Category Archives: Science>Evolution

Nice Try: the Christian Design Checklist

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design creationism

A scene near the beginning of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey shows astronauts on the moon investigating a mysterious box-shaped monolith about four meters tall. The edges appear to be perfectly square, and the surface is uniformly black. Imagine coming across this for the first time. Is this natural or made by an intelligence?

Further study shows the proportions to be precisely 1:4:9 (1 unit deep, 4 units wide, and 9 units tall), but these numbers are all squares. That is, 1:4:9 = 12:22:32. What do you think now—is it natural or artificial?

In general, how do you differentiate things made as the result of simple natural laws from those made by an intelligence of some kind—from insects to humans to super-smart aliens?

A Christian offers 8 attributes of design

Christian apologist Jim Wallace in God’s Crime Scene tackles this problem by listing eight attributes of design. His eventual goal is to use these attributes to evaluate the motor that drives the bacterial flagellum (the spinning tail that some bacteria use to travel) and, with a little luck, find that it must have been designed, thereby overturning evolution.

He demonstrates the method using a bloody garotte found at the scene of an actual murder (he picks examples like this because he was a police detective). A garotte is a simple weapon—a wire with wooden handles at each end, used to strangle a victim—and so might be simple enough to land in between obviously undesigned things (rocks, rivers, sand dunes) and obviously designed things (cars, computers, pocket watches). The idea is that the more of these attributes that apply to something, the more likely it was designed.

The original list was created to make the acronym DESIGNED, but I’ve ignored this because by shoehorning the list into an acronym, it sacrificed understandability. I’ve rewritten the titles, grouped a few together, and changed the order, but I’ve hopefully summarize each attribute fairly.

1a. Unlikely from chance

Designed things aren’t explainable by chance, and two pegs attached to a wire aren’t likely to have come together by chance.

1b. Unexplainable naturally

Nothing in the natural laws of chemistry and physics alone would have led to the existence of this device.

2. Similar to known designed objects

Does the object in question fit into a known bin? In this case, the two pegs and a wire, covered in blood, obviously falls into the “garotte” category. Wallace even noted that the police officer who discovered it was not only familiar with the weapon as you might imagine any police officer would be but had seen it used in the movie The Godfather. We’re going into this analysis with no doubt what the object is and that it was designed.

3. Sophisticated and intricate

A garotte is sophisticated compared to (say) a vine. The handles were identical in shape and dimension, and the wire was attached to each with the same knot.

4. Information based

The murderer used information (in this case, written instructions) to guide the creation of the weapon.

5a. Goal directed

Similar devices are used to cut clay or cheese, but the larger size of this one made it not optimal for those purposes. However, that did make it suitable for the goal of strangling someone.

5b. A choice between alternatives

The murderer could’ve evaluated a number of potential weapons in planning the crime: a gun (efficient but noisy), a crossbow (quiet but hard to come by), poison (efficient and quiet but probably detectable), and so on. The garotte came out on top after his evaluation.

6. Irreducibly complex

Something is irreducibly complex if it couldn’t be any simpler. That is, it would fail if any piece were removed. Each of the pieces of the garotte are required, and none could be merged or discarded for the device to perform its function.

A nice try

I have a nagging feeling that this list came from someone looking at the bacteria flagellar motor (which I will discuss in more detail in future posts), listing the reasons it looks designed, and using that as the universal sieve for deciding designed vs. undesigned objects. I’d prefer to see the list come from an unbiased organization based in science, not religion.

But ignoring that, the question of how we can tell designed from not designed is a worthwhile challenge. At the very least, it’s a fascinating science fiction thought experiment. For example, in Contact, an alien intelligence contacted the earth. What simple technique could they use to say, “We are intelligent, and this message can’t be explained naturally”? They used pulses of prime numbers.

Or turn this around: how would we communicate with intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? We’ve sent spacecraft beyond the solar system. That alone said that we’re intelligent, but we’ve done more. Pioneer 10 and 11 (launched in 1972 and ’73) held a plaque, and the two Voyager spacecraft (1977) had phonograph records. In 1974, we sent a message, a 73 × 23 pixel bitmap, from the Arecibo radio telescope.

We’ll revisit that list and see how objective a filter it is next time.

The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer.
He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution.
He’d be out of business if there was any competition.
— Carl Sagan, Contact

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Image from Wikimedia, CC license
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A Response to David Gelernter’s Attack on Evolution

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Let’s subtitle this story, “Guy who made his career in not-biology is convinced by other not-biologists that Biology’s core theory is wrong.”

David Gelernter is a Yale computer science professor. You may know him as one of the technologists who was injured (in 1993) by a bomb mailed by the Unabomber. My first career was in computer science, so I want to like what he writes.

This time, however, he’s writing to tell us that evolution is a failure (Giving Up Darwin, 5/1/19). His article has been trumpeted by a number of Christian sites that use an Argument from Authority to encourage the rest of us to follow this smart guy’s lead.

Unlike many of the evangelicals who imagine they’re dancing on evolution’s grave, Gelernter takes a sympathetic stance. It’s like he’s a reluctant doctor who must tell the family that the patient is dead. He’s not pleased about it and in fact calls evolution “a brilliant and beautiful scientific theory.”

The alert reader will wonder, however, at the first words of his article: “Darwinian evolution.” If you’re like me, ominous music begins. It gets louder with the article’s repeated attention to what Charles Darwin knew or thought. And we truly know that all is not what it seems when the author mentions his guides in this world of evolution denial, three senior fellows at the Discovery Institute (none of them biologists), in particular Stephen Meyer.

We’ll return to this, but let’s overview his arguments against evolution.

Evolution and design

Gelernter says,

Darwin’s mission was exactly to explain the flagrant appearance of design in nature.

Yes and no. Richard Dawkins said, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986). But if we’re taking this naïve view of life, let’s not imagine it’s all sunsets and puppy dogs. If we insist on finding design, we can see not just good design but also poor design (the recurrent laryngeal nerve, chronic pain, atavisms, and vestigial structures) and evil design (parasites, babirusa tusks that can penetrate their heads, and the Tomentella fungus that zombifies ants).

DNA is often cited as the biggest clue pointing to design, but DNA singlehandedly disproves the Design Hypothesis (that the world looks designed and therefore must have been designed). No competent designer would include junk in their work, but DNA has plenty.

  • Every cell in your body contains DNA with 20,000 nonworking genes (pseudogenes).
  • Viruses replicate by inserting their DNA into cells, and millions of years of this imperfect process has left nonworking viral junk comprising eight percent of human DNA.
  • Atavisms are archaic genes that are accidentally switched on, like human tails or dolphin hind limbs. Vestigial structures (such as eyes in cave fish or pelvises in whales) are flashbacks to body features from species in the distant past.
  • Onions have much more DNA than humans do, as do lots of other plants and animals and even protozoa. Do they need it all, or is much of it junk?

I expand on DNA as a rebuttal to the Design Hypothesis here and here.

It’s also a mixed bag when we move beyond DNA. Our environment has warm spring days but also tsunamis; laughing babies but also earthquakes; satisfaction with a job well done but also disease, famine, cancer, drought, and more. This imaginary “Designer” is closer to a six-year-old burning ants with a magnifying glass than an omni-benevolent deity.

Could it be . . . Intelligent Design??

Gelernter quotes Intelligent Design advocate Stephen Meyer:

Our uniform experience of cause and effect shows that intelligent design is the only known cause of the origin of large amounts of functionally specified digital information.

And I’ve just shown that DNA, your “specified digital information,” is unlike anything that any designer we know would create. The Design Hypothesis fails.

While we’re talking about “our uniform experience,” our uniform experience of designers is that they have physical brains. Keep that in mind if you hope to eventually point to a god as the Designer.

Gelernter moves on to what explains life’s apparent design:

[Intelligent Design is] the first and most obvious and intuitive [argument] that comes to mind.

Sure it is, just like the earth being flat was the first and most obvious and intuitive explanation. But, as with flat earth theory, we’ve moved on to a better understanding of why life is the way it is.

Unlike evolution, Intelligent Design (ID) isn’t falsifiable, so it’s not a scientific theory. Any point where it’s unnecessarily complicated or confusing or unexpected, the ID proponent can always say that the Designer is smarter than you and must’ve had good reasons.

ID is Creationism—“God did it”—with one small change. Now it’s “Someone whose name we don’t know did it,” with an implied “wink wink—I think you know who that is!” The decision of the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial agreed: “ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.”

Read Gelernter’s arguments, Cambrian explosion + protein synthesis, in part 2.

(h/t commenter Scooter for pointing out the article.)

The “Intelligent Designer”
is the fundamentalist Christians’ god
with the serial number filed off.
— commenter Michael Neville

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Image from Vassil – Alias Collections, CC license
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Christians’ Secret Weapon Against Evolution (2 of 2)

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ButterflyThis is the conclusion of a critique of a Greg Koukl podcast about the death of evolution (part 1 here). Since some Christians refuse to stop embarrassing themselves with this stupid argument, I will continue to see it a civic duty to laugh at them.

The problems with evolution

After much overconfident bluster about why evolution has breathed its last in part 1, Koukl finally gives the three reasons supporting this conclusion.

1. Abiogenesis. “First you have the insurmountable problem of getting living stuff from dead stuff. . . . This is not just a problem. This is an insurmountable problem.” (17:45)

Yeah? Insurmountable? Write your paper detailing the proof and collect your Nobel Prize. (It’s true that there is no Nobel Prize in Biology, but I’m sure that will change once Koukl shows that abiogenesis is impossible.)

What will you do if a consensus view for abiogenesis does develop over the next decade or so? Let me guess: you’ll not apologize, you’ll sweep under the rug the fact that you backed the wrong horse, you’ll hope that no one remembers, and you’ll stumble forward grasping for some new as-yet-unanswered question within science, learning absolutely nothing from the experience.

2. Cambrian Explosion.

Koukl focuses on the basics, which is that he doesn’t like evolution and thinks that the Cambrian Explosion is fatal to it. He’s not so good on details like when it happened (he’s off by about a factor of six; in fact, it began roughly 541 million years ago and lasted for 20–25 million years).

The big deal about the Cambrian Explosion is that most of the 30-some animal phyla (the top-level category, which defines the basic body plans) appear for the first time in the fossil record in this relatively brief period.

Here are some reasons why this rapid emergence of phyla isn’t a nail in evolution’s coffin.

  • The phyla had to appear at some point. Some estimates say that animals began to exist 650 million years ago. Is it hard to imagine that the outline of this new kingdom would be mostly completed in about 4% of the total time (25 million years out of 650 million), with the individual species added and deleted gradually after that point?
  • While we’re most excited about animals, being animals ourselves, we must not miss the big picture by singling out the Cambrian Explosion to the exclusion of the rest of evolutionary history. This period had an impressive bit of evolution, but there is a lot of other diversity besides just animal. Let’s have some humility.

Tree of life

Source: Wikipedia

  • To take one additional example of evolutionary change within animals, the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event was another relatively brief period of change, and it created many more genera (“genuses”) than did the Cambrian (more).
  • The starting gun in the Cambrian Explosion may have been when the ocean finally became relatively transparent and vision became useful for the first time (all animals were aquatic during the Cambrian Period). This triggered an arms race—better sight meant that animals had to protect themselves with armor or speed, or they could arm themselves with teeth or strength (more). This struggle for survival may explain the suddenness of the development of phyla.
  • Maybe it wasn’t that the evolution of new phyla happened only during that time; perhaps instead the conditions had changed to allow fossilization to happen. That is, the suddenness might apply to fossilization, not the development of phyla.
  • Biologists (remember them—the ones who actually understand this stuff?) haven’t responded to the Cambrian Explosion by rejecting evolution.

3. Genes don’t explain everything. Mutation of DNA is a key part of evolution, but DNA only codes for protein. That’s only part of the picture, Koukl tells us—how do you get the body? That requires epigenetics. That’s not in the genes. “Now, they’re working on it, trying to figure it out, but if it’s not in the genes, if the genes aren’t doing the work, then natural selection doesn’t do its work on genetic mutations, then that is neo-Darwinism, and it’s dead” (22:10).

I’m not sure what Koukl is getting at. Embryology is fairly well understood, and we can see a single cell develop according to the body plan defined in its DNA. Magic isn’t necessary. And, yes, epigenetics is a new and exciting aspect of genetics. There is much to be learned. But how does this destroy evolution?

Creationists’ goal

Taking a step back, I see several problems. One is the unstated idea that if evolution can be defeated, Creationism will step in to take its place as the explanation of why life is the way it is. Nope—Creationism can only replace evolution when the evidence shows that it can better explain the facts.

Scientific theories stand on their own merits, not on the failure of other theories (h/t commenter epeeist).

That Koukl is talking to the public and not to scientists reveals both his agenda and his impotence. He’s got PR, not evidence.

The other problem is that this entire tantrum seems to be semantic. His agenda seems to be finding a loophole so that you can’t call it “the neo-Darwinian Project” anymore (ignoring the fact that no one except him calls it that).

In Koukl’s wildest dreams, biology would develop in radical new ways so that evolution taught twenty years ago, say, will be seen as inadequate in important ways. But how does that help? Once Koukl’s smoke screen clears, the naturalistic discipline that explains how life developed on earth (whatever you want to call it) is still there, with no role for God to play.

I’ve written about two related issues, the Rube Goldberg appearance (rather than appearance of design) of life and the question of information in DNA.

Science’s unexplained “Big Bangs”

Koukl next brings up atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel, who says that evolution won’t allow for consciousness.

This is yet another question that might get answered, as tends to happen with scientific puzzles. Koukl’s argument is nothing more than: Science has unanswered questions; therefore, God. Again, he forgets that a weakness in science (I see no weakness here, but let’s pretend there is) does nothing to support the God argument.

He concludes by ticking off the unanswered questions—abiogenesis, the Cambrian Explosion, and the evolution of consciousness—and concludes, “Incidentally, these are no problem whatsoever for our point of view.”

Yeah—“God did it” explains everything. Of course, you’ve given us no good evidence for the God side of the question, but never mind. The real problem is that “God did it” is unfalsifiable. You could apply it to anything, and I couldn’t prove you wrong. Therefore, it’s useless. By explaining everything, it explains nothing.

Koukl’s podcast reminds me of Michael Denton’s 1986 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. His recent 30th-anniversary edition is titled Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (emphasis added). Creationists keep predicting that evolution is dead, and it keeps not being dead. Perhaps there’s a message in that.

What we have in Koukl is a popular Christian apologist (who has a religious agenda) who talks with a popular Christian science-y person (who has the same agenda) about their rejection of the scientific consensus. They reassure each other that they’ve indeed backed the right horse, and they shore up their argument with smug confidence.

Popularizing science is one thing, but rejecting it is another. I put them in with the anti-vaxxers.

The difference between a cult and a religion: 
in a cult there is a person at the top who knows it’s a scam, 
and in a religion that person is dead.
— seen on the internet

Image credit: Phil Fiddyment, flickr, CC

Christians’ Secret Weapon Against Evolution (1 of 2)

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Christian apologists have a secret weapon against evolution: confidence. This isn’t the confidence you’re familiar with, grounded in evidence, the consensus of experts, and all that. No, this is the empty, groundless kind. Still, it’s confidence just the same, and it can sound pretty compelling.

I started my path to atheism with the evolution/Creationism debate, so I like to check in occasionally. I recently critiqued the recent young-earth Creationist movie Is Genesis History? here.

Status update on evolution

Let’s move on to a recent podcast by Christian apologist Greg Koukl, “Why Neo-Darwinism Is Dead.” He was all abuzz from a recent meeting with Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, an anti-evolution think tank, and Koukl quickly made clear his conclusion:

The Darwinian model of biological evolution is dead. It is dead. (@9:05)

Why should I care? Should I reject the consensus view of science from someone who is no expert in the field he’s rejecting?

Koukl doubles down on his claim:

The academic crowd on the inside at the highest levels know the facts and know that it’s dead. When I say “the Darwinian project,” I mean very precisely what has come to be known as the neo-Darwinian synthesis, okay, and that is simply that evolution is driven forward by genetic mutation being acted on by natural selection. (9:15)

Let me first get a quibble out of the way. What the hell is “the Darwinian project”? Who says that? You could call it the “modern synthesis,” but that term comes from a 1942 book, and it refers to the integration of Darwin’s ideas with other pioneers’ work from even earlier in the twentieth century.

I assume that the attraction of the word “Darwinism” is that it has that scary -ism suffix like other wicked terms such as “Marxism” or “Maoism.” Tell you what, Greg—let’s follow the lead of the people who actually understand the science and call it “evolution.” How does that sound?

But back to the point of the quote: Koukl tells us that the biologists who really understand evolution see not just unanswered questions, not just gaps—no, they know that the theory is completely dead.

Call me skeptical, but I’ll wait to hear about that from someone who’s not a Christian apologist who gives every indication of having an anti-evolution agenda. Y’know, like a biologist. Even better: the consensus view of the entire field of biology. Last time I checked, evolution was still firmly in place (see the appendix at this post). If Koukl knows that the biggest names within biology are on his side, I wonder why he doesn’t list them. It’s almost like that list doesn’t exist.

Liars gonna lie

Koukl is way ahead of us. He says we can’t trust the biologists to honestly follow the evidence.

They’re not letting go of their presuppositions. They’re not letting go of their metaphysical religion. (10:40)

Hmm—methinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps you should look in a mirror, Greg. I share your concern about people who let their religion constrain what they can think, but are you sure it’s the biologists who have the problem?

Koukl tells us that Stephen Meyer said that:

In the academic circles and among the professionals in the know and who work closely with the facts, they see the serious, debilitating problems of the Darwinian model of origins. (11:20)

Stephen Meyer, you say? Is that the Stephen Meyer who rejects evolution but whose doctorate is in history and philosophy of science, not biology? The one who works for an organization whose mission statement begins, “The mission of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture is to advance the understanding that human beings and nature are the result of intelligent design rather than a blind and undirected process”? Yeah, I’m sure he’s a reliable, unbiased source.

I always question “research” that comes from a person or an organization bound by a faith statement. My approach is that the research should come first and then the conclusion, not the other way around, but maybe that’s just me.

Evolution in schools

He moves on to rant that criticism of “Darwinism” isn’t allowed in textbooks.

I wonder what kind of criticism he’s thinking of. I’m just guessing here, but I suppose a current debate might be the various approaches in physics to unify the four fundamental forces. If string theory is explained, for example, I’d expect that the textbook would make clear that it is just one of several approaches.

But there is no equivalent within biology. Evolution is the consensus. There is no other side of the issue.

In the rejection of criticism of evolution in textbooks, Koukl sees a clue. “When someone tries to silence opposition” or when they use the power of the system (courts, legislature, the school system, media), you know they have a weak case.

Knowing they had no scientific case, legislatures and school boards have tried to slip Creationism into public school classrooms in myriad ways—is that what you’re referring to, Greg? Since your opposition actually has the science on their side, I don’t think it works in the other direction.

If the battle were within the scientific community, then Greg would have a point, and we should let the facts decide the issue. But he’s already lost that battle, so he wants to fight in the court of public opinion. But when organizations like the National Center for Science Education respond in kind, pointing out the tricks used to slip Creationism in where it doesn’t belong, he cries foul and cites it as a clue that they’re trying to “silence the opposition.”

In a final example of the pot calling the kettle black, he tells us that the not-Christian position warns that the Creationist arguments mustn’t be read (16:50). By contrast, he’s happy to have Christians read the other side. “Our case can take it.”

Let’s just say that I have a different view on the matter.

To be concluded in part 2 with Koukl’s explanation of evolution’s failings here.

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real.
Religion is believing that other peoples’ hallucinations are real.
— seen on the internet

Image credit: Dmitry K, flickr, CC

Games Creationists Play: 7 Tricks to Watch Out For

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Creationism Intelligent DesignStephen Meyer isn’t a biologist, but he plays one at the Discovery Institute. He wants to help GOP candidates through the minefield of science denial by answering the tough question, “What Should Politicians Say When Asked About Evolution?” This article provides an opportunity to illustrate a number of popular tricks Creationists play.
Trick #1: Politicians need special rules.  
What triggered Meyer’s article was the response of GOP candidate-to-be Scott Walker to the question, “Do you believe in evolution?” Walker’s response: “That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another. So I’m going to leave that up to you.”
According to Meyer, this showed Walker to be “unprepared, evasive, and scientifically uninformed.” Meyer next critiques another candidate’s response:

Mike Huckabee, for his part, tried to laugh it off, saying: “If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it,” which only made him look evasive and flippant.

No, it mostly made him look ignorant. He is the descendant of a primate because humans are, in fact, primates. Jeez—get an education.
As someone who isn’t a biologist (like Meyer) but who respects science (unlike Meyer), let me offer some advice to conservative candidates. I like that Walker didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. He’s a politician, not a biologist.
Consider his constituency. The fraction of Republicans who accept the science, that humans have evolved over time, is only 43%. Incredibly, that’s 11% less than four years earlier (Pew Forum). Evolution denial is becoming an identifying trait of Republicans, and accepting evolution has become a problem for Republican candidates.
Walker could’ve been tougher. He could’ve said that, given that he’s not a scientist, he has no option but to accept the scientific consensus on biology, which is evolution. He could’ve insisted that Republican citizens get their science from scientists rather than religious or political leaders. This could’ve been an opportunity to show how a leader handles a tough situation. But given his reality-averse audience, I suppose his sidestep is about as good as it gets.
Trick #2: “The term ‘evolution’ can mean several different things.” The concept of evolution that is clear in biology class or on the cover of a biology journal suddenly becomes quite slippery and confusing in the hands of Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents. For example, the Creationist ministry of Kent Hovind’s son lectures us that there are six kinds of evolution, including the Big Bang, abiogenesis (the origin of life), and the creation of elements through fusion. (No, I don’t see why the word “evolution” is mandatory for those ideas, either.)
Meyer proposes three definitions that are, in order of increasing controversy, change over time, common descent (which Creationist icon Michael Behe accepts), and what most people would call plain old evolution—the theory that life on earth came to be from random mutation and natural selection without anything supernatural. He does nothing to show that his imagined controversy exists.
My guess is that they like many “evolutions” to show their reasonableness in accepting at least some science-y ideas.
Trick #3: Evolution is controversial—in fact, increasingly so.
To make this claim, Creationists may quote a scientist. Maybe they’ll even quote a biologist. Oddly, they never quote any statistics to show that evolution is losing its respectability.
This idea has been around for decades. The Creationist book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis was published thirty years ago. Maybe Creationists think that if they keep repeating this claim, no one will notice that evolution is still here, with biologists as confident in it as ever.
If anyone doubts that evolution is indeed the consensus, I’ve compiled a long list of quotes from reputable organizations in the appendix at this post.
Trick #4: Declare that a debate about some aspect of evolution is actually a challenge to evolution itself.
Meyer says,

Increasingly, even leading evolutionary theorists question the creative power of its central mechanism of natural selection/random mutation.

A Creationist is the last person I’ll listen to for the scientific consensus within biology. When evolution is overturned, have the biologists tell me. Creationists will say that the truth isn’t decided by a vote. They’re right, but it’s not like we can just compare our scientific theories against the truth. What’s decided by vote is society’s best guess at the truth through scientific consensus. It’s not necessarily right, but that consensus is the best we have.
What Meyer could be saying (it’s unclear to me because he gives no backup for this statement) is that biologists argue about various mechanisms within evolution. I’ll accept that. What this doesn’t translate to is a rejection of evolution.
Trick #5: Look at the polls! The majority of Americans reject evolution. Meyer points to polls that show Americans rejecting evolution.

A huge majority of Americans (and many scientists) reject the third and distinctly controversial meaning of evolution—the idea that the cause of the change over time is an unguided and undirected mechanism.

You say that Americans reject evolution? So what? Unless the subject is the scientific illiteracy of the American public, who cares about the opinions of people who don’t understand the issue?
The vague “many scientists” who reject evolution presumably is a reference to the Disco Institute’s “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism,” a list of close to a thousand scientists who are “skeptical” of evolution. Yet again, who cares? We don’t consult scientists, we consult biologists. But if you want to play that game, the National Center for Science Education has an even longer list of scientists who accept evolution, limited just to those named Steve (in honor of the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould).
Trick #6: But much of a conservative politician’s constituency reject evolution! Meyer says,

Many conservative candidates are themselves either genuinely skeptical about some aspects of Darwinian evolution … or they are aware that much of their base rejects it. 

When non-scientist politicians won’t accept the scientific consensus, they can’t claim to have a competent opinion. They might also have a hard time accepting quantum physics (which is more counterintuitive than evolution), but they shouldn’t make any policy decisions built on that ignorance.
If this is difficult politically, then the choice is to mirror the flawed thinking of the constituents or take the tough stand for the truth. That conservative politicians often cave doesn’t speak well of how they’d handle the tough issues of public office.
Trick #7: Position the teaching of Creationism/ID as openness and academic freedom.
Meyer poisons the well by labeling the teaching of just evolution in the science classroom as “dogmatic.” He claims that this is an insult to “scientific literacy, academic freedom, and critical thinking.”
This reminds me of Rick Perry on the campaign trail in 2001: “In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools, because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” That’s a clever spin, but that’s not the way schools work. You dump out the possibilities on a table and say “Figure it out” in the lab, not the classroom. The history of science is often taught, but students are never given flat vs. spherical earth or geocentric vs. heliocentric solar system and encouraged to choose. Perry seems to imagine that biology tests would be ungraded, and students would simply summarize their preferences for what they want to be the case.
Meyer’s article finally devolves into a suggested script for science-denying politicians. It includes agreeing where possible (to some debilitated version of evolution), saying “I’m skeptical” rather than “evolution is wrong,” mentioning “many scientists” while avoiding “the scientific consensus,” handwaving about the importance of understanding the weaknesses in scientific theories, and conflating abiogenesis with evolution.
In short, if the facts aren’t on your side, obfuscate the issue.
Related articles:

The world is suffering more today from the good people
who want to mind other men’s business
than it is from the bad people
who are willing to let everybody
look after their own individual affairs.
— Clarence Darrow, 1908

Image credit: Jakob Lawitzki, flickr, CC

Hey, GOP Candidates! Want to Reject Science Without Looking Like a Troglodyte?

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Scientific consensusI’ve written before about the scientific consensus, arguing that we laymen are in no position to reject the scientific consensus and dismantling popular conservative arguments that encourage us to do exactly that.

The Discovery Institute, that fearless citadel in the battle against evolution, throws chum on the waters of thoughtful discourse with its article, “To Have a View on the Darwin Debate, Do You Need a PhD in Evolutionary Science?”

Let me abstract this post by answering that question: you’re welcome to have a view, but if that view rejects the overwhelming consensus in favor of evolution then yes, you need a PhD. And to correct the title, there is no “debate” over evolution—at least not within biology, the only place where such a debate would be relevant.

The article begins with a tweeted exchange between Kevin Williamson (correspondent for the National Review) and David Klinghoffer (senior fellow at the Discovery Institute).

Kevin Williamson: Evolution, like similarly specialized fields, is not really subject to casual opinion.

David Klinghoffer: And that is why our politician, or anyone, if he’s more than a casual thinker, gives it the needed study

Kevin Williamson: ‘The needed study’ = graduate-level work in evolutionary science.

The author of the unattributed article disagrees.

Just as you don’t need a graduate degree in meteorology to understand why tornados will never turn rubble into houses and cars, you don’t need “graduate-level work in evolutionary science” to understand that unintelligent forces alone cannot cause civilizations to arise on barren planets, and for the very same reasons.

I agree that any process analogous to a tornado won’t drive an organism to change, adapt, and improve as happens on earth. But that’s not evolution. A tornado is just random, while evolution has random elements plus selection to pick the organisms that best fit their environments. (Why is this elementary error so common within Creationism/Intelligent Design proponents? Do they have no interest in understanding what they’re rejecting?)

The author moves from not-a-biologist David Klinghoffer as an authority to not-a-biologist Jay Homnick. Homnick is a commentator, humorist, and deputy editor of The American Spectator. His homey logic neatly punctures the evolution balloon:

Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident … you have essentially lost your mind.

That’s some tough love, folks. A not-a-biologist has used the Argument from Incredulity to cut the Gordian Knot to give us the painful truth. “That’s just crazy talk! It don’t make sense to me, so it can’t be true!”

Homnick apparently thinks that the process of evolution is nothing but accident. It’s not. (That demand for graduate-level education in biology for those who would draw conclusions about evolution is sounding better all the time.)

Back to the article:

Jay Homnick is not a scientist, but unlike Kevin Williamson, he understands that you don’t need a scientific background to realize something is terribly wrong with the scientific “consensus” on evolution.

Do you hear what you’re saying? You’re justifying someone deliberately rejecting the consensus and drawing his own conclusion about biology—someone who doesn’t understand biology!

You may need a PhD before people will listen to you as an authority, but you emphatically don’t need one to draw the correct conclusion for yourself.

But if you aren’t qualified to do the first, how are you qualified to do the second? You admit you’re not an authority, but then you grant yourself the ability to “draw the correct conclusion”? The author seems to be saying that to convince others you’ll need credentials, but your own opinion isn’t that important, so what the heck? Discard those experts and pick your own conclusion.

I bet the author wants a Kim Davis world where government employees use their own religious beliefs as the final guide to their official actions, and candidates for public office reject any unpleasant scientific consensus and substitute their own conclusion.

Often it seems it doesn’t matter how much evidence you present to these people, or how clearly you present it. They’ll just keep saying, “All our elite scientists reject ID, who am I to question elite scientists?”

No, the question is: “Who am I to question those people who understand the evidence, since I don’t?” Sometimes a little humility is appropriate.

Meanwhile, as the evidence piles up, those same scientists keep repeating, “Intelligent design is not science, intelligent design is not science.”

Aha—so you are in favor of following the consensus after all! If the evidence is piling up to create a sea change within evolution, then let’s just give it a few more years and then follow that consensus. That the author doesn’t express it this way shows how little he thinks of this new “evidence.”

Maybe someday in the future, after a poll shows that most of our elite scientists have finally accepted the obvious, folks like Kevin Williamson will say, “Wow, imagine that … believing that the survival of the fittest was enough to generate human brains and human consciousness. I guess that was a pretty stupid idea after all.”

Wow, imagine that … the ideas at the frontier of science don’t always conform to common sense.

People say they love truth,
but in reality they want to believe
that which they love is true.
— Robert J. Ringer

Image credit: Wikimedia