, there might have
been a reason why this would be the way the Creator would
choose.
"If the broad framework of the Darwinian thesis is sound, as
almost all today's working biologists believe, there might,
just might, I say, have been no other simple way in which the
complexities of the living world could have been brought
about without the need of further intervention in the natural
order on the Creator's part," he says.
J. Matthew Ashley, a Notre Dame theology professor whose field
is the intersection of faith and science, believes some of the
problem in the raging ID debate may be that people are locked
into an antiquated image of God. "William Paley's 'Designer God'
is good as far as it goes," he says. "But all of our images fail
to capture the reality of God, and we need to be open to new ones
as our understanding grows and changes." Since science has moved
beyond a 17th century understanding of the world, we may need
to find a new image that squares with our expanded understanding
of it.
Fordham theologian Elizabeth Johnson has suggested thinking
of creation as a jazz improvisation. Ashley thinks that may be
just right. "It's one thing to play a Bach toccata with design
evident all over the place," he says. "But it is very different
from listening to a jazz trio. Contingency and chance is what
makes jazz work, but you can't say there isn't purpose. It's not
a Bach toccata; it works very differently."
The Catholic Church and evolution
A desire to disassociate the Catholic Church from a Dawkins-style
understanding of evolution was the apparent intent, although not
clearly expressed, of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn's celebrated
op-ed essay in The New York Times last July. The piece
raised eyebrows and concerns, especially in the mainstream Catholic
science community. Schönborn, who was the general editor
of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is a member
of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education as well as
a confidant of the pope, appeared to be suggesting a change in
Church policy. He seemed to say that Neo-Darwinian biology, which
refers to the modern synthesis of natural selection, genetics
and reproductive biology, might not be consistent with Catholic
doctrine.
The cardinal appeared to throw the weight of the Church on the
side of Intelligent Design proponents in his essay headined "The
Official Catholic Stance on Evolution." The article generated
a whirlwind of reaction, including competing viewpoints on the
Notre Dame website. While Notre Dame philosophy professor Plantinga,
who has argued on behalf of creationist views, applauded the essay,
Notre Dame biology professor Belovsky was appalled. Belovsky wrote,
"If Cardinal Schönborn's perspective became doctrine, no
Catholic university could maintain a reputable biology or science
program, because the vast majority of scientists acknowledge that
overwhelming evidence supports Neo-Darwinian evolution."
The cardinal's essay caught nearly everyone by surprise because,
as McMullin notes, "Evolution has not been an issue for Catholics
for years and years. It's been taught in parochial schools for
an eternity, and no one has so much as raised an eyebrow."
Indeed, in 2004, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, chair of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops' committee on science and human
values, advised his fellow bishops, "Catholic schools should continue
teaching evolution as a scientific theory backed by convincing
evidence, assured that scientific truth and religious truth cannot
be in conflict."
Part of the problem seems to be that Schönborn apparently
conflated "Neo-Darwinism" with the philosophical ideas of such
scientists as Richard Dawkins. In the process, the Vatican prelate
appeared to be dismissing the core of modern biology. For his
part, Plantinga says, "I don't think Cardinal Schönborn was
saying that the scientific theory of evolution was incompatible
with Catholicism. He was talking about these naturalistic glosses
on it."
And it appears so, based on clarifying remarks Schönborn
made during a lecture last November. The cardinal said, "I see
no difficulty in joining belief in the Creator with the theory
of evolution, but under the prerequisite that the borders of scientific
theory are maintained. . . . When science adheres to its own method,
it cannot come into conflict with faith."
However, Schönborn did cite three examples in which he
said scientists transcended data and theories to make philosophical
claims, such as when the Oxford chemist Peter Atkins wrote, "Humanity
should accept that science has eliminated the justification for
believing in cosmic purpose, and that any survival of purpose
is inspired solely by sentiment."
Schönborn acknowledged that the question of design is proper,
but one currently engaged outside of science. "The acceptance
of purposefulness, of design, is entirely based on reason," he
said, "even if the method of modern natural sciences may require
the bracketing of the question of design. Yet my common sense
cannot be shut out by the scientific method. Reason tells me that
plan and order, meaning and goal exist, that a time-piece does
not come into being by accident, even less so the living organism
that is a plant, an animal or, above all, man."
There is one certainty in all this: The debate in the United
States will continue to go round and round. Fortunately for Catholics,
neither orthodox Darwinian evolution nor Intelligent Design are
dogmas of the faith. As Catholics Michael Behe, Richard John Neuhaus,
Gary Belovsky, Phillip Sloan and Kenneth Miller attest with their
varied views, members of the Church of Rome are free to believe
what they will on the matter. Although from the perspective of
the scientific establishment, Intelligent Design clearly
is heresy.
John Monczunski is an associate editor of this magazine.
(January 2006)
